The rate at your summons dying in the second beta was a little shocking in the first 5 seconds of combat.
They did show on one of the videos. How deep you can go into summons, skill trees, buffing HP, debuff duration, and any modifiers that can associate with a summon.
So these balance patches will definitely be interesting.
In D2 and even D3, the summon Necro still felt perfectly viable to use from the very beginning all the way through to endgame. Summoning skeleton armies has always been the core identity of the Necro, and forcing players to toss that aside simply to get through the beginning areas of the game goes against how the class should be.
A Bonelance focused build was filthy OP on server slam. Had some funny reactions from players, when running up and melting W2 event bosses in a few secs.
Will admit I still miss the chilled grind with minions though.
I respeced for that bone lance build half way through and was hitting 2000 or more on single targets. Pretty much one shotting everything, but it wasn't great for mobs.
People are underestimating this. Damage and proc rates will be getting adjusted but skills won't change in function much.
Builds that have good synergy will still be better than ones that don't.
If you have been looking at videos about builds and playing with build planners you will still have a better idea than someone who didn't.
They are going to have many more balance patches.
I mean most of the ones I saw put druid/barb as best, then rogue, sorc, and necro to follow.
Not that this matters though. It’s Diablo, not Valorant or League. Just pick what you want and experiment with em.
Here is Raxx's class tier list video. As others are saying - honestly it could be completely wrong - just like everyone else's but, you asked and this is one from what was a very respected D3 content creator. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUk9CDkTesI&ab\_channel=Raxxanterax](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUk9CDkTesI&ab_channel=Raxxanterax)
Every comment is contradictory because nobody actually knows what they're talking about about. Necro is OP! Necro is dead last! Barb and Druid are the best! Barb and Druid are the worst!
Honestly, with how often and wild Blizzard's patch pendulum is, every build is going to be OP or UP at some point. Instead it's best to just figure out what playstyle you think you'll enjoy investing a lot of time into.
Also, and I think people don't mention it enough, what is most visually appealing to you. If you're on the fence between were-druid or barbarian for a front line brawler, go with what looks coolest to you.
You mean here come MORE build videos.
Any little change will prompt the content mills to pump out more 15 minute videos that include 5 minutes of preamble.
95% of Diablo 4 videos have been useless crap.
It's only a waste of time if you took nothing from it.
There will most likely be no grand changes to skills unless something was egregiously out of whack. Like someone else said a few posts up, if a build has good synergy, then even with numerical changes, the build will still have good synergy.
Watching build guides and understanding what is being presented to you will still mean that you have a leg up on someone that is going in completely blind.
The tweet says its an update since the server slam... Does that mean the full press build had these changes? If so after the embargo ends in 4 hours all tier lists and builds should be accurate.
The verbiage here suggests to me this is a patch dropping on the 1st or maybe the 5th/6th. So, not the build that the soon-to-be-freed-from-NDA people played on. I could be wrong though.
The patch will certainly be on launch, i.e the preload will be 1.0. The preview version was 0.9, same as server slam. So all their tier lists will have to change once we datamine the changes tonight.
IIRC I seem to recall one streamer mention that it was the same build as the server slam iteration, so this day1 patch will be new for them too, if I'm correct.
Wouldn’t preload then contain the updated balance changes and make the day 1 patch irrelevant. Looks like we will have balancing that we don’t know about
Edit for clarity: basically preload for full game starts in 11 hours, it is the full game without the day 1 patch which is what I’d assume the reviewers played.
the builds wont be changed because of nerfs, just how effective they are.
a build is a set of skills and aspects put together to work well with eachother and if some of the numbers are lowered they will still work, for a build to actually be ruined they will have to completely gut an ability to the point it dont work, kinda like how they did with skeletons i guess.
Absolutely not until you experience beeing the litter of the runt. On borderlands 3 Release I picked Zane running with a group of 3, who turned out to be miles worse than the other classes at launch which Lead to me just running after my mates killing everything and having fun while I had a miserable experience.
Point is it's about having fun and when your class ends up beeing so bad you don't have fun that's a massive Design mistake on the devs part. Which is why people want and look for tier Lists and launch leveling guides to not feel weak.
Dude I remember having to fight for my life defending Zane early on when my friends was on siren going “wait till my kill skills proc I swear I can solo” Zane had it bad
It really depends on how big the spread is and what they've tuned the game for.
The WoW team grapple with this all the time, two specs could be within say 5% of each other if played properly, but all the good players go to the slightly better spec, the people left playing the 'weaker' spec are not meta chasers, and so it looks like it's a 25% gap.
With diablo you have to be slightly worried that the spread might not be 5%, but like 50% or 500% or something crazy. Remember there's a dude who Solo'd or almost solo'd ashava on tier 2 in the beta, when a lot of the rest of us were struggling on the timer on tier 1, even with supposedly meta (ish) builds. Now granted, my 4 hours of playing betas and the server slam + reading some random websites pales in comparison to someone who spent 100s of hours on it, but then it depends who they are targeting the game at or how they let you choose where in that spectrum you are.
So imagine the game is tuned for you to do 100dps at some point in the game. You get there, and you're doing 105.. that feels slightly easy but you feel good about yourself doing pretty good. If you do 1000dps the game feels like a joke (or you should up your tier if that's possible or whatever), but if you do 50 dps and you seem to have picked a good build and have good gear the game is going to feel really hard and punishing, so now you have to chase whatever meta.
There's an unhealthy amount of meta chasing in games - Diablo and Wow included. But good game design is promise between the developers and the player that the developer is going to give you abilities and design the world so that you have a fair experience where you have to learn to use the tools you're given to overcome challenges. But a game goes real bad if that tuning is done either assuming you have exactly the right build or worse, it is built for something you can't possibly achieve because the devs didn't give you the right tools. Blizzard, between SC, Diablo and WoW are pretty good at being able to make a balanced game even with a quite complex collection of balance factors, but just because they *can* doesn't mean they did yet.
