Class Changes We All Support

PTR Feedback
#1

Before Blizzard officially releases Patch 2.4 and closes up shop, I wanted to share a simplified list of class changes that the majority of the community would support-

Class Changes

Amazon

  • Ice Arrow - buff damage as skill is single target (e.g. double damage as compared to Freezing Arrow and would make skill more valuable versus bosses and elites)

Assassin

  • Blade Fury - attack rating should scale per level and not a mere flat 10%

Druid

  • Battle Orders, Battle Command - can now cast BO/BC in shapeshifted form
  • Rabies - increase poison creeper synergy and reduce poison duration
  • Lycanthropy - add faster run/walk by 1% per level for greater mobility
  • Poison Creeper, Carrion Vine, Solar Creeper - die too quickly, significantly increase life for added survivability, and improve life/mana regeneration scaling per level as they suffer harsh diminishing returns

Barbarian

  • War Cry - reduce mana cost to 0.60 to improve cost-effectiveness
  • Grim Ward - change fear effect to taunt effect, currently redundant with howl
  • Leap Attack - use % weapon damage for the damage to surrounding enemies
  • Whirlwind - most non-controversial change they could implement is to tweak the numbers and start whirlwind off at 0% (currently starts at -50%). All this penalty does is to discourage players from using whirlwind during their Barbarian playthrough

Necromancer

  • Raise Skeletal Mage - increase elemental damage and increase missile speed

Sorceress

  • Thunderstorm - increase frequency of lightning (e.g one bolt per half second)
  • Hydra - Fire Bolt synergy increased from +3% to +6% while removing Fire Ball synergy
14 Likes
#2

I can get behind all of these…

Being specific on necy Mages - currently they gain damage every 2 levels. Change it so after lvl 20 they gain damage every level.

1 Like
#3

Blade fury AR per level for sure… they windup speed can be sped up with ias gear and is fine as is.
fire traps need additional damage in the end game, improving high level scaling is probably the way to go

I wont comment on rabies as i have not tested or looked into it. frw from Lyc. would be nice to play but WW’s hit so hard and fast that i feel anything beyond a minor frw bump would make the build to powerful.

I’ll leave out WC as I have not played it in years. Leap attack using weapon damage is a tricky thing to balance. It could work but it could end up being too op. This may be something better looked at for another patch/ladder

Mages already got a bump but reports are they still don’t hit hard at all. Again this is something that should wait for another patch/ladder in this case for additional real work testing.

I’d love to multi element and include hydra and that the damage is currently too low even to go straight hydra. That said, it has received a buff and should probably be something that is assessed as a priority through the upcoming season.

1 Like
#4

There shouldn’t be any ONE skill in the game that takes 80 points to max out. Nobody is making a teeth necro or a fire blast assassin(nor would we), but why have like half a dozen synergies? Don’t screw us on FIRE DAMAGE hydras.

3 Likes
#5

What fire traps need is the removal of next hit delay, more damage is cool but the real issue is NHD

1 Like
#6

Blade Fury has a fixed speed and cannot be sped up in any way.

#7

the initial attack can be sped up with ias, then it channels at a consistent speed that cannot be changed.

#8

Agree.

I’d like to see a chance for skele mages spells to pierce. Would be fun to have a summon necro that didn’t need corpse explosion. Clearly not something for 2.4 but what if there was something that locked out corpse explosion without just being a point glut?

1 Like
#9

No it can’t. The initial delay is fixed as well, no amount of attack speed increases it.
Blade Fury - Basin Wiki (theamazonbasin.com)

  • Neither attack rate nor cast rate will increase firing frequency: a single click fires two blades, but it is better to fire blades continuously (one every six frames) without selecting a target by selecting it for the right mouse button and holding it down, or selecting it for the left mouse button and holding it down with the Shift key to prevent movement.
#10

Technically this mentions frequency not the initial attack but I could also be confusing it with a mod or previous patch version. It may also have been weapon speed in hindsight as well.

