Feedback: Barbarian 101 (Work-in-Progress)

[PNellesen]

Dwarf will be our racial choice for the +2 Constitution (CON) and various defensive bonuses.

• 12) Two Handed Fighting (human bonus feat): Increases the damage of glancing blow attacks when wielding a two-handed weapon by 10%. Also grants a 3% chance for weapon effects to trigger on glancing blows. A glancing blow is a free, additional attack that only two-handed weapons are capable of doing.

If someone already pointed out the discrepancy there (No human bonus feat if Dwarf?), or if it's just a typo from copying, my apologies.

[xMalix]

A good dwarven barb starting out if you asked me would have 18 str and 18 con. The extra hp helps out alot. Of course this is with a 28 point build. Since hp is the only real defence of a barb. I only see dex being useful to a barb. If it had evasion. Other wise you might as well pump those points into wisdom. Since a barb gains wisdom when they rage. Increasing the will saves. Con out ways the wisdom as well. Because con increases the time a barb is raged. As well as the hit points of a barb.

I would not tell a dwarven barb to use a great sword I will tell them to go after an axe first. Then get a blunt 2 handed weapon. A good low level weapon is a adamant great axe with true chaos of pure good. Great dr breaker, and it deals out 1d12+str+1d6chaos+1d6good crits on a 20 with x3 crit. At level 4 I belive thats around 100 damage per crit. Also thats doing one hit kills on kobolds in waterworks. Wile being useful as well when fighting golems.

Aliment wise I would go with chaotic good first and for most. Nuetral good is a nice move as well. Also chaotic nuetral is a wise choose. Aliments I would stay away from are true nuetral.

Skill wise a barb should use jump to help them jump over traps, lake, and anything else in the way. Balance is a great skill and I wonder why it is not a prime skill for a barb?

I do not feel that umd is a good move for a barb. Most of the time a barb is raged and they can only drink potions. I tend to use 4 differnt types of potions. These are cure serious wounds potions, rage potions, and remove curse potions. All but the remove curse potions can be drank wile being barbarian raged. Guild store bought remove curse potions how ever can be dranked wile being raged.

[sirgog]

A good dwarven barb starting out if you asked me would have 18 str and 18 con. The extra hp helps out alot. Of course this is with a 28 point build. Since hp is the only real defence of a barb. I only see dex being useful to a barb. If it had evasion. Other wise you might as well pump those points into wisdom. Since a barb gains wisdom when they rage. Increasing the will saves. Con out ways the wisdom as well. Because con increases the time a barb is raged. As well as the hit points of a barb.

Wisdom is irrelevant - you can become immune via buffs to almost every Will save endgame. The only really nasty Will saves at or near end game are the Shroud Gnoll (who dispels you) and the various Mind Flayers in the newer chains, especially Yalthoon. Not important fights.

The difference between a 14 Dex and an 8 Dex is 3 to Reflex saves. On an endgame barbarian, this is often the difference between failing important saves on a 2 or 3, and failing them on a 5 or 6. (Remember Dwarves have pretty solid saves from Spell Defense).

If you fail on a 6, suffering two DBFs from Abashai in eChrono will do over 400 damage to you a fair percentage of the time (~5%). Taking 400 damage basically out of nowhere can often kill you.

If you fail on a 3, it's closer to a 2% chance that you'll drop from 400 to 0 before a healer can react in that situation.


For that reason, at present endgame I think +6 Dex is superior to +2 Con. This might or might not change in future - in the Update 1 endgame, for instance, I'd have recommended the extra Con instead.

[sweez]

I do not feel that umd is a good move for a barb. Most of the time a barb is raged and they can only drink potions. I tend to use 4 differnt types of potions.

UMD on a barb is mostly not for scrolls, but for beating the UMD reqs for various weapons (see: Chaosblade). There really isn't much else you should spend skill points on, your jump will be naturally high because of your high str, maybe balance and intimi now that it gives additional hate... I'd still take UMD over those two.

[xMalix]

Your not going to see very many dwarven barbs using chaos blades, sweez. Also youll need 17 dex to use 2 of them. But you could see someone using 1 chaos blade but then again you will see that rarely. When a barb is forced to tank a raid boss. Even still theyre going to use hate from damage with an greataxe. So again I do not see the value of umd on a barb.

Your intim will be only good for pulling mobs off of casters, and archers. Since your cha will be very low. Six as a matter of a fact.

Ok wisdom is pointless, sirgog. Your talking about a save that the barb will only take half damage on. Thats still a good 200 odd damage. Why not just tell them to have 2 rogue for the evasion. Thats what I did for the past 3 lives. Im sitting on a save of 21 reflex. It works. You loose a little dps and that turns off alot of people.

Even still how often are you going to see a new player get to epic diff? I hope you see how rare bolth of your arguements are.

[TheHolyDarkness]

UMD on a barb is mostly not for scrolls, but for beating the UMD reqs for various weapons (see: Chaosblade).

