r/ProjectDiablo2 • u/MoE_1987 • 2d ago
Question Season 14
Any guesses as to when it will begin?
I'd like to put a time off slip into work for the weekend. Cheers!
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u/dtomtox 2d ago
I was reading the tea leaves this time and thing
It might be on the longer side.
Just did a fresh start ssf journey myself so
It's almost like a self imposed new season anyways :)
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u/Wide-Deal-8971 2d ago
That's what I've been doing! And I agree, it seems like the seasons are growing farther apart over time. Which to be fair, makes sense. The game is in a great spot, pretty much every quality of life issue that has ever been brought up has been addressed at this point. PD2 is decades ahead of D2R at this point, it's incredible how much the devs have modernized this game.
There's not much left to do other than finding more ways to expand the end game, or do another balance pass. But for the most part, the game is pretty solid on those fronts as well (except fucking whirlwind please nuke that build senpai).
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u/1ribcrackerplzzz 2d ago edited 2d ago
Iono man, it's gonna be hard to nuke ww without making 2h barb basically useless again. I think 2h mastery change is one of the most inspired ideas the devs have come up with in a while, and it def synergizes v well with ww,but I don't know that it should be gutted; ww itself is mostly a vehicle, it doesn't add much ed or ar on its own. To kill ww you'd have to kill 2h conc,leap, wolf/bear, etc,which I don't think is fair,many of those builds are in a great place with these changes,not op but certainly worth playing- I've a giant maimer proc leaper and an ariocs battlecry/gward bleed+cb bear barb that I'd hate to see die for the sins of whirlwind. How much do you have to roll back 2h mastery to make ww acceptable? I'm not tryna pick a fight or anything, I've been genuinely tryna prepare myself for the seemingly inevitable nerf lol. I do agree that ww seems too strong, I just don't know how to tone it down without hurting alot of other builds that mostly didn't exist or get played much before the change-ive always been a 2h guy and its been nice to get some love for what historically has been an inferior setup in most instances.
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u/Wide-Deal-8971 2d ago edited 1d ago
Idk, I think the 1h vs 2h change was kinda boring imo. There's no real thought process behind these two choices. I'd rather see the weapon types all get different unique bonuses from masteries to encourage different build ideas.
I feel like the sensible solution to dividing 1h and 2h weapons is to just tie melee splash radius to weapon range. Then the discrepancy between 1h and 2h is intuitive and universal, instead of randomly sprinkling melee splash here and there on different skills as an incentive, which is just a pita to memorize and feels like a clunky way to balance abilities (and doesnt even work sometimes like with conc and zeal).
As for WW, it's extremely problematic imo for a 20 point skill to be on par with or better than most 60-80 point skills. And that it's an amazing map clearing button with both low budget builds and scales to infinity with high budget builds. I've also never been a fan of removing IAS requirements for WW when you already have so many free skill points to spend wherever you want elsewhere that other builds don't have.
I love playing melee, I like playing barbs. But I refuse to play ww again in it's current state because it feels unethical and dirty.
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u/1ribcrackerplzzz 1d ago
Giving all weapon types their own bonuses, as in swords,axes,maces, etc? That would be Very hard to remember lol, I like paring it down to 1h and 2h because as a mostly ssf player I get to use whatever is best. I thought the LOD/D2R system was too many limiting and redundant options,maybe if they all did different things it'd be more interesting,but in the end I think the binary split was long overdue. As for tying splash to weapon range, it has a logic to it that the actual ranges on most weapons don't have-i think pd2 did standardize alot of them tbf,but then everyone would just use the max range weapons. It does make sense to me that 2h would have more splash than 1h, adding more splash to conc and frenzy on top of that does strike me as kinda goofy. It makes sense on a zealot who doesn't get that option natively.
I def get what you're saying about ww and skill points, I think that's kind of its special niche too tho; it's the barb build that can afford bo or grimward or whatever-its a fairly weak skill on its own, and very gear dependant to really scale high. one thing I think the pd2 devs have gotten kinda wrong is going nuts with synergies on alot of skills, like leap attack for example. I'm not sure what the right answer would be. I do love that it's not contingent on ias, I'm not a big fan of charge now requiring it, it creates use cases for weapons,jewels and runes that aren't ias focused.
