Σ 1.4 Bugs&Feedback

So, I've pretty exclusively played Mana Sorceress over the past year or so. I hope this feedback is given some consideration, as I believe an opportunity to fix one of the build's largest failings was missed.

Problem
The biggest problem I believe Mana Sorcs face is the fact that the amount of stepping stone gear available was very limited. I'm not suggesting it does not exist, but there is very little choice as you are often very single-minded in what stats you want. For this reason, I've long wanted a Mana Sorc set to fill this gap, basically the point between TUs and SUs/expensive crafts. I truly believed that having a Mana Sorc set would have largely solved this problem. However, because of the way the set has been set up, I feel like this was completely missed...

Vizjerei Dominion
When I saw that a Mana Sorc set was finally added, I was overjoyed because I've always felt the build is a solid one, except for the problem I mentioned above. However, when I read the set I didn't feel this problem was addressed.

To start with, the set is completely Rings and Amulets. Mana Sorcs already have a huge amount of choice in that slot, both from TUs and SUs. It wasn't necessary to add more Rings and Amulets for them. In fact, there are TU Rings and Amulets that work perfectly fine for basically the entire game, such as Empyrean Band and Witchmoon. I would have hugely preferred a set that included slots such as Gloves and Boots, because those are the slots where the amount of gear during your stepping-stone stage is lacking. You eventually swap to expensive crafts, but there's nothing really in between TUs and that.

I'd like to go through the set items one by one and explain what problems I have with them. Some may be valid, some may just be my personal bias, but I hope this is useful.

The Judgement
Probably the one that I was closest to being happy about. However, the stat chosen is really lame because due to how Diablo 2 mechanics work, it does not work with the stat that most, if not all, Mana Sorcs should be trying to get from their gear, which is x% Maximum Mana. In fact, even the set bonus of this set gives this stat, but it doesn't work with this Amulet. That makes this stat really underwhelming for one who understands mana calculations.

I don't even really care about the Twilight Havoc bonus much, to be honest. I'm not saying it's bad. I'm more saying Mana Sorcs don't need this at all, they already had a complete array of spells to use which I already felt was incredibly fun, between Immersion, Mana Sweep, Torrent and Antimass.

The Catalyst
I don't have a problem with this item. In fact, it's probably the coolest one here, giving some needed movement speed to Sorcs as well as being an item that serves as an "enabler". The fact that it has a large variable movement speed roll is also very nice, giving value to well-rolled ones.

For the remaining 3 items, I'm only focusing on the special stat. The other stats mostly seem thematic to me, and are thematically appropriate, for what it's worth. I don't really have a major problem with them.

The Presence
While this is not really a "bad" bonus really, it's quite a niche one. Mana Sorcs generally do not have the ability to invest that many points into deep Poison tree skills. While I am genuinely happy that this enables a Poison/Mana hybrid, I feel like the Mana Sorc set was not the place for this. Wouldn't this work better on a unique item or on a runeword?

The Darkness
As mentioned above, I don't have a problem with bonuses to Twilight Havoc. It's just Mana Sorcs already have a full kit available that's already incredibly fun. I feel the set should have augmented this already fun playstyle, not tried to enable alternate ways to play the spec. Once again, shouldn't bonuses tied to Twilight Havoc be on it's own unique or runeword? It's not exactly a core Mana Sorc skill.

The Hunger
The one item that actually directly benefits the spec without changing it. I'm mostly fine with this one, but as mentioned above, I am not hugely fond of it being a Ring.

My Suggestions
My suggestion might seem heavy handed, but I feel like Mana Sorcs really would benefit from stepping-stone gear and this set was the perfect way to allow this.

- Change The Judgement to be more generically good with stats like x% Maximum Mana or what have you. It's fine to remain an Amulet if this is done. Give it a more direct Mana stat if the Catalyst condition is satisfied (basically something kinda every Mana Sorc might want when progressing, but not crazy). Maybe this bonus doesn't even need to be mana, but survival instead. Mana Sorcs do struggle with survival early on.
- Keep the Catalyst as is.
- Change the Presence/Darkness/Hunger to be Gloves/Boots/Helmet instead of Rings. They should not be too crazy in terms of stats, but some generic mana bonuses would be nice. Then, give them stats that benefit each Mana Sorc skill in some special way, but perhaps in a way that you aren't incentivized to use all at once.

