Kingsman

Use the scrolls: - valour to increase accuracey - remove fear - scroll of protection - and the big one: scroll of paralysing The whole idea is to get you accuracy up high enough so the paralysing scrolls will hit so the dragon can't get its breath weapon off. Potions of major endurance help enormously to and that's and under statement.

If you want to play a firearm cipher get ryonas vembraces. They give you -3 dr, plus the blunder buss will have -4, lead splitter -3, penetrating shot -5 So that's - 15 dr fired on every shot. I was doing this on a quick switching cipher (amua) and it was insanely fun, hitting for around 100 damage every time even against targets with high DR. I think this is the best cipher build. There is an argument that warbows provide more dps over time but you won't need to with that long if you unload 3 shots of a blunder then switch to melee.

The redeemer is probably the only one I find useful and basically the only one I use. The other one would be storm caller. Storm caller is super powerful at early levels but I reckon borresain legendary enchanted wielded by a ranger with twin arrows and driving flight would probably be just as good or even better. The unlabored blade is useless. I just finished my latest play through with a cipher using the unlabored blade and I honestly never noticed it go off. Don't use it it use useless. Maybe barbs can make better use of it via carnage but I do t think it would be worth it. Abydons hammer AOE stun is insanely powerful, especially if used by a character with high intelligence. Give abydons hammer to a priest with minor avatar and you probably will have the most powerful build in the game. Maybe a fully buffed wizard could beat it.

Without going I to every class and giving my opinion on changes I would prefer I will just stick to what I think is a couple of stand out issues. 1. The wizards spells as they gain levels are quite dull and boring, also not very powerful. Maybe the devs didn't want them becoming to over powered and they did this on purpose but man it sucks having a big heap of useless high level spells. That's why I think priests are so well liked, most of there spells can actually be used in many different circumstances. 2. The game really does need more interesting and in depth content, similar to bg2.

I have played over ten play throughs and ever time I have rolled a rogue. I am halfway through my current play through (without a rogue on POTD ) and it is so much easier. The conclusion I have come to is that if you role a rogue you need a priest to keep him alive so even though the rogue is doing insane amounts of dps he is doing that at the cost of nearly 2 player companions because the priest spends a lot of him time baby sitting him. So in effect that is 2 characters doing all that dps that the rogue is out putting. Also is you role a rogue also a lot of you party members will spend time trying to activate buffs and debuffs to set up deathblows. These other party members could be better of spending that time doing damage themselves or setting up buffs that don't revolve around deathblows. My current party consist off: Fighter melee tank hybrid Paladin melee tank hybrid Amua quick switch cipher / melee Storms druid , good at both ranged and melee Storm calling ranger Ranged dps / cc wizard (not a blasting wizard) concentrates on getting all those talents that increase elemental damage This is the easiest playthrough I have ever played and I'm really enjoying it. I don't need a priest beacuse I have no weak melee characters to babysit and my two front line tanks can handle themselves pretty well. Awesome!!!!!!

^^^^^^* That's a pretty good point that rangers don't have many options for punching through damage reduction. Some of the ways you suggested a ranger can increase damage are not very reliable ones either like flanking bonus, pet, sneak attack. A lot of people have said that after the introduction of twin arrows rangers will out dps rogues. I seriously doubt that they would come anywhere near rogue dps output. Ranger do have a few options for reducing DR though eg 6 DR on stormcaller and that talent that reduces another 5 DR, possibly other ways aswell

Do you reckon a warbow ranger would be better of with max might or dex?

^^^^ Intelligence left at 10 on a rogue works ok. I've found with rogues they punch out some serious damage with deathblows, sneak attacks ect......so you would want to land these hits as quickly as possible hence why I pump dex. Yes I usually pump perception aswell. My typical rogue build will have 20 dex 20 perception and everything else left at 10. I am thinking that if I rolled a rogue and duelled daggers (drawn in spring) I would be better of pumping might and perception not dexterity.

