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I haven't played barbarians much, so I was thinking of rolling one. Corpse-eater sounded interesting at first. Oh, eat a kith/wilder/beast corpse and get +3 rage and heal +50 health? Neato. Oh, it takes 3s with 3s recovery and at 0 range? Oh, well, I guess it has to be balanced out somewhere. But wait, this downside: "abilities cost 1 more rage"... what?? Never mind that your likely rage spenders are super cheap so +1 rage cost is a massive increase (with 6 rage you could do 6 barbaric roars on a vanilla barbarian vs... 3), but the +1 rage cost means that if you use three abilities in a fight, you have to eat at least one corpse in a fight just to do the same thing a vanilla barbarian can. I.E. with 6 rage you can barbarian blow three times with a vanilla barb, or barbarian blow twice, eat corpse, barbarian blow again and now you've just done what a normal barbarian could already do... you don't really start to benefit in most cases until the second corpse (and if you're spamming frenzy/shouts you actually need three corpses to turn a "profit"). I mean, sure, you heal 50 health/corpse, but this ignores the fact that you probably had to break off an engagement to go eat a random corpse and the opportunity cost of wasting 6 seconds to do this (likely more with armor). And in fights with vessels/spirits/primordials, you're just straight up worse than a vanilla barbarian. Seems like an awful lot of downside for little gain (e.g. long kith/wilder/beast fights where you can eat enough corpses to turn a "profit" all while that 6 second/corpse opportunity cost isn't somehow costing you the fight). Am I missing something here? Is kith meat/forbidden pie just that good in practice?

"Let's go to the Golden Dragon and ask for protection." "Why should we go to a fancy exotic restaurant? How are they supposed to... Ahhh - THAT Golden Dragon! Right!" - Two shop owners who got bullied by thugs - Menu of the day: Appetizer: a fresh shout served with an echo First course: fiercest barbarian yelly Main course: sliced heart of fury with a taste of hunt Dessert: sweet minor fatigue, served with a bit of anger - Menu card of The Golden Dragon - The Golden Dragon is the wild, unconventional, but also posh counterpart to a usual bodyguard – distinguished by his frightening and threatening presense and his recklessness and his predilection to substitute raw aggression for discipline, but also by his showy style and his bravado. Lacking the accuracy and strong deflection of a fighter, the Golden Dragon makes up for this through intimidation, savagery and abilities tailored for repelling groups of enemies. The Golden Dragon is a challenge to deal with on a battlefield, though he is vulnerable if his nice shiny armor gets splattered with gore too much. The Golden Dragon loves to show off and uses illeism - usually referring to himself as "The Golden Dragon". Some say this man wasn't even born, but created by two animancers who realized their ideas of a perfect bodyguard... =================================== The Golden Dragon =================================== Difficulty: PotD v. 3.03 -------------------------------------------------------------- Class: Barbarian -------------------------------------------------------------- Race: Pale Elf -------------------------------------------------------------- Background: Old Vailia - Colonist -------------------------------------------------------------- Stats (character creation): MIG: 18 CON: 03 DEX: 04 PER: 16 INT: 19 RES: 18 -------------------------------------------------------------- Skills: Stealth 0, Athl. 4, Lore 6, Mech. 0, Surv. 14 -------------------------------------------------------------- Abilities (a=auto, r=recommended, !=important) Elemental Endurance (a) Barbaric Yell (!) Heart of Fury (!) Threatening Presence One Stands Alone ® Dragon Leap (!) Savage Defiance (!) Thick-Skinned Echoing Shout ® Talents Veteran's Recovery (!) Weapon & Shield Style (!) Stalwart Defiance ® Superior Deflection ® Spirit of Decay Weapon Focus: Ruffian Accurate Carnage Bear's Fortitude ® --------------------------------------------------------------- Items (*=additional echantments by me; !=important, r=recommended): Weapon set 1: Bittercut (*legendary, *corrosive lash, *durgan refined) & Dragon's Maw Weapon Set 2: Captain Viccolo's Anger (*corrosive lash) & Little Savior Boots: Fenwalkers Head: Liripipe of Thinking Armor: The Golden Scales (*Durgan Reinforced) Neck: Cloak of Comfort Belt: Binding Rope Rings: Ring of Deflection, Ring of Protection Hands: Siegebreaker Gauntlets Quick slots: stuff ----------------------------------------------------------------- First of all - the basic idea for this build popped out of Jojobobo's head in a threat about barb tanks some months ago. We discussed some things and afte a while agreed that I would post the build (if it's viable) while he wanted to follow some different build ideas in detail (look at his Silver flash chanter build!). So, thanks Jojobobo for all the input! Your ideas proved to be very viable: this was the best main tank I ever played so far. Some people may know that I absolutely loath those pure tanks who can only soak damage and do nothing else - well, this is not one of those. Thanks to Heart of Fury and Bittercut, ombined with certain bashing shields, this "tank" did TWICE as much damage as my dps wizard in the same party - while being VERY sturdy even with dumped CON (more on that later). The main idea of this build is not only to stack defenses, but also to debuff enemies' ACC values. This not only helps our barbarian to tank better, but it's also benefical for our whole party's survival. Although he's slow, he should also be able to dish out good damage per hit. This is important for carnage and esp. later for HoF (attack speed doesn't matter there). When thinking about lowering enemies' ACC, things like dazing (-10 ACC and also -2 PER which leads to -12 ACC overall), frightened (-10 ACC) and so on come to mind. A barbarian can lower enemies' ACC in an AoE with abilities like shouts & leap, via items with auras, via spell binding or scrolls and also via carnage: ACC debuffing abilities: - Barbarian Yell frightens in a faily big AoE (-10 ACC) - Barbarian Shout terrifies in a really huge AoE (-20 ACC) - Dragon Leap dazes in an AoE which size is comparable to carnage's (-12 ACC) - Echoing Shout dazes in a ridiculously long AoE line (-12 ACC) - Threatening Presence causes sickened in a quite small AoE when you don't move. PER gets reduced. (-1 ACC) ACC debuffing via carnage: - Glittering Gauntlets daze on hit (-10 ACC) - Captain Viccolo's Anger causes Minor Fatigue on hit (-10 ACC) - Lost Thayn's Reach causes interfering on hit (-5 ACC) ACC debuffing via aura: - Executioner's Hood's Intimidating Presence causes frightened in a quite small AoE and has reduced ACC (-10 ACC) - Redfield's Harbinger aura causes -3 ACC in a quite small AoE (-3 ACC) ACC debuffing via spells/scrolls: - Elryn's Jacket has a spell chance of Eyestrike that blinds (-29 ACC) - Stuck via Binding Web or Binding Rope (-5 ACC) - Forgotten Tear of the Beloved has a daze spell chance (-10 ACC) Maybe I forgot something. Of course you could also use a weapon with overbearig or stun to lower enemies ACC to 0 if you crit - because disabled foes can't hit you. Based on this, I developed the barb you see above. Of course not all the things I mentioned above stack. So I tried to develop a char which isn't too micro-intense, can stack a good amount of ACC debuffs without too much fuzz, who is sturdy and - maybe most important - looks nice. At the same time there are only two bashing shields that are good with carnage & HoF: Badgradr's Barricade and Dragon's Maw. This limits the style options significantly I'd say. Here you see the outcomings. Let's talk about how I do encounters with him at lvl 16: 1.: The barb enters combat and then casts Echoing Shout, prefarably if a priest buffed his ACC. Enemies who run towards him get damaged and dazed: -12 ACC. 2.: The barb casts Stalwart Defiance - I know, why start healing right from the start? Well, because it also gives you +10 to all defenses and the start of the combat usually is the time where a main tank needs defenses the most. Think about the opening salves of Lagufaeth, wizards and stuff. His defeses are now +10. 3.: Then he yells his finest yell and causes frighten all around him in a big AoE. Best thing, again, would be to yell after your ACC got buffed by a fellow priest or so. The enemies' ACC is debuffed by additional 10 points. 3.: He jumps into the place with Dreagon Leap where he will hit most enemies with his HoF. If there were enemies without dazing, now they usually are dazed and even more damaged. 4.: He triggers HoF with Bittercut + Dragon's Maw, dealing tons of damage with the high dmage of bittercut and Taste of the Hunt from Dragon's Maw, not only diond raw damage but also completely healing (if even neccessary). Most of the time this means death for all enemies in range. It's awesome. 5.: If enemnies survived, he switches to "full tank mode" with Captein Viccolo's Anger & Little Savior and causes Minor Fatigue via carnage while buffing his and fellows' defenses via herald enchantment: -10 ACC of enemies, +5 to all our defenses, add. +5 to deflection. If you want, you can take Brbaric Shout, too. It#s a very strong debuff and totally fits the theme, I also had it for some time. But I realized I seldomly used it because usually the yell was enough. It doesn't stack with frightened and is per rest - so thought I'd take something else instead. All the debuffs and defense buffs stack, meaning we will have the equivalent of up to +47 points to all defenses - on top of your already great deflection and other defenses (which are balanced). This can be buffed further by any deflection or defense buff: the things the barb does stack with everything which is a great plus. So, for example a Circle of Defense would lead to +62 to all defenses (if you add up ACC debuffs and defense buffs). YOu could even buff deflection further with Shields for the Faithful - stacks! This is also the reason why I could easily dump CON to 3: you seldomly get hit. And even if: survival bonus (+60% healing) combined with Veteran's Recovery and Taste of the Hunt lead to full endurance all the time. And even with 5 CON (3 base + items) this barb has as much endurance as a fighter with 10 CON. Of course the early game is a more challanging this way. And sure, fortitude is a bit low - that's why I took Bear's Fortitude so that my defenses may be balanced. Of course you will meet enemies that are immune to dazing of frightening - but it's not very common that enemies are immune to both. And even then those encounters are not the toughest ones, so it doesn't matter at all. By the time you get HoF you can have Badgradr's Barricade, which works perfectly well with this build. In fact I'd say for offense it's even better than the Dragon's Maw - so it's a matter of taste. Down below I will also add a variant of this build with Badgrad'r Barricade. I took it until I got Dragon's Maw. Before the WHite March I used a large shield without bash with a common sabre - and thanks to the high PER it worked quite well for me. Because Dragon's Maw has this special look, for me the only armor that fits to it are the Golden Scales. And since now everything's golden, I had to put on th Liripipe of Thinking, because it's the only headgear with an enchantment that looks cool with this outfit. Of course there are better helmets out there - but I can't play when I must always fear that the dyrwooden style militia may arrest me because of fashion crimes. --- Variant A: The Golden Dragon with Godansthunyr ------------------------------------------------------------------ When using Godansthunyr, you can skip Spirit of Decay and take Vulnerable Attack instead. It also works well with HoF and it looks really badass with the shield and armor. Variant B: Veildancer ---------------------------- When using Badgradr's Barricade until the end things get difficult with your outfit. You can either use a generic armor that can be dyed (crucible knights' plate looks nice) or you choose the monk's robes from the Abbot of the Abbey of the Fallen Moon. It's ok to have lower DR. Thick Skinned + Second Skin will give you +5 to physical damage and you will be faster. It's a bit more dps and a bit less sturdyness (while still being very sturdy). You could swap a bit MIG for CON if you want, but I tried it with the original stats and it works fine. Too bad there are only unenchatned helmets that look cool with this outfit - but on the other hand: the game is so easy later on that you can favour style over power, right? This doesn't look as a golden dragon at all - hence the alternative name. Also: Bittercut's green stain doesn't look so great with all that turquoise, so I took Resolution instead which also works really well - with Thrust of Tattered Veils you'll do crush damage, so the singe damage type isn't too bad. And annihilation with HoF is nice of course. Here you can also skip Spirit of Decay and use Vulnerable Attack or something else you like - Penetrating SHot works with Thirst of Tattered Veils without slowing you down in melee - this can also be a good pick. Or Gallant's Focus maybe?

