Shattered Kingdoms

Are Barbarians sub-par to the other fighter classes out there? I'm curious.

After the last update barbarians own every other fighter class out there. Not only they can use berserk anytime they want now(which was the main reason mercs were better than barbs before the update, because spec is working 24/7 and a spam bashed barb wouldn't have a chance to pull out a berserk), but they get to use track more often now with the changes in fly.

When the update happened to mood, with defensive being utter crap and aggressive being the way to go, two handers win and the eparry bonus of mercs is no longer that much of a buff, since combat is now more oriented in being a better dmg dealer than being a better defensive char.

Their HP pool also helps them getting more beating than any other class and they can easily go past 1000 HPs.

And finally counterstrike remains a great way to avoid backstabs that can insta kill even mercs if done right.

Barbarians suck, unless you have someone else in the group to get hit instead of you. Straight up "accuracy" bonus>>>increased chance "to hit". And who the hell is worried about being able to use berserk with any weapon? It's not like it's worth using 20 different weapons. There're only a very small handful of weapons worth using against other players. Also, you're a [REDACTED] if you aren't still flying everywhere. Just land when you get into a fight, there's not even any lag associated with the command. I'd rather take the risk of getting surprise spam bashed and be stuck flying than having a group of five manage to find me in BFE because of track.

A merc wielding his spec is going to parry way, way more than a barb. Loller, even if the merc's spec is an e.parry inaccurate weapon(battle-whip).

Enhanced parry is a -MUST- in PvE too, especially when wielding two-handed weapons. NPCs with "natural attacks">Barbarians.

The most amazing thing I noticed about Barbarians was that if I really put my mind to it, no "tracking" NPC in the game could kill me. Down to 10% hp? Flee, NPC comes in "YOU COUNTERSTRIKE NPC", flee again, "YOU COUNTERSTRIKE NPC!!!", flee again, "YOU COUNTERSTRIKE NPC". I don't think it's supposed to work like that, but it was funny.

Another thing, toughness is the most [REDACTED] skill in the game. Basically, unless you just got Resurrected, the skill doesn't even exist. Toughness should really be turned into some sort of just straight up "damage reduction" due to barbarians being so "OMGZ RAWR TOUGH".

The concentration decrease from berserk/fury also kills their effectiveness upon joining a cabal when compared to mercs.

Fury only heals roughly 20%, which isn't really that much, considering most fights aren't very even. And if you're getting spam bashed it won't matter, since the other person will be able to slip in a quaff heal or two in between bashes which is >>> than the healing effect of fury.

(according to D-A this is wrong, but whatever) I'm not 100% sure on this but I think the speed bonus from specialize might be more than the one from fury.(which doesn't even matter if you get unlucky and fury doesn't hit!) This is pretty stupid too. Merc vs Barb, both wielding shield/kama(or any other weapon that gets an extra attack with speed bonus) merc is spec'd in the weapon, they fight, one round goes by, merc gets 5 hits, barb gets 4, the merc is down to 85%~ barb is down to 80~, barb goes "oh noes, I better berserk!" -Your pulse races as you are consumed by rage!- barb goes "WTF NO FURY WTF" barb gets a measly like 7% hp or less back and proceeds to continue to only get 4 attacks and dies.


------

I would say the only advantage barbs have over the other two fighter classes is that if you took them and noone had any magical buffs, a barbarian might do the most damage. But this doesn't even matter since that's not how people PK. The difference between having berserk/fury and the other two classes is pretty much nullified considering how easy it is to get FRENZY, from either a tribunal NPC or a very easy to obtain herb.

Syndal, you realize that fury is having far greater bonuses than spec, right?

And I mean that far greater bonuses, not only in saves, but in actual damage ouput, accuracy bonus and speed bonus of weapons. Certain decent weapon subtypes give an extra attack with GM fury when GM spec isn't enough for them. Even if you add GM spec and GM frenzy together, I'll prefer GM fury.

And also, are classes compared now according to their PvE abilities? Eparry means little now in PK, when barbs get to deal sick amounts of damage on mood aggressive and chop off limbs in 2 rounds(that can work on PvE also).

I don't think so. My barb, with fury/high enough level haste to give +4(5 with a mod)dex, there were weapons I'd only get 5 hits with that I'm pretty sure a merc spec'd with would get 6. Could just be me imagining things or part of centaurs sucking horribly.

No, I wasn't comparing them based on PvE, notice that was like the smallest clip in the post. But it's pretty pathetic when you go to Beozaztar and are getting your butt kicked because you don't have e.parry. I can only imagine what trips to the wastelands/outlands would be like.

It's just you imagining things.

Anyways, Barbarians are "better", but they're still at the bottom of the fighter totem pole IMO. And I haven't really seen any newbie barbs running around, still seeing plenty of mercs running around though.

I didn't really do enough to be an expert on them, but seriously I don't plan on playing a barb ever again.


On a side note, the only thing saving centaurs from being complete trash as everything except a priest is the fact that there's all sorts of centaur-only scripted EQ, which is a silly way to keep a race on par with the others I think.

I heard that Fury is hard to accomplish. I dunno though! Someone tell me?

I had my fury skill rating at superb+ and got it to work like 40~% of the time, and to my understanding even once you master it, it still fails a lot. Which honestly could easily be the deciding factor in a fight. Berserk is basically the exact same as the Frenzy spell, though perhaps a bit better, it's +damage/hit and -MP, where as if Fury lands, it's more +damage/hit +weapon speed, and +willpower/fort.

And the healing factor of Fury is like 3x as strong as if you just got berserk by itself.

Fury is a very nice skill. But seriously. A merc with 1-handed weapon/shield>>>Barb any day of the week. Someone showed me a log a week or so ago, of human hellion/merc versus gnome priest/giant barb. The hellion got interdicted and did pretty much nothing, and the merc I don't think quaffed any vials or anything and the giant barb went through like 5 heal vials, healing spells from the priest and still managed to get his leg chopped off before killing the human merc. Peso has this log probably, though he might be ashamed to show it to anyone.

I'm quickly beginning to ascertain that the moral of the story here is to NOT LISTEN TO SYN.