Frenzy Barb! Patch Notes!

Barbarian
344

I think the original intent was pretty clear: Frighten enemies, chase them down, and shred them in isolation. But that premise didn’t take CC mechanics into consideration. That and how frustrating it is to chase down fleeing mobs when your build has terrible mobility.

It also seems weirdly at odds with the Bastion’s chains and their emphasis on splitting damage to nearby enemies. I mean, that’s cool, but what’s the point of splitting up damage when you’re scaring the crap out of mobs and scattering them? Why bother splitting up the damage at all? If the 2-piece bonus offered a beefy damage buff to mobs when they were alone (no nearby mobs), I could see the thematic design and set mechanics working in harmony. But that’s not what we got, and adding Frozen to the set was a real head scratcher.

Won’t Frozen mobs build up CC resistance just as fast as if they were Feared? Of course they will! And once they’re immune, the 2-piece damage bonus is kaput.

And how are we supposed to freeze them? Cold Rush? That makes our mobility even worse!

Freeze rolls on items? Great. The build already juggles AD and CDR, and now we also need fussy secondary rolls that can only come on a few certain items, and can only be rolled if the item is otherwise perfect. Oh good. What fun.

I don’t want to sound bitter or unappreciative–I really don’t. I love that we have a set for Frenzy (though why it couldn’t apply to all Primaries is another good question), and I love the creativity present in the design. I would love nothing more than to see the Fear effect put to good use but it simply doesn’t work in its present state, and the buffs on PTR were far too conservative.

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345

Yep, that one was a bit strange. But on an already strange set, why not make it a little more confusing

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346

At this point, I’m just baffled why someone on the dev team thought tying a multiplier to hard CC on a build that rapid fires stun was a functional mechanic.

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347

I like the concept that H90 could be used as an elite killer somewhat like the DH Shadow build would be excellent. BUT if the set has a problem with Cool Downs, not so great Mobility, limited Damage, plus a need for more Damage Mitigation, it is very frustrating to play. Like I said before, I seem to be fighting the Set more than I am fighting the Monsters! No smooth flow in the progression of fighting the battles.

It comes down to, if the Dev’s want this set to be anywhere close to being a Elite Killer, they got a long ways to go to get there.
Spin to Win
:peace_symbol:

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348

That’s why I feel like the set isn’t sure what it’s supposed to be, so it ultimately becomes…nothing.

I can’t see it being a much played set next season in it’s current form.

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349

Stupid question. But what if Fear would only fear small mobs away and no Elites, etc.? Or if your enemies are feared so hard at the look of the Barb in front of them, that they can’t run away. So feared that they only can p*** their pants.

My first stupid question couple with a new 2pc bonus two examples:

  1. For every feared enemy Frenzy deals xx% more damage.
  2. After enemy was feared Frenzy deals xxx% more damage for 5 seconds.

My 2 cents.

350

Kind of like turning the Fear into a Stun.

But I think you still have the CC immunity problem.

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351

That’s what I said. But instead of a stun, make it 99% slow.

352

Every time I think about it, my brain starts to hurt, and I fall over.

I actually proposed that in the PTR thread. Not a bad idea. Your other ideas are solid, too, though as Phoenix pointed out, it wouldn’t solve the hard CC problem.

I think the easiest thing to do is change the hard CC to crowd control, periods, which means both hard and soft, or to simply make the bonus apply to “enemies affected by your shouts.”

Of course, even if they did that, we still have the following problems:

  1. Not enough DR
  2. Not enough damage
  3. Bastion’s suffers from two separate bugs

Ugh. I have a sinking feeling none of this will get addressed before it goes live.

P.S. Shoutout to Meteor and Justin for dunking on Tables McGee over in GD.

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353

This build will be put in the every build but wwrend pile. wwrend does everything better except do more damage to solo targets. Once there are 2-3 enemies it does less then wwrend. It will only be somewhat viable as an RGK.IT will be similar to impale DH and very much behind and a sader build nerfed for the second time and possible a third nerf coming.

354

Just thinking out loud here, but I think a fun mechanic for this set would be:
“Feared and Frozen Enemies are Pulled Towards you while Attacking with Frenzy”

1 Like
355

Hey! I love it!

You’re right, that would be fun! As long as the pull doesn’t register as hard CC.

356

Which it would; a hard 40% on pull like any other non-tick knockback.

Something that’s been on my mind is the conversation I had with Rage (with excellent counsel received) regarding the 4f frenzy and the ICD on stricken.

I put my ideal build into the D3 planner and found 35 IAS with Azure was indeed still needed along with Gogok. With only 21, it registered as 4.5 frames for frenzy, with one hand at 4 and the other 5.

But with the 4f, let me ask you this, would the bastion x10 hit on frame -1 register as a separate hit from the frenzy hit in Frame 0? With his tests on slower weapons and his earlier example provided, indeed he was right nothing else would proc stricken until it’s ICD expired. But with 4f frenzy and the ICD at 1 frame, could it stack on frame -1, expire and restack on frame 0? Or would the restack have to be in the subsequent frame; Frame1?

