Just my 2cents

[kenkph]

barb merc have taunt already which is the main reason they die in flash to toughest boss,and the lvl1 shout isnt good,highest i ever got their shout to with gears was lvl 7 which is still too low,using shield when only gear with 1hand sword might help them out alot which will 100% make them more attractive similar to act3 merc because of conviction aura shields crrup stormshield etc but being melee unlike act3,they will die much more,so replacing the taunt with other survial buff is still needed. On the other hand, maybe dont restrict them to only using sword class weapon since they are barbs ,maybe they can use axe/max etc as well. This will make their item built surely more viable and make them feels Truely like a barb