Now, onto the feedback from this past week!
From: Morthore
Subject: 1.10 Strongest Build
From my limited perspective (admittedly I have not tried all builds), I would say the strongest build in Diablo II 1.10 is definitely the Necromancer Overlord build. I have been using one now and he never dies. I maxed Raise Skeleton, Raise Skeletal Mage, and Skeleton Mastery, then I put a few points into Summon Resist and Revive and let my +skills items bring those two up. Then I put a few points into curses such as Amplify Damage, Confuse, and Decrepify. The skeletons just don't die; they chew through any amount of enemies with ease, and with revives in the mix as well, my army is unstoppable. I will say that I encountered some minor trouble with Diablo and Baal, but they were still easy (i.e. I didn't die, but my entire army got wasted a few times), and the other bosses were pushovers. I'm sure a lot of other people will write in to say that this build is the strongest as well.
We've heard a lot of good things about summoning Necromancers in version 1.10, and even that Corpse Explosion is powerful again. Overlords do seem to be a build with potential, but we'd like to hear more from the community on Necromancer builds, as many fans have been wary to try using this character class after it being "nerfed" for so long.
From: One very irritated Paladin fanatic
Subject: Sharing thoughts on 1.10
Well, after playing about an hour and a half of the new patch, I've found several glitches, so my question is... when did Blizzard fire the QC guy?!?
Perhaps it's just the fact that I'm using a Paladin and it's the only buggy class (but what would be the odds of that), but any normal hunting activity has become a game of "spot the bug before it kills you". Albeit I'm only hunting in the first two areas of Act 1 (it appears to be too risky to get bug-locked elsewhere), but I'd think that this would be the least common place for bugs to sprout, wouldn't it? The areas that everyone has to go through? [Actually, any area of the game is equally likely to be bugged.]
First off, what the hell happened to zeal? It only ever used to screw up against those water watchers (or at least that used to be the only consistent glitch I found with it). Suddenly, against the bigfoots in all of their incarnations, it's far more likely to screw up than actually work.
For a mana cost of 2, the first hit is cast, it hits or misses, depending on the thing's defence, and suddenly it's a 1-hit zeal; slow, costly on Mana and irritatingly common. I know there were issues with Zeal in the Beta patch, but you'd think they'd at least put it back to its old functionality instead of screwing it up with the new "fix". If that wasn't enough, I'm fairly certain that Zeal isn't even coming out 5 times per cast against some enemies; no, they're not cancelling it, that'd be hard to do whilst stunned, it just isn't coming out. [More on Attack Rating issues.]
Secondly, using Smite seems to have become a tactic of "let the thing with one sliver of health find a fountain of rejuvination and teleport right back up to full health again". [Gotta love that Diablo clone.] I'm not talking about the ridiculously high recovery rates. I'm talking about running into three fallen, zealing away to almost kill one (this is not a complaint against the increased difficulty, by the way), smiting away all three of them to get them stunned so you can run in and finish the first one you were pounding on before they recover from the stun, and finding that he's somehow switched bodies with a full health version of himself, within 1 second of being "smited"
(smitten?). I understand this is a precaution against TP'er tactics, but it's affecting more people with legitimate tactics than not.
Thirdly, I'm finding that uniques and champions are now stunnable -- sure, they resist the first few attempts, but then they're just a piece of cake to deal with... what happened to monsters getting stronger and less buggy? [Try Acts Four and Five in Hell difficulty, solo.]
Fourthly, I seem to have realised that smite is a health-stealing attack; One cast of blood tap, and anything (since even stoneskin things aren't immune to physical anymore) I pummel on is keeping me at full health, with a guaranteed chance of hitting and stunning it. Come on, let's try and put a little thought into the "fixes", Blizzard. Make sure they "fix" something that's actually broken?
Fifthly, and here comes the ridiculous bit, you remember how we used to be able to charge-lock critters? Well, paladins unite! We've all become so invincible, we can charge lock ourselves... we charge (although I like the improvements to charge's speed and cast rate) like maniacs, and then every so often, *we* freeze up mid-step, for what once turned out to empty my whole belt when a fallen shaman just kept casting fire bolts at me and I was unable to move for upwards of 10 seconds. I mean, that's not even an obscure glitch. A skill locks up just from being used?!? [Could be lag, but good point.]
