Need help making a tempest and deciding which barbarian subclass (Furyshaper or beserker)

[Jae Addison]

Hey I've decided to make a tempest multiclass, but I'm having a hard time deciding which barbarian multiclass to go with furyshaper or berserker, I also plan to use lord Darren's voulge in this build and would like some help deciding what other armor and gear to get for the build, I've decided to go with ancient subclass for the druid half of the build as well, I'd also like to know which barbarian passives and skill to take as well as for ancient.

Thanks for help .

[Elric Galad]

Ancient has good summons

Wards count as summon

You can only have 1 type of summon at a given time

Go Berzeker

[Waldemilson]

Go berserker/fury and be happy

[Boeroer]

Furyshaper/Ancient is a bit meh because of the summoning limit as Eric said 

Berserker/Ancient has some minor quirks, too: as an Ancient you will most likely cast a lot of raw damage spells like Plague of Insects, Insect Swarm, Infestation of Maggots, Venom bloom and so on.

First of all those are often all foe-only and using Berserker Frenzy will turn them into friendly fire. Plague of Insects has a very big AoE. You def. don't want cast confused Plague of Insects on your party.

Also confusion from Berserker Frenzy will shorten the duration of those spells. In case of DoTs losing duration hurts because it's like a multiplicative dmg loss (less ticks from the DoT).

You can get rid of confusion though - so those problems can be circumvented. Use special food, drugs or items to become resistant or get Smart (from party member?) to cancel the confusion.

The biggest reason to go Berserker/caster is the Tenacious inspiration which gives +2 PEN - which otherwise is extremely useful for damage dealing with spells - but in case of raw damage spells... it doesn't do anything.

Of course you can just use other spells - but then you're not using the Ancient's increased Power Level with beast/plant spells. But once going into melee the +2PEN is great again. So one could make the argument that you only should go Frenzy after casting spells - which would be a valid point.

Of course the healing capabilities of the Ancient are good to counter the Berserker's self damage, too.

So overall it's a minor inconvenience imo - once you circumvent confusion. 

Ancient's DoTs are cool with Barbarian passives, not only Spirit or Blood Frenzy but most notably Blood Thirst. You can cast some DoTs at the start of the fight and then go into melee. While the DoTs work and eventually kill some enemies you'll get 0 recovery attacks every now and then which speeds up your melee attacks considerably. 

If you use the Community Patch then my recommended Spiritshift form would be Stag. Because the CP turns the really bad 1/encounter lol-carnage ability of the stag form into a weaker "proper" Carnage passive like the Barb has - weaker but it stacks with the original - which is cool. Double Carnage for the Stag.

Is it important to you to play an Ancient druid? If yes I would go with Berserker, vanilla Barb or Corpse Eater (because it fits so well thematically imo). 

If you would also consider other Druid subclasses: as Waldemilson said Berserker/Fury is cool -  it is not so much about Spiritshift but high PEN and casting speed with elemental spells.

Berserker/Shifter is also pretty nice. This one's mostly about Spiritshift though. Use the healing in between shifting to counter Berserker's self damage.

 

Edited July 16, 2021 by Boeroer

[thelee]

i would not consider furyshaper/ancient to be that bad. you don't have to use the sporelings and wild growth, and in fights where they would be a really important carry (which can happen early on), you don't have to use wards. it's a wee bit of anti-synergy early on, but later on, +10% ward and +25% action speed from frenzy is a whole lot of casting speed. great for emptying your spellbook real fast. when you run low on spells, replace teh +10% ward with the fear ward for good times.

 

why is everyone so keen on berserker/fury? the confusion seems like a deal breaker for much of the game, and raw damage later quite a liability [esp as fury you lack as much sustain]. Of all casters, fury needs +PEN the least.

Edited July 16, 2021 by thelee

[dgray62]

I'd recommend Furyshaper/ancient. Both of the wards you get are great, and as an ancient you'll mainly be using beast/plant spells, many of which are DoT spells and hence do not need the added PEN from berserker frenzy. Just make sure to get iron will to mitigate the sharp penalty to will from furyshaper.

[Jae Addison]

It doesn't have to be ancient, but I chose ancient over say fury or shifter cause i thought it would allow me both melee and cast spells, with some survivability through healing for berserker, seeing as it slowly drains your hp, and still allow me to use lord darryn voulge and or the other good weapons, and seeing as the top barbarian subclasses I see ppl recommend are either berserker or furyshaper. But I am open to suggestions if you know one combination would work better for the style of build I'm going for.

1 hour ago, thelee said:

i would not consider furyshaper/ancient to be that bad. you don't have to use the sporelings and wild growth, and in fights where they would be a really important carry (which can happen early on), you don't have to use wards. it's a wee bit of anti-synergy early on, but later on, +10% ward and +25% action speed from frenzy is a whole lot of casting speed. great for emptying your spellbook real fast. when you run low on spells, replace teh +10% ward with the fear ward for good times.

