Now that Reign of the Warlock has been out a couple months and the latest PTR has received just about all its feedback, I'd like to turn to other changes in the game that I'd like to see which will hopefully appeal to newer and older players alike as this will fix things that have been in the game 20+ years and not just the things that were recently introduced in the D2R ROTW DLC.
Re-Specialize 1 Attribute and 1 Skill Point at a time.
So many times I need a little strength or dex to equip something or I want to tweak my build a little. The fact I have to roll a new character or fully respec my existing one is too much work. This is ancient design and needs to change. I'm happy paying a fee for it, whether that be gold or essences. How many times do we see a build guide (even my own) state "put just enough strength and dex to equip your gear) well there's no way to know how many points that is because you obtain different gear that has attributes on them as you level and you end up in situations where you can't equip things when you unequip other things.
Add Runewords for Orbs
Orbs are the only socketed weapon bases left that do not have any runewords available (throwables don't count because they aren't socketable). Orbs need some runewords to augment caster builds so we have runewords other than spirit and hoto.
Redo Act 3 Mercs
This is the one merc that doesn't ever get played. I've tried all I can to make it viable but it's just objectively worse. I'd like to see these redone as a caster class, have their attributes moved to caster, and allow them to equip staffs and orbs + shields.
Fix Duriel's Loot Table
After the nerf to Andariel this is a mandatory change to bring Duriel up to the other Act bosses. He is the hardest Act boss to find and should therefore not have the worst loot table. At minimum scrolls need to be removed.
Nerf Teleport
It's time for teleport's time to end. Being able to blitz around the entire game has made sorc the must play ladder starter and engima the must use end game chest item. D2 is a dungeon crawler by design and this skill overly simplifies the gameplay loop. To fix this they can simply add a cast delay to teleport like leap and blade warp have. This makes it so teleport can't be spammed and will only be used as a quick damage avoider.
Nerf Spirit
Spirit is way too powerful way too early for its cost. It's a must use item for anybody playing through nightmare and hell the first time. I'd like to see spirit's resistances, FCR, and +skills nerfed to half their current values.
Nerf Enigma
Nerfing teleport isn't enough to nerf Enigma. This chest piece is just too good for every build. I understand it has a huge cost with Ber + Jah, and most average gamers can't actually afford this if certain p2w sites and bots didn't exist, but if those things will continue to exist then this chest needs to be nerfed. I would remove +Teleport and nerf +2 skills to +1 skills, and cap the magic find range at 50% so it's not as good as Skullder's and Wealth.
Nerf Grief
Grief is the de-facto go-to melee weapon because of the flat damage it gets. The flat damage should be nerfed to +1-400 instead of +340-400 or halve the existing values. The damage to demons must also be nerfed to +1.5 per level. The ignore target defense should also be removed.
Nerf Stealth
Stealth is as good as Spirit when it comes to leveling items and it's the item just about every build uses until they can get better end game chest pieces. The affixes and rolls on Stealth make it so good at such a low level. FRW, FHR, and FCR need to be reduced to 10% instead of 25%.
Nerf Insight but Make It Available In Staffs & Spears
Insight is a very cheap and mandatory item to use in the early game of D2. It also rolls very good affixes on top of the meditation aura. Meditation Aura should have a level range of 1-10 instead of 12-17. The enhanced damage should be reduced from 200-260% to 100-150%. However, Insight should be available in Staffs & Spears.
Other Spear Runewords Needed
Add more runewords to the Spear archetype to make Spear builds more interesting. Ex: Death, Last Wish, Wrath, Lawbringer, Insight
Nerf Treachery
Treachery has become a best in slot item on mercs and for self-use to proc Fade, and then swap to another chest piece. The only reason for this chest piece is for Fade. Simply replace Fade with Cloak of Shadows. This makes it only work on nearby enemies so people cannot use it as a temporary chest piece and it becomes best use on Assassin and not mercs.
Buff Spear Bases
Spears need their base damage increased by about 10-15% to be on par with polearms and also need more runewords for them to be optimal.
Buff non-Amazon Bow Bases
All non-Amazon bow bases need their base damage rolls increased by 25% to provide some value to bows outside of GMB & Matriarchal. Then people must choose +1-3 skills vs more base damage.
