Not sure if I mentioned it here or one of the other threads, but I play two other classes pretty regularly in DH and Crusader. They’re fun for a minute but to truly enjoy the game I do prefer to play Barbarian. Barbarian is the defining class in Diablo imo. It’s weird that it gets relegated to lowest damage and just a support role.
3 Likes
I agree. Whenever I see Barb and ZDPS in the same sentence I cringe. That’s just wrong on too many levels 
Mine always feel squishy as hell, too - another thing I don’t understand. Shouldn’t barbs be tough?
3 Likes
Good point.
Fun fact: I love Impale DH. Love it.
Love the gameplay, love the items, love the skills. It’s a sleek, fun, amazing build, and it’s a blast to play.
Before my GPU fried, I was working on refining the gear for it, but I decided, purely for fun, to push it as far as I could. Here’s my DH:
https://us.diablo3.com/en/profile/Free-1746/hero/78791383
Mediocre gear, mediocre rolls. No Augments. Some of the essential pieces are pretty terrible. And yet she cleared, with only a few keys each, 110 and 111. I was trying 112 when my GPU decided to take the long sleep.
The only Barb build that can do that is R6 HOTA, and only through the gimmicky, exploitative use of wall-charging.
It’s a circumstantial piece of evidence, yes, but one I can’t help coming back to over and over when I think of how playing a Barb compares to playing other classes. I mean, a thread over, Serro, one of our Barb vets, is discussing how Mortick’s might be used to drop Blood Funnel in WW in GR 115.
GR 115.
That would have been something two or three patches ago. And that’s where we are: We have such garbage items that all we have to look forward to is a rune swap in 115s.
I gotta lie down, my head hurts…
5 Likes
Great post Free. I don’t think any of the dev’s are barbarian fans. They down right hate us.
1 Like
Well. I tried that, plenty. I had Sader, Necro, wizard and monk on top 100 solo at some point. I played RGK and zmonkeys in groups, I never really played DH and WD on higher end, but besides that I did it all, season and non season, solo and group. This is why I have relatively objective look on that matter (power balance) because I know how easy it was to achieve certain milestones with other classes and builds. You can look on my account I think I still have few relatively well geared chars there even though I didn’t play for like a year.
Point is that when I was doing sub 2 min T13 keyruns on my LTK monk with very basic gear, I couldn’t get even near that time with my half primal/120 Augs WW barb.
Edit
I forgot to tell you why I even played other classes. It was because barb sucked so bad that I couldn’t take it anymore after certain amount of time and frustration of providing feedback that was always ignored. Remember Manald Heal Wiz? The original iteration of it was when I gave up on solo barb, never could really look on the class same way afterwards. Took me 20 hours to gear one up, and you can still find a vid on YouTube with me and TeeBag farming cluple-minute-long 90’s while our barbs has a hard time to do 95 solo. This is how f-up it was, and this discrepancy didn’t really change over the years. GR level did, but discrepancies remained.
3 Likes
Like others have said I play DH for keys and bounties SINCE barb doesn’t have a viable build for those tasks. I myself was alone just hoping to have enough buffs to be able to do these two functions without needing another class to do them but alas as of right now that won’t be the case especially with dh being able to use crimson’s and gain damage and damage reduction. I have basically played barb since D1 (yes I know Warrior was the class) and if you look at my profile I haven’t even really played other classes other than DH and a little Monk. Barbarian is the class we love and want to see it be up there with other classes and we really thought we were going to get something this go around. I know we could still get something before they go live but as of right now 2.6.7 seems to be our next chance. Really looking to see Nev’s post on the blog about what is going on since she can speak for the devs.
2 Likes
Emphasis mine.
When anyone thinks we’re just whining, nah. We’ve been politely asking for buffs for years.
4 Likes
Hmm, try asking for nerfs now, since it doesn’t seem to work when asking for buffs…
1 Like
I think that’s how people are today. Going straight to the thought of others doing something negative. Instead of actually reading up on stuff.
It’s not like we were here, trying to become Op or something else. But again, I believe that people just rush to the nearest judgement and negative mentality unfortunally. I like debatting about what new stuff we might bring in.
1 Like
There are a lot of discussion on PTR feedback section. I listed hundreds of topic summarized each topic request on 1 line. It has many barb stuff. Maybe you should give a look to say if requested stuff is enough if need more etc.
