1 step forward, 2 steps back: 2.7.1 notes commentary

General Discussion
1

So it should go without saying that the patch notes so far are pretty light, basically boiling down to a new season only item type that may or may not break the game, a brilliant rework to inna’s, and a not so brilliant nerf to the over-performing sets.

For this reason my comments will be kept concise and will focus on these 3 things:

1: Ethereals: the new item type sounds like it will be an RNG nightmare that will dominate the leaderboard for seasons for those who luck into a perfect item first drop, while also creating an impossible to replicate situation for every other player, however, if the items are tuned so that this will not happen, then they may as well be DoA useless trash items for neat future transmog mini-games for those who care. either way, I’ll have to see them before a final verdict can be made.

2: Inna’s: This rework has been sorely needed for a long time, and i hope it is a precursor to all of the other class sets which provide “general damage” bonuses (immortal kings, natalya’s, inarius, akhans, and tal’rasha) will be getting reworks in future seasons as well, since I’ve been saying ever since the inclusion of LoD, set’s which just buff “whatever” are all outdated and pointless. on an aside, I’m glad monks have a dedicated pet set, I’m definitely interested in trying it out!

3: the nerfs: the crusader nerfs seem fairly minor, in my opinion, but the necromancer nerfs are nothing less that a complete gutting of the set (exaggerations aside, this now puts necromancers back in the demon hunter’s territory in rift pushing, in that, they will be the bottom of the barrel and skipped over in favor of dpsaders and archon spam wizards like what happened 3 or 4 seasons ago now (EDIT: i somehow managed to block out the firebird rework from my memory, so that instead of this), i feel that this nerf should have come with a rework of one of the 3 completely unused necromancer sets to offset the disappointment, but if the forum activity is anything to go by, people don’t care about necromancers, so why should blizz?

2

I’m looking forward to next season.

However, I always do…no matter how bad the devs or the players crying which cause the devs to break or change things.

I still haven’t gotten over all the hundreds and hundreds of cry babies that made the original Primal go away to become a slightly improved ancient.

2 Likes
3

I’ve been reading thru all the topics about the new patch and most of the players are very disapointed. If it were just a sneek peek than ok. But this is it. This is all of it. Pretty sad.

4

When I think about it, this ethereal weapon is going to be garbage for the new inna rework. Which is fine and all since they have other sets, just kind of a let down in that manner.

5

Dude …

We have this one here … yea ?


You can post your feedback in that one …
why the hell does anyone think, he should open his own topic for his “special” ideas ?
why are you guys not able to use the meltpot ?

it makes it just harder to review everything and sort it …
havn´t you read the Netiquette ?
Why do you open all over the Place Topics to the same Subject ?

6

The ethereal thing is going to be garbage.
Best I skip that season alltogether.

I’ll never get those 21 etherials. At best I get one usuable primal and like 5 garbage ones. So, I am never ever going to get all 21 etherials.

Even if they’d drop, they’d roll extremely terribly. In D2 they were just good. In D3 most will be utter crap.

So, I shouldn’t even try. Better none than some in this case.

3 Likes
7

²

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(20 characters.)

8

The ethereal item system sounds like it will have the same problems the corrupted item system at the end of BfA in WoW had. Actually probably worse since there are two RNG affixes on it instead of one.

The RNG creates all these possibilities, but the drop chances are so low (between ancient and primal ancient), that you won’t realistically be able to chase a specific combination. Limited inventory/stash space makes collecting a large number of these items unrealistic, especially for multiple classes, even if you did want to devote a lot of time to farming them. The entire point of the system seems to be being able to experiment with lots of different possible combinations, but then the rarity combined with inventory space limitations seem to defeat the purpose/potential of the system.

Ethereals seems to be an attempt to make D3 season content last longer for a larger number of players, but I don’t think it will succeed in this form. Expecting people to devote extreme amounts of time farming for rare temporary items that are an inventory management nightmare (if you actually did manage to collect a lot of them) that also vanish at the end of the season doesn’t seem like it will be a popular idea overall.

People who already don’t stick around to grind paragon to do the same content they’re already doing with higher numbers obviously are not going to be interested in a different kind of endless farm either. This system won’t appeal to a wider audience. People who leave after doing the journey (or sooner) will still leave just as quickly. I don’t think D3 devs can really do anything about that. Eliminating trade and never finishing PvP basically guaranteed that there would never be wide appeal to sticking around in any D3 season long-term.

I’d probably eliminate at least one element of RNG by letting you select one of the two currently random aspects of it. For example, let you select the passive at the enchanter, or let you change the weapon affix with a cube recipe. That won’t keep people around longer either, but at least more people would get something out of it while they were playing.

9

OK I don’t even play the necro. But all the same why nerf? If you kick all the Necros with 20 hours a day + (Botters) the leader board will not show them up in space. And I don’t care if the necro himself isn’t the bot check the account for the total hours so you don’t miss it. It’s really not that hard to pin them down. After that look at general play and make sure your “over performer” isn’t just a highly chosen class. Or we can break one set to make it just as crappy as the rest of them. Why not, already murdered the Witch Doctor.

