OK some more feedback from some hours of serious testing... I mostly did it with Devil, best geared barbarian in league, but also with Iownyou, pretty well geared too.
We tried many things:
- No hex vs No WotB
- No hex, no Spirit Vessel vs No WotB
- No horrify, no hex, no SV vs No WotB
I always managed to come up with a build that left Devil with no chance at all. WDs have so many stuns... Even without those 3 core skills in most WDs specs I managed to come up with so many builds that just irritated Devil cos he could do nothing. Even if people like MannerCookie say that WD suck, it's because they probably haven't dueled creative and good ones. The guy says he doesn't need WotB to beat a WD but it's just not possible. I doubt he has more EHP than Devil, and his dmg wouldn't be a big problem.
So our conclusion has been:
- WD cannot use 20% dmg HEX, all the other runes are allowed.
- Most important thing: swapping gear during combat is forbidden for both sides.
- WotB is the core skill for a barbarian, not only when it's active but also when it hasn't been activated. Knowing that a barb has WotB makes the WD act carefully trying to keep distance and trying to use the right timing to dps barbarian down and force him to go to Berserker. So duels actually become really fun without the stupid gear swapping thing. Obviously both sides have to be similarly geared, but it was said that balance should be achieved on high end level.
I know some will say "how do we know people don't swap gear?" well... We are all adults here, trying to create a competitive league, so let's behave like that, shall we? Besides, we can also take screenshots of their HP numbers if we see a drastic increase in our opponent's mitigation.
@To the Admins: Please, contact all top players in the current league to develop serious rules. What you have done so far makes no sense at all. I appreciate the job you are doing but they are plainly wrong. At least the ones I've tested thoroughly so far, WD vs Wiz, WD vs DH and WD vs Barb.