Jackjonez

Aoe hard CC Barbarian is dead. Though Barb, particularly pure, does get some soft aoe options: Shout, eventually Frightening Spirit Tornado. There are items with solid trigger chances. Ball and Chain can be enchanted to trigger Prone on crit, I think. Rust's Poignard has 30% but for a long-lasting Prone, with additional damage effects built in against downed enemies. The itemization is great in general. Trouble is, those are single target. Carnage has been nerfed badly and no longer transports weapon effects (except Lord Darryn's Voulge Static Thunder, which in Barbarian's hand causes aoe Disorient on crit and explodes accumulated Static Thunder stacks). But there are new options. Best of them are ranged, I'm afraid. Blunderbuss mortar weapons, which target Reflex, deal slash/pierce damage in aoe... and deliver special attacks in aoe, such as Monk Stunning Blow, but also Rogue Blinding/Confounding/Gouging Strike, Crippling/Arterial Strike, Toxic Strike DoTs and such. Even better that you can dual wield them (so 2x affliction chance, 2x crit chance, 2x resource refund chance in case of Stunning Surge)! Rod Blast modal does this as well (but is slow). Plus the summoned weapons that were already present in PoE1: wizard Blights, Citzal's Spirit Lance, probably also Rotskulls, but I'm not sure. With multiclassing you can combine the ability to summon such weapons with CC abilities from another class. There are also some melee aoe weapons: Whispers of the Endless Paths GS (attacks in a cone), Wahai Poraga pollaxe (attacks up to 4 targets around, friend or foe). And for what its worth, I think the gameplay, pacing, exploration, itemization, combat is much better in PoE2. Character building is much more involved (although classes have lost a bit of their uniqueness). Also the main town hub is incomparably better. Thank you! You answered one of my main concerns. Carnage is no longer a CC viable option, but rather just a damage dealing ability in PoE2. That's a mighty shame

I loved barbarian's carnage A LOT in PoE1 and its ability to debuff everyone if using a debuffing weapon like Tall Grass. So did I understand it correctly that carnage no longer applies weapon debuffs to every target? If so, then that's a huge disappointment and a nerf.

Thanks for all the comments everyone! I'm certainly leaning towards buying the game after reading this, although I'm a bit bummed that the game appears to have evolved more into the direction that I don't like. I've been watching a lot of tutorials on different builds and it seems that PoE2 is tuned more towards dishing out as much damage as possible rather than controlling the battlefield. I don't know, maybe I'm watching the wrong tutorials

Hi folks, I just finished my second playthrough of PoE1 and I'm loving the game. I am particularly fond of the barbarian class, its carnage ability and the various weapon debuffs (eg. disorienting) and effects (eg. stun upon crit) that synergize with these. I am now debating whether to purchase PoE2 or not, because I read from a review that similar items no longer exist, which puts a dampener on my plans. The same review explained that effects from weapons such as stuns are now based on a certain percentage instead of a flat attack vs. defence check, for example 20% chance to stun upon crit, which sounds very infrequent tbh. Is it true that similar CC barbarian builds from PoE1 based on item powers (the Leech was one of my all time favourites) are no longer viable in PoE2? Is there an item database where you can browse items based on their abilities like there was for PoE1? I know it sounds one dimensional to base your builds on certain items, but that's how I've always liked to play my characters. I have limited time to play games and I wouldn't want to make a purchase that I'd regret later on for not playing. Any help is appreciated