Does barbarian have any weak point?

[千仞万渊]

Or actually it's just tooooo OP?
They are giving me a same feeling as the former bounty hunters, similar fighting style, and both are too OP.


A very obvious angle, their stats and perks are super insane......I cant imagine this how bad this balance this is, havn't this been tested before?

Even the weakest thrall have 70 morale, what?? Even warlord is only 70 resolve.

And, I cant imagine reavers have insanely 11 perks, chosens have foolish 14perks......
We made some stimulation that 9 hedge knightVS 12 barbarian chosen, and the result is hedge knight never win. We cant meet more than 1 hedge knight in a combat, but it's really easy to encounter 6 chosen or even more.


In all, does barbarian have any weak point? They have many OP perks, this makes the game a total stats contest.

even reaver have:
1.Underdog+15melee defense=invinsible in melee
2.Anticipation+10 range defense=hard to counter with range weapon
3.wait turn+resilience+adrenaline=immune to any negative buff as any buff would be offset as they wait turn, even 2turn or mutiple turn effect will make no effect as resilience reduce them to 1turn duration
4.The babarian fury(roation)+adrenaline=they cant be seperated, anyone in the line would be 1vs1 solo and they have underdog, hehe(their rotation only cost 5fatigue that's funny)


And chosen get additional cripple strike+executionor.....like what the old bounty hunters do.





So, I've tryed every method, and find there is only one weak point, yes, they are afraid of super warrior, afraid of thoes who have astronomical stats. As what I said, totally stats contest.

Here are my suggestion,
1.remove underdog, actually we could remove the underdog perk as their is no mean to counter this thing.
2.make their fury skill(rotation)cost 50 fatigue, yes, 50 fatigue, not 5.
3.Nerf the whole 2h cleaver kind, not only barbarian kind. Its stats and decapte skill(now cost 20 fatigue,) makes 1h cleaver not a bit competative.
4.Remove resilience and recovery, that's very important, or how can we counter adrenaline.


Another thing:
5. Nerf indomitable or directly remove it, it's another perk that's cant be countered unless you are a super warrior(like underdog), what can you do to a wait-turned opponent with indomitalble , adrenaline and resilience? Stun? Poison? Disarm? That's all of no use, as they all would be neutralized by the end of this turn. The only way is to let a adrenaline user who have higher initiative than your opponent and stagger him. But how can you have higher initiative than you enemy? For example barbarian chosen have 115 intiative and champion will offer another 25% that's to say, 140 intiative, foolish.

[千仞万渊]

Originally posted by turtle225:

Originally posted by 千仞万渊:

Shamely I dont receive any useful idea.

To be honest most of us haven't even fought Chosen yet so we don't have ideas to give you.

How does Taunt do? Or do they somehow dodge it with Adrenaline shenanigans? Or is it just not practical to Taunt when there's 10 of them?

What about a Lone Wolf + Adrenaline + Indomitable distraction tank who blocks half of the Chosen by himself to buy time? Works wonders on Ancient Dead and Orcs. Maybe this falls under your super soldier category though.

I thought chosen is very common as they emerge from day 30 and come with huge amount.

Yes, only super warrior can do the task, they have amazingly 75 melee attack, not really doable. And an actual problem is if they got a 5% and daze your shield tank, you get -33% fatigue and intiative and you cant do anything but wait for death coming.

[千仞万渊]

Originally posted by TKbio:

I also feel that their ability to wait turn is what makes them a bit over the top. I think that most if not all enemies are set to "automatically end turn" but since barbarians have the only 0 AP skill available (adrenaline) they never end up ending their turn and prefer waiting. That may be intentional but sets them apart from other enemies too much imo, and removing the wait option by having them adrenaline directly after their actions would be a ok nerf for me. Then again I haven't fought enough Chosens to be 100% certain that is the best or only way to balance or counter them

Yes, you got the point, 0AP wait turn without penalty is one the essetial factor that it becomes too OP. But, I dont know, it's there fighting style and I dont really care if they can wait turn with 0AP left, just dont give them that much perks and problem solved, such like resilience, quick hand and roatiaon, these perks combo and make them immune to any tactic.

[千仞万渊]

Originally posted by Abel:

Their armor range is wide but it's on the low side and they have average HP so they can be taken care of fairly quickly with very damaging weapons. And they can be injured relatively easily.
Successful disarms will do wonders too.

Only 2death is a very good result for you team gear, I dont know your stats, so it's not proper to say "strength".

I dont know how you manage to do that, I dont see any spear(at least currently I think spear wall is the only way to counter them, although not very useful), and battle last for 11turns. In our commonly accepted concept, a balanced combat should be ended within 8-9turns, much more than that means whether you lack damage or you use "unbeatable" tank to successfully attrack fire .

And back to the topic, counter to barbarian.

Stunning and disarm you say is the counter method. And I have already explained very detailed in this tread, they can be immune to negative effect whatever they want. If they are stuned, that's whether AI problem or you take risk to try to stun them in the end of the turn.

