Barb Bear/Wolf Build 11/8/1 b/d/f

[Emerld]

I've seen this build running about quite a bit and mentioned a few times; but I have not seen a breakdown of how to actually build it.
Could someone explain the layout? feats/enhancements. looking to run to finish up some heroic TRing and it looks like fun, but I am not grasping the level breakdown and enhancements.

thanks,
Emerld

[magaiti]

Doesn't look like an optimized build (at least for Bear).

11 levels of Barb makes sense, for Greater Rage.
8 druid for Dire Bear, but it doesn't offer much compared to regular bear, so I'd say you should either have 3 levels of Druid for access to Natural Fighting, or 9 levels for Animal Growth (buff +4 str/con size bonus).

11 barb 3 druid leaves 6 levels, there are 2 viable options here:
- 6 Cleric Silvanus, Mauls (Requires +1 Heart, because Silvanus requires Forgotten Realms Iconic, and Razorclaw Shifter is Eberron, and Morninglord is limited to Amaunator. Others have undesired class at 1st level.)
- 6 fighter for core 3 (+1 crit multi), for best effect this should be combined with Ravager (+2 crit range). T5 in Kensei is viable too.

Cleric Domain - I think Animal is best for 160 extra HP (100 hp from epic levels, and the whole +1 heart thing doesn't seem to go well with heroic TR).


Wolf needs 8+ levels of Druid because Winter Wolf is significantly better than regular form.
I'm not an expert on wolves though.

[Soulfurnace]

Doesn't look like an optimized build (at least for Bear).

11 levels of Barb makes sense, for Greater Rage.
8 druid for Dire Bear, but it doesn't offer much compared to regular bear, so I'd say you should either have 3 levels of Druid for access to Natural Fighting, or 9 levels for Animal Growth (buff +4 str/con size bonus).

11 barb 3 druid leaves 6 levels, there are 2 viable options here:
- 6 Cleric Silvanus, Mauls (Requires +1 Heart, because Silvanus requires Forgotten Realms Iconic, and Razorclaw Shifter is Eberron, and Morninglord is limited to Amaunator. Others have undesired class at 1st level.)
- 6 fighter for core 3 (+1 crit multi), for best effect this should be combined with Ravager (+2 crit range). T5 in Kensei is viable too.

Cleric Domain - I think Animal is best for 160 extra HP (100 hp from epic levels, and the whole +1 heart thing doesn't seem to go well with heroic TR).


Wolf needs 8+ levels of Druid because Winter Wolf is significantly better than regular form.
I'm not an expert on wolves though.

You almost hit the nail on the head - wolf need 8 levels of druid.
Bear needs 3.

Bear only needs base form for its aoe awesomeness, and dire bear is pretty lame.

11/8/1 gives you winter wolf for raid bosses/r10 red names/whenever you need single target dps. Ice doggo is a good chunk higher dps than bear for single target.
Bear still functions from base form for r10 questing or any time you need AOE.

To address your option (regarding 11/6/3)
Silvanus does require the +1, which sucks. It's gonna be better aoe, marginally worse single target. Overall a better option than 11/8/1, but at the cost of a +1.

Fighter: God no. The issue with fighter is 11 barb gives t5 frenzied berserker for +2 mult. Fighter mult will NOT stack. I understand you're thinking Ravager, but that's a mistake. You'd lose out on too much dps, so even with a better crit profile the overall dps is worse. That also lacks a class trance, which sucks - you'd then need to take falconry or harper for a universal trance, which don't give insightful to-hit. Bit worse, and more wasted AP. With how tight bear ap is, that's a bad idea.

To OP: 11 barb gives upgraded rage and t5 FB. 8 druid gives winter wolf for single target, bear for strikethrough. 1 fvs gives cha OR wis trance. Both work, one is marginally better, but overall irrelevant difference.
As for building it - take PA, natural fighting x3, full THF chain, perfect TWF and dire charge. The rest of your feats are yours to play with, but the above aren't optional.
Drop 35 ap into FB (2 mult, 50% ST on vorpal, raging blows). Put 26 into natures warrior (fatal harrier* and that +12 melee power). 8 ap (maybe 9? idk) into natures warrior. you just want stance and +10 melee power. More ap there is wasted; your defences are big hits.
3 or 4 ap into war souls for 2 minute trance.

