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This was my MC for my first playthrough. I played on Veteran Upscaled with a party. I completed every quest that could be done honorably including all DLCs. I didn't side with any faction and I skipped the megabosses. The rest of the party: Caltris: A custom Illusionist/Rogue. Xoti: SC Priest of Gaun Eder: SC Warrior Aloth: SC Wizard Prelude: Before Fhorn, there was Will – an estoc-wielding warrior of great resolve. Will's godlike nature made him bear down in times of danger. Will was rocksteady and people all over the Dyrwood grew to rely on him. As a lord, he was just, honorable, and honest. Will's soul was ripped from his body by Eothas and he was resurrected as Fhorn. Bio: Fhorn is a nature godlike barbarian-berserker fighter. He is primarily a damage dealer but also off-tanks. Remnants of Will remain, but as Eder puts it, "Fhorn's got more bark." Others find Fhorn's constant motion distracting. He struggles to contain the energy boiling within him. His treatment by the gods has pushed him to the knife-edge of reason and his rages terrify everyone. As he descends into a battle frenzy, Fhorn chants a litany of Awareness to ward off confusion and madness. His friends breathe a sigh of relief. =================================== Like a Truck, Berserker! =================================== Difficulty: Veteran Upscaled with a Party -------------------------------------------------------------- Class: Brute (Berserker + Fighter) -------------------------------------------------------------- Race: Nature Godlike -------------------------------------------------------------- Background: Deadfire Archipelago – Explorer -------------------------------------------------------------- Stats (No Berath's Blessings): MIG: 15 CON: 12 DEX: 15 PER: 12 INT: 12 RES: 12 -------------------------------------------------------------- Important Skills: Athletics -------------------------------------------------------------- Abilities (a=auto, ®=recommended, !=important) PL1 Barbarian Carnage (a) Berserker (a) Frenzy (!) Blooded ® Arms Bearer ® Fighter Constant Recovery (a) Disciplined Barrage (!) PL2 Barbarian Barbaric Blow (!) Thick Skinned ® Fighter Fighter Stances (!) Two Handed Style (!) Determination ® Confident Aim ® PL3 Barbarian Wild Sprint (!) One Stands Alone ® Bloody Slaughter ® Fighter Tactical Barrage (!) Penetrating Strike (!) PL4 Barbarian Spirit Frenzy (!) Fighter Weapon Specialization ® PL5 Barbarian Barbaric Smash (!) Tough ® Interrupting Blows ® Fighter Mob Stance (!) Armored Grace (!) Unbending ® PL6 Barbarian Lion's Sprint ® Brute Force ® Fighter Clear Out (!) PL7 Barbarian Spirit Tornado (!) --------------------------------------------------------------- Weapon 1: Lord Darryn's Voulge - This weapon is a blast. Not amazing for single target but great for groups. Equip Boltcatchers and apply Storm Toxin for maximum shock value. Weapon 2: The Willbreaker (Make them Flinch, Unavoidable Demise) - A devastating weapon with nasty afflictions and upgrades to ensure they land. Weapon 3: Mechanical Marvel - Fhorn doesn’t do ranged much, but when he does, he prefers an Arbalest with a knockdown. Chest: Patinated Plate (Constant Rebound, Burnished Joints) Helmet: None Amulet: Strand of Favor - For the 10%. Trinket: I rest sparingly, so trinkets get switched out frequently. Cloak: Champion's Cape Gloves: Gatecrashers Ring: Etonia Signet Ring Ring: Ring of the Solitary Wanderer Belt: Ngati's Girdle Boots: Boots of Stone Pet: Epsilon – Less recovery time due to armor for Fhorn, increased stride for party ----------------------------------------------------------------- Offense: Fhorn opens with Tactical Barrage, Lion's Sprint, and Spirit Tornado (Disciplined Barrage, Wild Sprint, and Frenzy at low levels). Barrage cancels out Frenzy's confusion making Fhorn's friends happy. Fhorn is a melee off-tank who wades into the thickest part of the battle, placing as many enemies as possible in range of his carnage AoE and debuffs. With sprint, he's lightning quick, and can land a devastating attack anywhere on the battlefield. An ideal position is on a blob of enemies locked down by Eder. He makes a great hammer to Eder's anvil. He's not worried about stealing aggro, the more enemies focused on him, the faster he gets. Fhorn is most efficient when 3+ enemies are in front of him, but his mobility and interrupting attacks make him a deadly mage hunter too. Fhorn is mundane without an inspiration buff, but any of them will trigger his +1 power-level bonus. Barrage, Frenzy, and Sprint are all cheap inspirations, but Sprint's short duration makes it situational. In many fights, Fhorn can have three active inspirations and rotate between Penetrating Strikes and Barbaric Smashes. Clear Out is an expensive Full Attack knockback on everyone in range, which can be devastating and is also great for repositioning. For long fights, Fhorn conserves most of his resources for inspirations. Defense: Fhorn's best defense is