Just gonna copy+paste this from another thread, to highlight how meaningless PTR insights are at this point:
1) The amount of people testing on PTR is abysmal. Top builds are almost never discovered on PTR, but much later (and if someone finds them on PTR they usually hide them). If people were to find top/OP builds on PTR Blizzard oftentimes nerfed them in the past, which obviously alienated testers. But in general, this PTR is a wasteland, almost no one playing. To give you an idea: With GR50 you get on the leaderboard with DH, monk, and WD. On the other six leaderboards (crus, barb, wiz, and 2p/3p/4p) the leaderboard isn't even full yet, so any GR gets you a ranking. Currently the lowest rank on 4p is #74. A total of 24 groups have tested 4 player gameplay on PTR (NS SC, which is where high-level testing is being done by high-end players). HIghest GR is 101 in 11 minutes with 3+1 Twister meta, so obviously people stopped testing when they realized that.
2) Twister is still broken on PTR, but Blizzard made it pretty clear that they'll nerf it, so we're all waiting for that final nerf, although it seems we're running out of time. So we're in this state where we don't know if Blizzard is just overlooking this and S7 will be the same as S6, or if we'll see another PTR patch with some changes. There's already another patch on the way, but not many changes in the datamining.
Regarding the 4 man meta, PTR tells you absolutely nothing. Just no one has tested high-end meta compositions yet to an extent where it would allow any meaningful prediction. Guessing tomorrow's lottery numbers is easier (and probably more accurate) than guessing the 2.4.2 meta.
Like Bagstone mentioned PTR show nothing currently. Those "high" clears are just random people with random skills pretty much. The meta is not set now.
I personally think new meta will the same same 3 supports + some tal-rasha wizards. Maybe a couple of garg WDs.
My prediction is slightly different. As usual, 99% of D3 players just follow the meta blindly and don't really evaluate what would be better for them. Except for a few well-coordinated top groups that are constantly running extremely high no-boss runs, I think for most people running non-Twister would've been better. Quin's group was up there in top paragon rankings for many weeks (until they fell apart) and they never ran Twister. Alkaizer said why: they were probably the worst coordinated group ever, and Twister is 99% about coordination (Archon is a bit different, hence Alkaizer was fine with running that in the group). I did a few random runs in the previous seasons and it's amazing how random support players can mess up a group: barbs that are basically just sitting around, occasionally pulling mobs into the pile from a range where the monk's pull would've done the same, but never running around, scouting, and doing long-range pulls. Pylons are clicked immediately instead of setting elite packs up, oftentimes wasting 2+ minutes on a Conduit. WDs just spam their spells and do not understand how much of a difference it makes if they actually understand what their buttons do. And monks that blind when they shouldn't (and don't blind when they should), drop IS, and don't understand that spamming CS all day is actually bad.
In 2.4.2, those effects will be exacerbated. Pulling will be even worse due to the increased CC resistances. The group buffs have been reduced from ~300% to ~70-80% effectiveness. Seeing that already on live many supports don't understand how to pull correctly, and adding a support just "breaks even" for many random group, those nerfs will make 3+1 groups really really inefficient. Are people still gonna run it? Probably. The reason is that for top groups 3+1 might still work, because all support players know to press their CC triggering buttons only when necessary and max out the support classes' utility and group buffs. As usual, 99% of players will copy the setups without trying to understand what needs to be done. But in reality, in S7 most people will be better off going for DPS with maybe a few group buffs added, so basically playing "hybrid".
Another thing to keep in mind is that most top groups and all the paragon 2000+ players really just need XP. They have all their gems maxed to a reasonable level; they have all gear and finding an upgrade is unrealistic; they don't care about any drops whatsoever. Therefore, they favor no-boss runs. First, this is not true for 99.9% of players: gem upgrades, gems for augmenting, drops, blood shards, all of that is useful. Second, due to the fact that in 2.4.2 over 50% of the XP is coming from the RG, no-boss runs will hopefully be dead. In combination with the support nerfs, bringing a second class just for RG single target DPS is likely better than waiting for Twister wizards (or whatever the new area damage spec is gonna be) to kill a randomly teleporting ranged RG after 5 minutes of Stricken stacking. Something like generator monk, thorns barb, or Carnevil WD has insane single target damage - but it was just 20-25 tiers (!) behind Twister wizard. Even though Twister wizard is still top on PTR (and hopefully will get nerfed further come next iteration), the gap hopefully isn't that much anymore. I could see a monk - either pure single target DPS or hybrid - to be a valuable addition for a 2+2 meta even if wizard is still around.
