Diablo ii patch 1.14 skill changes
Hi all,
I’ve been playing diablo ii since its existence and have tried nearly every single build ranging from classic hammerdins, 2 frame strafezons and fishymancers, to kodiaks, enchantresses and singer/throwbarbs hybrids. I mostly played single player untwinked but the last years I’ve been twinking a lot as well, with the help of atma and the ladder-runeword enabler. When I play twinked, I obviously play my solo-games on players set to 8 all the way till the end.
Blizzard has always been very nice to the diablo community –applause-, but as for most of you I guess, 1.13 was a big disappointment for me: seeing how blizzard this time didn’t take any advice of their year-long fans. It was incredible to see that stash still having the same size, without a transfer area for example so we could stop using atma. It would even prevent me from duping once in a while, because with atma it’s just too easy.
What struck me the most however, were the skill changes: already not having invented new runewords or uniques for some final game-changing experience, they could have at least done a proper job in the skill department. But the skills that have been changed were either not asked for (shadow master, whirlwind, masteries, corpse explosion, fire wall), changed in a pathetic way (dragon claw, dragon talon, shockwave, blaze) or having the wrong thing changed (the problem of immolation arrow is the timer, they should have fixed that). The only thing they did right was nerving blessed hammer a bit and although I haven’t tested it yet myself, it seems to me that the hydra has been given the good boost. Also the damage increase to the werebear skill is some nice balancing, but what’s up with the 1% defense increase? Why not 0,5% next time?
After so many years of many people still playing diablo ii, I figured that a 1.14 should still come out before the release of diablo iii, so we can once more have a nostalgic time trying new builds awaiting the third serie of the game we love so much. My aim hereunder is limited to adjusting the skills that so far are barely or even not at all used. Nothing is revolutionary or game-breaking, my 1.14 skill change proposition just aims at making every single skill of the game end-game viable without being overpowered. This should stimulate the variety of builds after 1.14.
Amazon:
Magic arrow
Problem: underused because, although the idea of magic damage is nice, it’s just not enough to make it worthwhile.
Solution: instead of a meager 1% converted per skill level, a 2,5% would make it a good skill. Some zons would try to reach a high level magic arrow to come close to fire pure magic damage arrows at skill level 40.
Immolation arrow
Problem: the timer.
Solution: the boosts of 1.13 can be cancelled and the timer should just be removed and you would suddenly see a whole lot more of immozons.
Inner sight
Problem: no one uses it because zons have better ways of increasing their chance to hit.
Solution: this might be a bit more drastic, but I would add a new feature to it, for example: make it a synergy to slow missiles in a way that when you cast slow missiles, the effects of inner sight are applied to it as well. It would also encourage players to cast slow missiles in pvm more often, which is a cool skill but also underused.
Impale
Problem: so slow that the chance is big your impale will be interrupted before it lands.
Solution: Make it uninterruptable.
Fend
Problem: it is bugged, often you miss all strikes.
Solution: fix the bug and make it uninterruptable too.
Extra: a synergy between jab, impale and fend would also make them more worthwhile (jab gives AR synergies to the other two, impale gives damage synergies and fend a mix of both).
Assassin:
Charge-up skills
Problem: because of the time it takes to charge up, the damage per second is very low.
Solution: all elemental charge-ups could use a significant damage boost over all ranks.
Dragon claw
Problem: even after 1.13, the damage is still very low.
Solution: add more damage per skill rank.
Psychic hammer
Problem: which idiot has put those damage values? And what was he smoking while doing that?? Seriously, after 13 patches still seeing this utterly useless skill in its original state, something has to be done about it.
Solution: “… to crush and knock back your enemies†lists the description. We could take that literally and add 1% crushing blow to it per level. If this is a too drastic change, multiplying the damage values with a factor between 5 and 10 after synergies from cloak of shadows and mind blast would make some assassins investing in and using the skill.
Blade sentinel and blade shield
Problem: they just don’t do very much, except from looking very cool.
Solution: add all effects to the sentinel (crushing blow, freeze, open wounds,…) and some extra to blade shield (maybe not crushing blow or knockback, that would make it too much of a must-have).
Wake of inferno
Problem: bugged and too thin fire line.
Solution: very easy: fix the bug and make the fire stream a bit thicker.
