The Core of Diablo

[O_Bruce]

I would say that Spearazon feels similar to Zealot paladin or Fury werewolf, it's a very similar playstyle. Though I believe Spearazon is more expensive to gear up than Zealot and in the end Zealot will still outperform her. Zealot with Grief runeword in Phase Blade would do better damage with Zeal against 1 target and multiple targets than Spearazon with Eth Breath of The Daying in Matriarchal Pike, using Fend. I cannot tell how she compares to Fury werewolf, since I have little recent experience with it.

Generally, Spearazon is slower than Zealot, but you can still reach high attack speed with her. Fend is fast against multiple targets and Jab is good against a single target. And I think the way you spend your skill points differs from the way Zealot does. Since neither Jab nor Fend has synergy to/from each other and you don't really have 100% mandatory no-brainer skills to invest into (Zealot, for example, practically always goes for 20 points in Fanaticism, 20 points in Holy Shield, 20 points into Zeal and 20 points into Sacrifice for synergy), Amazon is quite flexible with skill points. Whether you invest in secondary physical attack, in lightning-base skills, in Valkyrie, or multiple passive skills, it's up to you to decide and I think this aspect of Spearazon is fun.

Ah, I forgot. Spearazon can have problems with resistances, so it is wise to watch out for it when gearing her up.

Crushing blows always help with melee builds, and what's interesting is there is a unique item called Hone Sundan:

Hone Sundan

Hone Sundan is a unique Yari. It has a very high chance of Crushing Blow, and the fact that it is socketed gives Hone Sundan customization options. Due to its high chance of Crushing Blow and three sockets, this spear is a very versatile weapon for Desert Mercenaries. Often, two Shael Runes are...

diablo.fandom.com

Damage increase aside, it has a 45% chance for crushing blow, 3 sockets for gems/runes, and to top it off, it self-repairs, meaning that it is more useful when ethereal. It also can be upgraded to the elite version in Horadric Cube. You can throw 2 Shaels into it and 1 Amn/Vex/Ber/Perfect Skull for example and it is very, very solid weapon.

 

[Telumatan]

Hello O_Bruce! Nice progress there! (I would give you a welcome drink, but my store is empty for now, sorry.)

 

[mlnevese]

Hello O_Bruce! Nice progress there! (I would give you a welcome drink, but my store is empty for now, sorry.)

Go make peace with your gods! Armageddon has begun! The end of time!

 

[Urdnot_Wrex]

And don't you all even dare to dream now that I'll share some of my stock with any of you. There are still posters warning against Krogan drinks all over the Tavern walls. Your loss.

And I totally have an alibi for the time when the mushroom's drinks disappeared. I don't know when that was, of course. But I was definitely busy elsewhere. Yep.

 

[Antimatter]

Major (I would dare use this word here) changes are coming to Diablo 2! Really exciting!

Diablo II: Resurrected Patch 2.4 Highlights | Coming Soon

Learn more about exciting new changes and features the developers are bringing to players in the upcoming Patch 2.4.

news.blizzard.com

New Ladder-only Rune Words

Balance (!!!) changes (the last similar change was made on March 23, 2010)

"(for Amazon) We want to buff the strengths of certain underused melee skills such as Impale and Fend to give more reasons to use them. We are also looking into freeing up synergy requirements for melee skills to give more skill point freedom for other possibilities. Additionally, we are also considering buffing certain skills in the Bow and Crossbow tree to help improve bow gameplay in higher difficulties.

(for Assassin) Martial Arts skills can become increasingly challenging to perform in higher difficulties, so we are re-evaluating how to improve generating and spending Combo Points. Furthermore, various Trap skills are not often used. So, we’re re-evaluating synergy requirements to promote more trap builds and damage scaling buffs.

(for Barbarian) We're looking into adding more possibilities with Combat Skills such as Leap Attack and Grim Ward, while also re-evaluating skill synergy requirements to promote more reasons to spend points on certain Combat Skills. Additionally, we think Throwing Barbarians can be more viable, so we are looking into enhancing the Double Throw and Throwing Mastery skills.

(for Druid) We're re-evaluating Casting Delays for Fire skills, exploring improvements to some of their Physical Damage components, and improving synergies. We’re also looking at potential tweaks affecting other Elemental skills that are underused. We want to improve the controls for Arctic Blast too, such as allowing more free form while channelling and no longer locking your targeting onto one enemy at a time. Regarding Summon skills, we believe Summons are weak in high difficulty. On this front, we’re evaluating health gains per level, quality-of-life improvements, damage output, and new synergies for Ravens, Wolves, and Vines. Lastly, we're evaluating improvements to the Werebear skills, primarily focused on synergy improvements.

(for Necro) We see an opportunity to improve specific Summons we believe are underused. We're balancing elemental damages of Skeletal Mages and making lesser-used Golems more effective. Additionally, we see opportunities for Bone skill improvements in high difficulty. We’re tweaking synergies on this front.

