I have a few friends who play Diablo 3, but as far as I know none of them have racked up the hours I have. But I know I’m not one of the leet hardcore players.
I hit level 60 with my Witch Doctor a long time ago. I got a few Paragon levels. Then I got a Barbarian up to 54 and cooled off for a while.
Then Blizzard updated the PC version of the game to Loot 2.0 (a week before Reaper of Souls) — and they offered first 50% XP bonus and then 100% XP bonus. I put the this on my calendar. My wife sent me a few texts about it.
I got new armor and weapons for my Witch Doctor. I got my Barbarian up to 60.
Then Reaper of Souls went live and I started playing with my Witch Doctor. The game set my difficulty level to Master, which is above Expert but below Torment 1. On the way to Malthael, the (SPOILER) final boss of Act V, I died two or three times and hit level 70. Malthael was a wall. I couldn’t get near him, and I couldn’t stand still. So I just ran around the map, avoiding him. I let my (four) Zombie Dogs and my Gargantuan beat up on him, but the guy is a damage sponge. The first time, I got maybe 25% of his health down and then I died. I respawned in town, repaired my gear, and went back at it. This time, I knocked maybe 90% of Malthael’s life off, and died.
Frustrated, I knocked difficulty down to Expert and took another shot. On Expert, with my level 70 Witch Doctor, Malthael was so easy I could have beaten him with my eyes closed.
With Act V completed, I unlocked Adventure mode. I did five bounties and one Nephalem Rift. I enjoyed it, but I decided I wanted to beat Malthael on Master, and that meant I needed better gear. Adventure Mode was the best place to get gear, but if I wanted really good stuff I would need to up the difficulty. And if I made it through all but the final boss of the campaign on Master, maybe I should try Torment 1.
So I did.
Torment 1 is challenging, but it’s not a death sentence. It’s not even as much of a problem as Malthael on Master. Odeg the Keywarden spawned. It took time, but I beat him, and I never felt particularly worried about dying. Mostly I ran wore down large groups of normal enemies, and if I ran into an elite/group of elites, I backtracked into areas I had cleared, hit them, and repeated. It worked.
I didn’t get to a Nephalem Rift in Torment 1 (yet) just because it took so long to get one bounty. I got some Legendary stuff but nothing that looked particularly helpful against Malthael.
So here’s the thing.
Why was I able to breeze through Act V on Master but then got my butt kicked by Malthael? And why was Malthael a breeze on Expert if I could barely touch him on Master? And why are bounties on Torment 1 easy — if slow — if Malthael on Master was more or less untouchable?