Barbarian - Ravager Changes

[J-mann]

Great feedback so far. Still dissecting all of it. Some notes:

~ We had a long discussion about whether we wanted to take the barbarian down the path of the "glass cannon" route and decided we didn't want an entire class that had no self sufficiency. We understand that some players expect a high damage glass cannon type design for barbarians but we don't feel that fits well with how DDO is currently played.

~ Of all the abilities in the barbarian trees we expect Blood Strength to take the most tweaking to get right. To players that are concerned it will be overpowered we hear you and will be doing internal playtests with it soon. Lamannia feedback will be particularly telling in this regard.

~ We will be discussing the damage type and the capstone balance.

Sev~

1. Sev barbs should not be glass cannons no. NOR should they be self healing machines that you are trying to make them. I dont know how many here have played, or looked at the mechanics of, EVE, but in EVE there is basically 3 methods of tanking on your ships. One is the active tank where abilities refill you hp bar, in ddo that would be healing. One is the passive shield tank, this would be like the fast healing mechanic, which I am fine with for barbs so long as it doesnt get crazy. The third, which is non existant in this game and what barbs should be is the buffer tank. Buffer tanks had HUGE hp and HUGE resists, but no way to replenish them themselves (or little way), and trust me they were in NO way a glass cannon. I did a battleship in that format and stood up to 20 players shooting at me for 60 seconds with NO healing. THIS is the type of defense barbs should have, crazy high prr/mrr and dr with next to NOTHING in healing.

2. Barbs should not be getting this crazy amount of heal amp. Barbs should not HAVE more heal amp than stacked pally/monks. Further blood strength is definately broken op, and is a HUGE slap in the face to light monks. Why in the heck would a barb get more on hit heals than a light monk AND do more damage? please explain how this enhancement makes any sense whatsoever.

3. This is much less important than getting the class style correct. Barbs should be massive buffer tanks (think of this as effective hp), with very little ways to replenish it, and do Great dps. Not 70% more than every other melee like some of the crazies on here want, but 15% would be acceptable, so long as Barbs have little way to heal.

[theRolf]

Considering the number of players that have spoken out against Barbs getting self healing, would it be possible for you to give us some alternatives (or at least run a few by the other Devs?) Some of the popular changes I've seen suggested are...

1. Turn the new sources of Healing into Temporary Hit Points. (how about a % of your Hit Points instead of a flat amount? That way they could scale into epics)
2. Give Barbs bigger Hit Point/PRR bonuses when raging.
3. Add more damage! Barbs should be out damaging any none caster 70% of the time...
4. Re-balance the Healing formulas so that Barbs can "Take some of the Edge off" without becoming completely self sufficient.

I think some mixture of 1 & 3 would be perfect. Also consider giving Barbs a way to regenerate Rage (especially if one of their abilities is going to eat Rages).This is your chance to make temp hp relevant again, as both a way to make barbs more survivable and a way to revive some of those old Temp HP spells (so that they will be used past Lv 10).

Edit: "I didn't see your post until now, can you tell us if Temp HP is on the table for barbs as an alternative to Self Healing?"

Once again, please explain why temp HP is better. Please. All I am asking for is for somebody to put it clearly. Otherwise, I feel like temp HP = something that makes another class better - which has nothing to do with a barb.

[Rautis]

None of these classes are cut off from activating self healing abilities by a major class feature.

Sev~

I've pondered these Barbarian tree changes and discussion it has resulted in. I'm certain that a major reason for insufficient self healing of Raging Barbarians is healing consumable itemization. Change to itemization would result in equal positive change to all class/race combinations that are lacking in inherent self healing.

Currently it is easy to create a Sorcerer that is doomed to fail because of huge difference in WF versus fleshy healing if you can't reach the UMD. Same thing with non Bladeforged Fighters, Barbarians and some Monks. Non WF Artificers can have hard time healing themselves on new characters. Also getting sufficient UMD as rogue is hard if you're new. I don't think stronger potions would even prove to be a balance issue as top builds can already have all kinds of rather strong next to free self heals. And hireling contracts are very cheap so usually soloing with a hire is doable. It is full groups without dedicated healer where you get punished. Or raids.


