Barbarians

I used to enjoy Barbarians prior to the Warchief changes. However, I'm not really understanding them right now. Could someone please help me understand the whole Warchief and Warchief Inauguration system? I'm sure something good is there but my old brain isn't finding it. If someone could, please post ideas for battlegroups and helpful advice on how to play them. I would very much appreciate the help.

 

- It "could" be something if the warchief mechanic provided some inspiration to his tribe on the field. As it stands now its a selfish mechanic that provides a slow building buff to the warchief while his tribe just herpderps around hoping he dies to get it to hop. Now if the selfish buff was significant then we could discuss that... but its rend and what not.

- Now I don't want it to be gamebreaking-ly powerful but then the theme needs other synergy which begs the question..."if we did that, whats warchief for?" As it stands now, you play barbs like a dorf deck sadly. Put some meta barbarians together....and "sporadically" one has tough or rend (and your like...ok ?).....then you just incite-nuke something and people get the impression the theme is good.

- Warchief inaugeration is just a wonky buff you throw on other "warchief" champs that aren't blood clan...which is lame since their are limited warchiefs. Zedin and Bastion who are double warchiefs get a nice dam+hp buff for this spell but meh.

- Unfortunately Barbs have had so many tweaks that it appears like they "should" be fine but they really need another racial overhaul ....make it largely flavor and less power but change 2-3 marquee barbarian champs to have internal synergy to glue the theme. Zedin, warchief (already), Bastion, B.Guardian, B.Commander, B.Shaman.... these champs could be tweaked with some new ability sets to promote more synergy within the theme without crutching on racial/incite as much.

 

I would love to see Zedin become more important.

@Senshu @Gedden @Axeraiser Would you be open to ideas to revamp Barbarians again? Does anyone have any good ideas they can add?

 

I am not an IS player, but my sole IS BG I have is a Barbarian BG.
Would love to see them become more interesting.

 

Barbarians have been focused on for so much in the last few patches/expansion(s). I would rather have them work on other themes like Grintmaws.

 

This is very true. I don't think Barbarians are in a rush to get changed.
Coming up with some ideas meanwhile could be productive though.

 

They got ruined by a lack of understanding and a lazy "fix".

Every time I try them out I think to myself, "why the Firk am I playing this?"

Also, lol @ boost barbarian.

 

If they did look at them again, I wouldn't expect any of the changes to be meaningful. Things will just seem randomly different. Might be better, might be worse, probably they'll just be a different version of themselves.

 

If we can come up with some ideas in the meantime, we'll be ahead of the curve. We also understand these changes will not be on the priority list. But we can also provide a change to a champ, spell, relic or equip that will help the theme instead of revamping the whole Warchief Inauguration. This change could be pushed through with a standard patch.

 

They could be interesting but what it comes down to is a review of each champion to nock down the too good ones and a buff/change of the bad as well as just fixing design issues. There are still things like ELite having both power attack and execute that dont stack, or Battle leader being 15 nora and lots of small issues like that.

From there its development of future runes that will change this theme as most of the champions/runes fit the im a dumb basic beater role and do not interact in any real way. They need more support options and flavorful ways to do what they do. That being said, as a class/race they need to have weak points but theme wide and individually that actually matter ( all races/classes need these restrictions too). Its a damn foul that dwarfs are allowed to be so robust in terms of design for the faction that it really screws over the other races and again that is true for most races in the game.

anyway back on topic, Chieftain can be interesting, as a faction IS is about support, but as a race/class barbarians could be about internalizing/power champions they just need to have other support abilities on them to make sense. That and the buffs applied need to be meaningful. Getting Rend 1-3 is blah for the design style of the champions, fearless/unstoppable/ironwill are all usefull just need to be swapped around a bit, and sky spear is a bit wonky currently. Add some more Chiefs, and address the bounce bug if its to already fixed, and it has potential of being a different style for IS. Dwarfs just do too damn much and other classes ( cough paladins) are overly generalized too. There is no mutual need anymore.

 

Does anyone use Mounted Kinsman anymore? Back when he was The Displaced he was used in most decks. Now I never use him. Maybe bring Scramble back?
Barbarian Guardian lost Scramble as well.

 

Kins got a buff I believe. I haven't looked at him recently but last time I did he looked good on paper.

 

I use displaced (I refuse to use the new name) in a sp/is beast split and slap magnify beast on it for +45 hp for both phases of team. It is still a great champ with massive build up potential.

 

Not quite sure what the buff is. Compared to pre-revamp, they lost 2 damage and 1 speed. Minimum price is 81 compared to 88 pre-revamp. No scramble option, no Rover: Surge: Enemy, No Savage: Blood Clan, and no Tremor. Team and Multiattack remains on base. Upgrade 1: Cooperation, Call to Arms, Charge 2. Upgrade 2: Command: Dodge, Command: Charge, Violent. Cooperation and Call to Arms have been added since revamp. I think he would see more use if Scramble was added back.

 

Boost Beast Barbarians probably is the best option now with Elite Skirmisher, Fist of Bastion, Mounted Hawkmaster, Mounted Kinsman, and Plains Savage all considered beasts now. Then you have Houndmaster and Sarnghavian Herder with Boost Beast. Using them in a split seems like a decent option as well. However, using them FF IS with only Barbarians they can use a little work.

 

Hes beastly.... 1-2 range call to arms on multi 2/team unit that can also grant AOE dodge/block, which are both in short supply in theme, and said has incite/boost/BM/def etc. Check Hp to nora ratio and then look at what he brings outside of just damage/hp and its a lot for that price tag.

Guardan is also pop out BM 3, nexus, and call to arms at sup 70 nora...Hes also really good.

 

Thank you all for the valuable advice. I'll have to revisit them to see how they play out. I really preferred the Barbarian racial pre-revamp compared to the Warchief changes. I'll have to clear my mind and replay with a blank slate.

 

I created the following Barbarian battlegroup with the Boost Beast mechanism as its base:

http://poxbase.com/deck/c2+CuicoJCjkCjjc4CjhCk7cjgc9ncwncy@s5Xs4Bs1YSls4Gs5GsPs2drirYE3i

I have the three Warchief factions with Bastion the Avenger as Storm, Wild Chieftain as Blood and Zedin as Stone.
Barbarian Huntress since her pig would be Beast.
Houndmaster and Herder as the boost champs.
Savage Shieldman for the amazing defense he brings. I love this guy!
Barbarian Druid for heals and cleanse.
Disarm by spell.
Mounted Hawkmaster x2 provides Detection along with Guard Tower.
Righteous Deflection to help keep Bastion the Avenger alive.
Strip Armor since this battlegroup is heavy on Physical damage.

Feedback and recommendations are always welcome!

 

Barbs do have interrogator that has shatter and decalre target/pummel for 77 I think. Just if you want more fast( 7spd) barbs able to help do high burst damage.

you also have 3x champ detection options do you need a guard tower? You have 2 options for BM in champ for and the guardian is like 66 nora. The Commander is a bit over priced but hopefully they will tweak the price of some abilities some day.