Balance Issues From My Perspective

Most of the people I play with know that I hate druids as a Necro player. Everyone knows that Druids are overpowered. EVERYBODY decided to play Druids after a few days to get gear faster. But I really don't think that is because of their damage. It is because of their survivability and utility. Let's assume that the abilities I will list below is owned by a Sorceress (who is most underwhelming class with Amazons and Paladins following for end-game content):

- Ability to rapidly cast summons to tank things
- Oak sage or any pure effective HP bonus
- Easily made quality gear (HOTO, Aldur and you are good to go for Druid, meanwhile Tal Rasha only gets you through inferno maps AT MOST)
- Ability to hit multiple types of damage to kill most hard-immunes
- Extra skill points to invest after main skill(s)
- An easy gameplay (to kill a boss with Sorcs you should kite like hell or cheese them if possible but with Druids just nado then spam bear to win)


These perks are what makes Druids overpowered. Reducing their tornado damage by half wouldn't matter for farming effectiveness because they can still survive a few Nithalak/Boss hits with Cyclone Armor and natural high HP and they have zero problems while running bosses. If you kill something in 10 seconds it will be 20 seconds at most if their damages are nerfed by half...

But my point is NOT nerfing the Druids at all. My suggestions are:

- Giving a stable summon choice for every class (call of the ancients [I've seen before] for Barbs, moving Hydras maybe for Sorcs, tanking skeles/golems for Nec etc.) which allows them to solo the content aswell. Since not everyone is able to play with friends and trust issue is huge in Diablo 2, this would be a better solution than nerfing Druids.

- A Frostfire bow which is VERY hard to obtain for a newcomer almost quadruples the damage output of a bowzon. A Trickster's claw which is also as farm as FF almost triples the damage output of a trapsin. Without endgame gear, try to get close to a boss with smiter. These huge gaps between itemization really puts solo players behind and forces them to have either bad deals from rich people or just do the hit/die rinse and repeat boring gameplay. EVEN though you get an end-game item for a very cheap price, you lose all that excitement and effort to obtain that item. You just ran 510501513 cows and farmed enough HRs to get what you need.

-Where is all that super fun content?
-I don't know I just ran cows to gear up...

- Some builds have huge self-survivability issues due to their end-game gear not having enough all res or damage reduction to survive. I felt this with my Necro a lot, putting const rings instead SOJs or Plague Carrions give me -30 poison pierce and -100k~ maelstrom damage alone. I know there are ways around this but if you really want to keep up with a Druid, you should go all-in for damage and even then you fall behind because you get one shotted from something that Druid endures but you can't. I can't lie I can do anything I wan't except Crucible (people say with golem+ enchants its possible but it really doesn't worth soloing with high risk of death and slower progression than a Druid) but Necro's gameplay is terrible, I literally just hope that revived minions do not die and boss doesn't use an AoE ability to kill me. Mostly my boss runs are -cast maelstrom, die, rinse and repeat- which is the same for most classes.

- Hard immune bosses and mobs in end-game contents are huge problems. There is no way for most characters to run multiple damage type builds with these 3-4 synergy main skills and lack of good alternative skills. As a bowzon I can say I am one of the rare cases with of course the Druid. Buffing some of those value spells (like 1 pt light-fire spells when playing cold Sorc) would help a lot. There are three good choices about this subject I think, which are:

- Increasing basic skill damages and lower scaling to give 1 pt spells an edge to be used

- Lowering amount of synergies and putting those bonusses to a single synergy for each skill would allow people to use more skills and make different builds for secondary spells at least. Metagame is too strong at the moment.

- Carefully studying all the monsters and classes to make monsters immune to one/two damage types, but weak/piercable for another damage type of every classes' secondary trees. IDK if such algorithm is possible on a single monster, but having two types of same monster with same loot but different immunities would solve the issue.

I know balancing a game is frustrating and almost impossible to do, but if some of these changes were made, people would play with more diversity which would also make other aspects of the game funnier like PvP and trading for example because most of the items made for unpopular builds are sold for almost nothing even though they are as hard as others to obtain. Let's compare a Divinity gloves and Heaven's Champion belt, which one is most wanted? They drop from the same boss yet their values are totally different.

