Basic Math - The Failure of Diablo Melee

[MongoJerry]

Have you ever read my D2 spot reports

My D2 site is back up now, after being offline for the last couple of years.

sirian.warpcore.org

My run with Wussie girl would have been quite different if I had neglected her poison resistance.

Yes, I see your spot reports and raise you one Irene, the Infirm, the no skills assigned, no stat points assigned, naked, no charms, no jewelry punching sorceress. As much fun as I had playing Irene, I bring her up to illustrate the gameplay problem that gets introduced when characters are allowed to effectively spam quaff healing potions. That is that if something doesn't kill you in one hit, you might as well have an infinite health pool.

The biggest gameplay impact that introducing a spammable health potion ability would be that any damage-over-time skills will no longer be something that one has to worry about. The floor under you starts to flare up in the Butcher's encounter? Just quaff some healing potions and keep pounding away at him. Belial casts green poison circles at your feet? Just quaff some healing potions and keep spamming your attacks at him. Azmodan... well, pretending that his encounter is dangerous... the black corruption that spreads at your feet would be trivialized if all you have to do is quaff a couple of healing potions.

But we know that the game is about champion and boss packs now. What about them? Molten, plague, desecrator... now trivial. Just quaff some healing potions and kill the packs off. Or how about mortor, the bane of ranged classes? Now trivial. Just quaff some healing potions and burn the mobs down. What about those annoying fast moving fast attack frog/dog things that nip at your heals? Trivial, because you can just quaff a few potions while you take them down.

But it becomes even worse, because not only would mob encounters become trivialized but also quite a number of player abilities. I know more about the Wizard than other classes, so I'll focus on that class's abilities. Diamond Skin, a Wizard staple, would become a thing of the past. No need for it, when you can just quaff potions to heal any damage you receive. Galvanizing Ward, which provides a low level health regen and is considered by many Inferno level Wizards to be a "must have" passive would be gone. The same would be true for any kind of healing ability or passive of any other class. For that matter, most defensive abilities, passives, and gear would have their value readjusted downward in favor of offensive oriented abilities, passives, and gear. Why bother with all of those defensive abilities when you can just potion through almost any threat?

I get the idea that you believe that Blizzard's introduction of a potion cooldown was done in a thoughtless reactionary manner. This isn't true. It was actually discussed in pre-release videos as one of the key decisions they made that enabled them to introduce more interesting encounters and more exciting gameplay. They wanted to get away from the "one shot" or "spike" encounters of D2 that provided the only threat to a character. I applaud their decision and believe it to be the correct decision.

(Yes, I heard you that maybe you'd be fine with 4 potions and then introduce a cooldown or something, but really when you start allowing such things, you effectively make potions become the primary way to negate threat rather than character abilities -- and you end up running into the same problems described above).

CC is part of the solution, but it cannot be the only solution. All the CC options have cooldowns, while the threats include things like champion packs where four different mobs can chain-CC your toon. Four mobs executing Jailer in sequence, or a Horde boss pack of a hard-hitting creature type able to chain Vortex you or chain Teleport to you. There are some mobs encountered in sardine cans, such as waiting for you as the first encounter in the sewers or caves, events that are traps, and so on, where there isn't room to kite or even maneuver.

Of course CC options have cooldowns. Deciding which and how many cc's or defensive abilities you have at your disposal is a part of the choices you have to make. Otherwise, you could pick one CC and spam it incessently. On my Wizard, I have three defensive cooldowns -- Diamond Skin, Teleport, and yes, potion. It's important that when I get yanked somewhere that I don't blow all three at once or I'm going to get in trouble real fast. If I get vortexed into a bad spot, I teleport out. A mob teleports next to me, I diamond skin and try to burn him. If I get in trouble, I try to hit him with my arcane orbs or hydra with the 30% slow and run off. If I get vortexed again, I potion. In addition, there are two Wizard passives that decrease these defensive cooldowns, and I think by the time I get to the end of hardcore Hell, I'll probably put one of them in. But the key thing to take away from this is that potions are not the first defensive option in the arsenal -- they are the last, when all other cooldowns are exhausted.