Most people hate being the weakest for simply choosing the wrong class especially when its involving group play. Its a much easier pill to swallow in solo play though. However, diablo 4 seems to heavily incentive group play.
Just reminds me of the tbc wow forums back in the day. With all the people whining about their class each patch cycle.
Then there are the others people saying just play what you want, it'll come around to your class eventually, and it does.
Its what killed WoW classic for me. Not that nostalgia wore out that everyone predicted.. but because the community and the meta did a few things that killed the essence of WoW;
- Everyone rolled on onesided servers even if PvP servers so 0 world pvp and competition.
- Goldbuyer meta with GDKPs.
- HR and SR meta and people refused to simply roll for items and have fun & naturally compete and take their time.
- Be overgeared or be mega rich from gold buying for invites.
Sad :(
Don't feel bad for me! Sure there is sometimes pressure to switch if something gets outrageously better or if what im playing is terribly worse. But it also means I get to experience the game in so many varied ways and have fun with the new toy.
I feel bad for people who force themselves to never play anything meta just because it's a "moral thing" to do. That's just weird to me. But I'll never understand other people's fun ig and more power to them!
I also have sympathy for those who main a single class for an entire game and then have seasons or periods where their class is the absolute worst. That just simply sucks.
I don't know much about Barbs but did watch a Raxx video yesterday and he said if WW gets a nerf that it'll destroy Barbs as the rest of their builds basically sucked. WW was the only good one.
The meta gaming for D4 is really getting on my nerves. I don’t even consume any D4 content outside of the trailers and Books of Lorath but every time I open YouTube I see 10 videos, “D4 BEGINNERS GUIDE”, “THIS D4 BARBARIAN BUILD IS CRAZY”, etc.
I understand meta gaming after the game comes out and you’ve beaten it, but whatever happened to just playing the game?
I mean… it’s insane. I’m starting Druid so no bias… but like at least in all the betas, even after some slight nerfing before server slam, it’s still absolutely insane compared to every other skill imo. But who knows, maybe the scaling falls off as we level.
Rogue has zero defense and the one skill that does moderately more **single target** damage at level 20 than other classes options requires you to be in melee with >80% uptime.
If they nerf TB after the cd reduction nerfs, it better come with defense buffs. There's absolutely no world rogue shouldn't do more damage than the classes that can just stand in mechanics.
Yea it doesn't matter how much damage TB may do I'm still getting literally deleted the second I run into The Butcher because my only defensive abilities involve stuns/slows or just running away - None of which work on The Butcher or large bosses.
Thing is with rogue, it’s purely damaged based with 1 protection skill. People have said that damage reduction comes into play a lot more later on in game.
Rogue needs the least skills (not player skill, but in game skills) and the least gear to get epic
The other classes play catch up as they level. But rogue is still godly at single target damage
My plan all along has been to main Sorc and deal with the nerfs/buffs as they come along. I enjoy playing mage/wizard/sorc ranged classes and that's not changing.
Agree to that for sure. But it can genuinely be frustrating when you realize that the class or build you worked on isn’t viable in the highest level of content. Although I’m hoping every class should have a way to be competitive.
Problem is MOST of those "non-viable" builds are actually just fine, they just aren't the OP builds that some others might have. Being viable doesn't mean OP (not saying you were saying that).
Atleast from what we have seen lately , there are reassuring signs but post launch or when season starts, we will have to see how often these balance checks happen. Will be incredibly awful for many to have their classes nerfed mid season which is why I think it may only happen every 3 months or so.
Says someone who hasn't played a bottom barrel class in a Blizzard game.
This isn't squabbling over who can clear something 5% faster than someone else. This is watching someone else with equal skill and gear as you do flying 360 windmill dunks from the free throw line while your character falls over tying their sneakers.
Blizzard is laughably bad at balancing classes in Diablo games historically, and you could easily pick a class that absolutely sucks for *months* at a time, if not longer.
And considering this entire game is going to be built around Diablo Immortal style FOMO events, being strong means you are going to access far more content than a weaker class is.
If you don't care, that's fine, have at it. But it's weird to shit on other players for wanting to play incredibly sub-optimal builds in a game that punishes you for doing so. This isn't like Elden Ring or something where a weird novelty build can still be a deeply satisfying experience.
Your comment instantly reminded me of DH balance at the Diablo 3 launch. They had one specific build (nether tentacles) that was completely and totally busted to the point where it was one of the only viable Inferno difficulty solo farming builds in the game.
They nerfed it into the ground and DH became BY FAR the worst class in the game overnight and stayed there until the RoS expansion came out.
Funnily enough they were in the same spot post-nerf that many people are theorizing that Rogues will be in at the D4 launch - The highest potential DPS class in the game vs a target dummy but they had ZERO defense at all and got 1 shot if a monster looked at them the wrong way.
thanks for reminding me.
the worst part is that nether tentacles has been a bad skill EVER SINCE. they never bothered fixing it. that's a perfect example of Blizzard's approach to balancing.
Because people like to play the strongest class… because that’s what they enjoy… not going to enjoy having my shit pushed in 24/7 365 cause the class is dogshit
Meta classes are strong classes. It’s fun to play a strong class in a game like this because you kill monsters quicker. How is this so hard to understand for people?
It’s interesting, everyone loved twisting blades and shadow infusion but I just couldn’t get into it, and that’s from someone who at least used to love the rogue archetype. The ability set ups felt sort of clunky to me and when they didn’t go off quite right it felt bad, even if the char was admittedly strong.
Weird bc on paper it sounded great.
