How could Blizz honestly expect Champion packs to be balanced?

[Warwithin]

Honestly, how did Blizzard think that Champion packs would be balanced? In Inferno, the Champions get 4 moves. For the sake of the argument, we'll make a WoW-based analogy.

You [Mage, Lock, Hunter, Shaman, etc.] are facing a random team of 4 enemy classes. These classes are 100% random, but you will have 4 unique classes/specs.

You'll have plenty of easy comps to face (since it's randomly generated), such as Prot War, Prot War, BM Hunter, Blood DK. That being said, due to the same random nature that can spit out Prot War x2, BM Hunter, Blood DK, you'll occasionally run into Rogue/Mage/Priest + Lock or Hunter/Rogue/Feral/Enhance. Thus, your experience and the difficulty of said experience can vary substantially in the same difficulty setting due to the random nature of the game.

So, how did Blizz expect this to seem balanced? There's little-to-no reason I should be running through any Act at a constant pace - only to be confronted with a mob several times more difficult than anything encountered thus far for no reason other than RNG.

/rant

[Auguine]

I don't think they were meant to be 100% balanced for all classes. I personally hate seeing the easy ones as they are so boring. I like to get firechains/fast/shielding/jailing or something :P because when you beat them, its a rush!

YEah there are some packs I have had to skip in my progression, but I did not really mind that much, it is supposed to be hard.

[Choptimus]

Diablo 3 isn't balanced, so why would Champion packs be balanced?

[Zeerus]

Molten, Vortex, Immortal Minions, Firechains = rage quit. lol
I have a pretty great kiting spec, but Vortex + FC/Molten is death for me. I guess so is Mortar, because I have to stay at range.
FYI, I can't make it out of act 2. I have such horrible luck with elite packs I cant survive the sewers.

[Nengal]

What they should have done is extensive testing and put in logic into the attributes.

IE: If you're playing a melee class and you get plagued, electrified, molten, shielding, then because of the 3 close proximity damage modifiers the damage done by each affix is reduced by 25% or something. But if it's an easier combo then the damage affixes stay at 100% or possibly even above 100% to make sure the packs are not too easy.

I can see how this would take an enormous amount of testing and effort and could even vary based on natural mob affixes.
Just saying, this would have been the 'perfect' way to go about it.

[Omertocracy]

A better scenario would be you are playing Rock Paper Scissors vs four other people, and you have to beat all four of them at once. (Show DBZ scene of Ginyu Force picking who goes first)

[Resentful]

Diablo 3 isn't balanced, so why would Champion packs be balanced?

Lol yet they

NERF NERF NERF
NERF NERF NERF classes and such

WE WANT BALAENCEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

Great logic in their eyes apparently

[Choptimus]

Isn't the idea behind Diablo at the "end-game" basically: YOU WILL GET SHAT ON BY A GORILLA UNTIL YOU FARM ENOUGH GEAR.

I keep getting told Diablo is a "gear game" so I guess the "balance" is basically "If you can't kill a champ pack you need more gear!" or something?

Weren't all the nerfs so far basically stopping people from being perma-immune to damage and cheesing the game? IDK not following the "news" about it, just casually playing with a friend every now and again. (Barb/Monk combo about to start Inferno, haven't read up or got any special gear apart from what I've found, so should be fun).

[Idoru]

Since we are comparing games....

Lightning Immune on my Lightning Javazon
Fire and Cold Immune on my Meteorb Sorceress
Multi Shot Lightning Enhanced + Cold to slow me down and fry my HC Javazon

In short, I fully expected not being able to kill every single pack I came across in D2, and the same goes for D3.

[Caiada]

They didn't. It's random for a reason.

[klaps_05]

that's the whole flavor of the game...

[Idoru]

What they should have done is extensive testing and put in logic into the attributes.

IE: If you're playing a melee class and you get plagued, electrified, molten, shielding, then because of the 3 close proximity damage modifiers the damage done by each affix is reduced by 25% or something. But if it's an easier combo then the damage affixes stay at 100% or possibly even above 100% to make sure the packs are not too easy.

I can see how this would take an enormous amount of testing and effort and could even vary based on natural mob affixes.
Just saying, this would have been the 'perfect' way to go about it.

'Perfect' for a single player game maybe. Not so much for a co-op game unless you don't want ranged and melee to play together.

[Banzhe]

Honestly, how did Blizzard think that Champion packs would be balanced? In Inferno, the Champions get 4 moves. For the sake of the argument, we'll make a WoW-based analogy.