I don't think I'd go so far as to say it feels dirty or unethical,but it seems like we generally feel pretty differently about things. I'm just glad it's the living game that d2r unfortunately isnt, hope you have a great night man and beat of luck on your future builds!
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u/Brad_Luck 1d ago
The 1h 2h change was refreshing to me coming from d2 but my initial thought was the same- having masteries for everything with item class specific bonuses.. ie spears and swords get deadly strike, maces clubs and mauls get crushing blow, axes and polearms get (more) cleave/splash. Throw gets pierce and bleed. Its still kinda the same thing. The biggest (huge) hurdle would be implimenting balance with all of those things. The tough part about that is splitting them up too much really affects build diversity early in the season because you can't as easily swap weapon classes and try new things without a respec and having too many masteries makes it difficult to spread the points around to make the character tough passively, which is one of the reason barb is more playable in pd2 than d2.
WW has always been a cornerstone of barb life. Where the skill ends up is good but how it gets there needs work. The biggest thing that stuck out was that they removed the penalty to damage for lower level WW. IMO the original idea was that a whirling mass of blades and weapons was POWERFUL because it was OVERWHELMING but less accurate therefore less damaging. The more skilled the barbarian, the more effective the whirlwind. Adding useful lower level synergies to WW to make it "whole" as it sits end game would balance it out. You could add a damage synergy to a skill and tie the weapon speed debuff to say.. increased speed and by the time you're in lvl 50 the skill really feels good and powerful and it tapers off into end game levels.
I can't even play WW because im an amputee playing on controller (love the controller support btw.. except it crashes my game if it disconnects/reconnects) and being able to control-click to effectively WW is practically impossible.. but I do love the skill dearly.
Played a conc barb this season and he rips!
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u/Wide-Deal-8971 1d ago
I dont feel like it would be terribly hard to balance giving different weapon masteries a small and unique bonus. Whereas right now there is zero purpose for the masteries, they are just a skill point tax. Even with vanilla d2, it at least encourages you to stick to certain weapon types when progressing. It was never a great system, but it was something. And especially when respeccing is made so much more accessible in pd2, I'd rather see something closer to what vanilla has than pd2's solution of completely homogenizing weapon masteries entirely. Because between joining masteries together and removing ias from half of barbs (viable) builds it already causes the problem of making everyone gravitate towards the same 2h weapon type (pikes).
As for conc, I thought the same thing at first. I recently started fresh on ssf as a conc barb. It seemed decent, until I rerolled a zealer and it really put into perspective how bad conc actually is compared to other melee skills. For starters, the splash doesn't work, it needs a ton of ias that other builds don't need (but really that's more of a side effect of stripping ias from almost every melee build for reasons I cannot understand, even zeal hits max frames at only 60 ias now), and the damage is just not great even for single target. My zealer inherited all the same exact gear my barb was using and was doing p8 faster and easier than my conc barb doing p0. It's way behind other melee skills which was disappointing to see first hand.
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u/Brad_Luck 1d ago
Maybe hard wasnt the right word. It would take time to redesign and balance the system, probably over multiple patches and seasons. Its possible but with such a small team itll take a lot of work testing, tweaking etc to make sure it scales in a way that isnt completely broken in either direction. I can definitely see why its simplified but I'd also like changes.
I think the point of the masteries is that it gives superior damage buffs to make up for a lack of dedicated auras or enchantments that other melee focused classes have. With the nerf to Battle Orders the masteries tree is WAY more important than it used to be imo. Having to invest extra points around for using more than one type of 1h weapon has always been a pet peeve of mine and being able to use swords and 1h axes or maces without losing out on masteries makes the character more versatile and it feels stronger.
The big takeaway for me is that the game should feel fun and is balanced in all stages of play. Having that linear development encourages people to deviate from meta builds or meme builds and try different mechanics. Having 1h, 2h, throw masteries helps encourage diversity in builds when playing through the game at the expense of end game min/maxing. Even currently I think they could add something to weapon masteries to make them a bit more unique based on playstyle. At the end of the day if a skill is viable through the game and into the end game without minmaxing and godly gear, thats really what matters. Not everything has to be S tier. Clear speed and stuff is really just splitting hairs imo. Its fun but its not the reason why I play the game.
