Some doubts and questions

[savior99]

Thank you! Yes i understand, so barbarian would be more effective when engaging more enemies at once...the problem is his low defense, he cannot soak up much damage as a tank. But i understood i was using badly my priest and was not paying too much attention to endurance as i should. And then I just got savage defiance, that should help a lot.

 

I do not care about achievements

 

By the way i suggest everyone to use this command that is listed in the IE Mod (it works even without the mod installed) 

 

Open the console (enter) then use 

"SetZoomRange minValue maxValue"  , try for example SetZoomRange 0.1 200

 

It allows you to zoom really close and really far with the mouse wheel and i was not happy with the default maximum zoom.

Edited April 22, 2015 by savior99

[tnc]

Master barb here. Take threatening presence/brute force on barb. Take 1/encounter dazing/weakening ability on priest, you use it every fight great debuff to start a fight. Enjoy your almost permanent huge -30 fortitude debuff on enemies and a barb that keeps criting aoe, especially the ones with low fortitude. Make sure you take frenzy and also one stands alone. I dont take heal because if u take that much damage in a combat (like twice ur endurance) you'll have to rest soon anyway. I try not to get hit and debuff the enemy acc while buffing my deflection/dr.

[Xosmi]

Thank you! Yes i understand, so barbarian would be more effective when engaging more enemies at once...the problem is his low defense, he cannot soak up much damage as a tank. But i understood i was using badly my priest and was not paying too much attention to endurance as i should. And then I just got savage defiance, that should help a lot.

 

I do not care about achievements

 

By the way i suggest everyone to use this command that is listed in the IE Mod (it works even without the mod installed) 

 

Open the console (enter) then use 

"SetZoomRange minValue maxValue"  , try for example SetZoomRange 0.1 200

 

It allows you to zoom really close and really far with the mouse wheel and i was not happy with the default maximum zoom.

 

The hardest levels to get through as a barbarian are 3 and 4, savage defiance will really help at that point, until you take one stands alone which will mean you don't get flanked nearly as often. After level 5 I've not had much problems with soaking up damage, most battles are over fast enough that he can pull through just fine, though still needing the occasional heal from your priest for the tougher ones.

 

I'm interested to hear if you tried to change sagani's animal companion or not, and if you did what the results were ? let me know

[savior99]

yeah you are right! in fact i was struggling a little bit now at level 4, just leveled up and should be much better now with savage defiance (i generally play only during the weekends so I did not take advantage yet). I have also realized that I have to optimize the usage of my priest (and wizard).

 

I had read the reference to Itumaak as well as you. It seems like it is clearly written that you cannot change the companion.

 

And actually I don't think i made such big mistakes with my main char that i need to respec so I would like to avoid editing the save game, unless really needed. Especially with the companions. Don't want to risk to mess anything up. I want just to enjoy this masterpiece for the first playthrough. 

 

Maybe once finished the game i will have some fun playing with the customization and hopefully in the meantime some more powerful editor would have come out.

Edited April 22, 2015 by savior99

[savior99]

Master barb here. Take threatening presence/brute force on barb. Take 1/encounter dazing/weakening ability on priest, you use it every fight great debuff to start a fight. Enjoy your almost permanent huge -30 fortitude debuff on enemies and a barb that keeps criting aoe, especially the ones with low fortitude. Make sure you take frenzy and also one stands alone. I dont take heal because if u take that much damage in a combat (like twice ur endurance) you'll have to rest soon anyway. I try not to get hit and debuff the enemy acc while buffing my deflection/dr.

Master barb did you take "greater frenzy"? That gives +2 might during frenzy that means 6% more damage. With the weapon i am using now it means roughly 1 or 2 extra damage per hit. It does not sound like something i should use a talent for, what do you think ?

Edited April 22, 2015 by savior99

[chouia]

10  - I ididn't use it, but to replenish health (and tiredness), I think you can just remove and take back a character from your party.

 

 

PS: Indeed, you can only do that in some specific places, likes inns for example...

PS2: Unfortunately, it will remove the character's statistics. It's sad this game is not able to memorize statistics for a character if you remove it from your party...

PS3: With a good strong long range weapon equipped, none character could be worthless...

PS4: A companion with high mechanics is very useful. If you have that, don't take keys, or you'll miss opportunity to make some experience. It's silly, opening doors with keys should give you the same amount of experience... or even more!