-----Part 1 : Build Base----- Version: 5.0 Build Name: Druidian Grandet Description: She's the younger sister of Eugenie Grandet, basically a Windfury Shaman + Affliction Warlock... Class: Tempest (Solo: Furyshaper + Lifegiver) or (Party: Berserker + Lifegiver/Ancient) 1.What' new? Nothing, sorry... just love to build around less popular classes 2.Synergy? (1) Blood Frenzy adds raw DoT to every crit of Druid spell pulses, and Druid does a myriad of those attack rolls targeting Reflex/Deflection (Well, as you have expected, Berserker + Slayer's Claw grants Energized and will also enable you to almost interrupt-lock group enemies, but that self dmg from Frenzy can be devastating on Solo + Iron Man. So if you choose to play in party, Berserker is a solid choice) (2) Brute Force applies to Druid spells as well, namely Wicked Briars and Venombloom (Your main group dmg source). (3) Wards are regarded as summons, so you wont lose much being a Lifegiver since only one group of summons is allowed anyway (4) Yes indeed, your poor Wards can be used as precious decoy to separate enemies or to help you retreat and de-aggro. Druid creatures take centuries to summon (base 6s) , leaving you extremely vulnerable to interruptions, so..meh (5) Lifegiver provides cheaper Robust, various HoTs, and limited but good +AR spells to help Furyshaper build inner defense, since Barbarian has miserable Deflection and has to use AR and healing to stay alive when solo. (6) HoTs can help Barbarian remain Bloody a little longer than instant healing. Race: Pale Elf (Solo: +1 Dex and +4 Fire and Freeze AR) or Nature Godlike (Party: +1 Dex and +1 PL while Frenzy) Background: Deadfire Archipelago + Hunter Difficulty: Triple Crown A painful but rewarding experience... this build is a nuke in party(confirmed), but i have to admit that it lacks solutions to real threats when solo, i.e. 3 of the 4 megabosses. After some regrettable failure, i had to re-roll a full DEX character and picked up Scordeo's Edge, and eventually converted to Strand of Favor (which are usually banned from my list), making it another victim of Strand of Favor shenanigans. To make some clarifications, this build wont have any problem dealing with main game bosses, some DLC bosses and plain Guardian of Ukaizo (although you need serious micromanagements from time to time). To this end, it is a Triple Crown viable build. Solo: Yes But not recommended, drop Iron Man if you do want a solo run. 15 Required Bosses: Depends on your code If you do mind Strand of Favor cheats, then 8 only (5 main game + Neriscyrlas + Belranga + plain Guardian of Ukaizo) Or, all 15 if you dont. Below is a combat pic of Dorudugan WITH Strand of Favor cheating PoE1 Set Up: Hiravias for additional DEX and Slash AR(Apologize in advance) and Hylea's Bounty Stats: MIG: High. Healing and dmg bonus all together are so good for this build. CON: Low. Tempest has great inherent HP number, you wont suffer much lowering CON a little. DEX: MAX.. PER: High. You need crits to proc Blood Frenzy. INT: Medicore. To keep Scordeo's Edge effect a little longer. RES: 8. I dont have strong evidence to support that, because crits from high level enemies can easily tear your AR apart... My Game: iirc, 16/6/18/16/14/8 (You may need to increase RES a little) -----Part 2 : Abilities----- Watcher Abilities: Almost mandatory (1) No Time for the Lost (+10s Beneficial Effects) (2) Wit of Death's Herald (+Brilliant) Character Abilities: Level 1: Frenzy, Tanglefoot, Spiritshift: Wolf (Solo) Or Cat (Party) (Spiritshift will replace your armor and thus lower your AR, also as a Livegiver, you will suffer dramatic PL penalty (iirc, stacking with penalties from destroyed Wards)when Spiritshift is over. So, by the time you decide to spiritshift, it is the time you retreat and reset the combat,that's why +25% stride is really great when solo) Level 2: Fast Runner Level 3: Blooded Level 4: Thick Skinned, Two Weapon Style(*) Level 5: Autumn's Decay(*) Level 6: Accurate Carnage(*) Level 7: Bloodlust(*), Bear's Fortitude Level 8: Bloody Slaughter Level 9: One stands Alone(*) (Yep, you do that, but it doesnt work when enemies also stand alone..) Level 10: Blood Frenzy, Wicked Briars(*) Level 11: Spell Shaping Level 12: Woodskin(*) Level 13: Interrupting Blows, Nature's Terror(*) (Nature's Terror is personal preference,it always reminds me of that OP Nature's Beauty from Baldur's Gate) Level 14: Uncanny Luck Level 15: Practiced Healer Level 16: Brute Force, Venombloom(*) Level 17: Improved Critical Level 18: Rapid Casting(*) Level 19: Blood Thirst(*), Spell Resistance(*) Level 20: Blood Storm (*): Replace these abilities with Tough/Snake's Reflexes/etc. when facing certain bosses -----Part 3 : Equipment----- (Anything can help you solve your problem will be the best) Head: Helm of the White Void/ Pearlescent Rhomboid Helstone (+1AR)/ The Maw of Ingimyrk (Helm of the White Void applies to almost all your Druid spells) Cloak: Cape of the Falling Star/ The Giftbearer's Cloth Armor: Patinated Plate Necklace: Strand of Favor/ Sisyfo's Stone (Strand of Favor is good even if you dont use it to cheat) Gloves: Firethrower's Gloves/ Gatecrashers/ Corroded Vambraces Belt: (Depends on your AR requirement) Boots: Boots of the Stone Ring 1: Ring of Prosperity's Fortune (Keep your money MORE THAN 200,000 please.... no?) Ring 2: (Your Choice) Pet: Epsilon/Pes/Giftwrapper/Grog/Ooblit ---Weapon Set 1---Main: Scordeo's Edge Off: Animancer's Energy Blade (Personal Preference) ---Weapon Set 2---Main: Sungrazer/Scordeo's Edge Off: (Any ranged weapon) ---Weapon Set 3---Main: Oathbreaker's End (Boss Killer) /The Willbreaker (If you can benefit from Weapon Modal)

Hey I've decided to make a tempest multiclass, but I'm having a hard time deciding which barbarian multiclass to go with furyshaper or berserker, I also plan to use lord Darren's voulge in this build and would like some help deciding what other armor and gear to get for the build, I've decided to go with ancient subclass for the druid half of the build as well, I'd also like to know which barbarian passives and skill to take as well as for ancient. Thanks for help .