Barbarian can be very easy or totally impossible to win, because of AI, sometimes they dont wait and dont use adrenaline at all.

But, this trick they often use, they stop 1 tile from you with 9AP reserved, what can you do??
In this situation you have 2 method,
1. walk up to him and stun him after you both wait turn(and you are required to be slower than him)
2. hook him close to you and stun/disarm him, this also require you are slower than him. Or you also use adrenaline and you are faster next round(they have isanely high initaitve, this is nearly impossible)

And OK, since they have 15 defense and underdog, how are you expecting to stun him, 70% chance or even 60% chance, and how can you cope with 4 even more barbarian in front of you with this small trick?

[madracc00n]

Chosen supposed to be late game enemies,people complaining about losing bros in 115-150 armour when fighting bunch of them...lol,no need to comment this anymore

[xtxownage]

Ahem, Their fatigue sucks. they burn it like kindling, often at time wasting it by constantly using adrenaline. This is your opening to whack them in the face

[Abel]

Originally posted by 千仞万渊:

Only 2death is a very good result for you team gear, I dont know your stats, so it's not proper to say "strength".

I dont know how you manage to do that, I dont see any spear(at least currently I think spear wall is the only way to counter them, although not very useful), and battle last for 11turns. In our commonly accepted concept, a balanced combat should be ended within 8-9turns, much more than that means whether you lack damage or you use "unbeatable" tank to successfully attrack fire .

And back to the topic, counter to barbarian.

Stunning and disarm you say is the counter method. And I have already explained very detailed in this tread, they can be immune to negative effect whatever they want. If they are stuned, that's whether AI problem or you take risk to try to stun them in the end of the turn.

Barbarian can be very easy or totally impossible to win, because of AI, sometimes they dont wait and dont use adrenaline at all.

But, this trick they often use, they stop 1 tile from you with 9AP reserved, what can you do??
In this situation you have 2 method,
1. walk up to him and stun him after you both wait turn(and you are required to be slower than him)
2. hook him close to you and stun/disarm him, this also require you are slower than him. Or you also use adrenaline and you are faster next round(they have isanely high initaitve, this is nearly impossible)

And OK, since they have 15 defense and underdog, how are you expecting to stun him, 70% chance or even 60% chance, and how can you cope with 4 even more barbarian in front of you with this small trick?

Yes, Spearwall can work to a degree too. I used (lots) of nets to delay them instead. That's probably why the battle lasted longer.

Stunning must indeed be done at the end of the turn if they wait. It's not ideal but it's still effective. And they do not always wait.

Yep, this is the worst scenario. I had many characters with Quick Hands so in that case I would usually attack with a polearm and go back one tile.

[Grigsey]

This is how I have been dealing with chosen w/ a peasant militia: spear bro on each flank, two mid, bros with good attack and weapons in between. Besides the banner man the back row is a single crossbow/polehammer hybrid, an archer with a mediocre bow cuz i am cheap. and then a whoooole ton of hybrid throwing/pike/twohanded weapon or whips. They... use staff slings and a single stack of throwing weapons + their polearm or twohander. Majority of dodge based builds

Whip guys have both cleaver and throwing.

How do you fight barbarians? Spearwall, turtle and range them down along with staff slings at non 2-3 range to get some dazes off. One guy keeps staff slinging pretty much the whole fight and he is legit useful.

The barbarians, do not know what to do against this. At all. They trickle in cuz their initiative is all out of whack and people are daze and hurt and guys that do move forward get killed cuz they are alone or repelled by spearwalls and further pummeled by rocks and their fancy throwing weapons used against them. Oh and whips throwing on mega bleed stacks on wounded guys who's armor broke or disarming the baddie with the big weapon who DID make it to your line. Can't have that.

Then at a certain point you are feeling good on your situation, you break formation and swarm whoever is left.

I was serious, peasant army, throwing specialists w/ staff slings ruin barbarians. Yeah they are supported by a solid line of low background bros with specialized roles.

How do you slay barbarians? You don't play their game of glorious open field combat. You form up a shield wall, hold it, and destroy them with discipline and overwhelming fire. And when they break you slaughter them.

[Draba]

Originally posted by 千仞万渊:

But, this trick they often use, they stop 1 tile from you with 9AP reserved, what can you do??
In this situation you have 2 method,
1. walk up to him and stun him after you both wait turn(and you are required to be slower than him)
2. hook him close to you and stun/disarm him, this also require you are slower than him. Or you also use adrenaline and you are faster next round(they have isanely high initaitve, this is nearly impossible)

Well, as mentioned before they only have human-level durability so: smash them with the new heavy throwing weapons/improved crossbows.
Since they have 9 AP that means they ended their previous turn in the same spot, 2 full rounds of potshots. Evil laughter optional.

I also do not find being slower a problem(heavy armor/weapons+no ini means you are golden with no effort :)), in that case casually walk up to them and bonk them with 2-handed mace.
Daze debuff is already very strong and it also does ~a million damage, but 1h mace stun/whip disarm also work. Dunno why would you hook, it wastes a perfectly good action that could be used to just hit them after 1 step.

