Real differences between Barb and Fighter

[Cetus]

So while I can admit his character has superor single target dps for sure, I can't say that fighters in general do. As he is the exception to the rule ,and not the norm. Not exactly a lot of 100% Maxxed TR completionist fighters running around.

Take into account the lead he has on me in gear and TR (Me being just a standard legen build with pl ftr/bbn, him being a completionist):
He has 100% maxxed tr bonuses:
+3 monk pl
+3 pally pl (buff ran for the duration of the test) Yet another perk to being a fighter, put a pally past life on your barb, you'll have to give up either stunning blow a ****load of hp by dropping toughness or reduce your glancing blow damage by dropping GTHF, nothing else you can do
completionist even for +2 str. 1.5 dmg
Gear differences:
Both have:
ESoS, E-marilith, Eclaw Set
He has: Epic abisha set (3 str = 4 dmg)
Tomes: dunno. I only have +2, he might have 3 or 4 I only had a +2 str tome when I recorded, +4 now since then

He also broke the rules of the challenge and had a bard buff him with extended rage. I forget to drink a rage pot. Another 1.5 dmg
Even tho he cheated I allowed the entry just to be nice. Don't feed that anyone that ****, you said in the OP that you would like to resemble more realistic DPS scenarios by not allowing haste boosting before the first swing, well, being always raged is as realisticas it gets

Add all those up and your looking at a ~13 damage lead.
Had I those on my attempt, I could of easily made up most if not all of the 12.5% difference.

Anyways while I have no plan to do such an insane amount of TR'ing, I will have the epic abisha set soon (just 2 scrolls off), and should be able to post a better score soon. You realize that your hits/swings ratio is higher than mine in the videos because I had a hell of a time coping with my fraps-induced lag as you saw yourself in my video, not to mention that I was wearing a crusty at the time versus the FAR superior ravager

And thats single target, he gets absolutely zero AOE damage as he twitches. Add in a single extra target and some supreme cleave, and fighters are no where near barbarians obviously. In any given epic/endgame quest, single target dps is simply not whats the main issue, DDO is designed around fighting multiple monsters.lol, thats a rediculous statement, all of your AOE damage goes out the window with casters and the rest of your party eating up all the trash, your supreme cleaves are simply insignificant- and if you run with casters that have anything going for them, its a simple fact in today's DDO.

Comments in red

[Talltale-Storyteller]

epic trash mobs say no.

Trash is for casters. Melee DPS counts the most when its on a dangerous enemy that can not be CC'ed in any way what-so-ever or insta-killed.

Truthfully, the haste boosts and power surges last long enough as long as you are not wasteful with them. Yeah they may not last the entire duration of the quest, but they don't need to, they just need to last long enough for the difficult encounters.

[Cetus]

Trash is for casters. Melee DPS counts the most when its on a dangerous enemy that can not be CC'ed in any way what-so-ever or insta-killed.

Truthfully, the haste boosts and power surges last long enough as long as you are not wasteful with them. Yeah they may not last the entire duration of the quest, but they don't need to, they just need to last long enough for the difficult encounters.

That pretty much hits the nail on the head, part of playing a fighter well is knownig how to make the haste boosts count. Pacing yourself throughout the quest instead of using that method of "I STAND HERE AND PRESS THIS BUTTON OVER AND OVER AGAIN;" which really requires zero skill and a fulltime healer to prevent you from killing yourself.

[Kinerd]

Far all this stupid DPS talk goes... Talk is dumb, go read my DPS challenge and post an entry, it shows the truth.
Durnak posted a time 20 seconds faster then my time. Or 12.5% difference.

So while I can admit his character has superor single target dps for sure, I can't say that fighters in general do. As he is the exception to the rule ,and not the norm. Not exactly a lot of 100% Maxxed TR completionist fighters running around.

Nothing about your DPS challenge has anything to do with classes in general. By design, it only has anything to do with specific characters. It could no more give information about fighter vs. barb or THF vs. TWF than it could about Kramer vs. Kramer.

[Chazzie]

I would like to add a couple of copper about Barbs

When I first started DDO I was told to roll a haggle Bard. So you can buy Potions Cheaper & pass them to your Barb. Always have pots on hand,cs,bark,haste,curse,poison,disease,Hero,& all elements.

Your going to be a pot chugging monster~but it takes some practice and learning of timing in different party make ups (How many party mems,what kinds of players),at High levels you should carry the same pots just for back up with a good party and tip your cleric for heals ,I hand out scrolls also just in case.

