Should I take stunning blow early?

[PurpleTimb]

I play a pure THF dwarven barbarian as part of a static 3-person group. I'm level 11, and just made enough XP to take 12th, but I'm holding off until I decide on my direction. The other members of our team are a monk/ranger, with equal measures melee and ranged, and a battle cleric, focused on melee and healing.

My concern as we get to higher level content is that we have no real crowd control. The cleric dumped wisdom to focus on strength, so DCs and SPs are too low for anything but healing.

Should I take stunning blow at level 12 in order to give us some CC? If so, should I push back IC: Slash to later? or should I give up on staying pure and take a level or two of fighter now so I can take IC: Slash and Stunning Blow at 12?

In the meantime, I picked up a +1 paralyzing maul and encouraged the monk to get a paralyzing bow and focus on that. But it just seems wrong to me for the raging barbarian to be the one to provide CC.

Would appreciate any opinions.

[KillEveryone]

Stunning blow will give you auto crit when hitting if you can land it and a raging barbarian will land it often enough that it will be helpful. I think that dwarf gets enhancements that will help it also...though it could only be trip I'm thinking of, I get enhancements mixed up sometimes.

IC will help you for the rest of the time that you don't have auto crit.

I like both.

I actually skipped the THF feats for my barbarian because I move more than it would be worth taking three feats that won't work when I play so I took stunning blow very early. I liked it a whole lot. I haven't capped that character but I do like that feat.

[Cam_Neely]

If you are on first life and hitting most quests on normal and hard at level, then I would say no. Use Trip and use it often, but hold off on SB until lv 18. If you are on your second or third life and hitting elite at level, then ya, it could be very useful. I took it at 15 (I think) and its quite helpful on elite combat, but at normal and hard, they die quick enough, thats its not really necessary.

IC: Slash is a very nice bump up in DPS. Your Monk should be going melee as soon as stuff is close to you guys, and should have pretty good CC abilities.

[Asketes]

knowing what feats you have already taken would be highly useful.

*remember* if you move around a lot during combat, your THF feats are not helping you

1. stunning blow
2. power attack
3. cleave
4. imp crit
5. THF
6. iTHF
7. gTHF

or

1. stunning blow
2. power attack
3. cleave
4. imp crit
5. ---
6. ---
7. ---

i don't take thf feats as I move too around too much to befit from them.

[MrWizard]

have not played a barb in years, but on one of my fighters I took Improved trip ( you do not need ) and stun at first and 2nd level...it was a blast the whole way.

I think the barb will get that extra strength boost to make a good DC as you level...definitely nice to stun stuff..

However...depends on how you level. If you just milk one quest over and over and the like, you might never use it. And stuns are useless on raid bosses. IN that case I would wait til last if you plan on doing epics.

if you like to do a lot of quests and grab a lot of aggro, I would suggest it as completely awesome, as early as possible.

[Asketes]

i love imp trip on my fighter.. i thought about it on my barb, but didn't do it.

[Memnir]

I think that dwarf gets enhancements that will help it also...though it could only be trip I'm thinking of

Both Dwarves and Warforged get a racial Tactics line that improve all combat feats: Stunning Blow, Trip, Sunder, and so on - all at once. Fighters have separate and stackable enhancements to each one individually.

Stunning Blow can be a lot of fun on a Barb.

[Asketes]

Both Dwarves and Warforged get a racial Tactics line that improve all combat feats: Stunning Blow, Trip, Sunder, and so on - all at once. Fighters have separate and stackable enhancements to each one individually.

Stunning Blow can be a lot of fun on a Barb.

yup

[Mark_G]

I absolutely LOVE having Stunning Blow on my melee types. I try to get it as early as possible and then watch the carnage. As mentioned before, stunned opponents are auto-crits for subsequent attacks.

[PurpleTimb]

knowing what feats you have already taken would be highly useful.

I've been generally following Shade's THF Barb advice, so the feats I have so far are:
1 THF
3 Power Attack
6 Cleave
9 ITHF

By his build plan I'd take IC:Slash next.

I appreciate the comments so far. My only experience with Stunning Blow so far has been with my rogue acrobat, and it's about as impressive as you would expect on a 14 strength character.

[Asketes]

I've been generally following Shade's THF Barb advice, so the feats I have so far are:
1 THF
3 Power Attack
6 Cleave
9 ITHF

By his build plan I'd take IC:Slash next.

well it's totally up to you. IF you move around constantly while fighting, you really should not be taking those THF feats. if you are more stationary then you are gaining a little bit of DPS from them and they benefit you

I appreciate the comments so far. My only experience with Stunning Blow so far has been with my rogue acrobat, and it's about as impressive as you would expect on a 14 strength character.

sounds like you should probably remove the feat. I know everything rolls a 1 eventually but maybe another toughness would be better suited for you?

either way, stunning blow on a high strength toon is fun

[PurpleTimb]

... stuns are useless on raid bosses. ...

