Barbarian capstone seems to give a hidden haste boost

[Nick_RC]

Barbs rule.

Heya Nick.

Sup Gunga. Still on thelanis?

[Aspenor]

Nice find, OP. I'm going to ignore all the fighter vs. barb arguments, because they're a bit off topic.

I would like to see a test for the capstone on a two-weapon fighting barb, if there are any still around. Maybe the alacrity bonus is only applied while two handed fighting (I skipped from the first page to the last, so maybe this was already mentioned).

Either way, I expect this is a bug and will probably be fixed at some point. Maybe it's not though...either way I might actually be motivated to start leveling my barbarian (probably not lol).

[Nick_RC]

Heh epic deathnips (If as comparable Epic as when they first came out ) + Halforc ftw lol.

[Gunga]

Back on Ghallanda. Getting stuff done with a great bunch of players.

The guild I ran with on Thelanis had a bossy deputy, and being that I am the Boss, I thought it best if I pack up and go home for a bit.

Where have you been hanging your minos? Besides Blah's "hatstand"?


OP: sorry to derail, but, back on topic, I have noticed a momentary increased speed proc when attacking over time (portals). It's equal to madstone, without the madstone icon appearing in the upper right hand corner. I have not tested whether the proc is actually madstone, but the icon failed to appear, or if it is just a speed boost proc.

I'll test in shroud tonight.

[Aspenor]

Where have you been hanging your minos? Besides Blah's "hatstand"?

He's been hanging it in Korthos Island. TR junkie and all that.

[Nick_RC]

Silly Aspanoob. Everyone knws u skip korthos cos the xp/min sucks!

Yeah i been Tring got 1 more ftr 3 more monk to go on Groan.... wish i could replace the time i spent tring sexy and add it to groan lol. Still argo man im figureing another 3-4 months then back to end game.

Sry OP for derailing!

[HeavenlyCloud]

Hi Gunga.

[Gunga]

Blah. How's Erini?

[Murderface]

Nice find, OP. I'm going to ignore all the fighter vs. barb arguments, because they're a bit off topic.

I would like to see a test for the capstone on a two-weapon fighting barb, if there are any still around. Maybe the alacrity bonus is only applied while two handed fighting (I skipped from the first page to the last, so maybe this was already mentioned).

Either way, I expect this is a bug and will probably be fixed at some point. Maybe it's not though...either way I might actually be motivated to start leveling my barbarian (probably not lol).

i have done this test with my gtwf pally vs gtwf barb capstone
without zeal capstone barb was faster then me gtwf and thf
with zeal we were exactly the same. it was obvious and compelling me to tell all of u that yes its a all around 10% melee alacrity and probably bows and throwing weapons as well
it is the fighter capstone its the same

[Dark-Star]

Nice find, OP. I'm going to ignore all the fighter vs. barb arguments, because they're a bit off topic.

I would like to see a test for the capstone on a two-weapon fighting barb, if there are any still around. Maybe the alacrity bonus is only applied while two handed fighting (I skipped from the first page to the last, so maybe this was already mentioned).

Either way, I expect this is a bug and will probably be fixed at some point. Maybe it's not though...either way I might actually be motivated to start leveling my barbarian (probably not lol).

I did the testing and posted about it on page 5 or so. Works with twf as well as far as I could tell.

[sephiroth1084]

WOP - a feature was changed in the game that 0 con doesnt kill anymore. This isnt a straight nerf as players benefit from this by not dying at 0 con (save special situations) - end result is it now takes 2 nanoseconds longer to kill a mob with WOP rapiers because you have to damage their now extremely low hp total to 0 and are auto critting the entire time. - hardly a nerf.

It weakened Con damage significantly. It made CK far less useful, WoPs far less useful, and what few other Con damaging effects went from almost useless to completely pointless. That's a nerf. You can sugar coat it by saying it isn't a huge nerf, but it is a nerf.

Crit Rage - changed to frenzied berserker, which is actually BETTER. Barbarians didnt become less powerful because of the change. - not a nerf.

FB may be better, but they completely removed an optino (which, by the way, was quite a bit better for the rare bowbarian). They may have replaced it with something different, that resulted in more DPS, but it was still a nerf.

Buffing up mobs power with immunities isnt a nerf. A nerf is when you had a certain level of power due to having specific abilities, and the change to those abilities made you less powerful. You should have played EQ or SWG if you want to know the true definition of "nerf"

A few months ago I could hit raid bosses with Ray of Enfeeblement to reduce the amount of damage they deal to the party and to make AC a little more valuable, now I can't. Funny, looks like a textbook case according to your definition.

Abbot Encasement affecting WF now seems like a nerf.

Its amazing how many players cry foul when these kinds of changes happen to the game. I dont think a good portion of them played a game before where things got truely nerfed, daily, weekly, monthly and so on. Sony / Verant games and WOW were alot more famous (infamous) for this early on. Papadins ruled in WOW one day, and sucked the next day after an update. Priests were average one day, then were unkillable after an update. This kind of stuff doesnt happen in DDO.

Classic nerf example:

I remember in EQ, when the devs came right out and said in the patch notes: Spells that do not do damage now have a significantly reduced chance to land on higher level monsters, and this increases per level difference between the caster and the monster. This equated to not being able to snare, root, or crowd control higher level mobs, which made it much harder to xp because you now had to kill lower level mobs en masse for xp rather than seeking out a nice comfortable vacant higher level dungeon to xp your toons in.

You mean...like giving everything undispelable Death Ward? Filling dungeons with fire-immune monsters, giving monsters immunity to holds, dancing, poison? Vale, Amrath, Epic quests, Prey on the Hunter... How about giving stuff super-inflated saves and immunities such that nearly nothing is worth casting?

[Cetus]

Well I read ur reply last night and some of you're points I wasnt all that sure on. I thought I would sleep on it and revisit this morning when I wasnt exhausted. And considering we play in the same sandbox relatively speaking (Argo) il approach what ur saying with a definate /flame off approach hehe.

Actually before I reply I read some of ur other posts and I see what you are really trying to say is -fighters are competitive with barbs. And ur absolutely right. With their favorite weapon in hand ftrs are fantastic. Anybody that doesnt think that a ftr can compete right up there is seriously misinformed. When the kensai has their favorite weapon in hand.



One thing that I have to give to fighters and a large reason why im doing 3 Fighter lives is that there too hit with their favorite weapon is just fantastic when it comes to being redskulled. When its redskull time and im on my kensai I still hit very frequently but similar classes have a much harder time. I hate missing so 3 ftr past lives for the too hit win and tactics win

Anyway take care - was a great vid by the way good to see some of the argo folk there.

N

Man, I'm giving you all the props I can for that response. =D

Just want to clarfiy a few things, the way you wrote your comments on UMD are true- on paper. When I actually play its very easy to work with the AI to get ur heal scrolls off as needed, if we have the opportunity to group I can show you how well it works.

Overall, if you account for bludgeon dr mobs, barbs have higher dps as a number average, If you take a weighted average however (meaning take into account the % of mobs that actually are bludgeon dr and the quests you run on a daily basis) hat gap is minimal.

When I referred to fighter, yea you are correct on the human part- but the point is this: Max dps race for barb is warforged, human damage boost does NOT stack with barb damage boost, WF PA > axe attack especially when not swinging an axe on dwarves. So, to achieve the largest crits, you need to be warforged as a barbarian with all end game gear. No dwarf or human can crit higher than a WF with an Epic SOS.

Human damage boost exceeds the dps of a warforged fighter because I get an extra strength tier and 5 dmg = to 6.5 over 6 from WFPA (sure its burst damage). PLUS I can wear the marilith. So end game the Human fighter wins in max dps.

Now, from my experiences with the regular upscale barbarians on the server and shade, my hp are >> than theirs, just from the video you can tell that I am at least 100 hp over him, and the marilith chain also provides 5 dr against select targets, further lowering the dr difference.

I would like to divert from this oscillating barb vs. fighter talk, everyone has their preferences and I respect them, hell I am making a WF barb right now.

But my goal was to correct erroneous predispositions about fighter functionality. After perfecting the class for 4 years, I feel its my responsibility to defend it with objective reasoning- not assumptions or speculation.

[metalworker]

You're still gimped cetusss, go TR 30 more times and come back. I'll be here waiting :P But in all honesty, totally understandable and I was always under the impression that barbs are undefeated, but you and some other fighters on argo have shown that gearedout and planned out fighters can match barbs. Whether barbs v.s. fighters out dps one another, that's for another thread, but barbs are known for sustained dps and we know that pimped fighters grab aggro away from barbs when they boost away until the barbs re-establish aggro XD

Regardless, I LRed into a 18/2 Barb/fighter after doing some calcuations and coming to the conclusion that the predescribed build has potential to outdps a pure barb unless the pure barb swings for an extra 4 minutes (assuming the 18/2 build twitches flawlessly which is quite difficult to achieve).

And after seeing this post, and personally experiencing a sudden drop in attack speed (something which I noticed but never thought much until reading this post, I was attacking in epics, and just felt like a SUPER slug without haste and this never happened before since I was either a constantly haste boosted 12/8 archon-variant or a pure barb in my past life).

