Boeroer

Novice's Suffering doesn't work with sneak attack, deathblows, Two Handed Style and so on. For all these +x% damage abilities only your puny base damage will be used. That's the reason why the unarmed rogue will not benefit from deathblows and so on. That's... stupid? A monk works different: his base damage is much higher from the start and therefore works better with all +dmg mods. Novice's Suffering however will add a flat +5.x mod on top of your base damage. This mod is not considered when all the other mods are calculated.

OUTLANDER'S FRENZY: 1 per encounter makes this a good pick for everybody who wants to gain some attack speed and has no other low-level-ability to do do this (rogue, chanter, cipher, druid). It's also nice if you want to play a more "feral" char, a Berserker or a crazy monk - whatever, I like it. 1 per rest is totally crap and you know it. 1 per encounter is fair. I wonder if Outlander's Frenzy stacks with Frenzy from the Saguine Plate... at least the stat bonus. I also wonder this: If you're a Nature Godlike druid who puts on Shod-in-Faith and Sanguine Plate and then triggers Outlander's Frenzy, then gets a crit that triggers Frenzy + Cons. Ground, then shifts to his feral form... will the frenzy and healing still work in spiritshift form? I have to try that out... VETERAN'S RECOVERY: I wanted to squeeze the most out of this and combined Veteran's Recovery with a Trollhide Belt, then the Mantle of the Dying Boar and so on - and maxed out might. I don't know how tanky your paladin is, but for me this is just a wasted talent. I understand why it's weaker than fighter's Constant Recovery, but does it have to be so bad? THe fighter's is also not very powerful - and Rapid Recovery is just a joke. However you can make that worthwhile when you combine it with the cCloak of the tireless defender and a Trollhide belt (or any other item with regeneration). I therefore strongly vote for level scaling! I mean: they realised that the DR bonus of the ranger's pet should improve with every level in order to be able to keep them alive - so why not transfer this to recovery? OR: let it heal for x% of your max endurance instead of a flat number. That way it's automatically scaling. Seriously - after a few levels the effect (as it is now) is not noticable at all. Same for the Chanter's Ancient Memory + Beloved Spirits. Does anybody really wastes precious talent points for that? When they introduce a talent that makes phrases shorter - that's very powerful. The alternative is a talent that heals you (and others) for 0.8 end. per tick. Wow! That's really... lame? NOVICE'S SUFFERING: I like that. It doesn't suck. It works with the Sandals of the Forgotten Friar. It's slightly worse than some fully enchanted weapons - but you don't have to do anything to make them better. And like AndreaC & Doppleschwert said: it opens up nice builds that are different and still viable. A unarmend rogue works great - you can soon combine that with Outlander's Frenzy to create a mean berserk bouncer. It's totally sad that it doesn't work with damage bonuses like deathblows and so on. Why not? I mean it affects your base damage - and your base damage should be tha BASE for deathblows and the like. Why did they do that? It's not like fists are superpowerful compared to "real" weapons which work correctly with all the dmg mods. RUNNER'S WOUNDING SHOT is good. I like to put that on a rogue so he can combine sneak/deathblows and the wounding effect and keep his other special attacks for later. For any ranged char that has no special attacks (chanter, priest, cipher) this is a good choice. APPRENTICE'S SNEAK ATTACK: It's ok - but I would like to see it raised to 25%. That would be exactly the half of the original. It's situational and you have to combine it with afflictions. 15% is a little weak. If you combine this with a skaen priest's Prey on the Weak, you end up with +35%. That's two sneak attack talents and you still don't get what a rogue does. 25% Apprentice's + 20% Prey on the Weak would give you +45% - still weaker than a rogue, but not noticable. But I won't be too sad if this doesn't get changed. PRESTIDIGITATOR'S MISSILES Just completely useless. A weaker fleet feet or mirrored image or a disable like slicken or a conjured weapon or something like that would have been nice. But a weaker form of a spell that is already weak? Let's think about this... maybe... NO! RHYMER'S SUMMON: Would have been nicer to allow the chanting of one single (weak) phrase that does not lead to an invocation. Just a slight buff or debuff that's always on. That would also fit the theme. Chanters chant. Summons don't scale and that makes them bad if you don't have the possibility to replace them with more powerful ones. Then there is the 15 sec. Makes this even worse. Every summoning item is better than this talent and only occupies an item slot in your belt. Maybe weak chant and weak summon could be combined: chant a weak 3-sec phrase for a mild buff and after 12 secs you can summon your skeletons for distraction. Like chanters do - just weaker. Then it's ok I think. GALLANT'S FOCUS: It's good. Would be great if one could choose between +2DR, +4 ACC and +1 move speed - but it's ok how it is. The rest I didn't use at all. But I can imagine that the charm is great for a high ACC glass cannon if they get engagend by a foe that broke through. Or just to stack a lot of domination+confusion+charm uses on a non-caster (spell binding itams + Enigma's Charm). Acolyte's Radiance is really useless. Maybe Interdiction would have been nice - but that's also quite weak without the pain. Aspirant's Mark... don't know. I would have liked a weaker (or just shorter) form of spiritshift that basically let's you run away quickly (fox or something). But I think the mark's ok if you can use it 1/encounter.

