Event: Hell Pit
Lore and OverviewIntroduced on November 21, 2019, Hell Pit was tied to the then current D&D hardback book, Descent into Avernus, where players end up in Avernus, the first layer of the Nine Hells. Hell Pit was released before Avernus was announced as a mod for Neverwinter, so it served as a preview in some ways.
Official blog post.In 2020, it seemed this event had been replaced with Harvester of Nightmares. However, in 2021 they again re-introduced Hell Pit.
"We are on the precipice of a war and the armies of hell are looking for souls to join the ranks. While any soul is helpful, there is a desire to collect souls of a more battle-hardened variety. What better way to find these souls then with a tournament that pits a worthy fighter against the denizens of hell?
That’s right adventurers - WELCOME TO THE HELL PIT! What is the hell pit you say? Well, the Hell Pit is an event where you must survive waves of enemies in arena style combat. If you survive you will be rewarded with a number of tokens based on the difficulty of the challenge."The IL restriction was removed. Everyone is scaled up to 80k IL, or left as-is if above 80k.
To start, speak to the Soul Broker, found at the event podium in PE. The only option is to sign your soul away to fight fiends in exchange for treasure. Once that is done, you go over to the pit to Hell (no idea why Lord Neverember doesn't have a problem with that), and go in to start the event.
Event FormatThe 2019 event ran from Nov 21 to Dec 12.
There are 21 days worth of challenges, split into 3 tiers of difficulty. Every 7 days worth of success will increase the difficulty level and unlock bigger challenges.
Every day, if you beat the base challenge you will receive a
Token of Participation. You can try as many times as you want, and may need several tries.
When you enter the swirling portal in PE, you end up in a short hallway and sign your contract. Go over to the gate and enter the arena. Mobs appear in waves, with a timer indicating the time left in the round. Use that to gauge healing needs and using up any daily powers, etc. When a round ends, you get a brief time off while succubi dance. All waves are fairly similar, without major surprises. You do once per wave get a random power-up. They use your "F" key by default and are thing like a boost to speed or a boost to healing, or dealing damage around you. Some (shield and heart) are much better than others. When you get back to PE, be sure to turn in the quest and get your token.
At the second tier (which you could unlock after 7 days), you gain a chance to earn an extra
Token of Participation via an optional bonus round. So, with the bonus you get 2 Participation, without you get 1.
Note: This second week can be much harder! The ground will now periodically show red circles. Move quickly away or they will fling you to the ground and inflict ongoing fire damage. The challenge seems to vary by day, and the bonus can be really hard with a lot of control if the wrong mobs show up. For the regular rounds, if you die you can try again, and the mobs can be easier the next time you try. See the tips section.
At the third tier (which you could unlock after 14 days), you face the most difficult challenges. You earn more
Token of Participation and 1
Token of Challenge (for a total of 7 if you complete the final week).
The third tier is a bit different. You only face 2 waves instead of 5, but the second is against mobs plus a challenging foe. There is no bonus round. It does not seem to be any harder than tier 2, and may be easier since you face fewer waves. The "challenging foe" does not seem that more challenging other than having tons of hit points.
Bosses: It seems everyone fights the same bosses. Each boss awarded me 1 Token of Challenge, 3 Tokens of Participation (despite Cryptic saying it could vary).
- The first day was Warmaster Baldric (mounted foe, similar to the mounting charging normal foes).
- The Beast, a Goristro), who is also fairly standard other than hit points.
- Chosen of Zariel is a pit fiend, and is harder because the attacks involve a fair bit of control, plus it summons some minor adds (imps). The adds disappear when the boss dies.
- Ralbog the Ruinous, a pit fiend (anagram of Balrog, from Lord of the Rings).
- Siege King Krug, a legionaire devil? He lays down a big red line and summons fire circles that knock you around. If you avoid those, it's generally not hard.
- Visage of Baphomet looks like the demon lord, and does a jump attack and summons a big circle of fire. The control can be very hard when you already have mobs heavy with control, but isn't as bad once the mobs are gone.
- Final boss! It both is and isn't what you expect! It's just the boss, with no mobs in wave 2. The boss doesn't hit too hard, but has an insane amount of health. Takes forever, but the only control is the usual small red fire circles. I did not need my power-up.
If you can complete 14 daily challenges, you get a
Token of Achievement.
According to Cryptic, you could earn up to 42 Token of Participation if you complete every day. My final count after 21 days was 41 Participation, 7 Challenge, and 1 Achievement.
Some factors to keep in mind:
- You can only succeed once a day.
- You can try as many times as you desire within each day until you succeed.
- Every 7 successes will increase the difficulty and payout leading into the final showdown with the pit champion.
