Update 24 suggestions

[PsychoBlonde]

I want to get these in as early as possible, so here they are:

• This would be a great time to bring on some stuff for Barbarian, Druid, and Ranger. IMO Druid is the priority tree-wise simply because they don't have a 3rd tree yet, but perhaps it'd be better to do a multi-useful desert themed tree something like Harper that's most helpful for our beloved Primal classes. Or both. I have this great 3rd edition D&D book here called Sandstorm: Mastering the Perils of Fire and Sand. Scorpion Heritor (poisons) would be a great option, as would Walker in the Waste (Drains, a type of lich form, mummy and sand golem pets). Scorpion Heritor would make a great general tree (could do it as a Vulkoor thing, which would make it a lot like Harper) and Walker in the Waste would make a great Druid tree. Or perhaps something Wind oriented. One thing which could be cool for a high-level ability on Scorpion Heritor would be allowing us to drop a Poison spell ward (on a lengthy cooldown, of course). This would bring some CC in for classes like Barbarian or Ranger and be an interesting little twist.
• The quests: please don't make them like the godawful boring slog that is Wheloon and Storm Horns. I tried to like these quests, I really did, but they are so, so boring and tedious and filled with way too many goddamn mobs. In particular PLEASE PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF SENSE don't do another "defend this room until time runs out" quest. PLEASE. There are SO MANY of these in the game and they are SOOO SOOO BORING. And let's have some INTERESTING bosses instead of a huge wad of HP. I mean bosses like Deadheart (with his dancing club) or Gentleman Glin. Give us oddball stuff that keeps us on our toes instead of "here is a mountain of HP and Damage, beat it down for 10 minutes". And please don't stud the quests with "you must kill everything in this room to open this door" stuff. Please. Let's have some stealth objectives and puzzle objectives and alternate routes and stuff. I know we're probably stuck with Spell Wards because this is a Forgotten Realms pack and APPARENTLY those people are TOO LAZY to do REAL TRAPS.
• Please don't bring back the horribly annoying "I will run away and become invulnerable periodically" broke shadows from Wheloon etc. I realize this is more Netheril stuff but ugh, those are terrible mobs. If you must have them, make it useful in that you don't HAVE to chase EVERY LAST ONE of them down and kill them to progress. Make it more like "oh, running away? Now's the time for me to try to use this lev--*chomp*--DAMMIT!"
• Druid, Barbarian, and Ranger-friendly gear plz. Also some opportunities to use Wilderness Lore in the new pack would be very nice. I would love to see a survival-esque mechanic in the wilderness area where you keep getting a stacking debuff the longer you are out there: "dehydration" that you can clear by using a water source (make the rest shrines look like fountains or wells for neato factor). Make most of the water sources require you to make a Wilderness Lore check and hey, you have a nifty little attrition mechanic. If there are Shadowfell type sections, have a similar mechanic but using Arcane Lore instead.
• Apparently people hate pits full of spikes that they actually have to make some effort to avoid instead of just charging on through. So there should be like, 30 of these. At least. And all the good loot should be at the bottom. Okay, maybe not this one.

[Drathsiddh]

I want to get these in as early as possible, so here they are:

