so you basically want to buff the one melee char that can actually weild TWO op Grief runewords which makes him very very decent, while other melee chars are just dying…
I agree. It’s kind of ridiculous when farming up a new sorc you’re not looking for wands and staves but instead hoping to get a 4 socket crystal sword. Staves in general are very unpopular as an entire weapon class since even super easy shields like rhyme and ancient’s pledge are just too useful to pass up. For an early chest you can just make a stealth and it will take a caster probably even through most of nightmare. At least a lore helm has a chance of being outclassed by a good circlet you find while doing quests.
Like you said, the idea of runewords is cool but they’re just outclass everything at almost every level. It makes getting drops less exciting.
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That would be cool …however it would destroy the precious classic D2 experience and ruin muh economy…That is why we can’t have nice things.
I agree whirlwind is good when you have the best gear in the game. The problem is most players don’t have the best gear in the game. As a result it’s really quite a weak skill without it. The catch 22 is because of this you’ll be too weak to even acquire that gear.
As an aside I also think every other melee class is in need of balancing. Like it’s ridiculous entire skill trees are just considered bum picks.
I think the problem is grief is just too damn good but Blizz was too scared to nerf an item people spent hundreds of hours farming for back in the day and instead decided to balance skills around as if you had it when they did the big 1.10 adjustments.
I suppose in their defenses the vast majority of the playerbase at that point were 2 year old vets still playing and new sales, I imagine, likely were not high. So it sort of makes sense to balance around the players that are still there and listening to what they want.
Anyways I don’t have a real solution, I guess I just like complaining. It’s frustrating melee has so much more to contend with than casters. Dealing with high repair costs, dex and attack rating, defense. You can’t just “not get hit” cause you have to stand beside the enemies. If you want to do a block shield now you have to deal with dex for blocking. There’s just a lot of accounting to do and on top of that most builds are super gear dependent.
I can’t blame people for just saying screw it and rolling a sorc but deep down in my heart the thematic simplicity of killing a lord of hell just because you hit it really, really hard will always appeal to me.
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passion is a decent runeword while you’re leveling up but oath is awesome because it is the cheapest runeword that provides indestructible mod so being able to use it on an eth item is a huge damage boost. mal is the highest rune it uses, which ain’t that difficult to find on your own.
I mean the build shouldn’t be dependant on two extremely expensive RW to be any good. It’s either garbage or good.
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well, the sorc has been nerfed big time since 1.09.
what does that have to do with anything? they are the best density farmers in the game aka the best for farming runes.
they removed hacked items and made monsters stronger adding a ton of immunities but they didn’t nerf any classes in fact all they did was buff skills with synergies.
I am sure some people will agree with you, most of the player base was happy they removed the hacks and made it harder (though i will admit i feel they went overboard with immunes in the patch)
I’ve been using WW with my barb, I have like +8 skills and max out polearm/WW. I forgot which item I found but it was a +2 barb skills one lol but my WW does like 1600-2500 and my concentrate does 1800-2800 so Shrugs Doing well I think, I spin and win all day. And I’ve been playing online solo most of the time unless the girl friend hops in. I started with dual wield/frenzy with steel flails to start… then got that sweet pole arm and instantly respecced lol.
It seems I missed your point. In that case yes, density farmers like light sorc, javazon, psn necro are all top tier. Hammerdin is pretty good at it too but he can do ubers the easiest as well so he is also top tier. That’s why the gear for those are actually expensive. Herald of Zakarum goes for a gul rune or better. Arreat face which is a very comparable item for barbs goes for a pul…
As I said before, 1.10 greatly increased monster health and defense while barely adding any synergy to physical attacks. Whirlwind? 0 synergy. Concentrate and berserk have some synergy but they are single target… Guided arrow? 0 synergy. Strafe and multishot? 0 synergy. It was a massive nerf to physical builds and a huge buff to casters in one fell swoop, completely ruining physical builds. They now need the best gear in the game to even try to compete with casters.
My zon with harmony, duress, 20% ias dual leach blood gloves (it was a damned good roll…) does less than 1000 damage per hit with strafe. She barely scratches hell cows at all. I would stand there shooting at a pack of cows for minutes, then the 2 sorcs in my group would walk up and cast a few blizzard and frozen orbs and it all died in seconds.