Necromancer:
Raise skeletal mage
Problem: although used with left-over skill points, they are considered annoying because they die all the time and don’t do much damage.
Solution: a very minor boost that can however be appreciated: make them immune to the element they cast. It also makes sense. For their damage check the change of the lower resist curse below.
Fire golem
Problem: only used in pvp by poisonmancers to remove the last life point.
Solution: a very serious base damage boost would make him more popular in pvm.
Teeth
Problem: inferior to spear and spirit.
Solution: remove the 24 max teeth cap so you can have teeth all around you (level 50 teeth should be able to spawn them 270° around you)! The dentist is a too cool character build name to see so few of them.
Weaken
Problem: did someone ever intentionally cast this? Decrepify “weakens†better!
Solution: a 1% increase per rank would at least lift the decreased damage above that of decrepify at level 20 (52%) and would give it a use in pvp. Casting a level 35 weaken (total damage -67%) on a barb or a smiter would make a lot of sense.
Iron maiden
Problem: obsolete past normal.
Solution: just like thorns and spirit of barbs it should scale versus monsters in nightmare and again in hell to keep up with their damage/life ratio.
Lower resist
Problem: only used by poisonmancers.
Solution: the day summoners started casting lower resist: in 1.14 it works at double effect for skeletal mages and other summons/hirelings that are attacking a monster cursed by this (resists -124 percent versus minions at level 20). This and the fire golem boost could give rise to a new type of necro-summoner. The iron wolves would also be finally used (btw: they should fix the fire type iron wolf too).
Barbarian:
Bash
Problem: very weak combat skill compared to the others.
Solution: give bash an inherent 25% crushing blow. Not only people would start using it, but barbarian mercenaries would also be used a bit more instead of the act2merc-all-over-the-place.
Double swing
Problem: the damage.
Solution: even now in 1.14, people are more inclined to put points in its bash synergy, it still needs a mild damage boost per skill level.
Stun
Problem: underpowered.
Solution: more AR and longer stun duration would be fair. Again this would benefit the popularity of act V mercenaries.
For the rest the other barbarian skills already all serve a purpose.
Paladin:
The aura’s
With all the items and mercenaries giving aura’s I don’t feel like changing many because of the extended impact on many other characters. It’s true that might is in any way inferior to concentration, but you can have them both so it makes it useful again. The only underused aura’s are:
Cleansing
Problem: underpowered
Solution: it should come with some poison resistance as well.
Holy fire
Problem: doesn’t match holy shock in any way
Solution: because we don’t want to overpower auradins hit-damage, why not just significantly increase only its pulse damage so it would be the aura used for its pulse (different than shock or freeze). I would love to play a pulsadin! The pulse damage should still be much weaker compared to using normal attacks, but it should be able to do enough damage to build your character around it (with a dual dragon, hand of justice, maxed synergies and a conviction aura in the best case).
Thorns
Problem: the life/damage ratio of monsters in hell.
Solution: just like iron maiden and spirit of barbs, it needs scaling vs monsters in nightmare and hell. Kamikaze pallies should return! Thorns is available on a mercenary and an armor and still no-one really wants them (in the case of the armor the reason to wear it is solely for its poison boost, not for the thorns).
Sanctuary
Problem: it doesn’t seem to do what it says + it only works against undead.
Solution: we don’t want to overpower the items that carry this aura, so just a fix of the bugs on it is sufficient.
Holy bolt
Problem: moving on to the combat skills, this is the one that no pally uses. It can go over 10k magic damage though (!), but it sadly only works against undead, hence the neglect.
Solution: make it work at 1/4 effectiveness vs demons, and at 1/10 against any other (beasts, players, minions except undead minions) and you will see a new fun build using holy bolt all the time without being overpowered. Like this you can also have a healer in multiplayer that is not an absolute loser on his own.
Sorceress:
Inferno
Problem: bugged.
Solution: remove the bug, life is simple.
Blaze
Problem: no one uses it, although it’s pretty cool, but not very effective.
Solution: 1.13 tried but failed. Blaze doesn’t need synergies, it should be one (for firewall for example, instead of what 1.13 did)! Like this people have actually a good reason to max it, and if they have it why wouldn’t they use it? Could last at least 10 seconds longer from the start though.
