Barbarian - Occult Slayer Changes

[Therigar]

Don't really play barbarians too often so not a life or death issue for me -- but why +1 CON/+1 WIS selection? The WIS increase will hardly make a difference to will saves and just doesn't seem barbarian like to start with. Are there barbarian abilities that depend on WIS that I don't know about?

Seems to me that DEX or STR would be more thematically appropriate. I know it is Occult Slayer, but seriously, who is building barbarians for high WIS -- is there a barbarian/monk build that I don't know about, that would be cool if someone figured out how to get around the alignment issues. And clerics/favored souls with barbarian really shouldn't be getting encouragement with a WIS choice.

If you want to boost will saves then just put that into the tree someplace. But, I really don't get it as a stat selection -- unless you intend everyone to take CON, in which case there's no reason to have a multiselector there.

[Scrabbler]

Don't really play barbarians too often so not a life or death issue for me -- but why +1 CON/+1 WIS selection?

It's a flavor thing, because Occult Slayer would theoretically have more Will to resist magicians' mind control. Sorta like how Water Savant has Cha/Wis; nobody will pick the Wis, but it's left as a possibility for style and for maybe someday a rare Monk or Cleric combo.

I'd actually approve of changing how the stat choices work a bit, so that an Occult Slayer build can decide to get +2 Wis in addition to +2 Con... but that's probably too much work for the benefit.

In addition, I'd like Occult Slayer to gain an ability to add Wisdom mod to Fortitude saves, which would be another small reason to get it.

[Therigar]

But what is the point of flavor if nobody will take it? Doesn't even make sense to offer it. Do we seriously think anyone will worry about +1 to will save enough to spend 4AP to get it? It would be better to offer +1/+2/+3 in the enhancement tree itself -- IIRC someone was complaining about lack of tier 4 choices -- or even at every other core enhancement.

I would like to see a barbarian/monk, just haven't figured out how to get past the alignment issues.

With all the HP bonuses in the core enhancements I can't even see someone taking the CON. Might be a good idea to drop stat bonuses from the tree altogether, replace with will save bonuses at one and maybe fort saves at the other.

[Scrabbler]

Here's a summary of the new Occult Slayer Weapon Bond feature, for reference.

You gain 1 weapon bond per hit, up to 200, with no time limit. (So you can easily get 90-180 per minute).

core1: spend 1 Bond to get +5 hit for 12 sec, cd 120.
t1: Bond 10 gives +6 AC and +3 MRR.
t2: Bond 60/120/180 gives 4/8/12 PRR and MRR.
t3: Bond 20 gives ~10 damage per hit (times MP, maybe limited to 1hz)
t4: Spend 30 Bond for 10 sec of +10 Meleepower.
t5: Bond 150 gives 20 temphp on hits, 6 icd.
t5: Spend all Bond to heal Bond*2 hp.
t5: Spend 50 Bond to attack with +5W +1 crit range +1 crit mult.

Feedback on new OS Weapon Bond features

• The core1 active effect for +5 attack with 120 cooldown is silly. No reason to ever click it, so no reason to put the icon on your bar (except to see your remaining points). Suggested change: don't try to make this active effect truly powerful, but raise the Bond cost to 5, lower the cooldown to 30, give it a bonus to attack, damage, duration equal to your number of OS cores. If you have further OS cores, the buff also grants Ghost Touch, True Seeing, and so on.
  
  
• About Parrying Bond and Kinetic Bond. Those features require only 10 and 20 Bond, which is very fast to earn, so it's almost the same as them being passively on. The only times they won't be on is at the very beginning, or immediately after casting Ancestral Bond. Maybe heavy use of Hated Enemies can also get you down there, if you choose to use it that much. So anyway, these things have only a weak connection to the Weapon Bond system raising a question of it if makes sense to have them like this.
  
  
• About t2 Guarding Bond. The thresholds are 60,120,180. The only way you'll be below 180 for long is if you use Hated Enemies or Ancestral Bond, which requires being t4-t5 in Occult Slayer. So Barbs who are lower-level or focused more in Ravager/Berserker can treat this as always-on. Someone with more Occult Slayer will probably spend their Bond and stay mostly below 180, or often below 120. So people strong OS focus probably will just skip the 3rd and/or 2nd clicks of this enhancement. In general, I dislike when the higher clicks of an enhancement merely give you permission to reach a higher stack size.
  
  
• Tier5 Vampiric Bond: Seems good I guess. You'll stay above 150 consistently, unless you decide to Ancestral Bond for a hp refill or Hated Enemies for more damage. So this gives players an obvious realtime tradeoff between damage and survivability: stop clicking Hated Enemies when you need the Vampiric temp hp instead.
  
  
• Comparing Vampiric Bond with Ravager t5 Blood Strength. Well, Blood Strength gives ~2.5 hp per hit, which multiplies by Heal Amp to be more like ~5, and Meleepower might make it ~6. Vampiric Bond gives 20 temp hp, which Meleepower could change to 28. But Blood Strength has no internal cooldown and is self-stacking, so it can trigger over 18 times as much.
  Vampiric Bond 28 vs Blood Strength 6 * 18 = 108. So Ravager's t5 Blood Strength is around 108/28 = 380% as good as OS t5 Vampiric Bond (moreso because it doesn't interfere with other uses for Bond points). However, Occult Slayer has a second self-heal in t5, so it's not like Vampiric Bond is alone here.
  
  
• Compare Ancestral Bond with Ravager t5 Blood Strength. Ancestral Bond gives you +2 hp per hit (delayed until you decide to cast the effect). Blood Strength gives +2.5 hp per hit, but Meleepower boosts it a little, say to 3. So in general Blood Strength is about 150% as good as Ancestral Bond. (Ancestral has the downside of needing active clicking to get the effect, but the upside of being able to click for a big heal right after you rolled a natural 1 on an enemy spell)
  
  If we measured Blood Strength against the pair of Ancestral Bond + Vampiric Bond, they do turn out pretty similar in total protectiveness.
  
  
• Let's compare t5 Seeker's Strike with t4 Hated Enemies. Seeker's Strike is 50 Bond for 1-2 attacks with +5W +1 mult +1 range. Hated Enemies is 30 Bond for 10 sec of +10 Meleepower, which is 20-30 attacks worth (and can benefit special attacks you made in that period). I'm not going to do the math right now, but I've been told that +10 Meleepower is more than 20% as good as +5W +1 mult +1 range. Let's assume it's true that Seeker's Strike improves an attack 5x as much as Hated Enemies does. Seeker's Strike = (5*1 swing) / 50 cost = 0.1 vs Hated Enemies (1*15 swings) / 30 cost = 0.5.
  
  So Hated Enemies is maybe 5x as good as Seeker's Strike, in terms of damage benefit per Bond spent. Even if the 20% figure was incorrect, it still seems very likely that Hated Enemies is several times more powerful (boost per bond) than Seeker's Strike. Since even a high-speed TWF Barb will need over 10 seconds to earn 30 Bond, you will never have enough Bond to freely use both Hated Enemies and Seeker's Strike. Therefore, it's mostly always a mistake to click Seeker's Strike instead of saving the points for Hated Enemies. So it's also pretty much a mistake to spend AP on Seeker's Strike. (The exception might be if you'll use it in conjunction with Adrenaline, although Slaughter from the Ravager tree might be better for that purpose).
  
  
• Compare t5 Seeker's Strike to t5 Ancestral Bond. Well, clicking Seeker's Strike costs enough Bond to heal yourself 100 points. Would most people be willing to spend 100 self-damage on a mediocre active attack?
  
  
• Let's compare t5 Seeker's Strike with Acrobat t1 Sly Flourish. SeekerStrike is 5W +1 range +1 mult 3 cd 50 Bond cost, while SlyFlourish is 1.5W +3 range 12 cd zero cost. Assuming your weapon is 19-20x3 (CP 4), SeekerStrike is 18-20x4 (CP 9) and SlyFlourish is 16-20x3 (CP 10). So although SeekerStrike is quite superior with 4.5 more +W, it actually gives a bit less multiplier to all your damage. And if your weapon is Heartseeker or another thing that causes big damage on every crit, then SlyFlourish is indeed better.
  
  It's pretty undesirable that a t5 attack which costs 50 Bond isn't really superior to a t1 attack that's cost-free. As a start, I'd suggest lowering the Bond cost to be 20-30 instead of 50. And then merge in the benefits of Ear Smash and Knockout (if you have them), putting Ear Smash on its regular cooldown.
  
  
• Compare t5 Seeker's Strike with Paladin14 Holy Sword. Well obviously on a per-swing basis, Seeker's Strike is better because it gives more +W while the crit bonuses are the same. But of course Holy Sword's benefit can be used more than 20 times as much, including at the same time as other active attacks. Oh wait: if Holy Sword gives net +2 crit range while Seeker Strike only gives +1 crit range, then even one single swing with Holy Sword is better than using this active special attack...

General feedback: It's good to not lose all Weapon Bond by switching items, and it's good to have some icons that spend a lot of Bond points for a benefit. But the Weapon Bond thresholds and costs are all over the map. Soon I will post a suggestion to make it more unified.

[Qhualor]

But what is the point of flavor if nobody will take it? Doesn't even make sense to offer it. Do we seriously think anyone will worry about +1 to will save enough to spend 4AP to get it? It would be better to offer +1/+2/+3 in the enhancement tree itself -- IIRC someone was complaining about lack of tier 4 choices -- or even at every other core enhancement.

I would like to see a barbarian/monk, just haven't figured out how to get past the alignment issues.

With all the HP bonuses in the core enhancements I can't even see someone taking the CON. Might be a good idea to drop stat bonuses from the tree altogether, replace with will save bonuses at one and maybe fort saves at the other.

if you look at the tree its not dps focused. its saves and defense against magic and elements. its the anti caster tree. it is a little skewed with a few dps enhancements mixed into it, but you wouldn't need to focus on strength or con for damage like most barbs do. the tree reminds me of Shaman barbarians that focus on wisdom as a primary stat rather than strength. this is the perfect tree for those that prefer to play a barb and be able to self heal without raging. having wisdom as an option for a stat actually makes sense if the player was actually putting points into wisdom for saves or sp for mixed builds.

[bbqzor]

After the attacks I received upon saying that OTWF was a a good feat for newbies I'd like to ask why the Devs think ANY vet is going to spend points for +5 to hit AT ALL {Never mind for a ridiculously short period of time with a massive Cool Down!}!

Well OTWF is not a good feat. Feats are way too valuable for that. But as a side benefit to the very first core its not bad, its just that a 2min cd is way too long. The idea of changing it to 1/min is so you can use it a bit more regularly.

Its relatively easy to hit a button prior to clicking ear smash, or a cleave, or a smite, or starting up your blitz when you absolutely want no misses, etc. You can do a lot with landing a key ability in 10s, but when that 10s happens too rarely it becomes pointless. Its not a bad ability, its got bad frequency. Making it more useable means its worth hotbar space. Its already basically a "zero cost" ability since its just in there with the core, doesnt have to be amazing but it should be worth putting on a bar.

Now this is an ability tacked on to the 1st core but still - Why not simply make it a passive +5 to hit?

Im pretty sure +5 atk would be seen as way OP for the very first core. That said, yea permanent would be better than 10s/2min... but I was trying to ask for something that was a bit more "within reach" to my idea of what they might go with. I figured half an action boost duration, with twice the cooldown, was sort of "bad enough" it wouldnt be seen as threatening to duplicate an actual boost, but "good enough" you could use it meaningfully with some stuff situationally. YMMV.

[Therigar]

if you look at the tree its not dps focused. its saves and defense against magic and elements. its the anti caster tree. it is a little skewed with a few dps enhancements mixed into it, but you wouldn't need to focus on strength or con for damage like most barbs do. the tree reminds me of Shaman barbarians that focus on wisdom as a primary stat rather than strength. this is the perfect tree for those that prefer to play a barb and be able to self heal without raging. having wisdom as an option for a stat actually makes sense if the player was actually putting points into wisdom for saves or sp for mixed builds.

Like I said, not life or death for me because it won't really impact me.

Just seems to me that nobody is going to spend 4AP to get +2 WIS. There isn't enough benefit to it, not even for splashed classes.

Let's be clear, I get what the tree is supposed to be for. I'm saying that the stat increases are not very attractive to start with and that nobody is really going to spend that much AP to pick up 2 lousy points of WIS when it is only +1 to will and a trivial amount of SP for any splashed caster classes. I don't think it makes "perfect sense" -- I think it makes no sense whatsoever.

Replace the first CON/WIS with a +1/+2 to will saves for 1AP each and the second with a +1/+2 to fort saves -- that makes sense. You spend 4AP and get +2 to will saves and +2 to fort saves, that's value for the AP. But the CON/WIS doesn't make good sense at all. And let's not fool ourselves -- scarcely anybody is going to spend their AP on the stat increase and those that choose WIS will be laughed at every time they post about it.

It is just a bad choice, flavor or not, shaman barbarian or not, there's simply no way to make it a good thing. Unless, of course, you replace it with something that players will take and that they'll struggle over in designing their character because AP is limited. Giving a choice nobody is going to take is just a pointless waste of time.

[Scrabbler]

Ok, I wrote a lot of feedback on the new Occult Slayer Weapon Bond system. Following is a suggested revamp of Weapon Bond, to have a more consistent concept of what it means. Under this system, there aren't all these different thresholds meaning different things: more Bond is better. Most benefits scale smoothly according to your Bond, and you can hold more Bond the more you invest. I also buffed the active effects for Seeker's Strike and core1.

• Change Bond gain from +1 per hit to a 50% chance of +1 per hit. All costs will be reduced about 50% to compensate.
  
  
• With OS core 1, your max Weapon Bond is 30. Each additional core raises the max by 20 (110 total).
  
  
• Parrying Bond gives +1 AC and MRR per 24/16/8 current Bond.
• Guarding Bond gives +1 PRR and MRR per 18/12/6 current Bond.
• Kinetic Bond gives 1d10 Force damage per 30/23/15 current Bond. Internal cooldown of constant 2 seconds (adjust more or less cooldown to tune desired DPS)
• Hated Enemy costs 20 Bond for 14 sec of +10 Meleepower.
• Vampiric Bond gives 5 temp hp per 20 current Bond (multiplied by Meleepower as usual).
  
  
• Ancestral Bond heals 2/3/4 hp per Bond spent. Cooldown constant 10 (irrelevant). (I have concerns about how strong this heal should be, but this version is kept similar to the official one)
• Seeker's Strike costs 20 Bond, +1/3/5 W, +1/2/3 crit range, adds 1d6 Force damage per 20 current Bond, and gives the enemy -6 caster level -40 Spellcraft for 20 seconds. Cooldown 12s (up from 3).
  
  
• Core1 active effect costs 5 Bond and gives +5 insight hit for 12 sec, 48s cooldown. Each additional core adds +1 hit, +1 damage and +2 sec duration. If you have core6 it grants Ghost Touch. With core12 it grants True Sight. With core18 it gives an Insight bonus to tactical feats of Wis mod/2. With capstone it adds (positive) Wis mod to damage (Insight). The "casting animation" is a regular melee swing.
  
  
• Optionally, your Wisdom mod is added to the percentage chance to gain Bond (so 55% per hit with 20 Wisdom)

[FranOhmsford]

if you look at the tree its not dps focused. its saves and defense against magic and elements. its the anti caster tree. it is a little skewed with a few dps enhancements mixed into it, but you wouldn't need to focus on strength or con for damage like most barbs do. the tree reminds me of Shaman barbarians that focus on wisdom as a primary stat rather than strength. this is the perfect tree for those that prefer to play a barb and be able to self heal without raging. having wisdom as an option for a stat actually makes sense if the player was actually putting points into wisdom for saves or sp for mixed builds.

Maybe it's for the possibility of Wolf Barbs?

[Therigar]

Following is a suggested revamp of Weapon Bond, to have a more consistent concept of what it means. Under this system, there aren't all these different thresholds meaning different things: more Bond is better.

Trying to figure out if the new flavor of the moment will be Favored Soul/Barbarian or Druid/Barbarian. Why not just give Occult Slayer SLA with cure and heal spells so we can all build WIS based barbarians?

Core18 WIS/2 bonus to tactical DC's, optional WIS increase to weapon bond? Why wouldn't I build with 18 WIS to start, put all tomes and stat increases there? Now I stack weapon bond at 1 per hit like original and the WIS/2 makes up for losing STR -- which is going to get boosts from all over anyway so base 18/20 plus tomes and items will be sufficient.

But please, go right ahead....

[Therigar]

Maybe it's for the possibility of Wolf Barbs?

The new flavor of the moment. Well, at least people will stop complaining about paladins being OP. Guess we should be glad that druids can't swashbuckle in animal form -- 6/6/8 barbarian/bard/druid in winterwolf form. I guess we'll just see some split of barbarian/druid instead.

Very D&D lore I'm thinking....

[FranOhmsford]

The new flavor of the moment. Well, at least people will stop complaining about paladins being OP. Guess we should be glad that druids can't swashbuckle in animal form -- 6/6/8 barbarian/bard/druid in winterwolf form. I guess we'll just see some split of barbarian/druid instead.

Very D&D lore I'm thinking....

Actually the idea of Barbarians being one with nature is pretty old and pretty strong in D&D Lore!

So attacking people who want to make Druid/Barbs on the basis that it's not in the Lore is rather strange!


Now Swashbuckling I'll fully agree with you on - The whole idea of a Swashbuckling Barbarian is wrong on oh so many levels!

BUT

Warchanter Barbs {Skalds} are known in History as well as in D&D Lore!

[Scrabbler]

Core18 WIS/2 bonus to tactical DC's, optional WIS increase to weapon bond? Why wouldn't I build with 18 WIS to start, put all tomes and stat increases there? Now I stack weapon bond at 1 per hit like original and the WIS/2 makes up for losing STR

If a Barbarian was willing to pump a mental stat instead of Strength or Constitution, he'd get better results just using Harper. (Compared to my proposed suggestion)

Actually the idea of Barbarians being one with nature is pretty old and pretty strong in D&D Lore!

It's a fine thematic concept for Barbarians to work well as Wildshape Druid multiclasses. But currently the game mechanics for Wildshape melee are very broken, so we wouldn't want more characters to become attached to that system.

In fact, there's the old Bear Warrior prestige from D&D. It might be good to add a new enhancement tree (like Harper?) which allows a Barbarian to turn into a Bear without needing any Druid levels....

[FranOhmsford]

If a Barbarian was willing to pump a mental stat instead of Strength or Constitution, he'd get better results just using Harper. (Compared to my proposed suggestion)

Oh dear Lord - Int Based Barbs?

It's a fine thematic concept for Barbarians to work well as Wildshape Druid multiclasses. But currently the game mechanics for Wildshape melee are very broken, so we wouldn't want more characters to become attached to that system.

In fact, there's the old Bear Warrior prestige from D&D. It might be good to add a new enhancement tree (like Harper?) which allows a Barbarian to turn into a Bear without needing any Druid levels....

Um...The Devs would have to make Bears playable first!

[Scrabbler]

Barbarian DR is currently almost 100% useless, because the player obtains better DR through an item or buff and it doesn't stack. Just take a peek at the passive DR numbers of top-level warrior armor...!

Although Barbarian DR doesn't have to be a strong feature, it's a classic D&D rule so it should have a nonzero value. An obvious approach would be to change it to stacking on top of your other DR sources (something that Warforged would especially enjoy).

If fully-stacking Barb DR seems too strong, then the devs could cut it in half: 50% of Barb DR is classic DR/-, and the other 50% is a stacking bonus to your highest active DR.

[fmalfeas]

Barbarian DR is currently almost 100% useless, because the player obtains better DR through an item or buff and it doesn't stack. Just take a peek at the passive DR numbers of top-level warrior armor...!

Although Barbarian DR doesn't have to be a strong feature, it's a classic D&D rule so it should have a nonzero value. An obvious approach would be to change it to stacking on top of your other DR sources (something that Warforged would especially enjoy).

If fully-stacking Barb DR seems too strong, then the devs could cut it in half: 50% of Barb DR is classic DR/-, and the other 50% is a stacking bonus to your highest active DR.

Even just a simple change to the scaling system would make it more important. (Once I learned how the damage scaling system worked, I stopped wasting plat on Stoneskin in anything but Elite quests.)

Monsters versus player

If a player has some form of damage reduction a monster can't bypass, it's only applied without scaling being taking into account, if that amount would result in less damage then just the scaling. This means that damage reduction can seem far less effective when solo in scalable dungeons, as enemy damage is heavily scaled down, but this only happens after damage reduction.

Examples:

Monsters attack is calculated out to deal 20 damage, if no dungeon scaling was in effect at all. Player has DR10/Silver and the monster doesn't bypass this. The player is in the dungeon solo, as such the monster only deals 20% of his regular damage, thus 4 damage. The calculation is applied like this:
A) 20 damage dealt dungeon scaling scales that damage down to 4 points.
B) Damage reduction is calculated ignoring scaling. 20 damage, 10 was stopped. 10 damage is dealt.
C) The lowest of the 2 damage values is applied. This is displayed in a masked way to fool the player: Enemy hit you for 4 damage, 10 was stopped.

Essentially damage reduction does nothing for the player in this scenario due to how it is coded.

So, effectively, unless on elite, where the damage scaling is shut off, unless your DR is truly monsterous, like Flawless Shadowplate's 60, your DR tends to mean little or nothing, no matter how many AP or feats or destiny points you've sunk into it. And on EE, the damage is so high that your DR means very little. However, if the formula for scaling was changed, at least on normal and hard difficulties, the barbarian DR (and monk and FvS) could mean a great deal, which would be a change highly benefiting newer players and encouraging them to keep going.

[bbqzor]

Barbarian DR is currently almost 100% useless ... Although Barbarian DR doesn't have to be a strong feature, it's a classic D&D rule so it should have a nonzero value

Wanted to snip those bits out as yes, that is generally true. If you work at it you can get a DR of about 15 (think its actually 14/- total, but ballparked) stacked up at the top... but thats no different than what can be obtained just by equipping any number of DR items for far less effort invested. And, while making it just plain stack is one idea, its one that I dont know would be all that good for the game (balance at different difficulties would skew, itd be huge in heroic, nice in epic n/h, and kind of zero in ee).

Instead, why not just take an even more basic route: Leave it exactly the same as it is now on the DR front, and just add twice the amount of PRR to it. Level 15 barb gets DR 5, also gets PRR 10, as one example.

Still minor, but then it was always somewhat minor. I know, back in the day it mattered more, sure. But stoneskin has been around that long too, and was always greater in value. This feature doesnt need to let barbs tank, but it should do what its intended to do: give them some form of mitigation in place of needing s/b or heavy armor or a rage-cancelling defensive stance. The modern game uses PRR for that role. This should work together with that. Obvious. Easy. Helpful.

Even at the "max" stacked value of ~15, thats ~30 PRR. Given that its at best basically the same as the most basic of defensive stances or simply just putting on heavy armor (which a 20 barb would have to sink a feat on), and represents 20 levels of work, 41 enhancement points, and some epic twists spent... thats probably fair. And it seems a lot cleaner than throwing around new DR combinations into the mess of code that DR stacking already is. To me, at least.

Plus, it kind of addresses the fact that multiple posters have mentioned, which is the trees seem a bit barren of PRR they were hoping for. A pile of hp is nice but that doesnt actually change your ability to do anything... just means more yoyo. Just changing the class progression to go along with the 2014 game instead of the 2006/7 game is maybe a more useful route.

Just an idea, maybe helpful. Thanks for reading.

[janave]

Barbs became very splashable, rawr!.

[Faltout]

Here's a summary of the new Occult Slayer Weapon Bond feature, for reference.

You gain 1 weapon bond per hit, up to 200, with no time limit. (So you can easily get 90-180 per minute).

Weapon Bond increases with every hit. When you're swinging that TH weapon to a group of 5 mobs, you get 5 bonds per swing and if you swing 2 times a second, you get 7 bonds per second (well, 2 and 3 swing animations don't give glancing blows). So, 7 * 60 = 420 weapon bond per minute. So, rephrase that to be "you can easily get 200 per 20 seconds" (don't forget cleaves that will happen mid animation and maybe a larger group of mobs).

Feedback on new OS Weapon Bond features

• About Parrying Bond and Kinetic Bond. Those features require only 10 and 20 Bond, which is very fast to earn, so it's almost the same as them being passively on. The only times they won't be on is at the very beginning, or immediately after casting Ancestral Bond. Maybe heavy use of Hated Enemies can also get you down there, if you choose to use it that much. So anyway, these things have only a weak connection to the Weapon Bond system raising a question of it if makes sense to have them like this.

true.

• Tier5 Vampiric Bond: Seems good I guess. You'll stay above 150 consistently, unless you decide to Ancestral Bond for a hp refill or Hated Enemies for more damage. So this gives players an obvious realtime tradeoff between damage and survivability: stop clicking Hated Enemies when you need the Vampiric temp hp instead.
  
• Comparing Vampiric Bond with Ravager t5 Blood Strength. Well, Blood Strength gives ~2.5 hp per hit, which multiplies by Heal Amp to be more like ~5, and Meleepower might make it ~6. Vampiric Bond gives 20 temp hp, which Meleepower could change to 28. But Blood Strength has no internal cooldown and is self-stacking, so it can trigger over 18 times as much.
  Vampiric Bond 28 vs Blood Strength 6 * 18 = 108. So Ravager's t5 Blood Strength is around 108/28 = 380% as good as OS t5 Vampiric Bond (moreso because it doesn't interfere with other uses for Bond points). However, Occult Slayer has a second self-heal in t5, so it's not like Vampiric Bond is alone here.
  
  
• Compare Ancestral Bond with Ravager t5 Blood Strength. Ancestral Bond gives you +2 hp per hit (delayed until you decide to cast the effect). Blood Strength gives +2.5 hp per hit, but Meleepower boosts it a little, say to 3. So in general Blood Strength is about 150% as good as Ancestral Bond. (Ancestral has the downside of needing active clicking to get the effect, but the upside of being able to click for a big heal right after you rolled a natural 1 on an enemy spell)

Vampiric Bond is hardly a survivability feature. You'll notice that it hasn't changed from the original description and as a level 21 OS currently on live I can tell you that those temp HP proccing every 6 seconds are useless when you're under heavy attack.
You're dead wrong on the numbers.
Vampiric Bond: 28 temp HP per 6 seconds

Ravager Blood Strength:
2.5 * 150/100 (melee power) = 3.75.
3.75 * 200/100 (healamp) = 7.5.
7.5 * 10 hits per second = 75. (cleaves, glancing blows, etc.)
75 * 6 seconds = 450 HP per 6 seconds.
Don't forget that I went with minimum stats here. melee power can be more, healamp is 100 in only one tree. You can add more healamp if you get some other cores too. 10 hits per second is if you have 5 mobs in front of you and you are getting glancing blows on 1 and 4.

Ancestral Bond:
2 * 150/100 (melee power) = 3
3 * 200/100 (healamp) = 6
6 * 10 hits per second (bond charges) = 60.
60 * 6 seconds = 360 per 6 seconds.
Because of the 3 second cooldown, that's minimum 180 HP per heal.

Because you get to choose between Vampiric Bond and Ancestral Bond, it is really obvious that Ancestral Bond provides excelent self-healing ability while Vampiric Bond is trash.
And it's quite obvious too that Blood Strength is extremely overpowered. It's better than any healing ability in the game. A cleric's heal will heal for more HP but it has a cooldown while Blood Strength is passive and happens immediately when you hit something. Yeah. I can see a ravager never needing any heals at all. If he dies, no heal could have kept him up unless there was a combination of heals like consecrated ground, cleric's heal and Blood Strength.
I wonder why people don't see the kind of power this ability has... How DEVS could not see it... But on the other hand devs didn't even see what's going on with Furys and how often they proc.

[Standal]

[QUOTE=bbqzor;5460704Instead, why not just take an even more basic route: Leave it exactly the same as it is now on the DR front, and just add twice the amount of PRR to it. Level 15 barb gets DR 5, also gets PRR 10, as one example.[/QUOTE]

Given barbs armor restrictions and the prr formula I would say that minimum PRR is 10 per point of DR. Should also get 10 MRR per point of DR.