Hello all! After playing the beta / Server Slam I have a lot of feedback to share and will post it in this thread. The feedback is split into sections to make it more readable.
Plot
As a person that has read the Sin War trilogy, I am very interested in this game's plot. Would it be like the Sin War, where players are the "fifth force"? (between Heaven, Hell, Lilith with followers, Inarius with followers and humans). Maybe this time we would be able to pick and follow one of the "parents" and oppose the other? Lots of plot opportunities in this game. The small downside is that many characters here were introduced exclusively in Sin War and even people who played all previous game installments might not know much about them. For example, I doubt that many people know identity of "the serpent, whose scales mirrored the prophecy", aka Trag'Oul.Suggestion: Give more lore notes and explanations about characters who figure in this plot and did not figure in Diablo’s earlier games much - Rathma, Trag’Oul, creators of Sanctuary and so on to let people understand more about them and their motives.
Combat
Combat felt pretty active and good. Having mob / boss mechanics that should be dodged (or should i say evaded) adds a bit of reaction system. I am also a big fan of armor change and damage numbers tuning, so that screen is not lit with 4+ digit numbers that both distract and annoy and hope that such tuning would stay in end game as well. What can be improved still though is visual display for positive / negative effects. For your skills effect duration, it is currently represented by a small white line above the ability. During active combat you often don't have time to track it and that can make you less aware. Players also have almost no indications for negative effects on them - how powerful they are, how long would they last and so on.Suggestion: Add a settings option to display both negative and positive effects above the skills panel (where some effects are already displayed, but only few) and make them green and red squares with tooltips accordingly that show both duration and potency / influence of the effect. In such a way, people who want to track everything that happens with their character can pick such an option and people who do not want to see multiple effects above their skill panel can just not pick it in options and play with current layout.
Gameplay
Between main campaign, side quests, dungeons & cellars, Strongholds, events, areas discovering and Altars of Lilith search, I have always had things to do and gameplay did not feel too repetitive, so good work here. However, that would continue to be the case and gameplay would feel varied for players only if in other regions / acts dungeons would have varying structures and goals, events would be different and quests would have some variance or even better - possible choices what to do, so please take that into account.As for game difficulty - even though against regular enemies I felt like game was easy, even on Veteran difficulty, that was changed when I met Butcher / I fought Act 1 final boss / fought Ashava with lots of mechanics to dodge, so decent work here as well. However, take into account that on higher levels, where people would get appropriate legendaries / passives, their power level would scale massively, so power level of enemies and bosses should be tuned with that in mind to keep the game interesting.
Sorcerer class design
The class itself feels quite smooth and well designed. You can nuke areas pretty quicky (as you should as a mage class) and you can die if you don't pay much attention to what is going on (as you should as well).I regularly had lack of mana and that was surprising, since I did not feel such resource lack when I played Diablo 3, which has similar resource system for Wizard. I suppose that is because Wizard has several passives that boost resource regeneration like Astral Presence and has upgrades that reduce cost of specific skills, so maybe more such passives should be introduced for Diablo 4 Sorcerer as well.
Enchantment system is good - it allows you to play with pretty much 8 abilties (7 in beta) and customize your character a lot more. Want to play a Frozen Lightning sorcerer that can chill enemies with Shock skills? Slot Frost Bolt into Enchantment and you have such effect. Want to play a Cold sorcerer, but feel like you lack damage? Slot Ice Shards into enchantment slot and deal additional passive damage to frozen enemies. The build variety with such class mechanic can be massive, the only thing that prevents this is that some enchantments are much weaker / less useful / less reliable than other. I will cover that in the Sorcerer builds and skills feedback section.
I tested skills of all 3 elements with some cross-element combos and have feedback and suggestions about many abilities, passives, enchantment effects etc. These suggestions are not necessary, so if you have options that address the mentioned issues better or don’t like some of them, you could implement other solutions instead.
To make the thought process about suggested changes easier to understand, I’ll split elemental builds into separate subsections and attach skills feedback to the build that is connected to them.
