PtV seems like it'll be only for low cost mana builds now, which is appropriate.
Can I just say that this is not appropriate. All other classes can increase their damage and it doesn't affect their specs. Most just get straight damage amplification for free. The closest one to a drawback is Wizard glass cannon, and the passive doesn't also hinder their damage output while trying to increase it. Why are we OK with this?
Mana, with the information currently provided, is far from fixed. I think our closest hope of a new emergent build will be some kind of rush of essence monstrosity that doesn't take Spirit Vessel.
There's a 2hander on the new legendary developer blog post with ~190 crit damage and a socket. Also 300 dext I think. They might have just allowed the rolls to get much higher, maybe adjusted the minimum rolls too. Who knows.
The information in the post doesn't actually explain how 2H will actually be better in regard to how they interact with abilities. All it really says is "2H will be better and dots will be better." Also, currently mana regen is far more important than weapon speed for top dps bat/bear builds and you can't get regen on 2H so it'll depend how exactly everything is rebalanced.
I think it does say 2H will be better in how they interact with DOTs due to DOTs being calculated with a 2.0 weapon speed in mind. Anything slower than 2.0 will be stronger. The slower the weapon the more you benefit from it assuming 2 attacks per second.
Comparing new information to current builds and current mana situations is also not very helpful. A mana adjustment of some sort is definitely on the way. This thread is about trying to make the most of new information to possibly get deals on the AH. If locust swarm suddenly does insane damage it could definitely jump up to top tier along with bears / bats.
So the first shred of information that could be relevant to our gearing has been released-
"On the topic of two-handers, we’re also changing how damage is calculated on a few damage-over-time skills... We’re switching a lot of these skills to read “X% weapon damage over 5 seconds...As the skills are converted there is an additional opportunity: when converting to this format, choosing a value for X depends on your weapon speed. So what we’ve done in most cases is assumed a high attack speed (at least 2.0 attacks per second), chosen a value of X, and then in many cases bumped the value even higher. "
This is pretty great - but comes with a bit of a curveball:
"We also want to close the gap between dual-wielding and two-handers, and so we’re improving two-handed melee weapons by creating a new set of stronger affixes to compensate for the loss of stats that can come from your offhand."
We've got one pretty decent DoT ability currently in locust swarm, and haunt is almost assuredly going to see some changes with the patch. If you're using a 2H with roughly a 1.0 attack speed it sounds like this new formula will roughly double the damage (I don't know much about the math behind this so all you theory heads feel free to tell me I'm wrong).
2H in general are somewhat cheap at the moment. Is now the time to buy one? I imagine those first few 2H weapons with the new "stronger affixes" are going to be priced insanely high anyway. Also even if you're just using a 1H with 1.4 weapon speed you're probably still seeing a buff to our DOTS.
@Kinch: Ultimate being such a strong word, still leaves plenty of room for other main objectives, such as player satisfaction, which is clearly addressed in this patch.
Regarding the 'challenge' part of your comment, yeah it is a gear-check, but it just makes complete sense with the reality that is Diablo... if you are geared enough, you progress with your eyes closed. If not, you need to have at least adequate gear and rely more on skill. I finished the game with my monk with 27k unbuffed dps, 557 all res, 1.2k LoH, ~23% crit chance, 228% crit damage, 6.2k armor, dual wielding with off-hand being a 441 dps fist. How could I have done it without skill? It was HARD and fun and I spent a ton of gold on repairs and had a couple of nerdragequit moments but in the end the challenge was, to put it simply, fun.
People were firing at off-screen monsters because they couldn't handle them? Go back and farm. That's the nature of the beast. Drops aren't good enough? Oh look, the AH. Don't want to use it? Go back and farm. Don't want to do either? Complain and bitch about it until Blizz saves you.
I'm ranting, sorry, I'm just a bit wound up from work (MOAR CAFFEINE PLZ!1!!11!1), but I think I made my point. Don't mean to diss anybody.
OK, this makes much more sense and is vastly true. I too have had some fun with the challenge and do have mixed feelings about the nerfs. Your last post just sounded a little too much like all the conspiracy theory threads floating around- "Blizzard is creating build diversity just so we want to play again and use the RMAH!!!11"
As I said Blizzard just happens to be in the position of more people playing = more money, which most games face really. Claiming to know what % is the true motivation behind their actions is impossible, and even pretty pointless. "Is this game fun?" is a much better question.