357

First off, let me say that the “Frame -1” remark I made in the PTR feedback thread was just a theory, not something I’ve proven. I also think it’s much less likely than the other possibility I mentioned, which is that the game just has a hidden, little-explored system to establish which attack might take “priority”, when 2 or more attacks happen on the same frame.

That said, let’s assume for a minute that the “Frame -1” theory is correct.

So, if you’re fighting two guys, you’d take a swing with Frenzy at Mob 1, and the chain would shoot out and proc Stricken on Mob 2, starting the ICD. And we’re calling the time when this happens “Frame -1”.

I’m guessing you’re assuming you’ve got a 4F Frenzy, and at least +81% move speed, which you’d need to get the ICD down to 1F.

So at “Frame 0”, the ICD would expire, AND you’d hit with Frenzy.

Your question is: would you get a Stricken stack from Frenzy, or not?

Right?

My answer is: I don’t know. I can think of a way to try to test it, though.

You get your two enemies (let’s say… skeletons…) and set up with your 4F Frenzy and +81% or more move speed. You test your starting damage with either Rend or a rank 0 Toxin gem. To make your test as “clean” as possible, you’ll also want to run around breaking objects or something to get your 10 stacks of Frenzy, so that all of your Frenzy hits happen at your intended frame rate.

Then you start hitting one of the mobs, ensuring that the other is within chain range. You don’t want to attack as fast as possible! You just want to hit once every second or so. Do this for 30 seconds, a minute, whatever. You’ll want to count the individual hits as you go.

We know that if you do this with a 12F Frenzy, as in my video, you just end up with all the stacks on the guy hit by the chain. But, if the ICD is 1F, and Frenzy is hitting 1F after the chain, then it’s possible you’ll see an equal number of stacks on both the guy you’re hitting with Frenzy, and the guy hit by the chain.

So: let’s say you do this test and count out 30 hits. If, at the end, you re-test with Rend or Toxin and see that both mobs have acquired 30 Stricken stacks, you’ll know that the chain is indeed hitting at least one frame early, and that Frenzy is then applying another stack of Stricken on each hit.

This doesn’t actually prove anything about whether you can get a Stricken stack on the same frame as the ICD runs out, since I just spitballed “Frame -1” as the time the chain hits… for all I know, it’s possible that it’s “Frame -2” or “Frame -3”.

Ultimately, this stuff is very interesting, but not super relevant, I think, in terms of actually playing the game. After all, you have to cough up quite a lot of other damage stats in order to get that much AS on your gear, which is going to hurt you in terms of solo push potential. And if you’re after increased performance as a RGK, then none of the weird stuff with the Bastion’s chain is going to come into play, since this build is really only effective at killing single-target RGs.

358

I’m a bit hopeful. Here’s hoping they make the necessary changes.

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359

Here’s hoping, bud. Otherwise, the set is DOA.

Personally, what really irks me about this set and the PTR are two factors. First, I love the creative design of the set, but it just doesn’t work. Why does it seem like the developers refuse to back down on an idea that is very clearly not working?

The other thing that really bothers me was the almost total absence of official responses to feedback in the PTR. We had–yet again–the best focused feedback thread of all classes, sets, and whatevers. I mean, compare our PTR Feedback thread to anything else, and it’s night and day. We put in some amazing work–excellent, accurate testing, in-depth mechanical dissections, and tons of productive discussion about what was going right and wrong with the new items. But somehow that doesn’t warrant any kind of official response?

Ugh. Sometimes Blizzard is just too Blizzard.

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360

I want to play the new set, but I really hope they address the issues that it has. The defense is looking really bad at the moment, which is made worse by the vulnerability to CC.

I played IK HotA last season, so I also think that the set playing too similar to HotA is a problem.

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361

Unless they address the underlying issues with the new set, it’s effectively IK/HOTA but without the mitigation from COTA.

It’s a shame, because I’ve got a primal Oathkeeper and Azurewrath in my seasonal stash, and 20+ rank 125 gems, ready for after S19 ends and whenever 2.6.8 hits live to make a nice build with.

362

No dps.dr bump but they did add stun!

New Class Set: Horde of the Ninety Savages

  • 2-Piece Bonus: Double the effectiveness of all Shouts. Feared, Frozen, or Stunned Enemies take double damage.
    • Developer’s Note: The callout that Stun may be the best fit for this set bonus was definitely heard, but we didn’t want to take away other potential builds enabled by experimenting with Fear or Frozen. We hope this opens up a variety of options for Barbarians to explore!

Fixed a bug with Bastion’s Revered where it would not properly benefit from Convention of Elements…interesting. Did anyone catch this during testing?

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363

Yeah, JustinFan caught the bug and reported it.

As for Stun being added… well, this may push EF back into competition with Azurewrath, since now your Smite stuns will add some extra damage.

I actually never tried out Azurewrath myself. Does anybody know if the freeze on hit can be procced by the chain on more than one enemy? If so (which I think is probably the case), then Azurewrath will likely still be the best option, particularly if you take APDs, for defense.

I guess high paragon players may be more likely now to drop War Cry for GS:Wrenching Smash, for its grouping + stunning ability.

I’m expecting the build to be pretty comparable in power to Pro-Slam, i.e. roughly tied for our 2nd best build, though I imagine that, being new, it’ll get a bit more play in the coming months than Pro-Slam.

2 Likes