2.6.6 and Barbs: A Measured Response

Let me see…

Season 17. Update for Necromancer legendary.
Update for Blessed shield Crusader legendary.
Update for Demon Hunter Sin seeker legendary.

A quick 20 seconds google search, showed me posts about Sin Seeker legendary item 3 years ago.
They updated it in season 17. So your “coding is not magic” bull, does not apply here.
If they can update items like that, together with set bonuses IN WHICH they have done multiple times, it is easy to do on 1-3 items for Barbarians.

I am truely done with you now. Clueless, defending Blizzard.
You say in one thread you know that Blizzard got something going for Barbarians, in this thread, you say that no one knows what they are thinking or going to do.

You are simply put it, too far out there. I don’t need to show you as a target.

You made yourself one, when you are talking in 20 comments about Barbarians, when you were proven that you literally did not know anything you were talking about…

Again, I urge people to avoid this person.

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You really using them adding 2-3 legendary items as an argument? Instead of calling me a troll, try to ask “why” Blizzard acted that way. Changing or nerfing anything on Barbs? You people would cause an uproar again. Buff Barbarians directly? Servers would suffer a strain. Entirety of your builds based on periodic area damage and most popular build is using mass tickrates(DoT or whatever), what did you expect?!
Only a few specs would be spared from this curse but they haven’t acted yet, Barbarian specs are broken to start with.

Yes but no. Not when their playstyle still dependent on AD and DoT calculations, to get over that issue you must optimize the server performance or find a work around at the engine itself by cutting corners. None of this solutions are guaranteed to be stable in an instant. Neither they know how fans would react, you can not gauge, estimate or predict it. Reaction to a major change can be a calm manner reasoned reply or as you saw at the front page threads that filled with complaints.

Any new item you would get back then wouldn’t be any different than Mortick’s Bracers at the terms of power. A small slight push forward for underwhelming specs.

It’s not my fault you that people blind or deaf. When I say there are lag issues because of mass area damage (Battle Rage-Bloodshed) and disoriented ticking damage calculations (Whirlwind-Dust Devils, Rend, Pain Enhancer, all the same), you simply ignore those and keep yapping about 3-5 years delays and a mere double damage buff overall would solve your problems. Funny thing is you also want to double damage for DoT/tick rate based skills to promote their use among Barbarians without any infrastructure changes.

Barbarians have deep beneath technical problems that you all CHOSE to ignore for the sake of drooling over double damage boosts. Slandering me as trollbait won’t change anything.

A friendly reminder, folks: Don’t engage trolls. We’ve got a good, productive thread here that has Blizzard’s attention, so please don’t get it derailed or locked by taking troll bait.

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Exactly this. Not gonna reply to him. Arch… Ignore that troll bro.

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Trolls keep trying to derail the Barb threads…DO NOT ENGAGE!!! Keep it clean and on topic or we risk the threads getting locked and lose the ability to have an intelligent conversation.

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And to add on - please make pointed use of your reporting flags for the day if you haven’t already, should you come across undue hostility or clear intent to derail. This will help us clean up unnecessary trolling in a much more timely fashion.

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You sometimes need to wait longer for the best things, right!???!

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For the people wondering about the meta and other classes (and Blizzard if you are reading), remember this: CHOICE IS KING!

I have a DH RGK. Is it as optimal in a rank 1 world push as a Thorns necro? Nope. But it doesn’t matter, because she is fun to play and gives me the option to RGK, all the way up to GR 150!

Some facts about other classes and their viability in the meta;

  • Demon Hunters can comfortably kill rift guardians all the way up to GR 150. Demon Hunters have the option of DPS in solo or in groups. With a Znec or with pylons a DH can pull off 3 min kills on 150. I mean… that’s amazing.

  • Crusader can comfortably kill rift guardians all the way up to GR 150 with TWO builds, Invoker and Heaven’s Fury. Are they widely used? No, but they work. Look at the Seasonal 4p leaderboard right now. **Rank 37 is a 150 clear in 9 minutes with a Heaven’s Fury crusader and Znec support. Why did this group use Crusader RGK? Because it’s the best ever? NO. Because it’s fun and unique and rewarding for them!

  • WD can also kill RGs all the way up to 150. They’re not as good as other options but they work.

So, all we’re asking for is choice. This goes for all classes.

Let WDs and Monks have trash clearing builds. Do they need to be the best at it? Nope. Doesn’t matter. But give them the CHOICE.

Does Barb need to be buffed to be the king of group DPS to make players happy. NOPE. Just let them kill stuff in 135s or whatever. Let them atleast try to make an RGK build even if it’s slow and bad compared to all other RGKs.

Same goes for any class feeling like they’re pigeonholed.

