Barbarians - The Follow Up Thread

[Qezuzu]

What I'm getting from this thread is that Paladins need to be nerfed down to non-stupid levels so that no one says "yeah the enhancements are nice but there's still no reason to not go Paladin" once the other melee classes are updated (they are getting updated right.)

[Ayseifn]

What I'm getting from this thread is that Paladins need to be nerfed down to non-stupid levels so that no one says "yeah the enhancements are nice but there's still no reason to not go Paladin" once the other melee classes are updated (they are getting updated right.)

Maybe, depends if there's more system changes that favour other classes more. The heavy armour change that came with the pally update was huge and hurt swashbucklers(previous overpowered class that had people riled up) by proxy.

[lyrecono]

Greetings,

We are looking specifically for feedback on how the three barbarian trees are working for you. We are looking for your thoughts on Occult Slayer, Frenzied Berserker, and Ravager. Are they fun? Do the trees seem effective? How do you feel barbarian compares to other classes?

Sev~

so to awnser your questions:

-The tree's are working badly, too many clickies don't work, no strength option for stats, long cooldown create low dps, etc

-My thoughts are that they are poorly thought of, something we pointed out earlier, with all due respect.

-I liked the old barb in the old game, when U14 came out they were terrible due to your inabillety to forsee what the changes did to melee's, the changes to prr/mrr made the high pastlives/super geared barbs passable
but fun? no that ship has passes when they were deprived of the only thing that made them stand out to begin with, the abilety to kill an enemy bore it kills him without needing heals in between.
Giving the barbarian clickies that have a cooldown that take to long makes me feel i'm micromaneging a hotbar instead of playing a game, playing a barb feels like i'm watching 2 bars al the time, my hp and cooldown bar. And why aren't Frenzy and death frenzie fixed? We asked many times to make m either an active stance or to make the duration longer.

-They seem inefective, not enough dps for a dps tree for a melee dps class. The enhancements are like a twinky, all fluff and filler, mobs kick my heiny man, i'm not at all a killer.

-The barbs feels outclassed in all area's, especialy in dps, Wolf builds, swashbuckler builds, paladin builds all use a high attack speed and high double strike to become top dps in the game and they all have extra tricks up their sleeves, Crowd contol, healing, buff spells etc. The biggest mistake the devs seem to make is not understanding that dps means damage per second.

[IronClan]

First off thanks for soliciting further feedback. Honestly I think you're closer than people think, but and this is a big but: only in VERY specific builds that people are going to find and exploit soon enough.

The changes have so overemphasized going Pure and using specific Races/builds/Weaponry/Frenzied Barb tree* this is IMO due to two factors:

1. Nothing was added/improved to the Barbarian base class abilities
2. Rage is not worth using without FB T5 and core 18 (death frenzy) FB is the only tree that brings enough top DPS to be worth using rage for if you're a min/max optimal builder and not so much flavor builder. This is mainly because of point 1. above. And of course while some FOTM combo MIGHT be sufficient DPS they will be the ONLY combo in my opinion that is sufficiently powerful to be worthy of raging for and taking those crippling penalties.

Improve the basic ability of Rage (like you did with Holy Sword) and all three Trees benefit and all three become much better instead of being purely "support trees" for FB. There's been a pretty much overwhelming agreement that the juice is not worth the squeeze with Rage (again except for some narrow FOTM FB builds that will pop up)

Add a few Class abilities (I know, I know Enhancement tree abilities are much easier to add to the game) that overall improve the class:

"Charge" has been a ability or feat associated with Barb's make it a Barb level 2 or 3 ability (and because DDO really needs more fun movement perks: add the feat to the game for others to take if they wish. (Charge basically would be abundant step with a weapon attack at the end) this would add to the Fun factor immensely for me... Barb's are supposed to be crazy and athletic and they are supposed to CHARGE. Ad an Enhancement tree rider that improves this charge in Rav somewhere around T3 that knocks down and causes 6 secs of helpless state. Or make an Improved Charge feat that has a tactical DC.

Evasion is arguably something most Barbs are going to feel compelled to go 2 rogue for... without it Barbs are MEAT BAGS when the casting starts. Give it to Barbs as a level 3 or 6 and then make it improved evasion at level 6 or 9. Barb's will have to make a significant build investment and gear investment to get their reflex save good enough for this to even be a good addition.... believe me if you want a good enough reflex save you will be sacrificing something.

