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Visualizing Power Gaps @ End PTR ||||||||||||*||||
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U P D A T E D 04 . 04 . 2015 |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||*|||||| (59) Barbs ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||*||||||||||| (52) Saders ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||*|||||| (53) Demon Hunters ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||*||||||||||||| (52) Witch Docs |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||*|||||||| (54) Monks |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||*|||||||||| (54) WiZards ----------------------------------------- T H E D A T A ---------------------------------------------- What you are looking at above is a visualization of the Greater Rift distribution between the top 500 ranked players for each class on the PTR as of 04.04.2015, corresponding to sample size of 3,000 active PTR players. The '*' denotes the rank of the 500th rank player in each class, and every '|' is a GR level. The thing to keep in mind is that the difficulty for GR's is exponential, not linear, here is a nice chart to give you a better idea: http://diablo.incgamers.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/grift-diff-table.png Each level you go up, the monster HP grows by 17% and dmg by 13.2% until level 26, then the monster damage increases by only 10% per level. If we want to determine relative power differences based of the distribution above we need to map out the differences in monster HP, and thus how much damage you need to deal, at each of the ranked GRift levels.
GR 53 = 7,025% HP GR 54 = 8,220% HP GR 59 = 18,022% HP *updated* UPDATED 4.4.15: The difference in HP, and thus the damage you need to kill monsters, between GR 52 and GR 59 is 12,017% basically 3X higher. That means you will need to be 3x more powerful (both in DMG + Toughness) to go from gr 52 to gr 59. What would the adjusted relative power difference between classes be based on the numbers above? Well let's set GR 52 as the baseline with a 1x multiplier, which I will denote using '||' in base10 increments.
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||| (1.4x) Wizards [54] |||||||||||||||||||||||||||| (1.4x) Monks [54] |||||||||||||||||||||||| (1.2x) Demon Hunters [53] |||||||||||||||||||| (1x) Saders [52] |||||||||||||||||||| (1x) Witch Docs [52] EDIT: Let us treat (POWER) as = (Total Damage) + Toughness (CC + HP + RESISTS) as it will take more than just Damage to complete 59. So to say a barb is 3x more powerful than a WD means to imply a combination of damage and toughness. A N A L Y S I S 04 . 07 . 2015
4, 3, 2 Player Leaderboards at PTR END: http://tinyurl.com/PTRrank B A R B S [59] have gone from being 9x more powerful than the lowest class down to only being 3x more powerful in terms of relative GR progression difficulty than the two lowest classes (Saders & WD). Compared to Demon Hunters their relative power drops down to 2.6x and barbs are only 2.2x more powerful than Wizards and Monks based on the same scale. There is still a considerable gap in is solo leader boards obviously, so without any further changes or bug fixes we can expect Barbs to be well ahead in solo GR progression thanks to the re-inclusion of Pylons into greater rifts without question. The rulers of sanctuary saw it fit to give the Barbs the most buffs in this patch so the recommendation is to roll a Barb for 2.2 as they are now faster, tougher and more powerful than they were before. W i Z A R D S & M O N K S [54] will be very strong in the next patch as well and have a lot of build changing gear that will make them more competitive than they have ever been! It might finally be possible for WiZards to make it into Top 4 player leader boards for the first time in D3 unless you believe the claims that Demon Hunters have been sandbagging the GR results. Based on our own testing we were able to get to the very top of the leader boards using 2x Wizards, 1 WD, 1 Sader. Tal's Set, although powerful, is one of the most difficult sets to use requiring WiZards to use 4 different elemental skills, each with a 6 second buff timer, just to maintain their set buff up time. In conjunction with Focus & Restraint timing stacks and Arcane Dynamo stacks, wizards can have up to 7 different timers to deal with before reaching maximum power which only lasts 6 seconds and requires a full rotation every 9-24 seconds. To reach the top level of WiZard play with this set requires an INSANE amount of micro within very narrow timing windows. D E M O N H U N T E R S [53] are actually expected to be continue being the #1 DPS class moving into patch 2.2. Despite what these results indicate on the PTR, DH's on live area already able to reach GR60+, without the benefit of newer and more powerful gear or sets, and stand to become even more powerful once the patch hits live. S A D E R S & W D [52] did get some love this patch but are just slightly below the other classes in GR ranking. Undoubtedly, their roles as the best utility/support classes in the game will continue into 2.2 and with new gears and sets to play with should hold us over until the next major content patch.
