Barbarian - Occult Slayer Changes

[Therigar]

I have yet to come across these "OMG! your paladin dps is so uber!" they did get a significant boost to dps, but I haven't come across any that comes close to Swashbuckler.

That is not my fault. Try searching for recent posts about Holy Sword. There are lots of posts about how paladins are superior to every other build when it comes to damage. OTOH, I agree that Swashbuckler is superior -- which usually gets pointed out at some point in those threads.

[Scrabbler]

Which is what I've been complaining about. The early healing amp in the barbarian trees is going to encourage barbarian splashes.

It's not "early healing amp" that's most important. The attractive builds with 5-6 Barbarian levels for self healing are mainly aiming for Ravager Blood Strength. That's similar to how some people use melee characters with Cleric4 for Ameliorating Strike, but probably more powerful (although it'll only heal itself and not others).

A pure Barbarian Ravager will probably have 130-140 healing amp. A multiclass Blood Strength build will have 20-60 heal amp.

The following problems are all of greater importance than whether multiclass Barbs can stack together +10 Heal amp 3-6 times:

• Pure Barbarians will have too similar heal amp numbers, regardless of what tree they focus on.
• Pure and mostly-pure Barbarians have too much total heal amp.
• If a Barbarian splashes a few Bard levels to raise his melee DPS, that's bad. Pure Barb should beat mixes with a spellcaster.
• Blood Strength seems too strong on its own. The other Barb self heals might be too.

Basically, if it's a problem for Barb splashes to stack heal amp cores, then it's a problem for pures as well. We shouldn't assume Barbarian will proceed as a low-DPS class, as that's too pessimistic. I think the devs would feel embarassed if early testing indicates Barbarian damage is behind both Bard and Paladin, and they'd find a way to change that.

[Therigar]

Swashbuckler I could concede only if you were to actually use the enhancements in the barb trees. if all you are doing is tacking on a few passives from the trees and spending a bunch of AP mainly for extra hp and heal amp, than this build will only pull ahead with better survivability. but its not like bards, even the Swashbuckler kind, were having any trouble with heals or survivability. it still seems like a lot of AP if most of the enhancements in the barb trees are going to go to waste. if there was to be a class though that became OP by splashing barb, it should be bard because they have always had good synergy. the only other classes that were splashed in the past was Ranger and Fighter. I have no idea how well Druid would work though. Swashbuckler is definitely a powerful class and I haven't had the chance to line up my barb with any for a real comparison, but maybe I will on Lama.

as long as barbs pull ahead of Swashbucklers with sustainable dps and and the clear king of melee dps, than I don't think there is much to worry about low hanging fruit.

But they aren't going to. That's the point. The "this build will only pull ahead with better survivability" means that sustained damage favors the bard. And, even in bursts where survivability isn't an issue the bard is likely to do more raw damage.

BTW, last debate thread on paladins I was in showed somewhat conclusively that paladin will out DPS Cetus builds. You really should go look at the debates.

[Qhualor]

That is not my fault. Try searching for recent posts about Holy Sword. There are lots of posts about how paladins are superior to every other build when it comes to damage. OTOH, I agree that Swashbuckler is superior -- which usually gets pointed out at some point in those threads.

ive read those posts, but im still not convinced. to convince me would be to actually see one in action in game. like I said, even watching the Cetus videos didn't prove their superiority. as a matter of fact I even commented that my past life pally was just 1 tier down from his dps.

Swashbuckler I know has great dps, which is why I want to line up my barb with one to compare. have to do it on Lama though.

[Therigar]

It's not "early healing amp" that's most important. The attractive builds with 5-6 Barbarian levels for self healing are mainly aiming for Ravager Blood Strength.

I understand your perspective but think you are wrong -- or rather, I think that people looking at a tier 5 barbarian Ravager ability are missing the big picture.

Because you cannot have tier 5 abilities from multiple trees, no Swashbuckler build is going to look at Blood Strength. They give up too much damage from Swashbuckler tier 5. Tier 2 I Like Pain is enough since they have to spend AP to get to core 3. They are already unlikely to need on-hit healing due to other factors (mostly that they don't get hit).

