Making Sense of the Madness

[Bolty]

While details are great and I enjoy reading them, there has been only a few discussions of the overall effect 1.10 has on gameplay. In brief, who "wins" with 1.10? Who "loses?" What playing styles were made obsolete? What playing styles have been beefed up (and of course, there are some yet discovered I'd bet)? What items, once considered uber, are no longer? And vice versa? How have strategies changed against monster types? What about rushing? Cows? Twinking? Where are the "hot" spots to level up? What are potential abuses? Are variants "impossible" now? Is solo play going the way of the dodo?

Time may be required to answer all of these. I'm by no means an expert of this game - my focus has always been squarely on my favorite class, the Sorceress. I know how she's turned out. Synergy specialization seems the way to go (if you're in a party), but playing her solo now requires much more skill and strategy than before. But what else has occurred?

Consider yourself an expert on a character class and one or more of its playing styles (don't be shy, you know you're good)? Please chime in. I'd like to form an article of sorts that sums things up in these first weeks of 1.10, and I'm looking for quotes. I need lots of help making sense of all the changes.

-Bolty

[loonygloss]

Well, I've always liked the necromancer, and though I wouldn't say that I'm an expert (though I do fit the engineers' definition), I feel I may be able to give a few points.

Both now and in the beta, I played a skeleton warrior necromancer.

Max RS before SM. Raise Skeleton now gets + damage, +%ed, and though a 1SM, 20RS gives about the same bonuses as a 20SM 1RS, the former gives you 7 more skeletons. It starts a little slower, so looking for wands and heads that add to these two skills is advised. Once you get up a few levels, the damage is obscene. ~40 damage, by the end of act 1, at the moment. On each of the 8 skeletons. It comes back into balance by the time you reach Hell, but a 52 SM/RS could be nasty, should one choose to go all out there.

Keeping them alive is interesting. You are either fine or dead, with a very thin line between the two. Decrepify is essential with the more dangerous packs, and attract really shines now with the more powerful ranged attackers. Chilling and freezing are two big worries, and you really need to use attract to get your skeletons out of this. That, or another attack. I found that acting as a supporter, rather than a main attacker, allowed me to have a great deal of control over the battles through cursing. I'd attract a few monsters, then amp, the watch my skeletons attack unhindered, or decrepify a nasty bosspack/Diablo/Baal and watch the skeletons stop crumbling and start killing. Great fun.

The build only uses about 55 skill points, so can be paired with CE, PN, heavy curse invesments, Golem, or expanded to a full overlord.

[TabithaWolf]

It's funny listening to people whine about losing cows and the foothills. It's even funnier seeing people try to do foothill runs for experience and watching them all drop like flies to the ranged attackers (which have huge range out on the open foothills).

In nightmare, I was leveling great from 40-60 just by finding an act 2 game with 6 or so people and never mentioning that I had any of the way points. Follow them and kill stuff as you progress through each of the areas. Now that I'm in the 60's, leveling is slower and act 4 & 5 games are preferable. I think in hell, the best experience runs I've seen so far were going through the Chaos Sanctuary. Run through with a party of 8, watch eachother's backs, have a bit of challenge, and pick up a basket of goodies when Diablo dies. I missed these a lot from the classic days. I also think runs through the various passages (halls of pain, crystaline, frozen river, glacial trail, drifter cavern, ancients way, halls of pain) in act 5 would be great for experience, since game hopping won't be necessary and the narrow passages prevent ranged attackers from overwhelming you.

I don't think synergies are entirely necessary to play a successful sorceress. My tri-elementalist (cl/orb/hydra) does rather well with nothing invested in synergies and a minimum in masteries (debating point placement at the moment). Obviously, she doesn't have the same damage output of specialized sorcs, but she is always able to contribute to the party, since there's never more than 2 immunities on any given monster.

My most successful play style is with an old 1.05 or 1.06 style javazon, who hasn't changed much. I'm still indestructable, but I also do little damage. I got an awesome imbue (312% ed elite) that helps a lot. I'm currently gambling for a good dual leech ring.