(for Paladin) We’re exploring ways to make lesser-used skills (I.e., Fist of the Heavens) more utilized, so players have more reasons to spend skill points to unlock these skills. We also see an opportunity to scale Offensive Aura skills as well. This includes making improvements to AoE Damage auras to make them more effective at closer range. We also want to improve Thorns so that it can scale better and deal more reliable damage at higher levels.

(for Sorc) Regarding Cold Skills, we believe there can be more diversity with the armor skills (I.e., Frozen Armor, Shiver Armor, and Chilling Armor) for distinctive advantages. We are also looking into adding more build possibilities around lesser-used Lightning skills by exploring more skill synergies. Lastly, we’re also revisiting Fire skills, to improve underused ones, like Hydra. Similar to Arctic Blast, we're exploring making player control improvements to the Inferno skill so that it is less clunky to use."

Improvements to Mercenaries to give more reasons to use the mercenaries other than Desert folks

(this one is a total killer, I am just ) New Horadric Cube Recipes, Set Item changes, and new Rune Words

"New Horadric Cube Recipes being implemented will allow for upgrading the item quality of Set Items to give more item build possibilities. Set Item changes will update underperforming Set Items, to have more bonuses, giving players more incentive to pursue Partial and Full set items that can complement the skill changes alluded above. Lastly, new Rune Words will be added to complement the Skill and Mercenary changes coming in the update."

 

[O_Bruce]

Guys, speaking about drinks, I think I might have taken one too many... Because I see that some really nice changes coming to one of my favorite games of all time...
Nonetheless, I am willing to entertain the idea that my hallucinations are real and I might as well say what I really think about them.

The perspective of balance changes in D2:R is as exciting as it could be worrying. It could result in a power creep, Diablo 2 not feeling like Diablo 2 etc, but from the looks of it, I don't think this is much of a concern. The one reason for that is that they seem to invite MrLlamaSC for a discussion regarding said changes. Which is good, considering who he is and how much Diablo 2 means to him. The second reason is looking at class changes themselves, many of them are actually very similar to my own observation about the classes in general (I think Druid is the best component, with the casting delay on fire skills, the physical component of these skills, summons, etc.). I also am thinking that the team didn't tell us everything. For instance, they do mention Thorns aura on Paladin and how the damage scaling isn't good for higher difficulty levels - and that's correct. But, if you are going to do that, then you have to improve Druid's Spirit of Barbs and Necromancer's Iron Golem and Iron Maiden. While there was info about improving underused Golems, Iron Golem is not underused.

Mercenary changes are more than welcome since the Desert Mercenaries pretty much are dominating the game. I don't know how exactly to adjust this, though.

Ladder-only runewords are both yay and nay to me. They do offer more options, which is good. They're ladder-only, which is bad.

But more cube recipes and so on are always welcome. I'm general, I'm excited.

 

[alice_ashpool]

If skelly mages get a buff I might have to "raise up" a screen-filling skelliemancer of my own; or a Hydra-sorc

 

[O_Bruce]

Tatianna and her Spike Buddies in Act 5
​

Originally, I wanted to do only one update for Act 5, but some crazy stuff happened and so I wanted to share some stuff earlier.
The act 5 started pretty normally for Tatianna and the first area spawned spike fiends and treants as mobs. Only at one point, there was a problem, requiring a tactical retreat:

With the aura their boss has given them, they could dish out some serious damage and managed to kill my merc. Luckily, an experience with Lord de Seis allowed me to act accordingly.

I have no screenshot to share with combat against Shenk - I don't even recall what he had as modifiers. He died quickly while Tatianna was Fending off his minions. But I have one with Eldritch

Saving barbarians went without much of a problem. Then, the Spike Buddies explored the Arreat Plateau, where they faced Tresh Socket which left something nice

Unfortunately, Tatianna was not a paladin, but the fact that such a good item dropped is quite luckily. In the stash it went, maybe my next character will be Paladin?

Frozen River spawned Gloams, among one succubi variant, so Tatianna really needed to be careful. I think that merc died several times along the way. But a careful play enabled Tatiana to kill Frozenstein and save Anya.

Ok, this is when I had a break and decided enough act 5 for now. That was a few days ago and today I decided to play again, after hearing of the incoming patch for the game. And this game section is the reason I want to share some more, instead of waiting till the end, one way or another.

First, Pindleskin. Nothing too unusual...

But the very next unique enemy was like:

A very nice find! If my merc wasn't already wielding Obedience, then this would be definitely a weapon for him.

Eventually, Tatianna reached Halls of Vaught and proceeded to locate the Nihlathak. The monsters spawning there were: skeleton archers, vile defilers (making worms spawn from the skeleton, making Tatianna's life easier by providing targets for life leech from Fend), and dreaded serpents with their venomous ranged attack. Only in the last patch, they were nerfed a lot - their original damage was a bug due to game calculations going wrong. Now, they are about as dangerous as any other variant of snakes.

Nihalthak however required caution and kiting out his minions as to not leave any corpses for him to detonate. After that, he was easy prey.

His loot was epic.