Edited by Innovium#1487 on 4/6/2015 6:16 PM PDT
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T H O U G H T S 03 / 15 / 15So the first thing that will happen is that some groups of people, whom shall not be named, will take offense to this data in some way thus leading to a lot of trolling and attacks on the OP. So lets get the easy stuff out of the way shall we: There is a more fundamental issue at heart here, and it plays on a lot of players (and even perhaps devs) misconceptions about what power is, and how it works in light of infinite progression. First we need to correct some very blaring misconceptions I've seen thrown around in various threads. Misconception 1: Just buff other classes up to the same level.
Misconception 2: Do you want us to be stuck at 50 forever?
Misconception 3: This doesn't affect anyone else so who cares.
Misconception 4: I'm having so much fun with Barb don't nerf our damage!
Misconception 5: Moving higher up an infinite number chain = Progression
Now what if I told you the new patch didn't buff any damage at all, all it did was reduce the difficulty by the equivilent of(2) T levels so that T6 = T4, GR40 = GR34. In fact, it could be argued that doing a stealth nerf to the monster difficulties would have been a better method of giving the players a sense of"progression" given that no balancing issues would have arisen and players would still see they are higher up the ranks. Increasing player power or reducing monster difficulty achieves the same result so we need to stop the focus on getting higher and higher and higher because we could do the exact same thing by going lower and lower and lower using a different metric of the same numbers scale. Lets look at it from another perspective.. Lets buff damage output by 100,000% for all classes but WD's get 200,000% because they are the FotM! Wow that is an amazing feeling, for the first few days, they can now complete GR 90 no problem. In fact, in T6 and Bounty modes everything just dies when you walk on screen, you don't even have to press a button you just walk near something and it dies (try watching some modders playing D3 on console). The trade off for all this power, and this sense of "progression" is the complete and utter destruction of all T6 and bounty game modes and any semblance of balance between classes. So can we agree in principle that there is a point at which the power creep goes too far? That if we continue down the path of infinite power creep along the scale of an infinite progression system that there will come a point where it doesn't matter if you are playing GR 50 or 5000? That IS the path we are on, I've simply accelerated the time scales in the above example. The more important system of progression, I would argue, is in advancing the game play mechanics, improved gear choices, and improved skill synergies while further refining the balance between classes. If players could feel comfortable playing every class knowing that while there were pro's and con's for each, that they would still be able to achieve relatively similar levels of power, then we could extract even more excitement out of the game. ... more to come later ...
Edited by Innovium#1487 on 4/6/2015 3:17 PM PDT
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-1
I dont see one bit of information pertaining to testing of any sets, items or builds for this PTR. Post information on testing, findings and recommendations or take this !@#$ to general discussion where it belongs. |
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You overlooked one thing. Compare those out the two leaderboard between Live, PTR and Selecte higher things then you've got the high accruacy
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it can be reasonably assumed that since this is based off the rankings of these individuals, being the 500 highest, that they are reasonably (probably equally) geared and knowledgable about how to play and maximize build and focus. While of course no graph is going to be perfect, this reasonably shows the concerns of the overall class balancing issues. |
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Of course rankings show something is out of kilt, however we dont need to replicate that in a forum post. The devs are after constructive feedback, ie........... What set did you test? What did you like? What did you dislike? Any other comments or observations? This post does not contribute in any way shape or form to the PTR apart from copying a piece of information which the devs can obtain a the push of a button themselves. If the OP wants to contribute, how about test a set, or weapon and get a discussion going on that experience. |
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I have been playing the IK set since launch on hardcore, as I dislike the Raekor play style.
Though I am thoroughly enjoying the PTR and being overpowered, I have to agree being able to do 54 GR's on harcore while all other classes are around 45, seems a tad imbalanced. My suggestion (and I am 100% blizzard will do something) is to simply scale back the damage modifier from having COTA + WOTB active at the same time. I also feel that being able to have 6set IK and 4set wastes is imbalanced and should be resolved. IK is a pet spec, wastes is a whirlwind set. PS change the title of the thread or it will be locked, full caps is against forum rules. |
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Absolutely. It shows that the balance between all of the classes is actually quite good with Barbarians being the clear outlier. |
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not really, the issue is people freaking out over bugged alpha versions of sets that have a multitude of unintended synergies. This is ptr, we are testing first versions of sets that got designed a few days ago. |
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Just a reminder, Wizard was in No.2 spot not on PTR but on 2.1's actual release as well, but by the end of 2.1 it was dead last.
Same thing with 2.0, when it first came out everyone think wizard is top, but turns out to be worst class.
