Various Ideas for classes

[Sabotin]

Everyone has their 2c about the game mechanics, so I thought it wouldn't hurt to share my brainstorms and pet peeves:
 
Weapons:
 
I think they could use some standardization and changes to their extra properties. Certain weapons just seem objectively better than others.
- Stilettos and Estocs, 1 less dr penetration, so you have a nice 2,3,4 progression. I think these 2 weapons stand out from their counterparts.
- Daggers changed to have dual damage, like swords and greatswords. Seems to fit.
- Sabres changed to standard damage and given +5 accuracy, half taking the role of daggers.
- Axes (Hatchets, Battle Axes, Pollaxes) changed to have their own thing; An increased max damage of 2, 3 or 4 damage. Taking the role of sabres in a more tame way. The idea is to have the more high might/damage oriented classes use them, particualrly barbarians, since they'd just fit the stereotype. Currently the battle axe seems a bit inferior due to the effect coming in play only at high accuracies and even then they are outshined by sabres with their high damage.
- Clubs and Quarterstaves would take on the deflection bonus of 5 and 6. I could see these weapons being used for defense more easily than others. My country even has a legend how a guy defeated some great warrior with a soft wooden club used as defense, maybe the idea is from there, hehe. The staff would I think fit to someone that would want to combine the high damage of 2h weapons and the def bonus of a shield, namely the monk.
- Firearms. Instead of having an innate dr reduction, how about differentiating them by having them target reflex instead of deflection. It wouldn't really affect tanks since they have s&s style and you also wouldn't need special effects for arcane veils and the like to exclude firearms.
- Ranged weapons. I think they should carry some penalty for melee use. It could have something like -10 def/acc and +10 acc vs distant targets, to cancel the penalty out against ranged targets? 
- Spears and Pikes. Why not give them both reach? Reach could also be changed to be more interesting. The engagement circle would become an engagement ring, so that melee attackers are not ingaged. But his would also means free disengagements attacks, both as a defense and offense. Maybe give them a deflection penalty to offset the op of free attacks. Spear and shield would then be an interesting combination.
- Shields could automaticaly give def/ref, without the talent. The latter could be buffed with something like "lowers min dmg to 10% from 20%". My interest with this would be to make more defensive party compositions better, or at least make it less of an investment.
- Implements could have some increased ability accuracy (+5?) innate instead of dual damage type.
 
Classes:
 
Fighter
Could use some more flexibility in their roles. I'd look at the "mode" abilities/talents and offer upgrades to them for the fighter. They'd also be mutualy exclusive, so you can only have one of them up at a time.
- Savage Attack upgrade would increase attack speed (10%). Just something standard here, the talent is good on its own already.
- Vulnerable Attack upgrade would increase accuracy/deflection(+7) against targets you are currently engaging. An attempt at encouraging duelist type fighters
- Wary Defender. Instead of a bonus to defenses, enemies engaged are distracted, thus "mostly" unable to engage others. I think this would help a lot with the tanking aspect, providing a somewhat free escape for the squishies. A somewhat-but-not-really aggro holding if you will.
- Guardian. I'd make it scale somewhat. Affected allies would instead of a flat 10 get that or half the fighter's shield bonus, whichever is higher. Boosting the ability to hold a front line, without everyone being a tank.
- Critical defence should instead just plainly lower critical hits by 12%, so it's a 1.33 bonus instead of 1.5. A fit to those triggers-on-crit builds.
 
Ranger
- Marked prey would give dr penetration for the ranger and pet, something high, like 10. Taking a page from the rogue book, to be able to eliminate key targets quickly. Plus it favors bows over other ranged weapons.
- Defensive bond/Arrow sense merged. The ranger and companion gain +15 to all defenses when they're next to eachother instead of against AoE/Ranged attacks. A survivability option that's a bit more in control of the player and not enemy ai.
 
Barbarian
- Some cool frenzy upgrades are missing. How about one that increases carnage AoE(30%) or one that increaseds DR(4).
- Vengeful defeat should just trigger at maybe 10% stamina instead of unconcious. It would encourage higher health and micromanaging of said health for maximum vengeance. I think it's silly that an offensive ability has such a narrow use. Or maybe have that as an upgrade.
 