Add IAS Fire Gloves
Currently the top choice for fire skill gloves are magefists but these benefit casters. This hurts IAS based fire skills like fire traps and fire claws. I'd like to see new unique gloves that give IAS + fire damage or +1 fire skills or minus enemy fire resist.
Fix Poison Mechanics
Poison should not be allowed to be overwritten. If a lower level poison tries to be applied to an enemy it should be added to the existing poison stack on that enemy. Given how low dps poison is (especially without dweb) it wouldn't be too op to allow lower poisons to stack on top of your main poison.
Fix Off Map Drops
If any loot drops on an unlootable tile then it should drop at the nearest lootable tile. This will prevent so much lost loot, especially with ghosts.
Add Charm Bag but Limit It
I'd like the monkey paw to curl on this QoL request. A charm bag should be added similar to the idol board in LE but it should limit a person to 5x4 or 6x4 instead of the 8x4 people want. This would help limit the number of skillers people can use. Torch + Anni + Gheeds + Sunder + 2-3 Skillers + 5-6 small charms.
Add Movement Skills to All Classes
Teleport (needs a cast delay) = sorc
Leap = barb
Charge = paladin
Blade Warp = warlock
Change Lycanthropy to add ‘Pounce’ as an active ability on top of its passive benefits? = druid
Change bone spirit so it teleports you? = necro
Change Cloak of Shadows into a TP skill leaving behind a cloud and spawning you elsewhere? = assassin
Change Decoy so you dive away quickly and leave behind a decoy? = amazon
Improved Loot Filter
I'd like to see the D2R loot filter expanded to be similar to LE's in game loot filter. I want to be able to change colors of text/background of item names as well as have more agency over what's showing/hiding. For instance, being able to show/hide by rarity, base type, ilvl, etc... and setting a priority so I can hide low ilvl normal/magic rarity items but show low ilvl sets/uniques.
Improved Lobby Features
Ability to search/filter games better by trades, campaign, split mf, baal runs, etc...
Add iLvl Affix On All Items
I'd like to see the ilvl of every item on the item affixes when showing additional stats. Right now we have to guess based on where something is dropped.
Upgrade Tomes to Hold More Scrolls
I'm tired of running out of scrolls when running multiple baal games in a row. I'd like to be able to stock up on a bunch and rapid fire baal games.
Player Immunity While Loading
This is something poe has and is a life saver for longer load times. Players should be immune until they load in and move. Obviously this means minions and mercs will also need to be locked during this immunity window to prevent cheesing.
Add Charms to Gambling
Make it more expensive than amulets and super rare chance to drop skillers and gheed's (gheed's can only drop if no gheed's in inventory).
Add a Unique Quiver/Bolts With Quantity Replenish
I'm not asking to make them as viable as a weapon or shield, but allow an end game quiver with 1 affix that auto replenishes arrows/bolts so they are on par with javelins for this affix specifically.
Allow Shrines to be Used by Every Player
I'm tired of people yoinking shrines or wasting a gem shrine in my games. Allow shrines to be used by every player in a game.
Remove Ability to Convert Between Ladders
Ladder conversion should've never existed. D2R LoD and D2R RotW ladders have to stay separate. However, the ability to convert a ladder character to NL should exist for people who want to quit a ladder early.
Re-Work Large Charms to be Viable
Large Charms need to have their affixes roll to the same max values as 2 small charms in order to be viable. Given the inventory tetris being played with skillers there's currently no room for large charms so I would not be opposed to large charms also getting specific affixes on them that cannot be rolled on other charms, like FCR, life and mana leech, +1 to specific skills, etc...
Finish Act 4 & Add A4 Mercs
Act 4 needs 3 more zones, 2 more quests, and another mid-Act boss like Butcher or something. A4 mercs should be angels. Angels should be support paladin like mercs that wield sword n shield and use paladin auras that A2 mercs don't have. One can be Vengeance + Holy Shock, one can be Zeal + Sanctuary, and one can be Vengeance + Holy Fire.
New Uber End Game Activity
I'm giving up on my D2 purist mindset on this one. I'd like something other than TZ's and current Ubers to farm. This idea is an uber level you can spawn via drops you farm (maybe standard of heroes even). It'll spawn a 5 floor tower, each floor themed after each act. All enemies will be harder than TZ enemies and the uber bosses in these will be suped up versions of existing bosses. This will be very challenging but very rewarding.
