First play through with Berserker, I’m at level 49 but I only have a gear score of 861.
My highest level weapon is 25, but most of my equipment is around level 15 or so. Spells are level 11 mostly with one 25.
in game I’m up to chapter 12 but not really able to progress anymore. Prior to the latest update I could beat Enemy Score 1200 or so with a good start, but the changes have totally nerfed my strategy with not my spells charging up that much slower and the stun not working as reliably anymore.
Is my gear way underleveled for where I should be at this point?
I would say that based on the game as it existed before the 0.38 update, you are about where you could be. I had similar stats when I hit 50 on a second account started after 0.36. However, I think people in your level range (Level 30 to 50(10)) are feeling very squeezed by the changes in 0.38.
The developers need to rethink how Event Tiering works and allow for downgrading the difficulty, for instance by providing a range based on your level (or even Gear Score) so that you have the option to choose a difficulty that has slightly less rewards but is actually viable based on your gear
As far as what you can do to improve your win rates I can suggest a few things:
You need to make sure you have multiple ways to gain barrier. For a berserker I am not sure if there are reliable ways through spells, so I will only point out gear methods.
Dwarven Necklace - gives 10%/20%/30%/40% chance to create barrier on Big III (or higher) matches. This is my #1 piece of equipment to focus on upgrades. Going from level 15 to 25 on this piece will double your ability to generate barrier.
To compliment the necklace it is almost imperative that you have 4 pieces of the Royal Set in order to get the create 3 (or 4/5/6/7) Big III mana gems at the start of battle.
Another way to get more Big III (2/3/4/5/6) at the start of battle is the Savior’s Helm.
With Royal Set x4, Savior’s Helm, and Dwarven Necklace you should be able to generate a first turn Barrier very often with 5+ Big III gems on the board at the start.
From there, focus on spells that will allow you to generate mana and create stun situations (match 7s).
A kick-ass weapon also helps, but often that depends on the luck of the drops or some serious resource grinding (not that that works very well). I would try to get my hands on a Royal Longsword in Red for Berserker if you can for the set bonus. Really the weapon level is going to be the most important since damage goes WAY up when weapons get over level 25-ish.
It feels like whoever did the rebalancing simply went “end game players are L50, so we’ll scale L50 content to them”.
Ignoring the massive cliff face of difficulty difference between a player who had just levelled up from 49 to 50 with their first character, as opposed to someone who can reliably farm a Difficulty X L100 enemy dungeon.
It’s almost like they don’t actually have someone play through the game as it is, rather than use devtools to gift themselves a L50 character with legendary gear and kid themselves into thinking that is equivalent to the real player experience of reaching 50.
In fact I think for every update I’ve seen so far there have been calls asking for players to be able to pick the level of difficulty of the dungeon/skirmish, like we can for Difficulty I-X, but extend that below L50.
I’ve been playing since early August, level 50 (44) Necro, gear score in the mid 1500s (it fluctuates slightly when I swap spells). I cannot reliably defeat the medium level dungeons (lvl 40, gear score 1688) at all - maybe 1 in 7 victories. For the daily events, I can beat the mini-boss, and die after 1-2 shots from the boss. Consequently, I’m now fighting, and winning, easy level dungeons each time, but getting level 30 loot from it, not the level 35-40 that would more likely boost my chances to getting to level 35 epics across the board (I’ve epic’d all but one gear slot, and 2 of 4 spells).
Prior to the change, I was successfully running “hard mode” on most dungeons, level 35-38. The damage gap between 35 and 40 is substantial, so I’m faced with less daily progress by having to fight level 30.
Solution: more plateaus! Start at level 20, and scale by 5. That way, I can slot in again at 35 and have a chance at glyphs that I will not ever get otherwise. I have dozens of legendary runes and scrolls, and a grand total of 3 glyphs, no duplicates. Since I can’t farm chests that can drop glyphs, I’m slowed down to leveling gear to 35 across the board, rather than seeking a legendary weapon slot. Who knows though, maybe I’ll get lucky with a legendary weapon drop that I can level later.
@fishhead that gear score is quite low, I’m level 50 with a Gear Score of 1,055, so that’s higher than yours, but my Gear Score is also low as it is.
