Now that the servers are actually stable, Blizzard is starting their first round of hotfixes for Diablo 3. If you play as a Monk, Wizard or Demon Hunter, you could be a little sad after reading this post.
Monks who rely on the Mantra of Healing with a Boon of Protection rune will find that the skill has been severely nerfed. A post from the Diablo 3 forums community manager explains the situation.
We recommend discontinuing its use until the rune is replaces with a new rune and mechanic in a future patch. The Boon of Protection rune was approximately ten times over its budget on the benefits it provided, and it was quite simply a mistake on our part to let the rune ship as it was. We don’t intend to take these quick and drastic measures often, but considering the severity of the issue, we felt it important to correct it swiftly.”
Blizzard are set to release a full list of hotfixes tomorrow, but already players are claiming that the wizard's force armour is weaker and the duration of the Demon Hunter's smoke screen has been culled.
The community manager also responded to forum posts claiming that melee classes were being outclassed by ranged classes on the highest difficulty setting.
The game is young, there were some skills that threw things out of whack, and we expect the landscape to settle out a bit more evenly. Or at least change again so we can continue to monitor the impact.
Maybe we’re wrong, maybe there’s no current chance for monk or barbarian to compete with ranged, but our current suspicion is that’s incorrect and until we know for sure we’re not going to turn any dials.”
We eagerly await the official hotfix notes tomorrow.
By Stephen Heller - Bio