Hello D4 enjoyers,
After watching the campfire chat, I felt the buffs presented were a huge letdown for Barb players. I had thought the idea for this buff was to create more gateways for new, viable builds to arise but instead, Barbs got some minor damage buffs to a couple non-viable skills.
For context, I am a math guy and I enjoy theorycrafting solely for the Barbarian class as it has been my go-to throughout the entire Diablo saga. I have dug deep into the nitty gritty min maxing damage, DR, CDs, paragon, etc and I have a few good ideas to improve certain skills, uniques, and aspects without major power creep.
I’ve listed below changes I think would be great to see in the next buff patch or near future. Then, I provided a short discussion on each of the points for my math/justification. The goal was to provide suggestions with the least amount of programming work possible and avoid just suggesting arbitrary flat damage number buffs to specific skills.
Suggested Changes:
- Bash - Reduce the amount of Bash stacks required to stun by 2 or when critically strikes. Allow Bash to proc an small AoE stun to enemies in front of you. Increase stun duration to 2-3s.
The idea of bash revolves around this consistent way to stun your enemies with a free attack. However, it is competing with much quicker ways to stun such as concussion, anemia, stomp, and the current stun hearts. 5 attacks is equivalent to 4s of bashing your head against an enemy for no damage. Not very fun. Getting the bash proc should feel rewarding if we are taking an entire skill slot for it. Making the bash have a small AOE effect and reducing the amount of time it takes to proc (Approx 2s) would be a big step in the right direction for this skill.
- Battle Bash - Increase fury gained by 7-8 or gives 15-20% increased fury generation for 4s after hitting a stunned enemy.
In the short window of an enemy being stunned before going unstoppable, current meta builds revolve around utilizing that stun window as best as possible to dish out as much damage as possible. Simply put, the choice to Bash our enemies and risk our enemies going unstoppable should compete with all the other reasons to hit stunned enemies and it currently does not. By significantly increasing fury generation using Bash or having another source for overall fury generation, that choice now becomes more compelling. With these changes, a barb player who fully builds into max fury generation could theoretically Bash a stunned enemy for a full globe of fury.
- Frenzy - Increase stack duration to 6s.
One big issue I have with frenzy is the current buff duration. At 3s duration, you will need to basic attack approximately 20% of the time in between core skills to upkeep your Frenzy buff. Essentially, using Frenzy with Battle Trance will net you an approximately 10% damage increase (after the 10% from frenzy stacks and 20% from Battle Trance increased attack speed buff) due to time loss basic attacking where other aspects can go much beyond this value (ie. Limitless rage at 45% damage increase) especially in the 50% bonus amulet slot. The amount of time and effort needed to micromanage the frenzy buff is not currently rewarding enough to do so.
- Battle Trance - Increase additional Frenzy stacks to 5 (for maximum 8 with frenzy).
Battle Trance, being an amulet, has to compete with all other aspects with a 50% buff and currently, it is just an inferior choice. I’ve tried to theorycraft a frenzy build with maximum damage reduction (Gives 40% DR at 5 stacks) and during my research, I found that using Battle Trance actually leads you net negative in your overall damage reduction if you take Aspect of Disobedience (yes even after the nerf) and +3 Ranks to Defensive skills (+6% DR to Challenging Shout) into account. If I need to sit there, facetank an enemy while dishing out no damage for a few seconds, I should feel rewarded for it. Right now taking a well rolled legendary amulet is just better. Increasing Frenzy stacks to 8 max (equivalent to 64% DR or 40% attack speed bonus on top of 20% from Battle Trance max stacks) makes Battle Trance a much more compelling choice.
- Gohr’s Devastating Grips - Change damage scaling from base damage to overall damage. Revert change from every 2 seconds to only when the whirlwind ends. Reduce % damage from 26% base damage to around 10% overall damage.
I hate everything in this game that scales with base damage because in the late game, base damage is essentially nothing. Damage in this game is heavily influenced by damage multipliers (ie. Vulnerable, crits, global modifiers, aspects, passives etc) therefore even 10% of overall damage would be miles better than just 26% of base damage. Currently, Ghors just feels weak and I have no clue how much damage I am saving up because it scales off damage I am not even seeing on the screen. Furthermore, the idea of Ghors should be to suppress a % of all the damage I am dealing to random mobs and explode all that juicy damage saved to a priority target such as an elite. The last Ghors “buff” to me was a big nerf to the fantasy of the unique. I now have no control over where I want to explode my saved up damage and my saved up damage is limited to 2s.
- Aspect of Grasping Whirlwind - Change proc chance from “periodically” to 20% chance to proc or every 5s.
Just give us a flat % chance or a flat per second proc timer so that we know when to expect the pull. I hate subjective verbiage such as “periodically”. I believe the ladder is more beneficial gameplay wise because it would allow us to time our Ghors explosion for when we expect a pull, making it a more satisfying experience.
