Changes to top 100 of solo barb era leaderboard

[MicroRNA-1507]

The argument against that is that 12 of 14 used new items. They could have just as easily kept their old build but they did not. Good/bad RNG would be there irrespective of build.

[DIONGWON-1224]

They just happened to be using a new item, and then got lucky with RNG, so they established with a personal best. They could have just as easily kept their old build, and then got lucky with RNG, and establish a new personal best as well.

[MicroRNA-1507]

and yet 85% of them did use new items: Morticks, Flavor of Time, and/ or Echoing Fury.

[DIONGWON-1224]

That still leaves 15% of them didn’t use the new items. With good RNG, many barbs can still establish their personal best with their old build, even if Morticks never happened (the other 2 items are not even barb specific)

[Jako-1213]

Who the hell cares if Barbarians are using Flavor of Time and gaining one whole GR level that may actually be due to their higher paragon?

What does this have to do with anything?

Are you just trying to spam the forums?

[MicroRNA-1507]

Here is some more information that I posted awhile ago about all 7 classes. You will notice that there is one class (barbs) in particular that have incorporated more new items to improve their personal bests for the top 15 solo era 2019-1 clears.

Incorporation of New Patch 2.6.6 items in top 12 of era solo leaderboards

Edit: I accessed the 2019-1 era leaderboard and looked at the top 15 solo per class on August 23 @11:55pm EDT. Class New Top 15 Solo Position since Patch 2.6.6 Used Patch 2.6.6 Item Barbarian 7 6 (#5 Morticks, #9 Morticks and Flavor of Time, #12 Morticks, #13 Morticks, #14 Morticks, #15 Morticks) Crusader 2 2 (#2 Legacy of Dreams Gem, #5 2 pieces of Crimson set) Demon Hunter 0 0 Monk 1 1 (#3 Flavor of Time and Legacy of Dreams Gem) Necromancer 2 2 (#9 Legacy of Dream Gem and Squ…

This data does not support DIONWON’s and your hypotheses.

[DIONGWON-1224]

Those barbs with new items most likely cleared within their previous GR potential. They probably just wearing it for a change of taste. But in the end, their GR potential would most likely have remained the same, since Morticks adds no substantial DPS. I don’t know about others, but I wouldn’t be happy if I just move around within GR95 +/- a few seconds.

From your data that you linked, it looks to me that instead of the barbs using more newer items, it’s rather the other classes are using less of the newer items, which could simply mean that their existing sets are probably good enough.

[Evenstar-1386]

Good for them, but I still keep my ranking spot with good old Endless Walk. Last I pushed was 700 paragons ago. Wait for the stupid cast to come off my wrist, then hold my beer.

[DIONGWON-1224]

Here’s a direct quote from Free, one of the barb experts here, he discussed about how useful (or useless) Morticks is.

My account can’t post link yet, so I’m only able to provide a quote here. That thread is available in General Discussion, thread name: 2.6.6 and Barbs: A Measured Response

@Free-1746

Part 2: Mortick's Brace

Many Barbs are hyped about this, but the truth is that this item is, at best, a lateral move for a small number of our builds. Since there’s so much misinformation about this item, and so much confusion over what it’s worth, I’m dedicating a whole section to it.

Mortick’s offers us the effect of every rune of Wrath, but before we there are a few things you have to understand about the Wrath skill:

1. While it is used in every build, only 3 builds can achieve permanent Wrath. This means the item is only potentially useful in 3 of our 5 major builds, and 0 of our 3 minor builds.
2. Wrath has a long cooldown. There are two ways to achieve perma-Wrath: You either use the IK set or the Zodiac ring. If you go with the latter, you have to manage cooldowns.

Got it? Okay. Before we get into the builds that can potentially use Mortick’s, let’s look at Wrath’s runes and see what they actually do.

• Arreat’s Wail’s 3400% Fire damage seems like a lot, but it’s similar to the Pain Enhancer gem in that it’s actual damage is negligible. It’s also only active on activation, which means it deals a miniscule amount of damage over the course of a rift, and much less over the course of a bounty.

• Insanity is the go-to rune since it acts as a separate multiplier to outgoing damage. Every build that uses Wrath already uses this. Next.

• Slaughter used to be really good. Then the proc coefficient of this skill was nerfed into the ground. Even if it wasn’t, it deals meaningless damage in today’s power curve.

• Striding Giant is popular with zDPS Barbs, and the extra DR is good for every build that can afford the item and the skill, but it fails to address one of the core problems of the class (hint: it’s not mitigation).

• Thrive on Chaos offers 5k Life per Fury, about the same as Ignorance is Bliss. This is equal to 2 Life per Fury rolls, and less if a build uses the Blood Thirst passive. In other words, it’s a nice boost to healing, but not make-or-break for any of our builds.

So what builds can use this item? Let’s break it down by build:

• Zodiac WW: For speed-farming T16, we can wear this and Witching Hour for a little bit more DPS, but that means this item offers 50% more CHD. We can’t use use it for pushing because we can’t give up the damage from Mantle in the Cube and Parthans offers more mitigation.

• IK HOTA: It can replace Aquila in the Cube, but so what? 50% DR for 50% DR? It’s better than Aquila, but only because it’s more consistent. IK HOTA is not a good speed build, and for end-game pushes, players will want Magefist in the Cube for additional Fire damage.

• R6 HOTA: Won’t use it since the build doesn’t maintain perma-Wrath and can’t give up the better mitigation offered by Aquila (or the DPS of Magefist).

