Reacting to DarkHumility's S14 Suggestions

September 21, 2026

DarkHumility published his Season 14 suggestions list. It contains around 80 ideas about builds, maps, dungeons, runewords, QoL and the trade site, based on his S13 testing and data.

I really like DH, and I think this is one of the best-organized community wishlists. I also agree with many of the problems he identifies. But I don’t always agree with the solutions. Sometimes I would pull a different lever. Sometimes I would focus on a different problem entirely.

Things I agree with

Dungeons need more identity

DH points out that the 3 dungeons currently share the same monster pool. They are also not very rewarding compared to the difficulty, especially on Hardcore. This makes it difficult to build a party and find a good reason to run them.

His ideas are to give dungeons different monster pools, add mechanics that favor melee characters in some dungeons, and add better rewards. He also suggests a “Protect Charsi” event with waves of monsters attacking her and an improved imbue as a reward.

Good ideas. Dungeons should not just be harder maps with a different name. They should give us reasons to choose one dungeon over another.

LOD content should matter again

WSK and Throne are dangerous, but they are not always worth running. Black Souls can be a real problem when you don’t have the right defensive tools. The Ancients can also have too much one-shot potential during the playthrough.

I agree with these problems, and mostly with DH’s proposed solutions. The bigger problem is power creep. We created T1, T2 and T3 maps, and now T4 maps, but the original LOD content did not become more interesting at the same time. So most players naturally moved on to maps.

It would be good if WSK, Throne and other LOD areas had a real purpose again. Not necessarily better than maps, but different enough that running them feels worthwhile.

Dead skills need to become real builds

DH mentions Inferno, Charged Bolt Sentry and a Tiger Strike rework. These are all on my own lists too.

This does not mean that every skill needs to become S-tier. But if a skill is fun and has items built around it, it should have a way to become a real end-game build. More of this please.

A lot of the QoL ideas are easy wins

Some of DH’s suggestions are small, but would improve the game every day:

These changes don’t affect build balance much. They simply remove annoying friction. I like this kind of change because it makes the game better without forcing everyone to change their build.

Same goals, different solutions

SSF

DH suggests separate Solo-Self-Found ladders for Softcore and Hardcore, like in Path of Exile.

I would probably implement it differently. Every character could start with an SSF tag. The tag would disappear when the character trades or joins a non-solo game. This would give SSF players the recognition they want without creating separate ladders or splitting the community.

Same goal, different mechanism.

Enigma

DH wants Enigma’s Teleport to go back to its full LOD power, without the spell damage penalty. His arguments are that other classes could compete better with Sorceresses in LOD farming, and that Jah runes would become more useful.

I think the nerf was needed. If Enigma gives the best mobility and is also the obvious armor choice, body armor becomes another solved slot.

But I agree with the problem behind his suggestion: mobility is too concentrated. My first idea would be to add more, weaker mobility options, such as items with slow-replenishing blink charges.

Another possibility is to split Enigma’s strengths. It currently gives both mobility and a huge Movespeed bonus. Maybe those stats do not need to be on the same item. We could have one end-game armor focused on Teleport, and another high-mobility armor focused on Movespeed.

I’m not sure about the exact solution yet. But this is how I usually think about build diversity: instead of making the one answer stronger, create several answers with different strengths.

Grief

DH wants to restore Grief’s damage, but specifically says he would prefer to do it without flat damage.

This is important because Grief’s Damage +X is the same kind of affix I criticized in my kicksin post. If Grief becomes stronger through Enhanced Damage, max damage or another normal scaling method, then I think we would probably agree.

The problem is not necessarily that Grief should be strong. The problem is that Damage +X is a strange and unreliable way to create that power.

BOTD

DH suggests adding around 100% ED to Breath of the Dying, beyond the old LOD values, so it can compete with other Zod runewords.

I agree that BOTD is in a bad state. But I would rather add around 30% ED per season and see what happens. If it becomes a good option after one or two seasons, we can stop. If it is still weak, we can continue.

I don’t mind waiting a few seasons, as long as the vision is clear and we know we are moving towards the right target. Buffs are easier to stop than to undo.

Uber item shards and group play

DH suggests that dungeon bosses could drop Uber Item Shards. Three shards would create a random Dclone or Rathma item in the cube. The shards would not drop for solo players, to encourage group play.

I like the goal. More group play would be good, and dungeons need better incentives. But I think allocated loot should be fixed first. Small items like WSS, currency and other materials are still not properly allocated, so leechers can benefit without helping much.

Fixing that problem seems more important to me than adding another group-only reward. But maybe I don’t have enough dungeon experience to judge this one properly.

Rabies

DH wants to increase Rabies damage while slowing down its spread. This would improve bossing and reduce its mapping dominance.

I understand the idea. I would probably look at the poison duration instead. Rabies already kills monsters quickly in maps, but then you have to run back to the corpses to pick up the loot while the poison is still active somewhere behind you.

A shorter duration could reduce the damage without making that part of the gameplay worse. Maybe this is a small point, but playstyle problems matter too.

The biggest disagreement: Conviction

DH suggests a cheaper Sorceress orb runeword with a mini-Conviction aura or some -resistance. His goal is to help Sorceresses transition from LOD content into mapping, where they currently have a difficult time.

I want the opposite. I think Conviction, especially on Infinity mercenaries, is already too strong. My proposed solution would be to reduce its range based on hard points, or make it break immunities without also lowering resistances.

DH sees a transition problem and wants to give Sorceresses more -res. I see -res as part of the problem.

This is probably the suggestion where we would disagree the most.

What I would add to the list

DH’s list is very focused on late-game mapping, dungeons and pinnacle content. That makes sense, because this is the content he tests. But I tend to focus more on the systems behind build diversity.

Snapshotting

Prebuffing and gear swapping make balance much harder. Either you balance around the optimal snapshot and punish normal players, or you balance around normal play and allow very strong optimized setups.

I still think snapshotting should be removed entirely.

Synergies

Synergies forcing players to spend 60 or more points on skills they never cast is probably the number one thing I would fix if … I could.

They don’t just affect skill builds. They also make proc items weaker, because proc builds cannot invest in the same synergies as a normal skill build. I wrote a dedicated analysis about this.

DH has a lot to say about making individual skills and items stronger, but not much about this system. That makes me think build diversity is probably not as high in his priorities as it is in mine.

Aurabot mercenaries are boring

DH mentions several aura and item buffs, but I would rather fix the aurabot problem first. End-game mercenaries can stack too many auras, which makes aura items less interesting for the player. My proposal is to limit mercenaries to 2 auras. This keeps the big powerspikes, but removes the whole aurabot nonsense.

Early-season builds and oskills

Sets, oskills and early-season viability are also important to me. Not everyone has time to reach level 99. If someone wants to play a Multishot bow Sorceress, I think they should be able to do it as soon as possible instead of waiting until the end of the season.

This is one of the differences between DH’s list and mine. He is mostly looking at the top of the ladder. I am also interested in the part of the season where most players actually spend their time.

I guess that’s it

Overall, I agree with most of DH’s problems. I would change several of his solutions, but that is normal. We probably have similar goals: more viable builds, more interesting content and fewer boring problems.

If I had to summarize the difference, DH often asks: “How can we make this item, skill or activity better?” I often ask: “How can we make this one useful without making it the only answer?”

That is also why I like his list. It gives us a lot of concrete problems to discuss, even when I would solve them differently.

The list is open for comments, so DM him on Discord if you have additions or disagreements. This post is my contribution to that conversation.

DH’s content