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 Post subject: Balanced?
PostPosted: Thu Feb 03, 2011 8:41 pm 

Joined: Thu Aug 19, 2010 9:15 pm
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It is becoming more clear each day that the changes in this patch have had a negative impact on overall gameplay/balance. Most items below level 90 had res/cb/dr/sorb/cs/ds/str and dex removed or severely impacted in a negative way. Sure, the ed on melee weapons was buffed significantly in most cases including some additions on armor pieces. However at the same time some skills such as amp and lr got hit with the nerf-stick as well compounding the problems. I'm not saying every item should be reverted back to 1.21z status, but some nerfs need scaled back a bit.

Example: Before on left after (in parenthesis)
GlassGlare:
Defense: 1190-1365 (1190-1365)
Required Level: 74 (84 yes it went up)
Required Strength: 131
Durability: 56
+250% Enhanced Defense
Fire Absorb 10% (5%)
Cold Absorb 10% (5%)
Lightning Absorb 10% (5%)
Magic Absorb 10% (5%)
Damage Reduced by 10%
Resist All +50% (20%)
+10% Faster Block Rate
+10% Increased Chance of Blocking
Poison Length Reduced by 50%
+1 to All Skills
25% Faster Hit Recovery
Sockets 0 (2 got added)

Tyreals Might (Unchanged)
Defense: 3200-3800
Required Level: 95
Required Strength: 232
Durability: 120
+50% Faster Hit Recovery
Magic Resist +10%
+500% Enhanced Defense
+1 to All Skills
Cannot be Frozen
Damage Reduced by 20%
Resist All +50%
+20 to Strength
Socketed (4)
+200 Defense
Increase Maximum Life 10%
Increase Maximum Mana 10%

This is one example showing how mid level gear got murdered. The sorb reductions I could live with, raising level req ok fine. But it's like saying only a high level char willing to spend 232 str to get tyreals deserve the res and DR. So what if Glare got 2 socs big whoopdy do. Mid level chars still need DR and res just as much as higher levels do. Taking nearly 100% of available str and dex off gear was a bit of overkill especially since melee chars have been rendered virtually useless beyond act3 nm as it is. I was and still am an advocate of moderate changes instead of massive untested radical changes. It hasn't been acknowledged until recently by some that there is infact a problem with melee's except by those of us playing them. Certain members of the patch team still won't face facts that this problem arose from those changes. It has been said "this patch wasn't intended as a fix all". No maybe not, but it created more problems that it fixed. During parts of the process of item alterations I offered a few reasonable suggestions and got rebuffed for it. Was basically told that's not the direction the patch was going. How many people need to say something is broken before it gets addressed?

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 Post subject: Re: Balanced?
PostPosted: Thu Feb 03, 2011 9:02 pm 
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this entire post has already been addressed in another topic (they are all pretty much the same thing these days regardless of the name of the topic). It's been agreed that melee'shave no problems surviving and if you are having trouble surviving then you are doing something wrong. The problem is damage vs hell act bosses. It'salready been agreed that those act bosses need less physical resistance in hell so why bring the whole thing up AGAIN when it's been discussed to death in every single topic that gets made these days.

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 Post subject: Re: Balanced?
PostPosted: Thu Feb 03, 2011 9:29 pm 

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No, I think you partially mis-understand. I'm not so much addressing melee issues as I am overall items. I feel too many items took negative hits for the average player. The overall most repeated theme for gear is emerald crafts or it sucks. The changes to things like armor aren't geared towards most casual players. If you don't hit huge mdr/pdr numbers you built it wrong.

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 Post subject: Re: Balanced?
PostPosted: Thu Feb 03, 2011 10:05 pm 
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Cool - I look forward to the balance patch you are going to be building next time around.

