Barbarian vs Berserker 2° time: which is better?
kamuizin
Member Posts: 3,704
Same thread as Barbarian vs Berserker: which is better?, but no bounds or limitations for the discussion, imagination is the only limit here 
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Ps: no pool to avoid factions, if ppl don't like this way, post here cos i have no problem in closing this thread to another in pool format to be created.
!Ps: no pool to avoid factions, if ppl don't like this way, post here cos i have no problem in closing this thread to another in pool format to be created.
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In single class issue, there's no discussion in fact, if not unanimous, almost everyone whom voted for berserker in the old thread agree that single class x single class, barbarian have the best advantage by far.
The main advantage of berzerker over barbarian is high AC in the begin, later that doesn't matter, so the high HP followed by damage resistance overpower barbarians over berserkers. The 2° advantage of berserkers are mastering an weapon, and by far i learend in this forum to prefer damage reduction over that.
A Barbarian with the 20% dmg reduction in all, worning an Orc Leather +3 (10% reduction missile damage) + belt of Inertial Barrier (25% resistance missile damage and 50% resistance magic damage) + Defender of Easthaven +2 (20% resistance slash, blunt and pierce) + Roranach's Horn (50% resistance blunt) and can be switched to Helm of the Rock to focus in elemental damage defense (25% resistance to elemental defenses)
All that make a sum of 55% missile damage reduction, 40% slash and pierce damage reduction, 90% blunt damage reduction and 75% magic damage reduction. We're using only Weapon, armor, beld and helm slot in fact. If we switch to the Helm of the rock we get 100% resistance to all elemental damage (but that's not an barbarian feature, any class that can equip helm and belt can do the same).
I prefer dualed Berserkers (or when i'm not dualing to druid, dualed Kensai/mages), but single x single there's no real discussion to be had, barbarians are better this way. That's the reason we discuss those classes with all the advantages they have (including dual class of berserker).
Ps: a new shield in BG EE with damage reduction would be nice and would make sense (better than have damage reduction from belts and helms only).
@Quartz, the monk class send a hug to you, just to know.
NOTE: This is assuming the barbarian/berserker has 18 STR and 18 CON. Ranges are given for difference in human to half-orc (19STR/19CON).
Barbarians:
1. Rolls a d12 instead of d10 for hp every level.
2. At 11th level, the barbarian gains 10% resistance to slashing, piercing, crushing, and missle damage. He gains +5% to this every four levels thereafter.
3. Rage gives +4 CON (+2HP/level) instead of a flat +15 HP that the berserker gets. So berserker will give you more hp from rage until level8 where the barbarian is at +16 HP.
4. Rage gives immunity to level drain.
5. Rage gives +2 savings throws vs magic.
-link for #5 & #6 table: http://playithardcore.com/pihwiki/index.php?title=Baldur's_Gate:_Races_and_Stats#Strength
6. Rage gives between +2 to +3 more THACO adjustment. Berserkers get a flat +2 to THACO.
7. Rage gives between +4 to +7 more damage adjustment. Berserkers get a flat +2 to damage.
8. Moves 2 points faster (not really useful in a fight except to keep more distance between your frontline and ranged casters/archers).
9. Can specialize in ranged weapons. (Though I don't often see a barbarian or berserker using any.)
10. Doesn't become winded after raging.
11. Immunity to backstab.
12. From what I can tell, this does need verifying. But I think the barbarian won't die from his loss of CON if his HP gained is more then what he has left at the end of raging. The book points out that berserkers do, but doesn't say so about barbarians.
Berserkers:
1. Rage gives immunity to Maze, Imprisonment, Stun, and Sleep.
2. Rage gives a flat +15 HP. Again, this is better for berserkers until level 8 when the barbarian starts getting more HP.
3. Can get 5 slots in proficiencies. Over the barbarians 2 slots. Giving the berserker the ability to get +2 thaco, +3 damage, +1 APR, and -3 speed factor. Though this is at the cost of diversifying what weapons you can use well. Overall, less damage, but more attacks and more hits.
4. Can wear any armor.
Overall, I would use berserkers against ranged (especially casters) and barbarians against melee.
Is that the same discussion as single vs. single, then, or does dualing change the respective values around? Certainly it's more interesting if you consider a Barbarian without maximum resistances, but with some of them, and a larger HP pool.
That being said, in this particular case I'm simply saying that originally, there was no reason for Barbarians not to be able to dual; add to that the fact that they are coded in a way that easily allows for it in BG, and many people suspect that them not being able to dual was not an intentional design decision, but an oversight (much like Wild Mages, this was afaik fixed in BG:EE).
I'm not saying that PnP should be the REASON, I'm saying that the PnP situation is an INDICATOR that it MAY have been an oversight. And as the other Ber vs. Bar thread has shown, dual-classing skews the discussion so heavily that it's definitely a point that should be talked about.
Also, SCS is far from arbitrary; if there was ever a "staple" mod for BG, that would be it.
Seems like a hasty generalization fallacy, by the way. The Monk is probably the *one* possible exception to what I said, and yet you bring it up as if it dismisses my entire point. That's not only kind of insulting to me, it's also more importantly quite illogical.
Anyway, if you have nothing actually useful to say against my point, then I guess we're done here.
This discussion is free @Lord_Tansheron , i'm not limiting anything in the OP, except good sense maybe
Dual class Barbarians are an old discussion, the amount of times that where asked to officialize their dual class border the thousands, by myself i have no problem in discussing those possibilities, but being not vanilla we can't mix this discussion with the official Barbarian x Berserker only.
