Making the Undead More Challenging

This is a long shot, but I've been wanting this Diablo 1. The undead are supposed to be an affront to all that is good, the ultimate abomination, namely, something to be feared, right? Well, in most games they're not all that scary because they're usually slow and can worn down, if nothing else. The undead don't bleed, being animated by unnatural forces, they just keep coming and coming unless you blow them apart. So why do bows and bladed weapons damage undead just as easily as maces and axes? What if swords, daggers, claws, and bows had a significant damage penalty vs. undead? Something around 80%, or so? Also, the undead, lacking flesh, would logically be highly resistant to burning and immune to shock, chaos damage, and puncture.

Elemental damage of the explosive kind (basically any skill whose animation packs a punch) would affect them as normal because it's literally blowing them apart. For example, the initial explosion of a fire trap would deal full damage but any undead should be able to walk though the burning ground suffering only minimal damage.


I know most people probably wouldn't like this, but I think it would add challenge, tension, and immersion... the feeling of being relentlessly driven into a corner by hordes of the walking dead. It could be restricted to the highest difficulty or be made an option for a special "unstoppable horde" league. Pretty please? :)

Thanks for making this wonderful game.

no

OP has solid bracings behind his ideas which i agree and would like to see implemented progressively scaled in higher difficulties. Actually this should not be only viable exclusively for undead but for any other monsters too.

Edit: This way its more likely we would deal with real challenging monsters and use different tactics rather than some cookie-cutter ones, which could be called as 'smart difficulty' at the end.

"

BrecMadak wrote:

OP has solid bracings behind his ideas which i agree and would like to see implemented progressively scaled in higher difficulties. Actually this should not be only viable exclusively for undead but for any other monsters too.

Edit: This way its more likely we would deal with real challenging monsters and use different tactics rather than some cookie-cutter ones, which could be called as 'smart difficulty' at the end.

Yeah, tactics are what attracts me to this idea. It would be great if we had this level of customization available to us in creating a league...something like this would make the game a lot harder, which seems to be in line with GGG's policy of custom leagues only adding to the challenge.

Rather than weaken sharp weapon types, D1 and D2 buffed blunt weapon types, right? Against the undead, maces did 150% damage or something. I don't know if making something weaker is the answer.

I kinda like the idea. I also liked the immunities in D1 like when you didn't actually know what is the monster resistant or immune to until you killed some (but that's not gonna happen in poe I guess).

I have a better idea that make undead more challenging, we can make them able to reanimate after you kill them. Though we already have necromancers for that...

I like the idea of different monster types being vulnerable/more resistant to different types of weapons.

Perhaps a silver affix thru a gem of something that does +dam to undead. Other weapons have -dam to undead.

Major damage penalty when using anything but blunt weapons on stone creatures.

'soft' mobs more vulnerable to bladed weapons or arrows.

I see potentially pure magic creatures being introduced, invulnerable to physical damage.

Etc. it would add a lot of variety to our arsenal requirements.

"

Kirran wrote:

I see potentially pure magic creatures being introduced, invulnerable to physical damage.

Etc. it would add a lot of variety to our arsenal requirements.

I am afraid this is not gonna happen because GGG doesn't like anything immune to anything. (let's pretend CI doesn't exist for a while)

I like it though. Maybe we can change their minds.

Few additions that just came to my mind;

Undead being a very high resistance, if not totally immune, (ranging between 60-90% randomly) to chaos damage.
Skellies have increased damage reduction against arrows.

-------------------------
Even golems are not undead, some ideas came to my mind for a similiar challenge;
Golems would have high resistance against to bladed type weapons and increased damage reduction against all kinds of projectiles also even immune to critical damages (all critical damages would still apply as regular ones)
I'm going even one step further and with even by using mace type weapons, you would stun yourself miliseconds per your hits to them. The higher damage you deliver the longer the time stun-yourself.

It would add both quite fun and challenge imo.