 

why is everyone so keen on berserker/fury? the confusion seems like a deal breaker for much of the game, and raw damage later quite a liability [esp as fury you lack as much sustain]. Of all casters, fury needs +PEN the least.

 

[Boeroer]

2 hours ago, thelee said:

why is everyone so keen on berserker/fury? the confusion seems like a deal breaker for much of the game, and raw damage later quite a liability [esp as fury you lack as much sustain]. Of all casters, fury needs +PEN the least.

Well, +3 PEN is better than +1, especially with spells - and the +2 also applies to spells that don't have the elements keyword. I even combine that with Heart of the Storm and such to get +4 PEN. And should you overpenetrate - well there aren't that many spell dmg bonuses anyway, so...

Confusion is easy to counter. Use Svef (it's no problem to find/craft/buy enough Svef for every fight until you find a better countermeasure), some of the resistance food or get Devil of Caroc Breastplate early with some mechanics and enchant it with Mechanical Mind.

One could argue that Helwalker/Fury would be better because he also gets Tenacious without the confusion and on top gets high MIG and INT (and besides the casting speed that's a valid point) - but in my case it's just that a "Fury" and "Berserker" just fit so well thematically. Like... fury & rage... 

[Jae Addison]

1 hour ago, Boeroer said:

Well, +3 PEN is better than +1, especially with spells - and the +2 also applies to spells that don't have the elements keyword. I even combine that with Heart of the Storm and such to get +4 PEN. And should you overpenetrate - well there aren't that many spell dmg bonuses anyway, so...

Confusion is easy to counter. Use Svef (it's no problem to find/craft/buy enough Svef for every fight until you find a better countermeasure), some of the resistance food or get Devil of Caroc Breastplate early with some mechanics and enchant it with Mechanical Mind.

One could argue that Helwalker/Fury would be better because he also gets Tenacious without the confusion and on top gets high MIG and INT (and besides the casting speed that's a valid point) - but in my case it's just that a "Fury" and "Berserker" just fit so well thematically. Like... fury & rage... 

I see, but if were to play a tempest on potd difficulty would any combination of tempest work, sorry forgot to mention that part , also I'm guessing lord darryn voulge would work best with berserker/fury multiclass instead, seeing as beserker has a high chance to crit chance to help upgrade the voulge and fury gives a power lvl increase to storm spells, but how would it fair in melee combat?

Edited July 16, 2021 by Jae Addison
Need to add more info

[Boeroer]

Lord Darryn's Voulge is great in melee with a Barbarian because Carnage works with Static Charge. That turns the Voulge into an AoE weapon. You don't need to bind the Voulge to the Barbaria class for this. You can bind it to the Druid class and get the +3 PL to Storm spells and get Static Charge, too. The Barbarian side would give static thunder which would also disorient - but imo one can pass that as a Tempest and go for the +3 PL for storms instead.  

[Jae Addison]

Ok so it's the druid side of the voulge that matters, would furyshaper/fury work well with the Darren's voulge or would that not be as good as berserker/fury? 

[Boeroer]

Well, Berserker excels at melee compared to the other Barb subclasses due to 30% crit conversion and ofc the higher PEN. Both is great with the Voulge/Static Thunder. He pays with hefty self dmg and confusion. The confusion is bad with the Voulge because you will hit your buddies with Static Thunder. 

Besides that - a Furyshaper makes as good a melee fighter with the Voulge as any other Barb subclass. Also - if you get some engagement (for example via Barbaric Shout and/or the Pollaxe modal) you can really profit from the Fear Ward: enemies will eventually disengage when terrified and thus grant a lot of disengagement attacks which will apply Static Thunder as well. This is cool.

By the way: using Nature's Terror in combo with a Fear Ward is not redundant because Nature's Terror will have higher ACC and will soften up the Will defense of enemies for the Fear Ward.

 

Edited July 18, 2021 by Boeroer

[thelee]

On 7/16/2021 at 11:42 AM, Boeroer said:

Use Svef (it's no problem to find/craft/buy enough Svef for every fight until you find a better countermeasure), some of the resistance food or get Devil of Caroc Breastplate early with some mechanics and enchant it with Mechanical Mind.

dah! i'm so unused to caring about confusion as an affliction that it doesn't occur to me how easily it is to deal with it. This makes me remember that Wild Mare always has a supply of Wael's Wind in stock, too, which grants mind affliction resistance.

 

now i'm curious about combining berserker with fury... still worried about the raw damage though late game.

[Boeroer]

Solo it's a pain but in a party (especially with a Paladin) not so much. Barbarian gets Stalwart Defiance eventually which helps a lot imo.

Edited July 19, 2021 by Boeroer