I realize this is just one guy's opinion, but I feel it is a logical opinion based on a lot of hours played, and a lot of testing done. I will warn you that I'm not pulling any punches, although I'll try to be as civil as I can with the tone I choose for this piece. Each entry is constructive, but after, what, 300+ hours played I feel I've earned the right to poke a bit of fun at you every now and then.
Let's get down to brass tacks.
Arcane Enchanted:
Going to be honest here and say that I hate this mod. It's the nature of the location of the sprinkler which is the only thing that makes it difficult, particularly when combined with CC mods. Ever have a frozen waller arcane enchanted? I'm sure you have. It feels like I get this mod on every damn pack that spawns.
What's happening is that elites almost always have at least one CC and it isn't uncommon for them to get two. Sometimes this is in a narrow passage, which the game is utterly littered with. So you already have a tiny, small space that you can't navigate because you're basically stunlocked by cc. I view this as artificial difficulty. The goal for the player is to run around the sprinkler and not get hit but that is quite often not an option for a variety of reasons, so then the goal is to just not die, I guess?
I would replace it. I would replace it with a "well" of arcane torrent, that rune where the missiles go to random spots. But I would have the missiles do 10% weapon damage, with a stacking debuff that increases arcane damage taken. This plays to resists, too, which the game largely ignores. The "well" would have a slightly-glowing purple radius to let you know where the damage is coming from. This way, even if it spawns in a narrow passage while you're CC'd, then you at least have some time before you die instead of getting hosed to death by this purple laser beam thing.
There's nothing good about this.
Avenger:
To be honest, I'm not quite sure what this does besides making imps HUGE which is awesome. There's nothing better than smashing an entire room full of imps with an ancient hammer or pillar of the ancients, but punching a huge imp in the face is very fulfilling as well. I love imps.
I'm assuming that avenger increases damage and speed, but I dunno. It's not an observable, obvious effect. It doesn't seem to affect combat at all, either. Is it bugged?
Desecrator:
One thing to get out of the way is that these red pools of
fire are really hard to see in certain areas, such as stinging winds, the
shadow realm for the zk quest, the core of arreat, and others. Very difficult
to spot, so you just kind of wait until you have the debuff icon and hope you
are moving away from the pool and not into another one. It's hilarious in a facepalm kind of way that you can be certain that the elite will cast it right on top of you directly after they CC you, leaving you with zero options if you have something on cooldown other than to wait while you get utterly mauled. That's not exactly fun, and there's nothing tactical about that. This mod does far, far too much damage to allow them to chain CC you and cast it right underneath you.
How I would make it tactical: I would also have it grant the player a stacking buff that increases your damage done by X% while you're in the pool. Let's be honest there are times (not often, but times) where you can just sit there and take the damage, and you probably will, for the chance to chip away pixel-by-pixel the bloated health bar of an enemy just to end the damn encounter.
I would also change the color to green or something so you can see where the heck it is.
How I would make it tactical: I would also have it grant the player a stacking buff that increases your damage done by X% while you're in the pool. Let's be honest there are times (not often, but times) where you can just sit there and take the damage, and you probably will, for the chance to chip away pixel-by-pixel the bloated health bar of an enemy just to end the damn encounter.
I would also change the color to green or something so you can see where the heck it is.
Snarky Comment: "Hey guys, how can we make random boss encounters as monotonous as possible?"
Add an assload of health to monsters that already have too much health. This strikes me as the "we ran out of ideas" modifier.
I've gone over this before, but to reiterate let's look at the two different types of elite encounters the player will currently face: I'm dead within two seconds before I know what the hell is going on, or I'm cornering the last elite into a wall and just wailing on him with the same ability for an entire minute straight until it dies.
Extra Health does nothing to alleviate this problem, but exacerbates it. Extra Health, as elite combat currently stands, just makes combat monotonous. I see the design behind it and I think it could fit if the entire combat model vs elites was restructured, but as it stands, it just draws out a long, already-drawn-out fight in a game that's based on super fast intense combat. Length vs intensity: these are not balanced. Sometimes even with extra health you shred them before you even see what their mods are. The difficulty spikes need some serious balancing.
