[CLASS BUILD] The Cauterizer

[Boeroer]

<will insert backstory and picture here >

<or maybe not...>

 

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The Cauterizer

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Difficulty: PotD

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Class: Barbarian

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Race: Fire Godlike (optional)

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Background: The Living Lands - Colonist

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Stats:

 

MIG: 19

CON: 10

DEX: 09

PER: 18

INT: 19

RES: 03

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Skills: Survival 12 (+2 from Sanguine Plate)

We can't use Second Wind from Athletics because

you will hit yourself with Battle-Forged's burn

retaliation when using Second Wind (bug).

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Talents (a=auto, r=recommended, !=important)

2: Veteran's Recovery ®

4: Weapon Focus Soldier®

6: Accurate Carnage®

8: Rhymer's Summons

10: Scion of Flame

12: Two Handed Style

14: Apprentice's Sneak Attack

16: Savage Attack

 

Abilities

0: Carnage(a)

1: Frenzy(!)

3: Savage Defiance

5: One Stands Alone®

7: Blood Thirst

9: Bloodlust

11: Heart of Fury

13: Dragon Leap

15: Blooded

 

Story Talents:

- The Merciless Hand

- Gift from the Machine

- Dungeon Delver

- Song of the Heavens

- Hylea's or Galawain's Boon

 

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Items (!=important, r=recommended):

 

Weapon Set 1: Firebrand (!) / some backup Great Sword (Justice for example)

Weapon Set 2: some arquebus or arbalest

 

Boots: Shod in Faith ®

 

Head: none (Fire Godlike)

 

Armor: Sanguine Plate ®

 

Neck: Lost Periapt of the Winding Path

 

Belt: Belt of the Ryoal Deadfire Cannoneer (!)

 

Rings: Iron Circle, Band of Union

 

Hands: Forgemaster's Gloves (!)

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Hi!

 

A late build for PoE since recently the traffic in this forum rose again and I never posted my favorite Barb build since the Deafire Pack came out.

 

The Cauterizer combines two very strong things: Firebrand and Blood Thirst.

 

Firebrand has immense base damage and thus works very well with all sorts of dmg bonuses, including crits. Unfortunately you can't enchant it and so - most of the time - other weapons become better options when reaching the late(ish) game, mainly because of Durgan Steel and its speed bonus.

 

But Blood Thirst helps: it can completely remove the need for attack speed bonuses IF you can manage to kill quickly enough. And nothing kills stuff more quickly (and triggers Blood Thirst with the kill) than Firebrand + Carnage.

 

Add as many dmg bonuses as you can because you want to max out the damage per attack (not dps - dps comes from the removal of recovery through Blood Thirst). So the stuff I picked (Scion of Flame and so on) is there to increase damage per hit. You also want to crit as much as possible because Firebrand has Annihilation. In combo with Merciles Hand and Dungeon Delver you'll do +90% crit damage which is so powerful combined with the high base dmg of Firebrand.

 

Good thing about Carnage: it may start off quite underwhelming because of its reduced damage and more importantly reduced accuracy - BUT: Carnage gains +1 ACC per char level. Combined with Accurate Carnage you will surpass the ACC of your initial hits at lvl 6 already. The more levels you gain the more likely you crit with Carnage. After lvl 6 it's better to attack a low deflection target in order to better hit a high deflection target with Carnage.

 

The best way to use this is to gather the enemies and then hack away at them. Best to not jumo into their midst since this build has low RES (unless you have Heart of Fury). Better jump to the edge of a cluster. Squishy enemies may get one-shotted and immediately trigger Blood Thirst (and Bloodlust) which leads to a cascade of burning death strokes with no recovery. Kills with Battle Forgedalso trigger Blood Thirst - I found that to be a nice addition - also because it works with Blooded and Scion of Flame. Even more speed if you get hit.

 

In game pre lvl 7 you have Frenzy to speed you up and balance out the lowish DEX a bit. With Sanguine Plate you can even get several Frenzies per encounter. Also great for your fortitude, healing and health loss.

 

"But Boeroer: sometimes there are not that many squishy enemies and then I will be left with that very slow burning attacks!"

 

True - that's where Rhymer's Summons come into play. The fun part is that Blood Thirst and Bloodlust also trigger if you kill your own skeletons. Carnage still applies to enemy bystanders. So... only one or two tough enemy left at the end of a fight and you need more speed? Good you summoned those incredibly squishy skeletons and can now kill them for insane attack speed! If you don't like that part of the build (because it feels like cheese or something) just pick Barbaric Blow.

