General Season 22 Feedback and Ideas For the Future

Hello, I wrote a very long post on some of my thoughts regarding the game's state and end-game in the last season. I had a few lengthy drafts again this time, but I lost them (cellphone typing), and will try to make it more casual. So this will be less organised and more focused on new potentials opposed to old problems.

General

- Seasons should start on weekends, any EU/NA afternoon/evening time works. Four month seasons seem just about right, but I personally feel the Friday afternoon mid-October start for NA players crippled the player-base a bit. Feels like the game is getting less and less active, to pre-Sigma dates, despite much more content and development. I feel the game also missed out on a nice new season right after Blizz-con to ride some Diablo 4 hype. There was pretty valid speculation that Diablo 4 and potentially Diablo 2:Remastered would be announced, especially since their major recent PR blows due to China/HongKong-related incidents. I believe there would have been a lot of fresh new faces if the season was delayed 2-3 more weeks to time its' right around now, but as it stands, 2 of my last season's starting party began this season due to time constraints, and people don't want to play catch-up with each other.

- More builds need to be viable for the game, especially the focused "endgame" of T10-15 Labyrinths. Bowazons have unparalleled clear with ease, Summoner spells exist in multiple classes but cannot compete with Barbarians' damage and items, Traprat does it all, Necros have the most viable builds and remain competitive; meanwhile, classes with more dedicated spells, such as elemental sorcs, javazons, spearzons (nerfed), totems (still mediocre), nagisins (still bad), caster druids (their own spells suck and uses stormfront), and so on, are pretty much dead. Labs are a decent end-game option, but not viable for play for most builds, especially elemental. Absorb / resistance levels scale too high, and defensive/survival stats in top-end elemental gears and skill-sets are often greatly trumped by top-end melee/physical options (see:arrogance, giant's knuckle, khazra, list goes on). As new builds become competitive each season, attempts to change that are clear : UHM Paladins and Trapsins from last season, which focus on Vitality increases. Not a fan of the design, but understand the simplicity and what life it can give to the builds that receive it. Hopeful that every season will continue introducing at least ~4 new builds, with 2-3 potentially top-end.

- I understand this probably won't happen, but the game seriously needs more and better documentation. I've found a few Cornerstones this season. I have one for "Squall Gust". What the hell is this? Why do I have to put this in an item, which "cannot be unsocketed" to find out what it looks like, and how much damage it does? This is silly. Sure, I can assume it's junk because I've never seen anyone talk about it, and searching on forums doesn't seem to help much, but really. Probably hundreds of instances like this for newer players. Should continue to shed the fat, similarly to removing hundreds of SU's upon Sigma's release, and remove a lot of the obsolete / useless skills, and/or buff some and make them competitive, with description. I also appreciated the update to documents regarding Dimensional Labyrinths, but really, there's still little to no organised information - to find most of rifts, you have to search or look at old patch notes. That shouldn't be the case, in my opinion.

Endgame

- Suggestion: "Map Scrolls" - drops from around the world, from alvls 120 and above, that opens portals to cool new/rehashed maps. ALVL 125-135. IOTSS, Tran Athulua, Frozen Tundra, Red portals in A5, Ancient Tunnels, Cow level, whatever. Enhanced drop rates, especially for the rarer items of the game - SSUs, SSSUs, other grails like Buried Hawks, Cornerstones, Jewel of Lucks, Atomus, etc. Diablo is at its' essence, an item-hunt game. The desire to find that crazy upgrade or something you never had before, keeps most people repeating sequences over and over again. For most people who thrive on this thirst, Median offers 1000 runs of Fautinzville. Fauzt is a fantastic map, but there should be "greater" alternatives, or more rewarding options. Dimensional Labs is not that. Labs are much more of an adventure and challenge than anything else, and though may be rewarding at its' end, is a turnoff to a large portion of the player-base due to many factors - lack of documentation of specific values, spike in difficulty compared to everything else, and generally less-rewarding and less-efficient than grinding for items in Fauzt and trading. Doesn't help that every charm and item from the hardest content is easily obtained via auction from dedicated expert players who can run the content easily. 3 weeks into the ladder, I feel no motivation to run Uldy for ~45 minutes with my fully geared trapsin, when I can buy a +2 from someone like morph_Oldman's melee Necro who does it in 1/3 the time, for like 50-100tg.

