Short Review and Suggestions.

[Thorgaaz]

First of all great mod. It really brought me and my Brothers to play Diablo again. Way better balanced than the Hell mod interesting new bosses and in the end the new Graphics and Character design. In short I´m very happy.

But I want to make some suggestions for even further Improvement too. Going an little more to detail.

First: Gear
it is an little strange that you guys try to balance Weapons while Armors still work with the rule More AC = Better. There is no penalty to wear heavy stuff which would make the first Nightmare Items even more Interesting. (well besides strengh)

My Suggestion for example -10% Hit with Scale 20% with Platearmor
On the other side Hit recovery Increase by the same amount.

To weapons. Is Epic Tier Hunter Bow simply the Best on High-Lvl?



Second: Encounters
Firewall-Trap in chest. Could you make it Meteor or something? Many characters like Assassin yust die and cant do anything against it.

Same for some Bosses: Bone Deamon Boss, who yust reduce your hp by 99% with one Bonespirit. (Not always but often) Very hard for Melees to solve. Or The one who spit in you face after eavry hit.

Bosses all in all are very great designed, but seem an little too hard compared to the normal enemys. With that the Game itself doesnt get way harder, but you loose any respect from the normal enemys.
For example originally I went to Catacombs with lvl8 normal Claymore, Leater Armor Skullcap and Ac5+ Shield. Now I do that with Lvl12 two hitting normal monsters (no respect for them) but get killed by bosses. (sometimes) In fact some Minions are comparible to former Bosses.

Anoter Example I once encountered an Knight Boss. I kill an Knight with 3 hits, but I had do Fire at him with my Huntersbow unique for good 3 min. (Really I startet to expected running out of Dur. here) In most cases simply reducing the Lifepoints of Bosses and their Minions would solve a lot.

By the Way possessed Creatures are way harder than Fanatic and Berserkers. Is that on purpose?




Third: Skills/Classes
the Skills are amazing, but some of them (mostly combatskills) yust replace the normal attack. so they don´t really feel like Skills. Making them an little stronger but let them cost something would solve the Problem. (For example Multishot no 50% penalty, but cost 2 or 3 Mana per use)

Assassin by the way is an great Idea, but striking from behind sounds like an Multiplayer only feature. Maybe changing to that short-Time Bonus like after turning visible for my opinion would be better, so you can use it better on Singleplayer. I know, turn Invisible and than struck from behind is possible. But one improved Blow is simply not enough for the problematic kind of enemy.

Necromancer sounds cool and boring in the same way, simply raising minions and vitality standing in the back.. But thats yust an first Impression, I need to play him further to make an point here.

And last but not least, Miss Monk.

(Multiplayerquests available is already in work i hered. Thats great)

[DacianDraco]

First off i feel you will change your opinion as you advance in higher difficulties, but i'll comment now anyway with my thoughts.

1. STR is enough, melee characters struggle the most, they need good gear to survive and don't need any more handicap.

And some 30%+ Speed War/Rune bow is better than Hunter/Razor bow.

2. Traps should deal 1/4 of the current damage, right now they area cheap deaths that break gameplay. I'm not found of hiding behind a wall and using Telekinesis on every chest. If possible i'd like a specific sound and a short delay, so you could get alerted and run/teleport away.

As for BoneSpirit it is blockable, so AC and/or Magic Resist can counter it, the quest reward is one of the best, so i'm ok with it being hard, thou i hate all Skullwing monster type's double melee hit, it's too fast, especially if they freeze you with their Ice Blast first.

And there should be a better balance on uinq monster affixes (Haste, Vampiric, Enchanted, etc) for ex being set into groups and only 1 from a group can spawn, so we won't have 3 (Element) Enchanted uniq with which a caster struggles, or a Hasted/Behemoth/Mastery uniq that melee struggles. No need to reduce uniq life, they should pose a threat, and regular mobs are just fodder early game, but later on they get better with defense/life/speed/damage so it's ok.

I don't know exactly which is which (Fanatic/Berserker/Possessed) but the ones that have life leach are the most annoying for me, one is faster and the other is more physical resistant, so yeah, they are different and of course out of them you will find one type "harder" so to say.

3. One of the bast changes was no more cost for fighter character skills, they are WDM (weapon damage modifier) skills and melee characters don't have a significant mana pool to use them efficiently. And MultipleShot is fine as is, having several full damage arrows with the possibility of Critical Damage will make Rogue more OP then she already is.

As for Assassin the hitting from behind is crucial, if the hit does high damage target gets into hit recovery, and you can keep using Fanaticism/Maleficent Strike until they fall, you won't survive in a straight fight, you have to pick your targets and apply hit and run tactics. On higher difficulty levels against some uniqs i've used Dragon Flight exclusive, running and casting again after cooldown. Otherwise i'm dead in 2-3 hits.

And Necro turns caster once you get Blood Ritual skill, so i don't see how he's boring, you get the most eyecandy with spells. It's a safe Sorcerer basically, not as powerful but still very efficient paired with his minions.