Build Help: Solo POTD Barbarian Multiclass

[Boeroer]

summon time cast is too long instead of it you already would do a few strikes with carnage dealing up more damage. triggering bloodlust or blood thirst through summons make sense for me when you fight small group of enemies or mini-boss fights.

A few strikes are more valuabe to you than having summons on the field when you play solo? That's weird...

[coldmind]

 

summon time cast is too long instead of it you already would do a few strikes with carnage dealing up more damage. triggering bloodlust or blood thirst through summons make sense for me when you fight small group of enemies or mini-boss fights.

A few strikes are more valuabe to you than having summons on the field when you play solo? That's weird...

 

 

maybe it looks weird but it`s true, i never considered summons as very helpful tool on barb\chanter mix as unless you`re not a beckoner or solo chanter with dragon then even in mid-game their presence on the battlefield becomes irrelevant and you have only losing cast time cause very often summons then practically do nothing and quickly dies/disappears and instead of it i`d rather try to do some adiitional damage

Edited August 31, 2018 by coldmind

[Boeroer]

Not really. Summons duration prolongs with Power Level and INT. Health scales as well. They are fantastic body blockers and damage sponges. But the best part when going solo is the chant "Many Lives pass by" - no casting time involved and a Troubadour can get up to six skeletons on the field and hold that up all the time. Or three and pair it with another nice chant.

[Mocker22]

Might have been said already but wizard works well with barb. Lots of self buffing and I think carnage attacks proc Citzal's aoe? Also frenzy is always good on spellcasters for when you want to just unload on a pack.

[Clerith]

carnage attacks proc Citzal's aoe? 

No. That would be broken op. Generally speaking, nothing procs with or from Carnage.

[baldurs_gate_2]

 

carnage attacks proc Citzal's aoe? 

No. That would be broken op. Generally speaking, nothing procs with or from Carnage.

 

I heard that static charge from Darryns Voulgue procs from carnage.

Edited August 31, 2018 by baldurs_gate_2

[Boeroer]

It does. And Staggered from Spirit Frenzy and Dot from Blood Frenzy. And Ghost Blades from Espirs on kill.

 

But Citzal's + Carnage is nothing special: the initial hit pocs Carnage and that's it. Clear Out and Citzal's on the other hand...

[Haplok]

Does it proc Blood Frenzy though? I thought Carnage couldn't crit?

[Boeroer]

Why not? It has a normal attack resolution an can crit like any other attack that has one afaik. The only thing it can't do is under- or overpenetrate because it's raw damage.

 

Edit: Eh wait... you are right: I just had a 114 roll and it's still a hit. Weird - I never noticed that. I guess that rules Blood Storm out and only leaves Spirit Frenzy and the Voulge.

Edited August 31, 2018 by Boeroer

[Metaturtle]

Why not? It has a normal attack resolution an can crit like any other attack that has one afaik. The only thing it can't do is under- or overpenetrate because it's raw damage.

 

Edit: Eh wait... you are right: I just had a 114 roll and it's still a hit. Weird - I never noticed that. I guess that rules Blood Storm out and only leaves Spirit Frenzy and the Voulge.

 

If carnage could crit,  I would've expected seeing some crazy skald howler builds. lol

[Sire Of The Shadow]

 

In terms of min/max. What starting stats would I need for beserker/devoted or beserker/bleak Walker?

I'm running a solo PotD Berserker/Devoted right now, using a slightly different stat spread than 1TTFFSSE recommended:

 

Mig: Max

Con: Flat

Dex: High

Per: High

Int: Max

Res: Flat 

 

My reasons:

 

--I kept Might and Intellect high to (1) maximize Carnage damage (since Might is one of the few things that influences Carnage damage) and area of effect, and (2) to maximize healing from Unbending and Constant Recovery (increasing both duration and magnitude of the healing they provide).

 

As Boerer noted, a high Might increases the Frenzy damage. But since Unbending returns damage dealt (and the Voidward ring helps to minimize it in the meantime), the increase in damage just increases how much Unbending returns. It's been working well so far, anyway.

 

--I've kept Constitution and Resolve flat and relied on stacking armor instead for defense (though I try to keep all of my defenses decent). This is a decent way to go (IMHO) because this class combination is pretty friendly to high armor rating builds.

 

(The Barbarian's Thick Skinned ability offers a nice passive AR-boost, and (given the testing done by other people on this board) it appears that the benefits of the Fighter's Armored Grace ability depend on how heavy your armor is, with the heaviest armors getting the most recover reduction from this ability, giving you an incentive to wear heavy armor.) 

