View Full Version : Do barbs actually need help from 1.11?
newerest
30-07-2005, 04:51
I basically think that barbs are the one class that can really not get any better, except maybe singers.
Anyone else agree? : )
Ash Housewares
30-07-2005, 04:56
certain skills or masteries could use slightly better AR bonuses
maximum attack speed could stand to be better than 9 frames
batuchka
30-07-2005, 06:08
I agree with Ash - 4fpa with WW and 9fpa with every other combat skill (cept frenzy) doesn't make sense! Also hopefully Bliz will fix the leap attack bug and make warcries like taunt, howl and battlecry not work like curses and could be stacked. Make barb mercs be able to use any weapon like real barbs and +skill/+barb/+barb tree ect work for them :P Maybe add something really special about the big bad barb like higher %critical strike or %crushing blow/lvl for certain skills? Perhaps this is a long shot but instead of having axe,sword, polearm,etc what about just having close quarters combat mastery (melee) and ranged combat mastery (throw, bow,etc) :P Lastly allow a crafting recipe for barb helms and other class specific items for that matter as i am personally dissapointed that no new crafting recipes were introduced in this patch :(
Zero-unit
30-07-2005, 06:39
All I have to say is, if Life Leech comes back, Wolfbarbs would be the ultimate due to its Feral Rage bonus's.
Dr@kE~
My predictions:
1) WW will be nerfed again. It will start at -200% damage and increase by 2% every 5 slevels. There will be a 250 frame pause between WW animations.
2) BO will be reduced to increasing life by 1% per slvl. BO granted as an oskill will remain at 3% however.
3) A new synergy will be added. For every level in Grim Ward, Increased Stamina will give another +1 light radius.
Doll Call
30-07-2005, 08:33
as it stands there is a widespread belief that off class skills will be pulled (although i dont believe it). so BVCs will be out pretty much. but heh... other classes wont have bo, or tele so thats not so bad. i'd like to see frenzy get souped up, for a skill that grants decent damage, its utterly useless in a pvp situation. also high maximum attack speeds for conc, and zerk wouldnt be bad. bash could also stand to become a useable skill.
Volvagia
30-07-2005, 09:16
My predictions:
1) WW will be nerfed again. It will start at -200% damage and increase by 2% every 5 slevels. There will be a 250 frame pause between WW animations.
2) BO will be reduced to increasing life by 1% per slvl. BO granted as an oskill will remain at 3% however.
3) A new synergy will be added. For every level in Grim Ward, Increased Stamina will give another +1 light radius.
Heh, that's probably the most realistic speculation I've read all night.
What I would like to see though is Frenzy give a defence bonus when used similar to conc. That would help make up for Frenzy barbs being shieldless.
Either improved damage or reduced mana cost for War Cry would be nice...
uzurpator
30-07-2005, 12:30
Every melee class needs a buff. Likewise bow-zons. Frankly - I don't see anyone playing succesful barb untwinked. Maybe, just maybe conc barb or defiant pally stand a chance... Sadly sheld now is not an option, its a necessity :/
Really - when was the last time you saw a party made up mostly of melee chars?
Anyhow - I hope they will make immunities random ^^ that would teach those 1 tree sorcs a lesson :P
Ash Housewares
30-07-2005, 12:49
Every melee class needs a buff. Likewise bow-zons. Frankly - I don't see anyone playing succesful barb untwinked. Maybe, just maybe conc barb or defiant pally stand a chance... Sadly sheld now is not an option, its a necessity :/
Really - when was the last time you saw a party made up mostly of melee chars?
Anyhow - I hope they will make immunities random ^^ that would teach those 1 tree sorcs a lesson :P
I mock you and I mock your shields!
dual wield or die!
Every melee class needs a buff. Likewise bow-zons. Frankly - I don't see anyone playing succesful barb untwinked. Maybe, just maybe conc barb or defiant pally stand a chance... Sadly sheld now is not an option, its a necessity :/
Really - when was the last time you saw a party made up mostly of melee chars?
