Diablo 3 is fundamentally broken

[smegged]

I'm not normally one to cry that games are broken beyond repair, but I feel that Diablo 3 is.

It occurred to me tonight as I was taking my DH through the later parts of nightmare act 3. Most of the fights, boss fights included, have been a cinch. Dreadfully easy. Like, I died once in early act 3 because I wasn't paying any attention because I hadn't been remotely threatened for hours. Then, playing tonight, I died no less than six times between a boss pack and a champion pack.

The first two times I died were due at least in part to an error on my part. The first of the two, I got low on health and headed back to where I knew I'd left two health globes waiting. They weren't there and I died. I can only assume that my merc picked them up. *(&^. The second death was because I'd parked the boss right on my res point and I didn't get clear in time. The only reason this boss pack was a threat at all though was because they were those phasing beasts that teleport right on top of you.

The next four or five deaths were to a champion pack of the phasing beasts - with vortex and fire chains. So not only could they teleport to me, they could teleport me to them. This lead to so much spike damage that my 18.5k hp DH got practically instagibbed a couple of times (I say practically, because it still took some time, but with potions on a 30 second cooldown and no other way to recover health, it *was* an instagib).

It occurred to me that these deaths were indicative of why Diablo 3 is fundamentally flawed. For the ranged class (and I apologise I know Jack and his brother Squat about melee, so this may not apply to them), nothing is ever a threat unless it can hit you. If it CAN hit you and is able to output enough damage, you WILL die. If it can hit you and can't output enough damage, you can't die.

Case 1: Melee mobs that you can kite or ranged mobs that have projectiles slow enough to dodge effectively (easier if you aren't crippled by having to ping half way around the *&^#ing world). These are no threat at all.
Case 2: Some ranged bosses, mobs/melee bosses that are faster than you, teleporting melee. These are stupid. You die to these until you can spam enough damage to knock out their critical mass. If they run faster than you, and can do so indefinitely, you will die.
Case 3: These are the most interesting fights because you have the possibility of dying. There are some of these fights in the game. Belial, for instance is a really fun fight where you have to balance damage with moving and if you aren't on your toes you will die, but he pretty much can't guarantee a kill on you if you're good enough.

Speed in Diablo 3 is the biggest threat, because speed takes away from any player skill in the game. But Blizzard WANT this. They WANT for good players to die if they are "undergeared". Blizzard want to force players into either farming themselves senseless or going to the auctionhouse.

Why do you think we're only "given" ten character slots?
Why do you think there are no permanent character decisions in the game?
Why do you think they made inferno and hell bosses so fast and nerfed smoke-screen into oblivion?

It's because all that matters to Blizzard is the maths. Character A has enough gear, they may progress. Character B does not have enough gear, they're not allowed to progress.

The problem is, with no character altering choices, what does progression matter?

Progression in WoW meant that you unlocked new content. Completing Kara a few times let you move to the new, higher tier content. WoW was allowed to be about gear because it also held non-gear related choices and challenges. It didn't matter how good your gear was, you would still wipe if you played terribly. It still took effort to coordinate a 25 man raid.

Diablo 2, which I played to death, even post-LoD, despite its flaws had a lot of end-game progression. Even full clearing every difficulty would leave you hours upon hours of levelling to do if you wanted to hit max level. I still never had a level 99 character, even though I had several level 70+ characters. I only played single player and never twinked or hacked items. I tried many different builds... a trapassin, an elemental druid, a charged bolt sorceress (still one of my favourites and one of the few characters I bothered to finish hell with). I had a high level zealot and a whole host of other characters.

But Diablo 3 does not offer these same experiences. All it offers is a short, sweet burst until you get your character to level 60. It encourages you to play solo (by effectively doubling your power when you do thanks to the really well designed mercenaries), but does not offer a true single player (I have my gameplay interrupted around 50% of the time I play due to server resets or scheduled maintenance - another @$@% you Blizzard give to Aussies). The ten character slot limitation is truly intolerable if I want to roll variants - which I really don't now that I can always just change my skills on my main character and have the full power of my variant at my disposal.

