Complete Patch Notes

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Classes Changes

Amazon

Amazons are perfect. End of story.

Assassin

Skills

Tiger Strike

Tiger Strike should not be an auxiliary skill for Blade Dance. Overall this makes Tiger Strike more appealing for mapping, without indirectly buffing WWsins.

• Tiger Strike bonuses are lost upon using Blade Dance.
• Tiger Strike radius has been buffed from 0/20/40 to 20/40/60.

Dragon Talon

Dragon Talon is the poor man’s Dragon Tail. With this change, we make is a 1-synergy skill so it can be played without DTail.

Synergies changed :

• Dragon Tail: +22% Damage per Level
• Dragon Flight: +5% Damage per Level

The base damage has been increased to compendate (see Synergies changes) for the synergies % being nerfed, resulting in equivalent damage.

Dragon Claw

Dragon Claw is a good skill, but its breakpoints are confusing. Let’s make it more noob friendly.

Changed the attack speed formula to make Dragon Claw easier to understand:

• Now uses the standard attack speed formula (just like Tiger Strike for example)
• The second strike always occurs 4 frames after the first hit

This means that a 6fpa build would do both hits in 10 frames. Simple. Clear. Nothing substantial lost in the process.

Dragon Flight

Dflight is great, but too strong as a 1-pt wonder, and too reliant on Stalker’s cull.

• Cooldown: 2 2.5 seconds
• Hard points now reduce the cooldown by .1 seconds (reaching .5 second at 20 points)
• There is no item in the game reducing the cooldown of DFlight anymore.

Wake of Inferno

Make it viable for mapping.

AoE strongly increased, both in width and in length, to make the skill viable for mapping.

Synergies changed:

• Fire Blast: +10% Fire Damage per Level
• Wake of Fire: +10% +3% Fire Damage per Level
• Death Sentry: +3% Damage per Level

The base damage has been increased to compendate (see Synergies changes) for the synergies % being nerfed, resulting in equivalent damage.

Death Sentry

Death Sentry shouldn’t be a one point wonder, or even a 20 point skill, since it would be too strong. High percent synergies seem reasonable in this case.

Synergies changed:

• Wake of Fire: +8% Fire Damage per Level
• Fire Blast: +8% Fire Damage per Level
• Charged Bolt Sentry: +8% Damage per Level
• Wake of Inferno: +8% Damage per Level

The goal here is to make DS a dedicated build, where players use it as a main skill, so we put weird synergies to avoid making it a fire or light spell. Also, we didn’t pick the same synergies as WoI, so that WoI players have to choose if they want to add 20 extra points into CBS for more DS damage. I think this is meaningful choice, with both pure WoI and pure DS and hybrid builds being viable.

Barbarian

Skills

Frenzy

Frenzy is mostly used as a passive that you have to “charge up” from time to time. We decided to turn it into an active skill. With those changes, Frenzy is still worth investing points on for non-frenzy builds needing AS/MS, and is now more rewarding as an active skill.

• Frenzy bonuses are lost upon using any other skill.
• Hard points no longer increase duration, which is fixed at 25 seconds (max).
• Frenzy now has a passive component : “After killing an enemy, gain AS and MS based on hard points (from 1 AS / 20 MS to 40 AS / 60 MS).”
• Frenzy base numbers have been changed to incorporate this passive (meaning the skill grants less AR/MS, but it is compensated).

Find Potion and Find Item

Find Potion and Find Item have been reworked. They were a good idea on paper but it never really clicked because of the boring dilemma.

• Gobble Potion is now a passive that grants temporary movement speed for 5 seconds after drinking any potion
• Find Item is now a passive that grants passive gold find and magic find (small amounts) per soft and hard points

Druid

Skills

Raven

Raven should be a “main skill”, which means one should be able to play a Raven Druid, centered on this skill. For this to happen, we need it to have specific synergies that make it diverge from the “all summons” druid that we’re used to (with wolves and grizzlies). I specifically intended to make the Raven Druid squishier than the summon druid, by removing most of its mean shield, but I kept the Spirit Wolf to keep the summoner feel and to give it some level of tankyness.

