reintroducing the idea of expanding crucible

whether these levels include drops or not, i just enjoy crucible and i'd like to see more from the bonus levels (post-16) in terms of challenge (no, i'm not implying ultima isn't a challenge. failed 30 runs over 2 days just trying to learn his mechanics.) so here's just some ideas for what bonus levels could include

in my personal ideal, ultima would be moved to a stage 20 to keep consistency with the boss every 4 levels, and some levels between 16-20 would include things like:

17: a level with Worldstone tier 5 mobs
18: a level similar to 15 (dreamlands bosses) but with the 5 Worldstone Event bosses
19: an arena containing 3 random trials bosses (obviously without their drops)

i suggested something like this a long time ago but with ideas that were far too grandiose, anyways i'd like to hear what others think, whether you have other stage ideas or whether you think this idea is totally trash or what.


***ALSO, as a side note, please god make a different arena for ultima. it's sooooo fucking clunky fighting him in that area, half the time he just teleports behind walls when near the castle that you have to be fully behind as well in order to even see him, and anywhere in the middle section by the fountain fighting him becomes a great nuisance if you're a char that uses movespeed instead of fcr to avoid his red crystals since you just get stuck on everything when running around. Plus, it's just super underwhelming. The fight would be about 100x more fun if you fought him in an arena like malthael's, or even just some uniquely designed open arena. The fight is mechanically demanding but the environment he's in really takes away from that.

This is coming from someone who has nearly a 100% success rate on ultima as of now. In the wake of CLS getting dumpstered in 7.0, if you want the boss to be approachable in the future, that arena has got to go.

Forest, you are a beast! The all idea is great, trial bosses on top of it. Just notice that you are part of an elite of 3/4 people on the server that can actually kill ultima... I really wish ultima aoe was balanced better. I mean i have over 100 phys rez, lot of def, max block, omega amu, 20k life, 10k mana and i still get rekt my ass out of it... Not cool at all... Or maybe my bear should ww aswell? Cowmon...

yeah, I tested 73 phys res 19k mana ES WW with all the mana on hit I could get, and I couldn't outleech the attack. That being said, I like where it's at, I like attacks that force you to play well no matter how geared your character is, because the attack is easy to dodge with practice. The only thing I don't like about the ultima fight is the environment that makes it so hard to play well.

Also, the fight would be a LOT better if instead of having stupid regen, he had maybe 90% or even 95% ADR. That way, skilled players with good builds could fight him, I know game wants it to not be soloed but I just don't think thats good for the game. Plus, multiple chars attacking him causes a teleporting ultima nightmare. This is coming from someone who knows how to kill him with budget chars too. I'm just saying, if lightning WW had to take ~15 sec of attacking to kill him, I'm not even sure it'd be the best choice because that would even be challenging.

It just needs an overhaul.

I'm 100% sure that if 20 chars geared with midlle good gear, like phys chars with gf, random sorc, wf ama, phys druid with fullmoon and any shits of that; they all die and no one hurt him enough with that life regen. Its just not playable.

The aoe is not easy to dodge. Sometimes it came really fast on top of your head and if you have not a good fhr to tele away or a lot of frw you'll die. I'm not saying its not possible to dodge. Just saying its a 1/3 chance you die...

I suppose my belief is that in a perfect world, if you want to kill ultima, you should be playing a char specifically geared to kill ultima. I'm not going to divulge my strategy for how you could kill him with "budget" characters, but if you're approaching him with chars that dont have the fhr/fcr/frw necessary to be consistent in the fight, you shouldn't kill him.

But I am in agreement with you that the regen is in a bad spot. Then again, I also think slow is in a bad spot on bosses like ultima/omega. I don't think they should even be affected by slow. Omega is totally a good fight when he's unslowed, and he's even able to be killed by chars like a GF WW barb with enough patience and skill. That's good imo. If Ultima was similar with having high ADR to balance the fight instead of regen, especially since his attacks are extremely hard to dodge with certain chars to begin with, it'd make the fight much more interesting.

The point is, even if he has no regen and super high ADR, you won't kill him unless you're playing a super good char too. And if you have a trash char but you're good enough to survive for 10min of fight to kill him, you deserve that too (though I sincerely doubt this is possible, or that anyone would even have the patience to farm 20 orbs if they could do it this way).

Most people can't even get a t5 neo, that's just not rewarding at all to have content that's simply unapproachable for 99% of players. Skill is more rewarding than farming infinitely to make a build that has enough dmg to kill him in 10sec, cuz if you cant kill him that fast you can't kill him period right now.

I just think that if its meant to be a team fight over a solo thing, this aoe should work another way. Or at least, make him run fast instead of teleport away. Because 20 peoples on his head he will insta teleport away and cast an aoe that will kill half people. How its suppose to be a team fight that way. I mean we just should try it. Lets go with a team and random gear. Lets clip it.
Should be funny ahahahah

And yeah to kill omega with gf, well you need to kill ultima with gf first ;)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by player

I just think that if its meant to be a team fight over a solo thing, this aoe should work another way. Or at least, make him run fast instead of teleport away. Because 20 peoples on his head he will insta teleport away and cast an aoe that will kill half people. How its suppose to be a team fight that way. I mean we just should try it. Lets go with a team and random gear. Lets clip it.
Should be funny ahahahah

And yeah to kill omega with gf, well you need to kill ultima with gf first ;)

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I think the game needed more than just 2 boss's that were challenging when in late game gear. Crucible is fun but having to play 1-15 with late game gear felt like a cheat mod was activated. The best part of last ladder was the first week. All inferno areas where a challenge and fun to farm. Once u get some core pieces everything became way to ezz. Looking forward to the changes though.