Few Barb Questions

[smithj_2020]

Hey guys been gone for 1 year....uh huh you read that right, missed a lot of updating. Anyways some questions about my all time favorite class ever since p-n-p days.

1 has the barb kind of gone the way of people not really wanting them because Epics they get ripped.
2 Is the Occult slaying barb a better choice then the frenzy path, I see a lot of occult builds in game as oppose to the other.
3 Any real ways to build your barb to be helpful in epics (frenzy barb)
4 Looking for a better gear setup then I have atm.

Here is my guy:
2nd life Dwarf Barb, Chaotic Good align
Stats Standing not raged
str: 40
dex: 18
con: 39
int: 15
wis: 14
cha: 11
hps: 899
saves:43/21/21/23

gear:
minos legens
jorgundals collar (eh)- empty colorless, resis +7 in green slot
woodsmens lens
epic bracers of claw
epic gloves of claw
knosts belt
encrusted ring +2insight str
epic envenomed cloak
DT breastplate - 10%, 20% healing amp, incite 20%
Cleaver hewer of suffering not attuned yet
eSoS as well superior acid and wis 6 runes

I know minos, cloak and DT have to go, what do i replace them with or what is a overall better gear setup.

Also have this in storage:
dream visor (eh)
manacles of ceaseless toil(eh)
25 flawless red dragon scales

[Qhualor]

1. I don't think its so much people don't want to play with them, its more "be self sufficient" and its expected nowadays. as always, barbs are limited to pots and Healing Spring, unless you don't want to rage most of the time and invest in umd and twist in Cocoon.

2. never played OS, but I do have a FB and a Ravager. its my understanding though that OS barbs are more survivable with their saves they can boost through the tree. it seems more of a defensive and enemy caster hating tree.

3. well, a FB is all about kill kill kill and as quickly as possible expending HP, but in epics (mainly EE) a FB might want to use a little more strategy and let others in the group get the agro first. its like they need to play like a rogue but without the icon. my dumb dumb FB barb thinks FOTW is a beautiful thing dealing extremely high damage numbers.

4. lol, your gear set up looks like my barb right now. she is still sporting a lot of that old skool gear. I haven't sat down and planned out her gear set up yet, been working on past lives for my other characters, but I can suggest something that might be in the direction I will go for

Girdle of Giants Brawn
Treads of Falling Shadow
Steady Handed Armbands
Prismatic Cloak
Guardians Gauntlets
Shadowsight
Black Dragon Scale Helm
Necklace of Mystic Eidolons
Consuming Darkness
Skirmishers Ring
Idol of Fortune
Black Dragon Scale Armor

like I said, its a work in progress and might switch a couple things around. if you go the umd route, than obviously would need to swap stuff around to fit in devotion and stuff.

[Scrabbler]

1 has the barb kind of gone the way of people not really wanting them because Epics they get ripped.
2 Is the Occult slaying barb a better choice then the frenzy path, I see a lot of occult builds in game as oppose to the other.
3 Any real ways to build your barb to be helpful in epics (frenzy barb)

1. Barbarians are prevented from taking 2 levels of Paladin and Monk, which help people stay alive. So less popular.
2. I think Occult Slayer is a pretty bad tree, EXCEPT that it has the best Barbarian capstone. The Ravager and Frenzy capstones are very bad. So those builds you see around are probably using a whole lot of Frenzy/Ravager stuff.
3. Get Cleave, Gr Cleave, Supreme Cleave, and become and LD Cleave Machine.

[tralfaz81]

2. I think Occult Slayer is a pretty bad tree, EXCEPT that it has the best Barbarian capstone. The Ravager and Frenzy capstones are very bad. So those builds you see around are probably using a whole lot of Frenzy/Ravager stuff.

Pretty much hit the nail on the head with that. They screwed up barb builds with the enhancement pass so badly that I rage quit for 8 months. They took the existing builds and split them between THREE trees - making you have to open all three to get the most out of a barb - and gave us two absolutely useless capstones in the two best trees.

