Barbarian Skills. Help!

gnovidan

Can you guys tell me which skills to focus on mainly for a Barb, which to max and which to leave, and which to focus on more now and which to focus on later. I'm currently a Lvl. 34 Barb with the following skills:
Lvl 1: Garrotte, Swell, Firestorm, Blood Bath, Axe and Hammer Mastery
Lvl 2: True Form
Lvl 3: Shapeshifting Intensity, Penetrate Armor, Alacrity Of The Beast
Lvl 4: Mighty Swing, Beast King's Inspiration
Lvl 5: Stomp Of The Beast King, Flesh Ream, Feral Regeneration.
No level skills: Swimming Mastery, Beastial Rage, Spark Eruption.

All skills for a Barb: All above mentioned skills plus:
Beastial Onslaught, Violent Triumph, Slam, Armageddon, Ancestral Rage, Strength Of The Titans, Clean Sweep, Devour, Surf Impact, Sunder, Poison Fang, Roar, Frighten, Untamed Wrath, Invoke The Spirit.

Advice on this matter is greatly appreciated. Thank you. b:laugh

lilyuffie

gnovidan wrote: »

Can you guys tell me which skills to focus on mainly for a Barb, which to max and which to leave, and which to focus on more now and which to focus on later. I'm currently a Lvl. 34 Barb with the following skills:
Lvl 1: Garrotte, Swell, Firestorm, Blood Bath, Axe and Hammer Mastery
They're decent spells in the beginning, but won't have much of an effect later on unless you tend to AoE grind. Blood Bath should only be leveled if you feel you miss a lot. Honestly, it's your own preference; do you want more accuracy, or more HP. Level Axe & Hammery Master as soon as you can.
Lvl 2: True Form
Some people think that leveling true form is completely ****. Well if they think that, then they shouldn't be even playing a WB. It provides us much more m/s, phy. resistance, HP bonuses, and the aggro skills. Without true form, you wouldn't truly be a tank, would you? So, in conclusion, yes I'd personally level up Tiger Form.

Lvl 3: Shapeshifting Intensity, Penetrate Armor, Alacrity Of The Beast
Yes, they're all truly amazing skills. Shapeshifting Intensity increases the amount of phy. resistance you get in True Form. It's also required if you want
Invoke the Spirit at level 59. Penetrate armor; I can't really express the amount of bonus damage you get from the armor reduction on this spell. All I can say is get it. It's truly worth while, especially if you PvP. Alacrity of the Beast is also one of the most important skills you can have while tanking/grinding. You would want to use it when a multi-colored lightning appears around a boss/mob's feet to cancel out any magic attacks/debuffs.
Level these skills whenever you feel like; they don't make much of a difference at your level.
Lvl 4: Mighty Swing, Beast King's Inspiration
Mighty Swing is probably the one skill you'll use most in Humanoid form. It's decent in power, as well as provides a decent percentage to stun the enemy.
Oh, here's the best part; it uses to Chi! Beast King's Inspiration is probably the best skill the WB has; it's the only skill that provides an amazing amount of HP bonus, aside from True form. Level Beast King's INspiration every chance you get. You can lay off Mighty Swing if you feel it's not yet quite leveling at your level.
Lvl 5: Stomp Of The Beast King, Flesh Ream, Feral Regeneration.
Stomp of the Beast King isn't so great. In fact, I ditched the skill completely.
It's decent in the beginning, but it really doesn't add much damage. The only reason why one would level it is if they desire a quick-casting spell, no chi consumption, and little MP consumption. Flesh Ream is your aggro skill; you'll want to level it; it's probably the only reason why the WB was the chosen tank class aside from the massive HP and phy. resistance. It keeps the bosses/mobs away from your squad members, while they pound away at it. Feral Regeneration makes a great difference with mediation at lower levels.The HP regeneration is good when you're at low health and want to recover it in an accelerated pace. Although, to be honest, it doesn't make much of a difference later on; the mass amount of Vit. you'll have will do most of the recovering of HP loss. The only skill I'll emphasis here to level is Flesh Ream. As I said, it is the major aggro skill that a WB possesses.

No level skills: Swimming Mastery, Beastial Rage, Spark Eruption.
Yes, level up Swimming Mastery. It helps traveling while your in the water. It's relatively cheap in coins & spirit. Also, it pisses the other classes off when we're faster than them. Go ahead, ask a Venomancer b:pleased.
Beastial Rage is an amazing skill, and should be learned the first chance you have the requirements to learn it. It gains you a sufficient amount of chi at the cost of, I recall, 20 MP. It can also be a life saver; when you're below 50% of your overall health, and when you cast Beastial Rage, an magic shield will appear to protect you, allowing mobs to only hit you with what feels like little tickles under your armpits. It can absorb up to 2000 damage.Yes, please do level up Spark Eruption. It provides you resistance from all attacks for a period of time, as well as gives you an excessive boost of damage. It's amazingly cheap; so just get it.