We can raise arguments for an paralell discussion of Barb x Zerk both however,that's not off-topic totally and can lead to some interesting ideas, the main point of the original OP was to evaluate which class/kit is better for gameplay, any discussion over it will only benefit people.
I like dualing into Cleric, stacking Barbarian resistance with Defender of Easthaven, Armor of Faith, and Roranach's Horn... fun times!
So now lemme go half off-topic (cos we're still discussing barbarians here) and define which is the best barbarian dual class for a lvl 15 barbarian:
My barbarian gonna be good aligned Human that will dual class at level 15 with 1.750.000 (what means that he gonna probally be going to Brinlaw island to reach spell hold at this point cos i normally do everything i can in act 2 and 3 before pursue the main quest).
A Barbarian/Druid could be awsome (then i would be true neutral), the main issue is that to dual to druid at level 15 meant that i will have to get 3.500.000 XP before i access my previous barbarian class while as a cleric i would only need 1.800.000 XP to get access to my preivous class.
Both has pros and againsts in spell terms but the druid xp request for level 16 is really an bothering request, druids apparently are supposed to be dualed to when a fighter reach level 13 (as to reach lvl 14 you need only 750.000 xp), so my 1° question is: What ppl suggest?
For my 2° question, does anyone have any advice in term of NPC mods? I'm going to use SCS II, Tweak, Rogue R., Cross Mod and Item Upgrade (gonna unninstall BGT as i have BG EE now) as rule set and behavior adjustment mods, but for NPCs i'm a bit in the dark.
So please just list an NPC mod that will fit well with an chaotic good Barbarian (or true neutral barbarian for Barb/Druid if you think that's best).
For my final question:
Should i install ascension? And what about Weimer's Tactic mode? I'm going to be some levels above the normal begin of BG2 as i'm going to import the char from BG EE, so what you ppl think?
I am not well versed in NPC mods, as they are extremely difficult to make well. The only one I regularly use is Solaufein, both because I like Drow, and because it adds a very challenging battle (Lunar Eclipse). I suppose a Drow working with a Barbarian is not unprecedented, or so I've heard.... >_>
I seem to recall good things about the Valen mod, too, though that would likely be something for an evil party. I haven't tested it in its current version, the last time I played it she was horribly broken (as in: completely and totally overpowered) but that was at least five years ago.
I'm not a big fan of druid with SCS, for the simple reason that fire shields stop insects - and pretty much every single mage in the game casts fire shield. If you're dispelling them successfully, then you might as well bash their heads in instead of plaguing them with creepy-crawlies... Aside from insects, I've never really seen much use for druid spells compared to cleric ones. And, of course, that ridiculous XP-gap is there, too, to make life more annoying.
I think what you dual into largely depends on your party setup. Cleric would make sense because of the aforementioned resistance-stacking. Mages are a bit redundant with a Barbarian, as their protective spells make you take very little damage, and thus decrease the value of your HP and resistances. Thief I could see, though again I'm not sure if they play well with the more tanky nature of a Barbarian.
Keep in mind though that you don't necessarily have to play your Barbarian that way. You can just take the toughness as a perk, and not a main feature; though I suppose the question then becomes whether it's worth the trade-off of less weapon proficiency.
when ppl were arguing crom faeir their main reason for use was "WOW CROM FAEIR IS SOO GOOD BEST WEAPON EVER MADE"
now when PPL don't want to argue berserker/mage vs barbarian they are like "WOW MAGE IS BETTER THAN BARBARIAN END OF TOPIC"
wtf
There is no "correct" answer to "which is better", it's always situational.
ofc disagree about "life" in this thread ; D
Just in case anyone is interest here's the link to the mod forum: http://forums.gibberlings3.net/index.php?showtopic=17358
BTW, the whole vanilla Barbarian vs. Berserker is very simple imo, if you count dual class combos the Berserker has much higher potential, but as a single class pure class the Barbarian is better, especially at high levels.
The pnp 2nd Ed kit is indeed awful. No reason to use.
You are right of course in that you *can* push AC to meaningful values, even in ToB; however, these values tend to be extreme, as you yourself realized in your -20 example. And even then, you do still get hit, just not as frequently.
A quick glance over the creature files puts enemy THAC0s at the end of ToB around -7 to -10 (for bosses). That means that even with -20 AC (which is quite extreme), they still hit you 50% of the time. A Barbarian of lvl 19+ has 20% resistance to all damage. That means that your Berserker needs about 6 more AC to make up for the damage resistance.
The highest AC armors in the game (discounting BMU and Drow equipment) have an AC of -2. That means you could use an armor with as little as AC 4 and still be on par in damage taken to a Berserker in full plate.
But that's not the worst of it. One of the best, highest AC armors in the game is the White Dragon Scale+6 with -2 AC - and that armor *can* be worn by Barbarians! That means that the supposed "armor advantage" of a Berserker is in fact an illusion, at least at the end of the game. Still, even considering the earliest -2 AC armor you can get (Armor of the Hart), you *still* have access to armors wearable by Barbarians that make it end up taking less damage.
Also, keep in mind that Barbarian damage resistance is practically impenetrable; there are enemies (at least in modded games) who use things like Critical Strike (= guaranteed hits) and attacks during Timestop (also guaranteed hits) which effectively negate AC completely. I'm also fairly sure that being stunned/paralyzed/etc. makes hits connect automatically (or at least with a higher chance). Then there are also spells and effects that cause damage in forms that Barbarians can resist (Implosion, for example, causes blunt damage).
All in all: damage resistance is much better than AC, in pretty much all respects. I don't doubt that there are situations in which this may not be the case, of course; but similarly there are many others where it is, and I'm pretty much convinced that these are the vast majority.