I am curious what do you think of this guys? Would +50%dmg dmg buff to weapons would be too much or not even enough still to make melee chars viable as casters?
Lets look at unique Deaths cleaver for example
Non eth version now:
79-91 - 236-269
Eth version now:
119-137 - 350-402
Non eth version after +50% base dmg buff:
119-137 - 350-402
Eth version after +50% base dmg buff:
178-205 - 524-604
So what do you think?
I made a spreadsheet to calculate how stronger other weapon woulf be compared to Grief. I didnt test agains casters. But what I remember from my spreadsheet is that even with a 25% increase of the weapon base dmg, Grief is still the best weapon for pretty much all builds. The margin between grief and other weapon reduced alot, but grief is still slightly better.
As an example, perfect Grief BA vs perfect eBotD BA. Grief is still better. 50% might be a bit too much, but it might also be the only way for physical builds to reach the dmg of casters.
If I had to chose, I would start with a 25% increase for a season and adjust for the next.
I am testing 50% increase in my d2r offline modification. So far I can tell that best would be probably individual buffing instead of just +50% to everything.
50% baseweapon is a good start. Afterwards you should give all 2hand weapons extra 30-65 damage flat.
Should give you other options to dual grief pb
Issue are mercs tho, they might be too OP with the change.
Not sure if you could mod this, but maybe give mercs a 1/5 penalty on damage? so they only do 80%?
In my opinion, melee characters should be a lot more powerful against single targets, considering the lack of aoe. A lot of the unique weapons would be a lot more interesting as well if it wasnât for the pitiful base damage.
Why not just nerf the casters?
Bring skills back into balance, which is something you were planning to do anyway if I am correct.
This is a great idea, and if we get this we will never get cleave - ive always hated the idea of cleave.
The mercenary issue as raised, would have to be mitigated though. They are already very very powerful indeed.
You wouldnt ever need anything past Oath, im not sure how i feel about that. BOTD would finally be better than Grief, and Zod would finally be worth more than Lo. Natural order restored?
A few things need to happen before even thinking about the value by which weapon damage should be buffed universally:
After this is done than an analysis is needed on difference in power between caster gear to be able to come up with any reasonable value by which to boost weapons.
Letâs consider just the Elite and exceptional axes for now:
There are 5 total 1h options in each tier. The base weapon speed ranges from 10 to -10. Letâs use 60 IAS as reference point and barb normal attack/bash/concentrate as reference point:
Elite bases:
Exceptional bases:
Damage is strictly based on the qlvl of the weapons on normal and exceptional bases whereas Elite bases have a much tighter range even though the delta in qlvl is greater among the Elite axes compared to normal and Exceptional.
There is still a clear winner among the bases. The War Spike is completely garbage end game. Once you consider that the Crowbill and Naga both require the same level (25) but the Crowbill requires higher numbers of total stats (94 str + 70 dex vs 121 Str) to use compared to the Naga, you realize how pitiful fast weapons truly are. This is universally true for all fast bases.
When you find a Coldkill near the end of NM but any elite base can provide higher DPSâŚ
Even if you nerf casters, melee will still struggle in mid game, it need some buffs, Also ther is issue with Grief, if you dont upgrade dmg on weapoins its still grief over anything else.
For a physical damage dealer my âissuesâ arenât just end game. Late normal to nightmare the damage is really low and until you find that decent end game weapon Iâm just slapping things with a rubber chicken. You basically need to tweak toons or you farm normal to nightmare and thatâs better done on a caster.
Buffing the ED on normal-nightmare level weapons/rares/runewords would be good. Insight is the prime example of this, it has really decent ED on it and when you make it in low and mid level weapons it becomes the best weapon around, all because it has good ED.
At end game once I get CB at a useful level and Iâm using a decent weapon I can take out just about everything until we get to Players 4-8, thatâs where you say âGood GriefâŚâ
Upgrading weapon damage will be a welcome thing, but until you can hit things reliably the weapon damage isnât relevant. AR needs to be looked into. Just a simple additional 2-5 AR per Dex would help a lot.
Itâs not just mid game⌠Anything past Act 2 normal is a slow grind.
You could stumble across The Gnasher, Deathspade, Bladebone, or Skill Splitter in your normal playthrough but you can literally buy a War Axe off a vendor and do more damage.
There are no viable runewords for early levels. The ease of access to useful gear is a big factor in progression.
Weapon bases having such disparities in damage does nothing to alleviate the issue. Weapons already have affixes associated with increasing damage. Having bases with such large disparities only compounds the problem.
When virtually all normal unique/set weapons become worthless past Act 3⌠
Definitely this, I completely agree.
Well personally I donât call that struggling, but playing a game instead of walking through the game.
However I prefer the game actually bringing some challenge instead of being an easy walkthrough.
Not sure what the real issue would be actually.
