Balance thread

[midoru]

Hello!

Maybe I am better known as kaltkraehe on the channel

Overall I like the mod. Afgter playing a Sorc through normal i have to say there are some balance issues. Still the cookie skills rule the field. Especially Meteor and Hydra. I didnt play any nightmare or hell because some RL issues are holding me back right now.

Frost Nova is actually useful. I used it as a main kill spell the first 4 acts.
But the damage potential of Meteor and Hydra simply outclasses any other skill.

[Char]

Nice to hear . How long did it take you? My Multiple Shot / GA amazon has just reached act 4, and it took me quite a while...

As I myself never played as a Hydra / Meteor sorc, I had a quick look at them and thought they were okay. Did you try this on low levels or on high ones? Before changing anything to those skills (which might be needed) I need to know some more about it to know HOW to balance them .

[Brother Laz]

Still the cookie skills rule the field. Especially Meteor and Hydra.

Hydra has never been powerful in unmodded. Prior to LoD, it was a lot of fun to use but wasn't affected by fire mastery and didn't exactly kill very quickly. See Sirian's report on the feebleness of a build with maxed hydra against the Hell council.

In LoD, it was made to do huge damage but they also added the timer and it became a ridiculously boring skill to use, as well as losing all sense of area effect.

If hydra is now useful, that's an achievement and not a problem.

[midoru]

Ok I exxagerated a bit on this

Hydra is kinda powerful now because the duration increases with slvl.
Also it seems that the Iron Maiden curse of the Ob knights is rather weak at normal. My merc took almost no damage of it.

Meteor is strong for the obvious reasons. Impact damage is nice but the afterburn is the real killer at high lvls (>10).
Fireball is rather weak... I never put any points in it except prereq.

Going through normal took me about ... 6-7 hours?

[Char]

wow... 6-7 hours is quite quick i think . however, maybe my build is just kinda weak / i got really bad spawns at some places / i play poorly . i will definitely have a look at the skills and their damage again, though.

iron maiden seems weak because the damage your characters and hirelings do is much lower than it is in unmodded LOD. furthermore, i think that the monsters use the same skills as the characters, which is kindof changed (i guess the damage return is a bit lower than in unmodded...)