Some people on the US forums even go one step further: they report that the CC immunity and group play nerfs have led to their group just randomly running around, splitting up, and fighting on their own in GRs. That might very well be the case, just like in Torment rifts where synergy almost doesn't matter. But the most important thing is that if there's a 3+1 meta, it's only going to be valid for the very top groups (doing 100+ and maybe 110+ by the end of the season). Most people are gonna farm 90+ or even lower (because you want to kill the RG consistently), so maybe the most efficient GR level will go lower again just like it was in season 3, and therefore allow more diversity (and especially make 3 support classes useless).
TL;DR: The top group meta isn't known yet. But even once it is, it might not apply to casual players or even anyone outside of the top 100.
Yeah, killing RG is everything now. So there definitely will be lower gr runs now. Like 90s maybe with 2 or even 3 dps to kill RG faster.
I recently ran some 85+ with 2 garg wds on live and i was on supp wd with messed skill from previous thorns sader runs :DDDD (so i was kinda useless). And it was really fast. 5 minute runs not bad. And we also carried some noob DH with us as he did no damage. As WDs were buffed via the ROE ring now.. I think WD has potential to be RG killer along with some tal-rasha wizard or a raiment monk maybe. Or THORNS barb.
Raiment + Shenlongs monk did 99 with 3k paragons now on PTR. Might be an option too.
Non-season will be absolutely dead now. ABSOLUTELY. This i fear a lot, as mostly a NS player...
I mean... who will run 90s now that barely gives exp, as they previously only ran 110+??? I doubt anyone will play NS now at all. Most guys on NS have 2k+ paras and 90+ will give them nothing except headache.
Don't know why NS will be dead now. I only play season for the stash tab, then back to NS. Why should I farm all the paragon on season, especially now that it takes longer? Why should I get all those augments again and again? Why should I farm all the gear which I already have?
Season for the stash tab, then go NS and try all the different builds with the gear that I already have, and just play whatever is fun. Also, all the gear I have on NS allows me to do lots of testing. NS isn't as dead as people think; I recently checked the leaderboards rank #1 and rank #1000 on Diabloprogress. #1 is usually 1-2 higher on NS than season (excess paragon), #1000 is usually about the same or a bit lower (about 1 tier on average; wizard is the exception with ~10). While the top competition is very tough due to those paragon 3500+ guys, most other high paragon players play season, so when you're just looking to get on any leaderboard (and you're fine with rank 10-1000) NS is the way to go.
On NA NS is pretty much dead, not sure why, but for some reason NA players really love season (and even there competition is ridiculous, you can probably get some top 10 season ranking within a week if you really push for it, like monk or DH). But on EU both season and NS aren't that far apart, and many top clans like ZE are going strong on both. I have no doubt that's gonna continue. Especially if more high-level players are removed by further banwaves, the paragon argument will be invalidated.
What i wanted to say is that i doubt that high paragon guys will run gr90+. 90 gives tiny exp for them. They were running 115+ this season and after all the nerfs will go live they will have to run 90s. I doubt they will do it.
I don't know about EU, but on NA, non-seasonal gameplay is LONG TIME DEAD. Like... 3 seasons ago. There are just couple semi-active NS clans here and most of them play with each other. So, it's practically impossible to find a decent NS group unless you already accumulated a solid friend list. You can LFG for hours in all major communities and no luck.
Well, if you have space for a Kill-The-RG party member... perhaps it is finally the time for a Shadows Mantle DH in Group?
Maybe. I'm not saying it's impossible, but highly unlikely. It often feels to me that 90% of the playerbase wants the DH and nothing but the DH to be the DPS... (in S1-S3 when everything but the DH was crap we didn't hear as many complaints as we do now). From the looks of PTR, DHs DPS is miles behind that of almost every other class. In particular Frenzy barb, gen monk, and WD are likely to be much much better suited as RG killers.
Now, players like this that causes Blizzard to make little changes to the game play i believe. Current season not even at its final day yet, already asking about next meta.. sigh.. Then like every other season, whines and complains that the "same" meta, "can't join group" blah blah blah. Can we do exude different thinking on approaching the game next season? I mean even Blizzard taking a huge step i believe to come out of same meta and making changes for next seasons. Well, just my 2 cents. Let's all have fun in Diablo world rather than just emphasizing too much in "Meta's"
The game itself might be broken a "little" but which game doesn't? Every other game does have it's own flaws but Diablo being one of those most played game, the criticism thrown clearly visible. I mean i love the game despite all it's flaws and i just enjoy it whenever i'm on it and still gets excited when i hear that "ting" sound of legendary drop lol.
