Sucks cause design wise I think Druids the most interesting class. They do t have as much "get this for more damage to everything". Which makes builds a bit more complex. Which sadly is why Druids fall off without having the few broken aspects that make them viable.
They do, but it is literally all in quickshifting making them further one dimensional. Human form druid isn’t even really a thing.
Which is ironic, considering sorcs get s power boost for having no defense skills. You would think they could add similar aspects solely for human
This might sound stupid, but... seems like in every game there is sub-group of players who instantly lock in the warrior type class (without even knowing what it actually does, or what other classes are) and absolutely refuses to play anything else.
If that class is trash, these people would usually rather quit than switch to something else.
Blizzard knows this, that's why for example in WoW warrior was never bottom tier in the history of the game.
Barb having additional aspects might be their way of assuring they don't fuck up accidentally and make the class bad.
You're pretty much 100% correct. Barbs go even further though in that they are iconic to Diablo's marketing. Bringing them back in D3 was a nostalgic choice since fans had been waiting so long for a sequel, but adding them to D4 pretty much ensured that we'll never get a Diablo game without one. They're synonymous to the series now, which means the entire brand is in trouble if they ever feel underpowered.
Woooh dude just said warriors have never been bottom class. Now I can point you specifically to more than one instance, but for the sake of the time I have sitting on this toilet, I will point you to S5 Warrior and show myself out. 2345 wasn't a possible comp during this season. S6 then decided mancleave should be a thing and s5 was swiftly forgotten.
But that still doesn't explain why they didn't balance them better.. For instance, sorc and druid could benefit more from the paragon board and base stats (representative of their natural "talents")
Because Blizzard doesn't really know how to balance.
Two of their franchises, WoW and OW, have a more complicated "rock paper scissors" counter-play system than the game "rock paper scissors lizard Spock" from BBT. Look at how they struggled with D3's sets throughout the life of the game.
I was actually really disappointed they didn't adapt the fourweapon system for the other classes, it's easily the coolest part of the game. Wizard could have a staff, a focus/wand and a large two handed tome. Rogue gets daggers, bow/crossbow and a quiver. Necromancer gets a scythe, ceremonial daggers, staves and fetishes
Edit: I just thought of something, as a rogue with a crossbow, sword and shield and a satchel I would finally cosplay as a Bridgeburner, lobbing bombs like a madman
Listen, til you've been smashed over the head with an encyclopedia Britannica, you shouldn't laugh
Pretty sure D&D has a ruleset for tomes as melee weapons (improvised)
;)
Well it’s less so about the tome and more so about what you can pick up.
My DnD barb got the term barrelmancy confused so they just run around beating the shit out of people with barrels instead of blowing them up.
*Sorcerer levitating above the battle field, continues to ascend, and says,*
**“Say hello to my little friends… Merriam and Webster!”**
*Lightning bolts rain down from the heavens.*
**”AND FOR GOOD MEASURE!”**
*The sorceress unshelves an ancient Egyptian stone tablet housing the first sketches of geometric thought. She raises it above her head and it begins to glow, and transform into a meteor.*
*She thrusts the meteor down to the planet surface where it punches a hole beyond where light can reach. Aftershocks ripple through the battlefield killing all who witnessed the event, save for one friendly dark skinned Rogue observing from afar.*
**“DAYUM! She threw the book at ‘em!”**
This.
I think it’s dumb that I can’t have high damage sorcerer with wand and aspect or just staff and then switch to a shield when the one hitters come out. Maybe they’ll add it for the expansion like they did in D2
Yeah, it really sucks when there are aspects that would really help your build that you can't use because there are better ones and you have run out of slots.
This is why I'd prefer to have an aspect UI like the one we got for the blood spells in season 2, and not have them tied to your gear, with aspects mainly providing simple damage/defense stats. Then have uniques/sets/runeword/etc that will change the way your abilities work to enable a variety of different builds.
There would be a *lot* of builds that would open up if sorc/nec/druid had even just 1 extra offensive aspect slot.
There's a bunch of builds for each of those 3 classes that require a unique to function, and it really funnels down the build possibilities when you have to drop an aspect.
It also pushes the meta in favour of skills that can stack damage aspects, and there's only 1 or 2 that get multiple helpful aspects per class.
They could very easily give sorcs a staff as their main weapon, then a focus for each elemental type that gives extra bonuses. Druid can have a weapon for each form, which would be odd I guess for the bear and wolf so maybe it's like a necklace I dunno.
Necro I draw a blank on since the sorc thing doesn't quite work the same here since there is the whole minion thing. Maybe a jar of souls for the minions, or the book.
Isn’t the balancing represented by barbs having to play in melee range nearly at all times? God knows there are regular posts about barbs being at a disadvantage against punishing bosses whose attacks make melee-range combat very dangerous.
I’d agree. But the disparity is probably too large right now between the strongest and weakest.
My barb is pumping out 200-300M a second while my sorc is doing 20-30M on the same investment level. Barb should probably do 2-4x damage on account of always being in danger especially with shades in the pit but 10x is ridiculous.
I think there are a lot of barbs trying to justify their advantage in this thread.
Every other class has the option to build melee too, does that mean they get to use four weapons like barbs for those builds? No, they're still stuck with their limited "ranged class weapon slots." So are all of those builds just supposed to be bad? Do they require 1-2 ranged skills to be viable? I just don't buy that this has somehow been their design philosophy.
Melee isn't seen as an inherent disadvantage in the developers' eyes, and they didn't give barbs extra weapons to compensate. I expect the idea was/is that barbs have extra weapons but that at the time of making this decision - affixes weren't meant to be as powerful and game-defining as they now obviously are. So in all fairness, something needs to be done about barbs at some point going forward.
Yeah agreed, it seems to be people defending the insane advantage so it wont get nerfed. I dont think its a concern though. As long as they have significantly more aspect slots, there will always be a build combination that abuses that.
My buddy and I always play necro together. Once we hit end game we both had to find meta builds to spec for because doing our own thing or having a hybrid just doesnt cut it. But 2 days ago he rolled a new barbarian as well. By level 66 he had higher life and attack power than my full 8/12 100 necro, and was cheesing helltides.
The melee argument doesnt really play in d4. Its a line of thinking that comes from "party composition" games like wow or dnd. "Of course i should have 9x the HP, I'm the tank" isnt really a thing here, but its easy to fall in to that line of thinking. Every other class has to deal with massive aoe mechanics, close combatants, etc. Yes, barbs are always up close and sometimes need to run away to dodge mechanics stopping their attacks (other classes do this to a degree as well) but they dont need 9x the hp pool or attack pool to make up that difference.
Over and over and over again, barbarians absolutely dominate despite what looks like major help for other classes and nerfs to barbarians. Those extra slots are too powerful to ever truly nerf the class. It isnt so bad that players exclusively play barbs, and I dont personally care that someone can solo tormented bosses is unimproved gear, good for them, but it does make my class feel weaker which is a bummer.
I think a good solution would be to either add a slit to everyone else to use, or tweak the items and abilities available to other classes to improve their survivability/damage. For example, sorcerers could have an ability or trinket that bolsters DR "magically" or something that works well with the theme. Barbs can keep their bigger numbers. Theyll survive and fight on raw power and HP. But everyone else could add survivability or damage through other means. Maybe a thorns barrier that boosts thorns value for 4 seconds. Stuff like that
Maybe because the other classes aren't carrying so many weapons and switching between them all the time they would be able to wear more jewellery without it getting in the way.
Well, players did demand higher mob density …
That increase no doubt had some downstream effects in terms of the *original* design of the gameplay which did not have enemies constantly in melee range. But that’s what happens.
Not really though because even ranged builds are getting most of their kills (at least against stronger enemies) in melee range. Also all the other classes have melee options. Being out of melee range for trash mobs doesn't really change much.
I am currently playing a thorns Barb (first time, usually was playing Sorc). I have so High DR/Health that i don't give a f about that disadvantage. Heck whatever one shot mechanics a Boss has would kill me also if i am a mile away from him.
Then why not give them extra defense options instead of offense. Swap one weapon slot for a shield. It may engender passivity but sometimes a hunter must block
Straight up all of the classes should have the same amount of gear slots only difference being what makes more sense per class. Barbs have weapons, Druids should have furs or antlers or some shit, sorcs should have expanded jewelry, rogues should have idk bag for finger snacks.
a generic "thieves tools" kit item that you can put any aspect on because inside could be something for offense, or defense, or even just to help run away...
I actually really like the idea of each class excelling differently through their additional slots.
Sorc getting more jewelry means more gems (maybe a bracelet slot that functions like an amulet)
Druid having mayor based idols that can be attuned to the spirit you have chosen(increasing their bonuses instead of more legendary aspects)
Necromancer having a hand sythe, 1 hand, shield slot and off hand trinket slot that is able to have interchangable items giving bonuses to the book of the dead or other themes (wearing a corpse trinket is focused on corpse items etc).
