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Kensan_Oni wrote:

While people are complaining that there is no point to Rage abilities at low levels (And there is a thought that I half agree with them), I also say that once you hit level 15th level, they might be too powerful.

Do you mean rage abilities in general, or Rage Strike?

Let us forget for a moment that you are sacrificing a daily. You go from rolling 3 dice of damage for every daily, to 6 dice. that means that once you hit your "OMG, this is the End Encounter" of the day, your barbarian is outdicing damage of just about everyone, and it gets WORSE as it rises in levels. By the time you hit epic, no one rolls as much dice as the barbarian.

Hold on. You can't just forget that this takes up a daily power. At 25th level 8

My thoughts after reading the article and some of the reactions in this thread and elsewhere:

* The art is great, especially the first one with the Dragonborns, the jumping woman and the final one with the Tiefling under the dragon's paw.

* The fluff is also great. Some seem to think the powers are too much like regular martial powers, but I think there is enough of the spirit-stuff there (and there's no problem playing it up if you want to).

* I like the feel of a different type of striker, on the far end of the spectrum from the ranged rogue.

* Having the dailies as different types of rages is a good solution, I think, though it does limit them to raging once every few encounters rather than all the time. I suspect barbarians will play very differently depending on if they rage in an encounter, and if so, which type they use. Variety in flavor is good, but great variety in effectiveness is not. If the rage effects are too powerful the barbarian will swing heavily in effectiveness depending on whether they use a daily or not. This is true for other classes as well, though, so perhaps it isn't that much of a problem.

* Rage strike is being discussed a lot already with some thinking it is too powerful and others that it is next to useless. I think the damage output it creates has to be carefully balanced against the normal use of dailies for the barbarian as well as the other classes. However, since the number of dailies a character has access to is limited this may not be that big a problem.

* As to the powers, I only have experience with low-level play so I'll mostly limit my comments to the early ones:

Pressing Strike: I'm always wary of powers that are strictly better than others in the same category, and this seems to be better than the rogue's Deft Strike in every way. You can shift instead of moving, you can pass through enemies, and you get the bonus effect of pushing the target. Something has to go.

Avalanche Strike: 3W seems like a lot for a lvl 1 encounter power, but with the reduction in defenses I think it's balanced.

Swift Panther Rage: It seems odd that the barbarian has the potential to be more mobile than the rogue, but maybe there are more mobility options for the rogue in the Martial Powers book.

Great Leap: The language should be harmonized with that of the rogue's Great Leap. (The power itself is fine, but using the same words to express the same thing leads to less confusion.)

Blade Sweep: Should make it clear if adjacent bloodied enemies take the automatic damage twice or not if you have Rageblood Vigor.

Frenzied Blood from the paragon path should make clear what happens if the attack used already does half damage on a miss.

Rage of the Primal Beast: It seems to me like there should be a cap on the attack bonus, or an encounter with many enemies (as would be appropriately epic at high levels) will make the barbarian using it unable to miss on anything but a 1. Surely a bonus of say +5 should be enough?

* General comment: several of the rage types do automatic damage to attacking enemies, meaning they automatically kill minions. That may be intentional, but it seems like something that should be considered carefully.

I think ideally you rage at the beginning of every challenging encounter. If that's only happening once per day your DM may be doing something wrong.

I think this is an important point, actually. It's possible the barbarian is more sensitive to DM style than the other classes, specifically number of encounters per day and encounter difficulty.

Kensan_Oni wrote:

I suppose that depends on what we consider challenging.

There are two keys that to my mind signify Challenging. 1) We have an elite monster or Solo and Backup crew. 2) We have a threat that the party can't hit well.

There's at least one more, which is 3) Tons of monsters. Using your example, adding a couple more ghouls will also make the encounter more challenging.

Kensan_Oni wrote:

Now, after about four rounds, the party might decide that it is indeed the tough encounter of the day, but if I had wasted my dailies before now, on those other encounters, I wouldn't have had them for this encounter. This is a play philosiphy instilled upon players from first level, and it is still well in effect till almost the end of Heroic Tier. At about 5th level, they start to feel more comfortable breaking out of this pattern.

The Barbarian player won't break that pattern, though, and that is what I'm saying. Without obvious cues, they won't drop their daily because things are getting a little rough, because they don't know if it will be safe to do so. They won't even know it till halfway through a challenging encounter, depending on the encounter design. Out of all the characters, it hurts the barbarian the most to use their daily, because if they do, they loose their bonus abilities from their at wills, they miss the boosts to their encounters, they lose damage potential from future encounters that might need it.

It may be true that the barbarian loses more when using his daily "early", but on the other hand that may save the party as a whole resources to spend on the tough encounter. If the barbarian uses up his rage before the final, extra difficult encounter he will have had those significant benefits earlier which should mean that the rest of the party has more left of their dailies, healing surges, healing potions etc.

Kensan_Oni wrote:

Currently, Rage (or Rage Stike, but really, they're two sides of the same coin) is just really badly designed. I think we both agree on that.

I don't; I think it's too early to judge.