What if barb and crusader are both nerfed, but both max out at the same greater rift as all other top builds of other classes (±2 levels) do ?
Defiantly would be a sad face for me to, before I mainly used my WW Barb for Bounty’s and and low level Leg. Gems. It is very KOOL that I can actuality kick some serious But with the WW Barb for a change. 
I can’t speak for the Crusader Class, but if they start Nurfing the WW build, the Dev’s have a terrible record when it comes to Nurfing and this time if they “overshoot” I don’t think the WW build will be “fixed again” anytime soon and will end up in Oblivion so to speak, like so many other good to great builds in the past. That would be a terrible shame for one of Diablos signature builds IMO.
It comes down too:
IF IT ISN’T BROKE, DON"T FIX IT.
I agree. That’s why, as a guy who would like a nerf (especially on crusader, and I am a crusader main), I still try to give devs pointers to what could be done to nerf the build without overnerfing, and thus keeping barbs in line with the stated goal of 141 at 10k paragon, including barb builds that should be buffed, like MotE or IK HotA.
Now, I see some players saying “blablabla why don’t you go to DH/necro forums ask for buffs ?”. Well, we are currently waiting for a PTR patch. If the patch goes up and their goal for the patch is to buff necro/dh (like it was in 2.6.7 to buff barb) and they fail to do so, sure. I may be vocal about it. And if the build is too powerful, I may also ask for nerfs. But as of right now, I believe asking for anything on necro/dh is meaningless.
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The problem is with that in the PTR the Dev’s barley listen to what the participants in the PTR have to say.
How many PTRs in the past did Free and the Gang present some very good feedback on how to get the Barbs anywhere close to the Wizards and Necros in Solo Play? It all fell on deaf ears till the last Patch, and the Dev’s almost blew that one for the Barbs too.
As for balance, they haven’t balanced this game In 7 years of trying, I don’t think If they had 7 more years to work on balancing all the Classes at the same time, they still wouldn’t be able to accomplish that feat.
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For clarification, Free’s/Rage’s barb buff proposal asked barbs to be buffed to “average”. At the that time only wizards were OP. Ironically, he called them “obviously broken”. Relative to patch 2.6.6, the barb buff proposal was released too late as patches are being developed in advance.
For patch 2.6.7, Blizzard had already decided to nerf wizards and thorns necromancers so those propositions were not terribly relevant, even if he suggested this which wasn’t the case.
At different timepoints in the game, balance was far better than now. I support the developers as they now have stated that they are going to try to balance the game better. We will have to wait and see if they can succeed.
Like Kikaha said, no one is asking for an overnerf or overbuff. The whole point is better equity between classes so many including you and Meteorbladee will no longer have “sad faces” moving forward. This comment extend to the current weak classes such as necromancers that are experiencing currently “sad faces”.
It is indeed a problem. However, there seem to be a small shift lately, so maybe we can have some hope that they do listen a little bit more. Worst case scenario, they don’t listen to any feedback and do whatever they want. Could be over nerfing barb, or could be leaving crusader un nerfed. I choose to voice my opinion even if it’s probably useless, in hope that they do neither of those, and actually balance those builds for 140 push, and move on to other weak sets to bring them up to par, during later ptrs. I am pretty sure that’s also what MicroRNA wants.
As far as failing to balance in the last 7 years go, I think balancing is not as easy as it sounds. Look, Free, an avid barb player was advocating for the previous patch to bring back 200% on Lamentation. It is now at 150%, and still a bit too strong for the 140ish max target the devs had in mind. You see, not that easy.
In the last 7 years, there has been a lot of powercreep. Which made some things “good”, like clearing higher grifts (feeling of progression), and some things bad (old meta builds like akkhan condemn end up weaker than newer meta sets that were buffed to the new power target). We are now at the point where even if you clear higher grifts, you don’t really progress because your gems are maxed at 150, your caldesanns are maxed at 150, and your gear is already perfect because we farm high torments so fast, we can gear up a character in no time.
So at this point, either you give the feeling of progression its meaning again (remove gr cap), or try to make old builds stronger.
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Y’all love to talk about Cederquist’s posts without acknowledging that that 140 is not an explicit target for every class and build or that context matters when builds are evaluated. I wrote about the latter in detail on the GD thread, but that garbage heap of a thread isn’t worth revisiting. You can dig up my posts there if interested.
