Howler tank?

[Desmodeus]

So, I found that dwarven sideckick guy who can be multiclassed as a barbarian and after looking on his ability trees I have this idea to make a second character as a Howler tank who works similar to @Boeroer Golden Dragon for PoE1 - tank, focused on making it as much pain in ass for enemy to fight against it as possible

Thinking that he might be a -/troubadour. Though about Mage Slayer for barbarian as a subclass but penalty sounds extremely brutal.

basic basic skills on which build will work:

• Barbaric Yell -> Barbaric Shout:  makes enemy shaken and provide bonus engagement
• Frenzy -> Spirit Frenzy -> Spirit tornado: stagger enemies, deals additional aoe damage and leaves enemies terrified
• Weapon and shield + Thick skinned + One stand alone
• Leap - daze enemies on landing
• Wild sprint -> Ram sprint

on chanter side

• The Silver Knights' Shields Broke both Arrow and Blade + The Long Night's Drink Birthed the Revenge of Morning: bonus engagement, bonus deflection and our kinda replacement for PoE1's Threatening Presence(as it do entirely different thing in PoE 2)
• At the Sound of His Voice, the Killers Froze Stiff And Their Fear Followed Them into Foothills: Paralyze target and then frighten it
• Reny Daret's Ghost Spake, "I'll Catch you, Ben Fidel" Ben Fidel's Neck Was Exposed: mostly for deflection penalty, maybe even skip
• My Son, Do You See Your Sisters Across the Moor The Lights Danced across the Moor: For distracting attacks
• The Lover Cried out to the Beloved, "I am Yours!" Together They Slew Forth a River of Red - one more charm

For proficiency I think Hatchet, club, flail and shields are best bet. Probably club the most important one as provide will penalty

Will this work or am I forgetting something?

Hope Psychic backlash IS actually once per encounter in PoE2 xD

 

Edited January 14, 2021 by Desmodeus

[Boeroer]

I personally think Morning Stars are best. Also because a Barbarian can get Brute Force. With that in mind I'd also pick "The Long Night's Drink" as one of my phrases. It stacks with the Morning Star's modal.

Club+modal is also nice because several invocations of the Chanter target Will. But the Willbreaker Morning Star lowers both Fortitude and Will - because of that it's my favorite Howler weapon. 

Spirit Frenzy lets you stagger enemies with all attack rolls you do, so Barbaric Yell etc. will all also stagger - which stacks with Long Night's Drink and Morning Star to a fortitude debuff of 25+10+10=45. Once you get Brute Force it's crit time. That's why a Skald also works very well. But a Troub. can have two phrases overlapping easily which is cool as well.  

Anyway, using a yell or shout + Spirit Frenzy and Long Night's Drink + Willbreaker will lead to severely debuffed Will and Fortitude which is awesome. 

And once you get the Champion invocation you can interrupt with ALL crits you cause - including those from phrases like the Long Night bit also Carnage, Yell/Shout, offensive invocations and so on. That makes it a real pain in the ass to fight you. You will interrupt all the time. While debuffig enemies severely. As a Troub. it's beneficial to then use Brisk Recitation because then you'll interrupt every 3 secs instead of every 6 with chants.

But I'm sure you can also do good things with a different approach. That's just the way I like a Howler best.

Edited January 13, 2021 by Boeroer

[Desmodeus]

Well I kinda want to try and run Sword and Broad howler and morningstar is twohanded Though damn this weapon looks cool.

I mentioned long night in my plan... That's actually why I am planning troubadour here - so I will be able to constantly keep bonus engagement from knight AND late night effect on xD

P.S. I spent too much time talking to Durance...

Edited January 13, 2021 by Desmodeus

[Haplok]

Furyshaper Barbarian could push the enemy debuffing even further.

Edited January 13, 2021 by Haplok

[Boeroer]

3 hours ago, Desmodeus said:

Well I kinda want to try and run Sword and Broad howler and morningstar is twohanded Though damn this weapon looks cool.

Then I would look at clubs and flails for the modals. Especially Shattered Vengeance and Endre's Flog of Obedience. But you'd have crush damage only. So maybe Kapana Taga would be better for the slash dmg component...

Furyshaper's Fear Ward is very good. Espacially if you are lowering enemies' Will with a club and also have a Wizard with Miasma. Furyshaper/Troubadour I didn't try yet but it sounds like fun.
    

[Desmodeus]

I thought maybe hatchet in second slot. It has -ACC on  modal use and it has +deflection  so might be good 

Not sure about stats though. In pillars barbarian could start with 4 con and still be on onelevel with 10 con rogue. For howler, well... 3 con is just 28 hp

[Helz]

My 2 cents: My barbarian started out dual-wielding and switched to 2-handed halfway through, and the extra reach from 2-handed weapons made a big difference with how many enemies he can hit per swing. It also prevents him from whiffing when the enemy moves. I eventually settled on Willbreaker+Lord Darryn's Voulge.

[Boeroer]

It may seem different... but two handed weapons don't have extra reach in general (there are exceptions).

All melee weapons have a range of 1m (or 0.8m? Don't remember the exact number) - unless you use a pike (1.8m), a quarterstaff (1.8m) or the great sword "Whispers of the Endless Paths" (1.2m). 

Two handed weapons are also as fast/slow as the heavier one-handed weapons (sabres, swords, spears, maces etc.). Sometimes players believe they are slower but they aren't.

What they have is higher PEN and higher base damage. 

[Helz]

2 hours ago, Boeroer said:

It may seem different... but two handed weapons don't have extra reach in general (there are exceptions).

Oh wow, I was fooled. His first 2-hander was WotEP, which like you said does have extra reach and I started thinking they all do... I'm glad you told me!

[Boeroer]

Hehe - I guessed that you first used WotEP.

To be fair: most two handed weapons should have a bit longer reach. Especially compared to the light one handed weapons. Would make sense.
But that would have made balancing more difficult I believe.
Currently every weapon group has a mix of special "features" besides the modal. Clubs, daggers, hunting bows (why?) and spears have +5 ACC, Pollaxes and Morning Star have two damage types, Battle Axes have increased crit damage and so on. And one of those features is increased reach. I guess it would have made things too complicated to give different weapons gradually different range. Maybe... 

[Kaylon]

For the end game barbarian Ngati's Tusk is also worth mentioning because of its AoE defense debuff (Hunter of Hunters). At max level it can reach -10for/ref/will, but I'm not sure if it stacks with  other debuffs.

[Desmodeus]

to be fair in many cases  this distance change would be irrelevant as apart from pike no other weapon apart from maybe spear make a lot of sense when attacking from back line. After all pike in real life was formation weapon. If you can't use weapon from the back row, it might as well be the same range. In theory something like spear could also use longer attack range so it could be used from the back, but it would have most likely made it very OP

Was playing around with howler stats for that. Look like 8 is the minimum viable hp for tanking with 39 hp at lvl 1 and 51 at lvl 2. So I think something like 14-8-3-18-18-17 might work well for weapon and shield route(max PER to deliver that disables and max INT for long linger coupled with wide chant area and long frenzy. But damn 3 dex hurt

[Desmodeus]

Do I understand correctly that Cadhu Scalth with Luminous Balance  is pretty much the best shield for tanking character? Or The Best defense with Sickening to Watch enchantment would be better here as it is additional debuff to spread around?

Also what other items with triggerable effects are worth to be looking at?

Edited January 15, 2021 by Desmodeus

[Boeroer]

On 1/13/2021 at 11:10 PM, Kaylon said:

For the end game barbarian Ngati's Tusk is also worth mentioning because of its AoE defense debuff (Hunter of Hunters). At max level it can reach -10for/ref/will, but I'm not sure if it stacks with  other debuffs.

It's a really cool weapon. I'm a bit angry that it comes so rel. late. It's not as overpowered as some other stuff that comes far earlier. I just did a quick cheasy playthrough to get to SSS asap and get that pike so that I could export it with a character and then later import it into a new playthrough. 
 

[Desmodeus]

So what about shields? Is The Beast Defence worth consideration or Cadhu Scalth has no competition?

[Boeroer]

In terms of defensive capabilites Cadhu Scalth on average is unmachted imo (if you are willing to invest into Athletics and Metaphysics).

Best Defense is an offensive shield but its offensive capabilities are pretty meh. Bashing shields don't scale their offensive stats (dmg, PEN, ACC) with quality like weapons to.

