2.6 PTR going live today

What I also really like about D2 is the "we-debunked-it-all" part. Before even starting it you can already fully plan ahead, but adding more stuff that doesn't change anything (the sunder charms really changed the game imho) doesn't really give the game more depth. It may rather make it more complicated, because you have another budget item to use until you get the good stuff (which we already have quite a lot of).

Why not make the game better playable by just adding QoL stuff? There is a lot of things that could be better. Like the tedious mule creating because you don't have a good shared stash, or giving people more Insight by adding iLvl values or making it possible to officially use loot filters? Maybe add better support for PvP scenarios? I guess many of you can imagine a lot of stuff they would like to get improved without actually changing the games core mechanics.

They should really focus on making D2R the better D2 instead of ruining the already good amount and balance of items that exist in the game.

Schnorki wrote: 1 year ago

PTR going live today at 10am PST.

Also, full details on the new runewords.

https://news.blizzard.com/en-us/diablo2 ... oming-soon

Rest in Peace, PvM Faith zons.

I know I didn't respond to this in the other thread where Hustle was discussed, but...meh, never mattered, nobody cares about or is even interested in procs for pubs, and 5% chance is a joke considering how the merc is dead half the time without my intervention before

Fade kicks in or how

Atma's Scarab often doesn't kick in until

Baal's more than half dead. I'm still not getting out-DPSed by 99% of bowazons because Hustle would also be a non-

Strafe DPS boost for me as well since I'm not currently at 7 FPA either,

Strafe is still subject to a next-hit frame delay no matter how low your

Strafe FPA is, plus I'll be 99 and done with my bowazon if not this entire game before 2.6 rolls over to non-ladder.

Relying on ≤5% procs for skill effect pre-buffs on item switch is the clunkiest mechanic runewords ever introduced. Every 216 seconds, you'd have to re-proc

Burst of Speed and temporarily lose DPS with your janky max 150% ED Hustle weapon until it does. On several occasions, I've stood my javazon in fire for more than half of her buffed health waiting for

Fade to proc before taking on

Über Mephisto. The uptime is so unpredictable that it may as well not even exist if you want to do any serious theorycrafting. Call To Arms is inconvenient enough as it is, and you actually have control over when to cast

Battle Command/

Battle Orders.

Agreed on the clunkiness. But there is a massive difference between something that lasts for 3 minutes (which is basically an entire run) after one proc and something like

Atma's which tends to only proc when it is too late and then needs to be re-procced on every pack.

I'm rather curious to see how little damage that bow (hopefully) does, despite my inherent need for an elite base. Cuz if you can get that first proc while aura-triggering your merc, without wrecking his targets..ideal use of time and then on to a presumably far quicker run time that'll make it well worth it.

Then again, a large part of the gain isn't even the 7 frames (due to dmg per hit already being insane enough to hardly need more than 1) but rather the run speed. Hence my curiosity for the PTR as I really wanna see how well that does or doesn't stack with the already rather massive run speed on my zon. Diminishing returns and all that jazz.

Also curious to see just how long it does take to proc on average. Considering how godawful zon FCR is and how slow CtA hence buffs, I honestly wouldn't be surprised if this doesn't take any longer (on average) as the offensive alternative to it, while then actually lasting longer than a typical bowzon BO. Difference being that your buffing is done strafing the first mobs rather than shouting on a waypoint.

The run speed will be absurd for sure. Since

Burst of Speed goes into the skill bonus bucket rather than the item bonus bucket, I believe the multiplicative effect should be greater than the 100% bonus during the holiday buffs. I would have to check the movement speed tables to confirm.

The issue with this though is once again excessive item switching, and if I'm still playing this game by the time 2.6 runewords roll over to non-ladder, I wouldn't enjoy doing this all the time. My bowazon is the one character for whom I don't keep a third weapon in the cube and I like it that way, but this would be the effect of

Burst of Speed on my run speed.
I also want to point out that the running animation already occasionally gets desynced at the start of games right now where she looks like she's galloping on two legs rather than running until I change direction.

Cube switching? Ugh.

Would never do that for any char. Ever. If it isn't the 2nd weapon set, it isn't being used. Permanently equipped or bust.

Schnorki wrote: 1 year ago

I'm rather curious to see how little damage that bow (hopefully) does, despite my inherent need for an elite base. Cuz if you can get that first proc while aura-triggering your merc, without wrecking his targets..ideal use of time and then on to a presumably far quicker run time that'll make it well worth it.

This ties into why I hate relying on procs. Time spent trying to proc is time spent not doing what you really want to do, which also decreases your damage output over time. The net effect of this is that I don't think Hustle will make runs go any quicker.

PTR shall show.. either way, I've got the zon ready to be moved over with everything needed to get her hustled up and compare.
If the proc you're waiting for outweighs the time lost to proc it, easy win. Though not every proc is worth that. In fact, very few actually are. Even with my merc I only bother if I run more than just a couple zones in the same game.

Edit:
And just did the comparator runs on live (running full CS clears), to get an easy direct comparison. WP to finish with no buffing currently.
On the plus side, even the slowest run is still well below lvl 9 BoS duration so if it isn't somehow magically slower (which would make no sense whatsoever), it will only need to be procced once per run as expected (was an educated guess so far..never actually timed my bowa in CS before).

