NooB Barb confused

TazzDevil - Sanctuary

OK.. I have read and read and read.. There are so many threads about stats etc.

I have been following the sticky guide but what do I look for in weapons, armour etc

Phydef, evasion etc

What skills should I learn, What Genie skills should I learn?

I am only a level 10 so there is time to turn around any damage I have done to his stats.

Zoe - Heavens Tear

On my barb, who is 78, I look for whatever weapon happens to be the best at the time in terms of attack. My armor I prefer to have +vit on, my rings are the same along with + accuracy. My necklace and belt are both magic defense ones with a lot of + vit.

TazzDevil - Sanctuary

OK.. so here are my stats. Maybe you could advise more from this

http://a.imageshack.us/img40/8282/barb3810.jpg



At the moment, my current gear is Phys Res and evasion. Should I be aiming for something in particular? For example all evasion, all Phy Res or something else

Kephras - Heavens Tear

RED ALERT: Do not place any more points into MAG
They are a waste. As a barb, you will never, never need MAG. You have no magic attacks, and the minor amount of MP gain/recovery does not justify wasting stat points that way.

...but I can sympathize, as I had to restat about 25pts of it myself when this truth was finally revealed to me. 10 isn't that bad.

As for your gear:
-Evasion isn't a horrible choice until about 25+, when all the caster mobs start showing up. After that, the only thing you should wear for evasion is the cape - and only because EVA is its primary stat.
-Heavy armor with m.def "Elemental" belt & neck is the preferred way to go. Gear adds won't matter so much when you're rapidly out-levelling it, but later on, you'll want to look for the following:

• +P.Def - Always handy, any extra def you can get is going to help you. In some cases, 3* gear with +P.Def ends up better than Legendary or TT armors.
• +VIT - As a barb, this is your bread & butter. +VIT adds are also sought after by other classes, so if the gear is decent you can probably trade this in Auction later and maybe get a profit out of it.
• +HP - As with VIT, HP adds will always help you as a barb. Unless the HP gain is high, however, +VIT is the better choice.
• +STR - More STR = More p.def, more damage. Hard to argue with that.
• HP/MP Rec - Generally looked down upon, but in lower levels (say, up until about 50-60), it can be handy to help you recover faster and burn fewer pots. Coin saved early on can serve you well later, for skills and better gear.
• +Accuracy - Generally you only find this on rings and weapons, but it's not a bad choice for most barbs, especially before lvl 77 when Misty Forest rings become available.
  *As a side note, shard weapons with Amber to further improve accuracy.

Although M.Def serves us well, there's almost nothing that gives straight-up "Magic Defense" - I believe only Cape of Tauren and the Sign of Frost: Chaos lunar rings do that. The rest of the time, it'll provide defense to one specific element - Fire, Water, Wood, etc. For my money, I'd say Wood Def. is probably the best of these, since a number of mobs throughout the game stack poison damage on you, and it can get very nasty in a hurry.
*Side note: Genie Skill for poison immunity is a godsend, but doesn't last nearly long enough.

When you level higher and start finding a need to shard your armor, there are three viable options:
-Citrines: The "popular" choice, more HP is always a good thing for us fuzzy guys.
-Garnet: Extra P.Def, pretty obvious choice but usually not necessary since we have tiger form.
-Sapphire: This, for some reason, I almost never see, but sharding for extra M.Def can substantially curb our overall weakness to it, and is pretty affordable with Sapphs as cheap as they are these days.
*Note: If you do go that route, be sure to refine your armor since you still want as much of an HP boost as you can get.

Bear in mind also that some of this advice depends on how fast you level. Make sure you have enough STR and DEX to use the axes and armor of your level, and look for gear to cover your weakpoints and enhance your strong ones.

Zoe - Heavens Tear

Here is my barbarians gear.

http://pwcalc.ru/pwi/?char=146897fad4642208

The TT armor was a hand-me-down so don't blame me for putting in garnets it wasn't me that put them there.

You can see though I prefer hp and magic defense.

dvdalpha

Does any of this advice change if you are a more causal player and gain levels slowly?

I've been playing since July 4th, and my Barb is level 27. If I play at the same frequency, it will be a long time before I'm la high level.

So is there any value to sharding/refining my gear at this lower level?

Kephras - Heavens Tear

dvd: Only main difference is that you'll have the time to look for good gear, and make better use of it. 3* with good adds, or even some legendary equips. Refine them as high as you're able without wasting D.Orbs, and also it'll be much more affordable for you to put max-level shards into your gear (ie: "grade 5" equips take G5 "Average" shards, you can even do Beautiful or Flawless when you get grade-6/7 armors...)

