Barbarian is up!!!

[The Little Raven]

Its sole purpose is to enable the nova that every other class can do for free.

Which is a balance for the fact that ALL of their dailies provide an encounter-length effect on top of a daily-level attack power, unlike every other class.

Brute Strike - 3[W] + Str damage. Reliable.
Swift Panther Rage - 3[W] + Str damage. Also gain a +2 to speed, and be able to shift 2 squares as a move action for the rest of the encounter.

That bonus is frakkin' awesome.

 

[Zsig]

Ok, sorry about my rambling... but here I go again.

I think (now, after reading this thread) they should just scratch this Rage Strike altogether.

I got 3 reasons.

1) Unnecessary: there's really no need for this feature to be there. You could simply make an exception to the "Effect" clause on the barb's dailies to allow you whether activating another daily would change your current rage state. This way you'd use another Rage Attack and decide whether you want or not to be under the effects of the second Rage, or keep the first one.

On the same note, they (the designers) should focus on encouraging you to spend your dailies throughout the encounters, and not all of them in the same one. Barbarians got plenty of stuff that gets better when you're raging, which means, they'd work better if you spend them between encounters.

2) Confusing: many people won't understand the feature. Many here didn't. I keep hearing that 4E simplificates the game, where in fact I had no real problem with 3.X when it came to rules, honestly. But if you claim that your new system is gonna simplificate things, you gotta stand up for it. I had a really hard time explaining my players stuff like Healing Surges vs. Second Wind, Bursts vs. Blasts, even milestones, Warlocks/Rangers contraditory mechanics (Prime Shot vs. Mark/Quarry). The barbarian has lots of stuff like that that's overcomplicated for no reason.

3) Misleading: Rage Strike looks like one thing, where it isn't. It looks like a "neat" feature that adds more power to you, or at that least that's what it seems when you read "at-will" written on it, where in fact it's just a tool to fix a problem... that IMO doesn't even exist.

 

[The Little Raven]

Um, same thing. If they can't use Rage Strike until 5th Level, they would be minus 1 at will power until 5th Level. So technically, they'd have only 1.

Sorry I wasn't as clear as I could have been. Looking at the sample build given, they have given them two at-will powers, neither of which is Rage Strike, so it seems they get two at-wills and one situational at-will for a total of three.

 

[balard]

I think that the barbarian is VERY good. Maybe broken, but i think that the ranger already is anyway... It really make me wants to buy the PHB2(but being a pdf makes the whole DDI thing a no-no for me)

About the rage strike, it took me 10 seconds to guess its function. But in the real book, they have to word it better, and explain the finality(if you want to go nova like everyone else, you can. Rage Strike to the death). But i have a suggestion. Rage Strike modifies the rage, add some damage(like +1/2|W|), and negates every other detail of the power. This way, every rage has two mode: high damage and stance-like effects for the encounter, or very high damage. And its useful from the first level onwards

 

[Andor]

What? Everyone gets 2 at-will powers, and the Barbarian looks to be no different. The only problem is that Rage Strike is so situational that it won't be useful at all until 5th level, but I suspect that the feedback they'll get on it will get them to fix up that error. Perhaps they'll add a Rage ability that puts you into a rage without granting any particular bonuses, so you can use Rage Strike from 1st level.

Rage strike is a class feature, not one of his chosen at-will powers.

I wonder about his damage potential since he's the first striker we've seen that has no floating damage bonus like the curse or sneak attack.

Otoh he's tough, and seems to have an absurd number of ways to knock people down, almost controllerish that way.

The Rage strike furor shows a weakness of the 4e writing style where nothing is explained. If they just told us that it's a mechanic to allow the Barb to spam dailies like everyone else can there wouldn't be all this confusion.

I do think that the Barbarian is going to find MCing into fighter in order to pick up stances very attractive.

Thunderfury Rage (15 daily) needs some editing. They should either pull the healing keyword, or actually give it some healing.

