Barbarian - Occult Slayer Changes

[Qhualor]

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.

what is stopping this build from being made now? the biggest changes to OS is heal amp in the cores, you don't lose your stack of bonds switching weapons, 2 new Tier 5s that I have no idea how good they will be yet and adding MRR to the cores that 6 levels of barb cant get. for 6 levels of barb, im not seeing that good enough reason for the next FOTM build. care to enlighten what you are seeing that I am not?

[Therigar]

what is stopping this build from being made now? the biggest changes to OS is heal amp in the cores,

You answered your own question.

The healing amp in the cores is what will drive the builds. And, the changes to damage in the other trees will fuel the druid wolf builds while the already near or top damage* characteristic of bard Swashbuckling will drive the bard builds.

The changes are sufficient to make the builds desirable while right now there isn't enough synergy to pull people off other builds.


*There is fierce debate over whether paladin or bard has the top damage at present. Because the barbarian pass is intended to increase barbarian damage to be on par with these it means the synergy of barbarian plus bard is going to make that the damage leading build. And, because you do not need more than 6 barbarian levels to get everything needed from the class it means the builds are going to be 6/14 or 6/12/2. But, it is the synergy that is going to drive things and it is the lack of synergy that is stopping the build now.

[Therigar]

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)?.

See my * piece in my post just above.

[Vargouille]

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}

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

It's unlocks the entire tree, and the +5 attack is meaningful effect for a single AP, though we realize many players don't highly value to-hit. Being an activated ability lets you see how much Weapon Bond you have for all the other abilities in the tree, in a place that doesn't move (wherever on your hotbars you decide to put it, even if you decide to never push it). This is different from making it an effect, which is harder to track.

[HatsuharuZ]

It's unlocks the entire tree, and the +5 attack is meaningful effect for a single AP, though we realize many players don't highly value to-hit. Being an activated ability lets you see how much Weapon Bond you have for all the other abilities in the tree, in a place that doesn't move (wherever on your hotbars you decide to put it, even if you decide to never push it). This is different from making it an effect, which is harder to track.

For me, Varg, I don't consider small +to-hit bonuses to be worth AP when items exist that give up to +10 to-hit. All of your other points, however, I understand. Thanks for clarifying.

[Thar]

I don't value to hit since the changes in the to hit formula years ago made it all mute. you just don't hardly miss on a non 1 unless your using a non proficient weapon.

[Severlin]

Good feedback so far.

I wanted to comment on one small thing; the reason we don't move the healing amplification and hit point bonuses to the main class is that we want barbarians who spend points in more than one barbarian tree to be able to double up on these bonuses.

Sev~

[Scrabbler]

I wanted to comment on one small thing; the reason we don't move the healing amplification and hit point bonuses to the main class is that we want barbarians who spend points in more than one barbarian tree to be able to double up on these bonuses.

I don't see how that's a good thing. I mean, almost every Barbarian will triple up on the first few in every tree, just because they're cheap. And then every Barb has incentive to get Death Frenzy in FB if they can afford it.

But for the other cores, why would it be good that the motivation to get them is to pump your hp and heal amp? Cores should be about what the prestige trees do that are special, not stacking things they all do.

[Thar]

I don't see how that's a good thing. I mean, almost every Barbarian will triple up on the first few in every tree, just because they're cheap. And then every Barb has incentive to get Death Frenzy in FB if they can afford it.

But for the other cores, why would it be good that the motivation to get them is to pump your hp and heal amp? Cores should be about what the prestige trees do that are special, not stacking things they all do.

Its trying to fix a pen and paper class into an mmo that doesn't work the way ddo has developed. The class base feature - rage is supposed to work with less healing as they have DR to compensate. DDO added Dr in larger amounts that invalidate this core abillity. If anything, this core feature of DR should stack (yes i know it's against pen and paper rules). Barbs are supposed to shrug and take a hit and not care. The DR is supposed to do that.

what does 7 dr do for you at end game... nothing. so make it add prr. normal prr scoree x barb dr = final prr score.

[Scrabbler]

Its trying to fix a pen and paper class into an mmo that doesn't work the way ddo has developed. The class base feature - rage is supposed to work with less healing as they have DR to compensate.

Providing heal amp+hitpoints versus DR+PRR is a separate question from whether the main incentive for a Barbarian to get cores from more than 1 tree is to have even more heal amp and hitpoints, instead of because he wants whatever unique tree-specific benefits those cores give.

