Remember the Season where Ball of Lightning Sorcerer was a popular build? You would see all those Sorcerers running and teleporting around, insta gibbing Overworld content? While it might have been a simple build and annoying to other more balanced builds it was a perfect build for casual players. It was also a build that was close to what Sorcerers should be all about: powerful spells and when pushing also careful positioning.
For Season 5 I would recommend giving Sorcerers more options to create simple and powerful builds where you can focus more on positioning. Let the Ball of Lightning build return, add a unique Sorcerer item that lets enchantments auto cast the spells, raise the Area of Effect cap to 150% instead of 100%, let Sorcerers blow up the screen (not literally of course).
The Infernal Horde challenge at lower tiers will also be a lot more fun for casuals when your max cooldown Sorcerer is auto casting screen wide spells obliterating zounds of enemies and finishing round after round in seconds. And if that same build will not put a dent in an enemy at a higher tier that’s ok. And when the build to conquer these higher levels can’t use auto casting because that loses too much dps then that’s also fine.
For the Overworld content the Profane Mindcage should be iterated on. Now I do realize that stacking these or adding plus 100 monster levels to one player in the instance while the other next to him/her, who doesn’t use such an item, one shots the monsters doesn’t work. Alternative ideas are World instances or Area instances or a separate continent where the Overworld is scaled up for everyone.
Sorc need whole overhaul of enhancments and major buffs to dmg to bosses otherwise the class is dead. Honestly how are Sorcs DEVs thinking spawning free Blizzard every 15 sec or minor lucky hit chance to cast meteor is CLASS DEFINING system is beyond me these powers are equvalent in strenght to accidentally casting the skill yourself minus the mana cost… no wonder every sorc runs Fire Bolt and Ice Blades cuz everything else doesnt do anything at all
Yes because we see that broken classes teach good positioning, like when the barb tries to play another class and then complains how the skills are not good enough because they keep getting hit by CC.
We need less broken stuff and real balance between the classes.
Of course. It depends on what you think is broken. I think perma Flame Shield invulnerability is broken. I don’t think a Ball of Lightning build is broken when it can almost compete with top tier Barb builds in the Pits.
The problem is you are comparing to a barb build that is broken. BL in s2 was broken.
Yes Sorc needs an over all damage adjustment, as does Druid. But the reality is, it is barb that is broken and would be easier to bring back in line, then they will need to readjust the world. As long as the gap is closed it really does not matter to me, if you go up or down with the damage. But given there are calculations happening with every hit, you would think they may want to keep the numbers smaller rather than in the bazillions.
Broken is anything that is out-performaing everything else in the kit by an order of magnitude that exceeds over 10-20x. And even that would be tolerable, because the difference right now is bigger than that.
Ball Lightning wasnt even the best build in season 2? Or am i remembering wrong.
From what i can recall Barb still had the edge on Ball Lightning even in its super op state.
it’s true. BL was dominant for about a week then overpower barbs rised to the top.
Not just 1 build, multiple barb builds (HOTA, death blow, upheaveal)
You didn’t do just that, you also stated that broken build in S2 was “perfect build for casual players” so… It’s not a simple request, there’s obviously in there somewhere a sliver of a wrong approach
Now sure, yes, Sorc needs love, but first need nerf the strongest classes (and strongest builds) and keep a reasonable standard/goal
Then can do quite a few things that aren’t “specific build” related, such as:
Revert changes to Staff, Focus, and allow tripple-wield of a Staff, 1H and OH (like the Rogue)
Meanwhile can also take a better look at balancing the late game itself cause sometimes Infernal Horde run gives 50 Aether and sometimes else gives 150 (while not doing specifically anything different as a player)
Apparently yes, these are S5-related cause it’s stated in your title
When you look at the Pits the obvious action would be to buff the weakest classes, not nerf the strongest. When you look at the Overworld content then nerfing the Tempering buffs a bit would be the first step. Adding a higher difficulty for the Overworld content would also be a good step, but that’s probably planned for Season 6 i.e. the expansion. Fixing bugs that allow for extreme damage numbers is a must and that will come soon. After that balance changes are needed, including nerfs for the strongest classes I agree.
