I started with a full defensive CM build with Crystal Shell, Prismatic Armor, and the CD reduction rune on frost nova, as well as Cold Blooded, CM, and Evocation as passives that were unchanged throughout. I took the fight time and my char sheet dps to compute the DPS Multiplier, which is the effective dps gain of the build. For example, at 100k dps using the full defensive build I would expect an effective dps of 247k. I also computed relative DPS of each spec meaning switching from Prismatic to Storm Armor increased dps by about 36%.
And in case there's any confusion, 'x' in the table means that skill was used.
| Storm Armor | Shocking Aspect | Pinpoint | Shards | Prism | DPS Multiplier | Relative DPS |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2.47 | 1 | |||||
| x | 2.78 | 1.13 | ||||
| x | 2.99 | 1.21 | ||||
| x | 3.01 | 1.22 | ||||
| x | 3.36 | 1.36 | ||||
| x | x | 4.06 | 1.65 | |||
| x | x | x | 4.25 | 1.72 |
The interesting information is that Storm Armor is about a 36% dps gain over prismatic armor. When you add Shocking Aspect it's a 65% dps gain over prismatic armor and about a 36% dps gain over pinpoint barrier. Adding Diamond Shards further increases the dps gain but it's only about a 4% dps gain by itself when you use Shocking Aspect. The dramatic decrease in survivability for the fight makes it very not worthwhile, but that could easily change depending on the fight. Rak for example, would probably be just fine with DS or prism.
I also expect the values for Shocking Aspect to be dependent of crit and attack speed, since it only procs on crits and higher attack speed should lead to more procs from WW, so with 50% crit, I'd expect the damage to increase by about 16%, or I'd expect the total dps gain to be about 90%, for a relative dps of 1.9. With a crit % of 52% I would expect Shocking Aspect to double your dps over prismatic armor, roughly speaking, with the same APS of 1.965 or so.
For reference, my stats at the time of the data collection were 104k dps buffed (110k with pinpoint), 1.965 attacks per second, 20 APoC, 1298 LoH, 1.5% Life Steal, 641 resist all and 4588 armor unbuffed, with 40.5k hp and 43% crit with Scoundrel. I also had about 400 life per second regen, just to complete the stats.
1
1) Make salvage materials BoA => There are many people against more stuff that is BoA. But the recent interview at DFans gave me the feeling that Blizzard might make more things BoA, and I actually like that too, because the 1.07 recipes are still quite viable. And they haven't killed trading at all, Vile Ward and amulet prices are still sky high.
2) The gold issue: there's just no gold sink. This is why the Marquise Gem was ~120m gold (just all the pure crafting costs in gold combined); Blizzard started a desperate, small attempt to take money out of the system. In the early days of D1/D2 repair costs were meant to be the gold sink, but let's be honest - they never worked. There need to be some crazy gold sink. And once you have a gold sink established, it needs to "stop" once the trillions of gold that are in the system right now have "left".
3) Trading like in PoE - related to the previous point... gold would be fine, but whatever is the "trade currency" needs to be capped or maintained at a stable level. It's like in real life, the authorities determine how much money gets printed. In D3, there's an infinite stream of new money every day, and no sink. In D2, there were gems and SoJs, which is why the uber event required SoJs to be sold. Don't just shift the problem to the old D2 system or the PoE system, tackle the problem at its root.
4) Some items "non-auctionable" - we had this numerous times. People have tasted the sweetness of items available. If the AH was too be removed or made unusable (which it would be if items became untradable) something else would take its place. The return of 3rd party scam websites. No, thank you.
Totally agree that itemization needs to be complemented by other changes. I'm interested in how they drain the money out of the system and stop once it's gone (hopefully we'll get there). As for the BoA materials - I'm in. As for the trading changes... not too keen on this.
1
Nope, I got that, I didn't misinterpret your post.
Yeah, we would have had more legendaries, classes skills, and stuff. More stuff. But the reason why we don't have this YET is because balancing all this is incredibly hard. I just disagree that mods come up with "better skills/rune combos" or "better class balance".
Sure, there may be mods that have kinda good balance, but usually they're something like "version 5.18" or so. But some of the previous versions would be "broken" and they would be out there, breaking the game and potentially splitting the community into different parts. In an RTS game you can fix balance and release the next map version; but an ARPG is going on for years with the same character, once the damage is done it's done.
2
Besides, keep in mind that it's not a question of "franchise" but a question of "game genre". For an RTS game like WC3 or SC2, every new "game" is just a new "map". No one can do any damage by releasing "bad/gamebreaking" stuff.
In WoW, the only thing you can mod is the interface. And the reason why they don't allow anything besides the interface in WoW and why they said "no mod support for D3" is that community argument Melt mentioned. Also, there is no reset button or "new game" like in an RTS.
1
-The fact that skill trees have dependencies and therefore limit your choices?
-The fact that the initial skill tree didn't let you respec?
-The fact that leveling gave you more options in the skill tree and you weren't done after 2 hours as in D3 right now?
I think the first point is bogus, and the second point is an elitist argument (sorry). The third point though is perfectly valid, at 60 the only thing you have is progressing gear (which gets ridiculed by the AH) and paragon (which is annoying and not as rewarding as leveling skills in D2).
The itemization overhaul is gonna fix the first thing, hopefully, by decreasing the impact of the AH and make grinding for gear worthwhile again.
