Yes, it’s me again. Time is growing short for this PTR. So, one last time, I figured I’d go over the “unfinished business” for Barb in this coming patch.
PART 1: RAEKOR 6 SPEAR
The Unfinished Business
- No built-in mitigation
- Overall power level unclear
- Skular secondary limited to Boulder Toss
1) No built-in mitigation
Unlike most 6-7 piece class sets, this build has no built-in mitigation. I’ve seen mixed reactions to this here on the forum and on Reddit, but overall the feeling has been more negative than positive.
YES, it is certainly possible to play the build, even with low paragon, by simply stacking up a ton of extra defense.
BUT, this is going to introduce some extreme distortions into the leaderboards.
For instance, a player with 1000 paragon and some decent augs might have around 15000 Strength, while a player with 10000 paragon and full augs will have around 60000 Strength, 4x as much. In a “normal” situation, the high-paragon player has about +9 tiers worth of extra damage (1.17^9 = 4.10). But with this build, the high paragon player can also trade away a lot of defensive items and skills for offensive ones, which gives another 7-8 tiers worth of damage (I go over a list of the swaps here). So that’s more like a 16 tier spread between a high paragon player and a low paragon player, much more than normal.
The result is likely to be: a lot less people playing the build, and a lot more people complaining about the build.
The Fix: Add built-in mitigation.
The best way to do this would be a mechanism that increases your toughness more, the lower your health goes, since this will help players, especially lower paragon players, to take more advantage of the “missing life damage bonus” on the 4-piece.
It could be something like the Necromancer ring Lornelle’s Sunstone, which gives 0.75-0.95% mitigation for every 1% of missing life. Or, it could operate in bigger “blocks”, for instance, something like “you gain 25% stacking damage reduction when below 75%, 50%, and 25% life”. Or, something else of this sort.
2) Overall power level unclear
This one is kind of a conundrum. Some experienced players, myself included, feel that the build is probably pretty close to where it needs to be, in terms of overall power. But others feel that it is still somewhat weaker than it ought to be.
Evaluating its power level is difficult due to the changes to Greater Rifts implemented in 2.7.3, resulting in all rifts played with the new Raekor build having improved circumstances, on average, compared to clears on the live server with other builds. So it certainly is possible that when 2.7.3 goes live, and all builds see more play in the new Greater Rifts, these other builds will gain ground compared to Raekor, and Raekor will turn out to be underpowered.
On the other hand, the consequence for Raekor being too powerful is: all other Barb builds will seem crappy in comparison, and people will complain that their favorite build, which is about 85% certain not to be Raekor, is now underpowered.
The Fix: Add built-in mitigation.
Yes, you read that right. Not an accident, not a typo.
As I said in section 1, the need to stack a ton of extra defense costs lower paragon players a ton of offense (7-8 tiers worth). And, even for higher paragon players, this would provide some extra offensive power. The set seems like it was designed to take advantage of the Shi Mizu’s Haori power, but even players with over 10k paragon have been forced to use Parthans in the cube for the extra defense.
With some built-in defense, players might venture into using Shi Mizu’s, which would add a maximum of about +58% damage, about +3 tiers worth.
This is probably the best, safest way to split that difference between “not powerful enough” and “too powerful”.
3) Skular secondary limited to Boulder Toss
In brief: why?
What’s the point to having the secondary component of this bracer (“If your Ancient Spear - Boulder Toss hits 5 or fewer enemies, the damage is increased by 100%”) limited to only the Boulder Toss rune? It’s not as though any of the other runes would be OP if they benefitted from this effect.
The Fix: Let all runes benefit from the Skular’s secondary effect.
Nuff said.
PART 2: WEAPON THROW
The Unfinished Business
- IK and LoD Weapon Throw builds are still too wimpy
1) IK and LoD Weapon Throw builds are still too wimpy
IK or LoD Weapon Throw, with the current buffs in 2.7.3, can probably clear into the low 120’s at around 3.5k paragon. That’s certainly better than before, but still fairly wimpy.
And: what’s the harm in adding some more damage? It’s not as though adding 10 extra tiers of dps would turn this build into some sort of overpowered monstrosity. Clearing in the low 130’s at 3.5k paragon is what I’d call barely acceptable.
The Fix: let Arreat’s Law and 300th Spear give “three times this amount” to Weapon Throw.
Just as Monk Fire allies currently get “5 times this amount”, currently, from the Binding of the Lesser Gods bracer, let Weapon Throw get “three times this amount” from the buffs on those two spears. That would give +600% and +600%, or a 7x and 7x multiplier, rather than 3x and 3x. So that’s 49 / 9 = 5.44x, or about +11 tiers worth of damage.
Or, if they don’t like the “x times this amount” model, they could just write it out: “Ancient Spear gets +200%, Weapon Throw gets +600%”.
What’s the downside here? That a modest number of people will have some additional fun while playing a B-tier build? Heaven forbid!
PART 3: VILE CHARGE
The Unfinished Business
- It’s a classic, much-loved Barb build that’s been left behind
1) It’s a classic, much-loved Barb build that’s been left behind
This build has been left behind, damage-wise. Unlike Earthquake, Frenzy, Rend, Seismic Slam, and HOTA, all of which have seen one or more damage increases in the past couple of years, Charge has seen no increase to its damage potential.
The best clear with the build was GR 135, with 10k paragon, before the follower buff. That mark would be GR 138-139 today. In order to reach parity with Barb’s “second-string” builds (Leapquake, Frenzy, IK HOTA), Vile Charge would need to gain about 7-8 tiers of damage (a 3.0 - 3.5x multiplier). And in order to reach parity with Barb’s “first rate” builds (Rend, LoD HOTA, R6 Spear), it would need about 10-11 tiers of damage (a 5.0 - 6.0x multiplier).
The Fix: Increase the Charge damage on Raekor 4-piece.
Tripling this amount, from 1000% to 3000%, would make this build semi-competitive. Or, giving it 4000-5000% would make it fully competitive with the other top Barb builds.
And, a note: this build can, on occasion, have a few issues with damage mitigation. The addition of built-in mitigation to Raekor 4 would help here, as well.
This is the unfinished business for Barb in this patch. If this stuff gets addressed, I think this could be one of the best patches ever for our class. If not, 2.7.3 could be kind of a dud for many Barb players.
sorry.