But the disparity between warriors and casters as they progress through the game is getting to be the #1 thing I want fixed about diablo 2.
A friend of mine is getting the d2 bug again. However she is casual and wants to play a warrior character.
I had to drop a little reminder about last time when I played a zealot and she played fire sorc…
Me swinging away at one mob while she clears the rest of the screen lol.
You shouldn’t have to warn people about this. It really needs to get addressed. Base weapon damage being unchanged while the monsters had their health increased 10x is the biggest issue.
And I know she can just respec out of it, but that’s not a solution. Nobody likes to play 5 gaming sessions and feel invested as a warrior and then go “uhh. I guess I have to do this spinny hammer spell now…alright….”
Im biased, but this warrior/caster progression disparity is IMO one of the biggest problems with diablo 2.
If she wants to play a melee character and you intend on playing together, then both should play melee builds, and if caster, both should play caster. The game doesn’t need fixing, you just need to adjust your thinking and adapt to a new paradigm, or play a different game.
Personally, I love playing melee and I’m not fond of playing casters. My endgame barbarian melee builds can keep up with any meta in the game.
The game is not going to change, so get with the program.
That’s… actually a really good idea lmao. It wouldn’t be a problem if both of us were melee.
She’s not much for grinding however. I’ve always hit a wall with melee where I have to buck up and actually grind for a half decent unique. I’ll offer that, see what happens. We won’t be starting for probably a couple weeks so we have time to think about what we wanna play as.
I have no problem with any of my endgame physical characters either. And I’m not advocating for splash damage or anything crazy , just a boost that aids in progressing through the game, and corrects for the 10x hp boost monsters got 24 years ago
I am aware. They can’t even successfully post a link to the seasonal news page. 3rd time in a row now. I dunno, back in my day, a guy would get fired for doing something like that 3 times in a row.
Anyway, i understand. More of just a venting post. Thanks for your insights!
And other lies we tell ourselves. It’s okay to admit a build is underpowered as long as you have fun playing with it.
No, pitzerker is not meta anymore since people can blitz extremely packed terrorzones with mosaicsin, nova sorc etc. and get even more loot on top of the x20 the experience.
2 Phys Melee can be pretty cool if you can boost each other with Pally auras, but
you could also recommend a less-gear intensive option for her, such as Holy # aura, and just make sure you have complimentary damage so that if she chooses, say, fire, NM Act 4 Fire res doesn’t stop you in your tracks b/c you have phys/cold/lightning.
Fury Druids can also be fun and I find them less gear dependent I guess b/c they can use a big dmg 2H with the WW IAS and you don’t have to invest in a mastery like Barb, so there’s not the weapon type change penalty, you can swith between Axes, Maces, Polearms, etc. You can also get through NM using Insight in a Partizan and then Obedience in a nice base can take you pretty far as well. There might be some grinding involved with getting those runes, but it’s at least somewhat more “targeted” Countess type stuff. Ofc RNG may screw you on bases.
Insight Partizan will also get WW barb thru NM well enough, and you can switch to Obedience Polearm as well.
The fury druid is by far the least gear dependent melee class in D2R and it also offers a really smooth progression throughout the campaign if u make a hybrid approach by using the summons. Basically it can use almost any huge two-handed dps stick and if u dont find any a simple insight in a polearm which is ez to farm doing NM countess will take u through NM no problem.
Obedience is a pretty cheap runeword that will easily take u all the way to endgame if u happen to get a Fal rune. The base for Obedience is not that hard to come by since any polearm or spear capped at 5 max sockets can be socketed with Larzuk quest to get 5 sockets, i myself prefer thresher or cryptic axe.
Some of the bis endgame weapon choices are, Death in eth decapitator, botd or my prefered choice for my fury/summon hybrid which is an eth Reapers Toll with a zod rune.
The reapers offers both dps+safety for both urself and the summons and it lets u deal with phys immunes due to decrep procs on top of having ignore target defense making attack rating less important
If you are only playing by yourselves you can balance any combination of characters. Some just require a little restraint, like the Sorc only teleporting to reposition instead of doing a Usain Bolt for the entire game
