05-29-2012, 01:48 PM
Blizzard has historically been pretty terrible with ever balancing melee. The only time they've ever gotten it close to right is WoW, and then only because the melee isn't expected to contribute much damage and is forced to group. They exist basically as golems for the ranged characters to hide behind, a la D1. Blizzard seems wholly unable to make monsters that as scary for ranged characters that don't also atomise anyone in melee range.
Protip: Barbarian is the only class in D2 I don't play. Ever. There's a reason for this.
I'm half-considering a throw + shield Barb but I don't expect it to be worth a damn in Hell. Taunt and Grim Ward are about my only crowd control options (no Howl does not count) which leaves champ packs as a scary proposition. Further, my solution for physical immunity is basically "hope for lucky item drops" or a Cold Merc from A3 (who will spend a good deal of A5 being dead useless, or probably just dead.) I think it can be done, but I don't think it will be pleasant and it will require either some kind of chance to cast amp/decrep, or massive elemental item damage drop. I can't even rely on runewords, with a throwing weapon. Maybe on weapon switch, but I won't have any Mastery to boost AR. The merc alone won't cut it. My Wind Druid taught me at A1, 2, and 5 in Hell are going to be swamped with Physical + Cold immune, and A3 does the same with Phys + Lightning. Fire's not even worth discussing between Inferno and the number of Fire immunes.
(The actual solution probably involves a Holy Freeze merc with a Fire or Lightning based runeword, but those tend to require runes I never find.)
Protip: Barbarian is the only class in D2 I don't play. Ever. There's a reason for this.
I'm half-considering a throw + shield Barb but I don't expect it to be worth a damn in Hell. Taunt and Grim Ward are about my only crowd control options (no Howl does not count) which leaves champ packs as a scary proposition. Further, my solution for physical immunity is basically "hope for lucky item drops" or a Cold Merc from A3 (who will spend a good deal of A5 being dead useless, or probably just dead.) I think it can be done, but I don't think it will be pleasant and it will require either some kind of chance to cast amp/decrep, or massive elemental item damage drop. I can't even rely on runewords, with a throwing weapon. Maybe on weapon switch, but I won't have any Mastery to boost AR. The merc alone won't cut it. My Wind Druid taught me at A1, 2, and 5 in Hell are going to be swamped with Physical + Cold immune, and A3 does the same with Phys + Lightning. Fire's not even worth discussing between Inferno and the number of Fire immunes.
(The actual solution probably involves a Holy Freeze merc with a Fire or Lightning based runeword, but those tend to require runes I never find.)