I like the way, how you jumped from terminal brittish discovered to NordVPN. Keep them jokes coming, *Is taking notes* also, I like restrictions. The dwarf battle rager comes from the emphasis, you become a dwarwish cannon ball. Then you're bigger, the weight of your armour also increases, making it less effective. You can always make a Mowgli build, then a person is raised by dwarfs, and thus gets this build, while not being one, but try not to stretch it too much. It kinda breaks immersion, then everybody has intellect and skills, what should be secretive and only taught to your own kind...
3:40 there is no greater shame than being English. The Welsh and the Scots get a little bit of a pass, but they haven't tried to an assassinate an English monarch in a very long time so. . . not much of a pass.
Battleragers were a fun concept in the Drizzt books but didn't translate particularly well into 5e. They were a fun contrast to the more traditional Battlehammer dwarves, but definitely needing a major overhaul to be a very active choice to play, particularly against the other subclasses.
I mean battle barbarian should be an easy fix. Just move lv 14 feature lower, give it scaling and give him some kind of taunt feature and the armor should have +str when calucating dmg
Well... seeing as it came from a Drizzt book that explains why they kinda suck. I have nothing against Forgotten Realms books but 5e trolls the content. Anything that might even resemble something from those books is gonna get nerfed and de-powered.
@@nickl5298 Agreed. Cleric is a support tank, which doesn’t mean they can’t deal massive damage, they just aren’t primed for frontline bursts like a fighter so much as they’re capable of smacking a bit and then dropping a nuke.
You aren't kidding about the Storm Herald and the party tricks. Played a halfling Tundra barbarian once, and, after hitting level 6, went back to my home and was able to make ice-cream out of season (i.e. winter) because he could make things cold enough.
If you get all the way to Level 20, the Zealot Barbarian is also S-tier, because at Level 20 Barbarians get unlimited rages per day, meaning they can use that Level 14 Zealot ability to remain too angry to die essentially forever.
They can do it at the 15th level too, due to the Barbarian's persistent rage feature. Rage doesn't end unless you fall unconscious, or you chose to end it. 14th level zealot barbarian's don't die when they drop to zero hitpoints while raging.
@bjartskular7366 wrong. It says it only ends EARLY if you chose to end it. You can't bonus action rage if your already raging. You have to end the rage to rage again
One thing I think Battleragers should have been was a Heavy Armor Barbarian. Instead of limiting it to spiked armor, which is not a good medium armor the best of times, they maybe could have made it so that this subclass gives you proficiency in Heavy Armor and Allows you to rage while wearing heavy armor. If it had abilities based on armor, I feel like the subclass would open up interesting character options.
the 5e version of the adventure in middle earth rpg offer a barbarian subclasse for that, clade in heavy armor and focused on two handed weapons (the foe hammer).
I actually helped a DM friend of mine rewrite the subclass into this for a martial overhaul book that he's writing. We kept the spiked armor, but have it as a thing where the battlerager forges any armor they have into spiked armor, and the spike damage scales at each subclass feature level and counts as magical at level 6 or if you get magical armor before that. It's overall very cool and actually feels fun to play.
me and a friend joined a game as a married couple. he was a wild magic sorcerer and I was a wild magic barbarian. it was very chaotic and also very fun to play as we never fully knew what to expect and it kept us both on our toes. There was bonus laughter in our DnD group when they found out that my character got there abilities through intercourse with the sorcerer. wear protection, Avoid STWM
I literally just finished a 1-20 campaign as an Ancestral Guardian and you're an absolutely insane tank that can really cover for your party. If you think about it as long as you're up and fighting the rest of your party almost never need worry about not being resistant to the type of damage an enemy's attacks do and then the spirit shield on top of that makes you insanely strong in boss fights. An incredible tanking subclass for sure.
I have never played a barbarian in 40 years of D&D.. This video and your description of the ancestral guardian specifically is making me want to play a barbarian.
Cavalier fighter is another great defensive tank build. Unwavering mark gives you free opportunity attacks against enemies that attack your party members, and Hold the Line let’s you become a brick wall on the battlefield.
I play a Storm Herald Barbarian in my Sunday game, and the DM allowed me to change the rule to change the terrain on a long rest. That simply change made it a lot more usable and able to adapt to different biomes without having to wait on a big level up.
@@sethpatterson7281 It really is such a strange rule to impose. I don't really know of any other classes that make you change something on a level up of all things.
@@moogle890 Spells for Sorcerers and Bards. Cantrips. But that's about all I can think of. I see why they do it, but I like giving my players a bit more versatility
@@moogle890 Warlocks also change their eldritch invocation when leveling up and the Pact Magic can only be changed with an optional rule that lets you do so every time you get an ASI
I know Path of the Giant showed up in UA, a while back and needs play testing to be more official. But so far it's the most fun I've had running with a Barbarian in a long while. Great video, I look forward to seeing future subclass break downs if you plan on doing them!
I have played it for a few levels in a mtg themed campaign before it was put on hiatus for the foreseeable future and it was so fun, the dm allowed my the oversized weapons rule for my leonin's natural weapons as well as allowed them to be 2 claw attacks per attack action instead of giving them the d6 buff nature weapons got and it was a blast
Its really fuckin good, im currently playing in a campaign as a goliath giant barb 14 and its fuckin amazing. I chug a potion of growth an go gargantuan and with a homebrew feat that combines grappler and tavern brawler, I can grapple anything and beat the shit out of it with while the creature is unable to either fight or back or target any of the squishes
For the Battle Rage Barb I do as follows. (1)Any race can use it. (2)The armor is not limited to the standard spiked armor and you can craft higher versions of it, ex- Half Plate Spiked Armor. (3) Any of the features that deal damage actually scale with magic armor, ex- +1 Spiked Half Plate makes all your features do 4 damage instead of 3. Sometimes I would allow a 1d4 bonus damage if its an armor of some sort of resistance. Their armor is a weapon and should just be reflected by their unique mastery over it. (4) This is an on and off one I use based on the other players classes because new classes are way stronger then older, I sometime will allow them to eventually swap to heavy armor and not hinder barbarian features with it. Hope anyone who sees this likes these rules for their games.
What i did for battleragers that made them a lot of fun: 1. No limit to race (obvs) 2. Removed heavy armor restriction for class. 3. Changed the spiked armor so that when battlreragers hit 3rd lvl they become proficient with blacksmithing tools; and with the tools, 25gp in materials, and a long rest they could turn any medium or heavy armor into spiked armor. 4. Changed all spike damage to be unarmed damage, so 1 + str. That way it scales as you get stronger and, if you acquire the unarmed fighting style through feats or multiclassing, then the spike damage starts becoming actually powerful.
So glad to see Ancestral Guardians gets some love. Everyone loves the Bear Totem, but it's biggest critique is if the bad guys see you're just absorbing damage, they'll turn their focus to the party Wizard or Sorcerer since there's no reason to attack you. Combine it with Reckless Attack and they all but HAVE to swing at you. Plus you can still deal great damage with extra attack and GWM
People forget that frenzy is another way to rage. So you can still rage in a normal fight and then pull a frenzy when the situation requires "super rage".
Meanwhile, other subclasses give you abilities that are just as good if not better than a single melee attack with a bonus action, without all the downsides given by exhaustion levels... Why use a "super rage" when you can make your regular rage way better than that ?
@@trebmal587 100% agree. It isn't even a "super rage" if you have great weapon master. Or an offhand weapon. Or polearm master. Or something like Telekinetic (for those questioning that, yeah it isn't optimal but you can use it to disengage allies from monsters)
Seeing the Barbiebarian joke, I have to mention that that is a character I'd like to play in Pathfinder 2e: a Toy Poppet Barbarian. Personally I'll go with Giant Instinct because I love the imagery of the Tiny doll hulking out to like 20 feet tall.
I once had my Air Genasi Wild Magic Barbarian pull off a really sick move that the wild magic surge boosted so well. He ran down the yardarm of the ship they were on and jump to the ship attacking us. At the jump he used levitate (racial ability) to give him a lift. He then raged, this dropping the levitate and activating wild magic. The roll of the table landed on radiant energy bursting out of his chest to hit his enemies as he landed. I felt like Thor on the rainbow bridge in Ragnarok. By far one of my all time favorite D&D moments!
