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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Free, have you also thought about making a Proposal List 3 and a Proposal List 4?
Proposal List 3 could consist of skill changes (which you wanted to avoid in your first two lists) and larger or even complete overhauls of sets and legendaries. So this list would not be suggestion that have a high chance of being implemented, but which would illustrate a more idealistic version of how things could look like. This would be more of a “just for the fun of creating and coming up with ideas”-list, but eventually the devs could take some inspiration from such a list as well.
Proposal List 4 could consist of minor changes and adjustments that are not necessarily important, but that still would be nice to have, like for example the suggestion I gave to give Leap 2 or 3 charges instead of a cooldown. It would be interesting to see what else you come up with as well.
I know, this would eventually cause your proposal to make a small excursion into into LaLa-Land so to speak, but I felt like that something like this, separate from the other Proposal Lists was missing from it. It would give the thing more soul - and also I just just like to read all kinds of ideas that people come up with just for the fun of it and to stimulate the imagination, even if they never become real.
There are actually a number of ways to make the primary attack based build if something was added to Barbs. One of the more interesting ones would be a non-weapon that imitates the wizard etched sigil. Only, it procs primary attacks only. A frenzy/bash build using Blade of the Warlord can keep IK6 active. It is just a pain to alternate between the two primary skills.
Add in some extra damage and it might actually start to compete with HoTA.
Another Frenzy weapon would be something else I would get into easily. I have messed around with Echoing Fury and while it is hilarious how they interact, it does not do anything useful.
As a side note, I have been playing WW Barb since it was first possible. So like you Free, I hope for improvements to it and the other builds. Just having the option to truly have a primary attack build would be something I could get behind.
This one would be a little dangerous to change too much. There is a necromancer Inarius build that uses it as one of its main damaging items. Sounds odd, but it does work.
I cannot remember the first thread about Barbs being too weak compared to others, but I’m joining them ALL.
Barb was my first and most beloved class in Diablo 3 history and the only reason why I’m ignoring it for years is: IT IS NOT VIABLE. And I HATE to be tunneled into a supporter. And btw: Those charge builds are a mess to play.
WW or IK HotA being viable would be my dream. I’m not even asking for both to be competitive. For this upcoming patch, please buff at least one of them.
And as Free and others have stated: Bringing Morticks Bracers back is no buff at all.
So I just read through the closed thread by Roidraged, and that pointed me here.
My thoughts can be summarized as follows:
devs dont care one iota about barbs, as evidenced by:
increasing numbers is their go-to method for making changes to the game, it has been for many years, yet they refuse to do it for barbs
Keeping this in mind, and as it has been obvious for nearly 5 years (despite protestations to the contrary in other threads), I mostly play other games like Grim Dawn and POE these days. I don’t WANT to enjoy those games more than d3, and I keep trying to find excuses to continue playing d3, but watching the barbs get (deleted) on for these past so many years is simply too much evidence to ignore.
I applaud you Free for continuing to fight the good fight, but it’s patently obvious that the devs want barbs to be low dps tanks and nothing more.
fyi, I’m actually active this season, but to get more play time in group runs I had to make a “dps” class. I feel dirty even saying that, but there it is.
Kinda funny comment Nev. considering Blizzard has been trolling
Barbs more than anybody on theses boards.
In all seriousness, people are awaiting your implementation
of these changes, can we expect some soon, like for
next season?
Was thinking about WW skill, and all the suggestions to
mitigate server issues etc. , and other crap.
Why not get rid of dust devils, and tic rates etc., and make it
like other channeling skills that just ramp up.
Forget Bloodshed and all that stuff, and just make it go
from like 300% damage to like 1200%, or something similar.
Forget all the fuss and everything else, just increase damage significantly over 2-4
seconds.
Just talking about the skill, and not set bonuses.
Too bad they fired good CM’s like Bashiok, at least he had the balls to us the truth at Blizzcon.
Also how are we supposed to believe you. When you say you pass feedback to the developers, how can we believe that statement when it takes 10 years to make any significant changes to the game?