I think solo play is still viable if you want to, but really only in a truly solo game (not soloing in an 8 player game). Obviously, some builds are going to have an easier time at this than others. You could run through nightmare completely alone if it suited your fancy. In hell, its much harder to do solo, especially if you only specialize in 2 types of attacks (ie. phys & lightning, cold & fire, etc.).

I've noticed merc leveling to be better and worse. For instance, my husband hired a barb for his blizzard sorc (awesome damage, btw). They started out the same level, but every time he dies, he falls behind the sorc in levels. I think there's now over 5 levels difference between them. I hired a holy freeze merc, and as long as I keep him alive, he levels by the time I get half way to the next level up. Of course, mercs are still stupid and will kill themselves with iron maiden.

[Guest]

Baal run in normal to 50 and in NM to 70+ has people leveling fast.

Its more interesting than cows but just as quick.

Its hard to compare to 1.09 so far because it wise to stay in normal and hell for about 15 levels more than I used to.(Im talking soft core).

[CorwinBrute]

I tested a few 1.09 bowazon and sorceress builds, mostly in solo games in Hell. Here are a few quick observations :

Bowazon observations :

1) You need crowd control even more than before in some areas. That would include : cold damage, well positioned Decoy and Valkyrie, a though merc, and ideally another crowd control modifier (HCMTF, Knockback...).

2) Chance to cast has been greatly nerfed with regard to Freezing Arrow splash radius, and it's good. It's still very easy to trigger Amp damage (for example) with Strafe or Multishot, though

3) Strafe is back to a good part of its former glory, especially against small groups of critters or bosses. :P As a side note, Strafe and MS are still mostly ridiculously overpowered.

4) In a typical Blizzard fashion, Guided Arrow was overnerfed by a large, large margin. Not only was Pierce removed, but it seems the targeting mechanism is broken, and you can't even use it well to scout and shoot from corners. A one point skill now, and I'm even considering going back to Ice Arrow as a Left Button skill on most of my zons. If I were to redo my bowazons, I would replace maxed Guided (on the zons with it) by maxed Magic Arrow (of all things) or Synergy investments.

5) For the bowazon (I tried with elemental and physical-based zons), it seems most good 1.09 build can handle 1.10 Hell in single game (I haven't tried the cheap Burritozon yet, though), provided there is a good draw of monsters in Act5 (more on that later). It seems synergies are mostly there to help solo in larger games. An unbalanced bowazon design taking advantage of synergies could, for example, reach absolutely ridiculous Cold Damage levels by maxing Cold Arrow, Freezing Arrow, and Pierce (still an uber skill, this one). After that, you just have to wait for the luck of the draw to give you a good monsters mix, and you are set.

6) You need points in Decoy and Valkyrie now. The upside is that a high-level Valkyrie is a terrific tank.

7) Immolation is still too weak. At least, now, a Slvl 25+ Immolation isn't put to shame by a Slvl 1 Fire Arrow.

8) Leech has been severely toned down, but as was theorized a while ago, it breaks some melee builds while merely annoying the bowazon. I've replaced my 4th column in my belt by mana pots on all my characters, though.

General observations :

1) Item drops are good. There is no need to do repetitive MF runs anymore, playing with even a small amount of MF in various areas already gives superb returns. The game is much less frustrating this way. On the other hand, it seems rune drops are horrible now, and charms and jewels aren't that hot either. Rares have been much, much beefed up, and now even low-TC weapons are worth identifying, because they can be upgraded.

2) Monsters are thougher, but it seems the "gap" was reduced : I've had fewer cheap deaths than in the past (although stair traps are still deadly), but a larger number of deaths to regular monsters. There are a few monsters that I think are over the top, though, like Gloams, and Minotaurs run too fast.

3) Hell Baal is ridiculous now : the fight is less challenging than in 1.09, but he has insane amount of life. *Yawn*. The Diablo Clone, on the other hand, is very, very challenging and fun to fight.

