Tank V Hybrid / Skills

You will be fine staying tank build well into your 90's, have no fear. The nature of the game has changed a bit from when I was a young barb, sure, but much of the change is good for barbs who tank instances.

If you can tank bounty hunters (and later frost runs and rebirths) you will never need to grind or even quest to level lol.

If you can tank TT's you will never want for decent gear.

So there you have it. Don't worry about the endgame rants here so much, restating late in game to something you KNOW you want from experience is better than struggling with an experimental build.

Barb tanks are still quite strong and relevant I would have to say even at lvl 94, I know because I still am one and usually don't have trouble with aggro in MOST squads. In fact, if you watch world chat you will see many times people will beg for a barb to join their run, I have even been offered free BH wines and cash for repairs. (I ALWAYS offer to pay for wine, and ALWAYS offer to pay my own repairs, before the barb rage-rants begin)

Skill-wise you look to be coming along nicely. Your focuses look to be almost spot on, but I'll toss in my 2 cents anyway:

1: A higher level roar will help what little aggro it gives you to work a bit better. Just don't use it on bosses, use on mob groups when you need to keep them off your other squad mates.

2: Devour is good for adding damage, and can be used when you are more confident in your aggro management with other physical attack players. When in squad with only magic classes, feel free to use it whenever you want, as it will not increase their damage, just your damage and aggro.

3: Frighten is great if you are having a hard time surviving a heavy hitting boss or group of mobs. It is expensive though, so at your level it can take a back seat, unless you find u need it upped a bit.

4: poison fang is not ****, its a comparatively cheap self damage buff and all added damage helps you maintain aggro and kill faster.

5: axe and hammer mastery, a bit costly but worth leveling. See above.

I didn't see anything about your beast kings inspiration, but I will assume you have that level up high as well. Keep working on the tiger skills, humanoid can wait. Just keep pushing those levels until you get to your 70's, then work a little on your gear and play a bit with humanoid skills. Barbs just START to get fun around 70, better in the 80's, and pretty danged amazing 90+.

We are a labor of love, so just hang in there.

Lol_Cat - Lost City wrote: »

So basically, the Cat that Lols is confused.

I've been reading these forums carefully over the past few weeks and I need a little bit of help in choosing my build and skills.

I'm a tank build at the moment, with 5.9k hp tiger buffed. But with all this 5.0 mumbo jumbo going around, I've been hearing from other cats, pandas, wolves and lions that it would be best if I switched to hybrid at 70 as my usefulness as a tank really dips past this level.

No, don't listen to such advice. You won't be needing a fist build till you reach 95. And there's no necessity to do that even after getting to 95. There are still many tanks (including myself) who are equipped with axes. True that we have aggro problems later but doesn't really mean that you'ld change your build just for a few instances. Change your build only when you think that it makes a big difference in what you do.

So for my build, I'd like to hear some feedback on the hybrid past 70 situation.


As for skills, this is where I stand on the tiger front:

Flesh Ream (Lvl 10) Good that you maxed it
Alacrity of the Beast (Lvl 8) (I heard to cap it at 8 due to it being in time with the bosses AOE?) Depends on the player. I've mine maxed.
Roar (Lvl 3) Max it asap
Frighten (Lvl 1) Max this when roar is maxed
Posion Fang (Lvl 2) (Heard it was pretty **** from a fellow Cat) When maxed we get 30% of extra weapon attack in elemental form. I don't see a reason why anyone would call extra damage ****.
Devour (Lvl 2) (Was confused as surely lower def on the boss = easy to steal aggro)
Max it. Not only does it increase our damage/aggro but also makes grinding/questing that much easier. Also a great support skill.
Surf Impact (Lvl 1) Damage not that great. But its slowing proc comes in handy in some instances when you'ld have to run around with mobs
Bestial Rage
Shapeshifting Intensity (Lvl 9)
Axe and Hammer Mastery ( Lvl 3) Since the tiger form decreases our damage, maxing all the skills that increase the damage is a must. So this should be maxed. Its a passive buff so its also applicable to tiger form.

So basically for my level I'm levelling a main tanker's skills and the downside to it is that a lot of my humanoid skills have suffered neglection due to this.


I was kind of hoping that my fellow barbies could help shed some light as this cat isn't lol'ing at the moment, but rather more worried. b:sad

I didn't read the rest of the comments but that ^ was my take on the OP. You can always restat when you get to a point when you feel that a fist build would help you. Until then, stay with axes.

As for the humanoid skills, you can level some of them that can help you quest or PvP. Mighty Swing, Beastial Onslaught, Armageddon and Penetrate Armor (in that order) are the required ones; but level them when you have the spirit - your main role is still that of a tank not of a DD. Our passive and active buffs are some of the best in game so max all of them... no exceptions...

Hope you found my wall o text helpful...

re: Roar -- its a pretty cheap skill in the long run and one which I've only just recently maxed myself. For the longest time, my frighten was higher level than my roar was. In terms of holding aggro, roar isnt a very great skill at all - especially when viewed in conjunction with the cool down timer. I personally would say leave it on the back burner if you don't find yourself using it very often (which I never did until Gamma and Frost). Level 1 of Roar is good enough to catch mobs in instances where you normally fight one at a time.. in the event hell breaks loose (say some roamers come by and start attacking the cleric/other squishies). I wouldn't use as an AoE opener ever for preventing heal aggro... use frighten for that, or surf, or sunder. Frighten I use waaay more than roar. I personally maxed FR asap, then devour, got a few levels on surf and frighten, left roar at like 3, got alacrity to 8 - then started pumping my humanoid skills up for grinding faster once I had sunder.