Various numbers feedback
This is a list of feedback points that I have accumulated over the past year of playing median xl. These are individually too small to warrant their own post, so I decided to collect them in a single one.
One of the main aspects I enjoy in mxl is overcoming the challenges the game throws your way and so this brainstorming centers mainly on game elements which trivialise the challenge too much.
Character Skills
Problem: Great passive bonus, but the incredibly high flat damage reduction is too overpowered against multihitting enemies.
Suggestion: Halve flat damage reduction to 4 per slvl (down from 8).
Problem: Damage of VoR for unholy paladins reaches absurd levels with only a single point invested into Solstice & Equinox and VoR. On the other hand VoR + holy influence & VoJ + unholy influence vessel passives give practically useless bonuses (extra targets with slvl).
Suggestion: Reduce damage bonus of S&E to 5% per slvl (down from 15), or move to hard points; VoR might need to be toned down slightly in addition. Make the extra targets part of the passives hard points only, introduce a useful benefit for influences matching your spec. For example 1 yard increased target seek range every X points. X will be lower for VoJ and higher for VoR.
Problem: Damage is massive enough to one shot any non-poison immune enemy in the game with -100% resistance pierce. At end game it is too easy to reach 1 sec attack timer with just a single point invested.
Suggestion: Currently requires slvl 49 for 1 sec attack timer. With reduced +skill bonuses on charms in mxl2016, increase slvl needed to reach minimum slightly. Increase lower bound to 1.5 seconds.
Problem: Stop the disgusting "buffbot" practice. ~1300 TCD is too strong of a buff to be so easily available to other builds. Makes no sense within the game world anyway. Unholy paladins' blood gets tainted due to the devotion to their covenant, which other characters should not be able to obtain as a gift for Christmas.
Suggestion: Make it a self buff only. This has the extra benefit of making Hoplites less superior overall to Scourges too. Keep rapture as friendly castable to keep the distinct holy/unholy influence difference with euphoria. Also it's a lot less game-changing.
Problem: Nearly useless for holy casters or spell casting hybrids. Compare to superbeast which has great utility to casters & good utility to WDM unholy variants.
Suggestion: Increase bonus block to 2%. This buff will encourage casters & hybrids to pick it over resurect as it will actualy allow them to reach good block levels if they wish to do so. Furthermore it will promote a new dex-based flavour holy melee build, which uses crystal swords (an underused item type) and goes for max block. The lack of free dex on the holy tree and upcoming reductions to attributes on charms in mxl2016 prevent this from being overpowered.
Alternative suggestion: Some sort of direct caster benefit that requires point investment. For example 4% fire & magic/physical spell dmg per hard point.
Problem: By far the strongest passive in the elemental trees. In practice it forces the cold tree on to your build unless you are extremely end geared or don't care about optimisation. Cold tree is the only one which has synergy with all the others (indirectly with poison via cold elementals aura).
Suggestion: Remove DR component of elementals' aura. Remove snow queen max life bonus, but increase defence scaling to 30% per point (up from 25%). Buff Living flame maximum life increase by 20%. Buff vengeful power to give 1% DR per hard point up to 20% DR. This means that cold still has great synergy with lightning, but does not have direct synergy with posion or fire like before.
Now every passive gives a unique defensive bonus and so every tree requires different gear choices to optimize effective hp.
Problem: Inferior to bladestorm (damage wise) when fighting against 1 target. Also inferior in crowded areas (most prevalent in the game) because swords do not pierce. Added damage is not affected by EWD (not sure if intended).
Suggestion: Increase WDM modifier to 2/3(from 1/2). Makes it better against groups and viable endgame. Leeching capabilities also improved. Damage increase does not make the skill overpowered as it lacks conversion.
Problem: Great ability, but the range diminishing is too rapid at higher levels. Makes targeting moving enemies too painful.
Suggestion: Currently it takes 17 points to reach 6 yard minimum range. Keep that as is, but increase minimum range to 7 yards.
Problem: Sorceress oskill builds are underrepresented because she has no good way to buff the damage of non-class spells.
Suggestion: Firedance is one of the only great direct boost for such builds. I propose the following buff: 1) increase elemental damage to 4% per point 2) hard points only.
We need 1) because the level of skills on charms will decrease, which will be an even greater blow to this already mediocre ability. We need 2) because we want to prevent non-oskill sorcs from becoming too strong, as they don't have such large amounts of points to spare without compromising somewhere else.
Problem: Massive life bonus to self & minions and infinite mana regen. Allows zero vitality necromancers to reach life levels of paladins & barbarians who invest in that stat.
Suggestion: Reduce life gained to 4% per point. Halve mana regen per slvl to 5% to complement upcoming mxl2016 mana tweaks.
Problem: Gives 140% spell damage at clvl120. This is by far the strongest innate skill in the game, better than most spell damage boosting skills which require point investment. Ability is practically at uber skill power level and you get it for free.
Suggestion: Halve elemental & magic/physical spell dmg bonuses to 70% spell damage at max level. EWD bonus is fine.
