Potential Descent Champions issue

My initial (positive) mini review of descent champions assumed the mode continued after gravicus. Since it doesnt, ill just agree with most of the above in lieu of repeating whats already been said several times in slightly different words.

Somewhat related- whats with the final zones in both descents just being a massive fire resist check?

And now users post the same feedback I posted after 2 DC races?


It's still possible to continue DC if killing Gravicius opens a portal.


DCs difficulty are rather the early zones which are mostly skipped by players.


It's hard to die between Kuduko and Kole. Also the Dungeon Parts offer more experience.

The Haunted Dungeon offers a side Area->Obelisk of Faith the Burning Cave offers nothing but a hard coded Facebreaker exile.


Then you get the Zombiezone which is a full clear zone. That's the only zone where I always have a good density. The Bandit/Cannibal Zone after Kuduku should be filled but I had 2 DC races with huge empty spaces.


After that you should start full clearing areas.

The Misty Cave is inferior to the Diabolic Crypt because Rhoas being the only bigger experience and having many dead ends.
The squids and crabs without shell offer barely any exp.

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Somewhat related- whats with the final zones in both descents just being a massive fire resist check?

Also wondered about that.

Possible ideas how to make the Arsenal, Waste Pool and Shipyard Boss harder.



The Ember Crypt seems to be your MUST TAKE option due Gravicius being the final boss.
Again the Frozen Crypt being the worst route slowing you down.

The stormy ledge doesn't offer a chest but offers you both bosses.


Then you get bosses again which may kill you.

The Avatar of Tempest uses a heavy hitting Arctic Breat and an increased Duration Thunderstorm and an initial lag summon(kills you if he also uses Thunderstorm and AB on you during the lag. Despite having good res every time I couldn't kill him fast I was down to 40-110 EHP without any charges left.
Hatebeat is the better choice because you got the rings you need for the inner halls since there isn't any cold damage but exiles.(not sure if hardcoded some are hardcoded others are not)

Inner Halls 1 only has Construcs as potential danger.
Inner Halls 2 is a Light/Fireres check.
Inner Halls 3 is a heavy Lightres check.
Gravicius is a heavy Fireres check.

In summary you fully clear 7-8 zones and even then it's questionable if you will be higher than level 24.

After doing three of these descent:champions events i no longer consider them race. The person who wins is most likely one who got luckiest with density in latter zones or got lucky enough with gear / right class to kill gravicius.

Barely hit level 19 halfway through halls 3 in todays DC race, and this is after full clearing the previous 8 zones.

This isnt a race atm, its a just a random blues/density lottery with nothing to actually race to. Fix please!

Heh, I had Halls 3 full cleared several minutes before the race ended, didn't have the fire res gear to go for gravicius (and with 3-4 minutes probably not the time to attempt gravicius either). So I just sat there for a few minutes looking at the result page to see if people are catching up, really nice "race".

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Hilbert wrote:

The Haunted Dungeon offers a side Area->Obelisk of Faith the Burning Cave offers nothing but a hard coded Facebreaker exile.

I have not tried myself but I believe that there is another side area. Also, I have met the same exiles regardless of the routes I have chosen. I think they are class specific, but not route specific.

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Hilbert wrote:

The stormy ledge doesn't offer a chest but offers you both bosses.

Has been posted elsewhere but it does. As for many of the other chests, it is placed in a "weird" spot.

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Hilbert wrote:

The Avatar of Tempest uses a heavy hitting Arctic Breat and an increased Duration Thunderstorm and an initial lag summon(kills you if he also uses Thunderstorm and AB on you during the lag. Despite having good res every time I couldn't kill him fast I was down to 40-110 EHP without any charges left.
Hatebeat is the better choice because you got the rings you need for the inner halls since there isn't any cold damage but exiles.(not sure if hardcoded some are hardcoded others are not)

I tried The Avatar of Tempest once. That was enough for me. Hatebeat is a lot easier, at least for melee.

"

I have not tried myself but I believe that there is another side area. Also, I have met the same exiles regardless of the routes I have chosen. I think they are class specific, but not route specific.

Interesting Theory.

I can confirm some exiles seem to be hardcoded.

Such as the Spectralthrow 4 aura exile in Inner Halls level 1 or 2
The Facebreaker Exile in the Burning Cave/Haunted Dungeon.

And the PA/Ice Arrow Exile in the 3rd area I think.

There are also exiles I have seen only 1 time.


A pure Trapper in the Bandit Area(I pretty much kill most bandits)
A BT Puncture Duelist one of the ice caves.
A Ininerate Exile in one of the Icecaves.
I also met a Leapslam duelist in one of the Icecaves once.

"

Has been posted elsewhere but it does. As for many of the other chests, it is placed in a "weird" spot.

Then I should give the ledge another chance. But somehow I still believe that the Ember Crypt offers more experience and the Icecave being on the bottom.

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I tried The Avatar of Tempest once. That was enough for me. Hatebeat is a lot easier, at least for melee.

Indeed I switched to Hatebeat on my route. It yields more experience and dungeons got less dead ends and offers protection for inner halls level 2 and 3.

It doesn't have got many HP but it can hit really hard and you can't counter the initial lag.
It can cast Thunderstorm even when submerged.

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Hilbert wrote:

It (the cold elemental boss) doesn't have got many HP but it can hit really hard and you can't counter the initial lag. It can cast Thunderstorm even when submerged.

I just got completely destroyed. I equipped all my cold res gear, then got destroyed by Storm Call.

Races have a huge RNG influence, this is news to me!

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PanicAK wrote:

Races have a huge RNG influence, this is news to me!

You're missing the point they're making.

In a normal race, there are lots of different sources of RNG. You can make up for bad mob density in some maps with some good movement-related RNG, or an awesome weapon drop, or a lucky exit/waypoint placement or two, or by taking some extra risks to try to catch up, or by doing some really awesomely skillful thing, etc etc...

In descent champions, amongst the top players, it doesn't matter whether you get good or bad items. It doesn't matter if you get good or bad layouts, it doesn't matter if you play twice as well as the next guy. All the top players will kill all of the monsters regardless of how bad their RNG is. So to work out who the winner is, you just add up the exp that all of the monsters grant, and whoever got the highest exp total of monsters is the winner.

It's like GGG couldn't be bothered writing a simple script to add up some numbers, so they made descent champions to help the players do it for them. That's what sucks about it, according to the top players.