1.0.3, Attack Speed Changes, and Hypocrisy

[Trevan]

62: 52807.09375 -> 33686
63: 113486.9609375 -> 63615

Wow, that's a huge change, if true.

If I read that right, if Act 2 was level 62s, then it hits a lot easier than before, and, if I assume level 63 for Acts 3 and 4 then they hit just slightly harder than Act 2 did before.

Random damage numbers for you guys.
I am a DH with 2901 armor, 312 physical resist and 212 fire resist (I think those are the relevant stats for these attacks).

An oppressor charge just hit me for 29k and a champion succubus's mortar hit me for about 38k I believe. Far more reachable levels than the previous 100k+ hits.

[MonTy]

I'd love to hear from someone who doesn't rage all the time and/or hasn't already written off the game how the Act 2/3/4 adjustments are. I'm hearing on other forums of wizards elite-tanking in Act 2 Inferno, for example, but I have no frame of reference on their gear, etc.

My Monk has 69k hp, 500 resists, but incredibly low dps from the attack speed nerf (7k). Regardless Act 2 was actually fun- stuff hurt but wasn't nearly insta-kill as before. First champ pack was a sand wasp with vortex, desecrator, shielding, and teleport. Challenging but absolutely doable with my stats. I'd like to think my hp/resists are a bit above average for Act 2, and I couldn't just stand in the bad. I'm really liking what I see so far, eager to play my barb with lower stats (35k life, 500 resists, 12k damage) and see how he does (maybe even try different builds!)

*edit - was able to do the first A2 quest to Maghda with full neph valor stacks. Low DPS made it more challenging then it should with the rest of my stats, but even champion pack fights were fun now. Really liking the adjustments.

[BellaStrega]

Attack speed change is noticeable. I didn't run into very many bosses or champions (three packs total in one cave in the festering woods). I was able to survive all of them with little difficulty, including the frozen/vortex/teleport/plagued jerks I ran into.

Will try act II later to see if I can survive there.

[NotSoDarklord]

Just ran through all of Act 3 Inferno on my barb with 870-1000 resist all, 11k armor, and 56k health. Killed all 25 or so elite packs that I encountered skipping only Keep Depths 2-3. The only challenge was a pack of horde Golgors. Soul Lashers/Rippers are particularly weak post patch. I would estimate I died maybe 7 times over the entire run mostly due to purely avoidable carelessness.

To put that into perspective my barb was previously unable to kill several late Act 3 packs without defensive monk buffs to stack with Impunity War Cry.

Very significant decrease in damage, though probably not overly so.

[Kurosu]

Just ran through all of Act 3 Inferno on my barb with 870-1000 resist all, 11k armor, and 56k health. Killed all 25 or so elite packs that I encountered skipping only Keep Depths 2-3. The only challenge was a pack of horde Golgors. Soul Lashers/Rippers are particularly weak post patch. I would estimate I died maybe 7 times over the entire run mostly due to purely avoidable carelessness.

To put that into perspective my barb was previously unable to kill several late Act 3 packs without defensive monk buffs to stack with Impunity War Cry.

Very significant decrease in damage, though probably not overly so.

Nice to hear it's not impossible now.
What is your opinion on the increased repair costs, do they seem significant to you?

[Chesspiece_face]

Nice to hear it's not impossible now.
What is your opinion on the increased repair costs, do they seem significant to you?

Repair costs essentially make fighting in areas a little above your head pointless. Repairing mostly broken gear will run you upwards of 20k so if you push for progression and end up hitting a pack that destroys you, you are still going to be in the position of quitting game and restarting. Less so because the pack is impossible and more so that the cost for repairs isn't worth the trouble.

I have a feeling that these changes will end up pushing a lot of people back into Act 1 farm mode. You will start out feeling elated that you have a fighting chance against stuff you didn't before but after you see those repair bills shooting up chances are you will just go back to the place you know you can farm with impunity and not risk higher levels until you vastly outgear it.

We shall see.

[FireIceTalon]

The increased repair costs are a TERRIBLE, TERRIBLE, TERRIBLE idea - I cannot stress this enough. I'm still in Inferno act 1 on my chars, and even though I can kill most packs, it still takes me at least 2 attempts usually, and that repair bill is just nasty. Makes me want to play Inferno even LESS now. Way to go Blizz. NOOOOT.

[DeeBye]

870-1000 resist all, 11k armor, and 56k health.

Damn, son!

As for myself, my Witch Doctor got totally neutered with the IAS change. I lost 9k damage. They did some changes with how crit damage affects DoTs, so I'm seeing a lot more damage being done with Grasp of the Dead and Wall of Zombies.

