Making new barb, seek advice

[kojirodensetsu]

Hey ho. I made a warforged barbarian. I plain on making him pure barbarian to maybe someday take advantage of the level 20 barb enchancement (if I ever play this game long enough to get him to level 20).

Starting stats:
18 str
8 dex
18 con
8 int
8 wis
6 char

I put the 2 extra points into wisdom for an extra will point. Is this fine? I remember reading somewhere on here that barbs should just ignore AC entirely. Which makes sense but for now on the low-levels I am having trouble doing long missions since rest shrines barely give me any hp and every monster hits me. Is this normal for low levels? I'm just wondering if I'm making him right. Getting my initial strength up that high took a lot of points that I could have put into dex or something. Oh and I plan on making him a two-handed fighting barb. I already have a two-weapon fighting ranger so I didn't want to make my barb two-weapon fighting also.

I'm also wondering what feats to get. Since I'm warforged I'll probably want power attack for warforged power attack. Which means my attack will take a big hit, which is one of the reasons I went with 18 str. But I'm wondering if my attack will take too much of a hit to be reliable. I dunno. Also wondering if I should get all 3 of the two-handed fighting feats. That would leave 3 more. I dunno what to get for those. I was wondering if I should get spring attack to help reduce my attack penalties but using up 3 feats for that is kind of a pain and I don't know if I should be getting something else.

Also I'm wondering if I went with the above build if I should put all my stat bonuses into str?

Thanks.

[EoZ]

Hey ho. I made a warforged barbarian. I plain on making him pure barbarian to maybe someday take advantage of the level 20 barb enchancement (if I ever play this game long enough to get him to level 20).

Starting stats:
18 str
8 dex
18 con
8 int
8 wis
6 char

I put the 2 extra points into wisdom for an extra will point. Is this fine? I remember reading somewhere on here that barbs should just ignore AC entirely. Which makes sense but for now on the low-levels I am having trouble doing long missions since rest shrines barely give me any hp and every monster hits me. Is this normal for low levels? I'm just wondering if I'm making him right. Getting my initial strength up that high took a lot of points that I could have put into dex or something. Oh and I plan on making him a two-handed fighting barb. I already have a two-weapon fighting ranger so I didn't want to make my barb two-weapon fighting also.

I'm also wondering what feats to get. Since I'm warforged I'll probably want power attack for warforged power attack. Which means my attack will take a big hit, which is one of the reasons I went with 18 str. But I'm wondering if my attack will take too much of a hit to be reliable. I dunno. Also wondering if I should get all 3 of the two-handed fighting feats. That would leave 3 more. I dunno what to get for those. I was wondering if I should get spring attack to help reduce my attack penalties but using up 3 feats for that is kind of a pain and I don't know if I should be getting something else.

Also I'm wondering if I went with the above build if I should put all my stat bonuses into str?

Thanks.

I have a 16 warforged barbarian, if you take the three feats of Two Handed Fighting, you will do about 30+ damage on glancing blows.. I would say that right now it's kind of useless because monsters in high levels quests have way too much hps so even with a maxed DPS..some good wop still beat em faster..

I also didn't put all points into STR because as you know some of the last points are worth 3, so I went a bit lower STR and a bit lower CON to get more DEX, which is good to have to resist most AOE spells in most quests and raids.

Wisdom isn't bad at all but barbarians have a bonus to will-save when they are raged (always).. it's not needed.

You should only ignore AC if you think you'll get guards once high lvl.. From lvl1-10, You can get a decent AC for a low-price which will help you through everything before Gianthold...

My feats are:
lvl1 Power Attack (to get cleave)
lvl3 Cleave
lvl6 Toughness
lvl9 THF
lvl12 ITHF
lvl15 GTHF

I hope my opinions helped you to make a choice

EoZ




Power attack is definatly a must, might not use it much before lvl6 or so because almost everything die in one hit until there.

[Noctus]

Hey ho. I made a warforged barbarian. I plain on making him pure barbarian to maybe someday take advantage of the level 20 barb enchancement (if I ever play this game long enough to get him to level 20).

Thats is a fine build plan.