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.

When I was but a tween, addicted to the original Neverwinter Nights on our crappy family computer that could hardly run it, I refused to play anything but the Shifter prestige class. The idea of shapeshifting into different creatures to face my enemies was too exciting to even consider abandoning. Now that I’m much older and only very slightly less single-minded (sadly my computer can run Deadfire only slightly better than the old junker could run NWN), I’ve imported my love of shapeshifting to this game, resolving from the beginning to make the most of the Shifter Druid subclass. At this time, I believe I have some insights that are worth sharing for others who may be interested in this subclass. This post will be a bit long and unusual, because I will provide a brief analysis of the strengths of Shifters in general as well as my favourite class build to illustrate my points (it’s a Tempest build, so Barbarian fans, stick around). I hope that the post encourages others to give the Shifter subclass a shot, whether in the form of my Tempest build or otherwise. Let’s jump in. First Principles The biggest pitfall one may succumb to when planning a Shifter build is to think of the Shifter as an entirely martial subclass. Spiritshift has the benefit of two strong single-handed weapons in combination with armour as strong as superb Heavy Armor (when fully scaled) without any recovery penalty, and with no vulnerabilities (i.e. the armour has the same rating for all damage types unlike regular armours, which have weaknesses). This is a solid foundation to build on, but it is not equivalent to the martial benefits of an entire martial subclass like Fighter or Rogue. Shifters are still Druids, and Druids are spellcasters. Now let’s take a step back and ask what makes Druids special. What is their niche? I would provide two answers to this: healing and versatility. If there is one single thing a Druid can do better than any other class, it’s keeping a team healed. But that’s far from the whole story. Druids can also do significant damage, valuable crowd control, have some good summons, and a few very useful party buffs. And, of course, they have bursts of martial power from Spiritshift. No other class packs such diverse value in a single team slot, even though other classes will be better at most specific aspects. Druid subclasses leverage this versatility by offering specialization in one of the dimensions of the Druid kit, usually compromising another. This might lead one to think that a Druid subclass should be built to focus on that one specialist dimension and no other, but this is simply the general form of the pitfall that I mentioned at the beginning of this section. Versatility remains a core strength of the Druid class in each of its subclasses. The subclasses emphasize a dimension of the class – they do not invalidate all others. Your Lifegiver can still drop strong damage spells. Your Fury can still summon and do plant/beast DPS. Forgoing such versatility will always just make your Druid worse than they could be. This class is not supposed to just do one thing. Our first principle of building a Shifter follows easily: spellcasting must be respected as a core part of the character. Shifters are Druids, not furry warriors. And because Shifters lose their spellcasting when they shift, each battle must be divided between casting and martial phases if we want to benefit from all the character’s strengths. These are the parameters within which we will be thinking in what follows. Single Class vs. Multiclass I admit that I’ve never played a SC Shifter (I’ve had 3 Shifter playthroughs; a man only has so much time) but theorycrafting it is pretty straightforward. It would be decent. The main Shifter-specific benefits from SC would be Avenging Storm and Wildstrike Frenzy. Shifters will have good melee attack speed (especially cat form) and relatively low deflection, so AS is liable to put in some decent work (though nothing at the level of what can be metagamed with hand mortars, blunderbusses, Frostseeker, etc.). The Wildstrike Frenzy passives ought to be the #1 draw, but they are unfortunately lacklustre. Their effects only proc on kill with a shifted animal-weapon attack, not on spell kills (thanks to Boeroer for testing this). As we established in our first principle, good Shifter will be doing a lot of damage with spells, and Shifters will emphasize spells that do continuous damage while they are transformed. This means Wildstrike Frenzy will do nothing when the final blow comes from Avenging Storm, Nature’s Terror, Plague of Insects, Relentless Storm, or several other DPS spells you may have cast. Now, ‘on kill’ is an inherently weak trigger condition: the goal of combat is to kill enemies, therefore on-kill effects reward you for having already been successful and can’t help when you are struggling to get kills. On kill effects can still be very good for momentum (see the build below), but they need to be reliable with a trigger with such an inherent drawback. SC Shifters will be doing most of their damage from spells since they lack martial passives to help with melee, get higher level spells, and benefit from high power level (shifting doesn’t benefit from PL). That Frenzy doesn’t work with spell kills is therefore a major disappointment. A great thing about SC Shifter is that Shifters don’t lose access to any Druid spells (before they shift), meaning that you can enjoy the complete Druid spell list with the added benefit of sustained martial abilities. I would recommend SC Shifter to a player who primarily wants to play a caster but likes the idea of having a respectable melee presence without much fuss (i.e. no relying on buff chains or specific gear). Multiclassing is where we can get a bit more creative in drawing out a Shifter’s strengths, most obviously by giving our Shifter access to martial passives that will help their melee power. But if there is one thing you take from this post, let it be this: try to pick a second class that synergizes with the Shifter’s spellcasting as well as its melee ability. You’re going to be spending a significant amount of time casting spells and relying on spell damage so, ideally, you don’t want your second class to be irrelevant to that dynamic. A shifter has two major dimensions, two combat “phases” – you want to build for both. The class build below demonstrates what this looks like. Beast Tempest Shifter/Fury Shaper Dive into your enemies’ midst and thrash them to pieces with spells, claws, and teeth. Game version: 5.0 Difficulty: POTD (upscaled) Solo: Untested Overview: Perhaps most importantly from a synergistic point of view, Barbarians are most effective in melee when going after groups of weakened enemies. That’s because they get damage spikes against low-health enemies and massive action speed benefits on kill (see writeup on Blood Thirst below). This means that their damage per second increases significantly when they can crush multiple low-health enemies, back-to-back. Accordingly, compared to other possible martial multiclasses, you get significantly more value out of your Druid spell damage-over-time effects that you will have casted earlier in the fight. Making every enemy weaker before you start your melee phase therefore has a direct and noticeable effect on Barbarian power. This alleviates the inherent martial-caster action time tension whereby spell damage and melee damage compete with each other since time spent doing one is time not spent doing the other. With a Tempest, time spent casting damage feeds into your melee power directly. Note well that, unlike Wildstrike Frenzy, Barbarian on-kill buffs (Bloodlust and Blood Thirst) do indeed trigger on spell kills, so no need to worry about what gets the final blow (except for when a spell steals your Barbaric Smash kill and you lose resources), and you’ll find that when you have multiple spells going on against a large group of enemies, these buffs will pop up regularly when you didn’t even notice you got a kill. Finally, the action speed and Might benefits from Frenzy obviously help in your spellcasting phase. Furthermore, Barbarians have some tension in their design: with very low deflection, very high health, an armour passive, and more, they are meant to take hits. This screams, “get the highest armour value possible!” They also have multiple ways to increase action speed, so you want to build them them to swing fast. Unfortunately, heavy armour comes with a hefty recovery speed penalty, so if you try to maximize your armour, you action speed bonuses get eaten up compensating for it. You’ll recall, though, that Spiritshift armour has a high rating and no action speed penalty whatsoever. Therefore, while shifted you will fully leverage a Barbarian’s tankiness and action speed perhaps unlike any other context in the game. You can see that though Barbarian is traditionally a “martial” subclass, it benefits from the characteristically Druid form of spell casting (damage over time across a wide area) and it powers up spell casting as well. Add this to Spiritshift’s inherent speed and armour benefits and you’ve got yourself a beautiful set of synergies. I chose Fury Shaper because access to Fear Ward is worth the Will penalty, especially on a caster Barbarian because you can leverage Captain’s Banquet, which gives you immunity to most of the most dangerous stuff that targets Will. No subclass would work fine too, as the wards aren’t essential to the build. Mage Slayer is out because you’ll resist your own Druid stuff, and I find Corpse-Eaters looks pretty bad, but do your thing if you really want to be a man-eating werewolf. Berserker could do a lot of damage but Confused is particularly bad for a Druid with their dependence on Intellect and powerful foe-only AOEs, so you’ll have to constantly make sure you’re managing that. Also, this build uses high Might, which increases Berserker self-damage, making you significantly squishier. Attributes: I’m not going to give numbers because they depend on whether there are Berath’s Blessings, the player’s comfort with stat dumping, role-playing, and so on. Instead, I’ll give priorities. MGT: High DEX: Medium CON: Medium PER: High INT: High RES: Low Druids rely on a lot of damage and healing over time, so MGT is better than DEX for both (DEX helps you move through your casting phase faster, but it’s not going to make your spells tick faster; this is unlike burst damage/healing or buffs where getting a spell off a little faster can significantly change the flow of the fight). In addition, you’re getting a lot of action speed buffs as a Barb, so it’s better to give more weight to each swing than try to be the Flash. PER is a priority for anything that needs to hit enemies, and Barbarians have some nice on-crit benefits. INT is critical for all your many AOE radii and (de)buff durations (including Spiritshift). You want as much of this as possible. DEX and CON are good but should only be invested into when the priority three are maxed out. Having some RES can be nice so hostile effects don’t keep you down, and you don’t get crit against deflection to a ridiculous degree (crits give bonus penetration, potentially bypassing your high AR), but if you want to dump a stat this should be it (as per usual). Skills: I like a split between Athletics and Stealth. Athletics for some heals and Stealth so you can more reliably get a cast off while sneaking for the reduced recovery. Not super important. For non-active skills pick what you want. Abilities: I’m going to give brief writeups on key abilities so the reader can get a good sense of how this plays. The “no brainer” passives are Combat Focus, Blooded, Two Weapon Style, Wildstrike and upgrade, Thick Skinned, Unflinching, One Stands Alone, and Brute Force. Along with what is detailed below you will have a couple free points. Use them where you like. Frenzy: Blood or Spirit? – The Spirit line has great synergy here: spell hits cause Staggered as well as melee hits, and Might afflictions are valuable for lowering Fortitude, which synergizes with Brute Force and many strong spells. The AOE terrify can also be clutch in buying yourself casting time when surrounded. However, you may be using lots of Might Afflictions elsewhere on your team (I nearly always run Serafen spamming Dazing Shout) and find that you’re not getting much mileage out of Staggered, and would prefer the resource-saving Blood Storm over Spirit Tornado’s short terrify (especially if you’re packing Fear Ward anyway), in which case the Blood line works just fine. I personally find the Spirit line generally better because of the reliable Staggered, and Terrified lasts for about 10secs, which can save your skin and help you to cast in a pinch. I don’t think you’ll usually benefit that much from Blood Frenzy’s extra crit damage because melee targets don’t usually last long enough to experience all the DoT. Barbaric Roar: Your only command interrupt; always good to have. Especially nice as a quick-cast, foe-only, ranged attack. More valuable than the alternative upgrade – you’re not a main tank. Leap: Jump right in. Just do it, you'll be fine (usually). My playstyle usually involves tanks taking the initiative and diving at enemies to start combat, which effectively takes a lot of pressure away from the backline. This character isn't a main tank, but can and should certainly be right up in the thick of things with the tank. You want Leap to get around with no fuss and Daze enemies while you cast. You can take Wild Sprint as well as sometimes that's all you need and it's cheaper, but it's no replacement for Leap. Barbaric Smash + Bloody Slaughter: You can get some big damage numbers with these. A bunch of crit conversion, up to +100% crit damage, and increased base damage can save you a few attack resolutions (plus your animal form gives a little roar with each swing that sounds cool). Depending on the enemy, casting this around 40-30% usually reliably picks up the kill for no Rage cost, allowing you to continue your rampage. Don’t overlook the bonus penetration. Blood Thirst: better than I originally thought. Turns out not only does this cancel the recovery of your killing blow, but it also cancels the recovery of the next action you make within the buff’s duration. That means that after you kill an enemy, not only do you not have to recover, but your first attack against the next enemy doesn’t impose recovery either. I kept wondering why I seemed to be getting random Full Attacks in combat until I realized this. Remember, it triggers whenever spell damage gets a kill, too. Moonwell/Garden of Life: This character can be a primary healer. Insect Swarm/Plague of Insects/Infestation of Maggots: Core spell damage, and you get two for free! Stack these on enemies and watch them wither away. Do note that Plague does not affect Poison-immune enemies (and there are quite a few), but Swarm and Infestation do. Plague of Insects is absolute gold because apart from its good damage and stripping Concentration, the Sickened affliction increases your accuracy via Brute Force and lowers enemies’ max health (all the better for smashing). Nature’s Terror: A fantastic spell for this build. You want to be standing in the middle of enemies anyway. Having damage from this constantly wearing them away along with Carnage is great, and the Frightened affliction can block dangerous abilities and make them easier to hit (if you’re using Spirit Frenzy, it debuffs both Deflection and Fortitude). It’s friend-or-foe, so watch your step, but don’t let that make you afraid to use it. Having teammates with resolve affliction resistance can help (Wild Orlans like Serafen come with it, Fighters have a perk, etc.). This spell also seems bugged in that randomly it will sometimes do like 5 ticks of damage to a single enemy instantly. Not sure what causes it. Most important of all, the spell looks really cool (Tempest indeed). Relentless Storm: Of course. Depending on your needs for the fight you can and should cast any two of this, Plague, and Nature’s Terror. Cast all three if you get resources back. Venombloom: Must-have for any Druid, in my opinion. Does nothing against Poison-immune enemies but is devastating to anything else. And with Brute Force it will hit the lower of Deflection and Fortitude. Gear: Weapon: Spine of Thicket Green - unfortunately, your damage bonus on Beast/Plant spells will go away when you shift, but the duration and initial accuracy bonuses from power level are done deals at the time of casting. There's very little reason to use any other weapon. The crush damage and extra effectiveness against Vessels (who are often pierce immune or resistant and tend to be more vulnerable to crush damage) also means this is very occasionally worth using over shifting. Head: Helm of the White Void or Survivor’s Tusks – HotWV gives +10 to every attack roll involved in affliction-causing attacks (i.e. not just the roll for applying the affliction but also for dealing damage, etc.). For this build that means Barbaric Roar, Spirit Tornado, Plague of Insects, Nature’s Terror, Relentless Storm, and Venombloom (Fear Ward, being its own “creature” does not benefit). If you want to use this on another character, Survivor’s Tusks can give you survivability, though the Spiritshift upgrade is less valuable on this build because you will usually have Strong from Frenzy anyway. Neck: Strand of Favor – more INT and beneficial effect duration means longer shifts, etc. Armour: Garari Cuirass – any light armour can work here but I like this one because it gives you as much AR as light armour can so you can take hits before you shift. See also Miscreant’s Leather for the recovery bonus and Cabalist’s Gambeson for the extra effect durations, but remember your normal armour gets replaced when you shift. Feet: Rakhan Field Boots – always nice to dash around and get another interrupt. Footsteps of the Beast can be nice too since you tend to run around a bit. Cloak: Greater Protection Hands: Woedica’s Strangling Grasp – extra Might and AR Rings: Kuaru’s Prize + whatever you like Pet: Giftwrapper or Abraham – Abraham speeds your casting up but Giftwrapper gives you free AR when you get her. Both offer a bit of healing. Food: Captain’s Banquet – Immunity to half of the affliction types, including those which most often target your debuffed Will, is huge in itself. Extra spell damage is fantastic on top. Unfortunately, the action speed buff gets overridden by Frenzy, but with this you don’t need to cast Frenzy at the beginning of your casting phase just for the speed. Being able to wait without much drawback let’s you use Spirit Tornado when it’s most impactful. Closing comments: Embrace a Shifter’s versatility and you’ll be rewarded for it, in both power and fun. The build I’ve detailed has been my favourite to play in the game and is no slouch in power. I hope this post encourages more people to consider playing a Shifter and to play around with getting the most from the subclass. I can confirm that Ascetic builds are great, and I bet interesting things could be done with Wizard, Priest, or Paladin. Thanks for reading.

INTRODUCTION An escaped slave from a Rautai saltpeter mine, The Effigy draws from a reservoir of pure hate for those that have harmed them. Tormented by the ghosts of their past, deaths they witnessed and those they caused, they lack the will to confront foes directly. Instead, they wait in silence, crafting bizarre and unnerving totems that resonate with power. When threatened they unleash a blood rage, surviving vicious wounds and lashing out in unbelievable speed against those who strike them. They reserve their most vicious attacks for those from the spirit world that have manifested among us. Their weak will makes them susceptible to all forms of mental manipulation and frequent changing alliances, though they resist the weakest forms of fear. When wounded, they become even more powerful - an unstoppable terror that shrugs off any assaults on their body and is fueled by torch and flame. When drunk they become immune to any attempts to stop them, short of pure physical violence. Truly a horrific creature to behold. Crowned in pure disdain Barely able to contain Now this will all end in blood Cleansing, lasting, murderous THE BUILD =================================== =================================== Difficulty: PotD v. 5.0 -------------------------------------------------------------- Game Mode: RTwP (Not ideal for Turn-based, given the reduced number of auto-attacks and the reduced value of recovery reduction/elimination) -------------------------------------------------------------- Solo: No -------------------------------------------------------------- Class: Barbarian (Fury Shaper) -------------------------------------------------------------- Race: Wild Orlan -------------------------------------------------------------- Background: Rauatai (CON) - Slave (Survival, Athletics, Streetwise) -------------------------------------------------------------- Attributes: MIG 10 CON 19 (+1 Rauatai) DEX 10 PER 20 (+2 Orlan) - Divine Power: Skean sees all mistreatment and abuse INT 15 RES 4 (+1 Orlan) - Divine Flaw: Skaen is haunted and a coward and is easily manipulated by the strong willed -------------------------------------------------------------- Abilities | Skills | Proficiencies (a=automatic) (I) 01. Frenzy + Shape Ward: Frenzy (a) + Carnage (a) + Furyshaper (a) | Flail, Sword 02. Barbaric Yell | +1 Athletics, +1 Streetwise (II) 03. Thick Skinned + Barbaric Blow | +1 Athletics, +1 Streetwise 04. Accurate Carnage| +1 Athletics, +1 Streetwise | Battle Axe (III) 05. One Stands Alone + Two Weapon Style| +1 Athletics, +1 Streetwise 06. Bloodlust | +1 Athletics, +1 Streetwise (IV) 07. Barbaric Shout + Blood Frenzy + Shape Ward: Fear (a) | +1 Athletics, +1 Streetwise 08. Savage Defiance | +1 Athletics, +1 Streetwise | Greatsword (V) 09. Barbaric Smash + Bloody Slaughter (III) | +1 Athletics, +1 Streetwise 10. Tough | +1 Athletics, +1 Streetwise (VI) 11. Brute Force + Bear’s Fortitude (III) | +1 Athletics, +1 Bluff 12. Blooded (I) | +1 Athletics, +1 Bluff | Stiletto (VII) 13. Blood Storm + Stalwart Defiance | +1 Athletics, +1 Bluff 14. Blood Thirst | +1 Athletics, +1 Bluff 15. Two-Handed Style (II) | +1 Athletics, +1 Bluff (VIII) 16. Heart of Fury + Vengeful Defeat + Shape Ward: Blood (a) | +1 Athletics, +1 Bluff | Club 17. Improved Critical | +1 Athletics, +1 Bluff 18. Threatening Presence or Uncanny Luck | +1 Athletics, +1 Bluff (IX) 19. Barbaric Retaliation + Blood Surge| +1 Athletics, +1 Bluff 20. Dazing Shout | +1 Athletics, +1 Bluff | Dagger -------------------------------------------------------------- Items (!)=important, (r)=recommended Weapon Set 1: (!) Whispers of Yenwood (Whetted, Unfaltering), (!) Ball and Chain (Indomitable, Subjugation) Extra DMG against Spirits is on brand here, along with the boost in Crit DMG and CON. Our WILL is already so low, that we don’t care if it drops even farther. The CON buff stays for the whole fight, even if we switch weapons. One we have Barbaric Retaliation, we will switch on the Sword Modal and leave it for increasing our chance to be crit by enemies. Ball and Chain is on brand as a weapon of liberation and violent revenge. 10% chance to recover immediately on Crit feeds our DMG engine nicely. Reduced Action speed and Knock Down when we Crit them is also helpful to slow down the incoming DMG a little bit. It also means we can shut down single targets if given a chance to focus them. Flail Modal plus Heart of Fury means we have softened the group for AoE fire spells. Weapon Set 2: ® Sanguine Greatsword (Prepare the Offering, Greater Blood Gift) Mostly a fun item with a cool path to acquire it. Fits our blood theme, and adds some healing to the mix. Greatsword Modal is a waste here, as we really want to Crit with this weapon. Consider swapping over for a Heart of Fury. Head: (!) Rekvu’s Fractured Casque (This way we can replace wards while being wailed on by enemies) Back: (!) Rekvu’s Scorched Cloak (For pairing with a fire DMG party member(s), ideally a priest), Ragged Cloak (more retaliation DMG on crit) Neck: Precognition (fits both sides for us - we are gonna be Crit and we are gonna Crit enemies), Claim and Refusal (extra DMG reduction) Armor: (!) Effigy’s Husk (Armor of Flesh, Skaen’s Hatred) and The Bloody Links (Crimson Steel) or Magnera’s Chain (Staunch, Padded Underlayer) or Crimson Panoply Effigy’s Husk gives us MIG immunity, which paired with our boots and gloves & Wael’s Wind or Captain’s Banquet makes us immune to all afflictions, as well as a nasty healing reduction aura that should affect CON immune enemies, and a nice burst of DMG when paired with Vengeful Defeat. You can switch to one of the heavier armors for fights where you need more survivability. Waist: (!) The Undying Burden (extra heal, CON, and much needed DMG reduction - flavor text fits) Hands: (!) Rekvu’s Stained Grips (CON Immunity - keeps us alive in the midst of the fray) Rings: Ring of Overseeing, Greater Ring of Regeneration, Whispers from the Depths, Drunkard’s Regret Boots: (!) Sandals of the Water Lily (we want that -10 to DEF, and with Affliction Immunity, we don’t care too much about the other defenses) Trinket: Betrayal (On brand, plus a way to buy a few seconds of time for healing) BUILD OVERVIEW This build takes big hits and dishes them right back out. You will lose health quickly, and can either stay alive with focused healing or death denying effects, or let things run their course and explode with two AoE explosions of DMG. The risk is highest at the start of a fight when there are the greatest number of enemies smashing you. Even at Near Death you will have around 200 HP, which is plenty to take a few hits. With Robust, Shape Ward: Blood, and Second Wind, you can stay alive long enough to take quite a few enemies with you. Any other sources of healing are needed (Old Siec, Lay on Hands, Healing Aura’s, etc.). A priest makes an ideal pair with The Effigy. Resurrection, Barring Death’s Door and Salvation of Time can keep the Effigy alive long enough to decimate the enemy. Additionally, once injured, they can unleash fire spells on top of The Effigy, healing it and maximizing foe damage. Storm of Holy Fire and Pillar of Holy Fire are great for this. Divine Mark is a great spell here. It targets WILL (which is crazy low for us). It’s another option for a heal post injury, and a great way to pick up the best injury for The Effigy, serious burn. It also fits our theme, as it’s one of a Skaen Priests’ auto learned spells. For Drugs, use Mouth Char or Deadeye. For Food use Wael’s Wind or Captain’s Banquet. Alternatively, use Forgetful Night, Arrack, or Daibō o Osa.

