I agree that it feels silly to be able to block during Unstoppable, so I'll be looking at that. In regards to Bloodletter, it's supposed to heal you for 100% of the damage you deal currently, but there may be some issues with resistances, what were you seeing it heal for?
It didn't feel silly to me to be able to do that, it felt like a good "clutch" block ability, not something you will use all the time, but something that will be useful as more content emerges and for characters at the lower end of the recommended iL for a dungeon to be able to survive reliably.
Obsidian Moonlight - Paladin Obsidian Oath - Warlock A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
ne1 else getting stuck in block mode as Sentinel? There are instances where i block, release the shift key and sent remains in block requiring me to hit shift again. when in this mode all skills are locked out.
Ok, some thoughts from two perspectives, on preview barbs...
a. I have the 80 endgame barb ready rock. Undermountain weapons, full level 80 gear, just normal artifacts and still using demogorgon set. As long as you move your HAMSTER out of the red and avoid chain pulling mobs in heriocs, you will be fine. Keep some health stones on-hand, as some of the mobs are still over tuned, especially in Terminus and Vanrackdooom. For the rest of it, forget your old bad habits of wading in and laying waste. Use selective pulls.
b. I leveled a barb from 0. just finished blacklake. Again, keep your wits about you and learn to avoid big attacks, like Karsov's spinning strike. Also, learn to stick and move.. stick and move.. don't stand there like a bull ready for slaughter, be nimble and use the sprint to move away from the packs of adds. This run killing Karsov actually reminded me of the first time I did the quest way back in 2013. I survived.. with about 30% health.. then and now.
So, the lessons you learn fighting Karsov will serve you well at level 80 and beyond. Don't be a bonehead and try to slug it out mano-a-mano. Stick and move.. stick and move. Avoid the red, and lay the smack-down when you can.
FWIW, I see a LOT of improvement in barbs now versus when first release on preview.
Last thing... you better be stacking defense in the defense slots. To totally steal a comment from Redeviant in a different post... extra hit points instead of defense in those defense slots will get you killed.
Really last thing... a big shout-out to @asterdahl for the going above and beyond. While the class still needs some work and tuning, general flow of the barb play style is a LOT better this week than last week.
So I was testing somewhere under the mountain with my now lvl 72 Barbarian. He was a Blademaster and I was quite happy with his performance. Then I wanted to try sth different so I switched to Sentinel and oh my god! Sentinel deals a ton more damage than Blademaster. Could it be that tank inherent feat, the -30% dmg dealt is actually boosting the Sentinel damage instead due to a bug? Im 1shotting Umber Hulks with a crit from Restoring Strike (500 magnitude power ) and my self heals reach into the millions.. Whats up with that? Wish my Justical Paladin could do that
It seems like you're encountering a bug. Did you change any of your boons, companions or insignia bonuses when you switched to Sentinel? Can you let me know what your character name is so we can take a look at it? (It's not the sentinel passive that is increasing your damage, I can tell you that with high confidence.)
Hi @asterdahl , my Barbarian is lvl 77 on preview at the moment. My boons,companions and insignias remained the same, I only changed my spec/powers when I switched over from Blademaster.
character name - Raest the Tyrant@Azzi , half-orc barbi, ~15k Item Level spec - Sentinel weapon enchant - Bronzewood r12 pet slots - Tiger /also active/, Yojimbo, Dogs Instincst, Xegyi Insight, Rustmonster and Precision.
Here are some log copies in Wyllowwood
[Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Mighty Leap deals 106703 (98799) Physical Damage to Hurler. - As you know this power is a 300 magnitude aoe. Is it wai that I 1shot a group of mobs with it on tank spec? Just to throw this in here, my Justicar /Apostle Grunbeld 27@Azzi / with item level over 18 000 can achieve similar to Sentinel Mighty Leap aoe damage numbers with his new aoe Daily! A daily! A 900 magnitude Daily vs a 300 magnitude encounter, both on tank specs. Just fyi
[Combat (Self)] Your Bloodletter deals 87503 (81021) Physical Damage to Minion.
[Combat (Self)] Your Bloodletter gives 90196 (87569) Hit Points to you. - So this is a non crit from Bloodletter/500 magnitude/ and the following self heal - very nice numbers if wai.
[Combat (Self)] Your Bloodletter deals 98302 (89366) Physical Damage to Hurler.
[Combat (Self)] Your Bronzewood Weapon deals 3932 (3575) Arcane Damage to Hurler.
[Combat (Self)] Your Bloodletter gives 101329 (98377) Hit Points to you. - its pretty consistent
Here is some more aoe, this time its Not so Fast /200 magnitude power/
[Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Not so Fast deals 69364 Physical Damage to Hurler.
[Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Bronzewood Weapon deals 2775 Arcane Damage to Hurler.
[Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Not so Fast deals 67024 Physical Damage to Hurler.
[Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Bronzewood Weapon deals 2681 Arcane Damage to Hurler.
[Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Not so Fast deals 73424 Physical Damage to Hurler.
[Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Bronzewood Weapon deals 2937 Arcane Damage to Hurler.
[Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Not so Fast deals 97661 Physical Damage to Slyblade.
[Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Indomitable Strength deals 508011 (461828) Physical Damage to Umber Hulk.
[Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Bronzewood Weapon deals 20320 (18473) Arcane Damage to Umber Hulk. - this is just to show what the Daily can do on a Sentinel. The hulk did not survive to take the second hit /as you know IS hits twice/. That damage is insane
So even the lowest damaging powers on a Sentinel actually hit like a truck. I also 1shot the Aboleth boss with a million crit from Indomitable Strength but I dont have a log of that
PS: These At Wills actually feel like hits from a great weapon
[Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Sure Strike deals 22642 Physical Damage to Tide Strider.
PS 2:
Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Indomitable Strength deals 570207 (518370) Physical Damage to Valdemar.
[Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Bronzewood Weapon deals 22808 (20735) Arcane Damage to Valdemar.
[Combat (Self)] Your Richo deals 2164 (3935) Physical Damage to Valdemar with Rending Swipe.
[Combat (Self)] Your Richo deals 21737 (19761) Physical Damage to Valdemar with Claw.
[Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Bronzewood Weapon deals 23470 (21336) Arcane Damage to Valdemar.
[Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Indomitable Strength deals 586743 (533402) Physical Damage to Valdemar.
This is what happened to the poor dragon
Post edited by emilemo on
Row, row, row your boat, Gently down the stream.
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, Life is but a dream.
Frenzy (formerly known as Flourish) : I like the design, high damage encounter with long cooldown but 1400 magnitude for 25s cooldown is way too much compared to what other classes are getting. I'm one-shotting mini-bosses with a barbarian dressed in rags.
Barbarian feels absolutely fantastic. Not speaking to numbers, but just overall feel and fluidity, this update has been very good for it. Being me, however, I've got thoughts.
Renaming Determination to Rage was a nice touch. Sentinel's Slash is definitely an improvement on Reaper; if anything, I'd suggest allowing some chip damage through its guard; attacking while blocking is the Fighter's schtick, and while getting some version of that is great news for making sentinel feel like a tank, it does seem that essentially rhino-hiding incoming hits during your windup shouldn't be as perfect a defense as actively parrying. If it wouldn't be too hard to code, maybe block 80-90% of incoming damage, keeping the control immunity portion?
This may be something where I just have to get the muscle memory right, but the fact that you can still "block" by holding down Shift while Unstoppable, but gain no benefit from doing so, feels a little funny. Maybe slow down the Rage drain by a little bit while holding block? /shrug
I love Bloodletter, but is it supposed to be converting all of the damage into health, or only a portion?
It's absolutely possible to make Sentinel's Slash block less than 100% of incoming damage, and I'll certainly consider it, based on how it's performing and feedback from other Barbarians.
I agree that it feels silly to be able to block during Unstoppable, so I'll be looking at that. In regards to Bloodletter, it's supposed to heal you for 100% of the damage you deal currently, but there may be some issues with resistances, what were you seeing it heal for?
