Windforce was great in D1 and D2. D3 and D4 windforce is a salvage material

Bowazon in the heyday of WF in D2LOD revolved around two kinds of gameplay: 1. Multishot spam killing monsters off screen, and knock back keeping them off screen. Genuinely OP against melee only monsters, and at the high end was also good against ranged monsters although not nearly as OP. 2. Guided arrow used to pierce and return to the original target it hit to hit it again, pierce again, and keep going. On top of that, the knock backs would shove the target around in a really satisfying and disabling way. Reaching 100% chance to pierce was possible, and did exactly what you think it would. Every arrow would continue piercing and returning to the boss until the boss died. This caused balance and supposedly game performance issues. To recreate these playstyles in D4 in the current balance patch of season 4: 1. WF should be used with penetrating shot to mimic multishot. This is the clear skill. To accomplish this, the bow should turn Penetrating shot into a Basic skill which deals X% less damage and fires two additional primary penetrating shot projectiles on either side of the original. 2. WF should be used with Heartseeker to re create the guided arrow single target. WF should have a modifier on it which allows heartseeker projectiles to pierce and return to their original target. This should be a lucky hit proc, which goes well with Heartseeker and can be tuned to be cool and noticeable with an ordinary amount of lucky hit investment, but good enough with lucky hit investment that investing in lucky hit and ramping up this effect is the most effective way to scale single target damage while wielding the bow. 100% chance to return to hit the target again shouldn’t be obtainable so that the individual hit damage of each projectile can be balanced around a non infinite ramp. These changes would justify changing WF to an Uber unique, which would solve the issue of everyone wanting to play PenShot or Heartseeker needing the item to feel optimal or to have the gameplay they are imagining. It would make WF an aspirational item, as it was in D2LOD, but would also make it deterministically accessible, which I think would be a good change relative to it’s random and unobtainable feeling stature in D2LOD.

Bring back Yang's Recurve! :) Even as an uber! With Windforce, maybe permanent shadow clone that mimics all of your core attacks (essentially 2x projecticles) and turn knockback to only knock down with a freeze mechanic. Add Frigid to it for more damage synergy with the freeze.

They are so afraid to make uniques really powerful, and in doing so, they made most of them absolutely worthless, un-fun vendor trash. If they can't give us tempering on them (with increased ranges over legendaries) - then they need to double the strength of the unique's power at the very least. Between being balanced and fun, i think they should choose fun. All of rogue Bow's are hot trash, not to mention they couldn't cook up a single unique xbow, after for some reason making Buriza just a regular wep.

Windforce would be nice if it did change barrage to a weaker Rain of arrows that can also trigger Word of Hakan.

Bowazon in the heyday of WF in D2LOD revolved around two kinds of gameplay: 1. Multishot spam killing monsters off screen, and knock back keeping them off screen. Genuinely OP against melee only monsters, and at the high end was also good against ranged monsters although not nearly as OP. 2. Guided arrow used to pierce and return to the original target it hit to hit it again, pierce again, and keep going. On top of that, the knock backs would shove the target around in a really satisfying and disabling way. To recreate these playstyles in D4 in the current balance patch of season 4: 1. WF should be used with penetrating shot to mimic multishot. This is the clear skill. To accomplish this, the bow should turn Penetrating shot into a Basic skill which deals X% less damage and fires two additional primary penetrating shot projectiles on either side of the original. 2. WF should be used with Heartseeker to re create the guided arrow single target. WF should have a modifier on it which allows heartseeker projectiles to pierce and return to their original target. This should be a lucky hit proc, which goes well with Heartseeker and can be tuned to be cool and noticeable with an ordinary amount of lucky hit investment, but good enough with lucky hit investment that investing in lucky hit and ramping up this effect is the most effective way to scale single target damage while wielding the bow.

Remove the knock back keep it 40% to knockdown, give barrage straight up double damage. Also change the animation and sound for some eye candy.