Anyhow - I hope they will make immunities random ^^ that would teach those 1 tree sorcs a lesson :P
I played many untwinked barbs - some quite sucessfull - wwer and frenzyer namely. They are the easiest to play untwinked. Of cource, wwer was easier than frenzy. Unlike conc barbs, etc which were a pain.
uzurpator
30-07-2005, 15:31
Oh give me a break Ash. I played solely dual wielders since 1.00. I have about 50 or so dual wielders under my belt in every concievable configuration (frieziers, throwers, dual swingers, ww, singers - make your pick) using every weapon you can wield single handed (yes, including wands and javelins).
The point is - that in 1.10 i was unable to comfortably play much above act 2 hell. Yes - with some finesse and constant merc resurrection I could do it - but the game became a chore, not pleasure.
I got as far as hacking the game and trying the "uber lewt itamz" on sp and despite trying every item/skill setup I could imagine I was getting my *** handed over to me on regular basis. Sorry - when a character on lvl 90, with circa 3500 life, 50% dr, max resists, about 3k each hand and 5 fpa dies because of some random boss then something is terribly wrong.
Herald of Doom
30-07-2005, 17:10
A very good frenzy barb can easily get 5k life at least :teeth:
Anyway, I'd like to see warcry get lowered mana costs. Oh, and frenzy shouldnt get defense bonusses, thats against the whole idea of the skill :-/
HoD
uzurpator
30-07-2005, 17:21
Herald.
Gee - then you're gonna die in 3 hits, not two...
Herald of Doom
30-07-2005, 18:12
Herald.
Gee - then you're gonna die in 3 hits, not two...
I've made about... 6 frenzybarbs in 1.10 I think. Not one of them dissapointed me, not in killing speed or survivability. I've used lowend (dual nords) to highend (dual botd) to novelty weapons (daggerbarb with fleshrippers), and even though my first untwinked frenzybarb (my second char on Ladder1, a vengeance pally being the first :)) had some surviving issues in late nightmare, he did fine in hell once I switched out his Earthshaker and his Sureshill Frost for two Nords (making him twinked, but meh). Seriously, the only skill that needs improvement for a barb is warcry if you ask me. OK, if you want to use frenzy in pvp it would need a boost too >.<
HoD
Ash Housewares
30-07-2005, 20:32
I'm pretty happy with their warcry fix already in removing the duration penalty by difficulty
I had frenzy barbs cruising through hell with less than 2500 life, less than 15%DR and less than 1500 damage
Rakanishu
30-07-2005, 21:12
I mock you and I mock your shields!
dual wield or die!Spoken from a TRUE frenzy barb! (Im levling one now! lvl 51, I have delirium and it RULEZ! I have 2 azurewraths on the char and Im gonna dual wield them! Azurefrenzy =P)
Omikron8
30-07-2005, 22:08
I basically think that barbs are the one class that can really not get any better, except maybe singers.
Anyone else agree? : )
When the only chance a barb has of killing solo well in multiplayer (more than one) hell games is to get some insane botd/grief/whatever or stack insane crushing blow, YES something must be wrong. 1.10 resulted in melee builds requiring extreme gear offensively AND defensively (unlike 1.09 where monster damage was a joke) to kill well.
I have a fairly awesome teleport ammy anyway so even if they do take away teleport from enigma, i'd still teleporting only now i actually have to use the gold i get from killing tg'ers.
Superhal
31-07-2005, 01:35
i don't play barbs anymore. i usually don't post here either. i'm quitting the current ladder because i played a barb. the reasons why:
1. barbs continue to get nerfed. the recent nerfs: universal leech factor, no leech on meph, minimal leech on bosses, increased emphasis on AR, itd does not work on bosses. leech nerf is getting insane. if baal was a pvp char, in hell, you could only get like 1/64 of your leech off him.
2. to add insult to injury, barbs are lowered to pally status: mechanics of ww reduced to that of zeal, leap attack/charge uses nearly the same code (as evidenced by the same bug affecting both,) zerk works almost identically in appearance and effect to vengeance. probably more, but these are just the ones i noticed.