Tweak Rage at its highest level and allow PRIMAL self healing options (they are Primal after all) like cocoon, to be cast while raged... Convince me a Barbarian should be able to use SACRED GROUND WHILE RAGED from a Divine Destiny, but it's unthinkable they should be able to cast COCOON from the Primal one...

Give Barb's Vanguard as a 4th tree... Basically a tougher S&B DPS Barb archetype.. The historical Barbarian used Shields: Celts, Saxon, Mongols, Zulu, Viking... used Shield as a staple of their defense... The fact that Barb has three trees but all of them are Movie trope based is a big let down to me.

* Ironduergar is my new Barb experiment. He will have: 2000-ish HP, 6d10 (yes 6d10) 19-20X10 (notice TIMES TEN) I'm not going to post a build example because the last time I mentioned a new flavor of the month around Sev, it was nerfed (Paladin Orb fighter) before anyone got to have fun with it, and arguably was not particularly OP as it paid a hefty price of 2 feats for 8% DS. It wont be hard to figure out from the above anyway.

[CThruTheEgo]

Greetings,

We wanted to create a follow up thread to see how players are doing with their barbarians. We wanted to get impressions of the tree changes now that people have had time to play with them on live for a bit. Game balance and quality is an ongoing process. We don't want players to feel that changes we make will never be revisited.

We are looking specifically for feedback on how the three barbarian trees are working for you. We are looking for your thoughts on Occult Slayer, Frenzied Berserker, and Ravager. Are they fun? Do the trees seem effective? How do you feel barbarian compares to other classes?

Sev~

The general consensus in this thread seems to be that the balance between barb dps and self sufficiency (i.e. self healing) has not been reached with their update. I agree with this consensus. Compared to the other two most recently updated classes, bards and paladins, barbs fall way behind in both categories. Thematically speaking, barbs are supposed to be dps beasts that sacrifice everything to annihilate their enemies. Given the current state of DDO, however, sacrificing everything for dps is a recipe for failure. Self sufficiency is a requirement in the current DDO, so barbs in DDO need to be somewhat different than their typical theme.

I will speak specifically to balancing barbs for endgame EE content because it should be intended that every class is capable of playing the entire game. I don't necessarily mean soloing endgame EEs, but they should at least be a solid contributor to any group.

Self Sufficiency:
Let's look first at self sufficiency. Barbs were granted a lot of heal amp and hit points as well as some minor self healing, the combination of which does not result in nearly enough self sufficiency for today's endgame. Because of the inflated damage that mobs do, you need to have a way to cope with that damage. Those ways are through superior self healing, solid damage mitigation (i.e. PRR/MRR - a way to absorb the damage so you take less), solid damage avoidance (e.g. dodge, incorp, concealment [which is less significant now that champions can get true seeing], etc.), or don't be in a situation where you will take damage (i.e. be a ranged build, which is not typical for barbs). Barbs have none of these and were not granted any of them with the changes.

Self healing:
The simplest solution is to allow the many sources of healing (or at least some of them) to be used while raged. This restriction really doesn't fit with today's game. Thematically, I get it, but practically it just doesn't work. Consider the other primary forms of self healing - uninterruptable heal/repair which recover 400+ hp and can be used every 4-5 seconds; lay on hands which effectively heals to full, has a very short cooldown, and its limited charges can be regenerated; regeneration spell which heals for 100+ per tick every 2 seconds; rejuvenation cocoon which heals for 100+ per tick every 2 seconds; sacred ground which heals for 100+ every 3 seconds; renewal which heals for 100+ every 2 seconds. Do you see how far behind the barb options are in their current form? Again I want to point out that this level of self healing is simply a requirement of the current endgame. The viability of barbs should not be limited due to mere thematic reasons. They must have some sort of self sufficiency, otherwise your efforts to change them are pointless.

One spirit is OK but, as others have mentioned, there should be an option to spend less so you don't use it all up in one shot. In today's game you often need to heal yourself more than once fairly quickly.

Blood strength is great in heroics, but not even close to enough for EE. This should be like an improved vampirism type of effect. Maybe 100% chance on hit to heal 5 hp, modified by melee power, along with the 20 hp on kill. With 50 melee power and 200 heal amp, that's about 21 hp per hit, which is not unreasonable for EEs today.

Accelerated metabolism is a joke. 7 hp every 4 seconds is not going to cut it in EE. Consider the amount of damage you can potentially take in 4 seconds on EE. Change this to heal your barb level every 2 or 3 seconds, modified by melee power. For a pure barb with 50 melee power and 200 heal amp, that's about 90 hp every 2 or 3 seconds. Again, not unreasonable to cope with mobs that deal inflated damage. And just get rid of the damage option entirely for this enhancement or incorporate it into the healing portion.

