Shaggy, if you need an entire build set along with the proper items to make them somehow useful, then they are weak.
This thread is not about balancing them, that would belong to the balance class/suggestions forum, is there is one, I can't remember.
This is more a thread that makes a comparison of two different concepts of how to implement minions, and how awesome was back then and how terrible is here.
Sure, the skellies weren't perfect, they had issues too, but they could be REALLY helpful, they only became somewhat useless in later acts in hell, (useless in terms of output damage) but I only needed one dead body, then CE took care of everything in the screen.
Blizz wont change the way minions and pets work, they want them like that, it shows also in how they implemented the followers. They want YOU to make damage, and they to be cosmetic things. It was a bad idea IMO.
Yes, that word, strong, empowered with passion and dedication...: "hate".
But I also hate lemon ice-cream.
On-topic, one of the things that make my heart cry when I remember how it was in D2, are the pets.
Those amazing little friends that allowed you to just watch the screen and look how splendidly everything died.
Yes, I'm talking about the necromancer. Don't you remember having something close to 20 skellies all around the screen killing everything that moved?. It was amusing.
Now, lets go back to D3. The closest comparison that resembles somehow the skellies are the fetish "army".
First, I doubt the word army is suited for the occasion.
Secondly, they are really bad at killing things, they move like idiots and don't attack anything until they have like 8 seconds left, then they attack twice, at a really low attack speed, and they run a little more, then poof!. Gone.
So, to sum it up:
- Their cooldown is LONG, I mean, 2-minutes-long.
- They are weak, the 20% dmg they took from you does nothing.
- They are extremely ineffective when the time of the "go kill stuff" comes, one Locust Swarm does more than they in terms of damage to more than 3 or 4 enemies in the screen.
- They last 20 seconds.
What are your experiences?, do you want the old school way back of how D2 managed pets?, or do you like this wowish thing that makes your pets.. almost useless?, except the gargantuan, he rocks.
I don't particularly need any of the questions answered. If there's an exploit abound I do what I assume most normal people would - I wouldn't exploit, risking my account. Especially considering the amount of games and time soaked into it.
I can answer one of your questions though. Transparency will not help anyone in this matter. You, me or any other player have absolutely 0 power over these sorts of decisions, so knowing the exact details is pointless, closing in on "just stirring things up", which is good for neither us, nor the company. And no, we're not reasonable adults. You really even think that? What, you don't visit the official forums? Facebook?
Is Valve transparent? Is Bioware? Nintendo?
Fallacy spotted.
Seriously, it doesn't matter how others act, you just used an argumentum ad populum.
The lore and stuff are actually nice, I like what they did with them. However, the main story, specially the one involving the act bosses... my god, it was really bad.
1) get incredibly luck y finding a really nice item.
2) dual wield Mastercard
3) flip items in the AH.
Those are the options.
Or just play as the 99.99% of the rest of the players play, after you ID your rare #589 in a row that is 100% trash and your only legendaries that drop are not the right ones, quit.
Well, I play some minutes every 3 or 4 days. My record is something close to 40. After that I ask myself why I still play, the answer is simple, I like the fast paced action and stuff blowing up everywhere.
The everything else factor is what stops the experience from passing the 40 mins wall of wisdom.
It's not about the stable connection.. I have to play with 200+ ms all the time. That makes some skills really clunky to use, specially the ones that execute instantly, like the barb charge, an amazing and fun to use skill, totally ruined by my latency.
There is a fact that no one cant deny, everything that is going to be implemented in the PC version, has to work in the console version as well. And that, is a limitation per se.
And, it is true, that the console games are more casual friendly than the PC games, despite the interface limitation.
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This thread is not about balancing them, that would belong to the balance class/suggestions forum, is there is one, I can't remember.
This is more a thread that makes a comparison of two different concepts of how to implement minions, and how awesome was back then and how terrible is here.
Sure, the skellies weren't perfect, they had issues too, but they could be REALLY helpful, they only became somewhat useless in later acts in hell, (useless in terms of output damage) but I only needed one dead body, then CE took care of everything in the screen.
Blizz wont change the way minions and pets work, they want them like that, it shows also in how they implemented the followers. They want YOU to make damage, and they to be cosmetic things. It was a bad idea IMO.
1
But I also hate lemon ice-cream.
On-topic, one of the things that make my heart cry when I remember how it was in D2, are the pets.
Those amazing little friends that allowed you to just watch the screen and look how splendidly everything died.
Yes, I'm talking about the necromancer. Don't you remember having something close to 20 skellies all around the screen killing everything that moved?. It was amusing.
Now, lets go back to D3. The closest comparison that resembles somehow the skellies are the fetish "army".
First, I doubt the word army is suited for the occasion.
Secondly, they are really bad at killing things, they move like idiots and don't attack anything until they have like 8 seconds left, then they attack twice, at a really low attack speed, and they run a little more, then poof!. Gone.
So, to sum it up:
- Their cooldown is LONG, I mean, 2-minutes-long.
- They are weak, the 20% dmg they took from you does nothing.
- They are extremely ineffective when the time of the "go kill stuff" comes, one Locust Swarm does more than they in terms of damage to more than 3 or 4 enemies in the screen.
- They last 20 seconds.
What are your experiences?, do you want the old school way back of how D2 managed pets?, or do you like this wowish thing that makes your pets.. almost useless?, except the gargantuan, he rocks.
Bye.
1
Fallacy spotted.
Seriously, it doesn't matter how others act, you just used an argumentum ad populum.
1
2
1
2) dual wield Mastercard
3) flip items in the AH.
Those are the options.
Or just play as the 99.99% of the rest of the players play, after you ID your rare #589 in a row that is 100% trash and your only legendaries that drop are not the right ones, quit.
1
The everything else factor is what stops the experience from passing the 40 mins wall of wisdom.
1
1
And, it is true, that the console games are more casual friendly than the PC games, despite the interface limitation.
4