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 Post subject: Re: Balanced?
PostPosted: Fri Feb 04, 2011 12:49 am 

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Location: Reno NV
kwikster wrote:
No, I think you partially mis-understand. I'm not so much addressing melee issues as I am overall items. I feel too many items took negative hits for the average player. The overall most repeated theme for gear is emerald crafts or it sucks. The changes to things like armor aren't geared towards most casual players. If you don't hit huge mdr/pdr numbers you built it wrong.

I'm still having trouble grasping this current fad with PDR/MDR. If you're negating an attack from stacked PDR/MDR it was never a threat to begin with. The only attacks a moderately experienced player should be dying to are ones with high burst damage(think ancients, darkness nados, LF w/ LR, NM/Hell chargers, blizzard, etc.). Is this a SC strategy to reduce the amount of potions you drink during trash/easy bosses? Really I don't get this whole diamond band wagon I've seen lately. Someone enlighten me please.

blue_myriddn wrote:
Cool - I look forward to the balance patch you are going to be building next time around.

Why do you keep repeating this every time someone tries to give feedback? I'm sure this has been brought up before, but you're the only man with a line to Mancer. Like it or not we're stuck with giving feedback/suggestions through you. Mancer barely let you try this patch out, do you really think he'll even give a second glance to anyone's work?

I know a lot of bullshit gets thrown around here, and many arguments have been done to death. But could you at least humor us when you're stone-set in how you want this patch to play out, rather than these annoying sarcastic remarks? A simple, "No kwikster, what you're suggesting doesn't really fit with what I'm trying to do here." would be plenty I think. I can understand telling Rasta to fuck off and die to a horrible accident involving a melee weapon, but I think kwikster has been more than polite enough to warrant a decent response.

As for the original topic I halfway agree with Kwikster here. A lot of mid game items have been made useless with the new changes. For example Shaftstop compared to the new Silks of Victor. Shaft used to be a great mid game item for more than just melee, now it's not even picked up due to being completely overshadowed by Silks. This applies to many items. Heavenly Garb is ridiculously good for how easy it is to obtain, arguably better than the fabled, much rarer, ten levels higher Vipermagi. Level 6 Lenymo trumps every caster belt until mid game. The new caster craft boots are also shutting down all the uniques. These problems existed before, but I'm finding myself with not much to choose from in terms of variety this patch.

I haven't really had a problem adjusting to the lack of resists or safety mods Kwikster touches on, but of course all I've really played are casters. All the resist changes have done for me is forced me to use my sockets/inventory more often than not for resists. I much preferred it when I had actual choices for my sockets. The only time I've had a little freedom to socket what I want is after I'm twinked out with resist charms, geared out my ass for my level, or late game when the real goodies start showing up. I don't even want to know how 2h builds are doing these days.

Another point I've been meaning to make is while the top dogs of melee are still doing decent, anything below them has suffered greatly. Think holy aura paladins, fclaw/fbite, phoenix sins, WWsin, melee sorcs, etc. Without the big DR%, absorbs, high stats, and resists these builds aren't going to have a chance in hell tanking bosses reliably without a crutch such as lifetap(I couldn't imagine the amount of shit I'd get for bringing LT into any party) or a designated healer. Balancing what remains of melee mods and caster mods on these builds is difficult to say the least. Variety is the spice of life, and as of now we have very little in terms of viable builds, or even novelty ones.

tl:dr I had too much caffeine.


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 Post subject: Re: Balanced?
PostPosted: Fri Feb 04, 2011 1:43 am 

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drrod wrote:
I'm still having trouble grasping this current fad with PDR/MDR. If you're negating an attack from stacked PDR/MDR it was never a threat to begin with. The only attacks a moderately experienced player should be dying to are ones with high burst damage(think ancients, darkness nados, LF w/ LR, NM/Hell chargers, blizzard, etc.). Is this a SC strategy to reduce the amount of potions you drink during trash/easy bosses? Really I don't get this whole diamond band wagon I've seen lately. Someone enlighten me please.
Actually this is not an sc thing, Purerage is one of those who continuously tells people to put star diamonds (or higher) in hats and amror to negate most dmg from trash and bosses and he plays exclusively hc. IIRC his melee zon was using a safety craft armor (filled with diamonds), rings, ammy and helm hitting around 150 ish mdr/pdr numbers. While he talked about being able to tank normal Baal in a full game with her. If I understand how that all works it's not really relevant much past act3 nm, but with a lack of choices in dr sources, it boils down to choosing resists or dr on most 2h builds(think bowa). Therefore using diamonds is virtually the only way to get much dr to help at all.

