The patch and understanding why it's a positive in a lot of ways

General Discussion PC
1

I see so much negativity but I am clearly see a lot of it is surrounded by people not quite understanding the changes. I know I’m going to get assaulted for this, but I’m standing my ground.

Characters got a blanket BUFF for damage across the board for almost every category ie: physical, core, fire, cold, imbue, marks, pyro trap, EVERYTHING.

BECAUSE of this blanket buff, vuln had to get a nerf. What they realized is by having a modifier that functions like vuln at such a high %, that as the game progresses and BASE damages get higher, the end calculated damage numbers start to multiply to unmanageable levels they can’t balance any content around. When a multiplier goes too high, this is always the result, so leaning that hard into a single multiplier was never a good idea in the first place. So to make sure vuln still worked, everything needed to be buffed. We still received an overall damage output nerf from this, but it actually was very minimal.

Where you are seeing the ACTUAL difference is the small damage nerf we got as a result, but when combining it with the 30% additional mob health pools, it’s making it feel like it was a huge nerf to your damage. It wasn’t. Your numbers are still pretty good, but now obsessively broken things can be realigned easier.

As a result of how things have changed, our characters are NO LONGER OPTIMIZED to put out the same LEVELS of damage they did before. In order to even SEE the actual damage difference the nerf truly had, we would all have to re-evaluate the math behind other sources of damage, and reapply it to the multiplier to see if we can come out on top from other angles. Since vuln was hit, we may see a taper-off point where vuln no longer makes more sense than stacking something like “+%physical damage” could do. If all of our characters were optimized already around the new formula, you would likely feel almost exactly the same minus only a few %, but mob hp would be increased. Most people were hitting so ungodly hard that they were 1 shotting mobs anyways, so they will (when optimized again based on new math), probably barely even notice much a difference in most cases, except maybe bosses.

I actually see where they’re going with this patch. It’s definitely difficult to see it when you only look at the numbers on the paper, (and even harder when you log onto your main characters and start playing around with the character expecting your damage to be okay not realizing that you’re no longer anywhere close to optimally geared because everyone vuln stacked) until you start trying to figure out how THIS works differently for your characters.

Start re-evaluating how your characters work. Just because you’re not optimized now doesn’t mean the character will suck. I promise this isn’t as bad as most of you are making it out to be. We will have a more balanced future in this game because of this patch.

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3

I’m not saying they achieved balance. I’m saying they are preventing gross inability to balance ANYTHING in the future. Blizzard has been anything but good balancers. They haven’t balanced a single game properly since broodwar. But this patch actually gives the future of balance a better chance.

I’m not particularly thrilled about them doing this and NOT also balancing out the clearly glaringly overpowered classes either, but 1 step at a time.

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4

What they achieved is a bigger gap between classes. I dont like ranged classes so i hate Necro. If they dont fix this sh!t this week i will literally call their sales department and ask for refund… Thats not the product i paid for.

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5

There’s actually a smaller gap between most classes. Just not the broken classes, since the broken ones nerf effects them less hard. I feel more on pace with the rest of my team now than I ever have, and since the mob hp’s were increased, if you play a character that has 0 mobility, you don’t always show up to the next mob pack when everything is already dead. It’s actual a positive thing in that regard too.

6

It’ funny you bring this issues up. I tend to agree with some things you have said.
Nonetheless, why don’t you bring up the survivability nerfs and try and explain how those, coupled with the offensive nerfs, will make the game better?

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The survivability nerfs are hard to wrestle with being a hardcore player. This season is going to be an absolute blood bath. We were already starting the season with a ton of extra skill points which was going to lead people into a false confidence and overstepping their abilities, causing more death. But now pair that with the armor value decreases and DR effectiveness reduction, and if you don’t have some seriously skilled players on your team, they’re not going to be aware of their weaknesses and they’re going to die REAL fast this season. It’s going to be a great season to watch all the hardcore streamers get their rear ends handed to them for sure. Watch out for those videos!

From a softcore perspective, I can’t really shed much light. I think it would be frustrating to have less survivability, but you guys all already glass cannon and don’t care much about dying anyways, so I don’t share your perspective about that being an issue.

What I can say is, lowering the armor is definitely going to reward less lazy and more skillful play. Dodging things will be much more important. It’s not going to be a lazy curb stomp where u run in, hit 2 buttons, and everything is gone, consequences be damned.

I have serious concerns about them having considered the consequences of this during the campaign bosses though. Some of the campaign bosses already almost damn near 1 shot you for most of their abilities. Astaroth is going to send a lot of people packing for sure.

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How am I going to have to play more skillful in HC on a barb let’s say when he gets insta killed by a mob? There is no skill in being so weak that you die in 1 shot. This is not DS its an arpg. At least make us zoom out more to counteract these nerfs to play more tactically. I would wish that. But we ain’t even getting this…
Edit: sorry , forgot to mention that I am referring to HC , I have no idea how bad this impacts SC

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9

Again, not saying they achieved balance. Melee is definitely getting the short end of the stick here. I play/stream a bow rogue, so I know after evaluating everything carefully that I actually came out as one of the less effected in all this, EXCEPT for when I’m against barrier mobs and am going to be FORCED to dive into dangerous packs with less armor on an already squishy char…but that also makes my strategy to use the aspect that drops a smoke grenade that much more valuable. It’s strategical changes that are going to make the differences with this patch. It’s going to require almost an entire re-evaluation of how you build and engage.

