Barbarian-Changes and Ideas

PTR Feedback
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First off, the whirlwind pulling power for Season 27 is looking amazing. Both support roles and solo pushing builds will benefit tremendously from this power. However, some problems with snapshots are causing the whirlwind power to stop working. This includes the use of a potion, a level-up and the enchantress cheat death proc. I welcome others to share any other instances of this bug they’ve encountered.

The whirlwind power makes all solo barbarian pushing builds interesting and will provide some new ways to play our favorite builds. I feel the above bugs should be fixed, but that otherwise this power should be left as it is. It will make barbarian support roles and pushing builds more tangible for less experienced players, bringing them into the arena for higher level content than they might otherwise expect to be possible.

The HoTA shockwave power, as of the latest update, is mostly beneficial for speed content, such as GR speeds and echoing nightmares…as well as making HoTA a viable (but not overpowered) trash killer in groups. I hope this is kept as it is, because many players would like to play barbarian as a group dps role (myself included).

In order to make this HOTA power appealing in solo pushing (and in general), I propose that you remove Call of the Ancients from the Immortal King Set buff (replacing it with 50% damage reduction would be helpful), as well as the Remorseless Mighty Weapon buff. This would allow the HoTA builds to use rage flip and ground stomp, which are essential for building density in order to perform in high GRs. This, combined with the shockwave at its current power level would still be very close with the whirlwind pull power (for solo HoTA pushing), but could hold slightly greater potential for those with more experience playing the build. The whirlwind power allows us to have dense groupings on every oculus ring, maintain the rampage passive, and pull elites with relative ease, which translates to more damage output riftwide. In order to compete with this ability, the build itself needs to have more grouping utility available, and this is currently not possible without losing its main source of effectiveness, battle rage (with the bloodshed rune). Simply buffing the shockwave power further is not enough to justify giving up the grouping power we get from the whirlwind pull, specifically for HoTA.

The shockwave power is capable of clearing GR 150, but the whirlwind power will allow much faster clears, as you gain much more by being able to quickly group monsters. If the shockwave pulled enemies to you, this would also be a solution to the problem with this power.

Removing CoTA from these items would also make the HoTA build much more appealing to play for the long term, as the build currently struggles a lot with managing hard crowd controls. This being said, the hard CC on Stone Gauntlets and Echoing Fury should also be stats that have a chance to roll, rather than being 100% present every time. If CoTA, fear on hit, and immobilize on hit are not present on the build, and rage flip is present, the build will actually be able to group enemies without having to struggle against these uncontrollable CCs. What many players love about GR pushing on the Barbarian is the ability to control the flow of the map. As it is now, the whirlwind seasonal power is the only means we will have of accomplishing this with HoTA. Once the upcoming season ends, people who played the HoTA build will likely lose interest going forward, unless the above issues are addressed.

As for the Tempest Rhythm ability, I think this is a bit overpowered for group play, and lacks creativity. The power is essentially a plain damage buff, which doesn’t feel like a seasonal theme. I feel this power should do something more distinct and special, given its name. For example, it could cause a tremor, causing enemies to shake uncontrollably and take more damage from YOUR physical skills. Another possibility would be to gain the effects of wrath of berserker at all times, and to double its effects while active. Another possibility would be to have enemies within its radius to be sucked into a tempest of rage, causing them to take damage based on current life, or based on recent critical hits (similar to bloodshed). An even more exciting power would be to isolate a rare elite enemy after casting wrath of the berserker, pushing and holding all other enemies enemies away for a duration. This would be useful for solo builds such as frenzy, that have strong single target damage. This could also synergize well in group play and open up another new way to play support barbarian, for the duration of the season.

I welcome you all to share your thoughts on this. I sincerely hope the HoTA shockwave ability is left in its current power level, and that we see some permanent changes to make the build capable of using this power effectively in solo play during Season 27. It is very exciting to see the Barbarian finally enter the arena for group DPS as well. It is good for the game to have multiple viable DPS options (with comparable power level) in group settings. This being said, I think the number of boss killer roles available currently is a great example of this, as long as witch doctors are not one shotting bosses as soon as they spawn.