Charged bolt
Problem: potentially good skill, but obsolete because of the better lightning/chain lightning spells.
Solution: lift the cap of 24 bolts to let’s say 33 bolts. On paper it would be overpowered but then again a sorceress needs to get so close to make all the bolts strike, which is dangerous play for a caster, that it balances out.
The cold shields
Problem: not worth the points and the synergies have few real effect.
Solution: the synergies should also boost defense. If per hard point invested in 1 shield skill, the other two would get a 5% to 10% defense synergy bonus, then it would make these skills more viable to invest an amount of points in. A blessing for the enchantress (commonly seen as a weak build) and finally another possible high-defense character aside from the barbarian and paladin.
Frost nova
Problem: crappy damage.
Solution: a serious base damage boost.
Druid:
Fire spells
Problem: although the fire spells are very cool, a sorceress is a much better pure caster then a fire druid so they are seen as weak.
Solution: first some overall increase of the base damage of fire spells, and furthermore reduced timers for molten boulder and for pretty much all the other fire spells too.
Arctic blast
Problem: same as with inferno: bugged.
Solution: same as with inferno: remove the bug.
Cyclone armor and hurricane
Problem: in itself these skills don’t have a problem, but in wereform you cannot use them and that’s a big pity. No-one sees why exactly this should be the case.
Solution: both are castable in wereform. Here come the polar bears!
Maul
Problem: annoying to keep fully charged, so in average you are only using it at half its effect.
Solution: if it had a 5% to 8% damage synergy from shockwave, you would be more inclined to use it instead of fire claws or hunger.
Hunger
Problem: kodiaks can be strong builds, but only if they stack a serious amount of crushing blow.
Solution: damage -75% is very drastic. Let’s make it -66% at level 1, with a 1% increase per level, so level 20 hunger would represent a much more acceptable -47%. This would enable Kodiaks based on physical damage, given they have maxed werebear, have enough strength and a fortitude armor and a high damage weapon like grief.
The creepers
Problem: this bunch of guys rarely get more than one point in them and are never missed when they die.
Solution: they should all synergy each other’s life for more durability. Poison creeper should get poison damage synergies from the two other vines to make its poison damage significant. For carrion vine a really nice change could be that it corpse explodes when eating a corpse (a weak one: 30%-60%, but same radius increase as normal corpse explosion), but that could be found too drastic. The solar creeper on its turn could carry the healing ability of the (hard points invested in) carrion vine as well, the same way meditation works with prayer. With these drastic changes, a druid with fully maxed vines could be fun to play, and still far from overpowered as he can only hold 1 vine at the time.
Summon spirit wolf
Problem: obsolete when you get dire wolves.
Solution: something very sensible heard on many forums: their damage should simply be magic and there’s a reason to cast them.
Spirit of barbs
Problem: the same as thorns and iron maiden
Solution: not only the aforementioned scaling is necessary, but also an extra 10% per rank increase to his reflection damage would be needed: compared to thorns and amplify damage he is on the too low side.
Extra note on druid summoning: the grizzly bear should be allowed to co-exist with either dire or spirit wolves. The necromancer has such a bunch of minions while the druid not even a handful. That’s why summoners are generally equivalent to necro-summoners till now.
That’s it! I hope in the future we’ll see a lot more immozons, spearzons, (psychic) hammersins (!), bladesins, elemental summoners, dentists, double swingers, pulsadins, kamikazadins, boltdins, blazebabes, defenseresses, arctic blasters, very hungry kodiaks and pure druid summoners, amongst many other rarely-seen characters today.
Thanks for reading this suggestion list, I hope many of you will add comments/suggestions/realistic additions/constructive criticism so we can come to a final result that will be implemented by blizzard in the ultimate patch 1.14.
New interesting runewords and uniques (but none overpowered like enigma, grief, breath of the dying and the likes, just: interesting ones), an exciting hidden quest and maybe even some new monsters would be great, but if we’ll already get these skill changes and a bigger stash with a transfer area, I think many diablo fans will one last time return to their old classic, puzzling new characters together, before the arrival of the long-awaited Diablo iii.