[Shade]

lol, thats a rediculous statement, all of your AOE damage goes out the window with casters and the rest of your party eating up all the trash, your supreme cleaves are simply insignificant- and if you run with casters that have anything going for them, its a simple fact in today's DDO.

Might have been pre 9.1..

But now serious AOE dps is well within the realm of possibility for barbarians. I'll post up a video demonstrating soon.

And gota laungh at this reply..

Whats best fighter or barb:
Barb fan: Barb
Fighter fan: both suck, play a caster.

lol.

When I run quests. I kill the monsters. It's the barbarian way.

[Talltale-Storyteller]

Whats best fighter or barb:
Barb fan: Barb
Fighter fan: both suck, play a caster.

More like the fighter fan doesn't worry about taking out the trash, he's there to kill the big bad guy.

[Shade]

More like the fighter fan doesn't worry about taking out the trash, he's there to kill the big bad guy.

Souunds extremely boring to me.

He's said it himself many times "bosses die fast before my haste boost run out"

Yet quests rarely end so fast.
How much fun is only playing the game for 10-20% of the tiem and piking the other 90%?

Sounds really boring to me.

I kill everything. Every mob dead faster is 1 step closer to the endfight faster, or an epic scroll.

So its more like
"I cant compete on trash anymore, so my opinion will change to support my favourite classes only purpose"
Which is certain admirable.

Btw the arguemetn is pretty flawed anyways, most challenging mob fights have trash.. And in my groups usually melee handle em at least to some degree.
ToD: Even when im tanking horoth, i get the odd orthon kill, some cleaves speed that up.
Abbot: Quells around the abbot messing with my healers are no good, they need to die fast.
Sorjeks: Numerous mephits
VoD: Trash is almost continously around suulo, cleave and glancing blows really do well here.
Velah: Here's a fight where casters are often very good vs the trash.. But sometimes in pugs I get really poor caster, so I handle the trash. Why not kill em nearly twice as fast with supreme cleave.
could go on.

The point is, this isn't a single target game. Your fooling yourself if you try say otherwise.

[SetofBs]

I have played a fighter up to level 13. He's well built and well geared for a first lifer. I have to say, he is pretty poor at anything but DPSing high HP targets (relative to a more well rounded melee, such as a light monk). A monk can move faster, take out trash better, be more self sufficient, solo better without a hireling than a fighter can with a hireling, the list goes on. Do people really play fighters just so they can DPS down bosses?

I like melees though, so I am considering rolling up a barb instead. Please tell me raging and cleaving will make me feel useful in exchange for not being very self sufficient?

[Chai]

That pretty much hits the nail on the head, part of playing a fighter well is knownig how to make the haste boosts count. Pacing yourself throughout the quest instead of using that method of "I STAND HERE AND PRESS THIS BUTTON OVER AND OVER AGAIN;" which really requires zero skill and a fulltime healer to prevent you from killing yourself.

Right, but when you talk to the spreadsheet gamers about this, they tout that theres no quest or zone where you run out of haste boosts. I see it happen all the time, or else I see periods when they arent being used. Meanwhile 10 rages at 4+ minutes a pop + limitless frenzy keeps delivering.

Remember here, before telling me how insignificant this timeframe comparison is, that we are talking about people who take quickdraw because the split second of time they save between the time they hit their boost and the time they start swinging again. When comparing this to haste boosts 20 out of every 30 seconds, then waiting a bit before using the next one -vs- blowing them all one after the other, its like comparing the size of a super ball to the size of the moon when quantifying amounts of time.

Then, in the warlock zobrian test, another factor that needs to be specifically accounted for is the ~14 or so less str a fighter has over a barbarian in the same gear = getting knocked down more. I cant count how many times I go into that one on my barbarian, the giant stomps, and im the only one left standing swinging away.

Casters? Aint waiting for one. If I get one, great. If not, we roll with what we got. I tell the casters not to blow their mana on the trash unless they shrine before the boss fight. Let barbs supreme cleave all this trash, and they can single target DOT and nuke the gonads off the boss mob. Put that crazy high end DPS where it counts, on mobs with HUGE HP TOTALS.

Of course, no one I roll with cares about kill counts - its more about speed and resource conservation. If melee have to hit boosts and stay nailed to the floor to deliver single target DPS, more resources just got spent. Coupla 3kHP trash mobs surround me? Each one is taking huge damage, not one taking huge damage while the other 4 tee off on the source.

[Daggertooth]

Due to supreme cleave improvements, barbarians (THF) have MASSIVELY higher aoe dps then a fighter could ever hope for. Supreme cleave is that good, as well as there generally superior glancing blow damage.

