Spawned from a thought Ferret had on the Hydra skill, I thought we should create a thread like this where we can compile all the skill problems there are in D2. Now there are a lot of imbalances for sure, but hopefully we can structure up something half decent here. I'll start out with Ferret's idea, and add any more you can all come up with.
Problem: Firestorm is really not that bad in itself, but taken with the rest of the tree it doesn't work too well.
Direction: Like many druid skills, Firestom is random in nature. This makes it hard to get consisten damage out of it.
Proximity: Due to the relative weakness of the Fire Druid, Firestorm is dangerous because it requires the druid to get within a short range of monsters in order to use it.
Solution: If Molten Boulder becomes the physical alternative to spamming, the Firestorm is the fire equivalent. The range should be increased tto something similar to that of Diablo's firestom ability, to put the druid in a safer position when using it, and to cope with the randomness, the amount of fire "arms" should increase as the skill increases in level. Perhaps another arm every 10 levels.
Problem: Molten Boulder is too cumbersome to use effectively.
Cast Delay: Prevents the skill from being s spameable alternative for the Druid.
Damage: Deals too little damage to be used like a skill such as Meteor.
Slow: Moves too slow to be used effectively against monsters.
Solution: The base damage needs to be increased, the cast delay reduced or removed, the moving speed of the boulder increased and the dependency on synergies needs to be decreased.
To offset this increased power, the boulder must probably have it's stunning effect removed. While it's not really optimal to remove such a feature that makes a skill unique, it does not fit in the tree. A stunning skill should belong to a powerful skill. The druid however has many skill in his tree with greater potential that the Molten Boulder, and so the stun is not very well suited for it.
The Fire Druid lacks a second damage source, due to his need to invest heavily in synergies to match the damage of a sorceress or Trapsin. The Molten Boulder can fill the physical damage role. Perhaps the balance between fire/physical can be shifted for Molten Boulder as well, putting less focus on fire and more on physical.
Problem: Volcano is too random in nature. It works well if the monsters are positioned directly beneath it, but if they're not it does next to no damage. However, simply increasing the damage will make it extremely powerful if positioned beneath a monster. If the spirit of the skill is to be kept, some other change needs to be done.
Solution: I do not know if this is possible to make the skill work as follows, but could it be made so that the fireballs being spewed out created an aoe-damage upon hitting the ground? That way, it could deal a lof of damage do monsters running around, while still not being overly powerful if placed directly under a monster.
Problem: Does much too sporadic damage and is much too random to be useful.
Solution: Make Armageddon like Thunderstorm in mechanic: autotarget enemies. Unlike thunderstorm, it would strike with a much higher frequency. The damage can then be appropriately adjusted once the accuracy of the skill is settled.
Problem: Skeleton mages scale much too badly compared to regular skeletons. Primarily their damage isn't boosted enough to warrant the skill investment, as the points can be spent much better else where.
Solution: Boost the damage of skeletal mages. As a result, regular skeletons might however become too powerful if used in combination. This might cause a slight nerf to follow them as well.
Problem: No golem is worth a heavy skill investment, and currently a golem can only serve as a support unit, not a primary summon. A golemancer is not a viable build.
Damage: Golems do not do enough damage to be utilized as primary summons.
Synergies: Heavy synergy-dependency limits golem usage in combination with other skills, such as skeletons or Poison and Bone skills.
Solution: Change golem mechanics to allow for more versatile golem usage
Problem: Hydra suffers from many problems. Even though it received a buff in the 1.13 patch, it still does not compare to the move devastating Fire Ball and Meteor.
Lack of focus fire: Fire Ball and Meteor can be aimed at one monster at a time, while Hydra randomly shoots at all nearby monsters
Damage: Hydra does less damage than Fire Ball and Meteor
Cast Delay: Due to the cast delay of 2 seconds, it takes 8 seconds before the Sorceress has her army up and shooting. During that long time, other builds can wreak havoc and sometimes even move on entirely, having killed all monsters in 8 seconds.
Solution: Change Hydra so that it emulates Assassin Traps. Remove the cast delay and add a limit of 5 hydras at a time, just like traps. This way, a Sorceress cannot create 20 hydras at one time, but she can get her damage going quickly. She can also recast hydras fast once a group of monsters is down as she moves on.
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very good points, and i think that solution would make the skill much more usable. (plus the hydras should shoot a tad faster, they're much easier to dodge then a sins trap)
i actually made a hydra sorc because of the buff, but it quickly turned into a fball sorc just because of that point - hydra still isnt a realistic high level skill.
Good points, I have always wanted a good hydra sorceress and was frustrated with its lack of viability. I also think fire in general gets some of the worst immunity groups in the game. Having all fallen derivatives be immune to fire is a huge obstacle for anyone first entering hell without a secondary damage source as they are not avoidable at all.
On that note the fire druid suffers from a lot of the same problems. Excruciating casting delays coupled with significant point investment for viability cripples the build. Lets go through the skills.
Firestorm: While this is the first skill you get in the druid fire path, it is also potentially one of the most viable for dealing consistent damage. It is actually usable in part because it has a short (but not nonexistent) casting delay. Unfortunately it is not easy to aim, and the range is fairly short. An elemental druid is usually pretty weak because a lot of life and damage reduction gear is sacrificed for more skills. I think that theoretically, this is also the most damaging skill for the druid if fully synergized (assuming all 3 snakes hit a single target).
Molten Boulder: And now the casting delay begins to rear its ugly head. It isn't entirely unbearable on molten bolder, but it certainly hinders the skill. The very nature of the skill is also rather discouraging. The damage is split up into physical and fire which is a plus, but the fire damage isn't very effective. The boulder knocks the opponent back when it hits them, but it is also leaving a trail of fire behind it. This fire is occasionally useful, but because the opponent is being knocked away from the boulder, it rarely does anything. And again, I will mention that the small fast hoarding enemies such as fallen and some of the flayers that would be likely to get past the boulder and run into this trail of fire, are almost always fire immune. I am also of the opinion that fire/physical immunes are far more common that one would think in this game.
