Synergy system 2.0

Diablo II: Resurrected General Discussion
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While the intent behind synergy system was noble, it ruined a lot of aspects of the game

  • it kills skills with bad synergies

  • it kills skills with too many synergies

  • it kills skills with too low synergies

  • it greatly weakened the concept of Hybrid build

  • it killed most of charges skills

  • it killed most of Oskill

  • it killed most of Trigger skills

  • it greatly weakened build diversity

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The current synergy system is bad, By “bad” I mean the damage only aspect of synergy system. By being damage only it make it so skills that get low total %damage synergy or decent total damage synergy but with too many synergy are doomed, they can never be good or take too much investment to even be decent.

Also the way synergy system got implemented was bad because it mostly add synergies on the same branch of the tree, so if you make a fireball sorc, your synergies are also fire which sucks in terms of tactics against immunes. So if you want to be hybrid it will most likely suck/be impossible because you would need 2 skills with few synergies and high total damage% from sysnergies

The way they added synergy system also killed item granted skills… those skills were already balanced by being low level in a mindset of not requiring synergies, but since they added synergies they have been kept at the same low level and cannot benefit from synergies on other classes.

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A better approach to Synergies would have been skill effects based on general skill type rather than Class and damage restricted

  • projectile
  • melee
  • cold
  • fire
  • magic
  • physical
  • lightning
  • poison
  • area
  • buff
  • summon

Here’s a quick display(fine tuning required) of what it would look like based on what i started to do for a Mod i wanted to make before Blizzard cut mod support

docs,google,com/spreadsheets/d/1mRk7BNo9Mf5HciVSb0aFXuZcU1joQhPbSesyrHTmqJI/edit?usp=sharing

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Then the synergy bonus from each skills is special perks proper those skills

Ie: magic arrow’s synergy bonus:

  • Gain 1 additional projectile per 10 projectile skill hard point

  • Gain 5%attack rating per attack skill hardpoint

  • gain 5% magic damage per Magic skill hard point

That way a sorc/pally/barb/necro/assassin using a bow could invest in their projectile/attack/magic skill to get that bonus on Witchwild String

Other example of what could be done with such system , take Vengeance

Ie: Vengeance’s synergy bonus

  • gain 5% fire damage & 1% chance to cast firestorm(same level as vengeance capped at 20) when striking per fire skill hard point

  • gain 5% cold damage & 1% chance to cast Glacial spike on striking per cold skill hard point

  • gain 5% lightning damage & 1% chance to cast shock web on striking per lightning skill hard point

  • gain 5% attack rating per Attack skill hard point

This system also makes it less reliant on “same type skills”. Ie: fireball being synergized by fire bolt which are both pretty much the same skill. But with this system you could buff your fireball through aoe,projectile and fire skill … allowing you to synergize fireball with a plethora of choices that aren’t just a projectile fire spell like it

2 Likes
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Another thing that could aid it making synergies still affective but not so build limiting, would be you only get bonus synergy from a skill up to say lvl 10 instead of lvl 20.

So even if a skill has Many Synergies, You wouldnt have to max each of the skills, to get full synergy damage.

Allowing more options for skill choice by 1) freeing up skill points and 2) make it easier to get full synergies on multiple skills.

So like FB Sorc, would be 10 Fire Bolt, 20 Fire Ball, 10 Meteor(get required skills) and 20 Fire Mastery.

That chance would give 20 more points then normal to put into other skills to try and make a hybrid build.

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While synergies did change the balance of skills, and made certain builds less good, it also made many more builds that are great, and created more viable options (not necessarily optimal) in Hell difficulty, or more options for PvP. It’s a two sided argument, and everything you said can also be said about the opposite side. Although not a perfect system, synergies were a net positive in more cases than not, and it gives more depth to character builds. It also allowed people to optionally focus on a certain under-utilized or under-powered skill and make them viable, where, before synergies they were simply not useable beyond a certain point. You also have to remember that changing skills for PvE will also have huge implications for PvP.

