That’s a really good question, and I suspect only Blizz can answer with certainty. My guess is they don’t much care about the meta. Aside from a few tweaks over the years, they almost never directly interfere with it. I think they’ve said as much in interviews or blog posts; they’re pretty hands-off.
Another reason is that the devs don’t play the game at the same level. Remember, the devs aren’t investing their free time playing the game and pushing GR 150. They might understand design, coding, and lots of other stuff, but they rarely understand actual play as well as the most dedicated players. And maybe in knowing this, they realize that any direct changes they make to the meta might alienate their most hardcore player base.
If that is their intention i would like to hear this as well.
However i think that the Devs simply dont care about class balance at all. All they care about is making cool new gimmicks, cool seasonal buffs, cool wings and achievements. They are not concerned with the balancing at all anymore.
They don’t care about the meta because they don’t create the meta. We, players, do. They cannot even in their wildest dreams predict what exactly will be be the most OP composition, hence they always rely on PTR participation to see what we come up with. Thing is that historically ptr meta usually was not actual meta that typically was forged couple weeks into season than it is too late to interfere with it, than we go into the loop of “we don’t want you to feel weaker when you log in back again” (yup, this is their policy, it was said by them few times) and end up with insane power creep that is by all means difficult to adjust. I think the only meaningful direct nerf to meta was made after first season of twister wiz. Monk and Barb got nerfed because of Wiz back than. But as usual instead of fixing root of the problem, they decided to trim the branches. Reapers Wraps should’ve been nerfed back than, and they wouldn’t come back to haunt them with Ratruns. But they nerfed barbs IP, Falter, Birthright, monks heals/sanc and so on. It is funny how those who constantly say “but you are part of the meta” don’t see how much burden it can be in a long run. Back in a days in “Fray” that was “The Barb Clan” we had our own meta builds. I had my own Istvans Hota build with perma IP and insane globe production that was a hybrid DPS/Support, and we use to do 4 barb speed runs, back when 1000 paragon was actually an achievement. Needles to say there was no more of that since we couldn’t actually heal ourselves via globes, our Falter couldn’t stack anymore and so on. Same issue (not removing the root) is with the hybrid IK6/R4 build. It is sitting in our closet, very successfully preventing proper class balance for what must be 3 years now.
But if they would’ve listen to us (well, couple of us who seen the larger picture) back than, now Barb wouldn’t have this huge inconsistencies with couple sets and overall buffing issues. How is this a proper design when charge set is actually dealing damage with spenders, and a charge (that have its own dedicated set) deals damage only when is using 6 piece bonus of other set? How is this not a problem when you cannot effectively buff spender items because they woukd actually be used in Charge set, and you cannot buff generalistic set (IK) because it will make Charge build (that again, have its own set ffs) too dominant? All they had to do was listen back than and they would never faced these design issues.
I mean, you know your class is in bad shape when you actually have to worry that buffing generalistic set will yield Wastes (WW set) obsolete, and your spender skill that was clearly meant to work with gen/spender set (Hota/Slam should be used with IK that encourages generator - spender playstyle) is working better with Furious charge set, and … I mean I can go on and on with these clear misdesign issues (not even gonna talk about Wastes that have Rend bonus build in and no one using rend) but point is, that there was numerous occasions where all that was needed was just this little bit of good will and all that was required was for some developer to give our detailed posts a second thought.
Sometimes I feel sorry for them, because whoever is leading this team now have to deal with all the luggage that previous - utterly bad - design choices created. Blizzard got caught into their own “infinite progress/infinite challenge” net, and now we finally start to see the end of it.
The worst part is the entire “we listen”. Don’t write it if you are not doing anything.
“We are not done with Barbarians” and they give us a single item that does nothing for the class.
I mean… Just admit it already. Be honest. Don’t bring hope up for people, just to be caught in the lie.
There were several seasons without any significant changes to the game. I think that they could predict with 100% accuracy that the meta would not change. They didn’t even try to buff another class.
Some might say it was also an opportunity.
I wonder if the best way for barbs to get the DPS buff they want is to acknowledge that zDPS barbs should be nerfed. Until that day, it is hard to imagine how being part of the meta from season 4-17 (and soon to be 18) can be ignored by some in the community and potentially the developers themselves.
This was written by Free/Rage in their barbarian buff website:
“Since Barbarians are already guaranteed spots as zDPS in groups, trying to diversify the roles available to our class is tricky. To that end, we focus on buffing specific builds and corresponding items to help Barbarians fulfill two possible roles in group play: Rift Guardian Killer (RGK) or trash-burner (TB) .”
I realize other classes have dominated the meta recently (i.e., necromancers). For them, I can at least see this being a tactical decision for Blizzard to encourage those who haven’t bought the necro DLC to do so. I am not sure why the developers have allowed Monk and Barbs to occupy the seasonal 4 man meta for years.
I used to main barb and when the whole Mortics Bracer fiasco happend about 4 years ago I moved to Monk. Mained Monk for awhile, then some time around the the Monk static shock nerf (my all time favorite build, tied with the ball of dealth Raenkor Barb from season one or 2) I switched to DH.
Every patch I look for a reason to go back to barb, but your the OPs post clearly displays the sad state of Barbs.
People here keep talking as if they believe D3 actually has a dedicated crew working on the game.
The people tasked with making seasonal changes/content probably have other primary projects they work on and don’t have day to day hands on experience of the current game state. They probably just use analytics like play rates to decide if something gets attention. Blizzard isn’t going to waste a bunch of time and resources tracking balance in game that no longer has a revenue stream.
I think that’s been pretty obvious for a while, ever since D3 was transferred to Classic Games. I mean, there’s no official statement on that, so I could be wrong, but the CG team does lots of work on lots of games, so, yeah.
On the other hand, it’s likely they WILL pay a bit more attention to D3, as evidenced by this patch, in order to maintain a loyal customer base for D4, whenever that gets announced.
Developers have said in the past they don’t design with the “meta” in mind because they don’t know what we’ll decide to do as players. They’ve been blindsided by more than a few builds they’ve admitted.
Ultimately this is the problem with having developers who don’t get into the game nearly as much. I think John Yang was the last “top” developer player. No offense to Don or Wyatt, but last time I saw their builds, I kind of chuckled. And I’m as casual and solo as they come. But ya, without having a developer who really gets involved in the community and follows top groups and what not, you can’t expect them to really know what the meta will be based on their updates.
To be completely fair with Blizzard the new patch does add cool mechanics and Mortick’s is a welcome item for its own sake of letting people play with it in LON, WW and HOTA builds.
But these new mechanics additions only beg the question; if they have all the time and knowledge to add this intricate stuff (and it is intricate, those two amulets are completely new mechanics), then how come they have been unable to fix Barbs for 4 or 5 years now?
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.