POE vs Diablo 2 PvP

You have a similar set of tools because many were closely modeled from Diablo.

Many of the mechanics cross over and work the same. Chaos resists could loosely be compared to Poison resists. It could be resisted but was generally a degen while Chaos damage started this way. Chaos damage can now be converted to raw damage much like the Assassin's "Venom".

Open wounds, criticals, block, movement speed, accuracy, hp, es, faster hit recovery, dodge amongst other things are all here rehashed,renamed or re engineered.

Offhand weapon swaps

Not much to say here if you've played both games it's obvious

Diablo2 had charms, small/large and grand. Providing life/mana/resists/fhr/poison damage yada yada yada and most importantly +1 to skills.

Diablo2 also had Hellfire Torches and Annihilus that acted as unique charms that further buffed your stats/skills/exp gain.

These things basically fully consumed your inventory, requiring you to return to town to swap gear according to match ups. Or outfit yourself in a universal set of options to deal with any/all match ups you'd face.

No Blood magic:
Mana was your only resource for casting abilities. You relied heavily on Mana potions because regeneration wasn't the greatest. You had a belt with more then 5 "flask" slots so you could hold onto a crap load of Mana potions. When you ran out of Mana you generally had to turtle up hard or go to town. In PoE we have multiple resources to pull from and regeneration is viable. Your flasks are more utility and match up dependent not there for the sole purpose of being able to attack or not.


Offhand weapon swaps could be used to snap shot buffs onto yourself, increase your skill levels amongst other things. In PoE this is no longer the case and even when it was possible wasn't as potent as Diablo2.

Each starting class in Diablo2 provided you a tool set you were forced to utilize. You had 3 separate skill trees with unique active or passive abilities that you'd create a build from. Due to this you could quickly identify what your opponent was capable of or what their build centered around just by looking at them or watching them attack 1-2x then adapt accordingly via gear swaps/play style. In PoE you never know what you're getting. What you see isn't always what you'd expect so you have to feel out the situation more thoroughly then proceed to adapt to it.

Earlier pre 1.10 Diablo lacked synergies on the tree. It didn't tell you what to get in order to buff this or that so it didn't hold your hand in character creation. Post 1.10 saw heightened damage outputs because of synergies and the viable skills were already pretty much shown to you. While taking synergies for most main skills you'd automatically be taking useful defenses and/or passives at the same time. This made building characters easier then ever and catered to the casuals. Thus the beginning of the clone wars where not much varied from your character and the other guy but your ability to use them and a few pieces of gear. That's not to say number crunching and theory crafting wasn't a big part of top level PvP in Diablo2. There were choices to be made, block, partial block, no block etc..etc.. tiny variations in your tree were important at the highest level but meant almost nothing versus most people you'd face.

PoE doesn't hold your hand and instead provides you many ways to fuck yourself in the process of making a character. It's a great thing really, for anyone that likes to theory craft and be completely unique. You have Regret orbs so you don't have to completely remake your character in the event you feel you did something wrong. Diablo2 later implemented a similar mechanic so you can freely respec at will but for the longest time you had to remake your character if you wanted to change something.

New Ascendancy sub classes mirror traditional character specific skills/abilities much like Diablo2 and other ARPGS.

Hacking: Diablo2 was plagued by a hilarious amount of hacks i.e auto aim, chicken mode, nightlight mod. Before you knew it you were facing people that weren't really people anymore. It was basically just macro's and often times it auto typed for them too. These people still sucked shit and lost to good players all day long. Why more and more hacks were developed as time went on til people began to chicken to town every hit they took. The game became nothing but hacker A. chickening to town til he 1shot hacker B. and hacker B. doing the same thing to hacker A. While player C. who wasn't hacked laughed his ass off as he continually had both chickening to town infinitely because they sucked and he/she didn't.

PoE is as far as I know 100% hack free in PvP. It's your "skill"/build against the other guy. There is no going to town, there is nothing to do but win or lose.