The removed hacked items is fine, thats not at all what I take issue with.
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Actually I think WW is better than in classic. Weapon speed actually matters instead of fix hits.
Also, you need to play smart and consider things like CB that can help instead of just raw damage. CTC doesn’t work whic is unfortunate, they should probably bring that back in but it aint a show stopper.
Bonesnap works fine in Normal and early nm.
You’re gearing wrong. The only thing that “nerfed” WWs damage was the crit fix. Getting a 5k WW with a 2h sword used 1h is easy as hell. It was standard issue PvP gear in the day.
Arreats
Mana leech unique ring whose name escapes me
Ravenfrost
Alternatively you can sub in a BK wedding band if you get mana leech elsewhere. Keep the RF for CBF.
ANY rare +2 ammy you can find with decent stats.
Shaftstop
Gore’s, Travs or Goblin Toes
String of Ears
Blood crafted gloves with IAS.
Stormshield
3S cruel Col Blade or Col Sword (cube recipe rerolls it til you get Cruel or Cruel with a good Suffix - you want ideally to get of Quickness or of Evisceration - and it gives it 3 sockets)
For skiller charms passive tree gives the most bang for the buck.
Don’t overinvest in Iron Skin or Natural Resist. You’ll need the points elsewhere.
I had a 5.2k whirlwind (on crits) with this back in the day plus Max Block, max Hell resists and 5k life. After I think it was 80 IAS your WW hits a 5th time instead of just 4. 1 point in Berserk for Phys immune and you’re golden.
Melee requires gear to function but once you get there, it’s a whole new ball game.
In addition to what you mention 1.10 also fixed a bug where in prior versions weapon mastery gave 100% critical strike with just one point iirc, so fixing that bug was a large dps hit. So going from 100% chance to do double damage every hit with 1 point in mastery to ~30ish with a maxed mastery.
There is quite a bit wrong with that.
Manald heal. Its ok for very early before you get mana leech elsewhere.
A lot of ww barbs don’t like CBF because it doesn’t actually slow down whirlwind damage, just move speed. Slower move speed means you spend more time hitting mobs with whirlwind.
+min/max damage is much better than +skills
IAS does not help whirlwind unless it is on the weapon, as noted previously in thread.
Again you are better off with damage/life charms. a 3 max damage 20 life small charm is vastly superior to any barb skiller.
This is true. I only drop 1 point in both.
My problem is really that barb requires end game gear to compete with a half decently geared sorc. Yes once you get the great gear you can do well enough, but never will you be close to the clear speed of a geared lite sorc, even with 2 grief phase blades.
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Whirlwind is still usable if you set up right. Do you mean you want it to do better damage?
that’s a weird definition… so hitting someone with an “object” like an arrow, a thrown knife, or a molten bolder is melee. But kicking is not melee?
Melee is just short range. I think that’d be the easier definition. That’s why WW was considered pseudo-melee in vanilla. It was only technically melee; the range was wider, AoE and came from a skill.
Still, I agree that WW and all melee builds could use a buff. IMO, maybe add some crushing blow based on strength. That makes strength more valuable and buffs only melee dmg in turn. Then… buff the dmg of skills, like WW.
You missed a part, my guy.
Same gear works fine for PvM as well.
I meant something is literally wrong with WW, its different from LoD then it is in D2R it auto locks and you cant do mini triangle rotations which is 100% best for dmg… Was a youtube video explaining it better if i could find it, id link it up.
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For pvp min/max life charms are still better than any skillers you can find, even more so in pvp where it matters a lot more.
Min/max damage on amulets is still better in pvp, though probably not as much. Highlord’s wrath is generally seen as better than +2 skills necklace for the deadly strike. Ias still doesn’t work for whirlwind in pvp either.
I will say CBF is definitely a must have in pvp.
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What you’re forgetting is passive skillers increase damage AND crit rate. They also give movement speed and some resists per charm. Skillers can get life as well but it’s rare.
Small charms though you’re 100%, Sharps and Vitas all the way.