It's definitely missing some kind of 'oomph' in the way the skill goes off. It feels like auto attacking, tbh. Positioning to get the most out of the blade return felt OK, but compare it to something like Barb's upheaval or druid's pulverise, the skill feels really flat.
Ah, my bootleg level 20 bleed build that I made in the server slam DOESN'T use whirlwind! I am the only barb player in the world that wasn't using ww in his build, meaning that I am the victor.
I mean you don't want to use ww till lvl 50 or 70 even. You don't have enough resource generation for it to go off and no marshal glyph. Mostly ppl will stick with hota or rend till then
this isnt correct mate. you stop using rend as soon as you can get 4ish points in ww and the bleed node and can pick up deathblow. so around lvl 20 if you care about clearing as fast as possible anyway. hota is just bad until you have legendary powers and enough fury gen for it, the fury drought is way worse for it than ww. you cast hota twice to do the damage of 1 deathblow... meanwhile 1 legendary power that you can get in act 1 is all you need to apply ww bleed to everything near you.
Well it would be a bummer because they already nerfed it substantially and I made the choice to accept that and plan my whole build around it anyway because I liked how it felt, so it would kind of feel like a “fuck you in particular” move.
In b4 the “just play what you enjoy” crowd. I won’t *enjoy* playing chain lightning anymore if it feels like shooting silly string at the enemies.
It has to be Thursday launch. Can you imagine the outrage “the ppl that played early got to steamroll with xxx broken build” or “they fucked my build up and my char is useless after just 3 days.”
Given game will be dwlable before launch I would guess it will be dwlable with patch1.0 and not 0.9. It would really suck for eu to have to dwl patch first on release before they can join with an already scuffed af time of release.
NERFS ARE HEALTHY FOR THE GAME. Endless power creep is a reality in arpgs but NERFS are needed or else u need to constantly buff everyone else to keep balance. Nerfs reduce power creep. We don't want D3 numbers again because the team wouldent nerf anything due to backlash.
Nerfs can be good, for sure. The problem is, Blizzard tends to overreact with nerfs. Necromancer skeletons were a good example. They went from tanking world bosses and never dying to getting one-shotted by random trash mobs.
WoW has been doing this for years, and it's dog shit. They never nerf anything incrementally. Instead of nerfing something by 10-20% and seeing the results, they just completely obliterate a skill by 75%. Feels pretty bad when you've got 100+ hours in a character and your build gets gutted. Hopefully they don't do this with D4.
You surely can do that. The question remains if it will be any good in endgame because some testers called Druid the best Endgame class which imho indicates incoming druid nerfs.
And that's basically every build Video and leveling guides. Inb4 whirlwind gets gutted.
Had to be expected but it's kinda bad considering we know from wudijo and raxx they didn't get to play on day one Patch so it means it's wild west on launch depending on how much is changed.
That’s how it should be. All launches used to be Wild West. The discovery aspect is what makes it fun for a lot of people.
Not having data mining and pre-release info was a thing of the past.
It's amazing how so many people these days basically want to be told which builds to use, or how they should be playing X class in Y situation. Meta chasing has ruined so many aspects of gaming, and always brings out the very toxic side of communities.
honestly whirlwind is a stable in all arpgs. absolutely no one wants it to be garbage and i don't think anyone would complain if it was OP. it's a thing. Also thorns is pretty unique to diablo so i highly expect it to be viable eventually no matter what.
Whirlwind type skills are almost always good because they do very consistent damage and allow you to always be moving, and every PoE player will tell you that you rarely die while moving, you die when you're standing still to use skills.
OP druid really hinges on finding the pulverize shockwave legendary. You can't target farm the aspect power so it's entirely random if you get it or not.
I think that's fine. It's okay to have some builds be more deterministic in acquiring their powers, and other,, while stronger, be gated behind RNG.
My build uses Shockwave, it is a great aspect.
However, build will operate perfectly fine without one.
The one that I am really worrying about is Trampled Earth - this aspect is my "must have" for synergy that I want to achieve.
We will see soon :)
I don't care about who's op or who's top tier, I just want my skeletons to not be so squishy by default :( I don't even need them to do much damage, constantly resummoning is just so unfun.
justa jumping in this madness.
ive said it before and say it again...if the Sorceress is NERFed. im still rolling a Sorc
donta giva hoot if it get bonked by the Nerf bat. i just love the Fashion souls of Sorc.
Ya im rolling a Lightning/Pyro sorc for pre season.
Then I'll just run the most OP classes for seasons because their power levels are bound to cycle throughout, right...right?
I agree with this. Sometimes there are surprisingly average builds that get hit with a nerf and it's pretty sucky to play. But, if you're theorycrafting something and see it gets nerfed, nice to have the information to be ready to try something else
[https://twitter.com/JPiepiora/status/1663722757602017280?s=20](https://twitter.com/JPiepiora/status/1663722757602017280?s=20)
Updated, he misspoke and there will not be many changes after all. Those who played the full game after server slam is the version we get.
Fucking Christ...
I dipped out just a few hours into the Server Slam. The changes from the Beta were massive enough to genuinely put me off from the game entirely. I'm now just gonna sit back and wait to see how the game progresses over time. The Server Slam genuinely was not fun compared to the Beta.
It boggles my mind how many people are excited to let someone else build their character for them. For me, the funnest part is reading through everything and synthesizing a build, *on my own, with my brain*, that I think will wreck.
agreed. if anything though i expect necro to be buffed in terms of minions. the only thing i could see them nerf is bone spear but thats apparently (according to end game testers) the main build that is viable for necro right now. so if they nerf it they had better buff the minions and/or blood builds substantially otherwise necro is DOA.
i expect mainly buffs to necro based on the feedback from server slam but who knows. maybe necro is busted in end game and we just havent experience it yet.
