Diablo II: Resurrected PTR 3.2 Coming Soon

azeroti wrote: 9 hours ago

S3ph1r07h wrote: 11 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.

So...who is betting on hephasto pre-PTR with

Conviction remaining with

Conviction even after PTR? Should I bank my heph now and never die?

Also it's as if thousands of poorly rolled high %ED phoenixes cried out in

Terror and were suddenly silenced. And ariocs. And fortitudes. And Insights. And a couple dooms.

Long live obsessions, long live deaths and botds. I'm trying out non-ethereal insights with their 180-250% AR increase for sure.

azeroti wrote: 9 hours ago

S3ph1r07h wrote: 11 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?

No, it means that now you need to have attack rating otherwise the hit can miss. It will pass through enemies but damage simply wont register/ Similarly to how a (phys) bowzon functions or attackers in general. In contrast, hammerdins (for example) dont need attack rating for their hammers to hit (they always hit by default).
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.

There will simply not enough skill points to make it viable otherwise anymore. Will have to wait and see ofc but I'm not optimistic.

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: 12 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

S3ph1r07h wrote: 8 hours 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: 7 hours 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: 12 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.

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

this is good news.

Skaijuice wrote: 7 hours 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...

Not a fan of the timing, it's too soon for casual players. Only gave us 2 months of stability on the mechanics and enjoying S tier builds? 6 seems reasonable before resetting things.

I leveled up a fire WL, but am just midway through leveling up an ES WL. I may never get to enjoy the full S+ tier build.

On the changes themselves, my take:

Herald and Sunder changes - overall great changes. There is actually a chance for someone who can't devote 6 hours straight to playing the game to find one, and no longer penalizes you for not having a bunch of online pals to look together for one.

ES nerfs - too soon, but I understand some nerfing. I don't like the nerfing of ethereal weapons, it adds different options and extra rarity / damage to strive for. Nerf it another way. Or 10 other ways, like they did

Demon tree changes - understand these, but too soon. Now I'll have to cast

Hex Siphon for mana regen and carry Infinity on my merc instead of Insight. One more buff to have to cast. In return, can we PLEASE get rid of consuming bound demons? Or only allow them to be consumed if you have no other summons present. That would make the cast/

Consume buff much less annoying.

Fire

Nova nerf. Make more like

Frost Nova? What???

Frost Nova freezes things, that's why it is weaker than lightning or fire

Nova. Maybe nerf the lower/mid levels, but make the final damage the same after all the synergies are maxed. Fire

Nova is strong right now with the top end gear. Slightly better than ES/

Nova sorc IMO, but that's also w/o the demon nerfing that is queued up, and the

Teleport isn't as fast so the sorc still wins on that. And it's a new character, can't we get more than 2 months with it being S tier with top gear?

Grimoire change - fine, but pointless. All they did was reduce options. The grimoires are still top tier, it just removed Phoenix as a potential competitive option, thus reducing build diversity.

Blizzard wrote:

User interface:

Increased item counter for gems/runes/materials from 99 to 999

Was what I secretly was hoping they implement.

Ruin of the warlock... lmao
LMAO, warlocks are toast after these changes. I thought they needed buffs since I have chars stronger than my 500+

Jah worth demon

Blood Boil lock. Now warlock will be F tier after this. GG blizz is dumb.

Skaijuice wrote: 3 hours ago

Blizzard wrote:

User interface:

Increased item counter for gems/runes/materials from 99 to 999

Was what I secretly was hoping they implement.

Where did you get this from? Haven't seen this in the patch notes.

oOKIWIOo wrote: 2 hours ago

Skaijuice wrote: 3 hours ago

Blizzard wrote:

User interface:

Increased item counter for gems/runes/materials from 99 to 999

Was what I secretly was hoping they implement.

Where did you get this from? Haven't seen this in the patch notes.

It's what Skaijuice had hoped for. Not that they did so.

Queegon wrote: 2 hours ago

oOKIWIOo wrote: 2 hours ago

Skaijuice wrote: 3 hours ago

Blizzard wrote:

User interface:

Increased item counter for gems/runes/materials from 99 to 999

Was what I secretly was hoping they implement.

Where did you get this from? Haven't seen this in the patch notes.

It's what Skaijuice had hoped for. Not that they did so.

Ok, but I think it is then misleading to frame it this way with a Blizz quote...

Looks like a solid set of changes, I might actually play Warlock again once this is released, it was too OP silly for my tastes.

not gonna lie, I enjoyed ES warlock for what he is now but all these nerfs are justified to me, good things for longevity, feel sorry for those who paid absurd amount for

Eth base or runewords

Let's not forget, this is PTR right now.

I have a question in mind, though: What happens if I bind a cursed Hepasto with

Conviction in ladder and carry it into non-ladder?