mosspit

I might try a melee ranger again. I did attempt one with Sagani pre-2.0 but it was quite underwhelming. But then again that was when companion pets were meh. CW is pretty cool, only beef with it is that it is hard to track. Usually I would be too focused on allocating commands and controlling the battlefield to notice the dmg contributions. And then the enemy just died. Happened to Alpine and to upscaled Thaos in my completed PotD/ToI all-melee playthough. Kinda anti-climatic, and combat log doesn't state much either. It is like once CW is in place and the party start stacking the DoTs, the dmg dealt just scales up fast. And in a way passively too.

No druids or wizards unfortunately It was an all-melee party so I didn't use Persistence (Persistence is that Wounding Bow right?). I had 4 offtanks / tanks facing Alpine once I cleared the adds and 2 of them had Retaliation together with PL and Potions of FS on the my main tank. Priest and Cipher was positioned out of range of his breath attack, but still in spell range. With only 1 cast of CW, I was very surprised at how fast Alpine dropped considering I didn't stick the usual afflictions on him. I didn't even use the +DR bypass gloves, I would imagine it will fall even faster.

So I *finally* made it to Alpine in this current PotD / ToI playthrough since I managed to squeeze in some time. And I must say that the Combusting Wounds strat is quite effective. I basically combined CW with as many DoT as I can with my party composition - Pain Link, Recall Agony, Scroll of Fire Wall, Tidefall, Potion of Flame Shield. After which once Scale Breaker and Body Attunement was applied, Alpine went down really fast. I didn't even notice how Alpine went from Barely Injured to Almost Dead lol. Was tempted to use Deprive the Unworthy but decided against it

Thanks Boeroer. To abuse or not to abuse hmmmm.....

Well, I used a Barb without a priest in my no-caster run before. Still okay I guess. Priest is simply a huge combat modifier for the entire team so no surprise that Barb effectiveness is greatly increased. My thought process for barbs is this: If there is a new weapon with an interesting on-hit effect, put it on a barb

Indeed. My previous reply might seem a tad negative towards the Barb. But as Boeroer said, they are quite fun once your build comes together. It is quite satisfying to go through the barb's early game, slowly accumulating the items, skills and talents needed and then experience the way the same barb rekt stuff once things are in place. It is worthwhile to stick with one through the game imo.

Yeah... similar to the barb's old OSA, it is an "enjoy it while it last" kind of thing.

Thanks Aarik, patch 3.0 then

I have tried a 2H WF Adventurer barb, a dual WF Peasant barb, a dual WF Ruffian barb and a dual WF Knight barb. The thing about barbs is that they are highly item dependent I feel. So they take a longer time to come "online" than most. Before that, you probably will not notice them making significant contribution to a battlefield. Their early game is quite unimpressive. Before lvl5, they are also quite squishy and I had to play them like rogues just so they don't fall unconscious often. And since they inherently have lower acc than most frontliners and carnage itself lowers acc even more, you need high Per just to overcome this. Especially so if you use on-crit proc weapons. Attack speed is also important as mentioned. You will want high atk speed to get the mobs to stay interrupted/cc'ed between your attacks, and you also need speed to compensate for the slower swinging of 2H weapons should you want the higher dmg. My latest playthrough I even forgo Frenzy to use Potions of DAoM instead since the potions gives higher attack speed increase and suppressed the ias from Frenzy. So decent Per and Dex investment are kind of needed. They also need other stats to be honest. For Int for example, I only have 2 points in there and supplement it with +2 int item and a ring of overseeing. Oh yeah, I really like Barb with the St Ydwen's Redeemer I made my Barb an Island Aumaua because of that.

Darcozzi is a good choice. Can't go wrong with more acc.

Oh that... all of my playthroughs past 2.0 are ToI so testing isn't convenient. Oh and I might as well also provide the alternate version of the helm. It is Retaliation.

I was referring to the part where Spelltongue "reapplies " Suppress Affliction effects instead of just extending its duration. That would be very neat if the interaction was as such

Yes they are. Welcome to 2.03

Wow it will be something else if spelltongue interacts with suppress affliction like that. If that's the case then theoretically you can very easily shrug off any affliction that doesn't prevent actions. Even domination can be self removed if the dominated char hits someone else under the effects of SA (Domination can be removed by SA cast) . Very close to affliction immunities. Sadly, I can't test post-2.0 weapons and abilities easily.

Interesting ability but I don't recall it gotten any of my party unconscious before. I too play melee heavy parties for 3 playthroughs now where most of the characters have decent defences. In fact my current all-melee playthrough has no real squishies. Even my priest wearing robes has a shield and the W&S talent.

No worries man. You mean well after all

Yeah Boeroer, I also know how it works. In fact, I gave the same explanation on how HoF works some time ago already. https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/82781-most-overpowered-builds-post-patch-202/?p=1742706 The point of the screenshot is just to put what the skill does into context and to show the potential for its dmg. I always have been interested in looking at some combat logs on how the skill performs but I never really found any. So I might as well do it myself

Just thought I provide a screenshot on what I thought was interesting. This is a Heart of Fury activation on the Gleaming Society Bounty with the original HoF hitting (just) 4 enemies. The barb is non-minmaxed and isn't a dps build. She is more of an area CCer wielding We Toki and Wodewys . The enemies has about 9-17 DR so there is significant reduction in dmg dealt. The potential for dmg is not bad for a barb.

Well Torm, if I may drop my 2 cents. You already done a PotD / ToI playthrough. And went through encounters like Alpine. To me that's about 85%-90% of a full fledge Triple Crown, or more. Expert Mode might as well be Inconvenience Mode. And your decision to focus more on Per is based on your insights from running a PotD / ToI in the first place. So I think you will do well enough with your current thought process for your party builds.

Lol welp it is holiday season after all

You should go easy on those cubra libres...

Well food aren't a must have thing and as some has stated might be more trouble than it's worth. You can perfectly run PotD without touching one of them. The thing is it provides some added options. For example if you ran a playthrough that is restrictive, food can give you some ways to even up the odds somehow if needed. In particular for battles with a difficulty spikes. It might seem counter intuitive but it is also about making fine adjustments to get to the sweet spot that you can find challenging without performing horribly. Also for playthroughs that are extremely restrictive like ToI with possibly other restrictions, you will naturally want to explore all other options to lower the risks. Even if food gave +1 only, I will still use them in some of my playthroughs since every favourable nudge in the dice rolls is risk I don't have to take and restart the entire playthrough.

Maybe it's just me, but I don't use the potions for all encounters. Just the ones that need the extra oomph. Also I won't use those potions until a certain point where the build has come together in terms of skills, talents and equipment to maximise the effectiveness of the potions.

Just to say that using consumables is perfectly viable. In my current playthrough (really taking my time on this one), I forgo Frenzy and am using Deleterious Alacrity of Motion potions for the atkspd boost.

Indeed interesting and a tad unconventional. The thought of using with a single hand on-crit cc weapon is quite attractive.