Ironbreaker is the worst class to play at the moment in my view. I used to have fun with him back in march, but now that he’s the last career I need to play with to have all of them at 100 games, I think he’s the most painful to play. I’m not surprised to see him so rarely played by others in-game. He can’t heal properly, he can’t kill as well as the others because he’s short and slow, the armor is not that great since any smallest thing that hurt you gets rid of it, his mobility sucks, heat sink doesn’t work on drakefire gun and most ranged options are weak, shields are worthless… He’s the most boring character in the game at the moment. I found something fun to do with every career (including BW), but this one is just dull to play. I’m not sure if passivity is the right word. Ineffective could be closer. Lackluster might be it.
Few choices, most of them are about limiting how bad the career is.
I have a friend who has done his 100 games on him and I asked him how he enjoyed it, he hated it too. My other friends never play that career. I’ve finished over 500 deeds, it’s not like I haven’t seen people play.
If you guys at FS can rethink the whole concept of “tanking” in today’s post-1.4 patch terms, that might help IB.
I have an idea that could be debated in this forum I think: how about we give him a stamina-based talent that protect allies who are within a certain boundary and special gauntlets that when he hasn’t been hit for a while he does +melee damage but aggro mobs around him much more. The high stamina weapon suddenly re-becomes a bit more useful and we get to preserve a sort of balance between how many hits the IB takes for the team and how much damage he can deal.
Wish I could get your matchmaking. He’s nearly all I see in legend QP. IBs with drake guns, driving me bloody nuts.
On another note, I think he’s fine. He’s extremely tanky and works well if you know how to use him. Patrol gets pulled, pop ULT, 20% more damage on block, hold them for your team mates to slaughter.
His drake guns and drake pistols work great, why would you use any other ranged? Shields need some work, can agree there. But I normally run 1 - handed hammer for the SV breakpoint and crowd control. It has nearly the same stamina as a shield but does everything so much better. I haven’t tried his DLC weapon yet tho…
IB is ok, I think he demands a little less concentration than say, HS and if people have to concentrate a lot more they tend to be a bit more enthused and engaged with the run. I think because he is so forgiving when it comes to taking a fairly foolish hit that I also see him in almost every legend run - he just lets people get away with something silly that other classes would suffer a big slap to their HP.
I use 1h Axe and Shotgun, axe for it’s anti-armour and speed and shotgun mostly because I HATE the drake pistol shooting sound.
I just think 2h axe needs a little rework so you can at least block-cancel in the same manner as the 2h hammer, also give it a bit more anti-armour than the 1h axe.
Shields are an entirely different thread. Oh boy.
@SmokerT69 makes the point you should hold something for you team mates to slaughter, and this is against the current style of play for the vast majority of people. IB should really have something that makes him noticably more of a support class . When a Merc is popping his ult giving me temp health, transferring paced strike and Ulting people back to their feet instantly - I’m glad he’s there doing his thing an it’s obvious he’s a support class. This is what’s missing from IB; making his ult and talents clearly benefit his team.
Or you van take swift slaying, pop ult and kill the patrol by yourself in a good part, since with ult on you can facetank for solid 15s.
And it’s safer thanks to not relying on the team to do the job for you + more green circles
Anyway, what is affecting IB in negative way is the fact that his THP on kill talent is the only viable choice with axe and it’s a really bad talent (made a topic on how to fix it), also swift slaying is way too effective at the mokent leading to crit builds being the only viable choice. Only with 1h axe I can take stamina regen because I don’t have to worry about crit chance being too low to proc SS reliably (5% CC weapon property + 10% base crit chance on light attacks is usually enough) - too bad one needs stamina regen the modt with dual hammers when fighting armor and of course none of Bardin’s stamina talents work that great (1 requires to land heavy attacks and significantly lowers firepower with drakefire pistols, the other works when “gromril armor is active”, whatever that means, I guess after getting hit you lose the stamina regen for 20s then?).
