What is this barbarian you speak of?

[HastyPudding]

Yes, the day has finally come: upon seeing the new barbarian enhancements, I'm tempted (I stress TEMPTED) to make a barbarian. The closest I've ever come to making a barbarian was looking at the class description in the character creation screen about 6 years ago. And so, after taking a gander at the new enhancements, I'm tempted to make one. Naturally, it would be pure, but that's just my principles and nothing to really do with the class itself (which readily looks viable as a pure, to begin with, with the new capstones).

A few questions (because barbarians are the only class I can honestly admit I am ignorant about):

1. While the berserker and ravager seem like the all-out offensive trees (most classes fall into a sort of offense/support/defense in relation to their class trees), the occult slayer seems more like the defensive tree, which is the one I'm most interested in. With clerics and particularly spellcasters usually being the most threatening and dangerous enemies you fight, adding a ton of defenses against them makes sense, to me. Also, the tree seems to have the most general survivability. Is this a good assumption?

2. Warforged. Yeah, before U24, a warforged barbarian would have made me cringe when I saw one, particularly when I was a cleric or spellsinger bard. A few days ago I was on my druid (which I recently TR'd, and he's 11 now) and was running the deleras chain. A first-life warforged barbarian joined and as soon as I saw him I resigned myself to playing 'stop the 10% penalty from happening'. Amusingly, when I hit him with a vigor spell, the positive healing was...positive (light green instead of dark green numbers). That is what made me take a real look at the enhancement trees and really notice them.

That being said, a warforged barbarian seems completely viable, now, due to the huge amounts of healing amplification available, the gobs of HP bonuses, and the relative increased survivability and self-healing of the occult slayer. The warforged racial tree also seems geared towards two-handed fighting fighters and barbarians, which is a plus. Adding the fact of being immune to fatigue, as well, seems useful in the earlier levels with barbarian rage side effects.

3. Adamantine body. Would a warforged barbarian get any penalty with taking this feat, considering they don't have innate heavy armor proficiency? Or, is this sidestepped from the fact that any warforged can take any body feat (with certain class features like arcane spell failure or evasion being taken into consideration)?

4. Weapon choice. Admittedly, I never made any character of any class that focused on two-handed weapons (other than a quarterstaff). I know the basics (ESoS is awesome, and there's several well-known examples of good two-handed weapons), but what's the 'better' choice: greatswords, falchions, or great axes? Are mauls even an option nowadays?

5. Stats. Again, I admit ignorance, but it seems barbarians are just about the easiest class to build: max strength, put the rest into constitution with extras going into intelligence (for skill points) or charisma (for UMD and social skills). More or less correct?

[Stinging_Bee]

Yes, the day has finally come: upon seeing the new barbarian enhancements, I'm tempted (I stress TEMPTED) to make a barbarian. The closest I've ever come to making a barbarian was looking at the class description in the character creation screen about 6 years ago. And so, after taking a gander at the new enhancements, I'm tempted to make one. Naturally, it would be pure, but that's just my principles and nothing to really do with the class itself (which readily looks viable as a pure, to begin with, with the new capstones).

A few questions (because barbarians are the only class I can honestly admit I am ignorant about):

1. While the berserker and ravager seem like the all-out offensive trees (most classes fall into a sort of offense/support/defense in relation to their class trees), the occult slayer seems more like the defensive tree, which is the one I'm most interested in. With clerics and particularly spellcasters usually being the most threatening and dangerous enemies you fight, adding a ton of defenses against them makes sense, to me. Also, the tree seems to have the most general survivability. Is this a good assumption?

2. Warforged. Yeah, before U24, a warforged barbarian would have made me cringe when I saw one, particularly when I was a cleric or spellsinger bard. A few days ago I was on my druid (which I recently TR'd, and he's 11 now) and was running the deleras chain. A first-life warforged barbarian joined and as soon as I saw him I resigned myself to playing 'stop the 10% penalty from happening'. Amusingly, when I hit him with a vigor spell, the positive healing was...positive (light green instead of dark green numbers). That is what made me take a real look at the enhancement trees and really notice them.

That being said, a warforged barbarian seems completely viable, now, due to the huge amounts of healing amplification available, the gobs of HP bonuses, and the relative increased survivability and self-healing of the occult slayer. The warforged racial tree also seems geared towards two-handed fighting fighters and barbarians, which is a plus. Adding the fact of being immune to fatigue, as well, seems useful in the earlier levels with barbarian rage side effects.

3. Adamantine body. Would a warforged barbarian get any penalty with taking this feat, considering they don't have innate heavy armor proficiency? Or, is this sidestepped from the fact that any warforged can take any body feat (with certain class features like arcane spell failure or evasion being taken into consideration)?

4. Weapon choice. Admittedly, I never made any character of any class that focused on two-handed weapons (other than a quarterstaff). I know the basics (ESoS is awesome, and there's several well-known examples of good two-handed weapons), but what's the 'better' choice: greatswords, falchions, or great axes? Are mauls even an option nowadays?

5. Stats. Again, I admit ignorance, but it seems barbarians are just about the easiest class to build: max strength, put the rest into constitution with extras going into intelligence (for skill points) or charisma (for UMD and social skills). More or less correct?