 

--Perception is pretty great, so it could be that Perception should be even higher. But the Berserker already has a number of hit-to-crit boosters, making Perception increases less valuable from the point of "percentage increase to expected damage" than it would be for most builds.

 

(I.e., many builds get a large chunk of their expected damage from low-probability crits. And the 1% increases from Perception boosts can increase the magnitude of that probability substantially, because that probability is so low. So the resulting increase in expected damage from boosting Perception, percentage-wise, is relatively high. Whereas if you already have a very high chance of getting crits for other reasons (Berserker Frenzy, Barbaric Blow, Bloody Slaughter, Disciplined Strikes) then Perception increases don't increase crit chances by as much, proportionally speaking.)

 

__________

 

Anyway, it's been working pretty well so far!

 

Wow this sounds great! I think berserker/devoted sounds like the way to go!

 

In terms of stat, would you say this looks OK? or are we doing to low on dexterity and perception? with

 

Mig: 18 +2

Con: 8 +2

Dex: 13 +2

Per: 13 +2

Int: 18 +2

Res: 8 +2

 

On the armour front, origionally i was just going to go with DoC, but you've mentioned heaved armor here, what would you take?

 

Race? i was thinking human just for bloodied? does Heath Orlan work solo? is there another option i should be looking at?

 

I was thinking about dual wielding battleaxes, or swords, but maybe sabers are more optimal?

 

Alternatively i could go two handed and grab Blade of Endless Paths. Thoughts?

[whimper]

Wow this sounds great! I think berserker/devoted sounds like the way to go!

 

 

 

In terms of stat, would you say this looks OK? or are we doing to low on dexterity and perception? with

 

Mig: 18 +2

Con: 8 +2

Dex: 13 +2

Per: 13 +2

Int: 18 +2

Res: 8 +2

 

On the armour front, origionally i was just going to go with DoC, but you've mentioned heaved armor here, what would you take?

 

Race? i was thinking human just for bloodied? does Heath Orlan work solo? is there another option i should be looking at?

 

I was thinking about dual wielding battleaxes, or swords, but maybe sabers are more optimal?

 

Alternatively i could go two handed and grab Blade of Endless Paths. Thoughts?

--Stats: The stats you listed are literally identical to the stat distribution I'm running with. So they look good to me! (If you wanted to ditch a little Might to boost Dex and Per even more, I'm sure that would work well too. But anything along these lines should be good.)

 

--Race: Yeah, I went with Human for the Bloodied effect. Unlike Streetfighter, the benefits of being Bloodied, even with the Human and Barbarian talent boosts, aren't quite enough to make being Bloodied something you need to try to be in all the time. But you'll be Bloodied often enough in solo PotD without really trying that it ends up being a nice boost a fair amount of the time. (EDIT: And the really nice feature of being Human is that it gives you a way to keep track of what your health is, even though Frenzy hides it from you. That was my main reason for going Human.)

 

Dwarf is also nice, since it gives you resistance to Constitution effects, which can hamper all of your nice healing abilities. 

 

--Armor: I find that in solo PotD I need to vary up the armor I wear depending on what the encounter is. Reckless Brigandine is great when you're in the middle of a swarm of enemies (i.e., most of the time), as long as you don't have a lot of powerful archers or rogues hitting you with piercing attacks. If you do, then it's a deathtrap, and you want to swap it out for one of the nice unique plate armors (I think there are at least three). Ditto for encounters in which you face a lot of corrode attacks, like the boss of the BoW DLC expansion.

 

--Weapons: As a rule of thumb, it's nice to pair Devoted with weapons that do at least two kinds of damage, so they don't have to switch out if they encounter something that's invulnerable, or has extremely high armor, against (say) piercing or slashing. So that's a tentative reason to not go with sabres or estocs (Blade of the Endless Paths). Though I suspect both of those options are viable.

 

Three natural options to consider (IMO):

 

I. Pollaxes.

 

This is what I went with, following the advice given by a number of people on these threads. (See this for a yet-to-be-played build using pollaxes that inspired my current run.) They're really nice for a Devoted/Barbarian multiclass for a couple reasons.

 

(1) There are two great unique pollaxes, Lord Darryn's Voulge and Wahai Poraga, that you get can really early in the game. You can get the Voulge as soon as you get off the first island, and with a handful of points in stealth (coupled with the stealth boosting familiar and boots of stealth), you can sneak in and steal Wahai Poraga with very little combat, making it accessible by level 9 or 10. 

 

(2) Pollaxes do two kinds of damage (Bludgeoning or Slashing). And, even better, Lord Darryn's Voulge does Slashing or Electric, meaning that with those two pollaxes you can cover *three* damage types. 

 

(3) Both of the special pollaxes have great synergies with Carnage. As was noted above, Carnage hits with the Voulge stack charges, allowing you to hits tons of things with the charges every time you swing, and do a ton of damage whenever one of your crits sets them off. Likewise, Wahai Poraga's two free extra attacks it makes against nearby creatures also inflict further Carnage damage, allowing you to triple the amount of Carnage damage you're doing. Again, really great with a Barbarian.

 

II. Warhammers

 

Theosupus has a nice build that dual wields Warhammers, which are nice since they have two damage types, a high base penetration, and there are a couple really nice unique Warhammers, though they come later in the game. 

 

III. Swords

 

Dual-wielding swords is also nice, since they do two kinds of damage, and one of the unique swords (Modwyr) gives you immunity to your Frenzy's confusion effect. 

 

(Though I'll note that if you grab Tactical Barrage, you don't need to worry about it, since Tactical Barrage cancels the Confused effect of your Frenzy by giving you the Acute condition (in addition to the Aware condition). That's a net swing of 10 Int points, which makes a really big difference to how big your Carnage field is (+100% area), and how long your other abilities last (+50% duration). And Tactical Barrage is pretty nice for this build in general, since, in addition to that(!) it gives you a +5 Perception boost, a nice graze-to-hit conversion boost, and a +1 PL bonus to everything. Pretty sweet...)

 

Those are my thoughts, anyway!

Edited September 1, 2018 by whimper

[Marigoldran]

For a relaxed solo playthrough go with a paladin or fighter multiclass.

Even better:

 

Go with a Paladin/Chanter (Herald). Easiest POTD solo, ever.  Cast Brand Enemy, summon Ogres to tank, heal yourself occasionally, and watch all of your enemies slowly die.  Very little thinking or skill required.  

Edited September 1, 2018 by Marigoldran

[Sire Of The Shadow]

I’m not specifically looking for a brainless play through. I’m wanting to make ships full or agro explode all on my own.

Edited September 1, 2018 by Sire Of The Shadow

[Sire Of The Shadow]

 

Wow this sounds great! I think berserker/devoted sounds like the way to go!

 

 

 

In terms of stat, would you say this looks OK? or are we doing to low on dexterity and perception? with

 

Mig: 18 +2

Con: 8 +2

Dex: 13 +2

Per: 13 +2

Int: 18 +2

Res: 8 +2

 

On the armour front, origionally i was just going to go with DoC, but you've mentioned heaved armor here, what would you take?

 

Race? i was thinking human just for bloodied? does Heath Orlan work solo? is there another option i should be looking at?

 

I was thinking about dual wielding battleaxes, or swords, but maybe sabers are more optimal?

 

Alternatively i could go two handed and grab Blade of Endless Paths. Thoughts?

--Stats: The stats you listed are literally identical to the stat distribution I'm running with. So they look good to me! (If you wanted to ditch a little Might to boost Dex and Per even more, I'm sure that would work well too. But anything along these lines should be good.)

 

--Race: Yeah, I went with Human for the Bloodied effect. Unlike Streetfighter, the benefits of being Bloodied, even with the Human and Barbarian talent boosts, aren't quite enough to make being Bloodied something you need to try to be in all the time. But you'll be Bloodied often enough in solo PotD without really trying that it ends up being a nice boost a fair amount of the time. (EDIT: And the really nice feature of being Human is that it gives you a way to keep track of what your health is, even though Frenzy hides it from you. That was my main reason for going Human.)

 

Dwarf is also nice, since it gives you resistance to Constitution effects, which can hamper all of your nice healing abilities. 

 

--Armor: I find that in solo PotD I need to vary up the armor I wear depending on what the encounter is. Reckless Brigandine is great when you're in the middle of a swarm of enemies (i.e., most of the time), as long as you don't have a lot of powerful archers or rogues hitting you with piercing attacks. If you do, then it's a deathtrap, and you want to swap it out for one of the nice unique plate armors (I think there are at least three). Ditto for encounters in which you face a lot of corrode attacks, like the boss of the BoW DLC expansion.

 

--Weapons: As a rule of thumb, it's nice to pair Devoted with weapons that do at least two kinds of damage, so they don't have to switch out if they encounter something that's invulnerable, or has extremely high armor, against (say) piercing or slashing. So that's a tentative reason to not go with sabres or estocs (Blade of the Endless Paths). Though I suspect both of those options are viable.

 

Three natural options to consider (IMO):

 

I. Pollaxes.

 

This is what I went with, following the advice given by a number of people on these threads. (See this for a yet-to-be-played build using pollaxes that inspired my current run.) They're really nice for a Devoted/Barbarian multiclass for a couple reasons.

 

(1) There are two great unique pollaxes, Lord Darryn's Voulge and Wahai Poraga, that you get can really early in the game. You can get the Voulge as soon as you get off the first island, and with a handful of points in stealth (coupled with the stealth boosting familiar and boots of stealth), you can sneak in and steal Wahai Poraga with very little combat, making it accessible by level 9 or 10. 

 

(2) Pollaxes do two kinds of damage (Bludgeoning or Slashing). And, even better, Lord Darryn's Voulge does Slashing or Electric, meaning that with those two pollaxes you can cover *three* damage types. 

 

(3) Both of the special pollaxes have great synergies with Carnage. As was noted above, Carnage hits with the Voulge stack charges, allowing you to hits tons of things with the charges every time you swing, and do a ton of damage whenever one of your crits sets them off. Likewise, Wahai Poraga's two free extra attacks it makes against nearby creatures also inflict further Carnage damage, allowing you to triple the amount of Carnage damage you're doing. Again, really great with a Barbarian.

 

II. Warhammers

 

Theosupus has a nice build that dual wields Warhammers, which are nice since they have two damage types, a high base penetration, and there are a couple really nice unique Warhammers, though they come later in the game. 

 

III. Swords

 

Dual-wielding swords is also nice, since they do two kinds of damage, and one of the unique swords (Modwyr) gives you immunity to your Frenzy's confusion effect. 

 

(Though I'll note that if you grab Tactical Barrage, you don't need to worry about it, since Tactical Barrage cancels the Confused effect of your Frenzy by giving you the Acute condition (in addition to the Aware condition). That's a net swing of 10 Int points, which makes a really big difference to how big your Carnage field is (+100% area), and how long your other abilities last (+50% duration). And Tactical Barrage is pretty nice for this build in general, since, in addition to that(!) it gives you a +5 Perception boost, a nice graze-to-hit conversion boost, and a +1 PL bonus to everything. Pretty sweet...)

 

Those are my thoughts, anyway!

 

Thanks so much for the feedback. I"m currently running a build that uses poleaxes, so i'm thinking that this solo build will use whispers of the endless paths (slash/pierce).

 

I also saw that dual wielding is getting a 35% damage reduction. So it seems only natural to go two handed.

[Haplok]

Whispers of the Endless paths is not optimal, IMO. The low base damage will hurt. And Carnage is only calculated once anyway - from the low damage. IMO go for Estocs (very high PEN, with Berserker/Devoted you'll frequently Overpenetrate for +30% damage and very good Estocs with aoe capabilities: Eager Blade available very early plus Engoliero de Espirs), alternatively with patch 2.1 go for 2handed battleaxes (new aoe battleaxe Amira can be bought early, eventually you may get Oathbreaker from BoW DLC) or Pollaxes - but you wrote you've done that already.

 

Two damage types are not needed if you have high Penetration, IMO (particularly with Estocs). High defense against pierce means very little to an Estoc user, who will penetrate anyway (can reach up to 20 PEN with Hot Razor Skewers, you're always sitting on 18 with a Legendary weapon - enough for full penetration on Steel Golems). In practice few enemies are actually immune to a damage type and when you meet such foes, you can eat the penalty and switch. IMO having one damage type with high PEN is better then two low/medium PEN damage types. The difference is usually only 2-4 points of Armor and high base makes up for that.

Edited September 1, 2018 by Haplok

[whimper]

Ah, I thought you meant Blade of Endless Paths (the estoc), not Whispers of Endless Paths (the greatsword). Yeah, that sounds fine too (from the point of view of doing multiple damage types).

 

With respect to the dual wielding nerf, I’m not sure it’s *that* severe — dual wielding will still seems like it’ll be at least as good as one handing or using a 2Hed weapon (special weapon properties aside). But yeah, it’s no longer the clear optimal choice, opening up other options.

 

EDIT: Haplok makes some good points too. Lots to consider...

