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In fact, the “non crazy” HC bowies tended to push the boundaries of how much to put into Dex. They just didn’t put it all there because that’s insane in hardcore. But it didn’t all go into vit beyond EQ requirements, no question. I can’t recall why exactly but I remember clannies explaining that you wanted to push dex for a Witchwild String build.

Wearbears had a much harder time of it with the stat allocation, because they can’t hit for shit and you generally wanted to run the health spirit (I forget the name). Running that spirit certainly helped ease the pain of all the stats you couldn’t dump into vit, but it didn’t remove it.

I never cared for the stat system in Diablo 2 much, but it isn’t accurate that people just pumped points into vit beyond eq requirements. Some people did that, but it’s wrong to say it was easy to pick an “eq target” and be done with it. Notwink players were probably in the minority (the ones that made characters over and over) but as a notwink you couldn’t always assume you could get by at a given score at high level; you just never knew what was going to drop.

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Info on the removal of Basic Attack:

3283

Well that’s interesting. The part about later builds seems to imply that they’ll be running the beta for a while longer.

See, that was a joke about how you seem to have ignored everything you read. First you posted an essay centered around how people didn’t put all their points in vitality because you needed stats for gear, which was already mentioned in the quoted post. Then it’s a little bit ironic to claim to have read a discussion about how there were “proper” stat allocations that mostly much made the stat choices meaningless and follow that with saying it’s wrong because the “proper” stats were something else for certain builds, which is basically arguing for the opposition.

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What are you even talking about? What “proper” stat allocations? There were no “proper” stat allocations, only what people did (and that depended on the build and even varied for the same builds). Sorceresses put most of their points into energy, Amazons into dexterity, etc. In softcore people sought damage above all else - few people cared about dying a few times in unpredictable scenarios (like a multi-shot, lightning enchanted champion). To suggest that the vast majority that played D2 in softcore pumped their vitality is akin to pretending that most people played WoW as Shadow Priests.

Second, my “essay” was a small sampling of the many variations in builds people actually used in the game, in hell difficulty, with success. In this thread I did not read someone mentioned the Charged Bolt sorceress, a skill thought useless by the unwashed masses playing their lightning nova sorceresses, but ludicrously powerful when properly built and used, even in hell difficulty- a build that put nothing into vitality.

That “essay” also pointed out that people did not put most of their points into vitality, period.
There is no irony here, people did not put points into dexterity/strength purely for gear requirements - they did so for all kinds of reasons. For classes like the Barbarian or Amazon they did it because it gave them more damage, the primary means of success at Hell difficulty.

Do you understand that? You claimed people just pumped vitality after gearing requirements, but the most famous cookie cutter build for an Amazon, for example, ran around with something like 300 dexterity, when their bow required 118 dexterity, and put no points into vitality. None, nada, zilch.

There were a tiny, somewhat crazy minority among hardcore players that advocated pumping vitality at the expense of everything else. To present them as the norm for D2 players is ludicrous.

Now, you can try to continue to make this about me, but what you presented as a fact, with such apparent authority, still remains a myth.

Exactly right. For a damage based class like a Paladin, Amazon or Barbarian, putting everything into vitality would leave one with shitty damage - which meant bye bye Hell difficulty.
For a caster class like the Necromancer or Sorceress it would have been completely and utterly ludicrous to put much if anything into vitality (especially the latter), considering that most of their survivability came from curse control and summons for the Necro and from Mana shield for the sorceress - both powered by the energy stat.

…

Anyway, I felt I had to point out that some people have been unfairly misrepresenting a pretty damn good game (D2), and now I’ve done that. Please return to the regularly scheduled D3 discussion.

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Well, if you paid as much attention to what’s already been said in this thread as you do to your own outrage and attacking me out of the blue for not mentioning Sorceresses put all their extra points in mana, then you would already know.

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Ohhhh snap, Supper’s Ready’s dinner has been SERRRRRVED

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The developers disagree.

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See, the “what are you talking about” comment was a remark meant to show that your post was filled with nonsense.

You made a blanket statement about characters in d2 (not just about sorceresses) and about the way people played, which simply is not true. And, surprise surprise, you continue to ignore repeated examples showing why your statement was so off base. But you don’t read “essays”, so I wouldn’t expect you to note them.

There was no “out of the blue” anything. I was reading this thread, saw a person completely misrepresenting the way D2 was played and pointed it out. And what you see as “outrage” was merely a desire to correct some blatant misinformation about a favorite game.

When called on your statement, you resorted to the time-honored tradition of trying to make the person who called you on it look ridiculous, rather than admit that you perhaps exaggerated, did not remember things accurately, or perhaps clarified that you spoke of the way you played the game and not the way most did. But you chose the high road. Good show.

Is there some context in which I can understand this remark? Which developers, D2 or D3? If it’s D2 developers and they disagreed with how most people played their game, well that’s tough but that ship has long since sailed.

If you’re referring to the decisions made in D3 design, wasn’t there a discussion in this thread I did not read that D3 and D2 are made by different people? And I still don’t see how this is relevant to Shiftless Bastard and a few others misrepresenting how D2 was played.

Finally, it doesn’t actually matter what the developers agree or disagree with, Diablo 2 was played nothing like Shiftless Bastard and some others described it. Indeed they described the very opposite of how most people played it (and the only reason this discussion is continuing is the man’s inability or unwillingness to acknowledge this).

The retorts are clever, but his representation of the game is still wrong.

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The D3 developers, who have access to the data.

Are you a SirBruce psuedonym? He shares your habit of multi-quoting extremely long responses. He believes that he wins arguments, but the truth is he tends to get the last word because nobody wants him to post a reply.

