Contrast and compare the barbarian to other martial classes. During tier 1 the barbarian actually has some great stuff going for itself, ignoring how rage gives you more damage on your swings AND more durability against a large portion of foes at that level, you also get advantage on athletics AKA grappling checks to lock enemies down from rushing past you to the squishies. Reckless attack lets you take advantage of that added bulk from rage to greatly increase the odds of you landing those big swings with advantage. Danger sense lets you always have advantage on those pesky dexterity checks for half damage, which is a lot of the early damaging spells one is likely to encounter. Rather than just extra attack, you also get 10 ft of extra movement, perfect for you to just rage and dash up to opponents.

Non-totem archetypes also can be quite useful, trading that nigh universal resistance for better damage and utility. Ancestral Guardian debuffs whoever you are targeting so they want to hit you instead of your squishy sorcerer, and later on lets you spend your reaction (which the class isn't really using) to damage shield people as you want to an unlimited amount of times while raging. Battlerager, while not exactly outstanding, gives you a bonus action attack and rewards the grapple playstyle to keep enemies from running. Storm Herald can constantly give yourself a little bit of temp hp every level, which is functionally doubled in a lot of combats thanks to your rage. Zealot gives you a pretty decent damage per round buff to help out damage the other paths, and the one a rage save reroll can keep you from being taken out by some nasty spells like hold person.

To compare it with the fighter, the fighter early on might be able to get a bit more AC with splint/full plate + shield, and might be able to out damage a barbarian for a single turn with action surge. They won't be able to match a barbarian in a slug match and can't manage defending the party nearly as well.

Comparing to rangers, mostly a joke, I guess rangers can use ranged weapons slightly better than a fighter, but barbarians have them beat in durability, mobility, and close quarters damage.

Paladins I think come out a lot better than fighters do with this comparison, lay on hands actually affords a great amount of burst healing. They can get great AC like a fighter, and smites (while using resources) do keep the paladin competitive with barbarians for damage.

For out of combat utility, barbarians aren't that far behind the curve of everyone else? You have some skill options that do help paint a picture for barbarians, and background can help nab some interesting good choices like stealth. 

So as a counter question, what do you think other martial classes bring past "I hit it with my weapon until it stops moving"? Then think about how much those things are actually tied to those classes rather than just the playstyle. If you play a barbarian as a big dumb brute, then of course you would go "oh so they are just the big brute class". Barbarians don't need to be dumb, and given how a lot of the skills they have tie into wisdom implies a type of intelligence to them. 

I'll try not to repeat too much of what others have said, but I'd say there's more nuance to Barbarians than is immediately apparent.

Sure, in combat, tanking the biggest enemy and just smashing away at it is often the simplest strategy, but this is going to depend a lot on the types of fights your DM presents you with. If there are fast moving enemies in the fight then there are only so many you can lock down at once, so rather than getting stuck into the middle of a group, it may be better to try to pick off individuals so you can remain a bit more mobile and respond to threats that go for your allies (squishy casters in particulars, as while you may rely on them for support, they also rely on you to keep the nasties away, it's not a one-way deal). Some enemies can ignore opportunity attacks, so sometimes grappling (which Barbarians are really good at) is the better option to make absolutely certain that an enemy isn't going anywhere.

Managing when to Rage is key before 20th level (which most campaigns will never get to anyway), as once you're out of uses you're out until a long rest, unlike Fighters who get most of their abilities back on a short rest. Most combats won't last a full ten rounds, so a Rage should be good for one combat, and you need to identify which ones require your Rage bonuses. Various sub-classes add fun bonuses that require consideration about how best to use them and when. Also, while Barbarians are excellent tanks, they're not invincible; every point of damage you take is one a party member doesn't have to, but it will add up fast in a tough fight, so even for a Barbarian sometimes avoiding damage is better than taking it.

Out of combat a Barbarian is no worse off than any other Strength/Constitution martial type, as a lot of the useful non-combat skills are in the mental attributes (Intelligence, Wisdom and Charisma), though if you intend to build around Unarmored Defence and have decent Dexterity, you could go for Stealth proficiency as an option. You're probably not going to be the chief negotiator of the party in social situations, but you should talk to your DM about how you can lean into Intimidation instead – while the skill recommends Charisma by default, you can easily argue that Strength (Intimidation) is also a reasonable check in most cases, either that or you can assist others in their intimidation checks.

