Barbarian Players, what do you think about these changes?

[clueso-2790]

I am currently in the process of creating feedback in visual form, but before I post the final version of it, I would like to hear your feedback on the changes that I propose, so I eventually can make certain adjustments to it in the final version.

So let me hear your thoughts.

==================================================

Raekor Set and related Legendaries:

These changes are inspired by a suggestion from community member and Barbarian Expert Free, who in one of his feedback threads suggested these changes.

I don’t know if the damage multipliers on Skular’s and the 300’s Spear are enough, but that is what the feedback is for.

The 1000% increased Furious Charge damage could be moved from the 4piece bonus to the 6piece bonus (and buffed appropriately, in my illustration it got buffed to 10000%, but that number can get adjusted) to disable the IK6 R4 build (which uses 6 pieces of the IK set and 4 pieces of Raekor to massively damage FC), which makes balancing the IK a lot more difficult.

He also suggested to let Raekor only buff Ancient Spear - Boulder Toss (and of course Furious Charge itself) to give the set a more distinct theme. Boulder Toss could also get buffed by Skular’s Salvation and The Three Hundredth Spear.

While on the Topic of Furious Charge, there is one other minor change that could be useful:

The base rune of Furious Charge and all runes could store up 2 Charges instead of 1 (Dreadnought still storing 3), to make Furious Charge more appealing to other builds.

Alternatively or in addition to the changes of the Raekor set, the IK set could only buff Call of the Ancients and Hammer of the Ancients, which would also disable the IK6R4 build, but it would allow for finally noticeably buffing the IK set.

Remorseless could increase HotA Damage from 250% to 400%.

Instead of having a 12 second cooldown, Leap could have 2 Charges with a recharge time of 10 seconds for each charge. This gives more mobility to Leap and makes the skill more interesting for other builds that are not LeapQuake.

The currently unpopular ‘Launch’ rune could get redesigned to give a 3rd Charge, instead of dealing damage at the point of origin.

For the changes to Leap to work appropriately with the Might of the Earth set, Lut Socks could be redesigned to give Leap the Launch rune and reduce the cooldown of Leap by 50%, maybe even 60%, which would cause this changes to have 0 downsides for the LeapQuake build and even make it more flexible.

The 10 enemies limit on the Bracers of Destruction could be removed.

Earthquake damage increased from 250% to 500%.

==================================================

So what are your thoughts on these proposed changes?

Any adjustments or improvements you could think of?

Ty!

[chris-11418]

I like where your going with this but I don’t think you thought of all the downsides to these changes and original concerns of these builds in their current state.

I will start at the top for clarity
-Removing the charge multiplier on raekor 4p to the 6p instantly kills hybrid charge because it is losing a 1000x multiplier. This multiplier needs to stay on the 4p.
-Moving that same multiplier to the 6p does very little for your new spear 6p raekor build. All that damage will come from spear anyways. Charge will only be used for aggroing and 6p stacks for spear nukes.

-To makes thing easy here. Stay with me!!! If this full raekor/spear build doesn’t use HOTA anymore then Bracers of the first men will only benefit IK HOTA going forward. There would be no reason the kill hybrid charge because its “hard to balance” anymore. You would be able to buff the bracers and remoresless now in order to buff only IK HOTA. On top on this if only hybrid charge needed a buff you have two ways to do it. Either buff 4p raekor or vile ward shoulders. If both IK hota and charge needed buffs the change IKs 6p bonus. So many options this way.

Then the biggest concern which you did not address at all. Non of your changes address wall charging. Anytime charge and raekor stacks are a thing this will be a problem. Blizzard needs to fix this or change 6p raekor completely in order for any version of this build to function properly.

[clueso-2790]

@chris-11418

I like where your going with this

Thanks!

@chris-11418

but I don’t think you thought of all the downsides to these changes and original concerns of these builds in their current state.

