In this thread, I offer my consolidated feedback about the Barbarian buffs in the current 2.6.7 PTR. I’ll be going item by item, and will address specific community concerns at the end.
Remorseless, Fjord Cutter, and Fury of the Ancients
While these buffs are huge steps in the right direction, they are currently under-tuned. IK HOTA, in particular, lags behind all other major builds, and all variations of Slam have labored under the enemy cap from the Bracers of Destruction. Our initial proposal for both weapons was meant to coincide to other build-specific supporting legendaries. For that reason, the current buffs on these items is slightly underwhelming.
Suggestion: Increase the buffs on Remorseless and Fjord to 550% and 400% respectively. Fury of the Ancients is perfect!
Wrath of the Wastes and Rend Items
The largest changes came in the form of new Rend-centric affixes on Lamentation and Ambo’s Pride, and the amendment of Rend to the 6-piece Wrath of the Wastes bonus.
Let me be clear: These buffs are very good and I do not suggest any alterations to the current PTR iteration of these items. That said, there are two important points to address.
Whirlwind
Up until these buffs, Rend was a practically useless skill to include in the Wastes set. Simply put, it couldn’t, in any scenario, deal meaningful damage or provide meaningful utility. The Zodiac Whirlwind build suffered from the following:
- A total reliance on AOE damage from Whirlwind, Dust Devils, Area Damage, and Bloodshed
- A total reliance on rare, specific map and mob combinations to be able to deal meaningful damage
- Demanding gear requirements
- Tendency to generate game-breaking lag
As a result, the build was forced to “fish” Greater Rifts for high-density map and mob combinations. Without extreme density, the build was unable to deal damage. This meant players spent hundreds and hundreds of Greater Rift keys looking for rifts that could be played, and many good map and mob combinations could still be thwarted by bad successive map tiles, bad Pylon spawns, or RGs that don’t spawn adds.
Now, the build deals all of its damage through Rend. This resolves all above frustrations with the build. But a side effect is that the Whirlwind skill now deals zero meaningful damage in the build. What’s more, the sole supporting legendary for Whirlwind, the Skull Grasp ring, is equally useless, and will be dropped from the build for other, better options.
If this was intended, cool. Otherwise, I ask the developers to address it down the road. To be clear, I am not advocating for nerfs to the current buffed items in order to make Whirlwind more relevant. Instead, I prefer that Whirlwind be buffed via Skull Grasp.
PTR Clears & Rend
You have no doubt noticed that Rend Barbs on the PTR are clocking some impressive clears. So, in order to head off cries for nerfs, let me be perfectly clear: DO NOT NERF BARBARIANS.
The PTR is, due to ease of access, an imperfect testing environment. Blood Shards can quickly and easily be acquired, and as a result Primals can be rapidly acquired. Various clears with 6-10k Paragon are not in any way representative of what the vast majority of players can ever accomplish, and the Seasonal buffs are, to put it mildly, incredibly strong. While the buffs to Rend are strong, they combine wit many of these facets listed above to elevate Barb clears.
In other words, I am fairly certain this is not representative of real, actual clears that will be made the live server.
But what if I’m wrong?
We have for years now asked for meaningful, interesting buffs. And we have, at long last, received what we wanted. We are, finally, powerful–three (four if you count LOD) of our builds were buffed this patch, and each provides a distinct, interesting style of play. Barbs are excited about their class again, and the massive community effort to acquire buffs has reinvigorated an entire subsection of the game’s player base.
Simply put, even if I’m wrong and Barbs are ridiculously strong, it’s okay.
We’ve had the rug pulled out from under before with the Mortick’s debacle four years ago. We waited years to get buffs to outdated supporting legendaries. Two of our builds still rely on broken, gimmicky wall-charging, and one of class sets was literally broken since release. I think it’s safe to say that even if Barbs are incredibly strong for the upcoming Season, everything is going to be okay.
Compromise
If, however, the developers decide that the current non-Season PTR clears require a nerf–and again, nerfs are not necessary–I ask that you consider a compromise.
Any nerf to our Rend damage will decrease our clear potential and increase the build’s reliance on frustrating, time-consuming fishing. Let’s cover the current items and potential damage caused by nerfs.
- Ambo’s Pride: Any nerf to the Rend detonation mechanic will fundamentally cripple the build. The auto-cast Rend, while not essential, is not game-breaking.
- Wrath of the Wastes: The amendment of Rend to the 6-piece bonus is essential for making the skill viable with dual-wielding and for making Rend’s damage, regardless of weapon, meaningful.
- Lamentation: The additional Rend damage here is a welcome addition. It is, however, the only place a nerf could be applied without crippling or breaking the build.
As you can see, any nerf aside from Lamentation risks crippling the build, and even a small nerf to the belt will drastically reduce the build’s power. However, if a nerf is deemed necessary, I suggest a compromise: Whirlwind’s damage can be increased to compensate for this.
It’s important to remember that Whirlwind divides its damage over “ticks” and that the skill requires Dust Devils, Area Damage, and Bloodshed to deal significant damage. Therefore, any nerf to Rend damage requires a 10:1 buff ratio to Whirlwind. For example, if you were to lower Lamentation’s damage bonus from 200 to 150, Skull Grasp would have to be increased an additional 500%.
Again, to be perfectly, 100% clear: DO NOT NERF BARBS!
We are, finally, where we have longed to be–relevant, powerful, and fun! As top-ranked player Ulma points out, the current buffs not only make our most popular build powerful and fun, but it also reduces server strain and erases the game-breaking lag associated with the Whirlwind-centric build.