As for the former, there’s a difference between Barbs and Saders, and there’s an acceptable level of variance from 140-141 as a baseline, and there’s an acceptable level of variance within that variance. Barbs were just buffed, and they are not clearing GR 146 en masse. In terms of class analysis, top clears provide an excellent look at the top end of GR clear potentials per build, but only within a very small representational sample of players–those with 8-10k Paragon and 30k+ main stat. Nerfs to a build don’t hit those players hardest, and that needs to be taken into consideration.
The vast majority of Barbs don’t have the power that is represented by the top of the leaderboards, and they’ll never achieve those kinds of clears. This is why folks need to lay off asking for Barb nerfs. There’s no such thing as perfect balance–never will be–but the top clears by Barbs are not and should not be contextualized in the same way as older Wizard or per-nerf Sader clears. We aren’t abusing mechanics and we aren’t relying on exploits.
200% on Lamentation might have elevated top clears, but those would have been the overwhelming minority of Barb clears, just as they are now. Meanwhile, the largest player base would have simply had a little more wiggle room in the build.
No one’s complaining about 150%. We are pretty ticked off that some folks still think that is too much.
I’ve said this 1000 times already, but here it is again: You can make other, older builds stronger without asking for nerfs.
You can advocate for buffs without ticking everyone else off in the process.
Notice how when Rage and I wrote the buff proposal we never asked for nerfs for any class or build? Why do you think our work was met with near unanimous support?
This is something the Fun Police don’t understand.
Here’s something else they don’t understand: If other classes and builds are capable of 141+, it doesn’t matter if Barbs can do 147. Builds that can do 140 are, generally speaking, excellent, strong push builds, and likely can be modified into fast, efficient T16 and Bounty builds.
WD (143) and DH (140) are already there. So is Barb.
Let’s get the other classes in that same range. That’s step 1.
Step 2 should be to buff a few extra items per class so that a few different builds are in that range.
Everyone gets to have fun.
See how easy that is? It can all be achieved without asking for nerfs.
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Great post!
1 like isn’t near enough, have a 100 more 
s on me.
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And that’s what the post from Matthew C. targetted. Players with 10k paragons and 30k main stat.
Rightfully so, those kind of clears (140 ±2) are supposed to be outliers.
It does, because if other builds are capable of at most 143, then WW/Rend will always be the top and nothing will ever come close, and there won’t be any reason to play those other builds for pushing. Again, the goal of the “fun police” is not to nerf anything below the max, it’s to try (yeah, blablabla balance impossible, 7 years, etc) and make it so that if a player is better at build X than build Y, and has better gear on build X than build Y, he clears a higher gr with build X than build Y. And if X and Y are reversed, then he should then clear higher with Y than with X. Does that make sense ?
In barb language “Me immortal hota smash but me get dizzy spinny, me clear higher hota smash than spinny dizzy”. This is a joke btw.
If you buff HotA to WW level, (what you want), you bring powercreep and in turn, everybody clears 150. Which I don’t want.
Please, get everybody to 140ish, yes. I am not against it at all. Please buff barb, it’s still one of the worst class overall.
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This is a false dilemma. People main classes in this game–not everyone, but many, possibly most players–and they want to play the classes and builds they enjoy. Those classes and builds are not always the strongest. And if they sometimes are the strongest, that’s okay, too.
In other words, if Rend is a few tiers stronger than everything else, it doesn’t neutralize people’s desires to play other classes and builds. Remember, most people aren’t squeezing that kind of power out of Rend. And when it’s not the hottest new thing, folks will migrate to something else, regardless of which is more powerful.
Do you think Rend is going to be more popular than, say, the new DH and Wiz sets when they drop, even if those new sets are weaker? I think we both know the answer is no.
The difference between a push build that can do 140-143 and one that can do 146 isn’t much, mah dude, and shouldn’t be of concern to anyone.
That’s never going to happen because of the mechanics present in the game. AOE builds that can make use of AD and builds with massive single-target burst damage will always clear higher than other builds because of the way fishing works.
Fun Police don’t quite understand this. It is not possible to balance all builds due to the way damage is calculated. That’s a lost cause–doubly so when you consider overlapping builds. If you buff IK HOTA to the level of Rend, what do you think happens with R6 HOTA?
No, mah dude. That’s a dead horse that doesn’t need another beating.
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I don’t know, let’s say you buff IK set to 10k% damage, how does that impact R6 Hota in any way ?
