Barbarian Balance Requests for 2.7.2 (?)

[Grimcruel-1695]

So why exactly are people again calling for a nerf to wwrend? Don’t you also need to hard cast rend still for optimal pushing in density?

Take away the seasonal theme and 10k paragons, I’m pretty sure I see multiple classes and builds the same power and clearing potential. So is it the few that aren’t quite up there that are complaining? Wouldn’t it be better to just ask for those few to have buffs to get them to the levels of other?

[DieHarder-11668]

@Grimcruel-1695

So why exactly are people again calling for a nerf to wwrend?

They’re trolls trying to get Barb’s all riled up, but we’re not going to bite. Devs have already said that they are good with where WW/Rend is.

[insidious-1502]

@Grimcruel-1695

Don’t you also need to hard cast rend still for optimal pushing in density?

Yes.

@Grimcruel-1695

Wouldn’t it be better to just ask for those few to have buffs to get them to the levels of other?

Yes.

Zodiac Rend is in a good spot after barbs has years of being no close to the other classes. Please let us keep our successful build and raise our other popular fun builds to its level. I hope the other classes are also given the attention they deserve!

[insidious-1502]

Pretty much all of them until season 20?
I’m not saying there weren’t other classes that also had issues, just that barbs finally got a powerful build, but it’s not overly so, so why are people trying to get in nerfed?

[Rashiel-2651]

All in all, it’s fairly easy, even as a push build. Every build runs into problems at higher levels, even single target once.

Why i said it was easy it was because whirlrend covers several fronts as in damage, gathering and mobility. The proposal to nerf was only to illustrate that separating builds by difficulty is not a sound path. Because you’re punishing a potentially fun play style over a more difficult one.

For me, I view whirlrend differently from free, thus I don’t put on a pedestal above the rest, instead I have both builds available. If it makes running frenzy a better build for farming paragon, great, it still leaves whirlrend strong for speeds. But then I know that I can push with both, and at the very highest, they will be fairly close.

[insidious-1502]

Thanks for the list, I forgot barbs could solo clear pretty well. When I said weaker I should have been more clear. I was thinking of the fact that we never dps in groups and our farm options used to be pretty far behind other classes, with comparable gear and paragon. I’m a solo player so being part of the beta as zdps was never that big of an appeal to me, but I realize some enjoy it.

[Grimcruel-1695]

4 out of 20 isn’t much for top as some suggest by the threat of rend being too powerful? As far as meta, yeah…they have always been a support, not dps. Dps means damage. Are we also talking about the old ww solo clears with 8k+ paragons? I don’t have the think to look at quickly that’s provided.

[insidious-1502]

There is more to it than top solo clears. As I said, no dps in groups and considerably better gear and more paragon required to farm.

[Decipher-1948]

@insidious-1502

As I said, no dps in groups and considerably better gear and more paragon required to farm.

Correct on the no DPS role in 4 man meta but a guaranteed spot for 18 consecutive seasons in the 4 man meta seems to be a tradeoff that many would be willing to make.

@insidious-1502

considerably better gear and more paragon required to farm.

Someone did an analysis where they looked at paragon levels needed to clear GRs across several seasons. Again, barbarians were rather average. Some classes needed more paragon some less to clear the same GR. Ironically, this included the time where barbs had the lowest top solo clears.

[Venaliter-1813]

@Free-1746

Introduction

In Patch 2.6.7a, Barbarians received several noteworthy buffs, and our most popular build, Whirlwind, became a Rend build and got a whole heck of a lot stronger! But while Zodiac Rend has risen to sit among the strongest in the game, our other builds and sets, including our brand new set, Horde of the Ninety Savages, lag far behind in terms of Greater Rift clear potential, speed, and efficiency. Players who prefer HOTA, Fire EQ, or Furious Charge can still play those builds, but compared with Rend, they will clear far lower and farm much less efficiently, even with significantly more Paragon and better gear.

Recently, the Barbarian community has discussed what can be done. The result is this thread, posted in General Discussion for visibility, and to help other class communities in the generation of productive discourse with CMs and developers.

