Quote:
Originally Posted by mashxx
Did you miss the recent announcements? There are a lot of changes (balance!) planned when ladder starts. A lot of buffs for niche skills and much more.
I saw this... but I don't really know what difference it makes. I'm a big time old schooler with Diablo and a fan of the former harder game mechanics. I was quite d2 wealthy with d2jsp back in the day, but inflation deteriorated that wealth by 10-20x it seems, granted I did win a ton back on my last grind. Regardless, since I haven't played d2 in so long, I had no idea about the "respecs" or other many boss / monster nerfs making the game so easy for the plebs. Even the new stash stuff has made an element of the game / hardcore so much easier / nerfed.
Point is, I have a "plan" to get through the game on the off chance I make a run at the ladder. But if there is a balance change that changes things dramatically, I can just respec into whatever when the time comes if necessary. There are certain conditions that will always be true though. Tankiness in hardcore is good to prevent death. Conservative is generally better than too aggro.
For those reasons, for example, a new Martial Arts Assassin or a Spearazon(?) both sound quite viable on the softcore scene but seem difficult to deploy on the hardcore scene unless something dramatically overpowered happens... because they are flimsy characters that would have to get in the thick of it all. Who knows, wait and see.