I just really think that Blizzard have missed the point with Diablo 3. There's so much to like about it, but in the end the threat really comes from one thing - being undergeared. There are very few fights in the game that are not either a cakewalk or devastatingly difficult. Much of the fun in action RPGs comes from leveling your character and trying new builds. The icing on the cake used to be finding THAT item which made your character better. Blizzard have done away with all of that in Diablo 3 and have said that all the fun comes from gearing your character.

The slow trickle of rewards, which was occasionally interrupted by the large power boost of a new, better item has now been replaced (at least once you hit 60, which takes far less time than it did in diablo 2) with a power plateau and a slow, steady stream of income from which to buy gentle power upgrades for your character.

But even the leveling game is not fun any more. In Diablo 2 you started out a generic barbarian and as you gained in levels, you became more and more specialised. Your strengths and weaknesses became magnified the further you got into the game. Starting a new barbarian would let you choose different strengths and weaknesses, so you experienced an entirely different game, even with the same character class. Now, you're a generic barbarian right the way through the game. All it takes is a change of skills and you're at exactly the same point as you would have been if you'd levelled the entire way with those skills.

There's no personalisation, no specialisation and the levelling game, which is not as fun as it used to be, ends too early.

The only thing that can kill you is not being on the right side of the statistics game. If a pack of mobs can lay out X damage in 30 seconds you're dead. If they can't, you're completely safe.

This post is way too long, but I would be keen to find out your thoughts and experiences.

[Bolty]

You're arriving at the conclusion that others have before as well. I've argued that the fundamental design of the game is to get players using the Auction House, and by extension, the Real Money Auction House, because the only character progression that exists in the game is gear. There's nothing else.

It doesn't sink in until you've hit 60 and you're in Inferno difficulty. And even then, it might not sink in until you see Some Other Guy™ playing alongside you, who is the same level, with the same skills, and is basically the same exact character as you - but he/she does twice as much damage, can survive packs of mobs that sneeze on you and you die, and generally makes you irrelevant. And the only difference between you and them is that they spent a few hours on the Auction House buying and selling gear.

If you mostly play solo, you can be generally immune from that. But then you'll get to some point in progression (say, Inferno Act II, where there's a gigantic jump in difficulty), and realize that you can only progress through hundreds of hours of farming gear. You will either like this setup, or you won't. To each their own.

And before I'm accused of being a total hater, please note that I'm still playing Diablo III and still having fun. I just don't particularly like how the "end-game" is designed, which will severely impact the long-term playability of the game for me personally.

[RiotInferno]

Why do you think they made inferno and hell bosses so fast and nerfed smoke-screen into oblivion?

Because, at the end of the day, Smoke Screen was way too good. With the right setup, you could be invulnerable through an entire fight. The problem with SS is that it's designed as an aggro-dump / get away mechanic, and implemented as being bullet-proof. Sadly, at this stage in the game, it's easier to reduce the duration then it is to re-implement it.

It's because all that matters to Blizzard is the maths. Character A has enough gear, they may progress. Character B does not have enough gear, they're not allowed to progress.

The problem is, with no character altering choices, what does progression matter?

As a DH in A2/Inferno, I can honestly say that I used no less than 4 different skill combinations in Act 1, before finding one that I think I like. Each one of those has a completely different playstyle. Now, that's one small-style of progression, and character-altering. Also, being able to get through an act in Inferno, when you were previously getting your rear handed to you on a platter, is a feeling I never got in D2. There was always the "I can grind, get tougher, get better." In D3, it's "I can get new gear, and get smarter"

Progression in WoW meant that you unlocked new content. Completing Kara a few times let you move to the new, higher tier content. WoW was allowed to be about gear because it also held non-gear related choices and challenges. It didn't matter how good your gear was, you would still wipe if you played terribly. It still took effort to coordinate a 25 man raid.

