Balance

[Protean1]

I feel like there's a couple of things related to the current game balance that are kinda hindering my enjoyment of an otherwise great product. I know I'm not the only person to feel this way, because I see the same sentiments here on Steam, on the official forums, and on Reddit.

These things are:

1. The need to put every single point into physique if you plan on spending much time at all in melee on the harder difficulties. There may be one or two builds that deviate from this, but for the most part it's true.

2. This may be tangentially related to #1 -- the soldier mastery *may* feel somewhat mandatory for players wishing to advance through the harder content on the higher dfficulties, but who do not yet have an optimal gear set-up (playing a legitimate, self-found character).

Nerfing physique and/or the soldier mastery isn't the fix, if a fix is needed. Both were already done.

[Jet Uppercut]

Physique is strong because of the Offensive Ability and Defensive Ability mechanics, the HP doesn't matter as much but it's still pretty important.
In higher difficulties, enemies, especially Bosses, have beefed up OA. That's sort of like the 'Attack Bonus' from more traditional RPGs. DA is kind of like Armor Class and it's the only way to stop Bosses from landing nothing bit criticals on you and one shotting you, regardless of HP or resists. Mostly because crits have stages and the higher their OA and level is over yours, the harder their crits are going to hit.
So you have to dump as many points into Physique as possible to increase your DA, otherwise you're just going to die in one shot to almost anything.
I'm hoping there will be some changes in the expansion, even just more availabilty for +% DA so people don't have to invest so deep into Physique to survive in Ultimate.
I don't expect them to change anything though.

[Ficelle]

Phy is the best stat, it is true.

Life is relevant to every build (DA too), and Phy is the life stat.

Spi and Cun dont bring enough to be worth pumping more than for item requirements.
Damage is everywhere and whatever else they bring can be found in pure way, OA etc...


Soldier is a very strong mastery, i think the best one, in all objectivity.

It has everything needed to succeed without any help from other mastery (almost pure soldier + anything can go everywhere in the game) and it complements any other mastery just as well, plus Phy ;D
And it is easy to play.

Now, every mastery can work in Ultimate, and my personal favorite is Demo.

[faelyn]

I agree, and disagree with most. Soldier is great with about everything. Physical is good but not the end all. Battlemage for instance Physic is only required for the armor you want, beyond that your wasting points.

[Protean1]

Thanks for the replies.

I just want to add a bit about how I perceive death in this game, or how other players may perceive it.

In most games that have a character-building process, you have the option of building a tanky character that seldomly dies, or a higher-damage character that may die more often yet kills faster. That's the trade off players make.

In GD, dying somewhat more often is less of an option. We have experience loss on death and mobs that regen their health (I'm not saying I don't like those mechanics, but it's a fact that they are in the game). Further, the rogue-like dungeons punish you for dying; if you die your run is over and you're out of a key. Considering that the rogue-likes are some of the most desirable places to run, this greatly discourages players from making characters that might die even on a small % of tough encounters.

[Protean1]

Publicado originalmente por faelyn:

I agree, and disagree with most. Soldier is great with about everything. Physical is good but not the end all. Battlemage for instance Physic is only required for the armor you want, beyond that your wasting points.

Yes, going melee without investing all your points in physique is fine - if you have soldier as one of your masteries, which is related to what my post is about.

[Ficelle]

You cant do a 'glass canon' as you cant totally ignore defense and rely on pure offense to buy your way through the game.
Too many mobs, too many unavoidable damage, very high HP bosses.

But you can make a 'canon' no problem.
That is the classes i tend to play the most and dont have a problem taking some hits here and there while vaporizing the whole screen.

Knowing the game, what to expect, what to fear...is also part of the success.

[faelyn]

Publicado originalmente por Protean1:

Publicado originalmente por faelyn:

I agree, and disagree with most. Soldier is great with about everything. Physical is good but not the end all. Battlemage for instance Physic is only required for the armor you want, beyond that your wasting points.

Yes, going melee without investing all your points in physique is fine - if you have soldier as one of your masteries, which is related to what my post is about.

Not completely true. Try a 2 hnded Lightning/vitality thane (shaman/Occultist) Lots of heal/damage/defense.Enough Phys for armor is all you need.

[Protean1]

Publicado originalmente por Ficelle:

You cant do a 'glass canon' as you cant totally ignore defense and rely on pure offense to buy your way through the game.
Too many mobs, too many unavoidable damage, very high HP bosses.

