Patching 1.0.2c -- potentially nerfed mob damage

[Roland]

Yes, I remember how static field worked in 1.0 D2, and yes, it was horribly broken. The point I'm making is that QA process for Blizzard is worse now than it was in the past.

Paradoxical statements. You'll never admit to being wrong, of course, and you're entitled to your opinion - but you're flat out wrong. D3 is a far, far more polished game at release than D2 was at any point up through 1.09. I know Blizzard bashing is cool and all, but really this is just getting utterly silly. Why don't you go troll the Blizzard forums where your statements actually belong?

[MongoJerry]

Yes, I remember how static field worked in 1.0 D2, and yes, it was horribly broken. The point I'm making is that QA process for Blizzard is worse now than it was in the past. Look at it this way, we're 1 month into the game and they've already release 3 bug fix patches, broken other aspects with said patches, and generally did a slap fix for aspects of the game that both you and I have seen Quark. Even at it's worst, D2/LoD had better QA than what we're seeing here in D3 (and other games by Blizzard), glaring issues are slipping past QA here (like the Asian dupe bug). So yes, Blizzard's QA process has gotten worse (even though it was bad back in 2000 to 2003).

You're using the word "dupe" while attempting to convince us that Blizzard had excellent QA in D2 and LOD. This does not compute.

Lissa, the fact that they're patching things quickly is a *good* sign, showing that they care about the game. Just take the static field brokenness as one example among hundreds -- they didn't balance static field until the expansion came out! My static field/frozen orb sorceress was able to kill the final boss in the final difficulty, who dropped the best loot in the game, in 3 seconds without any fear of death in hardcore played over a 56k modem while using a standard set of equipment and an easily testable skillset -- and was able to do it for more than a year. When someone showed a video showing how they could frozen and stun lock Inferno Diablo in D3 using an obscure combination of skills and equipment, it was fixed in a matter of days. That's progress, not a degeneration.

[Kevin]

If you've played a Blizzard game and your take on it is that the QA is bad, I find the idea that you've played another company's game as well as quite suspect. I also seriously question the idea that Blizzard's gotten worse over time.

Limiting yourself to just the power level of the game ... no, not even close. D2 was not under such a microscope because it was a decidedly easier game. Anything was viable not because it was good, but because you didn't need good. Even with that, don't you remember Static Field? It trivialized the game and had a bugged formula for its radius to boot. That is not the only example, simply the most egregious one. Life Steal % was out of whack, so what was their eventual fix? They made it not work on some monsters. Well that's great, I'll just ignore those monsters now.

Yes, I remember how static field worked in 1.0 D2, and yes, it was horribly broken. The point I'm making is that QA process for Blizzard is worse now than it was in the past. Look at it this way, we're 1 month into the game and they've already release 3 bug fix patches, broken other aspects with said patches, and generally did a slap fix for aspects of the game that both you and I have seen Quark. Even at it's worst, D2/LoD had better QA than what we're seeing here in D3 (and other games by Blizzard), glaring issues are slipping past QA here (like the Asian dupe bug). So yes, Blizzard's QA process has gotten worse (even though it was bad back in 2000 to 2003).

Right. Sure. Where are you are getting what you are smoking? D2 QA was so bad that the game was essentially unplayable on Battle.net the first month. You say they have done 3 patches so far on D3. But do you remember all the server side fixes that went into D2? There were times that the game on Battle.net and the game on a LAN were essentially different games because we had to wait weeks for them to bundle the 3, 4, or 5 serve side hotfixes together. They push patches out faster now. Even with that I remember one time when I hadn't been on Battle.net for 10 days with Diablo 2 and when I connected it downloaded 4 different patches. Your memory sucks dude.

SC2 was significantly more polished than SC or Wow on release and hasn't had as many patches either.

Remember the hunter survival tree until about 1.03 or so? You know the one that had skills that lowered DPS? Yeah that one. Yeah that was good quality control there. Yep, clearly better than what we have with D3.

Please don't try and change the goal posts again like you tend to do either. I am NOT saying that Blizzard has good QA, I am saying that it is no worse than it has been. I give them a pass for Inferno too, that wasn't really a QA issue that was a management decision that didn't work well, but Normal through hell was significantly better off than anything else they have had on release day with the exception of the very well done SC2 single player campaign. Most of the patch changes so far have honestly been pretty minor things to fix to. I don't expect them to catch everything and they catch more than most PC gaming companies. Of course they are also willing to significantly change their games via patches as well which other companies tend not to do. That should not be confused with poor QA that, again is a management decision to not simply say, "This is the game, polish it and balance it, no new ideas allowed from here on out." Which is something I have to say to users when I'm developing a new app for them. This is the feature set we are doing, test it work with it, if it doesn't work as we agreed upon we will fix it before going to production. If you want a different feature, note it and we will evaluate it for a future request. Blizzard doesn't operate that way which gives them some bonuses but also comes with drawbacks.

