I did not overreact previously. The sorc is completely demolished as of the patch on PTR.
I went to the town with the quest starter, attempted to kill the demonic invaders, and… got smoked repeatedly before logging out and attempting to beg my case to Blizzard for a pre order refund.
This is the same build I am using on Live that has very few survivability issues. It’s totally cratered on PTR. There is no hope for the build I was using on Live, right now, which is hydra/firewall/inferno/meteor.
Also as a PSA Blizzard will not refund the pre order despite the website stating it refunds pre orders.
When they change things, you have to change your build to counter nerfs and benefit from buffs.
I’ve done perfectly ok with my new CL build. Survivability is rock solid (at the tiers i’ve played anyway), and damage is pretty terrible, but I can still kill the bosses in Tier 3 of the new event in just a couple of minutes.
You can’t just pick up an existing build and play, it’s PTR, it’s for testing.
If you don’t want to test stuff, that’s fine, don’t play PTR, it’s probably not for you.
You know those instant unlock cosmetic “gifts” Blizzard attaches to all pre-orders for all their products?
That’s what they use as the reason to deny refunds if your pre-order is for an xpac of a game you already play – because you already got it and used it in your current version of the game.
AHHH. And here I was, thinking I was safe because I got the base edition.
Funny enough, when Dragonflight was on during pre order, they let me refund it once before I rebought it with another payment method. No issues at all. And that one had cosmetics, too.
Not sure the new boss is any better than the old boss.
Bumblebee, weren’t you one of the people in general forums stating sorc would be fine on PTR? Or at the least, making those of us with concerns feel bad about having concerns?
You keep jumping in threads stating PTR doesn’t have all the changes yet, but you know, they want me to test the current iteration of my character, not one predicted 2 weeks into the future.
Like, I get you’re trying to keep the negativity down, but I have genuine issues with survivability now that I didn’t on live. That has nothing to do with enjoyment of beta testing a patch.
Forcing people to choose a particular build each season, CL in this instance, is bad game design. RPG games survive when there is choice. People like personalization. When every build within a class is one specific build, it is really boring and no diversity.
Other builds within the SORC class need to persist, just like there are many viable builds in Barb and Necro and Rogue. Not sure why you are defending the sorc class changes so much. You’re not doing us a service. Being critical of bad changes is a good thing. Critical feedback corrects bad things. Having your head in the sand pretending everything is ok doesn’t help anyone.
I wouldn’t have played D2 for 20 years(less now but I return every season for a time) IF I was locked into - “Sorry can’t run Fireball this Season - it’s all about FO! You won’t be able to do TZ’s or Chaos/WSK because Fireball got NERFED HARD. Stby!”
Every single Season or at ANY time I could, RNG willing, build Fireball, Meteor, Frozen Orb, Blizz, CL, Lightning, Nova, CBs, Hydra, FW, Enchant(Melee OR with an XBOW!), Bear Sorc etc etc as well as some Hybrids if I so chose.
Granted there’s strengths and weaknesses but there’s very little hoops to jump through - it’s mostly direct playstyle vs layers of conditional garbahge.
That’s nonsensical D3 Dev dictated build crap that leaked into this game.
Dictated builds and convoluted conditional layering.
Hence why I missed so many Seasons of D3 - Archon FOTS(worst build of all time) and all other sets were useless because they didn’t get the 1000+%x that Season. So dumb.
With D4 meta dictate: Tal Rasha Ring 4x ele with big buff shouldn’t be the mandatory ‘Way’.
Single Element should be equally as viable dispensing with THOSE multipliers for another gear path and multipliers that function accordingly.
I just wish the Dev team would chill the hell out with this “Content Neurosis” and focus on bare bones finishing the work they started with core character creation and individual class balancing - refine all of them, make MANY Builds viable within each Class with different paths to achieve similar results.
Then slam us with all sorts of Content.
I know it’s impossible because…just read the Forums. New content gets released and players are bored within the first 6 hours.
I’d personally rather solid, well rounded and versatile Characters and worry about content another day.
If I had 5+ playstyle options and they all performed similarly but with differing playstyles? I would gladly run the most boring Content all day because I’d be having FUN and know I had the control, the agency and freedom to enjoy ALL content difficulties how I wished vs 1 TOP build, 1 meh build and 4 bleh builds.
I don’t know how many times we have to say that “Blizzard can’t balance Sorcerer for $***” before they hear us.
Tempering is powerful as hell, and Barbarians get 2 additional 2 handed weapons for tempers. Rogues get 1 additional 2 handed weapon for tempering.
LET SORCS EQUIP A STAFF, 1 HAND, 1 OFFHAND AT ALL TIMES and get the bonus tempering and legendary affix to help with the abysmal damage. Same for druids and probably necro as well. This should go without saying… but here we are telling Blizzard how to think.
Not to mention you need to take the burning damage enchantment just to get the buff to damage and survivability that still makes us too damn weak. Give us a 3rd damn enchant slot at least so we can use 2 other powers to maybe get some useful effects.
