Alright, so here's where I wanted to post all my thoughts and give Kodius a heads up on where we're at as a guild right now. Just throwing out my observations and anyone can feel free to add their own experiences. I give Barbs 3.0 an A. For the first time ever, I feel that when we get Styles/Maneuvers and our other feats, we will be complete. The abilities satisfy a million things and leave little room for us to beg for more hax. :D

Forms:

Dragon - Kodius said it boosts to-hit, and is working fine. Hopefully it has a to-hit boost that rivals the best in the game. Once/if he changes Wildfire to focus more on damage then we should be ok.

Python - Haven't tested it much, but of course we gotta have a parry boost. It would be nice if it also had some kind of random riposte capability, but that's just an idea that's not necessary.

Badger - Very fitting and useful. There is a messaging bug for this; everytime it is contested the messaging says the Badger form ends but when I check with Meditation Power it's still going.

Traim gestures at you.
A flicker of prismatic light envelops you!
Your ferocious stance completely erodes away.
You feel your inner fire cool as you finish practicing the Form of the Badger.
The light blinds you for a moment, causing you to stop in your tracks and try to clear the spots from your eyes.

You are currently practicing the Badger Form and will hold focus of it for a very long time.

Toad - Will use this a lot, just haven't gotten around to it yet.

Monkey - As I mentioned already I wouldn't mind seeing it either give us some sort of aim-reducing function or enormous reflex boost (of course I'm not sure how much it currently does right now). Preferably the former. :D

Bear - Strength boost is great, but what exactly does the Warding boost do? Boost the Warding skill or the actual effects of our warding abilities?

Turtle - Great, probably one of my favorite forms.

Swan - Love it, very unique too.

Buffalo - Never tried it but I imagine it has its uses for some.

Piranha - Great form, another must-have.

Eagle - Kodius already mentioned he's looking into fixing it for thrown weapons; hopefully it has a to-hit boost that rivals the best ones in the game.

Owl - No actual testing at all, but this is something we definitely need.

Wolverine - Never tried it. Wonder how fast we are able to get to melee. Anyone able to test it? If not I will.

Panther - Never grabbed it and never will. It could be boosting stealth by one rank and I would never notice. :D

Berserks:

Wildfire - As Kodius hinted at, I'd like this to be our premier damaging ability. Even if it became a little more costly on inner fire and costed an additional slot, I want to get some bang from this berserk.

Earthquake - Not released yet, but if it works anything like Rimefang for WMs then I'd be happy.

>ask agonar about earthquake
Tilting his head slightly to the side, Agonar says slowly, " ! Earthquake"

Even Agonar doesn't know what it's like... ahahaha.

Avalanche - Never tried it but a fatigue boosting ability could never be useless.

Volcano - One of our most badass abilities. Not sure if Kodius fixed it to properly drain inner fire each time it saves you but it definitely gives us some mean flavor. Love stuff like this.

Famine - This goes along the same vein as Avalanche.

Cyclone - Absolutely wonderful for roaring. Great ability that I'll be using from time to time.

Tsunami - Didn't notice anything special from this berserk, but if it does as it's suppose to then it's definitely suited for the guild.

Tornado - Simply essential.

Flashflood - Didn't get to test this like I wanted because I keep forgetting about it. I remember seeing it work nicely though, but either way I'm 100% sure I'll be picking it up. Must-have IMO.

Meditations:

Tenacity - Amazing meditation, makes a big difference. Will use this every time I want to put up a strong defensive setup.

Unyielding - Never tried it.

Focus - Never tried it.

Flame - A necessity. I did notice that the message we get doesn't seem to correlate to our actual inner fire. For example, I've been sitting at 33% Inner Fire and here's the message right now: Surrounding your reflection is a bright aura of beautiful flames extending a quarter of your height above you.

Contemplation - Love it. Didn't do extensive testing but judging from what it's supposed to do it's one I'll be using often.

Serenity - Fantastic. Still searching for a great setup for it with Swan form, and I think I might know how I want to do it. Initially I thought it shouldn't be overcome 100% of the time from high mana spells, but I think longevity is a key component in making this meditation so good.

Dispel - Great in concept, but I think it needs a little bit more. Even at the cost of more inner fire I'd like to see it get some kind of continuous dispelling effect instead of us having to run out of combat to use it just to get that weak little spell off us. My preference would be to allow this to give us some sort of anti-scry ability, and despite what Armifer says I think Barbs should have some kind of anti-scry/anti-familiar/shadowling ability (not our fault our guild hasn't had any significant development in many years and other less-deserving guilds got them first). ;)

Sacrifice - The one ability I'm waiting on the most. Essential to my character's RP and I can't wait.