That said, you've got healing amp in spades, which will help (I'm working on two pal lives right now just for that extra bump).

Since I haven't made it back into epic yet, its untested but my goal this time around is to really push the reflex saves, dodge bonuses and take advantage of ghostly etc... I've been collecting gear to try to balance out offense and defense instead of going pure offense. Some overlap and I haven't had time to test which combos work best but what I'm looking at so far (for lower and mid levels) is -

Drow Smoke Goggles - manslaying and seeker plus blindness immunity will replace the epic ring of stalker if I don't get around to upgrading it to tier 3
Treads of Falling Shadows - speed boost, ghostly and dex boost for reflex saves and dodge cap
Epic cloak of the night - DR, dodge, deathblock all in one
Death's locket - resistance saves and the negative energy absorption

I was using the restored dragon craft leather armor just because I find more options by having fort with the armor and not having to work it into a slot. I haven't looked at any of the new armor yet, so not sure what the options are.

Also been using the ring of shadows through heroic for the blurry effect. AC has always been basically useless to barbs, even more so now with the new trees, so 20% less hits right out of the gate doesn't hurt.

Edit - from what I've read - you pretty much need at least no less than a 30 to 35 reflex save to even have a chance in EE now days - be sure to factor that into your build and gear.

[smithj_2020]

so essentially my gear really isn't all that bad haha. I gather that EE is basically off limits for barbs then barring a really good party or a guild run, unless you can get those saves up there, which being a pure barb you couldn't get reflex and other saves extremely high. I just stick to my hacking and slashing then and use my monk, cleric and FvS for EE i guess wont be nearly as much fun, hopefully they do something to give the barbs some push, cause lets face it you are always in need of a beserking ball of a$$ kickery running wild.

[Qhualor]

so essentially my gear really isn't all that bad haha. I gather that EE is basically off limits for barbs then barring a really good party or a guild run, unless you can get those saves up there, which being a pure barb you couldn't get reflex and other saves extremely high. I just stick to my hacking and slashing then and use my monk, cleric and FvS for EE i guess wont be nearly as much fun, hopefully they do something to give the barbs some push, cause lets face it you are always in need of a beserking ball of a$$ kickery running wild.

the dev Sev said Barbs are on the list, plus there are talks going on with improvements with AC, PRR and a new addition called MRR. yeah, improvements need to come fast because despite the a$$ kickery that barbs can dish out, they are still far behind in defenses and self sufficiency. its pretty obvious too because barbs are not a common class to be see in epics and hopefully Turbine sees how this can affect the way people play and approach the game in its current state.

[Nayus]

You can be EE-viable if you use the Divine Crusader ED, it's around 150 heal every 3 seconds that works under Barb rage + some healing every time you kill a mob. DPS isn't bad, you get 10% bonus to damage for being in sacred ground and +1 to threat along with a few other things.

It's far less damage than Fury of the Wild, of course.

[the_one_dwarfforged]

i dont see ring2, boots, or trinket listed there.

to increase survivability id get a planar prowess trinket (probably ins 3 str) and attune your cleaver. this will give you +4 dmg and 15 prr which means you can lose the vulkoor set in favor of skirmishers bracers (9 dex, 9% double strike which is more dps even if it means you cant wear claw set) and either backstabbers gloves (lots of sneak attack, improved deception which will help you stay alive) or the new iron mitts (8 str, 40 vitality, 30% hamp).

for armor id pick up black dragon scale since it is significantly better than red scale, even the heroic version (fort bypass and 5% dmg buff are way better than 10 seeker).

for rings you can easily get an en consuming darkness (pretty much as effective as ee version, honestly its funny) just by running the storm horns chain on ecasual even, and itll likely be in end reward list. at the same time a 100% drop in the reward list for epic what goes up is a ring with 8str 24 prr and an augment slot.

for goggles id get the best deadly of resistance item you can find.

