Barb Buff Proposal 2.6.6: Discussion

Barbarian
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Update: See post 22

Hi, folks. As many of you already know, the Barb Buff Proposal that Rage and I wrote has been getting a lot of attention, and it’s been confirmed that the D3 devs have indeed read it. We’ve been covered by Bluddshed, Filthy Casual, Lord Fluffy, Icy Veins, and Diablofans, and there’s still more coverage upcoming.

While we wait to see what we get in 2.6.6, I thought I might post this to clarify and stimulate discussion.

Lately, there’s been some discussion about our proposal, specifically about the problems with our various builds. Much of our proposal takes a player’s knowledge for granted, but since not everyone has played all of the major Barb builds, I’d like to discuss that here. The following is a breakdown of each major build’s problems, as well as a discussion of our most popular minor builds.

If you haven’t read the proposal, please do so–the link is in the OP.

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!

Vile Charge
VC is powerful, but has some major problems that make it frustrating for many players.

Build Problems:

  • Inability to deal any significant single-target damage. As a result, this build must fish for RGs, and many players must forfeit a fantastic rift due to spawning a terrible RG. Our buffs to Skular’s would help in this regard.
  • Reliance on wall-charging to deal significant damage. This will come up again when we discuss R6 HOTA.

R6 HOTA
Our most powerful build, R6 HOTA also benefits the most from wall-charging and bugged elites (known as the “Bug Pack”).

Build Problems:

  • Relies on wall-charging. Similar to Vile Charge, this gimmicky, broken mechanic makes the build seem stronger than it truly is.
  • There are arguments about the very nature of the build being a problem, but as we opted not to ask for overhauls to sets, that is beyond the scope of the proposal.

Fire / Physical EQ
While these versatile builds are easy to gear and relatively powerful, they fail to offer the build diversity implied by the set bonuses.

Build Problems:

  • Inability to deal significant single-target damage. This isn’t a deal breaker considering the impressive AOE of the build, and our BK Wedding Band idea would help this aspect.
  • Many of the set’s built-in buffs are useless. Though Ancient Spear and Avalanche are included in the set’s meaty bonuses, their supporting legendaries are outdated and useless. Our buffs to items like Girdle of Giants, Dread Iron, and Skular’s would fix these problems!

IK HOTA
Though powerful, the IK HOTA build is outclassed by its Raekor counterpart.

Build Problems:

  • Pales in comparison to R6 HOTA. Despite this build being the definitive HOTA build, the Raekor version deals far more damage. Our idea for Remorseless would solve this problem in one fell swoop.

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!

LON / Primary-Skill Builds
Despite being some of the most asked-about builds, Barb has no worthwhile options for LON- or primary-skill builds.

Build Problems:

  • Once Season 17’s Nightmares buff ends, all of our LON options will be, across the board, weak and underwhelming compared to our major and minor builds, and doubly so when compared to the LON options offered to other classes. Even our go-to classic, Frenzy Thorns, struggles to clear GR 105.
  • Likewise, we have no viable, much less semi-viable options for primary-skill builds (generators). Our buffs to our passive skills and various primary-skill items would fix these problems.

Questions? Comments? Concerns? Post away and we’ll be happy to discuss!

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Some minor issues I’d like to see addressed, and this is mostly from the POV of Hardcore play (so less oriented towards DPS or high level Grift play).

  1. A few barbaric shield options that help Sword and Board. Maybe something like “Shield of the Miser - if RCR > 50% all damage is doubled” or “Primal Scream - if RCR > 50% and a shout is active, attack speed is doubled”. The shields should be thematically barbaric, rather than something a Crusader would use.
  2. I think Juggernaut’s CC reduction could go from 50% to 95% (the same percentage as NOS’s damage reduction) without breaking the game. This would allow me a choice between Invigorating Gemstone and Juggernaut for a build that doesn’t use WOTB.
  3. An item that can make Avalanche a spender (instead of having a cooldown), to help it gain a few bonuses that spenders can access.
  4. I may be alone in this, but I like Skull of Resonance’s legendary ability. It could be augmented with a similar damage reduction as the proposal “Your damage taken is reduced by the number of enemies charmed, for 10 seconds. Max 10 enemies.” I like Charm’s effects in Hardcore mode and would hate to lose it. But I also don’t mind losing it to making Revenge useful.
  5. Simple change to Brawler - “As long as there are 3 enemies within 12 yards, all of your damage is increased by 20% and your pets and party’s damage by XX%.” Maybe 20% too? Or maybe make this an item to get the idea across that a Barb who is getting in the face of the enemy benefits allies. (Pets wouldn’t double-dip.)
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Hi Blimpy. Thanks for the feedback! I’ll touch on a few points:

