Shattered Kingdoms

Yeah, see, we've done that already. It didn't work. I'm gonna go ahead and troll him now.

Ardith has demonstrated more knowledge of the basic concepts of game balance than most users, and his knowledge of game content is probably better than some current builders can readily command. I've had as colored a history with him as anyone else, but there's times when trolling probably doesn't even do justice to your own, earlier counterpoints.

I think Ardith raises some good points to consider.

AoN is not my favorite skill to have been added to the game. I wouldn't want to play a paladin up against an MR barbarian, nor even a hellion or rogue, whose best skills are so easily negated by the barb class in general. The barbarian class, of course, has often been mocked in the past but now is hovering near the top of the 'food chain'. I suspect the particular MR barb causing this immediate consternation also has other things affecting his situation, maximizing his potential.

There is room for the MR barb to be balanced further, as will always be the case with one class or another. Immediately, though, I can think of two classes in particular, albeit rather squishy classes, whom are actually quite well suited to dealing with MR barbs-- when they can live long enough to do so.

Sounds like barbarians have replaced necromancers as the "it takes a group of other players to handle a player playing this well" class.

Resorting to trolling me after you are wrong doesn't make me care more.

Just to put it into perspective, I may not know the numbers behind the game, but I feel reasonably confident (about 99.99999%) that I can PK any of the imms with all things being equal, even Dulrik. And that probably holds true for a couple other players as well.

Cool story, brah.

Barbarians have been really good for a long time. As have mercenaries.

I like having MR barbarians as an alternative, but they went from being a nuisance with Qahz, back when they only resisted some damage from magic weapons, to becoming fully immune to them. And they've pretty much always been completely immune to spellcasters except warlocks. Nobody other than the MR barb gets that innate resistance to spells like that. And then aura of negation came along and made them completely broken. I've cheesed high level areas with MR barbs, and completely trashed Ephialtes for instance because of the spell-sucking very high success rate of that skill which can be spammed over and over again with very little cost.

What would you change about Aura of Negation, assuming it wouldn't be removed, to improve the situation?

I would add guns to it.

Veloras did rock a lot of Mr barbs.

You would see more rogue logs if more people played them. Also, their logs are generally boring because they can drop people so easily. In closing, rogues are awesome. If anything they need a buff to disguise to make them unnoticeable to guard NPCs but still reportable for crimes.