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General Discussion
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But what the flip is up with the PTR patch notes?

Where are the Barb buffs?

Mortick’s? That item will do very, very little for very, very few builds. In the best of cases, it’s a lateral switch from one item to that item. It’s not even a buff.

What happened to this: 2.6.6 Barbarian Community Buff Proposal

What happened to this:

To put it simply - we just couldn’t get to Barb for this patch. We know there’s areas to improve for Barb, and we want to do that right. We’ve got a working list of some of the more popular/most desired builds or changes you guys want to see and we’re taking a look at options for the future.

I’m fine with waiting until the next patch if that’s what it takes for Barbs to get the juicy buffs they need, but if that’s the case, that should be communicated.

In other words, what the flip is going on?

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To say I’m a little disappointed with the patch notes for barbs is an understatement. Overall this will only possibly mildly tweak a few builds and overall really won’t impact how we play at the end of the day. Was really hoping to see some nice stuff for us this go around but I feel we were left out in the cold.

Like Free said hopefully you guys are either still working this stuff to still add this patch or next patch but we would as a community appreciate some communication since so much work and time was put into that massive proposal and we were told that it had found its way to the devs.

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The biggest problem is that these new items, cool as they are, don’t address any of our class’s problems. Let’s review some of the items:

The Executioner

  • New Legendary Power: Attacks will slay enemies with less than (5-10%) health.

Potentially very powerful, but of limited use considering how little damage we do in comparison to other classes. In fact, considering how other classes do considerably more DPS< the gap between Barbs and every other class will increase.

Worse, most of our builds can’t use this equipped or in the Cube:

  • Zodiac WW: Can use, but will make the build worse vs RGs and elites where it already struggles.
  • IK HOTA: Can’t use it.
  • R6 HOTA: Can’t use it.
  • Fire/Physical EQ: Same as Zodiac WW for Fire, and Phys can’t use at all.
  • Vile Charge: Can’t use it.

Echoing Fury

  • New Legendary Power: Slaying enemies engulfs the wielder into a Frenzy. (Killing enemies increases your attack speed by 15% and movement speed by 5%. This effect stacks up to 5 times)

None of our builds bank on attack speed. Even for LON or primary builds, this does nothing because those builds don’t deal meaningful damage.

Messerschmidt’s Reaver

  • New Legendary Power: Reduce the remaining cooldown of one of your skills by 1 second when you slay an enemy.

Again, can’t be used for the same reasons as The Executioner above. We don’t need more ways to deal with cooldowns.

We need damage.

Mortick’s Brace

  • New Legendary Item: Wrath of the Berserker gains the effect of every rune.

We asked for this, but this only provides a buff when offered in conjunction with other buffed items. Of all our major and minor builds, only three (Zodiac WW, Vile Charge, and IK HOTA) can effectively use perma-Wrath, and of those three, this item is a lateral trade for two (Zodiac WW and IK HOTA). The third, Vile Charge, can’t use this.

New Legendary Gem:

  • While you have no set bonuses equipped, every Legendary item you have equipped increases your damage dealt by 3.75% and reduces your damage taken by 2%. (Max level 99)
  • Rank 25: This bonus is doubled for Ancient items.

This won’t do anything for our LON builds because, as we’ve stated a hundred friggin’ times now, our supporting legendaries are so outdated.

Frenzy Thorns struggles to do 105+. Every other LON build aside from HOTA struggles to do 100.

This gem is like spitting in the wind.

None of the crafted set bonuses can be woven into our major builds.

Nothing in the current PTR notes buffs Barbs or addresses any of the weaknesses and problems we address here: http://barbarianbuffproposals.strikingly.com/

I repeat: Nothing in the current PTR notes addresses any of the Barb community’s concerns.

This is not okay.

Update: Nev has responded here: 2.6.6 Barbarian Community Buff Proposal - #72 by Nevalistis

Will post more as more info becomes available.

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Long time since I’ve been here/old forum. I read the ptr notes and some quite interesting things. But like you wrote : where are the Barbarian buffs/tweaks?
Many other builds can go higher for other classes without the need for the perfect gear. Barbarian suffers from a qwerky wall charge mechanic and/or the lacklusting ww build. I have not played Barbarian for a while now and was really hoping to get back to it this season, when I saw that blue reply… But now, if nothings changing, then when? We should not have to wait for the next season/patch to get what was long needed.

I sincerly hope someone at Blizzard is either thinking about putting more into the ptr notes for Barbarians or at least consider it.

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It looks like they put some good thought into this one, including the season theme. You can’t please everyone though.

I think it looks pretty fun, and I’m excited to play it.

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Honestly, i’m a little relieved that the patch notes we’re getting have not been decided based on a proposal that not everyone would agree on, and might even be harmful by over-buffing a single class above all of the others.
New item powers are beneficial to everyone, not just a few people that are obsessed with Barbarians. I read a little of that proposal and it seemed like their suggestion to boost certain Barb builds by 2 or 3 GR levels was to double or triple the DPS of those builds. That’s not good balancing i.m.o.

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Those whom wrote the proposals know what they talk about. They have played a LONG time now and they even calculated the numbers correctly.
The stuff being proposed is not something that will make Barbarian the new Necro and become more Op than the others. The numbers are needed to get on PAR with the other classes.
You CAN go high with WW build, but only IF you are extremely lucky… And I mean, LUCKY.
Just take Raekor Hota, it requires to build up stacks before doing anything. Takes a while and a lot of practice and skill. Nothing wrong with that, however, other classes can dish out that same amount of damage and even more from just hitting spells/abilities right away… Now that is not fair at all.

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I totally agree!