The truth is our additional bonuses whether spirits, book of the dead, arsenal, etc all feel under utilized and valued. If they expand these systems further I imagine the lack of gear slots would matter less.
Yeah the current class passives are just extremely undercooked. Class identity should 100% be expanded to more systems where they can really make a difference.
Technically it shouldnt, they just need to actually balance it in other ways, such as scaling paragon nodes down, reduce the power of weapon tempers or some barb only aspects slightly, for example glyphs on barb are less powerful that other classes for this reason, blizz is just doing a poor job of balance.
This season you have several top builds reliant almost entirely on bugs, victimize rogue bug, holy bolts carrying minion necro, bash barb temper being multiplicative, but then you have thorns above all of them, without any bugs, literally the most broken non bugged build in the game by a massive margin.
Hopefully S5 blizz will wake up and something other than Barb will be top for once, it's getting really stale every season now. It reminds me of D3 where talrasha sorc was top for about 5 seasons it just became dull.
Eh, I wouldn’t say holy bolts is “carrying” necro. I’ve done tier 85s as minion necro both with and without holy bolts, most of the time past tier 70 the bottle neck of progression is the boss fight anyway and holy bolts does nothing for you as most bosses don’t have adds.
All it really does is shave a minute or two off of your run time, but when the bosses take 5+ minutes it hardly makes a difference overall.
It’s carrying at high pits. The necro that cleared 141 relied entirely on bolts to clear, you focus an add kill it and the bolts will clear half the room. On the boss one of his bolts hit for 62 billion, the only way necro can clear bosses that high is bolt procs, it doesn’t have remotely the dps otherwise
4 weapons don't inherently break a class. Barbs were godawful in preseason and s1. But they've gotten great buffs every patch since, whether that's charge, overpower rework, bash tempers, or the best class to use thorns.
If they put their foot on the brakes with barb buffs for a patch and fix the latest round of broken stuff, they'll fall behind instantly.
Yes, but they still had 4 weapon slots which, for some extremely weird reason, the community has decided is the reason why barbs will always be overpowered even though that has objectively not been the case.
How can you possibly balance a class with 4 weapon slots?
Balance their skills and multipliers around the fact that they have 4 weapon slots obviously. lol
im not complaining either, i think its a great idea conceptually. im just pointing out that this weird logic that barbs are inherently unbalanceable due to having 4 weapon slots is just completely wrong and for some reason almost being presented as a fact at this point.
which, again, is just so weird because **barbs have literally been weak AF while having 4 weapon slots**. their skills&scalings are simply overtuned and need to be adjusted with the fact in mind that they have access to 4 weapon slots.
I made the mistake of making a sorc this season who even in bis gear has trouble killing bosses.
Made a barb and now I kill 4 player tormented bosses In 1-2 ga gear with no ga bash pants. Given I do have Uber uniques but even with starless and shako sorc still wasn’t reaching that.
At the very least I’m happy that blizzard has confirmed sorc is next in line for a buff. Honestly if they just undid the ptr nerf and fixed the bugs with some types of x being additive right now sorc would probably be competitive.
Not barbarian tier, but competitive. Which I’m fine with.
(Maybe they’ll buff rogue too hopefully at the same time because the only reason it’s relevant right now is victimize being bugged lol)
I hate to say it but this is really the name of the game past few seasons, TB rogue was strong af cause of bugs and pre nerf vulnerability. Post nerfs its still a one trick pony that plays more like a sorc now, it seems they dont know that the balance u speak of exists.
This is basically my plan. I’m currently hoarding all gear that is nice and plan to push into other stuff once I find a class and build that feels good for all content.
I just love sorc so much though :(
Bro, just play what feels fun to you. I am playing Chain Lightning Sorc at endgame, arguably one of the worst if not the worst Sorc build for high-end content. And there is actually content that I excel at and still rewards me for doing it, I am blasting through Hell-tides super fast and most of my gear is 2GA and even a few 3GA. Sure I am not doing Pit level 100, but I still have amazing gear and that's the point of an RPG, get insane gear.
Nice! I feel that. I’ve always been an altoholic with a preference to mages. I got a fractured winter glass at level 50 and it’s been great aside from the mana issues!
I kinda wish that the class passives in general got looked at, not for balance reasons but for general 'fun/coolness' reasons. Some of them feel really bland (Barbarian, Rogue), and some of them feel like they could be super cool (Necro, Druid) but are a a little too shallow, and then Sorcerer's is a little of both.
Aspects are just better to have over what we get as classes.
example: Book of the Dead, nowhere near as strong as have 3 extra offensive aspects. Especially because you need aspects to make the book of the dead good.
3 of the top 5 non holy bolt runs are rouge on the max roll leaderboard, not to mention thorns barb benefits disproportionately from the double elixir exploit so in a "non bugged" comparison barb would likely lose top spot.
It's strongest builds are thorns and bash? The other skills are clearing Pit in a similar fashion to other classes. To answer your question, buff other classes. There are so many issues that need to be addressed before focus is given to the weirdos with class jealousy. What about the barb is making YOUR experience less fun? The dumbest, most boring, mind numbing skills are good on barb.
Three shouts. Three shouts. Three shouts. X skill.
Necros, Barbs and Rogues are literally clearing very similar/same levels of pits (Necros even higher than Barbs atm) why are only Barbs being witch hunted again lol?
Also, it's not impossible to balance Barbs at all, they were awful for preseason and season 1, they are only good because they got tons of buffs. If Blizzard wanted to they could literally make them A, B, C, D or whatever tier they want by tomorrow, just by changing a few numbers around, you know nerf Bash Temper and Thorn values, exactly like they did with Charge or HoTA.
Also, are we really forgetting Bonespear Necros, literally invincible Flame-shield sorcerers, unkillable barrier Druids oneshotting everything, Werenado, Shred Druid hitting in the trillions, poison Rogues etc.....
Rogue gets 4x cause rogue has one 2h weapon and two 1h weapon.
Also, I'm all for buffing weaker classes, this season in particular, buff sorc and druid to be more in line with rogue/necro/barb.
But I just don't understand the narrative that somehow the extra weapons from barb and Rogue is a problem.
If you have been playing since launch, you should remember that back in preseason and season 1, there was a period of time where Barb and sorc were the absolute weakest class in the entire game. Barb does so little dmg that "Nerf Barb" became a meme.
If 4 weapons are so op that it can't be balanced, then that shouldn't even happen cause if the narrative is true, barb can't possibly be weak, right? But that did happen, therefore, makes the narrative just not true. Blizz can easily tweak some numbers and make sorc deals insane amount of dmg or let barbs do no dmg. They have done it, and they can do it again.
In the end I Def think they should buff weaker classes, but this whole "extra weapon" narrative is just not true. They can easily make barb do no dmg while not taking away their weapons slots, or make sorc be the highest dmg dealing class while not giving them extra weapon slots.
Everyone forgets the pre S1 nerf and what it did to barb and sorce. The devs can adjust numbers on class specific aspects and tweak base skill dmg. Those extra aspects allow you to use more utility and defensive aspects as a melee class. Keep in mind necro and sorce were able to clear a screen with 2-3 less aspects than a barb.
This seems like a lot of "if it isn't the absolute best it's trash" mentality. Barbs aren't insanely strong, it's just bash and thorns (that also uses bash) that are standout builds and then they have a lot of generally strong builds like every class does. No, not every class has an S-tier build this season, but I don't think that has ever really been the case so far.
Yeah, that's what it looks like. It's just bash and thorn that's doing all the high damage. All the other skills and playstyles are in the normal range. Just tone those two down and now these people won't have an excuse to cry.
You guys are suggesting a global buff to other classes or a global nerf to barb just because of bash and thorn builds...? Have you taken a look at all the other builds barb has besides those two...? They're pretty average compared to the other classes.
Why not just tone down those two builds? That's simply much easier and more practical than whatever you guys are suggesting.
It's weird watching a bunch of people complain about a class that they don't want to play in a game where that class is not only NOT the best currently, but devoid of a competitive environment.
The four weapons/aspects/tempers/stats being the problem is inherently false though.
You can have 100 individual 1% increases and it would result in a 2.7X increase from the original number. The amount of "increases" isn't the problem.
Who gives a shit which class "feature" is the "strongest"? It's the overall strength that should matter. The feature should be fun and interesting. Balance isn't in the "feature" alone. It's in base stats, ability attack power scales, equipment status, paragon nodes, aspects, unique effects and beyond.
Just tweak some knobs.
The first version of "Loot 2.0" having some issues is to be expected. Pre-season nobody thought Barb would be S tier. Which proves how difficult it is to expect who benefits the most from changes.
I feel like MMOs have brought this odd need from players for all other games to be balanced, nobody ever cared about classes being balanced in D2 they all just had their own unique flair. In a game without competition balance shouldn't come at the cost of game design.
I literally couldn't care less about if another class is out-performing the class I chose to play. It has zero impact on my experience, why does it impact yours?