All of these enhancements should continue to be affected by heal amp. Both of the changes suggested for blood strength and accelerated metabolism would bring them more in line with the self healing options available to other builds, though still behind them.

Damage mitigation:
One option which others have mentioned is to change barb DR to PRR/MRR and increase the values to fit today's game. Or give them an insane amount of unbreakable DR, at least 100. Either of these options would improve their damage mitigation.

DPS:
Barbs should still be the dps kings, just to fit their theme. I really think you all did a poor job of trying to stick to the barb theme of lack of self sufficiency but not sticking to their theme of being the dps kings.

Melee power:I always thought the simplest way to improve their dps would be to use a newly introduced mechanic - melee power. Simply grant a decent amount of melee power to barbs, either at specific levels as part of the class, or through enhancements (probably cores). And they should get a lot of melee power. This would result in the big hits that one tends to expect from barbs. Barbs are supposed to be a simple class, not clicky intensive like monks.

Grant 1 melee power at core 1, 2 at core 2, 4 at core 3, 8 at core 4, 15 at core 5, and 20 at core 6. And do this for each tree, so someone who spends all their points between 2 barb trees gets what they deserve. The melee power at 18 and 20 provide compelling reasons to stay pure as well. Yes, I realize that is a lot of melee power, but that is the kind of dps you expect from a barb, and doing this would bring barb dps to the level where the sacrifices they make are worth it. Alternatively, grant the same amounts of melee power, at the same levels, as inherent class features so all barbs get the same amount regardless of which tree they focus on.

Increasing melee power is also a way to increase their self healing, since each of those options is affected by melee power.

Increase rage benefits:
Double the str and con granted by rage. This boosts not only dps but also tactics for those who wish to pursue that option.

Occult slayer:
This is still supposed to be a barb tree, which is a dps class, so... where's the dps? I mean I get it, it's the defensive tree, but the defensive benefits do not come close to making up for the lack of dps it offers.

Decrease cooldowns:
30 second cooldowns are absurd. These should be 15 seconds at most.

Stat damage effects:
All mobs on EH and EE have [url=http://ddowiki.com/page/Epic_Ward] epic ward, one effect of which is 90% resistance to stat damage. In other words, anything that does stat damage is completely useless on EH and EE. So either get rid of stat damage resistance as part of epic ward, or get rid of stat damage effects. I don't even understand why this needs to be pointed out.

Frenzy and death frenzy:
As others have said, just make these toggles. Anyone who takes them is going to use them 100% of the time, and their hp cost is so minimal that activating them does nothing really. So as a quality of life improvement, don't make us micro-manage buffs on the "melee dps class for dummies."

Critical rage:
Why is this increase not affected by imp crit like all other critical threat range increasing effects? Keep it at 1/2 but make it affected by imp crit. This will help to improve barb dps to the levels it should be. Any 14th level paladin effectively gets this same effect (10% more crit chance), as well as +1 multiplier and comes with a ton of self sufficiency (in the form of both self healing and damage mitigation). Bards crit like crazy (at least 50% of the time in my experience) thanks to exploit weakness.

Crit multiplier enhancements:
Why are these all only on a roll of 19-20? I'll repeat my statement above - any 14th level paladin gets +1 multiplier, as well as 10% more crit chance and comes with a ton of self sufficiency (in the form of both self healing and damage mitigation). If you want to limit occult slayer to only +1 on 19-20, that's fine since it is the defensive tree (although more dps does need to be added to it). But death frenzy should be changed to grant +1 multiplier on all crits, or focused wrath should be changed to grant +1/2 multiplier on all crits. Either way, barbs need an option to add a crit multiplier to all crits, not just on rolls of 19-20.

[lyrecono]

First off thanks for soliciting further feedback. Honestly I think you're closer than people think, but and this is a big but: only in VERY specific builds that people are going to find and exploit soon enough.

The changes have so overemphasized going Pure and using specific Races/builds/Weaponry/Frenzied Barb tree* this is IMO due to two factors:

1. Nothing was added/improved to the Barbarian base class abilities
2. Rage is not worth using without FB T5 and core 18 (death frenzy) FB is the only tree that brings enough top DPS to be worth using rage for if you're a min/max optimal builder and not so much flavor builder. This is mainly because of point 1. above. And of course while some FOTM combo MIGHT be sufficient DPS they will be the ONLY combo in my opinion that is sufficiently powerful to be worthy of raging for and taking those crippling penalties.