[Desmodeus]

I am thinking about Best defence dew to shaken on crit and sickened on crit effects to complement my roar, leap, morning chant and killers froze stiff

Edited January 15, 2021 by Desmodeus

[Boeroer]

Yeah, nice - but it comes so late. Is it worth it to plan around that? I mean you can export it...

Edited January 15, 2021 by Boeroer

[Desmodeus]

2 minutes ago, Boeroer said:

Yeah, nice - but it comes so late. Is it worth it to plan around that? I mean you can export it...

That is kinda the plan xD

[ensbana]

On 1/13/2021 at 4:57 PM, Desmodeus said:

So, I found that dwarven sideckick guy who can be multiclassed as a barbarian and after looking on his ability trees I have this idea to make a second character as a Howler tank who works similar to @Boeroer Golden Dragon for PoE1 - tank, focused on making it as much pain in ass for enemy to fight against it as possible

Thinking that he might be a -/troubadour. Though about Mage Slayer for barbarian as a subclass but penalty sounds extremely brutal.

basic basic skills on which build will work:

• Barbaric Yell -> Barbaric Shout:  makes enemy shaken and provide bonus engagement
• Frenzy -> Spirit Frenzy -> Spirit tornado: stagger enemies, deals additional aoe damage and leaves enemies terrified
• Weapon and shield + Thick skinned + One stand alone
• Leap - daze enemies on landing
• Wild sprint -> Ram sprint

on chanter side

• The Silver Knights' Shields Broke both Arrow and Blade + The Long Night's Drink Birthed the Revenge of Morning: bonus engagement, bonus deflection and our kinda replacement for PoE1's Threatening Presence(as it do entirely different thing in PoE 2)
• At the Sound of His Voice, the Killers Froze Stiff And Their Fear Followed Them into Foothills: Paralyze target and then frighten it
• Reny Daret's Ghost Spake, "I'll Catch you, Ben Fidel" Ben Fidel's Neck Was Exposed: mostly for deflection penalty, maybe even skip
• My Son, Do You See Your Sisters Across the Moor The Lights Danced across the Moor: For distracting attacks
• The Lover Cried out to the Beloved, "I am Yours!" Together They Slew Forth a River of Red - one more charm

For proficiency I think Hatchet, club, flail and shields are best bet. Probably club the most important one as provide will penalty

Will this work or am I forgetting something?

Hope Psychic backlash IS actually once per encounter in PoE2 xD

 

A bit late to the party but I’m trying to build Konstanten this way. What kind of gears should I look for?

[Boeroer]

You need gear that raises defenses and AR.

- Shield (I would recommend large shield because the modal is top for a tank): Cadhu Scalth is great with a skill focus on Athletics and Metaphysics. Bronlar's Phalanx is also very good but comes later than Cadhu Scalth. Shining Bulwark with Rear Guard is nice, too. Add Weapon & Shield Style obviously. 

- Ring of Protection and Entonia Signet Ring (rel. early)

- Cloak of Greater Protection of Deflection (very early with Port Maje shopkeeper via Berath Blessings)

- Bracers of Greater Deflection (late)

- Armor: Nomads Brigandine, Reckless Brigandine, Magnera's Chain, Patinated Plate, Casita Samelia's Legacy - that sort of stuff.

- Weapon: Gladiator Sword (top visual combo with Bronlar's Phalanx for Gladiator vibes), Kapana Taga (top visual combo with Cadhu Scalth and Reckless Brigandine for Huana vibes), Baradatto's Luxury (nice with Shining Bulwark and Magnera's Chain to get a more "dwarves" look I guess)...

If you want to help your phrase generation a bit more I would pick up Sun & Moon. It gives you two chances to crot per strike which enhanced the phrase generation for a Skald such ad Konstanten. An alternative is Mohora Tanga (the Red Flag Flying DoT counts a second weapon attack that can crit). Spears also have a useful modal for a tank (+1 engagement). 

I guess for a Howler tank engagement is important. You can get that with the Barb's Shout (+3), but you have to actively shout and sped Rage (and an ability point) in order to hold that up. Imo using Cadhu Scalth (+1), Reckless Brigandine (+1) and Kapana Taga (+2) is best in terms of Engagement and also top on terms of defense. You get +4 engagement which is enough - and if you feel the need to raise that you can barb-shout for 3 more. The looks are not everybody's Cup of tea though.