Making Sense of the Madness

[jahcs]

Brother Laz:

Inferno gets a useless synergy with the useless Warmth skill.

Brother Laz:

ES has a synergy that reduces the amount of mana damage taken, which is very good; the only problem is that the synergetic skill is Telekinesis.

Brother Laz:

worthless Cleansing and Meditation auras acquire a worthless healing effect when you put points into Prayer.

Just dreaming here: Use a sorceress as a tank, possibly with inferno, with energy shield and telekinesis. I don't imagine you would need to max the skills either. And have a paladin with meditation active. They could tank quite a while. Flaws (too many to list :P ): damage besides fire (low flexibility), waste of points unless lots of plus skills items,

[Olon97]

Frenzy has been removed from the skill tab.

Unless frenzy has significantly changed since the Beta, I would have to disagree with this one. The -damage and -attack rating of taunt always seems to be overlooked by people. A damage synergy skill that as a fringe benefit gives you effects similar to .09 DR gear if you actually use it. On a trial character, I put a lot of fast cast on my switch (dual heart of the oaks - won't have that configuration anytime soon on the ladder) to taunt every monster nearby quickly, and then I just waded in. With realistic gear, he solo'd "/players 4" runs of hell act5 repeatedly without too many problems.

I prefer the taunt/frenzy approach to the frenzy/warcry/frenzy/warcry style of play because when I'm in melee range I can continuously apply damage. The taunted monsters don't hit nearly as often as they would otherwise, and when they do, they don't do enough damage to trigger hit recovery animations.

With a little luck (and many NM hellforge trips), in a few days I will have the runes for dual "crescent moon" legend swords, and I'll be putting my 1.10 taunt/frenzy theories to the test.

[Hammerskjold]

>What items, once considered uber, are no longer? And vice versa?

(The following is just my opinions and most likely won't be news for people who regularly read the ABasin and here.)

Crushing Blows items are not as powerful in higher count games. The "Malice" runeword on the other hand, is now a very useful and affordable melee weapon. Open Wounds effects are also more noticeably potent in 1.1. It won't pWnz in a Hell 8 solo game in under 5 minutes, and will not guarantee minty fresh breath. But it is very serviceable.

>Where are the "hot" spots to level up?

I have a question regarding another kind of "hot" spot. Has anyone else experienced this.

NM difficulty, Throne of Destruction entrance. As soon as your character arrives, there are critters awaiting for you ready for a stair trap. (Bone mages, or the very fun Gloam lightning instant greetings.)

Similar to Act 3 temple stair traps, but nastier. Before some folks break out the standard "quit whining, it's a more difficult game, go party up, maybe the demons bought an alarm system and learned how to use it you n00b, etc etc". I am not talking about monster difficulty specifically. It's more about (imo a bit cheap) monster placement. Reminds me too much of "FlameSpike the Crawler" placement when he was still around in D2 Classic.

[Brista]

You make a very valid point, Hammerskjold

It is not just those areas.

Monster awareness and movement speed have both been increased so in some areas if the monsters spawn close enough to the waypoint they will attack you very fast

Add in the factor that there are more ranged attackers around these areas now and you are very likely to start taking damage almost as soon as your character materialises on the map

People with low-spec computers and people using dial-up will be very vulnerable

It's a also a matter of the build you're playing. A Necro with 30 minions or a Barb with 4K life is less at risk than a Sorc

[Brother Laz]

<- I never said D/A/E sucked for tankazons, I said it sucked in the bowazon paragraph. But they're fairly useless for tankazons as well because of their long animation, unless they prefer to stand there like a crash dummy and not attack anything.

As for IS, Occhi, you said it's is useful unless you're uber-twinked. But in fact it is only useful if you are uber-twinked, because of the huge increasing returns. Penetrate is always useful, not just when maxed; and out of the four defense-removing options in the game [IS, Conviction, Battlecry, CoS], IS is the worst.

And if you really have to-hit problems, that's what BA mercs are for. ;)

[Crystalion]

out of the four defense-removing options in the game [IS, Conviction, Battlecry, CoS], IS is the worst.

Well, you can get useful levels of IS from your Rogue merc, without blowing your own skill points or having lots of +skill gear. Relevantly IS is a straight reduction, and the other three are percentage. Thus IS not having a stacking problem with BattleCry and CoS (which, iirc, are now in the via-for-curse-slot category) is potentially useful for use with one of them.

I also vaguely recall someone mentioning that IS -DR was applied after -DR% but I've not tested this myself (it would be very favorable for IS if so). Also, in PvP, -DR% can be made largely irrelevant, as it competes (direct delta), iirc, with +DR% effects, whereas IS would always be effective at its advertised level.

None of these psuedo-factoids suggest to me that IS is the worst. Clearly it is much more valuable than it was before v1.10. YMMV.

[Cryptic]

Currently playing as a Hammerdin with Zealot overtones for when things get tight. It's pretty fast, I've made Nightmare and level 34 in 2 nights; but I've only played that and a necro so far in 1.10, so I will limit my observations to what I have seen my teammates excelling/struggling with.

Amazons: Haven't seen a jav or spear yet, except on weapon switch. The bowazons seem dazed by the loss of Guided; the uses of elemental attacks I've seen so far have been desperate and half-hearted. Immolation looks weak, cold looks very workable. There's a mentality shift that's going to need to occur among the masses, but I think she'll be just fine. Very little use of Valk or Decoy, but keep in mind, these were party-joiners I saw, not soloers.