• This would be a great time to bring on some stuff for Barbarian, Druid, and Ranger. IMO Druid is the priority tree-wise simply because they don't have a 3rd tree yet, but perhaps it'd be better to do a multi-useful desert themed tree something like Harper that's most helpful for our beloved Primal classes. Or both. I have this great 3rd edition D&D book here called Sandstorm: Mastering the Perils of Fire and Sand. Scorpion Heritor (poisons) would be a great option, as would Walker in the Waste (Drains, a type of lich form, mummy and sand golem pets). Scorpion Heritor would make a great general tree (could do it as a Vulkoor thing, which would make it a lot like Harper) and Walker in the Waste would make a great Druid tree. Or perhaps something Wind oriented. One thing which could be cool for a high-level ability on Scorpion Heritor would be allowing us to drop a Poison spell ward (on a lengthy cooldown, of course). This would bring some CC in for classes like Barbarian or Ranger and be an interesting little twist.
• The quests: please don't make them like the godawful boring slog that is Wheloon and Storm Horns. I tried to like these quests, I really did, but they are so, so boring and tedious and filled with way too many goddamn mobs. In particular PLEASE PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF SENSE don't do another "defend this room until time runs out" quest. PLEASE. There are SO MANY of these in the game and they are SOOO SOOO BORING. And let's have some INTERESTING bosses instead of a huge wad of HP. I mean bosses like Deadheart (with his dancing club) or Gentleman Glin. Give us oddball stuff that keeps us on our toes instead of "here is a mountain of HP and Damage, beat it down for 10 minutes". And please don't stud the quests with "you must kill everything in this room to open this door" stuff. Please. Let's have some stealth objectives and puzzle objectives and alternate routes and stuff. I know we're probably stuck with Spell Wards because this is a Forgotten Realms pack and APPARENTLY those people are TOO LAZY to do REAL TRAPS.
• Please don't bring back the horribly annoying "I will run away and become invulnerable periodically" broke shadows from Wheloon etc. I realize this is more Netheril stuff but ugh, those are terrible mobs. If you must have them, make it useful in that you don't HAVE to chase EVERY LAST ONE of them down and kill them to progress. Make it more like "oh, running away? Now's the time for me to try to use this lev--*chomp*--DAMMIT!"
• Druid, Barbarian, and Ranger-friendly gear plz. Also some opportunities to use Wilderness Lore in the new pack would be very nice. I would love to see a survival-esque mechanic in the wilderness area where you keep getting a stacking debuff the longer you are out there: "dehydration" that you can clear by using a water source (make the rest shrines look like fountains or wells for neato factor). Make most of the water sources require you to make a Wilderness Lore check and hey, you have a nifty little attrition mechanic. If there are Shadowfell type sections, have a similar mechanic but using Arcane Lore instead.
• Apparently people hate pits full of spikes that they actually have to make some effort to avoid instead of just charging on through. So there should be like, 30 of these. At least. And all the good loot should be at the bottom. Okay, maybe not this one.

Agreed:
1: The barbarian overhaul is next, I believe, improving their Dr, better enhancement trees and all. Then comes rouge and then druid. Not sure about the latter.
2: I liked a couple of the quests for their original ideas, What Goes Up, Through the Mirror Darkly too name a few.
3: So many boss fights are the HP things that we need a change, there is no doubt on that.
4: I have suggested something like this, with lots of weird random encounters, volcanoes, earthquakes and all......Never thought about something like that though.
5: Well to be honest, I love the spike traps.........

I would IMHO like as many nerfs as possible, without them, there is nothing to talk about, and have a good bash over it. :P

[Cordovan]

I've been looking for a thread to let folks know about this, and this thread seems to fit just fine: We are planning to post up some feedback threads later this week on our plans for the Barbarian enhancement trees (Frenzied Berserker, Occult Slayer and Ravager.) When they are posted, we'd love to get your feedback on the ideas. Thanks!

[Forul]

I've been looking for a thread to let folks know about this, and this thread seems to fit just fine: We are planning to post up some feedback threads later this week on our plans for the Barbarian enhancement trees (Frenzied Berserker, Occult Slayer and Ravager.) When they are posted, we'd love to get your feedback on the ideas. Thanks!

Keep up the good work with the updates!

[Myrddinman]

I've been looking for a thread to let folks know about this, and this thread seems to fit just fine: We are planning to post up some feedback threads later this week on our plans for the Barbarian enhancement trees (Frenzied Berserker, Occult Slayer and Ravager.) When they are posted, we'd love to get your feedback on the ideas. Thanks!

Barbarians = great!

Care to comment on Severlin's new title as "Fighter/Barbarian/Designer"? Is there some hope for some Fighter love in U24?

[Vellrad]

If barbs won't be byoh, they will still be noob trap.

Anyway, I hope boss fights are finally going to be interesting.
Each boss must have special skills and abilities, otherwise, it can as well be removed from quest.

[Scrabbler]

If barbs won't be byoh, they will still be noob trap.

The Barbarian class should be the one without any healing... it doesn't make sense if every single class has healing features. Instead, they should add affordable items (sold for plat) which can provide anyone with acceptable healing (within appropriate limits)

Scorpion Heritor (poisons) would be a great option,

It would be interesting to see a poison-themed alt tree, but first they'd need to fix existing player Poison features. Currently poison effects are available to Rogue, Barbarian, Drow, Cleric, and Wizard, but it's only Monk that actually has a working system for it.

