is going full str instead of full vit better in pvp?

Katinas - Morai · January 2014

Hi fellow barbs,

I have reached 103, to get momentary higher stat bonus after reawakening. I'm wondering should I use this free stat reset to try out new str (Str Rest, Dex 60,Mag 5, Vit 5) build instead of vit (Str 300, Dex 60, Mag 5, Vit Rest).

I am mainly concerned with performance in pvp.
I am demon barb and currently I am using r8r/g16 +5 gears. I have 24k HP. I am already saving up for r9 and r9r.

Is damage worth high HP loss? Wouldn't r9r +100 str bonus be enough for extra dmg?

Is defense that better with more str? Barbs already have enough str to take small phy dmg. With less HP and same Mag def magic hitters seem to be even more dangerous.

How about going 300str 100Dex Vit Rest? Would extra 40Dex be worth more accuracy?

All input is welcome b:victory

WannaBM - Archosaur · January 2014

At your current gear level, it is better to stat vit and invest money to make your weapon +10 than not to stat vit, keep your weapon +6 or so and investing the money in armor refines. That is objective, that is looking at the numbers in PWcalc.

How you want to balance damage vs hitpoints is more subjective and due to a lack of pvp experience i cant say anything about that. Some players might advocate giving priority to your weapoon AND putting all points in str or others might advocate refining your armors AND putting points in vit.

It is however a fact that the netto effect of strength is almost equal for a cheaply equiped barb as a better equiped one while the effect of vitality is for example 3 times as significant for your low refined TT90 barb with 18k HP than your R9+12 55k HP barb. Therefore endgame barbs better choose strength unless they are dedicated cata barbs while the freshly lvl 100 barbs are better off with vit. Youre somewhere in between.

Another factor might be what kind of PvP you talk about. In NW it is nice to have lots of HP so you can survive a few hits and gain contribution from tanking a lot of dmg while 1v1 str might be more interesting because you actually need to kill someone

About the dex i can not say much from experience. I have 200 dex for fists so i dont really know how it is to be 60, 80 or 100 dex. In PvE, the accuracy and crit combined definately increase your dmg less than str does. In PvP evasion is much higher and the effect will be more significant. It depends on your opponent, but in general it is probably still a bit less than what str does for your dmg output. And then there are some skills that always hit. So it does reduce your total dmg output over time, but missing is annoying so i might do it as well if i werent an APS barb...

Salari - Raging Tide · January 2014

Yeah I agree with WannaBM, I restated my barb to wear fists to play around with the new bot and I lost about 7k~ pdef and 6k hp in tiger form and the damage increase was minor(but i do have 190~ stats to dex). My build is almost exactly like yours full r8r with g16 axes, hat and cape. My axes are +5 so I am sure the dmg increase would show alot better with a +10 weapon.

I am right at 20k hp in tiger so in pve there is no real concern, pvp though it is quite significant against melee's with that much of a def loss

_Mg_Zr - Harshlands · January 2014

I would have to tell you to go pure str, dont waist any more money on your current gear set either just save up for r9 then refining it.

I PVP alot and i my best advice for you is no matter how tanky you are, you will still die. So for this reason i would recommend maximiseing your damage before your defense ( imo a good defense is a strong offense) ofcourse this doesnt mean you should neglect your defenses either, make sure you can tank at least 3-4 non crit hits from any +12 r9rr caster with just a charm otherwise you wont stand a chance

My build atm is 5 base vit, 60 dex and rest into str and with reawakening at lvl 102 i have 691 str points. That might sound like a decent amount buts its too low, it pains me to hit buffed clerics for 2k and full buffed seekers for less than 1k. Thank god we have a purge skill though b:victory

Another arguement you have to think of, if i go full vit i will have X hp more X magic def more. But when a sin in standard aps gear is fighting you and you dont have the damage to kill him you wont stand a chance against any decently geared or skilled pvp player.

The only time i would ever recommend a full vit barb for pvp would be for pulling cata's but unless you have full +12 gears with NW ornies and vit stones or jades and a high def lvl r8r wep (or gear close to this) a faction that takes TW seriously wont think of putting you on a cata. and if you are built like this but don't make the cut for a cata puller you wont have enough damage to be a dd barb.

