Boeroer

Guys - in beta patch 3.0 stunning shots also works in melee. This makes this build even more powerful. I nearly finished a playthrough with this build and some of my others (Dull Runner, Fulmineo Prondroni, this build, Backlash Beldam, Mad Hornet and Zeblastian Hurtstacker) - and these guys are really the best - even without stunning shots. They do tons of healing in a huge area, they so ridicolously high damage and the best thing - they can start with it very early in the game. With stunning shots this build will also add very strong single target CC into the mix when you reah lvl 11.

Whoa - great. They nerf the cipher into oblivion and make melee rangers gods when they reach level 11. Whatever - that will only make my Riptide build even more awesome.

With >20 INT and a item with overseeing you will of course hit more enemies then the ones "right next to you". I could provide screenshots but I'm too lazy today. Also: high INT and MIG (as I use for nearly all my barbs) are great for most scrolls or items with spell binding. Same with Tidefall's wounding enchantment. Shod-in-Faith are much more powerful if you have high INT (and MIG). If you take things like Aspirant's Mark - also great. Veteran's Recovery also. The yell's and shout's AoE is much bigger (especially the shout's). Threatening Presence's AoE is bigger. Heart of Fury is much better with high INT. On-crit effects - which are especially cool with carnage - last longer. To say you can savely leave INT at 10 may be true for special barb builds, but not in general.

Oh man - it's even worse then. And cipher is not even my favourite class - nor is it the most powerful. Why the nerf?* Did they buff some powers in return? Because: 70 focus for this stupid self haste is way too much. I won't even talk about that completely useless statis thing. 60 focus for a singe target spell that eventually destroys the loot. I don't get it. I think I will download the patch today evening, ahve a look and then start a rant for three or four hours. I will fill the forum with such abysmal hate that they have to withdraw that stupid nerf. edit: *if it would be my favourite class then a nerf would be ok of course... no, wait, what?

Shield bash did not work with Two Weapon Style and also not with carnage in 2.03. Don't know if it works in the 3.0 beta patch. Using shields without bash doesn't influence your attack speed at all. But if you use a shield with bash you will only hit with your main weapon every second time. So you were right. Bash - as it is in 2.03 - is a huge disadvantage and should be removed or buffed with some effect like a short stun, a very high interrupt chance and duration or something like that. As it is now, it's not even worthless - it's a punishment! I don't know if it generates focus - if it does, focus generation will be very low because the damage of bash is really whimpy. The only exception at the moment is Badgradr's Barricade because it's bash can trigger Thrust of Tattered Veils unlimited times if you crit. It doesn't generate focus. It profits from Penetrating Shot and works with Driving Flight (ranger). Maybe it also works with Vicious Aim - didn't test that. So a rogue or ranger crit-build with a weapon that has an on-crit effect (We Toki, Godansthunyr...) or a disorienting weapon (Vile Loner's Lance, Strike Hard...) plus Badgradr's Barricade might be worth it. I'm testing that at the moment.

60 Focus - totally unnecessary. Amplified Wave is good (AndreaColombo's math skill not so much by the way: 35 to 60 is +25, not +15. ). But it's not worth 60 points of focus. Oversteering seems to be a problem with the balance patches at Obsidian. And now some powers have different costs than the others of the same level? Why? It would have been ok to shorten the duration of the prone effect, the huge, huge area of effect or even the hefty damage (same with the other powers). But why on earth would you choose to alter the costs? Ah - I know - the ruleset isn't complicated enough - forgot that, my bad...

In terms of DPS? Maybe the Blade of the Endless Paths. It not only has -5DR but also speed. And after patch 3.0 you can also put a lash on it I suppose. But it's hard to tell. If you have party members then the making enchantment on the BotEP is also nice. The White Spire is also good if you are fast - but I suppose your char is not. I'd say Tidefall is pretty much one of the best weapons in game. And I think it's wounding enchantment also profits from high INT and MIG, what makes it even better for slower, but strong and smart builds.

Oh no. Not another cipher nerf. They will become the new old ranger. I found them to be quite balanced.

Yes - a little bit more CON would be good.

Nice to hear that it works.

With this stats I'd be using a ranged weapon plus boots of speed... and another class. It can work in melee with Shod-in-Faith boots though. High MIG and INT will do good healing. But your low CON will cause problems with low health after some fights.

You're the best!

Yeah - usually all my foes are dead before I can think "Man, I really would want to cast Suppress Affliction now!". Now... that leaves room to discuss whether a) I kill my foes very quickly or b) I think very slowly.

Since you can hit level 14? I totally missed that. How could I? Even better!

No, they give you a higher chance of causing an interrupt. With PER 15 you will have a value of 15. With Interrupting Blows it will be 30. If you hit somebody, you will roll d100 + interrupt value (here 30) against concentration. Concentration with 15 RES is 90. So without Interrupting Blows it would be d100+15 > 90 = interrupt time of weapon applied With Interrupting BLows it would be d100+30 > 90. That's better than prolonging the interrupt time by15% I think. You can lower concentration by 10 then with a chanter's phrase. Then your chance to interrupt a RES-15-Guy with your 15 PER and Interrupting Blows would be like 50%. Another way are all the spells/powers that lower RES. Like Miasma of Dull Mindedness and so on. That will further lower concentration by 30 points. So it's not too bad to max PER if you want to cause a lot of interrupts. With 20 PER and all the stuff I listed above you would have to roll d100+45 >50 against a 15 RES guy. That should be an interrupt almost every time. If you combine a chanter, a wizard and an interrupt-barb you can perma-lock a lot of foes without any defense or immunity against this.

