Tronko
Well-known member
I've returned to my great true love... the THF Barbarian! ...and I need to make a necessary disclaimer: at this moment (actually, for quite some time unfortunately), among all the styles, THF is the loser. Much more uncool. The reasons are many, but the main one is the attack speed (which also affects cleave-like attacks).
So, we're talking about a melee build for fun, and not about the meta.
That being said, the Barbarian, or rather the Frenzied Berserker (which is the only 'good' tree of the class) is an extremely solid melee, practically unkillable, and very good for clearing quests.
Currently, I'm playing a Wood Elf Barbarian 18, Favored Soul 1, Warlock 1.
Here's a brief overview.
Melee power is 396 standing, can reach 500+ with temporary buffs (+20 Arcane Warrior +50 Prowess boost +15 Vistani Fortune Swords +10 Bloodrage +10/12/15 Potion), double strike is capped at 100%.
Base damage is naturally good considering full THF line and a very high Strength score.
Adrenaline on Boulder's Might every 6 seconds is awesome, and you also have some additional crowd control (Trip with strikethrough every 15 seconds, The Great Leveler every 30 seconds).
There is movement speed and mobility (Spring Attack), and THF (Two Handed Fighting) gives you a large hitbox. Solid reflexes with Evasion and no fail on 1, good dodge, and Improved Uncanny Dodge, around 300 PRR, and over 6000 hit points considering Blood Feast. Adding Affirmation proc, it's 7000+ hit points. The temporary hit points are great and practically make you immortal. You have rages and Primal Scream for self-healing with Unquenchable Rage. When you enter rage, you also gain 1200 temporary hit points. Blood tribute adds another 450 temporary hit points when needed.
Let's get to the build. Here's a screenshot of my stats in Reaper (self-buffed).
Wood Elf Barbarian 18 Favored Soul 1 Warlock 1, FotW (38) SD (21) GMoF (14)
Strength can be higher (130+) using consumables buffs such as psionic/alchemical/rising fury etc.
Odd Constitution score, but considering Blood Tribute it's not a real issue.
Wood Elf is not a mandatory choice, Half-Orc is an excellent alternative. The main advantage of the Wood Elf is that it provides 8% doublestrike, which is gold for a barbarian. Accuracy is also nice. Half-Orc has a juicy 20% helpless bonus, which is fantastic, but it requires a feat to cap doublestrike, with the consequent sacrifice of Crush Weakness. Imo, Half-Orc is a better fit for pure barbs.
Doublestrike is a major inherent weakness of the barbarian: unlike paladin, fighter, animals, or even EK, barbarian does not have doublestrike in its class/trees. I always aim to cap doublestrike, especially in a melee build with a low attack rate that relies on Adrenalines. This build can get 100% double strike even if it you drop Doublestrike feat for Crush Weakness.
Certainly, there's Reaper's Strike. But the boost timing is very challenging to manage, and the risk of it being on cooldown at crucial moments is high, especially during fast-paced runs.
The warlock level gives aura for Arcane Warrior, FVS is for the trance.
Base Attack Bonus is obviously 23, which means you have to use Tenser's scrolls or, even better, clickies of Divine Power to cap the attack speed. Considering rage, Madstone boots, and the swapping timings, everything becomes overly cumbersome. Very often I settle for BAB +23 and I live with it, saving Divine Power clickies for key fights. The 5% speed bonus from VKF capstone certainly helps.
Other relevant numbers:
+53% vs Helpless is nothing exceptional, but in any case, helpless mobs have a short lifespan.
Fort bypass is obviously a crucial factor for a build like this, Cracking Attack adds an additional 20%.
Enhancements
Nothing special or particularly original to report here.
Feats
Power Attack, THF, ITHF, GTHF, IC Slashing, Dodge, Mobility, Spring Attack, Whirlwind Attack, OC, PTHF, Crush Weakness, Epic Reflexes, Harbinger of Chaos, Scion of Arborea, Arcane Warrior.
Epic Destinies
Nothing original here either. I put a point in The Great Leveler even though it has a long cooldown and an awful animation because it has its usefulness, especially when playing solo or there is no crowd control. With the changes expected in the next update, I will likely replace GmoF with LD to use LD mantle, reducing points in SD. DC mantle is also an option: as Wood Elf it benefits from maximizing BAB, but you struggle to cap doublestrike and lose a lot of helpless damage. I'm not a fan of DC for barb.
Gear Setup
The choice of Winter's Belt and Boots is highly debatable compared to other superior options that reward damage. However, in my case, it's not just a 'defensive' choice: I have melee power on those items, which I don't have on items of other different configurations.