After returning to Cristaline Passage Tatianna was forced to face one of the most dangerous enemies: minotaur demons, which were also immune to physical damage. These guys were among the most feared monster in the game. I made Tatianna face the challenge and even though one of the boss pack was particularly nasty - with Cursed and Extra strong affixes - Valkyrie proved to be an amazing tank that lasted long enough to be re-summoned when needed, enabling Tatianna to attack using Berserk.

Then I was minding my own business and...

Nice. Second unique item in the session. And also Elite one, no less!

Then I faced Bonesaw Breaker

Aaaand....

Okay, that is crazy lucky. Another unique item, just like that! Not for my character, but hey, that was interesting! Though my luck is probably not going to get any better.

Okay game, take a deep breath and calm down, okay?

I said calm the [REDACTED] down!

Two nice items for a druid. And look how little time has passed between the last three finds (there is a clock on the upper right side of the game screen). Crazy, I tell you!
Spirit Keeper is a very heartbreaking unique item. It has something that gives it an identity - It affects all of the character's elemental resistances but does so in different way. Too bad that overall it is not very useful.

Anyways, Way of the Ancients spawned a relatively easy mob group - yetis, carvers, and skeletal mages. My job was to find a waypoint and then explore the Icy Cellar. I haven't mentioned it up to this point, but I made Tatianna visit nearly every side area to test how she fares against various mob groups. The only exception was Swampy Pit in act 3 - and I don't particularly remember why I made a decision to not visit it. Icy Cellar however had serpents with two succubi variants - one immune to cold, the second to physical. And at least one of them could cast amplify damage. The exploration of relatively small area took more time than it should, but at least Tatianna was alive and Fending.

After defeating Snapchip Shatter and some more booby demons, I decided to call it a day. Regardless of the outcome, I think the next update of Tatianna's run will be its last.

 

[Antimatter]

Man, you did keep the tension up. With every new paragraph, I kinda expected you to post an unpleasant screenshot, but yet each time it was about another nice unique item. I'm so relieved you made it to the Ancients. That would be another good test for Tatianna. It's great the game allows a shared stash, and you already have good ideas for the next characters, that's sweet!

 

[O_Bruce]

Tatianna and her Spike Buddies - The finale
​

Tatianna had not much problem reaching the summit of Arreat. She prepared the battleground by dropping health/mana potions on around the place before summoning the Ancient Ones. And luckily, all of them decided to go easy on her by spawning with relatively easy affixes to work with... Or maybe they were distracted by Tatianna's nice assets... including her spear, which was much more exceptional than any... weapon... they possesed.

The first level of The Worldstone Keep was occupied by a mix of Marauder, Succubi, and Vampires. The two first were a strong combo, thanks to the amplify damage curse and high DPS of Marauders. Vampires couldn't do much, all of Tatianna's team were eating fire damage like nothing.

The second level? Burning Souls required caution. Bat demons could occasionally do big damage, but in practice, nothing like that came up. The third spawn were the suicidal berserkers, the ones that run into you and explode. They were a freebie, basically.

Third level? Mainly Ghosts, Skeletal Mages, and Whip Demons with their minions. Was done with them relatively quickly.

Now, Throne of Destruction came with some challenges. Burning Souls were healed and resurrected by Horadrim Ancients. Not only that, Succubi cast the amplify damage and dealt huge damage with their blood stars. So, the progress was slow, but it could be done. I made Tatianna and co. clear out the entire level, just in case I needed room to deal with one of Bhaal's minion waves. While Tatianna was clearing up, something interesting caught my attention.

See the Hydra? It was not summoned by any enemy. I didn't engage any of Baal's waves as of yet and neither Tatianna nor Ashab could summon such a thing. This leaves one possibility: Valkyrie. What I think happens, is that she might have spawned with an item that allows to cast Hydra on striking/on being hit or something along those lines. I know that any Valkyrie is spawning with random rare and magical items (base of the items, quality, and possible affixes change as you invest points into her). However, I don't recall any suffix or affix on magic/rare items that allowss to summon a Hydra. Which either is a bug in this case, or there is an affix in code that cannot spawn in items, but can spawn when summoning a Valkyrie. That's just a speculation, thought.

Anyways, wave number 1 was nothing special

Achmel, though required some effort to deal with. First, Tatianna and her companions needed to kite out the mages. And second, Achmel spawned with Fanaticism aura, which made his minions strike hard and fast. Some Full Rejuvenation potions were used in that fight.

Bartuc and his merry minions were a freebie though. I mentioned how well my team deals with fire damage, so Hydras were no concern. And since Council Members aren't that dangerous in a physical fight, Cursed affix wasn't that scary.

Wave number 4 was a rather standard fight. Don't recall the affixes of the boss, though. I don't even recall his name from the top of my head.

Finally, the always dangerous Lister the Tormentor. He spawned with Extra Fast and Extra Strong, two things you really don't want to see on Minions of Destruction as a whole. Nonetheless, Valkyrie proved that she's an awesome tank and with healing, Tatianna and Asheb managed to deal with those monstrosities. All that was left was Baal.

