The Definitive Guide to Barbarians

[Shade]

I wonder why they made it to where your ac has to be so high. My level 20 Barb only has about 30 ac, though he's definitely not a really good build. On the other hand I didn't build him as a tank either. I have considered working on a Dwarf fighter tank, but never went very far with it. Not really as exciting being a chew toy.

As explained in the guide - the reasoning is because it makes the game too easy.

We have a huge number of other ways to mitigate damage and survive devastating attacks.. Being AC is an all or nothing system due to the limitation of the d20 system, it just doesn't work in any kind of challenging content.

So they simpy made it so it
A) Doesn't work unless you gimp DPS and acquire a huge amount of rare equipment
B) Isn't nessesary to succeed.

Keep in mind you can beat every bit of content in the game with everyone in the party sporting a 10AC, and infact quite easily done with the right parties.

The fact your barb has a 30AC doesn't mean he's a bad tank or a bad build. If anything, that's quite a high armor class for a barb!

I consider my Dwarf Barb to be one of the best tanks in the game and have tanked every single bit of challenging content in the game easily. I try to keep his AC as low as possible.

I actually have enough AC related gear on him from just getting it over the years of raiding when other didnt need it that I could hit a good 70+ AC.. But I never do, I try to keep my ac under 30, because it's always better to equip DPS related items than AC related items.

[Aeneas]

Where's your section about doing your damnedest to drag a halfling bard along with you at all times? (preferably one with all the AC's of course)

[Shade]

Where's your section about doing your damnedest to drag a halfling bard along with you at all times? (preferably one with all the AC's of course)

There can be only one uber booster bard.

And if someone other barbarian tries to take him, I'd have some issues with him!

[DaSawks]

STICKY!!!

I am running a Shade clone and love every minute of it.

Larjaxe on Thelanis. Running quest 3 levels above while solo. Awesome.

[Thrudh]

FYI, my 10/1 barbarian/fighter at level 11 can have following AC if needed

10 base
13 +5 mithral full plate
9 +5 mithral Tower Shield
2 Alchemical bonuses on armor and shield
5 Protection Item
3 Barkskin potion
2 Ship buffs (we don't have the third one up)
1 Haste

= 45

With Improved Uncanny Boost (+6), that goes to 51

51 AC definitely gets you through any rough spots at level 11.

And my guy doesn't even have any Dexterity to take advantage of the mithral full plate (potential for another +3 AC there)... Anyone could get the numbers above with normal +5 plate.

And again, he very rarely puts away his greataxe, but there's been at least 4-5 situations in his short life so far where being able to switch to AC mode and intimidate has saved a party wipe, and there was at least one quest I was soloing where I got tired of drinking pots, so I just switched to AC mode, and finished the quest with barely a scratch.

[Xezno]

FYI, my 10/1 barbarian/fighter at level 11 can have following AC if needed

10 base
13 +5 mithral full plate
9 +5 mithral Tower Shield
2 Alchemical bonuses on armor and shield
5 Protection Item
3 Barkskin potion
2 Ship buffs (we don't have the third one up)
1 Haste

= 45

With Improved Uncanny Boost (+6), that goes to 51

51 AC definitely gets you through any rough spots at level 11.

And my guy doesn't even have any Dexterity to take advantage of the mithral full plate (potential for another +3 AC there)... Anyone could get the numbers above with normal +5 plate.

And again, he very rarely puts away his greataxe, but there's been at least 4-5 situations in his short life so far where being able to switch to AC mode and intimidate has saved a party wipe, and there was at least one quest I was soloing where I got tired of drinking pots, so I just switched to AC mode, and finished the quest with barely a scratch.

I have recently bin leveling a barb hybrid in order to get the past life. On the previous life i was a dex based AC rogue - so i have most of the equipment needed for AC. All i can say is that if you have the gear AC can be very useful atleast until the vale even if you arent built for it. I do have things like +4 insight rad2, chattering ring, icy raiment and +8 AC braciers though.

[sephiroth1084]

heh. My Barbarians dodge all the traps since I know every quest in the game pretty much. Remember my legendary mode post from way back I think you replied to? I wanted traps to 1 shot everyone regardless of HP.

