One Point: Oh, Nine!

It is a patch long-awaited for, and it's approaching near mythological levels.  I'm referring to the legendary patch 1.09 for Diablo II, the Patch To Restore Righteousness To The Game, the Patch To End All Patches, the Patch That Will End The Sorceress Ubercheese And Make My Paladin Character RoX0r So Bite Me, Sorc L00zers.™

1.09 will make players more attractive to the opposite sex; it'll bring the stars into alignment and provide perfect balance to the character classes.  It will bestow world peace on Earth, and goodwill towards men (and women).  1.09 is guaranteed to help you drop 2 pants sizes.  All this and more is waiting for us!

Okay, I'm being facetious.  But I'm starting to really tap my foot here, waiting for this sorely needed patch to a game that currently is suffering from a number of serious problems.  Let's just start with the exploits, shall we?

• Barbarians can currently crash any client out of a game - and then PK them while they stand there lagged, unable to do anything until they've "timed out" on the realm.  Don't bother emailing me asking how to do this, because I won't tell you.
• Druids can currently crash any client out of a game - and then PK them while they stand there lagged, unable to do anything until they've "timed out" on the realm.  Don't bother emailing me asking how to do this, because I won't tell you.  Yes, this is a different method than the Barbarian one.
• Any character in the game can dual-wield.  Blizzard's already warned that this will be fixed, and any char currently dual-wielding that shouldn't be able to will find an item missing in their inventory when the patch comes out (my attitude: why warn cheaters, anyway?  Let em get what they deserve).
• Accounts can be made unusable thanks to an exploit on the realms.  Anyone hit by someone who knows how to do this will be unable to get into their account.  And no, I'm not telling you how to do it, so don't ask.

Now, these points are things that need to be fixed...and shouldn't be waited on so they can be incorporated into a patch with other things, right?  Hardcore players can't even play in public games now without fear of being crashed out and massacred.  Accounts are being wrecked all the time now, with tons of people knowing how to do it (I wonder if Blizzard will work out a way to get them back?).  These problems need an immediate patch.  But yet, we wait.

Then, of course, there are those "other issues..."

No rune words work in single player (open).  In fact, the whole drop system in single player is out of whack.  Open fans have been waiting ages for a patch to fix those two issues alone.

Time to own up: either they did it on purpose or they made a mistake, because folks, there IS a 50% across-the-board physical resistance in Nightmare difficulty, and it makes the game ridiculously hard for untwinked melee/physical damage characters there.  Every character I've played that centers on physical damage hits the Act 2 wall where physical immunes pop up - Itchies, Spectres, and the like.  If you don't twink, you are simply not prepared (i.e., a 5 socket weapon with perfect emeralds or Ort runes) to handle that.  And everyone knows how the Ancients are harder to kill in Nightmare than Hell, because they're often physically immune (by "harder," I mean that it takes more damage to kill them - yes, they're still more "dangerous" in Hell difficulty).  There's some kind of buggy physical immunity/resistance going on in Nightmare, and it's another reason why Sorceresses rule.  They're able to just fly through Nightmare while the melee classes slog their way through.

In fact, the physical resistance problem is so hard on physical damage that many players turn into mini-mages.  Barbarians use Berserk almost exclusively in many areas of the game.  Paladins not using Vengeance don't get anywhere without partying.  Amazons find 5-socket bows and turn them into elemental damagers, and use Immo Arrow/Freezing Arrow.  Assassins use chargeups or traps.  Druids go the route Amazons do.  Necromancers...heh, let's not go there.  Now, this is a GOOD thing - making characters diversify.  Unfortunately, you're not diversifying when you're forced to use these skills most of the time to do any significant damage compared to ... yeah, those Sorceresses out there.

