Barbarian Raekor + Weapon Throw Feedback

General Discussion
1

I’m reposting this from over in the Barb forum…

tldr:

Weapon Throw buffs are way too low. Increase the WT buff (not the AS buff) on either 300th or Arreat’s Law to +2000%, or on both to +700%.

Charge damage on Raekor 4 should be increased, to at least 3000%. This would make Vile Charge decent without being particularly powerful.

Raekor badly needs built-in mitigation, especially something that will help us stay alive at lower life, to utilize the “missing life damage bonus” of Raekor 4-piece.

R6 Boulder Toss may do great damage, or it may do terrible damage. Right now there are too many unknown variables to tell one way or the other.

The Raekor wall-charging problem might be fixed/mitigated… or it might not be fixed at all.

Ok, let’s go over the changes to Barb stuff…

1: Weapon Throw

As I said, a build that primarily deals damage with Weapon Throw is getting an 11 tier buff. That comes from damage increases to Arreat’s Law (previously 0%, now 200%, so a 3x multiplier) and 300th Spear (previously 60%, now 200%, so a 1.875x multiplier).

3 * 1.875 = 5.625x, and 1.17^11 = 5.623.

The buff is frankly just not enough. The only person I know who has ever recorded gameplay with this spec is DieHarder, and he (playing quite well) did GR 99 with about 3.5k paragon. So that 99 would now be 110. Could that mark be beaten with more fishing, better gear, more skill, etc? Of course, but even if all those factors allowed somebody to do 10 GRs better, which seems very unlikely to me, we’d still be talking about GR 120 at 3.5k paragon, which is, in a word, BAD.

So, there is room for AT LEAST another 10 GRs worth of damage, without the build becoming anything close to OP. Frankly, the most sensible thing to do would probably be to have either 300th or Arreat’s increase Ancient Spear by 200% and Weapon Throw by 2000%. This would give you 21 / 3 = 7x more damage, or another 12-13 GRs of push potential. (If you wanted to split that increase between both spears, you could take both to +700%, which gives roughly the same overall buff).

Even then, based on the clears we’ve actually seen, with the WT bonus increased on one of those items to 2000%, we’re still only talking about DH clearing roughly 123 at 3.5k paragon. Not OP. Definitely not OP!

Let me say it again: the Weapon Throw damage can increase A LOT without being OP.

2: Raekor 2-piece

Well, there’s no change here, which is kind of a problem. Whether here or in the 4-piece, I think we really expected to see some sort of damage mitigation. As it stands now, the build is going to be super glassy. But, let’s move on to the 4-piece, we can talk more about the mitigation issue there…

3: Raekor 4-piece

I’ll start by quoting the new set of bonuses in their entirety:

  • Legacy of Raekor (4-piece Bonus): Furious Charge gains the effect of every rune and deals 1000% increased damage. For every 1% Life you are missing, the damage of your Ancient Spear is increased by 2%.

So, the first part is identical to the old 4-piece bonus. I think that the Charge damage ought to be increased, at least doubled, to give Vile Charge a bump. Darkpatator did 135 with that build, with 10k paragon, back before the follower buff. And, he was a really excellent player- possibly the best ever at that particular build. Post follower buff, that 135 would probably be 138 or 139 with 10k paragon. Doubling the Charge damage (to 2000%) would bring you to about 143, and doubling it again (to 4000%) would still only take you to about 147-148 at 10k paragon, which is still weaker than either Rend or LOD HOTA, and comparable to Leapquake and Frenzy.

So: Charge damage on the 4-piece really ought to go to at least 3000%. After all, when are they going to touch this stuff again?

The second part of Raekor 4-piece is new. We now deal up to 3x damage with Ancient Spear, based on how much life we are missing. In actuality, you can really never get a full 3x, since that would mean you are missing 100% of your life, i.e. you’re dead.