4) Act 5 is now "why bother". It seems the only way they found to increase the difficulty was to import the bestiary of acts 2/3/4 (in beefier kinds). So the difficulty is ranging from challenging to "insane" depending on the luck of the draw, and there is absolutely no "flavor" whatsoever. Blech.

5) Experience is now good in all acts. I was pleasantly surprised to see my bar actually grow past level 80 in Act 1 Hell, single game. The difficulty to level up seems to come from the fact that death are much more frequent now.

6) Item-wise, rare weapons are good (that was already said), and they improved the Class sets a lot. Of course, that means finding all this stuff again. :P The new runewords are ridiculous for the most part, both in power and rarity.

As a conclusion, 1.10 is for me a very, very pleasant surprise. The bowazon is still very powerful, but her role is more in line with version 1.03, before the Age of the Barbazon (a Dark Age indeed) : she can provide ranged support to a party and excels at Crowd Control, but unlike a barb she mostly lacks the focused power to quickly dispatch powerful enemies.

[Occhidiangela]

He's back.

The Synergies are good, and my favorite little item is that Vigor boosts both Charge and Blessed hammer passively. This puts the Charge Concentration Paladin back into the game.

Sadly, my beta Hammerdin never finished, I finally go past the Maggot lair one day when I overcame my video lag due to spawn rate, died a few times to Duriel (Used pots and merc and hammers to eventually kill him) and was just starting Act III when the beta ended.

In SP, Hammerdin needs to think about how to deal with cramped spaces, otherwise, he kills damn near everything, even if he has to be patient.

Blocking, DR and fast cast are of course key, as is cast and run against fast packs of frenzytaurs. If you stand still long enough, you are screwed against certain enemies.

Bloody Foothills, use a charges of Dim Vision wand to blind the ranged attackers, or use Attract. Attracts limited range hurts, though, and can get you hurt.

Using Cloak of Shadows from items is also a great way to cut the pain from the better ranged attackers.

NOTE: All monsters with bows hit harder, and the standard "four champ archer crossfire" in the Barracks has been in every game I have entered. You will die if you don't watch out and get caught in the crossfire without a lot of -DR or otherwise. You cant DV champs, nor Cloak them. Attract might work, I have not tried it yet.

NOTE: Ghostly monsters slow and or freeze you. Beware.

NOTE: Dumb luck helps. Skin of the Viper Magi Cannot Be Frozen was a godsend in Hell diff. You need it, or you will get slow and dead. HC beware.

[LavCat]

As yet I have not started any new 1.10 characters, but I have been playing. Primarily sorceresses (melee and mf), paladin, and werebear. All SC.

I leveled my mf sorceress in 1.10, but I doubt I will play her much. She died once, but had great fun recovering her own body. When one is SC and 99, death has lost much of it's adrenaline appeal. Her main observation is that things move faster. Her attacks are orb and fire ball, and without a good way to prevent getting mobbed, her build is more difficult.

On the other hand, my melee sorceress now does 8000 average damage with her little axe, and AR is much improved. I'd say this build is easier -- and with her level 35 enchant, she is a hit at parties.

My fanatic zealot is just that: he rushes in and wacks away. Not much skill or strategy. He had 24 extra skill points and used them to max sacrifice for the synergy. So far he has gone through just about all areas of act 5 and has not met much opposition. The one exception being Pindleskin. He found "run in and wack" was no longer the best solution in this case. The new method is to stand there looking handsome in his sanctuary aura...while his faithful rogue, Aliza, drops the defiled warriors one by one at range.

Without the undead dolls to one hit kill, he is far happier in 1.10. The once dreaded foes like Shenk or Thresh Socket are no longer. His minimum time for the diablo clone has been thirty seconds. Average is one to two minutes. Five charms so far and counting.

