While this is our goal, we also recognize we aren’t always going to hit it perfectly. Like many games, Diablo III has a lot of mechanical details. A single change can ripple through many other parts of the game, so it’s important we’re mindful of what each change can affect. We also realize that, even with special care, it may take us a few tries to achieve our intended result. To account for this, we have a scale for error, based on how a class is performing above or below our guideline:
+/- 1-2 Greater Rift Levels: Very close. Probably fine, when accounting for random elements (the perfect “fish”) or high player skill cap (excellent play and timing).
+/- 3-4 Greater Rift Levels: The warning zone. We need to watch for buffs/nerfs in this area, but action may not yet be necessary. Time to keep an eye on it!
+/- 5 or more Greater Rift Levels: Warrants significant change. At this range, it’s clear that something is over (or under) performing and needs to be addressed.
dmkt is Para5.6K and you can see him in most of the DH leaderboards with a near GR130 clear
M6: 126
S6: 130
UE: 126
N6: 129
GoD: 136
The dev’s didnt include in that thought process a character with Gem levels or agumentations over the GR they want to balance around (GR130) So the other sets are underperforming and GOD is about right.
But compared to other classes everyone else balanced around GR140 outside of WD’s and maybe barbs (cant remember where they are now)
Thats the problem they should have gotten the nerf hammer first. DH was last to get the buffs and sets, and first to get nerfed. DH’s are already super behind on paragon points and it’ll just keep getting wider now that we got nerfed back down again. The dev’s hate demon hunters. So obvious by now.
As for the the gem levels/aguments I would say right at the same level of 130, or maybe slightly below it at 129/128, but being above it requires groups which isnt based on solo balance.
Maybe it’s just me, but you’d think that with D3 where it is in the lifecycle and the amount of Blizz resources focuses on DI, D4 and D2R, that they could have just said “whelp, we don’t have the time to do that balance thing we talked about, so here are a few buffs to classes that needed them for solo GR play and a neat follower rework…TTFN”
I disagree here, to get to 5K in the first place, you probably did quite a lot of rat runs and leveled up all gems to 150. To get “only” 130 gems/augs you probably didn’t get to 5K.
I don’t think it was so obvious before. Nobody had any incentive to push with “weaker” sets before. The chance to get into the leaderboards was near zero.
@PMG that post is from January 2020. Not that long ago. DI, D2R and D4 were already underway when that was posted. Whoever posted it DID have the time and resources.
LoL, wait until you see what I do to the Crusader boards. GR140+ on 3 distinct boards coming soon.
Many in my clan are approaching 5k – we never did rat runs – it seems like everyone just does their thing, and it’s different every day. For myself, I acquired most of my paragon from solo pushing and grouping. You’ll find me in pubs smashing 120s and whatever when I need a change of pace. I don’t really do much of high frequency speed stuff, but that may change with these followers.
At 5k paragon – if you can clear GR135, you can get 150 gems with dedication. We have a clanmate who still does 1%s to bring his gems to 150. When I look at my old gear, I see an evolution of the game, set pieces and legendary items with different augments.
When I was a 1000 paragon, around 2.4.3, I dumped 80-90 gems on my gear during the UE6 Grenade days. 105-110s on my stuff after Yangs/DML got upgraded ~2k paragon.
I reserved my 120 gems for Akkhan’s Heaven Fury Sader, then Blessed Shield Crusader was updated and I got 125-130 gems going, but you could still get Impale into a group and do GR140s with the Star Pact Wizard. When AoV came out it was easy to bring my gems to 135-140 solo, I would then RGK for the 150s. GoD6 and Odyssey’s End allowed me to do the same.
DH still can do their gems playing zDH, but that is lame excuse of a pathway to high GR content. If I didn’t play Crusader, I’d probably join groups with S6 Impale, or, GoD6 w/ Odyssey. Everything else is a drag.
Also, we have to consider the context from 2020 and forward, because that’s when they posted those guidelines. If you take a quick glance at the seasonal leaderboards, you’ll see that most who got over 5K have 141+ augs. It makes sense, because they can blast rat runs (or any speed meta) to get their gems up to 120ish and then start raising the levels to get always 100% chance of upgrade.
During a season, if someone is dedicated enough to get to 5K, it’s fair to expect 141+ augs.
