1.13 Public Test Realm online!

[RIP]

Re: 1.13 Public Test Realm online!

Well, if this becomes final version of 1.13 patch, then i'm not going to upgrade my install at all...Yes, i do know, that this decision will keep me outside of community (probably), but i have no other choice...There are only few good things in this patch, which are not worth it...i think Hrus made great summary...Its far away from changes which i've hoped for...

We shall see...

Anyway, i have to wait for Bassano's MF League rules anyway...

 

[Trim]

Re: 1.13 Public Test Realm online!

Anyway, i have to wait for Bassano's MF League rules anyway...

Agreed.

...It's not stopping me from making a WhirlerBarb for Travincal runs, though. What's kinda cool is that I can make it an IK Barb to do the WSK or CS if I want, but when 1.13 comes around and I need to do Travincal runs and freezing enemies is bad I can respec for axes/swords if I wish! Not hating the idea of respecs...

Also, it's funny how many people are starting new Whirlers. :crazyeyes:

 

[Shagsbeard]

Re: 1.13 Public Test Realm online!

I just found an interesting "feature" of 1.13. I have a barb that I made in 1.12, and finished act I in that mode. Then I upgraded to 1.13 before doing the NM Act I Den of Evil quest. All I got was a blank space where the option for respec should have been. It must know that I don't think we should be allowed to respec.

My guess is that characters must be created in 1.13 to have the quest reward granted, at least for NM difficulty.

Ed: @TRM: People are starting melee builds because some of the main reasons for hating them have been removed/toned down.

 

[Kimppi]

Re: 1.13 Public Test Realm online!

I had the same thing on one on my sorcs too, but I had already matted her. I tried clicking on the blank space and it gave me an "ok/cancel"- text. I didn't go further but I think it would have reset the stats if I had.

 

[DZJB]

Re: 1.13 Public Test Realm online!

I do hope that the Token gets altered though, three respecs per character is plenty in my opinion. I don't have any idea of what it should be changed to though.

Perhaps they could reduce the drop chances of the 4 ingredients. Drastically. It's rediculous how fast you can gather them, even without specialised chars. A simple Blizzy can get them in a few minutes.

Then again, with people running act bosses thousands of times, you'll still get ingredients fairly easy (if you nerf the drop chances big time), especially us SPers.

And to the people above, I experienced the same thing. There were blank spots where the respec should have been.

 

[RIP]

Re: 1.13 Public Test Realm online!

Also, it's funny how many people are starting new Whirlers. :crazyeyes:

Huh, at last...sorcs were not rulers even before this patch :whistling:

Ed: @TRM: People are starting melee builds because some of the main reasons for hating them have been removed/toned down.

Hating them?If someone hated melee builds in 1.12, there is no reason to play them in 1.13, IMHO...Two areas makes no difference

 

[Rhone]

Re: 1.13 Public Test Realm online!

Are there a lot of people running all of the act bosses "thousands of times" at this point? I thought most people run Meph for maybe 1-2k times (after which point he's given you most of what he can give you), and maybe run Andariel until getting SoJ/Tal's amulet. Between being slower to run and having a relatively low probability of dropping higher TC level items (compared to level 85 areas), I don't see many people talking about running Diablo and Baal in larger quantities for purposes other than shooting for level 99.

Judging by posts here in the SPF, most people (after finishing with Meph) move onto running LK, Travincial, Pindle, and level 85 areas. So for most people here, collecting tokens for respecs probably will require altering their usual MFing habits.

Edit: @RIP: I don't think the issue is so much questing melee builds through to pat/mat--the OKs were just annoying speed bumps once you know how to deal with them. The question is more about MFing; the higher chance of runes from Travincial, and the lack of IM in CS (a level 85 area which always contains ghostly monsters with higher rune drop rates..) probably make a horking whirler more appealing to some as a build to play beyond Patriarch. As for me, I patted my Tomb Reaver whirler before 1.13 to run Pits, but now I'm eyeing CS with interest..

 

[smips]

Re: 1.13 Public Test Realm online!

Hating them?If someone hated melee builds in 1.12, there is no reason to play them in 1.13, IMHO...Two areas makes no difference

As someone who likes to run head first into a battle, I nearly never played melee characters solo because of IM in CS and WSK. It was possible to get through, just extremely annoying. I personally felt that melee builds got shafted by letting OKs cast IM. Again, that's just how I feel personally. I'm sure some people liked the extra challenge that IM brought for melee builds.

 

[DZJB]

Re: 1.13 Public Test Realm online!

Are there a lot of people running all of the act bosses "thousands of times" at this point? I thought most people run Meph for maybe 1-2k times (after which point he's given you most of what he can give you), and maybe run Andariel until getting SoJ/Tal's amulet. Between being slower to run and having a relatively low probability of dropping higher TC level items (compared to level 85 areas), I don't see many people talking about running Diablo and Baal in larger quantities for purposes other than shooting for level 99.

Judging by posts here in the SPF, most people (after finishing with Meph) move onto running LK, Travincial, Pindle, and level 85 areas. So for most people here, collecting tokens for respecs probably will require altering their usual MFing habits.

