Introduction

Heya, it’s me again Jus, the one who updated the Destroyer guide and now I am here to update the guide of another slow but hard-hitting class which is Barbarian this time.

Class Overview

Barbarian is the counterpart class of Destroyer. It’s one of the intermediate-difficulty class here in PDN due to its [Haymaker Frenzy] buff, almost halving your HP and can’t be healed, making you more prone to die, but gives you certain damage reduction and attack buff. Your DPS mainly relies on your big skill which is [Dragonslayer Fist] and how you manage your Frenzy buff and bubble generator and filler skills.

Bubble System

Same as Destroyer, you have [Rage] but it works differently with Barbarian.This one will let you use [Dragonslayer Fist] when you have max Rage (which is 50). Filling it up is somehow different as this time you will use Barbarian main skills and stuff. Make sure that you have max bubbles (50 Rage) before entering a content by pressing your [Class Buff] in field (e.g Void Gate, Frozen Foothills, Twilight Bay etc.)

Behold, your bubble bar

Skills

Warrior

[Breaking Point] – REBUFF! Your class buff that increases you and your party members’ ATK by 10%, Max HP increased by 20% and Incoming Healing effectiveness increased by 10%. Please I’m begging you. Rebuff yourself and your allies if wiped buff mechanic happens or if you got debuffed or your party member by fucking up [e.g. stepping on the DDN flower’s lava, got shouted by the BDN stage 1 boss etc etc.]

The LOVE and SWORD shape are your buffs.

This can be seen in your Warrior skill tree at the bottom left so please for the love of god, press it. Also, press it while on field (e.g Void Gate, Frozen Foothills, Twilight Bay etc.) before entering content such as dungeons, nests and raids for max bubbles and obviously, a buff.

PRESS THIS BUTTON
Check my Destroyer guide for more details about [Breaking Point] and how buffs work.

[Aerial Evasion] – used to recover yourself when you got launched in air by pressing Jump Button (spacebar)

[Impact Punch] – basic warrior skill and now helps decreasing your [Haymaker Frenzy]’s cooldown by 2 seconds when successfully landed. See Class Mastery III definition below.

[Brush Off] – cures negative status effects from yourself (up to 5 debuffs) and can be used as well to cancel skills that can’t be cancelled mid-animation. Some status effects cannot be removed so be mindful of that. This can be a substitute as well if your Aerial Evasion is on CD or you got knockback to recover yourself.

Mercenary

[Stomp] – bubble generator skill that can hold up to 3 charges so basically when you landed 3 hits, you’ll have 6 [Rage]. Each consecutive stomp does (120%/200%) of the base damage but has a longer cast time. The third consecutive stomp releases a shockwave that deals damage after a short delay.
Hold down the [Right Mouse Button] or the [Skill Key] to automatically consecutively cast.

[Demolition Fist/Dragonslayer Fist] – your big bang skill that requires 50 [Rage] to cast. [Critical Strike Compensation] -If this attack does not Critically Strike, it will partially crit for 50% of your Critical Damage.

[Circle Swing] – bubble generator and decent filler skill but is slow and has now 2 additional swings by clicking [Left Mouse Button]. Additional swings don’t give additional bubble. It has Instant version when casted after [Whirlwind] that deals decent damage as well and will give you 2 more additional swing when used after casting [Frenzied Whirlwind] if you are under Frenzy buff and the normal [Circle Swing] is up.

[Whirlwind] – good damage skill and gives 2 [Rage] when successfully landed. Used to trigger [Circle Swing Instant] as well. If you’re under Frenzy buff, this will become [Frenzied Whirlwind], which it has enhanced damage and reduced cooldown.

[Roll Attack] – good i-frame and airborne skill to dodge certain mechanics. That’s all xd

[Resentment] – passive skill that gives 15% Damage Reduction and generates 1 [Rage] every 2 second.

[Taunting Howl] - A debuff skill that makes the boss take 20% more damage.

[Crisis Howl] - Generates 10 [Rage] when successfully landed. Used to recover yourself from getting knockback.  Press [Right Mouse Button] when got knocked back to trigger it.

[Battle Howl] - A buff skill that provides you 10% extra damage and it has 900 seconds duration. Press it while on field (e.g Void Gate, Frozen Foothills, Twilight Bay etc.) before entering content or raid/nest/dungeon, and whenever you get buff wiped.

