07-12-2003, 09:16 PM
(This post was last modified: 07-12-2003, 09:17 PM by IlleglWpns.)
My curiousity aroused by Warblade's description of the AWFUL AWFUL things that blizzard did to the paladin in 1.10 and the general wailing and moaning about the increased difficulty and sucktitude of the patch, I finally decided to try it out for myself. What follows are my general impressions about what has changed and my experience playing an avenger in acts I and II normal.
General Observations:
The most striking change I noticed was the increased drop rate. (I usually play normal in players 8 so keep that in mind) For one thing, rares were practically falling out of the sky now. I'd generally find a rare in each major area I traversed, and most of them didn't suck! It seems that while the affix pool hasn't been reduced, the chances of individual affixes spawning have been tweaked. Generally the higher level rares seem to get higher level affixes more often (like more Ed%, leech, IAS) and the frequency of crappy mods like "5% chance to cast level 1 firebolt" is greatly reduced. Furthermore you get more rares from gambling. I usually get one rare every 5 gambles or so. IMO this is a great thing because rares are now viable endgame items and you can actually FIND them in singleplayer provided you try hard enough. Uniques and set items drop slightly more often, but it's not an earthshattering change.
Experience has also been boosted. At the end of Act I I was level 20. At the end of act II I was level 27. This is with minimal replaying (though I did visit the optional dungeons).
Monsters are tougher now. Not in terms of HP but in terms of offense. They hit harder, and elemental damage has been greatly increased (especially poison). Spectral hit is a dangerous boss mod now, and when a greater mummy poisons you with a melee attack you'll feel it (does something like 11-12 damage/sec). This is a nice change from 1.09 when lightning enchanted was pretty much all you had to worry about in normal. I got a nasty shock when was trapped in a pack of zombies facing Blood Raven, even run of the mill encounters can surprise you now.
Overall the game is a lot more interesting, even normal can be challenging at times and the increased item drops means that the boring unique driven economy of 1.09 might change and we might see some diversity in gear.
Act I:
Playing act I with a paladin (indeed any melee class) is a pedestrian affair. The blood moor had a LOT of fallen that got me to level 5 almost immediately. I found my first rare in the den of evil, and it was a doozy. A sceptre with 6-13 damage, 5% chance to cast amplify damage, +AR, and a few other mods. Blood raven was an interesting exercise in hit and run, worked out well except for the time that I got trapped. Tristram was easy. The countess was also easy pretty easy, I killed her entourage one by one as they filed through the doorway (actually my rogue merc did most of the killing). Somewhere along the way I found my first good unique, the axe of fechmar. Did good damage (10-22), gave a lot of cold resistance, and most importantly had a lovely "freezes target +3" mod. This enabled me to go shieldless most of the time. I got vengeance by the time I finished the outer cloister. I didn't have the mana to use it often, most of my killing was done with sacrifice and zeal with vengeance reserved for bosses. Proceeded down to the catacombs, my greatest challenge was dealing with boss packs of afflicted, their lightning balls HURT and elemental damage enchantments didn't help any. Nearly died a few times, my merc did die once (wouldn't stop shooting at a lightning enchanted one from point blank range). I switched to players 1 when dealing with andariel (I figured players 8 would mostly be an exercise in tedium). The battle went well. Antidotes allowed me to ignore her poison and she fell quickly to the might of vengeance.
Act II:
Upon reaching act II the first thing I did was send my rogue merc packing. While there's something to be said about having a good source of ranged damage as a melee character the rogue merc's AI was just too stupid. As it is she doesn't have the HP or defense to survive even the smallest mobs; being dense enough to exert her own gravitational field was the last straw. I replaced her with a nice defiance act II merc. (Unlike the rogue, their AI seems to have been tweaked. Now they try and attack the same target you are attacking, rather than just focusing on the closest monster. This is a good thing).
I then proceeded to sit most the act out while he wreaked horrible destruction on the evil hordes. I'll bet he must have been pretty pissed when he was in the middle of a horde of burning dead while I wandered the battlefield picking up potions and kicking open urns. My character was the middle manager of heroes, adept at delegating responsibility to his hapless subordinate.
"You there, disposable henchman #2, kill that skeleton!"
"Where's henchman #1?"
"You'll be finding out very soon if you keep asking stupid questions!"
At the end of Act II that merc did more damage than I did with vengeance! He also had something like 850 defense so he could sit in the middle of a mob while I organized my inventory according to color.
In terms of spoils, act II was the jackpot! The gold was flowing in gold rivers of, um, golditude, and I found many a rare (as well as a couple of uniques and a set item). I replaced my weapon with a "steel" broadsword, and later with a superior version of the same. (Open wounds is really quite nice, especially combined with poison charms). I found a really nice targe (it had everything, increased defense, faster blocking, increased block rate, 10% res all and a whopping 35% to lightning resistance) and I gambled a rare poleaxe for my merc to use.
There were a few notable encounters. One was when facing the summoner, I switched to resist fire (a synergy for vengeance) and his firewall barely touched me (usually it really, really hurts). He died with little ceremony. Duriel himself died an ignominous death. By that time I had something like 650 defense with holy shield with almost max blocking. He couldn't lay a claw on me and quickly succumbed.