The buffs we proposed in List 1 are simple numbers increases. It wouldn’t fix the more complicated problems with our builds (like, for example, Rend in our Whirlwind builds), but it would give us what we need. We would have better intra-class parity. We would have better inter-class parity. We would have stronger, more balanced builds.

It’s as simple as increase the numbers on existing items. I cannot see how that’s beyond the scope of this PTR.

Thing is, Barbs have not been “pleased” in a very long time. Our proposal outlines this clear as day. 4.1 GRs behind other classes. Outdated items. Stuck in the zDPS rut. The weakest class globally. Our strongest builds are reliant on gimmicks like wall-charging.

We’ve been stuck in the mud for a long, long time, and we are long overdue for some TLC.

This patch offers us nothing. It doesn’t improve our speed-farm builds, our LON builds, or our major builds for pushing GRs. Mortick’s gives us nothing–literally nothing–in terms of a buff.

So, while I’m glad you look forward to playing it, try being a Barb main and looking at it from our perspective.

We have never advocated buffing Barbs “above all of the others.” Never. Not in any way, shape, or form.

We have only ever advocated for better intra- and inter-class parity.

Reading a “little” of the proposal doesn’t really give you a clear view of what we proposed. I suggest you give the full thing a read, particularly the Problems section to see where we’re coming from. Our proposals are, in fact, good balancing, because we address core problems and provide the math to back it up.

TuneOut has it right:

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And how can you know that any of those proposed changes are correct and balanced without even testing them? It takes more than just a calculator to balance different builds correctly.
You should keep in mind that they have no obligation to implement a proposal. The proposal has been made yes, but don’t be surprised when it is not patched into the game immediately or in exactly the same way that you proposed those changes.

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Not for nothing, but I was behind your proposals thread. I appreciated it for what it was and everything that went into it.

But this thread…

This thread seems to be nothing more than a whine. “We want what we want and we want it NOW!!!” Sounds like something a five year old would do.

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Because we’re not dingbats.

GRs are based on mathematical increases of certain set values:

If you want to elevate a build by X GRs, you can calculate how much more damage you need to do. It’s not a guessing game, particularly if you’re only talking about numbers increases to existing items (which is our entire List 1). If you introduce mechanical changes, you can calculate things, but you’ll need to test much more rigorously. Only our List 2 proposes such changes.

Of course, the rub is that we don’t get to test anything, because we’re not getting anything. You can see how that is frustrating.

I’m not going to go into why folks should trust our evaluation–that’s all in the proposal, and folks who frequent the Barb forum know who Rage and I are. We know our stuff.

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Nah, dude.

Barbs have been asking for buffs for a very long time–multiple Seasons. Multiple years, in fact. The problems we address in our proposal aren’t new. They’re not from last Season, or even the Season before that.

We’ve been shelved for years.

This isn’t whining. It’s asking for some much overdue TLC. Sorry you can’t see it that way, but you might if you played more Barb.

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I agree with this statement; however, for all of barb’s issues, they have always been included in the 4 man meta as has monks given their ability to zDPS/support. Other classes have gone long stretches where they were non-meta irrespective of role.

Given this, would you be ok if barbs/monk had their abilities to zDPS/support reduced to allow other classes in? There are 7classes. The longterm 4-man meta slots 2 classes (barbs/monks). There are only 2 position available and 5 classes competing for them.

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Then it is a whine. Nevalistis already said there’s more coming. Which is a damn sight better than a DH has gotten.

Okay, they threw us a bone with LoN Rapid Fire and ensured we’d have it after the season thanks to the new gem.

But beyond that, nothing. Not even a “we’ll get to it, eventually”.

Just sayin’.

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That’s true. But we’ve only ever been able to play zDPS.

We’re not asking to displace the current meta. We’re asking for buffs so we can DPS in off-meta group comps. If other classes want the same, they should do what we did: coordinate, create, and be heard. Rage and I agree that we want to see other classes have more opportunities in group play, but we’re only addressing Barb because that’s where our expertise lies. We leave it to experts of other classes to address those concerns.

Check post times. The discussion between Nev and I happened later. What’s currently transpiring in this thread is discussion and clarification.

We’re not concerned with DH’s because–for the hundredth time–we’re not experts on DHs.

Are you a DH main? Monk main? WD main?

Do you feel your class should get some TLC too?

Do what we did. Be heard. We got attention because we mobilized, worked together, and created a sound proposal. There’s no reason other class communities can’t do that.

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At this point in time, I accept the game for what it is and its flaws. If/when D4 is released, I suspect that Blizzard will maintain the D3 server but any “medium/large-sized changes” are unlikely.

Do I want to see the game improve? Absolutely yes.

Have I moderated my expectations about proposed changes being adopted? Yes.

I think this point was driven home by the whole stash space/extra character slot discussion from the last PTR feedback.

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Wait I thought this was going to be THE barb patch, what happend here Blizzard?

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Good question.

To be crystal clear, we never wanted the patch to be only about Barbs. We only wanted our long-standing issues addressed, either now, or at some specific point in the future. Nev’s reply indicates that’s coming, which is good news, and I certainly don’t mind waiting for proper buffs. But I can’t help but feel someone dropped the ball; our List 1 changes were simple numbers buffs to existing items. They couldn’t have given us those while they work on other stuff?

Really?

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See what you get when you are given TL3…Tom Hanks memes.

Lovely - this place is going to look like the PoE forums soon. Can’t wait for all the goofy memes to start showing up.

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LoL You got Morticks brace. The most cried about item Barb’s have been wanting for years. You should be happy. That was in the proposal wasn’t it? I’m not 100% on that, I didn’t click the link. (I don’t trust random websites).

Isn’t this a win for Barb’s?

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