Could someone gives me a Berserker/Devoted Brute build.

[mangamancer]

I have problem mainly about stat's allocation and the choice of weapon.

How many INT should I aim for?

Is greatsword a good choice?

 

Is this one still hold true?

 

Edited July 17, 2021 by mangamancer
additional information

[Boeroer]

If you want to use a two handed weapon then Morning Star is the best pick for a Brute imo.

Brute gets "Brute Force" (how fitting) from the Barbarian side which lets the Barbarian target fortitude for his attacks if it is lower than the defense his action was originally targeting.

The Morning Star modal "Body Blows" does -25 fortitude which is a huge debuff. The Barb can also apply Staggered automatically via Spirit Frenzy which is another -10 fortitude on top of the -25. This is very good. It makes the -25% dmg from the modal totally worth it.

Attacks like Mule Kick or Clear Out trget fortitude to being with, so again the Morning Star shines. 

It also shines when it debuffs fortitude for your party's casters. Some of theoir best spells target fortitude, too. 

In addition to that (especially important with Devoted who doesn't want to switch ot another weapon type), Morning Star has decent PEN (unlike Great Sword) and two damage types (crush/pierce) which is a great combo imo because often enemies who are resistant to pierce dmg are often especially vulnerable to crush dmg. The Morning Star has lower base dmg than the Great Sword - but base dmg is less important than PEN.

The Willbreaker is the best Morning Star in most situations. Saru Sicher is also good (especially vs. non-poison-immune bosses) and you can get it quite early.

I'm a sucker for INT so I would always go for high INT (it's also great with Unbending). I would be cautious with very high MIG. You'll get +5 from Frenzy anyway and maxed Might also means maxed self damage from Berserker Frenzy - which can get really hefty at higher levels due to power level scaling (yes, the self damage scales up as well). Don't go too low either though. I thingk I would settle around 13-15 or something like that.
DEX is a multplicative damage influencer. I would go rel. high. Like 16 or so.
CON isn't very important.
PER is nice to have, not only for early game accuracy but also because you need it for discovering traps and other secrets. 16+
If you're not planning to have high deflection (difficult anyway because of Frenzy) you can dump it to 3. 

I would go with something like this I guess:
MIG: 14
CON: 10
DEX: 17
PER: 17
INT: 17
RES: 03 

This is without Berath's Blessings. If you pick human your RES is 4 minimum instead of 3.

 

 

[mangamancer]

So even with +2 PEN from being Devoted Greatsword still won't be able to overcome late game enemies' armor?

Quite a bummer since Barbarian has good crit multiplier, having high base damage would rocks.

Could building towards high crit chace to get extra 50% PEN be a viable way to alleviate Greatsword's low PEN problem?

[Boeroer]

The +2 PEN of Devoted + the Tenacious inspiration of Berserker Frenzy (also +2 PEN) gives the Great Sword enough PEN. Also because it has two damage types as well (pierce/slash) so even if pierce or slash AR of the enemy should be really high: most of times it's not both. 

The main avantage of the Morning Star is Body Blows + Brute Force. 

If you have a preference for Great Swords you can totally go with that. 

 

Edited July 17, 2021 by Boeroer

[mangamancer]

BTW how do crit chance conversions stack?

So Berserker's Frenzy(30%) + Disciplined Strikes(25%) + Barbaric Blow(30%) means 85% hit to crit conversion?

What if Death Godlike were add into the mix?

[Boeroer]

Nope, not like that.

Conversions will get rolled one after the other until they all got rolled or until one actually converts. So in your example first Berserker Frenzy checks if it will convert a hit to a crit. If not, then Disciplined Strikes gets checked and so on until one triggers or all got checked without success.

Thus, the stacking is a series of chances. You can calculate the final chance rel. easily as follows:

Multiply the chances NOT to convert (so for example Berserker Frenzy has a 70% chance not to convert - or a 0.7 multiplier).

0.7 Berserker Frenzy * 0.7 Barbaric Blow * 0.75 Disciplined Strikes = roughly 0.37. So you'll have a 37% chance NOT to convert - or in other words a 66% chance to convert. 

You can simply add more multipliers to that calculation (Uncanny Luck, weapon conversions, Blood Slaughter etc.). 

Berserker/Fighter has one of the highest "passive" melee crit conversion rates of all multiclasses. I even think the highest if you consider Bloody Slaughter, too. Barbaric Blow is very good with high crit chance (in addition to its own conversion) because it does a lot more dmg then. It's quite expensive so it better be worth it.

By the way: usually different kinds of conversion won't "chain". So for example a hit from a graze-to-hit conversion will not get converted further to a crit. The general rule is: only one type of conversion per attack. 

 

Edited July 18, 2021 by Boeroer

[mangamancer]

 

If going for dual wield, would clubs be a good choice? +5 ACC seems neat. Damage seems low but I guest low recovery time should compensate enough.

Generally speaking(not having to consider Devoted), should one typically dual wield the same type of weapons?

I imagine dual wielding weapons with different damage types would be good against immuned enemies?

[Helz]

Its not just damage immune enemies, but almost every enemy has 1 damage type that they weakest against. So I want a weapon set for each damage type. If you split damage types in a set, then half of your attacks will be less effective. Within a weapon set of the same damage type, the benefit of using different types of weapons is access to 2 modals instead of 1.

Dual wielding triggers more 'chance on hit' effects, 2-handed has better penetration.

[Boeroer]

If you want to dual wield I would check out the unique one handed weapons and decide which ones I like best. It's all about the enchantments. 

Like Helz said it's usually better to have one weapon set with one sort of damage type and a second set (or even third) one alternative dmg types. When mixing dmg types in one set you will rarely have the optimal outcome. 

A dual wielding Devoted can make good use of unarmed attacks as fallback: everybody gets the proficiency for unarmed combat automatically, Devoted included. Fists do crush damage - so for example a Devoted could any non-crush weapons set mainly (for example swords with pierce/slash dmg) and pick Monastic Unarmed Training for his fists as fallback for the situations when he meets foes who have a weakness against crush damage. 

[mangamancer]

What would happen when you use a weapon with lashing against an enemy than is immuned to the main damage type?

Let's say I attack an enemy that has slash immunity with St. Drogga's Skull, how will the "+20% Damage as Burn " works?

BTW is this still hold true?

 

Edited July 18, 2021 by mangamancer
correct a puntuation

[thelee]

6 hours ago, mangamancer said:

Let's say I attack an enemy that has slash immunity with St. Drogga's Skull, how will the "+20% Damage as Burn " works?

the base damage is still calculated internally - it's only at the "very final" step that the immunity prevents it from occurring. the lash is based off of damage before this "very final" step, and even before PEN is considered. So you should still be able to do burn damage. In fact, because lash damage is calculated before even PEN is considered, there are some narrow situations when a lash does a different damage type where this means that it will do more damage than your main weapon. (E.G. your main weapon underpenetrates by -75% but you have a 30% lash)

[thelee]

oh yeah, that forum link is still mostly true (i skimmed it to double-check), but a easier-to-digest format i put here (with tables)

[Not So Clever Hound]

12 hours ago, Boeroer said:

pick Monastic Unarmed Training for his fists as fallback for the situations when he meets foes who have a weakness against crush damage. 

I am late to the party but with the right choices a MuT focused Brute is outstanding. You can cobble +3 PL on a Nature Godlike with Tactical Barrage and Hot Razor Skewers, giving you Mythic-like Fists by endgame. With all the Brute active/passive abilities you can punch very very fast with incredible DMG and PEN. With or without Tuotilo's Palm in the offhand, and of course with Devil of Caroc breastplate. And you can still use e.g. Battle Axe as backup Devoted weapon with Bleeding Cuts. Really fun and powerful, I did a fair bit of solo with one such character.

@Kaylon also mentioned sometime ago a very powerful Brute template with Lord Darryn's Voulge, I can't find the page. Very powerful/fun too.

In any case on a Berserker/Devoted I would max MIG, PER, INT and leave the other stats neutral-ish.

Edited July 19, 2021 by Not So Clever Hound

[Boeroer]

10 hours ago, Not So Clever Hound said:

You can cobble +3 PL on a Nature Godlike with Tactical Barrage [...]

You can even skip Tactical Barrage (or one of the two other PL buffs) and get two Stones of Power. If you stack them in the stash after the fight you can use the Power Surge (+1 PL, stacks with every other PL bonus) in every fight. It's very convenient because it has no duration (lasts till the end of the fight).

Lord Darryn's Voulge is indeed nice on any Barb-combo. The Brute also gives you Clear Out which is cool with any AoE effect (like Static Thunder).

Amra with Riven Gore is nice on a Brute, too. Dual Carnage on crit and even more importantly Clear Out pushes the initial enemy into the two Carnages it procs which means it not only gets the two attack rolls from Clear Out but 4 Carnage rolls on top. Riven Gore triggers quite often and then it's Blood Thirst + Cleaving Stance time.

