Login | Register


All times are UTC - 5 hours


It is currently Thu Mar 28, 2024 10:42 am




Post new topic Reply to topic  [ 29 posts ] 
Author Message
 Post subject: Hybrid characters+my thoughts on the patch
PostPosted: Sat Feb 27, 2016 9:57 pm 

Joined: Sat Jan 02, 2010 1:36 am
Posts: 971
What's a huge problem with melee characters? They blow dick at trash clearing. However they're a pretty core role in parties. But they're boring, they do nothing but provide buffs/auras during trash clearing and might as well not even exist until a boss rolls around. You can argue this point with me but it's fact, you'll never clear as fast as casters who are just as good if not better on bosses.

What's one of the only decent skills in the game that physical based builds can utilize to clear trash? Multishot. WW is slow as fuck. Zeal/fury slow as fuck. Even -somewhat- decent skills like MA sin kick is slow as fuck in comparison to virtually every decent caster build.

So multishot, I've experimented a lot with hybrids. Since there is really no viable means to get a decent multishot via items I was forced to play an amazon. However now points are spread so fucking thin and jab isn't even all that good.

The answer? Items with high level oskill multishot. Currently, to my knowledge, two items exist. Gloves and weapons. They both don't give high enough numbers to make them worthwhile, and the gloves are super subpar. Let's not talk about the weapon, because you're never going to use it.

What can we draw from this? No fucking point in having it on the weapon unless the weapon is endgame. There should probably be a midgame(40ish, when you'd consider branching out into something) and an endgame version of the gloves. It hurts to wear a pair of shit gloves end game just to have access to trash clearing.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

While we're on this topic, why is whirldwind's passive so shitty? Only procs on kills(meaning useless on bosses), does single target damage(meaning useless on trash), and provides pretty meanginless buffs.

+20 skills, maxed synergy, gives 100% magic pierce, 98% chance to crit, 44% chance to proc on kill, and ~7.5k avg damage.

The pros of the skill is it provides a solid amount of pierce, like actually a fantastic amount, which is important since it's a melee character who isn't going to skill pierce. This makes it's damage alright, but not alright as I'll point out in a moment.

7.5k damage on each hit with 100% pierce isn't bad, it's actually decent, but it's run by killing mobs and it isn't aoe. The problem is whatever you're hitting via WW is usually going to die anyways, the problem is you can only hit so many things so when you WW through a group of enemies things are going to stay alive. Where it would shine is in prolonged fights against high HP enemies, but you'll never have the proc so it's meaningless.

The added crit is pointless, barbs will have 100% chance to crit anyways.

Is there an actual reason this skill isn't something more along the lines of X% chance to proc on hit to deal Y-Z damage in a large aoe around the WWing barbarian? Pierce could be given passively as you level up the skill.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

I'm not sure how hard it is to create new skills, but another problem with a lot of melee classes is the lack of options to deal aoe damage.

Jab zons, if you trim the fat on their synergies, could possibly have access to multishot. You could also remove one of their physical spear skills and create some sort of cone attack, or something similar to fury but less lightning focused.

WW barbs if you change their passive to be useful would have decent access to aoe.

Frenzy/throw barbs could have a hammerdin style throw attack, or a cone style aoe throw attack.

Fury druids could have a vine that corpse explodes dead mobs.

Zealots could have sacrifice add some sort of decent aoe mechanic.

Sins would work fanfuckingtastic if passive pierce could be worked into them, and dclaw synergized with their elemental MA skills. You'd obviously have to somehow restrict this to trappers(or don't, trappers are cancer on the mana anyways whoever wants to drop 2 traps and chug a pot over and over deserves some sort of boon)

Or you could just make multishot a viable method of dealing damage to trash to all classes by creating items. High level oskill multishot is capped on zons at +3, but it needs to be high enough to make it a decent option. Something like +20 gives 10 base arrows, which seems to be decent starting point.

=========================================================================================================

My views on the patch so far.

Wirts jewels seem to have brought up a lot of controversy, and surely their current level of 95% reduction capability shouldn't exist. But I have no problem with huge cut prices on gems. They're tedious to farm, no one likes doing it, and even amassing the amount of wirts jewels you need is tedious. Crafts should be a solid source of gear during progression but it's actually hard to come by. I think wirts should be nerfed to numbers where maybe 66% vendor reduction is the maximum and prices on gems/runes should be cut drastically.

Curse reduction charms can break so many things, personally I preferred having skillers in the game. They provided essentially a reason to continue farming, to continue playing, to see just how powerful you could get your characters. Does it break builds? Yes, but it was FUN and INTERESTING to see how strong units could get. The problem with this was balancing around having skillers, which is inefficient because only a select few will have them. Builds will either be overpowered with, or very underpowered without.

I've made another post about zons, but my distaste for how they were nerfed still leaves a sour taste in my mouth. It's very much an overreaction, if you remove multishot from the equation they're subpar as fuck with GA. They have advantages over some melee in some fights, and disadvantages over melee in others. I truly believe multishot should be a universal AOE ability that any physical build has access to. \

The mass removal of virtually every +life % ability hurts my soul. No longer are compositions for my parties determined by a barb would be useful, but we can always have CTA later. A druid is a fantastic addition because of oak. It's a lot more stale, and it makes paladin auras and necro curses even more powerful than in the past.

I like the fact that immunes don't exist anymore. Frustrating is an understatement for casters when things are immune, specifically when they're unbreakable. Not many people play anymore, forcing yourself to use a merc can be frustrating, since their AI is so bad.


