Changes to A.S.

[whyBish]

As mentioned elsewhere, delirium now lists stun as an effect.

Exceptional boot damage is about half of the original beta values, and elite boot damage is listed at about a third of the original beta values. This will definately tone down the kickers, but they are still an exceptionally strong build for normal.

Ladder realm listed as being 'more difficult than the Beta', and that NM/Hell monsters will all be essentially 'like superuniques'

[Nechtán]

Read :

- Kick-based characters are now useless.
- Delirium wasn't overpowered enough.
- All ladder superuniques will be one hit kills unless you are wearing a bunch of super uniques, which you get by killing said superuniques. (tone down all the ridiculous bonuses, both on superuniques and super uniques, please, kthx)

:angry:

[Crystalion]

- Kick-based characters are now useless.

Well, part of the kick base damage isn't from the boots (~25% of Str+dex) so decreasing the boot damage by 50% isn't a 50% nerf, especially when you consider that that doesn't reduce the elemental adders at all... a Dragon Talon specialist, blessed by Enchant, might still be ridiculously high damage to a single target.

- Delirium wasn't overpowered enough.

Who knows? Maybe "stun" is affecting the wearer (i.e. the *player* or hireling) and is thus a (needed) nerf to Delerium.

I'm still rather disturbed that they didn't try out more fixes on us in the last couple of months. I mean no insult to their QA process in believing that they couldn't possibly have found all the nits we would have published for them from a release candidate. Oh well. I hope they still have someone to do post-release emergency fixes, sans Peter Hu.

My cynical side has always believed v1.10 is probably largely driven by marketing saying they need an update pre-xmas for a new (final) bundle to channel (afaik, excluding the clunky battle chest thing, D2+LoD has never been consolidated into a *single* box, which would have been typical, if only for distribution reasons, by this time). I would expect the new combo box to be the reduced size standard (the "paperback" size standard). If this is correct, then the mass exodus of key D2 personnel might mean we'll never again see corrections to play balance/bugs and will have to rely on mod makers.

Other big questions for the release (apart from the noted tone-down on the kick damage, and play balance adjustment to rune words)...

Were all the horrible bugs corrected (e.g. the +item effect over add-up, like +mana/kill; client/host desyncs)?

Was rune rushing/baal rushing tweaked?

%ed jewels off weapon changed? %vs. undead/demons?

CE still scaling?

Are raised skelies still studly? valks?

Are summons/hires still getting elemental immunities easily?

Cold Mastery pierces cold immunity (if so, how calculated)?

Enchant, synergized Blessed Hammer and Holy Bolt still at high damage beta levels?

[NiteFox]

Who knows? Maybe "stun" is affecting the wearer (i.e. the *player* or hireling) and is thus a (needed) nerf to Delerium.

Actually, that would be pretty damned cool.

[Guest]

from what i understand, kick damage is displayed in the character screen but it doesn't actually add it to your kicks. so if they fixed it and made it half, that's better than nothing at all.

Who knows? Maybe "stun" is affecting the wearer (i.e. the *player* or hireling) and is thus a (needed) nerf to Delerium.

.....which wouldn't matter at all, since stun doesn't work on players.

[Crystalion]

from what i understand, kick damage is displayed in the character screen but it doesn't actually add it to your kicks. so if they fixed it and made it half, that's better than nothing at all.

A.S. today bumped the damage numbers up to what they were in v1.10s, so I imagine the first numbers posted were just a mistake. :-)

.....which wouldn't matter at all, since stun doesn't work on players.

Well, stun affecting your hireling would be a big deal, eh? Even if stun doesn't affect you, my understanding is that being in delirium is like wereform, in that you can't use your normal skills? That already offers some balance for players (not to mention the SF monsters attracted to you magnet).

It will be fun testing all this stuff SP once the release comes out. Pity that that wastes time that could be spent playing Ladder characters though.

[Nadreck]

.....which wouldn't matter at all, since stun doesn't work on players.

Well before 1.10 no spell turning the target into an undead stygian doll worked on players either...

[whyBish]

from what i understand, kick damage is displayed in the character screen but it doesn't actually add it to your kicks.

:blink:

Ehm... Then I must have been seriously deluding myself???
I ran two kickers, and both were doing massive damage even before facing andariel. Switching boots upwards also gave noticeable increases in killing speed...

[MongoJerry]

Interesting that nobody's mentioned this, yet: 'Call to Arms' had its war cry skill levels massively reduced. I know many people here would prefer there be no cross-class skills at all, but for my part, I think this was a good decision on their part. A 'Call to Arms' weapon would be an excellent item to have, but it won't be the all-powerful item it was in the beta.

[Ruvanal]

reguarding the boot damage...

A.S. today bumped the damage numbers up to what they were in v1.10s, so I imagine the first numbers posted were just a mistake. :-)

Those first values were pulled from the v1.09 MPQ data. Keep in mind this is the types of errors to expect all through the AS information; 'facts' from previous versions mixed in with new stuff without being able to readily discern the two. This will also apply to any sites that primarily copy for the AS or do not toughly update all their information sections.