Totem Eagle is my new favorite subclass, you get the free disengage like a drunken master monk, can see for TWO MILES at lvl 6, and can "fly" (super jump 40-50ft depending on your speed) at 14.
I wish there was a a good option that would combine the flavor of beast barbarian and totem barbarian. Like, you choose the animal you transform into each time you rage, gaining natural weapons like beast barbarian does, but also other abilities like totem barbarian does. If you transform into bear, your damage reduction improves and you become large. If you choose wolf, you can get pack tactics and trip attack at later level. With tiger you get ounce etc. On later levels you could scale up the natural weapons and add more cool abilities to each form. There are already dnd novels that have this concept, only thing missing is mechanics for it.
1:45 i didn't forget the Battle Rager existed because they're one of my favorite character groups in the Forgotten Realms novels! I made one of my characters grow up idolizing Thibbledorf Pwent!
The one thing I'd say is about Berserker which you said but didn't show, is the intimidation ability uses your *charisma* to intimidate, which is not a stat most barbarians can even afford. Not to mention by that point in the game and onward a lot of things become more immune to fear; i don't think it deserves D tier, but definitely C.
I played a ancestral guardians 5/thief 7 barbarogue gnome, built around using grapples to climb onto enemies. It was a seriously good tank, and a lot of fun
Great video, also I just wanted to tell you you are the only person whose ads I never skip, even when watching video for the second time. They are really creative and entertaining. Easily top1 ad maker in the world period
Zealot is my favorite. My favorite character was a zealot barbarian wholey and vehemently committed to doing the will of the gods. Though he was quite fuzzy on what that will was, and wasn’t even entirely sure which gods were involved 😂 it gave a quick easy fun way to pursue anything the rest of the party was doiy
People underestimate the radiant damage rider. Against enemies that have regen unless they take radiant damage that round it's incredible. Let the cleric focus on doing something other than spamming Guiding Bolt or Sacred Flame, or even just provide insurance in case the one shot at dealing radiant damage doesn't connect. It's also a relevant damage boost overall that scales with level and doesn't eat any sort of resource you weren't spending anyway.
My criticisms are that the bite attack is really bad (it was too strong in the UA and they went to far when nerfing it). Since you choose when you start your rage, you just are never gonna pick the bite. How often do you start a fight on less than half HP? I also dislike how the natural weapons aren't 'unarmed strikes' and so don't synergise with any of the other classes, feats or items that buff unarmed. Instead they are this weird "counts as a simple melee weapon for you".
@@salgutierrez4710 I played one as a Wildhunt shifter. When shifted you can reckless for advantage but the enemies can't get advantage back... its great.
Pro Tip: The wording of the Wild Magic Bolstering Magic is different than other boosting features... and adds to the meta d20 roll, which means you can make a non-crit a crit with the bonus
My issue with Wild Magic is how long it takes to resolve its effect. If you roll flumphs you're rolling up to six times for an effect that doesn't even really do anything. It's neat for maybe 5 combats, then everybody dreads how long the freaking barbarian of all class' turn is going to take.
I used one but never went down after lv 14. Rage beyond death is great but with a ton of health and relentless rage you are really hard to reduce to 0hp Also he was a Goliath so also stones endurance
Dude love your content. You keep it short and sweet. You explain classes really well without fully getting lost in it. Keep you the hard work my guy. You gain a new sub today.
My favorite barb is my tabaxi path of the desert storm herald barbarian. Add a fire flavor to her abilities, a glaive, and plenty of space, basically anything in 10 feet was getting whacked by some kind of action. Plus, her carefree CG personality made her a riot in RP situations.
The thing with berserkers, though, is that they excel in a situations where every class and subclass excels. On one encounter days, wizards can burn all their slots and divination portents/abjuration arcane wards/war mage power surges, sorcerers can use every sorcerery point, warlocks can blast their max level spells, fighters can second wind and action surge and use all their superiority dice/samurai fighting spirits. Even just having the huge hp pool of any barbarian subclass makes one encounter days pretty easy to go nuts in.
I think barbarian subclasses should have some utility built into them base barbarian doesnt get many utility optios, but if those are baked into the subclasses that could be pretty good like the speak with animals ritual one subclass gets; or givving each subclass two extra proficiencies from a list of fitting options
Well said. They've gotta have more to them than martial skill. F For example, feral instinct lends itself well to animal handling, nature, and survival.
@@Drekromancer yep and going with the idea of all of em getting extra proficiencies at level 3 I imagine it being that they get to pick two from: Ancestral Guardian: History, Arcana, Insight, Performance, Religion BattleRanger: Athletics, Intimidation, History, Persuation, Deception Beast: Stealth, Acrobatics, Survival, Insight, Perception Beserker: Intimidation, Performance, Athletics, Acrobatics, Perception Storm Herald: Nature, Perception, Intimidation, Religion, Performance Totem Warrior: Nature, Survival, Animal Handling, Religion, Medicine Wild Magic: Arcana, Investigation, Perception, Survival, Acrobatics Zealot: Religion, Arcana, History, Insight, Investigation and then the optional feature "Primal knowledge" can be move to later levels, maybe at 9th, and it includes both the base barbarian proficiencies and your subclass'
I really like what bone wizard did to the berserker. He basically changed frenzy to instead force the creature you bonus attacked to attack you with an opportunity attack. They can choose to not take it but they need to pass a wisdom save.
Love barbs. Just want some more mechanically challenging / interesting subclasses. Bear Totems and Zealots are my faves. And Wild Magic is fun. One day I'll try for a Beast
I’m currently playing a “Path of the Wild Soul (Unearthed Arcana)” as a full Orc and it’s a load of fun. I actually had a session the other week where, using my re-rolling Wild table feature, kept setting off a different effect each turn while raging, and at the same time I used the base “too angy to die” from Barb and the one from Orc to get up to about DC 25 before my party got to where I was and helped take out the enemies I was fighting
I would absolutely LOVE to see a community engagement series, given your great content and particular POV. The general gist would be "Help! Fix my build!" and offer ways to optimize a build that you may have chosen for your character, but realized wasn't panning out like you'd hoped. Example. I have a newish paladin that I chose "Oath of the Crown" for, and am having some buyers remorse. If there were some "This Old Build" tips and tricks to help me claw back some joy and value from the build, I'd be all ears!
9:43 Sounds like someone's never heard of the wizard before. Even if Totem Warrior is an S-Tier barbarian subclass, when you put it into perspective of a lot of the other subclasses in the game it's hard to say that it would even be above B-Tier, if that. Granted, part of this is just the fact that barbarians in general are the weakest class in the game, but honestly even taking that into consideration there are a lot of subclasses that are way more powerful.
I love the flavor of barbarian, but I dislike the lack of a complex subclass. I'm on board with them having many simple ones for newer players or people who just wanna unga bunga, but I'd love one that gave me choices to make like a battlemaster or spellcaster.
Point about Berserker: 1DD buffs them nicely by making exhaustion not nearly as debilitating. The subclass is flawed, sure, but it needs just a few little tweaks to be great: 1) ignore exhaustion while raging 2) make intimidating presence based on strength instead of charisma. Giving it AoE wouldn't hurt either, since other classes have similar abilities at lower levels. 3) make retaliation based on your reach instead of static 5 feet.
I’ve played both an Ancestral Guardian and a Zealot barbarian in the same campaign (Tomb of Annihilation) and I enjoyed playing the Zealot more. Admittedly that was my Lizardfolk Paladin-Barbarian multiclass who was so dumb that she spoke in the third person and her most common phrases were “Litrix bite!” and “Litrix eat!” (The other character’s most common response was “Litrix no!” 😂) Litrix really was too angry to die which really helped when we did the ToA epilogue. She’s actually getting a mention in the homebrew campaign I’m running because she’s my favourite ever character to play!
I've been looking for exactly this video! Just hit level 3, and I've been trying to figure out what subclass to pick. Going Storm Herald of the Sea for my Aarakocra Barbarian!
I played a warforged wild magic barbarian named Hijax in a one shot. Basically glitched out when raging to flavor the wild surges. I’d play it again. It was so fun.
Beast barb has a lot of potential based on how you use it. Like picking a race that has a prehensile tail feat. Or lets say you can get a large type attribute to your character size.