Starting stats:
18 str
8 dex
18 con
8 int
8 wis
6 char

I put the 2 extra points into wisdom for an extra will point. Is this fine?

Stat distribution is good.

I remember reading somewhere on here that barbs should just ignore AC entirely. Which makes sense but for now on the low-levels I am having trouble doing long missions since rest shrines barely give me any hp and every monster hits me. Is this normal for low levels?

Only ignore AC completly once you hit the Gianthold area. before that AC is very viable, even tothe point where i personally prefer using Sword&Board even on my DPS builds most of the time. If you ingore AC before that it is natural that you get hit 95% of the time.


I'm just wondering if I'm making him right. Getting my initial strength up that high took a lot of points that I could have put into dex or something. Oh and I plan on making him a two-handed fighting barb. I already have a two-weapon fighting ranger so I didn't want to make my barb two-weapon fighting also.

You are on the right track.

I'm also wondering what feats to get. Since I'm warforged I'll probably want power attack for warforged power attack. Which means my attack will take a big hit, which is one of the reasons I went with 18 str. But I'm wondering if my attack will take too much of a hit to be reliable. I dunno.

Absolutly. A must-have feat. But watch when to activate and when to de-activate it. If you miss significant amount of swings turn it off. In the hihger levels (Gianthold+) you can basically leave it active 24/7.


Also wondering if I should get all 3 of the two-handed fighting feats. That would leave 3 more.

Yes, also must-have feats for a THF Barbarian. + ~30 damage every 2nd swing is +15 damage per swing for 3 feats, thats huge. and will get even beter with Mod9.


I dunno what to get for those. I was wondering if I should get spring attack to help reduce my attack penalties but using up 3 feats for that is kind of a pain and I don't know if I should be getting something else.

No, Spring Attack is a waste of resources on this build. Dont take it or you will severly gimp your barbarian!


Also I'm wondering if I went with the above build if I should put all my stat bonuses into str?

Yes! Dont waste them in another attribute.

Thanks.

comments in red.



Feat list:
- THF
- ITHF
- GTHF
- Power Attack
- IC:Slashing
- Stunning Blow (excellent DC, and a very nice way of CC for a Barbarian, especially Warforged ones.)

at 18th level take Cleave to unlock the Frenzied Barbarian PrE.

[Freeman]

comments in red.



Feat list:
- THF
- ITHF
- GTHF
- Power Attack
- IC:Slashing
- Stunning Blow (excellent DC, and a very nice way of CC for a Barbarian, especially Warforged ones.)

at 18th level take Cleave to unlock the Frenzied Barbarian PrE.

I'd take Toughness instead of Stunning Blow, for the extra HP. Agreed on the rest.

[Mav145]

PLease forgive my noobish question - Is THF and the associated feats a necessity?

A warforged barb will be my first build when I unlock 32 pt. builds and I had in my head this big, bad two-handed axe/sword/hammer swingin' behemoth. I dual-wield with my ranger and I wanted something different. (Think Conan the barbarian here). So if I don't dual-wield, what would my feats look like or am I just being silly to the point of severly gimping my character?

Thanks for any advice.

[Shade]

Check out my guide/build here: http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=116814

It's Dwarf, but I made a WF with basicly the exact same setup and it works perfect.

Only difference on a WF is you might wanna drop all int, and Dex to 12, to get Wsidom to 10 - cuz WF weakness is willsave.

18 con is not worth it. too many points. Especially on a 28pnt build. 16 is plenty. You need at least a few points into dex and wis to give your saves up there, or you will take too much damage.

Always keep 18, and all lvl up pnts in str. You need it maxxed if you plan on taking any/many power attack enhancements.

Also do not take toughness or cleave as EoZ recommends.. Barbs are very limited in feats so you should just go plain DPS For now:
1 - Two Handed Fighting
3 - Power Attack
6 - Improved Two Handed Fighting
9 - Improved critical
12 - Greater Two Handed Fighting
15 - Stunning Blow

At 18 you'd want Cleave, so you can pick up the Frenzy Berserker PrC.

