2.6.6 Barbarian Community Buff Proposal

[KillerProc-1122]

Not to hijack the thread because I appreciate the effort you barbarian players put into this kind of feedback. So good for you folks. Nicely done.

But I wish some of us Demonhunter players had a similar thread. I think a lot of us, despite the bone they threw us with the LoN Rapid Fire, feel our class could use some buffs, reworks of items or skills too.

Maybe, and I’m not saying you guys are wrong for doing it, but maybe some of us Demonhunters are too passive and feel trying to tell the devs what the class needs in this much detail would be telling them how to do their jobs. Good on you guys for taking the initiative.

I guess what I’m trying to say is…Well done, sirs. Well done.

[clueso-2790]

@Free-1746

Zodiac WW
WW is a popular build, but it’s also one of the most problematic and broken builds available to Barbarians.

Build Problems:

• Very demanding in terms of gear and skill requirements.
• Relies on gimmicks and secondary item rolls to survive in high GRs.
• Requires some heavy-duty fishing as the build can only deal meaningful damage against certain mob types in very thick density. This is a direct result of front-loading all the build’s damage into a single skill–Whirlwind.
• Half the set is broken (Rend). Our List 2 fixes would fix all of these problems!

Well, there is a way to kinda fix the issue of requiring density:

Step 1
Pain Enhancer had to be reworked to only give attack speed for a maximum of up to xx nearby bleeding enemies, which would basically make this gem useless fpr density fishing, even if the attack speed bonus would be increased.

Step 2
Significantly increase the damage of either the Wrath of the Waste set or give the BK swords a bonus to WW damage or something similar.

[Free-1746]

@clueso-2790

Well, there is a way to kinda fix the issue of requiring density:

Step 1
Pain Enhancer had to be reworked to only give attack speed for a maximum of up to xx nearby bleeding enemies, which would basically make this gem useless fpr density fishing, even if the attack speed bonus would be increased.

All that would do is gimp our ability to proc enough Zodiac ticks to make the build playable. In the build’s current incarnation, that would literally cripple the build.

@clueso-2790

Step 2
Significantly increase the damage of either the Wrath of the Waste set or give the BK swords a bonus to WW damage or something similar.

Nah, WW divides its damage over ticks, so that’s only going to make fishing worse.

Remember: loading all the build’s damage into Whirlwind is a bad idea. It keeps the build reliant on fishing for ultra-dense rifts, and always restricts the kind of damage we can do to elites and RGs.

In order for the build to be successful with the game’s current skills and GR layouts, we absolutely require an additional source of damage in the build.

[Rage-13139]

@KillerProc-1122

But I wish some of us Demonhunter players had a similar thread. I think a lot of us, despite the bone they threw us with the LoN Rapid Fire, feel our class could use some buffs, reworks of items or skills too.

Hey Idolis, there’s no reason you can’t do exactly what we did! You just need a few serious-minded players to put their heads together.

[Spirited-1737]

Great work. Read your proposals which I couldn’t fault, and I hope that at least some of them get incorporated next patch, good luck.

[Rage-13139]

Thanks very much, Spirited!

[clueso-2790]

@Free-1746

Well, there is a way to kinda fix the issue of requiring density:

Step 1
Pain Enhancer had to be reworked to only give attack speed for a maximum of up to xx nearby bleeding enemies, which would basically make this gem useless fpr density fishing, even if the attack speed bonus would be increased.

All that would do is gimp our ability to proc enough Zodiac ticks to make the build playable. In the build’s current incarnation, that would literally cripple the build.

But there are very simple solution to that:

Option 1 Reduce the cooldown of WotB to 100 seconds. It wouldn’t be the first time they have adjusted base skills so it works with a set (that is why at one patch they significantly increased the damage of Dust Devils). Also it wouldn’t disturb other builds too much because most of them have perma WotB anyway.

