PTR Notes 2.6.6

The myth of Mortick’s, courtesy of Rage and I:

Mortick’s Reintroduced

https://maotme-life.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/diablo-3-leveling-guide-awesome-d3-barbarian-fresh-level-70-guide-season-13-2-6-1-of-diablo-3-leveling-guide.jpg

OH BOY, ARREAT’S WAIL, GR 140 HERE I COME!!!

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Oh boy… I am hyped now :slight_smile:

Thanks Blizzard!

This is disappointing on its face, and even more disappointing that it’s not a surprise…

Big time disappointment.

Especially when you consider that our List 1 buffs are simple values adjustments to existing items. They could have done that while they work on more complicated changes, and there isn’t a single Barb who would have complained. We would have been ecstatic!

Instead, we got zip.

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Wow. What a letdown. I didn’t expect much and didn’t even get that.

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Today evening I made some runs on PTR. Well I’m really disappointed. :disappointed:
It seems only WW barb has some benefit from enchoing fury and the mortick’s bracer… there are more clears in top 10 with WW. It seems barbs stay far behind to other classes… actually very sad to check the LB in PTR.
Barbs ~10 levels back to other classes… :disappointed:

So definitely disappointed but if we did roll damage to elites on both weapons instead of ASI, wouldn’t echoing fury make up the attack speed loss and then some? I don’t remember how much elite damage you can get on a weapon though, I assume it’s not enough to make up for the furnace loss?

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Personally, I am pretty excited for Mortick’s,

I have always uses IK HotA for pushing GR (both NS and Season), and I have always used Esoteric instead of PE gem because I need the survivability.
I think with Mortick’s giving me free WotB’s Striding Giant Rune, I can probably use PE gem now… of course with the cost of losing my Magefist in the cube.

If you were willing to lose magefist in cube, you could use Aquila now and get the same DR bonus and still use another DPS gem such as PE. Striding giant is slightly better since it’s 100% up time, but HotA barb spends most of the time with enough fury to get Aquila bonus anyway.

So it offers another choice that allows for more variation, but it certainly doesn’t get us to the clear potential of the other classes, which was the point of the proposal.

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But PE isn’t even the superior gem. IK HOTA optimized around AD and damage is stronger than optimizing around attack speed. So, using Mortick’s over Aquila in the Cube is possible and slightly more consistent, but higher Paragon pushes will still use Magefist in the Cube.

In other words, Mortick’s offers nothing for IK HOTA.

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Yep thats very true, never been a big fan of aquilla, but you are totally right.

But it also give us Life per Fury from another rune , which can replace the need for bloodthirst trait on solo clear. (meaning it can be replaced with brawler instead).

What you guys think ? Personally I am not a really good theorycrafter. Pardon my ignorance.

Bloodthirst is a useful “stop gap” passive of you don’t have gear with the right rolls yet, but once you have the right rolls you would already have dropped it. I suppose morticks in the cube would be a nice sustain buff and more consistent DR so probably worth replacing Aquila, but as Free said, you usually end up needing dps more than damage reduce since each gr tier needs 17% more dps but the monsters don’t hit 17% harder, so you should eventually be pushed to magefist anyway.

Hmm , almost every solo IK HotA clear in top 100 NS leaderboard currently has bloodthirst trait with players stacking health globe + in the secondary stat everywhere.

Bloodthirst for IK HotA is still needed despite having all the right rolls.

IK HotA doesn’t have access to Ignore Pain 's Ignorance is Bliss unlike R6 HotA or WW.

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That passive becomes more important if you choose Aquila over Magefist in the Cube. But If you use Mortick’s, you’ll get some Life per Fury and the same DR as Aquila.

Neither of these things are the point.

The point is that our builds need damage, and Mortick’s doesn’t offer that. The best high-Paragon pushes will still use Magefist in the Cube. Worse, Mortick’s won’t be used by builds that can’t achieve perma-IP.

