Due to TRAVIS DAY!!! Nerfing the king of barb builds this is my response with a new build. Rend Pulverize Move (RPM) designed for killing elites and trash mobs fast. Getting faster clear times than with WW.
(I'm all for the change, bring it on!)
Let me know what you think and things you might change.
All stats shown in the chat are unbuffed, buffed tick rates with Wrath would be 30/26/23/18/15
There's actually many builds I've tried that I love that don't include WoTb, and whenever itemization comes out ( possible permanent CoTa pets) there will be even more builds that will be fun.
This nerf reminds me specifically to the nether tentacles nerf to DH's months and months back (along with the smoke screen nerf). My main was a DH and I along with everyone else used nether tentacles, what wasn't to love? A spender that cost 10 hatred out of 125-150, did AOE as it passes through, had life steal built in, and could hit even small targets multiple times was plain awesome. You could reliably get it to do 450% damage to multiple targets, and you can spam the hell out of it. And when I heard about the nerf to it? I was extremely happy. A skill that's so awesome means you just feel gimped if you don't use it, and that's the case with WoTb ToC.
You can argue that if you don't want to use it just don't, but that doesn't hold much water in a game where efficiency is everything. A dodge, movement speed, immune to CC, attack speed buff that you could keep up almost 100% of the time? Why WOULND'T you ever take that?
I personally propose to keep the thrive on chaos rune, but make the added time cap out at 30 seconds for the total buff, while still keeping the CD at two minutes (and I'd be for the same on archon). I vote for this because if I'm doing my whirlwind build I'd still take this rune for the added CC immune and movement speed time compared to the 15 seconds of the other runes. But if I went a hota build, I'd take the insanity rune to burn down champs on MP10.
In the end it's a much needed nerf; It's a crutch at the moment, and nerfing it will help open up other builds.
Wotb:toc is needed above Mp7-8 for most barbs doing 200k unbuffed dps. so blizzard has a choice, either nerf it and have allot of pissed off people using barbs and loose more people playing diablo, because that is what is going to happen like it or not. Because no one wants to sell most of there gear to rebuild a character again and loose money on doing that. My example is this, try using a build with any of the other runes of Wotb, and see how you go in mp8 and above. You will die very very quickly once you can not get out of jailer, frozen, or fear, especially when there is a ranged pack. You need to survive for 105 seconds, if you use another rune, lets see how long you last in mp8 with no wrath, you wont, so if blizzard nerfs Wotb:Toc you may as well take it completely out of the game as far as top end barbs go, year sure you can survive on lower levels where you can take being jailed and take some damage and keep going. How would you deal with two or three packs together on mp 7? There would be no point to using it. I know you will all go use something else like furious charge, No don't want to, i have a build that not may people use, a traditional WW but i use seismic slam and only use WW to get out of being surrounded. This build will not work at all if there is no WotbToc. I have tired, i would like to use insanity, or slaugher, but like i said, once it wares off you die. 95% people can not kill an mp 10 pack in 15 second, so once it wares of you get jailed instantly and die, and then your left hiding in a corner crying for 105 seconds, until you get Wotb back.
I have an answer which is much more appealing and still allows barbs to use the rune. Either reduce the cool down allot like to 40 seconds or Half the effectiveness of it or more. So you only get 5% crit 10% dodge, attackspeed and movement, or have allot of people selling all there gear and uninstalling the game!! and that is not what diablo need right now, but it is what will happen.
I don't get why players already worry and post threads on various forums with titles like "what are us Barbs going to do now". It's just a speculated change and at the rate the d3 devs are pushing out new features WOTB is safe for another year probably.
But then what would they make youtube videos about? #efame
Wotb:toc is needed above Mp7-8 for most barbs doing 200k unbuffed dps. so blizzard has a choice, either nerf it and have allot of pissed off people using barbs and loose more people playing diablo, because that is what is going to happen like it or not. Because no one wants to sell most of there gear to rebuild a character again and loose money on doing that. My example is this, try using a build with any of the other runes of Wotb, and see how you go in mp8 and above. You will die very very quickly once you can not get out of jailer, frozen, or fear, especially when there is a ranged pack. You need to survive for 105 seconds, if you use another rune, lets see how long you last in mp8 with no wrath, you wont, so if blizzard nerfs Wotb:Toc you may as well take it completely out of the game as far as top end barbs go, year sure you can survive on lower levels where you can take being jailed and take some damage and keep going. How would you deal with two or three packs together on mp 7? There would be no point to using it. I know you will all go use something else like furious charge, No don't want to, i have a build that not may people use, a traditional WW but i use seismic slam and only use WW to get out of being surrounded. This build will not work at all if there is no WotbToc. I have tired, i would like to use insanity, or slaugher, but like i said, once it wares off you die. 95% people can not kill an mp 10 pack in 15 second, so once it wares of you get jailed instantly and die, and then your left hiding in a corner crying for 105 seconds, until you get Wotb back.