Rogue
- Reckless assault bugs me, because it's just a buff. Why not have it increase damage but disable sneak attacking/deathblows. And have it not stack with other types of toggles, so it's not an auto pick.
- Rogues have a bunch of blows/stabs with different effects. How about having them share a resource pool, so that's it's not about always mashing everything possible every batle. Similar to a wizards in playstyle but with per encounter stuff. The idea is that rogues adapt their skill use to what debuffs enemies already have, putting some thought into getting 2 things on for deathblows for example.
- Backstab should honestly also trigger against blind or paralized enemies. I realise it combos well with shadowing beyond, but I think it could use some extra use beyond that twice per rest.
- Riposte. Have it always trigger the attack on a miss. Rogues generaly don't get missed that often for 20% to be viable. Or if they are they're foregoing a lot of offense for it.
 
Paladin
- Some either/or ability would fit I think. For example an abiltiy that would shorten exhortations duration by half but make them have a small aoe.
 
Monk
- Mortification of the soul. Change it to be a mode where the monk just takes some raw damage(4?) every attack he makes. It can give something in return, like an accuracy bonus or even DR, to improve a bit the stereotypical naked monks perhaps.
 
Chanter
- Make the chants infinite and cap how many the chanter can have up at a time based on level. Using a shout resets the chants. So you have a build-your-own-buff thing going where you're in control of when the buffs are applied beforehand, instead of just having either 1-2 on all the time or be dependant on luck/meta knowledge that the right chant will be up at the right time. This way you can also decide if it's worth using a shout or keeping the buffs up instead.
 
Cipher
- Give some kind of bonus for having full focus. For example at full focus the next ability cast has +15 accuracy. This would encourage some delay before unloading everything, rather than restrict alpha strikes.
 
Wizard
- Metamagic would be a cool addition. Implemented via a per rest buff that increases the effect of the next spell cast. Thus you trade casting time with increased spell power.
 
Priests and Druids I haven't really player experimented that much with, but from what I hear they're pretty good anyway xD .
 
Other stuff
- Defense talents could also use some extra -1s or something duration for those afflictions they're supposed to increase resistance to.
- Interrupting blows. Change it to a toggle that in exchange for reduced attack speed calls interrupts on enganged targets when they try to use an ability. To automate a bit the micromangaging, thus making interrupts more attractive.
- Lengthen the attack animations and shorten the recovery time. Lower movement speed of most stuff. Combat is too fast both in attack speed and movement speed sense.
- The miss/graze/hit/crit would I think work better in a nonlinear progression. Or at the least the ranges should be different. I find the game more enjoyable with PotD stat increases, at least in the early game.
- Make paralyse/petrify interrupt an action instead of pausing it. It makes for some glitchy behavior when attacks resolve when the target has already moved away etc.
- Engagement. Make it slow run speed and only trigger disengagement attacks on actualy leaving the engagement area.
- The innate ability accuracy bonus based on level. This should be removed or differently implemented. For spellcasters I'd put a cap on it based on spell level. So the accuracy bonus would be equal to character level, but not higher than twice the spell level being cast. This would nerf a bit the low level spells at higher level of play, hopefuly leading to less spam of lower level spells over using higher level ones. For the martial classes I think the accuracy bonus could be implemented as a flat bonus on the skills themselves, like casters have on their spells.
 
I reserve the right to add more stuff later or change my mind at any time :D .

[evilcat]

In most of cases i think present state is better.

 

Weapons - i dont mind present state (properties) of weapons, there is wide selection of weapons with different buffs.

I like magic implements doing dual dmg, since that helps sometimes rangers (emergency scepter) as well as casters to deal with DR. Acc is easier to get then DR.

I often end with Soldier or Ruffian weapon group since combo of good alpha strike range, and 1h and 2h in one weapon focus is too tempting.

Weapon i am lookin for:

X - 1h weapon with long interupt. If there exist talent "your interupts last twice as long" that would be tempting to try some interupt builds. 2H is not best choice for interupts imo.

Legenary enchantments - 4th category of enchancements providing rare effects like spellstrike, drain, tripping, second chance, spellshield, bashing, coordination... all the cool stuff. Unfortunetly for each of it, we need to kill endangered spiecies and it is craftable after level 12 or something. Situacion when there is constant supply of cool greatswords, but there is one cool axe somewhere in the endgame is not ideal.

 

There are some talents which mess with general use of weapons like deity favoured weapons, or Flick of Wrist. That is OP we need.

 

Rogues:

- The whole point of talents/abilities is "you hit harder, and live longer than enemy doing nasty things to them". No need to try to balance everything good with o bit of bad.