Anyways, going back to map scrolls, the game should be an "endless" grind, it provides more play-ability. Last season, I suggested higher level caps among other things, which obviously Median isn't for - ~15% of skill points were removed from items this season just to lessen the power levels across the board. But at least, if there were a higher level cap, or more ways to obtain experience beyond 140, or to get stronger without feeling like you've hit a brick wall unless you enter the Labyrinths, I feel the game is providing more options for "casuals" while maintaining the Labyrinths' luster. The options are endless in these "special maps", here's some random ideas:

- "Chaos Rift" - opens portal to x map, ALVL 125-135 - new/modified beastiary, bigger map, enhanced loot - EXP gains possible beyond 140, less than Labs. Say, one map scroll's drop rate is similar to that of a Great Rune, maybe lower, can drop anywhere? Labs' only? ALVL 120+ areas? Requires 1 Great Rune or Elemental Rune to "materialize".
- "Chaos signet of learning" - +1 beyond 400 limit - expected 1-5 drop per map?
- Trophy fragments, especially with introduction of more SSSU's with "Restitution", can drop here. All kinds, different chances.
- SSSU drop rates enhanced, maybe 10x? Or SU drop rates in general? Duncraig got ninja-nerfed right? Another place of rewards beyond Fauztinville would be nice. Unique Jewel/Jewelry drops enhanced? Best place in the game to find Buried Hawks, maybe ~1 every ~25 clears drop %?
- Skill signets, up to 3..? With all the nerfs and additions of +max skills, it would be nice to get this back and balance out or use those +max skills...
- EXP - provided you are lucky enough to find these map scroll and able to grind them efficiently (difficulty should be similar to like a T7-9 Lab), you should be able to get decent experience. Labs should not be the only place that provide EXP after 140, maybe ~145.

There are many options to this, but I believe adding map scrolls to the game, to revisit modified older areas would be a great addition to the game.

- Rifts - please make this more Elemental friendly in general. I don't fully understand the complications of everything development-wise, but physical builds in general benefit from much less reductions overall opposed to elemental, which requires at least ~150+ pierce, and still faces a ~70+ absorb at higher levels. Nevermind the survivability and whatnot, it takes forever to kill certain bosses from T7 onwards. It's not fun to play a character or a build knowing that you're vastly less effective than some of the other options despite having equivalent or higher gear value. Balance is tough and perhaps shouldn't even exist in many forms, but elementals are seriously lackluster in the endgame on Median. A Sorceress by design, should be the most gifted elementalist, and melee sorcs are great - but that doesn't mean every top sorceress in the server should be melee because her elemental design is awful.

ITEMS

Really hope that at least some of these items do receive changes. Will try to keep it short. Few random examples of lackluster item designs:

Angelhost - Crown Shield SSU - Crown shield is an extremely rare base, but no Paladins want to use this shield despite its' amazing defensive stats, because it cripples %30 of your main damage stat, STR. The Cherubim proc on melee attack also seems a little mediocre, since the spell kind of sucks, but that's something else. Angelhost... Maybe a shield to buff Paladin summons, giving Hoplites / Scourges some life/damage stats based on your own? +skills to something? I'm not sure, but I am of the belief that every highest-tier base of any class-specific unique, should be Best-in-slot for some build. This item is not that.

