Tree of Savior Forum

A Possible Way To Balance Barbarians/Highlanders

Suggestions
#1

I think one of the main reasons why this class is so overpowered is that they can more or less completely by-pass the rock-paper-scissors style damage-type system the game has.

2H Swords already have extremely high base damages (higher than all other weapons), but Barbarians in particular get access to skills which provide high scaling types of every different physical damage on a low cooldown, with overheating.

They never, ever, have to change their already strong weapon out like other physical melee classes have to and there is no repercussion for playing in a completely stagnant manner.

So here are some suggestions:

1.) Give a damage reduction to skills while using a weapon of a different damage type than the skill ( - x % damage using a pierce skill with a slash weapon)

2.) Make all Barb/Highlander skills Slash based (like how all archer skills on the archer tree are Missile type, hoplites are pierce, etc.) so they are required to go into other skill trees to get the damage skills they need/want.

3.) Reduce the attack speed on 2H weapons (in most games, a 2H weapon by logic is not as fast as a 1H weapon) to make them choose between high burst damage and DPS.

4.) Spread out the skills from Highlander into Barbarians and remove the amount of skills that Overheat. Highlander C3 has 8 damaging skills and 4 of them overheat. Barbarian C2 has 5 damaging skills and 4 of them Overheat.

5.) Remove self-buffs from Highlander/Barbs or distribute them to another new Swordsman branch class.

I don’t particularly like this suggestion, but it is an option. Clerics have strong buffs which help solo if they decide to go physical damage as monks, but otherwise are aimed towards team-play. If you can just Concentrate/Gung Ho/Frenzy/Warcry yourself, why do you need someone else to Blessing/Sacrament/Divine Stigma/Deprotection Zone for you?

6.) Allow 1H-spears to be a default available weapon for swordsmen rather than a peltasta/hoplite attribute to give them access to pierce damage damage early and promote weapon swapping.

#2

Barbs are pretty balanced, they just get an early advantage. 2H swordies don’t have much of a choice, with highlander c2 being weak, unless you want to force people going hoplite and make 2h swords useless.

#3

They are not really OP, they just deal lots of damage in trade for defense.

#4

Believe it or not,barbs actually got nerfed once already,and this is still a notable issue.I think other classes need to be buffed,not barbarians brought down.

#5

Barbs and Pyros are currently okay, other classes need the buff, and IMO highlander C1 is OP.

#6

agreed, cartar stroke is the only problem. However as you keep ranking up it becomes less and less of an issue however. Nobody goes c3 highlander for cartar stroke 15 for instance.

#7

I played CBT 1, so I’m aware.

I actually think other classes are fairly balanced. There are some skills that need to be reevaluated and some fine tuning, but I have 3 archers and a level 110 Cleric and they all felt pretty smooth to me.

I think Barb is overtuned, but not by much. When you start disregarding certain game mechanics before the release even happens, I think that’s when things start becoming kind of messy with balance.

#8

So did I,I just didn’t want to assume you had or hadn’t.

That’s fine if you feel that way,but a majority feel differently.I think it’s felt much more as a wiz compared to others.All other classes being balanced versus barb on it’s own tier isn’t fair class balance.

#9

Played barb, it falls in between weak and strong zone, depends on how you build it that is. Battled a friend of mine which is level 38 Krivis still being able to whoop my arse (Note that my level is way higher than him). Sure their attack is strong if you pump all of it into STR and damage (base level 70 with 400+) but you definitely would have a paper defense in both physical and magical. Kinda like a Wizard but with CQC, strong but squishy as hell.

You are trading something in return so I don’t think barb is the most OP or broken.

#10

Thanks for that insight.

Now I’m starting to question where this perception is coming from. I mean, I played a highlander and leveling with it was extremely easy, but apparently barbs are saying they aren’t as good as people make them out to be.

Maybe people only record videos when they aren’t getting killed in combat

#11

HLs and barbs being strong arent the problem.
I agree with the idea of other classes being buffed and not another class being nerfed.

1 Like
#12

The problem is people are basing their opinion solely on pve. Barbs are mostly seen as “op” because they “dodge” everything. Put a barb against an archer mob/mage mob and he is going to blow up.