Stats
Problem: Most Unique Mystic Orbs have really bad stat budget for the increased level requirements they imprint on items. Considering there are so many of them that add interesting stats they could be more useful.
Suggestion: Reduce level requirement increase of all underused unique MOs to +8. Endless, Perfect Sphere & marksman's can stay at +10.
Problem: The "reanimate as X" stat is very overrepresented and leads to a "WTF is happening" moment for newer players. Also causes lag, especially in multiplayer. Most importantly it reduces the skill required to handle certain uberquests by spamming the entire screen with meatshields.
Suggestion: Halve all
item sources of reanimates greater than 1% - on TUs, runewords, sets, SUs & rares. This will increase the appeal of current & potentially future reanimate skills too.
Problem 1: Slow Target item stat. Best defensive stat in the game. Trivialises many bosses. Allows players to abuse the limited monster AI by getting monsters stuck in a "try to run up to player and melee them, and not use any skills" loop.
Suggestion: The vast majority of items which have this stat roll between 15-30%. Reduce all slow target on items to 1/3 of the original value.
Problem 2: Skills which give a big chunk of slow target . Stuff like snake stance, chronofield, tree warden morph, spellbind, miasma etc. Same abuse as above.
Suggestion: Reduce all the state slow values to 20%. Skills which give slow target item stat like snake stance & defensive harmony should cap at 20% too.
Items
Problem: Vizharan. Remove buff oskills, they make characters too homogeneous & overpowered and reduce item & gameplay decisions.
Suggestion: Add affixes that benefit new XV caster tree instead. Consider removing CtC tainted blood procs on other items or giving them the lionheart treatment (really short duration so buff only usable if you are using the item full time).
Problem: Danmaku. Too strong. Limits usability of all other WDM amazon shields, because they have to compare to, and better, this one in some way.
Suggestion: Javelin nova is its most "unique" feature, which gives it the flavour. Buff javelin nova to 20% on kill; remove javelin on striking proc. This means it is still a great farming shield, but now won't be omnipotent.
Problem: SSSU & Elemental Runewords. Most SSSU are too strong, require slight nerfs. Many elemental runewords are too underwhelming due to forcing you to give up X sockets, require slight buffs.
Suggestion: Tweaking numbers of most problematic stats. E.g. Segnitia: ctc down to 5%; Knight's grace: arrow down to 1%; Shattered stone RW: all skills up to (0 to 4); Dead Man's Breath RW: all skills up to (0 to 4) etc. Slight all skill buffs on weaker elemental runewords as this stat will become even more attractive in mxl2016.
Problem: Tiered Items. Why are there 6 tiers of items when sacred bases start dropping frequently as soon as Act 2 terror Arcane Sanctuary. Not to mention Hatred only drops up to tier3. This means tier 3-6 are only relevant drops during a1 terror & half of a2.
Suggestion: Remove tier2 and tier 4. Old t1 = t1, old t3 = t2, old t5= t3, old t6 = t4. This way we would have 4 item tiers. Hatred drops 1 & 2; terror and onwards drops 3 & 4. Ideally sacred items won't drop until a4 Terror at least too, but this might require too much work and if so will not be worth it. Makes progression smoother, requires less farming & cubing time for newbies.
Miscellaneous
Problem: Invulnerability Effects. Can't think of any valid reason why these are still in the game in their current form, without any weaknesses. Sacred/unholy armour, liche form, Spirit of Vengeance.
Suggestion: Change liche form to give only elemental & magic immunity (liches are frail undead masters of magic). Remove magic dmg reduced from paladin shields - they should only give physical dmg reduced (because making the paladins immortal to "earthly" sources fits the game world more - see blessed life). SoV - only physical and fire immunity. Fits game world thematic more and is still very powerful.
Problem: Chronofield oskill. Too unique of an effect and too strong against bosses (especially vs purify) to be present on items and easily usable by everyone.
Suggestion: Remove from Taha xbow & SSU dirk. Items do not require compensation.
Problem: Nightmare oskill. Too strong against bosses (especially vs purify) to be present on items and easily usable. Available procs are fine, because they take more effort to execute.
Suggestion: Remove from Deathforce shield. Buff cryo beam oskill by 10-20 levels to make it more usable and to compensate.
Problem: Miasma oskill. Too strong against bosses (especially vs purify) to be present on items and easily usable. Available procs are borderline.
Suggestion: Remove from Ylfa Ban and Kethryes' Warband. Both items do not require compensation.
Problem: No one does full runs of Khalimgrad because they can just kill the nearest avatar and remake the game.
Suggestion: Reduce Zakarum's Ear droprate to 1/20 from avatars. Replace the avatar in the east-most part of the level, which is hardest to reach, with an identical monster now named "Zakarum Deity" which drops the ear with 1/4 Chance. So now if you can finish the entire level you will get the charm much faster (and you will be way less bored) than if you abuse the map layout.
Suggestion: Tran athulua bosses all being identical archers with added elemental damage to attacks is boring. Replace priestess of Hefaetrus with a Bloodzon style NPC. Replace priestess of Zerae with a Stormzon style NPC (and cool looking asterism state).