Top
 Offline Profile  
Reply with quote  
 Post subject: Re: Hybrid characters+my thoughts on the patch
PostPosted: Sat Feb 27, 2016 10:42 pm 
User avatar

Joined: Mon Aug 31, 2009 11:28 am
Posts: 1136
Location: Vancouver, BC
WW is an odd skill, where it's hits don't count as hits. It's more like your Barb is removed from the game, and replaced with a missile that looks like a swirly version of him; but when he comes back the damage the missile took is passed to him. Due to WW's oddness, the only procs it can proc is onKill, and I think onStruck.

I understand that a lack of AoE makes swarm-fights pretty long, and I suppose pretty tedious if there's no chance that the monsters could win (reminds me of my first time playing an Aura-Healer paladin, where I'd slowly smite trash that I was invulnerable to).

HU was initially designed to be a pretty hard team mod, where melee builds were there to buy time for the casters to kill quickly. Since HU's versions have been building on that base design, there should be very few AoE Tank-builds (generally melee are tanky). Without a team, HU's core design will fail in a variety of expected ways (immunes are a problem, kill-speeds are slow, AoE characters are fragile, etc). I don't consider that a flaw with HU though, just an unfortunate fact that a lot of people have moved on from D2. I'm not sure if there is a solution to the problems you see, since some of them boil down to just wanting to play a different mod of D2.


Top
 Offline Profile  
Reply with quote  
 Post subject: Re: Hybrid characters+my thoughts on the patch
PostPosted: Sat Feb 27, 2016 10:52 pm 

Joined: Sun Dec 25, 2011 12:58 pm
Posts: 225
The problem with the team aspect is that once a character gets far enough in hell, said character will be used to bypass most of the game for every character following it. If you're starting a new char, you either get rushed, or you're left behind by those that do.

Finding a team when most people skip 2/3 of the game is pretty damn tough, even more so when the community is so small and you're like me, working the night shift.

And so I'm stuck desperately trying to figure a way to solo a mod that isn't made to be solo'd, because there's nobody to play with. I can make it pretty far on my own, but there are brick walls designed to be brick walls that just can't be broken through without a team (NM Diablo for example)


(Oh and don't get me started on mobs that deal un-dodgeable, unblockable damage. That shit is driving me insane)


Top
 Offline Profile  
Reply with quote  
 Post subject: Re: Hybrid characters+my thoughts on the patch
PostPosted: Sat Feb 27, 2016 11:55 pm 

Joined: Sat Jan 02, 2010 1:36 am
Posts: 971
If people were playing and the community was active, that design might work. But there aren't even games up anymore, and a lot of the seasoned players are bored of all the cookie cutter meta builds.

Items like skillers that could push a mediocre character into the breadth of imbalance(poison necro for example) were always fun things to toy around with. If you had the dedication to farm and farm and farm you could eventually fill up on them. These were removed for what I can only assume to be a previous balance statement. They're too strong with skillers and if we balance around having skillers they'll be too weak. But I would argue if someone manages to collect a decent number they should be powerful.

I feel the drop rate of hell boss charms have been improved, I remember farming them 10+ times with no luck, and getting one was an achievement. Now they feel like when one doesn't drop it's a surprise. This was something that always kept me interested, hell bosses had a degree of difficulty that wasn't in the realm of 'you're 1 shot' like LoS is. LoS, last I did it, was literally have max BO and max OAK and you can survive a single hit. If not, hope your poison zon dodges or you cheese through it with hydras/traps.

There are a lot of shitty bosses in this game. Take something like diablo, whose damage comes in many forms. The ring of fire is sustainable with some sorb for most classes, you however usually cannot sit in the lightning or the river of fire. So you have to move around to stay alive, you have to have pots or a means of staying alive to keep the pressure the ring provides up. Then he has prison, which has virtually no counterplay. I've had instances where I was moving and prison misses, moving and prison hits. If it hits and he's using a skill I cannot possibly survive, juvs don't even exist anymore to try and heal through it. I'm just dead.

This turns a decent fight into a complete shitty nightmare. You're gated in a sense where you need to have enough life, enough res, enough stacked res for LR, and usually a decent bit of absorb to survive even the rings of fire. You have to be mechanically aware to avoid the lightning, the rivers. It's an engaging fight, until you throw in prisons, which are made even fucking worse due to the fact that you're almost always desynced and completely unaware you're even in one.

Other examples of good mechanics are the relatively new elemental fist of heavens, meteors. You have to be aware of these, move out of them, but you know they're coming. As opposed to the trav transition boss who throws barely visible shurikens that can 1 hit you. More egregious bullshit is bosses countering with foh, a completely unavoidable ability save dodge/dclaw.

There are 1 hit mechanics that are well designed, like chargers whom you can avoid, and then there is the los paladin/druid hitting you with foh/volcano.

Aside from all that, I doubt the game would be broken giving melees an accessible ability to farm trash. Virtually every caster build in the game has built in abilities for boss fights and trash fights, but melees are just fucked. Zeal, WW, Fury - even worse skills like dclaw are not acceptable substitutes just because they can hit multiple things.

How fucking baller would it be to see a bow zealot, who uses multi then switches to melee for stronger bosses? Would it be broken? Maybe, but rather than restrict unique builds and interesting play based on the fact that it might be broken I think we should encourage it. How many useless oskill items exist, how many useless items in general exist.

