M2017 Bugs&Feedback

[Nitz]

I should get "triune's blessing" but i got this instead:

Old bug. Already addressed and should be fixed next patch

Old docs actually said that this happens - new docs should either remove the RW for now or put a warning.

[Crash]

Old docs actually said that this happens - new docs should either remove the RW for now or put a warning.

Pretty sure SB commented on it somewhere along the way that it is being fixed in the next patch (I assume using different elemental runes to avoid the clash between a 4x poison shield and 4x poison barb shield)

[Solfege]

for sure one obvious way of perhaps getting more offense out of the spec is by increasing the viablity of fusilade and the two sword skills (more missiles for the bladestorms if fps are not a problem otherwise more wdm, different cooldown and hitting mechanics on fusilade, and tweaked mechanics how the swords behave for all of them). this would be beneficial even for the early game.

Yes.

and for mid-lategame giving certain sorc skills a hard point synergy with baneblade seems reasonable. for example
massively more hp/tankiness for ice elementals for baneblade hard pts but minion count reduced to 2

TBH, I'd rather have Sorc get more HP rather than Ice Elementals, but tie it to Baneblade or something to discourage Casters from abusing it. If Ice Elementals become too tanky, it makes Blade Spirits irrelevant.

flat fire dmg to weapon from fire passive per hard pt,
%cb to light passive per hard pt in baneblade,
and something else for the cold and poison passive.
something like that.
in that way melee sorc gets stronger but there is still an emphasis on the different paths she can go. balancing those to be somewhat compareable in efficiency might be a whole different story though

I both love and hate this idea of adding Tree-specific damage bonuses to Baneblade depending on which Trees you choose. I love it b/c I think it's an excellent idea; I hate it b/c I didn't think of it first. That said, the main problem I have with flat Elemental damage is you need pierce to increase its effectiveness, and tha's a lot harder to get now (+%Spell Damage doesn't count IMO since it doesn't affect missiles). Maybe if there were something like EWD that affected only flat Elemental damage, or even just making EWD boost flat Elemental damage...

for blocking i wonder if it can even be made better honestly, the whole premise of a blocking melee char is kind of forcing defensive playstyle or burst damage to be really effective, or perhaps some other factor that doesnt come to my mind right now

IDK enough about the game's inner workings to comment on this, but I think I could live with being block-locked for a second if I knew I wouldn't get instagibbed by a Caster or one of the many 1hko Uber mechanics.

[suchbalance]

I skimmed most of the Melee Sorc feedback and I have to disagree, I think she is fine right now. I don't agree with the claims that you can't get damage without the Fire tree or that you need minions to survive. In fact I have been testing the new Uber boss precisely with a melee sorc and she also performs very well in tran and Duncraig for me.

My setup is nothing special - Full Set (not as terrible as I expected), Blind Anger, Champion of the Triune, botsk, 2x empy bands, 2/3 of the charms (nothing from ultimative), no UMOs. Cold, lightning elemental trees without minions - 12k hp, max block, 500k def - she just facetanks huge TA packs and arrowsides just with the LoA from Baneblade and block lock isn't an issue. Bladestorm shows 6-10k damage which is enough to easily burst down Duncraig mobs after teleporting.

Also many of the suggestions are impossible such as the "smart" fusillade targeting or the elemental damage on gear scaling with another stat (technically possible but would just be abused via snapshotting, so no go).

On the topic of elemental damage, it's pretty funny to read posts along the lines of "it's not so easy to put enemies to -100 res for my bonus ele damage therefore it is useless", it's the counterpart to the age old "if you don't have 75% block, block is useless". Furthermore while getting 135% pierce is not easy you have to remember that the first percentages of it are now much more effective than before i.e. 65% pierce will now double your elemental damage output compared to 100% before, but you have to be more picky in gearing for it since diminishing returns actually exist now that you can't get it so easily.

Yes elemental damage was nerfed because it has been THE way to play median since its inception and has always been the easiest to scale. The nerfs to it also opened up a lot of design space and next patch you will see a few more things that help scale elemental damage (which benefit attack builds more than casters) that we couldn't implement before.

[y4gmi]

I have been testing the new Uber boss precisely with a melee sorc and she also performs very well in tran and Duncraig for me.

The Baal?

[Necroglycerin]

I have been playing around with the Paladin a bit and I think its no secret that unholy builds are a little more powerful than holy builds right now. So what I thought is that it makes no sense, even from a lore perspective, that blessed life is accessible for unholy pals. Making this a holy skill would give a strong incentive to actually play a Holydin, although I of course don't know how much it would effect the overall balance state of the paladin

[HechtHeftig]

It used to be a part of the holy tree. I guess they changed it so every build can be equally strong.

