I also argree that the always Raged thing is more of a factor of knowing the quest. The problem with removing rest shrines and the like is made more complicated by having Barbs, Casters and Clerics dependant on them. It wouldn't be good if they removed a couple of shrines to reign in Barbs and had the Clerics constantly running out of Mana.

I also agree that the Crit enhancement is the real reason this is an issue. If the multiplier had been increased rather than the range, that would have been better. But the Devs mentioned that that tech wasn't available and since people have built characters aroun this, I do not support removing it. However, I could see tweaking it. For one thing, cost. Right now, the costs are 2/4. I think increasing it to 4/6 or even 6/6 would be a good idea. The next thing is that the idea of limiting it to one line has a lot of merit. You could even go so far as to limit it to one weapon. By choosing Pierce to go with Rapiers, you are pretty much limiting yourself to rapiers and picks because of the limited number of good piercing weapons and they are currently no 2 handed piercing weapons. Going for slash gives you a lot of good weapons including 2 handed weapons and high crit range weapons like scimitars and falchions, but you don't have access to Puncturing. That strikes me as fairly balanced.

I remember when Barbarians were gimped and I don't care to return to those days. A lot of the things that are pointed to as overpowered are the only advantages a Barb has over a Fighter. I would prefer to focus on making Fighter levels more valuable but adding more feats and giving them a few more enhancements that ****ing people off by removing an enhancement that has become a mjor part of the game. Go ahead and limit it a bit, make it more expensive, but don't remove it.