We did indeed address HC concerns via the buffs to passive skills. Sword and Board would provide a flat 50% DR, which is the same as IP or Striding Giant, and a massive step up from its current iteration. As for shields, we didn’t include new ones as Barbs aren’t really a shield-centric class, and outside of HC, they will rarely find a place in a build.

At first, we went with a much higher % on this passive, but I argued then, as now, that 95% CC immunity effectively renders CC all but useless. At 80%, one or two additional CC reduction on gear will make a lot of sense. So, to me, 80% incentivizes more careful gear choices and doesn’t provide the kind of CC immunity that, say, Wrath provides.

Invigorating Gemstone is a whole other can of worms. We’ll have more to say about that in the near future.

That’s a really interesting idea! I dig it!

Our priority with Avalanche was to buff its supporting items so that it could deal meaningful damage. If you look through List 2 and our Detailed Explanations section, you’ll see where we’re going: a MOTE-based Avalanche build with a unique skill cycle.

The problem with Charm is that it rarely provides any meaningful benefit in actual gameplay. I, too, like the current affix, but if we’re being honest–when is it ever used?

For most builds, Charm, like Fear, is really bad: it tends to break up density. Rather than tinker with that, we opted to scrap it and go for a damage buff instead.

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I think the percentage should give a feeling of the Barb shrugging off the CC during gameplay. 80% might do it. It is more of a feel thing for me.

The only thing I would caution against for the Avalanche as spender idea is making it too much like Condemn for the Crusader. How it is converted to a spender should be distinct from that build.

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Hey Free. Thanks for getting this copied over to the new forums, with all the guides. I finally go on a nice vacation and they migrate the forums lol. Fingers still crossed for the list.

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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 :rofl:

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Free,

What do think of the following?

1H Harvest Moon: Cooldowns are reduced by 50% (like Follower Relics).

I may be off, but I think this could make the LON experience better for Barb’s. This would help Frenzy Thorns, LON Charge concept, … ect.

Harvest Moon comes with LoH, that affix I think should stay.

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Huh?

Harvest Moon is a lvl 54 crafted weapon. I’m not sure why you’d bother with that.

As for the affix, that’s far too powerful, and LON has other options such as Zodiac, various passives, and CDR on gear. The biggest problem with LON is that we don’t have enough supporting legendaries that sufficiently buff most skills. LON HOTA just cleared 128, but it’s going to drop ~4 GR tiers when the Season theme ends.

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Ok

(I wish there wasn’t a 20 character minimum).

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Is actually the second time they have done it, is another article from 7/1:
‘Diablo III’ Latest News: Barbarian Community Take It Upon Themselves to Offer Solution that Would Fix the Class

I can’t paste a link to it, even cold thanks to the stupid new forum restrictions.
Wow… can’t even quote your link…

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Hey GD,

Thanks for letting us know about that other article. So weird… I’m pretty sure they are generated by a bot, but it’s kind of fun that they’re out there, nonetheless.

Just so you know, I believe you can post a link if you put it in “code” brackets, i.e. if you put [“code”] LINK ["/code"] (remove the quotation marks in this example), it will be rendered, just not clickable.

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Thank you for the tip Rage.

https://www.econotimes.com/Diablo-III-Latest-News-Barbarian-Community-Take-It-Upon-Themselves-to-Offer-Solution-that-Would-Fix-the-Class-1556355
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Oh, I saw your post in the GD forums and realized I misunderstood what you were asking.

Okay, so, Vile Charge doesn’t use IK for cooldowns–Ancients and Wrath are just icing on the cake. The build needs IK for damage. IK 6 gives a global damage multiplier, and R4 gives a multiplier to just Charge. So, Vile Charge uses IK6+R4 to stack both multipliers onto Charge. Combined with Standoff and Vile Wards, that’s where the build’s damage comes from.

