Barb Buff Proposal 2.6.6: Discussion

Mortick’s Bracer is back ! But 2 Runes from Wrath of the Berserker are Useless.
I suggest a rework for more damage.

Arreat’s Wail
While active, gain 50% Critical hit damage.

Slaughter
While active, gain 25% Strength and Area Damage.

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Hey everyone. Figured now was a good time for an update.

With regards to Nev’s Blog post: I’m happy to hear we’re getting buffed items and a new set. A new set = a new build! This is awesome news, and I truly didn’t expect it at all!

But like Jako, I have some reservations. A new set is great, but let’s be honest: If they buffed our support items, we could have several new builds. And judging by the blog post, it looks like we might get both–buffed support items and a new set. This could be the best of both worlds.

This leaves me with questions. Will Rend stay broken and useless in WW? Will Avalanche still be worthless? Will our primary skills remain trash? In other words, will our core problems be addressed, or are we going to have another Saffron Wrap incident? And what’s the timeline for this–when will Barbs get some stuff?

I’m honestly a little worried that the buffs we get A) won’t be sufficient, or B) won’t be what we want in the first place.

Maybe my fears are proven wrong. I sincerely hope so. But I also hope that our buff proposal isn’t forgotten, because this community effort represents what we want. We might not get all of it, but we want some of it, and we definitely don’t want another Saffron Wrap.

To that end, while Rage and I work on a gem proposal, we’re also going to update the Barb Proposal site and ask the developers to (again) seriously consider our suggestions. In the meantime, you can help by keeping this thread active, spreading the word, and continuing to speak up on the forums about this proposal and what Barbs want. Every little bit of attention helps, and every Barb that stands with us in solidarity sends a message to the developers.

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Yep, you’re absolutely right (also, hats off to Jako for being the first voice to loudly point out the problem). A new set is great, but only if it (and all the other stuff that’s currently broken) is balanced!

Ya, I do want to stress I would love new items and even new set(s). But I really think they should address other issues first like balance and underused items/passives.

I came off hyperbolic in my post and a lot of people took it the wrong way unfortunately. And it some how became an argument just about stash space which is only part of the problem imo.

I think you hit the nail on the head. I said something similar in my thread about the Blog Post:

And honestly, given their track record of handling Barbs, we should be concerned.

Totally. These kind of projected changes have rarely been beneficial.
They appear to be doing something going forward, that is fine.
It has most always by-passed the current game issues and injected more itemization shortcomings instead of addressing current game changes for improvement of build diversity and class balancing for all classes, not just Barbs.

I played the first time a Barbarian in Season 18. Actually only the last 3 days of this season. And I used Whirlwind and Overpower for leveling to 70. You can use Overpower while whirlwinding, that’s great. Would it make sense to add Overpower to the Wastes set. Wrath of the Wastes (6) : Whirlwind gains the effect of the Dust Devils rune. All Whirlwind and Rend damage is increased by 10,000% and Overpower by 7.500% this. Overpower damage is doubled against Elites and Bosses. (*from the Proposal list 2) Don’t know if this would destroy the immersion of Whirlwind.

But besides that I play right now a primary build. With Cleave and Bash. Bash feels great, but cleaves attack range feels to short. :frowning: One thing I found to be odd is Bash seems to profit from Depth Diggers. Even though Blade of the Warold turns it into a spender? At least with FnR it counts as a spender.

Thank you for the suggestion. We won’t be updating the proposal as it is a completed project. Overpower has a lot of problems, namely that it can never be a damage-dealing skill. See our List and Detailed Explanations sections for more info on that.

Overpower and WW is a bad combo as Overpower eats Zodiac procs and contributes zero utility and damage to the build. It would also require an overhaul to the Wastes set, and there is zero reason to think that will happen.

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This proposal is fantastic. I really hope the devs use it as a bible with (hopefully) upcoming Barb changes.

I had 2 things I wanted to bring up, though:

  • First, what would you think about tweaking IK’s 4 piece bonus to read “for every 10 Fury you spend.” rather than “for every 10 Fury you spend on an attack.” It would mean things like Battle Rage or Sprint could also decrease the cds (Charge build could, in theory, drop Boulder Toss; could open up Primary builds in the IK set). This doesn’t really affect outright power level, though, so doesn’t address GR pushing. Just thought it could open up more builds.
  • Second, how does Madawc’s Sorrow fit in Primary builds? Frenzy builds use 2 1-handers (Oathkeeper +1 other) and Bastion’s in the cube. Bash builds need a generator, which is likely Cleave (but that means you’re Blade of the Warlord, Dishonered Legacy, and Oathkeeper). Only Weapon Throw seems like it could use it. As the first build I ever did in this game was a LoN Frenzy build, it has a dear place in my heart, so I really loved your suggestions for Primary builds. But am I missing something? What build(s) were you envisioning with Sorrow?

Again, thanks for all your work on this. It’s really an amazing piece, and I hope the devs really take it to heart.

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Hey WB,

Thanks for your kind words about the proposal!

So, you may have noticed that the only change we suggested to any set was the addition of Rend to the Wastes(6) bonus, and this was because we could see literally no other way to make Rend viable. In general we stayed away from suggesting alterations to sets. In theory I’ve got no objection to your idea, though I feel like the devs probably wouldn’t take it up… though who knows?