Indeed, but it is. Farming paragon is only thing to do when you get your gear to certain point (which doesnt take long at all) In vanilla at least i had to work for my gear, thats way more motivation for me than this stupid paragon farming.
Of course you can still play the game as you like, but using some random builds or groups makes me a underdog compared to what i could be if i played it "right"...
Of course man, everyone should approach the game as they like and to have fun. Some play it to be on top of LB, some just to get on LB, well some like me approach the season with a target to hit on Para and certain GR. Like this season, i just wanted to hit GR 80 which i did couple of days ago with my DH and was super satisfied with it. I just didn't bother with meta and let the pro's do it lol. Well, the point is, while everyone wants to have fun, they should not be tied with certain "rules" to have fun like.. meta.. Just to be clear, i have no qualms with players that follows meta lol, at times i enjoy watching group play and the absolute awesome co-ordination. Cheers.
I just cant play like you, its too casual playstyle to my taste and im not that. I want to achieve more, but to achieve that the gameplay is just too limited and narrow...whole game is being made more and more for casuals/beginners...maybe thats wise move because some old players are leaving/have left the game already, so they need new players.
I'm not a new player or casual either. I spend almost 5-6 hours a day (if that's casual then it's fine man :)). I play this since those Vanilla days, stopped, and restarted once again about a year ago. Anyway, as i mentioned, everyone entitled to play the game as it is and it's just my opinion to not get bound by meta. Maybe, at some point i would want to try this "meta" once i have a proper group to play with Now, let's wait and see what Blizzard offers us in S7. Cheers.
It is just something that i planned on when i got on this season and wasn't really rushing to do it. I just took my own sweet time savoring the season plus RNG god has been really good on me and i manage to do it without much hassles anyway. Plus, 80 is not that high considering it's doable in a week or so for Pro's right after seasons starts lol. I solo almost 100%. Perhaps i could push a little high before the season ends though Obviously playing solo, we could not compete on high end GR's.
Public group for GR runs ends up with failure 90% of the time, at-least that's what I've been told. Some claims they found excellent group while pug-ging. I guess it's just a matter of luck. Yeah, i would consider jumping on meta and try it if i could have a consistent group to play with.
I guess it's time for you to jump ship and find new clans that actively plays as much as you then..
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hello guys
any idea how is the dps meta for groups 4 man next season?
I saw on PTR and the dps is always WD, the arcon Wiz appears sometimes but the WD is the great champion.
What you guys think about the meta next season?
Just gonna copy+paste this from another thread, to highlight how meaningless PTR insights are at this point:
1) The amount of people testing on PTR is abysmal. Top builds are almost never discovered on PTR, but much later (and if someone finds them on PTR they usually hide them). If people were to find top/OP builds on PTR Blizzard oftentimes nerfed them in the past, which obviously alienated testers. But in general, this PTR is a wasteland, almost no one playing. To give you an idea: With GR50 you get on the leaderboard with DH, monk, and WD. On the other six leaderboards (crus, barb, wiz, and 2p/3p/4p) the leaderboard isn't even full yet, so any GR gets you a ranking. Currently the lowest rank on 4p is #74. A total of 24 groups have tested 4 player gameplay on PTR (NS SC, which is where high-level testing is being done by high-end players). HIghest GR is 101 in 11 minutes with 3+1 Twister meta, so obviously people stopped testing when they realized that.
2) Twister is still broken on PTR, but Blizzard made it pretty clear that they'll nerf it, so we're all waiting for that final nerf, although it seems we're running out of time. So we're in this state where we don't know if Blizzard is just overlooking this and S7 will be the same as S6, or if we'll see another PTR patch with some changes. There's already another patch on the way, but not many changes in the datamining.
Regarding the 4 man meta, PTR tells you absolutely nothing. Just no one has tested high-end meta compositions yet to an extent where it would allow any meaningful prediction. Guessing tomorrow's lottery numbers is easier (and probably more accurate) than guessing the 2.4.2 meta.
Like Bagstone mentioned PTR show nothing currently. Those "high" clears are just random people with random skills pretty much. The meta is not set now.
