Skills & Boss Tuning Feedback

PC General Discussion
1

As I went into the Strongholds to capture them, I ran into issues that initially seemed to be gear based (not enough armor to take hits, partially an issue with level scaling and gear not catching up). But then when I went to do the Stronghold with the vampiric growths, that boss fight turned into just not fun.

For those who haven’t done it, the dude is a squishy vampire mage who really isn’t all that tough. But as you progress down the progress pipe, he unlocks three assistants that are designed to counter ranged players. You can kill them, but after a set time, he revives them at full health.

1.) Melee guy that does poison. He’s not too tough, but he seems to have a timer where he sprints to you and hits you. Dodge/evade didn’t appear to affect this, unless it was a rubberbanding issue. This seems to be exactly the amount of time it takes for passive regeneration from gear to set in, meaning you can’t regroup from combat to get some health back.

2.) Second dude is the little cleric guy, only he spawns jails that chain you on top of his little aoe magics. Annoying, but manageable.

3.) The third dude that spawns at about 40%, is a shield bearer that covers half the damn arena with a block projectile shield.

On top of all this, they appear to be immune to snares, stuns, and dazes. All together, these are clearly targetting players that are setup for a ranged playstyle. Small arenas that you can’t exit or even town portal out of, shouldn’t be filled with encounters that are immune to, or exist as a counter to players. Save this sith for rifts, seasons, or whatever end-game shenanigans you have planned.

If skills/abilities are not usable in important content, get rid of them. I spent my attempts on this fight wanting to alt-f4 and play something else (especially since this gets wiped). I did clear it, but it was not satisfying in the least.

Also, potions. Either go with a cooldown, or add skills/affixes to mitigate. Life steal might’ve been a vanilla D3 mistake, but a life-on-hit normalized to attack speed doesn’t seem unreasonable.

2

Quite honestly:
There should be way more anti-range mechanics/mobs in the game to equal the playing field for melees.
I enjoy the challenge to play as Barb/Druid in early game, but when Sorcs, Rogues and Necros blast past me with three times my speed it kind of spoils the experience :sweat_smile:

3

I think you’re talking about a classic case of making your class better, rather than making other styles non-viable. And if this is in the open world, that’s fine. Skip this pack in favor of one that works better for you.

Back in Vanilla D3, they had an elite pack where the minions weren’t killable as long as the leader was alive. It led to some elite affix combinations that were just downright disgusting, and as a result they removed it. Imagine gating story/sidestory content behind something broken that you can’t simply outlevel due to dynamic leveling.

Another vanilla D3 reference here, but there used to be the dude with the big mace. He would telegraph his action, and then change his bearing midswing to wherever you were. Was obnoxious for Monks, as you couldn’t dodge it even if you moved in time. They changed that as well.

4

Like I said: I enjoy the challenge, so imo the right balancing move would be to make ranged classes struggle a bit more in the early game as well.

Regarding the D3 references:
I don’t really see how they apply to the situation.
Outright broken stuff that is either not working as intended or getting out of hand when certain factors come together isn’t the same as having mechanics that are working exactly as they should and do not break the game in any kind of way.

You can always change the difficulty from Veteran to Adventurer.

5

I mained barb and really had no issues with this. I know this is hard to hear for you, but this sounds like it is just an issue with you not knowing how to kill the creatures or itemize correctly. Again, I totally understand this is not what you want to hear, but the game does not need to be changes for every Andy that posts here starting their post by saying they know it’s not their gameplay.

6

That’s not how it works.

I did the strong hold OP is talking about as melee. All of those mechanics he’s talking about are also punish melee players. I was able to clear it after one failed boss attempt on my melee druid. But only barely.

Anti-ranged mechanics? Good luck creating those without also being anti-melee mechanics. All mechanics impact melee way more than casters regardless of how you design them.

7

I did it as Barb with no real issue whatsoever (besides the usual slower killing speed while not having full legendaries).
A guy charging at you? I triggered unstoppable just in case so I can’t even tell if it would have CC’d me and I didn’t have to bother getting to him.
It’s probably way more dangerous for classes who want to stay at range.
The mob with the missile barrier is also strictly anti-range and shouldn’t bother melee classes at all.