I run a much more homebrewed battlerager and its so much fun just being a Grapple-Tank that knees people in their chests with spikes. A lot of changes, but the biggest one is that you can also add your constitution modifier (max of +2, unless you get medium armour master) to the AC of your spiked armour. ie 14+dex+con for a maximum of 18, 20 with a shield (though you're probably not going to be using one).
The weakness for Zealot’s Rage Beyond Death is that it does make them immune yo dying when they’re below hit points but they can still be killed by other things, Power Word Kill, getting brain eaten by mind flayer, or getting decapitated by a vorpal sword.
I played a zealot barb with an eldritch claw tattoo for a one shot and it was so much damn fun, barbarian with 2 sources of bonus damage and some range
I played a barbarian once who didn’t ‘rage’ per se, but entered into a sort of Neo-style bullet-time state where opponents just seemed slower. Trained by the setting’s equivalent of zen masters. Was very cool. And so much different to the usual ‘hulk smash’ style of barb.
As a DM I changed the frenzy and some abilities of the barbarian for example fatigue has become a bearserker mechanic you can take a fatigue to transform a strength, dexterity or constitution roll into a natural 20 or in combat cancel a status effect or control effect. Mindles rage I added that if you get hit you have to roll a die to enter rage as a reaction and intimidating presence in combat is automatically activated for every enemy that sees you when you critical or kill
I had a zealot Barbarian in the Curse of Strahd campaign, and he consistently destroyed every encounter with just his great weapon master feature, and also being he was a fallen Aasimar he had necrotic shroud out whenever he ran into a fight. He would crit so often, and hed reduce enemies to corpses in no time flat.
Totem Barbarian is totally nuts, specially when the DM allow multiple animals build, since rules as written the DM can allow you to choose different animals on later levels of the subclass. My second favorite definitely the Ancestral Guardians one. One of my favorite characters was a lizardfolk, who wanted to eat everything possible in the world, AKA Toriko, it was hella fun walking in combat with draconic spirits protecting my allies while I went full bite mode on my enemies using only a loincloth a shield and a cart full of goodies to eat tied by a rope.
@@rookie2128 yeah pardon me i just went to check it again, because it said multi animal barbarians are rare exceptions in the book so usually we'd talk to the DM about it. But that is just lore from d&d nothing stopping them to have a clan that doesn't have a focus in a specific animal. Edit: a typo And anyways lore is there to be expanded by the DM and players.
You did forget the Wild Magic barb's other amazing ability: their magical sonar ping. It's a six second detect magic, as an action. Take any feat that gives you a bonus action attack, and that invisible spellcaster is about to make a concentration check as the "mindless brute" knows exactly where they are and is now approaching them sideways. Can do it a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus per day. So, it has a short duration but you just need to find your mark. Also, with a little creativity, each of those wild magic abilities stay useful throughout play. Be that a reusable misty step, a retaliatory damage with no range restriction or just a good old fashioned difficult terrain within 15 feet of me so good luck running, buddy. That level 10 is huge. Run in and just keep rolling, praying on ones. I should see if my DM will let my turtle wear a metal collar and have someone cast heat metal on it so I can just be a magical disco ball of chaos.
One of the favorite characters I've ever played was Ix, a goblin Ancestral Guardian Barbarian/Warlock. Her whole goblin clan was enslaved by a dragon, which routinely performed magic experiments on some of the goblins to try and make them stronger (so they could work in the mine that was its lair for longer hours with less food). Ix was one of the few that survived and the dragon, essentially, became her Warlock patron. After she broke free she was (understandably) filled with just.. so much anger at dragons, but was smart enough to know she couldn't throw hands with the dragon that enslaved her. So she started surviving on her own, tackling bigger and bigger creatures as she went on. When she got her Ancestral Guardian features, her spiritual guides and protectors were her fallen clansmen. I really enjoyed playing that character a lot and the campaign was tons of fun, so Ancestral Guardian will always be S tier for me.
@@nickzhaosun Funny story, my barbarian did get one, but swapped it out since he wasn't using INT stuff that much and got some really good gear later on. The Goblin Paladin however was more than happy to finally have a positive INT modifier.
A big reason Frenzy barbs get flack is MOST barbs get Great Weapon Master or Polearm Master; both of which can give you a bonus action attack with out getting exhaustion; or you can DW for free. The ability is still pretty good, but we already get feats that give us the same without the downsides.
The other down side to the frenzied rage ability is that it basically restricts you to a 2 handed weapon or shield barb. I keep a home rule that treats frenzied rage to be like flurry of blows for a dual wielder, allowing for 2 strikes
I think Intimidating Presence actually makes me angrier (no pun intended) than Frenzy does. It has 6 problems that I can see and they are, in no particular order: 1.) Fear as a condition is bad for Barbarians. Barbarians are a melee centric class, indeed, they are *the most* melee centric class, I would argue, and Fear doesn't allow enemies to come nearer to you willingly. 2.) It is single target. This one isn't all too bad except it compounds horrifically with the next few problems I will list. 3.) It costs a full action to use. This is a major problem. This is a subclass that is focused on damage, and this ability severely limits your damage output on the turn you use it. 4.) It has no inherent duration and must be actively upkept every single turn at the cost of an action, making the previous problem WAY worse. 5.) It is a level 10 feature. This means that, in a lot of campaigns, this may be THE LAST subclass ability your character obtains, and it's just not very good, even ignoring the final problem. 6.) It is not based on any ability Score Barbarians would use. This one actually may be the single biggest, and indeed, most baffling problem associated with the ability: it is based on your charisma. Barbarians rely on 3 different stats at base to function correctly: Strength, Dexterity and Constitution. It's especially baffling, because it's flavored as you being big and scary, so why isn't it STRENGTH BASED? Now, I admit, this one is just a result of early 5e design, but it's something that is so limiting to the ability that it, quite frankly, is just a flavor ability. Truly, I consider Intimidating Presence to be the WORST ability in the game, excluding maybe base book Beast Master's Animal Companion, because you will NEVER use it. It serves no purpose, especially at the level you obtain it at, for Christ's sake. It's worse than a 3rd level spell at a level when full casters have *5th* level spells, and is counter to what a Barbarian WANTS to do. It's cool flavor, but if I were redesigning Berserker, I would both change the Ability Score to Strength and fully just give Berserker a second level 10 ability, as this one is actually worthless for them outside of roleplay.
Pro tip, that 1 mile view range on the eagle barbarians is an absolutely incredible combo with the druids shape shifting or any of the "wilderness scout" classes/subclasses.
I reworked path of the Storm herald in my game because both me and my player found it lacking. So instead of a fire aura that deals a low amount of damage I made it so when they raged they would explode similar to a fireball but not as powerful. At later levels after they raged they would become enreathed in flames and enemies attacking them would take fire damage. Both me and my players found it really fun.
I played a Storm Herald based on Frankensteins monster in a oneshot once. It was fun, although I didnt fully understand how Rage worked since I hadnt played a Barbarian before.
The long distance Ancestral Barbarian never even occurred to me. If you take Thrown Weapon Fighting you can have a lot of fun. Also if your concerned about running out of Thrown weapons you have three options, Eldritch Knight for Weapon Bond, Soulknife for Psychic blades, or Artificer for Returning Weapon.
Reach weapons, mobile feat, and racial choice of centaur or bugbear can help. Centaur can somewhat effectively make use of their bonus action hoof attack with mobile feat and barbarian speed boost. Bugbear reach could help melee from 15ft away and potentially make use of polearm master opportunity attacks. Reckless attack can be used a bit more often if the barbarian becomes more of a hit and run skirmished. Ancestral guardian makes the entire party tankier than the barbarian against that one creature.
Played a Totem Barbarian (Bear at level 3) in a Tomb of Annihilation campaign. That character was the only one to survive from Session 0 through the epilogue. During the final boss battle (without giving away any spoilers), based on the way the turn order worked out, my character was subject to two Finger of Death spells, plus a Disintegrate, and received a grand total of *three* real HP of damage. The main drawback in that fight was the Frightened condition, which limited the melee damage that he could do.
I'm a stout halfling wild magic barbarian/conquest paladin. He's so awesome. Being able to add 10 to my attack once per short or long rest and reroll 1s and 2s on the damage die thanks to great weapon fighting is sweet.