Bastion - Great, no complaints at all. Haven't tried it but I'm sure I'll need it so I will be grabbing it.

Seek - Haven't tried it.

Staunch - Bleeders don't seem to matter much in 3.0 at this moment, but that will probably change. Still, I imagine this would be a nice ability to have especially during invasions.

Prediction - Excellent meditation. Of course I'd like it to kick in just a little faster and have messaging that makes us look a little less wimpy, but I might be asking too much. I may not have the slots to pick this up but I think it would be great for testing against critters that may be stronger than you.


I'll skip roars since I'm not sure just how well disablers/debuffs are working in test right now.

Styles/Maneuvers:

Looking forward to seeing these. Will we be able to pick these from different Paths, or will it be set up so that we can only pick these from the Path we choose?

Experience:

As I said before, I think Warding experience could use a boost. And of course, Debilitation experience needs it.

Also, just by spamming several berserks, stopping them, then spamming them some more (starting with full inner fire) I can mind lock both Augmentation and Inner Fire in no time. I didn't record how long but it was definitely under a minute, so this might have to be toned down some.

Inner Fire:

Kodius already mentioned that he's considering some options to help with Inner Fire. I wouldn't mind having a meditation that restores Inner Fire to full in minutes, but cannot be used with any other ability. I think that would work vastly different from mana yet give us our own internal way of rebuilding ourselves. Add in some nifty messaging and non-annoying ways we could get distracted (like being attacked), and even a cooldown period. Whatever penalties to using it, I think it would help big time.

Hope this helps to give an idea on where I think we are as a guild. Thanks!

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Individuals, families, countries, continents are destroyed at the heavy hand of Vinjince.

-GM Abasha

Good summary, Vinjince. I haven't been in test for a couple weeks now, so I am uncertain if anything has changed post-wipe. My biggest hangup is our passive IF regen now vs 3.0. I am not a fan of the 100% passive regen getting squashed down to 33%. Honestly, I don't really see the point. I do hope that part is revisited. Perhaps a system that starts at 33% for circles 0-50, ramps up to 66% for 51-100, and ramps up again to 100% at 101+. Although, if the inner fire skill determines the rate of IF usage, I don't see the harm in all of us having 100% passive IF regen. Why not in test allow it to regen to 100% and see what happens? I thought I read something like it takes 1 hr to refill IF after a death in 3.0 being part of the reason, but that is an extreme stretch of how long it really takes. It takes longer for my spirit to recover than my IF.

Other than that, I think the concepts are very cool. It's clear a lot of work went into our guild's development, and is ongoing. I love the idea of our abilities being dynamic and stackable. I also like that our systems are more intertwined with other guilds' systems now.




Squanto: think they'll make it so we can swim to the islands?
Codiax: probably not but who knows
Squanto: maybe moonwalk faster on the iceroad with enough reflex, athletics & xibar up?
Codiax: lol yeah totally. have to sing ice ice baby to make it work

I've asked Kodius about it when I could peg him down in chat, and my understanding (as terrible as it is) is that they system was written specifically with the IF limitations in mind. I'm guessing, like clerics and the align penalty, the Barb buff system is too overtly powerful without a check system put on it; allowing them to be 100% without some drawback would result in redesign of the skills, lowering their overall effectiveness.

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Adding nothing to the conversation since 1834.

Ignore everything I said about the warding skill. By using meditations I can lock it reasonably well. Bastion seems to work really well for training it outside of combat, and Tenacity is a great choice for training Warding in-combat. Serenity uses too much Inner Fire but there does appear to be a downtime to experience gain when using the same meditation over and over (30 or so seconds would be my guess), so alternating between those 3 will ramp up Warding pretty fast. Of course, that is pretty much impossible due to the toll on Inner Fire, so using Bastion and waiting/collecting rocks in between has been working out nicely for me.

So far I think I have a pretty good method in training all the skills I will train in 3.0. I'm able to mind lock everything in dillos (except LT for some reason, I can't get it off dabbling on juvies/adults/elders) good enough so far.

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Individuals, families, countries, continents are destroyed at the heavy hand of Vinjince.

-GM Abasha

Those sound like reasonable suggestions. I still think 33% is a bit on the low side, so an uptweak would be very welcome.




Squanto: think they'll make it so we can swim to the islands?
Codiax: probably not but who knows
Squanto: maybe moonwalk faster on the iceroad with enough reflex, athletics & xibar up?
Codiax: lol yeah totally. have to sing ice ice baby to make it work

> Those sound like reasonable suggestions. I still think 33% is a bit on the low side, so an uptweak would be very welcome.

