Quote from Rickarus
Quote from shaggy
Quote from TheDFO
if I'm building a tank, why would I need the tankiest pets? Wouldn't I want damage pets? Or, if the only way to make them viable is to be a tank already, then again, what's the point?
I agree with everything you said except this.
Zombie Dogs, especially, is categorized as a "defensive" ability. And it's plenty clear that both Zombie Dogs and Gargantuan are supposed to give the DK a measure of control. They absolutely must scale with defensive stats (and I believe they already do). If you want to build a tank witch doctor then you'll probably not want to take pets. It's really not going to change much.
I just don't see a logical way to make pets scale on the opposite role you take. That's a ton of work for very little reward.
The issue with WD pets scaling with defensive stats, is that it's counter-productive for a defensive ability meant to keep enemies from attacking you in a build where you would be gearing for defensive stats. They either need to be able to effectively do damage in tank build, or effectively tank for a decent amount of time in an offensive build. Therefore they need to scale defensively with offensive stats, or offensively with defensive stats. Otherwise they'll only be effective in higher gear levels where you already have high amounts of both offensive and defensive stats.
IMO the Garg should be effectively as hard to kill as a decently geared Templar, even with low levels of defensive stats, and ZDs should be able to survive a decent amount of hits, longer with leeching beasts. Obviously this would be with pet/defensive-based passives. Also, pets should have the ability to taunt, or at least cause high amounts of threat so that enemies won't just run past them and attack the WD.
Easy way to do that imo is scaling their life with the WDs Int, and increase the amount of resists they get from the WDs resists, etc.
I'm not even going to bother to point out the 10+ reasons that your proposition is ineffective and accomplishes nothing aside from your insistance on forcing Zombie Dogs and Gargantuan to work with a niche spec like a tankdoctor. I assure you that you have not thought this through to see the absolutely glaring holes in what you're saying, though.
What you are doing is taking abilities which were clearly designed for defense/control and tailoring them to a very niche playstyle, and that's akin to me complaining that Horrify doesn't have enough of a direct offensive use (like 50% weapon damage) which makes it useless for my spec. Abilities do NOT need to by hybridized like that. We take abilities like Horrify and Mass Confusion and Hex because they primarily provide control. The idea that every ability should be both offensive and defensive absolutely negates the choices we're supposed to be making. The point of the matter is that if you don't need control then you don't need Horrify.
Abilities are supposed to have roles they fill. The goal of making a good spec is (in theory) supposed to be finding the proper synergy between your abilities and your playstyle. What you are doing is saying that you want Zombie Dogs to be viable in every single spec out there which is no more logical than me saying that Poison Darts has to be viable in every single spec out there. The bottom line is that they aren't and that they shouldn't be. If you need more offense in your tank build you probably should pick an offensive ability.
I don't see what's so damned complicated about that. All you have is a solution looking for a problem.
1
Dude, you must be new to it.
In D2 we killed monsters to get runes and make wacky new builds such as bearzons and whirlwind assassin and ghosts and... I remembered I had a archive in my PC with a list of 230 character builds for D2, from poison fairies to singer barbs. They were not always optimal but strangely enough (given immunities and other monster properties) some wacky builds were better at farming certain items then mainstream builds. And that actually mattered because some lower level items were also useful.
Also in D2 had a non-linear progression. Learning to beat nightmare was not the same as learning to beat hell. You had to build around immunities, some skills didn't progressed at all and you needed new ways to make then worth it (such as necro needing specific call to arms item to make skeletons good), not all character approached each item equally (so you needed to learn many new things when changing classes, like break points for zon IAS jab skill and how to make a damaging auradin, while in D3 it comes down to solving the same mathematical equation max DPS restricted to certain EHP level).
I still play D2 and every time I play it I learn new things. Getting items in D3 to jump from mp5 to mp6 and from mp6 to mp7 feels like the very same experience to me... I'm a guy who like new experiences =p (in 4 years i've never had the same meal twice).