The werebear is a lot of fun, though the skills seem about the same as before the patch. In a couple of days I've taken him from 63 to 70 in acts 1 and 2. No deaths. The play has been challenging, particularly soloing in multiplayer games. Mana burn monsters have been the most difficult. He has no mana steal. When he turns 71, I think I will try him with Naj's Light Plate. In 1.09 I usually had to level up in nightmare before braving hell, so in this case I'd have to say 1.10 is easier.

[Caaroid]

Hi

I by no means try to sound like an expert, but I got this "feeling" that 1.10 is closest to 1.04 from all the patches. How do I mean?

Take the old character classes.
- amazons are powerful, but not all-powerful. They definitelly need tanks now, vakk+decoy+merc, preferrably a pala or barb or both
- paladins are more powerful now, hammerdins are silly again just as much as they used to be in 1.04. Zealots are useful both for support and as "the weaker" melee type
- barbs are back to the old division: either PvP or PvM. This time it's not the weapon, but the skill distribution that separates the two main barb builds. Doule throwers are viable (greatest difference from 1.04 IMHO).
- sorceresses are again rather powerful, in the old way. I agree with Bolty on this one; specialization is the way to go (although I do have a meteor/cl sorc, and she is fun; it is just so irritating see everyone else outkill me in their "niche". It seems that different types of specialized sorceresses working in teams make terribly fast-killing task forces)
- necromancers are (finally) back to their old glory, even more so if it's possible. At the moment they seem to be the aces of the PvP games (a necro with average eqipment can kill the 160/60 Windforcezons, now that's something one would not have expected back in 1.09), and they are also very powerful in PvM (revive is again THE skill to kill things with; the faster, smarter monsters make extremely powefrul revives; I've seen the killing speed double of a 6-7 member party from a single zookeeper). The fact that skeletons got beefed up might make me go back to playing only-necro again.

The new classes:
Here of course the "1.04 feeling" cannot come back. I think that the druid got the stick with 1.10; it's melee skills got no improvement (and don't anyone tell me that they have ever or will use fire claws or rabies), and it's elemental skills need soo much investment to work, that you cannot have the necessary (summons, etc) secondary skills at a level where the lower damage output of the druid's elemental attack can be offset by the "greater safety he enjoys" (compared to the ES-using teleporting sorceresses).

The assassin got many many very interesting changes. Trap synergies make the trapassin as 1.10 viable as she was 1.09 viable, variants still playable (and I happen to enjoy mine big time). Changes to the blade skills give other nice opportunities, and the martial arts synergies make meleeing also quite effective. The boot kick damage made kicksins not only viable, but very powerful melee fighters of 1.10. To me it feels that the assassin got improved in every respect.

The game generally feels tougher. I'm not talking about the "Uber Diablo", since I've never met him :( (he is not so frequent in Europe than in US-East it seems), but about the general gameplay. You have to pay more attention (95% fire resist and 500 life and still getting nailed by balrogs, etc), thus the game is more like pre-expansion.

[Ferengi]

I by no means try to sound like an expert, but I got this "feeling" that 1.10 is closest to 1.04 from all the patches.

Yup, I'd agree. I'm back to all the old tactical tricks I used back then. For instance:

Using constrictions to limit the monsters into a funnel. Then it becomes "Who's First?" and so on.

I'm back to doing full clears, since if an area has no 'one-hit-kills' monsters, I'd rather stay there than discover what lies beyond that next area exit.

Run Away! Run Away! The game has killer rabbits! For my non-sorcs, I am really good at running backwards past whatever helpers I have with me. With the increased gold drops, paying for merc revival is not much of a problem. With the sorc, TK has found new life for doors and chests. I thought that you used to be able to activate a TP with TK, guess that hack fix removed that handy feature (think about Meph's portal in a 'hot' room).

I'm playing far below my normal level for all areas, just as I did on 1.04. I know a lot about the Blood Moor in NM for instance! Only this time, I can get decent experience there. And the pace of the game is slow, in fact this may be the greatest problem.