Fissure: Probably the favorite skill of most fire druids because it can attain high damage and is not a slow moving missile like the previous skills. It instead randomly opens vents around the area that you cast the spell, which is really quite baffling. You can actually cast this skill on a stationary opponent several times and not hit them once. Also you can get lucky and it may open several vents under the person at the same time. The point is that it is not consistent. It is best used when enemies are running across, and again I will mention that most of the hoarding enemies are fire immune (you can tell I am a little upset by that hehe).
Volcano: Without a casting delay, this could be a pretty amazing skill. Unfortunately, the casting delay is makes it very difficult to use. It has a physical and a fire component and can rack up quite a hefty damage count if the enemy decided to stay in one spot on top of the volcano. If the enemy is not on top of the volcano however, damage is slow and the fire druid must herd the monsters into a group and continuously run circles around them to keep them near the cinder cone. It takes a long time because the damage is again random within a certain area.
Armageddon: This is probably the most disappointing skill of all. The casting delay is 6 seconds (what makes this unbearable is that it shares it with all the other fire skills, leaving you essentially worthless for 6 whole seconds). The damage is another random area damage which means monsters could run up and hit you without taking any damage at all. Another problem is that this skill lasts a maximum of 30 seconds. With a casting delay of 6 seconds, you are worthless 20% of the time... If you were to try to use this skill without maxing the fissure synergy you would spend almost all of your time in the casting delay, and would have to recast the spell every 12 seconds. The only seemingly effective way to use this skill is to run away from enemies and hope the meteors hit them as they chase you. This is only marginally effective, and is not all that fun to play.
So lets do a summary of all the things wrong with the fire druid.
1: The shared casting delays make a lot of the skills unusable with other fire skills and makes faster cast rate a worthless trait.
2: The random mechanics of most of the skills is a huge weakness which seriously reduces damage output except in the most ideal circumstances.
3: The type of monsters that these skills are ideally suited for (the hoarding monsters such as fallen and most of the flayer derivatives) are almost all fire immune, further reducing the usefulness of all of the skills.
4: The way the synergies are set up, it takes a huge skill investment to receive an OK amount of damage. The fire druid will likely not have a second source of damage other than the physical on some of the skills(which never gets all that high).
5: The fire druid is forced to use lots of +skills equipment to output enough damage, which significantly reduces the defensive abilities of the build such as life and damage mitigation. The way the skills are set up also makes it far more difficult for the fire druid to fight at a distance like all other casters, exposing him to a lot more damage than other casters. On top of this, the druid also has no physical damage reduction skills that the other casters do. Cyclone armor helps against elemental damage, which almost always come from ranged attacks and do not help the druid against the physical problem. This is also made EVEN WORSE by the fact that a lot of the swarming, large group, fast enemies like fallen, flayers and doom knights are fire immune.
Unfortunately, short of a huge reworking of the fire skills on the druid, he will forever be a misfit among diablo builds.
very good points, i think you should send that in a message to blizzard and maybe it can get buffed next patch?
one thing i really dont like, is that in order to be strong enough to kill things with elemental attacks, you gotta pour all your skill points into that skill and its same elemental synergies. Thus 1 immune and you character is useless unless you have money for a merc with ¿convicion? aura :/
what other characters have potentially good skills but just arnt viable?
fire trapsin -keeping with the fire theme -
werebear - even with buffs i still dont see many using or it ever being equal to wolf
fire druid - you went over that quite well
zealer - may be more common in duels, but i havent seen many pvm in a long long time
summon druid - just cant work unlike necro
any others? or anyone this any of these ARE viable and im just not up with the times?
Firestorm: While this is the first skill you get in the druid fire path, it is also potentially one of the most viable for dealing consistent damage. It is actually usable in part because it has a short (but not nonexistent) casting delay. Unfortunately it is not easy to aim, and the range is fairly short. An elemental druid is usually pretty weak because a lot of life and damage reduction gear is sacrificed for more skills. I think that theoretically, this is also the most damaging skill for the druid if fully synergized (assuming all 3 snakes hit a single target).
So is there a problem that needs fixing here? If so, what exactly?
Molten Boulder: And now the casting delay begins to rear its ugly head. It isn't entirely unbearable on molten bolder, but it certainly hinders the skill. The very nature of the skill is also rather discouraging. The damage is split up into physical and fire which is a plus, but the fire damage isn't very effective. The boulder knocks the opponent back when it hits them, but it is also leaving a trail of fire behind it. This fire is occasionally useful, but because the opponent is being knocked away from the boulder, it rarely does anything. And again, I will mention that the small fast hoarding enemies such as fallen and some of the flayers that would be likely to get past the boulder and run into this trail of fire, are almost always fire immune. I am also of the opinion that fire/physical immunes are far more common that one would think in this game.
The main problem for the elemental druid is that he needs to spend heavy points into all of his skills for them to be viable damage-wise, and that leaves him only with one element. Could the boulder not be redone to cause pure physical damage, with a much reduced cast delay and removed knockback? That way, the druid gets a primary spell that can be used to deal with fire immune monsters.
Fissure: Probably the favorite skill of most fire druids because it can attain high damage and is not a slow moving missile like the previous skills. It instead randomly opens vents around the area that you cast the spell, which is really quite baffling. You can actually cast this skill on a stationary opponent several times and not hit them once. Also you can get lucky and it may open several vents under the person at the same time. The point is that it is not consistent. It is best used when enemies are running across, and again I will mention that most of the hoarding enemies are fire immune (you can tell I am a little upset by that hehe).
Blizzard works the same way though, and that skill works very well. Thus the random nature shouldn't be the problem of Fissure, rather, it is probably again a result of inferior power compared to other casters.
Volcano: Without a casting delay, this could be a pretty amazing skill. Unfortunately, the casting delay is makes it very difficult to use. It has a physical and a fire component and can rack up quite a hefty damage count if the enemy decided to stay in one spot on top of the volcano. If the enemy is not on top of the volcano however, damage is slow and the fire druid must herd the monsters into a group and continuously run circles around them to keep them near the cinder cone. It takes a long time because the damage is again random within a certain area.