Option 2 Increase the cooldown reduction to WotB you gain from the Boon of Bul-Kathos passive from 30 seconds to 50 seconds or whatever. You said you don’t to change active skills, but in your proposal you have suggestions for changing passives, so you must be okay with that.

Option 3 A mix of the previous two.

@Free-1746

Remember: loading all the build’s damage into Whirlwind is a bad idea. It keeps the build reliant on fishing for ultra-dense rifts, and always restricts the kind of damage we can do to elites and RGs.

How so?

The reason why the WW build requires density in not because of the skill itself, but because of the way Pain Enhancer works.

Hell, the whole build revolving around and being reliant on Pain Enhancer is even the reason why the build is struggling with rift guardians that do not have minions or RG’s in general… because there is no density that allows the build to benefit from Pain Enhancers attack speed bonus. It has nothing to do with WW being the only skill that benefits from the set (although I would like to see more skills being buffed by the set as well).

Pain Enhancer is the problem here and nothing else.

Giving Pain Enhancer a limit on how many stacks it can give you (so in other words: nerfing it and thereby making either less desirable or even undesirable for WW Barbs) while at the same time increasing the damage bonus to Whirlwind on the WotW set or whatever, the build would even work on low and medium density and even more, it wouldn’t have problems against rift guardians since it wouldn’t had to rely on density anymore.

[Free-1746]

@clueso-2790

But there are very simple solution to that:

Option 1 Reduce the cooldown of WotB to 100 seconds. It wouldn’t be the first time they have adjusted base skills so it works with a set (that is why at one patch they significantly increased the damage of Dust Devils). Also it wouldn’t disturb other builds too much because most of them have perma WotB anyway.

Option 2 Increase the cooldown reduction to WotB you gain from the Boon of Bul-Kathos passive from 30 seconds to 50 seconds or whatever. You said you don’t to change active skills, but in your proposal you have suggestions for changing passives, so you must be okay with that.

There’s no need to adjust skills just to tweak one aspect of a build. And Wrath is unique in that its our class’s ultimate ability. A long cooldown is fine, and honestly, the Boon passive does its job. I feel like you’re taking a long and circuitous route just to address PE, but PE is, as I’ll explain below, not the problem.

@clueso-2790

The reason why the WW build requires density in not because of the skill itself, but because of the way Pain Enhancer works.

Hell, the whole build revolving around and being reliant on Pain Enhancer is even the reason why the build is struggling with rift guardians that do not have minions or RG’s in general… because there is no density that allows the build to benefit from Pain Enhancers attack speed bonus. It has nothing to do with WW being the only skill that benefits from the set (although I would like to see more skills being buffed by the set as well).

Pain Enhancer is the problem here and nothing else.

Sorry, but this isn’t true.

PE has one purpose in the build: Jack up attack speed to generate tons of Zodiac procs.

That’s it.

Sure, the extra breakpoints in density are nice, but they’re not the real reason we use the gem. We don’t fish for density because of PE – we fish for density because of the way WW deals damage, and because of the way Bloodshed and AD work.

If you limited PE stacks, you’d have to make several other changes to several other skills and/or items just to compensate for how much you would break the current iteration of the build. None of this is a good idea.

I don’t know why you’re focusing on PE when that’s not the problem in the current iteration of the build, but you seem to think that you can fix the build’s problem with fishing by jacking up WW damage:

@clueso-2790

while at the same time increasing the damage bonus to Whirlwind on the WotW set or whatever, the build would even work on low and medium density and even more, it wouldn’t have problems against rift guardians since it wouldn’t had to rely on density anymore.

This doesn’t really work. Again, the real damage in the build comes from the combination of AD and Bloodshed. Let me put it this way:

WW’s damage is mostly linear. If you have X mobs, it deals its damage in ticks to those mobs. If you have XX mobs, the same thing happens–the damage is the same. If you have XXX mobs, the same again. In every instance, the mobs are taking the same damage from WW and Dust Devils, modified a bit for attack speed.