The purpose of game play is to get some relaxation and to feel some accomplishment (otherwise, it is no escape from RL). WIth the pace so slow, it's difficult to feel good about killing 49 Quill Rats...again.

The other thing that is evident to me is that 1.10 is NOT the beta. My entire carefully planned BP+Confuse necro is going to be useless. In the beta, an enchanted boss pack was a no-brainer. Confuse would remove the aura from the minions and turn the pack into a civil war and Bone Prisons would hold. A minionless necro was possible with some nimble fingers. But 1.10 is different, an aura pack shows the Confuse animation, but nothing happens (if anything, the pack seems more interested in getting me). I've got 20+ points invested in BP&BW and have watched far too many prisons disappear in a single blow (but there are some strange events here, sometimes suddenly they hold for a long time and I cast a dozen to be sure).

So the other thing that reminds me about 1.04 is how little I know now about the gameplay....the real question is will I be willing to spend the time to learn everything again? Chances are the first alternative game that looks good will win. Especially if a "solo-8" style of play is now out.

[Ferengi]

Bloody Foothills, use a charges of Dim Vision wand to blind the ranged attackers, or use Attract.  Attracts limited range hurts, though, and can get you hurt.

NOTE:  All monsters with bows hit harder, and the standard "four champ archer crossfire" in the Barracks has been in every game I have entered.  You will die if you don't watch out and get caught in the crossfire without a lot of -DR or otherwise.  You cant DV champs, nor Cloak them.

I find Confuse a better choice. In Normal the monsters will not kill each other, but they probably won't try to kill anything but another confused monster. In NM, they can kill each other, meaning less for you to eliminate. Confuse range gets rather large.

Yup the arrows are a threat, give them something 'behind' them to pay attention to while you stab them in the back...or at least one of them. Another 'feature' from my 1.04 days, pick them off one at a time. So the other technique is to use obstructions to their field of fire to allow ranged attacks against 1 or 2. I predict that Ice Iron Wolves will be good mercs.

[Brista]

I'll write a little from a hardcore Hell perspective, some of these points don't matter so much in softcore

Firstly melee is a much tougher proposition. This is not necessarily a bad thing but it does need to be understood and accepted. Some people will relish the challenge

Next you find tons of good items. Sackloads. No twink is really only a big issue for your first character since if you make it to Hell you'll find a ton of stuff for your other characters to use and the sort of weapons that make you think about starting a new character to try them

Next summoners are now a major force. Not only are summons considerably better in offence now, but there is a much greater need for expendable tanks. Most notably the skeletons but also Valkyries and druid pets. I was amused to see a game titled AncientsNeedNec - definitely the shape of things to come

Next the Gap. This has increased in two ways. First a character with godly items has much better gear than his 1.09 predecessor. Secondly a power build (cookie cutter) is much stronger than a variant

Significantly, you can now play wherever you want without being less efficient in terms of exp and items. I got a great item off Mephisto then shortly after an equally awesome one in the City of the Damned. A friend is systematically magic finding Hell Blood Moor. Exp as you play through the game is fine and you certainly dont need to stay in Normal till level 40 for the sake of efficiency - you'll probably level faster in Act 1 Nightmare. Obscure places like the Swampy Pit and The Hole have been tweaked sp that chests there drop better. People who just wander around the map with no particular plan will reap rewards very close to those garnered by people who figure out an optimal area and farm it over and over. There really is no need to do 20 Bloody or Cows runs in a row unless that's how you enjoy playing

Is Hell too hard? No, look at the ladder, there are swarms of level 80+ characters inside the first week, all classes are represented.