What is really needed is a damage mitigation mechanic that allows you to stay at lower levels of life with relatively reduced risk. Perhaps they ought to incorporate a mechanic kind of like the one on the Necromancer ring Lornelle’s Sunstone, which gives you 0.95% damage mitigation for every 1% life missing. This still has significant problems, since it leaves you super vulnerable to one-shots, but at least it would be something to help you stay alive, while taking advantage of the damage bonus. If they really wanted to get fancy, they could combine the effects of Lornelle’s with the Wizard’s Force Armor rune for Energy Armor, which limits the amount of damage you can take from a single hit.

So: Some kind of additional damage mitigation is badly needed!

4: Raekor 6-piece

I’ll again quote the new bonuses:

  • Legacy of Raekor (6-piece Bonus): Hitting enemies with Furious Charge increases the damage of your next Ancient Spear by 5500% and causes it to release multiple spears from its target. This effect stacks and is consumed from each released spear. This can only consume a maximum of 5 stacks at a time.

The first part of this seems to show a notable change. Previously, we built up stacks by using Furious Charge. We got the stack, 1 per Charge, whether we hit enemies or not. Now, we increase the damage of AS when we hit enemies with Charge.

Hopefully, the way that works is that you get 1 stack per enemy hit. That will significantly disincentivize wall-charging, since it is hard to Charge through large numbers of enemies while still hitting a wall. Fingers crossed that this is implemented well!

The next thing to note is the “release multiple spears from its target”. It seems to indicate that when you consume stacks to cast Ancient Spear, not only is the damage increased, but multiple extra spears also radiate out from the point of impact. It’s currently unclear how many extra spears that is, but my guess is that it’s 1 per consumed stack, i.e. 5 extra spears. If so, then when hitting with Boulder Toss, your damage would actually be (55x/stack * 5 stacks) * 6 spears = 1650x additional damage!

But, it is really hard to tell how well this build will perform. For one thing, nobody has played a Boulder Toss spec in so long that it’s hard to establish any kind of baseline. The combined buffs to 300th Spear, Arreat’s, Skular’s, Raekor 4, and Raekor 6 look like they work out to MAYBE 1.875 * 3 * 1.5 * 2 * 6 = 101.25x, which is 29-30 GRs worth of extra damage. However, we also don’t know if those extra spears from Raekor 6 will proc AD and BR: Bloodshed. If not, the build will be significantly weaker. And even if Bloodshed and AD work great, it’s hard to know if 30 tiers of extra damage is too little, too much, or just right.

So: damage-wise, this build might be great, but also might be terrible!

5: Summary

Weapon Throw buffs are way too low. Increase the WT buff (not the AS buff) on either 300th or Arreat’s Law to +2000%, or on both to +700%.

Charge damage on Raekor 4 should be increased, to at least 3000%. This would make Vile Charge decent without being particularly powerful.

Raekor badly needs built-in mitigation, especially something that will help us stay alive at lower life, to utilize the “missing life damage bonus” of Raekor 4-piece.

R6 Boulder Toss may do great damage, or it may do terrible damage. Right now there are too many unknown variables to tell one way or the other.

The Raekor wall-charging problem might be fixed/mitigated… or it might not be fixed at all.

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2

Say no to more wallbanging charge mechanics.
They should rework the charges or something. Make every charge capable of giving a charge from 3-10.
Why make it boulder toss only? The same deal with inna monk pre nerf. It was fire allies or nothing, when pushing. Locking us to one ability… I don’t like it.
And the missing life… It is a strange thing to add.

Of all of these, I hope the charge mechanic is being looked at. Charging into a wall or in general spam it, just to use one throw is not ideal.

3

Like I said, they might have changed this significantly.

Where do you see “Boulder Toss only”? I mean, functionally, yes, Boulder Toss will be the best rune to pick. But the buffs to Raekor, Arreat’s, and 300th all work on all Ancient Spear runes, and the new Skular’s mostly does, too.