For me the best subclasses are those that give me the best ideas for RP, I'm more of a narrative player. But I totally get the "best" kind of thing, fun to think about ^^
The Berzerker’s mindless rage actually has a lot of loopholes that makes it not nearly as good as it seems. There are enchantment spells like Suggestion that bypass the immunity by not actually using the charmed condition. It’s also questionable whether or not one could rage to get out of a charm, since that itself could be seen as directly acting against the charmed condition.
The charmed condition isn't nearly as strong as people seem to think it is. Although it does frequently come with it as a rider, it isn't mind control by itself. In fact, it doesn't even force you not to act against the charmer's best interest by itself. The only thing the charmed condition does is make it so you cannot directly cause literal, physical harm to the charmer.
@@ilovethelegend but that raises the question: can you rage knowing that will free you to harm the target? Or if you don’t know you are charmed, why would you rage with no apparent enemy around? It’s a role playing issue you would want to clarify with your DM.
@@johnkronz7562 ...Yes, you can, because the only thing the charmed condition prevents you from doing is targeting the charmer with an attack or including them in the effect of a harmful spell. And NOTHING else. It goes one step. Is the thing you're doing one of those two things? Then no, the charmed condition (by itself) does not prevent you from doing it.
@@ilovethelegend it also always has some other rider by the spell or ability, like seeing the charmer as a warm acquaintance. It’s unfair to say having some inconvenient interactions with a feature makes it mind control. Mindless rage just has role playing issues and loopholes with charm spells.
@@johnkronz7562 Except your interpretation DOES functionally make Charm Person mind control, because it then prevents you from taking ANY steps that may harm them or work against their interest. I consider my coworkers friendly acquaintances. I will, at best, minorly inconvenience myself for them. This does not mean I will lay down my life for them. This does not mean I will take their side over one of my trusted friends. This does not mean that I'll hold myself back in a life or death situation because it'll hurt them (In a way that's not me directly bitch-slapping or blowing them up; not letting them get caught up in friendly fire tracks). This doesn't even mean I'll let it go if I just saw them do something obviously suspicious, like cast a spell on me.
Wanna point out something funny. Path of the Juggernaut (MM's HB subclass): ''Once per turn while raging, when you damage a creature with a melee attack, you can force the target to make a Strength saving throw (DC 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Strength modifier). On a failure, you push the target 5 feet away from you, and you can choose to immediately move 5 feet into the target’s previous position.'', notice that it isn't specified that where you push the creature away doesn't need to be an occupied space. Rules as written, your hands are hammers and all before you is are nails.
for me PERSONALY Berserker will always be C Tier just cos of Frenzy's "When your rage ends, you suffer one level of exhaustion." that is a death sentence if your DM does few Long Rests in sessions and you must use your features not as a "i get to use if i want" but "i MUST use or i'm dead weight" by 3lv's of Exhaustion you're using it as an offset any more you may as well have picked a Fighter and ran it pure
I'd say that Totem, Zealot, and Ancestral Guardian are all equally good for different reasons. Totem takes the least amount of damage and has multiple options for damage, tanking, mobility, or utility. Ancestral Guardian is a great Tank preventing others from taking damage or punishing enemies that deal damage. Zealot is the best offensive damage dealing barb with great "can't die won't die" features. Can't go wrong with these 3 subclasses.
Ancestral guardian is better tank because it allows each party member to tank. Ancestral guardians feature makes all party members tankier than the barbarian.
Im actually playing a bulked out half-elf (half human) battlerager who was found by travelling dwarves as a abandoned baby and grew up in a dwarf fortress. The point of him adventuring beyond his home is that his name was retracted from his familys dwarven tree and exiled shortly after his father died. All of course because of the fact he is of course a battlerager, an axe idiot. He now roams searching a way to cope with the loss of his adoptive fathers last name, releasing his copius rage defending others to redeem himself in his eyes.
I unfortunately don't have a group to play with:( However, I have created 6 different lvl 1 characters. 1 of which is a custom Race Half-Moon Elf Half-Frost Giant Barbarian planning on "Path of Giants" THE BEST SUB-CLASS FOR BARBARIAN!!!
Couple changes. Zealot is S tier they got everything going for them but additional subclass options (which is pretty standard for 5e) Wild magic is A tier just from what I've seen in play. Yes berserker's other features are great but in +90% of games you do something after combat even if it's just more combat and exhaustion cripples everything outside of combat. So I'd say easy A if fixed or low C if not.
My favorite barbarian subclass is the mistwood barbarian from Tome of Heroes which is a sort of barbarian assassin that gets reckless attack and rage bonus in thrown weapons and also misty step. The book also has the path of thorns barbarian which is just a better battlerager with no restrictions and the thorn damage increases as you level up. Zealot is also really good in deadly campaigns, (mine had 9 pc deaths not counting revives) for free revives.
You wanna know what I think is one of the best parts of Totem’s animal spirit stuff? You technically don’t have to go off the animals listed. Straight from the PHB: Your totem animal might be an animal related to those listed here but more appropriate to your homeland. For example, you could choose a hawk or vulture in place of an eagle. So you could essentially make the “spirit” a different animal. For example, one Barbarian’s “Bear” could be a Tyrannosaurus. This sounds like flavor, but it's rules as written.
Currently playing a Totem Warrior and they are the best tanks in the game. I took an effective 219 damage and had 1 hit point left before my team got the kill.
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I like the way, how you jumped from terminal brittish discovered to NordVPN. Keep them jokes coming, *Is taking notes* also, I like restrictions. The dwarf battle rager comes from the emphasis, you become a dwarwish cannon ball. Then you're bigger, the weight of your armour also increases, making it less effective. You can always make a Mowgli build, then a person is raised by dwarfs, and thus gets this build, while not being one, but try not to stretch it too much. It kinda breaks immersion, then everybody has intellect and skills, what should be secretive and only taught to your own kind...
3:40 there is no greater shame than being English.
The Welsh and the Scots get a little bit of a pass, but they haven't tried to an assassinate an English monarch in a very long time so. . . not much of a pass.
A@
And what about the Path of the Giants Barbarian?
Battlerager is based upon R A Salvatores Gutbuster Brigade.
Battleragers were a fun concept in the Drizzt books but didn't translate particularly well into 5e. They were a fun contrast to the more traditional Battlehammer dwarves, but definitely needing a major overhaul to be a very active choice to play, particularly against the other subclasses.
* sad thibbledorf pwent noises*
I came to say that. 😩
I mean battle barbarian should be an easy fix. Just move lv 14 feature lower, give it scaling and give him some kind of taunt feature and the armor should have +str when calucating dmg
@@Aurathon3D a squeeling armor?
Well... seeing as it came from a Drizzt book that explains why they kinda suck. I have nothing against Forgotten Realms books but 5e trolls the content. Anything that might even resemble something from those books is gonna get nerfed and de-powered.
please do more of these on other classes!
Seconded. I’d love to see one for Ranger!
Agreed! Coming from someone playing an Arcane Trickster Rogue/Bloodline Sorcerer. I wanna see more.
Amen brother
Would be awesome to see clerics next. Especially when you point out you DON'T HAVE TO HEAL as a cleric
@@nickl5298 Agreed. Cleric is a support tank, which doesn’t mean they can’t deal massive damage, they just aren’t primed for frontline bursts like a fighter so much as they’re capable of smacking a bit and then dropping a nuke.
You aren't kidding about the Storm Herald and the party tricks. Played a halfling Tundra barbarian once, and, after hitting level 6, went back to my home and was able to make ice-cream out of season (i.e. winter) because he could make things cold enough.
If you get all the way to Level 20, the Zealot Barbarian is also S-tier, because at Level 20 Barbarians get unlimited rages per day, meaning they can use that Level 14 Zealot ability to remain too angry to die essentially forever.
Exactly
They can do it at the 15th level too, due to the Barbarian's persistent rage feature. Rage doesn't end unless you fall unconscious, or you chose to end it. 14th level zealot barbarian's don't die when they drop to zero hitpoints while raging.
@@bjartskular7366 it doesn't end early. Big difference. It still runs out after 1 minute or 10 rounds.
@@bjartskular7366 its specifically worded “your rage doesnt end early…”
That means it still ends on time, it just no longer ends early.
