Barbarian - How does it deal damage?

[dudex]

on potd enemies come in huge groups instead of just 1 or 2.

 

carnage alone makes a barbarian one of the strongest damage dealers in game because of this.

 

they also have access to an easy 53+ attack speed which comes into play late game when u can really start stack attack speed to exponential amounts.

[lonelornfr]

I actually changed the difficulty of my 3 barbarians game to POTD, via the console command. I can confirm that my 3 barbs did slaughter everything that had the audacity to even look at them sideway.

 

I left the AI on barbs on (agressive / aggressive). Quick buff from the priest, slicken from my mages, then /popcorn. It was pretty damn fun.

 

It might however prove pretty difficult the early levels, i'd probably level up to like 5 with a different roster if i had to do it again.

 

 

TL;DR : Barbs are dope yo !

[anameforobsidian]

I actually ran a potd solo run with a barbarian.  They have the following advantages:

-  Huge health pool, only made larger by the patch.  Put it with a moonlike and you have some serious hitpoints.

-  Carnage.  Potd has tons and tons of mobs.  I could run into a group of kobolds xaurips and kill most of them before they hit me.  It's both fun and powerful.

-  Retaliation armor.  It's not as glorious as it was, but retaliation is beautiful on a character you want to get hit.

-  Targeting fort instead of defense.  I don't know how this plays in patch 2.0, but it could frequently be a +20 accuracy buff.   That's before threatening presence, which lowers their fort another 20, and lowers will so it normally stays on once it hits.

-  Threatening presence is also quite nice with a party.  A constant defense lowering debuff that is cast automatically without cost is pretty nice.

-  Stat bonuses with frenzy.  You can wear items that give you double frenzy.

 

And the largest advantage of all (for me at least):

-  Wild Sprint.  People never, ever seem to talk about this ability.  And it kinda sucks from a number cruncher's perspective.  But there are three very good arguments.

• Positioning at the start of a fight.  You move faster and can break the intended positioning of the enemy.  This allows you to run through / around those annoying frontline fighters and go straight for those xaurip clerics.
• Breaking free from the front line.  Similarly, if you're surrounded by trash, and want to get at the casters, you just click it and go.
• Running away.  Most characters can't run away.  Barbarians can.  This helps a lot in PotD solo.
• Best of all, amazing pulls.  If you're really good with it, you can start a fight with the enemy, hit wild sprint and get all but three or four of the enemy to run away.  This cuts mobs into far more manageable pieces.  Yes it's cheesy, but so are figurines and they're essential to a potd solo run.

[Mechalibur]

A funny thing I noticed: every single carnage hit has a chance to trigger the Destroy Vessel effect on St Ydwen's Redeemer. I'm glad I picked it up before Heritage Hill; skeletons and guls were just blowing up left and right.

[Killyox]

My NPC barb actually surpassed my wizard dmg wise. Tall Grass + carnage and high int is deadly tbh. When you blind enemies they also get critted a lot from carnage. Mine is also fire godlike so always some fire dmg aoe when he gets sub 50% (which he doesn't get to often actually atm). I usually give him +50% attack speed potions and sometimes use them but mostly aren't needed.

 

For me Barb is my main tank and main dps pretty much

 

Also retaliation potions

Edited September 8, 2015 by Killyox

[Judicator]

Aside from Carnage, which looks like decent AoE dmg and basically requires a 2-hander to be effective against high DR enemies, what does a Barbarian get for damage that you can't get from just about any class? I understand AoE dmg is helpful, but I've found I'm not generally hitting more than 1-2 targets at a time anyway, Maybe it's my lack of experience in the game.

 

I see Heart of Fury, Carnage, One Stands Alone, Vengeful Defeat, Frenzy, Blooded, and Barbaric Blow.

 

Heart of Fury - AoE attack

Frenzy - a nice stat buff for might/att speed

Carnage - small area AoE at lower Acc and dmg

One Stands Alone - Bonus when being attacked by multiple enemies

Vengeful Defeat - Other classes have an ability similar to this

Barbaric Blow - Similar single buffed attack and subsequent carnage dmg bonuses after (If they would ever apply)

Blooded - requires gettign to 50% Endurance and staying there.

 

Is the combo of Carnage and One Stands Alone that good? Like, how much dmg does it add? Has anyone ever tested it? And, who would want to use Blooded? This seems like a class that doesn't produce enough damage for the trouble it gets into.

 

What am I missing about this class? Why do people use it/like it?

You're severely underestimating Carnage. Right now my Barbarian is level 13 and has dealt 200 000 damage throughout the game. That's more than anyone else in my party by far, the closest is Eder with 24 000. Barbarian with high might, dex, int, and per is an absolute monster.

