Cross posting from /r/Dragonrealms -


First off, let me just say that I love the barbarian guild and am very happy with my choice.

That being said, I currently have 7 unspent training sessions and see no reason to get any abilities. With 134 Inner Flame skill, I can't afford to maintain any more forms than Python to help my defense combined with enough regular roaring to train debilitation. I don't have enough training sessions to get a mastery.

I don't see the point of getting any more abilities. I have monkey form and dragon form but never use them. If I got any more berserks or forms I can't see myself ever using them since I don't have enough inner flame. I can't see how more roars would be useful since my debilitation skill trails my combat skills so badly that the single roar I usually use (Everild's) wears off fast enough that using multiple is pointless. It's no more useful than just reapplying my primary roar.

Am I missing something? Is the basis for our abilities really this lame? I also have a paladin I play regularly, and every time he gets a new spell it's an exciting and immediately useful addition to his repertoire (usually in the form of some extra augmentation I can easily keep up at all times).

Is it like this for everyone at lower circles? For reference I'm circle 34 with the 134 IF skill.

I'm only 13th, but I can keep Eagle up indefinitely and train Warding/Augmentation easily with Berserk Famine/Avalanch. Training wise I really have no problem keeping everything above 25/34

Of course not, I was just speaking about from a skill training perspective. I firmly believe we need a tweak to how it's all calculated so that we're not less effective than most every other guild. We also need some sort of actual useful attack form that uses Expertise. As it stands right now I don't think I'll ever stop using analyze flame and it seems silly that Thieves get backstab while we get ...?

>>that Thieves get backstab while we get ...?

Dual Load? Whirlwind? Slash the Shadows?

There are plans in the works to give Barbarians an edge with melee weapon combat due to their skillset too. 1-hit kill anyone in the game always!

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"I have no data yet. It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories instead of theories to suit facts."
- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes

>Finally, you could completely fill up the IF bar and then use 5-6 abilities at once and stop them when it drains down. Some of this will be made easier when I get the cooldown for run-out-of-IF mechanics in place.

But ability crash is a pretty big issue.

>Are you killing enemies in PvE or hitting them in PvP? Each critter killed awards a large chunk of IF back. Each Player hit awards IF as well.

Yes. Killing every minute to minute and a half, and at 75th, I don't think I could sustain the aforementioned comparison of two forms and a berserk. Maybe if all I did was ANALYZE FLAME, but that seems a poor solution.

Whereas a Paladin could easily keep up AA, HeS, Courage, RW, and SR. Hilariously, with just 3 more spellslots (so 18th circle) they can cast RuE on their weapons, which is sooooooooooort of similar to Tsunami insofar as being a weapon buff (a different weapon buff, yes, but a weapon buff). No way could an 18th circle Barbarian sustain two berserks and two forms. For an additional slot (we're up to 20th), they can get Soldiers Prayer, and have access to an anti-magic ward (Turtle or Swan, depending on how you want to spin it). No way way way could a 20th circle Barbarian put up two berserks and three forms. Mind you, the Paladin can also be casting Halt in combat - Wail of Torment is 7 tiers deep in Horde.

So, anyway. I'm being annoying again. Sorry.

>Yeah if you don't stop a few early it can be a problem. I'm looking to improve how this functions. I'm contemplating all buffs stay up, at 33% to 50% potency based on skill or something.

But I think this is a problem - my barbarian is hunting seordmoars right now, and they can hit him with Tingle and Lightening Bolt (in fact, that's the only way they can hit him). To that end, I'm using Turtle, which completely blocks their spells (I'm actually quite happy with how this works), but when Turtle expires (or worse, crashes!) I have to drop it and put it back up. While it's down, or ramping up, they usually get a couple shots in on me. If this is a feature not a bug, then so be it, but ability crash in PvP strikes me as even more problematic than in PvE, where I can at least plan to leave combat for ~2m to restart the form.

>At circle 75 you are unable to keep up 2 forms and a berserk?

If I only ANALYZE FLAME, then yes, I can. To me, this is somewhat analogous to only letting an MU use three buffs if they're in a luminous mana room and do nothing but stuff mana into a cambrinth.

>It is fine to discuss the Guild's shortcomings. I am working hard to improve things. But when posters (not anyone in particular, but some) act like spoiled 12 year olds it just isn't helpful. To my health, or the health of the Guild.

