Redesign Barbarian Rage to make Barbarians as proficient as other class in EE and...

[adrian69]

Let's face it, how many barbarians do you know that play in epic content. I knew one, but he TRd quick. Though the issue with barbarians is their lack of healing, mine feels at lack of everything compared to my 20/4 fighter, 20/1 fvs, and 20/7 monk.

I loved barbarians way back in the day, but almost hate them now. Yet, I still want to love to play them, so I guess this why I am here.

Yeah, barbs primary stat has became con, but we just can't let go of that str much past starting w/ 16-18. 18 con is only 6 seconds of rage time to a class that can't do much at higher lvls w/o being raged. So let me begin w/ Pres.

I am ok with the Barbs Pre, for the most part. What I dislike is how extend rage and extra rage ended up in the pres, let alone two different trees. Both of these abilities should be scaled into the barbs levels, early on.

The rage system is as old as it comes for the barb. Now there's Tensor's and Bard rage and a lord of the blades rage. I am thankful that a barbarian's rage scales to from +4 to +6 to +8. However, it needs something else to better the barb and make them stand a about from the other pseudo rages.

I am suggesting barbarians gain a bonus to attack speed while raged, stackable w/ equipment and haste but not w/ Pr Enhancements like the fighters or rangers so it is not overpowered. I think, at a minimum, rage should provide 5% attack speed bonus starting at lvl 5 and gain 1% every three levels there after for 10% at lvl 20.

Now the effect may not seem as strong as a fighter's 30% for 30 seconds, however, with gear we are speaking of 6 to 16% for up to as long as your rage lasts, 2-3 minutes. However, I think this would make barbarians as proficient in epic as they are from lvls 1-15.

Opinions?

[zwiebelring]

Give rage PRR (and soon MRR) bonuses. Give more options on dmg absorb/shrugging off while raged. And that to a meaningful number. And please redesign all enhancement trees. Frenzied Berserk should be all a bout raging. Occult Slayer is all about killing casters. The enhancements look like the dev.s had no real ideas any more. Bonuses to hit? Temporary hp? Silly stuff.

The attack speed bonus looks like something too generic. I don't think this is a core issue of the current barbarian class.

[Dandonk]

Occult slayer seems to work fine in heroics. My dorf pure barb needs little healing with the temp HP procs and other defense he gets. But...

The problem will arise in epics, indeed. The temp HP will matter very little there, his AC (which is actually decent for heroic stuff) will not matter at all, and his PRR (while decent) will not matter enough. So in epics, he'll once again be a mana sponge (or become a member of SFPDA, Silver Flame Pot Drinkers Anonymous, which is nearly as annoying).

EDIT: My own preference would be to scale the temp HP better, give barbs some innate selfhealing of some kind while raging, and give them some PRR along with the DR (or make DR count AFTER PRR is applied, so it actually does some good later on).

[painkiller3]

Occult slayer seems to work fine in heroics. My dorf pure barb needs little healing with the temp HP procs and other defense he gets. But...

The problem will arise in epics, indeed. The temp HP will matter very little there, his AC (which is actually decent for heroic stuff) will not matter at all, and his PRR (while decent) will not matter enough. So in epics, he'll once again be a mana sponge (or become a member of SFPDA, Silver Flame Pot Drinkers Anonymous, which is nearly as annoying).

EDIT: My own preference would be to scale the temp HP better, give barbs some innate selfhealing of some kind while raging, and give them some PRR along with the DR (or make DR count AFTER PRR is applied, so it actually does some good later on).

why not a healing aura (or temp healing) while raged similar to cleric aura and affected by devotion.

[Synthetic]

Simple solution make epic abilities work while raged. It's a heroic ability it shouldn't effect epic abilities.

[Qhualor]

After the devs make whatever changes to Paladins, I'm really hoping Barbarians are next on the list. With the changes of armor in the works now, hopefully that will help, but disappointed /DR is not in the conversation since it is also damage mitigation.

[Dandonk]

why not a healing aura (or temp healing) while raged similar to cleric aura and affected by devotion.

Because we already have that effect, and I don't think a barbarian healing anyone else seems thematically appropriate.

[painkiller3]

Because we already have that effect, and I don't think a barbarian healing anyone else seems thematically appropriate.

doesn't have to be an aura that affects anyone else just themselves...a tick every couple of seconds that is based on a combination of class level, devotion etc etc. when they're raging.

[painkiller3]

if healing isn't your bag, how about +str to Prr when raged and +con bonus to saves (a la divine grace) as a capstone?

[Dandonk]

doesn't have to be an aura that affects anyone else just themselves...a tick every couple of seconds that is based on a combination of class level, devotion etc etc. when they're raging.

Ah, misunderstood you, then. Some selfhealing while raged, whether time-based, vampirism, or on kill, would be awesome.

if healing isn't your bag, how about +str to Prr when raged and +con bonus to saves (a la divine grace) as a capstone?

Con bonus to saves might be a bit much, since con already has high value in giving hp and affecting fort saves. Also, for barbs you can get spell resistance based on con, and with a dwarf you can get con to damage. I think that would be a bit too much value from one stat.

But some form of PRR and bonus to saves wouldn't be bad, I agree there. Perhaps based on type of rage (normal, level 11, etc) to reward barbs going pure-ish.

[Rougemastert]

While raging, how about every time you make a kill, you get benefits, which vary for each PRE. For example

Frenzied Berzerker: +1 Damage every time you make a kill, this has unlimited stack. You also gain an additional +1d6 damage every ten kills. (so having 100 kills would give you +10d6 damage, if I did my math correctly)

Occult Slayer: Whenever you are targeted by a spell that would deal damage to you, you gain +1d6 PRR and +1d6 MRR, this has no cap. Whenever you kill an enemy that can cast a spell, you gain an additional some effect) for the length pf the rage.

Ravager: While raging, whenever you make a kill, you gain +50 temp hp. Every additional kill raises the amount of Temp Hp you get by 25 (IE, first kill: 50, second kill: 75, Third Kill, 100). These Temp. hp lasts for 30 seconds.

I have no idea how to balance things, so not sure where/if these would fit in, let alone making sense with the theme.
*Edit- You only have those benefits while raging

[Vellrad]

Rages should work like boosts instead of perma buffs.

Short but extremally powerful burst of awesomness, and after it ends, you can cocoon/cast/clicky/whaterer.

[Monkey_Archer]

Honestly, Barbarian rage just needs the same treatment as tensors: No longer prevents spell casting, double spell cooldown, -2 DC, -2 spell penetration. Lorewise and even in DDO there exists things such as "Barbarian shamans" that are clearly able to cast spells, even if that doesn't directly adhere to purist D&D rules.
Unless you buff barb rage to provide a massive increase to dps and/or survivability, far above the potential of other non-raged classes (a very bad idea IMO), it will never be worth the spell casting limitation with the way endgame works now.

[maddmatt70]

Well one thing that DDO got away from when compared to D&D is giving barbarians massive hit points. A barbarian should have as much hit points as the sword and boards builds currently do. I would like the rage ability from the base class to be % based. A rage should not be the static number it is because of the inflation in DDO. This is especially true of the higher levels. Something like the following:
Rage: 10% strength and constitution bonus.
Greater Rage: 20% strength and constitution bonus
Mighty Rage: 30% strength and constitution bonus.
Let's just say a character had 50 strength and 40 constitution at level 20 barbarian non raged.
When raged the character has a 65 strength and 52 constitution. iIf the barbarian had power rage enhancement those would get added before the % bonus.

[maddmatt70]

Honestly, Barbarian rage just needs the same treatment as tensors: No longer prevents spell casting, double spell cooldown, -2 DC, -2 spell penetration. Lorewise and even in DDO there exists things such as "Barbarian shamans" that are clearly able to cast spells, even if that doesn't directly adhere to purist D&D rules.
Unless you buff barb rage to provide a massive increase to dps and/or survivability, far above the potential of other non-raged classes (a very bad idea IMO), it will never be worth the spell casting limitation with the way endgame works now.

I do not agree - this is too much of a departure from D&D. I would much prefer more ameliorating strike type effects for barbarians and a potion enhancement tree. By potion enhancement tree I mean a potion enhancement line for barbarians which double and perhaps triples the effects of potions. A barbarian could build for healing amp and it could do 300+ hit points in healing with the potion enhancement modifier or they could build up the ameliorating strike enhancement line up. Making every class the same is boring and should be discouraged.

[axel15810]

I disagree as well about giving barbs self-healing. Giving barbs self-healing is the easy way out and adds nothing to the game. Rage is the defining trait of a barb, if you change it to work just like Kensei Power Surge there will be almost no difference between kenseis and barbs. If you let barbs cocoon while raged you might as well take the class out of the game as far as I'm concerned because the class will lose its specialty and become redundant.

It needs to continue to prevent self-healing, but give lots more bonuses to PRR, AC, Dodge, HP and perhaps DR while raging. A raging barb should take a long time to kill. Also, give them a big DPS boost. A 20 barb should be easily the best melee DPS in the game. Most importantly, the self-damage in the Frenzied Berserker Pre needs to be reduced significantly.

[jalont]

I disagree as well about giving barbs self-healing. Giving barbs self-healing is the easy way out and adds nothing to the game. Rage is the defining trait of a barb, if you change it to work just like Kensei Power Surge there will be almost no difference between kenseis and barbs. If you let barbs cocoon while raged you might as well take the class out of the game as far as I'm concerned because the class will lose its specialty and become redundant.

It needs to continue to prevent self-healing, but give lots more bonuses to PRR, AC, Dodge, HP and perhaps DR while raging. A raging barb should take a long time to kill. Also, give them a big DPS boost. A 20 barb should be easily the best melee DPS in the game. Most importantly, the self-damage in the Frenzied Berserker Pre needs to be reduced significantly.

As long as barbs don't have self healing, they're a useless class. What is the point of even spending dev time on them if you aren't going to give them self healing? They'll still be in the exact same spot they are now.

[Monkey_Archer]

I do not agree - this is too much of a departure from D&D. I would much prefer more ameliorating strike type effects for barbarians and a potion enhancement tree. By potion enhancement tree I mean a potion enhancement line for barbarians which double and perhaps triples the effects of potions. A barbarian could build for healing amp and it could do 300+ hit points in healing with the potion enhancement modifier or they could build up the ameliorating strike enhancement line up. Making every class the same is boring and should be discouraged.

I actually completely agree with you. Ameliorating strike type effects, potion enhancements, buffs to silver flame pots, or even more temporary hp effects or damage mitigation would all be more barbarian-like ways to help the class, but that still wouldn't make them as equally proficient or desirable in EE as say, a centered kensai, unless they had a significant dps advantage as well (and I dont agree with that level of power creep). All this would still be less effective then spam reconstructs/cocoon, they would still struggle with displacement, they still cant splash paladin or monk, they still have poor saves, etc...

[Seikojin]

I think an enhancement for self healing (vamp) is good for barbs. It doesn't have to be across the board for all barbs, but a capstone would be nice, or a t5 ability. Their current enhancements need to offer more while raging. More stat, more utility, more of everything. And definitely add a casting capability while raged.

[Lonnbeimnech]

Temp hp from a kill would fit. Even temp hp that tics every couple of seconds and stacks with itself while raged, would make sense.

Vampirism or divine healing based on hitting stuff is ridiculous, even paladins don't get that.