That they are ancients or primals do not guarantee that you have better.
The Bounties are boring and not very rewarding: you can dedicate them a whole week, spend all your materials and not get that desired item, it is disappointing. The problem is compounded when those items bring useless preset stats (such as movement speed) or when you also need a specific secondary stat. The primal objects seemed like a good idea but in practice so much randomness means that, if you are lucky, you get 1 usable of 20.
With how much paragon? with what build? Ideally, all the builds of all the characters be viable to play high GR, both alone and in groups. Currently, the diversity of builds is not promoted, and if you do not play meta it is impossible to play high GR (Try to play a 120 with 3 barb/Wastes)
When some classes clean T16 in less than 2 min and others need 4 or 5 something is failing.
Here’s something else you got wrong: Zodiac Rend is not squishy at low Paragon. It’s incredibly easy to stack plenty of mitigation: Mortick’s + Band of Might + Wastes DR. If you lack enough CDR for perma-Wrath, you can opt for Aquila in the Cube, or Unity until you sort out your gear roles. You can use Parthans or PoC in the Cube while you’re working on getting the correct items. The point is, there are a lot of ways you can make Zodiac Rend very, very tanky at any Paragon.
At the cost of losing damage lmao, by that logic every single build in the game it’s tanky, because you can sacrifice a lot of DPS tools to equip unity, aquila and parthans lmao.
If you’re so concerned about low-Paragon players (which mirrors my own concerns), you’ll know this is another fact: Nerfs will hit low-Paragon players the hardest. Survival in Normal or Season is not the build’s issue. It is, and has always been, damage (at least until now when we’re right where we ought to be!).
Nerfs and Buffs affects the 100% of D3 players… all that “nerfs hits low level paragon players more” it’s just a lie. also when people ask for buffs they ask looking at ladderboards, the clears of the 10k paragon guys that seems everyone hates now lmao. Even if you use that lie of “nerfs hits low level paragon more”, then we should never buff builds because buffs will benefit top paragon players to push even further lmao.
I just can’t be bothered discussing this with you. Your arguments–like those of people asking for nerfs–are childish and ridiculous. Barbs spent years as trash and when we finally get buffed and are in a good place, some of y’all want to ruin the fun. That’s a big NO, Fun Police.
Our arguments are not childish or ridiculous, the only one that is childish is the people that still is in state of denial about WW OP perfomance, also all that emotional arguments of “barb were weak for so long” don’t have any relevance, because at least barbarian has been part of group meta as a ZPDS, other classes like crusader and wd have been out of meta for a lot more time. We got a blue post about balance 141 is the GR level they are aiming to balance, WW is 5 levels over the balance so it’s OP (fun thing is when the same dev said that WW clearing 143 was OK, you were one of the guys that gave him likes and were using the argument of “dev said WW is ok, so stop with the nerf agenda”, but sureee like dev balance idea now it’s on the oposite side to your agenda now you don’t like it lmao)
And that’s a big NO to the rest of the Nerf Herd. A few 9-11K Barbs are clearing GR 145 in non-Season.
So what?
Buffs and nerfs are balanced around high level paragon players, even in your barbarian proposal idea you used top clears as a tool to ask for buffs lmao, but suree you only like high level paragon players when they agree with you and when you can use them to ask for barb buffs or powercreep lmao.
Because nerfing Rend is definitely going to put a damper on it for many Barbs.
Buffs, not nerfs.
Period.
Buffs and nerfs are needed to make the game balanced, for years we were in the train of “never nerf, just buff” and the powercreep went out of control, and barbarian ended being the weakest class in terms of damage just because was never buffed at the same rate of other classes…
Not even devs agree with your agenda of “buffs, not nerfs” so
Also i don’t agree with what micro said about being able to clear solo GR 150, so is not like “the nerf crew” follow an agenda or something like that, we just care about balance, and in this point you can see that micro and me have different points of view.
This is an old (and still held) view of mine (not necessarily about GR 150 per se), but decreasing the gap between the max GR that solo vs 4 man group players can achieve. Historically, this gap has been in the 10-15 GR range. In the old forum, I suggested that solo GRs are rescaled in terms of monster HP to make it so that the top solo players could clear a similar GR to the 4 man team.
In terms of balance, the mantra of “Only buff, never nerf” is just an opinion like “Use both nerfs and buffs”. The truth is the developers have decided on the latter. I support their decision.
When I read this, I realized that it would be exceptionally unlikely that I could make a case that would change his belief of “Only buff, never nerf.”
If I owned 7 cars and one was obviously broken, I would fix it. I would not break the other 6 cars to match the “obviously broken” one. He is entitled to his opinion and so am I on this issue. It is a matter of taste. Some people like chocolate some people don’t.
since we have an absolute cap on content (GR 150), we have an obvious target for balance, IE players should only be barely able to do GR150, if at all. so the target for each class should be something like GR145. that means buffs and nerfs are valid tools.
bouncing against the toughest content in game with no room for improvement isnt what i would call compelling game play. in my mind, balance is ~4 player groups doing ~145 regularly, 146 rarely, and 147 on great days, with clears over 147 being unicorns… everything perfectly coming together.
If it was nerfed, that second point will be moot, and messing with the build to make it tankier will severely limit its early damage potential for non-Season players.
Again, you don’t understand the build.
No, it isn’t, and it’s quite obvious if you think about it a while. If you nerf a build, who will have the most trouble adapting?
A. Players with 8-10K Paragon, 150 Augs, and plenty of maxed gems
B. Low-Paragon players with iffy gear, mediocre or low Augs, and fewer resources
If you claim the answer is that A and B suffer equally, you’re flat-out lying. That or you have a concussion.
That is a pretty interesting misunderstanding of our methodology. I don’t need to explain why it’s wrong because anyone who goes to the site and reads it will immediately understand.
When exactly did powercreep go “out of control?” You understand that correlation is not causation, right?
The devs have not weighed in on Barbs, and the rampant speculation that they will nerf it is, I hope, wildly overblown.
By the way, you still haven’t answered my question–in fact, none of the Fun Police have:
And y’all can stop equating Barb clears with Sader clears. 146 is not 150, etc.
Barbs are in a good spot. Powerful, fast, efficient. Y’all shouldn’t be worried about nerfing them. Y’all should be worried about asking for buffs for your favorite classes and builds so you can be on par.
Such a shame this nerf mentality has taken root in a few of y’all.
I will answer your question with a question. How does playing a weak class hinder your enjoyment of the game?
Analogy 1: You have seven employees with similar work effort, integrity, and productivity. You publicly give one and only one of them a $100,000 bonus. How does that impact the other 6 employees?
Maybe an analogy closer to your profession. You have 7 students. You decided to give one student an A who did not deserve it. The other 6 students you give the grade that each earned. How does that impact the other 6 students?
Ironically, playing a weak class hindered your enjoyment of the game so significantly that you even created an entire new website ( http://barbarianbuffproposals.mystrikingly.com/ ) to ask for buffs to make the game more fun in your mind.
It reads verbatim: “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:”
Your methodology of your global comparison is clearly stated in that you took the top ten clears in each region and then averaged them . It is immediately obvious to me and presumably others that you used the top clears from players with high paragon and outstanding gear to make your global comparison. As such, I give your comment 5 Pinocchios.
Patch 2.6.4 went live in January 2019. The prior patch 2.6.1 went live in October 2017. The reason I bring this up is that you claim that barbs have been trash for years. I realize that you may not trust my analysis, but Prokahn did an analysis of season 12 (patch 2.6.1). Importantly, this was before seasonal buffs and as we know seasonal paragons are far lower than non-season. Therefore, this data may more accurately represent low paragon players.
So what did Prokahn find after analyzing the entire season 12 leaderboard? What was the weakest class in terms of GR efficiency according to his analysis?
Necromancers, Wizards, Barbarians, Monks and Crusaders are balanced with each other within approximately 1 greater rift level difference across multiple greater rift levels. The balance among these five classes are made close to perfect (I would like to call this Balance Level 1 ).
Witch doctors (5-6 greater rift behind) and Demon hunters (2 greater rifts behind) follow the Balance Level 1 by 2-6 greater rifts behind (rough estimate). I would like to call this Balance Level 2 .
Class balance seems to be made well considering the paragon plots as well. However, witch doctor is following the other classes 5-6 greater rift behind and may deserve a slight buff. Apart from this, the balance seems pretty good.
Verdict:
According to this analysis the Witch Doctors and Demon Hunter may need a slight tune up. However, this is especially necessary for the witch doctor class considering they follow all of the other classes 6 greater rift behind.
Conclusions:
Overall, in Patch 2.6.1, the developers did a great job with balancing all of the classes with each other. Currently, Witch doctors and the demon hunters may need a slight tune up, but the current balance seems to be close to perfect. Well done to the developer team. Especially Don Vu."
We can also see Prokahns era 11 analysis (and for that matter my era 11 final leaderboard analysis).