What if the knockback was "reverse knockback" as such that it pulls enemies instead. That would still fit with the existing theme and synergize with the skill.

As a fan of barrage, I think it would be far more interesting for Windforce to change the way barrage behaves, similar to the rapid fire ring.

Why not make windforce change how barrage works just like the ring for rapid fire? Make it so all arrows hit one target and then branch off of that one target?

Barrage should have been what rapid fire looks like with the scoundrel ring. A ranged skill that drops barrage of arrows, not shoot forward.

But why use combo points? That item greatly calls for only casting barrage it seems, can it be done though, non generation on rogue?

can you recommend some creativ sorc player?

How do u get ur healtbar above ur player?

Nice catch with the update. Hope they get this changed as well. I have some suggestions, let me know if its any good. Skystrike - LH chance for basic skills to fire rain of arrows. RoA are always cold imbued. Windforce - enemies are knocked back/down by marksman skills. Killed enemies within 3 seconds explode with shadow damage Eaglehorn - cuthroat skills deal poison damage and have a chance to infect nearby enemies

Ditch the core dmg for 50% chance to cast twice remove the knocback and make it do 2x every shot. Make it apply to core skills. Also make it a mythic unique. Boom🎉

Hey Wudi, did Blizzard not say PTR would not include the big changes for existing uniques? Only new Uniques, or did they squeeze them in last minute?

In the project diablo 2 mod for d2 Windforce spawned tornadoes on hit, it kept with the wind theme well I thought.

Making it work for RF (not considering Scoundrel's Kiss) could be really nice to keep enemies at a distance. To make it stronger WF could just always proc... Maybe the knockback could be changed to a "pull in".

Windforce was at it's best in D2 LoD v1.09 when Guided arrow would penetrate the same target multiple times. When the multishot was good.

We need to be able to craft on uniques, not temper but craft. Tempers in general could be rebalanced a bit.

When I hear the name Windforce it makes me think of Speedforce from The Flash. Would be cool if like how the flash gets his powers from the speedforce and controls it, we could get windforce powers and control wind. What would we do by controlling wind? Make barrage fly towards enemies as well as have the wind boost how fast the arrows fly so they do more damage and have the wind infused arrows knock back enemies. So basically the same thing but now you don't have to worry about missing. Honestly I kinda wish they went back to having it work for all marksman skills tho. Edit: I guess it might be better if instead of shooting arrows you shot wind blades/bolts/whatever instead.

If you look back to what truly made D2 uniques special, there was almost always a range of dmg %, there was usually something cool like +3 to all amazon skills, and added to that, there was often times on uniques a % chance to cast a strong skill from another class. 29% chance to cast amplify damage. That is so good, because who wouldn't want a curse that strong being applied so often? These unique items made the game what it is. Windforce in D2 was special because it allowed more mana hungry builds a way of leeching and sustaining resource. It also had the knockback, but it also had considerably higher base. The other problem with unique WEAPONS in D4 is that their damage is tpo closely locked to item power. What about Windforce having its maximum damage affix given back from D2? So whereas any other bow would have like 3700 damage, it might have 4200 (give it a range from 300~400). I know I'm bouncing between D2 and D4 in comparison here but it really shows the difference when you look at the old Windforce compared to what it is now. The other massive L that D4 takes is, Uniques drop way too often and they're way too weak. You need them to be actually rare enough to where when they drop you get that dopamine hit. And because they're not as common, make them super super strong and give them effects that legendaries cannot compete with. You can play through Normal>Hell all the way up to your mid 80's and not find your Thunderstrokes. But what happens if you do a playthrough and you find it early? You're PSYCHED. And if you don't find T-strokes early? There are other ways of achieving higher damage output (not quite as good but still competitive) like shopping javs in Act 5 Nightmare for +30% IAS / +3 to jav skills. It isn't a comparison to Tstrokes but it still will get the job done until you can farm it. For this reason, builds that would be heavily impacted from a unique, don't RELY on that unique. I hate that all of these uniques are adding special effects to skills like Scoundrel's Kiss. As Wudi said in a past video, make a bunch of OPTIONS for rogues to choose how to buff their Rapid Fire without shoehorning them into one. That's my rant. They need to steal some D2 magic, and I get it, they thought people wanted D2 all the way and that wasn't true, but the UNIQUE items in D2 are the most special a Diablo franchise has ever seen.