[Wolken3156]

Whereas everyone is raving on about his damage, I love my Barb as a battlefield controller. The Starcaller is amazing with Carnage, having a chance to Stun enemies in range. It also good synergy with Threatening Presence, which helps lowers Fort saves. Before the Starcaller, I quite like the White Spire estoc, -5 to all defenses is quite nice considering I run a caster heavy party.

[Torm51]

Whereas everyone is raving on about his damage, I love my Barb as a battlefield controller. The Starcaller is amazing with Carnage, having a chance to Stun enemies in range. It also good synergy with Threatening Presence, which helps lowers Fort saves. Before the Starcaller, I quite like the White Spire estoc, -5 to all defenses is quite nice considering I run a caster heavy party.

how are you getting around the issue with Frenzy and Barbaric Yell (if you take it)? By just letting the AI use it liberally?  It just annoys me at the moment cause the AI wont use it EXACTLY when I want it too lol.

[Elric Galad]

The paradox of the barbarian is that all their abilities are between meh and ok while carnage by itself is so great that he fullfills perfect his purpose.

 

The reason is that carnage is only an additive (but negative) damage modifier and accuracy penalty. When you start stacking positive damage modifier and accuracy buff, it compensates for carnage penalties, which means you attack zone with an attack almost as powerful as your main attack. That is the reason why they scale so well.

 

In my last playthrough, my barbarian was my top damage dealer (higher than rogue by a small but relevant margin) while being also more tanky than other damage dealers thanks to crazy endurance and self heal.

 

Basically, abilities you pick are just a bonus.

 

Furthermore, they synergize extremely well with per hit effects like special weapons (tall grass) or interrupts. But once more, this is due to carnage and nothing else (except maybe frenzy).

Edited September 8, 2015 by Elric Galad

[Judicator]

Whereas everyone is raving on about his damage, I love my Barb as a battlefield controller. The Starcaller is amazing with Carnage, having a chance to Stun enemies in range. It also good synergy with Threatening Presence, which helps lowers Fort saves. Before the Starcaller, I quite like the White Spire estoc, -5 to all defenses is quite nice considering I run a caster heavy party.

Carnage is great for triggering all those on-hit weapon abilities. My barb was one-shotting groups of undead thanks to Carnage + St. Ydwen's Redeemer.

[Wolken3156]

 

Whereas everyone is raving on about his damage, I love my Barb as a battlefield controller. The Starcaller is amazing with Carnage, having a chance to Stun enemies in range. It also good synergy with Threatening Presence, which helps lowers Fort saves. Before the Starcaller, I quite like the White Spire estoc, -5 to all defenses is quite nice considering I run a caster heavy party.

how are you getting around the issue with Frenzy and Barbaric Yell (if you take it)? By just letting the AI use it liberally?  It just annoys me at the moment cause the AI wont use it EXACTLY when I want it too lol.

 

You need to have AI enabled and be next to an enemy, which is annoying. Its nowhere near as annoying as Returning Storm though. Druid 3rd-level spells per encounter is suddenly not all that appealing without it.

[KDubya]

If you had two second row reach weapon users, a Rogue and a Barb, what weapons would you give them?

 

I was thinking of Tall Grass for the Rogue since his accuracy will be +13 higher due to base plus Reckless and will have some hit>crit as well. The Rogue will get more crits which will cause more prones and more sneak attacks.

 

For the Barb I was thinking of the pike that causes defense debuff on hit. But I can't remember any other good reach weapons. I remember a staff with attack speed but I think that was in the act III city and did not have any on hit effects.

 

I'll have successfully downloaded the White March by then so weapons from there are available as well.

[Killyox]

If I had not had Tall Grass on my Barb I would give him The Grey Sleeper. But it went to Pallegina in my case (Twin Rocks proc is awesome )

 

Also that shout that Terrifies (per rest) is awesome and has a huge area of effect.

Edited September 10, 2015 by Killyox

[brindle88]

OP

 

Dude you nailed it on the head.

 

Barbarians suck at dishing out damage compared to rogues and fighters. There abilities gained upon level up give you the combat effectiveness of......well of not much. Barbarians suffer from the same disease that rangers suffer; severely useless and under powered talent/ abilities selection. Just look at the rogues talents selection tree and compare it to the barbies. I have no idea what barbarians are good at. You will notice a lot of people coming to there defence just ignore them all classes have there lovers and there haters, the love and the hate needs to be based of facts though and the facts are that rogues and fighters are vastly superior.

 

The only reason you would roll a barbarian is if you watched Conan recently and you want to relive the whole " barbarian" experience.