New PTR and new patch for D2R 2.5

Cold sorc is the new meta now I think. Hammerdins became obsolete, now everyone will go with Blizzard

The more they try to fix the game the more broken it gets, I love it

They do pretty much ANYTHING but what the community is asking for

I honestly think the premise of this entire game from the devs' POV is to buff the Sorceress all elemental damage, which most decidedly benefits the Sorceress, and whatever else happens, happens.

But if you deal physical damage or are dependent on summons, hirelings, or pets, then Blizzard says screw you.

Verband wrote: 1 year ago

Schnorki wrote: 1 year ago

Does it make me kind of chuckle because I already don't use a single Infinity across all my chars? Also yes.

This brings up the next question: Will Infinity count after or before the charm? I hope before. That would very much degrade Infinity.

Why would you hope before?

If before, Infinity will do pretty much nothing on immunes anymore and be redundant to the charm. If Infinity counts after the charm (which one would assume based on the patch note wording but haven't tested) then Infinity just got a massive buff vs. immunes because they'd then be dropped to 95 and eat the full

Conviction after that, dropping down to 10.

Though either way, Infinity will still be the top pick for many builds, simply due to the -res against non-immunes. Charm won't change that.
And for some (mainly fire sorcs), Infinity will become even better (massively so) if it does hit after the charm because fire immunes (currently often not broken and all over the place) will actually eat the full -85 in addition to the sorc gear so they'll all end up in the negatives as well.

That was cleared. Sunder before Infinity.

Blizzard wrote:

Sunder is applied before other resistance reducing modifiers and only affects non-players

louner wrote: 1 year ago

Cold sorc is the new meta now I think. Hammerdins became obsolete, now everyone will go with Blizzard

The more they try to fix the game the more broken it gets, I love it

They do pretty much ANYTHING but what the community is asking for

Blizzard is for amateurs.
Just saying..

(It does take my "how has it taken me 20 years to come up with this?!" sorc build from insane to unchallenged though, weeee! )

louner wrote: 1 year ago

Hammerdins became obsolete

Re-quoted for emphasis, seeing how it is probably the single least-expected sentence ever in all of D2 history.
(Albeit highly exaggerated..they'll remain a top build either way)

Schnorki wrote: 1 year ago

louner wrote: 1 year ago

Cold sorc is the new meta now I think. Hammerdins became obsolete, now everyone will go with Blizzard

The more they try to fix the game the more broken it gets, I love it

They do pretty much ANYTHING but what the community is asking for

Blizzard is for amateurs.
Just saying..

(It does take my "how has it taken me 20 years to come up with this?!" sorc build from insane to unchallenged though, weeee! )

louner wrote: 1 year ago

Hammerdins became obsolete

Re-quoted for emphasis, seeing how it is probably the single least-expected sentence ever in all of D2 history.
(Albeit highly exaggerated..they'll remain a top build either way)

Yeah, but the fact is with

Ist you can have 8k Blizzard +

Teleport + 350mf and with

Jah,

Ohm,

Ber whatever you can have just a mediocre (compared to other classes) bowazon. And that is the real issue that causes no "build diversity"

What they should do is just to take a look at this tier list
https://d2.maxroll.gg/tierlists/overall-tier-list

and do something so builds from C and D tier can go into A and S tiers (and make A and S tier builds stay where they are) - the same way they buffed fire druid. That simple. Instead of this they come up with all this stuff nobody asked for.

Sunder charms before Infinity? This is a MASSIVE damage buff to elemental sorcs.

And F trapsins while we are at it.

mockingbirdreal wrote: 1 year ago

That was cleared. Sunder before Infinity.

Blizzard wrote:

Sunder is applied before other resistance reducing modifiers and only affects non-players

It depends on how this is implemented. I know that -res on a Mercenary does not count for you. Is it the same the other way around as well? If those charms work similar to for example a facet, then I'd expect that Infinity would try to

Pierce, then ,if resistances are not below 95%, sunder would apply, then everything else.

Verband wrote: 1 year ago

mockingbirdreal wrote: 1 year ago

That was cleared. Sunder before Infinity.

Blizzard wrote:

Sunder is applied before other resistance reducing modifiers and only affects non-players

It depends on how this is implemented. I know that -res on a Mercenary does not count for you. Is it the same the other way around as well? If those charms work similar to for example a facet, then I'd expect that Infinity would try to

Pierce, then ,if resistances are not below 95%, sunder would apply, then everything else.

