Hardest Area

There are 2 ways when it comes to dealing with obstacles. You find a way to deal with them directly or you go around them.

Yeah, sanctuary is good agaist ranged enemies, cause it grants slow missile charges. What is worth mentioning though, is the fact that you did a 2 minute shenk run. I also saw your other sanctuary shield video showing killing some random pack of mobs in act 5 in 3 minutes. There is nothing wrong with dealing with shit the game throws at you, but usually it's just better to focus on farming different areas and getting your gear/exp there. Yeah, you can farm hard areas slowly, but it's probably way better to farm some other places instead. That only applies when you are focused on getting exp/gear. When you just want to find a way to deal with some specific problem to show people it's possible just for the sake of it, it's kinda lame in my opinion. You can pretty much always find a way to deal with some stuff, but depending on your priorities, it's not necessarily worth it to push when you can just go around it. Most people just want to get some items and lvl up their chars and there are some pretty good farming spots for that. I don't think Bloody Foothills are particularly good for any of the mentioned goals.

Before you criticize me... I tried to be respectful in this post and i think i did a great job. What i also wanted to do, was to show you that most people have similar goals and ways of achieving them when it comes to playing Diablo 2 and that's getting items/exp without complicating it too much. As we all know, your goals and solutions differ quite a lot from the most popular ones. Don't be surprised then, that some people aren't delighted when they see your ways of dealing with stuff.

There is also that part where you think your solutions and goals are the best and you want to force people to do the same, but maybe it is worth remembering that most people don't want to be forced to do anything and if the community looks like it does, maybe there is some other reason than just "we are all stupid and have no idea how the game works".

There is that one saying that goes like this: "If 1 person says you are drunk, you can ignore it. If 2 people say you are drunk, you can start to worry. If everybody says you are drunk, you should go home."
 
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Let’s get this thread back on track please. Topic is hardest areas. Please don’t make this the first thread I have to lock on this site (at least as far as I can remember:))
 
I have no idea what is the hardest area objectively, but i think it's some place in act 5. Personally would go with Frozen River, so the same thing as some of you. When i am making a new char, i usually save Anya quest for later. Need to farm some more lvls and better gear to do it with ease. It's so popular, cause there is a quest which makes you actually explore the place. I rarely go to other caves in act 5. The most popular ones are really tough. Monsters hit hard, have some deadly attacks like charge and there are many cold oriented creatures. WSK is tough too. Just too many guest mobs that can make some terrible combos. Out of act 5 i would mention CS. Act 4 is like a brick wall when you want to rush through the game.

@Kinkara I think it was suppose to mean that it's better to go home than to fight majority rather than make majority correct.
 
I certainly wouldn't say there exists an area which represents the hardest challenge for every single character in the game. I would lean more towards looking at the issue of which areas pose the most challenges per class, and even per build. Normal Barbarian builds, for example - and here I define "normal" as whirlwind and frenzy - I don't feel have tough times with ranged enemies because of how incredibly effective Taunt is. But, for example, if you're doing a Titan Berserker Druid ... yeah, ranged enemies pose a massively increased threat compared to that of a standard Barb. But, whereas non-leechable enemies can cause big problems for normal barbs, especially whirlwind barbs, they aren't really an issue for a Berserker of really any class. One of the absolute worst monsters for me when I'm questing a sorceress is the vipers. They can stun as you teleport to a spot and before you teleport away and cause massive headaches, in fact my blizzard sorceresses have tended to have more troubles with Act 2 because of the vipers than with Act 5 and it's many cold immunes.

I've definitely had characters where Act 1 normal was actually my toughest challenge. Poison necro and my wolfbarb sort of stick out for those, though that had alot to do with being before respecs were a thing. Likewise, some areas are rough because of bugs, NM Travincal and nihl's temple being examples there. Act 5 sort of was intended to have the highest difficulty, but that can seriously vary for different builds. For my lowly twinked Frost Zealot, I think Act 4 was the absolute worst because his damage was garbage and the spawners in RoF just kept filling up the screen every chokepoint. My Vengeance Amazon didn't sweat Act 5 much at all as it turned out, but Act 3 dolls in Sewers was an actual challenge.

