I’m not sure how many players are aware of what ‘PTR’ stands for, considering the massive blowback regarding the Rathma and Firebird sets.
Neither set has been nerfed. They are both getting a change to their mechanics and a buff from the cellar they were dwelling in. However they existed in the PTR has no bearing on how they exist when the changes hit live servers. Blizzard over-clocks everything in the PTR. And why not? It’s simply a test. The PTR isn’t real. Then, when the PTR is done, Blizzard dials it back to where they want it to be. This process isn’t a ‘nerf’, but everyone moans and complains like their favorite build (which has never existed) just got gutted. It didn’t. You were part of the testing process, nothing more.
This tactic is common and you only have to look back to Typhon’s set in order to see the pattern. Typhon’s was over-clocked in the PTR and then scaled back. Everyone cried like the world was going to end and screamed Typhon’s was dead-on-arrival. Then the set performed fairly well, not as well as it needed to, but decent enough. Blizzard recognized this and buffed it on the next patch. Now Typhon’s is the Wizard’s strongest set.
Can we please wait and see how these new sets will perform before we start whining about how weak they are and rage-quitting D3/S23 in a childlike tantrum?
And understand, these sets aren’t static. Blizzard can (and probably will) tweak them further. Try them. Try actually playing them before you cry foul. Then, when you have an opinion which is actually educated, offer reasoned feedback on what you think.
Cool story. Now, what about DHs and WDs where they’re currently stronger on live than they were on PTR, and will become weaker when 2.7.0 hits live servers?
Nerfs that no one asked for or wanted. It’s ok to shuffle the deck from time to time but we are talking about some classes waiting 20 seasons to shine. I 'll grant you that necro rathma for example isn’t the end of the world. The class has still many good builds for groups/solo, pushing, farming. And it’s kind of an unpopular oppinion but i actually liked the bone spirit. Now it’s too much shenanigans and button mashing for mediocre results. And it’s kind of pointless cause they spent time and resources changing something, we spent 2 weeks testing it and all for nothing, we are back to ground zero. Other examples are way worse than Rathma. The pattern here is that they are probably going to do to barb and monk what they did to wd and dh.
Hey, that is not true. Some of us did want nerfs. Lots and lots of nerfs.
And that might suck. But it does not fix anything to make someone new overpowered. The whole “my time to shine” or “flavor of the month/season” thing is a sad state for the game to be in.
as i always say, diablo 3 already have 9 years, THERE IS NO POINT ON NERF THINGS, by now we should recieve changes to make the sets EVEN, so we could play what ever we want and have a real competition in ladder boards, but INSTEAD OF BALANCING IT, we recieve stupid nerfs and separate layers of ladder board to avoid balancing the game.
Simply does not make sense rework something just to make it mediocre, my feeling is 2 wasted weeks at PTR
So insted of “flavor of the month” we got flavor of the last 36 months that rat runs is the god of paragons. And that is better how? We got crusader that is the best RGK for 5 seasons in a row, and adding 3-4 other options for other classes that want to play that role is sad? That’s all i am saying i am not trying to antagonize classes that i don’t play. I barely touch wizard for example and in every thread i wrote they shouldn’t nerf it that hard.
Yeah, and nerfing stuff is a good approach to make things more even. No matter how much Blizzard might fail at it.
Rat runs should be nerfed. Crusader too. And more so than some of what was nerfed in the patch.
I do agree that the firebird set was likely nerfed too much.
Only saying that lots of builds/sets should be nerfed. Including the firebird set as it was during PTR.
And let’s not forget that if they tend to nerf/balance something based on 4 player clears with high paragons and that unavoidably hurts solo players cause the 4 - man push is so far ahead.
What people fail to understand about an RPG and what makes it unique and lacking in this game since vanilla till this day is very simple.
If you want your game to be a successor and take it to the next level would you dumb it down to 2 builds per char , 1 of them being a farming one for the easiest content.
From “North” themselves D2 was designed around you can play everything on normal , every build and still beat that difficulty.The higher you go the more you have to think , but that doesn’t mean a whole skill tree or a build will be unviable.
Diablo 2 had a lot and I mean a lot of builds that worked with a lot of items that weren’t optimised but you will manage to farm , beat the hardest content including ubers.
In Diablo 3 , you have PTR for ages , feedback for every patch.
Results:
Builds that feel the same because you build your game on multipliers and obscene numbers.Caused by certain items/gems/sets.When that is spotted instead of buffing the builds to reach that same level (regardless of dumb numbers) , you nerf absolutely everything so it feels the same.
Even worse these years where you have exactly 1 option if you want to be close to doing high rifts along other people.Playing solo unoptimized builds can be fun for so far because it hinders any progression which at a point is only paragons.
That is the reason Blizzard developers are blind / disconnected and have close to 0 values and care about this game for quite some years now.
About the ridiculous high damage number i believe it have no way back without reworking the game itself, so the numbers i really dont care much, but these constant nerfs on builds that should not be nerfed, are painful.
back in d2 we could literally build a sorceres for ANY element and still have a nice result in the end, but here at d3 we have these idiotic nerfs.
For me it is pretty resonable to have multiple powerfull builds for each class ( numbers are pointless ).
A season we get GoD, so next season we recieve another good build WITHOUT LOSING WHAT WE ALREADY HAD! so people may play with whatever suits them
i just turn the numbers off and literally dont even matter.
Sounds like Blizzard could’ve skipped a few steps here to avoid wasting time constantly nerfing and rebuffing a set.
The nerf to firebird is a tad much, and if it takes until the next patch or so for another buff to hit Firebird, then that would’ve been time wasted which could’ve been used for the other class sets that need attention as well. We’ve already seen that Blizzard’s balance patches as of late aren’t massive (at least not when compared to patch 2.6.4), so the number of classes that get any changes in a patch is few.
All in all, I would much rather them get the sets done right (or at least done well enough so they would be in a good spot) the first time around, that way they could move on to the next set (Monk or WD for example), instead of spending 2 or more patches on a particular set as though they themselves have no idea how they even want the set to operate like. If a set is overperforming, then dial it down bit by bit throughout the following patches until it’s in a more favorable position that matches with the other top builds (or at least matches as close as possible).
Pretty much what happened to GoD6. The patch that initially introduce the set had a few issues but it thrived. Then 1 patch after that, it basically crumbled due to unintended exploitation of a game mechanic which they can so easily rectify without breaking the set, but they did anyway.
They don’t seem to test anything out internally before they put the PTR up. The PTR doesn’t start anywhere close to balanced and they only really get one chance to make changes and test them.
Firebird rework isn’t that good. Outside of Spectral Blade build there is little diversity now because of the damage nerf. A better idea would have been to tone down the numbers a bit, then reduce SB effectiveness to let other variants shine.
Or something like it. Current iteration feels unfinished, honestly. If it doesn’t have damage, it needs something else to make it interesting.