There are certainly many changes I'd make if I were able, unfortunately I don't know how to code.


Top
 Offline Profile  
Reply with quote  
 Post subject: Re: Hybrid characters+my thoughts on the patch
PostPosted: Sun Feb 28, 2016 1:24 am 
User avatar

Joined: Tue May 25, 2010 12:33 pm
Posts: 1175
Location: Knoxville, TN
I solo'd the game and LoS with a holy fire Paladin, only thing I haven't done is Soulmancer. Takes time sure but game is soloable if you want to put the farming in.

However I do agree it is tedious to kill trash with a melee character but it's suppose to. Casters have always had the advantage of killing faster but not having the survivability of melee characters, if you take that away by giving everything a great aoe skill what's the point.

Barb has Stun or WW
Pally has Vengeance.
Druid has.. well fuck druids but if frostbite or fireclaws you have decent aoe I guess.
Sin has MA skills which Reim kills trash with perfectly fine or hell Death Sentry.
Zon can 1 pt lightning fury and do fine supposedly.

Most times I've rolled a new character I've had 3-4 people to run with regardless of the time of day. If not I get them as far as I can and start on something else and wait for a party, same as it's always been.

_________________
PureRage-DoD wrote:
Ze dictatorship hast simply changed hands ya?
Let us crunch ze numbers


Top
 Offline Profile  
Reply with quote  
 Post subject: Re: Hybrid characters+my thoughts on the patch
PostPosted: Sun Feb 28, 2016 3:45 am 

Joined: Sat Jan 02, 2010 1:36 am
Posts: 971
What caster is squishy?

Mages have ES.

Trappers use traps.

Necros have summons/walls/prisons.

Druids have multiple layers of armor.

Hammerdins are squishy I guess.

------------------------------------------
Stun or WW isn't an acceptable amount of aoe.

Vengeance clears alright, but you can't just throw the skill on a zealot and have it be effective.

Melee druids are in a bad spot.

Sin MA skills are bad, death sentry is complimentary to an actual damage dealer, but not a solution solo.

I highly doubt a zon can do this, zon's aren't really the problem, other than multishot being fucked up.

--------------------------------
IDK what to tell you, no one is ever on when I'm on. Riem is on being all depressed how after making 6 different MA sins they all suck. Fuck I wanted to make a new char, looked at the realm list, 2 games up.

I've played this mod enough times to know how it always goes. I get 2-3 friends, we have someone who is tanky(e.g, barb), 2 different element boss killers(e.g, firewall sorc+poison zon), and a trash clearer(e.g, bone necro). This works fantastic. We can handle everything except a fire/poison immune mob, and we get to hell a5. Now comes the tundra grind.

Given a 2 hour period, assuming the people can't get on at the same time, bone necro is clearing that shit upwards of 10 times. Firewall isn't clearing it, poison zon does it maybe 3-4, and that poor barb is fucked. Even last patch I played I made a barb, it was 92 and it took me days to get to 95 soloing tundra because no one was on. And the server was MUCH more populated back then.

Holy fire paladin? Sounds like trangs armor.


Top
 Offline Profile  
Reply with quote  
 Post subject: Re: Hybrid characters+my thoughts on the patch
PostPosted: Sun Feb 28, 2016 3:46 am 
User avatar

Joined: Sat May 28, 2011 4:10 am
Posts: 480
LockDown wrote:
I solo'd the game and LoS with a holy fire Paladin, only thing I haven't done is Soulmancer. Takes time sure but game is soloable if you want to put the farming in.

However I do agree it is tedious to kill trash with a melee character but it's suppose to. Casters have always had the advantage of killing faster but not having the survivability of melee characters, if you take that away by giving everything a great aoe skill what's the point.

Barb has Stun or WW
Pally has Vengeance.
Druid has.. well fuck druids but if frostbite or fireclaws you have decent aoe I guess.
Sin has MA skills which Reim kills trash with perfectly fine or hell Death Sentry.
Zon can 1 pt lightning fury and do fine supposedly.

Most times I've rolled a new character I've had 3-4 people to run with regardless of the time of day. If not I get them as far as I can and start on something else and wait for a party, same as it's always been.


This :)

My holy freeze paladin is actually an very decent trash killer in WSK and other places.

Hell its not just decent, its an awesome trash killer with Vengance.


Top
 Offline Profile  
Reply with quote  
 Post subject: Re: Hybrid characters+my thoughts on the patch
PostPosted: Sun Feb 28, 2016 4:20 am 

Joined: Sat Jan 02, 2010 1:36 am
Posts: 971
Not against anything that is actually decent at clearing trash. In comparison to a physical zealot perhaps it feels fast.


Top
 Offline Profile  
Reply with quote  
 Post subject: Re: Hybrid characters+my thoughts on the patch
PostPosted: Sun Feb 28, 2016 4:34 am 
User avatar

Joined: Tue May 25, 2010 12:33 pm
Posts: 1175
Location: Knoxville, TN
Trangs Armor takes my Veng from 100k to 172k. 100k is fine for trash, I use Steel Carapace in Ancients Way and Pit and RoS.

My veng isn't even maxed it's level 10 the other 10 points went to zeal.

_________________
PureRage-DoD wrote:
Ze dictatorship hast simply changed hands ya?
Let us crunch ze numbers


Top
 Offline Profile  
Reply with quote  
 Post subject: Re: Hybrid characters+my thoughts on the patch
PostPosted: Sun Feb 28, 2016 4:40 am 
User avatar

Joined: Wed Sep 09, 2009 10:06 am
Posts: 1206
Auradins clear really fast. Can vouch for them as well.

