Boeroer

I know a bit russian because I lived in Uzbekistan for three years (2010-2013). But I never had to look up or use the russian words for cut or scar.

The question is what comes first. If first Comtessa's Gage gets calculated and then Confident Aim it's pretty cool. If it's the other way round it's not so cool. It could also be that both get calculated seperately and just get added. I never read about a proper test about this. But I know that Kaylon said not long ago that with both enabled you basically have pretty uniform damage rolls.

Cuts are wounds which you get when you get... well, cut. By a knive or a sword or a sharp piece of office paper. They turn into scars after some time. The "scars" in the face of the woman look quite fresh. Red and a bit gaping. Not like scars but like fresh cuts. Which I don't like on a portrait. So good job on removing those.

A barbarian with 1 INT can still hit adjacent foes with Carnage. They have to stand close ot each other, but it still works. Since it doesn't matter if the AoE of Carnage just barely scratches your circle or fully covers it, there is quite a bit of play when it comes to INT. A barb with 10 INT will not hit a lot less enemies than one with 15 INT for example. There are some sweet spots though. Once you mange you scratch the second row of enemies with your Carnage AoE things get interesting. And that's why some people like to max out INT. But it's not that much of a gimpage to play a barb with mediocre INT. Of course there's still Frenzy and Savage Defiance which get better the more INT you have...

Didn't you remove the scars and cuts with Photoshop?

If you trigger Frenzy at the start of combat and also took Veteran's Recovery then the concealed endurance/health is not too bad - because you heal automatically. If I'm not sure if endurance drops too quickly despite Veteran's Recovery I like to trigger Savage Defiance. It's strong from early to mid game. Later it falls behin because it doesn't scale with level, but with healing modifiers like survival and item (up to +85%) it stays to be useful. At the same time Shod-in-Faith boots work very well with such stats.

Good job on removing the cuts. Those were a bit over the top for my taste.

Yes, I would put the points into DEX.

Hm... they must have changed this or my memory is failing me. I remember having a conversation with MaxQuest about this some time ago.

I think you will have to test this.

No that's fine. He bought that invisible treadmill from Yurdan the other day...

Nice. Who did those?

Huh? Since when is that? As far as know those also stack. At least they did in the past. But since reload speed bonuses are multiplicative, you get diminishing results when stacking them. For example 100 * 0.5 (Swift Aim) * 0.8 (Gunner) * 0.8 (Sure Handed Ila) = 32% of the original reload time. If they would be additive you would get 100*(1-0.5-0.2-0.2)= 10%.

Yes,it stacks. It's one of the few things that stacks with nearly every other speed buff (if you use a ranged weapon of course).

I like high MIG and INT because I always use Veteran's Recovery and/or Savage Defiance. High MIG also counters the -34% damage malus from Carnage a bit. Stun suppresses prone. It's of little use to combine We Toki with a stunning weapon like Cladhaliath except for the times you meet foes who are immune to one of those afflictions. The combo Wodewys + We Toki or Shatterstar + Godansthunyr is more useful in my opinion. I would also try a single handed Cladhaliath with Stunning + Vicious. +17 ACC and 15% hit to crit is nice if you're looking for AoE stuns. Dual Wielding with a spear just looks stupid. 10 MIG can work, but it will take some time to stack some other damage bonuses so that the lack of MIG gets less obvious. So in the early game you damage per hit will be meh if Frenzy runs out. Later on - with more crits and other damage mods - you don't feel it any more and DEX will be more important. A lot of DEX also helps with the lengthy animation of Frenzy.

