1.0.4 Preview
August 10, 2012 in News! by Motorskull
Patch 1.0.4 is still “a few weeks away”, but a preview of the changes coming down the pipe has been posted at the official blog.
Topics addressed in the post include:
- Multiplayer. MF and GF will no longer be averaged across the party. Monster health modifiers flattened to 75% rather than scaling.
- Monster Health Levels. The gap in health between normal monsters and champs will be narrowed. A fourfold increase in the magic/rare item drop chance for normal monsters.
- Weapons. Changes to damage ranges of item level 61 and 62 to make them more competitive with item level 63 weapons. Specific buffs to two handed weapons (yay).
- Efficiency vs Challenge. Enrage timer and heal-to-full mechanics taken away from champs and rares. High end repair costs reduced by 25%.
- Legendary Items. These changes will get their own specific blog post.
- Class Changes. A “metric ton” coming… these changes will also get their own blog post.
No. More Invulnerable. Minions.
Hooray! I know that in my builds it’s always in my head to take (at least) a skill that can deal with good ole invulnerable minions… and now I don’t have to. Hooray again!
I’m not hopeful, but I sincerely wish the buffs to 2H weapons are retrospective. I love my barbarian’s sword and I’d hate for it to be instantly obsolete.
Still, I found myself nodding at a lot of these changes (even though I don’t mind how the game plays now). The sky is not falling, but I’m reserving judgement on the legendary item buffs.
I have high hopes for the 2H weapon buff. I really hope there is a *choice* between 1H+offhand, dual wield 1H, and 2H styles, rather than being all but forced to go with a superior option.
They were talking about balancing them like that since way before release, so maybe it has just taken this long to iron out the details.
I am a little curious about their plans to change up firechains and shielding. As is, I think shielding needs some sort of adjustment so that the entire pack cannot be invulnerable at the same time, but what needs to be changed about firechains? Granted, firechains sure could melt my Wizard something fierce, but it did (as intended) force some interesting repositioning during fights.
This patch makes me very excited! I cant wait for all the changes. My faverate part is that they are not nerfing to balance, but buffing!
most classes I play arn’t affected by “*P.S. We’re getting rid of the Invulnerable Minions monster affix.”
I think it would be cool to either make it so there is always 1 un-shielded or put a hit point count on it to like 500k or something.
I am a bit concerned that they might nerf the game to hard by reducing all multi player games to only 75% health buff. I guess it is nice that the enrage timers on the bosses, wont be to hard that way. I know I could really feel additional plays hurting the team if they were under geared.
So hopefully it is only 11? days away!?
Yeah, enrage timers on terrible random generated champions really could get crazy. For instance, shielding+extrahealth+fast+mortar champions that innately have an AI to retreat from melee (e.g. spear throwers) was a recipe for disaster.
The DPS check that enraging is supposed to serve as really is better suited for bosses.
The first developer blog is up, all about Legendary item changes
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/blog/6923457/
Looks like they took a lot of feedback onboard and made legendary items actually legendary.
I really like some of the plans, such as the fire-chains item.
I am a little concerned the niche-legendaries (e.g. the weapon throw / ancient spear spear for Barbarians) will be way too must-have for my taste, which is disappointing.
Also, does anyone else want to put the Buriza on Lyndon and let him go to town?
100%… though one thing I did note about those niche-legendaires were that they all seemed to have ‘low’ item levels. So maybe they’ll be good for one specific build, but hopefully rubbish for everything else.
Front page post for further discussion: http://www.theworldstonekeep.com/2012/08/15/1-0-4-legendaries/
Hrm. That spear is level 59, which is probably not long-term Inferno viable, so I guess any serious ranged Barbarian will still be looking for upgrades.
But holy crap, my Wizard would use that spear over his level 60+ herp-a-derp item that I cannot find a replacement for.