PTR hit, the javazon T-Hawk played is dead as Charged Strike lost it's synergy bonus from Lightning Fury, Hydra is like the traps on assassin, and Leap has edge-of-screen range and both Leap and Leap attack have pretty decent speed.
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Diablo II: Resurrected | 12.2 - PC Patch Notes - 2.3 / Build 67314
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January 26th, 2022, 13:31
(This post was last modified: January 26th, 2022, 13:39 by KingOfPain.)
About time they un-nerf Hydra!
Drasca would have love the L/A buff. He made a L/A Barb which is mostly useless - but we are variant scums! The speed and knock-back range (more so than the leap range) buff might make this viable as main or secondary skill. War Cry is great but the stun radius is small, while Knock-back range looks like it can disable the entire screen. There's enough points left over from a Singer to pump a high lvl LA... HotBowBabe is sooooo looking forward to using a enchanted piercing freezing exploding rogue merc. Let see how she survives. Then again, it's time for HotBowBabe to gather up her melee gear and tank for Kyoto 
KoP
Shame, I really liked that javazon build. It always felt like my most natural "home" build out of all the classes. Maybe now the way to do it is Charged Strike and Lightning Strike synergizing each other, without Lightning Fury entirely.
Removing LF's synergies towards the other skills leaves LF as kind of an orphan, works against crowds but doesn't have any way to leverage that into working on single targets. Not sure they thought that through. (January 26th, 2022, 14:41)T-hawk Wrote: Shame, I really liked that javazon build. It always felt like my most natural "home" build out of all the classes. Maybe now the way to do it is Charged Strike and Lightning Strike synergizing each other, without Lightning Fury entirely. I recommended them to bring Lightning Bolt up from the dead as the designated singletarget lightning javelin skill. If you think of it, Lightning Bolt is a natural pairing from a thematic perspective. It's a ranged javelin skill, it doesn't need AR like the rest, (poison/plague can spawn clouds anyways, LF autohits but can be blocked) and does lightning damage (100% conversion). The two would effectively turn the javazon into a lightning / poison "mage". 
New changes, new PTR tomorrow
https://news.blizzard.com/en-us/diablo2/...eview-blog Meiz, it doesn't break it if you put another 14 or so points into lightning skills. (so the lightning/poison on the javazon is 54/40 skill points respectively.) Those skill points could otherwise be in pierce, penetrate, decoy, valk, etc. Some interesting parts: * Leap Attack: The Barbarian now deals extra physical damage to surrounding enemies within a range of 4.6 yards when landing from a Leap Attack. Damage scales per level. New build and variant potential here. * Sword Mastery: Renamed to blade mastery, affects daggers. * All masteries have their attack rating bonus increased. * Additionally, Throwing Mastery: Added chance to not consume quantity per level (Up to 50%), critical strikes with throwing weapons now replenish quantity. Thats a giga buff to throwers. This is on top of chance to pass through enemies. The daggerbarb is now an option. * Armageddon: Removed the Hurricane skill requirement for Armageddon. Increased the missile damage radius of Armageddon by 33% (from 3 to 4). Increased the missile drop rate of Armageddon by about 30% (from ~3 per second to ~4) * Druids can now have spirit wolves, dire wolves, and bears all summoned at the same time Bears (as in, plural) is probably a typo, because this is a huge buff to summon druid already. Remember that in the previous PTR the druid already had it's spirit wolves changed to deal cold damage. Get an amp-applicator weapon and a fire rogue/ironwolf, and your summon druid can become a bona-fide necromancer. * Holy Bolt (From the skill and from Fist of the Heavens) now damages demons in addition to undead. Only beasts are immune, and Fist of the Heavens has a lightning damage component. Holy bolt also pierces enemies since the last PTR, and had it's synergy from Blessed Hammer removed.
March 1st, 2022, 11:20
(This post was last modified: March 1st, 2022, 13:06 by KingOfPain.)
Actually, Leap/Attack with War Cry combo is nothing new in these parts. I think we all used the combo when we built Cry Barbs, right from the get go, because War Cry alone sucked. Thumbs up to added dmg and fx
I have always played a Frenzy dagger/spear/axe barb in every build - as a side effect from playing a Double Thrower. Frenzy to build up speed and to conserve quantity. About time they include the forgotten/overlooked daggers in Sword Mastery. I consider that as a bug fix. I have not been wanting to play a Druid in D2R. I have one and lvl'd enuf to wear some gear to fulfill his duties as a mule. Melee Druids seem so slow. Elemental Druids seem so boring, cast duration AoE spell, walk up to enemies and spam secondary skill. I used the word "seem" because it may not be actual facts - for example. Fury Druid might kill a mob as fast as a Zealer but the Zeal play/animation feels much faster and satisfying. So finally I am going to build a Druid, a summoning Druid.  Other interesting stuff: Iron Wolf swapping Frozen Armor to Chilling Armor. A curse or blessing in disguise? We will see. Yay to new ferocious Barbarian - Dual Wielding, Frenzy, Taunt, and Iron Skin. Taunt is cute, just hope he doesn't spend too much time on that instead of killing, or not enuf Taunting to be effectual. Need some good AI for balancing. Yay to +Class Skills to Zons and Barbs Yay to Rogues get use of Amazon Bows. So now Blood Raven Charge might be an alternative to the Kuko. Notable differences: Kuko Fires Explosive Arrows [Level 7] 32-38 dmg plus 74% AR Piercing Attack (50) Adds 40-180 Fire Damage Blood Raven Charge Fires Explosive Arrows Or Bolts [Level 13] (93.5-110.5 Avg) Twice the Phy Dmg of Kuko, but Kuko gets add Fire Damage to even the score. Still, Blood Raven would win by Enhanced Damage effects. Lacking Pierce - Huge disadvantage. Some equipment juggling to get that in - would still be 50 below Kuko Base Weapon Speed: [-10] 200-300% Bonus To Attack Rating (varies) Hardly matters with Exploding Arrows and Enchant, but helps with other skills. Why not Xbow too? KoP
Patch changes look mostly good and interesting, but I fear power creep in a game that isn't very difficult to begin with. Skills get buffed and runewords added or expanded to new base items which simply makes builds already good even better, and bugs get fixed so some monsters are easier than before. Though I wonder if the fix for whiffing when the target is moving away in melee also applies to monsters when the player is retreating while they swing?
Anyway, still looking forward to playing again, although it seems like I'll have to wait a bit longer than expected until I can start my async team.
There are two kinds of fools. One says, "This is old, and therefore good." And one says, "This is new, and therefore better." - John Brunner, The Shockwave Rider
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