Galeona's Lash - Jared's Stone SSU - Not a Dimensional Shard from Diablo 2, but the same base family, and highest Sorc Orb base in Median. But, it's a melee weapon. In fact, not only is it a melee weapon, but it doesn't even compete with its' counterpart in Steel Punisher, even Starhawk. 1% melee proc is not a thing, offers little to no defense, damage isn't even that high, the item is pretty useless. Rarest sorc orb base, not even the strongest melee weapon among Sorceress options. If it were to remain melee, this item needs buffs - better procs, perhaps on striking, some PR/DR/ER, Leech, something. However, if you were to convert it to a caster orb, the options for effects to enable caster Sorcs is endless:
- Witchblood now works for all spells
- Abyss center hits at %damage
- Thunderstrike on targets hit by Nova Charge, massive damage.
- oskill Blizzard (may be better on Atanna's Key)
- Why is the rarest SSU for a class so terrible, I do not know.

Stygian Fury - SSU Trebuchet - Another extremely rare base, highest tier of Necro-xbows. This item is like a child's version of Hellreach for Amazons, the Necro's version of the failed Galeona's Lash - though slightly different. If the selling point of an item is a fire-based proc, and the build encourages a hybrid-style with good physical/elemental damage output, then with max gears, the item better at least compete with the damage output of a single damage focus (i.e.) physical, while not making you more squishy (reduce TCD). Because when it fails to do that, the item becomes completely worthless and lacks identity. Why any X-bow Necro would even try to use this over Buriza, Advent, or Hwanin's is beyond me, and that's sad because technically, this item is rarer than all of them. A tad bit disappointing. If anything, this bow should grant you 6% fire spell damage per point in DS or something, and give like 5-10% base DS, with more pierce than 15. But perhaps, that would make it a Fire-Buriza basically, and maybe you wouldn't want that? There's other options, but I believe the current version is not it.

Hammer of Jholm - Since this item was introduced, S1 or 2 of Sigma can't remember, I was very curious - effects seemed really unique, cool, and fun. It's unfortunate that Whirlwind as a spell can only hit 6 times in a second no matter the targets, and that the procs are designed to work once every second. On top of all that, it offers 0 defensive capabilities or leech options (basically spell proc item with no physical), so pretty much regardless of the build, you're probably going to die after a whirlwind or two against any real endgame entity (Fauzt, Ubers, Labs). This item might be one of those, "not every item has to be game changing or useful", but I wanted to mention it because it's such a waste of a great item design, and it's a shame that potential druid/barb/paladin builds based on the item can't exist because you can't really survive while trying to take full advantage of its' attribute-based effects. Also, 6-hit whirlwind without any defensive boosts (slow aura, damage reduction, leech), is pretty terrible in Median. Hope this item gets a mention next season.

- New Assassin trap items - Tinker's Gambit SSU, Clockwork Slippers SU, Implement 7 SU ++

Tinkers Gambit - makes you sacrifice a ton of survivability (Artifice Mastery 50% vitality bonus), to invest in STR (useless) for trap damage. The ratio is 1% damage to 5 base STR. Why? Were Trap-sins ever so strong last season, that they needed a hit to their survivability to allow climbing rifts? I don't recall any Trap-sins efficiently clearing T13+, correct me if I am wrong. The damage bonuses from this helm's effect is not good enough to warrant the sacrifice in survivability, which is an absolute necessity at higher rifts - ironically, Trap-sins suffered last season from lack of damage due to lack of elemental pierce, despite being able to tank. This trade-off is a major off-put, and I am certain by the end of the season, that no good Assassin will actually use this item's effect and invest points into STR. Extremely inefficient trade-off.

Clockwork Slippers - This item, good Assassins probably won't use at all. The 50% reduction to radius eliminates the potential for this item to be BiS, even though it's pretty much designed to be. If anything, this item should reduce the radius of Catalyst Trap and not Incineration Trap, and keep the cooldown reduction bonus. It should also be rarer, though I assume that requires a new SU boots. Again, the drawback of this item is not worth the trade-off, especially in 125+ content, where nothing remains stationary and you need the radius from incineration traps to have any decent damage output.

