Azmodan, the New Rush
#1
In the past few days, I've grouped with a guy named Xeon from time to time, who is a prototypical min/maxer kind of guy. He said that he explored nearly everything in the game the first time through, but after he lost his first level 52 hardcore character in nightmare, it's clear that he has no qualms whatsoever about decking his character out in the best auction house equipment he can afford or using any game mechanics to get ahead. I met him in a pug game and found him very helpful (he gave me a fantastic sword that he had just crafted) and a skilled and conscientious tank barbarian, so I enjoyed playing with him and a couple of his friends, when the Lurkers crew weren't on-line.

Over a couple of days, I ran nightmare Acts II and III with him, and when we killed Azmodan, I asked if we would continue into Act IV, and Xeon said no that we would kill Azmodan again. I was suprised about this, since bosses don't seem to drop very good loot, but I went along with it and joined him and his friend in their newly created "kill Azmodan" game. We hopped to the waypoint, did a small dungeon crawl, killing maybe two or three random champion/boss packs, killed Azmodan again, escaped through the cinematics, and then it dawned on me what we were doing. We were getting 88k exp from each run just from the end quest rewards plus any exp from the mobs we killed along the way. We ran Azmodan over and over again and leveled at a pace unparalleled with farming normal mobs. And, since Azmodan is so easy to kill (just don't stand in the blood/corruption pools), we were never in any danger -- a significant bonus for a group of hardcore characters.

But the Azmodan rush didn't stop there. After doing about ten runs, I left to join Frag, Swirly, and Kevin in their game, while Xeon continued with his Azmodan runs. A few hours later, I messaged Xeon to find out if he'd be interested in grouping up again and found out that his character had died during one of the Azmodan runs when there was a server disconnect.

I commiserated with him a little, and he mentioned how he was disappointed that all of the people who had asked him to help them rush their characters were suddenly too busy to help him out. Curious, I asked how one could rush in Diablo 3, and I ended up agreeing to help him just to see how it worked. Here's what we did:

1. My level 52 Wizard created a "kill Azmodan" game on normal difficulty.

2. Xeon had his level 1 character join the game. The game does not require a character to have completed Act I or II to be able to join a game in progress in Act III, if the character is joining a friend's game.

3. My Wizard ran or teleported past most of the mobs on the way to Azmodan's lair, while Xeon waited in town. Interestingly, when I had to toss an Arcane Orb at a pack of scorpions that were in my way, he leveled to level 2 while he remained in town.

4. When my wizard got to Azmodan's lair, Xeon accepted the event with me. I ran forward and killed Azmodan in under 10 seconds, while Xeon stayed far back safely away from the fray.

5. We escaped through all the end of act cinematics. In the end, we got 25k experience from the quest rewards. Well, Xeon got only a fraction of that at the beginning, but he got enough to jump to level 4 in just the first run.

6. Rinse and repeat again and again.

After an hour of these runs, Xeon got to level 18. If I had been more focused and efficient (those treasure goblins must die!!), I probably could have gotten him to level 20 in that hour. Note that as he leveled, he got a higher share of the 25k exp each time. At level 18, he was getting about 80% of the quest exp.

Xeon's belief is that he expects this to be a standard practice in the not so different future -- level 1-35 using normal Azmodan runs and level 36-60 using nightmare Azmodan runs.

Thinking about this over the last few days, I realized that I don't think Blizzard minds this at all. Blizzard could easily have stopped this by preventing low level characters from joining later acts or by preventing them from getting exp from high level quests entirely. But I think Blizzard doesn't mind the level rushes so much anymore, because ultimately in this game, one levels by one's equipment and not so much by leveling the character anymore.

However, I do predict that it won't be long before 3rd party services provide leveling services. For example, maybe a service will ask for $30 to level up your character to level 60 and provide you with a million gold to spend on the auction house for your equipment.

As a side note, when I said "we were getting 25k exp," I really meant *we*. As in, my level 52 Wizard was getting the 25k exp from the quests as well, even though she was well above the Azmodan quest level. In addition, she got the cash from the quests and from vendoring any blues she found along the way. The hour of runs netted her about 2/3rds of a level and about 100k gold. I could have could have made more money farming in nightmare myself, but the time spent leveling Xeon wasn't without its own tangible rewards to my character.

I'm not recommending that fellow Lurkers use these tactics. But I found these game mechanics interesting and thought I'd share them with you.
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#2
Hail MongoJerry,

Nice post. I've been seeing this discussed more and more over the various fansites and almost all of them wonder if this rushing system will get changed. I haven't seen any official response from Blizzard but I'm sure they're eyeing the topic. I know a lot of people are using this to go from 55-60 in about 6 hours (I'd personally rather just play the game).
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#3
Which I think pretty much makes ladder competitions useless.
”There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy." - Hamlet (1.5.167-8), Hamlet to Horatio.

