Most of the "Spenders" that I'll be using are being selected more for a utility purpose or style preference than shear throughput. For instance, I like Weapon Throw - both for it's damage capability and for adding some sort of decent ranged mechanic for the barb.
I like (or rather also agree with) a lot of what I'm seeing here...
Not Missin':
Bolts & Arrows...
Act 2 Beetles... well really all of the Maggot Lair
Act 3 almost in its entirety... except Mephisto - I love that guy - we're homies...
Tetris Inventory...
Abyss Knight packs that could "see" you long before you could see them...
Blood Raven... chasing and chasing and chasing...
THOSE M***ERF****NG GHOSTIES (of any variation) that blasted you with lightning... do not Rest in Peace - You will not be missed.
**Edit**
Will not miss crappy internet that was available in the early days
"Rules of Engagement" - Any player to declare hostility against other players has a temporary debuff applied. Perhaps it starts as a -25% reduction to all stats @ 10 minutes sort of thing. For each minute that passes 2.5% of that debuff is retracted until the buff diminishes entirely... so:
Hostility can still only be declared from town and you can only hostile someone within X (5+/-) levels of your character... as always, hostiling someone puts you against anyone in their party as well.
That seems like a fun idea to mess around with....
I was (and still am) dissapointed about the complete lack of world PvP in D3. I'm sure I'll be all over arenas whenever I'm not farming Inferno later on, but I really wish there was some system in place to have a "less formal" PvP solution.
It really did add a sense of excitement to the game when someone came in and hostiled the group.
There certainly needed to be improvements on the D2 system but complete removal might have been too harsh a reaction...
Perhaps you can offer some suggestions as to how they could make the system better, in a way that would benefit the overall community and justify the development resources to implement? Hostility was a negative feature of Diablo 2 other then the fact that it was the only way you could PvP. It created a rift in the community as many people stopped making non-passworded games because of griefing. I don't see how it would fit well at all with the way Diablo 3 is designed, and have explained why... However, if you can give some insight into how it might be implemented in a way that would work with the game's design and benefit the community, I'd love to hear it.
Well, as some suggested - even just a dueling system (I hate to draw this parallel but - just like in WoW) could be at least 1 way to bring back some sort of informal PvP system...
As to how to address something more similar to the hostility system used in D2 - I'm not really sure. I think you're right when you say that it doesn't really fit into the game design and I agree that ultimately it was a bad system in its previous iteration. Shoot, I suppose you could always slap a timer on it.
Countdown to distruction - 10 minutes before this game goes ape-shit.
I haven't really put a ton of thought into how to make it work since it doesn't kill the game for me one way or the other...
I was (and still am) dissapointed about the complete lack of world PvP in D3. I'm sure I'll be all over arenas whenever I'm not farming Inferno later on, but I really wish there was some system in place to have a "less formal" PvP solution.
It really did add a sense of excitement to the game when someone came in and hostiled the group.
There certainly needed to be improvements on the D2 system but complete removal might have been too harsh a reaction...
I'd agree that in patch 15 the wizard seems to have some lacking single point damage when compared to other classes. I'd also be willing to admit that based on the numbers we see now (for higher level skills) that the wizard looks a little lack-luster further down the road. All that being said, It's probable that the internal build that blizzard uses has already addressed this concern (if even necessary - I'll explain what I mean in a minute). What we see "on paper" is usually easier to "feel out" in actual testing - and blizzard has a whole crew of people working on just that...
All the numbers aside, there's a lot of things to consider other than just raw dps.. mobility, survivability, benefits of ranged vs. melee during encounters, resource spending and regeneration, the ability to lay down multiple skills at once....
Meteor for instance is something you can cast in conjunction with another skill since it has a delay (delays aren't always a bad thing) and a dot.. add the damage from meteor to any of the signature spells and suddenly it's not so terrible...
I'm not saying there's no tuning that needs to happen, I'm just saying there's a lot of factors that are harder to quantify - especially when you can really only test a very limited portion of the game...