It's also worth keeping in mind that out of combat, not everything is driven by mechanics; you can roleplay a Barbarian however you want, and even if they're not the best at some of the skills you'd like them to do well at, it doesn't mean you can't still do them most of the time. Proficiency equals and exceeds most ability score modifiers eventually, and there's a UA feat Practiced Expert (released as Skill Expert in Tasha's Cauldron) that will allow a bonus proficiency and expertise for anyone, which might be worth looking into if you want to have a Barbarian that's skilled in a particular non-combat area.

I'm currently playing a half-orc zealot barbarian with the smuggler background.  He had been running with an adventurer to earn some extra cash and help the adventurer smuggle things into town on return. Much like Han Solo without the charisma, he lost a shipment and the adventurer decided to take his boat as collateral until he could repay the adventurer.  Unlike Han Solo saying, "It's not my fault!", my half-orc just got pissed and nearly killed someone which scared him. He talked to a few people about ways that he could channel that anger and then joined some adventurers to earn the 500 g needed to buy back his boat. 

While not the most charismatic or intelligent guy, he knows what he wants and likes to move things along, so he'll face for the party in regular circumstances but can't be very persuasive unless he leans into the intimidation factor.

As far as tactics go, you're not getting into spellcasting or maneuvers to supply those, but you're leaning into positioning and using your rage and reckless attack to guide your tactics, along with simple role playing options like spitting in the enemy's face or gesticulating to draw the enemy's attention. Reckless attack makes you a more attractive target since you've left an opening in your defenses for the enemy to exploit and being able to cleave an enemy in two in one shot gives them incentive to try to take you out before you take them out. Rage helps to turn that perceived weakness into an illusion.  Your positioning further incentivizes the enemy to attack you or ignore you. 

For the first few levels, you may want to carry a shield. After third level, I haven't bothered much because it hasn't been much of an issue. I've toggled between my greataxe and dual wielding hand axes depending on whether I wanted to take advantage of a bonus action attack or not. At 4th, I went with GWM to give the extra choice between the -5 +10 attack or not, as well as giving options for tactics to get the bonus action attack. Two sessions ago I got a +1 Battle Axe and decided to try that out last session. I couldn't take advantage of the power attack because the battle axe is not heavy, but the criticals and killing creatures did generate a fair share of bonus attacks. PAM can do similar things and would be a great option instead. 

Zealot has been fine for me thus far. The extra damage occurs to the first creature that you hit on your turn while raging and scales minutely with your level. The wording suggests that you can theme it as a spell that you "cast" or a divine attack since the creature takes extra damage as opposed to your attack dealing extra damage (though the d6 does still double in a crit).  I haven't been able to use my half-orc Relentless Endurance yet let alone any barbarian features dealing with death, but I've mostly kept the enemies off of the party. The one time that a party member has gone down was a result of that member failing on the breath attack from the young green dragon in Thundertree in LMoP and we've done everything up through the first third of Cragmaw Castle with only Wave Echo Cave remaining. Everyone else is primarily ranged, though the Scout Rogue will sometimes mix it up with her +1 shortsword and regular shortsword. The Grave Cleric and Undying Warlock like to hang back.

I will grant you that I'm looking forward to some different challenges, but I'm not ready to just off my character either. I created him last after seeing what everyone else wanted to play to fill the hole. I've got a handful of spellcasters that I'm wanting to try out as well as a monk and a Paladin to give me some more variety. But I haven't felt that I've been useless outside of battle and I've had a lot of fun figuring out how to play him so that I'm taking advantage of mechanics while making it feel like it's a natural choice. It's also been interesting because I've DMed LMoP before so I'm trying to not let that knowledge inform my decisions, including accepting a challenge to a race from the cleric down a booby trapped corridor.

