Unless the pets receive a HUGE bonus from the WD’s vitality, i don’t see how that will work. If blizzard had any sense, they would make their life/defense scale up from intelligence. Of course a lot of things don’t scale properly so this isn’t exactly an exception to the rule.
Jab
6302
Regarding scale one thing that confuses me about Blizzard’s idea of balance. The Demon Hunter gets a pet skill that does 30% of DPS and doesn’t seem to die from attacks. While the class that is supposed to be the dedicated pet summoner, has their pets only do 9% of the player’s DPS and can die within seconds of being focused by the enemy.
Pogo
6303
Converting a skill to make it have some other effect is in no way like raising its damage by 10 points. You don’t seem to be acknowledging that there is an organic nature to how people build their characters in Diablo 3. I can only imagine how many Barbarians don’t incorporate Sprint into their builds, or spend most of the game using Cleave, or pickup a Whirlwind/shout build, things that can change depending on the gear you pick up.
You didn’t change your build in Diablo 2 to match your gear without being really heavily penalized for it by having to re-play the game and save up points. There is absolutely nothing redeeming about any facets of Diablo 2’s skill system that doesn’t have to do with the masochistic pleasure some gained from replaying content without using any of their points.
StGabe
6304
I totally disagree. Most runes have a significant effect on how their skills play. For example I spent my last 5 or so hours of play trying out the different versions of elemental arrow (in case they nerf nether tentacles) and they’re all quite different. Some skills are completrly changed by their runes. For example the last rune on Caltrops changes it from CC to a buff. Also I believe you stop getting new skills at level 30 in both D2 and D3. In D2, though, that’s it. In D3 you get access to 2-3 new versions of skills per level through 60.
And if you look at D2 builds available online the vast majority focus on 1-2 active skills, 1-3 passives (some left at a single point) and the majority of your skill points are spent on synergy skills you’'ll never use. For example as a Javazon I’d spend about about 2/3rds of my levels just boosting one skill.
it already does. pets inherit a % of armor and resists from the owner. So high armor, Int and Str will let your pets last longer. There was a guy having success in Inferno as a WD with pets by prioritizing these stats.
Arguably you get more options. Some of which completely transform “old” skills. And you end up needing them in later difficulties.
For both my Barbarian and Demon Hunter (both in Act 1 inferno) I’ve had to completely change my builds at least a dozen times, to suit each new difficulty. Sometimes even to suit a new weapon type.
So I really don’t understand the people who think there’s little new after 30. For me the game only starts at 30-31 when you’re out of normal. That’s when those apparently minor differences in skills provided by the runes actually begin to matter. Normal can be completed with NO skills and just your basic attack. Not so much for the rest of the game.
Well, Barbarian and demon hunter are the two classes i haven’t played. My opinions are based around playing a melee wizard, a witch doctor and a monk.
I don’t realize why this is so hard for people to accept.
If you get a rune that turns your fireball to cold damage is that a mechanic changing rune that makes it feel like a new skill? no. Does this mean it doesn’t have benefits? no.
So yes, when i convert my hydra to do poison damage, i’m not going to be jumping for joy because the skill acts almost exactly the same, but that doesn’t mean i’m going to go runeless.
This is NOT a hard concept. Something can increase your power without having an effect on how you play or how your skills act.
maxle
6308
I wouldn’t say venom hydra is almost exactly the same as any other hydra.
Why wouldn’t you? How does my gameplay noticeably change after changing normal hydra to lightning hydra to venom hydra?
I must say that i haven’t changed how i play at all. Obviously the effect is very slightly different, but how i use it is EXACTLY the same.
maxle
6310
I can’t speak to how you choose to play the game, but whether or not hydra applies a 30% slow via a passive certainly has a significant impact on my play. At least before inferno, because nobody uses anything but venom on inferno.
Daagar
6311
Would making a 30% slow/poison choice a ‘skill’ rather than a ‘rune’ be that much more exciting? Would having a separate ‘firebolt’ and ‘icebolt’ skill be better?
maxle
6312
To be clear, the passive I’m referring to is temporal flux, which causes all arcane damage dealt to apply a 2 second, 30% slow. Venom hydra, unsurprisingly, doesn’t do arcane damage, whereas some of the other choices do. So that matters.
