Question: Which skill is the most deserving of a rework?
back in LoD I moded the barb skill “Bash” to be similar to the druid shockwave skill but only shorter range (3 yards) and no stun, and renamed it “Cleave”
Barb combat skills (except WW and Berserk) suck a&& , especially early on when you have no good weapons, so i wanted a skill to help you level and give good aoe, no matter what weapon you use.
I always thought bash should have some crushing blow, depending on how many points you put in. It has the same graphical effect even.
I’d take an AOE swipe over what it currently is any day…
I was actually going to suggest poison dagger!
the swords really dont do too much from what I saw, as it struck the storm caster.
Just my opinion, there’s obviously people who’ll like it, but I’m not the biggest fan of the swords being summoned and following you around. I feel like it maybe departs from the skill and skill tree a little too far.
Perhaps an alternative could be that it creates poison clouds so that one hit can spread into a group a bit.
You’ve really juiced up the poison damage (or reduced the timer) on it though, I just did a poison dagger necro playthrough, and these venom lords are dropping wicked fast compared to what I experienced 
Could do best of both worlds, add CB to Bash and rework Stun skill into Cleave.
I think some skills could get some flat damage and AR added to them to help mitigate the weapon dependency early on as well.
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worst offender skill-wise imo is the amazon’s multiple shot.
Any of the 210 skills in the game get better when you place more points into them. Damage increases, duration increases, other boni increase, radius increase, a percentage increases, something good happens. Could be small and almost negligible, but there is something.
Sole exception I’m aware of: MS. You reach lvl 23 and the max number of 24 arrows is reached. Further points will only increase mana cost. Nothing else (we ignore that it’s a synergy for 2 other skills, since we’re talking about the skills themselves). So you place more points into MS and all it does is get worse (more expensive).
Easy solution: Cap mana cost at 26 when lvl 23 is reached. Obviously, any more points would be wasted, but at least the skill wouldn’t get worse.
Best solution imo: As we all know, only the centre 2 arrows carry effects like CB, OW, etc. so for every point over 23, one more arrow will carry those effects. That would cover everything up to skill lvl 45 which should suffice.
Alternative solution: Points over 23 increase the damage by a small bit, like 1% or something.
The silver medal goes to Cold Mastery.
If you’re facing a sundered monster, any skill point is needed to increase damage. But alas, for non-sundered monsters, anything over skill level 17 might be entirely wasted (CR=0%). Anything over 37 is guaranteed to be wasted on non-sundered non-immunes (CR=95%) - and this isn’t some academic argument, maxroll cold builds can reach cm lvl 43.
So no matter what, you either didn’t place enough points into CM or you placed too many - or even both at the same time.
So change CM to work like FM and LM. Rework Tal Rasha’s Lidless Eye’s complete set partial bonus and you’re set. You might wanna rework other cold items, but only TR is really needed.
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I’m betting when they thought up MS, they didn’t anticipate people having +20 skills from items and charms, and it was never revised. Good ole powercreep. :o
I haven’T thought this thru, so just a snippet: bash is a lvl 1 skill - and CB is an extremely powerful effect. E.g. it’s central for the paladin’s UberDiablo and UberTristram killing ability. I’m not sure that putting something powerful onto a lvl 1 skill or any skill makes sense.
You can argue that the sorc has SF. Initially, it could take down any non-LI to a sliver, even in hell difficulty. There is a reason why they added a floor to SF’s effect. And of course, LI were much, Much, MUCH more common than PI back then. That was before infinity and obviously before sunders.
I’m 100% with you. The scary thing is, you can reach that point of negative impact with just +4 skills - which was actually quite doable even in vanilla d2. So I’d say they just didn’t think it thru at all.
Even something as simple as boosting the number of center arrows that proc CB and other chance on hit abilities would be beneficial and worth it to invest more points into MS. First the number of arrows would be maxed, then it’d start upping the number of center arrows that proc chance on hit abilities.
that was my “best solution”, yeah. 
hard disagree
a skill being low level of acquisition doesn’t mean it should be bad
all skills should be viable
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I agree with you, just because a skill can be acquired at level one does not mean it should be trash. But, not all skills should be top tier. I think all skills should be viable as well, meaning they should fit a purpose, even if pretty niche.
