Whats your take on Reign of the Warlock?

Whats your take on RotW so far?

For myself, (if interesed) I played D2R quite a bit for about a year then moved on. Had ton's of fun, but ultimately was wanting more.

RotW so far has been great. I don't remember

Terror zones being a thing upon initial release? To me this is new and exciting.

Doing a playthrough with the Warlock so far has been fun. Been doing the fire build while leveling. Feels a little overtuned for my liking, but at the same time, adds something novel to a game we have all played through over, and over again.

Overtuned is subjective. I'm in Act 3 Normal , level 24, running Leaf and Stealth, so it's not like I'm stopping myself from being too fast.

As a returning Player this has been fun enough to get me try discussing stuff in forums, and hearing other's takes.

Hope to catch some of you in Rouge Encampment once i make it to endgame. Peace!

I play offline for about three years now and I have all the good stuff for every character (except

Zod).
When I start a new char I gear him with all the goodies from level 3 onwards (level 42 - full skillers, level 65 - Enigma, level 70 - Anni, level 75 - Torch, etc).

But with Reign of the Warlock I started fresh with the Chaos and Demon trees.
It brings back the thrill when I find a new ring or amulet with some better stats. Or I get my neck getting longer looking for that 4OS

Monarch needed for Spirit shield.
It's fun to play and I done it harder for myself not wanting to use my previous found gear.

i am loving it so far. I really enjoy being able to terrorize an entire act and just run through the act zone by zone.

It's really neat to me when, at the end of my run, i see town just loaded up with uniques, set items, and charms i found that i id'd and didn't keep. I wish the ancient statues were..different? Idk, farming act 2 and act 5 statues is a pain so far, but it is what it is.

if they could up the sunder drop rate i would give it a 10/10. I love the heralds and the new warlock class is really fun.

I've been playing

Apocalypse build and just smoking p8 offline (albeit with some gg gear).

When I found myself actually using

The General's Tan Do Li Ga,

Razor's Edge and then

Headstriker sword as I levelled I realised the game felt refreshed for me.
I caught myself exploring parts I normally skip and each find was interesting because of the potential of the new class.
Reading the skills and thinking lets see what this is like etc..
I have one piece to find before I complete the new set and It gives me a reason to play like the old days.

I cant wait to take Craven to

Uber Tristram to see how he fares.

My partner and me are leveling our ladder party of two Warlocks. A tanky summoner and a fire build. Right now, we are level 48 and just finished A3 NM. One death up to now. Smooth run. Feels a tad too easy. Or a tad more than a tad.

We are running blue/yellow self found crap gear and some low uniques, our best item is an Insight

Partizan, which we made today. Still missing the

Amn for our first Spirit. We are accompanied by a

Prayer Merc and an

Enchant Iron Wolf.

So for the Warlock: I like him. All skills are useful and offer some interactions and are integrated in the D2 ressource system. That's a well done design. But holy shute, that fire build is already too strong. Two castings and the screen is bbq. How is this thing performing with +20 skills?

For the rest of the expansion I'd say:

-I don't like the

Herald mechanic in all of its consequences
-I miss the classic Sunders
-I adore the QoL features
-I cry about my non-meta, melee and ranger-builds and hope for a wise skill review of old classes. The Necromancer is put to shame by the Warlock. And the Barb. And the Druid... And...
-I like the added uniques. Not too strong, being true to the original item style and opening up new build options.
-I am sceptical about future power creep updates. I would rather like to see a general, slight increase in difficulty, a noticeable tonedown of the 4-5 OP classes and a good push to weapon based skills along with some changes to existing skill effects, making them actually useful. The skill design is by far the widest gap between old and new classes now.
-I hope they won't make a new act, or increase level cap above 99 (this would just be wrong!) but finish act 4 and add another merc. And fix that frickin chat!

I wrote a whole thesis statement here but I think @DasNarf summed it up perfectly.

QoL great, Warlock is great. Other classes are left in the dust. I hope Blizzard doesn't get crazy with further updates.

DasNarf wrote: 2 months ago

-I like the added uniques. Not too strong, being true to the original item style and opening up new build options.

I think some of the new uniques are VERY strong and result in a massive power-creep.

Ars Al'Diabolos is nuts. The Uber Ancient Jewels are insane. The renewed Sunders are [insert your own adjective].
Maybe

Bloodpact Shard is not so great, but the rest, man, these are not the average old uniques.

mikelessar wrote: 2 months ago

I think some of the new uniques are VERY strong and result in a massive power-creep.

Ars Al'Diabolos is nuts. The Uber Ancient Jewels are insane. The renewed Sunders are [insert your own adjective].
Maybe

Bloodpact Shard is not so great, but the rest, man, these are not the average old uniques.

The new sunders, books and jewels definitely are, but in the end, it's the bad balance that causes problems. I mean, those books got the stats of a two handed staff, and can be combined... with a TWO HANDED STAFF!!

They've smoked the wrong veggies.

But the main problem persists: Stronger classes have a higher leverage in item bonusses.

+30% extra damage is like +5.000 single target damage for a

Frenzy Barb, but it is +2.000 AoE damage for a MS-Bowazon, +7.000 AoE damage for a Warlock or +1000 AoE (multiplied with X) damage for a Javazon.

For Example,

Death's Fathom is also an outstanding good item, but the Blizz Sorc still sucks compared to the Kings of AoE, just because her skills are much weaker. Blizzard is, in fact, a single target attack, while

Nova is a real AoE. Or take Grief which outclasses anything else, but is still slow killing.

True, the balance is worse than ever and a +7

Apocalypse +25% fire damage item (all in ONE item) is not really helping. It's much stronger than even a

Death's Fathom. That's what I meant. The uniques are too strong and they will also powercreep the other chars. The future Hammerdin with all the new magic damage items will be at least 50% stronger than the old one.