The Purpose of BoA, The Recent Changes to Witch Doctors, MannerCookie's HeisenBarb Beta Build

The Purpose of BoA

Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker/ Official Forums)

Main goals:

- Make it so that playing the game is the best way to get the best items. In this scenario, "playing the game" refers to the core mechanic, which is killing monsters. The designers really dig that kill monsters > get loot > kill more monsters > get more loot reward loop, and felt it was being compromised by the ease of trading, particularly for Legendary and Set items. We want those top-tier items to be earned through gameplay. 
- In light of the AH shutting down, still try to limit the negative impact the third-party market has on the game as much as possible. (This goes back to goal #1 and is one of the reasons why the current rules are set up the way they are.)

Greatest hopes? That the new loot model for the majority of players feels rewarding and satisfying -- and natural, too -- and that there's an actual sense of personal progression as you advance from finding Rares to finding Legendaries. An item being BoA ideally won't be a dealbreaker because the loot hunt itself is in a good place (this is where the rewarding/satisfying/natural part comes in). 

Greatest fears? As with anything game design related, the greatest fear is that -- despite your research, your testing, your experience, and your gut -- what you've designed isn't fun for most players and winds up hindering the game more than helping it. We don't believe that will be the case with BoA (and feel it will actually be the opposite), but no one here is infallible.

The Recent Changes to Witch Doctors

A bit of light was given to the recent changes to Witch Doctors in Beta/PTR.

Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker/ Official Forums)

mostly the wd nerfs
Thanks for the follow up! Though it never feels great to see numbers go down, we felt (as well as other players who tested out the WD on Beta and PTR) that the class was a little overturned in the previous PTR/Beta build. This was especially evident in group play. So, we're toning a lot of skills down and will see how that plays out in the next PTR/Beta build. If you're willing to hop on the PTR once the new patch is live and provide us your thoughts, that would definitely be appreciated. 

On that note actually, it's really important to keep in mind that PTR and Beta patches are in no way final and that we're still tuning, tweaking, and adjusting a lot of skill values. We expect that we'll need to make some more changes once this next patch is out and you all get the opportunity to test and share feedback.
for the record there is a few of us that are die hard witch doctor players, we have put together numerous topics with idea and disccsions vs the new changes.

I can actually provide a little more insight on these particular changes.

As we transitioned from the Friends & Family to Closed Beta, all abilities from each class were highly overtuned. Over time, we whittled away at the numbers, and these passes were made by class. This is pretty par for the course in how we approach tuning. The Witch Doctor was the last one we addressed, and that happened to land at a time when we could provide the most detailed patch notes (i.e., these ones).

So no, we don't hate Witch Doctors! They were just next up for a tuning pass and the timing wasn't great in terms of communicating these changes.

Definitely going to go dig through those feedback posts though. Nom nom nom, feedback!

What about the demon hunter posts? Could you at least say yes or no so we at least know we aren't getting ignored, because it definitely seems that way.

Between all of us, we go through all the class forums (and other forums too) for feedback, paying particular attention to threads that are well-formatted and constructive. I try to tackle as much as I can myself, but sometimes I do miss things. That's why we work as a team. =) Grimiku, Vaeflare, and Lylirra all help me catch things I might not have seen otherwise.

No class is being ignored or unheard. Not every change that's asked for will be implemented, of course, but we are here to listen, report, and discuss your feedback with development. Think of us as your liaisons - we pass on as much of your thoughts as we can and make sure your voice is being represented and recognized.

MannerCookie's HeisenBarb Beta Build

MannerCookie has been one of the Barbarian players that has always tried to push new and interesting builds for his chosen class and continues doing so on the Beta servers. Recently he has been teasing a new build. That new build is called HeisenBarb and represents a charge-Barb play that seems to be incredibly efficient and useful on higher difficulties. Check out the video for some awesome gameplay and a thorough explanation of the build.

 

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