As for Madawc’s, you’ve correctly noticed that in order to cube Madawc’s, you’d have to leave Bastion’s behind. As a result, you’d attack less quickly, but since Madawc’s would allow Revenge to “echo” all the damage you’d dealt with primaries over a period of time, you’d still come out ahead on the damage front, especially considering you’d be dealing that damage as an aoe. You could, for instance, take Oathkeeper, Warlord, and Madawc’s in the cube, use Frenzy as a generator, and Bash as a spender.

Bastion’s would still be useful for killing RG’s, though, since it would allow you to stack Stricken much faster. This was something we aimed for most of the time in the proposal: to have different options be viable (see also: Sledge of Athskeling and Bul-Kathos’ Wedding Band as alternatives to Furnace and CoE in Leapquake builds).

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Hi Rage,

Thanks for the fast reply! I noticed in the proposal that most of it was just number changes, and I figured it was because those would seem like easier changes to make from the devs’ side. I don’t know how easy my idea would be to implement, though. But I was more curious what top Barb veterans thought of it. :slight_smile:

As for Madawc’s, that makes sense. I definitely get behind creating meaningful choices in builds! And doing Madawc’s for density vs Bastion’s for RGs seems like a meaningful choice. And with all the buffs you recommended for various items, Madawc’s wouldn’t be necessary to hit that x50 damage multiplier you said was needed to make Primary builds intra-class competitive.

So again, thanks for the reply, and all your hard work!

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Thank you for the kind words and support, Waterboy. Rage already covered everything, so I’ll just add my two cents.

We felt that, with the exception of the Wastes 6 bonus, Barb sets are in a good place, and that deficiencies are the result of, and should be addressed via, supporting legendaries.

Madawc’s was specifically tuned for an IK- or LoD-based primary skill build for solo pushing. Bastion’s is much better suited for a Frenzy group build as an RGK.

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You have my support.

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hi, curious about something,

“Assuming you’ve got 10% RCR in paragon, dumping this Fury with BT does
((186 - 22.5) * 20) + 500 = 3770% weapon damage.
With SS:Rumble, if you’re using Fury of the Vanished Peak, you’re doing
((186-13.5) * 15 * 2) + 620 = 5795% weapon damage.”

the seismic slam says 15% over 2 seconds which sounds like its not 15% each second but total. Which would also make more sense as its aoe is bigger also.

and as much as i love BT it seems like they created a parallel between the two and some of the proposals like 300th out damaging FOTVP when one can be paired with another weapon seems off.

and for those new legendary affix’s that might be on the way i hope to see a little COTA 2h maybe with a remorseless “+something for each ancient active” type of thing. Of course a way of having a COTA+HOTA build being close to a more pure HOTA one would need to be thought out. Buffing IK mauls ancient damage higher in order have that + a COTA belt slot/More relevant ancients fury/strongarm, etc… and COTA 2h cubed instead of a COTA 2h and GOJ/BOTFM/less relevant ancients fury with ik belt.

i havent thought this out fully it making my head hurt but having a pet build with ancients sounds fun, i kind of like the thought of sitting back and doing something that buffs my ancients like im super weak but they reck stuff maybe using a generator or something to buff their damage over time “remorseless: hammer of the ancients has a chance to summon an ancient (up to 3) and every use of HOTA increases the damage the target takes from your ancients by 20%”. …Brainstorming…

I’ll be skipping my same old suggestions from the past few years (buff rend in wastes, add legendary powers to 2h weapons that synergizes with our sets, add attack speed to 6pc IK, to buff IK HotA without messing too much with charge and etc).

Instead of brainlessly buffing and messing with 4pc and 6pc of our sets, why not changing some old and unused skill runes?

Sure, HotA sure could use a buff in its base damage, but why not adding a viable physical variant?

Rolling Thunder: hammer of the ancients strike xx more yards and deals xx% increased area damage.

Gavel of Judgment adjust: it returns fury when hitting 5 enemies or less (instead of 3)

Wrath of the Berserker

With the return of Mortick, why not making it really relevant again by changing useless runes?

Arreat’s Veil: Enemies near you receive 20% increased damage for 5 seconds after you activate Wrath of the Berserker

Slaughter: critical hits increase critical hit damage by 10% for 3 seconds. This stack 10 times

Insanity: 50% increased damage and 5% chance to do double damage with critical hits

These are simple suggestions, but the idea is: devs you should stop limiting yourselves adding zeros to 6pc and try to rework some useless runes and skills. Let the creativity flow. Add different and new mechanics.

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What do you guys think is the likelihood we get our buffs for S19?

I would say the likelihood seems reasonably high given the timing of S19 shortly after Blizzcon so it would make sense for them to announce it then to get folks interested and actually have something D3 related to talk about.

That being said, the fact it makes sense is probably the strongest argument one could make these days that there will be no buffs for S19 and just continued disappointment. Blizzard is nothing if not consistent.

I’ve been talking to Nev behind the scenes, and while I can’t confirm anything, and don’t know what’s coming or when, I do feel that we’re going to finally get some decent item buffs in the near future.

Also, what’s with the alt accounts round here lately?

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I wouldn’t expect the new sets to be out this next season. I am guessing we will get a sneak peek of them at Blizzcon and then they may be released season 20 or so. No idea if they will drop all at the same time or might be a multiple season rollout.

It will be interesting to see what impact the new items have on their approach to barbs. For example, we’ve debated here what sort of damage Wastes should have. Crimson’s and EF basically take the boost ticks’ frequency and damage approach. It’s not a cure-all, obviously, but it does noticeably help Wastes’ performance. Continuing down this path and simply adding an item or affix that significantly boosts ww damage would go a long way to closing the performance gap with ww and other builds. It would also keep the play style we’ve become used to.

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