Bad news, fellow Barbarians: a major Diablo 4 patch released today puts an untimely end to one of the most powerful endgame builds by fixing a bug that was causing Hammer of the Ancients to do more damage than expected.

Like other builds we have seen, this particular barbarian relies on a very specific combination of abilities and equipment, but ultimately hinges on the Hammer of the Ancients skill, which uses two-handed blunt weapons to deal massive damage in a narrow area directly in front of the player The power of this skill is decisive. Critical to the power of this skill is the Legendary Spectre "Ancestral Force," which allows a certain percentage of the damage to radiate outward.

This is complex, and is common in the generally overpowered Diablo 4 builds, but Maxroll.gg has a breakdown of how it all fits together. Some aspects of the Barbarian were reduced in the patch. For example, you can no longer stack the Rip, Skullbreaker, and Anemia aspects to deal "extreme damage," but a change that is particularly relevant to this build is that the Quake granted to Hammer of the Ancients by the Ancestral Echo aspect's This is a fix for "an issue where the outer edge was causing much more damage than intended.

As it turns out, it does quite a bit more damage: according to redditor Soysauceonrice, PC barbarian players were intentionally missing enemies with their hammer swings and instead taking damage due to the area of effect bug. (The bug existed on all platforms, but was most easily exploited on PC, according to the post.)

Blizzard acknowledges the magnitude of this change in a short developer memo." We recognize that this adjustment is a significant reduction in the Hammer of the Ancients Barbarian build, but we do not want to make its strength dependent on an underlying bug."

The existence of the bug was widely known, as was Blizzard's plan to fix it. For example, earlier this month Diablo 4 Daily talked about the Hammer of the Ancients bug:

Despite this notice, many players on the Diablo 4 subreddit were not happy with the change. 'The nerfed [Heart of the Ancients] made sure it never killed Uber Lilith ever and nerfed Hamstring to no avail. The class is dead."

"Hot garbage, less Shockwave damage, less vulnerable dmg, less crit dmg, all four weapons we can get nerfed and less armor," MidgeMo_o opined .

"Right now it's a shitty class and a shitty build.

"There is no point in playing this shit until the 20th, you can leave Barb to die slowly and HoTA shoutless barbs are not wanted," Tretrue3 spat." Blizzard's uncommon L punishes us for not wanting to fucking scream and is useless for 10 seconds after spinning for the win."

Not everyone was upset about the change: Soysauceonrice, for example, admitted that the bug "needed to be fixed."

"There were tons of sniffing barbs snorting copium claiming that the damage was intentional. I think we got our answer."

It's a tough situation for Blizzard; as Diablo 4 Daily says, this is a bug fix, not a nerf. It was never intended for Barbarian to do that kind of damage with its special abilities. However, players who designed their builds around this bug can understandably be disappointed to see their character slowed down unless they respec.

Of course, it is not only Barbarians who are unhappy. Sorcerer was also nerfed by the patch, but unlike Barbarian, the player consensus is that it already sucks.