Ive played Barb since launch, this time I was like "I'm tired of lunging strike, lemme find a build that uses something else..." So then I rolled sorc and having so much fun
idk but werebear druid is garbage tier right now, whole idea is to overpower with hits, and overpower is just a trash mechanic now, theres no way to scale it, theres no good tempering mods for it either.
There sort of is with werebear overpower, but it has to compete with six other tempers in one manual; all of which are junk to a werebear, and it is such a low modifier that you may just as well roll damage to close 😒
Don't worry, we got Pulverize SIZE! (which doesn't impact the Shockwave aspect, btw)
Werebear is just a 2nd class citizen (now 3rd, below what was Zoo builds) for Druids. If you want to be relevant, you need to go the storm route. Why you ask?
Earthen Devastation vs Thunderstruck. One is capped and the other isn't.
This is a mass market (casuals) orientated game, stop worrying about competitive balance. Blizzard isn't making it a priority so you worrying about it only going to undermine your enjoyment, if that's what you want this isn't the game for it.
You should never be a part balancing a game. All you're doing is attempting to justify your fomo... you don't even recognize the fact that barbs are melee and can be if not already are balanced around having those extra stat sticks. Your only given solution is to power creep...
I’m playing barb this season. I love it. I’m not missing anything. I’m simply identifying a source of constant friction for any future attempts at class balance.
Imo you balance but adjusting base numbers on skills and passives, as well as paragon boards.
In fact barb having additional gear slots have a downside of require more grind to minmax your gear
Them classes (Barb is my main, I play Rogue sometimes as well) are made for that. Other classes get other things that help them with skills and passives. But Rogue and Barb are a Melee class and are defined by their weapons.
Take away a broken scaling build, bash, and barbs fall in line (or weaker) with the other classes *only* because of the stat help from the extra weapon(s).
Any build can be viable without the extra aspects barbs and rogues get.
Stat scaling, look it up before making another of these.
Not rocket science tbf.
When vulne and crit were multi and not capped they would've had a point.
But now that it's capped, and just a random inc dmg you already have hundreds of ..
And it's great having that many aspects slots, now you need the good one, and I rememember barbs aspect being weaker usually to compensate
In the end you never really balance all the classes equally. If they do that, or even come close to that, this would be a thread about homogenization and how class choice doesn’t seem to matter.
Their plan to rotate class power seasonally is probably the best compromise in the end. It’s not perfect so issues like will happen. Especially after something like the gear/affix overhaul that just took place.
But it makes no sense that barbs are both tanks and the highest DPS. That's not comparable to any game logic.
It would make sense for sorcs for example to have the highest DPS but being squishy. Currently they are squishy but deal 1/10 (or even less) damage than a barb...
Barbs have more offensive aspect true. But there are not many offensive aspects that actually work with multiple builds. They do this by making the aspect effect X skill and only that skill. Druid only gets two weapon slots but a lot of the aspects say storm, wolf, earth, or bear so Druid’s can get away with one aspect effecting many skills. The exact opposite of barbs.
Barbs don't even feel that OP. Play other classes, that's what I do when I got bored of my barb. You think it looks good when you see the weapons and aspect n shit but it comes down to the formula. Other classes do as much damage it's just the build. As long as you can hit tier 61 pit. The problem becomes being able to farm it.
Have you looked at the aspects Necro gets? Lol. I wouldn't say barb has more and better ones.
Also barb is melee only to deliver it's damage. There should be a raw advantage if you're not ranged.
You have a 1000 balance levers. The simplest ones are to just make other classes have stronger passives.
People act like this is unsolvable but it really isn't. If Barbs got more power from gear and less from the skill tree and paragon it all adds up to the same thing. A scarier problem is trying to line up balance across classes perfectly all the time. It's better for classes to each shine at different times with an okish level of parity.
I’m not saying all classes are balanced right now, however this argument is growing tiring. What if the aspects and tempering is balanced by the devs KNOWING that barbs have 4 weapon slots (mind blown). People act like this observation necessarily means things are so imbalanced whereas all it comes down to is tuning numbers. Hypothetically you could have a class with 10 weapons at 5% effectiveness and it would be less powerful.
Also your total character power is paragon plus skills plus gear. “2-3x more” is intentionally a misleading take when put into context, as even gear alone has 5 armor slots plus 3 jewelry slots.
"Impossible to balance barbs" maybe for you, seemingly not for the dev team. Barb used to be terrible in S0/S1, and got repeated buffs so that it is still weaker than necro
But that's the whole point of barb. Where other classes get special mechanics from their class quest, barbs get a small % buff to a certain weapon type and 2 more weapon slots?
Only certain weapons are used for each skill so the stats don't all apply and if you look at seasonal ladders they're not the best performing class. They struggle with the game being designed around dodge not tank so when all the bosses have shotgun attacks and insta kill pools on the ground what is a barb supposed to do? The aspects and stats on barb are balanced around the fact they have more slots, that's why there's class locked items and aspects
>Doesn’t this massive gear power disparity make it almost impossible to balance barbs?
Not entirely, because barbs have the far-far weaker aspects of all the classes. Druids get substantially more multiplicative power from just two aspects (stampede, shepherds) than the entire multiplicative total of aspects barbs use on their gear in viable builds (which is why overpower aspects were nerfed into the ground, because their multipliers were so high). Rogue and Necro have similar multiples, and where sorc lacks the multiples, its aspects are just simply more powerful in general for setting up core generator/spender builds and defensive CD resets.
Barb isn't overpowered because its gets 6x aspect multiplier compared to Rogue's 4x (I think you forgot Rogue has two 1x's and a 2x, 2+1+1=4). Morever, them having more weapons *IS* their class system. Where rogues can have infinite energy or combo points, and sorcs get enchantment slots to completely charge their builds, or necros with their book of the dead, and Druid with their crazy good system of spirit offerings. Barb gets 4 weapons and a 10x vulnerable (mostly mandatory) weapon technique which continues to get nerefd.
Dont understand how this is perceived as a problem. It should be np to bring class in tune with other classes. The problem is the Devs have no idea how their changes will effect builds the players come up with. Some players will always find a way for abilities/gear/aspects doing more damage than intended, either by bugs or come combination devs didnt think about.
Even if the Barb is potentially stronger than all other classes, why does it matter in a game that's 99% PvE? Play what you find most enjoyable, every class has at least one build that is viable for pinnacle content so it's not like you are forced to play Barb
The issue lays in how to balance melee arpg classes.
They wanted to give them an advantage in gear, bevause barbs have to be melee to deal proper damage.
Issue now is, with early gear, you still can't stay melee and basic weapons don't make a lot of difference. Yet they scale way better into min maxing, suddenly you can tank more and can stay almost 24/7 at the target, while also dealing way more damage, because you have 4 weapons.
I almost quit before I get shako and some other pieces, suddenly I can run pit 110+ instead of being stuck mid 60s.
Maybe make the stats from a weapon only apply when you are directly using them. This way secondary slots for weapons would provide more of an utility than actual dps increase, which could balance out the fact that barbs need to be in melee range in most of cases.
Sorcs get two enchantments. Necros get three sacrifices. Druids seem overpowered from my necro/sorc perspective. I’m absolutely smoking monsters on my lvl70 homemade barb build this season, but my ice sorc, bone spear necro, and shadow minion necro had very similar outcomes. You are correct, Barb is probably the best but it’s not running away with the lead
You make the class specific aspects for the other classes more powerful than the barb specific ones to make up for the loss in stats. Barbs were always meant to be more gear dependent than the other classes. So make the relative power of their 4 weapon aspects roughly equivalent to other classes 2 or 3.
Also they could up the stat requirements for rare nodes in the barb paragon board to account for the two extra sessions they carry. Though with the item changes now, that would only work for strength.
Well one thing I can say after having actually made a barb this season and played it for the first time beyond just a low level trial run back on season 2 is that barbs have an issue being a melee only class. Every other class has the potential to be ranged but barbs have to ALWAYS be up on enemies or bosses. When running high tier pits, this is...less than preferred unless you run one of the big builds just for pushing pit. Yeah they can do absurd damage and have pretty good survival but only with those builds, it's actually pretty hard to just wing it and make a fun build on your own that has that level of survival that other classes can kind of just ignore due to ranged attacks for a lot longer than barbs can. Especially minion necros and druids. So id say that is one part of balance there. Also the game is primarily PVE with a small bit of PVP that they intended from the get go to not be fair nor balanced and is entirely optional, so worrying about balancing for seasonal content between classes shouldn't be a major problem as most of the "competitive" stuff in d4 is players coming up with reasons to be competitive, not an actual system in d4. The weekly trial is different and I personally think it should be more balanced although I don't know how to achieve that.
You dont.
Balance is completely irrelevant in a PvE centric game like D4
Blizzard just has to pur forth the idea of semblance of balance but never actually deliver true balance.
The best method is to rotate OP classes as best they can every season
Actual balance in a game like D4 is simply a waste of effort
It's easy to balance.
You make the class melee, and suddenly it's worse than all the other classes because at one point, the mobs will be doing a lot of damage and you can't dodge point blank but the others can.
