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How about...

Goblin spawn rate increased.

Goblin HP increased.

Goblin teleport and move speed increased.

Goblins now steal YOUR loot.

Goblins laugh maniacally after successfully stealing your loot.

And of course, just to really rub it in... legendary drop rate increased.

i know what you aim for but they are limiting themselves with this season thingy. sure, don't mess up the leaderboards with some buffs, we get it. but maybe try to acknowledge that you maybe care about this game and the future of it.
then again, that season 4 / era 5 debacle shows us that messing around isn't that far away.

I'm not completely against your suggestion, but I don't see it as being all that important either. Here are the 2 main points to consider:

1. For the most part, items are locked to specific classes, whether due to class sets, item type (cloak/mojo/wizard hat/etc.), or affix effect (+% skill dmg). This means that for most gears, there will only be 1 relevant main-stat roll, i.e. you would never have a need for int on Raekor.

2. When considering builds for absolute end-game (perfect gears, high paragon and high augments), main-stat becomes (practically) the least desirable stat to roll (aside from socket on a weapon) because main-stat can be infinitely accumulated, while (almost) every other stat is hard-capped. Consider gloves as an example; a 1000 main stat + 10% CHC + 50% CHD + 20% AD roll would be less valuable than the same glove with main stat rolled to CDR or AS. Obviously it takes time to reach this point, but once you're there, you never look back.

So in short, changing main stat to become universal would not have a significant enough impact on gameplay to warrant its implementation.

How about...

Goblin spawn rate increased.

Goblin HP increased.

Goblin teleport and move speed increased.

Goblins now steal YOUR loot.

Goblins laugh maniacally after successfully stealing your loot.

And of course, just to really rub it in... legendary drop rate increased.

As useful as this option might be, it goes against Blizzard's views of how the game should feel. As it is, drop rates are already too high and hiding those drops (players don't need to pay attention to them) only reduces the rewarding feeling associated with legendaries. I personally dislike having to stop so frequently to pick up death's breaths, crafting mats and gems, so I would welcome an option that picks those up for me. On the other hand, the idea of a completely passive looting system is unappealing to me. I would prefer the option to auto-scrap white/blue/yellow, coupled with a better inventory management system. Either way, I doubt we will see this sort of functionality in the near future, if at all.

Rings and amulets can be surprisingly difficult to come by, as they have higher BS costs (from Kad) and large pools of potential rolls (which affects everything from drops to Kad and even Cube); this isn't made any easier by the fact that the vast majority of rings are universal (meaning they are common for any given class). My advice is to focus on upgrading everything else first (via Kad/Cube) and just keep hoping they will drop in the meantime.

I don't consider it to be a race; you get like 3 months to do it. From the looks of it, no-life players can do it in 1-2 days, efficient (but not no-life) players can do it in ~1 week. I would expect 1 month is plenty for a less devoted player and 2 months should be enough for any casual.

I don't really see this as being a huge issue. Just get a new pair. They're only nems, so they don't need to roll with even a single desirable stat (just hold in inv and swap at pylon/shrine). I can see why you would be a bit peeved that you lost them, since you deliberately farmed them; but you don't really have anyone to blame for losing them, except yourself.

A quick question; why did you have nems stashed together with unwanted crap? I don't put crap legs in my stash, ever. I can understand holding onto sets, since they change retroactively, but legendaries don't do this. I recommend to only hold sets, build-defining legs, well-rolled ancients and gems/mats/keys/etc. with some very minor allowance for legs which are not yet cubed (with the intention of then immediately running bounties for the mats to get rid of them). If you want a full "trophy case" to hold 1 of every single item, or legacy gears/etc. then I would recommend to use mule accs to store them within inv.

I'll agree that the gap between solo and group players (assuming equal paragon) should be less significant, but group play should always be encouraged, as it provides the option for support builds - at the same time I think that the current 3x zDPS support is problematic, in that it largely removes build options for players.

There are 2 clear causes of disparity between solo and group; underpowered followers and overpowered supports.

Followers have felt underpowered for the majority of the game's lifespan. They lack numerous gear slots, have no follower-specific sets (asheara doesn't count, since it is not worn by follower), provide limited bonuses, and their ability power does not scale (meaning they do practically 0 dmg). I personally think that the follower should act as a 2nd player; the same as if you ran in a 2 man group. Expanding options for follower gearing/skill setup and improving dmg output and scaling to a more acceptable level would enable more build diversity in solo play; a player could choose to run as support for their follower, if they so desired.

The other issue here is the power of supports. In solo play, you either have no dmg, or no support, whereas in group play, you have 1 DPS and then all other spots are filled by supports with non-overlapping buffs. The shear quantity of buffs present in group play currently makes solo and group play incomparable. It has been largely agreed that adding a support for dmg buff is often more beneficial than adding a 2nd DPS for dmg output; this indicates that group dmg buffs are too powerful and should therefore be nerfed, to bring them in line with DPS alternatives. This would then create a situation where groups can opt for another DPS to boost dmg, or opt for another support to provide pulls/healing/debuffs/buffs/CC/etc.

