Sometimes in Chronicon, as you are going through the acts you might have to clear quite a few zones before getting to a boss. Other times you find yourself running into quick sessions of them sometimes just a zone apart if that.
This ended up being quite a fun morning. I shortly started off taking out what I thought was the boss. It was a lot weaker than I was expecting and turns out I was tricked into killing it.
The real culprit as it turns out was The assistant who had been leading me on for a couple of zones by now. The backstabbing however did not go how they thought it would. I put that ugly thing out of existence quicker than you could grab a bottle of bug spray.
It was then time to go clear out The Dark Tower and bag myself yet another boss. While The Dark Tower had three different levels to it. I did not find it that bad to clear out. I was kind of expecting with a name like that for it to be a bit longer, to be honest.
The boss fight at the end was a little different than others and rather fun. There were a few different gargoyles guarding the boss that activated in pairs that I had to take out.
Then the game gave me what I wanted. Further floors of The Dark Tower. There ended up being another three floors before I hit the final boss floor for the place.
Along the way, I lucked out and had a Unstable Dimension spawn. Thinking back to how many I’ve seen now my first character had a few more of these spawn than mine has even at his much higher level. It was not that long to clear out but I did find some upgrades in terms of loot.
Then I went back to the sixth floor to continue working on climbing the tower. The final way forward was locked off by a lever mini-puzzle. All you had to do is go around flipping all the levers in the area. Once that was done you then could flip the final one next to the door that was facing the other direction of the rest.
It was then time to meet The Good Doctor who was not so good. I was just in time for his latest creation a potion that transformed him into this crazy-looking beast of a man. Needless to say, I and I did not get along. The Good Doctor was rather displeased with how the encounter went.
I never stopped to realize just how bloody parts of this game can become. Some of these boss fights can be downright horrific.
It was at this exact point I felt like I was just clearing the content far too easily. I wanted a bit more of a challenge and the game was ready to serve me with some fast deaths for asking for it. I switched to Heroic.
While it might not sound like it’s worth it with how massive of a boost in creature health and damage the higher difficulty is compared to the experience and crystals boost. You do get quite the kill streak bonus far better than the lower difficulty.
Most importantly however this is where legendary items start to drop. I would need to quickly find some of them if I wanted any chance at staying on this difficulty for very long. As it can be rather brutal otherwise.
I then had quite a few close calls and full-on dirt naps as well. The downside once you rack up some juicy kill steaks is if you get killed before they expire you get nothing. I ended up losing shortly later this one that went over 250 kills as my healing potions were on cooldown.
It went on like this for a while till I started to loot some legendary upgrades. The first one I looted was not that massive. I however will take a nice 64-damage increase. The only downside was I needed to wait one more level to use it.
It was also quite unusual I kept getting legendary helm drops. Each of them was slightly better than the last one so I was just happy to get an upgrade. I ended up settling on a Hellfire helm that dropped hoping I might find some other pieces along the way to get some set bonuses which is what need for this difficulty.
It was also no longer worth my time picking up rare or lower rarity items since they would not be worth my time anymore as far as upgrades are concerned. Thankfully I was just a couple of unchecks away in a menu settings for loot filters never seeing that lower rarity gear on my screen again.
I also decided since I had an ok pile of crystals for my level to try some item gambling. I ended up pulling out some amazing upgrades including this staff. I also replaced my boots, chest, and off-hand.
Doing this gave me the damage and health boost I needed to survive this harder difficulty. I’m rather glad you can get these lower legendary from gambling. If I recall right true legendary as they are called you cannot obtain from the gamble NPC.
The time had come for me to head out and do battle again. This time I was ready. Large packs of creatures laid to waste as I cleared forward on my hunt for the next boss to down. While I still got killed on occasion things were starting to click gear wise the frequency of it dropped a lot compared to when I first started this difficulty.
I will say at this difficulty you do start to feel the bosses being a bit more challenging. You can no longer just stand around face-tanking things looking at the wall wondering if you have counted to ten yet and the boss was dead.
Nope. These fighters were a bit longer. Long enough I realized I’d need to be tapping my mana potions as they came off cooldown to keep up with my mana burn. I’d pop my ultimate skill and try to get down as much damage as I could before it wore off. As long as I had mana remaining.
Final Thoughts
At the very least I did not get slain by any of the bosses I went off to fight. It just required being quicker on my feet. Admittedly I was starting to get a bit lazy when I was on normal difficulty. Now that I have made the transition over to Heroic difficulty. It will be a few levels before I up the difficulty even further.
Other Content
Screenshots were taken and content was written by @Enjar about Chronicon.