It works. Sometimes you need to reload to make it happen.

Troll Hide Belt's and the Lost Meadow's regeneration won't stack (last time I tried, which was 4 or 5 days ago). One will get suppressed. Same with the Mantle of the Dying Boar. Veteran's Recovery + one of those will work. Also: if you have Shod-in-Faith, Savage Defiance and maybe Tidefall, why would you want to spend further talents and item slots for puny regeneration? I also recommend less CON (health of barbs is high enough with 10), less RES (you want to receive a crit to trigger Shod-in-Faith, 10 or 8 is sufficient) and way more INT (longer Frenzy, longer disables, greater carnage, longer/more healing from Savage Defiance, longer debuffs from shouts/yells - I usually don't do it under 16). Max PER to counter the low base ACC and to make carnage hit/crit more often. Items are good. I just would put on Gauntlets of ACC if I could get them and a Blunting Belt instead of Trollhide. Armor would be Wayfarer's Hide. Great piece of armor that. You mean the Ring of Changing Heart (+3 RES, Spell Binding: Dominate) - that you don't get from the burning house. That's Frigid Claim (+5 Burn DR, Spell Defense). I can't remember where you get the first. Also somewhere around Stalwart. So... I would do it somewhat different. But I'm sure this one also lots of fun.

Speaking of interrupts with morning stars: there is also the war hammer Shatterstar that you can buy early. Besides being enchanted with annihilating and guarding, it also has a higher (or longer) interrupt than normal: 1 sec like morning stars. That's like a secret enchantment. It's like a faster morning star and it's one handed. And I think one of the other war hammers also has this - have to check that. This would be the perfect setup for a barb that emphasizes on interrupts. Gie him Interrupting Blows and pair him with a chanter that sings "Thick Grew Their Tongues, Stumbling O'er Words" and uses the invocation "Reny Daret's Ghost Spake, "I'll Catch You, Ben Fidel"" to terrify enemies. That results in -22 Concentration - leaving all enemies very vulnerable to interrupts. You can also use the barb's Barbaric Shout to terrify or any other ability/spell that does this. If you don't want to use per rest abilities/spells for that, you can frighten with the chanter's phrase "Lo, Their Endless Host" or Barbaric Yell for a total concentration debuff of -16. Put Threatening Presence on top of that (sickening) and you will cause -25 or -19 concentration. Chanter tank with concentration debuff phrases and focus on invocations and an interrupting barb make a good team. edit: just looked it up ingame: Godansthunyr also has higher interrupt than normal war hammers, which is 0.5. This one is 0.75 and it also stuns on crit and gives you +1 might. Perfect! )

Aren't you always?

By lowering concentration. For example with the phrase "Thick Grew Their Tongues, Stumbling O'er Words". Well, that's not really an active usage of interrupts, but it still helps. Edit: Terrifying also helps and stacks with this...