The best games I've played so far are combo party games where a Sorceress wasn't along.  A Paladin, a Necromancer, a Barbarian, an Amazon...these parties are a lot of fun, with strategy and tactics being required to survive, much less kill things.  The moment a Sorceress joins, however, all that goes out the window...KA-BLAM!  Dead monsters.  And it's physical resistance that's to blame.  It's not so much that the Sorc is too powerful, it's that non-elemental attack forms have been nerfed too much.  I'd like to see monsters adjusted to bring the Sorc back in line, not necessarily a Sorc nerf (you could tell from my first rant that I don't consider nerfs a great idea).  Wonder what would happen if a 50% resistance to all elemental damages was automatically applied to everything in Hell difficulty?  I can hear the "Blizz SuX0r" over here already from the Sorc abusers.

Don't get me started on the Bloody Foothills.  :-)

"Class balance" is a myth, because it just can't happen.  I've already addressed in my first rant why it can't exist - it's because everyone has a different opinion of what it means.  All those Sorceresses just abusing one area of the game over and over aren't "balanced," they're just loophole abusers.  I've even seen a "guide" or two that details how to build a Sorc up just to do that one area.  Over and over.  And over.  And over.  And over.  And over.  How this is considered "fun" is totally beyond me.  I'm...speechless.  And that character design isn't "balanced" at all, and it doesn't define what I consider to be the "best;" however, on the Ladder, it sure is the best.  But I'm just repeating what I've said already.

No, when I look at "class balance," I don't look at the Ladder.  I look at how all of my untwinked characters perform.  I look at how my Sorceress barely batted an eyelash at anything as she plowed her way through Nightmare difficulty, while my Bear Druid was unable to kill a single Itchie in Act 2.  In fact, he couldn't even hurt the Itchie, since it was physically immune (and not marked as such, to boot).  It forced me into two options: skip the area or get help.

How about those repair costs, eh?  Weapons which cost 27,000 gold to repair one durability point.

Mercenaries which still can be permanently killed by Corpse Spitters.

Life Tap causing instant kills on physical immunes.

The list goes on.  A quick stroll through the Maggot Lair is educational and entertaining to boot.  Take Zed's findings on Shadow Warrior, for instance:

Martial Arts finishers: The SW will occasionally use a finisher instead of a normal attack. Any will work, with the exception of Dragon Flight. DO NOT LET your Shadow use Dragon Flight, it will get you killed! Dragon Flight will teleport your Shadow into the thickest fight it can find -- and you along with it! If you're unprepared this can come as quite a shock, and even if you are prepared is usually not a good thing.

Fun!

Patch 1.09 is supposedly coming soon.  The word down the rumor mill is that this will be the patch to end all patches.  Now, those of us who have been around for a few years know that isn't true, but it'll still fix a lot.  The question is - how much, and what gets fixed?  What IS the stun duration of Shockwave - is the duration wrong, or the skill description?  Will Magic Find be adjusted so that players without 600% MF be able to find anything?  Will vines stop being treated as monsters (they turn into bosses via Monster Shrines, and die like all monsters do on the map when the last Diablo seal boss is killed)?  Will Assassin dual-wielding ever truly be useful?  Can a Necromancer's Poison Nova be made useful in Hell difficulty...ever?

Will typing /d2notify in chat ever work like all the other Blizzard games (i.e., when you turn enter/leave notification on, it stays on forever until you switch back yourself), or will I eternally be forced to type it EVERY time I start D2?

WOULD 1.09 make me more attractive to the opposite sex, anyway?  It would be a nice side bonus.

Isn't the wait just killing you?

Hi! How are you?

I send you this file in order to have your advice

See you later. Thanks

I guess suckers are still born every minute.  And I'd like to thank everyone for the 500+ SirCam virus emails I've now received as of August 9, 2001.  I appreciate them so much!  I would never imagine that so many people would seek my advice.  I guess I'm just popular like that.  Nothing like a 12 megabyte Word file to download on a Sunday afternoon.  Maybe I'll get lucky and someone at Blizzard will be infected and send me Patch109Changes.doc.pif, seeking my advice.  We can only hope.

Sigh.  See you next time.