MAKE SURE YOU HAVE THIS ALWAYS ON

[Enervating Howl] – Dispel skill and not a damage skill. Use it when the boss is enraged (e.g. RuDN first boss, BDN Punisher and Golem) but take note that some enraged bosses cannot be dispelled. To distinguish whether the boss is enraged or already enraged, they will usually say a line first and better to take note of that and then they will have a green sword buff in their status bar so check it from time to time. This is just an emergency button when your tank fucked up dispelling the boss.

[Lifesaver] - Generates 30 [Rage] ezpz.

[Subjugate] – Heals 35% of your Max HP. Doesn’t cost Rage to cast and will let you remove the effects of [Haymaker Frenzy]

[Cleaving Gale] – Long i-frame skill. Use it when in danger or in emergency.

[Calamity Crush] – Destroyer’s ult that inflicts decent damage. Personally, this skill just acts as a filler.

Barbarian

[Overpower] - [Rage] is attained when a main skill hits enemies.
Each skill creates 2 [Rage]

[Main Skills]
Stomp
Circle Swing
Whirlwind
Bone Cleaver


[Bone Cleaver] – bubble generator skill with decent damage that has now 3 additional follow-up attacks by pressing [Left Mouse Button]. Make sure to use the follow-up attacks otherwise you’ll lose a lot of damage xd. Acts as an Airborne skill that’s good to dodge certain mechs such as stomp. Additional attacks won’t give you additional [Rage].

[Class Mastery I] - [Passive Benefit] Gain 50% STR and 15% PATK

[Class Mastery II] - [Passive Benefit] Gain 20% ATK

[Mastery Benefit]
After using [Whirlwind] or [Frenzied Whirlwind], [Circle Swing] is enhanced to [Circle Swing Instant]. You can also activate [Circle Swing Instant] using the [Right Mouse Button] after [Whirlwind] or [Frenzied Whirlwind]. [Circle Swing] and [Circle Swing Instant] do not share cooldown.

[Class Mastery III] - [Impact Punch]'s damage is increased by 1250% and range is increased.
Successfully landing [Impact Punch] decreases the cooldown of [Haymaker Frenzy] by 2 seconds.

[Awakened Passive] Circle Swing - [Circle Swing] is enhanced.
[Circle Swing] swing count is increased to 3 and deals full damage per swing. However, the cooldown is increased.

[Awakened Passive] Stomp - [Stomp] is enhanced.
The skill's [Cooldown] is reduced and can store up to 3 charges. The [Movement Speed Reduction] effect is removed. Consecutive casts of [Stomp] deal increased damage.

Hold down the [Right Mouse Button] or the [Skill Key] to automatically consecutively cast.

[Awakened Passive] Dragonslayer Fist - [Demolition Fist] is enhanced to [Dragonslayer Fist].
Stun effect is removed and damage is significantly increased. Furthermore, [Dragonslayer Fist] requires 50 rage to cast. [Dragonslayer Fist]'s cooldown is changed to 10 seconds.

[Awakened Passive] Slayer- [Havoc Howl], [Life Saver], and [Bone Cleaver] are enhanced to [Subjugate], [Awakened Life Saver], and [Awakened Bone Cleaver] respectively. [Subjugate] no longer consumes Rage, deals increased damage, heals the user, cleanses the effects of [Haymaker Frenzy].
[Awakened Life Saver] grants 30 rage instead of 20 rage. [Awakened Bone Cleaver] adds an additional attack and has its cooldown reduced

[Overtaker] – bubble generator and kinda slow skill with decent damage that gives 5 [Rage] when successfully landed. Has infinite SA.

[Haymaker Frenzy] – your big bang boom buff that increased your PATK by 30%, has 15% damage reduction BUT your HP is reduced by 40%, and Incoming healing is reduced by 95% so basically you can’t be healed the moment you entered Frenzy unless you gonna remove it by using [Subjugate]. Damage taken is reduced by 15% while punching. After slamming, gain Frenzy buff.

Skill Build

Unified Skills: Max HP Boost & FD Boost

All skills under the Destroyer Tree is pretty much optional. You can just get Roll Attack from there for airborne and i-frame skill. Also, dropkick can help prolong your airtime a very bit when jumping so you may want to consider getting it as it’s very helpful in dodging stomps and stuff. Sweeping Kick is good for pushing objects (e.g DDN’S Worm pushing barrel mech, RuDN8 stage 1 ball mech etc.). Same thing with Dash Kick.

Skill Crests

Stomp DMG
Whirlwind DMG
Subjugate CD
Impact Punch CD
Demolition Fist/Dragonslayer Fist DMG
Circle Swing CD
Calamity Crush DMG (Optional)
Cleaving Gale CD (Optional)

Demolition Fist +1

Dragon Gems

1 Conversion (any element of your choice, there’s no difference to each other, just for damage icon aesthetic xd) and 3 Elemental Gems

Rotation

Personally, this is an effective way on how to utilize Barbarian’s kit such as your Frenzy buff and the smoother skill linking that I’ll be tackling after this section but then again, feel free to experiment. Just make sure you land all your [Dragonslayer Fist].