Floor 1 will be the A1 Tower layout full of A1 enemies, a handful of unique packs, and uber Countess. Uber Countess should drop a Tkey and a rune between Pul to Zod.
Floor 2 will be arcane sanctuary layout, with A2 enemies, and uber Summoner. Uber Summoner should drop an Hkey and an assortment of coveted unique items like shako, occy, arachnid's, griffon's, war travs, treks, HoZ, etc...
Floor 3 will be a kurast layout, with A3 enemies, and uber Council. Killing uber council should drop a large pile of gold and chances at coveted unique jewelry from the council's drop table like mara's, highlord's, opalvein, sling, raven frost, etc...
Floor 4 will be river of flame layout, A4 enemies, and uber Armorer. Killing uber Armorer should have a chance to drop super rare uniques like Tyrael's, steelrend, grandfather, astreon's iron ward, cranium basher, earth shifter, and templar's might.
Floor 5 will be Halls of Vaught layout, with A5 enemies, and uber Nihlathak. Killing uber nihlathak should drop a Dkey and a chance at other super rare uniques such as death's web, darkforce spawn, death's fathom, and mang song's.
Add In-Game Trade Feature
D2R suffers from RMT, botters, and JSP ruining the trade economy. Ad filled free trade sites just aren't enough for people who want to trade in good faith. The current in game trade is limited to a chat channel and creating game names with x4y in the title or see scrip. I'd like to see an in-game trade system where players can list and search for items at specific prices, similar to the GW2 auction house or PoE's async trade system.
BARB:
Undo Changes That Made Whirlwind Worse
Whirlwind needs to be immune to decrepify and slow curses. There's no counter to these curses. At least for chill/freeze a barb can wear freeze immunity items but for curses there is nothing they can do and they become useless. There should be no penalty for using 2H weapons. The end game damage scaling should move up from 5% to 6% per level.
Add A Conical Damage Area to Frenzy
Frenzy is a skill that is pretty good in a 1v1 fight due to its high attack speed scaling but it sucks against packs of monsters. The best way to counter this is to add a damage cone that attacks an area shaped like a pie slice. This cone should start small at 1 point and should expand up to 20 points invested in Frenzy. This will give Frenzy a similar viability to Zeal so it too can be a much more viable melee option. It's not a true cleave though because the damage would hit 1-2 enemies wide in front of the player and up to 3-4 enemies wide behind the targeted enemy so positioning would still be required to make it viable and not feel the same as Zeal and Cleave.
Reduce Mana Cost of Warcry
Warcry is a fun playstyle but it's way too mana starved. Even with insight and points in energy, you still have to chug potions. Mana costs should be halved for Warcry.
Combine Axe & Mace Masteries
These weapons share common builds and runewords so it would make sense for them to share a mastery node to open up more options for zerker and frenzy.
Combine Polearm & Spear Masteries
Polearms and spears should share a mastery node to open up more options for WW barb, especially if someone is playing a double throw/WW hybrid build so they can throw spears and swap to polearm backhand as an idea.
Fix Warcry Overwriting
The game should calculate a new warcry's level being applied before applying the buff. This will prevent a level 1 barb from overwriting a max level barb's cries.
DRUID:
Re-work and Buff Arctic Blast
Arctic Blast sucks and nobody plays it. It needs more AoE, more damage, and easier ways to scale it. For starters the attack shape should be a wider and longer skill like Baal's hoarfrost attack. Ideally it shouldn't be a channeling skill but it should either be a single big blast on cast or act similar to chain lightning. Arctic Blast also needs a synergy buff because it starts off strong but falls off fast. It needs to provide 20% cold damage per level from cyclone armor and one other skill, maybe solar creeper or spirit wolf. I'd say hurricane but then this will just turn into another wind druid build. Itemization also needs to change. Add a helm runeword that increases cold damage and reduces enemy cold resists and also add +arctic blast to druid pelts.
Remove Werewolf Pre-requisite from Lycanthropy in Druid Tree
Lycanthropy can benefit both shapeshift forms so it doesn't make sense to require werewolf to unlock it and saves bear form 1 skill point.
