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- Introduction to Diablo 4’s Current State
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Hello and welcome back to Diablo 4. The current state of this game is fascinating. Season 3 has overall been a pretty big mess, despite the variety of good things the active team has been trying to do with it. It just doesn’t change the fact that, say, Uber unique is this huge awkward problem for the game. It keeps being brought up when they do Pinnacle content.
Introduction to Diablo 4’s Current State
Then, forseason 3 specifically, you add on top of the unique stones to the construct and also some pretty insane class imbalance issues. And it’s all come so late. I mean, whatever your stance on The Gauntlet specifically is not the issues of Diablo 4. The Gauntlet was meant to be in the game quite some time ago, and certainly, at very least, the start of season 3, where we wouldn’t be so concerned with Ubers and such in those rankings. We wouldn’t have had nearly as much time to farm them.
Even so, at least the gauntlet serves a really important purpose: what are the best players capable of, and how it’s a measurable comparison of classes compared to not only themselves but also, of course, classes compared to other classes. Hell, I mean, isn’t it a fantastic thing to be able to just open the leaderboard like this, click on a name, view their profile? Oh, this can give me a really good indicator of what the best people are using, and that can be really helpful. Yeah, everyone’s profiles are private. I understand why they’re giving this option, but also, it really sucks.
Gameplay and Balance Issues
Solo Necromancer is at the bottom of the list, as pretty much expected, but you know, it is a lot closer than we thought. Our first player here, gbat, has got a score of 866,000. This is a noticeable gap from second place and beyond, especially compared to other classes. So, gbat here is doing a particularly good job. It’s just a damn shame we can’t learn why.
It is very likely we’re seeing a new meta aspect for mobility and Unstoppable generate function. Deal’s will go hard on the bone spears and even possibly bone spirit or even just bone spirit because that’s great for AOE clear in this environment and for just pushing speed clear as much as you can, which is what the gauntlet is all about.
Above Necromancer, though, is just barely Rogue at 874. However, the second place, third place, and fourth place are all above the second place of Necromancer, so this is a noticeable increase. It’s almost like the top of Necromancer is a bit of an anomaly, but very clearly.
Rogue’s Performance Analysis
Rogue is pushing ahead of Necromancer. It’s very likely due to the base speed of the class. Where Necromancer has the nice burst and DPS and is just very strong in a speed running environment, speed is obviously very important. But perhaps the Rogues aren’t pushing as hard as other classes because of their actual output. Their ability to clear everything on the screen instantly just isn’t as potent as the classes we’re going to talk about just above that.
Third place, though, is Druid at 886, at the top with Love Grace. Here, let’s roll the dice. Yeah, makes sense compared to that. We see 870 at second place, and then another 10K below that, another 10K below that. So, second place Necromancer would be six as a Druid. Once again, these scores are a lot tighter by comparison, and I think this shows, say, compared to the Rogues, that the pretty quick movement of, say, your werewolves makes a real impact.
They’re able to clear packs really effectively, everything on screen without having to awkwardly aim, say, you’re a rogue with penetrating shot, and you got to fire in those arcs, and the explosions, the way they work, versus putting out an attack that sort of spreads and deals damage on its own. So that’s the bottom three compared to each other and their scores.
Top Performers: Barbarian and Sorcerer
As per usual, especially when we think about the gauntlet, of course, it’s Barbarian and Sorcerer well above the others. Where we were talking about a 10 or 30,000 difference in score, now we’re looking at Barbarian with over 1 million at the top with Zerif here, which is pushing towards 200,000 points more than the bottom three. And it’s also very expected. The Barbarians are able to absolutely shatter anything on screen much more effectively than the other classes we spoke about, while also being pretty damn quick as a class.
But it’s obviously not number one, where Sorcerer has taken the top spot by another 200,000 points, nearly 400,000 more than say third place and beyond. They’re not just ahead; they’re leagues ahead. Let’s just check their profile and see what they’re doing. Yep, so Barbarians and Sorcerers, they’re ahead of everyone, right?