a good offense, but Spirit Tornado terrifies surrounding enemies and Patinated Plate gives a 30% chance to stun attackers when they hit. In a crowd, there's usually a 1 or 2 unable to attack. Fhorn started out in light and medium armor, but it wasn’t enough. So he donned heavy armor and took armored grace. For half the game, he wore Reckless Brigandine. Eventually, he settled on Patinated Plate and was happy ever after. Unbending prolongs the inevitable, but its Xoti that keeps him running. Fhorn takes lots of damage and he's incentivized to make more enemies attack him. In a ~90-hour playthrough with permanent companions, he leads in total damage done (37%), damage taken (48%), and times knocked out (49). Afflictions: Spirit Frenzy staggers on attack (-5 Might, no engagement for 10s). The Morningstar proficiency subtracts -25 Fortitude on hit (Brute Force allows Fhorn’s attacks to target Fortitude or Deflection). Affinity for Being Surrounded: With Mob Stance, Fhorn gets -5% Recovery per threatened target and a killing blow triggers a free Full Attack on one enemy within range. One Stands Alone grants +20% melee damage when near two or more enemies. Ring of the Solitary Wanderer give -35% hostile effect duration when no allies are nearby. Hit and Crit: Lion’s Sprint add +15 Accuracy to the next attack. Will Breaker converts 25% of Misses to Grazes. Confident Aim converts 30% of Grazes to Hits. Willbreaker converts 10% of Hits to Crits. Frenzy converts 30% of Hits to Crits. Bloody Slaughter converts 20% of Hits to Crits on targets <= 25% health and adds +50% crit damage. Disclaimers: I respec'd Fhorn once around level 12, changing him from a dual-wielder to a 2-hand user. I also switched him from the Blood Frenzy track to Spirit Frenzy. He was too fragile at that point in the game, and I thought that Spirit frenzy would give him better survivability and team synergy. Making enemies cower and staggering loads of them is great for survival. Still, I won't deny that I missed melting foes with Blood Frenzy. The reason for the switch to 2-handers was two-fold. First, due to some poor luck or itemization, I hadn't found any axes or flails worth a damn at the time. The second reason was Modwyr. Major spoiler below if you don't already know about Modwyr. Also, the extra penetration from 2-handers and the morningstar's Fortitude debuff.

A howling immortal one-man-army that smashes everything in its path with high Hit-to-Crit conversion. "Sir! The third cohort has been repeled, they suffered heavy casualties! Should we send the cavalry?" "Send the cavalry, the fourth, the fifth, the bloody reserves too! The enemy has us clearly outnumbered!" "...Sir, it's just one man." "what." "With a Morningstar, Sir." https://imgur.com/a/bi7qvIL Until now, Barbarian has been a luckluster class to me, lacking the other martial classes high accuracy, and with not enough sustain to fulfill its role like it did in PoE1. Not to mention lack of any obvious CC. However, the Morningstar modal completely changed my mind: in combination with Brute Force and Might afflictions, one can effectively increase their Accuracy by +35, by lowering the enemies Fortitude of that much. Note that the modal, while having a -25% damage penalty, can be turned off after scoring the first hit, as it persists for ~12s, and then on again. Morningstars are underrepresented - the only two unique ones are Saru-Sichr and The Willbreaker. While the fomer is quite unimpressive, The Willbreaker has the following perks: - 10% attack speed - 10% Hit to Crit - High raw damage over time on Resolve affliction ridden enemies (in this build, we will reach about 90 raw damage over 20s, by just hitting things. RIP deep wounds) - 10% Chance to Shaken on Hit Combine the former with the 30% Hit-to-Crit from Berserker, and another 25% from Intuitive, and we get to a nice ~53% Hit-to-Crit. And that's why we turn at the Devoted subclass, which adds more penetration on top of Tenacious, and additional Crit damage, all the same without losing in versatility, as Morningstars have good damage combination (Pierce/Crush). The issue of self inflicted damage during Frenzy is addressed through spamming of Unbending Shield, Ring of Greater Regeneration, and last but not least, Devil's Due upgrade from The Devil of Caroc's Breastplate (incidentally coming with the Intellect Affliction Resistance we need), which provides healing on scoring Crits. Top this with a Voidward (-25% Raw damage, necessary because at high level and Might Frenzy ends up dealing about 30raw/3s), and you obtain a self-sustaining unstoppable killer. I've tested this character in successfully clearing the Drowned Barrows, Nemnok included. I strongly believe this build is suitable for solo'ing PotD, even though it will suffer A LOT before getting its core ability, i.e. Brute Force, i.e. lvl 16. But again, in this game one can reach that level without much fighting. Here's the build. Race Class Culture and Background Attributes Skills Abilities Equipment