In my previous updates, I wondered whether Baal was changed somehow after the last patch, and honestly, I am not sure. If anything has changed, it was probably his AI, since he seemed to attack more frequently. I kinda like it, since it was always jarring how The Lord of Destruction seemed rather passive in combat. Or maybe the AI was not changed at all and it was just my luck. I am not sure.

Baal put a better fight than I anticipated, but still, Tatianna stood victorious with a nice reward for her troubles.

It's a little late for an item like this. But Lysander's Flank is really powerful when upgraded to Elite version. DPS wise it would be better than anything I wield currently.

And like that, Tatianna became a Guardian.

Her journey ended in success and what a journey it was. From an archer to melee warrior, quite unplanned and unexpected turn of events. As for me, I personally like how this run turned out and I think I am much better at adjusting to playing a hardcore character. I am much more cautious and patient as I play, which pays off in the long run.

I wanted to include final stats and items, but I cannot attach more files to update. Sorry, maybe next time!

PS. I probably won't be starting a new hardcore play before the 2.4 patch comes out.

 

[Antimatter]

Some winter fireworks to celebrate this forum's first Guardian! Congratulations to Tatianna!

It was an absolutely spectacular run, well done!

I didn't know about the Hydra affix either, that was neat!

 

[alice_ashpool]

Not many who can say they solo'd Hardcore Hell, congrats!

 

[O_Bruce]

Thank you @Antimatter and @alice_ashpool.

Now, as I promised, a post showing every Tatianna's assets.

 

[Telumatan]

Congratulation, that was well made and insightful @O_Bruce !

 

[O_Bruce]

Hello there, stay a while and listen...

So, we know that patch 2.4 is coming and with it, balance changes and new runewords. And as it happens, we have now sneak peak at some of said runewords - seems like the developers let some more notable Diablo community members, like rhykker, MrLlamaSC and Dbrunski125 share info and thought on the newest runewords. These are:

Flickering Flame:
Nef Pul Vex
(In headgear)

Level 8 Resist Fire Aura when equipped
+3 to fire skills
-13% to enemy fire resistance
+30% enhanced defense
+30 defense vs missiles
+88 to mana
+5% to maximum fire resist
Half freeze duration
Poison length reduced to 50%.



My take: Very interesting piece of gear! It is basically Gripphon's Eye for fire builds. Not only it gives a nice bonus to fire skills and lowers the resistance of enemies, it also gives level 8 Resist Fire aura. This is huge deal, because at level 8, it gives 106% fire resistance. Meaning that when first entering Hell difficulty, without any gear or charms and just finishing Anya's quest twice, you'll have 26% fire resistance. Without *any* gear! This will make it easy maxing out fire resistance, and because it won't require that much, it potentially allows opening some gearing possibilities...

Also! It is Resist Fire *aura*. It works on your entire team, meaning it affects how *they* gear up with resistances as well. Amazing.

Also, Also! The Spirit runeword in shields, among many useful bonuses, gives cold, lightning, and poison resistances, but not fire. Wow, I see a synergy already with Flickering Flame already.

It requires Vex, but this is pretty much endgame gear for fire-damage dealing characters. And possibly for Act 3 merc.

Unbending Will:
Fal Io Ith Eld El Hel
(in swords)

18% chance to cast level 18 taunt on striking
+3 to combat skills (barbarian only)
+20% increased attack speed
+330% enhanced damage
+9 to maximum damage
+50 to attack rating
+75% damage to undead
+50 to attack rating vs undead.
8% life stolen per hit
Prevent monster heal
+10 to strength
+10 to vitality
Damage reduced by 8
+1 to light radius
Requirements -20%



My take: Not this is a runeword clearly designed for act 5 mercenaries and I don't mind it. PC barbarians could also use it. It is very cheap for what it provides (damage, life steal, bonus to strength and vita, bonus to combat skills, that will probably also apply to the mercenary himself). An interesting gimmick here is a chance to cast level 18 Taunt on striking. It forces trageted monsters to attack you in close range, while ignoring some special abilities (greater mummies won't rise another undeads, pit lords won't use inferno etc.) and provides over -30% penalty to attack rating and damage. The thing is, we don't know if the developers won't toy with how Taunt itself works as a skill, so it can be interesting.

About it being clearly designed for act 5 merc in mind, it thematically works with rumored way act 5 mercenaries are supposed to be improved - one of which was to give them Battle Cry. It lowers defense and damage of surrounding monsters. Now, you can add the Taunt to the monster the mercenary is targetting and you have quite nice utility.

Overall, I really like this runeword.