Sorcerer Fire builds and skills
Fire Sorcerer is clearly designed between two major branches - burning build (supported by burning passives / upgrades and Combustion end tree passive) and crit build (supported by crit passives / upgrades and Esu’s Ferocity end tree passive). They are not compatible much since burning damage cannot crit and that could be improved, since two other elements can have hybrid builds that effectively combine their sub-branches - freeze and vulnerability effects (for Cold) and Crackling Energy with crits (for Lightning).
Fire builds:
When playing burning build and comparing it to other elements, I felt like it is just too slow. Enemies burn for additional damage and eventually die, but I constantly had a feeling that as a Frost / Lightning build I would have already killed them and moved further. That can be improved if you reduce burning duration and boost its dps to compensate - total damage done would be around the same, but burning based build’s pace would be faster. Even though Fire builds have passives that rely on burning effects present, burning builds usually reapply burning long before the previous burn effect expires, so reducing its duration and boosting dps should still not harm them much.
Fire’s critical build felt better, but has other issues - it has too little amount of tools to be used (since many abilities are based on burning damage and burning damage does not crit), which limits its build variety. This will be indicated in feedback about specific abilities with suggestions how that can be fixed.
Fire abilities:
Fire Bolt is decent as an ability and has good synergy with burning builds, but has several issues.
First - Its direct damage part is too low, which makes it the slowest pace spammable ability to use. There were multiple occassions where I ran out of Mana and used it as a filler on regular enemies and stacked a burn effect past their remaining HP value and still had to wait for several seconds till affected enemy dies. Compared to Frost Bolt and Spark, I had to spend much more time just waiting for either enemies to burn or Mana to recover and finish them off with instant damage.
Second - Fire Bolt has bad compatibility with crit builds. Its burning damage does not crit and its direct damage is too low to be meaningful. That might seem normal, as ability is clearly designed for burning builds mainly, but there is just no other spammable ability for Fire crit builds to utilize. As a result, Fire Bolt should be compatible with both crit and burning builds.
Both issues can be addressed simultaneously with several changes.
Suggestion: Increase Fire Bolt’s direct damage and reduce its burning damage to compensate. Such change would both make its pace faster and would make it much more compatible with crit builds.
To make it even more synergizing with both builds, it could also have build defining last choice upgrades like Spark has a choice between spawning Crackling Energy and stacking crit chance. One upgrade could make Fire Bolt deal even more damage instantly and less via burning, being designed to make it better for crit builds. Second upgrade could remain as current and increase burn damage. As for Mana resoration per hitting a burning enemy upgrade, that effect could be moved to a separate passive and extended to all Fire direct damage non-Conjuration spells (these conditions are present to prevent Incinerate / Hydra abusing that could fill your Mana bar in seconds).
Fire Bolt enchantment: Adding burning effect to direct damage is nice, but as it likely does not stack, it could be undertuned compared to many other Enchantment effects that often stack with themselves. Free stacking could make it too powerful as well, since it can proc off Hydra shots. Best option could be a compromise - let it stack from different direct damage abilities, but only get refreshed from same damage source including different Hydra heads. That would bring its power more to the level of other enchantments, while still keeping it in line.
Fireball - well designed, no suggestions here.
Fireball enchantment: Can cause chain reaction of Fireball explosions, especially against big packs of weaker enemies. I’m not sure how much power you want to give player characters, so would not comment about that and suggest to just carefully track its performance and tune if needed.
Incinerate - a powerful flamethrower, but with several issues that could be addressed. First is that its ramp-up time is too long - 4+ seconds of standing still can be lethal for Sorcerer, especially against strong enemies. Second - as a burn effect it presumably does not crit, making it badly compatible with crit builds. Third - it did not require the latest Mana cost increase, which made it too expensive to maintain effectively.
Suggestions: Reduce its damage ramp up time and introduce a legendary effect that increases its damage and lets its damage crit. First change would make it less risky to use to full extent and second change would give crit builds an option to make good use of it. Please also reconsider its Mana cost.
Incinerate enchantment: Decent and can be played around. Seprent can move the beam if enemies are in opposite direction and they can be lured into it as well.
Flame Shield: Decent and useful, no suggestions here.
Flame Shield enchantment: Useful effect, but its cooldown seems way too long. Similar cheat death effect in Diablo 3 (Unstable Anomaly) has only 60 seconds CD.
