Warlock should not be nerfed. Other classes need buffs: every class need proper skill scaling balance and synegies. Along with it, that will obviously make the game more trivial, this game needs endgame farming areas to create a new level of difficulty.
This game need endgame farming areas that are much more rewarding and harder to be played, > specially by bots <. Places that will challenge player skill control and not just a binary filter of having endgame gear and not having endgame gear. Places harder to progress, but also more rewarding.
On top of it, with stronger skillsets and more rewarding and challenging farming areas, there must be more itemization layers to reward hardcore players, but with marginal gains and not godlike items. The state of this game nowadays is big rewards to hardcore players. Power, that is, better items, should follow a logarithmic curve, so that it should be easier to get enough items to reach 80% of global power output, and a lot hard to fill the rest of 20%.
This is pretty much the same level of thinking that resulted in what became Diablo 3. It was the same “Think about the casuals!”… Then they made it easier with character buffs. Then more complaining, and more “Think about the casuals!”… The cycle kept repeating. Then more and more difficulty levels, which translated into making it a lot easier to zero in on the “sweet spot” of difficulty versus item drops. The power creep kept piling higher and higher. And now items are mailed to you for completing trivial casual tasks. Zoom zoom.
Yes, the Warlock should be nerfed. The reign is over.
If players want a casual laid back easy peasy Diablo experience, Diablo 3 (and 4) has it.
I mean, there are several bug corrections with the warlock; do those count as nerfs too? Casual players still have hammerdins, btw. Also mosaic it’s still around us (for now) and it’s the more casual build ever (even more than warlock builds). The argument doesn’t stand, imo.
This game didn’t need endgame farming areas and a new level of difficulty to survive and remain relevant for more than 2 decades.
I also don’t think underpowered classes are the way there are because of skill scaling, i mean, if you are talking about melee, melee sucks because of low base damage on weapons, AR and lack of AOE -not because their single target skills dmg is low-.
Agree on better itemization though, it’s needed and they have the chance now. Please let it happen!
Okay, I am going to say something that might get me burned at the sacred Diablo 2 campfire, so everyone please put down your torches for just a moment.
Yes, I love Diablo 2 infinitely more than Diablo 3. That is not even a debate. However, and I cannot believe I am about to say this, D3 actually did a few things better than D2. I know, I know. Take a deep breath. We will get through this together.
What if instead of pretending D3 never existed, we just cherry picked the good stuff from it and other modern games and quietly slipped those mechanics into D2R like nobody was watching? Think of it as a greatest hits album. Nobody needs to know where the songs came from.
Need proof that this works? Look no further than stacking runes mechanic that was recently added. Remember when everyone was posting that stacking runes would lead to the duping apocalypse? Turns out the sky did not fall after all. Shocking, I know. And loot filters? The community received those well.
Both of these beloved features were borrowed straight from more modern games and yet somehow D2R did not spontaneously combust. The game actually got better.
So no, I will not be shaming anyone for borrowing game mechanics that actually work, even if they came from a game that shall not be named. You know which one. The one you apparently have a deep personal disdain for.
Keep an open mind people. Even a stopped clock is right twice a day, and apparently so is D3.
The stacking in RotW may appear to be so visually, but it isn’t. Notice how we can’t drag a stack into our personal inventory? Under the hood, it’s basically the same as having a dedicated stash tab for each gem type and rune. They had to do this in order to retain the unique item ID used to track items to keep a lid on duping, especially for those runes. So yeah, they basically added 68 stash tabs for each gem grade and rune, and the UI automates the stashing of them and makes it appear they are stacked.
Hey, that was a genuinely great point of view and one that honestly never even crossed my mind before. When you are right, you are right I never thought about it that way. I am impressed Also, thank you for responding to my post like a reasonable human being. On the internet of all places. The audacity.
Both. Warlock does need nerfs to things that are super broken, but we also should see buffs to stuff that are so bad they are jokes. More viable skills is good, not bad. Making the Bowazon 90% as good as the Javazon wouldn’t break the game or change its identity. Adding new skills and updating old ones that are boring or redundant wouldn’t, either.
The problem is it’s one or the other with most people, they think it’s either nerf it all to the ground and change nothing else or break everything else insanely. We can have sensible nerfs and sensible buffs.
You’re conflating basic UI convenience with core gameplay mechanics. Yes the new stash tabs and rune stacking are nice and enhance the existing game mechanics.
But slap these features on a game i dislike (idk for example D3) and i’m not suddenly going to enjoy that game just because of them.
You’re right but the problem is that before that work can be done, the devs need to establish a power ceiling. Which they are doing with the Warlock nerfs on the PTR. Once that benchmark is established, buffing/nerfing everything else as needed around it is a lot simpler.
Like its the irony behind all of this, i think once next season launches (which is not with 3.2 btw) and Blizz finally has done a balance pass on all classes, the “nerfed/fixed” Warlock is likely still going to be one if not the best class in the game because it was used as the power benchmark. The current Warlock is beyond broken but it doesn’t fix the entire game, there’s a handful of builds that need to be brought down a peg or 2 as well, as well as many runewords.
Warlock is too OP. It doesn’t look normal to me when an echoing strike warlock with pretty basic gear has 70K damage and clears p8 Uber Tristram in a minute with no effort.
Bs talking, iam pure casual 3h per week max, and what demotivate me to play is rudicoulous op of this class that kill the fun from playing and gear progression. I just made it to act4 hell and have no will to play 1hour more to finish hell. Its stupid how i run thru the game on players8 in budget gear, smash 1 button and watching everything die.
Yeah, buff frenzy barbarian to hit for 500,000 damage! The funny thing about Warlock mains is that they do not understand that melee players want a grief because it deals 340-400 true damage, while they want to deal hundreds of thousands of damage with ease which is only doable with broken mechanics that should not be in this game..
These skyrocket numbers people mention are out of control. I have full geared warlock and it outputs 35k with ebotd! That is 70k if you count both hits, but it is a full geared character. I do not deny es is strong, I just say nerfing it won’t solve the real problem.
I really wonder why hammerdins were not a problem in these 26 years (and seems it isn’t now too)
I never thought about it that way. I am impressed 
Also, thank you for responding to my post like a reasonable human being. On the internet of all places. The audacity.