Looking forward to your response because I could use another good chuckle and I sure watching you try and change the argument from what you initially posed, or dance around things because you can't admit you simply weren't remembering things correctly should be pretty entertaining.

[Mavfin]

I give them a pass for Inferno too, that wasn't really a QA issue that was a management decision that didn't work well, but Normal through hell was significantly better off than anything else they have had on release day with the exception of the very well done SC2 single player campaign.

I think Inferno was a response to the screams of "Too easy!!" that Blizzard has heard for the past several years from various directions. I think it's very plausible that a conscious decision was made to make it harder than they thought it should be, and then nerf it to the proper level when the players hit it. If they did it the other way and made it too easy, then toughened it up, they'd take flak on that, too. No way they could win on it.

Remember that Jay Wilson said they doubled it? Yeah, sounds like a decision to make it too hard, then fix it when the players got there. As some have said, it was also a great opportunity to find the loopholes and OP skills, too.

You can talk about QA all you want, but Blizzard knows from seven years of WoW that their QA team can't come up with all the stuff multiple millions of users can. So, they let users do some of it this time. Of course, I'm sure someone will criticize that as releasing a beta to us, but...as I said, Blizzard can't win on this. They just have to pick a strategy and do it, and ignore the BS.

And yes, D2 and D2:LOD at launch were way less polished and ready than D3 was, and it took a lot longer to fix. A calendar month ago was launch, and they've already had a bunch of hotfixes and three small patches, with a bigger one including inferno tweaks due in the next two weeks. D2 wasn't patched that quickly that I remember.

[FireIceTalon]

Yes, I remember how static field worked in 1.0 D2, and yes, it was horribly broken. The point I'm making is that QA process for Blizzard is worse now than it was in the past.

Paradoxical statements. You'll never admit to being wrong, of course, and you're entitled to your opinion - but you're flat out wrong. D3 is a far, far more polished game at release than D2 was at any point up through 1.09. I know Blizzard bashing is cool and all, but really this is just getting utterly silly. Why don't you go troll the Blizzard forums where your statements actually belong?

Didn't she say some months ago that Needler is a better bow than Massive Bow of Swiftness in D1??? ROFL.

[Lissa]

Yes, I remember how static field worked in 1.0 D2, and yes, it was horribly broken. The point I'm making is that QA process for Blizzard is worse now than it was in the past. Look at it this way, we're 1 month into the game and they've already release 3 bug fix patches, broken other aspects with said patches, and generally did a slap fix for aspects of the game that both you and I have seen Quark. Even at it's worst, D2/LoD had better QA than what we're seeing here in D3 (and other games by Blizzard), glaring issues are slipping past QA here (like the Asian dupe bug). So yes, Blizzard's QA process has gotten worse (even though it was bad back in 2000 to 2003).

You're using the word "dupe" while attempting to convince us that Blizzard had excellent QA in D2 and LOD. This does not compute.

Lissa, the fact that they're patching things quickly is a *good* sign, showing that they care about the game. Just take the static field brokenness as one example among hundreds -- they didn't balance static field until the expansion came out! My static field/frozen orb sorceress was able to kill the final boss in the final difficulty, who dropped the best loot in the game, in 3 seconds without any fear of death in hardcore played over a 56k modem while using a standard set of equipment and an easily testable skillset -- and was able to do it for more than a year. When someone showed a video showing how they could frozen and stun lock Inferno Diablo in D3 using an obscure combination of skills and equipment, it was fixed in a matter of days. That's progress, not a degeneration.

Really Mongo? You tell everyone else to pull off their nostaliga glasses and yet you put on a pair of your own? Static Field was capped at 25% fairly early on (by 1.03, but I seem to remember 1.01), LoD was 1.08/1.09 and 1.03 wasn't more than two to three months after D2 came out (and I think it was earlier than that). 1.08/1.09 changed SF so that it capped out at 33% and 50% in Nightmare and Hell, but SF was capped after a point and Hell Diablo had enough health, even in D2, that you couldn't kill him with just SFing and then FOing in a short amount of time once Blizzard capped SF's maximum health it could take off.

If you've played a Blizzard game and your take on it is that the QA is bad, I find the idea that you've played another company's game as well as quite suspect. I also seriously question the idea that Blizzard's gotten worse over time.