Implement V.II - 125 level requirement hurts it a bit, but carries a lot of great stats, and pretty much a must-use for Trap-sins. A little conflicted on design, seems like it was basically made to encourage hybrid-sins using Artifice Mastery and a physical claw setup - don't agree with the design. I feel that it would make much more sense to add the elemental pierce to traps on Tinker's Gambit, and give some stats bonus to traps / spell damage on Implement. But maybe, that makes Tinker's Gambit uncontested BiS as the new SSU, which I believe is the purpose, but perhaps it isn't? I'm not sure. Either way, Implement's trap elemental pierce is a necessary addition to the game, though I feel the item itself offers more conflicting stats (physical-focused). Feels like the item is telling you to build a hybrid-trapsin, as a pure trapper is not going to cut it.

EYE OF WISDOMS

- Every single one of these should be buffed. What's the identity and purpose of these set pieces? They are actually pretty rare, aside from the amulets - Do they want to be endgame pieces? They're 2 piece sets, so it makes me believe that you want them to be comparable to 1-2piece Henchmens / Curse of Zakarum sets. However, I do not know of a single class that actually wants to use these for a top-5 build of their class, maybe druids who want to have some fun? Since they have a lot of synergy to poison in their kits already.

When these first came out, the hype was pretty crazy - everyone wanted to buy some to try them, especially the Frozen Orb and Lightning Fury sets for Sorc and Amazon. Little did they know of the disappointment to come. Frozen Orb's mana costs are exorbitant without valid reason, and Lightning Fury is just so lackluster compared to everything Bowazon. I sincerely don't see why these spells and concepts are reintroduced if they are going to remain completely noncompetitive and impractical vs. everything that already existed. Shouldn't people want to get these sets, add some more SSUs / perfect runewords to their other slots, and be able to roll Duncraig / Fauzt / T1-5 rifts? I'm not sure of the design philosophy, but honestly, out of the 7 sets for the classes, not a single one is coveted highly. ATMG sentry saw some buffs for the Assassin set this season. Magic damage increased from 10-40 per level, or something like that. I tried running the build again this season on my Assassin, in light of this buff, only to realize that yet again, it's still terrible. Looking at the numbers, ATMG hits around ~12 times per second. That means, upon damage calculations BEFORE reductions, each sentry at level 30 received about ~900 additional damage. Most meaningful mobs / bosses in the game find themselves around ~50 Magic Resist, which means each sentry at level 30 gained about ~500 damage to its' target. I look at this, and I look at damage from other physical abilities in the game - Divine Judgment, Carnage, Deathgaze, Bladestorm, Traprat/Beardudu, even Noctule on the same Assassin. Why would I ever use this oskill in its' current form, with its' 10%WDM, with Assassin's 8fpa max cast rate? I really just don't see it.

Crazy Idea

All shrines should offer a 4-10% chance to spawn a 5th affix. All shrines should offer a 1-5% chance to add "Orb Effects are Doubled" modifier, or even 1% chance to be ethereal (is this possible?). Shrines should offer more potentials for end game, adding values to rares, which were also partly the endgame and made the item-hunt in the original game of Diablo 2 more enjoyable. 3 weeks into the season, I find myself not even picking up shrines anymore, nevermind the useless ones like Hidden / Spiritual. I understand that you don't want the pre-Sigma days when people would run end-game setups of full shrine crafts basically, but having 1-3 shrine crafted pieces, or the potential of a few perfectly-rolled shrine craft pieces being your best in slot adds a lot more value over time to shrines than just the first week. I believe having extremely low percentages for extra affixes, or the orb effect modifier, or ethereal potential, or all is an additional gamble similar to hunting loot, and adds a lot of great value to their existence.

This should be enough for now. These are obviously my personal opinions and ideas, perhaps not the best opinions or ideas, but I believe what I have said addresses potential for a better Median XL game and future seasons. Thanks for reading, have a good day.

can't tell if some of these points are serious or not.

"why would I fight an uber when I can buy the charm" is a player fault in that you don't want to play the game, that's not something devs can fix without locking every charm to account bound or deleting tg.