_________________
LockDown wrote:
Go outside.


Top
 Offline Profile  
Reply with quote  
 Post subject: Re: Hybrid characters+my thoughts on the patch
PostPosted: Sun Feb 28, 2016 5:07 am 
User avatar

Joined: Tue May 25, 2010 12:33 pm
Posts: 1175
Location: Knoxville, TN
This is the easiest rendition of HU I can remember playing in all honesty.

_________________
PureRage-DoD wrote:
Ze dictatorship hast simply changed hands ya?
Let us crunch ze numbers


Top
 Offline Profile  
Reply with quote  
 Post subject: Re: Hybrid characters+my thoughts on the patch
PostPosted: Sun Feb 28, 2016 6:02 am 

Joined: Sat Jan 02, 2010 1:36 am
Posts: 971
I didn't say it was hard. My group doesn't get on thus I don't progress.

I would imagine nothing being immune and the levels of pierce capable of being run would easily throw anything without a fire res buff into double damage territory and everything else still solid damage.

But anyways, unless pulses are killing(in which case I've severely underestimated how much damage auradins deal), then you aren't clearing fast. FastER than melee, but not fast by any means.

Hurricane/armageddon can literally run through tundra and things die.

Trappers can run trap run trap and clear.

Bowas/teeth/poison necros can tele, aoe, tele, aoe and clear incredibly fast.

Will oskill multishot/aoes I suggested clear this fast? No, but it might put it closer to what you can clear with your auradin. I literally don't see why you want melee characters to be stagnant single target units, when it would be more enjoyable all around if everyone could participate for the majority of the game.


Top
 Offline Profile  
Reply with quote  
 Post subject: Re: Hybrid characters+my thoughts on the patch
PostPosted: Sun Feb 28, 2016 6:18 am 

Joined: Wed Dec 12, 2012 7:24 pm
Posts: 1031
Not sure Angel if you were referring to giving literal multishot to every class. For one thing, each class would have to lose a skill, another thing, where do you put it? And if it's literal multishot, are you going to up dex on a Barb so you can use bows and have less str/vit? Then people whine about the melee dps and survivability. Either way, if you replace a less-used skill like Conversion with Multishot and you have multi/fana bow Pallys, that would be really, really broken.

Blastbark/Demon Machine/Eaglehorn and Gravepalm all give oskill multi now. Blastbark used to be the only bow. Widowmaker and Elvenbow give oskill Strafe.

Vengeance is great clear so not sure what the issue is here.
MA ele skills were increased in damage and the elite unique claws are ridiculous.

War Cry and Shock Wave were also given more radius in 1.6c to help barb/druid aoe but the patch wasn't put in.

If you really love multishot that much, you can make a pally with eaglehorn+fana, get an enchant proc from melee to buff it first, and wear stacked cb/ds with an amp proc somewhere and a Might merc :P


Top
 Offline Profile  
Reply with quote  
 Post subject: Re: Hybrid characters+my thoughts on the patch
PostPosted: Sun Feb 28, 2016 6:28 am 
User avatar

Joined: Sat May 28, 2011 4:10 am
Posts: 480
I like the clearing of the holy fire paladin with veng better then the hurricane druid ATM.


Top
 Offline Profile  
Reply with quote  
 Post subject: Re: Hybrid characters+my thoughts on the patch
PostPosted: Sun Feb 28, 2016 6:43 am 
User avatar

Joined: Wed Sep 09, 2009 10:06 am
Posts: 1206
I only really play melee builds if I have a choice since they are my favorite and barb is my #1 class. I think they are totally fine and can solo the entire game NP. Sure they have weak aoe but not every class can have everything, what's next? QQing about casters not being able to tank as well as melee builds? Everything has disadvantages and advantages.

I gave melee builds all better options back in 1.5. Did you play melee before then? It used to be how you actually think it is now. Melee is fine now anymore buffs to their AOE clear would be so OP. Can't have everything.

_________________
LockDown wrote:
Go outside.


Top
 Offline Profile  
Reply with quote  
 Post subject: Re: Hybrid characters+my thoughts on the patch
PostPosted: Sun Feb 28, 2016 7:54 am 

Joined: Sun Dec 25, 2011 12:58 pm
Posts: 225
Ensley03 wrote:
Vengeance is great clear so not sure what the issue is here.
MA ele skills were increased in damage and the elite unique claws are ridiculous.


Woah slow down there cowboy, I haven't made upward of 6 MA sins every patch to have something like that get past me.

Fist of fire was untouched. Still "good" for bosses.
Claws of thunder's third charge causes so many counters it's unusable against most bosses.
Blade of ice's third charge (which is the main reason why it's used) was nerfed in favor of buffing its first and second charge damage (Which is nice against bosses, I guess, but sucks at clearing trash, which is what BoI was good at)
Phoenix was absolutely ridiculously overnerfed. It was much stronger than the other 3 yes, but it didn't have to drop to half what it used to do.

Elemental MA can't tank bosses (Past nightmare) unless you completely ignore elemental and just lifesteal with Dclaw, if you do, just make a fucking Dclaw sin.

