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| Feedback On The New Barbarian Feats | |
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| Topic Started: Oct 30 2013, 07:06 PM (53 Views) | |
| Agony_Aunt | Oct 30 2013, 07:06 PM Post #1 |
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Get a Life
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So, many of you will have noted i was playing two Mountain Orcs as Barbarians. I chose Mountain Orc because of their STR bonus and 0 ECL, which meant i could max intimidate (although penalty due to low CHA) and get the maximum feat bonuses from those feats that take into consideration Barb levels and/or intimidate score. Both builds focused on only taking the new feats up to epic, and in epic, both went for Epic DR, Great STR, and Thundering Rage. The Tribal Barb also took Terrifying Rage... more on that later. I took no power attack, no cleave... none of those "must have" feats that people always say you should have as part of a melee build. What can i say about the new feats? Well, bearing in mind i was dual instancing, so always had a party of at least two, and one was a Tribal Barb and the other a Totem barb, i can say getting up to epic was fairly good. Yes, some deaths, but not as many as i've suffered playing other builds. High damage builds do allow you to take opponents down before they do you too much hurt. As part of the testing process, ill admit i cheated a little, especially the final stage where (a big thanks to EM Midnight), i jumped from level 23 to 30 to make a run through Carceri. The final run through Carceri was nasty. On the beach not too bad. Enemies were spaces far enough apart that even disabling spells on one left the other alive and capable of chopping things down. In the tunnels it got nasty and i died multiple times due to mind affects and other status effects (lack of mind protection spells... hey, come on, they are mindless barbs!). Rewind a little, and lets go back to the Abyss, where I was level 23. I had managed Abyss from pre-epic, but went up to Gatecrasher at 21 and had some scares and a couple of deaths, but in general, it wasn't too difficult. At 23 my Tribal Barb got Terrifying Rage. Let me talk more about this feat. It rocks.... really. Not so much against the tougher monsters ill grant. I don't recall a Horned Devil or Herzou ever being feared (immunity i think), but Cambions and Red Abashai were easily frightened especially when playing on regular difficulty... less so on Planeswalker/Gatecrasher. This made combat much more manageable. The boost to Thundering Rage was less noticeable... but i did notice some opponents getting dazed due to the new effects... but as this was already in Carceri, most opponents were already too high a level to be affected unless they were unlucky and rolled a 1. The Totem Bard Ancestral Weapon... yes, it is a pain being forced into using a Cold Iron Weapon every time you rage (part of the design... i almost made it regular Iron). It works quite well, and the cold damage is usually enough to bypass the 10DR/Cold most devils/demons have, especially at level 30 where the damage goes up to 6d12 cold damage. The Tribal Bard didn't do as well damage wise in Carceri, since their main damage boost is against lawfuls, but their improved saves helped a little. Maybe ill give them a run at some point in Nif (Ancestor Spirit Totem should give a good boost there) and Clangor (ouch... low AC!). Summary I think the new feats achieve what I intended. Barbs, especially pure, are now more viable, some of the feats definitely worth taking, some, not so much. You do want to be raging all the time though (again, by design). They are not OP, although with a cleric or mage in tow, they could be pretty deadly against almost anything. Their ACs remain relatively low, but Totem Barbs can improve this a little (Tribal Barbs can do better on saves). Side note on multi-classing The new feats were designed with pure Barbs in mind, everything is tied to Rage, and a couple of feats were tied to intimidate. I could see some ultra-high ACs being achieved though with high DEX Barbs talking Feral Rage (Tribal) or Snake+Monkey Totems (Totem Rage) and mixing in some DEX focused class like Rogue. Also there are some possibilities there (as I hoped) for Bard/Barb combos, going all out for maxing Intimidate (Skill focus, etc) and being able to fear anything that isn't immune. Unfortunately, there isn't anything we can do about Druids not being able to use feats (well, not using the regular method... i can think of a hack or two that might enable it), but Raging before wildshaping is an option and could lead to some interesting build ideas.... Overall I'm happy. Not all the feats are worth taking (eg: the feat that increases Totem Barb STR by +4 is only worthwhile at low levels before you get Mighty Rage unless you are planning on having no magicial STR boost from items... or Frozen Rage since we have so few enemies that do cold damage), but overall i'm happy with the results. However, would appreciate any feedback from the community on the new feats from those that have tested them. |
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12:28 AM Jul 11