By the way: a Brute whom I also liked (but who was a bit specialized) was Fury/Unbroken with Disengagement goodies. Fear Ward terrifies your enemies and should they disengage they eat massive disengagement attacks (nice in combination with Brute Force and Mob Stance - Barbaric Shout already gives you +3 engagement so you can go with Mob Stance instead). 

 

Edited July 19, 2021 by Boeroer

[mangamancer]

How do soulbound items work with multiclass?

Can a Brute choose between Fighter enchantment and Barbarian enchantment?

[Boeroer]

Yes, you have to decide which of the two classes you want to bind the soulbound item to.

[dgray62]

15 hours ago, Not So Clever Hound said:

@Kaylon also mentioned sometime ago a very powerful Brute template with Lord Darryn's Voulge, I can't find the page. Very powerful/fun too.

Is this the thread you're referring to, Not So Clever Hound? In it he suggests a berserker/tactician build, but doesn't go into any detail concerning it.

[Kaylon]

On 7/18/2021 at 11:13 AM, mangamancer said:

BTW how do crit chance conversions stack?

So Berserker's Frenzy(30%) + Disciplined Strikes(25%) + Barbaric Blow(30%) means 85% hit to crit conversion?

What if Death Godlike were add into the mix?

Disciplined Strikes will be suppressed by Berserker Frenzy thus you should pick Tactical Barrage instead. With Barbaric Blow you will have 1-(1-0.3)*(1-0.3)=51% hit to crit chance.

Here's the link @Not So Clever Hound mentioned earlier

 

[Boeroer]

They get suppressed? That's new to me. I never read about that in any Brute build discussion but this is important.

I mean it makes sense since both are actives. But how does one determine that? Is it listed as suppressed on the char sheet?

Or doing a lot of attacks and observe that only Berserker Frenzy gets shown in the combat log?

There is some issue with conversion display in the combat log. For example Debonaire conversion never gets displayed even though it's 100% - instead the combat log shows Uncanny Luck or Dirty Fighting (which one you have). So I don't trust the log there. 

If there's no simple way in order to be sure one would have to do a certain number of hits and check whether the percentages match (kind of) 30% or 47.5%?

 

Edited July 20, 2021 by Boeroer

[Not So Clever Hound]

1 hour ago, Boeroer said:

They get suppressed? That's new to me. I never read about that in any Brute build discussion but this is important.

That's funny because personally I've always assumed they would suppress one another as being active abilities, which is why I've always picked Tactical Barrage. But I never actually tested it either, I just lazily assumed . Would be also curious to hear if anyone has hard facts about it.

[Kaylon]

2 hours ago, Boeroer said:

They get suppressed? That's new to me. I never read about that in any Brute build discussion but this is important.

If I remember well it appears as suppressed in the active affects when you put your mouse over character's portrait during combat. I never really tested because it made sense to me...

Edited July 20, 2021 by Kaylon

[Boeroer]

Nope. No mention of suppression on the char sheet in combat nor in the tooltips when one hovers over the portrait (or the list of active effects right of the portrait which opens another sort of tooltip).

Will do some attacks later, must get groceries first.

Edited July 20, 2021 by Boeroer

[Boeroer]

Okay I did some attacks first and now saw both Frenzy and Intuitive convert hits to crits in the combat log. Can't say anything about actual percentages though. Maybe the log just displays whatever - but if Intutitive would get supressed by Frenzy I would assume it wouldn't get mentioned in the combat log. But as I said: I don't trust the log with conversions. 

When I have more time I will do more attacks so that there are statistically somewhat relevant numbers - to see if the percentage comes near 30% or more.  

So far it seems they do stack though. I always assumed all conversions stack because of their "roll one after the other" mechanic.

Edited July 20, 2021 by Boeroer

[Not So Clever Hound]

2 hours ago, Boeroer said:

I always assumed all conversions stack because of their "roll one after the other" mechanic.

Thanks Boeroer for doing some testing!

Very interesting and now I understand your understanding of why the conversions wouldn't suppress one another, and why it's (apparently) the right interpretation. Because it's not about "stacking" so stacking rules don't apply.

It's not a duplication of the same effect (where the smallest one would get suppressed) it is actually two totally separate rolls where in any case only one can be true (i.e. if the Frenzy conversion = true, the game will never check the Intuitive conversion - there is no stacking).

Interesting!

[mangamancer]

Are there any other abilities/passives of Barbarian/Devoted that I should lookout for les they suppress one another?