In terms of how the venom/not venom distinction matters otherwise? Well, venom places a puddle on the ground. They persist for a fair bit, and damage from multiple puddles stacks. So ideally you don’t want the critters you’re killing to move at all, and failing that you want them to move as little as possible (sounds like a great fit for a melee wizard to me).
If you’re using venom hydra while you’re kiting then you’re constantly recasting it in front of the lead monster so that all the monsters chasing you run through the poison. That’s less important with the other hydras, though if it’s absolutely important that the first monster never ever reach you then you’ll probably be recasting it frequently as well. Of course if it’s that important for a monster to never ever reach you then you’ll probably be using blizzard or something. Regardless, if you use venom and you want to kite, you then have to have another skill which will slow the monsters, which isn’t necessarily the case if you’re using one of the arcane hydras. That seems like a notable difference to me. You could also theoretically combine chain lightning with lightning hydra and take the passive the gives lightning damage a chance to stun and then stunlock everything to death.
Again, this is all pre-inferno (or hell, depending on how geared you are/whether you have a tank), because if you’re not using venom at that point You Are Doing It Wrong. Which will hopefully be addressed in the class balance pass planned for 1.1, but we’ll see.
The Monk and Wizard are classes I haven’t really played (they’re levels 16 and 8 respectively). So I don’t know what’s happening with them. But I can give you examples from the two classes I have played to inferno:
On the Barbarian, take Frenzy for example. I’ve had it at heal on kill in NM, then Side Arm in Hell, then Maniac in late Hell and Inferno. If not for the Nephalem buff I’d be switching between Maniac and Side Arm constantly, as they are useful for very different situations.
Then take Leap, for example. I started out using it with the 300% armor rune, then switched to knockback in NM and Hell, then finally switched to Stun in Inferno. These are a bit more significant changes than switching damage types from fire to cold …
For the Demon Hunter, for example, I spent all of normal using Rapidfire on bosses and elites, taking them down quickly with the cost reduction rune. In NM, very powerful things started charging me, and Entangling shot did piddly squat to them. But then I got a new option for Rapidfire, the slow to 80% rune, and used that to take down things that were extremely dangerous before. Not so dangerous when slowed to a crawl.
Then there’s Elemental Arrow. Started out using Ball Lightning, then decided multishot (with cost reduction rune) was more efficient, and abandoned it for a long while. Then in late Hell discovered the Tentacles rune for it - really out of necessity. Then in Inferno switched to the 40% fear rune. Now, while Ball Lightning and Multishot may work somewhat similarly to Tentacles, the fear rune may as well be a completely different skill. It totally changes the dynamic of engagements.
This applies to many more skills for these two classes. Perhaps Blizzard made the Monk and Sorceress utterly and completely boring after 30, but somehow I doubt that. So, I’m having a bit of trouble reconciling your description of the game with my own experience.
ShivaX
6314
Or even remotely close to any of the other hydras for that matter.
Frost Hydra is even less like the other hydras.
And the last one isn’t anything like them either.
All I’m getting is “runeless hydra is kinda similar to lightning and arcane hydra, therefore all runes are the same”.
And I’m not sure how that beats Diablo2’s mighty “pick 2 skills and thats it forever, hope you picked right, if not replay the whole fucking game.” I mean its not like there was some magical variety in D2. There was almost no variety really. So many skills were bad or even worthless and so many were really good that all that mattered was saving points for the good ones.
There’s starting to be a bit of a pile-on here… I wouldn’t add to it but I would suggest maybe playing a bit more with the other runes in Nightmare/Hell/Inferno.
Teiman
6316
On my current build, my spirit generator uses a rune that generate 15 spirit on critical hits. This completelly change how I play the game, since I almost always have full spirit. I can spam the mantra of evasion, …on this mantra I have a fortify for armour, so I can turn my whole team into tanky-characters. I don’t heal others, but every time I use my mantra of evasion I heal myself. Plus I have a lot of Life on Hit, so now I can tank a lot of elites in inferno. Its fun, and I can play correctly, read: I can reposition myself and continue tanking wen the elite cast a damage over time spell on the ground on my position. All of this because I generate enough spirit with this rune.
