Barbs and monks lag behind other classes in solo greater rift clears due in large part to lack of DPS. To become more competitive, an increase of about 7and 5 greater rifts is in order, respectively. The idea is to make minimal changes that can be adopted by the developers without a ton of effort.
For barbs and monk, Blizzard could treat it like patch 2.6.5 and tweak the 6 piece class set bonuses with the “right math.” Alternatively, if they chose not to modify 6 piece bonuses, then…
For barbarians:
Morticks bracers receive a buff that increases damage 150%
A new rune is introduced: “Ignore Pain - Mob Destruction” that buffs the user’s damage by 30%. The damage buff stacks up to 5 times for every enemy with 25 yards.
For monks:
Beacon of Ytar passive reduces cooldowns by 20% and increases damages by 100% (I realize that this would make this passive obligatory; however it already is widely used).
These numbers could be tweaked by the math experts.
The class specific difference in 6 piece sets will remain; however, most, if not all, classes experience something similar. To balance all 6 piece sets has not occurred and I would not be overly optimistic that it could happen.
I said that the math experts can adjust the numbers. The advantage of a universal multiplier is that it buffs all skills and builds.
Do you really think that Blizzard is going to implement a huge number of better fixes down the road?
Sometimes a simple, inelegant solution is better than nothing at all. If people are waiting for the perfect solution to a multitude of problems than I suspect that they will be sorely disappointed.
Simply ask yourself this question, would you rather get a DPS buff or nothing at all? Complex fixes are unlikely to be undertaken given the resources being given to the game. Barbs and monk need a DPS buff. Lets give Blizzard an easy to implement solution rather than pie in the sky dreams.
DPS fix for monks is easy, give epiphany a damage boost, like all the other class transforms. And by boost I mean a modifier, not the base skill itself
rather than that they could just add a 30% natural dmg buff to all “melee classes”. (like that monks, barbs and crusader currently take 30% less dmg they could also deal 30% more dmg).
that seems also very lazy and easy to implement, however not as ridiculous as a passive giving 20% cdr and a +100% (!) seperate dmg multiplier.
that seems too random to me.
morticks needs insanity to go up to 100% and change slaughter rune to something useful (make it the same effect as bloodshed; add up if used in conjunction) lazy solution but would still work.
I like that idea. add a seperate 40-50% multiplier. easy and lazy solution. would work.
I advocate against lazy bad game design changes. Always will. If Blizz can’t do a few real updates, then so be it. Lazy bad game design doesn’t fix problems, only creates other problems.
Epiphany now increases damage by 50%. it would be more in line with other classes and a much more logical update
Beacon of Ytar reducing cooldowns by 20% and increasing damage by 20%. simple update without creating a broken passive, much better
I appreciate the creativity, but this is idea has several problems.
Is this damage buff active only when Wrath is active? Not all Barb builds can achieve perma-Wrath. Those that can’t would be forced to stack 50% CDR. Some damage rolls will be compromised, and so will the total DPS buff. If the buff is active provided the bracer is worn or Cubed, well, now you made one item best in slot for every build.
Not all Barb builds can achieve perma-IP. See above. What even stacks in this? That doesn’t make sense.
Neither of these two items are well designed. As this and the last two patches have shown, redesigning skills is far, far less likely than buffing items. Your ideas require two skills on the bar, and the builds that need the most love (IK HOTA, LON, and EQ builds) won’t benefit much from this.
It’s also important to note that different Barb builds require different amounts of buffs. See our proposal for more in-depth information on this.
I’m with Jako 100% when he says this:
There are other, better ways to approach fixing Barbs and Monks, and it all begins with supporting legendaries.
If you look at our proposal, you’ll see that List 1 only tweaks existing items. Bigger multipliers. Simple. Done. And it addresses them on a build-by-build basis. Even if we only ever get 2-3 of those, that’s better than a new global multiplier that further restricts item choice.
List 2, on the other hand, addresses the real problems with our builds, and introduces other, necessary mechanics: scaling damage multipliers, and so forth. It greatly increases potential build diversity and power. It’s what we truly need even if I doubt we’ll get much from that list.