I may be wrong about all this, but you need to keep in mind that Blizzard's ultimate goal is to make people use the RMAH constantly. Its the way the game was setup to be and they will try and keep it that way until they figure it out or fail completely and just buff up drop rates to a ridiculous amount.
I think you are wrong about that being Blizzard's "ultimate" goal. When I first heard about a RMAH I figured - "As soon as this thing releases ALL good items will migrate to RMAH and gold AH will be dead with only crappy mid tier items. The fact of the matter is, you don't NEED to use RMAH at all. The gold AH is filled with good items at somewhat reasonable prices. Giving players the possibility of finding more of their own upgrades also drives them away from the AH.
The gear inflation you are talking about is going to continue to happen whether blizzard makes changes or not. True with these changes it might happen at a faster rate, but saying "It's all part of their plan" is a little much. I mean a player will be 4 times more likely to get a rare from a normal white mob!?! Blizzard wants you to feel rewarded for playing the game. They just happen to be in a nice situation where making the game more fun to play will mean they make more money.
In your eyes: Original Inferno was challenging, post-1.0.3 was nerfed.
In Blizzard's eyes: Original Inferno was over-tuned, post-1.0.3 was better balanced.
Sorry, but no. They clearly stated that they wanted Inferno to be as hard as possible, that it should take months to complete and whatnot. PLAYERS craved the nerf and they got it.
And calling it balancing doesn't make it any less of a nerf. Balance is what you do to skills to offer build diversity, to characters so that they aren't so overpowered compared to others and things like that. When you make a difficulty easier, it is a nerf.
And if the trend continues, this game will be easy as pie.
Also, I think you're mistaking "challenge" with "incredible gear check". This is an ARPG, there is never going to be a ton of skill involved. Before 1.03 glass cannon builds were kiting things by keeping monsters completely off their screen and just firing offscreen in their general direction. How is this fun? Do you really want to play a game where you're wandering around the empty wilderness firing offscreen and not even interacting with the monsters you are killing?
I don't think we will be disappointed. As others have said as long as mana is improved I think you will be amazed at the functionality increase of many builds.
-This first one I've seen before, I kind of doubt there's anything you can do but the scoundrel said this both times and it's got me wanting wings...
-I encountered this for the first time last night. Upon running up to the monument some guy says the "device" or "portal,", don't remember which, "made him rich, but it killed his brother". I clicked on the small claw column next to the portal- it started glowing, but a group of white bugs just came out. I killed them and nothing else happened.
Is there a way to get treasure from either of these events? Am I missing something? Any ideas?
Even if pets became viable, I'd never put them on the bar. Why have a pet tank 4 mobs, when I can use wall of zombies and GoD and CC them all? Why have a pet do 15% weapon damage to elites, when I can have fetish army do 8 x 20% weapon damage. Pets are cool at the lower levels when you are just messing around; but in inferno, you need to spike your damage in the fights that matter. Pets will always fail this test.
They'd have to make a run for ZD/Gargantuan that lets the Garg ride a big ZD before I'd use it. And even then, it'd either have to look super funny or super cool.
This is the first post on pets I agree with. What are we really holding out for? I think everyone has these memories of using pets back in normal, when you didn't realize that you ended up tanking half the mobs anyway. I'm not going to slot a pet that might, at best, be like hex and tank a mob or two for me, instead of slotting a CC that will give me complete and independent breathing room while I kite.
Pet aggro, as far as I remember, is not that great. They could be indestructible. The problem is we have all learned how to play without them. We have geared for the scenario where we can handle ourselves on our own. Having pets is not going to let you drop survivability for damage, so do you really want to slot a defensive ability that leaves you at the mercy of inconsistent AI?
I think blizzard is riding a fine line of itemization much more than people realize. People want to progress. They want to progress at a rate linear to the amount of time they play. But the randomization of drops can leave people feeling like they're wasting their time.
I'd be surprised if blizzard does something with crit damage scaling without giving something else to the players to itemize for. If they release a new stat, expect to see some changes, but aside from that, I don't think they will risk watering down what is already a pretty bland system.
The problem with solution #2 is that it's becoming more common for people to hit a point where they can farm all acts comfortably, and they don't feel any reason to keep gearing up and "win more." The influx of cheap "mid tier" rares is catapulting new inferno players to levels of progression that used to take weeks to achieve. Rushing new players to this point is probably not something blizzard wants to do, as they risk people realizing there isn't much of an "endgame" in sight. PvP is slated for what, patch 1.1?
