I hear your frustration and I find myself agreeing with some of what you're saying, and disagreeing with other parts. I have now done the following:
1. you start with an item in the inventory that explains that you need body armor, and that you should buy rags from gheed. You can sell the item for 1 gold
2. rags now cost 1 gold, so you can buy them after selling the item
3. base AR has been increased from 45 to 200, and enemies have low def throughout the game
4. dex boosts attack rate by 5% (instead of boosting magic find)
5. all classes get 1 mana per energy
6. mana costs of skills have been largely decreased, and some skills have been adjusted slightly
(2.3):
7. reduced gold one gets by selling items, especially magic items, gems, and runes
8. made potions purchasable (but expensive)
The skill changes are by no means final, I'm hoping for more constructive feedback about how to change the skills.
I'm thinking about removing double swing and/or adding a melee AoE attack. If any of you have any particular ideas, I'd like to listen to them (and I'll re-read doub's ideas from before).
I'll upload the new version soon.
No, the classes are meant to be roughly equal in difficulty. It's purely a matter of poor balancing.mmpx222 wrote: ↑Thu Feb 14, 2019 11:21 pmI gave up trying to make the Barbarian work. This class feels like Dark Souls minus the satisfaction. What's baffling is that the other classes--especially the mages--are downright broken. I am confused as to whether the Barbarian is intended to be so difficult, or is a result of poor balancing.
Good points! It's been a long time since I did the calculations for the mod, but it was intentional that the hit chance is much lower for D2 --- but not to torture the players, but to make AR matter....if you do hit the Fallen, that is.
The Attack Rating formula for players is 5 × (Dex - 7) + (ToHitFactor), where ToHitFactor = 45 for all classes in Black Razor 2.1. Since the Barbarian starts with 6 dex, his AR is 5 × (6 - 7) + 45 = 40.
A Fallen is level 1 and has 47 defense. The chance-to-hit formula is 100 × AR ÷ (AR + DR) × 2 × alvl ÷ (alvl + dlvl), so your chance to hit the Fallen is 100 × 40 ÷ (40 + 47) × 2 × 1 ÷ (1 + 1) = 46.0%. The Fallen also has a ToBlock of 9%, which means actual chance to hit is 41.8%. Don't be fooled by the values in the Lying Character Screen--it's bugged.
This is related to the progression of the to-hit formula, which grows very slowly above a certain point.
In general, if the ration between AR and DR is a, (a=AR/DR), then the chance to hit (ignoring levels) scales proportional to
a/(a+1)
If at the base level a=1, then doubling AR (a=2) means that you go from 1/2 to 2/3, i.e., a 33% increase in hit chance
if at the base level a=2, then doubling AR (a=4) means that you go from 2/3 to 4/5, i.e., a 20% increase in hit chance
So the side from which I engaged the numbers was "how much additional DPS should doubling AR give you?"
Essentially, investing points into dex to get additional AR is completely useless except at very low hit chances.
I wanted dex to increase your hit chance in a meaningful way, so I made the hit chances low.
At the same time, I want chars to not have to depend on skills to hit something (or alternatively, skills that give a bonus to hit% shouldn't give such a huge bonus that other skills would become completely useless)
Obviously I would have preferred to take a formula which scales better, and then set a higher base AR.
But I'm working within the confines of D2.
As I wrote in the beginning, I've now given up on trying to make AR useful. I'm giving DEX an IAS modifier instead.
I know that this may sound silly, but I have no problem playing the barbarian from scratch. I just tried again, on a jerky bus ride on my laptop, and I was at level 2 after 15-20 minutes, without dying, drinking a potion, or talking to akara even once.Meanwhile, your start with [6 dex ÷ 4] = 1 defense. Since the Fallen has 6 AR, he can hit you 100 × 6 ÷ (6 + 1) × 2 × 1 ÷ (1 + 1) = 85.7% of the time.
Why do I have only 1 defense? Because I don't start with any defensive gear and can't afford one. I need to kill monsters to earn gold, but I can't kill any because I'm too weak. See where I'm going?
