Some random observations/replies -
I was less than 10 seconds late killing the grift37 guardian last night. The depressing part, even that fairly impressive feat wouldn’t put me on the top1000 class leaderboards. At this point the only significant DPS increase I could get would be a Bombadiers Rucksack (quiver) that is better rolled. I could get +15% sentry damage, another 70 dex, and 3% more AS on mine. I suppose that if I rolled an absolutely perfect +20% cold damage bow that could also potentially be an upgrade, but I have what is essentially a perfect Windforce (2950ish dps, gg), which compliments Strongarm Bracers very nicely. The only real “upgrade” I’d get out of that is being able to dump Evasive Fire for Tumble. Evasive Fire does some marginal amount of dps, but more importantly proc’s knockbacks for Strongarms and generates huge amounts of hatred (7 per shot, and my AS is pretty high), to use for spamming Maelstrom, which does more than marginal dps, and heals you. Still, tumble would probably save me a death and 20-30 seconds of running time per rift. It’s a toss up really. Sometimes the damage will be better, sometimes the speed and survivability.
As to whoever said that defensive stats are worthless because you will always get one shotted, this is absolutely not true. My DH does not get 1 shotted on Grift 37. You just need at least 26m toughness (counting Unity on you and your follower, an effective doubling of your toughness, which is required for Rifts that high). A small amount of attacks will 1-shot him still, an Elite act 1 Charger’s charge, or the Rift Guardian modeled after Rakanoth… his little teleport attack. But I imagine with 30m toughness I’d survive those, and that’s not a really difficult number to achieve with Unity. I could hit it now moving paragon points into VIT, but I am more often bottlenecked by killing speed than by dying. And I mean, if you are getting hit by rhino charges you kind of had it coming. I do walk into the old “fml” situation sometimes, usually when entering a new rift floor. You will sometimes spawn with 2 or even 3 bosses/elites within attack range. I can still beat them without losing a ton of time, but I will die 3-5 times. Fortunately because of that huge concentration of bosses the amount of rift closure you get basically makes the whole thing a frustrating wash, time-wise.
Barbs/Monks/Crusaders all have much better healing tools and take 30% less damage from all attacks, so I’m quite certain if a DH can avoid being 1 shot on 37, anyone else can on 32. Getting 2 Unity rings can be a pain, based on the RNG. And no, you won’t be able to wear your Stone of Jordan on Grift 32+ unless your build somehow doesn’t require RoRG to function.
The Grift chart feels about right, as I think the difficulty increase curve does slow down a bit on the higher end (notice the difference between early difficulty changes is 2 rift levels, the final one on the list is 4 levels). Every 4 or 5 rift levels feels like a Torment level to me in the higher Grifts. 39 is the highest I’ve ever beaten, and only because I got very lucky during a trial and got a 39 stone out of it. And no, I didn’t beat it in close to the timer. Hah. Still, that 39 Grift made T6 literally feel like normal difficulty next to t6 in comparison. It was utterly discouraging.
And lastly, I also wish Ramaldani’s Gift could be used on Jewelry at least. I have 3 of the things sitting in my stash, and they don’t stack :P First world problems, I know.