[Jay203]

play smart

[Freeman]

Also do not take toughness or cleave as EoZ recommends.. Barbs are very limited in feats so you should just go plain DPS For now

I would recommend the Toughness feat before Stunning Blow. Stunning Blow is nice against trash mobs, but the extra HP you gain from Toughness will apply against everything. On a WF with enhancements, Toughness will give you up to an additional 96 hitpoints at 16, which is a considerable amount even for a WF barbarian.

[boldarblood]

I would recommend the Toughness feat before Stunning Blow. Stunning Blow is nice against trash mobs, but the extra HP you gain from Toughness will apply against everything. On a WF with enhancements, Toughness will give you up to an additional 96 hitpoints at 16, which is a considerable amount even for a WF barbarian.

I am with Shade on this. Toughess is a waste of feat, Stunning Blow is better.

[Shade]

I would recommend the Toughness feat before Stunning Blow. Stunning Blow is nice against trash mobs, but the extra HP you gain from Toughness will apply against everything. On a WF with enhancements, Toughness will give you up to an additional 96 hitpoints at 16, which is a considerable amount even for a WF barbarian.

Non-toughness WF Barb can easily get over well 700HP at 20. Worrying about anymore is extreme overkill and wasteful. I can see getting there for a more casual player without strong equipment selecting toughness and a couple enhancements.. But your far overstating its value.

96 hitpoints at 16? ***? Absolutely do NOT do this. Thats a massive waste of enhancements points. At most, only ever take 2 ranks of the toughness enhancements, because beyond that the cost to benefit ratio is horrible.
1 AP = 10 HP, good deal
2 AP = 5 HP per AP, meh, but ok why not
3 AP = 3.33 HP AP, sucks
4 AP = 2.5 hp per AP, Hell no! what are you thinking?

Barbarians have a huge amount of excellent action points to select from. Spending a huge amount on hitpoint is a bad idea.

And it's not a matter of "before" stunning blow. It's gota be "Instead" of. Because there are no other flexible feats on a barb. Only a human could fit in both.
Between THF/TWF line, IC, Pwr Attack and Cleave.. Theres no room.

Only way to fit both a Dwarf/WF is to keep the Critical rage line and drop cleave.. Which I will do on one of my barbarians. But he certainly won't be wasting 20 AP on toughness enhancements.

[kojirodensetsu]

18 str
12 dex
16 con
8 int
8 wis
6 char

So is this better?

[Freeman]

Non-toughness WF Barb can easily get over well 700HP at 20. Worrying about anymore is extreme overkill and wasteful. I can see getting there for a more casual player without strong equipment selecting toughness and a couple enhancements.. But your far overstating its value.

96 hitpoints at 16? ***? Absolutely do NOT do this. Thats a massive waste of enhancements points. At most, only ever take 2 ranks of the toughness enhancements, because beyond that the cost to benefit ratio is horrible.
1 AP = 10 HP, good deal
2 AP = 5 HP per AP, meh, but ok why not
3 AP = 3.33 HP AP, sucks
4 AP = 2.5 hp per AP, Hell no! what are you thinking?

Barbarians have a huge amount of excellent action points to select from. Spending a huge amount on hitpoint is a bad idea.

And it's not a matter of "before" stunning blow. It's gota be "Instead" of. Because there are no other flexible feats on a barb. Only a human could fit in both.
Between THF/TWF line, IC, Pwr Attack and Cleave.. Theres no room.

Only way to fit both a Dwarf/WF is to keep the Critical rage line and drop cleave.. Which I will do on one of my barbarians. But he certainly won't be wasting 20 AP on toughness enhancements.

I guess you missed the whole "..up to 96 hitpoints..." part of my sentence, didn't you. I agree that the fourth tier of Toughness is rarely worthwhile, however, my statement is still correct as to the maximum you could gain from it. I would say that 76 is probably a more easily reachable number, and that would still be over a 10% increase in hitpoints from your level 20 total, and probably at least 15% at 16. And also, my "before" was correct, since I was referring to what order I would recommend feats, not what order they should be taken in. As for the hitpoint total, what's the breakdown of that 700hp total at level 20? For the record, my 14/2 barbarian/fighter has both Stunning Blow and Toughness, and I still recommend Toughness first. Stunning Blow doesn't help you survive every single encounter you face. The extra hitpoints from Toughness will.