Class Dynamics and Player Concerns in the Gauntlet
Does that really matter when we’re talking about Sorcerers competing against other Sorcerers? Should a Necromancer player, who is the objectively weakest class right now, really be worried about what the Sorcerers are doing? I think it’s fair to say yes and no, and it’s fair to say that a lot of people are going to be upset by that because who wants to play the weakest class in the game? Just look at the gauntlet rankings, and you can see a staggering amount of Barbarian players as soon as it was revealed that Barbarian was just undeniably the best class for the gauntlet. The very same will be happening for Sorcerers; it’s just not represented in these leaderboards so clearly because they’re separated by categories in the gauntlet.
Barbarian Dominance and Sorcerer Potential
It was clear people stopped playing pretty much everything else to just play Barbarian because that was their best shot. It’s fair to assume that the same thing will happen again with Sorcerers and The Gauntlet. Right now, is it really imbalance, though? Is Necromancer really this much worse than a sorcerer, or is it just because Gauntlet favors speed, with the enemies being so easy?
I mean, sorcerer is both ultra-fast with the base movement and teleportation but also really effective at burst damage. If they had the same damage, maybe the rankings would be closer, but I’d still say it’s obviously the case that sorcerer would be better if they can get to what they need to quicker.
Exploring Class Imbalance and Gameplay Dynamics
It’s just imbalanced, and that’s always going to be the case because necromancers don’t have movement abilities and Sorcerers do. If they’re going to make it so the enemies aren’t really remotely a threat, like they’re much weaker than a tier 100, this is probably always going to be the case until they give Necromancer some sweeping mechanical changes, which is probably not going to happen until the expansion.
Comparing Pinnacle Challenges
Looking at a short history of endgame pinnacle challenges, the abattoir was about pushing through those insane health bars with max DPS at the same time and obviously being well invulnerable to damage yourself, or you just die. While the gauntlet is more like a speedrun execution challenge, you’re obviously trying to blast as fast as you can, but you do need to do it in an optimal way. If this is how they’re going to design pinnacle challenges, maybe it’s just the case that the abattoir does lean for Barbarian play style. The Gauntlet does suit Sorcerers.
Maybe the next one will suit a rogue or Druid, or maybe Necromancer better, or is that raw copium speaking? I think so because how do you design something that’s going to be better for a necromancer?
Introduction to Seasonal Changes
I think it’s really clever. It’s really well done; it’s just obviously come really late and at a time where there are just some serious foundational problems with Diablo 4. So, yeah, of course, it’s the dreaded Uber unique grind that comes into play once again. A fantastic addition in season 2 to give us a chance to finally get those awesome impactful items that essentially didn’t exist before then.
It just so happens to be only one activity you can do, and it just so happens to be mindless and dull as hell. So, only the grindy and most determined players are going to waste their time doing that in the current state of things, and in turn, these players are going to have the strongest, best chance in the tactical challenges such as the gauntlet.
If you could actually look at their profiles, it wouldn’t be a coincidence that they’re all using ideal UB uniques, such as the obvious like Sho’s Helm and so on. So, UB uniques, that’s the thing we knew that from the start. It’s back again in The Gauntlet.
The Problem with Uber Uniques
Is it a problem? You could argue right that Ubers should be an advantage the people put in the grueling time to get these items; they’ve earned that power. Now, perhaps for season 2 and season 3, but please not again in season 4, that’s my opinion. If they were to remove this grind to make them so much more common that you’re expected to get at least one or two throughout the course of a season, rather than having to do a mindless grind, or if they made the mindless grind significantly kinder, it might work better if you’re going to choose to create a competition of any kind.
Impact on Player Engagement
Because it soils the interest, right? If most players are discouraged from trying, what’s the point of trying the gauntlet beyond one or two goes if you can’t compete on the leaderboard at all? You just don’t have the best items, so you don’t have a chance. So, what do you think? How would you fix a problem like this? For me, obviously, as
Reflections on The Gauntlet in Diablo 4
I’ve said season 2 and Season 3season 3 they had the abattoir, they had the gauntlet, and you had the no-life grinders getting rewarded. Season 4, I just want them to be so common that we get to use them and whatever challenge they give us it’s more fair, especially from the start.
So, maybe in season 4, it will feel better with it being there at launch. Overall, though, it is nice to be able to just go to a thing and go, “Hey, look, here’s how my class is doing compared to the others,” and maybe these raw stats and numbers will show the devs that classes like Necromancer, Druid, and Rogue maybe need more of a push for season 4. So, I think the gauntlet is going to be good for the game overall; it’s just a rough time right now.
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