Discussion: game balance...

[Elric of Grans]

I have had a few questions spinning around my head as I play more, ones where I cannot seem to make up my mind on answers for them. Perhaps a little healthy discussion could arise from them

Should skills be balanced so every Skill is viable across all difficulties, or should every Rune be viable?

This is an interesting one. With the way the game scales damage on all skills, there should be no reasonable excuse for any Skill to not be viable in latter difficulties, but Runes do not always scale well. To give an example, the Wizard's Shock Pulse spell with the Explosive Bolts Rune (dead enemies explode) is excellent in Normal difficulty. The Rune's effectiveness, however, is tied to how quickly you can kill enemies. As enemies take ever more to kill in higher difficulties, this Rune quickly becomes useless. Does this mean the Rune is poorly designed, or so long as Shock Pulse remains viable at higher levels the specific Rune used does not matter? We want to argue that Diablo III allows considerable customisation, but is that customisation of which skill-set you run even if there are few viable end-game Runes, or complete customisation down to Rune level?

How should the game's difficulty scale as you approach higher difficulties?

This is something that tends to bug me in games. Higher difficulty means the enemies gain more life and dish out more damage. That is not more difficult; it is more grindy. Smarter AI would be ideal, but probably too much to ask of from any game studio. Diablo III provides an interesting twist on this: Elites. At higher difficulties, Elites gain more spawn-points, and gain combinations of abilities. A single ability is nothing too much, but, say, a Knockback+Vortex enemy would require an interesting strategy to take out. This is done far better than Elites in Diablo II, who tended to just be triple immunes at higher difficulties (boring!).

Should Diablo's end-game focus more on the Elites and less on the grind? In other words, should enemy scaling remain closer to equipment scaling, so regular enemies are roughly comparable across difficulties, but Elites are more prevalent and the focus of the challenge. A group regular enemies who fall readily-enough are more of a challenge when they are almost always a meat-shield for a Mortar/Arcane (or whatever) pack. Similarly, Bosses could be rebalanced so rather than being a larger grind they instead telegraph their attacks less as the difficulty increases. Alternatively, it is better to focus on hard-hitting, meat-sack enemies and let the difficulty be more focused on attrition? The player prevails if they come in with sufficient resources to survive. In that case, however, would that not make the cool-down on potions a little over-the-top?

As a reaction to the current scaling used in the game, +Vitality gear is essentially the standard for all classes progressing through the game. Normally, I would have seen that as more of a Hardcore concern, leaving Softcore to maxing out DPS and making glass canons (or cool variants). Perhaps the glass canon is a viable option when you have an sturdy ally to resurrect you, but a squishy solo adventurer, or a team of glass canons, would face an uphill battle even in the latter stages of Normal difficulty, let alone higher. Are enemies hitting too hard, making +Vitality too important, or are they fine and players need to learn a better balance of damage reduction, or use of skills to compensate, thereby lessening the reliance on this crutch?

As a related point, how should the game scale with players? I have only played single player, so I have no experience on this subject, but it would be interesting to see what others thing.

What constitutes over-powered in the context of Diablo III?

I am sure everyone here knows about the recent skill nerfs on the Demon Hunter, Monk and Wizard. Essentially, defensive skills that remained powerful in Inferno difficulty have been scaled back. Diablo III is essentially a single player, PvE game that allows you to potentially bring in another player or three to join the PvE experience with you. Are powerful defensive skills over-powered in this context? Certainly, if one skill outclasses all other options within the class, that is an issue, but what if there is no equivalent? The Demon Hunter, for example, has had Smoke Screen nerfed (turn invisible for 2 seconds, now down to 1). The only remotely comparable skill is Vault (move 35 yards). Was Smoke Screen better than Vault? Sure! Why? Because Vault sucks. Solution? Improve Vault. Smoke Screen only became over-powered in combination with Multishot with the Suppression Fire Rune (essentially, instantly recharges Smoke Screen). Which was over-powered? Smoke Screen, or Suppression Fire? Should Smoke Screen have been nerfed, or Suppression Fire nerfed/changed?

Defensive skills are perhaps difficult to compare, but offensive skills are far easier. To continue using the Demon Hunter as an example, she has four attacks specifically designed to clear out large groups of enemies: Strafe, Multishot, Cluster Arrow and Rain of Vengeance. Of these, basically everyone uses Multishot and anything else is beneath consideration. Multishot is resource expensive and targets a specific area for good damage. Is that over powered, or are the other options simply underpowered? What is the best approach to balancing skills? Is it correct to compare Multishot with other Demon Hunter skills, or should it be related to similar skills in other classes (instead of, or in addition to)?

