I agree the devs have bias for being cautious. This time, it’s probably a reaction from their last minute Chantodo attack speed buff in 2.6.5. They added the buff after PTR concluded. They overbuffed Chantodos and they now have to nerf it - basically, their numbers analysis didn’t pan out the way they expected it. So now they’re just playing conservative with Rend.
The devs could have minimized the backlash if they were more transparent about which build should reach which GR level.
Don Vu posted this 2 years ago:
" We don’t just look at the Greater Rift level and time cleared. We look at paragon, legendary gems, augments, stats – just a whole slew of data from our Business Intelligence team – and do internal tests of our own. We have a target Greater Rift level with specific paragon, legendary gems, augments, stats, etc. derived from the top clears on Live and PTR and we try to hit that target by tweaking changes over the course of the PTR. Some of the reasons why you saw some specs get buffed, then nerfed, then buffed, then nerf again are because sometimes we don’t hit our target"
Source: https ://www.diablofans.com/blizz-tracker/topic/68856-why-all-this-nerfs
The Devs buffed HoTA, Slam and WW. Everyone assumed that since WW got the best buff, that WW was the build the Devs intended to be the solo push build. They nerfed it so it doesn’t seem like the Devs meant WW to be used for solo push.
So which build do the Devs want to be the push build? That’s the answer I want to hear from devs. What’s the point in buffing 3 builds and not making at least one of them competitive?