A Short Study on Intra-Class Build Diversity

Try chasing an ingeom monk or wiz in a normal rift with a ww barb some day.

This is not a problem of balance but of GR matchmaking which is an utter failure. Apart from classes or builds we also have paragon, gear and skill which create different levels of gameplay. Some like running 90s, some 100s, some 110s or more. Bringing them together is what is missing in the game.

I was agreeing with you until this. Free said more than once that Barb is all messed up because of all the weak builds and ww/rend being the first one that should do well. As well as acknowledging that it will be heavily played sure to that problem.

As a side note you should avoid calling people out like that due to the TOS. Easy period is easy to see in the flag option and the inflamatory reason in there.

Wizard is messy with arcane barrage. Deathwish is part of the problem, but mostly it is better than almost all other skills. This because of its higher starting damage, ease of targetting, and mana usage. I keep hoping for a set that makes disintegrate better.

But overall, what you say is accurate. Not all of the problems are sets or items, but the skills themselves.

As MircroRNA said, cookie cutter is the way to go for most. If someone didnt tell them it is the best, they do not use it.

And yes, I did give you a like dispite of what I said early on. I do agree overall with what you said.

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Less “overruled,” more short sighted. There are a number of problems with the way you’re approaching this, some of which are unique to Barbs, others more universal.

WW has always been the most popular Barb build–it was in Vanilla D3, and it is likely to remain that way. Even when it is absent from the leaderboards, it is used en masse for farming or casual play. And right now, it’s getting more exposure since the newest, most innovative buffs for Barbs revolve around Rend and the Zodiac Rend build. People want to play the shiny new thing–doubly so when it revitalizes a classic favorite build (which is, of course, a very good reason why it shouldn’t be nerfed). Barbs haven’t been “too buff.” We’re in the perfect place. Now it’s on Blizzard to get other classes on our level.

When Barbs get their new set, provided it is very strong, you’ll see that take over as the most played Barb set/build. Personally, I’m hoping for a generator-focused set.

Anyway, a good summary is to say that the hot new thing is the hot new thing, even when it’s just an old thing with a cool new coat of paint.

Remember, folks. Buffs, not nerfs.

When you look at the representation of HOTA, you are correct to note that it is split between IK- and R6-HOTA, but that alone is reason for concern. What I mean is that most players want IK HOTA to be the stronger HOTA build, but because we have 2 sets with global multipliers baked into set bonuses (Raekor and IK), the skill–which is not specifically buffed by either set, is likely to be buffed in both by any poorly-considered multiplier. If you look back at our Buff Proposal, you’ll note we did indeed find a way to buff IK HOTA without buffing R6 HOTA, but the developers didn’t fully commit to that change, and Remorseless is still undertuned.

If Remoreseless was further buffed and done so in a way that lets IK HOTA leap ahead of R6, you would see considerably more HOTA clears on the Barb leaderboard. The same can be said of Slam and Fjord–a very strong build, yes, but one that is demanding in terms of gear and play style. The stronger, competitive version of the build that incorporates Crimson’s has problems with toughness, and that’s very off-putting to many players. That could easily be remedied with an update to Fjord that grants 50% DR when using Slam.

I feel your “analysis” is super bad and based on a single Season of data. In other words, your take is skewed.

Here’s a better verdict: Folks are playing the hot new thing, which is Rend. When there’s some other hot new thing, they’ll play that instead.

Do you think D3 is ever going to get to a place where every build and class is in relative parity? That’s a pipe dream. The game is in the hands of the Classic Games Team. It’s on the backburner with D4 on the way.

What you are going to get are a few new sets, some of which are going to be way out of balance as compared to others. And that’s fine. Barbs are super strong this Season. Cool, cool.

Maybe next Season, Demon Hunters are stronger. Sounds good to me.

The point is, considering the resources dedicated to D3, expecting functional, worthwhile new sets and near-perfect inter- and intra-class balance is not realistic. There will be some balance, I’m sure, here and there. And there will definitely be some points of imbalance–some of which may be considerable.

That’s okay.

Perfectly balanced games tend to be boring.

When your favorite class comes up on the “OP this Season” wheel, enjoy it and stop trying to ruin everyone else’s fun.

4 Likes

[quote=“Negator-1124, post:1, topic:11233”]

I wouldn’t say most Necro’s who use Command Skeletons are using Rathma with Jesseths. They’re either using CS to proc the zodiac ring on zNecro builds, or they’re using CS for thorns still. Nobody plays Rathma once you have LoD gear for Necro, unless your just casual I guess. The problem with necro’s are the sets. They’ve been over run by LoD and the gear is now garbage for anything pushing higher than GRs 100 with 1000 pargons. Casual players are lucky to get to 1500 paragons in a season. This should be the target for builds IMO, maybe even 2000.

Pisses me off seeing people post builds with GR 130 (example) in the tile. They don’t even list the paragon they used to reach it. There’s nothing worse for new players to invest their time following a build online only to later find out it’s actually trash for pushing.

3 builds, solo, group, and support. Each set should fall into those categories.

This is important in my opinion.

I started a seasonal DH and when checking the leaderboard, all of the first 10 or so used the exact same build with the exact same items: grenadier rapid fire. The top player might have been lucky (7 GRs ahead of the 2nd), but in any case, it was clear to me that for pushing purposes, that is THE “set” to use.

Didn’t end up playing it much, found UE sooner and it’s also a bit clumsy. Still, RF Grenade does a real good job at clearing up large packs and/or elites. Fun story, while I tend to struggle with goblin tuning due to playing slow (tough) difficulty… this rapid fire build just cleared a pack of about 15 goblins in 3 seconds. (On a difficulty where it took me 10 minutes or so to clear a rift.)