Belive me, I've seen plenty of over-geared 60s go down, because all-though they have the gear, they just don't know how to play ( I had the misfortune of being under-geared and dumb ).
Gear only gets you so far in D3/Inferno, and that is one thing I like about it. Yes, gear makes it easier, but you still have to have some form of skill. And the more skill you have, the less gear you need.

Starting a new barbarian would let you choose different strengths and weaknesses, so you experienced an entirely different game, even with the same character class. Now, you're a generic barbarian right the way through the game. All it takes is a change of skills and you're at exactly the same point as you would have been if you'd levelled the entire way with those skills.

This is one thing I actually enjoy. If I want to try a longsword-based DH, I don't have to roll a new one and get him to Hell to see if it's workable or not.
The other thing I enjoy is that pretty much any play-style will get you through nightmare.

There's a lot of problems w/ D3, but it's a month past launch. Wow had its problems, D2 had plenty also. Give Blizzard time, and I hope that they'll eventually be able to bring the game up to par with the others that have had almost a decade to develop.

[smegged]

You're arriving at the conclusion that others have before as well. I've argued that the fundamental design of the game is to get players using the Auction House, and by extension, the Real Money Auction House, because the only character progression that exists in the game is gear. There's nothing else.

It doesn't sink in until you've hit 60 and you're in Inferno difficulty. And even then, it might not sink in until you see Some Other Guy™ playing alongside you, who is the same level, with the same skills, and is basically the same exact character as you - but he/she does twice as much damage, can survive packs of mobs that sneeze on you and you die, and generally makes you irrelevant. And the only difference between you and them is that they spent a few hours on the Auction House buying and selling gear.

If you mostly play solo, you can be generally immune from that. But then you'll get to some point in progression (say, Inferno Act II, where there's a gigantic jump in difficulty), and realize that you can only progress through hundreds of hours of farming gear. You will either like this setup, or you won't. To each their own.

And before I'm accused of being a total hater, please note that I'm still playing Diablo III and still having fun. I just don't particularly like how the "end-game" is designed, which will severely impact the long-term playability of the game for me personally.

The gear issue has been burning in the back of my mind for a while. I hit the soft enrage timer on the Butcher in Nightmare using a ~40dps weapon, which I did not replace until half way through act 2. While I was using it, the game was challenging (well challenging for Nightmare difficulty) because I would often end up in fights where potion cooldown management was a genuine concern. After I got the 100 dps replacement, suddenly nothing at all was a genuine threat until the phasing beasts.

The biggest concern I have with the longevity of the game centres more around the inability to customise or specialise a character. Seriously, who cannot remember how exciting it was to get to level 30 in Diablo 2 and unlock the skill(s) that you had been saving all those skillpoints for, and then watching that skill get more and more powerful as time progressed and how much of a reward it felt after getting by on level 1 glacial spike for all those levels.

Diablo 2 was very broken, but part of the fun of it was that you could compensate for that brokenness by working around it. Diablo 3 feels a lot more polished, but a lot less customisable, which will ultimately lead to its early demise.

---

Belive me, I've seen plenty of over-geared 60s go down, because all-though they have the gear, they just don't know how to play ( I had the misfortune of being under-geared and dumb ).
Gear only gets you so far in D3/Inferno, and that is one thing I like about it. Yes, gear makes it easier, but you still have to have some form of skill. And the more skill you have, the less gear you need.

Starting a new barbarian would let you choose different strengths and weaknesses, so you experienced an entirely different game, even with the same character class. Now, you're a generic barbarian right the way through the game. All it takes is a change of skills and you're at exactly the same point as you would have been if you'd levelled the entire way with those skills.