Synergies changed :

• Summon Spirit Wolf: +12% +3% Damage per Level
• Summon Dire Wolf: +12% Damage per Level
• Summon Grizzly: +12% Damage per Level
• Hurricane: +3% Damage per Level
• Carrion Vine: +3% Damage per Level

The base damage has been increased to compendate (see Synergies changes) for the synergies % being nerfed.

Hurricane

These changes aim to make Hurricane more impactful when fully synergized, while maintaining its power as a secondary source of damage.

Synergies changed :

• Arctic Blast: +12% Damage per Level
• Tornado: +12% +3% Damage per Level
• Raven: +3% Damage per Level
• Shock Wave: +3% Damage per Level

The base damage has been increased to compendate (see Synergies changes) for the synergies % being nerfed, and, additionnally, the max damage (fully synergized) has been increased by 150%.

Necromancer

Iron Golem

Coming soon.

Spoiler : iron golems won’t be providing an item’s aura anymore.

Bone Armor

Spells shouldn’t be better when you invest no points in them but only synergies.

Base absorb per point increased to 15 to 20 (slowly increasing).

Synergies changed:

• Gains +3 Additional Absorb per Energy
• Bone Wall: +15 10 Damage Absorbed per Level
• Bone Prison: +15 10 Damage Absorbed per Level

Paladin

Skills

Prayer

We want to make Prayer more appealing as a defensive aura, and to encourage Paladins to try builds leveraging flat pdr/mdr.

Now grants magic damage reduced by and physical damage reduced by to the user (not to the party).

Rough values would be like :

• Level 1 : 1
• Level 20 : 10
• Level 40 : 20
• Level 60 : 30

Concentration

Concentration has two main issues : (1) no clear identity and (2) mandatory for hammerdins. Let’s fix both.

• Your Blessed Hammer Skill Damage +% lowered from 30-472% to 10-50%. This is already huge, but I can see how people could use another aura and accept ~40% less damage in exchange.
• Lowered AR and ED, but now grants a good amount of AR/ED against Demons.

These changes give Concentration a cleared identity, and a role in builds that need more than raw damage.

Joust

We want Joust to have the opportunity to be a main skill.

Now gains +200% splash radius on the initial strike (called impale in the description), promoting builds that use Joust for its own damage.

New synergies:

• Thorns : Cooldown reduced by .5 / 20 seconds (note that Alma and Leoric no longer reduce the cooldown in Zagd3m’s patch)
• Vigor : Cooldown reduced by .5 / 20 seconds (note that Alma and Leoric no longer reduce the cooldown in Zagd3m’s patch)

With maxxed synergies, a .5 total cooldown is possible.

Blessed Hammer

We want diversity amongst hammerdins. Blessed Hammer should be a skill that can be used with Concentration or another aura.

Base damage buffed (significantly) to compensate for the Concentration change and the synergy changes. Total damage (with Concentration aura) when fully synergized are identical to the current numbers.

Synergies changed :

• Blessed Aim: +12% +3% Magic Damage per Level
• Vigor: +12% +3% Magic Damage per Level
• Meditation: hammers have 5% chance (upon being cast) to be intangible, thus not being affected by walls or other objects they collide with.

Overall, Blessed Hammer can now:

• be used with Concentration to gain up to 50% damage increase (more likely 40% since 50% would be Conc level 60)
• or with another aura to gain other benefits

Players also have the choice to invest in Meditation for intangibility, or to skip it to gain the benefit of other skills (eg. Holy Shield, …). This gives meaningful choices to Hammerdin builds, and will significantly increase the build diversity of Hammerdins.

Sorceress

Items Changes

Unique items

Throwing

Warshrike

Warshrike can take a buff now that the A3 mercs can’t abuse it anymore.

Maces

Demon Limb

Demon limb should not be a prebuff item, but an actual elite weapon.

Wands

Boneshade

Unique items shouldn’t be golden rare items. They need something the rares don’t have. This design keeps the purpose and theme of the item without being identical to a good rare for the slot.