 

Ciphers

- This is idea of class that you mix right click with spells. Just sometimes need to release focus. There are some fast powers. Having soul whip on grants bonus dmg.

 

WM2 is announced for January and some changes with that. We will see.

Edited December 30, 2015 by evilcat

[Boeroer]

There are three one-handed weapons for you that have higher interrupt rating: Vile Loner's Lance and Shatterstar have 1 sec, Godansthunyr has 0.75 sec. It's no enchantment, it's just there.

[Zenbane]

My favorite part about the OP's ideas is that he fully covers hatchets and deflection... without questioning the greatness of a Hatchet's Deflection. Hooray for Hatchet Harmony!

 

Regarding the Barbarian suggestion though:

 

 

Barbarian
- Some cool frenzy upgrades are missing. How about one that increases carnage AoE(30%) or one that increases DR(4).

 

The only problem I see with that is that there are currently effective means to largely bolster the AoE radius of a Barbarian (see: maxing Int + Firebrand). Granted, with the current state of Immunities, the Firebrand build is a bit nerf'd; however, we may need to wait 'n see the overall impact of the next big update in January before attempting to analyze significant changes to any class.

[evilcat]

There are three one-handed weapons for you that have higher interrupt rating: Vile Loner's Lance and Shatterstar have 1 sec, Godansthunyr has 0.75 sec. It's no enchantment, it's just there.

I was thinking about something more organized.

Like: Clubs (fast) Warhammers (Avg) Morningstars (Heavy) have higher interupts than other weapons of same size.

Since that way if we decide to go for "interupts builds" there is big chance that there will be some clubs/warhammers over whole game, not just 2.

[Boeroer]

Ah, OK. Now I got it.

[anameforobsidian]

Most of your ideas seem pretty interesting and I do like the focus on weapons gently rewarding stereotypes.

 

Weapon suggestions:  

A 2, 3, 4 progression only makes sense if enemy health progression is changing at relatively the same rate.

 

Firearms targeting reflex seems like a pretty big nerf for fighting creatures (I don't know the effect on humans).  Wolves have 10 points higher in reflex.   Reflex is higher across the board in xaurips.  With shadows it would be a +2 accuracy buff.  That makes guns useless until you get to Caed Nua.  While it's a +9 and +7 for trolls and animats respectively, that still means that guns would make the hardest part of the game harder, and make the easier parts easier.  On the other hand, I wouldn't mind a built in +20 accuracy against the big dragons.  But even that goes against the lore, which says that guns are good against smaller targets but suck for bigger ones.

 

Halberds were originally supposed to have reach / increase engagement range.  It came with a bunch of technical problems they decided weren't worth it to pursue.  I hope they change this for the sequel.  It would make off-tanks pretty dynamic.

 

I thought they were undoing some of the nerfs against fighters, which makes the shield buff a bit unnecessary.  Although, I don't see the problem with very defensive parties requiring specialization.

 

Class 

Carnage AoE boost seems unnecessary.  It's already pretty large, and it's something builds control for quite nicely.

 

Rogues using everything in their bag of tricks every fight is part of being a rogue.  They should fight dirty often.

 

I like the idea of chanters being better able to control their buffs, but it would mean that each buff would have to be nerfed if they were all present, and that the phrases should be stackable.  That could lead to some messy awesomeness with an all chanter party.

 

I don't know if incentivizing the cipher to slow down gameplay is a good idea.  I think you could run into a chanter problem where they have the coolest spells you never see.

 

Metamagic would be cool, but seems counter to your goal of having less spamming of lower spells.

 

Miscellany

Interrupts are getting a major rework for either WM2 or PE2.  So any suggestions are a bit premature.

Flat bonuses to accuracy only makes sense if enemy progression is based off a flat bonus.

 

My Addition

For the love of god, I hope Obsidian spends the not insignificant time to lessen, change, or reduce status effects on grazes.  Because combat is so bursty, a lot of spells  & effects are almost as effective on graze because enemies can recast them in the time it takes for the graze to wear off.  I'm looking at you PoD Xaurip Skirmisher.

[DreamWayfarer]

I think there should be more offensive abilities for paladins, to create spellsword type characters that are heavier on the martial side than melee wizards.

 

It shouldn't make paladins too powerful because they already don't have enough levels to pick all the cools skills.

