Spirit barrage was useless before pre-nerf barber, making it AOE which is what barber does now does not change its uselessness. You can't even do T13 with the working as intended skills.
However:
Possible bug: Phantasm seems to do alot of damage when they expired, it's possible they do all their damage at once when they expire or the programmers forgot to nerf it to oblivion with the rest of the other runes or a combination of both.
Suggestion Take a page from Bob Ross and take it as a "happy accident" and leave it as is while rewording the item description to "when phantasm expires, it does crap tons of damage".
or
Give us back the pre-nerf barber but fix the damn bugs.
Facts Barber as-is is still viable but ONLY with the phantasm bug, if the bug is ever fixed, it'll be DOA along with manald heal.
Possible bug: Phantasm seems to do alot of damage when they expired, it's possible they do all their damage at once when they expire or the programmers forgot to nerf it to oblivion with the rest of the other runes or a combination of both.
This is, indeed, a bug, and we weren't happy with leaving it how it was. We don't want confusing or buggy gameplay to be the basis for an item performing well.
A series of hotfixes are going live that will address the explosions from Spirit Barrage: Phantasm double-dipping on damage bonuses when they detonate prematurely. Once this hotfix goes live, The Barber might feel weaker than it was previously. However, we've also found another bug that was preventing Spirit Barrage: Phantasm from benefiting from Ring of Emptiness. We are still testing this hotfix and hope to deploy it sometime next week.
Once this second hotfix is in place, The Barber should be much more in line with other items and builds while still remaining strong for those who enjoy the play style.
Barber PATCH 2.4.3.42336
Spirit barrage was useless before pre-nerf barber, making it AOE which is what barber does now does not change its uselessness. You can't even do T13 with the working as intended skills.
However:
Possible bug: Phantasm seems to do alot of damage when they expired, it's possible they do all their damage at once when they expire or the programmers forgot to nerf it to oblivion with the rest of the other runes or a combination of both.
Suggestion
Take a page from Bob Ross and take it as a "happy accident" and leave it as is while rewording the item description to "when phantasm expires, it does crap tons of damage".
or
Give us back the pre-nerf barber but fix the damn bugs.
Facts
Barber as-is is still viable but ONLY with the phantasm bug, if the bug is ever fixed, it'll be DOA along with manald heal.
This is, indeed, a bug, and we weren't happy with leaving it how it was. We don't want confusing or buggy gameplay to be the basis for an item performing well.
A series of hotfixes are going live that will address the explosions from Spirit Barrage: Phantasm double-dipping on damage bonuses when they detonate prematurely. Once this hotfix goes live, The Barber might feel weaker than it was previously. However, we've also found another bug that was preventing Spirit Barrage: Phantasm from benefiting from Ring of Emptiness. We are still testing this hotfix and hope to deploy it sometime next week.
Once this second hotfix is in place, The Barber should be much more in line with other items and builds while still remaining strong for those who enjoy the play style.