You want to replace it with Sanctuary aura, that has like 1000% at level 30. so 25% is 250% dmg. Concentration at level 30 gives paladin 247% dmg. Which is the same. So no nerf at all. But Sanctuary aura enables Paladin to melt Undeads since it ignore Physical resistance and adds 1000% dmg to Grief on swap.
Thats a straight buff to deal with Magic imune undeads. Which are only monsters that are Magic immune in practical way. Wendigo is MI but he s in those Temples and noones farm it there, low density. And another is MI Pit lord that is also immune to everything other than physical.
Also No to working with FoH,Bolts. At least that build isnt OP for player 8 difficulty.
Lots of people enjoy games by min maxing them. Having a character so broken and OP makes that play style awful. Not everyone enjoys games the way you do.
Sanctuary has a higher Undead% than Concentration does on %Enhanced Damage but if you balance it at 25%, they deal roughly the same damage as they would with Concentration(if not less if you go with 1/8th or 12.5%).
25% on level 38 Sanctuary = 1260/4 = 315%
50% on level 38 Concentration = 615/2 = 307.5%
12.5% on Sanctuary would be 157.5%, or roughly half the damage output. Also against Undead/Demon enemies, FoH/Holy Bolt crushes Blessed Hammer if you don’t factor in the Concentration aura buff(At level 38 and maxed synergies, FoH deals roughly 4.1k Magic Damage vs. 3k for Blessed Hammer). If FoH got the same benefit that Blessed Hammer did, FoH would easily do P8 content like Blessed Hammer would do(and it should given its a level 30 skill. It just has the Animal/Beast limitations that Blessed Hammer does not). Also Holy Bolt ignores Magic Immunity against Monsters it affects(even Undead). If it ignores Greater Mummies/Unravellers who are Magic Immune because they are Undead, it is logical to assume that since they added Demons to the list of Monsters it affects that MI Balrogs would also be on the list to be affected.
MI Wendigos have always been immune to Blessed Hammer so that’s nothing new. Giving Hammerdins Sanctuary aura is a bone for them losing their Holy Bolt buff from Blessed Hammer and makes more sense being that Sanctuary is effectively an aura that deals Magic damage. The fact it allows the Paladin to ignore Physical Resistance of Undead is a sheer coincidence.
“should?” No. I oppose this idea like that. First make a Whilrwind barb (lvl 30 skill like you wrote) do p8 so fast like Hammerdin. Then I dont mind if FoH is buffed to do p8 content. But not before buff to WW.
And all ideas stem from that. Dont make buffs to overall strongest classes before buffing the weakest classes. After that? whatever
So you’re proposing to ruin the experience for the people that had fun back then playing with their hammerdin in the old LoD days and wanted to feel the same with prettier graphics…just because you don’t like it? Obviously people enjoy the game in different ways, but I can bet more people enjoy hammerdin as it is, rather than a nerfed version of it.
Back in Patch 1.05 for D2, there was a balance change that the Paladin Concentration skill enhances the damage of Blessed Hammer. Concentration has a hidden effect and increases the damage of Blessed Hammer by 50%. I think the developers should simply nerf the hammerdin by removing this synergy…
This would put hammers in line with other class abilities in terms of damage. This is balance and a justified nerf. This nerf is more important than ever with the introduction of Terror Zones to not give an unfair advantage to the Paladin. I think the hidden synergy of Concentration is a bug.
WW may never do P8 unless Barb and Melee overall gets an insane bump. For starters, WW should ignore the hit check(aka always hit). Secondly, have Energy stat increase AoE effects on Skills. More Energy you have, greater the impact and increases the radius of effect. This would help mitigate or solve melee’s Single target nature by allowing melee to affect an area around the target. Finally, add more -Resistance Jewels for Physical such that we can pierce Physical Resistance independently from a curse(still needed to break PI though). Barbarian mastery should yield that natively with Hard points(up to -20%, double that for Spear/Polearm). Ditto Assassin Claw Mastery.
The reason Hammerdins should be nerfed is because of the lack of MI monsters. Either the frequency of MI needs to be increased significantly(which adversely affects Bone Necromancers too), or Hammerdin Magic Damage output needs to be nerfed by a good 50%(7k Magic Damage seems to be within reason given Bone Necromancers average 6k Magic Damage). You can achieve it simply by cutting the buff on Concentration to 25% or changing it to Sanctuary and cutting it to 12.5%.
Sorceress and Javazons are still godly but they have to deal with Elemental Immunity, something Hammerdins do not have to deal with on a consistent basis.
For starters, make Grimward just Slow+Amp damage, make it affect bosses too, make it from any corpse and with this one change WW barb is fixed to Gigachad barb.
I know the reasoning of the “nerf sorceress/hammerdins/teleport/enigma/grief” crowd, but you usually fail to communicate why those nerfs “need” to happen in a game that’s 99% a coop or single player experience. The existence of an OP build doesn’t negate the ability of others to play the game as they see fit with that or any other build. I actually tried all of the new viable builds that Patch 2.4 brought and I happily played during the whole first season of ladder, not caring if other people were playing with a hammerdin or not.
Part of Diablo 2’s charm comes in player choice (even with the latest patch, you can CHOOSE if you play with terror zones or not). What’s the deal of a person using overpowered builds and/or items? What sort of massive negative impact does it inflict in YOUR experience that makes it neccesary for a nerf to happen?
At least in my opinion, nerfs don’t “need” to happen, because nobody is directly affected by the existance of those builds and items, and nerfing them would make the experience worse for the people that like to use those builds and items. If you don’t like them, don’t use them. It is really that simple.
C’mon Blizzard, you need to get the nerf bat hiding in the closet and whack the Paladin to finally nerf Blessed Hammers. This skill has been overpowered for far too long.
i have a better solution.
give ways to break inmunes of all tipes not just lightning. that way all builds will be playable.
instead of nerf one build and make all builds unplayable, make them all playable.
buff melle builds
give players a way to break all inmunes (maybe make infinity a random runeword that gives break inmune with a more extensible area of effect, like paladin aura area of effect and the runeword can be -100% resistances to light/fire/cold/magic/melle/poison/etc… as random.).
rework inmunes and make them receive less damage, the inmunes have 90% damage resist, then you can use an item that give -20%, then they will have 70% dmg resist etc… etc…)
make a new item slot with a new item.
to get that item you need
1-standard of heros
2-1 key of each
3-1organ of each
you spawn a portal with one special boss, the boss drop that new item that go to a new item slot
the new item give:
-50% to -120% to X monster resistance (cold or fire or lightning etc… etc… etc… for every resistance, that way it will have 0 impact on PvP also because it’s TO MONSTER resistance)
aura range from half of distance of view (in screen) ---- to further of view (similar to paladin auradin auras, they are a bit further than what we view on screen)
that way you give the players a solution to play any build and they need to work for it, with random stats + aura range.
