Diablo 3 - 1.0.4 Barbarian and Wizard Previews

[RPGWatch]

Blizzard has continued previewing the Diablo III changes in v1.0.4 with looks at the Barbarian:

One of our primary goals with class changes in patch 1.0.4 is to help improve build diversity. Of course, this has been a goal for the Diablo III development team since launch, but our approach this patch has been a little different. For 1.0.4, we're taking a good look at some of the most unpopular skills for each class, figuring out why they aren't being used in your builds, and then seeing how we can make them better -- either by redesigning how they work or just buffing the hell out of them.

For barbarians, we focused on improving the following areas:

• Bash and Cleave are not very attractive compared to Frenzy
• Many of the damage-oriented Fury Spenders don't do enough damage to justify the spot on your bar

...and the Wizard:

Like the other classes, the wizard is also seeing a lot of tuning improvements to help promote build diversity. Rather than focus on those minor adjustments, though (which you'll be able to learn more about in the 1.0.4 patch notes), I'm going focus the majority of this preview on Hydra.

Here are the major points I'll cover:

• Skill design philosophy for Diablo as a whole
• What makes Venom Hydra as strong as it is
• Why, rather than nerfing Venom Hydra, we're simply going to buff all the other Hydra variants