Hey everyone. To help diversify the Barbarian Guild I'm eager to change up the stat contests a bit. How does this look:


Anger (-Balance) : Fear v Reflex

Embrace: (-Attack) : Fear v Fortitude
Rage: (-Evasion) : Power v Willpower
Screech: (-Discipline/Reflex) : Power v Fortitude

Hiss: (Enemies flee) : Fear vs Willpower
Strike: (Stun/knockdown) : Power vs Reflex
Lash: (Magic Skill/Interrupt): Fear vs Fortitude

Wail: (Immobilize) : Fear vs Fortitude
Torment: (Lose Mana) : Fear vs Willpower
Slash: (-Hiding) : Power vs Reflex
Shriek: (-Shield, kneel) : Power vs Willpower

Berserk Earthquake: : Power vs Reflex


Power attacks use strength, stamina and discipline, which probably fit the Guild better overall.

Fear will continue to use charisma, strength and discipline.

Finesse would use agility, reflex and intelligence... and just doesn't seem to fit.

A Fear or Willpower barrier would still be disruptive. But you'd have ways to get around it.


I'm also thinking of re-introducing Weighted Justice. This would cause held weapons and shields to fall AtFeet, and the user would be unable to pick them up for a few seconds. Seeing as how armworn shields and parry sticks make this less-useful in PvP, I'd also request it prevent retreating for the duration. A cooldown would prevent it from becoming an i-win button. Not sure what kind of contest fits though.

I am going to propose changes to how Serenity works:

* Cyclic spells will only drain IF on the first hit, and then never again
* We'll limit how often the IF drain can happen and review the magnitude of the drain
* Serenity will no longer drop if you roar. Roars will be 33% harder and use 20% more voice pool however.
* If your IF level drops to below 1000, it will enter "cooldown". In this state it is 50% as effective, no longer consumes IF and no longer penalizes roars. Intended to prevent all of your abilities suddenly dropping after a large onslaught.


Contemplate:

Drop Armor in favor of Debilitation skill ?


Also thinking of proposing a new intro predator berserk:

Berserk Pestilence - TM Barrier. If the TM spell matrix is broken, it increases your IF. This can only occur once ever so often to prevent walking into goblin shaman and "powering up" :P



Berserks:

Add an option to delay their statup, in exchange for reduced IF usage.


Meditations:

Add an option to speed up their startup, in exchange for increased IF usage.


Anyhow, I'm open to suggestions on this. Please let me know what you think...

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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

<<What is 'IF level 1000'?

It's the numerical value of IF you have remaining. E.g. Using made up numbers that I don't actually have any clue about, let's say your max IF pool contains 4,000 points of IF. Using Serenity would cause that to drain 800 points of IF every time it resists a spell. After 4 spells have been resisted, costing you 3200 IF, you would have 800 points of IF remaining which is below the 1000 point threshold required for Serenity to maintain full effectiveness. Serenity would then be 50% less effective at resisting, further resisted spells would also no longer drain IF, and your roars would no longer be penalized until you regain IF above the 1000 point threshold at which point all of those would go back to Serenity's normal effects.

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>I wonder why roars contest reflex instead of discipline? Maybe it is better for the guild admittedly I know little about how other guilds train, if so please disregard...

You covered your ears. :p

The idea is that if all the roars contest willpower, Barbarians are nerfed against anyone with a willpower barrier.

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>Forgive my snark, but welcome to the life of a warrior mage.

>Roars do have a physical component. Sound is physical :)

>SvS contests are use to diversify the types of attacks beyond Attack Skill and Defender Skill. NMUs and MUs both have abilities that contest stats. In choosing which stats to use, we take into consideration the types of attacks available, logic and game balance.


Everything is physical :p good luck evading sound though..

I wish that things were simpler, we only need about 4 roars really, pass or fail, with a random factor thrown in. Make the rest up with berserks, forms, and meditations. Would help with guild identity, it is starting to feel like a bunch of the same thing with different descriptors a bit. At least the new guidelines seem to be forcing that way.

Touche.. although I don't think that would be available to humans at least. Maybe S'kra or something. And I meant everything that we can see, hear, etc is physical, ugh, please no philosophy discussion tonight :)

>> I just enjoyed previously as a barb not having to understand what every other guild was doing, it was just go and fight. It seemed barb-ish. <<

You still can. This is an OOC discussion, so as a real live human being you are informed on game mechanics.

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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 - Looks solid across the board. Berserk Pestilence, berserk startup, and Med startup stuff looks neat also.

Samsaren

Just a reminder, these are ideas I'm planning to propose if the players seem on board with them... not approved yet or being worked on.

