M2017 Bugs&Feedback

I can vouch on behalf on Boneyard and physical/magic spells. I'm currently working on a few alternate setups to provide gear and skill options for a UHC paladin guide as there hasn't been one yet. I want to include 5-8 specs so not everyone wants the same thing. With that said, I'm currently working on a physical/magic caster since I can't think of any monster in the game that is immune to both without a specific element to the fight. People just overlook these spell types because you can't easily get pierce to enemies for them.

As far as holy paladin is concerned, can solar flare just be made so it doesn't lock out other skills? Or maybe it has a mechanic similar to werewolf's lycanthropy that requires it to be maxed? Another option might be adding 1 second per X base points, kinda like was done with graveyard having more punishers.

Has anyone tested skills like cherub strike from the Zod RW paladin shield? I assume solar flare will also grant the sparkle effect like it does retaliate since both retaliate and cherub strike have the "activates when struck" mod. I can't think of all the skills off the top of my head, but it seems unholy just outshines holy caster simply because of the skills in the unholy tree. One point in symphony of destruction late game puts it at about 1.2 seconds per cast with high damage for an off element. Storm lord is just... Storm lord (and yes I know one of those paladin skills, dragon form maybe?, gives attributes but it just doesn't stack up like it does against stormlord), and the tainted blood buff with Ed, regen, and poison resist.. I just dunno what in the holy tree will make a caster as Tanky as an unholy would be. Again, this is biased points of view because I've never played a holy caster and only holy Melee til about lvl 40 this season, so take it with a grain of salt if there are skills and methods to balance the trees that I haven't explored or heard about yet.

Edit: some umo's need merfed a bit. Crystal of tears should probably be closer to +2-5 flat dmg instead of +10-20 since people are getting zomg crafts with +180-360dmg

Cherub strike is terrible, guy I know was trying to complete the challenge of clearing TA rooms with this skill. It is amazing how bad that thing is at clearing crowd. Proc from sots kills faster than cherub strike

As for the holy melee. It is really weak.
Look at the speed tables of 2h weapons, specifically hand of god

Overall problem is also survival, pretty low total defense on melee, makes it real struggle. It would help if this subtree had access to some defense per rune stat or there were shields with massive defense like barb or zon. But overall running with 300k defense, makes it rough even in TA.

I can compare to barb I've been playing and difference is devastating. 1pt runemaster, and bear stance? 2mil defense. Or 1 mil without shield or reequiping gear. Max block @ 2300 dex. Skane stance, over about triple the dps of plague, and that spread by skill that has 110% wdm (stampede vs 50% retaliate). It almost makes timestrikes a waste because they are weaker than stampede itself

It isnt impossible to pull off holy melee, using some gimmky su combo, with punishers on striking and sfuff, but overall it is really depressing tree atm.

Oh, and single target skill needs big improvement, it is very underwhelming.

Concerning paladin: I think making stormlord a neutral passive would already make holy specs much better.

There wasn't a good reason to use Iceburst before so it makes sense that the bug wasn't discovered. With one point invested it had half the range of Stormblast. Now it seems like its < 1/4 of Stormblast though Iceburst doesn't list the range in the skill desc.

While melee is plenty tanky in mid/late game its still a very slow for farming. Barb needs melee splash support gem in the worst way(poe plz). Earthquake is better than previously but still misses enemies in its path and isn't useful late game (understandable since its lvl 1 skill). IB/SB/AH have erratic/random pathing which makes them less effective for farming non-bosses right off the bat. SoR is nice for leveling and debuffing. For farming its fine for chipping away at mobs but still rather slow.

I know I've mentioned previously that the axe/sword requirements for melee skills is poo and I'm gonna keep bringing it up. There weren't any improvements to melee barb to offset the fact that sword users can't use tslam and tslam users can't use Stormblast. There aren't any notable swords that make that tree worth using and not having tslam readily available makes swords useless. Anyone that wants to argue having an axe on switch to use it can take a flying leap into a bucket of shit.

SB, AH and IB (w/ hard points) are different flavors of the same skill. Its boring. At least before with Yaggai's, the double stormblast had potential for better kill speed and the pierce on the axe was actually worth it. Stacking more lightning pierce for the proc itself can't be justified so rip that axe. Overall the weapon requirements were too drastic of a change to not consider improving/changing some weapons to better fit the revamped trees. This isn't much different than the scepter requirement for storm zon skills and lack of good scepters in previous patches.

Whoever came up with the block uber is a genius. Lowering the block chance in the future seems appropriate though because it is very strong. I agree with mahi about that part but 2h didn't become less viable because of the new uber, melee is just weaker than it was before due to the changes in the trees. For most bosses though a 2h will still work better than 1h + shield, which is what counts because 2h is inferior for regular farming. I wouldn't mind seeing some adjustments to rw/su throwing axes but thrower feels much more appropriate and Lion Stance now has a legitimate use in end game.

Before I forget, Tantrum sucks. The duration nerf combined with the fact that arrow/knife we're halved have removed all the enjoyment and a significant portion of tankiness from the skill. Since arrow/knife are based on weapon damage and weapon damages were already scaled for 2017, there was no reason to cut the damage of the procs in half. None at all. I don't see why it was so important to nerf when it was and is still casters that beat the game in the first week.

Here are screens of the lantern:

And how it looks like when you tele:

Before SB answers, I'll just say I understand the range nerf on ice burst because it's meant to have the debuff freeze at the target area, not the other side of the screen.

Dual wielding an axe and sword to get access to both trees is fine through hatred and maybe early terror, but your defense starts to drop off quick unless you're using bear stance, and having to dual wield to get both means you can't access the block uberskill, so you're more or less forced into rune master. That helps take care of the defense, but eh.

anything for throwsin?

My biggest concern when it comes to feedback discussions is when the phrase “Uber x too ez, pls buff” starts getting thrown around.

Take Belial, for example. I've seen people complain that he's too easy and needs a buff because the build they're using can basically 1-shot him. They don't ever have to deal with his mechanics b/c he's dead before he can ever use the skills he has. But for other builds that don't have the ability to 1-shot any Uber, the fight is a long, frustrating pita. Couple that with the fact that you're more likely to get a low +Life roll on the Charm rather than a high one, and it makes comparatively weaker builds even moreso in the long run since they can't reliably farm him for a high roll. It's the same for other Ubers such as BPR and Astrogha. Also (and this isn't a criticism, I'm genuinely curious), what was the reason for giving Quov Tsin that 1hko bone spear thing? He was already tougher for melee builds than ranged/caster builds (at least, for me). Was it just for a bit of extra challenge since his deathbeam could be nullified with the right gear?

I know the dev team does everything they can to make things balanced. It's a constant struggle and often a thankless job, but it still worries me that certain Ubers may get a buff simply to accommodate popular OP builds while ignoring the effect on less popular non-OP builds.

^ Tsundere C-18 frown , very appropriate

I think QT was given the bone nova because he no longer hit locks you and because of how absurdly cheesy it's been in the past, even now with some pretty easily obtainable gear that allows you to just stand and spam. The nova adds at least a slight attention span requirement to the fight.

Though on this topic, if the bone spears could have a different, more visible color, it would be great. It's often hard to see them with his trinity novas when you're near, and the constant trinity beam, the mini bone spears tend to get covered up. Perhaps make them a more vibrant red or something?

Edit: maybe that makes it too misleading for people to believe it's a fire missile and can be tanked with resist and absorb, but I think you get my point.