So getting a deer-in-the-headlights fixation on Blood Strength just means you haven't thought it all the way through.

[Therigar]

ive read those posts, but im still not convinced. to convince me would be to actually see one in action in game. like I said, even watching the Cetus videos didn't prove their superiority. as a matter of fact I even commented that my past life pally was just 1 tier down from his dps.

Swashbuckler I know has great dps, which is why I want to line up my barb with one to compare. have to do it on Lama though.

Well, I understand that some people have trouble just taking the math for what it is. A lot of people are a Thomas.

[Qhualor]

But they aren't going to. That's the point. The "this build will only pull ahead with better survivability" means that sustained damage favors the bard. And, even in bursts where survivability isn't an issue the bard is likely to do more raw damage.

BTW, last debate thread on paladins I was in showed somewhat conclusively that paladin will out DPS Cetus builds. You really should go look at the debates.

well if the barb damage is boosted enough to be no question at the top of the melee heap again, than a bard splashing barb will be behind in dps. being able to stand and fight longer wont matter when a barbarian is able to kill faster and put out higher dps. that is what needs to happen though. the barb has to clearly be outputting dps higher than any other melee.

[Qhualor]

Basically, if it's a problem for Barb splashes to stack heal amp cores, then it's a problem for pures as well. We shouldn't assume Barbarian will proceed as a low-DPS class, as that's too pessimistic. I think the devs would feel embarassed if early testing indicates Barbarian damage is behind both Bard and Paladin, and they'd find a way to change that.

there would be pitchforks and torches and im not kidding.

[Therigar]

We shouldn't assume Barbarian will proceed as a low-DPS class, as that's too pessimistic. I think the devs would feel embarassed if early testing indicates Barbarian damage is behind both Bard and Paladin, and they'd find a way to change that.

I'm not making this assumption. I'm making the assumption that barbarian will be on par with both a well designed paladin and a well designed bard and that it will be a matter of actual player skill and character equipment that will make actual in-game differences as to which is actually ahead for damage.

But, I'm also greatly worried that the splash builds will do more damage so that instead of rough parity -- say all 3 builds are within 2-3% of each other -- we'll end up with a split class build that is 5-10% ahead of any pure build.

We don't have any worries about paladin/bard or paladin/barbarian because of alignment restrictions. But that isn't true for barbarian/bard.

The argument that we are not seeing barbarian/bard now isn't valid because there isn't enough in the barbarian trees right now to entice players to build that way. I think that the changes will be enough.

[Therigar]

the barb has to clearly be outputting dps higher than any other melee.

Why?

More than that, if it is and it also has self-healing so that the balancing mechanism of being a glass cannon is lost, that destroys all sense of balance in the game for melees.

No, the barbarian has to be within range of bard and paladin for damage output and the range has to be narrow enough that equipment or monster characteristics makes deciding which to play part of the challenge and fun.

Note how you've argued that bards are ahead of paladins. That should not be the case. It should be bards then fighters then paladins (against evil enemies) then barbarians (when raging). Now, I realize that there are other classes, even others that specialize in melee, but these are the latest build/enhancement passes. Among the genuine melee classes fighters, paladins and barbarians should be almost exactly equal when their special circumstance doesn't apply.

A categorical "barbarians should be superior" is not appropriate. It should be both bard<fighter=paladin=barbarian AND bard<fighter<paladin (against evil)<barbarian (raging). And the details of how and by how much should rest on fighting styles and equipment NOT on inherent class advantages.

Edit: BTW, for sustained damage it should be fighter>paladin>barbarian because of equipment advantages -- that is, plate+tower shield fighters should be > plate and large shield paladins > medium armor and no shield barbarians. And, even that should be a near thing when we talk split classes or taking feats to give tower shield or heavy armor proficiency. Since both of those give up something (capstone enhancements or feats) I'm alright with those consequences.

[Qhualor]

Why?