Yeah, I remember. Didn't think it was a good idea, to be polite. This merely reinforces my assertion that many of the comments you've made about barbarians would have been true for any class you're playing, as player skill trumps character class, especially when discussing something so heavily influenced by foreknowledge as scouting.

Maybe DDO is a silly game, giving the heaviest hitter the highest HP. But thats how it is.

My point was why lose your beefiest party member by sending them to scout, when you could send the rogue whose DPS probably drops a lot without a barbarian picking up aggro and who, really, probably has a better chance at surviving the traps? If the rogue can't take the traps down, there's really no point in killing the barbarian for them. And if they can take the traps down, they may very well be able to spot them.

No. 1 specific quest is not irrelevant. You are not the borg. Resistance is not futile! Every quest counts. Every situation matters.

A single quest only matters when making broad general boasts, such as barbarians making the best scouts, if it's an incredibly important quest, like The Shroud, ToD, Epic VoN 6, etc... Quests that are run with a very high frequency and that draw a lot of attention and demand certain types of tactics/builds/equipment.

A fairly easy level 6 quest that offers poor XP, no significant loot (even as a stepping stone to CO6), and only a small amount of favor for one of the least important houses for many characters is hardly a role-defining dungeon. It is entirely irrelevant when looking at the big picture of one class vs. another. If you were making the statement that, in GREY MOON, barbarians make better scouts, then we'd have a reason to be debating your experiences in that particular quest, but that isn't the assertion you've been making, and has rather been the poor example you've used to support your claim.

I think it's a fair commentary tho. Go check the Rogue forums top 10 rogue builds, tell me how much spot they have at level 8. It wont be enough. I've had enough personal experience to know this. And I have played a rogue thru this particular quest about a hundred times. While I can't quote exact figures as they've surely change over the years I doubt the overall problem of 8 wisdom rogue builds not having enough spot for elite has changes.
And ok sure I expect the Barb who scouts to also follow my advice on getting as much HP as he can. But this minor commentary doesn't change the outcome.

It isn't minor, irrelevant commentary, because you are making assumptions that one side is going with the worst possible option in a particular case, while the other the best. Personally, I wouldn't dump Wis entirely on a rogue, because Spot is important, as are Will saves, especially early in the game before immunities become available. You assume the 8 Wis, undergeared rogue, while at the same time assuming the maxed Con, fully geared barbarian. Not a fair or meaningful comparison.

Keep in mind the rogue is already dead, so he cant diplo heh.
DR at lvl8 = 4/5 enhaced. A significant amount for this level.
DR boosted = 12 - A MASSIVE amount for this level.

Why is the rogue already dead?
Also, avoiding getting attacked > DR 12 and being the target for the monsters' ire.

I agree. Remeber these are new players tho. The rogue doesn't have that crazy equipment your thinking of. His AC is probably around 25-30 and he thinks thats a lot.

Your claim was that it is impossible to attain enough AC, and my point is that it is not. You can hit 30 easily on a rogue, and can get to the mid-30s with a little bit of expensive equipment, but nothing crazy. 40 is attainable for someone with some real cash to burn or twink items.

Also, you don't necessarily have to be completely new to DDO to not know a quest, or at least to not know where all the traps are in a particular quest. It's possible that both the barbarian and rogue are being run by players who have been playing the game long enough to acquire gear to pass on to their new toons, but simply don't know Grey Moon, or don't remember where traps are, etc...

If you want to claim that barbs make the best scouts, provide some real reasons to support that claim. If you were saying this in a tongue in cheek fashion, as part of the general humor of the OP, then why argue about it? So far, all you've shown is that you make a pretty good scout due to your game knowledge.

[sephiroth1084]

If you did, you'd see I highly recommend carrying a shield on a Barbarians and using it when appropriate.

Recommending carrying a shield to shield block is not the same as Thrudh's assertion that a barbarian can carry AC gear at the low to mid levels for certain situations.

EVERYONE should be carrying a shield for the option to turtle up and absorb a ton of damage through blocking DR.

Before level 10, anybody can attain enough AC to be avoiding some damage. Even after level 10, in some content, most characters can avoid some damage coming in. Certainly, most characters can essentially gain enough AC to avoid 20% of attacks, and last I checked, most people really like Blur and everyone would love to stack Blur. If you don't have to give up too much DPS (and really, how much of your DPS is coming from equipment that early in the game?) it can be very worthwhile to carry the option around with you.