They scale with levels and reach the equivalent of superb weapons. They are great! Fast and lots of damage. However: you can't enchant them and they do crush damage. If you meet enemies that are immune to crush you are screwed. Just carry hatchets or spears in your second weapon set and you're good to go. To counter the fact that you can't enchant them you can find nice sandals that give a bonus to unarmed damage.

Haha - you guys... XD At least I'm not doing a playthrough at the moment - that's something. But I still find myself firing up PoE too often in order to test and tinker around because of stuff I read in the forum. So it's all your fault. And I managed to go to bed before 11:00 pm twice in a row! Whoot-whoot! Ah, and @knownastherat: sorry if that post of mine sounded ****y. I meant no (real) offense.

Yes! I find it to be a good term for that kind of "work". :D

Amplified Wave is fast and nice. But you won't get rid of your focus since it generates it's own.

You are right about strike hard and stuff. I just like it when you can have a good weapon early on and stick to it (if it works).

I second nearly all what Mocker22 said. Especially what he said about caster clipping. That's not what barbs are good at. Other things: - Keep in mind that barbs' performance depends on items - especially weapons. This is due to the fact that most special on-hit or on-crit effects work with carnage. - Brute Force can be great if you have any means of applying Weakened in an AoE (and take Threatening Presence for Sickened yourself). This can be done by a priest's Painful Interdiction for example. Sickened and Weakened stack and result in more than -40 fortitude and more than -30 Will. In this case Brute Force is wonderful. If you don't plan to do that: don't take Brute Force - Threatening Presence alone is not enough - because most enemies have higher fort than deflection anyways. Threatening Presence is still nice on it's own though. - Envenomed Strike doesn't work with carnage - so in my opinion it's a waste. Vulnerable Attack is a solid choice for barbs - because it works with carnage and carnage does less damage than your initial hit - so +5 DR bypass via carnage is great. It's like a flat +5 damage bonus per hit. Savage Attack is only good later in the game when low ACC is not a problem anymore (carnage has reduced ACC, that's why). - Interrupting Blows can be great for a fast hitting barb - because it also works with carnage. There are no immunities to interrupts. Take two one handed weapons with high interrupt value (there are two great war hammers with 1.0 sec and 0.75 sec for example). Combine this with high PER and you will land a lot of long lasting interrupts in an AoE. If you're fast enough, you can interrupt-lock whole groups. Also works with a certain spear and a shield - you don't have to be dual wielding. - Barbaric Blow is really bad unless you have a weapon with an on-hit or on-crit effect. Then it's ok. - Wild Sprint is only per rest (which is really annoying). Boots of Speed are passive and cost you nothing but have the same effect. - Barbaric Shout is great despite the fact it's only per rest. - If you like Death Godlikes you should combine this with Bloody Slaughter. That's a great combination - especially with carnage. You can use another thing with this combo: - Heart of Fury (HoF) can be a real gamechanger in tough fights. There's a reason that it's only 1/rest: It's superpowerful if you know how to use it. If you have high INT (and therefore a huge carnage AoE) and are dual wielding + Vulnerable Attack the damage will be hilarious - if you can manage to hit 5 to 6 enemies with it. Each hit will trigger carnage by itself which leads to many, many hits. It's really great if you combine it with Death Godlike and Bloody Slaughter, since during this Full Attack + tons of carnage hits most enemies will be reduced from uninjured to badly injured - or from badly injured to death. When HoF and Death's Usher + Bloody Slaugher meet - nothing will stand afterwards. It's especially great if you have a draining weapon like Tidefall or so - because after the usage of HoF your endurance is 100% again (if you managed to hit 5 to six foes). It gets even better if you have a weapon that has an on-hit or on-crit effect since the chance that the enemy gets debuffed and hit again with the same attack is big. For example: if you have a weapon that causes prone most of the time you use HoF everybody will lie on the floor afterwards if they are not dead. Against one or two enemies this ability is totally worhtless though. You have to reach as many enemies as possible. - Blooded: is only good (in my opinion) if you take a Fire Godlike or combine it with Vengeful Defeat: then the enemies get really hurt when you go down. You can combine this with HoF and also Barbaric Blow: If you feel that you might be going down and are below 50% endurance: first trigger HoF, then Barbaric Blow and then, when you keel over, Vengeful Defeat will be triggered. All these will have more damage because of Blooded. And maybe Death's Usher and Bloody Slaughter also kick in. Vengeful Defeat is only great if you have any means of reviving (second chance item or paladin or priest or chanter). THis way you can go down, deal damage with it and get up again. Wow - this is more text than I planned - sorry!

I know it's different since I played PoE a little bit from time to time. I just think it was funny that there was an option to sound like a nitwit in the IE games.

What I liked about the IE games (and yes, it's the first time I even use a reference to that games) was the fact that your dialogue options changed when your INT was too low. You would sound like a dump ogre. Hilarious!

So, one per encounter... how lame.

Sacred Immolation fo the win! WIthout it it would have taken you 3 hours I suppose.