>>How did slot costing change with 3.2 and how would you think that might affect your abilities?

AOE debilitation and AOE TM spells in general went down 1-2 slots each, at least in the Warmage package.

Mazrian

We need to keep in mind the damage issues, as well, and not get blown over by the debil changes.

Aside from MUs have always had AoEs that do damage, what changed in 3.2 to make this worse?

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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 damage disparity has existed since 3.0

So nothing changed in 3.2 to make this worse. Ok.

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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

>>So nothing changed in 3.2 to make this worse. Ok.

And curious for an official update on this. What is your stance on the void between damage capabilities of magic users versus non magic users?

>>Having all of them in one package

Barbarians had some of the best defensive abilities in 2.0 as well. I wasn't inclined to totally gut them in 3.0 when we had so few superhuman offensive abilities available. The skillset placement supports good defensive abilities as well.

>>Direction

Regarding DPS, Barbarians have no TM skill and this makes development difficult. Expertise seems like a good alternative, but then the debates begin about if Guild-only abilities can serve as a stand-in for TM, and what does that mean for other Guilds with Guild-only skills, the effect of it being Primary, and so on....

After Magic 3.1 I spent considerable amounts of time and energy discussing ways to improve Barbarian DPS - or improve the balance of MU DPS so there wasn't as big a disparity. Very long, drawn out.. time consuming and often heated emails, wiki threads and IM conversations.

One outcome of this was a GM got a proposal approved for fleshing out Dual Wield to improve the DPS of Weapon Primary Guilds (Barbarians). But that GM stepped back and the system development was put on hold.

We've been discussing giving Barbarians a form of TM skill and basing some AoE damage attacks off of it. Any thoughts on that approach?

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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

>>and what does that mean for other Guilds with Guild-only skills, the effect of it being Primary, and so on....

I mean, there is backstab.


>>We've been discussing giving Barbarians a form of TM skill and basing some AoE damage attacks off of it. Any thoughts on that approach?

To be honest, without being able to fill that gap with expertise, for the reasons noted, this is pretty much the only way. I hope our single target damage generation is taken into consideration with this, as well. As we are one of the most combat focused guilds (by lore, skillset, etc) I don't see a real issue with us being given a primary skillset damage dealer for aoe and single target alternatives. Clerics, Warmages and Moon Mages all have the option drawing from Primary, as well as Thieves (without the aoe function), and only Thieves and Warmages can thematically claim to be as combat-oriented as a whole.

Also, it's odd, but I feel like barbs all to frequently get hit with this 'we can't increase damage without being unbalanced' approach, while MUs repeatedly get more and shinier tools for outputting and mitigating damage.

I remember you telling me you couldn't do much more to IF without making abilities basically free, meanwhile, my cleric looks like a Christmas tree of buffs and explodes everything with dots and aoe and antimagic. It IS frustrating to see barbs continually get the 'gotta keep it balanced' stick while everyone else gets hoverboards.

No sarcasm, but I can't tell if thats 'lol I agree' or 'lol shutup'. Both?

>>We've been discussing giving Barbarians a form of TM skill and basing some AoE damage attacks off of it. Any thoughts on that approach?<<

>Yes.

Seconded.

Rhadyn da Dwarb - Blood for fire!

Barbarian Guild Suggestions
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1h4L5hAxR1-VLDegDNZBIhGdo5bMgnCtm84Icm2E0utU/edit#gid=0

>>We can't control the level of effect like a MU by putting more or less mana into the cast.

There's a trade-off there that isn't really all that bad. You can't low-ball via controlling mana, however you're always 'casting' at full power without having to cambrinth or any of the nonsense casters go through. Similar with your buff system. You can't pre-game power via cambrinth, but you're abilities are fairly quick start (meditations take some extra effort, I'm aware) without having to mess with prep times, harnessing, cambrinth, or ritual components.

One of the things I rather enjoy about my Barbarian, and my thief, is the speed/ease of buffing vs my casters. My NMUs are battle ready extremely fast, my paladin takes 6-10 minutes.

I'm not saying the other complaints don't have merit. I'm one of the MU types who's campaigned heavily for Barbarians that Squanto mentioned, and I think once 3.2 shakes down you guys are more then due another logic pass over abilities and costs.

Samsaren

If I may, I think we should take the clue Mr. Kodius has given us. He suggested to give Barbs an AoE TM based attack to close the gap on damage so therefore I think we should give suggestions in this vein. I know a lot of veteran Barbs are tired of giving suggestions, understanbly, but I think from the intent and voice Mr. Kodius is posting now he's being very serious that something is in the works for Barbs. So, let's trust this one last time and throw our ideas out there. One final Barbarian push! Yaawhh!

