Patch 2.2 is planned for today and will represent a fairly large content patch, mostly with regards to reworked legendary sets, new legendary sets and other items as well as some quality of life changes, goblins and a few new quests. Here’s some thoughts based on what I’ve read so far.
The two biggest changes for myself that I look forward to the most are for the reworking of the Immortal Kings set and the Tal Rasha sets. Zunimassa’s also makes my list but not nearly as much as the other two. I haven’t really played my barbarian much mostly because I am not a huge fan of the Raekor playstyle. It feels clunky compared to my Demon Hunter and the reworked Monk. However, since Immortal Kings will be focusing around Call of the Ancients and Wrath of the Berserker, I’ve heard very good things about the build diversity that will come out of that set. The great thing for myself is that I’ve been saving some of the pieces and might have enough to do the 6 set bonus once the patch launches. So I just can’t wait to give that a shot!
Tal Rasha’s I’ve also heard mixed reviews. Both sets were nerfed during the PTR but still I’ve become somewhat tired of the Firebird play style and wanted to try something different. My secondary wizard had been using an odd mixture of the Tal Rasha set alongside the Vyr’s set. The result isn’t that great and barely can handle T3. However, I do have most of the Tal Rasha set lying around so like the reworked Immortal King’s set, I might be able to give this a go once the the patch launches. With the Firebird’s set, I never really bothered doing Greater Rifts just because the DoT from the set made the playstyle pretty clunky for anything beyond farming T6. So I would love to just try something new.
Zunimassa’s is the other set that I’m eager to try. I’ve had quite a few of the pieces in my bank and on my pet doctor. However, I did not hear great things so far about this set unfortunately. The playstyle still seems clunky and probably needs another iteration since the concept of spenders being used in conjunction with the pets for boosted damage just doesn’t work well at the moment. That said, it’s one of those things where we’ll have to wait and see for the result.
I would like to eventually give Rolands and the Raiment of a Thousand Storms sets another shot. However, at least with Rolands, I haven’t really seen anything all that great since the nerf to some bracers that were allowing the set to do ridiculous damage. It’s unfortunate because Akkhan’s is just too strong. Now, Raiment might become viable and I’ve been collecting pieces just waiting for the change to occur. So we’ll see how that goes.
Also, there’s the Innes set which I’ve managed to collect most of the pieces. Yet from my understanding the set really isn’t that great and part of the problem involves the Mystic Allies not targeting where you want them to hit. The other major issue is that to make the set do reasonable damage you end up being forced to use the set Daibo weapon so you can use the Crudest Boots for maximum efficacy. From a Greater Rift point of view, the set doesn’t perform well according to the forums thus far. Instead, it sounds as though its best use still will be to be used in conjunction with the Sunwuko set.
The last set that I want to check out is the Natalya’s set. I do have quite a few of those pieces, some of which are ancient. I’m hoping to fiddle around with it and look for the last two pieces to complete the set that I’ve been working on. As much as I love the Marauders set, the truth is that I’ve got 4 people with it and there’s really no point anymore of having 4 of the same geared people around. At least with the two new Demon Hunter sets, I’ll have something else to look forward to and try out.
Now, I have kept my eye out for the non-set legendaries and the three new sets for the demon hunter, barbarian and wizard. Only the Unhallowed Essence sounds competitive by comparison. The other two sets feel as though they need another patch before they will become viable. It’s a shame too as I did give both sets a try at Blizzcon and was eagerly anticipating giving them a go. However, the new Delsere’s Magnum Opus set I hear just doesn’t perform well because the spells are too weak while Wrath of the Wastes suffers from awkward game play in comparison to the reworked Immortal King’s set.
That all said, for myself up until this point, I’m starting to work on my monk a lot more, especially because I managed to find the Gungdo Bracers, which now are part of non-season. Mine rolled physical elemental damage rather than Lightning elemental damage. While that part sucked, what is clear is that the Bracers makes Exploding Palm a LOT of fun. I’m using a weird build right now that feels redundant in the damage area, where I employ an Incest Torch that I use in conjunction with Wave of Light (with the Pillar of the Ancients rune) alongside Exploding Palm.
What I’ve found out so far is that Exploding Palm is awesome for AoE while wave of Light is great for single target attacks. I use 3 pieces of Innes with a RoRG, giving me all base mantras. In turn, I have a lot of resistance and some healing that I can avoid taking a mantra to make up for using Exploding Palm. That said, having both Wave of Light and Exploding Palm feels a bit counterproductive because they’re almost the same in some ways. Both are spenders with specific weapons that make each of them excellent. Unfortunately, for me to really maximize either, I need a far better rolled Sunwuko’s Shines amulet (with either lightning or critical hit as one of the natural rolls) and the spirit stone that allows you to cast Wave of Light anywhere. Either that or I need to obtain the fist weapon that makes Exploding Palm’s damage really huge.
But that led me to realize a far bigger issue that will cause problems with the upcoming patch and season that the developers from Blizzard should address soon. That problem is that with the increased legendary pool, it will become far more difficult to obtain the correct items for specific builds. Some items are just so rare at this point that you pretty much have to run rifts for months to try to even get a decent one, let alone an ancient version.
With that in mind, I really feel that the developers should lower the cost of weapons, rings and amulets to 25 to be on par with the rest of the items. Amulets already are far too costly at 100 blood shards a pop. Even with the increase in blood shards with greater rift completion, the base problem is that you still need to run a ton of rifts to reach a point where gambling becomes effective beyond non-rings, weapons and amulets. And the frustrating thing is that I find that amulets and rings are pretty common drops to begin with so I don’t see a point in keeping the cost so high, especially when each item now has become highly valuable on their own merits.
Regardless, as Season 3 will arrive this Friday, I will say that my plan right now is to run a barbarian. Yes, I am officially tired of Demon Hunters but the new Immortal Kings set looks too good to pass up. I do somewhat regret not rolling a seasonal monk in season 2, but I might end up deleting one of my Demon Hunters if we do not get more character slots in future patches. It’s kinda sad since I really dislike eliminating the work I’ve done, but my 3rd Demon Hunter really had no purpose outside of getting me the season 1 transmog.
The good thing is that I think having most of my guys geared in non-season, I can pretty much focus almost full time in season. There’s still a lot of things I would love to try out like a Bombardment Crusader but things like that are strictly for fun right now and on the condition that I can obtain the right piece of gear.