Yes, I am aware that I might have missed something, which is why I am asking for feedback.

@chris-11418

-Removing the charge multiplier on raekor 4p to the 6p instantly kills hybrid charge because it is losing a 1000x multiplier. This multiplier needs to stay on the 4p.

This is intended.

Otherwise it would make balancing the IK basically impossible.

An alternative (or addition) to that would be to only let the IK set buff HotA and CotA while both WotB and CotA are active.

@chris-11418

-Moving that same multiplier to the 6p does very little for your new spear 6p raekor build. All that damage will come from spear anyways. Charge will only be used for aggroing and 6p stacks for spear nukes.

The damage to FC on the 6piece set, from Vile Ward and also from Standoff can be increased, maybe even significantly.

@chris-11418

There would be no reason the kill hybrid charge because its “hard to balance” anymore. You would be able to buff the bracers and remoresless now in order to buff only IK HOTA. On top on this if only hybrid charge needed a buff you have two ways to do it. Either buff 4p raekor or vile ward shoulders. If both IK hota and charge needed buffs the change IKs 6p bonus. So many options this way.

There are indeed many ways to do that, which is why I was saying there are several alternatives aside from making the IK set a HotA + CotA only set (which would kill the Hybrid build).

If the hybrid build would be kept, then buffing Vile Ward (and maybe even Standoff) would keep the hybrid build…

… however, you then had to massively buff Remorseless, the Bracers of the First Men and/or Gavel of Judgement, which might overbuff some HotA Lod builds (but I currently don’t know how powerful these are, so that might not be a problem).

@chris-11418

Then the biggest concern which you did not address at all. Non of your changes address wall charging. Anytime charge and raekor stacks are a thing this will be a problem. Blizzard needs to fix this or change 6p raekor completely in order for any version of this build to function properly.

It would be hard to address this issue in the format that I am aiming for (which is a bit more visual).

==============================

But thanks for your feedback!

I take it into consideration and contemplate about it.

[chris-11418]

Yes I have. Was there something to needed to point out or any added knowledge?

[chris-11418]

@clueso-2790

This is intended.

Otherwise it would make balancing the IK basically impossible.

An alternative (or addition) to that would be to only let the IK set buff HotA and CotA while both WotB and CotA are active.

This is what concerns me. If you remove HOTA from raekor there is no reason to run the HOTA bracers anymore. There is also no reason to kill hybrid charge because it is not impossible to balance anymore with spear in place of HOTA.

For simplicity
-Make raekor a nuke trash killer but keep 4p multiplier of charge on 4p. Multiplier can be adjusted.
-buff IK hota with bracers of first men, remorsless, gavel of judgement, or fury of the ancients.
-buff hybrid charge with raekor 4p or vile wards. Buffing 4p really does nothing for your raekor spear build as charge will have zero supporting legendaries to support charge damage). An example of this is the 10k multiplier to ww on the wastes set. WW damage might as well not even be there.
-Buff both charge and IK hota with IK 6p

You don’t need to do either of those and you don’t have to kill hybrid charge for the same effect.

[clueso-2790]

@chris-11418

If you remove HOTA from raekor there is no reason to run the HOTA bracers anymore. There is also no reason to kill hybrid charge because it is not impossible to balance anymore with spear in place of HOTA.

The bracers still would be viable for IK HotA and LoD HotA, at least that was my line of thinking.

@chris-11418

For simplicity
-Make raekor a nuke trash killer but keep 4p multiplier of charge on 4p. Multiplier can be adjusted.
-buff IK hota with bracers of first men, remorsless, gavel of judgement, or fury of the ancients.
-buff hybrid charge with raekor 4p or vile wards. Buffing 4p really does nothing for your raekor spear build as charge will have zero supporting legendaries to support charge damage). An example of this is the 10k multiplier to ww on the wastes set. WW damage might as well not even be there.
-Buff both charge and IK hota with IK 6p

It in a way really seems like a balancing nightmare.