In other words, the longer you're going to spend at a given level, the more care you should give your gear.

Fuzzy_Wuzzy - Raging Tide

Kephras - Heavens Tear wrote: »

In other words, the longer you're going to spend at a given level, the more care you should give your gear.

+1

Fuzzy must agree. That is some extremely solid advice. Too bad more people don't pause for a second and realize it.

b:victory

TazzDevil - Sanctuary

I am more a slow leveller. I play when I have the time to.

Kephras - That is a cracker of a post, thank you.. It clears up a few things. Would you mind advising what skills I should train.. I just trained the white tiger one

Zoe - I am not sure what TT armor is, well the TT part anyway

Zoe - Heavens Tear

TT: Twilight Temple. It is an instance where you kill bosses that drop materials used in crafting very strong equipment. The green named gear my barbarian has is from that instance.

Kephras - Heavens Tear

Tazz: Skill-wise, I'm probably not the best person to be offering advice, since mine are still kinda mixed up. I will say that it's better to focus on mastering one form first. If you make a decision early on about what kind of barb you want to be, it'll help you select your skills more carefully.

One tip I will give that you usually won't hear: Level "Shapeshifting Intensity" to the best of your ability, but leave "True Form" at level 1. You'll gain all the benefits of extra P.Def, without the damage reduction that the later True Form upgrades impose. (It has three stages, plus the Sage/Demon choice at 89 - these will further increase your HP and movement speed, but at increasing penalties to weapon damage; the exception being Demon True Form which removes this penalty). The drawback to this is, you won't gain as much HP or movement speed as with a fully up-to-date True Form, but it will help you deal more damage and kill quicker in tiger mode. This will serve you well up until about 69, when you start getting the Wraithgate quests for FB69, and you'll want the HP boost for that if you plan on tanking the bosses there yourself (doing so at-level can be one of the trickier tasks in the game).

Beyond that, there are better guides stickied up top, that lay out skills in detail. My personal advice would be to concentrate on tiger-form skills, especially Alacrity and Sunder (when it becomes available later on).
Between repairs and potion use, playing a barb gets to be pretty expensive, especially during the "Boss Hell" you hit between levels 50 and 60 or so - ergo, anything you do to reduce the damage you take or the HP/MP you burn will serve you well. Towards this end, Apothecary might be the best craft you can learn, since you'll be able to harvest herbs and make powders that boost your recovery rates. Even low-grade items will help you a great deal, in that regard.

TazzDevil - Sanctuary

Ahhh. Thanks Zoe.. I assume the Twilight Temple crafting drops are for higher level gear.. I wouldnt be able to get any for my current level for example..

I will have to work out how to use the calculator. Much better then a screen shot..

Zoe - Heavens Tear

Yes, twilight temple is a level 60+ dungeon so you won't be going there for awhile.

I agree with what Kephras says for the skills. Myself, I went for buffs and passives as soon as I could. Axe and Hammer Mastery, Strength of the Titans and other such skills. They will help you regardless if you are in tiger form or not.

TazzDevil - Sanctuary

Thank You Zoe.. But can other people manifacture lower level TT armor?

Kephras - I must say sorry, I didnt know your post was on a new page. So far all I have is a few skills. True form, flesh ream and feral regeneration

OMarvelous - Sanctuary

TT is 60+, thats the lowest.

Kephras - Heavens Tear

To be more specific, you gain quests for Twilight Temple at 60, and will be able to use a TT weapon then.
Armor doesn't become available until 70. Some special bound ornaments are also available, but generally these aren't worth it since there are better options and the TT70 ornaments cannot be resold once bound to your character.

As for skills, Flesh Ream is an important one to keep up with, and as Zoe said, passive skills like Feral Regen, Axe/Hammer Mastery, etc are always good choices.
Have a look here to get an idea of what each skill is, when it becomes available, and how it will serve you as you progress.

Yulk - Heavens Tear

Kephras - Heavens Tear wrote: »

RED ALERT: Do not place any more points into MAG
They are a waste. As a barb, you will never, never need MAG. You have no magic attacks, and the minor amount of MP gain/recovery does not justify wasting stat points that way.

...but I can sympathize, as I had to restat about 25pts of it myself when this truth was finally revealed to me. 10 isn't that bad.