Limiting yourself to just the power level of the game ... no, not even close. D2 was not under such a microscope because it was a decidedly easier game. Anything was viable not because it was good, but because you didn't need good. Even with that, don't you remember Static Field? It trivialized the game and had a bugged formula for its radius to boot. That is not the only example, simply the most egregious one. Life Steal % was out of whack, so what was their eventual fix? They made it not work on some monsters. Well that's great, I'll just ignore those monsters now.

Yes, I remember how static field worked in 1.0 D2, and yes, it was horribly broken. The point I'm making is that QA process for Blizzard is worse now than it was in the past. Look at it this way, we're 1 month into the game and they've already release 3 bug fix patches, broken other aspects with said patches, and generally did a slap fix for aspects of the game that both you and I have seen Quark. Even at it's worst, D2/LoD had better QA than what we're seeing here in D3 (and other games by Blizzard), glaring issues are slipping past QA here (like the Asian dupe bug). So yes, Blizzard's QA process has gotten worse (even though it was bad back in 2000 to 2003).

Right. Sure. Where are you are getting what you are smoking? D2 QA was so bad that the game was essentially unplayable on Battle.net the first month. You say they have done 3 patches so far on D3. But do you remember all the server side fixes that went into D2? There were times that the game on Battle.net and the game on a LAN were essentially different games because we had to wait weeks for them to bundle the 3, 4, or 5 serve side hotfixes together. They push patches out faster now. Even with that I remember one time when I hadn't been on Battle.net for 10 days with Diablo 2 and when I connected it downloaded 4 different patches. Your memory sucks dude.

SC2 was significantly more polished than SC or Wow on release and hasn't had as many patches either.

Remember the hunter survival tree until about 1.03 or so? You know the one that had skills that lowered DPS? Yeah that one. Yeah that was good quality control there. Yep, clearly better than what we have with D3.

Please don't try and change the goal posts again like you tend to do either. I am NOT saying that Blizzard has good QA, I am saying that it is no worse than it has been. I give them a pass for Inferno too, that wasn't really a QA issue that was a management decision that didn't work well, but Normal through hell was significantly better off than anything else they have had on release day with the exception of the very well done SC2 single player campaign. Most of the patch changes so far have honestly been pretty minor things to fix to. I don't expect them to catch everything and they catch more than most PC gaming companies. Of course they are also willing to significantly change their games via patches as well which other companies tend not to do. That should not be confused with poor QA that, again is a management decision to not simply say, "This is the game, polish it and balance it, no new ideas allowed from here on out." Which is something I have to say to users when I'm developing a new app for them. This is the feature set we are doing, test it work with it, if it doesn't work as we agreed upon we will fix it before going to production. If you want a different feature, note it and we will evaluate it for a future request. Blizzard doesn't operate that way which gives them some bonuses but also comes with drawbacks.

Looking forward to your response because I could use another good chuckle and I sure watching you try and change the argument from what you initially posed, or dance around things because you can't admit you simply weren't remembering things correctly should be pretty entertaining.

This is also directed at Mongo's post above.

Likewise, and I've been looking for the post Bolty made, D3's framework has been finished for over a year and half as Blizzard was letting people play in Act 3 and Act 4 at various tech conventions back in late 2010. Blizzard had a year and half to sit down and QA a lot of the game as they worked out various potential blocks (such as the one South Korea had setup stating that D3 was gambling and that was against either the law or some societal norm in South Korea and was delayed until Blizzard worked that out with the South Korean government). The beta of Act 1 ran for over 9 months before it was finally released (and yes, there were some changes made, but not much). Blizzard had a lot more time with D3 to QA it inhouse before release then they ever did with D2 (remember, D2 came out 3 years after D1 where as D3 came out 11 years since LoD and they announced D3 in 2008 and the graphics in game show it's probably using technology from 2007 through 2009).

So, here we have a game that they've basically had finished for a year and half where they could QA in all this time and yet a bunch of things slip through. Does that really sound like their QA is on the ball compared to where they've had shorter QA times for their other games (even including D2)?

Yes, I remember how static field worked in 1.0 D2, and yes, it was horribly broken. The point I'm making is that QA process for Blizzard is worse now than it was in the past.

Paradoxical statements. You'll never admit to being wrong, of course, and you're entitled to your opinion - but you're flat out wrong. D3 is a far, far more polished game at release than D2 was at any point up through 1.09. I know Blizzard bashing is cool and all, but really this is just getting utterly silly. Why don't you go troll the Blizzard forums where your statements actually belong?

Didn't she say some months ago that Needler is a better bow than Massive Bow of Swiftness in D1??? ROFL.

And non sequistor moment, didn't you also say that playing BNW or BNR was impossible? I'll leave you with that.