Skill specific bonuses on items should have never existed in the first place.

The only way to make this work properly would be to redesign the whole sets.

@chris-11418

You don’t need to do either of those and you don’t have to kill hybrid charge for the same effect.

Blizzard has killed builds before, like the Etched Sigil-proc builds (which was not a good thin imo and they could have gone about it in another way), so they might do it again. I am not saying they should, btw.

What exactly is the appeal of the IK6 R4 Hybrid build? Is it that you can Charge around without interruption, aka spamming FC while dealing damage with it?

People will always complain when a build goes away, even if it is healthy for the game or 10 now build come up because of that, but in this case I might eventually abstain from making suggestions for IK and Raekor, since Reakor and the Charge build are not things I am too familiar with, though I have to say it has some appeal for me to still theory craft about it.

[chris-11418]

By removing HOTA from raekor 6p you eliminate most of the balancing nightmares.
The only things left that overlap are the IK 6p bonus which can stay as is and the 4p bonus on raekor which really only effects hybrid charge.
Take the easy route so it is easy for blizzard to see the benefits.

@clueso-2790

@chris-11418

If you remove HOTA from raekor there is no reason to run the HOTA bracers anymore. There is also no reason to kill hybrid charge because it is not impossible to balance anymore with spear in place of HOTA.

The bracers still would be viable for IK HotA and LoD HotA, at least that was my line of thinking.

I was referring to the removal of bracers from your reakor/spear build.
Of course they would still be viable for IK hota and LOD hota. Now they could be used to directly buff both. No longer would raekor be involved in the discussion to buff or not.

They literally just need to change Hota damage to spear. Then buff spears supporting legendaries and be done with it. That solves everything except wall charging.

[Rage-13139]

@clueso-2790

For the changes to Leap to work appropriately with the Might of the Earth set, Lut Socks could be redesigned to give Leap the Launch rune and reduce the cooldown of Leap by 50%, maybe even 60%, which would cause this changes to have 0 downsides for the LeapQuake build and even make it more flexible.

Pretty sure this would not work as written. Currently, you Leap 3x and then Slam. So in your version, each Leap would eat one of your “Leap charges”, and then you’d have to cooldown all 3 charges. Let’s say the Socks add 50% CDR to Leap, and Leap’s new base CD is 10 seconds. If you also carried the “regular” 33.33% CDR, Leap’s cooldown would be 10 * 0.5 * 0.67 = 3.35 seconds, per charge, meaning you’d need to gain 10.05 seconds of “cooldown offset” via spending Fury. But to do that, you’d need to spend about 300 Fury, which is impossible. To make this actually work, you need to get that “offset” amount down to about 5 seconds.

If Socks gave 75% CD to Leap, it’d be 10 * 0.25 * 0.67 = 1.675 seconds, per stack, 5.025 seconds total, which would be pretty much the minimum workable amount- any less would be horrible.

But: why? Too much effort to redesign something that already works great in order to make it do more or less the same thing. No thanks. All Leapquake really needs is more damage added to the 6-piece bonus.

@clueso-2790

The 10 enemies limit on the Bracers of Destruction could be removed.

Better to just add more damage to MOTE 6 or Fury of the Vanished Peak. Removing the target limit is a lot more unpredictable. Besides, it adds an interesting element to the gameplay.

@clueso-2790

Earthquake damage increased from 250% to 500%.

Nah. Just add damage to MOTE 6.

@chris-11418

They literally just need to change Hota damage to spear. Then buff spears supporting legendaries and be done with it. That solves everything except wall charging.

Yes, agreed.

And wall charging, I think, is pretty much un-fixable, at least in the sense of getting rid of it entirely. But, I think you could disincentivize it by changing the way Raekor stacks are acquired. Instead of one charge per use of FC, it could be one per enemy hit. This would make it more advantageous to stay in open areas where more mobs can congregate, rather than using the speed boost of banging your head on a wall (VC has this disincentive in the form of Vile Ward).

