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.
Manually pushing rend disrupts whirlwind which is needed for the waste set bonus. So in density, it often is manually cast rend twice, ww, and repeat (while keeping up cooldown skills such as Wrath of the Beserker). This cycle may need to be less frequent in terms of the manual rends as ww also is a major source of healing. More details are provided here:
When DH gets new set and possibly adjustment to old sets, I must again request a toughness and slight dmg buff for the Marauder set. During RORG season it was very enjoyable to play M6 because you could use Visage Of Gunes, that way it became more on par with S6.
It’s actually very easy. Check what the best clear on the ptr is, add at least 5 levels, maybe 6-7 if the guy is from EU and lag matters (+ 1/2 levels per non optimal item, like patator wasn’t using a flavor of time on the ptr), and you’re already looking at some proper live values.
You just need to realise that NEVER, a clear on the ptr on a build that wasn’t changed stood as the absolute best a build could do. That’s why when some people said “oh yeah, barb’s 140 clear is the highest it can go, yeyeye”, I was like “no, it’ll do at least 145”.
You too can be considered an expert if you follow this very simple trick.
You and I both could do that simple analysis; however, that logical deduction escaped the ability of the majority of posters at the time, including some who are held with esteem in terms of their game knowledge.
Manual rend is better when you are in a thick cloud of mobs and have a lot of area damage. Then they will proc damage on each other.
Only do this in single player however. In multiplayer with GR110+ are damage will lag the game badly. Therefore you should have zero ad in multiplayer (not on rear, and not in paragon), or you will be kicked.
If Blizzard decides to nerf barbs because of their formula, it might makes sense for them to have it so hard cast rends no longer proc area damage. Therefore, barbs would be more easily accepted into >110 GR parties as damage dealers. If this drops barbs power too much according to Blizzard targets, I would then encourage them to buff lamentation belt to compensate.
There has been concern about how a barb nerf would effect low paragon players in particular. Low paragon player are less likely to hard cast rend. Therefore, this nerf would not affect any low paragon player that falls into this category. It would only affect those who do hard cast rend (more likey to be high paragon players).