Do we have to party now? I don't think so. I solo quite a lot. Amp and Lower Resist can be found on weapons and wands and generally pierce immunities. Some builds wont be able to do some quests but this was true in 1.09 - I recall giving up on a Fire Immune Geleb with my Firewall/Thunderstorm sorc. Just follow the basic notion that if you're getting into trouble you need to go back to an easier area and you should be fine :)

PKing is less of a threat, there's a delay now. Staying on your toes when playing with strangers is still required as there are plenty of other ways hostile people can mess you up

One significant danger in Hardcore Hell is the Diablo Clone. From time to time you will see messages about Stones of Jordan being sold to merchants. This doesn't matter. Eventually you will get the message Diablo Walks the Earth. When you see this you need to decide whether you want to fight the Diablo Clone, the toughest monster in the game. Because the next superunique you come across will be the clone. Now that may be the opportunity for an exhilerating fight plus a crack at getting an Annihilus. What you musn't do is just ignore it and play on. Imagine a Ruined Temple stairs trap with that thing waiting for you instead of Sarina :lol:

Overall I think it's a great patch but players do need to adapt and those that can't won't have a great time

[CorwinBrute]

Next the Gap. This has increased in two ways. First a character with godly items has much better gear than his 1.09 predecessor. Secondly a power build (cookie cutter) is much stronger than a variant

That's true, but on the other hand, the gap between bosses and generic monsters seems to be reduced. That makes for a more challenging game overall, with less frustrating deaths due to chance alone (Extra Fast Extra Strong Fanatic Minotaur boss pack, for example).

Overall I think it's a great patch but players do need to adapt and those that can't won't have a great time

Agreed. But this adaptation seems to go in the good direction. :)

[Guest]

The details are different everywhere, but something feels similar.

Although I think 1.10 act5 nightmare is perhaps closer to 1.04 act 4 hell.

[Pren]

Consider the level range people had back in 1.04 hell/4, and the level range now in 1.10 hell/5. It's about equal.

[Crystalion]

While details are great and I enjoy reading them, there has been only a few discussions of the overall effect 1.10 has on gameplay.  In brief, who "wins" with 1.10?  Who "loses?"

Well, "everyone wins", because, to quote librarian (and this is one of those few times that I think a poster actually failed to use *enough* exclamation points):

it seems like LT works with ranged attacks now!

Yes, I tested this: my item with charges of Lifetap enabled massive life leech via Blade Fury. Scary. So now I need to elite a Serpent Lord staff and have charges of Lifetap on my weapon switch, so I can Blade Fury my way to full globes in a brief moment at range. Coolness. (And possibly unbalanced)

My point would be, I suppose, that as more knowledge is gained about the patch the more we seem to be discovering that it is far from a story of just "making everything harder".

[Brother Laz]

Bowazons: all the elemental arrows work properly now [the physical part is no longer auto-hit, and they all carry physical damage now, including EA], but the removal of the area effect CtC on Freeze Arrow nerfs this skill a tad, and none of the elemental arrows does enough damage to make them worth using. Strafe is bug-ridden, but even after the bugs it is a helluva strong attack now, because of the huge range and minimum number of arrows. Multishot is as good as ever with a good bow. Guided Arrow has been over-nerfed and might as well not have been there anymore.

As for elemental damage, either invest in Magic Arrow which converts a % of physical damage to magic, or get level 1 Lightning Bolt which converts 100% of your javelin damage into lightning!!! Most of the difficulty of 1.10 is negated by a very strong Valkyrie tanking for you; D/A/E and IS are still useless.

Spearazons: the physical spear skills are weak and not worth using, and Fend still has the damnable whiff bug from the beta. This is the weakest branch of any tree in the game [yes, including creepers]. The lightning spear attacks are good now, most of the 1.09 bugs have been fixed, but a new bug has been introduced that makes stacking Lightning Strikes ineffective, and because of this Charged Strike is actually better. But the lack of a ranged attack still renders this a variant build. Slow Missiles would have been good if it had a longer range.

Interestingly, if you insist on using physical spear attacks, Passion gives you level 1[+adders] Zeal and Berserk, which is a lot better than anything you can get in the actual spear skill branch!!

Javazons: Plague and some poison items is now actually a good attack. Lightning Fury has pathetic synergies [1%!] and the lack of huge cow-like monster packs also nerfs the skill somewhat, but it's still strong stuff. Again, Valkyrie negates the increased difficulty of 1.10.