With potions that scale sufficiently through levelrange you could make variety of currently unviable build combinations not so complete failures. Self healing classes would still have advantage because of saving both inventory space and platinum. Cost balancing would be important factor however. There are already very strong potions around but they're either not very available thanks to being collectible turn in or being store bought. Maybe having plat option would even get more people hooked on potions and increase store sales when people run out of potions mid quest. Or just out of platinum.

Another thing that would be cool to have are healing consumables that use Heal/Repair skill to determine their effectiveness.


With classes like Barbarian using consumables for their self healing needs you guys could focus developing Barbarians more into direction most people would associate with Barbarian. DPS, damage soaking, mage hunting, run speed etc.


Your current plan is to increase healing amplification so Barbarians could benefit more from potions. What about other classes that are typically forced to use potions for self heals like vanilla Fighters?

[Severlin]

Your current plan is to increase healing amplification so Barbarians could benefit more from potions. What about other classes that are typically forced to use potions for self heals like vanilla Fighters?

Fighters can splash into other sources of healing or use abilities like cocoon to grab some healing. Fighters also use heavy armor and have tanking trees that focus on PRR so they will be taking less damage. In others words, while the barbarians have big hit points and get a big effect from healing, fighters have more mitigation and aren't locked out of alternate healing sources.

Sev~

[Monkey-Boy]

Fighters can splash into other sources of healing or use abilities like cocoon to grab some healing. Fighters also use heavy armor and have tanking trees that focus on PRR so they will be taking less damage. In others words, while the barbarians have big hit points and get a big effect from healing, fighters have more mitigation and aren't locked out of alternate healing sources.

Sev~

This is a GOOD thing teh_Sev.

But the DPS output on paper is lacking, paladins are looking to still be ahead on any plausible build. Barbs still need more oomph.

[theRolf]

What Wulverine said plus a FB will still be chain chugging pots inflicting constant pain on himself.

1. Sev barbs should not be glass cannons no. NOR should they be self healing machines that you are trying to make them. I dont know how many here have played, or looked at the mechanics of, EVE, but in EVE there is basically 3 methods of tanking on your ships. One is the active tank where abilities refill you hp bar, in ddo that would be healing. One is the passive shield tank, this would be like the fast healing mechanic, which I am fine with for barbs so long as it doesnt get crazy. The third, which is non existant in this game and what barbs should be is the buffer tank. Buffer tanks had HUGE hp and HUGE resists, but no way to replenish them themselves (or little way), and trust me they were in NO way a glass cannon. I did a battleship in that format and stood up to 20 players shooting at me for 60 seconds with NO healing. THIS is the type of defense barbs should have, crazy high prr/mrr and dr with next to NOTHING in healing.

2. Barbs should not be getting this crazy amount of heal amp. Barbs should not HAVE more heal amp than stacked pally/monks. Further blood strength is definately broken op, and is a HUGE slap in the face to light monks. Why in the heck would a barb get more on hit heals than a light monk AND do more damage? please explain how this enhancement makes any sense whatsoever.

3. This is much less important than getting the class style correct. Barbs should be massive buffer tanks (think of this as effective hp), with very little ways to replenish it, and do Great dps. Not 70% more than every other melee like some of the crazies on here want, but 15% would be acceptable, so long as Barbs have little way to heal.

Once again the argument goes wayyy out of bounds. No need to elaborate i hope.

[Scrabbler]

Fighters can splash into other sources of healing or use abilities like cocoon to grab some healing.

The substantial healing sources you can get by splash classes, like Cleric's Ameliorating Smite, are also allowed during Barbarian Rage. Things like a Cure Light Wounds spell are prevented by Rage, but they're insignificant healing anyhow. Cocoon is a "Primal" ability and Barbarians are Primal people, so it's thematically defensible to simply edit Cocoon to work during Rage.