And, of course, the character makes all the difference for everything. A single target melee character is going to have issues with things a Blizzballer won't. And while, for instance, the Crystalline Passage will probably pose a threat for almost every build, and potential spawns in the Worldstone Keep/Throne can suck for any given build, the question of which area will be the hardest absolutely does vary for each individual character and even for each individual player, as everyone has different tendencies and proclivities and what might be mundane for me may be a rough time for person A, and what is no big deal for them may be a bad time for my skill set.

There's definitely an interesting line of thinking involved with figuring out what areas provide the most challenge for any given build, and I think even the question of what MF targets have the hardest possibilities presents ton of food for thought (I have my opinions from experience, certainly, but there's lots to still consider imo.) And what I've always sort of really paid attention to when building a character is what will give the biggest challenge and how will I prepare for that challenge without throwing the rest of the build out of whack. Sometimes that's easy - for a Necro or Assassin, you know that all you have to do is get a corpse or two cause corpse explosion will do the rest of the work - and sometimes it's hard - if you're playing a Paladin, you know that you're going to be playing a Paladin and there's just no cure for that. :p;)
 
Hmm... So I just encountered a HF Death Lord with my Riftsin in WSK 3... How do Non-barb melee characters deal with this, short of teleporting away?

Yeah, had to S&E btw.
 
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Hmm... So I just encountered a HF Death Lord with my Riftsin in WSK 3... How do Non-barb melee characters deal with this, short of teleporting away?
Very carefully. ;p

No, but actually that depends, because I would 100% say that for the vast majority of people the answer to that question is "I don't." Which is fine, because most people don't want to deal with that. If you *do*, then that starts at character planning. With a way to deal damage to it, ideally in the form of traps or something ranged that can avoid the HF madness, you can plink it down over time. Even open wounds on the character or merc combined with a third element type of damage (I often toss a poison damage charm on a questing character for this purpose) can eventually deal with it.

In terms of tactics, not letting the frenzytaur get frenzy going is huge if that option exists for you. Teleport helps massively with this if you have it, clearly. I'd say your typical solution for an Assassin to this situation would be using Death Sentry + teleport and getting the odd hit in here or there with the character or merc, if and when possible. There's no pretty answer if you don't want to compromise on aspects of the build, which imo is fine. That's why most people would just skip. But it's also why your jiansonz and your Maltatai's would carry around multiple weapons for char and/or merc, to deal with corner cases. Malice runeword would eventually kill that frenzytaur, even if it might require getting in one hit then teleporting away until the frenzy wears off then rinse and repeat. That sucks, yeah, but it's a possible solution. And the effectiveness of your solution depends on what you plan into your arsenal for your character. If you don't want to plan in a solution to something like that, then just skip it, no harm done. If you do want to have an answer for something like that, then what is the most effective solution you can have that doesn't harm your overall build overly much should be your best choice.

That doesn't give specifics, but specifics aren't really *that* important here. Maybe your solution is to have enough health so that the frenzytaur doesn't put you directly in hit recovery so you can just go toe to toe with it. Or you give the merc something like a malice and put yourself between the frenzytaur and Waheed. Perhaps you just go with a rogue merc with Harmony to plink away at something like that. Maybe you overstack IAS so the HF doesn't reduce your attack speed. If you're looking for solutions when planning the character, then solutions will be there to be found, but if you don't want to be bothered by that or don't want to make the compromises then the choice of "avoid or reroll" is defaulted to, which is 100% viable and fine cause it's each person's choice.
 
Without a huge selection of other weapons, I would normally:
Clear out lots of space for running away. If the pack is right near the entrance this won’t work though.
Try and tempt the pack out one by one. If you can separate the pack it all becomes easier.
Boss may take some time but he will go eventually (BoS and DTalon?)

Failing that, S&E :)
 
Clear out lots of space for running away. If the pack is right near the entrance this won’t work though.
:)
This is the main problem though. Boss is one thing; He will have his minions hounding you as well and they each can tank your attacks. Running away while slowed can also invite other mobs robbing you of even more space.:oops:
 
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