Trials of Valor Expansion

[Balur]

So heroic is now a no go for me. Was well into Act 2 but now even on the first level in Act 1 it takes me forever to kill the basic skeleton mobs at the start. Have gone to normal mode act 1 at my current level and it feels like how heroic felt. I know my items arent great but am going to have to farm and level up in normal before I even consider heroic.

Well I guess that'll be the same for next to everyone - might be different with CL somewhere in the thousands, but well - this whole game was in dire need of a severe nerve! ... Yeah spit on me everyone for this comment, but honestly - I am something short of CL200 and could already run next to every level within less than a minute, Anderhelm was usually done in less than 20sec... That does not really provide any kind of challenge and thus would have been too boring pretty soon...
Well only thing is, that those speed runs will now be done by Rangers - if they stay like this, you'll be able to run Anderhelm with a ranger in about 10 to 15 sec. without even watching - and as long as I don't miss anything important you wont need any CL for this. I have mine on lev. 15 only by now, and even now can run through the whole level without stopping for anything and more or less one hit the boss (and no - there is no cheat involved, only those few CL - that are severely nerved - and some gear that can be bought for gold)

[Guest]

Below you can see next BH set. We have now all sets names with bonuses - Stalker, Asault and Adventure. Screenshot.jpg

[Varangian]

Shouldn't the jewels give a bit more as well?

[Celestial]

For the sounds of things, it is a bad update with regards to CL nerf.
Its like lets have so 1200 CL to keep people busy and then much later, with minimal content in the update, nerfs the CL to make it harder to go thru the same maps again.
Well, this ain't Blizzard so I guess its not all that surprising given its only 2/3 people.

[ezcry4t3d]

To be clear, the Dungeon sets can drop in Trials maps. I just got this one from the Level 34 trial with a Broken Dragon Boss.

[ubiquito]

Overnight I went from obsessively playing for at least a couple hours a day to being completely frustrated. I am a level 52 warrior with Robin, Maggie and Xagan all at level 50 and had just completed normal level when the update happened. Now diving into heroic level, I cannot get any farther than level 4 (Road to Anderra). I barely got through the first 3 levels only by spending loads of gold reviving after getting miserably smashed by every mob and now the mobs are just too big and kill my whole party every time within seconds. Also, killing even one or two enemies takes so long that it is tedious and I have lost the desire to play. Moving to the trials, I cannot even get past the second one as the broken dragon kills my whole party within seconds every time. It's like the update geared the game only for high champion level players.

[Marc Laplante]

To be clear, the Dungeon sets can drop in Trials maps. I just got this one from the Level 34 trial with a Broken Dragon Boss.

Looks like the broken dragon also broke the image link XD

Edit: nvm, i just saw that imgur is now blocked at my work

[ezcry4t3d]

Looks like the broken dragon also broke the image link XD

Working fine for me in both our posts.... even in my other browsers.

[Marc Laplante]

Working fine for me in both our posts.... even in my other browsers.

Yeah sorry i just saw that imgur is now blocked at my work for some reason, so it's on my end

[ezcry4t3d]

Yeah sorry i just saw that imgur is now blocked at my work for some reason, so it's on my end

Wow, that's draconian. Time to invest in a Personal VPN.

[Stab]

My initial thoughts:
1. CL points nerf. WOW! I feel like it completely trivialized the 200+ hours I spent grinding to 520+ CL. It was already feeling like you needed 30+ CL to make a barely noticeable upgrade in power. Now even 100 CL doesn't make much difference in noticeable power. I would never have spent so much time grinding CL if I knew this was what would happen to it. I have to go full defensive on my Warrior to beat Misty Island and it took me 10 minutes and all my lives. CL is now approaching pointless, especially for the casual players.

2. Trials are fun and rewarding. I disagree with those that think that drop rates are too high/good. In the end game, I would often go 20+ hours of game play without getting a piece of gear that was actually an upgrade. Upgrades are part of the fun in these type of games and the drop rate in the Trials gives end level characters a better chance of getting something useful.

3. Bounty Hunter class is fun! I leveled my Warrior to 70 first so my Bounty Hunter is only level 24, but so far he's fun. One problem though: His bullets often seem to get absorbed by my minions (or something invisible) before they can hit a mob. I can just stand there firing for minutes at a zombie that is in apparent open terrain and not hit it unless I reposition myself.

