M27 Barbarian Class Updates Feedback

bnortondev

Please share your feedback on the Barbarian class updates in Module 27. Updated for our 10-10-23 Preview build.

GENERAL

CC Immunity
* Unstoppable / Battlerage now grants CC Immunity on par with Block (part of a larger fix to CC Immunity across the game)

Rage
We're making At-Wills notably more valuable for rage generation. This should benefit Sentinels paragons and the Escalating Rage feat most notably. We've also increased Daily power rage generation slightly, but have removed fractional rage amounts from Encounter powers.

* At-Will power Rage generation increased 2 -> 3
* Daily power Rage generation increased 1 -> 15
* Encounter power Rage generation decreased 12.5 -> 12

Bounding Slam At-Will
* Damage is increased when in Battlerage or Unstoppable
* Increased Radius 8 -> 10
* Can now proc weapon enchantments
* Visual effects updated slightly
* Note: Attack Cycles for Bounding Slam, Radiant Slam, and Threatening Rush were sped up and reworked

Crescendo Daily
* Magnitude increased 2,000 -> 2,200

Trample the Fallen Feature
* No longer increases your damage when you use a control power
* Now applies a 3% damage taken increase to the target whenever you hit them with a control power
* Tooltip clarified to state this only applies Encounter and Daily Powers


BLADEMASTER

Battlerage
Battlerage now increases baseline damage more, but, the Relentless Battlerage feat does not benefit from this. This will help Barbarians prior to reaching their capstone feat, and, help Escalating Rage builds.
* Battlerage damage boost increased 20% -> 25%
* Relentless Battlerage feat decreases the bonus 25% -> 15%

Indomitable Rage Feat
* Maximum magnitude benefit increased from 1,050 -> 1,200

Hidden Daggers
We've revised Hidden Daggers to provide a more unique multi-target option for Barbarians.
* Jumpback distance significantly decreased
* Now has 2 charges, on an 8 second cooldown
* Surprise Attack effect is only triggered by other attacks (Hidden Daggers can't trigger its own Surprise Attack)
* Magnitudes rebalanced around new charges/cooldowns
* Now triggers Weapon Enchantments
* Surprise Attack can be triggered by maintained powers like Crescendo

Axestorm
Targeting for Axestorm has been reworked. The power now fires the axes on a flat plane in front of you and does not try to 'aim' vertically at your reticle. This should greatly improve the consistency and accuracy of the power. The VFX have been slightly tweaked as well.
* Magnitude increased 400 -> 450

SENTINEL

Unstoppable Blocking Update
* Unstoppable's 60% absorption ratio now takes precedent over Block and Sentinel's Slash's 40% ratios. Holding Block during Unstoppable will use Unstoppable's 60% absorption ratio, until Unstoppable expires.
* Using Block or charging Sentinel's Slash during Unstoppable now grants +15% Critical Avoidance

Furious Reaction Feature
* Changing from 15 Rage and 5% Damage for 20s to 10 Rage and 10% Heal over 10s
* Can no longer trigger and give unusable Rage during Unstoppable

Raging Bladeturn Feature
* 10% Deflect changed to 5% Deflect and Critical Avoidance

Sure Slam Feat
* Feat has been removed. On the Move has been moved to its slot instead.

On the Move Feat
* Now slightly increases Not So Fast's magnitude.
* Swift effect now prefers players over other targets

Disarming Takedown Feat
* Physical Vulnerability debuff is now 5% and stacks with other physical vulnerability debuffs
* Now can be applied at all times, not just during Unstoppable

Boasting Takedown (New Feat)
* Now sits opposite Disarming Takedown in the Sentinel feat choices.
* Increases Takedown's threat.

Crushing Advance Feat
* Damage Dealt debuff is now 12% and stacks with other damage dealt debuffs
* Note: We have fixed the bug where this feat increased the max duration of Unstoppable by 4 seconds.

Blood Fury Feat
* Blood Fury's effect of ending Unstoppable has been moved to be a core part of the Primal Fury power
* Now decreases the Rage cost of Primal Fury by -10 instead

Indomitable Might Feat
* Maximum magnitude benefit increased from 900 -> 1,000

Undying Instinct Feat
* Feat has been removed. Inspiring Bravado has taken its place.