 

Perhaps to start with, a talent that removed the "Faith and Devotion" defense bonus and gave an accuracy bonus instead.

[Zenbane]

Yeah but Paladins can stand in the middle of Hell itself and tank everyone lol. Any tweaks to offense may upset the balance of the RPG universe

[Yosharian]

 

Barbarian
- Some cool frenzy upgrades are missing. How about one that increases carnage AoE(30%) or one that increaseds DR(4).
- Vengeful defeat should just trigger at maybe 10% stamina instead of unconcious. It would encourage higher health and micromanaging of said health for maximum vengeance. I think it's silly that an offensive ability has such a narrow use. Or maybe have that as an upgrade.
 

 

 

Since I'm playing one right now, lemme tell you:

 

1) Frenzy needs to be looked at.  With 20+ int this ability still has a ****ing piss-poor duration.  Please look at the ****ing duration of this ability.  What a joke.

 

2) Greater Frenzy: is utterly ****ing useless.  Mainly because the duration of Frenzy is so completely **** to begin with.  Wow 6% more damage for the 20 seconds in which my Frenzy lasts, not to mention the time I lose casting the ****ing thing because it uses up a standard turn (unlike Savage Defiance which is an instant-cast ability).  Whoever designed this talent needs a slap in the damn face.

 

3) Already said this but it deserves its own mention: Barbs are so ****ing attribute-starved thanks to their idiotic reliance on Int (SERIOUSLY?  INT?) to get the most out of their abilities.  They cannot spare good dexterity scores unless they sacrifice heavily in other areas.  Therefore: Making Frenzy a standard action ability is just ****ing horrific.  I actually think whoever designed this class is a sadist.  Like, for real.  They need help.

 

4) Carnage is great but you shouldn't need 20+ int to get a decent AoE on this ability.  The base radius needs to be like, doubled or something.  With 10 int it should be a decent radius.  Like, hello?  10 int on a class which hits things to death is a serious investment...

 

5) Another idea for Greater Frenzy: the key thing with Frenzy is that it adds to the attack speed of the Barb, which HEY WHADYA KNOW is a ****ing major weakness of the class.  Yet Greater Frenzy completely ignores this crucial part of Frenzy and instead buffs.... might and con.  Wow.  Instead, GF could do one of the following: buff Frenzy duration; buff the attack speed bonus; make Frenzy a 2-per-encounter ability instead of 1 - hell it could make it 3/encounter, 4/encounter, FIVE even and this ability would still not be anywhere near OP.  Hell, make it ****ing infinite use after level 10.

 

6) Barbaric Yell just needs to be scrapped completely.  This dead-end ability is a complete joke.  Thank god they added respec or I'd lose sleep thinking of all the poor saps who accidentally picked this piece of ****.  The worst thing: it takes up a standard action.

 

7) Thick-skinned needs to add a ****ing ****load more than just two DR to solve the massive tanking issues the Barb has.

 

8   ) Constitution is just overall a **** stat for gameplay, and it's one of the Barb's key stats.  I'm not in charge of designing this class, but if I was, I'd design some benefit for builds that take 18 CON or more.  For example, and this is just off the top of my head, Savage Defiance could heal a percentage of HP rather than a static amount.  That way players who invest heavily in CON get some use out of it.

 

9) Wild Sprint a per rest ability, are you ****ing ****ting me?  No further comment needed.  Fix this abomination.

 

10) Barbaric Shout is OK (I think?  I never ****ing use it because it's a standard action ability, am I ****ing getting through to you OBS?)  but it needs to be per encounter otherwise it'll never get ****ing used.  Per rest is for UBER GODLIKE SERIOUS abilities and all UBER GODLIKE SERIOUS enemies are... wait for it... bound to be immune to Terrify.  Lol.

 

11) Dragon Leap is so sad... LEAP AND CRASH DOWN UPON YOUR ENEMIES AND... daze them... oh.  'Wow.'  Let's be fair, only reason this ability is ever taken is because of the coolness factor.  Daze is ****ing trash.  Make it stun or something, jesus wept.

 

12) Heart of Fury is just sad because yet again it's a per-rest ability which is useless against super tough enemies.  This ability is QUITE CLEARLY to demolish large groups of weak enemies, make it per-encounter for god's sake.

