Barbarians - The Follow Up Thread

[lyrecono]

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 prr fals a bit flat, a full plate gives more for free, prr aswel as mrr, more if you bother to multiclass/take the feat, the dr 30/60 on shadow plate makes the choice for heavy armor even easier

[phyrephoenix]

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?

Balance will only be achieved when the AVERAGE player can be effective in the hardest content with a variety of builds. You can't balance this game against the best player, or the worst, but only to the average. A great player will always be great, and poor player will always be poor, but the average player will only be as effective as the build and gear he carries. I play a pretty good shiradi caster, I play an awful monkcher (this does not say that one needs to be nerfed and the other buffed, just stating that i am by no means an elite player). The last 2 barbs I've played are both multiple lives with all EDs capped, and I can handle my own in EE. To me, this is balance, this is saying that although I'm not great, not poor, I can contribute in EE without being a liability. It is to players like me (where i say 80% of the game falls) that the game needs to be balanced to.

[Scrabbler]

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

Adding a bonus that doesn't work in Heavy Armor is a good change to improve balance, but that exact number and stat are probably ineffective.

1. It doesn't make logical sense in the world.... especially the part where the bonus stops working while naked too, or in classic Barbarian armors like animal hides.
2. For a Barb who does have Heavy prof (such as by a Fighter/Cleric level), wearing the heavy is strictly better. Not just overall better, but strictly.


If Barbs are going to get a bonus that won't work in Heavy armor, it definitely shouldn't be to PRR/MRR, because that's merely a subset of what Heavy provides. It probably shouldn't be to a defensive stat either, because (a) it's easier to justify heavy armor interfering with your arms making attacks, and (b) providing offense makes it easier to have a whole different attraction for the non-Heavy option, which can't be directly measured against survivability.


As mentioned before, an additional +10% runspeed when in non-Heavy armor would make sense. You could also give +10% rage length, +1% attack speed, or so on...

[Scrabbler]

Balance will only be achieved when the AVERAGE player can be effective in the hardest content with a variety of builds. You can't balance this game against the best player, or the worst, but only to the average.

Nope. If the designer is good enough, he can make a game that's balanced for average, great, and bad players all at once.

Most designers aren't that good, and even if they are it would probably take more time than they're willing to spend. So they have to decide which areas they want to prioritize as needing better balance. The traditional answer is that the most important context is high skilled, highly-progressed players in top-end content. And that's always important, but DDO has some longstanding problems in that regard which somewhat overshadow heroic melee trees, and which the devs seem unwilling to touch.

So instead they should look first at areas where balance problems are most damaging to the game's survival, and that's for first-life non-expert builds trying to do things that make sense in the D&D tradition.

[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~

Now that I think about it, your statement about code reminds me of when the topic of scrolls and ASF (Arcane Spell Failure) came up, and it was said that it would be really hard to make it so that scrolls didn't suffer from % ASF. Is this the same kind of issue?

And how many other things are coded in such a way that you have to rip out the metaphorical engine to get to them?

[Chacka_DDO]

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~

For the Occult Slayer Mind over Magic

the last time i tested the bug it was need to do the following to have it.

If you buff the SAME buff with the same constitution effect (e.g. you do Primal Scream and a group member do it on you thereafter) the Spell resistance from Mind over Magic is gone.

So its not the change of the constitution score it is the remove of a buff with the same buff that always cause it as I tested it.
and it is consistent with every buff i tested, like Madstone Boots and Cannith Combat Infusion
and if I remember correctly its also a one way issue, if the buff is removed again with the same buff the spell resistance doesn't turn back.

Possible there other sources too but i can not test it at the moment without creating a new Barbarian.

a workaround is to change the constitution score, this cause your Spell Resistance to return, so i feared you might dig in the wrong direction, due to inaccurate bug reports

I hope this helps

[Blackheartox]

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.