[FoxBat]

The Demon Hunter, for example, has had Smoke Screen nerfed (turn invisible for 2 seconds, now down to 1). The only remotely comparable skill is Vault (move 35 yards). Was Smoke Screen better than Vault? Sure! Why? Because Vault sucks. Solution? Improve Vault. Smoke Screen only became over-powered in combination with Multishot with the Suppression Fire Rune (essentially, instantly recharges Smoke Screen). Which was over-powered? Smoke Screen, or Suppression Fire? Should Smoke Screen have been nerfed, or Suppression Fire nerfed/changed?

Those inferno boss solo guys skipped multishot and instead used night stalker with crazy crit rates. There's stupid tricks you can pull with preperation too. So yeah, I'd say smoke screen is the right thing to nerf (not that some of these other things might also need looking at.) Immunity plus aggro drop PLUS cc break is just too strong an ability to chain solely to a spammable resource. Saying vault sucks by comparison isn't saying much, everything sucks next to god mode.

The current fix isn't best, but it's just a server-side hot fix they could throw down quickly. Ideally its duration should be longer plus a moderate cooldown to prevent chaining.

[FireIceTalon]

Very, very disappointed that they nerfed Smoke Screen. If anything, it should be been made more potent, not nerfed. In its original state, the game was already hard enough, now its even harder. Smoke Screen, along with Prep, are really the only essential defensive skills the DH has to get through the higher difficulties (along with Vault, which I think is still a pretty good skill to have). Without them, playing the DH solo would be basically a waste of time, as they are probably the squishiest char in the game. Caltrops and Shadow Power were awesome on normal and not too bad on nightmare, but I found them to be completely useless on hell mode. Too many mobs have CC reduction, fast trait, teleport, vortex, or mortar etc and just go right through CC or it is even ignored entirely. And Shadow Power is basically a poor man's Smoke Screen.

I dont think the SS/Prep combo is over powered in the least bit, and they are actually NECESSARY to survive on the higher difficulties (unless you find being 2 shotted by Hulking PhaseBeasts or Soul Lashers on hell/inferno difficulty to be fun - I do NOT). I cant speak for the other classes being nerfed as I havent tried them yet.

Also, I wouldn't say multi-shot is the only "good" AoE option for DH, though overall it's probably tops. I prefer the Fire at Will rune over Suppressive though. Chakram with many of its runes and Elemental Arrow with Ball Lightning are also awesome.

[Elric of Grans]

I also felt that a cool-down would make more sense with Smoke Screen. Let it remain potent in bad situations (eg Jailer), just not spammable. Preparation, on the other hand, just never made sense. Discipline-based skills are powerful, but are tied to a highly limited, slowly-regenerating resource to prevent them from being spammable. Lets add a skill that instantly recharges that resource so they can spam them! WTF? They may as well have just put everything on Hatred! I see Preparation as the most obviously poorly balanced ability in the game.

Chakram and Elemental Arrow can score multiple hits, as can many other skills (eg Hungering Arrow, etc), but they are not designed for clearing out large groups of enemies in a short space of time. I use Elemental Arrow as my primary attack and I can tell you now it does not clear a room half as fast as Multishot and the like do. It is, however, a more optimal choice for a different situation (esp. Elites), as you can line up a small number of tougher enemies and deliver more damage to just them in a shorter time and for less resources. Impale is similar: an excellent ability to put a lot of damage on an Elite, but pretty useless for taking out a screen full of regular Fallen

[FireIceTalon]

Preparation has a 45 second CD, so no, it doesn't really allow you to spam discipline based skills. It simply allows you to survive a bit longer against tough mobs before you die, and thus you create more dmg so the next round is a bit easier Having the two resource system, one that replenishes quickly, and the other slowly, makes the DH a more dynamic class that requires careful balancing in using your skills, and how you approach combat - moreso than the other classes.

