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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Duelpersonality" data-source="post: 4496700" data-attributes="member: 64706">ThoughtsGarglemesh but you guys are quick.  Only got through the first two pages here, so cut me some slack if I'm bringing up "old" points. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />HP:  I strongly disagree with giving a striker class the HP of a defender, barbarian or no.  The build they gave us gets temporary HP for dropping foes- something I don't think the barbarian will have any trouble with-and there's an at-will that drops temporary HP as well, so why give the extra HP?At-will powers:  I don't mind the damage and effectiveness of the barbarian at-will powers because of the lack of an "extra damage" striker ability.  I do not count Rage Strike, as it requires the expenditure of a resource that is in very short supply, unlike sneak attack, hunter's quarry and warlock's curse.  If they keep the set-up the same, the at-wills are fine.Rage Strike:  This feature is a hidden break in the class design philosophy that the designers talked about all through the previews for 4E:  all classes will get all class features at level 1.  Granted, Rage Strike is available at level one, but is completely useless until level 5 and doesn't really become a consistently useful ability until level 9.  At most, Rage Strike can be used twice in a day (and only then if the barbarian expends all three daily powers in one encounter).  I'll have to see it in play, but as it stands I don't like it.Rage mechanic:  Different rages behaving much like stances seems pretty good on paper.  I would actually prefer rage to be the barbarian's extra damage ability, conferring extra damage once per round at some penalty, but I'll play around with this and see how it works out.General focus on killing the life out of everything:  "The howling savage sends the corpse of his enemy flying, carries his swing onto the next doomed opponent, then charges through the fracas to deliver a decisive blow against the enemy commander."  Imagine this: a rageblood barbarian scores a critical hit which also kills the target, allowing him to make a melee basic attack against another target and then charge and use an at-will power without provoking OAs.  Oh yeah, and he gains a fair amount of temporary hit points on top of that.  All of that in a single standard action (or even a minor action if it's a dragonborn scoring a crit and kill with his breath weapon).  This right here says barbarian to me-a screaming death machine plowing through the front lines to charge frothing at the mouth at the biggest target.  Fun times.Overall:  I'm still a bit worried about how raging in general will play out, and specifically worried that Rage Strike will be a completely unused feature of the class.  The defender HP on a striker bothers me a lot, especially given that there's an at-will power that grants temporary hit points.  The flavor of some of the other features (Rampage, the Swift Charge power) are wonderful, and I can't wait to try them out.  As it stands, I'm extremely nervous about the designers changing up the general guidelines that the current classes have set down and what it could mean in the way of power creep in the PHB2.  But I so want to rage, kill things, and go charging into the fray with no regard to my own safety!</blockquote>

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