[Elric of Grans]

(I will skip the quote for brevity)

Mongo, I stated `other than the Wizard, the other classes have terrible internal skill balance'. You retorted `no, those classes are viable in Inferno'. Two completely unrelated statements. I never said you could not get to and kill Diablo/Inferno with any class. I am more than certain it has been done a hundred times over: that was not my contention and has absolutely nothing to do with my point. I stated that the Wizard has the best internal balance, with many skills that are viable across the entire game, and no skills that are absolutely `must-have'. I stated that no other class is as well balanced.

The Demon Hunter is almost forced into using Smoke Screen, and Elemental Arrow is by far the best choice for offense. I literally do nothting other than spam Elemental Arrow and use Smoke Screen defensively, because no other skill is worth using. I believe Barbarians require Revenge to be viable as a class. I also get the impression that Leap and Feel No Pain are quite essential too. My understanding is that the Witch Doctor requires Spirit Walk to be viable. This is not a comprehensive list: I am merely providing enough to illustrate my point.

My core argument is this: Mongo, the Wizard is a really well designed and balanced class. You cannot soley use that as your point of argument and say `all the classes are fine, just learn to play'. Yes, you have done this, more than once. Most classes have atrocious internal balance and require massive overhauling. The Demon Hunter requires all her passives to be removed and replaced with useful ones, her defensive skills need a massive overhaul and the power/cost ratio of most of her attacks needs addressing. The Witch Doctor has crippling mana issues that requires very specific strategies to overhaul; no other class has this problem, so it should not exist. The Monk has issues in that he is fragile, yet needs to be in combat to generate spirit to combat his fragility; there is a catch-22 here that needs looking at. The Barbarian... well, I think most of his problems are just Inferno and will be solved quite quickly, but I could be wrong.

[Archon_Wing]

I made a new demon hunter and spent about 40k on leveling weapons so I get a new weapon every few levels up to 60, with some 600ish bow waiting for me at the end. Hopefully it'll be more fun than playing act 2 inferno. :3

[Athenau]

The Barbarian... well, I think most of his problems are just Inferno and will be solved quite quickly, but I could be wrong.

The barbarian is very well designed. He has a nicely rounded skillset which covers the bases of damage, mitigation, movement, and CC. His problems in inferno are the general problems with melee in inferno rather than barb-specific design flaws. The only things I find lacking are the lackluster resource spenders (apart from Seismic Slam), but he's still in a better place than the monk in that regard.

[FireIceTalon]

The Barbarian... well, I think most of his problems are just Inferno and will be solved quite quickly, but I could be wrong.

The barbarian is very well designed. He has a nicely rounded skillset which covers the bases of damage, mitigation, movement, and CC. His problems in inferno are the general problems with melee in inferno rather than barb-specific design flaws. The only things I find lacking are the lackluster resource spenders (apart from Seismic Slam), but he's still in a better place than the monk in that regard.

I have to agree with this entirely. Well, I do think Whirlwind is a viable spender through hell mode. But in Inferno, the only spender I use is WotB, and I reserve that for the toughest of mobs. Otherwise, I stick with Frenzy, Charge with Dreadnought rune, and Leap with Iron Impact rune for most of my offense. Revenge (cant imagine playing a Barb w/o this), and either War Cry or Ignore Pain (still cant decide which I like better) to fill out the other slots. The passives all seem pretty good too, but right now I use Ruthless, Nerves of Steel, and the one that reduces incoming dmg by 50% when u are at below 20% of your life (i forget the name of it, Relentless?). Inferno Act 1 is still insanely hard and often not very fun, but substantially more doable than it was with my DH.

Barb and Wiz are both very well designed, much more so than DH. I will give my thoughts on Monk and WD when I have 60'd them, but mine are baby chars at the moment.

[MongoJerry]

(I will skip the quote for brevity)

Mongo, I stated `other than the Wizard, the other classes have terrible internal skill balance'. You retorted `no, those classes are viable in Inferno'.

Elric, I would prefer that you read my posts before responding to them in the future. However, I will break things apart and summarize them for you this time. You said:

I hear that the Witch Doctor is similar, having almost no viable skills past Nightmare (many apparently not viable in Normal even)

I said:

The Witch Doctor is a bad example to bring up, because I have played with several Lurkers and Amazon Basin players who love their witch doctors and have played them into hardcore Act 1 Inferno, and they use a variety of skillsets. It's fun to listen to witch doctor players compare notes with each other on teamspeak or Mumble regarding different skills and how they equip themselves. It seems like a fun class. Also, I've been running with Frag's new Witch Doctor (now in nightmare), and I'm quite as excited as he is regarding his no-pets build. I agree with him that it has enormous potential -- not as a variant but as one that could possibly make it all the way through Inferno. If someone is having trouble playing a class past nightmare that has tanking pets, strong crowd control, good dps, and good damage mitigation and prevention skills, then that person simply needs to l2p.

