Shattered Kingdoms

This is just wrong. If you take a non-MR barb and put him up solo against a MR barb, the non-MR barb wins. AoN doesn't negate all buffs every time, and even if it did, the non-MR barb still hasn't had to spend training sessions on MR to make his AoN worthwhile. He has spent them on other stuff, which presumably makes him tougher in an unbuffed vs. unbuffed fight. What's more in this scenario the non-MR barb always gets to open with a bash because he can be invisible and the MR barb can't see him.

You're right that AoN seems more reliable than dispel in most cases, especially against people with tons of willpower. Not against people with crap saves though. Dispel also seems more effective against charms, controls, and elementals and you can debuff people in back ranks, which you cannot do with AoN.

Really, though, the biggest disdvantage a MR barbarian has really is his lack of buffs. There are so many ways to exploit that and essentially be immune to them (and you see that happen in some logs). Dulrik said AoN was intended as a disruptional change to challenge the supremacy of super-buffed characters, and I think it worked. Some people want old tactics to always work, and I was pretty dubious of AoN when it first got created, but it seems fine. It just takes new tactics to deal with.

All that said, the title of the thread is about the interplay between MR and counterstrike. I think counterstrike should do the type of damage the barbarian who is delivering the counterstrike does, not the type the attacker does. That is too easily exploited, and not just by MR barbarians, but by many different classes capable of delivering big opening attacks. Maybe that would be a pain to adjust code-wise, but it does seem like a flaw. Logically, what is even happening in a counterstrike? Suppose a horseman comes charging in and gets countered; I don't think the barbarian is grabbing the other guy's lance and poking him with it. Something else is happening, such as a deft last-second sidestep followed by an impaling thrust. It makes sense in terms of internal consistency and game balance for the counterstrike to be based on the barbarian's own damage type and not that of his attacker.

I think you're very wrong, Styles. The victor in a non-buffed battle is going to be who has the better setup. If the non-mr barb is using a weapon that does half magical damage, or full magical damage then he's going to be severely crippled in the fight.

I'm just going to assume that it's a battle where both parties are spamming the bash command too.

Who logged in the most recently? The most recent character gets first strike preference each round. Did you get your weapon enchanted with speed enchantments, or does your armor have ap on it? There are variations with each. Perhaps you're using a weapon that deals bonus damage to the other side. It's not a clear cut answer.

Besides which, the most effective way to play an MR barbarian is not to take hits. It doesn't take a lot of imagination to sit in the 2nd row or on the wing and spam aura of negation each round.

That's how I cheesed through Lord Ephialtes and other high level NPCs. The easiest time I had in that particular high level area was with an MR barb in tow.

And every competent MR barb plays the opportunist. I would play the same way. I'd just wait until they're busy fighting some NPCs or whatever, and roll in while they're focused on something else, debuff their tank and proceed to tear their group apart by myself.

If it was me though, I'd just tow one along to cheese the battle against the enemy tank, and punch up through the middle of the enemy formation after that. The beautiful thing about it is that it will work every time.

I think if you're trying to use your MR barb to tank through stuff you're doing it wrong. You use the class to cheese through stuff that otherwise would pose a challenge.

Why couldn't you use a caster throwing dispel magic for this same effect? Why isn't Wudan as effective as an MR barbarian?

Dispel magic has a saving throw. The last time I checked dispel magic on my elf mercenary I survived 10 successive dispel attempts in a row without losing a buff.

Aura of negation tends to always take at least up to 5 spells away from a target.

Also if those spells happen to be anything that cause fatigue you instantly cause them fatigue.

You're trying to add in a bunch of stuff to obfuscate the issue. In an unbuffed fight, the non-MR barbarian is at least as good as the MR-barbarian unless the non-MR barbarian for some reason brings a magical-type weapon to the fight, which would be a bad idea. If you allow the non-MR barbarian buffs, then invisibility secures the initiative and the other buffs at worst just reduce the fight to the case of unbuffed vs. unbuffed, assuming the non-MR barbarian doesn't elect to use something like haste or giant strength that has fatigue and AoN successfully negates it. In all probability, though, AoN will not strip all of the non-MR barbarian's buffs. So if he started with stone skin, armor, and protection, he might get left with one or more of those and have an even bigger advantage.

It's illogical to argue against this. An unbuffed fight is the worst case scenario for the expertly-played non-MR barbarian, and even in that case he has a small advantage.



Yes, of course, every build has its strengths and strategies that suit it. A group of skilled players can generally react to a solo ambush though.

I'm sure glad all PvP is 1v1.

There are many circumstances where I'd rather have a non-MR barbarian or mercenary on my team than an MR barbarian in a group PK, and there are many circumstances where I'd rather have an MR barbarian instead of a buffable melee guy. Just depends on the situation. To say the MR barbarian is just superior to other melee classes is wrong. In one-on-one scenarios they clearly are not, and in group PK they sometimes are and sometimes aren't.

Turns out the armor your barbarian was wearing when he got ganked had almost no AP on it. 3 AP on the chest at most.

Honestly, it doesn't make that big of a deal against an HoL. A bajillion damage minus five is still pretty close to a bajillion damage.

That certain item isn't thwarted by MR?