GNSmud

The barbarian class has long been under-utilised, and will continue to be for some time. The benefits of magical gear and potion use far outweigh anything the barb has to offer.
To become effective tanks, barbs need some form of damage mitigation. Especially against level 51+ mobs with spell affects.
To become better damage class, they also need to be able to avoid fs type attacks, and to have more utility.

More skills, new skills.
Add a resist damage type skill. Scales on level as well as skill percentage. Allows barbs to naturally resist or dodge some damage types. For example, resist fire at level 15, dodge fire at 35.
This could be natural, like current hit and damage bonuses, or be single/multi skill based.

Lore skills could be fixed/implemented allowing bonus damage on lore check against monster class. Barbs could have more access to these than other classes, or perhaps less specialised.

Combat stances, shield or two-handed weapon only skills.

If + to spell level items are allowed and created, there could be the opportunity to dispel some level 51+ mobs, meaning barb tanks would only need protection for a shorter time.

For example, resist fire at level 15, dodge fire at 35.

I'd say that's too pretty. You don't want a barbarian that no longer needs to think about keeping a red dragon bashed.
Fireshield (and to a minor extent chillshield) is the major issue here. Would it be an idea to not generalize the whole fire spectrum, but just address this spell?
For instance:

Code: Select all

damage taken from fireshield = player damage * (100 - player level * 1.5)

That would leave 25% at level 50, or 12.5% with resist (both r:fire and r:cold are non-rare barb items). Tweaking needed.

Possible. Although when I say resist, I did not mean affect resist.
With the limit on usable heals, Barbs are still not fun to level solo. A damage mitigate would help.
A supercharged version of dodge. Gains damage types as barb levels.
Resist magic skill, ability to dodge some magical attacks, I don't mind if a barb dodges a red dragon breath every once in a while, just not every time.

Some groupie skills.
Blood Rage - On critical hit -skill check. On success other players attacking same target gain 10% damage bonus next round.
Furious Rage - On critical hit temp damage to target armor, - level AC for 2 rounds.

Just spit-balling here now. A few more rage skills, only one of which can be active at any time.

I would make them resistant at level 30 and artifact to all items at level 50. Then they can eat FS/CS/spells and and deal with it via resist fire/cold/etc. although, they could get breathed on by dragons with no scrappage.. so that makes it kinda OP. But how many breaths can they take before death..3?
I would watch for possible abuse of brittle items.
just an idea.

There's a rentable resist blunt for Barbarians and no Resist slash. Didn't Stone Breastplate used to be a barb-only resist slash? Could be a resist pierce, but i'm not aware of one. We can resolve this issue with a new zone!

Object 'plate drake stone mail platemail breastplate breast', Item type: ARMOR
Item is: MINERAL ORGANIC ANTI-MAGE ANTI-THIEF RESISTANT ANTI-PSIONIST ANTI-MONK
ANTI-DRUID
Worn on: TAKE BODY
Drake Breastplate seems only willing to serve Experts to Adepts.
Weight: 30, Value: 20000, Rent cost: 10000 [RARE] [LIMITED]
Armor Type: hide
AC-apply is 10
Can affect you as :
Affects : ARMOR By -30
Affects : RESISTANCE By PIERCE

Object 'alligator breast plate', Item type: ARMOR
Item is: ORGANIC ANTI-MAGE ANTI-THIEF ANTI-PSIONIST ANTI-MONK
Worn on: TAKE BODY
Weight: 25, Value: 12900, Rent cost: 5000 [RARE] [LIMITED]
Armor Type: hide
AC-apply is 10
Can affect you as :
Affects : ARMOR By -15
Affects : RESISTANCE By PIERCE

Object 'shield dragon hide', Item type: ARMOR
Item is: ORGANIC ANTI-MAGE ANTI-THIEF ANTI-PSIONIST ANTI-MONK
Worn on: TAKE SHIELD
Weight: 5, Value: 0, Rent cost: Unrentable [LIMITED]
Armor Type: medium shield
AC-apply is 3
Can affect you as :
Affects : RESISTANCE By PIERCE
(sucky armor!)

Has any more thought been put into Barb? Recently maxxed mine, but the limitations are so extreme I'm having trouble finding anything that makes it worth it to have a barb right now. Almost all of the mobs that an HG Wa would tank would shred a barb because they're either FS or have Slash damage which as was mentioned above there is no resist slash item for a barb.

Couple of thoughts about Barbarian issues.

Quick Fixes for now until we can implement and test code...

Make a FS pepper that barbs can use. There are heal and invis eatables... why not some chili!
Make the Cloak of Dragon scales in Khmer Barbable. Seeing how Uma was a barb (right??) that would be a good tribute. I would make it a higher max.

Now onto longer drawn out fixes.
Make a new skill that lets barbs evade fs for 2 ticks?
or maybe have a chance to avoid the fs every attack.
Auto take 1/2 damage at level 30 from fs and zero damage at level 45?