Blizzard has stated that their next focus will be on class balance / tuning. I don't think itemization will be addressed in the near future.
I tried to give this skill another chance a few days ago, and was completely amazed at the damage. It hits about as fast as my direbats, but gives close to twice the attacks per second I would guess.
You're going to run into two problems trying to make the skill viable-
1. The mana (Witch doctor staple with any cool build)
2. Survivability
The only way to fix the mana is Vision Quest, but vision quest causes your survivability issues to be magnified, as you are basically face tanking the monsters with no cooldowns. I tried running the 5 cooldowns / no primary to hopefully smooth this out, but not having a single ranged attack can be pretty painful against certain monster types.
Combine this with the fact that certain mechanics are just not meant to be tanked (Fire chains / desacrator / even big windup melee attacks), and I ended up shelving the build.
I know there are a lot of LOH builds out there, so if someone with that gear wants to test it out it could be interesting. The only way I could see it work is with an absurd amount of damage - enough to drop packs in the span of spirit walk / spirit vessel, but at that point, well, just about anything is probably viable.
"Scoundrel with a cold damage bow specced multi-shot. I actually took snares off my bar"
I didn't believe it till I tried it. Since he's firing 3 bolts with every autoattack, he snares an incredible amount with no cooldown. Not to mention 3% crit.
0
Can I just say that this is not appropriate. All other classes can increase their damage and it doesn't affect their specs. Most just get straight damage amplification for free. The closest one to a drawback is Wizard glass cannon, and the passive doesn't also hinder their damage output while trying to increase it. Why are we OK with this?
Mana, with the information currently provided, is far from fixed. I think our closest hope of a new emergent build will be some kind of rush of essence monstrosity that doesn't take Spirit Vessel.
0
0
I think it does say 2H will be better in how they interact with DOTs due to DOTs being calculated with a 2.0 weapon speed in mind. Anything slower than 2.0 will be stronger. The slower the weapon the more you benefit from it assuming 2 attacks per second.
Comparing new information to current builds and current mana situations is also not very helpful. A mana adjustment of some sort is definitely on the way. This thread is about trying to make the most of new information to possibly get deals on the AH. If locust swarm suddenly does insane damage it could definitely jump up to top tier along with bears / bats.
0
"On the topic of two-handers, we’re also changing how damage is calculated on a few damage-over-time skills... We’re switching a lot of these skills to read “X% weapon damage over 5 seconds...As the skills are converted there is an additional opportunity: when converting to this format, choosing a value for X depends on your weapon speed. So what we’ve done in most cases is assumed a high attack speed (at least 2.0 attacks per second), chosen a value of X, and then in many cases bumped the value even higher. "
This is pretty great - but comes with a bit of a curveball:
"We also want to close the gap between dual-wielding and two-handers, and so we’re improving two-handed melee weapons by creating a new set of stronger affixes to compensate for the loss of stats that can come from your offhand."
We've got one pretty decent DoT ability currently in locust swarm, and haunt is almost assuredly going to see some changes with the patch. If you're using a 2H with roughly a 1.0 attack speed it sounds like this new formula will roughly double the damage (I don't know much about the math behind this so all you theory heads feel free to tell me I'm wrong).
2H in general are somewhat cheap at the moment. Is now the time to buy one? I imagine those first few 2H weapons with the new "stronger affixes" are going to be priced insanely high anyway. Also even if you're just using a 1H with 1.4 weapon speed you're probably still seeing a buff to our DOTS.
What do you guys think?
0
OK, this makes much more sense and is vastly true. I too have had some fun with the challenge and do have mixed feelings about the nerfs. Your last post just sounded a little too much like all the conspiracy theory threads floating around- "Blizzard is creating build diversity just so we want to play again and use the RMAH!!!11"
As I said Blizzard just happens to be in the position of more people playing = more money, which most games face really. Claiming to know what % is the true motivation behind their actions is impossible, and even pretty pointless. "Is this game fun?" is a much better question.
0
I think you are wrong about that being Blizzard's "ultimate" goal. When I first heard about a RMAH I figured - "As soon as this thing releases ALL good items will migrate to RMAH and gold AH will be dead with only crappy mid tier items. The fact of the matter is, you don't NEED to use RMAH at all. The gold AH is filled with good items at somewhat reasonable prices. Giving players the possibility of finding more of their own upgrades also drives them away from the AH.