Armageddon: This is probably the most disappointing skill of all. The casting delay is 6 seconds (what makes this unbearable is that it shares it with all the other fire skills, leaving you essentially worthless for 6 whole seconds). The damage is another random area damage which means monsters could run up and hit you without taking any damage at all. Another problem is that this skill lasts a maximum of 30 seconds. With a casting delay of 6 seconds, you are worthless 20% of the time... If you were to try to use this skill without maxing the fissure synergy you would spend almost all of your time in the casting delay, and would have to recast the spell every 12 seconds. The only seemingly effective way to use this skill is to run away from enemies and hope the meteors hit them as they chase you. This is only marginally effective, and is not all that fun to play.
Couldn't this be reworked to a Thunderstormesque skill? Activate it, and for 2 minutes or something it pelts the area with damage. More damage than it currently does.
4: The way the synergies are set up, it takes a huge skill investment to receive an OK amount of damage. The fire druid will likely not have a second source of damage other than the physical on some of the skills(which never gets all that high).
That is true.
Maybe a Sorceress approach here? Let fissure have big natural damage, but few synergies. That way, it's the ideal candidate to grant some fire damage if the druid wants to combine it with wind. It will work sort of like Frozen Orb in that respect.
Then, we can have volcano, with big synergy dependency, to allow for a single-element build.
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I like your ideas, and I never actually knew that blizzard was random, I thought it just procced cold damage in the area of effect every certain amount of frames like hurricane. If it is random, perhaps it is the fact that fissure must take into account "usable" ground for the fissure animation while blizzard needs no such calculation. In general the fire druid is just slow in every way. All other classes are based around fast killing speeds while the fire druid has that taken away. I agree that less, but more effective synergies and/or a second source of damage among the fire path and a reduced or removed casting delay on all fire skills is really the only fix short of changing how the skills work.
An interesting idea for armageddon would be to reduce the area of effect, but have it still have the random aspect. Instead of having it as sort of a damage aura centered around the character, it could be more like inferno or arctic blast. What I mean by that is you have to hold down right click in order for the skill to be active, but have it be a concentrated attack centered around the mouse pointer, not the character. Think of it as blizzard, except the area of effect can be moved by moving the mouse pointer. This removes a lot of the randomness associated with the skill, though admittedly this may result in something overpowered. I also like the idea of it acting as a thunderstorm ability, though I think considering the point investment it takes it should strike more often.
Firestorm is a good skill, but it would be more effective if it were more like diablo's hellfire, taking up many more paths and having a much greater range. Right now, it can easily miss targets and if it doesn't do enough damage, the target will reach you, and as I mentioned the fire druid is terrible at taking damage.
Molten boulder suffers from being so terribly slow and being very directional oriented. I think that the speed of the actual boulder needs to be increased as well as the casting delay shorted or removed. Having a wall of molten boulders rolling over my enemies would be pretty awesome in my opinion. The skill already has a fire and a physical component, but they need to be buffed in some way. Perhaps the other fix I proposed would fix that by having many boulders, but I would need to test to verify.
I am not exactly sure what to do with fissure. Perhaps just a small buff such as each vent that opens up effects a wider area as opposed to the area immediately above.
Volcano is also a baffling one. If you increase the damage too much of the projectiles, then the volcano will be way overpowered for enemies that stand right at the top. If it is left the way that it is, then it is only effective at killing when enemies are at the top. Unfortunately, I feel that this skill needs to be reworked in order to fix that issue.
Any suggestions on top of what me and Phrozen have suggested are welcome, this is a discussion after all.
The fire druid skills are completlty random. At certain point it's cool because it adda a unique feeling to the class. But.. I think he should be "less" random, like a more concentrated fissure/armagedon, faster volcanos, strong molten boulder.
I'll coment about my fav class, the necromancer!
Really, this is a freaking joke. Among 7 types of summon, only Raise Skeleton are really, really good.
My suggestion:
SKELETON MAGES:
The difference between a lvl1 skeleton mage damage and a lvl20 one is about 40. Adds the resistances and this number is ridicolously low for 19 skill points. Skeleton Mage's damage should be improved. He deserves to scale better. Because of that i believe the Raise Skeleton should be nerfed a little (or else summoners would get way to OP).
REVIVE:
Every point should boost the minion damage by alot more. Maybe counterbalance that by decreasing the number of revived minions at lower levels.
GOLEMS:
They should not have synergies. Really, wtf...
I think the golems should have a really, really good damage. Something like 3k with 20 points + 20 golem mastery (mastery should also increase their damage). They should not be used only to tank. The fact that 40 points in golems are NEVER viable in any build bothers me.
The Clay Golem personal skill (the slow) is already good enough. Blood's damage share too.
I think Iron Golems should DROP the used item after die (or be unsummoned). Maybe a small nerf on him, or allow the full usage of item's proprietys at high skill level. But if you need CB stuff whenever you want to summon, noone would spend 20 points on him.
Fire Golem should has ALOT better damage, since many creatures in hell are immune to fire. Maybe he should attack with explosive aoe damage (something like a fireball proc on hit).
POISON SKILLS:
Poisonmancers are pretty good but i think their poison skill besides poison nova should be alot better because cast nova 24/7 is kinda depressing.
So i think they should invert the poison duration of the necro's skills. Imo the wider and easier to hit, slower the poison damage should be dealt. So poison nova should be nerfed dealing damage over 6 seconds, while poison explosion would deal damage over 2~3 seconds and poison dagger should deal deadly instant like poison damage (over one single second!). This way every poison skill should find it's use.
CORPSE EXPLOSION
First this skill is almost useless due the ridicolous high mana cost, then it's kinda too strong.
Imo CE's mana cost should be smaller at initial levels. The damage should be 60~100% monster HP (the pre 1.13 damage).
BONE SPELLS
Better damage on PVM for god sake !