Unfortunately only the Runewords are going live in PTR - so we will not be able to data-mine or really glean anything else which is "meh".

They have insinuated (telegraphed) that there are TZ related modifications which could have something to do with Singleplayer, Sunder Charms, and or prior bug fixes related to

Andariel/

Mephisto.

Time will tell...

Th3ory wrote: 1 year ago

Unfortunately only the Runewords are going live in PTR - so we will not be able to data-mine or really glean anything else which is "meh".

They have insinuated (telegraphed) that there are TZ related modifications which could have something to do with Singleplayer, Sunder Charms, and or prior bug fixes related to

Andariel/

Mephisto.

Time will tell...

Did you see any source/different wording/detail for that other than Pez going "We do address TZ items, 2.4 Runewords hitting non-ladder, etc."?

Might just be me but I read that as "TZ items (aka sunders) and 2.4 runewords hitting non-ladder". I.e. no change to anything, merely making it available/craftable/drop in NL.

Spoiler alert:
Yeah...I'm deffo getting my zon a Hustle. Good lord.


First off, I fully agree with Snake in that proc reliance is just annoying af and shit lazy design. At least when those procs aren't on your normal active gear. That having been said, in this particular case, after actually testing it, I'm willing to roll with it for really 3 reasons (while not even considering it for any other class):

1)

Strafe. The simple fact that you get defaulted to 1-below-universal-

Cap

Strafe speed in your otherwise normal gear by building it in a matri bow means you get those triggering

Arrows flying just stupidly fast, resulting in an equally fast proc reliably. Most commonly, I got burst within the 2nd

Strafe volley, occasionally on the 3rd and only in very rare cases in the 1st or 4th. 4th does feel annoying already..but it is genuinely rare. Turning that into time, at 4/2/7 for 10

Arrows, you're looking at 27 frames so just over a second for each volley or most commonly just over 2 seconds (counting in full volleys) to get the first proc. Repeat procs (if needed) remove 1 frame per volley as they'll be fully capped but that really doesn't change much anymore. Even the worse cases I've seen are still well under 5 seconds.

2) Fun. I've always understood why folks went with Faith because let's face it...7 frame

Arrows are fun! I merely always preferred WF regardless (cuz dmg + knockback = even more fun..to me). But if you tie all of that into one neat little combined package and throw in absurd run speed to round it off...hell yeah! I genuinely didn't even miss

Teleport anymore for once as the way from one pack to the next basically feels just as fast.

3) Performance. I suppose this (and #1) was the real question. Just how good is this thing and is that worth spending the extra time buffing? Well, in true nerd-math-needs-evidence fashion...I went and found out and did 4 sets of CS runs following the same approach. The 4 sets were a balanced build and a full dmg build, each with and without Hustle and the the related adjustments. No Hustle meant no pre-buff whatsoever, actually shifting the base theoretical time slightly in favor of no-Hustle. Time is taken from WP to dia's Death, clearing along the way (so not just bolting through). Balanced build in this case does mean balanced. Still largely offensive but with enough defense to be able to just blindly

Charge into literally anything. No full vita though cuz..who the hell plays a bowzon with full vita?! Just... no. Long story short, they confirmed what I had assumed but admittedly to a larger degree than I had expected:

- Balanced no Hustle formed the baseline as the slowest build in the pack.
- Damage no Hustle came in 3rd, shaving off just under 7% in time per run (yes, "just" 7%..as I said, balanced was already fairly offensively focused)
- Balanced Hustle came in 2nd, shaving off nearly 13.5% runtime.
- And lastly, as expected, damage Hustle just blew everything out of the water, shaving off a massive 25% runtime for CS clears (or still well over 16%, comparing directly to damage no Hustle). That's...a hell of a difference! Not just in measured time but also or maybe even more so in perceived time as you can't help but notice just how much faster it is.



Just for good measure, I went through the obligatory dclone and uber runs and while I still wouldn't want to rely on a bowzon for either, simply due to ranged crushing being crap and everything hence taking forever, they do work. Plus it made for a quick and easy test of "chaining zones" and hence having to re-proc. Honestly...no concern whatsoever. Based on the initial proc observations, I went ahead and assumed that 5-6

Strafe volleys should be more than enough to re-proc it. So all I did was upon entering a new zone, I simply started with Hustle for the first handful of strafes and then proceeded as normal. You honestly hardly notice a difference in otherwise solid gear because the speed is capped either way and while yes, the dmg is a fraction of a real bow, charms and stuff still add enough to allow you to just shred through your targets regardless. The downside of that being that even while hustling for a re-proc, my merc still had no chance to hit anything before it died so more often than not, he didn't trigger might.
Either way, with that approach - which did not feel like sacrificing anything - I went through multiple zones over a longer game and didn't have it drop off once while active (read: it dropped off once and once only cuz I went and had a drink after CS - though even that would work if you're not super slow about your drink like I was.