@Blue, I know I've been a bit of a thorn at times. What I have tried to convey, albeit poorly at times, is a perspective of those casual players who enjoy the mod. I acknowledge a lot of effort went into the patch, but feel in some areas a slightly differing route would have been a bit better. Even during the adjustments I offered up ideas and suggestions, I made an attempt to help out did I not? Most of the time I have been made to feel I know nothing of how the game plays. True, HU is different than b-net in many ways, but basics are still the same. Balance is not usually achieved by major tweaks, but rather through smaller subtle alterations.

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 Post subject: Re: Balanced?
PostPosted: Fri Feb 04, 2011 12:56 pm 
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I'm a big fan of pdr/mdr yeh right up till the end of NM (havent had a chance to test it in hell yet sonce i fucked up on my zon). The big hits from darkness are when he is right on top of you and you get hit by all 3. (they can hit you twice sometimes depending on the angle. The nado's themselves are only doing around 250 each (*3 = 750 a hit before amp and 1.5k when they hit twice) then it gets buffed again by amp. PDR is applied before resists so if you can negate the initial hit, amp has no effect. The ancients are the exception but if you use diamonds they will usually only have a 8-10% chance to hit you (GG).

You could get 160 PDR/MDR fromjust diamonds in armor/helm. Then most items come with pdr/mdr anyway so add maybe 15 again. 2 nice safety rings for 20ish on both rings. so you can get over 200 easily. If you can get that much pdr/mdr then its like walking around with well over 50% damage reduction.

I'd recomend rolling some random char you never really thought of using before and just loading it up to the hilt with diamonds. I never really noticed it until I loaded a frost nova sorc up with diamonds last patch and took no damage from anything except poison till act 3 hell (I stripped her at that point to gear anothr sorc). You can run around pretty safely even without lifebuffs.

Obviously you can't depend on it completely so having good res and some absorbs + a decent amount of dr% to nuke the damage that manages to sneak through is always handy. Ie. my zon was sitting on 140 PDR/MDR 24% dr, max res and 12% absorb (element dependant). With that setup I could take 2 leaps from might enchanted korlic while amped in nm with 5.5k hp and still have enough hp to take another.

The only thing I will say is that it can lure you into a false sense of security (like energy shield) meaning you can get a bit foolish and take risks you wouldn't usualy take, like using jab on baal while IM'd,noticing you are IM'd and continuing to use it. :P
Thats not how she died but thats the kinda stupid shit I was doing at that point that warranted me getting a wakeup call.

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 Post subject: Re: Balanced?
PostPosted: Fri Feb 04, 2011 1:45 pm 
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drrod wrote:
Why do you keep repeating this every time someone tries to give feedback?

Not everyone - pretty much just the people who repeatedly tell me I am wrong, I don't listen, I am stupid, I am lazy, I can't do things right, I am ignorant, my efforts weren't good enough, I should have worked harder, etc, etc.

I tried being reasonable with Kwikster repeatedly and got nothing in return, so I am done with him. He clearly feels he can do a better job at it - so I suggest he put his sweat where is mouth is and do a better job at it. Most people think they can do something really well until they actually sit down and try to do it.

Basically, Kwikster is a wanna-be manager - which is pretty typical from most of this community. Everyone wants to tell someone else what to do and not do any hard work themselves.

As far as his "feedback" - I don't see what is so wonderful about it. He is merely stating that I decreased the defensive nature of end game items and increased the offensive nature. Why yes - I did do that. I did that intentionally in fact. I fail to see what pointing it out does. Thanks for letting me know something I already know?