Improve the basic ability of Rage (like you did with Holy Sword) and all three Trees benefit and all three become much better instead of being purely "support trees" for FB. There's been a pretty much overwhelming agreement that the juice is not worth the squeeze with Rage (again except for some narrow FOTM FB builds that will pop up)

Add a few Class abilities (I know, I know Enhancement tree abilities are much easier to add to the game) that overall improve the class:

"Charge" has been a ability or feat associated with Barb's make it a Barb level 2 or 3 ability (and because DDO really needs more fun movement perks: add the feat to the game for others to take if they wish. (Charge basically would be abundant step with a weapon attack at the end) this would add to the Fun factor immensely for me... Barb's are supposed to be crazy and athletic and they are supposed to CHARGE. Ad an Enhancement tree rider that improves this charge in Rav somewhere around T3 that knocks down and causes 6 secs of helpless state. Or make an Improved Charge feat that has a tactical DC.

Evasion is arguably something most Barbs are going to feel compelled to go 2 rogue for... without it Barbs are MEAT BAGS when the casting starts. Give it to Barbs as a level 3 or 6 and then make it improved evasion at level 6 or 9. Barb's will have to make a significant build investment and gear investment to get their reflex save good enough for this to even be a good addition.... believe me if you want a good enough reflex save you will be sacrificing something.

Tweak Rage at its highest level and allow PRIMAL self healing options (they are Primal after all) like cocoon, to be cast while raged... Convince me a Barbarian should be able to use SACRED GROUND WHILE RAGED from a Divine Destiny, but it's unthinkable they should be able to cast COCOON from the Primal one...

Give Barb's Vanguard as a 4th tree... Basically a tanky S&B DPS Barb archetype.. The historical Barbarian used Shields: Celts, Saxon, Mongols, Zulu, Viking... used Shield as a staple of their defense... The fact that Barb has three trees but all of them are Movie trope based is a big let down to me.

* Ironduergar is my new Barb experiment. He will have: 2000-ish HP, 6d10 (yes 6d10) 19-20X10 (notice TIMES TEN) I'm not going to post a build example because the last time I mentioned a new flavor of the month around Sev, it was nerfed (Paladin Orb fighter) before anyone got to have fun with it, and arguably was not particularly OP as it paid a hefty price of 2 feats for 8% DS. It wont be hard to figure out from the above anyway.

Improve the basic ability of Rage
i agree there, with stats going so high the impact of rage is low and other classes (divine might? power surge?) gain something simular, making sure the barb doesn't stand out anymore.
The downside is that sev said they weren't tinkering in the base class.

"Charge" you mean something like improved bull rush? sounds like fun and resembles the vanguard's "shield charge"
downside is another clicky to strugle with (to make room for on the hotbar)

Evasion i have been running in platemail during my last barb life and never had the feeling i missed evasion, does the barb have the reflex save to make it work? without divine grace getting a working EE save is pretty hard and you would be stuck with light armor, so a lower prr for incomming melee damage.
(yes i rather had a conan the barbarian look to him, but it stands to reason that a barb that made it to 28 would look for equipment to keep m safe)
the thing is my barb had all pastlives and gear to back him up, so i couldn't make a fair assessment on the need for evasion, but from how barbs are now evasion wouldn't do a thing, and impr evasion would be the only good thing out of this. a barb would, in my opinion gain more from a platemail, same reduction against ref bassed spells but more protection from melee damage

i agree on the healing bit,
it's thematically unsound to have a barb get holy/divine/paladin like healing but not the nature based healing.
I don't trust the dev's on this either and expect a nerf to sacred ground for rage soon

[fmalfeas]

I was thinking about the Rage issue, and 'theme', and realized that they already have a bit of code in the EDs that would allow for something to help. In Fury, the PRR enhancement, if you're a Barb, also gives you DR. This means they're capable of hooking additional benefits into an ED power based on class.

So why not one that makes Fast Healing, and the Primal Past Life Fast Healing tick faster if you're a barb, or if you're affected by Barbarian Rage?

[lyrecono]

the problem being that were talking about the barb trees, anything should grow from that (in other words, have epic levels stack with tree related stuff, not an ED like furry).

[IronClan]

Improve the basic ability of Rage
i agree there, with stats going so high the impact of rage is low and other classes (divine might? power surge?) gain something simular, making sure the barb doesn't stand out anymore.
The downside is that sev said they weren't tinkering in the base class.