Diablo2 had a complex set of mechanics just like PoE does. While some work much like they do in PoE some were completely different.

Open wounds: It differs from Puncture quite a bit but is still physical based. It was more potent the higher your level and there is actually a formula you can read about to better understand it. You could get open wounds on a lot of different pieces of gear too. Link to open wounds information for anyone unaware of how it worked http://diablo2.diablowiki.net/Open_Wounds

Crushing blow: Another unique mechanic, It worked like a reverse culling strike. It helped you bring down high health pools while becoming less valuable overtime. You can read more about it here http://diablo2.diablowiki.net/Crushing_blow

Deadly strike and critical strike: This is where Diablo2 differs from PoE quite a bit. Firstly you had passive critical chance for the Amazon and Barbarian but no one else. It worked only for physical damage and didn't yield critical multiplied damage through the roof like PoE does. You had items that granted more % chance to deal critical damage but never a multiplier. You did 2x your damage and that was it, so you had to have a sound character build first and the critical was just icing on the cake. In PoE you can have a lot less character and a lot more critical and be covered because of how big your damage output is. PoE's critical mechanics more closely resemble Diablo3 which is why damage is a bit ridiculous at times...........but is it really? When compared to Diablo2's damage vs survivability, I'll touch on that later. Deadly strike can be read about here http://diablo2.diablowiki.net/Deadly_Strike


Absorb:You could absorb elemental damage in Diablo2 to the point of being immune. This was considered "bad manner" when you completely shut down a Sorceress,Trapper or other elemental build in Diablo2 PvP by absorbing it. So rules were created by a bunch of panty waists to limit how much you could have and how high your resists could be over capped to prevent total immunity. You can't do this in PoE, you can never reach the point of being completely immune to any damage especially not elemental damage.


+ Max resists: This was more potent in Diablo2 and was a contributing factor in the above "absorbing" or "Immunity" vs elemental damage. You again can't reach this level in PoE. You can over cap your resists but you are still susceptible to damage.


Cursing: In PoE cursing is very popular and determines how you use your flasks, how you gear and how you play certain match ups. In Diablo2 you had curse charges that were limited uses or you had a Necromancer. Necromancer curses provided reduced resistance, double damage, half speed and other debuffs. Most of the Necro's curses didn't benefit him but really benefited his summons,his party members or his mercenary. Only a select few were actually worth using as a Necro but it was dependent on your build i.e Poison Nova,Dagger. You had no way to dispel the curse only reduce its duration via Cleansing aura, or Fade.

Auras:
Much like cursing, in PoE they are abundant and provide a lot of different bonuses. In Diablo2 they were Paladin or Runeword specific. Some provided damage i.e Auradin, while others provided damage,defenses,speed or chill etc.

Durability on items, yea they could break...in PoE they can't.

Skills like Battle orders, Bone/Cyclone armors and Fade: Do you know how much people would bitch if the Marauder could get almost 2x his life with Battle orders? Or if people had Bone armor versus physical damage, Cyclone absorbing elemental damage or Fade? Sure everyone eventually had a Call To Arms and would prebuff or buff during duels to gain Battle Orders etc... and there was slight access to the other skills too but seriously the bitching that would be all over these forums would be insane. Kaom's armor is op? Hahaha.....get the fuck out of here. Most BvC Barbarians had north of 7k life, while other builds had at the very best 3-4k. Energy shield Sorceress builds were their own unique concept I won't get into but with legit gear could reach decent numbers themselves AFTER battle orders.


Runewords:
Diablo2 had build enabling Runewords that provided ridiculous BiS bonuses. Making using rare items almost pointless except a few item slot. Runewords like Grief ignored much of the game and provided retarded damage outputs. Enigma killed off the run/walk build meta and in turn allowed builds that weren't viable before to now compete i.e Wind Druid. PoE doesn't have anything like this.

Desynch:
Oh PoE had/has desynch but is it used to turn invisible and travel around the Blood Moor spamming invisible attacks that can 1shot you? Paladin Charge desynch was some of the most broken shit you'd encounter in Diablo2. You could chill them with cold damage, stop them with bone prison and other options to expose them but not everyone could.

