So, not that I am deeply upset about the removal of the +X% damage vs. beasts / undead / demons traits, but I would defend the previous inclusion of those specific traits, because I disagree they were useless in the first place.
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In Diablo 2, I imagine Blazur would not have been interested in using any of the following situational bonuses:
1.) Sanctuary aura (as a Paladin build, on Azurewrath unique phase blade, or Lawbringer runeword) because most monsters are not undead, and Sanctuary is useless against such monsters.
2.) Fire damage (e.g. Fire Sorceress, Fire Druid, or Fire Traps, Holy Fire as a build or on items, or Fists of Fire) because a huge number of monsters in Hell difficulty are fire immune, such as Fallen.
3.) Cold damage (e.g. Cold Sorceress, Hurricane, Holy Freeze as a build or on items, or Blades of Ice) because a substantial number of monsters in Hell difficulty are cold immune, such as Vampires.
4.) Lightning damage (e.g. Lightning Sorceress, Lightning Amazon, Holy Shock as a build or on items, Lightning Traps, or Claws of Thunder) because a decent number of monsters in Hell difficulty are lightning immune, such as Burning Souls.
5.) Poison damage (e.g. Poison Necromancers, Rabies Druids, Poison Amazons, or Venom as a build or on items) because certain monsters on Hell difficulty are poison immune, such as Sand Maggots.
6.) Critical Strike, Deadly Strike, Crushing Blow, and Open Wounds, because a good number of monsters on Hell difficulty are physical immune, such as Hell Temptresses, Stygian Furies, and Blood Lord minotaurs.
7.) Life and Mana steal, because draining effects are useless against some monsters on all difficulties, such as Skeletons.
8.) Bonus damage on items to demons or undead which fail to yield any bonuses to animals / beasts, as found on Laying of Hands (350% to demons), Ghoul Hide (2% per level to Undead), Gravepalm (up to 200% to undead), and runewords such as Melody (300% to undead), Edge (280% to undead and up to 380% to demons), Chains of Honor (100% to undead and 200% to demons), and Voice of Reason (up to 350% to demons and 375% to undead).
Sooooo.... if Blazur, if he played Diablo 2 at all, my guess is he only played Bone Necromancers, Hammerdins, and Lightning Sorceress / Amazons when they had the Infinity runeword on their mercenaries, since these are accepted as being the most effective against monsters in general.
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My point, which I am sure I made in other threads discussing these specific traits, is that specialists traits are perfectly acceptable, either to create a character that is extremely effective against certain monsters at the cost of being less effective versus others, or to shore up a deficiency a character happens to have.
Using a D2 example, if a Sanctuary Paladin notices his weakness versus demons is not worth being able to own undead, he can slap on Laying of Hands to get a huge damage bonus versus demons to close this disparity, and then his character is more well rounded. Or, that same Sanctuary Paladin might go to an extreme and equip Gravepalm to push his effectiveness against undead to a shameless level. Either approach is reasonable.
Back to the specific bonus damage to undead / demons / beasts traits that were removed, I would think the traits themselves reminded me a bit too much of the D2 Barbarians' weapon masteries, which were a little boring in that they were too similar. I think offensive bonuses versus these classes of monsters are a reasonable idea for traits, but the traits themselves would have been more interesting if the style of offensive bonus varied between the traits. That is, perhaps the bonus against beasts could have been a significant increase in a chance to critically hit them, the bonus against demons could have been a significant increase in the amount of damage dealt when a critical hit was scored, and the bonus against undead could have been a basic increase in damage for all hits. The exact numbers could be tweaked so that the bonuses were roughly equivalent in value in the long run.
Also, as The_Langolier has discussed, grouping trait investment in such a way as to force players to invest in a variety of traits (by having certain investment choices locking out others, or by requiring investment in lower tier traits to gain access to higher tier traits) would allow there to be more and less impressive trait choices, prima facie, because they would not actually be directly compared at any point. Instead, the value of a trait investment would be measured only against the other traits that were equivalent choices at that point of investment.
TL;DR:If the trait system is designed well, less awesome traits will be available in the early game, and more awesome traits available in the late game. If balanced properly, skills and traits that are specialist in nature are perfectly viable choices because the selective advantages they offer are substantial enough to be comparable in value to less powerful but more frequently used non-specialist skills and traits.
CAPTCHA: mufmhmuk
What the crap? My captcha sounds like someone is trying to say "muffin hammock" while they have a giant muffin crammed in their mouth or something. I'm a little weirded-out.
It's pronounced "See-Pee-Slow" :-P
Q u o t e: Or... we could just throw the baby and the bathwater into a volcano and then nuke the volcano.