[boldarblood]

I guess you missed the whole "..up to 96 hitpoints..." part of my sentence, didn't you. I agree that the fourth tier of Toughness is rarely worthwhile, however, my statement is still correct as to the maximum you could gain from it. I would say that 76 is probably a more easily reachable number, and that would still be over a 10% increase in hitpoints from your level 20 total, and probably at least 15% at 16. And also, my "before" was correct, since I was referring to what order I would recommend feats, not what order they should be taken in. As for the hitpoint total, what's the breakdown of that 700hp total at level 20? For the record, my 14/2 barbarian/fighter has both Stunning Blow and Toughness, and I still recommend Toughness first. Stunning Blow doesn't help you survive every single encounter you face. The extra hitpoints from Toughness will.

Barbs have more than enough hitpoints, they do not need toughness. Toughness is great on lower hit point class's. But is overkill on a barb. Your better served with stunning blow. Just a couple stunned mobs more than make up for those hitpoints difference.

[EoZ]

Barbs have more than enough hitpoints, they do not need toughness. Toughness is great on lower hit point class's. But is overkill on a barb. Your better served with stunning blow. Just a couple stunned mobs more than make up for those hitpoints difference.

I think this is just an opinion, I like to be able to get 2 more hits before a heal when I am tanking Sulu. Or one on Elite which helps clerics/sorcs a lot.

Another thing not in link with the Quote, You definatly need Improve critical if you're not going to make a mineral 2 weapon (keen). Or you need it if you use a lot of wop, woe, banishing, smiting weapons...

I normally equip my guys with keen stuffs... keen of smiting, keen of puncturing..etc (no banishing tho).. and save a feat..

I believe that your stats are alright.


P.S.: I see good players in there having differents opinions than me and if we play together we'll kick ass whatever the build we have. At this point, just chose what you like, the dude behind the screen matters more than the build and gears inside!

[Freeman]

Barbs have more than enough hitpoints, they do not need toughness. Toughness is great on lower hit point class's. But is overkill on a barb. Your better served with stunning blow. Just a couple stunned mobs more than make up for those hitpoints difference.

And how does Stunning Blow help you against raid bosses, or red names?

[EoZ]

And how does Stunning Blow help you against raid bosses, or red names?

Stunning blow is the Finger of Death of STR based toon. How finger of death helps caster against raid bosses or red names?

It doesn't. How cleave helps against them? It doesnt but it's still an awesome feat. If you think you will go bludgeon and you like to use trip-sunder-etc on timer, you will definatly love this feat.

[boldarblood]

And how does Stunning Blow help you against raid bosses, or red names?

Do you really need an answer to this question? Like EoZ, in a barbs hand it is better than FoD. If your clerics can not keep you healed at raid and you need those extra hitpoints just to survive, you have more problems than just hitpoints.

Stunning Blow is a better feat than toughness on a barb. But toughness is a better feat on a lower hitpoint class.

[Freeman]

Do you really need an answer to this question? Like EoZ, in a barbs hand it is better than FoD. If your clerics can not keep you healed at raid and you need those extra hitpoints just to survive, you have more problems than just hitpoints.

Stunning Blow is a better feat than toughness on a barb. But toughness is a better feat on a lower hitpoint class.

Everyone seems to have missed me saying that I have both Stunning Blow and Toughness on my barbarian, so I know how it works, what it does, etc. Yes, it is fun to hit a mob with it and watch them virtually explode from all the crits. I never said that Stunning Blow was worthless, or that it should never be taken. I only stated my recommendation, and it was based on this simple fact: Stunning Blow has never kept my character from dying. Toughness has many times over. That's why I would recommend taking Toughness first.

[VKhaun]

Once you get to end-game it becomes abundantly clear that the barbarian is far too simple a creature to deserve a thread this long. Max strength, then max con. On your items... max damage...then max HP. A perfectly build barbarian will have an AC of around NEGATIVE FOUR. I don't care if you've given up two damage and ten hit points to get 80 ac, you've missed the point and should be a kensai.

[kojirodensetsu]

I just want some clarification. Thanks for all the posts thus far. But I want to know if my first build I posted (18 con) or my second I posted (12 dex) is better.