Looking for 2H pure melee Barbarian build (No Firebrand)

[dzapan]

Hi,

Checked forum for some barbarian builds and can't find anything what i want. There are plenty of firebrand and DW builds or builds from 2015, which are outdated obviously.

What im looking for is pure melee Barbarian build, using 2H weapon (Tidefall, St. Rumbalt etc.), role: damage dealer/off tank.  Anyone could help me? 

 

PS. I ll be playing on Hard or POTD. It ll be my first full playthrough. 

Edited June 14, 2020 by dzapan

[Boeroer]

Those builds are not necessarily outdated.

Anyway: both weapon you are listed are good, but they requite different builds.

With Tidefall you want to maximize MIG (because the wouding lash on the sword scales with MIG). Wounding and Draining work with Carnage, too - so make sure to have a big radius (=high INT). The draining makes the Barb more tanky but he needs a few levels so that his health pool is big enough to withstand getting hit (which removes endurance and health) and healed up again (which only raises endurance back up as nearly all healing effects). A dowside is that if you kill an enemy with the wounding (which is a damage over time effect) it will not trigger Blood Thirst afaik.   

Hours of St. Rumbalt causes prone on crit and has an extra +50% additive dmg bonus on crits. You don't need high MIG here but high PER (for more ACC). Both effects wotj with Carnage. Also Accurate Carnage is good here. Carnage starts with very low accuracy (-10 compared to your normal accuracy) BUT it scales: +1ACC per char level. With Accurate Carnage that means that at char level 5 your Carnage has the same accuracy as your initial attack roll and from there on it gets better and better (at lvl 16 your Carnage has +11 ACC compared to your initial attack). This can lead to quite some crits. Against mobs it's not uncommmon that they mostly drop to the floor and can't get up again (especially if your party members also debuff their defenses).

The more "hands off" apporach would be with Tidefall. It's reliably good against any enemy while Rumbalt shines against weak mobs but is nothing special against tough foes. Also woth Tidefall the offtanking is easier because of the draining.

A great backup weapon against any vessel is St. Ydwen's Redeemer: its "destroy vessel" enchantment trigger Blood Thirst which makes short work of any group of vessels. Since it's soulbound it works with all weapon focuses (no need to pick soldier).

Tall Grass is also a good weapon for a Barbarian. It basically works like Hours of St. Rumbalt but has reach - so you can stay behind the front line and still hit which is often great to a) place the center of your Carnage more effectively and b) to attack from behind your tank when he/she is holding a chokepoint (like door.)

Llawran's Stick is also a good weapon because it comes very early and has one of the best dps enchantments (speed). It also has reach. But maybe a quarterstaff is not what you are looking for.

Mabec's Morning Star is also very good for a Barb - but you have to be lucky because Azzuro will only sell it ramdomly.

What also works quite well is Drake's Bell: you need to stack up DR bypass (which also works with Carnage and leads to very good Carnage dmg. It already comes with +8 DR bypass. You can add Vulnerable Attack (+5). Ryona's Vambraces (+1) and drop Devil of Caroc into the Blood Pool (+1). That will give you 15 DR bypass which is incredibly good against anything with thick armor. And against enemies with mediocre armor you just switch off Vulnerable Attack.