I don't mean to sound petulant, but I feel the guild system is phenomenal both mechanically and thematically, and I adorbz my Barbarian... for about an hour, at which point playing him frustrates me and I switch to different characters. I'm also trying to not chicken little these criticisms, by providing comparison points where applicable. I've also proffered some suggestions (e.g., make Masteries be granted as a function of slots spent in each path, not as a capstone ability to purchase), but, yes, you're right, and I apologize if I've been whining particularly hard on this guild of late.

>>How do thieves do it?

If the Khri runs it's full duration then it's able to be restarted instantly (a few exceptions that have a cooldown). If it's ended prematurely then there is a scaling cooldown (the longer the duration, the longer the cooldown) before the Khri can be started again. Our wards stay up, but don't function for awhile after taking some hits.

>>Slash the Shadows? <<

Kodius, have you had a chance to debug this a bit more? I did place the post in the bugs folder as you asked. Roar area vs a hidden opponent was the issue I have been having. Any chance you can just make this roar automatically default to area? You can't use it on-on-one vs someone if they are hidden via roar slash at NAME. It seems to make better sense as automatically defaulting to the entire area. Just a couple thoughts. Thanks.

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"Brace yourselves, Squanto is going to bleh blah fart fart bleh.." -the player of the character formerly known as Pureblade

>>Kodius, have you had a chance to debug this a bit more? I did place the post in the bugs folder as you asked. Roar area vs a hidden opponent was the issue I have been having. Any chance you can just make this roar automatically default to area? You can't use it on-on-one vs someone if they are hidden via roar slash at NAME. It seems to make better sense as automatically defaulting to the entire area. Just a couple thoughts. Thanks.

Yeah I spent a few evenings and fixed all the bugs with it. From my testing it was working fine, are you still having an issue?

Coding a unique mechanic for one roar would be difficult. The hiding penalty CAN target a single unhidden person, so I can see that as being potentially useful anyways.

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"I have no data yet. It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories instead of theories to suit facts."
- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes

>Ok, played off and on for years, but this is my first time posting. I really wanted to weigh in on this because I really enjoy my barbarian.

Serious questions...
Do you want advice? If so I can give you some as can others on the boards.
Do you want a GM to answer if hits will give IF as well as on the killing shot?
Do you want both?

Rhadyn da Dwarb - Blood for fire!

I can consider making hits award some IF. It makes it about 50,000x more complicated though :( For players I kind of abstracted it, because PvP isn't such a 24/7 thing and IF regen can stand to be a bit more powerful in those situations.

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"I have no data yet. It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories instead of theories to suit facts."
- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes

>I can consider making hits award some IF. It makes it about 50,000x more complicated though :( For players I kind of abstracted it, because PvP isn't such a 24/7 thing and IF regen can stand to be a bit more powerful in those situations.

This might help, and in most cases PvE is a constant stream of enemies, but not all critter spawn is identical, and it'd be a shame if every time there was a lull all our abilities crashed. I had a close call earlier today because seordmoar spawn dropped and I went about a minute without seeing one, which caused all my abilities to fall off. Coupled with Forms being unrefreshable (which you addressed in an earlier post) and I think a little QoL smoothing would be helpful.

What if Form and Berserk IF pulses were reduced? There are already restrictions in place on how many a Barbarian can run, so I don't see why making it feasible to run them would be an issue. Only using ANALYZE FLAME, I'm now able to keep up 3 forms and maybe 2 berserks (again, assuming steady stream), which is great, and game changing feeling, but by 'game changing' I mean 'now I'm buffing myself like any other guild'.

I think part of the problem here is that these abilities are standard buffs - Dragon is RW and Bear is HeS, so using them should be as feasible for a Barbarian as using RW and HeS is for a Paladin. Tornado, for example, seems a really useful Berserk that I'll probably never use - I'm not going to rely on a standard defensive buff that drops every ~2m or crashes entirely. Turtle, as a form, is already kind of risky.

I feel like all guild abilities and the ability/ease of their use should grow with the character.

>>What if Form and Berserk IF pulses were reduced?

They are already in the single digits. It isn't really possible to make them lower without decreasing how often the forms themselves pulse. Which is a bigger project than I have time for.