This is one thing I actually enjoy. If I want to try a longsword-based DH, I don't have to roll a new one and get him to Hell to see if it's workable or not.
The other thing I enjoy is that pretty much any play-style will get you through nightmare.

There's a lot of problems w/ D3, but it's a month past launch. Wow had its problems, D2 had plenty also. Give Blizzard time, and I hope that they'll eventually be able to bring the game up to par with the others that have had almost a decade to develop.

The biggest problem I have is that no amount of skill can compensate for having bad gear. Ever. And I don't even get the reward of seeing my items drop any more. They've dropped for someone else who didn't want them, they wanted something else. I might even be getting a hand-me-down that's been through half a dozen characters. It could have dropped three days after launch.

Secondly, the point of playing a variant generally isn't to see whether they're workable, it's about taking something that genuinely isn't really that workable and getting as far as you can with it. It's about progressing the character while relying on those underpowered skills or by putting all your attributes into energy instead of vitality. There's just not that flexibility in D3. That's the real problem. Ironically, Diablo 3's skill flexibility tends to remove the incentive to actually use the skills.

[FoxBat]

The next four or five deaths were to a champion pack of the phasing beasts - with vortex and fire chains. So not only could they teleport to me, they could teleport me to them. This lead to so much spike damage that my 18.5k hp DH got practically instagibbed a couple of times (I say practically, because it still took some time, but with potions on a 30 second cooldown and no other way to recover health, it *was* an instagib).

Think you drew the wrong conclusion from your experience here.

Some of the boss abilities are stupidly strong. People stack over 1k resistances (basically best gear avaliable) and still get one-shot by them. Gear answers alot but it doesn't answer absolutely everything. It's arguable whether this is good or not, but bottom line is that desecrator, plagued, arcane enchanted, molten, fire chains etc. aren't designed to be tanked (even if some are actually tankable), but rather you stop standing in the fire when its on fire (when other abilities aren't forcing you into the fire that is.) On some monsters and gear levels it even works like it's supposed to.

Yeah Blizzard likes the auction house, but you guys give them too much credit. They didn't even finish playtesting Inferno. You'd think if the RMAH endgame was that important, they'd have this all mapped out properly. They just came up with a bunch of neat boss abilities, then threw them into a mixer to be randomly combined in any completely unbalanced way on any type of mob. That's about the extent of thought that went into them.

[Yricyn]

I have a real suspicion part of the current problems started during the beta. I played the beta extensively, I even got the BetaMaxed achievement. The single consistent remark I heard from everyone I knew during the beta was, "its fun, but, its too easy." Blizzard even addressed this with a couple of dev diaries, assuring that "you will die" and "the game doesn't even start till nightmare."

I noticed on the very first day of the live release, the retail game was an order of magnitude more difficult than the beta. I remembered that in order to get the rez so and so class achievement in the beta we had to actually try to die for each other. On the first day of retail my monk died twice prior to the Butcher. Partially because I was playing lazily, and partially because the level of difficulty was higher than it had been in the beta. It was obvious to me they changed, "something."

I really have a sneaking suspicion in the last month before release a decision was made to add x% modifier to monster health, and y% modifier to monster damage game wide. This was likely done to address the "too easy" beta feedback. It seems to me that it actually pans out well in Normal, Nightmare and into Hell. Later in Hell and into Inferno it just makes the champs and bosses too ridiculous to deal with.

[kandrathe]

Yeah Blizzard likes the auction house, but you guys give them too much credit. They didn't even finish playtesting Inferno. You'd think if the RMAH endgame was that important, they'd have this all mapped out properly. They just came up with a bunch of neat boss abilities, then threw them into a mixer to be randomly combined in any completely unbalanced way on any type of mob. That's about the extent of thought that went into them.

Yes. I think this is the majority of the problem people have. Random is nice for variety until you get a very, very, very bad roll of the dice. The crux of gear planning, farming, and even skill strategy and tactics are that you can predict and prepare for eventualities. Until you find that combination that is your Kobayashi Maru.