Fire Claws Re-Work
Fire Claws is such an awkward build because it requires synergies in the elemental tree and using those skills requires being in human form but using fire claws requires shapeshift forms. Either change it so elemental skills can be used while shapeshifted (also allow teleporting while shapeshifted) OR change synergies to Lycanthropy and Hunger. Additionally, Fire Claws needs an AoE boost. My thought is every few hits add a fiery explosion that hits enemies in a 4-5m radius at 20-30% of fire claw's damage.
Buff Rabies Druid
Rabies is a decent skill but it has a pretty low ceiling because it's very hard to scale poison damage in this build compared to other poison builds. For starters another synergy needs to be added. I recommend making Feral Rage & Poison Creeper as synergies and update both synergies to +15%. This will give Rabies about 7-8k damage when all skills are capped at 20, which can further scale from gear investment. The poison dot should also be reduced from 11 seconds to 5 seconds. The Rabies infection AoE should be increased from 3 yards to 5 yards.
Update Fury Druid
Fury is actually in a pretty good state but I'd like to see it changed to be less clunky. Currently a well geared Fury Druid can melt 1v1 but in large groups it struggles and it also struggles until it's well geared. Buff AR on Fury by 50% OR add a minus defense on hit affix to the skill. This ensures a better chance to hit higher level enemies (personally I'd rather the skill have an "ignores target defense" affix instead). Fury animation also needs to be sped up so the attack isn't so clunky feeling when using weapons that aren't fast/very fast.
Various Druid Summon Buffs
Oak Sage life upgrade to start at 100hp and 25hp per point from there. (i.e. 600hp at 20 points instead of 400hp).
Heart of the Wolverine increased max damage and AR% to 200% instead of 158%.
Spirit of Barbs should add DR. 1% at level 1, 10% at level 20. (1% DR per 2 points, capped at 10%).
Summon Ravens, increase max hits before they die. Currently 13-31 hits, buff to 20-60 hits (2 hits per point).
Summon Spirit Wolf, increase synergies to 20% and 15%.
Summon Dire Wolf, increase spirit wolf and grizzly synergies to 15%.
Summon Grizzly, increase spirit wolf synergy to 15%.
Poison Creeper & Carrion Vine, increase their max life to match Solar Creeper.
SORC:
Cold Sorceress Changes (buffs & nerfs)
Frozen, Shiver, and Chilling Armor skills add Chance to Block. 10% at level 1 and caps at 30% (similar to holy shield).
Frozen Orb needs another synergy to be end game viable. Add Frost Nova as a synergy and make both synergies 8-10% each so a frost nova/forb build is viable.
Buff Cold Mastery to -125% cold resistance at 20 points to match conviction aura.
Lightning Sorc Changes
Lightning and Chain Lightning need to remove synergies from Nova and increase remaining synergies to 15% each.
Thunderstorm needs to be re-worked to work like blizzard. It should summon continuous lightning strikes in an area for a short duration and have a casting delay so you can't continuously stack it. Add Nova as a synergy and make synergies 5% each. (Tstorm + Nova will be a strong build with this change).
Another Thunderstorm idea is to remove its damage and instead imbues the sorceress to passively and continuously zap enemies within 13 yards to lower their lightning resistance by up to 100% (similar to pally conviction aura).
Nerf Teleport to add a 4 second cast delay as stated previously.
Energy Shield is fine but mana burn and ghosts need to be fixed further (yes I know they got fixed recently but it's not enough), so they don't instantly drain mana. Mana burn skills should work like Static Field where they take off a % of mana per burn, but they get diminishing returns past 50% mana. Since there's no active way to recover ES the mana burn enemies are unbalanced currently because ghosts and baal can instantly drain mana and the next hit basically kills you if you are in p8 hell.
Lightning Mastery, if Thunderstorm isn't changed to reduce enemy lightning resist then Lightning Mastery should be changed to reduce enemy lightning resist just like Cold Mastery does for its element.
Fire Sorc Changes
Warmth upgraded so putting 20 points in is more rewarding. Right now it's a 1 point wonder for any non-enchant builds. Reduce regen at 1 point to 20% and increase regen at 20 points to 360%.
Hydra needs to be slightly buffed. Synergies should be upgraded to 4% each OR add Inferno or Warmth as a 3rd synergy at 3% each.