The same reasoning applies to the Ring of Power; it's not the best in slot, but it's a decent item (Quality Strength, Insightful Armor Piercing) and I have 8 melee power on it. My personal recommendation is always to adapt your gear choices on what reaper and mythic melee power boosts you have available. Imagine having an excellent Gem of Many Facets, let's say with Windlasher's Ferocity and Raven's Sight. That gem potentially has 6 melee power less than a dino trinket, and the same applies to the goggles. Potentially, it's up to -12 melee power. In addition to that, the trinket helps complete the 5-piece set, and the Eternal Flameguard Lenses are excellent goggles (Quality Doublestrike, Quality Deadly).
In terms of item swaps, two must-haves are the Bloodbark Bracers (to wear when entering rage for +3 Raging Strength) and the Raptor Necklace for Bloodrage (when you wear it as a swap for the proc, you can use Reaper's Strike to fill the gap in doublestrike). Necklace of Gibberish Tongue with Intimidate 20 slotted is a good swap option for when you want to draw aggro.
Regarding weapons, Falchion is a mandatory choice because all other two-handed weapons are light-years away. I hope this will change in the future, perhaps with a dedicated feat (similar to Knight's training), but for now, this is how it is.
Main filigrees: Sucker Punch/One Against Many x2, Dreadbringer Melee Power x2, Treachery Melee Power x2, Long Shadow Melee Power x2, Shattered Device Melee Power, Shattered Device Attack and Damage, Shattered Device Armor Piercing, Dreadbringer Tactics DC, Dreadbringer Strength, Dreadbringer PRR.
The sentient weapon swaps I recommend are:
1) Bloodrage set (obviously) with Brighthorn
2) Prowess set for the melee power boost
3) Wisdom set for trance (one-handed weapon and orb).
Pros:
Cons:
So, we're talking about a melee build for fun, and not about the meta.
That being said, the Barbarian, or rather the Frenzied Berserker (which is the only 'good' tree of the class) is an extremely solid melee, practically unkillable, and very good for clearing quests.
Currently, I'm playing a Wood Elf Barbarian 18, Favored Soul 1, Warlock 1.
Here's a brief overview.
Melee power is 396 standing, can reach 500+ with temporary buffs (+20 Arcane Warrior +50 Prowess boost +15 Vistani Fortune Swords +10 Bloodrage +10/12/15 Potion), double strike is capped at 100%.
Base damage is naturally good considering full THF line and a very high Strength score.
Adrenaline on Boulder's Might every 6 seconds is awesome, and you also have some additional crowd control (Trip with strikethrough every 15 seconds, The Great Leveler every 30 seconds).
There is movement speed and mobility (Spring Attack), and THF (Two Handed Fighting) gives you a large hitbox. Solid reflexes with Evasion and no fail on 1, good dodge, and Improved Uncanny Dodge, around 300 PRR, and over 6000 hit points considering Blood Feast. Adding Affirmation proc, it's 7000+ hit points. The temporary hit points are great and practically make you immortal. You have rages and Primal Scream for self-healing with Unquenchable Rage. When you enter rage, you also gain 1200 temporary hit points. Blood tribute adds another 450 temporary hit points when needed.
Let's get to the build. Here's a screenshot of my stats in Reaper (self-buffed).
Wood Elf Barbarian 18 Favored Soul 1 Warlock 1, FotW (38) SD (21) GMoF (14)
Strength can be higher (130+) using consumables buffs such as psionic/alchemical/rising fury etc.
Odd Constitution score, but considering Blood Tribute it's not a real issue.
Wood Elf is not a mandatory choice, Half-Orc is an excellent alternative. The main advantage of the Wood Elf is that it provides 8% doublestrike, which is gold for a barbarian. Accuracy is also nice. Half-Orc has a juicy 20% helpless bonus, which is fantastic, but it requires a feat to cap doublestrike, with the consequent sacrifice of Crush Weakness. Imo, Half-Orc is a better fit for pure barbs.
Doublestrike is a major inherent weakness of the barbarian: unlike paladin, fighter, animals, or even EK, barbarian does not have doublestrike in its class/trees. I always aim to cap doublestrike, especially in a melee build with a low attack rate that relies on Adrenalines. This build can get 100% double strike even if it you drop Doublestrike feat for Crush Weakness.
Certainly, there's Reaper's Strike. But the boost timing is very challenging to manage, and the risk of it being on cooldown at crucial moments is high, especially during fast-paced runs.
The warlock level gives aura for Arcane Warrior, FVS is for the trance.
