maladroit said: this isn't true either, there were lots of build options in vanilla wow, more than there currently is. you know, where you have to pick a talent tree and you're locked into it until you spend like 31 talent points. Click to expand...

Ah you're a World of Warcraft player, that actually explains a lot and I don't mean that in an offensive way. The itemisation is actually pretty similar between the two games so I understand why you like what's familiar to you.



It's just that Diablo isn't supposed to be WoW, and lots of people expected an itemisation system with variety and decent loot; for example weapon DPS is everything, none of the weapon types mean anything, and most of the elemental effects are just for show. Click to expand...

I'd urge you to check out Path of Exiles series of videos, Builds of the Week. The devs showcase a series of builds the players have that are unusual. Its not Diablo, but it should give you an idea of how modifiers can indeed add choice. Click to expand...

maladroit said: and you don't have to do that analysis when everything is as simple as "stack stat x and you can beat the game"



like i said, if you like shit simple, i mean fine, but you keep saying they intricately designed an elegant and beautiful system that appeals to the loveable theorycrafter inside you when there isn't anything to theorycraft because the game is as shallow as can be.



i'm not saying it needs to be convoluted and complicated but stop acting like their constant dumbing down of mechanics throughout their games, expansions, and patches is them doing anything other than removing any possible reason to use your brain. Click to expand...

That actually never happened until Cataclysm. Builds back then were often weird hybrids tailored for maximum effectiveness for a given role (because 31 point talents were often shit), so you had certain builds using a spread, like 7/21/21 for Warlocks.Any hybrid (with the exception of warriors) can attest to his lack of choices in the raiding environment. The raiding rogue and mage. The warlock who basically had a low threat build and a high damage build.Actually, what struck me when I played D3 was how much better the base mechanics were (but not the itemization). I was often frustrated in WoW because mechanics like coefficients, haste, and crit were often not consistent across classes or even in the same class, which made certain playstyles not worth considering.There is a variety of loot in D3, and I would say that it's all useful, with the exception of certain resist stats. I also think the lower bound for certain stats are at times too low, but that's about it. I mentioned it before, but D3 really failed because it didn't limit gear availability. The AH flooded the market with quality good and anything a player can find is by default, statistically more likely to be inferior. Players weren't happy because they were dying, and not happy because they realized the stuff they were dying for was crap. But I digress.The big fat DPS number on weapons would have been something you figured out by throwing it into a spreadsheet. Of course, that number (in addition to the one from the character sheet) often belies the truth, since it doesn't factor output from certain abilities.Weapon types actually mean a lot due to their inherent swing timers. For certain classes, proc effects and resource/health generation is keyed into it, so with the initial release of D3, my Monk tried to go for swords, fists, and daggers. My DH used a cold bow when leveling and switched to an XBow when crit damage started scaling through the roof. A reason I had disagreed with the aspd nerf in items is that it just limited weapon choices, as items such as axes and maces were even more undesirable without an inherent aspd bonus to prop them up.As far as elemental affixes go, I agree with you that they would have added variety to the game.I apologize for asking this, but would you kindly elaborate given an example from the game? It seems to me that my opinion is fairly disliked, and I'm having to carefully reply to enough of them as is. I will definitely give it a look later.Specifically, how Diablo'ssystem, with a primary damage attribute, and three effective defensive attributes, armor, resistance, aspd, crit% and critdmg (nevermind the class-specific ones) modifiers fail to offer in comparison.Don't be unreasonable. The closest thing to that in D3 that I recall would be the Demon Hunter (and Wizard) when players found it to be profitable to eschew defensive stats in favor of max DEX (or INT for Wizards) to farm act 3 and 4 content. And even then, you had people balancing the primary offensive stat other offensive modifiers (or have you forgotten about those)?I regret that your delicate irrationality was offended by the use of the word "theorycraft" because Blizzard thought to include a simple (though at times inaccurate) tool in-game. I'm not entirely sorry you don't get to feel superior for downloading a spreadsheet or copying a build from what you might think is an obscure website.EDIT: Oh, and by the way, if you're upset at me for using the word "elegant", at least look up what it means.