That said, if the concept doesn't speak to you then it doesn't speak to you. Some people prefer ranged, some prefer melee, some prefer 1 or 2 options while others prefer having an entire list of options that they can use to perfectly fit the situation. See if you can find those ways to augment your abilities with straight forward talk, try doing some tasks that you're not proficient at (assuming the party is on board), and otherwise see if there are things that you can do to have fun. Don't stress hamming up the "hulk dumb, hulk smash" angle, even the MCU got tired of that. Remember that a 10 intelligence is average and an 8 is only a little bit down from that. However, that won't mean that the barbarian doesn't know anything. Having an 8 charisma doesn't have to mean that the barb is a belligerent fool, maybe just socially awkward. You can use either of those aspects to walk back the Hulk smash aspect by simply saying that you thought that's what people expected barbarians to do but that's just not you and your getting tired of it.  You're not used to dealing with people and just wanted to be accepted, but you can't handle being accepted if it means that you have to be something your not. Having low intelligence doesn't mean that your not inquisitive, and you can use that inquisitive aspect to ask questions that might stand in for making suggestions. There are always alternatives to the trope that your stats would indicate you should be playing if you don't want to play that trope. 

Quote from Beardsinger >>

I liked the first ability of the Zealot, but an extra 1d6+level damage once per round just doesn't seem close to as good as resistance to all damage except psychic. It's like they weren't even trying to make anything else compare to a bear totem. Then at level 6 you get to reroll a failed save once per rage - which seems really situational.

Wild soul sounds great on paper, the first ability is okay when you get it but dosen't scale really apart from the slight boost at level 14. It just seems that after that is useless, Why would I take 40 points of damage to give someone a 4th level slot back? Does anyone ever use that? I mean it would have been better to have it only usable X number of times per rest or something because it is clearly there just to arbitrarily limit how often it is used. The 10th level ability isn't bad, but there is just nothing that compares favourably with the bear totem.

 The zealot damage is 1d6 plus half barbarian level. It starts at +1 at level three gets an immediate boost at level four, but then scales only every other level. The scaling damage doesn't increase with crits, but I'm sure that was intentional due to reckless attack and brutal critical. Half-orc gets an extra brutal critical in the form of Savage Attacks and I can assure you that getting that crit on a 1d12+1d6+3+2+2 at level 4 (making it 3d12+2d6+7) is still just as exciting as seeing our rogue crit for 2d8+4d6+4 with her light crossbow. I can't talk about the level 6 ability, but considering that a rage basically lasts one fight (you might get extended use out of the rage if you push through the battles). Your physical saves will be fine even if you only leave your dex at 13 or 14 thanks to danger sense, proficiency in both strength and constitution and the benefits of bumping both strength and constitution. That sixth level ability is probably best saved for mental saves or a critical save that will just level you otherwise. Personally, I'd prefer to have more in wisdom for those saves than boosting dex perhaps in a 15, 15, 15, 8, 8, 8 point buy. I went 14+2, 13, 15+1, 8, 12, 10 and it seems to be working. It helps that I picked up a Ring of Protection and while that's rare and won't usually be available that early, Cloak of Protection is mechanically the same and uncommon. 

I can't speak to the Wild Soul as I don't have that available (If it's UA, then I haven't spent a bunch of time with those for a while, and I haven't picked up a new book this year). I'm getting more run from zealot thus far than I would have from bear or wolf totem, having only taken two poison attacks that were outside of the normal resistances and the rogue already gets advantage from flanking if she's in melee and it doesn't work for ranged attacks. I don't recall the other totems. Storm herald (particularly the temp HP option or the bonus action pulse) or ancestral guardians both would have had more run and utility thus far than bear, but zealot has given more run than either since the cleric likes to cast Aid and the little bit of temp HP that storm herald wouldn't have made a difference for the party thus far with that going and the warlock likes to cast Shatter when we get packs. The shielding feature from Guardians might have prevented the cleric from going down, but he didn't get a chance to make death saves before we were righting him with a potion, and I like to block doors and otherwise impede paths in most circumstances (the one time I didn't was with the dragon, trying to keep his breath attack from being directed at the party, but he felt too much damage coming from that side to care what I was doing). That consideration in play, I'm not sure that my positioning couldn't have prevented the cleric from going down if I'd stayed more between the party and the dragon or if the ancestral guardians would have made a difference otherwise.   