And what about the new improvements to minions, huh? It's easier to take out a champion or unique (less health) than it is to take out a *single* minion. Gee, that makes so much sense. I especially love how a minion of something with spectral hit has spectral hit itself, or a minion of a mana-burn critter burns mana itself -- What happened to the unique being the power behind the rabble? Each member of the rabble's taking twice as long to kill as its leader, and it's every bit as deadly, even after the leader's gone!! [Hence the increased difficulty.] The only reason to do away with the unique first, now, is if it's got some pesky aura like conviction or fanaticism.
I think it's pretty much become clear that nobody cares about the Paladin class even so much as the Barbarians' warcries, and Paladins were born to have area effects, they don't just pull them out when it suits them.
On a brighter note, I suppose I should point out that I'm making about triple the experience I used to be, although I'm not exactly sure if that's a good thing, considering I've gone up 2 levels and haven't found a decent piece of equipment since the patch came out, and higher levels are supposed to need better equipment. I'm hunting at a loss, however; it's costing me more to repair my equipment and revive my hireling than I even make.
We've seen a lot more Paladins lately, and they seem to actually
be getting more popular. Thanks for the detailed review!
From: Karamy Kardilac
Subject: The Most Powerful v1.10 Character
I am Karamy Kardilac, recent addition to the Battle.net world. I play on the Hardcore ladder as a Necromancer, and people seem quite surprised when they see the build that I'm using.
Synergy is a wonderful thing, I must say; finally, the
Bone Spells have powerful uses. [Pretty
spell effects aren't a powerful use?] The build
I'm using is as such. Points go into Teeth until Bone Wall
opens up. Then, the points go into Bone Wall. Not only will
this increase the damage on the Teeth spell, making it very
useful for crowd clearing in Normal/Nightmare mode, but
Bone Armour begins to absorb more damage as well (With 1
point into Bone Armour, you can still have very high physical
absorb, a useful thing to have). Also, the increased Health
of Bone Wall will be quite useful against Duriel in Normal
mode, holding him back while you can hurt him with the next
spell, Bone Spear. This is my weapon of choice thus far
underground; above, it's Teeth all the way.
Once Bone Spear becomes available, pump it as much as possible.
This will increase the Teeth damage as well as the Spear,
plus it will have gained synergies from the Wall as well.
Once it can deal around 200 damage (around 6 points), start
putting points into Bone Prison. This will be the spell
of choice later on, as you can wrap up all your enemies
and destroy them at your leisure (health for the Prison
goes up in Nightmare and Hell mode, keeping things still
for a long time). As more points go into Prison, the cost
goes down, the health goes up, the absorption of Armour
goes up, and the damage for Teeth and Spear goes up. When
you have a good base in these skills, start pumping them
as much as possible. No points into Summoning, no points
into Curses (unless you want Terror, just in case you're
surrounded). Eventually, Spear will deal well over 1000
damage. If you want, you can pump Spirit as well for more
Synergies and higher damage on bosses (I recommend doing
this at higher levels). [Very reminiscient of pre-1.09 builds.]
A White Wand will be useful; if Runes are short, a +3 to Poison and Bone Spells wand. In fact, anything that gives increases to Poison and Bone is good. Darkglow Ringmail is a good Resistance armour if you can find it, but there are many options; something that makes the dead lie easy would REALLY help. A good Trophy will help as well. Since few enemies will get close to you thanks to Prison, high defense isn't really needed, and so higher Strength isn't really needed. Pump Vitality and Energy as much as you can, preferably so HP and Mana are around the same; prevention of Magic Maiden is quite helpful!! This build is quite Mana intense, and so a belt full of Super Mana potions and Full Rejuvs will be helpful. These potions drop commonly in Nightmare, so don't spend too much time Cubing the Rejuvs.
With this strat, you should easily be able to take down any enemy. In the Realms, people will wonder at you, but that's alright; you can show them your power. Melee characters? No chance if you play it right. 'Zons? More challenge, but not too bad. Sorceresses? They can Teleport, and so could be irritating. Other Bone Necros? Could be tough, but you're probably better than they are anyway, so don't worry. Good luck!
Higher difficulty levels will be the real test of this strategy. Thanks for your suggestions!
From: WD
Subject: Thanks so much for the v1.10 patch!
Great work on the patch! As mostly a single player I have enjoyed this game thoroughly. Since the final patch, I have been playing on Battle.net and that is quite a bit of fun too.