Have you tried thinning out crowds with Ball Lightning? It is sick. Maybe not better than MS in terms of dmg, but the lightning dmg is very good for hitting any enemies that you may have missed with MS, since the lightning travels from one enemy to any others that are nearby. I use both skills in conjunction with one another, and they work very well together for destroying mobs. The relatively low hatred cost of Ball Lightning is wonderful too. If you find your hp going down fast, you could also consider using the Nether Tentacles rune, I like this one alot also - leaching 3% life for dmg you do. A shot or two of MS to weaken crowds, Ball Lightning or Nether Tentacles to finish them off. Chakram is also pretty good for AoE because you can practically spam it. Razor Disk rune just owns mobs like no one's business - not quite as damaging as MS, but good enough for most crowds, and for a much lower hatred cost. In solo games I probably would stick with MS but in a co-op situation Chakram is probably the better choice for resource management.

Impale is great but that is truly a pure single target skill, with very high hatred cost, so I reserve for bosses. Grievous Wounds does really insane dmg, heh. I bet this will be a signature PvP skill for DH.

[smegged]

I have to agree here with RedRadical about ball lightning. At least at my level (35-36), it's totally demolishing everything in its path (with the exception of electrified boss packs, which take longer to kill). It feels like using frozen orb from the diablo 2 sorc. It's totally awesome and well worth a try on your DH. It has a nice low casting cost as well, making it even more useful. And it totally owns at clearing out rooms full of destructible objects. I'm surprised more people haven't cottoned on to how good this skill is.

[Concillian]

All I know is that I have been playing a HC wizard alongside a SC wizard.

I had been playing my SC wizard similarly to my HC wizard... defensive skills, low damage, kiting, etc...
This morning I switched my SC wizard into full glass cannon and played through the same stuff I played through on HC lastnight. OMG I see why people are hitting a brick wall in inferno. You can go FULL glass cannon and (usually) survive. I was amazed that what I was doing was working. I died twice, but it wasn't a huge deal, just run back and try again. It was a lot more successful that I anticipated.

Sometime during this hour or so that I was playing glass cannon I just kind of had this revelation that this is why people are having such an issue at inferno. It's not that they have to gear a little bit more defefnse, it's that they have to gear any defense at all. It's a paradigm shift that they aren't used to and/or are unwilling to make. This appears to be the source of the issues that people have with how inferno is tuned.

[FireIceTalon]

Even when you do gear yourself for defense, it only works for so long. I have 33k life on my DH, which really should be plenty for Act 1, but its really not once you get to the mid-later parts of it. If I get touched I'm practically dead. I buffed up my vitality a bit and it helped me get through earlier parts of Act 1, but now I'm at the Highland Crossings area and it's becoming a struggle again, and looking for an improvement in the AH right now is out of the question - you have to spend MILLIONS (which I do not have, or even close) to get even one solid upgrade. Ive said it a million times - Inferno is a backwards and busted system that needs VERY serious tuning. Even most of the people who are in the later acts of Inferno say you pretty much have to get gear from Act 3 or 4 just to get through Act 2 (which in general is considered the hardest act in the game regardless of difficulty, due to the mechanics of the monsters you fight there). Yea, they may have gotten through it, as they are in Act 4, but they will tell you getting there was NOT fun.

Vortex and Invulnerable Minions REALLY need to be removed from this game. What is the point of fighting a pack that cannot be killed, or trying to kite when they have multiple gap closers/immobilizers? Alot of them are extremely cheap, but these two are the worst offenses I think, and I just auto-leave if I see any pack with them. No point in wasting my time. I feel like Blizz is trolling when they expect us to take the time out and fight packs that cannot be beat, or simply require a ridiculous amount of time and effort (to the point where its not fun or worth it). And the drops of course, are HORRID. I mean, I killed one pack today that dropped a level 49 item. 49 in Inferno, really Blizz?

[Concillian]

And the drops of course, are HORRID. I mean, I killed one pack today that dropped a level 49 item. 49 in Inferno, really Blizz?

Random is random.

Hell in Diablo II LOD sometimes dropped normal base items. It's not like there's no precedent for this. Not sure why people are surprised this is happening.

Also, modifiers make the item, not the level required. I know people who are using level ~40 items simply because they got the right stats with reasonable rolls together. You can't necessarily immediately throw out a level 49 item because it's not level 60. Same was true in Diablo II, some great modifiers (% leech, for example) were not high level modifiers.

Vitality is only one component to defense. DH are at a particular disadvantage because they have no base effective health modifier, but this means that even small amounts of extra armor (STR) and resists and / or INT are going to make larger differences in survivability than for other classes.