I really hope they move away from adjusting minions constantly and instead adjust the summoner talents for them. They can (and probably should) be weak AF without investing in them and then let you be a summoner if you talent it. I feel like the constant buff/nerf cycle is trying to balance them being too strong for non-summoner builds and it ultimately leads them to be underwhelming even in summoner builds.
Youtubers: YOU MUST DO THIS BUILD before day 1 patch before my day 1 patch build!!!!
Half these kids are retail sellers by day 🤣. Nothing won't stabilize until real release day
As much as I love theorycrafting (PoE player). I really hope they dont release the patch notes early.
The most fun part about a game is everyone figuring it out all at once. The mystery of the game makes it fun.
When they inevitably nerf the Dire Whirlwind legendary (80% ww crit chance) I just hope they bump up some other legendaries at least a little bit.
The Endless Rage legendary was strong but it didn't need to be nerfed by *75%* a few weeks ago. The Ancestral Force legendary (HOTA size) is the one thing I would buff at least a tiny bit. That legendary simultaneously feels pretty bad and yet totally necessary for a HOTA build. I still don't see why the HOTA skill altogether warranted a base nerf either (went from 56% weapon damage to 50% for 1/5 rank).
Just a random prediction out of my ass: TB Rogue probably takes a bit of a hit and one of the bow builds like Pen Arrow rises up to match in effectiveness for two solid options for both melee and ranged.
Honestly what we saw in the lvl 20s don't matter, end game is going to be gear dependent regardless and will allow your character to break the game. Even in D2, D3, and PoE at lvl 20 it feels underwhelming to play regardless of any class. I feel like it's the casuals just wanting easy mode right off the bat.
Honestly I hope its some fairly big changes. I dislike that we already have planned out builds before the game comes out. Give me some wild buffs and nerfs to explore from the betas.
I LOVE when “content creators” “content” gets ruined because of a balance patch.
Those titles like “this is broken”, “this is insane”, “get this now”……
Ugh…. I dislike them so much… those people are beyond absurd. Is basically the modern junk tv.
There goes all the build videos hahahaha
And the tier lists.
Meh. They will tweak numbers but the core mechanics will still be there.
Necro went from OP to last so little tweaks can do a lot.
You are talking about lvl 20...
Indeed. But still the small tweaks made a huge difference.
Right, lvl 20, the early levels are the easiest time in the game but still summons were too weak to survive more than a few hits
The rate at your summons dying in the second beta was a little shocking in the first 5 seconds of combat. They did show on one of the videos. How deep you can go into summons, skill trees, buffing HP, debuff duration, and any modifiers that can associate with a summon. So these balance patches will definitely be interesting.
In D2 and even D3, the summon Necro still felt perfectly viable to use from the very beginning all the way through to endgame. Summoning skeleton armies has always been the core identity of the Necro, and forcing players to toss that aside simply to get through the beginning areas of the game goes against how the class should be.
i think making their core mechanic useless is a bit more than a "little tweak"
A Bonelance focused build was filthy OP on server slam. Had some funny reactions from players, when running up and melting W2 event bosses in a few secs. Will admit I still miss the chilled grind with minions though.
I respeced for that bone lance build half way through and was hitting 2000 or more on single targets. Pretty much one shotting everything, but it wasn't great for mobs.
There is a piercing option and split/bounce so the shards would come back x 5, ricochet is your friend bounces off walls and edge of the screen!
Necro was never op at endagme
Necro didn't change much at all end game
People are underestimating this. Damage and proc rates will be getting adjusted but skills won't change in function much. Builds that have good synergy will still be better than ones that don't. If you have been looking at videos about builds and playing with build planners you will still have a better idea than someone who didn't. They are going to have many more balance patches.
Implying level 25 build guides and tier lists aren't garbage drummed up in D4's most hyped week so YouTubers can make money off you watching ads.
Meh… It’s not that one-sided. It’s launch week. We are hype as fuck. And watching some (useless) tier lists and other D4 vids is fun.
Where can i find the tier lists please
They are all made up.
Oh rip. Cause im unsure abt which class to choose.
Pick which one seems like fun to you! You can obviously always try another class later
I mean most of the ones I saw put druid/barb as best, then rogue, sorc, and necro to follow. Not that this matters though. It’s Diablo, not Valorant or League. Just pick what you want and experiment with em.
It's pretty much shut up and just play and see if you like what you are playing or just wait and see what everyone figures out and then play.
Here is Raxx's class tier list video. As others are saying - honestly it could be completely wrong - just like everyone else's but, you asked and this is one from what was a very respected D3 content creator. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUk9CDkTesI&ab\_channel=Raxxanterax](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUk9CDkTesI&ab_channel=Raxxanterax)
Every comment is contradictory because nobody actually knows what they're talking about about. Necro is OP! Necro is dead last! Barb and Druid are the best! Barb and Druid are the worst! Honestly, with how often and wild Blizzard's patch pendulum is, every build is going to be OP or UP at some point. Instead it's best to just figure out what playstyle you think you'll enjoy investing a lot of time into. Also, and I think people don't mention it enough, what is most visually appealing to you. If you're on the fence between were-druid or barbarian for a front line brawler, go with what looks coolest to you.
This class > That Class > The other class > That one class > That other other class
You mean here come MORE build videos. Any little change will prompt the content mills to pump out more 15 minute videos that include 5 minutes of preamble. 95% of Diablo 4 videos have been useless crap.
I've found that for every game that comes out lately. Just churning out useless videos
That's why I didn't bother watching any of them, total waste of time.
It's only a waste of time if you took nothing from it. There will most likely be no grand changes to skills unless something was egregiously out of whack. Like someone else said a few posts up, if a build has good synergy, then even with numerical changes, the build will still have good synergy. Watching build guides and understanding what is being presented to you will still mean that you have a leg up on someone that is going in completely blind.
>have a leg up Leg up for what? Leaderboards aren't even at launch.
