I am thoroughly impressed with my all-barbarian party!

[Slapstick87]

So I've been having tons of fun playing almost non-stop with a Cipher as my main and only story companions on hard for a while now. And it's been exactly that, hard! (God I hate shades so much!) Also, combat is slow with lots of pausing to cast spells and abilities. So just for the fun of it, I started an all-barbarian moongoddwarf party - you know, for roleplaying reasons (still playing on Hard)

 

The idea was this: I get killed whenever I happen to get my dps swarmed or I somehow lose positioning. What if that tactic works if it's MY tactic as well? Can I create a sufficiently "perfect storm" group and just out-dps the enemies? If I kill them before they kill me, shouldn't it work? Aaaand it does! Remarkably well in fact. Granted I've only just hit level 5 and I'm well aware this might change when I start encountering tougher monsters which will crit my pitiful defenses more, but so far it's been a blast!

 

So I made them all exactly the same:

Mgt - 19 (yay damage!)

Con - 3  (who am I kidding, I'm not going to last long, might as well hit hard)

Dex - 19 (yay damage!)

Per - 14 (yay interrupt and a tiny bit of deflection for what it's worth!)

Int - 15 (yay rage!)

Res - 8  (well I don't want to get interrupted aaaall the time!)

 

Talents so far in this order: Frenzy, Barbaric Blow, Greater Frenzy, One Stands Alone

 

 

I actually thought it wouldn't work all that well, but the raw damage this group output simply turns everything into bloodspatter in seconds. Nothing so far has been able to even touch me! All of my group wears very light armors (Hides and Leather) and wields damage-heavy weapons. No shields or hatchets or anything like that. And it's amazing. I massacred a certain early fortress at level 3! I just pointed my dwarven army of pikes and greatswords towards the guards, and watched them all go "sploosh". I laugh in the face of shades and ghosts. Trolls tremble before my onslaught, and even the Animata at the docks became a heap of scrap as my group (aka The Blenders) smashed through them! 

 

I just started at the endless dungeon (or whatever it's called - not at home atm), and I'm curious to see how far I can get before being turned back. I'm not playing Ironman mode, but I might as well had because I haven't died once! Not even come close (which is more or less exactly the opposite of my "real" party). It might not last forever, but right now it's a world of fun!

 

I just wanted to share this as I'm having too much fun with this game at the moment :D

[PBJam]

I'll have to try it sometime

[Rosbjerg]

Hmm one chanter in the mix could really spice things.

[Ceranai]

Nice but i doubt your all barb team would beat my all chanter team SAY HELLO TO MY LITTLE PHANTOMS

[b0rsuk]

I'll be thrilled to hear how that party fared against banshees or the Master Below.

[Daemonjax]

All barb vs all cipher.

[MadDemiurg]

All ranger with bears.

 

On a more serious note, it can work, but 6 is an overkill and far from optimal. SInce they're all melee they won't be able to engage properly often. I think 2 close range barbs + 2 reach weapon barbs + 2 ranged support (priest + x? (chanter? ranged paladin? 2nd priest? cipher?)) would work much better.

[Slapstick87]

All ranger with bears.

 

On a more serious note, it can work, but 6 is an overkill and far from optimal. SInce they're all melee they won't be able to engage properly often. I think 2 close range barbs + 2 reach weapon barbs + 2 ranged support (priest + x? (chanter? ranged paladin? 2nd priest? cipher?)) would work much better.

 

Well there are a few issues, but I'm going with a theme here It was never meant to be optimized, but it sure feels like it is at times.

 

Pathing: The AI has rather poor pathing. Often they won't be able to find their way to an enemy, let alone their target

Lack of auto-targeting: When my dwarven moongod berserkers are unable to get to their target, they will instead just stand there, right next to an enemy, rather than attack whatever is closest. Sometimes they just delete the attack order and idle.

Next target: When something dies, they often fail to continue their killing spree on their own and have to be manually assigned

- all of this is quite manageable with some manual attention.

 

I do have two of them wielding pikes, and it's honestly not so much of an issue as I thought. The funny thing now is that rather than abusing chokeholds, doorways and narrow spaces, I have to lure the enemies into open rooms and fields where I can sufficiently swarm them. It's fun turning the game entire upside down and using the enemy "strong suit" against them. Making a proper meatgrinder outside a doorway with all my berserkers in a half-circle is half the fun!

[tnc]

I'd make it 5 barb 1 priest for some incredible melee buffs like accuracy, might etc. It would become so much more effective.

[Eyonik]

Very cool indeed. My Barb is the highest DD of all story companions anyway (23k dmg at lvl8 vs 2-5k dmg) so I imagine this party to stomp over almost everything.

Could you please post one or two screenshots of your group in action? :D

 

I'll be thrilled to hear how that party fared against banshees or the Master Below.

