The shift to the “never nerf, always buff” philosophy was probably the single worst change in the history of D3 since the release of the game (apart from the fact that the game is fundamentally broken at its core, but that is another topic). It lead to massively insane and unnecessary power creep and imbalances and to most possible builds that otherwise should be viable now being considered “Just For Fun Builds” because they are so underpowered.
Sad but true.
But would it still be worth it???
Yes, the players of these particular builds would feel bad, but compare that to all the players whose builds have become useless due to one or a few builds having become overpowered.
You know how these people feel? I can tell you, because I am one of them. The reason why I play so little D3 is because literally 100% of all the builds that I would like to play are NOT endgame viable, because they are not supported by sets. Just to play devils advocate: can you imagine how I feel?
To continue to play devils advocate: if for every 1 player of overpowered Build A that would feel worse when their unnecessarily overpowred build gets nerfed, 100 players of other builds would feel better, don’t you think that it is worth it?
The players that will only play the best builds will continue to do that, regardless if the best builds are (to exaggerate a bit) 6000% better or just 30% better than average builds, but if the best builds are just 30% better than average builds and not 6000%, players that like to play other builds can still play viable builds and not “feel bad” as you described it.
At the end of the day nerfing stuff also provides more people with more viable options and furthermore, nerfing an overpowered build does not necessarily mean to make it useless, but to bring it back into balance, which means that it still is (or at least that it could and eventually should be) a viable option.
You know what also never stops growing? Cancer. Cells that decide to grow/replicate beyond what is healthy for the whole. Nerfing them would just bring the whole system back into harmony/balance.
They may not design with the meta in my mind but they have a well documented history of nerfing things because of the meta. For example, there was nerfs to zDPS witch doctors and multiple classes to impair their ability to give group buffs.
I agree that they deserve to be better relative to DPS, but let’s not ignore the fact that Free/Rage noted: “Barbarians are already guaranteed spots as zDPS in groups”.
I think I would have liked this patch a lot if there were a few more updated items, i.e. Stone of Jordan and Blackthornes also receiving refreshes. If this patch had been a massive refresh for a lot more items that have been sitting in 2014/2015 design.
Oh well.
Hopefully next patch will involve more items that catch my fancy.
Looking forward to Nev’s blog. Hopefully it’ll shed some light on what the developers are thinking and what they have in store for D3 as rumors about D4 slowly start picking up steam as we enter 2020.
Well the nerfs to the group meta a few years back was because the meta had devolved into players just CC’ing and buffing damage. D3 is an action rpg after all. When 3 of 4 players aren’t doing damage, I would hope the developers would make a change. I wish they had gone even farther myself.
But the point remains, they’ve never designed the game around group play as it pertains to switching up the classes that make the groups.
Hi Free,
I have repeatedly said barbarians need buffs as DPS. By checking my post history, I have similar statements at least 5 times.
I have complemented you and have repeatedly stated that barbs deserve a buff.
Unless I am missing something, I have never said that barbarians do not deserve more DPS because of their guaranteed spot in the 4 man meta (push as well as rat runs). Barbs and monk gauaranteed role as zPDS in 4 man push is irrelevant. I will reiterate barbarians should get a DPS buff like monks. Your confusion may arise from the fact that I have asked a simple question if you could either only be a guaranteed zDPS or buffed DPS what would you choose? I want to understand what you consider most important.
Trust me that I feel your pain about fighting for something and being hit with resistance from other forum posters and then feeling let down by Blizzard. I have been advocating for more character slots/stash tabs for a long time. Needless to say, you get criticized by the "stop hoarding " meme as well as Blizzard listening/not listening.
I have made the point to you that things may not be as awful for barbs as other classes. Crusaders and demon hunters have been largely excluded as DPS in the 4 man meta from season 5 and on. They are also now below average/average relative to solo greater rift clears, respectively. I have advocated to shake up the meta.
Let me make a simple analogy, because I think you are mistaking my desire to have better class equity for class warfare.
Lets assume that there are 70 children who are divided into 7 groups (A-G). A benefactor provides free ice cream but this is limited to 40 children. The school decides that groups A-D get the ice cream. Another team provides all kids with candy but varying amounts. Groups A and B get the most candy. Groups C and D get the least candy.
Your point is that Group C should get more candy and it does not matter that they also have ice cream. You are also stating that other groups should advocate for themselves to correct the obvious inequity.
My points are:
We should be aware of the inequity between groups and advocate for something better.
Group C has ice cream and some candy. I agree that there should be a more equitable distribution of candy between groups where Group C, D, E, F, and G should get more candy.
Group C and D situation is much better than groups F and G who do not get any ice cream and have average or below average piles of candy.
Given that this thread was made in general discussion, I think it is fair to think about things broadly. The two classes that are weakest in terms of solo DPS are also the ones who have had a guaranteed spot in the 4 man meta for more than 10 season. I suspect that this may be intentional decision by the developers.
What passives would you fix? What Zerker rune would get changed to be the single target rune and how would it be changed? Fixing passives would work. But that honestly does open a can of worms for every other class to go "what about our passives?’
The discrepancy between Barbarians and other classes is our lack of legendary items.
Our passives are meh. But every class has meh passives.
Our set bonuses aren’t too bad, they could use some quick fixes:
MotE should have Lut Socks built in.
Raekor needs to lose the wall charge gimmick.
Whirlwind needs to use or lose Rend.
What we need is more items that scale. More items that take a build to the next level. That’s the main point of the proposals.
I’ve never been a fan of this. Lut Socks provide excellent utility that also provides significant damage without the need for a big fat multiplier. In other words, Lut Socks does what we’re all saying good supporting legendaries should do.
I would argue that of all our sets, MOTE has the fewest problems. Aside from single-target damage, it’s big issue is that it buffs a lot of skills that can’t ever be viable. Avalanche, Spear, and Ground Stomp are useless in the build, and Slam is still far too weak. All of that can be addressed through supporting legendaries (a la List 2)
Agreed, but I suspect this is a deep problem in the code and will never get corrected. One could dampen, it however, with a few possible tweaks.
The set could offer a DR buff per enemy struck by FC
Switch the 4 and 6 piece multipliers
Restrict the 6 piece multiplier to Ancient Spear.
Agreed, but use is better. Rend can be a significant source of damage in the build, but it needs a scaling multiplier (capped) and additional utility in the set to earn a spot on the bar.
Again, I want to stress this is possible (see the link above). And it’s not hard.
For a HotA build, depending on whether you equip or cube the Mortick’s, that means losing out on Bracers of the First Men (50% attack speed and 500% damage to HotA) or Magefist (20% fire damage). There’s nothing that Mortick’s provides that’s worth that amount of reduction of damage output.
For me personally the 50% additional damage reduction and a decent amount of additional recovery is definitely worth considering to give up the Magefist, but I have to say that I personally prefer a bit more defense than offense.
The problem with Lut Socks is Earthquake dosen’t work without them, and Lut Socks doesn’t work without MotE. At least imo.
I like how they buff Earthquake without simply being a ×××% multiplier, but I ono. I’ve always agreed they need to be a part of MotE off the bat.
Like some people are saying Stone Gauntlets could be a good item for LeapQuake in 2.6.6, but I strongly disagree because you can’t drop Lut Socks for them. That’s too much of a DPS loss in their current design. Maybe you could wear RoRG and use both but then you’re losing a valuable ring slot whether it be FnR or CoE. And ultimately you should probably just use BoM anyways if you need the defense. Guaranteed 80% DR every Leap. No need to build stacks.
But anyways. I would argue Lut Socks are a great item. But because they’re so specific and so great they lock LeapQuake builds into using them and really stifles your ability to use other items.
By the way, it is possible to make an EQ build without lut socks: with enough cooldown and lightning EQ, you can make a much tougher and higher dps leap quake. Although, it is very clunky and require a well executed keyboard sequence (with Leoric in cube, https://us.diablo3.com/en/profile/Prokahn-1764/hero/75666493
But I think if you want a build that specializes in Earthquake and MotE specifically, you do need Lut Socks. You’re losing two EQs every cycle even though you get more cycles due to try for more CDR and what not.
With the cast animation time of leap, it’s maybe not that true.
With a high CDR build, it will make a rotation with a leap, the two shouts, earthquake (on a short CD in Lightning) and the dump fury of seismic slam. Have to see if there is enough CDR to maintain it.
In the other hand, with high CDR rolls, you already have overlaps on the Luts socks version
I’m not to happy on the feedback from Blizzard about Barbs yet. Unless there is a miracle I have a feeling it will be a DH if I even want to play another season.
Yes, that is my take also. I played PTR and fooled around with Mortic’s bracers a little but looks like DH for next season. Mortic’s just wasn’t enough.