W-Key Barbarians Are Destroying Solo Play – What Can Be Done?

[Grim Fandango]

Is anyone else feeling like solo play is becoming nearly impossible thanks to W-key Barbarians?

With the current balance, Barbarians can just hold W, tank hits, and swing like mad while solos—especially squishier classes—have almost no way to counter it. Sure, kiting and traps work in theory, but in the tight corridors of many maps, you barely get a chance before you’re one-shot by a felling axe or horseman’s pick. Even if you land a few hits, the sheer health pool and damage reduction of Barbarians make it feel like an uphill battle.

And now, it’s getting even worse—these W-key Barbs are learning to ambush. Instead of just running in blindly, I’m noticing more of them waiting until solos are busy dealing with mobs, then charging in when you’re out of position or low on resources. You hear footsteps a little too late, and suddenly, there’s a Barbarian in your face, mid-swing, while you’re still trying to recover from fighting a skeleton or a wraith.

The biggest issue? Barbarian is the lowest skill class in the game, yet it’s one of the strongest. It has insane damage, crazy tankiness, and barely any real counters, making solo play miserable. If this class is meant to be the easy, low-skill pick for new players, then fine—but it shouldn’t be top-tier. If you want to cater to low-skill players, the class should be mid-tier at best, not an unstoppable force that wrecks anyone playing solo. Right now, it’s just a ♥♥♥♥ class to fight against.

So what’s the solution? Should Barbarians have slightly less move speed? Should their health regen be nerfed a bit? Should they have a short stamina drain when sprinting? Would love to hear what you all think.

How are you dealing with W-key Barbs as a solo? Do you think it's a balance issue, or just part of the game’s natural challenge?

[Katitoff]

I block or parry their slow, obvious hits.

Unless its hatchet barb, then your cooked.

[Aldain]

There's 2 reasons why Barb is so obnoxious at a baseline level in 0-24s than every other class.

1: It's base stats are min-max'd to hell and back, it literally has zero "wasted" point distribution with both of its most important stats being 25 at base (10 higher that the "Medium" baseline of 15 that Fighter has in every stat) and it's dump stats of Knowledge and Resourcefulness basically have no negative impact on it since all you need is a single perk to counteract the slow interaction speed in 90% of situations.

2: Rage gives 15 more Str/Vig on top of a move speed buff that basically if you're at a certain MS threshold can put you at the MS cap, putting them briefly at 40 FREAKING STRENGTH EVEN WHILE NAKED. No other class can even remotely hit that value in only basic white gear and the Barb can hit it without even factoring in their gear at all. Rage is basically an enhanced version of Fighter's Sprint with the negligible drawback of a -15% PDR reduction, which with their bloated HP baseline isn't nearly as much of a drawback as you'd think, especially in 0-24s where PDR limits are already pretty negligible anyway.

[Fran]

Originally posted by Aldain:

There's 2 reasons why Barb is so obnoxious at a baseline level in 0-24s than every other class.

1: It's base stats are min-max'd to hell and back, it literally has zero "wasted" point distribution with both of its most important stats being 25 at base (10 higher that the "Medium" baseline of 15 that Fighter has in every stat) and it's dump stats of Knowledge and Resourcefulness basically have no negative impact on it since all you need is a single perk to counteract the slow interaction speed in 90% of situations.

2: Rage gives 15 more Str/Vig on top of a move speed buff that basically if you're at a certain MS threshold can put you at the MS cap, putting them briefly at 40 FREAKING STRENGTH EVEN WHILE NAKED. No other class can even remotely hit that value in only basic white gear and the Barb can hit it without even factoring in their gear at all. Rage is basically an enhanced version of Fighter's Sprint with the negligible drawback of a -15% PDR reduction, which with their bloated HP baseline isn't nearly as much of a drawback as you'd think, especially in 0-24s where PDR limits are already pretty negligible anyway.

Don't forget, you get 140 hp, for free, while naked....

[Aldain]

Originally posted by Fran:

Originally posted by Aldain:

There's 2 reasons why Barb is so obnoxious at a baseline level in 0-24s than every other class.

1: It's base stats are min-max'd to hell and back, it literally has zero "wasted" point distribution with both of its most important stats being 25 at base (10 higher that the "Medium" baseline of 15 that Fighter has in every stat) and it's dump stats of Knowledge and Resourcefulness basically have no negative impact on it since all you need is a single perk to counteract the slow interaction speed in 90% of situations.

2: Rage gives 15 more Str/Vig on top of a move speed buff that basically if you're at a certain MS threshold can put you at the MS cap, putting them briefly at 40 FREAKING STRENGTH EVEN WHILE NAKED. No other class can even remotely hit that value in only basic white gear and the Barb can hit it without even factoring in their gear at all. Rage is basically an enhanced version of Fighter's Sprint with the negligible drawback of a -15% PDR reduction, which with their bloated HP baseline isn't nearly as much of a drawback as you'd think, especially in 0-24s where PDR limits are already pretty negligible anyway.