The gear inflation you are talking about is going to continue to happen whether blizzard makes changes or not. True with these changes it might happen at a faster rate, but saying "It's all part of their plan" is a little much. I mean a player will be 4 times more likely to get a rare from a normal white mob!?! Blizzard wants you to feel rewarded for playing the game. They just happen to be in a nice situation where making the game more fun to play will mean they make more money.
Also, I think you're mistaking "challenge" with "incredible gear check". This is an ARPG, there is never going to be a ton of skill involved. Before 1.03 glass cannon builds were kiting things by keeping monsters completely off their screen and just firing offscreen in their general direction. How is this fun? Do you really want to play a game where you're wandering around the empty wilderness firing offscreen and not even interacting with the monsters you are killing?
0
0
0
Now I'm not saying the skill is complete trash, but it gets outclassed hard by other skills for basically each of it's runes.
Besides an obvious pet buff, here are a few others I'd list as just about guaranteed to get at least a number tweak.
Haunt
Mass Confusion (probably only cooldown)
Corpse Spiders
Firebomb
Fierce Loyalty
If you had to pick one skill you'd "guarantee" gets changed what would it be and why?
0
-This first one I've seen before, I kind of doubt there's anything you can do but the scoundrel said this both times and it's got me wanting wings...
-I encountered this for the first time last night. Upon running up to the monument some guy says the "device" or "portal,", don't remember which, "made him rich, but it killed his brother". I clicked on the small claw column next to the portal- it started glowing, but a group of white bugs just came out. I killed them and nothing else happened.
Is there a way to get treasure from either of these events? Am I missing something? Any ideas?
1
If you venture into act 2+ here are my predictions:
"Why am I always out of mana?"
"Why are my cast times so long?"
"What is up with all these cooldowns?"
"Why does direbats / toads / spiders / spirit barrage / bears have such erratic movement?"
To not sound too negative, act 1 can be very fun with WD. We have a lot of unique skills and it will feel different from your wizard.
0
This is the first post on pets I agree with. What are we really holding out for? I think everyone has these memories of using pets back in normal, when you didn't realize that you ended up tanking half the mobs anyway. I'm not going to slot a pet that might, at best, be like hex and tank a mob or two for me, instead of slotting a CC that will give me complete and independent breathing room while I kite.
Pet aggro, as far as I remember, is not that great. They could be indestructible. The problem is we have all learned how to play without them. We have geared for the scenario where we can handle ourselves on our own. Having pets is not going to let you drop survivability for damage, so do you really want to slot a defensive ability that leaves you at the mercy of inconsistent AI?
0
I'd be surprised if blizzard does something with crit damage scaling without giving something else to the players to itemize for. If they release a new stat, expect to see some changes, but aside from that, I don't think they will risk watering down what is already a pretty bland system.
The problem with solution #2 is that it's becoming more common for people to hit a point where they can farm all acts comfortably, and they don't feel any reason to keep gearing up and "win more." The influx of cheap "mid tier" rares is catapulting new inferno players to levels of progression that used to take weeks to achieve. Rushing new players to this point is probably not something blizzard wants to do, as they risk people realizing there isn't much of an "endgame" in sight. PvP is slated for what, patch 1.1?
Blizzard has stated that their next focus will be on class balance / tuning. I don't think itemization will be addressed in the near future.
1
You're going to run into two problems trying to make the skill viable-
1. The mana (Witch doctor staple with any cool build)
2. Survivability
The only way to fix the mana is Vision Quest, but vision quest causes your survivability issues to be magnified, as you are basically face tanking the monsters with no cooldowns. I tried running the 5 cooldowns / no primary to hopefully smooth this out, but not having a single ranged attack can be pretty painful against certain monster types.
Combine this with the fact that certain mechanics are just not meant to be tanked (Fire chains / desacrator / even big windup melee attacks), and I ended up shelving the build.
I know there are a lot of LOH builds out there, so if someone with that gear wants to test it out it could be interesting. The only way I could see it work is with an absurd amount of damage - enough to drop packs in the span of spirit walk / spirit vessel, but at that point, well, just about anything is probably viable.
0
"Scoundrel with a cold damage bow specced multi-shot. I actually took snares off my bar"
I didn't believe it till I tried it. Since he's firing 3 bolts with every autoattack, he snares an incredible amount with no cooldown. Not to mention 3% crit.