With Patch 2.5 on the horizon, I strongly urge to the developers to nerf Spirit, Grief and Enigma runewords. This would be a huge step in the right direction by fostering player choice and further fueling build diversity…
The justification for these changes is Spirit is arguably the best shield in the game and is so cheap. Grief is simply too powerful with the +340-400 bonus flat damage that no other weapon comes close, even Breath of the Dying and very expense Last Wish. Same for Enigma. All the godly stats on this armor makes it too good to pass up.
Lastly, it’s important to point out the goal is to NOT gut Spirit, Grief and Enigma, but rather take them down a notch while retaining their flavor. With that said, I’m proposing the following nerfs below…
Spirit
- Reduce to +1 To All Skills OR…
- Change to +1-2 To All Skills
Grief
- Reduce Damage Bonus by 30-40% OR…
- Change to +340-400% Enhanced Damage
Enigma
- Remove +45% FRW and give bonus to Chains of Honor runeword OR…
- Remove +0-74 To Strength and give bonus to Strength runeword OR…
- This would replace +20 To Strength
- Remove +1-99% Magic Find and give bonus to Splendor runeword
- This would replace +20% Magic Find
14 Likes
Oh this is going to be a SPICY thread. I’m here for it.
9 Likes
I do not use Spirit, or Enigma.
I do use Grief, because, melee… last thing the red headed step child of D2 (melee) needs is a nerf.
Just last week traded for near perfect Grief, if it’s nerf’d can you please return my Jah’s and Ber’s.
I’m guessing you’ll owe a lot of runes to Spirit and Enigma players as well.
2 Likes
Spirit, Grief and Enigma have been around for too long to just nerf them. You’ll be stepping on a lot of toes.
They’ll need to do what they can to introduce some alternative options, which they have plenty of unreleased runewords trickling down over the course of the next several years to work with, along with analysis and feedback from the player community to point them in the correct direction forward.
Then there’s always the option of new uniques and sets as well, or even altering some of the useless ones we already have. There are plenty of base items that don’t have a set and/or unique variant. Even if a base item already has a unique variant, there are a handful of items that already have two different unique variants.
Just keep the power creep on a tight leash, that’s all I ask.
2 Likes
I’m actually all for completely removing enigma for a few ladders. Just to force people to get better at building alternative builds.
3 Likes
With Patch 2.5 on the horizon, this is a golden opportunity to move D2R in an exciting new direction, one that expands player choice and build diversity.
To get this accomplished, it’s much easier for the developers to nerf the top 3 runewords (Spirit, Grief & Enigma) as opposed to buffing hundreds of items. Nerfing overpowered runewords is ultimately good for the game.
Lastly, my proposed nerfs I think are done with a measured hand. Spirit would still be a good runeword with +1 to skills, grief losing 30-40% damage bonus is still a good weapon for cost, and the identity of Engima is still intact with not touching teleport. Moving FRW to Chains of Honor improves this runeword and makes it a harder decision vs. Fortitude.
2 Likes
While I respect your opinion, I’m afraid it’s a futile effort. I seriously doubt the backing for such a change would come anywhere close to a supermajority in favor of the changes. As I said, nerfing the runewords would step on a lot of players toes.
These runewords came out a long time ago. Aside from Spirit, the rest of the runewords were basically unobtainium (unless you bought/traded for them, which they were almost always duped or found using bots) due to the stupid low rune drop rates prior to 1.13c, which was released in 2010. So the player base has had 12+ years of being able to play with these runewords. If they were suddenly gutted, you’d have a lot of complaints.
I agree with you. Spirit, Grief and Enigma should not be gutted, but should be taken down a notch. There is an element of granularity when discussing nerfs. My proposed nerfs still retain the flavor of the runewords, just to a lesser degree. Not to mention CoH is now more competitive with adding +45% FRW.
Not fixing core issues from the past will continue to plague this game. Yes, these runewords came out a long time ago, but that is less important than fostering player choice and build diversity.
2 Likes
As far as Grief, I’ve heard plenty about it being OP for just needing one high rune. Maybe a rune change is in order to make it harder to obtain. For example, Grief has Ignore Target Defense as a property, drop that property, swap Ral for Jah to regain Ignore Target Defense, and lose the 5-30 fire damage.
1 Like
I sincerely doubt the Devs are sitting around looking for ideas to implement into the next patch. Let’s see what they plan to do, THEN complain the same complaints. Honestly, dropping MF from Enigma seems more of a balance but that has been covered SO MUCH.
They can’t just nerf these things. They need to make a regular ladder season with them and an additional ladder season without them. Sort of how Hearthstone has Standard and Wild… it might sound like a terrible idea but imo it’s the only way to please both sides of players.
1 Like
Are more overpowered runewords that make everything else in the game pointless the answer though? We already have a flood of threads going “waaa gaem iz eazie wen I r wearing completely OP broken runewords giev diabloo 5 trilion HP 2 maek game challeinge”
So the community solutions are either
A) Release more broken OP stuff that competes with the current OP broken stuff - making rares, uniques even more useless
B) Give mobs huge amounts of extra HP and damage so people with OP gear can have a challenge, causing everyone without the broken OP gear to be unable to play
The solution is to address the broken gear that never should have been added to begin with
3 Likes
Sure they can, the devs just need to find the nerf bat stowed away in the closet. 
3 Likes
An old, but interesting video:
1 Like
Would that mean they leave the old Enigmas and Griefs as is?
I need more character slots or a way to buy slots not another game copy.
It’s not gear that’s broken.
It’s character class’s that don’t even need decent gear to still wipe the screen of monsters by waving their hand or sending projectiles.
There is not a melee build in the game that is a competitive farmer to those classes on P1, forget about P8.
(Barb, but I’m not going there).
What really needs the nerf stick is builds that can solo farm P3-P8… and I assure you they are not using Grief to do so.
Nerfs are never the answer.
2 Likes
Spirit
- Reduce +2 To All Skills to +1 To All Skills
Totally fine with it
But could be made funnier
- 2 to [Random class] or [tree]
Grief
- Reduce Damage Bonus by 30-40%
Personally I’d just remove the attack speed bonus… that damage bonus is so strong that it can’t come with such high ias+ the ability to phase blade it
Enigma
- Remove +45% FRW from runeword and give bonus to Chains of Honor
Hard disagree
cOh is already plenty strong
While Nigma could be nerfed
I think the main issue is not specifically teleport Oskill but rather teleport itself
Teleport should gain a penalty like running has with def/block
“Lose the bonus of your gear for 1 sec after teleporting”
This reduces the blind spamming of the skill and also makes nigma have a 1sec cooldown since the skill is on the gear
Yea they are
These items were broken in the first place and it’s much simple to nerf 3 op items than to buff hundreds of others
1 Like
