Player leveling struggle poll (Pick 2)

[treos]

3. Caster might have some problem with mana cost & immunity (i heard all immunity gone?)

that's probably the worst/hardest part about act 3 now. lots of enemies immune to all damage types with a nearby enemy granting them the passive immunity simply by being near them.

poison/fire/lightning/ice/magic/phys immunity and with how minion AI works in d2 your minions will just get stuck attacking the immune mobs and to make matters worse, with summons (like necro skeletons which me and my friend were using yesterday) now requiring corpses like in vanilla d2 again, we can't simply spawn our minions behind enemy ranks to send them after the mobs granting the immunity.

now we have to actually try and run through the crowds ourselves and get our minions to teleport to us closer to the mobs granting immunity.

then later, as i complained about with my "'normal' diablo is WAY too difficult in 2.0" thread, we ran into problems with diablo too.

i don't know...maybe we should've spent time farming gold for mystic orbs or doing the unique farming from mephisto more and instead rushed things somewhat but by the time we reached the fight with diablo (which we did eventually win after a number of deaths) that fight was a big mess.

and it wasn't diablo's normal fire pillar or fire ring (could use potions for the ring if he didn't spam it too many times in a row) that gave us the most trouble. the problem was all the adds he kept on spawning and freaking bone cage of all things! which, if you're not careful about, he can stick on your town portals and get you stuck.

also worth noting is the fact said bone cages have decent hp regen (no idea why) which is...annoying and just makes you a target dummy for all the mobs attacks till destroyed.

i know outside of spell casting vitality and energy stats are kinda a waste to invest in since hp and mana now scale much more with lvl than stats and i wasn't expecting that and it's not much of an issue for necro summoner (since you don't normally need to spam summon spells unless you die and are rebuilding your army. but it DOES create QUITE the issue for most other spell casting (stfu about your damn mana supply assassin and sorceress! i can't help you with that at low lvls! ) because of how mana cost now scales in accordance with how mana supply scales by lvl for some classes.

if you're dumping all your skill points into an attack spell and by lvl 10 the spell costs a bit over 20 mp/cast and your mana supply at that lvl (without dumping stat points into energy till then) is around 70-90 you have a problem. add to it, low mana regen rate and you also have a problem where you cast 4-5 times then have to back off from fighting and just sit around till you can go back and cast 5-6 times then repeat.

oh, and do NOT do throwing knife assassin at low lvl. i thought that might be a neat thing to attempt and...lol just don't. the amount of skill uses it takes to kill ANYTHING with that skill tree at low lvls is just ridiculous and it goes straight into the above mana problem immediately. you WILL not have good dps doing that tree for a LONG time and until you get deep into crafting. i could already tell.

you would need maybe... a large mana regen, a bunch of +spell cast speed, and whatever else that would increase the damage of your throwing knives for that to even be worth attempting. and even then i wouldn't stick with it unless i could make myself into a throwing knife equivalent of a gatling gun.

[Istaryu]

oh, and do NOT do throwing knife assassin at low lvl. i thought that might be a neat thing to attempt and...lol just don't. the amount of skill uses it takes to kill ANYTHING with that skill tree at low lvls is just ridiculous and it goes straight into the above mana problem immediately. you WILL not have good dps doing that tree for a LONG time and until you get deep into crafting. i could already tell.

viewtopic.php?f=40&t=44696

[iwansquall]

Based on discord feedback, i went through with bowzon from 0 until andariel (since my other zon was purely javazon) just to see if there are any significant roadblock in act 1.

1. Mana problem
Seem less problem with bow skill although i still need to spend 2 point in mana regen skill. Perhaps because barrage 0.9 mana cost increase per skill level help it abit. Some mana leech might help here, although i forgot how early should ppl get it.

2. Item Drop
Only found 1 unusable TU and another TU from Andariel, so gearing pretty much relying on rare, rune for runeword or gamble some basic gear. I dunno if jewelword or gemword would have (they are gone right?), but you have to pray countess drop some usable runes early (I got 2x Sol which is level 33 req.. im like wtf?). I really need to create quick guide for leveling RW since the website guide is just terrible to navigate through.

3. Hireling
Definitely saviour here. She alone tanky all andariel shots until boss health reach a low threshold where she will run like headless chicken. Tank meteor and the poison skill (i forgot the name) without issue.

Only mobs that caused me issue was blood clan (tanky for some reason) and leoric centurion (which is again, super tanky). Most other act1 can be killed easily with barrage. 2 that caught me by surprised is cog (warforged shaman minions) and blood teleporting... rogue enemy (seriously i forgot the name).

I would say so far bowzon is harder, but i cant be definitive yet since i didnt try to max trinity arrow lobbing grenade thingy build.
But i would say that amazon badly need damage passive sooner. Switch between phalanx passive and the dragonlore maybe.

At this point, the only suggestion I can give is to give % mana regen on bloodlust, but then again im aware mana cost problem will eventually gone as player level up.

Im going to chill with my barb again, just need to leveling to 115 to tackle next set of end game content.