A fully maxed out firebolt (level 1 skill) with all of its synergies, will do respectable single target damage with a ridiculously low (2.5) mana cost. People use it in on fire sorcs in PvP a fair bit for this reason. You can spam it between teleports to zone your opponent, while your mana regenerates because it costs nothing. It’s not great for PvE because it lacks AoE but it will still do the job and kill bosses even in Hell quite quickly with some +skills and good FCR. This was not really possible before synergies.

With enough +skills to fire skills or firebolt, it will eventually do more damage than fireball can at the same level, because its synergies scale with a higher % multiplier. Granted, it’s difficult to reach, but it is possible. Considering the negligible mana cost, that’s really impressive that they even come close to fireball for single target damage. This can also be very useful for an ES sorc, who may simply want to conserve mana since that is effectively their health bar. And in PvP it can be considered rude for an ES sorc to use mana pots. This level 1 skill can 1-shot people occasionally if they don’t have fire absorb, thanks to synergies.

Making any changes to the skills would completely uproot and upset the balance of skills and break builds that people have known and used for many years. It would certainly create new ones, but at what cost? I don’t think VV wants to find out. There would be massive backlash from much of the community. I don’t think the devs would want to risk being so bold.

5 Likes
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what if its done well an rather than have Bad Vs OP skills, you just have every skill being equally Fun and viable

Even if you keep lets say blessed hammer to its current OPness and buff other skills like lets say “Fist of Heaven’s holy bolt now deal Magic damage to monsters” and it becomes a viable skill that players want to play now, you havent touched Hdin but in comparison itll feel weaker but it will have lost its supremacy hedge, it’ll still be at the same point but will lose its +1 from Par since Par got +1

So with this in mind, you have 2 options when addressing bad skills

  1. Slightly buff bad skills and slightly nerf OP skills

or

  1. Buff bad skill to OP skill standards and feed the power creep making the game easier
1 Like
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It’scalled a remaster not a remake. Don’t touch this game. I just want to play Diablo 2 with better graphics.

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I personally think the “its a remaster dont change anything” argument died when they killed the modding scene

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i didn’t play any mods, i always enjoyed the original game and played ladder and i just want my old beloved game in new graphics .

So many people asking for changes, hopefully blizzard doesn’t mess this game up…

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um, no thanks i dont need a new skill system that you dreamed up last night. thanks

4 Likes
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I say no thanks to skill changes other than maybe SLIGTHLY buffing skills that are not used at ALL. No reason to rework the entire system.

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Skill synergies is a horrible system, and it made D2 worse. But altering it would be a drastic change.

Just buff the weakest skills and call it a day. Of course, buffing a skill could include giving it a synergy.

Strongly agree with this design approach in general though. It is the path D4 should take, not with synergies of course, since those should not exist, but with all game systems in general. Giving all skills categories/tags, such as those you mention, that the different game systems interact with.

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Yes and no about D4

From what I heard there is no synergy between skills

But rather a threshold system for stats, which indeed translate to a global/non-class restricted buff system, but this only compares if there are cross class skills

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Btw

https://chng.it/gVyyGpS9jn

Modding petition!

A tag/category system works without cross class skills, as long as the categories are shared? Like druid and necro summoning skills are both summoning skills.

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I was talking about the D4 comparaison with the stats perk system

There’s no point shaving a global system when there is no shared skilled

That’s what I mean

But yeah for D2c Oskill, charges, ctc exists therefor global tag system makes much more sense than class specific synergies

I feel it was an overlook on synergy system because it was a 1 man patch

But those skills are bad because of the entire system lol

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I understand the desire to balance skills so that the underpowered skills are buffed to be on par with the overpowered skills, but another part of the fun of this game for people is making builds around underpowered skills, and making them work.

Many people also do not perceive the game to be broken and in need of fixing, and these skills are working as intended.

Take the enchant/bow sorceress. Some people enjoy maxing out enchant and blowing things up with a bow’s auto attack. It works. It’s not optimal, but it’s viable. That’s what’s cool about this game. Just about anything is viable if you work at it enough.

And as I mentioned in my above post, changing skills for PvE balance is going to have all kinds of potentially unintended, rippling effects, including major changes to established PvP builds and strategy. Any changes would have to be done with great care and sensitivity. I’m sure it’s possible to make balance changes, but it’s unlikely to be executed correctly and that’s partly what the conservative fans are worried about.