You can also add laughters 10 melle power since you can keep it up 15 seconds with a 15 sec cd til next use /:

thats alot melle power to be honest.
ALOta lot

[nibel]

ALOta lot

http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.co...verything.html

[painkiller3]

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....

i ran through EE High Road last night in a pug...did not need to chug potions, Ravager healing was enough. Ran EE Study in Sable, did not need to chug potions (may have used a few at end fight), Ravager healing was enough. Ran EE Chronoscope...not the hardest quest, but had Storm Fury running throughout the whole quest without chugging potions (over 50% health). i am not the best player in the world (ask my guildies), i am level 28, was in exalted angel trying to get more fate points (did twist consecration though) and have 0 eTRs and am not completionist. Basically somewhere between a first life level 20 barbarian and Zoda . i think the changes have made the barb a lot more self sufficient...previously they only were with Occult Slayer in Divine Crusader. Any barbarian tree is playable today.

[Oxarhamar]

Nope. If the designer is good enough, he can make a game that's balanced for average, great, and bad players all at once.

Most designers aren't that good, and even if they are it would probably take more time than they're willing to spend. So they have to decide which areas they want to prioritize as needing better balance. The traditional answer is that the most important context is high skilled, highly-progressed players in top-end content. And that's always important, but DDO has some longstanding problems in that regard which somewhat overshadow heroic melee trees, and which the devs seem unwilling to touch.

So instead they should look first at areas where balance problems are most damaging to the game's survival, and that's for first-life non-expert builds trying to do things that make sense in the D&D tradition.

I don't think that could ever apply to DDO thanks to Pastlife feats.

An average player could easily (within reason) get to cap and farm out MF TF weapon as well as top gear from ENecro but, they will have nothing on the massive multi-Pastlife metagamer. Even if using the exact build posted by that metagamer on the forum.

[Impaqt]

I'll have to try a barb again.... Just cant wrap my my head around a self sufficient pure barb though.. Just seems wrong...

I would LOVE to see a major Cleric/FvS pass... Something that really makes a healing class fun to play again. people have gotten away from Clerics because they hate healing. They stopped playing them because its not fun anymore. I never had an issue throwing heals on the barbs and fighters in the party when playing my clerics or favored souls. I did take exception when it got to the point where that was the only thing a cleric was good for.

Fixing Clerics and Favored Souls will open up a LOT more options for fixing the melee classes.

[Vargouille]

For the Occult Slayer Mind over Magic

the last time i tested the bug it was need to do the following to have it.

If you buff the SAME buff with the same constitution effect (e.g. you do Primal Scream and a group member do it on you thereafter) the Spell resistance from Mind over Magic is gone.

So its not the change of the constitution score it is the remove of a buff with the same buff that always cause it as I tested it.
and it is consistent with every buff i tested, like Madstone Boots and Cannith Combat Infusion
and if I remember correctly its also a one way issue, if the buff is removed again with the same buff the spell resistance doesn't turn back.

Possible there other sources too but i can not test it at the moment without creating a new Barbarian.

a workaround is to change the constitution score, this cause your Spell Resistance to return, so i feared you might dig in the wrong direction, due to inaccurate bug reports

I hope this helps

This kind of detailed report with steps to reproduce the bug is extremely helpful. Thank you.

[Seikojin]

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 believe a lvl 15 or 17 rage bump is needed, however I would need to see how it rolls with the proposed ideas on Lam.

[Thrudh]

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.

I thought you quit because Champions were too hard.

[Thrudh]

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 think these are great changes... Especially the Accelerate Metabolism healing...

One more thing I'd like to add... Could we make Frenzy and Death Frenzy a toggle? Refreshing 1 minute buffs constantly is not fun. Feel free to take away the hp every minute as long as they are toggled on.

Either that or make them last longer... You could increase the hp cost if you need to.

[Thrudh]

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.

This is mostly accurate... I pulled out my old barbarian character who has minimal EDs, and he's not all powerful... But I'm just avoiding Epic Elite for now... I see nothing wrong with that... He's not ready for prime time until I get enough fate points to twist T3 and T2 abilities from Crusader. So I currently play Epic Hard and even some Epic Normal with him.