[gemineye]

I've been looking for a thread to let folks know about this, and this thread seems to fit just fine: We are planning to post up some feedback threads later this week on our plans for the Barbarian enhancement trees (Frenzied Berserker, Occult Slayer and Ravager.) When they are posted, we'd love to get your feedback on the ideas. Thanks!

Are we there yet? Are we there yet?

[esojiul]

Keep the old healing amplication, give them on the enham healing amplication+50%dodge+ more hp 60%+20%more dmg

[Leclaire1]

I've been looking for a thread to let folks know about this, and this thread seems to fit just fine: We are planning to post up some feedback threads later this week on our plans for the Barbarian enhancement trees (Frenzied Berserker, Occult Slayer and Ravager.) When they are posted, we'd love to get your feedback on the ideas. Thanks!

I'll be interested to see what the proposed changes are. I'm a bit nervous however, that it seems like the changes to Barbarian seem to be focused wholly in the enhancements. While some of the enhancements could use a bit of improvement (eg., a completionist who played all classes pure said Storm's Eye is the worst of all capstones), I think the fundamental problem with the Barbarian class in the state of ddo now is in regards to its complete lack of self-sufficiency on account of it being the only class which lacks strong self-healing options while raging (and a Barb who isn't raging isn't particularly useful). The limitation regarding using scrolls, spells, cocoon, etc while raging is certainly very true to lore, but is a huge liability in the current social environment of ddo. Barbarians have always had the power to do damage, but as they can't heal themselves except through potions (a recent addition), they are completely dependent on other players or hirelings to keep them up.

I realize that in the theory-crafting world of the ivory tower there shouldn't be any problem with this. In a group based game, it shouldn't be unreasonable to expect that if, say, a barbarian can do the damage of two people, that it would be a worthwhile trade off to have him or her be dependent on a dedicated healer who will keep him or her up. Yet in the current social environment of ddo, no one wants to be "that guy" who often dies if he is not nannied by a healer, allowed to bring along a hireling, or is constantly forced to limit his or her damage/kill potential by constantly disengaging and dropping rage in order to take advantage of more substantial self-healing options. These problems are compounded be the fact that Barbarians pay a steep price for every bit of power they get, such as in the FB tree where they are forced to constantly damage or debuff themselves for every advantage they get, a sacrifice other classes do not need to make (eg, the Paladin Holy Sword ability has no such tradeoff and is far superior to critical rages and the like). Even if some of these factors are rectified via the enhancement trees, Barbarians will still be squishier than most in that they do not innately have evasion or the use of heavy armor, and thus have no way to take advantage of the increased defenses available to other classes without splashing or spending one of too few feats on heavy armor.

In short, whatever changes are made to the enhancements, I cannot see a way forward in the current social environment of ddo for Barbs unless the ban on self-healing during rages is removed. I'll be honest, as a pnp vet who cares about lore and team play I don't want things to be this way, I wish the current ban could be realistic in the current state of the game. Yet as a player I can never see myself playing a Barb in the current game due to the discourtesy I feel like I would be doing to people I would often group with, and this tells me something. I hope the devs are at least taking these things into consideration.

[PsychoBlonde]

I'll be interested to see what the proposed changes are. I'm a bit nervous however, that it seems like the changes to Barbarian seem to be focused wholly in the enhancements. While some of the enhancements could use a bit of improvement (eg., a completionist who played all classes pure said Storm's Eye is the worst of all capstones), I think the fundamental problem with the Barbarian class in the state of ddo now is in regards to its complete lack of self-sufficiency on account of it being the only class which lacks strong self-healing options while raging (and a Barb who isn't raging isn't particularly useful). The limitation regarding using scrolls, spells, cocoon, etc while raging is certainly very true to lore, but is a huge liability in the current social environment of ddo. Barbarians have always had the power to do damage, but as they can't heal themselves except through potions (a recent addition), they are completely dependent on other players or hirelings to keep them up.

I realize that in the theory-crafting world of the ivory tower there shouldn't be any problem with this. In a group based game, it shouldn't be unreasonable to expect that if, say, a barbarian can do the damage of two people, that it would be a worthwhile trade off to have him or her be dependent on a dedicated healer who will keep him or her up. Yet in the current social environment of ddo, no one wants to be "that guy" who often dies if he is not nannied by a healer, allowed to bring along a hireling, or is constantly forced to limit his or her damage/kill potential by constantly disengaging and dropping rage in order to take advantage of more substantial self-healing options. These problems are compounded be the fact that Barbarians pay a steep price for every bit of power they get, such as in the FB tree where they are forced to constantly damage or debuff themselves for every advantage they get, a sacrifice other classes do not need to make (eg, the Paladin Holy Sword ability has no such tradeoff and is far superior to critical rages and the like). Even if some of these factors are rectified via the enhancement trees, Barbarians will still be squishier than most in that they do not innately have evasion or the use of heavy armor, and thus have no way to take advantage of the increased defenses available to other classes without splashing or spending one of too few feats on heavy armor.

In short, whatever changes are made to the enhancements, I cannot see a way forward in the current social environment of ddo for Barbs unless the ban on self-healing during rages is removed. I'll be honest, as a pnp vet who cares about lore and team play I don't want things to be this way, I wish the current ban could be realistic in the current state of the game. Yet as a player I can never see myself playing a Barb in the current game due to the discourtesy I feel like I would be doing to people I would often group with, and this tells me something. I hope the devs are at least taking these things into consideration.

I think you have some good points here, but I also think you don't really grasp just how far they can go with this. And the other class revisions haven't JUST been enhancements--they've also made changes to spells and class features.

There are potions available in the game that *even without substantial healing amp* can heal you for a worthwhile amount even on epic elite. And I'm not talking about silver flame potions, either. People ignore the collectibles turn in potions all the time, but they're so very easy to get and heal you an impressive amount. It's just over time instead of instantaneous. WITH some healing amp, it's AMAZING.

Even *medium* armor can give you serious amounts of damage resistance now. You don't need 250 PRR. 50 is still a great plenty, particularly with some decent DR to back it up. And DR is something that needs looking at--4/- just ain't what it used to be.

I've made a great many suggestions elsewhere, but here are some again:

Bring in the Frenzied Berserker ability where you literally CANNOT DIE while Frenzied. Yeah, once the enemies are dead you're looking at some problems, but you should have at least a little time either to pot yourself up or hoof it to a shrine before you bite it. And with ship buffs no longer going away when you die, it just doesn't matter that much any more if you're up and down. It's not DYING that's a pain, it's that somebody else has to interrupt what they're doing to COME GET YOU that's annoying--esp. since 90% of the time when people die they're alone off in some inaccessible part of the quest at the bottom of a spike pit or some similar bit of nonsense.

Give them some sort of dervish-like ability where they can attack while moving in such a way that they can avoid most mob attacks simply by being out of reach. Or, heck, give barbarians greater reach and decrease the reach on some mobs. I don't know if it's latency or what but I can't tell you how often I'll be 30' or more away from a mob and they'll STILL be hitting me. Maybe that'd be a good unique aspect for barbarians: circle-strafing. Instead of standing in one place going whack whack whack they are constantly moving, whirling their big axe or sword around with terrifying momentum while avoiding attacks. And I can't tell you the number of people who DON'T USE Uncanny and Improved Uncanny dodge. It's 50% dodge, for crying out loud! Yeah it has a cooldown but it's not that long! It's certainly long enough for a high-dps character to dispatch a group of mobs. Heh, they could even COMBINE this with Frenzied Berserker--call it something like "ain't got time to bleed" where as long as you keep moving around fast enough, you're okay, but once you stop you feel all your injuries and ow ow ow ow. Kind of the Barbarian-as-meth-addict ethos, I guess. I have no idea how you'd go about coding something like that into this game. Maybe make it so that MOVING builds up temp HP for you. THAT could be a neat thing and it would be *completely* unique to Barbarian in this game, leading to an absolutely unique gameplay STYLE. It has to be doable because they already have ranged abilities that only work when you stand still, so the converse type of ability HAS to be possible. You could also hook additional benefits onto their "moving buff" like extra dodge, extra prr, etc. It'd be like defensive stance for paladins and fighters only with its own twist. Give them a long-cooldown instant where they can kickstart their stacks.