 

At the same time we don't want to go down all the time while we swing around. Because of that we maxed outr self healing potential. 14 Survival leads to a +60% healing bonus which applies to Savage Defiance and Consecrated Ground and Veteran's Recovery: tons of virtual endurance. Health is usually no issue with Barbs, even at 10 CON. But you need some levels to feel the effect. So play it safe in the early levels (like always with barbs).

 

Your biggest friend in the party is somebody who debuffs enemies' deflection and your ACC - for example a druid with Nature's Mark or a Wizard with Eyestrike and a Priest with Blessing + Devotions and so on. You want crits! You also want Holy Meditation because your concentration is pretty bad.

 

This combo is so devastating that my jaw literally (not figuratively) dropped the first time I used Blood Thirst and Firebrand together. He cauterizes enemies in half so quickly that other party members sometimes even don't get them chance to finish a spell. *whoosh-whoosh-whoosh* done.

 

You may not want to use Tidefall as backup because wounding kills don't trigger Blood Thirst. It's too good to use it as backup anyway. You'll have 6 uses of Firebrand per rest (gloves + belt uses do stack!). Usually that's more than enough from camp to camp. That's also a reason why I don't use Runner's Wounding Shot.

 

Enjoy!

Edited April 12, 2019 by Boeroer

[summatsupeer]

Interesting build, nice theme and maximising the fire damage!  I'm planning a character very similar to this going the Barbarian 2 Hand weapon path and wanting to maximize the resets from Blood Thirst so planned on Death Godlike.  Partly because I looked at the list of unique weapons on the wiki and Firebrand isn't listed and I didn't realise how much base damage it has before even considering Scion Of Flame! 

 

Might still give my idea a go, i'm not doing PoTR (planning the no reload run on Hard!) so want a bit of extra survivability for mistakes.  Planning on Priest + Cipher to buff+CC, not sure on rest yet.

 

My planned talents are: Veterans Recovery, Weapon Focus, Accurate Carnage, Two Handed Style, Barbaric Blow, Stalwart Defiance, Apprentice Sneak Attack, Savage Attack?

 

Abilities: Frenzy, Savage Defiance, One Stands Alone, Blood Thirst, Thick-Skinned, Threatening Presence, Heart of Fury, Dragon Leap

 

I was thinking of replacing the Gloves + Belt + Boots (since we already have Concecrated Grounds on Lost Periapt of the Winding Path) with: 

- Fenwalkers

- Gauntlets of Puissant Melee

- Girdle of Maegfolc Might

 

I'm not certain on the weapon, very tempting to just go your build! 

[chickenhed]

I've seen you mention this build a few times, Boeroer, so I'm thrilled to see you expand it out and explain the details in one post. Looks like a blast. 

[Pizzapepperoni]

Got a question, you proposed using both Belt of the Ryoal Deadfire Cannoneer and gloves that both give the Firebrand ability, does the per rest amount of uses stack?

[Boeroer]

Yes! You'll get 6 uses per rest which usually is enough for all encounters. If you have casters in your party you will most likely rest more often than every 6 fights.

 

Thanks for asking, I added this little passage to the build description:

You'll have 6 uses of Firebrand per rest (gloves + belt uses do stack!)

Edited April 12, 2019 by Boeroer

[dgray62]

This build is loads of fun, Boeroer, and is probably my favorite among your builds, followed closely by you boar druid and Witchdoctor monk builds. It's just amazing how quickly the Cauterizer just burns through the rather tough hordes on POE. As you note, the build is somewhat weak at first, as is typically the case for barbarians. He first started to shine at level 6, with accurate carnage, and then becomes amazing starting at level 7 when you get Blood Thirst. This is the ability that really makes this build; it would be weak without it. Later, I use Dragon Leap to position him in the midst of a horde, and then launch HoF, and watch them melt as one Blood Thirst after another is activated. As you note, you really need Firebrand for this melting effect to work, although I find that The Hours of St. Rumbalt is good when you run out of Firebrands, since it is annihilating and also prones on crits, which is great since you do land a lot of crits.

Which companion do you recommend sacrificing to the blood pool? Maneha, for the boost to strength and prone and stun resistance?

[Boeroer]

Erm... I almost never sacrifice anybody to the Blood Pool. Except when I play an evil blunderbuss user.  Then Devil of Caroc.

Maneha sounds nice. Prone and stun are very annoying.

Another alternative would be Durance. Barbs get a lot of base health and endurance and Durance in the pool will give you +5% max health and +10% max endurance.

Or Hiravias since DEX is always nice an the +1 slash DR... hm why not?

[Ophiuchus]

What do you think of helmet options for non-godlike characters, Boeroer? I've been having some good success with the Executioner's Hood.

[Boeroer]

Yes, Executioner's Hood is very nice. Other alternatives are the Maegfolc Skull or Tempered Helm (its defensive buffs are awesome and it looks good with Sanguine Plate).

[summatsupeer]

On 11/4/2018 at 7:13 AM, Boeroer said:

Kills with Battle Forgedalso trigger Blood Thirst

Do you know if kills with barbarian retaliation triggers blood thirst? 

Just thinking of replacing blood lust.  12ish secs of +20% attack speed after 2 kills seems poor value when got sanguine plate and frenzy or does it stack on top of them?

[Boeroer]

Bloodlust is a bit bugged and usually triggers after every kill once it got triggered for the first time. It's good to gap the recovery when you don't kill stuff with every strike. Barbaric Retaliation will most likely trigger Blood Thirst because it's direct damage and no DoT, but usually it's the inferior choice for me because the damage is quite low (doesn't scale) if you compare it to the high endurance pools of late game enemies. And with this guy I don't try to jump into the middle of everything and eat hits while dishing out.

Bloodlust on the other hand - as all speed bonuses in PoE - is multiplicative with other speed bonuses and doesn't get suppressed by anything. So for example Frenzy + Bloodlust together is faster than the two separate effects simply "added". 

If you like to jump into the middle of the mob and eat a lot of hits then maybe Barbaric Retaliation is worth considering maybe. 

I like Battle Forged because it works with Scion of Flame, works with Blooded and scales its base dmg with level which makes it worthwhile for me.

Edited May 21, 2019 by Boeroer

[summatsupeer]

Thanks for the reply.  For some reason I thought it would be "best bonus applies" so them both applying at same time changes my thinking a lot.

I was thinking with Battle Forged (assuming < 50% endurance) and Barbaric Retaliation it might get the last hits that are just missed, whilst an extra 20% attack speed might not get the extra attack in soon enough.  I do try and manage the other characters damage to "prepare" enemies but its a lot of micro.

Another thought I had was to take Barbaric Retaliation instead of Dragon Leap as I typically keep my barbarian near my Paladin to boost accuracy etc.  But now i'm thinking about it I could use Dragon Leap more effectively to get onto softer targets once he is buffed by Priest etc.  Not going for back/soft targets has been a weakness of mine, i don't tend to isolate characters and instead line up and grind through opponents as a group.

[Boeroer]

Yes, since Bloodlust is a passive it stacks with everything. You can compare a barb's speed with our without it here:

https://naijaro.github.io/poe-speed-calculator/

It was done by MaxQuest and is accurate. If you leave everything as is and just activate Frenzy you will see an overall 24% increase in speed (based on frames). If you only activate Bloodlust you will see a 14% increase. But if you activate both you will see an increase of 55%(!) So it not only adds 14% in this case but actually 31% (only if both are active though). Unfortunately you can't add any more speed bonuses ti exploit that even more - I mean if you want to keep Forgemaster Gloves and Firebrand. But 55% plus Blood Thirst on kill is pretty badass with Firebrand's huge dmg per hit/crit.  

PS: the numbers don't match the ingame description because here attack animation and recovery are both taken into account - while the game only tells you the recovery speedup. The only thing that speeds up attack animation is DEX. The rest of all pseed bonuses only affect recovery. Just play around with that calculator a bit.

Picking soft targets is a thing for rangers, rogues, shapeshifters and fighters. Barbs are ideal for going through opponents as a group.

Edited May 21, 2019 by Boeroer

[summatsupeer]

14 hours ago, Boeroer said:

Picking soft targets is a thing for rangers, rogues, shapeshifters and fighters. Barbs are ideal for going through opponents as a group.

Makes sense plus the jump ability comes quite late so got used to the sticking with group hence considering what the best alternative would be.

[Dapper Dan]

I really want to make a good 2-H barb build and this is very tempting, as I love the fiery concept. My main concern is with using firebrand and being fire godlike, does it not kinda suck missing out on finding new and amazing weapons and helmets out in the world? e.g. For the RP, I like the idea of finding long lost parts and reforging an ancient weapon (BotEP and Abydon Hammer for instance).

On top of which, there's that feeling of growing power as you replace, upgrade and enchant items. My lizard brain gets a kick out of finding new and better smashy sticks, and those smashy sticks becoming bigger and better smashy sticks over time, whether that be through enchantments or soulbind upgrades (Or like I dunno, supergluing nails to the smashy end maybe).