3. "useless" skills: if barbs are to be lowered to pally level, why are they required to take all these crappy skills that are essentially useless? for a pally, 1 pt wonder as prereqs include vengeance, charge, smite, etc. For a barb, when has a barb ever, in their lives, used find potion or increased stamina? also, other than concentrate, there is no real group of skill + synergy that can be used concurrently, unlike paladins with say charge + might.
4. ww: the ww-prejudice continues. this is a syndrome i call "double nerfing": if a skill (in any game) is considered "too strong", the skill is nerfed. if the first nerf doesn't solve the problem, additional nerfs are applied until the skill appears appropriate. even if only the last nerf is necessary, all previous nerfs will not be removed. therefore, on top of no synergies and less hits per ww (as compared to .09), ww gets a damage penalty on top of 3/4 wep damage.
5. refusal to admit to a bad idea: weapon masteries and bo, imho, are terrible ideas. because of weapon masteries, barbs are not given substantial ar from any other source. usually, the skill ar + mastery ar is required for minimal results. also, because of BO, all barb builds have -23 skill points to start out with. on top of this, BO doesn't even do that much. at lvl 20, you get a 100% increase. no other skill in the game (for non barbs) only gives a 100% increase per 20 skill points. for barbs, however, 100% per 20 skill points is the norm. so, with masteries + bo, barb builds actually can only use 72 total skill points at lvl 99, 61 at 88, where most people stop.
to have me play barbs again, they would have to do a major overhaul of barbs. they would have to replace or recode the entire masteries tree and half of the warcries tree (cya grim ward) and add a ton of damage to ww, stun, and bash. also, they have to separate barbs from pallys. atm, you can match about 80% of the skills from either to each other, which is just bogus, not to mention the fact that the skills pallys are missing they can get from eq.
[edit] and while i'm ranting, you know what really really irks me? "i LOVE my singer."
wirlwind needs at least one synergy - one of the warcries - maybe battle cry since i don't believe it currently synergises any of the combat skills. i'm reasonably satisfied with everything else
Well something that can make grim ward fun again is to have a rabies affect with terror:
think about it, grim ward sends monsters running, they infect other monsters, and soon everything is running. Now THAT is FEAR. Also, have Battle cry be a synergy to Grim Ward. Monsters infected with Terror will also loose some dmg, some ar, and some def.
Or/and have beserk be a synergy to Grim Ward. All monsters infected with terror take Magic dmg or simply all monsters within the Grim Ward radius receive magic dmg per second.
Grim Ward can be the worst skill in the game or it can be the BADEST skill in the game...like short ranged traps.
That was one hell of a WTF post, Superhal. WW got a boost in 1.10, not a nerf.
Personally, I'd appreciate if they would fix the display bugs with Double Throw, and the problem with AR bonuses on all range attacks (Double Throw being the only bugged skill on barbs in that way).
calibansfury
31-07-2005, 06:39
as it stands there is a widespread belief that off class skills will be pulled (although i dont believe it). so BVCs will be out pretty much. but heh... other classes wont have bo, or tele so thats not so bad. i'd like to see frenzy get souped up, for a skill that grants decent damage, its utterly useless in a pvp situation. also high maximum attack speeds for conc, and zerk wouldnt be bad. bash could also stand to become a useable skill.
Pulling o-skills is the most asinine proposal yet. Then CTA is only good for barbs (and then whats' the point of having any cta with a bo potential of mroe than 3, since 3 would be capped), enigma would only be for sorcs, chaos only for barbs (which can't happen), anything that gives venom only useable by sins, etc, etc. Beast/bearform only for druids? Utterly ridiculous idea, so you're right not to believe it. It's absurd, unless blizz decided they wanted to negate the entire purpose of 90% of the runewords, which was to add dimension and complexity to the game. How much sense would that make?
