On D2's 'difficulty' and class balance

General Discussion
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So I wanted to try and beat the game on Hell with a Frenzy barb which I’ve never done, but I’m currently stuck on Hell Act II, unable to proceed. Even with double Angelics I’m having issues keeping up with AR at acceptable levels and I can’t find any weapons to replace my crappy nightmare-tier weapons (Bloodletter and The Butcher’s pupil).

I then made a new char, a lightning/firewall sorceress, and proceeded to faceroll the entire game. Although I had some nice pieces of gear (SoJ, Skin of the Vipermagi, The Occulus), I didn’t even had any runewords, nor Shakos, Tal’s, or anything of that BiS stuff, I didn’t even respec once, yet I had very little, if any, trouble with the game. Not even immunities where a problem.

I knew caster builds where better than physical oriented ones but I didn’t expect the chasm to be so massive. It’s night and day.

Casters are pretty much playing a different game, where AR doesn’t exist, gear doesn’t matter much, and boss fights are more interesting 'cause you at least get to try and dodge projectiles instead of face tanking them while you wack them with your stick.

I wish, if this game ever gets some balance patches, to have a more leveled playing field. Throw those physical classes a bone and bring down casters a bit.

Also while we are at it, I think Normal and Nightmare difficulties are way too easy, to the point they are kinda boring. I’d wish some of that Hell difficulty goodness would trickle down and appear sooner on those difficulties.

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People here don’t want to admit the game has flaws… You’re basically screaming under water.

They think we should leave the game the way it was when blizzard north stopped existing. Thing is, if Activision-Blizzard did that there would still be Iron Maiden in chaos sanctuary and Whirlwind would cost more mana to cast so things got better for barbs after Blizzard North’s sad demise.

People don’t want to remember that Blizzard North essentially nerfed skills to the ground leading to patch 1.10, which introduced godly items.
People don’t want to admit that if Activision-Blizzard did things like Blizzard North, there would be massive changes every other patch.
Asking them to do nothing is the opposite of what Blizzard North would’ve done.

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Nightmare starts to get dangerous especially for many physical damage characters from Ancients onwards. Try a multi/strafezon.

I’m not sure how your barb was built - Bloodletter and Butcher’s Pupil are 2 different types of weapons, so… which mastery did you dump points into? o.O By the time you hit Hell, you’ll want items with crushing blow and deadly strike to augment your own critical strike chance from masteries. The frenzy barb is one of the better physical damage dealing characters when it comes to questing, and you can even augment your play with warcry (if you have it) or things like howl/taunt (not so effective on monsters too far above your level), or just mixing in plain bash/concentrate/berserk for the desired effect once frenzy charges up your attack speed. Compare that to a bowazon… to be fair, the zon has some great trade offs with her passives, but multi/strafe is really limiting compared to the skills that the barb has at his disposal.

Phys damage characters are actually playing a more classic RPG-style game with AR and blocking chances (THAC0 anyone?). Some like it, some don’t.

Also, HC is another game altogether again. In HC you tend to see far fewer sorcs and far more build diversity because the trade offs for that kind of killing power are less desirable when your character only ever gets 1 life. Sorcs die really frequently in HC. Lol

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I played CD2 at launch and continued with LOD up until around mid 2003, and things seemed a bit more balanced back then prior to 1.10. Barbarians and Bowazons were super strong, but the other classes were not quite as good (this was before synergies), but all of them were viable, with more than a single build that could carry you through Hell.

After returning with this game though, balance feels straight up wack. Bowazons are complete trash tier without Faith or Windforce, and the only spec an Amazon can play that’s any good right now is a LF Javazon, which was very strong prior to synergies too.

I don’t know why Whirlwind was gutted so hard as to make an iconic skill so useless now, but it’s awful, and Frenzy isn’t good either without some top end rune weapons. About the only real Barbarian spec that works in Hell now would be either Berserk, if you actually want to do the killing, or a Singer, where you slowly have your Mercenary kill everything, but that’s mainly just for farming The Council.

Hammerdins were super strong when I stopped playing, and apparently the Concentration “bug” was fixed after I stopped, so I was never around when they sucked for a while. Now though? They are even stronger than they used to be, and probably my favorite non-boss farming build. The only other Paladin build that’s any good is a Smiter, but those are ultra niche and almost exclusively for Uber farming. Not sure how they play in PvP though.

