Just wanted to say that I completely agree. Blizzard tried to make other builds viable, but with the latest nerf to hydra, blizz and lightning sorcs will still dominate.
Holy shock is still the best paladin offensive aura.
Melee still sucks.
Whirlwind still sucks.
Popular javazon hybrid builds using CS and LF are still nerfed (this one I can’t understand, they said they would not nerf any builds, but this is an nerf)
Some of what they did is great, and I think patch 2.5 could be good. For example, I’m in favour of the major positives changes to both assassin and druid (they really needed it) and the buff to holy fire. I think being able to upgrade set items is great, and I like the new runewords. I like the variety added to mercs (even if the act 5 merc could use more work).
But I think the problem with this patch is that I don’t see the meta shifting dramatically, if at all. Nobody will use hydra, sorcs and pallys will still dominate the meta, enigma and grief still the best runewords.
I think that’s the issue. People thought that patch will make more builds reach lvls of HDin, Blizz/light sorc, java and so on. Patch was aimed at making more builds viable, and viable doesn’t mean annihilating P8 games in seconds. Personally if every build was able to do that, this game would got boring for me pretty fast.
Frankly not a single build should be balanced around its P8 performance, all builds should be balanced around P1, and if any build over perform in higher player setting, it should be nerfed and not become new balance point for other builds.
I think nothing changed about meta: sorc is a must start character for competitive scene like Ladder. Hammerdin same.
Won’t comment on everything, just few:
Sorc Hydras are still great, it was the delay cast that made it terrible, not 3% synergies. You can enjoy the playstyle now much more than before with cast delay.
Throwbarbs are still bad. Piercing is great. But Quantity makes it terrible.
Dodging of amazon is great now.
Martial arts new stacking mechanics make it possible to enjoy.
On these examples I want to show how its important to focus on user experience while playing. Much more than buff few % here, few % there on underused skills.
This we can agree with, but at this point I don’t know any build able to insta-clear in P8. I don’t have a Hdin, but my Blizzsorc while powerful, is a pretty weak glass canon in P8. The Dragondin introduced in the 2.4 was still miles away from that in P8 though.
Personally, Dbrunsky summed up my thoughts pretty well:
I will just post what Dbrunski said, at 45 lvl fire trapper does 1.6k dmg when Light at the same lvl does 12k. So none will go fire.
Summons are just bad, ravens now do 3 times the dmg of wolves, while there is a limitation on summons when we need to invest 80 points to the tree. we max 3 skills (SW-DW-Bear) only to use 1 of them.
Exactly. Of course that patch isn’t all bad, which is why I said 2 steps forward one step back.
Druids are a little better than before the patch, fire traps are little bit better too, and several other upgrades.
Yet, would anyone really recommend a build full fire other than a fire sorc after the release? Very much doubt so. The Dragondin was the only one potentially doing that, but it was nerfed down because LlamaSC and several others in this forum didn’t like the playstyle. Not because it was overpowered, Blizz, Trapsin and Hdin was still way better, but because it wasn’t the usual playstyle.
I disagree with you I’d rather they remove synergies or replace them with spirits/vines and instead allow a druid to summon all spirits at a time.
This way need a tanking bear for a elemental or shape shift druid, spec oak. want to make a damage team for your shape shift druid spec wolverine and dire wolves. Need more cold damage spec spirit wolves, give it two synergies arctic blast cold and wolverine for physical.
Just bake in attack rating, and give barb elemental resistances buffs to your summons. Raven reduce it to two synergies wolverine and maybe carrion vine.
Carrion vine and solar vine should be able to attack, give them one that life/mana leaches for you and your summons, said mana or life leech is boosted by eating corpses. This would leave summon druid plenty viable, even if the clear speed wouldn’t be perfect but allow for some interesting hybrid builds. It also would keep uniqueness of the druid summoner alive and not just be necrolike.
Druid summoner is too synergy heavy as it is, being able to spec into elemental or shape shifting to augment the build would go a long way into making it just funner to play.
