Read the patch notes, then join me below the fold.
Having read that, I have some thoughts. First: We were right about Level Scaling, since the patch notes acknowledge that they are changing level scaling. Granted, it is only at the end game overworld, but it is the first in the normal Blizzard dominos that is the nerf bat. Second, I have a hypothesis. That is, that Blizzard’s team doesn’t actually play Diablo 4. At least, not in the way you or I do or did. Let’s look through their bug fixes and find things that are core not just to character skills people use, but define entire archetypes. I’m not a theory crafter or even a professional or semi-professional or hardcore enthusiast, so I’m not going to try and guess if a buff or nerf is good or bad. I won’t be judging the new aspects.
I just want to point to the list of bug fixes and ask: How?
And, mind you, I’m incredibly sympathetic. I’ve tinkered with lots of things, so I know it is hard to make things just work. But, these aren’t some weird item interaction with an unlikely ability combination — save ones that you would naturally test together. How did Blizzard *never test if a Druid AoE buff buffed its summons?*
You’ve got that they just now got around to fixing multiple dungeon bugs that made them unable to be completed. Barbarians get a fix to Hammer of the Ancients. Summon Druids’ Howl will finally trigger on Ravens as well as wolves — also, Druid seeking Tornados will deal damage. Sorcerers, that very common Firebolt enchantment? It’s going to properly work now. These are core, central things to entire class fantasies or archetypes — and they just released in a state that just didn’t work. Aspect of Control also gets “fixed,” but the way it was working isn’t a bug fix. It did exactly what it said. Blizzard just failed to realize that Staggered counted as all three conditions, therefore triggering all three “or” conditions on the Aspect. That’s not a bug — that’s a failure of design. How do you not notice Rabies doesn’t deal damage when too close to an enemy, when Rabies is a melee range skill? The ring that everyone gets from the campaign? Finally working properly.
I can forgive the number of fixes that are “hey, we snapshotted things, so if you added points while something was active, it doesn’t count until the effect resets.” That’s a weird interaction that probably doesn’t come up that often (I doubt people are often leveling up mid-combat, or that a single skill point added mid-combat is the difference between victory or failure.) I can even forgive them forgetting that Necromancers can use daggers. I can forgive them not realizing Incinerate didn’t work right since Incinerate is a trap no one should ever use, and probably never did. But, look at all those things that some how made it to live.
Along with the other fixes and acknowledging of Level Scaling having issues, Blizzard has surrendered that the CC present in high level dungeons is too much by fixing how quickly players get frozen. Also, apparently, Suppressor clones aren’t supposed to have Suppressor. I assumed they were, because I always saw them have that. Now, it’ll only be a chance of that screw you.
Why does Hamstring only Slow Healthy enemies now? Is the idea that enemies are either Healthy or Dead for Barbarians, so it doesn’t matter? Blizzard does acknowledge that Critical Strike/Damage and Vulnerable are too core to having a good build: “Developer’s Note: We’re seeing Critical Strike Damage and Vulnerable Damage often viewed as a hard requirement for a build’s success in Diablo IV. We believe this is a step towards allowing more builds to flourish and will continue to make changes in support of this goal.“
The solution:
- Critical Strike Damage: Reduced by ~17%
- Lightning Critical Strike Damage: Reduced by ~17%
- Critical Strike Damage with Bone, Earth, Imbued, and Werewolf Skills: Reduced by ~17%
- Vulnerable Damage: Reduced by ~40%
Likewise, Blizzard acknowledges that Damage Bonuses to CC enemies are way too easy to trigger compared to other conditionals. So, their decision to make using other conditional damage bonuses more rewarding — I’m sorry. I mean, they decided to make CC less rewarding, except for Frozen, which is probably why Barbarians got a Unique that lets them freeze people in the new season:
- Damage to Crowd Controlled Enemies: Decreased by ~30%.
- Damage to Frozen Enemies: Increased by ~20%.
The designers also acknowledge that, essentially, enemies die too fast to well geared, prepared players. Their goal then is to shift power to offensive Affixes from defensive Affixes. Because this will help slow down how quickly skilled players kill enemies by… uh… increasing their damage output while making them even more fragile, even more rewarding glass cannon builds. This doesn’t do anything to stop “skillful players” from “frequently slaughtering monsters many levels above their own.” In fact, they now can punch even higher above their weight, because *these are the players who were never taking damage without an invulnerable up anyway.*
These patch notes, while promising in some ways, make me think Blizzard fundamentally does not understand the game they’re tinkering with.
Thanks for listening.
EDIT: Since I posted this, I made a video… and then there’s this, below. Look, maybe I was right and Blizzard has no idea about the basic facts of their game.
Photowordism 