Iron Skin, as a general rule, is inferior to Shout past a single hard point invested because Shout gets the same per-level defense bonus yet affects the entire party. Iron Skin as designed is an inferior choice and will remain a 1-point wonder. With that said, below is a suggestion to the developers to buff Iron Skin to offer more benefit to the Barbarian…
Iron Skin
TLDR:
I think 0,5% physical reduction won’t convince me to invest more than 1 point again.
+2% physical dmg reduction / hard point
+X flat Defense / soft point.
Longer:
Recently I was thinking about Iron skin and what would make me invest in this skill more than 1 point.
I was thinking about Paladin Holy shield giving huge +15% defense per point, and that block chance makes him damn evasive, tanky but not in a sense to be able to take huge hits from monsters, but rather evade them by improving his gear.
I think Barbarian should thematically be different: be a damn tank and be able to absorb huge hits rather than evade them, rather have “Iron skin” than iron gear.
So it should offer % physical damage reduction.
And I think if it ever means to be a “invest more points” rather than “1point wonder” It should offer like 2% damage reduction / hard point. No soft points, only hard points. Maybe some scaling like 2% upto level 5, 1,5% level 6-10, 1% level 11-15, 0,5% level 16-20.
So it makes sense to level this skill in playthrough to be able to play melee barb without getting smacked by monsters. And since endgame is about killspeed, you will probably respec after you get good gear and dont use Iron skin, it would be an important skill in PvP.
Second part of Iron skin should be to differentiate it from Shout. I think Iron skin should give direct Flat Defense / soft point. Just like Natural resistance gives flat resistances. Iron skin even from its name should make Barb skin alone like iron. Not his gear, but his body alone.
I am not sure on how much defense per level and its scaling, but it could be determined by devs.
Ironskin could give a chance, that the attacker gets stunned for a short time?
Thats also a nice way to deflect damage done to barb, hopefully working on Unique bosses too. Not sure how stun would affect PvP scene.
Yes PvP is a critical issue as always, while caster wouldn’t be affected it would obviously be a hell for every melee opponent. It would need to balanced separately for PvP or maybe disabled…
Agree with you only hard points, not soft points. Also the % damage reduction would have to be balanced, but agree the 1-2% per level range seems reasonable.
Exactly. Probably should have worked against all physical attacks - ranged ones too.
But on the other hand - from what I dueled for few weeks: there is only Smiter and WW Barb in PvP as melee. So I guess smiter “Always hit” vs barb “Chance to stun you” is a decent turn of events for barb. Also Bowazon has Always hit Guided arrow.