Banshees, Spirits, Shades, etc. should become easier with Brute Force ability (Attacks target Fortitude instead of Deflection if Fortitude is lower) since they have high Deflection and low Fortitude. Edited April 8, 2015 by Eyonik

[b0rsuk]

Right, I forgot about Brute Force. But it's still a mystery how you will be able to beat the Master Below. I suppose you could do it if one of your barbarian trains Lore.

 

"Might Makes Right" style party centered around melee is on my list of things to try. I haven't decided yet, but one thing I know for sure: no druids, priests or wizards allowed ! Basically no pure casters. I will probably avoid Cipher as well. It could be something like this:

 

* Fighter (Eder)

* Barbarian

* Rogue

* Ranger (Sagani)

* Chanter (Kana, built for melee)

* Possibly Monk, but I don't like the flavor of that class, so if I take him it's likely to be something funky, like Dangerous Implement monk. The whole idea of "get hit to get stronger" is dumb.

 

Loosely inspired by Logen Ninefingers and his party. I could take paladin, but they're too self-righteous and pompous. I'm trying to decide between all-melee and all-physical. Ranger is not melee but is a rather challenging class, and pet is melee, right ? All melee is glorious, but in either case I won't have artillery classes and much use of chokepoints.

Edited April 8, 2015 by b0rsuk

[Judicator]

I bet a party of 6 Fighters could be pretty good. 2 tanks, 1 melee DPS with a reach weapon, 3 ranged DPS would be pretty strong.

[Starthief]

Since my first playthrough currently has two ciphers and a lot of gunplay, I was thinking about a melee-ish low magic party myself.  Two chanter tanks, two polearm barbarians, and I don't know what (maybe one druid and a paladin).  But this is pretty brilliant.

I wonder how six Moon Godlike monks would do. :D

[Arkh`Cthuul]

Glow and wave a lot? ^^

 

 

More serious: the "6 of one, half a dozen of the other" Variant seems fun in general.

If Iw as to do a fully constructed party I`d prbably go for 4 Barbarians and 2 Chanters. Allows for mucho mayhem and application of all necessary buff/Debuff chants + 2 Phantoms to help in a pinch.^^

[Incendax]

6 Moon Godlike Druids.
Download the mod that allows you to stay in Shapeshift indefinitely.
UNLEASH THE WEREWOLVES! HOWL AT THE MOON!!

Or one of each. For variety. Silly changing breeds.

[Slapstick87]

Very cool indeed. My Barb is the highest DD of all story companions anyway (23k dmg at lvl8 vs 2-5k dmg) so I imagine this party to stomp over almost everything.

Could you please post one or two screenshots of your group in action? :D

 

I'll be thrilled to hear how that party fared against banshees or the Master Below.

Banshees, Spirits, Shades, etc. should become easier with Brute Force ability (Attacks target Fortitude instead of Deflection if Fortitude is lower) since they have high Deflection and low Fortitude.

 

 

Happy to oblige! Couldn't figure out how to post screenshots on this forum, so here's the dropbox link: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/0bf7b4xp7p253d0/AAB0bgayqQCznVzWPwKo7YPMa?dl=0

Still lvl 5, nothing holdin' me back yet, allthough that drake at lvl 5 in the dungeon did down one of my barbs.

[pi2repsion]

Nice but i doubt your all barb team would beat my all chanter team SAY HELLO TO MY LITTLE PHANTOMS

...that raises the obvious question. Does the level 3 fire/slash damage dealing chant stack?

[MadDemiurg]

 

Nice but i doubt your all barb team would beat my all chanter team SAY HELLO TO MY LITTLE PHANTOMS

...that raises the obvious question. Does the level 3 fire/slash damage dealing chant stack?

 

I think it should. It looks like a damage spell rather than a debuff/dot, although the description suggests that it's DoT. But it looks like a damage wave incoming every 8 seconds. Worth testing.

Edited April 8, 2015 by MadDemiurg

[mazeltov]

Looks like you set the difficulty to.......... Raging Barbs. 

 

--

 

6 Moon Godlike Druids.
Download the mod that allows you to stay in Shapeshift indefinitely.
UNLEASH THE WEREWOLVES! HOWL AT THE MOON!!

Or one of each. For variety. Silly changing breeds.

 

WW: The Apocalypse playthrough is now a go. Maybe a Gurahl or Bastet drood mixed in. Speaking of, I noticed wild shape says one per encounter, but doesn't list a duration. Can you stay in it for the entire encounter?

[Parsong]

This is actually sub-optimal, as you are probably taking away some barbarians "One Stands Alone" potential by eating away so many Engagement slots with 6 melee. I notice on my Retaliation Barb, Which is super OP, having too many melee kills the super OPness of OSA.  Just three barbs might be better, as long as they also have Retaliation gear.  The other three can be empty or Chanters/Ciphers.

 

 

 

That being said, OSA is so OP that this build would probably still faceroll anything if even one barb has it activated.

Edited April 8, 2015 by Parsong