Barbarian Sentinel Survivability Problems

Not only do barbarians have the worst aggro generation of all tanks, we also have the worst damage mitigation. Paladins and Fighters have an encounter that decreases incoming damage by 20%. Barbarian’s have an encounter that increases our HP by 20%. Looking at those numbers, you may say that they are the same, but there is a problem. Enduring Shout, the encounter which increases our HP by 20% does not work off our maximum hit points, instead it is based on our base hit points + all bonuses from equipment.




The number in gold is the HP you get from gear, enchantments, boons, companions, mounts, and insignia. The number in white is the HP you get from bonuses such as Mighty Vitality, Will of the Sentinel, and Constitution. The number in white is also where you see the bonus HP from encounter powers and daily powers.










Why is this important? Zariel and the various enemies you fight in Zariel’s Challenge hit hard. Really hard… Zariel’s tank buster attack, Judgement, can deal up to 4.8 million base damage. If your defense is capped, this damage is cut in half to 2.4 million. Then if you have any damage resistance bonuses, those are factored in. Unfortunately for us barbarian’s, we don’t have damage resistance bonuses. All we have is Enduring Shout and Battle High. As you can see from the above picture, using both Enduring Shout and Battle High gives about 1.4 million HP. If we use our block, we have another 50% of our HP or 700k of effective HP. This brings our total effective HP to 2.1 million assuming our HP and block are full, which in many cases are not, especially during phase 2. Without any damage mitigation, we can not survive a max damage tank buster. Unstoppable does not provide us with any damage mitigation or increased block. In Mod 18, Unstoppable was blocking for 100% of our HP instead of 50%, but devs said this was a bug and removed this feature with Mod 19.

Comparing that to the damage mitigation that Paladins and Fighters have, 20% damage reduction from encounters, and paladins have a further 10% damage reduction from their Tab. So we have 4.8 million base damage. Cut it in half from capped defense to 2.4 million. Reduce it by 20% from the encounter power to 1.92 million. Reduce it by another 10% from the Tab power effect to 1.728 million damage. Paladin’s and Fighter’s block shields 75% of their max HP when using their Tab. This means if they start with 1 million HP, they have 1.75 million effective HP. Paladins and Fighters are able to take even the strongest of hits in Zariel’s Challenge using just an encounter and their tab ability.

The problem should be more evident now. Barbarian tanks are lacking in survivability. Another drawback is that our survivability is linked to our HP. If you gain stacks of revive sickness, your HP is reduced by 10% per stack (5% if you are using the revive sickness guild boon). Because our mitigation powers are all HP buffs, the lower our HP gets, the less of a bonus those powers give. This means that any mistake handicaps us more than other tank classes and each progressive mistake makes the problem worse.

Another thing to consider is that we have to rely on our daily, Battle High to be able to take the tank busters and survive. On average it takes about 50-60 seconds of normal gameplay to fill up our action points. Zariel does her tank buster approximately every 30 seconds. The fiends in phase 2 also do a tank buster about every 25 seconds. So how can we get our daily up in time to take the tank buster?

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What can be done to address these problems?

Possible solutions include:
1. Increasing the size of our block while in Unstoppable to 75-100%.
2. Adding a damage resistance effect to Unstoppable of 10 or 15% just like there is in the Swordmaster paragon's Battlerage.
3. Adjusting the amount of health given by Enduring Shout and Battle High to give more HP to better match the description of those powers. While the changes to HP made in mod 19 addressed the "double dipping" that was happening when using Enduring Shout, the net outcome of those changes made these powers less effective when compared to an equivalent damage reduction.
4. Locking the health these powers give based on your full HP so that taking downs doesn't actively nerf the effectiveness of those powers.
5. Changing the effect to be percent based damage reduction just like the paladin and fighter encounter powers.
6. Reducing the damage of the tank busters, BUT this is not a good solution because it does not address the imbalance between the tank classes.

Making adjustments to the size of our block while in Unstoppable seems to be the easiest way to improve our survivability and balance it with the other two tanks and provides an actual use for Unstoppable. In its current form, Unstoppable doesn't make you even remotely unstoppable and in fact, it makes you more likely to get killed since enemies will tear into your block, reducing your effective total HP. The minor threat gain from Unstoppable doesn't even help address the aggro issues that Barb tanks have. The power is for the most part entirely useless on the Sentinel.

We shouldn't have to rely on a daily power to take the tank buster when other tanks can take it without using their daily powers. Currently, my survivability is basically 50% since the only way I can effectively take a tank buster is when I deflect. In Mod 19, Barbarian Sentinels were supposed to get buffs, instead we got multiple nerfs. Our aggro problems were not addressed and our survivability was reduced. Additionally, we have almost 0 group utility. Savage advance's 5% damage enemy reduction would be nice to use, but I can't use Savage Advance because I need to save my daily to take the tank busters.

Please make Sentinel viable for endgame.