Inspiring Bravado Feat (New)
* Replaces Undying Instinct as the 4rth feat option for Barbarian Sentinels.
* Improves Battle High to increases nearby allies maximum hit points by +15% for 10s.

Primal Fury Encounter
Primal Fury has absorbed some of the Blood Fury feat's functionality and has been rebalanced.
* When used during Unstoppable, now immediately ends Unstoppable
* Minimum Magnitude increased 100 -> 200
* Maximum Magnitude decreased 750 -> 600

Challenger's Slash At-Will
* Magnitude increased 25 -> 30

Sentinel's Slash At-Will
* AP gain reworked; now generates total action points more closely in-line with other At-Wills
* Effects occur later in the animation, requiring more time to pass before the power can be interrupted and still have full effect.
* Min Magnitude increased 30 -> 50
* Max Magnitude increased 80 -> 300

Formatting Your Feedback and Bugs

For posting feedback and bugs, please follow the following format to ensure your feedback and bugs are seen clearly and processed in a timely manner, thank you!

Type: Bug/Feedback (Please only choose one)
If you are listing a bug please have this text in RED, if you are posting an opinion or feedback please use CYAN. If you are replying to another user's post, or just engaging in general discussion, please do not color your posts, general discussion is welcome and we will read all of it, regardless of color! You can use BBCode to color your text:

<font color=cyan>This text will display in cyan.</font>

<font color=red>This text will display in red.</font>

Examples:
Bug: Mimics breakdancing when the fight starts makes them get stuck in floor.
Feedback: Mimics breakdancing is visually distracting from the other fight mechanics.

sekosek

My personal feedback about these changes:

- CC immunity fix sounds great.
- Atwill and Daily Rage generation increases are great and helpful, but I don't understand why Encounter generation got reduced to 12 from 12.5.

- Battlerage damage bonus increased but not for Relentless Battlerage. So its an indirect boost to Escalating Rage. It is nice that you are trying to make the other feat useful too, with 5% more damage on it. Still not sure that it will be viable, I will be testing it but doing a rotation with Escalating Rage is not always practical.
- Indomitable Rage: Buff is welcomed, but its still not viable against Bloodspiller. Its just a worse option.
- Hidden Daggers: Adding charges was a good idea, but the magnitudes seem to be a bit low. Since aoe enemies die quickly, we may not always get to do full rotation with 2 charges. I would prefer a bit more magnitude on it. Removal of dashing back is great.
- Axestorm: Targeting was bugged, now it feels much better to use, great fix.

- Sure Slam: It was useless and not practical, I'm glad its removed.
- On the Move: I don't even understand the point of 15 magnitude boost on Not So Fast. Its abysmally small.
- Disarming Takedown/Boasting Takedown: It is great that it now stacks with other debuffs and it can be applied all the time, but the effect is very small. 5% for physical damage only, will not be really effective as a debuff. And to choose this we need to give up on the other threat feat on Takedown, which already existed in the encounter before, now its separated to a counter-feat. Its bad to choose between 2 feats where both of them is boosting the same encounter.
- Crushing Advance: Its a good buff up from 5 to 10%.
- Blood Fury: Makes us spam more Primal Fury in the long run, but still does not help about the initial aggro problem much.
- Indomitable Might: For ST, we are forced to use Primal Fury for aggro, and a hard taunt, which is Punishing Charge mostly. And 3rd encounter is going to be Takedown, because of the 3rd feat selections. So IBS has no use in Sentinels kit. It also nerfs the encounters magnitude when you drop below 50%, down to 500 magnitude. Practically a useless feat.
- Primal Fury: Mechanic change is great, it was needed. But increasing the min value to 200 is not enough, especially when getting the max value nerfed. Min value needs to be atleast 300 to be a useful threat generation when we are forced to use it with full stamina.
- Bounding Slam: Absolutely useless atwill, has no use at all. It doesn't deal good damage, so no threat either. Its very clunky and rubberbands the character and it has an awful animation that keeps breaking when used repetitively.
- Sentinel's Slash: Now that ap generation is removed we will be only using it to proc the feat. Magnitude changes or being able to block with it does not help at anything.