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Goal

The goal of this proposal is to achieve better parity between Zodiac Rend and our other 5 major builds at similar Paragon levels. To better understand the builds for which we are requesting buffs and their relationship to Greater Rift conditions, here’s a brief breakdown followed by explanations:

Build	Set	Build/Skill-Specific Supporting Legendaries	Fishing Required
Pro Slam	Might of the Earth	Fjord Cutter, Bracers of Destruction	Medium
Fire EQ	Might of the Earth	Blade of Tribes, Girdle of Giants, Lut Socks	High
HOTA	Immortal King’s Call	Gavel of Judgment, Bracers of the First Men, Fury of the Ancients, Remorseless	Medium
Vile Charge	Immortal King’s Call + Legacy of Raekor	Standoff, Vile Wards	High
H90 Frenzy	Horde of the Ninety Savages	Bastion’s Revered, Undisputed Champion, Oathkeeper	Low

The relationship between builds, sets, and supporting legendaries is obvious. Outside of Legacy of Dreams/Nightmares builds, sets determine builds. Less obvious is the relationship between a build and the necessary investment in fishing required to successfully push end-game Greater Rifts, here labeled as “Fishing Required.”

A build’s required level of fishing is determined by its interaction with Greater Rift conditions. Builds with a high level of fishing required must hunt for very specific conditions (maps, mob types, elite affixes, and specific Rift Guardians) in order to achieve a successful clear, while builds with low fishing requirements can achieve success with more varying rift conditions.

A different way to put it is this: Builds with low fishing requirements are able to adapt to a large variet of rift conditions, while builds with high fishing requirements require the rift conditions to be tailored to their strengths.

Fishing and Clear Potential

Builds with high fishing requirements require a much greater investment in time and resources (GR keys) than builds with low fishing requirements. As a result, we want to see high fishing builds be capable of achieving higher maximum clears, and low fishing builds be capable of higher average clears. This allows our builds to excel at different game activities (speed-farming, bounties, and group play) while also being competitive for solo Greater Rift pushing. In other words, each and every build will feel powerful and rewarding to play, and each and every build will also feel uniquely suited to better average play or better fishing.

But, in order to know how much of a buff is needed, we need to know what level these builds can clear now. So let’s walk through the numbers, build by build.

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Build Breakdowns

The following information presents the highest known clears by build by prominent, highly skilled and experienced Barbarian players, and suggests a buff based on a projected desired goal. All of this is weighed against Zodiac Rend’s current best clear at GR 148. In each breakdown, we offer the simplest and most direct suggestion for buffing a build’s damage output. Complications for certain builds are discussed in more detail.

It is important to note that the current highest clears documented here are not necessarily indicative of the absolute ceiling for a build, but all of these top clears took a lot of high quality gear, gem levels, time, and fishing, and thus represent the very best that most players could ever hope to achieve given between 7-10k Paragon. This also means that our estimates–that a build needs +10 GRs of damage, for example–must be taken as estimates, albeit ones about which we are very confident represent a true buff scenario for the vast majority of players.

H90 Frenzy

• Current highest clear: 139
• Target clear: 143-145
• Buff required: +4 GRs / +2x damage (1.17^4 = 1.87)

H90 Frenzy is a strong and versatile build, and requires little in the way of buffs. The +4 GRs / 2x damage needed by this build can come through a buff to H90(6).

Current H90(6) multiplier of 101x * 2.0 = 202x, i.e. H90(6) increased from 10000% to 20000%.

This gives H90 Frenzy the +4 GRs it needs.

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Pro Slam

• Current highest clear: 138
• Target clear: 144-146
• Buff required: +6 GRs / +2.5x damage (1.17^6 = 2.56)

Buffs for this build are addressed by the increased damage of MOTE(6) discussed in the Fire EQ section below.

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Fire EQ

• Current highest clear: 130
• Target clear: 145-148
• Buff required: +15 GRs / +10.5x damage (1.17^15 = 10.54)

The first +6 GRs / 2.5x damage can come from a direct buff to MOTE(6), as this will solve the issues of Pro-Slam as well.