But, memories are short. In DII, I do remember bypassing certain combinations of Conviction Aura and MSLEB. You might burn them down from range and off screen, but stand toe to toe? No, not really. Not worth it.

[FireIceTalon]

^^I also wonder about this, if they purposely made the game more difficult last minute in response to the people who were crying "too easy" at the Beta. Regarding Inferno though, there was an interview that said they the devs made the game as hard as possible that was the most challenging they could make it while still being playable for hardcore gamers (not hardcore the playing style), then they DOUBLED it. That's just nuts. I bet the people who were complaining too easy back during the Beta are kicking themselves now, heh. And if they aren't, that just means they haven't got to Inferno or possibly even Hell yet. And I despite my difficulties with Inferno, I do not feel sorry for those who complained during the Beta. You got what you asked for.

Truth be told I find Nightmare harder in this game (although both my Barb and Wiz are handeling Act 2 of Nightmare quite well thus far, especially my
Barb) then Hell was on either D1 or D2, but that is mostly due to the game mechanics I think rather than the monster affixes. Most of the non-elite/non-champ monsters simply move faster than you, have a ton of aggro, and they come in huge numbers quite often. But these are the type of challenges that I welcome. This is what made D1 challenging for many people when it came out, and I think they are really trying to go back to that philosophy here with D3 - which is a good thing. Hell difficulty is insanely hard, but again, it is a good kind of "difficult" for the most part - though towards the end, you can see the problems that are in Inferno starting to arise - tediousness. The whole "you will die" slogan combined with mechanics of Inferno just seems silly to me. Of course we will die - you remove ALL control away from the player so they are guaranteed death, no matter how well geared, skilled, or prepared they are. So that whole slogan doesn't really mean much when you use cheezy and faulty, unbalanced mechanics to uphold it. Unfortunately, the trolls and Blizzard fanboys use it as a crutch to say "just learn to play".....and these are the type of people that annoy me the most. Considering the overall difficulty of this game compared to the prior two, I would venture to say anyone who even UNLOCKED Inferno is at least a halfway decent player, and likely has at least SOME knowledge on the game and how to play it.

[Quark]

Okay, because movement speed keeps coming up, and I've not actually had an issue in Inferno (except on naturally fast or Fast affix), I've got to ask. Many have said snares are worthless in Inferno and everything's faster than you. I've still been kiting the entire time with Blizzard successfully, and the rare truly fast monsters get Teleport saved for appropriate use. Are you guys running with +Movement Speed? Because I've tossed boots that upped DPS and survivability by a huge chunk because they don't have speed bonuses. And it's completely worth it.

[Trevan]

Okay, because movement speed keeps coming up, and I've not actually had an issue in Inferno (except on naturally fast or Fast affix), I've got to ask. Many have said snares are worthless in Inferno and everything's faster than you. I've still been kiting the entire time with Blizzard successfully, and the rare truly fast monsters get Teleport saved for appropriate use. Are you guys running with +Movement Speed? Because I've tossed boots that upped DPS and survivability by a huge chunk because they don't have speed bonuses. And it's completely worth it.

My demon hunter's first experience in hell difficulty is noticing this. The burrowing mobs in act 1 were just a hair less faster than me with 60% move speed boost from tactical advantage. It was all I could do to keep a champion pack of them off me with evasive fire -> tactical advantage. It didn't help they just plowed straight through my 80% slow caltrops. Once I ran out of discipline, they just straight up killed me.

Granted, this was grouping with my brother's wizard, so they had too much health for me to burn down and thus I couldn't kite them forever. Probably less of a problem on single player. Nevertheless, I'm being far more careful/grindy on my hc dh.

Edit: In general though, I don't find most mobs a problem except for the naturally speedy ones that become champions/boss packs.