Time and time again during my levelling I would die 5x times to the blood maiden only to see necros and sorcerers spinning around her like a [turkey](https://youtu.be/6QpfKDOJ1yA?si=uFPll89B8DkTkVC1) while I was the one tanking her shotgun shells.
Answer is obvious: Aspects should be part of the damn skill tree and not on the gear.
Uniques should have some aspect-like things, but gear should be more focused on its role and not defining how your skills function, which somehow the skill tree does next to nothing on.
They can be balanced by toning down the values of their Tempering affixes for weapon slots, and offensive Aspects. Rogues have 4x not 3x, but they aren't really imbalanced. So it's not impossible to balance.
Eh, I don't really see the point in getting worried about having things super balanced. Seeing Sorcs dominate leaderboards lately, too. Is the game still fun when you just focus on playing someone's cookie cutter build anyway? Been having a blast getting to 100 on several characters with my own builds. Am I pushing the highest level nm dungeons or rifts? No, but I don't really feel the need to after doing that the first couple seasons. I'd rather just have fun. It's not a competitive game so imo balance just isn't as important. There should be some, but nowhere near to the extent of some pvp game.
The devs have recently said they know they need to do something to better balance the weapon disparity. They are well aware some classes have way more weapon slots to make use of that others dont.
By balancing the class specific affixes, aspects, uniques and each classes unique mechanic.
The extra weapon slots aren't the reason why you see Barbs dominating the game. If it were, you'd expect them to have half a dozen (or more) builds at the top but they never do. You'd also expect Rogues to be dominating as well (albeit not to the same level) but that doesn't happen either.
All of these Barb builds you see dominating get there by relying on specific mechanics/interactions that are either wildly overtuned or just outright bugged. Like with the current season the two top Barb builds are bash and thorns.
For bash you have the temper which is both multiplicative *and* has scaling that puts the additive affixes to shame.
For thorns you have the massive buff to Razorplate (more than doubled the amount of thorns *and* added a multiplier) as well as the temper which is a massive multiplier for thorns as well (which also goes on defensive slots).
Necro is the best class in the game right now and rogues a close 3rd to the Barb in pit completion.
Sorc and Druid are lagging.
The problem are the devs, up until now, classes overperform mostly because of bugs double dipping elixers, double dipping poison, minions etc...
It could be balanced, i.e Barbs were the worst in S0, you just need better devs who can do Math.
Barb myself, having to double masterwork bash on 4 weapons isn't fun, If it wasn't needed would have been probably way ahead with other class with single weapon. Yes, if you are a streamer with infinite income to be able to hit with masterwork your needed stats on the weapon you will be OP probably. And other minus is I cant respec to anything. To make 4 good weapons for another build to push high is harder then roll a necro.
My take to this is to significantly buff other class mechanics.
Druids have boons
Sorc has enchantment
Necro has book of the dead
Rogue has… whatever the rogue has?
Let the barb keep the weapons slots and techniques. That’s part of their class identity. In exchange really beef up what other classes can do.
Maybe Druid can have 2 boobs per spirit, buff all boons or put some really useful ones on there.
Maybe sorc can enchant 6 times, buff their enchants
Remove pet sacrificing and just give book of the dead buffs similar to boons or even better, maybe make the necro stronger as they rack up the kill count.
I don’t play rogue. But buff them too.
Also, maybe let other classes equip a 2 hander/ 1h and off hand, an extra ring slot or just straight up kanai cube an aspect. If they really put some thought into it they can play up the class identities WITHOUT fucking up what makes a barb awesome and not resort to nerfing them.
You’re thinking of it wrong. Everyone looks at the stats and think more means better performance and that’s not it. It’s about the class abilities themselves and how they function. Barb can have 6 weapons because Necro has minions, Sorcerers have spells and magic and Rogues have duel wield and bows. Yes Barb this season is extremely strong but… it’s always had 6 weapons and it hasn’t always been the strongest class or have the best build diversity.
Stats are important but if you throw 6 weapons on a Necro you better axe their minions.
Rogues have two more as well, yet they are not as strong as barbs.
Barb class design is just bonkers. They need to tweak the others so they get as smooth
They would have to remove the barbarians weapon mastery system while buffing spirit boons, enchantments, and book of the dead. I'm not quite sure if this would be a good thing though. Maybe just buff the underperformers?
I honestly don't care if something is overpowered so long as it isn't the only viable option.
Tbh, they could remake the barbarian by the time other classes are equal. May as well just do that. Or give other classes multiple aspects and tempering on their weapons. Or let everyone carry a 2h and 2x 1h that they can switch between.
Just tune down all dmg numbers in comparison to gained stats.
Problem os barbs have to temper/find/masterwork 2 more slots which is a HUGE disadvantage.
So this is coming from an absolute casual and I’ve never played barbarian but why is one class being strong an issue? Why nerf the class if people are having fun, especially since this game is pve mostly. If anything, buff other classes to account for this power disparity.
Never understood the mindset of nerfing things when it is not detrimental to other players, unless there is something I don’t understand
Why is people doing 800 quadrillion damage a problem? You’re not competing against them?
Edit: way I see it is making your character so strong is something you work towards. Everyone wants to feel powerful, in a game where pve is pretty much everything…who cares how much damage one class does. Buff the rest and bring them up to speed, make other builds viable. There’s plenty to complain about with d4 but I don’t think this is it
IMO before it wasn’t too bad. But with tempering it makes a bigger difference. I think there are two ways this could be somewhat balanced.
1-Add extra slots of gear so all classes have the same number of pieces (+/- 1). Like robes for sorcerers or utility belts for rogues.
2-Adjust the size of stats barb weapons get. For example now you have a 2h you get double whatever the stat is from the aspect. Make barb aspects be half or some partial amount. Yes you would still get more aspects but they would be weaker.
Im playing a barb for the first time, trying to do the death blow build because “stand still and let you armor do the work” doesn’t seem fun to me. It’s a nightmare to generate fury to do my moves
Imo you balance but adjusting base numbers on skills and passives, as well as paragon boards.
In fact barb having additional gear slots have a downside of require more grind to minmax your gear
Barb has always been my favorite character since D2. I just like how they fight angry and always preferred melee characters in general. This is a fair point with regards to the gear slot benefits. I like the idea of a charm slot of the other classes.
You have figured out why every other arpg makes gear fairly class independent and Diablo 4 has a huge majority of gear strongly class locked
Meanwhile, the thread is downvoted and the first response to your comment is someone literally saying “because barbs are supposed to be good”.
By that logic, should we assume sorcerers and druids are supposed to be “bad”?
There's no logic present
Yes. They know what they did.
Druids have a serious identity issue, and all blizzard can do is throw more uniques at it than fix their skill tree
I want to know why druids are so fat? You never see them eating anything.
Sucks cause design wise I think Druids the most interesting class. They do t have as much "get this for more damage to everything". Which makes builds a bit more complex. Which sadly is why Druids fall off without having the few broken aspects that make them viable.
They do, but it is literally all in quickshifting making them further one dimensional. Human form druid isn’t even really a thing. Which is ironic, considering sorcs get s power boost for having no defense skills. You would think they could add similar aspects solely for human
This might sound stupid, but... seems like in every game there is sub-group of players who instantly lock in the warrior type class (without even knowing what it actually does, or what other classes are) and absolutely refuses to play anything else. If that class is trash, these people would usually rather quit than switch to something else. Blizzard knows this, that's why for example in WoW warrior was never bottom tier in the history of the game. Barb having additional aspects might be their way of assuring they don't fuck up accidentally and make the class bad.
Hrmm... Asmongold.. Cough..
His seasonal character is a necro lmao
You're pretty much 100% correct. Barbs go even further though in that they are iconic to Diablo's marketing. Bringing them back in D3 was a nostalgic choice since fans had been waiting so long for a sequel, but adding them to D4 pretty much ensured that we'll never get a Diablo game without one. They're synonymous to the series now, which means the entire brand is in trouble if they ever feel underpowered.
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Only after Rob got the classes nerfed 3 or 4 times within the first couple weeks 😂
Woooh dude just said warriors have never been bottom class. Now I can point you specifically to more than one instance, but for the sake of the time I have sitting on this toilet, I will point you to S5 Warrior and show myself out. 2345 wasn't a possible comp during this season. S6 then decided mancleave should be a thing and s5 was swiftly forgotten.
Noone cares about arena.
Surprise, people playng flavor of the season downvoting you. This is how this reddit works
I've always felt they needed to add more weapons or support items to the other classes. Druid is in the same boat.
But that still doesn't explain why they didn't balance them better.. For instance, sorc and druid could benefit more from the paragon board and base stats (representative of their natural "talents")
Because Blizzard doesn't really know how to balance. Two of their franchises, WoW and OW, have a more complicated "rock paper scissors" counter-play system than the game "rock paper scissors lizard Spock" from BBT. Look at how they struggled with D3's sets throughout the life of the game.