Scepters

Heaven’s Light

Heaven’s Light should live up to its name with lightning and holy-themed effects.

Swords

Leoric

CDR on Alma and Leoric is bad for build diversity, since it is both too strong and too limited in breadth.

No longer reduces Joust cooldown.

Class specific weapons - Assassin

Firelizard’s Talons

The rework suggested in the official spoiler makes Firelizard completely focussed on Fist of Fire. We aim to diversify its usecases so it can benefit several builds, including kicksins, other MAsins, and trapsins. Therefore, +fire seems more fitting than -fire (since trapsins don’t benefit from it). The hard part here is to make sure this doesn’t instantly outshine rare/crafted claws for trapsins or stalker for melee ones - this is a starting point that would probably need some tweaking.

Mage Slayer

Mage Slayer has 2 issues : slaying mages doesn’t require pdr%, and it is bad. Here we try to give it an identity and a purpose throughout the game, while staying true to its name.

• Level 16 Energy Shield When Equipped
• - +[2-247]% +[2-347]% Enhanced Maximum Damage (+2.5% +3.5% per Character Level)
• Physical Damage Taken Reduced by [10-15]%
• Adds 10-25 Damage
• +[10-15] to Strength +[1-49] to Strength (+0.5 per Character Level)
• Magic Damage Taken Reduced by [3-6]
• 15% Damage Taken Gained as Mana when Hit
• 25% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items

Bartuc’s Cut-Throat

Small nerf to make room for other options

• +[200-300280]% Enhanced Damage

Stalker’s Cull

Cooldown reduction isn’t healthy for the game, as it reduced items diversity for fast dflight builds. See changes to Dragon Flight. We want it to be the Deadly Strike option amongst uniques claws, instead of being the CDR claw it used to be (hi trapsins).

• Dragon Flight’s Cooldown is Reduced by 0.5 Seconds
• [20-3040]% Deadly Strike

Shadow Killer

Indirect buff because of the Battle Cestus changes.

Unique items

Shields

Moser’s Blessed Circle

Moser’s Blessed Circle is a powerful defensive option that could benefit from scaling with character progression. This change maintains its mid-game power while making it a bit more appealing later into the game, and keeping the identity of a “resists” item.

Alma Negra

CDR on Alma Negra and Leoric is limiting build diversity right now.

No longer reduces Joust cooldown.

Helmets

Ravenlore

We want a Raven Druid build. See the changes to the Raven skill too.

Belts

Gloom’s Trap

This belt focuses on mana utility but lacks defensive capabilities against casters. The “gloom” word reminds me of the Gloom runeword so I decided to add a (weaker) Dim Vision when struck effect too.

Amulets

Nokozan Relic

The relic’s fire damage should scale with character progression to remain relevant. I wish this was an option for Vengeance paladins so the item doesn’t simply exist as a “shit that amy again” moment.

Eye of Etlich

This amulet’s cold damage is too minimal at higher levels and should scale with character progression.

Saracen’s Chance

Iron Maiden is rarely useful for most builds. Replacing it with Attack Rating or Magic Find would make this amulet more versatile, while adding a bit or r&d for late ladder optimization.

The Rising Sun

Moving Meteor procs to on-striking or on-casting would make this amulet more reliable for casters.

Sets

Overall, the suggestions here will aim at balancing sets, making more of them playable later into the game, and increasing build diversity (for example by making partial sets bonuses good enough for both full sets and partial sets to be worth considering). Set items should never be great alone, though (high Guillaume’s helm ^^).

Uncommon sets

Uncommond sets are in the sweet bitter spot between “I’m too low level to use them / have found all pieces” and “I now have better options”. Therefore, buffing them is necessary if we want them to be played (and if we don’t, then let’s remove them, we don’t need clutter). Imo, they should be used as not-BiS-but-still-good options, viable for mapping and mfing, but not the best option in the late game.

Sander’s Folly (Uncommon)

The set needs a small buff with FCR and MAEK.