Of course - if you have the feeling they can survive without it. Later you can find superb armors like Wayfarer's Hide that have +6 DR on top of the normal hide armor's DR - that should defin. be enough for the barb (especially with shod-in-faith). If you manage to keep your priest out of trouble he can also wear light armor. But sometimes the enemy just slips through. I remember the fights with returned Readric... If you let the Lady of Pain go without Shod-in-Faith - and the Silver Tide from monk is not enough to keep her alive - maybe you want to try out the Cloak of the Tireless Defender + Trollhide Belt (+6 end. every 3 seconds, +7 if you take rapid recovery - which I don't recommend). Together with very high might that results in a significant heal over time (up to 10 per tick- without wasting any casting time). Dual sabres are viable I think. Edit: if you want a plate armor very early: kill the moon godlike that stands east of the temple of Eothas in Gilded Vale. It will not result in reputation loss.

No, it doesn't. It only prolongs benefical effects on you - buffs and healing. And there's a bug: If you suffer from a monk's Torment's Reach debuff (-2 might), it also prolongs that (which is stupid). At the same time it decreases benefical effects on the foes. That, together with carnage - makes it quite useful against mobs that get buffed. Like xaurips and so on. It also prolongs your buffs if the enemy has no buffs on, but then it's more like a trickle. Attack speed stealing always works and is very useful. I was searching for another weapon that gives you an automatic buff on crit or something like that - and use that together with Spelltongue for endless selfbuffing - but I think there isn't one.

I never thought about Llawran's Stick with a barb - sounds good. The Blade of the Endless Paths is also not bad because of +speed and 5 DR reduction - the only thing is it's so full of enchantments that you can't put a lash on it (if I recall correctly). Hours of St. Rumbalt is also a very nice weapon for a barb: It's does not only cause prone on crit, but also has a 0.5 crit damage multiplier. And if you don't want to enchant it to superb that's also ok, because it also has the enchantment that gives +12 ACC (like superb does). Plus: you can put a lash on it. Another bonus if you choose Weapon Focus Soldier: You can always choose between Tidefall, Hours of St. Rumbalt or Tall Grass if you like AND you can use Firebrand from Forgemaster's Gloves from time to time. That sword has no ACC bonus, but it's damage is just insane - especially if you meet high DR foes that have a weakness to fire. There are whole barb builds around that item.

Absolutely great find. Somebody should write an AI script for this and make it totally awesome. I just imagine an Island Aumaua barb with Hours of St. Rumbalt, Tidefall, The Temaperacl and St. Ydwen's Redeemer: prone-wounding-prone-destroy vessel/desponent blows - repeat. Wait... I should do that - sounds like tons of fun all of a sudden! :D I just found out that (besides rings) all spell binding items don't work on wizard's and monk's duplicates any more. edit: or Lost Tayn's Reach (-5 deflection) and Tall Grass: debuff - prone - debuff - prone :D

And we all know: alkohol is no drug!

Just did another quick test: it seems only rings with spell binding work with duplicates. That's a pity - they nerf everything that's cool. Now your duplicate can use Combusting Wounds, Suppress Affliction and Dominate for example. Still ok, but it used to be better. What you use is comletely up to you. I don't want to talk you into something. If you love your barb that's more important than some tiny powergaming tweaks. Maybe your barb will be sturdy and can also do some tanking if you make him a moon godlike an give him Tidefall (give an estoc to the Lady of Pain). Silver Tide and carnage-draining are very good heals. And Tidefall has way more ACC than Firebrand and it's damage is also very high if you put a shocking lash (Stormcaller! ) on it - because it also does carnage-wounding. That's very good for a ranger's pet (Predator's Sense) or somebody who uses Combusting Wounds (from ring or grimoire - Combusting Wounds + carnage wounding = great aoe damage). So... sorry, that all sounds good, ha! :D Maybe you should choose the chars that you love to play the most. That's the most important thing. And then we can help you figure out the best synergy effects between them. That also sounds like fun.

