Boeroer

Heart of Fury: Nobody ever takes Heart of Fury because it's 1/rest and nobody understands what the description really means. So nobody ever experiences what an awesome ability this is (especially with high INT and dual wielding weapons with on hit/crit effects and annihilation). You can win difficult mob fights with this alone. I it would be 1/encounter it would be too good - but maybe 2 or 3/rest would be ok. If you pair this with Combusting Wounds, an ACC buff and deflection debuff, Death's Usher and Bloody Slaughter it gets really ridiculous. Brute Force + Threatening Presence: A lot of people say "Don't take this, it's a trap!". But it isn't if you have another party member who can apply Weakened in an AoE. Suddely your barb becomes a crit machine against mobs whose fortitude is not 40 points higher that their deflection. A priest with Painful Interdiction and a barb make a great team. I play this every now and then beause it's just fun. It is great for DPS, CC and - of course - Heart of Fury. Dragon Leap: It depends what you want to do with your barb. Sometimes I build a "sticky tank": A barb with 3 RES but high MIG, INT and CON. Barbaric Yell, Threatening Presence, Shod-in-Faith, Sanguine Plate, Vengeful Defeat, One Stands Alone and the Watchful Cloak MKII (=you can only be flanked if 5 people attack you simultaniously). Since his deflection is so low everybody wants to hit him and doesn't run towards my backline. Dragon Leap is great for being the first to jump into the middle of the mob and start shouting and hitting. Because of Shod-in-Faith and his enormous endurance/health he doesn't die quickly, even if disabled. If he gets knocked out he dishes out some good damage at least. With a paladin or chanter you can revive him and start all over again. He's like a "CC bait". But I agree that this ability is very situational and should do some more "oomph". Many of the barb's abilities require to build your char around it. That makes most of them either meh or yeah - depending on your build. A barb also is no good solo character. He depends on his team mates and also items. That's why I love barbs so much. What I really dislike are the highest lvl chanter invocations. Man, those are really worthless. One of my favourite classes and see what it can do with it's top-tier invocations: the chanter may summon a... Mushroom! Whoooha! :|

Yeah - and Hearth Orlan's racial ability also works in melee, that's a plus. Whatever - they are both good. Waht I really want to know (because I just defeated the Alpine Dragon at lvl 11 and it was an esc-and-reload-fest) if a wild orlan cipher with Psychic & Brutal Backlash would be good against the dragon. Because of the terrifying aura that hits every few seconds your racial bonus is always active - and the backlash should also trigger every time. Will it stun the dragon or is it's ACC too low? And wait... was that dragon immune to stun? Can't remember, it was 02:00 am... Sadly Arcane Dampener and Deprive the Unworthy don't take away immunities anymore. That much I can remember.

The problem with that axe is that, IIRC, it can't go beyond Fine and Barbarians really need the Accuracy. I think that's not a big problem because it triggers on hit and not only on crit. And once it triggered your ACC is basically +10 for both of your weapons.

I once tried two tanky rogues with Retaliation and Deep Wounds (=autohit and guaranteed raw damage) supported by a chanter, paladin and priest to raise their DR and defenses enough and revive them if they got down. Rogues can get pretty good reflex. It worked but was a bit of a mess.

The summonig is crappy, but the Paralyze and Twin Stones are ok - although Twin Stones (due to its weird AoE) is difficult to aim with a sword in melee. However - I think a fully enchanted Wodewys is better for a barb. To pair Nature's Mark with Carnage just makes sense.

I think the wood elf's ACC bonus leads to more crits than the hearth orlan's crit-to-hit conversion of 10% (only if he's attacking somebody who already gets attacked by a teammate). However - if you combine the hearth orlan's racial feat with a marking weapon (or even Coordinated Attacks plus a marking weapon) on that teammate things get really interesting.

I'm so happy I can't even write a post...Although it's a bit like biting the hand that feeds you.

"around" 53. Love it!

I'm not 100% sure but I strongly believe every corpse is just a one hit wonder. But I didn't do a real test on that. Maybe I'll do that tomorrow.

Yes! Same like Fighter's Constant- and Rapid Recovery and Veteran's Recovery: way more endurance per tick and scales with level now. But the durations got halfed. But overall it feels more powerful. Two chanters with that now really make a difference.

That's right. Because of carnage the Spell Chance of Grey Sleeper will trigger often. I just hate all those undead summons that stand in the way all the time. It's really a pity that Nightshroud is not for barbs. For the same reason Wodewys is also great for a barb. Nature's Mark is a powerful spell and when a barb uses this axe it triggers a lot. You can combine it with We Toki for a CC-fest. St. Ydwen's Redeemer is also great on a barb if you meet groups of vessels.

For removing casters an Island Aumaua Bleak Walker with all FoD related talents/abilities, Quick Switch and two arquebus is also nice. FoD (+50%) + Intense Flames (+25%) + Burning Lash (25%) * 1.2 from Scion of Flame + Remember Rhakan Field (+25% ) = +120% burn damage + 25% corrode. Only two shots with +20 ACC - but those really hurt. After that he can switch to Sword & Board and be a great support tank.

I don't know - it takes a lot of build-up play. <whisper>But it's a lot of fun for sure. </whisper>

That's an outright blatant understatement. Jizzus Christ - just look at my pants!

Top single target DPS maybe. But if you hit a group of 6 with a lame lvl 3 Fireball for 40 damage each - how do you want to compete with that.

I don't have Durance, just Pallegina as the only healer and support - it works like a charm because Ancient Memory & friends are quite good in 3.0.