Don't forget, you get 140 hp, for free, while naked....

See comment 2 on "Bloated HP baseline" for that one.

[Kushsmoke]

Buy a kit and go into HR, 24 mains are the worst .. I can get grinding and learning from it but people that main it and never put on a kit and try to play at a higher level to me are jus wierdos.. let the Bobs and Tims run the 24s-124s . try putting on somthing that cost gold and see how it levels the playing field

[:)]

What you are describing is how gamers are so desperate to win, they will play whatever is "meta". ♥♥♥♥ fun. What is going to get me wins? Sadly, when EVERYONE is playing to battle their insecurity. Sadly, when every gamer is playing to prove to themselves "MAYBE I CAN BE GOOD AT SOMETHING!" This is what we are left with. Everyone playing whatever works; nobody being creative or original. The game has been this way ever since the end of the playtests. Stop coping. This is gaming ever since like covid.

[Aldain]

Originally posted by :):

What you are describing is how gamers are so desperate to win, they will play whatever is "meta". ♥♥♥♥ fun. What is going to get me wins? Sadly, when EVERYONE is playing to battle their insecurity. Sadly, when every gamer is playing to prove to themselves "MAYBE I CAN BE GOOD AT SOMETHING!" This is what we are left with. Everyone playing whatever works; nobody being creative or original. The game has been this way ever since the end of the playtests. Stop coping. This is gaming ever since like covid.

Honestly the whole "Exploit the most powerful tool" thing is older than that, I'm old enough to remember the "Noob Tube" eras of CoD being discussed online, and I'd wager it probably goes even further back than that.

The root issue is that given the opportunity players will optimize the fun out of a game, and this hits PvP games even harder than PvE ones imo mainly because there's more points of interaction compared to PvE titles due to the competitive elements present.

The major countermeasure to this is to give as few opportunities to optimize the fun out of a game as humanly possible, but in terms of game development this is fairly difficult to do while also walking the fine line of the game still being engaging in some fashion and not falling into strict rigidity.

DaD however has very little attention paid to such avoidance of exploitation (we only JUST got Bunnyhops killed after years) and as a result it's usually a race to the path of least resistance in terms of balancing.

[76561198391721182]

play barbarian as well and W key

[Fran]

Originally posted by 76561198391721182:

Originally posted by Aldain:

The root issue is that given the opportunity players will optimize the fun out of a game, and this hits PvP games even harder than PvE ones imo mainly because there's more points of interaction compared to PvE titles due to the competitive elements present.

The major countermeasure to this is to give as few opportunities to optimize the fun out of a game as humanly possible, but in terms of game development this is fairly difficult to do while also walking the fine line of the game still being engaging in some fashion and not falling into strict rigidity.

DaD however has very little attention paid to such avoidance of exploitation (we only JUST got Bunnyhops killed after years) and as a result it's usually a race to the path of least resistance in terms of balancing.

this is what is ruining CS2 for me, in 2025 AHK has been accepted as a general use software and not malicious, but since the AWP is so cheesy, 1 shot from any range, alot of people will just use a script to scan the color of the middle pixel and when a enemy shows up in the middle of the crosshair/scope, it automatically secures the kill instantly, like you can't even see yourself leave cover in the killcam and you don't even see them at all, you literally have to magically bait them to mag-dump and try to rush the 4 seconds of downtime of reloading, CS2 isn't even fundamentally good, it's just 99% memorizing perfect grenade line-ups and crouch standing still while tap firing to get the most accuracy, it's just they have a bad anti-cheat that let's people get away with just W-keying and holding M1, and rewards them with a lucky headshot.

I think shooters just need to stop calling themselves "competitive" because they don't care about fairness, being "good" at games nowadays is winning by all means necessary, pay for better hardware because there isn't a mandatory refresh rate for matchmaking, pay for scripts that have small dev teams working on to constantly keep it undetected (and usually buy leaked game files through corrupt devs), fairness in 2025 gaming, is like getting in a boxing match where your opponent is using a fake ID to get in the match (burner account/bought account), and the ref doesn't check their gloves while they are destroying your face with hidden brass knuckles, they usually have sloppy movement work and bad reaction time, but because of exploits, cheese and developer neglect you just have to accept you'll loose if you play honorably... of course you can just copy them and be as sad and pathetic and insecure as them, but honestly I don't give a sh*t, gaming is NOT a hobby and I can make better use of my time instead of contributing to a problem everyone except manchildren wishes would completely disappear.

AHK has not been accepted as fair use, what are you yappin about?

[Fdpulpe]

I say this since long time, the barbarian are too much strong

but i like and i take this class sometime, this class dont need a nerf but all other class need a buff, what buff ?

The big problem vs a Barbarian are he can run at 330ms so all other class need a buff of movespeed for me

[shredalicious]

Originally posted by 76561198391721182:

play barbarian as well and W key

Not everyone is ready to accept brain damage from such gameplay :)