What is your opinion of Savage/Barbarians

Question. I have noticed multiple opinions from players and wanted to get a better grasp of people's thoughts. Please answer the poll as well as you can and post a response explaining your reasoning.

Disclaimer: Don't read into the poll too much. I am just curious.

 

voted: yes, but it could be better.

reasoning: the description could be more informative.

 

Fair enough. What do you think could be better clarified? Off the top of my head, I do not remember if the Clan Boons have a description or not.

 

Completely over powered and too complex.
Better to scratch the whole thing and start over, having for example any melee champion being able to make a Hawk Attack is stupid.

 

Would renaming the ability Eagle Strike make you feel better? Where do you feel the bulk of complexity comes from and how can we best retain the "savage" nature of the barbarians if it does in fact come to another rework?

 

I would love to hear your opinion on it Markoth.

 

I generally enjoy the new Savage. There are a few things, however, that make me dislike it. For one thing, I don't like the fact that there is little synergy between clans. Most Barbarian decks will go Stone/Storm clan, since those buffs are usually superior choices (especially Storm, as Barbarians lack good alt damage). People can't just run full Barbarian decks anymore; they are forced to choose one or two clans, or be left with inconsistently applying buffs and not enough of one type of buff. Along this same line of thought, there is little cohesion to the clans other than the clan abilities themselves. This may be a problem with the theme in general, but I don't feel compelled to run a full Blood clan deck, for example, or a full Stone clan deck. There's nothing to tie the clans together, or to each other, and the entire theme just feels "loose".

 

Sigh...
Bulk of complexity comes from simply reading it - give it a try and tell me thats not complex for new players - even older ones.
How can we best retain the savage nature? I don´t really know, and don´t even think that´s mandatory. Either way, it happens. Old savage was bad, most people agreed with it, new is even worse. It´s just a matter of getting it right this time.

Edit: also, what Jazz said is pretty accurate.

 

Barbarians are my weakest theme personally and I have had very little experience with playing them. What little experience I do have is from facing them and I know that it is a subject that tends to polarize the player base. I am hoping that this thread and the resulting discussion will help me solidify or challenge my own opinions.

Currently I feel that the clan boon structure is too similar to how wings play. They gain/give temporary buffs based on deploys. I do not know if this structure is better suited for barbarians or wings or even if people agree with my comparisons.

The original Savage was designed to take "sub-par" units and allow them to compete with units that had begun to experience the extreme powercreep that happened under SoE. After barbs began receiving stronger units, Savage was propelled into the spotlight and it was decided that it was too strong. At that point I agreed that the Savage we used to know was holding barbarians back.

 

So how would you like the racial to play ? Do you think temporary buff's are better or would you prefer a constant racial ?

What is your opinion on each of the clans boons and do you think there should be unification between the clans as opposed to having to choose between 1-2 clans for best synergy and buffs.

 

It seems pede you have a personal crusade against new barbs like dmr has against tomb.

New racial is amazing imo cause now barbs are splashable, and I don't see anything too op about it (fist or displaced are pretty stupid though). Worth noting, that for all that time I've seen more griffin riders than all barbarians combined (once again if you don't count fist and displaced in meta decks).

@hobbit wut? You can totally run mixed clans. For example I'd prefer hostile on buttress, hawk on elite, and tough/rebuke on whoever is on frontlines rather than deploying a single clan.

 

I voted no, but is better than the previous one.

I think that the ability is too complex unnecessarily, that's not considering the description problems that only describes.

The current ability is: When this champion is deployed, a champion with any savage ability gains a passive ability and a activated ability for 2 turns. when this champion dies, the nearest champion with the same savage ability than this one gains a ability permanently.
I think the spirit here is rushing using the power that the deployment bonus gives you and keeping up with the on death bonuses.

The first part is very similar to the mirefolk abilities, but the effects on that family of abilities are far clearer, I guess the on deploy bonuses can be more streamlined with things like temporary bonus to stats like bestial presence and the on death effects can stay.

Another option could be the on deploy effects buffing allies and the on death effects debuffing enemies.