I have an answer which is much more appealing and still allows barbs to use the rune. Either reduce the cool down allot like to 40 seconds or Half the effectiveness of it or more. So you only get 5% crit 10% dodge, attackspeed and movement, or have allot of people selling all there gear and uninstalling the game!! and that is not what diablo need right now, but it is what will happen.
What the hell are you talking about? Please don't go around saying you represent the 'top end' barbs, because clearly you don't. I very often use a hybrid hota build, on mp10, WITHOUT WoTb at all, to farm champ packs and keys. It's actually not that hard.
Edit; I forgot to ask, do you have the data to show that "many" people will quit the game and unistall because of this nerf? I very, very much doubt it.
Yes sure you can use different abilities, like furious charge and leap, that is obvious, but use another rune on WotB and see how you go on higher MP levels. Your missing the point i am making, if you use WW with HOTA, or Seismic slam, you will be forced to drop Wotb for F-charge or leap. Wotb will become an ability that no one will use, if you are left with a 105s cool down.
I think the best response from the Blizz Developers would be to buff other versions of WoTB runes so that Thrive on Chaos doesnt seem like the only option. What if Insanity offered 3.5x damage for a short period, just as one rough example. I think attention should be given to other runes because the mechanics of Thrive on Chaos is sweet. Perma archon is sweet, buff the other options that are lacking and make those more appealing. Don't simply nerf the some of the most well-known builds we have
This all seems like premature over-reacting. They haven't even said when or how they MIGHT change it; just that they've been looking at it and it's on their wishlist to address at some point down the road. It's not 1.08. It may not even be 1.09. Any change is at least 3 months away yet.
Secondly, MP10 without WotB is perfectly doable for a barb. I manage just fine with multiple builds. It's slower sure (ToC adds about a x1.5-x2 eDPS multiplier ontop of everything), but that's the idea behind WotB in the first place. I personally don't think you're ready for MP10 (and shouldn't be in there) if you can't at least manage it without ToC propping you up. WotB should be about going into overdrive mode when needed, not a crutch to make the MP level even feasible for you. I have way more respect to a War Cry using HotA barb I see trudging his way through an MP10 game than I do for most of the raging idiots I usually see running off 3 screens ahead because if they lose their wrath they can't stay alive.
I can see perfectly well where Travis Day and the dev team are coming from. WotB, well ToC specifically, is just too alluring. That extra x1.5 or x2 eDPS without the hassle of Frozen or Nightmare is just so hard to pass up. You do feel like you're not optimal when you don't use it. Without perma-wrath though I may drop it entirely. I have little use for a skill that's active 15 seconds out of 120. The other runes don't really interest me much because of that. I think they should increase the duration to at least 30 seconds and cut the cooldown to 90 seconds, for starters. I'm not sure what to suggest for ToC itself aside from just increasing the fury require for each second of extension.
My biggest worry about all of this is that they change Into the Fray instead of WotB-ToC itself. If they do that then they mess with so much more than just the permawrath issue that they seem to be targetting.
No one know how they are going to nerf Wotb, yet, but cc is the main benefit of Wotb, Toc. if your build uses it to stop cc and you have a period of time with no cc reduction, like 40s or more as an example, your not going to use it unless you can kill a pack in the given time you have it on for. That depend on your gear, and dictates what mp level you run. I do not see the point of running two skills with cc reduction, like using Wotb and leap.
Just an idea but what about if Wotb was on a timer of say one minute as an example, and if you turned it off during the one minutes the timer would cool down, that way if forces you to turn it off and kill white trash with out it and not have it on all the time. And only engage it once there is a pack to kill, or to get out of CC. You could also have it so if you hit the one minute max you would get punished and have a 20 second period where you would not use it. It would become available at 40 second on the cool down. That way you could use all of the runes of Wotb and not just Toc..
I ran Insanity when I first started and was having trouble with sustainability for ToC. It's fine for dealing with CC, though I'd prefer a less severe cooldown (it's not worth taking the passive). The main issue imho is that DPS takes a pretty significant nosedive without ToC. I haven't spent enough time playing other classes to know whether this will bring us in line or put us at a disadvantage for equivalent levels of gear, but I am getting a monk up to speed just in case.