As for your gear:
-Evasion isn't a horrible choice until about 25+, when all the caster mobs start showing up. After that, the only thing you should wear for evasion is the cape - and only because EVA is its primary stat.
-Heavy armor with m.def "Elemental" belt & neck is the preferred way to go. Gear adds won't matter so much when you're rapidly out-levelling it, but later on, you'll want to look for the following:

• +P.Def - Always handy, any extra def you can get is going to help you. In some cases, 3* gear with +P.Def ends up better than Legendary or TT armors.
• +VIT - As a barb, this is your bread & butter. +VIT adds are also sought after by other classes, so if the gear is decent you can probably trade this in Auction later and maybe get a profit out of it.
• +HP - As with VIT, HP adds will always help you as a barb. Unless the HP gain is high, however, +VIT is the better choice.
• +STR - More STR = More p.def, more damage. Hard to argue with that.
• HP/MP Rec - Generally looked down upon, but in lower levels (say, up until about 50-60), it can be handy to help you recover faster and burn fewer pots. Coin saved early on can serve you well later, for skills and better gear.
• +Accuracy - Generally you only find this on rings and weapons, but it's not a bad choice for most barbs, especially before lvl 77 when Misty Forest rings become available.
  *As a side note, shard weapons with Amber to further improve accuracy.

Although M.Def serves us well, there's almost nothing that gives straight-up "Magic Defense" - I believe only Cape of Tauren and the Sign of Frost: Chaos lunar rings do that. The rest of the time, it'll provide defense to one specific element - Fire, Water, Wood, etc. For my money, I'd say Wood Def. is probably the best of these, since a number of mobs throughout the game stack poison damage on you, and it can get very nasty in a hurry.
*Side note: Genie Skill for poison immunity is a godsend, but doesn't last nearly long enough.

When you level higher and start finding a need to shard your armor, there are three viable options:
-Citrines: The "popular" choice, more HP is always a good thing for us fuzzy guys.
-Garnet: Extra P.Def, pretty obvious choice but usually not necessary since we have tiger form.
-Sapphire: This, for some reason, I almost never see, but sharding for extra M.Def can substantially curb our overall weakness to it, and is pretty affordable with Sapphs as cheap as they are these days.
*Note: If you do go that route, be sure to refine your armor since you still want as much of an HP boost as you can get.

Bear in mind also that some of this advice depends on how fast you level. Make sure you have enough STR and DEX to use the axes and armor of your level, and look for gear to cover your weakpoints and enhance your strong ones.

Great advice from Kephras , and to Tazz, make sure you carry an MP recovery cape. You can carry MP recovery in your cape, evasion is not a very useful stat (before 90 ofc) but evasion might not be bad, but you don't need high DEX to have multiplied evasion. I am not so sure about this... at level 90 you there is a TT 90 magic ring called ring of staray night with +30% evasion, I can't say much about evasion unless I or someone else experiences this. The fact that it is a magic ring, M.ATK is definitely not useful at that point. But its really the bonus effects. But evasion seems far from useful at any level unless if someone tries out the pair of ring of staray night IMHO...

Kephras - Heavens Tear

Yulk wrote:

...

Translation: He's talking about this, which will boost all your existing evasion by a fixed percentage, which can be much more useful than simply a +EVA add. To which I would clarify two things.
1) Particularly at higher levels, you will sometimes see phys-attk characters like barbs, bms, and even archers with Magic rings. While it's true we gain no benefit from M.Attk, if you see one of these characters, check the other adds on the ring. Most commonly you'll find +VIT or some other highly sought-after extra property. On top of that, when you refine a ring, you gain P.Def or M.Def based on its type - often, these players refine the magic ring to gain an extra bit of M.Def, doing so at the expense of any extra damage a phys-attk ring would provide. It can be a way to round off your character a little more, although this will only start to make a difference towards endgame.
2) Regarding this ring specifically, don't bother. Instead, if you're going to invest the time and expense in TT90 gold equipment, the Mastadon ring is a much better choice. Although not cheap, it's far more affordable than a Sign of Frost: Chaos, possibly one of the best rings in the entire game. Not something you'll need to worry about for a while, most likely, but something to keep in mind.

Yulk - Heavens Tear

Kephras - Heavens Tear wrote: »

Translation: He's talking about this, which will boost all your existing evasion by a fixed percentage, which can be much more useful than simply a +EVA add. To which I would clarify two things.
1) Particularly at higher levels, you will sometimes see phys-attk characters like barbs, bms, and even archers with Magic rings. While it's true we gain no benefit from M.Attk, if you see one of these characters, check the other adds on the ring. Most commonly you'll find +VIT or some other highly sought-after extra property. On top of that, when you refine a ring, you gain P.Def or M.Def based on its type - often, these players refine the magic ring to gain an extra bit of M.Def, doing so at the expense of any extra damage a phys-attk ring would provide. It can be a way to round off your character a little more, although this will only start to make a difference towards endgame.
2) Regarding this ring specifically, don't bother. Instead, if you're going to invest the time and expense in TT90 gold equipment, the Mastadon ring is a much better choice. Although not cheap, it's far more affordable than a Sign of Frost: Chaos, possibly one of the best rings in the entire game. Not something you'll need to worry about for a while, most likely, but something to keep in mind.

