There has to be a tradeoff on the "glass cannon" vs "survivability" spectrum which inherently means the more survivability you stack on your character the slower he should kill (allowing characters to achieve both high survivability AND high killing efficiency is a bad design decision for patently-obvious reasons).
In an A-RPG where the A stands for "action" it makes sense that people gravitate towards "big numbers" and not towards "herp derp imma tank." I'm happy that you like tank-y characters, but it flies in the face of most of us who just want to kill monsters.
Do I think tanks should be viable? Of course. But in a game where killing monsters faster gives more rewards than killing them slower... I don't think the hatred towards "DPS" is anything short of completely misplaced. Unless you are dying a lot, why would you stack on more defense? It's completely, 100%, counter-intuitive.
DPS does not mean people want "no tactics." What we need is more reason to have higher survivability thresholds, not reasons to be forced back to tank builds. Removing Life Leech is actually a major step in the right direction on this subject because Life Leech, by itself, gave survivability based on DPS.
Sure, I believe glass cannon should be allowed... even actually promoted, but death should hurt. You should have to use tactics to avoid death (bring on the console dodge), not just a straight line dash (tr/sw, ww barb anyone).
For example, I'm a huge fan of the rogue like characters that are frail, but can dodge things manual, or mechanically (smoke screen, serenity). I even liked the finesse build in kingdom of amalur.
However, the game should NEVER allow you gear glass cannon, suck at playing (unable to avoid damage) and still be as successful as others. If you don't pay as well, compensate with defensive stats.
I remember playing a S&B barb around launch (either before or after the insane repair costs)... and I will never forget the day someone called me a noob for it: "Dude this is SC, it doesn't matter if you die. Anyone that gimps themselves with a shield is retarded."
Honestly, I fucking hate all the people that think Diablo should be a mindless spam fest with zero tactics. DPS is boring.
Elitist much? Just because some people ( I would wager around half the player base) would rather find ways to zerg down champ packs with the highest dps possible rather than play how YOU want to play, doesn't make them wrong.
So let them, but make factoring in avoiding death part of their calculations.
I don't think there should be drastic death penalty's honestly the people who want that will play hardcore. Why does death have to mean something? Corpse runs in D2 wasn't all that fun or enjoyable which caused most people to use chicken or some such to avoid it.
So, there should be nothing between "perma-death" and "res instantly at corpse with minor repair bill"?
Yes, that exactly. Dying hurts your gear slightly, and hurts your farming momentum slightly as well, it also makes you fail any boss fight that you're playing solo on, and that's all that is needed in softcore. If you really want a death penalty, that's LITERALLY why hardcore was brought to D3.
Yeah, permanently losing a character because of a lag spike is awesome.
As things stand in RoS, you're losing 5 seconds (res on corpse) and 500-5000 gold (repair) when you die. It's ridiculous.
But... but... Maka... "Why should I be punished for making a crap build that I can freely respect for every elite pack?"
It is good. I love HC every bit as much as SC (yeah baby, I swing both ways).. but I play HC with a completely different mindset to SC, and I want it to stay that way. As much as I love the satisfaction (and blind panic) that killing a tough HC pack brings, I also love cranking up the MP to nowhere near comfortable, charging into a vortexing, plauging purple-laser boss and just spamming all my abilities cackling like a maniac with no idea who's going to die first. Don't take that away from me
Retrieving your body to grab your gear (like D2) should be plenty enough penalty.
IMO a combination of these two would be great. I never understood why they removed the regen anyway after they allready took away the enrage. IMO if you can not beat a champ pack you should have to avoid it or be stuck fighting it. Rezzing again and again is zerging IMO.
Sure, I believe glass cannon should be allowed... even actually promoted, but death should hurt. You should have to use tactics to avoid death (bring on the console dodge), not just a straight line dash (tr/sw, ww barb anyone).
For example, I'm a huge fan of the rogue like characters that are frail, but can dodge things manual, or mechanically (smoke screen, serenity). I even liked the finesse build in kingdom of amalur.
However, the game should NEVER allow you gear glass cannon, suck at playing (unable to avoid damage) and still be as successful as others. If you don't pay as well, compensate with defensive stats.
So let them, but make factoring in avoiding death part of their calculations.
But... but... Maka... "Why should I be punished for making a crap build that I can freely respect for every elite pack?"
It is good. I love HC every bit as much as SC (yeah baby, I swing both ways).. but I play HC with a completely different mindset to SC, and I want it to stay that way. As much as I love the satisfaction (and blind panic) that killing a tough HC pack brings, I also love cranking up the MP to nowhere near comfortable, charging into a vortexing, plauging purple-laser boss and just spamming all my abilities cackling like a maniac with no idea who's going to die first. Don't take that away from me
IMO a combination of these two would be great. I never understood why they removed the regen anyway after they allready took away the enrage. IMO if you can not beat a champ pack you should have to avoid it or be stuck fighting it. Rezzing again and again is zerging IMO.
http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Twoflower-2131/hero/47336841