Interesting Blizzard blog on game balance

[Marius]

This just got released by Blizzard on game balance:

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/blog/6018173 ... _2012#blog

That said, we also wanted to let you know we’re keeping a close eye on Inferno. The intent of incoming damage is that it should be a very consistent drain on your health, and mitigating that drain is a major part of what makes Inferno mode difficult. Right now, there’s a lot more damage “spikiness” occurring than feels right, and that’s one major area we’re looking to adjust in patch 1.0.3. While we don’t have any specifics yet, our design goals are to support and promote build diversity; continue to ensure that a mix of champion packs, rare packs, and boss fights are the most efficient way to acquire the best items in the game; and ensure that all classes are viable in Inferno.

It's actually the spikes that make Inferno impossible for Hardcore right now. So if they change it from burst to damage over time, it will start to become possible.

[Fireslide]

Yeah it's hard to tell if you're failing in inferno because you're undergeared, or because they haven't tuned the difficulty right. Sounds like it's not right.

I like the idea that if you're undergeared, you'll die in one or two hits from a mob. I don't like the idea that even with some of the best gear available, you'll still die in one or two hits from nearly everything. You need to be able to take some hits, just to make the gameplay have more options. That way you can choose to go in and lose some of the hp that you've gotten from stacked vitality so you can get some more damage out. When things 1/2 shot you there's not much point stacking vitality as surviving one extra hit doesn't really make it worth it for the damage you'd lose.

[revengous]

its good to see them tuning the skills, I know a lot of people are unhappy over the wizard force armor nerf, but it was needed, it was just one of those things that no body expected "lets run with mega low health on inferno!" it was out of the box thinking, but op.

those stats are pretty amazing, 0.7 of level 60 chars use the same build? thats an insane amount of diversity, compared to diablo 2 where everyone had something really similar (every paladin was a smiter or a hammerdin, every barb was a whirlwinder etc)