I remember a few solo players saying that they finished the Season Journey in 30 hours. Many people managed to finish it in 35-40 hours, solo and in group, and that was from season start so no one there to boost them. Of course those people usually know what to do, play quite efficiently, and put some planning into it. However, that was for Guardian, not Conqueror, which is much easier to achieve.
If you *want* to do it solo, it'll take a bit longer. WD is probably fastest in the beginning, DH is probably easiest towards the end, but every class should do this in about the same time (maybe a difference of 5 hours in the end, which is not worth it playing a class you don't like). Here's the "guide":
- Chaining massacres on Master or hard you get from 1 to 70 in 3-4 hours without much practice (WD will be 1-2 hours faster than any other class but it doesn't matter in the end). Large open areas in acts 1 and 3 are best for that. Throw in a bounty every now and then (especially Rakanoth, Izual, and after 60 Cydaea and Siegebreaker, to finish those Season Journey chapters 1+2. Bounties with chests will get you some gear. Time: 3-4 hours played.
- Once 70, run a T1 rift and a T12 rift (or T13 empowered) to get your Bane of the Powerful and level it to rank 3. Then do the stuff needed to complete Chapter 2 (most likely the last thing you need is just gold to level up the artisans). Time: 4-5 hours played.
- Chain some rifts and GRs, always make sure you get 100% upgrades on your Bane of the Powerful (run +3 empowered or +2 unempowered of your current gem rank). If you feel that GRs take too long don't run lower tiers, just do more normal rifts to get better gear and save up keys. Make sure to run at least one T4 to unlock GR20. Time: 5-6 hours played.
- When everything but GR20 (Chapter 4) and bounty run (Chapter 3) is finished, start a full bounty run. That's the part that takes most time solo, but it needs to be done. I'd recommend T2; you have a 50% chance for cache legendaries, but it should still be easy enough to be relatively fast. Then grab your second Haedrig and do the GR20. Time: ~7 hours played.
- With your full 6 piece set you can now farm Torment rifts quite fast. Stay on T6 as long as possible and only go higher if you feel you're really totally one-shotting everything and it gets too boring. If a rift takes more than 5 minutes or you die multiple times, lower it. Alternate with Greater Rifts, always making sure to get 100% upgrades on gems. You do this probably for another 10 hours now, probably more. Time: ~20 hours played.
- Gems: Your goal is to get Bane of the Powerful and two other gems to 55; obviously something like Bane of the Trapped + another gem that fits your class/spec is best, but since you're only doing GR60 in the end you can also level a different gem. You won't need Bane of the Stricken at all so don't level that one. You can also just level one of the toughness gems, Esoteric or Moratorium, if you don't get your gems (I got Trapped+Enforcer as #19 and #20 drop out of 21 in S7 and lost ~30 upgrades because I was too focused on getting them). In the end, your goal is just to get 3 rank 55 gems as fast as possible.
- Money: Cube rings. Not weapons or anything else; just rings. Getting a Puzzle Ring and doing a Vault will give you quick money that will let you empower rifts and save you some time. Plus, you can always get lucky with getting good goblins in the Vault. Make sure to run on a difficulty not too high such that you can kill off all goblins.
- Once you have all gems at 55, you can finish the Season Journey. The last steps necessary are:
- Two full bounty runs on T7. Together with that T2 bounty run early on you have 22 mats (6+8+8) which is just enough to cube 20 legendary powers (make sure to keep enough crap legendaries to have stuff to extract!) and reforge one legendary (preferably a non-ancient weapon). Time: ~22 hours played.
- Farm one set of machines (100% drop on T4) and do ubers (on T10). Time: ~23 hours played.
- Do the conquests - your power level is now high enough to one-shot "The Thrill" just by the power of your gems. Also do Avarice/Avaritia which is ridiculously easy; you need a Boon of the Hoarder (doesn't need to be leveled) and go to Ruins of Corvus. Put on some toughness gear and explore the entire map without killing anything (pet classes un-summon your pets). Plan your route without dead ends. Switch to your DPS gear (if possible add Goldskin, maybe in cube) and run your route. I haven't done it but I've heard that using this strategy on T10+ it's a safe bet and usually a one-shot as well. Time: ~24 hours played.
