Barbarians - The Follow Up Thread

[Severlin]

Thanks for giving us an update!

Say, is there anything that I could do to change your mind about not doing anything to barbarian innate DR? I feel that currently, having merely 7 DR/- at level 20 is insufficient. If you could remove other sources of barbarian DR, then double the DR gained from barbarian class levels, it would be sufficient to make barb DR useful, but not overpowering.

The 10 PRR given in Greater Rage represents that toughness. We were going to add 1 PRR for each point of DR the basic class gets, but it turns out that Barbarian DR is implemented in code and doing it that way would be far too time consuming to justify the effect.

Sev~

[nibel]

~ Greater Rage (the level 11 barbarian class feat) gains the following additional effects:
While raging your Melee Power increases by 10.
While raging if you are wearing medium armor your Physical Resist Rating increases by 10.

I would raise PRR by 20 or 30 (if it do not raise MRR), or raise PRR and MRR by 15 (to emulate heavy armor)

I would also raise Melee Power by 5 only, and give another 10 on Mighty Rage (the level 20 one). This would incentive pure builds a bit more.

Ravager
~ Pain Touch should not have a cooldown. We will look into this bug.
~ Mutilate bane damage added to Hate increased to +2d6/4d6/6d6
~ Laughter now adds 10 Melee Power when Slaughter hits (as opposed to only when it crits)

Since Ravager deal so much stat damage, can we have Epic Ward removed as well from epics, and you just add it as an effect on champion mobs? Pretty please?

Occult Slayer
~ Fix Mind Over Magic bug when Constitution changes.
~ One Spirit. Now costs 100 Weapon Bond, and heals for base 400 (4 per Bond expended).

Any chance to make Vampiric Bond scales with level?

What can compete with DR60/e on heavy shadowscale armor?

IMO, this armor should be nerfed to 10/20 or 12/25, when they invert the DR/PRR interaction.

Say, is there anything that I could do to change your mind about not doing anything to barbarian innate DR? I feel that currently, having merely 7 DR/- at level 20 is insufficient. If you could remove other sources of barbarian DR, then double the DR gained from barbarian class levels, it would be sufficient to make barb DR useful, but not overpowering.

I also /sign on this. Barbarian main shtick is being tough enough to get most blows in their bare hairy chest and don't feel anything. This is DR, not PRR. The game have a ton of sources to DR now, but on PnP barbarian had the highest /- DR in the game (FvS and Monk can be bypassed).

Inverting the DR/PRR interaction would be more than enough to fix DR and make it useful again. I know that this could make some blows end up in zero damage. That is the reason why DR was so great in the past. Heck, pre-enhancement pass, Barbs had a DR ACTION BOOST that was actually useful because it negated damage to zero. Currently, the more PRR you have, less useful DR is. There is tons of ways to reduce magic damage to zero, and by far that is the most dangerous source of damage in the game (because it always hit). Reducing minion damage on epic normal to zero is not worthing worrying about.

[geoffhanna]

Here are the specific changes we are considering:

While raging if you are wearing medium armor your Physical Resist Rating increases by 10.

Barbarians are supposed to naturally get DR. You should consider making the PRR increase regardless of armor.

The 10 PRR given in Greater Rage represents that toughness. We were going to add 1 PRR for each point of DR the basic class gets, but it turns out that Barbarian DR is implemented in code and doing it that way would be far too time consuming to justify the effect.

Sev~

See? I'm right. PRR while raging regardless of armor level.

Conan does not wear medium armor.

[HatsuharuZ]

The 10 PRR given in Greater Rage represents that toughness. We were going to add 1 PRR for each point of DR the basic class gets, but it turns out that Barbarian DR is implemented in code and doing it that way would be far too time consuming to justify the effect.

Sev~

Thanks for the reply. Still, I'm a bit put-out that a barbarian's innate defenses are superceded by Shadow Dragonscale armor, which anyone can obtain and almost anyone can wear, especially classes with healing spells.

[Qhualor]

Here are the specific changes we are considering:

~ Greater Rage (the level 11 barbarian class feat) gains the following additional effects:
While raging your Melee Power increases by 10.
While raging if you are wearing medium armor your Physical Resist Rating increases by 10.