More than that, if it is and it also has self-healing so that the balancing mechanism of being a glass cannon is lost, that destroys all sense of balance in the game for melees.

No, the barbarian has to be within range of bard and paladin for damage output and the range has to be narrow enough that equipment or monster characteristics makes deciding which to play part of the challenge and fun.

Note how you've argued that bards are ahead of paladins. That should not be the case. It should be bards then fighters then paladins (against evil enemies) then barbarians (when raging). Now, I realize that there are other classes, even others that specialize in melee, but these are the latest build/enhancement passes. Among the genuine melee classes fighters, paladins and barbarians should be almost exactly equal when their special circumstance doesn't apply.

A categorical "barbarians should be superior" is not appropriate. It should be both bard<fighter=paladin=barbarian AND bard<fighter<paladin (against evil)<barbarian (raging). And the details of how and by how much should rest on fighting styles and equipment NOT on inherent class advantages.

Edit: BTW, for sustained damage it should be fighter>paladin>barbarian because of equipment advantages -- that is, plate+tower shield fighters should be > plate and large shield paladins > medium armor and no shield barbarians. And, even that should be a near thing when we talk split classes or taking feats to give tower shield or heavy armor proficiency. Since both of those give up something (capstone enhancements or feats) I'm alright with those consequences.

even with these heal amp changes and adding them to the cores in the barb trees, barbs will still be taking a lot of damage. they will not be able to heal comparably enough to other self healing classes. they need to be able to deal high dps or nothing is really going to change for them. barbarian has always been king of dps, but upgrading bards, paladins and the new enhancement system with low hanging fruit has brought some mixed builds to rival barbs and in some cases be able to out dps them in general. the biggest reasons are because DDO is BYOH and having to rely on low healing from CSW pots or penalty SF pots. they cant stay in a fight putting out dps consistently without good healing. if there isn't a noticeable difference between barb and the other melee classes than people will still not play barb and just play any other class that has better self sufficiency as it is now. barbarians need to be able to dps down mobs much faster than they need heals to finish the fight.

[CaptainSpacePony]

Going to mostly retire from these threads until the next version. While I feel theres a lot to be said, I also feel like Im basically starting to repeat myself. I tried to underline some key sections to help avoid that, but it is what it is. Obviously another round of changes is already intended to happen by development, obviously theres stuff they need to talk over, and obviously theres some things they already feel they need to do. Repeating over and over that barb stuff is too spread out, that the lack of time between heals is the real problem, and the potential lack of dps increases there isnt much else to be said.

The individual changes listed range from mediocre to great, and none were really bad (some didnt go far enough like fb capstone requiring above 50% for example, but its still better than the previous one). So its not like bad stuff is happening. Just, more needs to happen, and some of it might have to be a little bit more work like moving or adding abilities, or reimagining things to work slightly different to incorporate prr, temp hp, or whatever other mechanics. Trying to highlight and inform on what that "more" needs to be was the goal, I feel its been done as best as it can be at this point until a new version is revealed. Other than specific responses thats about the best I can do.

Hope it helps... I have a feeling the devs really, really see barbarians under a different play experience light than some of us who have had one a long time and played a lot in epics. The changes are going to make heroic easier. But theyre going to do little to nothing in epic, in terms of shifting power balance. Theres a lot of quality of life stuff (almost no more debuffs, bond sticking thru swaps, etc) so they might get more fun. Thats good. But they wont be able to do much else, unless their healing abilities in T5 get tuned pretty graciously. Anyhow, cheers.

I think this is probably going to be my last shot into the abyss too.

I appreciate the effort going into this barb pass.
I do not like where the train appears to be headed.
The changes lack flavor and fun.
I am usually a very vocal supporter of the devs' positions and reasons for changes. I have found them to, as a rule, be very well reasoned, measured, open to differing opinions, and intelligent. Perhaps I have a bias because I disagree with the course of this discussion, but, in the case of these barb changes, I don't feel that way.
The alternative changes I would support have been put forth several times in these threads so I see no need to revisit them here.