I personally think new meta will the same same 3 supports + some tal-rasha wizards. Maybe a couple of garg WDs.
http://www.angryroleplayer.com/
http://www.youtube.com/c/angryroleplayer
https://www.diablofans.com/builds/105329-2-6-7-rend-bleed-whirlwind-gr130
https://www.diablofans.com/builds/105301-2-6-7-fist-of-the-heavens-aegis-of-valor-gr110
My prediction is slightly different. As usual, 99% of D3 players just follow the meta blindly and don't really evaluate what would be better for them. Except for a few well-coordinated top groups that are constantly running extremely high no-boss runs, I think for most people running non-Twister would've been better. Quin's group was up there in top paragon rankings for many weeks (until they fell apart) and they never ran Twister. Alkaizer said why: they were probably the worst coordinated group ever, and Twister is 99% about coordination (Archon is a bit different, hence Alkaizer was fine with running that in the group). I did a few random runs in the previous seasons and it's amazing how random support players can mess up a group: barbs that are basically just sitting around, occasionally pulling mobs into the pile from a range where the monk's pull would've done the same, but never running around, scouting, and doing long-range pulls. Pylons are clicked immediately instead of setting elite packs up, oftentimes wasting 2+ minutes on a Conduit. WDs just spam their spells and do not understand how much of a difference it makes if they actually understand what their buttons do. And monks that blind when they shouldn't (and don't blind when they should), drop IS, and don't understand that spamming CS all day is actually bad.
In 2.4.2, those effects will be exacerbated. Pulling will be even worse due to the increased CC resistances. The group buffs have been reduced from ~300% to ~70-80% effectiveness. Seeing that already on live many supports don't understand how to pull correctly, and adding a support just "breaks even" for many random group, those nerfs will make 3+1 groups really really inefficient. Are people still gonna run it? Probably. The reason is that for top groups 3+1 might still work, because all support players know to press their CC triggering buttons only when necessary and max out the support classes' utility and group buffs. As usual, 99% of players will copy the setups without trying to understand what needs to be done. But in reality, in S7 most people will be better off going for DPS with maybe a few group buffs added, so basically playing "hybrid".
Another thing to keep in mind is that most top groups and all the paragon 2000+ players really just need XP. They have all their gems maxed to a reasonable level; they have all gear and finding an upgrade is unrealistic; they don't care about any drops whatsoever. Therefore, they favor no-boss runs. First, this is not true for 99.9% of players: gem upgrades, gems for augmenting, drops, blood shards, all of that is useful. Second, due to the fact that in 2.4.2 over 50% of the XP is coming from the RG, no-boss runs will hopefully be dead. In combination with the support nerfs, bringing a second class just for RG single target DPS is likely better than waiting for Twister wizards (or whatever the new area damage spec is gonna be) to kill a randomly teleporting ranged RG after 5 minutes of Stricken stacking. Something like generator monk, thorns barb, or Carnevil WD has insane single target damage - but it was just 20-25 tiers (!) behind Twister wizard. Even though Twister wizard is still top on PTR (and hopefully will get nerfed further come next iteration), the gap hopefully isn't that much anymore. I could see a monk - either pure single target DPS or hybrid - to be a valuable addition for a 2+2 meta even if wizard is still around.
Some people on the US forums even go one step further: they report that the CC immunity and group play nerfs have led to their group just randomly running around, splitting up, and fighting on their own in GRs. That might very well be the case, just like in Torment rifts where synergy almost doesn't matter. But the most important thing is that if there's a 3+1 meta, it's only going to be valid for the very top groups (doing 100+ and maybe 110+ by the end of the season). Most people are gonna farm 90+ or even lower (because you want to kill the RG consistently), so maybe the most efficient GR level will go lower again just like it was in season 3, and therefore allow more diversity (and especially make 3 support classes useless).
TL;DR: The top group meta isn't known yet. But even once it is, it might not apply to casual players or even anyone outside of the top 100.
Yeah, killing RG is everything now. So there definitely will be lower gr runs now. Like 90s maybe with 2 or even 3 dps to kill RG faster.
I recently ran some 85+ with 2 garg wds on live and i was on supp wd with messed skill from previous thorns sader runs :DDDD (so i was kinda useless). And it was really fast. 5 minute runs not bad. And we also carried some noob DH with us as he did no damage. As WDs were buffed via the ROE ring now.. I think WD has potential to be RG killer along with some tal-rasha wizard or a raiment monk maybe. Or THORNS barb.
