While I am interested in seeing the future for the game, especially now with a new patch to season structure in place which points towards more updates forthcoming, this feels a bit odd and wondering if some of this is fueling into what we might see in Blizzcon. Overall, I feel that this doesn’t really move the needle in inspiration to play the new Ladder season, and find it odd that a few small updates on low level gear qualify as a new Ladder only drop.
Anyways:
- Bloodletter - Consider Indestructible or repair durability instead of FRW. This would place Bloodletter as another good option besides Ginther’s Rift and Butcher’s Pupil for Nightmare melee characters, or an option in Hell when upped besides upping the other two or using a Phase Blade weapon. If you really wanted to spice it up, remove the Barbarian only for Sword Mastery or WW (or both), which would allow this weapon to actually spin off new builds.
- Which brings to question has the bug that removes indestructible from Hwanin’s Bill when upped been fixed? Or incorrect level requirements being listed for Set Items when upped been fixed? Longstanding bug since 2.4.
- Overall, the rest of the items are fine, though seem underwhelming considering most players probably will quickly outgrow the usefulness of these updates with the exception of the Angelic and Manald buffs.
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how useful is that Manald “buff”?
If you are using Manald as a weaponskill resource management tool (like on a Bowazon), then having FRW gives you other options to consider on Boots. It’s not necessarily a huge buff, but there are useful cases of use here.
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The manald buff is approximately 3x FRW small charms worth of usefulness
Also keep in mind FRW has diminishing returns
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I think the biggest issue with “buffing” low level uniques like this is that a) people rarely find them while leveling so they’re only good for twinks and b) you can quickly outgrow them when you get into runewords.
I think Manald actually deserves more than FRW. It’s one of the most disappointing identifications you can get when you have a unique. It’s like “oh this could be good…. oh nvm, charsi time”
I’m not saying it has to be as good as soj but give it some kind of utility like life steal. This would make it a serviceable dual leech budget option until you get a good blood ring.
I know people are 50/50 on sunders but as a D2 classic enjoyer they’ve actually grown on me. They solve issues with lightning and fire builds making them viable earlier on without needing ridiculously expensive gear. Making them more rare isn’t going to help most people. It just limits us back to the same type of ladder start builds again.
And again I feel like ED bug and uber ancients not dropping items need to be priority #1 for blizzard to fix over everything else.
See you guys in ladder in a couple weeks!
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Is that only useful to the bowazon?
The only thing that remotely interests me is the changes to Non-Ladder - this might actually become somewhat of a meaningful game mode if completing/progressing Chronicle is the goal.
Otherwise, I’m really confused on the rationale for these updates. Having an excess of shards is not a problem once you can use them well. Making Sunders harder to get outside of heralds isn’t wanted. Changes to random low-level uniques and sets that you probably won’t find at a meaningful level seems like dev time not well spent. No mention of changes to herald damage output or re-tuning of Colossal Ancients to not require busted builds to even have a chance at completing.
I hope this is simply a filler patch/season and that something better and actually meaningful will get announced at BlizzCon, but today’s news has almost instantly wiped out my desire to log in and play.
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I am still waiting for a patch that makes me want to play ladder. Those unique buffs don’t cut it for me.
Sunder availability lowered… more stuff coming to nonladder.
So we’ll have Warlock Abyss party on ladder again and my Frenzy Barb still sucks. Thanks, but no.
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i didnt play last season so idk of sunder drop rates were buffed last path. but i know on rotw launch they were absymal. i never found one the entire season
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i am just a casual solo player, never had any trade this season,
and i got all kinds of sunder charm except lightning.
the upgraded ones are all crappy, but that’s another story .
Yes, ty their priorities are completley f******
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My dad played quite a bit of the season and never got a Sunder, but he never really plays as much of Hell beyond getting rushed. He only really played his upped Witchwild Strafe build in Hell for about a week before spending most of his time in NM, which is where it seems people were getting them.
I only played the first few days myself and got bored farming Hell Meph on Sorc, and without some other builds that inspired me to play, quit pretty quickly and waited for D3 to reset.
Agreed. I was hoping for much more myself — this is honestly far below anything I could have imagined.
These changes are basically nothing. There’s absolutely no reason to bother with ladder. I’ve always played ladder, even in seasons with zero meaningful updates. I’ve even been on non‑ladder the last few days, waiting for the new season to start.
But now? This was a really big let‑down. So bad that it actually killed my motivation to keep playing non‑ladder as well. For the first time ever, it feels like there’s no reason at all to jump into ladder next season. I’ll just stay non‑ladder.
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I think it looks like a net nerf
Boost to low level items that most people won’t find till they don’t need them anymore, and won’t want to trade more than a Pammy for anyway
More nerfs to warlock, really need to see where bind demon +damage falls to. Could be minimal, could tank the skill for anything but meat shield and ruin summon lock
Shard drops probably a buff, they drop more than you use them and they block other items
Statue nerf means ancient jewels will go up in price - 1 set = ist was a pretty good balance point imo
Heralds should be more worthwhile but sunders will be rarer again. Hopefully the two offset.
Will Gheeds be more common with MF sunders nerfed? MF sunders were the best source for phys and magic though
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How much dev time do you think these few small items changes take? 
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I suppose it depends on how long it took them to determine which items to change and how. The low-level experience really isn’t bad because of itemization - it’s bad because of potion-spam and not getting your core abilities in some cases until 24 or 30.
Bugfixes are the most time consuming and they fixed a lot of them. The other thing is they probably have content for another 2-3 ladders but they just wont give it all just before the Blizzcon. It’s obvious.
Overall I like changes to uniques and Heralds drop change. And ofc bugfixes are always nice.
And there it is… as I said (somewhere)… please don’t tell me they are going to trickle out all the item changes across ladders for the next 6 years until all the items that need updating have been updated
Disgusting
Your entitled mind is disgusting 