THE BENEFICT FROM THOSE CHANGES:
Allows the creation of more hybrid necromancers. For exemple, a build that mix bone/poison skill and golem. Or a skeleton mage/poison/lower resist combo. I just think the possibilities would be greater. I'm kinda tired of playing with the same necro builds summon, poison, bone...
An interesting idea for armageddon would be to reduce the area of effect, but have it still have the random aspect. Instead of having it as sort of a damage aura centered around the character, it could be more like inferno or arctic blast. What I mean by that is you have to hold down right click in order for the skill to be active, but have it be a concentrated attack centered around the mouse pointer, not the character. Think of it as blizzard, except the area of effect can be moved by moving the mouse pointer. This removes a lot of the randomness associated with the skill, though admittedly this may result in something overpowered. I also like the idea of it acting as a thunderstorm ability, though I think considering the point investment it takes it should strike more often.
An inferno that you can target anywhre? Yes, that does sound overpowered, and would require a complete overhaul of how the skill works.
Though if it were to be made into a thunderstorm, it would of course have to be pretty powerful. It could be done though I think.
Firestorm is a good skill, but it would be more effective if it were more like diablo's hellfire, taking up many more paths and having a much greater range. Right now, it can easily miss targets and if it doesn't do enough damage, the target will reach you, and as I mentioned the fire druid is terrible at taking damage.
Increased skill points increase the range? Every 10 points could give an extra path of fire?
Molten boulder suffers from being so terribly slow and being very directional oriented. I think that the speed of the actual boulder needs to be increased as well as the casting delay shorted or removed. Having a wall of molten boulders rolling over my enemies would be pretty awesome in my opinion. The skill already has a fire and a physical component, but they need to be buffed in some way. Perhaps the other fix I proposed would fix that by having many boulders, but I would need to test to verify.
I think this is what should be shot for, though the stun might have to be forfeit entirely or greatly shortened.
Volcano is also a baffling one. If you increase the damage too much of the projectiles, then the volcano will be way overpowered for enemies that stand right at the top. If it is left the way that it is, then it is only effective at killing when enemies are at the top. Unfortunately, I feel that this skill needs to be reworked in order to fix that issue.
I don't know how the skill works on a game-mechanic level, but couldn't it be made so the most damage is dealt when the fireballs hit the ground? Like if they could create a fire AoE when their trajectory ends. I don't know if it's possible, but it would solve the problem of stationing it on bosses.
SKELETON MAGES:
The difference between a lvl1 skeleton mage damage and a lvl20 one is about 40. Adds the resistances and this number is ridicolously low for 19 skill points. Skeleton Mage's damage should be improved. He deserves to scale better. Because of that i believe the Raise Skeleton should be nerfed a little (or else summoners would get way to OP).
Very true, something has to be done to mages. What do you mean with 40 though?
REVIVE:
Every point should boost the minion damage by alot more. Maybe counterbalance that by decreasing the number of revived minions at lower levels.
Is that a problem? Given that the AI is still going to be crap, will this have any use?
GOLEMS:
They should not have synergies. Really, wtf...
I think the golems should have a really, really good damage. Something like 3k with 20 points + 20 golem mastery (mastery should also increase their damage). They should not be used only to tank. The fact that 40 points in golems are NEVER viable in any build bothers me.
The Clay Golem personal skill (the slow) is already good enough. Blood's damage share too.
I think Iron Golems should DROP the used item after die (or be unsummoned). Maybe a small nerf on him, or allow the full usage of item's proprietys at high skill level. But if you need CB stuff whenever you want to summon, noone would spend 20 points on him.
Fire Golem should has ALOT better damage, since many creatures in hell are immune to fire. Maybe he should attack with explosive aoe damage (something like a fireball proc on hit).
A Golemancer should definitely be a viable build. The numbers are of course uncertain, but the suggestion is solid. Why not synergies though?
POISON SKILLS:
Poisonmancers are pretty good but i think their poison skill besides poison nova should be alot better because cast nova 24/7 is kinda depressing.
So i think they should invert the poison duration of the necro's skills. Imo the wider and easier to hit, slower the poison damage should be dealt. So poison nova should be nerfed dealing damage over 6 seconds, while poison explosion would deal damage over 2~3 seconds and poison dagger should deal deadly instant like poison damage (over one single second!). This way every poison skill should find it's use.
I don't really know anything about Poisonmancers, but I suppose it sounds good.
CORPSE EXPLOSION
First this skill is almost useless due the ridicolous high mana cost, then it's kinda too strong.
Imo CE's mana cost should be smaller at initial levels. The damage should be 60~100% monster HP (the pre 1.13 damage).
Was the mana cost increased in 1.13? Because the power of this spell certainly would justify it I think.
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Very true, something has to be done to mages. What do you mean with 40 though?
The difference between a level 1 skeleton mage damage and a level 20 skeleton mage damage is only 40 damage, wich is very low specially because monsters in hell have a high elemental resistance.
Is that a problem? Given that the AI is still going to be crap, will this have any use?
Revive is actually a very powerfull skill imo. But the problem is that the skill do not scale after you get the maximun number of revived minions, so ppl only invest one point and let the skillers do the rest. Io revived minion damage should scale as well, so you could have the option to invest 20 points in it.
I think blizz intention to add a bad AI to this summon is reduce the viability of carry a group of revived dudes around. You should be reviving then during combat, and maybe carry some to a boss.
A Golemancer should definitely be a viable build. The numbers are of course uncertain, but the suggestion is solid. Why not synergies though?
Because imo the golem should reach full power with 40 skill points (so you still have 60 points left to build poison/bone spell's synergies).
Was the mana cost increased in 1.13? Because the power of this spell certainly would justify it I think.
The power of this spell more then justify it ! The problem is that this spell is unviable before you get really good mana items because it cost way to much mana on low levels. It is like ww, before 1.13 most barbs waited until level 60 to start using this spell because the mana cost of level 1 ww was ridicolously high to a lvl30 barbarian.
