H90 Feedback (as PTR Feedback is read-only now)

General Discussion
1

The PTR went live around 10:00 (Pacific) on Friday 7th and the patch notes indicated that it would last two weeks. So, I was somewhat surprised when the PTR was shut down at 17:30 (Pacific) on Thursday 20th, as it meant I couldn’t try my final pushes I had planned for it today. The PTR Feedback forum’s been made read-only too. Oh, well…

My highest push was a GR120 solo, made with around 1300 paragon, and 7 or 8 of my items augmented with 500 STR Caldesann’s Despair. I suspect with all 13 slots augmented at that level, and around 2000 paragon, I’d have probably been able to fish a GR125. I know the seasonal rank 1 on the PTR was a GR130 but I’m talking about what I think I could manage personally, not what the build’s ultimately capable of.

Basic feedback is that the set doesn’t seem to be particularly focused. It’s not a speed-farmer. It doesn’t fit as a RGK. It’s very squishy for a solo GR push. Having the damage bonus tied to hard CC, which mobs become immune to (and some mobs are permanently immune to), means at higher levels where mobs have significant health pools, you will progressively lose the damage to kill them, as the mobs become immune to the double damage. The mitigation is also poor, as it’s tied to the stacks built up from Frenzy, which drop off too quickly, and mean you’re most vulnerable whilst travelling between packs, i.e. just when you need the mitigation the most. Mechanically, it’s extremely similar to IK/HOTA, but without the mitigation that the Ancients give you.

Overall, I love the idea of a Frenzy based build, but this implementation is awful.

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I think that there is a typo here. I did not check the PTR leaderboard at the end but I recall that the top solo, frenzy clear was GR 138 in non-season on the PTR.

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I was referring to the S20 solo Barb leaderboard on the PTR. I’ve amended the opening post to reflect that. As the season theme was completely irrelevant to the Frenzy build (it requires Bastion’s, Depth Diggers, CoE / BoM in the cube) I was playing a seasonal hero, for the extra XP / blood / drop-rate to enable faster testing. I would imagine that non-seasonal players with 10K+ paragon would certainly do better than I did with 1300.

1 Like
4

Your summary is accurate. The H90 set as it existed on the PTR (either iteration) has problems. Here’s an abbreviated breakdown.

Strengths

  • Shreds lone elites/RGs that don’t spawn adds

Weaknesses

  • Bastion’s chains spread Stricken stacks and reduce single-target damage in density
  • Damage reduction and CC vulnerability
  • Lack of mobility
  • 2-piece bonus is nullified by a Frenzy rune
  • No distinct identity or purpose

This set and its build are fundamentally at odds with themselves. The set’s greatest strength–its ability to shred lone elites and RGs that don’t spawn adds–is undermined by density or spawned mobs. This is because the chains from Bastion’s do two things:

  1. They spread damage across multiple targets instead of keeping it focused on a single mob.
  2. They distribute Stricken stacks to mobs other than the one we’re attacking.

What’s more, the 2-piece bonus is a total mess. Both Fear and Frozen are hard CC effects. After a few hits of either, mobs will go CC immune. That’s already a problem, but it gets worse, because the real problem is that every Frenzy attack has a 30% chance to Stun due to having all runes granted by our Frenzy belt, Undisputed Champion.

Think about that for a second.

Frenzy attacks very fast–its attack speed increases with every stack after every attack. We want this since faster attacks mean more healing (from Simplicity’s Strength) and more Stricken stacks. It also means more damage per second (DPS).

But the faster we attack, the more Stuns we apply. The more Stuns we apply, the faster mobs go CC immune, and once they are CC immune, we no longer reap the benefit of the set’s 2-piece damage bonus (a x3 multiplier).

In short, the set and supporting items conflict and work to neutralize a crucial set bonus.

By playing the build correctly, we literally break a set bonus.

How the flip did that ever get off the drawing board?

Well, there is an easy–and I mean easy–fix: Change the 2-piece bonus to “enemies affected by your Shouts” and there you go. Fixed.

But even if that change occurs, we still have to deal with the fact that there are two known bugs with Bastion’s revered–one that nerfs our damage when we use COE, and one where the item drops with fewer affixes than it should.

Finally, the 6-piece bonus doesn’t do enough damage. It doesn’t need a huge buff, but it certainly needs a booster shot, or the build will be very good at absolutely nothing.

16 Likes
5

Yeah, unless there’s a major difference between what I tested on the PTR and what ends up going live, I just can’t see me bothering to play this set at all which is a major disappointment as I love the idea of the frenzied Barb pummelling elites.

5 Likes
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They’ve said several times there will be balance patches after the sets are out. So it’ll be fun to play for that sweet period of time between 2.6.15 and D4 1.0.0.

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The set is broken. The damage is average. The dr generation is to low. If it drops like this it will be a disaster. I’ve been waiting for 17 seasons for a true ballance change for my beloved IK HOTA barb and was happy at least for this new set. But here we go again one more season where the barb is a support class and nothing more.

3 Likes
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metalofgod:

They could add a few seconds like they did with the Wastes set. The effect of the stacks last for 3-5 seconds after they fall off. That would be enough time, in some cases, to keep the DR up long enough to stay alive.

The fear/frozen part for the 2pc bonus just needs to go away. Add revenge or overpower instead. Increase the damage of Frenzy based on either skill or increase the damage of either skill based on the amount of stacks of frenzy.

OR work in Bane of the Trapped into the set and that will allow the set to use a different Legendary Gem.

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Would be nice to get some kind of official response here, especially considering the calibre of feedback Barbs offered in PTR.

They did that, but it’s still not enough DR given the build’s vulnerability to CC.

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The 2nd part of 2pc suck.
I like the above suggestion (by Free) to just make it 2x damage to all within shout range.

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Damage is not a problem though, the toughness is. Maybe the second part of the 2pc bonus can be another skill that ‘could’ either increase the toughness or add a bit more damage.

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The 2pc damage is non-existent because of cc, so I would say that it is a problem.

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It is, because the double-damage relies on hard CC. The higher GR you go, the more likely mobs will become immune to the CC rather than dying, thus removing the double-damage effect completely. How high did you push this on the PTR? It’s definitely not just mitigation it’s lacking.

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Meaning the set itself doesn’t have a damage problem, so it’s kind of a waste to put in ‘only’ a damage multiplier as part of the 2pc bonus. The set has a damage mitigation issue, not damage output.

THEN, there is what you just mentioned. That’s why I think they need to have some form of a utility skill there. That utility skill could either be a buff to damage or toughness, depending on the situation. Speed rifts, grs, bounties, pls, or gr push.

The set lacks versatility and is very one dimensional, not to mention very boring to many players.

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Of course it has a damage problem. One of the Frenzy runes causes hard CC and, as you’ll be using the belt that makes Frenzy have all runes applied, it’s unavoidable. Therefore, by playing the build as designed means that it’s self-defeating because just hitting mobs means it removes a two-times damage multiplier. Playing it as designed means you’ll be doing half the damage it would be doing if the two-piece was caused by something else, e.g. mobs being affected by any shout.

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