Here's a crazy idea.

Instead of investing in UMD, just align yourself as chaotic. Problem solved.

Or what? Were you planning on wielding your Chaosblade along with an Enduring Conviction or something? :P

Enough pushing UMD. Its just not worth it.*

On topic, let us continue the discussion on reflex saves. I still say that specific mention of Uncanny Dodge is called for within the 101 Guide.

~TheHolyDarkness Out~
*You want it, fine. Don't expect to convince the rest of us though.

[dingal]

UMD on a barb is mostly not for scrolls, but for beating the UMD reqs for various weapons (see: Chaosblade). There really isn't much else you should spend skill points on, your jump will be naturally high because of your high str, maybe balance and intimi now that it gives additional hate... I'd still take UMD over those two.

Not worth the investment in points. Better spent on intim.

[Talias006]

I've updated the original post with the new dwarf THF template. Please feel free to continue feedback, as this is still a work-in-progress.

So, since you're changing the template to Dwarf, can you drop the human tag in the initial paragraph?
It's still saying 'human' just before it delves into the crafting of a 'Dwarf' THF Barb.

[TheDjinnFor]

Has this not been posted by FordyTwo yet? Still waiting for some more feedback/discussion?

[FordyTwo]

Has this not been posted by FordyTwo yet? Still waiting for some more feedback/discussion?

After feedback and edit passes we have to localize the guides, so there's a delay between now and publish dates.

[sirgog]

" • 18) Greater Two Handed Fighting: Increases the damage of glancing blow attacks when wielding a two-handed weapon by another 10% on top of the previous Two Handed Fighting feats. Also increases the chance for weapon effects to trigger on glancing blows by an additional 3%. At this point, your barbarian will have a 50% total chance to produce glancing blows (the base is 20%).Optionally, grab Stunning Blow at level 1 (but remember you'll lose the extra Toughness enhancement line):"

- GTWF doesn't quite do exactly that.

Glancing blows occur on 50% of attacks when you are not moving, and they do 20% of your base damage. So if you swing an axe for 80 damage plus 12 fire damage, half the time you get a bonus 16 damage. This 'bonus' damage hits whatever you were swinging at, and also other monsters that might be in the way, and cannot critical hit.

Combined, the three THF feats upgrade this to hit for 50% of base damage, on 75% of attacks while you aren't moving. In other words, if you swing for 80 + 12 fire damage, three-quarters of your attacks will do 40 extra damage to the monster you are swinging at and also everything else that's next to it. (Some will also do fire damage too).


Edited after Shade's post - it's not probabalistic, it's based on specific attacks in your attack chain.

[Shade]

" • 18) Greater Two Handed Fighting: Increases the damage of glancing blow attacks when wielding a two-handed weapon by another 10% on top of the previous Two Handed Fighting feats. Also increases the chance for weapon effects to trigger on glancing blows by an additional 3%. At this point, your barbarian will have a 50% total chance to produce glancing blows (the base is 20%).Optionally, grab Stunning Blow at level 1 (but remember you'll lose the extra Toughness enhancement line):"

- GTWF doesn't quite do exactly that.

Base chance to have a glancing blow occur is (IIRC) 50%, and they do 20% of your base damage. So if you swing an axe for 80 damage plus 12 fire damage, you have a 50% chance to get a bonus 16 damage. This 'bonus' damage hits whatever you were swinging at, and also other monsters that might be in the way.

These 'bonus' glancing blows can't be critical hits.

Combined, the three TWF feats upgrade this to a 75% chance to hit for 50% of base damage. A 75% chance, in other words, to do 40 damage to the monster you are swinging at and also everything else that's next to it.

um yea his description is wrong. The official description is wrong.. And yours is VERY wrong heh.

I have kept the official player wiki up to date on this feat as it seems like the best place for it, since its somewhat complex how it works:
http://ddowiki.com/page/Greater_Two_Handed_Fighting

[TheDjinnFor]

And yours is VERY wrong heh.

The only thing wrong with what he said is that the attacks where glancing blows proc are predetermined rather than random, but otherwise the exact percentages are identical; either way, glancing blows occur on 75% of your swings while standing.

FordyTwo, be sure to note my updated definition of GTHF, above.

I remember I had changes to offer to your original feat list but I forgot to include them. Here they are:

[karl_k0ch]

After feedback and edit passes we have to localize the guides, so there's a delay between now and publish dates.

Didn't read it fully yet, but here are some initial remarks on the German localization:

• Why is the enumeration 1-15, and not as in the english version 1-8 with 5.1-5.4? It looks bad, this way.
• You might want to recheck the Feat list. Humans dont get a bonus feat at level 12.
• Why is the active/passive/toggle part always translated in a different way? It's silly that every 101 has the very same paragraph, and it's called differently every time.

[brzytki]

Ummm, am I too late with my "grab an axe and rush to mobs" advice? :P

EDIT: I'm sorry, but I couldn't resist that one.