Raiment + Shenlongs monk did 99 with 3k paragons now on PTR. Might be an option too.
Non-season will be absolutely dead now. ABSOLUTELY. This i fear a lot, as mostly a NS player...
I mean... who will run 90s now that barely gives exp, as they previously only ran 110+??? I doubt anyone will play NS now at all. Most guys on NS have 2k+ paras and 90+ will give them nothing except headache.
http://www.angryroleplayer.com/
http://www.youtube.com/c/angryroleplayer
https://www.diablofans.com/builds/105329-2-6-7-rend-bleed-whirlwind-gr130
https://www.diablofans.com/builds/105301-2-6-7-fist-of-the-heavens-aegis-of-valor-gr110
Don't know why NS will be dead now. I only play season for the stash tab, then back to NS. Why should I farm all the paragon on season, especially now that it takes longer? Why should I get all those augments again and again? Why should I farm all the gear which I already have?
Season for the stash tab, then go NS and try all the different builds with the gear that I already have, and just play whatever is fun. Also, all the gear I have on NS allows me to do lots of testing. NS isn't as dead as people think; I recently checked the leaderboards rank #1 and rank #1000 on Diabloprogress. #1 is usually 1-2 higher on NS than season (excess paragon), #1000 is usually about the same or a bit lower (about 1 tier on average; wizard is the exception with ~10). While the top competition is very tough due to those paragon 3500+ guys, most other high paragon players play season, so when you're just looking to get on any leaderboard (and you're fine with rank 10-1000) NS is the way to go.
On NA NS is pretty much dead, not sure why, but for some reason NA players really love season (and even there competition is ridiculous, you can probably get some top 10 season ranking within a week if you really push for it, like monk or DH). But on EU both season and NS aren't that far apart, and many top clans like ZE are going strong on both. I have no doubt that's gonna continue. Especially if more high-level players are removed by further banwaves, the paragon argument will be invalidated.
What i wanted to say is that i doubt that high paragon guys will run gr90+. 90 gives tiny exp for them. They were running 115+ this season and after all the nerfs will go live they will have to run 90s. I doubt they will do it.
I don't know about EU, but on NA, non-seasonal gameplay is LONG TIME DEAD. Like... 3 seasons ago. There are just couple semi-active NS clans here and most of them play with each other. So, it's practically impossible to find a decent NS group unless you already accumulated a solid friend list. You can LFG for hours in all major communities and no luck.
http://www.angryroleplayer.com/
http://www.youtube.com/c/angryroleplayer
https://www.diablofans.com/builds/105329-2-6-7-rend-bleed-whirlwind-gr130
https://www.diablofans.com/builds/105301-2-6-7-fist-of-the-heavens-aegis-of-valor-gr110
It's true my friend.
I don't know, but I think the WD is viable for 4 man group. I don't know if arcon wiz still viable for groups...
Any idea guys?
Now, players like this that causes Blizzard to make little changes to the game play i believe. Current season not even at its final day yet, already asking about next meta.. sigh.. Then like every other season, whines and complains that the "same" meta, "can't join group" blah blah blah. Can we do exude different thinking on approaching the game next season? I mean even Blizzard taking a huge step i believe to come out of same meta and making changes for next seasons. Well, just my 2 cents. Let's all have fun in Diablo world rather than just emphasizing too much in "Meta's"
The game itself might be broken a "little" but which game doesn't? Every other game does have it's own flaws but Diablo being one of those most played game, the criticism thrown clearly visible. I mean i love the game despite all it's flaws and i just enjoy it whenever i'm on it and still gets excited when i hear that "ting" sound of legendary drop lol.
It is just something that i planned on when i got on this season and wasn't really rushing to do it. I just took my own sweet time savoring the season plus RNG god has been really good on me and i manage to do it without much hassles anyway. Plus, 80 is not that high considering it's doable in a week or so for Pro's right after seasons starts lol. I solo almost 100%. Perhaps i could push a little high before the season ends though Obviously playing solo, we could not compete on high end GR's.
Public group for GR runs ends up with failure 90% of the time, at-least that's what I've been told. Some claims they found excellent group while pug-ging. I guess it's just a matter of luck. Yeah, i would consider jumping on meta and try it if i could have a consistent group to play with.
I guess it's time for you to jump ship and find new clans that actively plays as much as you then..