But you can make a 'canon' no problem.
That is the classes i tend to play the most and dont have a problem taking some hits here and there while vaporizing the whole screen.

Knowing the game, what to expect, what to fear...is also part of the success.

Yes, I've got 1300 hours into the game and have been playing for nearly 4 years (since B1). Nobody cares, I know - but I know what to expect.

It's not an issue of not being able to go complete glass cannon and completely ignore defense. Even if you have many, many defensive skills, you may often find yourself in a position where you still need to literally dump all of your points into physique.

On my Witch Hunter, (mostly this build http://www.grimdawn.com/forums/showthread.php?t=39908) I have sigil, blood of dreeg, aspect of the guardian, pneumatic burst, shadow dance, veil of shadow, blade barrier, possession, vampirism, and a number of defensive and healing-related devotions. Depending on how you want to add all those up, that's nearly a dozen active and passive skills that are either entirely or at least partially defense related. Even with all that, the build still requires that you dump every single point into physique.

[faelyn]

I feel your pain. If they had just made legendaries from level 10 to 49 aquired at appropriate levels the pain might be a little less. Having to wait basically till ultimate to really get a good set going kinda sucks. As a dualwield your build isn't what I would consider optimized.

[Amigo]

I remember when building my necromancer in Diablo 3 I was puting all the points into vitality. A few points into strenghth just to be able to equip a specific gear item. But that's it. I guess this was the reason they ditched this attibutes system in Diablo 3.

[Cosmic Cat]

Try the "Cornucopia" mod. It basically rebalances vanilla and they are planning to make physique less dominant afaik.

[Matthew]

The best strategy is just to build to facetank everything, which is really the only reason why Soldier naturally shines in this respect.

That said, I've never felt pressured to pick up Soldier as a second class. Personally, I don't think the mastery is overwhelmingly overshadowing other masteries. It has some convenient easy access to more base health, DA, and armor absorption, which are the main concerns for ultimate general survivability. But other masteries tend to have other perks, so you just equip an extra defensive item or two to compensate and the gap between the masteries is all but gone.

As for attributes... it always ends up that way. Diablo 2 you maxed vitality. Path of Exile was Path of Health Nodes. Diablo 3 (on release) while automating attributes, was every item resist all and health else it was trash. I mean I can kind of see this as a "problem" but it has been so ingrained into this genre that I don't think it is going to change unless there are other huge changes to the genre.

[avil]

This is true. After about 80h with my first character (mortar pyromancer), after I hit ultimate, I revised my build to be survivable. And I felt like it was a waste using attributes to boost cunning and spirit. Another two or three hundred damage doesn't make difference against 500k-1kk health monsters, when damage taken does with your 8k. You can't compensate nor avoid damage, because shields are too short to not die to a random instant "point-and-click" lighting. Crowd control doesn't work on bosses and on many normal monsters, you're caped on 135% normal walking speed and can't jump/blink. Only way to survive is ability to take a hit, and phys/soldier is better at this.

[avil]

Publicado originalmente por Matthew:

As for attributes... it always ends up that way. Diablo 2 you maxed vitality. Path of Exile was Path of Health Nodes. Diablo 3 (on release) while automating attributes, was every item resist all and health else it was trash. I mean I can kind of see this as a "problem" but it has been so ingrained into this genre that I don't think it is going to change unless there are other huge changes to the genre.

In Van Helsing 1-2 as engineer I could use damage immunity bubble when were expecting hits, and hoard of summons could make it harder for monsters to chase me, also I could transfer big portion of damage to my minion ghost, and speed limit was way higher. There is an Achievement for this called Ragtag hero, for witch you should survive a whole scenario (series of generated quests) with only hat and weapon equipped. In VH 3 as phlogistoneer you could make walls at choke points, or just make obstacles with them, use rocket salvos to deal damage and turrets to block projectiles while dealing damage when kiting, and boss arenas always was waay bigger, so you didn't need to run a circle of 5m in diameter. So it was possible to dump all your stats in offensive if you are able to keep all defensive abilities up at time and distraction alive.
The same thing was with torchlight 2 engineer and his summons.
In PoE most cheap legendary farming build is summons, it doesn't require a lot of health, not even maxed out resistances. Not ment to beat records, but solid and desn't require a lot of investment, and again, easy to farm items with.
I just like that kind of playstyle :(