Shattered Kingdoms

I'm trying really hard to play the devil's advocate here for the sake of balance, but it's hard to disagree with an idea this sensible.

Does anyone playing a swashie feel like chiming in here with a 500-word dissertation on how this change would ruin your favorite character's life? I'm all ears. But you'd better do it quick, before we all get too attached to this burgeoning consensus.

I played Beltiln, for a few months..didn't seem like that long..but I did...I would totally go up against a barb with taunt up. It makes it more challenging, and if your playing a swash now, your looking for a challenge.

This is an idea that has been making sense to me like... forever.

Taunt is like the [REDACTED] of SK.

How about this for a <500 word stab at the logic. The way barbarian rage is described has always reminded me of football players smacking each other around before a game to get pumped. As much as it is a rage, it's a focused rage. One where you only know one thing, kill/maim/destroy. It's the anger caused by the drill sergeant or coach who is just pushing you too far. Sure, you might be seeing red, but you're not necessarily blind or stupid.

Now taunt anger seems more like a bar fight scrum kind of anger. It's has more of a drunkening effect than a focusing one. It is more of a stupid anger, I guess. It's the kind of anger that causes you to trip over a chair, table, or even people in order to fight someone you might not even be ready for. There isn't as much of a charged up effect as there is a stupefying and blinding effect.

Really, it comes down to control. You might think, at first, that a barbarian has control over his anger. Well, when he berserks, yeah, he does. However, this is something he was dragged into unwillingly. Thus, the taunter is the one with the control. Sure, a barbarian may be able to harness that rage to make him focused again, but it should take some effort of mind (read: typing the command in) to do so. It is probably better to argue that fury should have a better chance of firing when a taunted barbarian berserks rather than auto firing on the taunt, or that the slight benefits that come with taunt stack with berserk/fury, if they don't already.

There. I think I even convinced myself.

...

Can I change my vote now?


EDIT:



You mean the skill is often screwed over, losing value with age, getting beat around by someone who only steals any worth it might have had, leaving it with barely enough value to survive until the next round of screwing, bashing, and atrophy?

This makes too much sense not to happen.

well, its sensible for taunt to make anyone a more 'berserking' fighter, but in the barbarian's case, fury is something that consumes his stamina isnt it? If thats the case, then yes taunt should frenzy the barb, but also lag him for the same ammount it would normaly take him to fury.

Didn't we just change taunt? I've seen that change in affect on some NPC groups I've fought. That being said, and considering I'm often the skeptic on changes like this, I'd only like to wait a little longer and see the impact of the most recent change a little more fully.

I do think in the end that this is a good idea, and that it won't make the skill useless and ruin the swashie class. Barbs are meant to be a challenge for swashies, and this might help a little bit more. I'd be all for it.

I would just like to point out that while this may make 'sense' in logistical terms, I'm very happy few of you have access to the code to make changes.

Let me explain:

You are coming a skill to a class, claiming that 'barbarians should be a challenge to swashbucklers.'

So here's the thing: what is stopping a barb currently from furying when he's taunted? He already gains a small bonus to damage/to hit from being taunted so taunting a non-hurt barb is pointless for the swashbuckler.

Second, a barb can choose to go wild-fighting and avoid the swashbuckler's main ability to avoid attacks. Remember, they are light-armored fighters.

Finally, barbarians get disarm and a mastery of many, many weapons. So they can disarm the swash easier than the swash can disarm him. Annnd the barb can bash after said disarm to prevent the swashbuckler from picking up the weapon.

Not to mention that barbs can hit from back ranks and swashbucklers generally can not.

I'm sorry, why again do barbs need this 'boost'?

The more I think about it, this makes less and less logical sense, to the point of not making any at all. People are just falling victim, as I did, to the idea that a mad barbarian automatically means their berserked and combat ready. If you look at their skill set, they build up their awareness and primal skills, learning to draw them out in a fight. If you draw on the supposed logic that making a barb angry and want to fight automatically means that they will berserk and fury, then the skill should simply become automatic and fire every time they go to kill. The fact that they had to learn it, train it, and draw on it (type it in) means that it is something that doesn't come automatically.

All taunt is doing is lowering intelligence and inhibitions, like getting drunk. It strips away any logical tactic and causes the victim to start swinging away with little care. It is sloppy fighting at it's worst, and exactly what the swashie wants you to do, drop your guard. Fury isn't about swinging blindly so much as it is about making your muscles tighten and your strikes faster. Really, because of this blinding rage effect, taunt should significantly lower the accuracy of the victim and increase their damage and speed.

As I said before, it all comes down to momentum. The swashie wants you off your guard, off your balance, and charging at him blindly. It is up to the barbarian to use his keen awareness and control over his rage to turn that around, and it shouldn't come automatically. In -any- other instance where the barbarian may be terribly angry, he still has to find a way to use than anger to his advantage rather than let it consume him and become a weakness. Trust me, if Vladmier automatically hit fury every time he was as angry as a taunt would have made him, then he would have been rarely without it.

Make it easier to berserk and fury while taunted, and/or make sure the benefits stack, but don't make an otherwise non-automatic skill automatic just because you think mad = berserk, because that assumption is wrong.

Non-giant barbarians could use a boost, but it's mostly in the range department. They are screwed by anyone who is in the back row, being the only class who has to rely solely on throw (a terrible and broken "skill") to hit there. I suggest either giving them a big boost to throwing that doesn't stack with boulder, allowing them to throw all types of weapons instead of just throwing types (again, not stacking with boulder), or give them a charging skill that allows them to take a few critical blows from those they pass in the ranks to take a strike at someone, basically trading damage for the chance to make sure someone isn't invincible against them.

Hmm.. That, added with my other post, is just about 500 I think. So, unless someone wants to refute my claims, I'm spent.

EDIT: Just did a word count, and this one alone is 510.