What I'm saying is that people are able to glass cannon until Inferno and they see system shock because they can't anymore. In Diablo II, people could effectively glass cannon the whole game. DIII they can do so until inferno. They hit inferno and can't anymore and suddenly their world is turned upside down. While Blizzard has said they're looking at making damage a little less spike prone for patch 1.03, I still think people are just plain going to have to gear more defensively than they're used to in a softcore Diablo game, and this is the source of the issue. Hardcore players are not going to see the same issue... because they're going to do the same thing in inferno they've always done... balance defense and offense, grind up decent gear before moving to the next difficulty level, etc.... Softcore players need to adapt, and this change is being resisted. It's really kind of natural, but it'll eventually die down. Blizz will certainly adjust the difficulty curve some, but most of the change will likely come from players adapting.

-----

Items with great modifiers are really rare. They were in Diablo II too, the only difference in Diablo II, was once someone got one who knew how to dupe... they were suddenly everywhere and people undervalued the time it takes to get a rare with a truly great set of stats. No doubt it's going to take the equivalent of a week of /played time to get a substantial set of upgrades. This is really not all that different from the Diablo II design, just that in Diablo II, there was no inferno difficulty, so those items never felt quite as "necessary" as they do in Diablo III. If you want to pretend this is Diablo II, just ignore inferno and run Act IV hell over and over.

In Diablo II, some items only dropped off like 3 monster types in the entire game. They were effectively unobtainable outside of EXTREME luck in months of farming until they were duped out the ass.

The one promising thing is that crafted items seem to be gaining some traction as gear fillers in inferno. As people obtain the Act 3+ crafted patterns, these will start coming down in price some, and that will make gearing new characters for Inferno a little easier.

[Elric of Grans]

I have 33k life on my DH, which really should be plenty for Act 1, but its really not once you get to the mid-later parts of it.

I have not got to Inferno difficulty, but that sounds pretty paltry to me. My Demon Hunter is in Act IV/Nightmare and has 22K health (1500 armour, 1800 damage) and I have life regeneration of 350 per second. I get two-shot by heavy hitters, so I would like a little more. 11K extra life over five extra acts sounds nowhere near enough, and I have not even got that far. Although you clearly love to cry `foul play', I cannot help but think `learn to play'.

[FireIceTalon]

I have not got to Inferno difficult

You said this, then

`learn to play'.

You said that. 0/10 at the troll attempt.

[FireIceTalon]

And the drops of course, are HORRID. I mean, I killed one pack today that dropped a level 49 item. 49 in Inferno, really Blizz?

Random is random.

Hell in Diablo II LOD sometimes dropped normal base items. It's not like there's no precedent for this. Not sure why people are surprised this is happening.

Also, modifiers make the item, not the level required. I know people who are using level ~40 items simply because they got the right stats with reasonable rolls together. You can't necessarily immediately throw out a level 49 item because it's not level 60. Same was true in Diablo II, some great modifiers (% leech, for example) were not high level modifiers.

Vitality is only one component to defense. DH are at a particular disadvantage because they have no base effective health modifier, but this means that even small amounts of extra armor (STR) and resists and / or INT are going to make larger differences in survivability than for other classes.

What I'm saying is that people are able to glass cannon until Inferno and they see system shock because they can't anymore. In Diablo II, people could effectively glass cannon the whole game. DIII they can do so until inferno. They hit inferno and can't anymore and suddenly their world is turned upside down. While Blizzard has said they're looking at making damage a little less spike prone for patch 1.03, I still think people are just plain going to have to gear more defensively than they're used to in a softcore Diablo game, and this is the source of the issue. Hardcore players are not going to see the same issue... because they're going to do the same thing in inferno they've always done... balance defense and offense, grind up decent gear before moving to the next difficulty level, etc.... Softcore players need to adapt, and this change is being resisted. It's really kind of natural, but it'll eventually die down. Blizz will certainly adjust the difficulty curve some, but most of the change will likely come from players adapting.

-----

Items with great modifiers are really rare. They were in Diablo II too, the only difference in Diablo II, was once someone got one who knew how to dupe... they were suddenly everywhere and people undervalued the time it takes to get a rare with a truly great set of stats. No doubt it's going to take the equivalent of a week of /played time to get a substantial set of upgrades. This is really not all that different from the Diablo II design, just that in Diablo II, there was no inferno difficulty, so those items never felt quite as "necessary" as they do in Diablo III. If you want to pretend this is Diablo II, just ignore inferno and run Act IV hell over and over.

