Which does bring up the point of a new skill making a prior skill or skills useless due to game changes. Hate to use the word circle reset, but its how im feeling right now. Oh well, will think about it after a break.
Meh, barb is gonna fall of harder and harder in the future, I’d always go High.
I see barb more as a burst dps for builds that don’t have any other Dps choice, since barbarian offer simple numbers that hit hard for the time you get it, but fall of with enemy defense and hp scaling
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Can you elaborate? I mean, reasons for Highlander. I’m thinking about barbarian because the kToS buffs that are coming next week.
for the looks of things, shield fencer is still possible, you will be able to use shield skills and to be true, no fencer ever use those skills for atk, only defense-disable, and it may still be possible to do so.
The effect they are talking about is about bonus from shield, like defense, and block rate in a normal shield.
But by the end of it i will be frank, the ones who was trying to build fencer shield build was wrong in the first place, the class it self was screaming no shield, since at rank 1 already we had a attribute to increase skill damage in 15% for skills if no shield is being equipped, of course this could only become worse once we advance to rank 2 and 3.
the clues was there,always have been.
but until real information about the skill comes out it may be too early to simple choose to stop playing.
it’s a stance, you’re probably meant to swithc back and forth with your shield.
For future value. The only lasting thing barbarian brings to the table will be the cleave debuff, and maybe that-skill-i-forgot-the-name-that-scale-with-boot-evasion. And even then it’s just 5 seconds of slash damage buff.
Granted, Barbarian damage will be even more overwhelming now, as a higher rank class should be; but still, with level cap increase, monster HP rising, alongside defence, and new, stronger skills appearing, that 3 circle barbarian will become just a hole in your kit
On the other hand, Highlander offers:
- A block skill without a shield, which causes a 3 second stagger alongside a pierce debuff (which, by the way, buffs bleeding damage, since it counts as piercing damage),
- A skill that scale whith your STR(cartar stroke),
- A bleeding skill, that counts for other characters skills,
- Skyliner,
- Crow , which will make your mage enemies do less damage, and your mage allies do more damage( which scales with your STR too, since the INT debuff it’s dependent on your STR).
(Edit)* Forgot to mention skull swing, who just nullifies your enemy defense from Forever(enemies) to 25 seconds(bosses)
So it’s just plain obvious Highlander brings a much more lasting (albeit at first glance weaker) kit, and brings a greater party utility, plus, almost all skills have no stance requirement. So highlanders have a good synergy with almost any build. If you want that cleave debuff, simply go barb1 on your free rank. But alas, i’m still just a newbie in the game, so take my advice with a grain of talt.
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well, barbarian also has stuns. one with a large area to hit. it also has pouncing which is continuous damage while you’re moving, seems to be at the normal speed too.
C1 Dragoon offers nothing that synergizes with Cata, or helps in PvP.
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Thank you bro, those are good points.
What does then?
20 chars
The enemy’s INT and SPR always goes to 1 independent of user’s STR.
i’m sorry to say, but to kill in pvp you would still need damage, and dragoon offer a lot of damage for pvp, even at rank 1.
there is nothing at rank 7 for cata3>x>lancer build that could offer anything better than the damage for dragoon.
the only thing that could come even close would be templar, if you want to be the guildmaster or hop2 for spearlunge to help with spear damages plus shield %block with finestra for when you are in pt or in mass pvp , and hop would only help if you ever got hop1 before.
I stand quite happily corrected
Barbsairs can use spears if they go Dragoon route. It seems the only class that would avoid a reroll for those Corsair c2, right now.
You’re listing all the benefits Highlander has whilst only stating one benefit that Barbarian has without properly describing it, so I’m going to give a listing of what Barbarian offers:
- Two AoE Stuns in the form of Helm Chopper and Seism, Seism being a beast in the damage it does.
- Cleave, which does double damage if the monster is stunned. Also applies a + to crit chance buff on yourself AND soon a + to slash damage for 5 seconds. It will have 3 overheat meaning you will have 15 seconds of slashing/crit buffs before it goes on cooldown, which will be shortened (to 18 seconds iirc).
- Warcry - At level 5 (circle 2) it provides +125 attack, a pseudo taunt, as well as slightly reducing the defense of 5 enemies. At level 10 it gives +330 attack and applies the debuff to 10 enemies. With the patch the downtime is around 20 seconds.
