11-30-2006, 01:00 PM
Hi,
>>For the most part, "overpowered" skills lie in the caster arsenal. Aside from ridiculous damage weapons, there isn't much that hacking at something can do that generates the kind of unfairness I was talking about. Crushing Blow comes close, but it's still a damage-based function.<<
Doesn't that remind you of DI? Maybe that is just the way Blizzard likes to make games. Casters (=brain) rule over Melee builds (=fist). Oh, and CB is not a damage-based function. Not at all, it rather is based on the hitpoints of monsters you fight against.
>>Melee characters can achieve near-indestructibility, but what really throws balance out the window, is that casters, with their obscene damage that effects areas full of foes, can do it BETTER.
Apologies. I only play single player when the internet is down.<<
I don't think that is true. A melee Paladin with 75% block and 95% resist all along with some decent defense and life and some %DR is a lot more near-indestructible than just about any caster I can think of. A Barb compensates with a huge life pool. The main problem is that casters can have a huge life pool now, too. Energy is a worthless attribute, not just since 'Insight', but I think when no one could buy mana pots and there were no Insights, caster builds were a bit more balanced and the Warcry Barbs you so loathe weren't as invincible as you describe them now.
>>I did not list it for the Paladin because the skill is actually balanced on a paladin. Basically the most efficient thing he can do (sans unbalanced gear and party members) is power up his Vengeance, much like Might would power up Zeal. For the Paladin, it increases damage. For the Sorceress, the Amazon, the Druid, it allows synergies in a particular "line" of skills to be maximized while not worrying about any sort of plan B, because, in short, Conviction is all-encompassing (or near enough it doesn't matter, particularly with teleport).<<
Fair enough.
>>Just as there are still players who choose to play a Paladin without Blessed Hammer, yet I have not yet seen someone contend that it isn't overpowered.
Correct, but I'm not talking about the whole game. I'm talking about the unbalanced upper end. Whirlwind is all fine and dandy (though it wasn't in previous patches) but it pales in comparison to Blessed Hammer, which has no enemies per second hit cap, is unresistable by the majority of monsters in the game, does not disable all of your actions to use, and has literally no downside to using, or any kind of hindrance (a la Iron Maiden vs. Whirlwind). Obviously this is a polarized example, but compare Whirlwind (generally deemed one of the more powerful melee skills) to just about any high, or even mid-end caster skill. I'm (unjustly?) lumping amazon splash attacks as caster skills (Charged Strike if you want to nit over melee's meaning).
Fair enough--what kind of melee builds are overpowered?<<
Whirlwind once was the top-notch melee skill, but I don't think it still is. The damage boost is rather low, and you can't do anything mid-air. In DI, to compensate for their ranged attack advantage, Rogues did less damage than Warriors. But even then did Sorcerers fall out of balance. I think a good way to restrict the big pros of melee builds was implemented with the Druid and his shape-shifting skills: You can't cast your ranged spells when shape-shifted, yet you only get the life (and defense) boost when shape-shifted. Also elite armors should all require much Str, currently you can get a 467 base defense armor for lousy 77 Str. So you really want an overpowered melee build? How about a properly skilled and equipped fanatic zealot or dragon tail assassin? Maybe not overpowered, but quite powerful.
>>But I stand by my War Cry. It looks pretty innocuous until you start using it. It may be (probably is) a function of the equipment, particularly Insight, but the skill is just busted. You barely have to sit at your computer to use it. Full on Warcry MIGHT fall behind Blessed Hammer. It's a bit slow in the killing department, granted, but it more than makes up for it. The only moderately frightening enemies for a full-on high level Singer are Tomb Vipers and multiple elemental enchanted melee bosses. And it's possible to run through a Viper cloud and survive, simply because no attribute points need be allocated anywhere but Vitality (dexterity if you want to block, I suppose). ~5000 life, ridiculous armor, maximized resistances, enemies who can't move or attack, can't hit if they do (Taunt), can't damage if they hit (Taunt again), and probably something I'm forgetting make for an overpowered character in my opinion.<<
War Cry shouldn't work on PI monsters, as I said before. Apart from that, the skill itself is not overpowered. Insight and all the other oskill aura skills are. Note that without Insight and the ability to buy mana pots, War Cry was a challenge... And I still don't see that the world gets flooded by War Cry Barbs.