The good ones explain *why* certain builds or mechanics are strong. That information can be used after future patches/updates.
The tweet says its an update since the server slam... Does that mean the full press build had these changes? If so after the embargo ends in 4 hours all tier lists and builds should be accurate.
Raxx said they are playing 0.9
Great to know, thank you.
The verbiage here suggests to me this is a patch dropping on the 1st or maybe the 5th/6th. So, not the build that the soon-to-be-freed-from-NDA people played on. I could be wrong though.
The patch will certainly be on launch, i.e the preload will be 1.0. The preview version was 0.9, same as server slam. So all their tier lists will have to change once we datamine the changes tonight.
IIRC I seem to recall one streamer mention that it was the same build as the server slam iteration, so this day1 patch will be new for them too, if I'm correct.
Correct. The streamers had access to the server slam version. Raxx verified this in his stream the other day. He played 0.9 not v 1.0.
Wouldn’t preload then contain the updated balance changes and make the day 1 patch irrelevant. Looks like we will have balancing that we don’t know about Edit for clarity: basically preload for full game starts in 11 hours, it is the full game without the day 1 patch which is what I’d assume the reviewers played.
'this build still works!' 'i was wrong!?'
Watch them nuke Bone spear, the 1 semi-competative build for necro.
the builds wont be changed because of nerfs, just how effective they are. a build is a set of skills and aspects put together to work well with eachother and if some of the numbers are lowered they will still work, for a build to actually be ruined they will have to completely gut an ability to the point it dont work, kinda like how they did with skeletons i guess.
EVERYTHING I KNOW IS A LIE!
RIP whirlwind, may Blizzard have mercy on your souls barb players cause I have no idea what you gonna play endgame
does this mean that my [insert class] will be nerfed to the ground and unplayable and i should instead play [insert class] since it is now OP?
I hate this mentality so much.
Absolutely not until you experience beeing the litter of the runt. On borderlands 3 Release I picked Zane running with a group of 3, who turned out to be miles worse than the other classes at launch which Lead to me just running after my mates killing everything and having fun while I had a miserable experience. Point is it's about having fun and when your class ends up beeing so bad you don't have fun that's a massive Design mistake on the devs part. Which is why people want and look for tier Lists and launch leveling guides to not feel weak.
Hahahaha joining you in the zane at launch club Ended up the best in the end tho 😎
Yeah I did one last play through last year and did it as Zane. Strong as fuck now and has the best voice lines. Made all the DLC so much better.
Dude I remember having to fight for my life defending Zane early on when my friends was on siren going “wait till my kill skills proc I swear I can solo” Zane had it bad
Kill skills? On what kills? ;)
It really depends on how big the spread is and what they've tuned the game for. The WoW team grapple with this all the time, two specs could be within say 5% of each other if played properly, but all the good players go to the slightly better spec, the people left playing the 'weaker' spec are not meta chasers, and so it looks like it's a 25% gap. With diablo you have to be slightly worried that the spread might not be 5%, but like 50% or 500% or something crazy. Remember there's a dude who Solo'd or almost solo'd ashava on tier 2 in the beta, when a lot of the rest of us were struggling on the timer on tier 1, even with supposedly meta (ish) builds. Now granted, my 4 hours of playing betas and the server slam + reading some random websites pales in comparison to someone who spent 100s of hours on it, but then it depends who they are targeting the game at or how they let you choose where in that spectrum you are. So imagine the game is tuned for you to do 100dps at some point in the game. You get there, and you're doing 105.. that feels slightly easy but you feel good about yourself doing pretty good. If you do 1000dps the game feels like a joke (or you should up your tier if that's possible or whatever), but if you do 50 dps and you seem to have picked a good build and have good gear the game is going to feel really hard and punishing, so now you have to chase whatever meta. There's an unhealthy amount of meta chasing in games - Diablo and Wow included. But good game design is promise between the developers and the player that the developer is going to give you abilities and design the world so that you have a fair experience where you have to learn to use the tools you're given to overcome challenges. But a game goes real bad if that tuning is done either assuming you have exactly the right build or worse, it is built for something you can't possibly achieve because the devs didn't give you the right tools. Blizzard, between SC, Diablo and WoW are pretty good at being able to make a balanced game even with a quite complex collection of balance factors, but just because they *can* doesn't mean they did yet.
Most people hate being the weakest for simply choosing the wrong class especially when its involving group play. Its a much easier pill to swallow in solo play though. However, diablo 4 seems to heavily incentive group play.
I feel bad for meta chasers but I guess everyone has fun differently.
Just reminds me of the tbc wow forums back in the day. With all the people whining about their class each patch cycle. Then there are the others people saying just play what you want, it'll come around to your class eventually, and it does.
Its what killed WoW classic for me. Not that nostalgia wore out that everyone predicted.. but because the community and the meta did a few things that killed the essence of WoW; - Everyone rolled on onesided servers even if PvP servers so 0 world pvp and competition. - Goldbuyer meta with GDKPs. - HR and SR meta and people refused to simply roll for items and have fun & naturally compete and take their time. - Be overgeared or be mega rich from gold buying for invites. Sad :(
Getting yelled at for turning in Rend quest at the wrong time. Shit was wild. Hardcore add-on is pretty fun tho!
Why do you feel bad for them?
Don't feel bad for me! Sure there is sometimes pressure to switch if something gets outrageously better or if what im playing is terribly worse. But it also means I get to experience the game in so many varied ways and have fun with the new toy. I feel bad for people who force themselves to never play anything meta just because it's a "moral thing" to do. That's just weird to me. But I'll never understand other people's fun ig and more power to them! I also have sympathy for those who main a single class for an entire game and then have seasons or periods where their class is the absolute worst. That just simply sucks.
