Mostly witch doctor stuff

[FireIceTalon]

That's why my toughness numbers are so damn high, it's to make sure you have at least a 50/50 shot of living through a 10s disconnect. It's not for when you're playing it's for when things go to hell. That's the point in stacking vitality, it simply takes longer to drain the overall pool than simply stacking defenses. Mind you, I'm running a minimum of 70% in the 'non-main' mitigation and 80%+ on the main mitigation as well so I'm basically a EHP-sucker. When you're playing and have healing options, obviously mitigation > vit is the preferred method.

Eh, thanks for the compliment, but I honestly don't even know how to play SC anymore I've been doing this HC thing so damn long (over a decade... eesh).

It make sense.

Unfortunately, most of the deaths in this game are due more to cheezy mechanics and other factors beyond the players control (whether its stupid combos on elites like jailer and frozen, or lag/disconnects/rubber banding) than it is due to player error. And in most of these situations no amount mitigation or vit can save you. You could have 500k hp with 3500 all resist and overall 90% dmg reduction, but if you get vortexed into a molten explosion, thats pretty much insta-death regardless.

It's why I have been saying since the beginning that many elites are completely broken and need to be re-done. The monsters themselves aren't challenging so much as they are tedious, because we are fighting their affixes more than the monsters themselves.

I think elites should be redone completely and made to be more challenging instead of using poorly designed crowd control mechanics that are basically saying "you know, you are doing to good, its time for you to die but the only way we can make that happen is by taking control of your char away from you". I want to fight the monsters themselves, not their affixes. Blizz could get totally creative with this, for instance...

Imagine something like skeleton archers that can cast multi-shot or strafe, or oppressors that can actually stun u with their melee attack (but an attack that IS visible and can be avoided similar to Diablo's bone prison or a dark berserkers overhead swing). I think this would make elites more genuinely engaging and challenge the players skill, instead just being a poorly implemented gear check that is more frustrating than it is challenging. They have the right idea sort of with Lacuni Warriors and their whirlwind attack.

Most boss fights (with the exception of Malhael) suffer from the opposite problem - they are too easy and predictable, and with enough mitigation u can pretty much stand in one spot the whole fight and win with few exceptions. But they have the right idea - their attacks should be able to be seen and be avoidable, but do much more damage then they currently do. Azmodan's fireball is a good example - its easily avoided, but if it does hit you, it hurts. A lot. Yet it should probably do more than it currently does, as hes still pretty much a pushover for me even on T4.. I enjoy the Malthael fight quite a bit - he's challenging (but in a good way, not in a artificial way like most elites are) and should be set an example on how the other bosses as well as elites should be designed.

In short, buff bosses, nerf (or perhaps re-design is a better word) elite packs. Bosses should be the most challenging things in the game, not elite packs (who are artificially difficult anyways).