Besides red-named, what other monsters that are immune to stuns?

[toughguyjoe]

Besides red-named, what other monsters that are immune to stuns?

Undead, Constructs, Oozes, Elementals.

Note that Stunning +X weapons are currently buggy and sometimes hit ANY monster with the percent chance proc effect they possess, but those weapons do not allow stunning blow to work on monsters normally immune.

[t0r012]

Besides red-named, what other monsters that are immune to stuns?

Undead, elementals , oozes and constructs

[Teech]

well it's totally up to you. IF you move around constantly while fighting, you really should not be taking those THF feats. if you are more stationary then you are gaining a little bit of DPS from them and they benefit you

Hmm. That's interesting. I had always thought the THF line feats as kinda necessary for any Barbarian. Is there anywhere I can go to to obtain further insights on what a barbarian would lose by not taking those feats?

For eg. Most barbarians seem to take the following feats:
THF, iTHF, gTHF, PA, Cleave, IC:Slash
and then are stuck on choosing between Toughness & Stunning Blow.

Would it make more sense to just drop gTHF, and take both toughness and stunning blow?

[PurpleTimb]

well it's totally up to you. IF you move around constantly while fighting, you really should not be taking those THF feats. if you are more stationary then you are gaining a little bit of DPS from them and they benefit you

I hadn't responded to the 'don't take THF if you move' comment because I wanted to do more research, but my gut feeling is to disagree. If you're running around so much that you're never getting glancing blows then I think you're hurting your DPS. That's okay if that's a conscious decision to do so, but I wouldn't recommend to someone that they try to emulate this as a play style because you're just giving up way to much damage.

I'm by no means an expert, so I'm interested to hear the opinion of others with more experience than I.

[PurpleTimb]

Note that Stunning +X weapons are currently buggy and sometimes hit ANY monster with the percent chance proc effect they possess, but those weapons do not allow stunning blow to work on monsters normally immune.

Ahhh... I wondered about that. My acrobat uses a holy of stunning staff against undead, and I've seen lots of dazed skeletons and wraiths.

[Mister_Peace]

Undead, Constructs, Oozes, Elementals

and Plants.

[Asketes]

I hadn't responded to the 'don't take THF if you move' comment because I wanted to do more research, but my gut feeling is to disagree. If you're running around so much that you're never getting glancing blows then I think you're hurting your DPS. That's okay if that's a conscious decision to do so, but I wouldn't recommend to someone that they try to emulate this as a play style because you're just giving up way to much damage.) you hemorrhage damage if you do not play it properly, you are very correct.

I'm by no means an expert, so I'm interested to hear the opinion of others with more experience than I.

I constantly am running around to mobs to stun and the backsides of them such. I generally kill mobs quick enough that I don't have to stop moving. At the higher levels I move less often, but enough that my glancing blow procs don't go off enough to make it worthwhile to stay in one spot for longer than I have to.

Ie: I bounce around to a caster, trip it and move to another caster healer, stun it and circle around it while I'm beating on it. Then I'll go back to the tripped mob and beat on that..once that's dead i'll trip something else then go stun something else.. I don't get hit by as many AOE's it seems.

it's DEFINITELY a playstyle that I make work for me. My dps doesn't suffer by it. It's more of a FPS than MMO/RPG way to play your character though.

People don't complain about what I can deliver to the party, but it's by no means the best way to play this particular game. It's just what I like

[Trillea]

I constantly am running around to mobs to stun and the backsides of them such. I generally kill mobs quick enough that I don't have to stop moving. At the higher levels I move less often, but enough that my glancing blow procs don't go off enough to make it worthwhile to stay in one spot for longer than I have to.

Ie: I bounce around to a caster, trip it and move to another caster healer, stun it and circle around it while I'm beating on it. Then I'll go back to the tripped mob and beat on that..once that's dead i'll trip something else then go stun something else.. I don't get hit by as many AOE's it seems.

it's DEFINITELY a playstyle that I make work for me. My dps doesn't suffer by it. It's more of a FPS than MMO/RPG way to play your character though.

People don't complain about what I can deliver to the party, but it's by no means the best way to play this particular game. It's just what I like

This playstyle is great and fun, but gets almost zero DPS from the THF feats like was stated earlier. They would probably be better spent on other feats like stunning blow and sap. Trip one, stun next, sap 3rd, run back to 1st and beat down in order. Sounds like it's right down your alley...