The Rule of 🆒 turns to the Rule of uncool (NERFS)

PC General Discussion
51

But this is a meaningless way to calculate nerfs. If I have a skill that does 60% and they change it to 8%, that’s an ~87% nerf. If I have a skill that does 160% and they change it to 108%, that’s a 32.5% nerf. If I have 5900% additive damage and they reduce it to 700%, that’s an ~87% nerf to my damage (60x → 8x). Why should I care about any number other than the effect on the total damage I deal?

An example in the other direction: Sorcs will now get +1% damage for every 8 int. It used to be for every 10 int. So if I had 1000 int, I used to get 100% but now I get 125%. Is this a 25% increase? No, because before my damage with 1000 int was 2x and now it is 2.25x, so I’ve only gained 12.5% damage.

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52

The rule of cool is their approach. Its in the video / interview. Where they say big nerfs are not the approach and here we are with big nerfs. What happened to their strategy is what I am saying. What happened to buffing other heroes to same level?

53

Well, honestly

Power shifts every season, and I’m sure some people enjoys that

Playing something different every season

Its part of the good replayability of D4 =)

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54

Well barb needed to be toned down plain and simple . They still be the top class next season dont worry…

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55

This isnt true. Rob has a video up on the math. It was 29 million per billion. So instead of doing 100 billion it might only br 290 million which is still pretty good and balanced around other classes.

We will need to wait for the patch notes.

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56

A. No full patch notes yet so no idea what the full extent of changes are; all uniques are more or less getting some rework
B. Barbs damage is gonna get scaled down to be on a more level playing field with the rest 4 classes; and it might not end up being the top class (could still be top 3), ppl need to be ok with that.
C. Streamer will pretty much figure out ahead of time if barbs is actually decent (meaning on par with other classes) in the first few days of full S5 or patch notes release, so too early to say anything

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57

People just refuse to understand that even streamers saw a limited version.
The patch notes will give everyone a better idea, there is no point in overreacting right now.

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58

The Rule of Cool isn’t about balancing damage numbers. It’s about allowing cool stuff to happen even if it breaks the rules or seems problematic. “I one-shot everything” or “I am immune to all damage” aren’t cool, they are just broken. Allowing players to find broken combinations of character powers is cool, but the whole point of a seasonal game is to try to balance out those combinations the following season.

So, for example, S4 introduced tempers and specifically it introduce very powerful weapon tempers. Barbs, due to their cool mechanic of having a bunch of weapons, get to make use of many more weapon tempers, making they far more powerful than the other classes. Druid, Sorc, and Necro get 4 weapon tempers total. Rogue gets 8. Barb gets 12 (or really 4 1x tempers and 4 2x tempers). It’s a massive increase in both power and in the flexibility of how you make your build, allowing you to wield a unique and also get some 2x chance to cast tempers and also get some bonus damage tempers and so on. Other classes have to choose one of these things. If you wield a 2H unique, you get zero weapon tempers.

They are also beefing up every unique to compete with legendaries and adding a bunch of new uniques and aspects that can help support new builds. Overall, this is going to further increase the power of Barbs relative to everyone else because it is making weapons even more powerful.

So, how to balance that?

One option: massively nerf all Barb weapon tempers so that in order to get the same value as the other classes they would need to commit all their tempers to it. This runs into two problems: (1) there are tempers available to all classes that the Barb could still use, and (2) it massively constrains Barb builds, making it harder to make use of tempers across their weapons. This would have a small impact on damage and a larger impact on the coolness of having the extra weapons.

Second option: only allow the affixes from the weapon used by a skill to count. This would be more fair and still give Barbs some flexibility, but it would also dramatically reduce the value of the extra weapons, since most builds do most of their damage with one of the arsenal options. This reduces Barb damage but also reduces the coolness of their class mechanic.

Third option: nerf every Barb skill to subtract out the value of 2 2H-worth of tempers. This is possible, but extremely complicated due to the number of different combinations of skill and temper choices. They could focus on the meta builds, though, and just assume that non-meta builds are fine as they are. This is potentially a way to fix damage without removing anything cool, though it feels particularly bad for the skills nerfed and it likely results in some skills that were previously unchosen because there were more broken options to still remain broken (just slightly less-so).