[Shade]

A single quest only matters when making broad general boasts, such as barbarians making the best scouts, if it's an incredibly important quest, like The Shroud, ToD, Epic VoN 6, etc...

No. What makes a quest "important" or not is not up to you. Every player will decide that on their own, and all quests that gives xp will be ran by players, so every quest is a valid example for having a scout in the party. How great the quests loot/xp/etc isn't a factor. All quests get run and thus all quests are valid examples.

Regarding xp anyways: this particular one might not be great xp, but the later parts of the chain are pretty good, and you do need to do it in order.

Raids like shroud might be "important" in your mind, but are invalid choices to do a good comparison for scouting, because each part of shroud the players zone into a large new map where they can imediately all see the surrondings anyways, where there's nothing really to scout.. And even if you did try to in say phase2, you can't say the Barbarian will do it anyays, because where you zone in is random, so theyre would have to 4 scouts.

Barbarians are the best scouts and my example is fine and will apply equally to many other quests. It's not a joke. Turbine agrees with it as you can see in the video and you agreed with it already above for that quest.

You just have a hard time seeing it as being a nice overall example because of your own personal bias to prefer other classes. Which is fine, but go discuss that on that particular class forum please as your arguements here really aren't convincing anyone.

Barbarians make the best scouts for many reason as I've outlined but I'll go over them again:
- Highest Hitpoints and DR. Least likely to die in a difficult ambush.
- 2nd highest trap saves in the game next to Rogues.
- Before gaining raise dead at lvl9+ (or if the party has no cleric/fvs) If the rogue dies in the trap, The trap may not get disabled at all, and the entire party may need to navigate it. If the Barbarian instead dies, he at least found it, and the Rogue can more easily disable it and thus the party can proceed onwards. Yes they'd be down a "heavy hitter" but overall I think it's worth it.
- Post level 9 with Acess to Raise dead: The Barbarian dies: Gets Rezzed, rages back up and is back in the fight almost instantly. The Rogue dies in the trap? Back up, but suffering a -1 penalty to skills from death, has no GH or other buffs to his skills and may not be able to find the trapbox or disable the trap for a full minute - wasting time on everyone elses buffs and slowing down the quest. Sure it might seem dumb for the Barb to die in the trap, but actually in many cases, it saves time.
- Listen as class skill to spot monsters, or enough crossclass Spot if following my guides and using good gear
- Fastest run speed period via 10% base and sprint boost will let Barbs get out of dangerous situations fast.
- High strength means a high jump skill, combined with the highest movement speed lets the Barbarian get up to places other classes simply can not do. In many quests this even means getting up to places to kill dangerous monsters, or spot extra enemies or chests in the distance.
- Uncanny Dodge means your immune to sneak attacks from lower level Rogue enemies, so if you do fail your spot/listen checks.. Your at least not going to take bonus damage from a sneak attack.
- Superior will saves then a Rogue while raged means if you run into enemy casters, your much less likely to get hit by a nasty dibilitating spell like hold/dominate/command/etc.
- Far superior DPS vs a rogue while having enemy agro means you can more likely defend yourself from an ambush.
- Barbarians are great tanks and WANT the agro. By scouting your most likely to get it.

So yes I stand by my statement. Barbarians are the best overall class to serve as scouts.

Before level 10, anybody can attain enough AC to be avoiding some damage.

Just because they "can" does not mean they should. My guide does recommend just wearing the higher + armor at lvl1-4 for some mitigation while your still learning the controls of the game. But at lvl5 I recommend to instead try to look for DR/Lifeshield armor like the Heavy Chain/Blademark Docent.

Why?
Because teaching new Barbairans players to get a high armor class that will work prior to level 10 is bad advice. They will learn to rely on it and not learn to use movement to lower the damage they take as they expect to simply evade attacks and survive longer without moving.

It's far better they have a lower AC and do get hit, so they can learn to get used to that and not just stand there and take it, as that will be the case at higher level and they should be ready for it.

[Fallout]

Enjoy reading shade posts, very informative and entertaining

[Aaxeyu]

What's a scout anyways?

[Chad28]

My definition of a scout is someone who walks ahead of the group to either watch out for traps, or alert the group to mobs. Either one can possibly wipe an entire party, depending on how dangerous it is, so having someone with the skills to prepare for one is useful.