Mist
Cham Shael Gul Thul Ith
(missile weapons)

Level 9 concentration aura when equipped
+3 to all skills
+20% increased attack speed
+100% piercing attack
+327% enhanced damage
+9 to maximum damage
20% bonus to attack rating
Adds 3-14 cold damage
Freezes target +3
+24 to vitality
All resistances +40



My take: I think this runeword is interesting, as it seems to support both elemental-damage and physical-damage based builds. Meaning, when you have a Bowazon that chooses to use either cold or fire arrows, the weapon will both make the elemental skills stronger, but also provides good cover against elemental immunities. What is noteworthy is that it has level 9 concentration aura, 100% chance to pierce (meaning every arrow that hits an enemy will pierce and will damage the target behind. Super useful) and 40 to all resistances, which is a lot. Also important - while wielding a bow you cannot use shields, and therefore your resistances typically suffer. Not necessary with this runeword. Overall, an endgame weapon material it is.

What's worrying: Let's assume you play bowazon. You have Faith runeword as a weapon (Fanaticism aura and good physical damage overall) and you hire Rogue mercenary and give her Mist. You have Fanaticism and Concentration auras. Pretty cool, huh? Well yes, but actually... if one of the patch's intentions was to make more mercenaries viable, then it fails in this instance. For a huge physical damage boost, you can hire act 2 mercenary with Might aura as his default and equip him with Pride runeword, which offers a much higher lvl of Concentration. In this combination, you'll have your Fanaticism and 2 auras from the mercenary. Result - act 1 mercenary is still not viable. I might be wrong because I have no idea what improvements the developers will give act 1, 3 and 5 mercenaries as a whole. So... maybe?

Wisdom
Pul Ith Eld
(headgear)

+33% piercing attack
+20% bonus to attack rating
5% mana stolen per hit
+30% enhanced defense
+10 to energy
15% slower stamina drain
Cannot be frozen
+5 to mana after each kill
+15% damage taken goes to mana



My take: Pretty much I agree with everything MrLlamaSC said.

 

[Antimatter]

Thanks for creating this summary! Very helpful and easy to read. I've watched MrLlamaSC's video and good thoughts there. I can say that I have never found a Pul rune in all my hours in D2. NEVER. So that item, while awesome, requires a very rare rune, so it's unlikely I'll ever create one. And if I get a Pul rune, I'll look at all combinations involving that rune. "Cannot Be Frozen" is one of those attributes I consider to be a must for Hardcore, no questions asked. But I've always been able to find some unique items with that attribute, and Rhyme is my favourite shield (and it's not that difficult to create, really).

What I liked, though, is Mist. You raise a good topic about Act Mercs' aura, but the bow itself is very cool.

Overall, the more the better. It's good to get new options to use your runes.

 

[O_Bruce]

A patch note for public test realm hit the internets lately, and so I decided to share them here:

Diablo II: Resurrected Patch 2.4 Balance PTR | Has Ended

Discover the exciting new class balance changes, Rune Words, and more the developers are bringing to players in the upcoming Patch 2.4 PTR!

news.blizzard.com

My abridged thoughts on...

...character skill revisions:
I appreciate how the patch handled casting delays.
I appreciate that they really focused on improving less useful skills and creating build opportunities.
I appreciate that skills descriptions are more clear
There's no huge power creep or anything.

Amazon: I 100% on board with the changes. Impale and Fend get buffed and have more utility, close-ranged Lightning skills doesn't need to rely on Lightning Fury for synergy. I also like how things are handled on the Bow/Crossbow side, particularly on fire arrows. Thanks to casting delays not being tied to each other, using Immolation arrows in conjunction with other skills, like Valkyrie, shouldn't be frustrating anymore.

Assassin: This class I really don't know what to say about. I'm that inexperienced with Ass-ass-ins. @Antimatter, please?

Barbarian: Barbarians always felt quite solid, though I am glad that Leap Attack got some love. Using throwing weapons might be a viable choice now. Also, I like what was done with the Grim Ward, it might be worth picking, even as a so-called 1-point wonder. There is an interesting, but not very useful, synergy between Increase Stamina and Frenzy. IS increases Frenzy's duration, but that feels not needed. Even if your Frenzy wears out, this is not a problem at all.

Druid: This is the class I was looking the most forward to. Thanks to casting delay changes, the fire skills seem more useable, especially since some skills that had dual-type damage (fire + physical) had synergies increased for their physical component. I am however disappointed since Armageddon skill while being really cool, was very unreliable and it doesn't seem anything has been done to change that. Hurricane can be now cast while shapeshifted, so melee/hurricane druid could be an interesting build. Also, maybe, a shapeshifter with both Hurricane and Armaggedon? I would like to try that, even if it may not be that practical.

Love that Fire Claws don't require so many points in synergies anymore. Also, I thought werebear's physical skills lacked in damage, so changes in there were also welcome.

Summons seems more reliable and I can't wait to test them out. Ony vines are quite puzzling since some of them didn't receive any bonus to survivability.

Necromancer: Skeletal mages got a significant buff, from what I see, which is a good thing. They were underperforming and now it may be worth investing points in them. Same for some golems. I think that high-leveled Blood golem would work amazingly as free healing. Interestingly, Fire Golem's holy fire aura level doubled. That, combined with a general buff for this aura might potentially mean that Fire Golem could do some serious elemental damage. Noice.