Given the overwhelming data produced by independent posters, I think it is fair to say that barbarians have not been the weakest class for years.
What??? If the build has plenty of built in damage, how can you also claim that season players deal all damage from season theme. Logically, since people are also clearing high GRs in non-season then the seasonal theme can not be doing all the damage. Logically, you could say some (or a subset or majority or most) and at least be right or have a chance to be correct. To say all damage is absolutely false.
Why would I want to waste my time suggesting buffs to match crusaders or barbarians when Blizzard has already conveyed that their GR target for top players is GR 141 plus or minus a couple of GRs? Blizzard has already stated that they are trying to make all classes on par through a combination of buffs and nerfs.
Hey all of you guys there,
Instead of arguing of nerfs and OP , maybe it would be nice to ask the developers (I know they are focusing on D4 but they can take this into consideration) to add like 10 - 20 or 50 rifts like from 150 to 160/170 or 200 and call it something like DarkRifts or TerrorRifts and add a new color door i.e black or something , and not being able to open it until you complete a 150 GR. Add some new maps from D3 or even from D2 that already exist. They could also instead of 1 RG add 1 more make it interesting fighting 2 RG. I’m going even further and maybe bring to life Baal , Mephisto , Andariel, Duriel, The Countess , Blood Raven, the Smith, etc—calling it Timeless Rift or EternalRift, and all the time being accompanied by Tyrael in his D2 form, for moral support. Just an idea and that way no one will be complaining about to much paragon or nerfs or anything else. Just a thought.
Sorry for the rather long post and thank you for reading. Have a pleasant and interesting adventure not only in games but in real life too
P.S: But still…don’t go and slay things in real life
I may be wrong but I think they listened. We won’t know until the new DH set. They acknowledged the Rapid fire deficiency and fixed it. At the same time wayyyyyy back (2014? first? then again later? - not sure), the spike traps with the Trag’Oul Coils, Chanon Bolter and Demon’s Demise were also clearly mentioned.
I will wait and see what the new DH set brings to the game.
EDIT POINT:
If they make the new DH set a ‘trap’ based set, then it also makes sense to ramp up the damage of Caltrops too and add Cape of The Dark Night to the caltrop damage list.
For this topic, the OP asked for ideas if Blizzard decides to buff/nerf classes in consideration that Blizzard may follow through given their posted balance “formula” .
Although consensus is too strong of a word, one could more accurately write: the consensus for those who provided suggestions in this thread about how to nerf either of 2 classes or buff necromancers given Blizzard’s comments on game balance.
You may disagree justifiably with LordFluffy about his comment about a “small nerf”; however, he is one of the leading necromancer experts. Even Free acknowledged that.
Do you consider those who underestimated ww/rend power by 6-7 GRs also “no expert about anything in this game”?
At the end of the day, it does not matter my opinion on balance. The opinion that matters is Blizzards. They have already posted their thoughts about game balance and a blog post will be coming soon (but quicker than Blizzard soon).
P.S. In the thread that LordFluffy created, there are suggestions from other necromancers.
Evaluating the relative impact of a nerf to 1/3 of the power is a simple thing.
Predicting the absolute performance of a build is not.
So the two things are not related at all. As you should know if you want to talk about balancing at all.
Agreed. It is more difficult to predict the absolute performance of a build with sparse data than to evaluate the relative impact of a nerf. I would suggest that those who accurately predicted absolute performance of a build during the PTR are more worthy of being considered experts. They may not be. A person could have just made a “lucky” guess.
In terms of balancing, we do not need to make a prediction any more with quite limited data. For example, no on needs to predict whether the top crusader can clear a GR 150 in non-seasons. We now have the data. The answer is yes. There are 7 crusaders to clear this level.
Given this fact, do you understand why Blizzard most likely will nerf crusaders next patch?
Speaking of WW Rend Barbarian, how many of you guys are actually OK with that Rend skill bar is not being used (I mean manual cast it) when you got Ambo’s Pride?
People are using so called “hard casts” of rend. “Hard casts” of rend can proc area damage leading to more DPS (and unfortunately more server lag) especially in high density.
The problem with hard casts of rend is that it makes the build playstyle more clunky. With “hard casts”, you can get a few extra GRs out of your top end potential.
By pushing the rend button, rend procs area damage. For rend applied by Ambo, these Ambo-rends do not proc area damage.
In density, it makes sense to push the rend button. Be careful as usually (2 button pushes, sometime 3 if you are super speedy) can be done without losing other buffs due to whirldwinding/waste set bonus.