Of course, my experiences aren't indicative of game play in general, but could give you reasons to consider benefits that you weren't seeing before.  YMMV and bear totem certainly has a lot of long term potential but it might not be the best for your campaign. 

While I would agree that Bear Totem is a very appealing 3rd level bonus, I think it's an ability that can sound deceptively powerful; all Barbarians get Danger Sense which gives good protection against a lot of common area of effect abilities/spells (and doesn't require Rage, though Bear Totem does stack with it nicely), meanwhile all Barbarians while raging resist bludgeoning, piercing and slashing, which are the most common damage types you'll face when fighting something within melee range.

So in practice the Bear Totem's bonus is going to matter the most while you're trying to get into melee range, as well as a few edge cases such as enemies firing blasts into their allies, a caster using Magic Missile (since it auto-hits only its target), or an enemy with special weapons/attacks (probably the most likely). It's a great ability if you want to double down on tanking, but the bulk of your tanking is usually going to come from your core Barbarian abilities; you'll absolutely get enough use out of the extra resistances to justify it, but you're trading off against extra damage, which can also be good (as it means you kill the enemy faster so don't have to tank for as long).

I think overall they're somewhat balanced, it's hard to properly rate a bit of extra damage vs. a bit of extra resistance, but it really comes down to what fits your desired character best (more tanking, totem flavour etc.).

I view the barbarian as a warrior with staying power.  The whole idea of must be angry, is imo fluff which I reject.  I have a barbarian concept who's essentially a musketeer.  He fights with a rapier and buckler.  He wears no armor.  His "rage" is a combat focus.  He's smooth and cultured...a gentleman.

Barbarian is a chassis that provides a unique set of mechanics for you to build a character around.  Don't let the names fool you.  A barbarian does not have to be a primitive, tribal warrior, it's a set of mechanics that's available to bring your character vision to life.

If you think a universal reroll on a failed save is situational, then your dm must be really boring never making you roll any saving throws. Barbarians can easily be taken down with any wisdom save spell since they might only have a +1 to it for most of the game, so the ability to actually give you a chance against it IS valuable. 

On Wild Soul, most of the effects on it don't need to scale to be good, aoe to life absorb all your enemies and gain an absurd amount of health will always be good, Teleportation every turn for mobility, the flumph thing isn't great when you get it and I'll concede on that one, extra AC and a thorns effect only doesn't scale in the way that AC becomes unimportant later on because of the high attack bonuses, difficult terrain aura only stops working against flying enemies, one of them is a wis save to the enemies to basically give you a free dodge action against them, letting your weapon be throwable isn't especially awesome but if you have a magic weapon it means you aren't stuck using javelins, and finally a con save vs blinded, and blinded is so strong an effect you don't see a save aoe effect blind spell until 5th level spells. The spell slot refund can be pretty good when you consider how much more effect those slots can have over you having 5-20 more health, at the lowest level just think of giving it to a cleric and them using it to heal you. This can also get much more broken when you consider the idea of getting a broach of shielding or ring of resistance with force, making it so instead of 5/10/15/20 it becomes 2/5/7/10.

Quote from crzyhawk >>

I view the barbarian as a warrior with staying power.  The whole idea of must be angry, is imo fluff which I reject.  I have a barbarian concept who's essentially a musketeer.  He fights with a rapier and buckler.  He wears no armor.  His "rage" is a combat focus.  He's smooth and cultured...a gentleman.

Barbarian is a chassis that provides a unique set of mechanics for you to build a character around.  Don't let the names fool you.  A barbarian does not have to be a primitive, tribal warrior, it's a set of mechanics that's available to bring your character vision to life.

 About the not having to flavor rage the mechanic as rage the emotion, consider Peter V. Brett's The Warded Man (The Painted Man in the UK) with Jardir's ability to focus to overcome pain, perhaps flavor it as being able to heal some while taking the hit but not enough to completely heal over time without resting, or even as taking some kind of drug that helps you to resist injury while increasing your strength as was depicted in Wonder Woman. There are plenty of other ways that you can go about flavoring it so that it fits a narrative that you like as long as the mechanics remain the same. 

