Prefacing this feedback, just have to say thanks to the Diablo team for bringing in the Frenzy barb as I have long awaited for its arrival into the game’s viability as the thorns LoD/LoN builds weren’t really cutting it. I will break my feedback down into technical issues and non technical.
Technical
Survivability: At the moment, I believe this is the biggest issue. I’ve found it difficult to create a build where the frenzy barb is surviving on par, or in competitive comparisons to the WW barb - without sacrificing too much damage (which is the next bullet). As much as I did find my damage to be only slightly weaker, I found it far too squishy to push into competitive GRs. I believe it might be a gear/build conundrum since Frenzy does not use rage which leaves out the possibility of potential builds using the Crimson Set/Zodiac Ring combo for perma-Berserker. I am not sure how we could make frenzy barbs also have perma-Berserker, but that would solve a lot of problems in my opinion.
Damage: I believe the frenzy set is lacking slightly behind in damage. Although this may only affect the super competitive players at high end GR pushing, it does remain obvious that WW barb is still quite superior which is disappointing. A slight tune up for this set or frenzy specific legendaries would work quite well for damage balance across barb sets.
Fear bugs for certain mob types/maps: I’ve encounter just a few instances where I fear some elite mobs and certain flying mobs would go off the map and not return. I will speak to the fear theme later, however if the fear idea for frenzy is continued then this definitely needs to be fixed or looked over.
Non-Technical
AOE: The idea of AOE for frenzy barbs is obviously quite necessary, and is apparent with the new Bastion’s Revered effect. There are two parts to this that I want to address.
Split damage - I found the evenly split damage of the effect to be quite annoying gameplay-wise as there was a limit to mobs I was willing to deal with as it would take far too long to mow down certain packs. This could be intended of course. However if so, I do not feel that it adds any gameplay or enjoyment out of the frenzy themed build.
Chain effect - On a purely theme perspective, the chain effect doesn’t sit well with me for the frenzy barb. I would imagine something more impactful similar to the bloodshed rune’s effect for Battle Rage Shout, would fit better.
Fear: I am not entirely sure what the intention of adding the fear aspect to the set is to be totally fair, paper wise and from testing. Feared enemies will walk or run away, making the frenzy attacks from the barb more spaced and loses the effectiveness of the core ability. Additionally, it eliminates the purpose of Bastions Revered as it fears enemies away from the chain effect. Again, perhaps this is intended for some a skill cap or level of thinking/coordination around the build but it definitely doesn’t add up in terms of enjoyment of a frenzy barb.
Once again, big thanks to the Diablo team for their efforts.
I agree, especially considering this is a in-your-face build that is going to be in the admist og things, and not like WW being able to navigate through and around monsters and with a short-range option.
I propose a dobbeling in the 4p bonus to 8%, that should even it quite nicely. It’s a simple improvement that causes less frustration and just makes the build slightly easier until late game.
I feel it is right om par. Compared to WhirlRend it does it just aswell. Not as fast or great at sprede, but in terms of pushing and high rifting it is doing very well. I can do 110’s in similar times with both setups.
Too me it seems like a huge advantage. The Fear effect offers a lot of utility for the set that makes it more efficient at delivering damage.
I’d suggest you look over your build again as it seems you are doing something wrong.
I agree with most of what Teka & KiWeN have stated above. I would like to see the duration of Frenzy doubled or tripled from a set bonus on Horde of the Ninety Savages (HotNS) set. I feel this would make the play feel a little bit better.
(My remarks below would allow me to consider playing this on hardcore but unless the duration is up longer, I would never consider it, at this point)
New Class Set: Horde of the Ninety Savages
2-Piece Bonus: Double the effectiveness ("& Yards") of all Shouts. Feared Enemies take double damage.
– “Feared enemies tremor in place” → this may not matter as much if 6 piece bonus of all runes could be added because of the 60% slow that would be gained.
4-Piece Bonus: Each stack of Frenzy reduces damage taken by 5%.
– “Frenzy duration is doubled”
6-Piece Bonus: Frenzy deals 1000% increased damage per stack.
– “Shouts gain all runes”
(This may help with not needing Wrath of the Beserker (WoTB) up all the time… maybe lol. It would be nice to not be dependent on WoTB for a build to work and to be able to make a build without it)
It’s a double edged sword because with double shout effectiveness + shouts gain all runes, suddenly it’s BiS for zBarbs as well and I doubt we need to make them stronger.
But i’d agree to definitely have this effect and on the 6th affix since it makes it less likely for every zBarb and their mother to pick it up
@ Qiu - I agree. How about this, if shouts has all runes is too powerful and blizz wants to figure out a way to incorporate WoTB into the build, then change the way it works.
6-Piece Bonus: Frenzy deals 1000% increased damage per stack.
– “Wrath of the Beserker no longer has a cooldown, but now constantly drains X amount of fury ever sec while in use” (Where X amount = alot, so that you constantly have to keep fighting)
or this:
6-Piece Bonus: Frenzy deals 1000% increased damage per stack.
– “Activate Wrath of the Beserker @ max frenzy stacks, lasts for 3 to 6 seconds after the loss of frenzy”
I also agree on the squishiness issue. Without 100% up time on WotB it’s just too squishy.
Frozen, Jailer, and Vortex wreck this build without WotB. Wormholes and KB’s that put throw me out of melee rang leads to Frenzy stacks dropping off compounding the problem
The damage drop off without the WotB buff is obviously also significant.
The attack and movement speed makes it fun to play, but it’s not as fast as WW nor as tough as HotA. As it is, I don’t really see a point in choosing this build over either of the other two.
well well
it would in consequence mean that there is no zdps barb anymore
allready now its obvious that at least 2 pieces of H90 will be incorparated in zdps barbs.
but i see more of potential for either
RGK/supp barb hybrid
or the vanishing of the zdps barb overall
and keep in mind taht the devs stated in a blue post that the existence of the typical zdps chars was never intendended by them
One Solution could be also reworked Secheron Bracers.
If we there add something like
“Frenzy duration is doubled or
and gain CDR for each stack of Frenzy”
So taht we can keep up WotB
or gain CC immunity in any other way
They are so bad that they need a complete rework anyway.
WhirlRend deals ~90M% WD per second and Frenzy deals a little over 20M% WD per hit. They have similar size in area they hit and such. So they are within each other.
I just feel Frenzy can’t apply the damage effectively.
I think it was just very misleading to say H90 frenzy is on par with WW/rend. If we are going to give feed back it’s needs to be considering effective damage. The damage difference is quite significant as it plays out in GR pushing where Frenzy is pretty far behind WW. I just don’t see how you can claim on par when there is clearly a large gap between the two.
The 2 piece seems like something they tossed in because they had no good ideas.
“2-Piece Bonus: Double the effectiveness of all Shouts. Feared Enemies take double damage.”
Shouts are easy to reapply, doubling the duration is pointless. And sure, lets make fear a main priority of a build designed to get in their face to kill them. I love chasing guys around randomly to kill them… NOT. The fear thing completely stops me from willingly playing this set outside of testing.
“4-Piece Bonus: Each stack of Frenzy reduces damage taken by 5%.”
Is this set ability actually working? I wonder because I am super squishy playing this set. Also, frenzy buffs are so short lived that they fall of constantly, so even if this set ability is working it’s still super bad without a significant increase in the frenzy buffs duration
Playing a basic attack monk is significantly stronger than this build, by leaps and bounds.
I agree with virtually all the posts here on the frenzy barb. It suffers when frenzy stacks are not max’d at 10, fear does not seem to really work. What I am having a hard time with is the game play - hard to constantly keep hitting frenzy as opposed to a channeling skill like WW. For a player like me, I will stick to WW for ease of play. What I was really HOPING for was an end game build to replace either the Wizard or Crusader - either a mob (trash) killer or a Rift Guardian Killer (RGK). Also, it seems strange to add a barb set now after huge buff on WW on S19, while DH is ignored (note - I play barb class mostly). Just seems strange to me.
before the ptr i had high hopes that you can throw reichels and pandemonium into the build. sadly it`s absolutly not working.
my suggestion for the next ptr patch:
4p: Each stack of Frenzy reduces damage taken by 8%
Double the duration of Frenzy Stacks
6p: YOU deal 1250% increased damage per Frenzy stack.
“Each attack reduces the CD of WotB by xyz” or something like this.
(It`s okay if you have to work for the 100% uptime)
Well I discocered I needed new weapons, as they were from pre Ambo, only ran that on PTR. And that was the thing. Removing and optimizing WhirlRend gave it some advantages, and it became significantly better. Yet Frenzy is not optimized, I have no extra AD for instance and it seems to raise the build just as well as it used to before the set. But I can’t afford to switch the defensive affixes for it to see how far it will take it because I wouldn’t be able to properly apply it.
So I feel the damage and potential is there, just can’t harvest it due to limitations.
i like the idea of the focused feedback thread but the clears don`t rly matter cause blizz knows them. i would rly appreciate if we can make it happen to get ONE thread where we focus on what needs to be improved.
That’s the thread I linked. That’s the Focused Feedback thread.
The clears matter because of the permutations within the build. In addition, the videos are extremely helpful, because it allows the developers to see the rift conditions in which the clear was obtained.