Ravager
~ Pain Touch should not have a cooldown. We will look into this bug.
~ Mutilate bane damage added to Hate increased to +2d6/4d6/6d6
~ Laughter now adds 10 Melee Power when Slaughter hits (as opposed to only when it crits)

Frenzied Berserker
~ Accelerate Metabolism healing increased to 3d6. It also adds +20 Healing Amplification while raging.

Occult Slayer
~ Fix Mind Over Magic bug when Constitution changes.
~ One Spirit. Now costs 100 Weapon Bond, and heals for base 400 (4 per Bond expended).

Sev~

the armor buff is a specific buff to barbs. is an extra 10 PRR worth slotting medium armor while raging or is it worth a feat slot/fighter splash to gain the benefits of heavy armor? how does this benefit other classes or builds that would thematically wear medium/light armor? I think armor/PRR/MRR overall needs tweaks and not boost armor for a specific class.

+20 heal amp for FB Metabolism bothers me. i feel like it should be in Storms Eye. OS and Ravager has +100 total in cores. FB has currently +30.

[btolson]

Here are the specific changes we are considering:

~ Greater Rage (the level 11 barbarian class feat) gains the following additional effects:
While raging your Melee Power increases by 10.
While raging if you are wearing medium armor your Physical Resist Rating increases by 10.

Sev~

10 PRR is not really enough to make medium armor attractive, as heavy provides 15 PRR (and an extra 10ish from BAB scaling) and 15 MRR. You might rebalance it so that while raging medium armor can offer an extra 30 PRR and full BAB to PRR, which allows a player to choose heavy armor if they would prefer a PRR/MRR split instead of just PRR. With rampant multiclassing these days, choosing heavy armor frequently does not even cost the character a feat; a little more incentive so that there is actually a choice here would be good.

Alternatively, you might remove the PRR in favor of adding in a quasi-evasion-for-melee effect while wearing medium armor, something like a [your_barb_levels]% chance (max 20% for a pure barb) to cut any melee damage received in half (before DR or PRR is applied). Have not done any math on these particular numbers to know if they are correctly balanced, but you get the basic idea.

[Qhualor]

The 10 PRR given in Greater Rage represents that toughness. We were going to add 1 PRR for each point of DR the basic class gets, but it turns out that Barbarian DR is implemented in code and doing it that way would be far too time consuming to justify the effect.

Sev~

if 10 PRR represents 7 DR than i think regardless it should be included. if it cant be auto granted every 3 levels for 1 point of PRR separately from DR, than granting it at barb level 11 is better than nothing. however i still think it should be separate from armor and figure something different out so its not a choice between evasion or heavy armor.

[maddong]

Here are the specific changes we are considering:

~ Greater Rage (the level 11 barbarian class feat) gains the following additional effects:
While raging your Melee Power increases by 10.
While raging if you are wearing medium armor your Physical Resist Rating increases by 10.

Ravager
~ Pain Touch should not have a cooldown. We will look into this bug.
~ Mutilate bane damage added to Hate increased to +2d6/4d6/6d6
~ Laughter now adds 10 Melee Power when Slaughter hits (as opposed to only when it crits)

Frenzied Berserker
~ Accelerate Metabolism healing increased to 3d6. It also adds +20 Healing Amplification while raging.

Occult Slayer
~ Fix Mind Over Magic bug when Constitution changes.
~ One Spirit. Now costs 100 Weapon Bond, and heals for base 400 (4 per Bond expended).

Sev~

After what I've seen I'm not sure you have to give anything to FB core 20/tier 5 ravager combo players. I would direct a buff that was going to all barbarians instead into Occult Slayer (I think most power gamers consider it the least option aside from the niche con build).

[Grailhawk]

So
05 MP Frenzy
10 MP Death Frenzy
10 MP Storm's Eye
05 MP Raging Blows
And now
10 MP Greater Rage

40 MP total

Wow.

[Scrabbler]

It scales with Melee Power, so it should already scale in Epic.

That's not what we're looking at, though.

Compare how various heroic healing sources scale:

• Cleric Heal spell: Healing amp, positive spellpower, class level.
• Wizard Death Aura: Negative amp, negative spellpower, class level.
• Ravager Blood Strength: Healing amp, melee power, class level.
• FB Accelerated Metabolism: Healing amp, melee power.
• OS One Spirit: Healing amp, melee power.
• Henshin Shadows Cannot: Healing amp.

