Reincarnation for Overwhelming Crit?

[SylvanPhoenix]

I'd like some advice on my pure dps horc barbarian. With the epic levels, I'm eyeing if I should redesign my build for overwhelming crit and if so how drastic. Right now my feats are as follows:

1 - Two-Handed Fighting
3 - Power Attack
6 - Cleave
9 - Improved Two Handed Fighting
12 - Improved Critical: Slashing
15 - Greater Two Handed Fighting
18 - Toughness

For enhancements I have the capstone as well as frenzied barbarian. He's a 32 pt build with 20 Str and 16 Con (37 str, 26 con unbuffed).

To get Overwhelming Crit at 21, I'd need to drop two feats to add in Great Cleave and Weapon Focus. One thought is to drop both ITHF and GTHF. What I don't understand is how much my glancing blows add up. My understanding is that they'd drop from 50% to 30% damage and I lose the 3rd glancing blow (3 of 4). How would that compare to my overall DPS with the addition of Overwhelming crit?

I could drop toughness (losing 60 hit points) and take Great Cleave at 21 and Overwhelming Crit at 24. However, as this toon has no past lives I don't have a ton of hit points, 597 base (no buffs/rage), so losing the toughness would knock me back to 537 base.

The other option is to lesser reincarnate with a lesser heart of wood +3 and add 2 levels of fighter. I would keep all my current feats and add the two news ones. I'd lose my barbarian capstone though so I'm not sure if that's worth it to gain Overwhelming Crit.

Of course, I could just not change anything and go for epic toughness to get my hit points up much more or stunning blow to have another melee tactic.

One thing that I don't have a good handle on is how often in epic content I'll have heavily forted enemies. In those cases will I have any reasonable chance to crit? Or is it pretty much that the focus on critical damage is for non-bosses?

As you might guess from my build I don't use any of the special melee attacks like sunder, trip, stunning blow, etc. I pretty much focus purely on DPS and soaking damage. I'm a newer player and this is my only toon so I'm not sure if I should use this opportunity to retool my toon to include those sorts of abilities or if I should stay the course on pure melee dps and hit points.

Anyway, I threw out a lot of questions on this. I really appreciate shedding light on how all these options play out so I can make the best choices on my toon's build.

Cheers,
Sylvan

[Custard]

Take the lesser reincarnation to add 2 fighter levels.
THF
Power Attack
Cleave
Stunning Blow -- this feat is worth every penny. Why soak up damage when you can mitigate it by rendering your opponent helpless as you strike him with full damage?
Improved Critical Slashing
Great Cleave
ITHF
GTHF
Toughness
@21 - Weapon Focus: Slashing
@24 - Overwhelming Critical

Not using your tactical feats is a bad idea. Whenever you can stop a mob in it's tracks, it benefits everyone in the party. When I jump into a fight, it's Stun-Trip-(Cleave/Greater Cleave)-Start swinging. By the time you get to swinging, it's already nearly dead while you've taken little damage.

However, my real suggestion would be to TR into an 18/2. Take the Barbarian PL feat instead of toughness and still have the toughness enhancements and extra HP from the passive given PL feat. …+2 extra point to play with at the beginning.

[unbongwah]

Since I like the tactics feats, what I'm considering for a pure barb: Power Atk, Stunning Blow, Cleave, Imp Crit Slash, Imp Sunder, Great Cleave, WF Slash, Overwhelming Crit, plus one more epic feat (maybe Precision or Toughness).

Time to re-learn twitching, I guess. Everything old is new again...

BTW, does anyone know if Epic Toughness qualifies for the Toughness enhs?

[RabidApathy]

BTW, does anyone know if Epic Toughness qualifies for the Toughness enhs?

Toughness is a prerequisite for Epic Toughness, so sadly this substitution is not an option.

[SylvanPhoenix]

Just a quick reply on this. I haven't done anything but I did add stunning blow at 21 to see how it fits into my play style. This is my only toon so I don't have a handle on other play styles. I am leaning more on staying pure and dropping ITHF/GTHF and trying the 3 cleave cycle when in mobs. This would let me keep toughness, get overwhelming crit and still add in stunning blow or improved sunder at 24 if I feel I need that. I might also find that with the Fury of the Wild destiny that toughness isn't as critical and I might want both stunning blow and improved sunder in that case.

I still have my free LR to use so once I get a bit more time under my belt I'll make the changes.

Cheers,
Sylvan