Edited April 22, 2015 by chouia

[Tigranes]

10  - I ididn't use it, but to replenish health (and tiredness), I think you can just remove and take back a character from your party.

 

 

PS: Indeed, you can only do that in some specific places, likes inns for example...

PS2: Unfortunately, it will remove the character's statistics. It's sad this game is not able to memorize statistics for a character if you remove it from your party...

PS3: With a good strong long range weapon equipped, none character could be worthless...

PS4: A companion with high mechanics is very useful. If you have that, don't take keys, or you'll miss opportunity to make some experience. It's silly, opening doors with keys should give you the same amount of experience... or even more!

 

Uh. What.

 

1) Wherever you can replace party members, you can rest for free or for a negligible fee.

2) Opening a door with a key deprives you of, like, 40xp.

 

Those are very weird exploits, because they're very annoying to do, for an extremely tiny benefit (in 2) and zero benefit (in 1).

[tnc]

 

Master barb here. Take threatening presence/brute force on barb. Take 1/encounter dazing/weakening ability on priest, you use it every fight great debuff to start a fight. Enjoy your almost permanent huge -30 fortitude debuff on enemies and a barb that keeps criting aoe, especially the ones with low fortitude. Make sure you take frenzy and also one stands alone. I dont take heal because if u take that much damage in a combat (like twice ur endurance) you'll have to rest soon anyway. I try not to get hit and debuff the enemy acc while buffing my deflection/dr.

Master barb did you take "greater frenzy"? That gives +2 might during frenzy that means 6% more damage. With the weapon i am using now it means roughly 1 or 2 extra damage per hit. It does not sound like something i should use a talent for, what do you think ?

 

 

I took it because i try to stack might as high as i can. I find out that if you keep stacking it you gain more and more damage because there are also other factors that increase your damage depending on your base damage with a weapon. So the impact of 2 might can be more than 1 or 2 damage. I started with 19 might i get +3 might from an item and when i activate upgraded frenzy it becomes 28 might which means %54 bonus damage and you can tear through the high DR enemies with a two handed weapon and aoe carnage attacks will also have big damage numbers. Also there's a level 5 priest spell that gives a big might bonus u might want to check that out.

Edited April 22, 2015 by tnc

[Crucis]

9 - A custom designed Rogue can be a real asset to a party.  For starters, rogues get 2 points in Mechanics due to class.  And if you choose a profession that gives a +1 bonus to Mechanics, that's 3 points in the skill before the rogue even joins your party.  And even though the rogue may be one level behind your party, it won't be one level behind in terms of Mechanics skill, because of the class advantage that Rogues get with this skill.

 

As for whether the Rogue class requires a lot of micromanagement, yes and no.  All classes require micromanagement if you want to get the absolute most out of them. Rogues are no different in this regard.  You can just use them as ranged fire support with next to no MM.  But this is sorta giving up one of the easier to use advantages of the class, Sneak Attack.  You don't even have to run the Rogue around the map, if you have your team casting spells that set up any of the effects which make targets eligible for SA's.  One of the simplest ways to get a sneak attack is to fire a shot at an enemy within 2 seconds of the start of a battle.  So just have the rogue fire the first shot.

 

I've added a custom Rogue to my party and was completely satisfied by the result. And even a level behind the rest of the party, my custom (ranged) Rogue been more than holding her own in terms of damage output.

Edited April 23, 2015 by Crucis

[Xosmi]

 

Master barb did you take "greater frenzy"? That gives +2 might during frenzy that means 6% more damage. With the weapon i am using now it means roughly 1 or 2 extra damage per hit. It does not sound like something i should use a talent for, what do you think ?

 

I took it because i try to stack might as high as i can. I find out that if you keep stacking it you gain more and more damage because there are also other factors that increase your damage depending on your base damage with a weapon. So the impact of 2 might can be more than 1 or 2 damage. I started with 19 might i get +3 might from an item and when i activate upgraded frenzy it becomes 28 might which means %54 bonus damage and you can tear through the high DR enemies with a two handed weapon and aoe carnage attacks will also have big damage numbers. Also there's a level 5 priest spell that gives a big might bonus u might want to check that out.

 

 

I find that stacking on might is really not an optimal way of increasing your damage output beyond a certain point, like savior99 pointed out, the +2 might doesn't amount to a lot of extra damage, on top of it only being active during frenzy. 

