Patch 2.6.8 Balance changes Nerfs/Buffs

[Kikaha-2290]

@Keyblade-6785

And so what , someone has to clear 150 eventually. Whats the point of having it there if NOBODY can ever solo it.

Greater rifts were advertised as a way to always have a progression to make. Clear gr X ? Go X+1. There is absolutely no reason that 150 should be clearable in solo.
Until now, as a top ranking player you has the choice of running the same gr level but faster -or- one level higher but at whatever speed you wanted.
If you balance around 150, you remove this choice, and leave everything on speed.

[Phoenix-1330]

@Kikaha-2290

If you balance around 150, you remove this choice, and leave everything on speed.

Let’s not exaggerate, only a very few people have cleared 150. Let’s not get carried away like people are speeding it solo.

[ENIAC-11907]

@Keyblade-6785

Whats the point of having it there if NOBODY can ever solo it

Because it is currently the maximum level, and Greater Rifts were not designed to have an achievable limit.

[Kikaha-2290]

If you start balancing builds around doing 150, that’s what is gonna happen eventually. Hence why builds should not be balanced around 150 but 140 instead.

The top crusader cleared 150 in less than 11 minutes already, in non season. Do you think he struggled ?

[Pe3eWe3e-21492]

GR 150 solo with any class should not be possible.

145+ should be reserved for groups.

But there are some problems with that.

People are speed farming 150s in groups for a long time. There is no good timing to take that away from them. If it is taken away what will keep them playing?
Nerfing class for solo play is nerfing it for group play also.
Blizzard is balancing around botters who have Paragon levels that are unachivable by non cheaters.

For season this is not a problem but for non season it is.

Edit: we will see end of Bazooka and AOV as we know them. Maybe end of WW/Rend. It will be interesting to find out new meta. Can’t wait for PTR.

[Kilometer-11340]

Hmmmm, I actually like GR140 is the highest level that a solo player can reach without the power of the seasonal theme and GR141~150 is group exclusive.

At least this give the reason for the players to party.

[Alecta-2451]

@Keyblade-6785

Why would you want to NERF anything if players are having fun or is FUN not allowed

Because everybody that is not playing that specc is not having fun. Or are others besides barb/sader players not allowed to have fun? See how that garbage arguement gets flipped?

I’m tired of having each season be totally defined by a few speccs. These devs are trying to break that cycle while you sit here crying for them to continue down that sh1tty road.

@Keyblade-6785

And so what , someone has to clear 150 eventually.

Says who lol? Not Blizzard apparently. Their goal seems to be around 141 solo (with extremely high para and great gear).

@Keyblade-6785

Whats the point of having it there if NOBODY can ever solo it.

It’s there due to technical limitation. This has been written about a million times in this very forum. Amazing that you cannot wrap your head around it stilll.

A nerf that dropds barb ~3grs, saders ~7 and Bazooka some lvls aswell will still put these builds at the top of the ladder.

They could obviously just decide to buff all builds to eventually clear 150 like crus but that would require tuning a lot of sets rather than a few. They would probably have to do something about group play aswell because they are speeding it already.
I suspect after the Bazooka nerf though that groups will have a hard time clearing 150.

[Zen-22763]

The competitive mode of this game is rotten and it is no longer a great challenge to make the highest level of GR. Developers should put aside this aspect a bit and focus on making the game fun.
In my opinion the fun of this game comes from 2 things:
1- Feel that your characters keep improving constantly. Regarding this issue, sometimes the RNG can be very frustrating, and some game modes such as bounties are not very rewarding (although you spend many hours it is very likely that they will not serve you at all)
2 -Be able to use multiple characters and builds. Currently it seems that you should focus on 1 or 2 concrete builds because they are part of the meta, this makes it monotonous and boring in a short time. There are characters, sets and items that players set aside because it is not part of the meta and they are unfeasible to play gr or T16 efficiently.

[Konotaro-2414]

Yeah they are all 10k+ para with full 150 augment and using macro for reset animation

[autie-1565]

hi -
Let me preface this by saying I am not a barbarian main. However, after reading through the thread, I see that the suspicion is that pylons are being abused with Flavor of Time, using Rage Flip to group mobs.

What would people think about putting a cooldown on Rage Flip?