Hi all,
I’ve been playing diablo ii since its existence and have tried nearly every single build ranging from classic hammerdins, 2 frame strafezons and fishymancers, to kodiaks, enchantresses and singer/throwbarbs hybrids. I mostly played single player untwinked but the last years I’ve been twinking a lot as well, with the help of atma and the ladder-runeword enabler. When I play twinked, I obviously play my solo-games on players set to 8 all the way till the end.
Blizzard has always been very nice to the diablo community –applause-, but as for most of you I guess, 1.13 was a big disappointment for me: seeing how blizzard this time didn’t take any advice of their year-long fans. It was incredible to see that stash still having the same size, without a transfer area for example so we could stop using atma. It would even prevent me from duping once in a while, because with atma it’s just too easy.
What struck me the most however, were the skill changes: already not having invented new runewords or uniques for some final game-changing experience, they could have at least done a proper job in the skill department. But the skills that have been changed were either not asked for (shadow master, whirlwind, masteries, corpse explosion, fire wall), changed in a pathetic way (dragon claw, dragon talon, shockwave, blaze) or having the wrong thing changed (the problem of immolation arrow is the timer, they should have fixed that). The only thing they did right was nerving blessed hammer a bit and although I haven’t tested it yet myself, it seems to me that the hydra has been given the good boost. Also the damage increase to the werebear skill is some nice balancing, but what’s up with the 1% defense increase? Why not 0,5% next time?
After so many years of many people still playing diablo ii, I figured that a 1.14 should still come out before the release of diablo iii, so we can once more have a nostalgic time trying new builds awaiting the third serie of the game we love so much. My aim hereunder is limited to adjusting the skills that so far are barely or even not at all used. Nothing is revolutionary or game-breaking, my 1.14 skill change proposition just aims at making every single skill of the game end-game viable without being overpowered. This should stimulate the variety of builds after 1.14.
Amazon:
Magic arrow
Problem: underused because, although the idea of magic damage is nice, it’s just not enough to make it worthwhile.
Solution: instead of a meager 1% converted per skill level, a 2,5% would make it a good skill. Some zons would try to reach a high level magic arrow to come close to fire pure magic damage arrows at skill level 40.
Immolation arrow
Problem: the timer.
Solution: the boosts of 1.13 can be cancelled and the timer should just be removed and you would suddenly see a whole lot more of immozons.
Inner sight
Problem: no one uses it because zons have better ways of increasing their chance to hit.
Solution: this might be a bit more drastic, but I would add a new feature to it, for example: make it a synergy to slow missiles in a way that when you cast slow missiles, the effects of inner sight are applied to it as well. It would also encourage players to cast slow missiles in pvm more often, which is a cool skill but also underused.
Impale
Problem: so slow that the chance is big your impale will be interrupted before it lands.
Solution: Make it uninterruptable.
Fend
Problem: it is bugged, often you miss all strikes.
Solution: fix the bug and make it uninterruptable too.
Extra: a synergy between jab, impale and fend would also make them more worthwhile (jab gives AR synergies to the other two, impale gives damage synergies and fend a mix of both).
Assassin:
Charge-up skills
Problem: because of the time it takes to charge up, the damage per second is very low.
Solution: all elemental charge-ups could use a significant damage boost over all ranks.
Dragon claw
Problem: even after 1.13, the damage is still very low.
Solution: add more damage per skill rank.
Psychic hammer
Problem: which idiot has put those damage values? And what was he smoking while doing that?? Seriously, after 13 patches still seeing this utterly useless skill in its original state, something has to be done about it.
Solution: “… to crush and knock back your enemies†lists the description. We could take that literally and add 1% crushing blow to it per level. If this is a too drastic change, multiplying the damage values with a factor between 5 and 10 after synergies from cloak of shadows and mind blast would make some assassins investing in and using the skill.
Blade sentinel and blade shield
Problem: they just don’t do very much, except from looking very cool.
Solution: add all effects to the sentinel (crushing blow, freeze, open wounds,…) and some extra to blade shield (maybe not crushing blow or knockback, that would make it too much of a must-have).
Wake of inferno
Problem: bugged and too thin fire line.
Solution: very easy: fix the bug and make the fire stream a bit thicker.
Necromancer:
Raise skeletal mage
Problem: although used with left-over skill points, they are considered annoying because they die all the time and don’t do much damage.