Hydra: Fan favourite and a cool ability, was severely nerfed from beta, but still feels impactful. No suggestions here. Just track its performance and buff if needed.
Meteor: Decent after the buff. Its first upgrade should proc from any number of enemies hit to make it more generally useful, especially since Meteor’s radius was not buffed and it is more useful as a single-target dps spell, leaving large AoE zone damage to Fireball. Its fall speed upgrade could use a boost as well, since it is hardly competitive with Immobilize on hit which synergizes with both its own fire field and other fire zones.
Meteor enchantment: Has extremely low and double RNG based chance to proc, making it undertuned and unreliable compared to other Enchantment effects. Even after the buff I have barely seen any Meteors proccing.
Suggestion: Change is to just make Meteor fall on a random enemy nearby every X seconds in combat. That would both make it more reliable and more competitive, as well as easy to tune if needed, since this X can be easily scaled up and down.
Firewall: Visually cool, but kinda undertuned. If compared to Blizzard, which is the closest analogue, Blizzard has much larger radius and does almost similar amount of damage, while also applying Chill. Wizard’s Firewall upgrade is undertuned as well.
Suggestion: Increase its damage and make the area slightly wider. That would make it more competitive in power with Blizzard. As for Wizard’s Firewall upgrade, I suggest to increase mana regeneration bonus per active Firewall to 10% and let it stack to X%, for example 30%. That would make its bonus easier to activate, while still keeping maximum bonus around the same. To achieve this effect, you still need to spend almost entire Mana bar on Firewalls, so mana regen bonus increase can be justified.
Firewall enchantment: Has too low chance to proc, making it both undertuned and not reliable enough compared to many other enchantments.
Suggestion: Change it to create a Firewall beneath first enemy damaged by Sorcerer every X seconds. That would make its enchantment much more reliable and able to be played around, especially with lingering burning upgrade.
If you don’t want to change Firewall’s enchantment mechanic much, it could just have a higher chance to proc and if needed spawn only a single Firewall to compensate.
Inferno: One of my favourite ultimates in the game. Does decent damage, has upgrades that synergize with it and Fire abilities well (pull enemies together into the zone and blast them with free Fireballs / Meteors / Incinerates). The only gripe is that its damage is burning and has bad synergy with crit builds.
Suggestion: Add a legendary effect that turns its damage from burning to direct damage per pulse or just adds direct damage to pulses, providing an option for better synergy with crit builds.
Fire passives:
Inner Flames - needs a bigger bonus. Glass Cannon affects all elemental damage,h as constant uptime and provides similar damage bonus (substracted from its downside), making this passive undertuned in comparison.
Devouring Blaze - decent effect, no suggestions here.
Crippling Flames - as it is tied to lucky hits and immobilize is a weaker form of CC than other elements’ freeze and stun, it might need a higher chance to proc. If needed, reduce bonus from Healthy status to compensate.
Fiery Surge - decent, no suggestions here.
Soulfire - kinda undertuned after the change. Damage increase effect was better for it, so please consider returning it.
Endless Pyre - decent, but as it ramps-up and affects only damage over time part of Fire spells, it might need a bigger bonus.
Warmth - decent effect, no suggestions here.
Esu’s Ferocity - seems undertuned. Most other key passives provide around 20% damage boost, while this passive even with both effects activated simultaneously provides around 5-10%. Might need a value boost.
Combustion - can be powerful with all burning skills slotted, but its ramp up time seems too big. To make it more compatible with less unique sources of burning builds and faster to ramp-up, I suggest to increase its bonus, remove 3+ burn effects ramp-up and provide a cap to its bonus instead, for example to provide 5% burning damage increase per each unique source of burning effect applied, up to X%.
Sorcerer Frost builds and skills
Frost Sorcerer is clearly designed with two major mechanics in mind - vulnerability and freeze. That is even represented by its key capstones, one of which is a proc that has bonus chance against vulnerable enemies and second is a damage burst from hitting frozen enemies. Unlike Fire builds, these mechanics are much more compatible and can be mixed and matched without much drawbacks, they even have synergizing talents like guaranteed vulnerability application against frozen enemies and so on.