Tiger strike is a fantastic skill that sucks at being useful since all release skills are trash. Same with cobra strike (although it can manage with Dclaw)

Dclaw is the only good release skill. Dtail is garbage except as a single pointer, DTalon will get you killed and the damage is too low for proper lifesteal and lets not talk about Dflight.

With an absurd amount of + skills, MA sins do reasonable damage. Not too good, not too bad. Problem is you charge 3 times for it.

Maybe I'm unreasonable. Maybe I'm biased. Maybe it's because I've spent I don't know how many patches trying to make this work.

Maybe I suck ass. Maybe all of the above. I don't care.

Do MA sins do well in normal? Absolutely yes. Do MA sins do well in nightmare? Until diablo, yes. Do they do well in hell? Stunlock for days, not enough trash clear speed.

Elemental MA jack of all trades, master of none. It doesn't do anything very well but it doesn't really suck at anything, except tanking bosses.
It doesn't clear fast enough to be considered a good farming character, and it doesn'T kill/survive enough to be considered a boss killer.

It's a squishier melee char that can't handle most bosses.

(PS: I'm insane, see: Einstein's definition of insanity)


Top
 Offline Profile  
Reply with quote  
 Post subject: Re: Hybrid characters+my thoughts on the patch
PostPosted: Sun Feb 28, 2016 8:36 am 
User avatar

Joined: Tue May 25, 2010 12:33 pm
Posts: 1175
Location: Knoxville, TN
9k Pulses do kill the non Strong Vs Fire guys pretty quick 3-4 pulses. (With Trangs I hit 15k and things get 2 shot that aren't strong vs fire or minions.)

_________________
PureRage-DoD wrote:
Ze dictatorship hast simply changed hands ya?
Let us crunch ze numbers


Top
 Offline Profile  
Reply with quote  
 Post subject: Re: Hybrid characters+my thoughts on the patch
PostPosted: Sun Feb 28, 2016 8:37 am 

Joined: Sat Jan 02, 2010 1:36 am
Posts: 971
Mraw -- You'll have to excuse me as I don't remember exactly what you did. Vengeance is a solid skill, but not for physical zealots. Bash is completely useless as frenzy/ww will do more damage. Warcry isn't applicable to a melee character. The druid skill I've never seen used, probably wouldn't be applicable I'm assuming.

=============================================
Ensley -- Since you neutered multishot(and literally everything else bowazons have), the oskill on the gloves isn't really applicable to be a useful thing anymore. I merely would like to see it buffed, to give unique options for trash on physical builds outside of their kit. The fuck? I don't want multishot on every character, but the option via items would be an interesting option.

+5 or 6 multishot is not going to shoot any arrows, and physical characters tend to not really invest in +all, so to be viable it's going to need to be higher. Like in the 15-20 range for a decent base to make it even semi worthwhile. Also, an end game version of the gloves would be solid, as no one wants to wear gravepalm in their 90s.

Another thing is it shouldn't even be on bows, if you're ever considering oskilling a multishot you want a good bow, not some shit unique.

Lastly, MA sins are alright clearing, but I doubt any better than dtail+tiger. Their inherent problem is they blow on bosses, which means you have to dclaw bosses, which means you have to gear entirely differently. It's not something a simple weapon switch will allow.


Top
 Offline Profile  
Reply with quote  
 Post subject: Re: Hybrid characters+my thoughts on the patch
PostPosted: Sun Feb 28, 2016 8:52 am 

Joined: Wed Dec 12, 2012 7:24 pm
Posts: 1031
Not sure if trolling or just unaware...

"Fist of fire was untouched." ?? Compared to 1.5, The synergy damage cap was increased from 600% to 700% for all 3 eles and 500% to 600% for phoenix. Also a set and uniques were added to help early-mid game for Sins. Claw mastery and tiger strike damage was increased since tiger strike is never used outside of bosses and would help MA ele sins with an alternative for more phys dps/leech. Dragon Talon got a huge buff and has fewer hits so less counters. Shadow warrior/master are stronger. Venom is slightly stronger. Blade skills are much better. Not to mention there's no more immunities, so I think most people would agree this class is borderline EZMODE compared to 1.5. The only difference is boss fights are more gear dependent. Also weapon block was supposed to get FBR% in 1.6c that you guys voted no for.

When "literally everything else bowazons have" was neutered, ele bow skills were all improved. Multishot has been the ultimate farm cheese for years in this game and just because it's no longer VASTLY superior to every other farm skill isn't a logical reason to start bringing pitchforks and torches.

Being upset over the effectiveness of oskill abilities on other classes is taking QQ to a whole new level.


Top
 Offline Profile  
Reply with quote  
 Post subject: Re: Hybrid characters+my thoughts on the patch
PostPosted: Sun Feb 28, 2016 9:21 am 

Joined: Sun Dec 25, 2011 12:58 pm
Posts: 225
Ensley03 wrote:
Not sure if trolling or just unaware...

"Fist of fire was untouched." ?? Compared to 1.5, The synergy damage cap was increased from 600% to 700% for all 3 eles and 500% to 600% for phoenix. Also a set and uniques were added to help early-mid game for Sins. Claw block and tiger strike damage was increased since tiger strike is never used outside of bosses and would help MA ele sins with an alternative for more phys dps/leech. Dtail got a huge buff and has fewer hits so less counters. Shadow warrior/master are stronger. Venom is slightly stronger. Blade skills are much better. Not to mention there's no more immunities, so I think most people would agree this class is borderline EZMODE compared to 1.5. The only difference is boss fights are more gear dependent. Also weapon block was supposed to get FBR% in 1.6c that you guys voted no for.



