I hate the "barbs are worthless" debate. Can someone please help?

Sevas - Heavens Tear wrote: »

No, the barbs suck. When I play my cleric and there is a barb in squad they never tank. That is usually left to the sin or the bm and I have even seen the barb splat. You are the one with a failed argument. You don't know what's on my server and I don't play on RT, at all, so while you may well be an excellent barb that could still mean the barbs who think they have aps and can still tank are just absolute fails. Why don't you take a minute to think about that. If you are a good tank, fine, I'm happy for you. Barbs on my server are different (THAT is the point I have been trying to make you ding-dong).

Wow. Generalize much?

I'm not a fist/claw barb. I don't have uber gears. But I'll bust my furry paws to tank if necessary. I can think of countless times when the "party wipe" didn't include me, OR the cleric (thank you very much.) I can think of countless times when I've taken a boss for a jog around the instance just so the cleric could res everyone.

Now granted, a majority of the new barbs coming up aren't good tanks and granted a majority of the 5.0aps toons aren't going to hold up on their skills/DD to allow a barb to tank. But nevertheless, as a barb in any squad, it's my responsibility to be ready to FR, or Roar, or Alpha Male in the event of a catastrophic loss of life. As a barb I take it personally if ANYONE in my squad dies-even if it is a dumb-***-perma-sparked APS'er. I always feel that it's my fault. That's the way I came up playing this game.


But Rawrgh also has a decent point: claw barbs do have higher aps and thus will generate aggro at a higher rate. But it's not the barb's fault...it's the game mechanics. PWI isn't going to fix something that they broke, so like other classes, we barbs that like to tank need to adjust ourselves to twist the game mechanics back into line so we can compete with those APSers.

Its a wonderful skil to be able to kill a squad member, it makes it easier when you have a co-operative squad and cleric. i learn't this skill about a week after the T'born release, i was doing BH51 at the time, and boy, it helped, annoying pesky un controlling stupid sins and pys that power'd there way to lvl 60 then took out their deaths on me... well... lets just say... raw doesn't always go off in time... and my agro skills always glitch on me and never worked... it was odd.. but they sure did learn their lesson...

Congenial - Heavens Tear wrote: »

*Giggles*

I gotta admit, I used to take it personally whenever someone died. But now, with so many people wanting to show off their damage, I adopt a simple approach?

You wanna show off your damage? Then show me that you can tank it too. Otherwise, I'm not Flesh Ream-ing or Roar-ing or anything, and I'll tell the cleric not to heal you so that you'll die and learn a lesson.

I wonder what's the current death count so far.... But yes, it works wonders at making them realize that a barb is superior.

*Giggles*

I'm a bad girl. But I am an awesome chick barb.

The truth bears repeating.

b:victory

I can see lettign the DD tank, killing them with the cleric is just failcake

No really the fact that barbs are proud of not only failing to hold aggro but working to pick off the DD (Btw most bosses at 90+ outside of TT are not only range/paint tankable but work better that way as do most of the bosses in 59 and 39) Is just disgusting and is mildlt hilarious.

Fact: Its not that hard to get 17k hp on a +5 flawless interval barb at 100 or 13k at 90 with +3.

Fact: If the highest DD can live and tank let em, lower repairs faster kills and you dont look like a tard on the forums

Fiction: The barb job is to always tank on bosses. Your there for mob pulls. mainly and most barbs wine bh makeing even that pointless.

Fact: Barbs have large easily wounded egos and its fun to rip aggro off them and tank more effectivly on my 70 wizz with 3k hp in bh 59 while they cry about how fail it is.

Fact: Vit barbs are far less usefull in pve due to the above facts past level 89.

The last time a brb tried the "let the DD die" on my bm was in the 8x range on pole, my bm had 3 base vit and 5.5k unbuffed hp. I just tanked on HP food booted the barb and cleric and cancled/resisted the axe.