• Cap: +10% Faster Cast Rate (3 items)
• Boots: 5 Mana after each Kill (3 items)
• Gloves: +10% Faster Cast Rate (3 items)

Hwanin’s Majesty (Uncommon)

Moving bonuses from complete set to partial set bonuses.

• Hwanin’s Splendor: All Resistances +[1-33] (+0.3 per Character Level) (3 items)
• Hwanin’s Refuge: +[1-99]% (+1 per Character Level) Damage to Demons (3 items)
• Hwanin’s Blessing: +30% Faster Run/Walk (3 items)
• Complete Set: Level 13 Holy Shock aura

The Disciple (Uncommon)

Moving bonuses from complete set to partial set bonuses and buffing the amulet.

• Laying of Hands: +50% enhanced damage (3 items) (we put the buff here since this is rlvl 63, thus preventing mld issues)
• Credendum: +50% enhanced damage (2 items) (same)
• Telling of Beads: +1 to All Skills +2 to All Skills
• Telling of Beads: Attacker Takes Damage of [24-30] Attacker Takes Damage of [10-990] (+10 per Character Level) (4 items)
• Set Bonuses:
  • +150 Defense (2 Items) –> +[5-500] Defense (+5 per Character Level) (2 Items)
  • +150% Damage to Demons (Complete Set) –> moved to 4 items set bonus
  • +150% Damage to Undead (Complete Set) –> moved to 4 items set bonus
  • 50% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items (Complete Set)

Naj’s Ancient Vestige (Uncommon)

• Naj’s Circlet: +1 to All Skills (2 Items) +2 to All Skills (2 Items)
• Naj’s Puzzler:
  • +1 to All Skills (2 Items)
  • Required level lowered to 68
• Set Bonuses:
  • 25% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items (2 items)
  • 25% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items (3 items)

This gives full set a total buff of +2 to All Skills. This would make the set more appealing.

Heaven’s Brethren (Uncommon)

• +2 to All Skills (Complete Set) +2 to All Skills (3 items)

Tal Rasha’s Guardianship

Tal Rasha is in a good spot, and with the synergy percent nerfs we’re working on, it could even be BiS for some builds. I initially thought we could have the set grant Blink, but for now this would probably be OP. The reasoning was to free some points to help hybrid sorcs, but I’m afraid Nova and Frost Nova sorcs would jump (pun intended) on this opportunity.

M’avina’s Battle Hymn

M’avina’s set was adjusted to make the 4-piece bonus more accessible, encouraging set mixing and build diversity.

M’avina’s True Sight (Diadem)

M’avina’s Tenet (Sharkskin Belt)

M’avina’s Icy Clutch (Battle Gauntlets)

M’avina’s Caster (Grand Matron Bow)

Runewords

“Imo, runewords are there for reliable, unique combinations of buffs. They should be similar to uniques in that they aren’t just rare items : they must bring something specific. The difference is that you can choose the base (which should be meaningful), but you can’t slam. It makes runewords more reliable, more personalized, but with less ‘perfect’ potential.” - Me

Voice of Reason

4-Socket Swords/Tipped Maces/Bows/Crossbows
Lem • Ko • El • Eld

This runeword needs more interesting mechanics to compete with other options. The casting / blocking part will only be useful for block casting sorcs, who don’t benefit from ar/ed, helping balancing the item. Rlvl was rised due to Frozen Orb level being rised.

Oath

4-Socket Swords/Axes/Tipped Maces
Shael • Pul • Mal • Lum
Required Level: 49

Increasing the level of Bone Spirit on this runeword makes it more relevant for late-game and provides better damage output for players who invest in it. Note that this is exploitable using Innocence, but I advocated for nerfing it so I’m not balancing around this nonsensical item.

Passion

Passion is used as a pre-Ferocity item. Having so little AR and such a low level zeal is really gamebreaking for some builds. I think we can buff it without fear of it becoming better than end-game weapons used in combination with Ferocity. This change aims at making Passion good enough until Ferocity becomes affordable (right now people level & farm with other builds).

4-Socket Weapons

Dol • Ort • Eld • Lem

Required Level: 43 –> 51

Call To Arms

CTA should not be a prebuff item. Prebuffing is against our principles (see Game Design section).