[Kilometer-11340]

@Zen-22763

1- Feel that your characters keep improving constantly. Regarding this issue, sometimes the RNG can be very frustrating, and some game modes such as bounties are not very rewarding (although you spend many hours it is very likely that they will not serve you at all)

How so? I thought bounty is pretty rewarding as you need them for reforge legendary for the ancient and primal?

@Zen-22763

2 -Be able to use multiple characters and builds. Currently it seems that you should focus on 1 or 2 concrete builds because they are part of the meta, this makes it monotonous and boring in a short time. There are characters, sets and items that players set aside because it is not part of the meta and they are unfeasible to play gr or T16 efficiently.

If we excluded the GR100+, I think most of the classes and sets can clear T16 efficiently or do you want more classes to clear GR120?

[Pe3eWe3e-21492]

@LocknLoad-1624

Nerfs affect 90% of the players, the top few botters are
irrelevant to the big picture.

Over buffs affect 90% of the players also. Do you need examples?

[MicroRNA-1507]

@LocknLoad,

I do not understand your comments. I checked your forum profile summary and noticed that my posts have received 65 “likes” from you. This is more than all but 4 posters in terms of your most “likes given”.

@LocknLoad-1624

Why are you concerned what a handful of people can accomplish?

The game producer has posted Blizzard’s formula on class balance. The reason that the top clears are relevant is because their idea on class balance takes into account top clears.

Providing facts is not trolling but beneficial. My post was is response to someone who knew Blizzard’s target for top players in non-season and who thought the top barb clear was GR 144 in non-season. After I told him about the GR 146, he asked what server. I provided that information as well as a link to the data so he can validate it for himself.

There has been a lot of misinformation being propoagated. In this thread, some posters have claimed that crusaders have only cleared GR 150 in seasons when that is not the case as GR 150 has also been cleared in non-season. There are now 7 crusaders who have cleared GR 150 in non-seasons (2 more cleared it on Jan. 9).

You can agree or disagree with Blizzard’s ideas on balance (that is an opinion). Stating facts/direct quotes about Blizzards post and the current game data (with links to prove the veracity of the data and quotes) is not trolling.

@LocknLoad-1624

Nerfs affect 90% of the players,

I highly doubt the accuracy of this statement. Hyperbole does not help your case.

@LocknLoad-1624

Why are people always trying to control others having fun.

The problem I have with this statement is that is primarily used on this forum in the context of a nerf of an overpowered build by players who are playing that class predominantly.

Was it fun for non-DH classes, when marauders DH ruled?
Was it fun for non-monks when static charge monks ruled?
Was it fun for non-wizards when wizards were overpowered?

The answer is that people define fun in different ways. With good balance, no class will be considered weak or by some’s definition of not “fun” to play.

@LocknLoad-1624

Who cares, these guys have crazy paragon and gears.

If you want to have a more comprehensive analysis of how differential power affects the playerbase more broadly (for low paragon players e.g. less than 2.3K paragon, players between 2.5K-3.5K paragon, etc…) please feel free to check this thread out:

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…

[Zen-22763]

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.

[Salamandra-1698]

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.

[MicroRNA-1507]

@Salamandra-1698

Also i don’t agree with what micro said about being able to clear solo GR 150

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.

Please nerf ww rend barb, it is much stronger than chantodo wizard before nerf

The Seasonal killstreak buffs are ridiculously strong. Do not look to Seasonal PTR results as indicative of a build’s actual power potential. Y’all need to stop crying for nerfs. When Barbs went to work to get buffs, we never asked for anyone else to get nerfed, not even the obviously broken Wizard. Work for your class community, not against others.

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.

[Hurk-1308]

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.

[Free-1746]

@Salamandra-1698

At the cost of losing damage lmao

Doesn’t matter, because:

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

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.

@Salamandra-1698

all that “nerfs hits low level paragon players more” it’s just a lie

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.

@Salamandra-1698

even in your barbarian proposal idea you used top clears as a tool to ask for buffs lmao

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.

@Salamandra-1698

the powercreep went out of control, and barbarian ended being the weakest

When exactly did powercreep go “out of control?” You understand that correlation is not causation, right?

@Salamandra-1698

Not even devs agree with your agenda of “buffs, not nerfs” so

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:

@Free-1746

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

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.

[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.

[AlThar-2815]

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