start nightmare scaling after "special" starter zones

[wyzzarrdd]

undead, archmage, and paradox mage (& temp warden) have special starter zones that are extremely difficult to complete without dying in nightmare

getting through these zones on nightmare is almost entirely luck based in that if you get a rare with a beam attack its almost always instant death

since the undead zone is dark the guaranteed deaths are caused by rounding a corner into a skeleton warrior stun that disables your phase door
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yeek nightmare starter zone is also difficult more beatable due to more strategic options (such as murdering the townspeople for starter xp)

I haven't played the dwarf starter on nightmare but the dwarf companion doesn't scale then it also should be nerfed

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proposal: start nightmare scaling after the "special" starter zones are completed

[Aerach]

I don't know if wardens have it rough, but the starter is pretty trivial for PMage.

Starting out 'alive' as a ghoul is certainly stupidly hard considering the relative ease soon as you get out though though.

[Nivrax]

I tried getting out as Warden on Insane from their starter zone. Doesn't seem close to doable, enemies can pin you down and kill in 3-4 attacks when you are tickling them with arrows (of which most miss anyway), rares are everywhere and most can end you in instant.

[R_D]

I don't know if wardens have it rough, but the starter is pretty trivial for PMage.

No. Just... no. I died as a PMage once within the first three turns, and I couldn't do a damn thing about it. A level 5 rare spawned next to me in the starter zone and two shot me (one turn in between, which I couldn't do anything b/c of debuff I got from first hit and another normal enemy nearby). I retried, and got similar results. It took me about 10 tries to finally get through without dying once, and that was only by the skin of my teeth.

[wyzzarrdd]

I've been playing it that -1 life is the price you pay for the frozen time shard. I was once able to beat the spider boss and escape without dying by using the exits as soon as I could. I have never been able to full clear the PM starter zone on nightmare w/o dying.

I can only imagine how bad it is for temp warden with their even weaker starting stats.

[Hachem_Muche]

Would it be sufficient to simply phase-in difficulty level effects over the first few character levels? That is start at standard difficulty and gradually increase to the selected difficulty by a specified level (10?), so that you have a reasonable character/equipment build going before everything gets really dangerous.

[wyzzarrdd]

I've played a lot of nightmare games and the difficulty is fine except for a couple of hangups.

First is until level 10ish Bulwark rares are basically melee (and archer I assume) immune. That means that classes that mostly rely physical damage can't progress if a starter zone has a bulwark rare. Even worse if it is something with a global speed bonus you can't even run away if you see the mob too late.

Also if an enemy has beams they will kill most toons below level 4 in 2 hits (or a single crit). This is particularly noticeable in the Archmage starter zone where the end boss spacial distortion hits its arcane blast for 75 (at range 10). And will kill you the 2nd hit if you don't get out of LOS.

Finally corruptor/reaver mobs will open w/ a hex of pacifism which means you have to immediately get out of LOS or you will be hit with a 1/2 drain/soul rot combo + disease dot that will kill most starter toons.

But phasing in the difficulty so it starts after T1 would be a big help for us masochistic nightmare players.

[Aerach]

Spawning next to a bad rare will kill you in any nightmare starter, and is not notably more likely here - i died as a halfling anorithil once within three turns in trollmire, but accepted it was a silly spawn. A Pmage can autoexplore and spam through the unique zones on nightmare nine times out of ten (assuming s/he at least juggles the spam nukes, leaving me truly befuddled how anyone can put it in the same league of issue as the Archmage or Undead starters. If Temporal Wardens struggle then i might be willing to cede the point, but i know i'm right about paradox mages having had to redo the starter a billion times as they kind of suck in general for nightmare without cauterise to cover ridiculous hits :p

I don't know if wardens have it rough, but the starter is pretty trivial for PMage.

No. Just... no. I died as a PMage once within the first three turns, and I couldn't do a damn thing about it. A level 5 rare spawned next to me in the starter zone and two shot me (one turn in between, which I couldn't do anything b/c of debuff I got from first hit and another normal enemy nearby). I retried, and got similar results. It took me about 10 tries to finally get through without dying once, and that was only by the skin of my teeth.