Barbarian v2.0: "Make you a sword of me!"

[DestroyerOTN]

I'm going to agree with Cortex here.

Even assume the biteback does stack, you're finding yourself throwing out a mestil's scroll for only a total of 28 average biteback; and mestil's doesn't last all too long!

Plus, there's definitely a silent beg there for something besides vampric regen. Any chance at a much smaller passive regen while raging? Some bonus damage/massive crits too, maybe.

I like the rage in concept, though. It certainly makes me think of killer bloodlust.

EDIT:
As for the fatigue, I don't wholly like the lasting AC drain; nor do I like the idea of cutting CON - It's the only asset of the new-age Barb build. Strength might be more fitting in concept, and would leave a definite downside without leaving the class entirely winded for capability.

[Mithreas]

Feedback welcome once barbarians have actually started testing it out...

[DestroyerOTN]

lawl

[Kuma]

just as an fyi, mith, you can only nest three quotes within themselves, so pace your next response

[Chelomo]

I'm not even going to try to get involved in the balance discussion, I think Mith has made clear his position on the matter, but I have an idea that could be neat.

Why not make rage modular through a menu, like how warlock abilities used to be? (Where you would have to choose type of blast and damage).

You could have a bunch of rages unlocked at different levels that would do different effects.

It would play somewhat similar to an aura paladin in Diablo 2, maybe some of the higher end rages could give small benefits to your allies (though not enough as to outshine a bard song of course).

Just a thought.

[Juke The Spuke]

This is likely unintended but you can use -dispel to get rid of all rage related buffs and debuffs (apart from vampiric regen). This allows you to remove the fatigue entirely and reuse Rage straight after.

[Morderon]

I'm going to leave the balance to those who uh.. actually have tested it out but I'd like to take a moment on flavor.

IMO, the question(s) that should be asked for a bararian to enter a rage state is "Is the opponent sufficently making my character angry?" or "Do I/an ally risk death?"

The current rage will additionally make me ask "Will it be worth it against my current opponent(s)?" Given archers, and mages, are going to ignore the biteback and it's possible mages to use non-will save spells; and many npc casters don't use will save spells. Yes. you get the movement speed increase but it's not as if your npc opponents run away.IMO, this is a question I shouldn't have to ask as rage should provide some bonus against all opponents.

Suggested fixes:

Use a small aura, like silence, have it do damage each round instead. Doesn't match flavor of the biteback perfectly. And doesn't scale as well for when opponents increase attacks per round. Possibility in addition to the biteback.

Or introduce the extra attack. As well as giving it purpose against archer/mage opponents this will also benefit more strength focused barbarians; but not as majorly as con based barbarians are benefitting.

[Juke The Spuke]

I'm assuming only the main weapon is affected by vampiric regen but has anyone tried using a double weapon for the extra attacks per round?

[Cortex]

It mechanically should, but double weapons are terrible

[Mithreas]

After a bit of testing, I'm adding a further effect to rage - adding a temp HP bonus equal to half the barbarian's max HP. That'll wear off after 10s like the rest of the beneficial effects, but won't kill you when it wears off unlike a CON bonus!

I've also played with the hilarious combo of being in troll form while raging. Easier to achieve on FL than the main server, but still possible on both...

[Tathkar Eisgrim]

Do temp HP bonuses from several sources stack? i.e. Rage / Bard Song?

Troll Form reminds me of Slaine under Warpspasm (2000AD comic). Who assumes a monstrous form when he rages...

[miesny_jez]

Do temp HP bonuses from several sources stack? i.e. Rage / Bard Song?

Nope Temp hit points don't stack - only the highest one counts. But You can override the lower one with the higher one.

[Shadowy Reality]

Alright so I've played with my barbarian a bit.

Currently he's Barbarian 15/Fighter 4
His Strength is about 28 and Con around 24 (depending of potions)

I loved the speed, makes me feel like I'm with an adrenaline rush, charging at anything closeby.
I loved the weapon visual look, it's like it's dripping with blood.
The Will save is good, like I go into a mindless state, crushing things.
The damage shield feels alright, not too few, not too much.
The loss of Str and Con rage bonus didn't make much a difference, the new changes are much nicer.

But I had a few issues. Being Barbarian 15 I can rage 4x/day, My Vampiric Regen was 5 for some reason. Vampiric regen was also not to great.
I've found it triggers more less 1 in 4 hits. Sometimes I'd get 2 in 4, other times none. Coupled with this, it's too small to noticeable, healing 5 HP in 4 hits at level 19 isn't too much. I'd suggest you to double (or triple) the bonus on vampiric and it likely still wouldn't be much. Healing 30 in a round at level 30 is alright but not really game changing.

The other issue I had was its duration and the downtime. In longer fights, with tougher monsters or with more monsters it would wear off way too soon and I couldn't rage again for a good while. Maybe I was unlucky and got 2 on the 2d4 + 7, which s less than a round but that's less than what I had before. Before, I had 9 base + Con Modifier rounds which was pretty much alright for most encounters.

I don't know if it's supposed to be in or not, but I didn't get any Temporary HP.

[Tyrantos]

Perhaps the fact that it does not proc that often could be fixed, with raising the amount the barbarian gain when it does proc?

[miesny_jez]

One way to fix that is to increase the number of Vampiric Regeneration instances on a weapon:

Instead of 1x Vamp Regen 5

Do:
1x Vamp Regen 1
1x Vamp Regen 1
1x Vamp Regen 1
1x Vamp Regen 1
1x Vamp Regen 1

Though not sure what impact would it have on server performance ... as it essentially fires the (buggy) Vamp regen script five times instead of one

[Cortex]

Something that has been bugging me is how rage has such poor base scaling, most of it comes from CON, so it's not really benefitial going with many barbarian levels if you already have plenty of CON. Could probably go as far as 3 barbarian levels and then a different build altogether.

[Jagel]

The temp hp gives incentive to jump into a crowd knowing you have hp to spare. It mitigates the already limited usefulness of vamp regen, though (the only thing that relies solely on barb levels).

Suggestion:
- give a different weapon property. Off the top of my head: massive critical (scale with rage levels?). Of course this makes rage less effective against crit immune enemies, so perhaps not the best solution. Temp bludgeoning bonus dmg?
- cap temp hp at 10-15 per barb lvl or some such

[Shadowy Reality]

Increasing the vampiric to factor that it does not proc often is likely the best way to go. Just a matter of finding the right value. Probably 3x their Rage Level, which would be a maximum of 30.

Fighters 30 with their update get a bonus of +6 in each hit, Barbarian 30 (in rage) should be looking to heal about the same with each hit. if you assume it procs 1 in 4 times that's 24 regeneration that they should have at 30. And if you give it some thought, it's really not a lot, they have low AC, they'll be taking way more than that each round. And it only works while raging.

[Lorkas]

In fact, if the barbarian had full HP when the rage began, it will not even activate until after the temp HP were completely lost during a rage.

[Scurvy Cur]

Something that has been bugging me is how rage has such poor base scaling, most of it comes from CON, so it's not really benefitial going with many barbarian levels if you already have plenty of CON. Could probably go as far as 3 barbarian levels and then a different build altogether.

I'm having a lot of the same concerns, as right now, the barb build that I think makes the best use of the new rage is something like con-based barb 4/Weavemaster 26 or barb 4/WM 23/rogue 3, stacking the rage buff on top of a pre-cast acid sheath (Arelith's non stacking mechanic does not actually prevent damage shields from stacking, it purges pre existing shields when you cast any of the three spells that give this effect, so near as I can tell), shadow shield, and premonition, then runs through a fight hucking low cooldown nukes at melee range.

While this is hilarious, I also don't think it's what we're going for.

Edit: slightly less hilarious, but worth noting for balance reasons is the con based fiendlock 26/barb 4, who takes all the strengths of a fiendish warlock, better DR than a barb will get, and a better ability to pump con than a barb can (barb still needs decent strength), sacrifices ice storm, but picks up a strong biteback and temp hp buff that with unlimited uses that will save a warlock from most of the situation against which their class has trouble.

I would change the scaling such that the biteback instead of being con mod + rage level (essentially 1 + barb levels/4) is 1/2 con mod + 1/2 barb level. Add one point of biteback for terrifying rage, 2 for thundering, 3 for mighty (mighty rage does very little and is a beast to qualify for, thundering rage has some use, but not enough to be worth the investment, and t-rage is decent, but should count anyway because it locks a character into majority barbarian levels). Possibly only hand out these feat buffs to people with 21+ barb levels. You'd wind up with the following changes to biteback damage:

4 barb/+14 con mod sorc: current biteback 16, new biteback 9
23 barb/+12 con mod (a build which goes strength after grabbing enough con for Epic DR, assumes 4 fighter and 3 rogue multiclass: current biteback 17, new biteback 17. With rage feats, realistically add between 1 and 5 points of damage depending.
26 barb/+14 con mod (build assumes a dip in rogue): current biteback 18, new biteback 20, same adjustments for feats.

If this isn't enough incentive to go heavily into barb levels, you could scale 2 points biteback per 3 barb, but I don't think it's neccessary. More barb improves DR which is nice and synergistic, so I think you only need to give a slight boost to primary barb builds, and a hefty nerf to people trying to barb dip for the biteback.

Oh, and disable spellcasting during rage.

[JediMindTrix]

Mithreas might have better luck, though it could potentially end up being just as buggy, applying an On Hit: Item Property that mimics Vampiric Regeneration script.

[Mithreas]

Oh, and disable spellcasting during rage.

I think this is the main change that should happen.

Keying it off feats is similar to keying off level except that it works neatly with FL.

[Yellena]

3.5 Barbarians gains more DR than 3.0 Barbarians. That would be interesting on a tank. They also gain Tireless Rage at lvl 17.

Comparison (+1/- DR at levels):
3.0: 11, 14, 17, 20, 23, 26, 29 (max 7/-)
3.5: 7, 10, 13, 16, 19, 22, 25, 28 (max 8/-) => starts earlier, what is veeeery cool

[Scurvy Cur]

Oh, and disable spellcasting during rage.

I think this is the main change that should happen.

Keying it off feats is similar to keying off level except that it works neatly with FL.

Fair enough.

I still think it may be worthwhile to shift some of the net balance of what the bonuses give towards the feats, in this case, and away from CON mod. Doubling the impact of rage level while halving that of CON mod, for instance.

[Mithreas]

CON already has significant cost, in that it's not STR. If we address spellcasting, are there other abusive options that you're worried about?