As a final note, the whirlwind pulling power is rendered useless when encountering the “Waller” affix. If the power had the ability to instantly break down walls, it would feel much better to use.

I’d like to thank you for your time and consideration of these ideas. I have high hopes for the Barbarian in Season 27. Keep up the good work. The patch updates are definitely exciting and have me stoked to play the upcoming season.

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I agree about the restriction of having CoTA enabled to have the power of Remorseless is a bad thing for the smoothness of the LOD HoTA gameplay.

Historically, Remorseless was created to help IK HoTA without Raekor HoTA benefiting from Remorseless because Raekor was already strong at that time. Today, Raekor HoTA no longer exists. It would be possible to remove the restrictions on Remorseless.

In your idea you seem to forget that CoTA is not only there for the restriction of Remorseless. It’s also a 50% reduction in damage and a major source of fury, especially if you’re making big monster packs where you’re not going to get the return of the 25 furys of the Gavel of Judgment. As a player of the Immortal King set, I can’t play without CoTA even though I don’t like the behavior of pets. Maybe in the LOD version you can do without it, I don’t know. To be tested.

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Really like the barb powers. Agree the last one lacks creativity.

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In LOD, you can simply wear aquila to compensate for the DR loss, and use the weapons master passive for fury.

In IK, you can use weapons master as well, but I agree. The “Immortal” set should have toughness baked into it somewhere. Perhaps the more tangible fix for now is to remove CoTA from Remorseless, so that LoD can thrive. Would probably require a full rework to address IK. In my opinion, IK should be a devoted hammer of the ancients set…with a larget multiplier and some toughness included in the set. Perhaps a cheat death even (to compliment the name “Immortal”).

As I added in to the original post, the other fix that simply addresses the seasonal power, would be to make the shockwave also pull enemies in a pixel to you. This would certainly make the whirlwind and shockwave powers much more even for pushing HoTA.

Additionally, requiring CoTA forces a specific playstyle. The option to use it would still be there. I would like to see the option to not use it.

I see CoTA as a way to ease into the build and become familiar with it. Being able to drop CoTA for high end pushes would make a world of difference. Since the meta pushing build uses whirlwind anyway (to stack stricken, proc zodiac, aggros mobs, and position stomps), the shoulders on LoD are easily replaced by mantle of channeling, giving nice little bursts of damage as you begin your dps rotations, and a bit more protection from dangerous bosses as you stack stricken.

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I agree that CoTA is more restrictive than anything else in terms of gameplay. But there is a big problem of managing fury without it.

I did a quick test here :

First run : LOD version with Cindercoat and just 30% reduce all resource costs + Weapon master passive
Second run : IK HoTA, 0% reduce all resource costs + Weapon master passive

Both versions have fury issues.

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I am finding in the classes i am testing, esp barb, using WW my resource fury is doing good and then it is drained completely, and after a few secs it is back up again, dunno if it is server lag , but same happens to wiz and monk. For barb I test it in the echoing nightmare, and ww around, hitting wrath and shout, and find fury drained.

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Well, the trick is density. Dropping CoTA is specifically for fishing for a PB. If you’re rage flipping or whirl pulling the whole map, and only fighting in density, it works perfectly. Same goes for adds on the boss fight. If you get what you need for a big clear on the boss fight, fury management is fine with weapons master alone. Keeping CoTA would be the play for those who are not fishing so hard.

I got several 150 clears without using the fury shoulders and using wep master + aquila in season 25. In this season, you could take rage flip over bloodshed, because you had the deathblow for AOE, and the ring of fire to handle the rest. It was very functional as long as I fought in density.

