Barbarian masteries

General Discussion
1

Perhaps instead of the 6 masteries we have now, it could be reduced to 3

1H mastery
2H mastery
Thrown mastery

This would allow for dual wield/sword and board players to not need to respec every time they find a better weapon of a different class.

2H mastery could then have a bonus which could make 2H more desirable to play/ as well as allow players to swap 2H weapons as they find better items.

Nothing worse than starting swords and finding a unique axe only to say I guess I can’t use this.

You could still have the specific weapon bonus’s within the 1H/2H masteries.

To me

Under 2H would be % chance to cleave for swords and axes
% chance to slam ground with hammers/blunt
% chance to pierce with polearms.

These % chance would never be able to reach 100%
But
Perhaps more around 33%

4 Likes
2

Im curious what combo you seek? Most can be achieved as is - Grief / Lawbringer. Grief / Death. Grief/ Grief.

This wouldnt really benefit the end game - but would benefit levelling. It therefore wouldnt be overpowered and could work.

3

I’m not a barbarian main so my opinion is a bit lacking

But when I tried my first few barbs I hated picking a mastery only to be stuck using one type of weapon

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4

Seems a reasonable shout to me. Like i say, end game stays the same, but it would be nice for levelling. You could argue that you can now have Grief Axe and Lawbringer, if thats what you want - but thats not breaking anything either.

A5 merc stays as is.

A nice suggestion which i will second.

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5

Thanks.

I also though maybe a 4th mastery, shield mastery if you wanted to spec into 1H and shield mastery to become a proper tank

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6

Unless you can melee damage with it - i would suggest concentration has that covered already. Unless it retained shield block and defence when running? Now that could be of real benefit and would be points worthy.

2 Likes
7

some interesting and good changes. i’ll allow it.

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8

I would rather shield mastery be geared towards mitigating damage a bit better.

Nothing specific as of now but something

I like your idea of blocking while moving retention.

Even +defense to shield armor not fully sure what would be balanced

9

I like the idea. Especially for playthrough and early progress. Also it would allow more 1hand weapon combinations.

We should maybe also talk about base restriction on weapon runewords (Only swords, only axes etc).

2 Likes
10

We should - and we should start with Scourges being able to have 6 sockets for BOTD, and to be able to have a Lawbringer. Maces are awful as it stands.

1 Like
11

I think revamping how many sockets in certain items would help.

My other thought would be more attack rating from Masteries would help a lot.

12

I think we should start with low to midlvl runewords that are currently locked to a few item types and afterwards look at endgame items. I would prefer to see them update some elite unique weapons and adjust the runeword bases accordingly. But first change the masteries, so the pressure to adjust bases isn’t as high.

13

maybe shield / armor mastery could also reduce the stat requirements and reduce penalty to walk / run.

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14

Been asking for a long time

Agreed mate

2 Likes
15

I don’t have too much of an issue with condensing the Mastery skills into those categories. However, I feel the separation of each weapon choice bonus pretty much reinforces the old system better. It is a conundrum, because 3 makes it easier for progression in a post-synergy world than 6, but having those specific bonuses feels more like a specialization distinction and is very similar to how D3 handled some skills. Might not resonate with D2 players that dislike the oversimplification.

In the end, I’d be fine with it. What type of Cleave are you thinking of, ie like how is the graphics engine going to render that? Slam ground effect could simply use the aoe splash effect that leap attack now uses.

16

I do agree mysteries are a weird one. I deliberately hold off or throw them into a mastery for whatever I have available at the time.

Combining them into smaller categories would help that. Could also make mastery skill points maybe fluid, can move points assigned to masteries every level, would allow a lot more versatility and still maintain some limitations, by the time you are leveling slow enough changing sucks you will probably have the weapon you like. Otherwise reset token works like normal.

Dunno but do agree they are dead skills otherwise.

17

Just something to keep in mind, AFAIK D2/D2R is hardcoded to require all 7 classes to have the same amount of skills (i.e. 30 total), removing skills would probably be a lot of work.

18

Well if it was
1H
2H
Throwing
Shield

Maybe there are 2 more that could be created.

19

Dual Weapon could be another. I always thought it’d be neat to have a limited block with dual weapons like Assassin has with Weapon Block.

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20

Instead of block it could be parry

Which would be a % chance to mitigate damage and attack back.

Obviously this percentage couldn’t be very high

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