Patching 1.0.2c -- potentially nerfed mob damage

[MongoJerry]

I was specifically referring to the Demon Hunter's lack of options; I have not played any other class past Nightmare, so cannot comment on them with any degree of certainty. I hear that the Witch Doctor is similar, having almost no viable skills past Nightmare (many apparently not viable in Normal even) and I suspect the Barbarian would also have a few `must-take to survive' skills, such as Revenge. The Monk seems to have a lot of really good options, but the class tends to get panned a lot as horrible; I do not really understand why so well (unless it is just Inferno as the problem, not the Monk). I very quickly recognised the Wizard as perhaps the best balanced class in the game, with a wide variety of largely well-balanced options. This also makes it the absolute worst class to base an opinion of game balance on, as it suffers the least from the problems

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.

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.

I would argue drops are poorly done across difficulties. It was very rare at any point in the game I got anything interesting; the entire game is incremental upgrades. Diablo has always relied on Bling to attract the gamers, but this game considerably lacks it. The improvements to Legendary and Set items will likely help considerably, but they are so rare as to be almost separate from the equation. More interesting drops (eg remove junk affixes, improve under-powered affixes, perhaps add some new effects) would go a long way to improving the game. Another issue is how drops tend to be well below your level; it is very rare to get a drop of your level (and even rarer that it is any good). This is especially bad in Act I from Nightmare up, as you struggle to get crafting materials due to the low drop levels. Then again, the Blacksmith also needs a lot of improvement; however, that is a different issue again.

I agree partially. The drops are certainly good enough to get you through hell difficulty, but they aren't as exciting as they should be. Frag and I have talked about this quite a bit, and we seem to agree that nightmare and early hell feel like a "dead zone," because you don't get rares when you kill the bosses the first time in the difficulties and you don't get the Nephelem Valor stacks that you start getting part-way through Hell. Blizzard has already said that they're going to address this. The item designer was overruled and they're going to reimplement having rares drop from bosses the first time you kill a boss across all difficulties. I think this will address a lot of the issues of the "dead zone" in nightmare and early hell.

Also, they're making the blacksmith crafts cost less, so that should make crafting a more viable way to get items along the way as you progress. The blacksmith was effective for me and the hardcore Lurkers crew a few times while we were leveling up -- particularly the Illustrious Raid swords in nightmare that gave us about a 50% boost to our collective dps. But I agree the blacksmith could use some more work. We'll have to see what happens when the next patch comes out.