Solution: a very minor boost that can however be appreciated: make them immune to the element they cast. It also makes sense. For their damage check the change of the lower resist curse below.
Fire golem
Problem: only used in pvp by poisonmancers to remove the last life point.
Solution: a very serious base damage boost would make him more popular in pvm.
Teeth
Problem: inferior to spear and spirit.
Solution: remove the 24 max teeth cap so you can have teeth all around you (level 50 teeth should be able to spawn them 270° around you)! The dentist is a too cool character build name to see so few of them.
Weaken
Problem: did someone ever intentionally cast this? Decrepify “weakens†better!
Solution: a 1% increase per rank would at least lift the decreased damage above that of decrepify at level 20 (52%) and would give it a use in pvp. Casting a level 35 weaken (total damage -67%) on a barb or a smiter would make a lot of sense.
Iron maiden
Problem: obsolete past normal.
Solution: just like thorns and spirit of barbs it should scale versus monsters in nightmare and again in hell to keep up with their damage/life ratio.
Lower resist
Problem: only used by poisonmancers.
Solution: the day summoners started casting lower resist: in 1.14 it works at double effect for skeletal mages and other summons/hirelings that are attacking a monster cursed by this (resists -124 percent versus minions at level 20). This and the fire golem boost could give rise to a new type of necro-summoner. The iron wolves would also be finally used (btw: they should fix the fire type iron wolf too).
Barbarian:
Bash
Problem: very weak combat skill compared to the others.
Solution: give bash an inherent 25% crushing blow. Not only people would start using it, but barbarian mercenaries would also be used a bit more instead of the act2merc-all-over-the-place.
Double swing
Problem: the damage.
Solution: even now in 1.14, people are more inclined to put points in its bash synergy, it still needs a mild damage boost per skill level.
Stun
Problem: underpowered.
Solution: more AR and longer stun duration would be fair. Again this would benefit the popularity of act V mercenaries.
For the rest the other barbarian skills already all serve a purpose.
Paladin:
The aura’s
With all the items and mercenaries giving aura’s I don’t feel like changing many because of the extended impact on many other characters. It’s true that might is in any way inferior to concentration, but you can have them both so it makes it useful again. The only underused aura’s are:
Cleansing
Problem: underpowered
Solution: it should come with some poison resistance as well.
Holy fire
Problem: doesn’t match holy shock in any way
Solution: because we don’t want to overpower auradins hit-damage, why not just significantly increase only its pulse damage so it would be the aura used for its pulse (different than shock or freeze). I would love to play a pulsadin! The pulse damage should still be much weaker compared to using normal attacks, but it should be able to do enough damage to build your character around it (with a dual dragon, hand of justice, maxed synergies and a conviction aura in the best case).
Thorns
Problem: the life/damage ratio of monsters in hell.
Solution: just like iron maiden and spirit of barbs, it needs scaling vs monsters in nightmare and hell. Kamikaze pallies should return! Thorns is available on a mercenary and an armor and still no-one really wants them (in the case of the armor the reason to wear it is solely for its poison boost, not for the thorns).
Sanctuary
Problem: it doesn’t seem to do what it says + it only works against undead.
Solution: we don’t want to overpower the items that carry this aura, so just a fix of the bugs on it is sufficient.
Holy bolt
Problem: moving on to the combat skills, this is the one that no pally uses. It can go over 10k magic damage though (!), but it sadly only works against undead, hence the neglect.
Solution: make it work at 1/4 effectiveness vs demons, and at 1/10 against any other (beasts, players, minions except undead minions) and you will see a new fun build using holy bolt all the time without being overpowered. Like this you can also have a healer in multiplayer that is not an absolute loser on his own.
Sorceress:
Inferno
Problem: bugged.
Solution: remove the bug, life is simple.
Blaze
Problem: no one uses it, although it’s pretty cool, but not very effective.
Solution: 1.13 tried but failed. Blaze doesn’t need synergies, it should be one (for firewall for example, instead of what 1.13 did)! Like this people have actually a good reason to max it, and if they have it why wouldn’t they use it? Could last at least 10 seconds longer from the start though.
Charged bolt
Problem: potentially good skill, but obsolete because of the better lightning/chain lightning spells.
