Probably a minority opinion here, but I don't mind using the shouts. The part I'd personally change is make them more like the D3 shouts where they were multiple-minute long effects, and you didn't have to endlessly spam them. I am entirely okay with not having to press all six powers constantly, I'm all for having some of them be longer-term effects or more situational.That said, I'd love to see Rend buffed into relevance for Barbarians. As much as I normally love spinning to win, I'm getting kind of tired of both Earthquakes and Whirlwind.
The first thing they should change is how Dust Devil works. It should function like in Diablo 3, where you move and "leave tornados behind you." Not the way they implemented it now, where the tornados spread randomly across the screen and barely hit anything.Secondly, they should change the fury cost/gain ratio. It's ridiculous to have to constantly worry about fury management all the time.
I think the biggest problem is not mentioned here: you don't see ground effects, when there is an earthquake on top. And with all the buffs to the liar bosses this is really annoying.Nothing is more frusrating when you can't see a one-shott incoming.
I love shouts. They are THE Barbarian thing. It's why the Barbarian's face is featured IN THE GRAPHICAL TOOLTIP for the Shouts! I think this WoWhead guide writer is just a bloke who doesn't like shouts. Basically, he is biased. I am certainly LOVING shouts on my Barb. I loved them on Day 1 of D4, and still love them now. And there were times when we didn't even run an Ultimate skill, so I am GLAD we also run an Ultimate every season now. Imo, Barbs are in a good spot.The REAL problem in the game is that if you do not Overpower, you cannot tap into a 10x or higher multiplier that OTHER good builds/specs/classes WILL build into. Do you want to be 10 to 12x weaker than everyone else? No? Then you MUST play an overpower build. This needs fixed first, as it affects ALL classes. It's a MUCH WORSE issue than "lol Barb shouts."
I hate shouts, even though they are THE Barbarian thing. It's why the Barbarian's face is featured IN THE GRAPHICAL TOOLTIP for the Shouts! I think the commenter above me is just a bloke who likes shouts. Basically, he is biased. I am certainly HATING shouts on my Barb. I hated them on Day 1 of D4, and still hate them now. And there were times when we didn't even run an Ultimate skill, so I am GLAD we also run an Ultimate every season now. Imo, Barbs are in a good spot.
Love the shouts because it makes me feel like I support people around me and actually interact with others a bit.
I blame it to lack of unique items introduced each season. Unique items are an ideal way to alter gameplay. We get 1 unique for each class and its either bad or mandatory and forcing you into certain skills. (Mantle from season 7, that chest is very clunky to use and not to mention it was bugged entire season despite the numerous hotfixes to it, to achieve 150 pit you had to abuse it and had no alternative)Bleed builds got heavily gutted since they changed the crit damage modifier from multiplicative to additive on the "gushing wounds" node at the bottom of the talent tree, well as the grandfather nerf from 200x to 100x crit dmg which made the mythic item just as useless as the other 2 handed mythic weapons. Its not worth giving up tempering and an aspect at double value.I like the state of Barbarians, shouts are really good skills. They provide a lot of utility which are essential and are much appreciated for highest tiers of pit where you need to stand still and can't afford to run around because the timer is tight as is. If anything they should add more glyphs that actually provide multiplicative damage to other aspect of barbarians toolkit, as there are many terrible glyphs and most of the time barbarians take "Marshal" because there simply isn't an alternative thus forcing us into using all 3 shouts. Getting insane amount of cdr and near 100% uptime with "Blood of the chieftain" aspect.If they remove shouts or merge them into one or something they should add more meaningful utility aspects as right now they are terrible even on a niche level. Not to mention that they changed the dazed and x multiplicative damage to unstoppable enemies into offensive aspects making legendary feet and pants bad and unique options are also lacking.
Shouts right now are in a similar boat to Sorcerer's Firebolt Enchantment before they changed it in S7: Mandatory to play any build, even if you don't want to lean into them. It was also the similar problem Sorcerer had (and still has?) in always taking Teleport + Flame Shield + Frost Nova (and in some cases, Ice Armor too).If I want to piano-key multiple buffs, every few seconds, that is what PoE and their flasks are for in many builds. Diablo 4 is my "turn brain off" ARPG experience, mostly.And I get that there is no easy solution to fix Shouts, that doesn't require heavy changes to the balance of the class as a whole. But if anything were to make people use non-Shout skills (or at least invest away from all the shouts), it would have to come in the form of making more inter-connecting functions between skills. If you want people to have a reason to put skill points elsewhere, make it so that there is something to encourage that choice. Having passive clusters where it not only increases mechanical damage (ie: Bleed, Earthquake, Dust Devil, etc.), but make it scale based on relevant skills being invested in (2-3 skills per effect that can impact it). So the Earthquake one scales with points in Upheaval/HotA (make it only use the highest of the two, as both are Core skills), Leap, and Ground Stomp, as an example.I will say, at the root of the issue as a whole: Every guide writer, and moreso the playerbase, assumes game state needs to be "This can do a Pit 100+, or it's bad". No... that tier of content is intended for a small, niche, level of builds. Last Epoch kinda solved this predicament by outright stating "We balance the endgame to around 300 Corruption in Monoliths. If you are pushing past that, only some builds will work and carry you that far". And that part is fine. It's something that the devs need to say, and the community NEEDS to accept: Not everything can do anything.
Remove overpower from the game.