In that season, I was forced to use aquila because it was simply unreasonable to try to pull the map together with the ancients present. I had full aquila uptime while dpsing, because I was only doing so in density. I also had extra protection while pulling from mantle of channeling, and had some big deathblow hits on certain mob types because of the mantle buff as well. Other people used this build and got 150 clears as well. Because of the shockwave, you could also time your hammers to get this mantle buff on your shockwave, especially during fire rotations. But this only works if you have rage flip to generate the density you need to manage fury.

If i got a single target boss without illusions from the pylon, i just had to spin to aim so that i was hitting at 3 or less monsters. But the point was to get a boss fight with lots of adds at the right moment. So if that happened, that wasn’t the run.

If they free up the restrictions, this also opens up possibilities for speedfarming builds. The idea here is to give more choice. If someone doesn’t know how to manage fury with the weapons master setup, they have the option to run CoTA.

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I dunno OP. This season with HotA hitting all around your toon you don’t get fury starved in packs. Outside of season theme you’ll run into fury starvation with big mobs/packs. If HotA hits too many enemies (outside of this season theme) your fury plummets super fast leaving you dead in the water. Especially in HC.

Personally I think IK HotA and LoD HotA are in quite good spots.

Now if the devs wanna look at an anything for Barbs make the Lut Socks power be part of the MotE set like it was meant to be 5-8 years ago. Then make Lut Socks give a monster CDR to WotB.

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As I said in my previous comment, I played the build this way in season 25, using mantle or channeling and weapons master. My aquila uptime was such that i did not use a cheat death passive. I was playing in hardcore as well. I did end up swapping to fury shoulders only because i was able to get such insane leads with the ring of fire, that i didn’t necessarily need a perfect boss fight scenario to get rank 1. On my rank 1 clear end of season, I did end up getting Erethon with a power pylon and no illusionists, so I would have had to despawn the adds if I were wearing mantle.

There was no omni hota. I simply played maps that had enough density for me to manage my fury. Part of this is that you have to be using whirlwind dust devils for this to work, which is also a requirement for high end pushing. Without it, killing the boss in a GR 150 takes ages. When you’re spinning with dust devils through the packs as you build massive density with rage flip, you maintain aquila level fury. Once the big pull thins out, its time to move anyway. I wouldn’t suggest this change if I didn’t spend the time confirming that the build functions this way.

And again, this is to have the option to drop it, so that people can play the build with more variation. Removing the requirement doesn’t ruin the build for anyone. It just opens up possibilities for those with more experience pushing the build to its limits. This change also doesn’t require much effort. Removing one skill from Remorseless, or simply changing the word from “And” to “Or” is very simple. Also making the fear on hit and immobilize on hit of Echoing Fury and Stone Gauntlets a 50% chance to roll is another very easy change.

When you are trying to control the flow of the map, and you have three allies that aggro mobs to random locations, and one that casts a hard CC randomly (even more frequently when you have high sheet APS during echoing fury)…it is very difficult to use skills like ground stomp and rage flip. Currently, my way around this is to build up my pull very slowly using dust devils and ground stomp, without ancients present. Once i am happy with the density around me, and everything has intentionally high hard CC resist from over stomping, then I cast ancients and start DPSing, so they can’t ruin my pull by randomly charging the pixel and scattering it.

That’s not to mention that with 10 to 20% hard CC on two essential items, that I also have to leave the pull alone for a bit before I can get an effective ground stomp. One of my tricks, since my clears generally involve a great deal of fishing, is to wear Krede’s flame on my follower. This allows me to keep the ancients in my pocket in many scenarios, as the chance to have fire damage coming my way on a fields of misery map is considerably high.

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Wait so with a GR150 clear on HotA , you want the devs to spend time making HotA capable of doing a GR150 a different way :thinking:

Ummm you know there is only a small dev team on D3 and there is a heap of sets not capable of a GR150? Yet you want them looking at HotA…

Move along, these aren’t the droids you’re looking for.

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Well, no. Almost every streamer who tested the barbarian seasonal powers agreed that the hammer power should be strong enough to use over the whirlwind power.

I proposed two ways to address it, since increasing the damage doesn’t accomplish what they were trying to do. The solution that i know to be less likely (but better for the long term) is the one you are focusing on.

The solution of adding a pixel pull effect to the shockwave is probably more likely and easy to implement. They’d just have to basically add the witch doctor’s pull effect to the shockwave. Easy.

We just want the hammer specific seasonal buff to actually be appealing. That’s all. There’s plenty of ways to accomplish that. Just pointing out that increasing the damage won’t achieve that.

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It’s fun to be able to do stuff in different ways!

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Wait… you think the dev team we have now is going to read all your ideas for HotA and the IK set changes and make these changes for this PTR season.

Seriously you think that will happen? Look at their past history of PTR changes. They tweak numbers and slightly modify skills. Slightly modify.

You’re asking them to make radical changes to the Sanctified Power, IK set and Remorseless. All during a PTR.

Do you really think the devs will do that?

If shockwave power is broken they will tweak the numbers or change how many HotA stacks trigger it. Period.

You may think I’m not liking your thoughts and idea on making HotA better. Well actually I do like em but… ask for these changes in a Barb or General forum thread for S28. S27 is too far down the rabbit hole for the devs to make your requests ever come to see the light of day.

Sorry if I sound like a (insert insult here) but you have to be realistic about ideas you post in the PTR.

Heck if you want a pull effect, why not just ask the devs if the shockwave could fling the monsters up in the air and land on you. It could be simpler for the devs to do and might get across the line.

I look forward to reading your great ideas for S28 in the Barb or General Forums.

Peace Out :v:

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I don’t expect anything. Just putting ideas out there. Sharing my observations based on what I’ve experienced trying out all the powers. Of course I know the remorseless and ik changes are very unlikely and unrealistic to actually expect. But putting the ideas out there at any point in time could result in a change some day, or maybe not. Either way, it’s all good.

I was proposing multiple different ways for them to accomplish what they were trying to by buffing the shockwave. Simply adding a pixel pull effect to the shockwave would do that and would require just as much effort as they put into the other pixel pull effects.

I’ve spent a lot of my time in the past testing things on PTR, but this is the first time I’ve actually made any kind of post or effort to contribute. My only goal here is to put the ideas out there and share my observations. What comes of it is totally fine, and I don’t mind where things are now. Pushing with the whirlwind pull power is fun. And smashing 150s sub 10 min consistently with hota tk is also fun.

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Not to mention the sanctified powers, it is true that CoTA and the restrictions on Remorseless lock down the possibilities with the LOD and IK versions.

For the LOD, it’s simple as Kozmik said. The restrictions on Remorseless are removed and the LOD is released. More possibility and smoother gameplay. For the management of fury, I redid a test with a little more reduction in the costs of all resources (30% from Cindercoat + 10% from paragon + 8% from shoulder) and it’s better.

For IK, it’s more difficult. CoTA is mandadory for the 6p, 50% damage reduction and for the generation of fury. In terms of fun, CoTA does not bring anything on the contrary it complicates the creation of monster packs. CoTA even prevents playing with Aughild’s set. More changes would be needed to make the build viable without CoTA.

Like this for example:

  • 2p : while Wrath of the Berserker is active, all damage taken is reduced by 50%

  • 4p : Reduces the cooldown of Wrath of the Berserker and Ground Stomp by 3 seconds for every 10 spent with an attack

  • 6p : While Wrath of the Berserker is active, the Barbarian deals 4000% increased damage

  • Remorseless : Hammer of the Ancients deals 600–800% increased damage and returns 25 Fury if it hits 4 or more enemies :sweat_smile: .

But hey, I have a secret dream for IK. I would like him to be the new set that carries Seismic Slam. If this dream comes true, there would still be competition with LOD, lol.

As Bastich said, HoTA builds are in a good situation so Blizzard isn’t going to take care of it.

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