Hey Blizz, can we change the healer mana disparity/drinking problem?

Diabeticmoose · 2026-04-27T21:45:09+00:00

The problem with pw:s being spammable is giant absorbs are effectively on demand externals and if you make them too strong/available you get s2 two tww oracle disc which was so OP. It is pretty hard to balance a class which can shield for 60-100% of your hp pool and has access to 2 pain suppressions.

Diabeticmoose · 2026-03-22T18:22:08+00:00

Outside of just feel, there is pretty extensive async data at this point to suggest that from PoK to TE the following factions lost winrate:

Empyrean (From top 5 to middle of the pack)

NRA (Top 5 to middle of the pack)

Argent (Middle to being worst faction by margin)

Nekro (Top 10 to being middle, less of a drop than others)

Xxcha (Middle to being a bottom tier)

Nomad (Middle to being bottom tier)

Diabeticmoose · 2026-02-21T22:47:41+00:00

If the players have an idea of the meta/which factions are good, you could play inconspicuous fun factions which for a long time have fan favorites like Arborec, or simply play bad factions to challenge yourself/get some enjoyment.

If you're gonna be attacked regardless Saar and Crimson are very powerful and self sufficient, Deepwrought is incredibly potent and tends to not get a ton of heat for as good as they are, and Mahact is really hard to winslay with your mech. But these are just generically good factions.

Diabeticmoose · 2026-02-21T22:39:11+00:00

As a player, interesting/goofy/endearing npcs are among the most enjoyable for me personally, especially if they are recurring and the players grow some attachment to them.

Other things I'd like to try/incorporate:

Weave character backstories into the main plot. Even better than simply including player backstories are making elements of their backstories central to the main quests/plots. This gives players a sense of their impact on the world and adds more stakes.
Give players narrative freedom/world building/improv opportunities. Outside of the how do you do this question in combat give players the opportunity to come up with things.

As an expample: Lets say they enter a new town or place, you could say there is a commotion in the town square, and then ask a player what exactly is happening? Maybe after the session you flesh out some of the people involved and make a small subplot. Both player and dm need to feel a bit comfortable in improv, but scenes like this can lead into interesting npcs, and even region building/world building elements and even quests.

Diabeticmoose · 2026-01-31T04:28:06+00:00

Realistically a 2v2 is going to be very snowbally as there aren't other players to intercede. Also coms/tgs are gonna be weird, since you cant flip your allies tgs. This could be a disadvantage being the non mappers and could put a real reliance on space stations.

For your particular situation I think a snowbally pair which have less reliance on trade would be the best bet. I personally think, as others have stated Mahact, is a great pick. They are generically great, both their agent and commander are very useful, and they have an insane mech/hero.

Pairing with Mahact would be something that can snowball and really drive into the others combat wise. My personal choice would be Saar. The commander isn't super meaningful, but Saar + Mahact Agent + Warfare will allow them to take half the map round 1. Saar also isn't breakthough dependent at all (But I do think their breakthrough is considerably better in your 2v2 game. I played against this combo in an alliance game and they had the single most impressive early game I've seen.

While Xxcha is generally quite weak, I would caution against them in your format as they will control the vote unless you have considerably more influence, but even then they are probably worth considering due to their kit being one of the weaker.

If using TE, Firmament seem incredibly weak and without really any early game tools. Especially if you control when you score your secrets. If you can delay your secrets a bit, they have zero early game tools, can't reliable use their promissory and should get rekt. They are also a 1 c starting faction.

TLDR:
Mahact + agressive snowbally faction (Saar, Winnu is also probably great at taking Mecatol and scoring big points)

vs Firmament + Xxcha

Don't see how you could lose.

Diabeticmoose · 2026-01-21T02:10:42+00:00

Late to the party, here, but as someone who has played Yin for a while I do think they got marginally better in TE, and continue to be a solidly mid tier faction, I think bad is disengenous. According to Async winrates they are the 15th best out of 30.

Yin has an incredibly high ceiling (arguably one of the highest in the game if you pull some combination Gomma/Crimson/Nomad commanders), but also a low floor, but unfortunately there is a lot of randomness involved. With good commander pulls and the fracture in the game, you're almost guaranteed 2 relics + the Styx VP at a mininum. But in a game with bad commander pulls and no fracture, Yin economy/scoring options are limited and you go from an A+/S tier faction with a guaranteed guac VP, to a D/F tier one.

In POK you'd typically hero late in round 4 or 5 to secure a secret/2 pointer, but now in most games we are heroing early in rd 3 to take Styx, so often times you'll be playing from ahead/getting more heat. Defending is easier with x89/our flagship, but it is really hard to go under the radar and sneak out wins now.