They are certainly strong, but IMO they are meant to be a challenge even for later game and they are decent at that. Early on their numbers could be reduced, running into them without scouting can be a nasty surprise.
If you attack them at day 20 with melee/initiative spam you'll have a harder time ofc. PEBCAK

Originally posted by Grigsey:

and then a whoooole ton of hybrid throwing/pike/twohanded weapon or whips. They... use staff slings and a single stack of throwing weapons + their polearm or twohander.

Wait, what are these "ranged weapons" you speak of?
The correct way to play is melee+night attacks only :)

[msunavygrad]

Originally posted by Grigsey:

This is how I have been dealing with chosen w/ a peasant militia: spear bro on each flank, two mid, bros with good attack and weapons in between. Besides the banner man the back row is a single crossbow/polehammer hybrid, an archer with a mediocre bow cuz i am cheap. and then a whoooole ton of hybrid throwing/pike/twohanded weapon or whips. They... use staff slings and a single stack of throwing weapons + their polearm or twohander. Majority of dodge based builds

Whip guys have both cleaver and throwing.

How do you fight barbarians? Spearwall, turtle and range them down along with staff slings at non 2-3 range to get some dazes off. One guy keeps staff slinging pretty much the whole fight and he is legit useful.

The barbarians, do not know what to do against this. At all. They trickle in cuz their initiative is all out of whack and people are daze and hurt and guys that do move forward get killed cuz they are alone or repelled by spearwalls and further pummeled by rocks and their fancy throwing weapons used against them. Oh and whips throwing on mega bleed stacks on wounded guys who's armor broke or disarming the baddie with the big weapon who DID make it to your line. Can't have that.

Then at a certain point you are feeling good on your situation, you break formation and swarm whoever is left.

I was serious, peasant army, throwing specialists w/ staff slings ruin barbarians. Yeah they are supported by a solid line of low background bros with specialized roles.

How do you slay barbarians? You don't play their game of glorious open field combat. You form up a shield wall, hold it, and destroy them with discipline and overwhelming fire. And when they break you slaughter them.

This exactly. Spear wall and ranged (throwing) weapons. The Barbarians hit hard but they are soft - crossbows do wonders. Once they start wavering break formation and swarm them.

[Grigsey]

Originally posted by Draba:

Wait, what are these "ranged weapons" you speak of?
The correct way to play is melee+night attacks only :)

Things you bust out for the lulz.

[千仞万渊]

You guys are really interesting.
I've never thought of staff sling and I wont gonna try it. :)

Snipe them with range is not very doable unless you have at least 100 ranged skill. They have range defense ability like goblin, that's very clear.

[suejak]

Well, Flickering is apparently in a boohoo negative nancy mood on this and you won't ever impress him.

I like the comments about xbows and throwing weps.

In my Beast Slayers campaign, I found that polearm spam combined with a frontline of spears dealt with a lot of barbs pretty well. Basically, I found that I wanted to keep them at arm's length as much as possible. Ranged attacks of any kind tend to be tough vs. them due to Anticipation (and Dodge on reavers), but I bet polearms are pretty consistent.

Anyway, inspired by Abel's comment on injuries, I've started a new Northern Raiders run focused on injuries. We'll see how this does versus both barbs and early mercs / nobles (I know these builds do great against the latter). My idea is polearm spam for injuries followed up by an Executioner frontline that tries to get one-turn kills...

Exciting times with this new faction in the game!

[Draba]

Originally posted by 千仞万渊:

Snipe them with range is not very doable unless you have at least 100 ranged skill. They have range defense ability like goblin, that's very clear.

Yes, chosen tend to stay far away so anticipation helps them a lot.
I'll spell it out for you: throwing weapons get a +30 base to hit, crossbows +15.

Both will hit easily close up and chosen are SPECIFICALLY their best case: beefy guy with heavyish armor that their piercing can still injure through.

[msunavygrad]

Originally posted by Draba:

Originally posted by 千仞万渊:

Snipe them with range is not very doable unless you have at least 100 ranged skill. They have range defense ability like goblin, that's very clear.

Yes, chosen tend to stay far away so anticipation helps them a lot.
I'll spell it out for you: throwing weapons get a +30 base to hit, crossbows +20(IIRC, wiki says 15).

Both will hit easily close up and chosen are SPECIFICALLY their best case: beefy guy with heavyish armor that their piercing can still injure through.

This is what I have been doing. I also have 2 Spiked Impalers for crowd control for anyone who survives engaging with the main line.

[Draba]

Originally posted by suejak:

I found that polearm spam combined with a frontline of spears dealt with a lot of barbs pretty well. Basically, I found that I wanted to keep them at arm's length as much as possible.

Got around to training some backliners, polearm QH into whips kind of feels like cheating.
Backliner isn't starved for perks so 1 in cleaver mastery is easy.
New crossbows also work reasonably well for 1 perk+smallish ranged attack investment, but got nothing on whips.