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Meteor/Fireball runs same synergies traditionally, so they are interchangable. Does hydra shoot fireballs or firebolts currently? I agree on both nova spells. Remember Nova in Diablo 1? I'm not sure if its possible to increase radius.
It's firebolts currently, it was adjusted to fireballs but the damage was never scaled back and it was pretty strong. Personally I think it should be fireballs, hydra is unique in that it can be a boss killer and a solid clearing skill. I do like the lack of cast delay with a cap on how many can be out.
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Smite traditionally isn't used as a solo build but a skill to use in conjunction with another melee skills. It's good in combination with crushing blow for bosses as it hits every time. I do plan to lower the heal rate a bit, I found most people used healerdins on a follow bot or just for bosses. I don't plan to remove it but will tone it down a bit.
I think making healerdin pulses the main, shining part of the build with the ability to be a playable class beyond having to group with people is a solid way to go. Again, this could be accomplished with a lower damage aura than might for a melee spec, also working with hammers for a caster spec. I don't think healing bolts should permanently keep tanky units up, it makes a lot of things cheesy, rather it should be coordinated in the pulses to help heal through the aoe mechanics. As for smite, you don't heal off it and while it always hits it hits much slower than zeal. Melees should be able to get consistent hit rates. Personally I think it would be more flavor with a debuff attached that lowers damage, so you can weave it into rotations. It currently buffed phys DR, but it felt offputting in a sense that it's duration was super low and most builds will cap DR anyways outside of influences like smite.
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Venom is different from other poison builds as it finishes its duration quick. It's basically a physical attack that deals poison based damage. The duration is only like 0.5 seconds. It is good when used with whirlwind. Specially vs enemies with high physical res and in combination with poison pierce.
Do keep in mind that dual wield whirlwind hits every 2 frames, I don't think venom could ever hit that fast, especially in later difficulties when poison duration goes up. It was never viable to my knowledge outside of a prebuff on something like a bowa, and never substantially added a decent trash or boss killing mechanic. I think if you wanted venom to be a viable tool, sins would need access to multishot.
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Barbs do lack some damage but it is because they are focused more on life/defense. Just like how Sorceress can deal leathal damage but are very squishy.
Barbs can commonly outdamage all but broken specs like firewall(tuned high) or blaze(doesn't really matter how it's tuned it's insane). This is because of crushing blow, lifesteal lets them just sit on enemies, but their problem is more clearing trash. An example is I had a barb that could solo kill almost every boss in the game by holding left click frenzy, but when I went into tundra it was so slow it was agonizing. Remember that defense has it's values, but offense and in turn lifesteal commonly comes out to a much stronger defense.
To allude to your sorc reference, an orb sorc visually did decent numbers but applicably wasn't very viable on bosses. Barbs could shred bosses, most sorcs can't.
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I agree on the spirits. I liked when they functioned like aura's. Was it patch 1.4 that randomly moved all the bosses into different spots and removed invulnerability? I basically gave up on summoning my heart of wolverine because it died 1 hit in hell.
I'm glad we agree here. Current patch my maxed oak, which brevan assured me would stay alive decently well, is always dead despite self BO and it's own aura. Any elemental damage from trash wrecks it in seconds. This makes it just tedious to keep up. On a whole other aspect, I can spam it on bosses and they just sit on it indefinitely, sort of like necro blades of the past but with less of a cast delay.
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I'd like to bring back the staff with frozen armor, and definitely call to arms with battle order. DEFINITELY ctc lower res on time staff to make rabies druid viable again end game!
Personally I think the spirits should be accessible as charges or oskills on wearable items, since you can't swap them out the summons will die. CTA can be on a switch, so it can be nothing more than a stat stick to switch to.
I think amp/LR should be oskills as well. A necro will always provide a stronger version, but it gives parties without necros options.
Frozen armor feels like a solid CTC on strike on melee orientated armors/runewords, don't see much point in having it as a cast on a staff. This is mostly because most players will have their switch as a sorb set or a CTA.
And as for auras, I think conviction should be accessible for casters as early as mid nightmare, same goes for the physical damage auras. With stronger ones coming in later zod runewords.
As much as I like prayer's current rendition, I think it's highly abusable in a sense that max % HP pulses and the fact it stacks while being readily available via mercs seems wrong.