Fighters also use heavy armor and have tanking trees that focus on PRR so they will be taking less damage. In others words, while the barbarians have big hit points and get a big effect from healing, fighters have more mitigation and aren't locked out of alternate healing sources.

It's not only about Fighters, but also Rangers, Rogues, ecetera. To "not be locked out" from other sources of healing is only a benefit if some other sources exist, and all I can really list is Cocoon, Bladeforge, and UMD, which were covered above.

[Violith]

That's the biggest issue. I've seen the numbers crunched on the guild forum and barbs are looking like a big bucket of weaksauce.

Less DPS than paladins is just plain dumb.

thats the problem with crunching theretical numbers, Some people dont look at the whole picture and some just dont add right. Until this is on lamma, and tested, such 'crunching' is useless. I will admit that ravanger alone looks rather weak,

ravanger could be made stronger by simply making each core add to Pain touch (6d6@100mp at cap), also, to help them pull ahead more, I would suggest making Subsiding Fury add to the number of stacks possible of fury rather then just adding fury, as by then they'd already be able to keep it on constantly with the T5. so instead of merely gaining 3 fury, have it add 4(total of 10) or maybe 4 extra stacks for Subsiding Fury, and 5 for the capstone (as while an instant kill is nice, it probably wont land often due to the cost)

[Zurrander]

Sorry J-mann... when i said 70% i meant that they should be out damaging other Melees 70% of the time (not by 70%)... And that other melees should only be able to catch up or pass them through Burst DPS (and only about 30% of the time)... I'm satisfied with barbs doing as little as 5-10% more damage then the next best Heroic damage dealer. And as for your buffer tank, that's exactly what i would call Temp HP.


The Rolf... Temp HP isn't outright Better from a survival perspective (aside form not gimping war-forged if the Healing was Positive energy). Its simply more Barbarian like. Barbarians don't heal (its simply not their thing) they instead absorb damage through giant Hit Point pools. Notice that at present the Barb trees don't have a single healing mechanics, but they do have several Temp Hit Point mechanics... That's because Temp Hp is the barbs way to heal (without becoming a lesser divine). So to answer your question the advantages of Temp HP are
1. Allows barbs to ignore damage instead of healing (Keeping the Flavor of the class by continuing the Shrug off punishment & Rage running themes of the Barb)
2. Allows war-forged & fleshies to gain equal benefit form "Healing" (instead of gimping war-forged)
3. Gives the Devs a chance to rework a once important game mechanic that has been left behind (Possibly by changing it to a % of your health, or having it scale some other way)
4. Lets Barbs stay Barbs (ties into no.1)

There is simply no excuse for giving Barb Trees more self healing then the actual Divine Enhancement trees (Shinato/Sacred Defender/War Priest), its Lore breaking and simply doesn't fit with what a Barbarian is supposed to be. That being said, giving them Temporary Hit Points (using the same or similar numbers) would increase there survivability just as much without losing what makes the class special. So Now let me ask you, what would Barbs lose (that couldn't be rectified in seconds, like adding melee power scaling to make up for Hamp not affecting Temp HP) from making it Temp HP instead of healing?

[theRolf]

The substantial healing sources you can get by splash classes, like Cleric's Ameliorating Smite, are also allowed during Barbarian Rage. Things like a Cure Light Wounds spell are prevented by Rage, but they're insignificant healing anyhow. Cocoon is a "Primal" ability and Barbarians are Primal people, so it's thematically defensible to simply edit Cocoon to work during Rage.


It's not only about Fighters, but also Rangers, Rogues, ecetera. To "not be locked out" from other sources of healing is only a benefit if some other sources exist, and all I can really list is Cocoon, Bladeforge, and UMD, which were covered above.

Strike, not Smite. And been there done that - it is too weak. And this is only about Barb - and nothing else.

