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Couple of skill rants - IlleglWpns - 07-04-2003
It seems that this was a massive oversight by the 1.1 team. In terms of damage/time and mana efficiency fireball is so much better than all the other sorc skills (let alone the skills of other characters) that it boggles the mind.
In a related rant, why does bone spirit still suck? With all synergies maxed out bone spirit will do about 2K damage. Why bother when you can get close to 2/3rds the damage with spear, hit multiple targets, and cost half as much mana
Couple of skill rants - Rataxes - 07-04-2003
Fireball was nerfed as far as I'm concerned. You didn't happen to notice that the splash radius has been decreased from 2 yards to 1? 2 yards was tiny enough as it was, but one yard is practically useless. It's been reduced to nothing but a more damaging Firebolt, and it makes me mad! Fireball used to be my favourite Sorceress skill, now it's ruined.
Couple of skill rants - Tiffany_Scott - 07-04-2003
You're wasting your time telling only us Lounge Lizards. :/ This is a BETA patch Mr. Defeatist, and if you wanna save your beloved Fireball spell then go to battle.net and tell THEM! That's what the "beta" part of this patch is all about!
Yeah 1 yard is nothing. Makes Immolation Arrow seem powerful by comparison. SO TELL BLIZZ ALREADY! :P
Couple of skill rants - Hammerskjold - 07-04-2003
> It seems that this was a massive oversight by the 1.1 team. In terms of damage/time and mana efficiency fireball is so much better than all the other sorc skills (let alone the skills of other characters) that it boggles the mind.
Have you tested this against the new monsters yet? I'm not being sarcastic, I'm honestly curious. Have you tested this under Nightmare, or Hell mode? How is it under various Players X command?
Couple of skill rants - IlleglWpns - 07-04-2003
No I haven't as I don't have my LOD cd with me. I have been looking through the patch mpqs to find out what changed. As it stands fireball does roughy 3 times more damage than every other direct damage, non timered, skill out there. Will the radius nerf compensate for this? Perhaps, if all those other skills are capable of hitting at least three times as many monsters.
Heh, if fireball is now just a high power firebolt what does that make bone spirit?
Couple of skill rants - Rataxes - 07-05-2003
Not sure you were adressing me Tiffany_Scott, but I have a feeling they've already made up their mind regarding most balance issues. They wanted Fireball to do more damage but have less radius, this beta was primarily for detecting bugs wasn't it?
Couple of skill rants - Hammerskjold - 07-05-2003
There are certain things that needs in game testing, to see what they are really like. I'm really curious to see the AI boosts to monsters that testers are talking about.
>I have been looking through the patch mpqs to find out what changed. As it stands fireball does roughy 3 times more damage than every other direct damage, non timered, skill out there. Will the radius nerf compensate for this?
I can only make a guess here, since I currently don't have LoD with me either. But that radius nerf is the least of anyones worry if a Hell mode act 1 quillrat is boosted so much, that a lvl 20+ Fireball only tickles him.
Does the mpqs lists any of the monster abilities or resistance or hps?
Couple of skill rants - TheDragoon - 07-05-2003
The text files listed in the mpqs list all of the numeric monster information I would ever want to know about and then about 500% more. ;)
Couple of skill rants - Kevin - 07-05-2003
Hmmm, odd. In playing with fireball the beta version seems to have a larger radius in game. At least was hitting more monsters than it used to. So if they decreased the radius, they did something else to the to hit calcs, because I was hitting more monsters with it.
Of course I've been playing with chain too much to worry about fireball. Chain is so fun with the fast cast gear because you retain the ability to cast other spells still, no more 6 sheal weapons... :)
Couple of skill rants - Dagni - 07-05-2003
IlleglWpns,Jul 4 2003, 04:50 PM Wrote:As it stands fireball does roughy 3 times more damage than every other direct damage, non timered, skill out there.What skills are you comparing against, and at what slvl with what synergy/mastery? Lightning is direct damage, non-timered. With the main skill, all synergies and the mastery all at slvl 20, Lightning gives about 2900 avg dmg, Fireball gives 3700 avg dmg. 3700/2900 = 1.28, not near three times. Also, Firebolt IS more mana efficient than Fireball, under these same conditions, about 1/6 the mana cost, about 1/4 the damage.
And if the only criteria is "direct damage, non-timered" than you have to compare to Charged Bolt, Chain Lightning, and Nova. Of course none of them are going to do as much damage in one particular hit, but each will generally hit far, far more than once per cast.
Are you even sure you have the damage figured correctly? If you miss the '7' Hit Shift that would certainly make Fireball look way too good. :) And there are plenty of other ways to make a math mistake when reading the mpqs by hand.
- Dagni
Couple of skill rants - IlleglWpns - 07-05-2003
>>If you miss the '7' Hit Shift that would certainly make Fireball look way too good.