In Diablo II, some items only dropped off like 3 monster types in the entire game. They were effectively unobtainable outside of EXTREME luck in months of farming until they were duped out the ass.

The one promising thing is that crafted items seem to be gaining some traction as gear fillers in inferno. As people obtain the Act 3+ crafted patterns, these will start coming down in price some, and that will make gearing new characters for Inferno a little easier.

Well, yea, The DH doesnt really have too many good defensive skills besides SS (which was nerfed) and Prep and Vault, but even these skills don't let them tank at all to anywhere near the degree that the other classes can (except maybe WD). And they are just a very squishy class in general. It seems you cannot ever get enough vitality, since if anything touches you, you are pretty much dead. And resist gear is very hard to come by and/or extremely expensive. Getting your dex up will increase your dodge, but this really only helps a little bit. Armor is virtually almost impossible to raise to any reasonable level. It seems like they are a super gear dependent class in a game totally centered around items - many of which are very difficult to get. The only thing DH has going for them is their potential to have a ridiculous amount of DPS (mine does over 20K, and Ive seen people with even alot more than that), but that doesn't do much good if you cant stay alive.

I know I need some better defensive gear (my resists and armor suffer alot), but just trying to farm the gold so I can hit up the AH is difficulty in itself, since to make a significant upgrade you will likely have to spend at least a couple million for just ONE item. It is really quite a paradoxical system. In nightmare and Hell, I could make decent upgrades for 50-60k, and it usually would suffice, even if the improvement was only modest. But with Inferno, you have to make HUGE upgrades, and that doesn't come cheap.

You may well be right that you cannot play glass cannon anymore come Inferno time. But the DH, by its very nature and mechanics, is a glass cannon class. It is very difficult to get your resists up to a decent level, and looks as though getting your Armor to a decent stat that is beneficial at all is impossible. This is one thing I loved about Dexterity with rogues in D1, Dex was the stat that contributed to Armor - D1 had the simplest yet really coolest mechanics. In D3, it is strength, which in a way makes sense, yet I think if you tied it to Dex instead the DH would become much less fragile.

[smegged]

I have not got to Inferno difficult

You said this, then

`learn to play'.

You said that. 0/10 at the troll attempt.

You make some valid points, but aggressive comments towards members who have been contributors for years are just uncalled for.

[FireIceTalon]

But telling me to 'learn how to play' isnt aggressive, or at least snide? Just sayin....

[ViralSpiral]

Elric knows what he's on about, though. He's a pretty skilled player, he's one of the people I played with back in D2. (I was posting as DStheHermit back then. Forgot my password and even which e-mail I tied to that account, though.) If he says "learn to play", then you probably do. I don't know if you saw Chesspiece's "Inferno for Dummies" video, but you've got less health than his Wizard, who is farming Act I. Yet I've seen you complain about later acts. If Chesspiece has better stats than you, but is still farming Act I because he lives in fear of Act II, and your stats are lower...what do you suppose is the proper course of action? He doesn't even use Teleport, even when fighting Waller/Vortexing mobs. I haven't seen any DH skills in action, but the largest advantage I saw from Chess was a shadow-hydra, and he wasn't even cheesing it around corners or anything.

Also, does invulnerable mean strictly invulnerable, or are there still ways (even if obscure ways) to defeat them?

[Bolty]

Also, does invulnerable mean strictly invulnerable, or are there still ways (even if obscure ways) to defeat them?

Invulnerable minions means just that. The only way to defeat the champion/rare pack is to defeat its leader, at which point all the minions die with it. Try to imagine a Vortex Mortar Invulnerable Minions Fast champion pack, any member of which can 2-shot you. RedRadical's point, although he still doesn't seem to be able to express it without insulting other posters, is that until you've experienced this firsthand in Inferno difficulty, saying things like "learn 2 play" and "you're not gearing defensively enough" can come off as rude.

The difficulty curve is very linear and balanced through the game's Normal, Nightmare, and Hell modes. There's a very steep cliff though when you step into Inferno mode. If you play Hardcore, expect to spend 10 times as much gold/time as you have farming previously just to be able to step into Inferno mode, or you'll lose your character on the very first champion pack you encounter in the blink of an eye.