I wonder if say for example you where a rogue dual wielding daggers if you would be better of leaving dex at 10 and raising might to 20. This would help with punching through damage reduction. But with sabres you might be better of leaving might at 10 and pumping dex to 20 because sabres are slower then daggers? Or would you be better off pumping might for sabres? Confusing

If you dual wield, say a rogue with 2 weapons or a fighter. Is it important to have high dexterity or does using 2 weapons somewhat negate the benefits from having high dex?

Yeah I agree. Ciphers are a really cool class to play beacuse they are so original and they role play really well but I found them to be very under powered after all the patch nerfs. I basically only ever roll a cipher for 3 reasons: amplified wave, time parasite and defensive mindweb. These powers aren't gained untill probably the last 30% of the game so at low levels they aren't really that great. You have whisper of treason but that is really about the only power I use early on. Amplified wave , parasite and mindweb are 3 pretty good reasons to roll a cipher but:) Super powerful spells.

How does time parasite last the entire fight? In the spell description it says 12 second duration (which can be extended by intelligence ) Also it's probably worth telling the OP that wounding does not generate focus? I think ( drawn in spring)

Seriously. When is this patch coming out any news?

^^^^^^ I don't think the thread has been derailed. The op has probably gotten the best run down on how to build a barb existing on this planet.

Yeah thanks for the help on this one. Good thing I sorted it out playing the game will be more enjoyable now. I just wish the soulbound proc wasn't so low then those weapons would be worthwhile also

Yeah I thought all weapons work like spell chance and it doesn't accurately explain what you said in the weapon descriptions when you acquire them. Why do the soulbounds proc so low. I'm am 100 % certain they hardly ever work and this is what probably put me off the other weapons

I didn't no the hammer stunned 100% of the time on crit. Can others confirm this I am skeptical?

The best thing a barb can do is actually *perma* stun/prone all enemies near, thing that a wizard/druid can do too for sure, but just 1-2 per rest and not every encounter Other things barbs excels at ( expecially in solo) : - having an healing ability on par with unbending+ recovery ( with High int and str and some healing bonus you are unkillable as far stalwart defence is on) - reach 0 recovery from lvl 2 or a very low recovery also with sword e shield thks to bloodlust and frenzy - is very sturdy ( comparable to warrior and monk) thks to large health pool, healing, shouts, +2 dr ability - with heart of fury can insta-kill groups of 5+ mobs ( or severe dmg the most sturdy ones), exactly what warriors, rangers, rogue will have the worst machup - like other said at the beginning of the game clean a group of wicht or Groups of 5+ mobs is easy with barb and near impossibile with rogue if you don't use kiting, splitting ecc ( that i found very boring overall) - at High lvls dragon leap is a good tool for escape/positioning ( on par with warrior's charge imho) Of course vs bosses ( dragon mainly ) underperforms if compared with a warrior ( higher survivability), paladin ( higher defeces that make him untouchable), ranger ( confuse bow abuse) or a rogue with scrolls, i'm not sure vs a "normal melee" rogue since you have to tank all the mobs by yourself and the survivability of the rogue is not his best part. Anyway in my experience solo with barb is more fun and easy than solo with rogue,ranger, warrior or pala for example, but that is mainly dependant from my playstile than from a difference in " raw power" between the classes ( i don't like spend 2h for cleaning every encounter with pala and warrior ; i don't like to kite all day with ranger/rogue or skip fights with rogue). In the end the fact that there are soo many different opinion is just a proff that the game is overall well balanced and that personal preferences in playstile matter more than other things. @boeroer: i'm always afraid to go in a middle of a fight with 3 res and low dex because i fear the mass interrupt effect, but let me know how it works for you! You cannot perma stun groups of enemies. Those weapons proc on 10% on a hit or a crit, not on a graze and not on a miss. I have tried this myself and it works very irregularly. A wizard can actually do it better from range with blast and relevant weapon especially the sceptre that dominates because of its super high accuracy.

Dude if your new and you only have a cipher, priest, wizard and a chanter I am surprised you even made it to caed nua. Your doing well. If you make 2 dedicated tanks with shields ( fighters or paladins) most of your problems will go away. Keep playing you will love the game.

