>>Also, didn't he just completely shred Penethol through his wards, either the biggest or second biggest barb in game, with numerous skills at 1750?

Whoever owned Penethol at the time didn't read the manual, there were no wards up so the story goes.

>>I really think you are severely underestimating how big Aftermath is compared to Korutu,

And I really think you are using secondhand incidental information arguing in the barbarian forums with barbarians that play the class every day. Also, like I said, I have watched war mages smaller than him break through his wards, I have had both war mages and clerics my level break through mine, on more than one occasion. Unless you have real eexperience in which you can provide all the facts with impunity, on stancing, mana used, and otherwise, it's just rumor, hearsay and conjecture.


Maybe get out there and do some actual testing with Korutu yourself, provide some numbers, some data points.

Most clerics and magic users could break wards before if they knew what they was doing. Its just a lot easier now.

If you have tested with me before which maybe you have I dont know who you are. We should test again

>How do you feel the offensive output of your weapon skill set stacks up vs weapon secondary and weapon tertiary guilds?

I think my Barbs damage output is mediocre, but, the problem is his damage output is exactly the same as any other MU with a Str/Agl/WeaponSkill/WeaponStat buff. Which is basically all of them. I feel the issue isn't just damage streams, it's that Barb weapon damage is almost entirely duplicated by a lot of other guilds. So yes, any guild that is weapon secondary and magic prime or secondary has access to a lot of damage, but they also have access to a lot of the offensive buffs that Barbs do too. I don't know how to rightfully balance this other than doing something akin to Squanto's suggestion of just providing a flat weapon bonus based on skillset placement, which is basically what Expertise expansion gets at.

Because the answer the question is 'poorly', because it lacks RT-less stacking, AoE, and the myriad perks that come with TM. In terms of skillset placement, magic prime or even secondary can completely replace the need to use weapons, but we can see that the opposite is not true.

>>Vs equal level barb/spellcaster with similar ranks, you wont get past the ward. I've seen people with ranks near 1700's in their magics and 120+ in mentals fail to get through the resists of someone who doesnt even have 1000's in weapons and not a single stat over 100.<<

the spellcaster is doing something very wrong in this situation.

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>>How do you feel the offensive output of your weapon skill set stacks up vs weapon secondary and weapon tertiary guilds?

Raesh, you've kinda hit the nail on the head here. With two exceptions, Dual Load (shared with Rangers) and Whirl (which isn't setting the world on fire), there's no fundamental advantage for a Barbarian in dealing weapon damage. Arguably, they're potentially behind the curve, as other posters have noted because they require TWO abilities to bonus their head weapon (and Dragon/Eagle for a rank boost).

The other problem is Combat in general. Extra ranks bonus accuracy, which only bonuses damage to a certain point (pre-overkill mechs). Which leads to the issue of Barbarian's not feeling any real benefit from using their Dragon/Eagle buffs.

When talking the value of TM in the hands of magic Tert/Secondary/Prime, there's two issues. 1, mana availabilty (while better, there's still a healthy gap) and 2, shear magical options. The War Mage is a wonderful poster child of having a great set of options. A Heavy TM pre-game, a multi shot minimal RT pre-game, THEN adding a cyclic, while prepping a Debil/TM spell. Clerics aren't doing badly either, trading raw damage options with a blistering array of debil/meta magic control options.

Whereas, going back to the barbarian they can...spin? If I was going to try to make some fast and dirty help for barbarians, the first place I'd stop is Whirl. Give it some extra umph. I'd also consider giving a chance for a 'free' offhand attack based on expertise vs defending on normal attacks. For two handers, I would even be in favor of barbarians getting 'extra' suited to strength modifier on weapons.

Samsaren

Yeah, I think the biggest giveaway that there's a discrepancy is the RT's involved for TM + Cyclic vs the RTs involved for swinging a weapon and whirlwinding, paying attention to the fact that I said 'and whirlwinding', as it cannot be done simultaneously with swinging. Barb Analyze is a poor mans boost, and CCM available to all and fairly useless in most contexts.

A duplicate post was removed.

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Adilea

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Alright before we go too far down this path, I need so set some boundaries clearly.

>>This is something we have brought up, in these folders, no less than half a dozen times in the last few years. It gets discussed at length and we get shot down, over and over.