#13

playing barb atm, and I find that ya with skills as of right now (lvl 118) I can still 1 shot most normal mobs with 1 or 2 skill, 1 only happening with seism as of recently. wish I had gone highlander 1 but I hear most of carter stroke’s damage is from miscalculation on the server’s part, something to do with doing double the damage it should and doing damage for collision even if the enemy doesnt collide with anything.

on the other hand, even a concentration 10, gung ho 5, warcry/frenzy when able is pretty lackluster damage when skills are on CD. average CD is 22-28 sec for damage skills, dont remember exact but thats 6 skill uses i have giving roughly 22 seconds about for all skills to be back up making a long auto attack timeframe. no attributes yet on thrust or bash make them almost useless during this downtime.

I will be going corsair, which gives up 2h sword damage for my barb skills, so i hope corsair skills scale with stats well as tosbase’s skill calc shows them maxing out in corsair 2 at 500 base damage on the 2 damage skills i plan on trying out first.

#14

Ironically, as a cleric I probably do slightly less damage, but I’m virtually invincible.

I have not bought an SP or HP pot once in the last 110 levels and I have probably only died 4 times, mostly to getting one-shot by Denoptic.

#15

Archer MOB? mage MOB? anybody will die to a MOB. ive seen a barbarian vs an archer. archer got obliterated. but that is to be expected since he is swordsman class. they are usually strong against archer and archer is usually strong against mages.

#16

Barbarian’s damage is actually pretty low if compared to Pyro, Sadhu, Monks, etc.

Pyro CC continous DPS skills on top heavy AoE spells can finish most bosses at 1 minute mark, while Barb got gimped with their damage penalty against bosses. Well, this actually is okay because well, they’re Wizards. They’re supposed to deal heavy damage, to one or multiple opponents.

The problem starts with Cleric…
Sadhu is pretty much facerolling one button that acts like normal attack, but stronger, not to mention their aforementioned Cleric skill to basically make them invincible.
Monks, this one is just… facepalm. What’s the logic behind doing a skill, spammable, high damage, with no SP consumption? (READ: DOUBLE PUNCH) They can just spam that skill without worrying about SP problems which is a problem to most classes, especially Archers. Now dish in Arde Dagger and have yourself a friggin’ genocide machine.

Even Hoplite wins the competition in terms of damage to a Barb. Spear benefits so much against bosses which majority are large sized. The fact that Finestra gives you crit buff gives you the advantage of building pure STR build, in contrast to Barb who needs to get DEX to be able to crit, but resulting on lower base damage.

I’m rolling right now Barb and decided to reroll to something else, probably Hoplite -> Corsair… Even at 110 I’m already struggling to get my arse up (surviving, running around, blocking, etc.) while my friend Sadhu just chillin at one spot doing continuous damage while on top of Safety Wall.

P.S: Oh yeah, just a little tip to new players who plays Highlander. If you have the attribute Cartar Stroke: Remove Knockback on, you will deal 4 hits regardless whether your opponent can be knockable or not. Have it ON when you’re fighing mobs, but have it OFF while fighting bosses so that the skill can hit like 7-8 hits.

#17

Archer monster and mage type monster because guess what, they cant dodge them. Also the archer player was probably bad, you can perma kite/cc(depends on your class) the barbarian and take no damage.

#18

you are already pointing out an imbalance. you shouldnt be able to perma kite/cc any warrior class and take no damage. acually you should be almost dead. just like a warrior shouldt be able to kill a mage without almost dying. unless he is made to fight wizards specifically, he shoudlnt have an easy time with a mage. so, archers shoudltn have an easy time with warriors no matter how much you try to run and kite/cc him.

#19

I don’t understand this logic.

Archers should have an easy time with warriors, because they are ranged. That is how it works in reality and in most games I have played.

#20

archers use weak physical damage, their advantage being they are at ranged. thats it. if the warrior have a shield the archer would be rendered usless easily. all it takes is good armor and a shield, and the archer will be reduced to using his dagger. now, back to games. warrior>archer>mage>warrior, is how it goes for most games. more and more games nowdays though are not really using any time of system. now its more of a style thing and no more of a weakness and strenght thing.