a good necklace to shoot for would be necklace of mystic eidolons, as it will give you 3-4 insightful dex and con, or you can try to get the storm reaver pendant from fot which has lightning procs for more damage. jorgs collar isnt bad though.

for boots an easy upgrade is orcish privateers boots, they have fom, striding, and a colorless slot which you can put a stat augment in. if you can you might want to get a fort version of goatskin boots and then upgrade your necklace (goatskin has haste effect, not sure about privateer boots).

in your cloak slot id get an air/fire greensteel hp cloak (displacement clicky, perma blur) and an admantine cloak of the wolf. use wolf cloak for more dps, threat reduc, and dodge when needed, gs for perma blur and hp.

if you can slot fort elsewhere or get another item with fort on it (like goatskin boots) then id drop minos and search for a helm that helps you in some way, kind of a wild card i guess. if you can go for epic black dragon helm as 3% double strike set bonus is pretty tasty dps increase.

[the_one_dwarfforged]

regarding the new barbarian trees personally i would go for the tier 5 ravager crit rage buff, as that is significantly better for your dps than going full frenzy, and you can still get both frenzy and death frenzy and the low hanging fruit in the FB tree (pretty much all there is imo).

for destinies i personally wouldnt use fotw unless you feel the no fail cc and helpless is critical to staying alive. i would just use legendary dreadnaught even if not intending to blitz much as it is a much better overall dps tree and provides a pretty effective aoe cc effect (lay waste), though if you spam it you may not have it when you need it. dreadnaught is just much better dps all around between +1 crit multi with all weapons, another +1 crit multi with axes (if you use cleaver, which also has nice utility effects), better base dmg buffs, seeker, haste boost, more action boost charges, and an excellent cleave (momentum swing). on top of that you can twist sense weakness (the second best part of fotw), although i wouldnt unless you know you are going to be running with a ccer, shiradi, or you can stun reliably yourself. on top of that you can use blitz. except for the cc fotw just doesnt stack up well against ld.

as for playstyle i agree 100% with what a previous poster said about playing like a rogue, if you play smart and actually use aggro management (threat reduction, bluff, improved deception, not running in first, not doing max dps all of the time if doing so would mean aggroing and getting killed, shield blocking instead of kiting if you are not in immediate danger of dying and you want to lose aggro) barbarians really arent bad, you just have to remember that you arent a tank, youre just a dpser and you need to play like one.

[smithj_2020]

i dont see ring2, boots, or trinket listed there.
.

Yea i didn't really have a ring2 yet, but I picked up a EN consuming darkness on the AH for 125k few days ago, Also I have a planar focus trinket with +3 insight str but I don't have my cleaver attuned yet. The boots i also picked up some EN treads of the falling shadow during a run last night so i strapped those on.

[painkiller3]

...
as for playstyle i agree 100% with what a previous poster said about playing like a rogue, if you play smart and actually use aggro management (threat reduction, bluff, improved deception, not running in first, not doing max dps all of the time if doing so would mean aggroing and getting killed, shield blocking instead of kiting if you are not in immediate danger of dying and you want to lose aggro) barbarians really arent bad, you just have to remember that you arent a tank, youre just a dpser and you need to play like one.

This. blurry, ghostly/lesser displacement, max dodge that you can, as much prr as you can maintain and being the second one to jump on the pile is the way (sadly) you have to play a barb nowadays. improved deception is a game changer too...

[smithj_2020]

This. blurry, ghostly/lesser displacement, max dodge that you can, as much prr as you can maintain and being the second one to jump on the pile is the way (sadly) you have to play a barb nowadays. improved deception is a game changer too...

Yea agree whole heartily, sadly I just got flag for those 2 dragon raids last night with guildies. Ran the flagging on EN and my barb does damage and things like a barb should but without a person actually playing a healer I would get wrecked in there, I agree with everyone barbs need some changing up to make them far more survivable, because lets face it, in EE a bunch of hit points mean squat, its like thinking taking more ice into hell will keep you cool enough to get out.