I think nerfing will happen. I'd (because I'm a barb) would love nothing more than to see cold sorcs go from -resist on cold mastery to +damage like the other trees. Having to stack for both cold AND light for foh's and v/t's is a pain--and ravens doesn't beat the 1337.
calibansfury
uswest ladder
acceleration turkey
31-07-2005, 07:09
some ideas for giving the barb a boost:
1. adding attack speed to masteries a la werewolf might be a good idea.
2. replace increase stamina with some kind of leech mastery or very high regeneration mastery (like +10 regen per level. 200 regen could be interesting for pvm). regeneration would be like warmth, but for life
3. INCREASE FRENZY DURATION TIME!!! why is it STILL only 6 seconds when every other sttack like it has a really long duration?
4. as someone else said, change the max frames on frenzy and also one hand swing skills. especially change 2 handed swing speed. its absurd that frenzy hits at a max of 5 frames when a zealot or druid can hit at 4 frames AND have a shield. as for two handed weapons, if blizz has any interest left in 'broadening' the kind of builds which dominate, they ought to clean up 2 handed weapon swing speeds.
5. allow swing skills like bash, stun, concentrate and berserk to be double swing-style attacks if two weapons are equipped. this would allows people to work 2 weapons worth of special mods into a setup that isnt a 2 handed WW or frenzy setup.
6. i said this a long time ago, and people though it was silly, but ill bring it up again. give the barb an ability, perhaps added to bash or berserk, whereupon the monster dies it is hit so hard it has a chance to break apart, sending bones and debris into other monsters (ie corpse explosion), but in a shockwave pattern (cone). perhaps give bash 1% per level chance of annihilating corpse on killing hit, thereby injuring surrounding monsters and actually leveling the playing field against 6 other classes which can deal AOE damage extremely easily.
7. change warcry damage OR allow weapon mods to factor into the damage, like blade fury. crushing blow, chance to cast amp, elemental damage, etc, in a radial attack.
8. give melee classes in general more options for dealing with physical resistance. add 'physical facets,' or mods which lower physical resist.
9. change battle orders so that the skill starts at +5% and adds 5% per level. this reduces the effectiveness of the complete raping of the class runeword, call to arms, while keeping the overall bonus pretty much the same at higher levels.
10. make leap and leap attack work faster so that they become quasi-teleportation skills. a faster leap attack would also make it worth using as a 2ndary attack.
11. make berserk an ITD attack and make it unblockable like smite. add stun duration with points in stun. considering you have 0 defense, you ought to have better than just a higher than average magic attack.
12. allow a 2 frame WW attack from a fully maxed and fully charged frenzy.
13. make WW an AOE attack.
14. allow the barb to dual weild great poleaxes :clap:
15. change grim ward to "find high rune" :lol:
11. make berserk an ITD attack and make it unblockable like smite. add stun duration with points in stun. considering you have 0 defense, you ought to have better than just a higher than average magic attack.
I`d like to see that happening. I`d also like to see those 10% zerk synergies going to 20-30%; also that white swirl above ya head should act like a curse - overriding other curses.
However, i fear i`ll see something like:
Wihirlwind Receives Bonuses From:
Grim Ward: +1% Damage per Level
Increased Stamina: +1% Damage per Level
Find Potion: +1% Damage per Level
And...14. Also alow barb to double throw Great Poleaxes.
Superhal
31-07-2005, 12:30
haha, 1 whole percent? haha.
more like 2 points per 1%, just like pally res.
haha, 1 whole percent? haha.
more like 2 points per 1%, just like pally res.
No, 1 whole %, 0,5% would give paladins an unfair advantage.
acceleration turkey - i loved these ideas - i can't believe you came up with them all - you should be working on diablo 3 :)
some ideas for giving the barb a boost:
6. i said this a long time ago, and people though it was silly, but ill bring it up again. give the barb an ability, perhaps added to bash or berserk, whereupon the monster dies it is hit so hard it has a chance to break apart, sending bones and debris into other monsters (ie corpse explosion), but in a shockwave pattern (cone). perhaps give bash 1% per level chance of annihilating corpse on killing hit, thereby injuring surrounding monsters and actually leveling the playing field against 6 other classes which can deal AOE damage extremely easily.
great idea - add it to bash only, as an incentive for people to use the skill. berserk is powerful enough.