Sentinel's Slash blocking, and concurrent control immunity, is a big part of what makes it feel good to use, so I definitely wouldn't drop its mitigation below 80%; getting the benefit of a full block while charging a roomsweeper just feels odd, not bad
Bloodletter is healing for all of its damage, it was just such a profound change from Live that I wanted to make sure it was intended before I got used to it
You mentioned in a reply to someone else that you could continue holding Sentinel's Slash past the charge time to keep guard up. I was not able to do that- once the bar filled, the power went off. Tested this in dread ring against the mobs surrounding the Sphere of Annihilation.
In regards to powers in general, I think part of the massive gulf in the "feel" of barbarian vs. fighter is that a lot of barbarian powers, especially single-target ones have much more favorable magnitude:cooldown ratios than comparable Fighter powers. I've got more to say on that, but it probably belongs in the fighter thread.
Obligatory suggestion to move a little more damage from encounters back into at-wills. Frenzy and IBS hit like trucks, but being THAT bursty is only really a good thing in PvP, and I don't think it's unrealistic to want at-wills to be an efficient means of clearing Minion packs.
@asterdahl I want to apologize for this post if i may overstep my line as a player, and tend to go over and act as a developer, i am not a developer, but i am a person that tends to see flaws in some things, and same as you i want Barbarian to be viable, i am going to go and explain how i do think that Barbarian can be viable, and i do hope that we both can have something to learn from it.
Hello! No need to apologize at all, you haven't struck a nerve. You're passionate about the class you love, and obviously put a lot of thought into your feedback.
The crux of your post seems to mostly be about the Barbarian core powers being balanced to be usable as DPS powers for the Sentinel, but with Blademaster's unique powers being significantly better for DPS. The problem with this approach is that, it creates a world where the Sentinel has twice as many powers at their disposal than the Blademaster. Admittedly, half of them are more tank focused, but as tanks generate threat by dealing damage, they're going to take some damaging powers as well.
Because we've already removed a decent number of choices, we don't want want to create a situation where a huge swathe of powers isn't worth using by an entire paragon path. After the changes this coming week, you should be able to make decent use of almost any power. There are a handful of base powers that may see a bit more use on one path than the other, but in most of these cases, those powers still have a use for soloing or PvP on the opposite path.
Hopefully you understand where I'm coming from, and why we are trying not to limit the core class powers to being useful to only a single path. I hope you check out the changes at the end of this week and have more thoughts to share afterward.
Also this is how i see TANKS in general, the reason why we ask for a strong TAUNT is that, in a group where the main DPS is weak, obviously we can swap to damaging encounters, and still be able to keep Aggro, but if we are in a strong group, where the main DPS, if not all the 3x DPSers in the group are dealing damage, we are going to switch from the DMGing powers and use the Hard Taunts, basically the rotation would be Come and Get it, Daring shout and Punishing charge + Challenging Charge. Obviously this is theorycrafting, nto that it guarantees is goin to work, but thats how it is supposed.
So the weaker the DPSers are in the group, we can swap to DMG Powers to keep AGGRO, the stronger the DPSers are we will be forced to swap to hard taunts, because thats our Role anyway.
Come and Get It, Daring Shout, and Punishing Charge sounds like the second most boring rotation in the world, and with at-wills tuned around you getting most of your damage from 3 encounter powers, it will be almost impossible to hold threat with it, too.
On the Live sentinel, it wouldn't be so bad, since that has feat that turns those first two into decent-strength AoE damage powers, but when their only functions are "pull and toughen up" and "cone taunt+stamina", that sounds singularly uninspiring. If the aggro model is based primarily on damage, you shouldn't have to run more than one power with explicitly boosted threat to be able to do your job(if even that)
"Turtle up and yell at baddies" is not engaging tanking, and based on what @asterdahl has said, it would mean that they'd failed at their goals.
Another issue that arises with that relentless feat is, BF is just not that good. Since DPS barbies will try to be the best DPS in the group, to be the most efficient, using a power that sacrifices their own DPS to buff the group by a tiny margin is just not gonna be very good, and if the GWF is maxed out and rest isnt, he wont use Battle fury at all, making that last feat completely useless for endgame GWFs, which is ironic since its the last feat they get. You need something more generalized that doesnt force you to use one power. Eg daggers in previous mods, 40% buff is a must. The other last gwf feat is pretty bad so you either completely ignore the last feat and get whatever, or youre forced to use BF because thats what you skilled and dont want it to go to waste. It seems like a more appropriate power for sentinel anyways since its a more potent group buff than self buff since our encounters hit hard and theres no peak buff window to maximize burst DPS.
Sorry, cant make it cyan cause on phone, but you get the idea @asterdahl
Overall gameplay feels much better, it would be nice to get some insight into direction Barb is intended to go, some context of implemented changes and purpose behind them. Division of total damage between at-wills, encounter and dailies is pretty clear, do we have similar power budget for feats and class features etc.? I believe those informations could help us establish better dialogue and allow community to assist development more effectively. Blademaster damage still feels undertuned, questing in Vanrakdoom is super hard at 17k gs. Other classes seems to have easier time handling it. If this difficulty curve goes live most people wont be able to experience new content. Sentinel does 220% dmg compared to Blademaster, i assume Will of the Sentinel threat multiplier (250% ?) is applied to damage instead of threat only, i would suggest to check other tanks aswell. While bugged it felt as proper dps level, as leveling solo was still challenging but doable. Survivability is pretty good, excluding few overtuned enemies (like Vampire Assassins). I also cant figure out correlation between weapon damage and magnitude, some formula would be most welcome.
Powers
I would like to see more synergy between feats and powers and by extension more incentives to pick different abilities. Right now some powers will simply outperform others in every scenario and additional effects are not enough to offset the differences in magnitudes. As abilities overlap in their roles, we receive kinda binary set where only few powers ever gets to be used. In my opinion builds should be dictated by playstyle preference instead of numerical superiority (in terms of viability, as min-maxers will obviously still go for highest dps). For Blademaster i can see three patterns emerging from interactions between abilities, each focusing on different area: 1. Rage - focuses on generating more rage and using it more effectively (Roar, IBS, Steadfast/Wrathful Determination, Relentless) 2. Big hits - revolves around buffing encounters to deal massive damage in single strike (Weaving Strikes, Adamantite Strike, Battle Fury, Mighty Blade) 3. Fast attacks - focus on on-hit effects and spreads damage over multiple hits (Steel Blitz, Offensive Recovery, new Hidden Daggers, Crescendo, Spinning Strike) If this resembles design aimed for, i endorse it wholeheartedly.
Update shaked things up pretty hard, if anyone is interested here are some numbers:
At-Wills
Good design, most at-wills fits properly into damage template and have dps proportionate to added effects. However they dont fit into 1/3/1 proportion, currently Sure Strike will deliver around 1500 magnitude worth of damage in 15 seconds, more than double the dps value of IBS.
Bounding Strike -Has no animation
Relentless Slash -Animation is still clunky, a lot of interrupts especially with lag -Second slash has higher magnitude 50 instead of 30, probably uses previous iteration, outperforms SS on single target
Sentinel Slash -Finally became viable option, dps-dmg mitigation tradeoff is good, great job -When fully charged grants Precision buff from Weaving Strikes feat(dps path)
Challenger Slash -Same animation issue as Relentless Strike, although not as bad
Encounters
One of the main targets of class system overhaul was as i understand, making encounters more impactful, chosen approach focused mostly on damage, while pruning effects that added to their significance. As consequence Encounters offer little more than pure damage, this results in kind of binary state where you either go full aoe or full single target. We need more synergy between abilities and more defined role of each Encounter.
Bloodletter -Great change, both heal and damage is significant, has clear purpose and serves it well
Hidden Daggers -Most people are apparently upset about this change but i like how it turned out. I thing they dont realize that Surprise Attack is actually stronger than 10% dmg buff, other than that
Punishing Charge -Not sure how i feel about it. Loss of charges, damage increase are great and 3s stun is really strong. Im not sure how much focus is put into PvP but coupling gap closer with long cc and pretty potent nuke might be a bit too much. While Sentinel certainly can use additional mobility its value is kinda lost on Blademaster. I also find it hard to figure what role PC tries to fill as it does a bit of everything. Other than that animation works great and with 0.25s cast it feels super responsive.