He also points out that Tyreal's is better than Glassglare. Why yes - it is. Thanks for noticing. Generally items get better as they increase in their level.

Then it just dissolves in to a standard babble fest of "oh everything is broken, why won't we fix it, etc, etc." Heard all of that before.

drrod wrote:
I'm sure this has been brought up before, but you're the only man with a line to Mancer. Like it or not we're stuck with giving feedback/suggestions through you. Mancer barely let you try this patch out, do you really think he'll even give a second glance to anyone's work?

I don't have some magic line to Soulmancer. He came on the forum and said he would consider a user based patch and PureRage and I are the only users who stepped up and put together a meaningful patch. Had someone else done it - someone else would have been replying to this post. There is nothing magical about my connection to Soulmancer, I am simply the person who put in the time and effort to build a patch. If Kwikster or anyone else came along with a detailed change log of all the suggestions and was willing to take all the time to edit the text files, that person probably would have their patch in place (unless it was Lee - sorry bro, we just don't trust you anymore)

drrod wrote:
I know a lot of bullshit gets thrown around here, and many arguments have been done to death. But could you at least humor us when you're stone-set in how you want this patch to play out, rather than these annoying sarcastic remarks? A simple, "No kwikster, what you're suggesting doesn't really fit with what I'm trying to do here." would be plenty I think. I can understand telling Rasta to fuck off and die to a horrible accident involving a melee weapon, but I think kwikster has been more than polite enough to warrant a decent response.

Been there - tried that. Even through PM's and I also encouraged him to put some of his ideas to practice. I got a few crappy item suggestions, which when I provided my feedback to, I got radio silence. He's all talk and no action. What you are seeing is the end of my attempts to be kind, not the start of me being rude.

Quote:
As for the original topic I halfway agree with Kwikster here. A lot of mid game items have been made useless with the new changes. For example Shaftstop compared to the new Silks of Victor. Shaft used to be a great mid game item for more than just melee, now it's not even picked up due to being completely overshadowed by Silks. This applies to many items. Heavenly Garb is ridiculously good for how easy it is to obtain, arguably better than the fabled, much rarer, ten levels higher Vipermagi. Level 6 Lenymo trumps every caster belt until mid game. The new caster craft boots are also shutting down all the uniques. These problems existed before, but I'm finding myself with not much to choose from in terms of variety this patch.

Ya - my hands were a little tied there. This is first and foremost Soulmancer's mod and those were his normal items that were designed to keep normal easy and approachable. I can understand that perspective and won't disagree with it. They are severe limitations though that do make it a bit hard to balance. I don't know that I completely disagree with them either - there are still lots of people who have a very hard time with Normal difficulty, so keeping those superman items easy to access for them does make them a lot less frustrated. What the mid game items do lack though is some creativity and I started running out of steam. I put a lot of creativity in to the end game items and spent a god-awful amount of time balancing item damage, so mid level items like Shaftstop kinda got the short end of the creativity stick. This is where real feedback from someone like Kwikster would have been helpful -but alas, he just has complaints and not real creativity.

I too am a bit curious as to what creative measure mid-range melee characters will come up with. I personally feel that a big answer is simply team play - and that is the one that I encourage. The resist issue can be resolved by a paladin, and they can make WONDERFUL tanks against elemental dealing bosses. The resist bonus on paladin shields was largely left untouched and this makes for some powerful elementally shielded paladins. Give them the support of a life buff and they should make for an interesting tank. Solo of course they will do nothing - but I am not sure I see that as a problem.

Keep posting drrod - you provide good feedback and a level head, you may notice that my responses to you generally reflect that.