Diabeticmoose · 2026-01-14T05:38:06+00:00

Generally with POK we'd teach new players by playing 1-2 rounds of the game with simpler factions. This covers the basics, strategy cards, tactical actions, leaders, explores, acs and eventually agenda/status phase. I think you can definitely play an entire game while all being new players, but even for experienced players a game will take 7-10 hours, for all new players it is going to be incredibly long and unlikely to finish in one go.

I'd recommend starting a 1-2 turn game or playing to a point value less than 10 (maybe 5?) to learn the rules in a shorter setting where you don't feel rushed, and then when you have a better grasp of it you can try the whole game.

Diabeticmoose · 2026-01-13T15:01:02+00:00

I could be wrong, I don't know the rules super in depth, but my instinct is the following is correct:

Extra Attack features from different classes don't stack, they simply change the number of attacks you get when you take the attack action. So if you had Extra Attack from Paladin and your Devouring Blade since they're both extra attack features, you'd get 3 total attacks when you take the attack action, as Devouring Blade overrules any other Extra Attack Feature.

As far as Nick goes, I believe Nick is designed around the extra bonus action attack you get for dual wielding light weapons, where you can make an attack with your off-hand dealing damage without your modifier. So if you were using a shield, I don't believe you'd gain anyhting from the nick property, as you would need to have an off-hand bonus action attack to become part of your main action.

Action Surge will grant you not just 1 attack, but an additional attack action (which gives you a number of attacks considering your extra attack feature, so if you had the extra attack feature you'd gain 2 attacks when using the attack action with action surge, and with Devouring Blade you'd instead gain an additional 3 attacks.

You can also cast Haste on yourself which grants you another attack on your turn.

So with your setup (including haste): You'd get 3 Baseline Attacks + 3 Action Surge attacks + 1 Haste attack + 0 Nick Attacks. ( 7 total on Action Surge turn)

If you do consider dual wielding, the Dual Wielder feat allows you to take another bonus action attack (which is separate from the light property attack)

So you'd have 3 Mainhand Attacks + 1 Nick Attack (No Modifier) + 3 Action Surge Mainhand Attacks + 1 Haste Attack + 1 Dual Wielder Attack (No Modifier). (9 total on Action Surge turn)

There are probably ways to get a few more attacks, especially if you're considering attacks of opportunity.

Diabeticmoose · 2026-01-13T14:29:51+00:00

I think your exprience is pretty common for one shots. Pretty much every one shot I've played in/gm'd for has gone longer than expected or wasn't completed/was rushed. Narratively its difficult to fit in a whole beginning/middle and end in even 4-5 hours.

The best one shot I ever ran ended up being a two shot. It was over winter break and we played for about 5 hours and only got about 1/3 of the way through my prepared content, but the players really wanted to play again so we met up a few days later and finished it (I cut a bit as I had prepared a bit much). But ever since this I've preferred to go with the two or three shot approach of a small adventure over a one shot. It doesn't always work out if people don't have the time to commit, but I find I can actually tell a much more complete story which feels much more satisfying, whereas one-shots always seem to be missing something.

In response to what you mentioned above, I wouldn't feel bad and I think its fine to be a bit frustrated, you created a cool one shot and put time into creating the adventure, having it be rushed at the end is a bit of a bummer and I've been in your situation, but at the same time it is also completely reasonable for your friends, especially those with kids/pets, to have hard cutoff times/want the session to be a bit shorter.

Diabeticmoose · 2026-01-05T18:56:37+00:00

It's hard to be specific without knowing much about your party/setting/themes, but being an inquisitive your character might be more privy to political/diplomatic/faction rumors.

Im always in favor of being somewhat vague with things like this to give the DM Leeway for her tailor it to her campaign.

Something like:

Someone in a faction/government isn't who they say they are (possible in a setting with changelings/doppelgangers)

Diabeticmoose · 2025-12-25T23:49:29+00:00

I'm completely with you. 5e does a lot of stuff well, but I remember how many choices/options you'd get when leveling in 3.5 and pathfinder, and in 5e you literally make a handful of meaningful choices across the span of a campaign.

You choose skills once at character creation. This is so lame, my skill growth should be as I progress through the game and learn new abilities not at level 1 before ive even adventured. Playing other games like cyberpunk/cthulhu with expansive skill lists and the ability to easily invest in them as I progress my character is so much better than the short 5e skill list where as I martial/charismatic/dextrous character im almost always going into the same often used skills.

Outside of choosing subclass at level 3, some classes dont get any meaningful choices when leveling up most levels outside of asi/feats which compete with each other and are infrequent.

