In Perfect World barbarian's are basically the meat shield. High HP,moderate physical defense, low magical defense, and low damage. Though it can be a relatively easy class to play if you stick to the rules.
Whats that? What rules you ask? Well little Johnny there a 3 rules to being a WB:
1.Never run when tanking bosses or difficult mobs when in a party. Unless that is of course your slow poke healer is out of casting distance and your hiero/pots are on cool down and you need a heal ASAP.It's a known fact that if you get stupid and try and run from a boss the parties going to wipe.
2.Tanking bosses is simple. It's basically a combonation of Ripping Bite(Spam like theres no tommorow),Bluster(Personally i only use this when i lose aggro),Raging Pounce(Time it to cancel bosses skills),Frighten(Aggro's and makes your life a little bit easier).
3.There is only one way to build your werebeast and thats with enough strength and dexterity for dual axes and heavy armor and every thing else into constitution. Dex or Str based werebeast's just get ***** in PvP not to mention their perdition is useless.
Levels 1-19:
At earlier levels playing a WB is a cake walk. We have high HP to start with and if you go with the build i mentioned above you will have around 1k HP by level 15. Not to mention 99.9% of the mobs you'll be facing at this level will be physical and you wont have any magical mobs until at least level 20.
You will only have one skill to start with which is Beast Lords Whomp(Bestial Hammer). Use this to quest and grind your way to level 3. By which time you can go into vanish and can learn Garrote(Strangle) learn it. It's a good soloing skill at lower levels. I highly suggest that you don't waste any SP on upgrading BH(Yes,bestial hammer. Try and keep up with the acronyms). This skill will become obsolete at higher levels when you'll be needing all the SP you can get to get a skill which is actually useful. Once you get to level 9 go to your skill master and learn your transformation skill this will transform you into a tiger which will increase your movement speed,and physical defense, while decreasing your attack. Always level this skill as soon as you can even though it only goes to level 3.
Continue on your way to level 19 while putting only enough points into strength and dexterity for your dual axes and heavy armor and everything else into constitution. Once you get to level 19 you'll get your iron blood tablet from the vanish elder. Make sure you do this quest it's your first FB and you'll get an awesome blue Poleaxe which you'll likely use until level 35 or so. You can probably find lots of people willing to help you and earn some rep for themselves.
Level 30 Humanoid Skills Overview:
Once you reach level 30 you'll have noticed that there's several new skills available to you. I'll give you a quick run through of each skill and how high of priority it should hold for you.
Bestial Hammer:
This skill is basically worthless if you ask me. Due to the fact that when it's at level 10 which can't be achieved until somewhere in the 40's and even then it's only 7xx damage. There are plenty more useful skills that you could be using instead of casting this.
Strangle:
This is a pretty useful skill which does your normal damage plus an additional 15 seconds of bleeding damage. I tend to use this when soloing. It's not super important but it can be fairly useful.*Note: Only use this in PvP when trying to build up vigor for a more useful skill seeing as once the poison damage is reduced it only comes to about 200 or so over 15 seconds. Or if your willing to stack it continuously.
Thousand Ton hammer:
This skill is your bread and butter. Both for PvE and PvP, it does fairly decent damage aswell as a chance to stun your opponent. This is one of the few ways you'll be able to finish off an archer,werefox,or mage in PvP and you better hope your lucky since it only has a low chance of success. Level this skill ASAP.
Shatter:
This is a great skill to use when soloing mobs or even when your PKing alone or sometimes in a group if the WF is too slow to use their dispell with the same effect. The only downside of this skills i that you wont be using it at all during FB's. Level it as best you can.
Funeral Bell:
This is the first AOE you'll get and let me tell you, It's not all that great. It only attacks in a fan radius and does relatively low damage.Theres no real need for this skill but you can invest a little bit into it if you feel the need to.
Flaming Wind:
This is a pretty decent skill even though it only has an 8 meter or so line radius. Though it does cost 1 chi which you will be wanting to save for much more useful skills at higher levels. Level it a bit, it can come in handy for AOE parties at lower levels if the mage is taking abit too much damage.
Swimming Mastery:
Max this it`s self explanatory. Since it only has one level and it`s extremely cheap while increasing your swimming speed by 50%.
Bestial Strength:
Level this one ASAP since it`ll make your job a lot easier and it`s pretty cheap too.
Inspire:
Always have this at the max possible level since you should have it on whether your soloing,AOEing, doing FB`s, running HH, or PKing. Not to mention this skill has effect on your entire party giving everyone 30% more HP at level 10.
Burning Blood:
This skill is absolutely 110% necessary if you wan`t to PK. Though the only turn off with this skill is the fact that it`s alot of HP to trade in for 10% more hit rate at lower levels. But at level 10 it`s 200% hit rate for a mere 16% less HP. Trust me at higher levels if you don`t use this you`ll have alot of trouble killing dex based builds.
Tiger Based Skills:
Roar of The Tiger:
Like i said level this up ASAP. Always use this in HH,FB`s, Luring for AOE parties at wolves or spiders, or even for running forest ruin.
Raging Bite:
This is your main aggro tool. Keep this at the highest possible level. This is also a fair bit of damage too seeing as you can stack it.
Wrath of The Tiger:
This is a great skill, Make sure that when fighting bosses you time it correctly to cancel their skills. Especially on higher level HH or FB bosses like asura and you can save your hiero. I suggest keeping this at a moderate level since the skill cancel is effective at any level of the skill but it does do fairly decent damage.
Tigers Maw:
This is a pretty helpful skill, but the only problem is that it`ll cost you 35 chi to use it. So the only time you should really be using this when in a party fighting bosses ``IF`` the WF doesn`t have their armor break at a decent level and is willing to use vigor transfer on you so that you can use veil of shadow or sundering heaven.
Bestial Fury:
This is a great skill to use when tanking bosses since they`ll be focused on you without interruption you can just cast this every 30 seconds to build up your vigor. Needless to say just learn it.
Poison Fangs:
This skill is pretty controversial but i have to say i did test it on a fellow guild member on PW-MY to check the damage difference with it at level 10 and i did an additional 300 damage with it consistently. I think it`s worth leveling so long as you have the money and SP for it.
Axe and Mace Mastery:
This is basically common sense. Just keep leveling it.
