Barbarian Role on current endgame meta

ynebprodem

So what is the ideal role for a Barbarian on current meta?

As a dps it's aoe and single target is mediocre

As a tank it's threat and mitigation is the worst, even worst is the Paragon doesnt have group utilities tool and range tools to kite a boss that need to be tanked in different position like VoS last boss or TiC 2nd boss

As a buffer Battlefurry got a verry long CD and its diminishing effect is not that good for overall group dps

froger

I wonder this myself. I know some [former] very good Barbarians who have shelved their toons. I put some effort into mine, but it became cost prohibitive fast. Plus the feel of playing the class is icky, it just doesn't flow. Beyond that I play with very capable Hunters, Fighters, Rogues, and Warlocks for which I'm yet to see a Barbarian keep up.

ynebprodem

Yeah, me too. I'm considering to shelved my Barb main too and maybe start to gear up my alt rogue like everyone else. Or maybe just take a break from the game and see if there any changes.

arazith07

I don't play Barbs, but I was always under the impression that they had good aoe and st damage, though aren't the best, were at least better than ranged dps classes. Not every class can be the best. I do agree that barb tanks need more group tools.

bigman99

The last couple of combat change/companion update changes that have happened over the last year to 2 have really seen the Barbarian fall by the wayside. In terms of Tank, it has never competed with Fighters/Paladins, although good players can make it work, its no fun and at this point Paladin is the best simply because of taunt.
AS for DPS, the aforementioned changes have both nerfed Barbarians AND failed to upgrade them to keep pace with other dps classes.
The biggest single issue might be that barbarians used to have a built in bonus to their base weapon dmg...it was a huge sword, and it did more dmg per strike than most other dps classes. That helped to compensate for lack of buffing or ability to get combat advantage. With IL the singular value from with our base dmg is now derived for ALL classes, that compensation for lack of buffing or CA is gone.
Another huge hit was the capping of Crit Severity, as high end Barbs at the time could get to 175%+, again helping to compensate. With a hard cap now at 90%, and barbs abilities not retuned, it leaves us out in the cold.
To finish out this small list, when Cryptic updated the combat systems and upgraded magnitudes, they nerfed overpenetration (from 10% extra dmg for armor penetration capped, to 5% for having power AND accuracy capped) and did not upgrade the magnitudes of Talents Mightier leap or Bloodspiller, basically leaving them in the former system.
It has been a slow decline, and Cryptic should really take a look at the class, as it doesn't compete well with other classes when played by people of similar skill level. There are still a few good Barbarian dps's out there, but even they are far outpaced when playing with other dps classes of the same skill and knowledge level.
In today's game, one very simple solution would be to add a way to gain combat advantage though use of a talent or encounter power *cough*hidden daggers*cough*. But a real evaluation of the class would be far more useful.

mparcher

For endgame, Barbarians are excellent damage dealers and tanks. Feel free to visit youtube and watch Happy Killmoore show that many of the comments listed above are misleading.

ynebprodem

mparcher#3106 said:

For endgame, Barbarians are excellent damage dealers and tanks. Feel free to visit youtube and watch Happy Killmoore show that many of the comments listed above are misleading.

Do you play Barb? What "engame" and when was that youtube released and what content that youtube are talking? ToMM, Zariel? When and what you need to be specify that

I'm talking about current endgame which means CoK and VoS, For scalled content on RADQ, RTQ you wont notice the difference.

On Scalled content my barb tank can deal more dps then the average dps, just use BoA, Mirage and Mystagogue and my fancy Envenomed + Pegasus. The tank can delete a pack of mobs before the dps arrived.

Once again, dont out of topic please.

ynebprodem

And as an addition I need to clarify one thing, when I mention TiC 2nd Boss, I was talking about RC mode TiC not the normal TiC. Just to be clear

rjc9000

ynebprodem#6840 said:

So what is the ideal role for a Barbarian on current meta?

To stand around in PE and have opportunistic bards come up and play I'm A Barbie Girl, of course!

What, you thought Barbie is supposed to be an awesome and flavorful class that isn't a nerfed version of the old Destroyer GWF purely renamed to cash in on tabletop player money?

aster

I can agree on some aspects of this thread.
Barbarian needs a rework on his class features and feats which the most are useless, dont work as intendend or simply dont work.

I made long time ago a report about this situation (https://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/neverwinter#/discussion/1259711/barbarian-need-a-rework-on-his-class-features)

The current status of barbarian depends on high magnitude on some powers, by rotations and massive animation cancelling.
But I made all the contents, even endgame, and in terms of dmg my barb was good and i know some pretty good barbs where doing a lot of dmg.

We need to wait when the devs decided to put hands on classes.

callumf

Interesting thread.

I remember grinding my Barbie [GWF? its been a long time!] from 120k power up to 175k power over 6 months of casual play. it was brilliant I could smash content around and generally it was a laugh. And satisfying.

Then the changes came in [Mod 16?] and then further changes and my Barbie just sits around doing nothing much these days. Too much effort to get back to where I was.

I switched to a Cleric Heal as main and thats interesting and its great to feel an important part of the team.

Same goes for tanking on a Fighter - I can hold aggro on the RTQ bosses pretty easily and take the damage etc.

But yeah Barbie isnt that much fun to play these days

greywynd

The role of the barbarian is, and always has been, to kick in doors when the rogue is trying to listen at them.

admiralwarlord

The class is not the best and not even close to the best (Rogue) as it also has a certain advantage for the worst (Wizard or Bard?). It is literally an average class, but capable of doing everything.

Another point that many commented on, the class is currently horrible to play and the reasons for this have already been listed several times here on the forum in the class section. A few simple improvements could put it on par with SW and HR, but nothing suggested here seems to get any Dev's attention, see the Bards and Wizards thread.

peppa

Meta? A pre-identifying set of items or words that defines it? It's a fighter class but they're not good melee, stand in there swinging, take and deal a lot of damage kind of fighter class.

What I've found is, it doesn't seem it at first but, the classes seem to be best played as Advanced Dungeons & Dragons describes them.

Barbarian's are not tanks and while they deal a decent amount of damage they can only, generally, hit real hard once then they have to rest and gather them selves before hitting real hard again. They're huge because of their liniage. Being a large size of course makes people think they're good defensively and tough but in D&D that's not their strong point. Barbarians are most effective having a "gorilla warfare" play style:

Throw something, a weak strike from a distance.
Dive in and blast'm hard, scoot out quickly.
Rest / Recharge or dodge and recharge.
Rinse and repeat.

They're slow and strong with a quick but clumsy burst of speed. Because of their size they're not very agile, don't have a ton of hit points, and they're easy for enemies to hit therefore unless they're wearing really good armor their defense isn't great. Barbarians are decent to multi-class, which we can't do in this game, as a Cleric or Paldin focused on healing. Otherwise they're a hit-and-run character. Even as a Paladin they're still most effective as a sneak attacker, sucker puncher (hit them when they're not looking).

Games don't adjust to us we have to adjust to the game. If you built a Barbarian to be a tank that was a whoopsie. They're not tanks. They're not dps, and they're obviously not wizards.

mignon

@nitocris83 Barbarians are still excellent at Single Target, maybe not the best but competitive. Sadly on AOE this is not the case except if you can kill the mobs with a mightier leap. In VOS for example the Barbarian can do well when mobs are spread out, but when they are clustered you have no chance against classes like Rogues/Warlocks/Rangers. If you can time your daily on a group of mobs, then yes you killed them all. Playing a Barbarian and performing well is just hard work atm and it doesn't feels clunky
Aster and Andiemus has excellent builds/guides for Barbarians.

ynebprodem

Someone make a thread about mighty leap on bug report, I dont know if it is a bug or it is intended. But If we use the mighty leap and decide to savving the mightier leap for 3 or 4 second the next time we activate it again the mightier leap is on cooldown. And worse of it we didnt get 6 second for that next mightier leap we got the cooldown minus 6 second. So if the cooldown is 3 second we only got 3 second chance to cast it.