Diablo 2 synergy popularity mind-boggling

[Sykar]

The details of this thread will probably only interest some old D2 veterans like me, but I just wanted to see if I am overlooking something for a long time or if the majority of D2 players were and still are idiots. I have been playing it recently again on B.Net, version 1.14d, and still I must say that I prefer the game prior to 1.10, before synergies were introduced. I really do not like synergy and never really saw the point beyond retarded power creep. Yet despite this people claim that it gave us MORE build variety. I cannot wrap my mind around this logic. I can build any build from patch 1.10 onward in patches 1.07 to 1.09, with some tweaks of course, and for the most part they will be playable just the same in principle. A lot of builds though simply went out of the window like tri elemental sorc, or well a lot of hybrid builds in fact. Some passives like Warmth became basically 1 point wonders and are never of any concern thanks to overabundance of mana potions and Insight rune word. The same goes for many buffs since there are now simply not enough points left for them like the sorc armor buff spells. Energy Shield became even less popular since now it required 40 points + prerequisites which in conjunction with the extra skill points needed for most spells due to the retarded synergy system makes it a very unattractive choice now and almost all sorcs go full vita or max block. Only Nova and FO sorcs really have points to incorporate ES at the expense of a second element.
To top it all off many slots now have exclusively rune word only as bis with exceptions of course slots which offer no sockets. Do not even get me started on retarded shit like Dupenigma and Derpfinity, the dumbest shit ever invented.

So ultimately all synergies did was heighten power creep at the expense of build variation from my point of view, among many other problems it introduced, yet it became hugely popular. At most you could say that more skills became on par with long standing popular skills like FO but that could have been easily amended without synergies so that is not an argument either. Why then do people claim that synergies gave us more builds when it locks a lot of builds into a strict path with very little variation? To add insult to injury some skills like Ice Bolt even with their insane amount of 5! synergies still deal crap damage. I see no argument for synergies outside of getting ridiculous damage numbers. In terms of build variety it kills them.

 

[Kutulu]

Yes... and it was even worse for melee characters since you build the character around a weapon with a certain speed etc
A weapon good for Zeal isnt always good for another Skill so you didnt even get a useable support skill like you often did on
Casters. I.e. a Necro using Bone Spear will atleast have a decent aoe spell in Teeth.

You cant build a perfect Frenzy Barbarian since you need over 80 Skill Points to fully syngergize it, there is only
110 skill points in this game, only reachable at lvl 99 which nobody does. So if you put another 20 in Weapon Mastery
and 1 point into passives you are at 109 skills...... + 1 in Shout (Armor Battlecry) means you dont have a single point
in Battle Orders, which makes the character useless.

 

[J1M]

Choice paralysis is a real detriment to enjoyment for many people. When presented with more than a manageable number of choices, their brain shuts down and too many choices becomes functionally equivalent to zero choices. Not in the sense that the choices are invisible to them, but in the sense that with both too many choices and zero choices they are unable to pick one.

Other places you can observe this:
-Restaurants with very long menus tend to do worse than those with shorter menus
-Normal people and investing in the stock market
-Someone unable to think of a single meal idea when asked what they want for dinner

 

[Kutulu]

Not really the case when the full synergies are mandatory for something to actually work.
The introduction of Synergies killed a bunch of characters because ofc they changed the difficulty/health values.

The introduction of Lod killed all melee characters, no imported character worked, at all. Even in area they could easily
farm before, the only solution for barbarians was to shop at an npc to hope for a decent magic sword. Blizzard was
really fucking terrible at keeping build viable.*

Another example: the team character GerBarb & RusBarb (a race for the first char to reach level 99) would be completly useless
in LoD since LoD introduces Frame based hits on Whirlwind (the skill the chars used) so only a really fast weapon could
be used to get the max potential out of Whirlwind. With this they killed most of the possible Whirldwind builds.
Barbarians had weapon specializations some of which couldnt be used at all anymore, since the weapon category
was incapable of reaching the speed level required for it to be effective.

Barbarians can specialize to use Spears.... yet dont have a single attack thats good with a spear.

*based ofc on that you where using swords, if you used maces or spears you could delete the character, neither maces nor speers where capable of reaching the speed levels required for whirwind to work.

 

[Sykar]

I am pretty sure they did not give a single shit about keeping current character builds viable. It seemed to me like they just brain stormed some shit together over the weekend and then thought it is a good idea without thinking further about its ramifications.

 

[deuxhero]

The weird thing is they didn't add respec for seven years after it.

The one argument for synergies was that the skills at the top of skill trees were often just 1 point for prerequisite and never touched. Problem is they're useless by themselves still. The execution was lame, but the idea could work in a ground-up implementation (likely with skills that were never useless by design in the first place).

 

[Sykar]

The weird thing is they didn't add respec for seven years after it.

The one argument for synergies was that the skills at the top of skill trees were often just 1 point for prerequisite and never touched. Problem is they're useless by themselves still. The execution was lame, but the idea could work in a ground-up implementation (likely with skills that were never useless by design in the first place).

Or just improve the lower level skills that they are desirable enough to use on their own.