The fact that phys Dclaw and Blade sins are great while the rest is either garbage or average doesn't make the class easy mode
I DID say that the buffs you did to MAs only affected first charge, which amounts to essentially nothing.
Phoenix lost 50% of its damage compared to 1.5 buddy.
The shadows get destroyed by pretty much anything in hell. Warrior refuses to cash BoS and Fade which seriously doesn't help their case.

I voted no to a reset, not to an hotfix, which is what you said you were doing at first. Had you not made your hotfix into a reset-requiring patch, most people would have said yes, so that's on you.


Top
 Offline Profile  
Reply with quote  
 Post subject: Re: Hybrid characters+my thoughts on the patch
PostPosted: Sun Feb 28, 2016 10:19 am 

Joined: Wed Dec 12, 2012 7:24 pm
Posts: 1031
The patch doesn't require a reset -_- It would be best for the game long term if it was, that's all.

Also, it was a very small hotfix, but Duff was gone for a week, and then he came back and said no, and then he said he'd make a poll, and by the time all of that was done, a month had passed, so yeah more work was put in.

It pains my soul that this update isn't being put in for what it does.


Top
 Offline Profile  
Reply with quote  
 Post subject: Re: Hybrid characters+my thoughts on the patch
PostPosted: Sun Feb 28, 2016 10:42 am 

Joined: Sat Jan 02, 2010 1:36 am
Posts: 971
Teeth/hurricane are on par with multi, as is poison necro and to a very slightly lesser degree trappers. But necros and druids bring more stuff to a group. Only recently were bowas 'mainstream' because GA was brought back, and even then they were not the cream of the crop.

But hey, nerf every passive to 1/4th of what it was, don't consolidate any of them together or even offer flat stats to them to make them worth leveling. Nerf GA damage, nerf multishot arrows, Nerf decoy to unusable levels, nerf pierce values so it's harder to obtain, nerf crit values so it's harder to obtain.

At least frost bowas are still useless because they're fucking frost bowas. But hey, fire is strong because you put oskill fire mastery in, so that's going for bowas, other than the fact staying alive is a problem because they have no dodge/block/decoy and their damage is gated by their FPA which means counters.

Your wirt jewel blunder literally doesn't bother me. I could care less that gems cost nothing, because crafting is still tedious and boring. The only mind boggling thing is that it wasn't intentional, and you didn't even know where things you were adjusting dropped from.

Having interesting options to alter characters from the normal? Thought you'd be all for that, considering you nerfed throwing knives under the pretext of wanting people to not do the same thing for leveling.


Top
 Offline Profile  
Reply with quote  
 Post subject: Re: Hybrid characters+my thoughts on the patch
PostPosted: Sun Feb 28, 2016 11:04 am 

Joined: Sun Dec 25, 2011 12:58 pm
Posts: 225
Ensley03 wrote:
The patch doesn't require a reset -_- It would be best for the game long term if it was, that's all.

Also, it was a very small hotfix, but Duff was gone for a week, and then he came back and said no, and then he said he'd make a poll, and by the time all of that was done, a month had passed, so yeah more work was put in.

It pains my soul that this update isn't being put in for what it does.

Are you gonna bring back some of what you removed from your dropbox?

I just finally found a use for Vizjerai too.


Top
 Offline Profile  
Reply with quote  
 Post subject: Re: Hybrid characters+my thoughts on the patch
PostPosted: Tue Mar 01, 2016 10:47 am 

Joined: Thu Mar 31, 2011 8:06 pm
Posts: 92
Every time I log in to play HU there's 0-1 game up. On a really busy day I noticed 2 games up, but both of them were afk for over 4 hours. For those of us not playing with large premade parties dedicated to this mod it's pretty hard to progress. Logging in and finding another person to play with is almost impossible now...

That being said I understand this was a mod based around teamplay, but it no longer seems that it has the community to support a teamplay aspect for the minority of us no longer belonging to a large group. To that end I would love and support some change that made it slightly easier to get past the intentional built in brick walls in this mod that are nigh impossible playing solo unless you're playing a favorited class this patch. Or easier to farm with if you're playing a melee on your own, such as a high oskill multi.


Top
 Offline Profile  
Reply with quote  
 Post subject: Re: Hybrid characters+my thoughts on the patch
PostPosted: Tue Mar 01, 2016 11:19 am 

Joined: Wed Dec 12, 2012 7:24 pm
Posts: 1031
Riem821 wrote:
Are you gonna bring back some of what you removed from your dropbox?

I just finally found a use for Vizjerai too.


What the hell does that have to do with anything? Sure if Duff puts in 1.6c I'll put it all back and more?

Convert wrote:
Every time I log in to play HU there's 0-1 game up. On a really busy day I noticed 2 games up, but both of them were afk for over 4 hours. For those of us not playing with large premade parties dedicated to this mod it's pretty hard to progress. Logging in and finding another person to play with is almost impossible now...

That being said I understand this was a mod based around teamplay, but it no longer seems that it has the community to support a teamplay aspect for the minority of us no longer belonging to a large group. To that end I would love and support some change that made it slightly easier to get past the intentional built in brick walls in this mod that are nigh impossible playing solo unless you're playing a favorited class this patch. Or easier to farm with if you're playing a melee on your own, such as a high oskill multi.


There was 8-10 people on most of last night but separated by different difficulties and passworded games.

