While very grateful for the new Terror Zone feature, and encouraged by the several bug fixes, there is still a great hope for something more in the PTR. Even if they are only small changes, they would help a lot in giving us something to test during the PTR, and a broader constituency for the changes being made. While important, Terror Zones address the concerns of only one group of players. I’d suggest the following six ideas:
1: Make Half Freeze Duration stack. Two items with Half Freeze Duration should become Cannot Be Frozen. This small change would open up a lot of new equipment choices for melee characters since Cannot Be Frozen is so important to them.
2: Fix Attack Rating version of Superior Weapons.
Right now, it varies from +1 to +3. That has to have been a mistake or typo when implemented. That change in AR does nothing.
Make it vary from +100 AR to +300 AR, that way the plus to attack rating on a superior weapon is actually slightly useful. Honestly, +300 AR is still worse than the equivalent of +15% ED in terms of how marginal it is. It would also be an easy change to help melee builds with chance to hit, something that they struggle with compared to casters.
3: Add item level to the item description tooltip. With the addition of Terror Zones areas will now become variable, and the monster levels in there variable. Making it much more important to have accurate knowledge of what the item level is for purposes of rerolling recipes and crafting recipes.
4: Add higher level Faster Cast affixes for Rare/Magical Staves
Currently the Faster Cast Affixes available are:
Of the Apprentice (10% Faster Cast; item level 5)
Of the Magus (20% Faster Cast; item level 29)
Scepters can roll only “Of the Apprentice.” Orbs, Wands, and Staves can all roll either “Of the Apprentice” or “Of the Magus.”
However, Staves have a significant disadvantage compared to Orbs and Wands, since they are two handed and preclude using shields, which with Spirit can grant up to 35% Faster Cast.
Add at least two additional levels:
Of the Wizard (40% Faster Cast, item level 55)
Of the Archmage (60% Faster Cast, item level 76)
That’s still 10% Faster Cast less than dual Spirit. But maybe with the other right affixes, basically +2 to Sorceress Skills, some resistances, and Staff mods of +3 to a main skill, and +3 to the associated Mastery, maybe it can compete with dual Spirit?
It still can’t compete with Heart of the Oak + Spirit, but at least it’d give me a reason to look at a rare staff when it drops and provides a small benefit to caster builds.
5: Give us some small changes to Class Skills. Change to class skills is one of the huge draws of the PTR and the patch for a new Ladder season. The addition of the new builds of the Fist of Heavens Paladin, the Fire Druid, the Summoner Druid, the Martial Arts Assassin, and the Nova Sorceress were huge sources of hype and interest. I can tell that the focus this patch is going to be Terror Zones rather than Skill changes. But even if the changes are only small, they can help generate a lot of interest.
I have a thread on some proposed skill changes, that are hopefully simple. Things like changing what the synergies are, etc. Yet these changes could introduce some new builds to viability, such as a Frost Nova Sorceress build, a Psychic Hammer Assassin build, benefits to a Barbarian without a shield, a physical Spear Amazon, etc.
6: Buffs to weak uniques and/or sets. If this was even just a buff to single unique (I’d suggest Tyrael’s Might) and a single set it would go a long way to provide a concrete promise that there will be continuing work on these issues, even if that’s not the focus of this season’s patch. I have a comprehensive thread on lackluster sets and ideas to buff them. Even choosing a simple one to fix would help show that there are still plans to improve them.