5-Socket Weapons

Amn • Ral • Mal • Ist • Ohm

Required Level: 57

NOTE: Battle Orders has been reworked and now grants a flat amount of life/mana. For example, +6 Battle Orders grants +125 Life instead of +50% Life

Battle Wrath is a new skill that grants the following effects (not staking) for 20 seconds:

• +125 life
• +20% Faster Run/Walk
• -20% to Enemy Defense

Overall, builds that were using CTA as their damage weapon will appreciate the change. And others, well, sorry but prebuff sucks :p

Innocence

We nerfed innocence hard since it is far too strong right now. We kept its defensive identity and a weaker blade shield. I do love proc-builds, but I’ll cover how to make them work without this weird item in another section.

4-Socket Chests
Gul • Lem • Zod • Hel
Required Level: 69

Blade Cloud : is a variant of Blade Shield (like Blade Dance for Wirlwind), providing 50-100 damage, 400% AR, but attacking slower (once per second).

Fortitude

Fortitude is rarely used for weapons. Let’s fix this.

4-Socket Weapons
El • Sol • Dol • Lo
Required Level: 59

Crafted items

Crafting should be as simple as possible while bringing as many options as possible.

Simplification

Let people create craft infusions from crafting packs, thus making trading currencies easier.

Consider creating a chest button or Mallah interaction for “create infusions from all my currencies automatically”.

The crafted item’s level should be simplified, as follows:

• Characters above level 80 are always considered level 94 for crafting formulas. This prevents leveling from making crafting worse, while making crafter amulets more accessible.
• Consider removing high level affixes that make crafted items (and rare items) statistically better at lower levels than at higher levels (this doesn’t really make sense).
• Help loot filters implement visual indicators for bad/decent/great crafting bases.

Other item changes

Bad affixe pools

The following items have had their affix pool improved to be more viable as magic/rare/crafted items:

• Sorceress orbs
• Arrows and quivers (see change below)

Magic items

Magic items should have a chance to be good. Since they have a small number of affixes, those should have high values, like amulets where the balance between magic and rare/craft is awesome. This means buffing some magic affixes. I’ll make a list eventually, on a rainy day.

Arrows and Quivers

Arrows and Quivers are now 10 times less likely to drop. This should fix the situation where they aren’t worth id-ing, and where they clutter the screen. Their affix pool has been slightly improved to compensate, by removing some trash affixes.

Balancing bases

Battle Cestus

By far the worst base, please buff ^^

Base damage increased by ~5

Systems Changes

Simplifying the game

Pillar #4 of Zagd3m’s patch notes is noob friendlyness. And you know what isn’t ? Things that are complex for no reason at all.

Should you slam or puzzle first ?

The answer is now always the same : slam. Indeed, you can puzzlebox or puzzlepiece an item that has been slammed with sockets. In this case, the slam will be removed and another corruption will be rolled (no risk of bricking), and then the puzzle will be applied. This solves the noob trap issue and doesn’t change anything for knowledgeable players.

Mods that don’t work

Examples :

• Skills that don’t benefit from %enhanced damage against demons
• Mods that don’t do what they say (ex : %ed/max jewels before the bugfix)
• Bonuses that look good on paper but are not useful in practice (ex: IAS on a skill that doesn’t benefit from IAS)

So let’s fix this. (section in progress, TODO).

Skill IAS

Skill IAS makes computing breakpoints very complex and tedious. Therefore, it breaks the QoL and Noob Friendliness principles / pillars. Let’s fix this.

The formula has been changed from :

AnimRate + SIAS + EIAS - WSM
where EIAS = 120 * ItemIAS / (120 + ItemIAS)

To:

AnimRate + EIAS - WSM
where EIAS = 120 * (SIAS + ItemIAS) / (120 + (SIAS + ItemIAS))

Effectively, this means that IAS from skills (BoS, Fanaticism, …) would count just like IAS from gear, instead of affecting a specific (and very effective) part of the formula. Simple. Obviously some skills and builds would need to be rebalanced, and a new (a lot simpler) calculator would need to be implemented, but that would be MUCH simpler.