I know I'm really late to the party, but I agree with you friend. (sfPanzer)

The class itself is plenty straight forward, but its how you use it.
I play a Zealot barbarian Aasimar (lvl 6 atm) in a fairly modern campaign (tablets and internett n shit), who is a Field physician. He has spent time in the army, moved closer and closer to the front lines because of his prowess in medicine. The closer he got to the frontlines of war he needed to fend for himself, aswell for the injured soldiers in his care. "Rage" for him is the character releasing his physical limiters to the best of his ability to ensure a zone of safety. He wields a heavysword,( redonkulous heavy greatsword with reach) which he uses to become a wall between enemies and allies.

My group uses a special homebrew "Herbalism & Alchemy Homebrew v1.2" which makes a whole crafting system and gathering system for potion and poison making. Because of this and his pretty awsome rolled stats is the healer of the group. Our group rolled stats and I was lucky to get what I needed. Str 17, Dex, 14, Con 18, Int 11, Wis 17 (used for medicine and potions) and an awsome 8 cha. He has tanked an onslaught from 5 mummies and survived and still made sure to keep the other civilians and PCs behind him.

I'm having a blast playing him so far and if I ever get bored of "Smash stuff, then smash some more" I say to myself "What do I have in my pockets?"
One of my favorites is: I had bagged a Rug of Smothering earlier in the campaign and had kept in my bag og holding. I decided that covering it in alchohol and lighting it on fire, then throw it into a hoard of monsters was a good idea. A source of fire damage and a new grapple buddy really made it a fun encounter.

Quote from Stoutstein >>

Outside of some specific parties, like a melee heavy party and a totem(wolf) barbarian or wild soul acting like a spell slot battery, the barbarian has the lowest threshold as a force multiplier of any class. Combined with it's limited range of valid concepts and it's scaling didn't into the later levels I have to say it's the worst class in 5e.

The purpose of the Barbarian is to tank; that means getting enemies to focus on them (which Reckless Attack and Rage grappling can do quite well) while being able to take the extra hits; they're a force multiplier in the sense that they prevent damage to their party members, allowing ranged characters and casters to focus on maximum damage/control etc. without worrying so much about being attacked themselves.

I think you underestimate the value of keeping enemies away from your squishier party members, but even if you play with a party that doesn't include a Barbarian specifically, you probably have some way of filling the gap that leaves and may not know it; the right kind of Fighter or Paladin build can be a drop in replacement, two mixed martials can likewise handle frontline/tanking duty, or you might have casters with certain types of control spells to keep enemies at a distance.

But Barbarian as a class is very good at handling this duty on its own with no extra kit, resources, support or preparation time; they're also just straight up built to be a dungeon meat shield thanks to high HP, optional damage resistance and Danger Sense from level 2.

Quote from Beardsinger >>

This is not about being rude, I am genuinely trying to understand the class:

I have never really liked the Barbarian class, either as a player or a DM, in any version of D&D or Pathfinder. I don't see what they add to a party other than 'Rage - SMASH'.  I played one for the first time in 5E last night and was trying to figure out what the hell I could do out of combat. Even in combat you are completely relient on other party members to heal you and buff you. It can be fun running in with a big weapon and killing enemies with a single hit - I was doing 1d12+6 damage with rage which was fairly awesome at first level, but that was it. Nothing else, no real options, no spells, no tactics just Hulk smashing everything. I really played up his lack of intelligence and social sophistication which was fun, and judging by the party laughter it went down okay, but I can't see the amusement holding out long term, so why would you play them past a few levels?

The subclasses are pretty much universally terrible as well, the only exception being Totem warrior. The two that looks the most interesting - Zealot and Wild soul are mechanically terrible.

I just don't get it, what's the point of the class beyond "I hit it with my axe" rinse and repeat?

I've crushed enemies scaling our wall with chunks of masonry, smashed enemies with nearby carts, torn out supports, collapsing buildings onto enemies. I've used my physical prowess to intimidate, to encourage, to entertain. I surprised our gargoyle character by being able to lift them off the floor when we first met.

Mine is a circus strongman, a showman.

The class is what you make of it.

Quote from Stoutstein>>

if NPCs view the barbarian as a low priority they don't have anyway to change that past RA which isn't that big of a lure.