Magic damage, Necro bone skills, Paladin Hammers etc:
Bone skills could not be resisted, only by Energy shield Sorceress's with reduced magic damage taken and strong synergy/mechanic use-age could you mitigate them. Otherwise it was damage you were taking no matter what you did. It couldn't outright kill you in 1 shot but none the less it was un resist-able 99.9% of the time unless you revived Magic immune minions and had Enigma to stack them on top of yourself. Or crafted a safety shield with a few % magic resists. Paladin Hammers, again Magic damage but the damage output was over 12k per hammer and could kill most characters in 1 shot. Chaos damage getting you down? Give me a break.

Poison damage:
Diablo2 had a lot of sources of Poison damage. It had its own resistance much like Chaos does in PoE. You also had antidotes you could use or stack to mitigate it. Plus unique items that could push you toward 95% Poison resists that made it pretty much worthless against anyone good. Another form of very fast acting Poison was the Assassins Venom. It was much more effective and was often used on melee Assassins to augment their damage. This would be the closest thing to our current Chaos damage conversions. While traditional Poison damage is Chaos degen.


Itemization:
Touching more on Runewords etc.. Diablo2 had much less itemization then PoE. In classic Diablo2 you focused your efforts on really good rare items and it set you apart from everyone else. While in the later years it was all about the Runewords and uniques. There was very little difference from you and the next guy except how you played and what you understood about the game. Once Enigma was added to the game everyone just made builds with 0 base strength 0 base dex (if going no block) and 100% vitality there was only a situations where this wasn't the case. PoE has build enabling uniques but more then anything else it's about really strong rare item's. Mirror's are a thing in PoE and are basically the "duping" method you'd come across in Diablo2. Though...ultimately contrary to popular belief you DO NOT need Mirrored gear to compete in PoE. Also crafting in Diablo2 was some whacked shit, It's a good example of very early attempts to implement a crafting mechanic into an ARPG. PoE's crafting system though very RNG is more refined and can yield better results. Plus with the addition of the Forsaken Masters you have even more options to complete gear. So its more likely you'll have viable rares in PoE then you would in Diablo2 post 1.10 and even pre 1.10 finding good rares wasn't a walk in the park either.

Gear swapping was more effective in Diablo2 though, you could afford to sacrifice a few slots in favor of better defenses versus elements or status effects. In PoE swapping to some crap low level unique to reduce chill effect or avoid stun often times fucks your character up and paired with the damage output in PvP losing life/es or your own damage/speed to do this is often times not even worth it after the give and take. This goes hand in hand with "Flasks vs Potions" and the abuse of status effects/curses and their strength.

Sockets:
In Diablo2 they provided you means to add gems,facets or runes to gain moderate buffs to your character. In PoE, well it's obvious its the basis of your entire skill system and provides almost endless customization. Sockets on the new 2.0 passive tree could loosely be related to Diablo2's socket system...loosely.

Freeze,Ignite,Shock,Chill:
Diablo2 didn't have most of these ailments and/or they acted differently. You could however wear items just like you can in PoE to become immune to Freeze/Chill. Thawing potions were also an option and could be used to provide more resists plus add +max to it. PoE has a lot more elemental status ailments but like Diablo2 has ways to mitigate them. Early PoE was heavily lacking here, you were going to eat a status ailment and you had nothing but crappy ways or no ways to deal with it. This has been remedied to some extent and is getting better all the time.

Slow,Knockback,Pierce:
In Diablo2 when you were slowed there wasn't anything you could do about it. If you were getting knocked back only a few options were at your disposal. Pierce, this mechanic works the same as it does in PoE but early Diablo2 had a unique called the Buriza-Do Kyanon and it could pierce you multiple times with skills like Guided arrow. Repeatedly passing through you hitting you over and over and over. I have yet to some anything like this in PoE PvP. It was also later nerfed in Diablo2 to not be so potent.