After the backlash that came with Mortick’s this patch, I’m confident we’ll get buffs. I can’t speak for Monks since I’m not an expert on that class, but they definitely need them too!
I’ll take anything at this point. But I think its tad too much, or maybe needs to go somewhere else. Beacon is already pretty powerful, but I guess I see what you mean.
Most Monks use that passive as is, so why not make it go there. I know I can’t roll without it.
Monks could do with 200% more damage tbh. Yes, we are that far behind our Intelligence overlords, along with Barbs.
This is the most solid idea regarding Mortick’s I’ve seen yet.
Brings it up to speed with the current level of power creep, but keeps its theme. Not overly exciting, but surely not as boring as just slapping more damage on it. Could give it some great utility too. Only problem is, it will probably make it mandatory.
Numbers could be tweaked of course, but its a great place to start imo.
How do Monk builds rank? What are some of the pros and cons of each? Your comment got me thinking that, as with Barbs, different Monk builds probably need different levels of buffs, right?
I would urge you to become that advocate for Monks. Find other like-minded players with a deep understanding of the game and design, and start posting!
If I had more free time, it would already be done.
Unfortunately our collective is not as numerous these days but we do get some discussions going. Lots of stuff to hash out though, there are lots of well loved builds, most of us have a different favorite. I’ve personally got a TON of testing to do with the new stuff. PTR just didn’t cut it.
One day… We will stop rolling off the damage ranges from our weapons to be accepted into high (GR) society.
Free, you are right. There was a typo, I meant For barbarians:
Morticks bracers receive a buff that increases damage 150%
A new rune is introduced: “Ignore Pain - Mob Destruction” that buffs the user’s damage by 30%. The damage buff stacks up to 5 times for every enemy with 25 yards.
I edited the first post.
The other option is to ask for buffs to 6 piece set bonuses. As patch 2.6.4 demonstrated, they were willing to buff all barb sets. It does not adress the issue of wonky builds but other classes have the same problem such as wizards.
Also, I think the clock is ticking. Once, D4 is announced I think there will be very little introduced in terms of balance changes/item updates. I would encourage solutions that are the simplest to execute. Think about it, they could not even recolor a pair of wings or borrow one from China this patch. For barbs in Patch 2.6.5, they heard the advocates but ran out of time for changes. Here, we are 3 months later with the reintroduction of a single item Mortick’s bracer that has been widely criticized by the community.
I’m not sure that this is true. The current strategy for asking for barb buffs have yielded very little for this class over the past several years. Maybe it is time to think of different options/arguments.
Having a one-size fits all solution is impossible as illustrated by your suggestions, but lets not kid ourselves the sheer magnitude of changes suggested in both items and passive skills is over the top. The proposed changes are a dream wish list (even the so-called high priority changes.)
To illustrate this point, what is the maximum number of passive skills that have ever been buffed for a single class since RoS?
What classes currently have intra class parity relative to their 6 piece sets? I would suggest that you ask for what is reasonable.Given Blizzard’s track record, how confident are you that they would buff an underperforming barb set and not even get it to the power level of the current best set? By your own admission, they do not understand the class as evidenced by the reintroduction of Mortick’s bracers.
One of your arguments is that Blizzard has not done a “Real” update for barbs for years. A lazy fix is better than nothing.
Yes. It is exceptionally well done by free. However, I as pointed out to Free it is incredibly unrealistic. For passive alone, buffs were requested for nine different passives. No class has had nine passive buffed. It would be great if Blizzard would overhaul this game but does anyone honestly think that these dramatic changes would happen? I have also asked free about his “item” priority as List 1 and list 2 (which often has buffs to the same items) include 28 unique items? Does anyone really think that Blizzard would buff all of them? Do you trust the developers to buff ones whose synergism is important? When free gave his minimal list of buffs, it was largely focused on making whirlwind barbs better that he acknowledged was his as well as many othee barbs favorite build.
The current argument is that even the top build are trash. Global buffs bring everything up.
This already occurs. That is why it makes sense to stick these buffs are items the are already widely used. Making a “mandatory” item/skill more essential is an oxymoron.
This has a point but as these build are already underperforming…/
