Shattered Kingdoms

I don't remember if this has been brought up before, but ever since the MR implementation, barbarians haven't been able to put as many trains into HP as mercenaries: Notably less, in fact. I think this is because the stat train maxes (for hp, move, mana and art) of all classes add up to the exact same amount.

I'm of the opinion that barbarians should have the option of having more HP than mercenaries if they elect to dedicate their att trains to that. I don't think this would be too much of a buff to barbarians, because I don't think they needed the nerf before: Even before they lost 10 HP trains off of their max, they were still less than desirable because they were worse tanks than mercs, and now they take even more physical damage than mercs because of the berserk penalty to dodge.

Basically, right now it's really no contest if you want a competitive melee character: It's merc all the way. Barbarians being able to clearly compete for the higher HP pool would be a nudge in the right direction, because right now they're relegated to the "noob friendly" melee class.

don't really care if barbarians get to train more hp or not, but a barbarian and a mercenary of the same race that both have max con/hp trains...the barbarian will have more hp hands down.

those 4 extra hp trains the merc gets won't make them tougher than a barbarian.

Tougher as in having more max hp? Sure. But I hope you're not arguing that a barb is going to last longer in a fight, because that's absolutely no contest. With the enhanced accuracy mercs get from specialize plus enhanced parry and the fact that berserk gives dodge penalties, barbarians should have a -much- higher HP pool than mercs in my opinion to make up for the fact that they're simply going to get hit a lot more often.

Before barbs lost 10 max HP trains, they weren't clear winners over mercs, and now they're really not on account of the dodge penalty from berserk.

Basically, it sucks to have more HP yet lose it faster and regen it slower, which is the current state of barbs vs mercs if Finney's accurate. At minimum, barbs should be able to train HP the same as mercs, I'd prefer more because they should be able to get absolutely slaughtered and keep on trucking.

Just my two cents.

Barbarians also get a damage boost to their damage when they berserk. When a barbarian berserks they also get a substantial bonus to their fortitude and willpower saves, and a decent bonus to their magical protection. Specialize gives none of that. The 4 HP trains that mercenaries get are in no way equal to those perks. In fact, if not for things that mercenaries get that barbarians do not like access to ranged weaponry, rallying cry and retreat, barbarian would be the clear winner.



Oh wow, a dodge penalty. Have you seen the amount of stacks of bonuses you get when fury rips open the fabric of time and space and turns you into a killing machine with an added bonus of giving you a heal spell on top of that?



The last mercenary I had only had 15 hp trains. I say "only" as sarcastically as possible. With that many HP trains it shouldn't take any longer than 3 "ticks" to regenerate your HP pool to maximum, and it's enough to give you a decent HP pool. At best 4 more HP trains would simply give you another "hit" before you die.

I'm a little weirded out by the idea that barbarians don't have enough HPs. Having played casters and warriors, I can say that the difference is night and day. I feel like I'm going to die if someone sneezes on my casters and on my warriors it tends to be that I'm some kind of godlike beast of armageddon that simply can't be taken down. Barbarians are no exception to that rule.

But my point was that barbs are not actually "tougher" than mercs in a lot of circumstances, because mercs will inherently parry more than barbs with enhanced parry and the accuracy bonus from specialize, plus the penalty to dodge on berserk. If you have a barb tanking for you, he's not going to deal any more damage than a merc, but he is going to take a whole lot more healing to keep alive, on top of the fact that he's not going to rescue all that reliably.

If barb HP is already noticeably greater than merc HP when they both max trains, I still think barbs could stand to benefit from going back to what their HP max used to be. I don't recall -anyone- saying that barbs had too much HP back before they lost 10 max trains, and after that silent nerf, they got another change (to berserk) which means they're going to take even more physical damage. I think those are some of the reasons why no one plays barbarians anymore, and giving them their HP back would be nice.

enhanced parry is over rated for its ability to boost chances to get normal parries. If you're playing a human barbarian (which I would refer to as the "vanilla barbarian" build) you'll get plenty of parries. Personally, I'm not sure why mercenaries even get the enhanced parry skill as they'd work just fine without it. I'm sure other people would argue that it's fine as it is, and I don't care either way.

It's also worth mentioning that one of the "best" barbarian weapons is the bandalore subtype which the barbarian cannot even get parries with. That because the barbarian gets his damage boost this weapon actually works well with the class, in the hands of other classes it just doesn't work that well.

Also on defensive stance, not many people are going to put out much damage at all. That's not the point of the defensive stance. It's to soak damage.

While it's nice to take 0 damage from your skills showing up to block the damage, that's not the idea behind tanking. Tanking is about having massive HPs and mitigating incoming damage via defensive buffs like sanctuary and protection.

tougher as in having moar hp while having to use 4 less trains to get moar hp - that's a big deal. i could use an extra 4 trains on just about every character i've ever played. different classes are different. ur posting examples where the mercenary shines, but there's plenty of situations where it's better to be a barbarian.

track, counterstrike, and fury all come to mind. to get a dmg bonus with mercenary u either have to rely on rallying cry, which is a big gamble if ur a giant or don't have high charisma cuz u lag urself for 2 rounds for no gain or u use frenzy which makes you take a boat load more damage from both melee and spells.

ur looking at one aspect of the game - tanking - and thinking cuz mercs do it slightly better than barbarians that there needs to be changes. u need to look at the overall effectiveness of both classes and they r quite close right now. certainly doesn't warrant any changes imo.

Ardith, I agree with all of those points except the last, which is I think the only one related to the points I'm trying to make: That barbs should be given the option of dedicating more of their trains to HP to compensate for their innate penalties to avoidance. I also find it worth pointing out that bandalores, the barbarian's best weapon, basically don't exist in SK anymore.

Avoidance is a -huge- part of tanking in SK, way more than in many other MMO style games. When it comes to PvE, armor class, enhanced parry, shield block and dodge are the primary mechanisms that good tanks excel at. Armor protection enchantments and defensive buffs are also very important, but they are secondary compared to the absolute necessity of avoidance. If your tanking consists just of having a high HP pool so that you don't die quickly, but you still take a lot of damage, then you're a very undesirable tank because your healers are going to burn themselves out of mana healing you very quickly, and they're not going to have time to do other things either. You're also going to chug through healing potions in combat at a much faster rate, which is also a detriment in combat and in prep-time.

I'm not saying that barbarians should be better tanks than mercs: I don't think they should be. I just really don't think that barbs are competitive at all compared to mercs, because they take more physical damage in combat and don't even have that much more max HP compared to a merc to make up for it.

I've always viewed fury's combat bonuses and specialize's combat bonuses to be roughly equal. As well, the barbarian trades off a bonus in spell resistance (protection, will, fort) for a penalty in AC: And that is in my eyes not a favorable trade, because the majority of damage that any front-liner takes will be physical, especially in PvE, and . This makes barbarians undesirable compared to mercs, which is why I think there are very very few barbarians. I would much rather have a barbarian in my group than a merc in their current state.

I'm not looking for a huge buff. I'm looking to revert a silent -nerf- that barbarians got years ago and that was never addressed.

kid if you wanted to tank the wastelands without damage mitigating buffs or a GGI battle then go right ahead. I'm personally not going to rely on just my parry/shield block/dodge to see me through fights.

Barbs are fine. They're the newb friendly melee class whereas the mercenary is more of an intense veteran player's class. As in if you don't really know what you're doing and want to play a frontline character, barbarian is a fantastic choice. I suggest this class to people because it really takes a pro to work the mercenary class.

^^ pretty much sums it up.

are u a veteran that knows where to find all the high level consumables for haste, giant strength, bless, etc? do u know where to find the diamond, energy or adamantite versions of weapons? and lastly do u have lots of time to invest getting all that stuff? if u answered yes to these questions - pick mercenary. otherwise, play a barbarian.