Hi, I love the games Blizzard has put out over the years and still love em, just wanted to say this before I proceed with my own thoughts.
I understand it is a daunting task in designing a game of this magnitude. It is a very popular nostalgic series for at least a few decades. I love the story content and cinematics are top notch. Up there with Wow cinematics.
However, I have played Diablo 4 since Season 1. The Barbs have been smashing stuff like no tomorrow and probably more viciously then originally intended for. However, much of the onslaught Barbs have performed and the nerfs on them over time. I feel the most recent Barb nerfs to HoTA, Whirlwind at least doesn’t line up with the current Vessel of Hatred content. Same I could say for the other classes except for Spiritborn because SB we all know its bugged out to the point of no return.
The point am I am getting at is I started Season 6 as Necro Minion played it up until like Para 135 then I played with my brother in law who was a Spiritborn and he was just miles ahead of me doing Pits. He was using the Quill Volley build just hitting everything, pulling everything to him and melting everything down with little effort it seems while being very tanky. It was like watching “Catch all class” that could a little bit of everything without needing any Mythic Uniques but just a couple Class uniques.
I switched to Spiritborn and started playing it and I was getting very irritated on how fluent and easy gameplay it was compared to Necro and Barb. A complete night and day as far as how effective SB moves around the game without much downtime and it had many ways of getting all of these lavish buffs and benefits with very little effort.
Barbs right now cannot even pull mobs in effectively like SB can and Mighty Throw was actually what I thought HoTA should have been to begin with having 360 degree radius splash AoE. The current SB Quill Volley build can easily handle multiple mobs and single target DPS without any changes however Barb do have decent AoE abilities but they are way under performing and suiffer when it comes to single target DPSing. HoTA core skill could come into gameplay to shine as a powerful single target DPS situational option but was it was given any good synergy from anything really. In Pits, just wondering why we are not allowed to respec skills? That seems a bit unrealistic to not be able to switch skills while in a Pit runs to adapt to specific situations like Single Target DPS and AoE DPS. I could have spec’d out of Mighty Throw and spec’d into a HoTA setup for the single target boss fight as a good example. In theory HoTA should do more single target DPS than Mighty Throw because MT by current design is doing splash AoE dmg DPS.
We all talk about and see all of these nerfs but I feel like the nerfs to all of the classes so far were made before the new gaming content was finished. Right now, if the Season 5 Whiriwind Dust Devil build would have been a more feasible in this Vessel of Hatred content as there is a lot of grinding in Pits, Hordes which has a lot of multiple target mobs to seek out and take down. Now I feel like I have to always use Steel Grasps (which should be grabbing from all directions like Vortex) to get all of the mobs to DPS them all quickly to progress phases in Hordes or beat the Pit timer. Nerfing Sorc Lightning Spear was a bad idea with the Vessel of Hatred content. I think keeping the Fractured Winterglass CDR buffs was a good idea but just tone down the dmg is all, why remove the CDR from it?
All I ask before nerfing anything, please see if the nerf would be even be as extensive if the new gaming content difficulty or its design would actually kinda resonate with the current build. Each class should feel like they have similar skills to pull in mobs like SB’s Vortex. Steel Grasp should grab in a 360 degree radius like Vortex as an example. That alone would be a minor tweak. Sorc, Neco (Golem kinda can pull in stuff but the cooldown is horrendous, Tendrils just isn’t cutting it as well), and Druid (What’s up with so many Knockback skills? They need a skill to pull mobs in to AoE them down) should have something similar but in their characteristic kinda way. Rogue already has the Death Trap that grabs mobs from all directions but it should be a non-Ultimate skill that can be used more frequently like Vortex or Steel Grasp. Now mind you what I am saying here would have been a great adjustment to the skills that would resonate with this current Vessel of Hatred content, these suggestions may no longer apply to the next expansion unless the devs are taking the current class skills into consideration instead of creating a skill once and leaving it as permanently design without thinking if it will be any of use in the current expansion design.