The mod has always been hard but has generally gotten easier over time. 1.6c was supposed to slightly help with some of the brick walls like NM Diablo but Duff isn't updating it.

It looks like the next patch is going to be a lot harder so enjoy it while you can.


Top
 Offline Profile  
Reply with quote  
 Post subject: Re: Hybrid characters+my thoughts on the patch
PostPosted: Tue Mar 01, 2016 11:51 am 

Joined: Thu Mar 31, 2011 8:06 pm
Posts: 92
Ensley03 wrote:
Riem821 wrote:
Are you gonna bring back some of what you removed from your dropbox?

I just finally found a use for Vizjerai too.


What the hell does that have to do with anything? Sure if Duff puts in 1.6c I'll put it all back and more?

Convert wrote:
Every time I log in to play HU there's 0-1 game up. On a really busy day I noticed 2 games up, but both of them were afk for over 4 hours. For those of us not playing with large premade parties dedicated to this mod it's pretty hard to progress. Logging in and finding another person to play with is almost impossible now...

That being said I understand this was a mod based around teamplay, but it no longer seems that it has the community to support a teamplay aspect for the minority of us no longer belonging to a large group. To that end I would love and support some change that made it slightly easier to get past the intentional built in brick walls in this mod that are nigh impossible playing solo unless you're playing a favorited class this patch. Or easier to farm with if you're playing a melee on your own, such as a high oskill multi.


There was 8-10 people on most of last night but separated by different difficulties and passworded games.

The mod has always been hard but has generally gotten easier over time. 1.6c was supposed to slightly help with some of the brick walls like NM Diablo but Duff isn't updating it.

It looks like the next patch is going to be a lot harder so enjoy it while you can.


I was on for a good 9 hours last night but unfortunately other than the public game I kept up there was one other i noticed. If the community exists but it's all happening in private passworded progression groups, I don't really see any options for newer players anymore.


Top
 Offline Profile  
Reply with quote  
 Post subject: Re: Hybrid characters+my thoughts on the patch
PostPosted: Tue Mar 01, 2016 11:54 am 
User avatar

Joined: Tue Sep 01, 2009 9:01 pm
Posts: 1413
What he was referring to was the filetree, not an update to 1.6c.
Taking down a working tree, that only needs very little extra for 1.6b, etc is sad. We understand you're pissed that you put more work into 1.6c to not see it materialize in the end...taking down stuff that has helped a lot of us as a result? Understandable, but head shakingly so.

Should probably redo the thread title...to don't you wish you were here earlier? or the like.

Everytime I have logged in there have been games. Generally several in norm alone. It isn't the ghost town people are making it out to be yet.

_________________
The reader should not be discouraged if...he does not have the prerequisites to read the prerequisites. P. Halmos


Top
 Offline Profile  
Reply with quote  
 Post subject: Re: Hybrid characters+my thoughts on the patch
PostPosted: Tue Mar 01, 2016 12:18 pm 
Game Server Host
User avatar

Joined: Mon Aug 31, 2009 12:33 am
Posts: 4291
I'll upload another filetree if he doesn't want people to use his. I'll get round to it next time I restart/take D2GS down.

_________________
Bron wrote:
There's no cure for being a cunt.


Top
 Offline Profile  
Reply with quote  
 Post subject: Re: Hybrid characters+my thoughts on the patch
PostPosted: Fri Mar 04, 2016 11:56 am 

Joined: Mon Jan 18, 2016 1:53 pm
Posts: 36
Hi guys, (some people might know me from the solo thread ;) )
well I just read all your complains about the mod patch and so on.
Some of them I can unterstand but to all the people who created this great mod I really have to say THANK YOU! I love the mod! You did a great job, it's definitely a new Diablo2 experience and the good thing about it it's not so overmodded like MedianXL!
But like these guys I also have some thoughts about this mod.

Well, I played this mod years before online when it was still at 1.2 or something with a friend of mine who had the nickname Relay or so I don't know if you guys from the old days still know him.

So, I played it online at that time and it really pissed me that there were no tp scrolls and that the only way was to win against bosses in a big group, but it still took hours to succeed in defeating the boss. The guys from the old days might now scream well your group might have been to unexperienced in defeating the bosses or had a too low level or the wrong chars in a party. The thing was I came then afterwards in games where the people wrote: "Mute can you leave we already have a tank and we are waiting for a Necro or a Pala, so that we have a chance to win or not to play for hours against Diablo." Well I often was pissed off when I read something like that and stayed in the game to piss these guys off as well.
The result of all that was that more private games started to exist than puplic games, because they all feared noobs like me would join their game.

I do not know how much the situation has changed but after reading that a lot of private games are actually existing and Convert had troubles finding people to play with seems to me that not so much has changed or even got worse because there are not that many people playing.

New players to this mod will have a more hard time than before because they cannot find people to play with.
I know someone wrote he has 3-4 friends in the game and when they are all online and have certain chars so they can defeat almost anything. This just troubles me because this means that a group of druids or amazones will never have a chance to defeat Bosses at hell. And increase those people who will write stuff like "please leave we need a necro". I mean there are people who just hate playing necro's like me because they hate being only in game because people need them only because of their curses or their summoned monsters. As a Necro you basically do not attack except if skills like poison nova is really effective. I mean I like the idea of having a group of different chars in a team but it still should be possible for people to win against bosses if they all have the same char.

Well these were my problems ages ago and are one of the reasons why I am playing singleplayer solo.