Indomitable Battle Strike -Losing spot as the highest damaging ability and making it single target at the same time is harsh. With new changes it really falls behind other Encounters. Frenzy deals almost twice the damage and Punishing Charge is bloated with additional effects, IBS doesnt bring enough to the table. I believe it should remain as our hardest hitting encounter, animation and sound effect make the strike actually feel heavy and powerful. Landing huge IBS crit on multiple mobs and seeing numbers flying was one of the most satisfying thing about playing GWF, please dont take it away .
Frenzy -Not sure why it was changed in this way, i assumed it was meant to be alternative to IBS but magnitude buff made it pretty much mandatory for SingleTarget. I recall Flourish was originally supposed to have damage spread over multiple strikes (same as Crescendo does). Such approach would allow to differentiate it from IBS without making its damage excessive.
Axestorm -Magnitude is greater than the tooltip says, approximately 1455 instead of 1000 -Doesnt fit into damage table, even with 1000 mag it would outperform any single target ability by large margin, i hope other abilities can be buffed accordingly.
Battle Fury -I really dont like it's design, group-wide percentage buffs are incredibly difficult to balance, thats the reason they were pruned right? In solo scenario it performs very poorly. Best case (using daily in rotation) can net up to 407,6 magnitude, standard optimal rotation will look more like ~200 mag(st), and with pure Sure Strikes spam its less than 50 mag. In group it could possibly have huge impact but would require very good coordination and a lot of micro management, modeling its damage and keeping in check might be very problematic. -How about adding flat magnitude bonus (~15 ?) to each hit instead of percentage dmg buff, it would make it much easier to predict and tune. Other than that it would make Encounter impactful while giving us option to retain some focus on at-wills
Mighty Leap/NSF/Roar Similar case to IBS, compared to other AoE options they fall off hard. Each has its own quirk that could make it viable depending on build but it needs to more fleshed out.
Come And Get It Any plans for it? I have no idea what does this Encounter trying to achieve, the damage reduction is insignificant and pull is pretty much non-existent. Taunt effect instead of pull would make much more sense, so pretty much alternative to Daring Shout.
Class Features
In general Features feel very situational, being very potent in certain situations and useless in others, is this the design aimed for? While displayed and actual values differ i hope the optimistic variant is the target here, otherwise they will become barely noticeable.
Bravery Im not sure if movement speed bonus works, its not displaying in character sheet
Steadfast Determination Feels rather insignificant, some buffs are in order.
Weapon Master Stacks up to 6 times instead of 3 as tooltip says
Trample The Fallen Increase damage by 20% instead of 5 as stated in tooltip
Steel Blitz Some clarification would be nice, maybe change weapon damage to magnitude?
Destroyer Each stack increase damage by 12% instead of 3
Challengers Charge Its inconsistent with the rest of Class Features. As much as i like idea of abilities complementing each other, i think effects like this should be either baseline or added through Feats.
I agree that it feels silly to be able to block during Unstoppable, so I'll be looking at that. In regards to Bloodletter, it's supposed to heal you for 100% of the damage you deal currently, but there may be some issues with resistances, what were you seeing it heal for?
It didn't feel silly to me to be able to do that, it felt like a good "clutch" block ability, not something you will use all the time, but something that will be useful as more content emerges and for characters at the lower end of the recommended iL for a dungeon to be able to survive reliably.
Sorry, I should clarify that because you are auto-blocking, it feels silly to be able to manually block as you gain no benefit. You should either be unable to block (to prevent redundancy) or it should do something additional.
So I was testing somewhere under the mountain with my now lvl 72 Barbarian. He was a Blademaster and I was quite happy with his performance. Then I wanted to try sth different so I switched to Sentinel and oh my god! Sentinel deals a ton more damage than Blademaster. Could it be that tank inherent feat, the -30% dmg dealt is actually boosting the Sentinel damage instead due to a bug? Im 1shotting Umber Hulks with a crit from Restoring Strike (500 magnitude power ) and my self heals reach into the millions.. Whats up with that? Wish my Justical Paladin could do that
It seems like you're encountering a bug. Did you change any of your boons, companions or insignia bonuses when you switched to Sentinel? Can you let me know what your character name is so we can take a look at it? (It's not the sentinel passive that is increasing your damage, I can tell you that with high confidence.)
Hi @asterdahl , my Barbarian is lvl 77 on preview at the moment. My boons,companions and insignias remained the same, I only changed my spec/powers when I switched over from Blademaster.
character name - Raest the Tyrant@Azzi , half-orc barbi, ~15k Item Level spec - Sentinel weapon enchant - Bronzewood r12 pet slots - Tiger /also active/, Yojimbo, Dogs Instincst, Xegyi Insight, Rustmonster and Precision.
Here are some log copies in Wyllowwood
[Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Mighty Leap deals 106703 (98799) Physical Damage to Hurler. - As you know this power is a 300 magnitude aoe. Is it wai that I 1shot a group of mobs with it on tank spec? Just to throw this in here, my Justicar /Apostle Grunbeld 27@Azzi / with item level over 18 000 can achieve similar to Sentinel Mighty Leap aoe damage numbers with his new aoe Daily! A daily! A 900 magnitude Daily vs a 300 magnitude encounter, both on tank specs. Just fyi
[Combat (Self)] Your Bloodletter deals 87503 (81021) Physical Damage to Minion.
[Combat (Self)] Your Bloodletter gives 90196 (87569) Hit Points to you. - So this is a non crit from Bloodletter/500 magnitude/ and the following self heal - very nice numbers if wai.
[Combat (Self)] Your Bloodletter deals 98302 (89366) Physical Damage to Hurler.
[Combat (Self)] Your Bronzewood Weapon deals 3932 (3575) Arcane Damage to Hurler.
[Combat (Self)] Your Bloodletter gives 101329 (98377) Hit Points to you. - its pretty consistent
Here is some more aoe, this time its Not so Fast /200 magnitude power/
[Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Not so Fast deals 69364 Physical Damage to Hurler.
[Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Bronzewood Weapon deals 2775 Arcane Damage to Hurler.
[Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Not so Fast deals 67024 Physical Damage to Hurler.
[Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Bronzewood Weapon deals 2681 Arcane Damage to Hurler.
[Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Not so Fast deals 73424 Physical Damage to Hurler.
[Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Bronzewood Weapon deals 2937 Arcane Damage to Hurler.
[Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Not so Fast deals 97661 Physical Damage to Slyblade.
[Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Indomitable Strength deals 508011 (461828) Physical Damage to Umber Hulk.
[Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Bronzewood Weapon deals 20320 (18473) Arcane Damage to Umber Hulk. - this is just to show what the Daily can do on a Sentinel. The hulk did not survive to take the second hit /as you know IS hits twice/. That damage is insane
So even the lowest damaging powers on a Sentinel actually hit like a truck. I also 1shot the Aboleth boss with a million crit from Indomitable Strength but I dont have a log of that
PS: These At Wills actually feel like hits from a great weapon
[Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Sure Strike deals 22642 Physical Damage to Tide Strider.
PS 2:
Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Indomitable Strength deals 570207 (518370) Physical Damage to Valdemar.
[Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Bronzewood Weapon deals 22808 (20735) Arcane Damage to Valdemar.
[Combat (Self)] Your Richo deals 2164 (3935) Physical Damage to Valdemar with Rending Swipe.
[Combat (Self)] Your Richo deals 21737 (19761) Physical Damage to Valdemar with Claw.
[Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Bronzewood Weapon deals 23470 (21336) Arcane Damage to Valdemar.
[Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Indomitable Strength deals 586743 (533402) Physical Damage to Valdemar.
This is what happened to the poor dragon
There's definitely a bug going on here, thanks for sending your character name, I'll try to look into this soon! If you do identify the problem yourself (like you unequip a companion power and suddenly start doing expected damage values) let me know as it may save some debugging time. I have a few other issues to look at before this one.
Barbarian feels absolutely fantastic. Not speaking to numbers, but just overall feel and fluidity, this update has been very good for it. Being me, however, I've got thoughts.