Revive is actually a very powerfull skill imo. But the problem is that the skill do not scale after you get the maximun number of revived minions, so ppl only invest one point and let the skillers do the rest. Io revived minion damage should scale as well, so you could have the option to invest 20 points in it.
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Another skill that needs a mention is Fend. It is broken with the amazon. You are probably aware of the bug associated with it. The problem is that you either invest in the passive skills to get enough survivability, or you skip them and deal with the bug. The bug is that when you are using fend, and the dodge animation triggers, you are stuck doing nothing for the rest of the fend animation. You do no damage. Even with a tiny point investment, it triggers quite often and makes a melee amazon based on fend extremely frustrating to play. The solution is to either not have dodge trigger while the fend animation is going, or to have fend continue even when dodging. The first reduces survivability of the amazon, but at least the meleezons will be playable.
I cannot believe the idea you have of making hydra more like a trappers traps hasnt been ever put into the game. Me and my friends years ago even used to discuss the exact same idea about the skill since it was so cool but completely useless in pvp/pve.
Another skill that needs a mention is Fend. It is broken with the amazon. You are probably aware of the bug associated with it. The problem is that you either invest in the passive skills to get enough survivability, or you skip them and deal with the bug. The bug is that when you are using fend, and the dodge animation triggers, you are stuck doing nothing for the rest of the fend animation. You do no damage. Even with a tiny point investment, it triggers quite often and makes a melee amazon based on fend extremely frustrating to play. The solution is to either not have dodge trigger while the fend animation is going, or to have fend continue even when dodging. The first reduces survivability of the amazon, but at least the meleezons will be playable.
this bug also effects strafe, although its less likely since strafe is ranged.
I cannot believe the idea you have of making hydra more like a trappers traps hasnt been ever put into the game. Me and my friends years ago even used to discuss the exact same idea about the skill since it was so cool but completely useless in pvp/pve.
u can actually, the skill telekinesis knockbacks but its random and hard to aim. but at least its not like mb <_<
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Poison mages rock. They're poison keeps Ubers/other bosses from regenerating health. Cold mages are good for slowing all your opponents down. The rest are useless. Yeah...
Magic Arrow:
Problems: sucks, what was its max damage at level 20? ........... was it 20?
, sure it cant be more powerful than any other skills that require arrows, but it could at least have some tactical bonus.
Solution:
Give it some kind of tactical bonuses, stun, knock back, weaken monster, that can increase per level,
AND, OR, maybe it could do serious damage, but at a SEVERE mana cost, or perhaps life cost?
I dont think any one mentioned this one, but I looked through this thread pretty quick
Bone Teeth: now this was a disapointing skill, especially when someone told me to pump points in it on my first necromancer only to end up doing what? 6 damage per bone teeth at level 30 or something? plus it doesnt work as pimp as the sorcs Electric equal, that could have multiple hits on single targets.
I dont think anyone has ever seen a necro clearing a cow level with bone teeth.
Solution: Again some kind of tactical ability, Stun, slow, or something like that,
AND, OR have great damage at higher levels, but with a HUGE mana cost
or it could give some kind of bonuses to summons, like a paladins holy bolt on other players.
wow my solutions are the same for everything arent they? ^.^
How about
Poison Dagger ? has anyone ever made a successful poison dagger necro?
I mean its single target, and you have to get in close to use it, plus you have to have good dex to hit stuff,
I dont think this was ever as useful as any of the necros other poison, or bone attack spells.
Been a while since I looked at the stats on this, so maybe someone else can take a whack at it?
same goes for throwing barbs, but again, I was never actually foolish enough to try one of those
SKELETON MAGES:
The difference between a lvl1 skeleton mage damage and a lvl20 one is about 40. Adds the resistances and this number is ridicolously low for 19 skill points. Skeleton Mage's damage should be improved. He deserves to scale better. Because of that i believe the Raise Skeleton should be nerfed a little (or else summoners would get way to OP).
REVIVE:
Every point should boost the minion damage by alot more. Maybe counterbalance that by decreasing the number of revived minions at lower levels.
I definitely agree that skeleton mages need a serious buff, but my suggestion for making sure that remains balanced is to have a skeleton cap. That is to say that a necro could only have a set number of total skeletons (both melee and mage) active at one time; something in the range of 10-15 I'd say. That would allow Summonmancers, as they stand, to continue doing what they're doing without being overpowered with the addition of mages that are actually worth having around. Builds that would use the mages and not melee skeletons would also become viable. As for Revive, it's definitely a weird skill. More points in the skill itself do absolutely nothing except for increase the max number of Revives. All of its damage and life increases comes from Skeleton Mastery. I'm not sure of a good solution for this one, but I think it's definitely poor design that a skill that actually gets used (i.e. isn't just a prereq) is viable with only 1 point invested.
Iron maiden curse: Have you ever cast this curse on hell monsters and expected to see some damage as they hack you? Well it just won't happen because their damage is about 1/0.13255x10^34 of their hp. this curse needs difficulty scaling for example like this:
Normal: 200% dmg returned
Nightmare: 600% dmg returned
Hell: 1800% damage returned
The issue with this isn't that their damage is so minuscule compared to their life, but that in NM and Hell, monsters gain significant physical resistance, which essentially makes IM worthless past Normal difficulty. I don't necessarily think that's a huge problem though, as there are usually better options by the time IM becomes worthless.
The issue with this isn't that their damage is so minuscule compared to their life, but that in NM and Hell, monsters gain significant physical resistance, which essentially makes IM worthless past Normal difficulty. I don't necessarily think that's a huge problem though, as there are usually better options by the time IM becomes worthless.
It is actually the problem. The ratio between monster damage:life gets severely shifted in the higher difficulties due to the rampant life increases for most monsters.
Balrog
Normal: 17% of life is dealt as damage
Nightmare: 2% of life is dealt as damage
Hell: 1% of life is dealt as damage
Check Megademon. Of course, physical resist makes this even worse, but it holds true even for monsters that don't have any physical resist.