Frost builds:
Frost build was quite fun to play - I had decent control over battlefield with chills / freezes, could if needed opt for more offensive play with Ice Shards enchantment or more defensive play with things like Ice Armor enchantment and so on. The one noticed drawback is that freeze based build is weak against bosses - even though chills and freezes fill stagger bar, many effects and passives attached to them don’t work. That could be improved in a similar manner to how Frost Nova’s vulnerability upgrade hasincreased duration against bosses to compensate for the fact that they don’t get frozen.
Frost abilities:
Frostbolt - good ability that does decent damage, chills, can cleave and restore Mana with upgrades. The issue is that its upgrades have very low value against bosses, since all of them are tied to chill / freeze effects.
Suggestions:
- Make first upgrade’s cleave no longer tied to chilled effect and have double proc chance against bosses.
- Make vulnerability upgrade have a separate proc chance against bosses.
- Make Mana restoration upgrade work when hitting bosses as well.
These changes would make all these upgrades more generally useful and allow them to provide benefits even in boss fights.
Frostbolt enchantment: decent battlefield control boosting effect, no suggestions here.
Ice Shards - good single-target damage tool. Can be turned into AoE with specific aspects and upgrades, so such option is available as well.
Ice Shards enchantment - good and helpful for freeze oriented builds, but has very diminished value against bosses as well.
Suggestion: Ice Shards enchantment could have an additional effect that triggers only when you fight a boss enemy, for example launching Ice Shards at him every X seconds.
Frozen Orb - a good skill with decent area, damage and chill application. Though, its last upgrades could use a boost against bosses in a similar manner to other chill / freeze based effects.
Its enchantment has an interesting feature of exploding when it reaches the target is was launched at, even if this target is in melee range, while manual Frozen Orb explodes only when it travels a specific distance. Could manual Frozen Orb receive similar treatment and explode when reaching current selected target? That would have made it much more controllable and easier to utilize.
Additional suggestions:
- Let Greater Frozen Orb have increased proc chance against bosses.
- Let Destructive Frozen Orb restore Mana when hitting a boss enemy as well, if needed with lowered value.
Frozen Orb enchantment: decent effect and proc chance, no suggestions here.
Ice Armor: good defensive skill that can also increase mana regeneration and freeze attackers. Its refreshment percentage was severely nerfed, so track its performance and buff if needed.
Ice Armor enchantment: low proc chance, but might become too powerful with higher. No suggestions here.
Frost Nova - good AoE CC tool, but some of its upgrades could use a boost against bosses. Did it also need such massive CD increase? It could be toned down a bit.
Suggestions:
- Enhanced Frost Nova could additionally cause it to have increased stagger value against bosses.
- Shimmering Frost Nova could have increased Mana restoration when hitting boss enemies.
Frost Nova enchantment is quite strange. It did proc several times off my Conjuration skills, but chance does not seem like 30%, even with lucky hits taken into account. It is also quite hard to balance being based on conjurations, so it could become a reactionary defensive instead.
Suggestion: Change it to proc a Frost Nova when you drop below 50% of maximum health and have X seconds internal CD. That would make it a good defensive enchantment to slot.
Ice Blades - interesting addition to the Sorcerer and its upgrades are a foundation of cooldown reduction build. Their main downside is their AI behaviour - if enemy moves just a tiny bit, blades stop hitting and just fly to him, even if enemy is within their attack reach. This AI behaviour could be improved.
Additionally, latest nerfs to both their CD and CD reduction made them hardly competitive with Hydra - Hydra can be summoned at any needed moment, deals comparable damage from range, does not have downtime which Ice Blades have when they chase enemy that is moving and so on. Please consider buffing their cooldown and cooldown reduction a bit again to make both them and their cooldown reduction build more competitive.
Ice Blades enchantment - was severely nerfed as well. It did not feel bad, but I had much more power gain from other enchantments, so their enchantment might have been overnerfed and could be buffed to stay competitive.
Blizzard - decent ability and upgrades, but Wizard’s Blizzard upgrade seems undertuned even compared to Wizard’s Firewall analogue, which has bigger effect and affects all skills via mana regeneration, while Wizard’s Blizzard affects only Core skills.