[Thar]

Providing heal amp+hitpoints versus DR+PRR is a separate question from whether the main incentive for a Barbarian to get cores from more than 1 tree is to have even more heal amp and hitpoints, instead of because he wants whatever unique tree-specific benefits those cores give.

Yes,

I was trying to show the original intent of the class and a way to further provide that flavor end game.

heal amp in different trees is good for low level or split class barbs to provide some level of sustainabillity. to take that away would hurt the redesign if nothing is introduced in it's stead. Even so, is a 12barb/6 fighter or 12 fighter/6 barb in any better shape when raged if he can't get multipletrees? 30% heal amp isn't going to save said character. it is debatable if the heal amp + hp plus minor regen is going to be all that effective. taking 200 hp a hit is still going to kill you quick if you have 2d6 regen unless you have 2000% heal amp.

DR increase or prr increase is needed in addition to the above to provide the original intent to be a high hp (yes more than tanks) class that can't wear heavy armor but can take a hit and keep rolling.

[Scrabbler]

It's unlocks the entire tree, and the +5 attack is meaningful effect for a single AP

+5 attack might be valuable, but +5 attack for a few seconds by manually clicking a button once per multiple minutes is not.

though we realize many players don't highly value to-hit.

Some would value it more if there was a way to tell whether +5 hit would actually help you. Assuming I am grazing a monster on rolls of 2-3, will +5 leave me still grazing 2-3? I can't predict.

Being an activated ability lets you see how much Weapon Bond you have for all the other abilities in the tree

Yup that's a real benefit to having an active ability for Weapon Bond core1. But it does't have to be a worthless active ability... you could raise the Bond cost, lower the cooldown, and then have the benefit get stronger per each OS core trained.

[Scrabbler]

heal amp in different trees is good for low level or split class barbs to provide some level of sustainabillity.

If you want to improve Barbs who are "low level or split class" then you can simply add a higher amount of hp and heal amp to the lower couple levels of Barbarian; having it in multiple cores doesn't help that goal. And I don't see a reason to improve low-level Barbs or characters with only a few Barb levels.

[bbqzor]

I wanted to comment on one small thing; the reason we don't move the healing amplification and hit point bonuses to the main class is that we want barbarians who spend points in more than one barbarian tree to be able to double up on these bonuses.

Not really a small thing. This is bad for a few reasons, but the main one is that its another example of it being "intended" that barbarians need to put points in all trees to get "good" returns. This is counter to how modern trees are being done. There is no other class which has received a modernization pass which has a situation where you NEED to hit multiple trees. This was cited as a huge issue back in U18, and history is repeating itself now.

These trees need some shuffling and consolidation to reduce this problem, not compound it. All those little reasons add up. Trying to grab rage bonuses from the first 1-2 tiers in all trees is expensive, especially when there is little other reason to be in the trees otherwise. You have succeeded in making it "difficult" to spend AP by offering "too many" good choices. Barbarians just kind of get thrown under the bus further with more push in that direction.

If you want people to "double dip" as sort of the "norm", it might be better to just balance it around that, and type the cores as "rage bonuses" so they dont stack, and get the best of both. Frankly, I hope the hp/amp are changed to something less inflationary and more mechanically sound anyhow... barbarians are just going to become hypertrophied examples of what they are now: hp yoyo noob traps that play well at 1 and get worse relative to everyone else as they close in on cap... diluted trees with stacking mudflation effects arent the answer.

[bbqzor]

+5 attack might be valuable, but +5 attack for a few seconds by manually clicking a button once per multiple minutes is not.

I dont always agree with Scrabbler, but when I do....

This cooldown should be 1 minute. Its not an action boost, okay fine. But its not manyshot, or an epic moment, or any of that stuff either.

Suggestion: Make it +1 attack per OS core taken, in addition to 1 minute cd.

Now its no longer a quick pickup for splashes, and can be afforded a shorter cooldown because of that. It makes it most useful for people in that tree, and +6 (if capstone) attack on a key few attacks once a minute is a cool perk... instead of just a way to put a bond tracker on your hotbar =p

[painkiller3]

i run a dwarven occult slayer 20 barb and i think the changes will do nothing but help my build. looks good to me. to everyone beside the devs, not sure why the push for "balance". when i was a youth, the amount of xp you needed to level wasn't even the same between classes because Gygax et al realized that some classes were more powerful than others. it still makes perfect sense to me...some classes are more powerful than others.

if the healing amp improves silver flame pots i will be happy, and even if it doesn't the non-resetting of weapon bond allows me to make a weapon set of heal scrolls and a +150 thunderholm scepter without losing anything when i go back to my warhammers. all good.

the changes to occult slayer are improvements, not major changes that make you have to rebuild from scratch and i think that's important when changing enhancements.