Early you either find something better, socket weapons with gems or make low runewords.
Maybe people just want to walk along the game without having to do anything for it, which is quite common in modern games, but Diablo in its core is not like that.
You do things like run a number countesses when you first arrive there instead of leeching Tristram, shop a 2 sock Flail when entering act 2 and make a steel.
Or put some chipped or flawed ruby/topaz/emerald in a weapon.
Maybe the high power of casters and Spirit/Lore low level and synergies made people feel it should be a pushover game.
I just wish weâd go back to level 99 takes longer than a few days.
Compare same to stealth with +3 fireball Leaf
Or a vendor bought +3 Frost Nova staff, +3 Holy Fire scepter, or +3 Nova staff.
These work equally as well for casters for A1
Considering that it still doesnât 
Well I started with rather than buff melee nerf casters, so comparison with current casters is non-sense.
Only for damage, melee characters have an easier time actually hitting the opponent.
But yeah even casters can do this, if they want to go hitting things instead of gulping mana pots.
Not literally no, but if you want to go to 99 itâs no longer many months of grinding and an achievement, it can be done within a month from a clean start even for people that are not exploit abusing streamers with a team behind them.
Neither of those things change the fact that melee can reasonably easily SSF the game, thus I donât agree with the âstruggleâ, itâs only a struggle compared to the OP starters (usually called casters, trapsin or paladin) or for those that have clue what they are doing or donât want to encounter resistance.
For the first, these should be nerved.
The second, well sorry play some more and learn to play the game before progressing, makes the game more fun anyway.
The third, there are many easy games, Diablo never was meant to become one of them, and I think it was better when it was more difficult, Hell wasnât meant to be walked through at your leisure, you worked to get through and that was the reward in itself, no real endgame at the end.
Itâs not lvl 1-15 thatâs the problem with physical weapons itâs lvl 25-50âish. This is where you have outgrown steel or any other weapon you can easily gem and you just donât do the damage of any caster.
For this ladder season I tried to make a bowazon, I did fine through to act 5. Now mid nightmare Iâm plinking constantly, averaging 5-12 shots to kill things, mostly hiding behind my merc. Once I find a 4 OS bow to make Insight in Iâll be fine but farming up that bow (or getting a better drop) as the first character was so painful, I made a casterâŚ
Spirit is strong for its level but itâs not the core of the problem.
Just compare your double Steel Flail barb at any level between 13 and 23 to either a Holy Fire pally or a Fire Ball sorc with +3 vendor bought weapons.
A naked necro can easily SSF the game. Your point?
God forbid people compare progression differences between classes.
How about the monster HP boosts and physical resistances added in 1.10 that also didnât address itemization? Guess there is Grief though right?
What exactly is there to learn after 20 years?
Diablo has never been a hard game. The only difficulty every attempted in the diablo series was at the launch of D3 where massive massive monster life, high gear depenance, and enrage timers were Blizzardâs failed attempt at increasing difficulty in an ARPG.
Diablo is one step above the difficulty of clicker games. I am sorry to hear that you are so easily challenged
A month commitment for an arbitrary achievement that offers no real power gains. Yeah definitely needs to be addressed immediately, canât let the common folk get 99.
Do I need to repeat the response now?
Since you apparently didnât read it?
I never said they were equal NOW, I said you could make them equal.
Well I made my point there already, read it.
I already said I donât think melee has to hard of a time, I think casters have to easy of a time (and yes I consider necro a caster not melee, obviously, also consider Holy Fire caster, though maybe you could call it hybrid).
But you rather cherry pick parts of a sentences so to avoid the point I made.
Again you compare them in their CURRENT state, which is the state I said should change, however rather than make weaker builds stronger, make the stronger builds weaker.
When 1.10 hit my barbarianâs gear was instantly rubbish, however I could still easily do solo Baal runs, monster were made stronger, not however in comparison to the buff items and skills got.
It made the game easier.
If you play 20 years I presume you donât fall in the second group.
I wasnât talking about you however, I named three factors which imo can cause people to perceive the melee as a struggle.
Their are people new to the game, or that never learned to play it because they leech their way through hell and start with budget gear that can actually do Hell.
Well depends on your definition of hard, I can easily SSF with any character in D2, can do it asleep in D3, compared to many games Diablo 2 was hard when it launched and it to easy now.
The easier it gets however, the less interesting it gets.
Personally liked D3âs difficulty at launch, the game itself is a different thing, but finishing inferno SSF with my monk was a challenge, thus felt rewarding.
Then why do you want to make it more easy?
I am not the one challenged here.
It offers the reward of doing it, do you play Diablo to gain real power or enjoyment?
I donât mind having the common folk get 99, I would encourage them to do it once (not much use doing it again imo and not really an achievement anymore anyway).
It perceive that more like a bucket list thing or grail thing as some would call it.