PTR findings and first impressions

i've heard they gave you an

Eth

Thunder Maul fort for testing, is this a joke?

Thank you so much for the information/experience shared. <3

Appreciate your testing and effort!

weegee wrote: 14 hours ago

i've heard they gave you an

Eth

Thunder Maul fort for testing, is this a joke?

Sort of The compilation of the ES gear is - to put mildy - overall not very well balanced (e. g. no ML leech )

Schnorki wrote: 23 hours ago

- If you have an existing demon bound, their aura gets updated automatically as you load in (confirmed with might ->

Concentration). So no saving your

Conviction demon through the patch.

I assume you did so through exporting from d2planner, which randomized the aura even before PTR and chose one from the available pool upon entering a game for the first time despite one being chosen in the planner.

If you had other means to try this out, I take it back. Perhaps, if that works, make a char in RotW offline, check the demon has aura you want and then copy paste the char into PTR?

Just tried it myself going from RotW

Holy Fire/

Blessed Aim/might into PTR with

Vigor/

Thorns/

Concentration. At least that Infinity I will have to make for chronicle will have a use afterwards for my firelock.

Thanks for the info. Why the hell is ES only lvl80 build?

basicnecromancy wrote: 11 hours ago

Thanks for the info. Why the hell is ES only lvl80 build?

The more important question is: Why the hell is Summoner only lvl30 build????

I don't want to grind this guy up to 90, so PTR is a hard pass.

The marketing division of the Blizzard Cybernetics Corporation is a bunch of mindless jerks who’ll be the first against the wall when the revolution comes.

Mirrored Blades is now stronger than

Echoing Strike for melee range, if you don't have a x/bow equipped.

I don't see any mana leech or life leech for either MB or ES.

Damage from weapons is now a big deal, so Breath of the Dying

Thunder Maul is the undisputed king of damage (so complete opposite of pre-PTR for weapon choices ). The 60% IAS applies to

Mirrored Blades, compared to zero on Death.

ethereal BotD dmg: MB: 5k-29k, ES: 8k-24k
non-ethereal Insight dmg: MB: 3-12, ES: 7k-14k
Death is slow for MB, ok for ES.

Thanks Schnorki ! When you have a sec, can you try Sigil: Lethargy as well : is it useless or not ?

weegee wrote: 14 hours ago

i've heard they gave you an

Eth

Thunder Maul fort for testing, is this a joke?

Well, the durability loss and

Eth breaking needs testing.
But yeah, Blizz templates haven't exactly been good or anything for prior PTRs either. Just one of the reasons I prepped my own.

Queegon wrote: 12 hours ago

[..]I assume you did so through exporting from d2planner, which randomized the aura even before PTR and chose one from the available pool upon entering a game for the first time despite one being chosen in the planner.

If you had other means to try this out, I take it back. Perhaps, if that works, make a char in RotW offline, check the demon has aura you want and then copy paste the char into PTR?

Just tried it myself going from RotW

Holy Fire/

Blessed Aim/might into PTR with

Vigor/

Thorns/

Concentration. At least that Infinity I will have to make for chronicle will have a use afterwards for my firelock.

You can export from d2planner?! Where's that bit hidden?
But yeah, no, I know how to test things properly.

Queegon wrote: 10 hours ago

Mirrored Blades is now stronger than

Echoing Strike for melee range, if you don't have a x/bow equipped.

I don't see any mana leech or life leech for either MB or ES.

Damage from weapons is now a big deal, so Breath of the Dying

Thunder Maul is the undisputed king of damage (so complete opposite of pre-PTR for weapon choices ). The 60% IAS applies to

Mirrored Blades, compared to zero on Death.

ethereal BotD dmg: MB: 5k-29k, ES: 8k-24k
non-ethereal Insight dmg: MB: 3-12, ES: 7k-14k
Death is slow for MB, ok for ES.

Leech is still there for ES. It merely feels quite low. Not entirely sure what's happening there yet. Almost as though only off-weapon leech is considered or something weird like that. Needs more testing whenever I get around to that.

Necrarch wrote: 9 hours ago

Thanks Schnorki ! When you have a sec, can you try Sigil: Lethargy as well : is it useless or not ?

Haven't actively tested the functionality but the tooltip seems the same except with the dmg taken part removed, as was the stated goal.
Assuming (risky, I know) it works correctly and still does the same except for the dmg taken as well, it'll still be a solid 1pt wonder for various situations. The -def part can be useful early on/in lower gear but isn't needed with half-way decent gear for ES (which is why I didn't bother actively testing that one). The slow remains a solid defensive choice and brilliant to shut down

Baal's annoying

Teleport and the like. It still offers quite a lot for a measly single skill point.
Though I wouldn't expect to add more than that single point, seeing how the scaling is then really only -def and duration and not exactly stellar.

Schnorki wrote: 8 hours ago

You can export from d2planner?! Where's that bit hidden?

Where have you been? This is the biggest news that have come since D2R announcement!
You can finally stop saying "just testing, not optimized yet" as you can create optimized GG real items in planner and export a whole char with merc as an offline char. It's done by clicking on "export", unsurprisingly. And the damage I quoted is with might+Pride+

Fanaticism demon

It's so dumb for a demon to lose an aura and gain something else. Who the hell thought of losing

Conviction. I had a blast with

Conviction. Dial it down based on

Bind Demon skill level. If manage to get to lvl 35

Bind Demon via items or what not on lvl 96+ you get freakin Infinity lvl 12

Conviction aura on that demon. Before that, you get Costco version of that level 6 or something. Thats still hard to obtain. Why the hell everything has to be 1 or 0 in this game.
Same thing with potential builds with possible summoned demons by your side. If you manage to get 40+ skills on your passive for demons - then you get 4 demons at the same time or some shit.
I hate being "all arounder", or maybe not even that, but when you need to compensate/

Sacrifice so much in a build. Its more fulfilling when you get a reward of having an upgraded skill by commiting to a skill tree and try to increase the skill level of specific skill via items.