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...and if you disagree with me, you're probably <insert random ad hominem attack here>.
My biggest worry about all of this is that they change Into the Fray instead of WotB-ToC itself. If they do that then they mess with so much more than just the permawrath issue that they seem to be targetting.
-dolynick
Into the Fray with WotB-ToC seems ok, but when you combine them with sprint:RLtW it becomes quite messed up. Tbh in my mind its sprint:RLtW that is the broken skill.
You actually have a very good point. Without damaging tornadoes fury gain would be significantly decreased to a point where it wouldn't technically be impossible to keep the buff up permanently but the your coordination and sacrifice would have to be much greater than it is now, even justifiable. Even for dual wielders the choice between TOC and Insanity wouldn't be as obvious.
The thrive on Chaos issue is bigger than just WW+RwtW though. Yeah, they could cut the proc rate on tornadoes again and leave the rest unchanged, and that might solve the issues for the Blender builds. You'd still have the same problem with perma-wrath HotA though and that's even easier to maintain than WW+RwtW.
Changing ToC to require 30, 35, 40 (whatever number works for their "ideal" uptime extension) fury gain for each second is the best way to stop permawrath the way they're talking without breaking current builds the way they stand. Builds will all still work, they just won't have 100% WotB uptime.
If you mess with Into the Fray, or the proc rate on RwtW (although this one wouldn't be the end of the world) then you damage the ability to do basic WW+RwtW outside of WotB too. HotA outside of WtoB is also damaged if you mess with fury gain from Into the Fray. It doesn't sound like either of those builds in and of themselves are what the devs want to change so I'd prefer if they modified ToC itself to achieve this.
My Hardcore barb will cry if they make this change...
Gearing to the point of perma wrath is actually not that simple in hardcore, has taken me quite a while and I'm still not 100% there as it requires some tradeoffs (dropping shield... something I'm not quite ready to do).
But... I understand that Hardcore is just one part of the game and they need to look at the game as a whole. Considering I can't perma-wrath now it won't really impact me all that much anyway. But it's been something I've been slowly working towards as a goal.
I agree that messing with Into the Fray is out of the question since the amount of fury you gain with bad gear doesn't even begin to cover the fueling required for high cost abilities like hota or seismic slam. I must shoot down your theory about it somehow being easier to keep the buff running with a build that has a main nuke like hota. Sure it can produce a full globe of fury with a single swing versus a swarm of monsters but it also destroys them really quick and you can't spend your fury in steps equivalent to how you can with sprint.
RLTW is partially to blame for the overflow of fury that allows geared players to overuse abilities like hota without thinking it through properly.
I'm not sure what you're talking about here. Perma WotB with HotA is pretty much as simple as activating ToC and then holding down the HotA button. I may run out of fury even but 1 normal swing in 3-4 still easily keeps my WotB countdown from dropping. No RwtW required for permawrath with HotA in my build. They could nerf RwtW to 0 proc rate and I'd still be able to keep WotB permanently with HotA.
I say it's easier with HotA because it is, litereally, holding one button down. With WW+RwtW, you have to actively spam other abilities to spend fury to keep WotB from counting down. That by definition is more difficult by virtue of more button pressing.
You do bring up a good point though. WW+RwtW can currently generate an excess of fury while not spending it fast enough to keep WotB refreshed. Simply increasing ToC may throw off the balance between the Blender build and others in regards to keeping ToC uptime. So yeah, I still say increase the ToC fury cost (though possibly just a little) and a proc cut to RwtW might be called for too. I'm less accepting of that because it will affect other aspects of the build outside of WtoB which I would like to see them avoid.
I feel like this whole argument kind of misses the point. It's not that keeping any buff up 100% of the time through gearing and skill selection is bad, it's that doing this feels mandatory because the buff is so strong and the other runes aren't nearly as good as the ability to maintain 100% uptime. They could solve the whole issue just by moving some of the buffs such as attack speed, crit chance and dodge out of the main skill and into runes other than ToC. Now all ToC would give you is run speed and CC immunity. Some builds would still take it while others might prefer to use other runes for larger defensive or offensive bonuses, or other skills altogether.
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...and if you disagree with me, you're probably <insert random ad hominem attack here>.
I agree ToC is a bit OP but they really need to start focusing on buffing Earthquake and CotA so Wrath isn't such a necessity. I remember a blue post about some ideas and one was a skill rune to keep your ancients up permanently until you die. From what I remember, they don't do THAT much damage effectively so it wouldn't be too OP but it would continue to promote diversity rather than just the go-to wrath.
