Diablo II: Resurrected PTR Patch Notes and Class Changes for February 3rd

Diablo II Posted 2022/02/03 at 12:54 PM by CinereousStyx

Barbarian Class ChangesWarcriesNew Developer Comments: We've seen your feedback that the mana cost for War Cry is too high compared to how it performs. We want to try out a modification to its mana cost and see how that affects its cost-effectiveness.Druid Class ChangesShape Shifting SkillsNew Developer Comments: It was not our intent to nerf Werebear and Werewolf as a result of our changes to attack speed. Our end goal is to allow the player to fully realize the fantasy of a fast Werewolf or a slower but hard-hitting Werebear. We are evaluating what the best solution for this is, but in the meantime, our hope is by utilizing both systems and always choosing the fastest speed calculation, we get the best of both worlds where it is a buff in some situations and a status-quo in othersSummoning SkillsNew Developer Comments: We hope that by restoring the original Raven hit functionality and reducing the damage scaling at early levels, we hope to correct any damage reductions caused by our original balance changes while also ensuring that Raven isn't doing too much damage at early levels.Paladin Class ChangesOffensive Auras• Area damage now scales based on the distance of the enemy to the caster. It will now deal a range from 100% damage to 200% based on the furthest distance to the closest distance to the caster.
Holy Shock
• Area damage now scales based on the distance of the enemy to the caster. It will now deal a range from 100% damage to 200% based on the furthest distance to the closest distance to the caster.New Developer Comments: We felt our original changes to Holy Fire made it too strong at higher levels. Additionally, the new area damage scaling on these auras had greater benefits than we originally intended - we are removing them, for now.Developer Comments: We wanted to add more potential to the AoE (Area of Effect) Damage auras since they are a capable way for the Paladin to handle groups of monsters. By increasing damage based on distance to the caster, each AoE damage aura will have increased effectiveness while still maintaining the same cadence of visual VFX on the screen. Also, we saw that “Holy Fire” should scale better at higher skill levels to be consistent with general Fire Damage power compared to the other elements. For “Thorns”, we want to improve the gameplay around getting hit to deal damage, so we are making the skill deal flat damage based on attack attempts rather than returning damage after getting hit. This will allow Thorns to have a more consistent combat performance instead of unpredictable and riskier results.SorceressFire SkillsGENERAL GAMEPLAY CHANGESPatch 2.4 Balance PTR Updated

filthierich
Community Manager
11m
PTR Update 2.3
A new Diablo II: Resurrected PTR patch is now live. For a look into the general balance changes, class-specific changes, and bug fixes click here.

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Update Overview

Throwing Item(s) Updates
Barbarian, Druid, Paladin, and Sorceress balance changes
Fixed an Issue where Cloak of Shadows defense calculation was incorrect.

Comment by etomuWe need hydras to cast Fire ball, no bolt. The change is unfair for a single target skill that requires level 30Comment by SchattensangDid they... did they just BUFF Holy Fire? That skill is already really ridiculous to play with on the PTR, it does NOT need a buff.Comment by Ragestylesthey nerfed holy fire a little bit and hydras synergy

I feel like they don't even play their own game when I look at the hydra change rofl

Holy fire was strong while leveling, falls off in hell, only gets super strong in late late endgame when you have aquired lots of high tier runes, you need a cham, 3x Lo and 3x Sur runes to farm cows as fast as it was now on ptr. At that point your character should be this strong, there is nothing left to farm for you anyway (In terms of character power)

Fire skills are already weaker than others and suffer from immunities alot more than other elements, and now they get nerfed again.
I tested hydra sorc alot on ptr and no matter what I did, Fireball/Meteor was just stronger. Had better AoE clear, and better single target aswell targeted AoE.

I was hoping to play hydras as an alternative but its just not worth it, their AOE potential is too weak with 6 groups of hydras up. Now their synergy is getting nerfed back to *!@# 3%.

Don't even bother trying it out on Live, not worth it

the hell even Blaze fully skilled is more fun and stronger than hydras.

What a sad day to read d2 patchnotes.

Why did I even bother giving mrllamasc a comprehensive review of my findings in his feedback survey. All the problems weren't even touched on and the stuff that wasn't great got nerfed on top.

man, I hate this company sometimes. Way to ruin the fun and excitement for a big patchComment by greeneggso... those patch notes definitely read like holy fire is getting buffed right? am I misreading something there? is wowheads formatting screwy? what am I missing?

because the dev notes definitely sound like they were implying it was nerfed.Comment by Ledarenthey nerfed holy fire a little bit and hydras synergy

I feel like they don't even play their own game when I look at the hydra change rofl

Holy fire was strong while leveling, falls off in hell, only gets super strong in late late endgame when you have aquired lots of high tier runes, you need a cham, 3x Lo and 3x Sur runes to farm cows as fast as it was now on ptr. At that point your character should be this strong, there is nothing left to farm for you anyway (In terms of character power)

Fire skills are already weaker than others and suffer from immunities alot more than other elements, and now they get nerfed again.
I tested hydra sorc alot on ptr and no matter what I did, Fireball/Meteor was just stronger. Had better AoE clear, and better single target aswell targeted AoE.

I was hoping to play hydras as an alternative but its just not worth it, their AOE potential is too weak with 6 groups of hydras up. Now their synergy is getting nerfed back to *!@# 3%.

Don't even bother trying it out on Live, not worth it

the hell even Blaze fully skilled is more fun and stronger than hydras.

What a sad day to read d2 patchnotes.

Why did I even bother giving mrllamasc a comprehensive review of my findings in his feedback survey. All the problems weren't even touched on and the stuff that wasn't great got nerfed on top.

man, I hate this company sometimes. Way to ruin the fun and excitement for a big patchComment by Ledarenso... those patch notes definitely read like holy fire is getting buffed right? am I misreading something there? is wowheads formatting screwy? what am I missing?

because the dev notes definitely sound like they were implying it was nerfed.Comment by SchattensangSo the patchnotes are better written on their site, because they have this whole stuff colour coded. That way it's kinda better to understand than whatever this article did.

It's still pretty confusing, but a bit better.