You think you do, but you don't

PTR Feedback
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I’ve noticed a lot of enthusiasm in PTR feedback and Youtube videos around buffing characters in ways that would effectively expand the number of s-tier builds. I think this is a slippery slope that would lead to a very fun couple of seasons followed a die off in the game’s popularity.

Diablo 2 is gritty and difficult. It forces you to make tradeoffs with skills. It imposes a dichotomy where you need to be rich to be godly and you need to be godly to farm to get rich. It is decidedly a game who’s staying power rests in that the fact that not everyone who plays will be a winner.

In the now infamous words of erstwhile Blizzard president J. Allen Brack, when it comes to wanting s-tier builds, “You think you do, but you don’t”.

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That’s what I don’t understand about the “all buffs” crowd. In buffing everything, you remove the challenge and fun in the game. What’s the point then?

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There is a lot of middle ground between making builds better and making them on the same level as Hammerdins.

We can ask for improvements to bad builds without asking them to be OP. I think the new version of Summon Druid is a perfect example. It is miles better than it was without being anywhere near OP.

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I think it’s because they’re not game designers and don’t realize that they are on the human equivalent of a hampster wheel. The dopamine hits we get from video games come from the slow drip of sequential improvement towards a perceived end state that we want to be in.

The new FoH/holy bolt pally on PTR is the first time diablo 2 got a character that can farm (e.g. chaos) without skill or gear. That single character will break the game.

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Yeah they’re not, but I assume they are experienced game players and should know that making the game too easy will kill its enjoyment. Perhaps you have a point though, that people that are farming D2 want to get that dopamine hit and so are pushing for these hard buffs to help them get them there easier?

I can’t believe this needs to be said: This game is Diablo. We’re not going around popping balloons with blow darts and hitting piñata’s with wooden bats. We’re fighting scary as **** monsters with real weaponry and skill. Stop trying to ruin this fantasy!

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Agreed. There is loads of room for more A and B tier characters. I thought they did a great job on the druid summoner, though possibly a touch overturned for first-time playthroughs.

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Nothing you just said there is correct.

There are several builds that can farm chaos with little gear.
Not a single build in D2 takes skill to play.
It is not game breaking, it does significantly less damage than a Hammerdin, while having substantial limitations of where it can farm.

Is it strong? Yes absolutely. Is it faster at Players 1 Chaos than a Hammerdin? Yes it is.

Does that break the game? Nope not even a little bit.

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agreed Zenji. Hands down hammerdin is better at group mf runs (8 player solo). But FOH is better at P1 clears like you said.

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The thing that really makes me laugh is there are several builds that can clear Chaos super quick, the differences between most of them are measured in seconds.

I just don’t see how a build clearing Players 1 Chaos in 42 seconds instead of 55 seconds breaks the game according to some people. :man_shrugging:

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The game is already dead, what’s your point?

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Do you mean no skill to play as in skill compared to a software engineer? How off out of touch are you? Most working people who play this game won’t even finish the game on hell difficulty.

The problem with the new pally build has nothing to do with p8 clear speed. It’s that you can speed run chaos/trav/pindle on first playthrough gear.

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I like where they’re going with the changes. Some builds have moved from F/D to B/A. Nothing introduced comes anywhere close to a Hammerdin. We don’t want more Hammerdin power builds, but we do need more options to farm with.

We can also nerf Hammerdins, and maybe Blizzard a little. At least the BlizzSorc is squishy and needs to deal with immunes. A Hammerdin can do P8 Chaos with their eyes closed. It’s fine if they’re still the top, but nothing should be able to P8 like that.

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Your comparison makes absolutely no sense at all. I meant exactly what I said. Play any build in Diablo 2 is quite simple, it does not skill to play any class/build in Diablo 2. The general mechanics of the game are very simple.

Idk what most working people accomplish in this game, and neither do you. Even if what you said is true, it is completely irrelevant to this discussion.

You are calling a build game breaking because it can clear players 1 Chaos 5-10 seconds faster than some other builds while at lower gear thresholds. Do you have any idea how ridiculous that sounds?