I could actually see it scaling, so that towards 150th or 200th you get 50% of your total pool, seems like a reasonable mechanic.

It does bear to mention that IF lacks a lot of the limitations of mana; it's easily (ok, that's arguable at best) replinished by killing things, it's not room based, and some other aspects that give it a minor leg up over mana systems.

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Adding nothing to the conversation since 1834.

I just tried in test and without gathering a single kill I was able to get two meditations and two forms up. I had plenty of fire for that and since the to-hit bonus of Dragon and Eagle is pretty useless at my level, I didn't bother to even start them. Instead I used Swan up to get Warding moving.

Your body tightens as you draw your arms together in a sinuous, flowing motion, mimicking the form you were trained to adopt for this roar of warning.
Kodius fled to the west in terror!
Roundtime: 2 sec.

>Like having to be in the wilderness for several of your spells to work or your skills to stay at level?

Ranger complaints to the equine graveyard. This is neither the time nor the place for the rehashed fights we're all tired of.

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Adding nothing to the conversation since 1834.

Well, in another thread I showed how it is possible to keep 6 abilities up, out of combat, indefinately. It will take some time for people to learn how best to utilize their abilities and when to use each one.

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"I have no data yet. It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories instead of theories to suit facts."
- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes

>I've had to move back down the critter ladder

How are you learning while doing so? Game changes have made critters teach to different break points, so you might be in a perfect spot now. It's infuriating to feel demoted, I agree.

Which abilities were you using in prime? Which were you using in test? There may be a few ways to swap things around and make you more durable.

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Adding nothing to the conversation since 1834.

<<<Wolverine - Never tried it. Wonder how fast we are able to get to melee. Anyone able to test it? If not I will.>>

Great post vinj, from what I've seen wolverine could se a slight bump in effectiveness, it didn't help engagement enough to warrant choosing it IMO.

I also hope warding is learnable without meditations.

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The technique of the Banshee's Wail flows fluidly through your mind an instant before you unleash its power through a roar of fatal intent.
Raesh appears to be frozen with fear!
Roundtime: 2 sec.

- Buuwl

And with those changes that would mean barbarians will not necessarily be as effective after 3.0 as they were before. I tried using Monkey, contemplation and dragon to hunt gam'chagas with and it hasn't worked out very well at all. Not as good as badger by itself or stone berserk.

Craetos -

Like REWYN said, so many variables about creatures, characters, and core combat have changed that it's quite possible the creature(s) you are trying to hunt have simply become harder.

Also, keep in mind there is a much more severe penalty for engaging multiple critters now, a stiffer penalty for mixing armors and hindrance, many things. I'm not sure if you're used to hunting four at once. The question isn't "can I hunt what I was hunting before?" The question is "can I learn effectively and safely against critters at my skill level?"

I don't mix armor atleast not in 3.0 I only wear chain. My current hinderance is as follows, you are currently lightly hindered and your stealth is somewhat hindered. I used stone to hunt 4 at once now I can't hunt 1. I'm sorry but after playing this game off and on since 2000 I'm just not sure how up I am to starting all over. Especially seeing as we were outright told barbarian effectiveness wouldn't lessen.

I only need the berserk for 4 I can handle 3 with no problem without buffs. Now I can't handle 1. Call it what you will nerf or otherwise, if I was at the point where I could handle 3 with no buffs I wasn't at the point where I could barely hunt the critter without the ability, this puts me more than halfway through their learning range. And I didn't miss what you said, I was answering Diminished.

Diminished can you turn your AIM on? And I didn't because the sad fact is once it moves to prime I'm not going to be able to hunt the critter below which is gryphons because quite frankly there is never any room in gryphons and that is the only critter I found below gam'chagas that taught anywhere near effectively. I use test as just that a test for when it goes live to prime and I treat test as if it were prime. To me that is the most effective way to to find bugs.

<<And I didn't because the sad fact is once it moves to prime I'm not going to be able to hunt the critter below which is gryphons because quite frankly there is never any room in gryphons and that is the only critter I found below gam'chagas that taught anywhere near effectively>>

move around in test <you can move with the shards and explore different critter areas>. Seriously, there have been many changes to critters and you might find that a critter that you didn't find effective before <in 2.0> will be able to teach you in 3.0.

I found this to be true for many of my characters. Some had to move up the ladder, a couple had to move down. My barbarian went from gryphs to caracals, for example.

As for stuff between, I'm assuming you fought young gryphs then went to chagas? Try dobek moruryn. Those should teach right around inbetween the two.



An arisen dummy zombie bellows, "You will all be ssslaughtered!"
>

Ok so after trying dobek's I've found I can move my weapons but defenses don't move off of 1/34