DiabloFans

Wow. I get the whole "minimum sale price" bit, as Paypal takes a cut (as do credit card companies. Back in the day, minimum sale prices where common with CCs). That said, I am surprised that it is minimum per ITEM not minimum per transaction. I just can't see the point, unless they're trying to limit the amount of transactions or something.

Quote from Nausicaa

Quote from TheDFO

Firebomb - base damage increased to 100% (which is still the lowest damage of the WD's primaries). Additionally, all "repeat" runes such as Roll the Bones and Flash Fire can hit the same enemies repeatedly.

Locust Swarm - Base range tripled. The speed of the cloud reduced by 50% every original length (not sure what it was).

Fire Bats - Range doubled. Fire bats spreads out so that it does less damage the farther away the enemy is. Dire bats range not changed.

Hehe, you might wanna rethink that bouncing on the same target for Flash Fire. You are saying that you want it do do 100% + 85% + 70% + 65% + 50% + 35% = 405% dmg / cast ^^?

I have 0 problems hitting with Locust Swarm.

I wouldn't mind having the non-Dire bat runes reach a little further. That's the main reason everyone runs ONLY Dire bat runes in a VQ spec.

Okay, so my love of Firebomb got the better of me. But I think that either needs the 100% base, or to hit more than once (maybe not all six, but at least twice)

Also, I think it's a multiplicative reduction. Otherwise it'd be doing negative damage on the last hit (as it stands now, starting at 85%)

And the point with increasing range on LS and FB isn't because we have trouble hitting with it, but because we get hit when we do hit with it. Also, they have to compete with longer ranged skills (such as dire bats) that do just as much damage, and in the case of LS, they do it much faster.

Quote from Derwiv33

Active Skills:

• Spirit Barrage's mana cost has been reduced to 98 from 108.
• Plague of Toads mana cost has been reduced to 17 from 34.
• Pets will now receive 33% less damage from molten, plagued, arcane sentry and AoE skills.

I say leave SB where it is. The issue isn't mana, so unless you dropped it to like 60, it wouldn't be all that useful.
Plague of Toads - I have a similar issue. The issue is that you have to be so close to use it, and the spread is so random. I would say reduce the cost and add another toad (so it's a little less random up close).
I would also add that Corpse Spiders need to leap by default. Otherwise they just can't hit moving targets.

Runes:

• Zombie Charger - Zombie Bears rune has been modified. Bears can only hit one target once (The same as DH's Nether tentacles).

I feel no one would ever use ZB then. It's basically a short range version of Dire Bats then. My suggestion would be that if this happens, they need to add a buff somehow. Maybe a little less mana, or just fix the cast rate so it matches attack rate.


Things I would Add:
Toad Of Hugeness now applies one hit damage and knockback to champ packs, dealing 80% of the damage it would normally do over time to a white. Additionally, damage is buffed to 40% per second for up to 5 seconds against whites. It uses it's tongue attack at 75% of your APS when it doesn't have something in your stomach.

Splinters - splinters now spread out a bit randomly, meaning that at long ranges there is a chance that at least one splinter will miss.
Firebomb - base damage increased to 100% (which is still the lowest damage of the WD's primaries). Additionally, all "repeat" runes such as Roll the Bones and Flash Fire can hit the same enemies repeatedly.
Locust Swarm - Base range tripled. The speed of the cloud reduced by 50% every original length (not sure what it was).
Fire Bats - Range doubled. Fire bats spreads out so that it does less damage the farther away the enemy is. Dire bats range not not changed.
Sacrifice - Able to sacrifice dogs one at a time. Remove Cooldown. Having both Sacrifice and ZD skills on your skill bar decreases the cooldown for ZD by 15%
Big Bad Voodoo - The fetish teleports to your side after 10 seconds.

I also feel that Blood Ritual needs to be changed to be more of a risk reward thing (as 15% of mana at level 60 is nothing compared to your life). I just can't figure out how to make it not overly complicated to explain.

Quote from Vadok

What about Rathma, Mendeln or Trag'Oul? After the final battle in the Sin War, Mendeln got instructions to train disciples, althought those might just be the Necro's from D2

Eh, they didn't teach her Necromancy, and they probably wouldn't have made up a cover story name. Also, how would an Angel in the High Heaven know anything about them?