@bjartskular7366 wrong. It says it only ends EARLY if you chose to end it. You can't bonus action rage if your already raging. You have to end the rage to rage again
One thing I think Battleragers should have been was a Heavy Armor Barbarian. Instead of limiting it to spiked armor, which is not a good medium armor the best of times, they maybe could have made it so that this subclass gives you proficiency in Heavy Armor and Allows you to rage while wearing heavy armor. If it had abilities based on armor, I feel like the subclass would open up interesting character options.
I wholeheartedly agree. Armored barbarian is totally an archetype, but 5e doesn't cater well to it at all. I want to see more support for that, too.
the 5e version of the adventure in middle earth rpg offer a barbarian subclasse for that, clade in heavy armor and focused on two handed weapons (the foe hammer).
I actually helped a DM friend of mine rewrite the subclass into this for a martial overhaul book that he's writing. We kept the spiked armor, but have it as a thing where the battlerager forges any armor they have into spiked armor, and the spike damage scales at each subclass feature level and counts as magical at level 6 or if you get magical armor before that. It's overall very cool and actually feels fun to play.
and maybe because you are wearing heavy armor you only add your con mod not your dex to like with unarmored defense
@@gabrielrognon6238Have a concept for a barbarian who was raised by dwarves and uses a Maul. If this was battlerager, it’d be perfect
me and a friend joined a game as a married couple. he was a wild magic sorcerer and I was a wild magic barbarian. it was very chaotic and also very fun to play as we never fully knew what to expect and it kept us both on our toes. There was bonus laughter in our DnD group when they found out that my character got there abilities through intercourse with the sorcerer.
wear protection, Avoid STWM
that sounds hilarious, tbh. maximum chaos xD
Why did the Barbarian mug the bard?
So he could have all the lute.
F*** you it's funny.
I literally just finished a 1-20 campaign as an Ancestral Guardian and you're an absolutely insane tank that can really cover for your party. If you think about it as long as you're up and fighting the rest of your party almost never need worry about not being resistant to the type of damage an enemy's attacks do and then the spirit shield on top of that makes you insanely strong in boss fights. An incredible tanking subclass for sure.
I have never played a barbarian in 40 years of D&D.. This video and your description of the ancestral guardian specifically is making me want to play a barbarian.
Cavalier fighter is another great defensive tank build. Unwavering mark gives you free opportunity attacks against enemies that attack your party members, and Hold the Line let’s you become a brick wall on the battlefield.
I play a Storm Herald Barbarian in my Sunday game, and the DM allowed me to change the rule to change the terrain on a long rest. That simply change made it a lot more usable and able to adapt to different biomes without having to wait on a big level up.
I'm a DM in a game and I allow my Storm Herald to do the same thing
@@sethpatterson7281 It really is such a strange rule to impose. I don't really know of any other classes that make you change something on a level up of all things.
@@moogle890 Spells for Sorcerers and Bards. Cantrips. But that's about all I can think of. I see why they do it, but I like giving my players a bit more versatility
@@moogle890 Warlocks also change their eldritch invocation when leveling up and the Pact Magic can only be changed with an optional rule that lets you do so every time you get an ASI
This is a great change, especially if you play shorter campaigns.
I know Path of the Giant showed up in UA, a while back and needs play testing to be more official. But so far it's the most fun I've had running with a Barbarian in a long while. Great video, I look forward to seeing future subclass break downs if you plan on doing them!
This. Duegar path of the giant barbarian. Let's go.
i play a halfling path of giants barb its really cool
I read the entry of Path of a Giant Barbarian and want to play as a firbolg path of giant barbarian so bad!!!
I have played it for a few levels in a mtg themed campaign before it was put on hiatus for the foreseeable future and it was so fun, the dm allowed my the oversized weapons rule for my leonin's natural weapons as well as allowed them to be 2 claw attacks per attack action instead of giving them the d6 buff nature weapons got and it was a blast
Its really fuckin good, im currently playing in a campaign as a goliath giant barb 14 and its fuckin amazing. I chug a potion of growth an go gargantuan and with a homebrew feat that combines grappler and tavern brawler, I can grapple anything and beat the shit out of it with while the creature is unable to either fight or back or target any of the squishes
For the Battle Rage Barb I do as follows. (1)Any race can use it. (2)The armor is not limited to the standard spiked armor and you can craft higher versions of it, ex- Half Plate Spiked Armor. (3) Any of the features that deal damage actually scale with magic armor, ex- +1 Spiked Half Plate makes all your features do 4 damage instead of 3. Sometimes I would allow a 1d4 bonus damage if its an armor of some sort of resistance. Their armor is a weapon and should just be reflected by their unique mastery over it. (4) This is an on and off one I use based on the other players classes because new classes are way stronger then older, I sometime will allow them to eventually swap to heavy armor and not hinder barbarian features with it. Hope anyone who sees this likes these rules for their games.
Certainly better than the original class is.
I would also add in the heavy armor restrictions barbs have are gone if it is spiked armor
@@mohammadmurie yeah, that'd make them have a few better options too.
@@VeteranVandal yeah like it would give them the heavy armor barbarian build that can actually fully dump dex and have no worry about it
What i did for battleragers that made them a lot of fun:
1. No limit to race (obvs)
2. Removed heavy armor restriction for class.
3. Changed the spiked armor so that when battlreragers hit 3rd lvl they become proficient with blacksmithing tools; and with the tools, 25gp in materials, and a long rest they could turn any medium or heavy armor into spiked armor.
4. Changed all spike damage to be unarmed damage, so 1 + str. That way it scales as you get stronger and, if you acquire the unarmed fighting style through feats or multiclassing, then the spike damage starts becoming actually powerful.
Glad to see new a subclass tier list video, can't wait for one about Warlocks and Monks
So glad to see Ancestral Guardians gets some love. Everyone loves the Bear Totem, but it's biggest critique is if the bad guys see you're just absorbing damage, they'll turn their focus to the party Wizard or Sorcerer since there's no reason to attack you. Combine it with Reckless Attack and they all but HAVE to swing at you. Plus you can still deal great damage with extra attack and GWM
People forget that frenzy is another way to rage. So you can still rage in a normal fight and then pull a frenzy when the situation requires "super rage".
It just kinda sucks if your subclass feature does nothing for you a lot of the time.
.....then why be a berserker barb if you can't use your key feature majority of the time. You are essentially a subclasses barb until you frenzy.
Meanwhile, other subclasses give you abilities that are just as good if not better than a single melee attack with a bonus action, without all the downsides given by exhaustion levels...
Why use a "super rage" when you can make your regular rage way better than that ?
DOUBLE YOUR HEALTH vs DEAL 1D12 DAMAGE
@@trebmal587 100% agree. It isn't even a "super rage" if you have great weapon master. Or an offhand weapon. Or polearm master. Or something like Telekinetic (for those questioning that, yeah it isn't optimal but you can use it to disengage allies from monsters)
Seeing the Barbiebarian joke, I have to mention that that is a character I'd like to play in Pathfinder 2e: a Toy Poppet Barbarian. Personally I'll go with Giant Instinct because I love the imagery of the Tiny doll hulking out to like 20 feet tall.
I once had my Air Genasi Wild Magic Barbarian pull off a really sick move that the wild magic surge boosted so well. He ran down the yardarm of the ship they were on and jump to the ship attacking us. At the jump he used levitate (racial ability) to give him a lift. He then raged, this dropping the levitate and activating wild magic. The roll of the table landed on radiant energy bursting out of his chest to hit his enemies as he landed. I felt like Thor on the rainbow bridge in Ragnarok. By far one of my all time favorite D&D moments!
Totem Eagle is my new favorite subclass, you get the free disengage like a drunken master monk, can see for TWO MILES at lvl 6, and can "fly" (super jump 40-50ft depending on your speed) at 14.
I wish there was a a good option that would combine the flavor of beast barbarian and totem barbarian. Like, you choose the animal you transform into each time you rage, gaining natural weapons like beast barbarian does, but also other abilities like totem barbarian does. If you transform into bear, your damage reduction improves and you become large. If you choose wolf, you can get pack tactics and trip attack at later level. With tiger you get ounce etc. On later levels you could scale up the natural weapons and add more cool abilities to each form.
There are already dnd novels that have this concept, only thing missing is mechanics for it.