[Therigar]

barbarian has always been king of dps, but upgrading bards, paladins and the new enhancement system with low hanging fruit has brought some mixed builds to rival barbs and in some cases be able to out dps them in general.

I disagree. Barbarians have not always been king of DPS. To the contrary, I cannot remember when barbarians ever were the top damage class in DDO.

If that was ever the case it occurred in the infancy of the game when we still had large player populations and the grouping mentality focused on the synergies of multiple classes working together rather than on the power of individual characters to be self-sufficient.

We have already seen in this thread complaints that the barbarian ability to heal themselves would be more powerful than cleric/favored soul spell healing. Clearly there is concern among some players that the self-healing potential is more than adequate for the need.

We already know that there are serious effort to upgrade the defensive aspects of barbarians with significant numbers of posts asking for greater DR and PRR -- including requests to change the order in which these apply and requests that barbarian DR stack with other forms of DR. The overall impression one gets is that it rapidly becomes too much of a good thing.

Now, early in DDO history the king of DPS was the Batman build, a paladin/rogue. Until the last update change it was the Cetus build, a fighter/monk/paladin. If barbarian has ever been the top damage build it was short lived.

It appears that your concern isn't about the game but rather about a specific class and that your thinking is clouded by a personal perspective of how things should be. But, from a game perspective your point of view is not healthy. If we field a barbarian pass that places them too far ahead of other melee classes and we remove the risk by increasing both healing amplification with inherent self-healing and also the damage withstood by raising DR and PRR then we overbalance.

I had a PM last night asking about the DR/PRR element. I replied that, as far as I knew, nothing prevents a barbarian from receiving all the benefits of the class while wearing heavy armor or carrying a tower shield.

You will note that you've identified bard as the leading melee damage. Swashbuckler only works in light or no armor. Equip medium or heavy armor and it immediately stops working.

But the same cannot be said for barbarian's rage and the enhancements connected with being barbarian. As it stands now barbarians could choose a heavy armor proficiency and easily hit 200+ PRR. At 200 PRR incoming damage is cut to 1/3. A 300 point attack is cut to 100 points. Now take the various self-healing aspects of the barbarian under the new proposals. At least some posters to this thread have been making the point that the self-healing will surpass that amount of damage.

What happens if a player splashes 18 barbarian/2 fighter? They give up a capstone to get heavy armor, tower shield, Vanguard tier 2. Now tie in unrestricted use of barbarian rage, healing amps from OS, tier 4 enhancements from FB, tier 5 enhancements from Ravager. Put your ED of choice on top of that keeping in mind there are no class or alignment constraints on epic destinies.

It is simply the case that barbarians go from being on a level field with bards, fighters (who nobody is arguing came out ahead in the last pass) and paladins to one where they will stand alone so far ahead that there is no enticement to play any other melee class.

I repeat, what SHOULD be the case is that bard<fighter=paladin=barbarian except in specific situations and then it should become bard<fighter<paladin(v evil)<barbarian(raging). With that there has to be negatives to keep rough parity so that players have reasons to struggle with which character class to play.

Before now the balance was defense and self healing. Notice that the failure to provide fighters with self healing is why nobody jumped on Vanguard fighters but instead went to Vanguard paladins. Note also that paladin Holy Sword is the only thing that enables paladins to mathematically equal or surpass bards for damage. And pay attention to your attitude that you must see it to believe it because the maths seem to support (and somewhat convincingly) that paladins with Holy Sword out damage Cetus builds (the previous damage leaders) by roughly 20-30%.

There is very great risk that the balance that exists right now on live between bard and paladin (fighter was a failure) is going to be so fully upended by the changes to barbarian that it ruins any attempt at balance.

Yes, barbarians need updating. Yes, their damage must rival and, under the right circumstances, surpass that of other melee characters. Yes, the player-driven push for self sufficiency requires that they be able to self-heal (which was left out of fighter which is why it is a failure). All that is true.

