Solid Class Changes for Patch 2.5

PTR Feedback
1

Before Blizzard finalizes Patch 2.5, I wanted to share with the development team a list of class changes that the majority of the community would support/endorse…

Amazon

  • Cold Arrow - increase range to be the same as Fire Arrow (reduced range for Cold Arrow persists for both Amazon and Act 1 Cold Rogue)
  • Ice Arrow - buff damage as skill is single target (e.g. double damage as compared to Freezing Arrow and would make skill more valuable versus bosses and elites)
  • Impale - benefits from critical strike and deadly strike (arbitrary this single-target skill is unable to crit, apart of Amazon’s repertoire)

Assassin

  • Martial Arts - charge-up skill duration doubled to 30 seconds from 15 seconds (helps with pvp) and remove next-hit delay caused by some abilities, such as Claws of Thunder and Phoenix Strike
  • Blade Shield - no longer uses weapon durability. Skill designed to be used in tandem with Blade Fury, doesn’t mesh well due to risk of breaking Eth weapon
  • Cloak of Shadows - cooldown removed to incentivize leveling skill

Druid

  • Rabies - increase poison creeper synergy and reduce poison duration
  • Lycanthropy - add faster run/walk by 1% per level for greater mobility
  • Hunger - skill always hits target, guaranteed life and mana leech
  • Summon Spirit Wolf, Summon Dire Wolf - increase movement speed by 30%
  • Poison Creeper, Carrion Vine, Solar Creeper - significantly increase life and add physical damage reduction to vines for improved survivability

Barbarian

  • War Cry - reduce mana cost to 0.60 per level to improve cost-effectiveness, change damage from physical to magic, and make skill unblockable
  • Concentrate - change Bash synergy to Shout, which complements this uniquely defensive build and increase Berserk synergy to 3% (up from 1%)
  • Berserk - need to always hit. Skill should not rely on attack rating (magic damage)
  • Leap Attack - new War Cry synergy that improves AoE damage of leap attack
  • Grim Ward - remove fear effect and can now be used on any corpse
  • Frenzy - remove Taunt synergy and adjust the other synergies as follows:
    • Double Swing: +8% damage per level
    • Berserk: +3% magic damage per level
    • Increased Stamina: +6% damage and
      +0.4 seconds per level
  • Find Potion - increase drop chance for Rejuv Potions, add chance to find Throwing Potions, add new Double Throw synergy that adds damage for:
    • Strangling Gas Potions
    • Choking Gas Potions
    • Rancid Gas Potions
    • Fulminating Potions
    • Exploding Potions
    • Oil Potions
  • Increased Stamina - grants a passive increase to faster hit recovery per level

Necromancer

  • Golem Mastery - grants 10% AR per level instead of flat 25 AR per level. Also, now adds 10% damage per level (single, strong monster)
  • Blood Golem - apply open wounds to both on striking and when struck
  • Fire Golem - increase fire damage and lower enemy fire resistance per level
  • Raise Skeletal Mage - significantly increase elemental damage and missile speed. Also, missiles now have chance to pierce per level
  • Poison Explosion - apply poison damage immediately in radius of effect

Sorceress

  • Hydra - Fire Bolt synergy increased from +3% to +6%, remove Fire Ball synergy. Damage remains the same, but allows more hybrid builds
  • Thunderstorm - radius of effect increased and adds an additional target every 5 levels
  • Meteor - reduce impact time by half and convert some fire damage to physical damage to help deal with immunity, similar to Molten Boulder. Keep overall damage the same
  • Frozen Armor, Shiver Armor, Chilling Armor - can now be cast on allies (similar to Enchant) with intended purpose of adding utility to cold armor spells
8 Likes
2

I guess this is just me, but I like the fear effect on Grim Ward. Slow means they don’t run away fast enough to bother me. I do wish it didn’t require a corpse though.

Most auras grant % AR, so I’m not sure about this change. Often flat AR is better than % AR, maybe it’s different for Golems, but I’d like some number crunching to support that idea before supporting the change.