7. change warcry damage OR allow weapon mods to factor into the damage, like blade fury. crushing blow, chance to cast amp, elemental damage, etc, in a radial attack.
i say just increase the damage from synergies. 10%? 12%? 15%? I say weapon damage mods having an affect somewhat takes away from it being a caster spell.... i mean, it is almost a chance to build a barb like a sorc, which is kinda unique
8. give melee classes in general more options for dealing with physical resistance. add 'physical facets,' or mods which lower physical resist.
how about critical strike and deadly strike can stack as an alternative solution - that would add another element to equipment considerations
9. change battle orders so that the skill starts at +5% and adds 5% per level. this reduces the effectiveness of the complete raping of the class runeword, call to arms, while keeping the overall bonus pretty much the same at higher levels.
i say take away the ability of character to have skills from another class. it takes away the uniqueness of that character.
11. make berserk an ITD attack and make it unblockable like smite. add stun duration with points in stun. considering you have 0 defense, you ought to have better than just a higher than average magic attack.
why does everyone act like berserk is underpowered? it is a barb's best skill in my opinion :)
one of your two options would be enough - both would make the skill too godly i think (but we do need faster attack rates like you mentioned!).
13. make WW an AOE attack.
how would this work?
14. allow the barb to dual weild great poleaxes :clap:
what a retard :P
15. change grim ward to "find high rune" :lol: this is actually a good idea.... except that it would upset the balance of the characters i fear. everyone would be barbs hehe. would it be passive, or would it work on corpses? like find item/find potion.
No, 1 whole %, 0,5% would give paladins an unfair advantage.
guys seriously. wirlwind needs a synergy like 10% damage per level from Battle Cry
BananaPancakes
31-07-2005, 18:52
no way think about it, 10% will definitly(sp) make ww unfair
newerest
31-07-2005, 20:11
WW barbs are so powerful now because, the barb can use his left over skills into other skills, like shout and grim ward.
I agree with most of what Turkey said. Especially about the extra speed for Leap/Leap attack, the Frenzy speed counting for Whirlwind, and the dual polearms thing.
I think they should make Whirlwind barbs able to attack with downward swords. Like daggers. (I'm picturing Blade)
I also think they should make a Fist Mastery. Sort of like monks. Give damage to gloves like they do for boots and assassins. Maybe allowing Frenzy with dual fists. Maybe add Barbarian-only gloves with special mods for the extra mods Barbs are missing from regular weapons.
WW barbs are so powerful now because, the barb can use his left over skills into other skills, like shout and grim ward.
not everyone has godly runewords to make ww incredibly powerful. that's why i make berserkers
Superhal
01-08-2005, 01:20
afaik, all skills that do the 3/4 penalty don't have synergies (strafe, multishot.) this makes sense in that being penalized like that indicates a strong desire to penalize it.
i can understand that. but, no other skill starts out at -25 damage ON TOP of the 3/4 wep damage. the only other skill that i know of that starts out negative is jab.
that's just stupid. they should just take it away.
Superhal
01-08-2005, 01:21
not everyone has godly runewords to make ww incredibly powerful. that's why i make berserkers
godly items can make punch viable. don't sweat it.
acceleration turkey
01-08-2005, 03:09
@ slam: the barb is the only character who must individually swing and hit monsters. every other class has skills which can hit an unlimted number of monsters. warcry doesnt do any damage and doesnt carry any weapon mods. so, make WW an AOE attack, meaning whatever monsters are in range have a chance to be hit, even if there are 10 monsters in range. considering WW damage is well below meteor damage, i dont see why the skill should cost the same amount of mana and only hit one target at a time. any monster within range should be subject to a target check. you can still limit the frames to 4, but have a limitless cap on targets.