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Druid
Necromancer
Sorceress
Druid
Firestorm
Problem: Firestorm is really not that bad in itself, but taken with the rest of the tree it doesn't work too well.
Solution: If Molten Boulder becomes the physical alternative to spamming, the Firestorm is the fire equivalent. The range should be increased tto something similar to that of Diablo's firestom ability, to put the druid in a safer position when using it, and to cope with the randomness, the amount of fire "arms" should increase as the skill increases in level. Perhaps another arm every 10 levels.
Molten Boulder
Problem: Molten Boulder is too cumbersome to use effectively.
Solution: The base damage needs to be increased, the cast delay reduced or removed, the moving speed of the boulder increased and the dependency on synergies needs to be decreased.
To offset this increased power, the boulder must probably have it's stunning effect removed. While it's not really optimal to remove such a feature that makes a skill unique, it does not fit in the tree. A stunning skill should belong to a powerful skill. The druid however has many skill in his tree with greater potential that the Molten Boulder, and so the stun is not very well suited for it.
The Fire Druid lacks a second damage source, due to his need to invest heavily in synergies to match the damage of a sorceress or Trapsin. The Molten Boulder can fill the physical damage role. Perhaps the balance between fire/physical can be shifted for Molten Boulder as well, putting less focus on fire and more on physical.
Volcano
Problem: Volcano is too random in nature. It works well if the monsters are positioned directly beneath it, but if they're not it does next to no damage. However, simply increasing the damage will make it extremely powerful if positioned beneath a monster. If the spirit of the skill is to be kept, some other change needs to be done.
Solution: I do not know if this is possible to make the skill work as follows, but could it be made so that the fireballs being spewed out created an aoe-damage upon hitting the ground? That way, it could deal a lof of damage do monsters running around, while still not being overly powerful if placed directly under a monster.
Armageddon
Problem: Does much too sporadic damage and is much too random to be useful.
Solution: Make Armageddon like Thunderstorm in mechanic: autotarget enemies. Unlike thunderstorm, it would strike with a much higher frequency. The damage can then be appropriately adjusted once the accuracy of the skill is settled.
Necromancer
Skeletal Mage
Problem: Skeleton mages scale much too badly compared to regular skeletons. Primarily their damage isn't boosted enough to warrant the skill investment, as the points can be spent much better else where.
Solution: Boost the damage of skeletal mages. As a result, regular skeletons might however become too powerful if used in combination. This might cause a slight nerf to follow them as well.
Golems
Problem: No golem is worth a heavy skill investment, and currently a golem can only serve as a support unit, not a primary summon. A golemancer is not a viable build.
Solution: Change golem mechanics to allow for more versatile golem usage
Iron Golem
Problem: Consumes the item in question, which either forces you to keep a good supply of items whenever you want to summon an iron golem.
Solution: This should be amended so that unsummoning or killing the golem returns the item.
Corpse Explosion
Problem: CE is prohibitively mana-costly at lower levels.
Solution: Lower the initial mana cost, but keep the mana cost at high levels.
Sorceress
Hydra
Problem: Hydra suffers from many problems. Even though it received a buff in the 1.13 patch, it still does not compare to the move devastating Fire Ball and Meteor.
Solution: Change Hydra so that it emulates Assassin Traps. Remove the cast delay and add a limit of 5 hydras at a time, just like traps. This way, a Sorceress cannot create 20 hydras at one time, but she can get her damage going quickly. She can also recast hydras fast once a group of monsters is down as she moves on.
i actually made a hydra sorc because of the buff, but it quickly turned into a fball sorc just because of that point - hydra still isnt a realistic high level skill.
On that note the fire druid suffers from a lot of the same problems. Excruciating casting delays coupled with significant point investment for viability cripples the build. Lets go through the skills.
Firestorm: While this is the first skill you get in the druid fire path, it is also potentially one of the most viable for dealing consistent damage. It is actually usable in part because it has a short (but not nonexistent) casting delay. Unfortunately it is not easy to aim, and the range is fairly short. An elemental druid is usually pretty weak because a lot of life and damage reduction gear is sacrificed for more skills. I think that theoretically, this is also the most damaging skill for the druid if fully synergized (assuming all 3 snakes hit a single target).
Molten Boulder: And now the casting delay begins to rear its ugly head. It isn't entirely unbearable on molten bolder, but it certainly hinders the skill. The very nature of the skill is also rather discouraging. The damage is split up into physical and fire which is a plus, but the fire damage isn't very effective. The boulder knocks the opponent back when it hits them, but it is also leaving a trail of fire behind it. This fire is occasionally useful, but because the opponent is being knocked away from the boulder, it rarely does anything. And again, I will mention that the small fast hoarding enemies such as fallen and some of the flayers that would be likely to get past the boulder and run into this trail of fire, are almost always fire immune. I am also of the opinion that fire/physical immunes are far more common that one would think in this game.
Fissure: Probably the favorite skill of most fire druids because it can attain high damage and is not a slow moving missile like the previous skills. It instead randomly opens vents around the area that you cast the spell, which is really quite baffling. You can actually cast this skill on a stationary opponent several times and not hit them once. Also you can get lucky and it may open several vents under the person at the same time. The point is that it is not consistent. It is best used when enemies are running across, and again I will mention that most of the hoarding enemies are fire immune (you can tell I am a little upset by that hehe).
Volcano: Without a casting delay, this could be a pretty amazing skill. Unfortunately, the casting delay is makes it very difficult to use. It has a physical and a fire component and can rack up quite a hefty damage count if the enemy decided to stay in one spot on top of the volcano. If the enemy is not on top of the volcano however, damage is slow and the fire druid must herd the monsters into a group and continuously run circles around them to keep them near the cinder cone. It takes a long time because the damage is again random within a certain area.
