Barbarian is up!!!

[Mouseferatu]

Wow. Some of those high-level rages are just... Wow.

To say nothing of being automatic minion killers...

 

[ppaladin123]

WAIT A FREAKIN' SECOND.

Look at "Rage Strike".

Requirement: You must be raging and have at least one unused rage power.

Which means you can't even use it until 5th level, because in order to "Rage", you must use a daily power, and still have a daily power left over.

Yeah. There would be no reason to use it though anyway...the level one rages are all standard actions that do 3[W] +Str damage and half on a miss + confer some extra ability. Why use "Rage Strike" at all then?

 

[LightPhoenix]

Man, Thunder Hawk Rage is brutal! Knock an adjacent enemy prone each turn as a free action, with no apparent save? That definitely seems like it needs an attack roll at least.

 

[Rechan]

Yeah. There would be no reason to use it though anyway...the level one rages are all standard actions that do 3[W] +Str damage and half on a miss + confer some extra ability. Why use "Rage Strike" at all then?

Because Rage Strike is an at-will ability. Here's how it's supposed to go down.

Round X: Use daily rage power, make the hit. You have a benefit going.
Round Y: Use Rage Strike to do mondo damage each round.
Round Z: Profit.

 

[LightPhoenix]

Yeah. There would be no reason to use it though anyway...the level one rages are all standard actions that do 3[W] +Str damage and half on a miss + confer some extra ability. Why use "Rage Strike" at all then?

Most of the higher level rages seem to do less damage than Rage Strike confers.

 

[mattdm]

I like the Rampage class feature — crits are extra-cool for barbarians.

My first impression of the Rage Strike feature (use up one of your dailies for a kinda flavorless attack that does a lot of damage) is kinda negative. I guess it gives you something to do if you 1) know the adventuring day is drawing to an end and 2) you have a lot of dailies left and 3) the encounter is almost over so the rest-of-the-encounter effects of the regular daily powers are less useful.

Raging in general is pretty good, though — I like the various options rather than one-rage-fits-all.

And sheesh, the at-will powers are awesome, and made even better while raging.

I wonder if the multiclass feat for barbarian will give some ability to rage. It's kinda a shame they haven't included those in these playtest articles.

 

[Asmor]

I want to play a barbarian now.

Well, actually, I want to find a game to play in.

But when I do, I want to play a barbarian...

Hella cool.

 

[Shroomy]

WAIT A FREAKIN' SECOND.

Look at "Rage Strike".

Requirement: You must be raging and have at least one unused rage power.

Which means you can't even use it until 5th level, because in order to "Rage", you must use a daily power, and still have a daily power left over.

Nope, it took me a couple of readings, but it appears that Rage Strike is poorly worded. You have to have a daily power available for rage strike to work. Basically, you expend a daily power, you gain rage strike until the rage ends.

 

[catsclaw227]

Well, the purpose of this preview of the Barbarian is so that everyone can beat it up and post about it's good and bad. I just hope that WOTC takes care and keeps it's eyes on all the Barbarian threads that will pop up online.

How much time do you think they have to make tweaks before they cross the point of no return?

 

[Rechan]

With regards to Frost Wolf's Rage, the effect says "Before the attack, the target can make a melee basic attack against you. If it does, you do 1[w] more cold damage".

I wonder if the target understands that if they make the attack, you do more damage.