Do Barbarians suck now, or what?

[PizzaSHARK]

I'm kind of leveling a Barbarian and a Crusader in tandem with the new season on Expert. My Crusader can just ride the horsey into the middle of a pile of enemies and just spam hammers and everything explodes while my Barbarian can leap into a pile of enemies and die horribly. Both have relatively even equipment, but the Barbarian has a pair of legendary bracers that increase Hammer of the Ancients speed by 50% and damage by 200% while the Crusader doesn't have anything unique like that (both are using legendary weapons.)

I mean, I guess Crusader would be less potent if I wasn't spamming hammers and was instead using a different Wrath spender, so maybe it's just a matter of finding the gamebreaking combo with the Barbarian? Or does Barbarian really start to pop later than the Crusader?

[Jester Joe]

At a very quick glance

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/rankings/...rift-barbarian

Barbarian and Monk seem to hold the top for solo greater rifts, so it's probably just Barbarian needing more gear than the crusader, or a different set build?

[Pendulous]

Well, you're also talking about leveling situations, where absolutely nothing is balanced.

[S7orm]

Barbs are top-tier in S4

[Fencers]

Barbs are top of the heap. The leveling experience is not really reflective of the classes.

Gear sets basically define class builds. It is a very strict design.

[RuneDK]

Uh Barb is definitely the creme of the crop right now and crusader is closer to the bottom. Don't make an assumption based on leveling.

[urasim]

I'm kind of leveling a Barbarian and a Crusader in tandem with the new season on Expert. My Crusader can just ride the horsey into the middle of a pile of enemies and just spam hammers and everything explodes while my Barbarian can leap into a pile of enemies and die horribly. Both have relatively even equipment, but the Barbarian has a pair of legendary bracers that increase Hammer of the Ancients speed by 50% and damage by 200% while the Crusader doesn't have anything unique like that (both are using legendary weapons.)

I mean, I guess Crusader would be less potent if I wasn't spamming hammers and was instead using a different Wrath spender, so maybe it's just a matter of finding the gamebreaking combo with the Barbarian? Or does Barbarian really start to pop later than the Crusader?

Once you get all of the set for wastes or immortal kings you'll be able to do 40+ rifts... Barbs are insanely good atm. The best classes are barb, witch doctor, and monk.

[Orkwuzhere]

So basically we're back to the Jay Wilson era where Barbs and DHs get to have all the fun while the other classes are told to fuck off?

[RuneDK]

Uhm...well considering Monks and WD's are also at the top of the chain I'd say thats a no...but nice job attempting to troll

Infracted: Please do not call other users trolls

[Aori]

Crusaders are pretty much the bottom, they have 1 viable build gr40+ that I am aware of and its damage is terrible in comparison. I ran into a pug barb, he carried 3 of us in gr58, everything simply melted. Sure he had monk and crusader buffs but still, he did 90% of the damage as we spent most our time just trying to keep up.

[Bigbazz]

Crusaders are pretty much the bottom, they have 1 viable build gr40+ that I am aware of and its damage is terrible in comparison. I ran into a pug barb, he carried 3 of us in gr58, everything simply melted. Sure he had monk and crusader buffs but still, he did 90% of the damage as we spent most our time just trying to keep up.

You don't even need set bonuses to beat GR40 let alone worry about which class you're playing. All the classes can do GR60 without having a crisis and that's especially true in a group. The top classes right now are Barb, Monk and Witch Doctor but there were different flavours in previous seasons and even as far back as Season 1 we had people above GR50, without the cube or all of the added items and buffs to old items we have seen since then.

[Aori]

You don't even need set bonuses to beat GR40 let alone worry about which class you're playing. All the classes can do GR60 without having a crisis and that's especially true in a group. The top classes right now are Barb, Monk and Witch Doctor but there were different flavours in previous seasons and even as far back as Season 1 we had people above GR50, without the cube or all of the added items and buffs to old items we have seen since then.