"Charge" you mean something like improved bull rush? sounds like fun and resembles the vanguard's "shield charge"
downside is another clicky to strugle with (to make room for on the hotbar)

Evasion i have been running in platemail during my last barb life and never had the feeling i missed evasion, does the barb have the reflex save to make it work? without divine grace getting a working EE save is pretty hard and you would be stuck with light armor, so a lower prr for incomming melee damage.
(yes i rather had a conan the barbarian look to him, but it stands to reason that a barb that made it to 28 would look for equipment to keep m safe)
the thing is my barb had all pastlives and gear to back him up, so i couldn't make a fair assessment on the need for evasion, but from how barbs are now evasion wouldn't do a thing, and impr evasion would be the only good thing out of this. a barb would, in my opinion gain more from a platemail, same reduction against ref bassed spells but more protection from melee damage

i agree on the healing bit,
it's thematically unsound to have a barb get holy/divine/paladin like healing but not the nature based healing.
I don't trust the dev's on this either and expect a nerf to sacred ground for rage soon

I also took Heavy armor prof on my Barb but that's a perfect illustration with whats wrong with the changes... Barb's don't have enough reasons to be be in light or medium armor... so the defacto response by most players will be to splash or take Heavy armor feat.

Not exactly thematically Barbarian any more are we? Neither is Consecrate Ground, but hey at least we have an option that allows the Barb to be nominally self healing unlike every other class. Yes evasion would be something you would have to sacrifice to build for and improved evasion is there to make it at least something (because you can fail the save and still benefit some).

I don't think it's possible to not have SOME clickies in Barb (cleaves for example), so having an active charge attack isn't much of a concern, it's a very demonstrative and "on demand" effect (you blast into a pile of monsters) so it's no where near the "have to mind it and maintain it" effect of Frenzy and Deathfrenzy... Yes these two should be a toggle and an improvement to the toggle... or they should at least be 2 or 3 minutes long. As it stands I find myself drooling over splashes and multiclasses because they would eliminate this annoying 1 minute constant upkeep buff by taking 18th barb out of my build... But I chose to suffer the full Tropic thunder pure Barb experience.

Having Ironduergar (1st life pure Barb) up to 24th level and working on ED's now I look at Barbarian's as the Advanced melee class for Ultra-clickie intensive players. Here's a typical in game sequence of events on entering quest:

1. Click Stormseye (but first: 1a. Turn Power attack back on if I had logged out <- sev please fix this!? Save us Obiwan!)
2. Hit Primal Scream
3. Rage
4. Frenzy
5. Death Frenzy
6. Know The Angles
7. Sprint Boost
8. Cracking attack on first mobs to get me the buff
9. Ear Smash
10. Stunning blow
11. Supreme cleave
12. Tantrum
13. Repeat 8 through 12 as they come off various CD
14. Check Frenzy/Death Frenzy time left
15. Repeat 4 through 12 omitting Know the angles
16. Check Know the Angles time left
17. ????
18. Profit
19. Or just log in my Caster if I'm playing Cooldown Wack-a-mole.

[btolson]

I was thinking about the Rage issue, and 'theme', and realized that they already have a bit of code in the EDs that would allow for something to help. In Fury, the PRR enhancement, if you're a Barb, also gives you DR. This means they're capable of hooking additional benefits into an ED power based on class.

So why not one that makes Fast Healing, and the Primal Past Life Fast Healing tick faster if you're a barb, or if you're affected by Barbarian Rage?

Not a terrible idea, but they'd have to set them ticking awful fast to really matter in EE. It is also completely passive and consumes no resources (other than perhaps a twist slot depending on your destiny), which is a healing style I doubt the devs want to encourage.

One thing's for sure, though, I'd prefer they change barb healing in a way other than opening up Cocoon while raged; Cocoon is awfully generic at this point since it seems like every other build twists it. Barbs can afford to be unique.

[lyrecono]

the failure isn't the recent armor /prr/mrr changes but the inabillety to ballance the game for melee for the last 2 years.
I and with me some other barb lovers want to keep playing with friends, we have lost enough people as it is, we want to particepate, contribute, it is no more then natural to grab a plate mail.
getting evasion is pointless, not enough suport for a decent ref safe, the goal would be improved evasion and eat half damage all the time, platemail does better, EE's are hard enough as it is.
Don't fix the thing that isn't broken, with turbines trackrecord we're bound to end up with something else broken and blancket fixes that make things worse.

as for hotbars, i use a seperate bar for buffs because between 2 barb tree's, 3 or more combat feats, ed and 4 twists i have a full bar with combat clickies i have to cycle though, all bound to 1 to 12 on the side of my naga mouse, i already switch stunning blow for something else on the hotbar in undead heavy quests or raids

[IronClan]

Not a terrible idea, but they'd have to set them ticking awful fast to really matter in EE. It is also completely passive and consumes no resources (other than perhaps a twist slot depending on your destiny), which is a healing style I doubt the devs want to encourage.

