General Feedback

So I decided to take some of the builds on a test run using the preset builds they gave us. Largely, it doesn’t appear that anything has been changed yet. Of course, I’m all for leaving it completely alone. But since we are here…

Whirlwind – Appears untouched. If any skill needs to be retouched and modernized, it’s Whirlwind. You need BiS gear to kill anything, and you still get outpaced by casters easily due to the way Whirlwind works. Typical Trav kill. Me and merc lived.

Frenzy – Appears untouched. Still lackluster damage even with BiS gear, and still single target only. Trav killed my merc. :confused:

Berserk – I’m not sure why anyone would want to use this build. First, it doesn’t even make sense. 20 points into Howl, but Howl is ineffective against bosses, and generally makes everything run haywire when it does work. Why would a melee character want his enemies to run away from him so he has to chase them down and pick them off one by one? Also, synergizing Berserk with Shout… so, I go from having lots of defense to no defense. If even half of my combat time is spent with 0 defense, and assuming the other half the mobs spend afraid, what is the point of boosting defense for this build? BO is a much better choice, as at least you get extra life to help sponge when you get hit with 0 defense. Trav almost killed me… I had to pot once. Ate my merc. No AoE either.

Elemental – At first it looked like the fire skills had been buffed already. So cool! I set my hotkeys, and journeyed to Trav. I was going to go with Armageddon and Fissure because they have the most damage. I forgot about the element lock, and ran head on into Trav with Armageddon, merc, bear, and 5 Ravens. Everything died as I scrambled to put something else on my bar that worked. I ran back to town! Got my merc back, and put Tornado on my off element key. So Armageddon and Tornado. I did manage to kill Trav, but it was kinda slow. Nothing died this time. Pretty sure Tornado did next to nothing aside from make me not freak out. Decided to take it for a spin through Spider Forest, Arachnid Lair, and Worldstone Keep Level 2, trying out the various fire skills. The skills themselves hit hard. But fire Druid has always been more about how limited their skill use is as opposed to raw damage. You get element locked, and nearly every fire skill is drop on the ground and it goes in one predetermined spot, except for Armageddon, but it has to actually hit a monster to do its damage. So the skills themselves are limited. You aren’t shooting fireballs across the screen or anything. I had the most success and fun with Volcano. So you just cast Volcano into the room and stand there as your pets go kill it and wait. It’s very slow. It was able to tank souls in Worldstone 2 though. But it’s a spec that still feels limited no matter how powerful it is. I tried Firestorm in the Spider Forest and couldn’t even tell if it was doing anything. Instant Bear is lovely.

Wolves – Not sure if he has changed. Took him into Trav. Killed Trav easily enough with Fury. This gear setup has a slow run/walk speed and slow AiS though, so he felt slow and clunky, not like a ravenous beast like some of the in-game werewolves can get. WP knocks you out of werewolf.

BoneArmor – Appears buffed. Bone Spirit and Bone Spear are strong. Teeth is still a little lackluster. Haven’t tried any curses, but I’m sure they work. 1 point golem is laughable. Trav ate him instantly. If it weren’t for Enigma, I would not have survived, but I never potted. Bone Wall and Bone Prison are nice, but it’s the same as it always has been. They are useful but you aren’t going to choose them first in most fights. And they take up 2 hotkeys. It’s an actual playstyle. A slow, squishy playstyle if you don’t have Enigma.

PoisonNova – This guy is pretty sweet, especially if you like a 96k dmg Poison Explosion and 11k Poison Nova. He destroyed Trav and everything around it in seconds, like you might expect.

Summons – Pretty sure Blizzard said they weren’t touching Summons right now, so I’ll skip. But you know you could make people want to use Mages more if we didn’t need a corpse for them. Why a corpse for regular skellies but not for Mages? Because Mages are magical. Make it happen. :slight_smile:

Hammerdin – Shipped with Smiter gear, complete with level 20 Fana and Grief. Lolwut? You guys ever build a Hammerdin before? Thankfully, we already know what this guy does. It doesn’t look like Holy Bolt has been changed yet.

Smiter – Appears unchanged. We know what it can do too. Not testing. Next.

Zealot – Strong, sturdy, and fast. Used a pot to heal merc once, but otherwise made easy work of Trav. Doesn’t feel particularly mobile, but potentially very tanky.

Javazon – I looked at the build… lolwut? I’m not rebuilding her. At this point it appears that nothing has been changed anyway. We know what Jav can do. Also, no one cares about Inner Sight and Slow Missiles. Wasted time where things could be getting slaughtered. Instant Valkyrie is nice.

Firezon – Immolation Arrow is nice, especially the physical damage portion, but against the Council I still ended up just using Guided Arrow spam. Even with Immolation Arrow, the cooldown on it means you end up just tossing it into a rotation of Guided Arrows. Might as well play multishot or strafe still.

IthIsTheNewIst – Freezing Arrow… what Council? This was really strong against them. Only issue it’ll have is mana, which has always been its main issue if I recall correctly. Ice is so cold…

Assassin and Sorceress appear unchanged in this build. Not testing.

You know this is just a stress test and there has been no balance changes of any sort yet, right?

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Ya, kinda learned that the hard way lol