Raekor, for sure. IK basically works as intended. Raekor is completely broken, mostly as a result of the stack-building mechanic which has unintended interactions with the mechanics of Furious Charge and walls… It’s not a question of power- after this new buff to Remorseless, R6 HOTA will be able to do at least 147 at 10k paragon. It’s that there is near-universal disdain for the gameplay and mechanics of the set.
Besides, do we really need 3 HOTA builds? No. Hopefully Raekor will get a redesign in a future patch.
All things considered, I predict they’ll be close in power. The top Impale clears at 5-6k paragon will be ~GR140-142.
Wario cleared GR137 with LoN/LoD Hota at just under 5k paragon, I’m thinking Hota’s upper end clear is GR142-3.
With 5700 paragon, I did GR135 with S6 Impale using Ricochet, maybe I could swing GR136 with more fishing. For me, it’s automatically +3GRs using the Ricochet rune alone since I run Captain Crimson and kill trash too. Overpenetration rune has higher potential because those daggers can hit more than 6 targets. Then there’s the whole synergy of becoming stronger with trash while having potent single target damage, which is not really reflected in any of these calculations – currently the elite dies, then I finish the trash. As right now, it’s primarily an elite killing build.
After play testing, we’ll see very quickly see the shift in the dynamic, we’ll confirm if Aughilds or Captain Crimson is better, we’ll see how much stronger Overpenetration becomes and we’ll learn if using Pain Enhancer still makes sense.
IK Hota is behind all Barbarian’s builds and it’s the historical build with Hota, isn’t it ?
Blizzard give us :
Remorseless: While both Wrath of the Berserker and Call of the Ancients are active, Hammer of the Ancients deals 600-800% increased damage.
Developer’s Note: We wanted to buff the Barbarian’s Hammer of the Ancients playstyle without putting the power into a specific set.
What do we need to understand ? Are they satisfied with the hierarchy of the 3 Hota builds ? IK is going to stay like this until the end ? They are afraid that an IK buff will have too much impact on the Vile charge build ?
Given the pace and content of the updates, I’ve been waiting so long for something interesting for IK and I’m disappointed when I see this change so tasteless.
All 3 HOTAs are virtually equal in push potential. With this buff, you’ll see high paragon clears of at least 146, and quite probably higher. 140 will probably be doable around 4k paragon.
That’s not as good as Rend, but it’s certainly not bad. We’ll have 5 builds at sort of high-mid range (Leapquake, Frenzy, HOTA X3), one high build (Rend), and a few others that need significant help (Slam, Charge).
Definitely still room for improvement, but also definitely not a bad change.
Hmm, a buff to HoTa. Neat! I guess. xD; I don’t think that math supports it beating rend so. Whatevs.
Nerf to Fire wizard. They’re pretty OP so I guess that makes sense. Easier to nerf than to buff other classes to it I suppose. Curious to see what these evil gems do
Hey JF, I think the most impressive clears for each of these are all by 엔류, who has done 140 / 140 / 141 with IK / LOD / R6, all done during the same general time period, with between 9k and 10k paragon. Those are pretty consistent marks!
And, I do hope they will rebuild Raekor into something different at some point. Most people just don’t like the current version of that set, and will do just about anything to avoid playing it, no matter how powerful it is.
With regards to Raekor, I’m a broken record, but there’s a super simple fix:
Restrict the 6-piece bonus’s damage multiplier to Boulder Toss and increase it
Greatly increase the multipliers on Skular and Three Hundredth
Now you have a unique nuke build with excellent mobility, an incentive to farm gear with + Max Fury secondaries, and a fast, fun build.
Also, the rework to WD’s Arachyr set is very interesting. I long considered radical set overhauls to be off the table, but the current devs keep proving me wrong. Maybe there’s hope for Raekor after all.
There’s one more thing required, which is to change the stacking mechanic to a per-enemy-hit system (maybe plus per charge, so you can still move around well). This would disincentivize wall-charging, which is a big part of the problem.
So:
Restrict the 6-piece bonus’s damage multiplier to Boulder Toss and increase it.
Greatly increase the multipliers on Skular and Three Hundredth.
Change the 6-piece stacking to 1 per charge + 1 per enemy hit.
Yes, it’s true, that would also be a good change. There’s really no harm in loading lots more damage into R4. Even if you changed the 1000% to 10000%, that would only make Charge about as strong as Rend is now. If you wanted to make it about equal to the new HOTAs, you could set it to 5000% or 6000%.
So here we go again:
Restrict the 6-piece bonus’s damage multiplier to Ancient Spear and increase it.
Greatly increase the multipliers on Skular and Three Hundredth.
Change the 6-piece stacking to 1 per charge + 1 per enemy hit.
Why not change Raekor 6 pc to a multiplier depending on total charging distance instead of count? For example: Each 5 yards increase dmg by 1000%. and set a max.
I, for one, am super excited for Season 25 \m/