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#4
(05-24-2012, 09:08 PM)MonTy Wrote: (I'd personally rather just play the game).

Yeah, I've never understood the mentality to want to do the rushing like in Mongo's post. This isn't WoW, after all, where your choices get wider when you hit max level...

On the other hand, I don't have a strong opinion either way on whether it's a problem. It's a single-player game with co-op, so it's not really hurting anyone, unless later it affects the AH economy, I guess. (And, after a few months, a few rushed people won't really matter, anyway on that.)
--Mav
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#5
(05-24-2012, 09:13 PM)Mavfin Wrote: Yeah, I've never understood the mentality to want to do the rushing like in Mongo's post. This isn't WoW, after all, where your choices get wider when you hit max level...

You know, I can see it like in a case with Xeon above, where he died after putting a lot of effort into his level 52 character and he wants to get back again as fast as he can to get past that point. He had already died at least once previously, so the normal difficulty content would just be tedium at that point for him, so a rush past that content would help him get to the part of the game that really interests him.
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#6
(05-24-2012, 11:38 PM)MongoJerry Wrote: You know, I can see it like in a case with Xeon above, where he died after putting a lot of effort into his level 52 character and he wants to get back again as fast as he can to get past that point.

But, what's the point of hardcore if you can just roll another character and rush it back to where you were? Then it's not like you lost anything at all...

Not picking on you, MJ, but, after all you've talked about how great the hardcore experience is, this doesn't really seem to match it. Kind of negates the risk, doesn't it?

(Don't get me wrong, MJ, it's your game to play how you want, pretty much, and you note I didn't ask for the capability to be removed in my previous post. I'm just curious how this fits in with your 'hardcore ethos' you were talking about before.)
--Mav
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#7
Mav, he brought up what he found out, not what he's going to do. MJ & I have cleared every single pixel of normal and prior to 4th Act Nightmare. When we play, we play in a way that I figure most HC players do, clear it ALL. You need the chances & xp that full clears give you. He was bringing up a situation that came up outside of the norm.
Hardcore Diablo 1/2/3/4 & Retail/Classic WoW adventurer.
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#8
I've only just seen Act III, started last night, i suppose i'm time poor atm and not playing much.
I'm personally not a fan of rushing, it's just not me really, but if others want to it's something for them, perhaps it's more that i've never had it as an option.
I'm enjoying the games as it's unfolding, but i suppose that after normal, if the only changes are that things get more HP to make them harder, then i can see that people would want to jump a lot of content.
But, then, what's the point? you reach the end of inferno, kicking ass all the way, then what, seems strange to me.
Just a personal opinion Wink

I'll have to share my profile name sometime, once i take the time to find it.

Later all.

Mist
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#9
(05-25-2012, 12:03 AM)Mavfin Wrote: (Don't get me wrong, MJ, it's your game to play how you want, pretty much, and you note I didn't ask for the capability to be removed in my previous post. I'm just curious how this fits in with your 'hardcore ethos' you were talking about before.)

I'm sure that is obvious and MongoJerry doesn't need my help here, but anyway, here goes.

Looking over his post again MJ in no way stated that he's condoning that method. In fact in his description it sounds rather tedious and boring. If anyone is to "blame" for something it's this Xeon player.
Old age and treachery will always overcome youth and enthusiasm!
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#10
I'm hearing they nerfed some of the Armory experience on this method.
--Mav
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#11
(05-25-2012, 12:28 AM)Frag Wrote: When we play, we play in a way that I figure most HC players do, clear it ALL. You need the chances & xp that full clears give you.

While I'm sure there is a laudable subset of HC players that will play "honorably", the only thing you "need" is a friend/second account to do fast XP/quest rushing and some gold to pick up AH items once you reach the desired level. As always plenty of people will line up to do the cheapest thing once they learn of it.

Incidentally, HC does happen to have a gear tax this time around to partly address Mav's concern. Either way if you're serious about Inferno HC, the majority of your progression will be happening there anyway, and that's entirely item (and/or gold/$$$) based.
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#12
(05-25-2012, 03:06 PM)Mavfin Wrote: I'm hearing they nerfed some of the Armory experience on this method.

I finished Act III normal HC lastnight at ~3am Pacific and I got the 2nd turn-in on top of the tower, but the Blizz forums are saying that the 2nd turn-in is gone this morning.

I also read something about some kind of "glitch" yesterday that resulted in ~a million XP from Azmodan. Not sure what that was about, but that's probably what they were really fixing.