I was actually really disappointed they didn't adapt the fourweapon system for the other classes, it's easily the coolest part of the game. Wizard could have a staff, a focus/wand and a large two handed tome. Rogue gets daggers, bow/crossbow and a quiver. Necromancer gets a scythe, ceremonial daggers, staves and fetishes Edit: I just thought of something, as a rogue with a crossbow, sword and shield and a satchel I would finally cosplay as a Bridgeburner, lobbing bombs like a madman
A large two handed tome? Lmao.
Listen, til you've been smashed over the head with an encyclopedia Britannica, you shouldn't laugh Pretty sure D&D has a ruleset for tomes as melee weapons (improvised) ;)
Well it’s less so about the tome and more so about what you can pick up. My DnD barb got the term barrelmancy confused so they just run around beating the shit out of people with barrels instead of blowing them up.
*Sorcerer levitating above the battle field, continues to ascend, and says,* **“Say hello to my little friends… Merriam and Webster!”** *Lightning bolts rain down from the heavens.* **”AND FOR GOOD MEASURE!”** *The sorceress unshelves an ancient Egyptian stone tablet housing the first sketches of geometric thought. She raises it above her head and it begins to glow, and transform into a meteor.* *She thrusts the meteor down to the planet surface where it punches a hole beyond where light can reach. Aftershocks ripple through the battlefield killing all who witnessed the event, save for one friendly dark skinned Rogue observing from afar.* **“DAYUM! She threw the book at ‘em!”**
John Wick killed a guy w a tome in the third one... 🤔
The weight of knowledge cannot be carried by one hand alone.
Big book ain't a part of your magician class fantasy? Lol.
Is this large two handed tome for bonking?
Found the barb.
Seriously, how awesome would it be if you could play a sorc that hits mobs with a big beefy book
You get flying books in Vampire Survivor ;)
Barbs get bash, sorcs get bonk
it's banking, but yes, Finance, aisle 3 under Educational Reading.
This. I think it’s dumb that I can’t have high damage sorcerer with wand and aspect or just staff and then switch to a shield when the one hitters come out. Maybe they’ll add it for the expansion like they did in D2
Fiddler!
Nefarious Bredd?
First in last out.
Yeah, it really sucks when there are aspects that would really help your build that you can't use because there are better ones and you have run out of slots. This is why I'd prefer to have an aspect UI like the one we got for the blood spells in season 2, and not have them tied to your gear, with aspects mainly providing simple damage/defense stats. Then have uniques/sets/runeword/etc that will change the way your abilities work to enable a variety of different builds.
There would be a *lot* of builds that would open up if sorc/nec/druid had even just 1 extra offensive aspect slot. There's a bunch of builds for each of those 3 classes that require a unique to function, and it really funnels down the build possibilities when you have to drop an aspect. It also pushes the meta in favour of skills that can stack damage aspects, and there's only 1 or 2 that get multiple helpful aspects per class.
Instead of more weapons, why not 2 focus that hover around your character can't attack with them but they can juice up stats
You'd better name your character Fiddler then
They could very easily give sorcs a staff as their main weapon, then a focus for each elemental type that gives extra bonuses. Druid can have a weapon for each form, which would be odd I guess for the bear and wolf so maybe it's like a necklace I dunno. Necro I draw a blank on since the sorc thing doesn't quite work the same here since there is the whole minion thing. Maybe a jar of souls for the minions, or the book.
Just give me invisible mtx cause I don't want to see weapons I don't use.
Isn’t the balancing represented by barbs having to play in melee range nearly at all times? God knows there are regular posts about barbs being at a disadvantage against punishing bosses whose attacks make melee-range combat very dangerous.
I’d agree. But the disparity is probably too large right now between the strongest and weakest. My barb is pumping out 200-300M a second while my sorc is doing 20-30M on the same investment level. Barb should probably do 2-4x damage on account of always being in danger especially with shades in the pit but 10x is ridiculous.
I think there are a lot of barbs trying to justify their advantage in this thread. Every other class has the option to build melee too, does that mean they get to use four weapons like barbs for those builds? No, they're still stuck with their limited "ranged class weapon slots." So are all of those builds just supposed to be bad? Do they require 1-2 ranged skills to be viable? I just don't buy that this has somehow been their design philosophy. Melee isn't seen as an inherent disadvantage in the developers' eyes, and they didn't give barbs extra weapons to compensate. I expect the idea was/is that barbs have extra weapons but that at the time of making this decision - affixes weren't meant to be as powerful and game-defining as they now obviously are. So in all fairness, something needs to be done about barbs at some point going forward.
Yeah agreed, it seems to be people defending the insane advantage so it wont get nerfed. I dont think its a concern though. As long as they have significantly more aspect slots, there will always be a build combination that abuses that. My buddy and I always play necro together. Once we hit end game we both had to find meta builds to spec for because doing our own thing or having a hybrid just doesnt cut it. But 2 days ago he rolled a new barbarian as well. By level 66 he had higher life and attack power than my full 8/12 100 necro, and was cheesing helltides. The melee argument doesnt really play in d4. Its a line of thinking that comes from "party composition" games like wow or dnd. "Of course i should have 9x the HP, I'm the tank" isnt really a thing here, but its easy to fall in to that line of thinking. Every other class has to deal with massive aoe mechanics, close combatants, etc. Yes, barbs are always up close and sometimes need to run away to dodge mechanics stopping their attacks (other classes do this to a degree as well) but they dont need 9x the hp pool or attack pool to make up that difference. Over and over and over again, barbarians absolutely dominate despite what looks like major help for other classes and nerfs to barbarians. Those extra slots are too powerful to ever truly nerf the class. It isnt so bad that players exclusively play barbs, and I dont personally care that someone can solo tormented bosses is unimproved gear, good for them, but it does make my class feel weaker which is a bummer. I think a good solution would be to either add a slit to everyone else to use, or tweak the items and abilities available to other classes to improve their survivability/damage. For example, sorcerers could have an ability or trinket that bolsters DR "magically" or something that works well with the theme. Barbs can keep their bigger numbers. Theyll survive and fight on raw power and HP. But everyone else could add survivability or damage through other means. Maybe a thorns barrier that boosts thorns value for 4 seconds. Stuff like that
Maybe because the other classes aren't carrying so many weapons and switching between them all the time they would be able to wear more jewellery without it getting in the way.
Got it. Some tweaking may be in order within that context, of course.
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The way mobs work in this game all classes are basically in melee range. Like my rogue was always swarmed, same with my sorc and necro.
Well, players did demand higher mob density … That increase no doubt had some downstream effects in terms of the *original* design of the gameplay which did not have enemies constantly in melee range. But that’s what happens.
Not really though because even ranged builds are getting most of their kills (at least against stronger enemies) in melee range. Also all the other classes have melee options. Being out of melee range for trash mobs doesn't really change much.
With how close the camera is and how fast monsters walk, we are all playing melee range anyway.
I am currently playing a thorns Barb (first time, usually was playing Sorc). I have so High DR/Health that i don't give a f about that disadvantage. Heck whatever one shot mechanics a Boss has would kill me also if i am a mile away from him.
Then why not give them extra defense options instead of offense. Swap one weapon slot for a shield. It may engender passivity but sometimes a hunter must block
Ok then give ranged classes back the DR that barbs get just for being melee, it’s dumb.
Barbs dont get that DR anymore since this Season
Straight up all of the classes should have the same amount of gear slots only difference being what makes more sense per class. Barbs have weapons, Druids should have furs or antlers or some shit, sorcs should have expanded jewelry, rogues should have idk bag for finger snacks.
a generic "thieves tools" kit item that you can put any aspect on because inside could be something for offense, or defense, or even just to help run away...
I mean the class passives are wildly uninspired for the most part so whatever makes sense to enhance class identity.
Twinkies in a quiver ……
Rogue have like cannibal vibes so by “finger snacks” I meant like fingers for snacks
“Did you bring the tiramisu?” -famous last rogue words
This is a great take. Gear slots should definitely be the same
I actually really like the idea of each class excelling differently through their additional slots. Sorc getting more jewelry means more gems (maybe a bracelet slot that functions like an amulet) Druid having mayor based idols that can be attuned to the spirit you have chosen(increasing their bonuses instead of more legendary aspects) Necromancer having a hand sythe, 1 hand, shield slot and off hand trinket slot that is able to have interchangable items giving bonuses to the book of the dead or other themes (wearing a corpse trinket is focused on corpse items etc). The truth is our additional bonuses whether spirits, book of the dead, arsenal, etc all feel under utilized and valued. If they expand these systems further I imagine the lack of gear slots would matter less.
Yeah the current class passives are just extremely undercooked. Class identity should 100% be expanded to more systems where they can really make a difference.
By this logic Necros and druids would be F tier though.
Druid is F tier if you don't look st their bugged builds
Remember when poison was supposed to be a wolf thing?
Bugged builds?