As I said in another thread, a lot of the problems stem from the usual playstyle for IB - that his whole kit naturally encourages a defensive and passive (even if using active crowd control) style. While a more active style can (and in name of effectiveness, should) be learned, it’s not intuitive, as nearly all of IB’s abilities are on the defensive side. He is hugely resilient, and that allows a lot of leeway in what you do.
So until we get some more encouragement for a more active Ironbreaker, try breaking out of the defensive playstyle, and try him as a berserker instead. You can take the hits anyway.
IB is the best dwarf class. Still, Always has been and always will be.
You don’t tank as an IB. You clean house.
And compared to Ranger (which is better now) and Slayer (the actual worst class in the game) IB still holds top tier status.
What sort of scrub IB do you play with to think IB is the worst?
Wait… Are you a console player? In that case I get it and you can disregard anything below.
Otherwise - No. There is nothing a slayer can do that a ranger or IB can do better in a team.
Every single game I play that has a slayer, the slayer is always at the bottom.
First I thought that it must be bad players since everyone on the forum keeps saying Slayer is best class.
So I tried it myself. It went well actually. I had to do alot of sick things but I managed well.
And my friend who played Sienna beat me anyway without breaking a sweat
I do not for the life of me understand why such a majority on this forum thinks that Slayer is such a godtier class when he’s actually the worst in the game. For a valid reason too.
You have no ranged.
Sometimes when I get a slayer in my games I like to just look at them while he’s hiding from the ratling gunner. I just stare at them waiting for them to look at me so I can bring up my rifle and solve the problem for them since they can’t. Sometimes I just love messing around to much…
Well, thanks for (most of) the replies.
The talents don’t give much choices. I think his big thing in the previous patch was the ability to generate hp quickly with hp on stagger and shields. They nerfed it heavily (because of slayer I think?).
All of the +stamina talents seem useless at the moment. I don’t see a team wasting time waiting for IB to catch aggro to start dps’ing. The dodge and the thp is plenty for all runs.
Rune-forged: recover 10 hp when gromril armor absorbs a hit. That’s kind of a joke talent.
Also, there seem to be low synergy between all the defensive traits and talents. It feels like they just don’t help getting the job done when you stack them. An aggro trait or talent might be more fun.
Traits: +stamina on headshot or heroic intervention… Useless since beta.
Some of you are noting how few slayers they get in their pugs. Others seem to be getting huge dps with dual hammers IB. But have any of you had lots of success having fun with +stamina on headshot and Rune-forged? Perhaps these could be retuned? That would be a step forward in my view.
Try the dual hammers on slayer and RV. The thp from multiple hits makes it easy to survive on both.
Also, can we skip replying to the most moronic commenter in here? He’s obviously derailing the thread.
Lol, thanks for insults, mr troll. Slayer is melee powerhouse and is incredibly fun, durable and deadly and I play IB not because he’s any better, I just like the playstyle. But for pure carnage, extreme attack speed and 1-shooting CWs without the need for crit or stacks - Slayer all day.
Yes, life is easier with ranged, but if you are timing yojr jumps well, you can have some really intense fun.
I feel his talents definitely need a bit of work to increase his team support abilities and to increase his own killing power a bit. Right now he’s nearly unkillable, but that’s his best feature. I don’t think he’s terrible, he’s just not the most useful or the most fun.
Not sure what you found as an insult but you’re welcome.
OK, one shotting CW without the need for crit or stacks?
I’ll just assume you where not talking about legend then. Because I have never seen a slayer one shot a CW with full hp on legend.
If you are talking about lower difficulties then I can see why you think slayer is good. But there anything is good.
As for melee powerhouse, Mercenary/FK/WHC/Zealot are alot better options than slayer.
I admit slayer is fun to play. But that’s about it. For Champion and below Slayer is dope. But on legend. He really struggles to keep up with the rest.
A more serious note about this thread and IB.
IB is fine. He’s nearly indestructible but he’s also a powerhouse in every other area.
He has good melee options. He has very good ranged options. He’s tanky, He’s got anti whipe mechanic ult.
Stun resistant. Looks amazing.
You just gotta figure out how to use him properly. That’s it.