If you have spare AP (how?): Ravager is nice for +3 power attack damage (or +6 for bear). Racial tree is good on a horc or wood elf.
There's a few ways for leveling on this, but the most foolproof option is 2 barb (blood tribute), 1 fvs (nightshield - nobody likes magic missile), then 3 druid (natural fighting and bear form)
From there, barb until 11 (11 barb, 3 druid, 1 fvs) and then remaining druid until cap.
PA, THF (can't take natural fighting without 3 druid), natural fighting, natural fighting, IC: slash, natural fighting, ithf, overwhelming crit, gthf, perfect twf, level 27 feat, level 28 feat, dire charge, level 30 feat and either ethereal or aborea. Aborea is better for bear, but SA wins on wolf. Pick your poison.

[magaiti]

Fighter: God no. The issue with fighter is 11 barb gives t5 frenzied berserker for +2 mult. Fighter mult will NOT stack. I understand you're thinking Ravager, but that's a mistake. You'd lose out on too much dps, so even with a better crit profile the overall dps is worse. That also lacks a class trance, which sucks - you'd then need to take falconry or harper for a universal trance, which don't give insightful to-hit. Bit worse, and more wasted AP. With how tight bear ap is, that's a bad idea.

To OP: 11 barb gives upgraded rage and t5 FB. 8 druid gives winter wolf for single target, bear for strikethrough. 1 fvs gives cha OR wis trance. Both work, one is marginally better, but overall irrelevant difference.
As for building it - take PA, natural fighting x3, full THF chain, perfect TWF and dire charge. The rest of your feats are yours to play with, but the above aren't optional.
Drop 35 ap into FB (2 mult, 50% ST on vorpal, raging blows). Put 26 into natures warrior (fatal harrier* and that +12 melee power). 8 ap (maybe 9? idk) into natures warrior. you just want stance and +10 melee power. More ap there is wasted; your defences are big hits.
3 or 4 ap into war souls for 2 minute trance.

Ah, I assumed 1F means 1 Fighter, FvS makes much more sense.

For 6 Fighter I assumed 11 Kensei 34 Ravager 24 Falconry 12 Nature Protector (81 total, with universal tome +1). insightful to-hit we have 16 on Umber Grim, can't get significantly more using a trance ability anyway.

What would THF chain do for bear/wolf build, besides being prereq for strikethrough enhancements in FB?

[Soulfurnace]

Ah, I assumed 1F means 1 Fighter, FvS makes much more sense.

For 6 Fighter I assumed 11 Kensei 34 Ravager 24 Falconry 12 Nature Protector (81 total, with universal tome +1). insightful to-hit we have 16 on Umber Grim, can't get significantly more using a trance ability anyway.

What would THF chain do for bear/wolf build, besides being prereq for strikethrough enhancements in FB?

Yeah, dropping NW loses you a bunch of damage, flight, melee power, fatal harrier and helpless damage. Not ideal.
As for to-hit, most endgame melee aren't using umber brim (read: they shouldn't, really). The ones using falconry trance are using band of insightful commands (unless fey has a better option; I'm not perfect. Only amazing :P)

As for thf chain... literally just that. 90% extra strikethrough form FB tree.

[Emerld]

Yeah, dropping NW loses you a bunch of damage, flight, melee power, fatal harrier and helpless damage. Not ideal.
As for to-hit, most endgame melee aren't using umber brim (read: they shouldn't, really). The ones using falconry trance are using band of insightful commands (unless fey has a better option; I'm not perfect. Only amazing :P)

As for thf chain... literally just that. 90% extra strikethrough form FB tree.

Thanks for all the info. I will process and get it ironed out before using. Got 1 more WF racial, then going into h/o and shifter. would love for those 6 lives to be this kind of build to keep gear swap and everything else down to a minimum.

Emerld

[painkiller3]

...

: 11 barb gives upgraded rage and t5 FB. 8 druid gives winter wolf for single target, bear for strikethrough. 1 fvs gives cha OR wis trance. Both work, one is marginally better, but overall irrelevant difference.
As for building it - take PA, natural fighting x3, full THF chain, perfect TWF and dire charge. The rest of your feats are yours to play with, but the above aren't optional.
Drop 35 ap into FB (2 mult, 50% ST on vorpal, raging blows). Put 26 into natures warrior (fatal harrier* and that +12 melee power). 8 ap (maybe 9? idk) into natures warrior. you just want stance and +10 melee power. More ap there is wasted; your defences are big hits.
3 or 4 ap into war souls for 2 minute trance.

what do you do for self healing?

[Soulfurnace]

what do you do for self healing?

Hahahahahaha

I tell the cleric to heal me. No, really - I've not self healed once in many lives on a bear split. You should have enough hp to live through the fight, and then someone else will heal me. Or they won't, and I'll /sleep until they do.
You could sacrifice half your dps and use divine crapsader for heal on kill, but if you're taking too much damage that won't work.