That said you are going to be channeling with this skill most of the time so it is not really going to matter a whole lot. At 6 frames, you attack quite fast for a ranged attack plus it carries CB and chance to cast on hit so assuming he can hit a good % of the time so the initial delay is not an issue… back to the AR issue again…

#11

That was my thought as well, thanks for clarifying.

#12

I don’t know about Hydra dmg, but all the others are fair.
Would add: More toughness and resistances for Druid Spirits and Vines.

2 Likes
#13

Hydra is underperforming and was nerfed too hard during the PTR. They need to disconnect synergy away from Fireball and bump up Firebolt. This is the most reasonable approach since hydras use Firebolt anyway.

#14

Agree on the AR, not sure about the wind-up. I know it’s awkward, but skills have to have drawbacks. No windup blade fury would be like no delay meteor. Loses the flavor.

I’d rather not. Instead, let barb have 1.5 mana per energy. Not a “free” buff but a more interesting one, which involves players “buffing themselves”.

i’ve said it before and i’ll repeat it… leap attack is a supplementary skill. Having leap attack as a “build defining skill” would be silly as hell. Make it a synergy to WW instead.

agree on making it a 60pt build, disagree about +8%. +5% should be enough.
It should be a part of a dual spec, so it must not have very big damage.

2 Likes
#15

5% on Hydra from fire bolt is more than enough. It wil be hybrid anyway

1 Like
#16

Well, with Hydra receiving +5% fire damage per level from Firebolt synergy while removing Fireball synergy completely, we are nerfing the damage even further by 1% (currently 3% from Firebolt, 3% from Fireball). To keep status quo, Firebolt needs to be 6%.

That’s why I choose 8%, for an overall buff of 2% as Hydra is underperforming.

1 Like
#17

all poison in d2 sucks, because the durations are way to long

venom is over 0.2 seconds… which is fine

at level 40+ rabies is over like 20 seconds or something crazy

poison durations should be much shorter across the board

if rabies at high levels did its damage over 2 seconds or something like that, i would consider playing it

1 Like
#18

I dont support any of that. Glad they wont be doing it.

K great thread…

#19

And an additional 15% buff to War Cry.

#LetBarbsSing

1 Like
#20

Agree on the AR, not sure about the wind-up. I know it’s awkward, but skills have to have drawbacks. No windup blade fury would be like no delay meteor. Loses the flavor.

I disagree. Even with the buffs BF will receive in 2.4 it will still be underperforming compared to most other classes who can effectively kite enemies with their ranged skills. Assassins should feel very mobile as part of their class fantasy but Blade Fury undermines this with the wind-up frames.

The delay shouldn’t be completely removed but greatly sped up, I think reducing the wind-up delay from the current 13 frames down to something like 7 or 8 frames would be fair. Perhaps the wind-up frames should even be improvable by attack speed, but keep the “channeling” frames the same.

I’d rather not. Instead, let barb have 1.5 mana per energy. Not a “free” buff but a more interesting one, which involves players “buffing themselves”.

Ehhh, I’m not sure about this change. While I like the idea behind it (sort of like WW barbs investing into strength when they have enough life or bowazons investing into dex for more damage) it also kind of goes against the fantasy of a barb. They’re not spellcasters, there’s a reason why they get the least mana per energy compared to the other classes and I kind of like that flavor/lore. I do think energy could use some sort of rework as a whole though considering it’s very rarely invested into beyond the early game and for ES sorcs, but that’s for another thread.

i’ve said it before and i’ll repeat it… leap attack is a supplementary skill. Having leap attack as a “build defining skill” would be silly as hell. Make it a synergy to WW instead.

Why must Leap Attack be relegated to a mere support/synergy skill? What’s wrong with the fantasy of bouncing from group to group brutally cleaving a few of them down as you go? I think it would be good for barbs to have another melee AoE option in addition to WW and Frenzy (not that WW and Frenzy are true AoE skills but rather multi-target).

Perhaps it could have weapon damage AoE that scales based on skill points, like at level 1 you’ve got 10% weapon damage AoE and at level 20 you’ve got 30% or something. I’m not sure what a good scaling amount would be, just spitballing some ideas.

1 Like