make jagged cut/bone shatter 1hs dot crit!

[throughthedoor]

NO ability on reaver barb than gives insta 6k hit, unless its buffed with all the arsenal (like Vehl said), one insta hit ability barb has is the "Overpower" that inflicts around 1k with full stacks...
highest insta ability barb has is the "At the Gates Perk" that, with no buffs or stance stacks, inflicts +1k damage with 30sec cooldown

with that said, a barb playing with that kind of arsenal looses a lot of survival, becomes more squishy than a sin in some cases or at least much harder to survive...

but still a balanced class, no matter if zerker build, reaver build or hybrid

Ok, barb is balanced class.
So out of the 12 classes, what is imba?
When is it barbs turn to be imba?

[kalston]

Barb was op as hell during comboskip era, same as BS. It's fine now and that is a good thing and the same can't be said about soldiers and poms.

Btw last time I saw you on Crom you were playing in reaver spec and pve gear even though you are pvp 7. Why? Why gimp yourself and complain on the forums?

[throughthedoor]

pve gear is good for more prot (children gear and coils feet)
I use non-prot chest and leggs, it
pvp gear would be helm and necklace.
I need pve gear for the critigation amount damage and extra prot.
I think it is the best way to go.
About reaver, I use it because it is more fun. Zerker is better but still sucks when soldiers still have way more surviability and more dps. At least with reaver I am on equal terms of dps. (zerker is better for kd though but I would get many less kills if i used it)

Zerker gives you about 315natual health regen = about 78hp a sec
Basically if my dps that goes from 290dps to 420 in reaver and I can't out do a hitpoint displacement of 78 a sec, I believe there is something wrong. Either too many people are focused on me, my healer isn't healing or I'm just sucking.

What this statement means is that if my team sucks zerker is better because I start with an extra 10% weapon damage, if my team is good, reaver is better by a landslide.

The more your team farms the more you hold stacks the more you steal kills form your team-mates.
If your team does bad or you get honed, then you can't hold stacks too well (cuz you are on the run too much) and then your team-mates beat you to kills.
Then again rangers have this so easy with the easiest perk in the game "taking the shot" but at least I have a fraction to fight back against it with.

But this still isn't to say that my kd wouldn't be better in blood rage because it might, I've just had bad luck with it except in duals.

[kalston]

pve gear is good for more prot (children gear and coils feet)
I use non-prot chest and leggs, it
pvp gear would be helm and necklace.
I need pve gear for the critigation amount damage and extra prot.
I think it is the best way to go.
About reaver, I use it because it is more fun. Zerker is better but still sucks when soldiers still have way more surviability and more dps. At least with reaver I am on equal terms of dps. (zerker is better for kd though but I would get many less kills if i used it)

Zerker gives you about 315natual health regen = about 78hp a sec
Basically if my dps that goes from 290dps to 420 in reaver and I can't out do a hitpoint displacement of 78 a sec, I believe there is something wrong. Either too many people are focused on me, my healer isn't healing or I'm just sucking.

What this statement means is that if my team sucks zerker is better because I start with an extra 10% weapon damage, if my team is good, reaver is better by a landslide.

The more your team farms the more you hold stacks the more you steal kills form your team-mates.
If your team does bad or you get honed, then you can't hold stacks too well (cuz you are on the run too much) and then your team-mates beat you to kills.
Then again rangers have this so easy with the easiest perk in the game "taking the shot" but at least I have a fraction to fight back against it with.

But this still isn't to say that my kd wouldn't be better in blood rage because it might, I've just had bad luck with it except in duals.

So many things wrong in this post, wow. You don't even know what Blood Rage does.

[MagnusLL]

So many things wrong in this post, wow. You don't even know what Blood Rage does.

Blood rage doesn't raise your dps, it has a base (0 stack) bonus which is higher than reaver but then stays at that level no matter how many stacks you have. What's increasing with blood rage stacks is the healing you receive, but in any case the main healing procs stop at 15, which results in the ridiculous "tactic" of being forced to reset your stacks if you want to get back to your max healing potential.
Not that it happens easily anyway to reach 15 stacks in the first place, what with the absurd dps and burst levels modern day AoC pvp exhibits and which makes any regen- (and thus time-) based defensive mechanism completely inefficient, since you will die much sooner than your stacks will reach 15. From a defensive point of view, it's the age of bubbles and soldiers with 60% flat damage mitigation, and barb is one of very few classes left which has neither of those.

Anyway his assessment of the barb specs is spot on, Reaver (especially the hybrid) is better for kills but enemies kill you just by glaring evilly at you, if your team is farming the others then the better burst can get you more kills but if it's the other way around it becomes basically unplayable except by the usual moronic k/d whoring routine of "go in hide, wait for an isolated soft target and try to gank him, then go back in hide until another gank opportunity surfaces".

To be honest, I'm getting a little fed up of the legion of people who keep posting on every single thread in the barb subforum asking for a buff and trying to talk this down by saying "barb is fine", NONE OF WHOM uses barb as the main toon. It's starting to sound more and more like "barb is fine because it's a free kill for my main so please let's keep things this way".