 

13) The whole Brute Force-Sickening Presence idea is clever, but utterly fails in execution because it just isn't strong enough and is too niche.  Who's going to devote two entire abilities just so they can be slightly (again, slightly?  the strength of these abilities is just sad) better against Fortitude-weak opponents, such as.... hmm... mages?  that's it... and the Barb doesn't really have enough mobility to be able to punish mages reliably, nor does he have methods of avoiding stuns or snares reliably so he'll often fail to reach the target at all if he goes chasing people.  Fail design.

 

14) Vengeful Defeat is a trap ability because planning for your character to be knocked out is just crap, not to mention WOOP DE ****ING DOO ONE AOE MELEE ATTACK THAT WILL TOTALLY CHANGE THE COURSE OF A DOOMED FIGHT LMAO

 

15) Eye of the Storm: will any enemies reliably be one level below my character?  And will it even matter that they can't flank me, since if they are lower level they'll probably get slaughtered anyway?  This ability... I just don't know what to say.  I think it would take talent to come up with a worse ability than this.

 

Overall I'd say OBS did a great job of continuing the fine tradition of making Barbarians utter ****e.  They were ****e in D&D, always were, and it's no big surprise to see that they're not far from that in Pillars.

 

To be fair they have certain abilities which are good (Carnage in particular is just a joy to behold against packs of weaker enemies even if it requires 20+ int to make it decent *facepalm*), but it's just that, taken as a whole, the class just seems to be a random mish-mash of half-baked ideas that just do not work.

 

But no worries, I'm sure next patch we'll see a bunch of buffs for the Fighter.

Edited January 1, 2016 by Yosharian

[DreamWayfarer]

Yeah but Paladins can stand in the middle of Hell itself and tank everyone lol. Any tweaks to offense may upset the balance of the RPG universe

Uh... No, it wouldn't. Fighters can be tanky and deal good sustained damage, why should it hurt balance if paladins could be built for goid burst damage instead of support? Especialy if they sacrificed the F&C defense bonus for accuracy.

 

EDIT: and what is wrong with barbarians needing INT? While the attribute system doens't make sense from a simulationist point of view, actual combat is so complex that no game I've ever seem made an attribute system that makes sense in real life. I mean, melee combat being based solely in strenght, and people with zero muscles using warbows? Eurgh.

Edited January 1, 2016 by DreamWayfarer

[Yosharian]

 

Yeah but Paladins can stand in the middle of Hell itself and tank everyone lol. Any tweaks to offense may upset the balance of the RPG universe

Uh... No, it wouldn't. Fighters can be tanky and deal good sustained damage, why should it hurt balance if paladins could be built for goid burst damage instead of support? Especialy if they sacrificed the F&C defense bonus for accuracy.

 

EDIT: and what is wrong with barbarians needing INT? While the attribute system doens't make sense from a simulationist point of view, actual combat is so complex that no game I've ever seem made an attribute system that makes sense in real life. I mean, melee combat being based solely in strenght, and people with zero muscles using warbows? Eurgh.

 

Well I don't think there's anything wrong with it anyway, my comment was more that it's sort of nonsensical.  I mean if I'm a raging barbarian, my ability to stay enraged for long periods would hardly be down to my intellect.

 

From a pure gameplay perspective it hurts Barbarians massively to have to devote so many points to Intellect and yet still need Might (damage), Dexterity (attack speed), Constitution and Perception (accuracy).

[Zenbane]

In its current state, Paladins can tank better than Fighters, and have much more utility. I think that an increase in offense would create an obvious imbalance.

 

and lol @ the Barbarian raging with a high Int. I have to agree, as a high INT implies a strong tendency towards rational thought as opposed to blind rage.

[HawkSoft]

I don't get barbarians as a separate class, the IE games needed it because the AD&D class system runs on rails.

 

The barb frenzy associated stuff could be additional talents and options for a broader based fighter class.

 

I understand why Obs tied the barb abilities to Int from a game mechanics point of view. It also makes some sense from a real world perspective as boxers and other fighting sportsmen may not be wise in the same way a scholar is but they do need a lot of mental discipline. Skilled fighters are not dumb/stupid although they may not value book learning.

[evilcat]

As selfish wishes go, mine is:

Druid:

- Add some Shapesfiter focus talents like "Your spiritsfit last twice as long" or "You can sfits twice during battle". We paid for it with talent so that is fair. It is up to discussion if usin druid to just punch things in the face is best what you can bring, but for sure it is fun.