Barbarian: Whirlwind has a learning curve again. In intelligent, specific uses, it's valuable, but it's no longer an end-all. Which is good to see. Barbarians, like Amazons, seem to be struggling with the changes, but will come out of them just fine.

Druid: Haven't seen an elementalist yet; the point distribution required to excel as one is so severe that I haven't seen anyone eager to take the plunge. Shapeshifters are fine, and Grizzlies seem much more robust, or just smarter perhaps.

Necromancer: My favorite class is now re-established as the general of the party. A team-oriented, intelligently-played pair of necro and pally, combined with a supporting cast, will thrive in 1.10. That's probably the New World Order right there - the necro is not an uber solo class, but is effective on its own, and godly with the right team. Revives see some use, but are overshadowed by Skeleton Warriors. Magi are good in the early going and seem to taper off rather sharply. Golems, sadly, are pathetic.

Paladin: I can only speak for the Hammerdin. Overpowered, much like the original "exploit" version when it first appeared, but limited in boss fights and close quarters, requiring thought and agility with your hotkeys, so I think that while this one will be popular, it may not run riot.

Sorceress: The most effective rebuilds I've seen were Fire, with Cold secondary and Lightning only as support (shield, teleport). They seem to be strengthened overall, but only if specialized. Generalists are suffering.

In general: More teamwork, more diversity, more goodwill. Slower play, dangerous paradigm shifts in some battles (killer Gloams, anyone?); I'd give this patch a B+. It's actually quite good.

[D-Dave]

From what I have experienced so far, 1.10 follows mostly along the lines of all patches since D2 shiped.

To sum this up as short as possible:
Fighter classes got more equipment dependant with every patch, Magic users got skills changed so a new build has to be found to adapt to this.

While this is probably too short a summary, I have a general feeling that the turn is more and more away from the casual player towards those who have the time to do intensive item hunts.

For my beloved Amazon class this sums up as turning away from fast skill changes and fast, exact relocation after a couple of shots (mainly backwards :) ) more towards ultra artillery power. At least my feeling could be best compared to swaping a semi automatic rifle with optional sniper capeabilty for a heavy machine gun. Even though this may sound a bit arrogant, it used to take practice and skill to play a successfull Amazon, now any dimwit with a Windforce can do this.

Ah well, while I am already at it, I'd like to repeat how much I think Immunities broke the game. Unlike in D1 where every class had access to a wide variety of different damage types to deal with different immunities, D2 characters have a limited access to damage types. Due to this for most players the game will be swift killing everything that is not immune to the main damage types, but hardly a way to kill those immune to said damage types. Maybe it's just me but I think fun does not come from luring one of the immunes away from the rest to spend ages killing just this one (rinse and repeat for the others). *sigh* ....(the rest of the passionate argumentation fades to silence, no real need to argument about things that have not, and probably will not change)

back to deep lurke mode

[ak404]

D/A/E is always useful for amazons, especially bowazons, who often don't have huge pools of life, sacrificng this for damage-dealing ability. Because they can't acheive high DR, DAE is a godsend for them...they just have better things to blow their points on, which means that you're better off using +skill items to pump passives while you spend your actual skill points on bow skills. Giving passives to the valk was a freebie, IMHO, to give the amazon serious consideration towards putting actual points in the passive tree; I remain skeptical.

Playing on my friend's PC, I find that the bowazon's physical attacks are still her bread-and-butter, while cold attacks are, as always, panic buttons, and I reserve the greatest amount of my bow points for the fire tree. That Immo has a timer and such a short duration is discouraging, but I still like the skill.

And yes, this patch is more like v1.04 than anything else.

[Occhidiangela]

"Useless" seems to be your favorite descriptive in that post, and I find that to be a load of nonsense.

With IS 4 or 5 hundred DR goes away on the enemy , even 800 if your +skills gets silly or you drop in an extra point or two. That means you can significantly increase your to Hit without using a BA merc, which allows you to use a Strength merc to boost your damage per arrow, or other merc to suit your tastes.

What a concept. And it is not Either Or, friend Laz, it is USE BOTH!

A single point in IS with about +6 to skills from an Amazon bow, gloves, and a circlet, which have boosts both IS and Penetrate, so you use BOTH together to cut the DR and boost To Hit.

Gee, what a thought! Still only put one point in IS to accomplish that, but the trick is to USE the damned skill, not write it off as Useless. Your tunnel vision is showing. There are a lot of ways to peel the onion, and your glib dismissal of this or that as "useless" is sloppy, very sloppy.

Bowazon DAE? I see what you are getting at, and only mildly disagree. Evade in particular is handy if you are a move and shoot player, Avoid the next best, and Dodge is handy only when you make an error and get hit by a melee monster.

[Occhidiangela]

It reduced base DR, and then the Holy Shield, Defiance, or Iron Skin took over and multiplied what was left. That is as of version 1.03 and the tests we did with IS then.

Not sure if that is still the case, and we did the test PvP.

[Occhidiangela]

Head over to the Armory and make some inputs to the Tourette's Barbarian discussion we were having. I am going to work on the Guide in a few weeks, and would like your insights.

Thanks.

Occhi

I found the Taunt Frenzy synergy to be appealing, particularly as Battle Cry Stacks and helps reduce the damage from monsters significantly. :)