Nature Barbarian

[Graschwar]

Hi,

 

I am not that experienced yet and therefore i would like to hear your opinion on my Build idea.

Since I always like the underdog I want to play the nature Godlike, because most people seem to consider him the weakest.

 

Stats:

 

Might 18

Con 19

Dex 4

Per 10

Int 19

Resolve 8

 

In order too compensate for the low Dex, I would like to go with duals (not sure wich kind yet) and Medium Armor.

 

Background is Rautai-Slave

 

 

So what do you say? Is this viable? Maybe for PotD as well?

 

Thanks in advance!

[Boeroer]

A barbarian has not too good starting accuracy - and carnage has even reduced accuracy values. So maybe you should take a few points from CON, INT and MIG and put them into PER. Maybe something like 17,17,17 and 15 PER. This makes a difference in the early game when it comes to hit rolls and it also lets you do more interrupts, which can be especially powerful because of the AoE of carnage. It's also better with weapons which do things on crits - although one handed weapons with such properties come a bit late. Higher PER is also good for your reflex defense. At the moment your fortitude is very high (which is good), your will is good (not so important as fortitude) but your reflex is very bad. No bonus from PER but a high malus from low DEX. So things like fireballs and dragon breaths and most other AoE stuff will damage you badly. BUT - high CON is nice for barbs because they have the highest base values of endurance and health and the +5% from each point of CON will result in absurdly high numbers, which can be a live saver and also prevents a lot of resting. Half of your endurance can be more than a fighter's full endurance.

So if you are OK with the fact that it will be harder to hit things at the beginning of the game you can leave it like that (I'm talking about PotD - on all other difficulties it will be all good). When you find items that give you a bonus to concentration and also Shod-in-Faith boots you might want to retrain and dump RES to 3 and put it all into PER. That way you will have it all.

Edited July 7, 2016 by Boeroer

[Loren Tyr]

I can recommend the high CON barbarian build, they're quite fun to play. Running one in a new playthrough right now (just on hard though, not PotD), just a bit into Act 2 but he's already got a base 23 CON (+3 from stronghold resting bonus, +2 from a healthy chicken diet for a juicy 28 CON early game) for a ridiculous amount of health and endurance as well as a very high Fortitude defense. I'm actually also going for maximum DR (plate mail armour, Blunting Belt, sided with the Crucible Knights, chugging down ale like rampant alcoholic, etc.), so he just waddles into combat like a dwarven metal piñata. Deflection is poor so you get hit all the time, but you hardly notice Endurance-wise (especially since Shod-in-faith is guaranteed to kick in quite early as well). Also, many enemies seem to like sticking to low deflection targets, so that works out nicely as well. It's more of a tank build than the typical barbarian, with heavy armour and low DEX and PER he doesn't hit quite as much. But it's fun having my barbarian charge into battle and be the center of the melee shrugging off damage (with Aloth occasionally lobbing a Rolling Flame into the fray for added mayhem; orCrackling Bolt, but my Shock DR is predicably poor due to the plate armour).

 

Having said that, this kind of build isn't the best fit for a Nature godlike since you'd have a hard time getting rid of 50% Endurance. I would be inclined to go more for a light armour (Hide Armour is very Barbarian-ish, to my mind) and (very) high CON route, that might be a better fit for that. You could consider dual-wielding long swords and axes, you'll get Whispers of Yenwood very early and it gives a nice +2 CON.

[Boeroer]

I wouldn't advise to try to be under 50% endurance all the time because the Nature Godlike's racial isn't too powerful. It doesn't justify to be unter 50% endurance all the time (unless you want to build around Vengeful Defeat, One Stands Alone and Blooded, paired with dual sabres and a second chance item or a reviving party member - which can be pretty powerful).

 

The Wellspring of Life stacks with everything though - so you can add it's stat bonus to the ones you get from (Greater) Frenzy, which can be nice. But as I said it doesn't normally justify being at 50% all the time. But it can make a bit of a difference when things go bad.

 

With max CON, MIG and INT you can take Veteran's Recovery and Shod-in-Faith boots and also a Belt of Bountiful Healing or Fulvano's Amulet for +25% healing. Add Savage Defiance and put on a fat armor as Loren Tyr said and you will be a very sturdy frontliner - even a good tank if you're not alone. You will still do good damage. Even when you run out of health you can sip a Potion of Infise with Vital Essence - it works with MIG and Healing Bonus and will give you back a lot of health. You can even drink it at the beginning of a fight and it will prevent health loss. Potions of Regeneration also work nicely with those stats. Same with a Scroll of Moonwell. So make sure you have enough lore for that (or a druid in the party).

