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Diablo II: Resurrected Patch 2.4 Highlights - Ladders return, class balance changes, and more!

Kacho

Gold Member

LADDER RANK PLAY​

Like Diablo II Classic, Diablo II: Resurrected will feature four different Ladder modes, including:

VersionDescription
Standard LadderThe casual version of Ladder play that encompasses playing with four acts.
Hardcore LadderThe hardcore (only 1 life) version of Ladder play that encompasses playing with four acts.
Standard Expansion LadderThe casual version of Ladder play that encompasses playing five acts, as it includes the “Lord of Destruction” expansion content.
Hardcore Expansion LadderThe hardcore (only 1 life) version of Ladder play that encompasses playing five acts, as it includes the “Lord of Destruction” expansion content.

For the first time, players will have the chance to unlock a host of new Rune Words in the Ladder system! To be clear, these Rune Words have never existed in the game before, and they will not be accessible in non-Ladder play like the previous set of Ladder-only Rune Words in the original Diablo II experience. At the end of a Ladder season, players who successfully made these Rune Words will have their Ladder characters be moved into a “non-Ladder” version of the game. Then at the beginning of the next Ladder season, players will make a new Ladder character and start all over again to earn new rewards. Currently, we don’t have specific new Rune Words to showcase, but if you tune-in to our Developer Update Stream (more details below) hosted by content creator MrLlamaSC, you’ll be able to receive a glimpse!



Lastly, we’ve been monitoring discussions around Ladder Rank play in the community. The duration of Ladder is an element our team is still trying to gauge as we progress forward, but we’re looking to create the “rush” of a new ladder and find the best timeframe for Ladder rotation that meets your expectations. Presently, we’re considering four months for Ladder Seasons. We’ll continue monitoring the community’s opinion and preference on this front as we approach PTR for Patch 2.4 early next year.



CLASS BALANCE CHANGES​

After so many requests from the community, we’re thrilled to share new balance changes are coming to your favorite heroes in Diablo II: Resurrected! As fans ourselves, we’re just as eager as you to find new ways to play. This is incredibly special, as the last patch to make balance changes to classes in Diablo II was Patch 1.13c, which was released back on March 23, 2010! Now, eleven years later, we’re making new changes to expand character build diversity, and retain class fantasy and specialty! These goals are crucial. We’re reviewing underused skills, assessing casting delays, making tooltip quality-of-life changes, and more to fulfill these goals.

We want to empower you to be creative with the builds you want to play, but we don’t want to “reinvent the wheel” and steer classes from their core purposes. Without diving into the specifics, let’s take a peek at the philosophies behind various Class changes.

AMAZON​



The Amazon's agility and versatility are profound. Generally, we like the current state of the Amazon class and believe her to be quite balanced. Nonetheless, we see an opportunity to improve the Amazon's melee skills. We want to buff the strengths of certain underused melee skills such as Impale and Fend to give more reasons to use them. We are also looking into freeing up synergy requirements for melee skills to give more skill point freedom for other possibilities.

Additionally, we are also considering buffing certain skills in the Bow and Crossbow tree to help improve bow gameplay in higher difficulties.

ASSASSIN​



The Assassin vanquishes evil from the darkness with great ease. However, for this class, we see an opportunity for the Martial Arts builds to shine brighter. Martial Arts skills can become increasingly challenging to perform in higher difficulties, so we are re-evaluating how to improve generating and spending Combo Points.

Furthermore, various Trap skills are not often used. So, we’re re-evaluating synergy requirements to promote more trap builds and damage scaling buffs.

BARBARIAN​



The brawn of the Barbarian is unmatched. Nonetheless, we see opportunities to add more diversity to Combat skills. We're looking into adding more possibilities with Combat Skills such as Leap Attack and Grim Ward, while also re-evaluating skill synergy requirements to promote more reasons to spend points on certain Combat Skills.
Additionally, we think Throwing Barbarians can be more viable, so we are looking into enhancing the Double Throw and Throwing Mastery skills.

DRUID​



The bestial ferocity of the Druid makes all tremble. With that said, we see exciting opportunities to level up certain aspects of this class. From our perspective, Druid Fire skills are underperforming. We're re-evaluating Casting Delays for Fire skills, exploring improvements to some of their Physical Damage components, and improving synergies. We’re also looking at potential tweaks affecting other Elemental skills that are underused. We want to improve the controls for Arctic Blast too, such as allowing more free form while channeling and no longer locking your targeting onto one enemy at a time.