I don't get why players already worry and post threads on various forums with titles like "what are us Barbs going to do now". It's just a speculated change and at the rate the d3 devs are pushing out new features WOTB is safe for another year probably.
Learning what playing a melee without the immunity is great but don't be all hysterical before we have all the facts.
.
I'm guessing you're talking about people like me?
If so, don't get me wrong I want this change to happen. You said it best, we don't know what they have planed.
I do know that most(not all) of the time when blizzard changes skill mechanics/numbers, it's not just to one skill but there are multiple changes. This and all the new builds that will come from the nerfs/buffs (if the do change more than WotB:ToC), is what has me excited.
Wish I could of been more apart of this thread, I ended up getting food poisoning. I think I got it all out
I'm not sure nerfing WotB/ToC is the best idea. They should start removing Into the Fray and replace it by something else, then see if Barbs can still have infinite WotB (and infinite everything else)...
How exactly is Into the Fray a problem? Only having a chance to get back 25% less fury than what you just spent isn't too good of a deal, especially for assgear players.
Specifically hota smash, into the fray lets you have infinite full fury when you're smashing 2 or more targets, such as a grouped up champ pack.
But I don't think the skill is much of a problem anyway. There's many builds that don't use it, such as the 0 hota build that just uses the 30% damage battle rage instead.
I'm sorry, maybe I'm the only one who thinks this whole thing is just irrational. Blizzard, in regards to Diablo 3, really aren't in a position to be pushing people away from one of - if not THE - most popular styles of play. I strongly encourage them to explore new avenues and give the Whirlwind/Run Like the wind build some competition and not a nerf. Look at all the synergies that go into that build. It's beautiful. Barbs need more flavors. If you sold 5 flavors of popsickles and one was the highest selling flavor, you wouldn't suddenly make it taste worse to sell the other flavors, you would fix the other flavors.
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(I'm all for the change, bring it on!)
Let me know what you think and things you might change.
All stats shown in the chat are unbuffed, buffed tick rates with Wrath would be 30/26/23/18/15
Jump to 3:33 to skip my rant
https://www.youtube.com/CORExpertGaming
This nerf reminds me specifically to the nether tentacles nerf to DH's months and months back (along with the smoke screen nerf). My main was a DH and I along with everyone else used nether tentacles, what wasn't to love? A spender that cost 10 hatred out of 125-150, did AOE as it passes through, had life steal built in, and could hit even small targets multiple times was plain awesome. You could reliably get it to do 450% damage to multiple targets, and you can spam the hell out of it. And when I heard about the nerf to it? I was extremely happy. A skill that's so awesome means you just feel gimped if you don't use it, and that's the case with WoTb ToC.
You can argue that if you don't want to use it just don't, but that doesn't hold much water in a game where efficiency is everything. A dodge, movement speed, immune to CC, attack speed buff that you could keep up almost 100% of the time? Why WOULND'T you ever take that?
I personally propose to keep the thrive on chaos rune, but make the added time cap out at 30 seconds for the total buff, while still keeping the CD at two minutes (and I'd be for the same on archon). I vote for this because if I'm doing my whirlwind build I'd still take this rune for the added CC immune and movement speed time compared to the 15 seconds of the other runes. But if I went a hota build, I'd take the insanity rune to burn down champs on MP10.
In the end it's a much needed nerf; It's a crutch at the moment, and nerfing it will help open up other builds.
I have an answer which is much more appealing and still allows barbs to use the rune. Either reduce the cool down allot like to 40 seconds or Half the effectiveness of it or more. So you only get 5% crit 10% dodge, attackspeed and movement, or have allot of people selling all there gear and uninstalling the game!! and that is not what diablo need right now, but it is what will happen.
What the hell are you talking about? Please don't go around saying you represent the 'top end' barbs, because clearly you don't. I very often use a hybrid hota build, on mp10, WITHOUT WoTb at all, to farm champ packs and keys. It's actually not that hard.
Edit; I forgot to ask, do you have the data to show that "many" people will quit the game and unistall because of this nerf? I very, very much doubt it.
Secondly, MP10 without WotB is perfectly doable for a barb. I manage just fine with multiple builds. It's slower sure (ToC adds about a x1.5-x2 eDPS multiplier ontop of everything), but that's the idea behind WotB in the first place. I personally don't think you're ready for MP10 (and shouldn't be in there) if you can't at least manage it without ToC propping you up. WotB should be about going into overdrive mode when needed, not a crutch to make the MP level even feasible for you. I have way more respect to a War Cry using HotA barb I see trudging his way through an MP10 game than I do for most of the raging idiots I usually see running off 3 screens ahead because if they lose their wrath they can't stay alive.
