Crusader nerfed so hard that they’re still solo’ing GR150s.
You’ll notice that the new sets for Crusaders (even post-nerf) and WD allow them to solo GR150s. Barbs never asked for that level of power and, if we’d been given it, rest assured there would have been non-ending FunPolice™ posts champing at the bit for the Nerfbat to come out to do something about it.
When it was posited that Barbs might clear 144-145, there were calls for nerfs based purely on the possibility of that happening. We now have Crusaders and WDs actually clearing solo GR150s. Despite this, there’s a distinct lack of posts from Barbs complaining that Crusaders and WDs are more powerful than Barbs.
It’s almost as if we just like the possibility of everyone having fun / power on whichever of the seven classes they like playing the most.
They were brought down. Blizzard mentioned that they were concerned that the nerf for crusaders would not be enough and an additional nerf would be considered dependent on their clears. I suspect that another crusader change will be incoming in the next patch.
Do you honestly think that WD will remain as is?
Demon hunters and necromancers need serious buffs that I hope they get either though the introduction of new sets and/or buffs to existing sets.
Do you recall that 2.6.7 went live with the un-nerfed Crusader, they did 150 solo within 24 hours, and that’s why we got 2.6.7a and an era reset. Why weren’t they re-addressed in 2.6.8?
So where was a 2.6.8a nerfing WDs? Even if they make changes to WDs in 2.6.9, this entire era will remain affected.
I don’t think they will nerf WD set again (it was nerfed already 6pc bonus it’s now a shadow of what it was on PTR), if they do they will simply undo what they did - allow WD to play waveclear (2nd best still behind Necro nova) in groups.
Solo it’s still bad, RG dmg is not even half of what a sadder AoV can do (sure you can stack stricken for 3 mins then the RG will die if you don’t die meanwhile), all dmg comes from density which makes it good wave clear in high GR cause your group pulls a lot of mobs which allows you to kill elites / champions in 1 rotation.
TV hydra needs buff really badly it’s weaker than UE Multishot in S20 (UE cleared 128, show me a hydra wiz TV set that can clear 128 with 3k para).
The PTR is a testing environment where Blizzard is clear that things are subject to change. Therefore, it is not fair to say that the set was nerfed on live.
Blizzard has already indicated that crusaders are being monitored and may be nerfed again. Therefore, comparing WD power as RGK to crusaders is misleading.
Yes precisely, the power the WD set had on PTR was monstrous due to mana regen scaling, now that part is completely just flavor and most dmg comes from 20k% 6pc bonus and supporting legendaries.
All WD damage comes from density that’s all there it is, on a single pack of elites or champions you will fall asleep trying to kill them, the damage scales only with density (which is a good mechanic).
Sadders are simply in a spot of their own as nobody comes even close (peeps did try Barb frenzy for RGK but it’s no where near what sadder does).
We can’t compare in a vacuum, we need to report the new sets / performances to what actually is meta, if sadder AoV was nerfed harder or did not exist then we would had WD for wave clear and Frenzy barb for RGK, clear roles, with ok performances in solo, and wiz no place in groups and poor performance in solo - clearly needs buffs.
But when Nova Necro is the king of wave clear, and Sadder is king of RGK the new sets don’t really look that good anymore (barb and WD).
Am really curious what the new DH and Necro sets will be like, DH already had a RGK set (which has fallen behind clearly) and Necro was all over the place.
My gut tells me that we won’t see any nerfs / changes (sadly for wiz) until after necro & DH sets season ends, when we are supposedly getting the balance patch for S22.
Correct. Athough several posters claimed that WD would be weak after the changes to the PTR, it is clearly not the case for solo and groups (part of the 4man meta in non-season).
Crusaders are likely to be nerfed again, raising the possibility that other classes can be RGK.
This is due to seasonal buff. Blizzard balances on non-seasons.
I hope that the new sets or even just buffs to pre-existing sets will be appropriate.
I hope that they balance extreme outliers in patch 2.6.9 (Crusaders & WD too high while DH & necromancers too low) and then take a comprehensive pass for underperforming six piece sets for all classes.
