Shattered Kingdoms

If negation really dispels elementals, that has got to change. Why the heck would sharing your resistance dispel an elemental? Shouldn't work at all.

I think negation should just be removed, but if it's not going to be, it really needs more of a saving throw also.

While I agree that it could probably use a good wimping, I agree with jennbo. It's nice to see that MR barbs have been made more viable. I don't think aura of negation is complete bs, but it does sound pretty overpowered right now.

No, the armor, etc is why griffons are in general lower ceiling than a human. For a 10-trained-mr kamikaze dispeller who never gets buffs themselves, it seems clear to me that griffons are the only way to go due to racial traits (forget claw attack etc - it doesn't hurt, but I'm talking about flight) making them still playable through 10 trained mr. My main point was that I'm suspicious of their ease of use and of any change that brings a just-rezzed griffon closer to a fully-prepped biped in terms of usability. I really like griffons in concept but it's silly to say that they don't present unique balance issues. Anyways, like I said, I'm trying to reserve judgment until I see more.

Did do some musing about the skill, though. If you actually wanted to try tweaking it, perhaps stripping 1 buff from everyone in the room, friend and foe, instead of all the buffs from 1 person and leaving the healing factor? That'd make it more a true aura effect.

In general, I'm agreeing with Ardith so far. Ardith may have something to gain from liking aura of negation, but his facts are not wrong. Plus the naysayers have something to lose, so it balances out.


I can only boggle at this argument. They DO hate magic -- that's the thematic core of this ability. They aren't manipulating or using magic. Through sheer hatred they are destroying magic and the people who use it. The only point I could possibly give you is that I could possibly have named it better to get the point across. Some sort of roar perhaps.


Also not true. The effectiveness of the aura definitely depends on how much MR equipment you can acquire. You don't get 100% aura from trains alone -- you might get half of that against most spells and only a tiny percentage chance against charms. There's nothing about it that's UNbalancing. In fact, I would call it the definition of balancing. It can't 'hurt' the opponent and doesn't remove anything they innately have. It just brings them down to the MR barbs level, who by virtue of this training can't have any buffs in the first place.


And the paragraph above is why Ardith is right about MR barbs. If you want to make the BEST MR barb, you will not do it with a griffon. Yes, griffons are the best at coming back at you unprepared, but they ALWAYS HAVE BEEN. And veterans have rightly seen the drawback to that -- they will never be the best when facing a race that is fully equipped.


Yes, it's just like MR. It's uncontrollable and dispels all spells on the target -- including maledictions -- which means if the barb fights with a party there will be some strategies off the table. I encourage you to continue gathering nice weapons - the category of 'nice' may now actually include weapons that do not always do magical energy damage.

The sky is not falling. Does this up-end some established strategies when playing against an MR barb? Absolutely. Is the MR barb an unstoppable juggernaut of destruction? No way. There is definitely a trade-off. In exchange for being better against magic users, the MR barb has a much bigger chance to lose against 'normal' barbs and other warrior classes who spent all their trains on hit points. And that's assuming that the aura works immediately, which will not be true unless you've also spent all your armor slots on it as well, making you that much weaker in every other category.

The one thing I will give you is that I don't intend for this to dispel elementals. I'm still reasonably sure that it doesn't happen, but I grant that I could be wrong. So if you have a log of that happening, I will fix it.

I have nothing to lose from MR barbs being nonsensical.


Barbarians are so hate-filled that they can dispel magic. I had to type that out just to see if it was still dumb. I think I just got dumber thinking about it.


So far, a GRIFFON barbarian has full dispelled someone with his aura of negation, an aura that he can even activate while prone. I've seen a GRIFFON barbarian wearing stat mods and maybe 10 MR total on his gear dispel over half the buffs from a PC too.



Actually, an MR barb is now the better choice, since if someone does come into the fight with buffs, he actually ends up HEALING his enemy, and if he comes in with giant strength or haste, he ends up fatigued: Not to mention that if the non-MR barb uses a magical weapon, his opponent effectively has double HP the entire fight.

PS: If you think that removing negative effects is actually even worth mentioning, you must not PvP that often.

An MR griffarb should and will be eaten alive by any properly applied melee force. Trying to take one down with hybrids or casters has become properly impossible. Griffons are and always will be completely vincible to melee damage applied in massive doses, especially if they can't quaff heals to any real effect.

Everyone is weak to melee damage applied in massive doses.

Edoras, I'm bowing out of this one, you're too vehemently against something that just hasn't been in the game long enough to really know. I'm still skeptical like I said but I appreciate the explanations and trust Dulrik to monitor the thing. I also have no problem with the idea of an anti-magic barb using his spirit enhanced rage to strip buffs from an conceptual standpoint although that might want to be formalized into the help files if it is intended to be the sole interpretation of this skill. No use in making up all sorts of maybes and potential nightmare situations - if it manifests I'm sure it'll get handled.

Aura of negation can be brought into balance, but only if several of the following are implemented -- you pick:

1) It cannot be used while prone. Barbarians are already the only class that has a skill (berserk) which can be activated while prone, which is innately silly. That the barbarian can manage to pull this off while prone is outright ridiculous.

2) It must incur a serious penalty. I'm thinking a fatigue for every use, given that a successful dispel will likely cause double fatigue on another warrior.

3) It should require high concentration, meaning that the barb cannot berserk and then use this skill, or has to spend valuable attributes or mods on intelligence.

4) This one is almost non-negotiable: it should not be able to dispel held spells. Specifically, shamans (and to a lesser extent, controlled NPCs) are the most screwed by this change, a fact made doubly ridiculous by the fact that shamans and barbarians are supposed to have a higher affinity. That a barbarian can instantly dispel spirit aura, protection, and sanctuary from a shaman with a single action is pretty straight-up ludicrous.


As it stands, barbarians now have a single-target dispel with roughly a two-round lag that can be activated while prone with little to no drawback: and that is completely unbalanced.

Shaman can't use protection anymore.