For more info, see this post: PTR Notes 2.6.6 - #10 by Free-1746

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Been thinking how to sum up why I’m disappointed with this patch, and I think it’s this:

What is the goal of this patch? Who is this for?

On the PTR notes, it says:

There are additional specific notes below, but broadly for 2.6.6, we wanted to introduce a handful of new item powers targeted at two audiences: (1) certain classes with long-standing requests for balance/quality of life adjustments and (2) the broader player base for experimenting with Kanai’s Cube.

Huh?

Huh?

What classes were crying out for these items? What “long-standing” requests do these address? What segment of the player base was kept awake at night dreaming of a re-work of Cain’s set? Who desperately needed a reworked Crimson’s? Why is experimenting with Kanai’s more important than the targeted, focused, accurate feedback we offered in our proposal?

At what point in a meeting did someone say, “Hey, I read that long, impassioned thing Barbs wrote, but you know what people really want? An update to Squirt’s Necklace!”

At what point in the patch process did someone sit up and say, “You know, giving Messerschmidt’s Reaver an affix is more important than addressing the concerns of the Barb community?”

The more I think about it, the more I’m baffled.

And the more I think about it, the worse it gets. Because I can see what they mean by “long-standing” requests when it comes to Barbs, and it’s Mortick’s Bracer.

This is bad because Mortick’s is not a buff for Barbs. The only players who hunger for this item don’t understand what’s wrong with Barbs. They don’t understand that this item will do nothing, nothing, for us, and that, if anything, we are less able to take advantage of the other items offered in the PTR than other classes.

If the devs don’t know or recognize this, that’s bad. Really, really bad.

I suppose they thought the new leg gem that replicates LoN’s bonus will be eagerly embraced by the Barb community, but if they’d read the proposal they’d know that–uh oh!–all but one of our LoN builds are trash! I guess it’s good news that LON HOTA will probably be viable next Season (pending whether or not we can sacrifice a leg gem for this new one).

What about Frenzy Thorns? What about plain ol’ Frenzy? What about any other LoN options?

They’ll remain, then as now, dead in the water because their main skills can’t deal enough damage. Even with some of these new items, I very much doubt we’ll see worthwhile LoN builds emerge considering the outdated, weak supporting legendaries that didn’t get an update.

That brings me to this:

I feel for Nev. I really do. Remember, y’all, she’s just the messenger. She’s not a dev. And yet, she’s the one who has to communicate this bungled mess to us since the devs don’t post here anymore.

So, remember: be nice to Nev. Try to imagine all the red tape she has to navigate just to post something on the forum.

That said, this is going to have to be one heck of a blog post to adequately explain any of this mess.

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Free, an update on ptr testing for ww barbs at low paragon. I took out all paragon in strength and vitality and only left movement speed maxed with the offense/defense/utility tabs maxed out as well. For a total of 650 paragon points used. Using boon/gogok/teaguk/ease, mortiks,witching hour, and for cube fury/nems/rachels. I have fear on my helm to proc rachels. Every talent uses the speed rune if possible. My average augment with my old/new speed set is 92. Passives are unforgiving/superstition/animosity/weapon master with boon on my amulet. I chose all RCR passives to have as little dmage as possible. All white mobs died instantly and elites were 1-2 seconds. WW barb is very t16 friendly now!!!

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I appreciate your info, but I’m not going to celebrate that one of our major builds can now do what all our other major builds could already do.

This isn’t a meaningful buff. Our damage and capability is still laughable compared to other classes.

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I had no expectations and i am still disappointed.

It is a shame really that they do big talks about finally buffing the barbarian in the next ptr and then all they do is add Morticks.

Its a shame, its a shame…

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I’m barbarian since vanilla, and to be honest, after the changes in WW build and remove of Mortick Bracer, i started to play even less. But this is the patch that I want to see for Solo-Player (probably a bit late)?

The fact that you still have augments on your gear shows barb doesn’t have the damage up front to do t16. Other classes can destroy t16 once getting a base set of gear while barb needs substantial augments and correctly rolled gear to be able to do t16.

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