While fighting Jungle Lurkers in the Hohina Ravine on Tehiwai Islands I encountered a soft lock. My best guess is that Mage Slayer is successfully interrupting a spellcast but this is causing turn based combat to break. Unfortunately the combat log does not offer an indication of a spell being interrupted here, though it would if I was using the pet boar and still it would soft lock so long as there are spell disruption stacks. I have not encountered this problem before this point due to either luck or bursting down an enemy before or after their spells had been cast. This is on Veteran difficulty (solo, Eothas and Berath challenge) and can happen even with the pwgra if they attempt to cast something while there are spell disruption stacks. A screenshot

I used "move fast" and moved Amiri and Valeros to a new location after an encounter which had left my hand empty, but I can't end my turn once in the new location because I can't reset my hand. I'm currently in "sandpoint under siege" I moved from waterfront to town square I think I had just encountered the villain Amiri has the juggernaut role Let me know what other info might be useful. Also, if I forfeit now will I lose Amiri permanently because her hand is empty? Please let me know how I can get unstuck. Thanks!

Hello everyone 80+ hours in game - and probably 50 hours spend in character creation and theory crafting ( Loving it ) My current idea is to make an arbalast wielding savage build that perhaps will be able to solo veteran+ ( Perhaps with a wingman/wingwoman ) Class : Savage ( Barbarian, no subclass / Ranger Sharpshooter ) Barbarian for action speed, crit, coolness factor and rp. Sharpshooter for accuracy, and ranged focus of the build in general. And again rp. ( roleplay ) Race : Nature Godlike ( Looks & rp reasons mainly ) Pet : Boar ( Im aware Bear is the most sturdy of em all, and ranger pets apparently blows - but just look at that toothy chubby bastard! :D Attributes : 18 Might, 8 Con, 16 Dex, 18, Perception, 14 Int, 4 Resolve ( Any suggestions? ) Weapons of choice : Arbalast - Animation, modal and badass! / Morning Star, crushing and eh.. savage ( Any suggestions to 2h melee? ) Unique Arbalast : Spearcaster Barbarian : Active abilities : Frenzy to Blood frenzy to Bloodstorm ( Speed, DoT and Strong & Fit - afaik, Strong & Fit should activate the Nature Godlike racial - correct? ) Barbaric blow to Crushing blow ( Im abit confused if recovery is affecting my Arbalast - so not sure if this the best pick ) Savage Defiance, sofar i prefer the upgrade with lower cost. Passive abilities : Blooded Two handed style Bloodlust Bloody slaugther Blood Thirst ( If this works with Arbalast ) Sharpshooter : Active abilities : Marked prey - Marked for the hunt Wounding shot - Accurate wounding shot Thorny roots Evasive Roll - Evasive Fire ( Love this one ) Passive abilities : Resilient companion Marksman Gunner Protective companion - Stalkers link ( Unsure if this will be worth it, considering the life expentency of my toothy buddy ) Driving flight Uncanny luck Survival of the fittest Suggestions, ideas and input are more then welcome. Especially regarding gear/items besides Spearcaster. Thanks upfront!