To give you guys a point of reference, when Kodius and I talked about introducing TM to Barbarians we leaned more towards "impossible kung-fu" rather than "impossible metaphysical effects" for where we wanted to go with flavor. So, an example was an AOE TM attack that involves the Barbarian going ape and smashing the face in of every critter in the room (ignoring engagement effects and the like, like a normal AOE attack) as opposed to, say, the Barbarian shooting sonic waves at the target.

We're not at the point of ruling out anything, mind, I just thought it'd be helpful to get you on the same page we're currently at in terms of lore wrapper.

-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." - Italo Calvino

Then there we have it. Punch a hole through someone's chest, tear out the heart, open to go paper bag, drop heart in, roll the top closed, and hand it to the victim as a souvenir to afterlife.

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

I second the 'impossible kungfu' style for Barb TM. Something along the lines of "Ki" or "inner fire" fueled "matrix" attacks. To add my two cents, with a thrown weapon once you hurl a warhammer it could smash and obliterate the head of one goblin and sail past to smash another goblin and richocet and hit another goblin. With a greatsword, the Barbarian will charge at one enemy and attempt to skewer multiple enemies on his blade. With barehands the Barb will do a kind of "ki punch" where the very air gets supercharged by the sheer ferocity of the Barb's attack that the fist will hit the first target and "move on" to other targets nearby.

Come on fellow Barbs, throw in your ideas!

I'd be lying to take the credit for much. I'm here, both on the forums and in Dev, to support Kodius and provide what assistance I can to the project. It's not my show, so if this is making you happy the good vibrations should be spread around.

I mean, all the angst and venting aside, we get it. Barbarians deserve access to the TM damage channel, and they need to be brought inline with Magic Tertiaries resource-wise. The problem, as someone noted way back in the conversation, is that Barbarians are not locked into the mana/attunement system so when we play with global balance we need to make an extra effort to keep NMUs in step with it.

Part of this was just a poor confluence of timing, because Kodius was required to take a major focus on the Safari when in a perfect world Raesh, Kodius and I would've been working hand in hand on implementation of 3.2. Part of this is the cost of having Barbarians (and Thieves) using diverse resource systems.

And part of this is, in fact, we need more GMs and more devs and more everything, because the staff has grown perilously small and it continues to shrink.

Okay I'm kind of rambling now, but the heart of the issue is that this is a group effort, and while I may speak up more than many people they are still pulling a lot of weight that I'm not.

-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." - Italo Calvino

Elanthia is a better place when Barbarians are cool.

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Come on guys, let's get some suggestions out here for the Barbarian TM ability while the window is open.

@Whirling Dervish

Requirements: Weapon in each hand.
Description: Fueled by inner fire supernatural awesome, a Barbarian will move with superhuman speed and grace to meat grind all enemies at melee range. This attack will hit all enemies near the Barbarian at a reduced RT.

@Deadly Strikes

Requirements: A twohanded or polearm weapon.
Description: Using meta-knowledge of the battlefield fueled by inner fire, the Barbarian will know exactly which points of his targets are open to attacks. Using this skill he will strike at all targets around him in melee doing a multiple of damage against each.

@Dragon Fire

Requirements: Barbarian inner fire
Description: The Barbarians knowledge of inner fire coupled with his understanding of TM will allow him to manifest against creatures in the room his inner fire onto the physical world. All creatures will either be awed by the flames making them cower on the ground in fear or if especially weak against the Barbarian's power, will spontaneously combust into flames.

Eh, I think it's worth mentioning - a big complaint as is right now is that barbs don't have access to a TM damage stream, like Paladins and Rangers. If we're going to take the route of opening a new skill in the Supernatural skillset called TM that lets barbs do extra damage, we'll have to accept that that damage is coming from a tertiary skill.

Or, conversely, we could aim for something Expertise based, that produces extra attacks and the like. Personally, I think that would be better and more interesting than simply giving Barbs a set of roars that operated off of TM and fit the same spell templates other guilds have.

>Thieves produce damage from a survival skillset ability, in backstab.

This is arguably the equivalent of barbs dual load/whirlwind. I.e., a guild perk that isn't a secondary damage stream.

<<we'll have to accept that that damage is coming from a tertiary skill.>>

I don't know that I agree with this, especially when considering the OP post about backstab as an example.

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