First and foremost, taking one stands alone is absolutely necessary, the tooltip only mentions how you do extra damage when engaging 2+ enemies, what it neglects to mention is that this actually amounts to +20 damage after the hit/grace check and on both the initial hit and the carnage AoE. This on top of the fact that the skill is a passive, and you will be engaging 2 or more enemies 80%+ of the time, easily - so you get a lot more mileage out of it.

Now, don't get me wrong - having a decent might score is important (my barb has 16 base, +2 from gauntlets) but int is more important, so your carnage's AoE is bigger and you hit more enemies in 1 hit.

 

For example, having a huge AoE and slightly less damage, i can be hitting 4 or 5 (or more) enemies for 40 damage a strike, which translates in 160 and 200 damage per strike respectively,  whereas focusing completely on stacking damage and neglecting the AoE range means i'm only hitting 3 enemies max in 1 strike for 50 damage, which is only a total of 150 damage per strike.

Granted, you're not always engaging more then 3 enemies, but the potential for a lot more damage is there. 

 

So you see, damage is not the problem with the barbarian, in fact i would say accuracy is a bigger issue, since if you miss your initial hit, carnage won't be triggered at all, meaning 0 damage for you.

Personally i'd take Accurate Carnage over Greater frenzy. as has been pointed out, greater frenzy is only active when you actually frenzy, only adding 2 more might on top of the 4 the standard frenzy already adds, whereas accurate carnage adds +5 accuracy every time carnage triggers, which is every time you strike a melee hit, regardless of if you are using frenzy or not.

As a cherry on the top, because out attack rolls are resolved by subtracting an enemies defenses from our accuracy, the higher our accuracy is, the more critical hits we will be scoring. 

(read this post for an explanation on how accuracy helps you to hit/crit : http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/77153-attack-resolution-accuracy-how-exactly-does-it-work-with-graphs/ )

 

So, in conclusion : Yeah, over-stacking might and damage bonuses might get us a nice on-screen display number of our damage, but it is by far not the optimal way of reaching the highest damage output possible.

Edited April 22, 2015 by Xosmi

[savior99]

Thanks all !! you gave me some many useful hints and comment that i had not thought of.

 

I had read that one stands alone gives +20 dmg but i did not understand that also a graze of 1 dmg could become 21 dmg !

 

I will go for one stand alone at lvl 7 and for accurate carnage (it did not seem useful at all until Xosmi's explanation) at 9 probably. I have to check if i took some useless feat and might use the console to replace one of them actually.

 

I did not even know that the range of carnage was INT based. I have only 10 Int,  I guess i will have to find some boosting item.

 

Is there a way to see the carnage range ?

 

As for the rogue, I was thinking that maybe i will stick to the "official" companions. Were it only just to take advantage of their personal missions (and dialogues) , provided they all have some I hope.

 

And if i were to use an hired companion, i still would like to have an additional tank I guess.

 

Actually i think (i might be wrong) that a party of all tanks or so, like 4-5 fighters (one pally?) and a 1 or 2 barbs would be hard to beat.

Edited April 23, 2015 by savior99

[anameforobsidian]

5 - Take one stands alone.  It's awesome.  I only saw it until too late, and now I can't make a dual-wielding build based off it.

[savior99]

I will, but first I desperately need savage defiance, my endurance is always critical and i can't hit anyone if i am laying on the ground fainted...

Edited April 23, 2015 by savior99

[chouia]

1) Wherever you can replace party members, you can rest for free or for a negligible fee.

2) Opening a door with a key deprives you of, like, 40xp.

 

Those are very weird exploits, because they're very annoying to do, for an extremely tiny benefit (in 2) and zero benefit (in 1).

 

1) I have to admit that... I hate to sleep. (It was the same in BG.) I know that you lose nothing in the game when you use 8 hours... but I feel bad when I rest "too much", it's like breaking game mechanics. It's weird that the only thing you have to invest to replenish your health is "in-game" time... when in-game time worth nothing. Ok, there is campfires now... but you can always easily backtrack to an inn (there is very few exceptions).

I think that tiredness and "per rest" abilities (and health now) are good tribute to Baldur's Gate, are maybe important for "role players", but are not really interesting gameplay features! At least, if the game annoys you with resting, it could be more important. (For example, timing could be important to resolve some quests, could impact the result of some situations, could lead to ennemies come back so you can not sleep 10 times during dungeon exploration, etc...)