I had this item drop with all four GAs and got so excited until i realized it was trash. Does anyone know if item can be updated to the newer items in later versions or is it always 'locked' with its current stats?

The core damage is useless additive damage, completely unnoticeable. Ranks to impetus is trash as well because it's one use when you're going to be spamming 10+ barrages a second. I don't know why they continue to put absolutely awful affixes on uniques. We still have babby's first dev team at the helm making terrible decisions somehow.

They need to add the %chance to cast barrage twice temper on to the item. And also another special effect that makes barrage shoot a tighter spread.

To stay on theme. I would change it to all barrage are cold imbued and knock down. That alone would make it very desirable.

Plenty of ways they could make it unique: Turning a skill into the Arrow Storm stuff they've been pushing, chance to fire other Core Marksman skills, Tornado Shot from PoE, Wind Arrows concept from WoW (basically repeat tempers but less damage when repeated), always Cold Imbued & Reverse Knockback around enemies hit, slap on Core + Innervation ranks & have each Marksman skill used increase the damage of the others (playing multiple core skills on Rogue again), no longer gain Attack Speed but Attack Speed is turned into Damage, applying Thorns to damage dealt with the bow, both the Phys & Cold damage Tempers with Knockback/Knockdown & Double Damage, etc. "Funny"(unique but also lazy) would be giving it 2-3 Marksman related aspects. Could always make it "The Grandfather" of bows by removing the Barrage part and passive affixes, then adding a big Lucky Hit chance and 100% recast.

Reverse knockback would make it somewhat viable

40% chance to cause marksman skills to overpower would be an interesting aspect for windforce

... 24 or so years ago I traded 100 SOJs for one Windforce ... was the best time. Loved the windforce amazon in D2 LOD cow level all day every day

They need to just add a Lucky hit: knock back as one of the base affixes, similar to the tempers we can take on armors... Then just make an actually interesting unique power. Making such an iconic bow a barrage-only item is such a disappointment

Either make Windforce only knockback non-elites and give it 100% chance to cast Barrage twice, OR, Redeisgn it to function only with Forceful Arrow, which already loves knockback. Something like, "When using this bow, Forceful Arrow gains all benefits from Weapon Mastery passive and both of it's skill upgrades." Or something.

Uniques need to drop with random tempers. Makes finding a BiS one very very hard, but also very very good if you do find a "Windforce" with Barrage temper for example.

Back in D1, Windforce was the first really good item I ever found. It was incredible, because of the damage and because, with only Teleport as a movement skill, knockback was SUPER good. They should, at the very least, change it from "Barrage" to "Core skills" (or "Basic and Core skills")

If we had a better way to pull enemies in this would be okay. Most rogue uniques are in a weird place. I've used some pants and boots to get massive damage reduction from close on a build, but it's still super gimmicky and you lose too much functionality.

Hopefully we can get 1 temper on uniques.

Nothing makes me angrier than the fact all our unique bows suck, especially that Windforce does. I have played Diablo since D1 and have a lot of nostalgia for Windforce, and every season I try to make a build with it and never end up playing it much because it's bad. For the love of God, fix our bows geez!

How many patches and seasons will it take to make Windforce good?

Hope they add multi shot instead of barrage. And also add back sentry. I love the DH in D3 but not so much in D4. The core still need redesign for rouge.

Blizzard needs to do something about rapid fire for consoles because HOLY SHIT I have 6 enemies right in my face hitting my character and the damn thing shoots at an enemy off screen. I died 3 times because of that today.