- Whirlwind - Scales with attack speed bonus. Fury cost changed from per second to every proc to justify attack speed increase.
Many people have suggested this change but I wanted to reiterate it because I think this is a great suggestion. Every other core skill scales with attack speed, which is essentially another damage multiplier, and the fact that WW does not just does not make any sense to me. Also, please let our character spin faster on the screen based on the attack speed bonus please.
- Hellhammer - You deal 30% more damage to burning enemies. Add affix to ranks of upheaval.
Hellhammer, being a 2-handed weapon slot, needs to compete with all other damage dealing aspects with a 100% multiplier. It is cool that the burn provides furious upheaval stacks, however the current damage output from this unique effect is pitiful. Introducing a damage multiplier to burning enemies would be a huge improvement to the fantasy of Hellhammer and would make other burn sources such as Aspect of Burning Rage viable as well. Furthermore, a 30% damage multiplier is still inferior to other damage aspect multipliers such as Limitless Rage (60% multiplier) which makes it a more fair option.
- Iron Skin - Increase duration to 7s. Change scaling based on maximum health rather than missing health.
Iron skin has gotten a few buffs in the past patch, however no matter how much Aspect of the Iron Warrior damage reduction gets buffed, I believe iron skin will continue to be underused because the activation criteria requires us to be damaged. It is a great panic button for that high tier NMD but for everything else, it just becomes this dusty button you press once per dungeon. By giving players the choice to activate iron skin before an encounter, we now have access to all these different things that synergize with barriers and iron skin in general. Furthermore, with 20% cooldown reduction from helm and amulet affixes, iron skin CD is 11.2s with a 5s uptime. This equates to a 6.2s down time or around 65% of the time. This feels bad especially when compared to other barrier duration sources. I believe the duration should at least be comparable to other available barrier durations at 7s.
- Shouts - Allow reduced cooldown to scale with increased ranks with 20s CD at rank 12.
No matter how much shouts get nerfed, shouts will always be prevalent because shouts give us the best consistent amount of fury back, allowing us to do more damage rather than spend time using our fury generators. Until there becomes more compelling fury generation sources, shouts will always be the go-to therefore I suggest bringing some power back to shouts if you really want to give barbs a buff. I believe the suggested change is fair because it will allow nearly 100% uptime, while requiring us to build heavily into the shouts while sacrificing other armor affixes, such as damage reduction. This in turn makes it a less viable choice for high tier NMD. For example, rank 12 Rallying Cry will have a 16s cooldown with 20% cooldown reduction from helm and amulet affixes. With bold chieftain (-6s), marshal (-2.4s), and booming voice, the downtime for Rallying Cry becomes 0.2s.
- Power Charge - Revert change to maximum cooldown of 9s.
During 1.1.0 campfire chat, the Devs talked about catching and nerfing certain broken builds before they become viable. I believe the Power Charge nerf is a symptom of this design philosophy and I hate it. Yes, extremely broken things should be caught during QA testing and fixed, however I do not get the design philosophy behind nerfing this specific previously underused skill. Charge was never OP and even with the new aspect, this new exciting build just became dead on arrival. (Lets not mention the fact that Charge is currently bugged). The current design philosophy of D4 feels like a business where each design choice is a negotiation rather than a choice to maximize fun.
- Veteran Brawler’s Aspect - Change from Core Skills to any other non-brawler skill.
If you want build diversity, I think aspects should move away from verbiage that states specific skills such as “Core Skills”. Veteran Brawler’s Aspect is one of them. This change would create more opportunities for new builds/synergies and I personally would be very excited if something like this were implemented. (Imagine if quake damage procs this aspect).
- Aspect of Ancestral Echoes - Allow echos to deal damage equivalent to the skill used (essentially 100% damage for that instance) and/or allow echos to proc skill effects/lucky hits. Change proc chance from lucky hit to flat 20% chance once per skill cast. Remove 5s cooldown.
Ancestral Echos is a really cool looking aspect that just does not do anything. It’s another aspect that just scales poorly in the late game and needs help with either a damage scaling buff or allowing additional lucky hit procs/skill effect procs. The 5s cooldown also feels anti-fun and should be removed. I understand the design philosophy behind trying to limit the amount of echo spawns, however a better way would be just to limit the skill activation to once per skill cast at a 20% flat proc rate which is generally equivalent to once every 5s on average. With this change, at least I would have a chance to see 2 echos spawn back to back which would feel super good.
- Bear Clan Berserker’s Aspect - Change to killing an enemy has a 40% chance of reducing the cooldown of brawling skills by 2s.
Bear Clan Aspect feels super underwhelming right now since it only lasts 2s at a time for a set CD amount when compared to other CD reduction sources such as Bold Chieftain (-6s) and Weapons Mastery Glyph (-2s per hit). I think a better change would be to copy the Weapons Master glyph and make it a flat amount.