I wouldn't recommend using the survival bonus for more healing buffs, because your ACC is quite low and it might be better to boost your ACC against certain enemies in order to hit better with carnage. If you combine this with dual wielded draining weapons you will be near unkillable as long as you don't get disabled (stunned, paralyzed, petrified and so on). Luckily, your very high fortitude will prevent that most of the time. Draining works with carnage, so if you hit 5 foes you will get healed a lot. It's a great way to create a sticky tank which enemies won't rush past. Like Loren said.

 

Nature Godlikes look great. Especially with Argwe's Adra or any other greenish armor. Even with Blaidh Golan hide armor (one of my favorite barb armors) they look awesome. But their racial could be better. It woul be great if Wellspring of Life would be triggered for 10 seconds or so everytime you receive a crit. Or if you could activate it like Frenzy 1/encounter.

[Graschwar]

Thanks for the answers you have been very helpful.

 

I changed my Stats to:

 

MIG 18

Con 19

Dex 4

Per 15

INT 19

RES 3

 

I switched to the sturdiest armor i had and got Veterans Recovery on lvl 2.

 

Regarding the weapons i tried out several and so far dual daggers were the most efficent. I soloed the wolf and his packwith them. Therefore I'm flirting with the noble Weapon focus so far. That would have the advantage of being able to use double mace if dagger wouldnt be efficient anymore.

 

Again thanks

Edited July 8, 2016 by Graschwar

[Boeroer]

One additional advice: daggers are good for your ACC at the early game. They give your primary and caranage hits +5 ACC, which is great at the early game. And they are pretty fast. That's why you feel they work best at the moment. At lower levels the enemies don't have very high DR - so the dagger can punch through, even with the lower damage from carnage. But later on you will meet foes which are armored, and the daggers may fail you. It's not a problem of the barb. That's the problem with all fast weapons as long as you don't have any means of DR bypass like Vulnerable Attack (which slows you down) or rending (like stilettos, estocs or maces have). Later on dual sabres are one of the best options for a dual wielding barb. THeir base dmage is nearly as high as that of two handed weapons and there are great sabres in the game. One of them can be obtained very early. Their Weapon Focus group also contains stilettos - one draining stiletto can be found in the same dungeon as the sabre Resolution - they make a good team until you get better gear.

 

Another: don't send your barb into the fray first with 3 RES. When he gets surrounded and the enemies have high interrupt values (like Ogres) he will not be able to hit because he will be constantly interrupted. Drink a potion of Spirit Shield then or cast Holy Meditation on him with a priest. That should help when this happens. It's ok though in most cases when you attack second to your main tank or whoever dares to take all the initial heat. Later on you can find items which do the same as the potion and the spell, then it's all good with 3 RES. 

 

By the way you can get a plate armor in Gilded Vale when you kill the moon godlike backer npc who stands right of the temple of Eothas. You will not lose reputation and the other town folks will not turn aggressive.  

Edited July 8, 2016 by Boeroer

[Boeroer]

Ah, and I forgot: Aspirant's Mark fits pretty well into the Nature Godlike theme. It's a great ability for the early to mid game, especially for barbs (they don't have to nevessarily cast it themselves - because  low ACC and all - but here it fits. And with 15 PER and ACC bonus from camping you should hit often enough). It debuffs enemies deflection by -8 in a big AoE (bigger than carnage's). It's like +8 ACC for the barb - which can make a huge difference. Basically it's like a spell mastery that you can have at lvl 1. I love it! 

[Kingsman]

Hi,

 

I am not that experienced yet and therefore i would like to hear your opinion on my Build idea.

Since I always like the underdog I want to play the nature Godlike, because most people seem to consider him the weakest.

 

Stats:

 

Might 18

Con 19

Dex 4

Per 10

Int 19

Resolve 8

 

In order too compensate for the low Dex, I would like to go with duals (not sure wich kind yet) and Medium Armor.

 

Background is Rautai-Slave

 

 

So what do you say? Is this viable? Maybe for PotD as well?

 

Thanks in advance!

What difficulty are you playing on? On any difficulty other then POTD you can play any class and min max them basically however you want and you will beat the game very easily once you figure out how to play the game.