Thus, I directly responded to your message. First, I noted that I have played with many witch doctors who use a variety of skillsets and then mentioned that Frag is even using a no-pets Witch Doctor who we think will also be Inferno viable. So, that's another example of a class that has a wide variety of builds and skillsets that allow the character to play quite differently and still be successful.

In addition, my comments regarding the viability of the Witch Doctor responded directly to your comments about the Witch Doctor having "almost no viable skills past Nightmare." That was a foolish comment that was false on its face. Again, anyone who has trouble playing a class past nightmare that has tanking pets, strong crowd control, good dps, and good damage mitigation and prevention skills simply needs to l2p.

Then, you said:

The Monk seems to have a lot of really good options, but the class tends to get panned a lot as horrible;

Then, I responded:

I don't know enough about Monks to discuss skillsets, but I can say that there are monks in hardcore Act 2 Inferno, so I know they are quite viable as well. I've pug'd with a few monks along the way, and they are the second most common hardcore level 60 besides the barbarian, so some people are finding ways to play them. I suspect that you may be right that they may have a more limited selection of skills that they tend to use. For example, I know that the passive that makes one's highest resistance carry across all resistances is a particular favorite. It sounds like Blizzard is taking a look at that passive and is looking at ways to reduce its strength while buffing other aspects of the Monks' skills, so I suspect we'll see quite a few Monk changes in 1.1.

So, here I am partially agreeing with you. That is, from my limited knowledge of the Monk, it seems like some of the same skills, certainly that one passive, does seem to be pretty much on everybody's build. However, my comments regarding the viability of the class in general respond directly to your comment that "the class tends to get panned a lot as horrible." The fact that it is the second most played character class in hardcore shows that it is in fact not horrible from a surviveability standpoint. I acknowledge that it could use some additional work, and it appears that Blizzard also acknowledges that as well, but it is not a "horrible class" as you describe it.

Thus, you can see that my comments directly related to the topic at hand. You want more variety in the classes, and I agree. I think the Wizard and Witch Doctor do have a lot of variety to them, although they could use some tweaks as well (I'll compose a post regarding my suggested changes to the Wizard over the weekend). However, even the other classes, while there are some skills that seem to be used pretty much across the board, it still doesn't seem like all 9 skill spots are locked in place for them either in cookie-cutter style builds. So, some adjustments and breadth should continue to be added to the classes, but the situation is not nearly the "sky is falling, all classes are broken" that the Blizzard bashers want to portray it as.

[MongoJerry]

Really Mongo? You tell everyone else to pull off their nostaliga glasses and yet you put on a pair of your own? Static Field was capped at 25% fairly early on (by 1.03, but I seem to remember 1.01), LoD was 1.08/1.09 and 1.03 wasn't more than two to three months after D2 came out (and I think it was earlier than that). 1.08/1.09 changed SF so that it capped out at 33% and 50% in Nightmare and Hell, but SF was capped after a point and Hell Diablo had enough health, even in D2, that you couldn't kill him with just SFing and then FOing in a short amount of time once Blizzard capped SF's maximum health it could take off.

See the patch notes for Patch 1.08, the patch that was released on June 29, 2001, the day that LOD was released. Thus, as I described, static field wasn't nerfed until LOD was released. (And feel free to look at the earlier patch notes, because you'll see that other than a tooltip change, no changes to static field were made until 1.08).

You might ask how I remember that? Well, I played a Static Field/FO sorc up to the mid-90's and appeared on the original hardcore US West ladder (around 70ish, iirc), which took months of playing to achieve. When LOD was released, I was disgusted that people were able to get to level 99 in one day by running the first area of Act V over and over, which essentially involved no threat to the player, because most of the mobs were too busy fighting NPC's. How was that for Blizzard balance and QA?

[ViralSpiral]

Actually, there was a star-shaped area of effect problem with Static (and a few other skills) that was fixed in 1.04, but yes, the capping on its damage was an expansion change. Actually that nerf and immunities had people crying the Sorceress was dead and gone. Then people figured out Fire Wall was a phenomenally good skill when you have a merc that goes with you anywhere and doesn't die to just any sneeze.

[Elric of Grans]

Thus, I directly responded to your message. First, I noted that I have played with many witch doctors who use a variety of skillsets and then mentioned that Frag is even using a no-pets Witch Doctor who we think will also be Inferno viable. So, that's another example of a class that has a wide variety of builds and skillsets that allow the character to play quite differently and still be successful.

