Barbarian - Occult Slayer Changes

[Scrabbler]

Knockout: (1 AP) Ear Smash puts enemies to sleep for 6/12/18 seconds. On Vorpal, enemies are stunned instead.

Will Ear Smash be changed to cause sleep, like it says in the description?

Currently Ear Smash makes the enemy motionless, helpless, and in a sleep animation until it is damaged. That's much stronger than a Sleep effect, because it applies to Undead, Elves, and many other things with Sleep Immunity.

[InsanityIsYourFriend]

Greetings,

Here are the proposed changes for the Barbarian's Occult Slayer tree for Update 24. The Occult Slayer is designed to mitigate magical damage while at the same time shutting down and eliminating foes that use magic against you. We've made the weapon bond easier to use; stacks are no longer removed when you switch weapons and they build much faster since the 1 second cooldown was removed. This faster stack building allows the Occult Slayer to spend these charges to heal or make big attacks.





Core abilities


Bonded Weapons: (1 AP, Barbarian Level 1). You build a psychic bond with your weapons. You strengthen this bond by damaging enemies with attacks. Each attack adds 1 to your weapon bond, up to a maximum of 200. Dying resets your weapon bond. Activate: Exhaust 1 Weapon Bond: Gain a +5 Insight bonus to Attack for 12 seconds. (Cooldown: 2 minutes)


Note: Changing weapons no longer resets your weapon bond.

Resistance: (1 AP, Barbarian Level 3) +1 to all saving throws. Improve your barbarian damage reduction by +1. You gain +10 hit points and +10 healing amplification.


Elemental Defense: (1 AP, Barbarian Level 6) When enemy spells deal elemental damage to you, there's a 25% chance you'll gain 25 temporary hit points for 30 seconds. This gain scales with 100% Melee Power. This can trigger up to once every 12 seconds. (Elemental Damage includes Acid, Cold, Electric, Fire, Sonic.) Improve your barbarian damage reduction by +1. Passive: You gain +30 hit points and +10 healing amplification.


Blank Thoughts: (1 AP, Barbarian Level 12) You gain the Slippery Mind feat and improve your barbarian damage reduction. Improve your barbarian damage reduction by +1. Passive: You gain +5 Magical Resistance Rating, +60 hit points and +20 healing amplification.

Force Ward: (1 AP, Barbarian Level 18) You gain immunity to magic missiles and +5% Competence bonus to entirely avoid incoming Force damage. Improve your barbarian damage reduction by +1. Passive: You gain +5 Magical Resistance Rating, +100 hit points and +20 healing amplification.

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.




Tier One


Extend Rage: (1/1/1 AP) Your barbarian rage lasts [25/50/75]% longer.

Ear Smash: (1/1/1 AP) Melee Attack: Deals +0.5/+1/+1.5[W] damage. Damaged enemies can't cast spells for 2/4/6 seconds. (Cooldown: 12 seconds)

Parrying Bond: (1/1/1 AP) If Weapon Bond is 10+: +[2/4/6] Competence bonus to AC and +[1/2/3] to Magical Resistance Rating.

Uncanny Dodger: (1/1/1 AP) You gain +[1/2/3]% Dodge.

Awareness: (1/1/1 AP) +[1/2/3] Listen, Search and Spot. Rank 3: +1 Reflex Saving Throw



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


Willpower Rage: (1/1/1 AP) You gain +[1/2/3] to Will saving throws while raged.

Knockout: (1 AP) Ear Smash puts enemies to sleep for 6/12/18 seconds. On Vorpal, enemies are stunned instead.

Guarding Bond: (1/1/1 AP) If weapon bond is 60+: Gain +4 Physical and Magical Resistance Rating. Rank 2: If weapon bond is 120+: Ratings increase to +8. Rank 3: If weapon bond is 180+: Ratings increase to +12.

Lessons of Travel: (1/1/1 AP) +[2/4/6] energy resistance against Acid, Cold, Electric, Fire and Sonic damage.

Antimagic Boost: (1/1/1 AP) Action Boost: +[2/4/6] Action Boost bonus to saving throws vs. magic (Cooldown: 30 seconds)



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


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.

Lessons of Nature: (1/1/1 AP) You gain +[2/4/6] to save vs. both disease and poison. Rank 3: You don't fail disease or poison saving throws on a roll of 1.

Arcane Encumbrance: (1/1/1 AP) When enemies damage you with spells, there's a [10/20/30]% chance they'll be knocked down. (Does not affect bosses.)