Edited September 1, 2018 by whimper

[Theosupus]

I would still dual wield. 
1. The 2nd chance to apply a status
2. more bonuses on 2 weapons than 1
3. more effects on 2 weapons than 1 (e.g. last word +glacier bane = silenced mob + buff suppression, on a crit)
4. more carnage damage (carnage off each hand on full attack)

[Sire Of The Shadow]

Whispers of the Endless paths is not optimal, IMO. The low base damage will hurt. And Carnage is only calculated once anyway - from the low damage. IMO go for Estocs (very high PEN, with Berserker/Devoted you'll frequently Overpenetrate for +30% damage and very good Estocs with aoe capabilities: Eager Blade available very early plus Engoliero de Espirs), alternatively with patch 2.1 go for 2handed battleaxes (new aoe battleaxe Amira can be bought early, eventually you may get Oathbreaker from BoW DLC) or Pollaxes - but you wrote you've done that already.

 

Two damage types are not needed if you have high Penetration, IMO (particularly with Estocs). High defense against pierce means very little to an Estoc user, who will penetrate anyway (can reach up to 20 PEN with Hot Razor Skewers, you've always sitting on 18 with a Legendary weapon - enough for full penetration on Steel Golems). In practice few enemies are actually immune to a damage type and when you meet such foes, you can eat the penalty and switch. IMO having one damage type with high PEN is better then two low/medium PEN damage types. The difference is usually only 2-4 points of Armor and high base makes up for that.

 

Interesting. Thank you for your input. My decisions  have gotten harder it seems

 

 

Ah, I thought you meant Blade of Endless Paths (the estoc), not Whispers of Endless Paths (the greatsword). Yeah, that sounds fine too (from the point of view of doing multiple damage types).

 

With respect to the dual wielding nerf, I’m not sure it’s *that* severe — dual wielding will still seems like it’ll be at least as good as one handing or using a 2Hed weapon (special weapon properties aside). But yeah, it’s no longer the clear optimal choice, opening up other options.

 

EDIT: Haplok makes some good points too. Lots to consider...

 

I think i read on reddit that the nerf was quite high... though i'm not sure you can believe it or not... since my source is reddit...

 

 

I would still dual wield. 

1. The 2nd chance to apply a status

2. more bonuses on 2 weapons than 1

3. more effects on 2 weapons than 1 (e.g. last word +glacier bane = silenced mob + buff suppression, on a crit)

4. more carnage damage (carnage off each hand on full attack)

 

Well i'm officially torn now Do you have some recommendations on dual wield options for devoted/berserker?

[Theosupus]

I love the war hammers for their effects (and dual dmg type is automatic)

 

Sabers would be the best dps though since base damage is what carnage is based on (and scordeo's enchants are hard to compete with)

Edited September 1, 2018 by Theosupus

[Sire Of The Shadow]

I love the war hammers for their effects (and dual dmg type is automatic)

 

Sabers would be the best dps though since base damage is what carnage is based on (and scordeo's enchants are hard to compete with)

Looks like i'm going with a pro-principi run which suits me just fine since they are the only faction i haven't played through.

 

What pairs best with Scordeo for max DPS?

 

I think I'll start putting together a build and post it soon. I like the option to build it either with and Estoc or Sabers at this point.

[Theosupus]

 

I love the war hammers for their effects (and dual dmg type is automatic)

 

Sabers would be the best dps though since base damage is what carnage is based on (and scordeo's enchants are hard to compete with)

Looks like i'm going with a pro-principi run which suits me just fine since they are the only faction i haven't played through.

 

What pairs best with Scordeo for max DPS?

 

I think I'll start putting together a build and post it soon. I like the option to build it either with and Estoc or Sabers at this point.

 

If you're not 100% firm w/ devoted Rust's Poignard is really good w/ scordeo's since nothing is immune to prone

I also like the Magistrate's cudgel offhand when fighting kith 

 

If you are 100% for devoted (and thus want dual sabers) I personally like Tarn's or Beza's in offhand for the stacking deflection debuff or Ar debuff respectively

[Sire Of The Shadow]

Does anyone know if the sharp effect from Scordeo’s stacks with the sharp effect of Tarns?

 

Because if it does I feel like that’s the winning combo!

Edited September 1, 2018 by Sire Of The Shadow

[Haplok]

I think such effects only apply to their respective hand.

[Sire Of The Shadow]

I think such effects only apply to their respective hand.

 

So Beza's is a better offhand then I'd say.