-squall gust: https://median-xl.fandom.com/wiki/Squall_Gust
yes the actual forum docs could be made better, but google exists.
-ssu angelhost shield, god forbid you make something using a dex-based weapon and aim for max block paladin with the shield stats.
-galeona's lash is a very good item and the 1% proc is a bug and is flipped with the lvel of the proc, so its actually 40% ctc lvl 1, so stop scanning docs and searching for negatives after claiming in first paragraph "more focus on new potential than old problems"
-stygian fury is similar to old atmg sin that used high striking procs to hit big fire spells. niche build, maybe not top meta but not necessarily meant to be.

there's a lot of real bad points you've made in here bceause you seem too fixated on top meta builds vs "hm how can I make this work"

I do agree with some changes, like labyrinth being rather unfair to probably 75% of current builds due to the gigantic penalties and forced gear for max res and phys res, especially with some items getting nerfed or removed altogether over last seasons because players actually used them for labyrinth (some were admittedly too strong, but there are better ways to nerf an item than to delete it entirely). A lot of other suggestions are interesting, I'd say, but seem more like backburner, let-the-idea-simmer type of suggestions compared to getting classes and skill trees in a comfortable, reasonably balanced state across the board.

Honestly regarding 4 month seasons it's a little too long imo, 3 month is enough since honestly there's not that much to do in order for you to need 4 months, 2 months in it already feels like forever from my experience over past few seasons and that's coming from a person who works about 200 hours each month and barely has time to play.

About labyrinth it's true, the elemental damage deals retarded damage in higher tiers and forces everyone to wear the same gear: hakan shield, wheel of fortune, dreamflange mandatory for casters, rainbow maiden/witchhunter hood, it really destroys gear diversity of course unless you decide to handicap yourself and lose a lot of damage from swapping jewels for pgems.

When it comes to charms it's really a player's choice whether he wants to get a charm by himself or just buy one from someone who's better, it shouldn't really be debatable since it implies that if you're a little worse than someone who can kill a certain uber (and probably simply puts in more hours because 3 weeks into ladder is a long time) you should be handicapped forever by not having some of the charms? I don't think that's the way to go, i even see by myself that when i don't feel strong enough to do some of high tier ubers i will buy the remaining charms because this game about fun and fun is a personal thing for every player - it might be farming endless dunc or fauzt, for someone else it'll be void/uldy farming and someone else will prefer labyrinth over everything else.

Eye of wisdom changes will be really welcome in the future as well, also please let us do anything with those unsiggable set amulets since it really hurts my feelings and i have nightmares about angel of death amulets.

Shrines are also in a pretty bad fucking place right now, either some of the mods in rares should be removed or revised since it's really tough to roll something good - of course i understand it's supposed to be hard but holy shit it really hurts wasting 100 shrines on a single rare and not getting nothing worth attention. Now when we can't even get double mo bonus in crafts it really drives away from using them.

Summing up, some of the changes are pretty interesting and the whole feedback is a nice read, of course i don't agree with everything but that's why this discussion is about right? We'll see what comes out of those suggestions.

Good amount of valid points so I'm sure the devs will appreciate the FREE feedback. Why pay for feedback when your passionate playerbase will do it for FREE?

Galeona's is 40% chance to cast lv1 Ancient Hand

It's pretty good, I dropped it week ago

inori92 wrote:
Angelhost - Crown Shield SSU - Crown shield is an extremely rare base, but no Paladins want to use this shield despite its' amazing defensive stats, because it cripples %30 of your main damage stat, STR. The Cherubim proc on melee attack also seems a little mediocre, since the spell kind of sucks, but that's something else. Angelhost... Maybe a shield to buff Paladin summons, giving Hoplites / Scourges some life/damage stats based on your own? +skills to something? I'm not sure, but I am of the belief that every highest-tier base of any class-specific unique, should be Best-in-slot for some build. This item is not that.

I tried it with colonel holy melee paladin. It gives huge flat damage, and huge base block chance, max ele res and def but considering you cant reach that dex requirement for max block with all flat damage gear(colonel setup), its pretty pointless indeed.

