I have noticed many affixes just have no place in higher difficulties. I imagine holdouts from the changes to monster health and defense. Elemental damage, attacker takes damage. etc. I don’t mind having trash roll affixes like “of the sun” which just boosts light radius.
But to jump on the “it makes the game easier” dialogue. There is a really really easy fix to this. Buff base melee damage AND monster hit damage. Melee characters SHOULD hit harder than casters, but be put into situations where they need to balance resources or straight up run from a fight so they don’t get PKed. This also helps the rare people (like me) who have an unhealthy obsession with thorns builds being meta. Or at least USEFUL…
Add stat -block chance % (This might be hard though).
Lower damage from some of skills(blizzard, Lightning fury, charged strike, CE hammers, FoH, Lightning, Nova probably missing some), P3 should be the most efficient solo farming count
Merge the weapon mastery for barbarian (1h, 2h, Throw).
Increase barbarian shouts duration on lower levels.
Add some flat damage to melee skills to help while levelling.
Add hit check to Smite
AoE could be added to some specific skills maybe(Thinking Maul, Concentrate, Smite).
Slight increase to weapon base damage and lower grief +damage to compensate
Non-etheral weapons should have infinite or very high durability
At the very least, polearm and spears should be merged. Although that barb tree is so damn barren, I wish we could think of some new skills to add to it. Maybe an attack rating passive. Or a skill that gives 2-handers block chance
Exactly. Just make one skill “weapon mastery” work for all weapons. Inc stamina/speed should be one skill, Iron Skin and Nat Resist should be one skill and then rework that tree to have more passives to prop up the main attacks. You could have one side be a shout passive the other side would be weapon passives or something.
No need for 4 skills to be individual or 6 different weapon skills just to take up room. Maybe have a whirlwind synergy in that tree since whirlwind currently doesn’t have any synergies.
I don’t know, they need to do something. I’m so tired of having to use/farm to get a grief every ladder when I honestly prefer beefy 2handers/lances/pikes, etc… for the fantasy part of the game. Hell, I used to make S/s barbs all the time bc they used to be really cool. 2h Barbarian laying the sword across their shoulder when standing still was so cool to me. Now everyone just runs around with 2 swords.
Ww needs to be reverted back pre 2.5 and then FIXED . Slows affecting ww fpa was a nerf and Also pidgeon holes Even more to use grief .
On the 2h SIDE of things , 2h ww for any weapon not a frigging sword was totally destroyed as You can’t reach 4 fpa wws any more (not posible it is capped at 5= ~20 % damage nerf).
What’s funny is that the fantasy part is actually the DW barbarian . 2h and 1h + shield are more acurate historically , berzerkers usually went to battle with a shield and weapon not FRIGGIN 2 swords .
Heck i want to be arnie with a huge 2 hander not runing around swinging 2 toothpicks!
Imagine if we could actually use ctc proc skills of items while whirlwinding. If WW is a “casted” ability instead of a striking ability, why do we need hit rating since casters don’t? So many 2h could be useful if they allowed WW to be a strike ability instead of a casted one.
Also, I would love to use lances again, 1.03 lance barbs were juicy haha. I’m tired of only using phase blades. Give us more weapon variety that can work with end game. It’s honestly ridiculous at this point that the only viable end game build is just grief
This game was based off D&D so why not look there for more inspiration in regards to masteries tab for barbarian. Because as of right now it is very clear this was a neglected tab due to the original time crunch.
As stated above, weapons mastery is just 1 skill. Throwing mastery can stay separate
Each weap class in the mastery gains an effect ie:
>Mace CB 1%/level
>Daggers/swords Deadly strike 1%/level
>Polearms/spears +5 max damage/level
>Axes Cleave** damage increased 10%/level
The barbarian is canonically the best fighter in the game, and although the masteries tab still isn’t exactly sexy, it provides infinitely more utility that inspires to make hard decisions about where to invest skill points. This is very rough but is still better than the neglected tab.
**Cleave new skill that deals damage in a 180 arc in front of character.
I would change bash to cleave and be absolutely okay with that and then you could also throw either max cleave with max frenzy giving you cleave damage in an arc in front of you while using frenzy which would help with Barb’s TTK on groups of monsters.
I will edit my post in the PTR Feedback forum with some suggestions to balance for melee builds instead of adding hustle in its current form into the game.
AGREED!
Blizz obviously hates melee chars. We been complaining about this forever.
Buff all melee weapons base damage.
Remove the 50% damage reduction cap. HC melee players will tell you how nessesary this is to melee a group of fanta deathlords, or extra fast assalients ect…
Remove dolls in HC.
WW is still not viable. They hate the WW skill. obviously. Needs better damage % as well as Attack rating.
ALL Barb attack ratings need buffed. I’d love to take off Angelics and be able to use other ammy’s and rings, but is very necessary in HC for maintaining life leech in nasty situations. Conc and zerk is hardly viable in HC. You can get surrounded by mobs, unable to move, and if you can’t kill fast enough you have to leave game or die. (deeds remembered)
ALL melee chars need buffed. I really don’t understand why they can’t make melee compete with casters. Why does a Hdin get to have 15k hammers with end game gear, but barb Berzerk (also magic damage like hammers) will have only half that with end game gear and BOTD. ANd requires AR, so it don’t hit every time like hammers do. Bezerk should not need AR, should be like the Zons charged strike, and druids fireclaw should too. Why do some chars elemental damage hit every time, but not others?? Consistency is not part of their vocabulary.
We’re just blowing hot air, because blizz will NEVER fix things without breaking things more. It’s their MO. It’s what they do.
I get the frustration, and I’ll be just as pissed as you if the last pre-D4 patch doesn’t have melee parity. That said, I’m keeping my mind open for this patch. Let’s give 'em one more chance!
The current masteries already give damage, AR and CS percent though. A lot of Barb builds are already pretty tight on skill points. So adding another skill that has to be pumped to get AR may be a 1 step forward 1 step back thing. I do agree with the premise overall. Might be cool to be able to get CB or IAS from a skill, but maybe too OP?
I started a new WW Travincal barb to use my eBB Oath now that my Frenzy barb moved on, just b/c I enjoy how cool that is. Definitely fun to see at the character selection screen! Brings back the fond memories from playing legacy in high school for me.
Only makes sense. Assassin has weapon block, and simple fact is, sword fighters use those swords to block with as a part of sword fighting. You would think asians would know this being the sword enthusiasts they are.