When did you start playing your Berserker?
I’m wondering if it was before or after some of the early difficulty changes and rebalancing that happened where we sent out a bunch of random gear for people more appropriate to their Hero level at the time?
Are you using Eveline’s Relic exchange feature to get the Relics you need to progress your Gear further?
I understand the recent changes made the game more difficult, and that feedback has been getting passed on. In this particular case I’m very curious about your Gear Score, as it’s not where I would expect it to be at this stage and if I know why I can provide some more insightful feedback to the dev team.
When I hit 50 I had not yet reached 1,000 GS but I did my best to optimize all my choices based on my prior experience of playing (my main account is currently Level 50(136)).
You can see all my choices detailed along the way! I feel pretty confident that most new players would not have have the same insights to make efficient choices so it’s not surprising to me that someone just hitting Level 50 would have a Gear Score < 1,000. Is it really surprising to you?
It’s surprising to me or I wouldn’t have asked for more details
The questions I asked fishhead were to determine at least a couple of things:
Are they having a hard time farming Gear?
As a player who started at around X update which “insights” is fishhead missing that would help them have a higher Gear Score at level 49 - as maybe those insights need to be included in a better way in the tutorials or surfaced better in the game
As well as just gathering general feedback that can be used for balancing.
Fair enough. My exhaustive post of starting an account post 0.36 without the benefit of the free gear then should provide a good perspective of someone starting at that point.
It does make me curious though: Where did I go wrong if I should have had a Gear Score above 1,000 when hitting level 50. The only thing that I did not do to push my advancement along as best as possible was to spend money.
Based on the items gifted with the 0.36 update - I think was 4 Epic L35 pieces - if that is the expected gear a L50 player should have, then something is wrong - either in your expectation of the level of gear players should have by that stage, or what the game is dropping.
I started in 0.35 and my assassin reached L50 in Ch12, pushed through to the end of the story without finding anything better than Rare gear. I had L25/15 at best in each slot. Didn’t find a single Epic, and evolving wasn’t possible because relics were not dropping at all.
The 0.37 update gave us a bundle of relics to start using to evolve items, though an artificial drop of materials that regular players starting now do not have. Pushing my 4th and 5th characters through the story on 0.37 I wasn’t finding relics or Epic items in the chests they earned, instead relying on higher rarity levelled gear from my other 3 characters.
Saying they need better gear score is essentially saying the game needs to be dropping better items. The limits are in areas the player doesn’t have much control over - random drops, getting common item drops even from Ruby and Diamond chests. The daily challenges and raids did provide ways to earn specific items that simply didn’t drop during story mode, but I really don’t consider farming for desired gear until I’ve hit the level cap 50. For 3 of my characters they hit L50 pretty much in line with finishing the story and doing about 50 PVP battles.
There are a group of players whose gear is so underleveled because of over-reliance on stunlocks that at level 50, they cannot handle level 30 easy encounters without relying on this crutch (this is the sub-1000 gear score group). This group has problems because they cannot handle Events to earn marks or farm skirmishes for shards to level up their gear.
Perhaps leveling to 50 is too fast now to give players enough time to farm shards. Perhaps this change was meant to encourage purchasing shards in the shop as a form of monetization. Maybe a little bit of both.
Is it desired that players play though with the same set of gear on multiple characters to give themselves more time to level up their gear?
With the 0.38 changes, only Story mode allows for a temporary number of low level encounters per character to earn shards to level up a piece of gear. It’s not an elegant solution to the matter, but it technically works at the moment.
4 pieces of level 35 Epic gear sounds about right.
I have 2 Epic pieces. Only Relics and Gold are holding me back to get 3 more there.
Bearing in mind though I honestly ignored the relic exchange until literally this week so I’m expecting to get more Epic pieces quickly now that I’m actually using it, then Gold and Shards will be my issue next week.
My play style is more casual, I’m not a min maxer, I play for the enjoyment of the matching and spell casting, Dungeons are my fave.
I’ve never had anything higher than rare drop either.
I’ve also been conservative in spending my resources on upgrading Gear until I got the pieces I wanted.
