Hi everyone, let me present a few ideas i had to bring Barbarians up to today’s ToS since the game changed a lot, but Barbs didnt change much. I fully aware that those will most likely be ideas thrown in the wind but i’ve been wanting to write something about Barbarians for a long time now, so here we go.
I’m sure you’ll agree on the fact that gameplay wise, the class has been pretty weak for quite some time now, people mostly take it for Cleave at C1.
But i feel like Barb’s theme could have used work too, they feel like some generic swordsman 4/5/6 if you ignore a few skills that really feel like “Barbarian”.
Thematically what is (should be) a Barbarian ?
From my experience, through (too) many RPGs, a Barbarian is a warrior who only counts on the most basic assets a fighter can have, raw strength, speed and resilience. He may be even closer to a beast than an actual warrior, he’s faster, stronger, beefier than the usual, he thrives in savagery, induces fear in his enemies heart and he only stops when he or all his foes are dead.
As of right now, Barbarians’ skills aren’t reflecting any of that, or are poorly designed (Honorable Mention for Warcry who’s thematically good)
So, for the most interesting part, a few ideas that could re-kindle the link between theme and gameplay for this class.
IMC showed us that they can give stances to characters (Nak Muay, BulletMarker and Druid in semi-wolf form) so why not add one for the Barbarian ? (every skill name is unimportant, right now i’m only writing down concept, naming and balancing is not interesting here)
Dual Axe Stance (Frenzy replacement) : change the user stance to dual wielding 2 war axes, gives a consequent amount of attack speed, damage on auto attacks (something like Nak Muay but stronger) maybe bleeding chance ?. Drawback being the unability to block, maybe losing some def/Mdef too in the process, to prevent full tank chars to benefit too much from it, leaving it appealing for more aggressive builds.
This would fill the void of auto attack focused Swordsman, since Corsair is pretty poor at that and every tree has one (QS3 for Archer, Enchanter for wizards, and Chaplain for Clerics).
Dual wielding Axes would help getting closer to the theme without adding another weapon restriction for Swordsman (since those would only be visual effect for the stance and not an actual gear).
Seism : I would only change a bit of this skill to make it more relevant to nowadays ToS, making the hitbox a tad larger (a bit smaller than Flame Ground maybe), using Stomping Kick animation for it (deleting it in the process) of course the jumping and stomping animation should be make uninterruptible, otherwise we all know what happens in this game. Maybe replacing the stun chance with a knock down attribute.
Pouncing : Make it an actual Pouncing, your char jumps forward hitting stuff on landing. Maybe an attribute to buff the next use of Seism in the few seconds after the jump.
Giving unmounted aggressive swordsman the means to get in there and bash some skulls.
Axe Boomerang : Obviously only usable when you use the stance, standard skill, you throw your axes forward they come back, hitting stuff in between twice. Give it an attribute that brings your victim to you when your axes return (maybe lower the damage)
That would give a medium ranged option, kinda like Dethrone, but with less range.
Axe Swing : Just a basic AoE hit in front of you, with hefty bonus damage on knocked down targets (for Seism synergy)
Warcry 1 : I’d go with 2 different ones, one similar to the one we have today, lowers the defense of the enemy (in % maybe so it doesnt drop with the game progressing), remove the ATK bonus you get from it but add a slow to affected targets.
Warcry 2 : Loud shouting to raise your team’s morale. Give some movement speed and HP regeneration.
That one would be the survivability part, gives you an option to heal a bit that would be less ackward than the Wild Nature forcing you to run around everywhere.
Enduring : Self buff that’d delete any negative effect and prevent it (kinda like Plague) but with the drawback of being self slowed and losing HP or something like that. Would need some consequent enough drawbacks so it’s not too strong.
And there we go, those are the few ideas that came to my mind. I wanted to share them with you, and who knows maybe with IMC 