I agree, they're probably going to go with Inarius, I just don't think it's a good choice. There are too many issues with dates, motivations, and communications.

I still don't get how the RMAH and "credit card warriors" ruins the game. It was rampant in D2. Maybe more people buy now, I don't know. But, who cares if they do? This is the wrong game to play if you're looking to brag about your ranking. Not only is a lot of it PvE, but the PvP won't have a rank, AND it's matched by gear, so it is unlikely you're going to be beat by someone who has an advantage over you just cause they bought it. The only legitimate complaint that I can see for it ruining the game is if you really, really, REALLY enjoy the economy part. But even then, you now have a new method to use, and one that can possibly make you money back.

The other ways it "ruins" the game was if you care about your epeen, or if you buy from it yourself. Particularly that last one. There isn't any point in farming for items (which oh, btw, you probably aren't getting to till after you've put in ~50ish hours already, which I would say means you at least got your moneys worth) if you can just buy them cheap.

Wow. Just. Wow. With acerbic wit like that it's no wonder you got banned.

Also, doesn't the N52 auto switch profiles based on the .exe launched? I know Razer version of it can, and according to Wikipedia it can. So...you're too lazy to make a second profile that auto switches?

Quote from paroxysm2010

Quote from Bleu42

If you have such a hateful attitude towards the game, why are you even playing it? If you really think it sucks, why don't you quit?

lame argument, hese complaining about binding
hardly a reason to quit the game.

so according to you anyone who has a gripe with a game should just quit? even if its something as trivial as binding?

No, the key binding thing is a legit issue. The hateful attitude goes WAY beyond that, to the point where I don't see why he's still playing either. Just the fact that he actually thought an optional entertainment forum could be as bad as living in North Korea shows his level of maturity. If his only complaint was the key binding thing, I'd agree with you. But it seems it's not.

Some interesting ideas, but there is something I disagree with - pets scaling with defensive stats.

I get the idea that you don't want to give glass cannons super awesome defensive pets. But, when they heavily scale with defensive stats (vit, armor, hp, etc), then they become somewhat redundant - 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?

Pets should, IMO, scale nominally based on player advancement - no matter what your gear is, with no skill buffs, they should be okay (not great), on the act you are trying to progress on. I'm thinking 50-75% of the cool down. Basically, they should be balanced so that if you don't spend at least a portion of your build on them, they so-so. However, if you want to use pets, you can choose passives and skills that would benefit them. That way, you're making a trade off - less damage/survivability through passives and CC, but more survivability through pets. I feel this would have worked with the original idea of having active skills interact with pets, like being able to set fire to, or add locust to, pets. If you want to use pets, you build your build around them.

I only have three other major wishes.

The smallest, but maybe the largest impact, is faster animations. It makes it incredibly difficult to kite well when you have stop for so long to cast something.

Second, I think they need to revamp the spirit based attack spells - haunt and SB. Haunt would be decent if we had unlimited spell slots, as it's very situational (45% dps is too low for a main attack spell, especially one that is as mana happy as haunt). Maybe halve the damage but make it a debuff (extra damage from spirit attacks, slow, reduce damage, a small improvement to all spirit skills for every enemy with haunt on them, something). For Spirit Barrage, well, it's just got a terrible damage/mana ratio. Sure, you can use up a passive and a rune and reduce it to 40ish mana, but it still only does 10% more than splinters (does less if you happen to be rocking PtV instead of the Rush of Essence to get the reduced mana). Also, even if it only "costs" 40 mana, it still takes the full 108 to cast as you only get the rest back over time (as opposed to nearly every other classes cost reduction runes which are a straight up reduction in cost, frequently for a better reduction as well).

Finally, mana. Now, my personal wish is that it gets completely replaced, like with some form of Blood Ritual (that'd make a truly unique class if we cast out of hp). However, that's a bit much for a patch. I think the best they could do is rework the costs and cooldowns. I'm not sure how they could make the class more unique, but I think the first thing is reduce or eliminate the cost for the primary skills. We're the only class that has no way of attacking when we oom. Maybe reduce APS when using primaries below a certain mana %, or cast primaries out of HP, or just do what the Wizard does and make them free. Also, splinters needs a reduction in damage. It's just too good right now. That, or make the other primaries better. For all the limits on firebombs AoE vs other classes primary AoE's, it doesn't do much damage (can't hit anything more than once, it's slow so it misses a lot...I guess only two limits. But they're big!).