Regarding Summon skills, we believe Summons are weak in high difficulty. On this front, we’re evaluating health gains per level, quality-of-life improvements, damage output, and new synergies for Ravens, Wolves, and Vines.

Lastly, we're evaluating improvements to the Werebear skills, primarily focused on synergy improvements.

NECROMANCER​



The commander of death sends his foes to an early grave. Like the Amazon, we like the current state of the Necromancer class. Nonetheless, we see an opportunity to improve specific Summons we believe are underused. We're balancing elemental damages of Skeletal Mages and making lesser used Golems more effective.
Additionally, we see opportunities for Bone skill improvements in high difficulty. We’re tweaking synergies on this front.

PALADIN​



The wrath of the holy zealot is glorious. Despite this, we believe certain Combat skills are underused. We’re exploring ways to make lesser-used skills (I.e., Fist of the Heavens) more utilized, so players have more reasons to spend skill points to unlock these skills.

We also see an opportunity to scale Offensive Aura skills as well. This includes making improvements to AoE Damage auras to make them more effective at closer range. We also want to improve Thorns so that it can scale better and deal more reliable damage at higher levels.

SORCERESS​



There is no greater master of elemental magic than these mages. We're very satisfied with the Sorceress’s current state, but we see a few of opportunities for improvements.

Regarding Cold Skills, we believe there can be more diversity with the armor skills (I.e., Frozen Armor, Shiver Armor, and Chilling Armor) for distinctive advantages.

We are also looking into adding more build possibilities around lesser used Lightning skills by exploring more skill synergies.
Lastly, we’re also revisiting Fire skills, to improve underused ones, like Hydra. Similar to Arctic Blast, we're exploring making player control improvements to the Inferno skill so that it is less clunky to use.



MERCENARY CHANGES & NEW RUNE WORDS​

And we’re not done. Class Balance changes aren’t the only updates players want to see. We’ve seen a lot of feedback from the community around the subject of Mercenaries, and we are making improvements to Mercenaries in a variety of ways. Many players enjoy using the Desert Mercenary, and we want to give more reasons to use the other three mercenaries, so we are looking into improving their skills and stats to enhance their identity and fantasy.

New Horadric Cube Recipes, Set Item changes, and new Rune Words are on the horizon! New Horadric Cube Recipes being implemented will allow for upgrading the item quality of Set Items to give more item build possibilities. Set Item changes will update underperforming Set Items, to have more bonuses, giving players more incentive to pursue Partial and Full set items that can complement the skill changes alluded above. Lastly, new Rune Words will be added to complement the Skill and Mercenary changes coming in the update.



DEVELOPER UPDATE STREAM​



This blog is just scratching the surface about upcoming changes and features coming in Patch 2.4 PTR (coming early next year)! To learn more, we invite you to join community content creator, MrLlamaSC, Diablo II: Resurrected Design Lead, Robert Gallerani, and Senior Game Producer, Matthew Cederquist, in their upcoming livestream. This broadcast will be both a presentation and an opportunity for members of the community to ask questions. We can’t wait to share more with you then!

WHEN:December 16 | 11:00 AM (PST)
WHERE:




Source: https://news.blizzard.com/en-us/dia...-resurrected-patch-2-4-highlights-coming-soon


That's one juicy update. The class balance changes will totally transform the game. I seriously cannot wait.

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Con-Z-epT

Live from NeoGAF, it's Friday Night!
That's quite a lot of changes and additions. I like it. Especially the possibility to upgrade set items. And it seems they will even further support it after that.
 
This is amazing and totally unexpected, for me at least. I was highly skeptical but they’d actually bring such substantial changes to the game.
 
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Xyphie

Member
If they are going to chance the gameplay please get rid of immunities, adding them into the game was one of the worst game decisions they made back in LoD.
 

Tg89

Member
Have they changed the trophy requirements for getting to lvl99 with a hardcore character? If not, they can fuck off.
What's even wrong with this being a trophy? It's one of the hardest things you can do in the game, no? Shouldn't there be a reward associated?
 

Con-Z-epT

Live from NeoGAF, it's Friday Night!
Out of curiousity what do you like about this mechanic game design-wise? What's good about literally being unable to kill certain mobs with a spec?
It is mostly designed around the multiplayer aspect of the game giving each member a more viable role in the party for the endgame. When you encounter these kind of immunities you've beaten the game twice and it makes sense to introduce new difficulty hurdles. And you can still beat it with the support of a good merc.