MaxDopamine wrote: 6 hours ago

It's so dumb for a demon to lose an aura and gain something else. Who the hell thought of losing

Conviction.

Let me explain:
A bound Demon with

Conviction just replaces Infinity, one of the most powerful and expensive runewords. So you get this effect that normally costs 2

Ber for free. And this opens up the merc weapon slot for Insight and the powerful

Prayer+Insight+Cure combo for massive life and mana regen.

That's just op. Removal is the right choice.

mikelessar wrote: 5 hours ago

MaxDopamine wrote: 6 hours ago

It's so dumb for a demon to lose an aura and gain something else. Who the hell thought of losing

Conviction.

Let me explain:
A bound Demon with

Conviction just replaces Infinity, one of the most powerful and expensive runewords. So you get this effect that normally costs 2

Ber for free. And this opens up the merc weapon slot for Insight and the powerful

Prayer+Insight+Cure combo for massive life and mana regen.

That's just op. Removal is the right choice.

explain to me how is it free if you need the skill to be lvl 35 or 40 with items with 20 skill base points and also lvl 96 bound hephasto???
how is that "FREE"?

mikelessar wrote: 5 hours ago

MaxDopamine wrote: 6 hours ago

It's so dumb for a demon to lose an aura and gain something else. Who the hell thought of losing

Conviction.

Let me explain:
A bound Demon with

Conviction just replaces Infinity, one of the most powerful and expensive runewords. So you get this effect that normally costs 2

Ber for free. And this opens up the merc weapon slot for Insight and the powerful

Prayer+Insight+Cure combo for massive life and mana regen.

That's just op. Removal is the right choice.

You can and should use the Insight+

Prayer+Cure on an

Abyss warlock still. Fire warlock will swap to Infinity +

Prayer+Cure or Infinity +

Holy Freeze.

MaxDopamine wrote: 4 hours ago

mikelessar wrote: 5 hours ago

MaxDopamine wrote: 6 hours ago

It's so dumb for a demon to lose an aura and gain something else. Who the hell thought of losing

Conviction.

Let me explain:
A bound Demon with

Conviction just replaces Infinity, one of the most powerful and expensive runewords. So you get this effect that normally costs 2

Ber for free. And this opens up the merc weapon slot for Insight and the powerful

Prayer+Insight+Cure combo for massive life and mana regen.

That's just op. Removal is the right choice.

explain to me how is it free if you need the skill to be lvl 35 or 40 with items with 20 skill base points and also lvl 96 bound hephasto???
how is that "FREE"?

Calm down, my friend. All this agitation is not good for your (and our) dopamine level.

Right now, a bound

Conviction Demon is free. You only need 1 point in

Bind Demon and this could also come from an item. Then you search for a

Conviction Hephasto.

We will see what the changes after the PTR evaluation will be. All suggested changes are subject to review.

re

Bind Demon
Bind chance should simply be the inverse of demon health:
99% health=1% bind chance
1% health=99% bind chance

Schnorki wrote: 8 hours ago

Haven't actively tested the functionality but the tooltip seems the same except with the dmg taken part removed, as was the stated goal.
Assuming (risky, I know) it works correctly and still does the same except for the dmg taken as well, it'll still be a solid 1pt wonder for various situations. The -def part can be useful early on/in lower gear but isn't needed with half-way decent gear for ES (which is why I didn't bother actively testing that one). The slow remains a solid defensive choice and brilliant to shut down

Baal's annoying

Teleport and the like. It still offers quite a lot for a measly single skill point.
Though I wouldn't expect to add more than that single point, seeing how the scaling is then really only -def and duration and not exactly stellar.

Lethargy doesn't seem to slow at all right now on PTR. I assume the -defense is actually working but not sure how to test that, but slow is definitely not working which makes things like

Uber Tristram and uber ancients quite a lot harder.

Mizar wrote: 4 hours ago

Lethargy doesn't seem to slow at all right now on PTR.

Yesterday, that's how it seemed to me too. I thought that I'm not seeing good.

mikelessar wrote: 4 hours ago

MaxDopamine wrote: 4 hours ago

mikelessar wrote: 5 hours ago

Let me explain:
A bound Demon with

Conviction just replaces Infinity, one of the most powerful and expensive runewords. So you get this effect that normally costs 2

Ber for free. And this opens up the merc weapon slot for Insight and the powerful

Prayer+Insight+Cure combo for massive life and mana regen.

That's just op. Removal is the right choice.

explain to me how is it free if you need the skill to be lvl 35 or 40 with items with 20 skill base points and also lvl 96 bound hephasto???
how is that "FREE"?

Cool down, my friend. All this agitation is not good for your (and our) dopamine level.

Right now, a bound

Conviction Demon is free. You only need 1 point in

Bind Demon and this could also come from an item. Then you search for a

Conviction Hephasto.

We will see what the changes after the PTR evaluation will be. All suggested changes are subject to review.

I'm sorry. You're right. I just hope they don't do anything extreme.

Queegon wrote: 10 hours ago

Damage from weapons is now a big deal, so Breath of the Dying

Thunder Maul is the undisputed king of damage (so complete opposite of pre-PTR for weapon choices ). The 60% IAS applies to

Mirrored Blades, compared to zero on Death.

Glad I kept those two

Eth.

Thunder Maul with no sockets...