I really liked Act III, but I can see that those phase beasts towards the end are going to be a total bitch on NM and beyond when they get spawned as a random boss or champion pack and get teleport PLUS 2, 3, or 4 other abilities. They aren't soft targets compared to everything else and they get one "free" ability.
Conc / Concillian -- Vintage player of many games. Deadly leader of the All Pally Team (or was it Death leader?)
Terenas WoW player... while we waited for Diablo III.
And it came... and it went... and I played Hearthstone longer than Diablo III.
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#13
(05-25-2012, 03:34 PM)FoxBat Wrote: While I'm sure there is a laudable subset of HC players that will play "honorably", the only thing you "need" is a friend/second account to do fast XP/quest rushing and some gold to pick up AH items once you reach the desired level. As always plenty of people will line up to do the cheapest thing once they learn of it.
When I was 8, my Dad bought me a new 5 speed, green Schwinn, with the banana seat. Coincidentally, a friend down the block where I live also had a new 5 speed bike. About two weeks later he was bragging about how he already had many miles on his odometer (10 x more than I did at least). Then, later in the week I happened by his house, and he had his bike upside down and had rigged up an electric drill to add on the miles "automatically". I didn't feel "lazy" after that.

I don't understand the mentality of those that buy a game, avoid/skip the content, then whine for more content when they are bored on day two. It was the same in WOW -- who will be first to level 40, 60, 70, 80, 90? Then, quick, let's get through the raid progressions to be first. Then again, shame on Blizzard for making grinds a requirement to slow players down. They finally learned with Death Knights, just let players start at the end game. So, why not just let players choose the level they want to start, what difficulty level, and exclude them from any ladder type competitions. All in all, the achievement system is a better measure of what players have really done.

I don't see there are any bragging rights for a level X HC player who begins at level X, any more than a HC player who sits safely in town with his power drill automatically spinning up the XP counter. The bragging rights of HC are that you did take the risk, and you rode your bike to Hell and back without dying.
”There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy." - Hamlet (1.5.167-8), Hamlet to Horatio.

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#14
(05-25-2012, 08:23 PM)kandrathe Wrote: I don't understand the mentality of those that buy a game, avoid/skip the content, then whine for more content when they are bored on day two. It was the same in WOW -- who will be first to level 40, 60, 70, 80, 90? Then, quick, let's get through the raid progressions to be first.

I don't understand people who skip content either, but I'm not sure how that has anything in common with elite progress race guilds from WoW. They don't skip content, they devour it.

-Jester
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#15
People who skip content are not necessarily playing the Diablo III game, but possibly the Diablo III economy mini-game.
Conc / Concillian -- Vintage player of many games. Deadly leader of the All Pally Team (or was it Death leader?)
Terenas WoW player... while we waited for Diablo III.
And it came... and it went... and I played Hearthstone longer than Diablo III.
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#16
It sounds like he wants the benefits of playing hardcore without actually playing hardcore. Personally, I will never play hardcore seriously; losing that much effort is not my cup of tea. But it seems wrong to play hardcore and then skip content to "get back to where you were"; might as well play normal, then.

I don't really have a problem with people doing this on normal, though.
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#17
I can confirm that overnight, they hotfixed Azmodan so that you don't get experience during the Tower portion of the turn-in, which about halves the normal experience one would get from the run.

In addition, I learned about another 4-player group technique that boosted the experience return from around 88k per run to around 400k exp per run. That's probably the key reason why Blizzard took this step, because the tower turn-in part was a key part of this technique. However, I won't bore you with the details, because Blizzard hot-fixed it.

(05-25-2012, 12:03 AM)Mavfin Wrote: But, what's the point of hardcore if you can just roll another character and rush it back to where you were? Then it's not like you lost anything at all...

Spending a couple of days leveling back is a pretty harsh penalty. In addition, the biggest thing is that you lose all of your best gear and gems. Remember, D3 is about gear, not your level.
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#18
(05-26-2012, 12:45 AM)MongoJerry Wrote: Spending a couple of days leveling back is a pretty harsh penalty. In addition, the biggest thing is that you lose all of your best gear and gems. Remember, D3 is about gear, not your level.

Again, though, doesn't that defeat the purpose of HC? The idea is the challenge of it, knowing that ANY mistake will permanently cost you your character. All that time you put into it gone in an instant, and you have to start over from scratch. Rushing a HC character defeats the very tenet of the gameplay. It brings it more in line with SC play, except you lose your gear (like in Diablo). HC started as a player-designed restriction in the original Diablo, and was added to the game proper for Diablo II. There was no way to "rush" a character in the original; that only started in Diablo II, and continues here in Diablo III (even easier, with quest XP).

Personally I don't care what people do. The more rushed characters out there, the more high-end gear disappears from the HC AH however, especially once they eventually die again. That's going to strain the HC AH economy (whereas SC has the opposite problem, i.e. everything is worthless unless it's pretty close to top-end). To each their own, though.

IMO rushing HC characters takes away from the achievement of getting a HC character to 60. It's cheese, plain and simple. If people want to do it, so be it - that is their right. However, it takes away all credibility they have with regards to the achievement of getting a HC character into Hell.
Roland *The Gunslinger*
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