[ShadowDragon-17769]

I will simply quote the person with the #1 worldwide solo bsrb clear in era 11.

@darkpatator-2265

The highest charge clear ever achieved, my 135 from last era didnt featured any wall charging, just in case

The point is some think that all charge builds (hybrid or R6) require wall-charging to be effective. This is not the case.

[clueso-2790]

@Rage-13139

Pretty sure this would not work as written. Currently, you Leap 3x and then Slam. So in your version, each Leap would eat one of your “Leap charges”, and then you’d have to cooldown all 3 charges. Let’s say the Socks add 50% CDR to Leap, and Leap’s new base CD is 10 seconds. If you also carried the “regular” 33.33% CDR, Leap’s cooldown would be 10 * 0.5 * 0.67 = 3.35 seconds, per charge, meaning you’d need to gain 10.05 seconds of “cooldown offset” via spending Fury. But to do that, you’d need to spend about 300 Fury, which is impossible. To make this actually work, you need to get that “offset” amount down to about 5 seconds.

If Socks gave 75% CD to Leap, it’d be 10 * 0.25 * 0.67 = 1.675 seconds, per stack, 5.025 seconds total, which would be pretty much the minimum workable amount- any less would be horrible.

It is the first iteration of a baseline approach.

I also toyed with the idea of reducing the base Recharge Time of Charge of Leap to 8 seconds and letting the 4piece bonuses of the MotE set reduce it to 4-5 seconds and then let the Lut Socks give it anywhere between 40-60% CDR to make this work.

@Rage-13139

But: why? Too much effort to redesign something that already works great in order to make it do more or less the same thing. No thanks. All Leapquake really needs is more damage added to the 6-piece bonus.

Because it makes Leap more useful and appealing to other builds and also gives much better mobility.

@Rage-13139

@clueso-2790

The 10 enemies limit on the Bracers of Destruction could be removed.

Better to just add more damage to MOTE 6 or Fury of the Vanished Peak. Removing the target limit is a lot more unpredictable. Besides, it adds an interesting element to the gameplay.

If anything else than removing the limit just to keep the effect “special” (special just for the sake of being special does not by default mean that it is good imo), then I would invert this.

Seismic Slam deal xxx% increased damage and an additional xxx% increased damage to the first 10 enemies it hits.

@Rage-13139

@clueso-2790

Earthquake damage increased from 250% to 500%.

Nah. Just add damage to MOTE 6.

Works both way, but this here would buff LoD builds as well.

[chris-11418]

Dude wall charging is done for the raekor hota not hybrid charge. There is two builds. One that uses charge as a support function and one that uses it for actual damage. That video was of the hybrid version not the build we are referring to. There is a reason he didn’t use wall charging you see.

[Apache222-1831]

Two thumbs up for the effort! I like a lot of the changes.

[Phoenix-212393]

I like most of it. But only buffing one rune boulder toss is not what I wanted to see. I care more for freedom of choosing

[Free-1746]

@clueso-2790

It is the first iteration of a baseline approach.

I also toyed with the idea of reducing the base Recharge Time of Charge of Leap to 8 seconds and letting the 4piece bonuses of the MotE set reduce it to 4-5 seconds and then let the Lut Socks give it anywhere between 40-60% CDR to make this work.

I can really appreciate the creativity, but MOTE doesn’t need a fix. All it needs is more damage in the set bonus and it will be on par (or very nearly) with Rend. So would Pro-Slam. We don’t need to mess with Leap’s cooldowns or anything else. We don’t need to add more complexity into what is a simple build that works.

Really, the simplest fix is often the best.

The problem with the Raekor set is more complex.