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There’s a quote somewhere of D3 developers stating that most people who played D2 just pumped their vitality? I’d really like to see this.

And if some developer actually says this, they’re full of crap (probably justifying their D3 design decisions). Thousands of forums discussions and years of playing on Battle.net goes completely contrary to the idea that people just pumped vitality. Not to mention the idea that only a handful of builds were viable in Hell difficulty.

I rarely get into internet arguments (as they are a giant waste of time). I am not here to “win” anything, but to point out that a few people were misrepresenting Diablo 2. Based on the kind of responses seen from Shiftless Bastard thus far I don’t expect much of anything. But I felt compelled to point out that what he was saying was untrue, did so, and don’t feel the need to continue the conversation further.

I’m no one’s pseudonym (and, having lurked/posted here for almost a decade, I’m having a hard time recalling this SirBruce character). Perhaps the reason you aren’t familiar with my alias is because I mostly stick to the TV area and to the threads about the games I’ve played, which is only a few a year (and I tend to stick to them for a while).

Oh and my responses were long? You’ve seen P&R, right? Or some of the bigger game threads here? I’m so sorry that the point I had to make took a few more lines than a bit of snark would have taken.

P.S.
I find it amusing that peacedog’s post was utterly and completely ignored. Too inconvenient huh?

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That was a pretty insightful video, thanks for passing that along - I don’t believe I caught that when it was released (I was avoiding a lot of Diablo 3 stuff until the beta started).

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Pardon me in advance for another “essay” …

Just watched this, and it’s exactly as I thought, it’s justification for their D3 design decision.

Note he’s not saying “this is how most people played”. Is this your only source for the idea that most people pumped vitality? Because he doesn’t actually say that. He’s saying “this is what you’d do for [what is in his opinion] an optimal character”.

He also doesn’t actually know (or remember) his own game mechanics from D2. He says “you need 75 dexterity for good block percentages”, but that’s incorrect. I haven’t played the game for half a decade, yet I still remember that you had to pump dexterity and keep on pumping it, as you leveled, to maintain a 75% block. If you failed to keep up, your block percentage would start sliding down. By, say, level 50, if you still had only 75 dexterity, you block would be at around 35%.

Then he talks about one build on a Sorceress that used Energy Shield? Virtually every Sorceress I’ve ever met on Battle.net (especially in hardcore mode) in nightmare and hell difficulty had the energy shield ball over her head. You could get away without it only on normal.

And, wow, he says a Sorceress would put all her points in vitality (after gearing)? He actually wants people to buy the idea that what every single D2 guide advised against, what every experienced D2 player would have said was the worst possible decision one could make, as what all people did? This is purely rationalization for their D3 decision, nothing more. That or he never actually worked on D2, as was suggested earlier in the thread (actually, a two minute google confirmed he joined Blizzard in 2007, so obviously never worked on Diablo 2, and so not surprising he isn’t as aware of that game’s mechanics as the hardcore fans).

That “mathematically right answer” he talks about? People who played D2 religiously did find it. It was not “put everything in vitality after gear requirements”. What, pardon my French, a bunch of bull.

…

That said, it’s not necessarily a bad system that they went with (see the HoMM and King’s Bounty games, where you have no control over attributes on level up). But his D2 excuse is pure rationalization.

Hopefully this post wasn’t too long or too much like SirBrute.

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one of the big reason why energy shield wasn’t recommended in hell mode run with sorc if you face enemies that drain mana, you are basically fucked. since most of the farm runs are just spamming teleport until you can locate the stair, if you accidently teleport into a group of mob that drain mana or fast attacking enemies, you can’t teleport at all because you just lost all of your mana.

without using shield but instead vit dump, you can take the hit and still teleport out because your mana isn’t been affect as much as using energy shield.

and in hell and nightmare mode, there are more unique mobs, they all have more attribute, so chance of running into mana drain is very very high.

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Also, if you’re playing a Sorc in higher difficulties, you can’t go monospec; yes, Orb+synergies left you with enough points to max out manashield plus TK, but if you weren’t going Meteorb you were going to have a lot of trouble.

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I remember that you’d be screwed either way. The Sorceress got so little health out of pumping vitality that an Act 5 Hell mode unique or even champion could take her out in a few hits. And without teleport you were unlikely to run away even if you survived a couple of hits, because those final area uniques were super fast.
It’s not a good idea to pump vitality in this case, but actually dexterity. With ~50% or higher block you have a much better chance of survival (potion then teleport), rather than relying on a tiny health pool, taking a couple of hits, then dying anyway.

That said, there was more to playing D2 hell mode than Baal runs. For actually playing through the game (and not simply getting power leveled to the end) pumping vitality on a sorceress is a very bad idea ™.

Man this takes me back …

Well at one point you could go monospec, but then the immunities came …

You also really didn’t need to pump manashield, a few points were enough, and +skills gear took care of the rest. Most of my sorcies on softcore even got away with just one point in the skill. Telekenesis was the same, it hit diminishing returns really fast, so one point then +skills gear was more than sufficient.

When the crazy runewords came around that you could give to your merc, even monospecs became viable again (sort of, you still made a minimum investment in another element, plus telekenesis), as there were very few physical immunities.

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Do tell!

3298

I already said what I wanted to. So, uh, please check the previous pages?

3299

I remain unconvinced. But carry on, let’s keep talking about Diablo 2 in the Diablo 3 thread!

3300

Hey, every decent Starcraft 2 podcast devolves into Starcraft 1 reminiscing sessions halfway through, so why not?

I liked Javazons. I’ve never beaten anything over Normal difficulty or completed a Runeword.