As for the second thing, the idea maka mentioned in a different thread earlier today was great, going back to D1 (screw D2 for once please) - my monk's ability to kill demons just exploded after I finally found the "Book of Apocalypse" a few months into the game. Like I said in that thread, give us "rune quests" or some sort of leveling progress that unlocks new skill features. But it's a difficult matter as Blizzard made it crystal clear with their paragon design that there should be no time-consuming, mandatory, boring grind to achieve a basic game mechanics. I know you hate casuals, but D3 (just as all Diablo games) was always about being accessible for everyone, it was never "for the pro gamers only".
1
Why is the market flooded with good items? Because thanks to the AH, the player base has managed to achieve a "perfect distribution of items". Whatever item is not needed by the rich guys on top of the food chain goes back into the economy and is acquired by the "second level". This goes down to every single player who touches the AH - like a pyramid.
Or think of it as a volcano, the high-end players sit on top and new items (i.e., lava) comes out of the volcano. In a game without any trading, every player would sit on its own volcano and all mountains would rise on a level directly proportional to everyone's playtime (more or less). But since the item distribution is streamlined due to AH distribution, there is only one volcano. The high-end players sit on top, consume the best items that emerge, but throw all the rest down and the next level of players picks it up - and so on. The base is growing and growing, but the players at the bottom barely feel like they're moving forward; they're just spreading out making the base larger. If Blizzard doesn't do anything about it, the volcano would grow infinitely until the top players end up in space. This is exactly why Blizzard reduced item drop rates already.
So, one solution is to cut down on trading. The item decay idea by OP is such a thing: when items get traded (i.e., lava falls down), they get worse (i.e., lose density/weight). Eventually, once the lava hits the ground, it's gone, stopping infinite growth. However, we discussed the drawbacks of item decays in this thread... extensively.
Another solution is an item sink. If the top players decide to use their "second best items" instead of giving it to the people below them, the volcano stops growing. It doesn't matter how this is achieved (upgrade perfect item by enchanting it with materials from a salvaged, "almost perfect item"; selling 1000 Echoing Furies to the volcano gods; whatever you can think of) - the only thing that matters is that not every piece that appears to be "waste" for the high-end players enters the economy.
How will this affect self-found players?
Once the current, infinite volcano growth is stopped, Blizzard can turn up drop rates again. They already said that they tweaked drop rates down in order to slow inflation. They said they won't remove the AH, and it's also unlikely that they'll introduce something that penalizes for trading. So their needs to be a positive incentive for the community to stop this ridiculous distribution of items, and I believe an item sink (through crafting, most likely) is the best shot we got.
3
Crafting an item gives you a certain feeling of accomplishment. Like "YEAH I MADE THIS!". If crafted items weren't BoA, some rich guys would just craft like hell and flood the market (remember INVIS crazy 13k crafts?).
However, it was a band-aid to the AH problem. There's no way to argue against that. A quick band-aid until itemization is "fixed" and drops (hopefully) become useful again.
But I remain skeptical - whatever you can do to improve your character, e.g., running VoA 10 times to find an upgrade, some high-end guy can do 10x faster and 100x times more often. I really have no idea how Blizzard is gonna solve that issue. They already said they don't want to kill trading by making everything BoA, so don't be worried about that. On the other hand, none of their itemization plans so far have hinted on how they want to overcame the "perfect item distribution through the AH".
2
So just because the devs focus on different things and don't put PvP first "they have no clue or are doing nothing".
So just because someone likes to play differently than you, you detest them.
So just because someone likes a game that you don't like they have a poor taste.
If you don't even try to understand other people's opinion and thoughts, there's no point in discussing, it's like talking to a wall. A hatred-engulfed wall.
Nevertheless, we're patient people here, so let's give it another try:
1) Every other game of Blizzard has some competitive edge or is even e-sports focused. I'm glad that at least one of their franchises goes the other way for now. Once PvE is perfectly polished, I don't care if they continue working on PvP, but first things first. Prioritization is a good thing - 1:0 Blizzard.
2) I hated twinking myself in WoW, and I kind of don't care about the lack of paragon levels on my D2 twinks. But I still feel with all the people who are getting punished for starting a second class. This has been an issue for paragon levels right from the start and it's good that they take care of this - 2:0 Blizzard.
3) It would be absolutely ridiculous if a game director doesn't look left or right to see what other games look like. We have a term for that in German: "Fachidiot" is someone who is an expert in his area, but neglects all possible solutions or influences from outside his domain. Think about Josh whatever you want, but this is a point for him - 3:0 Blizzard.
2
Nope, they are the creators of Diablo and they tell you what they think Diablo is supposed to be. It can never be wrong. It just doesn't match with what you think it's supposed to be.
Seriously, if all you have to contribute here is hatred against every single word and action of the Diablo 3 team, you would do everyone (us and yourself) a huge favor if you move on and spend your time on some other game that you actually enjoy playing rather than trying to make everyone's life a bit more miserable.
1
Ron Burgundy.
They should've put his name last on the list...
1
No, I'm telling you that we don't know what "the majority" wants! You can say a thousand times what you like or don't like, but don't say things like "the majority wants skill trees".
You're not "telling how it is", but what you're constantly doing is to pose your opinion as that of the majority. Will you ever learn to recognize the difference? For the past few weeks I thought you got it, but since the beginning of this week you're falling back into old posting habits.