With two weapons you can achieve 0 recovery with Frenzy (even with low DEX). That's very powerful. Especially if you have high PER and Interrupting blows. Two Handers are good for carnage damage because that's only 60% of your original damage. A lot ot that gets caught in enemies' DR - so the higher the damage per hit the better. I don't think you can say that one way is generally better than the other. It also depends on the weapon enchantments. Since those work with carnage all those things like draining, wounding, rending(!) and so on also work in an AoE. The best example is Tidefall: It has high damage and ACC because it's superb (good for carnage), it drains endurance (one swing at 5 enemies might give you 50 endurance back) and it is wounding - meaning that 25% of the dealt damage will go on top as DoT. It's a great weapon for barbs. Another is the VIle Loner's Lance: this spear causes -5 defense on hit - that also applies to carnage hits. And it has a long interrupt (1 sec). Together with a second weapon that causes an affliction on crit - likea custom crafted Cladhaliath spear - this barb becomes a great crowd controller. So it depends what your barb is suppoed to do. For pure DPS I think dual wielding sabres might be the best setup - especially if you plan to use Vengeful Defeat and Heart of Fury. Somebody said two Rimecutters are best. But there is also a nice build that uses Firebrand - and it's devastating For a mix of DPS and tankyness I would choose Tidefall or Drawn in Spring + shield. For a tank with a little CC I once made a build with Spelltongue and a shield which worked extremely well - look for "[CLASS BUILD] The Leech" in this forum. For a crowd controller you can use whatever weapon causes an affliction on hit or crit - like I said above. We Toki + Edge of Reason is a good setup for CC, DPS and tankyness. I personally think that Tidefall and the Vile Loner's Lance are great weapons for a barb because you can get them early and they are powerful. You can plan your whole build around them and you don't have to wait till Act III or White March to get them. A personal tipp is Spelltongue - if you know what you're doing it's special enchantment is very powerful on a barb.

Yup. Gambeson was durgan-refined, exceptional, and +2 Perception and it all carried over on duplication. Sorry, but I just jizzed in my pants...

But you could use Garodh's Chorus and the Supper Plate. Even better because it has +3 MIG and comes a lot earlier than the padded armor. I think it's a great setup. Even more with Deep Wounds. It's like a raw damage AoE. Retaliation also works with Sneak Attack and Deathblows - although that's not superpowerful because the base damage is whimpy and you can't do crits, just auto-hits. Ryona's Vembraces and Vuln. Attack are great for Retaliation.

I'm playing him (or them - have two atm) as a front row tank in plate. My PER was 16 from start, MIG and INT maxed, CON and RES 10, DEX 3. Just like my Drake's Ambassador build. Kana has stats that also fit well into this pattern. You don't need 19 RES to be a good tank. During midgame I use a large shield - so I get more deflection but also less ACC. But my higher PER makes up for this AND I get a lot more Reflex as if I used a medium or small shield. This way you get more overall defense out of it without gimping you ACC too much. That's better than just dumping PER and maxing RES (in my opinion). Later, when some points of deflection don't matter that much, I will pick up Little Saviour or Redfield. I don't do much damage with my main weapon - so I make sure it's a weapon that has some benefical effect - like Flames of Fair Rhîan (3 Fireballs per Rest - great with the high INT and MIG) or Shame and Glory (Marking) or something like that. And if I get hurt my Ancient Memory + Veteran's Recovery will heal it. I once used a completely different setup for a Dragon-Thrashed-Chanter: max MIG and INT, 16 DEX, 10 CON, 10 PER and 3 RES plus Shod-in-Faith and Blade of the Endless Paths. Also worked great because max MIG and INT are not only good for The Dragon Thrashed, but also for Consecrated Ground. Just turn out that the damage that you do with your weapon is whimpy if you compare it to your DoT. It worked out great - but a tank makes more sense in my opinion. DEX 4 and PER 3 - your Reflex must be abysmal. With the approaches mentioned above your defenses will be more balanced. You can of course use The Dragon Slashed - just make sure you debuff a bit before the chant goes off. Once it hits it's applied and you're good.

Wait wait wait wait! What's that duplicator item? Will I be able to get 2 Lead Spitters? Or 2 Shod-in-Faith? Two Flames of Fair Rhîan? Two Drawn in Spring? Two Little Saviors? Or even two Nightshroud? I'm just imagining a dwarven barb with 20 base CON, Girdle of Eotun Constitution (+3), two Whispers of Yenwood (+4) and Greater Frenzy (+6) for a per-encounter CON of 33 points. Undying Spiritkilla No. 1.

I'm just running thorugh the Endless Paths and came to the entrance of lvl 6 (the one with all the skeletons). I piled up some skeletons at the entrance, then took Ituumak and ran through the level to lure all remaining foes onto the pile of bones. Then I cast "White Worms": And the list continued... screen not big enough. All pretty un-undead now...

Pallegina's new power is really good. First of all it turns Sworn Enemy from per rest use to 1/encounter - that's really great on it's own. And those five burning balls from hell also benefit from Penetrating Shot for a total DR bypass of 15. And the damage profits from the Sworn's Enemy +20%. The range ist also huge. You can use it as opener and then fire two FoD shots at the same target. It's great, but not too overpowered. OBS did a really good job on this. I love it!

Normally they do. I can't think of a damaging ability which damage does not stack. Deep Wounds, Sacred Immolation, Come, Sweet Winds of Death, The Dragon Slashed, Rot Skulls and so on and so forth. They always stack if they come from different persons. And as you said: buffs/debuffs normally don't.

Yessir!