Fluid breakpoints

Breakpoints are a thing that we should fix.

How it works now

For example, a player having 60% FHR when the breakpoints are 48 and 86 would have THE SAME effect of a player with 48 FHR.

Why it is the case

The game works with frames and therefore can’t have a float value, that would be between x and x-1 frames. Frames are intrinsically integers.

How to fix it

In fact, we could have float frames. All it takes is to randomise between the float rounded up and rounded down, thus having a chance to use the slower of faster breakpoint. The likelyhood of this chance would depend on how far we are from the next breakpoint.

Example :

# Compute the likelihood of using the faster breakpoint
current_fhr = 60
breakpoints = [48, 86]

range = 86 - 48
range_position = (60-48) / range = 31,57 = (rounded) 32

# Formula to use instead of rounding when the breakpoint is computed
rand = random(0, 100)
if rand < range_position:
    breakpoint = 86
else:
    breakpoint = 48

Consequences

This would not change much for most players. For example, sorcs would probably optimize for certain bps because they care about having 100% certainty of using the faster breakpoint. But for noobs, or for players who enjoy having a bit of extra leeway, this change would be welcome … and totally makes sense intuitively. Having 60 FHR would effectively be slightly better than having 48. Problem solved.

For IAS, FHR, FCR, FBR, …

Unuseful mods

Mods that’s weren’t really useful have been removed.

If you find someone telling you this would indirectly buff rares/crafts, please note that (1) they need this and (2) rares are balanced by optimal combinations of mods, not by the possibility of trash mods. This has always been the case and will always still be.

Prevent Monster Heal

This mod doesn’t work as well as poison and Open Wounds, while doing the same thing. Most of the time, an item doing a small amount of poison damage and open wounds would be better, or equivalent, to one with Prevent Monster Heal. Therefore, keeping this effect is creating clutter. Let’s remove it for the sake of simplicity.

Replenish life –> Replenish life (per second)

No build leverages this mod, so it’s either something we should remove or improve. I say improve !

Now displayed as replenished life per second (instead of 5 seconds, which made no sense at all). Yet, the healing is continuous, it doesn’t “wait” for the end of the second.

That’s it. Now, what we need is to buff the numbers until this starts being really useful.

Mana regeneration –> Replenish mana (per second)

Replaced by replenish mana, which is equivalent to replenish life. This is easier to understand, and it won’t be broken anyway.

All items that were giving mana regeneration should now be giving replenish mana.

Maps

Blue maps

Blue maps have been removed. Maps only loot in white form, or rare form (aside from unique ones of course).

Synergies

TLDR : synergy percents above 3% are almost always a bad idea. 1% is enough more often than you think. Increasing base damage instead of synergies is almost always better. Math below.

Why synergies suck … and how to fix it

Synergies are the best way to erradicate build diversity. If PD2 sincerely wants to promote build diversity, it should lower synergies % dramatically.

Let me give you an example.

• Teeth has 3 synergies with 24% damage increase.
• If you max all 3, you deal 100% of the damage you can do (obviously).
• If you max only 2 of them, you deal 68,8% of the max damage.
• If you max only 1 of them, you deal 37,6% of the max damage.
• If you max none, you deal 6,49% of the max damage !!!

This means that Teeth is only playeable with all synergies maxed. Freeing points for a secondary spell isn’t an option. Diversity is prevented.

Now what If I wanted to play a Teeth / Poison Nova nec ? Well, I can’t. There’s no way both spells can be impactful enough to justify the hybrid build. A good question though is : what would be the right damage penalty in this case ? I mean, I agree that a hybrid build should be weaker than a dedicated build, but how much weaker ? Since I can’t cast both spells at once, but the poison damage lasts for some time, I suppose somewhere 80% damage on both would make sense.

If I changed the synergies for Teeth to, say, 3%, the damage would go like this:

• 2 synergies: 78,5% damage
• 1 synergy : 57,14% damage
• 0 synergy : 35,71% damage

There is still a good reason to max synergies, but the spell is somewhat playable with 1 synergy only.