Base Attack Bonus is obviously 23, which means you have to use Tenser's scrolls or, even better, clickies of Divine Power to cap the attack speed. Considering rage, Madstone boots, and the swapping timings, everything becomes overly cumbersome. Very often I settle for BAB +23 and I live with it, saving Divine Power clickies for key fights. The 5% speed bonus from VKF capstone certainly helps.
Other relevant numbers:
+53% vs Helpless is nothing exceptional, but in any case, helpless mobs have a short lifespan.
Fort bypass is obviously a crucial factor for a build like this, Cracking Attack adds an additional 20%.
Enhancements
Nothing special or particularly original to report here.
Feats
Power Attack, THF, ITHF, GTHF, IC Slashing, Dodge, Mobility, Spring Attack, Whirlwind Attack, OC, PTHF, Crush Weakness, Epic Reflexes, Harbinger of Chaos, Scion of Arborea, Arcane Warrior.
Epic Destinies
Nothing original here either. I put a point in The Great Leveler even though it has a long cooldown and an awful animation because it has its usefulness, especially when playing solo or there is no crowd control. With the changes expected in the next update, I will likely replace GmoF with LD to use LD mantle, reducing points in SD. DC mantle is also an option: as Wood Elf it benefits from maximizing BAB, but you struggle to cap doublestrike and lose a lot of helpless damage. I'm not a fan of DC for barb.
Gear Setup
The choice of Winter's Belt and Boots is highly debatable compared to other superior options that reward damage. However, in my case, it's not just a 'defensive' choice: I have melee power on those items, which I don't have on items of other different configurations.
The same reasoning applies to the Ring of Power; it's not the best in slot, but it's a decent item (Quality Strength, Insightful Armor Piercing) and I have 8 melee power on it. My personal recommendation is always to adapt your gear choices on what reaper and mythic melee power boosts you have available. Imagine having an excellent Gem of Many Facets, let's say with Windlasher's Ferocity and Raven's Sight. That gem potentially has 6 melee power less than a dino trinket, and the same applies to the goggles. Potentially, it's up to -12 melee power. In addition to that, the trinket helps complete the 5-piece set, and the Eternal Flameguard Lenses are excellent goggles (Quality Doublestrike, Quality Deadly).
In terms of item swaps, two must-haves are the Bloodbark Bracers (to wear when entering rage for +3 Raging Strength) and the Raptor Necklace for Bloodrage (when you wear it as a swap for the proc, you can use Reaper's Strike to fill the gap in doublestrike). Necklace of Gibberish Tongue with Intimidate 20 slotted is a good swap option for when you want to draw aggro.
Regarding weapons, Falchion is a mandatory choice because all other two-handed weapons are light-years away. I hope this will change in the future, perhaps with a dedicated feat (similar to Knight's training), but for now, this is how it is.
Main filigrees: Sucker Punch/One Against Many x2, Dreadbringer Melee Power x2, Treachery Melee Power x2, Long Shadow Melee Power x2, Shattered Device Melee Power, Shattered Device Attack and Damage, Shattered Device Armor Piercing, Dreadbringer Tactics DC, Dreadbringer Strength, Dreadbringer PRR.
The sentient weapon swaps I recommend are:
1) Bloodrage set (obviously) with Brighthorn
2) Prowess set for the melee power boost
3) Wisdom set for trance (one-handed weapon and orb).
Pros:
- It's a lovely THF barbarian build!
- Damage output vs multiple targets is good. In addition to Strike through, you can spam Whirlwind Attack and Supreme Cleaves. Adrenaline + Boulder's Might is great.
- Temporary hit points and Improved Uncanny Dodge. It's not a tank build, but you can intimidate and kill a Doom quickly enough to avoid any problem. Unquenchable Rage is great, when combined with Blood Feast it makes you almost unkillable.
- Evasion. It's fun to play a barbarian that can evade.
- Good mobility: base speed, Sprint boost, Spring Attack.
Cons:
- Overall, in current endgame THF sucks.
- The most evident drawback is obviously single-target DPS. With maximum attack speed and two haste boosts, you are about 60 swings behind SWF in a minute. It's not a problem in quests because enemies HP pools are limited, and Adrenaline hits hard. However, this is not an effective sustained DPS build for dealing with bosses in high-skull raids.
- While having top-tier survivability, you can't heal your fellow party members. To be honest, with the changes to self-healing in reaper mode, you can live without it.
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. Of course, on a critical hit (rolling a 3+ if you have no issues vs AC), you gain +1 multiplier. However, with Adrenaline + Boulder's Might already being quite slow, adding a swap before and after isn't ideal, in my opinion.
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