My Fire Barbarian Tankish Build

[dunehunter]

Barbarian is by far the most fun class to me, which can be build into many roles.

 

The core abiliities for this build is Battle-Forged from fire godlike and Carnage from barbarian. Since the Battle-Forged attacks are melee attacks, they can stack with Carnage, so one enemy attacks your barbarian, all surounded enemies will suffer burn damage.

 

Battle-Forged are buffed now to be doing 2 x Level fire damage. A lvl 12 character can have 24 base damage from Battle-Forged, which can be heavily buffed to reach 53 burn damage.

 

Attribute

 

19/18/10/8/15/8 for Str/Con/Dex/Per/Int/Res

 

You don't need to have high dex as other barbarian build. However, you wish to have high CON be more durable because you can bear more attacks and then do more retaliate damage from Battle-Forged.

 

Abilities & Talents

 

Barbaric Yell: I choose this ability instead of frenzy because this is a tank build, and to MIN/MAX Battle-Forged, you don't need the X 1.33 attack speed from frenzy either.

 

One stands alone: nice ability for this build, your barbarian will be tanking lots of enemies, and to be mentioned, this ability will boost your melee damage by 20% too, though it's not shown in description.

 

Blooded: in other barbarian builds, this ability may seems to be not that useful, but it will be really really suitable for this tank build. When you are under 50% endurance, your Battle-Forged damage will be improved by blooded by 20%..

 

Thick-skin: good ability for a tankish barbarian. Wearing a plate armor and you can easily reaches 20 DR, makes you to be very hard to kill.

 

Savage attack & Vunerable attack: savage attack boost your Battle-Forged by another 20%. And it's interesting cause vunerable attack also works for Battle-Forged so your burn damage will also have 5 DR bypass

 

Scion of flame: Your Battle-Forged will get another 20% boost from this talent, which is decent.

 

In summary, the final burn damage from Battle-Forged will be 24 X (1 + 0.27 + 0.2 + 0.2 + 0.2 + 0.2) = 53.52 Burn Damage, and it both has Carnage and 5 DR bypass.

 

Weapon Style

 

To use what kind of weapon really don't matter for this build, the key thing to do is NOT die too fast. So when you think enemies are too powerful, switch to sword & shield, otherwise you can dual or two-haned cause your enemies will die faster than you do cause of the high retaliate damage.

Edited March 31, 2015 by dunehunter

[Ceranai]

Barbarian is by far the most fun class to me, which can be build into many roles.

 

The core abiliities for this build is Battle-Forged from fire godlike and Carnage from barbarian. Since the Battle-Forged attacks are melee attacks, they can stack with Carnage, so one enemy attacks your barbarian, all surounded enemies will suffer burn damage.

 

Battle-Forged are buffed now to be doing 2 x Level fire damage. A lvl 12 character can have 24 base damage from Battle-Forged, which can be heavily buffed to reach 53 burn damage.

 

Attribute

 

19/18/10/8/15/8 for Str/Con/Dex/Per/Int/Res

 

You don't need to have high dex as other barbarian build. However, you wish to have high CON be more durable because you can bear more attacks and then do more retaliate damage from Battle-Forged.

 

Abilities & Talents

 

Barbaric Yell: I choose this ability instead of frenzy because this is a tank build, and to MIN/MAX Battle-Forged, you don't need the X 1.33 attack speed from frenzy either.

 

One stands alone: nice ability for this build, your barbarian will be tanking lots of enemies, and to be mentioned, this ability will boost your melee damage by 20% too, though it's not shown in description.

 

Blooded: in other barbarian builds, this ability may seems to be not that useful, but it will be really really suitable for this tank build. When you are under 50% endurance, your Battle-Forged damage will be improved by blooded by 20%..

 

Thick-skin: good ability for a tankish barbarian. Wearing a plate armor and you can easily reaches 20 DR, makes you to be very hard to kill.

 

Savage attack & Vunerable attack: savage attack boost your Battle-Forged by another 20%. And it's interesting cause vunerable attack also works for Battle-Forged so your burn damage will also have 5 DR bypass

 

Scion of flame: Your Battle-Forged will get another 20% boost from this talent, which is decent.

 

In summary, the final burn damage from Battle-Forged will be 24 X (1 + 0.27 + 0.2 + 0.2 + 0.2 + 0.2) = 53.52 Burn Damage, and it both has Carnage and 5 DR bypass.

 

Weapon Style

 

To use what kind of weapon really don't matter for this build, the key thing to do is NOT die too fast. So when you think enemies are too powerful, switch to sword & shield, otherwise you can dual or two-haned cause your enemies will die faster than you do cause of the high retaliate damage.

Is there anything unique about this to barbarians, sounds like it would work better with a paladin, though either way your dps pre 50% is gonna be tiny

[gkathellar]

@Ceranai - It gets Carnage on its Battleforged retaliation. That's the build's entire point.

[dunehunter]

@Ceranai - It gets Carnage on its Battleforged retaliation. That's the build's entire point.

 

Exactly true

 

@Ceranai - Have tried a similar Daracozzi Paladin build, but the fire shield given by flame of devotion just sucks, it only does around 10 burn damage last shortly.

Edited March 31, 2015 by dunehunter

[Dongom]

I made a build like this, but more dps role while I let others tank. Basically flipped your con and dex and wear lighter armor. I use big 2H's.

 

Carnage, Bloodied, and Battleforge combo does indeed destroy stuff.

[Smorensky]

Yup that build works pretty damn good (had it tested today on PoTD), add accurate carnage, threatning presence and brute force into the mix and the second your endurance reaches 50% everything around you gets vaporized.

 

Threatning presence and brute force work amazing with this build, as most enemies will have lower fortitude than deflection anyway. Threatning presence will further reduce fortitude making both battle-forged and carnage almost guaranteed hits, while also improving critical hit chance.

 

You can also reduce constitution down to minimum value since you will want to drop down to 50% as fast as possible anyways.

[Doxy]

But the biggest problem i see here, is that you need to be bellow 50% END for the AOE DMG to kick in.

Being at 50% and bellow END is very close to dieing. 

[Smorensky]

True, but as it was said before, once you hit that magic 50% mark you transform from a punching bag into a tactical nuke... "The ultimate deterent Barb" literarly.

 

That non-stop 56+ aoe fire dmg to everyone around you is just insane... And you still have Barbarian Yell for a rather long aoe fear in case things get messy. After all 20 seconds should be long enough for Durance to drop a simple heal on you

[Dongom]

The self heal is also pretty crazy.

[Fimconte]

On Hard/POTD it's not really worth the risk to voluntarily go below 50% end (not to mention the HP drain) imho.  

So I think Orlin offers better sustained damage with minor threat, especially since you also retain the option to get a nice stat helmet.  

[PIP-Clownboy]

True, but as it was said before, once you hit that magic 50% mark you transform from a punching bag into a tactical nuke... "The ultimate deterent Barb" literarly.

 

That non-stop 56+ aoe fire dmg to everyone around you is just insane... And you still have Barbarian Yell for a rather long aoe fear in case things get messy. After all 20 seconds should be long enough for Durance to drop a simple heal on you

 

Durance will not outheal the spike dmg in the tougher battles, especially if you're barb has negative status effects, standing in AOES, being targeted from range etc. And if he does outheal that, you most likely will be above 50% and no more blooded.

 

It's fun build to use in a casual normal maybe hard game. But for the people that play Ironman and higher difficulties it is not worth it at all. My Barb vaporizes most things without taking 50% of the endurance first. 

Edited April 1, 2015 by PIP-Clownboy

[Infares]

Do you think combining this with giving the barbarian in question the Stiletto with the shock proc from the Blacksmith in Gilded Vale would make it even more sick?

[dunehunter]

But the biggest problem i see here, is that you need to be bellow 50% END for the AOE DMG to kick in.

Being at 50% and bellow END is very close to dieing. 

 

Wearing the heaviest armor you may found, and wear the ring that give Second Chance, and abuse Savage Defiance, you will be not dat easy to be killed.

[dunehunter]

Do you think combining this with giving the barbarian in question the Stiletto with the shock proc from the Blacksmith in Gilded Vale would make it even more sick?

 

Sure it will be, just change con and dex, it will make your barbarian more deadly, but more fragile at the same time

[iKrivetko]

Whoa, this is a hot build indeed.

Do the Dead Man Stands boots still exist in the game? Do they work with second life? Looks like a natural fit for this build.

Now, if you combine all of that with Hiro's, Forgemaster's Gloves, He Carries Many Scars and the Ring of Searing Flames… Bloody hell, this must be obscene.

[Ceranai]

the way i see it this build is awesome in some situations but could be terrible in others, for example fights where there are heavy hitters about.

 

(having nt played around it this is only a prediction thoug, im also thinking in terms of a triple crown attempt, im sure in games where you have priests etc to heal you it would be much better

Edited April 5, 2015 by Ceranai

[Ceranai]

Also i was just checking the accuracy, its 12 accuracy level one, does that improve? That will miss every single time on some monsters. 

Edited April 5, 2015 by Ceranai

[Fardragon]

If the shapeshift duration wasn't so rubbish you could use this on a Stag-druid.

[Ceranai]

If the shapeshift duration wasn't so rubbish you could use this on a Stag-druid.

i was so dissappointed when i tried druid. I mean yea thier spells are great but from a RP perspective the only reason i chose them was for the shapeshifting and I was like IM A STAG MONST.... im an orlan again...

[iKrivetko]

One note, by the way:

 

 

 

and to MIN/MAX Battle-Forged, you don't need the X 1.33 attack speed from frenzy either.

 

the might and constitution are quite synergetic though.

[Benedictous]

Amazing, Amazing build.  This just destroys everything I always felt that my tanks did nothing, now they can top charts if i feel lazy lol

[CriticalFailure]

I'm planning on trying something similar with my barbarian once I get the retaliation items. My question is: do they stack? If I use the Sanguine Armour + the retaliation shield, will I do more damage than if I use just one of them?

[redviiper]

I don't think they stack

[CriticalFailure]

I don't think so either, but I was wondering if someone had actually tested it.

[iKrivetko]

They should, since they are completely independent sources of retaliation.

Edited April 7, 2015 by iKrivetko