Maybe it isn’t for you since you never get close the end of season leaderboards but it is for people who do.
The discussion in its simplest terms boils down to this that I already posted earlier:
Player Power (Class A and B)
A>B 
A 
, B 
B>A A , : B
A≈B A , : B
Some players feel disenfranchised when their preferred class is weak in comparison to others. A hallmark of strong game design is a well-balanced game that maximizes fun for all players/classes/character types. The game producer has stated their formula for game balance.
A≈B means A approximates B. It does not mean that there is perfect game balance but relatively good game balance. I looked at the era data, we have had multiple eras where the best solo class to the worst fell within a 5-6 GR range. This level of balance has already been achieved. There is no reason that this variance can not be achieved again.
In era 11, there was a grand total of 3 solo clears at or above GR 146 worldwide for all classes combined. These were for 2 wizards and a thorns necromancer. Both were nerfed. These nerfs were consistent with the game balance formula. Blizzard has indicated that AoV crusaders will be nerfed almost certainly next patch.
Therefore, a question that is raised is whether it makes sense to balance around a GR 139-143 (as it now appears) or should we only buff where balance dictates that all classes at the top end can solo GR 150.
How do we get 2 smiling faces?
- Only buff, never nerf.
Powercreep
. Trivialization of group content . Overall game quality 
- Buff and nerf.
Overall game quality
What has “only buff” mentality taken the game? In era 4, the top solo GR clear was GR77. In era 12, it is GR 150.
Relative to 4 man metas in non-season, the top clears are under 5 minutes. Worldwide to be considered a Top 2000 4-man clear, one would need to clear GR 150 in less than 10 minutes. Also, I looked at this in a retrospective may. The top solo GR clear was GR 77 @ 2,723 paragon at the end of era 4. Now the top solo clear is GR 150 (in under 11 minutes) for a player at 10,867 paragon.
This paragon difference is 10,867//2,723=3.99 or equivalent to 8.9 GRs of monster hp
The 73 GR difference in terms of montesr hp is 1.17^73=94,966X monster hp
Given this, other powercreep needs to account for 23,480X difference in monster hp in excess of the 4X multiplier due to paragon.
OTHER POWERCREEP >>>>>>>> paragon powercreep
I have already done an analysis using various data metrics for 7,000 solo GR clears in the current era as well as 14,000 in era 11. That data is available that you seek to make a valid conclusion. Irrespective, of the analytic (for example top clears, GR clears by paragon levels, GR efficiency), we see that era 12 barbs and crusaders are the 2 most powerful classes currently. They share several characteristics to era 11 wizards.
I have talked a lot about motivated reasoning and confirmation bias in general terms. In the D3 general discussion forum, you are likely to have more broad perspectives than what exists in the barbarians forum. I would argue that the thread in general discussion is more representative of a wide cross-section of views versus a class-specific forum. For example, I play all classes that gives me a broad perspective. My least played class is crusaders @ 378 hours. You main a barb and have only played a non-barb class 240 hours total (across the other 6 classes combined).
By analogy, one can discuss the merits of the Adkins diet to nutritionists. If you are anti-Adkins, you may feel that discussion is garbage since it may not confirm your views. Now, one can say that we should discuss things among only vegetarian nutritionist to have more like-minded opinions. To me, it may demonstrate that the anti-Atkins group’s argument can not stand up to rational and logical rigor.
It is my opinion that many of your arguments fall into the trap of motivated reasoning, especially in consideration that they appear to me to directly contradict your earlier posts about game balance and fun.
As an example, you used the top 10 clears in 3 regions to determine relative power between classes to demonstrate that barbs were weak by 4.1 GRs versus average in the past. Using a similar metric, it now shows that barbs are currently well-above average. You now claim that this method is invalid.
In the past a 4.1 GR difference was a point of concern to you. Now, a gap of 3- 6 GRs “shouldn’t be a concern to anyone.”
Buffing the IK set doesn’t do much to R6, true. But you want to slap 10k % on a global multiplier? Before the new Barb set is released?
No thanks. There’s a reason the devs have always been extremely conservative about buffing IK, and anyways, 10k isn’t going to put it into the 145 range. A more direct answer to the question is that buffing the IK set like that would kill R6 HOTA as a build, something many players probably wouldn’t mind. The problem with the IK set has always been its design–the global multiplier has always been a terrible idea because its impossible to balance for every potential build that may or may not overlap with other sets.