Definitely support this change though. Hydra isn’t powerful enough to justify an 80 point investment (20 Hydra, 20 Fire mastery, 20 Fire Bolt, and 20 Fire Ball). However, a 60 point investment would be pretty good for where it is.

I don’t think either of those changes work very well for Thunder Storm.

The number one problem for Thunder Storm is that it doesn’t proc often enough. It needs to be at least twice, and preferably three times as often. Maybe the best way to accomplish this would be to allow Faster Cast to apply to Thunder Storm. It doesn’t even need to use break points. Just take the current timer for Thunder Storm (proc every X seconds), and change it to X/(2*Faster Cast Rate). That way 100% Faster Cast would proc twice as fast, and 150% faster Cast would proc 3 times as fast.

The second problem for Thunder Storm is the randomness of the target. Maybe make it so it always strikes the monster closest to the player. That gives it a sort of defensive aspect, and also makes flavorful sense. The light bolt from the Thunder Storm around the player always strikes the nearest target. It would make Thunder Storm / Static Field a viable if quirky build option, and synergize well with an Enchant Sorceress, an Inferno Sorceress, a Frost Nova/Nova Sorceress, and even with a Blaze sorceress.

Agreed, though the comparison I’d make is to Armageddon. It’d be a nice way to make the Fireball/Meteor build able to deal with Fire Immunes.

My suggested changes are slightly different:
Small changes to skills for each class - PTR Feedback - Diablo 2 Resurrected Forums (blizzard.com)

I hope the developers are willing to make some small balance changes to continue opening up new builds.

3 Likes
3

I was thinking the same thing, but then I realized the VFX and flashing lights of Thunderstorm may cause an epileptic seizure. Unless they change the visuals of TS, I don’t think having this skill proc more often is good.

4

Well, then they need to change the visuals (if there really is a risk of causing seizures, that’s just a good business decision).

If that’s hyperbole, and it’s just about people not liking the visuals, then just play a different build. It’s not like anyone is forcing you to play a Thunder Storm sorc. I just can’t see how this skill can be viable if it doesn’t proc more often. The game moves too fast for a skill that does damage to one monster only once every two seconds.

3 Likes
5

I was half kidding and the statement is hyperbole, but the VFX of TS is hard on the eyes… maybe it’s just me? That’s why I thought instead of proccing more often, the skill would hit more targets in area.

6

War Cry needs a slight damage increase, a radius increase, and a reduction in mana cost. Until this happens, it’s not really viable.

2 Likes
7

It shouldn’t require a corpse.

2 Likes
8

Thunderstorm doesn’t necessarily need to proc more often but it could get a secondary “attack” that procs from the target being struck. Think of it as the Sorceress version of Fist of Heavens. Lightning bolt strikes the target and either a Nova is emitted from the target striking nearby enemies or Charged Bolts based on number of nearby enemies(like Fist of Heavens), seek out to do AoE damage. These Charged Bolts would pierce, as would the base Charged Bolt spell. Of the two options, Nova would be preferred since Static Field is the synergy for both spells. If Nova synergized with Tunderstorm’s secondary attack(aka the Nova), it’d yield a solid build with enough points for 0.75 ES(just not 95% absorption).

I’d also advocate following for Paladins:

Holy Bolt: Fist of Heavens synergy increased to 60%
Fist of Heavens: Holy Bolt synergy increased to 20%
Concentration aura: No longer affects Blessed Hammer
Sanctuary aura: Now applies to Ranged Physical attacks(Lawbringer in Bows/XBows). Now affects Blessed Hammer at 25% of listed value.

Concentration affecting Blessed Hammer didn’t make logical sense to me. Sanctuary on the other hand passively deals Magic Damage to nearby Undead so having it also buff Blessed Hammer made more logical sense. The damage output of Blessed Hammer wouldn’t change by much but my buffs for HB/FoH are modest(imo).

Level 39 Concentration: 630% / 2 = 315% or 4.15 multiplier
Level 39 Sanctuary: 1290% / 4 = 322.5% or 4.22 multiplier

Blessed Hammer damage goes up marginally, if at all

BH: Level 41 presently yields 3168-3194 x 4.22 = 13.3k-13.4k compared to 13.1k-13.2k with Concentration

HB: Level 41 presently yields 6358-7227. With the synergy buff, damage is increased to 7514-8541.
FoH: Level 41 presently yields 4296-4336 Magic Damage. With synergy buff, it’d deal 5370-5420.