So this sucks, but I just LR'ed back to being pure again. The difference can be seen and felt. Whether the devs should fix this? I would like it to be left alone since it's been there since the beginning and we had no problems. Yet I want it fixed to be fair in the face of other classes doing their best to compete with barb dps. That would prove to be a much healthier ground for competitive players to really work out dps calculators. How we wish this game to be more exact, so serious players can go ahead and work things out in how the effects are described to function.

I guess DDO just always has these complexities or maybe laziness on the dev's part coding things exactly and flawlessly :P BUT if this is fixed, I would only hope that they fix the glancing blows on the capstone before they fix this, just to be fair and give what we were supposed to get, rather than just taking the ENTIRE capstone away. +2STR for 2AP is real nice on the capstone, but sometimes I find myself hard to justify it. If glancing blow or the hidden 10% bonus is there, there's no reason not to go pure, unless you're TWF variants wanting UMD and evasion + haste boosts, or working other intersting barb builds (archon, and I refer you to my monstunner build on the barb forums )

[sephiroth1084]

I guess DDO just always has these complexities or maybe laziness on the dev's part coding things exactly and flawlessly :P BUT if this is fixed, I would only hope that they fix the glancing blows on the capstone before they fix this, just to be fair and give what we were supposed to get, rather than just taking the ENTIRE capstone away. +2STR for 2AP is real nice on the capstone, but sometimes I find myself hard to justify it. If glancing blow or the hidden 10% bonus is there, there's no reason not to go pure, unless you're TWF variants wanting UMD and evasion + haste boosts, or working other intersting barb builds (archon, and I refer you to my monstunner build on the barb forums )

I'll agree that the removal of the hidden alacrity bonus and the fixing of the apparently missing glancing blows bonus should be bundled together: Turbine has no business fixing one without fixing the other. And I'm inclined to feel that that is true irrespective of which ends up being the impetus for the fix. That is, they should not just fix the glancing blows without touching the alacrity because that will please a lot of people (seriously doubt this would be the case, but I'll make the point nonetheless).

[metalworker]

Yupp agreed for sure on fixing both issues at once, so that the barbs do not remain unexpectedly overpowered from not fixing the 10% alacrity or be left weakened with just a +2STR capstone with no fixes to glancing blows. The latter is a scary thought since turbine seems to refuse to fix many of the barb bugs posted by Shade and others, the barb capstone, burst effects etc.

[transtemporal]

I would like to see a test for the capstone on a two-weapon fighting barb, if there are any still around. Maybe the alacrity bonus is only applied while two handed fighting (I skipped from the first page to the last, so maybe this was already mentioned).

I tested it on a human20 gtwf bbn with dual tenderizers on the ice valley portal. 3 attempts without the capstone, 3 with the capstone. Only power attack on, no rage, no haste, no other buffs at all. Str was kept at 28 in all tests.

Without capstone
5:14.2
5:13.3
5:10.6

Average time:
5:12.7

With Capstone
4:41.0
4:39.0
4:35.7

Average time:
4:38.5

[sephiroth1084]

I tested it on a human20 gtwf bbn with dual tenderizers on the ice valley portal. 3 attempts without the capstone, 3 with the capstone. Only power attack on, no rage, no haste, no other buffs at all. Str was kept at 28 in all tests.

Without capstone
5:14.2
5:13.3
5:10.6

Average time:
5:12.7

With Capstone
4:41.0
4:39.0
4:35.7

Average time:
4:38.5

Would you consider doing one more test w/ capstone and Haste? Probably need 2 tests, actually: 1 without capstone and haste and one with capstone, as I can't see any way to get 5 minutes' worth of Haste without bringing along an arcane or bard, and adding a second person will probably scale up the HP on the portal.

[oweieie]

It's good you're testing on a portal. I don't know if twitching might be a special case or not but I do know that often the animation and the actual attacks being done have nothing to do with each other.

[transtemporal]

Would you consider doing one more test w/ capstone and Haste? Probably need 2 tests, actually: 1 without capstone and haste and one with capstone, as I can't see any way to get 5 minutes' worth of Haste without bringing along an arcane or bard, and adding a second person will probably scale up the HP on the portal.

I ran around a bit testing haste with and without the capstone, but I didn't specifically test it on the portal. Anecdotally it looks like it stacks. Rachets up from merely "fast" to "crazy-fast".

I'm not gonna bother testing it though sephiroth. I'm happy to extrapolate and call it a day, lol.

[transtemporal]

It's good you're testing on a portal. I don't know if twitching might be a special case or not but I do know that often the animation and the actual attacks being done have nothing to do with each other.

Oh yeah forgot to mention. No twitching was involved. Hard-target portal, switch on auto-attack/click stopwatch, click stopwatch again when portal dies. Not totally accurate, but hey.