• Artificers have a couple good options for some tanking in the Armorer and Battle Smith, both of whom, like the Ancestral Guardian Barbarian, can impose different amounts of disadvantage for targeting others, but it's only usually one or two in practice (three at most if an Armorer can reliable get a reaction or Haste attack). However, their durability mostly comes from a high AC (or Mirror Image or Shield), all of which are actively detterents to attacking them.
• Fighters are great frontline combatants with high damage and solid durability, but not a lot of aggro type abilities; Battle Master has a couple of manoeuvres that are handy for, but these use a finite resource and aside from specific higher level builds are really just one or two targets for a turn or two at most. Cavalier has a kind of aggro ability (nasty bonus attack if a marked enemy attacks someone other than you) but it's not that major.
• Paladins have a lot of great abilities for spike damage and party buffs, but their main aggro is really just trying to eliminate their aura, but that's quite situational (most auras are more beneficial against certain types of enemies).

You can absolutely make good tanks from a bunch of these (and other classes), and with exactly the right build at certain levels you could probably even make a better one than an no-effort Barbarian build, but better than the entire class? No. Barbarians (literally the tanking class of the game) being the worst tanking class is a very, very tough sell.

I do agree that barbs are towards the bottom of the class spectrum but mostly because of their reliance on Rage.

If you are in a game (and I will admit most are like this) where you do not run out of rage then its fine and they move to a respectable location in the rankings.

If you are in a game that follows the actual intended (albeit frustratingly oddly designed) encounter structure of 6-8 encounters a day with 2 short rests then you will feel a bit less than.

You wont be able to rage every fight and even worse if you are dropped out of rage due to poor mental saves then you are mostly out of luck for the entire day.  Since most features key off of rage too you basically do not get a subclass in a lot of cases.  Not always of course and there are good exceptions but a LOT of your kit is tied to a long rest ability that can be cancelled. 

Its a play style that can be frustrating I agree and is deceptively billed as "simple" due to the fact you are attacking with your action most of the time....but in a game where rage is a resource that is commonly gone before the day is out...you have to be able to pick and choose when to use it...and ensure you keep it up!

Quote from OptimusGrimus >>

You wont be able to rage every fight and even worse if you are dropped out of rage due to poor mental saves then you are mostly out of luck for the entire day.  Since most features key off of rage too you basically do not get a subclass in a lot of cases.  Not always of course and there are good exceptions but a LOT of your kit is tied to a long rest ability that can be cancelled.

You get your 4th Rage use by level 6, so even if you're playing with the recommended 6-8 encounters you can use Rage in at least half of those, and with that kind of quantity of encounters a few of them should be pretty obviously not worth wasting a Rage use on.

Those four uses of Rage continue to level 11, so if you want to be really ungenerous and compare with a full caster at that level (rather than at 6th) they will have 16 spell slots; that's two or three spells per encounter, maybe a little more depending upon what recovery options they have (Arcane Recovery, Font of Magic etc.); while you can spread it thinner than rage it's actually still pretty comparable before you hit five rages, especially if that caster is using reaction spells like Shield, those spell slots can run down faster than you think. And once a caster runs out of spells, they're entirely reliant on cantrips (decent-ish damage but not much in the way of protection) whereas a Barbarian that isn't using rage is still a solid martial character who can still tank reasonably well while giving themselves advantage whenever they want, meanwhile when they are raging they've got a tonne of bonuses that it would take a caster several duration spells to replicate (some of which would be concentration, which can be broken much like a Barbarian's Rage can).

So I don't think weakest class is a good claim either, except in the general meta of the game favouring casters; they might have some exploitable weaknesses that they themselves can't easily defend against (poor mental saves), but that's why you don't adventure in a party of one.

Though I'm also of a mind to reject the premise entirely; when was the last time you spoke to someone actively playing Barbarian who  wasn't actually having a good time (and no, venting threads on here don't count)? Even people playing Battlerager or Berserker (which according to people online are the equivalent of committing sepukku in your first turn of every combat) seem to have a great time unless their DM goes out of their way to punish them for choosing those sub-classes.

It's just an easy-going, fun class to play that has a surprising amount strategy to it once you've mastered the basics.