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 Post subject: Re: Balanced?
PostPosted: Fri Feb 04, 2011 3:26 pm 

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The example with Glassglare wasn't to point out how good Tyreal's is but rather to show how a decent(last patch anyway) got nerfed. Far too many mid-game items got similar hits. I suggested, tempering those changes slightly. Some nerfs were warranted and needed I agreed then and do still now. Sorbs were one such area, even nerfing dr on some items. Fact is, some late game items such as SteelCarapace had dr increased, I asked why only improve late game items and was told they were needed late game.

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 Post subject: Re: Balanced?
PostPosted: Tue Feb 08, 2011 10:39 am 

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PureRage-DoD wrote:
I'd recomend rolling some random char you never really thought of using before and just loading it up to the hilt with diamonds. I never really noticed it until I loaded a frost nova sorc up with diamonds last patch and took no damage from anything except poison till act 3 hell (I stripped her at that point to gear anothr sorc). You can run around pretty safely even without lifebuffs.

You're spot on about this. I've barely messed around with diamonds, I could just never see any real advantage over rubies or more offensive uses of the sockets. I guess one of the reasons I never gave them much thought is I'm always playing so safe on HC. It's hard to give a shit about a little pdr/mdr when you've got at least BO at all times.

Blue pretty much put a shoe in my mouth. I don't really agree with you with the line to Mancer though. I have a real hard time believing he would have let a lot of these bigger changes go through without your name on it. You've tweaked items for him before I believe so you already had a foot in the door. I'm guessing now but I'd go as far to say as the only reason Mancer ok'd the whole idea in the first place was because you were involved.

I can't argue about the stepping up and actually doing a patch part. There was a lot of talk in the feedback/suggestions thread for a while but it died down. No one was really doing shit for at least a month(IIRC) before you and Rage put in the work. It's kinda fucked up how easy we all complain about free work.

People did lose a lot of favorite builds though. It sucks seeing one of your favorite builds nerfed into something mediocre. In true Diablo fashion the players will just switch to the path of least resistance. There's always going to be that build that excels at bosses. How many builds have to get adjusted before you call it even? Fire druids, boners, meteor, blizzard, and of course poison builds are all doing extremely well this patch against bosses. Others too I'm sure I haven't thought of. Melee for the most part has been avoided or played with extreme prejudice.

There was a lot of good in this patch too, a lot of shitty items did get buffed(mostly all caster though?). I like the new crafts, but I think weapon ED automod is way too low for exceptional&elite. A1 physical rogues are no longer dominating every party's AOE. The new graphics are hit and miss but mostly welcomed. Actually using a different strategy outside of CB, hammers, and poison has been good.

blue_myriddn wrote:
I too am a bit curious as to what creative measure mid-range melee characters will come up with. I personally feel that a big answer is simply team play - and that is the one that I encourage. The resist issue can be resolved by a paladin, and they can make WONDERFUL tanks against elemental dealing bosses. The resist bonus on paladin shields was largely left untouched and this makes for some powerful elementally shielded paladins. Give them the support of a life buff and they should make for an interesting tank. Solo of course they will do nothing - but I am not sure I see that as a problem.

I have to play with a paladin to overcome the lack of 2h resists? Doesn't that limit my options a bit much?

I think you're overrating a tank's usefulness a lot. As far as act bosses go only the first 3 benefit the party by staying in place or causing the bosses to use melee instead of ranged attacks. Two of which are extremely easy to tank, even with a caster or hybrid. Meph is the only one who I really like to see a tank on, reason being his ranged attacks are nastier than most. Diablo is often futile to even try to keep still, as unless he aggros the tank by luck he's going to be chasing someone the whole fight(his ranged attacks are also pathetic). Baal it doesn't help nor hurt, everything besides his melee and psn javelin don't do shit. Sadly all of these bosses can be tanked by spamming blades alone, meaning all I really need tank-wise is a necro in my party. The only place I'd say a tank is a must is fighting certain LoS heroes.

Sub-bosses don't even count when you can just as easily tank most with a mercenary or summons. So right now my sorceress can solo trash, sub-bosses, and kill act bosses with a duo or more. What role do you see for melee?