.

This is actually a bit of an oversimplification. There are actually TWO classifications of barbs:

They can be classified using the kill count:

First you have the complete noobs who my fighter will outkill EXPONENTIALLY. These are usually priceless runs where no one says anything but you can see how baffled everyone is wondering how my fighter ended up with TEN TIMES as many kills as the half orc barb in the group.

Then you have the second group, these are the authoritive type barbs who think they know what they are doing, they come on the forums w/ grand sweeping statements using words like 'MASSIVELY" etc. These can be identified in group by getting ONE HALF to ONE THIRD the number of kills that my fighter gets. These will usually leave group quickly hoping that no one noticed or looked at the kill count seeing that they are usally in the big guilds who are expected to know what they are doing etc, and or be forum geniuses.

[Cetus]

Right, but when you talk to the spreadsheet gamers about this, they tout that theres no quest or zone where you run out of haste boosts. I see it happen all the time, or else I see periods when they arent being used. Meanwhile 10 rages at 4+ minutes a pop + limitless frenzy keeps delivering.

Remember here, before telling me how insignificant this timeframe comparison is, that we are talking about people who take quickdraw because the split second of time they save between the time they hit their boost and the time they start swinging again. When comparing this to haste boosts 20 out of every 30 seconds, then waiting a bit before using the next one -vs- blowing them all one after the other, its like comparing the size of a super ball to the size of the moon when quantifying amounts of time.

Then, in the warlock zobrian test, another factor that needs to be specifically accounted for is the ~14 or so less str a fighter has over a barbarian in the same gear = getting knocked down more. I cant count how many times I go into that one on my barbarian, the giant stomps, and im the only one left standing swinging away.

Casters? Aint waiting for one. If I get one, great. If not, we roll with what we got. I tell the casters not to blow their mana on the trash unless they shrine before the boss fight. Let barbs supreme cleave all this trash, and they can single target DOT and nuke the gonads off the boss mob. Put that crazy high end DPS where it counts, on mobs with HUGE HP TOTALS.

Of course, no one I roll with cares about kill counts - its more about speed and resource conservation. If melee have to hit boosts and stay nailed to the floor to deliver single target DPS, more resources just got spent. Coupla 3kHP trash mobs surround me? Each one is taking huge damage, not one taking huge damage while the other 4 tee off on the source.

I agree with your assessment, however the reason for taking quickdraw is to allow you to achive a higher swingrate while ripping through as many boosts as you can on a single target predominantly, I personally find it much more important to tear down the abishai devastator than the spawned devils if you know what I mean.

The feat is not useful for cleaning up trash, which goes without saying. Understand also, that there are no encounters in today's end game that aren't blazed through til the next shrine- so haste boosts "running out" is a myth if you know what you're doing- I guarantee you that I don't remember the last time I have EVER ran out of haste boosts, even while tanking elite horoth.

I am not that ignorant to overlook the fact that barbarians will destroy a group of mobs faster than I can hope to compete with. But my argument touches the significance of it, which is debateable. I run a capped 18/2 barbarian as well, and I also do the ol' jumpin in a group of mobs cleaving away, but I never spend more than 10 seconds cleaving because the rest of my group already plowed through em.

I think we've hit the main discrepancy between the classes, the fighter more efficient at tearing down the boss, the barbarians more efficient at taking care of trash. Whether we think one is more important than the other is left to the person behind the keyboard, there's no answer.

[Cetus]

Souunds extremely boring to me.

He's said it himself many times "bosses die fast before my haste boost run out"

Yet quests rarely end so fast. huh? Sure they do...again, you seem to really have a problem with the fighter I run, I really have nothing to hide
How much fun is only playing the game for 10-20% of the tiem and piking the other 90%?This is just mumbling now, piking? come on now, I play the full game, so does the rest of my party, which includes beating and wailing the same trash I do

Sounds really boring to me lol, but hey- denting in one button on your keyboard sounds fun huh?

I kill everything. Every mob dead faster is 1 step closer to the endfight faster, or an epic scroll.

So its more like
"I cant compete on trash anymore, so my opinion will change to support my favourite classes only purpose"
Which is certain admirable. Or its more like, barbs get owned on a single target, so let me stress the importance of AoE dps over single target output; so I can get the barb to seem more useful. Come on now, we all play the same game- this simply isn't true, and even moreso my supposed change in opinion, the way I view dps importance hasn't changed since over a year ago I had this discussion with you. Quit scrambling for excuses.