I never said it has only one viable build, I said it has a large number of skills that are not viable. Both our statements are true and do not contradict in that regard. In addition, a no-pet build is nothing special as most Witch Doctor players complain that the pets are useless anyway. I believe Spirit Walk/Soul Siphon with Bears or Bats and Darts/Splinters is the standard build.

In addition, my comments regarding the viability of the Witch Doctor responded directly to your comments about the Witch Doctor having "almost no viable skills past Nightmare." That was a foolish comment that was false on its face. Again, anyone who has trouble playing a class past nightmare that has tanking pets, strong crowd control, good dps, and good damage mitigation and prevention skills simply needs to l2p.

Once again, you are stating `the class can complete the game' as a response to my statement that `certain skills are not viable'. How am I failing to read your post when it is so blatant here? Surely, this is the most obvious example of a straw man that anyone can find! I already acknowledged that Witch Doctor players have gotten to, and through, Inferno difficulty: I am at no point making a statement about the viability of the class.

How many Witch Doctors use Toads? Too expensive for a skill that is supposed to be used when you are waiting for your mana to regen (the other Primary Skills are less than 1/3 of the cost); Toad of Hugeness in particular does not even serve its purpose due to a variety of reasons (which are best kept to a Witch Doctor-specific discussion). Basically every Witch Doctor uses Bats or Bears as their damage skill: how many Sacrifice builds have you seen? The class is viable, but pets do not scale properly and there is a severe design issue which Blizzard have admitted was a problem from the beta they could not resolve (mana regen, if you are not aware) that limits it to a small number of builds. Compared to the Wizard, the whole core of this discussion, the Witch Doctor has a lot less viable builds. Witch Doctor builds typically focus on addressing the issue of their mana regen so they do not have the `five seconds of awesome, 55 seconds of useless' that many Witch Doctor players complain about.

I don't know enough about Monks to discuss skillsets, but I can say that there are monks in hardcore Act 2 Inferno, so I know they are quite viable as well. [...]

So, here I am partially agreeing with you. That is, from my limited knowledge of the Monk, it seems like some of the same skills, certainly that one passive, does seem to be pretty much on everybody's build. However, my comments regarding the viability of the class in general respond directly to your comment that "the class tends to get panned a lot as horrible."

Once again, you are responding to me claiming that you are arguing the class is viable instead of the skills, and you respond to it by saying the class is viable. I very clearly was not making a specific claim about the class, as I commented on general sentiment. I lack the personal experience, as you do; neither of us can make any comment on specifics. I never said the class was not viable, I said the general feeling about it was that it was `horrible', in a paragraph where the context of discussion was about internal skill balance. The context of that `horrible' should have been more than obvious. As you respond, there are many skill selections that are, essentially, must-have to be viable. Once again, in relation to my core contention, the Monk has inferior internal balance when compared to the Wizard.

Before it looks as though I am sitting back and going `oh, the Wizard is over powered, blah, blah, blah,' I am not. If we go back to the origin, I stated that you should not use the Wizard as your sole point of view when talking about internal skill balance. You should not shoot people down when they complain about their class because your class clearly does not have the issues they complain about. You have been very quick to shoot people down with a `learn to play' when they complain that certain skill options were not viable. Sure, they can use the same build as everyone else, but that does not mean their point is invalid nor deserves your harsh dismissal of them. The Wizard needs only tweaks (for the most part) to have an entirely viable skill-set; other classes may require considerably more work.

[MongoJerry]

Elric, you've gone from:

I hear that the Witch Doctor is similar, having almost no viable skills past Nightmare (many apparently not viable in Normal even)

to

`certain skills are not viable'.

That's called moving the goalposts, Elric. If your statement is that every class has some skills that aren't good and need fixing, then that's a trivial statement that is of course true, but that's a far cry from the posts that started the whole discussion which were:

Not that I am disagreeing with you, but it does fly in the face of two core design principles: (1) there should be no `must-have' skills, and (2) as many skills as possible must be viable options. The current situation requires you to use certain skills, which is why everyone is running around with the same defensive skills and little else.

Regarding D3, I've seen quite a number of different Wizard builds out there that are quite different from one another with lots of arguements back and forth on which attack skills, defensive skills, and which passives are better. I think that's a sign of a well designed class. That's a whole lot better than the static field/finisher or you're a variant version of the D2 sorceress.

So, to sum up the discussion: You are saying that within certain classes, there are a couple of key skills that one seems forced to us to counter certain mechanics. I said that I agree that there probably are in some classes, but the situation is not nearly as dire as you are making it out to be, because despite that, there is still a great diversity of character builds available that are viable -- and this situation is much better than the cookie cutter builds of the old D2 day. There actually is diversity among the builds.