Bone and Poison skill changes are minimal buffs. Bone Armor now grants equal amount of benefit as its synergies, but that still means it is better to invest in synergies since they provide additional utility. This needs to be changed even further.

I am disappointed with the changes to Curses. Only Weaken receives scaling via level up, meaning most of the skills here are 1-point wonders. This is a missed opportunity because even if you'll have a hard time scaling some curses (besides increasing the radius and duration), you could provide them with some synergy to other skills. For example, Life Tap could give a passive bonus to Blood Golem. Lower Resist to Fire Golem. Deceprify would passively increase the attack speed of your minions. Things like that.

Paladin: Appreciate the clarity in the tooltips. I think some changes to combat skills are really well-intentioned but I kinda doubt they'll open up new builds. Holy Bolt still doesn't seem that useful to me, and Fist of Heavens, while being a really cool concept, would still feel underwhelming in fight against anything that's not undead. Also, who is going to use Conversion?

I am very concerned with changes to Holy Fire Holy Freeze and Holy Shock auras, mainly because that in close proximity, they deal twice as much passive damage. Aurading/Tesladins (or whatever they are called) are already very overpowered, with stacking on the auras from items, and now they basically deal twice as much damage when close. Same for dual Dream + Lightning Mastery sorceress.

Sorceress: I do think that there could be more done to make each of Armor skills more distinct. The character really benefits from changes done to casting delays, but overall, I would say the changes done to Sorceress are not that significant. Static Field gives more damage to Nova and Thunderstorm, but will that be enough to justify using these skills at a higher level of play? Also, Blaze gets some buffs and now offers a passive walk/speed bonus... The thing is, Sorceresses teleport a lot, so this seems redundant. I am also disappointed that Frozen Orb doesn't get buffs. It is a great skill to get through the nightmare difficulty, but it lacks in power significantly behind a Blizzard. On the other hand, I love the changes to Hydra.

... Mercenaries
They are now hireable at the character level, and apparently, there existed a difference between stats gained dependent on what difficulty you hired a mercenary. Now there shouldn't be any disadvantage regardless of difficulty.

Act 1 Rogue archer: They receive Exploding Arrow/Freezing Arrow that scales with levels and thus area-of-effect damage. Will work pretty well with new runewords, especially that +3 to skills and 100% chance to pierce.

Act 2 Desert bois with huge spears: Quality of life changes. From Nightmare difficulty onward you can hire any from the auras, no need to jump between difficulties.

Act 3 Iron Wolves: Fire and lightning guys gets additional utility skills in form of Enchant and Static Field, which sounds very useful. Their AI is adjusted in terms of how often they cast certain spells. Fire variant loses Inferno and gains Firebolt - which is odd, but if these guys have synergies in a similar way player characters do, then this decision is understandable and acceptable. They gain general survivability in terms of HP, defense, and resistance. The problem with these guys lay in their small damage output, so I really hope the synergy between skills thing would apply to them.

Act 5 Barbarian warrior giga chads: Finally, they are better tanks than act 2 mercs, which is really great. They do gain access to Battle Cry, which means they will debuff the enemies.

Overall thoughts on mercs: those are changes in the right direction. Though I wonder if there is any reason to ditch Act 2 merc with Infinity runeword for any elemental damage-dealing spellcaster? For now in this regard, act 2 mercs still seems top-tier.

...runewords changes:

Insight can now be created in bows and crossbows, which is a good choice. Why some utterly OP runewords for act 2 mercenaries, like Infinity, can't be treated in the same way? For now thanks to those, act 2 mercs still feel pretty much the best choice.

Aside from the runewords I already talked about:

Plague runeword is interesting, but I think it missed the opportunity to be really good. It should cast Lower Resist on striking, instead of being struck. Pattern is a cool runeword for Assassin when transitioning into Nightmare difficulty.

Now, the Obsession runeword blows my mind. It is really expensive - it requires Zod, but it has the potential to be endgame gear since staves can naturally roll bonus to skill points. Meaning, you can effectively have +7 to your main destructive skill. It can be created in 2-handed staves, so it doesn't require 156 strength Spirit runeword needed in Shields; and since you don't wear a shield when using Obsession, you are freeing plenty of attribute points to invest in something else. Despite this, I feel the runeword needs something extra, since it requires the rarest rune in the game and a solid base of a good +3 skill staff.

...Location changes

In general, I approve of most locations on the list being changed to level 85. More variety, more areas to grind and search HRs in. I am scratching my head about Underground Passage level 2 though... I guess when you play through hell, you can decide to visit it on a whim, but it's hard to imagine anyone would want to farm that area.

Any thought of yours, dear customers of this fine tavern?

 

[alice_ashpool]

I'm interested in the summon changes for druid, the hydra/fire buff, the potential for fire golem. The necro summon changes were not as drastic as I thought but might be interesting to see if anything can now be done with skellie mages, and i agree the lack of curse changes are a bit sad. no experience with amazons, barbs or paladins so no comment.