 

On POTD a barbarian will require an incredible amount of micro just to survive. You will need a priest constantly buffing him or you will need scrolls or potions getting used frequently. A lot of you talent selections on level up will also have to be "survival " based at the cost of offensive talents.

 

When I play POTD I have two dedicated tanks with shields (usually a fighter and a paladin). By doing this, having two tanks, it makes playing POTD soooooooo much easier. My party dies far less, I don't have to buff the hell out of every fight just to get across the line and battles are over far quicker. So that leaves four other places to fill in my party and barbarians do not play any of those roles effectively compared to wizards, rangers, rogues, Druids , ciphers .

 

You will handicap yourself if you select a barbarian. They are human meat shields that deal mediocre damage compared to most classes in the game. I do not see the point in rolling them.

 

The unlabored blade high accuracy build on a barbarian I viable because of the firebug proc but by that time you get that up and running the game will be almost over and you will have casters who can cast spells to the effect of firebug safely from a distance anyway.

[Boeroer]

Barbarians being squishy is only true during the first levels - afterwards they become very sturdy characters if you give them a lot of CON. Their health and endurance pool will be enormous. The reasons I explained above.

 

It's also not true that a barb does mediocre damage. He does more damage per hit than any other melee character as long as there are enough enemies. Another cool thing is that any weapon procs work with carnage - as well as interrupts.

 

Barbs can be a lot of fun. Most people dump them in the early game because they are squishy at first and they never play them again. Then they judge the entire class on that short and incomplete experience.

 

Barbs can be very effective - especially on PoTD where there are more enemies than on lower difficulties.

 

Also - taking one's own opinion and limited experience and then state those as proven facts is not optimal for advising newcomers. I always try to tell both sides of the story (if I feel there's more than one). If I'm not 100% sure or haven't much experience I will put a "in my opinion", "for me" or "maybe" into the sentence. But I make a lot of mistakes. So keep sharp and be sceptical.

 

And most importantly: try things out for yourself - this can be fun, too.

Edited July 8, 2016 by Boeroer

[Kingsman]

^^^^^^

 

Carnage can do a lot of damage per hit but it is spread out over multiple enemies unlike the rogues sneak attacks, deathblows, crits that concentrates on one enemy. The advantage of this for the rogue is that as he takes people out individually that leaves less people to hit the rogue back where as the barbarian will still be surrounded by all enemies untill he brings them all down at roughly the same time.

 

And I do take offence at your misguided attempt at you trying to discredit me. How do you no that I have limited experience? If you like barbarians and someone takes a swipe at them why don't you just say your piece and not personally attack people. Oh sorry IMO !,, ****

 

And OP, barbarians have overwhelmingly been found to be weak class in general by a large amount of users on this forum. Just google the relevant words to confirm this on the obsidian forums and you will confirm this.

Edited July 8, 2016 by Kingsman

[Dr <3]

I found that a dual wield barbarian with a stunning weapon on crit is wizard-like strong. If you build them in a proper way they are very fun and strong my experiece. They are also the only class that can reach 0 recovery from lvl 2 :D I soloed the game with a lot of different char, and barbarian was One of the funniest and easier, sure better than rogue, warrior or ranger.

 

PS: boeroer is one of the kindest person you can find in a forum, take offense because of his post is surreal

[rheingold]

Nothing wrong with barbs even on POTD. And this is befor 3:03 changes, which will only make them stronger. They do some serious damage and add great crowd control with the right weapon and/or build. Loads of fun to play as well. The change to perceptIon benefited them the most. But, yeah the fIrst couple of levels they take strain. But after that they are great.

[Boeroer]

And I do take offence at your misguided attempt at you trying to discredit me. How do you no that I have limited experience? If you like barbarians and someone takes a swipe at them why don't you just say your piece and not personally attack people. Oh sorry IMO !,, ****

I'm sorry if you feel offended. That was not my intention.

I just wanted to point out that telling newcomers something like "XY - which you chose - is bad. You will gimp yourself" is not the best way to get them started. I didn't like the way that came out too much and that's all. I don't want to crucifiy you for that and I did not want to attack you personally. If it came out like that, I say sorry. I'm  german - and we have a reputation of beeing too direct. So I blame it on my background and culture.

