[Advice?] Trying to understand a few things about Barbarians

[Horkenstein]

I'm looking at rolling a Barbarian because the idea of a dude with anger issues and an axe (or two) is just too appealing to not try out. I'm looking at Shade's TWF Dwarf as a starting point.

How self sufficient is the Barbarian?

1) I understand the barbarian is at his best when raged, and apparently a high level barbarian never stops raging in a quest. How long will an individual rage last at mid-to-high levels? I've read the formula is 18+(6*modified raged con) in seconds, but with a base 16 con(+3 modifier), my starting rage is a full minute, not 36 seconds.

2) How does a starting barbarian overcome low will saves? It looks like a level 20 barbarian with 10 wisdom will have around a 7 will save. Even with morale bonuses from Raging, that doesn't get very high. I can imagine getting stopped in my tracks by anything with a mind affecting spell handy.

3) The same goes for traps and reflex. I haven't seen many builds taking the trap sense enhancements on top of the bonus Barbarians already get. Is it generally just expected for a barbarian to brute force his way through a trap? According to the forum, taking a couple levels of Rogue for Evasion and UMD to wand-heal after a trap is also considered detrimental to the barbarian's effectiveness.

Can a Barbarian survive more or less on his own, or does one absolutely need a variety of potions by the hundred stack and a Cleric on a leash?

[lolwatboomer]

As long as you have 18 barb levels, you can go ahead and splash 2 rogue if you want some umd. A DPS barb with anything less than 18 isn't a barb.

I also use silver flame pots when I need to be self-sufficient... although I don't find myself soloing too much.

[toughguyjoe]

Barbs are a very fun class, but I usually go WF. I haven't looked at Shades build, but I am sure its solid. Barbs don't exactly take alotof brains to build.

I go WF with max str, 12 wis and the rest into Con. My ac is pitiful, however, I pop pots like a kid at a candy store. Rage, haste, at lower levels bark and shield of faith, and of course Repair/Cure. I like that a WF barb can get crit immunity at level 7 with a mod fort item, or even level 5 if a quest reward(Seen it drop ml 5 from Splinter Skull) or rr WF.

Anyway, you went Dwarf. also TWF. Which is considerable DPS, but needs the dex so doesn't have the points to dump into wisdom. My 19 Barbs will save can get into the mid twenties with a bit of work, so thats considerably higher than your projections but....who knows.

So thats basically some rambling about Barbarians. From my unique perspective.

[Humperdink]

I have a Warforged 18barb/2ftr (which will become pure 20 barb soon) and a halfling 18barb/2rog. The WF is pure MeWantTooSmash! with his mauls and greataxes using Stunning Blow and Trip. The Halfling is more of a survivalist with 38UMD (ability to self heal with scrolls and self buffs) and evasion (something like 35 Reflex versus Traps buffed up) and uses Heavy Picks. They are each a little bit different to play. The WF is mostly about pure destruction relying on his HP and Combat Tactics to see him through. The halfling is definitely more survivable and self sufficient but the DPS is not quite the same as WF and cannot heal while raged except with potions.

[Horkenstein]

Yeah, I can recognize the tradeoffs between Warforged/Dwarf and THF/TWF. Warforged benefits are pretty nice but I just feel a bit more at home with a dwarf (that sound so good, does it?). Same goes for THF and TWF. I like the TWF combat animations more, and I like the fact that two weapons can swing more often and have more bonus damage types or status effects between them than a single two hander, at the cost of at least 15 dex to start, though.

I do have a build plan with a rogue splash ready to go. Just have that nagging feeling that missing out on Mighty Rage would be something I'd regret in the long run.

[vindicater]

I am at 19 and my rages last around 3 min. Think I have 8 without checking. Its plenty.

I also went dwarf and never had a will save issue. There are a few mid level quests you will be glad the clerics got remove fear but not really a issue.

I dont run much eleite without a group and have noly died in a couple level 7-9 traps. One was trying to kite the mos through the whirling traps in tanglroot somehow I misstimed it. The other was a electric trap in hose k on eleite I had forgot about ouch.

[vindicater]

To awnser the rest of the question if you are not in a group you will need a hierling cleric. Might as well start getting practice using one they are way cheaper than pots. I like to leave them behind a closed door so when you call (after surviving the traps and the ambush) he will teleport streight to you the first thing he will do is throw you his bigest heal and you are in buissness again.

[Vanshilar]

How self sufficient is the Barbarian?

Generally I find that the barbarian is fairly self-sufficient when the quest just involves needing DPS. It really depends on the quest. Some will have traps which would be better if you have a rogue along. Some may need some crowd control. But others, where traps can just be timed or something, I just go ahead and take my barbarian soloing with a cleric hireling. You can say that a hireling means the character isn't self-sufficient but then again, why bother wasting the effort to make self-healing a "built-in" attribute on your character when you can get healing so readily from a hireling, and thus improve your DPS by not having to worry about built-in self-healing?