The only way I could see this mod even approaching being fun is to do this:
Have a new mod to replace it, "Gargantuan". Rares only. Roll 50% of the combined health of the minions into the health of the main rare, but remove the minions. Increase the physical size of the rare by like 35%. So you'd have one huge boss instead of a bunch of smaller elites with ridiculously monotonous amounts of health.
I don't know about you but I think it'd be cooler to go after one big badass then four to eight million tiny badasses. This is one instance where I'd actually appreciate a monster having extra health. You're setting up, amongst elite encounters, a very unique situation this way.
Fast:
I'm resisting the urge to scream about accursed or soul rippers, here. It takes effort.
Fast should not interact with special abilities or cooldowns. Just movement speed. Why? Have you seen this list of mods?
Some monsters, let's be honest here, they move or attack damn well fast enough. Like the aforementioned, or aggrieved brickhouses, phasebeasts, corrupted angels, morlu casters and the like.
Fast is, well, boring. A monster moves faster. Not too interesting. I think we could spice this up.
How about if a fast monster begins at normal movement speed and physical size, but as they take damage, they begin to shrink and move faster? In a game like diablo, for tactical combat, I think that fast movement speed is enough. I don't think there's a need to throw in faster attack speed with that. Attack speed amongst the monster population is so wildly variable that it's hard to really...you know what I mean, you're game designers.
Fire Chains:
On its own, I like fire chains. This is one of the very few tactical modifiers. The problem comes in when you combine it with pretty much anything else. I would propose, to fix this, that fire chains isn't just a simple dps tactic, but a debuffing tactic. I think that would make a fire chains encounter a hell of a lot more interesting.
What kind of debuff? Damn, dude, I'm happy you asked!
Replace jailer with fire chains. Have the chains lock the character in place. I hate CC but that is really tactical, takes your positioning into account (unless they have teleporting, or fast, or...). Or you could even just have the chains tether the pack to the player, so they're always orbiting you no matter what. Wouldn't work in co-op, though.
Frozen:
I consider this a decent mod. You at least have time to do something about the frozen bursts, and then you also have to consider your placement for when they do burst while dealing with all the other mods. It just really sucks when you combine it with jailer, nightmarish, waller, etc., because there's nothing you can do about it.
Illusionist:
I like illusionist. It isn't very tactical but let's be honest, it's just kind of cool to have a shitload of monsters appear out of nowhere with low health and get smashed to kibbles and bits. Sometimes that's all that matters. You have to have a healthy dose of cool every now and then.
There's also little touches, little attentions to detail that I appreciate about illusionist like you will lose your current target while they're casting the ability, so you can't just hold down the mouse button and wait for the char to catch up. That's good stuff.
What is not good stuff is that they can inflict damage. I have no issue, really, with them inheriting boss modifiers, but why should they actually have an effect? Aren't they illusions? A phasebeast illusionist pack is the easiest way to get me to leave the game for the rest of the day., and the next mod is the easiest way to make me never want to play again.
Invulnerable Minions:
I'm gone.
I'm going to introduce a concept called "bodyblocking". Anyone who's played Act III in Hell or higher will be familiar with this, particularly with colossal golgors or phasebeasts. This is also my argument for why invulnerable minions should be removed.
You are completely blocked in, and you cannot move. You cannot even see your character. You're boxed in from all sides and just getting wailed on. Now combine that with teleport or something. Or with small monsters, fast monsters, monsters that flee or, more often monsters that are all of these things in one. Scavengers, soul rippers, fallen shaman, succubus, the list goes on and on and on and on and on and on...
Bodyblocking.
Take a look at the pic and now imagine them as phasebeasts. Or with another mod like fast, extra health, nightmarish, teleport, whatever.