Fire Mastery needs to provide a small minus to enemy fire resist on hit modifier and a slight nerf to increased fire damage per level. Perhaps -3% fire res and 7% fire damage at 1 point up to -60% fire res and 140% fire damage at 20 points.
AMAZON:
Passive & Magic Changes
Decoy needs to be fixed so it's not immortal but also has higher hp than it currently has. Decoy is a nice tool to use to pull monsters away from yourself or your merc but right now it either dies immediately or is immortal. We need a middle ground. Start Decoy life at 15% and scale 15% per point invested.
Valkyrie has a similar issue to Decoy where at low points it's completely useless and dies constantly and at higher levels it's actually fairly tanky. However, valkyrie lacks damage at all levels and its AI is fairly bad. Improve Valkyrie AI to be faster and more aggressive. Give Valkyrie the ability to cast the magic skill with the most points in it (inner sight or slow missile). Increase Valkyrie damage slightly starting at 30% up to 530% at 20 points.
Javelin & Spear Changes
Change Lightning Fury so it can't chain infinitely. The busted part of this skill, mostly in cows, is how it can chain infinitely. Change Lightning Fury so it chains to 1 enemy at 1 point, adds an enemy every 2 points, up to 10 enemies at 20 points.
Buff Impale so it is more reliable bossing skill. Speed up impale's animation so it doesn't feel clunky. Reduce Impale's durability loss so it starts at 40% at 1 point invested and finishes at 1% with 20 points invested. Allow Impale to trigger crits and deadly strike. Nerf slow effect to 50% max cap.
Buff Fend so it's a more reliable melee clear build, similar to zeal. Make Fend uninterruptable just like Impale so dodging or being hit doesn't animation lock it. Add Fend as a synergy to Dodge and Avoid and vice versa. This will help with the defensive struggles of the build and allow Fend to scale its damage and AR which it desperately needs.
Buff Spear bases so their base damage range is ~13-14% higher. This would put Mancatcher around the same avg dps as Thresher.
Add more Runewords to Spears. I'd like to see Death, Last Wish, Wrath, Lawbringer, and Insight in Spears personally.
Bow & Crossbow Changes
Pre-req skills needs to change here. Why does cold get a straight shot to the bottom but Guided Arrow and Exploding Arrow require wasted points in skills they won't ever use? Either add Strafe as a requirement to unlock Freezing Arrow or eliminate existing pre-reqs and simply make Magic Arrow a pre-req to unlock all 3 columns.
Attack Rating on all Arrow Skills needs to be buffed to 250% at 20 points for each one with AR.
All non-Amazon bow bases need their base damage rolls increased by 25% to provide some value to bows outside of GMB & Matriarchal. Then people must choose +1-3 skills vs more base damage.
Exploding Arrow needs Immolation Arrow as a synergy and both synergies for this skill should be 8% each so the damage feels good.
Immolation Arrow needs Fire Arrow synergy buffed to 7% and Exploding Arrow synergy buffed to 12%. This will make Immolation Arrow feel better since it doesn't have the cc of freezing arrow so it needs to do more damage. Immolation Arrow should apply a fire debuff to enemies it hits that scales to -100% enemy fire resist so it can be used as a setup skill to Exploding Arrow.
Ice Arrow synergy from Cold Arrow needs to be buffed from 8% to 10%.
Cold Arrow's chill effect should apply a cold debuff to enemies it hits that scales to -100% enemy cold resist. This means Cold Arrow will actually have a use in end game instead of being useless.
Magic Arrow needs to add Multiple Shot as a synergy that provides 2% increased magic damage conversion per point. This will give a roughly 30% boost to single target DPS for this skill and will make witchwild a potential choice for physical bowazons instead of windforce.
Multiple Shot should add Magic Arrow as a synergy giving +1% weapon damage per point so multiple shot's damage penalty can be negated.
Guided Arrow should be updated to allow piercing enemies again.
Strafe needs the damage penalty bug fixed. It still feels like the damage penalty wasn't truly fixed and is doing 75% weapon damage instead of 100%. Strafe also needs its hidden hit delay mechanic removed. At high attack speeds you can't stack multiple hits against the same target (aka it currently doesn't allow shotgunning).
NECROMANCER:
Summoning Changes
Summons overall need to be fixed so they don't completely disappear when they get too far away or stuck. They need to teleport to player automatically like mercs do. This is especially frustrating with iron golem given its cost.
Skeleton Mastery magi needs a major damage buff. Change magi damage from 200% to 300% at 20 points which should double damage of skeletal mages.
Skeletal Mages need to have their skills changed to more powerful elemental versions. Lightning should cast chain lightning, Fire should cast Fireball, Cold should cast Glacial Spike, and Poison should cast Poison Nova or should be changed to a Bone Spirit mage instead.
Revives should last until they die instead of being on a 3 minute timer.
Fire Golem needs to change Clay Golem synergy to 5% increased fire damage per point instead of AR.
Iron Golem needs its Thorns aura to apply to all minions. In its current implementation only the IG can utilize thorns when hit but it's most likely not the minion being hit. Make it a much lower level thorns compared to A2 merc so it doesn't become a mandatory minion.
Blood Golem needs a 50% damage buff. This will make it more reliable in Hell and increase its life steal for the player.
Golem Mastery to allow 2 Golems at 10 hard points and 3 Golems at 20 hard points. This allows multiple golems to be summoned so golem synergies are more useful.
Poison and Bone Changes
Corpse Explosion needs to nerf its range to 8 yards maximum because currently it does screen wide damage and is too op. 8 yards is about half a screen still so it'll still be very viable.
Poison Explosion needs a buff to range to expand as large as corpse explosion and reduce the poison duration by 30% so poison from the explosion deals damage faster. This would make this a viable skill to use over corpse explosion for the poison necro. Allow Poison Explosion to stack with Poison Nova so one doesn't overwrite the other.
Poison Nova needs a reduction in mana cost by half to be more in line with other necro skills.
Poison Dagger needs to change to be used with any 1H melee weapon and not limited to daggers. Rename it if needed. Grief may break this skill but Grief should be nerfed anyway.
Bone Spear & Bone Spirit need to eliminate a synergy each so more points are available in this build and then increase the remaining 3 synergies to 11% each.
Curses Changes
All Necro curses should not be overwritten by non-necro sources. Curses from other sources should stack with Necro sourced curses. Only Necro sourced curses should overwrite Necro curses. This will be tricky to program but it needs to happen to avoid having mercs and allies overwriting your curses.
Attract replace with a new curse that focuses your minions to attack the cursed enemy. This will help with bad minion AI and replaces an unused curse. This is a better version of Attract.
Confuse needs to be a combination of its current curse and the older version of Attract so enemies wander around and attack each other.
Lower Resist needs to scale the same as Paladin's Conviction aura.
Weaken needs a 25% buff at all levels because it's a worse version of Decrepify currently.
Iron Maiden needs to scale higher at more points invested so it actually works in Hell. Re-work this curse so it scales like Thorns. It should be x% of damage + flat phys damage. (i.e. thorns level 20 is 1010% damage + 144 flat damage returned to enemy).
PALADIN:
Defensive Auras Changes
Prayer needs a buff to be a viable defensive option in the end game, especially since Cleansing basically scales to the same level of healing. Increase Prayer healing by 50%.
Cleansing needs a buff so it can better mitigate poison at higher levels. Increase poison duration reduction by 15% at each level.
Resist Fire, Resist Cold, and Resist Lightning need their passive effects removed. These skills are free 1 point wonders that give paladin free resist all and max resists. These auras active resistance effects can be buffed by 15% to make up for it so people must use them to benefit from them.
Salvation needs a hard cap of 100% resist all so people cannot scale it to the point of being just as good as the individual resist auras.
Redemption needs a 25% buff to range, redemption chance, and mana/life earned so it is worth using.
Defiance needs to add 1% physical damage reduction per 2 points up to a 10% hard cap. Currently defiance feels useless because defense only helps to prevent the occasional hit but does nothing to mitigate damage taken.
Offensive Auras Changes
Sanctuary needs a change to apply to demons and undead.
Blessed Aim needs to remove the passive effects. If you want the accuracy it grants then you must use the aura.
Holy Fire, Holy Freeze, and Holy Shock should have 50% of the effects of their defensive synergies applied to them while the offensive aura is active. Reason being is if you're running a paladin with these skills then you can't run both the offensive and defensive auras so running the offensive auras should grant benefits from the defensive auras. (i.e. running holy shock should grant 50% of the resist lightning aura, scaling with points invested in it).