The reason why group play is so much more rewarding than solo, is that it enables a group to climb so much higher, which naturally provides higher exp gain, drop rates and improved gem upgrade chances, and then on top of this, they receive a group play buff. Group play should be rewarding, but not this rewarding. Either allow group to climb higher OR provide an exp boost while playing in group - don't do both.

I actually quite like WW, although I tend to focus on the Hurricane rune for the epic pulls. I'm toying around with a LoN WW build atm. It needs decent paragon to get anything done (since I need some para into vit for HPz), but that's fine as it's LoN anyhow (meaning full ancient, with appropriate stat rolls). I figured I'd make it more interesting by setting it up like a WotHF Monk (uses high APS to proc on hit), as It runs rimeheart and frostburn. The rest of the dmg comes from avalanche and earthquake which are my source of fury. The build is pure cold, to make best use of +% ele and frostburn. It gets decent dmg reduction from aquila, mantle and LoN (and APDs can be cubed to synergise with the build). As for rings, there are plenty of options, including skull grasp, zodiac, CoE, band of might, overwhelming desire or an immunity ammy.

As you can imagine, the dmg is unlikely to contend with any meta build, but I like being able to provide some level of support in a non-meta group (pull, debuff, toughness buff and CC), while still providing some measure of DPS. The build also performs as efficiently in solo as it does in group (in that it does not rely on other players to sustain its dmg buffs/toughness buffs/healing/pulls/CC/resource management/etc.). In contrast to this, a pure zDPS barb works great in group, but is literally useless in solo.

Strange choice of skills, gotta say. WW and a primary? why? WW builds run 100% uptime on WW, which means you would never be using Frenzy. Obviously, you can play the game however you want to, I just don't see how running WW and Frenzy together is going to work at all (since you can't use both at the same time). As far as efficiency goes, your build is lacking in many areas, but I'll assume you are not gearing towards meta, so whatever.

Regarding atk spd on WW, it is absolutely essential as it increases tick frequency, which affects both DPS and fury cost. As far as (specifically) legendary weapons for a WW barb, there are none which directly support the skill. You can go for items with +% ele dmg, or proc on hit effects, but keep in mind that WW has a fairly low proc coefficient. You may wish to opt for a 2H WW barb (I wouldn't but feel free to do what you want), as 2H has a much higher dmg roll than any 1H. What you need to be aware of though, is that 2H has significantly slower APS than 1H, and especially dual wield (which is an extra +15% APS). In other words, each WW tick will deal more dmg, but ticks will occur less frequently. ideally you need to be running pain enhancer to have any chance of making up the lost atk spd, otherwise your dmg is going to suck big time.

@ IKBB: There is no reason to use this unless you are running CotA and/or additional IK set pieces (usually for the 4pc).

An important note on weapon comparisons. Never use the DPS value stated on the weapon as an indication of anything at all; you only want to be concerned with the actual APS and specific damage range of the weapons. Also, you don't want your weapons to roll with sockets by default, because R gift will give you a socket for free (and cannot be used on a weapon which is already socketed).

When crafting through Cube, you should make sure to use the correct base item, to maximise your chance of rolling the correct legendary/set piece. In this case, that means using a crafted rare 1H/2H Mighty Weapon; this will limit the pools of possible items to 8/6.

"What I'd like to understand, is high dps always preferable when compared to set bonuses in weapons?"

There are 2 sets which are worth considering.

1) BK which gives +30% APS and move speed (only active during WW) and 10 fury/sec

2) Paired Blades which gives +6% APS, dmg and armor for 5 secs after spending primary resource (max stacks = 5, for +30%).

When talking 1H vs 2H, you need to look at both dmg range and APS. In this example, Keep in mind that WW scales off of APS (higher APS = higher tick frequency = higher DPS). A 2H will give you 0.90 - 1.10 APS (flail and daibo not included, for obvious reasons) with about 40% more dmg than a 1H (which has APS of 1.20 - 1.50). Meanwhile, these sets will give you +15% APS (from dual wield) and another +30% APS from the set bonus. If you consider only WW dmg, then the additional ~0.30 (Mighty Weapon) OR ~0.40 (Sword) weapon APS together with the extra +45% APS bonus is easily going to outweigh the +40% dmg bonus from the 2H. In the case of Paired Blades, there is even an additional +30% damage bonus, which almost covers the difference in base dmg on its own. So basically, 2H is never worth using unless it has an extremely good leg affix, is required for a set, or provides massive skill dmg bonus (i.e. +200% EQ dmg).

Which choice is better depends on your fury upkeep. Based on your provided build, I would definitely say BK , since your passives are all wrong for maintaining fury (and as a result, berserker rage is exactly the wrong passive for you to choose, as it will have nearly 0% uptime).