 

[Antimatter]

Very nice changes. To me, probably, the most surprising improvement is the areas change to lvl 85. Finally, we can stop griding the Pit!!!

Now, the assassin changes. Fists of Fire, Claws of Thunder & Blades of Ice, as well as Tiger Strike, Cobra Strike & Phoenix Strike upgrades (bigger Attack Rating bonus) make melee builds more viable. Usually, a character specializing in these attacks was less viable than a trapsin, a kicksin etc.

But the next change is unexpected. Dragon Talon "now always hits the target only if the Assassin has any Martial Arts charges". So you need an actual Attack Rating OR a Martial Arts charge if you want to consistently hit enemies. In Diablo 2 we all have known, Dragon Talon had a bug where it auto-hit targets anyway.

I salute this change as it fixes a bug and stops people from using Dragon Talon without any Attack Rating bonuses. Not everyone is happy, though.

Improvements to other finishing moves such as Dragon Claw, Dragon Tail, Dragon Flight are awesome: damage is increased everywhere. Damn, "now always hits the target only if the Assassin has any Martial Arts charges" is awesome for Dragon Claw. I can't say this enough: there were PROBLEMS for assassins whose AR was bad in Normal/Nightmare and Dragon Claw just didn't work. Now it will if you play it properly.

But holy-moly! Having Finishing Moves (including the Attack skill) only consume 1 of each charge at a time instead of all 3 at once is such a nice quality-of-life improvement. Now I want to play assassins again even more.

Dragon Flight has always been a too risky move to use in Hardcore. But the change sounds amazing: "Casting Delay removed". YAY!

Shadow Disciplines updates are fine, but more like mechanic/bug fixes.

Now, Traps. They are removing synergy between lighting traps and death sentry, instead increasing synergy bonuses between lighting traps. This means that a dedicated trapsin will have more damage overall. The change won't affect kicksins much, as on Hell they put 20 points into death sentry, and other traps don't matter to them anyway (so you're only losing 3 synergy points). The same change applies to fire traps. Maybe, because there are so many synergies there, it will mean fire traps become more viable than lighting traps.

Blade Sentinel - Blade Fury - Blade Shield changes are a bit difficult to evaluate as I have never played a bladesin, but "Weapon Damage increased from 25% to 75%" sounds tasty, as does added synergies between these skills. Maybe the very reason for me not playing a bladesin now won't exist?

P.S. "Changed how attack speed is determined while dual-wielding weapons. Swapping weapons between hands should no longer result in dramatically different attack speeds." RIP the bug with swapping assassin weapons to increase your attack speed.

 

[O_Bruce]

Hey, O'Bruce here with some impressions from the PTR for the new patch. Basically, I'll go through what I tried and then add some thoughts on things.
Some notes beforehand:

By saying "viable" I mean that you can play this combination at hell difficulty and have fun. Not all builds are mass killers like Hammerdin, obviously, sometimes simply because the mechanics of the skill don't allow so. A single-target skill won't clear the entire screen instantly, summons will target enemies themselves etc. So, viable doesn't mean 11/10, the best you can possibly go with.

Also, even though the tools PTR came out with enabled some opportunities to quite good results, these are not optimal. I was limited with what I had to work with.

1. Elemental Necromancer - Fire Golem + Skeletal Mages + Lower Resist + Act III Lightning Mercenary. I found this combination viable and fun. Golem's damage increased heavily, same for the overall damage output of Skeletal Mages. Lightning Mercenary is good because aside from dealing damage, which works well with Lower Resist, he also casts Static Field. That means that a group of enemies can go down relatively quickly, enabling you to spam a Corpse Explosion. I'm thinking that overall most people would still rather go for Skeleton Warriors instead of Mages, but even it those instances mages can serve as nice additional damage.

Spoiler

2. Summon Druid - Ravens + Wolf/Dire Wolf/Bear + Hear of the Wolverine + Act III Fire Mercenary. I think this is actually a quite strong build. Ravens now deal (once synergies are applied) really great damage and you have 5 of them. Dire Wolves are my default choice, they do a quite nice amount of damage after support from HoTW, they have a boost after consuming corpses and also there are 3 of them, which means you as a player will be targeted less frequently. Ordinary Wolves are useful when encountering physically immune enemies since they deal cold damage. The bear I hardly used - I think he's most useful in the narrow spaces, where multiple wolves cannot attack or tank at the same time. Additionally, the mercenary deals Fire damage and Enchants your pets, making them stronger and even more useful vs physically immune monsters. Overall, solid build, the playstyle reminded me of Diablo III summoning necro with Skeletal Mages, but in this instance Ravens kinda act like mentioned Mages. I will probably give that build a try in my next Hardcore run.

