Agreed, the buffs on the fire bow skill tree are still not enough, especially immolation arrow.
Agreed, but this is how the entire game is for every other class.
They could at least give Elemental Arrows the same treatment.
- Smiter - Grief = ultimate enablement
- Barb - EBOTDZ or GriefZ + BeastZ = ultimate enablement
- Bowazon - Faith = ultimate enablement
- Bone Necro - White Wand +8 Bone Spear = ultimate enablement
- Poison Necro - Deathâs Web = ultimate enablement
- Ghostsin - Chaos special runeword adds whirlwind to the class = ultimate enablement
- ect ect - Enigma on any build that is not Sorc = ultimate enablement
- Magezon - gets nothing
But a smiter can still solo ubers with a dirt cheap black. Smite isnât an entire character type though. Thatâs a build around crushing blow.
I mean like if youâre a combat paladin, you have Zeal, smite, and auraâs to complement and you can still dish out some damage. And as any Melee build, itâs kind of weak still.
Iâm talking about how any element of sorc can drop non immunes. Hammers drop near everything. You shouldnât need a specific bow to kill enemies in a timely manner. It should just speed it up.
A lot of items seem to have been made to buff horrible skills, and then they are super expensive so the classes are just horrible to play that build with until you get the money.
Thatâs not universal. Thatâs not even what I would consider the top builds: Cold/Fire Sorc , Hammerdin, and Furyzon - all of which do well on budget equipment even before they go OP with elite gear.
It sounds like youâre wanting one piece of equipment to make up for a bunch of skills. It wonât encourage diversity. It will be a niche cookie cutter build. If you want diversity skills need to stand on their own or at least in small groups.
Iâm not just talking about pvm, I am also talking about pvp.
Grief alone enables Smite in pvp.
This is just one example of a single item enabling an entire build structure.
Probably the biggest example though, outside of Enigma enabling MF builds on things that are not a Sorc.
What you are suggesting is again an ideology where âWe should buff Tornado so that it is good on a Druid with a melee weapon and a Stormshield.â
No, more like Tornado should be usable at the endgame after putting points in 1 synergy and without dumping points into 4 support skills.
Edit: To clarify, you shouldnât be expected to use more than 1 or 2 synergies to make a skill effective. Doing so severely limits build options. Every windy has basically the same 4 basic skills and only enough points for a few supports skills.
mist cost a charm 8 ist + gul 1.5 = 10 ist
Faith cost a Ohm 8 to 10 + Jah 34 to 38 = 40 to 50 ist
i guess simple logic for a new season
i`m guessing you ask for a El and eld rune word to be bis
i m happy to donât be a dev and read the comment section because i will lost faith in humanity
I just donât get the logic of me making a sorceress with very light gear being able to clear just about anything in a decent speed. However, if I want to use any of the Amazon bow tree and clear anything with any speed at all, I need perfect gear. Gotta have that windforce, faith, chains of honor/fortitude.
Shouldnât we at least get decent damage investing into the tree considering we have no mobility at all? The javelin tree gets that damage. You get more damage with a white javelin with no stats charged striking things than you do with a decent bow for your level. Why canât bow get some?
Why do we need to balance bow skills to only be fun when you have high runes invested?
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Of course I agree with you, but these are two different discussions.
Weapon damage based characters requiring nearly perfect gear to keep up with +skill cast based characters is just how Diablo 2 ended up being. This is nothing unique to the Amazon class.
So rather than bringing up discussion about an entirely upheaving overhaul to the base game engine at its very core, I am simply suggesting adding a weapon that does the skill trees of Elemental Arrows justice, in the same way theyâve added tailored weapons to bolster every other class/build tree based on weapon damage attacks.
I see what you guys are saying, but it feels like youâre reaching really far down into a can of worms to create argument vs. the OP post of this thread, bringing up ideological game design theory that would encourage an entire overhaul of the core game engine as some counter point, rather than making actual suggestions.
At some point here, people need to consider what kind of fixes are realistic that the dev team might actually consider, and which ones will never be considered. Changing âConcentration Auraâ to âLower Resistsâ or âsome -% to fire & lightâ is an incredibly simple change that would provide all of the boons I mentioned in post #17, bolstering the usefulness of Elemental Arrows on both Amazon build and the a1 Rogue.
Arguing so fiercely against this with wild game redesign ideology, after awhile, looks like youâre just trying to win an argument rather than approach the discussion reasonably with feasible suggestions.
Right now in the PTR we have Holy Fire Paladins 1shotting everything in cows and the throne of destruction without ever needing to push buttons to play, with a passive pulsing aura effect that reaches a screen and a half off in all directions. Making such a debacle about Mist Concentration being converted into something useful seems somewhat misdirected.
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Exactly. Ideally all classes should have a steady power gain (skills + items) towards end-game. Playing a sorc to farm gear and then switching to a bowazon should not be way faster than just progressing purely on an Amazon.
But this is a bigger problem (or some would say âfeatureâ) of D2. The thread here is to make âMistâ viable. On a practical level, at least we are one step towards making more builds viable while making A1 merc stronger as well. Mist continues to be viable even if you buff the elemental arrow tree since it applies to both A1 rouges and the Amazon.
