Barbarian Build

[tnc]

So this is my barbarian build, i think many people might want to have a barbarian since there's no barbarian companion in the game. It's focused on high melee dps and it'll outdo most other classes in terms of dps when you're below %50 HP.

 

Race: Human Meadow Folk (extra dps when your health is low, aumaua or dwarf are also good choices if you want different stats)

 

Stats: 18 Might 18 constitution 16 dexterity 7 perception 12 intellect 7 resolve

 

You may want to increase offensive stats even more, but it'll cost you deflection, so go ahead and increase them if you have a good tank in your party with high engagement limit and/or you're a good tactician when it comes to positioning.

 

Culture: Doesn't matter since you can adjust the stats no matter which culture you choose, but if you want a score like 19 or even 20 pick accordingly.

 

Background: Slave (we need athletics and survival skills)

 

Gear: A good light or medium armor and two weapons, an item that gives you immunity to critical hits, as your deflection will be low. You will have high endurance and hp so no worries if you position yourself well. Two handed weapons if you don't care about Carnage as Carnage works better when you have fast attacks.

 

Abilities (in order):

 

Frenzy: A must have for dps, when upgraded it gives you +6 might and constitution and %33 attack speed bonus.

Blooded: Double damage when your endurance is below %50, this is huge.

 

Brute Force: Your attacks can target the enemy's fortitude if it is lower, giving you a great accuracy bonus when synergized with Threatening Presence.

 

Threatening Presence: Makes the enemies near you sick. It's mainly a large fortitude debuff, synergises really well with Brute Force talent. With these two talents you make up for Barbarian's low starting accuracy, increasing your damage output by a large amount.

 

Vengeful Defeat: You attack everyone around you when going down. Those hits will have all the bonuses that you get when you have -%50 endurance. Ouch. If some healer gets you up and you go down again it will trigger once more. Fun times...

 

Heart of Fury: 1/rest you attack everyone around you with a large bonus damage. Another fun and effective ability, but you might take another one if you don't like that 1/rest part.

 

Talents:

 

Greater Frenzy: Upgrades your Frenzy ability.

 

Two Weapon Style (%20 attack speed bonus, making your already high attack speed even higher)

 

Barbaric Blow: An aoe attack with high damage, high crit chance and extra crit damage. 1/encounter. Yes please.

 

The other talents are up to you, I just listed the really good class talents.

[Mlatimudan]

You might want to swap constitution and intellect since you will get more out of your carnage and frenzy abilities that way, or don't swap but even them out to 15-15 if you don't want to lose the extra health/endurance

[Jarlhen]

Doesn't low perception mean you'll be getting interrupted a lot? Also, is a 2h barbarian on par with a DW barb? I imagine perception becomes significantly more important if you're running with a 2h. I mean you're going to get hurt, no matter what.

Also, how important is intelligence for a barbarian in practice? In theory it sounds good, but in reality isn't your party going to be swarmed pretty much non-stop? So everyone is going to be standing quite close to one another all the time, no?

[tnc]

Yeah Mlatimudan, you may also want to lower constitution and add it to something else, but i thought it would synergize well with barbarian's very high endurance/health bonus since constitution gives a percentage bonus to health/endurance.

 

Yes Jarlhen you do not need a high intelligence it's just not worth it imo... that is why i put 12 points to it.

 

Now that i think about it, if carnage deals a percentage based damage and not a static one (like 1-6 dmg as it says in prima guide? hope its wrong), it might be more effective with two handed weapons. The reason being that the aoe damage of carnage is already low and it will deal very little damage against opponents with damage reduction and since two handed weapons do a large amount of damage per single hit it'll do more damage to them.

[Jarlhen]

Yeah Mlatimudan, you may also want to lower constitution and add it to something else, but i thought it would synergize well with barbarian's very high endurance/health bonus since constitution gives a percentage bonus to health/endurance.

 

Yes Jarlhen you do not need a high intelligence it's just not worth it imo... that is why i put 12 points to it.

 

Now that i think about it, if carnage deals a percentage based damage and not a static one (like 1-6 dmg as it says in prima guide? hope its wrong), it might be more effective with two handed weapons. The reason being that the aoe damage of carnage is already low and it will deal very little damage against opponents with damage reduction and since two handed weapons do a large amount of damage per single hit it'll do more damage to them.

