New Legendary Item: Wrath of the Berserker gains the effect of every rune.
Developer’s Note: If you played during the Patch 2.2.0 PTR, you’ll recognize this as an item that was later removed from the game before it went to live servers. At the time, Mortick’s Brace gave too much power for a single item slot. However, the power curve of Diablo III has changed significantly since then and we’re comfortable with bringing it back.
So, anyone care about this at all?
edit: sorry for double post, i just noticed Basshead has this already, I’m still trying to figure out this new forum format.
Whilst I agree that it doesn’t add much for Barbs to push what so ever in the current state of the game, as primarily an IK HOTA barb player, it’ll allow me to wear Mortick’s, drop Aquila and cube BotFM for max HOTA damage from the bracers.
Moving from Aquila to what is essentially a perma 50% DR means if my resource drops, my defense stays up. I also like the extra LPFS bonus to help with life recovery and the other extra WotB runes might make for a more visceral experience visually.
It’s great for IK - Intense defense boost with both the 50% damage reduction and 5k Life per Fury (That’s roughly 100k healing per ability use!), and a small increase to AoE damage (I want to say roughly 3-4%? Not much, but better then nothing)
It’s a lateral move from Aquila’s in the Cube, which also granted 50% DR. Sure, Mortick’s offers a little more healing, but the damage done by the other runes is negligible. It’s like saying that Pain Enhancer’s bleed damage is really strong, when in fact it may as well do zero damage.
What’s more, true end-game pushes with IK HOTA will disregard Mortick’s for Magefist.
This item is several years too late to be of any real use.
Felix and Free, from my testing on PTR, I think Mortick gave me +1 GR because it let me remove bloodthirst to use a DPS passive, remove Warcry and use Demoralize Frailty, and survival being better/easier. I also got a +20% fire amulet from my S17 Necro. This overall gave me 2 Greater Rifts (from 109 to 111). So I agree, it’s not a lateral move, it is definitely a slight upgrade.
However, my S17 Necro with 5 augments and much less optimized gear than my Barb did a 10 minute 115. I stopped playing my Necro because I was not liking the playstyle but it was far far stronger than my Barb ever was. We still need some damage increase or something to even the classes.
What’s happened is the extra security from Striding Giant and the additional healing makes you feel safer. You worry less about incoming damage, and you play more aggressively. It’s very much like playing Fire EQ with or without Band of Might; the highest clears have been achieved without Band of Might, and clears with the ring are three tiers behind.
In other words, the extra DR and healing allows you to play more comfortably and fish less intensely at a given tier. However, if you dropped Morticks and fished with the conventional setup, you would likely still achieve the same clear albeit with more fishing and risk.
In the end, Mortick’s will benefit players who aren’t fishing properly, or who don’t want the greater risk vs reward of using Magefist, but Magefist clears will still likely be several tiers higher.
This is, however, a moot point. IK HOTA is still the weakest of our major builds, and even a buff of 1 or 2 GRs is nowhere near enough to make the bracer worthwhile as a buff.
zDPS Barb should not be nerfed, period. The one way to completely ruin zDPS Barb would be to nerf Mob Rules. That would 100% destroy zDPS Barb, but it would also severely limit group potential.
Instead, Barbs should be buffed so they can DPS in off-meta groups–AKA, group comps that don’t threaten the current meta comps for pushing or rats. All we want is to see Barbs as efficient, off-meta options for speeds.
Other classes that don’t have roles in the meta should be likewise buffed, but I’m not an expert on those classes, and I’m not qualified to even speculate what it would take.
Free, you are right in that I don’t fish. I work full time and only play after work basically very casually.
I do think the survivability upgrade allowed me to make these objective damage upgrades:
War Cry -> Demoralize Fraility
Blood Thirst -> Brawler
But you are right, if I had time to fish and fish, I could’ve found a greater rift that I was able to use Demoralize and Brawler without dying before Morticks. Then I’d be capped by DPS and Morticks gives zero DPS gain.
So I assume that the same argument can be used to justify Monks also as support in 4 man meta.
Given that, how can a strong argument be made that 3 classes every season will be excluded from the 4 man meta that always include barbs and monks?
In reality from season 12 and on, no crusader, demon hunter, or witch doctor has been part of the 4 man meta? What would you say to these excluded classes? Is it fair to them?
One way to address this is to target certain Season buffs or items to changing the meta, but Blizzard has almost never shown any interest in doing this.
As for this:
It’s important to note that there’s no single 4-player meta. There are, in reality, several different metas. Here’s a rough breakdown:
Push meta requires the most optimal damage-dealing setups. These comps push the highest GRs.
Speed metas are dominated by Rats comps (3 Necros and 1 Barb), and offer the most XP per hour. This is a radically different style of play than Push meta, but is often just as restrictive.
And then there are off-meta comps, where classes excluded from the above can shine. These comps can’t push as high as Push metas, and they aren’t quite as fast as Speed metas at the same tiers, but if you bring the difficulty down just a little bit, you can still get some blazing fast speed clears. This is precisely where we’re trying to fit Barb in as DPS.
Should other classes get the same?
Sure.
But again, that’s not something I’m qualified to debate, because I’m not an expert in other classes. I focus on Barbs. I leave it to other class communities to organize and figure it out.
So this meta also includes barbs. I admire your enthusiasm for getting barbs buffed and I think that they deserve to be buffed. However, the fact that barbs are central to both the 4 man push meta and the 4 man Speed/XP meta should not be ignored.
When was the last time someone said “looking for group, need a crusader or demon hunter”? I consider barbs lucky in that they have had a seat at the 4 man table from season 5 and on.
But implicit in your statement is the idea that other classes should be considered for groups. I also agree with that. If, however, that comes at the cost of Barbs getting kicked out of Push or Rats, my answer is a firm NO. Unless, of course, we have a spot elsewhere.
Again, this is about Barbs. If other class communities want their cake and to eat it, too, do what we did: organize, create, and promote.
My opinion is based more on a broad sense of class equity and not any one particular class.
When barbs were excluded from the 4 man meta in seasons 1-3, how did you feel? Now project those feelings onto demon hunters and crusaders that have been excluded from the meta season 5-17?
The majority of my play time has been on demon hunters and witch doctors.
Ideally, I would like the opportunity to be part of the 4 man meta roughly half the time (There are 7 classes, so 3 classes are always excluded.). Unfortunately, since season 11 neither class has had a place in the 4 man meta.
Even if there are “guaranteed” spots for both monks and barbs, then there are 5 classes competing for two positions.