Patch 1.0.4 Preview: Wizard

[galzohar]

Diablo 2 1.10 had less powerful specs than 1.09... The synergies actually reduced your options, and the increased difficulty reduced your options even more. Only massively duped runewords allowed you to even think about anything other than the common 3-4 builds (hammerdin, summon necro, meteorb sorc and lightning fury freezing arrow amazon).

It's not about nerfing builds, but about some skills just can't have everything else buffed to match them. If something gives an absurd boost, like +65% armor +40% resist (energy armor), +20% armor +50% resist (warcry), or just +400 resist (one with everything, though of course the number could be well off but the point still stands), you simply can't buff all other skills/passives to give a similar boost. At least not without also buffing all other class skills accordingly and bringing monster stats back to pre-1.0.3 stats so that the game is not a faceroll.

Proc coefficients were introduced for a reason, and that is to make you choose skills based on how powerful and how useful they are for their damage and effects, and on average you should have gotten a similar benefit from proc effects regardless of which skills you were using. This makes a lot of sense in many ways, so that a skill is just as good regardless of how much life per hit or arcane power on crit you have - Not in 100% of the cases, but most of them. When you have absurd abnormal proc coefficients to some skills, you're basically making them the "proc skills", and if proc effects are any good you can rest assured only those skills would be used. In the case of energy twister, you'd use it even if it dealt a whopping 0 damage. At least in the case of sprint and thunderclap (yes, I know sprint is a lot mroe OP than thunderclap, but they both fall into the "wrong coefficient" category), if they dealt 0 damage they would not be used. So while energy twister was the by far most broken in terms of proc coefficients, I think all skills need to have their proc coefficients revised. Build diversity will be much better if I don't have to think about the skills' coefficients when I make my builds. The fact those coefficients are hidden only strengthens my notion that this is how things should have be fixed.


In short, they need to fix everything that is broken, especially proc coefficients. Nerfing critical mass build by nerfing wicked wind is fine. This build is way OP. Leaving sprint as it is is just flat out stupid considering it is even more OP and broken for the pretty much the same reasons.


Eventually, if one spec feels powerful, it's most likely because other specs simply suck in comparison. Some specs just can't have all other specs buffed to their power. Especially not when you try to make people ditch 1 of the overpowered skills for another, because you'd have to make that other skill overpowered too, which can then cause a whole lot of mess. In the end, we need as many specs as possible to be "pretty much the best there is", and this isn't going to happen if we have 2 powerful builds (or in 1.0.4 as it looks so far, 1 super-powerful build).

[magicrectangle]

Eventually, if one spec feels powerful, it's most likely because other specs simply suck in comparison. Some specs just can't have all other specs buffed to their power. Especially not when you try to make people ditch 1 of the overpowered skills for another, because you'd have to make that other skill overpowered too, which can then cause a whole lot of mess. In the end, we need as many specs as possible to be "pretty much the best there is", and this isn't going to happen if we have 2 powerful builds (or in 1.0.4 as it looks so far, 1 super-powerful build).

Or they could bring up proc coefficients on other skills. Proc based builds are cool and fun. If you nerf all the good proc skills, people will just not play proc based builds anymore.

That said, the point I've made in this thread is that either both or neither should have been nerfed. An argument can be made for neither being nerfed, and an argument can be made for both being nerfed, depending on your design philosophy. No (good) argument can be made for nerfing one and not the other.

[Karth]

Or they could bring up proc coefficients on other skills. Proc based builds are cool and fun. If you nerf all the good proc skills, people will just not play proc based builds anymore.

I wish I'd seen information about proc coefficients being raised instead of all this rather boring and repetitive talk about damage increases.

For example, most resource-spending skills seem to have proc coefficients that equal roughly 100% per cast... but wait, that's a spender, not a generator! Why can't it be a little better at proccing special effects than, say, Magic Missile? It certainly costs more to use.

Damage isn't everything. It certainly isn't a good way in and of itself to differentiate between two skills.

