1. Overworld Cellars Need a Buff – Currently Not Worth Farming for Resources
- Resource Yields in Overworld Cellars: The current yields from the Overworld Cellars are not worth the effort. Despite these cellars being marked in orange as the optimal places to farm for materials like Iron Chunks and other resources, the actual resource rewards are minimal. Players are consistently receiving single-digit amounts of materials, which feels negligible in comparison to the effort spent farming.
- Scaling Issue with World Tier: A key issue is that the resource yields from Overworld Cellars do not seem to scale with World Tier. As players progress to higher World Tiers, the difficulty of farming increases, but the resource rewards remain the same, making the effort feel disproportionate to the reward.
- Impact on Gameplay: This lack of scaling diminishes the incentive to farm these cellars at higher World Tiers, as the resources obtained do not justify the increased difficulty. It makes the Overworld Cellars feel inefficient and unrewarding, especially for players who have progressed to higher levels and need more substantial rewards for their efforts.
2. Runic Resource Management Issues Across the Board
- Rune Issues and Resource Consumption: A significant issue affecting several builds in Diablo 4 is the failure of certain runes to properly interact with resource management mechanics. For example, the Qax rune, which is supposed to consume resources during World Boss fights, is not functioning as expected. This breaks key mechanics for builds like Rogues with the Preparation specialization, who depend on resource generation and expenditure to reset their Ultimate Skills.
- Broader Rune Functionality Problems: This issue isn’t isolated to the Qax rune. Other runes across multiple classes are failing to trigger effects or utilize other aspects of the respective build correctly, leaving builds that depend on them at a disadvantage. These issues disrupt the synergies players design their builds around, making certain abilities feel incomplete or ineffective in crucial content like World Bosses. For example, the Meteorite rune fails to benefit from Sorcerer Meteor buffs, preventing certain builds from achieving their intended power level.
- Impact on Gameplay: Without the proper resource management and rune functionality, these builds become much less effective, which diminishes the overall experience for players who depend on specific mechanics to perform optimally. It’s critical to address these rune issues across the board to ensure all builds can thrive as intended.
3. Rank 20 Bonuses for All Skills - Unlocking New Potential for Builds
- Rank 20 Bonus for Non-Ultimate Skills: Adding Rank 20 bonuses for all skills, similar to the Rank 5 bonuses for Ultimate skills, would unlock new potential for player builds. This would allow for greater creativity and flexibility, particularly for players who want to specialize in specific skills.
- Potential Examples of Rank 20 Bonuses:
- Blizzard (Sorcerer skill): At Rank 20, Blizzard could unlock the ability to permafrozen enemies, adding a Cold DoT (damage over time) effect. This would increase the synergy between the Chilled and Frozen status effects, boosting damage multipliers.
- Firebolt (Sorcerer skill): Firebolt could unlock a Flashfire effect at Rank 20, adding burst fire damage in a small radius to nearby enemies.
- Shred (Druid skill): At Rank 20, Shred could gain a bonus that causes poisoned enemies to explode upon death, dealing area-of-effect poison damage.
- Rend (Barbarian skill): With a Rank 20 bonus, Rend could increase its bleed damage based on physical damage bonuses, strengthening bleed-based builds.
- Shadow Imbuement (Rogue skill): A Black Hole effect could be unlocked at Rank 20, pulling enemies in and applying Shadow DoT effects.
- Wider Build Diversity: These Rank 20 bonuses could dramatically enhance the potential for specialized and unique builds across all classes, encouraging experimentation and adding depth to skill progression.
4. Armory Feature Should Be Tied to Classes, Not Individual Characters
- Current Armory System Issues: The Armory feature is currently tied to individual characters, which creates significant issues for players who focus on a single class during each season. This system forces players to transfer their builds manually to a single character when transitioning to the Eternal Realm, causing unnecessary repetition and time spent reassigning skill points, re-equipping gear, and remaking builds.
- Proposed Solution: It would be far more efficient if the Armory were tied to the class rather than the character. This way, players could store and manage multiple builds for the same class on one character and easily switch between them without having to transfer items and manually delete duplicate characters. This would streamline the process of managing builds, reduce the number of unnecessary characters in a player’s list, and improve the overall user experience.
5. Meta Build Disparity is Detrimental to Build Diversity
- The Issue with Meta vs Off-Meta Builds: The difference in damage output between meta and off-meta builds is massive. For example, this season, the Blood Wave Necromancer has completely taken over due to the multiple buffs to ultimate skills, allowing this single build to deal trillions of damage and clear Pit 150 with only that skill equipped. Meanwhile, other builds across all classes struggle to do even billions or possibly hundreds of billions of damage. This creates a huge disparity in build diversity, where players are forced to either follow the meta or be left behind.
- Impact on Gameplay: This imbalance reduces the incentive to experiment with unique builds and makes off-meta options feel weak or unviable. It also discourages players from exploring different playstyles, as the power gap between meta and non-meta builds is so vast that it feels pointless to deviate from the dominant strategy.
Please feel free to add any additional feedback or thoughts on these topics. I welcome further discussion and appreciate the opportunity to provide input on how the game can be improved!