The one big downside imo though is that

Burst of Speed, especially with constant

Hellfire Torch procs, is not exactly a very visible buff and the re-buff is effectively invisible and inaudible. So you do have to pay relatively close attention to see the initial proc asap. And you do have to kind of blindly rely on "ok, 5 volleys is enough" to re-proc it because you simply have no idea whatsoever as to whether or not it really did re-proc. So there is a chance, however low, that it didn't and that it'll fall off at probably the most inopportune time possible thereafter.

So yeah, unless it still gets nerfed significantly, that's the one item to get for me/my zon in S3. The others, I for one genuinely could not care less about. The claw offers less than a "real" perfected claw in terms of final performance. The drood helmet doesn't affect me as I'd never consider playing a shifter. And the cheesy absorb stuff is just a sad joke imo. Seems S3 shall be nice and chill after this whole "rush to full sets of p. sunders" in S2.

@Schnorki
But waiting 5 months sucks. And I don't want to play another season, like ever. Or are you making another bow zon in s3?

Yes. Yes it does.
But oh well..I don't mind that one extra char. Something to distract me from just high-lvling the NL ones.

Haven't decided on the char/build for S3 yet but seeing how one main aspect is still to wreck clones, I do doubt it'll be a bowzon.

Are the new runewords ladder only?

Also what does PTR stand for? Public Test R...?

P(ublic) T(est) R(ealm).


New runewords should be ladder only, yes.

Presumably, the old ladder-only stuff will finally become available to make/find in NL as well.

Schnorki wrote: 1 year ago

Th3ory wrote: 1 year ago

Unfortunately only the Runewords are going live in PTR - so we will not be able to data-mine or really glean anything else which is "meh".

They have insinuated (telegraphed) that there are TZ related modifications which could have something to do with Singleplayer, Sunder Charms, and or prior bug fixes related to

Andariel/

Mephisto.

Time will tell...

Did you see any source/different wording/detail for that other than Pez going "We do address TZ items, 2.4 Runewords hitting non-ladder, etc."?

Might just be me but I read that as "TZ items (aka sunders) and 2.4 runewords hitting non-ladder". I.e. no change to anything, merely making it available/craftable/drop in NL.

Yes I do believe some of this was bringing certain Ladder Runewords into NL from the prior season. - my group read it as well that there will be additional changes coming. We did pick something up with Sunders in the PTR that may finally make them qlvl69 to drop in Nightmare, but speculation at best.

Schnorki wrote: 1 year ago

Spoiler alert:
Yeah...I'm deffo getting my zon a Hustle. Good lord.

Bowa has made a similar post on the Blizz forums, basically saying that Faith would be redundant unless changes are made to Hustle, which would be a shame in general. Although quite good for me since I have a

Windforce but not Faith

If Hustle is keep like it is what would be the best helmet? I do have a 3os 30frw

Diadem in non ladder and 3 15ias/40ed in ladder. I was planning to merge them once ladder is over but now I am not sure anymore that's a good idea...
I use Faith in the act1 merch and WF in the char so I guess I can just switch Faith for Pride on a might act2 merch (ofc in 5 months when s3 will be over, no way I find the time to build end characters in the new ladder).

Janet the Java wrote: 1 year ago

Schnorki wrote: 1 year ago

Spoiler alert:
Yeah...I'm deffo getting my zon a Hustle. Good lord.

Bowa has made a similar post on the Blizz forums, basically saying that Faith would be redundant unless changes are made to Hustle, which would be a shame in general. Although quite good for me since I have a

Windforce but not Faith

Well, Faith is still the preferred option for pvp purposes by comparison as well as for folks who want the attack speed without dropping any safety aspects (read: who want CtA).

And for those who are just generally slower I guess as their valk/merc will actually get to attack, meaning they gain (significantly) from your Faith whereas Hustle does nothing for them.

Janet the Java wrote: 1 year ago

Schnorki wrote: 1 year ago

Spoiler alert:
Yeah...I'm deffo getting my zon a Hustle. Good lord.

Bowa has made a similar post on the Blizz forums, basically saying that Faith would be redundant unless changes are made to Hustle, which would be a shame in general. Although quite good for me since I have a

Windforce but not Faith

Changing the meta away from Faith is a good thing, I think. It opens up bowazon build flexibility, makes the build more accessible, and seems like it will boost overall damage with a top end build. The downside is that one more item in D2 becomes obsolete, specifically for bowazons. Is there a good counterargument? His response to my comment was not great

marl71 wrote: 1 year ago

Changing the meta away from Faith is a good thing, I think. It opens up bowazon build flexibility, makes the build more accessible, and seems like it will boost overall damage with a top end build. The downside is that one more item in D2 becomes obsolete, specifically for bowazons. Is there a good counterargument? His response to my comment was not great

Even if it does cycle out Faith bow from phys archers, it will still be BiS for act1 merc. Plus not everyone will want to have a Hustle on weapon swap instead of CtA, or have it in cube, and not every phys archer will play a glass cannon.

HonestIy, I don't mind having a great combo alternative to Faith. They should try to make more uniques powerful and if they do it indirectly like this, that's even better. Directly, they could add 3 open sockets into

Tyrael's Might and make it ethereal.