For the sake of argument, you should take off your wow-binoculars and stop thinking / comparing it to any other game ever released by blizzard.., even more important since this is what I smell in your post.., stop thinking about your hand not being held by blizzard.

[Warwithin]

For the sake of argument, you should take off your wow-binoculars and stop thinking / comparing it to any other game ever released by blizzard.., even more important since this is what I smell in your post.., stop thinking about your hand not being held by blizzard.

While the analogy was based off of WoW, that, by no means, implies that WoW is some sort of golden standard of balance. It's not, lol

It's a simple argument of logic. If you'd like another analogy...

You're a kid at school. It's 3:15PM and you're sitting by the flagpole ready to fight. There are 80 kids who go to your school:
-20 scrawny kids
-20 less-scrawny kids
-20 average kids
-20 macho kids

You have to fight 4 kids from the school, but the four kids you fight will be completely random. Due to the fact that you're opponents are random, your chances of getting 4 scrawny kids is the same as getting 4 macho kids. The sheer philosophy of the random skills (or, in this case, the skills of the Champion packs) makes balance impossible.

I suppose this thread is a /rant about D3 philosophy. I'm not asking for someone to hold my hand; however, I would like to know that the ground I'm going to walk on will be constant. The ebb-and-flow nature of difficulty is fine with limits. That being said, I don't feel that D3 has the necessary constraints on either end of the spectrum.

[Deleted]

In D2 you were also boss farming, blizz stated that you should be farming Rare packs thus rare packs should be balanced so every pack is beatable. :P

[Leonard McCoy]

Welcome to the beta for d3.

[Repefe]

Some packs are harder. What's the problem.

[Pendulous]

Since we are comparing games....

Lightning Immune on my Lightning Javazon
Fire and Cold Immune on my Meteorb Sorceress
Multi Shot Lightning Enhanced + Cold to slow me down and fry my HC Javazon

In short, I fully expected not being able to kill every single pack I came across in D2, and the same goes for D3.

Except Blizzard stated explicitly that they didn't want the same thing to happen in Diablo 3. There are no more immunities, but they screwed the pooch either way.

[Cairhiin]

What they should have done is extensive testing and put in logic into the attributes.

IE: If you're playing a melee class and you get plagued, electrified, molten, shielding, then because of the 3 close proximity damage modifiers the damage done by each affix is reduced by 25% or something. But if it's an easier combo then the damage affixes stay at 100% or possibly even above 100% to make sure the packs are not too easy.

I can see how this would take an enormous amount of testing and effort and could even vary based on natural mob affixes.
Just saying, this would have been the 'perfect' way to go about it.

No because that combo you just mentioned is doable as melee it just requires more effort. That's the point. If all combinations would be faceroll then it gets boring. It's nice that you never know what's behind the corner. And a hard combo for melee is not what you just said as you can kite them around everytime they drop plagued. There's no waller or jailer stopping you, or arcane beams of death in a tight area, and electrified and shielding are near free affixes. Shielding is annoying but it doesn't do any damage whatsoever.

[Ravenblade]

I do kill most packs and have racked up 6200 elite kills so far but I tend to skip some especially in co-op. I think it is often 3 of the following things which make you kind of facepalm first time you see them:

1.) location, you enter a cellar and up insta-gibbed because a pack fast teleport vortex nagas waited in around 0.5 yards for you. Happened to friend and me in act 2 Dahlgur Oasis yesterday, we decided to skip it. Because frankly fighting such packs is as enjoyable as urban fighting in an elevator is.

2.) Power overhelming! - when packs with inherent abilities get the same abilities on-top. My Wizard had such an experience in one of the equaducts in Hell. A champion betrayed pack with Fast and Vampiric spawned. Talk about nigh invincible. From a Wizard perspective anyway.

3.) Vincinity of "helpers" in worst case champions meeting rares and having both a go at you and turn out to be the cockblock packs preventing you from proceeding in the zone. It gets unfun when they happen to have exactly the affix combo considered a bane of your class worse if not just one but both together or even both have them

Anyways, don't be afraid or skip. I won't go and claim that Blizzard does or does not want to be it this way or that they should change it. I do not see how they could balance it completely anyways, rock/paper/scissor based matchmaking based on who spawned the zone so you could get combos a la carte? A 100% win chance against all combos in every situation which could turn champions into loot pinatas?
The only thing which would discourage people into fighting them for more than 2-3 tries before giving up are the new repair cost changes. Because before that change one would bash his/her head until pack is dead. Now only the rich and stubborn (like myself) are doing that