Well, if it works the way I hope it works, with you getting 1 stack per enemy hit, then the best way to play will be to gather a big blob of density, then charge through the whole thing, 1 time. You’ll build a ton of stacks, from all the enemies hit, and also a ton of Fury, via the Stamina rune. Then you’ll Boulder Toss the other end of the blob of mobs, to maximize Zei’s / No Escape. And, repeat. So, it hopefully won’t be “Charge spam”, it’ll be Charge - Toss - Charge - Toss.

4

Weapon throw seems to be kind of thrown in there like avalanche in lq. Not worth much. I like the syngery with AS & Boulder toss. Nfc how effective it wiil be. Can they change the wallbanging already? Fighting a rg in a little cubby richotting around for max efficiency is blah.

Some defense might work too?

5

I for the most part agree with your assessment.

This should be replaced with DR and the buffs to AS should find it place on Skular’s bracers.

I think 300th should have the buff. Based on my testing, Arreat’s has little to no impact with it Fury generating feature (as it currently stands). If Arreat’s could Ricochet or increase attack speed to WT or generate Fury minus the distance penalty (which is how I see it). Actually, I think "For every 1% Life you are missing, the damage of your Weapon Throw is increased by 2%" has a better place on Arreat’s.

I also do not want WT to be OP, but I would like it to be competitive with other barb builds, variety is the spice of life.

3 Likes
6

It’s not “thrown in there” at all- Raekor only buffs Ancient Spear damage, not Weapon Throw. So, for Raekor builds: not worth anything.

Well, hopefully, they did change it. Though I’m pretty sure they can’t get rid of it entirely without causing much more serious problems…

7

Perhaps. But it says nothing under the set. I would love either a rework, or let charge have a chance of 2-10 charges per attack, so we don’t need to charge x 10 before dealing damage.

It was on the skular. While you can pick any rune, this will be the push cause it will deal 100 percent more damage, like fire allies on inna monk. Not that huge of a deal if you don’t push hardcore, but still.
I would still love for charge mechanic to be reworked rather than needing to charge 5-10 times before being able to deal damage. Perhaps just let charge have a chance of getting you 2-10 stacks per charge…
And the life missing should be switched to some defensive instead. Each enemy hit up to 5 gives you toughness…

I just don’t know why they buff weapon throw. For a t16 fun build?

8

Uh, did you not notice that it’s worded differently now?

Before: “Every cast of Furious Charge grants a stacking effect that increases the damage of the next Fury-spending attack by 5500% per stack.”

Now: “Hitting enemies with Furious Charge increases the damage of your next Ancient Spear by 5500% and causes it to release multiple spears from its target.”

I mean, it’s unclear…

  • Maybe you get 1 (or more) stacks per enemy hit.

  • Maybe you only get 1 stack, no matter how many enemies you hit.

  • Maybe (like before), you still get 1 stack, and only one stack, when you cast Charge, whether or not you hit any enemies… because they just accidentally rewrote it when adding the Ancient Spear stuff, without intending to indicate any change.

Any of those could be true… but the wording is definitely different.

Yes, well, it’s only 100% more when you hit 5 or less enemies, so just for elites + bosses. But, I agree that there’s really no reason at all to have that effect apply only to Boulder Toss. I mean, why? It’s not like other Ancient Spear runes would be OP with 100% extra damage. BT is already the best by a wide margin. The other runes don’t need an additional nerf laid on top!

I guess. Some people really love that skill. But, they didn’t buff it enough, it’s still really wimpy. You could give it another 10x damage and it still wouldn’t be very powerful.

9

Instead of doing nothing real with weapon throw could I suggest giving a 300% damage boost to eathquake for lut socks instead? lol

1 Like
10

Agreed. Now is time to make or continue to break this skill. If this skill isn’t managed well, it will be as if the skill was never buffed at all, because no one will play it as per usual.

3 Likes
11

I get the concerns about Ancient Spear and Charge, pretty solid meaningful and makes sense. Those skills are empowered with the Set itself, and things may seem complicated before you play it yourself. PTR starts at March 10th and nothing gives you better clues of gameplay than attending to it first hand. Everything outside of it is just speculation.