The first 3 of those are good, while the last 3 are bad. The last 3 tend to either overpowered at low level, underpowered at high level, or both.

If it's a good idea for Blood Strength to scale with level, then it would also be good for Accelerated Metabolism and One Spirit to do it too.


PS. It looks pretty funny how One Spirit gives you 400 hp... pretty few Barbs will have enough red bar to absorb all that.

[IronClan]

Have you seen what barbs are doing over in the youtube video thread? do they need more power or do the rest of the bell curves asking for more here need better skills?

Do we balance the game based on what multi past life fully geared fully ED'ed and highly skilled players can do with a class?

Because then we need to Revert Bard back and then nerf it hard... Because Thalanis had a Bard who could trivialize EE when EE was considered really hard long before the buffs...

Skilled players are always going to make the most of things... By definition...

I'll tell you this though: there's not a **** thing that's powerful about a 1st life barbarian who hits level 20 and has ZERO Destiny XP... I know I just capped one. I should make a Video of living through an EE with that Barb swilling Store Sovereign Healing elixers and silver flame pots, and kiting mobs to try and not die... Much to the disdain and mockery of my friends who found it worthy of an on going joke meme at my expense.

Oh and how about when I had to open Primal Avatar as my first destiny so I could get Cocoon right away... and then spend levels 20 through 26 only raging when we had someone who was willing to heal me? Slotting devotion of course. Working my way painstakingly over to Divine Crusader which I believe I reached at level 27, and finally here I am... 28th level and I finally have Divine Crusader worked up enough so that I can rage full time. But I would much rather be in LD, however I must be in Crusader because I can't TWIST a T3 and a T2 yet... so more ED work... at least this work I can do WHILE raging.

All these hoops jumped through because DDO decided to be the only RPG in history to not allow Melee's to chug effective healing potions.

I agree Barbarian FB is good enough DPS if you have a ready source of self healing (Sacred Ground twisted) but I don't think either Ravager or especially OS is even remotely worth the rage penalties even when they too can twist Sacred ground and Consecrate.

They can add a Crit multiplier to rage and help OS and Rav be better trees, and remove the +1[W] multi selector from FB (just leave the heal as the only choice) and things might work out.

The only thing I would do with a Ravager is make a Swashbuckler with X1 to Rapier Multiplier and Rav +3 to crit range (after improved critical) because Bards can take Spell Singer healing song + Consecrate, and extend meta magic and deal with the rage penalty by sheer circumvention.

I'm sorry if Barb raging stays the way it is it needs to be more worth using... Stupid achievment video's by the tinyiest fraction of the DDO player base can not and never should be used as a benchmark. Outlyers are not the mean.

[depositbox]

Do we balance the game based on what multi past life fully geared fully ED'ed and highly skilled players can do with a class?

No. Balance is only achieved when everyone can do that with a class. Everyone.

but I don't think either Ravager or especially OS is even remotely worth the rage penalties even when they too can twist Sacred ground and Consecrate.

The best barb builds are core capstone FB, and tier 5 Ravager. Dwarf con based OS. Drow OS capstone and enough AP for tier 5 from Ravager or Berserker and doesnt need to be con based, both things dwarf cannot do.

[Monkey-Boy]

Do we balance the game based on what multi past life fully geared fully ED'ed and highly skilled players can do with a class?

Yes, because balancing stuff on the capabilities of bad players you get the terrible class balance we have now.

[Monkey-Boy]

No. Balance is only achieved when everyone can do that with a class. Everyone.

Absolute nonsense.

[phyrephoenix]

Here are the specific changes we are considering:

~ Greater Rage (the level 11 barbarian class feat) gains the following additional effects:
While raging your Melee Power increases by 10.
While raging if you are wearing medium armor your Physical Resist Rating increases by 10.

Ravager
~ Pain Touch should not have a cooldown. We will look into this bug.
~ Mutilate bane damage added to Hate increased to +2d6/4d6/6d6
~ Laughter now adds 10 Melee Power when Slaughter hits (as opposed to only when it crits)

Frenzied Berserker
~ Accelerate Metabolism healing increased to 3d6. It also adds +20 Healing Amplification while raging.

