Whirlwind does not need Dust Devils to be competitive. Having a large AOE is not necessary for WW to be a push build.
It could keep its basic area damage (just from WW itself) and be good for solo if they upped the damage itself by a ton.
DH Rapid Fire has a small AOE and does fine on pushes (many many 130+ clears, up to 134-136 in NS, aka way stronger than WW). Same with plenty of other builds. The difference is those builds, unlike Ww, don’t lock up the server and have real damage.
Whirlwind’s problem is server performance and that issue makes the devs afraid to buff it. So honestly just deal with the root of the problem.
If it lets them fix the set lag in density I’m all for killing Dust Devils or making it do something else.
Exactly, that’s why i refer to firebats as they would work more or less the same, allthough ww is mobile.
If adding rend to the damage, is probably just gonna make the problem worse as it would add additional lag onto it. Also having you micromanage applying rend to all targets makes it even harder. I do not want to chase anyone away from this build, but the more we work in old ways, the deeper the problem gets.
Look at hammerdin, a few patches back they removed the double spawning hammers and killed a lot of the lag while increasing the range of the skill, in the same time the build got stronger since it could utilize ad much more.
Agreed. They could to increase WW base damage in the cost of removing dust devils it’s easy.
Taeguk need more delay buff time too. Sometimes we get some empty GR maps model, so they just to consider to increase extra 2-4 seconds on taeguk buff.
It’d be interesting to see if they did remove Dust Devils what they would do to balance Whirlwind back out. It’s a lot of damage to lose which is why some players might reflexively say you can’t lose DDs. But those DDs are also the cause of a lot of the server issues for some of you I’m sure.
So losing Dust Devils might make it possible to actually up the damage for Whirlwind to be a truly competitive build. Might mean Rend can be added too. Although that might just cause server issues all over again.
Is it possible that threads on class specific requests are moved to their class forum as well as item requests to the item and crafting forum?
Being in several potential locations including general discussion is a little wonky. With new sets proposed for all classes, the community is bound to have lots of ideas about their favorite class or potential new build.
The new blogpost gives me hopes that the barbarian will get deeper changes beyond the changes named in proposal #1. Maybe that is the reason why this patch has so little, at least i would like to believe so. They might be working on a big rework of the barbarian class.
Dont get your hopes up bud. That support post is just another text passifier and technical excuse to avoid what is the barbarian headache. For all of you to be content, satisfied, and “hopefull” based off the same text we’ve been getting season after season is mind boggling.
It wasn’t but 1 season ago, when all classes but the barbarian got massive balancing changes and such, and what was there response in 2.6.6? " We just didn’t have enough time but changes are coming". They’ve had an entire season since that response to address the issue but chose to neglect enough effort into it, and instead put out another passifier. Season after season after season… And you all fall for it every time… " oh man, they said new balance changes are coming, new sets, new items, im hopefull guys"…and what happens? Every class but barb. Just give it up. Barb was lost, when Jay was lost.
It’s not for some players. It’s for anyone who pushes with the build. Here’s a video of the lag in action:
I’m still firmly against the removal of Dust Devils as it will require an equally drastic overhaul to the WW skill.
Skills haven’t been overhauled in more than two years. I think that is, barring exceptional problems, off the table.
I’m still in favor of a different solution to the issue of Dust Devils, one that, admittedly, would require some tinkering with the Dust Devil’s code. I suggest that Dust Devils be changed as follows:
They no longer “tick” but deal max damage on impact once, period
Their base damage is greatly increased to compensate for the loss of multiple hits
As a third step, Dust Devils could be absorbed on impact, meaning that once they contact an enemy, they:
Deal maximum damage
Roll for AD proc
Are then deleted
This would reduce our AOE capability, but it wouldn’t cripple it or require a drastic overhaul to the WW skill. It would, however, require a major buff to WW via Skull Grasp and/or the Wastes set. Or they could fix Rend via our proposal. That would do the trick nicely.
Wait, if they were deleted after hitting an enemy, that would be nearly the same, in actual effect, as just buffing WW damage and removing DD from the game.
For instance, in that Wroboss Video, let’s say he’s fighting maybe 75 guys. And a lot of his damage is coming from DDs hitting numerous enemies in that pile, which then ties into his Bloodshed damage. If those DDs can only hit enemies 1-5, and then disappear, that’s a big cut in damage. And it also essentially removes the AOE aspect of the skill, since those DDs are probably traveling about 3 pixels before they hit an enemy. At that point, it does just seem simpler to remove DDs, and buff the base WW damage.
But, if you do that, you need to buff the base damage A LOT.
Wow. You nailed it. As a Barb main with 2.5k+ hours on Barb I could not have put it better my self. Hopefully this sheds some light on the Barbs position for Blizzard. The barb has been sidelined for far to long. Pretty sad really…
Not at all. Just increase WW base damage, and increase WW AoE damage effect for a wider area. Done. (It could be the same meteor impact from wizard area).
Dust Devils and AOE spread are simply math. You don’t need to damage the whole screen at once to be a top solo build. Examples:
r6 hota
Gen monk
Star pact
Wd
DH
Pretty much any other solo build…
Strongest build in the game (StarPact) deals damage in a comparably much smaller area.
You don’t need to dps the entire screen at once, wrecking the servers, to clear high.
Not sure where people got that idea from.
The Whirlwind skill in Diablo 2 didn’t cover the whole screen, either. But it had comparably good damage and you could actually kill things with it, both masses of monsters and single targets.
This is some good stuff. An honest discussion and disagreement that challenges the “facts”/assumptions, thinks about what the underlying problems are, and considers a myriad of possible solutions from a wide perspective.
You used the Zodiac WW build as prescribed in the guide? 100%+ AD, PE, and tried it in multiple screens of density (the kind of density shown in the video)?
When it takes more than 1 or 2 Physical cycles for trash to die, you will get some major, game-locking lag.
You’re not pushing high enough, then. Any build that uses Pain Enchancer will make the server “stutter” on its “limits” and WW can straight up lock up the game.
This issue has nothing to do with your account or your PC. It can be replicated with anyone’s character.
Open up a GR 130 and make a huge pull and see for yourself.
If you’re messing around in lower tiers where you kill small trash quickly, you won’t see it.
Respectfully, GR 116 or whatever is not “your limit” with WW. WW’s “limit” is probably 15 tiers higher than what you can comfortably clear on an average map.
So lets say your WW clears all maps in the 110 range, you won’t see the issue by just moving it up to 115. You need to put the build in a push setting, 125+ or higher. And so on.