Though all mobs and traps are always in the same spots, so a scout is more useful to people who don't know the dungeon.

Rogues can use stealth to avoid mob notice, has class skills that can help it see invisible enemies, as well as skills to avoid and disable traps. Thus it makes a good scout. A tank that can absorb a lot of damage can help against mobs as well.

[Chai]

Barbarians are the best scouts and my example is fine and will apply equally to many other quests. It's not a joke. Turbine agrees with it as you can see in the video and you agreed with it already above for that quest.

You just have a hard time seeing it as being a nice overall example because of your own personal bias to prefer other classes. Which is fine, but go discuss that on that particular class forum please as your arguements here really aren't convincing anyone.

Barbarians make the best scouts for many reason as I've outlined but I'll go over them again:
- Highest Hitpoints and DR. Least likely to die in a difficult ambush.
- 2nd highest trap saves in the game next to Rogues.
- Before gaining raise dead at lvl9+ (or if the party has no cleric/fvs) If the rogue dies in the trap, The trap may not get disabled at all, and the entire party may need to navigate it. If the Barbarian instead dies, he at least found it, and the Rogue can more easily disable it and thus the party can proceed onwards. Yes they'd be down a "heavy hitter" but overall I think it's worth it.
- Post level 9 with Acess to Raise dead: The Barbarian dies: Gets Rezzed, rages back up and is back in the fight almost instantly. The Rogue dies in the trap? Back up, but suffering a -1 penalty to skills from death, has no GH or other buffs to his skills and may not be able to find the trapbox or disable the trap for a full minute - wasting time on everyone elses buffs and slowing down the quest. Sure it might seem dumb for the Barb to die in the trap, but actually in many cases, it saves time.
- Listen as class skill to spot monsters, or enough crossclass Spot if following my guides and using good gear
- Fastest run speed period via 10% base and sprint boost will let Barbs get out of dangerous situations fast.
- High strength means a high jump skill, combined with the highest movement speed lets the Barbarian get up to places other classes simply can not do. In many quests this even means getting up to places to kill dangerous monsters, or spot extra enemies or chests in the distance.
- Uncanny Dodge means your immune to sneak attacks from lower level Rogue enemies, so if you do fail your spot/listen checks.. Your at least not going to take bonus damage from a sneak attack.
- Superior will saves then a Rogue while raged means if you run into enemy casters, your much less likely to get hit by a nasty dibilitating spell like hold/dominate/command/etc.
- Far superior DPS vs a rogue while having enemy agro means you can more likely defend yourself from an ambush.
- Barbarians are great tanks and WANT the agro. By scouting your most likely to get it.

So yes I stand by my statement. Barbarians are the best overall class to serve as scouts.

The people I roll with call this "fighter spot." Hey guys, i "found" the trap. I "found" the stealthed mobs in the hallway.

Just because they "can" does not mean they should. My guide does recommend just wearing the higher + armor at lvl1-4 for some mitigation while your still learning the controls of the game. But at lvl5 I recommend to instead try to look for DR/Lifeshield armor like the Heavy Chain/Blademark Docent.

Why?
Because teaching new Barbairans players to get a high armor class that will work prior to level 10 is bad advice. They will learn to rely on it and not learn to use movement to lower the damage they take as they expect to simply evade attacks and survive longer without moving.

It's far better they have a lower AC and do get hit, so they can learn to get used to that and not just stand there and take it, as that will be the case at higher level and they should be ready for it.

Yeap exactly. Its better to learn twitch combat skills and combat while moving sooner than later. DDO is as much a Doom or Quake clone as it is based on PnP DnD. There are MANY situations, especially defensive, where paper stats will not get the job done where I can use twich combat skills to succeed. Building a toon to be overkill in the to-hit department means being able to move in combat with much less negative consequence than someone who is right on the cusp of their to-hit. This may or may not do as much DPS as standing still depending on the situation (usually less nowdays after the glancing while moving nerf), but it sure can be used to mitigate potential damage taken during that "ambush" scenario.