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 Post subject: Re: Balanced?
PostPosted: Tue Feb 08, 2011 11:01 am 
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drrod wrote:
Sub-bosses don't even count when you can just as easily tank most with a mercenary or summons. So right now my sorceress can solo trash, sub-bosses, and kill act bosses with a duo or more. What role do you see for melee

An enormous role for less skilled players.
I have no doubt that your sorc can do all of that, but I have to be honest in saying that I can't do all of that. My meteor sorc is great fun and my merc is pretty darn sturdy, but I completely fail at defeating most bosses unless there is some big meaty character there to focus the AI's attention. Perhaps I could do it if I felt like kiting around the map for 10-15 minutes and carefully consuming potions, but honestly I am so much happier just waiting for a party to roll along and doing it that way. From what I have seen of the average HU users, they feel similar. So this is a case where different balance rules are applying for the general HU populace compared to the more skilled players.

drrod wrote:
I'm guessing now but I'd go as far to say as the only reason Mancer ok'd the whole idea in the first place was because you were involved.

Fair enough and probably true. I think it is less due to some magical connection that Soulmancer and I have and more a matter of me building a reputation as a reliable person who doesn't cheat (and thus insert crap in to the text files), completes things accurately (for the most part), and has a good understanding of what Soulmancer's goals are. To that degree, I would say that anyone else could gain Soulmancers trust in a similar way.

More specifically though - if someone stood up and presented a well organized, detailed change log it would stand a very good chance of getting real consideration. Especially if they indicated they were willing to roll up their sleeves and implement it.

drrod wrote:
I have to play with a paladin to overcome the lack of 2h resists? Doesn't that limit my options a bit much?

The way I was saying it was more along the lines of comparing Salvation to Conviction. When a sorc is playing with a paladin running Conviction she rips through the game. Well now when a fury druid runs with a paladin running Salvation, he can rip through the game. Salvation is now not just a novelty aura for the casual player, it is something that could get real attention from them and inspire them to make builds and parties around.

Again - encouraging team play in Hell. You don't really need the resists/absorbs through Norm/NM so there is plenty of options to solo and do your own thing, but I really wanted to make Hell challenging enough to encourage people to really work together as a group and take advantage of what all the skills have to offer. I started looking at item balance not just from what the individual character could do, but what a TEAM could do.

Will it fail? Perhaps. It might be a bit too lofty of a goal to actually accomplish with this community that mostly wants to build uber characters that can do it all. I felt it was worth giving it a try though.

drrod wrote:
Diablo is often futile to even try to keep still, as unless he aggros the tank by luck he's going to be chasing someone the whole fight(his ranged attacks are also pathetic).

I've been giving Diablo some thought recently. My barb did him 3 times this season and it seems that I was able to get him to focus on me a bit more, but I really want to look in to this a bit more. It seems that as soon as he went on one of his bolt & run streaks, I tried to get in his path and then he would focus back on me. Sort of like how you can bully Mort in to going the way you want by getting in front of him. I have been thinking of trying to use Leap attack to get the "jump" on Diablo and do a better tanking of him.

No argument about Baal though - no value in a tank there. They are helpful for the pre-waves though.

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 Post subject: Re: Balanced?
PostPosted: Tue Feb 08, 2011 11:50 am 

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Yeah I'm really not giving sub-bosses enough credit. Jugg, Achmel, Ancients are now coming to mind. A mercenary is gonna have a hard time tanking those. I'm also forgetting my sorc is often rolling with wisp and barb bo.