• Vile Charge: Parthans offers better DR for pushes, so it’s not likely to be used except in speed-farming.

• Fire/Physical EQ: Won’t use it since the builds have low uptime on Wrath. Besides, these builds are already tanky.

• Our minor builds? None of them have perma-Wrath.

• LON builds? They’ll have to take Boon, 50% CDR, and possibly Messerschmidt’s in the Cube. But if you have 50% CDR, why not just take IP and wear PoC for the exact same bonus?

Let’s add this all up.

Of all our builds, only 3 can achieve perma-Wrath.

Of those three, only 2 can squeeze the item into the build without sacrificing a required item.

Of those 2–IK HOTA and Zodiac WW–only 1 could reasonably use it for speed-farming (WW) and 1 could use it for pushing GRs (HOTA).

For those two modes of play, Mortick’s is useful for speed T16 for WW. But for pushing GRs, Mortick’s is inferior to Magefist in the Cube for IK HOTA.

That means that Mortick’s, this legendary bracer that so many folks are foaming at the mouth to get their hands on, is useful for a single T16 speed build that, frankly, has other options.

In other words, it’s outdated junk. The developers even admit to as much:

If you played during the Patch 2.2.0 PTR, you’ll recognize this as an item that was later removed from the game before it went to live servers. At the time, Mortick’s Brace gave too much power for a single item slot. However, the power curve of Diablo III has changed significantly since then and we’re comfortable with bringing it back.

That’s the Developer’s Note included with the item in the PTR patch notes. Mortick’s Brace dates back to Patch 2.2.0, which was released in April of 2015.

Yes, you read that right.

Mortick’s Brace is more than 4 years old.

That is what we got this patch: a 4-year old item that wouldn’t even be powerful two years ago.

If that’s not a slap in the face, I’m going to need a new face.

[DIONGWON-1224]

Top clear, 131 GR Clear for Barb. Dead only once. If people die a lot, maybe a learn to play thing.

[DIONGWON-1224]

Unless you rely on life regen, otherwise life per hit, life per fury spent all these recovery stats require fighting. The moment you not fighting as a barb, that’s the moment you die. To me that’s another learn to play thing. The video showcased it well, that 131 clear he was fighting the whole way, even on low health.

Anyways, as you said, Free has his opinion. You certainly can have your opinion and your way of playing the game as well. But maybe just some food for thought with another quote from a recent data analysis in General Discussion. Barb needs approx 9x power increase to match the Wizards. I just don’t know how to respec with Morticks to bring me up to that power level.

@Prokahn-1764

Conclusions:

Buff barbarians via supporting legendaries 1.17^14=9x times. The class requires a damage buff of 9x across all its potential builds in order to match wizard performance.

[MicroRNA-1507]

Here are the top 10 seasonal barbs after 4 days

Rank	Greater Rift	Paragon	Set	New Items equipped
1	110	1071	I6/R4	Flavor of Time, Mortick
2	109	845	I6/R4	Flavor of Time, Mortick
3	108	1022	LoD	Mortick, Flavor of Time, Echoing Fury, Stone Gauntlets, Legacy of Dreams Gem
4	106	1169	I6	Mortick
5	105	1035	Wastes-Whirlwind	Flavor of Time, Mortick, Echoing Fury, Crimson Set
6	105	830	R6
7	105	763	I6	Mortick
8	104	892	LoD	Mortick, Flavor of Time, Echoing Fury, Stone Gauntlets, Legacy of Dreams Gem
9	104	877	I6	Mortick
10	104	770	I6/R4	Flavor of Time, Mortick

If you look at the solo seasonal leaderboards, most classes are within a couple of grifts of each other with the exception of Wizards.

[DIONGWON-1224]

Did you also read the note in that same thread about barbs need to use an exploit (wall charge) to reach the higher end of the GR levels?

What’s wrong with comparing to over performing class? Don’t you wanna be an “A” student in the class?

@Prokahn-1764

Also note that barbarian leaderboard is biased due to the gimmicky play mechanics (and bugged elite packs) of wall charge in Raekor HOTA build, which may unrealistically skew the barbarian class efficiency to higher levels, which is not the case for all other barbarian builds.

[MicroRNA-1507]

Do you know what “exploits” are used by other classes to achieve their higher greater rifts or bugs in their builds that prevent reaching higher rifts. My recollection is that this was gone over in detail using crusaders and monks as examples.

[DIONGWON-1224]

Can you list those other class exploits and GR cleared?

[MicroRNA-1507]

You can use the search function to see them. The ones that I recall for crusaders and monks were in response to Free’s posts.

[DIONGWON-1224]

Unless the overperforming classes are using exploits or bugs, otherwise I’d like to see barbs to be buffed to the same level without having to rely on funny tricks.

Since this is a Barb sub forum and we’re talking about barbs, then the other non-overperforming classes are not my concern. If they are your concern, then feel free to make your data analysis posts in their sub forum.

[MicroRNA-1507]

@DIONGWON-1224

Since this is a Barb sub forum and we’re talking about barbs, then the other non-overperforming classes are not my concern.

Actually, this thread was talking about what items are being incorporated into barb builds.

[DIONGWON-1224]

You’re the one who first brought up other class exploits, yet failed to come up with concrete data, which seems to be your strength.

[MicroRNA-1507]

@DIONGWON-1224

You’re the one who first brought up other class exploits, yet failed to come up with concrete data, which seems to be your strength.

There is the search icon (magnifying glass on the top right).

I went through top 100 positions of the era leaderboard and top 10 seasonal leaderboard to give the data in post 1.