2.6.6 and Barbs: A Measured Response

Aww cute, mods still deleting responses that disagree with Nev. What a surprise!

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sadly the updated patchnotes were as i expected:
only fixes or claryfications on the new meh items and most important nothing new for barb
so i guess i have to skip a season again playing something else and hope that maaybee s19 brings enough changes to barb to actualy play a season…

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Not exactly true. They did give one (Mortick’s bracers) of the 29 item requests/buffs from “List 2” in Free/Rage’s 2.6.6 barbarian buff proposal. They have expressed unhappiness that without additional item changes Mortick’s is a lateral buff.

1>0 (Monks got no new items in 2.6.5 or 2.6.6)

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i know about morticks but that’s not a buff to the top builds and a topic on itself but what i meant was that nothing new was added to the already existing pachnotes

and yes monk needs love too i don’t dispute that^^

Correct. Mortick’s is an item from 2.2.0 and offers us nothing of value–it can be fitted into our builds, but doesn’t make them significantly better, stronger, or more efficient. At best, it offers a little wiggle room for un-optimized pushes with IK HOTA or some second-best options for speed-farming T16.

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I’m quite frustrated with blizz devs to be honest. Doesn’t make much sense to me that the only window to make changes to the game is 2 weeks before a new season and then we have to wait 3+ months.

What are they doing the whole time during the season? All they need to do is make number changes to a lot of class sets. I spoke to a friend of mine that is a developer for another game about the level of difficulty to do something like that and he said it isn’t difficult.

I just feel like they are making a big deal out of something small.

On top of that, instead of making number tweaks, they decided to create a new set for each class. They added work onto themselves before figuring out how to do step A.

There process makes little logical sense to me and that frustrates me when I see the solution so easily.

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If the developers want to follow the 2.6.6. buff barb proposal, almost all the item/set changes are to support legendaries and not the numbers on 6 piece class sets. My recollection is that the only 6 piece set with a number change is Wastes.

There are planning on some class balance changes.

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Whether it’s to set bonuses or legendary’s, it’s still just number tweaks. Doesn’t require extra coding or anything. Just changing a number from 250 to 850.

Leave it to blizz to make something bigger than what it is and then tackle on extra work for themselves to they don’t end up doing anything for awhile.

They’re always planning on balance changes… why plan on balance changes in the future when they could fix a lot of balancing today?

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Agreed. Simple buffs to damage numbers should be easy. The problem is how many number buffs to individual items can be done at once for a single class. Excluding 6-piece sets, over the past 1.5 years, number buffs have only been done on 12 class-specific items for all classes combined.

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You sure about those numbers? Pretty sure they’ve adjusted more than 12 items in just the last 2 patches.

Yes, only 12 class-specific items (not including buffs to 6 piece class specific sets) in the last 6 patches. Non-class specific items have been buffed. Monk have not received any buffs to class specific items in the past 6 patches, excluding 6 piece sets.

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I’ll ask again. In 7 years, blizzard has only adjusted the numbers on a a legendary item to 12 items? That’s really your final answer? Just think about that for a second please.

I bolded the fact that I wrote 1.5 years = 6 patches (not 7 years as you claim). :slightly_smiling_face: Do you want a second chance to edit your post?

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I’m just wondering why isn’t barb allowed to wield two 2h-weapons :frowning_face:

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2.6.6 has 8 legendary items that were changes. 2.6.5 has 8 legendary items that were changed. Cmon man… “class specific” means nothing. it’s still just a legendary. regardless this is a moot point.

You’re arguing that because blizz has only adjusted 12 class specific and idk I’ll guess 100 non class specific legendary items that they can’t adjust numbers on multiple items at once or something?

Why am I even having this discussion… You come out with the most ridiculous statements, Micro.

The developer’s comments cover the merits/thought process about why buffing items that multiple classes can use has benefits over buffing “class-specific items”. Barbs will get more buffs in the future but they/Nev did explain why they chose to focus on buffs to non-class-specific items. This is a distinction that the developer’s themselves consider.

Mortick’s “helps” one class. As non-class-specific examples, echoing fury and M. Reaver can alter builds for multiple classes. Changes to the crafted sets can help multiple classes/builds.

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Instead of guessing, why don’t you look up how many item buffs (excluding number changes on 6 piece sets) that they have done starting at patch 2.6.1a to 2.6.6? Of these how many were class-specific versus not?

It is far less than 100.

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Non class specific legendary items aren’t going to fit every build. Every build is already set in what it uses. by changing any legendary item you are changing that one build.
How many class specific or non class specific leg’s they’ve changed means nothing. What I said is that it would be far less difficult and logical to make number tweaks to existing items and balance what we already have before they implement a new set for every class.
Why would I look through each patch for that useless info? Waste of time. Much like this conversation.

Well, remember that D3 is likely in the hands of the Classic Games Team. They’ve never publicly announced that, but there’s been so much evidence and speculation that it seems incredibly likely to be true. At the very least, we know that the D3 dev team is very small.

Classic Games handles lots of games, so their time is probably split between working on a bunch of different stuff in a bunch of different games, each with their own thick layers of corporate red tape, checks and balances, etc. You get the idea. I’m guessing they probably have tons of work–so much they can’t get it done during a regular patch cycle–and with very few staff members available, and all of them floating between different products, just getting basic workflow must be a logistical nightmare.

To be honest, it’s probably a fairly thankless job. They get flak here on the forums, and they’re probably constantly juggling a handful of different projects, all with different project leads, deadlines, workflow procedures, and, of course, communities to consider.

Maybe I’m wrong and it’s much easier than the picture I’m painting. I also suspect that patches get started months before they’re revealed. I can’t say for certain, but I suspect that patches are created in advance, then staggered to allow time for testing, internal revision, and maybe QA. Again, I’m just speculating, but it seems likely for a patch like 2.6.6 where many items receive new affixes and a new gem was introduced.

Of course, none of this should dampen your point, which Arch recently put succinctly: In all these years, and with all this organized public outcry, it’s inexcusable that Barbs still haven’t got the TLC they need.

And I agree 100%. Someone, somewhere, could have made a better effort to address community concerns. I know Nev is doing that lately since she’s been more active on the forum, but she’s just one person, and she only has so much power compared to the dev team.

That bothers me as well. A new class set is groovy, but what about our long-standing problems like our broken sets, our cross-class discrepancy, and our outdated items? Even if they gave us a new set that propels into GR 140 solo, it doesn’t solve the other two problems, and it doesn’t begin to address our inter-class problems either.

I’m happy that we’re getting new sets, but I also want our concerns addressed first.

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Hopefully it won’t turn out to be the dumpster fire that was Blizzcon 2018.

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