Whirlwind also happens to be the only 2-frame attack... (Not exactly, but close enough).
sirmessbu
01-08-2005, 06:16
I would love to be able to dual wield shield on my barbs.
To have some sort or shield mastery.
Imagine WW with 2 shield stunning opponents on the way and hitting them with the edge cutting a way threw creatures.
Now that could make a great tank. People that plays as team would love a singing WW dual shield barb.
Wow, i was just thinking the same thing a couple of days ago.
Dual shields with shield mastery that adds to Max block, dmg from shields, and is itd. ww with dual shields, sweet.
acceleration turkey
01-08-2005, 09:34
Whirlwind also happens to be the only 2-frame attack... (Not exactly, but close enough).
i thought kicks and strafe were 2 frames, but maybe they are 3.
afaik, all skills that do the 3/4 penalty don't have synergies (strafe, multishot.) this makes sense in that being penalized like that indicates a strong desire to penalize it.
i can understand that. but, no other skill starts out at -25 damage ON TOP of the 3/4 wep damage. the only other skill that i know of that starts out negative is jab.
that's just stupid. they should just take it away.
There isn`t a 3/4 weapon dmg penalty for ww.
When the only chance a barb has of killing solo well in multiplayer (more than one) hell games is to get some insane botd/grief/whatever or stack insane crushing blow, YES something must be wrong. 1.10 resulted in melee builds requiring extreme gear offensively AND defensively (unlike 1.09 where monster damage was a joke) to kill well.
Doesn`t seem wrong to me. All other chars need extreme gear to solo well in hell multiplayer.
i thought kicks and strafe were 2 frames, but maybe they are 3.You're right; strafe is a real 2-frame follow-up, but it suffers from a 4-frame next-delay (but it pierces). It is also ranged, thus nerfing the CB/OW effects.
Kicks are 3-frame follow-up at the fastest, and have horrible damage on top of that.
Both have a slower initial attack (which seems to line up somewhat with the "normal" attack speeds), which slows down the average speed. The only thing WW is missing is the CTC on striking.
AdunaCCDanimoth
01-08-2005, 14:31
If 1.11 comes out today, that means I'll have to update my Bowbarb guide again.
:(
nineinchtool
01-08-2005, 18:17
Not to be a troll but I just kinda doubt 1.11 will be out today cause i dont wanna get my hopes up but if it does im gonna jump around my room like a school girl screaming yippie skippy :lol:
I think that there should be a good leech for barbs and fix the weapons masteries.
Not to be a troll but I just kinda doubt 1.11 will be out today cause i dont wanna get my hopes up but if it does im gonna jump around my room like a school girl screaming yippie skippy :lol:
Start hoppin'. :jig:
AdunaCCDanimoth
01-08-2005, 23:02
If 1.11 comes out today, that means I'll have to update my Bowbarb guide again.
:(
damn....
[edited]
nineinchtool
01-08-2005, 23:06
God damn....
Theres not much to redo i mean not much changed....
I'm going through the list of updates and they're mostly bug fixes. It's a very minor patch, and I doubt game mechanics were changed much. We'll have to wait and see, I guess.
AdunaCCDanimoth
01-08-2005, 23:32
You are right of course, tools.
Thats right, Barbs. The Mangudai: Whipping rear since .09!
no balance changes - what a waste of a thread :(
batuchka
02-08-2005, 18:26
Wished that barb armor r/w was applicable to helms/barb helms :/
newerest
02-08-2005, 19:51
Well, barbs got a huge boost from this patch. (Marrows being patched :mad: )
memememe173
03-08-2005, 00:39
Either improved damage or reduced mana cost for War Cry would be nice...
IE: The only thing that would make me play the game again.
The only way 1.11 (or any other patch) would interest me and get me to start from scratch (again) is if Singer was reasonably powerful.
I did the weak, getting wtfs from everyone in 1.09 and 1.10 and I'm just not that interested in doing it again.
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