Also cherubim proc is fucking garbage. When it procs, it stops your character from hitting(idk why), so you stop hitting a target randomly everytime it procs and it has %20 chance to proc.

Paladin has no way of getting max block since paladin builds never max dex(hmp max str, casters max energy, uhm max vit), which makes this item total garbage.

Great post by the way.

Appreciate the feedback, let me address some things loosely

Squall gust - 20%wdm modifier, obviously I googled before I talked about it. It shows an animation similar to Claw Tornado, so... How many times does it hit? Does it hit like crazy like Claw Tornado with a lower WDM? Tantrum? Is it only one instance of hit? A GIF showing a dying Fallen probably in Normal mode with no description beyond a 20% WDM. Should I risk placing this unsocketable endgame jewel in a godly endgame item, just to test it? It's not reasonable.

SSU Crown Shield, Angelhost - please feel free to direct me to any DEX-based pally builds in the last 3 seasons, particularly this season, since they added "45% dex goes to weapon elemental damage", which is basically designed to enable this item. Max-block builds are obsolete since Labs' introduction, because block does not apply to half the things that happen in any deep-endgame content. Hell, I would argue it's obsolete in most late ubers / rifts also. Why make a max-block build in Fauztinville as a melee character, when you can spec to melt everything offensively, via teleports / aoes? This shield is currently designed to push rifts and general hard-hitting content, while punishing Paladins' prime form of damage. Here's some perspective.

Maxblock for Paladins with Angelhost (4%CTB, hjighest block) = 5000+ Dex. Assuming 5k Dex, your new elemental weapon gives... ~2.3k elemental damage bonus. Compare this to a Gotter or other melee paladin with similar stats (gotter 5k+ STR requirement) - you're looking at at least 6-7k flat sheet damage, obviously minus the survivability, which is why it's not used to push rifts or endgame ubers vs. other "meta" builds (Vitality focused builds, UHMs, Traprats, Summoners, so on). Honestly, I agree with Crash insinuating that items are there to enable ideas and builds, however as Glamdring26 stated, many Paladins including myself have tried options, it just doesn't work. If your item gives a 30% penalty to your main stat, and nobody uses it, it's not good. If your item gave no penalties, but focused on Dex, but people would still use it on a STR build, you can call that either a flawed design because it doesn't serve its' purpose, or you can call that a good design because people are able to use it beyond its' original purpose. Either way, Angelhost currently doesn't fit any category, it sells at a decent price for newer players or people who haven't figured it out, but it's really just another signet SU.

SSU Jared's Stone, Galeona's Lash - Sorry I misunderstood the proc. If you go to my TG history, you would see I sold two, one last week and one last season. They don't sell for very much. I agree I haven't tested the item, but every sorceress, even ones buying it from me, note that it's not a great item because it lacks everything that Steel Punisher gives - namely AOE and more sustain/survivability. I don't see why there's such a tone of arrogance as I try to discuss potentials and solutions, but whatever. This SSU is inferior to its' counterpart in a scenario it should be superior or competitive. I am sure I am not alone in this opinion.

Stygian Fury, similar story. This item should be top-tier. It should be updated to be so. This is the rarest xbow drop for Necros, it should not be an immediate Charsi, and the people who want to use it shouldn't want to play some niche, outdated build. It should have potential to become meta, or compete. That means it needs buffs, you can promote diversity through an item without it being garbage or outdated. Especially one of such rarity.

Glad to know we can agree on something, particularly regarding Labs.

Not every build has to be top-meta. But they should be competitive. In perspective, once again, why would anyone decide to play an elemental sorceress over the numerous other builds available? That means there should be a tweak. This is just one example, but Elemental Sorceresses are not competitive at all on this game. Reliable damage output and survivability are both lackluster. You are certainly free to try making DEX-paladins work in its' current state with spells and items, similarly to a Cold/Lightning/Fire Sorceress. Hell, you can even try it WITH frozen orb. Speaking to the one person who has the new SSSU "Wintry Majesty", he's unable to use it for two weeks after buying it on the market - not because he didn't fill restitution, but because the item's requirements for the spell are out of tune. It seems the game treats Frozen Orb like some Orb of Annihiliation without the damage and distance. Not how I want to play my orb sorceress.

