Testing got delayed, as the new patch broke the mod I use to put characters together in offline mode. Testing is still ongoing, so expect more builds and more data to be added in the near future. My goal for this cycle is to test more builds, with more realistic gear, in more realistic scenarios than last time.
As always, comment any planners for builds you think deserve testing. And feel free to tell me whether my tier lists agree with your experience, or if you think I’m missing something. You can also reach me in my Discord server I linked in the tier list document. Happy Blasting!
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I disagree, Druid and spellblade are actually pretty good and fit a niche, the issue is more with:
1:Beastmaster(almost every skill here is totally outclassed by wolves)
2:Shaman(expensive skills on a class with not a lot of ways to regen mana, its main build, Tornado/avalanche autobomber, got nerfed into the ground)
Both the DPS and area of effect tier lists take skill rotation and mana management into account. The few abilities I noticed that wouldn’t proc on training dummies, such as “increased damage after killing an enemy,” are additive and thus shouldn’t shift the ranking very much anyway. If there’s something specific you think I missed I’d love to know.
This is great, just what I have been looking for. One question: In your opinion do you think wraithlord is op? I would like to roll one but as soon as I do they will nerf it into the ground I’m afraid ;P.
I don’t expect any big balance changes until the 1.1 patch in July. Wraithlord is certainly very strong, but I don’t think it benefits from any bugged interactions like some builds still do. Because of this, if wraithlord does eventually get nerfed it probably won’t be a huge nerf. I say if you want to play wraithlord then make a wraithlord.
When trying to figure out which builds will get nerfed in 1.0, it’s easier to ask the question “Does this build do 1k+ corruption?”. If the answer is yes, then it will very likely be nerfed for 1.1.
Fun is totally personal preference. I enjoy playing tanky, melee builds in most games, and usually find minion builds annoying. But while I think sentinels are fun, it should be no surprise that I’m a meta slave and have the most fun finding builds that put out crazy numbers.
We can also phrase the bet like this, “EHG realizes that the number of players that will tolerate sweeping nerfs to over performing builds while there are large numbers of underperforming builds is dwarfed by the number of players that won’t tolerate it”.
Now, you may want to try to change the bet to something like, “EHG is going to rein in LL Ward builds”, and while I think that is true, it’s not what you said.
Ward is definitely being reined (not reigned ) in. Mike has confirmed that in his stream.
I don’t know if they plan to bring every build below 1k, but I do expect all of them to be nerfed in some way. Especially because one of the big complaints is the time it takes to reach 1k+ corruption. Which is normal considering the game isn’t balanced towards that.
Anyway, when Mike says that “if a build is doing 1k+, we made a huge mistake somewhere”, that sounds, to me, like they will nerf them all. So yeah, I will take the bet that they will be nerfed, though not that no build will reach 1k+ in 1.1.
1k is now the new target. They will teak mono too accommodate that*. Ward and extreme outliers might be nerfed, but they will not be doing a significant nerfing pass. They have too much already on their plates, and they are smart enough to know that they don’t have the two decades of good will and nostalgia that the Diablo series has been given (to justify screwing up for the year after launch to finally get things right) AND they are certainly aware of the “never again! FOR GOD SAKE WE SWEAR!” nerfing pass that Diablo JUST DID (well, a year ago). I feel certain there is zero chance we see significant nerfs (quantity and/or quality) to character skill or passives.
*And the simplest mono tweaks they could do would be to;
increase the amount of juice (I forget the name) a complete node gives so that the number of nodes needed to fight the boss drops from 8-10 to 3-5,
completely remove the ceremony of increasing corruption. You choose your corruption on each node, if you successfully completed the node, now you can choose higher corruption.
Mono’s should be about fighting the boss, finding and fighting the shade, and finding nodes who’s rewards you want. The current system is complexity and tedium without fun. You should be very easily able to choose the corruption (difficulty) you want to play on.
First of all I really appreciate your effort, I enjoy theorycrafting a lot so I want to discuss your findings a bit regarding the classes I play.
My main is a Jelkhor Marksman and by now I consider my gear quite insane. I’m still trying to improve it, but my current journey for a slam-worthy helm might mark the finish line for this cycle.
So about this build:
I don’t think you’ve utilized the latest iteration, from this video there are two endgame setups, for echoes and bossing.
That brings up a few topics:
Boss killing speed, if you have used your planner version than you have severely underrepresented this build for your planner is survival-focused. I don’t think any of the higher ranked builds in your list could live through an echo either, so might as well use the glass cannon version of Jelkhors.
Survival: How did you come to the conclusion that the low life variant is superior? Would you mind optimizing my setup and see if it lasts longer than your low life idea? I’m not sure which is better and I don’t have Frostbite Shackles with the low life mod to really test that again. I progressed through low life into this Red Ring/Mountain setup that was deemed superior by streamers.
Mana issues: You are right that this build has mana issues, but your planner neither has the Mountain boots that give -6 mana cost while standing still nor the Ballista-prefix slammed on your rings which is doable on any regular ring (as in no Red Ring).
real life performance: I have brought this build to 1350 corruption at this point which is a very interesting place: Lagon still dies within a few seconds without doing a single thing and that’s with my regular echo gear. For Shade of Orobyss this is the point where this echo gear doesn’t cut it anymore so I need to swap gear to kill him:
Eye of Reen Sword for endless crit multi (which is truly annoying for Jelkhors give +skill)
four offensive 2x2 idols
chest with t7 and t5 inc damage with dagger/sword
offensive rings (I use Siphon for Doom and Sunwreath for it has a few damage-increasing stats and I happen to have a 3lp with t6 Ballista) - Julras could certainly be better, but I don’t have a good one.
edit: Shattered Chains belt for Doom synergy
Echoing isn’t that much fun for you die a lot, but there’s nothing you can’t beat.
There is a big difference between nerfing every single class (like D4 did) and nerfing the 2 overperformers.
I highly doubt that. First of all, if you don’t significantly nerf and just nerf monos (after they buffed them at 1.0, mind you), then yes, all classes can do 1k but the same 2 will now to 20-50k. So nothing gets solved.
To go down that road is to do what D3 did, and that didn’t go well.
It’s also much easier to nerf the two massively OP classes than to buff the half dozen underperformers. So yes, I do believe they will be nerfed. It just remains to be seen how nerfed they will be.
Honestly, I hope it’s a good nerf, because they need to start getting balance under control. And you can only do that if you nerf some and buff others. Only buffs leads to crazy trillion damage, which was silly in D3 and would be silly here as well.
) in. Mike has confirmed that in his stream.