Nah, Zealot maybe? But slayer with dual hammers has the best melee horde clear in the game, some of the best anti armor as well when you swap weapons. The uptime of his active is “yes” you are clearly doing something wrong when playing him. He is very much so arguably the best melee in the game.
He is also super boring, he is “fine” but to be kill competitive you run stupid combos like DFP or Drake Gun and dual hammers, and everyone ends up hating you because flaming every horde prevents them from using waves for ammo regen or temp HP, not to mention it blinds everyone and of course there is FF to worry about. The real issue is that the game doesn’t really need a “tank” most competent players run by the motto of “it can’t hurt me if its dead” and IB just isn’t as killy as a lot of other careers.
Lol just try it out yourself, +20 chaos, +10 armor, fully charged warpick, no stacks and you 1-shot CW on headshot, dealing around 130 dmg. I can record it if you don’t believe it and lack equipment for some unknown reason
I’m sorry. I have yet to see any slayer that can even get close in overall stats regardless of what I play and that can actually contribute to a team. Hence my skepticism.
If I remember you are a Kruber main? Then you should know how strong mercenary is. He has some of the best allround melee weapons in the game + an ult that adds sustain and CC. Merc/FK/WHC/Zealot are alot stronger as a whole compared to slayer. Slayer is MORE FUN though I do admit that. But I just feel like I get more done on merc than slayer.
How fun IB is to play is subjective. So sure you find him boring. I find him fun and powerful.
Regarding people stepping into Drakefire weapons flames and recieving Friendly fire:
Only suicidal people step into the line of fire.
Well the pickaxe did get a hefty nerf aswell so don’t you have to charge it alot longer to get the one shot? how is that practical? I’ve been using the Exe Sword on merc abit to try it out again and it’s just so slow and clunky. And it feel almost like the pickaxe to a certain degree.
And thank you for showing concern regarding my equipment. I assure you I have every single item slot in red so I’m fine.
Allthough I wish there was something I could do with my equipment. It’s abit boring when one is closing in on 200 chests and nothing to gain from it.
I truly don’t get it. He can pull as much damage as most other classes, with a few obvious exceptions. But he does his damage while never really dying, and while providing constant horde clear and anti wipe. My Bardin is over 400 levels, and I didn’t play him for that long because it was a bad career.
Hell, half the reason I even played him was due to me finding him very easy to carry Legend with. You don’t have to worry about taking damage, or getting surrounded, or getting wiped by a patrol, etc. The only issues I ever really had were when the whole team was dead and my pistols missed a disabler.
No, really, what setups are you people running? Why are you not soloing hordes in seconds? Taunting and killing half a patrol yourself? Why are you not dodge dancing bosses or sidestepping hookrats? Sure, IB is no Zealot, I’ll admit that, but thats more to do with Zealot being stupidly strong right now.
so don’t you have to charge it alot longer to get the one shot
Yes, it takes some time, but once you get it charged, you can… charge at your target. so you can attack from safe distance, then switch weapons, create some distance again dodging, charge, take out another big target. And it has excellent horde clear and generates tons of THP on cleave.
And thank you for showing concern regarding my equipment. I assure you I have every single item slot in red so I’m fine.
I have shown concern since you are clearly uninformed and insecure. It seems that no matter how many hours one spends one a game, some problems can’t be fixed.
And IB good, yes, but his offensive capabilites are limited, especially vs bosses he has little to bring to the table, drakefire pistol spam does decent damage over time, but it’s neither really fun nor exctiting. And people want characters that can give them a rush when playing. Every other “tanky” character has a mixed choice of offensive and defensive abilities. IB’s best “offensive” ability is 30% less drakefire overheat and 2nd is stamina regen - so no matter what choices the player makes - he’s getting a tanky tank with 0 dmg boosting talents anyway.
Oh, and all his weapons are kind of slow or underwhelming at certain aspects. With sole exception of dual hammers. But it feels like they won’t avoid inevitable meeting with the great nerfhammer.
You must be joking…
Sometimes I just love messing around to much…
