Empowered monoliths - two questions

First, the difficulty.
The timelines are level 55, 60, 65, etc. It gets harder and harder. Then when monoliths are empowered, the level is supposed to be 100. But if Reign of Dragons is more difficult than Fall of the Outcast, what level is it really? 130, to maintain the original difference? Probably not, because it’s supposed to be level 100.
I’ve done two empowered timelines, the two lowest. On the second, I started to feel the increase of difficulty, so I know it’s real. So what is the difference? How can level 100 be more difficult than level 100 even without applying any modifier?

And second question, what are you doing Empowered timelines for?
I unlocked Empowered timelines with one here and I did the first two timelines. In the second one, I felt a difficulty increase. Not huge, but real. Then, what makes you play empowered? To get better blessings, that will help you play empowered. So back to my question, why play empowered? I’m not a player motivated by difficulty. A difficulty increase has no appeal on me. I’m not a competitive player either, so I use Arena as a leveling tool for skills when respec’ing but I don’t push. What I like is creating builds, playing them for a while (a short while, I’m afraid), then switch to other builds and so on. In monoliths, I’m happy with the story. I love the “what if” twist they represent. But I feel empowered versions do not bring anything for me.
And you? What motivates you to play the whole empowered timelines?

Definitely the Empowered Blessings are worth it for me, but also getting high ‘MF’ values really needs you to be in the empowered timelines with the multiplier to the mods. If you want to more T6 and T7 on your gear you ought to be in the highest modifiers you can still kill quickly in.

Except it’s an additive bonus to xp & quality, not a multiplicative bonus. Therefore you’d see more incrimental benefit at lower timelines (a +50% additive bonus is more of a buff at 50% MF than it is at 500% MF).

I meant the multiplier Empowered applies to the monolith mods you get!

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Every boss has at least one empowered only unique drop.

If blessings and character progression are no incentive for you, there is no other reason currently.

I am sure that we will get harder content some days, that requires you to get strong enough via empowered monoliths.

Also T7 exalted affixes only drop in lvl 90+ areas.
So only the last 3 normal time lines or a empowered time lines.

The instantenous difficulty increase in empowered MoF is only the mob lvl and 50% more dmg and health.

The mob lvl does substantially increase the base health.

But the most important thing is, that the initial 50% damage and health modifiers are multiplicative with all other modifiers you choose, which are also 70% more intense.

TL:DR: exclusive items, better blessings and better scaling for exp and loot

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I believe all Empowered Monoliths are the same level, but certain bosses have mechanics that are more dangerous when scaled (such as Emperor of Corpes’ AOE blast or Rahyeh’s Shadow Bomb).

Min maxing my favorite classes. I would play even more if I knew these characters would be sticking around post release. As it is, I only farm empowered blessings to the extent I want to test the upper capabilities of a particular build (so I know if I want to play it upon release or not). I usually only farm until I get the right blessing. When I’m playing the release version of the game I will probably also farm until I get a high roll of my preferred blessing on my main character(s).

So most of you play empowered in order to get blessings and stuff (uniques and exalted) that will enable you to play empowered. That’s what I thought, thanks for the responses!
I hope in the other endgame systems we’ll be able to use the benefits from Monoliths. At the moment, I see no reason for me to play empowered (personal preference, of course). Or almost no reason, only the specific uniques can attract me, but their drop rate is not very encouraging.

And about the difficulty, it’s just the scaling for bosses’ abilities? So basically the mobs in Fall of the Outcast and Reign of the Dragons have the same exact health and damage, if empowered?

No, the % more health & damage that monoliths have when empowered counts for all mobs in the monolith.

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OK, so they all are level 100 but some have more damage and health, depending on what timeline they were when not empowered.
It really looks like 55 becomes 100 but the others become more than 100. ^^

No the baseline for all empowered timelines will be mob lvl 100.
So all timelines are equal in empowered.

But the later timelines require more echoes conquered to spawn the boss, which makes them artifically more difficult. (Fall of the Outcasts can spawn the boss at Echo Count 10 already, while for Reign of Dragons andd the 3 newly added timelines need Echo Count 24-26)

If you get stronger you can faster/more easily clear echoes and you could try to push echoes instead of defeating the boss.

