The first thing that gets me think season 1 again is the huge nerf to almost all classes. Specially necro, non minion build are nuked to oblivion.
Yes bash barb was good in season 4 but did not need a nerf, better give the under performing builds a boost instead.
Season 4 is the best season so far. And nice to finally feel powerful if you are not a druid. That’s what diablo is about killing hordes of monsters in a fast pace.
I honestly thought you had learned from season 1, but clearly not.
You also said no nerf without an compensation in the future. But it’s just one big nerf. So that didn’t hole up as well.
A season mechanic that’s even more tedious than farming boss keys.
This and the huge nerfs makes season 5 a pass for me, i finally thought the game was moving in the right direction, but sadly not.
I had pre ordered the expansion, but refunded it again, and will not buy it when you turn the game back to season 1 over again.
You need to earn my money, and this is not how to do it.
But ty for an amazing season 4 which i still play. Was fun as long as it lasted. Rip
keep in mind the overall pace and progression of the game at the end is slowed down when they nerf.
I imagine NM100 or lower isn’t affected much but what you can achieve in the pit is something else.
They made it somewhat the benchmark to be able to speed 101 as a baseline power of a class imho. If they scale baseline power below what classes can speed at 101, it will be a end game progression nerf. Each class needs a speed 101 build, if they can’t do that, yes it’s a nerf.
This has nothing to do with the game being easier, just slower.
If they don’t make major changes, it will be Season 1 2.0, but they have time still.
However, if sorc remains trash tier, I will be skipping this season even if the season mechanic is fixed to be fun. Class balance is really bad right now. And it doesn’t appear the developers have any idea how to design sorc. It’s like they are using items to try and beef up the class, but those powerful items are resulting them in nerfing skills.
For example, the fire shield temper became available this season, along with GA, this allowed people to get infinite flame shield. This caused them to nerf the skill so CD started after immunity ended. However, before S4, infinite flame shield was impossible, it was only enabled by items. Teleport CD got nerfed presumably because of items.
I don’t really understand this design process. Maybe don’t make affixes that introduce broken mechanics rather than nerfing the skills so much that you have to have Uber Uniques and 12/12 MW to play the class in high level content. And even then, it’s still behind Barb/Rogue. I guess necro and druid are in sorry states too, but I can’t speak for those classes.
I think nerfs to blighted aspect, grasping veins, and wither make sense. These things bring those bonuses more in line with other comparable ones and open up more options for how to build your Necro. I also don’t think “how much damage do we do at the top end of optimization?” is the appropriate analog for “how fun is the game?”
So for example, Mac talks about how the buff to bone spirit from the new aspect isn’t as big as it seems because it will replace a 1.5x aspect that already existed, or how the buff to blight doesn’t do anything because all the damage comes from Ebonpiercer. But if you have a build where the worst offensive aspect is giving a 1.5x boost, that’s a ludicrously strong build. And the real issue with blight builds is that the Ebonpiercer projectiles should scale with Blight damage instead of being flat damage. That change might actually be coming in S5, since they specifically said the PTR isn’t including the updates to old uniques.
Did it need a nerf tho? Aren’t we wanting all builds to be able to push 150ish? I could see if it was clearing t200 but it isn’t even the best barb builds and got nerfed while the best build got buffed lol, make it make sense
It is relative what you can push based on how the environment is balanced against the classes as a whole. So yes relative to everything else it needed a nerf. They can always adjust the environment accordingly when the variance between the classes is smaller.
I see it as they make nerf to what you said, to make all necro builds bad now. The other ways to build your necromancer isn’t even used because they are so bad. So now when they are more in line they are all bad.
Season 1 again.
Either way is fine as long as the variance is closed and made smaller.
Some would say why do you want to see billions on the screen as clutter over hundred thousands…and I honestly don’t care enough one way whether they balance up or down as long as the gap is closed an the environment in adjusted accordingly.
? I don’t care about a number I want to play the content they add, there is already 50 pit levels, a 1/4th of the new event not even accessible lol. What’s the point?
It’s a hack slash and smash game. Always was and always will be.
D3 committed the cardinal sin of “Upward Balancing”.
That’s why it’s, D3, a cliche meme.
If all Skills were balanced within 5%+/- of one another as a baseline - Items could be added to favor 2-3 Skills/Builds per season to keep things interesting.
They could make said Builds/Skills perform a SMALL 5-15% better than the aforementioned Baseline.
Not messing with the Classes and Skills themselves except to keep parity and overall balance within Class and Skill Node(Basic/Core/Mastery).
The problem is this: Content voraciousness from the Community and Playerbase.
D3 fell into this trap by adding adding and adding without checks and balances.
Everything went Season by Season.
D4 Devs could be brave and simply - Have crazy items be Seasonal - ie. Meta Builds are based on Seasonal Items that can be rotated at any time(vs Seasonal Themes)
It’s a no win situation for the Devs.
Give strength - take away and they’re doomed.
Don’t add new content - They’re doomed.
Give Strength 1 Season and come the next Season - only bigger Numbers will Shift the Meta.
What they’re doing is Keeping items relatively static and Changing the Classes on a fundamental level in an attempt at Meta modulation and keeping things in Check.
That’s simply backwards.
I don’t know a solution to things getting out of hand but not knowing my Class or Classes through and through(See D2 and class identity for example) - is driving me and I’m sure many others crazy.
Are they? Mac has a ton of builds he tracks, most of which can clear top content. Any build that can farm neathiron and the tormented bosses is a strong build. Tons of builds that can’t do that are still fun builds. Maybe you want to have an S tier build around for farming mats for your fun builds, but when every other build is considered bad because 1 or 2 builds are much much stronger than them, that’s bad for the game.
What’s even worse for the game, though, is when every build is made better by equipping a specific aspect or unique. They said they wanted to curtail that and you see some of the effects here. Grasping Veins is on almost every Necro, which also means they are all running tendrils. Blighted Aspect was so much stronger than all other options it was forcing shadow builds to use a 2H with that aspect rather than any unique or other weapon setup.
If the end result of all this is that game gets harder across the board because the top tier builds are all weaker, that seems like a good thing. They can increase the rewards if farming is now too slow. They can tweak boss HP if those fights get boring. It doesn’t make sense to buff every aspect and unique to be as strong as Grasping Veins and Blighted Aspect when people are already deleting content at all levels except the extremely overtuned end of the Pit.
Why do people always come with the only hard (or even impossible) content in the game when it comes to difficulty discussions?
Only because Pit200 exists the rest of the game should be so easy, that even a ape who scratch himself with the keyboard can achieve everything?
The keyword is “endgame diversity”…If higher pits are the only challange in the game and the other 99% way to trivial, the game becomes boring very fast.
There’s currently no middleground difficulty vise…it’s either way to easy or in Pit200s case impossible, nothing inbetween.