If you buff the Charge damage, you make Vile Charge stronger–that’s fine, but that would also depend on potential buffs to the IK set. The bigger problem is the global spender multiplier in the 6-piece bonus. If that gets buffed too high, Raekor becomes better at everything that spends Fury; in the past, this resulted in it becoming the better HOTA build, and in the theme- and skill-specific world of D3 builds, that’s not a good thing.

But again, the simplest fix is likely the best. If we want to get Raekor back to it’s original design of using Charge to build stacks and dropping Boulder Toss for nukes, all we need to do is buff Three Hundredth Spear and Skular’s Salvation. That’s it. Increase the multipliers on those two items–and yes, they would have to be BIG increases–and now you have a viable Charge/Toss build.

@Rage-13139

And wall charging, I think, is pretty much un-fixable, at least in the sense of getting rid of it entirely. But, I think you could disincentivize it by changing the way Raekor stacks are acquired. Instead of one charge per use of FC, it could be one per enemy hit.

Agreed on both points. Wall-charging is likely a function of the game engine and not easily removed. Changing the mechanic to accrue stacks the way Rage described is a good idea. This is the only mechanical change I support.

So, yeah, I like the creativity, but I’m not a fan of complicated mechanical overhauls. They’re unnecessary and unlikely to happen, especially when all we need for better build parity is more damage on a few set and item bonuses. That’s it, really.

If you want to do a visual mock-up, check out the Balance post I made in GD and use the numbers we plugged into that.

@ShadowDragon-17769

The point is some think that all charge builds (hybrid or R6) require wall-charging to be effective. This is not the case.

Two things here. First, I want to remind everyone that ShadowDragon is another alt of MicroRNA. He’s been using his various alts to mass-flag posts.

Second, Dark couldn’t wall-charge the RG because it’s Crusader King, and unless you can spawn him in a very narrow tunnel, wall-charging isn’t a viable strategy. Vile Charge really only uses wall-charging against certain RGs. The build ideally fishes for RGs and maps where you can pin the RG against a wall and wall-charge like crazy; if Dark had gotten a better RG in a corridor, he would have gotten a faster clear.

135 wasn’t the cap for the build. It’s just where the pushing stopped.

This isn’t the first time you’ve spread misinformation about builds. In the future, refrain from doing so.

[clueso-2790]

@Free-1746

But again, the simplest fix is likely the best. If we want to get Raekor back to it’s original design of using Charge to build stacks and dropping Boulder Toss for nukes, all we need to do is buff Three Hundredth Spear and Skular’s Salvation. That’s it. Increase the multipliers on those two items–and yes, they would have to be BIG increases–and now you have a viable Charge/Toss build.

I saw you talking about this in you thread I linked in the original post.

You made some suggestions like to increase the damage of Remorseless to 1100% or something like that, so that the IK didn’t had to buffed instead (because that would overbuff the IK6 R4 build) which I thought was a bit too much on a single legendary.

I know there is the 400%*3 damage buff on Triumvirate (Wizard item), but at least there the 1200% is shown as 400%*3, so I tried to go another way and make the IK set specific to CotA and HotA, and Raekor specifically for Charge and Boulder Toss, to create a more distinct identity for these sets.

You are right that your proposal of adding a massive, massive damage multiplier on legendaries is easier. My suggestions are just another way to go about it, based on personal preferences.

@Free-1746

If you want to do a visual mock-up, check out the Balance post I made in GD and use the numbers we plugged into that.

I read your post and I even put a link to it in my original post, and I also too it into consideration when I came up with the numbers I used for the visual mockups.

We don’t all have to pull on the same robe. Any changes that the devs could do would be welcome, whatever path they choose to take (assuming it is a good one).

@Free-1746

I can really appreciate the creativity, but MOTE doesn’t need a fix. All it needs is more damage in the set bonus and it will be on par (or very nearly) with Rend. So would Pro-Slam. We don’t need to mess with Leap’s cooldowns or anything else.

