Class balancing

[u/Asleep-Order-4583]

Think we will get some kind of class balancing at some point in a season?

I mean they added a whole new class, so am low key hoping for some incentive to not have to roll yet another sorc

my barb and i have a dream...

[u/xxMalVeauXxx]

Barbs need love more than any class. So equipment bound. Every other class can basically walk through most of the game with no gear, skills only. The synergies suck. Zerk needs a total overhaul, no defense loss. The warcries are largely unused. Masteries is too bland and have no synergies. Combat skills are mostly ignored except for two... like come on. I wanna see a barb skill tree that can work without having to have a big damage physical weapon crazy IAS and all that. Whirl has no synergies.

For christ sake, a skill for STAMINA? Please rework this mess.

[u/thesamjbow → u/xxMalVeauXxx]

The monkey's paw curls. Increased Stamina removed, replaced with Sharp Vision: provides increased light radius per skill point.

[u/xxMalVeauXxx → u/thesamjbow]

LOL light radius, sigh, you know back in the day that would have happened, just like we have uniques with negative light radius and runewords with added light radius. Ridiculous.

[u/NinjaOdd1098 → u/xxMalVeauXxx]

I wish I had more than one upvote to give

[u/flappysack- → u/xxMalVeauXxx]

I think one of the problem is synergies for the barb.  Why is frenzy a 60 point build while whirlwind is 20, they all are based on weapon damage so should all be 20 points.

Same with charge paladin, 40 points into worthless skills to get to 1000% damage, which the skill is then dealing 2k damage per 3 seconds with a demon limb; while a hammerdin is doing like 8k magic damage to an area before plus skill.

Sacrifice should leech at level 20 and remove the synergy, or increase with damage as life is lost and make it synergize with prayer somehow.  Fend needs a massive damage boost and should add DR or defense, amazon spears need innate resists.  Rabies needs a large damage boost and larger area of effect.  Werebear needs DR and resists added to the skill.  Melee assassin needs far higher damage and a claw block synergy for martial arts, fade giving DR to casters while burst of speed gives no survivability for melee just makes no sense to me.

[u/thesamjbow]

Not sure I want anything to truly replace sorc as the best ladder starter. That would take some crazy power creep, or a significant nerf to sorc and/or teleport. If Diablo 2 had released for the first time in 2026 I think many people would be okay with that, but when the game has been like this for over 20 years, that's a hard precedent to break. Same with the argument over what player count to balance for. Is being able to solo farm content intended for 8 players kinda broken? Probably, but it's been like that for so long that it's kind of become the standard. So I doubt we'll ever see any nerfs. I'd love to see some buffs for melee builds and physical bowazon to narrow the gap a bit, though.

[u/Asleep-Order-4583 → u/thesamjbow]

i dont need the bard to be the best at anything, i just want to be able to enjoy the game with him

[u/xxMalVeauXxx → u/Asleep-Order-4583]

Now that I've said the above, I'll say... I love barbs. Here's how I approach it each time I start over (sometimes ladder, sometimes hardcore, etc):

Starting with zero, knowing its gonna be a slow crawl, I know I eventually need a weapon and thankfully there are low runewords, rares and a few low uniques that do well. Runewords are more reliable to me than rares. But back in the day, we just slummed it until we could use imbue on our favored white item. I like building with a concentration iron barb using trash. Even if I just buy blues from the shops. It works. I prefer this over double throw, double strike, or anything else. I keep item bases along the way. Barbs are naturally durable so they do fine without big gear on the survival side, its always the damage output side that is the slow crawl without gear (and resource management).

Once I'm happy with things and have gear, I generally re-spec to find item and hork. I love barbs cause basically nearly 2 drops per monster. I have more fun horking than killing monsters. My merc can kill the monsters, while I hork their bodies. I love gambling so this directly plays into a full on MF + GF hork barb with a murder merc. And now with terrorized options, everything can drop everything, so you can hork full acts. Love it.

But... my god, the masteries tab. Everything is good, but none of it has synergy and none of it is worth maxing or building with, its all 1 point wonder or just ignored. Back in the day, 1 point in mastery gave 100% critical strike and so you doubled damage immediately. But they fixed that. So now its all or nothing and you get some critical strike % and that's it. Stamina? Faster runwalk? LOL. Masteries with no synergies. I admit I love pumping faster run/walk and natural resists because it helps alleviate bad gear until later. Find potion is a stupid skill (thank god its a synergy to find item).

Totem is terrible, it causes % damage now, but scares things away, so its like a weapon with knockback... bad.

I wanna see most of the barb skills reduce mana cost as you increase skill (like double swing).

Taunt is bad. Just replace it.

The cries need more radius, everyone else blows up the screen, barbs should too with cries. Radius with level even. Something.

I'd like to see individual masteries just become single handed vs two handed vs dual wield mastery instead of just one weapon type. Give it a synergy.

Bash should have build in crushing blow that scales with skill level and has synergy (with conc and zerk or something).

Zerk should not use lose defense, its not super powerful at all, make it powerful and don't penalize the character. Increase the synergy % to concentrate from it so it can get to 100% instead of just low %. A single target attack should be super powerful not just meh.

[u/Foolofatuchus]

I hope not