Similar deal with hats, I hate the idea of all these awesome helmets going to waste because I can't use them due to a cranial conflagration.

I guess my main question is does the strength of the build outweigh those negatives? Like, how much better is this barb vs. a hat-wearing firebrand barb vs. a hat-wearing barb who uses Tidefall/Rumbalt/BoTEP etc.?

 

~edit~ Also, would this build be completely tedious with only 3 firebrands per rest? Wondering if I could get away with just the belt, and equipping some sexy gloves, e.g. puissant melee?

Edited August 13, 2019 by Dapper Dan

[Boeroer]

The basic principle (triggering Blood Thirst with a heavy hitting weapon and thus rendering attack speed unimportant since you skip recovery) can be done with other weapons as well. There's just no other weapon which has that much dmg per hit until the late(ish) game when you have access to the highest quality enchantments and Durgan Steel.

I would not use Tidefall with this approach. I mean if I had somebody else in the party who could use it. Tidefall is one of the best dps weapon in the game - but it is so because of the awesome wounding enchantment. Unfortunately kills that are done by the wounding DoT effect will NOT trigger Blood Thirst. It's frustrating if that happens. Better give it to a teammate (e.g. a Rogue). 

Alternatives are: Hours of St. Rumbalt, Abydon's Hammer, Drake's Bell, St. Ydwen's Redeemer (against vessels), Justice (has two lashes), Tall Grass and so on. Even a sabre like Bittercut works well since it hits relatively heard if you also pick Spirit of Decay. But generally there's no better option for quite some time into the game than Firebrand. 

Being a Godlike is not mandatory at all. I just thought it's a nice touch with the whole fire theme and all. It doesn't add a lot to the basic principle of the build besides that kills via Battle Forged retaliation also trigger Blood Thirst.

You can totally use another race and wear a helmet or other headgear.

Edited August 13, 2019 by Boeroer

[QuiteGoneJin]

On 4/12/2019 at 2:43 AM, Boeroer said:

Yes! You'll get 6 uses per rest which usually is enough for all encounters. If you have casters in your party you will most likely rest more often than every 6 fights.

 

Thanks for asking, I added this little passage to the build description:

 

Any reason "Belt of the Royal Deadfire Cannoneer" is not giving me firebrand when I click it? Reloaded a few times, tried using it when barehanded, cd gets used but no weapon and I continue fighting with whatever. 

Edited August 19, 2019 by QuiteGoneJin

[Boeroer]

No idea. Did you bind it properly to you character? It always worked for me. 

[QuiteGoneJin]

That was really odd, reloaded AGAIN and its fine. 

[luther84695]

I have a give a shout out to this build.  I tried all the different builds on POTD difficulty, and this one is absolutely amazing.  I finished the game with more than twice the damage dealt than the next closest character which was Hiravias in my game.  

[Silvaren]

I'm playing this  build right now. I called my barb Guy Monntag. I guess it fits because he was burning books (absolutely barbaric!) and originally barbarians were people who didn't speak greek (uneducated - maybe it's oversimplified) but I think fire theme is funny in that context.

 

[demon72]

what would be other good race options for this build?

I really like the roleplaying idea with the fire Godlike - but I'm not sure if I want 2 Godlikes in my party...

...and I strongly tend to take a Moon Godlike as my party seems to get quite melee-heavy and I would guess that a Moon Godlike could be more helpfull in this case (but having no idea for which build I will take the Moon Godlike yet)

[Boeroer]

The Fire Godlike race was mostly because of thematical reasons. You can take about anything, it doesn't really matter. Moon Godlike would def. work and is also good on a Barb in the early game since Barbs will often struggle with knockouts in the early game (it will get a lot better with some levels) - Silver Tide will help here.

But human, orland, dwarf, aumaua - anything goes really. 

[demon72]

...and now the certainly most stupid question of the year:

...how does a Barb "uses" Firebrand - I only found that one as druid spell?

 

I would go with a Coastal Aumaua - in that case better 20 Might and 18 INT or both 19?

Btw., thinking about issue was the point that leads me to the Firebrand-question - why does a Barb needs such high INT if not for extending a spell?

[Desmodeus]

43 minutes ago, demon72 said:

...how does a Barb "uses" Firebrand - I only found that one as druid spell?

Belt of the Royal Deadfire Cannoneer and Forgemaster's Gloves allow you to cast Firebrand 3 times a day each.

Int determines area of effect for carnage, frenzy duration and other goodies. Literally for Barb INT > MIG

Edited February 16, 2021 by Desmodeus