Shattered Kingdoms

When I played Kilgor I used claws sometimes. In my experience with them, I never had my arms chopped off. I could have just gotten lucky though, and I didn't use them that much. Yes, the barbarians hand fighting skills are very underestimated, with a good pair of claws, they can tear right through cloth and a good amount of light, and do a fair amount of damage on heavy.

Counterstrike can be very deadly. Yes, Adder is right, if the person memorizes your adj and all that, then it is pointless. But, even if the person forgets or doesn't know, it is lethal, especially with a cleave.

Fury is also very useful. It adds on to the damage quite a bit and you get another attack. I think that is enough said.

Toughness is another added feat. Yes, if the barbarian has some good adamantite, its the best. But if a hit gets through, the toughness should kick in a bit and take the blow down a bit.

Track is something that I used more. It is quite underestimated by barbs.

Just to put it in perspective...

I dueled a GM griffon barb with mode stun. Neither of us had any spells. We fought first with him berserking (but not furying) in combat, and he took me down to 65%. The second time, he furied in advance (we waited for him to succesfully do it) and he got me down to 25% (which is way more damage then i've taken in melee with my current suit from any single character). Fury is pretty damn impressive. His head hits were doing 9% each.

Especially with a cleave, but especially with a backstab.

but especially with a GS dual backstab.

Actually Adder it was just the change in weapon. I didnt fight you one with out Fury because as the fight showed you get trounced if you dont have it up. Note to all Barbs You need Fury and its a damn hard skill to master (perhaps we could have some better trainners). On a side note about the class they do better with two handed weapons because Fury seems to give them more of a boost, and if you get disarmed you get full wildfighting. With a one handed weapon you do not (as a griffon you still get two attacks with your claws with Fury)

Yeah, especially as a dwarf or something with low int. I dont think I got better at it more than 5 times and I used it A LOT!

<FLAME REMOVED>

Just a flat out PK, pro and con list...

Merc

PRO: Bash, 2nd row trip, specialize, retreat, eparry.

CON: You are in the front row often during PK. You can't recite, brandish, or zap.

Barb

PRO: Fury, track, counterstrike, high hp.

CON: 2nd row trip and retreat are too important for the advantages that a barb gets. It is nice to be able to fury as a giant with a great axe on a spirit steed, but even then you will just get summon ganked. The problem with Barbs is the only reason to play them is to maximize damage, and the only way to maximize damage (aka playing a large+ size character) is to sacrifice a whole lot of crap.

Swash

PRO: A newb swash and a pro swash aren't very different.

CON: You aren't nearly as useful as a merc in any situation, ever.

Scout

PRO: Herbalism, strong pet, quick caster kills via bow, skins, DISGUISE.

CON: Hard to be a real threat in pk when your only damage comes from a medium sized bow (Unless you took the immense sacrifice of playing a large+ size race) and from a pet that punches and can never hit the 2nd row. You're mostly everyone elses to use for herbs and skins.

Shaman

PRO: Sleep and other maledictions. Immunity to voodoo, Ability to sanc, heal. Staves! Really nice cheap spells. Good pkers even when naked.

CON: Can't gate or summon or enchant, makes it a bit of a pain to do things on your own. But..you're still crazy strong.

Bard

PRO: Useful in group pks even as a complete newbie. SCROLLS. Ability to persuade ethereal. Awkward ability to somehow solo pk casters to some degree.

CON: Awful HP, always at the mercy of any shaman who wants to voodoo gank you if you don't have a lot of friends. Very easily killed 1v1 or in group battles unless you are an excellent player.

Paladin

PRO: Heal, sanc, slaughterization of darky priest/hellion/necro and deep-elves via bolt of glory. Adamantite armah, immunity to voodoo deaths.

CON: Can't bash, so even if you are a buff warrior offering to help with a gank, you really need someone who can bash in every fight.