>> Overall

You know, when I redesigned the Guild I modeled it after the old Guild. The old Guild outright killed you most of the time if you ran out of IF. After you died, you had to wait almost an hour before you IF bar was full again.

In the old Guild you only had DANCE SWAN to begin with. You quickly gained a few others, that bonused 2 things and didn't last terribly long. Or you could Berserk... and get easily overwhelmed due to the inability to retreat! The Guild only really came into its own at Circle 70.

Anyways, where the Guild came from explains much of where it is at today. While it would be nice to make things much better, my hands are tied on this. It is intended that out of combat your effectiveness is reduced.

>> IF

I've not touched anything at all. Been too busy working on shaping.

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"I have no data yet. It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories instead of theories to suit facts."
- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes

>>The old Guild outright killed you most of the time if you ran out of IF. After you died, you had to wait almost an hour before you IF bar was full again. <<

lol it wasn't this bad. I never personally died after collapsing from a berserk. But you would go unconscious for sure for a couple minutes, which really left you exposed. In PvP, that could mean death. This was only after berserks, by the way. It took about 10 minutes to get all your IF back, also--twice your height full IF.

That said, the new system is much better. Kodius has made several tweaks over the years to smooth things out.

*You can stack up to 12 abilities at a time, which is way better than the old system.

*We have 4 new supernatural skills.

*We have 1 new guild-specific skill--Expertise (which, by the sound of things will get a lot of development).

*Overall, our abilities last much longer than they used to. Example: dragon used to last up to 16 minutes. New forms (dragon included) last up to like 89 minutes (I may not have capped max duration yet). New forms are stackable (even with berserks).

*Berserks now last up to 9 minutes and have no penalties. They used to negatively impact some stats like mentals and knock you out when they ended, prone, with a rare chance to kill you. Also, they were not stackable, although they did bonus several skills/stats.

*Meditations are new abilities based off an old idea. They can last up to 39 minutes and only consume IF upon front after about 12 seconds initiating them. After that, they have 0 impact on IF consumption.

*Roars can now be targetted. Admittedly, these took a hit compared to their previous existence, but they were insanely over-powered, so it makes sense. They used to have 0 RT, no diminishing returns, and death's embrace could literally explode a room full of peoples' hearts, killing them. It was glorious.

*Masteries take everything above and elevate them to higher performance.

Our guild's development is not fully released yet. Kodius is involved in nearly every aspect of development, so patience is a virtue. That said, everything about barbarians is much richer than it used to be. He took the rudiments and expanded them greatly.

One last thought: Keep posting your thoughts, findings, concerns, suggestions etc. Kodius does read them and has come up with some really good tweaks/fixes. Also, I think we're at a good point as a guild with working together.

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"Brace yourselves, Squanto is going to bleh blah fart fart bleh.." -the player of the character formerly known as Pureblade

>> DRAGON DANCE buffed all the things, and you got it at 30th. <<

Dragon Dance (60th circle): Large boost to magic resistance, large boost to all weapons (melee and ranged), evasion, shield, parry, multi opponent, strength, stamina, agility, reflex, and intimidation.

That was what it used to do and when you got it. You can do the math to see how long it takes to get that now to see how comparable the new setup is.

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"Brace yourselves, Squanto is going to bleh blah fart fart bleh.." -the player of the character formerly known as Pureblade

>>It took about 10 minutes to get all your IF back, also--twice your height full IF.

That really depended on your stats/circle. As a youngin my logs are showing it took much longer :(

>>BERSERK STONE made you invulnerable, and I don't think I ever collapsed when it finished

cough You still pretty much have 2 ways to do this. One cheap. One not so cheap :P

>>That said, in the old guild the abilities were POTENT

Not really. The Forms leading up to Dragon were not potent. Eagle was a good ranged buff - and that was all. Cobra was a good melee buff. Badger was a good defense buff.

Individual berserks were potent for their individual thing, and could be stacked, but came with all the extra baggage I mentioned above.

Blood was a strong OF buff no doubt. Coupled with stone you had good offense and defense. This was my typical training setup and by circle 40 I had no issues keeping it going with reasonably fast killing. Couldn't maintain it out of combat though!

Cyclone and above were just nasty on the IF drain until 50th.

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"I have no data yet. It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories instead of theories to suit facts."
- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes

I like the part where the creator of Dragon went so gun-ho with the buffs that it included buffs to things that didn't actually work/exist.

