Patch 2.6.8 Balance changes Nerfs/Buffs

[MicroRNA-1507]

@Free-1746

How does the clear potential of Barbarian hinder your enjoyment of the game?

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?

@Free-1746

goes to the site

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.

@Free-1746

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.

Well let’s read the website (link is: http://barbarianbuffproposals.mystrikingly.com/).

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.

@Free-1746

a class that has spent years as broken, gimmicky, weak trash

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?

Here is the link:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Diablo/comments/7gv52h/analysisseason_12_data_greater_rift_clearing/

I now quote his results verbatim.

" Analysis of Results:

• 1. 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 ).
• 2. 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 .
• 3. 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).

[Analysis] Era 11 Patch 2.6.6 Classes Grift Clearing Efficiency Indicator Assessment (Class Power)

In this study, I am going to compare the greater rift clearing efficiency of Barbarians to Necromancer and Wizard class using whole leader board of Era 11 Patch 2.6.6 as of 25/08/2019. The analysis shows that Wizard class seems to have broken the balance achieved in the game in S12. Currently their clearing capability is “significantly” higher than the other classes. Buffs for barbarians are once again required to create a logical and reasonable end game balance to make this game an ARPG again (…

Solo game balance: Non-Season Era 11 and 12 Data and Analysis

Introduction Here, I present data and its analysis for the final era 11 solo leaderboards (patch 2.6.6) as well as the current era 12 data (patch 2.6.7a/b). Era data is non-season and is used to exclude confounders caused by seasonal buffs. The datasets being analyzed are imperfect in that there are biases in the number of players pushing each class. As an example, demon hunters and witch doctors did not receive any buffs or nerfs in patch 2.6.7; however, it is much easier (i.e. lower GR clea…

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.

@Free-1746

• Season players deal all damage from Season theme
• The build has plenty of built-in damage

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.

@Free-1746

Y’all should be worried about asking for buffs for your favorite classes and builds so you can be on par.

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.

@Free-1746

The devs have not weighed in on Barbs

141+5=146
141+3=144

@Poconut-1717

The Devs have given us the formula for when they nerf things. Barb’s and saders both meet the criteria.