Proposed Class Balance Changes in patch 2.4 summarised and discussed

In case you missed it, the upcoming 2.4 patch will be introducing a number of balance changes to classes and gameplay.

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.
Andre Abrahamian - Lead Designer 16:56 19th Feb 2021

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.

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.

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.

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.

Power creep train is coming!

I predict Bowazons or Fire Sorceress will come out on top. Just a hunch, I don’t have anything to back that up…

Teebling wrote: 3 years ago

buff the strengths of certain underused melee skills such as

Impale and

Fend

Teebling wrote: 3 years ago

enhancing the

Double Throw and

Throwing Mastery skills.

Teebling wrote: 3 years ago

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.

Teebling wrote: 3 years ago

Bone skill improvements in high difficulty

Teebling wrote: 3 years ago

We’re exploring ways to make lesser-used skills (I.e.,

Fist of the Heavens) more utilized

Teebling wrote: 3 years ago

revisiting Fire skills, to improve underused ones, like

Hydra

Its like they got my wish list and granted pretty much all of them... :O

Trang Oul wrote: 3 years ago

Power creep train is coming!

Dont ruin my high from this update!!

Okay but when are they going to nerf

Poison Dagger already???
/s

BigSmelly wrote: 3 years ago

Okay but when are they going to nerf

Poison Dagger already??? /s

Lol ya i hope they actually buff the poison skills along with bone.

Finally I get to build a worthwhile

Hydra sorc hopefully

Renton212 wrote: 3 years ago

Finally I get to build a worthwhile

Hydra sorc hopefully

I've always hoped they'd turn all the fire bolts into fire balls with Aoe dmg

Excited about Druid fire spells being tweaked; they have always seemed tragically weak compared to how cool they are!

Changing the casting delays would be a pretty massive change -- I'm not sure how that really feeds into the Fire Druid fire & forget style...

Molten Boulder spam could be silly fun though!

Would it be ridiculous to suggest that they can be cast from were-form?

Renton212 wrote: 3 years ago

Finally I get to build a worthwhile

Hydra sorc hopefully

Always thought

Hydra (or guardian when I first experienced it in D1) was one of the coolest skills in the game, super happy they are looking into making it more viable!

The only thing devs ACTUALLY need to fix for the druid - is to remove that damn prerequisite arrow from

Hurricane to

Armageddon. Otherwise armag-using dru remains humiliated by 5 hard skill pts forever.

Too little too late they got their full price for graphics mod games dead as ... on psn

OMG OMG OMG
I had a flashback when patch 1.10 was released.

I remember blizzard d2's website saying "HELL HAS FINALLY FROZEN OVER"

lllDaedaluslll wrote: 3 years ago

Too little too late they got their full price for graphics mod games dead as ... on psn

Too little too late? relax it's been 3 months of a RErelease game 20 years ago. I bet even blizzard didn't think there were going to be so many players

BillyMaysed wrote: 3 years ago

I've always hoped they'd turn all the fire bolts into fire balls with Aoe dmg

My thought exactly. But wouldn't that make the ordinary

Fireball obsolete? Maybe make each head cast different fire skill (

Inferno,

Fireball,

Firestorm...).

Blizzard wrote:

We're balancing elemental damages of Skeletal Mages

What do you think about giving them multishot? Some year ago I played with modding D2 and it was fun to see such a massive barrage of elemental missiles.
I also wish mages' spells improved with skill level (possibly with hard points):

Fire Bolt ->

Fireball,

Ice Bolt ->

Ice Blast and so on.

Blizzard wrote:

Furthermore, various Trap skills are not often used. So, we’re re-evaluating synergy requirements to promote more trap builds and damage scaling buffs.

Another wish: remove Lightning from

Death Sentry (so it casts only CE), and make it require both lightning and fire traps, as the pinnacle of trap skill tree.

Blizzard wrote:

Additionally, we think Throwing Barbarians can be more viable, so we are looking into enhancing the

Double Throw and

Throwing Mastery skills.

AoE, please.
Another idea: throwing weapons are actually combo weapons - they can be used both in mêlée and thrown. Depending on how they are used, appropriate passive Mastery skill is applied (spear/throwing for javelins, axe/throwing for throwing axes, and only throwing for throwing knives - no knife mastery). Make both Masteries apply to such weapons, regardless of how are they used. An unintended effect may be that Barbarians use throwing weapons in mêlée (such as

Lacerator with

Amplify Damage proc), so both Masteries are applied. And possibly make Sword Mastery work with knives (daggers).

Blizzard wrote:

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.

No/less cooldown?

Blizzard wrote:

This includes making improvements to AoE Damage auras to make them more effective at closer range.

Only AoE, not attack damage, right? Dual Dream builds are already OP.

Blizzard wrote:

We also want to improve

Thorns so that it can scale better and deal more reliable damage at higher levels.

If they improve

Thorns, they should do the same with

Iron Maiden and

Spirit of Barbs.

Blizzard wrote:

We are also looking into freeing up synergy requirements for melee skills to give more skill point freedom for other possibilities.

I wonder if it is meant to be a nerf (just less synergies), or less synergies, but compensated by enhancing the other synergies or the skills themselves. I'm afraid the latter...

Ugh, they can’t just go muck up diablo 4? D2R is going to be D3 all over again… sigh.

PD2 gave sorceresses a Cold

Enchant to go along with

Enchant, so melee builds could get fire and cold damage. They also added splash damage to all melee weapons. This made

Zeal builds extremely fun on the sorc.

Give me my full melee sorc meme build. I want dual

Enchant and splash damage!

they have to bring back v1.09

for throw barb They could add

Pierce to

Throwing Mastery or to

Double Throw. Like 2% per lvl so they can have decent

Pierce with raortail.

For Martial arts I wanna

Phoenix Strike to be viable for my kicksin

Al the changes they described sounds good (no Nerfs, only Buffs to underused skills) so technically it sounds great for build diversity!

But somehow i just can't seem to trust Activision Blizzard on that one. I just hope VV can do what they think is best for the game without some Act Blizz staff forcing them or something.