One more thing to be careful of is the cost of pvp on a barb, i would roughly have to estimate that the amount of money i have spent on charms for pvp i could have at least 2 pieces of gear +12. My most recent charm **** was friday nights NW ( i limit my self to 1 charm per NW other wise it isn't worth the coin) and i burnt through a full platinum hp charm in 3 fights with about 10 -15 minutes of fighting, although those fights were incredibly fun and i got 8k merit for them so that wasn't all bad :P

As for statting high dex for pvp i wouldnt recommend this. Before i restat to pure str i had 200 base dex for claws ( an incredibly fun build, extremely useful in pve, but useless in pvp)

To get maximum damage out of your claws you need to triple spark (unsparked their damage is lauaghable at best in terms of pvp, unless your a bm they can get some good combos of with claws) triple sparking in pvp (especially group pvp) is a sign for people to 1 start running or 2 focus fire on you until you drop.

Even the crit and accuracy boosts arent worth a high dex build for pvp, you will still get most of your damage from str and since your demon, demon beastial onslaught and demon sunder will give you the ability to crit alot.

I cant think of anything else off of the top of my head b:surrender

Flash_man - Lost City · January 2014

hybrid build

Katinas - Morai · January 2014

Ty for replies.

I think I will be going full str then afterall. Refining g16 to +10 doesn't make sense if I'm getting r9.

I was afraid of becoming even squishier in pvp. I can easiliy stand against +10g 16 people with having only +5 refines. And as you mentioned when standing against r9.3 charm has to take first few hits. Hitting more than 1k on bm/seeker should make things easier I hope.

WannaBM - Archosaur · January 2014

about investing in your G16, it depends on how fast you think youll get the R9 i guess. It may take a long long while before you get there. It is nice to see some improvement during that time

And of course, theres parts that will stay on you when you get R9

Personally, i have actually invested quite a bit in non-r9 stuff. My toon is worth about 1 billion coins. Most of it is in the stuff that stays on me when i go R9 though. And now i am in doubt if i want to +12 my fists before going R9. If the +11 and +12 sale were real one, i would have done it already. Of course the latest update with all the anti-aps makes it less interesting

It also makes me believe less in democracy btw, but thats a totally different subject.

OoArCsTeRoO - Sanctuary · January 2014

This has been argued/discussed many times and different people will have a different view. Each build has its pros and cons, but IMO it depends on gear a lot, different threshold of gears one build is viable against the other.

So for example if you are g16+3 with +5/6 axe vit build would be better since for pure STR barb you need a decent refined wep also.

If you are +12 all with ornies +12 n all then Hybrid would work better.

If you are +12 all with +12 ornies and only play for 1 v 1s then pure STR would be a bit better.

Putting Dex is just useless for PvP at current stage of game so dont bother or even consider that option of wasting 200 points on dex lol

Ultimately there are just too many factors to chose 1 build, one would be good for TW or mass PK other might be good for 1 v 1s, one is good for low level gears other might be good for high end gear, so ultimately its upto you to decide which build suits you the best.

Walpurga - Dreamweaver · January 2014

vit becomes less effective as gears go up

a mostly missed arma isn't going to help, neither is being a one trick pony

R9rr+10 incomp. citrine barb arma still hurts, but as a str you'll still be able to kill reliably through skill zerkcrits, not just relying on zc arma

IMO: lose vit as you gear up if you wanna 1v1 more. TW is still about the catabarb, unless you want to be a fringe DD which is kind of bad because TW DPS is either ranged or stealthed and you have fantastic ranged dps as a barb

WannaBM - Archosaur · January 2014

Hey we do have fantastic ranged DPS !