Now that more unique, rare and set stuff is being dropped,
PLEASE consider increasing the storage box so we can keep
the cool stuff we find. [Blizzard:
Economize. Us: Play mods.] Heck that's the best
part of this game, hacking away hoping to get something
really rare or a matching set piece. It is so frustrating
to have to sell off something you want to keep especially
a set piece. Anyhow I looked into this "mule" thing with
an extra character but that is really not the answer. [Actually, they are the standard as long as you take care of 'em.] Maybe
as idea you could allow players to trade gold for bigger
storage space or extra trunks.
One more thing, any way the game could have a setting for automatic gold pick up? It sure would be nice to walk around and have gold go "ching, ching" without having to stop and click.
Thanks for the forum.
Interesting idea, but gold doesn't hold much value in the game. Stones of Jordan might be a way to make your idea work. In any case, good idea.
From: David Coursey (Tallahassee, FL)
Subject:
I am writing to confirm the cobra strike problem. In 1.10, it DOES NOT work with what seem to be insect or undead monsters. makes soem sense but given how Blizzard tried to balance the assassin a bit better they really messed this part up. I did have one the top 10 assasins on U.S. East and building a new one now at LV 47. I do find traps finally a bit useful outisde death sentry which has always ruled at hell level due to the scalable damage).
We've received no other reports of Cobra Strike problems. However, players are having difficulty adjusting v1.09 assassins to the new version. Synergies are critical, a good point to remember if you're having problems yourself.
From: Hockeydude121
Subject: Regarding the topic on New Character Builds
Ive been playing patch 1.10 for around a full week now and noticed differences among the community as far character builds go compared to 1.09.
All you see now are paladins. Back in 1.09, the most common chars were amazons, barbarians, and sorcessers. Although the under-used chars did get a boost in 1.10, is that boost a -tad- too much? I'll have to wait a couple more weeks once curtain char builds are used constantly. After my week experiance though, I have noticed that paladins are powerhouses compared to even the well-equiped barbarian.
All in all , I hope some cool char builds do come out of 1.10, changing our perspective on the game entirely.
A lot has changed with the emphasis on party-play. Barbarians are likely to still be the best brute force, but Paladins have been could largely be even more useful now in parties.
From: Claire Cowan
Subject: Character builds and about the patch
Alright ill respond to 2 topics one is the about the patch and then character builds. Ok, seriously the patch did more bad things than good. Here are the pros and cons.
Pros:
- world event: very nice addition that I think made the game a lot more interesting.
- new items/runewords/recipes etc.-items look very nice and good stats. Runewords are very good now meaning more people will demand good runes meaning they are now worth more.
- no bugged items: finally glad to be rid of those 4 socket stormshields and bugged valors giving the characters godly life and damage.
- preventing rushes: good idea with the town portal thingy where they need to complete the quest before.
- no life leech in duels: kind of a bad thing too but now duels wont last and hour
- more characters:now u can create more than 8 cahracters. Thank god because i had all the characters and a mule but then i wanted to make a hardcore characters but there was no room.
Alright now here is the bad parts.
Cons:
- dupes are still there:im sure me like a lot of other people who still had dupes traded them away because they thought they were going to be deleted and probably didnt get the best deal they could because they jsut wanted to get rid of them.
- no piercing in guided arrow: this is a really bad thing to take out because it made zons guided arrow attack strong and now they hardly do any damage to the monsters.
- monster skill- WAY TOO STRONG! i have a godly zon doing 4.5k dmg lightning fury and its taking about 8 hits to take out a quill rat with only me in the game. FOR GOD'S SAKE ITS A QUILL RAT!
- cow channel: ok its just a bad idea to take it out.
- annihilus charm:bad because you cannot trade it but also good because you can only use one of them.
- banning people for using maphack: ok sure its a hack but it does not take items or hack account or give the person using it more health items or anything. It just lets them see where they are going. It's not a severe type of hack. I don't use it but i think it should have been implemented into the patch because it helps i would think.
- overall it kind of ruined it for blizzard because im sure a lot of people quit.
Character builds: well im jsut gonan make this short from what i know. BARBS USING CONCENTRATE/WHIRLWIND/BESERK ARE STILL THE STRONGEST CHARACTERS AND BEST FOR KILLING THE CLONE DIABLO! Zons are also very good but have bad resist. They should be a hybrid zon using titans/ss and wf=very strong.
Killed by a Quill Rat again...
That's a wrap for this week, folks! Be sure to send in your comments, questions, and other notes of interest regarding next week's topic. Feel free to ask or comment about other topics, too!
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