My suggestions moving forward

[Genesh-2800]

Yo! I got some suggestions and ideas that I would like to share. These are personal and I realize that not everyone will agree. Can always voice your opinion and discuss about it. There’s no tldr for this and it’ll probably be a few pages worth of text. Edited so it’s easier to read (hopefully).

Options/Settings

nopickup

There should be an option to always have /nopickup activated.

Stat confirmation box

There should be an option to remove the confirmation box when you allocate all of your remaining stat points.

Runewords

New melee/physical runeword, Determination

2 socket helmets, Ral + Amn
Fire Resist +30% (Ral)
Attacker Takes Damage of 14 (Amn)
Cannot be Frozen
+6 to Attack rating (Based on Character level)
10% Chance of Crushing Blow
+15-30 Defense (varies)

My design for this helmet is to help out early game physical characters while going to Hell difficulty while not giving it too much power.

Splendor

+10% Faster Cast Rate → 15-25% Faster Cast Rate (varies)

This is to increase the desirability of the runeword for casters while leveling.

Lawbringer

I’m not a fan of the cold dmg on this and wish it was some other damage type instead. Would be a good mid range claw especially for Kicksins, if not a more defensive choice. Sure, they can use it in Phase Blade etc, but Assassins has very few claws and we’re supposed to be a claw wielding class.

Crescent Moon

I sincerely feel that this should be available as Claw as well. I have discussed about it in the past on the forums in multiple threads. This would be a very good mid range claw, pairing really well with Claws of Thunder and Phoenix Strike specifically, but still decent for other Martial Arts builds. This wouldn’t affect lightning trapsins at all since the -enemylightresist doesn’t affect traps so it wouldn’t be an indirect buff to trapsins by any means.

Edge

Edge would make another decent and cheap physical damage mid range claw for PvM specifically.

Black

Another decent candidate for a mid range Claw for PvM.

End game runeword armors

Flat out remove the Faster Run/Walk on Enigma to balance the end game armors. It already gives Teleport to all classes, the FRW on top is too much. Add 45 FRW on Chains of Honor, 20 FRW on Fortitude and 30-45 FRW (varies?) on Bramble.

Class armor runewords

There’s 3 runewords here that stands out, Treachery for obvious reasons, Peace for the oskill Critical Strike and Bone for the Necromancer. The most expensive out of these is Bone, but bonuses are really nice. I would argue that we could swap one Um in Bone for like a Tal or something similar. Most of these class armor runewords are too expensive to make for what their bonuses are though. Principle for Paladin (Gul) and Rain for Druid (Mal) should be changed or be made cheaper to make. I suggest Pul for Principle and Um or Lem for Rain. Bone and Treachery should be the most expensive ones with current stats.

Classes

Barbarian, Double Swing

Should have +5% damage synergy from Bash and give 5-10% damage increase with each rank on Double Swing itself. Could also be a higher dmg% on Bash and lower dmg% on Double Swing to give the choice of more damage/less attack rating or less damage/more attack rating. Should also start with a damage multiplier, like +20-30% damage to help early game Barbarians.

Barbarian, Iron Skin

This might be a hot take, but I’m gonna throw it out there anyway. Whether or not the Defense bonus stays or gets replaced with physical damage reduction %, I feel “Damage reduced by 1%” per point makes more sense than Defense bonus. Iron Skin = take less damage to me, not chance to take less damage.

Barbarian, War Cry

War Cry is still very mana intense even after nerf to it. Barb being how Barb is, 80 points for the damage or DPS you achieve with War Cry is very low. I would suggest removing one of the damage synergies, rescale the spell itself and/or the 2 synergies that it would still have and then as the third synergy, having a 0.1-0.2 yard increase per point so it’s optional to get bigger radius since it’s not that big to begin with. This would give more choice in terms of where to spend your points. I would suggest Howl as the radius increase synergy since it makes sense to me.