One thing's for sure, though, I'd prefer they change barb healing in a way other than opening up Cocoon while raged; Cocoon is awfully generic at this point since it seems like every other build twists it. Barbs can afford to be unique.

A primal class not getting to use a primal self heal while instead being able to use a Divine Self/Other AOE heal seems like an odd place to draw the line. Don't you think?

Unique can also be nonsensical.

Here are some of the "Unique" things they've done to Barb class over the years to try to avoid letting them use powers disallowed by "rage" (by that I mean Barb rage and not any other form of rage in the game most of which allow casting):

Vampirism < super Barbarian theme there what tribal warrior doesn't love being like an evil Undead.
Life stealing weapons < because primitive warriors loved occult "black magic" amiright?
Sacred Ground < Because barbarian tropes oft include fire AOE's and healing themselves and OTHERS over time from the gods? Remember that scene in Conan where Arnold Prayed and chanted piously to Sanctify the ground with Crom's healing power and brought Grace Jones and Tracy Walter's characters back from near death? No? Get the director cut I think it's in there. I think.
Massive HP in the cores... < because piles of hp's don't look and feel like a klunky bandaid "easy way out" to making a more sensible and thematically justified improvement to the class, like making the DR stack, or turning it into MRR.
Massive Heal amp < because everyone knows Poultices, Bandaids, and Crom the warrior god's healing power effects primitive Warriors better than Holy Warriors and Priests... All so they can avoid making Healing potions relevant to melee's.

They've done every nonsensical thing they can to avoid allowing the MOST SENSIBLE THEMATICALLY APPROPRIATE THING... allowing a primal class to use a primal healing ability. And improved healing potions... Potions you know things that every other RPG ever has offered melee's that somehow did not ruin the gameplay? Potions that can be made more effective for Barbarians than any other class with a minor adjustment... that can even be made thematic and justified. Remember "Iron Stomach" was a cool Dwarf racial enhancement before they replaced it with a dumb/useless one.

At this point my Barb is in heavy armor with a Divine Destiny power twisted that causes AOE fire and healing. A lot of people are splashing 4 FvF to get Ameliorating strike, and using TWF to get double procs.

I am not sure that we could make Barb any less Barb-like thematically if we tried to... We've reached the point of Thematically chasing our tails, we've come full circle, where we're so completely flummoxed and turned around; that COCOON is objectionable but Sacred Divinity powers, Vampirism, black magic, and backing the HP and heal amp truck up to the dock and dumping, are all SOMEHOW a better idea than doing the obvious.

The REALLY disappointing thing is the response to this feedback is LIABLE TO BE NERFING CONSECRATE GROUND with "Rage"* lol!

*Of course you'll still be able to cast it while spell raged, while skaldic raging, or enraged from primal scream because sometimes "unique" means "the only one who's punished for using a class ability"

[btolson]

A primal class not getting to use a primal self heal while instead being able to use a Divine Self heal seems like an odd place to draw the line. Don't you think?

Unique can also be nonsensical.

Here are some of the "Unique" things they've done to Barb class over the years to try to avoid letting them use powers disallowed by "rage" (by that I mean only Barb rage and not any other form of rage in the game which allow casting (that being all forms of rage except Barb rage):

Vampirism < super Barbarian theme there what tribal warrior doesn't love being like an evil Undead.
Life stealing weapons < because primitive warriors loved occult "black magic" amiright?
Sacred Ground < Because barbarian tropes oft include fire AOE's and healing over time from the gods?
Massive HP in the cores... < because piles of hp's don't look and feel like a klunky bandaid "easy way out" to making a more sensible and thematically justified improvement to the class.
Massive Heal amp < because everyone knows Poultices, Bandaids, and Godly healing power effects primitive Warriors better than Holy Warrior who are in tune with their Gods...

They've done every nonsensical thing they can to avoid allowing the MOST SENSIBLE THEMATICALLY APPROPRIATE THING... allowing a primal class to use a primal healing ability. And improved healing potions... Potions you know things that every other RPG ever has offered melee's that somehow did not ruin the gameplay? Potions that can be made more effective for Barbarians than any other class with a minor adjustment... that can even be made thematic and justified. Remember "Iron Stomach" was a cool Dwarf racial enhancement before they replaced it with a dumb/useless one.