But again, I don't see that as a problem... Until he gears up, and gets the ED fate points, he's shouldn't be able to stomp through Epic Elite...

Lack of healing IS tough even on Epic hard... But it's a different kind of challenge... And I'm enjoying playing him for now.

I very much like the changes Sev has proposed.

[davmuzl]

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 reason to use heavy armor on a barbarian instead of anything else is that the shadow dragonplate gives DR. Giving a barbarian around DR 20/- at lvl 28 basically for free seems reasonable to me and would free up the armor slot for something (of course the shadowplate would still be way better).

I also feel like it would fit if there was a multiplier for prr that changes depending on how heavy the equipped armor is. That way heavier armor has a higher impact on prr and it would give a way to support classes like monks, barbarians and maybe druids (bears) by increasing their multiplier compared to what other classes with the same kind of armor would have. Especially for monks this would be very helpful.

Whenever I played my barbarian since the update I usually did well when I had a group to make sure I don't take as much damage and sometimes to heal. Running around alone still doesn't work very well especially compared to other builds(even tho my barbarian has way better gear my he can't compare to a paladin).
Giving the healers and repair kits a use would be great. I am thinking of having the ability to use the kits to start and effect similar to the monks wholeness of body, to allow healing up easier between fights.

[davmuzl]

I'll have to try a barb again.... Just cant wrap my my head around a self sufficient pure barb though.. Just seems wrong...

I would LOVE to see a major Cleric/FvS pass... Something that really makes a healing class fun to play again. people have gotten away from Clerics because they hate healing. They stopped playing them because its not fun anymore. I never had an issue throwing heals on the barbs and fighters in the party when playing my clerics or favored souls. I did take exception when it got to the point where that was the only thing a cleric was good for.

Fixing Clerics and Favored Souls will open up a LOT more options for fixing the melee classes.

Healing stopped being fun when pretty much everybody was selfhealing anyway.
It would also be great to have a way to tell if a healer is actually good. Most characters will just get more kills than others or show their good DPS by bursting down stuff. A clr has a hard time doing that and healing people is more a thing of pressing a button when someone loses hp.
I didn't really like what happened to bards, not because I hate the class but because in my mind it should keep its supportive style and instead it was transformed into the ultimate solo class. Having valuable buffs for others would be great.
It also feels like many just stopped playing their healers because those were not their main characters. Since the focus was shifted more to grinding xp for past lives and doing 20 completions for the latest raid it is hard to find the time to support more than one character.

[lain5246]

This kind of detailed report with steps to reproduce the bug is extremely helpful. Thank you.

Visage of Terror question, is it wai that after 3-5 uses it stops working all together? last life I was a pure half elf barb with bard dilettante and it kept not doing anything to enemies after 3-5 uses. otherwise good job that was the first life I did not suck in ee content.

[Kuttamia]

For the Occult Slayer Mind over Magic

the last time i tested the bug it was need to do the following to have it.

If you buff the SAME buff with the same constitution effect (e.g. you do Primal Scream and a group member do it on you thereafter) the Spell resistance from Mind over Magic is gone.

So its not the change of the constitution score it is the remove of a buff with the same buff that always cause it as I tested it.
and it is consistent with every buff i tested, like Madstone Boots and Cannith Combat Infusion
and if I remember correctly its also a one way issue, if the buff is removed again with the same buff the spell resistance doesn't turn back.

Possible there other sources too but i can not test it at the moment without creating a new Barbarian.

a workaround is to change the constitution score, this cause your Spell Resistance to return, so i feared you might dig in the wrong direction, due to inaccurate bug reports

I hope this helps

Do you have any specific details on whats causing the heal amp bug for ravager or the capstone on ravager? Cos the last time I tried it, the entire ravager heal amp was disabled and the capstone stopped working, giving only a blank intimidate animation.