I admit it is a more of a nice issue, since it is mostly an issue for LoD build players like myself. In a way it similar to the Teleport situation on the Wizard. Both Leap and Teleport would fee much better, more flexible and mobile to use if they had Charges instead of a CD and lower rechange times…

… though on the Wizard this issue is much more problematic, since the Wizard doesn’t has a build that is revolving around Teleport and only the Illusionist Passive.

I agree with you that this issue does not have the highest priority, but not mentioning it also would not feel right for me.

[MicroRNA-1507]

@Free-1746

MicroRNA. He’s been using his various alts to mass-flag posts.

I have not done that. As you may know, Blizzard keeps track of your IP address and physical location (check your json file). This information is not available when querying someone else’s json file. I would not jeopardize my forum account by engaging in that type of CoC-violating behavior. If posts are being flagged highly, I am not the reason. Also, the forum moderators review posts before a sanction.

To view your json file, follow MissCheetah’s directions that are described here:
https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/d3/t/trust-levels-how-to-check/87/2

For additional relevant information see posts from MissCheetah and myself:

https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/d3/t/can-flagging-be-weaponised/17383/23
https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/d3/t/can-flagging-be-weaponised/17383/39
https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/d3/t/can-flagging-be-weaponised/17383/198
https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/d3/t/can-flagging-be-weaponised/17383/218

[MissCheetah-1661]

@MicroRNA-1507

Also, the forum moderators review posts before a sanction.

You know I am not a moderator right? We have been over this a lot. I only have green text. That is it. If I was a mod a lot of people would have been smacked with a spatula long ago.

That said, yes, Blizzard does know exactly what IP address someone is using and how many accounts are linked to it. There are other ways too, but I won’t go there.

If someone has been suspended and feels it is the result of abusive reporting by one person, include that in your appeal. You do get an email when you get forum suspended telling you which post was the final straw. I think it has appeal instructions in it or at least a link to the support site.

I was actually forum banned a month or two ago from the WoW forums because someone did not like a factual post about how stuff worked, and decided to use alts to report me. The mod messed up and hammered me instead of the abuser. It got fixed pretty fast and the other person has not been back, that I have seen.

[MicroRNA-1507]

@MissCheetah-1661

You know I am not a moderator right?

I know. I did not say that you are a forum moderator. I used your posts to illustrate your MVP knowledge about how the forums operate.

@MissCheetah-1661

If someone has been suspended and feels it is the result of abusive reporting by one person, include that in your appeal. You do get an email when you get forum suspended telling you which post was the final straw. I think it has appeal instructions in it or at least a link to the support site.

That sounds like good advice. I have never been forum suspended or had a post stay hidden (I had one post hidden with the system e-mail, but the moderator determined it was ok and unhid it/removed the flags after a few hours.)

My point was it is not appropriate to level false accusations to name and shame. I simply am not guilty of mass-flagging of posts.

[Apache222-1831]

Im a fan of giving lut socks a 500% damage modifier to EQ. They generally dont mess with skills. I wouldnt mind seeing more than a flat damage boost. Maybe getting every leap rune in the set? Nothing crazy.

[Rage-13139]

That’s a bad idea. For one thing, adding another 6x multiplier would make Leapquake way overpowered. For another, getting every Leap rune would give you Toppling Impact, which is annoying as hell since it screws up your density pulls.

I’ll say it yet again: all Leapquake needs is for MOTE 6 to go to 50,000% or so. Then it’ll be competitive with Rend, and Slam builds will be improved as well-- all with just one change.

Look, Dev time is not an unlimited quantity. Any time they spend making changes to one item or build is time they spend ignoring another item or build. There are so many legit builds for so many classes that need work, and for as many of them to get attention as possible, changes need to be as streamlined and simple as possible.

That’s why Free and I cooked up this set of numbers, which with just 6 changes (actually, now it would be just 5, since Tribes has been buffed), gives us several more viable builds, without making anything super-overpowered.