Update 24 suggestions

[DakFrost]

I would hope that would not be the order of class updates because that chart is not a very good representation of class power.

Fvs the 4th most powerful class? That's a joke.
Monk being the 2nd most powerful class? No. Monkchers are incredibly powerful, but that is not a very good indication of melee monks overall.

I agree. That chart is a joke.

I don't think the Devs actually know what classes are running end game. It's like they surveyed a group of new players that made it to level 10.

[xberto]

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)

Agreed a pure bard should not have any self healing built into tree. Barb should be all about DPS. Massive DPS. No class should be able melee a Barb and loss of healing power is the price. Maybe some bonus healing from potions would be Ok..

[moo_cow]

I agree. That chart is a joke.

I don't think the Devs actually know what classes are running end game. It's like they surveyed a group of new players that made it to level 10.

Haha, this cracked me up.

[kmoustakas]

Want a suggestion for update 24? Update loot please because it's mostly terrible. Even the random +10 +10 items have some weirdness for example why can't you have a deadly of seeking?

[Lonnbeimnech]

Want a suggestion for update 24? Update loot please because it's mostly terrible. Even the random +10 +10 items have some weirdness for example why can't you have a deadly of seeking?

I was thinking about this the other day. It is annoying that even named items, instead of having a few abilities that work well together, like a seeker item with exceptional seeker, they are instead a bunch of seemingly random stuff stuck on there to justify the high ML. But you end up with several items that offer redundant abilities, just because there is one ability on them that you do want.

More stuff like this would be nice.
http://ddowiki.com/page/Item:Treads_...%28Level_25%29
When it came out it was a one stop item for dex. Unfortunately it quickly became dated, with +11 items and +4 insightful available elsewhere, though obviously not on the one item...

[Qhualor]

I was thinking about this the other day. It is annoying that even named items, instead of having a few abilities that work well together, like a seeker item with exceptional seeker, they are instead a bunch of seemingly random stuff stuck on there to justify the high ML. But you end up with several items that offer redundant abilities, just because there is one ability on them that you do want.

More stuff like this would be nice.
http://ddowiki.com/page/Item:Treads_...%28Level_25%29
When it came out it was a one stop item for dex. Unfortunately it quickly became dated, with +11 items and +4 insightful available elsewhere, though obviously not on the one item...

I can agree with that. The other day I went to wiki and looked up items to update my characters end game gear. I do that every update when new loot comes out so I can keep an eye out on AH or know which quests I want to specifically run while I level. I ended up with 4 named items that have vitality +40.

[Vellrad]

If you would have 1 uber item with all things gearing would be too easy.
Planning gear set up and what to fit where, and what to sacrifice is part of the game.

[cherokee83pride]

He's actually had that title since he joined the DDO team. I wouldn't read too much into it. U24 will focus on the Barbarian, in regard to class updates.

Any inkling that there may be an Iconic Dwarf to come out for Barb's, like Battlerager? C'mon would be awesome to have Barb's modeled after Pwent Thibbledorf and his Gutbusters. That would so fit in Faerun and Thunderholme stuff... #DroolingAtTheThought of Battlerager Dwarf Barbarian Iconics <3

[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.

[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

[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.

[bennyson]

Here's an idea...

A dragon with a FREAKING LESSAR BEAM ON ITS HEAD!

[elg582]

Update 24 suggestion:

Reverse everything you have done in the last 10 updates.