Has anyone played a Barbarian - Mageslayer and how did it go?

[AeonsLegend]

So I look at this subclass and am thinking yea I really enjoyed playing a Wizard Slayer in BG2 back in the day and it was really strong. In this game though with the power of consumables being as it is and the low impact spellcasters really have on your party I look at this class and think: I want to like you, but I'm not picking you. I mean in BG2 you have liches and other wizards that are so strong with spells that you really have to specifically deal with them. In this game I don't even remember a spellcaster that lasted more than a few seconds into the fight. Aside from Fampyrs, but there's only a few of them and I think all of them are optional.

[Dr <3]

I'm playing with a wiz slayer/ kind wayfarer ( you need some source of healing after all) and he's doing fine in solo. I will post the exact build after finishing the game

[Boeroer]

I played a Mage Slayer/Troubadour with the Concentration removal phrase + the weakening phrase. He takes out offensive spellcasters and especially healers pretty nicely. He also had dual clubs or flails for lowering will or reflex (what needed debuffing most).

[mosspit]

I played a Mage Slayer/Troubadour with the Concentration removal phrase + the weakening phrase. He takes out offensive spellcasters and especially healers pretty nicely. He also had dual clubs or flails for lowering will or reflex (what needed debuffing most).

Does the will / reflex lowering gets propagated via Carnage? I assume no, but asking just in case.

[KDubya]

 

I played a Mage Slayer/Troubadour with the Concentration removal phrase + the weakening phrase. He takes out offensive spellcasters and especially healers pretty nicely. He also had dual clubs or flails for lowering will or reflex (what needed debuffing most).

Does the will / reflex lowering gets propagated via Carnage? I assume no, but asking just in case.

 

 

Carnage does not propagate anything anymore, so the weapon debuffs are single target only.

 

 

I've got a midlevel Ravager - Wizard Slayer/Shattered Pillar who uses two handed weapons, primarily morningstars to use the fortitude debuff and the monk primary attacks like FoA and Torments Reach. The spell disruption is useful but the lack of healing is a real problem. Being about dead and resisting the priest's heal or sanctuary spell is a problem. Its different but not necessarily strong.

 

If I was to make a dedicated Wizard Slayer I'd want dual wielding and some inherent regen. So either a Fighter multiclass or go with a Chanter multi, probably a Troubador as you don't have extra buffs for summons or inherently more crits to help a Skald.

 

Its definitely a self handicapping type of class, not a powergamer choice in any manner.

[Yosharian]

>  I really enjoyed playing a Wizard Slayer in BG2 back in the day and it was really strong

 

Lol

[Boeroer]

 

I played a Mage Slayer/Troubadour with the Concentration removal phrase + the weakening phrase. He takes out offensive spellcasters and especially healers pretty nicely. He also had dual clubs or flails for lowering will or reflex (what needed debuffing most).

Does the will / reflex lowering gets propagated via Carnage? I assume no, but asking just in case.

Nope. If you want to do that you can use Flagellant's Path or Clear Out + Upgrades. I had a Devoted with a Morning Star + Clear Out in the party to lower Fortitude in an AoE.

 

I usually focused on one caster with the Mage Slayer and stacked spell disruption and applied will or reflex debuff for a party members to finish the enemy, then off to the next. He also removed the Concentration from every other enemy with the chant so my other party members could interrupt other casters easily. But that is no feat of the mage Slayer. That class itself is pretty good at blocking single targets though - even bosses might not get a single ability off.

 

I wanted to mix AoE "ability disrupt" with the Troubadour and single target disrupt with the Mage Slayer. Spell disruption of the Mage Slayer works ok but I don't know if it's worth the drawbacks.

 

What also helps a lot to shut down ability usage are terrify effects.

Edited June 21, 2018 by Boeroer

[antoniokolano]

>  I really enjoyed playing a Wizard Slayer in BG2 back in the day and it was really strong

 

Lol

 

My thoughts, it has always been regarded as one of the worst kits in-game so I was pretty confused :D

[knownastherat]

 

>  I really enjoyed playing a Wizard Slayer in BG2 back in the day and it was really strong

 

Lol

 

My thoughts, it has always been regarded as one of the worst kits in-game so I was pretty confused :D

 

 

It was, until multi with Rogue and Use Any Item HLA was introduced.   

[Incendax]

Playing a Marauder build based on the Engaging Eder concept.

Can confirm that Riposte transmits Spell Disruption.

It’s also hilarious.

[Archaven]

I played a Mage Slayer/Troubadour with the Concentration removal phrase + the weakening phrase. He takes out offensive spellcasters and especially healers pretty nicely. He also had dual clubs or flails for lowering will or reflex (what needed debuffing most).

 

wondering if dual clubs stacks lowering the reflex?

[Boeroer]

Nope. Only prolongs the duration. You can also use club + flail for example to apply will and reflex debuff simultaneously. I just used dual clubs because it looks better than club + flail or club + whatever.

Edited June 21, 2018 by Boeroer

[AeonsLegend]

 

>  I really enjoyed playing a Wizard Slayer in BG2 back in the day and it was really strong

 

Lol

 

My thoughts, it has always been regarded as one of the worst kits in-game so I was pretty confused :D

 

I never liked OP builds. I liked the kit because of the continuous interrupt on mages and spell resistance. Incredibly useful. But if you want to go braindead and use a cleric to buff yourself to infinity go right ahead.

 

Playing a Marauder build based on the Engaging Eder concept.

Can confirm that Riposte transmits Spell Disruption.

It’s also hilarious.

Isn't riposte kind of circumstantial. I had Eder at about 140 deflection and he triggered riposte maybe once per fight. sure vs low level enemies you can just let him stand there and let enemies kill themselves, but in a normal fight it was never that good for me. I did choose high level encounters over low ones and the low level ones were usually over before they could hit anyone. Edited June 21, 2018 by AeonsLegend

[antoniokolano]

 

 

>  I really enjoyed playing a Wizard Slayer in BG2 back in the day and it was really strong

 

Lol

 

My thoughts, it has always been regarded as one of the worst kits in-game so I was pretty confused :D

 

I never liked OP builds. I liked the kit because of the continuous interrupt on mages and spell resistance. Incredibly useful. But if you want to go braindead and use a cleric to buff yourself to infinity go right ahead.

 

 

I didn't mean to sound condescending in my previous post, I'm sorry.

 

Actually now that I look at Deadfire's mage slayer, the penalties are not that bad - I had no need to use potions and scrolls at all on my PotD run. With a party of 5 you've got so many buffs and heals available that I felt potions and scrolls and traps and food were reduntant. 

 

Like you said in your first post though, enemy mages die so quickly when focused by your ranged characters that I'm not sure if your barb will even make it in time to land a single hit. Carnage does apply spell disruption, but from my experience enemy casters rarely stay grouped. 

 

It's a subclass I'd be willing to give a shot for flavour reasons (come on - it does sound awesome, 'mage slayer'), but yeah, I don't think it's a powerhouse. It's so intriguing though that I'll definitely make a MS run one day. Who knows, maybe devs will buff it in the upcoming major patch. 

[mosspit]

Thanks for the replies.

[AeonsLegend]

 

 

 

>  I really enjoyed playing a Wizard Slayer in BG2 back in the day and it was really strong

 

Lol

 

My thoughts, it has always been regarded as one of the worst kits in-game so I was pretty confused :D

 

I never liked OP builds. I liked the kit because of the continuous interrupt on mages and spell resistance. Incredibly useful. But if you want to go braindead and use a cleric to buff yourself to infinity go right ahead.

 

I didn't mean to sound condescending in my previous post, I'm sorry.

 

Actually now that I look at Deadfire's mage slayer, the penalties are not that bad - I had no need to use potions and scrolls at all on my PotD run. With a party of 5 you've got so many buffs and heals available that I felt potions and scrolls and traps and food were reduntant. 

 

Like you said in your first post though, enemy mages die so quickly when focused by your ranged characters that I'm not sure if your barb will even make it in time to land a single hit. Carnage does apply spell disruption, but from my experience enemy casters rarely stay grouped. 

 

It's a subclass I'd be willing to give a shot for flavour reasons (come on - it does sound awesome, 'mage slayer'), but yeah, I don't think it's a powerhouse. It's so intriguing though that I'll definitely make a MS run one day. Who knows, maybe devs will buff it in the upcoming major patch.

 

It feels like they copied it straight from BGII. The thing is this game doesn't have stone/ironskin and weapon invulnerablity spells to make mages Godlike. In BGII if you hit a mage with all those protections it would still disrupt him even if you're not even close to damaging him. Rendering him useless was perfect. Especially vs those liches that liked to cast time stop and all sorts of death spells to instakill your party.

[Dr <3]

The thing that i miss most from the bg2 mage slayer is the SCALING spell resistance. In deadfire you are struck with 25%, i feel it should scale with power level. Sure you can also take the passive spell resistance talent

 

( but i still have not understand if it effectively add anoter +10 spell res --> 35% total spell res OR if it adds another chance of spell res --> so you have 2 separate checks: one at 25% and the other at 10% to resist spell. The doubt comes from hit to crit conversion bonuses working in the second way)

 

And 100% spell resistance is not achiveable by any means (AFAIK) wich is both good for actual balance but bad for the power player inside me

 

P.s. : moreover the whole mage slayer role is differen in deadfire vs bg2. As other said in bg2 all caster are kind of gods, and kill them is like to solve a riddle: you had to "dismount" all the protection layers before beign actually able to even hit them. And there are contingencies and so on.

In poe casters are more balanced respect to non casters: they have protections and self buffs, but can't reach the "untochable" point ( unless some very specialized builds). And there is no spells like timestop that you have to stop before the casting by any means.

So you don't actually need a "wizard slayer", since in the end even a rogue with all his interrupting attacks or any kind of hard cc can block wizards spells, and the higher magic resistance is another layer of protection, but not good as better defences.

Edited June 22, 2018 by Dr <3

[dunehunter]

If we are able to pick one favorite kit from Baldur's Gate 2 to migrate into DeadFire, I will never vote for mageslayer. They picked one of the worst kit in Bg2 and move it to DF, they are almost exactly same functionally.

 

I wish they can ask us before pick it, anyway for me I will vote for Inquisitor instead. Inquisitor with Carsomyr is much cooler. 

[Boeroer]

Doesn't the spell disruption stack? I remember testing it on Aloth and at some point (likely 4 hits) he had 100% spell disruption. Was that changed?

[mant2si]

Take mage-slayer + wizard, cast Buffs + Pull of Eora, go to center of black hole with Wahai Poraga and cut everything :D Very fun build

Edited June 22, 2018 by mant2si

[Boeroer]

Why do you need Mage-Slayer for this? To prevent getting catched by the Pull?

[mant2si]

Why do you need Mage-Slayer for this? To prevent getting catched by the Pull?

You  pull all of them into one place and then with 1 - 2 carnage prevent them for casting :D 

[KDubya]

All barbarians get access to interrupting blows which I think is 50% interruptt on crit. In reality a dual wielding berserker with his inherent hit>crit from frenzy will probably stop a spell caster as easily as a Wizard Slayer. A Berserker/Rogue will have even more interrupting as the Rogue strikes all interrupt.

 

The malus of no healing from potions is big, especially early game when it is toughest. That 25% chance to resist the spell that will save your life is also a big problem.The two less armor compared to a Berserker is huge in mitigating damage and Barbarians get hit frequently and easily due to proximity to melee and low deflection. With more levels you get enough of a health pool to outlast the damage but early its different.

 

I want so badly to come up with a good use of the Wizard Slayer but it ends up with a plain Barbarian being better. The main niche is combos where the Berserker confusion is really bad like a Chanter that buffs and heals the enemy.

 

If they extend the effect of 'spell disruption' to power usage which also included any and all abilities then you'd have something that'd be worth the hassle other than for the challenge. 

[Bezhukov]

On 6/22/2018 at 10:25 AM, KDubya said:

The malus of no healing from potions is big, especially early game when it is toughest. That 25% chance to resist the spell that will save your life is also a big problem.The two less armor compared to a Berserker is huge in mitigating damage and Barbarians get hit frequently and easily due to proximity to melee and low deflection. With more levels you get enough of a health pool to outlast the damage but early its different.

If I'm trying to get Bloodied I don't want extra armor (yet), and if I'm trying to stop casters I don't have time for potions (or waiting around for friendly buffs).

Sounds like a good combo with Streetfighter played straight to get behind enemy lines ASAP using Escape. If the bad guys try to protect their casters then that's a pull without having to cast one. Spell Resistance probably doesn't apply to Greater Lay on Hands if you want to wuss out.

[Boeroer]

Btw.: a Mage Slayer can also apply his spell disruption from range:

1. use the great sword "Effort" with the Hemorrhaging enchantment and then use any ranged ability (spell, chant, shout) and crit with it. Hemorrhaging is a melee weapon effect. So the spell disruption will piggyback on Hemorhaging, too. In additition to that (and that' the crucial part that makes this ranged) : Hemorrhaging itself piggybacks on ALL attack rolls you do as long as you are holding the sword. Abilities that do multiple attack rolls with one action (such as Her Revenge, Storm of Holy Fire, Chillfog, Venombloom and so on) would be best to maximize the chances to apply as many spell disruptions as possible. If you add other gear that procs additional attack rolls from weapon attacks (see Hylea's Talons, Ring of Clenched Muscle...) you will add more chances to crit->apply Hemorrhaging->apply spell disruption
   That way you can even build an effective SC Mage Slayer who throws casters down/interrupts with Barbaric Roar/Driving Roar and also spell disrupts them in the process. 
2. use Frostseeker - the AoE explosion on projectile crit has a melee component which also triggers spell disruption. Frostseeker has 3 prijectiles. If each of them crits you will apply 3 spell distruption (or 75% disruption in other words) with one shot. Multiclass with a Ranger and using Driving Flight and Concussive Tranquilizer this is an excellent character for dealing with all sorts of casters.
3. via Instuments of Pain - but I guess that one's very obvious

Multi hitroll weapons (Sun & Moon, Saru Sichr, Wicked Beast, Mohora Tanga...) will apply a spell disruption with every hit roll (that actually hits). So those weapons are highly recommended for a Mage Slayer. Best is if they don't require crits for the multi-roll (Wicked Beast and Mohora Tanga are examples that only do multihits if the initial roll crits) but do additional rolls on graze and hit, too (Saru Sichr) or do always two hit rolls (Sun & Moon) anyway, even if the first one misses.

I haven't tried Mage Slayer/Fighter who uses a mortar (ranged) in the main hand and tricks his way to using Clear Out (melee) with it. It could lead to insta-100%-spell disruption of the whole cone - but my suspicion is that it doesn't apply (bc. ranged weapon overrules melee ability so to speak).