- Frenzy - At level 5 (circle 2) it lets you stack it up to 10 times for * 150 attack, but the downside is it goes back to 1 if you hit a different monster. Circle 3 ups the attack to +400 damage as well as giving an attribute to only halve your stacks on different targets. Downside is stacks only increase on basic attacks, upside is stacks aren’t lost if you use skills only (iirc).
- Pouncing which I don’t have experience in, but I have read and seen that have be used as a pseudo cyclone if maneuvered correctly. Downside is its long cooldown.
The stuns are quite helpful in PvP whilst the buffs will help in PvE. The stuns also give you an easier time tanking if you took a circle in Peltasta. You can’t take damage if they’re stunned, right? Now I’m not trying to say Barb is better than Highlander. They each have their pros and cons and it’s up to the player to decide which they would prefer.
You’re quite right. At this point of time, I fully believes barbarian IS a better choice in DPS terms for most of the game content.
Still, Two those stuns and buff(cleave debuff and helm chopper stun) are present in Barb1, and Seism, Warcry and Frenzy are still simple flat numbers, with barely any scaling. Pouncing I can’t really talk about it.
Overall, Barbarian really shines in mob grinding, and when mob HP is low, or should I say, when mobs hp is proportional to your damage; however, it will get overshadowed by future classes, just like pre-buff concentrate and gung-ho, who are usefull buffs for their rank but get’s a sharp drop in utility when higher numbers make them seem irrelevant.
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The point he’s making is that we’ll reach a certain point (rank 9, rank 10, etc.) when the Warcry buff won’t mean much anymore because of powercreep. Also regarding Frenzy, with so many skills from all those ranks, do you really want to AA to stack Frenzy when you’ll probably have enough skills in your rotation to not have to AA. At that point you’ll probably ditch Helm Chopper from your rotation, leaving Seism for the situational stun and Cleave for debuff only and Pouncing here and there.
What HL offers just seems more appealing in the long haul. Armor Break will stay relevant as enemies defense continues to increase. Crown will stay relevant as magic enemies get stronger. Cross Guard is always relevant. Even bleed will continue to get stronger as you gain rank bonus for STR.
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I have experienced a Barb3 and pretty much abandoned it for various reasons.
Barbarian is THE most effective class now for damage boost, in the “charge shot” style. It is right to say that those buffs will be made lame by new ones, but that will take a very long time.
However, Barbarian have one problem. Frenzy pretty much requires time to be good and frankly, I don’t even bother using it in quick-response required situations, magic mobs and PVP. It has a pretty long CD for the time it is activated.
Frenzy works as a good damage source for tankers, maybe, because you can facetank while building the stacks.
Warcry is fine, though it is only good at barb3, imo.
Helm Chopper is horrible in PVP, any other stun is better than this skill.
Seism and Pouncing are excellent skills.
And pretty much all skills have high CDs, which is shouting ‘one time burst damage’. This is freaking annoying to a player like me whose gameplay is based on constant use of skills in order to build damage, I pretty much hit and run with swordsman.
Barbarian is good if you want to take time and deal one massive instant damage after a lot of charging. It is a type of playstyle that can not be ignored. But Barbarian is a big no no if you depend on hit and run. Not because it is completely ineffective, but because it’s not optimal, as it will make your game harder.
I don’t think Highlander is actually better than Barbarian. I think they have more synergy than differences actually.
I know that you feel that Highlander is going to be better for the long haul due to its scaling skills, meaningful debuffs, as well as skills that synergize well with your party, and it might very well be the go-to class as more ranks are added. And I agree that perhaps even just taking barb1 for cleave can be an option just for the cleave synergy with other circles (allowing to pick up more highlander circles).
I just wanted to show that barbarian wasn’t just a one trick pony, albeit it can feel clunky with frenzy and pouncing. I think that both classes are suppose to work together honestly, as migliole stated above.
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But that’s about the same effect Spear Lunge has, except Cleave has more overheat and also buffs crit rate.
Honestly the new cleave is really good but it’s really just a buff to Doppel builds. 1H Sword still makes no sense on any Swordsman build - to the point where if you’re going for Murmillo, you probably want a ■■■■■■■ MACE instead of a sword, just because Rodelero will give you so much bonus strike damage, and honestly some of the high level maces are better than high level swords for physical attacking.