- Event runs for 21 days. A minimum participation of 14 successes is needed to gain access to the participation rewards.
- Successes beyond 14 will yield tokens for additional rewards (See Rewards section for more information)
- Progress is tracked on account level – daily completion is limited to 1 per account.
- No IL restriction, must be level 80.
- This is a solo event – you must NOT be in a party.
RewardsThe event has three primary types of rewards. These are the same as the Nightmare event. The rewards have been updated various times and now come from the Appointment Event Vendor, found in PE by the druid's tree.
Token of Participation- Brilliant Diamond - 1 Token
- 5 Companion Upgrade Tokens - 2 Tokens
- 5 Mount Upgrade Tokens - 2 Tokens
- Box of Astral Diamonds (50k RAD) - 4 Tokens
- Stone of Health - 10 Tokens
- Glyph of Potency - 10 Tokens
- Epic Enchanting Stone - 10 Tokens
- Legendary Enchanting Stone - 15 Tokens
- Lathander's Dew, Lliira's Fare, Neverwinter Red Veins (food itesm) - 2 Tokens
(Below is an old image, showing what the store used to look like)
Token of Challenge- Bag of Holding (72-slot) - 5 Tokens.
- Legendary Insignia Choice Pack - 3 Tokens.
- 10x Pack of Preservation Wards - 1 Token.
- Powerful Overload Enchantments: Rage of Flames, Demonic Empowerment, Resiliency of Depths, Bulwark of Brimstone, Unholy Protection, Devils Precision. - 1 Token.
Token of Achievement- Legendary Mounts (Account-wide unlock): Golden Warhorse, Balgora, Beholder Personal Tank - 5 Tokens (Account-wide unlock!)
- Mythic Account-Wide Companions: Portobello DaVinci, Windsoul Genasi, Staldorf - 5 Tokens
- [color=#00FFFF]Coalescent Mote - 1 Token
(Again old image below for reference)
Tips and ExploitsThe 2021 event is significantly harder than in previous years. It became less hard in 2022. Some things to try:
- Swap any gear that increases damage to you for one that doesn't, even if its fairly old gear.
- Swap your Stronghold boons to boost potions or adjust stats for better defense.
- Swap companion to a healing companion, or companion powers to defensive or health ones.
- Use the Redemption companion power (purple enhancement power, first slot) to heal
- Swap your mount offensive power to deal AoE or heal, or your mount feature to be a defensive stat.
- Swap your insignias to use mount insignia powers such as Barbarian's Revelry, Champion's Return, and Knight's Rebuke.
- Use consumable buffs of various types (same type, such as Food, won't stack).
Use the timer to gauge when to spend resources. You can only have one power-up at a time, but the other one will linger on the floor (no power up lasts on the ground longer than the end of the round, but you can hold onto an equipped power through even the bonus round). Heart and Shield power-ups are worth keeping until you really need them. The others you can use whenever.
Consider builds that do well facing many mobs in rapid succession. The Barbarian/GWF is a great choice, because your at-wills are high damage and can deal both AoE and individual damage as needed. The rage gives survivability and you have some healing/mitigation powers. Powers that let you get away from red zones help too.
For a strong build, the first 7 days are not too hard. The second 7 can be very hard as the monsters are sometimes much harder. You have fire bursting out of the ground and knocking you down, so mobility helps. Barbarian rage is again very helpful. Powers or features that heal (including mount powers due to insignias) or grant immunity to crowd control can be very useful. For a barbarian, Roar can fill your rage bar so you can ignore CC most of the combat. A daily such as Avalanche of Steel or encounter like Mighty Leap can help get you out of danger zones.
The power-ups can make a big difference. The speed/boot is useless and can be ignored in most cases. However, the shield and health power-ups are both incredibly strong, allowing you to take virtually no damage for about a minute. Consider keeping these in reserve, either for the last rounds or for the bonus. And, try to use them when near the end of the time, with about a minute or so less. You can kite and run until then, and then with immunity you can finish off the mobs before it wears off and after the monsters have finished spawning. The shield is especially useful for this in the bonus round.
You could purchase demon overload enchantments (either defense or offense). These can be purchased from the Stronghold Vendor or AH.
It is possible that if you have just a few seconds left on the clock and one or two mobs, you should keep them alive. Sometimes it may spawn a new group of foes. Once the timer runs out, it is safe to kill the final members of the mob.
Note that the third week is arguably easier. You can use the same strategies, but it becomes less important to hoard a good power-up since there is no bonus round and the boss is not significantly harder than other foes (just more hit points). You only have two waves, so there are fewer chances at power-ups (just two). As before, watch the timer and don't kill off all mobs in a wave when it is close to the end of the time.