blue_myriddn wrote:
Were casters nerfed? Yes
Do explain to me just how casters were nerfed, as I've seen no such thing. It's easier now to obtain massively high skills than it was before. The only "nerf" to casters was an overall nerf to resists. The gear changes all reflect casters getting great gear and great +skills and pierce all around. There is absolutely no downside to playing a caster in this patch.
Were hammers touched? Hardly. (And yes, I've played a Hammerdin this patch) I'm not even positive if the flag change worked, as I've seen no decrease in damage.
Were poison builds touched? Not at all.
You killed one out of three that dominate bossfights without touching the other two. Melee were over nerfed, to the point where there is no incentive to roll one. Whatever "buffs" they received don't even begin to outweigh the incredible gear nerfs and overall reduction of Amp & Decrep.
blue_myriddn wrote:
Dramatically reducing DS on items is one of the ways this was accomplished. It also served to put Barbs and Zons in a much stronger dmg position as their critical strike skill actually has some use now. Druids got a big boost in the form of much more IAS across the board on weapons, allowing them to be one of the most effective distributors of the newly reduced CB.
So the solution to a melee Druid is to rely on a 1/25 chance to do significant damage? Two of the biggest bosses in this game cast Iron Maiden, so using Fury with a decent damage weapon is not an option. By having no DS, you've already effectively cut a Fury druid's damage in half.
Add in the fact the top-end 2handers have big strength requirements, cutting your vitality by quite a bit, and the lack of DR there is no incentive to build a Fury Druid other than novelty. If melee in general are hurting, where does it put that once viable build?
As for more on the DS nerfs, you do realize that's still a nerf to characters who have innate critical strike? Before it was easy to obtain close to 100% deadly strike on characters who have innate critical strike (Not that hard even on those w/o it). Now you get around 50% deadly strike for a character who has it innately. That's still a 50% overall damage decrease.
More so, it creates a huge gap between melee characters who can innately receive critical strike and those who cannot. 50% total damage output is quite huge and skyrockets Barbarians as the undisputed king of melee. Not that they haven't always been the best, but now the gap has widened by quite a bit.
blue_myriddn wrote:
There's only one sure way to really know and it isn't by responding to or writing posts like what you have written. Get out there and play the game for a few MONTHS before passing some final judgement on it.
So... the easily 70+ hours I've already put into this reset amount to no knowledge of this patch? Is constructive criticism on something you may have done wrong THAT bad Blue? Some of the melee nerfs were great and warranted ideas, but when you combine a whole lot of game changing nerfs and throw them together, it's very possible to create the mess melee are in now.
To take your own advice, have you even played through with a melee character at all? What experience do you have with melee this patch that can prove the collective changes were in the right direction? I'd like to hear it if you do, because I've put in a fair share of time to playing melee this ladder and would like to know if your experiences are much different than mine.