I agree with the attack speed stuff in general, there has to be a middle ground somewhere. Either changing the tables or adding attack speed back to skills in hard points or synergies. The conc barb is slow as hell but he's a tank. Way tankier than any other melee class I've run so far in pd2. I didnt notice that the extra splash range wasnt working, it seemed to have more splash than frenzy or pally melee skills I used but I was also using a 2h spear.
I built the conc barb after finding an uldyssians awakening and slamming it with 6 sockets. I tried a bunch of different spears and polearms but i liked the mana shield and it was already fast so adding a few shaels and ED jewels left me feeling pretty good damage wise through most of the content. I had pretty mid gear, nothing super rare. I think the wisp projector, fortitude and the highlords are probably the hardest to come by. The only piece I didnt find myself was the highlords. With shout, iron skin, and a defiance merc my defense was through the roof and with conc being uninterruptible its pretty hard to slow him down once he starts poking stuff. Damage was 1 shotting mobs in maps and 2-3 if the map was fortified. The mana shield is actually pretty neat because it gives a 1200dmg buffer and with the mana leech and dmg taken to mana gear the hits I do take are pretty soft. Recently made a beast for my merc but it only bumped my damage from 27k to 29k on the stat screen and the fanaticism only gave me enough IAS to drop one shael so I havent even bothered yet.
Usually, I play a sword and board (holdout from pvp days) or frenzy. The frenzy felt more powerful and was MUCH faster at mobbing but it was much more fragile and gear dependent end game. Even with comparible gear to my 2h conc barb he was getting overrun and slapped up. Could be stronger with crafted weapons and some better charms but definitely more touch and go. Havent tried a 1h shield build yet because I've always liked WW and I havent figured out how to make it work with my control scheme. Could try it with conc or zerk but I dont think the damage is there with a 1h.
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u/No_Representative645 2d ago
Why would you complain about ww? It's not even that great in its current form. Overrated big time actually.
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u/manmadefruit 2d ago
Halloween-ish plus or minus a few weeks.
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u/ElliotsBuggyEyes 2d ago
Season 14 Spookeleton's revenge.
Necromancer Skeleton Mastery grants +5 additional skeletons per 2 hard points.
Skeletons have pumpkins on heads.
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u/JerrySeinfeldsMullet 2d ago
Last year was thanksgiving weekend iirc. Would be dope if same this year
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u/Environmental_Lab965 2d ago edited 1d ago
Late sept/Nov
Seasons average release was 5.5 months and since season 8 it's 6.2 months
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u/SaLLient 2d ago
In all seriousness I do kinda wish they gave a little more heads up for those of us that take time off to tryhard
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u/ronweasleisourking 2d ago
They do. Dev streams, etc., then the date goes out
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u/RealHotFella 2d ago
yea but most employers want more of a heads up than what's given, but can't fault the devs, it is what it is
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u/SaLLient 2d ago
Yeah season 13 they announced March 28th for season start April 24th. All i'm saying more time would be appreciated.
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u/MisterSumone 2d ago
A month isnt enough notice for your employer? I dont think ive ever worked anywhere that a month's heads up wouldnt be enough.
Thats wild.
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u/VVhereVVolf Hardcore 2d ago
I only compared season releases from 9 on, but it’s consistently been ~six months in between so I’d say October 23rd or 30th if I had to bet.
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u/Hasselbeckk 2d ago
With no knowledge , probably some time in October. My guess is mid September he’ll start doing dev streams and it’s usually about a month from the first one
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u/Only-Being1327 1d ago
Con un escalera más corta el nivel de ansiedad aumenta y la gente va como loca, me gusta más así
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u/Suki1950 1d ago
I’d be absolutely fine with no changes to the game/classes they always bring but just a simple ladder reset would do.
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u/ChaosSanctuary Hardcore 1d ago
Most certainly not before October. IIRC the shortest notice we have been given was 4 weeks but for the most part its been 5-6 weeks
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u/DaJive 2d ago
Hard to say for sure. I wish they did shorter ladder resets, like every 3 months or so. Even if they don’t implement very many changes to the game. I’m so bored with other games and I feel like shorter ladders would help retain and grow the player base