That would also be a good opportunity to rework how TUMBLE works to make it actually functional with combat. As it is now, with the fact that you have to PRECISELY time the key-presses to tumble several times in succession and that you have to START a tumble from a dead halt make it basically worthless. The way it should work is, if you're already moving and hit the block key, you should tumble. Instantly. No pausing, no dropping into block mode, just TUMBLE. If you hold down move and hit the block key, you should tumble repeatedly. It shouldn't be Stop-block-okay NOW I'll tumble.

Adrenaline should work with Cleave and Great Cleave the way it works with Manyshot--ALL of the attacks should proc the Adrenaline effect, NOT just the first one to land. This isn't just useful for damage (although it is) but also because there's a nifty ability in Fury of the Wild that KNOCKS DOWN enemies if they get hit with Adrenaline. Do this, and suddenly that tree is MUCH more effective for melee barbarians because they get some CROWD CONTROL out of it. Now they are actually devastating to GROUPS of enemies, which are also the worst bane of the barbarian because they chew through his health like crazy.

I would have suggested knockback except I know what a horror that would be in this game with required enemies getting pushed through walls where they cannot be accessed. If it wasn't so problematic for the game I would also suggest something like a "wall of steel" that forces enemies into a cone in front of you instead of letting them spread out and surround you--now a single barbarian can hold a choke point easily because enemies can't ooze past him.

Barbarians could make use of an underused game feature--fear effects. More in the "cowering" sort of way than the "running away" because we all know how annoying mobs are when they run away.

That's kind of my vision for the barbarian: a fear-spewing, fast-moving, annihilating-entire-groups-with-a-single-cleave whirlwind of destruction.

[Thar]

I've been looking for a thread to let folks know about this, and this thread seems to fit just fine: We are planning to post up some feedback threads later this week on our plans for the Barbarian enhancement trees (Frenzied Berserker, Occult Slayer and Ravager.) When they are posted, we'd love to get your feedback on the ideas. Thanks!

hey it's later this week!!

[Qhualor]

hey it's later this week!!

Yep. Thought Sev would have it up yesterday. Didn't see it. So it must be today. Its not right to keep me in suspense like this when I've been waiting patiently a few months for this thread

[edrein]

I want to get these in as early as possible, so here they are:

• This would be a great time to bring on some stuff for Barbarian, Druid, and Ranger. IMO Druid is the priority tree-wise simply because they don't have a 3rd tree yet, but perhaps it'd be better to do a multi-useful desert themed tree something like Harper that's most helpful for our beloved Primal classes. Or both. I have this great 3rd edition D&D book here called Sandstorm: Mastering the Perils of Fire and Sand. Scorpion Heritor (poisons) would be a great option, as would Walker in the Waste (Drains, a type of lich form, mummy and sand golem pets). Scorpion Heritor would make a great general tree (could do it as a Vulkoor thing, which would make it a lot like Harper) and Walker in the Waste would make a great Druid tree. Or perhaps something Wind oriented. One thing which could be cool for a high-level ability on Scorpion Heritor would be allowing us to drop a Poison spell ward (on a lengthy cooldown, of course). This would bring some CC in for classes like Barbarian or Ranger and be an interesting little twist.

An interesting choice, the Scorpion Heritor could indeed fit Eberron with Vulkoor being a deity, and it would indeed fit the memo of drow Rangers, Barbarians, and Shamans (druids). However, Walker in the Waste is very 'anti-druid'. While it could fit and work and would be an interesting choice, Druids abhor the undead and find them to be the ultimate abomination. As far as I'm aware from my years of pen and paper and reading D&D lore the only undead reasonably tolerated by any druid is a Baelnorn, which is an divine undead elf type from Forgotten Realms (perhaps other settings have them as well), and even then it is more of a veneration for the services of a Baelnorn than actually allowing such a creature to exist. This is due to Baelnorn's being typically of a good alignment, while most undead are evil based, especially liches. That being said, I'd love to see Walker in the Waste as a any-class Enhancement tree, I think like Baelnorn's they would have to be given the special rules toward some positive energy healing which in my eyes would possibly be 50% base, which can be modified by the upcoming possible changes to heal amp to normal 100% ranges, while also benefiting from 50% negative energy healing.

Actually if we could get some dev comments on a Walker in the Waste tree, I'd consider doing an enhancement write up. Hey Cordovan can we get a quick shown to the dev team deal going on?