If I already had the answer assume I would not be asking. I understand it is frustrating to feel like you aren't being heard or that your concerns are being dismissed or that you're having to repeat yourself but this doesn't help. One of my responsibilities to to keep an eye on the development of all guilds in the game and Barbarians are not one I have a lot of personal experience with which is why I'm asking these questions.

>>No, our damage output at = ranks and = stats is exactly the same as everyone elses.

This is the sort of information I need. This would seem to imply you do not find Expertise useful or the other perks of being a Weapon prime (For example, using larger weapons offhand). That's the core of what I'm trying to dig into here since that would be the equivalent to the difference between the TM spells we give a magic tert and the TM spells we give a magic prime.

>>Pretty much every MU can buff every stat, almost every weapon, or at least a weapon of choice. Some, better than us. (Rutilor's Edge, that one bard spell I cant recall, Ignite, Im lookin at u)

While we're not going to be able to have this conversation without some guild by guild comparisons, hyperbole does not help and causes people to disengage in meaningful conversations.

I could pull the numbers together on this right now (I have an older copy from when I was digging into this topic for some early SoI work) but I think my time would be better invested this evening in finishing some actual code work. If someone wanted to make this argument that the options available to Barbarians for stat and weapon buffing were less than for other guilds and present the numbers to back that up I'd be happy to look at it.

For the weapon buffs themselves (Resonance, Ignite, Rutilor's Edge) I'll actually pull the numbers for that since it's harder for players to access and the're not under a unified mechanic (unfortunately):
Resonance - Up to 20% buff to top two damage stats on the weapon, though it's capped such that for really high stat weapons it's not going to be that strong.

Ignite - 20-35% of the top damage source is added in fire damage (Though, again, capped at the extreme end). Far less effective if the weapon already has fire damage. On the surface this is more powerful than resonance but because it means you're now contesting a third defense you weren't before in practice it's going to be very target dependent which weapon comes out on top.

Rutilor's Edge - Adds quite a bit of balance and power, generally adds slightly less damage to the primary damage function than Resonance (This spell isn't on a % function so it's hard for me to express this is a meaningful way).

Tsunami - Increases balance up to almost as much as RUE (Depending on potency, unlike RUE) and primary weapon stat (Also depending on potency unlike RUE, but like Reso/Ignite) by more than RUE and potentially slightly more than Reso (Again, not a % function so hard to express that way... and, yes, Elanthipedia doesn't look to match what this actually does - which hasn't change since 2013.)

So they're a little apples to oranges to compare and Ignite is kind of on it's own axis. Off the cuff, RUE should be updated to more modern scaling mechanics and actually use potency, all of them should likely start stronger at low potency (Even if they end up in the same place) and Tsunami seems to stack up fairly well.

>>TM design is based on skillset placement, more potent spells going to the primaries. We can't really manage weapons like that, can we? that 2he going to suddenly be too much for any secondary to handle? And even with just single target tm+weapons, the gap is large.

Sure we can. See: Large weapons in the offhand (And I know most people don't view that as a useful thing, but it's the best example I have right now of this is totally something we can let a weapon prime do that a non-weapon prime can't). Expertise is also, in theory, designed to fill that role - it's a way to let you flex your primary skill set into turning your weapons into a more lethal urm...weapon..

>>All the other guild vs guild NMUs vs MUs barrier chatter

... Yeah, I'm not stepping into that part of the conversation. No offense.

>>Arguably, they're potentially behind the curve, as other posters have noted because they require TWO abilities to bonus their head weapon (and Dragon/Eagle for a rank boost).

I believe we've stuck to this standard for all weapon buffs, splitting melee and ranged. Have we not?

>>cyclics

Grrr cyclics. Grrr. These have been a thorn in my side since Magic 3.0's launch. One day cyclics, one day ::shakes fist::

-Raesh

"It was wise enough to know itself, and brave enough to BE itself, and wild enough to change itself while somehow staying altogether true." ― The Slow Regard of Silent Things

While I doubt it'll help any, I'll point out that Mantle of Flame and Aegis of Granite are mutually exclusive. Also need Mantle of Flame and Tailwind running to buff all melee/ranged weapons. Not exactly a high hurdle to cross, though.

>>Also, didn't he just completely shred Penethol through his wards, either the biggest or second biggest barb in game, with numerous skills at 1750?

I did shred Penethol. I can pastebin the fight if you wish. I wasn't able to kill him because clerics are OP, blah blah blah. I killed him because he was standing there calling me a piece of crap the whole time rather than fighting back. People take things that happen in game and distort them and come here to use specific fights to illustrate why their guild sucks, but every fight is unique.