Remember that PTR Raekor also offers damage bonus per percentage of health loss at its 4-piece bonus clearly, and this should be considered a sign of incorporating Shi Mizu with passives like Relentless, Berserker Rage and Juggernaut or some other wacky ways to stay on the edge. They simply dropped hints on which passives they want you to play with while molding a playstyle. Also Ancient Spear hits seem to be causing spears to be released by looking at the wording. This is simply thinly veiled scattered blows at its finest; one cast causing a small reaction.

Hitting enemies with Furious Charge increases the damage of your next Ancient Spear by 5500% and causes it to release multiple spears from its target.

What you’re asking developers is ignoring that element to give you a certain boost without player risking anything. I say just wait to play it first at the PTR where your feedback will be valid. So far the concern makes sense as it cause Barbarians to be daring but you wouldn’t know what players would discover during PTR.

The only thing I don’t get is, why on earth do you think some weak skill as Weapon Throw with the plain playstyle deserves a damage buff. If the rhythm of the skill is monotonous, I doubt the developers would be keen on buffing Weapon Throw out of nowhere also.
Monks have Shenlong’s but nobody complains that generator damage bonus is too low because it’s an utility and we have generator based builds already. If Weapon Throw damage is low for a specific Set, then it meant to be an utility to recover from a big cast, such as Weapon Throw - Boulder Toss’ excess drain of Fury points.

No build in this game has an easy mode where it clears GR120+ with one button tap. Developers always have to mind minimum interaction as well as possible counters from monsters and server performance when buffing some builds via patches. Playstyle of one main skill has to synergize with other active gears of the playstyle and require interaction instead of pushing passive benefits. In short; every build in the game has to deserve their spot to some extend.

12

This bit is badly thought out on their part. The issue is that it should’ve went on a legendary like Three Hundredth Spear instead of the set. That way it can be used by LoN/LoD builds with Stone Gauntlets and Shimizu which is what the effect is screaming us to use. Otherwise 6p set builds lack the toughness/sustain for Shimizu.

I’m also not happy that they once again redesigned an entire set to be focused narrowly on buffing one skill (Spear) interacting with another one (Charge). I really hope they stop it with this trend.

1 Like
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Hopefully ! And yeah I noticed it. Just wanting to air out the opinions in case they read those. Crossing all I can to prevent the old clunky wallbanging.

I’ve always been against this. From 2012, we heard “millions of builds”. Now it is the same runes over and over again. Like inna pre nerf. While 100 percent might not be that much…

Exactly. I like a set having 2 options, but weapon throw is simply just… why?
Even with the pants, it still is way less. Might be a Ik set idea or lod… But then again… Just a bit odd.
Just like the 1 percent life missing, scratch that and give toughness

14

I don’t know what your idea of “monotonous” or a “plain playstyle” is. One could think that of WW, Frenzy, HOTA, etc… In all honesty, I don’t think anyone knows how fun or monotonous WT can be or not, because it’s never been given a chance to showcase what its truly capable of.

2 Likes
15

It’s a primary generator with no procs or supporting skill in the Set. Gears of Dreadlands make use of primaries but it has supporting skill to spread it over; this Set do not. If all you have is a manual cast then all you have is damage boost which is passive, plain and requires no cycle timing or coordination by player.

You want a simple skill with no adequate support to become a bruiser, compete with other skills by demanding 2000% damage bonus out of thin air for you to mow down anything because a generator which replenishes your resource “deserves it”. It does what it does and replenishes resource so are treatised as one.
If you want it to be given a chance, I think Raekor is the wrong Set to call it out; it has stacks and consumes them. Ninety Savages would be much more fitting the bill. From the start Raekor was a caster and spender Set.

As I said, just wait for PTR to drop and give feedback about it. If you want Weapon Throw to shine, designing a whole new scheme will take time and can be pushed back to the next season.