But, we cannot let barbarian be the "king of dps" because they have never been the king of damage. Their place at the top must be carefully constrained so that it occurs in specific situations (when raging) and comes with sufficient risk (too little defenses and self healing) that players struggle to decide which character class to play because the choices are evenly matched after all the pros and cons are considered.

[Scrabbler]

So getting a deer-in-the-headlights fixation on Blood Strength just means you haven't thought it all the way through.

Incorrect. There is no good reason to expect people to train 5-6 Barb levels if they don't want any t5 Barb enhancements. The opportunity to spend 33 AP for 60 heal amp wouldn't nearly be enough.

Swashbuckler build ... They are already unlikely to need on-hit healing due to other factors (mostly that they don't get hit).

If Swashbucklers have a low rate of being hit, then it would be even less attractive for the Swashbuckler to sink 6 levels into Barbarian for healing amp. After getting Rogue Evasion he'd only have 12 Bard levels left.

To the contrary, I cannot remember when barbarians ever were the top damage class in DDO.

It was during the time after the launch of Barb Critical Rage but before Kensei Keen Edge. Barbs had 13-20x3 crit and everyone else was stuck at 15-20x3 or worse.

Now, early in DDO history the king of DPS was the Batman build, a paladin/rogue.

The Batman build was for defense; it never had good DPS.

[Scrabbler]

Please fix Knockout in t2 Occult Slayer. It has 3 problems:

• The effect works on creatures that are immune to Sleep, like Undead. If that is intentional, then remove the word "sleep" from the description and call it something else.
• Spending more than 1 step of Knockout doesn't make sense, because we don't care about how many seconds the effect lasts. The effect ends after our next hit, so if it was 3 or 18 duration we don't care. One way to improve it might be to increase the chance for a stun from a 20 roll to 18-20.
• CC / Helpless effects that have short cooldown and no cost should allow a saving throw. Ok, I'm not actually pushing for that fix because it'd be a nerf. Just sayin'.

[Therigar]

The Batman build was for defense; it never had good DPS.

DPS was so low at the time that being able to evade in heavy armor and to use paladin heals equated to best damage available. I think that we get confused in these discussions with talk of DPS. We've already seen discussion of sustained damage. The real bottom line here is that extremely high damage should come with extremely high risk. And, as people are fond of pointing out in DPS discussions, you have zero DPS when you are dead.

Being alive to deal damage is why Batman and Cetus builds are/were/will be the top DPS. They may not spike the highest but they are sustained damage and don't typically face the zero DPS because they are dead issue.

Incorrect. There is no good reason to expect people to train 5-6 Barb levels if they don't want any t5 Barb enhancements. The opportunity to spend 33 AP for 60 heal amp wouldn't nearly be enough.

Well, we will just have to disagree. I think it is patently obvious that players will see the +60 healing amp as enough reason and that it is naive to think that the only thing worth getting is the tier 5 enhancement. That could prove true for a barbarian/fighter split but not for a barbarian/bard split.

If Qhualor is correct and bards are still the top damage builds even after the fighter/paladin upgrade (and, FWIW, I think he is) then giving up some bard levels for the bonus healing amp, replacement damage in tiers 1 & 2, replacement abilities in cores 1-3 is definitely worth it. On live right now the only thing I use for spell cures is CMW and CSW. If I can get more healing out of those low cost spells then it is absolutely worth it to spend the AP -- particularly since the tier 1 and 2 choices can make up for lost damage.

Now, where you might be correct lies in changes to healing amp on items which could give spending the AP a run for its money. I think that players will not look at them as either/or but instead look at it as more plus more.

But, if bards are the best damage and if they are seldom hit and if they have on-going healing that easily replaces lost HP and if that on-going healing is affected by healing amplification and if they give up nothing in damage because they replace it with what they get in the barbarian trees and if they also gain PRR, DR and bonus HP along the way -- well, I think it is 33 AP well spent.

If Swashbucklers have a low rate of being hit, then it would be even less attractive for the Swashbuckler to sink 6 levels into Barbarian for healing amp. After getting Rogue Evasion he'd only have 12 Bard levels left.