I think people are. Baalruns aren't just for levelling up, WSK + Baal is popular for MFing too. But I agree with you though, most people run alvl 85 areas, including myself. So I'd have to change my habbit if I want to get tokens, especially when it comes to Andariel and Diablo. I never run those. And I'm only running Meph if I'm bored with other areas.

Imo, changing the drop rates for essences will be a good thing: it'll change your MF habits if you want tokens.

 

[RIP]

Re: 1.13 Public Test Realm online!

@RIP: I don't think the issue is so much questing melee builds through to pat/mat--the OKs were just annoying speed bumps once you know how to deal with them. The question is more about MFing; the higher chance of runes from Travincial, and the lack of IM in CS (a level 85 area which always contains ghostly monsters with higher rune drop rates..) probably make a horking whirler more appealing to some as a build to play beyond Patriarch. As for me, I patted my Tomb Reaver whirler before 1.13 to run Pits, but now I'm eyeing CS with interest..

Thanks for such lesson :thumbsup: I had no idea, how to play whirl/horking barb and what they are good for till now :whistling:

Actually, such barb was very viable for MFing and rune hunting even before this strange patch, it was proved before (just check Bassanos alvl tourney and Mungos victory, for example)...He could run almost any area in the game except WSK and Chaos Sanctuary, where it was not efficient - there You are right about their usefulness now...

My point was, that someone, who already hates to play with melee character in 1.12, have no reason to start with them right now...If You hate something, why to bother with it, no matter on patch changes...

But Smips already wrote, that it was because of their limited usefulness, not because he not liked them at all...And this makes sense to me, so i have nothing else to say now...

 

[pharaoh1]

Re: 1.13 Public Test Realm online!

As someone who likes to run head first into a battle, I nearly never played melee characters solo because of IM in CS and WSK. It was possible to get through, just extremely annoying. I personally felt that melee builds got shafted by letting OKs cast IM. Again, that's just how I feel personally. I'm sure some people liked the extra challenge that IM brought for melee builds.

Agreed 100%. While there are ways around IM, it's always struck me as a cheap tactic for it to be a one-hit kill in so many cases. That said, I'd have loved to see it rebalanced, rather than eliminated entirely. Suggestions:

Have it remove a percentage of your max life equal to the percentage removed from the opponent from physical damage. Thus, it would only be a one-hit kill if a) you killed the enemy in one hit (fair's fair), or b) you were already wounded.

Have it damage you in a range, regardless of the amount of damage you did. Hitting an enemy would thus always hurt, even if you were using Berserk or bare fists, but it would be in line with other attacks.

Have a cap, similar to how poison works, which would prevent it from reducing your life below a certain threshold. Thus, it would never kill you, but it could certainly make it easy for other things to kill you.

My point was, that someone, who already hates to play with melee character in 1.12, have no reason to start with them right now...If You hate something, why to bother with it, no matter on patch changes...

I think that Shag's original point was that if the reason you hated melee was because of IM, now you might like melee. Of course, you're right in that if you hate melee in general this is unlikely to change it.

 

[Shagsbeard]

Re: 1.13 Public Test Realm online!

Have it remove a percentage of your max life equal to the percentage removed from the opponent from physical damage. Thus, it would only be a one-hit kill if a) you killed the enemy in one hit (fair's fair), or b) you were already wounded.

You realize that wouldn't solve the problem... even a three hit kill would three hit kill you. Zeal and WW would still be insta-death.

 

[Rhone]

Re: 1.13 Public Test Realm online!

Thanks for such lesson :thumbsup: I had no idea, how to play whirl/horking barb and what they are good for till now :whistling:

You're welcome! I'm always glad to help. See, back when I found my Tomb Reaver and looked up your writeup for Grom to give myself some ideas for how I might want to build my MFing Barb, I thought "RIP needs me to teach him how to play Barbs." I'm glad I finally got this opportunity to help you out!

(Sarcasm is fun! :thumbup

Seriously though, I'm well aware that you don't need a noob like me to tell you anything about barbs. I'm also well aware that Barbs were/are already great MFers (I made one myself after all). I was just responding specifically to the claim that you reiterated:

My point was, that someone, who already hates to play with melee character in 1.12, have no reason to start with them right now...If You hate something, why to bother with it, no matter on patch changes...

And I was just saying that I think there are many people who don't "hate" playing melee builds, but rather just don't think they can MF with them as well as they can with their sorcs. Between Fabian's recent posts about Travincial and the changes in 1.13, perhaps some people are taking a second look at Barbs for MFing.

 

[Rhone]

Re: 1.13 Public Test Realm online!

Baalruns aren't just for levelling up, WSK + Baal is popular for MFing too. But I agree with you though, most people run alvl 85 areas, including myself.

Right, so even if you take someone like me, who likes to run WSK+Baal (which is probably a minority in this forum), how long does it take to get one of his essences? A full clear from WSK 2 on down, with a decent map, and then killing Baal, takes me about 18-22 minutes per run with my Fishyzon. I'm sure there are people run it faster than I, but I doubt there are many people doing it much quicker than, say, 15 minutes/run. Now, let's grant 15 minutes per run, which is better than my best time; what was the drop rate, like 1/11? So we're looking at an average of 1 essence every 2 hours and 45 minutes (and with my run time it's more like every 3 hours and 40 minutes).