Suggestion: As an analogue to suggested change to Wizard’s Firewall upgrade above, let it provide 10% mana cost reduction to all skills per active Blizzard and stack up to X%. That would make its mana management upgrade much more viable and still keep its power level in line with Firewall’s upgrade.
Blizzard enchantment - decent effect, no suggestions here.
Deep Freeze - quite good against regular enemies, but not impressive against bosses - they do not get frozen and Prime Deep Freeze upgrade’s effect against them is diminished. Could use a boost against them.
Suggestion: If needed, let it deal increased pulse damage against bosses and also let Prime Deep Freeze provide some Barrier even if no enemies were frozen.
Frost passives:
Icy Veil - decent, but might be better if it also provided Barrier absorption increase to make it more generally useful.
Cold Front - decent effect, but might be undertuned, since it is active only with Barrier present. Track how much it is taken and if needed boost its value or add additional benefits.
Snap Freeze - effect is decent, but proc chance might be too low, since it is additionally attached to lucky hits. If that would be needed, increase its proc chance.
Permafrost - should indicate in the tooltip that it affects bosses and enemy players as well.
Hoarfrost - decent effect, no suggestions here.
Icy Touch - decent effect, no suggestions here.
Frigid Breeze - decent effect, but could include frozen enemies as well to make it synergize with both prerequisite passives.
Avalanche - decent effect, but is additionally tied to lucky hits, so might need a bigger chance.
Shatter - might have diminished effect against bosses, so should either include their staggered phases (if it does not already) or have alternative effect against bosses, for example make them take increased damage while being staggered.
Sorcerer Lightning builds and skills
Lightning Sorcerer builds are clearly designed around critical strikes (with melee build option possible) and Crackling Energy spawning and usage. These are decently compatible and hybrids are possible - there are effects that spawn Craclking Energy from critical strikes and so on. However, currently most Lightning mana spending damaging abilities outside of Chain Lightning are underpowered and can hardly compete both with other elements and Chain Lightning itself. They need boosts and possible suggestions are covered in the abilities section.
Lightning builds:
Critical build is decent and has lots of synergizing upgrades and passives. The major downside is that its key passive Vyr’s Mastery is tied to melee range, making it not very compatible with ranged crit builds and that should be addressed. Suggestion about Vyr’s Mastery is in the abilities section.
Melee build lacks tools to use - it has Arc Lash as a spammable ability, but could also use a reliable AoE Mana spender (since Charged Bolts is too chaotic / more single-target oriented and Chain Lightning has a target cap).
Suggestion: Add an additional Lightning mana spending ability to Core or Mastery skills that has good compatibility with melee range. A fitting candidate would be already implemented, but removed earlier Lightning Nova - it has no target cap, synergizes with melee builds and does not require much additional design investment outside of upgrades design and numbers tuning.
Crackling Energy build is chaotic and fun in its own way, but necessity to run on top of orbs to pick them has a major downside - if orbs spawn close to a dangerous boss or inside one of damage over time areas, you either need to risk to pick them or need to wait for that, reducing the build’s effectiveness. Melee builds would not want to disengage from their current target to pick an orb that spawned half of screen away either.
Suggestion: Add a passive or legendary effect that would let Sorcerer pick Crackling Energy from some range. That would allow to address the mentioned issues and make Crackling Energy more compatible with both ranged and melee builds.
Lightning abilities:
Spark - decent ability, but is slightly undertuned opposed to other ranged spammable spells. For example, Frostbolt does more damage and additionally applies Chill. Even though Spark has 4 hits and each can crit or proc a lucky hit, that advantage is not enough. Additionally, both Frostbolt and Fire Bolt have a reliable way to trigger their AoE upgrade - Frostbolt cleaves on frozen enemies and Fire Bolt pierces burning enemies, while Spark’s analogue is only a proc chance.
Suggestions:
- Increase Spark’s damage to be slightly above Frostbolt’s, so that Spark’s benefit is more total damage and Frostbolt’s benefit is chill effect.
- Consider letting Enhanced Spark have increased chance to proc with Crackling Energy active or against stunned enemies to match other elements spammable abilities’ similar AoE upgrades.