Presence: Special stat that benefits Arcane Torrent directly (Arcane Torrent can leech mana perhaps? Torrent builds try to stay at full mana, but there might be a better idea for this.)
Darkness: Special stat that benefits Mana Sweep directly (Put the Valthek's Command stat here, I've long wanted this obtainable outside of the SSU, but at a much lower power level. Something like Mana Sweep cannot Leech, x% less Mana Sweep Damage?)
Hunger: Special stat that benefits Immersion directly (The existing Immersion stat works, it's cool, even if it's not immensely necessary with Antimass.)

I do like the benefits all being Leech Mana // Cannot Leech // Leech Life, now that I think about it. It looks quite elegant!

Closing Thoughts
I'm real interested in hearing thoughts as to why the set was designed this way, as I feel like it works completely different to all the other "spec" sets. I feel this would have been the best way to solve stepping-stone gear that Mana Sorcs struggle with. Runewords is another way to do this, but I imagine that can be addressed when they get reworked.

Thanks for reading.

Now that is how a feedback should look like.

Also on similar notes since barb blood hatred was changed towards elemental damage the dual wield set should also be shifted towards that side. At the moment it can be called a wdm build with cold ascendancy (lol) plus some random procs. I already wrote about it asking for sets change. If needed can try and locate that post in suggestion topic. But please adjust procs and pierce in that set. At this point event bringing back nephalem spirit as oskill on full set does not look like bad option. Yes, people used to use this set just to buff up, but maybe all these passive buffs from weapon switches can be removed if the item is not being used ?

Hrishi wrote:Thanks for reading.

Thanks for the feedback. Some broad answers:
- Valthek's Command's special effect will probably not make it to a more easily accessible item. Reason being that it invalidates Arcane Torrent, which we want to be the "mainstream" clearing skill.
- Set item regular stats: were undertuned a bit too much considering the alternatives, since we also had to consider other builds equipping them. They will probably provide better mana-specific gains in the future.
- Set item special stats: 2/3 of the bonuses augment the default playstyle and the other calls for a complete gear switch. I think that's a fair distribution. Again the effects will probably need some fine tuning in the future.
- Set item pieces: they could be moved to other less competitive slots, but we did not want to make the set an autoinclude in a best-in-slot list.

Since Marco wanted some poison malice necro feedback, I registered to this forum. So here you go:

I started playing the game a couple of weeks ago and tried malice necro, too. I really liked the poison skill Rotting Flesh. I finished normal easily by simply using a hit and run strat. I also had some gear focused on - enemy poison resist. In total it was about -50 or 40 something and lots of poison spell damage. At the same time I had -20 something enemy fire resist and no fire spell damage.
But in the den of evil in nightmare, I killed everything faster with the fire skill that was removed. That was such a bummer for me. Imagine spending everything you have into a single spell and some minions, and this spell getting outplayed by a 1 pointer skill your gear doesn't even focus on. That's when I stopped playing this build because it just felt to me that Rotting flesh won't be a good way to play later on.

I think the main issue with Rotting Flesh isn't necessarily the AoE. Because you need to reconsider where you position yourself in order to use it correctly. It's in essence a poison nova from classing D2, just with a little kick, that makes a difference. Also I like this cast & run type of gameplay.
The only thing that's bothersome is that the damage takes so long to get its full value and that you can't re-hit the enemy to get an instant damage up like other damage types like fire, or now phys/mag.

Another issue of this skill is that basically Pestilence does the same damage per second with 0 investment. Because you need to put points into str anyway in order to equip your items. At least as far as I got.

I think this skill would be fine if you got something out of putting points into it, like a 5-10% self synergy per point. You could also reduce the poison duration maybe in order to be able to spam it actually be effective. Though I don't know how well that would work with the new skill. I also don't know how good the new skill is as a bosskiller, since I haven't played this build since the latest update.