If you have a charm it will first break the immunity and then Infinity will drop it with

Conviction aura by a further massive amount. The -light res on Infinity does not buff you directly, just the aura. Now you can just delete the immunity completely with Sunder + Infinity.

mockingbirdreal wrote: 1 year ago

That was cleared. Sunder before Infinity.

Blizzard wrote:

Sunder is applied before other resistance reducing modifiers and only affects non-players

I wouldn't have counted on that, seeing how intricate all of those mechanics are and how "overly simplified" that statement is as compared to the craptons of exceptions in d2 mechanics buuut I just went ahead and tested this to find out. Had to respec the pally to do so since apparently noone gets an Infinity on PTR anymore but based on that,

Conviction most definitely applies AFTER the charms. As a result, not only does it still do "something" after immunity is broken but it hits with full effect and not the 1/5 you normally get on immunes.

So basically..Infinity just got less essential but even better (at least for some builds) at the same time. Well..damn..

Same thing in numbers:
Sunder + Infinity (and nothing else) = the highest res you'll ever face is 10% (95

Cap from sunder - 85 Infinity

Conviction = 10). Add some facets or the like and nothing will be left in the positives.

(I'd assume the same is true for lower res since it follows the

Conviction mechanics which would be very good news for poison necs - didn't specifically test that one though)

louner wrote: 1 year ago

Now you can just delete the immunity completely with Sunder + Infinity.

I don't know why you put a smiley behind this. Diablo is already not very difficult. That would just be so damn OP, it would not even be fun anymore.

Verband wrote: 1 year ago

louner wrote: 1 year ago

Now you can just delete the immunity completely with Sunder + Infinity.

I don't know why you put a smiley behind this. Diablo is already not very difficult. That would just be so damn OP, it would not even be fun anymore.

It was a laugh through tears. I like the fact that immunities force you to play different builds for different areas. Now it's gone. Yeah, if it will be too easy I will probably get bored and stop playing it.

Schnorki wrote: 1 year ago

mockingbirdreal wrote: 1 year ago

That was cleared. Sunder before Infinity.

Blizzard wrote:

Sunder is applied before other resistance reducing modifiers and only affects non-players

I wouldn't have counted on that, seeing how intricate all of those mechanics are and how "overly simplified" that statement is as compared to the craptons of exceptions in d2 mechanics buuut I just went ahead and tested this to find out. Had to respec the pally to do so since apparently noone gets an Infinity on PTR anymore but based on that,

Conviction most definitely applies AFTER the charms. As a result, not only does it still do "something" after immunity is broken but it hits with full effect and not the 1/5 you normally get on immunes.

So basically..Infinity just got less essential but even better (at least for some builds) at the same time. Well..damn..

Same thing in numbers:
Sunder + Infinity (and nothing else) = the highest res you'll ever face is 10% (95

Cap from sunder - 85 Infinity

Conviction = 10). Add some facets or the like and nothing will be left in the positives.

(I'd assume the same is true for lower res since it follows the

Conviction mechanics which would be very good news for poison necs - didn't specifically test that one though)

Just for good measure:
Tested lower res as well. That, too applies AFTER sunder so excellent news for poison necros.
Too bad Bone necros are still screwed by immunities (and hammerdins, surprisingly enough) seeing how 95% res is still utter crap to deal with and there is no magic facets and the like. So basically, as predicted, the "bring stuff closer to hammers" made Bone even worse by comparison to others. Called it!

Schnorki wrote: 1 year ago

I wouldn't have counted on that, seeing how intricate all of those mechanics are and how "overly simplified" that statement is as compared to the craptons of exceptions in d2 mechanics

When you don't want to mess thing by modifying the complicated d2 mechanic.
The safe way is to modifier monster's resist before (or after) entering that mechanic.

I can't believe the fact that instead of improving things p public demands like loot filter or more stash page/char, they just simply screwed the game hard all the time.

Unbelievable!

One side effect of this patch is that it's disruptive to team play. Why play in a party if you can do everything yourself with a cold sorc?

I know that sounds a little odd coming from a javazon main, but I already find this game boring to solo. That's why I've taken to speedrunning

Chaos Sanctuary the few times that I solo now. At least I can still challenge myself in some way.

While I won't be playing ladder,

Baal runs on ladder would become such a joke now that even I, as someone who doesn't particularly like leeching, would find it more efficient to just carry

Ondal's Wisdom and let a cold sorc do all the work. The way things are now, I already do most of the work in

Baal run games. Hypothetically, a break would be nice, but then what is the point of joining 50-100 straight games for 2-3 minutes apiece and just idling in the corner? I guess it's nice that I have a multi-monitor setup, but then having the game running would be a nuisance to watching videos or reading.

