Musings on smart barbarians (INT and Carnage)

[knownastherat]

 

Yes, that's on paper... However you rarely find situations with more than 3-4 enemies clustered together. The real question is if it's worth being able to hit 1-2 more enemies once in a while or is it better to strike 3-4 enemies faster and harder all the time.

This is not true. On PotD at least you're facing massive mobs all the bleepin' time. If your barb is front and center, with a high INT he will be making a lot of Carnage attacks.

 

 

PotD differs in number of enemies and DR. Therefore those able to do AoE damage should be in advantage. To Wiz, for example, it matters not if its 3 or 10, as long as not all are hitting. AoE kills 3 or 10 the same. 

[Gromnir]

 

Int isn''t really more crucial for barbarians than it is for Priests or Wizards though. I'd say actually a bit less than it is for Priests. As a priest most the things you do are area & duration based, while barbarian abilities are area (x)or duration based.

That's true, but priests and wizards are kinda expected to be intelligent, and they have a much bigger palette of abilities (=spells) to choose from.

 

But in any case, if you don't feel there's a problem, then I can hardly argue with that, can I now?

 

it is not true that poe priests require high intelligence to be efficacious.  sure, most folks play 'em that way, but you can build a very effective damage dealing priest that eschews int for might or dex or perception.  we built a tank for our all-priest party that has low int and he is marvelously effective in spite of relative low health.

 

see, the thing is that priest have talents AND spells, so is possible to create a powerful niche priest with virtual any stat distribution. is any number of spells that have no duration or aoe, yes? yes.  is possible to build a priest around such spells and choose talents to exploit.

 

barbarians... well, as you noted earlier, we simple don't see a reason to play a carnage-free barbarian, and carnage value is diminished w/o high intelligence.  it is a peculiarity o' the system that barbarians, being so integral linked to carnage, is all but requiring high intelligence.

 

HA! Good Fun!