I personally prefer soloing Coalescence Chamber, because it's a quest where it's easy to just summon a hireling at various parts, heal, tell the hireling to stay put, move on, rinse and repeat. But for that quest, the traps are not particularly deadly, and there's not a lot of parts where you need "active" healing, i.e. healing in the middle of battle. The barbarian's huge HP pool is good for soaking up the damage until the end of the fight, when you can summon your hireling at your leisure.

In other quests though, the barbarian may not be adaptable. So there's not a specific yes or no on that, it just depends on the quest. The barbarian is really just a big DPS monster and quests where that's needed, he will work well. A barbarian also works well in a group because most groups will need some amount of DPS.

1) I understand the barbarian is at his best when raged, and apparently a high level barbarian never stops raging in a quest. How long will an individual rage last at mid-to-high levels? I've read the formula is 18+(6*modified raged con) in seconds, but with a base 16 con(+3 modifier), my starting rage is a full minute, not 36 seconds.

Keep in mind that you get additional rages at higher levels: 6 free rages at level 20, and they will be lengthened by any additional con you may get from enhancements or items, and of course, from rage itself. At level 20, my barbarian has 19.2 total minutes of rage between shrines. My con is:

15 starting con
3 enhancements
2 tome
6 item
10 rage
---
36 con

This works out to 96 (1.6 minutes) seconds per rage. But then I also took extend rage 2, which makes this 144 seconds per rage (2.4 minutes). I also took extra rage 2, which means I get 8 rages at level 20, so 2.4 * 8 = 19.2 minutes. With just a 6 AP investment, my total rage time was doubled from 1.6 * 6 = 9.6 minutes to 2.4 * 8 = 19.2 minutes. If anything, after around level 15, I ended up respeccing my enhancements and taking less extend/extra rages because I was having trouble using them all between shrines. You can always respec your enhancements depending on your total rage time circumstances.

2) How does a starting barbarian overcome low will saves? It looks like a level 20 barbarian with 10 wisdom will have around a 7 will save. Even with morale bonuses from Raging, that doesn't get very high. I can imagine getting stopped in my tracks by anything with a mind affecting spell handy.

Preparation in terms of item selection helps. I recommend the helmet from the adamantine ore quest (Relic of a Sovereign Past I think). There's also the planar gird which will prevent fear effects. Also, rage will help with your will saves, if you take the enhancements. In this respect being dwarf also helps with the extra spell defense that you can get with dwarves.

Keep in mind that at higher levels, you will also likely be in a group situation, so there will be lots of guys around that can cover the stuff that I invariably missed.

3) The same goes for traps and reflex. I haven't seen many builds taking the trap sense enhancements on top of the bonus Barbarians already get. Is it generally just expected for a barbarian to brute force his way through a trap? According to the forum, taking a couple levels of Rogue for Evasion and UMD to wand-heal after a trap is also considered detrimental to the barbarian's effectiveness.

Well, evasion only works if you make a save. If you will generally fail your saves, evasion won't help much. Barbarians, generally going two-handed, will usually have lower dex and hence lower reflex saves. (The plus side, of course, is that barbarians largely can just worry about str + con rather than the str + dex + con that two-weapon fighting melees have to deal with.) The barbarian has enough HP to brute force his way through a trap. But there's also the innate barbarian movement speed, and barbarian sprint boost. This combined with proper timing will get you past many traps. How to time traps is a skill which you should learn at some point anyway, no matter which character you're playing, but I bring up the barbarian speed and sprint boost because they are ways to give you a bigger buffer when you're just learning how to time a trap.

Whether or not you should take 2 levels of rogue for evasion and/or UMD is a choice that is up to you, but yes it does somewhat dilute your effectiveness in combat. In a group situation, people are expecting the barbarian to DPS, not to scroll everyone's health up in the middle of battle (and if you're wand-whipping, you're not doing DPS). Not taking the final 2 levels of barbarian means that you lose out on mighty rate (+2 str +2 con +1 will save while raging) as well as the barbarian might capston (+2 str, the rest seem to not work at present). It's a tradeoff that you should weigh carefully. However, in general, I think the general advice is that when in doubt, you should just stick with a pure class and not worry about multiclassing so much -- leave multiclassing for when you have more experience on how to make these characters and how the different classes interact with each other (and hence, less "in doubt").

Keep in mind also that I'm not sure why the barbarian is expected to brute force his way through a trap. Did the rogue die or something? If anything else, having the barbarian go through a trap (as opposed to having some other member of the party like the ranger or the wizard go through a trap) is a testament to his HP pool. Yes, *if* a barbarian is doing it he's brute forcing it, but so would the other members of the party who doesn't have evasion.

Can a Barbarian survive more or less on his own, or does one absolutely need a variety of potions by the hundred stack and a Cleric on a leash?

