Suggestions for upcoming patch

[archon256]

I think gambling isn't a good solution for late-game drops. It isn't dependent on your build, and doesn't require you to interact with any of the end-game drops. You just farm gold in some crap zone and then sit in town gambling.

What I would like to see is alternate ways to get SUs that require you to interact with tough content.
For example, here's a random idea I just thought up.

There could be a rare ingredient (let's say as rare as a GR) that can drop in any difficult uber. This item can then be cubed with any base white item when you're under the effect of sparklies from killing one of many hard bosses, and has a chance to give you the SU with that item base, and if it fails it just consumes the ingredient. The rarer and more powerful the SU, the rarer the chance.

In effect it'd be like how you can use runes to make one of many runewords depending on what your build wants, except for SUs instead (and a bit harder since the cube recipe can totally fail).

I think I would enjoy that sort of focused farming a lot more than "just keep farming and hope you get the right items, or trade for them (GL if you're on SP and don't want to trade with possible cheaters)".

[Seekers]

Suggestion: How about we keep the current mechanic of ''Kill monster, get SU'' and be done with it. In the end, all suggested methods will either boil down to:
1) Its too good and theres no incentive to farm other than for the materials needed for the recipe/for gold to gamble all day.
2) Its useless and everyone will forget it exists in about 2 days.

Its not like the game can't be completed without a full set of SSSU.

I do however wish there were areas harder than dunc and with more drops, or a way to make current areas harder for more drops (but we all know thats either not possible or exploit heaven).
Also a way to turn SUs (and only SUs) into EC might be a good idea (add a fragment system similar to AC), but not too convinced about it.

[archon256]

Suggestion: How about we keep the current mechanic of ''Kill monster, get SU'' and be done with it. In the end, all suggested methods will either boil down to:
1) Its too good and theres no incentive to farm other than for the materials needed for the recipe/for gold to gamble all day.

But that's the beauty of it. The materials don't have to drop in any special zone. They'll just be random drops same as SUs. You'll be farming for SUs as usual, but if one of these drops then you can use it to make the specific SU you want.

Its not like the game can't be completed without a full set of SSSU.

I'm not asking for these things to drop so much (or the recipe to have such high chance of success) that you can wear every single SSSU you want. It just makes you have a better chance of getting that one specific item you want out of all the hundreds of rare items you can find.


Right now most MP people don't care because they can trade with each other, and most SP people don't care because they have full stashes and/or trade with dupers. As someone who plays only SP without any cheating, getting any one SU for a build is so damn rare that I pretty much never use them. 99% of my gear is runewords and crafted items.

[adamo68]

I have an extremely minor request, but it would be neat.

Would it be possible to have a Checkbox in the options or an Oil that can be applied to Helmets to make their visual disappear on your character model? Many games have a checkbox to show or display helmets.

If this has already been request, I apologies for the double post.

[Heathen]

I've been playing quite a bit lately now that I have much more free time to throw around, and I want to bring up a couple points. Keep in mind that I speak from subjective experience, and if I say something that's ignorant or false in your opinion, i'd like to hear counterpoints.

Paladin Scourge feel really weak. I really don't believe paladin summoner could be viable in any way near endgame. I feel as if any buff would help,
and i'd like to be able to use them in a build one day.

Ice Elemental skill on Druid feels really weak, especially with the weird multi-homing projectiles not doing any initial damage.

Wolf Druid is a cool concept, I dig his skills, but please fix his early game. I hate needing to respec into him.

I feel like Assassin's Scorpion Blade isn't viable as a build whatsoever, at least not early on.

I'd love to see the Assassin Bats get health regeneration or something. At the moment, they die way too often, and summoning them with a melee attack as an Assassin is like begging to be killed.

I'd be happy to see Flametail Shot go the way of the oskill and be replaced. I dislike Angel of Death too, but it has it's uses on bosses.

I'd like to see the Veil King's attack animation timeout get reduced. He seems to just stand there derping for a second, and really takes away my interest.

I'd also love to see an HP buff with the Necromancer summons. They are just too flimsy and not fun to micromanage.

Delete Bearclaw on Barb. I don't even give a damn if it doesn't get replaced. I'd rather see a blank spot since that's all it is atm anyway.

The Spirit Tree on Barbarian just feels like bad design. I don't want to melee with a summoner, that would feel really horrible since they don't follow you. Also, they have what seems to be a 0.8 second to 1 seconds attack time-out after every attack. This feels clunky and doesn't look great.

Amazon Sunstrike seems just plain pointless when you have the other alternatives. It excels in neither mob killing or boss killing, and I feel as if it needs more arrows or much higher damage.

[Goodkidscc]

Bring back the charm druid tree

[Wasp]

Would it be possible to summon more than one 'summon' at once? Like 2 or 5.
I feel like it would be just nicer without really making anything unbalanced. I honestly hate having to re summon 15+ ice elemental, and even though it only takes a couple of second, it is tiring after a while... just like picking gold actually.
(It's a detail i know, I should reconsider my priorities)

[tarrasqueSorcerer]

Yes, I think they already said they will implement multi-summoning.

[HechtHeftig]

...

Lots of good suggestions!