Spark enchantment: Decent, but has diminished effectiveness against bosses. It could also have a chance to proc when hitting a boss, if needed, with reduced proc chance.
Arc Lash - decent ability, but could become better if players could see the number of swipes to predict its stun proc, for example as a buff with counter on the player. Glinting Arc Lash could use a boost as well, as its area is limited and stuns are not too common, so just 0.25 seconds cooldown reduction per hit might be undertuned.
Arc Lash enchantment - decent effect and a good interrupt / disruption tool. No suggestions here.
Chain Lightning - good and versatile spell, even after the nerf. Its single-target damage boosting upgrade might have been overnerfed though - with decent crit chance its alternative that provides Crackling Energy spawn from crits can provide comparable or even bigger dps gain both in single-target and AoE situations, making the single-target damage upgrade not competitive enough. Consider buffing it again a bit.
Chain Lightning enchantment - just as the ability itself, it is versatile and effective. No suggestions here.
Charged Bolts - decent after the buff, but still is weaker than other elements analogues, for example Ice Shards - they are ranged, deal almost as much damage, are less chaotic and have bonus damage against CC-ed enemies baseline.
Suggestion: Buff damage of Charged Bolts a bit more.
Charged Bolts enchantment: Decent, but since Charged Bolts themselves are chaotic and not that powerful, this enchantment is not that good too. It could also use a proc chance boost to bring its power level more in line with Ice Shards enchantment, which is guaranteed to proc against frozen targets.
Teleport: Very versatile and useful. It can break CC. It can move through obstacles including annoying stone walls from elites. It can be used as a gap creator. It can be used offensively and as a gap closer for melee build. The only thing I would suggest is for Enhanced Teleport to have increased cooldown reduction when hitting bosses to make this upgrade more useful against them.
Teleport enchantment: Now this one is more controversial. You already lose Evade to get this Teleport, so increased cooldown and lowered range for it are questionable and might be not needed. It also for some reason does not break CC like the original Teleport, greatly diminishing its value.
Suggestion: Reconsider its range reduction / cooldown increase when used as Enchantment, since Evade loss and Enchantment slot cost are reasonable trade-offs by themselves. If no CC break is a feature and not a bug, still consider letting Teleport enchantment break CC, just as the original ability does.
Lightning Spear: Interesting design, but is undertuned. It attacks much less frequently than other Conjuration skills, often deals less damage per hit, has one summon opposed to two Ice Blades and 3+ heads of Hydra and has the longest CD on top of that. Even its tracking and piercing capabilities and upgrades that increase its damage from Crackling Energy or let it stun on crits do not compensate for all of that enough.
Suggestions:
- Reduce its CD. Lightning Spear’s current CD not only is one of things that makes it undertuned, but also is too long to even summon it at the beginning of every battle, like you can do with other Conjuration skills.
- Increase its damage per hit. It tracks and pierces, but also has lower attack speed and has 1 attacker opposed to 2-4 of other Conjuration skills, so should at least deal damage per hit comparable to their damage per hit. If needed, reduce Summoned Lightning Spear upgrade’s damage bonus to compensate.
Lightning Spear enchantment: It is decent, but since Lightning Spear itself is undertuned, its enchantment is undertuned as well. Since it is additionally tied to conditional Crackling Energy, it could use a proc chance boost to make it more in line with other Conjuration skill enchantments, which have much more reliable trigger conditions.
Ball Lightning - is undertuned. It has very low area of effect, very high Mana cost and does quite low damage per hit. Could use improvements to make it competitive enough.
Suggestions:
- Reduce its Mana cost to 40 to match most other AoE Mana spenders.
- Increase its zap area to make it more reliably hitting.
- Increase its zap damage to provide competitive dps to other Mastery damage over time skills.
Mage’s Ball Lightning could use a boost as well. It requires melee range, a lot of hits to trigger and stuns only for 1 second. Even Arc Lash has more reliable trigger for its stun and its stun lasts longer.
Ball Lightning enchantment: Effect is decent, but it is triple affected by RNG - critical hit, lucky hit and proc chance on top of that. One of these conditions could be removed or proc chance could be increased to make this enchantment more reliable.
