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End-Game Group Meta in Season 7

By now some of the more dedicated groups are starting to reach the higher Greater Rift echelons, which leaves the question about how the high-end group meta will be shaped on S7. Bagstone has made a very interesting Reddit thread comparing previous PTR and Live metas.

One of the arguments given is that in past seasons the group meta on PTR and towards the end of a season were considerably different. What do you think the end-game group meta will look like in Season 7? What are your groups trying right now?

PTR vs Live Group Meta Comparison Season 1 PTR: Tiklandian WD, Serenity monk, cold DH, fire DH Final: Tiklandian WD, pull crusader, 2x lightning DH

Season 2 PTR: Tiklandian WD, pull crusader, 2x lightning DH Final: Tiklandian WD, pull crusader, EP monk, fire/mark DH

Season 3 PTR: Tiklandian WD, pull crusader, 2x lightning DH Final: Tiklandian WD, perma-stun crusader, 2x Hydra wizard (1x DH + 1x wizard was more common but double wizard was best)

Season 4 PTR: Pull barb, heal monk, HotA barb, gen/U6 monk Final: Pull barb, heal monk, support crusader, SC monk

Season 5 PTR: Pull barb, LoN crusader, WD/DH, Twister DMO wizard Final: Pull/globes barb, globes monk, support WD, STICKY Twister DMO wizard

Season 6 PTR: Pull barb, support monk, support WD, Twister Tal Rasha wizard Final: Pull barb, support monk, support WD, Twister+Archon Tal+Vyr wizard

(All of this is just from memory, so there might be small mistakes, please point out if you find any) The correct DPS class combination was predicted two times: S1 and S6. NEVER was the correct top DPS spec publicly known by the end of PTR! The correct support class combination was predicted three times: S2, S3, and S6. Note that those were the seasons in which the support classes stayed the same as in the previous one; NEVER was a change in support classes completely predicted by PTR leaderboards. I hope this sheds some light on how utterly useless it is to look at PTR leaderboards. Also, there has literally been zero testing on high level GRs on PTR; all the top players who have the knowledge and ability to pull off even semi-accurate meta predictions that could top PTR leaderboards are pushing on live. So please stop asking "WHAT IS THE S7 META". You might as well ask if we're gonna have snow on Christmas and get more accurate "predictions" now. Thank you for this, I hope this will spare us some trouble. Meanwhile I'm juggling a handful or so d3planner links for 5 different classes (rip Crusader, I only have one build for 2man), it's quite exciting what you can do when Twisters are out of the meta. I wish Blizzard would give us better options to gear up on the PTR, because even worse than people pushing on live is no one having any items available to test different builds. Why can't we have unlimited bloodshards and bounty mats and 100% legendary chance at Kalada if we want? I usually already save 1-2k bounty mats for PTR only but this barely lasts long enough for testing on my main class. Yeah, I think the testing environment is not really good. Remove the 2000% legendary buff. It's pointless and annoying and not good for targeted gear farming, and makes any S7 testing pointless (you have full sets before Haedrig's). Just let us buy the gear at a vendor, I think that's how it was ~12 years ago on WoW vanilla PTR. And damn, would be so interested in the theorycrafting you guys do behind the scenes before the season I only know from certain other people what they knew at the end of PTR. It's also one thing that Wyatt asked for (please test so we can nerf), but there's absolutely no incentive to... quite the contrary, when you find something it gets fixed, plus you lose time to push on live.

Earthbounder has also made a very interesting post summarizing the 2.4.2 PTR leaderboards, which could indicate what groups are trying right now. We're highlighting these two threads are due to how much info they have regarding this topic, and the interesting debate they have generated.

Definitely take some time to check them out!