No, not really about the fighter, I think he's just too limited to counter all possible builds of rogues or monks, but that's ok.But why that "half brain" statement? It's like you want to be shouted at. ;)But what about the facts? See my edit above. I personally think a fighter would beat a rogue quite easily due to unbending and unbroken.

Monk maybe. Rooting Pain can be a pain in the back for a rogue - and I don't think a barb is a match for a monk in 1:1 situations anyways. But rogues have the big advantage of the first strike - be it with Shadowing Beyond or a ranged weapon that causes a massive debuff like Sap or Blinding Strike. I guess if everything is allowed and both are build properly then the rogue will win most 1:1 fights against a barb - and maybe also against the monk. It's all about the alpha strike. Ranged Sap and then stunlock with dual weapons which have on-crit-effects will be very deadly. If you would outrule disables like stun, prone and weapons which do this - or if you use scrolls against those afflictions it might look different. I guess it's also very depended who announces his build first so that the other can answer it with a specially tailored build. You would have to use "blind building" and so on to make it fair. Maybe we should set something up! Sounds fun. :D This discussion inspired me to do a barb solo run on PoTD by the way. I want to do every encounter in the game. I did all the Gilded Vale related quests and all fights except Temple of Eothas and Raedric's Castle. I'm in the Temple now at char lvl 4 (or 5? Can't remember). So far I had no bigger problems. Sporelings and Xaurip Skirmishers were a bit hard though without "mild cheese" (splitting, kiting, lots of consumables). Atm I'm using dual fine sabres with 0 recovery - and 2 DEX . Maybe I will retrain once I get a weapon with on-crit-effect like The Hours of St. Rumbalt. Disabling, Annihilation and Blood Thirst sounds like a good combination to me. Let's see... Ok. So everyone with half a brain has acknowledged that a to rogue would beat a barbarian in pvp. I also agree that a monk would beat a barb in pvp. I think a fighter would beat both a rogue and a monk due to the unbending and unbroken talents. Do you agree? The point I am trying to make here is that the barbarian is the weakest melee class. The barbarian has no talents to select at level up that make any real significant difference to how much impact they can have on the game. Barbarians just scale quite slowly as the game progresses and does not gain any powers that are game changing. Ranger gets twin arrows Fighter gets unbending, unbroken Rogue usually out damages my entire party combined Wizard gains super powerful spells Cipher gets amplified wave, time parasite, mindweb Druid Relentless storm which is insanely powerful Priest gets awesome spells including minor avatar which when combined with abydons hammer possibly makes the preist the most powerful class in the game Paladin gets immolation The only ability I can see that is worth anything that a barbarian gets is carnage which helps in the trash fights but against harder opponents is completely obsolete and your party never struggles on the trash fights so what is the point in this?....and the argument I keep hearing is that the barb can proc stun or prone affects via carnage, man seriously a caster can do that from safety at a distance !!!!!!!!! If the best thing about a barbarian is that he can basically do exactly what the slicken spell can do but he has to execute it from zero range and there is only about a 15% chance it will actually work because of the low weapon proc rate then I don't want to use one

None off you have still not addressed the facts I raised. Please just refer to those facts and reply back to those facts only. I'm getting sick of repeating myself.

I'm not saying you can beat the game with a barb. What I am saying is a fighter, paladin, rogue, wizard, druid, cipher, ranger and a priest (minor avatar) would beat a barbarian in pvp combat and would also be better vs groups. This is all very plainly clear.

^^^^^ Fair enough. I appreciate your stance there. But if you roll a barb your still going to go down quite quickly if your surrounded by enemies while you distribute damage reduction negated damage via damage reduced carnage and for the other reasons I have stated and this is a scenario that is not pvp. I'm not saying you can't roll a barb and still beat the game it will just be far easier with any other melee character

If you want to paint the barbs in a pretty picture please refer to my last post where I stated the RAW FACTS and please show me how I have made an error. No generalisations please just raw facts that specifically relate to what I said.