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I am playing on champion and any and all ambition to play on nightmare is slowly disappearing. Not because it is (too) hard, but because there seems to be a fundamental error in design. Grinding is not fun, yet this is exacxtly what we get.
Insane HP on creatures = fights become a grind. (They are not hard, I can basically stand and soak damage.)
Required T4 xp: beyond insane. Again, grind, grind, and more grind.
Fighting three wolves for 15 minutes is not fun. It is just a growling and snarling roadblock that casually soaks 50K hits several times in a row.
The problem here is simple. The HP counts jump by a lot but the tools to deal with that HP do not really improve. The upgrade bench makes a much smaller difference than the change in HP. Also, the required T4 xp to actually upgrade everything runs into uncomfortably high numbers. A single upgrade to purple takes 225 xp. Meaning one needs to clear 3 defenses or 6 infestations. Have a look at how many there on a given map. Not to mention the time it takes to do so.
| Category Tags | Creatures/Enemies, Combat |
| Mode | Both Online & Offline |
| Sentiment | Critical |
More insight after having completed a playthrough each of pure melee, ranged and magick on Nightmare (start to finish):
The builds are viable, but melee's viability tapers off starting around Herbarium, where the knife becomes mandatory to deal reasonable damage because of its weakpoint criticals (higher than normal criticals). In Ascended the knife is the only viable tool for pure melee for the same reason, even with full upgrades and min-maxed gear. Fights are not more difficult, as the damage output of creatures does not skyrocket, but they are more time consuming because their health pools (read: "health ocean planets") do skyrocket.
I spent a while just swinging an axe at their weakpoints, and using a maul to, you know, maul them. Weapon/tool damage just can't keep pace with their health, and even if it's meant for group content all it would take is one min-maxed longbow user to end the fight in a very short period of time; even the knife can't do that because of the inconsistent landing of weakpoint criticals (backstab to the head), and even the extreme difficulty of doing so because of creature design and weakpoint placement (the bound sniper weakpoint is...above their heads. Seriously, you have to shoot an inch or two above their heads to hit it. Same with stabby-stabbing with the knife).
The down-damage/stun (magick doesn't get critical damage, as the damage is a flat bonus not based on the casting tool) increase also does not make fights more doable for melee builds, having tested with dispel grenade + ice ammo.
A pure magick build can better deal with the insane health pools, but it's only a little less tedious. Pure ranged builds (particularly with longbows because of their high critical potential) are the only option that makes fights not take minutes per creature, and even then they're not overly short.
Health pools in Ascended realms, especially on Nightmare, need to be drastically re-balanced/reduced.