I can see perfectly well where Travis Day and the dev team are coming from. WotB, well ToC specifically, is just too alluring. That extra x1.5 or x2 eDPS without the hassle of Frozen or Nightmare is just so hard to pass up. You do feel like you're not optimal when you don't use it. Without perma-wrath though I may drop it entirely. I have little use for a skill that's active 15 seconds out of 120. The other runes don't really interest me much because of that. I think they should increase the duration to at least 30 seconds and cut the cooldown to 90 seconds, for starters. I'm not sure what to suggest for ToC itself aside from just increasing the fury require for each second of extension.
My biggest worry about all of this is that they change Into the Fray instead of WotB-ToC itself. If they do that then they mess with so much more than just the permawrath issue that they seem to be targetting.
-dolynick
Just an idea but what about if Wotb was on a timer of say one minute as an example, and if you turned it off during the one minutes the timer would cool down, that way if forces you to turn it off and kill white trash with out it and not have it on all the time. And only engage it once there is a pack to kill, or to get out of CC. You could also have it so if you hit the one minute max you would get punished and have a 20 second period where you would not use it. It would become available at 40 second on the cool down. That way you could use all of the runes of Wotb and not just Toc..
The thrive on Chaos issue is bigger than just WW+RwtW though. Yeah, they could cut the proc rate on tornadoes again and leave the rest unchanged, and that might solve the issues for the Blender builds. You'd still have the same problem with perma-wrath HotA though and that's even easier to maintain than WW+RwtW.
Changing ToC to require 30, 35, 40 (whatever number works for their "ideal" uptime extension) fury gain for each second is the best way to stop permawrath the way they're talking without breaking current builds the way they stand. Builds will all still work, they just won't have 100% WotB uptime.
If you mess with Into the Fray, or the proc rate on RwtW (although this one wouldn't be the end of the world) then you damage the ability to do basic WW+RwtW outside of WotB too. HotA outside of WtoB is also damaged if you mess with fury gain from Into the Fray. It doesn't sound like either of those builds in and of themselves are what the devs want to change so I'd prefer if they modified ToC itself to achieve this.
-dolynick
WOTC and Archon have 2 minutes cooldown. If they are going to change it and make it relevant to other skills, then the cooldown has to come down.
Gearing to the point of perma wrath is actually not that simple in hardcore, has taken me quite a while and I'm still not 100% there as it requires some tradeoffs (dropping shield... something I'm not quite ready to do).
But... I understand that Hardcore is just one part of the game and they need to look at the game as a whole. Considering I can't perma-wrath now it won't really impact me all that much anyway. But it's been something I've been slowly working towards as a goal.
I'm not sure what you're talking about here. Perma WotB with HotA is pretty much as simple as activating ToC and then holding down the HotA button. I may run out of fury even but 1 normal swing in 3-4 still easily keeps my WotB countdown from dropping. No RwtW required for permawrath with HotA in my build. They could nerf RwtW to 0 proc rate and I'd still be able to keep WotB permanently with HotA.
I say it's easier with HotA because it is, litereally, holding one button down. With WW+RwtW, you have to actively spam other abilities to spend fury to keep WotB from counting down. That by definition is more difficult by virtue of more button pressing.
You do bring up a good point though. WW+RwtW can currently generate an excess of fury while not spending it fast enough to keep WotB refreshed. Simply increasing ToC may throw off the balance between the Blender build and others in regards to keeping ToC uptime. So yeah, I still say increase the ToC fury cost (though possibly just a little) and a proc cut to RwtW might be called for too. I'm less accepting of that because it will affect other aspects of the build outside of WtoB which I would like to see them avoid.
-dolynick
I'm guessing you're talking about people like me?
If so, don't get me wrong I want this change to happen. You said it best, we don't know what they have planed.
I do know that most(not all) of the time when blizzard changes skill mechanics/numbers, it's not just to one skill but there are multiple changes. This and all the new builds that will come from the nerfs/buffs (if the do change more than WotB:ToC), is what has me excited.
Wish I could of been more apart of this thread, I ended up getting food poisoning. I think I got it all out
https://www.youtube.com/CORExpertGaming
Specifically hota smash, into the fray lets you have infinite full fury when you're smashing 2 or more targets, such as a grouped up champ pack.
But I don't think the skill is much of a problem anyway. There's many builds that don't use it, such as the 0 hota build that just uses the 30% damage battle rage instead.