[galzohar]

Why raise all skills just normalize all of them to what they should be and then look at proc skills/passives that are underused and buff those. Upping the proc coefficients messes up not just the underused skills/passives but also generic life per hit stats and new legendary procs. So you want every magic missile to reduce all cooldowns by 5 seconds and return 5x your life per hit to bring it up to par? And even then I'm not sure it would compete with wicked wind. I mean, sometimes buffing everything else to match is just silly. Prof coefficients are there to normalize all skills. If you increase the coefficients on all skills you then need to do it for other classes too and reduce all life per hit values. It's easier to fix the skills that have too high (as well as too low!) coefficients to what they should have been to start with, and then if there are underpowered effects those could be buffed. Since life per hit doesn't need a buff for skills with appropriate coefficients, there is no need for a global increase in coefficients.

Of course I agree that it's just plain stupid to nerf wicked wind while leaving sprint as is and then also buffing whirlwind damage so it is a proper spender (will need to buff to at least 150-200% weapon damage for it to stand a chance as a viable spender in non-sprint builds). That's why I keep saying they need to fix all the coefficients so they server their purpose. After that they could give critical mass (and maybe into the fray) a small buff that it probably deserves since it's not all that great for builds that don't abuse it with wicked wind. By the way, meteor's on ground burn effect also has an abnormal coefficient which is why it's the 2nd best for wicked wind. I just don't agree with having "good proc spells" and "bad proc spells". It's just bad design IMO and will unavoidably limit build diversity and greatly limit Blizzard's ability to fix the system.

[Karth]

I don't think skills should be normalized, that is exactly what I am saying. I'm also not saying all skills need a coefficient buff; I am saying that there should be variety. Some skills should do more raw damage, some skills should have an edge in proc coefficients, some skills should have an edge in other effects, and so on. Normalization is bloody boring; I much prefer variety in how things work.

I'll have to disagree with you; having 'good proc skills' and 'bad proc skills' does not inherently limit build diversity. Mishandling good proc skills and bad proc skills limits build diversity.

Edit:
Also, please don't make ridiculous arguments like "So you want every magic missile to reduce all cooldowns by 5 seconds and return 5x your life per hit to bring it up to par?" with me if you wish to take your responses to my posts seriously. It is offensive and unnecessary in friendly debate.

[Cebo]

While I understand galzohar's position that proc effects should be normalized between all skills, I feel that by giving certain skills (particularly underused ones) an edge in proc chance, it actually promotes build diversity. No one would have even been touching Energy Twister if it were not for its proc effect chance.

Take Arcane Torrent for example. They're increasing the damage of it, but the fundamental problem isn't really with the skill itself. It's the fact that Disintegrate simply outclasses it in every respect, and I'm not sure if that's going to change with the patch. But say if Arcane Torrent had a superior proc coefficient than Disintegrate. Suddenly, the player now faces a choice -- go with the spell with better mechanics and overall damage, or the spell that has a better chance at proccing CM, LoH, bleed procs, etc. To me, this is better game design and promotes diversity in builds.

[galzohar]

My point was that other skills will need insane buffs to match wicked wind's procs. If you survive with any amount of life per hit, you will need magic missile's coefficeint to be buffed in such a way for it to have a chance to compete in terms of life per hit. In general, stats on items aren't supposed to only work well with certain skills. Especially not powerful stats like life per hit. Not normalizing the coefficient is what is causing a lot of build diversity problems right now, which is why I think they need to be properly normalized as was originally intended.

If arcane torrent deals enough damage it will be equivalent and even better than disintegrate. No problem here. No need to mess with the proc coefficients (other than making sure neither spell has a crappy proc coefficient, which disintegrate currently has).

[magicrectangle]

My point was that other skills will need insane buffs to match wicked wind's procs. If you survive with any amount of life per hit, you will need magic missile's coefficeint to be buffed in such a way for it to have a chance to compete in terms of life per hit. In general, stats on items aren't supposed to only work well with certain skills.