It makes it real easy for the striker classes and casters when a barbarian can drag several mobs back through corridors while damaging them, so that by the time they get back they are half dead and aggroed on the player who should be tanking in the first place. The healer will usually only have to toss one heal spell in this instance, near the end of or after the combat, rather than having to play wack a mole with everyones health bars furiously, which is usually what happens when a striker with half as many HP is pulling / scouting.

Learning these twitch combat tactics is much better than relying on a paper AC stat, at any level.

[PopeJual]

What's a scout anyways?

A member of a religious paramilitary organization founded in England by Sir Robert Baden-Powell in 1907.

[Ghaldar]

Shade welcome back. Glad to see you posting again. Looking forward to your update 18/2 split.

[Cold_Stele]

What's a scout anyways?

Agreed x1000.

Can we *please* put this scout nonsense to bed?

It comes down to this - if you're the only one who knows the quest, and you're on your 8 Con Sorc, you're the 'scout'. You tell everyone else to follow you, and shout 'Trap!' a lot.

[sephiroth1084]

No. What makes a quest "important" or not is not up to you. Every player will decide that on their own, and all quests that gives xp will be ran by players, so every quest is a valid example for having a scout in the party. How great the quests loot/xp/etc isn't a factor. All quests get run and thus all quests are valid examples.

Regarding xp anyways: this particular one might not be great xp, but the later parts of the chain are pretty good, and you do need to do it in order.

Raids like shroud might be "important" in your mind, but are invalid choices to do a good comparison for scouting, because each part of shroud the players zone into a large new map where they can imediately all see the surrondings anyways, where there's nothing really to scout.. And even if you did try to in say phase2, you can't say the Barbarian will do it anyays, because where you zone in is random, so theyre would have to 4 scouts.

You completely missed my point.

A quest that players are likely to not run more than one or two times isn't a standard by which to measure how a particular character performs across more/all content. I merely cited the raids I did, because they are quests that actually contribute to the overall sense of characters' roles and required/suggested gear and abilities.

Grey Moon is relevant in determining what a class is good at, in a general sense, only as a small piece of the bigger picture being examined, which would be a collection of other quests.And in other quests, there are shrines, traps that will kill a barbarian, places where sneaky scouting will be very valuable and many, many other factors that prevent barbarians from being the best scouts.

Barbarians are the best scouts and my example is fine and will apply equally to many other quests. It's not a joke. Turbine agrees with it as you can see in the video and you agreed with it already above for that quest.

I don't give a **** what Turbine put in a flavor video three+ years ago.

As for me, I agreed that if you have a gimpy rogue it may mean that sending the barbarian ahead would make sense. That in no way says that barbarians make the best scouts. My statement means that, without better options, a barbarian makes an okay scout. Usually, there are better options.

You just have a hard time seeing it as being a nice overall example because of your own personal bias to prefer other classes. Which is fine, but go discuss that on that particular class forum please as your arguements here really aren't convincing anyone.

Bias has nothing to do with my analysis, though it clearly factors into yours.