[HawkSoft]

I dislike druids but I've got no problems with some suitable buffs to spiritshift however I'd prefer them to be go along with combining priests and druids into one class with 2 distinct forms but which shared a common talent/ability pool. Spiritshift could be an optional talent for any worshipping class with god worshipers getting some kind of avatar form.

 

It might also be interesting to combine the 2 mental/mystic classes, ciphers and monks.

 

In general I don't like AD&D style multi-classing and dual classing as I think it leads to too many builds that simply exploit the system and/or experience cap (I've done it many times). I would much prefer a few well designed class groups than more classes or cross-classing.

[DreamWayfarer]

If priests and druids are merged, I'd like to see the deity choice matter more, and perhaps an "inner path" option that implies spirituality without worship to a particular god.

 

 

As for shapeshifting, I still believe it needs to be its own class. It is just too flexible an power to be a limited side-feature.

 

 

As for paladins, would it be so unbalanced if their offensive powers had poor accuracy unless you sacriced F&C defense bonus and a talent slot? Yes, they would still would be hard to take down with Lay on Hands, but the gap between them and fighters would get much smaller.

 

 

Plus, to take the offensive powers they would need to sacrifice some utility ones, wouldn't they?

Edited January 1, 2016 by DreamWayfarer

[evilcat]

As far as classles system goes: I liked it in Shadowrun Dragonfall, in Divinity Original SIn and in Dragon Age. So it is something i can play with.

However... that will be a lot of devhours to implement, and i have some other wishes.

I do not think it will definetly be better, more like restart from base 0.

At least current system is somewhere, i think it is in better spot than at release.

Most of my balance wishes are close to:

1. Make weak abilities/talents stronger

2. Add ne talents/abilities.

And introducing new system postpone this two.

 

Classless system leaves little space for class gimmicks like focus, or wounds, or chants.

 

If classles system may be implemented do it to the end. With full freedom, not half way. At least there will be space for some eldricht knight.

 

EDIT:

Smart as Barbarian

- There could be a single talent "Carnage range increase by +100%" which is just additive with int bonus. So it will be totally fine to have modest int and still have ok range, or go for kingsize with smart barbarian.

And as a cherry on the top (of Barbarian):

- Overpowered blows - your critical strikes have chance to trip enemies. Since every stick now have some kind of stun, we can as well make it class feature. Also it is good idea to even things with casters.

 

Fighter love:

Ability: Bash - any shield fighter uses is now bashing. It scales somehow with levels or with shield type.

Talent: Like a Bell - all shield bash hits dazzle target for 3sec.

Edited January 1, 2016 by evilcat

[DreamWayfarer]

Smart as Barbarian

- There could be a single talent "Carnage range increase by +100%" which is just additive with int bonus. So it will be totally fine to have modest int and still have ok range, or go for kingsize with smart barbarian.

And how to make that talent not mandatory?

 

Plus, INT for barbarians is not so much because of carnage(its base range is decent enough, and investing into INT does not increase it that much) as much as because of their many duration based skills.

 

Not that I am complaining, I am all for martial classes needing at least some INT, and hate dumb barbarians that can't say any word with more than two sylabes and are still deadly warriors.

Edited January 1, 2016 by DreamWayfarer

[Sabotin]

Oh you reminded me, I'd also like to see some scaling effects on crowd controls, for example stun on hit/crit, daze on graze and so on.

[Yosharian]

Plus, INT for barbarians is not so much because of carnage(its base range is decent enough

 

No it's not.

[Boeroer]

Depends on difficulty. On PotD a bigger AoE is greatly appreciated. I like do max INT, using a +INT item and a Ring of Overseeing.

[PrimeJunta]

I like classes that make full use of all or at least many abilities. If there's an obvious way to minmax it's kind of dull. One good thing about barbs is that they do just this -- you want Per to get carnage to hit, Mig to make it do damage, Int to give it as much range as possible, Con and Res to be able to stay standing while you do your thing, and Dex to hit as often as possible. What to choose, what to choose...?

[Boeroer]

Go for interrupts and CC and drop MIG.

[Yosharian]

I like classes that make full use of all or at least many abilities. If there's an obvious way to minmax it's kind of dull. One good thing about barbs is that they do just this -- you want Per to get carnage to hit, Mig to make it do damage, Int to give it as much range as possible, Con and Res to be able to stay standing while you do your thing, and Dex to hit as often as possible. What to choose, what to choose...?

So you think a class that's designed to need all 6 attribute scores is well designed?

 

Wow.