Anyone have analysis on how the D2R 2.4 changes effect existing builds in single player?

gtpoestorage1

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Nov 10, 2019
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I forget who it was that told me this, it was eons ago, but a friend told me to start with a Meteor/Frozen Orb Sorceress. How does the D2R 2.4 changes shake up the build landscape for single player folks. For instance, would it better to start with a Hydra/Frozen Orb build vs Meteor/Frozen Orb? What about the Chain Lightning/Frozen Orb build? My query isn't limited to just the Sorceress class. I'm asking about the shake up across all classes. Sites like maxroll, are slanted toward ladder play and don't even include guides for builds like CL/FO.

Your thoughts.
 
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I can only think of a couple things to be cautious of among the 2.4 updates with class changes:

1) The removal of Amazon Lightning Fury as a synergy for the melee lightning spear abilities won't affect you if you were already loading up on all the related skills, as they basically split the synergy you would have gotten amongst the other options evenly. However, if you were splitting the difference by, say, maxing Fury and Charged Strike and then throwing forty points into the Bows tree, your Charged Strikes will be even weaker now. I think they didn't want us to be able to balance a strong Fury, Charged Strike and Bow skill and maybe a Valkyrie all on one Amazon without really sweating the skill points (Fishyzons I think they were called?). Personally I think devoting a weapon swap to the switch instead of getting to haul around a call to arms in the field was enough of an opportunity cost, but oh well.

2) They've done something similar with Assassin traps by removing the synergy boost Death Sentry gives to every other trap - you can have it as a strong skill by itself, you won't also get synergy credit towards each fire trap and lightning trap you might use alongside it. I'm not particularly versed on trap balances but maybe some trappers can be specific about the impact, because if you're spending all those points among synergies in the trap tree anyway, the increases to existing synergies might cover the gap already.

3) Shifter attack speed changes are a blue mystery to me since I didn't ever really run the calcs myself, and now with all the online ones I can't tell if they've corrected for it or not. It looks like you can pull in more gear IAS now (shifted forms used to ignore most of it if the weapon wasn't glacier-speed) but you'll also need to have it, since they no longer give double-credit to weapon IAS? For all their supposed goals of introducing more viable gear choices, I can't help but think now shifter melee gear will start to look like everyone else's again.

Regarding the Sorceress changes, I've been able to try out some dual-element configurations. For Cold, If you were using frozen orb or blizzard, that won't change much. The armor skills themselves won't be a damage strategy. For Lightning, Thunderstorm still just doesn't hit enough mobs at once for the damage it does, but Nova is now a solid 60-point option if you weren't taking Chain/Lightning but at 40 points it's only as good as it was before, and there's no other synergy to invest it to 80 with. If anything, if you were dead set on having Frozen Orb and sky-high Cold Mastery, you can pick between using either paring Nova with Static or instead using Lightning and Chain Lightning with the remaining points, or do Orb / Nova / Static for 90 total and I dunno, try out an EShield or Armor skill. More flexibility, but you do run into the problems with Nova's mana cost and range limits.

With Fire, being able to compress Hydra casting spam to a 'safe' window of time has made it a lot easier to use. I always hated trying to use Meteor and Fire Walls since neither I nor the real threatening stuff chasing me was ever stationary enough in a fight. Hydras at least you can kinda use as a range-extender if you retreat back enough, or fire em and keep moving for a while. Hydra won't need to much in synergies, but the option is there. You likely won't be fully satisfied with trying to keep both Hydras and Fireballs unless you have 80 points to drop into Fire tree, at which point I hope you picked Cold as your second element. Blaze and Inferno changes I'm ashamed to say I haven't gotten to try. I'd say use Blaze for stuff chasing you and Inferno for stuff that's not, but you could probably still use Fire Wall for anything you could kill with an Inferno, and do it faster, and not while standing still yourself. Half the trick with the Fire tree is getting stuff to stand where you want it, anyway, and crying when they don't.

Hope that helps. Anyone has better ideas, I want em too!
 
I hadn't moved all of my characters from 2.3 to 2.4, but it seems like my kicker is now weaker since LS no longer gets a synergy from DS. I haven't really looked into the changes on Dragon Talon, though. This was a very strong and safe character, so I'm hoping that she still is.

My shock zealot is probably stronger now with the changes to holy shock.

My pure fire sorc is probably about the same as it was.

Not a class issue, but I'm looking forward to seeing how Grief/Lawbringer on a barb merc fares. I think that maybe a reboot of my Chaos wielding barb-themed assassin is in order. If it turns out that my kicker has been nerfed, well.....then I need an Ohm and a good base.

Edit:
Dragon Talon
  • Now consumes only 1 of each Martial Arts charge when cast
  • Now always hits the target only if the Assassin has any Martial Arts charges

I'm pretty sure that DT didn't have auto hit in the past, so maybe DT hasn't been nerfed. My kicker only uses DT to lay down Frozen Orbs, elemental damage, and CB.
 
The only real nerf was the shifter changes, for most of the setups you would have been actually running pre-2.4. At least as far as I can tell.
 
@snickersnack

The auto hit only applies when you're finishing any active MA charges. So a typical kicker/riftsin isn't affected at all.

As for traps, I believe they take DS synergy off from LS but the other synergies are increased to compensate. So to retain similar damage, points from DS needs to be shifted into other synergies. Technically there will be a nerf in a sense that DS range won't be as huge as before.
 
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@snickersnack

The auto hit only applies when you're finishing any active MA charges. So a typical kicker/riftsin isn't affected at all.

As for traps, I believe they take DS synergy off from LS but the other synergies are increased to compensate. So to retain similar damage, points from DS needs to be shifted into other synergies. Technically there will be a nerf in a sense that DS range won't be as huge as before.
Good to know; so only a small nerf. I don't think it'll make the character much less powerful overall. I really didn't use LS that much since it's pretty weak unsynergized.
 
The Druid finally has a zookeeping ability now. I have a pure summoner in act iii normal and he just amuses himself by occasionally attacking with whatever he can find. The ravens do the majority of the work and the wolves tank. Once he gets grizzly it should go fast for a while. Also fire is now a lot easier with the different cooldown rates introduced.

I’m kind of a weird person in that I tried out both inferno and Arctic blast. Inferno isn’t too bad, but Arctic blast seems like it could be buffed more.
 
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