Thanks for reading this huge chunk of text and sorry for typos, much love to all.

the Druid will most likely get nerfed, for starters. Second, making a hybrid build on a server that allows you to have multiple game accounts running at the same time in the same game is kind of silly. You don't even need a Druid for most content. I use a shield throw IK barb and a Maelstrom Necro in full trag with only one point in clay golem for situations that I can't use teleport. In fact, I don't even use a Plaguebringer for bosses. Blackbog's Sharp has 60% slow target and great poison stats. I've hated necros up to this point. They've always been slow and boring. Not anymore.

I guess my point is that whenever someone starts talking about how they think a class is inadequate in whatever way, it's usually because they haven't realized its potential yet. Go look at the guide sections. Scour the wiki to get new ideas for builds using the new items. Ask players what they do with their characters. I'll agree with you that Sorcs feel bad at the moment but so did Druids in the last ladder and so did bowazons early in this servers history. Give it some time. Sorcs will get a facelift again:) Paladins were always the go to boss killers in vanilla D2 server days. That's changed here. I don't think it's a bad thing:)

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Originally Posted by LordManhammer

the Druid will most likely get nerfed, for starters. Second, making a hybrid build on a server that allows you to have multiple game accounts running at the same time in the same game is kind of silly. You don't even need a Druid for most content. I use a shield throw IK barb and a Maelstrom Necro in full trag with only one point in clay golem for situations that I can't use teleport. In fact, I don't even use a Plaguebringer for bosses. Blackbog's Sharp has 60% slow target and great poison stats. I've hated necros up to this point. They've always been slow and boring. Not anymore.

I guess my point is that whenever someone starts talking about how they think a class is inadequate in whatever way, it's usually because they haven't realized its potential yet. Go look at the guide sections. Scour the wiki to get new ideas for builds using the new items. Ask players what they do with their characters. I'll agree with you that Sorcs feel bad at the moment but so did Druids in the last ladder and so did bowazons early in this servers history. Give it some time. Sorcs will get a facelift again:) Paladins were always the go to boss killers in vanilla D2 server days. That's changed here. I don't think it's a bad thing:)

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I know necros' potential and I can farm anything with necros. My problem is not about necros being weak. My problem is that no one is on-par with druids atm. Do not think of this as "you CAN do it", think of it as "does it worth doing it with any other class than druid?". Mostly the answer is no.

And just so u know I'm at 470k maelstrom damage I mean I can kill stuff just fine but it doesn't make me as efficent as a druid right now and I don't want a nerf on druids, I want a buff on other classes so they can be played solo just as fine.

As I said when I launched 4.0, Druids may be overtuned at first, this will definitely be addressed in 4.1. I will not butcher them though, I am glad they are viable now. This is a HUGE change from them being literally the worst (and actually unplayable in endgame) back before 4.0. We've made some good progress, I will continue to balance accordingly. I like long, detailed, structured post that doesn't strike me as whining, and I like when people share their opinions about them. Keep it up guys, this stuff helps me more than you know. I've gotten long posts before but they are usually whining and isn't very helpful on how to find a solution, those suck :(

Druids are strong right now because they were completely overhauled. They will most likely catch a nerf in s future patch. Just a hunch. You should probably make one and go experience the awesomeness while you can:) Game has done a great job in continuing to make changes to underutilized skills or classes. I'm sure there is a lot in store for the weaker builds yet to come.

I think that the Amulet needs to be removed from the Tal Rasha set. It is way too rare of a drop for a starter set. Every other elite class set is easily farmable. So too should the sorc's set be.

1) Yes, Druids are way too powerful. Hek you know Druids have been over-buffed, in particular were-bear druids when a were-bear druid has way more AR than a were-wolf druid which is ridiculous. I don't mind if the former got an AR Bonus. That's fine, but it shouldn't be greater than the latter. I also agree with ned's point on the summons for Druids as well. It's more than enough that a summoning Druid itself serves as a tank. It's flat out overkill that there summons can tank too which makes Golem necromancers, nevermind summoning necromancers almost pointless now.

