Attack power is just an indicator of your stats. It doesn’t really mean anything.
Rob was doing NM 1000 with 5k attack power. Also 5k health is like nothing. Ive seen a HC barb with 18k. I also dont think the strength multiplier is better then cc,cd or vul.
Lunging Strike is only the top-1 basic attack because Barbarian is a slug without it and it allows you to zoom between enemies as if it was a dodge. Barbarian lacks movementspeed like crazy and Lunging is the ONLY ability without a massive cooldown that allows for quick movement.
- Frenzy should give but does not give you movementspeed which tells us that the developers of the class did not bother to play a Frenzy Barbarian in Diablo2 or Diablo3… Frenzy was only used as a fun build in earler Diablo games, because it made you in to a fast maniac.
- Charge should come with 2-3 stacks to become a movement ability, it currently is used for what?
- Leap should have 2 stacks, it is just meh right now and to use aspects to decrease its cooldown is a waste.
It is also stupid how both Charge and Kick kicks the enemy away from you, it defeats the purpose of crowd control skills. I have tried a kick build and it is just clunky to try to smash enemies in to each other to make them explode/knock each other down or whatever. Tornadoes from aspects is in the same boat, everything is just shot away from the Barbarian, which makes no sense since you want to fight in close range…
3 Likes
I hate lunging strike. It feels off and even worse IT SOUNDS SO F-ING BAD.
But yeah the need for 3 shouts to somehow manage rage is atrocious.
Ive heard of +ressource on wt4 but havent gotten that far.
Using one shout for defense seems totally legit, especially when other classes have like 4 defense skills. But it kills build variety.
Also why is there only 1 Hota aspect ? WW has countless aspects. Same goes for bleed.
You can manage without a defensive shout if you got lucky on drops. I use Temerity unique pants for barrier and a Disobedience amulet for armor. Temerity will give you a barrier uptime close to 100% if you got a decent lucky hit chance to get healing, it stacks beautiful with the weapon aspect that give you 50%x damage with a barrier.
Not in higher NM. The poison dmg alone will melt through your barrier.
3 Likes
Yeah I ended up leaving temerity aside for higher tiers. A good roll on decent pants can give you much needed bonus DR and armor.
Barb has a major issues with internal class balance, like most other classes, that make balancing the class against other classes difficult.
For the most recent example, HoTA’s aspect doesn’t seem to be working as the devs intended with the quake dealing multiples more damage than the actual direct hit. They just simply fixed it that last hotfix. They had to revert the change within hours because by fixing the aspect they nerfed the most used damage dealing skill in high level play effectively neutering the class. But they were just fixing what is in their minds an unintended feature of one aspect which happened to be the thing ‘propping’ up the class in high levels of play (NM T70+), WW aside, because the rest of the class is so very weak.
To begin with internal balance, there are generally 3 skills which seem to be almost mandatory in the highest levels of play, the shouts. While not strictly necessary, they certainly are extremely powerful while being very EASY to use and understand. Together they answer many questions of resource management, speed, defenses, and damage. You have the beginnings of (compared to other Barb builds) a very good “build” if you can answer the question of how to keep their buffs up as much as possible, and the support and possibility is there to do just that. I’m sure there’s more than one Barb out there who feels VERY weak when their shouts are on CD.
The thing is, NOT using any shouts is viable (up to a point), heck there are builds not using basic skills at all which are dynamic and feel ‘good’, it just that it also feels like you’re working way harder for less benefit than just mashing 3 buttons on CD. I’ve explored some very FUN and engaging playstyles on the Barb and once you do, you realize how much more thought, effort, and gear you need to put in to achieve less than what can be achieved with a standard HoTA/WW build, nevermind what top builds on other classes do. There ARE fun and engaging Barb builds out there, you just need to think outside the box, and be a glutton for punishment.
Things like ease of applying vulnerable isn’t even an issue at all for Barb (IMO). We have MANY ways outside of the Exploit glyph. The issue is they just ‘feel bad’ to use because of one thing or another and that using one of those abilities is NOT using a shout or HoTA/WW. For one example, Steel Grasp would be straight up godly IF ONLY it worked consistently at grabbing everything it hit and not locking you in an excessively long recovery where you can’t do anything.
Anyways, the dev team has a lot of work ahead of them and I think they know that most people aren’t exactly happy with the state of internal balance of classes.
5 Likes
I like the Ben Barb Build. Makes the most sense to me. Since everytime I see people not spec the 3 points for the 12% mov speed I loose my s*it.