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Ok, you gonna be fire sorc, you only use this spell. You gonna be cold sorc, you only use this spell.

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The point of my rework isnt only to buff bad skills, its also about boosting diversity of “Granted” skills

You dont get synergy if you use Dragonscale’s hydra on a paladin

you dont get Synergy when you use Windhammer’s twister on a barb

Even your example, you dont get synergy to your Kuko shakaku’s exploding arrow or Hellrack’s immolation arrow charge as a sorc

1.10 was made by a single employee and its obvious it was a lot to chew and “granted” skill got forgotten and took a hard hit from synergy system… that a lot of diversity left behind

I dont see any problem with challenging the meta. I prefer a better game than being stuck with nostalgia goggle statu quo

what i love about the game is the lore, the feelings, the skills… i dont care if it gets balanced if it means its getting better and the meta builds get a bit weaker and bad skills get better

I fail to understand the meaning behind your very well detailed intervention lol

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17

Sure that’s fair. Some items do not add their class skills to another class when wielded. But that was intended. This would add more variety to the game if changed though. I am indifferent on that.

I don’t think there’s any nostalgia goggles happening here though. I play D2 still, now, and am not looking at it this way. It’s still great, not in my memories, but in the current.

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Im not talking about + 3 to fireball (sorc only)

Im talking about Charges/Oskill/Chance to cast, those are open to everybody but suck in general unless they are support skills like teleport, Bo, curses since they arent synergy heavy

You like the current, but can you admit that you would like it if it was changed for better? or only the current way it is it is good?

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I don’t think what is needed, due to a myriad of reasons, is a complete rebuild of the synergy system but 6 months out or so is looking at the extremely bad or unused skills and working on them.

Underperforming skills can be fun (poison Necro as an example for me) and provide some interesting and fun gameplay. Not everything should be equal and I also understand that you’re not trying for that so this was more to the general audience.

What needs to be done though is some number tweaking and, possibly, synergy tweaking of skills to make them “Hell viable/reasonable” and not just the 1 pt “I have to” prereq (different than 1pt wonders which is fine). I’d like to see all skills either having a place, a role, or some cool quirky usage (Enchant Bow as an example). D2 does decently well with this overall as Bloodshot gave examples of but the system just needs to be tweaked more then overhauled imo.

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I mean just what I said. I love Diablo 2 in its current state, and have no interest in it being vastly changed.

  • I am okay with bug fixes, but not to bugs that the community now treats as features, like ebugging and wsg. The devs have not gotten this entirely right thus far unfortunately.
  • I am okay with QoL changes to a degree and the current dev team’s philosophy is getting this right for the most part. I’d like to see an item level toggle as an optional display feature for crafters, but otherwise their QoL ideas satisfy.
  • Balance changes I am against for reasons already stated.

If the changes you are talking about above involve skill synergy bugs with items, etc. that are in fact deemed bugs, I understand the need for the devs to analyze that. If they are not bugs, then, no I don’t see the need to change anything.

But you’re talking about granted oskills from items, like Dragonscale and Windhammer. Windhammer gives you a level 22 twister proc which is crazy as is. +10 or 22 on one item can get out of control pretty quick if they were able to interact with synergies in the way you suggest. That’s why they are isolated to the item itself. These items are working as intended, and have situational use, or are just fun for the flavor. A paladin with a level 10 hydra is cool and somewhat useful utility. A barb with level 22 twister procs going off during whirlwind is going to add a nice bit of extra elemental damage. If a barb could get a cold skill to somehow stack with twister to make it level 42+ that’d get a bit weird, as you’d have a ww barb out-playing an elemental druid at his own game, if that’s what you’re talking about. Same with a fully synergized fire paladin with +10 hydra. You could have a paladin doing more hydra damage than a hydra sorc because of one class-specific item. It sounds cool, but I think they never did this because it wouldn’t be fair to the original class of a given skill.

Per your ideas in the original post: I don’t like the idea of homogenizing synergy categories so that all classes share the same categories. I hate homogenization in games, get that out of here, far far away. There are already items that do this, i.e. “+fire skills” which work on any class that has fire skills. It doesn’t need to be revamped entirely just for the same of certain items with oskills, to make them better.