Half orc Barbarian

[Bunnysmack]

Want to make a dumb half-orc barbarian but having trouble balancing build parts. Earth Genasi Barb is also okay, but for RP considerations half-orc is better. Want at least 5 levels of Frenzied Berserker. Need advice on what feats to take. Never made a Barb before.

[Sun Wukong]

Barbarian 25/Frenzied Berserker 5 should be the best way to go at it.

Regular Feats:
1) Luck of Heroes or Able Learner
3) Power Attack
6) Cleave
9) Great Cleave
12) Improved Power Attack
15) Steadfast Determination
18) Knockdown or Blindfight
21) Epic Prowess
23) Expose Weakness
25) Great Strength
27) Great Strength
29) Great Strength

Bonus Feats:
Barbarian 10: Ice Troll Berserker
Barbarian 20: Epic Rage (If reached at level 25.)
Barbarian 24: Anything goes (Epic)

You could just go for Epic Strength with all your epic feats, if Expose Weakness is too smarty pants for you.

I would pick standard Rage. You can use Frenzy to get Deathward effect and the Extra Attack you would otherwise get from Whirlwind Frenzy rage variant.

Starting ability scores:

Code: Select all

STR: 19
DEX: 14
CON: 18
INT: 6
WIS: 8
CHA: 6

Get the amulet with Free Extra Rage and Extend Rage feats. This build should be able to reach strenght ability score of 42+.

AB:
30 (BAB)
+16 (42+ strength...)
+ 4 (Weapon EB)
+ 1 (Epic Prowess)
- 6 (Improved Power Attack)
= 45

Damage:
1d12 (Warmace, Will of the Uthgardt?)
+ 4 (Weapon EB)
+ 1d4 (Weapon damage bonus)
+ 24 (Two handed strength modifier)
+ 20 (Enchanched Improved Power Attack)
= 57~ (Per avarage hit)

[Bunnysmack]

Very nice! Not going for epic DR purchases though? That seemed popular, so just checking.

[Sun Wukong]

If you drop three Great Strength feats you could get total DR of 15. (7/- from Barbarian 25 and +9/- from the feats.)

You could basically get your epic feats in this order:
21) Epic DR
23) Epic DR
25) Epic DR, Barbarian 20 bonus feat on Epic Rage
27) Epic Prowess
29) Expose Weakness, Barbarian 24 bonus feat on Great Strength.

Now, the biggest change is that you will have to get at least 21 in both strength and constitution. Former for Epic Rage and the Latter for Epic DR. You can do it with a great half-orc, and I have done it with a Barbarian 20/Divine Champion 10 build. But doing it this way will lower your damage and AB.

Your maximum strength will fall to 36, and you can just settle for 21 constitution. Just use a +1 or a +3 constitution item. In this case I would switch the knockdown to Blindfight.

Therefore, your AB falls by -3, and your damage per hit by -5.

I think Standard Rage gives you something like +4 damage per hit on these days, I forgot that from my earlier post.

So, the big question is, do you want the higher damage output, or the increased durability from DR? Both paths are valid, you know. But since this server is kind of grindy, I think you can see why some prefer the Epic Damage Reduction route.

Fast Healing III with 23 constitution could also be a choice you can go for, but it will lower your strength score further.

[Bunnysmack]

As long as both paths are totally valid, I think I'll stick with your first path. Already got a nigh-impervious tank via a druid of mine, playing something largely different sounds like a good call.

For the first build, tempted to take the knockdown option. Is there a good feat to remove so I can fit in improved knockdown?

Lastly, would it be worth grabbing setting like One Weapon to increase AC for survivability in Liu of the lack of off hand shield and lack of DR feats?

P.S. question to anyone: reccommended epic merchant weapon for this oaf? Have the money on an alt to drop down coin for something buyable and nice. Was thinking the Manticore Great sword with a whetstone. Any alternatives I should consider?

[Sun Wukong]

You could consider the epic warmace sold by the barbarian merchant in BG market. But the good thing about barbarians is that you can just use whatever weapon you get your hands on. Thus you can just take a longsword and wield a shield if you need the extra AC.

As for making way for Improved Power Attack, well, it will have to cost either Able Learner or Luck of Heroes. There is no other easy way to fit it in. Additionally, it will require you to have 13 intelligence, which will slightly lower your other base stats. It is not a big drop, but try to adjust the base stats so that you end up with even strength and constitution. Epic Standard Rage gives +10 to both, so at best you can make use of those +2 strength and constitution items.

[aaron22]

Epic Standard Rage gives +10 to both, so at best you can make use of those +2 strength and constitution items.

yes. do that. i totally forgot about the raging bonuses:)

[Bunnysmack]

Grrrrr, just hit level 13 again and from the sounds of it I'll have to RCR back to 12 to lose LoH in favor of fitting in a pre-epic Improved KD. *Sigh* this is a loooooong level 12 o.o

[Sun Wukong]

Grrrrr, just hit level 13 again and from the sounds of it I'll have to RCR back to 12 to lose LoH in favor of fitting in a pre-epic Improved KD. *Sigh* this is a loooooong level 12 o.o

Well, sometimes it happens. I once RCRrd a character to level 20, noticed I didn't actually follow the server rules, so I had to RCR to level 14 or so to fix it. >_>

[Slunko]

How does a barb20/bear warrior10 compare to this?
Or the Barbarian Weaponmaster?