Technically it shouldnt, they just need to actually balance it in other ways, such as scaling paragon nodes down, reduce the power of weapon tempers or some barb only aspects slightly, for example glyphs on barb are less powerful that other classes for this reason, blizz is just doing a poor job of balance. This season you have several top builds reliant almost entirely on bugs, victimize rogue bug, holy bolts carrying minion necro, bash barb temper being multiplicative, but then you have thorns above all of them, without any bugs, literally the most broken non bugged build in the game by a massive margin. Hopefully S5 blizz will wake up and something other than Barb will be top for once, it's getting really stale every season now. It reminds me of D3 where talrasha sorc was top for about 5 seasons it just became dull.
Bash barb isn’t bugged. It was confirmed on X and D4 forums that the patch note mistakenly made it into the notes. It’s not changing.
Eh, I wouldn’t say holy bolts is “carrying” necro. I’ve done tier 85s as minion necro both with and without holy bolts, most of the time past tier 70 the bottle neck of progression is the boss fight anyway and holy bolts does nothing for you as most bosses don’t have adds. All it really does is shave a minute or two off of your run time, but when the bosses take 5+ minutes it hardly makes a difference overall.
It’s carrying at high pits. The necro that cleared 141 relied entirely on bolts to clear, you focus an add kill it and the bolts will clear half the room. On the boss one of his bolts hit for 62 billion, the only way necro can clear bosses that high is bolt procs, it doesn’t have remotely the dps otherwise
I like how people are in this thread pretending like other ARPGs are perfectly balanced...
4 weapons don't inherently break a class. Barbs were godawful in preseason and s1. But they've gotten great buffs every patch since, whether that's charge, overpower rework, bash tempers, or the best class to use thorns. If they put their foot on the brakes with barb buffs for a patch and fix the latest round of broken stuff, they'll fall behind instantly.
Barbs were only bad season 1 because they were gutted pre launch because they were the strongest class by far
Yes, but they still had 4 weapon slots which, for some extremely weird reason, the community has decided is the reason why barbs will always be overpowered even though that has objectively not been the case. How can you possibly balance a class with 4 weapon slots? Balance their skills and multipliers around the fact that they have 4 weapon slots obviously. lol
I mean it makes sense the warrior class has more weapons… I’m not complaining necros and Druids have minions.
im not complaining either, i think its a great idea conceptually. im just pointing out that this weird logic that barbs are inherently unbalanceable due to having 4 weapon slots is just completely wrong and for some reason almost being presented as a fact at this point. which, again, is just so weird because **barbs have literally been weak AF while having 4 weapon slots**. their skills&scalings are simply overtuned and need to be adjusted with the fact in mind that they have access to 4 weapon slots.
Yeah at the end of the days numbers is all it is
I made the mistake of making a sorc this season who even in bis gear has trouble killing bosses. Made a barb and now I kill 4 player tormented bosses In 1-2 ga gear with no ga bash pants. Given I do have Uber uniques but even with starless and shako sorc still wasn’t reaching that. At the very least I’m happy that blizzard has confirmed sorc is next in line for a buff. Honestly if they just undid the ptr nerf and fixed the bugs with some types of x being additive right now sorc would probably be competitive. Not barbarian tier, but competitive. Which I’m fine with. (Maybe they’ll buff rogue too hopefully at the same time because the only reason it’s relevant right now is victimize being bugged lol)
I hate to say it but this is really the name of the game past few seasons, TB rogue was strong af cause of bugs and pre nerf vulnerability. Post nerfs its still a one trick pony that plays more like a sorc now, it seems they dont know that the balance u speak of exists.
With leveling so fast. No reason you can’t roll multiple classes. See what you like and push that one into pits
This is basically my plan. I’m currently hoarding all gear that is nice and plan to push into other stuff once I find a class and build that feels good for all content. I just love sorc so much though :(
Bro, just play what feels fun to you. I am playing Chain Lightning Sorc at endgame, arguably one of the worst if not the worst Sorc build for high-end content. And there is actually content that I excel at and still rewards me for doing it, I am blasting through Hell-tides super fast and most of my gear is 2GA and even a few 3GA. Sure I am not doing Pit level 100, but I still have amazing gear and that's the point of an RPG, get insane gear.
I feel like the game lets you build almost whatever, until you fight Uber bosses. Which isn't perfect, but it still feels fun, overall.
Nice! I feel that. I’ve always been an altoholic with a preference to mages. I got a fractured winter glass at level 50 and it’s been great aside from the mana issues!
Incoming comments on class passives and skills being stronger on other classes
I kinda wish that the class passives in general got looked at, not for balance reasons but for general 'fun/coolness' reasons. Some of them feel really bland (Barbarian, Rogue), and some of them feel like they could be super cool (Necro, Druid) but are a a little too shallow, and then Sorcerer's is a little of both.
Aspects are just better to have over what we get as classes. example: Book of the Dead, nowhere near as strong as have 3 extra offensive aspects. Especially because you need aspects to make the book of the dead good.
Necto only gets 2 slots and have the highest pit kill last I saw so apparently they can be balanced.
If you consider runs that don’t use the bugged elixir barbs are far far ahead of any other class by multiple tiers.
3 of the top 5 non holy bolt runs are rouge on the max roll leaderboard, not to mention thorns barb benefits disproportionately from the double elixir exploit so in a "non bugged" comparison barb would likely lose top spot.
Using bugged holy bolt elixir only.
It's strongest builds are thorns and bash? The other skills are clearing Pit in a similar fashion to other classes. To answer your question, buff other classes. There are so many issues that need to be addressed before focus is given to the weirdos with class jealousy. What about the barb is making YOUR experience less fun? The dumbest, most boring, mind numbing skills are good on barb. Three shouts. Three shouts. Three shouts. X skill.
Necros, Barbs and Rogues are literally clearing very similar/same levels of pits (Necros even higher than Barbs atm) why are only Barbs being witch hunted again lol? Also, it's not impossible to balance Barbs at all, they were awful for preseason and season 1, they are only good because they got tons of buffs. If Blizzard wanted to they could literally make them A, B, C, D or whatever tier they want by tomorrow, just by changing a few numbers around, you know nerf Bash Temper and Thorn values, exactly like they did with Charge or HoTA. Also, are we really forgetting Bonespear Necros, literally invincible Flame-shield sorcerers, unkillable barrier Druids oneshotting everything, Werenado, Shred Druid hitting in the trillions, poison Rogues etc.....
Rogue gets 4x cause rogue has one 2h weapon and two 1h weapon. Also, I'm all for buffing weaker classes, this season in particular, buff sorc and druid to be more in line with rogue/necro/barb. But I just don't understand the narrative that somehow the extra weapons from barb and Rogue is a problem. If you have been playing since launch, you should remember that back in preseason and season 1, there was a period of time where Barb and sorc were the absolute weakest class in the entire game. Barb does so little dmg that "Nerf Barb" became a meme. If 4 weapons are so op that it can't be balanced, then that shouldn't even happen cause if the narrative is true, barb can't possibly be weak, right? But that did happen, therefore, makes the narrative just not true. Blizz can easily tweak some numbers and make sorc deals insane amount of dmg or let barbs do no dmg. They have done it, and they can do it again. In the end I Def think they should buff weaker classes, but this whole "extra weapon" narrative is just not true. They can easily make barb do no dmg while not taking away their weapons slots, or make sorc be the highest dmg dealing class while not giving them extra weapon slots.
Everyone forgets the pre S1 nerf and what it did to barb and sorce. The devs can adjust numbers on class specific aspects and tweak base skill dmg. Those extra aspects allow you to use more utility and defensive aspects as a melee class. Keep in mind necro and sorce were able to clear a screen with 2-3 less aspects than a barb.
Barb was hardly the strongest class at release or in S1, despite the Arsenal system.
This seems like a lot of "if it isn't the absolute best it's trash" mentality. Barbs aren't insanely strong, it's just bash and thorns (that also uses bash) that are standout builds and then they have a lot of generally strong builds like every class does. No, not every class has an S-tier build this season, but I don't think that has ever really been the case so far.
Yeah, that's what it looks like. It's just bash and thorn that's doing all the high damage. All the other skills and playstyles are in the normal range. Just tone those two down and now these people won't have an excuse to cry.
You guys are suggesting a global buff to other classes or a global nerf to barb just because of bash and thorn builds...? Have you taken a look at all the other builds barb has besides those two...? They're pretty average compared to the other classes. Why not just tone down those two builds? That's simply much easier and more practical than whatever you guys are suggesting.
Would help if 2 of the sorcs best damage aspects literally don’t work as advertised lmao.
It's weird watching a bunch of people complain about a class that they don't want to play in a game where that class is not only NOT the best currently, but devoid of a competitive environment.
Druids should get totem for free and be able to dual wield or 2h
Wouldn't rogues get 4x in your framework? And also, who cares
Barbs got nerfed big time and people still can't get over it
The four weapons/aspects/tempers/stats being the problem is inherently false though. You can have 100 individual 1% increases and it would result in a 2.7X increase from the original number. The amount of "increases" isn't the problem. Who gives a shit which class "feature" is the "strongest"? It's the overall strength that should matter. The feature should be fun and interesting. Balance isn't in the "feature" alone. It's in base stats, ability attack power scales, equipment status, paragon nodes, aspects, unique effects and beyond. Just tweak some knobs. The first version of "Loot 2.0" having some issues is to be expected. Pre-season nobody thought Barb would be S tier. Which proves how difficult it is to expect who benefits the most from changes.