10

Well, the necromancer was doing 150’s, some in 12 mins or so. That’s actually pretty insane. It means they could likely do a 151-152 if they existed at around 7k paragon. 150 in 14 mins at 4k paragon or so. The “ideal” class set performance for Diablo III is approximately Greater Rift 130, solo, and assumes the character has 5000 Paragon levels. I think this will knock necro’s down to like 140-143ish at 5k paragon. I’d say it was necessary. I don’t agree with 130, I’d say 140 should be the aim but idk, not my game.

11

the nerf set necromancers back much farther than 5 or 7 rift levels, they are a class already plagued with 3 dead, unusable sets, one set that used to be good but was gutted to force people to use one skill nobody cares about, and this set, which is now also dead. on a matter of basic philosophy, because LoD exists, not a single set in the game can be feasible while giving less than a 10,000% damage increase to whatever skill the set is about. putting this set below that threshold means that bone spear is now a LoD build, and the set is dead. it’s bad design.

12

It’s knocking it down around 11 levels, maybe 12. They don’t seem to have the triple damage bonus anymore, so they went from effectively 60,000% damage down to 12,000% damage. It’s a bit less then that if you consider the necromancer bones, but since the bracers don’t affect the necromancer, you may as well call it negligible. That’s 20% of what it used to be, which is a multiplier of 5, so 400% damage. 1.17 ^ 11 - 1 is 4.62~ something or other. It’s closer to 11 grift levels simply because I am just removing the necromancer damage in this equation. At level 4k paragon, doing 150 grift, this will set them around 140ish.

13

down to 6000%, the simulacrums aren’t made permanent by the set, they’re made permanent by a necklace that LoD can use, therefore they contribute no actual damage to the set anymore. it’s 10% of what it used to be (technically because of the way the bracers interacted with the set, it’s even lower than 10%, but we’re playing devils advocate here)

14

Huh…? How is it 10%? Did we lose one of our sims during this nerf?

15

well if we do the long form math, the set gave the necromancer 10,000%, and simulacrums 3 times this bonus (so 30,000% x 2 because you ahve 2 simulacrums) combined, 70,000% increased damage, however, the bracers are a 400% increase, but only to the spears cast by simulacrums, which effectively boost them to 150,000% apiece (for a total of 310,000%) post nerf, it’s 6,000% across the board (with 2 simulacrums) for a total of 18,000% down from 70,000% off the set itself, but this mixes differently with the bracers now that the simulacrums don’t benefit triple from the set, the bracers boosting the sims up to 30,000% apiece (which is what they were before with just the set), for a collective 66,000% down from 310,000%

having now worked the math out in this way, basically they just removed the bracers from the build, and made it to wear the item that goes in that slot just undoes the set nerf. so i suppose it is closer to the 20% power you claimed, that doesn’t make it a good change.

16

This is a really fickle thing to work with tbh. It’s either you let LoD do what it was meant to do or you force it to be worse so that way, the set isn’t being neglected and making LoD weaker generally speaking. Though LoD can do anything it wants to, so does that really hurt it? When put into this perspective, they should probably make it 10k again then have the bracers do 200% damage instead or some combination.

17

furthermore, it still make LoD just ~50% better by virtue of it’s damage bonus being wholly applicable to the simulacrums in the same way that the post-nerf set is, therefore the set continues to be dead. since you can still get 2 permanent sims from the necklace, it’s a simple matter of 9,750% from LoD > 6000% from set. on top of that you get all the set slots opened up for utility legendaries.
as a matter of philosophy, LoD should always have been for abilities that had legendary support, but not set support, but the concept of LoN was implemented before necromancers, and to top it off most classes have a “general damage” set like immortal kings, tal’rasha, akkhans, old inna’s that are all competing with LoD, and at least for the moment, it looks like the devs are trying to focus those sets on specific skills to avoid this conflict, unfortunately for the necromancer specifically, we have 3 dead sets, rathma’s which is only “viable” because it lowers the CD of army of the dead by a lot, something which LoD cannot do, and Inarius, which is just melee LoD. it isn’t healthy for this class, specifically.

18

You are right about that. I can’t argue with what you’re saying. I think people complain about other people advocating for necromancer because necro has been top dog basically since conception, not necessarily a singular set. Personally, I would probably wet myself with excitement if they made pestilence good again. It’s really only good for speeds on the lower end, though there is a huge glaring issue with making this strong enough to compete. If it could push 140’s, their solo speeds would be like 90 second 125’s and stuff.

19

I agree it was good to rework Inna on grounds of identity and diversity as they said, which are specifics I posted about in the past, as well. I think the new version is ok but not “brilliant”, tho.

I also agree other classes could use this treatment, tho Monk was by far the worst offender. Ideally, they’d move the core elements of PoJ onto MKG/related legendaries and make PoJ something new, too.

20

Doesn’t matter one bit because most players will still play the season. Only when players stop playing will something be done, and by that time, the thing that will be done is stop updates completely.