I’m tired of Blizzard “buffing” skills with a tickle when they need to a massive overhaul. Especially when also nerfing everything at the same time. Especially before a PTR… Are you afraid of making the PTR too easy? Grow some balls and try some stuff. Time for some damn buffs.
What changed as far as chain lightning damage? It now chains 5 times. Thats more than 4 which it previously was. I cant change the build to fix what they have done. Except try the new pants which is what I wanted to do. But that is not possible. What can I do to chain lightning to make me kill a boss. Even with hardly any down time on my ultimate. I totally get the testing but that is not appropriate here, chain lightning is impotent as it is. That is the test result.
Mno, I think that talk like a real people is not for you.
Bot or Devs undercover?
It doesn’t matter, when the bad work is so blatant there are little use for this parlor trick.
Testing doesn’t mean "make things with no sense and if we complain say “it’s just testing”
Did you relize how insane did you sound?
Is a PTR testing so we should not complain because things are ment to be bad?
You are play a patch in the future and somehow complains builds doesnt work from the past? ofc it doesnt. Update the build accordingly then test.
Survibility is worse but not unplayable. I ve used a zB teamed with a fire bolt on PTR on pit 150. Damage is fine, survival isnt. Thing is its up to the zB to contain damages to sorc. Once its done, survival is guaranteed.
Actually, from my extremely limited testing so far, I like the new conjuration tempers that give hydra one or 2 extra heads. 6-headed hydras are nice.
But then I’m a hydra lover from D3 and always try to work them into any build in D4. It would be nice if we could eventually do an honest to goodness, competitive, hydra build here.
I’m kind of forcing the issue in S4 by spamming hydras while wearing Tyrrael since hydra makes the tyrael projectiles come in to where the hydra is cast instead of going out.
I disagree. You don’t just change your build because of a patch. There is a skill tree with player choice for a reason - it is meant to provide options. All reasonable builds should work, and hell even some somewhat unreasonable builds should be viable. You shouldn’t have to do ‘what blizzard wants’ because that defeats the point of a skill tree entirely.
Right now, the sorc is balanced in a certain way where the devs are forcing NOT taking many uniques, and they are forcing certain affixes over others for all builds, etc. And even if you do a direct to direct comparison, without abusing flame shield, the class was already underperforming by a lot. Now it’s worse.
There is a skill tree for a reason. As long as the devs are going to offer X core skills and what not, they should ALL be viable.
I just don’t understand, in principle, why players would defend trap options in the skill tree. If all the options are just trap options except for 1-specific blizzard-approved build, just get rid of the skill tree then
They’ve made massive balancing changes. This means that THE SAME builds that worked before likely don’t work the same way anymore, and that is going to be true everytime there are balancing changes, in every single game ever.
But you can look at the changes and figure out how to modify the build to overcome it’s downfalls, just like when creating the build to begind with.
What you’re basically saying is that if a build was great in S1, it should have still been great in S2, S3, S4, and in S5. That’s not how it works.
If you don’t have the patience, knowledge, or whatever else is required to do this, that’s fine. This is a PTR, other people will figure it out and when it goes live they’ll change it further and you can just copy a working build from someone.
But the purpose of PTR is to test things that Blizzard wants to be tested so that they can adjust them.
Complaining that your cookie cutter build no longer works is not useful, and it’s not what PTR is for.
I disagree. It is good and even important to try out your current build in the PTR so you can truly judge how changes they have made to items, skills or aspects effect the game overall. Blizzard should be trying to raise up some skills while maintaining workable builds that are not OP. However, that is not what is happening. Builds that are viable during a season are being scrapped due to some of the changes being made and there does not seem to be any kind of cohesive plan behind the changes that being made.
This PTR they are pushing the Chain Lightning build. Last PTR the pushed the Frozen Orb build and then bizarrely chose the Incinerate/Fire build as the feature build for the Iron Wolf campaign. They stated in the PTR stream that they are targeting each build to use 2-4 Unique items instead of the current 0-2. However, they have introduced a bunch of aspects that are necessary for the CL build to work well. If you are trying to use 4 Unique items how the heck are you going to use the aspects you need along with the aspects needed for attack speed and resources? Plus for the Blizzard build they split up the Glacial and Frozen Tundra benefits and put them on 3 aspects now. WTF?
After I took stock of the damage done to my Blizzard Sorc and my FO Sorc, then I built a CL sorc to see if that was going to save the class this season. Spoiler Alert: It won’t.
Testing all the impacts of the changes is just as important as testing the few new things they dangle in front of us.
If we really think about it, they paid some intern to change some numbers and then told the community, “here is a ptr, go test it and complain” rather than invest any amount of time into the problem to really dig deep and understand it fully before addressing it with a competent change. That is what is happening here, and it has been happening in many other areas of the game for some time.
Even the flame shield nerf (and other shield nerfs) is really just a response to “we see invulnerable sorcs, so we will nerf it and release it.” without understanding anything else about the class or what this change could do.
It’s not even a question of seeing barbs stand in one spot against level 200 content vs the sorc having to dodge and manuver around everything to avoid one-shots - they don’t even get that far into their analysis. They just make number changes and release it.
I’m actually really wondering if only 4 people are working on the game now instead of an entire team.