Yeah, you're not even close to the only person who likes the game. I played a good bit of D2 (not, you know, super amounts, but a decent amount), and I think this is an improvement in almost every way. I like the new skills. I like the story (SHOCKER!). I like the items. I like how Inferno gives you a reason to gear up beyond just getting more.

All that said, they do have mistakes. I just feel that, just like Skyrim or Arkham City, outweigh the issues enough to make it one of the better games of the year. Probably not game of the year, but not horrible like some people who I won't insult say.

So, is it just me, or does the post about end game read more of "you guys play too much" then a "we screwed up"?

That said, I agree they should just leave the MF system alone. It's not that I like it the way it is, but that if there are people who like the idea of hot swapping, fine, let them do it. But at least leave in the challenge of having to swap in the middle of combat. If you do put in a hot swap, make it a 1 or 2 second cast time. That way it fits the whole risk vs reward aspect of the game.

Quote from Swirlyball

just make it so that you cannot change gear in combat. Makes sense, as you wouldnt be swapping into a new set of armor whilst fighting an enemy.. lol. It would be like saying "Diablo, can you just not attack me for a sec whilst i change my armor?"

I think the reason why they didn't suggest that was they never bothered to create an "in combat" state. That's why the TP and leave game timers exist. Somewhere there was a blue post about it, and they decided that the effort wasn't worth it, because "in combat" states are usually really wonky. Having one would solve a lot of issues in the game though.

Quote from maka

Quote from TheDFO

Oh, and the drops are NOT affected by the AH. This is just BS that has been spread around, only backed up by anecdotal evidence. This is OT, so I won't bother going on about it. But unless you can come up with hard evidence, then please stop gabbing on about that.

There was a quote by Bashiok that was later deleted by Blizzard. That quote said that drop rates are not affected by what's currently for sale on the AH, but they are affected by the mere existence of the AH (ie, drop rates were nerfed because the AH exists). A couple of weeks after the quote was deleted, Jay Wilson came out and said that the drop rates were calculated as if the player did not use the AH at all; I honestly find this hard to believe.

Yes, and was further explained in the AMAA. What they said in the AMAA was that they did NOT balance the drops towards the AH. They couldn't, they didn't have enough people in the internal testing to properly test the AH. They geared the game for gathering drops on your own, and, by and large, succeeded up until Inferno. Inferno balance is a WHOLE nother issue that I won't touch on, because Blizzard themselves admitted they didn't balance it before release.

What Bash's statement meant (or what he should have meant if he got confused) was that they CONSIDERED it as a means of getting gear, along with picking it up off monsters and trading. I'm not 100% sure what that meant, but they (forget if it was Jay or Wyatt) do state that the drops were balanced for solo progression.


Anyway, slice it however you want, but I feel no pity to those who complain about the game being "ruined" by the RMAH. When I saw it, I knew using it would lessen the game for me. Because, for me, it's as much about the journey for the gear as the gear itself (that's also why I didn't do the gobo or chest runs). However, there was clearly a demand for it, so I don't see anything wrong with including it (as the game isn't being made as a serious competitive game - selling upgrades for units in SC2 would just be wrong). As it turned out, you ruined the game for yourself. Would you complain if a game was too easy because you used cheats?

Quote from RancidMeat

You lose NV stacks on this idea on the sole action of swapping an item for another that has MF. Get an upgrade, fine! Get an upgrade with MF, fine! Get two upgrades, both with MF within 3 minutes of each other.. well then youre waiting 3 minutes to use one of them. The chances of finding two solid upgrades within 3 minutes of each other, both having magic find on it are miniscule to the point this does not affect anyone except people who plan to swap out gear to gain an added bonus to magic find.

No, I see how it's "not that big a deal" but I feel there are better ways then doing it then reducing the NV stack.

Quote from DespiertaLosNinos

Quote from Zakaz

I think part of the problem is we're 2 months in, and people have this expectation from so many other games that they should be geared to the teeth right now, when that's exactly what this game isn't.