That's difficult - the ranger will do tons of dps (and helps others to do so) - but a wizard or druid adds a lot of flexibility and can really save the day because he can just cast spell after spell if things tend to go down the drain. But as I said earlier: avoid squishy glass cannons. It's better to reduce dps a bit and get at least enough survivability that one enemy can't kill you with two hits. OR be superfast so that you can always run away. Juggernaut is great for TC, so is the Lady. They do good damage while being sturdy. Much better than pure tanks that just stand around while the enemy rushes past them. The priest has enough spells to save the day (just don't put him in cloth - his spells are relatively short ranged). Honestly... I think you should remove the barb - although I love barbs! But for TC runs... They drop dead all the time if they're not wearing Shod-in-Faith or use plate & Blunting Belt. And I guess that the Lady of Pain will wear those boots. A Tall Grass or Tidefall barb is surely great... but I think a sturdy wizard or druid might be better - especially if you have the Stormcaller in your ranks. Mass Confusion (wizard) alone can turn a tough nut into a piece of cake. And there's nothing wrong about a spellsword-wizard in thick armor with Hardened Veil, so... edit: another thing about the armored wizard: his phantoms will also be armored. You can use them as temporal tanks if you need more. I don't know if the duplicates still can use the Spell Bindings on items (the monk's duplicates can not - that was changed with the latest patch). If they can, that's even better for a TC run since you will have the opportunity to summon a duplicate that has a lot of Spell Bindings to spam. If it doesn't work any more - you still have a meat shield that you can put in front of someony who might get knocked out or cast it in front of the enemy if you want to flee and don't want to be followed. edit: Yes, spell binding partly still works on wizard's duplicates. Things they nerfed: Forgemaster's Gloves don't work any more on duplicates, armor's spell bindings don't work any more (tested with the White Crest armor). But you can put on a Ring of Searing Flames and (hopefully) Rotfinger Gloves. That way your duplicate can do some serious aoe damage when combining COmbusting Wounds and Touch of Rod. Or you can wear the Ring of Changing Heart and let your duplicate dominate three foes. So I stringly vote for wizard instead of barb.

The most uncomplicated barb I ever had - lots of tankyness, lots of dps - was the good old Tidefall barb in plate with Shod-in-Faith boots and some gear that prevents disabling. For me he's a blood drinking, mad berserker. Basically: - Tidefall will apply +25% wounding to all carnage hits PLUS 25% draining, giving you a lot of endurance and slowly killing your enemies on top of your normal damage (works like a charm if you combine this with Combustng Wounds!) - Shod-in-Faith will get triggered all the time because barbs deflection is... well... crap? It will heal you very quickly if things get messy. But this allows you to just jump into the fray - You should avoid to be paralyzed and so on because that really can kill you. The rest will not in 99% of cases. Tidefall is superb and you can get it quite early with a mechincs skill of 10+, Shod-in-Faith you can also get really quickly. Before that you can use Gaun's Share plus Oidhreacht for the same but weaker effect. THis tactic needs a bit more CON because your health will suffer. More health is good because you will not need to rest a lot if you have a bigger health pool. Another option is to go for dps and disabling (less tanky): - Tall Grass will prone on crit - carnage also works with that - Don't go into the fray but attack from the sides after your sturdy friends started combat an got engaged - Don't put on too heavy armor because you want to hit fast - but don't be too squishy either. - Use as many +ACC abilities/items/buffs that you can get to cause a lot of crits. Tall Grass is great because you don't have to get too close (reach attack) and still can optimize your carnage aoe - and it is predatory - and it does a lot of damage. With dual wielding you can do this also: Two sabres with carnage are great if it comes to dps. But maybe you want to combine dps and tankyness with disabling? You can use We Toki and Edge of Reason together: one causes prone, the other drains - and they both have a +0.5 crit damage multiplier. Maybe you want superdrain? Take Blesca's Labour & Purgatory. Or you can use the Vile Loner's Lance (-5 defense on hit) and a custom crafted, stunning Cladhaliath for a nice combo effect: first hit lowers deflection, second hit can stun. There are a lot of possibilites. They all are great. It depends which kind of barb you want to play and if you put style over powergaming or if you don't give a damn how stupid your barb looks (two spears are... weird). But as your title says - you're looking for a dps barb. I think nothing does more dps than two sabres. So you could put on heavy armor, shod-in-faith boots and dual wield sabres. There are some nice sabres in the game that you can get early: Resolution and Bittercut. Estocs are also very nice - as Andrea said the White Spire is good for a barb - so is the Grey Sleeper. But all in all I think Tidefall-Guy was the most fun so far.