I won’t pretend to know all the classes because I only play a rogue. I’m just saying, we all have a pretty large toolkit. REALLY dig in and see what ideas you can come up with to make this work in your favor.

10

If i am melee class, and i need to get into melee, but melee DEVASTATES me, how can i find a work around? I am using full DR and before the patch, even if my damage was not all that, I was pretty proud of my survivability. I tend to prioritize it since it’s HC after all. But after the patch, I feel SO SO SO vulnerable.
Before , my mates playing rogue and necro would hide behind me in NMDs. Now I have to hide behind them as a melee tanking class. This does not seem to be working as intended. I may be wrong though, time will tell.

11

You’ve found the problem. Now see if you can come up with a creative solution. Part of what makes diabo fun is theory crafting. Didn’t know you were also hardcore. I feel your pain. A miscalculation on our end means we’re done, which makes it harder to deal with dramatic changes like this.

Best I can say is go slow and look for the light in the tunnel. Is there any other buildout for barb that doesn’t force you stay in range? There’s a new aspect that would help. If there’s nearby enemies, it stuns them for up to 4 seconds…4 seconds is an eternity in ARPG’s. Maybe lean into that one and see what kind of advantages it gives you to help KEEP you safely in melee range. Pair this one with other stuff and really crank your brain. See what you can come up with. I don’t know the barbarian toolkit so again I’m not a ton of help, but the stun aspect might be pretty useful for you guys, especially if running with a team and there’s a way to get them to go off in an alternating pattern.

12

That aspect is shit, almost as all the others. With no way to discern between shit mobs and elite mobs, it will just randomly pop-off during the times that some fallen charge you. Why would I ever want to stun those guys that die in literally 1 second? It;s just as most of the other “upgrades”. It is not thought out. They just shoot darts and see what lands. It will not make me more survivable. DR would. Not some gimmicks that work once in a blue moon when YOU DON’T want them to proc. Sorry but I feel like this is a major slap in the face.

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Hey, I’m a casual player, a couple of hours, at most, here and there. I just wanted to log in and play, not have to calculate stuff on spreadsheets to work out how to survive in the game. I have a business to run, a wife, two kids, the gym and other games and hobbies - they have made this game unplayable for people who just want to log in, play and log off. I’ve no time or inclination to watch YouTube or Twitch to find out how to keep my Barbarian alive. But that’s just me.

4 Likes
14

Developers of games should stop thinking that games are work. I see this every single game. There are a few people that have no goal in life, except beating a game or playing it 16 hours a day, and maybe streaming their work. Those people always want more difficulty and challenge. Then is the other 99.5+ player base, who treat a game as a game, which is meant to be played a few hours per week and have fun. Every diablo game like, except Last Epoch for now and Torchlight infinite is a full-time job. Please guys try make game fun and enjoyable. I see no reason to do same thing over and over for no reason. In my opinion, game content is a complete failure the moment player finishes the campaign. Developers basically want players to do 500+ hours more playing doing exact same content, with only change being that game got harder, while trying to gain like 4-5 new relevant items (in total for all classes) and call that content. Total waste of time, just to replay again for no reason.

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15

At least 5 mobs need to be near you for it to even go off, so your scenario is impossible. Basically you can rely on it only going off when you dive packs, and specifically NOT when a fallen or 2 run up to u and rando-hit u.

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Fallen come in groups of more than 2. They dash towards me. Even if i kill them instantly in melee, it still pops off the 5 mobs aspect. How would it work otherwise?

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TO EVERYONE READING THIS THREAD. :bangbang: DO NOT REPLY :bangbang:
SO BLIZZARD WON’T BE ABLE TO SEE THIS AND GO INTO THEIR DELUSION EVEN MORE THINKING THAT THIS WAS GOOD PATCH

:bangbang: DO NOT REPLY :bangbang:

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“When there are at least 5 close enemies, stun them for [2-4] seconds. This can only occur once every 20 seconds.”

That’s exactly what the aspect says. It was an idea for you. If it’s not working, that’s another issue entirely. Was merely a suggestion to work into your strategy.

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19

Oh I appreciate it. I did not mean to come off as aggravated or something. You can’t read a persons tone so maybe that’s where the confusion came from. I appreciate the tips but I just don’t think they will make any sense. Especially since I need to drop off another aspect to get this one. An aspect which most likely would be a DR or survivability one.
Oh well, no point in screaming into the void I guess.
Have a nice day !

20

Yeah no problem. We’re all kinda in limbo right now trying to figure this out. It’s definitely not ideal, especially to drop something this large on us only 2 days before a season launch. I think the timing is the bigger issue. Handled poorly in that regard, but maybe there’s a good combo u can come up with man.

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My personal thought is that damage is nice, but rather useless if I can’t survive or die every 2 seconds. :frowning_face: