Barbarian - Occult Slayer Changes

[Faltout]

I agreed to nothing, and the degree to which a barb heals itself relative to other classes is a simple matter of tweaking the formula.

But all I asked for, was the tweaking of the formula! First thing I did when replying to severlin was to suggest a change in the formula. But the problem is that noone else did so! You seem to believe that there is nothing wrong at all (remember the post "Why does that self-healing bother you?")

The fact that the ability exists should not concern anyone who does not play a barb.

Did you read the line on my post saying "If content is made to challenge other classes, the fact that barbarian is way more powerful than them means that the content cannot challenge the barbarian, making him useless to play". I play a barb and I care a lot if he's suddenly the greatest healing class in the game.

This may be where you're confused. The content in this game isn't designed to challenge any class. That balance was broken long ago, and they won't be handing out nerfs to bring it back.

Excuse me, but the purpose of D&D, DDO and most other games like those is partly to challenge players and players are having fun being challenged. Saying that this part of DDO is nonexistent means a large group of players is not playing the game (including me) because there is nothing there for them. Which is obviously wrong. Also, whatever you may think, the devs care about challenging monsters.

Making barbs gimp isn't going to be the start of a rebalancing that brings challenge back to the game. They will just remain gimp while all the other classes remain overpowered.

Where in the hell did you see me proposing making barbs gimp? Unless you mean "If a brab isn't an unkillable machine of death healing 360 HP per second while delivering melee AOE DPS he's totally gimp".

[Dagolar]

Mind Over Magic: (1 AP, Barbarian Level 20) You gain a bonus to your Spell Resistance equal to your Constitution score. Passive: You gain +4 Constitution. You gain +10 Magical Resistance Rating, +150 hit points and +40 healing amplification.

I'm not familiar with the 'score' designator. Is this basing off of constitution, or constitution modifier?

[theRolf]

My response in red.

But all I asked for, was the tweaking of the formula! First thing I did when replying to severlin was to suggest a change in the formula. But the problem is that noone else did so! You seem to believe that there is nothing wrong at all (remember the post "Why does that self-healing bother you?")

Fair enough but tweaking the formula is not a big deal. My problem with your post was the "sky is falling" way in which you addressed this issue.

Did you read the line on my post saying "If content is made to challenge other classes, the fact that barbarian is way more powerful than them means that the content cannot challenge the barbarian, making him useless to play". I play a barb and I care a lot if he's suddenly the greatest healing class in the game.

Glad you play one. I disagree on the "way more powerful" part. I am seeing no evidence of that with the proposed changes. Lacking in power if anything.

Excuse me, but the purpose of D&D, DDO and most other games like those is partly to challenge players and players are having fun being challenged. Saying that this part of DDO is nonexistent means a large group of players is not playing the game (including me) because there is nothing there for them. Which is obviously wrong. Also, whatever you may think, the devs care about challenging monsters.

According to this statement, the game is already too easy for you. That is a different issue than revamping one class.

....

[Rautis]

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).

I also posted in Ravager thread and I'll post here too. Are you sure Weapon Bond builds on glancing blows? It could possibly be tested on live but with the cooldown between Weapon Bonds makes it tricky. If it doesn't build on glancing blows the Weapon Bond will build like 2-3 times per second plus cleaves which is about half of this prediction. Ofcourse, if it is based on to hit rolls alone like Fury is then it does proc on glances. But even after playing a Barb with OS weapon bond I only know it currently just goes up by 1 every second you're fighting.

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.

Here you say the abilities are OP while in your calculation the Barb innate heal amp doubles their effectiveness. Even being optimistic with glancing blows and going with 450 hp in 6 secs means that when barbs can have like 1000-1500 hp with the hp from cores easily it takes more than 10 secs to fully heal if there's no incoming damage. That's not really that long time but lots of things can happen and sometimes you only are fighting 1 monster which reduces extra amount you get from cleaves/possibly glances. Barbs will certainly benefit from outside healing in certain situations.

Any of these abilities can be balanced just by looking at heal amp numbers Barbarians get.

[jalont]

Excuse me, but the purpose of D&D, DDO and most other games like those is partly to challenge players and players are having fun being challenged. Saying that this part of DDO is nonexistent means a large group of players is not playing the game (including me) because there is nothing there for them. Which is obviously wrong. Also, whatever you may think, the devs care about challenging monsters.

Where in the hell did you see me proposing making barbs gimp? Unless you mean "If a brab isn't an unkillable machine of death healing 360 HP per second while delivering melee AOE DPS he's totally gimp".

Most of the playerbase does not want any challenge. They want a mindless grind that results in a shiny trophy that they can show off, and that's exactly the direction the game has been going.

Let me give you an idea of what EE is actually like in this game for melee now, since there seems to be some confusion. EE - You stand in a group of mobs cleaving, often oneshotting them all while healing through the ridiculously low damage. That's how it works for every melee class. Except for barb. Now explain to me how we balance barb in this environment.

[Therigar]

I'm not familiar with the 'score' designator. Is this basing off of constitution, or constitution modifier?

Off of the actual score, not the modifier.

[bbqzor]

If they are the same buff, they won't stack.

While we wont know until it hits lama/live, no other core in the game works like that and I see no reason why this should be any different. So I think its safe to assume theyll stack.

In a dev post here, in response to asking for clarification on cores stacking, the implication was that they do unless its stated otherwise (through the use of "now" to indicate replacement rather than stacking). Which is why I feel its safe per above.

considering how HA is becoming additive instead of multiplicative, it just means you will get 30% HA and 30hp from that imagined scenario, at the cost of 3 AP and a barb level. And a loss of half your tree choices.

Given how cheap that 30 amp (and 30 hp for that matter, as they are generally 5 hp / AP, not 10) is, it certainly seems like a concern. Many builds can afford to toss 3 AP into 3 trees for 30 amp, because many builds will have 99% of their AP tied up in 2-3 class trees. Its pretty rare for a build to need all 6 class trees so badly they cannot adjust at all (and such builds generally arent the kind for which 30 amp is going to make a difference, once you get that complicated/precise theyre generally performing well regardless).

Another way of looking at it is: Even taking 1-2 trees it is superior to other options. Humans can spend 17 AP to get 30 amp in racial, or anyone with 1 barb lvl can spend 3 ap for the same. Getting the first human 10 amp costs 3 AP, for anyone with barb levels its 1 AP. Definite concerns there. Not saying its broken or anything (as Ive said multiple times, I really dont think the healing amp is all that powerful... people are still thinking in terms of live now, not in terms of the new formula and how everything stacks up in that environment). Just dont want to see something get in, then get nerfed over some combination, etc.

[Psiandron]

The second of the barbarian enhancements I've viewed and I have to say that I liked it much more than the FB changes.

Having the availability of wisdom as a stat increase seems rather odd to me.

Where a stat is available for increase, it is generally stat which is of vital importance to the class. Unless I'm missing something, all it does for this PRE is raise it's Will save. It does the same for any class, so why is it there?

If something like intuitive damage or wisdom based attacks, ala monk, were included as an option I could understand the presence of wisdom upgrades. Although, having a 3-way selector which includes strength would still make the most sense to me.

I would like to ask that Severlin respond to Yellobeard's points in this video: .


I really felt that he raises some interesting concerns and that they should be honestly and intelligently addressed.


Edit: Forgot to put this in:

Oath of Retribution: (2 AP) (Removed bond requirement) While you are below 50% health you gain +1 critical damage multiplier on attack rolls of 19-20.

I really despise anything like this.

How on earth am i supposed to maintain the delicate balance of being below 50% health and still stay alive? I mean if someone's playing a dwarf with TYWA then sure, why not, but else?

As crit multipliers seem to be popping up in every class, barbarian may as well get one too, but I really feel that the delimiter is really out of whack here.

[Qhualor]

Having the availability of wisdom as a stat increase seems rather odd to me.

Where a stat is available for increase, it is generally stat which is of vital importance to the class. Unless I'm missing something, all it does for this PRE is raise it's Will save. It does the same for any class, so why is it there?

If something like intuitive damage or wisdom based attacks, ala monk, were included as an option I could understand the presence of wisdom upgrades. Although, having a 3-way selector which includes strength would still make the most sense to me.

because OS is not a dps tree. there are 4 enhancements that boost dps and if you want to play a barbarian in its DDO traditional sense than you would need to dip heavily into Ravager and FB. not saying that an OS barb dps is bad, but ranking them in order would make them last. however, the tree is heavy in saves against magic so an OS could sacrifice some points he normally would put into strength and put into wisdom. but, as the video clearly shows, the SR makes an OS practically unbeatable against magic. not really much need to invest in wisdom. SR is so strong for OS that Yellobeard shows that there is no need to invest much into wisdom. you are going to make most of your saves. I would be interested though how well his build works in other EE quests against other casters. GOP beholder is considered to be not WAI. I have watched a video by another OS build soloing EE What Goes Up or maybe it was Breaking the Ranks, cant remember, and it showed him having to be careful against physical attacks and less so against magical.

[Scrabbler]

I really felt that he raises some interesting concerns and that they should be honestly and intelligently addressed.

What would you say those interesting concerns are?

How on earth am i supposed to maintain the delicate balance of being below 50% health and still stay alive?

You're not supposed to keep yourself below 50% to get more DPS. It's simply a minor occasional bonus when you're lower level.

At higher level you buy another enhancement and it works permanently.

[Inoukchuk]

Get rid of the cooldown. It's out of place with KoTC and even older enhancements.

I don't have a polite way to say that dumping a bunch of hamp on barbs seems lazy to me. Sorry for being blunt but there it is.

Regarding all the changes to the trees:

Find a way to retain the risk/reward dynamic. Something that will let a barb build up a head of steam that will allow it to stand in a bunch of mobs and not die immediately as long as they're successfully doing what they should do best. That's mashing things into paste, by the way. Hamp overload and trickling heals on hits isn't the way. Stacking, building mitigation as long as you're killing stuff, stack size scaled with level so it isn't OP in Korthos and worthless in Stormhorns. Not temporary hp. Didn't you guys just put some newfangled damage mitigation mechanics in?

HAmp isn't a terrible mechanic for barbs. After all, HP aren't supposed to represent your ability to block 300 swings of a longsword with your face and live through it, but rather is a representation of your ability to dodge/parry/roll-with, and yes, sometimes soak a bit of damage. From this perspective HAmp helps represent that magical healing brings you back to full health nearly as well as someone less robust.

I guess the question I always have about barbs is what differentiates them from fighters. Neither have magic, or healing. Barbs get the advantages and disadvantages of rage, which includes the general lack of UMD based healing. Who should do more damage? People say barbs should rule damage, but why? Because fighters have more defense? And if so how?

Personally I'm fine with barbs needing a healer for content. I know that drastically reduces their ability to solo and will make the BYOH crowd all rage-y, but not every class IMO needs to fit BYOH, and it would be nice to have some inspiration to have traditional roles sometimes. That said they should get damage mitigation, I think, through more dodge (like maybe uncanny dodge) and some natural PRR (though not as much as armor... that would be just silly) and especially MRR. Having more HP and HAmp also makes sense.

For offense I have an idea, I don't know how viable it is. What if we gave them an ability in some tree, or the base class, at high levels (18 or 20) that changed vorpal for them to 19-20. Or maybe, better yet, treat any natural 19 as a natural 20, meaning any roll of natural 19 would auto-hit, auto-save, vorpal, etc. That would be both unique and powerful.

I'm not a big barb fan, they never appealed to me conceptually, but I figured I'd pitch my 2 cents on ideas for improving them

[Therigar]

because OS is not a dps tree.

This keeps getting said but it isn't really a sufficient answer.

A single point increase in WIS is either +1 Will save (by bringing WIS to an even number) or nothing at all (because WIS is already an even number). A two point increase in WIS is exactly the same thing -- either a +1 Will save or has no effect.

Getting a +1 Will save for 4AP isn't a very good deal.

I reiterate, if the purpose is to give better Will saves (and, the CON increase is better Fort saves) then wouldn't it be better to have a selector where for 1AP the player can choose between +1 Will or +1 Fort. For another 1AP they can choose another +1 to the previously selected save.

Then, in the next tier offer the same selector again at 1AP for +1 to the save.

Either make them exclusive to one another so that 4AP gets +2 Will and +2 Fort or make them stack sot that 4AP gets +0/+4 or +2/+2 depending on the choice of the player.

Does not change the "not a dps tree" character but makes spending the 4AP more useful and, at potentially +4 Will/Fort save makes it much more likely to get used by players.

Edit: BTW, combining this "not a dps tree" with the "dps tree" is what is going to happen. So the "not a dps tree" argument doesn't really suffice to address why CON/WIS in this tree.

[Therigar]

You're not supposed to keep yourself below 50% to get more DPS.

Do you suppose that somebody is already planning a build that uses the below 50% health as the basis for a DPS build? There are some other mechanisms in the game that rely on being below 50% health.

Just because we are "not supposed to keep" ourselves below that number is no foundation for a reply.

This is the problem with game designers -- and I don't care if it is table-top games or computer games -- players do not do what they are "supposed" to do.

I routinely run characters with <500 HP. Why wouldn't I run a character with 1200+ HP and figure out a build that will stay at or below 600?

It might be a delicate balance but what makes us think that someone isn't already scheming about how to make this work on live?

[Psiandron]

What would you say those interesting concerns are?


You're not supposed to keep yourself below 50% to get more DPS. It's simply a minor occasional bonus when you're lower level.


At higher level you buy another enhancement and it works permanently.

Yup, I'm an idiot. You caught me in a couple of reading fails.

I misread the mind over magic as changing to MRR, not staying as SR. Which change would I believe have been bad for the PRE, but it isn't so nm.

And, I completely missed Oath of Destruction.

[Qhualor]

This keeps getting said but it isn't really a sufficient answer.

A single point increase in WIS is either +1 Will save (by bringing WIS to an even number) or nothing at all (because WIS is already an even number). A two point increase in WIS is exactly the same thing -- either a +1 Will save or has no effect.

Getting a +1 Will save for 4AP isn't a very good deal.

I reiterate, if the purpose is to give better Will saves (and, the CON increase is better Fort saves) then wouldn't it be better to have a selector where for 1AP the player can choose between +1 Will or +1 Fort. For another 1AP they can choose another +1 to the previously selected save.

Then, in the next tier offer the same selector again at 1AP for +1 to the save.

Either make them exclusive to one another so that 4AP gets +2 Will and +2 Fort or make them stack sot that 4AP gets +0/+4 or +2/+2 depending on the choice of the player.

Does not change the "not a dps tree" character but makes spending the 4AP more useful and, at potentially +4 Will/Fort save makes it much more likely to get used by players.

Edit: BTW, combining this "not a dps tree" with the "dps tree" is what is going to happen. So the "not a dps tree" argument doesn't really suffice to address why CON/WIS in this tree.

so why have trees with charisma, strength, dexterity or intelligence? its only +1 more and gives just as small of a bonus and costs 2 AP.

the problem is that some who build an OS aren't playing an OS. the biggest draw to playing one is the saves and SR, but still focus on dps by taking Tier 5 in OS and taking whatever dps stuff from FB and Ravager for more dps. will saves are naturally an Achilles heel to barbarians, but OS doesn't need to worry about that because of the power in the tree it gives. theres video proof of this too which is why I think maybe Sev is making these changes. SR in OS appears to be too powerful.

an actual OS barbarian in DDO would be investing points in wisdom just like a FB barbarian would be investing in strength. an OS would be the best at making saves, but decent dps (unless maybe dwarf). a FB would be the best at dps, but decent saves (but not fortitude). unfortunately, DDO is all about MMO style fighting and less PnP style fighting and that's why OS doesn't really fit in this game properly as is.

[Scrabbler]

A single point increase in WIS is either +1 Will save (by bringing WIS to an even number) or nothing at all

Look, the stat increase in the same two locations in every heroic enhancement tree is not supposed to be important or necessarily attractive. It's a place to spend points if you want to buy up to t5 and don't like the main enhancements available. Maybe you're a weird multiclass or have an odd ED that has some Wisdom-based abilities. Or maybe the designers will later add a Wisdom using feature to Occult Slayer later.

It doesn't matter.

SR in OS appears to be too powerful.

The Occult Slayer spell resistance is both too powerful and too weak.

If you're a Constitution-only epic build then OS SR is too strong, but if you're a Strength (or Dexterity?) build then it's too weak. If you're in Heroic levels then the tree's SR is also too weak, because it's at zero!

If they're going to have a good amount of SR in OS, then it needs to start adding up not later than level 12.[/U]

[Qhualor]

The Occult Slayer spell resistance is both too powerful and too weak.

If you're a Constitution-only epic build then OS SR is too strong, but if you're a Strength (or Dexterity?) build then it's too weak. If you're in Heroic levels then the tree's SR is also too weak, because it's at zero!

If they're going to have a good amount of SR in OS, then it needs to start adding up not later than level 12.[/U]

even strength builds could have a high Con score though. the tree makes it so dwarf is the best race, but you can still have a con stat almost as high, if not the same as they guy in the video. my strength barbs can get into the 60s range.

only thing I can think of as to why you have to wait so long for the SR is because it could trivialize low levels. it is a powerful ability and I can see why its a Tier 5 core.

[Seikojin]

While we wont know until it hits lama/live, no other core in the game works like that and I see no reason why this should be any different. So I think its safe to assume theyll stack.

In a dev post here, in response to asking for clarification on cores stacking, the implication was that they do unless its stated otherwise (through the use of "now" to indicate replacement rather than stacking). Which is why I feel its safe per above.


Given how cheap that 30 amp (and 30 hp for that matter, as they are generally 5 hp / AP, not 10) is, it certainly seems like a concern. Many builds can afford to toss 3 AP into 3 trees for 30 amp, because many builds will have 99% of their AP tied up in 2-3 class trees. Its pretty rare for a build to need all 6 class trees so badly they cannot adjust at all (and such builds generally arent the kind for which 30 amp is going to make a difference, once you get that complicated/precise theyre generally performing well regardless).

Another way of looking at it is: Even taking 1-2 trees it is superior to other options. Humans can spend 17 AP to get 30 amp in racial, or anyone with 1 barb lvl can spend 3 ap for the same. Getting the first human 10 amp costs 3 AP, for anyone with barb levels its 1 AP. Definite concerns there. Not saying its broken or anything (as Ive said multiple times, I really dont think the healing amp is all that powerful... people are still thinking in terms of live now, not in terms of the new formula and how everything stacks up in that environment). Just dont want to see something get in, then get nerfed over some combination, etc.

Bolded the important bit. We won't know until Sev comments or it hits lam. Remember the last time we as a community complained to the high heaven about a buff before it hit lamannia? Blitz. I think theorycrafting here is good to a degree. I think the Hamp is a little strong, however I would have to see it in action on Lama before giving it professional feedback.

[Therigar]

Look, the stat increase in the same two locations in every heroic enhancement tree is not supposed to be important or necessarily attractive.

So?

so why have trees with charisma, strength, dexterity or intelligence? its only +1 more and gives just as small of a bonus and costs 2 AP..

In some cases I would take them out and replace them as I've suggested to do in OS. In some cases they are principle stats to a character class and the small advantage is enough to push players to take them.

But, just because we have done something a particular way in every other place doesn't mean we have to continue. In my opinion it is an extremely poor reason to continue -- it is an "if all your friends jumped off the bridge would you jump too" sort of thing.

I think it is pretty stupid in this tree to offer stat increases and it is probably stupid in a few of the others as well.

But, mostly, in this specific tree my view is that the stats encourage yet to come builds that don't have anything, really, to do with improving barbarians. I really am opposed at a very basic level to the melee builds that will come and use OS with 4-6 levels of barbarian as a splash. They will grab the healing from OS, the damage output from one or both of the other trees and then add in the spell and enhancement effects of druid or cleric or favored soul.

It will be great for those other class icons that characters will be wearing but it doesn't do a whole lot for people who want their characters to wear the barbarian icon.

IMO the pass should encourage pure barbarians most of all and then barbarian icon multiclasses second of all. That's not where the update is headed right now. I think anyone who believes that it is geared to pure or predominantly barbarian builds is just fooling themselves.

I'm going to repeat something I've said several times -- barbarian 6/bard or druid 14 (or 12 with 2 something else) looks pretty sick right now.

[Scrabbler]

I'm going to repeat something I've said several times -- barbarian 6/bard or druid 14 (or 12 with 2 something else) looks pretty sick right now.

Of course Druid is totally broken now, so there's no need to discuss Druid+anything. But what exactly do you anticipate about Bard14/Bard6 (or Bard12/Barb6/Rog2)?

It's true that the upper levels of the Bard class don't currently have enough incentive to take them, but what Barbarian enhancements do you think a mostly-Bard character would be most attracted to? Ravager healing and Critical Rage? They'd have to drop EW and CDQ for that, which could be worth it, but lots of non-Lawful melee characters could be attracted to Barb5 for Ravager healing.


One specific problem with Ravager healing is that it improves according to your attack speed, and other classes have more swing rate than Barb. I'm particularly anticipating Ranger15/Barb5 Tempest/Ravager.