Now to your problems lets start with playing this mod solo online:

Well I think every char should have the possibility to get to act 5 and defeating Baal solo. Of course no wants that players get the best gear and level up only by playing solo, so you need to decrease the drop & exp rates drastically so that if you defeat the boss monsters solo then you will mostly only get crappy items and almost no exp. But you get into the next act.
So basically give 1-2 player games the classic 1 player rates of Diablo2 LoD or make the drop/exp rates even worse. I mean chance of no drop by Boss should be @ 90% or so. Also give the Boss monsters in 1 player games a hp table value of 0.

AoE MELEE CHAR ATTACKS:
Well I think its a good idea to give melee chars have acces to AoE attack skills but they should do 1/4 or 1/2 of your actual damage.
Another way to do this is in making it possible for chars to find weapons that increase the chance of releasing a very high level AoE spell after killing a monster. With this the melee chars would be able to kill faster a lot of monsters but the power of the spell shouldn't be as powerful as spells of a sorc with + X to all skills.

HYBRID CHARACTERS:
Well I also miss the hybrid characters of LoD 1.07-1.09. The main reason this was possible was that synergien did not exist so every skill only got more powerful by masteries and the points you have put into the skill.
I liked it very much because I had a nova/frozen orb sorc and it was a lot of fun combining these skills against the monsters. This is a thing that I really miss the most of this game. It gave the chars more possibilities to be unique or more options of playable chars throughout the game.
I also loved combining WW with Frenzy at one patch. Sadly double throw never did good damage at that time but if it would have done good damage you could even have made a Doublethrow/Frenzy barb or WW/Doublethrow barb or so. Simply loved combining two great attacks. So please get rid of synergien and hybrids are possible again. Or do it another way I right now cannot think of.

MY THOUGHTS ABOUT SET ITEMS & Rares
I liked Sets the way they were during Diablo2 classic. I mean it were the times where set items mostly were useless if you only had one piece of a set. I mean I loved it how the sets always got stronger with every next item you found and that it got the major bonus when you had it complete.
I mean I found Tal Rasha’s orb and mask in this mod yesterday, yes it is cool that they do +3 to all skills but as a old diablo2 classic player I would loved it more if you got the +3 with 4 items of 5 or as a major bonus in the end when you have it complete. I mean in classic diablo2 magic items sometimes were stronger than set items if you only had one piece of the set. And the set item only got interesting for you if you found 3 of 5 items of the set. I love all the +3s and so on and all the bonuses of all these great sets of this mod but in my opinion these bonuses should only appear if you have a lot of parts of the set.

RARES
In diablo 2 classic I really enjoyed that rare items were the best items of the game. I mean it gave the charsi quest a new meaning because you always had a chance to get a spectacular weapon, maybe even the best weapon you can get. And the cool thing was that there weren't many people that had the weapon you had found or imbued.
I mean your weapon was totally rare because no one else had a weapon with the same attributs/+skills/dmg% and so on.

Surely this made it simple to get a good wpn. But if you get rid of the charsi quest or make it totally hard so that you can only do the quest with max lvl and top gear it would make it a nice challange for you. Sure people might do the quest only in normal because they think it'll be easier, but if you give these monsters also the same attributes like in hell it also won't be possible for them to the quest in normal.

Surely by making rare items as good as perfect high level uniques the drop rate of rares must be decreased. With such kind of rare items I mean rare items for example with: increased of damage +100-600%, damage reduction of 10-30%, +2-5 to all skills, +5-20% fire /lighting/ice/absorb, or + 30 resistances +ias 10-100%...

Well something like that. I mean, so that you might have the chance to get the best weapon in the game but the chances are low to get the ideal weapon. But the possibillity to get something like +5 to all skills or +600%ed would give rare items in the game a new meaning.
I want rare items to be as powerful as runewords or even stronger that's the main idea behind it. But like I said this can only be done if you change the drop rates of rares.

+1 SKILL / POISON DAMAGE CHARMS:
I agree with the guy that these charms made you keep on playing the game. I would also agree to let them be found in this mod again but two things have to be changed for this to work. 1. Get rid of the rerolling of magical items with perfect gems or change it that it only can be done with high runes (zod+cham+ber+zod). Of course the drop rate of these runes must be increased again. 2. The charms that make +1 to all skills should only drop in act5 Hell or special areas.

Bring back high poison damage charms with like +25-1000 poison damage or maybe a bit less. Of course should the +500 or 1000 dmg charms also only drop in in act5 Hell or special areas.

Then I got a new item idea for this mod:

BAD DUPES OF RUNEWORDS
Create unique items that have all the attributes of a runeword but only are as half as strong. I mean like finding a unique weapons that are called "Bad Dupe of Unbending Will" and it only does for example:
+1 to all skills, +1 to summoning skills, 10% Resist all, +1-2 Fanaticsm, 10-20% fast cast rate, Not indestructable, +10-20 Vitality, + 25-50 life, 1% crushing Blow, +10-20 Engergy and + 25-50 mana.
This would give the game a lot new items.

Hm did I forgot something hm.. Well just wait for my next post.


Top
 Offline Profile  
Reply with quote  
Display posts from previous:  Sort by  
Post new topic Reply to topic  [ 29 posts ] 

All times are UTC - 5 hours


Who is online

Users browsing this forum: Google [Bot] and 67 guests


You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot post attachments in this forum

Search for:
Jump to:  
cron