I had my TM buffed to 1750+, and I debuffed his defense, and it's not like he went down in one cast, I burned almost all of my mana to kill him. Barb wards are the most ridiculous wards in the game for a spell caster. They are almost as ridiculous as aether cloak, so stop complaining about being underpowered.

Cleric is one of the most defenseless classes in the game. Scrubs who are literally half my size can land hits on me, that's how weak a cleric is defensively. On the other hand, barbs have both defensive and offensive power, cleric is all offense, and it's rewarded thusly with having a stronger offense.

As playing one of the strongest offensive classes in the game, I can tell you without a doubt, barbarian is the hardest guild to fight. If you're getting killed by guilds smaller than you, then you're doing something wrong.

>An honest question I think you should all be thinking about (And I do not have an answer as I ask this, I haven't spent enough time with the subject): How do you feel the offensive output of your weapon skill set stacks up vs weapon secondary and weapon tertiary guilds? Because that should be your primary damage stream and if the problem is that your primary skillset isn't producing a gap between secondary and terts (Similar to the TM gap between a Warrior Mage, a Bard and a Ranger) then we may be focusing on the wrong problem.-Raesh

Primary, secondary, tertiary means nothing if the ranks are equal...especially with Magic 3.2 and the removal of SoI. I agree with you that we may be focusing on the wrong problem because of what I just stated. We have Expertise as a guild only skill. What does it do? We don't know and may never know. I understand that Melee/Missile Masteries are a bit wonky now as they give bonuses above the cap, but I believe that Expertise should give a scaling bonus on top of OF for Barbarians. I think this should be 10% of skill so that at max skill (1750) you get 175% bonus to your OF. How's that for a suggestion?

Rhadyn da Dwarb - Blood for fire!

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

So let's focus on that for a bit... what do you like about the current Expertise system? What prevents it from living up to it's potential?

-Raesh

"It was wise enough to know itself, and brave enough to BE itself, and wild enough to change itself while somehow staying altogether true." ― The Slow Regard of Silent Things

>So let's focus on that for a bit... what do you like about the current Expertise system? What prevents it from living up to it's potential?

First when I talk about Expertise I mean the ranks, not the BCMs that train Expertise.

So we don't know what Expertise actually. I have 961 ranks of expertise and all I know is that it unlocks potential maneuvers (that are by they way too expensive the higher the ability.)

Inner Fire - Regain a small amount of inner fire (0 skill) (Circle 1)
Accuracy - To-hit bonus for 10-30 seconds (50 skill) (IF + 50) (Circle 12)
Damage - Damage bonus for 10-30 seconds (125 skill) (Accuracy +75) (Circle 27)
Intimidation - Prevent opponent retreat for 10-30 seconds (200 skill) (Damage +75) (Circle 42)
Fatigue - Prevent fatigue loss from combat for 10-30 seconds (350 skill) (Intimidation + 150) (Circle 72)
Balance - Prevent balance loss from combat for 10-30 seconds (600 skill) (Fatigue + 250) (Circle 118/119)
Vitality - Regain a small amount of vitality (900 skill) (Balance +300) (Circle 157/158)
Rage - The next berserk costs no IF to activate (1200 skill) (Vitality + 300) (Circle 177/178)
Calm - The next meditation costs no IF to activate (1600 skill) (Rage + 400) (Circle 200+)

These are tied to the same system, it appears, as Charged Combat Maneuvers which as everyone knows is silly from a toe-to-toe combat perspective. Feint-Swing-Bash-Bash. Need I say more.

Expertise does not seem to provide any benefit to Barbarians aside from Inner Fire at a lower rank. Let's go through them one by one.

Inner Fire - We MUST use this to ensure we have enough IF at early circles. Why?
Accuracy - We must complete a non-accurate combo to ensure we get 10-20 seconds of accuracy. If we could hit something we're fighting we wouldn't need this anyway.
Damage - Meh.
Intimidation - We're Barbarians. Why would we want a critter to not retreat. Imbalancing combos in PVP make this useless.
Fatigue - Good ability but should come much earlier, like after IF. By the time you get it you pretty much don't need it.
Balance - See Fatigue.
Vitality - 900 ranks? I use Famine and worn items to manage minor vitality lose. At this point if you used this you'd be dead or hurt more because of the imbalancing combos.
Rage - 1200 ranks? IF isn't a problem per se at this point.
Calm - Circle 200+ ranks? If you don't have Yogi it's pointless.

