Greeting everyone. EHG team please consider making the test realm public. Many of us do not think and/or play the way the professional streamers do. I am not going to:
- break speed leveling records
- reach the last boss before everyone else
- have the very best gear and best rolls within the first 4 days of a new season
- run with a highly organized/disciplined META team
I’m not an expert in the game. I like to enjoy the game and experiment. I might skip some content while doing full or near full clears in other content. I like to experiment with some builds, but my choice of experiments are not completely random.
With the above understood, in D3 I’ve experimented with about 6 to 8 dozen builds and variants. My experience heavily influenced how I approach the game, which allowed me to discover some hidden gems. It also allowed me to predict future insane power creep. The power creep led to anger and resentment among the player base. Almost all of my build ideas have been eroded, marginalized or out right nerfed into oblivion. Here are 2 examples:
- I discovered a way at low gear levels on a Wizard that would allow a group of lesser skilled/organized players gain levels and advance rather quickly toward the beginning of the season with a Star Pact Meteor Wiz. The damage scaling even in starter level 70 yellows was very strong, but based on a specific set of skill interactions. I would go full or near full glass cannon Star Pact Wiz and the rest of the team supported and buffed my damage. With a monk or necro I could get pixel pulls of large groups, and drop buffed meteors upon them thus obliterating the screen and getting massive progression in rifts/GRs. The specific Wiz skill interaction was removed silently mid-season about 3 years ago. It was removed because with a fully optimized group, the kill speed and progression would be insane. It was fun while it lasted.
- During the public test realm (PTR) where the Wiz Firebird set was revised, I came up with a skill and set interaction that made for super fun, relaxed build, that could push very high GRs solo with the character being near unkillable. The player would have to make a series of mistakes or encounter some multi-second lag in order to die. It was the Firebird Mirror Images build. Of course with Blizzard, fun is considered a felony, thus the set was revised such that no Wiz pets could trigger the set bonus and ending the set and pet interaction.
There were other fun build ideas that worked up to a point in the early end game and then fell over on its face because it could not keep up in damage, defense, or both. Please keep in mind that I do NOT use any cheat or external software/hardware. I only use what the game provides.
I’m not sure what you guys are looking for in terms of feed back with the private test realm but I’m sure many like me would like to try stuff out before launch. I know we are only a few days away so maybe consider my idea for future patches.
Thanks you.