I'm dont know if I like This. I just hoped they made inferno that much more difficult than hell so you had to farm hell for 2-3 months before you could even try in inferno. I can understand the reasoning, but now we will probably get more boss runs after all.
We'll see.
Im glad you dont work at Blizz....
why the fuck should they make it so hard that you need to farm for 3 months?
it will max take a month if you farm hell to get the best gear avaible on hell...........
If this game was more like WoW with specific loot tables and fixed content, then yeah - maybe. A month or so was pretty adequate time to gear for the next tier...
For all the people who played D2 at release and into early LOD it took a good while to actually get your hands on everything you wanted. It wasn't until botting came in heavier that it was quick and easy to gear.
I've seen multiple people mention that "You will Die" video blizzard put out and then complain that they've since "nerfed" the content...
Correct me if I'm wrong but they never said WHEN that design change from a flat Inferno to a progressingly more difficult inferno happened.... it could have occured before that video even came out.
And correct me if I'm wrong here, but I don't believe LS has an 8 second duration... under the impression that it's 3 seconds. if that's the case think about how many GCD's you've gained...
According to the unofficial patch 15 changes LS has an 8 second duration now :). We'll see. It seems blizzard is trying out the extremes of nerfs / buffs in order to see what works.
*edit: another interesting change is that the jump rune now has a 100% chance to allow LS to jump to 2 targets.
Probably having problems with constant reapplication... well - we'll see if that makes it in. I'd be happy with that.
Anyways, we kind of went off on a tangent there. Overall the point is, the WD isn't weak - at worst it presently lacks good burst but it makes up for it in other ways. Not everyone should frontload their damage, DoT classes FTW.
I'd guess the duration rune simply adds two additional ticks of damage, not reduce the overall damage per tick. Doesn't make much sense otherwise.
Not necessarily, it could be an increase to duration only (lowering per tick damage) in order to allow you to use those extra 2 seconds to cast other spells. If you use the skill as suplemental damage then it *should* net you an overall dps gain.
I would hope however that it also increases the damage proportionately as a 2 second increase length (solely for the purpose of allowing more cast time of other spells) feels somewhat lackluster...
That makes no sense whatsoever. You didnt gain 2 seconds to cast additional spells.
It obviously will increase the dmg based proportionally to the previous dmg.
It makes perfect sense... in fact it's a mechanic they used for DoT's in WoW so I wouldn't put it past them to use it here. There's a massive thread on shadowpriest.com talking about elongated DoT's with no extra ticks and their resulting return on overall DPS.
This isn't WoW. In WoW, you are refreshing the DoTs, because the boss is going to be alive for like 5 mins. And regardless, you are still not gaining 2 seconds.
Ok, in a 40 second window you could cast standard locust swarm 5 times for 100% uptime. You would cast it 4 times with the extended duration. That means you gained only a SINGLE GCD, which is less than on second, in a 40 second window!
So no, you are not going to gain 2 seconds, and there will hardly ever be a reason to use this more than once.
Obviously we're not talking about WoW but we are talking about a similar set of mechanics so the point remains unchanged. Beyond that, arguing that we won't be attacking any given target for 5 minutes solid is really just flatout wrong - in appropriate gear against appropriate level mobs, there will be (as noted in the gameplay footage against the siegebreaker) at least one (likely MANY more) mobs where prolonged fights will take place. Putting all that aside, if you're looking for a single target DoT then you're really better off with Haunt anyways as it's a long duration DoT. Locust swarm looks like it was designed as a short term DoT for use as something more spammable in big crowds - and THAT is where a short duration increase would shine, even if it doesn't increase the overall damage of each cast, it allows more time for the affected mob to die and thereby allowing more jumps of LS without the need to reapply over and over again. Using LS against MANY mobs would only amplify the utility of an extended length rune, not decrease it.
And correct me if I'm wrong here, but I don't believe LS has an 8 second duration... under the impression that it's 3 seconds. if that's the case think about how many GCD's you've gained...