Take two levels in druid
There used to be fantastic prestige classes that did exactly that, but y'all don't want to play 3.5 (I guess)
1:45 i didn't forget the Battle Rager existed because they're one of my favorite character groups in the Forgotten Realms novels! I made one of my characters grow up idolizing Thibbledorf Pwent!
The one thing I'd say is about Berserker which you said but didn't show, is the intimidation ability uses your *charisma* to intimidate, which is not a stat most barbarians can even afford. Not to mention by that point in the game and onward a lot of things become more immune to fear; i don't think it deserves D tier, but definitely C.
Correct me if im wrong but it also costs your whole action, only targets one enemy and for one turn.
When did DnD Shorts say that it uses Charisma?
I played a ancestral guardians 5/thief 7 barbarogue gnome, built around using grapples to climb onto enemies. It was a seriously good tank, and a lot of fun
Great video, also I just wanted to tell you you are the only person whose ads I never skip, even when watching video for the second time. They are really creative and entertaining. Easily top1 ad maker in the world period
3:25 , something similar happened to Lovecraft and he wrote The Shadow over Innsmouth
Zealot is my favorite. My favorite character was a zealot barbarian wholey and vehemently committed to doing the will of the gods. Though he was quite fuzzy on what that will was, and wasn’t even entirely sure which gods were involved 😂 it gave a quick easy fun way to pursue anything the rest of the party was doiy
People underestimate the radiant damage rider. Against enemies that have regen unless they take radiant damage that round it's incredible. Let the cleric focus on doing something other than spamming Guiding Bolt or Sacred Flame, or even just provide insurance in case the one shot at dealing radiant damage doesn't connect. It's also a relevant damage boost overall that scales with level and doesn't eat any sort of resource you weren't spending anyway.
Currently playing a Beast Barb
It’s fun being absolutely *B R U T A L*
Its my favorite dnd subclass
Playing Beast Barbarian/ Lycan Blood Hunter. Absolutely melts enemies
I wanna play this with multiclass into circle of the moon druid
My criticisms are that the bite attack is really bad (it was too strong in the UA and they went to far when nerfing it). Since you choose when you start your rage, you just are never gonna pick the bite. How often do you start a fight on less than half HP?
I also dislike how the natural weapons aren't 'unarmed strikes' and so don't synergise with any of the other classes, feats or items that buff unarmed. Instead they are this weird "counts as a simple melee weapon for you".
@@salgutierrez4710 I played one as a Wildhunt shifter. When shifted you can reckless for advantage but the enemies can't get advantage back... its great.
Pro Tip: The wording of the Wild Magic Bolstering Magic is different than other boosting features... and adds to the meta d20 roll, which means you can make a non-crit a crit with the bonus
My issue with Wild Magic is how long it takes to resolve its effect. If you roll flumphs you're rolling up to six times for an effect that doesn't even really do anything. It's neat for maybe 5 combats, then everybody dreads how long the freaking barbarian of all class' turn is going to take.
Yeah, the Flumphs are just so useless that they make the Sea Storm Aura look good.
You can re-rage whilst raging
Zealot barb forever
With its features you can basically do that.
Currently just starting one of these at Lvl 15 and very excited to play it
I used one but never went down after lv 14. Rage beyond death is great but with a ton of health and relentless rage you are really hard to reduce to 0hp
Also he was a Goliath so also stones endurance
Zarb
@@brunocarvalhobernardino3791 i build mine all around speed and hitting like a sledgehammer
Finally~ been waiting for one of these since the fighter Subclass video
Dude love your content. You keep it short and sweet. You explain classes really well without fully getting lost in it. Keep you the hard work my guy. You gain a new sub today.
I'm glad you rated my favorite subclass (Beast Barb) a higher rank than what most others give it.
My favorite barb is my tabaxi path of the desert storm herald barbarian. Add a fire flavor to her abilities, a glaive, and plenty of space, basically anything in 10 feet was getting whacked by some kind of action. Plus, her carefree CG personality made her a riot in RP situations.
The thing with berserkers, though, is that they excel in a situations where every class and subclass excels. On one encounter days, wizards can burn all their slots and divination portents/abjuration arcane wards/war mage power surges, sorcerers can use every sorcerery point, warlocks can blast their max level spells, fighters can second wind and action surge and use all their superiority dice/samurai fighting spirits. Even just having the huge hp pool of any barbarian subclass makes one encounter days pretty easy to go nuts in.
I think barbarian subclasses should have some utility built into them
base barbarian doesnt get many utility optios, but if those are baked into the subclasses that could be pretty good
like the speak with animals ritual one subclass gets; or givving each subclass two extra proficiencies from a list of fitting options
Well said. They've gotta have more to them than martial skill. F
For example, feral instinct lends itself well to animal handling, nature, and survival.
@@Drekromancer yep
and going with the idea of all of em getting extra proficiencies at level 3 I imagine it being that they get to pick two from:
Ancestral Guardian: History, Arcana, Insight, Performance, Religion
BattleRanger: Athletics, Intimidation, History, Persuation, Deception
Beast: Stealth, Acrobatics, Survival, Insight, Perception
Beserker: Intimidation, Performance, Athletics, Acrobatics, Perception
Storm Herald: Nature, Perception, Intimidation, Religion, Performance
Totem Warrior: Nature, Survival, Animal Handling, Religion, Medicine
Wild Magic: Arcana, Investigation, Perception, Survival, Acrobatics
Zealot: Religion, Arcana, History, Insight, Investigation
and then the optional feature "Primal knowledge" can be move to later levels, maybe at 9th, and it includes both the base barbarian proficiencies and your subclass'
I really like what bone wizard did to the berserker. He basically changed frenzy to instead force the creature you bonus attacked to attack you with an opportunity attack. They can choose to not take it but they need to pass a wisdom save.
Love barbs. Just want some more mechanically challenging / interesting subclasses. Bear Totems and Zealots are my faves. And Wild Magic is fun. One day I'll try for a Beast
I am right there with you, I would also say ancestral guardian is my favorite as well
I’m currently playing a “Path of the Wild Soul (Unearthed Arcana)” as a full Orc and it’s a load of fun. I actually had a session the other week where, using my re-rolling Wild table feature, kept setting off a different effect each turn while raging, and at the same time I used the base “too angy to die” from Barb and the one from Orc to get up to about DC 25 before my party got to where I was and helped take out the enemies I was fighting
I would absolutely LOVE to see a community engagement series, given your great content and particular POV. The general gist would be "Help! Fix my build!" and offer ways to optimize a build that you may have chosen for your character, but realized wasn't panning out like you'd hoped. Example. I have a newish paladin that I chose "Oath of the Crown" for, and am having some buyers remorse. If there were some "This Old Build" tips and tricks to help me claw back some joy and value from the build, I'd be all ears!
Oh my god that segway from bit to ad was smooth asf, didn't see that coming
Totem is a lot of fun, so is Zealot, love em both. Currently playing a totem barb taking a 3 level dip for echo knight fighter, tons of fun
That greenscreen intro was nice 👌
Quick, informative and well said. Definitely need videos for all classes.
I know it's not a WoTC official subclass, but the Path of the Juggernaut from the Tal'dorei Reborn book is a TON of fun to play as well
9:43 Sounds like someone's never heard of the wizard before. Even if Totem Warrior is an S-Tier barbarian subclass, when you put it into perspective of a lot of the other subclasses in the game it's hard to say that it would even be above B-Tier, if that. Granted, part of this is just the fact that barbarians in general are the weakest class in the game, but honestly even taking that into consideration there are a lot of subclasses that are way more powerful.
I love Storm Herald and Beast so much, idk that they are mid, they have a concept in mind and they deliver it well.
I love the flavor of barbarian, but I dislike the lack of a complex subclass. I'm on board with them having many simple ones for newer players or people who just wanna unga bunga, but I'd love one that gave me choices to make like a battlemaster or spellcaster.
Point about Berserker: 1DD buffs them nicely by making exhaustion not nearly as debilitating. The subclass is flawed, sure, but it needs just a few little tweaks to be great:
1) ignore exhaustion while raging
2) make intimidating presence based on strength instead of charisma. Giving it AoE wouldn't hurt either, since other classes have similar abilities at lower levels.
