1.0.5 PTR Patch Notes - Barbarian

[Dethklok]

another thing...mighty weapons are gonig to be important now for WW builds and fury generation

The proc rate applies to both Into the Fray and the mighty weapon version of Weapon Master. 10% of 15 fury is 1.5 fury, so axe/mace gives you 1.5 Fury per proc compared to a mighty weapon's 3 Fury per proc; it's a substantial difference but not a huge one. (They should probably buff the mighty weapon fury generation.)

you want mighty weapon with Life steal because life steal is based on damage dealt so it should not be affected by the proc nerf in Sprint

For Sprint tornados only: In 1.04, each tornado deals 20% weapon damage and 20% proc rate per tic, so you'd need about 155k DPS for 3% life leach to be equal to 950 life on hit -- life on hit was pretty much universally better. Cutting the proc rate to 40% its previous value still means you'd need 62k DPS before 3% life leach is better than 950 life on hit. This is definitely more doable and good advice for a segment of the population, but keep in mind that anything in the 50-75k DPS range wouldn't notice much of a difference either way.

For Whirlwind, in both 1.04 and 1.05, you'd need about 34k DPS before 3% life steal equals 950 life on hit. Again, if you're reasonably close (30-40k DPS) you won't notice a difference.

For the build overall, I'd say you want to stick with life on hit until at least 45k DPS, that there isn't much of a difference from 45-55k DPS, and that life leech starts becoming good past 55k.

I can't imagine how the build will resemble anything close to it's current form. Changing that proc coefficient means we will see 40% of current damage, fury, and LOH. The main damage we do right now is from tornadoes. The "buff" to ww makes no difference there. When you add that in to the survivability nerf to LOH, it doesn't seem very likely we will be able to pull huge packs together anymore and survive--especially if we can't keep WotB up, and especially in the higher power levels. Combine that with the nerf to Impunity, and I think we will take a HUGE survivability hit. As for new gear, first, I'm not going spend another 50-100 million to buy new weapons that provide a half-assed solution to fury. Switching to mighty weapons is also another huge damage nerf that still wouldn't address the survivability factor.

Changing the proc coefficient does not change the damage dealt; sprint torandos will still deal 20% weapon damage per tick. It is ITF fury generation and LOH that are effected.

I think you're right that it will be harder to pull huge packs together and survive. It should, however, still be a viable build. I don't believe this is a "scorched earth" nerf, but instead a nerf that makes WW/sprint "just another" build as opposed to the primary one.

[liquid_mage]

Changing the proc coefficient does not change the damage dealt; sprint torandos will still deal 20% weapon damage per tick. It is ITF fury generation and LOH that are effected.

Your tornado's will crit less often, so we will do less damage.


This change bums me out. I think they could have done two things to adjust the build:
1. Have tornados alternate weapon damage, this would have help balance out people taking advantage of stat sticks.
2. Adjust the proc rate of tornados, but go from 0.2 to 0.14 or some such. 0.08 is crazy low.

[liquid_mage]

Sorry double post.

[EoB]

I know this is a far fetched and far too hopeful wish, but it would be a great PR move if they stick it on the test server as a .08 drop, listen to "player feedback", then adjust it upwards to say .14 "due to the feedback they received from the community." This would of course be far too strategic for Blizz to actually plan out and pull off but man would they come out on top in the end.

They end up nerfing the build slightly which makes some people happy, and make current barbs feel better by acting like they gave in to the feedback. Win/win for them and the community.

But again, far too strategic and planned out for Blizz I think.

[BaronScarpia]

I heard somewhere on official forums that the infinity WotB was hugely nerfed, since you need to regain fury to gain extra time. Since ww cost was reduced, you don't spend enough fury to regain fury and extend Wotb. If that's true, then it was a huge nerf.

I won't join the public test due to time constraint, but I would like to share the build I used up to Belial:

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculato...kRi!ZbY!ZYccYZ

It kills using WW (on belial I switched WW for earthquake).

I got 3 legendaries on the past week with low mf, 2 of them killing white mobs, using the build above. It is slower than double tornado (so is everything), but it was efficient to me. Maybe it can work with MP 0 on act 3, but I'm a little skeptical. Maybe you need to be over 40k damage...