Barbarian, Grim Ward

Grim Ward is a in a bit of an awkward spot. There’s downsides to having it or even using it. So, the fear and damage amplification only works on minions or lesser monsters, not elites/champions. That’s a major downside to this reworked spell. It doesn’t work on all corpses either which is massively bad. The next one is the fear. Most of the time the fear is just spreading out the monsters outside of the totems radius, reducing the potential of the damage amplification from it and if we want to fear monsters for any reason, we have an on-demand fear already that I would argue is better, Howl. Other downside is that you don’t really gain anything from putting more points into it. What I would like to see from Grim Ward is instead of the fear, that it would use the Barbarians Battle Cry. While I understand why the Find Potion synergy was put there, I would suggest to replace it with Battle Cry and put the damage amplification on Grim Ward itself rather than a synergy. Remove the slow component on Grim Ward to compensate the value that Battle Cry would bring instead and Battle Cry as a synergy would use your hard pointed Battle Cry and have the radius increase to promote choice between more defensive option with bigger radius or more damage amplification in a smaller radius.

Frenzy

Frenzy has a couple of issues. The biggest one is probably the gigantic amount of synergy points that you need/want to spend to maximize the damage for it excluding the Mastery for your chosen weapons. The Increased Stamina synergy is very cool and made it less frustrating to continously having to restack your Frenzy all the time, but currently you don’t have enough points to ever use it unless you drop either Taunt or Double Swing as a synergy (or Battle Orders for survivability) which is highly unlikely that anyone will ever do. Another issue is that Berserk synergy doesn’t actually increase your damage, it just converts a portion of your physical damage to magic damage. What I would like here is to fuse together synergies and spreading out the damage you get from synergies.

Double Swing: +8% damage per level (just like now and this makes 100% sense)
Berserk: +4% damage per level (half of Taunt synergy)
Berserk: +1% magic damage per level (just like now)
Increased Stamina: +4% damage per level (the other half of Taunt synergy)
Increased Stamina: 0.4 seconds per level

Could also be like 5/6 on Berserk and 2/3 on Increased Stamina. This would help out immensely with points, promote Increased Stamina and Berserk usage for Frenzy and at the same time making it a very unique damage profile melee.

Amazon, Penetrate/Evade

Think most people will disagree with me here, but I feel that either of these skills should have a Faster Run/Walk bonus on it because running fast is a core part of the Amazons class identity and gameplay.

Amazon, Valkyrie

The Valkyrie is just plain slow compared to other pets, mercenaries etc. She needs some Faster Run/Walk to help her getting into combat. At least the same Faster Run/Walk as an Act 2 mercenary.

Druid, Summon Dire Wolf/Summon Grizzly

Same as the Valkyrie, they move very slowly when in reality, they were/are fast, agile and cunning animals. 15-20% Faster Run/Walk is probably fine.

Druid, Lycanthropy

I feel that Lycanthropy should have a Faster Run/Walk bonus on it because running fast is a thematical part of a Shapeshifted Druid. I would suggest that it would be put as a synergy for both Shapeshifts from Lycanthropy to also promote more use of Lycanthropy, especially early game. Starting off at 5 FRW and reaching a maximum of 25 FRW at around lvl40 Lycanthropy. In the wild, a wolf can reach a running speed of 50-60km/h and a grizzly (brown bear) can reach 56km/h, just saying.

Druid, "Vines"

Should be “invincible”, and by that I mean untargetable by mobs, but unable to tank mobs as well. They would essentially be a buff with a visual rather than a pet.

Assassin, Blade Fury

The charge up time should be reduced to around half of what it is. When you target an enemy, channel and then the enemy dies, you stop channeling. This should be changed to just continue channeling (assuming you hold the button).

Assassin, Blade Shield

Should not use weapon durability.

NextHitDelay

Reduce significantly or remove NextHitDelay for most spells that are affected by this abomination of a mechanic.

Uniques

Firelizard's Talons

This could be a fun item, but this claw is very rarely used, probably because of the weird mix of Martial Arts skills with traps and the NextHitDelay on Wake of Fire. Let’s sort of fix that without breaking the item or what it was designed to be.

+200-270% Enhanced Damage (varies)
Adds 236-480 Fire Damage
+15% Increased Attack Speed
+1-3 To Martial Arts (varies) → +3 Fire skills (All Fire skills)
+1-2 To Wake of Inferno (varies) → +1-3 To Wake of Inferno (varies)
+1-2 To Wake of Fire (varies) → +1-3 To Wake of Fire (varies)
Fire Resist +40-70% (varies)

Changing the +1-3 Martial Arts to +3 Fire Skills would affect specifically Fists of Fire, Wake of Fire and Wake of Inferno making it a dual fire hybrid claw. Bartuc’s, Jade Talon and Shadow Killer are quite heavily designed towards Martial Arts. It would be nice that Firelizard’s would be an exception (even with some MA element to it).