Fourth option: Enhance every other class to compensate for the lost aspects and tempers. Tempers are about as powerful as aspects, which give about a 25% damage boost each as a baseline, doubled on 2Hers. 1.5 * 1.5 * 1.5 * 1.5 ~= 5x damage relative to Druids, Sorcs, and Necros, so they could multiply all skill values by 5 for those classes. This means that everyone can now one-shot the tormented bosses and we go back to having an endgame content issue. It also isn’t cool because it’s just more damage, and it constrains future solutions like new or beefed up mechanics for the other classes because they are already doing godly damage, so those mechanics would feel worse due to coming with major nerfs.

Fifth option: Introduce major new / enhanced mechanics for the classes that are less powerful than Barb, and tune them so that they are equally powerful to Barb now. This is certainly much, much cooler than nerfs, but it runs into the same issue as the blanket damage boosts: Barbs are just too strong in S4 for that to be the baseline.

Sixth option: Focus all the unique buffs and new uniques / aspects only on the under-performing classes, to bring them up closer to Barb’s level. This is cool for those classes, but it means that Barbs get zero new toys, and if it results in Barbs still being super powerful it has the same issues with invalidating endgame content. Options 5 and 6 satisfy the coolness factor but fail on the reigning in power factor.

Seventh option, the one they seem to be going with: Buff the other classes a little (main stat scaling, skill buffs), nerf Barb key passives so that the number of things nerfed is smaller and more controllable but still provides a blanket reduction to the class’s damage and minimizes the impact on different builds relative to each other. This isn’t cool in itself, because it’s just blanket damage buffs and nerfs, but it does a much better job of preserving the coolness of existing stuff like Barb weapons while bringing down the top-end baseline to a point where the pinnacle bosses will still be very challenging to all classes.

Going with option 7 allows them to address the balance a bit for Season 5 without tying their hands for Season 6, when the expansion will change everything anyway. It leaves room for the future mechanics enhancements they talked about (in Season 6 or 7) without dramatically pushing the power level of everything yet again.

Overall, what is more cool: Keep all current power, introduce nothing new or Reduce current power, but add new stuff? Barbs can now play with Crown of Lucion, Locran’s Talisman, Shard of Verathiel, The Third Blade, and all the beefed up uniques from the existing game. They lost some power relative to S4 builds with S4 items (and GW lost a ton of power), but overall it isn’t clear what the power level will be until we get to play with the new toys. That’s a much more interesting / cool place to be. There are challenges out there to overcome, new builds to discover.

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59

Hmm, the first thought coming to mind is that PCgamer article was in the context of the gap created by differences in weapon quantity. The developer never said they wouldn’t nerf anything. They said they would prefer to prop up other classes to account for the gap in this specific case. Nothing more or less.

Interestingly, they did exactly that with the impending main stat changes. That change equalizes main stat contributions from weapons, regardless of class weapon quantity. Obviously this doesn’t cover all bases. It’s still a solid example of buffing other classes to partially achieve the stated goal.

The second thought is the only buff, never nerf concept is silly. Tuning dials should be free to move in both directions. Not broken so they only go upwards. I’m not sure where this narrative came from but… it needs to die already.

Yes, that means stuff gets nerfed sometimes. Players can deal with it. Rub some dirt in it. Adjust around it. As for the devs… if you can’t handle the heat… :smiley: I suppose they stocked up on extra fire extinguishers in this case. That counts for something.

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60

Barb will do just fine I’m sure. Just have to readjust to less dps.

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61

Bigest problem is that devs made us belive Barb is always going to be this all powerful class, and that this is the baseline. Well now they pushed the baseline back, it’s also easyer to bring the rest of the calsses up, and all the nerfs to necro, druid and sorc (that we know from the post ptr changes) doesn’t look that bad now. Untill we see the complete final patch notes, I wouldn’t speculate where the balace will land. I understand Barb players, it sucks to get striped of so much power, but Barb was insanely OP and out of cotroll for 3 seasons straight, devs had to do something about it. But le’ts not just say it’s all gloom and doom untill we tryed it.