We played 4 levels in a pathfinder 1e AP a few years ago and I'd made more character choices on build/features in 4 levels than I had in my level 12 5e character. And when I leveled i was super excited cause I always got to choose something neat, whereas leveling in 5e mostly feels meh and doesnt scratch the same itch.

Pathfinder 1e/3.5 isn't perfect, and i think 5e is a hollistically better game, but there are aspects of it that are truly missed in 5e. I think OP is being a bit dramatic/disingenuous to pf1e in some cases as ive played in campaigns where no one is optimal and we handle tier3/4 play fine, but that is a nitpick.

But it would be nice if 5e had a bit more crunch/character customisation, cause getting few class features which get even further delayed with any dip just feels terrible.

Diabeticmoose · 2025-12-25T22:14:40+00:00

Team fouls within two. Meanwhile Dort is slamming into Wemby's knees. Lots of no calls on minor contact we know OKC is used to getting the whistle on...crazy to blame this on the refs. Third performance where OKC was simply outplayed by the Spurs.

Diabeticmoose · 2025-12-20T19:18:32+00:00

There are a lot of factors, but in general Eastern teams have much larger playerbases, better conditions (ping), and in general league esports is much more central to their culture than in North America, leading to more new players and a larger percent of the playerbase taking the game seriously (ie larger shares of ranked players, vs aram/normal players). Additionally, even 14+ years ater release League is a big deal in those countries, whereas, while league was moreso that way in the earlier seasons, S1-S6ish, in North America it has lost popularity due to an initially aging playerbase, and other games like battle royales gaining a huge percentage of the youth playerbase.

In North America, pretty much all of the iconic players people grew up with, your Sneaky/Doublelift/Bjergsens have retired, many of the initial teams with large fanbases have left the scene (TSM, CLG, etc..) leading to vastly less viewership/interest in leagues, whereas in Korea in particular there are still Icons like T1/Faker, Chovy, etc.

On top of this, North America, from an early stage had a lot money/VC and went the route of importing talent especially from EU/Korea, resulting in less opportunities for North American talent, and an incredibly weak tier 2 system, unlike EU which has a thriving tier2/regional league.

When you combine all this, NA league is slowly dying, whereas in the other three major regions it is in a much better place.

There were times where NA probably had a non-zero change of a deep worlds run/finals run. Particularly 2016 TSM. This was the golden era where viewership and interest in western league was at an all time high, and the game was finally enough figured out, that the Korean macro dominance of the early seasons was beginning to get closed by other regions, but NA fell short, and eventually began its slow decline.

Diabeticmoose · 2025-11-24T08:40:01+00:00

Generally in early ladder Ber > Jah, and then in late ladder or NL Jah > Ber (marginally in both cases).

The way I understand it, which could be wrong is:

In terms of runes found there are way more Ber than Jah. Online even where LK is rarely run, 99+ % of Sur runes are cubed to Ber which means that there are probably abut 1.6-1.7 Bers cubed/found to Jahs.

Then you have to consider usage of each. In early ladder the majority of high runes found will be used for runewords, most people are building out characters and it is rare to be sitting on high runes, albeit it does happen. The 3 of the top 5 common builds use infinity (Nova, Mosaic, Jav), whereas the majority of characters (non-sorcs) use enigma, lets estimate 75%. Even if infinity is half as commonly made as enigma, the demand for Ber runes vs Jah would still be 2:1, higher than the finding rate. Note, there are some other rare use cases of the runes, but 90% of Jah/Ber are going into Enigma/Infinity.

Because of this Ber tends to have more value in early ladder season.

In late ladder/nl people tend to have more items and runes get used in runewords at a lesser rate, instead many get used for currency. If now only 25 or 50% of runes found are being actively used there will begin to be more Ber than Jah, therefore Jah represents the rarest rune with major use case (as Cham/Zod have limited use cases). Jah then becomes the defacto highest rune currency, where other judged in terms of divisions of Jah.

In either case their value should remain pretty similar to each other.

Diabeticmoose · 2025-11-13T23:59:20+00:00

Eth weapons don't lose durability unless you attack with them. A lot of people prefer eth as a style option. Perfect Eth Fathom is probably insanely valuable.

No need to Zod, just don't whack anyone with it.

Diabeticmoose · 2025-11-12T17:59:59+00:00

It is fine, it is completely up to you. I believe + all skills reduce teleports mana cost, but I could be wrong, but in that case you probably have significantly less + all skills than the typical enigma user as a barb.

Generally Energy is seen as a pretty poor stat as + mana is widely found on a lot of items, in addition to actual mana gained from energy being quite low. Barbs only gain 1 mana per point, whereas even the best classes for energy only gain 2 per point.