They should give windforce the effect that forceful arrow has, for all arrows and plus 1 pierce

what's crazy about WFs status in D4 is that in D2 it was one of the ultimate godly uniques. they need to rework it into mythic status

Maybe I should slow enemies with a 40% chance and knock back slowed enemies.

1. Wind force was a very rare and powerful unique in D2. 2. Wind force had mana leach. In other words make it a Mythic unique and add energy leech and maybe life leach or some other crazy unique property, but please don’t limit it to 1 skill!

Which of the geniuses who rewoerked this item played barrage for like 5 minutes and thought:"man, I really would like it if the enemies were further away." You'd literally want the item to do the opposite.

Barblo IV... as always. They can't (or don't want to) balance this game but they always can buff Barb. Flay - the most OP build is buffed in PTR. Barb gets a new Aspect for Perma Berserking. Polearm gets buffed. Bash Nerf is replaced with OP items like Shard of Verathiel. One step forward and two steps back so in general they are going backwards. This PTR as a whole was a disaster without access to new items so we tested nothing.

we need a mystic uber unique bow or crossbow. In fact we need an uber unique for each kind of item and each gear slot.

Straight 25% chance to fire twice and imbue Windforce with a random imbuement for 8 secs, cycling on and off.

If we cant temper uniques let us just put an extra aspect on them. Solved

Knockback on its own is more of a nuisance for most builds than a desirable CC if they're set on keeping it on Windforce for the sake of nostalgia, then it needs to come with additional benefits when knockbacks proc, like being able to stun enemies against one another, or stunning them when they collide with walls Perhaps allow this knockback-stun to bypass Unstoppable

What if they gave uniques the ability to receive 1 temper

But doesn"t scoundrel's kiss does the same for rapid fire? If I want to go anywhere competitve (i.e. not fall back from my friends) I have to put scoundrel's kiss on. So it is a mandatory item RN. Sure it is not the same in regards of gained power but so far no rapid fire build go without this ring.

Need Buriza (ballista) with cold damage and +frigid finesse

Hear me out…change the effect from knocking down to grouping upLike godslayer. Could even automatically place a trap down when it pulls them together.

they should rework unique and uber unique items or at least give them +1/2 additional damage or skill stats ( + boost stats up), or add unique temper manuals that can give us desired stats on all uniques and uber uniques

To make uniques competitive against tempered legendaries, they have to either nerf tempering (by a lot) or give uniques really extraordinary stats to make up for tempering. Especially two handed uniques are extremely disappointing, compared to most 2x legendary aspects and tempering slots.

Tempering and aspects have significantly watered down the value of uniques. Uniques don't need to be super overpowered but they do need to be on par with well tempered and aspect gear or provide a "unique" function that takes a build to be competitive. One possible solution is allow uniques to be tempered. Let the uniques powers be slightly better or more functional than aspects..

If Barrage is the trigger, why doesn't it have +skill to Barrage and or Barrage dmg modifier. it should be just all range skills tbh.

Imagine bringing a bow class back with no multi shot.....

Just make windforce turn barrage into d2 multishot with the same amount of arrows you'd normally shoot from the barrage

How about we turn Uniques into common items we have to level up. We take them out and gain experience with them and POOF it levels to a Magic, then Rare and Legendary/Sacred/Ancient THEN becomes a base Unique that can have these "lesser" powers that when we continue to use gain more or stronger versions of said powers.

Uniques are not as good as legendary powers currently because you loose a aspect and tempering. We should be able to temper 1/2 on items and even let us put a aspect on it at 25-50% of the value

Keep knockback, drop knockdown, add arrows are guided.

thanks

We need Uber bows and daggers. Windforce should be an Uber bow

idk why they think a 40% aspect on a 4 affix item would be good... The aspect is Edgemaster but more inconsistent. Maybe go triple or quadruple and adjust the proc chance. Maybe they could then tweak things around to work well with shadow imbue since the big hits could pop and enemy which then causes some chain reactions (since shadow's weakness is generally needing a kill to get going). Also with the knockback, it feels like it would be better for regular rapid fire (which has been supplanted by the signet effect where the knockback would suck). I feel like you have to ditch the history, remove knockback and say knockdown is close enough. In general I'd like to see uniques have 4 "regular" affixes (things you find on regular items but without slot restrictions) and 2 "tempers" which are either existing tempers or things they could imagine being tempers in the future but are currently unique to these items.