By the way, if you did jack IK that high, you would put Vile Charge back into contention, complete with its gimmicky wall-charge mechanic.
I want to be clear when talking about buffs: I want all classes to receive buffs to underperforming builds, but doing so is much more complicated than simply increasing numbers. Barbs run into a lot of problems with the IK and Raekor sets due to their global/spender multipliers. This is why I don’t suggest specific buffs for other classes, because I’m not an expert in those classes. For what it’s worth, I would be especially interested in a massive Impale buff because I absolutely love that build.
No it doesn’t. Season players aren’t pushing 140 solo without broken OP Season themes. You understand there’s a 10-15+ GR tier gap due to the Season theme, right?
People play the hot new thing, or they play the class they love. And even if some players just play whatever is strongest, that doesn’t stop you from doing whatever you want–which should be playing whatever class and build you prefer. Buffs all around would only make that more palatable for everyone.
I wish you’d stop doing that. I think a lot of us wish you would stop doing that.
The 4 tiers of power we requested were in addition to intra-class buffs, and thus additive. The two buffs combined would have brought Barbs in line with other classes, and all we wanted were buffs. We didn’t ask for nerfs. It’s that simple. It’s not about motivated reasoning, so please put your buzzword back in the toy box. The situation faced by Barbs when we wrote the proposal is not the same as the current situation, but you can damn well fix this one like you fixed the last one: buffs.
Here’s how we get your “smiling faces:”
- Leave Barbs and Saders alone.
- Buff everyone else to those levels.
It’s that simple.
If Barb ends up as the strongest class, that’s fine provided that other classes and builds receive buffs to be competitive without having to rely on broken, gimmicky mechanics.
There, I solved it for you. Now go back to GD, get back under the rock, and clean your room.
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From
"a global comparison reveals the true scope of the situation. Here are the averages of the top 10 GR clears by class for all three servers:
Class / NA / EU / AS / Average
Barb: 125.7 / 127.7 / 126.8 / 126.7
Cru: 130.0 / 132.1 / 129.7 / 130.6
DH: 129.0 / 131.2 / 129.9 / 130.0
Monk: 125.4 / 129.3 / 127.6 / 127.4
Nec: 130.8 / 135.3 / 131.2 / 132.4
WD: 130.2 / 132.2 / 129.8 / 130.7
Wiz: 136.0 / 138.9 / 138.3 / 137.7
Worldwide average for all classes is 130.8 , which means Barbarians are 4.1 tiers behind the average for other classes. "
It was met with support because weak classes deserved to be buffed. As I have documented with multiple quotes, I too called for buffs to weak classes such as barbs and monks at the time.
He still doesn’t get it.
He also conveniently misses that the Barb average was basically wrong as it was boosted by Barbs using the wall charge exploit to get as high as they did.
QFT!
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What other gimmicky mechanics were used at the time to boost other classes top GR clears? Is barbarian the only class that has to rely on these? Certainly not. Even if we accept that wall charging elevated top clears more than other odd mechanics for other classes, it does not change how things were calculated.
EDIT to avoid bumping this thread: I do know the screwy mechanics that had to get employed to have several other classes reach their max GR clears. It was a rhetorical question.
P.S. If Blizzard were to do a survey of 10,000 representative players, I wonder what percent would favor having all classes within a 4 GR solo range. I suspect that the vast majority would say yes.
The other question would be whether players wanted to
- balance the game around GR 140ish solo where 4 man groups could clear GR 150 for the top end of the leaderboard
OR
- balance the game around GR 150 solo for top players where 4 man GR 150 could be speed runs for top players
I suspect more people would prefer option 1.
Maybe if you spent as much time posting in their forums you’d know.
EDIT - I see we’re back to thoughts and feelings again 
Let’s do something radical, and not go down that rabbit hole.
You’re using way too many words to try an justify your agenda.
You said you’re a parent, be like Elsa from Frozen…LET IT GO!!!
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So, why aren’t you on the DH and Necro forums right now calling for buffs?
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Because that doesn’t suit his agenda of getting Barbs nerfed.
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Do you honestly think that I can influence Blizzard’s thought process on game balance?
If I had some secret power to influence Blizzard, there would be far more stash tabs and character slots already.
As for nerf/buff suggestions, I have contributed to topics in general discussion that have discussed multiple classes. My justification for posting in this thread is obvious given its topic and the posts preceding my first.