All Barbarian experts called that item a trash and stated that it solves nothing. Are you sure about that? That’s intriguing to hear.
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Look at the top 15 or so in game on the non-season barb solo leaderboard. Visually, Morticks looks like strongarm bracers so you will need to look for clears post August 19 and the go to hero details.
When I looked last, it was 6 of the top 15.
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I vaguely remember all Barbarian experts pretty much uptight about it. Anything changed?
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It is certainly being used by top barbs. I think the power increase is at most <2 gr. I think many were calling it a lateral item.
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Post like this one and Micro’s (surprise) worry me, because they obfuscate what our problem has always been: a sidegrade is not okay. Mortick’s can be incorporated into builds, and it will, for a build that has perma-Wrath, replace either Aquila or something similar. But it provides no additional DPS to a build.
Again: sidegrades are not okay.
Lateral item swaps are not okay.
Neither of these are buffs. Mortick’s is not a buff.
For every class, top NS clears will slowly inch upward as folk gain more Paragon, better Augs, and higher gem levels. Buffs, however, constitute immediate and significant increases in power and utility at various levels of play.
I’ll say it again so some of y’all in the back can hear it loud and clear: sidegrades are not okay. Lateral item swaps are not okay.
We will not celebrate doing GR 100 faster. That’s not a significant or meaningful buff.
Mortick’s is–say it with me–not a buff.
Every Barb expert of note is saying this and some of y’all are still tooting a different horn.
Thank you for the kind words, Pickles. Glad we could be of help.
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So, you’re saying side-grades are bad, mmkay?
You kid, but some of them are acting like it’s a Scooby-Doo Mystery.
I mean, common sense goes out the window. Could players be experimenting with new items? Does every Barb who pushes GRs read the forums and have a deep understanding of the game? Are people maybe just–gasp!–having fun with items?
They can celebrate Mortick’s when someone gets 4+ GR tiers higher because of the bracer. Then I’ll say it’s a buff worth talking about.
Back in the day, I had to document the IK Truther Slippery Slope because a few shiny apples kept saying that maybe, maybe IK WW was stronger than Zodiac WW. Now, it looks like I’ll have to document the Myth of Mortick’s…
Mortick’s Reintroduced
OH BOY, ARREAT’S WAIL, GR 140 HERE I COME!!!
Here’s the deal: Free and I asked for the return of this item in our proposal.
There, it was part of a package of items intended to fix the problems with the Wrath of the Wastes set.
We got Mortick’s, but none of the other stuff.
From the perspective of “Mortick’s vs Nothing”, Mortick’s is pretty good. It’s better than Aquilla for IK HOTA Barbs (though the top clears with this set use Magefist). And it’s pretty good for lower GR clears with WW (though at higher tiers, it doesn’t provide enough mitigation, and so you need APDs instead). I think a few people have used it in VC GR clears (though, again, the highest clears have been with APDs).
From the perspective of “Mortick’s vs Barbs Suck”, it’s pretty bad. It has probably moved some non-top-tier players up perhaps 2 GRs (it definitely makes IK HOTA easier for less-skilled players). It has moved a few top tier players up .5 GRs.
I mean, you main a Monk, right? You should get it. Imagine if they gave your class a bracer that gave all Epiphany runes, and then people were like “all Monk problems are fixed now, lol”. And when you said, “uh, this item isn’t that great…” people told you that you were crazy!
Now, you guys didn’t even get a mediocre bracer, and I know: that stinks! Before I was a Barb main, I played primarily Monk for several years (mostly hardcore). I switched over when the class became super WOL centric, which wasn’t really to my taste. Anyway, it’s still my 2nd favorite class, and I know you guys are in the same place as Barbs in terms of needing buffs.
I’ve said this a lot of times before, and I guess I’ll say it again: Free and I wrote a Barb Buff Proposal, because we’re well-versed in Barb-specific issues. If we had the know-how do to the same thing for every class, we absolutely would have done it.
We’re both pro-buffs for every class that needs it, especially for underperforming, but fun, builds.
Enough with the Mortick’s nonsense! Mortick’s is “just okay”… and that’s it.
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And you will, when they rework Barbarians abit. Take Mortick’s as a good will, not a significant buff. I can not talk about average 2 GR increase as the next best thing after sliced bread.
Well said.
Irrespective of class, many players have acquired more paragon with time/season rollover. They also have access to new items with which to experiment. Hypothesis: There is a statistical difference in the number of barbarians who have incorporated new items than other classes relative to their class specific leaderboards (used top 15).
