Raekor 6 Spear- its current state and needed improvements

PTR Feedback
101

A few quick notes:

“Change Charge on 4-Piece to Weapon Throw”: well, this a) ruins Vile Charge, which I’d say is bad, and b) just sets up an IK6R4 Weapon Throw build, which will either be OP, or too crappy to be worth playing.

“This build will be weaker than other top Barb builds”: pretty sure he’s wrong about that. It just hasn’t been played enough yet. And, as various people have noted, it has a steep learning curve.

“Barbs will be the only class without an S tier build”: lol, what? With this, Barb will have 3 builds that are really pretty damn good, especially with the GR changes. What builds might be stronger? LOD WOL, yes. Twister wiz, yes. Inna, maybe, depending on if they nerf it again. Marauder, maybe. Crusader…WD…Necro… I don’t think so.

“You might not have WT on the bar for pushing”: what would you take instead, just an extra shout for minor damage or toughness? As opposed to a 2.5x multiplier vs bosses and elites? Sounds like a bad plan.

2 Likes
102

One fight against a GR130+ boss and WT will go right back on that bar.

Imagine if LQ had some kind of mechanic like WT to stack stricken? Yeeesh

1 Like
103

I’ll take your word over his.

2 Likes
104

he’s in general ptr chat, you can ask him :stuck_out_tongue:

105

That’s kind of you, but it’s really not a competition…

Wudi’s a great player, and a very smart guy, who has contributed a ton to the D3 community. I just happen to think he’s wrong about a few things in this case. If so: well, that happens to the best of us sometimes.

And if not: well, then I’m wrong… and the same thing goes.

Yeah. 2.5x damage and 3x faster Stricken stacking. Worth having!

106

You’re almost 100% focused on Barb while he tends to play everything. I’m not surprised he’d miss a couple details. As long as devs look at all feedback and not just the popular streamer opinion I think it’s fine.

2 Likes
107

I know

He sure has.

I’m just taking your word because I have a better rapport with you.:laughing:

1 Like
108

Not been a barb dps player ever, barely played zbarb (poorly). So the raekor rework was a bit :yawning_face: for me personally.

But NGL, hearing from multiple people that it’s squishy and difficult to execute got me :eyes: , although only a little. So just wanted to back you up on that point: some of us enjoy challenging builds.

Hope you barbs get a good season, GL.

1 Like
109

While I think it is unlikely the Raekor set will be changed before the patch goes live, I do want to add that asking for more built-in damage reduction (or really, any built-in damage reduction) is to ask for what has been established as precedent with other recent powerful builds.

Inna Monk was, as you all know, incredibly tanky while also being ridiculously powerful. The same goes for recent Wizard and Witch Doctor builds, and for past ultra-powerful Crusader builds. Asking for Raekor to have even a little built-in damage reduction isn’t an outrageous request.

So, I’d prefer to see the build get some DR love for two reasons:

  1. It’s happened to other classes when they receive ultra-powerful updates. Why not Barb?
  2. The build’s learning curve is already going to throw some players for a loop. Why not ease that a little for players who aren’t grinding 8+ hours a day? Why not make a small adjustment for casual players so they don’t feel ejected from a build that is much more mechanically complex (or at least as mechanically complex) as our other major builds?

I’d also like to point out that asking for even more damage is, like the above argument for DR, not without precedent. I get that we have excellent class balance. Cool. But personally, I’d like us to have a stupid powerful build, even if only for a Season or two. We’ve never had a Season like the revamped Firebird, or GoD, or Inna’s. I think we’re overdue.

5 Likes
110

I’m okay with how it is now. I do think however casual players will not touch it without some kind of defensive ability tied to the set. If the goal is to encourage people to play solo push barbs, we may be falling short.

111

It’s problematic because IK is a Jack of all trades set?

112

Toughness buff and charge 1000% to 4 or 5000

113

Wanted to chime in here and remind everyone that IK is a great set and with the right Legendary support, skill like Cleave, Bash, Revenge… etc, can be brought to life.:grin:

114

In terms of raw power, I think he’s right. LoD HoTA and WW Rend are doing well because they can play with Ground Stomp which is a very useful skill to optimize your DPS.

115

Yes yes but it can be more. I mean have more distinctive, characteristic theme/fantasy. Not just, machit up whit these other pices and you have a better version of something else.

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116

You guys know Wudji was just trying to negotiate a better deal for us, right? :slight_smile:

117

If he did, he would know vile charge and toughness was an issue.

118

No, it’s problematic for all the reasons I list in that post!

I agree, at least 95% anyway. I’d say casuals will probably “touch it”, since it’s new, but they’ll also get discouraged really easily.

I’m going to write something more in-depth about this tomorrow, but for now, let me just say that by far the easiest way for the build to do MORE DAMAGE in the hands of most players is to give it MORE TOUGHNESS.

Hmm.

A set of builds, that are actually pretty well balanced, despite some minor quibbles… but with one outlier, more powerful than the rest, which is loved by a few, and hated by many. The set that build uses? Raekor.

Sound familiar? It should- it’s the state of affairs that led us to write Barbarian Buff Proposal!

I would actually rate “Raekor is super OP” as one of the worst possible outcomes of this patch, somewhere below “Raekor is too weak to do GR 100” and “Raekor is deleted from the game”.

Why? Because, as we all know, when one build of a class is head and shoulders above the others, a huge majority of people basically feel compelled to play it.

And, this is not Whirlwind/Rend, which is widely beloved for a variety of reasons, including its “begats” going back to Diablo 2, its “easy to learn, hard to master” elements, and its overall aesthetics. This is Raekor, a difficult, idiosyncratic set for pretty much its entire existence (and no sign of that changing now). If WW/Rend had ended up being OP as hell, I would have thought that that was unfortunate, but not a disaster. Raekor being OP as hell would be a disaster.

I would consider a great outcome to be “Raekor is 1-2 GRs stronger than Rend or LoD HOTA” , and a good outcome to be “Raekor is equal in strength to those two builds”.

That’s my two cents anyway. I’d really rather not go back to where we started, 3 years ago!

Well, sure, but the ability to group mobs like that is part of your ability to do damage.

3 Likes
119

That basicly boils down to what I said. If you want you can use IK as a Jack of all trades set. Mixing and maching it whit other set bonuses.

120

No, not at all. You seem a little confused about what that post was about.

My overall point is: if you have Raekor 2 piece or 4 piece buff some skill (Charge, Weapon Throw, whatever), then one of two things will happen.

Either:

A) the skill got buffed enough to be powerful when using Raekor 6 alone, in which case you just play IK6R4, gain 41x more power, and cruise through GR150 like it’s nothing.

Or

B) the skill only got buffed enough to be powerful when combined with IK, i.e. when playing IK6R4, in which case, it is only 1/41st as powerful when playing R6 alone, i.e. very wimpy.

That’s what Tandem, who I was responding to, was talking about, and that’s what I’m talking about. I hope that clears up the confusion.