Kensai AA or Barb AA?

[The_Mud_Man]

Trying to decide on which AA to go with. Could I get a quick rundown of pros and cons of each?

Also, wanting to do drow or maybe horc, most likely drow. What I gather I gain a few points of str with horc, but get racial bonuses to rapiers and shortswords with drow. Which favors better?

[Yajerman01]

Barb is possible but by going Kensai you have plenty of feats, more importantly you can obtain precise shot which makes the whole AA experience worth while. Barb simply does not have enough feats to spread across barb/melee/other activity and range activity.

[zavozod]

Elf Whirling steel strike, Kensai II - Long sword, Zen Monster is what I have and play.
you may like it or not. I like to use blades 80% of the time. You could go Kensai Longbow... And tweek feats a lil bit and make it yours.

http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php...ighlight=onaka

[The_Mud_Man]

After thinking about it some more and looking over kensai enhancements, i'm leaning more towards it. I know barb brings rage, dr, and hp but less feats as stated.

How terrible would drow be as an AA? How bout dwarf?

[karl_k0ch]

How terrible would drow be as an AA? How bout dwarf?

Only possible with at least 18 ranger levels. Both races will give no racial benefit to using Bows. So I'd say quite terrible, but not totally terrible.

[jandhaer]

Since they got rid of the feat... what was it crit rage or something sounds right in my head lol ... they lost alot of what made them kick butt. Feat starved and losing ALOT of DPS since you almost assuredly wont be able to fit in improved precise shot and thats where an AA picks up ALOT of their xtra DPS by hitting everything between themselves and the target they're shooting at. Bowbarian will do respectable damage but only against 1 target which will always make them inferior imho to any other AA nowadays. Now we can just wait till the wall of replies from people hating on AA's in general LET THE TROLLING BEGIN lol.

[The_Mud_Man]

What kind of split would an AA take as fighter/ranger?

I know elf is the race to go as an AA(or human from builds I've seen), but I like going off the beaten path at times. If nothing else, just to be different or explore different things. Granted I could get a few levels in and think it's the most gimped thing ever....

Besides elf/helf and human, what are other good races for the class split?

[The_Mud_Man]

Only possible with at least 18 ranger levels. Both races will give no racial benefit to using Bows. So I'd say quite terrible, but not totally terrible.

Might as well just do 18rgr/2rog then.

[jandhaer]

Remember the restrictions with AA. If your not an elfish race your gonna have to be almost entirely ranger to get all the abilities that without em make an AA useless. But besides that any race can work dwarfof wf can get you more hp (always a good thing) Horc can have the highest STR (good for bow strength feat) etc up to you really.

[Pwesiela]

Fighter or ranger. There is no bowbarian. If you're going the fighter route, go 18 fighter.

[Cetus]

a fighter AA will obliterate a barb AA to pieces...there isn't even a comparison. The feats are just not there on a barb, haste boost 4 compounded with many shot is ungodly damage. Improved thread range, better to-hit, and the ability to incorporate UMD and imbue your arrows using your mana is much more antagonistic with barb rages inhibiting spellcasting. I'm actually not even sure if the frenzy damage is applicable to ranged weapons.

[The_Mud_Man]

Fighter or ranger. There is no bowbarian. If you're going the fighter route, go 18 fighter.

Really? Tell that to all the people who's posted "bowbarian" builds on the forums....unless you're referring to a change that I'm not aware of.


(not trying to come off as a smartass.....comes naturally sometimes I guess. I'm not aware of any changes that would make those builds totally obsolete.)

[The_Mud_Man]

Well, I guess I'll have to roll an elf or helf to be able to get better kensai and other fighter bonuses along with AA. Don't elves get a racial AA enhancement?

[jandhaer]

Those builds are OLD and outdated bowbarian used to be AMAZING single target damage but they got rid of the feat rage crit which made this possible . Now they get blown away by pretty muych ANY even just mediocre AA build.

[jandhaer]

No frenzy damage does not apply to ranged weapons

[Bodic]

13 rogue/6 ranger/1monk
helf bow assassin w/ a radII longbow.

Is what I have been thinking of making.

[Glenalth]

Really? Tell that to all the people who's posted "bowbarian" builds on the forums....unless you're referring to a change that I'm not aware of.


(not trying to come off as a smartass.....comes naturally sometimes I guess. I'm not aware of any changes that would make those builds totally obsolete.)

Due to lack of feats you cannot do FB III and still have the full ranged feat set. You wind up with only single target damage or no Manyshot, neither of which are a good idea for an archer. FBII can work, but you loose out on the best of the FB stuff.

[stille_nacht]

bowbarian is much weaker than a kensai AA.
simply put, frenzy damage does not affect bows, haste boosts do
barbarians have barely any extra feats, fighters have plenty

barbarian just doesnt give enough flexibility to squeeze in that whole Arcane archer thing. i mean you could make a character for flavor and function pretty well, but you wouldnt be doing as much damage as a kensai AA.

[The_Mud_Man]

Alrighty. What kind of split should I go with? When should I take ranger and fighter?

[lethargos]

If you want see big crit numbers you could try out 12monk/6ranger/2 fig. Go with earth stance for big crits and zen archery.