Why Test (Version 1.2.0.0028) Mmmm, Carnage. I've been a long time fan of Barbarian and have been seeking information on how the Carnage mechanic works in Deadfire since release. Unfortunately, things were slow both here and on Reddit with limited interest (people consider Carnage a worthless ability, especially in light of Mob Stance prior to its nerf) and poor accessibility (limited HUD tooltip info). The only question that really got answered was whether the secondary Carnage attacks applied on-hit effects, and the answer was a resounding, "No, but Spirit and Blood Frenzy on-hit effect buff does." That, and the fact that the resulting Raw damage does not care for Penetration, Graze, or Crit modifiers. Fast forward to present day. With the help of the mod guide video kind of showing where to look, I've been able to look at the various status effect and attack object structures. So here's some general observations from what's been tucked away in the GameDataBundle files: Carnage damage does scale with Power Level. It's a meager +5% per PL, but it's better than nothing. Amusingly, since Carnage is itself PL 0, and you start at PL 1, you actually start with the bonus +5% to Carnage damage. Don't get excited, though, because this scaling value is applied after the 0.33 modifier.The 33% damage effect will check the weapon in your primary or off-hand as appropriate. It does not care about anything other than the weapon's Base Damage range. You don't get the accuracy bonus from weapon quality. There is a hidden PL accuracy bonus that can't be observed in the game's tooltips, as noted in the Power Level Compilation Thread. The AoE Carnage attacks (main and off-hand) that apply the 33% damage effect seem to use a static 0.33 value for damage that overrides the default ability damage scaling for effects (+10% per PL). This just means you can only rely on the +5% damage per PL after the 0.33 reduction. Damage So the question I had at this point was what influenced Base Weapon Damage? Does weapon quality factor at all? What about active abilities proc from passives, like One Stands Alone, or conditional passive bonuses like Wilder Hunter? Thanks to a wonderful group of Assassin Vines, I've been able to get started on testing. Here are my observations thus far. Damage range for Carnage appears to use the following formula: (([base Weapon Damage] * [Might Damage Bonus]) * 0.33)(1 + (.05 * PL)). This was tested with a mod I made which increased the scaling damage bonus from PL so I could observe any small change to other values. Weapons used were of the same type, but different quality between them. Of course, quality had no effect on the damage result, and neither did One Stands Alone. I still have not tested sabre's Sharp weapon property or Wilder Hunter talent, though I suspect that Carnage damage will not check for creature type before applying itself. If anyone tests these before I do, that would be nice. Surprise! Might influences your Base Weapon Damage before it is shoved into Carnage's % damage calculation! This was tested by observing the damage range with and without Frenzy. Whether it's worth having high Might to maximize Carnage damage is another thing. Assuming you max it out, you're still looking at 10-15 Raw damage from 30 Might and 10 PL delivered via a Sword swing (Base 13-19). Finding the minimum and maximum damage possible is just a matter of using the minimum and maximum values under Base Weapon Damage range for the relevant weapon. For the most part, numbers stayed within the correct range, but was a little tricky to parse because damage values are not integers. Your damage range will include decimal values, but the hit point damage flying out of enemies on screen will round the value up. Testing Error In the GameDataBundle files, it appears that your off-hand weapon is ignored for base weapon damage and your main weapon is used instead. This isn't because they didn't put in an entry for your off-hand weapon. They did. It just doesn't get referenced at all, and thus the AoE attack and subsequent 33% damage status effect it would reference are also unused. It may be a mistake that the main weapon got referenced for both the main weapon on-hit event and the off-hand weapon on-hit event, or it could be a measure to prevent the game from breaking on something. Area of Effect As for Carnage AoE size, even with 21 Int, I struggled to hit more than 3 additional Assassin Vines at a time. Barbaric Blow's 50% increased Carnage AoE did not make a noticeable difference, though I guess that's fitting given the size of the base AoE (360 degrees; "Small"; 1.5 blast radius override). At the very least, if you get 3+ enemies clustered, Heart of Fury can apply a lot of extra damage via main and off-hand Carnage AoE. Closing There's nothing to really close this OP on. The goal wasn't to show whether Carnage was a viable mechanic or not but to clear up some of the mystery behind how it works. I'll leave some closing thoughts: Abilities like Barbaric Blow and Heart of Fury do not influence Carnage damage whatsoever. This, despite Barbaric Blow claiming it also increases the crit rate of Carnage. There's no benefit to doing so even if it worked that way. You ultimately use the abilities for the Full Attack abuse and maybe the increased Carnage AoE. For consistent, powerful basic attack applications, dual wielding wielding a spear, sword, or battle axe in your main hand will offer the best results (Base 13-19 damage). Might becomes slightly more relevant with big 2h weapons since it will modify a bigger value. Great sword, pike, and quarterstaff (Base 18-24 damage) will lead to a maximum Carnage damage range of 14-19 at 30 Might and 10 PL. From my testing, 2h Weapon talent doesn't modify Carnage damage and neither does the great sword modal. Two-weapon Full Attacks will apply a big sum-total Carnage damage with endgame abilities, such as Heart of Fury, but a max level Barbarian can swing Sanguine/Voidwheel with amazing impunity once the first enemy falls. This can result in a solid Carnage damage spike over the course of a combat encounter. The benefit of instant primary weapon recovery via Blood Thirst should not be underestimated. As of the recent testing in patch (1.2.0.0028) even the attack animation is canceled. It's seriously FAST. Completely unrelated to Carnage. You could forgo melee entirely if your goal is to dual Pistol/Blunderbuss Heart of Fury. Heart of Fury will fire at all enemies within range AND has the bonus of bypassing primary weapon reload (unlike Barbaric Blow). The downside is the ability cooldown, but you will still ultimately pump damage faster by just rushing the second Heart of Fury. Whether it's worth the 8 Rage is another matter. EDIT: I saw an enemy get hit by the Carnage AoE triggered on them. They were moving fairly quickly (Terrified) and just ran into their own AoE. It was HILARIOUS.

