Barbarian - Frenzied Berserker Changes

[Severlin]

Greetings!

This is the first in a series of posts outlining our plans for the update to Barbarians. The design behind these changes is that Barbarian DPS is largely in a good state, but they lack mitigation and healers don't like that they take so much healing. The idea behind these changes is to make Barbarians tougher through sheer hit point bonuses, give them enough healing amplification so healing them doesn't feel like a healing sink, and adding 5th tier healing to help sustain them during dungeons.


Here are the proposed changes for Barbarian's Frenzied Berserker tree for Update 24.

(If you see "---" that means text was removed; likely a penalty or condition.)



Die Hard: (1 AP, Barbarian Level 1). You gain the Die Hard feat, and automatically stabilize when incapacitated.

Toughness: (1 AP, Barbarian Level 3). +20 hit points, and +10 healing amplification.

Frenzy: (1 AP, Barbarian Level 6). Activation Cost: 10 Hit Points. Cooldown: 30 seconds. Enter a frenzy, increasing your strength by +2. Your melee attacks do an additional +2d6 damage. This damage scales with 100% Melee Power. Passive: You gain +5 Melee Power.

Toughness: (1 AP, Barbarian Level 12). You gain 5 Physical Resist Rating. You gain +60 hit points and +20 healing amplification.

Death Frenzy: (1 AP, Barbarian Level 18). Activation Cost: 20 Hit Points. Cooldown: 30 seconds. Expend 20 hit points to enter a Death Frenzy for one minute. You gain 4 strength. You increase your crit multiplier on a 19-20 by an additional 1 when raging. Your melee attacks now do an additional +4d6 damage. This damage scales with 100% Melee Power. Passive: You gain +10 Melee Power.

Storm’s Eye: (1 AP, Barbarian Level 20). Activate: You gain +1 melee damage. --- This damage bonus gains one stack every six seconds, up to 25 stacks. This ends when you are below 50% health. Activation Cost: 100 Hit Points. Cooldown: 3 minutes. Passive: You gain +4 Constitution. You gain +10 Melee Power. When Raging your melee attacks that roll a 20 do an extra 400 damage. This damage scales with 100% Melee Power.


Tier One

Extra Rage: (1/1/1 AP). +1/+2/+3 Rage use per rest

Cracking Attack: Melee Attack: Deals +1/+2/+3[W] extra damage. Damaging enemies reduces their AC by -1/-2/-3 for 20 seconds. ---(Activation Cost: 5 Hit Points. Cooldown: 30 seconds)

Die Harder: Your range of unconsciousness extends +5/+10/+15 HP. When you drop below 1 health, you gain 10/20/30 temp hitpoints. This can only trigger once every five minutes.

Power Rage: +1/+2/+3 Strength --- while raging

Athletics: +1/+2/+3 Balance, Jump, Swim. Rank 3: When you activate Barbarian Rage, you gain +35% Action Boost bonus to movement speed for 20 seconds.


Tier Two (Requires Barbarian Level 2, 5 APs spent in tree)

Angry Arms: (Requires: Two Handed Fighting, 1/1/1 AP) +1%/+2%/+3% chance of triggering weapon effects on glancing blows and +3%/+4%/+5% glancing blow damage.

Body Blow: (1/1/1 AP) Damaging enemies with Cracking Attack reduces their Fortitude saving throws by 1/2/3 for 20 seconds.

Blood Tribute: (1/1/1 AP) Gain +50/+100/+150 Temporary Health for one minute. This scales with 400% Melee Power. You have a stacking -1 penalty to constitution until you rest or die. (Cooldown: 3 seconds)

Extra Action Boost: (1/1/1 AP) +1/+2/+3 additional Action Boost use per rest.

Sprint Boost: (1/1/1 AP) +35%/40%/50% Action Boost bonus to movement speed for 20 seconds. Cooldown: 30 seconds.



Tier Three (Requires Barbarian Level 3, 10 APs spent in tree)

Mad Munitions: (1/1/1 AP, Requires: Greater Two Handed Fighting, Angry Arms) +1%/+2%/+3% chance of triggering weapon effects on glancing blows and +3%/+4%/+5% glancing blow damage


Blood Trail: (2 AP, Requires: Blood Tribute, Supreme Cleave) Supreme Cleave no longer has a hit point cost. You gain 2 Melee Power.

Supreme Cleave: (1/1/1 AP) Tactical Melee Cleave: Expend 10 hit points to activate this ability to attack enemies around you. This attack deals +1/+2/+3[W] damage. (Activation Cost: 10 Hit Points, affected by Dungeon Scaling. Cooldown: 9/6/3 seconds)

Strength/Constitution: (2 AP) +1 Strength or Constitution



Tier Four (Requires Barbarian Level 4, 20 APs spent in tree)

Crazy Strike: (1/1/1 AP, Requires: Body Blow) When you score a --- hit with Cracking Attack, for 12 seconds you gain +0.3/+0,6/+1[W] damage and 1/2/3 Melee Power.

Exhausting Blow: (1/1/1 AP) Melee Attack: Deals +2/+3/+4[W], 1d6/2d6/3d6 Strength, and 1d6/2d6/3d6 Dexterity damage. (Cooldown: 20 seconds)

Wade In: (1/1/1 AP, Requires: Supreme Cleave) When you Supreme Cleave, you gain +1 Primal bonus to Attack --- per enemy damaged, up to 3/6/10 maximum. Lasts for 4 seconds.

Strength/Constitution: (2 AP) +1 Strength or Constitution


Tier Five (Requires Barbarian Level 5, Character Level 12, 30 APs spent in tree)

Focus Wide: (2 AP, Requires: Mad Munitions) When you score a vorpal hit, you increase your chance of triggering weapon effects with glancing blows by +10% and gain +10% glancing blow damage for 12 seconds.

Focused Wrath: (2/2 AP) While raging, increases the critical multiplier of all weapons you use by 1/2 when you roll a natural 19 or 20 that is a confirmed crit hit.

Lash Out: (1/1/1 AP) Supreme Cleave has a 50%/75%/82% chance to cause bleeding to damaged enemies, inflicting up to 1/2/3 stacks. This can stack up to 5 times. Your Supreme Cleave also reduces the AC of enemies by 1/2/3 for six seconds. This stacks up to five times.

Multi-selector: (2 AP)

Accelerated Metabolism: While raging you heal 2d6 hit points every 4 seconds. This healing scales with 100% Melee Power.

Raging Blows: While raging your melee attacks gain +1[W] to damage.


Tantrum: (2 AP) Tactical Melee Cleave: Expend 25 hit points to activate this ability and attack enemies around you. This deals +5[W] damage and has a 50% to knock down each damage enemy briefly on a failed Fortitude save vs. 10 + Strength modifier + Barbarian Level. Abilities that trigger on Supreme Cleave also trigger on Tantrum. (Blood Trail, Wade In, Lash Out, Sundering Spin, Storm's Eye)


Sev~

[kmankowski]

Blood Tribute: (1/1/1 AP) Gain +50/+100/+150 Temporary Health for one minute. This scales with 400% Melee Power. You have a stacking -1 penalty to constitution until you rest or die. (Cooldown: 3 seconds)

Blood Trail: (2 AP, Requires: Blood Tribute, Supreme Cleave) Supreme Cleave no longer has a hit point cost. You gain 2 Melee Power.

My favorite changes. Very nice stuff.

[Scrabbler]

Storm’s Eye: (1 AP, Barbarian Level 20). Activate: You gain +1 melee damage. --- This damage bonus gains one stack every six seconds, up to 25 stacks. This ends when you are below 50% health. Activation Cost: 100 Hit Points. Cooldown: 3 minutes. Passive: You gain +4 Constitution. You gain +150 hit points and +40 healing amplification.

Of course the passive bonuses are good, and the active portion of Storm's Eye isn't intensely stupid like it was before.

But there's still a serious drawback to the active Storm's Eye: it turns off when you go below 50% health, and it is completely normal to wait until a Barb is under 50% hp before healing him. Yes, there are ways to work around it and ask other players to try concentrating on keeping you above half health, but I strongly suggest looking for some other condition that can end Storm's Eye.


Here is one alternative:

While Storm's Eye is active, you take an increasing penalty to heal amp, and the effect ends when you reach 0 hp, whereupon you are healed to 66%. (Well, that would need some tuning, but you see the concept)

[Severlin]

Of course the passive bonuses are good, and the active portion of Storm's Eye isn't intensely stupid like it was before.

But there's still a serious drawback to the active Storm's Eye: it turns off when you go below 50% health, and it is completely normal to wait until a Barb is under 50% hp before healing him. Yes, there are ways to work around it and ask other players to try concentrating on keeping you above half health, but I strongly suggest looking for some other condition that can end Storm's Eye.


Here is one alternative:

While Storm's Eye is active, you take an increasing penalty to heal amp, and the effect ends when you reach 0 hp, whereupon you are healed to 66%. (Well, that would need some tuning, but you see the concept)

I see your point. I will bring this up with the team.

Sev~

[Chaimberland]

Frenzy: cost 10hp to activate, gain 30hp
Death Frenzy: cost 20hp to activate, gain 100hp (deals 1-3 damage to self)
Storm's Eye: cost 100hp to activate, gain 150hp

Seams silly to me to lose and gain hp at the same time. And I notice you still damage yourself using Death Frenzy but not Storm's Eye. Why not just completely do away with damaging yourself?

I like the idea behind Accelerated Metabolism. The idea that a barbarian can regenerate while raging fits the class. Wouldn't mind seeing some vampirism effects also.

[JOTMON]

Greetings!

This is the first in a series of posts outlining our plans for the update to Barbarians. The design behind these changes is that Barbarian DPS is largely in a good state, but they lack mitigation and healers don't like that they take so much healing. The idea behind these changes is to make Barbarians tougher through sheer hit point bonuses, give them enough healing amplification so healing them doesn't feel like a healing sink, and adding 5th tier healing to help sustain them during dungeons.


Here are the proposed changes for Barbarian's Frenzied Berserker tree for Update 24.

(If you see "---" that means text was removed; likely a penalty or condition.)



Core abilities

Die Hard: (1 AP, Barbarian Level 1). You gain the Die Hard feat, and automatically stabilize when incapacitated.

Toughness: (1 AP, Barbarian Level 3). +20 hit points, and +10 healing amplification.

Frenzy: (1 AP, Barbarian Level 6). Activation Cost: 10 Hit Points. Cooldown: 30 seconds. Enter a frenzy, increasing your strength by +2 and adding Vicious to your melee weapons. You gain +30 hit points and +10 healing amplification.

Toughness: (1 AP, Barbarian Level 12). You gain 10 Physical Resist Rating. You gain +60 hit points and +20 healing amplification.

Death Frenzy: (1 AP, Barbarian Level 18). Activation Cost: 20 Hit Points. Cooldown: 30 seconds. Expend 20 hit points to enter a Death Frenzy for one minute. You gain 4 strength. You increase your crit multiplier by an additional 1 when raging. Your melee weapons gain 'Greater Vicious'.(+4d6 damage to your attacks while dealing 1d3 damage to yourself per attack.) Passive: You gain +100 hit points and +20 healing amplification.

Storm’s Eye: (1 AP, Barbarian Level 20). Activate: You gain +1 melee damage. --- This damage bonus gains one stack every six seconds, up to 25 stacks. This ends when you are below 50% health. Activation Cost: 100 Hit Points. Cooldown: 3 minutes. Passive: You gain +4 Constitution. You gain +150 hit points and +40 healing amplification.


Tier One

Extra Rage: (1/1/1 AP). +1/+2/+3 Rage use per rest

Cracking Attack: Melee Attack: Deals +1/+2/+3[W] extra damage. Damaging enemies reduces their AC by -1/-2/-3 for 20 seconds. ---(Activation Cost: 5 Hit Points. Cooldown: 30 seconds)

Die Harder: Your range of unconsciousness extends +5/+10/+15 HP. When you drop below 1 health, you gain 10/20/30 temp hitpoints. This can only trigger once every five minutes.

Power Rage: +1/+2/+3 Strength --- while raging

Athletics: +1/+2/+3 Balance, Jump, Swim. Rank 3: When you activate Barbarian Rage, you gain +35% Action Boost bonus to movement speed for 20 seconds.


Tier Two (Requires Barbarian Level 2, 5 APs spent in tree)

Angry Arms: (Requires: Two Handed Fighting, 1/1/1 AP) +1%/+2%/+3% chance of triggering weapon effects on glancing blows and +3%/+4%/+5% glancing blow damage.

Body Blow: (1/1/1 AP) Damaging enemies with Cracking Attack reduces their Fortitude saving throws by 1/2/3 for 20 seconds.

Blood Tribute: (1/1/1 AP) Gain +50/+100/+150 Temporary Health for one minute. This scales with 400% Melee Power. You have a stacking -1 penalty to constitution until you rest or die. (Cooldown: 3 seconds)

Extra Action Boost: (1/1/1 AP) +1/+2/+3 additional Action Boost use per rest.

Sprint Boost: (1/1/1 AP) +35%/40%/50% Action Boost bonus to movement speed for 20 seconds. Cooldown: 30 seconds.



Tier Three (Requires Barbarian Level 3, 10 APs spent in tree)

Mad Munitions: (1/1/1 AP, Requires: Greater Two Handed Fighting, Angry Arms) +1%/+2%/+3% chance of triggering weapon effects on glancing blows and +3%/+4%/+5% glancing blow damage


Blood Trail: (2 AP, Requires: Blood Tribute, Supreme Cleave) Supreme Cleave no longer has a hit point cost. You gain 2 Melee Power.

Supreme Cleave: (1/1/1 AP) Tactical Melee Cleave: Expend 10 hit points to activate this ability to attack enemies around you. This attack deals +1/+2/+3[W] damage. (Activation Cost: 10 Hit Points, affected by Dungeon Scaling. Cooldown: 9/6/3 seconds)

Strength/Constitution: (2 AP) +1 Strength or Constitution



Tier Four (Requires Barbarian Level 4, 20 APs spent in tree)

Crazy Strike: (1/1/1 AP, Requires: Body Blow) When you score a --- hit with Cracking Attack, for 12 seconds you gain +0.3/+0,6/+1[W] damage and 1/2/3 Melee Power.

Exhausting Blow: (1/1/1 AP) Melee Attack: Deals +2/+3/+4[W], 1d6/2d6/3d6 Strength, and 1d6/2d6/3d6 Dexterity damage. (Cooldown: 20 seconds)

Wade In: (1/1/1 AP, Requires: Supreme Cleave) When you Supreme Cleave, you gain +1 Primal bonus to Attack --- per enemy damaged, up to 3/6/10 maximum. Lasts for 4 seconds.

Strength/Constitution: (2 AP) +1 Strength or Constitution


Tier Five (Requires Barbarian Level 5, Character Level 12, 30 APs spent in tree)

Focus Wide: (2 AP, Requires: Mad Munitions) When you score a vorpal hit, you increase your chance of triggering weapon effects with glancing blows by +10% and gain +10% glancing blow damage for 12 seconds.

Focused Wrath: (2/2 AP) While raging, increases the critical multiplier of all weapons you use by 1/2 when you roll a natural 19 or 20 that is a confirmed crit hit.

Lash Out: (1/1/1 AP, Requires: Slicing Blow) Supreme Cleave has a 50%/75%/82% chance to cause bleeding to damaged enemies, inflicting up to 1/2/3 stacks. This can stack up to 5 times. Your Supreme Cleave also reduces the AC of enemies by 1/2/3 for six seconds. This stacks up to five times.

Accelerated Metabolism: (2 AP) While raging you heal 2d6 hit points every 4 seconds. This healing scales with 100% Melee Power.

Tantrum: (2 AP) Tactical Melee Cleave: Expend 25 hit points to activate this ability and attack enemies around you. This deals +5[W] damage and has a 50% to knock down each damage enemy briefly on a failed Fortitude save vs. 10 + Strength modifier + Barbarian Level. Abilities that trigger on Supreme Cleave also trigger on Tantrum. (Blood Trail, Wade In, Lash Out, Sundering Spin, Storm's Eye)


Sev~

Die Harder: Your range of unconsciousness extends +5/+10/+15 HP. When you drop below 1 health, you gain 10/20/30 temp hitpoints. This can only trigger once every five minutes.
~sucks. revamp this one. consider you can get 20hp of toughness and =10 hamp for 1AP


Wade In: (1/1/1 AP, Requires: Supreme Cleave) When you Supreme Cleave, you gain +1 Primal bonus to Attack --- per enemy damaged, up to 3/6/10 maximum. Lasts for 4 seconds.
~seriously? a tier 4 effect that costs 3AP to get +3 to hit for 4 seconds??/ no one cares if this scrap stacks. inferior choice or wasted filler AP's...

Focused Wrath: (2/2 AP) While raging, increases the critical multiplier of all weapons you use by 1/2 when you roll a natural 19 or 20 that is a confirmed crit hit.
really.. for Tier 5 and 4AP .... meh too expensive ... this should not require raging and only be 1AP.

I see more hamp effects, which is ok.. .. but should Barbarians have more Hamp than a Monk??.. Barbarians are about raging DPS not healing amp.
The attention a barbarian requires to keep alive vs the damage output just isn't there.
No vampirism effects to get stacking temporary hp for damaging mobs..
No offsets for reducing vicious/frenzy self damage..
No MRR PRR boosters...

nothing to see here that makes me want to use a barbarian for pure massive DPS that makes sense to dedicate a healer to keep the barbarian going.. instead of letting the barbarian die and just kiting mobs through the Blade Barrier...

[Qhualor]

In a couple hours I'll be able to do more in depth analysis when I have more time, but just wanted to quickly comment on the opening paragraph.

I'm sorry, but this isn't 2009-10. Healers are in short supply these days. Today its about teamwork and you see actual healers more in raids than quests. Even the highest heal amp builds don't get watched over. Its more, "oh that guy needs a heal. Maybe when I have a chance to help out.". My main had awesome heal amp and very high DPS. Healers still complained about healing others. These changes won't get them to heal again.

[Uska]

Die Harder: Your range of unconsciousness extends +5/+10/+15 HP. When you drop below 1 health, you gain 10/20/30 temp hitpoints. This can only trigger once every five minutes.
~sucks. revamp this one. consider you can get 20hp of toughness and =10 hamp for 1AP

Cracking Attack: Melee Attack: Deals +1/+2/+3[W] extra damage. Damaging enemies reduces their AC by -1/-2/-3 for 20 seconds. ---(Activation Cost: 5 Hit Points. Cooldown: 30 seconds)
~sucks -1/-2/-3 ac.. really..? .. make this -10/-20/-30AC

Wade In: (1/1/1 AP, Requires: Supreme Cleave) When you Supreme Cleave, you gain +1 Primal bonus to Attack --- per enemy damaged, up to 3/6/10 maximum. Lasts for 4 seconds.
~seriously? what the hell are you thinking here. a tier 4 effect that costs 3AP to get +3 to hit for 4 seconds??/ no one cares if this scrap stacks. pure garbage.

Focused Wrath: (2/2 AP) While raging, increases the critical multiplier of all weapons you use by 1/2 when you roll a natural 19 or 20 that is a confirmed crit hit.
really.. for Tier 5 and 4AP ...this is what you are giving... meh... this should not require raging and only be 1AP.

I see more hamp effects, which is ok.. .. but all in all this looks weak.
The attention a barbarian requires to keep alive vs the damage output just isn't there.
No vampirism effects to get stacking temporary hp for damaging mobs..
No offsets for reducing vicious/frenzy self damage..
No MRR PRR boosters...

nothing to se here..

and I was thinking that barbs are getting to much healing out of this yah I still think that.

[brzytki]

Cracking Attack: Melee Attack: Deals +1/+2/+3[W] extra damage. Damaging enemies reduces their AC by -1/-2/-3 for 20 seconds. ---(Activation Cost: 5 Hit Points. Cooldown: 30 seconds)
~sucks -1/-2/-3 ac.. really..? .. make this -10/-20/-30AC

Wade In: (1/1/1 AP, Requires: Supreme Cleave) When you Supreme Cleave, you gain +1 Primal bonus to Attack --- per enemy damaged, up to 3/6/10 maximum. Lasts for 4 seconds.
~seriously? a tier 4 effect that costs 3AP to get +3 to hit for 4 seconds??/ no one cares if this scrap stacks. inferior choice or wasted filler AP's...

Lol these two comments cracked me up. Tier one ability and you want it to be not only +3[W] but -30 AC as well? Do you realize that it would at least cut in half, if not reduced to 0, AC of most mobs in heroic and lower epic? Looks like it was ages since you've seen the to-hit/AC formula.

[stoopid_cowboy]

I see more hamp effects, which is ok.. .. but should Barbarians have more Hamp than a Monk??.. Barbarians are about raging DPS not healing amp.
The attention a barbarian requires to keep alive vs the damage output just isn't there.
No vampirism effects to get stacking temporary hp for damaging mobs..
No offsets for reducing vicious/frenzy self damage..
No MRR PRR boosters...

nothing to see here that makes me want to use a barbarian for pure massive DPS that makes sense to dedicate a healer to keep the barbarian going.. instead of letting the barbarian die and just kiting mobs through the Blade Barrier...

I agree to the points made here!
Adding hjealing amp is always a good thing, but where is the damage mitigation? Where is the increase in DR/PRR that the class so desperately needs? What good is added hjealing amp when EE mobs can basically two shot a raging barbarian?

Also, what is the point of giving all of these bonuses to attack? Barbarians are surely a class that does not need any help with attack bonus. Change those attack bonuses to damage bonuses and you will have something going.

Another thing that just flat out annoys me is the downright stupid -1/2/3 to enemy AC. In what fantasy world are the devs in that think a -3 to enemy AC is going to make the slightest difference in anything? Change it to -5/10/15% fortification and make it semi useful.

Vamparism has been dicussed ad nauseum. Why can't a tier 5 ability (if not an innate barb ability) give a susbtantial hjeal on a critical hit? Say 50-100hp? How about a hjeal effect on a roll of a 20? Call it Vorpal Hjeal or something.

Like with the last few class updates, this is a good start. Yet it needs more! Barb DPS is nowhere near good enough to make the Monkchers put away their bow and TR for a great axe.

[Ovrad]

I don't understand why barbarians should have more hamp than monks. I'd rather see the focus on dealing and resisting damage than better healing. A barbarian lifestyle isn't exactly focused on "healthy living" and purity if you know what I mean.

[Monkey-Boy]

In a couple hours I'll be able to do more in depth analysis when I have more time, but just wanted to quickly comment on the opening paragraph.

I'm sorry, but this isn't 2009-10. Healers are in short supply these days. Today its about teamwork and you see actual healers more in raids than quests. Even the highest heal amp builds don't get watched over. Its more, "oh that guy needs a heal. Maybe when I have a chance to help out.". My main had awesome heal amp and very high DPS. Healers still complained about healing others. These changes won't get them to heal again.

Who cares when a Silverflame pot hits you for like 1200?

[Scrabbler]

I see your point. I will bring this up with the team.

Thinking on it further, the key problem with the current version of Storm's Eye (ending when your hp is under 50%) is that in content which is of easy or moderate difficulty (like a regular dungeon with a Cleric hireling) it is trivial to keep it going. In those situations, it's pretty much a passive +25 damage.

But in fairly hard content, it is onerous or impossible to keep Storm's Eye going. So it doesn't help the class much to make them better at easy fights and the same at hard fights... we'd rather do the reverse.


Other possibilities to change when Storm's Eye ends:

• A simple 60 second timer, or 45 seconds + con mod.
• A 40 second timer, but once per 9 seconds when you take damage the duration extends +5.
• When you cast Storm's Eye, the buff starts with a counter equal to your max hp. When you've taken damage adding up to your hp total, the buff ends.

[bennyson]

Greetings!

This is the first in a series of posts outlining our plans for the update to Barbarians. The design behind these changes is that Barbarian DPS is largely in a good state, but they lack mitigation and healers don't like that they take so much healing. The idea behind these changes is to make Barbarians tougher through sheer hit point bonuses, give them enough healing amplification so healing them doesn't feel like a healing sink, and adding 5th tier healing to help sustain them during dungeons.


Here are the proposed changes for Barbarian's Frenzied Berserker tree for Update 24.

(If you see "---" that means text was removed; likely a penalty or condition.)

Accelerated Metabolism: (2 AP) While raging you heal 2d6 hit points every 4 seconds. This healing scales with 100% Melee Power.

Sev~

YES, YES, YYYYYYEEEEEEESSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!

Finally, a way for barbarians to heal WHILE raging!

[Zurrander]

I get that healers aren't always available, but barb aren't supposed to be self healing. They are supposed to stay alive through a combination of Hugh Hit point pools & Temp Hit points. Giving them Heals takes away the very thing that makes the class different. The amount of healing amp barbs are being given is supposed to compensate for there lack of self healing, making it easy for secondary healers to pick them up or for them to heal with pots/clickies

[bbqzor]

This is the first in a series of posts outlining our plans for the update to Barbarians.

Good, they certainly need it.

The design behind these changes is that Barbarian DPS is largely in a good state, but they lack mitigation and healers don't like that they take so much healing. The idea behind these changes is to make Barbarians tougher through sheer hit point bonuses, give them enough healing amplification so healing them doesn't feel like a healing sink, and adding 5th tier healing to help sustain them during dungeons.

Ugh. You have really missed the boat here. Barbarian DPS has some issues, most notably is the "trade offs" associated with it which other classes dont have. Frenzy can keep up, but deals you damage the more mobs you hit. And in todays game, that frequently is as dangerous, if not moreso, than the mobs themselves. No other class has costs like this, and it holds barbarians back.

Secondly, healers not liking barbarians needing healing is a poorly qualified statement. The issues is they compound the issue through self damage. While I understand frenzy damage has to stay on those specific things, the style as a whole (self destructive melee) needs to change. Adding sheer hit points is not a solution here. Hit points only really matter for two things: initial time until recover, and absorbing large damage spikes. Extending the initial time to recover is like applying a band aid to an arterial wound, and barbarians can already handle spikes well enough. While more HP is nice to keep pace with the "tank" side of things an esnuring barbarians maintain a presence in relative hp values, it does not address the "healing" side.

Healing amp and self healing may... will offer feedback below. As is usual Ill go by tier instead of by ability in general. Its simply too time consuming to itemize except where necessary.

Core abilities

Steps in the right direction but honestly not impressed. Theres a 10 prr gain, not enough to really matter. Theres a gain of 340 hp (if they all stack) and 4 Con... nice to look at in the party window but again this wont change too much except taking a bit longer before the first heal is needed. Then theres a 100% amp gain (from zero, if you have amp elsewhere this changes due to the new formula previously detailed elsewhere). While obviously this is good, its difficult to say how good. Barbarians cannot meaningfully self heal while raged. This helps other people help you. Its already not generally hard to heal barbarians, in terms of how fast their red bar goes back up. The problem is in how rapidly it goes down and needs refilling. This doesnt address the problem. A barb with decent amp already gets topped off in one heal, this might let you use a smaller heal for the job but doesnt change the metric. You still run out of hp as fast as you do currently. I hesitate to say "100 amp isnt good" but I honestly dont know that it will change anything. Will have to get on lama and see when its there.

As for the capstone, bleh. Ends below 50% hp? Barbs already have trouble needing heals too often. This just increases that window even more... on top of costing 100hp to activate. Needs to be reworked, its just not even close to a active ability. Additionally, while I appreciate the cores trying to add "more hps"... frenzy shouldnt have no Str in its capstone. Maybe change this to +2 Str, +2 Con. I was going to suggest 4 Str, but some people might like Con for rage duration or hp. But no Str is a mistake.

Tier One

Minor changes. Cracking Attack might see use, but the 30s cd is pretty brutal. Thats only 1W every 10s in terms of dps... kind of light for such a weak kicker as 1-3 ac. Changes to power rage are nice I guess.

Tier Two (Requires Barbarian Level 2, 5 APs spent in tree)

Only change is to blood tribute... and Im not sure about it. Suppose, for a moment, you were in blitz or something and had 100 melee power. Ok. So the 100 temp hp would scale as if you had 400 melee power, meaning it would add 750 hp. Thats significant... but for -1 con I dunno. It wont last long, but it is kind of a self heal of sorts. Much like the healing amp above, its tough to gauge on paper, will have to test on lama. Its not something you can really use more than 4-6 times per shrine or the con penalty starts to get pretty noticeable... I mean you can notice pretty easily when primal scream runs out for example. And its hard to spend 3ap on something to use "for emergencies" if the idea is to use it as a clutch catch for times when a heal isnt coming in quite in time.

Tier Three (Requires Barbarian Level 3, 10 APs spent in tree)

Only change is blood trail, and its a good change. The first change I actually thought was legitimately good Ive seen. It actually addresses the problem: that self damage increases the frequency of heals needed, which is the problem with barbs being "hard to heal". It also adds melee power, which the class will need (in small doses) to keep up with other classes as they get their own small doses through passes like these.

Tier Four (Requires Barbarian Level 4, 20 APs spent in tree)

Only big change is crazy strike and its a not bad. Its not good either... it has two prerequisities which are medicore (cracking attack) to useless (body blow), and has an up-time of 12s/30s or 40%. In other words, on average, its closer to 0.5W and 1 melee power averaged over time. Considering the pre reqs, thats weak for 9 total AP. Granted, the previous version of this ability was so bad I have no idea how it ever made it live, but this fix is hardly a great solution.

Id suggest that perhaps Body Blow (in tier 2) also reduce the cooldown on cracking attack (30s, 25s, 15s), meaning that by the time you get this the uptime ratio shifts to something more playable and less situational. Or, alternatively, have each rank of crazy strike increase its duration (12s, 15s, 20s) so that you can hit it, and then run it for the duration of an action boost to combo together. Either way would make this line more playable, as it stands its just kind of a gimmick.

Taking the AC penalty off wade in is nice, but until you fix the Rage spell and all three tiers of Primal Scream to have a typed penalty to AC (and thus avoid stacking) it wont help too much. The number of times Ive had multiple people spam their rage effects (of different tiers) trying to be sure they are all buffed up, only to sit there and watch all 4 stack up to a -14 AC is uncountable. If youre going to try and give barbs less of an AC handicap, that needs to get addressed as well.

Tier Five (Requires Barbarian Level 5, Character Level 12, 30 APs spent in tree)

Why such odd percentages on Lash Out. Shouldnt it go something like 50%/75%/90%? 75 to 82 is a small jump for 1 AP at T5, and 82 is just odd. Its a weak ability anyhow... bleeding damage even on a group of a dozen mobs adds up to less than even one barbarian glancing blow at this level. Suggestion: Make the bleed damage here scale with melee power. I mean its T5, adding 1d3 or 1d6 to a barb at this tier is just punishing them for not doing something else.

Tantrum... no mention here so Ill just ask: Does this still require Improved Trip? If so... yeah. That aside, the DC change is nice, but not sure its enough to really matter. Without the inclusion of "tactics" modifiers, its just really hard to get the DC up to usable levels, and it only has a 50% chance to fire to boot. A lv20 barb is kinda "break even" on a tacticless DC with anyone else losing ground. I might suggest adding Tactics in, but using Half Barb Level. (means dc goes up about 10-15 pts at cap, net, but requires tactics itemization). Im sure others will have opinions there too... but I just dont like not using trip mods for a 50% trip only to have the same dc everyone else does, only spending HP to try and activate it. Yea, it has 5W, but notice how that didnt even blip on the radar... the key of this ability is the trip stopping dps incoming to the barb to extend the window between heals needed... barbs dont need 5W on one attack for 25 hp with a super long cd. The avg dps gain is miniscule... Id rather see the 5W dropped and have the trip chance go to 100%. Just saying.

And last, but certainly not least, the serious change: Accelerated Metabolism. Hm. Avg 7 hp/4s, or 2hp/s if youre lucky. Using that "100 melee power example" from above, that means 4hp/s in good conditions. Not sure thats really going to do anything. 240 hp/min isnt bad I guess for standing around or travel time, but in combat its pretty easy to generate upwards of 3-4 hits per second. When frenzy is turned on, which, being a T5 frezny ability youve got to assume people locking this ability in will do, you really wont even notice this healing. Just attacking at the baseline hasted ~100 atk/min with a great axe and another ~75/min glances against just a single mob basically means 4 hits per second, at minimum 1d3 per hit for the lowest frenzy.

In other words, even if you only ever rolled 1s for frenzy, and were fighting 1 mob, and didnt even turn on death frenzy, and ran 100 melee power, and rolled on the upper side of average on all your heals, this ability could barely keep up. Once you factor in healing amp (remember, full frenzys get at least 100) it goes from "best case" working to sort of "average case working" but thats just with regular frenzy. Once you turn on death frenzy, it goes out the window. So... I mean what do you say. Is this better than nothing? Yeah. Is it going to change how fast barbs need heals? No, not really. Could it be reworked to do so? Yea, probably. Maybe it should have 3 tiers, with tier 2 requiring frenzy, and tier 3 requiring death frenzy. (ie, any barb can take the first rank, only people with the 3rd core can take the 2nd rank, only people with the 5th core can take the third rank). Then you could scale the healing up a bit to try to compensate. Just an idea... it needs help of some kind.

......

In closing, Im pretty disappointed. This will not meaningfully change FB. It means that the caliber of healer you need to baby sit is lowered, as smaller heals can take on the task. But it does a very poor job of actually addressing the problem, which is how frequent the heals are needed, instead wrongly focusing on increasing the size of the heal coming in. The result is you still need a baby sitter, and while I think few people would request that FB become wholly self sufficient, most would request that it not need a frequency of healing 2-3x the norm, if not more (in large groups with cleaves). How hard it is to raise the red bar isnt the issue, its how often you need to raise the red bar. The design direction here was just simply wrong.

Most of the enhancement changes are simple penalty removals, which are hardly really reworks as they should never have really been there in the first place. The result is abilities with very short uptime ratios, or very low chances for impact (like Tantrum, 1min cd, 50% to fire, leaves a very small footprint of effect over time). The draw of this tree is largely still the frenzies, with drawbacks mitigated slightly by accelerated metabolism as long as you dont actually fight groups of mobs or cleave (so if youre playing FB the way it "should" be, almost no mitigation) The capstone is still difficult to employ with its 50% hp cutoff.

I was hoping to see an ability offering temp hp on crit or on hit to help mitigate frenzy self damage. Something like if Lash Out instead gave you 10 temp hp for each mob hit instead of bleeding, enough that each hit could possibly absorb the frenzy damage of the next kind of thing. Such a change would slow down the frequency of healing. I know OS has vampiric blade, the idea here was to use a much smaller non-stacking amount which wont really even mitigate a regular mob hit, but will slow up frenzy damage for higher level barbs which are maybe "used to the pain" or whatever. I guess like if Blood Tribute got reworked into not being lame, heh.

Anyhow, its pass 1. I hope more changes. This is an improvement, I dont want to say it doesnt. Its just got a long way to go. Id say the tree probably needs more than 2 melee power, 10 prr, and the removal of some AC penalties. Not sold on the healing amp/metabolism without actual playtime on it, seems to slow on paper (and probably too good interacting with spells if increased to be good without). Capstone still not appealing. Will not be dusting the barb off for this. Hope the feedback helps change that. Cheers.

[bennyson]

I get that healers aren't always available, but barb aren't supposed to be self healing. They are supposed to stay alive through a combination of Hugh Hit point pools & Temp Hit points. Giving them Heals takes away the very thing that makes the class different. The amount of healing amp barbs are being given is supposed to compensate for there lack of self healing, making it easy for secondary healers to pick them up or for them to heal with pots/clickies

I hate using those **** silver flame pots on my barbarian (Am also sure that there are others who feel the same) because it means you need to stop killing things for about a second - which means you need to stop DPSing, which is something that barbarians are supposed to be GOOD at.

Second, the healing affect in this tree ONLY takes affect while your Rage is active...and its like an extremely improved Fast Healing ability...that also scales...

[Qhualor]

Who cares when a Silverflame pot hits you for like 1200?

1. SF pots are very penalizing

2. im assuming that 1200 is with that new heal amp change? because you cant get 1200 currently from SF pots on a barb.

[serthcore]

Have been checking all 3 trees, giving some healing amp, a bit of healing, MRR/PRR and a tiny bit of melee power is a good start, but where is the dps? Did i skip any important ability? aren't barbs suposed to be there on top of dps classes? (at a cost of survivality), they are not getting anything like holy sword or exploit weakness at all? I don't know the maths, but after playing one on live, and seeing this changes, they still won't seem to be on top.

[JOTMON]

In a couple hours I'll be able to do more in depth analysis when I have more time, but just wanted to quickly comment on the opening paragraph.

I'm sorry, but this isn't 2009-10. Healers are in short supply these days. Today its about teamwork and you see actual healers more in raids than quests. Even the highest heal amp builds don't get watched over. Its more, "oh that guy needs a heal. Maybe when I have a chance to help out.". My main had awesome heal amp and very high DPS. Healers still complained about healing others. These changes won't get them to heal again.

I would be happy to heal a barbarian if his DPS output makes it worthwhile.
currently its better to just let him die, pickup his stone and kite the mobs through the blade barrier vs dumping a mana bar spam healing a barbarian killing himself on kobolds.

We need to see Barbarians getting big crits outdistancing every other DPS class significantly in generic situations.
I expect the rogue damage to be great as long as he is sneak attacking vulnerable mobs.
I expect the Paladin to do great DPS against Evil mobs and undead.
I expect the Fighter to do good damage to all mob types
I expect the monk to have great healing amp and do good damage , not get hit often but when they do it hurts.
I expect the Barbarian to.... Massive crits, little damage mitigation, poor self healing, but stuff dies quick..The HP sponge, but its worthit because of the DPS..

It needs to be worth someones time to heal the barbarian while he destroys stuff, otherwise its not worth having a barbarian in the party.