Bloodshed and AD work very differently. If you have X mobs, your stacked crits are low and Bloodshed’s damage isn’t going to be much. Your AD procs are also limited by how many mobs can proc, and be damaged by, your current AD. So when you hit XX mobs, or XXX mobs, the damage value of Bloodshed increases exponentially, and more mobs can be hit by AD procs, hence why getting over 100% AD is so critical to the build.

This is always going to be the case. And this is why the build has to fish so hard: With only WW contributing to this damage cycle, you rely on density to pack in as many mobs as possible to maximize Bloodshed and AD (more mobs in a tight area = more hits by WW, Dust Devils, and that = more Bloodshed and AD procs).

The only sure-fire fix to this is an additional source of damage in the set. That’s Rend, and that’s what we did in the proposal.

Just to reiterate: We are not advocating for any other changes beyond what is covered in the current proposal.

[Meteorblade-2266]

The longer this thread goes on, the thing that strikes me the most is that I bet the other six classes wish they has such adamant, fervent and capable proponents for them.

I really hope some of this stuff is on the PTR and that it’s soon.

[Free-1746]

@KillerProc-1122

But I wish some of us Demonhunter players had a similar thread. I think a lot of us, despite the bone they threw us with the LoN Rapid Fire, feel our class could use some buffs, reworks of items or skills too.

Hi Idolis. Thanks for the support!

DH is my second favorite class, but I don’t claim to know much about it. From the global leaderboard data we examined in our analysis, DHs are the most consistent in non-Season GR clears across all regions. 95% of those clears, however, all come from one build: Shadow Impale.

So I think it’s fair to say that DHs need buffs to address intra-class parity. As for the rest, like I said, I’m not a DH expert, so I’d be curious to hear your thoughts on what DHs need, and what a proposal like ours would look like for your class.

@Meteorblade-2266

The longer this thread goes on, the thing that strikes me the most is that I bet the other six classes wish they has such adamant, fervent and capable proponents for them.

I really hope some of this stuff is on the PTR and that it’s soon.

Ditto and ditto.

As always, we encourage other class communities to do what we do and take initiative. Unfortunately, I haven’t seen the same level of community cohesion in other class forums, so I hope they get organized and put something together!

[clueso-2790]

Hm, I wasn’t aware of that. You have a point…

I knew that AD and Bloodshed where important for the build but I always thought that they were “just” complementary to the builds innate mechanics (so to speak) and that the attack speed you get from PE was the main reason for why this build required density.

But still, more density = more attack speed = more AD procs and Bloodshed damage. But I am not so sure anymore how much PE contributes to the overall damage.

But thanks for clarifying.

[Free-1746]

@clueso-2790

I knew that AD and Bloodshed where important for the build but I always thought that they were “just” complementary to the builds innate mechanics (so to speak) and that the attack speed you get from PE was the main reason for why this build required density.

Yeah, the build’s real source of damage comes from AD + Bloodshed. This is why the build struggles so hard on RGs without adds, because without adds, we don’t proc AD + Bloodshed.

@clueso-2790

But still, more density = more attack speed = more AD procs and Bloodshed damage. But I am not so sure anymore how much PE contributes to the overall damage.

PE contributes zero damage to build. It’s sole purpose is to proc Zodiac via Blood Frenzy. The boosted attack speed does mean we hit higher breakpoints and spawn more Dust Devils, but that pales in comparison to, you guessed it, AD + Bloodshed. Sure, more attack speed = more crits = bigger Bloodshed damage, but if you nerfed PE, you would also nerf that.

Like I said, PE is not the problem. The problem is that all of the build’s damage output is loaded onto WW.

I talk about this at length in the Zodiac WW guide: [Guide] Zodiac Rend (Season 20)

[clueso-2790]

@Free-1746

PE contributes zero damage to build. It’s sole purpose is to proc Zodiac via Blood Frenzy. The boosted attack speed does mean we hit higher breakpoints and spawn more Dust Devils, but that pales in comparison to, you guessed it, AD + Bloodshed. Sure, more attack speed = more crits = bigger Bloodshed damage, but if you nerfed PE, you would also nerf that.

