D3

Re-balancing Greater Rifts

With the infinite scaling of damage on greater rifts I think the design philosophy for combat pacing that came with RoS has been lost.  The original posts are now gone from bnet but can be found other places. These are the posts I am talking about:

http://diablo.somepage.com/blue/10039514450-expansion-tidbits-and-defensive-slower-pace-of-game

I think higher greater rifts have failed at these philosophies almost entirely.  With the high incoming damage and vastly increase healing in Greater Rifts with 2.1 we are now back to "almost one shot" "back to full health" play style.

Some of these ideas have been put out before but I think alone the changes are not enough and that a combination would work.

I think that monster HP increases will still be needed and are one way to increase the difficulty.  It might need to be tuned later but for iteration one the current scaling would work. For damage as these are end game, I feel they should be fixed at T6 levels from start to end.  With damage not scaling in greater rifts healing should also be tuned back down, maybe not all the way back to pre 2.1 level but  at least a little lower.

I believe that what makes elites dangerous are the affixes so to increase the difficultly greater rifts should change the available affixes champions can have.

1-15 3 elite affixes

16-30 4 elite affixes

30-45 6 elite affixes

46-60 8 elite affixes, in addition 2 Strong CC affixes allowed from here up

61-75 10 elite affixes, in addition any Aggressive affix combo is allowed again

76-90 12 elite affixes, in addition 2 Defensive affixes allowed from here up

91-105 14 elite affixes, in addition Invulnerable Minions are allowed >:D

105+ All affixes

In addition to more affixes the rate of which they are cast can also increase difficulty, so giving elites cooldown reduction will allow them to spam their skills more.

1-10 0% cooldown reduction

11-20 10% cooldown reduction

21-30 20% cooldown reduction

31-40 30% cooldown reduction + 25% cast range

41-50 40% cooldown reduction

51-60 50% cooldown reduction

61-70 60% cooldown reduction

71-80 70% cooldown reduction + 50% cast range

81-90 80% cooldown reduction

91-100 90% cooldown reduction

100+ No cooldown

To help balance lucky rifts or fishing for rifts the simple solution is to progress like the game along with removing pylons and shrines from greater rifts

1-20 Act 1 Mobs Only

21-40 Act 2 Mobs Only

41-60 Act 3 Mobs Only

61-80 Act 4 Mobs Only

81-100 Act 5 Mobs Only

100+ Act 4/5 combined

The last change is to the CC resistance that elites build up.  Last I have heard before ROS is it builds to and caps at 65%, so to increase difficulty increasing this cap slightly

1-30 65% immunity

31-60 73% immunity

61-90 81% immunity

91+ 90% immunity

TL;DR  

Stop scaling damage, keep scaling hp (maybe with a revisit), change the difficulty of elites with affixes and mechanic changes.

Thoughts?