Other feedback:

Hammertime always shows that it's throwing 20 hammers. But in later stages of the game it doesn't look like it's limited to 20 hammers, since the duration also seems to go up. Could you maybe fix the tooltip? Thank you very much.

One time I played the game, I tabbed out and started d2stats, because I forgot to run it. When I came back my character was frozen. I couldn't move, I couldn't cast spells, or anything. But I was able to open my inventory, and swap skills and so on.

That's all. Cheers.

suchbalance wrote:Thanks for the feedback. Some broad answers:
- Valthek's Command's special effect will probably not make it to a more easily accessible item. Reason being that it invalidates Arcane Torrent, which we want to be the "mainstream" clearing skill.
- Set item regular stats: were undertuned a bit too much considering the alternatives, since we also had to consider other builds equipping them. They will probably provide better mana-specific gains in the future.
- Set item special stats: 2/3 of the bonuses augment the default playstyle and the other calls for a complete gear switch. I think that's a fair distribution. Again the effects will probably need some fine tuning in the future.
- Set item pieces: they could be moved to other less competitive slots, but we did not want to make the set an autoinclude in a best-in-slot list.

Thanks for reading my feedback, I'll just address your answers here, but I think they were largely fair!

- Valthek's Command's effect: This is fair if the goal is to push Arcane Torrent as the mainstream skill. My concern is that currently (and possibly ever since sigma) a fair number have the impression that you "shouldn't bother" unless you can find a Valthek's (whether this is true or not). I do feel it should be available.. somewhere else. I view this as similarly enabling as the "Skills Cost Life" stat that Amazons can get from a couple sources. Maybe it should be on some other pseudo-inaccessible item, like a Xis runeword or some such. That gives you a way to long-term target for it. Not really sure...

- Set item regular stats: No argument here.

- Set item special stats: I feel like only 1/3 augment the default style, no? Both the bonuses to Hive and Twilight Havoc are enabling an alternate way to play, and only the Immersion bonus feels like it augments the default style (and I bet that's the most popular combo being used?). I've always seen the elemental passives a Mana Sorc took as very flexible, so Hive shouldn't be the default playstyle, at least in my mind. Twilight Havoc's bonuses are certainly not the default playstyle as well, even if it costs very little to include.

- Set item pieces: Nor would I want them to be an auto-include in a BiS list. In fact, one of the best parts of playing Mana Sorc currently is that these don't really exist. My concern is for Mana Sorc stepping-stone gear, you're simply using other Sorc set pieces instead. For Gloves, there is Elemental Spirit (from the Lightning Sorc set). For Helmets, there is Sacred Circle (from the Melee Sorc set). It could have competed with these pieces, at the very least, I think.

Once again, thanks for your answers!

is there a bug with triune and necro, Lucion is healing constantly, i have him charmed and hitting malic and he takes some damage then the next charm he is instantly healed to full.

QWirt's other leg only usable in cow level (is that intended?)
Also BPR itself might have some cd for his bear claw nova. It's no good when u just entered and get instant knockbackstun... and even if u survived first novas - you immediately get second pack of them :\

Scalewinged wrote:QWirt's other leg only usable in cow level (is that intended?)
Also BPR itself might have some cd for his bear claw nova. It's no good when u just entered and get instant knockbackstun... and even if u survived first novas - you immediately get second pack of them :\

Wirt's Other Leg is intended to only be usable in the cow level, it's always been that way. Also, his "bear claw nova" is physical damage, so phys resist gear can help, and you can use the walls to block them. Also MO in some PDR to jewelry, as it's a bunch of hits that add up. There are easy TUs and Runewords where you can get this. I'd also recommend farming up the Tran Athulua trophy for a free 5% phys res.

Uldy has the same attack and it's worse there.

Tedddy wrote:is there a bug with triune and necro, Lucion is healing constantly, i have him charmed and hitting malic and he takes some damage then the next charm he is instantly healed to full.

Same, extremely frustrating, i've never had this issue of several seasons of doing this fight. Hopefully this gets fixed soon, as it's not worth the frustration at the moment.

Lotto Set rings when?