Monkeycid's Guide To The Barbarian

[Occhidiangela]

1. Loshonorg makes another good point about Leap Attack I suggest is worth putting into your skill description.

From his Amazon Basin post . . .

"I have found that Leap Attack has min target range of your weapon reach; try it with a mace vs a pike. the difference is horrible."

I too have found this with my Polearm Barbarians in both Realms and SP. When inside weapon's range, an attack still goes off, but it is not the Leap Attack and I am fairly certain that the AR and damage bonuses go away when inside the weapon's range. I can't remember if this is comfirmed or not, but it seems to act like Bash. If you select it when the blue mana ball is empty, the Barbarian defaults to a normal attack, unlike an Amazon whose mana based attack, with an empty blue ball, turns into whining: 'Not enough mana!' )

2. I disagree with Albion Child about Battle Command.

Battle Commands, for the cost of one point, pumps all of your passives for its duration, but it needs no more than one point. By the time you max some of your primary skills, it is quite likely that you will have either +skills amulets or + barbarian skills amulets or + skills hats of some sort. Also, given the refresh Warcry scheme that your present (which I heartily endorse :) ) you will want to refresh BO before it runs out, and you are just as well off to refersh BC at the same time.

BC adds one to:

You Weapon Skill
Your Weapon Mastery
Your Attack Skill
Your Battle Order's Level
Your Iron Skin Level
Your Shout Level
Your Natural resist level.
Your Increased Stamina and Speed levels.

In HC, I would suggest that Natural resists might be where you want to put that extra point or two, particularly with a non-shield two handed Axe, Pole Arm, or Lance Barbarian.

Letting BC stay at one, to be boosted by such items as you run across, allows you to save points in a few of these skills, to where they are just under the diminishing returns threshold, and allocate either more to Berserk, or to another skill that you might not otherwise maxe out.

It is in my opinion a 'one point wonder', very much like Taunt. If you have any Mana Leach at all and high Battle Order's levels, Battle Command being refreshed every thirty to forty seconds is No Big Deal, and in HardCore, you may want to stay proactively engaged in refreshing BO anyway to keep life high.

My two cents worth.