This is not even approaching being fun. I don't care if it's "challenging" (it's not, it's just cheap and monotonous). It's not fun. It's a-fun. It's unfun. Like mortar, there isn't any fixing that can be done for the fundemental issues that this mod places. The only time I hit an enrage timer was on an elite pack of skeletons with this affix as a wizard. I kited them through two zones and back into town where I died (when you could still do that) and then came back, they popped their enrage again. It was just ridiculous and there is nothing fun about that.
What would I suggest to improve it? I would, like mortar, just dump it. It doesn't work. There's nothing I can think of that would make this mod fun.
Jailer:
You're forcing me to stay in place for no apparent reason. What's the strategy here? There isn't any besides, again, forcing me to gear and rune a very specific way, stealing options for me just so you can lock me in place. This isn't even interesting or creative. But it sure does stack great with desecrator, doesn't it? Good God, who designed that AI?
I could see this as a co-op only mod where one of the party is imprisoned, and the other players have to break the prison.
Missile Dampening:
Did you know this is, hands-down, the best modifier in Diablo III? No joke. It's really cool. It's tactical. It forces the player to think about positioning and timing. It even stacks well with other mods. This is easily the best in the game. I love it. I wouldn't change a thing. It's the opposite of Nightmarish.
Look at that. That's boss as hell. This right here? This is tits, brother. You can game that, and it also looks really cool, doesn't it?
I find this super exciting as a Wizard. Toss out an arcane orb, put a few in another location, and you can draw this out so you're smacking the elite with multiple orbs at once. I love seeing big yellow flashing numbers, and even moreso when I've rightly earned it. Best mod ever. BJ to whoever thought it up and designed it. And animated it. And tested it. Shit, BJs for everyone. I have herpes. Yes, we can just shake hands instead.
Mortar:
It should be removed. How it actually works in the game will never align with design intentions. It is redundant when placed alongside missile dampening, and it should just be removed, as MD is the far superior mod. They both make kiting a hassle, which I think is the intent, but only one of them does it properly. Mortar is visually busy in a game that is already stunningly chaotic. Remove it. Remove it. Remove it. It isn't working and it isn't fun, it's broken, frustrating, and obnoxious.
Trapped in a wall, mortared from below. Working as intended?
Monsters that spawn from under the ground or in the air (like blood hawks or sand golems, dune threshers, scavengers, rock worms) can fire them at you when they aren't even visible on the screen. Mortar is fired from off-screen. Mortar is fired from stairs above the player. Mortar has no dead zone and is fired in melee range. Mortar is fired from enemies who naturally flee in a spread, like fallen grunts and shaman. Mortars fire in melee range when you're blocked against a wall. Mortar fires in melee range when a monster puts up a wall. Mortar fires in melee range when they are above or blow the player. Mortar doesn't work.
Just get rid of it. It isn't working and I think you know that. The video below gets really fuckin' cute about halfway through.
The Many Problems with Mortar (Video)
Nightmarish:
There's no point to this other than to make you lose control of your character. As I stated in this entry, that's artificial difficulty, and it blows. There is no reason to have this in the game.
To summarize what's in that TLDR blog, Nightmarish does this:
Makes you lose control of your character.
Makes your skills irrelevant
Makes your runes irrelevant
Makes tactics irrelevant
And it forces you to stack runes or gear to retain control of your character in a video game, an interactive medium. What's the point of interaction if you take it away at arbitrary times? You play a barbarian? Take WotB! Well, sure, because you're forcing me to. You are stealing options from me.
Know what really sucks? Fighting nightmarish fleeing ranged monsters as melee. And oh, boy, there's lots of them, aren't there?
Plagued:
This stacks without the player ever realizing it because it isn't shown graphically. That's not good. If you stand in place with, say, serenity, the mob can cast another one directly underneath the first and you have no way of knowing there's two in the exact same formation.
What I do really appreciate about plagued is that the pools disappear when the monster dies, instead of lingering around for two minutes while you listen to your follower repeatedly die, waiting to loot. Mods like this really blow in narrow corridors (and there's lots) because there's nothing you can do about it. I'm a bit ambivalent on this one.