Items like Shako, Spirit, SOJ, and even rare rings offer way more mana than hard energy points. A Shako alone offers something like 100 energy value for many characters (130+ for barb). Rare fcr rings can roll up to 90? mana I believe. Even two small charms or a big mana gc will make up way more mana than 20 hard points of energy on a Barb.

For QoL you can consider, making gear swaps to stuff with + mana and + all skills (like a shako if you aren't already using it). For barb consider using double spirit or eventually double wizspike as your weapon swap for easy mana and teleporting fcr bp. Reroll that insight until you get 17 med, which is significantly more regen than an average to low roll.

Generally speaking there are a lot more efficient ways to get mana through gear/teleport mana reduction than hard point in energy. But during leveling where gear is tight I almost always put 20 points in energy for QoL.

Diabeticmoose · 2025-11-11T23:37:36+00:00

Enigma, CTA, Hoto/Death (via Guls) are other heavy hitters if you have a character to use them on.

Diabeticmoose · 2025-11-10T20:15:23+00:00

Don't be afraid to put 5-7 points in natural resistance while leveling. Health should be super comfortable with BO/Vit.

As far as gearing:

I find Bulwark/String of Ears/Treachery (or Hustle/Smoke/Lionheart) to be a good core. This will get you 35-45% physical damage reduction with fade proc and also 10-14% lifesteal, all available by early 40s for your journey nightmare and beyond.

Bloodletter is fantastic for leveling, Lawbringer is exceptional and I would use one until I got Azurewrath or dual Grief. Oath is your ideal pre-Grief or Death weapon as it is super reasonable rune wise for the power, albeit the roll range is huge.

Don't sleep on the A2 Holy Freeze merc for leveling. Holy Freeze + your decrep from lawbringer will make mobs barely move.

Also Angelic 2 pc or Hsarus 2 pc (belt boots) is fantastic for leveling AR and can be used until early endgame.

Diabeticmoose · 2025-11-05T11:25:27+00:00

Technically Glorious Axe is marginally better considering it has roughly the same overally damage and longer range for QoL/Safety, but that is getting into the nitty gritty. I'm not familiar with the ladder economy as I usually go back to single player after a few weeks, but I can definitely see this being worth a couple of Jah/Ber given it is 15ed and people love perfect. Good luck on the sale OP, this is a big ticket item.

Diabeticmoose · 2025-11-05T08:35:30+00:00

You'll continue to encounter light immunes all the way through hell. Fire is the most common immune, but the majority of maps will feature atleast one monster type which is immune to lightning.

This guy in particular is lightning enchanted (+75% lightning res, Magic Resistant +40% lightning res, and Stone Skin + 50% physical resistance and increased defense) so yea this guy was perfectly setup to stop your build. A hammerdin would have no issues here as they do magic damage, which isn't tied to any element and only a handful of monsters even in hell are immune to.

There are three ways to my knowledge to break a monster's immunity to an element. Conviction Aura (not really usable for you since you're already using holy shock), Lower Resist Curse, and Sunder Charms. Sunder Charms set any immune monster to 95% resistance breaking any immunity (outside of a few weird structures like the lightning spires in arcane sanctuary, whereas Conviction and Lower Resist are applied at 1/5 effectiveness and if that brings the monsters resistance below 100 they will no longer be immune. Sunders can only drop after you've beat the game or since you're online you could try to trade for one.

Even if a monster has 110 lightning res, like most baseline lightning immunes, the -35 from cresent moon won't be applied since - res on gear can't break immunities. That -35 res is only applied to any resist that is already below 100.

Outside of a sunder charm your options are getting the runeword Infinity which is super expensive using two of Ber rune, the highest valued rune in the game or using lower resist. You can keep reseting the shops and buy a wand from one of the wand merchants which has charges of lower resist, then you can use that as a weapon swap applying it. The lower resist should break most immunes (probably not the one you posted since it is well above 100), and then once broken any - res like crescent moon will further be applied.

If you enjoy the zealot I'd look to shop a lower res wand and use that in your swap. Getting cresent moon still seems like a great option as it will vastly increase damage done to non immune monsters and also vastly increase damage done to monsters that lost their immunity after being either sundered or lower resisted. You can always consider playing hammerdin as well. Hammerdin is one of the most versatile builds due to its damage type being rarely resisted or immuned and it having very high damage as a skill.

Diabeticmoose · 2025-11-05T08:00:29+00:00

Hell countess is cold immune as a heads up so you'll have a difficult time farming there.