As long as youre flying

Baalbak - Dreamweaver · March 2014

Been a while since I've PVP'd on barb, and that is mostly due to the fact that work life got hectic, keeping me from playing as actively as I did before - and I took a break for a few months around the holidays. That being said, those people that were simply r9 [insert class here] when I had filled out my g16s to +6 and got my morai skills filled out - are now double reincarnated 100+ with leveled up A/S war avatar cards, near maxed neumas, mostly complete meridians and titles, not to mention R9RR +12 JOSD/Deity builds. My demon vit barb that could go toe to toe with a R9 psy, now gets one shot for 38k by a mystic in NW. Its like "did someone get the license plate of that truck that just ran me over?"

But, now that I've double reincarnated my seeker and gotten it back to 100, I'm working on barbarian again. I'm thinking honestly that I will go the same route with stat points again on second rebirth - although the first I'm gonna play with a str build. Hopefully the passive buffs we get from primal, and the spirit levels etc will put a stop to the massive one shot hits from casters - either way I go about building. However with all the above being said - some of the things I want to point out from some of my experience before all the new content are as follows:

1. Accuracy: this is well needed in PVP especially against archers and sin's - even against some dex build BM's and Seekers.. Where do we get this from? Statting dex is one option of course, but we are better off allocating those points elsewhere if we aren't a furry blade master. Bloodbath has a somewhat debatable reputation. Some people think its the most useless skill a barb has, whereas I on the other hand think it is quite a valuable buff for PVP. Now, my barb and seeker both share gears - and with my seeker's dex capped at 200 with gear mods accounted for, I get about 4k+ accuracy. On barb I had around 90 dex points with gear mods accounted for. Both toons wear 2x Sign of Frost: Chaos - so we are seeing 100% accuracy boost there. My barb's axes get a 30% accuracy boost modifier, and is sharded with an Amber Gem. All of those things together combined with a demon blood bath pushes my barb's accuracy to over 7k, and I'm still sitting at over 20k HP in tiger when it is active. Now, my seeker at 4k has a *decent* accuracy rate against sins and archers, and great against other melees. With the barb having more accuracy while blood bathed - well you get the picture there.

2. Damage output: This mainly comes from STR point allocation and weapon refine levels (atk level/spirit levels help as well) However - the blood rush skill gives us a potential for a great damage output boost while it is active. Of course it only lasts for a minute, but do we really want to be having a long drawn out PVP fight? That means a lot of charm ticks for sure. Now, we *could* go for a STR and Dex build for damage and accuracy in 1 v 1 at the sacrifice of survivability in a gank.. or we could stay on the old school vit build to retain that survival that barbs were made for - and make use of the effects of blood rush for those 1 v 1 encounters.

Those are just my thoughts. Granted I'm not throwing any more cash into this game, so I'm not having pipe dreams of JOSD/Vit stone build and 12 r9rr - in which case you can more than likely get away with going pure str on a barb. Heck I've seen plenty of casters running around with more HP than my barb has standing up b:shocked The saddest part is that as of right now I do pitiful damage to them as well.

Beleni - Dreamweaver · March 2014

Baalbak - Dreamweaver wrote: »

Been a while since I've PVP'd on barb, and that is mostly due to the fact that work life got hectic, keeping me from playing as actively as I did before - and I took a break for a few months around the holidays. That being said, those people that were simply r9 [insert class here] when I had filled out my g16s to +6 and got my morai skills filled out - are now double reincarnated 100+ with leveled up A/S war avatar cards, near maxed neumas, mostly complete meridians and titles, not to mention R9RR +12 JOSD/Deity builds. My demon vit barb that could go toe to toe with a R9 psy, now gets one shot for 38k by a mystic in NW. Its like "did someone get the license plate of that truck that just ran me over?"

With 3rd cast armour on my barb, a Mystic with Decked out items has more P def then me, i think he mentioned 44k ish.
So cant knock mystics lol,
i have noticed a nice damage spike from my barbarian after going full Str ( currently 750 )
however i do miss the HP from the vit, so had to refine my items more to bring it up to the same level.

Lolgasmic - Raging Tide · March 2014

The best I've seen a Pure STR barb work was with Man. His gear is as end-game as it gets, however. The rest of them, aren't really geared as well as he is, and from what I can tell they are a standard build 3str/2vit.

is going full str instead of full vit better in pvp?

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