The root of all evil in Diablo 2: Attack rating

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Hello forum!
Im sure this problem have been brought up before, atleast i hope so but i couldnt find any thread easily about it so i thought i would throw my 2 pence at it.
And bear with me, this might get quite long.

The fact that attack rating exist in Diablo 2 is not a problem i think, it actually kind of makes sense that you have a property about how good you wield your sword, what ruins the game is that
elemental characters do not.

Imagine you are a lvl 99 Barbarian. You are the most brutal, experienced and wise warrior in the whole kingdom and you still need to have a lvl 12 Angelic ring and amulet to
be able to hit a Fallen One in the Den of Evil.

I still remember my first Fortitude and Grief runeword, i was so excited to put on my new shiny and awesome armor just to go and miss my attacks again, the disapointment was unreal.
Then i thought “Well maybe i need a Grief aswell” so i farmed to create one, and again i was so excited and when i was about to put in that last Ral rune in my Phase blade i felt like a kid on christmas.
The monsters would shivver their legs at just a glimse of my blade, justice would come to those who have followed the devil himself into darkness.
And yes i did slay some monsters and did decent damage but yet again i was missing alot of attacks and i just didnt feel like i was the most brutal, experienced and wise warrior in the world.

The fact that i felt this way is not because melee users are bad, it is because elemental users are so much better, or even more that there is such a difference.
It is impossible to not compare my character to a Sorceress, Trapsin or whatever. And when i have been farming for months for my endgame gear and my friends solo selfound playthrough sorc clear all content(AoE and Boss fights) faster and safer than me im just so sad.
It completely removes the fun in the game.

What is the incitement to play a class so much worse than the elemental ones? More than the challenge. I cannot come up with one.

If you zoom out a bit and look at this problem there really is two ways to this and it all depends on how Blizzard wanted/wants this game to be.
Should Diablo 2 be a quite hard game and not every new player would even manage to complete a journey through hell?
or
Should it be more of a slasher game and you can oneshot an entire screen of monsters when you have reached endgame?

I really am down for both approaches but you cant have both at the same time, that is the problem right now and this just makes half the character pool unusable.

If i were to give some suggestions on how you could address this problem i would say as follows:

If you go with the approach of D2 beeing a quite hard game:

  • Nerf elemental dmg with about significant amount, lets say 50% so you have to kite with spells etc.
    This would even mean that you probably get hit more since monsters dont die as quick so you have to gear for more survivability aswell.
    This would make HC characters even more hard but then again this is the “game should be hard” approach and HC should be for really experienced players.

  • Implement a Chance to hit for spells aswell (as in WoW, dont know how it is these days but when i played the first thing you had to do was to stack/gear for hit chance as a mage)

If you go with the approach that elemental users is good as they are today then you really have to buff melee classes. For example:

  • Double or triple the amount of attack rating per dexterity point, this would make it possible to stack some Dex instead of sacrificing gear slots.

  • Set hit chance to a fixed value of 95% or 100% for melee and remove attack rating. Then defence have to be changed to block a % of incoming physical damage or something.

Because as it is now elemental characters only have to worry about getting enough damage while a melee user have to worry about hit chance and just hope that the damage left is enough to play the game.

I have not done any calculations so i can be completely off but this is more intended as a guideline.
And i just want to say that i really appreciate the work blizzard is doing now and i think it is in the right direction but the biggest issue is still to be dealt with.

Sorry if i have bad language but English is not my native language.

See you on Battlenet!

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I am totally up to this approach. I see third option btw.

  1. Buffing AR
  2. Adding long cool-downs on aoe spells
  3. Starting from act 3 normal rise monsters level gradually, so doing we ends with all hell areas are level 85.

In nightmare we can find better loot now

We can farm anywhere in hell but mostly in team. You will see people are teaming up to kill Diablo

Community is playing together
We have endgame
We have more diversity

Win, win and win

Edit:
Adding short cool-down to teleport would make game interesting
Grif should be less useful in endgame
Bosses has to have more hp
Diablo and ball should summon some mobs (best if with some immunities )
Meges would benefit too from higher AR, 100% chance to monster flee on wand will be useful, specially with higher overall game difficult

Edit:
Drop could be adjusted to compensate for higher difficulty

3

Other ideas? Buff gems so melee can use them to deal elemental damage. What about mages? They will more likely build for more than one damage source because it is better to have 2 aoe spells and cast them one after the other when needed.
PvP will be more interesting if player can’t teleport away after a bad move, even more because highest damage spells can’t be spammed

Edit:
More interesting pvp will bring more players and we all know that pvp is a great endgame feature

4

What about blizzards income?
PvP tournaments with small payments to participate
Cosmetics and more storage for saint grall pvm player

Edit:
They could even do “corpse explosion mode” for players who likes d3 play style. That’s won’t split the community, d2 player and d3 players will never find the same game good enough for both. This would only make space for more players not splitting them. Otherwise one or the others will leave

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I feel you man. Barb player here. If casters had same % chance to hit as melees, they would not clear so fast. You hit the point! Aside from endgame, its even worse in playthrough where you dont have so many attack rating, are undereleved and you can dream about Griefs.

I think first part of solution for melee hitters (bowazon, throw barbs too) is to remove “monster/player level difference” in chance to hit calculation. When you are not level 99 (practically noone is) it lowers your chance to hit monster.

Second part of solution would be for monsters to NOT BLOCK when they dont have shield! Even if you stack 30000 attack rating and have 95% chance to hit in Character screen. Monsters usually have around 20% chance to block even if they dont have shield! Bosses have like 40% to block, but i would leave bosses be.

Third part is to make chars less dependand on weapons early-mid game by adding +2 dmg/point to skills like Frenzy, WW, Masteries, Zeal, Fury, Strafe, whatever…

… And about making game harder, well i partially agree, that there are some situations where i think “why can i skip this monsters?”. Examples:
5 baal waves - why its not mandatory to kill all of them, and you can just skip them?
Or cool superuniques: Treshsocket - kill him in order to enter Crystalline passage.
Or Sharktooth slayer (save barb quest) kill him in order to stop barb slavery :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:
Or Act 3 organs guardians - that Spider that would drop key to open chest for Eye. Electric bat would drop key to pull lever. Flayer shaman would drop key to open chest for brain
Or act 2 to enter Sanctuary, must kill Fireeye or Fangskin for Viperamulet, Bigworm for Staff.
etc. etc. you know game is about killing anyway
This would make all chars have to plan B - what if there is immunity to my spell, then i start throwing poison potions or what? heh you get my point for sure. Those are my toughts

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