S21 Theme Pushing Guide

So after pushing around 5500 keys on my DH and another 1500 on my Nec, I felt like I have some things to share about the Season 21 theme (Trial of the Tempests). So here's a guide on how to do it most effectively, since this is something you won't learn while farming but it's very impactful for your leaderboard ranking. This season's theme is quite competitive with the S19 theme in power, which was the strongest one so far and it also has some other similar aspects. Right now I estimate the overall gain for solo pushing to be around 6-12 tiers depending on class or build. Hopefully it will help you out!

If you want to learn about the basics of the theme first, check out the following link explaining them: https://maxroll.gg/d3/mechanics/seasonal-theme-mechanics

The season theme is defining the solo (and group) pushing this season, similar to S19, be it with or without Bane of the Stricken equipped. Playing around the RNG of these effects optimally, knowing when and where to make pulls and what to kill for easy stacks will dramatically increase your performance over what would otherwise be possible on nonseason.

It's hard to give a broad guideline that works in every situation but generally it goes as follows (these numbers are taken from my solo 150 pushes where I kill the RG with the 9th seasonal theme proc at 13:30 into the run. Obviously a run can be faster by intervals of 1.5 minutes if you managed to reach the RG earlier so 12:00, 10:30, 9:00 etc.). On regular setups with Stricken you will end up with slightly more stacks since you need to spawn the boss a few minutes earlier:

First proc: make a huge pull and squeeze as many kills as possible out of it, depending on mob type you want to get to somewhere between 40 (e.g. on Zombie/Grotesque) and 100 (e.g. Armored Destroyers) here. If you want, you can prepare your first pull without killing anything and then leave the rift and rejoin to reset your timer after ~45-60sec to squeeze a bit more out of a run (only relevant if you intend to kill the RG with the 9th seasonal theme proc, which can be delayed from 13:30 to 14:30 like this).

20-40sec before your first theme proc, depending on the enemies' hp/speed & your stacks, you want to move on and either combine your first pull with more trash from beyond or quickly rush into another big room to pull everything around together, then release your first theme to get the most stacks.

On most typical rifts, I am landing between 40-100 stacks after the start. Typically you can ignore elites here because your main objective is to build momentum with the theme, you can assess whether it's worth trying to kill an elite later on (when in doubt, in 90% of cases the correct answer is: SKIP all elites).

From there you progress your way through the map, and have to make calls on how much you want to squeeze out of a floor vs. just going for the big juicy pulls. On good maps it might be worth trying to kite everything with you all the time, especially when you have fast-moving enemies (e.g. Bee/Accursed) or very juicy mid sized trash where stacks are sparse (e.g. Lacuni Slasher/Horror).

If you're not careful, your momentum and with it pretty much your entire run can end abruptly from either unlucky meteors, unprepared twisters or a bugged fire wave. Unfortunately with meteors you don't have much control besides staying in the pull and hoping for the best but the average outcome is okay anyway. Twisters can most easily end in a disaster if you didn't prepare the pull in a good spot for them, so you need to be aware of where most of them are moving and sometimes just accept your fate if you decided to make your pull in a large open area. With slow-moving enemies, you might not have a chance to kite anything through them and they might fly away very quickly. The fire wave is usually something you don't want to see unless you have 100+ stacks, at which it actually becomes rather strong to even melt most of an elite's hp if you kite them through it from start to finish.

Overall, you should always prioritize getting stacks first and killing elites second. Finishing off packs is very hard and sometimes RNG even with a good proc (e.g. a snowball might start bouncing in an unpredictable pattern, twisters don't cooperate, 300 stacks meteors trying their best to never hit a target etc.). Getting started from 0 in the middle of the run is a big struggle since it typically means you have to take whatever trash is around and dps it down over the next 60 seconds or so and then rush to try to make another big pull somewhere else very fast, usually leaving behind some of the more valuable mid and high progression trash with low hp. It can be worth to go for some elite kills when you have very high stacks and want to gamble for snowball or beam but typically you want to stay in the flow with your stacks. Best case, you position yourself and the pull in a way where you can react to and control the theme proc in your favor. After you found out which one is coming, you usually have a ca. 3sec window to aim it and that can make all the difference (esp. twisters should usually start in a corner, snowball should run through the pull and come back, fire wave needs to avoid walls/wallers and enemies need to follow you through it).