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62

its funny that u mentioned Rob, he ate his own medicine so to speak, with his suggestions for barb changes not even mentioned how op gushing is. And its the reason now why i smile :smiley:
And yes some Key passive changes are weird for barbs, but lets be honest, they had to be nerfed somehow, and decided to do it with all key passives.

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63

Yeah.
Not in the sense of third person over-the-shoulder combat of course, but in terms of some good game design, sensible scaling, proper challenge, varied enemies that matter, limited healing sources, balanced outgoing and incoming damage etc. Definitely.

I don’t think Souls games have a monopoly on good game design, there are plenty others out there that adhere to similar concepts. But they are obviously one of the best cases to learn from for struggling developers.

Better comparison is probably Nioh 1 and 2 however, since they already are Diablo-style games, wrapped in some Souls design concepts (and also Souls combat in their case).

64

So much for anything they said or any statements that were made. If the leaks/notes are accurate very minor buffs for other classes while barb gets hammer and yet barb still can’t get anywhere close to pit 200 so why is pit 200 even a thing? Unique’s being bad but now have +200% to damage types/whatnot.

Long story short, TLDR, these guys have absolutely no clue what they’re doing.

65

Bosses in high level pits have Trillions of HP.
Billions of damage is very much mandatory. It needs to be reachable by well-designed builds with top end gear. It is also something to aspire to after reaching level 100.

What they should have done is not make barbs weaker, but buff everyone else to barb level.

66

Lets be fair - since inception Barb HOTA been cream of the crop. S4 Bleed-Tyriel HOTA is THE cream of the crop no matter how you slice it or dice. I do remember time when everyone were screaming that Bone Spear necro is soooo unbalanced (and btw old days Bone Spear Necro was glass cannon) well compare to bone spear HOTA Barb have no weaknesses

67

Why so surprised? Isn’t it what happens with each new season? The real true content of a new season is the Build tier list. Blizz just makes sure to update it which inevitably means nerfing existing meta builds to make space for the new ones. Why that? Because this is what interests players, almost all the them. Just check what is going on in the forum or the builds around you when playing.

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68

Talking points and PR c*-ap will bring us nowhere

  • So you mean Souls-Like game ?

Yeah, no, maybe, doesn’t matter, you know why, there’s 5%, 6%, 1%, 15%… Just do SOMETHING for the game to work properly, the “souls like” is not only not in the same planetary system with current state of D4, it’s not even in the same galaxy

Same with the talking points of:

  • This is not Diablo

Ok, sherlock, so that c*-appy one shotting, and crazy multiplier that renders everything useless (either by overperforming by double-tripple-quadrupple digit multipliers - or under-performing) is ?

Another talking point is:

  • Game is about loot

Yeah, we have that already, so what’s the problem ?, aren’t these talking points supposed to help ?

Just stop behaving like an ESPN anchor ffs and spew something for the sake of it because others talk about it too

I believe the vast majority of us wanna make the game work properly (balanced, dynamic, and even more importantly => less about completion of assignments and being actually FUN)

And to be frank => the devs OWE it to us cause that’s what they advertised… IF that also requires cutting down on player power ? - so be it, anything to make the game better (rather than this endless repetitiveness and completionist mindset of super easy or totally impossible - and also boring/uninspiring tasks)

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69

Those leaks are just small teasers, we still dont know everything.

Were there any class that could reach Pit 200? Pit 200 is not there for anyone to beat it. Devs messed it up by telling us that there are 200 levels in the Pit, beacuse people get the wrong idea, that they should be able to reach it.

If that is all you understood from the unique changes, than I realy don’t know what to say.

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70

High tier Pits do not need to be reachable in any way.

As long as people can get a bit above the tier where the last materials drop, it is fine.
And Blizzard can always reduce monster HP in Pits to ensure that.

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