How's the barbarian beta working out?

[Felon]

OK, a lot of folks are saying the class is a blast to play. My concern is it's a bit too much of a blast. Just looking over the class, here are some concerns:

1) Rage Strike: The amount of damage it can unload by burning up a daily is out of porportion with what any other striker can spring. And it's an at-will, so the barbarian can just pump one out until he's empty. Why is this not an encounter power?

2) Daily Powers: Apparently the designers thought that in order to make the decision to burn a daily for rage strike a painful one, they made daily powers incredibly good. The logic looks to be sort of "two wrongs make a right". The dailies do top-tier damage up front, and in addition have an effect that can last the rest of the battle. Again, the issue is that this just looks better than the dailies I'm seeing in other classes (strikers or what have you).

3) In general, heaps of damage is lathered onto every attack unconditionally, making for a much better deal than the conditional damage bonus provided by curse, quarry, or sneak attack. I've seen rangers, rogues, and (especially) warlocks have to do without their bonuses often enough to not think the extra damage is a given. But with the barb, it is.

 

[Spatula]

So? Commander's Strike lets an ally use a basic attack. If the ally has a power that he can substitute for a basic attack, then he should be able to use it as well. The warlord readying for the barbarian to make his attack allows the condition for using Howling Strike.

Howling Strike still isn't a basic attack though, it's used instead of one: "When charging, you can use this power in place of a melee basic attack."

 

[Felon]

OK, forget the Howling Strike thing. Let's talk about the barbarian class in play.

 

[fba827]

I made up one as a backup character but never got to actually use it (my primary, the swordmage, got used instead). But while I was making it up, I did notice there was a lot to keep track of -- this was both a good and bad for me.

Con: lots of situation modifiers to keep track of (am I raging, am I bloodied, am I charging, etc)
Pro: the various modifiers allowed for more varied tactics, not just between battles and terrain but over the course of a single encounter it encouraged you to keep changing depending on what your status was -- and I do like variety in tactics!

as said, i didn't get to actually play with it beyond writing it up, but from what i saw on the final PC sheet, even the really big heavy hitters for the barbarian were at the cost of other things (sacrificing other powers or what not), plus the defenses for it were medium to low depending on how I put the ability scores -- and for someone who will be in melee a lot, that more often puts him at the reciving end of a hit.

 

[evilgenius8000]

Despite his defense being low, the barbarian can somewhat make up for it with his high hit points and # of surges. Also, many rages provide some sort of defensive bonus, like one which gives you resist all equal to 5 + your Con mod.

 

[Caliban]

I've seen several in play in LFR, and they are a lot of fun for the people playing them. However, they tend to make the other strikers feel a bit weak in comparison. (It doesn't help that 2 of the 3 the new races introduced in Dragon Magazin - all LFR legal now - seem custom made to be barbarians.)

Most LFR barbarians have spent their feats on better armor and a superior weapon, since their str and con tend to be so high. So their AC tends to be on par with other strikes, or even a little above in some cases.

I think they are a good class, but need to be toned down just a bit so they don't overshadow the other striker classes.

 

[Felon]

Despite his defense being low, the barbarian can somewhat make up for it with his high hit points and # of surges. Also, many rages provide some sort of defensive bonus, like one which gives you resist all equal to 5 + your Con mod.

Well, I've discovered that having lots of surges with no way to tap into them during combat doesn't help so much. But what the barb really has going for him are oodles of ways to get temp hit points--that's proactive, surge-free healing!

 

[fba827]

Most LFR barbarians have spent their feats on better armor and a superior weapon, since their str and con tend to be so high. So their AC tends to be on par with other strikes, or even a little above in some cases.

I think they are a good class, but need to be toned down just a bit so they don't overshadow the other striker classes.

There was a post on the WotC news section (I'll look for the link later) where they gave a couple things that they learned from feedback on barbarians.

One of them was a statement about how they will give the barbarians some sort of feature that will "encourage them" to stay in light armor so that you don't end up with a bunch of barbs running around in plate.

There was also something about how the bonus striker damage wouldn't be built-in to the powers since that makes multiclassing too good with other strikers (whose bonus striker damage is more conditional but as is would be too easy to stack the damage repeatedly)

I remember there was one or two more things, but I don't recall exactly what it was (something about clarifying rages but I don't remember the specifics)

Anyway, about 2.5 more months until it gets released in book form

 

[Cadfan]

Regarding Felon's post number 11:

1. The barbarian actually can't use Rage Strike that often. You have to be raging, and then you have to spend a rage. Even if you burn all of your daily attacks in one fight, that's only two rage strikes until you reach level 20. Three with gear, I suppose. And each one costs you the ability to rage in a future fight, which is a big, big deal.

Plus, as far as damage calculations go, I ran a few when the barbarian came out. The barbarian's damage with a level 5 rage strike came out to about equal with my brutal rogue's damage using Deep Cut (barbarian won unless the Deep Cut victim failed his save, or had a lower fort than AC by about 2, in which case the rogue pulled ahead). I gave them both similar feats, gear, and ability scores. I didn't do every level, but it did at least provide me with a gut check.

2. I don't think its easy to compare barbarian dailies to other classes dailies. Other strikers so far have bonus damage effects. The rogue has his sneak attack damage, and the ranger has his hunter's quarry, etc. These are "always on" effects that improve damage. The barbarian doesn't have these. Instead he has rages. So what you're seeing with his dailies is that they aren't only a daily attack, they've also got a class ability folded into them.

3. The damage is a given- if you're raging. My level 8 PCs go through 3 to 5 encounters in a given combat heavy day. By definition, an equal leveled barbarian would be spending 1 to 3 encounters without his rage. Without his rage, he's got the damage of a fighter, but without any marking and with a terrible AC.

There are a few barbarian powers that I think are questionable, but overall I think they work out.

 

[Caliban]

Part of what makes Barbarians seems to overshadow other strikers is the extra attacks they get.

1 extra attack if they crit (can come up multiple times a fight)
1 extra charge attack if they drop someone

I've seen a barbarian get both those extra attacks in addition to their normal one in a single round. (And then the barbarian action pointed, got anther attack from the Bravura warlord presence, and then warlord gave the barb another attack on the warlords turn... 6 attacks over the course of one round - and a barbarians basic attack is nothing to sneeze at. Between my minotaur bravura warlord and the minotaur barbarian the bad guys didn't have a chance in that particular combat.)