Occult Slayer
~ Fix Mind Over Magic bug when Constitution changes.
~ One Spirit. Now costs 100 Weapon Bond, and heals for base 400 (4 per Bond expended).

Sev~

I like the proposed changes. But perhaps you could instead consider give rage +5MP per stack of rage, as an incentive for staying pure. Such as at level 1 you gain 5 MP while raging, greater rage gives +10, tireless rage gives +15, and Mighty rage gives +20.

[IronClan]

No. Balance is only achieved when everyone can do that with a class. Everyone.


The best barb builds are core capstone FB, and tier 5 Ravager. Dwarf con based OS. Drow OS capstone and enough AP for tier 5 from Ravager or Berserker and doesnt need to be con based, both things dwarf cannot do.

Yes, because balancing stuff on the capabilities of bad players you get the terrible class balance we have now.

You're both wrong, you balance based on the majority or mean average. Doing what either of you suggest would be insanity. Advanced players ideally have the hardest difficulty setting to maintain challenge. Weaker players have the lower settings.

The problem of course is that currently the bad players have developed a sense of entitlement to be able to complete Elite the hardest setting as a fast paced XP farm with no challenge. That part of the equation needs to be worked on SEPARATELY from the relative balance between classes.

DDO is very static and thus can be meta gamed... Skill in such a static game takes the form of BOTH actual skill (quick reasoning, fine motor coordination, and adaptation) AND Rote memorization, repetition and refinement...

One of these is a laudable trait possessed only by Human beings, the other can be observed in many rodents, NASCAR drivers, primates and other animals.

Being able to memorize and be willing to endlessly repeat the same quests over and over so as to do it more and more quickly is nothing that should EVER impact the balance between classes in DDO. The false benchmark created is highly misleading in the best of cases. Beating a quest quickly when they know every inch of it, know exactly when to hit every boost, use every clickie, and can even preemptively heal knowing when they will start taking damage is nothing that should ever be more than a minor consideration. In fact you might say the Barbarian is almost ideally suited to the task, No class would benefit more from knowing exactly when it will need to Rage/heal/boost/dodge/displace/use other clickies. In fact a Barbarian in a meta gamed quest is a lot like a NASCAR set up for a specific track with unequal chamber for turning left at 200MPH, take that monster out on the street and watch it fishtail into the first pole on the side of the road trying to drive that fast going straight.

[Monkey-Boy]

You're both wrong,.

Nonsense.

Bad players are bad regardless, balancing anything on them is nonsense and results in the nonsense balance DDO currently has.

Balance for the people who don't suck.

[IronClan]

I like a lot of stuff Sev has done, and his willingness to communicate just as much. But I really feel like big lumps of MP, Heal amp and Hit points has been a very brute force "expedient" and inelegant way to avoid allowing Barb's to chug potions. Or overcome rage penalties in much more elegant ways: like letting Barb's use primal forms of healing even when they are raged... Them being primal and all.

All these hoops could have been avoided by just:

Barbarians develop huge thirst when smashing, Rage halves the cooldown of all potions and reduces ill effects by half.

Cocoon can now be cast while raged,

Epic Silver flame pots with eOrchard an early and popular suggestion on the PC.

Then it would just have been a matter of putting FB and Rav AND OS into best melee DPS in the game territory and getting rid of clunkers like "weapon bond" mechanic and 1 minute constant click Death Frenzy/Frenzy (still waiting on this to be folded into Rage or made a stance or something or at least made 2 minutes). Maybe adding some interesting brute force tacticals like shove/grapple/shoulder bash/charge.... all conspicuously absent in the trees with so many unfun and uninspired abilities fill OS and Rav.

[IronClan]

Nonsense.

Bad players are bad regardless, balancing anything on them is nonsense and results in the nonsense balance DDO currently has.

Balance for the people who don't suck.

You don't seem to be reading, so I'm going to stop wasting my time explaining how this works.

[Monkey-Boy]

You don't seem to be reading, so I'm going to stop wasting my time explaining how this works.

You mean explaining WRONGLY how stuff works?

Keep posting, we'll keep pointing out that you're wrong. And the circle of life continues.