Actually WD isn’t great for solo, they shine in groups. In order to do the amount of DPS required in higher GR’s 120-140+, you have to sacrifice a lot of toughness (no crimson set, you run witching hour, no traveler’s, you run CoE etc) so you depend on your zbarb & zmonk to keep you alive.
In solo you can’t ignore the toughness, because you will get blown on contact otherwise, which leads to a lot of DPS loss. Am not talking about non-season high paragon players who clear 140+ with perfect gear and max augs, am only looking at ladders (both softcore and HC - which is a different beast on it’s own).
Looking at EU highest clear this season is a WD with 4k paragon 3 weeks into season, this is insane! Most players are barely 1-1.5k, you can see 2nd highest clear is 4 GR behind (from baskenator with “only” 3k paragon). That is not something 90% of the players will achieve even by end of season.
Meanwhile looking at HC, the highest clear was 137 by a 2.5k paragon (now deceased WD) and I bet it took a lot of keys to get the right map and pylons and RG to make it happen.
Personally managed 110 clear with 14m left at ~700 paragon (then lost 2 WD’s to Raiziel in GR100 OHK with nova + rubberbanding lag).
WD is not an outlier, their damage is only good in high density, anything else cannot be killed outside of density (RG can be killed in several minutes due to stricken stacking - being only 1 target), meanwhile Sadder can still kill reasonably fast elites / champs in higher GR’s (not in 140+ probably).
Blizzard does not balance around seasons. In the game balance blog post, they used a 5k paragon player as a balancing metric. The vast majority of players are not that high.
It would be interesting to know what the final numbers were for era 12 relative to the 5k paragon metric. The data that they showed was for only a few weeks into patch 2.6.7a. Presumably, they are doing the same thing for era 13.
I did not say they balance around seasons. But in season and during a season when you start from 0, you can judge how good a set is by seeing what peeps accomplish with it near the end of season, not when you have 5-10k paragon and infinite mats to reroll all items to perfect stats and 150 gems / augs.
Because that’s what is important the experience you have as a player when playing the game. Is one thing to slowly progress in your gear / paragon and push with a new set, and a completely thing to have it already near perfect with top gems / augs etc.
All new sets can clear 130 at 5k paragon (including TV there’s youtube vids aplenty) so they all hit the mark, but that is not representative of their actual power in game, how easy they can get to 130, and how much lower paragon they need to reach or break this 130 etc.
As a matter of fact, if a build can push 150 solo with 10k paragon, odds are that it’s going to be able to clear 130 with ease even with 2k paragon or whatever you consider “end of season paragon”, and if a build can do at best 132 solo at 10k paragon, it won’t be able to clear 130 with ease with 2k paragon.
Hence why balancing for 10k paragon is also balancing for 2k paragon, paragon just offsets the power of set by X gr levels, it doesn’t magically make bad builds good.
Just by looking at HC ladder EU most classes are in 130 ballpark at 2-3k paragon (give or take 1-3 GR’s).
Why HC? Because you can’t build like in softcore (1 passive must be cheat death, plus you need more toughness / LoH etc depending on build, so you won’t have same DPS like on softcore, sacrifices must be made), yet DH is not fine, Wiz is not fine, Necro ain’t fine etc.
One class might needed 100 keys and perfect map + pylons + RG to do it, while other class only needed 5-10 keys. To me that is still a huge difference to account for, wouldn’t you agree?
I don’t get it. My point is that balancing around 10k paragon full 150 perfect gear for 140-145 is the same as balancing at 2k paragon with season gear & calde for 130-135. You would see the same (if not worse) discrepancy by looking at the same builds in NS SC than HC season, just not at the same grifts levels.
Their balancing goal was 5k paragon for GR130. Obviously this target is missed on both ends for the new sets.
My point with HC season was that you can’t do as well as in softcore as you can’t ignore toughness / DR / HP / LoH etc. In SC it’s fine if you die (on most classes) on RG or during GR, you can still finish and have a good clear on a good map / pylons / RG etc. There is less room to add additional multilpiers to your damage or go all out on main stat etc. on HC, and one passive must be cheat death instead of another dmg boosting one.
But I agree with your point that same (in some cases even worse true) discrepancy is on NS SC.