>>Conviction + elemental ranged attack? Nope (Uber Mephisto, various Lightning Enchanted Conviction bosses before absorb/broken resistance caps were available)
Blessed Hammer? Gonna say no. But that'd be a fun one to try. Maybe in SP you could dodge.
Teleport? I'd be tempted to say no here, but it's been done. The problem is the AI just teleports randomly at random times. Caster enemies would be vicious if they actively used it to escape damage.
War Cry? Taunt?
Holy Shield? (Melee has ~5% chance to hit? Try playing in Hell with a melee character when you're maybe 15-20 levels under the enemies)
Charged Strike?
Lightning Fury + Pierce (probably not as bad on SP...)
Smite?
Here, I guess, is a decent benchmark for judging whether something is overpowered or not...
"If they put this on an enemy, could I still win without completely re-speccing my character for it (or changing tactics completely--barbarian switchies from Axes to Throwing Knives)?"<<
Interesting benchmark. But by that definition, static field, cold mastery, lightning fury, frozen orb, maul, bo, thorns, fire claws (fully synergized) and many other skills are out. It simply doesn't work this way - monsters and players are too different to be compared. Have you ever seen a player with 15000 life but only 2000 defense? Nope. I think this benchmark is seriously flawed. Tiger strike, critical strike, dim vision, ce, taunt, resistance auras, glacial spike... They could all be overpowered that way. Not a valid criterion.
>>--Superior tactics were not present in Diablo I
Untrue. "Peekaboo" killling succubi is perhaps the first that springs to mind. High level Chain-Lightning positioning. Stone Curse blocking. There's all manner of things you do and probably don't think about any more. Can Diablo II really compare? Maybe rounding up enemies for a better angle on your Meteor or Lightning Fury. Why not just fire another one? With mana leech/meditation, they're basically free.<<
Succubi killing like you described exploited rather bad AI, no real strategy. Chain lightning positioning is quite comparable to the way many DII spells work, e.g. all the piercing Amazon skills, Nova monster grouping, Meteor use etc. You now seem to admit that indeed Insight and half magical half physical spells are the banes of balance in DII...
>>--Teleport alone will never make or break a build.
Not quite. But it's pretty close. It will at the very least vastly improve the killing speed, as a person is able to round up and flee from FAR more enemies before unleashing all kinds of death on them. Teleport also unbalances any kind of item farming (a la Mephisto runs), particularly on multiplayer with randomly seeded maps.<<
It doesn't improve killing speed, it improves movement speed. And I stick to my statement.
>>--Holy Shield
Does not grant "you aren't hit", but it's close enough not to matter. You should be getting hit maybe 5% of the time at level 90+ (20% to be hit - 20% * 75% block).<<
To reach 20% to be hit, one has to heavily invest in str and /or duped runewords for high end armors. If you calculate with 30%, numbers look more reasonable: 0.3*0.25= 7.5%. That means that every 13.33th physical hit does in fact hit you; considering the many quick attacks in DII, that's fair enough for me. How about a Warrior with perfect block and 3XX AC in DI? The only thing that saves DI is the auto-hit feature. Maybe that should have been included in hell difficulty in DII as well, but I think we already agreed that melees with high defense and ctb aren't overpowered. Or haven't we?
>>Forgive me if I make presumptions. The situation is probably far better in single player. If you're on the realm with other people, you've got multiple war cries on you, most of the Paladin offensive aurae, maybe half the defensive aurae, and gawd knows what else. If you're playing alone, odds are you're item-hunting or farming some experience utilizing Conviction on a non-Paladin in a full game (substitute Blessed Hammer for non-Paladin conviction as needed). Or you're playing a variant.
Finding suitable equipment is much easier on the realms, and not just due to item saturation. Need a high defense plate? Great. Trade that nice Sorceress Orb you found earlier (And as the ladder season progresses, "High defense plate" and "nice Sorceress Orb" become more like "Ethereal Elite Unique Plate" and "Death's Fathom"...) but can't use on this character. Even with ATMA (or something similar), you can't really simulate this. Each item you find and don't need is potentially an item you can trade for something useful (as long as it isn't complete garbage).<<
Maybe. But you have to consider singleplayer, too. If you want a game that is hard for a group that is already trying to synergize each other (conviction, bo, oak, insight, lightning fury etc.), it quite possibly is impossible for a single warrior in singleplayer. If you want that, why not go MMORPG all the way? DII just isn't built that way.
>>(Sorry for the wait.)<<
I was waiting for your reply :).