The difficulty setting is called hell and actually should feel like going through hell. The gratification you'll gain is incredible!
 

Braag

Member
It is mostly designed around the multiplayer aspect of the game giving each member a more viable role in the party for the endgame. When you encounter these kind of immunities you've beaten the game twice and it makes sense to introduce new difficulty hurdles. And you can still beat it with the support of a good merc.

The difficulty setting is called hell and actually should feel like going through hell. The gratification you'll gain is incredible!
I just recently went through Hell solo with my Sorc and I wouldn't call what I felt gratification. Half the mobs were immune to cold and my fire spells barely did anything to them so I just stood back and watched my merc solo everything while I healed him with potions. I was mainly on my phone watching other stuff to not feel too bored.
Yeah it makes the game "harder" but not really. I don't care either way if they keep it but I just find the immunity mechanic kinda clunky when alone.
 

Xyphie

Member
Immunities makes the game "hard" in the same way the original D3 Inferno Mode made the game "hard", but putting up a binary wall that tells you no. It's just obtuse bad game design. If they weren't in the game no one would suggest: "Hey, you guys know what would make the game better? If we randomly made mobs unkillable unless you either play with others, play very specific character builds or get a very specific item for your merc".
 

Tg89

Member
Out of curiousity what do you like about this mechanic game design-wise? What's good about literally being unable to kill certain mobs with a spec?
When they introduced it it made a bunch more builds viable/have a niche. Especially at end game and especially for multiplayer. It makes physical builds a lot more appealing and useful. Promotes having additional characters depending on what you're trying to accomplish (maybe you have a Blizz sorc main for your primary magic find character but want to make a trapsin for farming certain cold immune areas).

There's a lot of mechanics in the game that allow you to circumvent immunities as is and there's also very few classes/builds that don't have a secondary damage type to begin with. They've also added respecs into the game so if you really build yourself into a corner you can get around it. You get 3 just from going through the game normally and then can basically farm unlimited thereafter so it's pretty common to split your skills up a bit more as you're progressing through the game and then switch over to your "end game" build.

On top of that a lot of the areas with heavy immunities aren't even required areas. Even if you have one of those builds that don't really have secondary damage (Blizz sorc, for example) it's not as if you're gated off from completing the game.
 

Tg89

Member
So ladder just means start again and try reach max rank yeah?
For the most part yeah. There will be some ladder specific rune words as well. But for the most part it's just starting over and racing to 99 (bit more incentive to get there in a ladder environment). The biggest incentive for most will be the reset economy/initial rush to get gear built up.
 

cormack12

Gold Member
For the most part yeah. There will be some ladder specific rune words as well. But for the most part it's just starting over and racing to 99 (bit more incentive to get there in a ladder environment). The biggest incentive for most will be the reset economy/initial rush to get gear built up.

Yeah I love using the Xbox LFG feature for that!
 

HF2014

Member
Great. Boost the summons Necromancer damage for D2 and kill it in D3 by only tying damage to one skill. Bravo Blizzard, you can go fuck yourself.
 
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Con-Z-epT

Live from NeoGAF, it's Friday Night!
I just recently went through Hell solo with my Sorc and I wouldn't call what I felt gratification. Half the mobs were immune to cold and my fire spells barely did anything to them so I just stood back and watched my merc solo everything while I healed him with potions. I was mainly on my phone watching other stuff to not feel too bored.
Yeah it makes the game "harder" but not really. I don't care either way if they keep it but I just find the immunity mechanic kinda clunky when alone.
I meant gratification through items and gear earned and not through the sole act of playing alone.

The engagement through the core gameplay is highly dependant of the class and build you are playing. To shrug it of with a sorc build seems superficial to me.
 

Braag

Member
I meant gratification through items and gear earned and not through the sole act of playing alone.

The engagement through the core gameplay is highly dependant of the class and build you are playing. To shrug it of with a sorc build seems superficial to me.
I definitely had more fun with my Pally on Hell as monster immunity was less of an issue there, but overall I hope they keep the immunities and other mechanics like that in the game. I don't want the hardcore D2 fans who want the game to stay as vanilla as possible to feel like the game was changed too much in favor of newer audience.
We have Diablo 4 for that where people can wish for more modern systems.
 