The problem is that when they are hit it hurts. Barbarian levels do multiple things -- it gives a bigger hit die, it gives higher STR and CON when raging, it gives more HP as part of the cores, it gives more PRR and DR (this still being debated/worked out) resulting in lower total damage. And, it gives more healing amplification as discussed above.

Being L12 bard isn't an issue when the focus is melee. The only L5 and L6 spells I routinely use are Otto's Irresistible Dance and Hero's Feast. The rest don't usually make it to my hot bar. The 3 L4 spells are what I really use -- Freedom of Movement, Greater Heroism and Neutralize Poison. And, I could even lose some of them except that I want Panache and don't want to give up too many bard levels.

Keep in mind that spells with a verbal component (like cure spells) don't work when feat raging. So the principle source of healing isn't the spells or even a Ravager enhancement in this case. And keep in mind that I'm grouping not to be some buff bar but to do high sustained damage with an incredible amount of self-healing and that I don't need to waste rages on most trash mobs.

I just think that your perspective isn't going to hold up.

[Seikojin]

How are you getting +80 healing amp? A level 6 Barbarian would get +0/+10/+10 healing amplification from the first three cores of a tree and that would require 11 APs minimum. To get +60 you'd have to spend 33 of your APs in three different trees and those points would only be spent in lower tier enhancements. That's a large cost for +60 healing amplification and I doubt it's worth using 33 APs in this manner. If you can make a workable build and feel the +60 is worth 33 APs and 6 levels of barbarian then great, though you'd probably be better off just taking 5 levels of cleric or favored soul and using spells to heal.

Sev~

I think the bigger picture everyone is concerned about is stacking as much barb healing amp to make it the best melee splash they could take. Then priming their other class to be solo awesome. Like 2 rogue, X barb, Y mainline. Then you can trap, evade, and butcher everything while self healing (like the heal spell; 100+hp per heal tick) beyond incoming damage.

Honestly, I don't know how additive HAMP will play out until I get to try it on Lama. So I think we need a build up this week or next to really drill feedback on these changes.

Overall HAMP is a much broader change than Barb fixes; so getting at least those propped on Lamma would help us fine tune it and expose potential explosions of power before Barb fixes are on test.

[Severlin]

I think the bigger picture everyone is concerned about is stacking as much barb healing amp to make it the best melee splash they could take. Then priming their other class to be solo awesome. Like 2 rogue, X barb, Y mainline. Then you can trap, evade, and butcher everything while self healing (like the heal spell; 100+hp per heal tick) beyond incoming damage.

Honestly, I don't know how additive HAMP will play out until I get to try it on Lama. So I think we need a build up this week or next to really drill feedback on these changes.

Overall HAMP is a much broader change than Barb fixes; so getting at least those propped on Lamma would help us fine tune it and expose potential explosions of power before Barb fixes are on test.

You do realize that these Barbarian changes are presented assuming the Healing Amp post changes have happened? In other words, they are already presented as a rating? So the first 3 cores of each barbarian tree offer as much healing Amplification as the first level of the Human enhancement?

Sev~

[DagazUlf]

But, we cannot let barbarian be the "king of dps" because they have never been the king of damage. Their place at the top must be carefully constrained so that it occurs in specific situations (when raging) and comes with sufficient risk (too little defenses and self healing) that players struggle to decide which character class to play because the choices are evenly matched after all the pros and cons are considered.

This is very, very accurate and I'm not seeing how these changes actually affect the core of what a barbarian should be. Everything I'm seeing with these enhancements is just far away from Barbarian and off in some kind of DDO-dreamland. Frankly, I find it disgusting to see this kind of crud bandied about on a class that is dear to many folks. This is just turning it into some kind of weird MMO character that is NOT a barbarian.

[Failedlegend]

I really liked the regenerating rages in Frenzied Berserker but am fine with it's replacement but any chance we can get regenerating rages here in the form of X% chance of regenerating a rage on any spell/sla...it would be a small percentage or maybe like 1/3 Con mod.