This is a work in progress, which I’m eventually going to turn into a full-fledged mod once I get a handle on some more fundamentals. Before I jump in, though, I’d appreciate some feedback on this draft from a play angle and would be very grateful if someone could help me figure out what can and can’t be done with modding (I indicated these in brackets throughout the draft). Preamble – Why Change Mage Slayer The purpose of my tentative mod is to revise the Barbarian’s Mage Slayer subclass in a way that is both lore-friendly and, in my opinion, more interesting to play as. Mage Slayer’s current iteration (from the Fextralife Wiki): Successful melee weapon attacks (or Carnage Hits) add Spell Disruption to the target, causing wizard, priest, druid, cipher, or chanter spells to have a chance to fail when cast. Gain 25% passive Resistance against Spells. Cannot use Potions or Scrolls. Passive Spell Resistance affects Friendly and Hostile spells. A few issues come up with the Spell Disruption ability, mostly to do with positioning. Spellcasters don’t tend to cluster together often, which marginalizes some of the class’s passives like One Stands Alone and Carnage as well as its staple full attack (Barbaric Blow). Spell Disruption centers on stacks and chances, which makes it a bit too reactive for a Barbarian archetype and fails to do anything when the enemy caster decides to auto attack. Why wait for the enemy to cast a spell that might not fizzle when any number of interrupts could ensure the desired outcome? Likewise, the spell resistance is unwieldy: enemies might not always target your Mage Slayer with a spell but it’s a good guarantee you’ll want to include them in a good buff zone and heal them from time to time. I think the lockdown on scroll use is fine but disabling potion use is a bit off considering many Alchemy checks throughout the game treat the ability as herbalism or a natural science. If they’re to survive in isolation, Mage Slayers would probably know a thing or two about making basic poultices and antidotes. (Besides, weapons blessed by the gods or imbued with arcane powers are a-ok.) "Mage slayers are typically from isolated communities that have little exposure to academics of any sort and have a general distrust for magical arts. The exposure they do have is usually hostile, and mage slayers are trained to deal with them in the most efficient way possible. Swearing off the use of many magical devices, mage slayers inure themselves to magical effects to better fight spellcasters." Revised Mage Slayer: The Tear Down Bruiser Like its namesake suggests, the Mage Slayer is about taking down enemy casters, and while my revised version keeps this theme, it expands on the Barbarian’s strengths as a frontliner: rewarding the player for sticking to the fray or for venturing off to its favorite quarry. Not content with the mere destruction of mages and their ilk, the Mage Slayer’s specialty is stunting and destroying the essence of magic itself (including boons and spiritual aberrations). While it lacks the raw power of a Berserker (and the, uh, something, of the Corpse Eater and base Barbarian), the revised Mage Slayer is a subclass capable of negating a single target’s magical defenses and bursting them down while collapsing magic around them with every strike – with some magic defense thrown in for good measure. Since Mage Slayers have devoted their lives to snuffing out the mere mention of magic, they’ve spent less time training and perfecting their physique compared to their fellow Barbarians: a malus, which manifests while the character is put into a frenzied state. Mage Slayers are also a xenophobic sort, paranoid and dismissive toward magic and worldly ideas regardless of intention – they don’t venture well with others. At a glance: Changes to Frenzy (Active): Keeps Strong and action speed increase, removes Fit, adds Veil Piercing to attacks, adds suppress enemy beneficial effect on melee Crit; lowers maximum Health, Fortitude, and Deflection. Renamed Outliers Frenzy. Changes to Carnage (Passive): Reduces Carnage damage and increases base radius by 50%. Now adds enemy beneficial duration reduction to the effect. Renamed Spellbane Bedlam/Spellbane Collapse. Changes to Spell Resistance (Passive): Spell resistance only applies to hostile effects; lowered base resistance from 25% to 5% (scales with Power Level); added +5 Defenses versus spells (scales with Power Level). Renamed Spell-weathered. Removes Spell Disruption Removes disabled Potions Keeps disabled Scrolls Adds Enmity for The Profane (Passive): Disables the ability to multiclass with casters and Rogue Trickster (or significantly lowers the Power Level of spells). Adds Primitive Doubt (Passive): Reduces incoming healing and beneficial effect power/duration from other party members; effect is doubled when the Mage Slayer is Near Death. New/Changed Abilities (Details and Notes/Ideas): Outlier’s Frenzy (Active; replaces Frenzy; upgrades to Blood and Spirit paths as usual) Self Cost: 1 Rage Base Duration: 15s The Mage Slayer manifests their unquenchable rancor against magic and its practitioners by sacrificing physical prowess. User temporarily gains the Strong Inspiration, Veil Piercing to attacks, and an Action Speed bonus (+25%); and suffers penalties to max Health (-15%), Fortitude (-10), and Deflection (-10). Critical hits made with melee weapons while under the effects of Outlier’s Frenzy suspend enemy beneficial effects (4.0s base; increases by 1s per Power Level). Notes: Like Carnage, Spellbane Bedlam doesn’t affect the primary target so the suppression on-crit on Outlier’s Frenzy is there to fill in the gap and also incentivize the player to go after backline casters if need be. Veil Piercing gives an edge over Spirits and Wizards. The penalties to health and fortitude are there to represent the subclass’s training in taking down casters and its lack of expertise against martial combatants comparable to other Barbarians. In my mind, a Mage Slayer has more experience dodging a Shadowflame and chopping through a robe than defending a heavy blow, and in a frenzied state, would be even more susceptible to physical attacks. Also note that Spell-weathered offsets the fortitude and deflection losses by 5 versus spells. Spellbane Bedlam (Passive; Replaces Carnage) Ever vigilant against forsaken arts, Mage Slayers heighten their attacks to obliterate arcane energies, and can extend this talent to tearing down beneficial effects from all manner of foes. For every successful melee attack, the Mage Slayer reduces beneficial effects (4.0s base; scales .5s per Power Level) on all other enemies within a short distance of the target. More concerned with magic than mettle, the Mage Slayer deals less damage with Spellbane Bedlam than the Barbarian’s Carnage but in a wider area. (15% of hit damage down from 33%; increased base radius by 50%). Notes: Carnage’s damage is already pretty meh so I may remove it if possible. Beneficial effect reduction duration and radius will need to be tested. I might name this “Spellbane Collapse” instead. Spell-weathered (Passive; Replaces Mage Slayer’s Spell Resistance) Through frequent battles against arcane adversaries, the Mage Slayer can shrug off an occasional missile or hex: even amidst the thick of combat. Adds +5 to defenses and 5% resistance versus hostile spells (both scale at 1.2 points per Power Level). Notes: Simple buff, which replaces the current Mage Slayer’s random chance to resist harmful and beneficial spells in favor of a more consistent, party-friendly version. The defense bonus helps offset Outlier’s Frenzy’s Fortitude and Deflection penalties (versus spells). Penalties: Spellbane Bedlam and Outlier’s Frenzy both have a couple penalties to offset the benefits, but I’d like to add two more maluses: Enmity for The Profane Mage Slayers forbid the practice of magic – regardless of origin, be it wizardly, spiritual or psionic – and in their small communities, often oust any whose interest in the subject goes beyond its total ruination. Mage Slayer conclaves are known for burning magical tomes and scrolls in effigy: a ritual they hope will sear the Archmages’ souls. The Mage Slayer cannot *multiclass with Chanter, Cipher, Druid, Priest, Wizard or Trickster, and cannot use scrolls. *Or receives a hefty penalty to PL from those classes and spells, depending on which is easier to mod. Ranger is going to be tricky to figure out since it has a few spells. Primitive Doubt Be it through superstition or stubbornness, the Mage Slayer’s single-minded contempt for magic guides them forward: even on the tipping point toward Berath’s Wheel. The general perils of outlier life aside, it is rare for Mage Slayers to reach their elder years: many would rather succumb to a horrific (though honorable) death than be saved (or have their souls imprisoned) by supposed miracles. Incoming healing from other party members reduced by 25%; incoming beneficial effects from other party members reduced by 25%. These effects double if the Mage Slayer is Near Death. Notes: This is the other side to removing the Mage Slayer’s default spell resistance. Alternatively, I could try and impose a Power Level penalty on incoming beneficial effects made by Ciphers, Druids, Chanters, etc. I'll probably rename this "Primal Fear". [Mod Note:] Are either of these options possible? Thanks for taking the time to read this. I hope to get started this weekend.

I understand the description of the OSA passive; however I've only ever seen it active once in my playthrough. It doesn't seem to be connected to how many engagements my barbarian has or how many enemies are "near" him. I can't seem to get the ability to activate in any situation. At this point I'm wondering if something is bugged. Does the barbarian have to be a certain distance from allies?

Could someone add an ability for barbarians that turns Carnage off and gives bonus damage? For everyone: What do you think would be a balanced/good bonus damage? If not other balanced effect.

The Slayer (Updated for 2.0) Slayers are suicidal dwarves that go out into the world having sworn to die in battle to expunge some dishonor from their name. This slayer is constantly trying to die, but is just too good at killing to have succeeded at his goal yet. The build uses +damage the more you’re hurt synergies. This is more of a theme build rather than a min/max; but it did WAY better than I expected (this works really well in party w/ someone using willbreaker and Body Blows) Game Version: 2.0 Difficulty: PotD (+all Upscale, no mods) Solo: *No - You will need backup (Salvation of time and/or Barring death's door from others, the cloak can't always last long enough on boss fights) Race: Dwarf (mountain for the red hair) Class: Ravager [Helwalker/Berzerker] Home: The Living Lands Background: Laborer Stats: (not including blessings) Mig 16 Con: 10 Dex: 10 Per: 18 Int: 16 Res: 8 Skills: Active: Athletics Max (or split with alchemy, see consumables) Passive: your choice (I chose to pump survival for my backup weapon set) Abilities: (in order I selected them) Frenzy Swift Strikes Blooded Lesser wounds Thick skin Two handed style Barbaric Blow Accurate Carnage One stands alone Swift flurry Bloodlust Stunning blow Blood frenzy Duality Savage Defiance Bloody Slaughter Barbaric smash Enervating blows Interrupting Blows Stunning surge Brute force Turning wheel Tough Bull's will Bloodstorm Heartbeat Drumming Bloodthirst Equipment main weapon: Oathbreaker's End (early game I used duskfall+modwyr to get the wahai poraga then lord darynn's to go get oathbreaker's) Backup weapons: Magran's + Mohora Tanga Whitewitch Mask Protective Eothasian Charm Reckless Brigandine (into the breach) Ring of greater regen Voidward Boots of the stone Nemnok’s Cloak Boltcatchers The Undying Burden Pet: Nalvi Consumables Food: Mahora wraps (get that mig to 20 & nifty recovery speed) Coral snuff (more speed) Potion of Spirit shield Major heal pots (or moderate if you split between athletics and alchemy) This guy plays so much better than the first two iterations. Dots for everyone, and a giant axe finally!