Your point about spike damage being the only damage that is dangerous is true regardless of healing options. If you get in over your head (whatever that means to your toon in its current gear, ability set, companions, and content phase) you should be in danger. If not, you should not be in danger of dying...

Whether you can full-heal instantly several times in a row without restriction, or heal only a small fraction of your health globe and wait 30 seconds before you can do it again, or something in between, spike damage is and remains the only threat of death. (Attrition could be a threat, as well, but only if you are trapped -- sardine cans, ambushes, positioning mistakes, etc). So that line attack is-- well, it's feeble. Sorry, but it doesn't even matter to the core issue.

Sorry, your argument attempting to dismiss this issue is, well, feeble. The truth is that you wouldn't be complaining about needing potions for your Barbarian to survive, if in fact non-instant kill attacks weren't threatening or killing your character. This is the heart of the matter. The fact that your not very well geared or built Barbarian is having difficulty surviving in encounters that do not involve one-shot kills shows that a very different kind of gameplay has been introduced that you have not yet adjusted to. And this gets to my final point...

I tried the Revenge skill. I was not having fun with that skill. Don't like the mechanics of it. Not going to switch to it. If that alone makes the class unviable in Hell+, it's Blizzard's fault and their design is SORELY lacking...

(BoltyMy point was that CC isn't the proper style of play here, even in Nightmare/Hell modes. Melee is quite viable from Normal to Nightmare to Hell difficulties. I ran into the same brick wall you did, and asked for help. It made a big difference, so I'm suggesting that to you as well. The simple fact was, I was Doing It Wrong.™...

Nor do I want to be force fed a game balance where I must play like it's Hardcore, running around like a tank with the most possible health and damage mitigation I can stack...

D3 wouldn't require monks and barbs to carry specific healing skills or go home crying, if potions were once again a primary form of health recovery...

UPDATE: My gear purchases on the AH, which totaled less than 50k spent and a net cash change of zero because I sold some stuff, too -- the new items brought a 50% increase in Health (from 16k to 24k) and a DPS increase of about 30% (3700 to 5000), with little other change. The stats I prioritized were Vitality, Armor and Strength in that order, but I limited myself to a price range of 10k or less per item.

I'm sorry, Sirian, but this sounds like an "l2p" issue rather than a game design issue. I know that this may be difficult to take for someone who often considers himself an expert in the games he plays. However, D3 is still new and involves gameplay that differs from earlier versions of Diablo and other similar video games. No one is yet an D3 expert, which makes this time period exciting for the game. You, just like all of us, still have a lot of learning to do.

There are problems with the melee classes starting at about Inferno Act 2. I've read enough and seen enough in game to see the problems coming even though I haven't experienced them yet. I do think there are some improvements that can be made to the classes -- and I think the answers can be found in the classes' cc abilities.

However, you were playing with 16k life in hell Act 2? And you think that 24k health is pretty good now? Are you kidding me?! My hardcore level 56 Wizard in Act 2 hell has 38k life with 4k dps. Frag's Barbarian has more health and way more damage mitigation than my Wizard has. And don't try the "but I don't use the auction house" line, because not a single item I or Frag is wearing came from the auction house. All items I'm wearing were either found, crafted, or bought from the vendor. It helps that Frag, Swirly, a Basiner named over9, and I trade items we find or craft with each other, but I'm sure that your group of four does to. Spend some time farming crafting materials, and you might try shopping the vendors from time to time -- or even purposely resetting them. My rings, amulets, and belt were all hell vendor purchases and made a huge difference in my stats.

Regarding your Barbarian, I can't give you much advice, because I've only played a Wizard. However, I can tell you this: Frag, a non-AH using hardcore Barbarian, just entered Act IV hell and he has only used one single potion during the entire trip.

There are problems with the Barbarian and Monk classes, and those issues should be discussed and addressed. However, those problems don't arise in hell Act 2.