Now, it is natural for a community of gamers to start settling on certain builds as "optimal" or "cookie cutter" after a while. I think we're just now starting to see that flesh out. It's difficult to balance every combination of skills completely. But I liked the comments that were made in the chat the developers gave showing that they are watching the statistics about what skills and runes level 60 players are using and are getting ready to make some adjustments based on those numbers.

(By the way, the witch doctor pets work very well, but you have to equip yourself appropriately in order to help them stay alive. They certainly make it past nightmare. Fine, they might not work well in Act 2 Inferno and beyond, but that gets back to the whole inferno needs to be tuned down and better gear needs to start dropping thing again. And, no, the no pets build is not the standard in hardcore, for obvious reasons. In softcore, people might be pushing for dps while gy rushing, but I'm talking about a build that has survival capabilities).

[Lissa]

Really Mongo? You tell everyone else to pull off their nostaliga glasses and yet you put on a pair of your own? Static Field was capped at 25% fairly early on (by 1.03, but I seem to remember 1.01), LoD was 1.08/1.09 and 1.03 wasn't more than two to three months after D2 came out (and I think it was earlier than that). 1.08/1.09 changed SF so that it capped out at 33% and 50% in Nightmare and Hell, but SF was capped after a point and Hell Diablo had enough health, even in D2, that you couldn't kill him with just SFing and then FOing in a short amount of time once Blizzard capped SF's maximum health it could take off.

See the patch notes for Patch 1.08, the patch that was released on June 29, 2001, the day that LOD was released. Thus, as I described, static field wasn't nerfed until LOD was released. (And feel free to look at the earlier patch notes, because you'll see that other than a tooltip change, no changes to static field were made until 1.08).

You might ask how I remember that? Well, I played a Static Field/FO sorc up to the mid-90's and appeared on the original hardcore US West ladder (around 70ish, iirc), which took months of playing to achieve. When LOD was released, I was disgusted that people were able to get to level 99 in one day by running the first area of Act V over and over, which essentially involved no threat to the player, because most of the mobs were too busy fighting NPC's. How was that for Blizzard balance and QA?

Mongo, that's when they the raised the cap in the higher difficulties, it was capped before LoD. That was done as a hot fix and then the tooltip was update in 1.03 to note that change. Again, it helps to actually remember how the skill was. You claim others are using nostalgia glasses, but made a huge nostalgia glasses mistake yourself.

There were a ton of skills that were hotfixed, but never mentioned in the actual patch notes because they had already been hotfixed it. Look at Strafe for instance which in 1.0 was uncapped in the number of arrows that could be used against a single target. They hotfixed that as well and capped the number of arrows that could go into a single target to 3 IIRC, might have been less. I know before the capped it, Strafe was the Amazon's great boss killer as I used it to great affect on the end act bosses.

[Concillian]

There were a ton of skills that were hotfixed, but never mentioned in the actual patch notes because they had already been hotfixed it. Look at Strafe for instance which in 1.0 was uncapped in the number of arrows that could be used against a single target. They hotfixed that as well and capped the number of arrows that could go into a single target to 3 IIRC, might have been less. I know before the capped it, Strafe was the Amazon's great boss killer as I used it to great affect on the end act bosses.

Strafe was popular because it was massively bugged before 1.04. Your shining example of Blizz QA in those days is they fixed one of the two major bugs that affected a skill?

The strafe bug is what made the Amazon viable prior to 1.04... because of the bow bug... So again, they fixed one of the major bugs with strafe, which was cool, but two other major bugs effectively neutered all other Bow Amazon skills and kept Strafe as reasonably viable.

Essentially every Bowazon ability other than Strafe was horribly bad, due to the bow bug, but thanks to the strafe bug, Strafe was not horribly bad... Depending on the DEX of the Amazon, the Strafe bug largely canceled out the bow bug if an Amazon used Strafe...

So... since these two major bugs largely offset each other and Bowazons weren't completely neutered (in fact they were AWESOME thanks to the strafe bug in co-op with a concentration paladin, because the way the bugs interacted, concentration gave 2-4x the listed damage increase to Strafe) Blizz QA was good back then? 2 offsetting bugs in place for ~5-6 months meant everything was cool, right?

Of course not all Amazon skills were largely neutered. Guided arrow was completely neutered since any more skill points than one in the skill did nothing.
Not almost nothing, not a little bit... nothing. Skill points did nothing in a game where skill points were a primary source of character power.

