Quote Originally Posted by vaudeville View Post
My 7 cents:

1) I'm down with AR bonuses in general.

2) Yeah I sort of mentioned that bit about having 2 shadow masters. My suggestion was that that should be another scroll like Valkyries, Golems, and Spirits.

3) Bowzons are great once you get Frostfire and the Cow Queen set (although keep in mind, Game gave hints that set will be nerfed), but any other Amazon build without pretty much the most optimum gear (and I do mean optimum) is nowhere near as great a killing machine in my opinion. Personally the only thing the lightning javelin or physical javelin or spear amazon needs is either a slight synergy boost for certain skills or have their main weapon(s) buffed a bit.

4) Regarding the cold elemental druid, I'm not exactly sure that many extra tornadoes should be added. It would be nice to see at least 2 to 4 of such, but more than that sounds pretty crazy. Right now, I just think the whole elemental tree needs buffing in terms of damage. I don't think life steal needs to be added to that build since you ought to have enough points to put at least 1 on murder of crows, though I am sympathetic about the other suggestions mentioned.

5) ...skeletons will always be a joke. That's just the way it is. Perhaps if we wanted to see them improved they ought to be treated more like ravens. I.e. their life is based on a few hits provided. Add to that that skeletons with cqc weapons can do some % of crushing blow, open wounds, or prevent monster heal (ravens do 2 of those if I'm not mistaken). Mages probably should be replaced with archers in truth to do much of the above. It's either that or the following complicated and possibly op result should be made. That would be something like this:

a) Poison mages have a chance to inject acid and/or have some kind of aura (pestilence?);
b) Fire mages can grant warmth and/or meditation or some other kind of aura (lower fire resistance?);
c) lightning mages have a chance to do static and/or have some kind of aura (lower lightning resistance?);
d) Cold mages have a holy freeze aura and can slow targets if not freeze them and/some kind of aura (perhaps holy freeze or lower cold resistances);

I'd probably also recommend the above have their lives dependent on a few hits as well. In general, perhaps skeletons should be treated sort of like ravens. They're annoyances but add some decent traits to the game.

6) As for norak suggestions regarding 1 skill tree... that would really unsettle things you know that? Every item which say gives +2 to curses would all have to be re-worked to give either + X to a character class skills or + X to some master skill tree or so that's the impression I get from what I read. That would be a step in the wrong direction.

A) A bow and staff mastery? Did I read that correctly as well? I get the bow part if you would like to do a physical bowzon build, but the staff part? Why? For who?

B) I don't think elemental poison mastery is needed. The poison necromancer is pretty powerful as is, and even if they weren't, a simple tweak to their gear or skills would make fix that. A magic mastery skill, however, would be interesting for a hammerdin, bone necromancer, or even a berserk barbarian, but again, it might not be necessary. You could just add scrolls with extra magic damage which I have not seen (I know there are jewels that do that, but they are very rare).

7) Not discussed in the above, but if we're going to talk about re-balancing then we should include the sorceresses as well. In particular, I would like to see that physical damage conversion modifiers removed especially if what I mentioned in my questions/concerns about that are true (i.e. essentially you can't rely on -enemy fire or lightning resistance modifiers since now you're supposed to be doing physical damage). Even if somehow, the above wasn't a problem which is not my experience, I don't even understand the thought process/motivation of wanting to have the Sorceress even do physical damage in the first place. If you want a physical sorceress that also does magic damage, then make an enchantress (something I may try out eventually). There's already a weapon for her to try that out. The only concern I would have for that kind of build is probably AR (haven't test it so I have to get back to you all on that). The funny/ironic thing is that that isn't done for the cold sorceress (i.e. there is no item that converts ice to physical damage), and people now prefer that build over the other two which should tell you what people think of that modifier (at the very least, it should be something optional by having a scroll that does that).


Nice thoughts! About skellies, there's a good solution concerning CB, if an aura gets CB%, summons will be a lot more useful too, if the aura gives like 1% cb per level (could be added to might), it would make a difference already. About the mages, their dmg is just too crappy, and i think giving them pally auras would be a bit too much, i'd rather see skelly bowers using some basic bow skills, but they could also be revamped to something new, like wraiths, that can gather all at the same spot.

Revives could have a time bonus sinergy, maybe from the skill where the mages are now, that would make the summon necro a more specific build, since now it's pretty easy to just put 1 point into revives and let the +skills do the rest.

The common skill tree for all chars would probably remove one of the most exciting things of d2, which is the fact that each character has its own way to be played, i do think, too, that it would go the wrong way.

About the sorceress, i like the idea of phys dmg only if it can be a true phys dmg, but that would be very very very dangerous to the game balance, because if you can CTC nova, for example, on strike, you'd cast it like 100 times in a row heheh... but having her CTC amplify without relying on merc would be cool. Still, the way it is now (I never had a phys nova sorc), i'd use that orb as a switch to kill lightning imunes. But I have no experience concerning that, so I have no clue at all.

Overall I pretty much agree with what you said, but since we're getting more into overall balancing, I'd like to add that balancing all those stuff without the use of scrolls would be pretty nice for people to actually START the ladder with different characters, instead of having a ton of amas, sorcs and shield barbs (on hc it'll be like95% shield barbs, including me), for then making a smiter and ONLY then making the characters of our desires.

Being able to actually grow with any character is the nicest pvm aspect IMO, I'd even rather have that than the end game fully balanced, because in the end of the game, you'll pretty much just get the gear and put on the character, then go to the next end game stage, and I even like the idea of making one character especifically to kill a certain boss, thats how things go in hc at least.

The thing is, most of the time, we'll be playing a specific character for MFing, and it would be amazing to be able to choose from any of the 7 to do so, but the way things are now, it's already a lot more versatile than vanilla (thats why I play here).