What kind of silliness is that ?

[Arutha]

Just have a look at the Holy Bolt, Holy Shock, and Zeal 1.10 skills.

Zeals seems ok.

But the figures for Holy Shock and Holy Bolt are just plain silly and don't bode well at all for the kind of "balance" 1.10 shall introduce.
Also seems they've kept the cross-tree synergies.

"Sorry guys, we really had no idea how to fix and make the resistance auras attractive, so we decided not to try and just turned them into passive mastery-like skills."

Sheesh...

[Swarmalicious]

...if its from the old 'leaked' info up on Dii.net, then that data is likely incorrect - from what I gather, but the basic gist of how they're going to work is about right.


...or is there a new teaser list up somewhere today?

edit :

oh ...duh.


Goes to show which site I checked first, anyway. :)

[Rataxes]

You do, of course, realize that the sort of damage that Holy Bolt displays require immense investments into Blessed Hammer and Fist of Heavens? Even then, it only works against undead, and even then it is not at all much compared to the damage of some other d2 skills. Magic resistance will probably also be more common in v1.10.

As for Holy Shock, well again, it requires heavy investments in some pretty obscure skills (who the hell ever gets resist auras? I don't even think many raise Salvation beyond the base point, leaving skill adders to do the rest) to get that kind of damage. Monsters will also likely have far more hitpoints in v1.10 which will further outbalance the 1-5000 dmg range.

[Arutha]

The screenshots were taken from the same paladin.

Unless it was a test character with more skill points that he should have, which is possible but not likely (zeal isn't maxed for instance), that character has Holy Shock and Holy Bolt maxed, but it can't also have Resist Lightning, Salvation, Prayer and Blessed Hammer maxed.

So those figures most likely can even be improved.

Sorry, but to paraphrase Sirian, you don't balance a game by widening the "gap".

And what those figures point at is a HUGE gap (just check the amount of life that Holy Bolt heals).

[WarBlade]

That was exactly the kind of rubbish I was criticising right after the leak. <_< It's no wonder they can't balance the game. Even the simplest of concepts seems to elude them. :(

Cross-tree Synergies = Utterly Stupid. :angry:


edit: And we still haven't seen screenshots of the skills I really want to see. Salvation, Resist Lightning etc. <_<

[Arutha]

My first glance was a bit hasty, and that's two different pallies.

So full synergetic may be in effect.

I'll stand by my earlier comments, though.

Damage ranging in the high thousands is silly.
And look at the range of Holy Shock. 450 average damage every pulse in a full screen radius ??

[WarBlade]

We have yet to see what monster life bars look like. That damage may well be on par with current "time taken to kill this thing" numbers. ;)

OTOH you could look at that Prayer screenie for a comparison against something we'd expect to remain consistant with 1.09d. At a glance I make that out to exceed 350 life healed per shot and I don't expect character life bars to change much with 1.10. For me that figure would mean many of my characters would have full healing in around three shots with such a support Paladin backing me up . . . :blink:

Makes for some rather interesting boss fight and team dueling possibilties methinks.

But now consider how Prayer might be upgraded to compete with that. As it stands my Prayer specialist can currently generate 21 levels of Prayer for 7.33 life healed per second to all friendlies within range. After acknowledging that a comparative new figure should be significantly smaller because of being a multi-recipient skill, I still come to the conclusion that Prayer should be capable of doing 10 times its current figure figure to even remain situationally competitive. Further speculation gets me thinking about Prayer, plus a sustained barage of Holy Bolt and also support from my character's Prayer merc, at which point Sirian's gap rants start looking pretty clear. :blink:

(sigh)

Now I want a screenie of Prayer too. :unsure:

[HonorTemplar]

Wait... what are those red crosses on the auto-map? Are they supposed to be showing the monsters? Am I missing something here? Sorry it's been long since I've played the game.

[WarBlade]

Non-partied characters.
It could be a Druid or Necromancer and their posse.

[Arutha]

I think that skill "synergies" implemented that way are a wrong idea.

At first glance, it seems a great idea: it allows more diversity, by making skills having more than 20 effective skill levels.

But on second thought, it doesn't seem so good, for at least two reasons:

1- It actually doesn't promote diversity.
Really promoting diversity would mean striving to make each skill appealing as a main skill.
Instead of that, it encourages people into pouring points into those skills, but not actually using them.
Having Resist Lightning for instance increase Holy Shock damage may make people invest in it, which they never do nowadays, but still won't make people USE the skill.

2- It makes balancing the game even harder. A lot harder.
Considering Blizzard's utter failure on that score in all the previous versions of the game, making the job even harder isn't at all a good idea.


Synergies aren't necessarily bad. But not that way.
A example of a good synergy is Fist of Heavens / Holy Bolt.
I don't know how it works, but let's assume that the holy bolts fired by FoH use your Holy Bolt skill level. There you have a skill synergy of the right kind.

[WarBlade]

For one thing the Paladin has long been established as a two-skill combo character with a smattering of alternate skills like Holy Shield to offer support. By moving the current 2 tree split, we'll see a three tree split making the Paladin a mass of subtle upgrades, not unlike the way the Barbarian is now. While conceptually this completely rewrites what the Paladin is, it also messes with his availble points on a comparative basis. Consider Elemental Druid Synergies. You can pretty much dump all your points down one side of the tree and all of your Synergies are in prerequisites, ie the moment you can buy your top damage dealers it will already have points in it's Synergy skills. A Paladin on the other hand throws his points into his two combo skills, plus any prerequisites, any Synergies he can afford and finally may or may not try for Holy Shield. On one hand this could be a point stretch and on the other he's already at 1 or 2 or 3 point deficits, meaning comparison imbalances are probable.