Barbarians make the best scouts for many reason as I've outlined but I'll go over them again:
- Highest Hitpoints and DR. Least likely to die in a difficult ambush. Other classes may be able to completely avoid ambushes, and, really, HP and DR go only so far: if you get ambushed by a dangerous enough set of monsters, the lack of crowd control or any way to severely reduce incoming damage will result in a dead character rather quickly. In some cases the HP and DR will be enough, but it will rarely be the superior option.
- 2nd highest trap saves in the game next to Rogues.False. Blatanlty false. Monks, Rangers, Paladins, and some Wizards and Bards have higher Reflex saves. Enough higher that even the Barbarian's Trap Sense feature's bonus won't make up the spread, and that is ignoring the de-emphasis of Dex for Barbs.
- Before gaining raise dead at lvl9+ (or if the party has no cleric/fvs) If the rogue dies in the trap, The trap may not get disabled at all, and the entire party may need to navigate it. If the Barbarian instead dies, he at least found it, and the Rogue can more easily disable it and thus the party can proceed onwards. Yes they'd be down a "heavy hitter" but overall I think it's worth it. If you have a character with enough Spot, you avoid this entirely. So, if you have a Rogue, Ranger, Monk or Bard the party can likely avoid dying in traps entirely, or at least avoid dying in unknown traps, rather than plunging through the dungeon hoping to not get surprised with death. Being the best scout in a party without a better scout doesn't mean that barbarians make the best scouts.
- Post level 9 with Acess to Raise dead: The Barbarian dies: Gets Rezzed, rages back up and is back in the fight almost instantly. The Rogue dies in the trap? Back up, but suffering a -1 penalty to skills from death, has no GH or other buffs to his skills and may not be able to find the trapbox or disable the trap for a full minute - wasting time on everyone elses buffs and slowing down the quest. Sure it might seem dumb for the Barb to die in the trap, but actually in many cases, it saves time. Orrrrrr...you could simply have a character in the party who won't die when they find a trap. Ooh! No lost 10% XP penalty, no wasted SP on raising, healing and rebuffing the barbarian.
- Listen as class skill to spot monsters, or enough crossclass Spot if following my guides and using good gear Useful, but not as much as Spot for spotting monsters, which many other characters will have more of.
- Fastest run speed period via 10% base and sprint boost will let Barbs get out of dangerous situations fast. Unless you are running around with Sprint Boost IV, barbarians are not the fastest characters. Monks are faster all the time except when you're using an incredibly expensive enhancement line that lasts for only 20 seconds out of every minute, and in an emergency are much faster at getting out of trouble from level 12 on (Abundant Step is faster than running and offers a more useful form of movement when in a bad spot most of the time).
- High strength means a high jump skill, combined with the highest movement speed lets the Barbarian get up to places other classes simply can not do. In many quests this even means getting up to places to kill dangerous monsters, or spot extra enemies or chests in the distance. Other characters can and will have the same Jump. Other characters can combine jump and speed in this way. Monks still win here.
- Uncanny Dodge means your immune to sneak attacks from lower level Rogue enemies, so if you do fail your spot/listen checks.. Your at least not going to take bonus damage from a sneak attack. Useful, but by no means a huge factor. AC, access to Blur/Displacement, Shadow Fade and/or stealth can all trump the survivability of this bonus, not to mention, you know, Heavy Fortification that everyone probably has (should have) by level 11.
- Superior will saves then a Rogue while raged means if you run into enemy casters, your much less likely to get hit by a nasty dibilitating spell like hold/dominate/command/etc. This is true for barb vs. rogue in a general sense, though other characters will have higher Will saves than both, and rogues can avoid the issue by sneaking and simply not getting targeted with the spells.
- Far superior DPS vs a rogue while having enemy agro means you can more likely defend yourself from an ambush.This is true, but see my comments about HP and DR.
- Barbarians are great tanks and WANT the agro. By scouting your most likely to get it. This is true, but does nothing to make them better scouts. The argument here would be that scouting makes them better tanks, but that's better than they would be otherwise, not necessarily better than other classes at tanking.

So yes I stand by my statement. Barbarians are the best overall class to serve as scouts.

Barbarians are the best overall class to serve as scouts when no one better is around, which means they are not the best scouts, because there ARE much better classes at scouting, even taking into account several different factors.

If there are no traps in a dungeon, barbarians make decent scouts.
If there are traps in a dungeon, but no trapmonkey, and no one with Evasion and enough Reflex/HP to survive stumbling into a trap, then barbarians make decent scouts.

Being the best choice when better choices aren't around doesn't mean they are the best in general.

Just because they "can" does not mean they should. My guide does recommend just wearing the higher + armor at lvl1-4 for some mitigation while your still learning the controls of the game. But at lvl5 I recommend to instead try to look for DR/Lifeshield armor like the Heavy Chain/Blademark Docent.

Why?
Because teaching new Barbairans players to get a high armor class that will work prior to level 10 is bad advice. They will learn to rely on it and not learn to use movement to lower the damage they take as they expect to simply evade attacks and survive longer without moving.

It's far better they have a lower AC and do get hit, so they can learn to get used to that and not just stand there and take it, as that will be the case at higher level and they should be ready for it.

While it is probably useful for barbarians to learn this early on, that still doesn't mean that they shouldn't carry around the option to go AC when the situation calls for it. You don't need to be learning all the time, and for many people it will be a lot more fun for the barbarian who managed to survive a TPK to be able to get everyone to a shrine, rather than themselves dying in that situation. AC helps there. Not having AC in order to fulfill some sense of learning a lesson about dealing with the game without AC to prepare for later levels probably won't be all that much fun, and won't benefit the rest of the group at that time.