If done well, I can get my season theme to do around 40-70% progress and eventually also the boss kill for me during a run. Obviously some of that comes from simply finishing off low hp targets I would have otherwise killed myself if I wouldn't spend my time for the theme but the overall message is: it's really strong and even only 1-2 good procs during a run can make all the difference, essentially imitating a conduit effect here and there.

Following I have created a ranking with explanations for the individual theme procs. This list is just an overall guideline and in some situations one of these procs can be very devastating while another one would turn out rather useless, it always comes down to exact positioning, monster size, hp, etc.

Here's how I rank them in the grand scheme of things:

This doesn't mean that the procs on the bottom of the list are necessarily all that terrible, each of them can shine in their own perfect situation and suck in another. Even a strong beam might not do much for you if you have a spread-out 5 elite illusionist blue pack or not prepared a pull to blast it with,or you might mess up a snowball and it bounces off to nowhere, etc. This list is just measuring the average effect I get out of these procs.

Overall best proc during a run, since you have full control over what you damage and usually get a lot of value out of it. If you prepare the pull well, you can easily get back all your stacks immediately and even finish or kill entire elite packs with enough stacks. Just make sure you are staying alive and try to not move around too much, else you will lose valuable beam time. Getting yourself in a safe spot on dangerous pulls is key.

The most important proc, since this is the main Rift Guadian and elite killer. Can also help you out in tough situations where you can't build any stacks, as even a weak snowball can give you back stacks and momentum for your run. My record with a single snowball is 30% progression (incl. 4 elite kills). The bounce happens at the same angle that it hit the wall with (hence you can do infinite bounces in the same spot with a perfect 90-degree shot against parallel walls).

Potential RG killer with a lot of stacks, otherwise starts being useful after 50 and then depends on your luck and your kiting abilities. If you prepare are large enough pull around a corner, it can be devastating. That being said, it's extremely hard to damage or kill elites with it, usually you just get the trash and move on. I have gotten exactly two elite kills from 100 -> 0 with twisters in my pushes so far, but it’s also what made me kill the RG in my successful GR150 solo clear.

It's literally hit and miss, can be really good, can be really bad, depending on where meteors land. Typically you can expect 2-4 good hits in a large pull

Unfortunately, this one bugs out very often and doesn't spawn at all, which can easily destroy your run even more than it already does simply by being so terribly weak. Also stopped by waller elites. Can be used on really large pulls, typically to kill small/medium trash and get back your stack investment at least.

My recommended strategy for 4man is to have 2 teams with of 2 people proccing on their own with their own timer and then sharing the stacks back from those who didn't proc afterwards. For this, two people should desync their timer ~30-60sec into a run by leaving/rejoining the rift and then coordinate with the rest of the group to make sure you are not all together whenever the timer of one of the teams comes up. The minimum distance to share/not lose your stacks is around 2-3 screens. Like this you will keep building up the stacks and can make your way through the rift mostly using the theme after you got the train rolling at the start. For meta groups (Nec/Crus/zMonk/zBarb) it might be better to just play normally or have only one person (e.g. the RGK or a Barb) keep the stacks to help you out a little bit during a run.

Start with a huge trash pull, try to keep your stacks above 50+ after every proc, don’t waste procs on few targets / single elites, position yourself and the pull in a good spot and try to be aware of which monsters are killable for you with your number of stacks. Typically you can ignore elites and focus more on making the right pulls, then try to finish elites when you get a good proc (beam/snowball) on them. Use positioning and kiting to get most out of your theme, you can easily spend 50% or more of your time pulling enemies together.

I hope this guide helps you to get the most out of your pushing and maybe you have learned some things to use the next time you try to go for your new personal best. Good luck!

- wudijo