Greetings, Fragbait
>>For the most part, "overpowered" skills lie in the caster arsenal. Aside from ridiculous damage weapons, there isn't much that hacking at something can do that generates the kind of unfairness I was talking about. Crushing Blow comes close, but it's still a damage-based function.<<
Doesn't that remind you of DI? Maybe that is just the way Blizzard likes to make games. Casters (=brain) rule over Melee builds (=fist). Oh, and CB is not a damage-based function. Not at all, it rather is based on the hitpoints of monsters you fight against.
>>Melee characters can achieve near-indestructibility, but what really throws balance out the window, is that casters, with their obscene damage that effects areas full of foes, can do it BETTER.
Apologies. I only play single player when the internet is down.<<
I don't think that is true. A melee Paladin with 75% block and 95% resist all along with some decent defense and life and some %DR is a lot more near-indestructible than just about any caster I can think of. A Barb compensates with a huge life pool. The main problem is that casters can have a huge life pool now, too. Energy is a worthless attribute, not just since 'Insight', but I think when no one could buy mana pots and there were no Insights, caster builds were a bit more balanced and the Warcry Barbs you so loathe weren't as invincible as you describe them now.
>>I did not list it for the Paladin because the skill is actually balanced on a paladin. Basically the most efficient thing he can do (sans unbalanced gear and party members) is power up his Vengeance, much like Might would power up Zeal. For the Paladin, it increases damage. For the Sorceress, the Amazon, the Druid, it allows synergies in a particular "line" of skills to be maximized while not worrying about any sort of plan B, because, in short, Conviction is all-encompassing (or near enough it doesn't matter, particularly with teleport).<<
Fair enough.
>>Just as there are still players who choose to play a Paladin without Blessed Hammer, yet I have not yet seen someone contend that it isn't overpowered.
Correct, but I'm not talking about the whole game. I'm talking about the unbalanced upper end. Whirlwind is all fine and dandy (though it wasn't in previous patches) but it pales in comparison to Blessed Hammer, which has no enemies per second hit cap, is unresistable by the majority of monsters in the game, does not disable all of your actions to use, and has literally no downside to using, or any kind of hindrance (a la Iron Maiden vs. Whirlwind). Obviously this is a polarized example, but compare Whirlwind (generally deemed one of the more powerful melee skills) to just about any high, or even mid-end caster skill. I'm (unjustly?) lumping amazon splash attacks as caster skills (Charged Strike if you want to nit over melee's meaning).
Fair enough--what kind of melee builds are overpowered?<<
Whirlwind once was the top-notch melee skill, but I don't think it still is. The damage boost is rather low, and you can't do anything mid-air. In DI, to compensate for their ranged attack advantage, Rogues did less damage than Warriors. But even then did Sorcerers fall out of balance. I think a good way to restrict the big pros of melee builds was implemented with the Druid and his shape-shifting skills: You can't cast your ranged spells when shape-shifted, yet you only get the life (and defense) boost when shape-shifted. Also elite armors should all require much Str, currently you can get a 467 base defense armor for lousy 77 Str. So you really want an overpowered melee build? How about a properly skilled and equipped fanatic zealot or dragon tail assassin? Maybe not overpowered, but quite powerful.
>>But I stand by my War Cry. It looks pretty innocuous until you start using it. It may be (probably is) a function of the equipment, particularly Insight, but the skill is just busted. You barely have to sit at your computer to use it. Full on Warcry MIGHT fall behind Blessed Hammer. It's a bit slow in the killing department, granted, but it more than makes up for it. The only moderately frightening enemies for a full-on high level Singer are Tomb Vipers and multiple elemental enchanted melee bosses. And it's possible to run through a Viper cloud and survive, simply because no attribute points need be allocated anywhere but Vitality (dexterity if you want to block, I suppose). ~5000 life, ridiculous armor, maximized resistances, enemies who can't move or attack, can't hit if they do (Taunt), can't damage if they hit (Taunt again), and probably something I'm forgetting make for an overpowered character in my opinion.<<
War Cry shouldn't work on PI monsters, as I said before. Apart from that, the skill itself is not overpowered. Insight and all the other oskill aura skills are. Note that without Insight and the ability to buy mana pots, War Cry was a challenge... And I still don't see that the world gets flooded by War Cry Barbs.