[Elric of Grans]

Okay, because movement speed keeps coming up, and I've not actually had an issue in Inferno (except on naturally fast or Fast affix), I've got to ask. Many have said snares are worthless in Inferno and everything's faster than you. I've still been kiting the entire time with Blizzard successfully, and the rare truly fast monsters get Teleport saved for appropriate use. Are you guys running with +Movement Speed? Because I've tossed boots that upped DPS and survivability by a huge chunk because they don't have speed bonuses. And it's completely worth it.

I have not even seen that modifier. If I had, I would definitely use it because half the enemies are faster than me in Hell difficulty. I cannot comment on Wizard at high levels, however, as mine is still in Nightmare, where Blizzard is so, so juicy *drools* My Demon Hunter was entirely speced out for snares in Normal/Nightmare, but in Act II/Hell I dropped them all; they did nothing, and I desperately needed more DPS to make up for it.

[smegged]

The next four or five deaths were to a champion pack of the phasing beasts - with vortex and fire chains. So not only could they teleport to me, they could teleport me to them. This lead to so much spike damage that my 18.5k hp DH got practically instagibbed a couple of times (I say practically, because it still took some time, but with potions on a 30 second cooldown and no other way to recover health, it *was* an instagib).

Think you drew the wrong conclusion from your experience here.

Some of the boss abilities are stupidly strong. People stack over 1k resistances (basically best gear avaliable) and still get one-shot by them. Gear answers alot but it doesn't answer absolutely everything. It's arguable whether this is good or not, but bottom line is that desecrator, plagued, arcane enchanted, molten, fire chains etc. aren't designed to be tanked (even if some are actually tankable), but rather you stop standing in the fire when its on fire (when other abilities aren't forcing you into the fire that is.) On some monsters and gear levels it even works like it's supposed to.

Yeah Blizzard likes the auction house, but you guys give them too much credit. They didn't even finish playtesting Inferno. You'd think if the RMAH endgame was that important, they'd have this all mapped out properly. They just came up with a bunch of neat boss abilities, then threw them into a mixer to be randomly combined in any completely unbalanced way on any type of mob. That's about the extent of thought that went into them.

The issue I had with these fights is that they were not really matters of skill. As soon as I aggroed the mobs, it was a matter of burning them down faster than they could burn me down. There was no skill involved, because skill in diablo is 95% due to positioning and reflexes and the natural ability of phasing beasts, plus the vortex modifier made positioning entirely meaningless.

The RMAH is the source of a lot of problems in the game (and it's not even out yet), because the only customisation options we have as players is gear and the AH is the best way to get gear.

[FireIceTalon]

My Barb and Wiz already have about the same amount of dmg reduction in Nightmare that my poor DH does in Inferno. Actually my Barb has more already, at only lvl 43.....sigh.

DH class is waaaaaaaaay too item dependent, because their defensive skills are lacking compared to the other classes. And ofc, the items the DH needs are no guarantee things will get smoother once you obtain (if you can obtain them to begin with). The problem is, Dexterity only gives to dodge, as far as I know, in terms of critical dmg reduction mechanics. Barb has it easier, because they can stack strength to get high armor and just get resists/Vit on gear. Wiz gets intelligence which helps with resistances, and it seems like they have higher 'natural' armor class than DH's do - plus shield on Wiz is completely viable, but on DH it kind of sucks because then your DPS goes splat (not to mention you still get 2-shotted regardless), but on Wizard this doesnt seem to be a factor - your dps remains high and it is easier to get a solid armor number. So, DH needs gear that has Dex, Vit, resist all, armor, and affixes that boost dps such as critical hit dmg/chance, or even attack speed - and using a shield is pretty much out of the question. Thats alot of stats needed for each piece of gear - making the char extremely difficult if not nearly impossible to build.