Btw the arguemetn is pretty flawed anyways, most challenging mob fights have trash.. And in my groups usually melee handle em at least to some degree.
ToD: Even when im tanking horoth, i get the odd orthon kill, some cleaves speed that up. lol, the odd orthon is such a threat- The cleric healing me usually just destructs em quick
Abbot: Quells around the abbot messing with my healers are no good, they need to die fast.Quells aren't bunched up together in packs on the abbot, those die in milliseconds by anybody, forget a fully decked out fighter- cleaves are insignificant here
Sorjeks: Numerous mephits I lol'ed
VoD: Trash is almost continously around suulo, cleave and glancing blows really do well here. sure, orthons- I'll take that, everything else is too insignificant imo- "hey you get to cleave bats"
Velah: Here's a fight where casters are often very good vs the trash.. But sometimes in pugs I get really poor caster, so I handle the trash. Why not kill em nearly twice as fast with supreme cleave.You ran yourself into a corner on this one, if you do anything other than dps velah on a barb you're not helping. Seems like a desparate response to me.
could go on. Please do

The point is, this isn't a single target game. Your fooling yourself if you try say otherwise.Your right it isn't, its also not a single player game either, and I have my dps bring to the table that no other player can- and thats boss damage output. Other players deliver far superior versions of your multi-target offense.

Comments in red...again


Edit: I'd also like to point out that if your a fighter and you are really concerned with aoe dps, pick up cleave and great cleave- they function on separate timers and each have a 5 second cooldown. That alone picks up a good fraction of the so called "aoe slack" if you choose.

[Viisari]

I'd say Shade is overestimating supreme cleave a lot. Sure, it's awesome, especially when not running epics, but in any given epic quest with a good caster you're not going to get too much out of it because everything will be dead before you reach them, and if they're not, they'll be in a second or two when wail is cast to finish what circle of death started. And even if you did do some damage with it, so what, everything was just going to die anyway and all you did was damage yourself.

There are a few exceptions to this, and they're all in desert, but I dunno if two or three quests are enough to make it as awesome as you say.

Or maybe Shade just runs with crappy casters who are only there to buff him.

[Taimasan]

I'd say Shade is overestimating

nuff said, Man the **** up.

[eulogy098]

DPS difference between Barb and Fighter

on single target- Fighter wins by a couple of % as long as he's boosted (Haste and Surge). If hes un-boosted his dps is so low in comparison he may as well be afk. not really an exaggeration.

on multi targets- Barbarian wins by a very dramatic difference, that barb will take out a pack of 6 monsters at least twice as fast as said fighter.



The difference between a theorycrafted 100% of the time boosted Fighter and a Frenzy3 is minimal. The difference between the two on packs of monsters is night and day.

[Shade]

I'd say Shade is overestimating supreme cleave a lot. Sure, it's awesome, especially when not running epics, but in any given epic quest with a good caster you're not going to get too much out of it because everything will be dead before you reach them, and if they're not,

lol.

I run epics spamming it non stop ,and always out kill casters.. If your getting outkilled that badly by all casters, learn to play better, nuff said.

[Cetus]

lol.

I run epics spamming it non stop ,and always out kill casters.. If your getting outkilled that badly by all casters, learn to play better, nuff said.

Play with better casters, 'nuff said?

[Viisari]

Play with better casters, 'nuff said?

Indeed, I can promise you that YOU CANNOT outkill a good caster, in any epic, period.

<edit> Okay, maybe in etides, ebob, eoob and evon3, but that's only because drow have a very, very nasty spell resistance, and even then a sorc could just nuke them before you can kill them.

But the point is, if the caster isn't far ahead of you in kills, then the caster sucks or isn't as geared as you are and this is the reason your lovely supreme cleave is rather useless in epics with a good caster, and single target dps is much more important.

[jejeba86]

The biggest difference?

As I've written before:

If you do not go barb (pure barb, btw) your biceps will not be frequently mistaken for overlarge slabs of ham.

Forget stats, gear, epics, buffs, DR breakers, GS items, Epic gear, TOD sets and all of that. Forget spreadsheets, videos, numbers, twitching, attack speeds, crits and anything like that. Forget it all.

Having your biceps be recognized for the overlarge slabs of ham, is the single most important thing to have, as you play and level up in DDO. Anyone who tells you otherwise is lying to you and trying to deceive you.

It cannot be overstated and overemphasized just how important this is beginning, middle, and end game.

It cannot.

Overlarge slabs of ham.... ftw and profit!!!!

Hey Khanyth!!

Just got to 20 with my barbarian, now I have my biceps recognized as overlarge slabs of ham!!!!