-Armifer
"Perinthia's astronomers are faced with a difficult choice. Either they must admit that all their calculations were wrong ... or else they must reveal that the order of the gods is reflected exactly in the city of monsters." - Calvino Italo

...but while waiting you could sit around outside of Adan'f and pop boxes, get healed up by the local empaths, test your short bow on stupid HP/Shield barbs like me, trothfang roar bleeders in everyone's heads, and wish people would stop gloating about going into the caves to hunt. Ah, good times, good times. ;-)

Rhadyn da Dwarb - Blood for fire!

Its been so many years since I saw the original Dragon Dance that I'm having trouble remembering. I think it was either a core combat buff that didn't exist, or it was buffing skills that were undefined/null.

-Armifer
"Perinthia's astronomers are faced with a difficult choice. Either they must admit that all their calculations were wrong ... or else they must reveal that the order of the gods is reflected exactly in the city of monsters." - Calvino Italo

So, I've tried playing a Barbarian up to about Circle 20 (twice now, actually... don't ask). I've also tried a Bard and Warrior Mage, and thought it might be useful for the developers to hear some feedback on how the guild plays at low levels in comparison to other Guilds.

The good:

1. The flavor of the guild is cool. I like that there is one actual Guild that does not subscribe to the use of magic, and is more focused on martial prowess.

2. The leveling requirements. I like that all you need to advance in the Guild is raw combat. You don't need to run silly errands, or train oddball skills. I'm not saying all guilds should be the same way, but this seems to make sense for the Barbarian.

3. The simplicity. Not all classes should be mechanically complicated, and Barbarians certainly are not.

The bad:

1. Abilities feel significantly less potent compared to the Warrior Mage and Bard ones I've encountered, with the exception of Avalanche and Famine berserks which seem on par. For instance, Monkey Form's balance heal pulses infrequently, rarely leaving me at 'nimbly' balanced while training ranged weapons. Surefooting on the other hand gives me permanent 'nimbly' balanced unless I'm stunned, but it recovers very quickly if that happens. Everild's Rage roar which debuffs evasion has a barely noticeable impact even when I use the single target version, whereas Arc Light's effect is extremely noticeable. Demriss' Resolve is even more of an impact, and it's AOE. Granted, both of those spells cannot be used instantly, but their potency magnitude's greater. These are all basic level abilities you can get within the first 10 circles.

2. Both Bards and Warrior Mages have some freebie abilities they get without spending spell slots, such as Scream Havoc (which is easily better than any Roar I could have access to within 30 circles), Aethereal pathways, Summoned weapons or more flavor abilities like familiars, cantrips, and scrolls. I don't think Barbarians have anything except Analyze flame, which only enables you to recover inner fire. Analyze accuracy seems okay, but the opportunity cost of using it and dealing with the random attack sequence to earn it makes it pretty undesirable.

3. At the low levels at least, Barbarians are severely limited in what abilities they can use simultaneously. Here's a comparison of Combat abilities and buffs available for use at the same Circle, simultaneously:

Barbarian at Circle 20 (1 form, 2 berserk options (1 in use at any given time), 2 roars, 1 med): +Armor, +Aug, +Reflex, Balance Heal, Debuff Evasion, Debuff Balance. +Health or Fatigue Regen (strong)

Warrior Mage at Circle 20 (8 spells, 1 cyclic, 1 inherent ability): +Reflex, +Evasion, +Parry, Strong Balance heal, +Weapon dmg, +TM, +Accuracy/Dmg/Prep Speed, +Fatigue regen (weak), TM Barrier, +Attunement, AOE Nerve debuff, Single Target stun. Additional AOE or Single Target damage from Targeted Magic.

Bard at Circle 20 (6 spells, 1 cyclic, 2 inherent abilities): Emergency defense (Scream defiance), Instant Single Target knockdown, +Wisdom, +Mojo, +Bardic Lore, +Attune, +Attune regen, +Accuracy (all), +Agility, Barrier vs. Will attacks, AOE stun and knockdown, Cyclical debuff to agil, str, reflex, and sleeps primary target. Additional Single Target damage from Targeted Magic.

The toolkit differences here are pretty profound at low levels. So much so, that I feel severely penalized playing a Barbarian.


I'm sure this is all stuff that's been said before, but I figured one more opinion couldn't hurt.