Level 1 skills we all love and use:
Amazon - Critical Strike
-This is a pretty amazing level 1 skill.
Sorceress - Charged Bolt, Warmth, Frozen Armor
-All of these have use, and Charged Bolt is not bad when fully geared. Frozen armor is almost always used as a 1 point wonder, but Warmth is an excellent level 1 skill that is almost always used at least with 1 point. I’ve maxed it to remove the requirement for an Insight on my merc.
Necromancer - Raise Skeleton, Bone Armor, Amplify Damage
-All of these are very nice level 1 skills, with skeletons being a build of it’s own, and amp damage benefits multiple builds and is excellent for group play.
Paladin - Smite, Might
-Smite is the king of uber killing abilities, as well as a very good PvP skill. Might is a decent aura, but is often passed up by other higher damage auras. However, if you can fit it in on a mercenary, it’s very nice to have.
Barbarian - Howl, weapon masteries.
-The Barbarian doesn’t really have a good level 1 skill to use for killing. Howl is extremely useful in SSF, as well as end game MF builds. Weapon masteries are good for your set weapon type, but the remaining skills are almost useless. Bash should serve a different purpose for sure.
Druid - Firestorm, Werewolf/lycanthropy, Raven, Poison Creeper
All of these abilities are very good for right out of the gate at level one. You can clear normal difficulty with any of these, most notably, firestorm and raven, but poison creeper can carry you decently as well. The only one that nobody uses in endgame is poison creeper.
Assassin - Tiger Strike, Dragon Talon, Claw Mastery, Fire Blast
-All of these serve an excellent purpose both in early game and late game.
Note, there are plenty level 1 skills not listed because nobody really uses them, and they don’t have much of a reason to be used. Find potion, inner sight, etc.
2 Likes
T e l e p o r t is no1
already did
2sec cooldown level 1
-0.1sec cooldown per level
2 Likes
spirit of barbs
rework into a - physical and poison resist conviction like offensive aura
maybe starting at 5-10% and getting like 2% per level
nothing to disagree. I was serious about
and
wasn’t a figure of speech either. I’m not sure. Period.
My impression is that in the beginning (before synergies and even before cast delays) the original 150 skills were at least partly designed to be better further down a skill tree.
The three fire and also cold arrow skills were imo designed to become increasingly more powerful: single target → AoE → higher damage AoE plus damage over time.
low damage single target slow → higher damage single target freeze → AoE
jav: poison → stronger poison with more area
Similar some of the sorc skills:
singel target fire → higher damage AoE fire → even stronger AoE plus damage over time
low damage slow → higher damage freeze → AoE freeze (albeit weaker against a single target than the skill before)
Paladin:
damage increase → Stronger damage increase plus 20% uninterrupt → even stronger damage increase (for self) and IAS
Is Might viable? Kinda. But it certainly was and is inferior to two other skills. It is only a
because mercs were changed from the original design. Originally they just died so quickly noone bothered with them (and did act 2 actually offer an aura back then? I don’t remember)
How much would you Anu boost Fire/Ice Bolt so that it becomes viable?
those don’t need a rework imho
they are already improved through my Affinity system
investing in fire skills increases the damage of fire bolt
investing in projectile skills increases the speed at which you cast them
investing in cold skills increases the damage of ice bolt
investing in projectile skills increases the number of projectile it shoot
iirc it’s like +missile per 5 or 8 skills
tho I’m considering maybe changing firebolt to be a ring of fire bolt 1 bolt at lvl 1 and +1 per level
This would be really awesome, and Wisp Projector would become high value.
to be honest with you… I reworked it slightly to have half % thorn and half flat thorn and it now also taunts and you can get an additional one each 10lvl
Druid firestorm, I wish it was like the proc you get from a torch. It needs more area of effect and yards, stronger graphic.