>>Any chance for us to get some DFA love?

Maybe. I'm considering a jump-attack sort of thing that contests Expertise skill. Perhaps uses some IF and has a short cooldown?

>>Also, since some of this stuff is pretty sweeping, any chance on ability wipes once it's released?

I would time it to coincide with the release of Mastery selections, so yes a wipe probably makes sense.

>>Lastly, I'd like to see Contemplation be maybe a shield and mentals buff (disc?) and tornado be some kind of damage-inducing berserk and stamina bonus.

I want the shield buff to be harder to get/use than parry/evasion. That is why I included it as a berserk. But adding a mental buff to contemplation might be OK instead of armor or expertise skill. Really wish we could do more with the Armor skillset...

>>As for the meditation and zerk startup changes, is it going to be like khri delay and not cost slots?

Correct. I wouldn't make it cost slots.

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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

>>Really wish we could do more with the Armor skillset...<<

What about making Contemplation a discipline booster and an armor hindrance reducer? Maybe make it sort of like how thieves have a khri to lower stealth hindrance, our meditation could lower evasion hindrance.

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

The thing is, this is a fantasy game, so physics works in some situations, but not others. I think pysics works overall fine in the natural scope of DR. Anything supernatural (including barb stuff) likely would work differently, hence fantasy. Also, it is a misconception of our barbarian lore that our guild is full of morons (including the guild leaders) who just Hulk smash.

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

>>How do you shake the ground like that and cause damage etc without magic?

Inner Magic is a poorly understood topic, since only two guilds exist in civilization that practices it, one that believes the scientific method is an Elothean sword maneuver and the other that literally kills scholars dead for trying to investigate their secrets.

What little is known is that there is an anti-magic power source, ostensibly called the Inner Flame, that can affect limited subversion of reality. It's not magical in the technical sense (it does not involve the manipulation of mana, its practitioners do not undergo Attunement, etc.), but it's certainly "magical" in the sense that it does something that the uninitiated consider impossible in their understanding of the world.

Creating the subversion seems to require either a strong emotional prompt or an altered state of consciousness. Some scholars have pointed out that this is frighteningly similar to what happens to a magician who is casting a sorcery, but no distinct relationship has been formed.

-Armifer
"In our days truth is taken to result from the effacing of the living man behind the mathematical structures that think themselves out in him, rather than he be thinking them." - Emmanuel Levinas

Seconded. Love Armifer's peeks into the lore of it all.

Caraamon is a sorcerer of molten mysticism. He moves in mysterious ways.

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

>>Contemplate: Drop Armor in favor of Debilitation skill ?

I like the armor boost myself. Tribalist already boosts Debilitation. I'm not a PvPer yet though so I'll go along to get along.

Rhadyn da Dwarb - Blood for fire!

I like having an armor boost. Id rather it were maneuvering hindrance, though. Maybe maneuvering hindrance and disc. At that point, brig would feel a little more usable.

I just want to caveat that my opinions are just that and I put them out there not because I am upset really or that I dont like a lot of things about the guild but that those that are doing the hard work might find something they like with them and use something of it in future design decisions.. I am just one player amongst many after all. This is pretty much the only game I play and it is a hobby of mine to think about stuff that maybe only gms should really be bothering with worrying about. I personally would rather have a guild that is competitive than wait around for a major game change, in that sense I think my posts may have been misplaced in this thread. Thanks for all the work it is appreciated! :)

I don't like the proposed change to Contemplation. I do like the variation in stat contests.

It will be nice to have an ability to block TM (assuming it is powerful enough), but I'd prefer if it were added to one of our existing berserks. The IF system makes it difficult to have many abilities active, so I'm wary of spreading buffs and wards out. Maybe add it to landslide?

I'd like to suggest two other straightforward things that can be done to improve barbarian performance:
1. Revisit our circle requirements. One of the problems in PvP is that we're often matched with folks within a range of ranks - not circles. Therefore, we're often facing opposition with 20 more circles, and the stat contests are therefore unbalanced. The primary justification for our difficult weapon rank req's was the lack of magic training required. Obviously, that justification is no longer accurate, so why didn't our weapon rank req's shift accordingly?

2. Mastery cost reduction. 4 slots for our masteries is too much, especially when the IF system basically requires you to have them. A design goal was to give us difficult choices in abilities, but currently we're faced with the less desirable choice of whether to have abilities or be able to use them.

Also, has there been any discussion of improving IF usage and regeneration based on stats?

Any feedback from the powers that be on the roar contest changes?

sev·er·al
/ˈsev(ə)rəl/
determiner & pronoun
1.more than two but not many.

Here's to hoping...

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