This is a departure from Blizzard's original position at Blizzcon which was that balance changes would not occur:
Blizzard wrote:At it's core we want this to still be the same. So right away things the balance, the monsters you see, spawn rates, item drops and things like that are the same.I guess things have changed a lot since then (this was pre-launch times after all). After all, the game did go through several healthy balance changes in legacy, so it's only natural that that continues for the fun of the game and making things interesting where they had already been 'figured out'. It's debatable whether or not this is a remaster or a remake at this point, but casting all semantics and language aside I'm personally really hyped to see this new direction from the devs, and most importantly, that they've listened to fans on this issue and tried. Not everyone will be happy of course! Nerfs as well as buffs here.
Andre Abrahamian - Lead Designer 16:56 19th Feb 2021
Anyway, here are the current proposals from the announcement of 2.4 for each class. We can talk about the implications of this on character builds, market trends etc. in this topic. The descriptions provided are rather vague but I'm sure that you guys can figure out what will be done with the numbers or take educated guesses.
Lastly, remember this is all subject to change.
Amazon balance changes
Blizzard wrote:The Amazon's agility and versatility are profound. Generally, we like the current state of the Amazon class and believe her to be quite balanced. Nonetheless, we see an opportunity to improve the Amazon's melee skills. We want to buff the strengths of certain underused melee skills such as Impale and Fend to give more reasons to use them. We are also looking into freeing up synergy requirements for melee skills to give more skill point freedom for other possibilities.
Additionally, we are also considering buffing certain skills in the Bow and Crossbow tree to help improve bow gameplay in higher difficulties.
Assassin balance changes
Blizzard wrote:The Assassin vanquishes evil from the darkness with great ease. However, for this class, we see an opportunity for the Martial Arts builds to shine brighter. Martial Arts skills can become increasingly challenging to perform in higher difficulties, so we are re-evaluating how to improve generating and spending Combo Points.
Furthermore, various Trap skills are not often used. So, we’re re-evaluating synergy requirements to promote more trap builds and damage scaling buffs.
Barbarian balance changes
Blizzard wrote:The brawn of the Barbarian is unmatched. Nonetheless, we see opportunities to add more diversity to Combat skills. We're looking into adding more possibilities with Combat Skills such as Leap Attack and Grim Ward, while also re-evaluating skill synergy requirements to promote more reasons to spend points on certain Combat Skills.
Additionally, we think Throwing Barbarians can be more viable, so we are looking into enhancing the Double Throw and Throwing Mastery skills.
Druid balance changes
Blizzard wrote:The bestial ferocity of the Druid makes all tremble. With that said, we see exciting opportunities to level up certain aspects of this class. From our perspective, Druid Fire skills are underperforming. We're re-evaluating Casting Delays for Fire skills, exploring improvements to some of their Physical Damage components, and improving synergies. We’re also looking at potential tweaks affecting other Elemental skills that are underused. We want to improve the controls for Arctic Blast too, such as allowing more free form while channeling and no longer locking your targeting onto one enemy at a time.
Regarding Summon skills, we believe Summons are weak in high difficulty. On this front, we’re evaluating health gains per level, quality-of-life improvements, damage output, and new synergies for Ravens, Wolves, and Vines.
Lastly, we're evaluating improvements to the Werebear skills, primarily focused on synergy improvements.
Necromancer balance changes
Blizzard wrote:The commander of Death sends his foes to an early grave. Like the Amazon, we like the current state of the Necromancer class. Nonetheless, we see an opportunity to improve specific Summons we believe are underused. We're balancing elemental damages of Skeletal Mages and making lesser used Golems more effective.
Additionally, we see opportunities for Bone skill improvements in high difficulty. We’re tweaking synergies on this front.
Paladin balance changes
Blizzard wrote:The Wrath of the holy zealot is glorious. Despite this, we believe certain Combat skills are underused. We’re exploring ways to make lesser-used skills (I.e., Fist of the Heavens) more utilized, so players have more reasons to spend skill points to unlock these skills.
We also see an opportunity to scale Offensive Aura skills as well. This includes making improvements to AoE Damage auras to make them more effective at closer range. We also want to improve Thorns so that it can scale better and deal more reliable damage at higher levels.
Sorceress balance changes
Blizzard wrote:There is no greater master of elemental magic than these mages. We're very satisfied with the Sorceress’s current state, but we see a few of opportunities for improvements.In light of the proposals above which class has come out on top as the winner, and do you guys have any potential ideas for future builds based around new advantages? It's clear that a lot of new areas for theorycrafting will emerge in this pre-ladder season information rush so I'm interested on your take on it guys.
Regarding Cold Skills, we believe there can be more diversity with the armor skills (I.e., Frozen Armor, Shiver Armor, and Chilling Armor) for distinctive advantages.
We are also looking into adding more build possibilities around lesser used Lightning skills by exploring more skill synergies.
Lastly, we’re also revisiting Fire skills, to improve underused ones, like Hydra. Similar to Arctic Blast, we're exploring making player control improvements to the Inferno skill so that it is less clunky to use.
Teebling
6846
Admin