Patching 1.0.2c -- potentially nerfed mob damage

[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.