Says who? This is what makes figuring out neat niche builds interesting. If all skills were equally good at everything, that would be boring, and bad design. Magic missile is useful for its single target damage and for kiting. It has a niche to fill beyond procing stuff. Wicked wind is literally useless for damage, it is primarily useful because of its ability to proc stuff. There is nothing wrong with that.

I would like to see the gap narrowed a bit, but not by nerfing the heck out of a fun build. There are solutions (one of which I suggested earlier) that don't ruin a perfectly good and fun build. IMHO proc rates should be brought up on all skills (save for a few that are already very good), but they should not all be the same. Skills that are good for damage or for CC should have lower proc rates. Skills that don't offer much in the way of damage or CC should have higher proc rates.

Homogenization is bad. What you advocate would make the game boring.

[galzohar]

Not equally good at everything, no. But equally good at procs and life on hit, because anything different would cause the completely messed up situation you see with spells that have an extremely high coefficient (wicked wind, sprint), overly high coefficient (thunderclap, frenzy sidearm) or just terrible coefficient (ray of frost and many others). Guess which ones are the most used?

They should make skills interesting for their damage and effects, not for their varying proc chances that vary in effectiveness way too much depending on how much life per hit do you have an if you have a proc effect passive (or "passive-active" skill effect), which actually limits builds because it groups skills together. Right now critical mass is rather pointless without wicked wind. If all skills had similar coefficients, you'd have to think harder about which skill to take in a critical mass build (assuming critical mass is made to be a viable passive like all passives without abusing a spell with an absurd proc coefficient). Just like "into the fray" is only really good with sprint's excessive proc coefficient and monks can only really survive if they use thunderclap for the high life on hit coefficient.

Fixing the coefficients so they are normalized like was intended allows you to choose skills more freely and actually makes balancing skills possible. Having only 1-2 specs that are actually much better than anything else is just not fun.

Skills that don't offer much in terms of damage or CC should have more damage, more CC, and/or more other utility. Not a higher proc coefficient that turns it into the go-to skill if you need better life per hit and cooldown resets.

Keep in mind that nerfing the wicked wind critical mass build actually allows them to buff all the ptherwise-useless cooldown skills, as nobody in his right mind would include explosive blast and frost nova in his build, and wave of force isn't exactly good either. Diamond skin is the only skill that is somewhat decent without critical mass and only with one rune, and even that is greatly outshined by illusionist teleport/mirror image. All those skils that are simply not that good because they have too much of a cooldown which are made viable only by abusing critical mass with a high proc coefficient will only be fix-able if the critical mass build is nerfed into the ground.

Keep in mind that same can be said about the barb, it's just that for the barb less skills are affected. They still need to nerf rune like the wind's proc coefficient, though, if they want to be able to balance battle rage and whirlwind, especially if they want to make all runes equally appealing. In addition of course to staying in line with their nerf to wicked wind's proc coefficient (especially considering how terrible the damage of wicked wind is).

[darkslayeromg]

@galzohar I feel ya brah. No seriously. Sometimes it is hard to explain to people that balance is more important than "fun builds".

I personally hate ww/cm build, since it doesn't fit into my interpretation of wizard. As for procs theory and skill diversity - I would say that those two things are not nearly close to each other: proc heavy skills are just immediately tied up with CM, which is bull****. You cannot make proc skill work without CM, nor you can make CM work without one of those skills.

I am also quite curious about lack of barb nerf. (I guess it has sth to do with "Game Director smash" influence).
Not because it was that super OP, but because WW is unusable without Into the fray and sprint. They should have lowered procs for tornadoes and increased for ww - so you can mantain ww without at least sprint (and for those who wanted to drop into the fray as well - windshear rune could have offered much higher channeling cost reduction) - like that. The old spec would be as powerful as before - but there could have been more options, not just forced 3 skill combo. - This is build diversity.