All skills for a Barb: All above mentioned skills plus:
I'm too lazy to write anymore, so I'll just tell you which ones I know that you should get.
Yes Maybe No I don't know
Beastial Onslaught, Violent Triumph, Slam, Armageddon, Ancestral Rage, Strength Of The Titans, Clean Sweep, Devour, Surf Impact, Sunder, Poison Fang, Roar, Frighten, Untamed Wrath, Invoke The Spirit.
The ones is Cyan means that yes, I advise you to get them.
The ones in Red means you could get them, only if you want to. They're good spells, just not quite necessary.
There are no kind of skills that you shouldn't get, in my opinion.
The ones in black means I can't really say, I can't use them myself yet.
I'm sure that they're great spells though.

Advice on this matter is greatly appreciated. Thank you. b:laugh

Hope this helps.
Also, keep in mind that my post has nothing to do with Sage or Demon.
Explaining things in-depth would take too long. If anyone finds any flaws in my writing, or my opinions, you're much obliged to correct me.

gnovidan

Dude thanks sooo much. You're really a life saver. I'll definitely use your advice. b:victory

XylolyX - Heavens Tear

Surf Impact is an underated skill. Get it up to lvl5, then level it as u can afford to. It has good AOE and delivers decent damage and good for chi generation as well as slowing down moving mobs.

Hazardus - Heavens Tear

Until 70+ you will not have enough spirit to max all of these skills (after 70 you wont have enough coins b:chuckle). You need to pick a path. Do you spend more time as tiger or humanoid? Pick skills accordingly.

Stomp Of The Beast King, Garrotte & Swell: Get a few levels if you grind humanoid or ignore them. My swell is still at lvl1, stomp is 5 and garotte is maxed. Yes I was silly. I wish I could reverse swell and garotte.

Firestorm: Level only when you have extra SP to spare (70+). Its a good DoT, but eats a spark.

Blood Bath: Level if you need the added accuracy. I personally recommend +acc equipment and amber shards in wep. If you are on a PK server you might need to level it more.

Axe and Hammer Mastery: No brainer. Added damage in both forms. Level asap.

Flesh Ream: No 1 priority as a tank. Its you r bread and butter skill. The bleed damage is ok, but the real aim is generating aggro. With this skill you can hold aggro on bosses while the DDs goto work. More aggro by you = more damage the DDs can do safely (without having to worry about pulling aggro).

True Form: Some say dont lvl it over 2 if you plan on grinding as tiger. I say nonsense. It adds speed and HP. As a tank you are expected to have as much HP as possible (its you no2 priority).

Beast King's Inspiration: More HP = no brainer. Level ASAP.

Shapeshifting Intensity: 60% added pdef. The no3 priority of the tank (after HP) level asap.

Alacrity Of The Beast: Your no4 priority as a tank. Cancelling magic attacks and aoes. Get to level 7 asap (9seconds or less cooldown). Then level it as and when you can. Good damage and really useful once you start facing all the casting mobs in the 60s.

Penetrate Armor and Devour:
These are pdef reducing skills for humanoid and tiger. I say pick and level one until you can afford to level both. Penetrate at level 10 is 30% pdef reduction. Devour at lvl10 is a whopping 50% reduction. I find that after using devour I do almost the same damage in tiger as I would in humanoid.

Mighty Swing: Our stun skill. Level as and when you can. Level asap if you plan to PK.

Feral Regeneration: Really helps cut down meditation times, so you can get away using fewer pots. Level as and when you can.

Swimming Mastery: One level. Swim faster. Max it.

Beastial Rage: Really helpfull at bossfights where you need to regenerate chi. Max it.

Spark Eruption: Costs nothing. Max it adds damage and at later levels also recovers HP. Max asap.

Beastial Onslaught: Our only ranged attack. Excellent damage. Max when you can afford it. Max it faster if you PK.

Armageddon: Primary PK skill with limited PvE use. Max asap if you PK. Otherwise you can level it slowly. Mine is still at lvl7.

Strength Of The Titans: Added damage anyone? Max it asap. Its a squad buff and it helps the physical DDs do their job better. Alos useful to you while solo grinding.

Poison Fang: I maxed it. I find it helps me kill faster. Max it if you grinding as tiger.

Surf Impact: Our only tigerform aoe that does damage. Level it if you planning on grinding as tiger.

Slam: Our spammable humanoid aoe. Nice damage, love the knockback. Level it asap if you planning on grinding as humanoid, else level as and when you can.

Sunder: Great aoe damage + bleed + nice heal. Whats not to like? Max asap especially if you grind as tiger.

Roar: Our aoe aggro skill. Max asap useful in a party.

Frighten: Nice aoe debuff, good chi maker. Level as you can.

Invoke The Spirit = invincible god mode for 20sec. Max ASAP. Invaluable skill. Will save your backside (keeping you and thus your party alive) very often when things go sour.

Violent Triumph, Ancestral Rage: I haven't got either. But AR is a good PvE skill and a aoe 1sec stun. VT is good for PK too, limited use in PvE (rebirth perhaps).