2) Throw in the trap assassin too while you're at it. They're also too strong for their own good. They have effectively replaced Frostfire bowzons since last ladder. They should not be doing in excess of 125k even without all endgame gear, scrolls, and jewels which I've seen and heard. On another note, what happened to martial artists? They're completely awful especially in the AR department and from what I've seen they're not great in the damage department either not that that matters when you can't hit anything.

3) Thunderfury needs to be re-buffed and/or zealers should be buffed more in general (the latter course is preferable). They need more AR and damage period.

4) Agreed about Frostfire. It ought to be buffed slightly.

5) ...this is something I've been meaning to get off my chest for awhile so I just have to be blunt about it. That is, what exactly was the point of the the fire golem bonus with Trag's True guise? Yes, of course a conviction aura is better than its original aura. That's not the issue. The issue is that this helmet should be used with a poison necromancer who is going to invest points on poison skills leaving golems so weak that they're pointless for most endgame material (made more aggravating compared to the over-buffed druid's summons who do just fine). I understand that this could be something that could easily become overpowered if not handle well, but it is clear to me that the trag fire golem is pretty much pointless for a poison necromancer (again for most end-game content). I might try it on a hybrid build at a future point though and see if its helpful for a team. Also I have no idea what Lord is talking about with clay golems being sufficient for poison necromancers with just that gear. They certainly aren't for end-game bosses aside from Stiches and, I think, the Lich King although even clay golems won't last long enough for him not that it matters since you should be tanking him with revives from the plaguelands. The best they're good for is just as a temporary distraction for you, nothing more.

6) I do agree about the Tal amulet though. It is far too difficult to get. I was wondering if it were possible in the future if at least this amulet could be a guaranteed drop by the end-game act 2 boss to try and modify this. I understand that would in effect then make the amulet too easy to get (assuming people want to farm that area which doesn't seem to be the case which is odd), but I don't see any other way to fix this problem other than getting rid of the amulet entirely.

7) And finally, onto Barbarians. My suggestion for them right now to improve them overall would be if masteries could be buffed/tweaked slightly. First and foremost all weapon (in particular swords since that seems to be the likely weapon of use) masteries should have their AR bonuses (maybe even damage too) buffed slightly for each level (only a few percentage points nothing more). The other thing I'd like to see is if each mastery could have their own particular bonus modifier just to make things interesting. Sword mastery could be given an IAS bonus, Axe Mastery a -physical resistance bonus, Mace mastery a cb bonus, etc. I think adding that ought to make the Barbarian a lot more versatile and interesting to use. I think the class could use other fixes (in particular to frenzy), but I'll sit back and wait to see what happens.

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Originally Posted by Game

As I said when I launched 4.0, Druids may be overtuned at first, this will definitely be addressed in 4.1. I will not butcher them though, I am glad they are viable now. This is a HUGE change from them being literally the worst (and actually unplayable in endgame) back before 4.0. We've made some good progress, I will continue to balance accordingly. I like long, detailed, structured post that doesn't strike me as whining, and I like when people share their opinions about them. Keep it up guys, this stuff helps me more than you know. I've gotten long posts before but they are usually whining and isn't very helpful on how to find a solution, those suck :(

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I never said that Druids should be nerfed. I think you should give more utilities to other classes to be able to solo the content with end-game gear and better itemization. Nerfing druids will do two things imho:

- Put solo players in a very boring and hard situation since most people play solo and we all know that trusting someone in Diablo II is a problem on its own. They will have to wait sometime for end-game items to be dropped by veteran and grouped players and buy them for absurdly high prices, which will only serve the rich folk.

- Nerfing Druids will not bring a Sorceress back to the game for end-game bosses. They are still too squishy and have no tanking utility for surviving.

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Originally Posted by nedamettin

I never said that Druids should be nerfed. I think you should give more utilities to other classes to be able to solo the content with end-game gear and better itemization. Nerfing druids will do two things imho:

- Put solo players in a very boring and hard situation since most people play solo and we all know that trusting someone in Diablo II is a problem on its own. They will have to wait sometime for end-game items to be dropped by veteran and grouped players and buy them for absurdly high prices, which will only serve the rich folk.