I see…

Too bad you don’t want to suggest things that go beyond what is in your proposal. I would come up with things like reworking or even replacing Bloodshed with something else that is less problematic (whatever that may be) and eventually even things like limiting the amount of targets that can be hit by a single proc of area damage to let’s say 5 or 10 (since AD seems to be quite a problematic mechanic on its own), which also would solve that problem…

@Free-1746

As always, we encourage other class communities to do what we do and take initiative. Unfortunately, I haven’t seen the same level of community cohesion in other class forums, so I hope they get organized and put something together!

There kinda has been things like that.

I don’t know if you followed it, but very recently (just a few weeks ago) in the GD Forum of the old forum there was a thread about what skills and how skills could be improved with over 400 replies.

Diablo 3 Forums

It is being continued here in the new forum (but sadlythe thread does not have gotten too much steam yet) You might wann check it out if haven’t yet, even if it is just to get some inspiration for your next projects:

Skill Buff discussion (400 posts)

We had a wish list in the old forums so I’ll just store the discussion recap here as it will be fun to compare the result with the new patch. So, how many votes each skill got after about 400 posts: Crusader: Phalanx 21 Fist of the Heavens 21 Shield Bash 6 Heaven’s Fury 3 Falling Sword 2 Barbarian: Weapon Throw 16 Bash / Cleave / Rend 15* Frenzy 14 Ancient Spear 12 Revenge 9 Overpower 5 Call of the Ancients 4 Avalanche 3 War Cry 3 Whirlwind 3 Lightning barb 3 Leap 2 *Sorry …

[Free-1746]

Interesting update!

An economics newspaper/blog covered our proposal: EconoTimes.

Possibly written by a bot? Lots of strange stuff in this, but it’s cool that we got covered by this… whatever it is

[DieHarder-11668]

Free,

I still can’t get around the permissions, so I came here since still the same topic.

The other day you asked me (in regards to LON Charge):

@Free-1746

What other items are in the mix that could receive a buff?

I have a revision:

1H Mighty Wep: When using Furious Charge, all cool downs are reduced by 50%.

This would help LON Charge and make Reakor’s no longer dependent on IK.

How do see this?

[clueso-2790]

@Free-1746

Pro-Slam (minor build)
Popular and fun, this build is hamstrung by outdated items.

Build Problems:

• Seismic Slam items are both too weak and too restrictive in terms of utility. Even though this build can spam Slam, its damage is very lackluster when compared to our major builds. This is despite the build using the set that grants the largest (20,000%) multiplier to Slam! Our Fjord Cutter idea would fix this in a jiffy!

Seismic Slam was always one of the skills that I was the most interested in and so I was fairly disappointed when a build that spams SS was basically not competitive/endgame viable.

I think your Fjord Cutter idea is good, but it sadly is restricted to one rune (and on a personal note, for me it is aesthetically not the most pleasing one).

I came up with the concept for a MotE set rework a while ago that changes the set to focus more spamming SS instead of having its focus on Leapquake (but that still is true to the fantasy of a Barbarian that is utilizing the power of the earth) and I think this might be a good place to share it.

Of course I am not expecting you to like it or to agree with it or whatever, but maybe you guys can take some inspiration out of it if you want…

===============================

Might of the Earth set

2 set bonus
Everytime you use Seismic Slam, the cooldown of Leap, Ground Stomp, Avalanche and Earthquake gets reduced by x seconds.

4 set bonus
Every use of Seismic Slam, Leap, Ground Stomp, Ancient Spear, Avalanche or Earthquake reduces your damage taken by x% for 15 seconds, stacking up to x times.