You know, when I first looked at fireball's huge damage ramp I thought I might have missed a shift, but didn't find it. Okay, I retract my complaint about fireball, it does big damage but takes too many skill points to ramp it up that high, so it's not unbalanced.
However I don't know where you're getting your lightning numbers. Lightning does 1-272 base at level 20. Synergies give 480% extra damage. Lightning mastery gives another 278%. Total is ~9 - 2334 damage which is 1171 average damage, not 2900. The mpq also has another damage entry for lightning (10 - 20 + 4/lvl) but I don't know how that figures in.
My comments about bone spirit still stand though.
Couple of skill rants - Dagni - 07-05-2003
Quote:However I don't know where you're getting your lightning numbers.
From the in-game skill description. :)
Actually, I almost made a comment about this in my last post because it surprised me. Mastery and synergies multiply. Or to put it another way, mastery affects the BASE damage, then synergies affect that total, including Mastery boost. I guess it kinda makes sense, otherwise you would never put a second point in Fire mastery (if using Fireball, for example) until all your synergies were maxed. Mastery would be inferior that way. Taking into account the mastery multiplication, I don't think there is much doubt that the sorc is still the direct damage king, well, queen. But I haven't actually run any comparisons, so I guess I don't really know that.
- Dagni
Couple of skill rants - IlleglWpns - 07-05-2003
Ugh! Multiplicative masteries? That is horrendously powerful compared to other characters. No wonder I'm seeing these huge skill damages being thrown about.
Couple of skill rants - Hammerskjold - 07-05-2003
>Ugh! Multiplicative masteries? That is horrendously powerful compared to other characters.
At this point I'm more interested in how she does against the new monsters, in a real game setting. Measuring the skills against other characters skills is one thing, but unless they revamped how exp. works, you still need to kill monsters to gain the levels needed for the skill points investments.
So, any testers out there who played a fire tree sorc care to comment?
Couple of skill rants - WarBlade - 07-05-2003
I've checked out a Fire only Sorceress and a Lightning only Sorceress in Act 5 Hell. Neither of them were particularly optimized for the Synergy system, yet both proved quite functional.
Note both these cases carry about +4 in skills so subtract that from Synergy comments . . .
Fire
This cLvl 82 girl is a mix of maxed Inferno and Hydras along with Mastery. She has about 10 Warmth and a whole pile of extra points dumped in blaze now up to level 18. She smoked. She rocked the Glacial Trail, but the merc who had once been so mighty is now so frail he couldn't last long and that spelled the end of the quick test. Even with less-than-optimized Synergies, she proved to be the fastest damage dealer I've tried yet.
Lightning
Her Lightning was a one-point precursor to maxed Chain Lightning. Mastery was also maxed and Nova, which I had previously for odd moments like Duriel, provided the Synergy support from level 18. She could move around. It was pretty slow going and her Mana globe vanished after every couple of monsters if I wasn't feeding it, but at least she could move.
Fire was overpowered IMO. At least compared to other characters I've tried and that's not saying much considering most of my efforts have been in the Paladin department. Another one that was ridiculously capable of moving around Act 5 Hell with impunity was the old Bow Amazon I swore not to use ever again last year (due to game design boneheadedness that had ripped the fun out of playing her). No new cube recipes necessary - Just max Pierce and cringe at the fact she's already balanced for the game. <_<
Balance has gone completely out the window. The once struggling Elementalists are actually moving for a change (bout time), the Necromancer has a few new tricks and loses some old ones (generally winning though), Barbarians and Assassins are more or less the same minus the 'uglyness' of hell level and you'd think the entire QA department has been using Paladin data for toilet paper (I'm growing a small rant on my HDD as we speak).
Couple of skill rants - Hammerskjold - 07-05-2003
Code reading aside, I'd like to read reports from in game testing to verify those numbers. What you wrote fit the bill.
>Fire
This cLvl 82 girl is a mix of maxed Inferno and Hydras along with Mastery. She has about 10 Warmth and a whole pile of extra points dumped in blaze now up to level 18. She smoked. She rocked the Glacial Trail, but the merc who had once been so mighty is now so frail he couldn't last long and that spelled the end of the quick test. Even with less-than-optimized Synergies, she proved to be the fastest damage dealer I've tried yet.
This was with players 1 or more?
>Another one that was ridiculously capable of moving around Act 5 Hell with impunity was the old Bow Amazon I swore not to use ever again last year (due to game design boneheadedness that had ripped the fun out of playing her). No new cube recipes necessary - Just max Pierce and cringe at the fact she's already balanced for the game.
