Diablo II: Resurrected PTR 3.2 Coming Soon

azeroti wrote: 2 hours ago

S3ph1r07h wrote: 4 hours ago

Some of the nerfs were justifiable but this one is brutal.

Well, I had my share of fun. Lock is gonna be (as)S tier now.SSS.pngSSS.png

What does that mean exactly? That it won't go past the enemy and hit again on the way back?

It just means that ES won't be a guaranteed hit anymore but will instead have the same AR/def/lvl calculation as most other weapon attacks.
So basically, ES locks are gonna want to get at least some decent amount of AR now, bringing their gear needs a bit more in line with other weapon attacks. Nothing too dramatic, just warrants a difference in gear choice and ends up at least a slight nerf overall as you'll not be getting back to a full 100% hit chance (95 at best).

The "everything is trash and ass now!" fears are quite overblown when you look at it objectively. At least based on those patch notes. Nothing in there kills any lock build. Not even close. It merely brings some of them at least a little more in line.

S3ph1r07h wrote: 1 hour ago

[..]
This leaves ES in a weird spot where it functions like an attack but doesn't trigger most of the things that attacks trigger (besides life/mana leech and deadly strike), but also needs attack rating to hit. I'm not an expert but from what I see, I believe that ES will be something you will specc into after you have obtained some REALLY GG gear instead of something you play the game as.
[..]

Aye, there are a few "attacks" that can't trigger various effects that others can.

ES in combination with lev mastery isn't exactly on the high side of the AR bonus range but still a solid mid tier (somewhat less than a

Frenzy barb with

Blade Mastery, for comparison's sake but more than a

Penetrate + multi-shot zon, just based on a quick look at lvl 20). So you likely won't (and really shouldn't if we're honest) be able to enjoy the benefits of phys scaling while sitting on full caster gear to reap the skill point benefits on top of that. Instead, you'll simply take a more traditional phys dmg gearing approach, looking for actual combat gear (with AR), rather than pure caster stuff. Or at least a combination of the two. That doesn't mean you need end-game gear to make it work, it just means you'll be looking at different stat priorities along the way, much like any melee barb or phys zon or the like would.

ES does however have one advantage that other phys attacks generally don't have in that you throw 2x5 blades at a time at the same target(s). And each of those will likely get their own hit check. So while you won't hit with all of them anymore, odds are, even in low tier gear, you'll still hit with 6-7+ every time. And while yes, dmg is going down, it is still a decent chunk and still a good bit more than a fair few other perfectly viable phys skills. So odds are, even if you're at that "6-7" stage, you'll still do more than enough dmg each cast for most targets and situations. You just (hopefully...) won't run around soloing P8 96TZs with no gear anymore.
Well and you still scale off of FCR so you can go full "ES speed + Enigma travel speed" without having to worry about faster (=lower dmg) bases or squeezing in IAS jewels and the like. That part isn't changing it seems and remains a massive advantage.

Just for random reference, my current ladder lock would have a 30% hit chance against dclone. And while that sounds pretty bad, that's very much due to the fact that he has not even 100 total AR on all of his gear and charms combined, thanks to being an "ultra budget caster geared piece of trash" (not exaggerating, the most expensive thing on him is a

Pul rune). There are tons of very easy (and still cheap) ways of improving that massively and to perfectly acceptable levels.

I for one very much look forward to next season's (likely still) lock actually having to put in at least a minimum of effort to start hunting his clones at a solid pace, rather than sitting on nothing above a

Pul and still slapping dclones around faster than most other classes do in full BiS like he does now.

fredkid wrote: 29 minutes ago

Think a little more

Probably the best option to trigger

Amplify Damage frequently would be to get

Holy Freeze as the aura for the

Bind Demon (as it will be only possible aura with radial damage...)

fredkid wrote: 5 hours ago

With the
----

Bind Demon
Cursed Affix chance to cast

Amplify Damage skill reduced to 5% from 75%.
----
The

Corrupt Rogue Spearwoman, the Act 5 variant with

Jab, has a big chance to be the new best target for builds that want to proc

Amplify Damage frequently

Gonna have to test that on the PTR to see if that ends up being 5% per tick or 5% per target per tick.
If per tick then sure, aura still adds more trigger options but it won't be as much.
If per tick per target then that improves your proc odds significantly, at least with multiple targets around. And with it being a proper cast, it should still affect multiple (if not all) targets each time.

As is, it does seem like a per tick thing but who knows how exactly it'll pan out there.

My main lock is already running freeze anyways though and that's not changing.

Skaijuice wrote: 8 minutes ago

So.. no more EasybuttonLock with a cheap Insight and Spirit mon.

this is good news.

Well, Insight does have a massive AR bonus on it...