You can retrain at every merchant/inn. While doing this you can also reallocate stats. This also works with hirelings but not the official companions. You have 78 points to spend. If you dump CON (I don't recommend this) and RES you can put everything else at 18. Barbs tend to be very squishy at the beginning but grow sturdier with every level because of their huge bonuses to endurance and health. If you dump CON then you take this advantage away. I wouldn't go under 10 with a dual wielding approach. You want to get close. And if you do get close you will get attacked because of your abysmal deflection. Having very low RES and low DEX, combined with the longer attack animation and recovery of two handers or heavy one handers, will get you interrupted a lot in the beginning. It is not a big problem if you mainly flank, but if you want to engage more than one enemy at a time you will have problems. DEX at 10 when dual wielding will be ok though. Keep in mind that DEX is a multiplicative damage tool while MIG is only additive. Also,the 24% speed bonus will get applied to animation AND recovery while all other speed bonuses like Frenzy and so on only affect recovery. With heavy one handers or two handers, which have a lot longer animation phase than light weapons, the difference between low and high DEX is very visible. You could do it like this: MIG: 17 CON: 14 DEX: 10 PER: 17 INT: 17 RES: 03 It is normal that you graze and miss a lot in the early game. Barbs start with only mediocre accuracy and on top of that Carnage has a penalty of -10 ACC. You can use a single one handed weapon in the early game to deal with this. With every level Carnage gets +1 extra accuracy. If you take Accurate Carnage your Carnage accuracy will be the same as your normal accuracy at lvl 5 already. So, hitting stuff becomes easier with every level. At level 16 Carnage will have +11 ACC compared with normal attacks. Still, since you want to rely on crits I would put a lot of points into PER, yes. And while you are at it, you can combine the effect-on-crit approach with an interrupting approach. Both like high PER. For this I like war hammers because they are not only a good pick for Heart of Fury, but also have two damage types and most importantly: there's two uniques with increased interrupts time AND one of them is stunning (Godansthunyr) while the other is annihilating (Shatterstar). This is a great combo. But getting Godansthunyr will take some time. Before that the interrupting approach is a good substitute for stunning - and you can get Shatterstar very early. I personally would go for two handers with an on-crit build and buy the Temaperacl first and later buy Hours of St. Rumbalt. Mainly because you can get them a lot earlier than the one handed weapons which stun/prone on crit. And Rumbalt has a great enchantments combo that works very well with crits (and Blood Thirst). Doing crits with a durganize Rumbalt if you also took Merciless Hand is very satisfying. Of course you can do both: use a two hander for auto-attacks but switch to DW when executing Heart of Fury. But then forget the interrupting.

The idea of Bloody Slaughter is nice, but the 10% is just bad. Death's Usher triggers at 25% endurance - that's a better value to make Bloody Slaughter worthwhile. To make it great I'd say it should trigger at 40% at least, maybe 50%.

Bloody Slaughter adds 50% base damage to a crit if the target is below 10% endurance. Even if 100% of all your attacks are crits that means that it only adds 50% base damage in 10% of all attacks. 13.5 * 0.5 = 6.75 * 0.1 = 0.675 points of damage per attack on average. Savage Attack will add 2.7 damage per attack (and will reduce ACC). I don't say that it's crucial, it just outright better than Bloody Slaughter. I'd say any talent is, even Rhymer's Summon. And that doesn't take into account that a normal hit or crit would most likely kill the foe who's under 10% anyway. Also, foes will seldomly get reduced to exactly 10% and then Bloody Slaughter triggers. Most of the time they will get reduced from let's say 20% or 15% to 8%, 6% or 5%. Your experience with a barb who uses Bloody Slaughter is only of limited significance if you can't compare it with a similar barbarian who doesn't use it. Who can say if your performance (your crits/kills and so on) wouldn't be the same without Bloody Slaughter?

Outlander's Frenzy doesn't stack with Swift Aim and also not with Alacrity. Dungeon Delver stacks with Annihilating stacks with Merciless Hand stacks with Azalin's Helmet stacks with Bloody Slaughter stacks with durgan steel on weapon. Azalin's Helmet doesn't stack with Rabbit Fur Gloves. No, OBS didn't. It's one of the things I don't understand. It's so simple to do it... Also a dps number and DR bypass would be nice.

