Are you SP nightmare people FRUSTRATED with your gear?

[Lonethar]

Im getting a little frustrated with my gear in the game. Although I am a level 43 wearing 3 uniques (with impressive stats ) and the other gear being equally comparable, I am STILL just not very survivable. I understand that being a Marksman is NOT the most survivable, but like really, there is NO difference in wearing an extra 100 armour or having an additional 200 shields. I tried different combinations of it today and nothing. For the most part I was still one hit killed. The mobs I fought were only 2 or less levels than me. I just DONT see any differences. Anyone else in the SP world feeling the same?

[tanweeho]

Honestly, I have the same thought as u too! As an Evoker, I have a shield of abt 350. I thought that could block some blows for a while. But hell (no, I am not even in nightmare mode yet), my shield is immediate breached when physically attacked by a particular beast (the one that releases an array of rockets at you). And several times, I am subdued immediately after I step out into an open area similar to Lower or Upper Thames - the enemies simply swarm towards you.

[Lonethar]

One issue I have with the game is that I cant help but feel that the gear makes little difference. It sure doesnt feel that way. I am of the idea that the whole..."YOU NEED TO BE WITHIN 7 LEVELS OF THE MODS...." Idea to be...unsatisfying. To feel powerful I need to play on normal...lol And no point really in doing that. XP gains are terrible and no high powered loot., but as I cant help feeling...really is the questing after these sweet pieces of gear really worth it if it makes so little difference.

Anyone else feel this way?

Edit: A quick related question. SHouldn't you get MORE XP for killing mobs of higher levels than you? Whats the reasoning behind getting LESS? Im not getting it.

Edit Paet 2 - The Sequel: To test my theory I equipped my Markman with +Luck gear, lowering my armour in half and reducing my shields by one third (for some farming with Mr. Bigclaw) then without re-equipping my UBER gear tackled the same mobs just to see if it made a noticeable difference. None. Was still killed the same number of times.

[Phyre]

Not sure, but I would guess the level constraint on exp gain is to prevent power leveling if you can find a trick to abuse that allows you to kill far higher level monsters than you are intended to then gain a level or something from that one kill. Also, for the multiplayer crowd it could prevent exp leeching depending on how the exp is shared in parties. I know in D2 you got exp if you were within a certain range of a monster as it's killed so a very low level character could closely follow a higher level character as it kills very high level monsters and gain huge amounts of exp obscenely quickly even with a fairly large penalty for being far away from the monster's level.

Personally, I think if you could tackle tougher monsters you should be rewarded with the appropriate loot and exp, not penalized.

[Lonethar]

Not sure, but I would guess the level constraint on exp gain is to prevent power leveling if you can find a trick to abuse that allows you to kill far higher level monsters than you are intended to then gain a level or something from that one kill. Also, for the multiplayer crowd it could prevent exp leeching depending on how the exp is shared in parties. I know in D2 you got exp if you were within a certain range of a monster as it's killed so a very low level character could closely follow a higher level character as it kills very high level monsters and gain huge amounts of exp obscenely quickly even with a fairly large penalty for being far away from the monster's level.

Personally, I think if you could tackle tougher monsters you should be rewarded with the appropriate loot and exp, not penalized.

[Lonethar]

Im in perfect agreement, especially in SP. Like really?! Why the PENALTY?

[egaskrad]

I have an evoker and she is absolutely fine... her 350 shield works well in most areas. If not then the shield boosters and the skill arcane shield work just as intended. Her 165 armor is at around 54% absorption at level 29. The point is, she hardly get hit at all with her fire elemental.

There are certain attacks that ignore shields. Those are killing, but that is what you really have to care about...

The only 2 areas that my evoker had difficulties by herself, are the storms (which moves slowly) and the war zone, which you have dozen of NPC turrents to help you out.

[Tsuyu]

The big problem with Shields is that no matter what tough armor you have under it, it is still going to take 100% of the damage a monster does.

This makes Shield based armor often worse than solid Armor... Armor.

[egaskrad]

On the other hand you are free from proc when your shield is up.

[MacBean]

IN NM mode i have found that either I don't have enough armor, shields or weapon damage but none at the same time. It's like I'm focusing too much on one of those elements and that somehow means I'm neglecting the others. My lvl 32 MM deals out some decent damage and can take down most mobs without much trouble (so far, I'm only at Charring Cross Station), however, if one of those critters get through my barrage of weapon fire they chop me down before you can say Ginsu. In an attempt to correct this, I farmed ol' Shulgoth in search of better armor and found some, donned it, and then the strangest thing happened, she couldn't take down mobs anymore even though she was using the same weapons. Suddenly Shock Servants were taking punishment with ease.