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LoN/LoD still wouldn’t be that good, because it would lack the huge multiplier of R6 (27500%) combined with whatever the “extra spears” power is. And yeah, I really doubt there’s any way R6 will be slotting ShiMizu. You’re already going to be super glassy when playing this build. your armor cube slot will almost certainly be filled with either Aquilla or Parthans, just to have a chance of staying alive for a while.

I think it’s basically because there aren’t really any dedicated D3 devs anymore, just the classic games team. They make relatively simple changes, because that’s all they’ve got time for. And, to be fair, Raekor was already the “Charge + Something” set, it’s just that previously that “something” was HOTA, which we already used in two other builds. Yes, you could technically use any other spender you wanted, but none of them would work very well.

Good grief, you are really mixed up. You do realize that Weapon Throw is already getting a buff, right? And no, you aren’t meant to use it with Raekor, which doesn’t buff that skill. It’s played with either IK or LoN/LoD.

One would assume that they are buffing WT because: they’d like people to use the skill! But in order for that to actually happen, the numbers need to be much higher. Even at a 2000% buff, this will not be some world-beating build, it’ll be clearing in the 120’s at around 3.5k paragon.

I already said all this in the OP, which you seem not to have read very carefully. I’m not surprised: your feedback is basically always both very confused and very confusing. So, this is the last time I’m going to bother responding to you in this thread, and I’d strongly recommend that everybody else do the same.

:crossed_fingers: !!!

3 Likes
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I just asked why do you think you have to do more with a simple skill? Secondly, if the gameplay has little to no interaction it will be dismissed. No legendary item in this game offers this much of a multiplier and you still want it. I asked a simply question as to “why”. You avoided it because you, nor anyone else don’t have any idea how new Raekor plays out or how new changes affect the current Sets.

If Immortal King and LoD/LoN are ineffective this is because those builds are gaining benefits passively instead of requiring any coordination. With Weapon Throw resources replenishing, that’s one less element that player has to mind. Let me read it for you again, you want 2000% damage buff to a single skill by a SINGLE LEGENDARY ITEM that already meant to be a resource replenisher and has NO supporting skill.

When legendary items offer multiple damage boosters, they usually do it by some restrictions such as hitting less than x amount of targets or narrowed down to a specific skill rune so developers can estimate outcome and don’t worry about server having to handle or render too many entities at once.

Instead of pushing single target damage, you can look for ways to increase overall damage upon crowds; which has perfect examples on the existing Sets of other classes. When this is the case, best treatment is creating a supporting ability for it FIRST lest it can deal area damage or proc off of multiple targets, instead of demanding a huge damage buff.

Not my problem if you’re confused really. I’m telling you about an already existing context.

Again, why would you use Immortal King with a generator as main skill when Set clearly states that you need to spend Fury to benefit from it? LoN/LoD offer double the multiplier that IK can offer already and it’s a constant passive effect.
There are differences and it more or less confusing to read your post afterall. Let me re-itereate, there are no single legendary item with 2000% skill damage bonus in the entire game and you’re telling me that a single build deserve it.

18

Weapon Throws (generator) supporting skill has always been Boulder Toss (spender).

19

That’s… That’s not really what I meant… I meant more like a proc or something else that cause it to spread area damage. For example; Gears of Dreadlands spread primary attacks with Strafe, Ninety Savages has to build up stacks for it to deal damage. Common point between are that both of these primary skill based builds depend on stacks and slow wind up also mind that they might have something supporting them.

20

Good lord. See, this is what I mean.

No, IK doesn’t buff only spenders, it buffs all skills. Also, you’d use it with WT because it lets you keep 100% WOTB uptime, which adds considerable damage, use Endless Walk, which adds still more damage, and use a 3rd damage gem, which adds- you guessed it- more damage.

And, Wojahnni Assaulter give a 3000% bonus to Rapid Fire.

Like I said, your feedback is confused and confusing! LOL

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