The Sorceress though takes the cake. It’s the only class to play as a first character when (if, LOL) Ladder starts. Extremely easy to level, doesn’t have to worry about attack rating, so she can just raise STR for gear requirements and dump everything else into VIT. And of course has Teleport, which makes her the queen of boss farming and getting gear to help any other classes you might want to play around with later.

The only other class that is kind of strong, or at least super safe would the be Necromancer. Without an Enigma though, a Summoner is a chore to play. Very easy, and very safe, and also the least gear dependent of any build. The other two viable builds are situationally great, but are very gear dependent and also don’t really open up until 30+.

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That’s because this game didn’t get balance changes throughout it’s lifetime after patch 1.11
It’s an unfinished job that people want to remain forever unfinished.

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No nerfs, just buff the weaker classes.
No one likes nerfs, everyone likes buffs!

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This is how you end up with runaway power creep and skills that eventually do 5 billion damage.

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Crushing blow makes a world of difference. Black runeword is cheap and great.

My cold zealot was basically at a wall in act 1 hell until I got to 60% Crushing blow.

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I like to play a style in the vain of Solo Self Found and my Barb was level 71 when I cleared Nightmare and Act I hell was a complete wall for him, taking like 20 seconds to kill a single zombie. He needs a respec and a massive gear change. I found a bloodtree stump so I might switch him to maces.

My sorc was level 59 when I cleared Nightmare and I just used stuff I found on the ground while questing, didn’t even farm bosses or respec.

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my hammerdin felt like god mode until he died at 92. my assassin feels like hardmode compared to it, but i’m guessing it’ll settle once/if i get infinity :wink:

i’d buff zon(bow) and early barb (i think barb is a late bloomer and could become OP if buffed in the wrong way)

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Because the forums back then had fellas whining about WW barbs day in day out year after year. The skill wasn’t just nerfed into the ground. It was forgotten completely when it came to dishing out synergies. The damn thing is a level 30 skill that starts with a penalty and no synergies. That’s what happens when folks whine about “OP skills”. Zzz

On the other hand, it’s possible for a barb to punch Hell Baal to death faster than an elemental druid can kill Baal. Balance is amusing.

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I’d be okay with reasonable buff.
Bring back the Nova sorc, it was nerfed to the ground.
The Nova sorc used to be so fun to play with.

Buff martial art skills on the assassin
Buff Bow skills on the Amazon
Buff the war cry barb (caster)

Make the FCR breakpoints on the barb easier to reach so a caster barb could use enigma and teleport effectively.

Make me enjoy this game more fun by giving me options I lost or options I never had before.

Make monsters resistant to elemental dmg, not immuned.
The fire druid needs that.

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I agree that melee has the short end of the stick and a buff would be nice but I doubt balance changes will come because a majority of the bet playerbase will be upset. Melee builds do however even out in endgame when everyone has bis gear. However getting there is much more difficult if you aren’t a caster.

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No. Go play D3.

20 characters.

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i think the pill would be easy to swallow if they came up with something big like an xpack. but i dont see them going that big on this remake that’s probably there just to hold our hand until d4

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I often complain about the Barb just cause I love him so much but I’ll agree the Druid is in an even worse balance spot overall. I think they tried to design a hybrid jack of all trades class with the druid but just nothing really ever seems to come together with him (IMO at least).

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Go play original d2 and let the adults who live in the present speak

The pill would be easy to swallow anyway. They’ll complain for a weak and then make new builds they never trully enjoyed before and you won’t hear about them again.

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What was it now…

ah right… git gud bruah

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If you trully wanted the game to handled the way Blizzard North did it you’d want balance changes and new items.
People who think the game is perfect the way it is are enjoying the post Activision-Blizzard D2 that was abandoned with tons of things left unfinished.
If you truly respect the work Blizzard North did before Activision bought them, then you’d want it to treated the same way Blizzard North did (with mountains of changes every other patch)

“The game is never updated, nothing ever changes” is the last thing people want when playing a game they want to play for years. Proof? OG D2 became a desert where only botters and the occasional returning player would be online for years because there was nothing left for people to do that they didn’t already do a hundred time.

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My intention was to go swords but even with some points on sword mastery and no point on axes the Butcher’s pupil was outputting more DPS than swords so I put 1 point on it.

Nowadays I’ve found plenty of nice maces with the sorceress so I’m thinking maybe respec into maces if I can’t find a decent sword in the near future.

I do spam warcries a lot, specially the one that stuns and gives me HP. They’ve been carrying me since Nightmare