Just my observations...

[Tsuyu]

There is also the problem of "Hitting The Wall". This happens when your enemies gain too much of a level difference. You might kill enemies that are five levels higher with ease, but once you hit an area with enemies six levels higher you can't scratch them.

I think that's most often the case than the lack of good gear.

[Lillis]

Playing a Marksman in NM is fine until you get to Monument/Liverpool Station. That's when the ridiculous imbalance really kicks in. Shooting a trash-mob monster at point-blank range with Rapid Fire and Multishot should kill it, since the increase in damage in that case is phenomenal. It won't though.

I got a little pissed off by the recent patch, to be honest. Okay, it was impossible to clear NM before, but I didn't really see the reason to nerf mods at crafters, while leaving NM balance completely out of it. The only reason I've kept playing with the recent patch is because of the lowered feed requirements on items. Although, the decrease only applies to the items' base requirements. Requirements from modifiers appears to be unchanged.

[Huskie]

A few minutes ago I had this idea, and decided to try it out. I reached 314's mind, at level 36, and suddenly the lvl 45 monsters in there only died when I used Rapid Fire with Multi Shot at point blank, and curiously enough, the monsters on the previous area were going down as easily as anything else. My weapon was at level 33. So, halfway through grinding until level 37 to be able to damage the monsters in 314's mind, I decided to upgrade my weapon to level 35.

Now, I'm not 100% sure if it really helped or if it's just an impression I got, but it seemed that the monsters in there actually started to take a bit more damage than before upgrading my weapon. I'd say they're now taking 1/5 more damage than before upgrading (but still far from being as much as the monsters on the previous area were taking), and my weapon's damage only increased by one in that upgrade.

So, maybe this damage penalty on much higher level monsters is due to some combination of much lower weapon and character level?

What I have noticed for sure, is that if I upgrade my weapon's level, and it has some elemental effect from mods, it will activate more frequently against monsters from a same level when compared to the frequency it happened before upgrading. So maybe this penalty being tied to weapon level is also possible?

[MacBean]

VERY interesting and compelling observation Huskie. I'm going to play with this idea and come up with some sort of test. Good thinking!

[supesupe]

can we survive at this NM mode when we have the same lvl with the enemies??? or we have no way to survive anymore??

[Huskie]

If you let the monster's level get 9 higher than your own, you'll have a 75-95% damage penalty (still haven't figured out how much it is exactly, but it's massive) and their damage gets that same number but as a boost. At least that's how I think it goes.

[Lonethar]

You have to like that even if you kill them the XP is just crap. Why did they do that anyways? Shouldnt you really get MORE XP for accomplishing something like that?

[Tsuyu]

can we survive at this NM mode when we have the same lvl with the enemies??? or we have no way to survive anymore??

Of course. You can survive fighting enemies a couple of levels higher actually. The problem, as an above poster said, that you'll "hit the wall". Full stop. Enemies get a huuuge damage boost, and you get an equally impressive penalty.

[Lonethar]

Meh...the XP system sucks in this game is the truth. Characters should be rewarded instead of punished for tackling high level mobs...

Seriously. Are there OTHER games that penalize players for fighting higher level monsters?

[Amarra]

Meh...the XP system sucks in this game is the truth. Characters should be rewarded instead of punished for tackling high level mobs...

Seriously. Are there OTHER games that penalize players for fighting higher level monsters?

Most games with an online component are that way. Flagship doesn't want low level characters to group with high level characters and power level by killing high level monsters with the high level character's help. Singleplayer gets stuck with the same limitation since it uses the same codebase.

Being rewarded for fighting higher level monsters makes sense, but is usually only included in singleplayer-only games.

[Lonethar]

This reflect my ignorance of online playing. Been awhile since I played D2 online. May my Amazon rest in peace. (Bowazon)

[BlacKSnaX]

My MM is lv35 right now, just about to head into Millennium Battle, had to grind a few levels running Shulgoth and normal Syndonai before I got past that idiotic '7 levels above = near immunity' thing.

I find that if the mobs are not almost unkillable due to being 7 levels above I can wipe them out without much difficulty, I just kite them around blasting, if they get close or come on en masse I Rapid Fire + Multishot and once the dust and my framerate has settled everything is dead (Even purple shielded imps and those transformed chompers)

I die once those bastard pain leech things come into the fight though, appearing at the wrong moments behind me and phasing messes you up :/

(If I didn't listen to music while playing I'd hear them teleport in...)

I've gotten much faster with the escape hotkey though :P