Just a build I put together SOLELY for the purpose of frustrating people in PvP. Probably not enough damage throughput to really kill anything on it's own - but maybe not a bad teammate to have
3rd passive was really just selected to increase crit chance for CD Procs on Ancient Spear....
Yeah could've been wishful thinking on my part Picturing a cow level-esque scenario the locusts could swarm a ton of cows, softening them up for your choice of finishing move. The video we have from blizz on locust swarm suggests it jumps every second to nearby enemies. Now add that mechanic to the equation they're discussing in regards to sw: p we have ourselves a dps gain.
Is it every second or each time a mob dies? In either case the extra 1 second or 2 seconds (whatever the rune actually is) gives it more time to jump and less need to reapply. Win/Win IMO - but will it be better than other Runes - I imagine that depends on how you use it...
I'd guess the duration rune simply adds two additional ticks of damage, not reduce the overall damage per tick. Doesn't make much sense otherwise.
Not necessarily, it could be an increase to duration only (lowering per tick damage) in order to allow you to use those extra 2 seconds to cast other spells. If you use the skill as suplemental damage then it *should* net you an overall dps gain.
I would hope however that it also increases the damage proportionately as a 2 second increase length (solely for the purpose of allowing more cast time of other spells) feels somewhat lackluster...
That makes no sense whatsoever. You didnt gain 2 seconds to cast additional spells.
It obviously will increase the dmg based proportionally to the previous dmg.
It makes perfect sense... in fact it's a mechanic they used for DoT's in WoW so I wouldn't put it past them to use it here. There's a massive thread on shadowpriest.com talking about elongated DoT's with no extra ticks and their resulting return on overall DPS.
Every class is going to have benefits and drawbacks, the best way to address this is to diversify your group composition in order to maximize utilities... I would think this is common sense. If you went with a group full of characters fixated on doing only massive damage, then you're going to fail.
"If you overspecialize, you breed in weakness." - Major Motoko Kusanagi (Yep, that's right - a little Ghost in the Shell reference)
That being said, I don't think that any one class is going to lack the power to efficiently produce damage or crowd control where needed but some will clearly be better at certain aspects than others - which is a good thing right? If we wanted all the classes to produce identical results, why not just do away with 4 of them and keep only 1?
The WD is not presently weak he just lacks some of the burst of the other classes - I don't see this as being "underpowered" at all.
0
Most of the "Spenders" that I'll be using are being selected more for a utility purpose or style preference than shear throughput. For instance, I like Weapon Throw - both for it's damage capability and for adding some sort of decent ranged mechanic for the barb.
Off Topic:
I know it's a bit off topic I just thought I'd mention:
I feel like the barb falls into the realm of "one of the easiest to be good at, one of the hardest to be great at..."
0
Not Missin':
Bolts & Arrows...
Act 2 Beetles... well really all of the Maggot Lair
Act 3 almost in its entirety... except Mephisto - I love that guy - we're homies...
Tetris Inventory...
Abyss Knight packs that could "see" you long before you could see them...
Blood Raven... chasing and chasing and chasing...
THOSE M***ERF****NG GHOSTIES (of any variation) that blasted you with lightning... do not Rest in Peace - You will not be missed.
**Edit**
Will not miss crappy internet that was available in the early days
0
"Rules of Engagement" - Any player to declare hostility against other players has a temporary debuff applied. Perhaps it starts as a -25% reduction to all stats @ 10 minutes sort of thing. For each minute that passes 2.5% of that debuff is retracted until the buff diminishes entirely... so:
-25% @ 10 minutes
-22.5% @ 9 minutes
-20% @ 8 minutes
... and so on....
Hostility can still only be declared from town and you can only hostile someone within X (5+/-) levels of your character... as always, hostiling someone puts you against anyone in their party as well.
That seems like a fun idea to mess around with....
0
Well, as some suggested - even just a dueling system (I hate to draw this parallel but - just like in WoW) could be at least 1 way to bring back some sort of informal PvP system...
