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.

Barbarians are a flexible roleplay guild, with little-to-no formal guidelines for philosophy or morality, allowing a broad range of personal expression.

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. Their skillset and Expertise-based reduction on Advanced Combat Maneuvers 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, but prefer a war hammer 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 viable as Barbarians, allowing some roleplay flexibility.

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 wands for effects like Ward Break and Huldah's Pall, but this requires heavy investment in microtransaction items and could be subject to change (as the PvP metagame is constantly shifting). Powerful Barbarians are a time-tested 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 five 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.

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 combat strength, and most abilities (outside of roars) interact with, or cost, inner fire in some capacity. Inner fire