But, of course, you're right! If you take the game as it is, this exploit is not interesting at all. Except maybe if you try to do an "in-game time" speedrun...

Small spoil (I would prefer to know that before I finish the game) :

Notice I didn't success the Durance quest, because I didn't use campfires, and I didn't know I had to.

 

 

2) I think that when you unlock a lock with mechanics, it's something like "lock level x 30 xp". It's not so much, for sure, because there is not so many keys... But why not taking this experience if you could? I'm still thinking that finding a key to open a door should give you more experience that unlock it.

[Tigranes]

 

1) Wherever you can replace party members, you can rest for free or for a negligible fee.

2) Opening a door with a key deprives you of, like, 40xp.

 

Those are very weird exploits, because they're very annoying to do, for an extremely tiny benefit (in 2) and zero benefit (in 1).

 

1) I have to admit that... I hate to sleep. (It was the same in BG.) I know that you lose nothing in the game when you use 8 hours... but I feel bad when I rest "too much", it's like breaking game mechanics. It's weird that the only thing you have to invest to replenish your health is "in-game" time... when in-game time worth nothing. Ok, there is campfires now... but you can always easily backtrack to an inn (there is very few exceptions).

I think that tiredness and "per rest" abilities (and health now) are good tribute to Baldur's Gate, are maybe important for "role players", but are not really interesting gameplay features! At least, if the game annoys you with resting, it could be more important. (For example, timing could be important to resolve some quests, could impact the result of some situations, could lead to ennemies come back so you can not sleep 10 times during dungeon exploration, etc...)

But, of course, you're right! If you take the game as it is, this exploit is not interesting at all. Except maybe if you try to do an "in-game time" speedrun...

Small spoil (I would prefer to know that before I finish the game) :

Notice I didn't success the Durance quest, because I didn't use campfires, and I didn't know I had to.

 

 

2) I think that when you unlock a lock with mechanics, it's something like "lock level x 30 xp". It's not so much, for sure, because there is not so many keys... But why not taking this experience if you could? I'm still thinking that finding a key to open a door should give you more experience that unlock it.

 

 

Nothing stops you from doing it, I just think it's pretty weird, unusual and cumbersome to bother to do it in such unintuitive ways when the game easily lets you play more simply. 

[Xosmi]

 

 

1) Wherever you can replace party members, you can rest for free or for a negligible fee.

2) Opening a door with a key deprives you of, like, 40xp.

 

Those are very weird exploits, because they're very annoying to do, for an extremely tiny benefit (in 2) and zero benefit (in 1).

 

1) I have to admit that... I hate to sleep. (It was the same in BG.) I know that you lose nothing in the game when you use 8 hours... but I feel bad when I rest "too much", it's like breaking game mechanics. It's weird that the only thing you have to invest to replenish your health is "in-game" time... when in-game time worth nothing. Ok, there is campfires now... but you can always easily backtrack to an inn (there is very few exceptions).

I think that tiredness and "per rest" abilities (and health now) are good tribute to Baldur's Gate, are maybe important for "role players", but are not really interesting gameplay features! At least, if the game annoys you with resting, it could be more important. (For example, timing could be important to resolve some quests, could impact the result of some situations, could lead to ennemies come back so you can not sleep 10 times during dungeon exploration, etc...)

But, of course, you're right! If you take the game as it is, this exploit is not interesting at all. Except maybe if you try to do an "in-game time" speedrun...

Small spoil (I would prefer to know that before I finish the game) :

Notice I didn't success the Durance quest, because I didn't use campfires, and I didn't know I had to.

 

 

2) I think that when you unlock a lock with mechanics, it's something like "lock level x 30 xp". It's not so much, for sure, because there is not so many keys... But why not taking this experience if you could? I'm still thinking that finding a key to open a door should give you more experience that unlock it.

 

 

Nothing stops you from doing it, I just think it's pretty weird, unusual and cumbersome to bother to do it in such unintuitive ways when the game easily lets you play more simply. 

 

 

I have to say i agree on this - every place that lets you swap out companions is also a place where you can sleep anyway. The only reason not to make use of that and simply rest instead of swapping out party members is for RP reasons i guess.

in the case of #2 though, i have to admit that wherever possible i do pick locks, even if a key is available somewhere. since i built my barbarian to be able to solo if need be, i specced him for mechanics (which is at 10 at the moment) and the sheer amount of doors/chests to unlock really add up in the end. in the area with the skaenite cultists for example, there's 2 doors that require 9 mechanics that give 240 exp each, and another that requires lvl 8 for another 200.

There's another door and chest that both need 7 mechanics and 1 chest that needs 6 mechanics in the same area, if i recall correctly you gain 40 xp per level of the lock, totaling at an easy 1840 extra exp points just for picking those locks -roughly 3/4th of which you would be missing out on by using the key.

Edited April 23, 2015 by Xosmi

[tnc]

 

 

Master barb did you take "greater frenzy"? That gives +2 might during frenzy that means 6% more damage. With the weapon i am using now it means roughly 1 or 2 extra damage per hit. It does not sound like something i should use a talent for, what do you think ?

 

I took it because i try to stack might as high as i can. I find out that if you keep stacking it you gain more and more damage because there are also other factors that increase your damage depending on your base damage with a weapon. So the impact of 2 might can be more than 1 or 2 damage. I started with 19 might i get +3 might from an item and when i activate upgraded frenzy it becomes 28 might which means %54 bonus damage and you can tear through the high DR enemies with a two handed weapon and aoe carnage attacks will also have big damage numbers. Also there's a level 5 priest spell that gives a big might bonus u might want to check that out.

 

 

I find that stacking on might is really not an optimal way of increasing your damage output beyond a certain point, like savior99 pointed out, the +2 might doesn't amount to a lot of extra damage, on top of it only being active during frenzy. 

First and foremost, taking one stands alone is absolutely necessary, the tooltip only mentions how you do extra damage when engaging 2+ enemies, what it neglects to mention is that this actually amounts to +20 damage after the hit/grace check and on both the initial hit and the carnage AoE. This on top of the fact that the skill is a passive, and you will be engaging 2 or more enemies 80%+ of the time, easily - so you get a lot more mileage out of it.

Now, don't get me wrong - having a decent might score is important (my barb has 16 base, +2 from gauntlets) but int is more important, so your carnage's AoE is bigger and you hit more enemies in 1 hit.

 

For example, having a huge AoE and slightly less damage, i can be hitting 4 or 5 (or more) enemies for 40 damage a strike, which translates in 160 and 200 damage per strike respectively,  whereas focusing completely on stacking damage and neglecting the AoE range means i'm only hitting 3 enemies max in 1 strike for 50 damage, which is only a total of 150 damage per strike.

Granted, you're not always engaging more then 3 enemies, but the potential for a lot more damage is there. 

 

So you see, damage is not the problem with the barbarian, in fact i would say accuracy is a bigger issue, since if you miss your initial hit, carnage won't be triggered at all, meaning 0 damage for you.

Personally i'd take Accurate Carnage over Greater frenzy. as has been pointed out, greater frenzy is only active when you actually frenzy, only adding 2 more might on top of the 4 the standard frenzy already adds, whereas accurate carnage adds +5 accuracy every time carnage triggers, which is every time you strike a melee hit, regardless of if you are using frenzy or not.

As a cherry on the top, because out attack rolls are resolved by subtracting an enemies defenses from our accuracy, the higher our accuracy is, the more critical hits we will be scoring. 

(read this post for an explanation on how accuracy helps you to hit/crit : http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/77153-attack-resolution-accuracy-how-exactly-does-it-work-with-graphs/ )

 

So, in conclusion : Yeah, over-stacking might and damage bonuses might get us a nice on-screen display number of our damage, but it is by far not the optimal way of reaching the highest damage output possible.

 

 

Why not stack both might and accuracy though? There aren't many worthwhile offensive melee talents anyway. I take all three class talents and can still take 3 offensive talents which covers the most important ones. I've seen barbaric blow crit for like 90+ damage even on character level 8-9. Late game it becomes even more op. As for intelligence i also raise it to at least 16 and i don't care about -8 deflection that comes from low per. and res. I can make up for it easily with some items and buffs and a bit of good positioning in combat. Keeps the game challenging but rewarding.

[Xosmi]

Why not stack both might and accuracy though? There aren't many worthwhile offensive melee talents anyway. I take all three class talents and can still take 3 offensive talents which covers the most important ones. I've seen barbaric blow crit for like 90+ damage even on character level 8-9. Late game it becomes even more op. As for intelligence i also raise it to at least 16 and i don't care about -8 deflection that comes from low per. and res. I can make up for it easily with some items and buffs and a bit of good positioning in combat. Keeps the game challenging but rewarding.

 

 

Yeah, i didn't mean to say you should forego strength entirely, having a good score in it is important as well.

However, i feel that 16 base is enough, you can get +2/3 from item bonus easily. I feel that beyond that you start to see diminishing returns on investing pure stat points into might.

 

As far as abilities and talents go, here's what i have on my lvl 10 barbarian at the moment:

Lvl 1 : Frenzy - for obvious reasons, the +might and con are nice, the increased attack speed is very nice to have since i only have 10 dex.

Lvl 2 : Accurate carnage - more accuracy means more hits and crits.

Lvl 3 : Savage defiance - Gets you through lvl 3 and 4, nice to have all around - you can't do damage if you're laying on the ground unconscious.

Lvl 4 : Stalwart Defiance - beefs up savage defiance to give +10 to all defenses, really nice to have, since i usually use savage defiance after frenzy has worn off - this offsets the loss of offense by giving me better defense. nice for those longer battles.

Lvl 5 : One stands along - For obvious reasons. +20 damage on all hits and being able to engage 1 more enemy before being flanked is really OP, pretty much the ability that makes this class work as well as it does.

Lvl 6 : Two weapon style - More attack speed.

Lvl 7 : Bloodlust : It's easy to down 2 enemies fast as a barb because our melee AoE's, this passive gives you x1.2 attack speed for 8 seconds once you do. This, paired with the attack speed from 2 weapon style and frenzy, pus the fact that i am using 2 rapiers, wich are both fast weapons i hit very often. not as much of a shotgun as a monk with 20 dex and 2 weapon style, but close enough.

Lvl 8 : Weapon focus : Noble : Adds +6 accuracy to attacks with my rapiers. i use 2 rapiers because they get a +5 accuracy bonnus on their own. together with the bonus from accurate carnage that's +21 accuracy right there.

Lvl 9 : Thick skinned : 2 more DR vs melee attacks is never a bad thing. Barbarian shout is also a good contender, but i prefer thick skinned since  i dont need to activate it, it's allways 'on' since it's a passive.

Lvl 10 : Savage attack : my 2nd reason for stacking accuracy. this modal ability lets you trade in 5 accuracy for 1.2x the attack damage. gives you a bigger damage bonus then might stacking

 

I plan on taking heart of fury for lvl 11, not sure about what i'll do at level 12 - i might go for wild sprint, so i can close the distance with ranged enemies and spellcasters quicker.

As you can see, i don't really get any bonus might from my talents (besides the base +4 during frenzy), instead relying on one stands alone and savage attack to boost my damage.

 

I could swap around some talents to focus more on might and get a bit more damage out of my character, but i'd be taking a significant hit to my survivability, and more importantly to my attack speed - meaning that in the end, i'll hit harder but less often, doing less total damage in the same time span.

Edited April 24, 2015 by Xosmi

[tnc]

 

Why not stack both might and accuracy though? There aren't many worthwhile offensive melee talents anyway. I take all three class talents and can still take 3 offensive talents which covers the most important ones. I've seen barbaric blow crit for like 90+ damage even on character level 8-9. Late game it becomes even more op. As for intelligence i also raise it to at least 16 and i don't care about -8 deflection that comes from low per. and res. I can make up for it easily with some items and buffs and a bit of good positioning in combat. Keeps the game challenging but rewarding.

 

 

Yeah, i didn't mean to say you should forego strength entirely, having a good score in it is important as well.

However, i feel that 16 base is enough, you can get +2/3 from item bonus easily. I feel that beyond that you start to see diminishing returns on investing pure stat points into might.

 

As far as abilities and talents go, here's what i have on my lvl 10 barbarian at the moment:

Lvl 1 : Frenzy - for obvious reasons, the +might and con are nice, the increased attack speed is very nice to have since i only have 10 dex.

Lvl 2 : Accurate carnage - more accuracy means more hits and crits.

Lvl 3 : Savage defiance - Gets you through lvl 3 and 4, nice to have all around - you can't do damage if you're laying on the ground unconscious.

Lvl 4 : Stalwart Defiance - beefs up savage defiance to give +10 to all defenses, really nice to have, since i usually use savage defiance after frenzy has worn off - this offsets the loss of offense by giving me better defense. nice for those longer battles.