I am in the process of figuring a new poison-based build (Splinters, Rain of Toads, Stinky Gargantuan), and re-investing my now-useless IAS stuff into crit stuff. It'll work, and I think throwing poisons around is more fun than spamming a single-target machine gun attack anyways.

[Elric of Grans]

Perhaps I am odd, but the repair costs feel in line with what I would have originally expected. They are certainly not breaking the bank for me.

Enemy AI does feel better in places, so props to Blizzard there. They seem to have smoothed out some of the stupid enemies (eg Soul Lashers), though I have not faced any of them yet. Scavengers still feel like the true bosses of Act I, though Elites feel easier than before too. They seem to drop quicker and deal less damage. The Out of Time debuff feels less painful, as I have been able to continue fighting while it is active, but it still feels like it should not be there. I only get it when fighting enemies with one or more of Shielding, Waller or Invulnerable Minions: is it my fault I cannot hit these guys?

Call me crazy, but I think Snares are better than before. I could be wrong, but I have run Entangling Arrow and Frost Arrow for a long time, and they suddenly feel like they are making a bigger impact today.

Loot drops, frankly, suck hard. All the nerfs against botters have made the game generally less interesting. A lot less gold drops now, and I am getting a few less items. The Nephalim Valour tweak means I am getting a lot more rares than before, but they are still all garbage drops. In fact, after three hours of farming I have found five ilvl61+ items, none of which were any good. If anything, I am finding Inferno even more boring than I was before and I am finding myself with considerably less drive to play. If there is no reward for play, what am I playing for?

[DeeBye]

Loot drops, frankly, suck hard. All the nerfs against botters have made the game generally less interesting. A lot less gold drops now, and I am getting a few less items. The Nephalim Valour tweak means I am getting a lot more rares than before, but they are still all garbage drops. In fact, after three hours of farming I have found five ilvl61+ items, none of which were any good. If anything, I am finding Inferno even more boring than I was before and I am finding myself with considerably less drive to play. If there is no reward for play, what am I playing for?

I had the opposite opinion while playing Act 1 Inferno with a buddy today. We got a great haul of Rares doing a Warden + Butcher run, and a good amount of them were not-crap.

[Mavfin]

Call me crazy, but I think Snares are better than before. I could be wrong, but I have run Entangling Arrow and Frost Arrow for a long time, and they suddenly feel like they are making a bigger impact today.

I'm wondering if this patch note also applies to the mobs:

Crowd Control Reduction from items and skills will now reduce the percentage value of Slow, Chill, and Attack Speed debuffs rather than reducing how long the debuff lasts

For example: previously, if you were debuffed by a 60% slow that lasted for 2 seconds while wearing gear that provides 20% Crowd Control Reduction, your movement speed would be reduced by 60%, but only for 1.6 seconds. Now, the same amount of Crowd Control Reduction will reduce the Slow effect to 48%, but the effect will remain for the full 2 second duration.

Perhaps the effect of crowd control on mobs still gets reduced in higher diffs, but only by effect, rather than time now?

It's just a guess, since you mentioned it.

[Chesspiece_face]

I had the opposite opinion while playing Act 1 Inferno with a buddy today. We got a great haul of Rares doing a Warden + Butcher run, and a good amount of them were not-crap.

Me as well. I took my Monk who used to get face stomped in the first section of Act II all the way up to the aquaducts today. Faced a couple of packs that I really couldn't handle. Mostly based on Molten or Arcane Enchanted. Fairly easily built up 5 stacks and picked up a good bit of 61/62 gear as well as two upgrades.

[Elric of Grans]

Still nothing. I have been in Inferno for about three weeks now and I have still not found a single item for my Demon Hunter. Not one. The only upgrades I have over Hell (or Nightmare, in some cases) were a few bones Roland threw my way. I was hoping that 1.0.3 would provide some initiative to keep playing, but the change does not seem particularly significant. More Rares, yes, but still nothing of any use. Combined with the general tedium of Elites (almost every Elite I have faced today was Mortar/Plagued with two defensive abilities), and how boring play gets due to poor balancing, and I am merely growing ever more frustrated with this game. I kept going back to Diablo due to frustrations with how poor Diablo II was, and Diablo III is looking likely to have the same effect on me.

[Chesspiece_face]

Still nothing. I have been in Inferno for about three weeks now and I have still not found a single item for my Demon Hunter. Not one. The only upgrades I have over Hell (or Nightmare, in some cases) were a few bones Roland threw my way. I was hoping that 1.0.3 would provide some initiative to keep playing, but the change does not seem particularly significant. More Rares, yes, but still nothing of any use. Combined with the general tedium of Elites (almost every Elite I have faced today was Mortar/Plagued with two defensive abilities), and how boring play gets due to poor balancing, and I am merely growing ever more frustrated with this game. I kept going back to Diablo due to frustrations with how poor Diablo II was, and Diablo III is looking likely to have the same effect on me.

