I'm playing my first ever barb, and I'm a bit stuck at this point as to what to hunt. Her skills so far are

LC: 54
Leather: 53
Shield: 50
2HE: 45
HE: 45
Parry: 54
MO: 57
Evasion: 57

She knows Stone and Blood berserks, and the Death's Embrace roar.

I used my berserks to skip gobs and jump into eels, and figured it would work with Reavers when eels stopped teaching me, especially since I'm just at the bottom cap according to DRPlat, but I was sadly mistaken. I went in with nearly these skills the other day, and did fine until a wind hound took out my knee, and had to be dragged out at about 27% health. No flee/retreat is horrible! Without berserks, she can barely handle one reaver and one wind hound together at once.

Is there anything I -could- hunt that wouldn't require nonstop berserking (and getting stuck)? I'm hunting Grendels right now, but only being able to hunt them at night is too limiting. Plus they're hardly getting my weapons above concentrating, though they lock defenses no problem.

I took my barb from eels to bone wolves in leth at about 50 in weapons and 55 in defenses.


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What JLo said is pretty much spot on.
- GM Dartenian

My personal suggestion is not to let defenses get higher than your offenses to the point where you need to hunt up for defenses. Just hunt for offenses until they get into the range where the same critter will teach offenses and defenses.

I'm firmly of the "use berserk and roars liberally and hunt the most swarmy stuff I can find" school of barbarism though. You've said you don't like the idea of getting stuck somewhere like eels in a berserk, where they can potentially spawn faster than they can be killed, so I'm not sure my advice will work well for you, honestly, because that's a definite possibility.

Anyhow, my basic point boils down to: If you're hunting up for defenses where you can't learn offenses, you're artificially slowing down your circling without any genuine benefit other than watching numbers X and Y grow, while A and B (which are our guilds actual bread and butter) stagnate. Doesn't make sense to me (though I used to do the exact same thing before I realized this).

Just my thoughts.

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Denstimar Dustyfoot
Idon Raider - www.idonraiders.com
"Have you not learned great lessons from those who braced themselves against you, and disputed passage with you?" - Walt Whitman

Beiswurms and bone wolves: That's what my barb uses, though she also has to make liberal use of the stone berserk to stay alive too with the wolves.

Good luck!


Sometimes the key to happiness is not assuming it is locked in the first place- Ziggy

A journey of a thousand SMILES begins with a single step- Ziggy

Bone wolves near leth.

>>I thought Sand Sprites needed low 70's in weapons. Is my info wrong or faulty?

Depends on what sort of buffs you have available, and what kind of debuffs you're able to toss at them. I know low 50's is possible as a barbarian at least, I'm sure some other guilds can do it too.

>>And are sand sprites harder then faenre reavers?

Yes and no. They may have slightly better skill (I think that's sort of debatable though), and they can tend to swarm more. But on the flip side, their only armament is essentially a carving knife (hit like paper cuts), and they don't wear any armor (die real easy). I know some people complain about their use of tingle from time to time, but none of my characters has ever been susceptible to it, for whatever reason, so I don't personally consider it an issue.

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Denstimar Dustyfoot
Idon Raider - www.idonraiders.com
"Have you not learned great lessons from those who braced themselves against you, and disputed passage with you?" - Walt Whitman

When I first started hunting sandies and my 3 main weapons locked I was able to kill them fairly quickly with a forged mace at 38 ranks in MB. I also started hunting them with mid 50's in defense and never had a problem staying alive.


-Azmag

I moved from Grass Eels to sand sprites with low to mid 50's in weapons and defense with my War mage.

I was able to take a Ranger there in leather who was not a heavy stealth user with high 40's in weapons and defenses. (melee ranger, very little ranged use)

Similar experience with a barbarian as well. Mid to high 40's in defenses and weapons using berserk blood/stone

I know of a bard who was able to do sand sprites with skills similar to my warmage above.

It wasn't easy to do, but, it wasn't hard either. Go in, get yer skills moving (locked) and get out. Get healed as necessary. Rinse repeat till yer able to stand in there endlessly and slaughter.

If you would like more of a buffer defensively I would say go to Beisswurms for a little while.

~Tieriana~

How about the Unarmed Fire Srpites? They are over a gate north of the area where the Fire Maidens, Fire Sprites and Young Fire Cats are. Need to bring some Georin grass and riolur leaf as the ash in there gives you small neck injuries that can stack over time.

They tend to come in at a steady pace. Unarmed to can hit them eze teach if I recall correct past 70. Not a far run from Crossing if you familiar with the geography.

Outside of that the Arbelog, Rams, Bears area may be something youw ant to look at as well NW of Haven. Can get tricky with the occasional armed Dusk Ogre or Young Ogre not bad if you don't mind living dangerously.

>Last time I was there "over time" was about 20 minutes before I was dead. And georin won't do you any good, the neck injuries are all internal, so you need riolur leaf and hisan salve for the scars.

Yeah, last time I was there the damage stacked so quickly that hunting there was pointless. Not well thought out.

Why would you choose to hunt in an area where you are seriously hampered and reap no extra reward for it?

There are plenty of other choices out there.

GENT

If I remember right dusk ogres worked pretty well for me around those ranks before going to the blood wolves, and might be a good option for you to buff up a bit before sprites or wolves or whatever. You have to watch out for the spiders in there though. On my first character beisswurms were definitely the option but from what I have heard the spawn isn't that great there anymore.

Beiswurms are your friends at this point, especially if you are wearing good armor.

Assuming you're in the 60's in defenses and combats, dusk ogres if you want boxes or meadow/thunder rams if you want skins. If you're in the 70's ogres and fire maidens both work well for boxes and bears for skins. Blood wolves also work well in the 70's but they tend to be about as swarmy as rockies.

The big problem with rock trolls is they hit entirely to hard for their level so you can be dancing with one or two fine, but as soon as a third walks in and your multi gets in over its head you get rocked, usually stunned, and die.

I've always wanted to hunt things that are supposed to swarm, and thusly don't hit very hard, so I took the eels -> wurms -> sand sprites route.