Imo the leveling pace along with the increased level requirement can make the game feel much less rewarding. While it can be that I am not used to the leveling pace, it does feel that I am getting less for the same amount of effort placed in. I got the Nessus soul, which had the requirement increased from 10 to 14. 10 would have been the normal level I used to clear Nessus at, but now I would be waiting till at least the Gorgon sisters if not further to equip the soul. In terms of how the progression feels to me, I prefer the older implementation so far.

That aside,

Helos 3
Sparta (after Nessus) 7
Megara 9

Am running a druid to make observation easier, Level 20 wolves (with shrine) tearing up stuff quite nicely (including the elite turtles), though hero fights can wipe them off. Will respec off Wolves to get Squall later since Wolves just cost too much to invest in and I end up with low stats.

It is viable in IT, just as with any single mastery though, stats will be low, so you will need to be careful as appropriate. Most mobs can be dealt with by electrical burn (DW or DR), then Sands of Sleep. Enough EBD gear exists for this to work, though it will take longer without resist reduction of course. Nightmare is able to grab the aggro of a lot of bosses, which will make those boss fights easier.

I have played SV for many many years... playing it mostly over TQAE too.

With regards to item requirements I would say it depends on the scale of how large the change is. I play untwinked, generally the stat requirement is very low for the character's standards by the time I get something really worthwhile. I'm guessing the change is to make things a bit harder for twinkers - this is not a new concept, since at least normal (can't remember offhand for epic/leg) SBC had its requirements raised in SV over IT. Which made it much more troublesome for casters to equip early SBC, and iirc would go over the min DEX requirements for mythics if they want to push for it really early due to quest rewards. It would depend on what soa envisions I guess.

Personally I would wait to test how the game goes before raising requirements too soon though, item variety was actually not too well done in SV imo, despite the variety there is. (At least for those of us who were/are doing the untwinked hardcore). The issue was the resistance penalty, which was too high. Once you get high res gear (i.e. Tunic of the Magi, Geras' Walking Stick) it is very hard to let go. (because maintaining resistances involves swapping a lot of gear, not just switching out an armor piece) Since I believe we are not doing charms/relics in uniques now, that variety would be a bit more restricted as well. To allow for more interesting options or to make gear requirements a larger consideration... this one would be hard I guess. For twinkers, donning legendaries in Normal Act 3 or so should be simple to accomplish with current standards. I wasn't the only one in the untwinked hardcore thread who reached level 38 to 40 or so in Act 2, which might help to put things in perspective. Since res penalty will be back to default (or at least not as harsh as original SV), I find it very hard to imagine how tweaking the stat requirements (aside from level) would turn out without a lot of play testing. I would vote for increasing the level requirement of items mostly.

I'm not sure what kind of benchmark soa would want with regards to leveling, but just in case it is helpful, in current IT SV I roughly encounter this leveling curve.

Level 10 - Nessus
Level 18 - Gorgon Sisters
Level 24 - First Telkine

These milestones were noted because they are more consistent and the relative difficulty compared to the other bosses.

The Telkine generally is the first really hard fight of the game (and like x10 in difficulty if he has his soul). On most characters if I can, I will try to push past him asap to get access to Egypt where we can level faster and easier than we do in Greece. This does not mean that I can clear Telkine at Level 24 on all classes though, only that I usually reach him around that level. This does not include fully clearing maps, but does include the following

- Farming Shaman at least twice if not more, iirc he has a higher chance to drop soul than most enemies, and it is really helpful at the start if you do get it
- Using EXP shrine for quests as much as possible
- A few rounds of clearing Pythian Caves till around Level 20/21, in case I get lucky with SBC drop

Depending on how hard it is to face the Telkine, taking time to farm for some EXP and upgrades on items (lightning res is still okay to manage, Demon's Blood is obviously great for vit res, I tend to go to the cave after Delphi if I have not accumulated enough Demon's Blood. The characters that had a tougher time usually ends up around 28, latest case probably 30. Interestingly, I tend to end up with a copy of the level 10 mercenary contract in Act 1... I would estimate around 70% of my runs.

Now that I think about it, the level discrepancy can be quite large o.O", in any case, playing hardcore, I tend to reach 38 to 40 before entering Act 3. Lowest level clearing the Egypt Telkine is around 32, most are around 35, on the verge to 36. This fight has a comparatively easier feeling than the Greece Telkine, since we tend to have unlocked some of the more powerful stuff at this point. Not sure if others have a similar experience with me, but this is how the leveling goes for me. Reaching Egypt Telkine at 32 is normal for me. Leveling in this case is from the Egypt Telkine run (Obelisks + elite undead/heroes for massive exp and shrine on the way), or if I clear the Telkine, the Thebes west gate run for 2 chances of shrine, 9 obelisks and high chance of elite undead. From here on, the data is haphazard due to ahem... lots of tomb stones. And where pet builds start to suck (even more so than before). Pet builds are of course playable, but they require certain items to shine, and I don't have access to them untwinked. But if my characters finish Normal Act 4, they tend to be around 55. Generally with lesser leveling in Orient and more in Act 4. This also of course means that if I have twink gear, I would be able to equip Mythics mid Epic. It is also at this point that level tends to not be so important since you have all the stats needed to equip items (which can also signal lack of progress in itemization for twinkers, aside from legendary souls some of which will require you to grind a bit), all the core skills for your build, and are just deciding between the bonus stats between going beyond mastery 40 or to dump a bit more SP into some not as important skills.

Not sure how much of that is useful, probably not much, but just contributing what I can because of how much I love SV...

As I will be busy during this period of time I won't be able to contribute much to beta testing so I will wait for the release. Very much appreciate the work done by soa for this, it has been my hope that I would be able to play SV in AE ever since I tried AE. (Sorry to Zyddie and the officials, but I really find SV to be better than AE... heck I had Grim Dawn waiting on my list and still played SV more).