As to how to address something more similar to the hostility system used in D2 - I'm not really sure. I think you're right when you say that it doesn't really fit into the game design and I agree that ultimately it was a bad system in its previous iteration. Shoot, I suppose you could always slap a timer on it.
Countdown to distruction - 10 minutes before this game goes ape-shit.
I haven't really put a ton of thought into how to make it work since it doesn't kill the game for me one way or the other...
1
It really did add a sense of excitement to the game when someone came in and hostiled the group.
There certainly needed to be improvements on the D2 system but complete removal might have been too harsh a reaction...
0
All the numbers aside, there's a lot of things to consider other than just raw dps.. mobility, survivability, benefits of ranged vs. melee during encounters, resource spending and regeneration, the ability to lay down multiple skills at once....
Meteor for instance is something you can cast in conjunction with another skill since it has a delay (delays aren't always a bad thing) and a dot.. add the damage from meteor to any of the signature spells and suddenly it's not so terrible...
I'm not saying there's no tuning that needs to happen, I'm just saying there's a lot of factors that are harder to quantify - especially when you can really only test a very limited portion of the game...
0
If this game was more like WoW with specific loot tables and fixed content, then yeah - maybe. A month or so was pretty adequate time to gear for the next tier...
For all the people who played D2 at release and into early LOD it took a good while to actually get your hands on everything you wanted. It wasn't until botting came in heavier that it was quick and easy to gear.
0
Correct me if I'm wrong but they never said WHEN that design change from a flat Inferno to a progressingly more difficult inferno happened.... it could have occured before that video even came out.
0
0
Probably having problems with constant reapplication... well - we'll see if that makes it in. I'd be happy with that.
Anyways, we kind of went off on a tangent there. Overall the point is, the WD isn't weak - at worst it presently lacks good burst but it makes up for it in other ways. Not everyone should frontload their damage, DoT classes FTW.
0
Obviously we're not talking about WoW but we are talking about a similar set of mechanics so the point remains unchanged. Beyond that, arguing that we won't be attacking any given target for 5 minutes solid is really just flatout wrong - in appropriate gear against appropriate level mobs, there will be (as noted in the gameplay footage against the siegebreaker) at least one (likely MANY more) mobs where prolonged fights will take place. Putting all that aside, if you're looking for a single target DoT then you're really better off with Haunt anyways as it's a long duration DoT. Locust swarm looks like it was designed as a short term DoT for use as something more spammable in big crowds - and THAT is where a short duration increase would shine, even if it doesn't increase the overall damage of each cast, it allows more time for the affected mob to die and thereby allowing more jumps of LS without the need to reapply over and over again. Using LS against MANY mobs would only amplify the utility of an extended length rune, not decrease it.
And correct me if I'm wrong here, but I don't believe LS has an 8 second duration... under the impression that it's 3 seconds. if that's the case think about how many GCD's you've gained...
0
3rd passive was really just selected to increase crit chance for CD Procs on Ancient Spear....
http://us.battle.net...dkfX!fTZ!bbaaba
Thoughts?
0
Is it every second or each time a mob dies? In either case the extra 1 second or 2 seconds (whatever the rune actually is) gives it more time to jump and less need to reapply. Win/Win IMO - but will it be better than other Runes - I imagine that depends on how you use it...
We shall see.
0
It makes perfect sense... in fact it's a mechanic they used for DoT's in WoW so I wouldn't put it past them to use it here. There's a massive thread on shadowpriest.com talking about elongated DoT's with no extra ticks and their resulting return on overall DPS.
0
"If you overspecialize, you breed in weakness." - Major Motoko Kusanagi (Yep, that's right - a little Ghost in the Shell reference)
That being said, I don't think that any one class is going to lack the power to efficiently produce damage or crowd control where needed but some will clearly be better at certain aspects than others - which is a good thing right? If we wanted all the classes to produce identical results, why not just do away with 4 of them and keep only 1?
The WD is not presently weak he just lacks some of the burst of the other classes - I don't see this as being "underpowered" at all.