Kinetic Bond: (1/1/1 AP) If weapon bond is 20+: Your attacks deal 1d20 force damage that scales with 200% Melee Power. This damage can trigger up to once every 3/2/1 seconds.

Constitution/Wisdom: (2 AP) Multi-selector: +1 Constitution or +1 Wisdom



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

Hated Enemies: (2 AP) Expend 30 weapon bond to gain 10 Melee Power for 10 seconds.

Viscious Strike: Melee Attack: Deals +1/+2/+3[W] damage and inflicts Feedback on the enemy for 6/12/18 seconds. (Cooldown: 12 seconds) Feedback - On Spellcast: Caster suffers 6-60 force damage. This damage is increased by the target's Spell Power.

Constitution/Wisdom: (2 AP) Multi-selector: +1 Constitution or +1 Wisdom



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


Oath of Destruction: (2 AP) Your Oath of Retribution doesn't have a health requirement.

Vampiric Bond: (1 AP) If weapon bond is 150+: Your weapon provides you 20 temporary hit points when you damage an enemy. These temporary hit points scale with 200% Melee Power. This can trigger at most once every 12/9/6 seconds.

Metalline Bond: (1 AP) Your equipped weapon gains the Metalline property. It bypasses Adamantine, Alchemical Silver, Byeshk, Cold Iron and Mithral damage reduction.

Ancestral Bond: (1/1/1 AP) Expend all stacks of weapon bond. For each stack expended you are healed for 2 hit points. This healing scales with 100% Melee Power. Cooldown: 60/20/10 seconds. Passive: +10/+20/+30 HP and +4/+8/+12 Magical Resistance Rating.

Seeker's Strike: (1 AP, 3 Ranks) (Active) Expend 50 stacks of weapon bond: Make a melee weapon attack for +1/3/5 (W) damage. This attack has a +1 critical threat range and a +1 critical multiplier. Cooldown: 5/4/3 seconds.


Sev~

Weapon bond takes a second to get one stack currently, it only accumulates one per second. So using up 50 bond, or 200 bond it doesn't matter your cooldown, you can't get 50 weapon bond in 5 seconds, so you get a whopping 4 uses in 12 seconds at full bond then have to wait 50 seconds for a fifth shot. All for +5 w +1 range and +1 multiplier. Or I could go 6 ranger, get +2 w, +1 range, +1 multiplier and be able to use it once every 6 seconds from the time I pick it up til the time I die. Don't get me wrong I love the ability but either we need to be able to build our bond much faster or drop the weapon bond usage to say 10 stacks.

[Severlin]

Weapon bond takes a second to get one stack currently, it only accumulates one per second. So using up 50 bond, or 200 bond it doesn't matter your cooldown, you can't get 50 weapon bond in 5 seconds, so you get a whopping 4 uses in 12 seconds at full bond then have to wait 50 seconds for a fifth shot. All for +5 w +1 range and +1 multiplier. Or I could go 6 ranger, get +2 w, +1 range, +1 multiplier and be able to use it once every 6 seconds from the time I pick it up til the time I die. Don't get me wrong I love the ability but either we need to be able to build our bond much faster or drop the weapon bond usage to say 10 stacks.

The one second internal cooldown was removed.

Sev~

[InsanityIsYourFriend]

Will Ear Smash be changed to cause sleep, like it says in the description?

Currently Ear Smash makes the enemy motionless, helpless, and in a sleep animation until it is damaged. That's much stronger than a Sleep effect, because it applies to Undead, Elves, and many other things with Sleep Immunity.

it is based off of nightshade venom on the doublecross crossbow. exact same effect only the nightshade has a save

[Scrabbler]

I really hate that every Barbarian tree's cores have equivalent bonuses to healing amp and maximum hitpoints. Aside from making the trees seem too similar, it creates too much incentive to try to get a lot of cores from different trees.

I very strongly suggest that the Healing Amp and hitpoints be moved from the enhancement cores and into Barb class levels 1,3,6,12,18,20.

[bbqzor]

Aside from making the trees seem too similar, it creates too much incentive to try to get a lot of cores from different trees.

I very strongly suggest that the Healing Amp and hitpoints be moved from the enhancement cores and into Barb class levels 1,3,6,12,18,20.

This is a valid concern. It gets worse when you consider multiclassing.... one barb breakpoint potentially pays out 3 times in amp for whatever other build.

Ill second the "move it to the class" idea. Same results, much less opportunity to break later. Also takes the pressure off the entire enhancement tree "competing" against more amp.