Cant wait for rage generation+cc,cd+life rings.
Thanks everyone for your awesome responses! Wasn’t expecting this much Barb love. I really do think this class is less fun than a Vanilla WoW warrior. Nothing feels strong or fun. Shouts aren’t fun gameplay, they’re just not. This feels like a class that was designed around having 8-12 skills available to be pressed. Stats don’t line up, everything they do seems to nerf Barb. We don’t really have the survivability for an in your face melee that is needed past level 100.
I know stats are all over the place and they all suck right now but the actual design of Barbarian isn’t in a good spot.
Why take the shield away from us?
I think the weapon swapping system is one of those ideas that sounds good on paper but really just doesn’t work in gameplay.
Blizzard needs to buff everyone considerably but Barbarian skills and abilities are in need of 1000% buffs. (However, every class needs 1000% buffs if Vuln is removed.)
2 Likes
So I see your issue, but it’s completely playstyle dependent. You see, I use Vuln to snapshot buffs prior to rend. Then rend is mulitplied to all hell and one shots most things. So I only need a small window to do all my damage. This doesn’t suite well with other playstyles.
They don’t need to change vuln, they just need to fix the issues affecting your preferred playstyle.
Not only barb has issues, but the game itself as well. Took me a while to realize that resistances don’t work the way it sounds, which makes barb even more squishy lol
3 Likes
Replace the +135% DMG for +100% fury cost.
It is a trap talent.
The +135% are additive, simply calculate yourself
With +300% additive from gear, the +135% are a +40% DMG boost.
But you get +100% fury cost, that always means, 2 hits versus 1 hit.
Rest is DMG bonus from crits, and vulnerable windows.
So the only time the passive talent is worth to pick, when it is your only additive bonus, or you run very low other bonus.
The moment you get high level with high roles on additive bonus, it is better to switch to the other talents, which add a real DMG bonus on top of your gear, with no negative effects
2 Likes
this is kinda odd one as i do run this talent and i’m seeing greater result buffing my core damage by 135% over running the berserker talent mobs die faster and i can easily maintain my WW for the full duration it takes killing packs they also die just really fast cause of it ranging from 1-2,5 second,
that being said i have my fury cost reduced to the point my WW only cost 35 fury per fury spent and i almost have 50% buff to fury generating and shouts having only 5 second CD left after the buffs has run out.
1 Like
They need to offer specs other than rend the ability to extend/apply vuln more consistently.
We have some utility spells that do and double swing (only redeeming quality of this core skill really), but I’ve said this on other posts charge/steel grasp animation is iffy in high tier NMDs.
Pressure point is so RNG based that it’s sometimes so frustrating. I have 61% lucky hit on Hota and I could sometimes empty 3times my fury pool without seeing a proc. It’s doesn’t feel good and sometimes it make me regret ever putting the points in. Other times it just chain procs and I think I can’t not use this.
I would much rather have another way to apply vulnerable that is fast and doesn’t lock me in place.
Is running War Cry really necessary? Rallying/Taunt shout sure, because good lord do you ever need the DR and Unstoppable/Rage generation but in theory, stuff like Walking Arensal should be able to replace War Cry right?
casting war cry also give you 2 seconds of cooldown on your other shouts as well as the additonal fury regen. That is the problem with shouts. Because of the affixes/glyphs related to them it is alway more valueable to run 3 over 1 or 2.
You can technically run 3 shouts and still have 3 slots for walking arsenal. War Cry offers a berserker window and if I’m not mistaken a multiplicative damage bonus (which is king of huge).
But more importantly it’s another source of Fury/sec and it adds another boost to CDR for the other 2 shouts. That’s one of the core issues, fury generation and the fact that shouts feed off each other to reach smooth uptime.
As far as Fury/Sec goes, I’ve seen builds that run 2 (or sometimes just 1) shout and be topped off pretty much all the time. Although those were again HoTA with WA, if you wanted to use WW yeah you absolutely need all three shouts and Marshall/Bold Chieftains Band etc.
thats cause whole barbarian class in D4 was designed for WW. just look at the uniques and aspects. WW has real bad skill rotations with almost everything but shouts and dont like spin interruptions cause WW snapshot mechanics. thats why we have 3 shouts and not one. thats why barbarian class design sux.
4 Seconds of berserking (mov speed+dmg), the skill dmg increase, heal from a passive, cooldown reduction on your other shouts with the Marshall glyph, up to 4 fury per seconds with the aspect as long as the shout is active.
Did I forget anything ?