- The hardest parts in the end - Gheed (T13 Vault), Ghom (T13) in under 30 seconds, T13 in under 5 minutes, and the GR60 solo. Those depend a lot on how much loot you got and which class/spec you're playing. If you're not powerful enough just grind more gear and it'll take more time, but it shouldn't take *a lot more*. Time: ~30 hours played at most.
- Keep track of your season journey, especially the "hidden" achievements for Conqueror that you can't see yet when you're still missing the augment for Destroyer. Use the tracker: http://d3resource.com/journey/ - once you have everything complete but the augments, take 2 of your gems and augment them on random pieces of gear. Done, congratz on your stash tab!
Now that is for entirely solo, and those times are pretty much "worst case" for someone dedicated finishing it without too much doodling around. Of course all of that can be reduced by a crazy amount due to powerleveling and boosting. Basically if you have friends who are fine helping you all the way you can probably get everything but the GR60 solo in 5-10 hours of playtime or so. Even if you don't have friends ask in one of the many many powerlevel/boost communities - they're really helpful and happy doing this (make sure to not be an idiot and die while being powerleveled which is really annoying for the booster; stay at the entrance of the rift unless told otherwise). Grinding rifts is so boring that some people actually don't mind having people tag along. And especially for things like bounties, the T13 in 5 minutes, and ubers there are so many people in so many communities helping each other out, don't do this on your own. I think the middle way is to get boosted to 70, finish Chapter 4 alone, then run rifts, GRs, and the two bounties in public games. That should be enough to give you the stash tab in ~15-20 hours or less, so one week if you play 2-3 hours an evening.
1
Run mammoth Hydra,
magic weapon/force weapon if you need damage upped
blizzard/frozen mist if you need CC, otherwise apocalypse,
black hole/event horizon to help avoid affix's/projectiles
teleport/safe passage, calamity if you want to be more aggressive With the APD I'd run calamity
for primary I run arcane torrent /flame ward BUT I have really good arcane regen...really you can run whatever you're comfortable with here.,
Blur
unstable anomaly
evocation
illusionist,
sub arcane dynamo again if you need more damage, especially before casting Hydra.
This can be adjusted upward for damage, or defensively if you're feeling too squishy. But it's a start.
It isn't all fire BUT you have a CoE right?
Try and snag some Strongarm wrists...or craft some Reapers Wraps.
1
I don't get the disparity with Kadala? Does anyone or has anyone ever used her to get yellows deliberately? is that an early game thing?
Why can't they adjust her output to be relatively 50-50 minimally? Wouldn't be a complete fix but it would ease it tremendously.
1
People play solo for a myriad of reasons.
I'm sure there are more. I like the increased exp/drop chance but I don't like to fly through a run. I like to kick every tire and check every loose stone usually.
Occasionally I'll drop into a friends group and do some runs for the quick exp/drops, but not often.
1
LOL, Sounds like mass chaos. I'd love to see that implemented just to see what happens.
1
First rule of "brainstorming" is to not criticize ideas offered up. Essentially you violated rule number one, on many levels, and with nothing offered to help the situation. Congratulations. This begs the "who died and made you boss" line from back in, I dunno, third grade?
I would love to see a Barb set that does direct weapon damage, pure hack n slash like a Barb was meant to do. None of the current builds appeal to me at all. In fact it's the one class I avoid. Pleasse make it better.
1
Harder levels without a timer pushing you forward.
The ability to actually play as a team, pull, kite, etc instead of forced to zerg.
How would that ever be desirable?
1
I came here to avoid all the little timmies that still ride the bus to school, or at least wish they were.
As for Blizzard wanting your money, the house you live in costs money, hell, that food in the fridge, yep, costs money too...
Things like the server control, D2 still online and plugging along.
I don't get this, is it a medication thing, a plea for attention, or maybe just some teen angst and railing against the man?
Big waste of time reading this thread, should be locked and tossed.
1
Yes.
Is this over yet?
2
1
This on a new lvl 70 HC charatcer, the only one I have, certainly NOT set up like all my SC characters, not material/cash rich by any stretch..
Certainly agree generally that crafted ancients will be less powerful, but some classes, especially when combining crafted sets, can do quite well, again especially from the casual time restricted player point of view.
This really does sound more like people feel that unless 100's of hours have been invested, the player isn't worthy of having ancient items. That's really sad.And again, doesn't seem to be the desire of the developers.