If you have a character that can push Echo 50+ echoes for exmaple, you can collect massive amounts of loot.

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Great, that sums it up! With that, it makes sense. :slight_smile:

Sure, but what for? I will get more loot, that will help me play more monolith…
I totally understand people who do that and I wish I could, but I find it rather boring. What I prefer is level a hero, slowly create a build, then tune it a build, play it for a (little) while… and go for another buid, another hero, etc.
Maybe it will be different when the game releases, who knows? I plan to have one “main” hero that will do all activities I’m capable of, then have multiple other heroes mainly for fun and testing purposes. I’m really not a pusher or competitive, so for me the interest of the monoliths is in the story, in the “what if” twist.

I am sure we will get endgame beyond monolith at some point.

Possibly very soon.

Yes, I’m really confident about this.
What I don’t understand is that I feel this boring, while I have 2K hours of Diablo 3, with rifts and greater rifts that are far less interesting than Monoliths. While getting “old” I also get impatient. ^^

It’s the feeling of progress by improving your gear and character. Because you will begin to clear monos faster the better your gear and blessings get. This is a kind of measurement to rate your build.

Also if you want to go to the highest Arena levels you might want to bring max blessings/gear.

I, too, am more enjoying the creation of different builds than grinding for min/maxing. But beating all mono bosses on empowered timelines is the proof for a working build. I’m satisfied with my character when I achieved this.

Some empowered boss drops are also desirable.

And for farming build defining mono bossdrop uniques it doesn’t hurt to have a beast of character you blast through the content with.

:wink:

So it’s really kill monsters in order to be able to kill faster more difficult monsters. For me (and I agree it’s a personal point of view) it’s not worth. I mean, I don’t like high difficulties. I like a bit of challenge, but not much. So killing more difficult monsters is not for me.
Arena is not for me either. I’m not a competitive person, I’m not a difficulty pusher.
And for my build, I’m not patient enough to play builds for so long. The few ones I’m currently slowly pushing are exceptions.
And proof of working for my builds is very easy: only one of them seems to work. I mean, I pushed up to Rahyeh with this build without getting bored (even if I feel it’s starting) and without real difficulties. For all my other personal builds, I got bored after the Abomination. Bored because of repetitivity and because of the will to try other build ideas.

Let’s be clear: I don’t want to be negative. I totally approve of the idea of pushing a build to its limit, of making it better and better, of getting better loot and blessings, etc. And I wish I could also enjoy all that, but I can’t. My question was not any kind of criticism, it was pure curiosity. I wanted to know if I was missing something.

I’m totally in love with Last Epoch. I stopped all other games since I purchased it (except several hours in Diablo 3 to level a Sorceress), I play it, I read about it, I think about it… I even dream about it. But definitely, my favourite activity is to create builds, confirm that they can go a bit further than the campaign, then switch to other ideas.

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What would be a motivation for you to play your characters further? Do you need a clear goal like achievements? More story content? What would be an endgame mode that might motivate you?

In a game such as this, with shared stash and loot, killing faster and killing monsters that drop higher quality items improves the quality of life of your alts. I usually hate my league starter character in POE because it’s such a drudge to kill slowly. I love that first alt equipped in the best uniques for low level where you feel like a real powerhouse even without a lot of skill points. The same applies to LE. If I can use a scaling 2H unique mace and movement speed rings after the first stop at camp, it’s a lot more fulfilling than grinding out a second character as slowly as the first.

How do you get those max roll uniques? By farming on your best characters. I have characters that I use to farm particular monoliths, others that farm Arena for gold and some that I play just because I enjoy the mechanics of their attacks. Each feeds the account in different ways that allows me to pump out alts and prolong my enjoyment of the game.

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I don’t know. Of course I’ll try all endgame systems the game will have, so hopefully one of them. Knowing how I am, I guess it would be something story-driven, but even that is not 100% sure. Another small motivation would be to have viable builds, but that is fully on my side. ^^

I do the same for some heroes. Rings that give a high movement speed, gloves than summon bees, etc. But I already have these equipments, and I have more than one of each. :wink:

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