Wow - that vid is too long for me to watch. However - doesn't matter if "ego" or not. All you need is Stormcaller, Driving Flight, Stunning Shots and Twinned Arrows. At lower levels you can use Swift Aim instead of Twinned Arrwos and retrain when you hit lvl 13. I don't because I don't like to use retraining in my builds. But it surely is more effective. The rest is up to you. If you like your pet to be a dps powerhouse you can do that. You can skill your ranger further with Penetrating Shot and Marksman and Bloody Slaughter and so on (what they call "ego" in that vid)... Do what you like and try things out (well, not in a TC run isuppose ). Another good thing about the Stormcaller Ranger: because he hits up to 4 enemies with one shot (and thus triggers Returning Storm all the time) he will also lower their shock DR by 6 AND stun them, if your pet engagend the initial target (and Returning Storm also stuns). So, stunning shots are greast for your buddies and your pet (because of Merciless Companion). Combine that with a Wounding Shot (DoT) and your pet does crazy crazy dps against the stunned and wounded foe. They hit slow but like trucks. Even high DR foes get hit by 50 points damage and above. Together with Marked Prey I had 100+ dmg crits against armored foes ON TOP of my ranger's damage. And now the lowered shock DR: If you have a buddy that does shock damage (Druid, Wizard or whatever) he will totally love your Stormcaller ranger. You can even cast Expose Vulnarabilites on top of the Stormcaller effect for -11 shock DR bypass an then finish them all with a Jolting Touch (melee wizard), Returning Storm (Druid) or what shock spell you like best. All in all I think Wildstrike-Shock-Druids and Stormcaller Rangers make the best team because the Druid also has lots of DoT-Spells that are great for the ranger's pet if you took Predator's Sense. Whatever - I think you get the impression that I love Stormcaller Rangers - and I do! Maybe I will wirte a class build for that. I just looked it up and although a lot of people use it nobody has posted a buil for it. And, as Andrea said: a Stormcaller cipher is also very nice. Not because of the dps (the ranger is better in that), but he will generate a lot of focus quickly because of the huge DR bypass that Stormcaller can grant. Imagine a DR bypass of 14(!) with that high attack speed (Stormcaller: -6 shock DR, Penetrating Shot: -5, Ryona's Vambraces: -3). And from time to time Soul Shock will be triggered. But I like the Stormcaller Ranger better because of... yeah well, all the awesomesauce that I described above. :D

Pure tanks just don't work any more. Enemies just run past them. You need some ooomph to stop them.

I doubt that they use it only for bugtracking. It's a quite powerful tool.

The Backlash Beldam is quite tanky, but not as tanky as a weapon & shield paladin, chanter or fighter. And remember this cipher tank wants to get hit in order to generate focus. Maybe that's too risky for a TC run. If it comes to "best balance of dps and tankyness", nothing beats a properly build monk in my opinion. Have a look at the Juggenaut build from KDubya. A nicely build wizard is always powerful. Doesn't have to be a glass cannon. If you're not sure about spell radius and so on try a more tanky, melee oriented wizard. They are also great and even viable for a TC solo game. And they have some nice foe-only-spells, too. Most powerful offensive build at the moment is still the stormcaller ranger plus wolf or bear with twinned arrows, driving flight and stunning shot, if you ask me. It's all in one: tons of dps, debuff, cc and low micromanagement. Because of the multiple hits from one shot and the high attack speed Returning Storm gets triggered all the time. Rangers in general are pretty strong now. The dps of the animal companions alone is just insane if you know what you're doing. Also: the animal companions cannot die from low health - so it's a good tactic to send them in first if you want to spare camping supplies or want to soak up the first hefty volleys of an encounter. By the way: after the latest patches I always had the impression that the more sturdy characters I had in the party, the easier the playthrough. Encounters last a bit longer, true, but I don't lose. And by sturdy I don't mean pure tanks with no dps. But 3 CON 3 RES glascannon chars that fall apart when looked at get rushed too often. And once the enemy reaches them it's over for them. Every encounter you try so shield them and keep them away from harm - it's tedious.