6 set bonus
Every use of Seismic Slam increases the damage of Seismic Slam, Leap, Ground Stomp, Ancient Spear, Avalanche and Earthquake by x.000% for 15 seconds, stacking up to x times

===============================

Support Legendaries

Lut Socks
Leap causes an Earthquake when you land and Ground Stomp causes an Avalanche

Legendary Weapon
Reduces the Fury cost of Seismic Slam by 50% and increases the damage of Seismic Slam, Avalanche and Earthquake by xxx%. Seismic Slam has a xx% chance to either cause an Earthquake or an Avalanche when it hits an enemy

^^that weapon is intended to be either a rework (or even a replacement) of Fury of the Vanquished Peak or Blade of the Tribes, or to be a completely new item.

===============================

That would focus the gameplay of the MotE set a lot more around Seismic Slam - since you would get the coodlown reduction from each use of Seismic Slam rather than per Fury spend (and also a damage and defensive bonus from using SS) - and with the legendary weapon, you would cause a lot of havoc by procing Earthquakes and Avalanches when using Seismic Slam (rather than with Leap).

You would be encouraged touse Avalanche on your build as well, which currently is not a thing in MotE builds afaik, since you kinda have to choose between Avalanche and EQ - and since EQ deals more damage due to better support items (that also compete for the same slots iirc), most people only use EQ.

===============================

I am not sure if you like it, but tell me what you think.

[Rage-13139]

Hey Clueso,

We appreciate your input, but I gotta tell you that I think this ship has already sailed. A day or two ago Nev teased the upcoming patch notes, which means all the changes that are going to happen are probably already set. There’s really nothing to do but wait and see what we get.

[Free-1746]

@clueso-2790

I think your Fjord Cutter idea is good, but it sadly is restricted to one rune (and on a personal note, for me it is aesthetically not the most pleasing one).

Actually, it’s not. Read our proposed affix carefully. There are many creative ways to get it to work under a variety of conditions. The item is intended to explicitly buff Permafrost because that’s the best rune for Pro-Slam, but with our buffs to Vanished Peak and Bracers of Destruction, any and all Slam builds will be much stronger.

Bear in mind that Pro-Slam operates very differently from other Slam builds, hence our focus on it. If you haven’t tried it, please do; it’s some of the most fun you can have playing Barb.

@clueso-2790

2 set bonus
Everytime you use Seismic Slam, the cooldown of Leap, Ground Stomp, Avalanche and Earthquake gets reduced by x seconds.

This is very similar to our Dread Iron rework. Check that out.

@clueso-2790

That would focus the gameplay of the MotE set a lot more around Seismic Slam - since you would get the coodlown reduction from each use of Seismic Slam rather than per Fury spend (and also a damage and defensive bonus from using SS) - and with the legendary weapon, you would cause a lot of havoc by procing Earthquakes and Avalanches when using Seismic Slam (rather than with Leap).

We opted to preserve the diversity of MOTE instead. Check out our List 2 for more info.

[clueso-2790]

Thanks for the info @Rage. That is no problem. I like to speculate, theorycraft and talk and share ideas with others. That is fun enough for me… I could do it all day

@Free-1746

Actually, it’s not. Read our proposed affix carefully.

I have read it like 3 weeks ago when you first posted it on reddit.

I can’t remember everything, so eventually I have to read it again.

@Free-1746

Bear in mind that Pro-Slam operates very differently from other Slam builds, hence our focus on it. If you haven’t tried it, please do; it’s some of the most fun you can have playing Barb.

I have a fire based LoN Slammer (with Cindercoat etc) in my armory that I regularly played. Not the more efficient/competitive build, but indeed it is definitely one of the more fun ones.

@Free-1746

There are many creative ways to get it to work under a variety of conditions. The item is intended to explicitly buff Permafrost because that’s the best rune for Pro-Slam, but with our buffs to Vanished Peak and Bracers of Destruction, any and all Slam builds will be much stronger.

Ah, I see.

As I said, it was like 3+ weeks when I read that whole thing…

[Rage-13139]

There’s a video up on youtube that mentions our proposal near the end. It’s in Portuguese. So if any of our bilingual Barbros want to check it out, here you go: