Barbarian new player guide

This is the guide for new and returning Barbarians. If you haven't familiarized yourself with the General new player guide, it is highly recommended.

Introduction

Weapon masters. Martial artists. Mage slayers. Masters of emotion, both rage and serenity. Barbarians are many things, though the two core philosophies they share are simple: sometimes magic fails since real strength is internal, and killing things is a practical talent.

Outside of the core disdain for magic, think of Barbarians as the Warrior class equivalent in Dragonrealms. Their members (and their guild leaders) reflect a broad range of combat strategies and personalities, not simply frothing berserkers.

No grandiose guild vision here. Stick 'em with the pointy end until they stop moving, and if they try to kill you back then stubbornly refuse to die.

Why Play a Barbarian?

Barbarians are a guild hyper-focused on combat performance. They cannot create magic portals. They cannot conjure a cloak of invisibility, summon icy weapons, raise the dead, heal themselves, or lead others into battle. They offer no buffs to other players in group situations. Outside of a few token buffs to survival skills like Locksmithing or Outdoorsmanship, all of their abilities either make them better at killing or make them more difficult to kill, which means they're quite good at both of those things.

Their skillset and Expertise-based reduction on Advanced Combat Maneuvers (also known as ACMs) make them a premier damage guild, particularly at melee, and their War Stomp ability means they are among the best at actually closing to melee. Their native suite of anti-magic and anti-debilitation wards are the strongest in the game, making them an annoying match-up for magic users.

Do you like killing, and prefer a sword to a fireball? Can you not be bothered to hide before trying to murder someone? Welcome to the Barbarians guild, you'll have a grand time!

Starting Out

Choosing Your Race

Since their strong native wards provide a layer of protection most guilds don't have, all races are PvP-viable as Barbarians, allowing some roleplay flexibility. The lack of a cohesive moral or philosophical framework allows for much personalized roleplay expression in race selection: melee thug, magic hater, zen-like martial purist, really angry super commoner. For pure roleplay purposes, any race can make sense as a Barbarian.

For any questions about the following discussion of stats and debilitation contests, please check the SvS page.

For player-versus-player engagements, Power (Strength/Discipline/Stamina) and Fear (Charisma/Strength/Discipline) contests are the heart of the Barbarian's suite of debilitation effects, with power attacks being the most popular - and most widely impactful - Barbarian effects. As such, Strength and Discipline are core stats.

As of the time of the writing of this guide, the current player-versus-player metagame allows for mental-focused Barbarians who use magic/mind wands for effects like Ward Break and Huldah's Pall. I must emphasize this is a meta-chasing build that requires hundreds of $$ of investment and could be killed by future system changes. It's also possibly not viable extreme end-game, with mages stacking their own mentals for willpower defense. Power-based Barbarians are a time-tested, native, and proven strategy.

Outfitting Your Barbarian

Train all weapon classes, especially melee weapons. You will regret not training all weapons once you unlock Whirlwind. Remember to also train Offhand skill, which can be done by putting any non-two-handed weapon in your left hand and using an attack command like DRAW LEFT or ATTACK LEFT.

Train all armor skills. Barbarians have a relatively simple time "clown-suiting" (wearing all four armor classes at once) given their skillset and their early access to impactful defense buffs. If you do choose to clown-suit, I would recommend keeping plate and brigandine confined to the neck/head/arms/hands to minimize armor hindrance.

Chakrel is a Barbarian-specific "ritual focus" that speeds up the roundtime and activation time of meditations, more info of which can be found in the chakrel section below. Unlike ritual spells (which require a foci), meditations can be used without chakrel at slower activation speed, so it is a convenience instead of a necessity. Warhorns also allow Barbarians to temporarily boost creature spawn rate of a room, which is a nice perk once you get into your killing routine, but again a convenience instead of a necessity.

Besides this, standard-issue stuff like a coiled heavy rope, some copper zills, a sanowret crystal, a gweth, and a lockpick ring filled with lockpicks will come in handy for broad training.

Lacking access to spells like Manifest Force, Barbarians are great at surviving death (such as in PvP) but not great at avoiding little scratches adding up over a long hunting trip, so you may want to befriend an Empath or bring some healing herbs.

Stat Training

Barbarians benefit from all stats to some capacity. The physical stats are necessary for combat, mentals will make you learn faster, charisma helps with some roars. In general I'd recommend getting strength and stamina as high as you need in order to carry all your weapons and armor without being burdened, and then focus on getting all stats to 30 before choosing to specialize. Charisma enables many of the powerful roars such as Wail of Torment, but the charisma-based roars are late-game. As such, Barbarians don't have a true "dump stat," but charisma is the closest to it, so leaving charisma low has no practical consequence for a long time.

New Barbarian Guide

Understanding Inner Fire

The Barbarian equivalent of mana/concentration is called inner fire. Inner fire is a measure of a Barbarian's remaining combat strength, and most abilities (outside of roars) interact with, or cost, inner fire in some capacity. The Barbarian "guild confound" is being in combat. As such, inner fire has two states: active regen in combat which allows recharge to 100%, and passive regen outside of combat, which caps at a certain point. A circle one Barbarian with no abilities will have a passive cap of around 30% inner fire, so it's important to pick up Duelist mastery early on, effectively doubling your "starting mana" for one spell slot.

Aside from passive regen, inner fire can also be restored by killing challenging creatures or striking another player in PvP, though the recharge in PvP has a cooldown of about 60 seconds. Scoring a kill with an ACM will generate even more inner fire than a normal kill, yet another reason to train all weapon categories. Barbarians are designed to kill, not knit while in combat, so chain together ACMs and kill frequently to top off that inner fire.

Much like how Cleric communes or Ranger beseeches do not use attunement but rather a secondary resource pool, roars do not use inner fire but instead use voice pool. This is explained further in the abilities type section.

Checking Inner Fire Level

The official front end Wrayth and other popular front ends like Genie convert the mana bar into an inner fire bar for easy visibility of inner fire level, provided you know MEDITATE POWER. MEDITATE POWER is free, and requires only MEDITATE FLAME to learn (which is also free). Pick up both as soon as you start your Barbarian.

Once you have both meditations, the active spell window in most front ends and the "mana" bar will reflect your abilities. You can also use ABILITY LIST to easily check what abilities you know and how many spell slots you have. You can also do FORM LIST, MASTERY LIST, ROAR LIST, etc. to check individual categories. Given the above, the information displayed in MEDITATE FLAME and MEDITATE POWER is mostly flavor these days. A break-down of the information displayed can be found in the Flame meditation and Power Meditation page.

Inner Fire Pool Size

Unlike mana, inner fire pool size is static, though passive regen cap does slowly grow with the inner fire ranked skill. Rather than getting "more mana" like how a mage's attunement grows, Barbarians rather become more efficient at usage, reducing cost of abilities. As an example, at circle one Avalanche berserk might take 15% of your inner fire pool, but when the cost reaches the floor (i.e. when your "cast" is "capped"), it takes only 2%. Effective ranks needed to "cap" an ability directly correspond to the same levels as spells. To see ranks needed check ability tiers.

Ability Types and Limits

Barbarians have four categories of abilities: forms, berserks, meditations and roars, with masteries acting as the Barbarian equivalent of magic feats, 1-slot meta-abilities that provide passive bonuses. Masteries are taught by Pit Masters rather than guild leaders, just like magic feats are taught by feat trainers.

• Forms are long-duration (90 minute cap) combat buffs or wards. They have no start-up cost and minimal upkeep cost. Their primary "cost" is the lowering of passive regen cap and the lowering of inner fire generation with kills. There is no clear, easily-understood analogy for magic users, but think of them sort of like cyclical buffs that lower "mana regen" instead of draining attunement. Forms can be started quickly with 2-second roundtime, but build up strength, taking about 30 seconds to reach max potency. There is a hard cap of five forms at once.

• Berserks are short-duration (10 minute cap) abilities with a variety of functions. They function like Khri, high start-up cost and pulsing upkeep cost, but no cap on usage if you have enough juice. On top of standard functions like combat buffs or wards, they provide powerful effects like area-of-effect knock-down against all engaged opponents (Earthquake), huge vitality or stamina boosts (Famine and Avalanche respectively), even the ability to escape death at the cost of inner fire (Volcano). Berserks have no roundtime and immediately activate at max potency.

• Meditations are medium-duration (40 minute cap) wards or buffs. These are much like standard ritual spells, in that meditations have a high start-up cost but no upkeep cost: once it's cast, it's cast. They have a moderate meditation roundtime of about ~8 seconds (sort of like focusing on a ritual foci) and an extended "prep time," both of which can be lowered by wearing chakrel, but chakrel isn't necessary to use them. As an example, Serenity meditation is the most powerful anti-magic barrier in the game, but saps some inner fire with every blocked spell. Meditations are hard capped to three at once, though Staunch and Dispel can be used even if you have three active already.

• Roars are the primary Barbarian debilitation effects. Rather than costing inner fire, they drain voice pool, which regenerates quickly over time. You can check your current voice level with just ROAR or ROAR QUIET, and Cyclone berserk speeds up voice pool recovery. Voice pool levels can be found on the roars page. There is no limit on roars provided you have the voice pool to succeed the stat contest, though like all debilitation effects they have diminishing returns on subsequent use when used against other players. By default roars are limited to either single-target (ROAR xxxx <target>) or area-of-effect limited to engaged enemies (ROAR xxxx), though you can unlock ROAR AREA and ROAR CREATURES with Strategos mastery.

All non-mastery abilities break down into three Paths (Flame, Horde, Predator). Rather than having spell-like prerequisites, higher tier abilities require a certain number of abilities picked in the same Path (such as Piranha form needing four abilities in the Predator path). The Paths structure can be seen in the Barbarian abilities page.

Barbarian items (Chakrel/Warhorns)

Chakrel functions as a high-grade "ritual focus" for meditations. Meditations have a roundtime on usage (about 8-10 seconds) and a "cast" time as the meditation is being prepared. Chakrel speeds up these functions. Higher "grade" chakrel will speed this process up even more, and the different grades can be seen on the chakrel page. Note that:

• A) Unlike ritual foci, chakrel isn't necessary for meditations to work. A convenience, not a requirement.
• B) Wearing (or holding) the chakrel is all you need. The meditation will auto-focus on the highest grade of worn chakrel, no need to FOCUS, INVOKE, etc.
• C) Only the highest grade of worn chakrel applies. Wearing multiple pieces may be barbarically fashionable but provides no mechanical benefit.

Barbarians are also able to use warhorns to temporarily boost spawn rate of creatures in the room, on a 15-minute timer. This spawn-boosting effect stacks with the similar INVOKE function of the Hollow's Eve glass egg framed with delicate strands of gold, if you are so inclined.

Note that there are other Barbarian items: warpaint, roar helms, and fear cloaks. However, after extensive testing, the old bonuses applied are either buggy, non-functional, or generally not worth the time investment. As an example, SCREAM WARPAINT has 3 seconds of roundtime but only boosts the potency of the next roar by a small amount, which is unnecessary for hunting and not worth the extra roundtime for PvP.

Training

Training Weapons

Take the dangerous end of your weapon, and choose a method of smashing it/stabbing it/firing it/hurling it at your enemy. Congratulations, you're now a Barbarian master.

Training Melee Weapons (for Realsies This Time)

Whirlwind will be your preferred method of attacking with all melee weapons once you have that ability, and can keep Monkey form and a defense buff like Tornado running to offset whirlwind's balance hit and defense penalty.

Until then, just attack with your weapons, but be sure to use your ACMs frequently. ACM messaging will give you a line like this:

With expert skill you end the attack and maneuver into a better position.