[Nechtán]

Interesting that nobody's mentioned this, yet:  'Call to Arms' had its war cry skill levels massively reduced.

+2 to All Skill Levels
+2-6 To Battle Command (varies)
+1-6 To Battle Orders (varies)
____ +
+4-9 to Battle Orders
= +44-59% HP/mana/stamina

"Massively reduced" is apparently in the eye of the beholder.

~

Let's take a sorcie with Enigma (+2 all), dual SoJ (+2 all), Arachnid Mesh (+1 all), Lidless Wall (+1 all), Mara's Kaleidoscope (+2 all), Griffon's Eye (+1 all), Annihilus (+1 all) and a perfect Call to Arms (+2 all, +6 BO, +1 from BC). This will be the usual sorceress gear about one week after the release of 1.10.
____ +
+19 to Battle Orders
= +89% HP/mana/stamina (215 seconds)

Did I mention that Energy Shield is improved by both the life and mana increase? Cute.

~

Then there is the +1-4 to Battle Cry, which (given the above mentioned usual sorcie gear), ends up at level :
____ +
+17 to Battle Cry
= -41% damage inflicted (50.4 seconds, unreduced in NM/Hell)

with a nice added -82% target defense, which is useless for sorcies, but gives autohit to everyone else in the party.

~

Battle Orders gives you 1.89 times as many hit points, then Battle Cry reduces physical damage by 41%, allowing the "hero" to absorb 3.15 times as many physical hits before dying.

And that is without Energy Shield.

~

But they did "massively reduce" the warcry levels !

[MongoJerry]

That begs the question: If you have all of that equipment, do you still need the 'Call to Arms' weapon? Any character with the absolutely perfect equipment that you described will clear hell Act V without thought. I could equip any type of character with perfect equipment and show how uber overpowered that type of character and those item combinations would be. A person using realistic equipment, however, will find that the 'Call to Arms' weapon, made of medium rare runes, will give them a useful boost but will find that their war cries will need to be refreshed frequently (and by the way, I doubt that battle cry will be used very often, since its radius is so small. Even Grizabella only used it on special occasions). In addition, we'll no longer have the situation where sorceresses and necromancers will be running around with higher level Battle Orders than barbarians. You may whine and complain that there shouldn't be any cross-class skills at all, but I think we should be glad that Blizzard significantly reduced the levels of the war cries on 'Call to Arms.'

[Nechtán]

Firstly, the "perfect equipment" consists mostly of 1.09 items, and unique drop rates have been increased. A lot. The only thing that is hard to get is Enigma. And Annihilus, of course.

And those items are a sorcie's dream items anyway, with or without Call to Arms, so it's not even like you would have to switch out half your equipment every two minutes to refresh Battle Orders.

Secondly, if the above mentioned items are enough to "own Hell difficulty", then Call to Arms should not even exist. Slaughtering the hardest monsters in the game without an item that doubles your life and mana, and then being able to equip such an item... It would be like an 1.09 character dominating Hell with a Windforce and then equipping a 300-900 damage -80 unique bow with +8 skill levels and 50% Amplify Damage on striking.

Call to Arms is as unbalanced for skill-bonus-heavy characters as Delirium is for melee characters, for the same reason. Hell may be easy even without these items, but with them it becomes truly ridiculous.

[MongoJerry]

Let's take a sorcie with Enigma (+2 all), dual SoJ (+2 all), Arachnid Mesh (+1 all), Lidless Wall (+1 all), Mara's Kaleidoscope (+2 all), Griffon's Eye (+1 all), Annihilus (+1 all) and a perfect Call to Arms (+2 all, +6 BO, +1 from BC). This will be the usual sorceress gear about one week after the release of 1.10.

The only thing that is hard to get is Enigma. And Annihilus, of course.

OK, I play legit hardcore, so my idea of item scarcity is very different from what one would see in softcore trading games. For my experience, the last legit SOJ I've gotten was one I gambled in classic D2, and I've never seen a Mara'a Kaleidoscope, Arachnid Mesh, or Griffon's Eye, except in Nobbie's 1.10 beta items package. Also, what time I'll spend on bnet will be in the fresh ladder games where there aren't, at least in the beginning, any duped runes or items. If a new duping exploit is discovered, then you're right that kind of equipment will again be common, but if not, then there's no way that that gear will be generally available "about one week after the release of 1.10." Certainly, they won't be commonly available in hardcore ladder games, which are the only ones I care about.

[Nechtán]

If a new duping exploit is discovered, then you're right that kind of equipment will again be common, but if not, then there's no way that that gear will be generally available "about one week after the release of 1.10"

That's exactly what I mean - the hackers are more than prepared for 1.10. The existence of unrevealed, undetected, undetectable hacks is known among everyone including Blizzard themselves, but they can't do anything about it. The hackers are just keeping them a secret until 1.10 hits. And they will use them. The thousands of $$$ that can be gained for ladder items on Ebay are too tempting.