Elemental druids: the Armageddon synergies have been doubled since the beta, and it now does a lot of damage per slow-moving random unreliable short-ranged no-AoE meteor hit. Boulder and Volcano do physical damage in addition to fire, which is good because all of the fire skills are synergized and all of the wind skills are synergized and you need to pour all 110 points into one or the other to even do any damage at all. Unfortunately, Boulder and Volcano also stand out as having the worst synergies in the branch. Wind druids are sacked because of the lack of a decent cold skill, fire druids suck at killing fire immunes because of the low physical damage on Volcano, and in 1.10, you can't use wind and fire unless you want to suck at both until you get like +20 elemental skills.

Spirits die in two hits now, and are not worth using unless you have a strong meat wall, which you won't have because of all the points wasted in synergies. Vines are still as useless as ever. SoB is still completely useless.

Shapeshifter druids: can now cast Armageddon in wereform, and Fire Claws gets some impressive synergies from elemental fire skills! The fact that no one ever used Fire Claws is another matter, and in either case, you need so many points in the elemental tree to do any damage that you'd have no points left for shapeshifting skills. Rabies now has a long duration and a synergy with Poison Creeper, carries weapon damage, and is now actually useful as variant material. Other than that, nothing has changed. Except for the fact that spirits lose their PI in Hell and die in two hits, of course.

Trapassins: traps receive godly synergies from pretty much anything and everything else in the tree. CBS can get a lot of bolts and a lot of shots, LS can do thousands of damage, and Fire Blast has had its dynamite charge replaced with a small thermo-nuclear device. The one skill that stands out like a sore thumb is WoI, which is pretty useless even with all the synergies. But FB is good enough for the occasional LI, and that lightning tears everything else to pieces. Trapassins are actually better than MAsins now!

Sorceresses: lightning-wise, Nova and CB have disappeared into the variant tray unless you have tons of godly elite uniques and 5%/5% Rainbow Facets. 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. Lightning is better than CL now, but neither is very good because of the animation-lock. Thunderstorm is 'decent', but due to the lack of a good attack spell in the tree, it would be hard to justify parting with 40+ points to get one passive attack skill that distributes so-so damage to single targets.

The cold skills are still as useless/useful as ever, so in fact nothing has changed except for the added synergies. Orb is still uber, everything else is garbage. The worthless cold armors get worthless synergies.

Fireball, Hydra, Enchant and especially Meteor are godly skills. Fireball/Meteor/FO is the big combo these days, and Enchant does a lot of damage, about 100x more than in CD2 1.03!! :) The left-hand branch of fire skills [Inferno, Blaze, Firewall] is irrelevant; neither Blaze nor Firewall gets a synergy at all, and Inferno gets a useless synergy with the useless Warmth skill.

A very nice bonus for the class is that the CtA runeword gives level 1-6[+adders] BO, which can get to be quite high for sorcies, since the majority of their +skils adders are general +all skills, which includes barbarian skills!

Necromancer: skeletons are good for the most part, but they totally suck in areas like the BF and CP, where they get tangled up on obstacles and destroyed from afar. Skeletons are actually better than mages now, and even better if you have an Enigma to teleport them around. Revives are quite good now because of the improved monster stats, but they can't be relied on like in the good old days. Golems are totally worthless and die in two hits, even your expensive IG. All in all, you can mostly ignore this entire tree unless you like skeletons.

Bone-wise, BS hits for a lot of damage if you have all the synergies, but LR no longer affects it! CE is back to its 1.09 status but the reduction of monster HP in large player count games and the removal of the 50% resistance made it somewhat better. Poison skills are useless again because of the Bramble nerf.

