1.03 patch preview

[Kitteh]

Sooner the better, I'm getting sick of being unable to play inferno solo.

[xxnothing]

Staff of herding bug? I need to Google... hadn't heard there was a bug with it.

Anyway, I am very pleased at most of the patch news, especially the bit about Legendary items being desirable. If I find something and it's not even worth using, I have a hard time thinking of it as being "Legendary". More like "Mediocre".

[Painman]

I'm glad they're planning to address "legendaries" and tweak the item levels a bit for late Hell. I'm not sure I'm keen on nerfing IAS, or inflating repair costs just to penalize a handful of people with cheesy playstyles.

Mixed bag, but mostly good it seems.

[Shagsbeard]

Nothing appears to adress the elephant in the room... that there is only one stat that matters in the game, weapon DPS. Anything that increases this is good, anything that decreases it is bad. Until they make "effectiveness" more than one dimensional, they're doomed.

[spearv]

I'm not sure I'm keen on nerfing IAS,

On the whole I think that's something I'm likely to be pleased about, playing melee right now I feel my hand is being slightly forced down the road of stacking as much IAS as possible (spirit generation, knockback and life on hit), something to curb the gains will broaden my thoughts on how to increase the power of my character. I think the issue is a bit larger than just IAS, base weapon speed plays quite heavily here too.

@Shagsbeard: as things stand, I don't entirely agree. From a melee standpoint, lower dps weapons that're faster, have life on hit or other useful stats can far, far outshine bland, but high dps items. Interestingly, though, I think 1.0.3 will probably make your statement more true than it is now, as survivability becomes less of an issue and as farming easier content becomes more worthwhile.

Is weapon DPS in D3 a huge departure from melee gearing in D2? While D2 had some extra parts to the puzzle (Ignore Target Defense, Crushing Blow, for instance), most Zealots and WW barbs were at the mercy of their weapon damage/speed (essentially: dps). I think the D3 UI elements really focus our attention on this stuff more than in D2 (the huge font size for the DPS on the weapon, the simple "Damage" display on our character sheet).

[Kyrandia]

The 2% stat was for characters that have unlocked Inferno, not accounts. Many people have alts/mules which skew that number, so the actual percentage is higher.

Good point, I missed that. That should indeed make quite a difference.

However, are there any balance issues that exist sub-Inferno difficulty?

Not necessarily balance issues, but there are other things that could be improved, such as the DPS issue Shagsbeard alluded to: when all skills are weapon dps based, the same items are going to be useful for all classes/builds. Or the way armor works, as a simple damage reduction.

For now, I am still enjoying the game a lot, but I can see these issues affecting the longevity.

[SnickerSnack]

"In the face of increasing costs, we recommend listening to the Hardcore players out there as they probably have some helpful advice on how to minimize repair costs."

Yeah, their advice is "Don't die!", lol. Or am I missing something obvious?

I think this is due to the double use of the word "hardcore". They probably mean something like players with 5 characters in inferno already.

Nothing appears to adress the elephant in the room... that there is only one stat that matters in the game, weapon DPS. Anything that increases this is good, anything that decreases it is bad. Until they make "effectiveness" more than one dimensional, they're doomed.

This may be true for normal difficulty, but higher difficulties are different. My wizard's dps is currently about 13k and I could probably get it to ~18k if I swapped out all of my gear for pure dps. However, the character would not be able to survive long enough to put that higher dps to use. Survivability is paramount to effectiveness, and there are several ways to get decent survivability. There are also a few ways to get more dps. You can stack base damage, attack speed, crit chance, crit damage, and maybe a few others I can't think of at the moment.

Recently, I've spent much more time in Hell than in Normal, so it was surprising to see the phrase "elephant in the room", but I can see how that's how it is for those who haven't gotten past normal yet (which I'm pretty sure you haven't, though I may be wrong). I think Normal is supposed to be easy, and it doesn't get much easier than only needing to pay much attention to one stat. Maybe blizzard intentionally made normal easy to appeal to a broader base of players.

[Rhone]

I think this is due to the double use of the word "hardcore". They probably mean something like players with 5 characters in inferno already

I interpreted him as implying that those who play with permadeath might have advice on how to play without dying.

I wonder how many Hardcore players have survived deep into Inferno though.

[kestegs]

I interpreted him as implying that those who play with permadeath might have advice on how to play without dying.

I wonder how many Hardcore players have survived deep into Inferno though.

Yea, I think that's what he meant.

There are a handful of people in act 3 I think. At least one has killed azmodan I believe.

[Kitteh]

I'm annoyed because my entire barb build relies on frenzy with high ias and life on hit.