At this point my Barb is in heavy armor with a Divine Destiny power twisted that causes AOE fire and healing, it's using SWF... A lot of people are splashing 4 FvF to get Ameliorating strike, and using TWF to get double procs.

I am not sure that we could make Barb any less Barb-like thematically if we tried to... We've reached the point of Thematically chasing out tails, we've come full circle, where we're so completely bamboozled and turned around; that COCOON is objectionable but Sacred Divinity powers, Vampirism, black magic, and backing the HP and heal amp truck up to the dock and dumping, are all SOMEHOW a better idea than doing the obvious.

The REALLY disappointing thing is the response to this feedback is LIABLE TO BE NERFING CONSECRATE GROUND with rage lol!

"Primal" is bunk. Classes in this game still more closely follow the 3.5 rules and design despite a token amount of 4e labeling being shoe-horned into epic levels; druids (and therefore Cocoon) are more rightly categorized as Divine. Moreover, it doesn't make sense for a raging barb to use a blue-bar (which is meant to require the use of articulate speech and/or hand movements) under any circumstance (and it naturally follows that I don't support letting them use Consecrate either).

[Qhualor]

The REALLY disappointing thing is the response to this feedback is LIABLE TO BE NERFING CONSECRATE GROUND with "Rage"* lol!

in a way im surprised this hasn't happened yet. in a way it makes sense they haven't yet. why? because it would kill off many barb builds. its not like theres a ton of barb players these days so the forum rage would be minimal. I actually do hope they nerf it because it doesn't make sense to be able to use while raged, but NOT until they develop a viable source of self healing in pot form. and no, im not talking SF pots.

unfortunately, the devs wont do any real changes to the enhancements or the class because in the past anything considered a nerf to other classes was raged over. I believe that's one good reason why the devs did tread lightly with the class and only buffed and not make the necessary adjustments. if we notice, there wasn't as much feedback with the class as paladin or bard because the major problems with the class in order to be back at the top of the pecking order and better defensively, according to Sev, could not be properly balanced and they felt the class was already in good standing. if it all could be possible, they could certainly properly address the barb problems and bring back their popularity, but its up to them to invest in the time to do it. it seems they cant for whatever reason and current barbs are just not going to be played thematically in any form as long as they don't do the proper adjustments.

[MeliCat]

The level up bonuses to barb rage should all be doubled every patch until the question "Is it worthwhile to rage?" answers yes.

Yeah I'm really not feeling that rage adds much. Certainly not compared to what it did prior to the enhancement pass.

[VorpalKnight]

Greetings,

We wanted to create a follow up thread to see how players are doing with their barbarians. We wanted to get impressions of the tree changes now that people have had time to play with them on live for a bit. Game balance and quality is an ongoing process. We don't want players to feel that changes we make will never be revisited.

We are looking specifically for feedback on how the three barbarian trees are working for you. We are looking for your thoughts on Occult Slayer, Frenzied Berserker, and Ravager. Are they fun? Do the trees seem effective? How do you feel barbarian compares to other classes?

Sev~

Honestly I hate Ravager and Occult slayer, they just feel like someone was running out of ideas and in a big hurry and just started to put in useless filler enhancement. And i think a lot of people would find Barbarians more appealing had we still have convalescence items on loot tables, that 40 healing amplification makes a big difference and is not easily available at 28 on desired equipment slot for those who didn't snag a bracer back when they still dropped, that 20 could also be on a blue or yellow augment. I understand not having 60 on non named though.

[the_one_dwarfforged]

i think the "clicky" hate is hilarious.

frenzy is basically a toggle...it has 100% uptime and virtually no cost...why they dont simply make it a passive i dont know but complaining about it in the mean time seems silly. you click it and voila its active. tensers on the other hand (eing another popular buff) requires skill investment equipping scroll casting possibly making a conc check and then requipping weapons. frenzy doesnt seem so bad anymore does it?

and besides, without things to push what are you going to do? stand in one place and hold down autoattack? that sounds fun...



on topic...

frenzy is better than it was, but some of it is still kinda meh. the choices i make in that tree are not "hmmm i really want both of these great things, which should i take?" but more "hmmm i need to spend a few more ap to meet prereqs, what am i going to waste them on?" so it could still use some work.

i have no comment on occult because i have 0 interest in even looking at a defensive barb bleh.

ravager still totally sucks. pain touch is nice, imp power attack is nice, temp hp guard is nice, crit rage is nice, vampirism is nice. thats 5 things that are good in that tree. the rest is filler. i repeat 90% of ravager is filler points.

a general barb issue for me that has not changed is rages. i havent seriously played a barb in a while, but i have seen barbs run out of rages before. given that a big chunk of their effectiveness is supposed to be coming from rage...thats a problem for me. doubling extra rage was good, but they need a class effect that regenerates a rage if youve been raged for say 120, 150 seconds consecutively. which reminds me. ravager capstone is singlehandedly the worst ability in this game. youd literally have to be specialler than whoever threw that in there as costing a rage.