cellablock

for hidden dagger why not have this surprise attack lasting for 10 seconds which does the surprise attack for the entire duration instead of a single hit for adding 2 charges doesn't make the encounter a choice compared to the alternatives

whitespicyrice

Barbarian Blademaster Changes/Suggestions/Discussion

Thee overall changes to the Blademaster buff were quite needed. It wasn't completely overtuned but enough to see some other feats be viable/competitive.

The flat 5% damage increase was fantastic change. Making Escalating competitive with Relentless Battlerage. The issue I have with this is that not only do you now lose 10% damage if you do take Relentless Battlerage...It's pretty much a must to run Hidden Daggers/Frenzy/Bloodletter for ST rotation vs the normal IBS/Frenzy/Bloodletter. The battlerage uptime is worse compared to using Hidden Daggers. Which is fine...but Hidden Daggers magnitude is too low and the additional magnitude hit is so so/eh. I would suggest and what most other people suggest is making it a duration buff with also keeping the 2 charges.

With this change I would also suggest nerfing the additional magnitude buff it gives. If it stays at 150 mag for example 5 seconds duration...would be way too strong and overpowered. To fix this you could -

- Hidden Daggers: Now grants 100 additional magnitude damage on your next attacks that is not hidden daggers for 3 seconds ( Does not stack ) - While this does not stack means the uptime would not be 100% therefor it wouldn't be completely overtuned. Also, making this a duration buff means the CD should be higher. From 7seconds to 8 seconds.

Now moving onto the other suggested changes...

Indomitable Strength and Mightier Leap Should be swapped. Making both of the choice nodes for ST and AOE.

Having them swapped means you could potentially run Indomitable strength AND bloodspiller in your rotation while both of them being buffed by their respected feats. This would have great synergy for people who want to keep Relentless Battlerage feat. Which should also be changed to -

- Build twice as much rage by dealing damage, taking damage, finishing off opponents but battlerage only grants 15% damage. Now changes from 15% - 17%.

This should still make it viable for those who want to keep Relentless Battlerage. Along with the feat swap changes as well. If neither gets changed I don't see Relentless Battlerage or Indomitable Strength feat being competitive or on par with Escalating Rage.


One last suggestion I would like to mention is to give back IBS AoE radius.
- Indomitable Battle Strike: Now has a 5' radius.
This could make this encounter very fun and competitive with other AoE Encounters. The only instance or situation this could be useful is when there's a Arcane Singularity stacking up mobs, or vortex, or Come and Get It from Barbarian/Sentinel Tank etc. This should be baseline for IBS as it was before.

These are the only suggestions I could think of for potential changes. I have no complaints about the other Blademaster or Barbarian baseline changes. Axestorm buff is good. Atwills giving more rage is good. Lowering Rage on encounters should be reverted back but it's not a massive change.

Hope to see some of the suggestions on this Barbarian thread by others and myself go on next PTR update!

admiralwarlord

Suggestion 1: IBS talent, cause the additional damage to be in area and in case of executing the main target with this power, gain a reset or recharge speed bonus in the encounter. Make GWF's good reapers.

Suggestion 2: Reduce the Punishing Charge CD by about 4 seconds or give it an extra charge. This encounter is much more useful than daggers since it helps with movement and is the class's only st control power.

Suggestion 3: Increase the damage of Roar (130 > 300) and Not So Fast (235 > 350); It may seem absurd at first glance, but not everyone will use Mighty Leap no matter how much you keep buffing this power.I could mention stronger classes for comparison, but I will mention our GF brothers who have 440 magnitude in Tremor and 550 magnitude in Onslaught.

As I won't be testing anything on the preview server, I hope the improvements are really positive on the live server when they arrive there.

sekosek

Common Powers:

Sure Strike: Its damage could be increased a bit, so it doesn't fall behind Bounding Slam now that it got buffed. Maybe up to 75-80 magnitude. And give Stamina Regeneration effect to it, just like how Fighter and Paladin have in their respective atwills.

Spinning Strike: Its control immunity was also not working properly, hopefully it does now.

Crescendo: Falls behind Savage Advance, it needs a buff to be competitive. Maybe up to 2300 magnitude.

Bravery: I would prefer if the bonuses worked out of combat too, for the movement speed, but its not a big deal.


Blademaster:

Hidden Daggers: It being a duration buff that increases all your attacks would be a good idea, but since it requires a rework, I'm fine the way it works, but I think it requires a small magnitude buff. Maybe up to 150 - 200 from 100 - 150.

Roar: Its not mainly a damaging ability, its mostly for building Rage and stunning enemies. But still 130 magnitude seems very low for an encounter. Maybe up to 200 magnitude.

Battlefury: Its completely useless, needs a complete change/rework.

Adamantine Strike: It takes too long to cast, its debuff does not work, and its damage formula is not calculated right. These bugs need to be fixed and maybe its animation needs to be shortened/adjusted to be a usable daily.

Barbed Strikes: Giving 2.5% crit sev is so inadequate. We already have 10% crit sev from Battlerage, and crit sev forte. We don't need more crit sev. Having crit chance as a buff could be decent. Maybe it could give us 10% crit chance when we are in Battlerage, similar to the Raging Criticals.

Raging Strikes: Damage bonus is not even noticable. To be effective, this damage bonus could be scaling up to somewhere around 10-12.5%, since its not always going to be active and will change based on our rage amount. So averagely it would be around 5-6% damage bonus.

Impatience: Its completely useless, needs a complete change/rework.

First 2 feat selections: As @whitespicyrice said, swapping Indomitable Rage and Mightier Leap feats would be amazing for us. Right now we can't benefit from 1st feats on Single Target, and can't benefit from 2nd feats on AOE. Swapping those 2 would allow us to use all of them in different scenerios. Would really help our lacking AOE and ST damage.

Overpenetration: Having to cap 2 ratings is not practical. Needs a small change/rework so that we can benefit from the feat without the restrictions. Also it only increases the damage of atwills, encounters and dailies.

Unstoppable Spin and Escalating Rage: Extra rage durations break the rage bar. When these feats effect proc, Rage amount in the bar and Rage duration don't match, its most noticable when we proc them at 50% Rage. Also I don't see any place where I would be using the Spinning Strike+Unstoppable Spin over Avalanche of Steel+Steel Slam.


Sentinel:

Challengers Slash: It could use a small buff. Maybe up to 30-35 magnitude.

Primal Fury: Minimum value should be increased to 300 to be effective at using with full stamina.

Takedown Feats: Disarming Takedown only affects Physical damages anyways, 5% is kind of low. Needs to be 10% again. Or keep it 5% but make it all damage instead of just Physical. And we shouldn't be selecting from 2 feats that both affect Takedown. I would prefer if On the Move and Boasting Takedown places to be swapped again.

admiralwarlord

@sekosek#5740

130 to 200? This even seems like a joke. Just compare the powers mentioned in my first post and see how similar they are, stun in area and slow in area. There is almost an abyss between them.

You cite so many problems and defects that the class has that shows how the rework of module 16 was the cause of the most played class in the game because these 16 modules stopped having that title and became one of the ones with the fewest players currently.

But due to the movement of this topic, this forum, no one really cares anymore, all the older players have already noticed the class rotation. And as someone well described on a content creator's YouTube channel, only the opinions of selected testers are heard.

furrypandalover

Please make DPS barbs and melee classes in general more viable in endgame content.

I do not play tank, so I have no input on the sentinel changes. However, as a Blademaster barbarian, and coming from your last livestream, there is a heavy disdain among the community, wherein a barbarian is not typically chosen to run endgame content, such as mtos or mdwp.

For example, in mtos, the second boss specifically we do almost no dmg when the red aoe she lays down around herself makes it where we are unable to attack. She lays down this red aoe often. Perhaps this aoe could target ranged people more frequently to balance the fight, or if you're reworking our class, make us more tanky in dps builds to be able to have more dmg uptime on this boss to keep us competitive with ranged dps. We are told to animation cancel, but again, coming from your livestream it seems that it is not an intended feature of the game to do that. Additionally console players cannot do this (nor those who use controller on PC via Steam).

On mtos, the first boss, it would be nice if dps barbs/melee could have more survivability against the spider adds, since we have no choice but to be up close to attack them.

For mdwp, Gromph fight, it would be nice if melee classes had some control immunity against succubus or glabrezu adds or reduced time, since again, we have no choice if we are going to help the team take down adds, then we must be up close to dmg them.

Thank you for reading!

antonk03

+700% (x8) bonus of "Added Effect: Increased Threat" for powers is not in line with any common sense and makes using any powers without the effect useless for consistent threat generation despite of their stated magnitudes.

"Added Effect: Increased Threat" at +20% (x1.2) with class threat multiplier increased by (8/1.2)=6.67 looks reasonable, but it will cause disturbance to current tanking meta for top tier players of all classes.
Consider lowering the "Added Effect: Increased Threat" to +80% (x1.8) and increasing base threat multiplier for tanks by (8/1.8)=4.44 instead as a quick fix.

Threat sources for tanks (current vs quick fix)

Threat multiplier testing for Barbarian Sentinel

fortheswordplay

Okay, to get my thoughts through on this now that I'm looking.

Sure Slam/On the Move: Neither of these are very useful at all. Other Sentinel users feel free to tell me otherwise, but I've not seen any real utility in either. I will run Sentinel Slash w/Frustration Slash feat, and then either Sure Strike or Challenger's Slash to stack At Will aggro between Encounter and tool/mount bursts. The low percentage of the Sure Slam feat doesn't make it appealing enough to count on actual damage either in mob scenarios or boss scenarios. Likewise, On the Move tied to Not So Fast is more a close-knit team utility than a general or even specific team-assist button. I'd recommend, then, altering the contents of On the Move as an enemy debuff of sorts: either stacking on its slow effect, or enabling some Surprise Attack debuff for teammates, to trade with a longer cooldown to prevent the abuse I can already see Rangers and Rogues salavating for.

Battlerage: I will be the black sheep. Please put back the 3 second palzy penalty for Escalating Rage. Careful play is all it takes to avoid it manually, and boon vs debuff gameplay is far more fun in the longrun. Fatigue is a part & parcel of going into a Rage for a Barbarian. That said, I've no issues with this change, otherwise.

Axestorm: Thank you for this. I feel like these days everytime I use Axestorm it should accompany the Ducktales Moon Theme since that's where the bloody things want to journey toward.

Boasting Takedown[: Hoping to hear positive things from testers on PC, but on paper this doesn't compete with Battlestrike, Bloodletter, or Primal Fury. Again, may want to consider sweetening the pot with something like exposure for Surprise Attack.

Crushing Advance: That was not a bug, it was a feature.

Blood Fury: This change doesn't address the foundational issue with the encounter power. The optimized way to use it is at zero stamina, but there's no ideal utility for blasting away with the power unless that person has the boss's every move and movement memorized. Instead of this particularly-dangerous skill with low reward (and considering Indomitable Battle Strike out-paces it by literal and figurative magnitudes, it's indeed low-reward), has the developer's team put any thought into changing the encounter entirely? Into something of a punishing counterattack, instead? Cone-of-effect or single-target, punishes that target's attack with a heavier, threat-gaining strike at cost of the stamina bar? That way, the encounter gains utility & function without being broken and the high damage and moderate threat multiplier goes a long way to taking and keeping attention on the tank even in the opening stages of a fight, and helps maintain that threat even in the middle of an artifact call. And is a bit more in character for a Barbarian to take a bit, and then give back four times over.

Iunno. Thoughts?

dracul

Devs, there is a huge breach in the balance of threat of the Tanks. The Fighter Vanguard has the encounter power called Knight's Valor that they use to highjack the threat from other tanks in Trials and Skirmishes. They are cheaty, and always use this dirty play to exclude the other tank from the queue. Please rework Knight's Valor so it can't affect other tanks, since your reworked the Paladin threat aura. We can't have this kind of cheating in the game anymore.

dracul

Devs, there is a huge breach in the balance of threat of the Tanks. The Fighter Vanguard has the encounter power called Knight's Valor that they use to highjack the threat from other tanks in Trials and Skirmishes. They are cheaty, and always use this dirty play to exclude the other tank from the queue. Please rework Knight's Valor so it can't affect other tanks, since your reworked the Paladin threat aura. We can't have this kind of cheating in the game anymore.

tziemba

I'm definitely not an expert at Vanguard or Justicar, but don't they have powers that can shield their team [irrespective of a target]? Even with the proposed changes, Sentinel still doesn't have any, correct? I know there is Crushing Advance, which requires a target, but I bring up for thought just in case the new trial has any big bursts that cannot be mitigated by a targeted power like Crushing Advance. Yes, healers have mitigation, and there are mount powers and artifact powers, but my point is more to ensure that there aren't differences in the tank classes to the extent that no queue group organizers want to include one.

dracul

Fighter Vanguards use Knight's Valor to hijack the threat from other tanks in Trials and Skirmishes, using this dirty trick to exclude the other tank from the queue. That encounter power needs to be reworked, so it can't drain the threat from other tanks anymore. This is a huge unbalance in the game, of which cheaters exploit very much. And since the Devs are trying to balance everything, this is a priority improvement to the equilibrium of threat in the game !

tziemba

sekosek#5740 said:

Sure Strike: Its damage could be increased a bit, so it doesn't fall behind Bounding Slam now that it got buffed. Maybe up to 75-80 magnitude. And give Stamina Regeneration effect to it, just like how Fighter and Paladin have in their respective atwills.

Yes, I also find the lack of a stamina regen added effect in any of the Sentinel's at-wills a bit odd. I'm hoping that is purposeful rather than an oversight. As a sentinel, that's OK to me so long as there are other mechanics that would make our survivability on par with Vanguard and Justicar.

davidmoki

dps/bladeMaster feedback

bnortondev#5971 said:

* Daily power Rage generation increased 1 -> 15

No one will ever use daily without the damage boost from unstoppable

bnortondev#5971 said:

Crescendo Daily
* Magnitude increased 2,000 -> 2,200

still has a massive cast, and can easily get interrupted, damage is NOT crescendo problem

bnortondev#5971 said:

Battlerage
Battlerage now increases baseline damage more, but, the Relentless Battlerage feat does not benefit from this. This will help Barbarians prior to reaching their capstone feat, and, help Escalating Rage builds.
* Battlerage damage boost increased 20% -> 25%
* Relentless Battlerage feat decreases the bonus 25% -> 15%

As a blademaster you want to be on unstoppable as much as possible, making Relentless Battlerage mandatory, my suggestion is to give base blademaster the 2x rage increase by default, completely remove these two feats and give us news feats that will actually help our damage to be on par with other classes

bnortondev#5971 said:

Indomitable Rage Feat
* Maximum magnitude benefit increased from 1,050 -> 1,200

Again, we want to be on unstoppable as much as possible, this feat depending on the amount of rage you currently have, make it not reliable, so the other choice is always better

bnortondev#5971 said:

Axestorm
Targeting for Axestorm has been reworked. The power now fires the axes on a flat plane in front of you and does not try to 'aim' vertically at your reticle. This should greatly improve the consistency and accuracy of the power. The VFX have been slightly tweaked as well.
* Magnitude increased 400 -> 450

The big cast time still there.


These changes are cute and all, but doesn't change our damage or builds in any way shape or form. BladeMaster STILL needs a lot of attention from devs as an underperforming dps class.

dracul

Devs, any news about the rework of Knight's Valor from the Fighter Vanguard to NOT drain the threat from other tanks ? Barbarian and Paladin tanks can't be hostage of this dirty trick in Trials and Skirmishes anymore. This is a huge unbalance on threat generation in the game and needs to be fixed. The Fighter Tank can't be a spoiled child who is the only one allowed to cheat. Please rework Knight's Valor !