Diablo 2: Resurrected is about to have a ladder reset and a new patch at the same time. With so many possible balance changes that one can think, I decided to come up with seven quality of life suggestions. These ideas could make the game better for long time Diablo 2 fanatics.
Patch 2.6 has already revealed some of the content it’ll deliver to the fans, but I believe there still more that needs to be done for the future patches.
Diablo 2 was one of my favorite childhood games of mine. I still believe it is an amazing game to this day despite being a very old game.
One of the exciting things about an old game like Diablo 2 which does have a remake version is the possibility of new content that was never included in the legacy versions.
This makes it exciting for old time fans like me, but it also can make it more interesting for newer players to get into this never aging classic.
Stackable Runes/Gems
Diablo 2: Resurrected did update the game with a bigger stash space and including shared stash that allowed players to easily transfer items from one character to another with ease. However, the stash storage is still a problem for those that want to horde in their precious runes and gems.
Runes and gems are valuable in Diablo 2 because of many reasons. Runewords are very much the endgame gear that players chase for. This means players will hold on to runes or they’ll simply try to save them up for cubing lower tier runes to higher tier ones.
Those runes are taking up precious space!
Gems can be useful for various Horadric Cube recipes too. They’re basically looked as the “currency” of Diablo 2 in some players’ eyes.
It would be nice to be able to stack them on to each other, so they don’t take up so much valuable space that you can use for something else. This would add so much quality of life for those that like to keep many gems and runes for trading or crafting purposes.
Terror Zones Rework
Terror Zones was an interesting addition to Diablo 2’s endgame cycle. I had a lot of fun entering zones that I never would normally do. However, I still believe there is room for improvements. There needs to be more of a risk and reward factor when entering into a terrorized location. The enemies don’t get any sort of buff in terms of their lethality. They just become higher level, and it can possibly increase their loot table depending your character’s level.
This makes it too easy and too tempting for the player to do a terrorized event. It needs to live up the name. Mobs that are terrorized should definitely be more threatening to the player. Terror Zones should exclusively be designed for Hell difficulty too.
I also want to mention Sunder Charms which can only be dropped in a terrorized location if you are playing on Ladder. I believe Sunder Charms needs to be reworked because they are just simply too strong. Sunder Charms hurt hybrid builds which I’ve always thought was an interesting aspect in Diablo 2, but this mechanic absolutely hurts them and the Blizzard Sorceress never needed to be so massively buffed since she is one of the best starter builds for early ladder.
The Sunder Charms needs some finer tuning. Reducing the player’s resistances or damage reduction is simply not enough to compensate the raw damage spike they can get.
New “Ubers” Event
I’ll continue talking more about Diablo 2’s endgame portion. Terror Zones was an interesting way to shake up the endgame portion, but I would love to have something more akin to the Pandemonium Event.
I still remember back in the day when the Pandemonium Event was first released, and it was very fun to tackle it as a group. Eventually, the players discovered it was better to use a Smiter and solo it which destroyed the public experience.
There should be another endgame content similar to the Pandemonium Event, but it should require multiple players to actually participate.
It’ll also be cool to see new areas like this photo which seemed to be an early version of Diablo 2.
Diablo 2 has always been fun to play with other players. Terror Zones does add in to that outside of the traditional Chaos Sanctuary, Baal, and Cow runs which is popular for those that want a public match experience.
I also believe to start this new endgame event; players must collect items similar to the keys that you need to start the Pandemonium Event.
These items should be exclusive to the Terror Zones, and can only be dropped from the boss packs.
This would be a great design choice to make Terror Zones more interesting rather than what it does currently.
Obviously, this kind of content should be difficult. Players need to have some sort of high end gear to be able to tackle it.
Make Melee Builds Better
Anyone who plays Diablo 2 for a long time knows it’s a caster-oriented game. Despite knowing this, I do love my melee builds and I desperately hope to see them shine brighter for future balance changes.
I’ve made a decent amount of melee-oriented classes back in the days when Oblivion Knights used to cast Iron Maiden that would instantly one shot my character the moment I swung at a target.
It certainly feels great that melee builds can solo the Chaos Sanctuary or do a Baal run without suffering through Iron Maiden nowadays.
A Zealot doing Travincal runs.
I’m glad those days are over, but there is still room for improvements as far as playing a melee driven class goes.
Melee weapons need to be buffed with their base damage. I also believe buffing the melee-oriented skills like Zeal or Frenzy can help too.
Melee builds should not have to deal with physical immunities. Melee classes will never come close to the clear speed of a caster with decked out gear, so they shouldn’t have to deal with immunities to compensate it.
Patch 2.6 seems like it’s trying to cater more runeword options for melee builds which is nice, but there is still more that needs to be done overall.
Teleports Needs a Nerf
This one is a fairly controversial suggestion, but I believe the Sorceress’ skill, Teleport, needs a rework in some way. The Sorceress is actually my second favorite class to play behind the Paladin. I understand Teleport is an important skill for her survivability because she is a very fragile class.
It’s a tough thing to balance for sure, but Teleport is very exploitive. It’s an ability that players will immediately take advantage of once they reach to level 18. I believe reducing the range and possibly removing the player’s defense for a short amount of second would prevent players from speedrunning the game just to quickly reach the endgame stage.
She’s too much of an advantage in early ladder because of it, and I would like to see players try not to pick a Sorceress and play other classes. It’ll promote build diversity overall, and make it more interesting for those who are venturing themselves in early ladder.
Improve Exisiting Items
There was a time where runewords weren’t the biggest endgame chase goals players were going for, and I believe it’s time to buff up existing unique and underutilized items in general. It’s sad to see iconic weapons like The Grandfather have become so obsolete compared to endgame runewords like Death.
There are some items like Templar’s Might or Wraith Flight that are not easy to find, but very much undesirable because of how poor their stats are. They need to be reworked in some way, so the player will feel good to find rare items like those.
I’d rather find a unique Serpentskin Armor than a Sacred Armor.
I appreciate the new runewords we have gotten from patch 2.4, but I also want to see some reworks on existing runewords that really need some adjustments.
Gloom and Famine comes to my mind. Gloom is rather pricey for the rune cost, and it feels like a weaker Smoke which is cheaper in rune cost and more effective overall.
Famine is a fairly high end runeword since it requires two high runes. Unfortunately, it is not competitive enough for what you have to invest.
Content Update for Diablo 2 Legacy
I pointed out a lot of suggestions related to Resurrected, but this one is more related to Diablo 2 legacy. I still play the good ol’ Diablo 2 when it was the only version available to play for the longest time.
There should be a time where all the content update for Resurrected will be available for old Diablo 2. This also includes some of the quality of life features that Resurrected improved from the legacy versions.
It’ll be awesome to finally be able to craft the original ladder only runewords on the non-ladder realm or being able to cube up my nearly useless Sur runes into Ber runes.
It feels wrong to see the legacy version not getting all of this quality of life features and content update. For Christ’s sake, it was the one that started Diablo 2 after all.
An old promo screenshot of Diablo 2.
When Blizzard is absolutely finished with tweaking Resurrected, legacy users should be provided with the content update. Blizzard will be busy providing additional content for the upcoming Diablo IV.
There are still players playing the legacy version since players have grown so attached to it. They deserve to be treated with respect for still playing the version that started Diablo 2’s iconic status.
Those are my suggestions I would like to see Diablo 2 handle in the near or late future.
If some of these changes do happen, I would be happy about it and other players will too.
With that said, I hope patch 2.6 will treat you all good, and you will have a good ladder season.
