Cost of holy bolt must be raised

General Discussion
1

diablo 2 resurrected devs have to be careful catering to speedrunners, because speedrunners will not go into depth of what makes a skill tree balanced and any build sensible

in this post it will be compared to level 20 skills of mages, because you will be hard pressed to find a warrior skill that is single target ranged and pierces, making it straight line aoe, other than an amazon with high level pierce. used diablo fandom site, potential written mistakes taken from there

lightning
cost: 8 mana
damage: 1-293
synergies:
3 skills, 8% each, 24% spread out
60 points spent to get to 480%
downsides: lightning resistance and immunity. slow cast. large missile easily obstructed
upsides: fairly cheap. fast traveling missile. straight, predictable line

tornado
cost: 10 mana
damage: 298-323
synergies:
3 skills, 9% each, 27% spread out
60 points spent to get to 540%
downsides: does not move straight, on some spots enemies are impossible to hit from all angles. slow moving. expires somewhat fast. not a safe carefree ranged to use. useless in narrow spaces. easily obstructed. physical resists. rarely, physical immunities
upsides: physical damage more reliable than elemental. consistent strong damage. safe to spam at right angle. unpredictable movement sometimes hits crowds of enemies better than a straight line would

holy bolt
cost: 3.2 mana :shushing_face:
damage: 196-220
synergies:
1 skill (healing synergy excl), 50% increase
20 points spent to get to 1000% :face_with_spiral_eyes:
downsides: cant damage animals :face_with_symbols_over_mouth: some magical immune greater mummy in a sewer
upsides: lol idk, i guess…
straight moving missile, travels fast, pierces, decent casting, wheres the natural magic resistance at, why would i bother with close combat ever again, also happens to heal allies who get in the way, oh wait, they are not getting in the way because it pierces

proposal: holy bolt starts at 2 mana cost, ends at 8 mana cost at level 20, continues to increase from there. that is generous for the lack of downsides and numerous upside, but takes in account the level the skill is unlocked and paladin being a warrior. if someone wants to spam it carefree they either need to invest in energy, or replace other valuable item modifiers for mana increasing modifiers. it would also be sensible to make holy bolt travel slower. adds another weakness, and nearby allies get a better reaction time to run into it for healing

skills that holy bolt used to compare to before its damage got increased, it could damage more than undead, and could pierce. all skills that a speedrunner would not be caught using past the beginning, but has obvious efficient uses outside of a speedrunners very specific no time spent needs

fire bolt
cost: 2.5 mana
damage: 45-60
synergies:
2 skills, each 16%, 32% spread out
40 points spent to get to 640%
downsides: fire resistance and immunities. weak damage. single target only
upsides: extremely cheap. fast travel. no need to overkill weaklings and wounded when you can save mana with a skill you probably already maxed for the sake of synergy

magic arrow
cost: 0 mana, 0 arrows/bolts
damage: 20, 43% physical conversion
synergies:
none
downsides: weapons limited to bows and xbows. hit chance important. can be blocked and dodged. weak damage. single target only. only circumstancial aoe with pierce (enemies rarely stay perfectly lined up)
upsides: magical damage always wins, damage scales with available weapons, affected by outside damage increase and hit modifiers (fx charms, uniques), costs eventually zero mana, ranged weapon skill that never runs out of shots. flawless preserving of mana and quiver and effective dealing with immunities

it shouldnt be necessary to say, not everyone finds lowest playtime possible an appealing challenge, or treat it as a constant goal. for some it can also feel inefficient to skip monsters, a cheat to run from an enemy you cant defeat with your highest damaging skill, and just pointless to tunnel vision for the end game. and there is a good reason why none of the strongest skills in the games are flawless. all strengths must be met with weaknesses, to remind the player that there is a better solution somewhere else on the skill tree for your current situation, and that you made a choice to include this weakness by omitting it from your build. holy bolt must feel like it falls short compared to all other skills on his tree. simply needing an alternative to kill animals is not enough when you have room for 5 fully fleshed out skills to make up for different weaknesses. holy bolt needs more weaknesses!

2

Who needs healing?

A good party melts everything in seconds. Melee and Ranged have leech, and there are always some Prayer/Insight/Cure mercs around. I am using one by myself…

I have a L94 FoH pally, and yes, he is the king of Chaos Sanctuary, but that’s pretty much it. There’s reasons you don’t see FoHs very often in Bnet. Fighting animals sucks, because all you can do is FoH, which is a single target skill with cast delay! Have fun in Halls of Pain, fighting those lightning immune Night Lords…

And there is another downside for Holy Bolt: When playing with controller, it sucks Baal’s balls, because Holy Bolt aims for nearest ally OR monster! In big fights you NEVER hit what you are aiming for.

3

That true, no game should be hard for any players some has reach the ultimate end gamer gear, skills it should just melth everything fast like hell, becouse the game is indeed build to farm and level upp it to reach the ultimate oneblow kills, then should not be like more then a month left before the seasong ends and man restart the with a new seasong mabye with a new class, or another plystyle so man dosen’t play the same every seasong then it gets bored.

4

chill and fun group play with friends where you progress together at normal pace. then you sometimes see your pal spamming bolts and notice your health isnt max.
but i also framed it as a needed weakness, not a needed benefit

most synergized skills dont do much different. they were made into synergies so you have a better reason to level and use them together. when it comes to synergies for a sorceress for example, its a clear choice between best damage or variated damage types

going for perfect holy bolt or fist of heavens means you chose to specialize in lightning damage and magical damage against demons and undead. but its only a specialization that requires 3 maxed skills. it still leaves room for 3 other maxed skills, or however you want to distribute it, to work around your weaknesses. merc choice adds one or more workarounds for your weaknesses too

at least it cant be worse than playing with a touchpad. will never force myself to do that again

i think whether or not things should just melt on hell is player preference. i have always been more of an endurance player and get bored if things go down too fast. then i just zone out and stop caring and isnt encouraged to continue next time i play, i forget where the fun is at. the loot is fun, but i enjoy the combat aspect too and want to feel it happen

5

6 maxed skills, that’s 120 skill points … :thinking:
I seem to be doing something wrong … :thinking:

:smiley: OMG

6

oh yeah sorry, meant 5 :sweat_smile: with 10 points going wherever