I guess what I’m getting at here, is if you are talking purely clear speed, and not just unique sniping, then if they buffed every melee skill to hit 100% of the time, ignore all blocking, and do a billion damage, it’s still just going to be slower than popping off 2-3 aoe’s, clearing a screen, and moving on.
There is a hard limit to how good single target can be. That hard limit is still WELL below current AoE. You can’t more than 1 shot things ya know? At that point is just comes down to “can X spell kill X things faster than you can hit everything one at a time.” Currently the answer will always be “yes.” Even if Whirlwind, the current “fastest” physical melee skill was killing 2 things per 4 frames, the time it takes to travel to each target would still put it slower.
Casters just currently clear much faster than melee can even move from target to target.
I did not mention clear speed and should not be used as a performance metric for buffing underperforming melee skills.
What metric do we judge them by then? Boss killing speed? PvP? Speed running? Boss pack sniping? Or are you saying simply in relation to other melee skills?
The most important thing to remember is to not radically transform melee skills, which could undermine class fantasy.
Instead, sensible improvements to melee skills is the best approach and to not reinvent the wheel. Melee in general is slower in clear speed than casters due to lack of AoE, but that’s ok and working as intended.
1 Like
I mean I can agree with that, I just feel it’s all a bit pointless as long as lightning elemental builds just clears screens in a button press you know? Rather see that addressed first. Before that everything else just feels a bit like wasted effort.
I prefer to play a Conc Barb for a single target slogfest and harder playthrough. I still think the developers can make a few tweaks to improve the viability of this character.
If I want to vomit lightning everywhere, I can always play the Sorceress. It’s not my style though and could care less about clear speed. Let’s improve melee for the sake of melee and keep casters out of the equation because at the end of the day its a radically different experience.
Ehh true enough I can see that. I mean I pretty much do the same thing myself. Hate my sorc and am always trying to figure out what to do with it. Usually end up going fire, orb, or something silly like frost nova just because I find it more fun. Been playing a decent bit of Throw barb just because it’s something different. Always been partial to Bowas as well.
I just wish the entire game was slowed the F down at this point. It’s slowly turning into a korean F2P MMO lol.
1 Like
Agree with you here. If I was a developer for D2R, first things I would do is remove mana potions from all vendors right after I nerf Spirit and buff The Grandfather.
2 Likes
I would also like mana to actually be a resource again, the massive mana boost from Spirit coupled with the insane mana regen of Insight and mana potions from vendors make it too plentiful and thus diminish the need for stats like energy, mana regen, or just plain mana from other gear pieces.
I’ve majorly nerfed those in my mod and I plan on removing mana potions from vendors as well, I haven’t playtested it yet but I think it’ll feel more like pre-LoD where you had to carefully monitor your mana usage and be frugal with your mana potions that only dropped from monsters/chests (or from a barb using Find Potion).
Maybe I won’t completely remove them from vendors but I’ll limit the tier of potions that you can get, like I’ll make it so that you can’t buy any mana potions in Act 1, only minor potions in A2-A3, light in A4-A5, and capped to regular from A1 Nightmare onwards or something like that.
1 Like
thats cool, i would add this change:
make WW cost mana per second and cut the just to whirl to the clicked position, make it free like in D3 and keep the increased movement speed of frenzy that would add so much fun and maybe even a synergy of frenzy/WW so that hybrid builds would be an option.
damn that may actually work. Also lots of other melee items besides the grandfather need substantial buffs.
2 Likes
Expensive cube recipe for endless Quivers, bolts and Javs. I want QoL when I’m in end end game. Melee has indestructible, Throw barb has replen on crit. In the end game I don’t care about “realism”, I don’t want to repair my javs every run.
The Grandfather is just the beginning. Here is the game plan for IMPROVING ITEMIZATION
1 Like