I have used the Daily Deals religiously, and I refresh twice per day.
The account I’m playing on is an F2P account as well.
I mostly level up my Gear fairly evenly instead of racing ahead on one piece of Gear. Same with my Spells although I did race ahead on one spell a bit as it seemed like a good idea at the time (it really wasn’t though in retrospect haha)
I personally wouldn’t expect you to already have 4 pieces of level 35 gear upon reaching level 50, the Gear was given out for level 50 based on the fact a bunch of players had been sitting there for a little while as well.
This is a character I’ve been using since the start, I didn’t use the free Gear though because I was stubbornly wanting to use the Gear I wanted ultimately, rather than using all the Night Gear I got from the update mail.
I need to start a new character now since we’ve made so many changes to the game, I’ve been dragging my heels as I like my Berserker so much. I’d like to get a first hand perspective on what it’s like to start as a new player too. Disclaimer: other team members including Producers and Designers have started new accounts and been playing them to get the full experience, I just personally haven’t had time to do so yet. I will definitely have to do it soon. Because while gathering feedback from players gives me information on the new player experience, I know it’s not the same as doing it myself as well.
Please don’t rip me a new one for being a filthy casual I’m enjoying the discussion and we all have different playstyles. It’s nice to get on the forum and have a proper discussion instead of just reading and reporting, or replying with only one or 2 lines sometimes
I think this is absolutely not correct. Players at Level 50 and around Gear Score 1k are forced into Tier X event where it takes approximately 3 hits from the enemies to kill them. They are not purposefully undergeared relying on stun locks. They likely have a mish mash of gear that is not very synergistic. The new spell setup often makes it even harder to fill enough spells to even do enough damage to the bosses. The fact that they often have to rely on stun locks is not because they are lazy and are avoiding the developer mechanics you think are so fundamental. They legitimately can’t advance their character fast enough to keep up.
I really am not sure where your perspective is coming from. It feels outdated. Have you played a new account recently?
I can’t see any first time player achieving that gear with their first character by the time they hit L50.
Drop rates don’t provide that quality of gear, the materials needed to evolve, or possibly even the shards to afford upgrading them. And frankly a first character, first playthrough - they aren’t aiming for that perfect build in terms of gear - it’s a frankenstein build - it’s whatever is the most powerful item in slot - wrong colour, wrong set, but it’s higher rarity and therefore more powerful than whatever else you’ve got.
Maybe my expectations are out of sync with the designers, but I see L1-50 as essentially playing through story mode with a bit of casual PVP dailies alongside. The grind for gear really starts at L50 as you have all the dungeons unlocked and can try to work towards your perfect gear loadout.
While L50 is the player cap, putting a fresh L50 player in the same bracket as an experienced L50 who beats Difficulty X dungeons is just cruel. I think the highest difficult dungeon a player has managed to beat should also be factored in so they aren’t presented with such a vertical cliff face of a challenge.
What’s lost in all this conversation (EDIT: correction, as @Avenger also points out) is that there is a huge group of players that are effectively being eliminated from participating in Game content (i.e. Events). Whatever Gear Score they should or should not have, if the reality is that the average player just hitting level 50 with an approximate Gear Score of 1K is dying to a Tier X Event that they have no ability to downgrade, then that sounds like a problem. If the answer is that they should have achieved a higher Gear Score, that’s been amply demonstrated as not being possible on a single character playthrough. If the answer is that they need to do all 5 playthroughs to have acquired enough loot and resources along the way to even be viable in the event simply because they have jat minimum 1 Level 50 character, then that sounds like really bad design.
I don’t know at what level/rarity you unlock Tier 2 relic exchanges for Eveline, but once you get to that point, you can earn enough resources to evolve any gear you want from rare to epic. Buy relics in the shop or get some from challenges, use Eveline to switch and upgrade as needed. Just getting an epic weapon, Savior Helm and Dwarven Necklace will get you through just about anything in the game.
Also, still waiting to see if this patch has provided us with another way to earn relics…
I’m enjoying the discussion and we all have different playstyles. It’s nice to get on the forum and have a proper discussion instead of just reading and reporting, or replying with only one or 2 lines sometimes 
says … Outlook not so good