(note, I dont even think the amp is that good, but Id rather see it played straight than mutate into something unforeseen resulting in blacklash)

[Scrabbler]

Lessons of Travel: (1/1/1 AP) +[2/4/6] energy resistance against Acid, Cold, Electric, Fire and Sonic damage.

Many classes have an enhancement which adds 2/4/6 energy resistance. In all of them, it would be better if the added resistance instead scaled up, like +1 per 4/3/2 class levels.

Ancestral Bond: (1/1/1 AP) Expend all stacks of weapon bond. For each stack expended you are healed for 2 hit points. This healing scales with 100% Melee Power. Cooldown: 60/20/10 seconds. Passive: +10/+20/+30 HP and +4/+8/+12 Magical Resistance Rating.

Having a cooldown reduction in Ancestral Bond is pretty well meaningless.

Metalline Bond: (1 AP) Your equipped weapon gains the Metalline property. It bypasses Adamantine, Alchemical Silver, Byeshk, Cold Iron and Mithral damage reduction.

Having the word "Bond" in the name of Metalline Bond is odd if it doesn't depend on Weapon Bond points.

Mind Over Magic: (1 AP, Barbarian Level 20) You gain a bonus to your Spell Resistance equal to your Constitution score.

On live, this doesn't give an SR bonus, and just sets your SR equal to Constitution.

Doing anything where ability scores map into SR points is a bad approach, because the resulting number is in a completely different world from other SR sources (which are around 10+caster level, or about 35). A Barbarian build easily have 60+ Constitution, especially if Dwarf. It's okay if OS Barbarians can get more SR than anyone else, but they shouldn't be twice as much. Really, the whole SR system is broken by Epic CRs, because the enemy caster levels are ludicrously inflated there (it shouldn't be possible to go up against a trio of level 50+ Wizards and expect to get out of it alive, not to mention kill them safely in under a minute).

So the steps to fix this would be to first somehow adjust Spell Resistance so that Monks, Cleric/FVS spells, and equipped items can provide a meaningful SR effect in epic content... then adjust the Occult Slayer capstone to be a few points better than that.

[Qhualor]

cant really comment much on OS since I don't play one. I just take a few enhancements, but the one thing that I like the most is not losing your stacks while swapping weapons.

[Lanadazia]

Greetings,

Note: Changing weapons no longer resets your weapon bond.

very good. i really liked the occult slayer bonuses with the weaponbond when i played barb. only reason why i ended up in frenzied berserker is the fact that the weaponbond resetet on weapon change!

it was impossible to use a scroll or a wand without resetting your stacks. not talking about switching weapons i.e. undead beater and normal axe

nice change! :-) guess i'll TR into barb again and enjoy the weaponbonds

[Faltout]

Ancestral Bond: (1/1/1 AP) Expend all stacks of weapon bond. For each stack expended you are healed for 2 hit points. This healing scales with 100% Melee Power. Cooldown: 60/20/10 seconds. Passive: +10/+20/+30 HP and +4/+8/+12 Magical Resistance Rating.
Sev~

These are some nice changes. It helped a lot that this tree was the best of the 3 barbarian trees and balanced too. I like the metalline bond. Now we don't have to choose a single metal.

Notes: Ancestral Bond basically fully heals a barb if he's at 200 weapon bond (400 * melee power * healamp). I guess that could pass but you said that you removed the per second from weapon bond incrementation. That means that if someone would like to heal instead of having some temp hit points every 6 seconds (extra DPS at 20 stacks is obviously coming within 2 seconds of combat) they basically have a 60 * melee power * healamp heal every 3 seconds. This is still overpowered. Either increase the cooldown, or lower the healing to 1 HP per stack. (And I'm thinking it may still be overpowered)

[PermaBanned]

This is a valid concern. It gets worse when you consider multiclassing.... one barb breakpoint potentially pays out 3 times in amp for whatever other build.

Ill second the "move it to the class" idea. Same results, much less opportunity to break later. Also takes the pressure off the entire enhancement tree "competing" against more amp.

(note, I dont even think the amp is that good, but Id rather see it played straight than mutate into something unforeseen resulting in blacklash)

While I don't have an issue with the Hamp moving from cores to direct class levels, I don't see multiclasses benefitting from taking multiple Barb tress for Hamp - with the tree limit, it would come at a steep price.

[Scrabbler]

One major category of feature that's missing from the Barbarian trees, especially appropriate for Occult Slayer, is the ability to add a second ability mod to some saving throws. So far only Paladins can add two stat mods to every save.