ACMs normally have a 90-second cooldown between use of the same maneuver, but the bolded line indicates you have passed an Expertise check, and lowered the cooldown from somewhere between 45-55 seconds. If you train all weapons (why aren't you training all weapons?), your Expertise will be higher than individual weapon skills by a moderate margin, and you will always pass your Expertise check. Chain together a series of ACMs for maximal Expertise experience and maximal chance of scoring a kill with an ACM for a huge chunk of inner fire gain.

Training Ranged Weapons

MANEUVER POWERSHOT is the only ranged maneuver and is shared between all aimed weapon classes (xbow/bows/slings). As such, ranged combat is more straight-forward and involves more typical load/aim/fire structure.

For ranged weapons that are aimed, lower roundtime is preferable (when hunting). Though experience scales slightly with damage, the large majority of weapon experience comes from simply hitting a challenging opponent. As such, using a light crossbow or pelletbow is preferable to an arbalest when training Crossbows, and a short bow is ideal for Bows, doubly so because dual load doubles the roundtime of your chosen bow type.

Be sure to also train both categories of thrown weapons. Though they lack a specific ACM, they are among the most damaging weapon types second-per-second. They can either be used with LOB to prevent lodging, or THROW/HURL for increased damage and accuracy (HURL is the most damaging but guaranteed to lodge).

Training Expertise

ACMs will all train Expertise on use, as will War Stomp for bigger Barbarians. Expertise is generally trained by using ACMs {remember how we said to train all weapons?), though it can also be trained with Barbarian-specific ANALYZE combos, such as ANALYZE FLAME, which function much like the Tactics combos. Unlike the tactics combos, missing the hit will move the combo forwards, and the combo carries over between kills (i.e. no need to restart combos if the creature dies).

Outside of ANALYZE FLAME for young Barbs, the Barbarian combos have mostly fallen out of usage due to the ease of training with ACMs and War Stomp, though ANALYZE ACCURACY and ANALYZE DAMAGE can still be useful for training, or facing difficult opponents at the edge of your skill, such as champion mobs. The list of Barbarian analyze combos can be seen on the Expertise page.

Training "Magic" Skills

Unlike other guilds, Barbarian "magic" skillset learning does not scale with difficulty level. An intro or basic ability will continue to train the same as from rank 1 to rank 1750. As such, training recommendations follow a general ability-class structure instead of specific abilities at specific skill ranges.

Forms teach poorly. They have a small amount of experience generation shortly after start-up, and a long cooldown before the same form can grant more experience. A form can be re-started periodically (about every 2.5 minutes) to learn 1-2 mindstates of the appropriate skill.

Berserks and meditations are much better trainers for augmentation, warding, and utility. Each ability will grant about 4-5 mindstates of the appropriate skill, and can be used again on a ~90 second timer. Assuming you have enough inner fire, berserks are the most practical trainers given the immediate activation at max potency, and the lack of roundtime.

Roars will be your debilitation training method for a long time. Once you can keep Earthquake berserk running, debilitation will be mind locked whenever you're in combat.

Remember that you can use MEDITATE RESEARCH <ABILITY> to learn 3-4 mindstates of the appropriate skill of that ability. This functions as the Barbarian equivalent of magic research, has moderate roundtime (5-8 seconds), and a cooldown of about ~5 minutes. This can be used even if you haven't learned the ability you're trying to research. However, abilities that train Debilitation skill don't award experience when researched because it is a combat skill and must be contested by an opponent.

Given that concentration is an otherwise-unused resource pool for Barbarians, I would recommend all Barbs get a sanowret crystal for easy Arcana experience and TDPs.

Training Other Stuff

Barbarian life is a life of combat. Below are tips for maximizing skill training while maximizing time in combat.

• Armor: Clown suit and put on a shield. Armor experience is determined by coverage area (i.e. wearing chain on the head and hands will teach better than the hands alone). You'll be in combat so frequently that these skills will take care of themselves even if one of your armor categories has low coverage. Just remember to try not to parry with a bow or crossbow, yeah?