Now, with summons being great meat shields, I can see how this might be an issue on the necro. But what about a sorc ? Well, then, since she won’t cast 2 spells at once, hybrid builds should probably deal around 75% of the total damage even with only one synergy… Which is a synergy percent of 1% !!!

With that said, I suppose you have a grasp on why synergy percents of 5 or more means you are FORCED to max the synergies, thus effectively DESTROYING all hybrid builds you might think of.

What’s a good fix ?

For most spells, having 2 synergies doing 3% each would be a good start.

• With 2 maxxed you deal 100% damage
• With 1 maxxed you deal 73% damage
• With 0 maxxed you deal 45% damage

This is a much better balance, and you can still justify a hybrid build. Remember that hybrid builds need a hybrid gear too ; Rainbow facets aren’t multi-elemental ! So the penalty is already huge anyways.

Now, there are situations where this would be OP, mostly when it comes to summons. This was simply a starting point to think from.

YESBUT n°1 : With 3% synergies, we’ll do less damage than with 20% synergies

Oh really ? Then we need to increase the base damage.

By how much ?

old_damage = base * (100% + nb_synergies x 20 x synergy_percent)
new_damage = new_base * (100% + nb_synergies x 20 x new_synergy_percent)

To have old = new, you need to have :

new_base = base * (100% + nb_synergies x 20 x synergy_percent) / (100% + nb_synergies x 20 x new_synergy_percent)

Problem solved, thank you very much.

Now, the truth is, such a simple approach doesn’t take into accound lld / mld and progression in the mid game, so it might be improved. But it’s a very reasonable starting point.

YESBUT n°2 : Congratulations, proc builds are now broken

Do you know what happens when you move damage from synergies to the base damage ? Well, proc builds, at least those that leverage non-synergized spells (from other classes), just got a HUGE buff. That’s a fact. As a result, let’s acknoledge it.

First, let me make a few things clear:

• Fixing this might be as simple as lowering the proc level
• Proc builds are weak (apart from a few exceptions)
• Proc builds have been buffed by the addition of Innocence, but that’s something we already fixed (see our changed to Innocence)

Overall, I think this isn’t a fair objection to the synergy change we are doing. Yes we need to nerf synergies, and then we can balance proc levels accordingly. Simple.

Conclusion regarding synergies

This patch will suggest many drastic reductions to synergies % while adding that the base damage will be buffed. Assume the above is used.

Bosses and end-game content

Bosses (Ubers, Dclone, Lucion, Rathma, …) are great end-game content. But they come with 3 major issues:

• First, new players are scared to try them and lose the currencies involved, making end game content a thing for veterans who specialize in this.
• Second, the whole game is slowly getting balanced around those, which is detrimental for build diversity in the rest of the game, which is what most players care about.
• The skills involved in defeating the bosses are : rejuv timing, boss knowledge, and gear. The last ones are fine, but rejuv timing isn’t health as a key skill.

How to get players to try end game bosses ?

Currencies involved in looting an end game boss shouldn’t be consumed when opening its map, but when transforming its “head” (a trophy gained upon killing it/him/her) into actual items (being torches, annis, …). This change would let players try those fights as much as they want, without fearing to losing anythings (but xp and gold, at least in SC). This wouldn’t change anything for veterans who succeed 99% of the time anyways.

Note : we might consider implementing something that prevents trophies / heads from being traded.

How to balance the game without focusing on bosses ?

Take Hydras for example. They were nerfed because bossing with them was popular, but in maps they suck. At the moment, we can’t buff them without them being OP against bosses. Result : one skill is gone for most players.

The solution would be to have specific balance numbers for skills in the context of bosses, just like we do for PvP. Basically, we could say Hydras deal 50% less damage in boo maps, thus separating their effectiveness for Lod/Mapping from their ability to defeat, say, Dclone.

How to get late game fights to be more than just rejuv timing ?