With Accurate Carnage (and not following an on-crit build) I would always pick Savage Attack in the later levels (before that I would take Two Handed Style - it's clearly better than Apprentice's Sneak Attack - which I would also take later on). Carnage will have higher accuracy than your main attack by lvl 6 already and the +20% damage are quite nice with a two hander. Each of those talents is better than Bloody Slaughter. With Blood Thirst you'd want to raise your damage per hit as high as possible. Some goes for (Barbaric) Retaliation, Heart of Fury, Vengeful Defeat and Barabric Blow (which I would not use with a two hander).

Rumbalt is a good pick for a cipher. I would use Merciless Hand from Doemenel and pick Dungeon Delver in Twin Elms. I'd put a lash on it (what you like) and upgrade it as far as you can. And of course durgan steel. Usually the Blade of the Endless Paths does more damage - but it's pierce only and comes so late. Tidefall also does more damage because of wounding, but wounding doesn't generate focus. Another alternative is Justice because its additional 10% crushing lash (on top of the 2% crushung lash) does generate focus. The Rumbalt's combo of prone + enhanced crit is indeed nice. I like that weapon a lot. Until the late game (when you get durgan steel) Firebrand (summoned by Forgemaster Gloves) is the best two hander for a cipher though.

Made a screenshot: left Rumbalt, right Tidefall - both with fine plate. Yes, my graphics suck.

For me, Bloody Slaughter is a useless talent most of the time. It can be of some use for dragon killer specialists (not barb) or chars with very low damage per hit (low MIG, few dmg mods and fast, light weapons) and against foes with a lot of endurance but low defenses (trolls, ogres). Most enemies, especially mobs that come in bigger numbers (where the barb excels), have not that much of endurance. <10% means that there's very little endurance left so that most of the time a normal hit or crit will finish the foe anyways. At lvl 10 you will already have some different dmg mods like One Stands Alone and enchantments, high MIG, maybe Savage Attack. I can't say how often Bloody Slaughter will lead to a quicker death (didn't run excessive tests), but I guess it's less than 5%. If a target has 300 endurance (which is plenty!) then Bloody Slaughter will trigger at 30 endurance. Most barbs will do more than 30 damage with a normal two handed hit at lvl 30. So, especially for two handed builds it's garbage. If you want to trigger Blood Thirst more often you can use Vulnerable Attack, Battle Forged, Barbaric and normal retaliation. Those also trigger Blood Thirst when they kill. I can't say if DoTs trigger Blood Thirst. If not, then Tidefall may be a trap. I would not recommend to dump DEX with a two handed build. Even though you will have Blood Thirst you don't want to be too slow. DEX also shortens your animation. You will not hit 0 recovery without Frenzy very soon with a two hander, so Blood Thirst will be of use for a very long time - until the end if you wear thick armor and don't use a speed weapon. And the killing that leads to 0 recovery swings will start sooner if you are not too slow. Not that you need 18 DEX or so, but don't dump it. By the way: scrolls and spell bindings also trigger Blood Thirst if you kill with a spell. Redeemer's vessel destruction ability also triggers Blood Thirst. It's a very powerful combination

I don't recall that HoSR has a golden guard. So I guess the first picture is correct. Nice choice by the way: one of the best two handed weapons in my opinion. Especially when you combine it with Merciless Hand + Dungeon Delver + Durgan Steel.

Unlabored Blade can't be durganized. Sword of Daenysis looks kind of cool on a Darcozzi with a buckler and a breastplate or padded armor. It's also a nice auto-attack weapon. Another trick: Quick Switch + Coil of Resourcefulness. You can be as sluggish as you want - but if you need to put out Lay on Hands and such quickly and as sonn as possible, just switch during your recovery (or even better - right after the attack animation) and *poof* recovery is gone. You can immediately cast LoH. Also works without Coil, but is a bit slower.