• Lore: Appraisal can be trained by appraising either a critter or a bundle of skins. Bundles train well, but you must retreat first to appraise a bundle. You can use RECALL <critter> on a ~5 minute timer for a small chunk of Scholarship combat experience. Tactics should be trained with ANALYZE combos. Sacrifice some optimal ACM or whirlwind time to keep this moving or mind locked, as it's a useful skill. Be a Basic Noob and grab some copper zills for Performance for the short bursts of time you're not in combat. Eventually all your combat skills will be moving or mind locked, so may as well waste a bunch of time for minimal gain and pick up a crafting skill or three for extra TDPs, eh?

• Survival: Perception can be learned in combat via the HUNT verb on a ~90 second timer. First Aid can be trained using the DISSECT verb on a dead critter. Start this early and keep it moving your whole career, but bear in mind dissection prevents skinning. Skinning can be trained by... skinning dead critters. A trickle of Outdoorsmanship can be learned by periodically retreating and using COLLECT ROCKS. I recommend training Stealth, Locksmithing, Athletics, and Thievery exclusively with the Breaking and Entering system. Switch between holding a coiled rope and using a lockpick ring. If you're a truly new player, please read the BnE article thoroughly. Be sure to ask any questions you have and only burgle in areas with Clan Justice, as ~30 plat fines from traditional justice areas can be crippling to a new player.

Early Abilities

Ability Selection Guide

Ability selection at the beginning of a new Barbarian's life has the following goals, in order of priority:

• A: Pick an ability to enable you to train all "magic" skills (augmentation, warding, utility, and debilitation).
• B: Pick up the impactful masteries as soon as possible (Duelist and Juggernaut, but especially Duelist).
• C: Pick up core PvE abilities when convenient (Dragon form, Eagle form, Piranha form, Python form, Tornado berserk especially)

Besides the two stated goals above, there is no universally-agreed-upon "optimal path", since Barbarians have access to a handful of core abilities very early on. Review of early abilities is below.

Did you Say Infinite Free Respecs?

Barbarians are special snowflakes. We do not have access to standard features like spell preview periods or analogous pattern abilities, and getting standard magic-user benefits like the active spell window compatible with our system took Gamemasters like Javac months of beating spaghetti code into submission. As reparation for our barbaric suffering, the entire Barbarian guild is (currently) permanently "on preview", so we have infinite respecs. CHOOSE FORGET ALL in front of a guild leader to wipe everything, or ASK <guild leader or Pit Master> ABOUT FORGETTING XXXX to forget one ability, so don't fret about learning something temporarily until you can get an ability you really want a few circles later. Also, we're hoping the GMs continue forgetting about this "feature" into perpetuity, so don't mention it on the official Discord. Smiley Face Emoji.

Early Ability Review

Horde Path

• Anger the Earth Roar: Underwhelming. Fine as an early 1-slot debilitation trainer, drop eventually. You'll laugh remembering how weak this was when you eventually unlock Earthquake berserk.
• Avalanche Berserk: A fine choice for first ability learned, mandatory for early abilities. Given it's an intro berserk, you'll cap it early, and it's useful even at 100+ stamina stat, since ACMs and especially War Stomp cost a lot of stamina pool. This will also help you deal with heavier weapon templates much easier when you're young.
• Death's Embrace roar: Alright as a 1-slot way to train debilitation right out of the gate. Drop it for a better roar as soon as you have the slots.
• Focus Meditation: Trap! It's an expert-level skill, which means it will cost you tons of inner fire when you're young. Generally just train this skill with Breaking and Entering. It's okay as an augmentation trainer at middle circles, but avoid it as a young Barb. You have much more efficient augmentation trainers.
• Dragon Form: Core ability. Don't necessarily rush to pick it up though, the bonus is percent-based on your core ranks. +5 ranks to melee weapons isn't going to amaze you at circle 15.
• Unyielding Form: Alright augmentation trainer. Get it if you're really determined to swim the Selgotha River to skip the ferry, otherwise skip it.
• Python Form: A fine defense buff, particularly since Barbarians learn Parry at a primary rate. Just remember it won't help you when you're holding a bow, so don't make it your solo defense buff.
• Tenacity Meditation: Flat Damage Reduction for physical attacks. Since most critters don't cast magic, this is the only practical hunting meditation. You'll want it eventually, but you shouldn't rush to it.
• Wildfire Berserk: Amazing. Lowers weapon roundtime and boosts agility, Basic level so you'll lower its inner fire cost early. Triple win! Great selection for first ~15-20 circles.