As can be read from the Infernal Horde part from the initial post, the emphasis is on making more accessible, simple builds, perfect for casuals where power is important but not the most important. It’s a trade off where the build is a lot easier to manage because of auto casting but you lose a significant part of your dps compared to the top builds. Now this doesn’t mean you can’t kill, you will absolutely be blasting in the Overworld and if you can position well also in the Pits but about 10 to 20 tiers lower than the (post balance/nerf) top builds.
Right now the weakest class and the weakest build is doing around 50k-100k dps, the strongest is doing about IDK 14 billion
Do you want to reduce the game into rubble even more ?
What’s with this (sorry must say it) Numerical Correctness (if I may express it so ?) why so much tolerance to bad design and then having the proper part of the game reduced into nothingness even more ? (instead of reduce the ceiling to more proper and manageable numbers ?)
What’s this obsession with power and FOMO ?, just reduce the ceiling, bring things more into order, Tormented Bosses are a pinnacle content once again (as opposed to a 3-week goal post), and continue from there onward
What does “buff weaker classes” fix ?, other than completely destroy the existing early game even more ?, what’s the point of not admitting that it is precisely that THE LATE GAME IS THE ISSUE (and sadly a very bad casino that keeps needing more budget every single season more and more)
Fix the game once ffs, instead of doubling-down into that casino even more
But need more - something to break the casino gambling cycle and turn the game into more of a game and less of a slot machine with treadmill rounds (something that will introduce uncertainty and surprises at least somewhat)
Was Season 4 a win for you or not? If so then Season 4 can be seen as the base game from which the game can evolve.
The Pits is the part of the game that’s meant for a specific group of players. Its monster health scaling requires player damage scaling that is easily a factor 100 higher than what’s needed in the Overworld. That’s something that needs to be addressed.
A way to fix this, is by applying the Tormented Bosses mechanic, where you get stacks that exponentially increase your damage received, but also (or instead) to monsters. So the monsters and Bosses get stacks when you hit them, exponentially increasing their next damage received from the player. Then the base damage for builds could be toned down a lot, so not trillions of damage but millions.
It was, initially, but think the initial “shock and awe” effect expired, and mostly because they allowed yet again the game to go “rogue”
That being said S4 wasn’t just a success but also a miracle. A very rare case of completely turning the table all out of a sudden (and temporarily enjoying the results)
What I mentioned in my post about “breaking the cycle” was more intended for the long term (i.e. at some point they need to do more than adjusting numbers, that’s all)
Now to the question => Am I satisfied ?, yes… Well more like probably Was… (say for 5 weeks or so)
I think after what’s been done (and release of S5) there is less of a reason to celebrate and more of a bigger reason for concerns
Allowing the game go “rogue” to where level 200 content was reduced into “3 week milestone” is not a good sign at all
I get this, I even wrote a suggestion https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/d4/t/a-couple-of-ideas-to-improve-current-lategame-balance-issues/177608
The problem is (again) allowing the game to go completely out of control and then thinking of “miracle drugs” to keep it on track going on
Allowing the game to go out of control for a bit is part of the fun for theory crafters and for those pushing the Pits.
If Season 5 is not as great or groundbreaking as Season 4 then that’s ok to a lot of players as long as the expansion delivers. With enough polish Season 5 can still be fun.
No-one says that the game should not be not fun, BUT
Hitting 2000x damage per hit than otherwise, is that fun ?, that is like (literally) typing in a cheat code
People have to (and should have already) made a really good and smart decision of differentiating fun and power…
Today saw some reddit numbers (hope are true) and turns out that every level (or at least pit level) monsters gain 17% HP (that means double HP every 5 levels), and that also means 30x every 20 levels, and 100x HP every 30
Meaning ? - if you want to push several Pit rounds you’ll have to increase damage 10x, and if want to push 30 then damage has to rise by a factor of 100x
Sure. There are balancing issues to fix. Once player damage output is more balanced, the health numbers can come down.
I respect your opinion and view on this. But I also have confidence in the devs and players working together with the devs that they can get the balance in a pretty good spot eventually.
I do feel that this will take a longer period of time, because every time something fundamentally changes the game, like for example Loot Reborn or the upcoming expansion, you’ll most likely be more off balance for a while.