Armageddon: This is probably the most disappointing skill of all. The casting delay is 6 seconds (what makes this unbearable is that it shares it with all the other fire skills, leaving you essentially worthless for 6 whole seconds). The damage is another random area damage which means monsters could run up and hit you without taking any damage at all. Another problem is that this skill lasts a maximum of 30 seconds. With a casting delay of 6 seconds, you are worthless 20% of the time... If you were to try to use this skill without maxing the fissure synergy you would spend almost all of your time in the casting delay, and would have to recast the spell every 12 seconds. The only seemingly effective way to use this skill is to run away from enemies and hope the meteors hit them as they chase you. This is only marginally effective, and is not all that fun to play.
So lets do a summary of all the things wrong with the fire druid.
1: The shared casting delays make a lot of the skills unusable with other fire skills and makes faster cast rate a worthless trait.
2: The random mechanics of most of the skills is a huge weakness which seriously reduces damage output except in the most ideal circumstances.
3: The type of monsters that these skills are ideally suited for (the hoarding monsters such as fallen and most of the flayer derivatives) are almost all fire immune, further reducing the usefulness of all of the skills.
4: The way the synergies are set up, it takes a huge skill investment to receive an OK amount of damage. The fire druid will likely not have a second source of damage other than the physical on some of the skills(which never gets all that high).
5: The fire druid is forced to use lots of +skills equipment to output enough damage, which significantly reduces the defensive abilities of the build such as life and damage mitigation. The way the skills are set up also makes it far more difficult for the fire druid to fight at a distance like all other casters, exposing him to a lot more damage than other casters. On top of this, the druid also has no physical damage reduction skills that the other casters do. Cyclone armor helps against elemental damage, which almost always come from ranged attacks and do not help the druid against the physical problem. This is also made EVEN WORSE by the fact that a lot of the swarming, large group, fast enemies like fallen, flayers and doom knights are fire immune.
Unfortunately, short of a huge reworking of the fire skills on the druid, he will forever be a misfit among diablo builds.
one thing i really dont like, is that in order to be strong enough to kill things with elemental attacks, you gotta pour all your skill points into that skill and its same elemental synergies. Thus 1 immune and you character is useless unless you have money for a merc with ¿convicion? aura :/
what other characters have potentially good skills but just arnt viable?
fire trapsin -keeping with the fire theme -
werebear - even with buffs i still dont see many using or it ever being equal to wolf
fire druid - you went over that quite well
zealer - may be more common in duels, but i havent seen many pvm in a long long time
summon druid - just cant work unlike necro
any others? or anyone this any of these ARE viable and im just not up with the times?
The main problem for the elemental druid is that he needs to spend heavy points into all of his skills for them to be viable damage-wise, and that leaves him only with one element. Could the boulder not be redone to cause pure physical damage, with a much reduced cast delay and removed knockback? That way, the druid gets a primary spell that can be used to deal with fire immune monsters.
Blizzard works the same way though, and that skill works very well. Thus the random nature shouldn't be the problem of Fissure, rather, it is probably again a result of inferior power compared to other casters.
What can be done to fix that though?
Couldn't this be reworked to a Thunderstormesque skill? Activate it, and for 2 minutes or something it pelts the area with damage. More damage than it currently does.
Are they all on a shared casting delay? If so, that's pretty bad.
That is true.
Maybe a Sorceress approach here? Let fissure have big natural damage, but few synergies. That way, it's the ideal candidate to grant some fire damage if the druid wants to combine it with wind. It will work sort of like Frozen Orb in that respect.
Then, we can have volcano, with big synergy dependency, to allow for a single-element build.
An interesting idea for armageddon would be to reduce the area of effect, but have it still have the random aspect. Instead of having it as sort of a damage aura centered around the character, it could be more like inferno or arctic blast. What I mean by that is you have to hold down right click in order for the skill to be active, but have it be a concentrated attack centered around the mouse pointer, not the character. Think of it as blizzard, except the area of effect can be moved by moving the mouse pointer. This removes a lot of the randomness associated with the skill, though admittedly this may result in something overpowered. I also like the idea of it acting as a thunderstorm ability, though I think considering the point investment it takes it should strike more often.
Firestorm is a good skill, but it would be more effective if it were more like diablo's hellfire, taking up many more paths and having a much greater range. Right now, it can easily miss targets and if it doesn't do enough damage, the target will reach you, and as I mentioned the fire druid is terrible at taking damage.
Molten boulder suffers from being so terribly slow and being very directional oriented. I think that the speed of the actual boulder needs to be increased as well as the casting delay shorted or removed. Having a wall of molten boulders rolling over my enemies would be pretty awesome in my opinion. The skill already has a fire and a physical component, but they need to be buffed in some way. Perhaps the other fix I proposed would fix that by having many boulders, but I would need to test to verify.
I am not exactly sure what to do with fissure. Perhaps just a small buff such as each vent that opens up effects a wider area as opposed to the area immediately above.
Volcano is also a baffling one. If you increase the damage too much of the projectiles, then the volcano will be way overpowered for enemies that stand right at the top. If it is left the way that it is, then it is only effective at killing when enemies are at the top. Unfortunately, I feel that this skill needs to be reworked in order to fix that issue.
Any suggestions on top of what me and Phrozen have suggested are welcome, this is a discussion after all.
I'll coment about my fav class, the necromancer!
Really, this is a freaking joke. Among 7 types of summon, only Raise Skeleton are really, really good.
My suggestion:
SKELETON MAGES:
The difference between a lvl1 skeleton mage damage and a lvl20 one is about 40. Adds the resistances and this number is ridicolously low for 19 skill points. Skeleton Mage's damage should be improved. He deserves to scale better. Because of that i believe the Raise Skeleton should be nerfed a little (or else summoners would get way to OP).
REVIVE:
Every point should boost the minion damage by alot more. Maybe counterbalance that by decreasing the number of revived minions at lower levels.
GOLEMS:
They should not have synergies. Really, wtf...
I think the golems should have a really, really good damage. Something like 3k with 20 points + 20 golem mastery (mastery should also increase their damage). They should not be used only to tank. The fact that 40 points in golems are NEVER viable in any build bothers me.
The Clay Golem personal skill (the slow) is already good enough. Blood's damage share too.