 

Barbs still rock though. And of course they are better at hitting mobs than at taking out single targets. But they do more damage per hit nonetheless - especially if you have a group with good CC capabilites. They are not so great against tough foes with high defenses - like dragons and the like. A rogue is clearly the better choice here. But in general a barb can be great mixture of dps and tankyness ans is not weak per se. He's just very squishy and can't hit stuff at the beginning without help - but this problem disappears after some levels.

One of my first chars was a high DR, low RES barb with Tidefall and Shod-in-Faith. He was awesome. To be honest all classes were awesome with the right builds and the right party.

I think a lot of people complain about barbs because their first impressions can be really bad. Whereas rogues rock from the beginning because their high base ACC and high damage are big advantages in the early game and can lead to the impression that this class is way stronger than a barb - which it is until a certain level.

There are also a lot of people who say monks are bad. It's just because they didn't get how the class works - meybe because it's a bit more complicated than a fighter or a wizard - and dump it.

 

Edit: Oh yeah - 3.03 brings us Heart of Fury 1/encounter. One of the most powerful abilities in the game for dual wielding mob strikers. I love it!

Edited July 8, 2016 by Boeroer

[Blades of Vanatar]

I completed PotD with a Nature Godlike Barb. Dual wielding Woed/Hearth's Harvest. That is nowhere near optimal but he still rocked it. He looked awesome in the Adra Armor.

[Boeroer]

Help me out: what's Woed? Wodewys?

[Blades of Vanatar]

(In Phil Hartmann voice...)You are correct sir!

[Boeroer]

Which Weapon Focus did you use? Knight or Peasant? Or none of the above?

[Blades of Vanatar]

Neither. Two Weapon Fighting, Savage Attack, Vulnerable Attack and lots of buffs and rebuffs from the team. With Shod in Faith, Vet Recovery, Durance and Kana he was constantly healing and dealing. Made him immune as possible to Lightning as Aloth, Sagani and Hirivais unleashed Lightning death.

[mosspit]

^^^^^^

 

Carnage can do a lot of damage per hit but it is spread out over multiple enemies unlike the rogues sneak attacks, deathblows, crits that concentrates on one enemy. The advantage of this for the rogue is that as he takes people out individually that leaves less people to hit the rogue back where as the barbarian will still be surrounded by all enemies untill he brings them all down at roughly the same time.

 

And I do take offence at your misguided attempt at you trying to discredit me. How do you no that I have limited experience? If you like barbarians and someone takes a swipe at them why don't you just say your piece and not personally attack people. Oh sorry IMO !,, ****

 

And OP, barbarians have overwhelmingly been found to be weak class in general by a large amount of users on this forum. Just google the relevant words to confirm this on the obsidian forums and you will confirm this.

 

I think there are worse things to take offence at. The discredit was done by your own advise, Boeroer just pointed it out.

 

In any case, this isn't the first "barb is weak" debate on this forum. Heck, not the first I have seen Boeroer be involved in. Strength of the barb comes from his/her high survivability, and more importantly carnage and how weapon effects can propagate through it. Only thing as others said, it takes a while for a barb to shine simply because the barb is weapon dependent and alot of the strong weapons come late. But pls do try a barb with decent int wielding prone/stun-on-crit weapon, high interrupt weapon with interrupting blows, or Redeemer... it might change your perspective.

Edited July 9, 2016 by mosspit

[Kingsman]

I've presented the OP with raw facts. I refer to the point I made where the carnage ability of the barbarian (which is basically it's only talent worth mentioning) does not work effectively for the reason I pointed out: the extra damage distributed via carnage is distributed in a spread out way across multiple enemies that does not bring down enemies individually quickly,unlike the rogue who does the opposite. This will result in the barbarian getting attacked by all surrounding enemies until they eventually die from the spread out carnage attacks.

 

A rogue who concentrates on individual enemies will take those enemies down quickly therefore leaving less enemies to attack back.

 

The effectiveness of carnage is even greater reduced on POTD where enemies have higher damage reduction and of course carnage is made at reduced damage already.

 

You can roll a barb and try to rely on the riduclodsly low proc rates of stunning weapons (10% on a hit or a crit that does not proc on a miss or a graze so more like 6% of the time) or you can roll a caster who can do the exact same thing from a distance at 100% effectiveness.

 

I so wish this game had an pvp arena where I could prove this once and for all.

[mosspit]

Sigh.....

 

Although we are on this thread that was started primarily for advise to newcomers, the ones giving advise on barb mostly gave it in a such a way that are is viable for PotD playthroughs. AoE cc barbs using weapon crit effects are completely viable on PotD, although to be more effective one can choose the proper Weapon Focus, Accurate Carnage, and above average investment in PER.