Hell, if the games are being hosted by bots, you'll just see a cold sorc bot do 100% of the work while all the human players can just stand off to the side. Yeah, that will be fun.

Why do

Baal runs? It's gonna be

Terror zones runs now, with an high level host to boost everyone xp gains.

Because they're predictable, efficient, and there's still a nonzero chance of getting nuked by enemy mobs before the minion waves. Boosting the mlvl of bestiary in the rest of the game doesn't make them more challenging when they don't have the arsenal to hurt you.

mockingbirdreal wrote: 1 year ago

Schnorki wrote: 1 year ago

I wouldn't have counted on that, seeing how intricate all of those mechanics are and how "overly simplified" that statement is as compared to the craptons of exceptions in d2 mechanics

When you don't want to mess thing by modifying the complicated d2 mechanic.
The safe way is to modifier monster's resist before (or after) entering that mechanic.

Well, you're looking at 3 different mechanics either way. The order in which they happen is kind of a moot point and specifically in Blizzard's case more often than not has nothing to do with logic or the like.

basicnecromancy wrote: 1 year ago

I can't believe the fact that instead of improving things p public demands like loot filter or more stash page/char, they just simply screwed the game hard all the time.

Unbelievable!

Seeing how the same 2 people raise that over and over, do note that "public demands" and "noone" and whatnot are very different things from "what you specifically want/don't want".

Plenty of people asked for an alternate/less repetitive way to get to 99. They got it. Plenty of people wanted SOMETHING else to do other than the same farming zones 24/7. They got it (albeit in a fairly half-assed not too novel way). Plenty of people asked for "others" to be brought more in line with hammerdins. They now got that (albeit in an idiotic way making the remaining imbalances even more obvious and often amplified). The mere fact that you want something else doesn't mean that noone wants/wanted this (or something similar to it).

Sure, some people also asked for loot filters, more char slots, more stash space and all that jazz. But plenty of folks also couldn't care less about that or are actively against some of it. Hell, for those of us playing for nostalgia, "loot juggling" (like it or not) has always been a large part of this game. Stacking + more space in general removes that even more than it already has been. And knowing how to position yourself to avoid label-blockage (again, like it or not) has also always been part of the "pickup-skill" (well, until pickit became obligatory back in the day). Loot filters would kill that entirely. Not saying they're all terrible ideas and they'd certainly bring everything to "modern times" as far as that is concerned but they'd also have a significant impact on the nostalgia aspect of it all.

So yeah, plenty of people for/against/indifferent to literally any change you can come up with. Sometimes you'll get stuff you want, sometimes you get stuff you don't and sometimes you get stuff you literally couldn't care less about one way or the other. Discussions over what is being done never hurt but taking everything to "but..why not the stuff I wanted?!?", assuming that everyone wants only what you want, will leave you rather disappointed more often than not.

Tetra wrote: 1 year ago

Why do

Baal runs? It's gonna be

Terror zones runs now, with an high level host to boost everyone xp gains.

Curious to see how that actually works out exactly. Highest lvl wins? Average out party levels to determine

Terror mob lvl?
Given, the latter would just be stupid since it'd result in noone accepting anyone lower than themselves in their games but hey..

Scratch that. Based on host lvl. How have I missed that in the notes until now? Good.

Snakecharmed wrote: 1 year ago

Because they're predictable, efficient, and there's still a nonzero chance of getting nuked by enemy mobs before the minion waves. Boosting the mlvl of bestiary in the rest of the game doesn't make them more challenging when they don't have the arsenal to hurt you.

They kinda stop being efficient once you get high enough, unless you're talking about a set 3-man team. If you assume a fuller game, the

Baal-p3-bug kills the xp efficiency.
And for XP purposes, that nonzero chance is actually a bad thing, seeing how dying = terrible for lvling. Then again, given a bit of gear I'd argue that that chance is in fact basically 0 for nearly all builds.

I just wonder why is there such a big disconnect between the D2R community and blizzard. Feels like they do the opposite of what the community wants.

Ppl asked to make

Terror zones harder - they are easier
People asked to buff weak builds - strong are even stronger now, weak are even more in the dust (and F trapsins)
People asked for build diversity - now few strongest builds are more even more favored (probably the only shift is Hammerdin -> Cold Sorc, which was already popular)
People wanted to nerf hammerdins (I don't want to nerf them, but a lot of people asked for it) - they buffed them by reversing the undead immunes nerf
People asked for QOL changes - we have game mechanics changes nobody asked for (besides MrLlama probably )