Curses are very important, especially DV and to a lesser degree Attract and Decrepify. The problem is that CtC curse mods are abundant in 1.10, and your curses will constantly get overwritten by that moron with his Dracul's Grasp ['omg use loh u noob!!'] or Exile shield or Delirium or Reaper's Toll or Scarab or whatever he has that casts random curses at what seems to be 50% chance when doing anything at all. As for actual necromancer curses, IM seems strangely useless for some reason [bug?] and in most cases the damage curses are not worth it anymore!

Hammerdins are the best paladins right now, even though they need to max a bunch of useless synergy skills. But BH ignores undead and demon resistances, and there is exactly 1 magic immune animal in the game, and it's stashed away in an area noone ever goes to anyway.

Nothing much has changed about other skills except for a couple of synergy bonuses: Fanaticism is still the best aura in the game; Holy Freeze is now doubly useless because of Doom; Defiance is now doubly useless because of Exile; Holy Fire has a worthless melee damage bonus and is now doubly useless because of Hand of Justice; the single resistance auras have a worthless maximum resistance bonus and an even more worthless passive maximum resistance bonus [60 points into resistance auras = 1 Guardian Angel]; the worthless Cleansing and Meditation auras acquire a worthless healing effect when you put points into Prayer; the worthless Holy Bolt skill gets a gigantic damage synergy from a bunch of worthless skills and ignores resistances [as if there are any undead in the game beyond act 2], and also gets a worthless healing synergy...

You may want 1 point into Salvation 'just in case'. Big deal.

One big and underrated change is the fact that Holy Shield boosts your overall defense!

Barbarians: a couple of melee skills get a synergetic % conversion to magic damage from Berserk, which annoyingly reduces your damage output against magic immunes, and Berserk itself gets a synergy bonus from Shout, adding up to 20 extra wasted points to kill PIs. This class has seen a lot of changes; the most obvious one is the fact that WW is very dangerous to use now, between the cooldown timer and the increased lethality of the monsters; Concentrate may well be the way to go. Frenzy has been removed from the skill tab. Double Throw has a damage bonus and would have been good if they hadn't fixed the mastery bug, which neatly cancels out the ED bonus, and if there were any useful unique throwing axes to pass the time until hell freezes over and you get an ethereal 450% ED rare axe with self-replenish. One of the new elite ones has about half the elemental damage of Hellrack and sucks in every other respect, and the other has 33% Amp which would have been useful if it didn't have that damnable HCMTF on it which nicely overwrites the Amp Damage.

The character has a lot of options to weaken, slow or stop enemies, but they only work on enemies that are already on top of you and have about the same cast 'speed' as CL. But if you can get off a Warcry before you die, then everyone will sit there stunned until the universe collapses in upon itself, and you can kill them with zero risk.

The majority of the new unique weapons and all of the new unique armors are total garbage. You're better off shopping for Cruels and/or using your old uniques.

Overall rating:

Sorc
Amz [because of WF]
Asn
Nec
Bar
Pal
Dru

[Occhidiangela]

I guess you never played a Tank Amazon. Inner Sight takes down DR considerably at high levels, which makes to hit problem more similar to how a Paladin uses Conviction.

For Strafe, To Hit is still in use. Inner Sight means more of them will hit.

Or are you talking from the uber twinked perspective? If that is your frame of reference, why bother commenting at all?

[Brista]

To be fair I thought that was an excellent post by Brother Laz although you're right about D/A/E and I disagree with several of his other assertions

As a starting point one person's overview of the skills is extremely useful

I'll now go back to tearing up the Crystalline Passage in Hell with my skeletons ;)

[Guest]

Im not refering to actual mob levels, but rather to how fast I use to tear through it.

Although I probably am oversting the difficulty in Hell,now that I see the easy access to powerful gear in Hell.

[Guest]

Its so easy to get sweet gear by fair trades now in realm that I think, its very reasonable to look at it from his perspective. His comment are fairly accurrate I think, but not on all points.

Anyone can cube up a good weapon with reasonable effort and drops are abundant.

If you like no trade varients and single player that cool, but its seems rather harsh to suggest he not post at all.