The CL and Exp nerfs were painted to wide of a brush. I imagine you were worried about players with 500+ CL trivializing the new content, but we can always reset our CL if we want it more challenging. The whole point of grinding CL for hundreds of hours was to become super powerful and destroy zones/mobs faster and faster. CL are nearly pointless now, which sucks for those of us that spent so much time achieving them. My warrior (with 520+ CL and great gear) cannot even complete The Fiery Pits!!!!! I stopped counting after 15 deaths... I feel a little cheated about my time honestly.

[ezcry4t3d]

I'm 70 on one of my warriors now.

Bounty Hunter is great, I'm 35. (Don't expect me to give up my warrior though for something that stands and shoots into an obstacle repeatedly instead of finding an enemy though)

I still think CL nerfs were too extreme.

Gorgona seems to be unnecessary. If you can't beat her anymore do not worry about it. You can get dungeon set items from trials. There is no need to play the max level Trial map if it is difficult for you. Lower the level down to 2 levels below your character if you need to where you can still get gear upgrades but it is easier to complete. After a few key gear upgrades and some changes to counter the loss of Life on Hit I'm already pushing much higher Trial levels successfully. Be wary of Elite enemies (with the fancy new ground circles), they seem to be far more deadly than they were before.

I suspect Exp grinding is going to happen in high-level trials maps once our gear has recovered from the level cap increase. The old methods are probably not viable anymore.

[LlDayo]

I'm with Balur on this one. Nerfing the CL power was definitely needed. The game actually became a challenge again and as a result MUCH more fun! Everyone who's whining about all of their time spent leveling up should maybe reexamine exactly why they were doing so. If you wanted something that would just move a few numbers up from time to time buy a calculator.

I for one think the CL nerf was done in preparation for pvp in the future. That feature won't work if you have the same few people spending 6-8 hours a day one shotting new players because they're completely overpowered. This brings back the need to use some actual skills and thinking to defeat enemies.

The only gripe I really have (after about 3.5-4 hours of play) is that there was no addition to abilities. I was hoping for a level 11 upgrade with some new bonuses seeing as the cap was moved up to 70. But other than that I like the update!

[ezcry4t3d]

I'm with Balur on this one. Nerfing the CL power was definitely needed. The game actually became a challenge again and as a result MUCH more fun! Everyone who's whining about all of their time spent leveling up should maybe reexamine exactly why they were doing so. If you wanted something that would just move a few numbers up from time to time buy a calculator.

I for one think the CL nerf was done in preparation for pvp in the future. That feature won't work if you have the same few people spending 6-8 hours a day one shotting new players because they're completely overpowered. This brings back the need to use some actual skills and thinking to defeat enemies.

The only gripe I really have (after about 3.5-4 hours of play) is that there was no addition to abilities. I was hoping for a level 11 upgrade with some new bonuses seeing as the cap was moved up to 70. But other than that I like the update!

This has nothing to do with PvP, by this logic they'd have to take away all CL and force default gear on everyone for PvP so that it was a level playing field. Also, skill brackets. No one is going to be 1-shotting everyone all day because you will be matched with equally geared/skilled players.
Champion Levels were touted as a way for end game players to have account wide upgrades that would be retained for future level cap increases and new classes. Thus, players that spent the time grinding them would not be hit nearly so hard when Level Caps were raised and all our gear became obsolete. After we'd spent the time earning them, though, they took away 80% of what we earned. This is not right.

[Stab]

I'm with Balur on this one. Nerfing the CL power was definitely needed. The game actually became a challenge again and as a result MUCH more fun! Everyone who's whining about all of their time spent leveling up should maybe reexamine exactly why they were doing so. If you wanted something that would just move a few numbers up from time to time buy a calculator.

I for one think the CL nerf was done in preparation for pvp in the future. That feature won't work if you have the same few people spending 6-8 hours a day one shotting new players because they're completely overpowered. This brings back the need to use some actual skills and thinking to defeat enemies.

The only gripe I really have (after about 3.5-4 hours of play) is that there was no addition to abilities. I was hoping for a level 11 upgrade with some new bonuses seeing as the cap was moved up to 70. But other than that I like the update!

How many dozens of hours of CL have you grinded? To say my motivation for fun gameplay is wrong because I put in the time to make my characters demi-gods doesn't make sense. The mechanics were in the game to do just that. And I did it, as intended. This CL nerf hits long time players and high play time players much harder than anyone else because it negated the huge amounts of time and effort that we spent to master our characters power. That's all I'm saying. A level 70 character with 0 CL can do just about anything that a level 70 character with 500+ CL and hundreds of hours of effort can do now.