I'm not saying D3 is a bad game or you're stupid from liking it. I just don't like how things turned out in the end and that's my preference. I just read those board once in a life time to see if the expansion will fix the game for me =(
1
D3 was the best game of all times... until it was released !!
*** Wow I'm very impressed by you remembering all those names. There was also Magistrate who loved rats and Mephito's Lament who was pretty cool guy with bad attitude. Damnit, I used to absolutly love this place so fucking much ='(
I remember when classes would get talent trees - barbarians had berserk, juggernaut and battlemaster; wd had voodoo, spirit and zombies(?); wizard had conjure, elemental and arcane. Wonder what trees monk and DH if they kept that system !
1
I think majority of people don't really now what they don't like about D3. It's not a matter of time you take to get a upgrade. It's the lack of variety in item types and ways you have to get a upgrade. It's lack of different interations inside the game.
1
DPS builds fails on hardcore *sigh* Not that HC is mandatory but you can't blame someone for not trying to find a build that does not depends on luck of not being one shotted by firechains vortex packs.
Also, if the class has only one viable play style (DPS w/o using mana spenders) the class is broken. Some people can't see the difference between being good player and using a good build.
1
- Sets and Legendaries gotta have a huge buff and need some desing love.
- Nerf +damage mods on weapons please. An good +stat high roll shopuld give about the same dps as an good +dmg high roll.
- Rares should be rarer but should be better. Byt it's working the way it is.
- Using gold to craft and upgrade jewels sucks. I'm stuck with 300 of each jewel type without upgrading then because of the ridicolous gold cost =(
- Black Smith = Gamble with useless boring pointless steps (scraping for materials, no depth or fun in that). BS recipes should cost gold and gems only.
1
D3 has no ladder, no massively high lvl cap and no need for rerolling characters to try different builds. The only longevity the game has is force players to farm for few dozen hours in order to get enough gear and progress. We're only 3 weeks from release and theres a good portion of the community running Act 1 and Act 2. In a few months people would easilly kill diablo even if inferno kept been retardly hard. Any smoothness will only make farm less needed, reducing the already small longevity of the game.
I don't know about you guys but i'm pretty sure by now making this game online based and adding an AH just made the item hunt too easy thus making the progression also pretty easy and frustrating at the same time (cause you're farming gold, not items, most of the time).
I hope PvP is amazing or else this game will have a very little life cycle.
1
It's not like each class only make use of it's primary stat. Everyone make use of vit, armor, attack speed, lifesteal, pick up radius, critical hit rate, critical hit damage, stum/blind chances, hp regen , etc...
Never saw anyone QQing in D2 why 80% of the affixes were utterly useless for necros, sorcs and elemental druids (and hammerdinds).
Not to mention STR was useless for necros, sorcs, elemental druids, most zons and hammerdins.
DEX was useless for everyone but bow zons.
ENE was uselesss for everyone but ES sorcs.
Seriously i dunno wtf you're talking about when you evoke D2 as bases for "well done" stats.
1
If you want to play the game the way you like, not the way you have to, you want a easy face roll game. I'm not an barb expert but i've barbs friends whos progressing on inferno and they have different builds (one is allways throwing axes and using ancient spear, the other stum locks monsters).
Post your stats plz. I"m pretty sure you're undergeared...
Getting the right gear won't get you everywhere. Let me tell you an story...
I was playing with my bro's lvl60 wiz on inferno. I died 10+ times in the first champion pack i found... Kept playing and i was taking more then 30 min to kill each pack (the nephalem buff was fading between packs, i couldn't stack more then 1!).
5 hours later, using the same items and twinking the skills a bit i could kill stuff just fine (maybe died once). The difference was huge.
Of course, if yo'ure being one shoted you problem surely is gear. Still, skill and knowing how to play make wonders... Blizz disliked how things worked in D2 because a player with good gear and no skill could beat the game. In D3 you seriously need both...
1
1
Name: LadyBrienne
Class: Barbarian
Status: Alive
Level: 33
Progression: Nightmare, Act I, Old Tristram
Name: Braids
Class: Demon Hunter
Status: Alive
Level: 11
Progression: Normal, Act I, Infectwoods