[Therrias]

First, add more DR. Damage Reduction is something that barbs should be the best at. Make it a significant number and make it stack with regular DR (like 3-4 times what they get now is what I consider significant). Best to add it into the levels and not the enhancements, but if it goes in enhancements it should obviously be in the ravager tree.

Second the ravager capstone is pointless. Barbs are all about DPS. Why did you make a capstone without DPS? It is silly. Just scrap the current ability and slap some melee power in there.

Third, less filler and more substance. I know there is going to be filler in every tree, but no tree should be mostly filler. The enhancements that are good are really good, but wasting the 20-30 extra AP just as a prereq for those is painful.

[lyrecono]

i think the "clicky" hate is hilarious.

frenzy is basically a toggle...it has 100% uptime and virtually no cost...why they dont simply make it a passive i dont know but complaining about it in the mean time seems silly. you click it and voila its active. tensers on the other hand (eing another popular buff) requires skill investment equipping scroll casting possibly making a conc check and then requipping weapons. frenzy doesnt seem so bad anymore does it?

and besides, without things to push what are you going to do? stand in one place and hold down autoattack? that sounds fun...



on topic...

frenzy is better than it was, but some of it is still kinda meh. the choices i make in that tree are not "hmmm i really want both of these great things, which should i take?" but more "hmmm i need to spend a few more ap to meet prereqs, what am i going to waste them on?" so it could still use some work.

i have no comment on occult because i have 0 interest in even looking at a defensive barb bleh.

ravager still totally sucks. pain touch is nice, imp power attack is nice, temp hp guard is nice, crit rage is nice, vampirism is nice. thats 5 things that are good in that tree. the rest is filler. i repeat 90% of ravager is filler points.

a general barb issue for me that has not changed is rages. i havent seriously played a barb in a while, but i have seen barbs run out of rages before. given that a big chunk of their effectiveness is supposed to be coming from rage...thats a problem for me. doubling extra rage was good, but they need a class effect that regenerates a rage if youve been raged for say 120, 150 seconds consecutively. which reminds me. ravager capstone is singlehandedly the worst ability in this game. youd literally have to be specialler than whoever threw that in there as costing a rage.

i already have to keep an eye on 1 hotbar with dps related attack clickies, i have never been a fan of tenser scrolls (though i use them on a few builds) due to their short duration, switching scroll to weapon makes you loose dps anyway and since this is a barb thread where rage prevents scroll to begin with....
i rather had a stance for frenzy&death frenzy as a improvement for barbs because barbs are supposed to play easy, press rage and smash (cycle through 10 cooldown clickies)
i agree on the enhancements, swashbuckler is filled with fun and useful stuff, the barb is mostly fluff and filler.

First, add more DR. Damage Reduction is something that barbs should be the best at. Make it a significant number and make it stack with regular DR (like 3-4 times what they get now is what I consider significant). Best to add it into the levels and not the enhancements, but if it goes in enhancements it should obviously be in the ravager tree.

Second the ravager capstone is pointless. Barbs are all about DPS. Why did you make a capstone without DPS? It is silly. Just scrap the current ability and slap some melee power in there.

Third, less filler and more substance. I know there is going to be filler in every tree, but no tree should be mostly filler. The enhancements that are good are really good, but wasting the 20-30 extra AP just as a prereq for those is painful.

That boat left harbor when monks and fvs had more DR then a barb and the devs said they are not touching the core classes, just the enhancements
As for the DR itself, that got replaced (gamewise) by prr and mrr, people asked for more in the tree but i don't see the point, if the formula is broken (making higher numbers give diminishing returns) then adding more prr/mrr is useless.
the capstone feels weak, in comparison to what we have to deal with
luckely more people see this now, the tree's are filled with filler in order to reach usefull tier 5 enhancements.

[EllisDee37]

%50 glancing blow is completely useless against champion ee bosses. completely.

How is it useless? When attacking a single target, you get glancing blows against that target.