Hmm, yeah I haven't read much posts that talks about drastic bow skills\balance changes, if any. Aside from the "omg buriza can be upgraded!" and "my guided arrow don't pierce!" and strictly display bugs. There is one semi interesting tidbit from the ABasin however, I heard now the physical part of any elemental arrow skills will use an AR check, but the elemental part remains an autohit. So mage-a-zons are not affected, but vamps might be.
>and you'd think the entire QA department has been using Paladin data for toilet paper (I'm growing a small rant on my HDD as we speak).
Can you put that up as soon as you're done, I'm interested in what 1.1 might do to him. Am I going to see more Martyr builds running around when 1.1 is released officially?
Couple of skill rants - WarBlade - 07-05-2003
Martyrs, Zealots (multiple kinds), a new breed of Avenger (no aura flashing anymore) and that's mostly it at this point. I have yet to check a Heaven's Fist Paladin in Hell, but estimates don't give me great hope.
- Smiters get nothing. The game is ramped up and all they can claim is better item opportunities.
- Chargers are doable, but the bugs screw them until fixed.
- Defenders/Defiants are even worse off than they were in 1.09d (and Barbarian warcries etc. present a particular point of frustration from a Defiant's perspective).
- Missionaries . . . practically the same old rubbish to be avoided as before, although didn't Conversion used to take a kill to convert? It's any-hit-can-turn now whatever it was before. It might be handy against Minotaur packs, assuming the Paladin's low life can withstand them long enough to score a hit but ultimately strikes me as just points you can't afford to spend here.
Long story short, the biggest problem is the Synergies that are basically a fat ugly puddle of liqified crap. Another great problem is the point splitting both in skills and attributes guide the player in very tightly defined grooves, so much choice is gone. Thirdly, the Defensive Auras are as useless as ever in picking up the grand total of one very marginal upgrade and I say "marginal" purely because stronger monster actually reinterpret Prayer back into a net downgrade.
PS. And those Sorceress characters were on Players 1. The Amazon could do Players 8 and the defining factor was purely the difference between a maxed Valkyrie (unkillable like never before) and 81 - 82 level Barb mercs with lifespans measured most easily in seconds (often single figure seconds). Oh yeah, and that Valkyrie could sit there tanking two Minotaurs on Players 8. Three Minotaurs finally warranted a recast. <_<
Couple of skill rants - WarBlade - 07-05-2003
I stand corrected. Fist of the Heavens is not only do-able, but it seems that my earlier assessment of Conviction versus immunities was flawed ;) so Fist of the Heavens might actually be far superior as a result . . .
So from there comes the point stretch.
20 Fist of Heaven
20 Holy Shock (synergy)
20 Conviction
11 pre-requiste points
71
So forfeit Holy Shield and maybe you'll have something to scrape into Meditation.
Playability? Well I was killing Beetles in Hell Act 2 with FoH wink, wink ;) :D
Couple of skill rants - Hammerskjold - 07-05-2003
>- Missionaries . . . practically the same old rubbish to be avoided as before, although didn't Conversion used to take a kill to convert?
I'm not sure if it did in the very early versions, but I can confirm for D2C 1.09 at least, it does not take a kill to convert. Just a successful to hit check with the skill I think. I believe it's the same case for LoD, but don't quote me on that.
>Long story short, the biggest problem is the Synergies that are basically a fat ugly puddle of liqified crap. Another great problem is the point splitting both in skills and attributes guide the player in very tightly defined grooves, so much choice is gone. Thirdly, the Defensive Auras are as useless as ever in picking up the grand total of one very marginal upgrade and I say "marginal" purely because stronger monster actually reinterpret Prayer back into a net downgrade.
I was hoping the idea of synergy properly implemented, would bring out more variety in playstyle and put less emphasis on "itamz". But if the current situation only amplifies what it was before, I doubt anyone would be in a rush to put more skill points in pre-requisites or less popular skill branch, simply for a synergy boost. The planned exp penalty for clvl 70 doesn't help either. I think players would be more stingy with their points spending, not less.
>PS. And those Sorceress characters were on Players 1. The Amazon could do Players 8 and the defining factor was purely the difference between a maxed Valkyrie (unkillable like never before)
Heh, was any of the new ranged attacks AI pose a threat to her? I read that supposedly monsters will no longer target just the summons or nearest targets.
I gotta admit though, the synergy looks interesting on paper at least. Especially to my D2C Fanatical Martyr who Redeems part time.
Couple of skill rants - Hammerskjold - 07-05-2003
>I stand corrected. Fist of the Heavens is not only do-able, but it seems that my earlier assessment of Conviction versus immunities was flawed so Fist of the Heavens might actually be far superior as a result . . .
I read that Lower Resist will affect immunities, did your test confirm if Conviction will do the same?
>Playability? Well I was killing Beetles in Hell Act 2 with FoH wink, wink
Well hot damn. It is a lvl 30 skill after all, I think it deserves to be more than just fireworks. :)