Gems:
Skulls,Sapphires,Rubies,Amethysts,Emeralds yada yada. All provided unique things to toss into your socket-ables. They started chipped and could be crafted to perfect status where they'd yield the most gains. Again pretty much the passive tree and passive tree sockets in PoE.


Runes:
Already pretty much been discussed in multiple areas here. Basically higher tier socket-ables to provided unique mods. When used together in a certain order would yield Runewords in the proper item type and amount of sockets.

Facets:
Basically socket-able jewels that provided damage/-resists to elemental attacks + an effect on death/level up

Block:
Blocking in Diablo2 could NOT be penetrated. With the exception of the Paladins Smite skill (which paired with Grief was ridiculous mind you). If you had 75% block you weren't getting hit very often and it mitigated 100% of the damage. You could not block spells in Diablo2 like you can in PoE. In early Diablo2 the block chance on the shield is what you'd get 100% of the time. Later they implemented a diminishing block chance that forced you to invest dexterity points. PoE uses the classic Diablo2 shield concept and you get what you equip. You could opt for a no block build, partial or full block. While running but not while walking you also had less block chance in Diablo2...makes sense imo.

The Assassin had it's unique Claw block, again couldn't be penetrated, except ultra rare cases but it could block spells/projectiles and melee attacks. Required you to dual wield and invest into it on the tree. It had heavy diminishing returns so you didn't ever really have to max it out with 20 points.

Dodge:
Only the Amazon had dodge passives on her tree. It worked well but smart players would capitalize on it and the faster hit recovery mechanic. Basically striving to put you into a dodge/fhr stun lock where you couldn't do anything. Same with block/fhr locks and fhr locks in general.

Stun:
Faster hit recovery was Diablo2's way to recover in fewer frames from potential stun lock situations. It acts differently then PoE's stun recovery/duration mechanic but both do the same thing in the end. Stun/dodge/block locking was more potent in Diablo2 you could almost compare it to a Ground Slammer in PoE. Though almost any attacker that could get on top of you (made easy by Enigma) could do it. Even if you had strong fhr,dodge,block it was possible. There were ways to avoid this, by run/walking out of it. Each class had different FHR break points and within these some also varied depending on if you were human or not i.e Druid amongst other things.

Mobility:
You had your traditional run/walk, teleport, leap and charge options. You also had the Assassins Dragon flight ability, it acted very much like the Flicker strike you know today. As mentioned before there was more diversity in this department earlier in Diablo's life. After Enigma was implemented it became the go to option for getting around.


Damage reduction:
There was %physical damage reduction, capped at 50% (used to be 75%). There was also flat magic and physical damage reduction. It was a lot less effective but it worked like this. If you had 10pdr or 10mdr and ate a 100damage hit (after other forms of mitigation) of either type you'd now take 90damage. This was the basis behind the Energy shield Sorceress tank builds with synergies applied to reduce incoming damage to their ES.

Flasks vs Potions:
In PoE we have flasks, 5 total and are mostly used for utility to remove status effects. In Diablo you healed and had lesser potions like thawings and antidotes. I've touched on all the status effects of Diablo2 and how they basically had to run their course before you were free of them. Well in PoE you have limited get out of jail free opportunities given the flask system. But once you're out of flasks you're mega fucked because the status effects are A. stronger in PoE and B. more abuse-able in PoE. This is a huge problem in PvP and will likely never get resolved. Relying on the flask system probably sounded genius to GGG from some resource management perspective. In PvP though where there isn't a cooldown on curses, they have long durations, big effects and anyone can use them at any given time in a multitude of ways 5 flasks with limited charges and virtually no way to replenish them consistently unless you're crit (Surgeons flasks....broken) is poor design. You can't constantly defend against an array of bleeding,cursing,chill,ignite,shock. The player that can abuse the system the best will likely starve you of your flasks leaving you crippled. In PvM its great...PvP however its shit.

Ok that's enough with the differences.