With the introduction of the patch 1.10 and synergies Blizzard tried to make other builds viable but in the process made the old ones and especially physical builds lets say not good anymore. Its like they did it on purpose to shift the meta (bad idea, just make them somewhat even power wise).
WW Barb, Multishot Zon, Kicksin (AoE Fire dmg. Kick, dont remember the name in English), Frozen Orb, Nova sorc etc. Can you play a FO sorc ? Sure if you play solo and have 1337 gear, otherwise no its not even close to Blizzards dmg. with all the synergies. The spell Blizzard hits too random and is annyoing to use, FO was so much better design wise. Nova didnt even receive any syneriges, why ? Because alot of people were using it ? (down to the ground ?)
While synergies in theory were a good idea to make some of the low lvl spells like “Glacial Spike” or “Fireball” viable they usually need too many synergies so you cant dual spec anymore very well (before 1.10 it was no problem at all therefore immunities werent such a big issue). In my opinion one high lvl spell should only be attached to one low lvl one and not like 3.
And Hell Cows, they are way too tough in a 8 player game so nobody does them anymore for exp. Blizzards answer to this was that they didnt want players to play a bonus lvl over and over, well thats nonsense. If the lvl is good and fun then why not, give people options to Baal runs (most boring run in the whole game). I never saw people complaining about cowruns, on the contrary people loved them.
Iam not quite sure what was changed exactly so dont nail me on it, I just know these builds and Hell Cows arent anymore good since 1.10. I especially miss my S-Tier Multishot Zon, nerfed to the ground by not giving it synergieis and buffing hell difficulty mobs. Same is true for other builds like FO or Nova Sorc.
In my opinion 1.10 ruined alot of what was fun prior to the patch.
I don’t think Blizzard is annoying. The key to getting it work consistently is to have monsters run through it. If they are standing still it doesn’t do anything at all really. So I tend to run or tp around (depending on the gear I’ve got) to get them to follow me through my blizzards. Find it a lot of fun actually
I wouldn’t mind some build diversity though. Fire for example is useless on singleplayer because you can’t get past chaos on hell due to all the immunities and the orb isn’t good enough in hell to compensate as a partial build.
Its just that Nova and Orb sorc and also Multishot Amazon were so much fun. MS Zon probably went from S-Tier to trash tier and thats not right.
Iam not asking for Blizzard to redesign skills, just to buff them to be on par again, that would be great. It seems to me Blizzard intentionaly made them weaker so the meta shifts. Let the player decide what to use …
I cant imagine people are enjoying Baal runs over and over, cows on the other hand were always super fun.
And about synergies, they tried to make some low lvl spells viable but in the process made alot of other builds obselete. So in the end you didnt end up with more playable builds, they just replaced the old ones and shifted the meta and thats it (bad design, make all great).
And if I had to choose I would rather play an Orb/Meteor sorc than a pure Blizzard sorc. And some spells didnt even receive synergies like “Nova” or “Multishot”. How was that even a good decision/design choice ?
Some of the changes they made with 1.10
Cut Experience and reduced drops in the Cow Level
Made monsters tougher
Beefed up monster difficulty in Act V Nightmare, and Hell difficulties. This was accomplished by improving monster stats (hp, ac, etc.)
Reduced the effectiveness of Experience runs, power-leveling, and leeching.
Reduced the party member Experience sharing to 0 beyond a maximum distance of about 2 screens from the monster death. (before you could split up if capable and then FFA loot was also not such an issue)
Dont like these changes at all, thats why so many builds and unique items are useless like Windforce or Grandfather, they simply dont do enough anymore same for builds like Multishot Zon, FO Sorc, Kicksin (50/50 fire/physical dmg. IIRC), WW Barb etc. etc. Because they made monsters alot tougher in hell but in return didnt give synergies or not enough, very bad decision.
Nobody ever complaind about Cows or some of the old meta builds but suddenly Blizzard had the bright idea to completly change the game with 1.10 and made these once S-Tier builds into trash tier, why ? Why always “Into the ground”, seriously why ?
Dont get me wrong there were also good changes like the Uber events or the respec token/quest etc. but overall builds prior to 1.10 were much more enjoyable, and EXPing in Cows compared to Baal runs were superior fun wise.
I agree that cows gave too much exp. but why stomp it into the ground ?
U forgot several other changes that impacted melee/physical builds:
they slapped 50% extra physical reduction to every mob in Hell (don’t know about NM)
they changed leech to be less effective in NM and Hell
less leech from undead monsters
no leech at all from skeletons
basically every physical build relies on having manaleech and in some areas are so many skeletons, that u just can’t maintain ur mana. (maybe with mana on kill, dunno)
Overall as u said, synergies in general were a good idea to make more skills viable, but they overdid it with buffing underused skills too much and leaving the old “OP” skills way behind. And they never adjusted sadly
I actually don’t mind the Cowlevel nerf, I would be fine if we could level in other areas rather than do boring Baal runs.
I always liked leveling in River of Flames or Chaos Sanctuary, but ultimately when normal mobs don’t give any XP anymore… ppl go to places with guaranteed Rare and Unique Monsters. Maybe they should change it back, that special monsters don’t give enhanced experience and buff the XP from normal mobs instead.
Yep leeching is also a problem, and I dont have high hopes Blizzard will change something in that regard. They usually dont revert changes …
I mean seriously is that so unreasonable wanting old skills and physical builds to be great again ? I really dont understand often game designers because this should be a no brainer, but somehow it isnt for them …
lets just Synergie all skills of one tree altogether and balance the damages on the base damage data.
Would be much more fair: Why should FO get synergy from ice bolt but not from glacial spike or ice blast but ice bolt gets synrgies from ice blast and lgacial spike?
Without very heavy very specific equip its very useless in hell.
blizzard should stop telling us whats fun and whats not.