Just felt HB/FoH could use a bump to make it more competitive with Blessed Hammer. It still wouldn’t handle P8 like BH and of course has the Animal limitations that BH lacks. Furthermore, with Sanctuary now applying to BH, Hammerdins have the means of countering Undead MI with Physical attacks since they lost BH’s buff to Holy Bolt.

1 Like
9

Agreed.

I intentionally avoided discussing the Paladin as I wanted to focus on buffing lackluster skills, but since you brought it up, I would hit the Paladin with the nerf bat.

The developers should put hammers in line with other class abilities in terms of damage. This nerf is more important than ever with the introduction of Terror Zones to not give an unfair advantage. Damage on hammers should be cut by 50%, which is removing Concentration Aura as you mentioned.

However, to be fair, I think underused Paladin skills such as Sacrifice, Conversion, Prayer and Defiance could be looked at for improvement.

10

If you read my suggestion, I didn’t nerf Hammerdins(despite my desire deep down to do so). Quite the contrary, I actually “buffed” them a bit(100-200 Magic Damage isn’t much but it’s technically a buff). If you remove their Concentration aura buff, they literally do HALF of what a Bone Necromancer can do while having to get in close to even attack. That’s also why I buffed HB/FoH so as to bring them closer to where a Hammerdin presently is. I mean sure the Bone Necromancer deals 6-7k Magic Damage depending Skill/Equipment used but they also can attack from relative safety and have arguably the best AoE Nukes in the game with Corpse Explosion.

As for Sacrifice/Conversion, I literally have no idea as to what to do about them. Prayer is tricky aura given that in LLD it’d be invaluable were it not for it’s mana cost(in that regard it keeps the balance). Yet what to do with Prayer, I’m not entirely sure. Life Leech was one idea honestly. As for Defiance, perhaps Physical Damage Reduction(+1 PDR per level) or Increased Block Chance?

11

I like the idea of PDR for Defiance, seems very fitting to me and would be a nice buff to pally.

3 Likes
12

Make sorc frost nova works by synergy with forzen/shiver/chilling amor instead of bilz and forzen orb.

2 Likes
13

The Cold Armor Skills need an overhaul…

  • Frozen Armor, Shiver Armor, Chilling Armor - should not have synergies with each other. No one is going to invest 20 points for all 3 armors. They should have synergies with other skills…
    • Chilling Armor - synergy w/ Ice Bolt
    • Frozen Armor - synergy w/ Frozen Orb
    • Shiver Armor - synergy w/ Enchant
14

I’m a somewhat casual player trying out a Hydra/Frozen orb hybrid that I’ve gotten up to level 88 this ladder. I agree that Hydra can use a bit more love. I have +9 to sorc skills from gear. Between max Hydra (29), FM (29), and 20 hard points between FBall,and Fbolt, my Hydras do around 1400 damage. My Frozen Orb (29) is doing around 400 damage.

The only Frozen Orb Synergy is Ice Bolt at 2%. I’d like to see that synergy bumped to 4%. It’s a real pita when you hit fire immunes and need to break out the frozen orb pea shooter. I think this along with removing the Fball Synergy from Hydra and bumping the Fbolt Synergy to 6% would help this hybrid build.

2 Likes
15

I agree they should have synergies with other skills. But the synergies I’d recommend are the following:

Frozen Armor: Ice Blast, Glacial Spike

This makes sense because the synergies of Frozen Armor increase the freeze length, and these are the other skills that freeze things.

Shiver Armor: Frost Nova

This makes sense because Shiver Armor is about defending up close and apply damage. Frost Nova requires you to get into close range to cast Frost Nova and damage the enemy. If you also change the Frost Nova synergies to Shiver Armor you then have a viable Frost Nova build that while lower damage than Nova, is also safer what with the slow effect and the armor buff from 20 points in Shiver Armor.

