The devs are asking for our feedback, and nothing is set in stone.
This is why they did the PTR to gather an abundance of feedback, and I think its clear that the current buffs need some tweaking, or we are going to keep the same META builds in 2.4 live.
Lets not nerf good builds, rather strengthen underpowered builds to make that at par so we actually have a choice for end game.
I am confident we will see more buffs and tweaks in this PTR to make other builds more than just viable, but competitive with current META. But they need constructive feedback, not just “this sucks”, tell them why it sucks or why it doesnt work.
God I love D2, and excited to see what comes out of this PTR (loot filter pleaaaa!)
What is your definition of viable? It seems like people consider P8 solo clearing to be the metric. That is wrong on so many levels. The only tweaking they should do related to the meta is nerfing the top builds. We don’t need more builds capable of clearing P8 solo, the game is already easy enough as is. So if you’re willing to drop in power to have something else be meta then by all means. The last thing I want is for them to start this cycle of shifting metas each season by buffing underperforming builds to the top. That is D3 nonsense that doesn’t belong here.
Yes sure, lets have the same meta for the next 10 or 20 years doing everything the same way over and over and over just because people cant handle the game without enigma and/or teleport. The nonsense as You say it is going for sorc and pala in every single ladder start. And thats for so many freaking years now.
Agreed, but hard to give feedback, when some things are unusable such as the entire shapeshifter tree, they are asking us to test the same weapons that have been tested for 20 years and that are now slower, with zero buffs to compensate for the tremendous loss in DPS
Definition for viable to me is easily clearing P1 with good gear and doing well with multiple P#'s with GG gear. I think most builds should make you feel like a god when you’ve maxed out the min-maxing of gear.
Like I said, if you want to change the meta at the high end, nerf the top builds. I don’t want a new meta in any other way because that will inevitably lead to power creep. They can make plenty of builds viable for P1-P3 or even P5.
Making builds “on par” is very hard, chances are they will just overshoot it. Also, I don’t see why a single player should swiftly clear the content meant for 8 players? What’s the point of that anyway? Introduce some challenge back into the pvm side of things.
I dont think any build should swifty kill p8 undergeared, but if a character has the very best gear they can get, why shouldnt they? I think if you’ve reached that tier of gear it should feel that way.
Also assuming they will overshoot it, thats why we have the PTR to help them get there
It can feel that way without having to be P8, it’s all relative. P8 scaling has been changed in numerous patches. The problem in D2 is that there is no difficult pvm content if you play the meta builds.
Yes and judging by the threads created on the PTR forums I’d say they’re not getting much help at achieving balance. I see the most ridiculous assessments being made of builds and at the end of the day it is clear that most players here are just shortsighted and want “moar damage” regardless of how it affects the overall health of the game long term.
Yes, it is a good thing that this is a PTR and not final, BUT…
Some of the changes made me wonder if they tested this at all. For instance, the bug that made ALL nightmare and hell super uniques 10x tougher. This means that NOBODY ran through the game on nightmare difficulty, and if they did, they don’t know it well enough to know when NM Andariel is taking 10x too long to kill.
Also, I agree about the INTENTION of buffing weaker builds, but which weaker builds have been buffed? In practice, what we have seen is:
Some of the strongest builds, IE virtually all sorceress builds and all elemental aura paladin builds, have received serious buffs
Necromancer, an already strong class, has had some buffs, including a serious buff to fire golem because of the holy fire change.
Druid WW and WB have been hit with the nerf bat pretty hard
Some builds that relied upon synergies, like zons that use charged strike and lightning fury, have been nerfed
Some other random builds have been buffed
In short, what they actually did was not what they said they were going to do. They said they would only buff weaker and unused builds, when in practice, at least a couple of already weak or underused builds have been nerfed, and some stronger builds have been buffed.
I managed to install version 1.03 of this game just last week and get it running. Played a thorns paladin. Quite amazed how much harder it was, even act 1 normal. They’ve made the game so much easier, which is probably why no-one wants to play normal.
(loot filter pleaaaa!)