I won't elaborate on the Zombies with 3.4 times the HP of Fallen, or the Quill Rats whose ranged attacks are bugged and have double AR.
Clearly, the Barbarian is not meant to be played untwinked. Each Fallen gives 3 XP; you need 500 XP to reach level 2. You can't kill 167 Fallen with only a double axe and 4 minor healing potions. Running back to Akara 50 times is not fun, either.
I did take 5 seconds off once to regenerate a little bit of HP when it ran low.
I think it may have something to do with how you approach the character --- probably you try to play it like D2 is normally played, as a hack and slay. And I get that this is how most people would play this as well.
Here's how I play it: I begin by avoiding enemies that are too tough and instead focussing on opening chests (/rocks/beds/...) until I get body armor (either from gheed or from a drop).
Then I fight, luring individual enemies out of packs and picking off ranged ones. I usually do one swing with the weapon and run as soon as the enemy starts swinging back.
With this strategy I clear the first map and get ~450xp.
By then I usually have some means to survive in the den --- either additional armor, or a ranged weapon --- and can go into the cave to get to level 2 by killing one or two fallen shaman.
I get that this is not the playstile you like or maybe even that most D2 players would enjoy. I personally liked the challenge.
In any case, as mentioned above I've made things a lot easier at the beginning, in particular you can buy rags right at the beginning.
You're absolutely right, this should be in the first post. Note that the only reason why it only kicks in with body armor is because of limitations of the D2 engine. I've thought about alternative solutions but they all have problems.Why is this not in the first post? How is a new player supposed to know that the HP regen kicks in only with a body armor equipped? This is a core survival/sustain mechanic, not some fancy trick that a modder should hide from players with invisible text, buried deep in page 3 of the thread.
Note that to make a meaningful impact, a skill would need to double AR.At least some classes either have a long ranged attack (Sorceress, Amazon) or a starting ability (Sorceress, Necromancer) at level 1, so they can reach level 2 without twinking.
Things don't get better when you get to level 2. Most combat skills are only slightly better than melee attack with only 1 skill point. Some are downright unusable because you have only 2 mana (plus 0.25 per energy).
- Bash: +50% damage per slvl is nice, but provides no AR bonus, which you sorely need. Also, 0.5 mana is a pretty big figure when you only have 2 mana.
- Stun: No damage or AR bonus and costs 0.625 mana. Why use this skill?
- Concentrate: +20% AR bonus is nice, but no damage bonus. Also costs 2 mana when you have 2 max mana.
- Berserk: Damage is actually rather high if you are damaged. Bonus points for being the only melee skill without a mana cost. A pity it has no AR bonus.
- Leap Attack: Costs 9 mana. You only have 2 max mana.
- Whirlwind: No AR bonus and costs 2.5 mana.
- Double Swing: No AR or damage bonus. +20% attack speed per slvl is good, but also makes you drain mana faster. It doesn't help that the mana cost (0.5) is applied separately to each swing. Also, good luck finding / buying two 1-handed weapons.
- Double Throw: No AR bonus. +20% damage per slvl is a joke when Strength gives +10% per point. Also, good luck finding / buying two throwing weapons.
- Frenzy: No AR or damage bonus. Attack speed bonus is mediocre compared to Double Swing, and also makes you drain mana faster. It doesn't help that the mana cost (0.75) is applied separately to each swing. Also, good luck finding / buying two 1-handed weapons.
- War Cry: Always hits, and deals high damage. Stun is nice. However, mana cost of 3 is prohibitive.
- Battle Cry: Only reduces enemy defense by 10% at level 1. Also costs 5 mana when you only have 2 max mana.
- Weapon Masteries: Damage scales with strength--nice, but +5% AR bonus is not enough.
- Other skills only slightly improve his survivability or provide marginal utility.
The only useful skills at level 2 are Howl, Berserk, and Iron Skin, and they do not solve the fundamental problem: The Barbarian can't reliably hit anything, while everything else is hitting him. You put yourself in more danger by using melee attacks; yet you deal less damage than any other class. You have a pitiful amount of mana, making most skills barely usable; yet your skills are little better than basic attacks.