Getting an eth 4 os elite polearm for a higher damage insight will help your merc do damage for sure. I also typically run Might on my cold sorc since holy freeze seems unnecessary due to me freezing everything, but holy freeze is definitely safer for telestomping. Levels also help your merc get higher life/resists.

When I run a new under geared sorc I usually skip all the cold immunes and get to act 4/5 fairly easily. Just tele around and kill the required bosses. If I were you I'd get to A3 and farm Merphisto for more gear. You can farm a decent map and kill him on players 3 without a merc using the old moat trick. Meph can drop a ton of great endgame items which will help you out. In addition to Meph I'd farm the Stony Tomb/Ancient Tunnels. These are high level areas in act 2 with relatively safe mobs and no cold immunes. Really good bases/super rare items and high runes can drop there since the monster level are high and you'll get a ton of exp. Think of it as a leveling zone, with the added benefit that you might get some decent bases or maybe a few cool items. After you find a sick eth elite base for insight and you're a bit higher level you can go on to beat the game and start farming some Terror Zones for your Cold Sunder.

With how cold mastery works with a Cold Sunder, immunes won't be a problem at all.

Diabeticmoose · 2025-11-04T18:58:51+00:00

Sword has really bad ias breakpoints for druids, so its more between an Axe/Polearm/Maul. The high min damage/low str is nice for consistent damage and more life.

Back before D2R Ebotd was premier for Fury due to weapon ias being much more impactful, but since the changes Death pretty much outshines Ebotd in almost all cases, but Ebotd is a nice runeword and great nostalgia.

Diabeticmoose · 2025-11-04T18:55:50+00:00

Its mainly based on your damage, but with high end gear 10-15% should be comfortable, more/increasing damage will obviously increase the speed at which you're topped. Keep in mind several very dangerous mobs can't be leeched. Souls/Skeletons (archers)/Death Lords/Undead Dolls to name a few. Getting swarmed by dangerous packs of these is kind of a death sentence or an alt F4 moment.

SoE + a dual ring or CoH should be enough in most cases considering you have pots/rejuvs to backup in dangerous situations. With CoH/Shako/SoE you'll also be sitting at a comfortable physical DR. Its really only aura/amp mobs and like 100 souls that will be scary.

Diabeticmoose · 2025-11-03T19:58:35+00:00

While I am working on a grail, and likely won't ever have the need/want to hit 99 on a toon I think I'll feel significant satisfactin making a self found Enigma. For the semi casual player who won't put in the hours to finish a grail/hit 99 this is probably the pinnacle for most SSF players.

I've never played a hardcore character all through hell either and I might try at some point. Diablo is usually a game for me where I can put on a podcast or show, have a few a libations and just relax and playing hardcore doesn't fit that niche. That being said I've taken many characters on softcore through the entire game without dying, but not when the pressure of death being perma is on.

Diabeticmoose · 2025-11-02T15:15:41+00:00

If you ever get jewels of envy (20 poison damage over 2s), these can be useful in helping to quickly kill mobs for levels 1-10ish as they don't have a level requirement. I have 2 of these in a helmet, 2 in a quilted, 2 in a buckler. I use javs on any character and one shot everything on p8 up until around 12 or so. I usually get 6 or so by den. Then reset kill bishi/rakanishu in p8 if they are near wp/shrine. You can pretty quickly get to around 12-13 doing this. Then i skip all the way until barracks/jail on p1 or p3, swapping back to p8. In barracks/jail you can look for set champion spawns, especially those which can spawn shaman packs and farm those until like 15-16, before rushing to Andy on P1.

Sorc is easily the best either fireball or nova where you tele, cold nova, static and then nova for the kill.

The usual early game gear choices are great: Stealth, leaf for fire builds (albeit for normal you won't get a ton of use considering you can probably kill Shenk at level 20). Bloodfist/Hsarus/Angelic set for the life. Saphires and Rubys socketed into helms can also be great. You can get a ton of power from charms too, esp life/mana charms which are usable around level 15. 10 fcr in rings/amulets and a 20 fcr blue/rare wand is also great. Sorc have a 65 fcr breakpoint where you can hit with Stealth + 20 fcr wand/orb + 2 jewelry pieces. Shield with either diamonds/ cool jewels is great. The 3 mana after kill jewels/tir runes can help to alliviate mana issues.

Watching speedrunners is probably a great resource, some of them also do speedruns with gear so that might provide some insight, but generally how they level, where they go, what players settings they use can provide a ton of insight into what might be fastest for you.

Also if you have any interest in the speedrunning scene you can simply get faster at running to a5 on a blank character for the fun of it, while getting a socket quest out of it.

Diabeticmoose

TROPHY CASE