[Elric of Grans]

I have not seen Inferno, but it is still very clear that RedRadical's stats are not up to snuff. Several times in Nightmare difficulty I lost 20K in a single hit. In Nightmare. You do not have to have played in Inferno to know that enemies will hit harder. If 20K is something you can face in Nightmare, then 33K health does not sound enough for Hell difficulty, let alone Inferno.

I am currently in Act I/Hell, still with 22K health, and I can already tell this is nowhere near enough. I just (literally) faced a Jailer/Waller/Invulnerable Minions/Fast Rare group and they did 1/3 health per hit (and were a PITA to take out: Invulnerable Minions is plain stupid). I aim to hit 30K by the end of Act II/Hell; I am seriously considering going Hand Crossbow/Shield too, as I am not happy with my defences (37% damage reduction, 26% dodge). If RedRadical's character were mine, I would regear just for Hell difficulty, let alone Inferno.

As an aside, is it just me, or do enemies have a general increase in speed as you go up the difficulties. In Hell difficulty, even though both my mouse buttons put 60% Slow on enemies, they are still moving at the same speed as me; Fast enemies remain faster than me with the debuff. This seems kind of stupid, and I can imagine boots with increased movement speed will be a priority for me in Inferno.

[Quark]

Even when you do gear yourself for defense, it only works for so long. I have 33k life on my DH, which really should be plenty for Act 1, but its really not once you get to the mid-later parts of it.
...
Even most of the people who are in the later acts of Inferno say you pretty much have to get gear from Act 3 or 4 just to get through Act 2

1) HP alone is nothing. If you gear just for +VIT, then all you're doing is making health orbs and life steal suck. Listing just HP is not enough. You need to list HP, Armor, Dodge, and Resistances to get a true understanding of durability. My HP in Act 3 Hell is 30k and I think my survivability is terrible - because my armor sucks.

2) Your statement about gear is completely countered by what I've been reading in EJB (Elitist Jerks Benefactors). They start in Act 1 roughly, barely scraping by. Get some gear and slowly progress. Make it to Act 2 and get destroyed. Head back to Act 1, farm some stuff, and all of a sudden they're not dying as often. Now Act 1 is a breeze, Act 2 is doable, and Act 3 ... well, let's not go there yet. This is w/o any gear from Act 2 and 3. This is classes Wizard, Demon Hunter, and Monk (that I've seen say Act 1 becomes easy for eventually, no idea for Barb/WD).

Basically everything you're saying is true for Act 1, I see others say is true for Act 3. So which is it? Well, they can handle Act 1 fine, so ...

In Hell difficulty, even though both my mouse buttons put 60% Slow on enemies, they are still moving at the same speed as me; Fast enemies remain faster than me with the debuff.

I don't think they I've seen a gain in speed; though they do gain resistance to snares.

[Mavfin]

Seems like some people are forgetting that Act 2 Inferno is another *difficulty* different from Act 1, not just the next act. Of course you won't get the necessary gear for that jump in one pass. When each act is the same jump as Nightmare-->Hell, it's not going to progress smoothly. You're going to have to work at it, and that's the purpose of Inferno.

I'm fine if they back off some of the spike damage, but, otherwise, let's not be nerfing Inferno just because people unwilling to gear properly can't do it.

[ViralSpiral]

I dunno, let's look at the history of the franchise:

In the current/final version of both previous versions, what became the dominant build? Take a moment and think on this one.




That's right - the build with the most DEFENCE. Don't believe me?

D1 - Mage. Why? Chiefly because of Stone Curse - SC and beating worked on everything except Diablo, and D himself wasn't nearly as scary as getting to him. You also had Mana Shield, Teleport, and Golem going for you. Yes, you also had the best DPS, but if you're nearly invulnerable, then all your victories are just a matter of time.

D2 - Hammerdin. Why? Easiest time between their class specifics and Holy Shield of getting max resists and block. Could increase their max resists without item help. Had auras that literally countered everything. Elemental problems? Salvation. Poison and curses? Cleansing. Need to get somewhere quick? Vigour + 40% R/W was nearly as good as Teleport. Health/mana/Nihlathak problems? Redemption. Got good returns on Vitality investment. Yes, the build also had good DPS - not quite the best compared to some narrower, glassier builds, but if you're nearly invulnerable, then all your victories are just a matter of time.

I feel there is something to be learned from history, here.