Thanks for understanding

[bbqzor]

Fighters can splash into other sources of healing or use abilities like cocoon to grab some healing. Fighters also use heavy armor and have tanking trees that focus on PRR so they will be taking less damage. In others words, while the barbarians have big hit points and get a big effect from healing, fighters have more mitigation and aren't locked out of alternate healing sources.

Big hit points and big effect from healing isnt a defense. Thats the part you seem to be glossing over repeatedly.

Big hp only protects from spikes, and amp only helps if the heals already cannot match your hp pool. Barbs will not have more hp than tanks due to stances etc. Barbs will have more healing amp, by a large margin.

In other words, healing will be "over healing" on barbs. But they will still need heals way too often because they take damage way too rapidly. This is what needs to be addressed, not hp/amp, but spacing out how often healing has to occur (not by turning barbs into tanks, but by slowing them down from babysit dmg intake closer to regular dmg intake).

Why dont they have anything to meaningfully extend the time between heals?

[Zurrander]

Big hit points and big effect from healing isnt a defense. Thats the part you seem to be glossing over repeatedly.

Big hp only protects from spikes, and amp only helps if the heals already cannot match your hp pool. Barbs will not have more hp than tanks due to stances etc. Barbs will have more healing amp, by a large margin.

In other words, healing will be "over healing" on barbs. But they will still need heals way too often because they take damage way too rapidly. This is what needs to be addressed, not hp/amp, but spacing out how often healing has to occur (not by turning barbs into tanks, but by slowing them down from babysit dmg intake closer to regular dmg intake).

Why dont they have anything to meaningfully extend the time between heals?

Larger amounts of Temp Hp could Extend the time between Heals pretty meaningfully... Imagine a barb the can "Blood Tribute" for 30-40% of his HP... now he has a viable way to stay up in-between heals without self healing, Combine that with "I Like Pain" occasionally hitting for a (Stacking with everything but itself) 20% Hp and he's solo quest with noting but pots (to heal up in between fights). This not only gives Barbs a viable way to "Shrug off punishment" but also gives them a unique to barbs defensive mechanic, Increasing the diversity between classes and making them "Special" again. I can't be the only person that wants barbs to stay unique in the process of this buff, instead of becoming another same old same old self healing nightmare. (Its true that self healing is the only way to stay relevant on live, but this is our chance to change that!)

[theRolf]

Sorry J-mann... when i said 70% i meant that they should be out damaging other Melees 70% of the time (not by 70%)... And that other melees should only be able to catch up or pass them through Burst DPS (and only about 30% of the time)... I'm satisfied with barbs doing as little as 5-10% more damage then the next best Heroic damage dealer. And as for your buffer tank, that's exactly what i would call Temp HP.


The Rolf... Temp HP isn't outright Better from a survival perspective (aside form not gimping war-forged if the Healing was Positive energy). Its simply more Barbarian like. Barbarians don't heal (its simply not their thing) they instead absorb damage through giant Hit Point pools. Notice that at present the Barb trees don't have a single healing mechanics, but they do have several Temp Hit Point mechanics... That's because Temp Hp is the barbs way to heal (without becoming a lesser divine). So to answer you question the advantages of Temp HP are
1. Allows barbs to ignore damage instead of healing (Keeping the Flavor of the class by continuing the Shrug off punishment & Rage running themes of the Barb)
2. Allows war-forged & fleshies to gain equal benefit form "Healing" (instead of gimping war-forged)
3. Gives the Devs a chance to rework a once important game mechanic that has been left behind (Possibly by changing it to a % of your health, or having it scale some other way)
4. Lets Barbs stay Barbs (ties into no.1)

There is simply no excuse for giving Barb Trees more self healing then the actual Divine Enhancement trees (Shinato/Sacred Defender/War Priest), its Lore breaking and simply doesn't fit with what a Barbarian is supposed to be. That being said, giving them Temporary Hit Points (using the same or similar numbers) would increase there survivability just as much without taking what makes the class special. So Now let me ask you, what would Barbs lose (that couldn't be rectified in seconds, like adding melee power scaling to make up for Hamp not affecting Temp HP) from making it Temp HP instead of healing?