It would be appropriate for Occult Slayer level 18-20 enhancements to give you the ability to add Con mod to Reflex and/or Str mod to Will, maybe within some limits (like only against magical effects). That would be a simple and powerful way to balance some survivability against Paladins (and notice that it'd be impossible to use the Paladin feature on the same character).

Perhaps that kind of saving benefit could be given in place of the questionable Spell Resistance capstone.

[G_Lich]

No real feedback here: Viscious is misspelled.

[HatsuharuZ]

Comments:

Thanks for making the Weapon Bond mechanic much simpler, and giving us a way to *use* that bond.

Also, I see what you did there with "Ancestral Bond". It may have a cooldown, but the player has to decide whether or not the loss of the bond is worth the reward, and they have to choose between getting a small heal every few seconds, or getting a large heal every few minutes. Interesting mechanic~


Questions:

Does the "Weapon Bond" show up on the buff bar? IIRC, currently a player has to examine his weapon to determine what the bond is at.

Also, would it be possible to change "Bond of Retribution" to something more useful? Personally, my own reflex when I get down to 50% health is to immediately HEAL, not attack. I'd suggest making "Bond of Retribution" +1 to crit multiplier on a natural 20, while the fifth tier version makes it a +1 on a 19 or 20.

[LrdSlvrhnd]

Yes, the internal cooldown is gone.

Sev~

Is it based on the attack itself, or the number of enemies hit? If I'm ranging with a thrower I get one hit, one bond. But what if I'm surrounded by a dozen kobolds and cleave? Do I get twelve stacks or still just one? (Really just curious here - I can swing way more than once a second, so even without cleaves charging up every hit it's better.)

Love the changes. LOVE keeping the bond when switching weapons (maybe my barb will actually use all these specialist weapons he carries...). Love the extra ways to spend the bond (has anyone ever used the Bonded Weapons clickie except just to check it out? I'd prefer a +5 damage for 12 seconds, myself). Love that most of the ways are actually USEFUL. Not sure about Seeker's Strike, that would depend on how quickly I can recharge it - and even if cleaves charge for everybody hit, that's something that's most useful in a boss fight when there's only the one thing being attacked. Maybe make it a melee cleave attack? A quarter of your bond is a hefty price to pay, even without the 1s cooldown to recharge.

You're making me consider doing another barb life instead of pally when I cap *g* (Since it's the current barb who's going to E/HTR.)

[LrdSlvrhnd]

Questions:

Does the "Weapon Bond" show up on the buff bar? IIRC, currently a player has to examine his weapon to determine what the bond is at.

Since the first core is a clicky, you can drag it to a hotbar, and the bond shows up there; I wouldn't mind if the other clickies also showed the counter.

Also, would it be possible to change "Bond of Retribution" to something more useful? Personally, my own reflex when I get down to 50% health is to immediately HEAL, not attack. I'd suggest making "Bond of Retribution" +1 to crit multiplier on a natural 20, while the fifth tier version makes it a +1 on a 19 or 20.

I just wouldn't get it until I need to spend AP on something to get to the next tier, or I was ready to get Oath of Destruction (my current barbs were high enough to just be able to get the T5s when OS came out). But your idea certainly makes it more useful.

[Scrabbler]

Maybe Oath of Retribution should be changed so the +1 critical bonus lasts for 10 seconds after you're healed above half.

[CaptainSpacePony]

Not a lot of sweeping changes here, but it was already the only tree worth diving deeply into and I don't see anything to change that.

Ear smash remains the best reason to take any barbarian levels.

Mind over magic remains a very worthy Dwarven capstone. 98SR ftw.

I don't like seeing that the core changes are pretty much the same for all 3 barb prestiges.

So, after reviewing all 3 of the new trees, my overall impressions are: HP and HAmp for everyone!

Occult slayer--No big changes, but a few key boosts. I have no issues with the changes.

Frenzied berserker--some minor tweaks that leave FB as a solid heroic DPS choice, but still an epic liability.

Ravager-Got a Healing Ki strike at tier 5.

I'd like to send FB and ravager back to the drawing board.

[FranOhmsford]

Nothing but good changes here. I would say something Ive said before which is, 2 min cd on the 12s +5 insight attack is kind of excessively long. Id go 1 minute for 10s. Like a mini attack action boost with double the cooldown and half the duration. Once every 2 mins is just too rare, imo.

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?

[CaptainSpacePony]

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

excellent suggestion