[Such Violent Storms]

I really think HotA will become a contender. Almost a guaranteed crit per usage after building up some fury, with Into The Fray and a big 2H you should just smash the hell of things.

[galzohar]

If everyone keep playing sprint and not look at any other build then the change have failed. So I doubt we'll see a noticeable coefficient increase further into PTR. The goal of the change was to bring the build in line with other builds at the very least.

Damage won't be changed as long as you can keep fury going and stay alive. The nerf prevents you from doing those 2 very well unless you have extremely high-end gear, and even then you still might want to consider other builds because even with top of the top gear you might run into fury problems that would hit the efficiency of this build pretty hard, even if they don't outright kill it.

[magicrectangle]

Your tornado's will crit less often, so we will do less damage.

What? No.

Proc coefficients have no effect on crit chance. Your crit chance is the same for all abilities (that can crit), regardless of their proc coefficients.

[liquid_mage]

What? No.

Proc coefficients have no effect on crit chance. Your crit chance is the same for all abilities (that can crit), regardless of their proc coefficients.

Okay good to know, thanks for the correction.

[Sentarius]

Finally got on last night and experimented a bit. Thoughts follow. All playing was on MP3.

My char has (on the main server) 1500 LoH and farms Act III easily in WW/Sprint mode. DPS on weapons are about 1000 and 700, respectively. LoH is half from one weapon and half from jewelry.

To experiment, I picked up on the cheap two weapons each with 3% LS, sockets, and about 950 DPS, sacrificing all other mods.

My tornadoes hit for about 10,000 damage per tick, so quick tornado math: Currently a .20 sprint tornado gives me 300 life. On the PTR a .08 sprint tornado gives me 120 life. If I switched entirely to just 6% LS, which is 1.2% in Inferno, it would be 120 life.

But I have another option, which is to keep my LoH jewelry, which alone is worth 60 life per tick on the PTR, giving me a total of about 180 per hit, which is closer to my current 300.

I tried that first, and it was OK. I had to run more and couldn't stand in AoE effects, but I could kill elites and Ghom without dying.

But the need for LoH on my jewelry has always been something dragging down my gear budget, so I tried swapping out the LoH stuff for just more damage, which made it possible for me (still for almost no gold, it was like 300k) to add about 10% to my damage, including 8% more crit.

I found this even better. Bunch of points here:
-More crit=more damage=more lifesteal!
-More crit=more fury.
-Above calculations discount WW itself. WW has a coefficient of .13 (let's call it .12) meaning that in my 1.0.4 setup my 40,000 damage WW ticks were giving me 180 life. With 6% (1.2%) LS they give 480 life. They don't cover the loss of LoH from Sprint alone, but they get close. And with crits of about 120,000 they do quite nicely.

Also, the fact that my weapons are now about equal in DPS is nice for WW and for Bash, which I have always used a fair amount.

Now, Fury generation is another issue. It's not hard to keep WW up due to the lowered cost, but it is harder to keep WotB up. Not impossible though - I kept it up for all of the Keep Depths Level 2, for example. As before, white mobs were my friends. It was still easy to keep my health globe full and my Fury and Wrath up on whites, but when I got down to 1-3 elite mobs at a time it was a lot harder. But it did help that the whites have more HP on MP3 than in 1.0.4.

One of the most annoying changes is actually the fury generation nerf to warcry. If you're out of combat, the 20 fury *instantly* drops to 17, making it impossible to use Warcry to activate battle rage OR sprint. I used to use a quick warcray-sprint to get me to the next pack when dry, and this change definitely contributes to making it harder to keep Wrath up.

In essence, with 450,000 gold invested in weapons and 300,000 in jewelry my mid-power Barb (50,000 damage buffed but without Wrath) is *almost* as effective in 1.0.5 MP3 as in 1.0.4. Same exact skills and playstyle. And this is WITHOUT lifesteal on a belt. As soon as I can find or afford a LS belt I expect full blown EZmode to return.

And then there will be the higher MP settings to conquer.

I know everyone has been saying that well geared Barbs will still be fine all along, but I don't consider myself that well geared. My most expensive item cost me 1.5 million. I have a lot of time in the game, but not a lot of super amazing gear. Moderately geared Barbs will be OK too.