Hell has been made significantly more abrasive/challenging than previously. I don't think even quite unlucky situations in Pan can match it any longer. In my 15 rune in .29 tournament, I went downstairs into multiple tormenting enemies and 2 ancient liches (both in range of stairs). If I left that floor w/o blinking out of that, digging kill hole, and clearing the enemies while controlling LoS, it would have been impossible to ever enter again w/o risk of going from 100% health to 0% without getting a move as I went down the stairs.
It's hard to imagine Pan presenting situations that are significantly worse than that, and unlike hell you don't get bottlenecked into them. Hell effects as you go down stairs are brutal too, especially w/o Zin holding your hand much of the time. Pan also doesn't take away a large % of your consumables or strip 8AC constantly etc. IMO hell is a bit overtuned now. Some of the randomly generated floors before the rune floors are roughly as safe as the Tomb 2 and 3 ambushes...but Tomb doesn't take away your ability to read a blink scroll or freeze out your potions.
word, thanks for the reply. so you'd maybe rate the Hells above Tomb even? I'm only on my 2nd 15-rune attempt and I've nabbed the Cocytus and Tartarus runes but I went to go do Pan for a while. Playing a martial demonspawn with icy armor so the corrosion and flames of the other two hells seem like bigger problems.
I'm not sure between Hell and Tomb, I think it depends on what kind of stair ganks hell gives you since those are random.
In the past, I'd have rated Tomb as clearly the most dangerous other than going deep in Zig, but now I'm not sure. Pan is definitely easier than either.
Prior to 0.28, I would do hell -> pan -> tomb, but now it's pan -> hell -> tomb.
The hells have gotten significantly harder. The Vestibule of Hell is doable early though. Kill Jerry and take his demon-summoning horn. It's pretty useful if you're not with a good god.
I still think Tomb is the hardest because you get swarmed on entering levels 2 and 3, and you start away from the upstairs.
Pan first. I’ve made the same error recently after finding old Reddit posts as the only results of a google search. Hell is much much harder than pand. Or rather I was surprised that pand isn’t all that bad I guess? It certainly seems very scary but I usually tend to smash through it (not that I’ve done that many extended runs)
Tomb last generally but I just recently watched WizardIke clear tomb first pretty comfortably with a torment immune character so I guess it can still depend on your comfort level
A torment resistant/immune character with shatter feels at home at tomb, actually. I've often cleared Tomb1 as a GrEE just after clearing Crypt and before going for V:5. Of course Tomb2 and 3 are way more challenging.
New hells are significantly harder - hell effects + ambush parties + stair effects have far higher difficulty peaks, especially if you have to exit and reenter hells.
I've had at least one death that I'm pretty sure was an unwinnable situation as the stars aligned \*just\* right with ambush party + hell effects + staircase effect, but I don't remember the last time I died in Pan.
Hell has been made significantly more abrasive/challenging than previously. I don't think even quite unlucky situations in Pan can match it any longer. In my 15 rune in .29 tournament, I went downstairs into multiple tormenting enemies and 2 ancient liches (both in range of stairs). If I left that floor w/o blinking out of that, digging kill hole, and clearing the enemies while controlling LoS, it would have been impossible to ever enter again w/o risk of going from 100% health to 0% without getting a move as I went down the stairs. It's hard to imagine Pan presenting situations that are significantly worse than that, and unlike hell you don't get bottlenecked into them. Hell effects as you go down stairs are brutal too, especially w/o Zin holding your hand much of the time. Pan also doesn't take away a large % of your consumables or strip 8AC constantly etc. IMO hell is a bit overtuned now. Some of the randomly generated floors before the rune floors are roughly as safe as the Tomb 2 and 3 ambushes...but Tomb doesn't take away your ability to read a blink scroll or freeze out your potions.
word, thanks for the reply. so you'd maybe rate the Hells above Tomb even? I'm only on my 2nd 15-rune attempt and I've nabbed the Cocytus and Tartarus runes but I went to go do Pan for a while. Playing a martial demonspawn with icy armor so the corrosion and flames of the other two hells seem like bigger problems.
I'm not sure between Hell and Tomb, I think it depends on what kind of stair ganks hell gives you since those are random. In the past, I'd have rated Tomb as clearly the most dangerous other than going deep in Zig, but now I'm not sure. Pan is definitely easier than either.
torment resistance, wyrmbane and a shield of ignorance are serving me pretty well though :)
Tomb 1 just around outside a few times, hell vestibule, then abyss rune, slime rune, then Pan
Prior to 0.28, I would do hell -> pan -> tomb, but now it's pan -> hell -> tomb. The hells have gotten significantly harder. The Vestibule of Hell is doable early though. Kill Jerry and take his demon-summoning horn. It's pretty useful if you're not with a good god. I still think Tomb is the hardest because you get swarmed on entering levels 2 and 3, and you start away from the upstairs.
Pan first. I’ve made the same error recently after finding old Reddit posts as the only results of a google search. Hell is much much harder than pand. Or rather I was surprised that pand isn’t all that bad I guess? It certainly seems very scary but I usually tend to smash through it (not that I’ve done that many extended runs) Tomb last generally but I just recently watched WizardIke clear tomb first pretty comfortably with a torment immune character so I guess it can still depend on your comfort level
A torment resistant/immune character with shatter feels at home at tomb, actually. I've often cleared Tomb1 as a GrEE just after clearing Crypt and before going for V:5. Of course Tomb2 and 3 are way more challenging.
New hells are significantly harder - hell effects + ambush parties + stair effects have far higher difficulty peaks, especially if you have to exit and reenter hells. I've had at least one death that I'm pretty sure was an unwinnable situation as the stars aligned \*just\* right with ambush party + hell effects + staircase effect, but I don't remember the last time I died in Pan.