Anyway: I think it sucks that no matter what holy pala you play, you have to use a certain skill (solar flare). Else you have no ll and you can't use any spells. And that is simply a mechanic that isn't fun at all when all your skills are locked out every 6 seconds.

[Necroglycerin]

I don't even have that much of a problem with that mechanic, Terror Strike enables a lot too, Solar Flare is just much more uncomfortable to use with the small radius

[Solfege]

► Show Spoiler

I skimmed most of the Melee Sorc feedback and I have to disagree, I think she is fine right now. I don't agree with the claims that you can't get damage without the Fire tree or that you need minions to survive. In fact I have been testing the new Uber boss precisely with a melee sorc and she also performs very well in tran and Duncraig for me.

My setup is nothing special - Full Set (not as terrible as I expected), Blind Anger, Champion of the Triune, botsk, 2x empy bands, 2/3 of the charms (nothing from ultimative), no UMOs. Cold, lightning elemental trees without minions - 12k hp, max block, 500k def - she just facetanks huge TA packs and arrowsides just with the LoA from Baneblade and block lock isn't an issue. Bladestorm shows 6-10k damage which is enough to easily burst down Duncraig mobs after teleporting.

Also many of the suggestions are impossible such as the "smart" fusillade targeting or the elemental damage on gear scaling with another stat (technically possible but would just be abused via snapshotting, so no go).

On the topic of elemental damage, it's pretty funny to read posts along the lines of "it's not so easy to put enemies to -100 res for my bonus ele damage therefore it is useless", it's the counterpart to the age old "if you don't have 75% block, block is useless". Furthermore while getting 135% pierce is not easy you have to remember that the first percentages of it are now much more effective than before i.e. 65% pierce will now double your elemental damage output compared to 100% before, but you have to be more picky in gearing for it since diminishing returns actually exist now that you can't get it so easily.

Yes elemental damage was nerfed because it has been THE way to play median since its inception and has always been the easiest to scale. The nerfs to it also opened up a lot of design space and next patch you will see a few more things that help scale elemental damage (which benefit attack builds more than casters) that we couldn't implement before.

Yeah, as I said in my first post, Melee Sorc is fine on its own. You can do what you need to do to get the job done. But it's the speed at which it can clear places like TA and Dunc compared to other builds that was at the heart of the discussion (at least, the second half of it). Clearing something like TA was never really an issue even in the last patch, and you can actually do Dunc now, but I'm not sure there's anywhere Melee Sorc actually has an advantage over another melee build, though not having played every build, I could be wrong.

And it's a pity about Fusillade, but I guess it can't be helped.

As for the Elemental damage/pierce, I didn't know about the 65% doubling the damage thing. Everyone always said you need 135% pierce now to be effective, so that's what I believed. And it just seemed you needed to sacrifice too much trying to get decent flat Elemental damage with 135% pierce. Ty for the clarification on that. BTW, what do you mean by “snapshotting?” I've never heard that term in this context before.

I get that Melee Sorc is always gonna be a lower-tier build, especially when compared to something like Barb. I've learned to accept that. But that won't stop me from from hoping for more and occasionally grumbling on the forums about it from time to time. . It's just such a cool concept that I'd like to see more diversity depending on which Elemental Skill Trees you pick. Like a Poison/Fire "suicide bomber" type Melee Sorc. Something with moderate def and CtB, but with high %DR, HP, and regen that uses retaliatory CBs and Spell Damage+pierce to boost Elemental procs. On second thought, probably a dumb idea after all.

Edit:
Just to be clear, I'm not questioning your knowledge, skill, or judgement here--at all. You know a lot more about this stuff than I ever will. Mine are just the random thoughts of a filthy casual.

[HechtHeftig]

I don't even have that much of a problem with that mechanic, Terror Strike enables a lot too, Solar Flare is just much more uncomfortable to use with the small radius

Yeah but terror strike duration can be increased with the set belt and softpoints. Solar flare will always stay at 6 seconds.

And as a caster you aren't as tanky, and can't take as many hits as a melee, that's why it looks very bad on the first glance having to cast a spell before you can cast your strong spells. You basically "waste" 1 spellcast with a spell you may be not skilling.

Plus if you already put points into solar flare (fire damage) and max it, why should you put points in the last skill of the tree (also fire damage)? You rarely ever want 2 skills that do the same type of damage because then you're worse off when you're facing immune enemies. It's basically wasted skill points.

However: this is only feedback from after taking a first look at those skills. So please correct me if I'm wrong.

I try to take some time to play holy caster later today to look if my critics was correct.