[Roland]

Okay, because movement speed keeps coming up, and I've not actually had an issue in Inferno (except on naturally fast or Fast affix), I've got to ask. Many have said snares are worthless in Inferno and everything's faster than you. I've still been kiting the entire time with Blizzard successfully, and the rare truly fast monsters get Teleport saved for appropriate use. Are you guys running with +Movement Speed? Because I've tossed boots that upped DPS and survivability by a huge chunk because they don't have speed bonuses. And it's completely worth it.

My demon hunter's first experience in hell difficulty is noticing this. The burrowing mobs in act 1 were just a hair less faster than me with 60% move speed boost from tactical advantage. It was all I could do to keep a champion pack of them off me with evasive fire -> tactical advantage. It didn't help they just plowed straight through my 80% slow caltrops. Once I ran out of discipline, they just straight up killed me.

Granted, this was grouping with my brother's wizard, so they had too much health for me to burn down and thus I couldn't kite them forever. Probably less of a problem on single player. Nevertheless, I'm being far more careful/grindy on my hc dh.

Edit: In general though, I don't find most mobs a problem except for the naturally speedy ones that become champions/boss packs.

I've run with 12% movement speed boots since either Normal or Nightmare (forget which). I refuse to give them up for anything. No amount of damage, health, armor, or resistances are worth losing the ability to kite. So, yes, even with +movement speed boots mobs simply are faster in Inferno than they are elsewhere. Try watching the next fat zombie elite pack (the ones that break off the torso and chase you when they die) - even without Extra Fast, they will be faster than you. This isn't some intangible difference, something that can be confused in the heat of battle. This is flat out measurably faster.

[Trevan]

I've run with 12% movement speed boots since either Normal or Nightmare (forget which). I refuse to give them up for anything. No amount of damage, health, armor, or resistances are worth losing the ability to kite. So, yes, even with +movement speed boots mobs simply are faster in Inferno than they are elsewhere. Try watching the next fat zombie elite pack (the ones that break off the torso and chase you when they die) - even without Extra Fast, they will be faster than you. This isn't some intangible difference, something that can be confused in the heat of battle. This is flat out measurably faster.

Honestly, at the speed some of those mobs run, I wonder if +12% with +60% tactical advantage will even be enough. It doesn't feel like it.

[FireIceTalon]

It could just be me, but it seems like monster traits spawn according to the class you are playing. When I play my ranged chars, I see lots of Teleport, Fast, Vortex, and Waller. If I'm rolling with my Barb, lots of Nightmarish, Plagued, Arcane, and Molten/Desecrate, Shielding. I see Fire Chains alot with either ranged or melee, however. Thankfully Invulnerable Minions is somewhat less common, and I've only seen Missile Dampening once or twice period.

[MMAgCh]

Missile Dampening does seem extremely rare compared to most other boss mods.

[Roland]

Honestly, at the speed some of those mobs run, I wonder if +12% with +60% tactical advantage will even be enough. It doesn't feel like it.

Caltrops (I use Jagged Spikes) + Impact - Impale. With proper kiting it slows them down enough. Otherwise... well, even Numbing Traps (25% DR) and Guardian Turret (15% DR) won't save you.

[Quark]

Random is random, but Dragoon and I got stuck with a ton of Shielding last night after I dropped my piercing spell (Disintegrate/Volatility) to test out Arcane Orb/Tap The Source.

[FoxBat]

The issue I had with these fights is that they were not really matters of skill.

You've got several unrelated issues and I'm only replying to one. I'm simply stating that bullshit boss combos are not evidence of some nefarious plan to drive you to the AH (even if it has that effect), because some of them simply cannot be beaten with defensive gear. If that is what you are worried about, you roll glass cannon DPS for cheap and pray you can get back to them fast enough after your inevitable demise to whittle down their life some more. Or you play like their testers did and kill the butcher with 5K DPS and all the suffering that entails. If anything it is ugly design that is a product of lack of foresight, rather than incredible foresight that will drive RMAH profits which won't even exist for months yet.