I can obviously only speak for myself, but as a D2 player for the last decade I have no expectation to be anywhere near geared out from just drops at this point. I for one am all for the keeping of Inferno as nerf free as possible although I don't forsee that as a real possibility based off it already seeing one de-clawing. The thing that I just can't seem to pull myself away from however is that, as I perviously explained, the loot at the top-end seems very generic to me..so much so that I find it almost a waste of my time to pursue. In D2 I could farm for items for months on end because there were entertaining gear drops, even if i never saw them the understanding that I could was what kept my attention. Conversely, in D3 I feel like the gear I have now is just a slightlly more watered down version of the gear I'm hunting for and personally that is nearly the kiss of death. I really wish I could add anything constructive but the truth is I really can't think of a good fix for the problem without overhauling secondary stats which would essentially take gearing in a totally different direction and alienate a large chunk of the user base, obviously a poor idea.

Current gear is watered down versions of upgraded gear. They dropped the cool +skills from D2, but didn't replace it with decent affixes (the +skills are marginal, at best). Possibly because they thought (correctly, IMO) that +skills had become too important. And then they dropped all the cool stuff from the runes because just about all the cool runes where incredibly overpowered. Personally, I'd like to see more +class skills (only actually worthwhile, like 20% mana reductions instead of 3%), or adding new skills (give the WD the ability to enchant weapons, or the barb a three hit combo bonus like the monk has).

Quote from shaggy

*snip*
EDIT
Also in terms of itemization. For the love of God, just remove LoH and buff Life Leech to be adequate. We have FOUR affixes for increasing healing - +health globe healing, +life from damage, +life on hit, +life per second. Do we really need that level of diversity? It's such a waste of affixes to have four dedicated just to increased healing. It's just totally unnecessary. I'd rather have almost anything than that many choices for increased healing.

EDIT 2
I actually forgot +life on kill. That's a *fifth* form of regenerating life. Four is bad, five is worse. This is a ton of dead weight in terms of itemization. I do not get excited for +health globe gear or +life on kill gear, and I'm only marginally impressed with high levels of Life Leech.

Eh, I think the 5 affixes works, they just need to be spread out better. Say, +globe only works on boots, bracers, and helms, +regen only works on chests, shoulders, and shields, life per second only on jewelry and pants, and LoH and vamp only on weapons/class offhand/gloves.

Life on kill should either be removed forever, or buffed up to be a % on kill (that isn't nerfed in Inferno). % on kill could be cool if you new that it'd give 50% boost. It'd add a "oh shit, these champs are almost dead. Do I risk the pack healing and find a white to kill and get my hp back?" But they have it like 600, which is just meaningless.

I fail to see how this will help. It will either make a new class of "best" gear, or just add more gear to be hot swapped.

I think Blizzard's goal is impossible. They want to please the players who think hot swapping is fun, but not inconvenience the min-maxers who don't like it, but feel they have to do it for efficiency. That doesn't appear possible. Either hot swapping is an benefit, in which case people who think it is fun will gladly do it, and others will begrudgingly do it, or it's not a benefit, and no one will do it, and the people who thought it was fun have lost a little bit of entertainment value.

Maybe it's possible, but I haven't seen any idea that adequately "solves" the problem. They either go one way - make it easier to swap, but you still have to swap to be the most efficient (along with all the issues with having a full MF gear swap), or the other - gear swapping is either impossible, or inefficient (and when it comes down to it, the people who think it is "fun" are thinking the extra efficiency is fun, not the act of swapping gear).

Quote from Santobimba

Magic find shouldnt be on items, there should be some points about magic find that :

When you do more event, per event you can earn 1 point magic find or something,
When you kill some elite packs, per elites should increase your magic find 1 point or something,
The same way how much achievement you have every achievement point can give you MF point
How many white mob you killed,
How many item you created with blacksmith or created gems with jewelcrafting,
Every goblin can give you one point of magic find etc.

You can add a lot of things like this...

With these things magic find should stuck on the character and I think people will be happy with this, it will be challenge and nobody will cry. If you wanna get good items you have to complete challenges at all.

I do like this idea. Although I'm torn between having MF on gear or not. The advantage of having it on gear is it (should) make people balance MF and survivability. The downside is it (as it stands) drives swapping before kill/chest.