Reflects Damage:
This modifier means nothing until you're well into inferno with plus crit damage stats stacked up high. You won't really notice, although the steady trickle of little red numbers looks pretty cool, until you start getting those 200k+ crits in rapid succession. I don't think this is enough on its own. A mod, this does not make. It changes nothing about how you go into an encounter. It changes nothing about what you do during an encounter.
What are you supposed to do to game this? Purposely do half of your current dps? Not crit? I just don't get it. I'm not even trying to be snobbish or snarky, I honestly don't see the design goal on this one. I'm open to revelations.
Shielding:
Two minute cooldown on your main ability, you say? You depend on Life on Hit to keep you alive? Hey! Fuck you! :D
"But you have to know when to pop your skill!" Like it matters. This isn't tactical. This just robs a player of their cooldown because it has a ridiculous uptime and they all seem to do it at once, as with most boss modifiers.
You should be able to shatter the shield with stuns or enough damage. It's bullshit that you can completely mitigate a character's build with one affix. The other issue: pretend it's a doom viper with shielding. Pick any spec of any class and try to convince me how a mob that can stealth away, invulnerable the entire time, and then appear with a shield that makes them invulnerable, and then disappear again, is fun. Or a jumping lacuni, or a burrowing scavenger or obnoxious rock worm, or a constantly fleeing hell flyer or fallen shaman...
Teleport:
I have no issue with monsters being able to teleport. I only take issue with why they teleport according to their AI. They don't teleport defensively, they teleport very deliberately and offensively, which I think is backwards for a multitude of reasons. Take the succubi. What they do is hang back and fire off debuffs, then if you approach them, they have that little backwards hop. Think of that like a proper use of teleport. They do it so you are kind of forced to choose to pursue and stop the debuffing, or else deal with the melee around you. This is a tactical situation and I think it's great, although the lack of fucking cooldown on their little fleeing jump does send me into a fit of rage.
Often with elites you have normal monsters to contend with that are either present at the initiation of combat, or else are added on later through spawns or fearing. So if they're teleporting out, then they are giving the player an option between focuses, they are forcing the player to make a split-second tactical decision in combat, and I think that's just awesome. What's not awesome is when a pack of elites teleports into you and surrounds you all at the same time with fire chains or molten and kill you almost instantly. There's no tactics there. You remove any tactics or decisions the player can make. That's not fun and it doesn't play well.
Vampiric:
I think of this one kind of like reflects damage. It's either too powerful or you don't even notice it.
Perhaps it would be better if one monster in a pack stopped, began casting a kind of Warlock-ish health funnel animation at the player, taking a substantial amount of life, but any damage stops the effect? I dunno. That's a tough one to fix, in order to balance it between powerful and useless.
Normally all this mod does to an encounter is make extra health more obnoxious.
Waller:
I'm a bit torn on this one, and I think it's because it's so buggy and doesn't interact well with most of the other modifiers. On its own, I think it's neat. But when you actually put it into the game with another affix I begin to lose enthusiasm. I know this is known as one of the more obnoxious mods, but I don't think that is the fault of waller on its own.
It is certainly one of the more interesting and creative mods. It doesn't overlap with many others in terms of functionality, either. There just seems to be something wrong or missing here.
But here's why waller is one of the best mods in the game: it's tactical in that it has the potential, when gamed correctly, to give the player an advantage. A knowledgeable, skilled player will use the walls (when not bugging out) to their tactical advantage, given that they know how to do it and have the timing to pull it off.
In that respect, it's one of the only tactical modifiers in the game, including my much-loved missile dampening. It fits my criteria of everything a mod should be (if you fix the bugs). The bugs I'm referring to are casting them out of LoS (like from the top of a bridge that you can't get to), trapping the player in walls, etc.
I also don't care for how many walls can be thrown up, where you're completely boxed in and can't even move, as that kind of defeats the purpose of the mod and it may as well be jailer then.
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