I'll try to answer all the questions 1by 1

1. Honestly it's hard to say which is the biggest threat you face in the game. For each quest you can face a different challenge and preparation means usually switch twists and gear around those threats.
Personally I think the most dangerous things for barbarians are heavy hitter melees. Champions that hit for 500 damage per swing can be a challenge now.
Spell casters are not so scary anymore since you can stack MRR and Spell absorption items to lower the incoming spell damage by huge amounts.

Occult slayer tree offers you the most defensive capstone possible. Costitution to Spell resistance means you can be immune to a lot of different form of crow control by casters or drain damage from beholders.
I'd still reccommend to spend the remaining 38 action points in Frenzyberserk to get some solid damage. Especially the T5 options are way better in Beserker than occult slayer so even if you decide you want occult capstone you still want to spend almost the same amount of points into berserk.

2. I'd never create a warforged barbarian.
If you want to be able to self heal reliably in epics you really want to have the highest healing amplification possible to get the maximum healing from sacred ground ability of divine crusader THAT YOU CAN CAST WHILE RAGED.
Going Warforged basically means you have to rely all the time on silver flame potions (that slow you down 50%) or hirelings/clerics.
Going human means you can be self sufficient 99% of the time

3. No penalty from adamantine body other that loosing all your inherent dodge. Increasing your PRR/MRR is well worth it though.

4. At level 28 you can simply go thunderforged Falchion and you are set. Maul is a good option vs skeletons

5. Max Strength and max Con as you said

[HastyPudding]

I'll try to answer all the questions 1by 1

1. Honestly it's hard to say which is the biggest threat you face in the game. For each quest you can face a different challenge and preparation means usually switch twists and gear around those threats.
Personally I think the most dangerous things for barbarians are heavy hitter melees. Champions that hit for 500 damage per swing can be a challenge now.
Spell casters are not so scary anymore since you can stack MRR and Spell absorption items to lower the incoming spell damage by huge amounts.

Occult slayer tree offers you the most defensive capstone possible. Costitution to Spell resistance means you can be immune to a lot of different form of crow control by casters or drain damage from beholders.
I'd still reccommend to spend the remaining 38 action points in Frenzyberserk to get some solid damage. Especially the T5 options are way better in Beserker than occult slayer so even if you decide you want occult capstone you still want to spend almost the same amount of points into berserk.

2. I'd never create a warforged barbarian.
If you want to be able to self heal reliably in epics you really want to have the highest healing amplification possible to get the maximum healing from sacred ground ability of divine crusader THAT YOU CAN CAST WHILE RAGED.
Going Warforged basically means you have to rely all the time on silver flame potions (that slow you down 50%) or hirelings/clerics.
Going human means you can be self sufficient 99% of the time

3. No penalty from adamantine body other that loosing all your inherent dodge. Increasing your PRR/MRR is well worth it though.

4. At level 28 you can simply go thunderforged Falchion and you are set. Maul is a good option vs skeletons

5. Max Strength and max Con as you said

Warforged can't use cocoon or Renewal (If they're leveling sentinel or whatever) while raged?? It's very easy to find an archmagi or wizardry X item in epics to solve SP problems.

How gear intensive are barbarians? Do they rely more on strength/deadly/seeker items or more from enhancements, or something else? Compared to, say, a DC wizard, which is highly dependent on gear.

[Stinging_Bee]

Warforged can't use cocoon or Renewal (If they're leveling sentinel or whatever) while raged?? It's very easy to find an archmagi or wizardry X item in epics to solve SP problems.

How gear intensive are barbarians? Do they rely more on strength/deadly/seeker items or more from enhancements, or something else? Compared to, say, a DC wizard, which is highly dependent on gear.

No barbarian can use cocoon or renewal while raged, no matter the race. The only option you have is consecration + sacred ground. So run in crusader or use 2 twists. Since that's the only real option for self healing you have you need to make sure it heals you for more than enough while taking damage on EE that's why you want to maximize heal amp.

Strength, deadly, accuracy and seeker are important as well as all the healing amplification items you can put in your gear. Constitution is very important both for the spell resistance and for the duration of your rage.

[HastyPudding]

No barbarian can use cocoon or renewal while raged, no matter the race. The only option you have is consecration + sacred ground. So run in crusader or use 2 twists. Since that's the only real option for self healing you have you need to make sure it heals you for more than enough while taking damage on EE that's why you want to maximize heal amp.

Strength, deadly, accuracy and seeker are important as well as all the healing amplification items you can put in your gear. Constitution is very important both for the spell resistance and for the duration of your rage.

Thanks. You made up my mind for me. Not being able to reliably self-heal while raging...that's a total turn-off, for me. No wonder barbarian was never a popular class (and why those barbarians never seem to heal themselves in groups).

[Stinging_Bee]

Thanks. You made up my mind for me. Not being able to reliably self-heal while raging...that's a total turn-off, for me. No wonder barbarian was never a popular class (and why those barbarians never seem to heal themselves in groups).

As I mentioned there is a way to reliably be self sufficient and self heal. Just check this video of me solo EE VOL with a pure human barbarian using divine crusader destiny - Redsonja thread: