Shattered Kingdoms

Watching and interacting with Peso's recent MR trained barb, I had a few thoughts on balance. The new feature of healing when your MR kicks in along with allowing barbs to train MR directly is an interesting one, but I don't think it really makes for a viable character concept, particularly one intending to play in the PK arena.

By choosing to train MR, a barb is basically giving up the ability to compete with other warriors head to head (no buffs usually means no win 4 u) and usefulness in group combat, both PVP and PVE (no sanc, difficulty healing, no buffs) for a poor-man's better ground vs. casters. I would never take that trade, and I doubt many others would either.

Also I also noticed when "healing" Peso's barb that the amount of healing he got from resisting a cast of the "heal" spell was about half of what he would have otherwise gotten had he not resisted. It seemed a little too much on the low side based on what one is giving up to take the MR route.

Therefore the change as it stands really just buffed characters that tended to use MR anyway (largely necros, some sorcs) and may entice some newbies (e.g., Peso) to use this build for barbs, but will otherwise not see much uptake.

I'm curious to hear what other, more effective/prolific PKers than myself have to say about the situation. Here are some ideas for possible tweaks to make this a more viable build for barbs but shouldn't affect other MR users much:
* Make shaman healing and buffing spells ignore barb MR to solidify the shaman-barb bond
* Make certain buffing spells that casters tend not to use ignore MR (e.g., frenzy, giant strength, haste, bless, etc.)
* Increase the amount of healing you get for resisted spells
* Allow for some random buffs to pop up every once in a while on top of just healing when you resist spells (e.g., 1/10 times you resist a spell you will get a bless or prayer or lighten load or whatever random ones you want to put on this list)

Thoughts?

I definitely think the amount of healing per resisted spell needs to go up, at all scales of the spell-casting levels. If full MR trains is giving about half of what a heal would give, then you'd have to have roughly 100 additional MR to get close to a full heal (according to Dulrik's explanation of this effect in the update Q&A). That's...a helluva lot of enchanting, and quite possibly almost impossible to achieve.

Also, as the healing factor of MR stands right now, *only* barbs with MR trained will notice even a marginal healing factor on successfully resisted spells; the rate of healing is just too low even on relatively heavily enchanted MR kits.

Yeah, I'd be curious as to how many MR trains Peso had, how much additional MR he was wearing, and what he saw in terms of testing. It was just my brief observation that MR healing seemed around half of what other barbs tend to get from a heal spell.

Training 10 MR blows, because if you do then 1) you'll never be able to utilize most of the buffs in the game, which is what MAKES melee classes, and 2) the amount of healing provided by a full heal resist, as already stated, provides substantially less healing than if you hadn't resisted it.

As such, the only even close to viable build for an MR barb is to train 3, maybe 4 trains, and find -MR gear (Which is very few and far between) to compensate for when you don't want to resist spells over half the time. It's extremely gear-dependant.

Overall, any new character who trains MR is automatically screwed, because all of his options for contributing to a party in PvE (which is the majority of the game) are extremely limited: He can't tank because he can't be sanc'ed or healed, and he also continuously resists FLIGHT STAVES, which are up to freaking 1 plat a charge due to the economy code change.

This really outlines two things: Training MR screws new players, to which the only change that might help it would be increasing the %heal from MR, and there needs to be a hard cap set on perishable items (Empty Vials, staves, scrolls, detect potions, arrows, etc) Because those things are -always- going to be bought more than non-perishable items like armor and weapons.

Important fact to note: Peso's barb did NOT have the max of mr trains. More mr = more healing. There are ways (common ways!) around needing flight on yourself, as well. I won't refute that it doesn't help PvP, because this is true. Healing from vials is very severely limited, and even with the HP return from resisting, doesn't counter the "prepared warrior" unless the prepared warrior is kept from using his stuff.

It is perfectly fine for PvE, however, so long as you're smart about it. Can you tank decently? Probably not, since you can't be healed. Can you provide damage? Yes. Do you still have high hps? Also yes.


Making shaman spells (I've considered endorsing ALL shaman spells getting through to the barb) hit barbs is something I'll continue to think about, but I have to say I liked giant barbs not having to worry about lightning.

I don't think buffing spells should bypass MR at all. The theme of barbs is that they are suspicious of magic/priests, and tend to find such things distasteful. MR shouldn't pick and choose.

...I could somewhat agree with the random buff on resisting, but this would be very easily abusable.

Ain is correct, had I had about 40-46 more MR, I would have been getting more than an common warrior would get off a healing spell off resisting any spell thats around its lvl.

Most of what you said makes sense Ain, but this part I disagree with. Given either an MR build or a HP build, the HP build barb is WAY better for PVE.

Yes you can provide some damage, but it's less than other barbs (no buffs) and you can't tank nearly as well (no sanc, no haste, no armor, no prayer, no lighten load, etc.).

Peso, how many times did your barb train MR?

8 times, and I used those spells often, it just pissed off my mage/priest friends:d

Right. That means you'd get into real trouble with max trains, though. It would take forever for a single buff to get through, though maybe the healing amount is not so much of an issue then.

Training MR is still not a playable build, IMHO.

Do herbs and vials check for MR? I forgot. Also, if herbs do check for MR, change it so that they don't? I also like the idea that a barb's MR doesn't count for ALL shaman spells. If barbs could still use herbs and shamans to get buffs, then there really wouldn't be much of a problem