[Sun Wukong]

Bear Warrior:

Instead of Standard Rage or Whirlwind Frenzy, you get the Bear Polymorph Rage. The good thing about Bear Warrior is that you can get +12 strength prior to reaching level 20. Basically, you are very tanky, very strong, but in my opinion the Standard Rage and Whirlwind Frenzy builds become the better paths around level 25+.

Anyhow, the Barbarian 20/Bear Warrior 10 basically gets more uses of rage and that one extra feat at level 20. One could argue that you would be better off going for a Barbarian 8/Bear Warrior 10/Fighter 12 build. The weapon focus/specialization unarmed feats should work both in and out of your bear shape - but since you only have 5 uses of Rage with the Extra Rage amulet - you will want to get Extend Rage V feat to get as long rage duration use as possible.

Weapon Master:
Weapon Master requires six feats and at least 13 in both dexterity and intelligence. The feats you need are: Dodge, Mobility, Spring Attack, Combat Expertise, Whirlwind Attack, and Weapon Focus.

Thus if you go for a human Barbarian 22/Weapon Master 8 - you will have three pre-epic feats to spend on something else. The human bonus feat, the barbarian bonus feat at level 10, and one regular feat left over from the PRC requirements. Basically, you have just enough feats to pick up the Ice-Troll Berserker and Improved Power Attack. (Improved Power Attack is taken at level 18.)

Now, since you can purchase epic +4 weapons on the server, you can can pick your preferred weapon from the list of: Warmace, Greatsword, Longsword, Scimitar, or etc. Personally I would lean towards the Warmace because it comes with the Keen Property and how it tends to be the cheapest weapon - but since it is a two-handed weapon and because you lack the Tower Shield proficiency - I would go for the Whirlwind Frenzy for the extra Dodge AC it provides. But regardless of the choice of weapon, you can pick the Thundering Rage feat and deal some extra damage on those critical hits. I would go for as high strength as possible to boost the damage and AB. (Trolls are good experience, but you will need to use a weapon that has Acid or Fire damage on it, which does make the scimitar look like a pretty solid option.)

The downside of the above build is its low saves and the lack of Steadfast Determination. Meaning, a unlucky roll of a 1 is enough to fugue you. It will happen once here and there against mob casters that throw save or die spells, but it is not that big of a game-breaking issue.

You can get a lot out of the amulet that provides you with free Extra and Extend Rage feats. But with whilrwind frenzy your rage duration is relatively short. But then again, you do have that critical hit probability on your side. And if you pick a one handed weapon, you can go for standard rage and use a heavy shield for some extra AC.

Additionally, while Northlander Hewing does not increase your critical hit damage output, and it decreases critical hit probability by lowering your number of attacks, it can free you a feat for something else.


Edit: Generally speaking, Barbarian 20/'Something Else' 10 builds work just fine. It really boils down into what you want to play as. Even that Barbarian 20/Duelist 10 works and surprisingly well with any melee piercing weapon.


But if you want to have the best Barbarian Build possible:
Barbarian 20/Divine Champion 10
Barbarian 20/Warrior of Darkness-Anointed Knight 10
Barbarian 21/Fighter 4/Battlerager 5
Barbarian 20/Fighter 10

(In no specific order, what someone thinks is the best build depends on their preference.)

[Sputnik]

Barbarian 20/Warrior of Darkness-Anointed Knight 10

While this is a very strong build, there are bugs that players should know about when going this path:

1. DR stacking issues. The DR from Barbarian and WoD/AK DO NOT stack, even though they are the same type of DR.. While this is annoying, as they should stack, the main issue is that Stoneskin/Gr. Stoneskin/Premonition WILL NOT work on your toon.. at all.
Fair warning.

2. Haste issues while raging. If you use boots of speed, or have a party member haste your character, be sure you are not raging at that time. Cast haste BEFORE you rage, because..
The haste has NO EFFECT if cast while raging, from any source. No speed increase, extra attack, AB boost or AC boost. Nada.

Source: I play a Half-Orc Barb 20 / WoD 10

[chad878262]

As a point of comparison it's good to look at B30 vs. B20/AK (or WoD) 10.

Both will get the exact same number of epic feats. B30 will get epic feats at B24, B28 and B30. The AK version will get them at B20, AK9 and AK10. Should be noted that B30 get's 2 additional Pre-Epic Feats (at B20 and thanks to Iron Will not required, but not like bonus will saves is a bad thing and as shown below the AK/WoD actually ends up with more total feats.)

EDIT because submitted before complete...

Both get 4 skill points per level.

Pro Barbarian 30:
+ 2 more Rages/day
+ 3 DR over AK
+ Mighty Rage (and thus qualify for Epic Rage) sooner

Pro AK/WoD:
+ Tower Shield proficiency
+ Heal, Spellcraft and Tumble as class skills
+ Free Blindfight, Toughness and Alertness (which is nice since Barbarian has Listen as class skill). This means that the B20/AK10 will end up with more feats total than the B30.
+Bonus damage (either 1d4 elemental or 1d8 Massive crits)


While missing out on a couple rages per day is a bit of a downer, simple fact is properly built you can still be raging every battle between rests by utilizing the Amulet without any feats spent on extend/extra rage. The 3 DR is also a bit weak since AK/WoD is supposed to get that same amount of DR, but at the end of the day you are gaining more feats, more damage, more AC, more class skills and better saving throws. So even with a couple of kinks/bugs B/AK (or WoD) is superior.

[Sun Wukong]

Warrior of Darkness gets the Dash feat though, which is +5 to movement speed. Thus Barbarian 20/Warrior of Darkness gets something like +15~ to movement speed. It is kind of nice to be extra speedy.