Barbs were not part of the META in Seasons 1, 2 and 3…
https://d3resource.com/seasons/index.php
Since then they’ve been stuck as supports.
1 Like
I am pretty confident that:
The top clear of WD with the new set/build in era 13 will be higher than the current solo non-season GR era record. I suspect that it will be at least GR 147. (I actually think it will be even higher but wanted to be conservative here to increase my odds of being right).
Even with the AoV nerf, the top crusader worldwide will still clear at least GR 146. I think it most likely will be above GR 146.
Barbs will clear at least GR 146 in era 13 as illustrated by rend in era 12.
Wizards got the short end of the stick this PTR with nerfs and a weak newly introduced build.
DH and necromancers need buffs that hopefully will come in patch 2.6.9
Correct. They were not part of the meta in season 1, 2 , or 3. As zDPS, they have been part of the meta in seasons:
4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 18, 19
So they have been part of 100% of the 4 man meta from the fall of 2015 until now (~4.5 years).
Clearing GR 120 @ under 1400 paragon is pretty decent. At about the same paragon, what was your top ww/rend clear?
Is this accurate? Was this with ~3000 paragon? I could not locate your name on the EU non-season leaderboard that goes down to GR 123. I might have missed it, but as I was saying h90/frenzy is not as weak as some people are making it out in comparison to rend. Also, Blizzard strengthened the build post-PTR by making stuns work for the 2 piece set which has advantages over freeze/fear.
How are you counting season 19 meta? 8 of the top 10 seasonal 4 man clears used 2 barbs and the majority of the top 200 teams.
I am wondering how the sets actually fare in this coming patch.
H90 Is the second strongest barb set, and compared to rend it may feel weak, but it’s not, it’s just that rend is quite overpowered solowise. So while toughness is still a bit of an issue, powerwise it’s somewhere where it should be. I did during the ptr mention that it still needed about double the damage but I might retract that statement cause due to me comparing it to other high performing builds like heaven’s fury, when looking back it’s pretty much in line with what it should do.
As for rgk, it’s not weak, but weaker than the HF crus, which in turn is too overpowered, confirmed by blizzards own words. So, for balance sake, it’s better to bring down crusader to a more reasonable level.
As for Wd, they were overperforming by a large margin, already clearing 145, it will still perform well next patch, and it will be a serious contender for trashclearing. Toughness is still iffy for Wd, but that’s nothing new.
For Wizard we have more questions surrending their final power level for hydra, theoretically the set and lod should be more or less equal in power now (set by having more damage directly, lod by having more legendaries to help like tasker). The big issue with the set though is that the 4pc dr was not working, if it was, then we’d see directly how high it could go.
All in all, hydra is still looking strong, and I do not doubt that we’ll see a few passing 140 on the leaderboards.
3 Likes
Pretty much agree with everything you said Rashiel except your thoughts on wizards.
For wizards, how do you think their current top non-season clear will go down due to mantle and other changes s=designed to break bazooka?
I do feel that the changes post-PTR was pretty significant nerf to hydra builds.
Well, it’s hard to say, but LoD was doing very well before the last nerf, so it wouldn’t suprise me if it would still do okayish after. The set might have done well, but without the 4pc working it was hard to tell, but on paper it should be powerful.
This sums up your and Micro’s analysis pretty well.
1 Like
LoD got hit pretty hard. Blizzard reduced two multipliers on supporting legendaries each by approximately 50% (serpent sparker and magistrate). LoD cleared GR 142 on the PTR. I suspect that on live it will still be less than GR 146 for the top clear.
Exactly, math and logic is the best way to analyze these things rather than having personal biases. We have gotten into numbers debates in the past. Everyone can see who was right. For example, you can see my post and its response and consider the fact that there are now 21 GR 150 clears in non-season in era 12 with crusaders where every regions has at least 2 such clears.
So you think that your analysis is better, how about you predict what the top worldwide non-season clears will be in era 13?
4 Likes
Well, with the nerf, it would probably end up slightly behind vyr, but not by much. Saying that I also hope top clearing people try to clear with both the set and LoD, even if it meant a little bit lower LB ranking.
But both you and I know it takes a good month before the LB rankings stabilize enough to have a clear picture.
2 Likes
It feels like the current Diablo Developers dont play their own game anymore.!
7 Likes
You understand the different between dps and zdps? Barb is forced to zdps, its nothing enjoyable and what was done to change the meta?
YEAH, BUFF ZDPS MOAR
Its hard to find the right words for this level of stupidity
Barbs wanted a dd spot (like every class wants it) and blizz created h90 with 0 defintion on what this set is supposed to do. Zbarbs profit but we are stucked with rend for another season.
Dhs can hope for their new set but barbs are doomed to zdps.
You can ask the barbs and most would love to give some of the support power away for a dd spot, but such big changes will never happen.
2 barbs in the meta would have been a problem but rats is fine?
1 Like
I think many people are not happy with rat runs either.
Many classes are stuck with the same build being top season after season. See demon hunters.
From season 5, barbs and monks are essential zDPS in 4 man meta. Therefore, you have 5 (or7) classes competing for 2 DPS spots. Many of us have asked for either nerfs to zDPS or making other classes viable as zDPS without success.
3 Likes
Most would be fine with zdps nerfs to open the meta. They had internal discussions about zdps and those super brains buffed Barb zdps. I don’t get the logic behind that move
3 Likes
Looks like it’s time for the Blizzard Wall of Silence regarding the criticism of the very poor final patch notes.
2 Likes
Well they did hit the send button for the patch notes at beer o’ clock on a Friday, and as it’s a classics team they probably work pretty close to 9 to 5 so we won’t hear a peep until… Wednesday… on some mundane topic.
These are the same devs working on D4. Absolutely will not listen to a lick of feed back and pretend they’re building this game for the fans.
3 Likes
I do remember reading a blue post about this and glad someone remembered. and so here we are… more zdps buffs lol
1 Like
Hello Rob,
The season rewards are recycled garbage from all previous seasons (and the transmog set has been the same since inception). I think it’s safe to say at this point that they really don’t give a $@*% about the game or its players. How they figure adding in a couple new sets is enough to give players drive to return is beyond me. If you already played past seasons, there’s pretty close to zero incentive to ever play another season now, thanks to their lazy, catering to players who deserve everything that other players have (even if they’ve played the game for a total of 20 minutes).
Or…OR… just get rid of paragons altogether. Would rid the mentality of people needing to Bot in order to compete and everyone would be on a more even playing field again where it comes down to your gear and playstyle more than being logged in 24/7 getting endless passive stats.
1 Like
The “barb community” is the Gluten Free Vegans of Diablo at this point. Even on the rare occasions that you have good points, you are so whiney and entitled that nobody outside you little self-victimizing cliche wants to listen to you.
9 Likes