Many here are suggesting massive overhauls which would not happen so late in the dev cycle - this problem affects D2 at the core level, not just Amazon. To rectify the issue, you need to balance Amazon skills damage at end-game, its scaling and even monster resistance interactions - a very controversial topic.
For all you know 2.4 is the last massive balance patch / update before they put the devs to support D4 - we need to work with what opportunities we have at this point.
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Actually the whole stated point of 2.4 was to boost underperforming skills, reduce synergies to free up points for diversity, and to help out mercs.
The proposed Mist change doesnât really do any of those three. It just creates another item that can potentially be used as an endgame weapon for a character that probably needs one of the better builds to provide that weapon for them.
I agree Mist is bad, but this still doesnât really fit any of the goals Iâve heard.
But it does though. It does all 3 of those things.
Iâve well explained it in post #17.
- It would boost Elemental Arrow use
- Make the a1 Rogue viable as a mob killer assist with new AoEs as well a source of -res
- Allow for less points to be dumped into say Immolation synergies to make it useful
Being a runeword that also allows the Amazon practical viable use of 2/3rds of its bow skill tree is just a side bonus. This is like killing 2 birds with one stone here. Nothing but an advantageous approach for a game patch aimed to buffer the intra-class dynamic.
I want to see some real argument & counter points here. I have written a small thesis in this thread now with very direct rational logical points made from a standpoint of knowledge & experience playing Amazon for the pro side. All I am seeing from the con side of this discussion are ideological moral theoretics.
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No, you made an argument for a) using equipment on the amazon to cover skill deficiencies and b) and presumption that it could be as good as an A2 infinity meatshield merc which mathematically doesnât work. Lower Resists doesnât provide the same benefit and it would have to proc first.
Yes I did because the Elemental Arrows are receiving buffs already and the only thing missing to really put those buffs to work, IS a weapon tailored to make them work, in the same way a Deathâs Web is tailored to make Poison Nova Necro work. You keep trying to avoid the point that Elemental Arrow skills have no weapon designed for them in the way that other classes/builds have weapons designed for their skill tree effects. All Bows are tweaked for heavy physical damage output only. This is nearly half the problem of why Elemental Arrow skills have always been terrible.
I never said anything about it being as good as an a2 Infinity Merc. In fact Iâve mentioned several times now that it WOULDNâT be as good as an Infinity merc in terms of -res output. However, Iâve also mentioned that the a1 Rogue now with Freezing & Immolation Arrows, will have AoE DPS output. Those skills with the 100% pierce on Mist, will be a serious deal for mob kill assists. The Rogue wonât have nearly as good of single target DPS as the a2 merc, but she will be a much stronger mob clear assist than any of the mercs, if they were to add Lower Res or -%res fire/light on Mist in place of the Conc aura. This would definitely bolster the viability of Rogue and be a viable tradeoff vs. a2 merc, for mob killing power rather than single target kill power.
You should try to consider all of the things that Iâve actually said here, before posting things that encourage Iâve stated things that Iâve never said at all.
Anyway, cheers.
I think we are done here.
Nothing more can be said other than us going in circles like this.
Have a gânight boys.
I do consider it, but you havenât refuted the critical thing. Youâre suggesting a class build around gear that wonât be found by this class.
Creating a playable experience where you can reasonably clear Hell is the point of 2.4. Itâs not to create more BiS gear that Sorc needs to find for you so you can build an elemental that needs one piece of gear to make it work. Hence my statement - this doesnât fix anything that was trying to be addressed.
What youâre bringing up now was already addressed immediately when they allowed Insight to go into Bows for v2.4.
You can build Insight for dirt cheap at lv 27 and keep putting it into better bow bases as you go along, for dirt cheap each time. The only bows that will be better than an Insight during a walk through will be Buriza mid game, WF at the end of your first walk through when you can trade to get it, and then eventually Faith in the elite end-game.
We donât need Mist to be a stepping stone bow. We have Buriza & Windforce for that. What we need is for Mist to be a different kind of bow, that bolsters the a1 Rogue and is end-game worthy for Elemental Arrow play on Amazons.
The suggestion in the OP post is the perfect answer honestly.
On a side note: Allowing Insight into bows was exactly what Amazons needed for being able to make pace with things like Sorc or CS Zon during walk throughs. Excellent patching.
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The problem you are referring to is beyond the scope of this thread.
I understand your frustration and I too do not like creating a sorc or pally to farm gear for the rest of my other characters. I did not build a sorc in D2R and it is so slow (just got my infinity yesterday). At the heart, we want to address your points which are valid but in a separate thread - which maybe you can start 
Here we are trying to push for making âMistâ viable and this late into development - we will not get any massive changes. Why not get Mist working and it is always good to get another BIS gear, the more the merrier if they have different styles and cater to different scenarios / builds.
Iâm all for making Mist viable. I just donât see Lower Resists as the way to do it.
BTW, Iâm pretty sure devs are actively going to be making skill adjustments on skills they modified for 2.4 based on feedback. Itâs a stated goal.
I think we can agree that we all want âMistâ to be viable and we are all for it if you find a better or another way to adjust âMistâ. Lower Resist is the simplest and most effective option I can think of at this point which takes care of all the problems at endgame.
Brainstorm away and feel free to post it here 