I recently started a new game. I haven't actually finished a play-through of this game yet, but I decided to make it interesting for myself and play a barbarian who eschews the use of armour. (For RP reasons). 

 

I have just left the beginning temple and entered the first wooded area and already feel like I'm struggling anyone got any tips on how to best increase my survivability?

 

My char build is here: 

 

And the part where I almost lose the first 1 on 1 fight I ever try, is here: 

   (13:08)

 

Thanks!

You may need Deflection and Damage Reduction.

My monk with full deflection and attack speed worth a lot in early game, but in late game the deflection doesn't worth anymore and the lack of constituition force me to avoid solo the game, but when talking about a Fighter you will survive a lot if you go for constituition. Also, take a good shield and you will be hard to defeat. Unfortunatelly, a good shield will make your attacks very slow, to solo a game with a slow char is a little boring. Go for Constituition and Damage Reduction also.

 

Cheers.

Honestly, my first instinct is to tell you, "don't run a no-armor barbarian."

 

Your best bet is to use a reach weapon, and stay behind your tanks. There's really no way to survive taking hits without armor, and barbarians don't have the deflection to avoid attacks aimed at them, so you need to position yourself to avoid being targeted. Even with a reach weapon, you're going to have to be very careful about positioning - use the Priest spell Withdraw when necessary, and make sure to have a priest in your party. Moon Godlike will also help with survivability, as it always does.

The Barbarian build titled "General Butt-Naked" has great advice how to play armorless barbarian (see link below). Not my guide, but have used it for other builds and the advice was excellent.

 

Basically: Tall Grass pike, second line attacker, and make sure you have the skill choice "wild sprint" because you will need it.

 

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=416939844

Heya,

 

My barbarian and rogue both run with no armor in my current play through, with maxed Dex. Focusing on speed of attacks and high accuracy for lots of critical odds.

 

You play them as not-front-line-characters. Drink mead/ale/beer constantly before a fight. Equip with normal clothing (0% recovery) and enchant to have some damage reduction and other useful things.

 

Armor is just for damage reduction. It doesn't change if you get hit or not. It just changes how much damage you take. If you play the game in a way that your character doesn't get attacked much, or hit much, then they will not need a lot of damage reduction really, but it's always useful to have SOME damage reduction to avoid the oopsies and random mess ups.

 

If you find it's just not working for your style of play, then look to lighter armors like Padded and enchant and use armor, but just don't use -50% armors and stick to the lighter stuff that is 20~30% or so and get a high Dex score.

 

Very best,

Thanks for these links, they are extremely helpful! I'm probably gonna have to ditch the greatsword and go with pike. Could be worse. The Tall Grass pike sounds expensive - something to save up for. 

 

My Con is reasonably high, which will help. I've seen some mixed advice about deflection: it probably will stop helping in the end game. 

 

Overall though, it seems the idea is possible - so thanks all for the tips.