This might be pig for an Avenger (unless the new Vengeance skill does down to a 3 mana cost or similar) who typically splits points between four skills as it is and at the same time the Shock Zealot of today still has plenty of points to spend into Zeal (if not maxed already) and Resist Lightning. <_< I'll wait until I see the new Vengeance before crying over spilled milk just yet though.

[Dyntheos]

It's interesting that they forgot to turn off maphack in those shots...

naughty blizzard. :lol:

[Slasher]

I'm surprised that noone has noted the glow around the Paladin yet. Full Griswold set perhaps?

[Hammerskjold]

>But the figures for Holy Shock and Holy Bolt are just plain silly and don't bode well at all for the kind of "balance" 1.10 shall introduce.

Kinda hard to say how balanced it is, considering I haven't seen any real clue of how tough the living dead (or any other monsters) would be in 1.1. Though if a player needs any skill level at 29 to even scratch a monster in Hell mode, I'm not that excited.

>"Sorry guys, we really had no idea how to fix and make the resistance auras attractive, so we decided not to try and just turned them into passive mastery-like skills."

I don't mean this sarcastically, but do you have any other ideas to make those auras attractive? The best I can come up with so far is make the Resistance Aura branch more like the Amazon's Passive and Magic branch. Things like Meditation and Redemption would remain a selectable aura, but consider making those 3 resists aura into either a passive, an elemental mastery, or both.

Just my opinion, all these screenshots are pretty, but incomplete information, and I'd rather have the actual release.

[WarBlade]

I don't mean this sarcastically, but do you have any other ideas to make those auras attractive?&nbsp; The best I can come up with so far is make the Resistance Aura branch more like the Amazon's Passive and Magic branch.&nbsp; Things like Meditation and Redemption would remain a selectable aura, but consider making those 3 resists aura into either a passive, an elemental mastery, or both.

All the three single Resist Auras would have to do is add to Maximum Resistance at 0.5% per level and they'd be worth something. Salvation? So many other variables, take your pick. Paladins typically have a smallish life value, so something like Oak Sage added to Salvation would encourage people to sink a few points in it. Another option would be Magic Resistance.

[Arutha]

I don't mean this sarcastically, but do you have any other ideas to make those auras attractive? The best I can come up with so far is make the Resistance Aura branch more like the Amazon's Passive and Magic branch. Things like Meditation and Redemption would remain a selectable aura, but consider making those 3 resists aura into either a passive, an elemental mastery, or both.

I thought about that long ago.
There are two ways of achieving that result:

1- Balance the game in such a way that about half the time, defense is preferable to offense.
Tricky, but maybe doable.

2- Since players naturally favour offense over defense, give even defensive skills some offensive punch.
There would be for instance two easy ways of achieving that with the resistance auras.
First, rename them "Cold Shield", "Fire Shield", "Lightning Shield".
Then either:
1- Every ally in the radius gets elemental resistance, elemental absorb.
Every foe in the radius gets hit with elemental damage.
(in other words, transfer the splash damage from the offensive auras to the defensive auras).
or:
2- Every ally in the radius gets elemental resistance, elemental absorb.
Every ally in the radius also gets "elemental thorns": foes hitting them (or even merely attacking them) take elemental damage (could be a fixed amount, or a returned %).

I would also probably remove Salvation altogether (it has its uses, to counter Conviction enchanted bosses for instance, but that's not enough to urge people to invest heavily in it and use it as a main aura) and replace it with a "Magic Shield" aura along the same lines, but this time dealing with "magic" damage.

[davcol]

Posts of this sort always confuse me. Without knowing what changes have been made to monster hit points and resistances how can we know that this damage is too high? Or have I missed a screenshot somewhere that gives some insight into monster changes?

And if the monsters have been given similar increases in their ability to deal damage how has the 'gap' been widened?

I think Arutha is being a tad pessimistic here. I have high hopes that the people working on the patch aren't complete idiots, and I'm going to reserve judgement until I've seen the finished product.


-davcol

[TaiDaishar]

3129.5 average damage of both the elemental splash and the added damage to weapon, at first it looks way overpowered, but lets look at the factors:

1) The monsters' life are being doubled, making this 3129.5 average damage to like 1564.75 damage in the current patch.

2) The paladin gives up a speed AND damage boosting aura which could give his life-leeching items a lot more impact on the survivability of the paladin

3) I believe Blizzard said there will be more elemental resistances and less physical resists, so in order to compensate for more monsters with resists and/or immunities to lightning they got to make it look good.

4) The only good way a paladin can deliver the full damage of Holy Shock is to be in melee range and Zeal away, something that will be more dangerous than usual due to the fact he don't got fanat to boost his physical damage to life leech enough to make him survive, meaning a lot more investment on life/defensive equiqment.

What they did is by far not the best of ideas but it's something, something more than we usually would've gotten if it was not Blizzard so take that in mind, and read Bolty's loungerant about the patch :).

[Arutha]

And if the monsters have been given similar increases in their ability to deal damage how has the 'gap' been widened?

If you raise the range of possible values, you widen the "gap".
That's mechanical.

It's a well know vicious circle amongst RPG gamers.
Bigger characters, bigger weapons, bigger monsters... until it becomes ludicrous.
And that's the trend Blizzard North seems to be following with Diablo 2.

My pessimism isn't born out of the blue. There's a precedent: LOD.

Now, if by some miracle, in spite of their following that recipe for disaster, Blizzard North manages to pull a balanced 1.10 version of the game, I'll be delighted to have been proven wrong.

[davcol]

Clearly there's something I don't understand here. Perhaps someone can enlighten me.

As long as the increased range of values is uniformly applied you have in essence only changed the scale on which damage is measured. How does this affect game play?

-davcol