3) make retaliation based on your reach instead of static 5 feet.
I’ve played both an Ancestral Guardian and a Zealot barbarian in the same campaign (Tomb of Annihilation) and I enjoyed playing the Zealot more. Admittedly that was my Lizardfolk Paladin-Barbarian multiclass who was so dumb that she spoke in the third person and her most common phrases were “Litrix bite!” and “Litrix eat!” (The other character’s most common response was “Litrix no!” 😂)
Litrix really was too angry to die which really helped when we did the ToA epilogue. She’s actually getting a mention in the homebrew campaign I’m running because she’s my favourite ever character to play!
it is a rare commercial so funny that i WANT to watch it all the way through...
and then watch it again to show other people
I've been looking for exactly this video! Just hit level 3, and I've been trying to figure out what subclass to pick. Going Storm Herald of the Sea for my Aarakocra Barbarian!
I played a warforged wild magic barbarian named Hijax in a one shot. Basically glitched out when raging to flavor the wild surges. I’d play it again. It was so fun.
That's a brilliant concept!
I currently have a ancestral guardian name aegis, that is constantly saving his friends. I love my little goblin boy
Full stop, that’s gotta be one of the funniest sponsorship segments I’ve seen in a while
My group had a path of the beast barbarian play with us last summer. He really carried us in combat, and was certainly a beast.
Thank you for giving Berserker a fair shake like it deserves.
Beast barb has a lot of potential based on how you use it. Like picking a race that has a prehensile tail feat. Or lets say you can get a large type attribute to your character size.
I run a much more homebrewed battlerager and its so much fun just being a Grapple-Tank that knees people in their chests with spikes.
A lot of changes, but the biggest one is that you can also add your constitution modifier (max of +2, unless you get medium armour master) to the AC of your spiked armour. ie 14+dex+con for a maximum of 18, 20 with a shield (though you're probably not going to be using one).
The weakness for Zealot’s Rage Beyond Death is that it does make them immune yo dying when they’re below hit points but they can still be killed by other things, Power Word Kill, getting brain eaten by mind flayer, or getting decapitated by a vorpal sword.
I played a zealot barb with an eldritch claw tattoo for a one shot and it was so much damn fun, barbarian with 2 sources of bonus damage and some range
I played a barbarian once who didn’t ‘rage’ per se, but entered into a sort of Neo-style bullet-time state where opponents just seemed slower.
Trained by the setting’s equivalent of zen masters.
Was very cool. And so much different to the usual ‘hulk smash’ style of barb.
As a DM I changed the frenzy and some abilities of the barbarian for example fatigue has become a bearserker mechanic you can take a fatigue to transform a strength, dexterity or constitution roll into a natural 20 or in combat cancel a status effect or control effect. Mindles rage I added that if you get hit you have to roll a die to enter rage as a reaction and intimidating presence in combat is automatically activated for every enemy that sees you when you critical or kill
I had a zealot Barbarian in the Curse of Strahd campaign, and he consistently destroyed every encounter with just his great weapon master feature, and also being he was a fallen Aasimar he had necrotic shroud out whenever he ran into a fight. He would crit so often, and hed reduce enemies to corpses in no time flat.
Totem Barbarian is totally nuts, specially when the DM allow multiple animals build, since rules as written the DM can allow you to choose different animals on later levels of the subclass.
My second favorite definitely the Ancestral Guardians one.
One of my favorite characters was a lizardfolk, who wanted to eat everything possible in the world, AKA Toriko, it was hella fun walking in combat with draconic spirits protecting my allies while I went full bite mode on my enemies using only a loincloth a shield and a cart full of goodies to eat tied by a rope.
no need for dm approval that's just how the subclass works
@@rookie2128 yeah pardon me i just went to check it again, because it said multi animal barbarians are rare exceptions in the book so usually we'd talk to the DM about it.
But that is just lore from d&d nothing stopping them to have a clan that doesn't have a focus in a specific animal.
Edit: a typo
And anyways lore is there to be expanded by the DM and players.
You did forget the Wild Magic barb's other amazing ability: their magical sonar ping. It's a six second detect magic, as an action. Take any feat that gives you a bonus action attack, and that invisible spellcaster is about to make a concentration check as the "mindless brute" knows exactly where they are and is now approaching them sideways. Can do it a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus per day. So, it has a short duration but you just need to find your mark. Also, with a little creativity, each of those wild magic abilities stay useful throughout play. Be that a reusable misty step, a retaliatory damage with no range restriction or just a good old fashioned difficult terrain within 15 feet of me so good luck running, buddy. That level 10 is huge. Run in and just keep rolling, praying on ones. I should see if my DM will let my turtle wear a metal collar and have someone cast heat metal on it so I can just be a magical disco ball of chaos.
One of the favorite characters I've ever played was Ix, a goblin Ancestral Guardian Barbarian/Warlock. Her whole goblin clan was enslaved by a dragon, which routinely performed magic experiments on some of the goblins to try and make them stronger (so they could work in the mine that was its lair for longer hours with less food). Ix was one of the few that survived and the dragon, essentially, became her Warlock patron. After she broke free she was (understandably) filled with just.. so much anger at dragons, but was smart enough to know she couldn't throw hands with the dragon that enslaved her. So she started surviving on her own, tackling bigger and bigger creatures as she went on. When she got her Ancestral Guardian features, her spiritual guides and protectors were her fallen clansmen. I really enjoyed playing that character a lot and the campaign was tons of fun, so Ancestral Guardian will always be S tier for me.
Thanks for showing Path of Ancestrial Guardian some love. I think I'm the only guy in my group that loves this one.
Same here, I’ve been having fun with a Barbarian that’s actual clever and has to think about when to use the Spirit Shield reaction.
@@shadowfire1500 we should both get our guys a Headband of Intellect just to screw with the party...
@@nickzhaosun Funny story, my barbarian did get one, but swapped it out since he wasn't using INT stuff that much and got some really good gear later on. The Goblin Paladin however was more than happy to finally have a positive INT modifier.
A big reason Frenzy barbs get flack is MOST barbs get Great Weapon Master or Polearm Master; both of which can give you a bonus action attack with out getting exhaustion; or you can DW for free.
The ability is still pretty good, but we already get feats that give us the same without the downsides.
The other down side to the frenzied rage ability is that it basically restricts you to a 2 handed weapon or shield barb. I keep a home rule that treats frenzied rage to be like flurry of blows for a dual wielder, allowing for 2 strikes
Played a wild magic barb and loved it. The teleport ability was so op and had my DM laughing and frustrated at the same time!
I think Intimidating Presence actually makes me angrier (no pun intended) than Frenzy does. It has 6 problems that I can see and they are, in no particular order:
1.) Fear as a condition is bad for Barbarians. Barbarians are a melee centric class, indeed, they are *the most* melee centric class, I would argue, and Fear doesn't allow enemies to come nearer to you willingly.
2.) It is single target. This one isn't all too bad except it compounds horrifically with the next few problems I will list.
3.) It costs a full action to use. This is a major problem. This is a subclass that is focused on damage, and this ability severely limits your damage output on the turn you use it.
4.) It has no inherent duration and must be actively upkept every single turn at the cost of an action, making the previous problem WAY worse.
5.) It is a level 10 feature. This means that, in a lot of campaigns, this may be THE LAST subclass ability your character obtains, and it's just not very good, even ignoring the final problem.
6.) It is not based on any ability Score Barbarians would use. This one actually may be the single biggest, and indeed, most baffling problem associated with the ability: it is based on your charisma. Barbarians rely on 3 different stats at base to function correctly: Strength, Dexterity and Constitution. It's especially baffling, because it's flavored as you being big and scary, so why isn't it STRENGTH BASED? Now, I admit, this one is just a result of early 5e design, but it's something that is so limiting to the ability that it, quite frankly, is just a flavor ability.
Truly, I consider Intimidating Presence to be the WORST ability in the game, excluding maybe base book Beast Master's Animal Companion, because you will NEVER use it. It serves no purpose, especially at the level you obtain it at, for Christ's sake. It's worse than a 3rd level spell at a level when full casters have *5th* level spells, and is counter to what a Barbarian WANTS to do. It's cool flavor, but if I were redesigning Berserker, I would both change the Ability Score to Strength and fully just give Berserker a second level 10 ability, as this one is actually worthless for them outside of roleplay.