Thought we were talking about solo grifts and not talking about being carried by top tier classes in group grifts.

Barely 150 crusaders are gr60+, how many of those are exploiters? The second runners for worst are Wizard and DH, they have 250-300 GR60+. Monk, Barb, WD have 1000+

[Bigbazz]

Thought we were talking about solo grifts and not talking about being carried by top tier classes in group grifts.

Barely 150 crusaders are gr60+, how many of those are exploiters? The second runners for worst are Wizard and DH, they have 250-300 GR60+. Monk, Barb, WD have 1000+

Less crusaders are in the upper rifts (205 above 60 in Solo EU) because it's a less popular class, people gravitate towards the strongest and so it's no surprise that the low classes look even lower because there is nobody playing them, in favour of playing the current flavour, this happens every season to some extent. In EU the Crusader top rank is higher than the DH (65 vs 64), and so even though the DH is far more popular it's still the bottom class.

Last seasons top Crusaders were up in the range of GR64, which was without the cube. Doing a GR60 this season is closer to doing a GR50 in S3 and so it's no doubt that Crusaders will go much higher than they currently are. GR60 solo is not a big deal at all in S4, and you will see that as Crusaders surpass the 70 mark later in the season.

[Frumpy Frumpy Frak]

So basically we're back to the Jay Wilson era where Barbs and DHs get to have all the fun while the other classes are told to fuck off?

Ah D3 at launch, how I long for you.

I wish we could go back to the days when my Barbarian was forced to use nothing but ranged abilities lest he be one shot by Act 1 Inferno zombies.

[Coldkil]

adding to the heap of iinfo, supèport Barb is basically mandatory for GR pushing/ladder climbing. The other class is a support monk, DPS may vary (WD/Barb are the top ones, but the lag caused makes them worse than they actually are).

[Kontinuum]

Last seasons top Crusaders were up in the range of GR64, which was without the cube.

No cube, but also no crowd control nerf. I doubt we'll see Crusader GR 70.

The Chinese are crazy (assuming it's without Hellfire exploit)
https://www.diablorank.com/

[Deleted]

The solo leaderboards are skewed by the number of people playing specific classes, who are also playing 4man constantly, in as such gaining a lot more paragon levels, gears and gem levels.

So, for example, if you run a class that fits in a 4man, you'll get a lot more drops to that class, than simply by gambling and using the upgrade recipe. If, however, your class and spec doesn't fit in the optimal 4man team, you'll be running some other class, or doing solo runs, which means you won't be topping the solo leaderboards either.

Basically we should go through the solo leaderboards for every class, and remove all people who have more than a certain amount of paragon levels, indicating that they've clearly been running with multiplayer assistance, and then remove all the people who have gems higher than they should be able to have for their solo GR level, and so on. Then we'd get a much clearer indication of how the classes really stack up to each other, when truly played solo.

Then again, if you don't care about if you get carried by 3 other people and get gifted free XP and gear and higher gem levels than you're supposed to have for that leaderboard run, then why even bother discussing this?

[ThrashMetalFtw]

No, they are the most OP class in the game. Look at 4man GR leaderboards, all of the highest clears are 3 Barbs and 1 Monk.

[natrodamus]

Which Barb spec do you find the most useful with very little to no ancient pieces?

6 wastes (WW) just does not feel strong enough after GR50, but it is my go to for normal rifts and bounties.

6 IK with Gravel was like slamming people with a semi-truck but I felt so squishy

6IK +2WW (Rend) feels awesome until I get to the boss or let my Gem stacks fall. I really struggle with fury on a rift boss that doesn't have adds to perform quicker charges on.

[RuneDK]

I'm definitely interested in what the above poster is asking as well. I would like to push GR60 solo, but I am struggling at 51 and I have all ancient pieces for the sets except for shoulders and 2H IK weapon/ one of the swords in the BK set.

All my Leg Gems are level 50 and im 390 Paragon...maybe it'll just come with paragon?