Summary of 2.1 patch changes - deciding what to play

[Captcha]

I wrote out a summary of buffs and nerfs to help me decide what to play - then I thought... I may as well post it on the forums in case it's of any help/interest to anyone. Originally I plonked it in the middle of the patch notes thread, so as more patch comments come in it was rapidly buried on page 4 or 5, so... putting it out here.

NOTE: I'm no expert, others may disagree with my take (happy to hear feedback, especially on the builds I'm not sure about), but to me it looks like the overall changes are:

AMAZON
Bow - Buffed. Buff to barrage, more life. Will still be a top farmer.
Java - who knows? Probably very good. There may be 2 variants, melee and throw?
Spear / Blood / Storm. All Buffed a bit. Does it make any of them good? Dunno that it's enough.

ASSASSIN
Overall: change to Beacon will affect a few builds that don't benefit from the reward skills other than the speed buff Beacon had.
Ninja. Buffed. But a small buff.
Psionic. Small buff to Shuriken Flurry and to life. This was a good build last season, under-rated, removing speed buff from Beacon may make this worse.
Claw. Buffed? QoL improved? Too early to say.
Throw. Unchanged, pretty much.

BARBARIAN
Earthshaker - Nerfed. Loss of elemental weapons and lower life.
Elemental - Not sure. more speed, less damage? Didn't play it enough to know if the nerfed damage is significant.
Shaman. Buffed? The new passive is an unknown though. It was always a top farming build so hopefully it is again.

DRUID
Only changes to shapeshifters and vit per point. Hard to say if IAS fix will be offset by worse fpa limits.
Bear. Neutral? Buffed damage, slightly less life per level. The fpa effect is the question.
Wolf. Nerfed. Lower fpa and lower avoid.

NECRO
Overall, the change to BtS will benefit a lot of non-summoner builds. Innate lvl 1 teleport - very nice! Also reward skills rework.
Melee. Buffed. Better mechanics, more damage.
Totem Nerfed. Damage nerf. Top tier last season, may not be now. QoL on movement/tele mechanics from BtS also means safer to play.
Xbow. Buffed? Widowmaker damage should be easier to scale as fire. New short-range skill... unknown atm. Reduced pierce on Jinn = not so good, but at least now they are usable with xbow for pierce. As Tyndall pointed out, Dragonfire Oil synergy will be enormous.
Summon. Buffed? Reworked whole build. Could be good. Interesting DK option to use them as summonable bombs. VK changes look good for summoners.

PALADIN
Overall reduced health and movement from passives.
Unholy Caster. Buff. Damage increase. Was good but not Tier 1 last season so should be better now.
Holy caster. Nerf. Was top tier build, probably not now.
Neutraldin. Nerf.

SORCERESS
Poison. Buffed. Was v good last season so should be tier 1 now.
Melee. Buffed. Wasn't great last season, looks better now for small change but 25% buff is quite a lot.
Fire. Buffed. Added a new damage mechanic, can't be bad. Is it enough to restore this to Tier 1? Maybe, especially in late game.
Cold. Nerfed. Simple reduction in damage, gonna be worse.

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Next season? For me, I'll try the following:

Javazon of course worth a try. Probably start with the java as the new build.
Bowzon for farming especially if java doesn't work out.
Summoner barb and necro may be good too.
The 3 buffed sorc builds (but poison looks a safe bet for tier 1 in late game).
Dark horses: xbow necro. UH caster.

EDIT: Credit Tyndall - the Dragonfire Oil synergy is big. It seems possible (likely?) that Xbow necro could be tier 1 again. Woot.

[Diaco]

I disagree on the statement that Melee Necro got buffed. Parasite damage got nerfed, I guess as a contrapoint to the new upgrade... but the new upgrade is pretty terrible. Sure, area of effect is great, but 100% conversion to magic means that essentially your only means of survival (leech) is now gone. There's no LoA on melee necro gear nor skills to compensate this.

[Inno86]

I wrote out a summary
Next season? For me, I'll try the following:

Javazon of course worth a try. Probably start with the java as the new build.
Bowzon for farming especially if java doesn't work out.
Summoner barb and necro may be good too.
The 3 buffed sorc builds (but poison looks a safe bet for tier 1 in late game).
Dark horses: xbow necro. UH caster.

EDIT: Credit Tyndall - the Dragonfire Oil synergy is big. It seems possible (likely?) that Xbow necro could be tier 1 again. Woot.

Here my 2cents:

1) wanna have fun? then every build is good, depending on the playstyle

2) wanna rank classes for 2.1?

Tier 1: paladin (holy and unholy melee) >> good at farming, bossing, labbying (best class for "competitive" play = easy tg)
Tier 2: here are good farmers with some endgame prospects.. such as necro (any build, great flexibility) sorceress (same, every build is decent) ... and barbarian bcs stances are OP
Tier 3: assassin, druid .. good at farming, but less flexible for endgame content compared to classes above
Tier 4: amazon (will the rework of java be good? maybe.. everything else stays same)

To be honest, I very like the qol and endgame content changes (apart deimoss, which I don't care).. but I am disappointed by the improvements to classes. Don't really know what to play.. I will play 1 class only, so if I just don't care I go Amazon.. while if I wanna complete the game I go paladin easy

[Marco]

I disagree on the statement that Melee Necro got buffed. Parasite damage got nerfed, I guess as a contrapoint to the new upgrade... but the new upgrade is pretty terrible. Sure, area of effect is great, but 100% conversion to magic means that essentially your only means of survival (leech) is now gone. There's no LoA on melee necro gear nor skills to compensate this.

The conversion is there so there is an actual use to the non-enhanced parasite during cooldown, and the magic conversion with AoE is a powerful combination for places like Fauztinville where this build really started to struggle in terms of farming speed. Survivability was never the issue especially when stacking slow is so easy on this spec. That's not to mention tons of passive poison damage and pierce from AoD, increased hp, and free 6%DS from ult. But yeah, I guess if you weigh all of this and a 10% wdm reduction it's a big nerf.

[Jitan, Come On]

I disagree on the statement that Melee Necro got buffed. Parasite damage got nerfed, I guess as a contrapoint to the new upgrade... but the new upgrade is pretty terrible. Sure, area of effect is great, but 100% conversion to magic means that essentially your only means of survival (leech) is now gone. There's no LoA on melee necro gear nor skills to compensate this.

The conversion is there so there is an actual use to the non-enhanced parasite during cooldown, and the magic conversion with AoE is a powerful combination for places like Fauztinville where this build really started to struggle in terms of farming speed. Survivability was never the issue especially when stacking slow is so easy on this spec. That's not to mention tons of passive poison damage and pierce from AoD, increased hp, and free 6%DS from ult. But yeah, I guess if you weigh all of this and a 10% wdm reduction it's a big nerf.

What is this "AoD" that provides passive poison damage and pierce?

[Siosilvar]

What is this "AoD" that provides passive poison damage and pierce?

new passive added for angel of death

[Jitan, Come On]

Wow, that doesnt sound clunky at all.