[Vargouille]

Not really a small thing. This is bad for a few reasons, but the main one is that its another example of it being "intended" that barbarians need to put points in all trees to get "good" returns. This is counter to how modern trees are being done. There is no other class which has received a modernization pass which has a situation where you NEED to hit multiple trees. This was cited as a huge issue back in U18, and history is repeating itself now.

These trees need some shuffling and consolidation to reduce this problem, not compound it. All those little reasons add up. Trying to grab rage bonuses from the first 1-2 tiers in all trees is expensive, especially when there is little other reason to be in the trees otherwise. You have succeeded in making it "difficult" to spend AP by offering "too many" good choices. Barbarians just kind of get thrown under the bus further with more push in that direction.

If you want people to "double dip" as sort of the "norm", it might be better to just balance it around that, and type the cores as "rage bonuses" so they dont stack, and get the best of both. Frankly, I hope the hp/amp are changed to something less inflationary and more mechanically sound anyhow... barbarians are just going to become hypertrophied examples of what they are now: hp yoyo noob traps that play well at 1 and get worse relative to everyone else as they close in on cap... diluted trees with stacking mudflation effects arent the answer.

You gain benefit from spending in multiple barbarian trees. This is also true for every other class, of course. You aren't required to, and you also gain benefit from spending in one barbarian tree, one cleric tree, and one bard tree -- the benefits are different, but in each case spending more AP gives more benefit.

We don't expect it to be a requirement that all barbarians only spend on barbarian trees, but if a major goal is very high healing amplification you are likely to do this. This is not necessarily going to be the most common barbarian build for multiclass barbarians (or heavily racial Barbarians like CON-dwarves, or some kind of INT based Harper barbarian, or other "non-standard builds").

We don't feel that the additional bonuses to existing abilities suddenly makes those abilities requirements for all barbarians. We're willing to be convinced that may happen unintentionally, but it's not an explicit design goal.

To a certain extent it almost sounds like the proposed Barbarian core abilities are too good and therefore everyone will need to take them over other abilities. It's been more common feedback, generally, that core abilities should be stronger. Have we gone too far?

[Scrabbler]

Suggestion: Make it +1 attack per OS core taken, in addition to 1 minute cd.

That version of Weapon Bond would still be too weak.

Aside from long cooldown, the problem with Weapon Bond clicky is that it costs only 1 Bond point, which is practically free given how fast you earn Bond. There is a teeny tiny chance I will ever not have 1 Bond point, and the chance I'll actually notice that the point has been spent is actually zero. They should raise the Bond points spent so it's a real cost, and then raise the benefit proportionately.

[Qhualor]

I don't see how that's a good thing. I mean, almost every Barbarian will triple up on the first few in every tree, just because they're cheap. And then every Barb has incentive to get Death Frenzy in FB if they can afford it.

But for the other cores, why would it be good that the motivation to get them is to pump your hp and heal amp? Cores should be about what the prestige trees do that are special, not stacking things they all do.

A pure barbarian that focuses on 1 tree would be sacrificing some DPS if the are trying to dip into other trees for the cores. My Ravager tried to get Death Frenzy, but he would have given up too much in Ravager. A pure barb is going to dip into all 3 trees at least to get access to more rages, extended rages, hardy rages and increasing strength with rage. Its a tight fit with sacrifice to get a 3rd core in another tree, get Tier 5 in your main tree and the capstone. Throw in Harper tree, not that I see anything in there that would really benefit a barb, and its even harder.

[Scrabbler]

It's been more common feedback, generally, that core abilities should be stronger. Have we gone too far?

The problem with the new Barbarian cores is not that they're too good. Well maybe the numbers for heal amp and hp are a bit too high, but that's a minor side issue and easy to tune down.

The real problems with Barbarian cores:

• The cores are too much the same, both between trees and within trees. Each and every Barb core gives you hp and heal amp; can any other class point out something provided by every core?
• For the majority of the cores, most of the value comes from the parts that are the same. Previously, roughly 50% of the Barb cores were very bad. Now they're still very bad, except they have hp and heal amp glued on. When building a character and choosing between core6 in Ravager or Occult Slayer, my decision shouldn't just be an afterthought to "hp and healamp are always good".