I’ve been reading the patch notes posted to determine what I want to play for next season. I have a few ideas based on skill modifications, nerfs, buffs, new items and aspects. Also, I’ve seen the new season theme and wanted to post my thoughts on that as well.
I think the biggest thing to note is the various bugs relating to Spiritborn builds that cause ridiculous amounts of damage that will be fixed. Things such as the Rod of Kepeleke and Viscous Shield were known issues in the current season but remained unchanged for the time being. So in all likelihood, the big meta build of Quill Volley most likely will be down a notch or two. However, there are still enough buffs that allow for Spiritborn to remain a top tier class. With that in mind, I’m probably going to give Crushing Hand a try as many have stated that it’s a fairly strong speed farming build. I don’t know if it’ll serve as a good leveling build though so I can’t say if this will be my starter.
The other two builds I’m eyeing are Hammer of the Ancients with Earthquake Barbarian and Companion Druid. With the Hammer of the Ancients build, they’re combining it with Earthquake to make it into a kind of Seismic Slam from Diablo 3 playstyle. Normally, Hammer of the Ancients lacks range and good AoE radius and mostly works well with single target. Here, you’ll get a fissure type of scenario that should increase the overall area for Hammer of the Ancients. There are going to add a unique or update one for this type of build along with a few Aspects. So this is going to be pretty high on my list to try out.
Then with Companion Druid, the biggest change is a new Aspect that causes mini hurricane to spawn on your wolves. Now, this could be cool because it potentially may solve Companion Druid’s #1 issue which is a lack of AoE. However, the sacrifice here is that with this Aspect, you will be forced to dedicate Hurricane on your action bar. At the same time, you might end up becoming a bizarre hybrid build in combining Companions with something like Cataclysm. Or perhaps, one might want to use Petrify both as a Rune and for the Ultimate to constantly keep activating wolves and Hurricanes (especially with the 20 second cooldown). Here, Airidah’s Inexorable Will might become a very good item for pulling enemies and having your wolves decimate them either with Hurricanes or their active ability.
As far as Necromancers, Rogues and Sorcerers go, I’m a little on the fence currently with them. Sorcerers are getting some nasty nerfs but the most appealing update comes from two uniques that will alter Ball of Lightning builds. One turns Ball of Lightning into a ranged caster while the other allows Ball of Lightning to be cast on the move along with enhancing its effects. As I have done Ball of Lightning builds in the past, I would not mind trying one of the two builds a try.
Necromancers might be interesting because I read that Minion builds are getting a buff and Blood Wave will get a unique to altar its playing style. Nonetheless, I wasn’t too impressed with Blood Wave (or Spirit Wave) as it felt a little clunky at times. There is a slight nerf to the number of times it can be cast which really sucks due to how Blood Wave already has issues with speed. And the new unique does not appear to improve this problem. So I’m going to wait until someone figures out a better way to handle this build.
Rogues’ main buffs are to shadow clones and Twisting Blades. Shadow Clones have a gnarly bug that made the clones do less damage than expected. So there’s some alterations coming which should help buff the damage. But Twisting Blades has seen a little resurgence recently in the current season. With the upcoming season, there’s a neat little new Aspect that’ll improve TB’s speed upon returning and allow it to cleave. I haven’t played the build in a while but it always was spammy. I might have to give this one a try again.
The other chief change coming up with the season is the Witching powers. In reality, it’s more like Diablo 3 Witch Doctor powers. I’m guessing that the developers are using this coming season to test drive what could be a future DLC that includes the return of the Witch Doctor class. I’m actually quite excited to see an actual season power that’s treated similar to the Vampire Powers show up. Also, they are providing gems for Jewelry sockets that give resistance and armor along with bonuses to damage and defense that work alongside the new Witch powers.
I really had hoped they would have kept the Realmwalker events along with the Opals as those Opals were nice for configuring your reward structure. Quite honestly, I don’t see any harm in bringing them back as the game desperately needs more end game content and ways one can configure how they play. As the Opals related more towards very simple rewards and some bonus experience and the Realmwalkers themselves, while slow and boring, weren’t overpowered in their own rewards (except for early leveling), I feel that they should be kept in the core of the game. Perhaps, due to general negative feedback, these events are being removed and potentially repurposed down the line. But I do think that if that were the case, the better strategy would be to leave them in for now and then update them or remove them once the proper fix/feature was completed.
Overall, I think the upcoming season should be fun at the very least. There’s some very good changes coming up as long as you don’t expect to play the same builds as before. Also, the season mechanics are definite musts in my book. Any kind of power grind thing are big time bonuses because they help alter the way you play.
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