Rogue

PRO: DISGUISE, steal, SCROLLS, - backstab? Excellent solo pkers via scrolls + disguise.

CON: Low hp, not all too useful in group fights other than reciting.

Hellion

PRO: RIFT, dominate, chance to instakill with cleave. INTIMIDATE. Invis + Hide

CON: Bolt of Glory owns your character and makes it very, very crappy.

Priest

PRO: Sanc, heal, gate, SUMMON, SCROLLS, staves, resurrection, enchant.

CON: Hard to solo pk without wasting scrolls and staves..and even then, all you can really do is use FoD to get ganks, because there is no way to keep em down.

Warlock

PRO: Healing rays, staves, WANDS, high hp tank that can hold off guardians.

CON: Becomes nothing but a wand/stave user when fighting experienced players, because all warlock spells except healing rays + stone skin become useless then. Easy voodoo target.

Sorcerer

PRO: Cheater sleep spell, cheater charm person spell. Gate, SUMMON, enchant, shrink/enlarge!, SCROLLS + staves + WANDS. Very good at solo pk. -=-MIRROR IMAGE-=-.

CON: Voodoo's will always kill you, from anyone. You are going to die a lot if you are a newbie sorc. Arrows hurts.

Necromancer

PRO: Cheater sleep spell, SUMMON, RIFT, animates, SCROLLS, WANDS, staves. Best solo pker in the game, besides very good sorcs, only player who can solo guardians. Easy to gather full, effective MR sets as compared to getting nicely enchanted will/fort/mp items.

CON: BoG rapes you, so even top notch players die as necromancers. You die easily to arrows...awkward. Voodoo. Random people attack you that you don't know.


Wonder if I missed anything? Maybe. Swashbucklers are in terrible shape right now, taunt is awful. Shaman are doing as well as they were before the big spirit aura wimp. Sorcs and Necros are fine. Barbs need a boost to compete with mercs. Hellions need something to pump them up a tiny bit to deal with BoG's overeffectiveness - maybe take about 5x as much mana for a paladin to BoG, and cut its chance to nimbus to 1/4 of what it is now - but that might pump necros a bit too much, so it's hard to say. Only thing keeping scouts/rogues alive just now is disguise being so lovely.

BoG vs. hellions isn't actually as bad as is commonly believed. The damage against a hellion with just held spells of protection/shield isn't all that powerful at all (as opposed to necros with less hp who die in like 3 BoGs). it's the nimbus that's really the worst part, but i don't feel that it's out of hand. Paladins need to work to resist the maledictions, so hellions need to work to resist BoG. It works out.

As for swashes... bleh. At the very least, they need something more to do. All they can do in pk is disarm, dirt kick and quaff. Fun. Not to mention pretty much everybody else in the game can pk against a swash with no risk since they have no ability to keep a flying opponent (good opponents always fly and have a word flask, and bad opponents are going to die no matter what you do) in combat.

I did a lot of testing with claws when they were first introduced in the game with grimbold. This was before the fury skill so I can only imagine the damage output is greater.

In short, claws do tremendous damage when you are berserk. However, you cannot parry, you cannot shield block and you cannot have armor on your hands. That means your defense is cut to nonexistance and anyone aiming mid is going to chop your arms off that much faster as you are missing an armor slot now.

If your a barb not taking the hits, claws will wreck anyone. I cannot express how impressed I was with the damage output. However, if you're taking the hits you'll get raped. In testing the claws against valthanos we found out that the hits I landed on him did a lot more damage than the hits I landed on him using my energy or adamantite weapons. However, the fights also lasted half as long because he kicked the crap out of me since I basically stopped defending. Our fights with normal shield weapons lasted 20+ rounds easily and I'd get him down to around 35%. With claws they'd be good to last 10 rounds tops, and I'd get him down to like 65% or something.

I used them in a few pks where he was taking the hits and they tore people a new one, I can only imagine that a giant barb furied and using the adamantite or diamond claws would be something to be feared.