- Nerfing Druids will not bring a Sorceress back to the game for end-game bosses. They are still too squishy and have no tanking utility for surviving.

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I know you didn't say to nerf druids, but I am doing it anyways because it needs to be done.

This game is supposed to be hard. Druids make the entire game easy. I literally kill the 2 forms of trag'oul boss in 5 seconds. The other characters absolutely do not need to be buffed up to the druid's current level, and the druid absolutely does need a nerf.

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Originally Posted by forest

This game is supposed to be hard. Druids make the entire game easy. I literally kill the 2 forms of trag'oul boss in 5 seconds. The other characters absolutely do not need to be buffed up to the druid's current level, and the druid absolutely does need a nerf.

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Druids will be fixed but they will not be butchered, no worries! I have an idea of where to go from here.

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Originally Posted by Game

Druids will be fixed but they will not be butchered, no worries! I have an idea of where to go from here.

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I can tell you that one of the most essential steps imo is making MoC not give levels of regen that make the character essentially invincible, if you weren't already modifying that.

I think its the additional tornado's from the prime, making it really strong ( Elemental ). ( Maybe it can have less tornado's ?)
Murder of crows is a tough one, its crazy good because of the life per hit, i havent really played this so no idea on how to nerf it.
Fire druid...Who's gonna make one :D ?! It looks good with the new buffs, but havent tried it yet, so dunno if its overpowered or balanced.

My two cents,

I think MoC is fine. Its strong vs single-targets with low physical resist and things that dont have an on-hit chance to cast teleport. (Knarst :mad: ) However it struggles with aoe as the ravens do the vast majority of the damage. The other problem it has with crowds is that bears have really bad fhr and blocking breakpoints. So its is still possible to get chain-stunned and killed versus Vanilla-content like Lord de Seis, minions of destructions and hell cows if you teleport into the wrong spot.

I think the nado build would be fine if you just nerfed its tick rate down a few notches, ie toning down the change from last patch.

As for assassins. Its too easy to just spam shadow warriors/masters constantly to distract a boss while traps kill everything. I think it would be completely appropriate to nerf jack of all trades a fair bit. You really shouldnt be able to hit 300k per trap with up to 9 traps. Depending on tick rate, that may be significantly higher dps than the light zealer from last ladder.

I think the best way to buff sorcs would be to make %element damage independent from light and fire mastery. Right now it stacks additively with them, which greatly weakens its effect. I think the best way to fix this is to make fire and light mastery an independent multiplier from %element damage.

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Originally Posted by rrra

My two cents,

I think MoC is fine. Its strong vs single-targets with low physical resist and things that dont have an on-hit chance to cast teleport. (Knarst :mad: ) However it struggles with aoe as the ravens do the vast majority of the damage. The other problem it has with crowds is that bears have really bad fhr and blocking breakpoints. So its is still possible to get chain-stunned and killed versus Vanilla-content like Lord de Seis, minions of destructions and hell cows if you teleport into the wrong spot.

I think the nado build would be fine if you just nerfed its tick rate down a few notches, ie toning down the change from last patch.

As for assassins. Its too easy to just spam shadow warriors/masters constantly to distract a boss while traps kill everything. I think it would be completely appropriate to nerf jack of all trades a fair bit. You really shouldnt be able to hit 300k per trap with up to 9 traps. Depending on tick rate, that may be significantly higher dps than the light zealer from last ladder.

I think the best way to buff sorcs would be to make %element damage independent from light and fire mastery. Right now it stacks additively with them, which greatly weakens its effect. I think the best way to fix this is to make fire and light mastery an independent multiplier from %element damage.

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think of a zealer with tfury if u change how lm stacks with %skill dmg

I remember suggesting having all classes have 1 common tree which is buffs.. 2 trees with combat skills etc.

all equal in the buffs sense..

remove cold dmg from nado completely and is balanced..