You should consider what you intend to do. A versatile character that can do everything tends to be a better soloer but a worse groupmate. A specialized character that can only do one or two things (but do them well) tend to be a better groupmate but a worse soloer. It's great to be able to say -- on paper -- hey my character can do everything, he can do DPS, he can do traps, he can do healing, he can do crowd control, etc. But such a character tends to compromise on all those aspects in order to have some usable ability in the other aspects. So when soloing, sure, he can do it all. However, in quests where there are no traps (or traps can be largely ignored), his investment in traps is largely wasted; in quests where hirelings are easily usable, his investment in healing is largely wasted. Another character that didn't make those investments would be able to solo such quests more quickly, since he could afford to invest more in his DPS and hence be able to kill off the guys faster.

Furthermore, in a group situation, each groupmate tends to take on specific roles. If you're a versatile character, it's somewhat more difficult for the leader to find a use for you. Sure you can do traps, but likely there's a more trap-specced character (rogue or wizard/rogue for example) that has better trap skills and hence will be doing the traps -- and hence your investment in traps goes to waste. Or maybe you're a melee that can use wands/scrolls to cure -- but if the group has a dedicated healer, again, that investment largely goes to waste. You're not likely to be doing DPS as well as healing at the same time in a fight. Those investments in versatility necessarily decrease your investment in your main role (DPS presumably for a barbarian), meaning in a group situation your usefulness is lessened.

What barbarians do, they do well. They have high DPS, and they have a huge HP pool to work with. Asking if they need a "cleric on a leash" is oversimplifying the situation and putting negative connotations on their role. You could just as easily ask "hey is a cleric useless without a barbarian on a leash killing the monsters for them?" or "hey is a rogue useless without a barbarian on a leash tanking for them?" or any of a variety of similar questions about all the classes. These classes are meant to interact with each other and not exist in a vacuum; the quests are designed similarly as well.

It would seem based on your comments ("low will saves" "brute force his way through a trap" "absolutely need a variety of potions by the hundred stack") that you are looking at the barbarian class in a negative light and focusing on what they do not excel at. I would suggest keeping in mind all the positives that the barbarian brings to the table, such as:

1. More or less "guaranteed" DPS for a group leader (no need to wonder about if that ranger is coming in Legolas-style, or if that cleric is battle or healing, or if that rogue can do traps -- your role is pretty straightforward and likely you'll handle it fine)
2. More or less "guaranteed" non-squishy character
3. Easy to equip (Two-handed fighting means only half the weapons needed to craft or find compared with two weapon fighting)
4. Easy on the stats (only two major stats to worry about)
5. Easy to find good builds on the forums
6. Easy to find groups with (vast majority of groups needs DPS of some form or another, and barbarians will likely top the list)

[Horkenstein]

I guess I am going to end up making a pure Barbarian. I'll probably stick with Dual Wield because I'm not so good at twitching, even though a two hander build is more efficient. That means I'm better off going Dwarf.

[Horkenstein]

What barbarians do, they do well. They have high DPS, and they have a huge HP pool to work with. Asking if they need a "cleric on a leash" is oversimplifying the situation and putting negative connotations on their role. You could just as easily ask "hey is a cleric useless without a barbarian on a leash killing the monsters for them?" or "hey is a rogue useless without a barbarian on a leash tanking for them?" or any of a variety of similar questions about all the classes. These classes are meant to interact with each other and not exist in a vacuum; the quests are designed similarly as well.

It would seem based on your comments ("low will saves" "brute force his way through a trap" "absolutely need a variety of potions by the hundred stack") that you are looking at the barbarian class in a negative light and focusing on what they do not excel at. I would suggest keeping in mind all the positives that the barbarian brings to the table, such as:

1. More or less "guaranteed" DPS for a group leader (no need to wonder about if that ranger is coming in Legolas-style, or if that cleric is battle or healing, or if that rogue can do traps -- your role is pretty straightforward and likely you'll handle it fine)
2. More or less "guaranteed" non-squishy character
3. Easy to equip (Two-handed fighting means only half the weapons needed to craft or find compared with two weapon fighting)
4. Easy on the stats (only two major stats to worry about)
5. Easy to find good builds on the forums
6. Easy to find groups with (vast majority of groups needs DPS of some form or another, and barbarians will likely top the list)

OK, sorry for not responding directly here, but you had a lot of good information to provide, and I more or less skimmed these last paragraphs.

When I play, it's either solo (with hireling as needed) or with one other friend (with a pair of hirelings). We both prefer some level of melee over spellcasting. Every quest we run we short man, and not all of the basic party roles are covered. Don't know what it is about this game, but while we had no problems grouping with people in other MMOs, most of the people we've run into here throw up all kinds of warning flags about wanting to associate with them. It's like Craigslist.

Anecdotally, I was watching my friend's fighter getting his butt handed to him by anything that could throw a low-moderate DC based attack at him -- spellcasting or traps. If the monster was just a basic beater, my friend would win hands down. He needed a cleric hireling right there with him to keep him up and running for everything else. Unfortunately, hirelings need a fair amount of babysitting themselves. Playing a monk with the relative safety of great saving throws and the ability to self heal as needed, I didn't have to put up with his particular brand of difficulties, and am somewhat leary of leaving that safety blanket behind.

However, this class looks like fun, and I'd like to try it.