Unstable Currents - quite powerful and interesting ultimate. One thing I had no time to test was what rank procced abilities had. Proccing them at rank 1 might be undertuned and proccing them at rank 5 might be overtuned, especially at lower levels. A reasonable compromise could be to have abilities proc at the maximum known offensive non-Basic ability rank (for example, if you know Chain Lightning and it has rank 3, all Unstable Currents abilities proc at rank 3).
Lightning passives:
Static Discharge - effect is decent, but it is another effect that is triple affected by RNG and that could make it too unreliable.
Suggestion: Make it proc either on critical strikes or lucky hits, not the combination of them to make it more reliable.
Shocking Impact - good idea and decent effect, but has diminished value against bosses.
Suggestion: Make it proc from every X stagger applied by stuns against boss enemies. That would keep the idea similar and allow to effectively utilize it against bosses as well.
Invigorating Conduit - decent effect, no suggestions here.
Coursing Currents - good effect to make Lightning crit builds much less RNG reliant. No suggestions here.
Electrocution - decent effect, no suggestions here.
Conduction - seems undertuned even compared to its neighbour talent Electrocution, so could use a boost. Making its effect 5% per rank to match Electrocution could be enough.
Convulsions - as it is based on lucky hits in addition to proc chance, might need a bigger proc chance to compensate.
Overflowing Energy - effect is interesting, but it does not help much against single target - Crackling Energy target cap increase does not give a benefit there and CD reduction from it is minor.
Suggestion: Make it additionally increase damage done by Crackling Energy ticks. That would make this passive more generally useful.
Vyr’s Mastery - has good effect, but it being tied to melee range only is not good, making this key talent have bad synergy with ranged crit builds.
Suggestion: Make this talent provide Shock damage increase and damage reduction at any range, but have these bonuses increased against melee range enemies (to compensate for melee range gameplay itself). If needed for balance, reduce critical strike bonus to them to compensate.
Sorcerer general passives
Since these were not covered in previous sections, they have a separate subsection with feedback.
Potent Warding - decent passive elemental damage reduction. No suggestions here.
Devastation - has too undertuned effect. Should provide at least 5 Mana increase per point invested to become more competitive.
Elemental Dominance - interesting effect, but likely did not need the nerf and should include all non-Basic skills (or even just all skills) to make it more generally useful and competitive enough with passives like Glass Cannon.
Elemental Attunement - another effect that is triple affected by RNG. Its effect is powerful, so proc chance should not be high, but at least consider tying its proc chance to just critical strikes or to just lucky hits.
Glass Cannon - good effect with reasonable trade-off. No suggestions here.
Precision Magic - decent effect, no suggestions here.
Conjuration Mastery - decent effect for summoner builds, no suggestions here.
Align the Elements - decent, but should state in the tooltip that it also affects damage from bosses and enemy players. Might also have been overnerfed and could use a boost.
Mana Shield - decent effect, no suggestions here.
Protection - decent effect, no suggestions here.
Legendary powers
Please avoid situations of legendary powers that provide close to 100% and bigger boosts to anything. Such legendaries can be mandatory themselves and can make affected abilities mandatory as well, reducing build variety. If some abilities need such boost from legendaries just to be / become competitive, consider just tuning these abilities themselves instead.Some suggestions for Sorcerer legendary powers:
- Legendary power that changes Incinerate’s element to Frost / Lightning and maybe even additional effects of Incinerate as well. Many Sorcerers would miss Ray of Frost from Diablo 3 and there are plenty of people who would enjoy Lightning Lasso / Sith Lord playstyle of lightning beam.
- Legendary power that changes element of Hydra. Another reference to Diablo 3, as possibility to change element of Hydra is useful and helpful for build variety.
- As mentioned in the Fire spells subsection, legendary to make Inferno as direct damage or add direct damage to it - to make this ultimate more compatible with Fire crit damage builds.
- As mentioned in the Lightning spells subsection, a legendary that allows to pick Crackling Energy from some distance - would be very helpful for both melee and ranged Lightning builds.
As conclusion, I had a lot of fun with Diablo 4 and hope that the game would be successful and this feedback would be useful. Thank you for reading!