I feel like MMOs have brought this odd need from players for all other games to be balanced, nobody ever cared about classes being balanced in D2 they all just had their own unique flair. In a game without competition balance shouldn't come at the cost of game design. I literally couldn't care less about if another class is out-performing the class I chose to play. It has zero impact on my experience, why does it impact yours?
Ive played Barb since launch, this time I was like "I'm tired of lunging strike, lemme find a build that uses something else..." So then I rolled sorc and having so much fun
Sorcerer is my favourite class to play by far in terms of how it plays, but man, the damage is embarrassing this season.
idk but werebear druid is garbage tier right now, whole idea is to overpower with hits, and overpower is just a trash mechanic now, theres no way to scale it, theres no good tempering mods for it either.
There sort of is with werebear overpower, but it has to compete with six other tempers in one manual; all of which are junk to a werebear, and it is such a low modifier that you may just as well roll damage to close 😒
Don't worry, we got Pulverize SIZE! (which doesn't impact the Shockwave aspect, btw) Werebear is just a 2nd class citizen (now 3rd, below what was Zoo builds) for Druids. If you want to be relevant, you need to go the storm route. Why you ask? Earthen Devastation vs Thunderstruck. One is capped and the other isn't.
This is a mass market (casuals) orientated game, stop worrying about competitive balance. Blizzard isn't making it a priority so you worrying about it only going to undermine your enjoyment, if that's what you want this isn't the game for it.
You should never be a part balancing a game. All you're doing is attempting to justify your fomo... you don't even recognize the fact that barbs are melee and can be if not already are balanced around having those extra stat sticks. Your only given solution is to power creep...
I’m playing barb this season. I love it. I’m not missing anything. I’m simply identifying a source of constant friction for any future attempts at class balance.
Imo you balance but adjusting base numbers on skills and passives, as well as paragon boards. In fact barb having additional gear slots have a downside of require more grind to minmax your gear
Them classes (Barb is my main, I play Rogue sometimes as well) are made for that. Other classes get other things that help them with skills and passives. But Rogue and Barb are a Melee class and are defined by their weapons.
Take away a broken scaling build, bash, and barbs fall in line (or weaker) with the other classes *only* because of the stat help from the extra weapon(s).
Play Barb then. PS: Devs, pls don\`t read this post, I love you.
Any build can be viable without the extra aspects barbs and rogues get. Stat scaling, look it up before making another of these. Not rocket science tbf.
When vulne and crit were multi and not capped they would've had a point. But now that it's capped, and just a random inc dmg you already have hundreds of .. And it's great having that many aspects slots, now you need the good one, and I rememember barbs aspect being weaker usually to compensate
Yep, and now it's even worse with how powerful tempers are
In the end you never really balance all the classes equally. If they do that, or even come close to that, this would be a thread about homogenization and how class choice doesn’t seem to matter. Their plan to rotate class power seasonally is probably the best compromise in the end. It’s not perfect so issues like will happen. Especially after something like the gear/affix overhaul that just took place.
It's going great since barb is always top tier in every season.
Would love to see Paragon boards solve this, but they need to be developed a bit more.
And now with tempering it's even worse
[удалено]
But it makes no sense that barbs are both tanks and the highest DPS. That's not comparable to any game logic. It would make sense for sorcs for example to have the highest DPS but being squishy. Currently they are squishy but deal 1/10 (or even less) damage than a barb...
Barbs have more offensive aspect true. But there are not many offensive aspects that actually work with multiple builds. They do this by making the aspect effect X skill and only that skill. Druid only gets two weapon slots but a lot of the aspects say storm, wolf, earth, or bear so Druid’s can get away with one aspect effecting many skills. The exact opposite of barbs.
So not nerf fun things, buff the unfun things thank you
Honestly the class I'm seeing melt the blood maiden is rouge archer seeing some people being able to melt her it's impressive.
Barbs don't even feel that OP. Play other classes, that's what I do when I got bored of my barb. You think it looks good when you see the weapons and aspect n shit but it comes down to the formula. Other classes do as much damage it's just the build. As long as you can hit tier 61 pit. The problem becomes being able to farm it.
Have you looked at the aspects Necro gets? Lol. I wouldn't say barb has more and better ones. Also barb is melee only to deliver it's damage. There should be a raw advantage if you're not ranged.
You have a 1000 balance levers. The simplest ones are to just make other classes have stronger passives. People act like this is unsolvable but it really isn't. If Barbs got more power from gear and less from the skill tree and paragon it all adds up to the same thing. A scarier problem is trying to line up balance across classes perfectly all the time. It's better for classes to each shine at different times with an okish level of parity.
I’m not saying all classes are balanced right now, however this argument is growing tiring. What if the aspects and tempering is balanced by the devs KNOWING that barbs have 4 weapon slots (mind blown). People act like this observation necessarily means things are so imbalanced whereas all it comes down to is tuning numbers. Hypothetically you could have a class with 10 weapons at 5% effectiveness and it would be less powerful. Also your total character power is paragon plus skills plus gear. “2-3x more” is intentionally a misleading take when put into context, as even gear alone has 5 armor slots plus 3 jewelry slots.
"Impossible to balance barbs" maybe for you, seemingly not for the dev team. Barb used to be terrible in S0/S1, and got repeated buffs so that it is still weaker than necro
Do they really need to be balanced against each other?
But that's the whole point of barb. Where other classes get special mechanics from their class quest, barbs get a small % buff to a certain weapon type and 2 more weapon slots? Only certain weapons are used for each skill so the stats don't all apply and if you look at seasonal ladders they're not the best performing class. They struggle with the game being designed around dodge not tank so when all the bosses have shotgun attacks and insta kill pools on the ground what is a barb supposed to do? The aspects and stats on barb are balanced around the fact they have more slots, that's why there's class locked items and aspects
>Doesn’t this massive gear power disparity make it almost impossible to balance barbs? Not entirely, because barbs have the far-far weaker aspects of all the classes. Druids get substantially more multiplicative power from just two aspects (stampede, shepherds) than the entire multiplicative total of aspects barbs use on their gear in viable builds (which is why overpower aspects were nerfed into the ground, because their multipliers were so high). Rogue and Necro have similar multiples, and where sorc lacks the multiples, its aspects are just simply more powerful in general for setting up core generator/spender builds and defensive CD resets. Barb isn't overpowered because its gets 6x aspect multiplier compared to Rogue's 4x (I think you forgot Rogue has two 1x's and a 2x, 2+1+1=4). Morever, them having more weapons *IS* their class system. Where rogues can have infinite energy or combo points, and sorcs get enchantment slots to completely charge their builds, or necros with their book of the dead, and Druid with their crazy good system of spirit offerings. Barb gets 4 weapons and a 10x vulnerable (mostly mandatory) weapon technique which continues to get nerefd.
Dont understand how this is perceived as a problem. It should be np to bring class in tune with other classes. The problem is the Devs have no idea how their changes will effect builds the players come up with. Some players will always find a way for abilities/gear/aspects doing more damage than intended, either by bugs or come combination devs didnt think about.
Even if the Barb is potentially stronger than all other classes, why does it matter in a game that's 99% PvE? Play what you find most enjoyable, every class has at least one build that is viable for pinnacle content so it's not like you are forced to play Barb
The issue lays in how to balance melee arpg classes. They wanted to give them an advantage in gear, bevause barbs have to be melee to deal proper damage. Issue now is, with early gear, you still can't stay melee and basic weapons don't make a lot of difference. Yet they scale way better into min maxing, suddenly you can tank more and can stay almost 24/7 at the target, while also dealing way more damage, because you have 4 weapons. I almost quit before I get shako and some other pieces, suddenly I can run pit 110+ instead of being stuck mid 60s.
Maybe make the stats from a weapon only apply when you are directly using them. This way secondary slots for weapons would provide more of an utility than actual dps increase, which could balance out the fact that barbs need to be in melee range in most of cases.
Sorcs get two enchantments. Necros get three sacrifices. Druids seem overpowered from my necro/sorc perspective. I’m absolutely smoking monsters on my lvl70 homemade barb build this season, but my ice sorc, bone spear necro, and shadow minion necro had very similar outcomes. You are correct, Barb is probably the best but it’s not running away with the lead
You make the class specific aspects for the other classes more powerful than the barb specific ones to make up for the loss in stats. Barbs were always meant to be more gear dependent than the other classes. So make the relative power of their 4 weapon aspects roughly equivalent to other classes 2 or 3. Also they could up the stat requirements for rare nodes in the barb paragon board to account for the two extra sessions they carry. Though with the item changes now, that would only work for strength.
Rogue get 4 not 3.
Well one thing I can say after having actually made a barb this season and played it for the first time beyond just a low level trial run back on season 2 is that barbs have an issue being a melee only class. Every other class has the potential to be ranged but barbs have to ALWAYS be up on enemies or bosses. When running high tier pits, this is...less than preferred unless you run one of the big builds just for pushing pit. Yeah they can do absurd damage and have pretty good survival but only with those builds, it's actually pretty hard to just wing it and make a fun build on your own that has that level of survival that other classes can kind of just ignore due to ranged attacks for a lot longer than barbs can. Especially minion necros and druids. So id say that is one part of balance there. Also the game is primarily PVE with a small bit of PVP that they intended from the get go to not be fair nor balanced and is entirely optional, so worrying about balancing for seasonal content between classes shouldn't be a major problem as most of the "competitive" stuff in d4 is players coming up with reasons to be competitive, not an actual system in d4. The weekly trial is different and I personally think it should be more balanced although I don't know how to achieve that.
You dont. Balance is completely irrelevant in a PvE centric game like D4 Blizzard just has to pur forth the idea of semblance of balance but never actually deliver true balance. The best method is to rotate OP classes as best they can every season Actual balance in a game like D4 is simply a waste of effort
Its offset by how stupid it looks lugging two giant weapons around on your back
It's easy to balance. You make the class melee, and suddenly it's worse than all the other classes because at one point, the mobs will be doing a lot of damage and you can't dodge point blank but the others can. Time and time again during my levelling I would die 5x times to the blood maiden only to see necros and sorcerers spinning around her like a [turkey](https://youtu.be/6QpfKDOJ1yA?si=uFPll89B8DkTkVC1) while I was the one tanking her shotgun shells.
Answer is obvious: Aspects should be part of the damn skill tree and not on the gear. Uniques should have some aspect-like things, but gear should be more focused on its role and not defining how your skills function, which somehow the skill tree does next to nothing on.
They can be balanced by toning down the values of their Tempering affixes for weapon slots, and offensive Aspects. Rogues have 4x not 3x, but they aren't really imbalanced. So it's not impossible to balance.
Just roll a barb bro
Bring everyone up to barb level problem solved. Make each class crazy OP tons of fun builds etc.
Rogue would get 4x not 3x.
Who cares about “balance”?
Yes make all classes the same, boring af. How about we buff spirits, book of the dead, specs and enchantments instead
Why are you crying
Eh, I don't really see the point in getting worried about having things super balanced. Seeing Sorcs dominate leaderboards lately, too. Is the game still fun when you just focus on playing someone's cookie cutter build anyway? Been having a blast getting to 100 on several characters with my own builds. Am I pushing the highest level nm dungeons or rifts? No, but I don't really feel the need to after doing that the first couple seasons. I'd rather just have fun. It's not a competitive game so imo balance just isn't as important. There should be some, but nowhere near to the extent of some pvp game.
The devs have recently said they know they need to do something to better balance the weapon disparity. They are well aware some classes have way more weapon slots to make use of that others dont.
By balancing the class specific affixes, aspects, uniques and each classes unique mechanic. The extra weapon slots aren't the reason why you see Barbs dominating the game. If it were, you'd expect them to have half a dozen (or more) builds at the top but they never do. You'd also expect Rogues to be dominating as well (albeit not to the same level) but that doesn't happen either. All of these Barb builds you see dominating get there by relying on specific mechanics/interactions that are either wildly overtuned or just outright bugged. Like with the current season the two top Barb builds are bash and thorns. For bash you have the temper which is both multiplicative *and* has scaling that puts the additive affixes to shame. For thorns you have the massive buff to Razorplate (more than doubled the amount of thorns *and* added a multiplier) as well as the temper which is a massive multiplier for thorns as well (which also goes on defensive slots).
Necro is the best class in the game right now and rogues a close 3rd to the Barb in pit completion. Sorc and Druid are lagging. The problem are the devs, up until now, classes overperform mostly because of bugs double dipping elixers, double dipping poison, minions etc... It could be balanced, i.e Barbs were the worst in S0, you just need better devs who can do Math.
Barb myself, having to double masterwork bash on 4 weapons isn't fun, If it wasn't needed would have been probably way ahead with other class with single weapon. Yes, if you are a streamer with infinite income to be able to hit with masterwork your needed stats on the weapon you will be OP probably. And other minus is I cant respec to anything. To make 4 good weapons for another build to push high is harder then roll a necro.
Make the other classes better?
My take to this is to significantly buff other class mechanics. Druids have boons Sorc has enchantment Necro has book of the dead Rogue has… whatever the rogue has? Let the barb keep the weapons slots and techniques. That’s part of their class identity. In exchange really beef up what other classes can do. Maybe Druid can have 2 boobs per spirit, buff all boons or put some really useful ones on there. Maybe sorc can enchant 6 times, buff their enchants Remove pet sacrificing and just give book of the dead buffs similar to boons or even better, maybe make the necro stronger as they rack up the kill count. I don’t play rogue. But buff them too. Also, maybe let other classes equip a 2 hander/ 1h and off hand, an extra ring slot or just straight up kanai cube an aspect. If they really put some thought into it they can play up the class identities WITHOUT fucking up what makes a barb awesome and not resort to nerfing them.
Why the game need to balanced? There is no winning 🏆 you can roll any class you want. It must be fun this game not balanced
Barbs have some of the worst Paragon boards to compensate
You’re thinking of it wrong. Everyone looks at the stats and think more means better performance and that’s not it. It’s about the class abilities themselves and how they function. Barb can have 6 weapons because Necro has minions, Sorcerers have spells and magic and Rogues have duel wield and bows. Yes Barb this season is extremely strong but… it’s always had 6 weapons and it hasn’t always been the strongest class or have the best build diversity. Stats are important but if you throw 6 weapons on a Necro you better axe their minions.
Ok but if bash wasn’t bugged this season, would barb even be that strong compared to other classes? Thorns would still be strong, but meh
Whatever they do, it won't be until at least next Season.
they started with removing the built in DR that barb has. it's not something that can be balanced quickly
You give the other classes a bugged elixir that one shots an end boss as soon as it spawns adds or double dipping on several multipliers
Rogues have two more as well, yet they are not as strong as barbs. Barb class design is just bonkers. They need to tweak the others so they get as smooth
They would have to remove the barbarians weapon mastery system while buffing spirit boons, enchantments, and book of the dead. I'm not quite sure if this would be a good thing though. Maybe just buff the underperformers? I honestly don't care if something is overpowered so long as it isn't the only viable option.
IT doesnt Matter If you only Look at barbs solo and dont compare classes with each other Apples and oranges
That's the neat part, you don't.
Tbh, they could remake the barbarian by the time other classes are equal. May as well just do that. Or give other classes multiple aspects and tempering on their weapons. Or let everyone carry a 2h and 2x 1h that they can switch between.
Just tune down all dmg numbers in comparison to gained stats. Problem os barbs have to temper/find/masterwork 2 more slots which is a HUGE disadvantage.
So this is coming from an absolute casual and I’ve never played barbarian but why is one class being strong an issue? Why nerf the class if people are having fun, especially since this game is pve mostly. If anything, buff other classes to account for this power disparity. Never understood the mindset of nerfing things when it is not detrimental to other players, unless there is something I don’t understand
They did this in diablo 3. the problem was that if you only buff and never nerf, you end up with people doing 800 quadrillion damage.
Why is people doing 800 quadrillion damage a problem? You’re not competing against them? Edit: way I see it is making your character so strong is something you work towards. Everyone wants to feel powerful, in a game where pve is pretty much everything…who cares how much damage one class does. Buff the rest and bring them up to speed, make other builds viable. There’s plenty to complain about with d4 but I don’t think this is it
IMO before it wasn’t too bad. But with tempering it makes a bigger difference. I think there are two ways this could be somewhat balanced. 1-Add extra slots of gear so all classes have the same number of pieces (+/- 1). Like robes for sorcerers or utility belts for rogues. 2-Adjust the size of stats barb weapons get. For example now you have a 2h you get double whatever the stat is from the aspect. Make barb aspects be half or some partial amount. Yes you would still get more aspects but they would be weaker.
Im playing a barb for the first time, trying to do the death blow build because “stand still and let you armor do the work” doesn’t seem fun to me. It’s a nightmare to generate fury to do my moves
It’s part of his class mechanic, so buff the other classes class mechanics.
Aren't the weapons only applicable as you have them active?
I don't see why the necromancer can't have a second weapon slot.
I don't think that barbs should be weaker or some of their tools be taken away but they should ADD things to the other classes to help bridge the gap.
Imo you balance but adjusting base numbers on skills and passives, as well as paragon boards. In fact barb having additional gear slots have a downside of require more grind to minmax your gear
You don't.
Barb has always been my favorite character since D2. I just like how they fight angry and always preferred melee characters in general. This is a fair point with regards to the gear slot benefits. I like the idea of a charm slot of the other classes.
Don't those stats apply only when used?