SylvanPhoenix
07-02-2012, 12:47 AM
I'd like some advice on my pure dps horc barbarian. With the epic levels, I'm eyeing if I should redesign my build for overwhelming crit and if so how drastic. Right now my feats are as follows:
1 - Two-Handed Fighting
3 - Power Attack
6 - Cleave
9 - Improved Two Handed Fighting
12 - Improved Critical: Slashing
15 - Greater Two Handed Fighting
18 - Toughness
For enhancements I have the capstone as well as frenzied barbarian. He's a 32 pt build with 20 Str and 16 Con (37 str, 26 con unbuffed).
To get Overwhelming Crit at 21, I'd need to drop two feats to add in Great Cleave and Weapon Focus. One thought is to drop both ITHF and GTHF. What I don't understand is how much my glancing blows add up. My understanding is that they'd drop from 50% to 30% damage and I lose the 3rd glancing blow (3 of 4). How would that compare to my overall DPS with the addition of Overwhelming crit?
I could drop toughness (losing 60 hit points) and take Great Cleave at 21 and Overwhelming Crit at 24. However, as this toon has no past lives I don't have a ton of hit points, 597 base (no buffs/rage), so losing the toughness would knock me back to 537 base.
The other option is to lesser reincarnate with a lesser heart of wood +3 and add 2 levels of fighter. I would keep all my current feats and add the two news ones. I'd lose my barbarian capstone though so I'm not sure if that's worth it to gain Overwhelming Crit.
Of course, I could just not change anything and go for epic toughness to get my hit points up much more or stunning blow to have another melee tactic.
One thing that I don't have a good handle on is how often in epic content I'll have heavily forted enemies. In those cases will I have any reasonable chance to crit? Or is it pretty much that the focus on critical damage is for non-bosses?
As you might guess from my build I don't use any of the special melee attacks like sunder, trip, stunning blow, etc. I pretty much focus purely on DPS and soaking damage. I'm a newer player and this is my only toon so I'm not sure if I should use this opportunity to retool my toon to include those sorts of abilities or if I should stay the course on pure melee dps and hit points.
Anyway, I threw out a lot of questions on this. I really appreciate shedding light on how all these options play out so I can make the best choices on my toon's build.
Cheers,
Sylvan
1 - Two-Handed Fighting
3 - Power Attack
6 - Cleave
9 - Improved Two Handed Fighting
12 - Improved Critical: Slashing
15 - Greater Two Handed Fighting
18 - Toughness
For enhancements I have the capstone as well as frenzied barbarian. He's a 32 pt build with 20 Str and 16 Con (37 str, 26 con unbuffed).
To get Overwhelming Crit at 21, I'd need to drop two feats to add in Great Cleave and Weapon Focus. One thought is to drop both ITHF and GTHF. What I don't understand is how much my glancing blows add up. My understanding is that they'd drop from 50% to 30% damage and I lose the 3rd glancing blow (3 of 4). How would that compare to my overall DPS with the addition of Overwhelming crit?
I could drop toughness (losing 60 hit points) and take Great Cleave at 21 and Overwhelming Crit at 24. However, as this toon has no past lives I don't have a ton of hit points, 597 base (no buffs/rage), so losing the toughness would knock me back to 537 base.
The other option is to lesser reincarnate with a lesser heart of wood +3 and add 2 levels of fighter. I would keep all my current feats and add the two news ones. I'd lose my barbarian capstone though so I'm not sure if that's worth it to gain Overwhelming Crit.
Of course, I could just not change anything and go for epic toughness to get my hit points up much more or stunning blow to have another melee tactic.
One thing that I don't have a good handle on is how often in epic content I'll have heavily forted enemies. In those cases will I have any reasonable chance to crit? Or is it pretty much that the focus on critical damage is for non-bosses?
As you might guess from my build I don't use any of the special melee attacks like sunder, trip, stunning blow, etc. I pretty much focus purely on DPS and soaking damage. I'm a newer player and this is my only toon so I'm not sure if I should use this opportunity to retool my toon to include those sorts of abilities or if I should stay the course on pure melee dps and hit points.
Anyway, I threw out a lot of questions on this. I really appreciate shedding light on how all these options play out so I can make the best choices on my toon's build.
Cheers,
Sylvan