What is your opinion on this? Do you think DH needs a buff or Crusader needs a nerf?
why does everyone seem to keep referring to “seasonal leaderboards” - they do not balance around season, season clears, season paragon. Do you not remember way back in the old days (LOL) when it was the elemental effects like snowball taking out the RG with a zBarb? Or the 4th cube slot making everyone probably 10GR stronger if not more? Or the “free” rorg that allowed hybrids to add COE? Need I go on? This point is made exactly in the same blog post you linked:
And here are a couple things we specifically *avoid* when considering overall class balance:
* Seasonal buffs and their impact on overall power
* We want to design fun, engaging Seasonal buffs without worrying about how they might impact class balance
* Data from non-Seasonal players is especially helpful here
* Some buffs may be better or worse for different classes, but since Season effects are temporary, we’re okay with this
Because this “theme” in S23 is the same for NS, it would be the only time valid to balance based on season.
For players at 5k paragon, the difference in 130 augments vs 140 augments is roughly, 650 main stat, this is negligible power (evaluating 35000 vs 35650) is roughly 1.8%, which is not enough to cover a full GR – I would not be too concerned about augments for high paragon players, they do mean more to the lower paragon crowd.
Those guidelines that Nev shared are junk, they don’t hold water because Blizz kept producing more high power builds ~GR142-143 @ 5k paragon.
Look at all of the A-S tier builds that they produced:
In my opinion, based on 5k paragon, the sweet spot for all builds should be GR139-141 solo in 500 keys. So if I were to look at Crusader, I’d call for nerfs on the following:
AoV6 Heaven’s Fury, specifically Ivory Tower. So another small nerf to Shield of Fury… again… (net nerf -2GRs)
A6I2 Bombardment, specifically move I2 thorns stacks to I6, make players run A6 Bombs without Invokers. (net nerf -5GRs on paper)
LoN Bombardment, this is a tough call since it’s right on the cusp, I’ve done 140 so far, I will try to prove GR141 soon, this power rivals AoV Heaven’s w/ Norvald’s which we don’t want to break.
That is the proper way to do it, while ALSO giving Crusaders competitive LoD Blessed Shield/Condemn, Rolands Sweeper & Shield Bash, Seeker’s Hammerdin builds. etc.
The same for DH:
Marauders 6pc and 4pc multiply out together w/ 10% DR per Sentry baked into the 4pc, M6 no longer buffs Multishot.
Unhallowed Essence 6pc 625% per point of Discipline and Hatred combined. (most will run with 236 max resource, that’s up to 10 GRs – now you really have to manage your hatred).
Shadow 2pc - 12000%.
Gears of Dreadlands 6pc - 22,500% or Ninth Satchel to 5 pierces
Wojhanni Assaulter becomes multiplicative.
Shadow 6pc buffs Chakram and Fan of Knives by 400% (not first hit) with big buffs to Spines of Seething Hatred, Sword of Ill Will and LGF.
Kridershot and Augustine Panacea buffs in line with what is applied to Chakram legendary items.
Show of hands, who wants to play this version of D3?
You completely missed the point. I was just referring to people who got to 5K in a single season (roughly 3 months) and what augments they were able to get AFTER January 2020. Why? Because 4-man groups are able to clear 150 today regardless of a seasonal buff. So those players can and will get 141+ augments by the time they reach 5K, something that @Jumpman didn’t take into account.
I didn’t say anything about LoN/LoD because the interactions there can be much more complex than tweaking a few numbers in the sets.
True, but that’s the only guidelines they dared to publish. It does seems that they might have changed during the releases of new sets. I just wish some dev would speak and clear things up.
What I’ve learned throughout all of this is the devs don’t really need to make declarations, While knowing the target GR would be helpful to the community: we’d make more accurate suggestions – less arguing about where to balance, and more discussion about how to balance.
To figure out the unofficial target balance, I suggest looking at the biggest, most controversial balance argument this forum ever saw, which was Barbarian’s WW/Rend. The devs were fully cognizant of Lamentation under-and-over the current value, they had plenty of test data, and set the bar with the final number.
A similar situation occurred with Wiz, only they didn’t have much data on the most effective build variant, but they had an earful of advice – and they got a build slightly better than WW/Rend. It would have wound up in the same box as GoD6 [GR137-138] if they community didn’t nag after seeing the final notes.
That all in mind, GoD6 got the short end of the stick when it came to balance, -2-3GR under the target, while Firebirds ends up like +2GRs over. That’s roughly a 5GR spread. The saddest situation is Rathma, a new set rework that churns out GR130 at 5k paragon. By your original post, should we celebrate Rathma when burning Burning Carnival is doing 15GRs higher?
That is the crux of the problem. I’d recommend the same treatment, nerf Burning Carnival by 4-5GRs, and listen to the feedback of the community when they say pure Army of the Dead is boring, they want permanent minions to do the damage, just implement it and move on.