So that is for the current abilities. I think Expertise should add to our in combat abilities without the BCMs. Bonus to weapon ranks, bonus to damage, something. Maybe make each of these passive instead of requiring a BCM. I don't know but I'll admit I don't use any of them right now. I'd use Rage and Calm though if they came earlier.


Rhadyn da Dwarb - Blood for fire!

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

>So let's focus on that for a bit... what do you like about the current Expertise system? What prevents it from living up to it's potential?

Expertise combos:
Thematically I like the idea. However in practice the "on-hit" requirement is clunky and makes activating them unreliable in a closely matched fight or PVP. For many of the combos the scenario where you'd be able to activate them regularly (hitting all the time) is where you least need them; the Accuracy combo in particular suffers from this. By comparison, a system like Aethereal Pathways provides similar effects but in a much more usable and on-demand fashion.

Charged Combat Maneuvers:
Are these even considered part of the Expertise system? They train it but I'm unclear whether Expertise ranks actually have any effect on them. Regardless, the wind-up time makes these another clunky and underwhelming option; in PVE it feels like you would do more by just attacking normally during the wind-up and subsequent RT, and in PVP the telegraphing aspect makes them ineffective. This seems like one area for potential value-adds for Expertise or Weapon Prime; maybe the ability to activate with no wind-up time on some sort of cooldown, ala Heavy TM.

>Alright - so the next extension of my question would be, since expertise is largely based on the combat maneuver system... what do people not like about that system? Just that it gives combos that are far enough from optimal that the benefit of following the combo isn't worth it?

Virtually all the combo's are useless, and literally all the combos are useless in pvp. I've used DAMAGE and FLAME, the latter only because of how barb IF/ability use is broken prior to picking up Powermonger. The other abilities unlock hilariously too late, or don't really serve a functionally needed purpose, with ACCURACY being the most egregious. In what situation am I going to benefit from an accuracy buff that requires I hit the target a bunch first?

I would much prefer the system be tied to a bunch of Barbarian only combat maneuvers that are steadily improved by increasing ranks of Expertise.

>> what do people not like about that system?

I'd like to echo a lot of what people have said here. Being forced into a randomly generated combo is just horrible, even if the buff was increased on the back-end it still wouldn't be worth it. And no, it's not a difficulty thing, because in all honesty it is absolutely easy to script it efficiently.

And, the buffs themselves are mostly useless. They are already covered by other abilities, mostly, and the damage increase on that one feels flat out inconsequential. Do those buffs even stack with other buffs of the same type? I heard that in general that wasn't even allowed anymore.

Having expertise tied to something useful would be great. Some type of stand-alone barbarian unique abilities.

I exclusively use CCMs to train Expertise and never use BCMs. BCMs bonus is too weak (except Flame), too short, too unbalancing (four random attack types), take too long (you have to hit four times when normally it takes six or less hits to kill a critter), and that's all just for PVE. For PVP, forget about it. Neither CCMs or BCMs are worth it in PVP. I've tried CCMs in PVP on multiple weapons. It's not bad but the problems that have been listed are definitely in play. The tell from messaging, the ramp up time where no RT producing action can be performed, the RT itself (which isn't "horrible) as it seems to reduce with skill which is a boon), the lack of damage from the attack, etc.

I like using CCM Doublestrike with HB+HE weapons. In concert with whirlwind it actually does a fair amount of damage. This is for PVE only though. In PVP not so much.

Rhadyn da Dwarb - Blood for fire!

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

>>Well, as KODIUS has stated the GM staff does not have the resources to create a TM based brand new skill for Barbarians. I think RAESH knows this as well and is giving us an alternative, that is buffing up our existing Barb repetoire of skills.

Well, yes and no. Would it be hard to resource making Barbarian TM right now? Yeah. Sure would be. But I also feel like it's the wrong tool to address the immediate problem. Am I opposed to the idea of Barbarian TM (as described by Armifer earlier in this thread)? Not particularly. I'm just saying that it sure seems like the larger problem, and very possibly one that would take less development resources to improve, is in the primary skill set so I wanted to explore that area for awhile.

-Raesh

"It was wise enough to know itself, and brave enough to BE itself, and wild enough to change itself while somehow staying altogether true." ― The Slow Regard of Silent Things