Hard Core Bear-Barian inspired by the film Cocaine Bear (Advice needed)

[AcidEdgeLord]

So, I just watched the Film Cocaine Bear and it's absolutely brilliant and has inspired me to build my next Hardcore character as a Bear-Barian.

**WARNING, SPOILERS BELOW**


I am thinking of going female(because Cocaine Bear was female) Dwarf for the Con bonus and Throw your weight around. Also considering a Warhammer and shield build for durability and Dwarven weapon Training. Does Knights Training work in bear form? I'd love to get my natural attack down to 17+ threat range.

I'd love to get additional feed back and suggestions, also any suggestions on increasing movement rate and attack speed, cocaine bear needs to be fast.

 

[unbongwah]

Does Knights Training work in bear form?

Yes it does. That said, now that you don't need to equip a shield for Ursa's Protector bonuses (medium or heavy armor also qualify) and you don't get any bonuses from shield feats, there's much less incentive to go S&B bear vs 2H weapons.

Barbearian builds run the gamut from druid 18 / barbarian 2 (trading Protector capstone for Blood Tribute etc.) to barbarian 11 / druid 8 / Favored Soul 1 (Greater Rage + dire bear form + Divine Will). Where exactly did you see yourself going with this?

 

[Bjond]

you don't get any bonuses from shield feats

I wonder if they remembered to disable the %HP gains for having "melee" feats while in bear/wolf/etc.. Those were added fairly recently and might work, though strictly speaking they shouldn't. Might be worth an iconic test/check.

 

[AcidEdgeLord]

I kinda want to make it super durable with a ton of HP and capable of tanking, but I also don't want to be slow. My biggest complaint for bears I ran in the past is that they were super slow.

 

[Couatl]

The Natural Fighting feats count for increasing the % HP you get from Heroic Durability.

 

[Coffey]

I kinda want to make it super durable with a ton of HP and capable of tanking, but I also don't want to be slow. My biggest complaint for bears I ran in the past is that they were super slow.

You can slot a Topaz of Striding 30% at level 8. Also you can dip into Falconry for the 45% Runspeed boost for 8 AP.

Natures Protector has Attack speed added to the 5th and 6th cores for a total of 15%.
Natures Warrior has Fatal Harrier (Tier 4) which stacks with each kill (each stack lasts 20 sec) 5x for a total of 25% attack speed. Fatal Harrier is more effective when solo because you need the kills to feed the attack speed.

Vistani has haste boost available for 8 AP.

 

[Bjond]

You can slot a Topaz of Striding 30% at level 8. Also you can dip into Falconry for the 45% Runspeed boost for 8 AP.

I suspect he's talking about overall runspeed; 30% is just standard (because it's there from L8). Falconry is a Sprint not a runspeed boost. I do like Sprint and higher base runspeed (eg. Monk levels, TA for rogue, Swash for bard .. the 1% per class level ones), but they're not the big one.

The big one is a Leap. It's what permits a tank to close in time to get first agro instead of the Meteor-Swarm. It's great for moving about in a fight where things snare the tank (like VOD or LOB). I've gotten so used to having Leap on my tank that I now consider it a near-mandatory tanking tool like Throw-The-Boom.

And, because I've gotten used to it on my tank builds, I've started to want it on every single build. It's fantastic for ranged or casters that need to jet out of the way of sudden agro next to them (like a lag-warp or a trash spawn in KT). It's very handy for melee that want to apply tactics and/or some DPS before Meteor lands, too.

I will almost always take EA for the Leap on every build now unless the build supplies it elsewhere. I'll stare at the EDs and think about taking something else, then <sigh> leap is just too nice. So, EA it is.

 

[Coffey]

The big one is a Leap. It's what permits a tank to close in time to get first agro instead of the Meteor-Swarm. It's great for moving about in a fight where things snare the tank (like VOD or LOB). I've gotten so used to having Leap on my tank that I now consider it a near-mandatory tanking tool like Throw-The-Boom.

And, because I've gotten used to it on my tank builds, I've started to want it on every single build. It's fantastic for ranged or casters that need to jet out of the way of sudden agro next to them (like a lag-warp or a trash spawn in KT). It's very handy for melee that want to apply tactics and/or some DPS before Meteor lands, too.

I will almost always take EA for the Leap on every build now unless the build supplies it elsewhere. I'll stare at the EDs and think about taking something else, then <sigh> leap is just too nice. So, EA it is.

Good point. Bear Charge isnt bad but probably doesnt cover as much distance as Angelic Charge. Going Frenzy tier 5 you lose bear charge so Leap would be great for Epics.

For HC i would go with pure Bear Druid for all the buffs and heals.

 

[Coffey]

Good point. Bear Charge isnt bad but probably doesnt cover as much distance as Angelic Charge. Going Frenzy tier 5 you lose bear charge so Leap would be great for Epics.

For HC i would go with pure Bear Druid for all the buffs and heals.

I compared Bear Charge and Leap and they function basically the same in distance with a 15 sec cool down. Added bonus of CC and Damage with Bear Charge: Charge forward, inflicting +2(W) with a +1 critical threat and damage multiplier to all targets before you, knocking down enemies.

My THF Cleric is diggin Leap though. The CD in town is 3 Sec.

 

[Kodewraith]

I recently ran a 15/5 Druid /Barb split life for a Razorclaw life. I went with that after over-analyzing everything and I found that split was plenty powerful. Note that the self healing from T5 barb was not really adequate in later epics, but it did fine tooling around in R1.