Clean Sweep, Untamed Wrath.
Cant learn em yet. Awesome PvP skills tho. Very very expensive.

Hope that helps.

Baalbak - Dreamweaver

i dont even have beastial onslaught myself. I do most of my questing/grinding in true form. Therefore I have:

Alacrity (7), Devour (5), Flesh Ream (10), Beastial Rage, Surf Impact, Roar, Frighten (1)

Passive skills and buffs mostly maxed aside from axe and hammer mastery and poison fang. I focus on tanking skills and buffs to make my party stronger firstly now that SP gain has slowed down My normal attack sequence in true form is:

target enemy, queue up alacrity, initiate beastial rage, devour, flesh ream, normals. Keeping this up keeps my chi built to use both chi consuming skills on each fight unless I get agrod on. In that case I frighten -> jump to humanoid form and (spark when available) swell/slam/MS/penetrate.

I dont grind human form much - mana cost is way too much, and health goes down faster. I make more coin grinding true form b:victory

gnovidan

Until 70+ you will not have enough spirit to max all of these skills (after 70 you wont have enough coins b:chuckle). You need to pick a path. Do you spend more time as tiger or humanoid? Pick skills accordingly.

Thanks for all of your advice btw. I just want to know why people always say you'll be able to max all of your skills at lvl 70 or 89+. Do you get extra SP at these levels or something?

XylolyX - Heavens Tear

gnovidan wrote: »

Until 70+ you will not have enough spirit to max all of these skills (after 70 you wont have enough coins b:chuckle). You need to pick a path. Do you spend more time as tiger or humanoid? Pick skills accordingly.

Thanks for all of your advice btw. I just want to know why people always say you'll be able to max all of your skills at lvl 70 or 89+. Do you get extra SP at these levels or something?

As a barb, there will be times in which you will have more coin than spirit, and then times when you will have more spirit than coin. It's very rare to have a great deal of both at the same time.

Baalbak - Dreamweaver

gnovidan wrote: »

Thanks for all of your advice btw. I just want to know why people always say you'll be able to max all of your skills at lvl 70 or 89+. Do you get extra SP at these levels or something?

well... on my veno when I hit 69 and finished my culti - I suddenly found myself sitting on a whopping 300k spirit that just seemed to have come out of nowhere. But meh, thats about enough to learn 4 skills at higher levels

Hazardus - Heavens Tear

gnovidan wrote: »

Thanks for all of your advice btw. I just want to know why people always say you'll be able to max all of your skills at lvl 70 or 89+. Do you get extra SP at these levels or something?

70+ you get a second daily quest (world quest) which gives you almost as much spirit as CS.

Ofcourse, this has changed a bit with the introduction of the BH. You may find you have adequate spirit and coins even prior to 70 now I guess. Wasn't like that in the good ole days. b:cry

Baalbak - Dreamweaver

Hazardus - Heavens Tear wrote: »

70+ you get a second daily quest (world quest) which gives you almost as much spirit as CS.

Ofcourse, this has changed a bit with the introduction of the BH. You may find you have adequate spirit and coins even prior to 70 now I guess. Wasn't like that in the good ole days. b:cry

actually BH and CS yield less SP per level than pure grinding does. fact. I kill taurox archons doing one man army quests and get like 314 xp and 66 sp per kill. this is 4.76:1 ratio of xp:sp. BH and CS yield 5:1 xp:sp. Not only by doing those are you missing out on better spirit gain, you're also missing out on rep growth (unless youre the lucky one that gets all the darkness stamps - I've only gotten one from tanking fb's and bh's for other people). and you're also incurring a higher repair cost at lower income, meaning less coin to spend with your less SP.

just my two cents. IMO dailies are there for "just leveling up"

Hazardus - Heavens Tear

Baalbak - Dreamweaver wrote: »

actually BH and CS yield less SP per level than pure grinding does. fact. I kill taurox archons doing one man army quests and get like 314 xp and 66 sp per kill. this is 4.76:1 ratio of xp:sp. BH and CS yield 5:1 xp:sp. Not only by doing those are you missing out on better spirit gain, you're also missing out on rep growth (unless youre the lucky one that gets all the darkness stamps - I've only gotten one from tanking fb's and bh's for other people). and you're also incurring a higher repair cost at lower income, meaning less coin to spend with your less SP.

just my two cents. IMO dailies are there for "just leveling up"

Absolutely correct. The pure grinding method gives you the best SP/EXP and yes if you do one man armys on mobs you like to grind on then yes you can pump rep a bit too.

Thing is 70+ you find yourself with more than adequate spirit by just doing dailies. I wish I had a few million coins more so I could use the 1.5mil spirit I have to learn some new skills b:chuckle (and thats quite low actually, I would have had 10mil or more if the genies hadn't come out). b:chuckle

I gave up on building rep actually......35k rep is something I don't think I will ever see b:sad.