Good point.
I don’t blame them, though. They’ve seen us making threads for years, and many of them probably don’t play Barb, so they don’t understand our class’s problems. They probably think, “Come on, surely you’ve gotten something in all this time, right?”
But we haven’t. And when you add it all up, you see why we’re ticked off:
- Weakest of all classes for solo for years
- Stuck in zDPS for groups since always
- No significant updates in years
- Outdated items
- Broken sets since their introduction (Wastes)
- Most powerful builds rely on gimmicks (wall-charging)
The list goes on and on. The Barb community has been politely addressing this for years.
For years.
And what’s been done?
So, you know. Now we all like:
Just give us the List 1 stuff. Maybe you give us List 2 later, who knows, but stop ignoring us.
11 Likes
Please never do this. Don’t make random phone calls to pass on feedback or contact our HR department about balance patches. That is not the job of those departments, and I’d really like for you to not make their jobs more difficult. It’s my job, and I’m here reading feedback and communicating to development nearly every day.
(I can’t honestly say every day. I do a lot of stuff, BlizzCon is a terrifyingly short 14 weeks away and a huge team effort, so some days, that’s not my focus. But I do try!)
I can’t do anything more than promise I’m reading a lot of ya’lls posts and talking to the right folks. I just want to impress you guys are already doing what you should be doing, which is having (mostly positive/constructive) discourse. Please keep that up, and continue keeping it civil!
34 Likes
When Nev says she doing, she’s doing and I take her word for it. I know Barbs day is coming. And it’s going to be SWEET!
6 Likes
Respectfully, when it takes half a decade for the devs themselves to respond through game changes you really have to wonder what is going on. We know you pass the feedback onwards but the disconnect between player and dev is bonkers.
Free provided facts for each patch completely lacking attention to Barbarians.
How is it possible for developers to have time and knowledge to implement new amulets that double Pylon duration (which no one asked for) but can’t alter an existing number on some set items?
I understand changes taking months and maybe a year. But come on… 5 years for tweaking Barbarians? That’s just completely demoralizing and incredible. Entire AAA games are developed in that time span.
26 Likes
And, Skull Grasp is not even in any of the vendor packs on PTR for testing. You have to up rares or get the drop.
Now that is really putting Barbs in their place…
Not even right.
3 Likes
I never play Barb. Hubby has one on my account that he abandoned years ago. Have a clan mate that plays one every season, she likes the leap quake barb. Sad to say she can only solo greater rift 95 after we have carried her through rifts to upgrade her gems. Barbs are so far behind the other builds. Sad that someone who has only played barb long enough to do the set dungeons knows how far behind this toon is. You guys have worked so hard for years to bring this to the attention of developers to be ignored year after year. I feel for you.
12 Likes
Give us a last minute ACTION on THIS 2.6.6 patch. We are tired of seeing this kind of reply to be honest.
10 Likes
I’m a Chinese Diablo fans.Thank you for your voice about Barbs.
In our forums,when 2.6.6ptr begin,we’re all excited about the Mortick’s Brace.But in our test,the brace is useless.Because we can’t change our builds’ brace.The Mortick need more than 50% extra damage increase.
We call nearly every season ‘0 patch’ or ‘+0 patch’.2.6.6’s change make us feel happy about new items.But Barbs is also forgotten.We don’t want buff Barbs for +0000%,preeminent above Wizard’s Lollipop.We just need fair treatment.
In my opinion,I think Diablo’s designer Want Barbs to play a supporting role,so they don’t give him ample damage.But i think Diablo’s soul is make different builds to play any roles in groups.This is also differences between Diablo and other traditional ARPG.
13 Likes
I’ve seen a lot of people ask for buffs to Mortick’s and this just seems like a lazy workaround that will prevent future meaningful fixes to the class.
If Insanity gets a buff or if Mortick’s gets a separate damage modifier, it’ll completely shift the dynamic of current Barbarian and change the possibilities Barbarians can receive to its other weak and outdated items.
7 Likes
Just highlighting the painful truth.
And certain devs wonder why they cop so much flak.
Keeping up with what the players want is part of the job yet it seems the devs or whoever is in charge don’t want a bar of it.
Players have been doing their bit for years.
Is it too much to ask for Blizzard to be doing theirs?
12 Likes