Renaming Determination to Rage was a nice touch. Sentinel's Slash is definitely an improvement on Reaper; if anything, I'd suggest allowing some chip damage through its guard; attacking while blocking is the Fighter's schtick, and while getting some version of that is great news for making sentinel feel like a tank, it does seem that essentially rhino-hiding incoming hits during your windup shouldn't be as perfect a defense as actively parrying. If it wouldn't be too hard to code, maybe block 80-90% of incoming damage, keeping the control immunity portion?
This may be something where I just have to get the muscle memory right, but the fact that you can still "block" by holding down Shift while Unstoppable, but gain no benefit from doing so, feels a little funny. Maybe slow down the Rage drain by a little bit while holding block? /shrug
I love Bloodletter, but is it supposed to be converting all of the damage into health, or only a portion?
It's absolutely possible to make Sentinel's Slash block less than 100% of incoming damage, and I'll certainly consider it, based on how it's performing and feedback from other Barbarians.
I agree that it feels silly to be able to block during Unstoppable, so I'll be looking at that. In regards to Bloodletter, it's supposed to heal you for 100% of the damage you deal currently, but there may be some issues with resistances, what were you seeing it heal for?
Sentinel's Slash blocking, and concurrent control immunity, is a big part of what makes it feel good to use, so I definitely wouldn't drop its mitigation below 80%; getting the benefit of a full block while charging a roomsweeper just feels odd, not bad
Bloodletter is healing for all of its damage, it was just such a profound change from Live that I wanted to make sure it was intended before I got used to it
You mentioned in a reply to someone else that you could continue holding Sentinel's Slash past the charge time to keep guard up. I was not able to do that- once the bar filled, the power went off. Tested this in dread ring against the mobs surrounding the Sphere of Annihilation.
In regards to powers in general, I think part of the massive gulf in the "feel" of barbarian vs. fighter is that a lot of barbarian powers, especially single-target ones have much more favorable magnitude:cooldown ratios than comparable Fighter powers. I've got more to say on that, but it probably belongs in the fighter thread.
Obligatory suggestion to move a little more damage from encounters back into at-wills. Frenzy and IBS hit like trucks, but being THAT bursty is only really a good thing in PvP, and I don't think it's unrealistic to want at-wills to be an efficient means of clearing Minion packs.
Well, Anvil of Doom also hits like a truck, but I do appreciate the feedback, and fighter will most likely be getting some buffs, depending on where Barbarian falls relative to the larger swathe of DPS. At-will changes are still on the table, the earliest we'd be making them is next week, however. Keep sending your feedback.
Another issue that arises with that relentless feat is, BF is just not that good. Since DPS barbies will try to be the best DPS in the group, to be the most efficient, using a power that sacrifices their own DPS to buff the group by a tiny margin is just not gonna be very good, and if the GWF is maxed out and rest isnt, he wont use Battle fury at all, making that last feat completely useless for endgame GWFs, which is ironic since its the last feat they get. You need something more generalized that doesnt force you to use one power. Eg daggers in previous mods, 40% buff is a must. The other last gwf feat is pretty bad so you either completely ignore the last feat and get whatever, or youre forced to use BF because thats what you skilled and dont want it to go to waste. It seems like a more appropriate power for sentinel anyways since its a more potent group buff than self buff since our encounters hit hard and theres no peak buff window to maximize burst DPS.
Sorry, cant make it cyan cause on phone, but you get the idea @asterdahl
There's a clear mathematical threshold at which point a group buff is worth taking over a direct attack. Of course, in practice it's not simple to apply, because not every DPS is dealing identical damage, and whether your tank and healer are contributing solidly to damage will also affect the calculus. That being said, I will re-examine Battle Fury to ensure that there's a valid reason to use it in group play.
The problem is that if that threshold isn't pretty high, in terms of requiring that the group all be dealing decent damage in order for it to be the superior choice, and it's always a superior choice in group content, we go right back to the spot where you should always take buffs/debuffs first. Even if the numbers are low enough that content doesn't become trivialized, I still think that's not particularly interesting, and invalidates a lot of otherwise fun builds.
Hopefully that gives you some insight into why I'm hesitant to make any immediate changes. I will definitely be doing another pass on the buffs and debuffs of each class as we get more numbers into their final positions.
Barbarian feels absolutely fantastic. Not speaking to numbers, but just overall feel and fluidity, this update has been very good for it. Being me, however, I've got thoughts.
Renaming Determination to Rage was a nice touch. Sentinel's Slash is definitely an improvement on Reaper; if anything, I'd suggest allowing some chip damage through its guard; attacking while blocking is the Fighter's schtick, and while getting some version of that is great news for making sentinel feel like a tank, it does seem that essentially rhino-hiding incoming hits during your windup shouldn't be as perfect a defense as actively parrying. If it wouldn't be too hard to code, maybe block 80-90% of incoming damage, keeping the control immunity portion?
This may be something where I just have to get the muscle memory right, but the fact that you can still "block" by holding down Shift while Unstoppable, but gain no benefit from doing so, feels a little funny. Maybe slow down the Rage drain by a little bit while holding block? /shrug
I love Bloodletter, but is it supposed to be converting all of the damage into health, or only a portion?
It's absolutely possible to make Sentinel's Slash block less than 100% of incoming damage, and I'll certainly consider it, based on how it's performing and feedback from other Barbarians.
I agree that it feels silly to be able to block during Unstoppable, so I'll be looking at that. In regards to Bloodletter, it's supposed to heal you for 100% of the damage you deal currently, but there may be some issues with resistances, what were you seeing it heal for?
Sentinel's Slash blocking, and concurrent control immunity, is a big part of what makes it feel good to use, so I definitely wouldn't drop its mitigation below 80%; getting the benefit of a full block while charging a roomsweeper just feels odd, not bad
Bloodletter is healing for all of its damage, it was just such a profound change from Live that I wanted to make sure it was intended before I got used to it
You mentioned in a reply to someone else that you could continue holding Sentinel's Slash past the charge time to keep guard up. I was not able to do that- once the bar filled, the power went off. Tested this in dread ring against the mobs surrounding the Sphere of Annihilation.
In regards to powers in general, I think part of the massive gulf in the "feel" of barbarian vs. fighter is that a lot of barbarian powers, especially single-target ones have much more favorable magnitude:cooldown ratios than comparable Fighter powers. I've got more to say on that, but it probably belongs in the fighter thread.
Obligatory suggestion to move a little more damage from encounters back into at-wills. Frenzy and IBS hit like trucks, but being THAT bursty is only really a good thing in PvP, and I don't think it's unrealistic to want at-wills to be an efficient means of clearing Minion packs.
Well, Anvil of Doom also hits like a truck, but I do appreciate the feedback, and fighter will most likely be getting some buffs, depending on where Barbarian falls relative to the larger swathe of DPS. At-will changes are still on the table, the earliest we'd be making them is next week, however. Keep sending your feedback.
I believe most of the fixes needed are in the class feats. No one is gonna use destroyer since AoE melts pretty much instantly, Trample doesn't work on CC immune targets, WD is just awful... Fix those as a baseline as those are probably be the biggest buffs since I literally don't use anything relevant from there as nothing is really good, and then fix the actual active abilities we get.
Once those work, we can discuss balance. How many Class feats have been reworked? Any new ones for blademaster? IIRC sentinel gets 2 new ones
Overall gameplay feels much better, it would be nice to get some insight into direction Barb is intended to go, some context of implemented changes and purpose behind them. Division of total damage between at-wills, encounter and dailies is pretty clear, do we have similar power budget for feats and class features etc.? I believe those informations could help us establish better dialogue and allow community to assist development more effectively. Blademaster damage still feels undertuned, questing in Vanrakdoom is super hard at 17k gs. Other classes seems to have easier time handling it. If this difficulty curve goes live most people wont be able to experience new content. Sentinel does 220% dmg compared to Blademaster, i assume Will of the Sentinel threat multiplier (250% ?) is applied to damage instead of threat only, i would suggest to check other tanks aswell. While bugged it felt as proper dps level, as leveling solo was still challenging but doable. Survivability is pretty good, excluding few overtuned enemies (like Vampire Assassins). I also cant figure out correlation between weapon damage and magnitude, some formula would be most welcome.
Hey Paleth, thanks for checking the changes out and providing such amazingly thorough feedback! There are big changes coming to both Barbarian paths this Friday, so I hope you'll take a look at those and let me know what you think. A lot of the issues you brought up have been addressed.
In particular, there was a massive overhaul to feats and class features, so that's going to be a very fresh thing to take a look at. But there are also quite a few core power adjustments, such as adjustments to IBS and Come and Get It. Also, Frontline Surge has been completely replaced with a unique new Barbarian themed power.
On the topic of the damage formula and how magnitude functions: magnitude is basically percent of weapon damage. We purposefully left this abstract, as for new players who aren't crunching numbers, it should be fairly learnable that a 300 magnitude attack deals about 3x the damage of a 100 magnitude attack. That being said, at its core the power literally looks like "Weapon Damage * (Magnitude/100)"
If you strip down and use a wooden weapon, you should be able to see that this is the case, but if you're not finding it to be, please let me know. I look forward to seeing more of your feedback in the next few weeks!
I have to say with the changes in encounter recovery times its more annoying than ever to hit a button and have an encounter fire when it has no target, especially with encounters like Bloodletter and Takedown.
Obsidian Moonlight - Paladin Obsidian Oath - Warlock A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
I have to say with the changes in encounter recovery times its more annoying than ever to hit a button and have an encounter fire when it has no target, especially with encounters like Bloodletter and Takedown.
IBS has been bad about this for as long as I've been playing, even when fighting a group of mobs before me it will often simply "miss" everything. Wasn't the end of the world in mod15 due to the comparatively short cooldown and comparatively excellent survivability and comparatively excellent other sources of damage, but for what equates to HALF of all damage done in a fight simply whiffing for no apparent reason coupled with a huge cooldown, it feels pretty bad and runs a very real risk of getting you killed in a lot of places right now due to the "you have 8 seconds to kill them or they will kill you" thing they have going.
Funny fact I feel more than ever GWF now cause we need to be tactical and no more rushing ahead ^^ Blademaster is great, just more power boost tweak to feel again "the steel and the blood"
On the topic of the damage formula and how magnitude functions: magnitude is basically percent of weapon damage. We purposefully left this abstract, as for new players who aren't crunching numbers, it should be fairly learnable that a 300 magnitude attack deals about 3x the damage of a 100 magnitude attack. That being said, at its core the power literally looks like "Weapon Damage * (Magnitude/100)"
I see, works as intended then. I was confused by Steel Blitz unpredictable behavior: -Damage modifiers are inherited from power triggering it. For example Sure Strike with Rampage feat active will pass 132% dmg increase (Master At Arms + Rampage) to Steel Blitz. -Apparently any effect can trigger it. Procs from Not So Fast sometimes deal 0 damage, i suspect this is caused by slow application which is separate from damage (maybe coded as strike with 0% modifier?). Curiously Bloodletter can proc it from heal, giving us damage, i wasnt able to test if it actually heals (negative modifier)
Other than that ive somehow omitted pretty big bug: -Surprise Attack from Hidden Daggers isnt consumed on next attack, however buff is applied to every hit while its active - results in massive damage
A lil' discussion on CA currently for the sake of solo/bad groups the only source we can provide of CA is positioning with our selves n' the comp, in solo the companion can be a hit or miss on positioning since they tend to want to be close to you so depending on the hit box can result in unwanted positioning a lot... Along with bosses moving n' teleporting round, I'd really appreciate a class feature that for example Blistering Rage, once you become enraged you’re granted CA over your enemies for the duration of your enraged state. Could replace Steadfast determination since that'd never really fit in over the rest. ^-^
Hey @asterdahl I've been trying the new changes. So far it's way more playable and fun. I'm also not sure if you guys nerfed Vanrakdoom cultists or just the new changes for Barbie + the preview gear but it's definitely more survivable now.
Sentinel damage bugged Few tests with Sentinel and as others pointed out, they deal way more damage than intended to.
Hidden Daggers I also think Hidden Daggers is currently broken (unless I just don't understand how it works). From what I understand it adds +200 magnitude for the next attack (be it sure strike's first slash or Axethrow) but currently it's working as a +200 to all powers for ~4 seconds. For example after using hidden daggers I notice a large increase in damage when spamming Blademaster's Strike (weapon master's strike) multiple times for ~4 seconds.
Avalanche of Steel I've also read that a lot of people want Avalanche of Steel swapped out from the Blademaster path for Slam. While it makes sense, I've experienced many time where it saved my toon from dying just by buying enough time for potion cooldowns to be finished. I don't know if considering this as a panic button a good thing or not but it does help newer players who are lower gear level survive more. I kind of wish this should be a shared power rather than exclusive, I wouldn't even mind if it's damage got nerfed but a Sentinel feat buffs it. It's probably got no use for group play but it's really great for soloing and soloing is such a big portion of the gameplay.
Human Racial Bonus I still haven't fully wrapped my head around the feats and I hope the upcoming new ones will be better. The only question that's running in my head right now is what to do with the extra paragon feats (Heroic Feat) the Human race is supposed to have? I always preferred the extra feat points (Heroic Feat) the Human Race rather than Drow's Trancefire or H.Orc's Furious Assault gives, but with so very few feats probably makes it way stronger than intended. Are you guys replacing it with another bonus? Or are most racial bonuses also being reworked to better match with Mod 16's calculations?
Companions So far I've been loving the new companions. It's pretty weird that some companions constitute a large chunk of their overall DPS and even as far as I've heard other people say do more damage than they do. Are you devs planning to nerf them (I hope not)? Overall I do feel they are more substantial rather than acting like extra buffers previous mod. On a side note with Pets being more powerful than before, any plans on introducing a new Pet focused class?
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silvergryphMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 740Arc User
Human Racial Bonus I still haven't fully wrapped my head around the feats and I hope the upcoming new ones will be better. The only question that's running in my head right now is what to do with the extra paragon feats (Heroic Feat) the Human race is supposed to have? I always preferred the extra feat points (Heroic Feat) the Human Race rather than Drow's Trancefire or H.Orc's Furious Assault gives, but with so very few feats probably makes it way stronger than intended. Are you guys replacing it with another bonus? Or are most racial bonuses also being reworked to better match with Mod 16's calculations?
Human racial bonus no longer mentions extra feats:
Versatile Defense:+250 all Offensive and Defensive Stats Ability Scores: +3 to any Ability Score
I just wanted to talk about Brash Strike real quick, as I just unlocked it a little while ago on Preview while going thru Undermountain.
Brash Strike The first attack in the chain, which is obviously just the Takedown animation but slightly modified, doesn't really flow very well with the second and third attacks, which as far as i'm aware are completely brand new animations(?). Additionally, this 1st attack doesn't seem to properly gain the attack speed increase of Unstoppable/Battlerage mode, while the 2nd and 3rd attacks seem to function as they should. If this has anything to do with the fact that the 1st attack shares a character animation with an Encounter power (Takedown), then I think you should just replace the 1st attack anim entirely and maybe use one of the attack anims from GF's Cleave or Crushing Surge instead. I can imagine the 1st or 2nd attacks from either of those atwill chains would flow a lot better with last 2 attacks of Brash Strike, as they 're all heavy, arcing swings.
Hidden Daggers I also think Hidden Daggers is currently broken (unless I just don't understand how it works). From what I understand it adds +200 magnitude for the next attack (be it sure strike's first slash or Axethrow) but currently it's working as a +200 to all powers for ~4 seconds. For example after using hidden daggers I notice a large increase in damage when spamming Blademaster's Strike (weapon master's strike) multiple times for ~4 seconds.
Hidden Daggers Effect lasts 5 seconds after casted.
The follow up power(Axestorm) will cause Hidden Daggers to trigger 200 Magnitude separately from Axestorm, same goes for any other power within the 5 second duration.
You'll see a damage increase because the numbers stacked since they're dealt at the same time, it'll be shown in the log.
Because its no longer a direct debuff(prior preview build) or Buff(Live) only efficient way to use the power would be At-wills, everything else is too slow to make any use of it, because of the back step it does move you away from your target you'll lose out on some of the duration, so you could do a 180 and instead get closer to the target at the cost of the lesser magnitude base hit, letting you get an extra hit in of At-wills.
If you are against a wall or do the reverse back step you can get about 8 hits in with Sure Strike, 7 without, doing that would be preferred for dmg purposes.
7-8x 200 magnitude hits
With Rage daggers cast prior
11-12x 200 magnitude hits
With Rage dagger cast after
14-15x 200 magnitude hits
Also doesn't take up the full duration of rage so other encounters can take advantage of Rage's dmg increase.
With that I'd recommend Frenzy/Hidden Daggers/Axestorm as most peoples go to encounters atm, IBS is still a option for those that rather not count in their head for the 5 sec daggers duration, but will likely be outclassed by those that do. ^.^
Though currently Sentinel is currently bugged and dealing practically 2x the dmg of Blademaster(Tested with SS n' IBS)
Tested damages between the paths with everything unequipped also no boons and feats. I only equipped test sword and the result is Sentinel is dealing approximately 120% more damage than blademaster (Or blademaster is dealing less damage, I don't know which path has the correct value). Since these damages are base damage, there might be a bug with the Will of the Sentinel(Sentinel) or the Master at Arms(Blademaster) mechanic. Also I don't know if the magnitudes are going to change but Axestorm has the magnitude of 1600 unlike the tooltip says 1000.
BUG: Crescendo does not execute properly. There is an abbreviated jump and then it leaves your character standing there with their weapon upraised and glowing. There are no noticeable actions, but more annoying is it doesn't reset to your standard fighting posture to execute the next action. You have to actually initiate another power to reset, which causes a noticeable delay in execution, enough to get you killed. And it does even less damage than the Axestorm encounter power.
Hidden Dagger is not initiating leap back. Initially when preview started there was a spike in the damage you did, but that is not noticeable now.
Companion, a Stalwart Golden Lion at lvl40, does more damage with its standard attacks than most of mine put together. It only has a 1/10th of the stats that my lvl80 Barbarian Blademaster has, but its wiping the field clean, while I'm barely worthy of dishing out anything. When you test this by soloing Isle of Tuern, and its able to solo the boss and reduce it to half its HP, while you are running around trying to evade and not get killed by the boss and the adds, then there is definitely something wrong with the class.
Axestorm: should this be more powerful than all of the dailies? Its the only real damage causing power I have. Cescendo and Adamantine Strike are worthless in comparison.
At Wills: All worthless. Even configuring all of the damage boosts imaginable, from companions, feats, boons, weapon enchants, stat configuration, class features, etc; they still only allow you to do barely half the damage per blow that the run of the mill enemies can cause you with one of theirs. Not counting gold enemies or bosses. You're lucky if you dont get one-shotted going against those.
Comments
Obsidian Oath - Warlock
A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
a. I have the 80 endgame barb ready rock. Undermountain weapons, full level 80 gear, just normal artifacts and still using demogorgon set. As long as you move your HAMSTER out of the red and avoid chain pulling mobs in heriocs, you will be fine. Keep some health stones on-hand, as some of the mobs are still over tuned, especially in Terminus and Vanrackdooom. For the rest of it, forget your old bad habits of wading in and laying waste. Use selective pulls.
b. I leveled a barb from 0. just finished blacklake. Again, keep your wits about you and learn to avoid big attacks, like Karsov's spinning strike. Also, learn to stick and move.. stick and move.. don't stand there like a bull ready for slaughter, be nimble and use the sprint to move away from the packs of adds. This run killing Karsov actually reminded me of the first time I did the quest way back in 2013. I survived.. with about 30% health.. then and now.
So, the lessons you learn fighting Karsov will serve you well at level 80 and beyond. Don't be a bonehead and try to slug it out mano-a-mano. Stick and move.. stick and move. Avoid the red, and lay the smack-down when you can.
FWIW, I see a LOT of improvement in barbs now versus when first release on preview.
Last thing... you better be stacking defense in the defense slots. To totally steal a comment from Redeviant in a different
post... extra hit points instead of defense in those defense slots will get you killed.
Really last thing... a big shout-out to @asterdahl for the going above and beyond. While the class still needs some work and tuning, general flow of the barb play style is a LOT better this week than last week.
character name - Raest the Tyrant@Azzi , half-orc barbi, ~15k Item Level
spec - Sentinel
weapon enchant - Bronzewood r12
pet slots - Tiger /also active/, Yojimbo, Dogs Instincst, Xegyi Insight, Rustmonster and Precision.
Here are some log copies in Wyllowwood
[Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Mighty Leap deals 106703 (98799) Physical Damage to Hurler. - As you know this power is a 300 magnitude aoe. Is it wai that I 1shot a group of mobs with it on tank spec? Just to throw this in here, my Justicar /Apostle Grunbeld 27@Azzi / with item level over 18 000 can achieve similar to Sentinel Mighty Leap aoe damage numbers with his new aoe Daily! A daily! A 900 magnitude Daily vs a 300 magnitude encounter, both on tank specs. Just fyi
[Combat (Self)] Your Bloodletter deals 87503 (81021) Physical Damage to Minion.
[Combat (Self)] Your Bloodletter gives 90196 (87569) Hit Points to you. - So this is a non crit from Bloodletter/500 magnitude/ and the following self heal - very nice numbers if wai.
[Combat (Self)] Your Bloodletter deals 98302 (89366) Physical Damage to Hurler.
[Combat (Self)] Your Bronzewood Weapon deals 3932 (3575) Arcane Damage to Hurler.
[Combat (Self)] Your Bloodletter gives 101329 (98377) Hit Points to you. - its pretty consistent
Here is some more aoe, this time its Not so Fast /200 magnitude power/
[Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Not so Fast deals 69364 Physical Damage to Hurler.
[Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Bronzewood Weapon deals 2775 Arcane Damage to Hurler.
[Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Not so Fast deals 67024 Physical Damage to Hurler.
[Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Bronzewood Weapon deals 2681 Arcane Damage to Hurler.
[Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Not so Fast deals 73424 Physical Damage to Hurler.
[Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Bronzewood Weapon deals 2937 Arcane Damage to Hurler.
[Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Not so Fast deals 97661 Physical Damage to Slyblade.
[Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Indomitable Strength deals 508011 (461828) Physical Damage to Umber Hulk.
[Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Bronzewood Weapon deals 20320 (18473) Arcane Damage to Umber Hulk. - this is just to show what the Daily can do on a Sentinel. The hulk did not survive to take the second hit /as you know IS hits twice/. That damage is insane
So even the lowest damaging powers on a Sentinel actually hit like a truck. I also 1shot the Aboleth boss with a million crit from Indomitable Strength but I dont have a log of that
PS: These At Wills actually feel like hits from a great weapon
[Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Sure Strike deals 22642 Physical Damage to Tide Strider.
PS 2:
Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Indomitable Strength deals 570207 (518370) Physical Damage to Valdemar.
[Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Bronzewood Weapon deals 22808 (20735) Arcane Damage to Valdemar.
[Combat (Self)] Your Richo deals 2164 (3935) Physical Damage to Valdemar with Rending Swipe.
[Combat (Self)] Your Richo deals 21737 (19761) Physical Damage to Valdemar with Claw.
[Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Bronzewood Weapon deals 23470 (21336) Arcane Damage to Valdemar.
[Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Indomitable Strength deals 586743 (533402) Physical Damage to Valdemar.
This is what happened to the poor dragon
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, Life is but a dream.
Sentinel's Slash blocking, and concurrent control immunity, is a big part of what makes it feel good to use, so I definitely wouldn't drop its mitigation below 80%; getting the benefit of a full block while charging a roomsweeper just feels odd, not bad
Bloodletter is healing for all of its damage, it was just such a profound change from Live that I wanted to make sure it was intended before I got used to it
You mentioned in a reply to someone else that you could continue holding Sentinel's Slash past the charge time to keep guard up. I was not able to do that- once the bar filled, the power went off. Tested this in dread ring against the mobs surrounding the Sphere of Annihilation.
In regards to powers in general, I think part of the massive gulf in the "feel" of barbarian vs. fighter is that a lot of barbarian powers, especially single-target ones have much more favorable magnitude:cooldown ratios than comparable Fighter powers. I've got more to say on that, but it probably belongs in the fighter thread.
Obligatory suggestion to move a little more damage from encounters back into at-wills. Frenzy and IBS hit like trucks, but being THAT bursty is only really a good thing in PvP, and I don't think it's unrealistic to want at-wills to be an efficient means of clearing Minion packs.
On the Live sentinel, it wouldn't be so bad, since that has feat that turns those first two into decent-strength AoE damage powers, but when their only functions are "pull and toughen up" and "cone taunt+stamina", that sounds singularly uninspiring. If the aggro model is based primarily on damage, you shouldn't have to run more than one power with explicitly boosted threat to be able to do your job(if even that)
"Turtle up and yell at baddies" is not engaging tanking, and based on what @asterdahl has said, it would mean that they'd failed at their goals.
You need something more generalized that doesnt force you to use one power. Eg daggers in previous mods, 40% buff is a must. The other last gwf feat is pretty bad so you either completely ignore the last feat and get whatever, or youre forced to use BF because thats what you skilled and dont want it to go to waste. It seems like a more appropriate power for sentinel anyways since its a more potent group buff than self buff since our encounters hit hard and theres no peak buff window to maximize burst DPS.
Sorry, cant make it cyan cause on phone, but you get the idea @asterdahl
General:
Overall gameplay feels much better, it would be nice to get some insight into direction Barb is intended to go, some context of implemented changes and purpose behind them. Division of total damage between at-wills, encounter and dailies is pretty clear, do we have similar power budget for feats and class features etc.? I believe those informations could help us establish better dialogue and allow community to assist development more effectively.Blademaster damage still feels undertuned, questing in Vanrakdoom is super hard at 17k gs. Other classes seems to have easier time handling it. If this difficulty curve goes live most people wont be able to experience new content.
Sentinel does 220% dmg compared to Blademaster, i assume Will of the Sentinel threat multiplier (250% ?) is applied to damage instead of threat only, i would suggest to check other tanks aswell.
While bugged it felt as proper dps level, as leveling solo was still challenging but doable.
Survivability is pretty good, excluding few overtuned enemies (like Vampire Assassins). I also cant figure out correlation between weapon damage and magnitude, some formula would be most welcome.
Powers
I would like to see more synergy between feats and powers and by extension more incentives to pick different abilities. Right now some powers will simply outperform others in every scenario and additional effects are not enough to offset the differences in magnitudes. As abilities overlap in their roles, we receive kinda binary set where only few powers ever gets to be used. In my opinion builds should be dictated by playstyle preference instead of numerical superiority (in terms of viability, as min-maxers will obviously still go for highest dps). For Blademaster i can see three patterns emerging from interactions between abilities, each focusing on different area:1. Rage - focuses on generating more rage and using it more effectively (Roar, IBS, Steadfast/Wrathful Determination, Relentless)
2. Big hits - revolves around buffing encounters to deal massive damage in single strike (Weaving Strikes, Adamantite Strike, Battle Fury, Mighty Blade)
3. Fast attacks - focus on on-hit effects and spreads damage over multiple hits (Steel Blitz, Offensive Recovery, new Hidden Daggers, Crescendo, Spinning Strike)
If this resembles design aimed for, i endorse it wholeheartedly.
Update shaked things up pretty hard, if anyone is interested here are some numbers:
At-Wills
Good design, most at-wills fits properly into damage template and have dps proportionate to added effects. However they dont fit into 1/3/1 proportion, currently Sure Strike will deliver around 1500 magnitude worth of damage in 15 seconds, more than double the dps value of IBS.Bounding Strike
-Has no animation
Relentless Slash
-Animation is still clunky, a lot of interrupts especially with lag
-Second slash has higher magnitude 50 instead of 30, probably uses previous iteration, outperforms SS on single target
Sentinel Slash
-Finally became viable option, dps-dmg mitigation tradeoff is good, great job
-When fully charged grants Precision buff from Weaving Strikes feat(dps path)
Challenger Slash
-Same animation issue as Relentless Strike, although not as bad
Encounters
One of the main targets of class system overhaul was as i understand, making encounters more impactful, chosen approach focused mostly on damage, while pruning effects that added to their significance. As consequence Encounters offer little more than pure damage, this results in kind of binary state where you either go full aoe or full single target. We need more synergy between abilities and more defined role of each Encounter.Bloodletter
-Great change, both heal and damage is significant, has clear purpose and serves it well
Hidden Daggers
-Most people are apparently upset about this change but i like how it turned out. I thing they dont realize that Surprise Attack is actually stronger than 10% dmg buff, other than that
Punishing Charge
-Not sure how i feel about it. Loss of charges, damage increase are great and 3s stun is really strong. Im not sure how much focus is put into PvP but coupling gap closer with long cc and pretty potent nuke might be a bit too much. While Sentinel certainly can use additional mobility its value is kinda lost on Blademaster. I also find it hard to figure what role PC tries to fill as it does a bit of everything. Other than that animation works great and with 0.25s cast it feels super responsive.
Indomitable Battle Strike
-Losing spot as the highest damaging ability and making it single target at the same time is harsh. With new changes it really falls behind other Encounters. Frenzy deals almost twice the damage and Punishing Charge is bloated with additional effects, IBS doesnt bring enough to the table. I believe it should remain as our hardest hitting encounter, animation and sound effect make the strike actually feel heavy and powerful. Landing huge IBS crit on multiple mobs and seeing numbers flying was one of the most satisfying thing about playing GWF, please dont take it away
Frenzy
-Not sure why it was changed in this way, i assumed it was meant to be alternative to IBS but magnitude buff made it pretty much mandatory for SingleTarget. I recall Flourish was originally supposed to have damage spread over multiple strikes (same as Crescendo does). Such approach would allow to differentiate it from IBS without making its damage excessive.
Axestorm
-Magnitude is greater than the tooltip says, approximately 1455 instead of 1000
-Doesnt fit into damage table, even with 1000 mag it would outperform any single target ability by large margin, i hope other abilities can be buffed accordingly.
Battle Fury
-I really dont like it's design, group-wide percentage buffs are incredibly difficult to balance, thats the reason they were pruned right? In solo scenario it performs very poorly. Best case (using daily in rotation) can net up to 407,6 magnitude, standard optimal rotation will look more like ~200 mag(st), and with pure Sure Strikes spam its less than 50 mag. In group it could possibly have huge impact but would require very good coordination and a lot of micro management, modeling its damage and keeping in check might be very problematic.
-How about adding flat magnitude bonus (~15 ?) to each hit instead of percentage dmg buff, it would make it much easier to predict and tune. Other than that it would make Encounter impactful while giving us option to retain some focus on at-wills
Mighty Leap/NSF/Roar
Similar case to IBS, compared to other AoE options they fall off hard. Each has its own quirk that could make it viable depending on build but it needs to more fleshed out.
Come And Get It
Any plans for it?
I have no idea what does this Encounter trying to achieve, the damage reduction is insignificant and pull is pretty much non-existent. Taunt effect instead of pull would make much more sense, so pretty much alternative to Daring Shout.
Class Features
In general Features feel very situational, being very potent in certain situations and useless in others, is this the design aimed for?While displayed and actual values differ i hope the optimistic variant is the target here, otherwise they will become barely noticeable.
Bravery
Im not sure if movement speed bonus works, its not displaying in character sheet
Steadfast Determination
Feels rather insignificant, some buffs are in order.
Weapon Master
Stacks up to 6 times instead of 3 as tooltip says
Trample The Fallen
Increase damage by 20% instead of 5 as stated in tooltip
Steel Blitz
Some clarification would be nice, maybe change weapon damage to magnitude?
Destroyer
Each stack increase damage by 12% instead of 3
Challengers Charge
Its inconsistent with the rest of Class Features. As much as i like idea of abilities complementing each other, i think effects like this should be either baseline or added through Feats.
There's a clear mathematical threshold at which point a group buff is worth taking over a direct attack. Of course, in practice it's not simple to apply, because not every DPS is dealing identical damage, and whether your tank and healer are contributing solidly to damage will also affect the calculus. That being said, I will re-examine Battle Fury to ensure that there's a valid reason to use it in group play.
The problem is that if that threshold isn't pretty high, in terms of requiring that the group all be dealing decent damage in order for it to be the superior choice, and it's always a superior choice in group content, we go right back to the spot where you should always take buffs/debuffs first. Even if the numbers are low enough that content doesn't become trivialized, I still think that's not particularly interesting, and invalidates a lot of otherwise fun builds.
Hopefully that gives you some insight into why I'm hesitant to make any immediate changes. I will definitely be doing another pass on the buffs and debuffs of each class as we get more numbers into their final positions.
Fix those as a baseline as those are probably be the biggest buffs since I literally don't use anything relevant from there as nothing is really good, and then fix the actual active abilities we get.
Once those work, we can discuss balance. How many Class feats have been reworked? Any new ones for blademaster?
IIRC sentinel gets 2 new ones
In particular, there was a massive overhaul to feats and class features, so that's going to be a very fresh thing to take a look at. But there are also quite a few core power adjustments, such as adjustments to IBS and Come and Get It. Also, Frontline Surge has been completely replaced with a unique new Barbarian themed power.
On the topic of the damage formula and how magnitude functions: magnitude is basically percent of weapon damage. We purposefully left this abstract, as for new players who aren't crunching numbers, it should be fairly learnable that a 300 magnitude attack deals about 3x the damage of a 100 magnitude attack. That being said, at its core the power literally looks like "Weapon Damage * (Magnitude/100)"
If you strip down and use a wooden weapon, you should be able to see that this is the case, but if you're not finding it to be, please let me know. I look forward to seeing more of your feedback in the next few weeks!
Obsidian Oath - Warlock
A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
Blademaster is great, just more power boost tweak to feel again "the steel and the blood"
-Damage modifiers are inherited from power triggering it. For example Sure Strike with Rampage feat active will pass 132% dmg increase (Master At Arms + Rampage) to Steel Blitz.
-Apparently any effect can trigger it. Procs from Not So Fast sometimes deal 0 damage, i suspect this is caused by slow application which is separate from damage (maybe coded as strike with 0% modifier?). Curiously Bloodletter can proc it from heal, giving us damage, i wasnt able to test if it actually heals (negative modifier)
Other than that ive somehow omitted pretty big bug:
-Surprise Attack from Hidden Daggers isnt consumed on next attack, however buff is applied to every hit while its active - results in massive damage
Sentinel damage bugged
Few tests with Sentinel and as others pointed out, they deal way more damage than intended to.
Hidden Daggers
I also think Hidden Daggers is currently broken (unless I just don't understand how it works). From what I understand it adds +200 magnitude for the next attack (be it sure strike's first slash or Axethrow) but currently it's working as a +200 to all powers for ~4 seconds. For example after using hidden daggers I notice a large increase in damage when spamming Blademaster's Strike (weapon master's strike) multiple times for ~4 seconds.
Avalanche of Steel
I've also read that a lot of people want Avalanche of Steel swapped out from the Blademaster path for Slam. While it makes sense, I've experienced many time where it saved my toon from dying just by buying enough time for potion cooldowns to be finished. I don't know if considering this as a panic button a good thing or not but it does help newer players who are lower gear level survive more. I kind of wish this should be a shared power rather than exclusive, I wouldn't even mind if it's damage got nerfed but a Sentinel feat buffs it. It's probably got no use for group play but it's really great for soloing and soloing is such a big portion of the gameplay.
Human Racial Bonus
I still haven't fully wrapped my head around the feats and I hope the upcoming new ones will be better. The only question that's running in my head right now is what to do with the extra paragon feats (Heroic Feat) the Human race is supposed to have? I always preferred the extra feat points (Heroic Feat) the Human Race rather than Drow's Trancefire or H.Orc's Furious Assault gives, but with so very few feats probably makes it way stronger than intended. Are you guys replacing it with another bonus? Or are most racial bonuses also being reworked to better match with Mod 16's calculations?
Companions
So far I've been loving the new companions. It's pretty weird that some companions constitute a large chunk of their overall DPS and even as far as I've heard other people say do more damage than they do. Are you devs planning to nerf them (I hope not)? Overall I do feel they are more substantial rather than acting like extra buffers previous mod. On a side note with Pets being more powerful than before, any plans on introducing a new Pet focused class?
Versatile Defense:+250 all Offensive and Defensive Stats
Ability Scores: +3 to any Ability Score
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Brash Strike
The first attack in the chain, which is obviously just the Takedown animation but slightly modified, doesn't really flow very well with the second and third attacks, which as far as i'm aware are completely brand new animations(?). Additionally, this 1st attack doesn't seem to properly gain the attack speed increase of Unstoppable/Battlerage mode, while the 2nd and 3rd attacks seem to function as they should. If this has anything to do with the fact that the 1st attack shares a character animation with an Encounter power (Takedown), then I think you should just replace the 1st attack anim entirely and maybe use one of the attack anims from GF's Cleave or Crushing Surge instead. I can imagine the 1st or 2nd attacks from either of those atwill chains would flow a lot better with last 2 attacks of Brash Strike, as they 're all heavy, arcing swings.
Effect lasts 5 seconds after casted.
The follow up power(Axestorm) will cause Hidden Daggers to trigger 200 Magnitude separately from Axestorm, same goes for any other power within the 5 second duration.
You'll see a damage increase because the numbers stacked since they're dealt at the same time, it'll be shown in the log.
Because its no longer a direct debuff(prior preview build) or Buff(Live) only efficient way to use the power would be At-wills, everything else is too slow to make any use of it, because of the back step it does move you away from your target you'll lose out on some of the duration, so you could do a 180 and instead get closer to the target at the cost of the lesser magnitude base hit, letting you get an extra hit in of At-wills.
If you are against a wall or do the reverse back step you can get about 8 hits in with Sure Strike, 7 without, doing that would be preferred for dmg purposes.
7-8x 200 magnitude hits
With Rage daggers cast prior
11-12x 200 magnitude hits
With Rage dagger cast after
14-15x 200 magnitude hits
Also doesn't take up the full duration of rage so other encounters can take advantage of Rage's dmg increase.
With that I'd recommend Frenzy/Hidden Daggers/Axestorm as most peoples go to encounters atm, IBS is still a option for those that rather not count in their head for the 5 sec daggers duration, but will likely be outclassed by those that do. ^.^
Though currently Sentinel is currently bugged and dealing practically 2x the dmg of Blademaster(Tested with SS n' IBS)
Also I don't know if the magnitudes are going to change but Axestorm has the magnitude of 1600 unlike the tooltip says 1000.
Hidden Dagger is not initiating leap back. Initially when preview started there was a spike in the damage you did, but that is not noticeable now.
Companion, a Stalwart Golden Lion at lvl40, does more damage with its standard attacks than most of mine put together. It only has a 1/10th of the stats that my lvl80 Barbarian Blademaster has, but its wiping the field clean, while I'm barely worthy of dishing out anything. When you test this by soloing Isle of Tuern, and its able to solo the boss and reduce it to half its HP, while you are running around trying to evade and not get killed by the boss and the adds, then there is definitely something wrong with the class.
Axestorm: should this be more powerful than all of the dailies? Its the only real damage causing power I have. Cescendo and Adamantine Strike are worthless in comparison.
At Wills: All worthless. Even configuring all of the damage boosts imaginable, from companions, feats, boons, weapon enchants, stat configuration, class features, etc; they still only allow you to do barely half the damage per blow that the run of the mill enemies can cause you with one of theirs. Not counting gold enemies or bosses. You're lucky if you dont get one-shotted going against those.