To make a pure Raekor FC build, you’d have to do several things to begin to replace IK:

  1. Provide an additional 50% DR to make up for the loss of Together as One

  2. Stack another massive multiplier (4000%) to make up for the loss of IK6

That isn’t something we bothered with in our proposal since there’s no point in cooking up two new items to offer the same bonuses as IK. And regardless, IK would still be better in the build since you would get perma-Wrath, an additional multiplier.

So, in reality, to have a pure Raekor FC build, you’d need something like this:

  • Item 1: A weapon or shield that buffs FC by 4000%+
  • Item 2: A ring or amulet that offers 50%+ DR when Charging or throwing boulders

Item 1 would have to offset both the IK damage bonus and the additional multiplier of Wrath, so just 4000% wouldn’t cut it.

And then you’d have, more or less, the same build. Kind of pointless, right?

To make a pure Raekor build worthwhile, you’d have to have a third item that takes it to another level, something that adds some synergy to the build. Here’s an idea:

  • Item 3: A ring or amulet that buffs Boulder Toss damage vs enemies hit by FC (or struck by FC over last 5 seconds or something).

That’s just a crude idea, but it would address the build’s major weakness–single-target damage. The values on these items would have to exceed the bonuses offered by IK, especially the DR if we ever want to get away from Parthans. The build would look something like this:

  • Armor: R6 + DR ring/ammy (replaces RoRG) + BT ring/ammy + Chilanik’s
  • Equipped Weapon: Standoff (or new weapon if 1H + shield)
  • Cube: Standoff or new item, Vile Wards, and one of these: CoE, new DR ring, new BT ammy

Again, just crude ideas, but remember, in VC, you only have a ring and weapon slot to replace. To replace Parthans (not necessary), you’d have to make a better bracer that adds even more DR–say, for every enemy hit by FC. But there’s not much point to that.

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Thanks for clearing that up.

Then I guess it will only benefit LON Charge.:rofl:

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No prob.

It all depends on the buffs we get, but keep in mind that the most likely candidates for strong, viable LON builds are likely going to be Frenzy, HOTA, and possibly Boulder Toss. Slam might make it in there. Charge? Probably not. Like I said, VC is only viable because of IK6+R4 and you can’t make up those multipliers via supporting legendaries.

A LON Charge build will only have the LON rings + Standoff + Vile Wards. You’ll be able to stack COE for extra damage, but that’s still not going to compare to what VC offers.

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Agreed. IK6+R4 does 12x more damage. I underestimated the math and just realized it yesterday. My dreams have been dashed, once again. Back to the drawing board.

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I’ve been checking the d3 front page multiple times a day hoping for a PTR patch notes post. I feel we have to get one next week or so. Here’s to hoping we get something!

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Blockquote Juggernaut: “The duration of control-impairing effects on you are reduced by 80%. In addition, whenever a Stun, Freeze, Fear, or Immobilize are cast on you, you recover 40% of your maximum life. This would make the skill fairly enticing, as it would make being hit by CC a positive, rather than negative, experience. Note that you no longer have “a chance” to recover life, as in the current version. This effect should occur every time you are hit by CC."

I’m fairly certain the heal hits everytime? Unless it was changed somewhere? I used to use the passive some years back in HC.

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Excellent work Free. Really appreciated. It’s a shame that only Morticks is dropped after all these excellent work.

I did have some expectation on S18 when barb was totally left out in S17 because the devs claimed they did not have enough time. I thought there had to be something exciting when the devs had a whole season to work on barb mainly. I have been away from D3 for most of S17 but to wait for S18 to come. Unfortunately, we only have minimal buff by having Morticks back. The rest of new legendary is fun but does not benefit barb much. I am so disappointed.

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The real deal with the changes made for PTR testing…
Everything is pointed to season only to get the user numbers up higher for the stockholders.
Absolutely every change made or item added will have some use in Seasons and very little in Non-season.
These will make many more options for builds across all classes and should spark more interest in more people actually coming back just to play season content.
It’s not what they hinted at after the last patch but it is what they were instructed to develop for more players.
That’s it, plain and simple…
2 cents…

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