[Semigloss]

IMO, there are a handful of early-game enemies you encounter that need to be balanced better. Mostly ranged elemental casters. To name a few off hand:

1. In Act 3, the casters in the Kurast area are way too strong. Specially the ones that are immune while they have minions near by. The fire circles and blizzards just wreck you. Cantors and Exalted Ones.
2. In Act 5 in the worldstone areas, those Magistrates are complete BS. They deal so much lightning damage, even maxed res they kill you easily.
3. In Act 2, the cold caster beast things, can't remember their names, are a pain. Plus you're guaranteed to get frozen because nobody has decent resistances in Act 2 norm.

I think the problem here is that characters generally don't have high resistances early on in the game. Combine that with the increased pack sizes now, new monster skills, reduced runeword access, etc, and it's a recipe for disaster. I have experienced very little trouble with strong single enemies or physical based enemies.

As many people have stated, I actually enjoy the difficulty increase. I'm having to buy potions for the first time in a long time haha. BUT, I can definitely see how this is frustrating for players new to this mod.

One balance idea I thought of that might help across the board is to apply a movement/combat/projectile speed penalty to all enemies. I notice alot of times that enemies move and cast so fast that you get swarmed before you can really do much, usually resulting in a stun/block lock and then death. Something like -30% in normal mode, maybe -15% in nightmare, and then back to 0% in hell. I think this would help all classes progress more smoothly so they can actually respond to tough encounters when 50 enemies are barreling down on them.

Or, just going through and identifying those problem monsters and reducing their pack size. There should never be 8 Magistrates in a single room lol. Atleast not in normal mode that is... I'm all for it in later stages.

[treos]

oh, and do NOT do throwing knife assassin at low lvl. i thought that might be a neat thing to attempt and...lol just don't. the amount of skill uses it takes to kill ANYTHING with that skill tree at low lvls is just ridiculous and it goes straight into the above mana problem immediately. you WILL not have good dps doing that tree for a LONG time and until you get deep into crafting. i could already tell.

viewtopic.php?f=40&t=44696

yeah and i just had an "i am such an idiot" moment when i noticed the passive poison damage skill in that tree too.

[cma78]

In median, the beginning experience matters very little, after 120 you can start complaining about said character, but until then you have no idea how it will unfold.

[Semigloss]

In median, the beginning experience matters very little, after 120 you can start complaining about said character, but until then you have no idea how it will unfold.

If you're an experienced player, sure. But for people new to the mod or with little experience, early game makes all the difference.

[krameriffic]

Neutraldin leveling seemed incredibly broken, fell off a bit around level 100 into low level ubers, and became good again with the set. The early levels are super easy because your damage spells cost no mana and do a ludicrous amount of damage.

Sorceress feels like ass by comparison in the very early levels. Mana problems constantly, significantly lower damage, and you have to stop and spam your shit to actually deal damage. Poison feels the best but still significantly worst than neutraldin with no gear or knowledge of the spec. Lightning and fire felt almost unplayable even with a moderate amount of twink gear. I know lightning and poison get very strong in the endgame, but the curve in the early levels is not good and will push a lot of players away.

[afgusto]

Neutraldin leveling seemed incredibly broken, fell off a bit around level 100 into low level ubers, and became good again with the set. The early levels are super easy because your damage spells cost no mana and do a ludicrous amount of damage.

Sorceress feels like ass by comparison in the very early levels. Mana problems constantly, significantly lower damage, and you have to stop and spam your shit to actually deal damage. Poison feels the best but still significantly worst than neutraldin with no gear or knowledge of the spec. Lightning and fire felt almost unplayable even with a moderate amount of twink gear. I know lightning and poison get very strong in the endgame, but the curve in the early levels is not good and will push a lot of players away.

Your feedback is on point - played Lightning Sorc and just straight up gave up on Act 3 because chugging full stash on every minion pack is just not exactly a large amount of fun. Melee is OK since they deal enough damage and are not gated by insane mana costs, that's why it is much easier to level with those characters rather than casters.

@Semigloss also pointed out all the BS minions, they really need adjustment. I cannot count how many times I got one shotted by them and had to die multiple times just to clear the area, idk how anyone can consider it "fun" and "engaging".

[cowking]

Lightning and fire felt almost unplayable even with a moderate amount of twink gear.

Your feedback is on point - played Lightning Sorc and just straight up gave up on Act 3 because chugging full stash on every minion pack is just not exactly a large amount of fun. Melee is OK since they deal enough damage and are not gated by insane mana costs

Sorc can get through normal without any problems using 1 point immersion and mana sweep. Sounds like you're not attributing your stats correctly.

If you have mana problems, use mana sweep? Sounds like you're not skilling your characters properly either (you don't need superposition at level 100).

It's like... you have free respecs until level 50. You struggle to kill basic mobs (which is the game's way of telling you you're doing something wrong) and instead of respeccin and fixing your char (in the most obvious way possible) you label the class/tree unplayable :galaxybrain: when talking about a class that can instant refill mana/life bulbs at will during the leveling phase of the game.