Note. I’m not sure about the need for multiple sets aimed at solo pushing, especially with inventory limitations. I kinda prefer the idea of (1) playing multiple classes for diversity and (2) each class fulfilling multiple roles via set diversity, e.g. support shield wizard (“Tassadar”).

As for abilities, I agree that it’s funny that some abilities massively dominate every other. Demon Hunter primaries? You may try Bolas leveling with the instant explode quiver, but really, just take the backflip ability for 3x200% damage. Your alternative is 1x145%. It’s like an IQ test. Wizard is the same: struggle on Hard, get Disintegrate, breeze through Master.
This is offset by legendaries applying extreme multipliers, such as 3x damage on multishot, which is a dominator to begin with.

TL, DR: I agree, it’s so imbalanced it’s funny.

That is one possible explanation.

A more plausible, alternative explanation in my opinion is that the new builds are far more powerful than the old builds and as such they represent a high percentage of the top 1000 leaderboard. Are there any facts to support this hypothesis or quantifiable data metrics to support this idea.

A simple metric could be top GR clear. Three classes had build(s) that were buffed in patch 2.6.7: Barbarians, crusaders, and monks. The top worldwide GR clears in non-season) era 11 in comparison to era 12 have increased 9 GRs, 12 GRs, and 7 GRs, respectively, for these classes.

Logically, if the new AoV set/build was buffed to be equal to or close to the GR potential of the best prior crusader build, do you honestly think it would dominate the leaderboard to the degree it is now? Stated a different way: If you were pushing the leaderboard, would it be in your best interest to push the build that can clear a GR 150 in non-season or the build that can clear GR 138?

I have been reading recently about why people ignore facts/confirmation bias/motivated reasoning/backfire effect/evolutionary constraints on our thinking about needing to be social versus analytical. This could be an interesting read.

We could look here for lots of metrics that consider relative class strengths from era 11 and era 12.

@Negator,

I am still waiting to see if your data analysis is season or non-season?

1 Like

That’s the spirit the leaderboard bean counters are not getting.
I’m having a blast with my barb, but I want still want to play something else next season. Looking forward to S20 patch notes.

2 Likes

I ran into an interesting study done about 10 years ago about optimism and pessimism that included the realist category. Long story short, pessimists gave up on an impossible puzzle very quickly. Realists gave up after 5 - 8 tries. Optimists, who made up ~80% of the group, didnt give up even when told the puzzle was impossible.

I wish I could find that study, but I keep getting the more popular, “you will live longer if you are an optimist” websites. 10 years on the internet makes thing disappear unfortunately. Here is the Wikipedia description of the underlying cause.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optimism_bias

I am hoping the wizard and barbarian new sets come out in different seasons. That way, I will not have to fight myself on which one to play and will be able to enjoy two seasons.

If they do come out at the same time, there goes my social life and stash space.

An interesting read indeed. Who would have though that a day would come when I will learn something new from reading an argument on the D3 forum… :thinking:

I too learned something new today, Someone mentioned an EU study about how piracy affects different media industries. I looked at both the clickbait-y summary and the study itself linked below. The study looked separately at movie, TV, books and games. Piracy is immoral and illegal; however, the financial implications are far more complex and occasionally counterintuitive to what I thought it would be.

I feel like there would be less complaints towards OP builds if there were more builds that can compete at the same level. Current OP builds wont be considered OP if every other build can play around the same GRs levels, and that should be what the balance team should be aiming for, all builds having an even playing field.

Monk’s SWK TR and POJ TR is just so similar, im amazed that they wasted so much time making something from scratch when they could just improve the TR build with SWK, and have POJ a different play style with a new mechanic. Someone or a team in D3 is doing half-assed projects instead of actually trying to build more better diversity.

POJ on PTR was very different, and a total loss. To quote Raxx - “worst build I ever played. In any game.” So they hastily reworked build mechanics.
Same with sader, only this was not that bad, and they overshot it and had to reign it in with an extra patch.
Yeah, some internal playtesting before PTR could have been helpful.

So are you ok with the fact that an overshot build should be reigned in?

1 Like

Bad question. Your personal opinion is not a fact.

If a build is bugged or truly through-the-roof (with people suddenly soloing 150 on non season), yes. That’s what a PTR is supposed to prevent.
If it is simply performing well and better than others, no. Buff others instead.

Edit: preventing full-quotes is a nice forum feature, but it should not do that with one line post quotes.

Do you feel that a build that currently clears GR 150 in non-season should be nerfed?

There is none in US currently, and two saders in EU with >10k paragon.
If it requires 10k paragon - no.

Rank BattleTag Class GR Time Paragon
5 重新来过#51571 <小小兵> crusader 150 14:32 8990

Does this mean that it meets your criteria for a nerf, since this player has less than 9K paragon and cleared GR 150 in non-season?

I don’t care about China so - no.

Motivated Reasoning Definition

Motivated reasoning is a form of reasoning in which people access, construct, and evaluate arguments in a biased fashion to arrive at or endorse a preferred conclusion. The term motivated in motivated reasoning refers to the fact that people use reasoning strategies that allow them to draw the conclusions they want to draw (i.e., are motivated to draw). Of course, people are not always motivated to confirm their preferred conclusions. Actually, they sometimes are motivated to draw accurate conclusions. However, the term motivated reasoning refers to situations in which people want to confirm their preferred conclusion rather than to situations in which people’s reasoning is driven by an accuracy motivation.

Source: https://psychology.iresearchnet.com/social-psychology/attitudes/motivated-reasoning/