2.6.6 Barbarian Community Buff Proposal

General Discussion
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UPDATE 7/3:

We’ve just released a massive update to the proposal that addresses cross-class comparisons and offers additional buff proposals. Every section has been updated with new information in BLUE text so you can tell the original bits from the new bits.

Check it out: [b]Barbarian Buff Proposal on Strikingly

We’re very excited as this completes our project and offers a complete vision of the Barbarian class!

As always, your feedback and support are much appreciated! And please spread the word: Tweet, email, and chat with your favorite streamers, YouTubers, and the Diablo devs and CMs (on Twitter) and let them know this proposal has been updated!

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Hi folks.

While Season 17 brought awesome buffs to LON and some classes, Barbs were completely left out of the loop. Nevalistis acknowledged this and made a post about it:

To put it simply - we just couldn’t get to Barb for this patch. We know there’s areas to improve for Barb, and we want to do that right. We’ve got a working list of some of the more popular/most desired builds or changes you guys want to see and we’re taking a look at options for the future.

No ETA on that, but we are looking at it. :slight_smile:

But the Barb community here on the Bnet forums hasn’t been sleeping on this. In fact, we’ve been hard at work on a MASSIVE, detailed, and carefully calculated buff proposal–and I’m here to unveil that to everyone:

[b]Barbarian Buff Proposal on Strikingly

The ideas presented in this pitch would fix long-standing issues with sets and skills, increase parity between major builds, elevate some minor builds to major status, and buff LoN and Primary skill builds to minor, and potentially major, status. It would also increase build diversity by offering Slam- and Avalanche-centric options for MOTE-based builds, a two-handed option for Rend builds, and more legitimate choices skill selection.

We sincerely hope that Community Managers and developers read our work and take our requests into consideration. Check that out and spread the word!

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Glad you re posted this excellent topic OP!

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Thanks for getting this thread going on the new forums! Let’s keep the momentum going to get those much needed barb buffs!

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hopefully the barb will get the TLC we truly need!

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I’ve said this (or something akin to this) in the previous thread, but I truly hope barbarians get the buffs (at least 1/3 of them) that they yearn for before this year ends.

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Okay, so the new thumbs-up icon is a heart? Got it. I’m presuming being unable to click it 100 times for this suggestion is a bug in the new forum software, right? :wink:

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I hope dev see the proposal link, that’s well summarize for them :+1:

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Glad to see you reposted this. Likening and bumping again for the great work you two put into this. Got to love the barb community here!!

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Haha, pretty good @Meteorblade!

So far there is a new attitude in this forum.

Hope it stays that way!

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Thanks for the support, everyone. We really appreciate it!

Our proposed buffs would make Barb better in all game modes–Normal, Hardcore, Season, non-Season, you name it. We put a lot of time and effort into it and we appreciate your continued support and assistance in keeping this front and center.

2.6.6 will be here before we know it. Fingers crossed we get something good!

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Have never played the barb other than to do the set dungeons. However playing with others that favor the barb Even I agree it needs attention.

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I know I talked about this in the Rapid Fire thread, but I might post it here as well. I hope that is okay.

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In addition to the changes to Rend you mentioned in your proposal, I think it would be nice if the base effect of Rend also would increase the damage enemies under the influence of Rend take from all sources by 10-15% (multiplicative, not additive), since it would make Rend more usefulnot just for the Whirlwind set, but also in general.

The Mutilate rune could increase that bonus further or it could be redesigned to increase the duration of Rend.

That simple change would make Rend decently appealing and useful for all kinds of builds, since enemies would not just be effected by the bleed, but also take increased damage from other skills.

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If the Barbarin skill Leap (which is a personal favorite of mine) had 2 charges by default instead of a cooldown, it would give the skill more flexibility since it would allow you to use Leap as both as a tool for engagement, as well as a means for escaping, which would make the skill more useful for other builds besides MotE.

With 2 default charges you could use Leap to jump into a group of enemies an then when you take too much damage, you could use it a second time to escape.

Eventually a rune on Leap (preferably Launch or Impact could be redesigned to give a third charge),

The difference between default charges and the Lut Socks version of Leap is that the Lut Socks only allow a 2 second window in which you can leap into a group of enemies and then eventually retreat to a save area when the situation becomes too dangerous, while with having 2 charges of Leap (or even 3 with a rune), the window between leaping into a group of enemies and an eventual retreat is much much larger which allows for more flexibility.

This tweak wouldn’t change much for MotE Barbarians since the gameplay would stay the same, because you still could Leap 3 times in a row and get the charges back quickly by spending Fury via Seismic Slam, but Leap would eventually find its way into some other builds as well.

The Lut Socks could be redesigned to give an additional change or to give Leap the effect of all runes (or maybe just one of them).

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Great topic, so true everything said.

But here is the catch: I don’t think Blizzard cares anymore. They abandoned this game so fast for … Diablo Immoral. If they would have provided a patch every 3 months containing new set balances and 1 leg item with a specific power for every class, it would have been great!

It would have kept the game alive and still something new to experiment with.

WW set is broken since like…the start of time… Why would they fix it now?

Incompetent Activation management destroyed Blizzard, you all know this is the true.

Blizzard doesn’t mean anymore games made of passion, support for their games for 10+ years, respect for loyal fans…

What remained now is a bunch of incompetent managers, who know only to get a coffee from machine slot, send an email, and of course ASK FOR MORE MONEY…

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I am looking forward to the next patch on the PTR. They already said they are aware of the buffs needed to Barbs and it just didn’t make it into the last patch. :sunglasses:

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Great work Free. Keep the fight going and cheers :beers:

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Here’s to hoping some/all of these go through. I know I speak for others but we would love to be able to do all the seasonal game functions (Rifts, Bounties, GRs, Ubers) without needing to roll a second character such as a dh or monk. Once again great work Free and Rage and lets hope for a great 2.6.6 patch and Season 18 and beyond!

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I hope at least a viable RGK build to barbarians… It will be fun for a next meta.

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Absolutely! Thanks for the feedback! I think we’ve discussed it before, but we avoided any alterations to base skills as that could create unintended consequences and would require far more work and testing that adjusting items. We feel that, for the most part, the skills themselves are fine, and that if we want to make them more powerful, we should address them via supporting legendaries.

I completely understand that feeling. And to be honest, we don’t know what kind of changes or buffs we’ll get. It could be that 2.6.6 drops (or even 2.6.7) and all we get are a few small numbers increases. That would be incredibly disappointing, and given the recent trend of patches, I’m bracing for the worst. Still, all we can do right now is keep our fingers crossed and try not to get too hyped.

Agreed! Hope we get some good stuff!

Thanks, Bastich! Right back at ya!

Thanks, Basshead! I’m right there with you–here’s hoping we can bring Barb up to the level of other classes in terms of power and efficiency!

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Update: Diablofans has covered our proposal on the front page.

Many thanks to Zenkiki for making it happen!

https://www.diablofans.com/

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I am glad to see all this mobilization for the barbarian :slight_smile: . Fingers crossed !

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