• Remove total rejuvs from the game (too strong, even in maps, and detrimental to defensive gear balance).
• When a player enters a boss map, the potions that were in its inventory (not in its belt) are dropped in front of the portal (in town) before getting into it (so we have less potions, total).

This means boss fights will involve up to 4 times 4 potions, which can be 33% rajuvs or regular potions.

Obviously this means rebalancing those fights, but it will make them more interesting. We can even do only one of the bosses for season 11 (to see how people adapt), and then roll the others in s12 with the adjustments needed.

QoL

Leveling and progression

Xp penalty from levels 15-25 have been lowered, so that players and groups who manage to get to act 3-4-5 early gain more experience there.

Xp has been increased from level 73 to level 93, to help players reach the end game faster. This is to compensate the daddy problem the community seems to be facing.

Rushing

All characters (from the same mode and season) share their waypoint list, effectively making creating a second (and third, and…) character faster.

This should make leveling solo more appealing (good for people who play at the end of the season when there isn’t much help available), without breaking the ladder start experience.

Talk to cain / whoever

Removed mechanics where you have to talk to an NPC to access a specific portal or whatever. Implement an alternative technique that prevents rushing the game or skipping content, without having those outdated tricks in place.

Gambling

Increase the cost of gambled items significantly (around x10). Reduce the likelihood of getting a magic item, so that crafted items have more chances of being valuable. Overall this shouldn’t make crafting better or worse, simply faster since we’d skip the crap.

Prebuffing

Prebuffing is something we fight against, because it breaks the quality of life and power creep principles.

By prebuffing we mean:

• Snapshotting, which is summoning creatures using high +skills (or +elem) gear, and then swapping to defensive or mf gear.
• Precasting buffs at higher levels.
• Precasting buffs from items that you unequip after the prebuff (hi Demon Limb).

We suggest the following approach against prebuffing:

• All summon skills have a small chance to be cast on enemy death, causing a constant renewal of the army.
• All defensive skills (Energy shield, Enchant, …) have the same mechanic, where they are re-casted regularly.
• Items that were giving free buffs (CTA, Demon Limb, …) have (or will) be reworked.

The goal here is to remove prebuffing entirely. Gear swapping shouldn’t be an optimal strategy (or else players will do it even though it is boring). We’re saving them from this boring dilemma.

Bug Fixes

Mercenaries

Mercs in d2 were too strong, and PD2 made it worse. The amount of free power, with almost any tradeoff, coming from mercs, is huge. Specifically, mercs are aurabots and cursebots which makes the game far too easy and the itemization of our characters without tradeoff.

Note : This situation comes from the fact that many builds are crap without infinity (for ex) being involved. As a result, playing those builds alone would suck without mercs having this source of auras, and they would pretty much be limited to groups of players. I don’t want to prevent people from playing their fire build solo ; but there are other solutions. Here, I’ll focus on limiting the power coming from mercs, and we’ll cover recovery options afterwards.

Iron golems will be reworked for the same reason and won’t provide an aura.

Auras

Mercs can now only have 2 auras : one from their own inner aura (ex : defiance for a2 merc), and one from an item. If several items granting an aura are equipped, only one applies, chosen based on aura level (higher first) and (if equivalent) item slot (weapon > belt > boots > gloves > helm > chest).

Curses

Curses are unchanged, but please note that Innocence has been reworked to avoid its nonsensical power.

Tradesite

A good tradesite is key to a good economy, and a fluid experience, even for non veterans.

Pricing

Pricing is a huge issue. People keep writing “offer” because (1) they are lazy or more often because (2) they don’t know how to price stuff. The tradesite should automatically suggest a price for the items listed.

To the team : if you think this is hard to code, ask, I offered to help with this 2years ago and I’m still willing to. I appear to work in this field so I’m pretty confident this can be done without much effort.

Keyboard

Non-US persons sometimes struggle with copy-pasting stuff for keyboard reasons. Fix this please.

Timezones

Timezones aren’t easy to deal with. Being able to enter a basic “time where I can be there” thing and filter sellers based on potential availability would be helpful. Thos who don’t want to use that can very well not use the filter.