The Reaper's Toll

One of the most awesome items in the game, but can be even better with one tiny tweak. Goldfind Barbarians probably know where I’m going with this already but this one line here on the item: “Adds 4-44 Cold Damage”. This chills and ultimately shatters monsters so we cannot manipulate their corpses, whether it’s for Corpse Explosion, Grim Ward or Find Item. I would like for this to be changed to any other damage type, but preferably poison. Maintaining the same damage per second as it has now. It doesn’t make sense to me why it has cold damage to chill and Decrepify curse at the same time. I can’t speak for everyone, but I only want the Decrepify, not the cold damage.

Lacerator

I strongly feel that the “Hit causes monster to flee” should be either removed or changed to another stat on this item. 15-20% Pierce might be a decent option or something simple as 15-20 minimum dmg.

Areas

Mausoleum/Crypt

Haven’t been to Crypt in ages, but Mausoleum is way too big compared to how much mobs and packs there is in there in general. Either reducing overall size of the map or increasing the amount of mobs would help this area.

[DarkHelmet-1157]

Solid ideas but was wondering what you think of the following for Penetrate:

-1% Enemy Physical Resistance per level.

Higher in level it is, the greater the “penetration” or reduction in Enemy Physical Resistance. It’d work just like a Sorceress Cold Mastery and only applies on non-immune targets. You could argue this could be applied to Barbarian Weapon Masteries(double impact on Polearm/Spear), Assassin Claw Mastery and Druid Werebear(Werewolf is OP/broken with Reaper Toll… enough said).

I also feel Iron Skin = integer Physical Reduction. This attribute can be more effective in PvM than %Physical Resistance since its applied before Resistance. Get it high enough and the Barbarian can tank just about anything. PvP though and %Resistance is king.

[assa384-3503]

-1 % phy res…isn’t it dmg reduce @%??

[DarkHelmet-1157]

-Enemy Physical Resistance on Penetrate is exactly like placing a curse on the opponent(Decrepify/Amplify Damage). Only this time, it’s independent of the curse but only applies when the target is not Physical Immune(just like -Enemy Resistance for Fire/Cold/Lightning and Poison Damage). This effect would stack with Amplify Damage/Decrepify and would notably be impactful on Physical Immunes after their immunity has been broken by Amplify Damage/Decrepify.

As for Iron Skin, Damage Reduced by X is applied before Damage Reduced by X%. If a monster deals 100 damage but you have Damage Reduced by 50, you’ll receive 50 Physical Damage. Similar outcome with 50% Physical Resistance.

Yet if you get inflicted with Amplify Damage, 100 Damage is treated much differently in both cases. Firstly, that 100 Damage with Damage Reduced by X is applied(hence reduced to 50) before being amplified by a factor of 2 since Physical Resistance is -100(50 x 2 = 100 Damage when cursed). Yet with 50% Physical Resistance, getting hit with Amplify Damage means your Physical Resistance drops to -50%. Meaning that same 100 Damage now does 150 Damage to you, a difference of 50 Damage.

TLDR: Sol rune > Ber rune when it comes to Damage mitigation(especially in PvM situations). PvP, %Damage ultimately will win out due to high damage values but if you can manage to get PDR or Damage Reduced by X high enough, you can ignore incoming Damage outright in a lot of PvM cases. Damage Reduced by X% can never do that and is why I advocate for Damage Reduced by X on Iron Skin as opposed to %Physical Resistance.

[Genesh-2800]

@DarkHelmet-1157

Solid ideas but was wondering what you think of the following for Penetrate:

-1% Enemy Physical Resistance per level.

Thanks for thinking atleast some of my ideas are solid
So, I’m newly woken up and I’ll just put some initial thoughts on the idea and I will include the other classes when replying. It’s not necessarily a bad idea, however, it might be extremely powerful depending on how high it’ll scale and it will be a power creep for these classes/builds. If we’re thinking -1% per point including soft points, that’ll scale quite easily to -28% which is more than half of a decrepify. If we’re thinking 0.5% per point including soft points, it’ll easily go to -14% or higher. If we’re thinking hard points only, it’ll be -20% max with 1% per point and -10% with 0.5% per point. This would require extensive testing, but the 0.5% per hard point, maybe. And I’m just speaking of PvM here, will probably have massive implications for PvP.