Gameplay Videos

For those who are new or don’t know what is this, Typhoon Krag Nest (Berserk) is a PDN's custom optional challenge mode nest that can be located in Event Nest portal in Frozen Foothills. Getting hit by the boss results in instant death. In short, 1 hit delete. This is just for flex xd

Misc

Iframes

This is just basically almost the same as Destroyer. Just have to exclude Endure but here is the list.
[Destructive Swing]
[Roll Attack]
[Subjugate]
[Cleaving Gale]
[Tumble] (duh)

Airborne

An "airborne" skill usually refers to abilities or maneuvers that puts your character obviously in air. This is used to dodge ground mechanics such as stomp.
Here is the list of your airborne skills
[Jump] (obviously just space bar duh)
[Destructive Swing] (initial cast)
[Bone Cleaver] (initial cast)
[Roll Attack]

Skill Linking

Last Spooktacular event, Barbarian gained smoother skill linking and it went well, hence it was implemented permanently right after the Spook event. See Patch v865 and Patch v863 - Spooktacular

For those who don’t know what it is, smoother skill linking in Barbarian makes you chain skills a little bit faster without compensating the damage so basically, it will let you cast the next skills faster than the usual.

From here, I’ll give you some skills that you can link together to make it smoother that I used in the rotation above and I’ll add some that I didn’t use but pretty much good to use in content. The rest, you figure it out by yourself as there’s a lot of possible skills that you can combine to utilize the skill linking.

  • [Dragonslayer Fist] – [Lifesaver] – [Overtaker] – [Bone Cleaver]
  • [Impact Punch] – [Overtaker]-[Bone Cleaver]
  • [Dragonslayer Fist] – [Overtaker] – [Bone Cleaver]
  • [Stomp] – [Overtaker] – [Bone Cleaver]
  • [Stomp] – [Lifesaver] – [Dragonslayer Fist] – [Bone Cleaver]
  • [Dragonslayer Fist] – [Lifesaver] – [Bone Cleaver] – [Overtaker]
  • [Haymaker Frenzy] – [Lifesaver] – [Dragonslayer Fist] – [Overtaker] – [Bone Cleaver]

Have fun figuring out the rest xd

Tips and Tricks

Just minor tips and tricks on how to use Barbarian effectively

  • Make sure to slip some [Impact Punch] to your rotation or combo as it reduces your main buff Frenzy cooldown by 2 secs every time it hits an enemy or boss. [Impact Punch] is a good skill too for smoother linking skills.
  • Make sure to use [Dragonslayer Fist] as much as possible while in Frenzy buff as it will deal a lot more damage when you are in buff.
  • Use your [Lifesaver] responsibly. If you have already 20 Rage and the Lifesaver is up, you can use it as it gives 30 Rage which you can have already 50 Rage and use the big dong Dragonslayer Fist. If you have more than 20 Rage and you have enough time to hit your filler skills up, utilize it until you get 50 Rage and then use your big bang punch then [Lifesaver] on top of it if it is already up then filler again.
  • If you are in a verge of death, make sure to use [Subjugate] so that the remaining HP of yours can be healed by your healer or by [Gerrant Healing Skill Crest] (Check this link for more info Gerrant's Crest Healing Barrier). [Subjugate] in Barbarian is full i-frame.
  • Same as Destroyer, there are some skills that you can’t cancel mid-animation by tumble in Barbarian so if you think you are fucked up and you’re gonna die with it, cancel it with [Brush Off] and proceed to use tumble, parry or any i-frame skill.
  • If you’re under Frenzy buff, make sure to spam your [Frenzied Whirlwind]as much as you can as it deals a lot of damage compared to other filler skills.
  • Before entering content such as dungeons/raids/nests, make sure to pre-buff [Haymaker Frenzy] in field (e.g Void Gate, Frozen Foothills, Twilight Bay etc.). For those who don’t know, a "prebuff" refers to a buff (a positive effect or enhancement) that a player applies to their character or allies before entering a battle or engaging with enemies. This is done to ensure that the character has the buffs active and ready before the fight starts, rather than applying them during combat, which might be too late or risky. It actually helps and it’s a pretty common thing to do in order to do big pp dps. Pre-buffing doesn’t apply only in Barbarian. It applies in all classes so remember that.