Dear Blizzard,
I’m a big fan of the game and a pvp player, my nickname is Stadium. I’m a part of D2A (D2 Arena), which is a large and growing pvp community with over 800 members. We host cross-region pvp tournaments and events every week and have a presence both on twitch and youtube. The interest in this game has grown considerably over the past few months, and we would like to provide constructive feedback on how to improve the game from a dueling point of view.
Some of the changes currently introduced in the 2.4 patch will change the pvp in a way that will break some mechanics that are crucial for the game to stay being enjoyable for us. We don’t want any changes that would jeopardize pvm (player vs monster) players - we just want to be able to keep having fun.
Before providing feedback, PLEASE provide us with a better selection of ‘end game’ gear for use on the PTR. Item vendors with life+skill charms, perfect gear, rare rings with fcr/str/life/mana/resist and crafted amulets with 2 skill + 20 fcr. These items are necessary in order to really test pvp balance.
Please find the feedback below, listing the biggest issues, including a brief explanation and a link to more in-depth analysis:
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Chat bug.
It happens that when using “/who” command we can see that not all of the players in the game are on the “game” channel - it is frustrating that we are unable to communicate with players in the same game and it causes many problems. -
Faster Hit Recovery (stun) immunity instead of diminishing returns.
Hit recovery is a very important aspect of the game, in order for players to utilize stun mechanics and as a way to combo and kill enemy players. It is imperative that this remains as an important element, requiring players to achieve higher breakpoints in order to not get killed, and also allowing players to punish others for ‘getting caught’ and having the opportunity to follow up with damage spells.
FHR is the mechanic which incentivizes short range characters such as barbarians, druids, and paladins, to get close and burst the enemy down - without it, the enemy will be able to escape very easily and keep spamming spells in a defensive manner, which may sometimes be a problem even now. What’s more, Assassin’s skill “mind blast” allows trapsins to be a unique character which focuses on crowd control more than burst damage.
The solution suggested on PTR renders the entire FHR mechanic almost useless because you will never get stunlocked, even with very low FHR stat. Please consider a solution that would be actual diminishing returns that’s further improved by the FHR stat instead of giving a timed immunity every time when put in a recovery animation (which makes it impossible to catch some classes that were already incredibly difficult to catch, like a quickly teleporting sorceress). More info here: 2.4 anti stun mechanic and its impact on PvP
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Whirlwind bug.
The hit registration issue is game breaking for barbarians and whirlwind assassins. Please make this a high priority for resolution and fix this before taking on other new initiatives. Proper resolution should include alt targeting, hit registration, and visual desynch corrections. More info here: [2.4 Patch] WW Barbarian is still Bugged & Unplayable -
Invisible Projectiles.
This has long been in the game and in legacy, but for some reason when certain abilities are cast from off-screen (it includes spells that already have been cast and the caster teleports far away), the graphics will not render for opponents. Commonly abused for abilities like bone spirit and blessed hammer in PvP.
Lastly, most of the skill balance changes may have little to no effect in PvP; however, a few are quite concerning such as bone spirit, blade skills, and bow physical damage buffs. We tested these and a few others and are concerned about breaking the balance for PvP. Please consider further testing these adjustments and helping to ensure that both PvM and PvP are at the forefront of consideration for changing the balance in the game we all enjoy.
Pvp community would love to help Blizzard keep the game fun for pvp players - this will be a win-win for both the community and for Blizzard, so please contact us if you value our feedback!
Thank you for any help you can provide regarding this. I would love to continue playing the game and keep having fun along with all the other Diablo 2 Resurrected pvp players out there.
Kind regards,
Stadium