I don't really do endgame, and have one degree or another of aversion to most of what it usually means in MMOs – forced teaming and the trinity, dungeon and raid tiers, gear grinds and gear scores, build guides and tactics videos. None of this is what drew me to MMOs, nor what keeps me in them.
A lot of this is going to come up in the next few posts, since as I close in on the upper levels of Neverwinter all of this is becoming increasingly relevant, as are the huge changes that were made to the game in early 2019 with Module 16. Healing, for example, is in a very different place now and I'm still not sure what I think about that. It will be a few more days and a lot more dead dungeon bosses before I make up my mind.
In the meantime... build guides.
There's a few MMOs where you can choose to let the game make all your skill up decisions for you as you level. Secret World Legends is one and I recall Rift doing something similar. It's not a feature I'd ever use – I like my characters to feel like my characters, and if that means they're not 100% optimised then so be it. It's the same reason I've never followed a build guide point for point.
That's not to say I won't read or watch a guide and take something from it. There comes a point in Neverwinter when gear improvements – especially the refining of enchantments and artefacts – becomes very resource intensive, and as I get nearer to level 60 that's where I am now. I'd as soon not waste what I have on items I won't be holding onto, so I have been taking some time to read over recent guides and get some idea of what's good for Rogues in 2020.
If I mess up my build after that it's all on me.
It was only really the experience of being killed over and over again in the Chasm that led me to read up more fully on all the changes that were made with the launch of Undermountain, and the zone did become less deadly after that. However the first boss of Cragmire Crypts is still killing me. At level 52. Yes, I'm scaled down to level 19 but at this level I used to be able to solo that entire dungeon with autorun and Path of the Blade. That I can no longer do so is no bad thing. After I've done a few more dungeons then maybe I'll have decided whether or not it's a good thing.
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