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Con-Z-epT

Live from NeoGAF, it's Friday Night!
I definitely had more fun with my Pally on Hell as monster immunity was less of an issue there, but overall I hope they keep the immunities and other mechanics like that in the game. I don't want the hardcore D2 fans who want the game to stay as vanilla as possible to feel like the game was changed too much in favor of newer audience.
We have Diablo 4 for that where people can wish for more modern systems.
I'm fine if they build apon it without changing the core to much. Humans are quite slow in adapting to changes so this will be no easy task.

They wrote about the rebalancing of each class which could mean so much but nobody knows what we will end up with.
 
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DapperSloth

Member
What's even wrong with this being a trophy? It's one of the hardest things you can do in the game, no? Shouldn't there be a reward associated?

If the reward is me spending 5000 hours/208 straight days (which is how long it takes to get it) that is not a reward, that is just seeing your life flashing by. 100-150 hours of your life, fine, that is doable, atleast you can still have some hobbies/life with that. Hey, I am no stranger to hard trophies, but come on man...
 
If the reward is me spending 5000 hours/208 straight days (which is how long it takes to get it) that is not a reward, that is just seeing your life flashing by. 100-150 hours of your life, fine, that is doable, atleast you can still have some hobbies/life with that. Hey, I am no stranger to hard trophies, but come on man...
That sounds even worse than High Warlord in WOW Classic.
 

NT80

Member
I wasn't expecting balance changes anytime soon if at all but am really glad there on the way. There's a lot of stuff that could be made more viable in the higher difficulties and it'll freshen up the experience and make it more worthwhile over the original.
 

Tg89

Member
If the reward is me spending 5000 hours/208 straight days (which is how long it takes to get it) that is not a reward, that is just seeing your life flashing by. 100-150 hours of your life, fine, that is doable, atleast you can still have some hobbies/life with that. Hey, I am no stranger to hard trophies, but come on man...
Just don’t get it then though? Wouldn’t it be equally stupid if there wasn’t a trophy for that?
 

Tg89

Member
I'm fine if they build apon it without changing the core to much. Humans are quite slow in adapting to changes so this will be no easy task.

They wrote about the rebalancing of each class which could mean so much but nobody knows what we will end up with.
They did a pretty in depth interview on Llamas channel today. Basically they aren’t making any sweeping changes. Some minor tweaks to hope to bring viability to some underused specs and some new rune words that couldn’t hopefully play a part in making those viable. But yeah, keeping it close to the core experience seems something they’re dedicated to doing.
 

DapperSloth

Member
Just don’t get it then though?

You seriously OK with there being a trophy attached to playing 5000 hours with just one character? Come on man... I love Diablo II, played it to death in 2002. I want to play the remastered game but I am also a completionist, so I gather all trophies in the games I like to play. Now I can't play this game which sucks.
 

Tg89

Member
You seriously OK with there being a trophy attached to playing 5000 hours with just one character? Come on man... I love Diablo II, played it to death in 2002. I want to play the remastered game but I am also a completionist, so I gather all trophies in the games I like to play. Now I can't play this game which sucks.

You literally can't play a game because one trophy is a bit too time consuming to get?

I unno, seems like you're the one who isn't OK.

Also, your math is way off. It doesn't take 208 straight days to do, that's absurd. People were routinely 99 within a couple weeks of ladder resets back in the day.
 

DapperSloth

Member
Not playing a game you'd like to play because of a trophy?

Now I've heard it all. 🤡

iu

You literally can't play a game because one trophy is a bit too time consuming to get?

I unno, seems like you're the one who isn't OK.

Also, your math is way off. It doesn't take 208 straight days to do, that's absurd. People were routinely 99 within a couple weeks of ladder resets back in the day.

These trophy/cheesement kids got a disease I tell ya.

Yeah so? That's what a completionist is. When I play a game I like, I love to complete it fully. Why does this bother you two so much lol? You really getting into insults over how I play a game? I am perfectly OK thank you.

And yeah the trophy hunters say around 4000 up to 5000 hours, depending on your runs in the Remastered version.
 

Ulysses 31

Member
Yeah so? That's what a completionist is. When I play a game I like, I love to complete it fully. Why does this bother you two so much lol? You really getting into insults over how I play a game? I am perfectly OK thank you.

And yeah the trophy hunters say around 4000 up to 5000 hours, depending on your runs in the Remastered version.
Doesn't bother me in the slightest, just your reasoning made me laugh, that's all.
 
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