I have bought two 1h weapons with a lot of life on hit and 620DPS, and I am dual welding. My dps is somewhat like 16K, and my evasion is near 53%. My long term plan is to raise that evasion to 80% by slowing stacking more and more dex.
I don’t think the game has too many issues up until level 60. The skills are cool - and the runes are quite significant, almost like new skills in themselves.
This is why I was ready to proclaim it a fantastic game when I first finished Hell.
The problems become more apparent as you go on, especially related to how predictable it all becomes. The loot being the worst offender - because it’s just not exciting, and weapons are especially dull “DPS sticks”. You know exactly what you will get - and there’s nothing new to look forward to.
In most of these games, you can generally look forward to a lot of character experimentation and builds - and you can look forward to truly cool unique/set items. In D3, since you have all skills available - and you can experiment freely, you very quickly get to the point of having seen most of the exciting stuff. Oh, I’m not denying that you will change up skill configuration here and there, especially to get through Inferno - but by then it won’t be “discovering new builds” - it will be finetuning. I know it seems a “logical” step up to give people everything and let them have at it, but I don’t think it’s a good fit for human psychology. We NEED something to strive for - and we NEED something just out of reach, also called the carrot. Blizzard put too much trust in the iterative process of watching people play and listening to short-term feedback - exactly like they’ve been doing in WoW.
I’m sure the AH will be a smashing success in the monetary sense, but I really don’t think it’s a good thing for the loot-hunt design. It messes WAY too much with the natural sensation of finding cool stuff and upgrading your character. Once you get to Inferno, you will see how you’re saturated with 99% worthless blues/rares. It’s just not the feeling you want to give players in a game like this. D2 suffered from similar, if lesser, issues - and they should have improved upon it - instead of making loot bland and almost exclusively something to sell for a real upgrade.
I know some people are in fierce denial about the game having ANY problems, and that’s fine. It’s all subjective and a matter of taste, anyway.
But I have a sneaking suspicion that this thread will be a lot less active in the next couple of months.
Personally, I was hoping for a lot more - but if people are truly happy with everything in D3 - then I have to say I envy that feeling.
Tony_M
6318
It depends on your expectations. I’m already tiring of it alot sooner than you (in hours played) but I would still recommend it as a good game. Some people just want Diablo to be a game, others want it to be a long-term hobby. The game needs to be pretty extraordinary to be a hobby.
As a casual player, my biggest gripe about the game is that I spent so much of my total gaming time in Normal difficulty, which felt like the worlds longest tutorial. If the game had started at Nightmare I would have no problem rating it as a 10/10 game.
Tony
The loot in this game is making me sad. Just killed siegebreaker in Inferno Act 3 with 5 stacks and was “rewarded” with a 300 dps weapon and some level 57 bracers. Level 57 in Act 3 Inferno? Ugh. At least that’s a little better than all the level 52 loot it was tossing at me in Act 2 the other night. Getting through this has been some pain in the ass gameplay, and I’d have been better off smashing vases or tossing on some gold find and tearing it up on Hell.
If you want to see something hilarious though, check out elite demonic tremors in Inferno. That charge is the fastest thing I’ve seen, and that’s without them having a fast affix. I’m really not sure what to do with them, other than stuff them off in a corner of the map so I can get back to business. “A strange game. The only winning move is not to play.”
Kelan
6320
I finally have a good loot story to tell. After going through multiple packs and bosses in Act I Inferno for multiple days I finally got my first Legendary Item to drop, and it was a Green Set rare amulet! It was even on Cathedral level 2 right near the door. I don’t think it was even off an elite pack and we I only had 2 stacks of Nephalem going at the time (my wife had 3 as I got shafted on one group kill being too far away).
I think I got pretty lucky too as it was the Medal (amulet) from the Blackthorne’s set and the random stats it added were +89 Vitality (could have been better I guess) and +46 resist all elements. It also had the normal other stats that they seem to have including attack speed and hit + life and + % life.
I totally didn’t expect something like this to drop in Act I until the patch. Now I have renewed vigor to go farm Act I some more until I can progress more :).