Same goes for frost, so many barbs want "safe" no aggro loss pulls that they'll do bm/seeker sized chunks ones and then delay the party by sloooowly buildign aggro. Again I replaced em.

Theres no point to a tank that dosent let your DD go all out. Often in the Pole/Nob bh if the barb wanted to tank the entire squad would remove jones blessing, rings, and i would swap to a set of +2 70 claws and auto. Boss took 10+ mins to die. Or we could go all out resisting axe and kill the boss in less than a minute with the barb serveing as a failsafe/buffer.

Talk to your DD's if they want to tank let em. If they die take over. Karma will bite you in the *** otherwise.

Congenial - Heavens Tear wrote: »

@Joshcja

You are smart, but you kinda failed to understand the circumstances. When that happened in my squad, I was a level 86 barb who was asked to help tank an FF for level 94-96 group because their barb had to leave halfway.

I understand that a barb is to hold aggro as best as possible, but when everyone just spams their best attacks (and demon sparking) knowing full well that a barb can lose aggro easily at that level because of

1) level difference
2) lack of demon spark
3) lack of interval gear

Unless you fully grasp the circumstances, I think it'd be best that you don't try to be TOO smart.

Joshcja - Sanctuary wrote: »

Fact: If the highest DD can live and tank let em, lower repairs faster kills and you dont look like a tard on the forums

Fiction: The barb job is to always tank on bosses. Your there for mob pulls. mainly and most barbs wine bh makeing even that pointless.

Fact: Barbs have large easily wounded egos and its fun to rip aggro off them and tank more effectivly on my 70 wizz with 3k hp in bh 59 while they cry about how fail it is.

read better next time

A 8x wizz can tank every boss in fcc much less a 9x archer or sin

Ive done most on a 7x wiz out of boredom, (fragrance finnaly got me lol)

I have played a barb ever since 2 weeks after the servers came out of closed beta, I have also played the other classes barb is by far my favorite class to play. I have been told that bm's and sins can tank anything a barb can while this may be true they CANNOT do it at the levels a well built barb can. I have never seen a level 65 sin or bm with the ability to tank pole or nob in fb69 but this is the level I first tanked those. Yes they can tank those at much later levels but why should people rely on lvl 90+ to tank a 69th lvl instance? Aps is the newest an latest craze all the cool kids have aps of some sort or another, I can honestly say hand on heart aps has never saved my furry tail when clerics are dead an your not gettin any heals, the only thing that saved me was my hit points, and my knowledge of how to play my barb. Barbs are no where near useless at any stage of the game especially a well played barb. The problem on most servers is the lack of "good" barbs, a lack of barbs who understand their role in a squad. Barbs are there to absorb damage not to make the damage. Yes high aps at end game can pose a problem with aggro but if a DD class actually has a clue about how to play their class aggro isn't a problem. I frequently go to FF on my sin who is lvl 92 with a barb who is several lvls lower than me and I rarely pull aggro on the bosses not because I cant but because I as a DD know how to control my aggro I know when to spark when to crank out the dmg. Barbs are only as useless as the person playing them just like any other class.

Congenial - Heavens Tear wrote: »

This was what I was trying to highlight. In that instance, he kept dying and got resurrected, but it didn't teach him anything. I got so tired of spamming my aggro holding skills and the cleric was also annoyed. There's a limit as to how much a cleric can handle, and barbs also have got a patience threshold.

This happened at Cenequus Polearm and we all know how annoying that BH is.

Barbs who cannot hold aggro in BH59 are sad people. -.- I'm sorry, but that's just sad. It's a good indication of what Sevas - Heavens Tear calls "fail barbs".

Oh and you claiming that wizards can handle most of FCC/FC/FF. Uhhh, I don't think it's counted if that wizard needs barbs buffs, has +10 refines on everything.

What were the gears on your 7x wizard? And since you died at Fragrance, I rest my case. I don't see how dying makes your argument valid, to any degree.

2.6k hp unbuffed, bosses hti an average of 1.2-2k on mag an ih stack easily outheals em

Heres a deal, my 1.82 aps 66 sin will 2 spark wind sheild and glitch PD constantly for 2 minutes you try and hold aggro from it on a 70 barb. Theres a reson my barb went claw early =, no amount of FR spam can keep up with sins/bm's/archers 2 spark+ human lets me hold aggro over most and those with gear enough to rip can probly tank the damage.

59 is best tanked by an arcane class with decent hp anyways or an archer due to the bosses obscene phys damage vs their love taps at a range.

@ whatshisface: Yup, you could hold aggro nicely, or you could tell the fuzzy to go human 3 spark spam with rib strike on the boss and kill the damn thing in 1/2 the time, because thats a DD's job not comping for a gimp tank.

Hexalot - Dreamweaver wrote: »

You seriously think that at end game, I or any other aps DD is going to "pace" our damage in Nirvana/TT/BH/FF/etc (and end up taking twice as long to kill the bosses) just so as to make you feel useful as a Barb ?

LOLWUT ?

If you want to feel useful as a Barb, adjust your build *cough*claw barb*cough* to do so. But don't think that you can just bring your full Vit build to end game instances and then **** about how its everybody else's fault for making you useless just because they won't control their aggro for you. b:angry

b:angry Hey! Back off! FooFoo is one of the best TANKING barbs on HT BEFORE aps became so important. She used to do FBs and bosses for my alliance. I ran my first FB51 with her. I watched her and Daia do Krimson and TT. FooFoo was the first awesome barb I met!

Some of us still appreciate a barb that can do their job and not fail as a DD and a tank. Squads used to care about agro control. If they didn't they ended up dead. I hate having to play ping pong with a squad because they all try to prove they are better than the person who has agro at that moment. If I get slowed even a little bit someone is going to die and who gets the heat? Me, the cleric. It's never the DD's fault if they die for being stupid.

Hey... I meant no actual disrespect to FooFoo personally, but doesn't change the fact that she comes across as someone who the game has left behind and doesn't (or refuses to) acknowledge it. b:bye

The players never asked for the advent of aps but now that its here, what do you expect everyone else (INCLUDING Barbs) to do... pretend it doesn't exist ???

Or maybe we should just continue with the same play style pre-aps where the Barb tanks everything and everyone just holds back their damage because if said Barb dies, squad then wipes ?

Well silly me but those days are done. b:surrender

As for Clerics... I agree that ping pong agroing between aps DDs can be a supreme head ache in terms of trying to keep track. But at the same time, blood paint does make your job a quite a bit easier since most (aps) Sins and BMs should be healing enough to keep themselves alive most of the time with only an occasional IH or purify being needed for those that get in trouble. And to be quite honest, there are some instances (Nirvana for one) where aps squads flat out forget about bringing a healer all together because that extra person would just cut into the profits.

fist/claw weps look stupid as hell. every time i see a barb DDing with them i do not know whether to laugh because it's ridiculous looking or cry because that's what all the -int has reduced them to to keep up. nevermind aggro (altho you will never convince me that a cupcake punching a boss will generate anywhere near as much threat, or do as much damage as, a tiger ripping into their internal organs, or wtfe it is they have to be shredded). i don't know what your skill bar reads, i don't even know that most high aps have anything on their bar other than autoattack-spark-buff, but i do know that the great majority of mine say "Axe, Poleaxe, Hammer or Polehammer, Unarmed". which leads one to believe that the skills on a barbarian's skillbar are actually somehow relevant to playing this game. they are called skills for a reason tho, it takes a degree of situational awareness to know which one to use when. yknow, skill. since it's so obvious that the developers of PW intended a barb to use axes and hammers as their weapon, as well as put a learning curve into the game so that one progresses to steadily more difficult content using those weapons, then why would they throw dirt on top of someone who has worked for so long to perfect the skills to play the higher-end content effectively by saying, "for a fee we'll let you use two skills to do insane damage. very little brains required". the devs didn't make enough money yet from people purchasing things that don't really exist and have very little bearing on one's life outside of this video game? what a gyp. the only reason i personally still hang out on PW is the people i've grown to actually care about worldwide that hang out there also. otherwise, your game has become a total failure. maybe if those maintaining PW stopped and gave some thought to how the people who play this game feel about the work they have put into their toons, learning to use them effectively rather than pressing the same two buttons like idiots to win, they'd have more business.

Barbs are still useful even non-APS, if you have ppl willing to take you. Barb's debuffs and buffs can definitely make a difference for APS-based squads.

Reason I went claw was simply so I can solo ****. Squads, as weird as this might sound, aren't usually my thing. Now I only squad with friends for BH, I rarely ever squad for something in WC, too many facepalm moments from other ppl for me to handle.

Doing things on your own terms, is just my style.

Why didn't I just go make a BM? Well, I did as my alt, but I rather still play claw Barb, simply because I love being a Barb, regardless of my build. If it works, ppl shouldn't complain. lol

I'm not saying Barbs should go APS, its purely a choice, no matter how you look at it, for them.

I've play a Barb long enough to know how it works, I've been both Sage and Demon, I've done 3 different style of builds, VIT-based, to STR/DEX-based, to now my current -int 5.0 build, and well, I'm loving it.

Ignore the sig if you hate claw Barbs otherwise. :P

Barb4Life!

b:victory

Joshcja - Sanctuary wrote: »

Heres the deal for you, go run instances with your "tank" barb and the rest of us will find a paint slave and run in a fraction of the time with no need to worry about clerics that cant do their job or barbs that refuse to get with the times.

Aggro control is bull **** if the DD can tank

Joshcja - Sanctuary wrote: »

I see full vit barbs with +6-7 refines and less than 17k hp all the time when its possible to have 20k with +3-4 legendary armor with a bit of tt green mixed in with flawless shards

Barbs arent so much outdated as just plain dumb.

My proof? 20 barbs saying "but they kill themselves with aps!" ya, no if the DD has enough damage to pull off you spaming all aggro and still die? you doing something wrong.

If they are your doing something wrong. Not the DD. You. Learn to play.

Oh Omniscient Lord of the Forums, answer me this then... Demon L100+ aps barb with 10k HP buffed in Tiggy form is running Abba with BM and a Sin for competition. I believe it was the tree boss... I can't remember anymore, but I was a lower level then (probably 93). The barb, for whatever reason, thought he could tank. I spent my time frantically trying to keep him and the bm alive because they ping-ponged. Between the boss hitting him and using AoE the barb got shredded. How in the fvck do I heal to save him and keep the bm from going splat? As it was the bm died once or twice because of pong and after the barb died again I didn't bother to ress him till we finished. How is a cleric supposed to keep a squad up if the "DDs" can't decide who should be the tank?

LongWushi - Heavens Tear wrote: »

Oh Omniscient Lord of the Forums, answer me this then... Demon L100+ aps barb with 10k HP buffed in Tiggy form is running Abba with BM and a Sin for competition. I believe it was the tree boss... I can't remember anymore, but I was a lower level then (probably 93). The barb, for whatever reason, thought he could tank. I spent my time frantically trying to keep him and the bm alive because they ping-ponged. Between the boss hitting him and using AoE the barb got shredded. How in the fvck do I heal to save him and keep the bm from going splat? As it was the bm died once or twice because of pong and after the barb died again I didn't bother to ress him till we finished. How is a cleric supposed to keep a squad up if the "DDs" can't decide who should be the tank?

The barb was pretty damn special then. My claw barb has that hp at 70 with +3 refines

You sound like a pretty terribad cleric if you cant master the art of set BB>afk, theres also the wonders of squad menue and wellspring/ih + chromatic. Again its not the DD's fault you managed to hit 9x without learning the basics of the cleric class.

Joshcja - Sanctuary wrote: »

The barb was pretty damn special then. My claw barb has that hp at 70 with +3 refines

You sound like a pretty terribad cleric if you cant master the art of set BB>afk, theres also the wonders of squad menue and wellspring/ih + chromatic. Again its not the DD's fault you managed to hit 9x without learning the basics of the cleric class.

Hexalot - Dreamweaver wrote: »

Look... Josh is right. You seemed to have never really taken the Cleric role seriously at all. Quoting you straight from the Cleric forum:

http://pwi-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=1094371&page=2

I'm sorry but statements like this makes me kind of glad we are on different servers. Because its blatantly obvious that you fill the role of "cleric from hell" in just about any squad setting. b:sad

I take my job as cleric very seriously. BB cannot be set up on many of the bosses between the two 99 dungeons. I always have the squad menu open, but if I'm trying to save one person while some other idiot is down to the last 2k of their hp there isn't a whole lot I can do. I have all of the basics down very well. (In case your noob *** has forgotten, Chromatic takes a long time to channel even with -chan gear. Not very useful when the BM isn't the greatest tank either with 5-6k HP, if I'm lucky they have 7k+.)

I am glad I play on a different server. I don't have to deal with jacks like you guys. Honestly speaking, answer me this, how often does a cleric have a squad for the their kill quests? The general ones that used to get all of us original players leveled up. How often does a cleric really need a squad? Hm, okay, the odd boss here or there, FB dungeons, and TT. Great, now, for the majority of the game play, what skills will the cleric rely on? It's not the healing skills. Healing skills don't kill a mob or a boss, they just make the dying last longer.

There are things that are attractive about every class of the game. I never liked 99.9% of the cleric skills until I started using them. I did make my cleric only because Tempest was the next coolest skill to the dragon aoes of the Human classes. Because I recognized that I would have the need of a squad, I made sure my heals and buffs were up-to-date and even got that stupid skill BB. There is that wall again. Cleric's aren't meant to just buff and heal. We have that other skill tree too and we make a damn good DD when given the chance.

And I learned how to play cleric from the best clerics on my server.

Sarrafeline - Sanctuary wrote: »

Somehow, I doubt that. Then you are a fool.

I'm willing to bet that even with you focusing on one tank, they're spamming Crab Meat to stay alive. Or a Mystic/Wizard/Psy is having to DD less and heal them on top of your heals. They weren't potting and this was pre-EG release. No psy in the squad. The Wizard was away.

I suggest you roll a Psy or Wizard or something. I have both. I don't play either anymore.

I've done BH's on my Sin where I've tanked. The last BH59 I ever did, the cleric put IH on me 3 times, then went and got a burger. I had to use 45 Crab Meats to stay alive. I ahve 5.5k hp on my Sin at 82, level 4 IH isn't going to do jack **** if you stack it 3 times and go play with Snoockums for 5 minutes. The point?

And yes, clerics have '4' skill trees: Buffs, heals, attacks, and debuffs/seals. When you are in a party, you are the ONLY one with an effective Heals skill tree, unless there's a Mystic with you. Every single other player in your squad will have waaaaay more of those attacks in their skill trees than you do, and they will be doing a LOT more DPS than you will be able to. And your point again? A good tank means I can still DD.

Unless you're duoing with a non-aps player, you should focus on heals above all else, then debuffs/seals, and finally DPS. If you are dinking around with pew-pewing for 6k a hit every other second, and a 3.33 or 4.0 aps dies, you just nerfed your parties DPS massively. I really don't give a damn what the 'pro clerics on your server' say, 6k, and an occasional Tempest are a drop in the ocean. You want to bring a tidal wave to bosses/mobs, roll a Sin. Otherwise, get back in the kitchen, and heal me a burger.Sorry nubcake but I hit way more than 6k for damage. I have a sin too and she's L84. I'm taking holiday from her to play my BM.

And you all know what you're talking about...?