The “Damage reduced by X” compared to “Damage reduced by x%” is not a bad idea. Not sure which one I would prefer overall yet though.

[Onadroig-1677]

With respect and from what I have read, aside from a few exceptions such as adding a small run/walk bonus to evade, most of these change suggestions are missing consideration of something or is just not needed.

For example what is the thinking behind adding a run/walk bonus to penetrate?

How do you plan on balancing the skills out if NHD gets addressed majorly?

This also should probably go into general discussion instead of PTR feedback.

@DarkHelmet-1157

Solid ideas but was wondering what you think of the following for Penetrate:

-1% Enemy Physical Resistance per level.

Penetrate can use an improvement to make it more skill point efficient by further boosting the % attack rating it gives. This will add more skill point flexibility to Amazons without introducing power creep.

[Genesh-2800]

@Onadroig-1677

With respect and from what I have read, aside from a few exceptions such as adding a small run/walk bonus to evade, most of these change suggestions are missing consideration of something or is just not needed.

Feel free to elaborate further since you feel this way.

Thinking for FRW for Amazon: “fast and agile jungle huntress” as the fantasy of the class for me as a short answer.

For NHD: Accordingly. Let’s take Claws of Thunder and Dragon Talon (a number of kicks in rapid succession) as our finisher in this example. We’re gonna assume that we charge up CoT 3 times. NHD on CoT Charge 3 (Charged Bolts) and Charge 2 (Nova) is 4 frames each and Charge 1 has no NHD. Now if Dragon Talon exceeds a certain IAS breakpoint, every kick frame except for the last one will be 3 frames which means Charge 3 of CoT will deal damage. Since Dragon Talon releases 1 charge per kick, Charge 2 won’t deal damage because the follow-up kick is 1 frame faster than the CoT NHD.

[Onadroig-1677]

@Genesh-2800

Thinking for FRW for Amazon: “fast and agile jungle huntress” as the fantasy of the class for me as a short answer.

My critique here was more around run speed having nothing to do with the fantasy/roll that penetrate is meant to fill. On a passive like evade though, this makes a lot more sense.

NHD: I do agree it’s a crude mechanic. Removing it in the game’s current state though will likely cause more problems than it solves. A lot of the skills will need to be revised.

[Genesh-2800]

@Onadroig-1677

My critique here was more around run speed having nothing to do with the fantasy/roll that penetrate is meant to fill. On a passive like evade though, this makes a lot more sense.

This is fair, but Penetrate could technically be renamed to a more fitting name to accomodate the change if it were to happen. “Agility” perhaps?

@Onadroig-1677

NHD: I do agree it’s a crude mechanic. Removing it in the game’s current state though will likely cause more problems than it solves. A lot of the skills will need to be revised.

Certainly. Issues could arise from completely removing it from all affected spells. The answer is most likely in between, on a spell by spell basis.

[Onadroig-1677]

@Genesh-2800

This is fair, but Penetrate could technically be renamed to a more fitting name to accomodate the change if it were to happen. “Agility” perhaps?

Making it an additional benefit for evade would be fitting enough without needing to rename penetrate and without reimagining the role that the right hand P&M skill tree is about, which is offensive based passives.

Adding the run bonus to penetrate would also benefit some builds more than others and kind of skew things, most notably would benefit non-faith based builds more (because penetrate in faith’s instance will be a 1 point wonder).

[Genesh-2800]

@Onadroig-1677

Making it an additional benefit for evade would be fitting enough without needing to rename penetrate and without reimagining the role that the right hand P&M skill tree is about, which is offensive based passives.

Fair point. My initial thought would be to put it on one of them, while Evade makes more sense thematically, it would help Penetrate. I’m still fine with either.

[CharlesJT-1538]

Pretty solid suggestions overall and agree with your thoughts about expanding runeword bases, such as Black, Crescent Moon, etc… Below are my proposed ideas for expanding runeword bases…

Expand Runeword Bases for 2.5

If the developers have no plans for balance changes or new runewords for Patch 2.5, I would like to propose to atleast consider expanding runeword bases to further fuel build diversity… Black Can now be made in Spears This runeword adds options for mid-game spearzon or used on Act 2 merc Crescent Moon Can now be made in Claws & Daggers This runeword is a perfect candidate to be made in claws and opens up build diversity for assassins. And don’t forget about dagger barbs Death / Dest…