At the end of act II I was level 27 and had the following skills:
1 vengeance
2 charge
4 holy shield
8 resist fire
1 meditation
1 vigor
1 concentration
+various miscellaneous pre reqs
I have a few thoughts about the new, improved paladin skill tree as well, but I'll save it for my next post.
General Observations:
The most striking change I noticed was the increased drop rate. (I usually play normal in players 8 so keep that in mind) For one thing, rares were practically falling out of the sky now. I'd generally find a rare in each major area I traversed, and most of them didn't suck! It seems that while the affix pool hasn't been reduced, the chances of individual affixes spawning have been tweaked. Generally the higher level rares seem to get higher level affixes more often (like more Ed%, leech, IAS) and the frequency of crappy mods like "5% chance to cast level 1 firebolt" is greatly reduced. Furthermore you get more rares from gambling. I usually get one rare every 5 gambles or so. IMO this is a great thing because rares are now viable endgame items and you can actually FIND them in singleplayer provided you try hard enough. Uniques and set items drop slightly more often, but it's not an earthshattering change.
Experience has also been boosted. At the end of Act I I was level 20. At the end of act II I was level 27. This is with minimal replaying (though I did visit the optional dungeons).
Monsters are tougher now. Not in terms of HP but in terms of offense. They hit harder, and elemental damage has been greatly increased (especially poison). Spectral hit is a dangerous boss mod now, and when a greater mummy poisons you with a melee attack you'll feel it (does something like 11-12 damage/sec). This is a nice change from 1.09 when lightning enchanted was pretty much all you had to worry about in normal. I got a nasty shock when was trapped in a pack of zombies facing Blood Raven, even run of the mill encounters can surprise you now.
Overall the game is a lot more interesting, even normal can be challenging at times and the increased item drops means that the boring unique driven economy of 1.09 might change and we might see some diversity in gear.
Act I:
Playing act I with a paladin (indeed any melee class) is a pedestrian affair. The blood moor had a LOT of fallen that got me to level 5 almost immediately. I found my first rare in the den of evil, and it was a doozy. A sceptre with 6-13 damage, 5% chance to cast amplify damage, +AR, and a few other mods. Blood raven was an interesting exercise in hit and run, worked out well except for the time that I got trapped. Tristram was easy. The countess was also easy pretty easy, I killed her entourage one by one as they filed through the doorway (actually my rogue merc did most of the killing). Somewhere along the way I found my first good unique, the axe of fechmar. Did good damage (10-22), gave a lot of cold resistance, and most importantly had a lovely "freezes target +3" mod. This enabled me to go shieldless most of the time. I got vengeance by the time I finished the outer cloister. I didn't have the mana to use it often, most of my killing was done with sacrifice and zeal with vengeance reserved for bosses. Proceeded down to the catacombs, my greatest challenge was dealing with boss packs of afflicted, their lightning balls HURT and elemental damage enchantments didn't help any. Nearly died a few times, my merc did die once (wouldn't stop shooting at a lightning enchanted one from point blank range). I switched to players 1 when dealing with andariel (I figured players 8 would mostly be an exercise in tedium). The battle went well. Antidotes allowed me to ignore her poison and she fell quickly to the might of vengeance.
Act II:
Upon reaching act II the first thing I did was send my rogue merc packing. While there's something to be said about having a good source of ranged damage as a melee character the rogue merc's AI was just too stupid. As it is she doesn't have the HP or defense to survive even the smallest mobs; being dense enough to exert her own gravitational field was the last straw. I replaced her with a nice defiance act II merc. (Unlike the rogue, their AI seems to have been tweaked. Now they try and attack the same target you are attacking, rather than just focusing on the closest monster. This is a good thing).
I then proceeded to sit most the act out while he wreaked horrible destruction on the evil hordes. I'll bet he must have been pretty pissed when he was in the middle of a horde of burning dead while I wandered the battlefield picking up potions and kicking open urns. My character was the middle manager of heroes, adept at delegating responsibility to his hapless subordinate.
"You there, disposable henchman #2, kill that skeleton!"
"Where's henchman #1?"
"You'll be finding out very soon if you keep asking stupid questions!"
At the end of Act II that merc did more damage than I did with vengeance! He also had something like 850 defense so he could sit in the middle of a mob while I organized my inventory according to color.
In terms of spoils, act II was the jackpot! The gold was flowing in gold rivers of, um, golditude, and I found many a rare (as well as a couple of uniques and a set item). I replaced my weapon with a "steel" broadsword, and later with a superior version of the same. (Open wounds is really quite nice, especially combined with poison charms). I found a really nice targe (it had everything, increased defense, faster blocking, increased block rate, 10% res all and a whopping 35% to lightning resistance) and I gambled a rare poleaxe for my merc to use.
There were a few notable encounters. One was when facing the summoner, I switched to resist fire (a synergy for vengeance) and his firewall barely touched me (usually it really, really hurts). He died with little ceremony. Duriel himself died an ignominous death. By that time I had something like 650 defense with holy shield with almost max blocking. He couldn't lay a claw on me and quickly succumbed.
At the end of act II I was level 27 and had the following skills:
1 vengeance
2 charge
4 holy shield
8 resist fire
1 meditation
1 vigor
1 concentration
+various miscellaneous pre reqs
I have a few thoughts about the new, improved paladin skill tree as well, but I'll save it for my next post.