I still don't see a tank as that valuable these days. It's just such a shitty job with no pay off. The role of a tank itself isn't enough to warrant creating a whole character around it. Without a significant amount of love melee will just be avoided in favor of easier paths. They offer nothing to a party outside of their own classes buff skills. In which case I'd rather get my auras from a healer than a zealer, oak from rabies instead of a melee druid, bo from WC or just a bobitch. A healer can tank with a little block, rabies just needs a gear change, WC are decent tanks with block as well. There is simply no place for pure melee characters anymore, and it kind of sucks. I'll shut up on this now because I'm just starting to recycle the whole melee argument again.


blue_myriddn wrote:
The way I was saying it was more along the lines of comparing Salvation to Conviction. When a sorc is playing with a paladin running Conviction she rips through the game. Well now when a fury druid runs with a paladin running Salvation, he can rip through the game. Salvation is now not just a novelty aura for the casual player, it is something that could get real attention from them and inspire them to make builds and parties around.

This isn't making any sense to me. 2H resists were scaled down because you want more paladins to run salvation? 2H builds are rare as is, making them rely on salvation for resists is too constricting for duos and such. No one is going to run salvation, we're just going to avoid 2h builds. If you want salvation to play a bigger roll you'd need more bosses that do a lot of damage of two or more elements, or more bosses with LR/Conv/passive pierce. I can't even think of any off the top of my ahead that use two+ strong elemental attacks.

Also the later the game progresses the less and less a sorceress or caster needs conviction or LR. It seems the later the game goes the more a 2h druid would need salvation. I think every character should have the option of getting max resists without starving his sockets, requiring a shield, or charms in the inventory. More use of enemy pierce to compensate and encourage resist stacking would be one way to go.


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 Post subject: Re: Balanced?
PostPosted: Tue Feb 08, 2011 12:03 pm 
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I wouldn't mind seeing feral rage provide a small resist bonus and maul provide some critical strike (both of these are completely missing from the melee druid's skillset).

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 Post subject: Re: Balanced?
PostPosted: Tue Feb 08, 2011 12:51 pm 
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PureRage-DoD wrote:
I wouldn't mind seeing feral rage provide a small resist bonus and maul provide some critical strike (both of these are completely missing from the melee druid's skillset).

Critical strike for druids is a bad idea. They attack far too fast.
I also don't think they should get a resist bonus. If you are going to put it on anything, set it on spirit of barbs. Then it becomes a choice of having resists or having a life boost - but not both.

What is missing for shapeshifters is the ability to capitalize on their fabulous leech rates. With life leech effectively removed from the game by over the top Drain Effectiveness (DE) rates, druids have been crippled in the attribute that makes them distinctive.

2h resists weren't scaled down. ALL resists were scaled down. There really isn't another way to do it. To be more precise, single player defense was toned down in Hell and single player offense was boosted. The reference to salvation was more an argument that 2h characters are now unplayable. I don't believe that is true. With a party, they can be extremely effective.

With regard to casters, they did get a light hand this patch. A big part of that was the shitstorm that errupted over removing skill charms. With so much flak coming my way about destroying casters by removing skill charms, reducing oak/BO, resists on gear and requiring strength I was a bit gun shy about hitting them any where else. In hindsight, reducing passive resists significantly would have been a very good call (progress gems at 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7 rather than 3,4,5,6,7,8,10,12 for example). oh well - casters get an easier run this time around.

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 Post subject: Re: Balanced?
PostPosted: Thu Feb 10, 2011 12:15 pm 
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The issue that comes to mind when trying to even begin to balance melee is what role do they play?

Since it can be argued that the 'tank' is pretty much useless, since in the past the melees were the ones taking down bosses (poison too).

So now we either have a character who is bad at trash and can't do shit vs bosses, a walking liability, or if we put it back ti where it was we have a character who is bad at trash but good at bosses.

What is your goal of this balance? Do you want people to be forced to play as a team even though there are people soloing still by using casters. How much do you want to nerf players soloing/pubbing through the game. Shoulnd't we only require 'teamwork' for big quests, like Baal or land of shadows, and not everything.

As long as you have certain bosses with this and this immunity people will be forced to at least 2 man it.

Is this patch meant to turn the casual pub HU player into an elitist who has to play this and this way or they can't advance? I think your drawing on the hardcore community too much and that is screwing the whole balance effort over because you are turning a casually played game into something where only the elite survive.