But I do have to say something

The problem about Scourge is all about the synergies. If you go Holy they have the damage, but lack health. If you go Unholy you have the health but lack damage. In addition to that they only have a low chance to avoid attacks and compared to hoplites, they have the worse attack proc. Hoplites simply outlcass them in every way.

Summoner paladin has never been viable sadly. Pala summons are barely good enough to block some projectiles in toraja and unformed land.


Angel of Death can stay as long as they take away the requirement of having to jump for the poison damage to activate. That's what bothers me the most about it.


I personally like the spirit tree of the barb.
Every spirit has its own use. Defender spirits for example are perfect for spreading poison damage via Snake Stance. And they are in general good for a safe play as they push back enemies fast and often.
Protector Spirits can dramatically boost your spell damage, which is really nice. So you can even play a caster barb with oskills.
Guardian Spirits are good for single target hits, knocking back and stunning single enemies and groups of enemies. They may lack health but they usually don't need that health as they are ranged, stunning and knocking back enemies in a row.
I can understand why you don't want to go melee with that barb tree. But you can gather your summons with spirit walk. Plus defender spirits for example really work well with fortress from my experience.

And all your barb summons work really well with wolf stance, greatly increasing their attack speed.

[Crash]

Ice Elemental skill on Druid feels really weak, especially with the weird multi-homing projectiles not doing any initial damage.

It was nerfed not long ago. It used to be stupid OP, if I remember. I think they reduced the number of hits it has at the center of the explosion.

Wolf Druid is a cool concept, I dig his skills, but please fix his early game. I hate needing to respec into him.

I played a wolf untwinked one time. It's actually quite strong early game, you just have to manage around using harbinger/mana pulse strategically to maintain mana and location. Just needs mostly TU's, is all, which can be boring to farm, but it's certainly a faster/more intuitive build than a trap rat.

I feel like Assassin's Scorpion Blade isn't viable as a build whatsoever, at least not early on.

There was a build somewhere in the guides (maybe page 2 that gets overlooked all the time?), but it was never completed. It played heavily on the aspect of poison in the game with duration and additional sources.

I'd be happy to see Flametail Shot go the way of the oskill and be replaced. I dislike Angel of Death too, but it has it's uses on bosses.

What would you replace Flametail Shot with? I find it useful in specific scenarios (overall, obviously frag and voodoo shot are superior), but it definitely has its uses and can stun. Angel of Death is awful. It hits about 50% of the time for me while in Deathlord, for some reason, but on the plus side, it's an insanely good mobility skill, especially for early build/ladder Duncraig farming when you may get surrounded and don't have teleport to move from an incoming barrel. I use it very infrequently for attacking, but often for mobility.

I'd also love to see an HP buff with the Necromancer summons. They are just too flimsy and not fun to micromanage.

I would agree, only because I've seen your recent remarks concerning Necro summoner, meaning you have to scale damage along with life, and it becomes too much of a hassle to balance MO's and gear to make it effective in both aspects. I almost never have trouble with Necro summons' HP values though.

Delete Bearclaw on Barb. I don't even give a damn if it doesn't get replaced. I'd rather see a blank spot since that's all it is atm anyway.

Ever tried an untwinked throwbarb? This skill is godly for getting your Jitan charm . Knockback pushes him into a wall and the brief stun/knockback allows you to simply sit and spam it til he slowly dies, as long as your attack rating is good enough that he won't escape and use Inner Fire.

The Spirit Tree on Barbarian just feels like bad design. I don't want to melee with a summoner, that would feel really horrible since they don't follow you. Also, they have what seems to be a 0.8 second to 1 seconds attack time-out after every attack. This feels clunky and doesn't look great.

I don't know if barb was ever meant to be a pure summoner type. This is quite opposite to your argument for batsin, how you don't want to melee with that char to summon them. Barb, on the other hand, has the ability to go melee range. I think the idea behind the build was for an actual shaman-type character, or hybrid, so to speak, as opposed to pure summoner. If barb spirits did actively follow you, I think we'd see many more barb summoners, but most people may find it clunky, as you said, that you have so many melee options to hybridize with the spirits. It can become chaotic. As for the attack animations, once you get to your uberskill, the build becomes noticeably more viable (as is many other builds and classes). Mahi had a stream a couple weeks ago where he was Toraja farming with 25-30 of the throwing axes spirits, and there was just a constant stream of Bear Claws and stampedes, even with Bear Stance, not Wolf.

Amazon Sunstrike seems just plain pointless when you have the other alternatives. It excels in neither mob killing or boss killing, and I feel as if it needs more arrows or much higher damage.

I'd argue to keep this skill because it gives an Amazon a chance for ranged heroics, as it's the only true Elemental skill they have, apart from added ele damage. Most bosses, you'd run in with Barrage in the face, and it'd be no issue, but there are heroics that don't allow you to get close. I've found this to be a decent option for ranged heroics, if you focus on 200 fire pierce, and you get quite a decent array of arrows with more points in the skills.

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Overall, am I arguing for the sake of arguing? No. I appreciated some of the points you brought up (the ones I left out of my comments, or had nothing to say towards them). Just providing a devil's advocate kind of approach in terms of build viabilities, and what-if scenarios to consider.