 

[nobre]

There was massive butthurt when 1.10 came out. People basically had the same objections as you, like many builds not being playable, runewords too powerful etc. So you're not alone in that. However, the solution is very simple, don't play on Bnet, play SP instead. Then you can play any patch you want. SP is the superior experience in most games anyway.

 

[Sykar]

Yeah, seems like I should really give up on B.Shit and go back to SP and install plugy.

 

[what am i doing]

I liked the changes to summon necromancers. You had far less skeletons (still a ton mind you) but they were absurdly durable.

 

[Kutulu]

The changes to necro where neccesary because skeletons where just worthless before, all the mastery and + skills in the world couldnt keep the skeletons alive in hell.

And what i said still applies Barbarian has mastery for weapons that make no sense to use, im not sure what their reason for this is but they never fixed it.
Whirlwind only works with the weapon based speed + increase on the weapon itself! I.e. Items that give + attack speed dont count.... Never fixed.
Theres like one unique weapon in the polearm category with a unfathomable low drop chance that can be used. An etheral, 3 socket Tomb Reaver.

Im playing D2 now, but classic because... Barbarian still works there, atleast they didnt patch in the speed requirements in classic.

 

[Mastermind]

whirlwind barb sucked even with the best gear, does it really matter if a shitty skill is even shittier with pole arms? Actually barbarians were shit, period. barbarians are there to buff with bc/bo and then sit there and tank while everybody else does the actual damage

 

[The Decline]

Install and play Path of Diablo instead of vanilla.

 

[Kutulu]

whirlwind barb sucked even with the best gear, does it really matter if a shitty skill is even shittier with pole arms? Actually barbarians were shit, period. barbarians are there to buff with bc/bo and then sit there and tank while everybody else does the actual damage

Not really no, i cleared all of d2 including uber diablo & uber tristram easily with whirldwind. In classic it was almost overpowered thanks to Iceblinker comepletely freezing enemies in place.

 

[Pika-Cthulhu]

D2 classic ww spear barb was ridiculous. Then LoD came and took a giant steaming shit on the game and retarded up all the gameplay with its stupid cancer. RIP

 

[DDZ]

The worst 1.10 brought was the loss of hunting for yellows. It was much more fun to find a rare Ornate Plate which had the potential to be the best chest you could find for your barb than using the same goddamn chest everyone else was using.

 

[Sykar]

Yeah even slots like belt have Arach now, which is BiS for basically any class which needs a lot of +x to skills . Situational rare amus, rings and boots can be BiS, depending on build. Armor and melee weapons are ruled by RWs. Same goes for Merc weapon, Infiniderp is such a retarded piece of shit RW that its creator should be barred from designing something ever again.

 

[Sykar]

Anyone who wants to play an earlier version of D2 but does not know how, I can recommend this video.


Important: Do NOT use the Blizzard digital downloader. This 1.14d version is NOT downgradable. I must know I tried all manners of tricks, nohing works.
Use the steps in this video instead and use D2SE with PLUGY. D2SE makes it very easy to switch versions from 1.07 to 1.13c. PLUGY enables D2 Ladder RWs and massive stash space. Both can run together easily under D2SE, just enable it by clicking the check box after you chose your D2 patch version. To start, double click the patch version in the D2SE menu.

 

[Dadd]

Synergies should be removed from the game instead of adding dumb immune breaking charms. It's still not too late. They should erase runewords while they're at it.

 

[Sykar]

Sadly, there are too many brain-dead retards who convinced themselves that it promotes "build diversity".

 

[Dadd]

I've heard that argument but nothing convincing. Even if synergies increased "build diversity" on a spreadsheet, much more important for my experience as a player is how meaningful my build choices are. I don't care if synergies lead to a higher number of builds when these builds are limited to narrow sets of skills.

I'd rather have each skill point be more impactful, allowing each character a wider range of skills that I choose, than have to invest 60-80 points and be forced into a predetermined build.

I don't think synergies are as popular as Blizzard would like us to believe, but they probably introduced synergies to push people toward multiplayer. Whether we like them or not is irrelevant to them.

 

[Sykar]

Thing is it does not increase build diversity. Any build you can make with synergies you could make under the old system. They claim that synergies buff the lower-level skills but there was nothing preventing them from just straight up buffing them and getting them to the same level as they can reach now with synergies, except without I could mix and match how I see fit. Of course, this is all compounded further by making mana nigh irrelevant once you get Insight and can buy mana potions by the dozen so you can spam the most expensive skills ad nauseum instead of thinking having a low-cost efficient skill as a complement for trash mobs.

 

[Perkel]

yes synergies were always shit. The bigger issue is how runewords completely changed game into currency based rather than item based looter and how rune sets were easily 5 times better on what you have at almsot any time other than end game.

 

[General Disarray]

I mostly played summon necro so I was quite happy with it. But I never played online only small LAN and wasn't into the meta back then. It seems for the better, you are often happier if you are ignorant.

 

[Sykar]

Summoner ironically does not really use syns. You up your summons and get the respective passives like Skeleton Mastery up. No syns for curses either and CE just needs skill ranks.