 

You can also choose to more DPS focus by wielding weapons like Tidefall and shift point investment over to Mig. With the receent buffs to Barb, Heart of Fury and One Stands Alone especially, they are even more effective and fun. I personally have used a CC barb in at least 2 playthroughs, have you given the Barb a chance at a whole playthrough yet?.

[Kingsman]

Sigh.....

 

Although we are on this thread that was started primarily for advise to newcomers, the ones giving advise on barb mostly gave it in a such a way that are is viable for PotD playthroughs. AoE cc barbs using weapon crit effects are completely viable on PotD, although to be more effective one can choose the proper Weapon Focus, Accurate Carnage, and above average investment in PER.

 

You can also choose to more DPS focus by wielding weapons like Tidefall and shift point investment over to Mig. With the receent buffs to Barb, Heart of Fury and One Stands Alone especially, they are even more effective and fun. I personally have used a CC barb in at least 2 playthroughs, have you given the Barb a chance at a whole playthrough yet?.

If you want to paint the barbs in a pretty picture please refer to my last post where I stated the RAW FACTS and please show me how I have made an error. No generalisations please just raw facts that specifically relate to what I said.

[Boeroer]

It's correct: a good rogue would kill a good barb in PvP anytime. But 1:1 fights are not the strength of a barbarian. But what you can do with a proper barb is for example to solo most bounties without splitting, running and kiting and without summons.

I played a lot of melee rogues so far and most of them were great damage dealers - but none of them could do that. And also with fighters I couldn't do it repeatedly. With all the other classes it's no problem. You could say now that I suck at rogues and fighters, but I don't think so - they just have other strengths and weaknesses than a barb or a chanter or a paladin.

 

However, a rogue with Deathblows and spells from items and scrolls can overcome this limitation. He can do great single dps well as AoE damage and is a real powerhouse and also flexible. So I'd say if you want to build the absolute best powerplay char with the best equipment and so on then a rogue with spells might be ahead of the barb.

 

But I didn't want to start a discussion about what's better - rogue or barb. So we don't have to prove anything.

All I'm saying is that one shouldn't say barbarians are bad only because he/she doesn't like them. They are simply not bad.

I for example don't like fighters and think they are very limited - but I wouldn't tell a newcomer that it's a fact that they are bad and it's a self gimp to use them. I just would point out what his strength and weaknesses are and what you can do to make it work. Especially if he pointed out that he would like to play a certain class.

There are lots of people out there who like fighters and think they are great. So why shouldn't the newcomer also like them?

Same with a barb. For me the common barbarian provides more fun than a common rogue. And I'm sure there are other players who think like that - those have most likely completed one or more playthroughs with them and know that they are weak at the beginning and get better and better with levels and special items. So maybe barbs are not so crappy after all. Let the newcomer try it out and decide if he likes them or not. Why pushing him away from a barb - also when he pointed out that he likes playing an underdog. He wouldn't want to play a Nature Godlike if he was looking for pure powergaming. But even with that I don't think it's a gimped character. It's totally viable even on PoTD.

 

Edit: a sturdy barb is also good if you don't like micromanagement too much. For example I think that monks can be more powerful if build properly - but they need a ton of micromanagement to be. A barb can be a nice addition to a party where you already have some micro intense chars like monk/casters/rogue/ranger.

Edited July 9, 2016 by Boeroer

[Kingsman]

^^^^^

 

Fair enough. I appreciate your stance there.

 

But if you roll a barb your still going to go down quite quickly if your surrounded by enemies while you distribute damage reduction negated damage via damage reduced carnage and for the other reasons I have stated and this is a scenario that is not pvp.

 

I'm not saying you can't roll a barb and still beat the game it will just be far easier with any other melee character

[mosspit]

Sorry I don't see raw facts. Just highly opinionated remarks. I have done a playthrough without spell casters (meaning no priest) and limited consumables so I disagree with the bolded part
 

On POTD a barbarian will require an incredible amount of micro just to survive. You will need a priest constantly buffing him or you will need scrolls or potions getting used frequently. A lot of you talent selections on level up will also have to be "survival " based at the cost of offensive talents.

At this point, I get the sense of ithe issue at hand is not about the Barb being effective or not but something a little more personal. So that is usually my cue to bow out. So have fun bashing