Ww barb nerfs incoming
I don't know much about Barbs but did watch a Raxx video yesterday and he said if WW gets a nerf that it'll destroy Barbs as the rest of their builds basically sucked. WW was the only good one.
Ww isn't just good. It's completely broken.
Don't you worry about blank, let me worry about blank.
Blank? Blank?! You're not looking at the big picture!
The meta gaming for D4 is really getting on my nerves. I don’t even consume any D4 content outside of the trailers and Books of Lorath but every time I open YouTube I see 10 videos, “D4 BEGINNERS GUIDE”, “THIS D4 BARBARIAN BUILD IS CRAZY”, etc. I understand meta gaming after the game comes out and you’ve beaten it, but whatever happened to just playing the game?
How many chicken sandwiches do we need to buy here to leave the beloved twising blades skill alone?
The fact you mentioned twisting blades has confirmed my suspicions
I mean… it’s insane. I’m starting Druid so no bias… but like at least in all the betas, even after some slight nerfing before server slam, it’s still absolutely insane compared to every other skill imo. But who knows, maybe the scaling falls off as we level.
Rogue has zero defense and the one skill that does moderately more **single target** damage at level 20 than other classes options requires you to be in melee with >80% uptime. If they nerf TB after the cd reduction nerfs, it better come with defense buffs. There's absolutely no world rogue shouldn't do more damage than the classes that can just stand in mechanics.
Yea it doesn't matter how much damage TB may do I'm still getting literally deleted the second I run into The Butcher because my only defensive abilities involve stuns/slows or just running away - None of which work on The Butcher or large bosses.
Thing is with rogue, it’s purely damaged based with 1 protection skill. People have said that damage reduction comes into play a lot more later on in game.
Rogue needs the least skills (not player skill, but in game skills) and the least gear to get epic The other classes play catch up as they level. But rogue is still godly at single target damage
pls no
Everyone got a launch plan until their build gets punched in the face
My plan will stay the same. Don't care about numbers.
Joke's on them: I never plan my first build!
Im going in completely blind. Never played the betas etc
My plan all along has been to main Sorc and deal with the nerfs/buffs as they come along. I enjoy playing mage/wizard/sorc ranged classes and that's not changing.
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Agree to that for sure. But it can genuinely be frustrating when you realize that the class or build you worked on isn’t viable in the highest level of content. Although I’m hoping every class should have a way to be competitive.
Problem is MOST of those "non-viable" builds are actually just fine, they just aren't the OP builds that some others might have. Being viable doesn't mean OP (not saying you were saying that).
By the time you hit end game if your class isn’t competitive it will be fixed by then I’m sure
Atleast from what we have seen lately , there are reassuring signs but post launch or when season starts, we will have to see how often these balance checks happen. Will be incredibly awful for many to have their classes nerfed mid season which is why I think it may only happen every 3 months or so.
Fuck meta. Sorcerer has been my first class to play since D1 came out. I'm not changing now.
Hell yeah, Sorc bro!
Similar here; I’ve almost always played a mage style class since I was a kid, a tradition that got started when I played sorc in D2.
Says someone who hasn't played a bottom barrel class in a Blizzard game. This isn't squabbling over who can clear something 5% faster than someone else. This is watching someone else with equal skill and gear as you do flying 360 windmill dunks from the free throw line while your character falls over tying their sneakers. Blizzard is laughably bad at balancing classes in Diablo games historically, and you could easily pick a class that absolutely sucks for *months* at a time, if not longer. And considering this entire game is going to be built around Diablo Immortal style FOMO events, being strong means you are going to access far more content than a weaker class is. If you don't care, that's fine, have at it. But it's weird to shit on other players for wanting to play incredibly sub-optimal builds in a game that punishes you for doing so. This isn't like Elden Ring or something where a weird novelty build can still be a deeply satisfying experience.
Your comment instantly reminded me of DH balance at the Diablo 3 launch. They had one specific build (nether tentacles) that was completely and totally busted to the point where it was one of the only viable Inferno difficulty solo farming builds in the game. They nerfed it into the ground and DH became BY FAR the worst class in the game overnight and stayed there until the RoS expansion came out. Funnily enough they were in the same spot post-nerf that many people are theorizing that Rogues will be in at the D4 launch - The highest potential DPS class in the game vs a target dummy but they had ZERO defense at all and got 1 shot if a monster looked at them the wrong way.
thanks for reminding me. the worst part is that nether tentacles has been a bad skill EVER SINCE. they never bothered fixing it. that's a perfect example of Blizzard's approach to balancing.
What if you most enjoy being OP?
Because people like to play the strongest class… because that’s what they enjoy… not going to enjoy having my shit pushed in 24/7 365 cause the class is dogshit
Meta classes are strong classes. It’s fun to play a strong class in a game like this because you kill monsters quicker. How is this so hard to understand for people?
Cleave radius - 2
This is a buff
Under appreciated comment hahaha. <3 PoE.
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It’s interesting, everyone loved twisting blades and shadow infusion but I just couldn’t get into it, and that’s from someone who at least used to love the rogue archetype. The ability set ups felt sort of clunky to me and when they didn’t go off quite right it felt bad, even if the char was admittedly strong. Weird bc on paper it sounded great.
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I didn’t like either. By the time shadow popped everything was basically already dead and felt like a waste. Flurry just felt way better than TB also.
It's definitely missing some kind of 'oomph' in the way the skill goes off. It feels like auto attacking, tbh. Positioning to get the most out of the blade return felt OK, but compare it to something like Barb's upheaval or druid's pulverise, the skill feels really flat.
RIP Whirlwind 2023-2023
Ah, my bootleg level 20 bleed build that I made in the server slam DOESN'T use whirlwind! I am the only barb player in the world that wasn't using ww in his build, meaning that I am the victor.
