Barbarian is up!!!

[GMforPowergamers]

ok so people have been saying?

common sense tells us that an ability shouldn't be given at 1st level unless it has some practical use at 1st level.

There's no balance problems with it. AT ALL. None. The "problem," if it is that, is that it seems inelegant to grant a power at level 1 that cannot be used until level 5.

The rogue only gets one daily power use per day at level one, as does the Barbarian.

I don't understand why this is so hard to grasp. It is not another power, it is a replacement for those who want to keep the frost wolf rage active while fighting a Red Dragon. If he uses another daily power (which you WOULD do against a Red Dragon), then he loses the frost wolf rage cold damage. However, because of Rage Strike, he has the ability to still do an equivalent "daily power" attack if he had a daily power to use, WITHOUT ending his raging effect.

Ok I would hate to have to have them reprint can be used as x if in rage or y with lasting effect z if not. In EVERY daily ability, and I think it is pretty elegant in it's use. It CAN be used at any level if you have a way to regain dailies. I also having played through all of paragon and 7/10 of epic have seen many fights with more then 1 daily used.
Heck listen to the pod cast for today and they talk about a wiard useing 3 disintagrates in a day...now look at how useful that 'novaing' would be if you knew you could recall a daily at the end of the fight...




oh and

Those of you who fretted that monsters have too many hp and fights take too long: meet the barbarian. The ULTIMATE "Lets speed this combat up, I need to whiz" class!

this is so true...I am siging this

 

[Kordeth]

• Make all, many or most powers require a 2H melee weapon. This should help alleviate some of the multi-classing issues as it'll restrict weapon types for power-swaps of multi-class strikers like ranger and rogue as many ranger powers require a ranged weapon or be wielding two weapons and many rogue powers have rogue weapon group restrictions on their use. Similarly with a Warlock need an implement will conflict with a 2H melee weapon for available hands.

This might not be a bad idea.

• Add that barbarians grain a +1 bonus to AC and Reflex saves when wearing light armor This bonus could increase by +1 each tier (+2 AC/Ref at Paragon and +3 at Epic) as a way of enticing them away from heavier armor and shields. While possible to get better AC’s out of heavier armor it would be feat intensive to do so compared to eventually what could be achieved without. This enticement towards light armor could be an effective alternative to heavy armor.

The problem is, if you give a bonus to AC/Ref in light armor that's not as good as the boost you get by going to chain, the barbarian is still going to go for chain. If the bonus is as good as going to chain, you're going to end up with the same problem of "high AC and tons of hp" that the barbarian wearing chain suffers. You're better off restricting the class's powers to only work with light armors, or else coming up with some other benefit to take away if the barb wears heavy armor.

• Change the Rage/Dailies to reduce the weapon damage by 1W with the proviso that they can maintain a current rage/stance-like effect and have the attack deal +2W additional damage instead. This will help clear up the ‘rage-strike’ issue (in part) by eliminating the ‘chunkiness’ of having an class feature that cannot be used till 5th level by having it instead built into the rage powers themselves. The idea of reducing the Rage/Daily damage Weapon Output is balanced by their conversion of a daily into extra damage as well as that barbarians are geared towards a more level, if elevated, damage output without conditional situations like the other strikers.

I think it's easier and more elegant to use Merlin's suggestion of removing "you must be raging" from the requirements to use Rage Strike if you're really bothered by the current implementation.

• Change ‘Rage Strike’ to a Minor action but eliminate the need to burn a ‘rage/daily’ to power it. Instead it would be a STR vs. AC attack against target: enemy who you have hit or has hit you since the beginning of your last turn and have the attack do damage equal to ½ the barbarians CON modifier (maybe ½ CON +1 or +2 at 11th and +3 or +4 at 21st level). Perhaps with a special benefit that when making this attack, the barbarian is not considered marked. In effect this would be similar to a minor-action ‘cleave’ useable only while raging. This will add a little bit of extra ‘Sneak-attack/Hunter’s Quarry’ Damage without being too over-powered because it requires an additional attack roll. If you go with the special to ignore marked (for the rage strike attack only) it would grant the freedom to choose who you wish to hit, simulating a barbarian as such a wild combatant that it is hard to pin them down. The damage from this would be fairly low compared to main attacks but since it requires an action to use and requires that you hit or have been bit it will limit some the frequency it is used. Perhaps have it reduce the barbarians AC and Reflex DEF by -1 or -2 until their next turn on any turn they utilize this at-will. This clears up the other part of rage strike (and giving Barbarians a quarry/curse/sneak attack like boost).

This is way too fiddly and doesn't really connote "rage strike" to me.

 

[sukael]

Hmm...

30th-level minotaur barbarian, demigod, Strength 30, uses a mordenkrad +6 (2d8 brutal 1). Use a 29th-level daily for rage strike... 18d8 brutal 1 +16, so average 106 damage on a hit, or 53 on a miss, or average 181 on a crit... and this is all before feats and other magic items. Yeouch.

Hurricane of Blades could do up to 156 average if each attack hits, though.

 

[gribble]

Evocations do less damage, Rampage triggers nearly once a round. Off the top of my head I would say it could even work as an extra melee basic attack per round when you manage to hit an enemy, but maybe just an extra attack that deals 1[W] damage(2[W] at level 21+) without any stat bonuses would keep them "in line but different."

I like this. With the fairly static "to hit" % in 4e, I think it would work well. Feels very barbarian-ish, and it'd solve the MC problem (with the class as written in the preview, I don't see what ability/power the MC feat could give another class...).

One rider - I'd probably restruct it to an attack against the same target, otherwise it might be too good (particularly at minion killing or cf Twin Strike).

 

[gribble]

Why would there be a Level 1 Rage Strike effect if you couldn't use Rage Strike at first level?

Because the level of effect is the level of the daily power you've burned to acivate Rage Strike. E.g.: at 5th level you activate your daily rage. Next round, you burn your 1st level daily to acivate Rage Strike and remain in your 5th level rage.

Seriously guys it's not that hard. Inelegant? Yes. Contradictory or confusing? Not if you actually read what the class abilities and power says... and don't bring "common sense" interpretaions into it. I've found that 4e rules really don't lend themselves to "common sense" interpretations.

 

[JVisgaitis]

I don't understand why this is so hard to grasp.

It's not hard to grasp. I understand the benefits and why they did it. IMO it's a band aid to fix a design flaw. You and other people like, I and other people don't like it. Let's leave it at that. We can sit here and post until we're blue in the face. I don't think either side is going to give, so let's leave it at that.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Hmm...

30th-level minotaur barbarian, demigod, Strength 30, uses a mordenkrad +6 (2d8 brutal 1). Use a 29th-level daily for rage strike... 18d8 brutal 1 +16, so average 106 damage on a hit, or 53 on a miss, or average 181 on a crit... and this is all before feats and other magic items. Yeouch.

Hurricane of Blades could do up to 156 average if each attack hits, though.

strikers are big bad damge dealers...but I saw a rouge with a freken dagger do just shy of 200 with a crit on Assassin’s Point. I think till his dying day the GM will be remembered as saying 'but there just daggers...little daggers' that was 17d6 (Crit max 102) +12D12 (Viscess dagger) + str mod +dex mod.
It was something like 198 or something...it was epic in every way shape and form

 

[Minigiant]

I think many people are missing the point of the barbarian's high AC and HP. It's his counter for aggression.

The rogue drops effects on foes to make attacks against him miss while boosting his defenses.
The ranger uses superior shifing and cancels incoming attacks.
The warlock attacks at ranges and places negative effects on foes.
The barbarian takes the hit but doesn't feel the first one(s) much if at all.

Rage Strike just gives the barbarian a way to use their dailies effectively since rage bonuses don't stack.

Also. What if the half orc racial power has the Rage keyword?

 

[Mezzer]

A few thoughts some people seem to be missing, in no particular order.

The only confusing part about Rage Strike is it's description in the class feature's section, the actual power description is quite clear. When I first read that, it threw me off, but after actually reading the power, it was pretty clear. I'd say it certainly warrants some more TLC as far as the wording goes. Also, a little sidebar on the reason it's there should pretty much settle any uneasy feelings people could have about it. And as far as elegance is concerned, tell me which is more elegant, including "Special: you can instead use this power as a Str vc AC attack that does x[W] damage on a hit" on every barb daily, or having one ability sum that up nicely?

Anyway, one thing people seem to be missing is the fact that the barb is the first class from the primal power source we've seen so far, and so he's bound to be different from other, more familiar, classes. The whole "your dailies grant you extra abilities for the whole encouter, and don't stack" thing could be the defining feature of the primal power source, and a cool one at that. Druid combat shapeshifts as dailies would be a perfect fit for that. Trying to go away from that, or simply crying about it, will probably get you nowhere fast.

As far as chainmail is concerned, he benefits from getting heavier armor as much as the next class, and he comes with some built-in features to offset the fact that he doesn't start with it. It's also perfectly fine from a RP perspective to have a barb in heavy armor (let's ignore the barb fashion trend from 3.x; mithril full-plate anyone?), as has been pointed out before. We shouldn't forget that heavy armor slows you down, and gives you penalties to the few skills you might have at a fair bonus (at least in heroic).

And to get back to the core idiom of 4E; play the class before you make up your mind about it, and preferably before you go on a posting spree in every RPG oriented forum you know of.

 

[Dragonblade]

Right.

I don't get most of the hate for this ability.

There's no balance problems with it. AT ALL. None. The "problem," if it is that, is that it seems inelegant to grant a power at level 1 that cannot be used until level 5.

Agreed, all the criticisms of Rage Strike seem to come down entirely to semantics. I have no problem with it as written.

I'd just like to chime in here real quick on the armor issue. I think many people are looking at this the wrong way. The Barbarian is EXPECTED to take those armor feats. The Barbarian NEEDS those armor feats.

All of the other strikers or light armored classes are all heavily focused on INT or DEX, meaning they don't need heavy armor. This would even apply to the Wizard as well. Now, there is nothing to stop one of those classes from taking feats to wear plate. But they don't need it due to the ability score/AC bonus synergy inherent in those classes.

The Barbarian has no such attribute synergy to rely on. More than likely he will have his best scores in STR, CON, and CHA, relegating DEX or INT to dump status. This means that the Babrarian desparately needs those armor feats JUST TO BREAK EVEN with a Rogue or Ranger AC-wise.

The designers made a conscious choice to mitigate some of that drawback with Defender level hitpoints because they knew the Barbarian was going to take more punishment due to the lower AC.

So the Barbarian taking armor feats is NOT broken, rather its the Barbarian spending a resource to overcome a significant drawback built into the class itself.

And Hurricane of Blades is NOT broken either. Sure, you get up to six attacks with it, but you are only doing a single [W] worth of damage. Its a minion killer, but not very useful against the bucket of hitpoints that a 27th level non-minion monster is going to have. I'd much rather have Blood Frenzy and be able to dish out 5[W] worth of damage as my 27th level encounter power.