Hey Z - thank you for the considerate response - much appreciated!

Now let me ask you, what would Barbs lose (that couldn't be rectified in seconds, like adding melee power scaling to make up for Hamp not affecting Temp HP) from making it Temp HP instead of healing?

They would lose the security that healing provides - i.e. no need to shrine or get healed before my "temporary" effect wears off. Barbs would still be "an almost good" class. I just don't get this temporary ****. Feels like I am getting shortchanged, which means I probably am.

[J-mann]

Sorry J-mann... when i said 70% i meant that they should be out damaging other Melees 70% of the time (not by 70%)... And that other melees should only be able to catch up or pass them through Burst DPS (and only about 30% of the time)... I'm satisfied with barbs doing as little as 5-10% more damage then the next best Heroic damage dealer. And as for your buffer tank, that's exactly what i would call Temp HP.


The Rolf... Temp HP isn't outright Better from a survival perspective (aside form not gimping war-forged if the Healing was Positive energy). Its simply more Barbarian like. Barbarians don't heal (its simply not their thing) they instead absorb damage through giant Hit Point pools. Notice that at present the Barb trees don't have a single healing mechanics, but they do have several Temp Hit Point mechanics... That's because Temp Hp is the barbs way to heal (without becoming a lesser divine). So to answer your question the advantages of Temp HP are
1. Allows barbs to ignore damage instead of healing (Keeping the Flavor of the class by continuing the Shrug off punishment & Rage running themes of the Barb)
2. Allows war-forged & fleshies to gain equal benefit form "Healing" (instead of gimping war-forged)
3. Gives the Devs a chance to rework a once important game mechanic that has been left behind (Possibly by changing it to a % of your health, or having it scale some other way)
4. Lets Barbs stay Barbs (ties into no.1)

There is simply no excuse for giving Barb Trees more self healing then the actual Divine Enhancement trees (Shinato/Sacred Defender/War Priest), its Lore breaking and simply doesn't fit with what a Barbarian is supposed to be. That being said, giving them Temporary Hit Points (using the same or similar numbers) would increase there survivability just as much without losing what makes the class special. So Now let me ask you, what would Barbs lose (that couldn't be rectified in seconds, like adding melee power scaling to make up for Hamp not affecting Temp HP) from making it Temp HP instead of healing?

Wasnt nessicarily refering to you Zurrander, Ive seen it ALL over the place from various people that Barbs NEED to be 20-100% better than any other melee which is ludicrous. I kind a like the idea of temp hp It present an interesting mechanic, but there definitely needs to be a cap to it. Its very similar to a buffer tank but a little different and definitely has more variability to survival time.

Sev, Another thing to note is how the way you are going about barbs is going to affect bards... at current proposal I think you would be crazy as a bard to not splash barb for the hp and heal amp, and maybe even take the t5 in ravager for that insane heal on strike. Combine that with the passive heals on dc and I dont think you will EVER need to toss a heal.

[Qhualor]

If we scream loud enough and don't allow barbs in our groups maybe they will change them to something that makes sense both play and flavor wise.

wow. really? while you are at it, decline every other class too including yourself. your artificer shouldn't have so many scrolls in his bag. its not like that in PnP. I want to see you ranting like this in every other class discussion because none of them are still in their roots or close to it.

[bbqzor]

Larger amounts of Temp Hp could Extend the time between Heals pretty meaningfully

Yes, thats why myself and others have mentioned temp hp as a mechanic that got somewhat overlooked here which should probably get a second glance.

Imagine a barb the can "Blood Tribute" for 30-40% of his HP... now he has a viable way to stay up in-between heals without self healing

Wishful thinking. Trading 1 con for even 1000 hp means an epic pure barb is likely going to lose that 1 con every 10-30s on ee, faster on a FB. They cant sustain that. What youve said is the intention of how they want it to work. But barbs lose hp too fast for it to ever actually work out in the end.