[kalston]

Blood rage doesn't raise your dps, it has a base (0 stack) bonus which is higher than reaver but then stays at that level no matter how many stacks you have. What's increasing with blood rage stacks is the healing you receive, but in any case the main healing procs stop at 15, which results in the ridiculous "tactic" of being forced to reset your stacks if you want to get back to your max healing potential.
Not that it happens easily anyway to reach 15 stacks in the first place, what with the absurd dps and burst levels modern day AoC pvp exhibits and which makes any regen- (and thus time-) based defensive mechanism completely inefficient, since you will die much sooner than your stacks will reach 15. From a defensive point of view, it's the age of bubbles and soldiers with 60% flat damage mitigation, and barb is one of very few classes left which has neither of those.

Anyway his assessment of the barb specs is spot on, Reaver (especially the hybrid) is better for kills but enemies kill you just by glaring evilly at you, if your team is farming the others then the better burst can get you more kills but if it's the other way around it becomes basically unplayable except by the usual moronic k/d whoring routine of "go in hide, wait for an isolated soft target and try to gank him, then go back in hide until another gank opportunity surfaces".

To be honest, I'm getting a little fed up of the legion of people who keep posting on every single thread in the barb subforum asking for a buff and trying to talk this down by saying "barb is fine", NONE OF WHOM uses barb as the main toon. It's starting to sound more and more like "barb is fine because it's a free kill for my main so please let's keep things this way".

Sigh, did I ever say that Blood Rage boosts your DPS? No, although it initially does more than Reaver (which is a good thing in fast paced pvp where it's all about burst, btw).

What I am referring to is the increase in hp pool (somewhat negligible effect) and burst HEALING that you get with every stack which is actually a huge effect. When using without warning + atrocity you can heal yourself up super fast, that's the good thing about Blood Rage, the health regen is just an extra goodie for mitigating dots (coupled with pots and hopefully some priests HoTs too). Also makes a difference when kiting (like in duels) since it basically doubles the effect of pots.

I don't see how having to reset stacks is a bad thing, it's a nice mechanic that adds some more skill to the class. You have two ways of doing it (I do hope you know about them) and you also have an ability with a reasonable CD (1min) that consumes 5 stacks and gives you a great critical rating buff + some combat rating.
With so many people having access to t4 these days you can just play zerker (unstoppable really makes zerker barbs hard to kill) with t4 (or t3 crafted) 2h with upheaval + ww (+full pvp set) and you'll have great damage and survivability (not to mention the CCs and anti CCs).

Barb is a great class, fun to play with different specs and cool mechanics & tricks (total opposite of polearm Guard for example, which is outrageously simple and yet powerful in group pvp). Soldiers are OP but then focus on nerfing them not buffing and dumbing down other classes. Also fix the gear issue in pvp one way or another before talking about making changes to classes. Even soldier's OPness is mostly a gear thing.

[Greshakei]

To be honest, I'm getting a little fed up of the legion of people who keep posting on every single thread in the barb subforum asking for a buff and trying to talk this down by saying "barb is fine", NONE OF WHOM uses barb as the main toon. It's starting to sound more and more like "barb is fine because it's a free kill for my main so please let's keep things this way".

Ahah, so true

[Chaman-bourru]

Defending your main class is as biased as defending your alt class.

[MagnusLL]

Defending your main class is as biased as defending your alt class.

There is nothing to defend for the barb, that's the problem. Just about the only saving grace right now it's the speed, but while movement is important in PvP it can only go so far when you need to be in melee range anyway to do damage and when your burst dps/survivability ratio is basically the worst in the game. There have been plenty of perfectly reasonable posts underlining the huge structural problems of the class, I won't repeat them for the billionth time here. The only thing I will say is this: if you need a top of the line PvPer with a maxed out toon to make a class work properly, then the balance for that class is clearly out of whack.

[throughthedoor]

There is nothing to defend for the barb, that's the problem. Just about the only saving grace right now it's the speed, but while movement is important in PvP it can only go so far when you need to be in melee range anyway to do damage and when your burst dps/survivability ratio is basically the worst in the game. There have been plenty of perfectly reasonable posts underlining the huge structural problems of the class, I won't repeat them for the billionth time here. The only thing I will say is this: if you need a top of the line PvPer with a maxed out toon to make a class work properly, then the balance for that class is clearly out of whack.

Wow, so totally true. I agree with everything you said.
Except that if you are reaver in reaver stance (which I think I am the only person in all of hyboria that uses it) The burst is fine, but the survivability sucks.

Anyway, ppl need to look at the barb this way. Say there is a kill with you (a barb), a hox and a frenzy conq. You all see a target and go after it at the same time. IF you are a reaver barb you may do 40% damage, while if you are zerker you may do 30% of the total damage. The slight increase in dps (really reaver increases your dps by 50% but besides the point) will grant you the kill. If you are going for kd ratio, you shouldn't dual with the barb ever.

I run from my very own class on most occasion. I just target people who target other targets (never people who have no target) that way I have more damage and not taking any. BUT. . . what if someone targets me. Simple, I just kite, wait til the person is done kiting, and then return to dps. Usually it works great and I have a good kd for the past 2 months because of it.

Yes blood rage is way better for duals (and soloing) but remember, minigames are played way differently.

Why do you think the hox can do as well (or better) than a zerker barb in minigames? They have near no healing, cloth armor and near no cc breaks. However they have way more dps than blood rage barb and that is what gets them the kills (they die more so their kd averages out)