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I also realised that some time ago when I used a paladin with quick switch and arbalest, arquebus & sword&board . If you time it correctly (like you described it, L4wlight), you will only have very short recovery phase between shots. But I didn't transfer this knowledge to two handed weapons (stupid me). But let's be honest: That's to much micro (at least for me) to be playable. Pause, switch, pause, switch - all the time? Might be great for supertough fights though - to get better equipment early. .

Exactly

You can use the paladin if move speed (for ectopsychic echo) is the only thing you want: take Zealous Charge, Fast Runner, Boots of Speed and The Last Tower (large shield in Crägholt, move speed +1). This all stacks to +7 move speed without other stuff (+6 without shield). You will lose a bit of tankyness, but seriously you don't need a deflection of more than 100 in most encounters anyway. And because of the tower shield you will have more than that. And for dragons there are the priest's buffs. A very nice thing is to use an island aumaua paladin with quick switch and weapon focus soldier. He can shoot 2 very hefty Intense FoD shots from an arbalest and an arquebus (both with fire lash), killing most squishy wizards and the like. This can trigger on-kill-effects like Inspiring Triumph or Strange Mercy (Kind Wayfarers) or The Black Path (Bleak Walkers). He can quickly switch from shooting to tanking (and running). Later the high move speed is very nice in combination with Sacred Immolation. Also: you can quickly reach your party members for Lay on Hands OR just run away when you see that an encounter goes down the drain. Pure paladin tanks are so boring (and not very effective after the A.I. got improved) - a little bit more dps makes them better - in my opinion. Their defenses are great anyway. p.s.: In order to get The last Tower early, you can run solo through the Torn Bannermen in Crägholt without fighting them. You just have to reach the stairs of the tower while the Torn Bannermen and Undead fight each other. This is possible with all the +move speed talents/items I described above. You need some summons also to discract the foes that insist to follow you no matter how fast you are. If you are in the tower, just go to the treasue room and lockpick the chest with The Last Tower inside. I think you need 10 mechanics minimum to pick the lock. But in a TC run it's very risky - maybe you have to wait for the The Last Tower until your level is high enough.

I was wondering if Novice's Suffering suffers (ha!) from other problems as well. Turns out that all the special attacks of rogues don't work with it. I have a base damage of 23-27 crush with my unarmed rogue at lvl 14 (sandals included). But when I read the tooltips of Crippling Strike (and the others), it says Full Attack(7-10 crush+7-10 crush). When I do deathblows with my fists, the damage is way lower than with hatchets (which have less base damage). Seems that NS is totally bugged. Nobody ever noticed because nobody ever bothered to use it. But in theory this counterpart to Fulmineo (monk with fancy hat/rapier/dagger vs. rogue in robes with fists) would be quite good. The damage is that of sabres (in theory, if NS would work), he would hit faster and you didn't have to use any enchantments to make the fists viable. And with a spear and hatchet in the second slot you would cover all three damage types. Can anyone confirm?

You can put a sabre in the other hand. Or We Toki. Then you would have damage, prone effect and everlasting buffs. Together with a priest this is awesome. Another thing: I just noticed that unarmed attacks do not trigger carnage. I tried out a barbarian with Novice's Suffering, Sandals of the Forgotten Friar and so on - and while the damage is pretty good and he hits very fast, there is no carnage. This has to be a bug.