Make it do double damage, only knockdown, and it still wouldn't be overpowered but would be unique and balanced. Does Blizzard not understand how truly powerful a legendary aspect and two tempers are on a 2h weapon?

If they can make ANY unique a viable choice I'll be surprised.

Making some uniques skill specific can't be a good thing, can it?

should be changed to marksman skills have chance to knock back or down and deal double damage and one of the stats on the item should be your marksman skills have X chance to cast twice

Make barrage shoot heartseeker arrows

Somehow it's even worse. Blizzard is so clueless sometimes, man.

Annoying Knockback aside, I honestly think they need to nerf Tempers if something like this can't compete. In general though, I really don't like how everything is rapidly going into the D3 direction of insane damage numbers. I'd much rather have interesting mechanic/gameplay altering Uniques and Legendary Aspects that I can pick from and combine into a build I enjoy to play, rather than having to pick the ones with the highest absurd damage multiplier, even if they make the gameplay worse.

i wish WF would have been made as an uber.

Lets test Windforce ... drops 115 Pit levels. xD I know it aint all that but it looked funny.

how about make windforce group enemies instead of knocking them back

Windforce was on bar with grandfather for it rareness in D2. Why did they make it shitier now a day

with Season 5 being only 2 months, they should just let everyone get uber/mythic uniques in the season journey. dont just give the aspects of a build, give the ubers that go with it

If any skill would run it, it would be Pen shot Victimize, but clearly they have no idea what they are doing. It also seems to have been designed for Leyranna's Instinct which just isnt that great still. Why would you take double damage at 40% when you can temper for 100% to double projectiles.

Why add the barrage only text? Blizzard fixed the unique and then instantly ruined it. Change the barrage only text to read x chance to skill twice

I don’t understand why they have a level cap

Then they’d have to change the name if it doesn’t ’force’ anything😮 and make a totally new Unique

Make Windforce great again!

Rapidfire aka cold pee rogue!

D2 WF had MAX dmg? So why not give it something like a % dmg boost? Also Tyrael's Might needs that movement speed on it and the Can Not Be Frozen ( give it Invulnerability). I know it makes it OP but it's a "Mythic Unique", it's suppose to be OP.

Should just fire in a straight line knocking down everything in its path

I blame the weapon gem

Dear Blizz, make uniques temperable.

make it a pure chance instead of only barrage, then it will be useful. all the unique bows are pretty trash

they fckin killed this legendary bow from d2 what a fools hope they will never touch the stormshield on this game

Random thought: windforce causes barrage arrows to spin around you like a hurricane, and still do knockback. The play style would be based around pushing enemies in front of you til they die.

and me who thought it's gonna be BiS Sadge

yeah makes no sense, since you want xbow on barrage builds anyway

Damn shame they continue to do this item a disservice it should be best bow in the game

Well, windforce now is even worse cause its bounded to a single skill, it was a great bow back in diablo 2, sadly it is trash here at D4

Remove the knockback and %chance, just make it say “Barrage deals double damage” the main damage is the skill and the double damage is the “wind force”. I hate the %chance of everything, lucky hit is also a terrible idea in general “sometimes you sometimes do damage” ….. thanks I hate it.

Windforced to use it with barrage

Yeah windforce sucks now. It should be an Uber Unique maybe, given its legendary status from D2. It's kindof pathetic now unfortunately. And limited to Barrage now makes it even worse, nobody was using it before.

Windforce sucked in D3 too...