So tell me, did I goof?

[Free-1746]

@Saidosha-1136

Trying to push for a spokesman isn’t the right way to go about it, really, as it’s unavoidable having people who approach the class differently.

I strongly disagree. Not all opinions are valid, and not all voices carry the same weight. If you want to succeed at a buff proposal, you need community backing and participation, yes, but you also need someone front and center that really understands the game, someone who can filter the bad suggestions from the good.

I’m speaking from experience in actually getting some heavy-duty buffs for my class, so what I’m suggesting isn’t without merit or precedent.

@Saidosha-1136

Responses here could range anywhere from, “I like everything how it is, so suck less noob!” to “We have problems in all of these fields and they do need attention ASAP!” Who would be right? Who would be wrong?

I hear you, but some of those responses aren’t valid. You can collect and analyze data from leaderboards and pinpoint exactly where a class struggles. For Barbs, it was damage output, plain and simple (as it is, I suspect, for most classes), and it all revolved around our supporting legendaries.

If you look at Blizzard’s balance post, there’s no question that DHs need some major buffs, and if you understand the game and basic game design, you know it boils down to a few factors:

• Damage output
• Relevance of supporting legendaries

It may also have a lot to do with the other factors you mentioned, but I suspect (and I may be wrong–not a DH expert here!) that if increased major damage multipliers for most builds and updated some supporting legendaries, you would fix 90% of your problems.

To be clear, I’m not suggesting that every contentious opinion get shouted down, but I am suggesting that there has to be some quality control in the process of selecting which specific ideas best represent realistic solutions to problems. When Rage and I had these discussions with the Barb community, we took every suggestion into consideration, but at the end of the day, we–with the help of the community via excellent discourse–had to sift the good from the bad and decide what to run with.

@Saidosha-1136

One of the controversies I butt heads over back in the day was the implication that this was supposed to be the “high skill class” and perceived flaws were redirected as a jab at my personal skill level or those who felt similarly. If you couldn’t play glassy, you were simply just doing it wrong, and this was well before unavoidable damage or the eventual abandonment of DEX > Dodge for the ability to actually take a hit. At least up to a point in the GR curve. I’ve also never been a fan of snapshotting, gear swaps, or even numlock cheese.

I’m with you on snapshotting and numlock tricks, and a good buff proposal will find a way to address those concerns, but if the developers intend for a build to be glassy, you probably shouldn’t expect them to walk it back and head entirely in the other direction.

@Saidosha-1136

Without something like that, we’re basically just spinning our wheels.

Many said the same of Barbs before did the work we did and got the buffs we wanted. Rend went from a useless, trash-tier skill to our strongest slot on the bar as a direct result of our work. Many of the item updates were pulled directly from our proposal. Y’all can accomplish the same thing! I believe in you!

I hope my suggestions, including the points where we disagree, are taken in the spirit of a larger discussion about how to get DHs some big, juicy buffs, because that’s my only intent here.