 

[Stalker0]

I'm going to do a summary of what I've seen on the threads so far.

1) The chainmail must have problem. The reality is chainmail does seem like a gimey feat right now, which means the balance of the class around low AC is flawed.

Solution: Class Ability: "Natural Toughness". Can add Con to AC instead of dex or Int. Does not stack with heavy armors.

2) Rage Strike encounters novaing. The big question here is, and the one that needs the most playtesting, how good are barbarians when they aren't raging? I agree that Rage Strike encourages novaing in that if I'm another class and I use two dailies in a fight, the effect is just as good as if I use them in seperate fights for the most part. But rage strike gives an extra benefit in terms of damage. Now people can argue how useful that benefit is back and forth, but newer players are going to see that, and they are going to want to blow their dailies for big damage, and then they are going to want to rest.

3) Barbarian at-will powers are too good for multiclassing. I actually don't think so on this one. Howling Strike is no twin strike in my opinion. If the rogue takes it, he's having to use a strength attack instead of a dex attack, so he suffers a bit there. And...as others have mentioned paragon multiclassing kind of blows right now. So if I'm giving up paragon paths for barbarian at-wills....is that really a problem?

3) No ability to rage without dailies. I agree there should be a mechanic to allow rage without dailies. I would say when they are bloodied is easiest enough. It lets the barbarian rage for some general benefits, but doesn't give him the power of the daily rages.

4) Striker with defender hitpoints. I absolutely applaud this. I do NOT want the classes to become so straightjacketed by rules that we sacrifice good class design for conformity. This was the problem with monsters in 3e, writers found it hard to make good monsters that had to conform to the formula.

Now I'm not saying the barbarian is currently balanced with defender HP, but I'm sure it could be. But I do not want roles to become the tomb for good class design, and I'm pleased to see WOTC is willing to push the envelope a bit on this one.

 

[1of3]

The most simple way to solve the Rage Strike confusion would be to directly include it in every description of a Rage power.

For first level:
Effect: You enter the [CREATURE] rage. (...) You can choose not the enter [CREATURE] rage, when you are raging already.


For higher levels:
Effect: You can either deal +x[W] damage (half on miss) with this power or enter the [CREATURE] rage. (...)


(This formulation would allow to take the extra damage without raging first, but that's OK with me.)

 

[Jack99]

Does anyone know if the playtest document will be updated with any changes during the testing period (or at least until the end of this month, where the full issue of eDragon will come out), or will we be "stuck" with this version until March?

 

[IncompleteUserNa]

The most simple way to solve the Rage Strike confusion would be to directly include it in every description of a Rage power.

For first level:
Effect: You enter the [CREATURE] rage. (...) You can choose not the enter [CREATURE], when you are raging already.


For higher levels:
Effect: You can either deal +x[W] damage (half on miss) with this power or enter the [CREATURE] rage. (...)


(This formulation would allow to take the extra damage without raging first, but that's OK with me.)

Making it an effect isn't exactly what you're going for since effects apply whether the attack hits or misses, but I like the idea of scrapping Rage Strike and rolling it into the powers, i.e tack something like this onto the end:


Special: If you are already raging when you use this evocation, you can instead make an attack that deals x[W] damage (miss: half damage). You do not gain the benefits of this evocation's effect or end the effect of your current rage.

 

[Jack99]

4) Striker with defender hitpoints. I absolutely applaud this. I do NOT want the classes to become so straightjacketed by rules that we sacrifice good class design for conformity. This was the problem with monsters in 3e, writers found it hard to make good monsters that had to conform to the formula.

Now I'm not saying the barbarian is currently balanced with defender HP, but I'm sure it could be. But I do not want roles to become the tomb for good class design, and I'm pleased to see WOTC is willing to push the envelope a bit on this one.

I just wanted to second this. I really do not understand why people want every single class of the same type to be so much alike. If diversity is possible without sacrifizing balance, then by all means, let's have it!