But wang's precious ring isn't too bad either btw ... but I heard you can't obtain them anymore b:surrender... Sign of frost is great overall.

_Montgomery_ - Archosaur

I always use garnet gems on my barbs armor and amber on weapons. I have been keeping str / dex where it needs to be for most current weapons and putting rest into vit. someone told me that's a bad idea. Oh, well. I can always go Sage if I level him that high.

TazzDevil - Sanctuary

This is a very good thread... I have learnt soo much...

XylolyX - Heavens Tear

_Montgomery_ - Archosaur wrote: »

I always use garnet gems on my barbs armor and amber on weapons. I have been keeping str / dex where it needs to be for most current weapons and putting rest into vit. someone told me that's a bad idea. Oh, well. I can always go Sage if I level him that high.

TBH if you're going to shard at lower levels, shard for HP. Sharding for PDef on a barb is, well, a waste of sockets. HP doesn't have diminished returns like PDef shards do...specifically on a barb. We have the highest PDef of any class.

At lower levels barbs should shard armor with HP and weapons with either attack or accuracy shards. Generally speaking though, you shouldn't have to worry about sharding until lvl 60+.

Minarva - Sanctuary

In general i only shard for HP and accuracy, considering the boost in accuracy helps me more than the bit of extra damage that an attack shard can give me (in a weapon)

HexOmega - Dreamweaver

XylolyX - Heavens Tear wrote: »

We have the highest PDef of any class.

no you dont


put the same gear on a wizard and barb, both fully buffed
see the results:

http://pwcalc.ru/pwi/?char=3d12d17aec27448d demon wizard
http://pwcalc.ru/pwi/?char=7f36def51b93352b demon barb


just messing around

Zoe - Heavens Tear

HexOmega - Dreamweaver wrote: »

no you dont


put the same gear on a wizard and barb, both fully buffed
see the results:

http://pwcalc.ru/pwi/?char=3d12d17aec27448d demon wizard
http://pwcalc.ru/pwi/?char=7f36def51b93352b demon barb


just messing around

Your argument is rendered invalid before you even start it. Barbs are not meant to use claws.

XylolyX - Heavens Tear

HexOmega - Dreamweaver wrote: »

no you dont


put the same gear on a wizard and barb, both fully buffed
see the results:

http://pwcalc.ru/pwi/?char=3d12d17aec27448d demon wizard
http://pwcalc.ru/pwi/?char=7f36def51b93352b demon barb


just messing around

Taken out of context anyways...AT LOWER LEVELS. OP isn't high enough lvl to be demon/sage. Silly wiz!

Cybetron - Harshlands

HexOmega - Dreamweaver wrote: »

no you dont


put the same gear on a wizard and barb, both fully buffed
see the results:

http://pwcalc.ru/pwi/?char=3d12d17aec27448d demon wizard
http://pwcalc.ru/pwi/?char=7f36def51b93352b demon barb


just messing around

Hmmm we all know what happens to the wizard's pdef when he goes Demon (hint: Stone Barrier)

To thread: Garnet shards wont get you anywhere. HP is our best friend (look at the buffs we've). Evasion is the most useless attribute of the game. Archers with 4k+ evasion get hit by me (2k+ accuracy) 90% of the time. Even archers don't like it or count on it. Don't go for magic rings unless they've very good add-ons, especially VIT or HP. Refining lower level magic rings is a waste since they don't offer you any considerable mdef.

TazzDevil - Sanctuary

Sorry but http://pwcalc.ru/ is not working... So I have done a screen shot of the stats box.

On the right track>

http://a.imageshack.us/img25/5369/12810b.jpg

TazzDevil - Sanctuary

Finally got the pwcalc to work

http://pwcalc.ru/pwi/?char=cb8d05cb871fa774

C/LLlE - Heavens Tear3

Looks okay so far. Only thing I'll say is that when you hit 20, at least four if not all five of your stat points should go to STR, so you can use the Trial Poleaxe you get from your FB19 quest - all five (STR 62) if you want to use the supply stash Dual Hammers.

TazzDevil - Sanctuary

sweet.. thanks for the info..