Spoiler

3. Leaping Barbarian with Grim Ward - Leap Attack + Grim Ward + Polearm Mastery, rest is typical Barbarian stuff. This feels weird. Leap Attack deals really good damage and the jumping phase is much quicker, so it's not that awkward. But in close combat, Leap Attack essentially turns into a strong, but mana-expensive melee skill. Since it's a single-target attack, it won't be that fast at clearing entire screens of monsters, but I would say this build is viable. Additionally, the Grim Ward now slows enemies in the radius and makes them suffer additional damage - 20%, +5% per every skill point invested into Find Potion. The weird thing is, the enemies are still scared and run away, so in a way Leap Attack allows you to strike them quite easily. On the other hand, in order to capitalize on the increased damage taken by monsters, you ideally want them to NOT run away. Hence it feels weird for now. Interesting thing is that you might want to balance the slow amount and radius from putting points into Grim Ward and damage increase from hard points into Find Potion.

Spoiler

4. Hydra Sorceress. - Hydra + Fireball, the rest of synergies and 1-point wonders. Very fun and very powerful build. You might look at the damage of Fireball and at Hydra's damage and ask: what's the big deal? Fireball is like two times stronger? Oh, no my young Jedi... Hydra deals about 50-60% damage of the single Fireball, but each Hydra has 3 heads shooting firebolts and you can have 6 of those hydras. So, assume one Hydra does 150% damage of a single cast of Fireball. Six Hydras will do 900% of the damage from a single Fireball. And this is only assuming each Hydra headshots only once. And since you can establish 6 Hydras very quickly, you're free to spam every other damaging skill you have. This is really great build. I also checked if it can work in a mixed build (Cold/Fire damage) and it did. This is great, because I would rather use Hydra than the Meteor my main Sorc is using right now.

Spoiler

5. Fire Druid - All of the fire damaging skills, really. This build is definitely more fun than it was before and I think it is more viable as well. Fun, because the skills aren't tied together with casting delays. Viable, because this results in overall more damage, and also because physical damage components of those skills are improved, so Fire Immunes aren't that much of a deal. However, Armageddon is still very unreliable - it can barely hit anything. Vulcano's casting delay is still too long for it to be really effective.

6. Arctic Blast Druid and Inferno Sorceress - both can now reach a good amount of damage, but overall I don't like those skills. I was not having fun when using those.

7. Nova + Thunderstorm sorceress felt good. You can dish out really good damage in an area. Thunderstorm can often kill an enemy or two before they'll reach you. Nova is great at area of effect damage while Thunderstorm can help against champions, bosses etc. Monsters that last a bit longer, in general. Fun and viable build.

8. Magic Arrow + Strafe bowzon. Viable build, now Strafe gets a much-needed attack rating bonus and has no penalty to damage that always felt unnecessary. Magic Arrow now deals more % of damage as magic, so you have a reason to invest in it as a way of covering Physical immunes. 45-47% of damage converted to magic is pretty decent. Overall, good.

9. Impale + Fend Amazon. Fend is now just straight better and evasive passives are not inconveniences anymore. Fendazon is just a good build now. Impale on the other hand, despite all that buffs, I don't find really useful. It is too slow, it deals too little damage (yes, 800% enhanced damage is still too little given how slow it is).. What's the point of using Impale, even if it always hits and slows down enemies, when it destroys my weapon very hastily and I can do roughly similar damage with Fend?

10. Phoenix Strike Assasin (with Dragon Tail and Dragon Flight as finishing moves) - This definitely feels more fun than I remembered. The whole change of finishing moves consuming only 1 charge really improves the gameplay flow and overall DPS. It is particularly interesting with Phoenix Strike as each charge releases different elemental attack. Dragon Flight is also very fun to use against shamans or other monsters who can raise/heal their allies. Don't know too much about playing assassin, so I have no more to say besides fun.

Something on mercenaries:

Act 5 Barbarians - they now serve as possibly the best tanks in the game. Their Bash and Stun synergise with each other the way they do with PC barbarian. Battle Cry is really useful debuff. They are now viable mercenaries, but I still think that for elemental damage dealing characters Act II merc with Infinity will still be better, no questions asked.

Spoiler

Act 3 Iron Wolves - All variants can do more damage and all varians have some useful utility - cold one can freeze enemies, fire buffs you with attack rating and fire damage, the lightning one can use Static field. For some build they can definitely find their use.

Spoiler

Act 1 Rogues - Let's start from the good - the Exploding Arrow and Freezing Arrows are a welcome addition. Rogue's Inner Sight can go so high in terms of level that they can reduce hell difficulty Minions of Destruction's defense to 0, a Bhaal's by like 95% or something. Aside from those, they don't appear that strong to me. Maybe it is because the PTR server had a quite bad base for Mist runeword, maybe not. Maybe I'm wrong. I'm not sure about those, to be honest.

Spoiler

Some problems:
- Lower Resist does not show by how much it lowers resistances.
- Player's damage against bosses is apparently decreased by 90%. People think this is not intentional, because summons or traps do normal damage. Even if it is intentional to make bosses more of a challenge, it is an extremely stupid way to go about it.
- I've heard there's apparently some bug/problem with shapeshifter's attack speed. I don't know the details.
- This. . If someone is wondering why I hate Paladins.
- Thorns/reflect damage builds are still neither fun nor viable.

Spoiler