Comparison of proportions calculator
Sample 1
Proportion (%): 40% (barbarians 6/15)
Sample size: 15
Sample 2
Proportion (%): 8.9% (8/90) (Results from all other classes combined)
Sample size: 90
Results
| Difference | 31.1 % |
|---|---|
| 95% CI | 9.5107% to 55.7348% |
| Chi-squared | 10.653 |
| DF | 1 |
| Significance level | P = 0.0011 |
These results cast significant doubts on your ideas.
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[quote=“Free-1746, post:50, topic:2224, full:true”]
Again: sidegrades are not okay.
Lateral item swaps are not okay. [/quote]
On this, we disagree. Item decisions and trade offs are part of Diablo. It does not fix Barbarian issues - indeed some of Barbarian issues go directly to wide disparity between GR mob types and density - but ideally every item in Diablo is compelling and a tough choice in the one you use.
I think Mortick’s would be fine if some of the runes were more compelling, Arreats Wail and maybe Insanity should be 100%.
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That is a lot of time and research in to d3. Can we break it down to a few things that might help next PTR? I know who to run with as barb to get more, ii don’t need the math. Sun goes up Sun goes down that’s all I need. I appreciate all the work, but if you if peeps overwhelm, it wont happen. Simply start at the worst part and work up. Senergy we all know, can they balance I would say prob not. Running with op toons just masks an underlying problem. Day 1 barb for better or worse.
No! We agree.
Item decisions and trade-offs are great, but not without substantial buffs. Put the two together and BAM! You have the solutions to our problems.
But sidegrades and lateral item swaps sans buffs?
Doesn’t do anything. Note Rage’s post.
Right now, there are a lot of Seasonal Barbs clearing 100-110 and using Mortick’s, but that’s not end-game, and those clears don’t represent actual, real buffs for the class.
Don’t look to Seasonal clears until the very end, and even then, non-Seasonal clears, which are almost always higher, will tell you much more about how true end-game builds are composed.
Skills and runes haven’t been changed in two years. Morticks on it’s own if fine as a low to mid-tier option, but more substantial buffs to supporting legendaries must happen or it’s all for naught.
We already did it all for Barbs in our proposal (link in my first post in this thread). Other class communities will need to mobilize or let the devs decide for them. Of all the class communities on these forums, Barbs have always been the most organized and knowledgeable about the game; that’s not to say there aren’t experts for other classes here and there, but the concentration in the Barb community is exceptional.
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FWIW I was saying repeatedly that players would use Mortick’s because it is a clear upgrade over Aquila. But it would only provide 1, maybe 2 GRs depending on other item/skill changes incorporated into the build.
What Barbarian players were trying to say was
- Builds using Aquila Cuirass were already sub optimal builds.
- Gaining 1 GR for a few builds when we are 11-14 GRs behind on most builds is kind of pointless.
But of course Micro and naki wouldn’t understand any of that nuance.
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I think this is simply a matter of communication. Micro correctly pointed out Mortick’s was a buff, in absolute terms, over Aquila. This is true. It’s simply not the right magnitude of the buff Barbarians needed. What magnitude needed depends what set you’re looking at. Even Wizards, should Fazula vanish one day, would drop significantly. We may not be able to even clear 120 anymore.
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There is an interesting post by LordFluffy in the necromancer forum describing problem/proposed solution to their class that has bugged builds, weird mechanics, and over reliance on land of the dead in top tier builds. According to Prokahn’s analysis necro/monks is the worst class for greater rift efficiency for many greater rift levels.
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They may look like worst at lower ties but they perform in the top 3 tiers as well.
Necro’s case may be due to limited playerbase. Probably every necro player shift to either DH or Wiz due to their better performance.
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I think that you are right in that there is a shift from underperforming classes to those that are more powerful. This goes back to an opinion voiced by Rashiel and others about this as a data confounder. Simply put, stronger classes with more players may appear stronger while weaker classes with less players may appear weaker than they really are.
My statement mentioned many greater rift levels to make certain that people did not think that I was talking about the entire power curve.
Also, the top end of the necromancer power curve is schewed by a broken mechanic (bone ringer/thorns build) that LordFluffy discussed. As I stated, there is a certain near-sightedness and lack of knowledge about other classes. If one spends >85% of your time playing a single class, it often can occur that you do not understand the issues/problems/wonky build of other classes.
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thx + 17 characters.
Just added a statistical observations appendix here: