Hey so I wanna start by saying I had a great time with the beta. I leveled sorc and barb to 25, and rogue to 20 before I ran out of time.
Having played all the classes through the 1-20 journey I can see why barb players might feel a bit frustrated, especially if they had a chance to play the other classes and compare. The barb struggles in a few key ways early on:
- They are the only class with no ranged attack option. This creates dps downtime that makes killing feel slower, and exposes you to more damage.
- They are the only class whose resource doesn’t naturally generate, and whose resources default value is 0. This often locks you out of your best attacks and can slow down gameplay which doesn’t create a compelling class fantasy.
- Some of the skill tree powers don’t synergize well which reduces viable options for builds. Example is is Battle Frenzy, its dependent on “Berserking” to grant an attack speed bonus based on your frenzy stacks however methods of generating berserking often take too long to proc and frenzy drops off.
I think by tweaking some of the basic and core skill enhancements you could address a lot of the issues and make the class a lot more fun. Such as:
- Add some movement speed bonus options early on. You’ve got the movement passive in the same tree as charge and leap which already solve mobility issues. Alternatively you could add a movement speed bonus option to a basic or core skill (Frenzy adds movement speed with its attack speed stacks, or WW grants 2% move speed on hit up to 10%) which would allow barbs to navigate melee more effectively.
- Add better CC options early on to prevent ranged mobs from kiting, such as slow on hit or knockdown/stun/tether options
- Resource generation or loss of resource over time needs to be looked at. Fury starvation early on feels terrible and lasts until players unlock a defensive specialization at lvl 10 (tactical ground stomp/rallying cry/challenging shout).
- Barbs need more options for unstoppable. Adding it to other key defensive skills like Iron Skin or Challenging Shout as an upgrade path. Even if it were via an aspect like “Berserking also makes you unstoppable”. Barbs are too vulnerable to CC and lack the mobility to manage it without multiple build options for breaking free. It feels mandatory to have at least one option equipped which limits build choice given there are only 3 sklils in the tree.
Hopefully this thread will serve as a place for other players to provide helpful suggestions on tweaking the barb as well. These are just my first thoughts.