Flame Path

• Flame Meditation: Barbarian equivalent of PERCEIVE. Freebie, pick it up obviously.
• Power Meditation: Barbarian equivalent of MANA. Also needed for active spell window to track Barb abilities. Freebie, pick it up.
• Buffalo Form : Carrying eighty weapons is hard for a youngin', this is actually a fine "defense buff" since it will probably lower your burden 2-3 levels until you bump up your strength and stamina enough. You'll eventually grow out of it, but no harm in choosing it early.
• Famine Berserk: Right up there with Avalanche as amazing early-game abilities. Great utility trainer, great for saving your butt if you get low on vitality. I wouldn't double it up with Avalanche until you can train all magic skills and have at least Duelist mastery, but it's awesome. Get it early.
• Contemplation Berserk: Middling combat meditation for a young Barb. You'll hit minimum hindrance on your armor at around ~250 ranks, so beyond that it doesn't have much use, but it's fine until then. Alright augmentation trainer.
• Drought Berserk: Amazing for PvP, not terribly practical for PvE (but still fun!). Only one of three warding berserks, more practical for hunting than Landslide and much cheaper than Flashflood. I'd get it for warding experience, though no need to rush it.
• Screech of Madness Roar: A decent roar, especially given it's one-slot cost.

Predator Path

• Seek Meditation: Hard pass unless you're a mining fanatic or just using it as an early 1-slot augmentation trainer. Collect rocks instead.
• Everild's Rage: Great early roar, the first roar available that actually lets you kill things quicker. I'd swap Anger or Embrace for this once you pick up the slots.
• Landslide Berserk: Not many critters use attacks defended with reflex. Works well as source of warding experience.
• Eagle Form: Core ability. Like Dragon, it's percent-based, so will be underwhelming until your ranks climb higher.
• Tornado Berserk: Amazing berserk all-around, core ability. Stamina helps with burden, shield boost keeps you alive. Pick it up early and keep it.
• Wolverine Form: Strong contender for worst ability in the entire game. Hard pass.
• Flashflood Berserk: Pulsing anti-everything except immobilize. Absolutely amazing, though expensive when young, save this for maybe circle ~30.

Masteries

• The ones that boost "effective ranks" (Paragon, Powermonger, Templar, Tribalist): The Barbarian equivalent of feats like Augmentation Mastery. These are fine as temporary 1-cost picks if you want to supercharge a category of ability. Worthless once you actually cap said ability, remove them eventually.
• Duelist: Love it. Buy it presents. Tell it it's pretty, and remember it's birthday. Pick number one, sub-circle-10. Maybe circle 1?
• Juggernaut: Will be absolutely incredible if you're "Barbing" correctly. Surpassed only by Duelist. Pick it up early, number two.
• Exemplar: Great mastery, helps with forms lowering inner fire regen. Great candidate for circle 20-ish. Mastery 3A.
• Titan: Berserks are useful, and expensive early on. Pick it up early. Mastery 3B.
• Yogi: Nice to have for PvP for Serenity and Bastion, not terribly impactful for PvE. Most hunting areas it will only affect Contemplation and Tenacity, and you'll eventually drop Contemplation. No hurry, Mastery 4A.
• Strategos: More for PvP, or if you hunt in groups. No hurry, Mastery 4B.