Combine that with "I Like Pain" occasionally hitting for a (Stacking with everything but itself) 20% Hp

Again, wishful thinking. Unless the devs come out and say "we made this thing fire a ton at percents X, Y, and Z", Im going to assume its still at the incredibly low rate of like 1%, maybe 2% tops. If youre a 2k barb and get 400 hp from this, every 50th hit, thats not really doing anything for your survivability. Its just too little too rarely.

This not only gives Barbs a viable way to "Shrug off punishment" but also gives them a unique to barbs defensive mechanic, Increasing the diversity between classes and making them "Special" again. I can't be the only person that wants barbs to stay unique in the process

Ideally, they would do something like change the healing mechanics in T5 into temp hp, go a bit overboard, and create the kind of situation you describe. Where they can generate a lot of mitigation by beating things in the face to keep a temp hp shield rolling to buy them time to catch a regular paced healing output from someone else. It would be awesome and unique. And much perferred to having ravagars cop healing fists off monks, occult slayers cop loh from paladins, and frenzied cop fast healing from epics. But, unless they go in and change a lot of stuff (new effects, or heavily modify existing effects) it wont happen.

Nice to see other people looking for a better solution. Im just far bleaker (and I would say more realistic) about the reality of using those specific enhancements in higher end content. Guess Im a glass half empty kind of poster =p

[theRolf]

Yes, thats why myself and others have mentioned temp hp as a mechanic that got somewhat overlooked here which should probably get a second glance.


Wishful thinking. Trading 1 con for even 1000 hp means an epic pure barb is likely going to lose that 1 con every 10-30s on ee, faster on a FB. They cant sustain that. What youve said is the intention of how they want it to work. But barbs lose hp too fast for it to ever actually work out in the end.


Again, wishful thinking. Unless the devs come out and say "we made this thing fire a ton at percents X, Y, and Z", Im going to assume its still at the incredibly low rate of like 1%, maybe 2% tops. If youre a 2k barb and get 400 hp from this, every 50th hit, thats not really doing anything for your survivability. Its just too little too rarely.


Ideally, they would do something like change the healing mechanics in T5 into temp hp, go a bit overboard, and create the kind of situation you describe. Where they can generate a lot of mitigation by beating things in the face to keep a temp hp shield rolling to buy them time to catch a regular paced healing output from someone else. It would be awesome and unique. And much perferred to having ravagars cop healing fists off monks, occult slayers cop loh from paladins, and frenzied cop fast healing from epics. But, unless they go in and change a lot of stuff (new effects, or heavily modify existing effects) it wont happen.

Nice to see other people looking for a better solution. Im just far bleaker (and I would say more realistic) about the reality of using those specific enhancements in higher end content. Guess Im a glass half empty kind of poster =p

Temporary hit points are boring. Kill faster. Justify your fixation with temp HP please

[Qhualor]

Temporary hit points are boring. Kill faster. Justify your fixation with temp HP please

well, if you look up barbs on DnD sites you will see a lot of abilities proc temporary hp. it is one of the bigger sources of damage mitigation in PnP. I personally don't like temporary hp in DDO because they don't scale well. they would have to proc a lot and often to be worth it.

[Severlin]

Some initial changes based on player feedback:

~ To increase the value of the capstone we are looking at making Visage of Terror an AoE attack centered on the Barbarian. If the Paralyze isn't working we'll need to fix that.

~ We are looking to change the force damage to bane damage.

Sev~

[edrein]

Some initial changes based on player feedback:

~ To increase the value of the capstone we are looking at making Visage of Terror an AoE attack centered on the Barbarian. If the Paralyze isn't working we'll need to fix that.

~ We are looking to change the force damage to bane damage.

Sev~

So like my suggestion but a paralyze effect? I'd much rather see it work like an old Wail of the Banshee with a fear effect on the mobs that save.