Solution: lift the cap of 24 bolts to let’s say 33 bolts. On paper it would be overpowered but then again a sorceress needs to get so close to make all the bolts strike, which is dangerous play for a caster, that it balances out.
The cold shields
Problem: not worth the points and the synergies have few real effect.
Solution: the synergies should also boost defense. If per hard point invested in 1 shield skill, the other two would get a 5% to 10% defense synergy bonus, then it would make these skills more viable to invest an amount of points in. A blessing for the enchantress (commonly seen as a weak build) and finally another possible high-defense character aside from the barbarian and paladin.
Frost nova
Problem: crappy damage.
Solution: a serious base damage boost.
Druid:
Fire spells
Problem: although the fire spells are very cool, a sorceress is a much better pure caster then a fire druid so they are seen as weak.
Solution: first some overall increase of the base damage of fire spells, and furthermore reduced timers for molten boulder and for pretty much all the other fire spells too.
Arctic blast
Problem: same as with inferno: bugged.
Solution: same as with inferno: remove the bug.
Cyclone armor and hurricane
Problem: in itself these skills don’t have a problem, but in wereform you cannot use them and that’s a big pity. No-one sees why exactly this should be the case.
Solution: both are castable in wereform. Here come the polar bears!
Maul
Problem: annoying to keep fully charged, so in average you are only using it at half its effect.
Solution: if it had a 5% to 8% damage synergy from shockwave, you would be more inclined to use it instead of fire claws or hunger.
Hunger
Problem: kodiaks can be strong builds, but only if they stack a serious amount of crushing blow.
Solution: damage -75% is very drastic. Let’s make it -66% at level 1, with a 1% increase per level, so level 20 hunger would represent a much more acceptable -47%. This would enable Kodiaks based on physical damage, given they have maxed werebear, have enough strength and a fortitude armor and a high damage weapon like grief.
The creepers
Problem: this bunch of guys rarely get more than one point in them and are never missed when they die.
Solution: they should all synergy each other’s life for more durability. Poison creeper should get poison damage synergies from the two other vines to make its poison damage significant. For carrion vine a really nice change could be that it corpse explodes when eating a corpse (a weak one: 30%-60%, but same radius increase as normal corpse explosion), but that could be found too drastic. The solar creeper on its turn could carry the healing ability of the (hard points invested in) carrion vine as well, the same way meditation works with prayer. With these drastic changes, a druid with fully maxed vines could be fun to play, and still far from overpowered as he can only hold 1 vine at the time.
Summon spirit wolf
Problem: obsolete when you get dire wolves.
Solution: something very sensible heard on many forums: their damage should simply be magic and there’s a reason to cast them.
Spirit of barbs
Problem: the same as thorns and iron maiden
Solution: not only the aforementioned scaling is necessary, but also an extra 10% per rank increase to his reflection damage would be needed: compared to thorns and amplify damage he is on the too low side.
Extra note on druid summoning: the grizzly bear should be allowed to co-exist with either dire or spirit wolves. The necromancer has such a bunch of minions while the druid not even a handful. That’s why summoners are generally equivalent to necro-summoners till now.
That’s it! I hope in the future we’ll see a lot more immozons, spearzons, (psychic) hammersins (!), bladesins, elemental summoners, dentists, double swingers, pulsadins, kamikazadins, boltdins, blazebabes, defenseresses, arctic blasters, very hungry kodiaks and pure druid summoners, amongst many other rarely-seen characters today.
Thanks for reading this suggestion list, I hope many of you will add comments/suggestions/realistic additions/constructive criticism so we can come to a final result that will be implemented by blizzard in the ultimate patch 1.14.
New interesting runewords and uniques (but none overpowered like enigma, grief, breath of the dying and the likes, just: interesting ones), an exciting hidden quest and maybe even some new monsters would be great, but if we’ll already get these skill changes and a bigger stash with a transfer area, I think many diablo fans will one last time return to their old classic, puzzling new characters together, before the arrival of the long-awaited Diablo iii.
It is quite ridiculous actually. They don't even think twice about some things like the fact that Brother Laz made lots of changes that everybody here would enjoy (boosted AI, serious endgame, great skill balance) while all some ronery employee over at blizz did was a "boosted" immolation shot.
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