Genuinely love these videos they’re so interesting
Pro tip, that 1 mile view range on the eagle barbarians is an absolutely incredible combo with the druids shape shifting or any of the "wilderness scout" classes/subclasses.
Commenting just to say: I
I reworked path of the Storm herald in my game because both me and my player found it lacking. So instead of a fire aura that deals a low amount of damage I made it so when they raged they would explode similar to a fireball but not as powerful. At later levels after they raged they would become enreathed in flames and enemies attacking them would take fire damage. Both me and my players found it really fun.
Got to say that was rhe best segue for Nord VPN. Well done.
One of my first characters was a wild magic barbarian goblin. It was a lot of fun adding that extra chaos to an already chaotic character.
I played a Storm Herald based on Frankensteins monster in a oneshot once. It was fun, although I didnt fully understand how Rage worked since I hadnt played a Barbarian before.
The long distance Ancestral Barbarian never even occurred to me. If you take Thrown Weapon Fighting you can have a lot of fun. Also if your concerned about running out of Thrown weapons you have three options, Eldritch Knight for Weapon Bond, Soulknife for Psychic blades, or Artificer for Returning Weapon.
Reach weapons, mobile feat, and racial choice of centaur or bugbear can help.
Centaur can somewhat effectively make use of their bonus action hoof attack with mobile feat and barbarian speed boost.
Bugbear reach could help melee from 15ft away and potentially make use of polearm master opportunity attacks.
Reckless attack can be used a bit more often if the barbarian becomes more of a hit and run skirmished. Ancestral guardian makes the entire party tankier than the barbarian against that one creature.
Been rolling a Wild Magic Eladrin Barb. DM and I came up with an extended and improved list of wild magic table and its so much fun!
What have you done to improve upon it? I’m looking to improve it myself and am looking into options
Played a Totem Barbarian (Bear at level 3) in a Tomb of Annihilation campaign. That character was the only one to survive from Session 0 through the epilogue. During the final boss battle (without giving away any spoilers), based on the way the turn order worked out, my character was subject to two Finger of Death spells, plus a Disintegrate, and received a grand total of *three* real HP of damage. The main drawback in that fight was the Frightened condition, which limited the melee damage that he could do.
I'm a stout halfling wild magic barbarian/conquest paladin. He's so awesome. Being able to add 10 to my attack once per short or long rest and reroll 1s and 2s on the damage die thanks to great weapon fighting is sweet.
For me the best subclasses are those that give me the best ideas for RP, I'm more of a narrative player. But I totally get the "best" kind of thing, fun to think about ^^
Ancestral barbarian is just dripping with flavor and will always be my favorite
The chip damage of the storm Herald is fantastic but how low the damage remains makes it a rough choice
Neat to see you doing ratings!
The Berzerker’s mindless rage actually has a lot of loopholes that makes it not nearly as good as it seems.
There are enchantment spells like Suggestion that bypass the immunity by not actually using the charmed condition. It’s also questionable whether or not one could rage to get out of a charm, since that itself could be seen as directly acting against the charmed condition.
The charmed condition isn't nearly as strong as people seem to think it is. Although it does frequently come with it as a rider, it isn't mind control by itself. In fact, it doesn't even force you not to act against the charmer's best interest by itself. The only thing the charmed condition does is make it so you cannot directly cause literal, physical harm to the charmer.
@@ilovethelegend but that raises the question: can you rage knowing that will free you to harm the target? Or if you don’t know you are charmed, why would you rage with no apparent enemy around? It’s a role playing issue you would want to clarify with your DM.
@@johnkronz7562 ...Yes, you can, because the only thing the charmed condition prevents you from doing is targeting the charmer with an attack or including them in the effect of a harmful spell. And NOTHING else.
It goes one step. Is the thing you're doing one of those two things? Then no, the charmed condition (by itself) does not prevent you from doing it.
@@ilovethelegend it also always has some other rider by the spell or ability, like seeing the charmer as a warm acquaintance.
It’s unfair to say having some inconvenient interactions with a feature makes it mind control. Mindless rage just has role playing issues and loopholes with charm spells.
@@johnkronz7562 Except your interpretation DOES functionally make Charm Person mind control, because it then prevents you from taking ANY steps that may harm them or work against their interest. I consider my coworkers friendly acquaintances. I will, at best, minorly inconvenience myself for them. This does not mean I will lay down my life for them. This does not mean I will take their side over one of my trusted friends. This does not mean that I'll hold myself back in a life or death situation because it'll hurt them (In a way that's not me directly bitch-slapping or blowing them up; not letting them get caught up in friendly fire tracks). This doesn't even mean I'll let it go if I just saw them do something obviously suspicious, like cast a spell on me.
Wanna point out something funny. Path of the Juggernaut (MM's HB subclass): ''Once per turn while raging, when you damage a creature with a melee attack, you can force the target to make a Strength saving throw (DC 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Strength modifier). On a failure, you push the target 5 feet away from you, and you can choose to immediately move 5 feet into the target’s previous position.'', notice that it isn't specified that where you push the creature away doesn't need to be an occupied space. Rules as written, your hands are hammers and all before you is are nails.
This video ist so helpful. Currently homebrewing a subclas
for me PERSONALY Berserker will always be C Tier just cos of Frenzy's "When your rage ends, you suffer one level of exhaustion." that is a death sentence if your DM does few Long Rests in sessions and you must use your features not as a "i get to use if i want" but "i MUST use or i'm dead weight" by 3lv's of Exhaustion you're using it as an offset any more you may as well have picked a Fighter and ran it pure
I'd say that Totem, Zealot, and Ancestral Guardian are all equally good for different reasons. Totem takes the least amount of damage and has multiple options for damage, tanking, mobility, or utility. Ancestral Guardian is a great Tank preventing others from taking damage or punishing enemies that deal damage. Zealot is the best offensive damage dealing barb with great "can't die won't die" features. Can't go wrong with these 3 subclasses.
Ancestral guardian is better tank because it allows each party member to tank. Ancestral guardians feature makes all party members tankier than the barbarian.
That advertisement segway was brilliant 😂
Im actually playing a bulked out half-elf (half human) battlerager who was found by travelling dwarves as a abandoned baby and grew up in a dwarf fortress. The point of him adventuring beyond his home is that his name was retracted from his familys dwarven tree and exiled shortly after his father died. All of course because of the fact he is of course a battlerager, an axe idiot. He now roams searching a way to cope with the loss of his adoptive fathers last name, releasing his copius rage defending others to redeem himself in his eyes.
I unfortunately don't have a group to play with:(
However, I have created 6 different lvl 1 characters.
1 of which is a custom Race Half-Moon Elf Half-Frost Giant Barbarian planning on "Path of Giants" THE BEST SUB-CLASS FOR BARBARIAN!!!
Couple changes.
Zealot is S tier they got everything going for them but additional subclass options (which is pretty standard for 5e)
Wild magic is A tier just from what I've seen in play.
Yes berserker's other features are great but in +90% of games you do something after combat even if it's just more combat and exhaustion cripples everything outside of combat. So I'd say easy A if fixed or low C if not.
My favorite barbarian subclass is the mistwood barbarian from Tome of Heroes which is a sort of barbarian assassin that gets reckless attack and rage bonus in thrown weapons and also misty step. The book also has the path of thorns barbarian which is just a better battlerager with no restrictions and the thorn damage increases as you level up.
Zealot is also really good in deadly campaigns, (mine had 9 pc deaths not counting revives) for free revives.
You wanna know what I think is one of the best parts of Totem’s animal spirit stuff? You technically don’t have to go off the animals listed.
Straight from the PHB: Your totem animal might be an animal related to those listed here but more appropriate to your homeland. For example, you could choose a hawk or vulture in place of an eagle.
So you could essentially make the “spirit” a different animal. For example, one Barbarian’s “Bear” could be a Tyrannosaurus. This sounds like flavor, but it's rules as written.
Your way of explaining things aré awesome. Thanks AND More pls 🤙
Whatever subclass Taliesin is playing right now (yes I know it is unreleased for now, and will probably be released under third party publishing)
Currently playing a Totem Warrior and they are the best tanks in the game. I took an effective 219 damage and had 1 hit point left before my team got the kill.