Charms - I don't want to be misunderstood. People are free to make their choices, and having the option to buy/sell your time and investment is what creates a healthy market. Especially with new trophy fragments, it's great. I'm just saying that, it would be nice if there was more emphasis on playing the content, though I understand is difficult if there is nothing that's account-bound or whatnot. The example I used is, why would I spend 40 minutes on my Trap-sin to farm Uldy, when I know I can buy one from someone else who does it in 15. Maybe I'm just too jaded from doing too many runs, or the feeling of extreme inefficiency in comparison. I believe it would be nice if there were more incentives to make the player want to tackle the challenges themselves. I can probably think of a way if I put time into it, but for now, only adding some trade-locked / account-bound elements come to my mind.

Shrines - Really believe that nobody should be piling shrines past a certain number, from a desire to use it. Adding additional affixes, giving them chances to roll crazy things, like double orb modifiers or ethereal bases, definitely adds a chaotic element to the itemization of the game, godly 0.01% shrine crafts would replace many current endgame equipment. I believe that is the right direction. When I finish using my Eerie shrines on my 2nd sacred base, it would be nice to want to use my 50 Hidden/Spiritual shrines that nobody wants, to see if I can roll the godly perfect stats, even without the Eerie bonuses. Or craft something for someone else, potentially as a great sale item. Like Diablo 2 and 3 upon release, or honestly, my vision of item-hunt ARPGs as a whole, rares are a chaotic element, and should have the potential to become the best item ever for you, the item you never knew could exist or you needed. I believe shrines can provide these with a healthy balance, with my suggestions or else.

Thanks for reading and sharing opinions so far. Though I'll slide out of this season soon, I hope that everything mentioned thus far could encourage some expansive ideas for the future. Diablo 4 is long away, but the hype has started, and I hope Median continues to fill that gap for a lot more new players.

inori92 wrote:SSU Crown Shield, Angelhost
SSU Jared's Stone, Galeona's Lash

Sorry, I'm at work and in no shape to respond to it all, but I see you addressed a lot of things which was cool. No attempt to be defensive on my end, if it came off that way.

As far as these two items, I'd argue you can do jav/knife based block paladin since a lot of knives especially have good procs and other desirable stats, and holy melee skills are one of the few left without weapon restrictions.

for the orb, main drawing point is the proc (I beleive suchbalance said once this is a stronger version of ancients hand, not just the normal one) + up to something like 30% deadly strike from one item. I think obviously its not as common or desirable as steel punisher or something but certainly can be big damage. I'd argue this is heavily superior for boss killing if you can find the pierce to convert into ancients hand.

edit: Claw tornado, I believe has a high ND value so it doesn't actually hit that many times as it passes.

Thanks for the reply, Crash.

Javelins might be interesting, I do wish more throw oskills like lightning fury were available for all classes, allowing the creation of some really cool, niche builds. Knives might be a little too low on the damage, not sure. Will think about it more.

Elemental Pierce gears often find themselves with other caster stats, without great melee stats such as pr/Dr/lifevit/leech/highdef, so I feel that in theory, you might be correct that galeonas lash has a higher potential ceiling of single target damage, but still much too impractical in it's potential sacrifices of survivability.

If the proc is also more powerful than the regular, all I can say is I would have probably never found out had you never mentioned it, it would be nice for the item to indicate that (ctc Enhanced Ancient's Hand maybe), something something documentation.

Thanks again for all the replies so far, hope that people are at least getting some ideas or discussing potential relevant improvements based on this post

Minor suggestion, I would love to see some zones where monsters "roam" the area, instead of being stationary until you get close. Maybe slightly smaller detection range for these, but I think it'd add some realism.