I think Iron Golems should DROP the used item after die (or be unsummoned). Maybe a small nerf on him, or allow the full usage of item's proprietys at high skill level. But if you need CB stuff whenever you want to summon, noone would spend 20 points on him.
Fire Golem should has ALOT better damage, since many creatures in hell are immune to fire. Maybe he should attack with explosive aoe damage (something like a fireball proc on hit).
POISON SKILLS:
Poisonmancers are pretty good but i think their poison skill besides poison nova should be alot better because cast nova 24/7 is kinda depressing.
So i think they should invert the poison duration of the necro's skills. Imo the wider and easier to hit, slower the poison damage should be dealt. So poison nova should be nerfed dealing damage over 6 seconds, while poison explosion would deal damage over 2~3 seconds and poison dagger should deal deadly instant like poison damage (over one single second!). This way every poison skill should find it's use.
CORPSE EXPLOSION
First this skill is almost useless due the ridicolous high mana cost, then it's kinda too strong.
Imo CE's mana cost should be smaller at initial levels. The damage should be 60~100% monster HP (the pre 1.13 damage).
BONE SPELLS
Better damage on PVM for god sake !
THE BENEFICT FROM THOSE CHANGES:
Allows the creation of more hybrid necromancers. For exemple, a build that mix bone/poison skill and golem. Or a skeleton mage/poison/lower resist combo. I just think the possibilities would be greater. I'm kinda tired of playing with the same necro builds summon, poison, bone...
An inferno that you can target anywhre? Yes, that does sound overpowered, and would require a complete overhaul of how the skill works.
Though if it were to be made into a thunderstorm, it would of course have to be pretty powerful. It could be done though I think.
Increased skill points increase the range? Every 10 points could give an extra path of fire?
I think this is what should be shot for, though the stun might have to be forfeit entirely or greatly shortened.
I don't know how the skill works on a game-mechanic level, but couldn't it be made so the most damage is dealt when the fireballs hit the ground? Like if they could create a fire AoE when their trajectory ends. I don't know if it's possible, but it would solve the problem of stationing it on bosses.
NECROMANCER
Very true, something has to be done to mages. What do you mean with 40 though?
Is that a problem? Given that the AI is still going to be crap, will this have any use?
A Golemancer should definitely be a viable build. The numbers are of course uncertain, but the suggestion is solid. Why not synergies though?
I don't really know anything about Poisonmancers, but I suppose it sounds good.
Was the mana cost increased in 1.13? Because the power of this spell certainly would justify it I think.
The difference between a level 1 skeleton mage damage and a level 20 skeleton mage damage is only 40 damage, wich is very low specially because monsters in hell have a high elemental resistance.
Revive is actually a very powerfull skill imo. But the problem is that the skill do not scale after you get the maximun number of revived minions, so ppl only invest one point and let the skillers do the rest. Io revived minion damage should scale as well, so you could have the option to invest 20 points in it.
I think blizz intention to add a bad AI to this summon is reduce the viability of carry a group of revived dudes around. You should be reviving then during combat, and maybe carry some to a boss.
Because imo the golem should reach full power with 40 skill points (so you still have 60 points left to build poison/bone spell's synergies).
The power of this spell more then justify it ! The problem is that this spell is unviable before you get really good mana items because it cost way to much mana on low levels. It is like ww, before 1.13 most barbs waited until level 60 to start using this spell because the mana cost of level 1 ww was ridicolously high to a lvl30 barbarian.
Hurricane/nados are op.
Smite is op.
mb needs one too.
"to the worm in horseradish, the world is horseradish."
That doesn't tell me anything. How does Blessed Hammer differ from a Bonemancer?
What's nados and why is Hurricane overpowered?
Although it is highly situational, a smiter isn't very good in PvM except for boss-killing.
For what reason?
What's mb?
mind blast basically is spammed by trapsins and is just really hard to escape.
"to the worm in horseradish, the world is horseradish."
this bug also effects strafe, although its less likely since strafe is ranged.
u can actually, the skill telekinesis knockbacks but its random and hard to aim. but at least its not like mb <_<
"to the worm in horseradish, the world is horseradish."
Magic Arrow:
Problems: sucks, what was its max damage at level 20? ........... was it 20?
, sure it cant be more powerful than any other skills that require arrows, but it could at least have some tactical bonus.
Solution:
Give it some kind of tactical bonuses, stun, knock back, weaken monster, that can increase per level,
AND, OR, maybe it could do serious damage, but at a SEVERE mana cost, or perhaps life cost?
I dont think any one mentioned this one, but I looked through this thread pretty quick
Bone Teeth: now this was a disapointing skill, especially when someone told me to pump points in it on my first necromancer only to end up doing what? 6 damage per bone teeth at level 30 or something? plus it doesnt work as pimp as the sorcs Electric equal, that could have multiple hits on single targets.
I dont think anyone has ever seen a necro clearing a cow level with bone teeth.
Solution: Again some kind of tactical ability, Stun, slow, or something like that,
AND, OR have great damage at higher levels, but with a HUGE mana cost
or it could give some kind of bonuses to summons, like a paladins holy bolt on other players.
wow my solutions are the same for everything arent they? ^.^
How about
Poison Dagger ? has anyone ever made a successful poison dagger necro?
I mean its single target, and you have to get in close to use it, plus you have to have good dex to hit stuff,
I dont think this was ever as useful as any of the necros other poison, or bone attack spells.
Been a while since I looked at the stats on this, so maybe someone else can take a whack at it?
same goes for throwing barbs, but again, I was never actually foolish enough to try one of those
The issue with this isn't that their damage is so minuscule compared to their life, but that in NM and Hell, monsters gain significant physical resistance, which essentially makes IM worthless past Normal difficulty. I don't necessarily think that's a huge problem though, as there are usually better options by the time IM becomes worthless.
Balrog
Normal: 17% of life is dealt as damage
Nightmare: 2% of life is dealt as damage
Hell: 1% of life is dealt as damage
Check Megademon. Of course, physical resist makes this even worse, but it holds true even for monsters that don't have any physical resist.