The bugs in Diablo II were so many and so large that this skill that completely wasted skill points was considered a "minor bug" in the 1.04 patch notes.

These are all bugs that were fixed in patch 1.04... which was 5-6 months after release.

While we may not have yet discovered such bugs in Diablo III, at this point I'm siding with those who think Diablo III is more polished than Diablo II.
Just the fact that the character screen looks to be a reliable source of information is a huge step in the right direction of polish and QA over Diablo II. They seem to be adjusting things on a quicker timescale as well, but that's somewhat debatable. What isn't debatable is the level of polish in the shipped game. Diablo III has fewer glaring bugs and major issues than Diablo II did.

[Lissa]

There were a ton of skills that were hotfixed, but never mentioned in the actual patch notes because they had already been hotfixed it. Look at Strafe for instance which in 1.0 was uncapped in the number of arrows that could be used against a single target. They hotfixed that as well and capped the number of arrows that could go into a single target to 3 IIRC, might have been less. I know before the capped it, Strafe was the Amazon's great boss killer as I used it to great affect on the end act bosses.

Strafe was popular because it was massively bugged before 1.04. Your shining example of Blizz QA in those days is they fixed one of the two major bugs that affected a skill?

The strafe bug is what made the Amazon viable prior to 1.04... because of the bow bug... So again, they fixed one of the major bugs with strafe, which was cool, but two other major bugs effectively neutered all other Bow Amazon skills and kept Strafe as reasonably viable.

Essentially every Bowazon ability other than Strafe was horribly bad, due to the bow bug, but thanks to the strafe bug, Strafe was not horribly bad... Depending on the DEX of the Amazon, the Strafe bug largely canceled out the bow bug if an Amazon used Strafe...

So... since these two major bugs largely offset each other and Bowazons weren't completely neutered (in fact they were AWESOME thanks to the strafe bug in co-op with a concentration paladin, because the way the bugs interacted, concentration gave 2-4x the listed damage increase to Strafe) Blizz QA was good back then? 2 offsetting bugs in place for ~5-6 months meant everything was cool, right?

Of course not all Amazon skills were largely neutered. Guided arrow was completely neutered since any more skill points than one in the skill did nothing.
Not almost nothing, not a little bit... nothing. Skill points did nothing in a game where skill points were a primary source of character power.

The bugs in Diablo II were so many and so large that this skill that completely wasted skill points was considered a "minor bug" in the 1.04 patch notes.

These are all bugs that were fixed in patch 1.04... which was 5-6 months after release.

While we may not have yet discovered such bugs in Diablo III, at this point I'm siding with those who think Diablo III is more polished than Diablo II.
Just the fact that the character screen looks to be a reliable source of information is a huge step in the right direction of polish and QA over Diablo II. They seem to be adjusting things on a quicker timescale as well, but that's somewhat debatable. What isn't debatable is the level of polish in the shipped game. Diablo III has fewer glaring bugs and major issues than Diablo II did.

QA is more than just finding and fixing bugs. A lot of people here also don't realize that D3 has been in development twice as long or longer than D2 ever was while having less skills per class (including both active and passive skills) than D2 had across the multiple trees that each class had. The runes do add some changes into the various skills, but the runes don't change the overall way the skill works (just a flavor to the skill). So, they had less to check and more time to check it in, yet numerous skills are not viable, this is a function that QA is s'posed to check, major exploits got through (even though most of the discovered ones were corrected), and for some places in the world (notibly Europe) there have been latency issues (that are still going on from time to time from what I'm hearing). People here are looking at just a single aspect, bugs and bug fixing, while missing the other aspects of QA as well (viability of skills, network issues, and skill synergy that leads to exploitive behavior). Is D3 difficulty stepping up properly from Normal to Hell, sure, but that is not the only function that QA is responcible for and with the time they had to QA this game (atleast a year and half, probably longer), there should not have had some of the issues they've had get through.

[Athenau]

hile missing the other aspects of QA as well (viability of skills, network issues, and skill synergy that leads to exploitive behavior)

You don't understand what QA does. QA is not about game balance or testing network infrastructure (which is impossible pre-release anyway). QA is about finding and fixing bugs. And in that regard D3 is streets ahead of D2.

[Lissa]

hile missing the other aspects of QA as well (viability of skills, network issues, and skill synergy that leads to exploitive behavior)

You don't understand what QA does. QA is not about game balance or testing network infrastructure (which is impossible pre-release anyway). QA is about finding and fixing bugs. And in that regard D3 is streets ahead of D2.

QA = Quality Assurance. There is far more to QA than just finding and fixing bugs. If it was just finding and fixing bugs it would be called FFB for finding and fixing bugs.