- Hamstring - Revert change to slow only healthy enemies.
I believe the Hamstring nerf was also a symptom of the design philosophy to “catch and nerf certain broken builds before they become viable”. It seemed that utilizing Creeping Death with Hamstring would have been too easy of a way to gain a 45% damage buff. We’re a few weeks into the season and it seems obvious that bleed builds are still bad and reverting this change would not change that fact. Furthermore, this change also nerfed certain build synergies that relied on bleeds for an easy slow source such as the No Mercy passive and Aspect of the Umbral procs. None of these builds were considered meta or OP previously.
- Fields of Crimson - Change 15% increased bleeding damage to 30% increased damage to enemies standing in the blood pool. Do not remove rupture cooldown affix.
Like Hellhammer, Fields of Crimson is another 2-handed weapon that is competing with all other damage dealing multiplier aspects with a 100% multiplier (Such as Limitless Rage at 60%). Crimson is currently giving 15% multiplicative(?) damage to bleed damage which is not cutting it (currently worse than a 1-handed damage multiplier aspect at 20%). I think the buff should be at least 30% to all damage in general to make this unique more compelling and synergize with more build options.
- Overkill - Remove damage to Injured Enemies affix and add ranks to Deathblow. Remove Overpower damage and add Vulnerable damage. Add +1 charges to Deathblow.
Overkill is currently a pretty solid unique item, however the affixes tied to the weapon are the worst of all current barb uniques. Changing up the affixes and adding an additional charge would help Deathblow become more viable.
- Ancient’s Oath - Add apply % bleed to enemies hit for 5s.
Steel grasp is relevant in rend and double swing builds which both benefit from bleed procs in some way. Having Steel Grasp apply bleeding would allow the skill to synergize with bleed effects (Such as Harrogath or Disembowel) and do a little bit more damage. The unique probably won’t see too much play regardless of the changes but it’s a step in the right direction.
- Walking Arsenal - Increase each stack to 15% increased damage and 20% increased damage with all three stacks. (Equivalent to 82% damage increase vice 53% current)
I love the fantasy behind Weapons arsenal and it is a very cool idea introduced with D4. Currently though, the amount of rewards for the effort you put into building and micromanaging your buffs is not enough when compared to the alternative (unbridled rage at 135% damage increase with 0 effort except more fury generation building). I think weapons arsenal should be buffed to bring it closer to power to Unbridled without surpassing it.
- 100,000 Steps - Remove or reduce 30s cooldown to 10s.
I think the design philosophy behind making 100,000 steps a 30s CD is to ensure ultimates do not have super short CDs, however I’d argue this is a non-issue. If we are spending time and effort to hit the stomp with the biggest group of mobs possible, let us do it. Right now, most barb builds do not incorporate ultimate skills because they have too long of a CD and/or are not impactful enough. This change would greatly increase the viability of these skills.
- Rage of Harrogath - Change from lucky hit to flat % chance when applying bleeds. (ie. 20% chance when inflicting bleeds to elites).
The current Rage of Harrogath has many anti-synergies due to the fact it procs based on lucky hit. This means only skills that have a lucky hit can proc this effect (ie. WW, Flay & Rend). Changing rage to have a flat chance amount and synergize with more bleed effects would be hugely beneficial for this unique.
- Battle-Mad Aspect - Gain Berserking after swapping weapons 3 times.
The current battle-mad aspect requiring 10 weapon swaps is complete copium. This is equivalent to around 9s of attacks to give you berserk that will last only a quarter of that time. Make it at least 3 weapon swaps to be more viable.
- Thornmail - Add affixes such as Damage to close enemies, Damage while injured, Damage Reduction, maximum health, etc.
The fact that thornmail doesn’t give any damage reduction affixes or affixes in general seems like a huge anti-synergy to the idea of a thorns build. You want to be as tanky as possible but using thornmail makes you less tanky than any other meta builds that just use a legendary chest piece. Thorns needs a buff and this is a great indirect way to do so.
Closing remarks:
I think most people will skip my discussions but if you did not, thank you. I will continue to add new suggestions as I see them on reddit, on discord, and in the discussions below. The ideas have been a combination of my own and multiple suggestions across many different platforms. Please take these ideas with a grain of salt and consider the ideas rather than the flat numbers. Even with small tweaks to the actual numbers, these changes would be huge for the barbarian class.
If you agree with these ideas, please comment so this post can get more viewership/get noticed by Devs faster.
Thank you.
Devs, we love your game but our barbarian bros are hurting. You promised the barbarian a buff, well give us a real buff to be excited about. We love the upcoming changes to earthquakes, but this is not enough according to the community. Over the past few months, we felt a pattern of steep nerfs to the barbarian class and an unwillingness to do the opposite for buffs. Please prove us wrong.
money seems to be their only motivator