The most common group compositions will always come down to efficiency and players' willingness to play those builds. The fact that the meta is widespread and includes multiple supports demonstrates that this community is willing to accept support roles within the game. Basically, if the majority of players did not like playing support, they would create alternative compositions and we would already have a community similar to what I have described in earlier posts. That we don't have said community, or that said community is unpopular, shows that the opinion "support meta is bad" is not as widely accepted as certain threads will lead us to believe.

Just off the top of my head, Wiz ET with Raging Storm (ET merge) and Wicked Wind (spin on the spot) would retain the corner-hugging ET techniques currently in practice, while the Gale Force rune would further increase the dmg dealt by the skill and even open up options for more dmg bonuses (magefist/cindercoat) due to its fire element - so this would seem a little broken to me.

Another issue would be Crusader's Heaven's Fury, in that skilling all of the runes would not make any logical sense. The default skill (and 4 of its runes) chase mobs with 1 or more beams of light, while the Fires of Heaven rune completely changes the skill effect, removing the chase effect and turning the skill into a single use shotgun-like blast. In practice I would expect that if Fires of Heaven was selected as the primary rune, the other runes would simply add more (and wider) beams. The runes that would concern me in this instance are Blessed Ground and Thou Shalt Not Pass, as they contradict one another; The former creates a damaging pool/trail, while the latter essentially knocks the enemy back (such that they will not receive dmg from the former rune effect).

Another similar example of runes affecting skill animation/mechanics is Monk's Lashing Tail Kick, although this is less of an issue, as it has no contradictory runes. The skill has 3 variations in its effect; a simple roundhouse kick, hurling a fireball of sorts and a ranged attack which targets a specific area (as opposed to being a linear AoE). In practice this could work in a variety of ways, depending on which rune is set as the primary.

Let's say for example that sweeping armada is the primary, this would likely mean that the roundhouse kick is unleashed at the player's location, but what about Hand of Ytar? if you targeted a mob in the distance, it should be cast at that mob (as per the rune effect), and this could mean that certain rune effects are being wasted (mobs are at long range, so melee range sweep and all associated runes are being wasted).

Now let's look at this from the other perspective; what if Hand of Ytar is the active rune? This rune essentially acts in the same way as Tzo Krin's Gaze for Monk's WoL (changes the cast location for the skill). If all runes are active, this means that the Hand of Ytar rune designates the cast location, from which the roundhouse kick would be cast; this obviously seems more ideal than the 1st example, in that wastage from rune effects is minimised. There may still be one issue here though; what happens with the fire column emitted by the Spinning Flame Kick rune? if the cast location has been changed, the column would have to be spawned at that same location would it not? (obviously it would be preferable for it to simply travel from the player to that location)

All in all, it's just food for thought. My main point is that devs would need to perform an in-depth analysis of every single skill and where appropriate internally prioritise each rune (to ensure that any combination of runes always acts in the same way). There would also be need for a significant re-design of skills in their entirety, for balancing purposes (balance is not perfect atm, imagine how much worse it would be with 5 runes vying for a spot, as opposed to 1). Yet another issue, which would always remain present is that adding rune effects tends to add more animations, this in turn impacts upon system performance and causes lag (which is already an issue as it is - imagine it 5x worse).

Honestly, you only really need to consider holding on to ancients and even then, only the well-rolled ones, so anything else can be disenchanted without thinking about it (assuming you already have the item unlocked in cube). The only other thing to note is that seasons offers an unlockable stash tab, which obviously gives you more space to hoard things, so if you feel unsure about a borderline item, it's probably better to hold onto it, at least for now.

Probably the use of the term "meta" is causing the disconnect between us. The purpose of the community is basically to expand your options for "fun GRs" outside of your FL or RL friends. It would be a larger community which is less focused on efficiency and more focused on running a variety of builds (rather than just 1 of 4). As stated above, the issue with this approach is that it would take some degree of setup to get it streamlined (so you don't have to wait an hour to get a group together).

Quick example:

4 players (A, B, C and D) all join "non-meta group" community

They all see a list of known-good configurations (not the most efficient, but something different and which is more enjoyable than say GR75)

A posts that he is running a non-meta build W.

B sees that build W is listed in the same composition as his build X and posts in reply to A.

C notices a group is forming and checks which builds can safely run with W and X. C's build Y is listed as an option, so he replies to A and B.

D, who is running build Z, finds that he can complete the 4 man group and replies to A, B and C.

A, B, C and D all group up together and run at a predetermined GR lvl (as determined by testing).

Obviously, the seek time for any given group is going to be dependent on the popularity of the community (its number of members), as well as the available range of non-meta compositions (and variance within these groups).

I think you misread my post. The free spirited players are referred to the sub-community, where the only requirement is any standard/LoN set. The 2nd, 3rd, nth "meta" is to add diversity in upper GR lvls for non-meta "advanced players", made available through the main community.

Edited for further clarity.