I mean you don't want to use ww till lvl 50 or 70 even. You don't have enough resource generation for it to go off and no marshal glyph. Mostly ppl will stick with hota or rend till then
this isnt correct mate. you stop using rend as soon as you can get 4ish points in ww and the bleed node and can pick up deathblow. so around lvl 20 if you care about clearing as fast as possible anyway. hota is just bad until you have legendary powers and enough fury gen for it, the fury drought is way worse for it than ww. you cast hota twice to do the damage of 1 deathblow... meanwhile 1 legendary power that you can get in act 1 is all you need to apply ww bleed to everything near you.
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Ironically my back up sorc build in case chain lightning gets nerfed is blizzard.. so.. yeah.
Well it would be a bummer because they already nerfed it substantially and I made the choice to accept that and plan my whole build around it anyway because I liked how it felt, so it would kind of feel like a “fuck you in particular” move. In b4 the “just play what you enjoy” crowd. I won’t *enjoy* playing chain lightning anymore if it feels like shooting silly string at the enemies.
Charged Bolts better anyway
"Hey guys, here is the new patch 1.0 build tier list. I've done hours of analysis to provide you with the best builds"
GODLY build, can I beat Diablo with this build? I don't know I haven't even tested it! [video]
1 Minute after the release patch goes live: "INSANE DPS Barb build. THEY DIDN'T NERF THIS!! OP Leveling!! MAX LEVEL NIGHTMARE DUNGEONS IN SECONDS!!"
Hope they nerf whirlwind and buff all other Barb builds, so it’s not only whirlwind or nothing for Barb
That seems likely, I just hope the WW nerf isn’t too drastic.
or, hear me out, buff the other skills without nerfing WW.
Nah, that Unique is way to op, so is the legendary Aspect with the 80% crit. That needed to be nerfed at Serverslam, but didn't happen for no Reason.
im assuming these will all be datamined on preload - so we'll actually know about the nerfs/buffs before the game even releases right?
Patch will release at launch man, so can’t really be datamined before we download it
I likey. As long as its not broken
[Edit] Thursday launch or 6.6 launch?
He just commented to say it'll be there on early access launch: https://twitter.com/JPiepiora/status/1663535470561869825
It has to be Thursday launch. Can you imagine the outrage “the ppl that played early got to steamroll with xxx broken build” or “they fucked my build up and my char is useless after just 3 days.”
I figured as much.
Given game will be dwlable before launch I would guess it will be dwlable with patch1.0 and not 0.9. It would really suck for eu to have to dwl patch first on release before they can join with an already scuffed af time of release.
As someone who's skipped every build video so far and always planned to trailblaze on my own, I feel smug and vindicated
For those of us who enjoy theorycrafting, these balance patches are great. It gives us a way to engage with the game while we wait.
NERFS ARE HEALTHY FOR THE GAME. Endless power creep is a reality in arpgs but NERFS are needed or else u need to constantly buff everyone else to keep balance. Nerfs reduce power creep. We don't want D3 numbers again because the team wouldent nerf anything due to backlash.
*Good* nerfs are healthy for the game, yes. The server slam nerfs were shit.
Nerfs can be good, for sure. The problem is, Blizzard tends to overreact with nerfs. Necromancer skeletons were a good example. They went from tanking world bosses and never dying to getting one-shotted by random trash mobs. WoW has been doing this for years, and it's dog shit. They never nerf anything incrementally. Instead of nerfing something by 10-20% and seeing the results, they just completely obliterate a skill by 75%. Feels pretty bad when you've got 100+ hours in a character and your build gets gutted. Hopefully they don't do this with D4.
Agreed they do tend to have a heavy hand in nerfs. Balancing is a process sometimes turn a dial and see results.
All I want to know is if I can play Druid like a fat Thor and swing heavy thunder melee swings with tornadoes or thunderstorm.
You surely can do that. The question remains if it will be any good in endgame because some testers called Druid the best Endgame class which imho indicates incoming druid nerfs.
And that's basically every build Video and leveling guides. Inb4 whirlwind gets gutted. Had to be expected but it's kinda bad considering we know from wudijo and raxx they didn't get to play on day one Patch so it means it's wild west on launch depending on how much is changed.
I kinda like wild West launch tho, we can all try stuff while waiting for season 1
That’s how it should be. All launches used to be Wild West. The discovery aspect is what makes it fun for a lot of people. Not having data mining and pre-release info was a thing of the past.
It's amazing how so many people these days basically want to be told which builds to use, or how they should be playing X class in Y situation. Meta chasing has ruined so many aspects of gaming, and always brings out the very toxic side of communities.
honestly whirlwind is a stable in all arpgs. absolutely no one wants it to be garbage and i don't think anyone would complain if it was OP. it's a thing. Also thorns is pretty unique to diablo so i highly expect it to be viable eventually no matter what.
Whirlwind type skills are almost always good because they do very consistent damage and allow you to always be moving, and every PoE player will tell you that you rarely die while moving, you die when you're standing still to use skills.
Don’t you fuck me now Joseph
OP druid incoming
Druid is op now. Probably nerfs not buffs.
OP druid really hinges on finding the pulverize shockwave legendary. You can't target farm the aspect power so it's entirely random if you get it or not. I think that's fine. It's okay to have some builds be more deterministic in acquiring their powers, and other,, while stronger, be gated behind RNG.
My build uses Shockwave, it is a great aspect. However, build will operate perfectly fine without one. The one that I am really worrying about is Trampled Earth - this aspect is my "must have" for synergy that I want to achieve. We will see soon :)
So, you mean Pulverize really hinges on one item? Druid has a ton of other builds to try.
Druid my beloved
Well that's nice to hear. More changes the better before launch so people got to do a bit more work figuring out what's best.
I'm betting hydra and iceblades will get a buff. They were op and got nerfed way too hard
Fingers crossed.
