Additionally, casting speeds with 1-handed weapons are being reworked for the Sorceress, Necromancer and Druid. They have been buffed to only be 1 frame slower compared to using a staff for those characters. The goal here is to make Orbs and Wands more viable, and give Druids some more options as well.
Good god yes please. Quite honestly the only build that could make sorc wand and shield work was with poison and on-kill procs to make up for the lack of damage, even then it's generally better to just use staff at that point.
IV. Tiered Uniques Overhaul
I was feintly hoping the TU system would be gone, but it's good to see of course that it's finally being re-balanced.
Unless act boss drops are being changed to not always drop uniques*, the system really kills the diversity of the early game and makes it heavily redundant imo. Sure we probably won't be using deadfall + jitans on every single weapon damage character this time around most likely, but generally speaking there is a set of tus that will still be the best when leveling with X build. It adds redundancy if you decide you want to play the same build again,which I imagine will happen when certain builds become flavor of the month upon occasion.
*I say this because it's probably the primary contributor to the redundancy. Especially when I play HC. As soon as I reach Mephisto, I grind him until all my TUs are as upgraded as I possibly can. Before LC1 I do it again, etc. etc. If the act bosses didn't always drop uniques, and instead had them more infrequently, or a buttload of them in their quest drops, it would add a decent bit more challenge to the early game in hindsight. The horrors of being "unprepared" for the next act, and you have to think of an alternative to improve your character as you level. "Do I grind mephisto for a few hours and see if I can get one more TU? Maybe it'll save time if I replace my T3 Steel Golem with a runeword armor, or MO some defense in my Steel Golem. Maybe instead I could re-roll a rare with some sort of defense, I could probably save the rune for later" It's moments similar to that is what I miss the most from playing cLoD, and I could see the TU system be integrated well if other factors are changed around.