Chilling Armor: Ice Bolt, Frozen Orb

This makes sense because Chilling Armor is about countering ranged attackers with Ice Bolts and Ice Bolt and Frozen Orb are the two spells that that do that damage. It’s also make sense if Frozen Orb got an additional synergy from Chilling Armor that increased damage there by +2% (just like Ice Bolt does). That would be a slight buff to Frozen Orb that wouldn’t shoot it past Blizzard either.

2 Likes
16

These are solid suggestions. I was hoping they’d buff damage or reduce cooldown of Frozen Orb. Having Frozen Orb get an additional synergy from Chilling Armor that increased damage by +2% is a solid change.

17

Been thinking a bit more about the Hydra/Fire Bolt/Meteor changes, and I think following would be the more complete changes that are desirable:

Hydra: Change Damage Synergy to Hydra of Fire Bolt to 6%, remove the synergy from Fire Ball. (Damage stays the same, but only takes 60 points for build, allowing for greater build flexibility).

Fire Bolt: Add Knockback effect to Fire Bolt. Change +16% Fire Damage synergy from Meteor to +16% Damage Synergy from Hydra. Add new +20 Physical Damage synergy from Meteor (not a percentage, flat damage, so maxing out at 400 physical damage on a Fire Bolt with 20 points in Meteor).

Meteor: Cut the time to impact in half. Convert 50% of Fire Damage to Physical Damage.

With those changes, against Monsters vulnerable to Fire you’d cast Meteor, and then spam Fire Ball while waiting for the casting delay to run out (or for trash mobs just cast Fire Ball without bothering with Meteor, it’s that good), but for Physical Immunes you’d cast Meteor and then spam Fire Bolt while waiting for the casting delay to run out.

Meanwhile, for a Hydra build instead of casting Fire Ball after deploying all your Hydras, you’d cast Fire Bolt, which while doing less damage than Fire Ball has the effect of Knockback which actually works quite well with the Hydra playstyle. It would also work well with Thunder Storm, making that a viable hybrid with Hydra in addition to the more typical Frozen Orb.

You could also do a 100 point build with 20 Fire Bolt, 20 Fire Ball, 20 Meteor, 20 Hydra, and 20 Fire Mastery for the highest fire damage possible with Physical Damage on the Meteor/Fire Bolt as your back up for Fire Immunes.

18

Fast hit recovery and fast block frames rollback to version 2.3

PvP character balance that hasn’t been patched since the last Legacy Diablo 2.

I’m making some corrections now, but it feels like things are getting worse and worse.

assassin
nerfed speed
nerfed trap installation speed
Nerf finish move hit judgment

A nerfed W-w (chaos rune word)
Nerfed FHR & FB (mind blast and traps combo)

barbarian
Nerfed wwAttack Speed, AR

19

ok but merge golem mastery with skeletal mastery and summon resist for the new “summon mastery”
we only spend pts in SM anyway

change fire golem to putrid/poison golem and give him an aura with poison DoT

YES

additively

  • reduce summons collision by half
  • get rid of Pexplosion, no need for another skill that works like CE
  • change CE fire element to poison, necs have nothing to do with fire
  • add “poison pit” in the place of Pexplosion, “summon putrid remains from the depths to damage enemies over time”, more skill more AoE and more DoT
  • rename PnB to “Poison, Bone and Blood Spells”
    • add d3 blood rush to it, more lvls less hp consumed by use
  • revives:
    • reduce the number of revives
    • make revives last forever just like skellys
    • increase revives dmg
    • increase revives move speed
  • make, not only IG, but all our summons carry over games

YES

YES

1 Like
20

I’m not a fan of Revives carrying over from game to game, much less lasting forever once summoned. There are some pretty darn powerful enemies in this game(Frenzytaurs, Urdars with Smite…) so you should have to reacquire them and they don’t need a buff either given they get their stats boosted by Skeleton Mastery quite a bit. Skeletons though I can see since starting a Nightmare or Hell game in Act 1 without Nilathak portal to grab fresh corpses kind of sucks. Why should the Druid be able to have an army upon leaving town but the Necromancer can not?

1 Like