Lvl 5 : One stands along - For obvious reasons. +20 damage on all hits and being able to engage 1 more enemy before being flanked is really OP, pretty much the ability that makes this class work as well as it does.

Lvl 6 : Two weapon style - More attack speed.

Lvl 7 : Bloodlust : It's easy to down 2 enemies fast as a barb because our melee AoE's, this passive gives you x1.2 attack speed for 8 seconds once you do. This, paired with the attack speed from 2 weapon style and frenzy, pus the fact that i am using 2 rapiers, wich are both fast weapons i hit very often. not as much of a shotgun as a monk with 20 dex and 2 weapon style, but close enough.

Lvl 8 : Weapon focus : Noble : Adds +6 accuracy to attacks with my rapiers. i use 2 rapiers because they get a +5 accuracy bonnus on their own. together with the bonus from accurate carnage that's +21 accuracy right there.

Lvl 9 : Thick skinned : 2 more DR vs melee attacks is never a bad thing. Barbarian shout is also a good contender, but i prefer thick skinned since  i dont need to activate it, it's allways 'on' since it's a passive.

Lvl 10 : Savage attack : my 2nd reason for stacking accuracy. this modal ability lets you trade in 5 accuracy for 1.2x the attack damage. gives you a bigger damage bonus then might stacking

 

I plan on taking heart of fury for lvl 11, not sure about what i'll do at level 12 - i might go for wild sprint, so i can close the distance with ranged enemies and spellcasters quicker.

As you can see, i don't really get any bonus might from my talents (besides the base +4 during frenzy), instead relying on one stands alone and savage attack to boost my damage.

 

I could swap around some talents to focus more on might and get a bit more damage out of my character, but i'd be taking a significant hit to my survivability, and more importantly to my attack speed - meaning that in the end, i'll hit harder but less often, doing less total damage in the same time span.

 

 

Funny you say accuracy is really important and not take brute force/threatening presence. With sickened and weakened effects (there's a per encounter weakening/dazing on priest, its really useful) you can debuff the enemy fortitude by 30 points. It'll give you accuracy bonus on like %90 of the enemies because even if their fortitude is high it will be debuffed. The enemies with low fortitude will get crit most of the time and the ones with high fortitude you can still hit easier depending on the value. It more than makes up for barbarian's low starting accuracy.

 

Some of the most annoying creatures in the game(shades/phantoms/casters) have low fortitude and they'll go down REALLY fast with this combo. On top of this accuracy bonus, you keep a -30 fortitude debuff on the enemy almost permanently (sickened is always active around barbarian, and weakened has a huge aoe and long duration) and it will allow your spells/prone abilities (some of the best spells in the game like gaze of adragan, anything that paralyzes or petrifies attacks fortitude) to be much more effective.

Edited April 26, 2015 by tnc

[Xosmi]

 

Funny you say accuracy is really important and not take brute force/threatening presence. With sickened and weakened effects (there's a per encounter weakening/dazing on priest, its really useful) you can debuff the enemy fortitude by 30 points. It'll give you accuracy bonus on like %90 of the enemies because even if their fortitude is high it will be debuffed. The enemies with low fortitude will get crit most of the time and the ones with high fortitude you can still hit easier depending on the value. It more than makes up for barbarian's low starting accuracy.

 

Some of the most annoying creatures in the game(shades/phantoms/casters) have low fortitude and they'll go down REALLY fast with this combo. On top of this accuracy bonus, you keep a -30 fortitude debuff on the enemy almost permanently (sickened is always active around barbarian, and weakened has a huge aoe and long duration) and it will allow your spells/prone abilities (some of the best spells in the game like gaze of adragan, anything that paralyzes or petrifies attacks fortitude) to be much more effective.

 

 

Yeah, i've thought about going with brute force + threatening presence combo, and i probably would have gone that route if i was using 2h weapons with more range, as it is i'm moving around and re-positioning too much for it to proc reliably. 

 

Also, the way i'm focusing on accuracy right now means i allways get the bonus.

I'm unsure if there are any enemies in the game that the BF+ TP combo won't work on (those with sufficiently high Fortitude that will stay higher then deflection even after the debuff from sickened status effect) but i'm guessing there's at least a few, which would create choke points progression-wise, especially playing solo.

Edited April 26, 2015 by Xosmi