Driving Roar Synergies

[patronkus]

What ways are there to make Driving Roar more powerful on a Barbarian? Currently my Barb has Driving Roar spam as their main attack and it is good but I am curious if there are ways to get more out of it since it has no Keywords tied to it. Furthermore, does it beat out Barbaric Retalliation or not really? Finally, my Barb is dual wielding sabres rn (seraphen btw) but the Roar is just an ability not an attack or anything so doesn't benefit off the dual wield, are there any weapons like 2 handers to make them stronger?

[Boeroer]

If build around, Driving Roar is way better than Retaliation imo.

First of all you can use the Harley pet to boost the damage a little bit (it works with spells and spell-like effects like Driving Roar, too).
Also Acina's Tricorn works with it (not the reloading part of course, but the accuracy).

Spirit Frenzy (NOT Spirit Tornado) will apply Staggered to the hits you do with Driving Roar. That means -10 fortitude for the enemy - and that's the defense that Driving Ropar is targeting.

Blood Thirst and Blood Surge are kind of mandatory. 

  
There are weapons that help with Driving Roar or apply some of their weapon effects to Driving Roar, most useful/least fiddly/most practical imo:

• Lance of the Midwood Stag/Lord of the Forest: let somebody cast Woodskin on you and you will get +2 Power Level for your Driving Roar
• any Crossbow: funnily enough the hit-to-crit conversion of crossbows also applies to spell-like abilities.
• Effort -> Hemorrhaging: the Sicken and Hobble effects also piggyback on spell-like abilities. So your Driving Roar can sicken and hobble on crit if you are holding Effort with the Hemorrhaging enchantment. Sicken is cool in this case because it lowers fortitude by 10 again. Since both effects count as weapon attacks (even if they where triggered by a spell-like ability) you can then use Hylea's Talons to put a damage over time effect on the enemies via Driving Roar, too. This can proc hobble/sicke again (possible loop). This also means that if you use Avenging Storm (helmet or scroll) it will proc on hobble or sicken - and that can itself hobble and sicken again and so on - it can cause a hobble/sicken-lightning loop that kills enemies on the spot.
• Sungrazer: the enchantment Blunt Rock also lowers crush AR with spells and the like. So your Driving Roar will lower crush AR by 1 in an AoE. And Driving Roar deals crush damage - convenient. 
• Engoliero do Espirs: the Blade Feast/Ghost Blades stuff also procs on kills you do with Driving Roar
• The Twin Eels: the haling on kill also procs with kills done by Driving Roar

Edited September 22, 2022 by Boeroer

[Elric Galad]

3 hours ago, patronkus said:

What ways are there to make Driving Roar more powerful on a Barbarian? Currently my Barb has Driving Roar spam as their main attack and it is good but I am curious if there are ways to get more out of it since it has no Keywords tied to it. Furthermore, does it beat out Barbaric Retalliation or not really? Finally, my Barb is dual wielding sabres rn (seraphen btw) but the Roar is just an ability not an attack or anything so doesn't benefit off the dual wield, are there any weapons like 2 handers to make them stronger?

I would pick both in most case.  They are the 2 main reason to pick SC Barbarian.

Retaliation is excellent complement to Driving Roar for the battle with big boss where Driving Roar doesn't excel.

1 hour ago, Boeroer said:

Blood Thirst and Blood Surge are kind of mandatory. 

I'm not sure Blood Surge is mandatory. 25% Rage on Kill (I think it's 50% with CP or BPM as its Paladin equivalent) isn't bad, but I will prefer picking Shout upgrade, Prestige and Retaliations in most case (unless probably playing solo).

SC Barbarian doesn't have a big issue with ressources cause shout upgrade is so cheap, and On Kill effect isn't very reliable anyway. If you really need more Rage, your Cipher buddy should help, or Empower refund.

Edited September 22, 2022 by Elric Galad

[Constentin Lévine]

There are some Lashes not restricted to weapon attacks, for example the shock lash from Sasha's Smitar, and Recall Agony from a cipher. Maybe some others. 

[Boeroer]

3 hours ago, Elric Galad said:

I'm not sure Blood Surge is mandatory. 25% Rage on Kill (I think it's 50% with CP or BPM as its Paladin equivalent) isn't bad, but I will prefer picking Shout upgrade, Prestige and Retaliations in most case (unless probably playing solo).

SC Barbarian doesn't have a big issue with ressources cause shout upgrade is so cheap, and On Kill effect isn't very reliable anyway. If you really need more Rage, your Cipher buddy should help, or Empower refund.

When you are fighting numerous enemies and have Blood Thirst you will run out of Rage pretty quickly. And precisely because Driving Roar is so cheap Blood Surge is good with it. Because 1 refund means 1 additional roar. And you can get more than 1 refund from one roar (if you kill numerous weakling with it for example). Getting a Rage point every now and then is nice. When building around Driving Roar I don't pick Retaliation because it becomes a ranged char basically. It's different with Dazing Shout though. 

But to be honestly I find it mandatory because I mostly use Driving Roar with a Berserker in combination with skellies - and their death counts for Blood Surge, too (not only Bloodlust and Blood Thirst). That combo gives you unlimited Rage because plenty of reliable kills.  

But even without that stuff it's good. Like on Serafen. Look at this test I did with him (especially the rage counter):
  

Edited September 22, 2022 by Boeroer

[Elric Galad]

5 hours ago, Boeroer said:

But to be honestly I find it mandatory because I mostly use Driving Roar with a Berserker in combination with skellies - and their death counts for Blood Surge, too (not only Bloodlust and Blood Thirst). That combo gives you unlimited Rage because plenty of reliable kills.  

Yeah, now I remind that I've harmonized BPM Blood Surge with what CP did to its paladin equivalent : boosted on-kill proc to 50% but does not work on allies  

Mmmm could have tweaked it differently. Barbs killing his own allies could have remained an option (that sort of make sense lore-wise compared to paladin)

[masterty66]

On 9/22/2022 at 3:35 AM, Boeroer said:

If build around, Driving Roar is way better than Retaliation imo.

Why not both? I have Konstanten using Roar and Retaliation right now and he puts out a good amount of damage that way. 

Didn't think about that combination of Spirit Frenzy instead of Tornado. What I like about Tornado is I like to have Konstanten jump into enemies with leap and then frenzy to terrify a bunch of enemies and then immediately start shout spamming. Once enemies get unterrified and start hitting him he just retaliates a bunch while continuing to shout. Seems to work well though I sometimes get him killed by being so aggressive with him. 

[Boeroer]

3 hours ago, masterty66 said:

Why not both? I have Konstanten using Roar and Retaliation right now and he puts out a good amount of damage that way. 

You can do both of course. But as I said : when I build around Driving Roar the Barb becomes a ranged character mostly and then Retaliation doesn't add a lot of value.