Holy Fire, Holy Freeze, and Holy Shock need increased added damage later in the game and need a more active playstyle instead of walking around DPS. Change the offensive synergy on each to increase the elemental damage added to weapon attacks only by 25% / 30% / 10%. This will result in a 10% / 7% / 4% reduction in aura dps and a 15% / 23% / 6% increase in elemental weapon attack damage.
Combat Skills
Sacrifice needs to remove the damage to self or keep it at 1% at all levels. Both synergies should be changed to 12% which should give a 17% damage increase at max levels. Sacrifice needs a slashing effect added similar to cleave and can hit up to 3 enemies.
Vengeance needs to add an elemental explosion at 33% of your damage of each element every 3 hits to help with AoE. It also needs to only cost 8 mana at all levels because it's extremely mana intensive at max level currently.
Conversion needs a re-work so it will passively have a chance to resurrect a slain demon/undead to fight for you. A maximum of 10% chance and 1 revive at 1 point, 20% chance and 2 revives at 10 points, and 30% chance and 3 revives at 20 points. The chance increases with hard and soft points invested.
Blessed Hammer needs to change the Vigor synergy to Concentration and reduce both synergies to 13% each. This will be roughly a 13% dps nerf but will give an extra 23 points to spend elsewhere.
Charge simply needs collision fixed. If it collides with something instead of burning all your mana charging in place it should simply stop casting. If this isn't possible then reduce the channeled mana cost by 50%.
Smite needs the always hit replaced by ignore target defense. This puts it on par with other melee skills so it hits 95% of the time without any AR but isn't so OP that it never misses. To compensate Smite's damage should have a 10% damage synergy with Sacrifice. This will help make smite less of a 1 point wonder as maxing it out will now double its damage.
Fist of Heavens needs its mana cost reduced to 20 so it's more viable early on.
ASSASSIN:
Martial Arts
Overall MA sin needs a core change to make it less clunky but less op than mosaic made it. The damage actually doesn't feel bad in the end game but the gameplay is super clunky with maintaining charges. Mosaic made this too broken so I think the key change here would be changing the charge-up/finishers mechanic. This is how I'd simplify it but I'm curious what others would do. I've seen things about adding a longer timer to charge-up skills or having finishers not consume them. I think we should simplify this build so players don't have to panic about charges and have more choice over what gets consumed.
Charge-Up skills add a UI ticker that shows how many charges you have. Charge-Up skills only lose 1 charge when used by a Finisher.
Finishers now only consume the last Charge acquired.
How this would work? Hit enemy 3 times with Phoenix strike to build up 3 charges, use 3 finishers or 1 finisher 3 times to consume charges 1 at a time.
Shadow Disciplines
Venom needs a synergy to scale damage more in end game. Add Cloak of Shadows (or another non-claws shadow skill) as a synergy that gives +10% poison damage per level. This will help increase poison damage for MA and blade sin builds.
Psychic Hammer needs a re-work to be usable. Change it to an AoE knockback that is guaranteed to knockback all enemies within 4 yards. This will be a better use as a panic skill.
Cloak of Shadows should cast Psychic Hammer and/or Mind Blast to whatever level they are in your tree so it has more utility.
Shadow Master needs major buffs to be a viable follower like valk is for Amazon. Double the AR at each level so the shadow can actually hit. Reduce mana cost by half because it's extremely expensive. Have Shadow Master prioritize the skills you have the most points in so it focuses on using higher end skills.
Traps
Lightning and Fire traps are in a very good spot currently but cost a lot of mana, especially in early game. Nerf mana cost of all trap skills by 20% or at least target the high cost ones.
Blade Shield needs to not use weapon durability so it matches other blade skills. This is a very annoying mechanic that requires frequent repairs for no reason. This would open up ethereal weapons for this build which will help scale its damage better, which is badly needed.
Blade Sentinel needs the hidden next hit delay removed. This will make the skill feel better when it can be hitting more often, especially given its fairly low damage and no AR bonuses.
Blade Fury needs the bonus AR increased to 300% at 20 points instead of 200%.
Reduce 2H weapon penalty from blade skills. The current 3/8 penalty makes 1H always BIS. 2H weapons should increase damage of the skills, but reduce attack speed and survivability that 1H weapons give so people can choose between hard hits or more utility.