>>Conviction + elemental ranged attack? Nope (Uber Mephisto, various Lightning Enchanted Conviction bosses before absorb/broken resistance caps were available)
Blessed Hammer? Gonna say no. But that'd be a fun one to try. Maybe in SP you could dodge.
Teleport? I'd be tempted to say no here, but it's been done. The problem is the AI just teleports randomly at random times. Caster enemies would be vicious if they actively used it to escape damage.
War Cry? Taunt?
Holy Shield? (Melee has ~5% chance to hit? Try playing in Hell with a melee character when you're maybe 15-20 levels under the enemies)
Charged Strike?
Lightning Fury + Pierce (probably not as bad on SP...)
Smite?
Here, I guess, is a decent benchmark for judging whether something is overpowered or not...
"If they put this on an enemy, could I still win without completely re-speccing my character for it (or changing tactics completely--barbarian switchies from Axes to Throwing Knives)?"<<
Interesting benchmark. But by that definition, static field, cold mastery, lightning fury, frozen orb, maul, bo, thorns, fire claws (fully synergized) and many other skills are out. It simply doesn't work this way - monsters and players are too different to be compared. Have you ever seen a player with 15000 life but only 2000 defense? Nope. I think this benchmark is seriously flawed. Tiger strike, critical strike, dim vision, ce, taunt, resistance auras, glacial spike... They could all be overpowered that way. Not a valid criterion.
>>--Superior tactics were not present in Diablo I
Untrue. "Peekaboo" killling succubi is perhaps the first that springs to mind. High level Chain-Lightning positioning. Stone Curse blocking. There's all manner of things you do and probably don't think about any more. Can Diablo II really compare? Maybe rounding up enemies for a better angle on your Meteor or Lightning Fury. Why not just fire another one? With mana leech/meditation, they're basically free.<<
Succubi killing like you described exploited rather bad AI, no real strategy. Chain lightning positioning is quite comparable to the way many DII spells work, e.g. all the piercing Amazon skills, Nova monster grouping, Meteor use etc. You now seem to admit that indeed Insight and half magical half physical spells are the banes of balance in DII...
>>--Teleport alone will never make or break a build.
Not quite. But it's pretty close. It will at the very least vastly improve the killing speed, as a person is able to round up and flee from FAR more enemies before unleashing all kinds of death on them. Teleport also unbalances any kind of item farming (a la Mephisto runs), particularly on multiplayer with randomly seeded maps.<<
It doesn't improve killing speed, it improves movement speed. And I stick to my statement.
>>--Holy Shield
Does not grant "you aren't hit", but it's close enough not to matter. You should be getting hit maybe 5% of the time at level 90+ (20% to be hit - 20% * 75% block).<<
To reach 20% to be hit, one has to heavily invest in str and /or duped runewords for high end armors. If you calculate with 30%, numbers look more reasonable: 0.3*0.25= 7.5%. That means that every 13.33th physical hit does in fact hit you; considering the many quick attacks in DII, that's fair enough for me. How about a Warrior with perfect block and 3XX AC in DI? The only thing that saves DI is the auto-hit feature. Maybe that should have been included in hell difficulty in DII as well, but I think we already agreed that melees with high defense and ctb aren't overpowered. Or haven't we?
>>Forgive me if I make presumptions. The situation is probably far better in single player. If you're on the realm with other people, you've got multiple war cries on you, most of the Paladin offensive aurae, maybe half the defensive aurae, and gawd knows what else. If you're playing alone, odds are you're item-hunting or farming some experience utilizing Conviction on a non-Paladin in a full game (substitute Blessed Hammer for non-Paladin conviction as needed). Or you're playing a variant.
Finding suitable equipment is much easier on the realms, and not just due to item saturation. Need a high defense plate? Great. Trade that nice Sorceress Orb you found earlier (And as the ladder season progresses, "High defense plate" and "nice Sorceress Orb" become more like "Ethereal Elite Unique Plate" and "Death's Fathom"...) but can't use on this character. Even with ATMA (or something similar), you can't really simulate this. Each item you find and don't need is potentially an item you can trade for something useful (as long as it isn't complete garbage).<<
Maybe. But you have to consider singleplayer, too. If you want a game that is hard for a group that is already trying to synergize each other (conviction, bo, oak, insight, lightning fury etc.), it quite possibly is impossible for a single warrior in singleplayer. If you want that, why not go MMORPG all the way? DII just isn't built that way.
>>(Sorry for the wait.)<<
I was waiting for your reply :).
Greetings, Fragbait
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