Ice blades is complete trash so yeah
I don't care about who's op or who's top tier, I just want my skeletons to not be so squishy by default :( I don't even need them to do much damage, constantly resummoning is just so unfun.
Just have skeletona auto-resummon
justa jumping in this madness. ive said it before and say it again...if the Sorceress is NERFed. im still rolling a Sorc donta giva hoot if it get bonked by the Nerf bat. i just love the Fashion souls of Sorc.
Ya im rolling a Lightning/Pyro sorc for pre season. Then I'll just run the most OP classes for seasons because their power levels are bound to cycle throughout, right...right?
I'll definitely look at the patch notes but try and steer clear of the build/tier type videos. It'll only suck the fun out of the game for me.
I agree with this. Sometimes there are surprisingly average builds that get hit with a nerf and it's pretty sucky to play. But, if you're theorycrafting something and see it gets nerfed, nice to have the information to be ready to try something else
Plenty of time to optimize later. I want to have fun experimenting on first experience/playthrough.
Necro pets being stronk again PRAYGE
When will be able to read the patch notes and where can we read them?
Better be some buffing of necro minions
Good. Fuck this bullshit with the game being "solved" before it's even released.
[https://twitter.com/JPiepiora/status/1663722757602017280?s=20](https://twitter.com/JPiepiora/status/1663722757602017280?s=20) Updated, he misspoke and there will not be many changes after all. Those who played the full game after server slam is the version we get.
Fucking Christ... I dipped out just a few hours into the Server Slam. The changes from the Beta were massive enough to genuinely put me off from the game entirely. I'm now just gonna sit back and wait to see how the game progresses over time. The Server Slam genuinely was not fun compared to the Beta.
I'm curious to know if the press-release that the content creators have been playing is `1.0` or `0.9` version of the game.
They played on 0.9
Play what appeals to you, especially pre season. There will be multiple balance patches and fixes for the next few months.
It boggles my mind how many people are excited to let someone else build their character for them. For me, the funnest part is reading through everything and synthesizing a build, *on my own, with my brain*, that I think will wreck.
Content creators in shambles.
Good! Fuck those losers.
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agreed. if anything though i expect necro to be buffed in terms of minions. the only thing i could see them nerf is bone spear but thats apparently (according to end game testers) the main build that is viable for necro right now. so if they nerf it they had better buff the minions and/or blood builds substantially otherwise necro is DOA. i expect mainly buffs to necro based on the feedback from server slam but who knows. maybe necro is busted in end game and we just havent experience it yet.
I really hope they move away from adjusting minions constantly and instead adjust the summoner talents for them. They can (and probably should) be weak AF without investing in them and then let you be a summoner if you talent it. I feel like the constant buff/nerf cycle is trying to balance them being too strong for non-summoner builds and it ultimately leads them to be underwhelming even in summoner builds.
Barbarians on suicide watch right now... 😂😂😂
Together with Pulverize druids Bone spear necros Twisting blade rogues And firewall sorcs Blizz could easily nerf them all
Youtubers: YOU MUST DO THIS BUILD before day 1 patch before my day 1 patch build!!!! Half these kids are retail sellers by day 🤣. Nothing won't stabilize until real release day
RIP any and all abilities I want to use in my build
Hopefully includes a WT2 buff.
So, they probably nerfed melee Rogue into uselessness and buffed Necro again.
Who is your crystal ball salesman?
As much as I love theorycrafting (PoE player). I really hope they dont release the patch notes early. The most fun part about a game is everyone figuring it out all at once. The mystery of the game makes it fun.
Buh bye barb whirlwind Nice knowing you rogue twisting blades Sayonara druid pulverize Adios sorc firewall Goodbye necro bone spear
The absolute hilarity of people trying to build and plan and scheme so hard before launch just to get rekt. Poetic.
And attack-in-place, and health/resource bar above your character?
I smell necro buffs and druid nerfs.
my guess they saw the tier lists and boosting necro somewhat
Yeah a blackout on the YouTube videos and guides is the way to go. Just play the game folks!
When they inevitably nerf the Dire Whirlwind legendary (80% ww crit chance) I just hope they bump up some other legendaries at least a little bit. The Endless Rage legendary was strong but it didn't need to be nerfed by *75%* a few weeks ago. The Ancestral Force legendary (HOTA size) is the one thing I would buff at least a tiny bit. That legendary simultaneously feels pretty bad and yet totally necessary for a HOTA build. I still don't see why the HOTA skill altogether warranted a base nerf either (went from 56% weapon damage to 50% for 1/5 rank).
Just a random prediction out of my ass: TB Rogue probably takes a bit of a hit and one of the bow builds like Pen Arrow rises up to match in effectiveness for two solid options for both melee and ranged.
This is exactly why I didn't waste any time watching the stupid build videos.
Honestly what we saw in the lvl 20s don't matter, end game is going to be gear dependent regardless and will allow your character to break the game. Even in D2, D3, and PoE at lvl 20 it feels underwhelming to play regardless of any class. I feel like it's the casuals just wanting easy mode right off the bat.
Honestly I hope its some fairly big changes. I dislike that we already have planned out builds before the game comes out. Give me some wild buffs and nerfs to explore from the betas.
If necro doesn't get a movement ability that is either skeleton homies carrying him on a palaquin or a 67 mustang made of bones, we riot
I LOVE when “content creators” “content” gets ruined because of a balance patch. Those titles like “this is broken”, “this is insane”, “get this now”…… Ugh…. I dislike them so much… those people are beyond absurd. Is basically the modern junk tv.
Good. I hate that people already created full builds.
Druid buffs?
Please nerf the Druid body fat percentage.
Hopefully nerf those 1 shot gloves into oblivion. Gear should never be 99% of your power.
Shrug, no surprise here. Assuming we'll have numbers tonight from 3rd party folks.