Hey guys, in response to the new update v1.20 which gives us access to a mod manager and makes the integration of custom classes easier than ever, I thought it would be a cool idea for the community to make a library of all the class and subclass ideas they have that could be integrated into the game. One of my favorite things about Neverwinter Nights 2 and other crpgs is the sheer amount of classes and subclasses available for us to choose. While Deadfire has added to the number it never hurts to go the extra mile with mods to tailor your experience. ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ I would like to start off with the Priest of Abydon, a priest focused on defense and uses a variety of transmutation and earth like abilities. Description: Abydon is the god of duty, preservation, hope, progress, aspiration and industy. The patron of balcksmiths, laborers and the Crusible knights, the god inspires excellence in your chosen field and encourages honest work and tenacity. Abydon sacrificed himself to stop a cataclysmic event from wiping out the Entwithan civilization. He rebuilt himself from scraps of his essence and the help of Magran into the Golem, a being made of metal, however the geas that drove him towards preservation was lost. The watcher chose whether to remind him of it or let it remain forgotten. (Favored dispositions: honest and stoic, disfavored dispositions: deceptive and clever) The priest gains spells that correspond to Abydon when they reach a new power level. The Blessings of the white forge: +Deflection bonus when wearing heavy armor and if possible, can enchant normal equipment to highest level but not legendary and add lass to equipment (meant to help early game not replace unique equipment) Spells and Abilities gained: Fan of Flames: Bellows of the forge Firebrand: lose access to spiritual weapons or if these two options are in the realm of possibilities: 1. Spiritual weapon: Warhammer, crushing dmg and 2. Gift of the Forge: add burning lass to currently equiped weapon/s Twin stones: the hammer of Abydon could send shockwaves across the earth Ironskin: known as the god of constructs, Abydon rebuilt himself into a being made of metal Calling the World's Maw Embrace the Earth's Tallon Rusted Armor: Corrode poorly forged armor Unbreakable: Rebuild yourself as Abydon once did, if possible could include Symbol of Abydon: deals crushing damage and provides deflection bonus Citzal's enchanted armory: Fabricate weapons and a breastplate out of thin air, and Incarnate: Summon Steelclad Construct The Golem Reconstructed Edit: Decided to change the disposition to honest and stoic, fit better.

My class was a Ravager (Shattered Pillar Monk/ No Subclass Barbarian) So i finished the game on POTD with stats : Might: 18 Con: 11 Dex: 10 Per:10 Int: 10 Res: 19 the game went fine using robes and light armor, Mohora Tanga and Tuotilo's Palm. I spec into both two weapon fighting and sword + shield fighting. This makes me very tanky. Only issue I ran into was missing a lot of my hits. I had enough life and i was attacking more than fast enough. A lot of people don't know this, but with Shattered Pillar Might is just the way to go. Dex is good, and it yields superior dps but you're already fast enough and the extra might gives you the single hit damage to gain wounds more easily. Also used Lord Darryn's Voluge and went barehanded. Darryn's works great for crowds and synergizes well with primary attack abilities but it lacks dps vs single targets until you get off that first disorient. Barehanded had great dps versus single targets. Both weren't defenseless but werent tanky enough for me to be comfortable. Mohora Tanga and Tuotilo's Palm did nearly as much damage as barehanded but they had the added benefit of making me very tanky. So the build felt better overall. As i mentioned before my only issue was not landing enough hits. On my second play through I plan to use the same armor, weapons and class. My stats, with Berath's blessing have changed to: Might: 18 Con: 10 Dex: 10 Per: 18 Int: 13 Res: 19 Any thoughts? Also I am considering specing into Blade Turning/Dance of Death. Has anyone tried that? Can you tell me if it works?

Has anyone run a multiclass modwyr berserker? If so, what was your second class? What did you think of it? What would you do differently? Even if you haven't run one, what doth your theorycrafting unveil to thou? I'm curious to hear folks' thoughts on the matter.

I'm considering doing a Barbarian greatsword build and I was wondering how carnage works with Whispers of the Endless Paths. Does it apply carnage for both hits or just does it use the relatively low base damage once? What about for abilities like Barbaric Blow or HoF?

Ability description: "The barbarian swings viciously in a lightning-quick flurry, taking on all comers. Each equipped weapon attacks every nearby enemy, doing extra damage and inflicting Carnage if applicable." In my game play, it appears that my character only damages enemies with the current dual wielding weapons equipped (slot 1) and other weapons in my 2, 3, 4 equipment slot does nothing. Is it intentional that barbarian only use 1 slot of weapon when this ability is activated?

Hi guys/gals, Has anyone tried or theorycrafted a barbarian/monk combo? I could not find any post on this multiclass build. I was planning on going Barbarian/Corpse-eater (for sustainability) + Monk/Shattered-pillar (to get wounds from hits). On the paper it seems to synergize quite well with the barbarian high hit-rate + AOEs and the wounds gained from hits by the Monk/Shattered-pillar but maybe I am missing something... If you feel like it's bad, could you advise a better balanced (non glass-canon) melee build, with high burst damage, AOEs ans some croud-control? Any advice about how to level this build is also welcome Thanks

I desperately and seriously request that someone on here please kindly create and upload online these here attached portraits as various useable working in game "player character" portraits to be actually used in Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire the upcoming PC RPG game please!:>>>...

I'm early in my play stage, I've pretty much settled on Barbarian. In most of my RPGs, I reroll a lot just to see what class best fits my play style. For my first playthrough, I intend on only using pre-made NPC companions. Now I'm looking at what weapon setup to use, 2handed or dual wield. What is your favorite and why? Thanks

Hi guys, thanks for checking out my topic. I'm a new player and I just picked up PoE last week. I've gotten to the first town and messed around a bit but I'm having a bit of restartitis since there's a lot in this game to consider. I'm a very "Plan my play through" type of person so I want to know what build, items, party members, etc that I'll be going for. I play like this because the worst feeling for me in a game is regretting that I didn't make a different choice. Here's an example: I start playing a fire based Paladin only to find out that Paladin's main abilities are blue fire, which doesn't mesh with the aesthetic I want (true story). So I'd like to take some advice from you veteran's if you're willing to give it, so that I can actually get into this game in earnest. The first challenge is the party members. I'm very partial to story companions in games like this, so I do not want custom companions. This is a challenge because I prefer my groups to be diverse (race, gender, class) and to make sense in terms of gameplay (Even mix or range/melee, tank, healer, etc). The companions I am interested in are Eder, Aloth, Hiravias, Sagani, Pallegina, Durance, and maybe Grieving Mother. I really like Eder's personality, and I enjoy those with unique aspects (Pallegina, Hiravias, Sagani). Aloth, GM, and Durance are all being considered more because I've been told that they are important to the story than for any other reason, although I do think it necessary to have wizard and healer type characters in my party. Note that if I leave out Durance or Aloth it will most likely be due to me replacing them as I'll get to in a moment. So I ask you guys, what do you think a reasonable party is for me? Are Aloth/Durance/GM important enough to keep around? Or can I leave them in my stronghold and occasionally talk to them to get the same value? The next challenge is my class, which I've been having a ton of trouble with. Paladins are my bread and butter, I play them in every game where they are an option, and the next closest option if they aren't. This is my first experience with a game that messed up paladins so badly for me that I'm being forced to go elsewhere. Blue fire when every other bit of fire is orange? All of their best gear is bright green? No spells? It seems like their only role is to be a tank support, but if they are up front tanking then the only person receiving support is the fighter, and if they are in back supporting the ranged then their tankiness is somewhat wasted. Paladins in this game just feel like a drunken thematic rainbow that has no solid direction. /rant With that in mind, you know that I want to play the closest thing to feeling like a paladin from other games as I can get. I've narrowed it down to Barbarian, Wizard or Priest. Note that I like spells, and I especially like Firebrand, so that will be a staple of my character. The ideas are as follows: Barbarian: Off-tank using Flames of Fair Rhian and Dragon's Maw, switching to Firebrand to deliver the pain when needed. Interested in the ring of combusting wounds and other spellbound items/armors since Barbarians lack spells entirely. I really like the orange ability effects of the barbarian and their AoE nature. However, as a paladin "main" I find I have a great distaste for being known as a barbarian, and I find it hard to shake that feeling. I see their icon of crude weapons crossing a blood red skull and I throw up in my mouth just a little. Wizard: Self-buffer melee build with nice spells and Firebrand, probably a scepter or something before I get in melee. I'm very mixed on Wizard because most of their spells I have no interest in using, but the ones I like give me vast amounts of pleasure. Citzals Martial Power in particular looks amazing. However, their reliance on "blue" buffs like DAoM, arcane shield, etc turn me off greatly. The more I look at this the more I think Aloth could pull off a blue ice themed build with the spirit lance much better (though his starter spells are rubbish). Priest: Not entirely sure, but something like Abydon's hammer for spells into Firebrand when I need to conserve spells or when I run out. Priest seems like the logical alternative to Paladin, but I have similar or perhaps even greater issues with them as the wizard. I don't like having a bunch of spells that I have no interest in casting. I suppose the benefit of priest is that most of their spells fit a single theme (unlike wizards with frost/fire/arcane/corrosive/etc) but still. I'm not really sure how good priests are at buffing themselves vs supporting the party, but I think it would be nice to play one so long as I'm not just a buff bot for everyone else. So what do you guys think? As a barbarian all the party members I'm interested can be used, and as a wizard/priest obviously Aloth/Durance are no good. What class do you think will sate my paladin lust best? Which party members do you think will work best both for that character and story wise? Thanks very much for any help. If you have questions for me I will do my best to answer. Edit: I'm playing on Hard by the way, I tried POTD but it was a little too much. Also, Mobile was unkind to me when I typed this, there might be auto correct errors.

What are the advantages of playing Pillars of Eternity as a Barbarian?!