Have you done any crafting? 90% of my upgrades at the beginning of Inferno came from the Blacksmith. They are automatically ilvl 60 and often have a lot of the stats you need when just starting out (IE Res All, Vit, Armor, etc.). Although, obviously, there are still some duds.

[Quark]

The increased repair costs are a TERRIBLE, TERRIBLE, TERRIBLE idea - I cannot stress this enough. I'm still in Inferno act 1 on my chars, and even though I can kill most packs, it still takes me at least 2 attempts usually, and that repair bill is just nasty. Makes me want to play Inferno even LESS now. Way to go Blizz. NOOOOT.

Didn't you get to Inferno long before I did? I just ... don't get it. Act 1 is not that hard. Also, had a string of deaths in Act 2 tonight. Still made a profit. Wooo.

The melee wizard is doable in Act 2, but I'm short a bit of gear for it myself. It might actually be feasible in multiplayer as opposed to solo, thanks to Barbs and Monks that can help split the damage and give me a buff.

[Elric of Grans]

Have you done any crafting? 90% of my upgrades at the beginning of Inferno came from the Blacksmith. They are automatically ilvl 60 and often have a lot of the stats you need when just starting out (IE Res All, Vit, Armor, etc.). Although, obviously, there are still some duds.

That has been my strategy, but it takes hours to farm the materials (low probability of ilvl61+ items), and I have had awful luck so far (cruddy stats). I also have only found a single lvl10 plan so far (on my first Inferno run, hilariously!), so there are a lot of slots I do not have crafting options for.

[ViralSpiral]

I think I'm going to enjoy this game better by having waited for them to polish out all these rough edges. I actually almost got it this weekend after figuring out my system WILL run NWN 2 (which I didn't think it would, either) but 1) I remembered how much frustration I kept hearing about the endgame and 2) I already have NWN 2 and...it's still fun, you know? Kind of getting back into it, there's been some new content since I last played.

[MongoJerry]

It was amazing to see how the changes also changed hell difficulty. Frag and I ran through Act III hell tonight, and between the nef stacks, our magic find gear, and the guaranteed rare drops from elite and champ packs, we were getting about a 1:1 ratio of magic and rare drops -- and yes, we definitely got some ilvl 61 items along the way. We both also did a ton of crafting. I wouldn't say that we got huge boosts from the crafting, but we got a few upgrades that were pretty good and plenty of items that should sell decently well over the next few days on the auction house.

But even more than that, the mob changes were startling. Heralds of Pestilence, Colossal Golgors, and Soul Lashers were trivialized. We might have been imagining things, but it seemed like the champion phase beasts we encountered weren't nearly as scary as they normally would have been. What would have normally been a fairly smooth run punctuated by a few moments of terror turned into a cakewalk -- and this was in hell, where most of the changes didn't take place.

Also, over Mumble, someone said he let his softcore barbarian get hit by Inferno Act 2's Shatterbone's special attack, and his barbarian didn't die.

[Archon_Wing]

A lot of demon hunters are struggling I've noticed and they are still fragile so I can't really figure out how they can manage. I lost about 800 dps thorugh the nerf. Some lost over 10k. :o

[Elric of Grans]

Demon Hunters have been nerfed over and again; so far, I have managed to dodge every bullet No DPS loss as I was not exploiting IAS (it was obviously going to be nerfed quickly), but my DPS is pretty pathetic anyway.

Between Elites I still cannot kill and my continuing inability to get reasonable drops, I have had enough. Perhaps the next patch will make the game fun, but for the moment I honestly cannot find a single positive about it. Hopefully Torchlight 2 is better and able to scratch this itch for me.

I feel like a complete idiot. I thought by searching for items on the auction house, I could just go to the latter pages and see the low-end costs. Apparently not. I thought there was not a single item for sale below hundreds of millions of gold. I tried setting the maximum buyout to 100,000... holy crap, affordable upgrades, and here I am with 400,000 to splurge!

In minutes, I doubled my DPS at a minor cost of life and resistances. I have not seen an enrage timer since, get my five stacks in next to no time, then have plenty of time to spare for actually using that. With magic/rare items out the wazoo, I was finally getting good drops (oddly enough). I have even upgraded two items from those drops (nothing fantastic, but +dex and +vit on higher armour is an upgrade!) bringing my life back up to where it was

I have noticed an odd bug while farming. I have seen many Elite groups where their attributes were not listed. They were tossing mortars or whatever, but their life bar/title was the same as any other creature. Purely cosmetic, but adds some nasty surprises.