 

That really depends on what the devs have planned for barbs in the future from a new rune standpoint. The most recent runes can go toe to toe with comparatively cost and designed runes and than on top of that gain the clan boons. If new runes are going to be of a similar caliber than one of two things must happen.
Solution A: Simplify the racial into something passive and simple. I would say something flavorful in the nature of Forage or Camouflage. How runes would need to be buffed/nerfed as a result is a different subject entirely. Simplicity is key.
Solution B: Reduce the strength of the granted buffs to free up a runes own inherent passive. How that happens or even if that needs to happen is up to discussion.

As I previously said the subject is very polarizing. People either love it or hate it. There is t much in between. My biggest gripe with it is the complexity and overlap with other themes (wings). The power is touch and go with me.

 

Not really a crusade, I just think it´s stupid and needs change. Maybe it´s because 90% of the games I played today was IS/xx, maybe because all of them ran some sort of barb champ that got abilities for free, but in all honesty I believe it´s too strong and too complex atm.

 

Current mechanic for barbarian is stupid. Why barb can't use something like yeti's fang and fur.

 

It got over complex, iirc, because it was the combination of two ideas. Alpha loved the tribes idea (his own) and also the deploy/death abilities which were originally meant to be all the same instead of by tribe.

A good way to reduce complexity would be to allow only one deploy grant ability, but under the same rules as now (by tribe), then have a single uniform death ability. This would bring the total abilities to learn down from 12 to 5.

I do, however, see throwing the whole thing out, as suggested by Pede, to be quite overdramatic. There is a good and unique base interaction here for which the coding and debugging has been fully completed. I'd say build off that core.

 

I selected don't like it at all. But maybe I should have put yes, but could be better. Anyway, I like that it does something on deploy, and something on death. I like that aspect. However, I think it should just automatically do something on deploy, rather than having to select someone and use an ability the way it works now. I also don't think deploy effects should work on non-barbarians. I mean, they aren't even part of the clan, etc. Because of Houndmaster, I think they should continue to have beasts that have Savage abilities. This can be how they make split factions with Barbs. They could give a Savage upgrade option to champs in other factions who are a beast or also have Boost: Beast.

I agree something similar to the way Fang and Fur work would be a good manner in which to utilize it. Again, my biggest thing is I don't like how after the deploy, you have to go select a champ and use the ability to get the on deploy effect. There are enough things which must be done in a limited amount of time. Many times there is plenty of time on a turn, but in some games when there is a lot on the field, you can be cutting it close on time already. no need to add more to do.

 

- Its complexity is further dramatized due to the fact that the "on deploy" as well as the "on death" effects are not publicized on screen or in the combat log. The burden of knowledge is way too high... when I deploy I can choose any of my champs to gain temporary abilities that my opponent won't know about unless they click all my savage champs or until I use the ability. Then when this champion dies it jumps to the closest "like" clan which my opponent will get no visual feedback for and will have to check champs to see if they are "like" clans etc.

- It's just silly, even if they added visual feedback then it would still expose that the ability is too busy. So I would propose several changes :

1) Give visual "and" combat log feedback that "something" has indeed occurred to the barbarian champs affected so that my opponent or I could know to even check for a change.

2) Un-muddy the waters of the clans in general. All barbarians should gain either : 1) the same on death effect or 2) the same on deploy effect. Then based on clan can get a bonus death effect OR on deploy effect. Pick one way and go with it idc.

- Ive been a big fan of the theme before it was even a theme, this does not make me the leading voice of reason but I do know what they have been through from beginning to now. The oldest savage was a silly vanilla moga like mechanic (non barbs deployed mess you up) and then came the theme drowning next savage mechanic that still has lasting effects on the theme (last breath). The current iteration was unique, complex and exciting... but also unfortunately cumbersome wonky and unclear. I still feel it is too powerful in certain circumstances not just for flat abilities granted but also since opponent isn't always aware whats going on which gives fake power. Like situations like "wtfbbq... this guy stacked perserverance?herpderp I lose I guess".

- I'd prefer a thematic racial that enhances aggressive gameplay without being too complicated and busy or an all or nothing mechanic.

 

A barb Deck in this time is nothing more than a meta deck formed around the factions best barbs.
Deploy, make use of it and die.

 

Generally, you don't even need to run full barbs, that's why I don't like it. 2x Huntress, 2x Fist of Bastion, 2x Exemplar and 2x terraformer is enough to make a module in a good meta worthy BG. Then you don't really need to run full barbs, like wings.