Personally I got nothing against elitism, if it's in something like Dota or starcraft or even chess. But diablo 2? Serious business.

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This patch is probably the best balance HU has seen in a long time.

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 Post subject: Re: Balanced?
PostPosted: Thu Feb 10, 2011 12:29 pm 
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Rasta wrote:
The issue that comes to mind when trying to even begin to balance melee is what role do they play?

People keep asking this question - its a really dumb question to ask.

There is no "role" for melee other than to do damage hand to hand - which is simply the definition of melee. There is no "role" - you do whatever you want with your character.

Can we stop asking this question all over the forum please? It really isn't a sensible question if you stop and think about it for a while.

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 Post subject: Re: Balanced?
PostPosted: Thu Feb 10, 2011 4:11 pm 
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blue_myriddn wrote:
People keep asking this question - its a really dumb question to ask.


Asking what a melee character is intended to do in this patch is surely a dumb question. It's not like the entire dynamic of the character was changed this patch.
Let's not mention the fact that whenever melee viability is brought up, they are now delegated to the tank "role" in order to retain their usefulness.

blue_myriddn wrote:
There is no "role" for melee other than to do damage hand to hand - which is simply the definition of melee. There is no "role" - you do whatever you want with your character.


Oddly enough, you just stated melee's role is melee DPS, which is a role they no longer satisfy very well.
If I recall correctly, you've stated basing your party around melee DPS is "a fail" and that if you want significant DPS, you should have a caster in your party.
Is that not delegating casters to the role of DPS?

blue_myriddn wrote:
Can we stop asking this question all over the forum please? It really isn't a sensible question if you stop and think about it for a while.


You consider it an insensible question because you have proper answer for it.
It's actually an extremely valid question. If my Sorceress did not contribute heavily to trash and did not contribute heavily to boss fights, I'd be curious to what "role" she played in a party as well.
If you want to stress team play heavily, there will be roles designated to certain builds and they will be expected to preform such jobs.

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 Post subject: Re: Balanced?
PostPosted: Thu Feb 10, 2011 4:48 pm 
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It is like asking "what flavor is cake"
Silly question, a cake is whatever flavor you bake it.

It isn't a hamburger, so it isn't "anything", but it isn't something in particular either.

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 Post subject: Re: Balanced?
PostPosted: Thu Feb 10, 2011 5:06 pm 
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blue_myriddn wrote:
It is like asking "what flavor is cake"
Silly question, a cake is whatever flavor you bake it.

It isn't a hamburger, so it isn't "anything", but it isn't something in particular either.


What flavor is caster cake? 12 dollar a slice apple spice cake from a 5 star restaurant.

What flavor is melee cake? Rationed turnips cooked in unclean water and molded together with whey and stale bread, kind of like in communist russia.

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blue_myriddn wrote:
This patch is probably the best balance HU has seen in a long time.

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 Post subject: Re: Balanced?
PostPosted: Thu Feb 10, 2011 6:38 pm 
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Rasta wrote:
blue_myriddn wrote:
It is like asking "what flavor is cake"
Silly question, a cake is whatever flavor you bake it.

It isn't a hamburger, so it isn't "anything", but it isn't something in particular either.


What flavor is caster cake? 12 dollar a slice apple spice cake from a 5 star restaurant.

What flavor is melee cake? Rationed turnips cooked in unclean water and molded together with whey and stale bread, kind of like in communist russia.



THIS ISO caster cake plzzz.


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 Post subject: Re: Balanced?
PostPosted: Thu Feb 10, 2011 9:14 pm 
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red_neck wrote:
THIS ISO caster cake plzzz.


I had a slice of apple spice cake... and it was good. It was good friggin cake.

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blue_myriddn wrote:
This patch is probably the best balance HU has seen in a long time.

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Hmmm.... Sometimes I believe your logic is on another fucked up plane of existence.


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