I'm really unsure as to how the damage is calculated. I'm almost positive I've seen carnage hits almost as high as the normal hits. I also know that carnage can miss. This implies to me that A, it's a percentage, B, they can crit. I'm really not sure though, I could be remembering it wrong.

[AncientToaster]

I feel like dumping any defenses down is just asking for trouble in this game.

 

If a Barb is wrecking face with this engagement system, he's gonna get completely demolished in Melee without defenses.

 

I'm still stuck trying to nail down a character class I like but I feel like no amount of constitution really matters.

[tnc]

I see your point AncientToaster, it will indeed be troubling to play such builds especially early in the game. But once you reach mid and late game i believe you can make it work with good gear(there are some reaaally good light armors in the game that have %15- %20 recovery rate that won't mess with your dps), supporting spells from your casters and good positioning/tactics in combat. I think such builds are for people that really want to risk it and get a good challenge, and it will be quite satisfying to see the big damage numbers later on in the game.

 

That being said, be warned, that these min-max dps builds might not work at all on the highest difficulty, but i play on hard so it'll be fine i think. :D

[Slimjimjohnson]

My barb has 12 con 9 perception 9 resolve 17 might 16 dex 16 intellect (I'm doing this off the top of my head so numbers might be off by one)

 

He wears no armor just runs around naked and he is a two hander. He's pretty awesome and drops things super fast. Just don't let him engage until my two tanks have everyone locked up

[gkathellar]

My barb has 12 con 9 perception 9 resolve 17 might 16 dex 16 intellect (I'm doing this off the top of my head so numbers might be off by one)

 

He wears no armor just runs around naked and he is a two hander. He's pretty awesome and drops things super fast. Just don't let him engage until my two tanks have everyone locked up

 

While the stats could be adjusted, I want to highlight that this is how you get by with a low-defense melee character - use a tank, and then use your DPS to scrape the opposition off of the tank.

[Twinsen]

This might be an irrelevant question for most people but which Aumaua subspecies is better for the barbarian build? As far as I understand the history and geography of Eora Coastal Aumauas are more urbane and civilized (although more warlike) while Island Aumauas are more rural and less civilized. The Deadfire Archipelago the home of the Island Aumauas seems to be a wild place with nomadic groups therefore I can easily imagine an Island Aumaua barbarian... The problem is there's already a possible Aumaua companion in the game and he is Island Aumaua (despite his culture). I would like to play a race which is not represented among the possible companions. The Coastal Aumauas on the other hand are far too civilized for the barbarian build... they are too well organized. There is a perfect profile picture though for a Coastal Aumaua barbarian. :/

 

Can barbarians wield any type of armour in this game? I don't think I ever played a barbarian in any RPG before.

[Rhymfaxe]

This might be an irrelevant question for most people but which Aumaua subspecies is better for the barbarian build? As far as I understand the history and geography of Eora Coastal Aumauas are more urbane and civilized (although more warlike) while Island Aumauas are more rural and less civilized. The Deadfire Archipelago the home of the Island Aumauas seems to be a wild place with nomadic groups therefore I can easily imagine an Island Aumaua barbarian... The problem is there's already a possible Aumaua companion in the game and he is Island Aumaua (despite his culture). I would like to play a race which is not represented among the possible companions. The Coastal Aumauas on the other hand are far too civilized for the barbarian build... they are too well organized. There is a perfect profile picture though for a Coastal Aumaua barbarian. :/

 

Can barbarians wield any type of armour in this game? I don't think I ever played a barbarian in any RPG before.

The extra weapon set is not really that useful for a barb, you won't be using ranged, so two weapon sets are enough. A aoe/dps barb does not do well knocked down (which the costal aumaua get defence agaisnt if i recall correctly).  So then the choice is clear from a mechanics perspective.

 

Barbarians can use any armor, but I feel a dps barb's sweet spot is like scale/breastplate. You do need enough DR to stay alive on the front lines, but not too much so your dps gets too low.

[greatkingdavid]

two handed barb builds anyone?

[Rhymfaxe]

My 2h barb/aoe build (using quarterstaff for more carnage range, but any weapon with range increase ench works) is quite nice. The staff allows me to stand behind the fighter in a door opening and wreck the enemies he's tanking.

My stats are something like 18/8/16/9/18/8, so she hits fast, hard, and everything. She is not tanky though, but the endurance regen skill usually saves her when she overextends and gets hit a lot.

[Doxy]

two handed barb builds anyone?

Estocs if you want DR on your weapon or a pike something like Tall Grass will give you both reach and DR.

2h weapon style + vulnerable attack 

[Doxy]

Man, dual-wielding maces on my barb and having way more fun then on my rogue!

Not to mention, that my barb devastates anything that moves on hard difficulty.

[Sherr]

Two handed weapons if you don't care about Carnage as Carnage works better when you have fast attacks.

 

 

Can someone explain why carnage better with fast attacks? I dont see difference between lets say 1 hit for 20, or 2 hits for 10.

[PIP-Clownboy]

 

Two handed weapons if you don't care about Carnage as Carnage works better when you have fast attacks.

 

 

Can someone explain why carnage better with fast attacks? I dont see difference between lets say 1 hit for 20, or 2 hits for 10.

 

 

The main advantage of 2h is reach weaps. You can safely carnage everything in a doorway blocked by a tanky frontliner. I find even if you're built around two weapon fighting carrying a reach weapon is still a good idea since there are times the auto attack pathfinding gets finicky or you won't be in range of your targets due to congestion/disengagements. 

[Jarlhen]

Having pondered a bit more I've concluded that constitution is utterly pointless. At lvl 4 I'm at 96 endurance with 10 con and 114 with 16. That's pretty much half a hit's worth of HP. You do lose a larger amount health, but that's hardly as important (used the console to test btw, so if there's any oddities with that that might explain it). It does push up your fortitude to 64 compared to 52, however, that number isn't going to do that much for you. Remember, Brute Force ATTACKS the enemie's fortitude, you're still using your crappy accuracy. So to me constitution is utterly pointless.

[Twinsen]

The extra weapon set is not really that useful for a barb, you won't be using ranged, so two weapon sets are enough. A aoe/dps barb does not do well knocked down (which the costal aumaua get defence agaisnt if i recall correctly).  So then the choice is clear from a mechanics perspective.

 

 

 

Barbarians can use any armor, but I feel a dps barb's sweet spot is like scale/breastplate. You do need enough DR to stay alive on the front lines, but not too much so your dps gets too low.

 

 

Thank you for the advice! My question was more story and lore oriented actually but I appreciate any advice regarding game mechanics as well. I will check the effects of the armours on my Barbarian's stats. 

[sb5]

(wrong thread)

Edited March 29, 2015 by sb5

[PrimeJunta]

I remember early in the BB there was a bug which duplicated your items if you double-clicked to unequip. Maybe this is related...

[rakshas]

 

two handed barb builds anyone?

Estocs if you want DR on your weapon or a pike something like Tall Grass will give you both reach and DR.

2h weapon style + vulnerable attack 

 

 

Where can I find the Tall Grass pike?

[solidbry]

I'm kind of torned between 2H and dual wield. What would be the pros/cons of 2H VS Dual wield and which would provide the highest Carnage damage ? It's kind of a big deal to me cause I want to focus on just one weapon spec.

 

Thought I'd ask here instead of starting another thread on this topic.

 

Thanks

[tnc]

I'm kind of torned between 2H and dual wield. What would be the pros/cons of 2H VS Dual wield and which would provide the highest Carnage damage ? It's kind of a big deal to me cause I want to focus on just one weapon spec.

 

Thought I'd ask here instead of starting another thread on this topic.

 

Thanks

 

Back when i posted this i did not know carnage dealt percentage based damage, about %60 of the primary attack.(it says static damage in prima guide, its wrong) So two weapons being better for carnage is actually wrong. If you go 2H weapons instead such as an estoc you'll do more damage per hit and bypass enemy DR more effectively, since you do a large amount of damage. So yeah unless you are not interrupted during combat you're better off with 2H weapons, especially for dealing damage with carnage aoe. You'll attack a bit slow but there are ways to increase your attack speed such as frenzy ability or a special weapon that gives attack speed. You should also max your dexterity.

[solidbry]

Allright I'll try that. Currently dual wielding 2 spears for accuracy bonus and I've noticed that I'm missing quite a lot with my Barbaric Blow...I have max DEX so I'm not sure what's going on...all I know is that its causing me to miss on quite a lot of damage.

 

Thanks!