Shattered Kingdoms

Everyone used to say crossbows sucked. Then Krakish came along and specced crossbow and killed everything, and all of a sudden everyone and their mother wanted to roll a merc specced in Xbow. Dulrik even had to wimp ranged combat, it hurt so bad.

Just because no-one plays a class or uses a weapon doesn't mean it sucks.

DA Have you actually tested the classes you are comparing, lately?

From what I'm seeing yes, Barbs dish out loads of damage but they drop so fast it isn't even funny.

Even in mood aggressive a merc will deflect a lot more blows than the barb and, the way PK works now, where every blow is 8-10% of life to a well-hp'ed well-armored merc, blocking 4 more blows than the barb makes a huge fecking amount of difference.

The food chain circle remains as it was 5 years ago with melee classes.

Merc > Barb > Swash > Merc.

(Note that the > in this case means 'wins against', and that this equation is valid when all 3 classes are played by players of the same skill, with the same or equivalent equipment/armor on them.)

I have recently witnessed a fight in first-person between a mercenary specialized in a very accurate and speedy weapon, versus a barbarian in a not-so-good but not-too-bad weapon in a real PK situation. Both had shields on. The mercenary completely and utterly rocked the barbarian. The extremely good specialization sub-type aside for the mercenary, the barbarian just couldn't land blows on the mercenary who could parry most swings and still deal an incredible amount of hits every round.

Having described the scenario, however, I do not think this game, or any game is supposed to make mercenary and barbarian classes balanced against each other in a 1v1 fight. They are supposed to be unique classes. Both classes have other skills that make them more versatile and valuable in other situations. It is true, though, that mercenaries are great fighters with a lot of versatility and therefore being favored by more players at the moment.

As a side note, anticipating Dark-Avenger saying something about the barbarian in the above scenario, yes, perhaps the barbarian might have done better with a 2h weapon or even claws.

My last non-griffon barb, if I was decked in steel, it was impossible to tick toughness. That leads me to believe toughness is wholly useless to a decked barb.

As I told someone else, my mastered berserk fails around 60% of the time when not in battle and only 5% of the time when in battle. My superb fury fails 30% of the time when berserk hits. Spec sounds immensely better, although I have no exp with a merc.

I also know my griffarb takes a huge beating (with max str/con/hp) compared to my former non-griff barbs in any situation, so if barbs take a beating from mercs, ...

Just from what I've read and experienced, I'd have to say mercs > barbs. I don't play mercs because I don't know gear and spec would be useless to me.

I have to say, Mercs and Barbs have their own pros and cons. And are each better for certain situations.

Personally since you can now berserk/fury anytime really, I would take that over berserk if you know use it properly. Hit berserk when your under 50% and it gives you a health boost and extra damage.
But then, eparry was is also a big loss to barbs.

So, it really depends on the situation.

Erevan, I have played test chars recently, both mercs and barbs, and barbs were better than mercs. Given average lewt of course, if I played a merc seriously giving him sick adam and phat scripted lewt, the merc would be better.

But this simplicity is another plus for barbs. They die and they are good to go, where a merc really needs hook ups or really good knowledge of the areas/lewt of the game to be effective. They don't really have weapon restrictions like mercs have with specialize(let's face it, only specced weapons are worth using really) and they deal a lot more damage than any other fighter class.

Considering how SK works atm, dealing dmg is the way to go. Get a deadly/accurate weapon(who cares about speed, fury fixes that), aim mid, fury/gstr/haste(pretty simply buffs, more simple than the buffs mercs need) and you chop off arms in 1-2 rounds, leading you in instant win then. And barbs have the HP pool to survive more than a few rounds now, with the not resting bash change and the fact they are immune to all big opening attacks.

DA has it pretty on the spot. If you have l33t l3wt, then a merc can easily beat your run of the mill barb; however, barbs are easier to equip and function effortlessly under most situations.

I've had a merc and a barb recently and my specialized merc was definitely faster than my furied barb.

I can't comment on which class is better since my merc was a gnome.

And to all the people that keep saying defensive stance is crap: It may suck for PvP but it is extremely useful in PvE.

D-A you are such a [REDACTED], wtf? You're basing your comparison on "giving them both completely sucky equipment, barbs are better than mercs". Seriously, are you that stupid?

Having played a merc and a barb recently, even mercs with crappy specs completely destroy barbarians.

Also, didn't D-A comment on something like "Oh, now we compare based on PvE?" or some BS, so wtf is your comparison based on D-A? You don't PK at all.

Syndal, seriously, you think spec gives a bigger speed bonus than fury.

That alone proves you have no idea how barb mechanics work. Just let it die, you are proven wrong in this thread so many times.

I know people who were saying barbs > mercs before the last update and I strongly disagreed with them. But after the last update, I have to agree with them. Fury wins everything in melee atm.