I'm not advocating running around in AC gear all the time at lower levels, but certainly having the option while it's available would be a good idea.

I don't see you insisting that barbarians avoid Blur and Displacement, because they won't always have that available. So why avoid AC when you can get it?

[sephiroth1084]

What's a scout anyways?

Agreed x1000.

Can we *please* put this scout nonsense to bed?

It comes down to this - if you're the only one who knows the quest, and you're on your 8 Con Sorc, you're the 'scout'. You tell everyone else to follow you, and shout 'Trap!' a lot.

If someone knows the quest, they aren't scouting, they're leading. Anyone can lead.

A scout is the person running point and looking for dangers to warn the group about. In DDO, this is keeping an eye out for traps, hidden monsters and ambushes. Barbarians aren't the best class at doing this, and I won't let the issue drop, because lots of people read Shade's posts and take his word as gospel, and I ****ing hate running around with stupid characters that do stupid things, like barbarians who run ahead of the rogue springing traps and dying already, without having to deal with hordes more who subscribe to the religion of Axer, the heedless barbarian. There are some things he is very good at, and some advice he gives is quite excellent, but there is just as much drivel spouted here and elsewhere.

A member of a religious paramilitary organization founded in England by Sir Robert Baden-Powell in 1907.

Haha! Interesting description. I suppose that fits with the definition one of my professors gave for the Boy Scouts as a revival of the ideals of knighthood.

[Thrudh]

Barbarians make the best scouts for many reason as I've outlined but I'll go over them again:
- Highest Hitpoints and DR. Least likely to die in a difficult ambush.
- 2nd highest trap saves in the game next to Rogues.
- Before gaining raise dead at lvl9+ (or if the party has no cleric/fvs) If the rogue dies in the trap, The trap may not get disabled at all, and the entire party may need to navigate it. If the Barbarian instead dies, he at least found it, and the Rogue can more easily disable it and thus the party can proceed onwards. Yes they'd be down a "heavy hitter" but overall I think it's worth it.
- Post level 9 with Acess to Raise dead: The Barbarian dies: Gets Rezzed, rages back up and is back in the fight almost instantly. The Rogue dies in the trap? Back up, but suffering a -1 penalty to skills from death, has no GH or other buffs to his skills and may not be able to find the trapbox or disable the trap for a full minute - wasting time on everyone elses buffs and slowing down the quest. Sure it might seem dumb for the Barb to die in the trap, but actually in many cases, it saves time.
- Listen as class skill to spot monsters, or enough crossclass Spot if following my guides and using good gear
- Fastest run speed period via 10% base and sprint boost will let Barbs get out of dangerous situations fast.
- High strength means a high jump skill, combined with the highest movement speed lets the Barbarian get up to places other classes simply can not do. In many quests this even means getting up to places to kill dangerous monsters, or spot extra enemies or chests in the distance.
- Uncanny Dodge means your immune to sneak attacks from lower level Rogue enemies, so if you do fail your spot/listen checks.. Your at least not going to take bonus damage from a sneak attack.
- Superior will saves then a Rogue while raged means if you run into enemy casters, your much less likely to get hit by a nasty dibilitating spell like hold/dominate/command/etc.
- Far superior DPS vs a rogue while having enemy agro means you can more likely defend yourself from an ambush.
- Barbarians are great tanks and WANT the agro. By scouting your most likely to get it.

So yes I stand by my statement. Barbarians are the best overall class to serve as scouts.

Posts like this is why many of the vet players don't take Shade seriously.

He really believes it's good advice to tell new barbarians to run ahead, find traps with their faces, get ambushed without a cleric nearby, and if things go bad, use sprint boost to run away (back to the party trailing aggro while screaming "Hjeal me!!!" I assume).

Remember when you used to argue with me how Stunning Blow was totally worthless, Shade? Ah, good times, good times...

[Thrudh]

Why?
Because teaching new Barbairans players to get a high armor class that will work prior to level 10 is bad advice. They will learn to rely on it and not learn to use movement to lower the damage they take as they expect to simply evade attacks and survive longer without moving.

It's far better they have a lower AC and do get hit, so they can learn to get used to that and not just stand there and take it, as that will be the case at higher level and they should be ready for it.

This, however, is an interesting point....