Current MOTE(6) multiplier of 201x * 2.5 = 502.5, i.e. MOTE(6) increased from 20000% to 50000%.

Fire EQ still needs another +9 GRs, and the best way to achieve this is to update Blade of the Tribes. Currently, the damage bonus to the Earthquake skill on this item is in the dibs category, and is additive with various other bonuses, such as Threatening Shout: Falter and Battle Rage. When combined, these add up to around a 3.65x multiplier (100 Base + 200 Tribes + 25 Falter + 30 rolls on chest\shoulder + 10 Battle Rage).

So, we need to go from the equivalent of 365 damage to 1500 damage (i.e. +9 GRs. 1.17^9 * 365 = 1499)

Blade of The Tribes should have its bonus set aside as a separate multiplier, and it should be made extractable in the cube. If this is done, the remaining dibs bonus will amount to a 1.65x multiplier. Since we needed to get to 1500 damage, 1500 / 1.65 = 909

So, we need Tribes to have a +800% multiplier, multiplicative.

This gives Fire EQ the full +15 GRs it needs.

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IK HOTA

• Current highest clear: 133
• Target clear: 143-145
• Buff required: +10 GRs / +5x damage (1.17^10 = 4.81)

The first +2 GRs this build needs are addressed by the increased damage of IK(6) discussed in the Vile Charge section below.

The remaining +8 GRs needed can come in the form of a buff to Remorseless.

Current Remorseless multiplier of 3.5x * 1.17^8 = 12.29, i.e. Remorseless needs a bonus of +1100%

This will give IK HOTA the full +10 GRs it needs.

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Vile Charge

• Current highest clear: 135
• Target clear: 145-148
• Buff required: +12 GRs / +6.5x damage (1.17^12 = 6.58)

The first +2 GRs worth of damage can come from a direct buff to IK(6), as this applies some needed buffing to IK HOTA as well.

Current IK(6) multiplier of 41x * 1.17^2 = 56x, i.e. IK(6) increased from 4000% to 5500%.

Vile Charge still needs another +10 GRs, which can come in the form of a large buff to Standoff.

This item currently gives a bonus of about 550% damage (500% of bonus move speed * 110%, the amount VC Barbs generally operate with).

So we need to get from 650 to (650 * (1.17^10)) = 3124

Meaning Standoff needs to give a bonus of about +3000% damage, i.e 2700% of bonus movement speed (27 * 110 = 2970).

This gives Vile Charge the full +12 GRs it needs.

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Summary of Buffs

• MOTE(6): increased from 20000% to 50000%.

• IK(6): increased from 4000% to 5500%.

• H90(6): increased from 10000% to 20000%.

• Blade of the Tribes: Legendary power made extractable in the cube, made a separate multiplier, and increased from +200% to +800%.

• Standoff: multiplier increased from “500% of bonus movement speed” to “2700% of bonus movement speed”.

• Remorseless: multiplier increased from +250% to +1100%.

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Supporting Legendaries

Many Barbarian-specific supporting legendaries remain outdated and useless at every level of play. We request buffs to the following items to make them more attractive to players who seek to play builds that deviate from traditional set-based skill and item designations.

• Dread Iron
• The Three Hundredth Spear
• Skular’s Salvation
• Blade of the Warlord
• Dishonored Legacy
• Arreat’s Law
• Saffron Wrap

While we acknowledge that buffs to these items are not as crucial as the ones discussed in detail above, they do represent a significant and long-standing community desire to incorporate these items in useful and meaningful ways, particularly for Legacy of Dreams (LOD) builds. Barbs have only one poweful, semi-viable LOD build (LOD HOTA), but others could be made viable (GR 130 @ 5k Paragon or better) with significant increases to their damage multipliers. In particular, substantial buffs to Boulder Toss items may go a long way toward fixing the problem with our most complicated and broken set, the Legacy of Raekor, and this is discussed in detail below.

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Raekor: A Legacy of Problems

Out of all our sets, only the Legacy of Raekor is unable to create a pure (all 6 set pieces equipped, no Ring of Royal Grandeur) build. The only pure-Raekor build that has ever achieved notable success was R6 HOTA, a HOTA-based build that exploited wall-charging to deal large amounts of burst damage in a very small window of time. While popular for a brief time, this build was not well received due to its fickle play style and for the way it made obsolete IK HOTA, a build much beloved in the Barbarian community.

The problems with the Legacy of Raekor set are two-fold:

• On its own, its 4-piece bonus cannot make Furious Charge a meaningful damage-dealing skill (hence why Vile Charge relies on IK6’s damage multiplier)
• Its 6-piece bonus is a global multiplier for Fury-spending attacks

The second point above is noteworthy; buffing Raekor’s damage multiplier threatens to make it the best set for every and any Fury-spending attack (commonly referred to as spenders), but buffing the 4-piece bonus could, when combined with the IK set, make Vile Charge ludicrously powerful and unbalanced.

Right now, the Legacy of Raekor has no distinct identity, and thus no distinct build. It is for these reasons that we ask for either a set overhaul or for buffs to various supporting legendaries in order to make a pure Raekor build fun, powerful, and viable. A popular suggestion in the Barbarian community, one that also seems to align with the original intent for the set, is for substantial buffs to Skular’s Salvation and The Three Hundredth Spear to make Boulder Toss into a powerful nuke–a skill that deals a single instance of massive damage. This could also be achieved by changing the 6-piece set multiplier from all Fury-spending attacks to Boulder Toss; in combination with large buffs to Skular’s and Three Hundredth, a powerful Charge+Boulder Toss build could become viable.

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Conclusion

We hope that the requests outlined above lead to better parity between major Barbarian builds, and we hope that many more players find fun and exciting ways to enjoy the class’s unique skill set.

Very good write up. Although Barbarians are, in my view, the best class in Diablo 3 (and have been for a LONG TME) some of these would add some much needed build variety, and that’s something all classes need.

[Mugsy-6765]

Overall, a good list of suggestions, though, I still want to see the H90 set reworked to:

• (2) Set: Double the effectiveness of shouts. You deal double damage to Feared, Frozen, or Stunned enemies.
• (4) Set: As long as a shout is in effect, gain 60% damage reduction. Frenzy stacks lasts twice as long.
• (6) Set: Primary skills, Revenge, Overpower, and Ancient Spear deals 20,000% increased damage.

DH’s got their primary skills set when I wanted one for Barbs more… Frenzy is nice but I want to make a Cleave generator/Bash Spender build too. I also want Weapon Throw/Boulder Toss builds to be viable too. And Revenge and Overpower are completely disregarded skills… they need support legs that synergise into a build but adding them to the set is a start.

Reworking H90 to the above suggestion will retain the current H90 build options but also open it up to being a more flexible set to gear up with and use in the long run.

[insidious-1502]

@Decipher-1948

Someone did an analysis where they looked at paragon levels needed to clear GRs across several seasons. Again, barbarians were rather average. Some classes needed more paragon some less to clear the same GR. Ironically, this included the time where barbs had the lowest top solo clears.

Note I said to farm. I was also referring to prior to the wotw buff.

[Kikaha-2290]

I don’t think your rework would change anything because the supporting legendaries for the other skills are mostly useless.

[Mugsy-6765]

I know… but it would lay the foundations for those support legendaries to be tweaked in the future (thus my statement about the ‘long run’ in my previous post). If the set doesn’t support the skill, then there’s no point in changing the legendaries so this step must come first.

In the interim, we can at least use the support legendaries if it’s the best item we have to use with the set at the start of a season. As it stands, if H90 was ever the starter set, it’s Frenzy support items or bust… there’s no flexibility if we dropped the Bash or Cleave support legs.

[Kikaha-2290]

Fair enough, although I’m not sure I see the point of

• Buffing for less than 1% of the total season runtime (because for how long do you play scuffed build until you can find your gear ? 2 hours ? 3 hours ?)
• Spending dev time “buffing” in the end still useless builds. If they went all the way and buffed those builds to be actually good, sure. But until then, isn’t it better to leave everything untouched, so that later on, they have complete freedom in what they actually want to buff ?

[Mugsy-6765]

@Kikaha-2290

Buffing for less than 1% of the total season runtime (because for how long do you play scuffed build until you can find your gear ? 2 hours ? 3 hours ?)

It would be for one season that this would occur for… they can buff the set only for patch 2.7, and then…

@Kikaha-2290

If they went all the way and buffed those builds to be actually good, sure.

… they buff the legs for the next season’s patch… 2.7.1 of what ever it is.

@Kikaha-2290

But until then, isn’t it better to leave everything untouched, so that later on, they have complete freedom in what they actually want to buff ?

Not the slightest. The reason is because of Ancient Spear/Boulder Toss… it’s also buffed by other sets so if they want to start tweaking with the support legs for boulder toss, they need to get the H90 set in stone.

If they rework it the way I suggested, it wouldn’t change things for current H90 frenzy builds… it would actually be an improvement as you wouldn’t have to be so dependent on stacks for DR making it more friendly for HC play.

[Kikaha-2290]

@Mugsy-6765

it’s also buffed by other sets so if they want to start tweaking with the support legs for boulder toss, they need to get the H90 set in stone.

I don’t understand, can you elaborate on why ? To me, it would make sense to say, “ok, let’s buff boulder toss build” and then choose exactly what they want to do with it to make it good. Maybe it’s H90. Maybe it’s raekor (that’s what would make sense to me at least). Maybe it’s something else (LoD ? IK ?).

In my opinion, sets should be highly specialized buffs to make builds feel interesting to play, and putting a 20k% buff on boulder toss on H90 wouldn’t exactly make it interesting to play, at least not more than raekor for example.

[Mugsy-6765]

@Kikaha-2290

Maybe it’s H90. Maybe it’s raekor (that’s what would make sense to me at least). Maybe it’s something else (LoD ? IK ?).

Lets use another class as an example, DH with multishot. We all know UE is the set to play if you wanna push with MS as it supports MS and the support legs the best. But MS also works with Nats and it also works with M6. They’ll buff the legs around Nats, UE MS will be over powered.

Similarly, they will need to do the same for Barbs and boulder toss… they can’t balance around R6 or IK or MOTE and then add the skill to H90 when the 6pc damage buff on H90 could make BT over perform.

@Kikaha-2290

In my opinion, sets should be highly specialized buffs to make builds feel interesting to play

If you’re saying that sets should enable new styles of play (e.g. the original M6 with sentries firing your spenders, or Jade which turns Soul Harvest into a nuking skill)… yes I agree. I originally never wanted to see DR and damage buffs on sets. I only wanted sets to be for utility but that’s not the direction the devs went in.

As it is, I don’t particularly think H90 is very interesting in its current state. Builds that are designed around stacks for both DR and damage buffs just encourage constant LMB mashing. I hated the Rathma set and most Necro sets for this. I’d prefer not having to worry about maintaining excessive stacks and being able to focus on positioning.

@Kikaha-2290

putting a 20k% buff on boulder toss on H90 wouldn’t exactly make it interesting to play, at least not more than raekor for example

But R6 doesn’t buff Weapon Throw does it? There’s been plenty of requests over the years for a WT/BT build to be viable… even only GR100 viable. Sure, we can try to make it work with LOD but that’s a hell of a lot of effort for a sub performing build. I know because I’ve made a LOD electrocute build on my alt account.

[SevenShadow-11390]

@Negator-1124

I believe Rend needs to be tuned down.

I agree with this. That build has been meta for way too long. It’s time to take it down a notch and make room for other classes. As of now, nothing can compare to it, not even GoD.

[Grimcruel-1695]

In this case, necro and monk need to be taken down as they have been meta for far too long…??

GoD build isn’t as powerful as wwrend? Please explain.