Edited by Rognar#1625 on 3/15/2015 7:05 PM PDT
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OMG, another Barbs are OP, only TL;DR This has never been pointed out before, maybe ad nauseam ya think? Please do something constructive and tell us something we don't know already. Just think if you put forth the same effort it took for that post to actually provide helpful feedback on gear you are testing.
Edited by GenghisKhan#1476 on 3/15/2015 7:01 PM PDT
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remember that the difference isn't 1 lvl, it's orders of magnitude. so no i dont think that it's reasonably balanced at initial view saders and WDs are lagging behind pretty hard core
Edited by GavinRien#1701 on 3/15/2015 7:07 PM PDT
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The thing is, it doesn't matter what you test if a basic mechanic in the game is limiting your options so much it's completely useless once you reach a certain level. Damage scaling severely restricts you to a few gimmick builds in high GR's. I not so sure the actual dps between the classes is as unbalanced as the OP seems to think, but Barbs sure have much better damage mitigation and CC that lets them push higher GR's, with the current damage scaling. |
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while knowing a set is imbalanced is nice, being able to show it and demonstrate it numerically is even better. Also no post has been officially made that even acknowledges the concern and so it is important that people post quality discussions identifying the problem and possible solutions. Sometimes these threads get into the mechanics of why it is this way beyond just sets, but also how the game and builds have devolved and pigeon-holed classes. |
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All that needs to be done to rectify that is a small buff to Sweep Attack. |
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PTR stands for "Public Test Realm"
They key word there is test. So test and provide feedback, thats why the test server exists along with a specific thread called.......Focused feedback. If your not testing and posting your results/findings and feedback, your speculating. Of which this thread is a prime example. Speculation does not benefit the devs in any way shape or form. Nor are the devs required to answer our feedback, thats their prerogative and as the PTR hasnt even been up a week, Id prefer they spent their time analyising our findings than posting in the PTR forum. I suggest you go and look at the focused feedback thread, examine the feedback about barbs, by barbs, who tested barbs. Some of the things they highlight include unintended synergies and solutions which if resolved will dramatically affect the classes overall performance in Grifts.
Edited by CC123#1310 on 3/15/2015 7:23 PM PDT
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On the contrary CC123 you are very confused and misguided as I have provided empirical data, not subjective information on how something feels, as that is the best data to use to determine objective action on power differences between classes. NONE OF THAT IS SPECULATION. I suspect you did not care to even read my analysis below the data and were the quickest to jump on the attack showing full well your bias on this matter before taking a moment to think about what you were saying. It does not matter one iota if the class in question were the wizard, the witch doctor, a new class called the blarflags, that would not change the numerical, factual or empirical data one bit!!! Please do not lecture us on the merits of providing proper feedback while you've done nothing in this thread but spew vile vitriol on somehow not meeting the criteria of a PTR forum by presenting HARD NUMBERS with a detailed breakdown of the data point distribution between classes with adjustments for inflation visualized in an easy to understand manner. Apparently now hard factual evidence somehow qualifies as speculation.. But most importantly you have failed to understand the very intent of this thread. It's not to hurt your feelings, it's to V I S U S A L I Z E P O W E R G A P S. If you have anything constructive to add to the discussion, beyond misguided critiques of everyone for not providing testing feedback properly, then please feel free to do so in a more composed manner relevant to the topic at hand (read title).
Edited by Innovium#1487 on 3/15/2015 8:00 PM PDT
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I just wanted to add that, if something like Blood Shards does indeed remain tied to highest Solo-Greater Rift level, and this kind of power gap is not eventually smoothed out, it would likely lead to a lot of irritated players. There is still plenty of time to test and I am not sweating things as they are right now. That is why the PTR exists after all. |
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Innovium, this is solid work, but page is right. You also need to understand where CC is coming from. All serious barbs know IK is completely out of whack. There are bugs and synergies that just can't go live.
However, the number of threads complaining about IK is completely out of control. The problem we are having now is a lack of viable suggestions vs. every Tom, Dick and Harry suggesting a random tweak that will "fix everything." That is what CC was referring to in regards to speculation. It's drowning out page's input. At very first glance (and the all caps thread title doesn't help), the OP could be interpreted (whether fair or not) as a cleverly veiled !@#$% thread about Barbs. I could tell from your wording and presentation that it wasn't, but I ask you to understand why some people might be very annoyed by it: Everyone knows IK is broken (including and especially the devs), what we need is more conversation about how to fix it, not more fuel for the fire that drives random noobs to make clutter complaint threads and posts. |
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Or maybe its a wd/saders are underpowered thread. |
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