So game breaking if a player clears p1 Chaos 10 seconds faster than other builds the first day or two of a new ladder. :clown_face:

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most of these people watch a vid by their favorite streamer and get fearful, but are too lazy to look at numbers or actually try playing that character. i ran 3 foh paladins since wednesday. playthroughs, from normal to hell. here my review + analysis:
playthrough:

a1 normal: you will rely on holy bolt, but you will also encounter a few animals that you cant damage with it. but you your weapon damage will be enough to dispatch them.
Immunes: Wendigos, blood hawks, giant spider, gargoyle trap, spike fiend

a2: thats a rough one. something like 80% of the enemies are immune to you. whenever you are in the desert, EVERY monster is immune to holy bolt. and your weapon damage is not enough anymore to carry you like in act 1. i tried to at least stay usefull for my group by using smite (only 1 point invested) to tank enemy groups or heal other players with holy bolt. but you wont be doing much damage in that act.
Immunes:blood hawk, flying scimitar, wendigo, baboon, bat demon, claw viper, leaper, sand maggot, sand raider, scarab bug, swarm, slinger

a3: not better than act 2. lots of animal monsters, not much you can do besides tank, heal or use conversion (the 1 point you put in) to break up mobs a bit.
immunes:blood hawks, giant spiders, wendigos, baboons, bats, leapers, swarms, frogs, mosquitos, thorned hulk, tentacle beast, zakarum

a4: much better. the only immune monsters are the worms in river after 2 acts of no damage this is deserved.

a5: immunes: baals minions, suicide minion, death mauler, blood lords.
you should be able to use FoH here, but you have way too little mana to use it to kill animal monsters, plus that you do very little lightning damage at that stage.

i dont get why people get so upset about the damage. it is 5.5 k with full skillers, gear, etc. thats bonenecro levels. hammerdin levels would be 15k-16k. the bonespear has pierce too, foh has circular aoe and autoaim for the bolts.

The problem with the new pally build has nothing to do with p8 clear speed. It’s that you can speed run chaos/trav/pindle on first playthrough gear.

i doubt that. with first playthrough gear (i assume you mean below spirit, lore, stealth, fcr rings+ amulet, insight with first paythrough gear) you will be doing something like 1.5k - 2k bolt damage, an oblivion knight in chaos has 5.5k-9.5k life and 25% magic res at players 1. you will have a hard time taking them down, especially considering you need 25 mana per cast. for smaller mobs i would permantly switch to holy bolt, because i was running out of mana constantly, and even with mana pots constantly drinking i had long breaks (either cast delay or mana refilling time) where things could get dangerous and you can get swarmed. even later on with a lvl 17 insight i was drinking mana pots to take down a mob.

Things to consider:
FoH paladin has to deal with immunities from act 1 normal on. no fire sorc has to deal with that. in return his foh lightning damage can later on damage animals, but the damage will not be good enough to have viable kill speed. And im not asking for a buff, nor nerf. It was really fun and challenging trying to deal with immunes and stay usefull. even going into a healer role. i havent had so much fun in a while. and the pala needing no skill is simply wrong. Holy bolt needs the same aiming and positioning as bonespear or lightning. FoH needs consideration with mana usage, mob size, distancing and targeting (aiming for the center of a mob is what you usually want) and switching between skills (to holy bolt to finish last ones to save mana, smiting enemies away that closed the distance, conversion+smite+healing holy bolt for immunes).

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Something being simple is not equivalent to something taking no skill. By that definition a professional sport like basketball takes no skill :clown_face:

Nobody with a balanced life is running sub minute chaos on week one of ladder.

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Ya those saying FoH is OP, need to take a good hard look at a D2 planner. a GG geared Hammerdin can break 40k dmg per hammer, in the same GG gear Holy Bolts off FoH are about 12k each and self casted HBs are doing about 21k.

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Again, not talking GG end of season.

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how many new s teir builds do you see as having been created?

I’ve only seen a couple even mentioned as “almost s tier” and none that come close to truly competing with the hamerdins of the world.

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A build being strong with less gear in some areas is not game breaking.

Having more options is a good thing.

If we start getting more Hammerdin level builds, I would agree that would be a problem. But that is not the case this patch.

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As long as they do not create new builds that are stronger than hammers, bliz, jav its not really power creep. That said the lack of shared cooldown alone made a stronger bliz, albeit slightly.

There will never be a shortage of fun less optimal builds. So along with those I would like lots of S tier builds, but I would rather they come with tiny nerfs to the current S tiers to keep us from the creep.

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