And then you have to put your WSK/Baal running on pause for several hours to go kill the earlier bosses that you're otherwise not terribly interested in.

Now, if you still think that's too quick to earn a token, I'm not going to argue with you--I'm not the type to put down others' opinions. But I am going to claim that I think very few people would end up treating the tokens as "unlimited" and go using up the tokens without putting any thought into it. Do people treat Um runes as unlimited? You could probably farm an Um from Countess or LK (even without cubing up) in the amount of time it takes to farm a token.

 

[Tubba Blubba]

Re: 1.13 Public Test Realm online!

Has anyone else found Diablo's drops funky since the patch? I've done a fair amount of CS runs, but he always seems to drop 5 (some times even 4) items even at players 8. Isn't he supposed to drop 6?

 

[jjscud]

Re: 1.13 Public Test Realm online!

Right, so even if you take someone like me, who likes to run WSK+Baal (which is probably a minority in this forum), how long does it take to get one of his essences? A full clear from WSK 2 on down, with a decent map, and then killing Baal, takes me about 18-22 minutes per run with my Fishyzon. I'm sure there are people run it faster than I, but I doubt there are many people doing it much quicker than, say, 15 minutes/run. Now, let's grant 15 minutes per run, which is better than my best time; what was the drop rate, like 1/11? So we're looking at an average of 1 essence every 2 hours and 45 minutes (and with my run time it's more like every 3 hours and 40 minutes).

The minutes do add up when you are looking at getting 4 tokens but if people decide to get tokens from baal, they'll most likely be doing it in less that 15 minutes a run. Reasonable baal runners are usually well under 5 minutes a run and the slow runners usually take up to 10 minutes.

 

[Nubikoen]

Re: 1.13 Public Test Realm online!

I just found an interesting "feature" of 1.13. I have a barb that I made in 1.12, and finished act I in that mode. Then I upgraded to 1.13 before doing the NM Act I Den of Evil quest. All I got was a blank space where the option for respec should have been. It must know that I don't think we should be allowed to respec.

My guess is that characters must be created in 1.13 to have the quest reward granted, at least for NM difficulty.

That's because you're launching your game from a RRM shortcut. You can still select the respec option, You just can't see it. (It will work as intended).
Just start the game from a vanilla shortcut to have everything showing properly.

 

[sirpoopsalot]

Re: 1.13 Public Test Realm online!

FYI Rhone, my WSK/Baal runs with BBIV are in the neighbourhood of 5-6 minutes. I don't do full clears, but I do kill ~8-15 random boss packs in the WSK (plus the minions & Baal, of course) in that timeframe.

However, the fact is that not many SPF'ers stop at ~20 runs. We often run a boss several hundred times - in which case the 1:~15 odds (or whatever they are) will eventually lead to a big enough stockpile of essences that they're effectively unlimited, even if they really aren't. Considering each character gets 1 or 3 respecs just from questing, I would think that stockpiling not more than ~5 of the tokens would cover a D2 career's needs anyways.

 

[DZJB]

Re: 1.13 Public Test Realm online!

However, the fact is that not many SPF'ers stop at ~20 runs. We often run a boss several hundred times - in which case the 1:~15 odds (or whatever they are) will eventually lead to a big enough stockpile of essences that they're effectively unlimited, even if they really aren't. Considering each character gets 1 or 3 respecs just from questing, I would think that stockpiling not more than ~5 of the tokens would cover a D2 career's needs anyways.

Indeed. That's what I thought about in my second part of my post (where I suggested lower drop rates for essences). We'll always have plenty anyways.

I was thinking about beta BKWB and CtA. They made it in the final version, just a bit 'nerfed'. Hence why I thought that Blizz could nerf the Tokens in a way too. It's just thinking out loud though.

Now, if you still think that's too quick to earn a token, I'm not going to argue with you

There's 2 ways you can look at this. Either you MF with seeing the Essence as a bonus, not a priority. If you want the Essence faster, you can just skip the WSK, and just do Baalruns.

What I'm trying to say here is that if people really want to farm Tokens, they'll get them fast enough, even if you lower the drop rates. If you don't see it as a priority, you could think about MFing too instead just running for Tokes. So you could see people running Andy for a change, not just for jewelry, but perhaps for regular items as well. Or Diablo. Just 'cause there's a bonus now (that they'll possibly want). And if the drop chances are high enough, people could just skip MFing, and just kill the bosses a few times, get a Token and leave it at that.

Of course... if you get 3 respecs for free, and you don't need more than that, then this is all moot.

 

[Flayed One]

Re: 1.13 Public Test Realm online!

Bah!... I come back to check out the contents of this "content patch" and what do I see? Some irrelevant tweaks, Hammerdin nerf, respecs and the game being made easier. It seems like a patch a 9-years old could put together in less than 15 minutes... Curse them for getting my hopes up!...