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This is really well put. Thank you, friend. I couldn’t agree more.

Choice is important. We want all classes to have the kind of choice you’re describing. It’s definitely possible!

But Barbs are also the weakest solo class, and have been since before Reaper of Souls was released. It’s well past time to address that.

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Choice is important because it implies having options. Having options means there’s diversity. Having diversity means you can play a lot of different classes and builds… and here’s the kicker, you’re less likely to get bored!

You could play Barbarian one season. Necromancer the next. Crusader after that. Go back to Barbarian. Throw a Demon Hunter splurge in there. Variety is spice of life and I find it important to keep my interest in video games.

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Free,

You deserve credit for making a comprehensive list of possible barb changes. You have listed buffs to 28 items (including the introduction of more than 10 new legendary affixes), 9 passive skills, and the Wrath of the Waste Set (both 4 and 6 piece bonuses), assuming that I did not miss anything. Needless to say, it is highly unlikely that Blizzard would adopt these changes en masse. I can not recall any class where more than a couple passive skills changed so 9 seems like a lot. Also, buffs to 28 different items where more than 10 have new affixes (rather than simple number buffs) appears to be a lot.

Given this expansive list, what are a few barb changes that you consider the greatest priority (and also simplest to execute)?

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Not Free but I’ll reply with some really low effort changes that would let Barbs do stuff in groups and in new solo builds:

Girdle of Giants or EQ or Blade of the Tribes multipliers increased (trash clearing build)

Oathkeeper buffed to a ludicrous amount (Frenzy, spenders)

Frenzy Belt adds 300% Frenzy damage per stack (there’s a 2 h weapon that increases frenzy stacks you can cube). Don’t even need all runes.

WW Dust Devils reworked to do something else like weaken enemy damage by 20% or whatever. Just get rid of the lag. Then buff WW damage to real levels so it can do 120+ without killing servers.

You get the idea… this is not rocket science.

Great question. One thing to bear in mind is that we don’t want List 1 and List 2. We only want one of them–preferably List 2, but List 1 would suffice.

So, if we’re getting stuff from List 2, here are my top priorities in no specific order–and bear in mind my bias here:

  • Adding Rend to Wastes 6
  • Ambo’s Pride
  • Lamentation
  • Skull Grasp
  • Remorseless
  • Skular’s Salvation
  • Bracers of Destruction
  • Dread Iron
  • BK Wedding Band
  • Fjord Cutter
  • Oathkeeper
  • Undisputed Champion

If we’re getting List 1 stuff, here are my picks:

  • Skular’s Salvation
  • Skull Grasp
  • Oathkeeper

Again, I’m guilty of a strong bias toward WW, but I would argue that it’s the most popular Barb build.

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Actually, one way to nix all lag from Dust Devils is to do the following:

  • Dust Devils deliver all damage in one hit
  • They can no longer “tick” and hit enemies multiple times
  • They deal significantly more damage and scale their damage with attack speed.

It doesn’t seem like Blizz has any intention of tweaking skills, but this would fix some of the lag issues.

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Yeah, exactly. You can have Barbs clear trash in groups with simple mechanics that already exist such as Skular’s Salvation or Earthquake.

You can have them do single target (which also works as a solo build) by looking at Frenzy. You can do this through Oathkeeper.

By the way why do you think they changed Vyrs damage to scale with attack speed instead of releasing tons of energy waves that scale frequency with attack speed?

Similar problem as WW. Devs know how to protect the servers if they really want to.

Yes, exactly! This is what we were aiming at!

That’s a great point. A simple change to Dust Devils like the one I posted above would A) keep the AOE damage potential of the build, and B) reduce lag and server stress. Win-win.

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Even more simple, buff the Frenzy thorn via the barb passive. No risk of collateral unbalance

If you want them to still hit multiple targets, best way is also giving them a higher projectile speed and reducing their linger duration but I doubt hit detection could fit the animation. This way the created entities will pierce and fade away without causing mass calculations hopefully.

The problem with this is that the passive alone is what makes Thorns strong. To get it in line with the current power creep, you would need to buff Tough as Nails’s Thorns damage to 10,000% to start. This would help Frenzy Thorns compete with other major Barb builds and work as a sub-optimal RG killer in speeds, but that kind of a buff is enormous and probably looks terrifying to the devs.

I hope they have done the math on their own game, but if a few builds can do GR140 it’s because they have terrifying multipliers.

If add an item who multiply the effect of the passive is more consensual, do so, but the viability of a build rely on this king of Numbers.

Buff Thorn on barb only require to tweak the thorn effect on one class, it’s maybe safer for an balance point of view

EDIT : i take the buff on othkeeper too, i really hope to see a Frenzy build