It’s been a while since I’ve covered this game, but that doesn’t mean I’ve grown tired of it. Trendy is continuously adding DLC to keep the game interesting…some of it free, some not. Even without the DLC, this game would keep me occupied for quite a long time. There’s always a character to level and new loot to be equipped. In this article, I’m going to cover the latest character added as DLC: The Barbarian.
The Barbarian
I have mixed feelings about the Barbarian. He can dual wield Squire weapons and perform combos that bring the hurt to any enemy in his path. Unfortunately, he has no towers in which to protect the precious Eternia Crystals. He does, however, have battle stances that provide various advantages.
Stances
All stances require mana to activate and drain mana over time as you continue to stay in that stance. The exception is Hawk Stance, which is simply activated and used once, followed by a cooldown.
Tornado Stance: Lessens your damage, but increases your run speed, attack speed, jump height, and gives your attacks a knock back effect.
Lightning Stance: Your attacks will stun the target, but every strike that lands causes you damage. The stun effect will not work against Ogres.
Siphon Stance: Health is transferred from your enemy to you with every hit, however being in this stance reduces your resistances. Can be combined with Turtle Stance.
Turtle Stance: Increases your resistances at the cost of run speed, jump height, and attack damage. Can be combined with Siphon Stance.
Hawk Stance: After being activated, your next melee attack causes the Barbarian to slam the ground with both weapon doing massive damage. After it is used, you will not be able to switch stances or attack until a short cooldown timer has expired.
Abilities
Battle Leap: A powerful leap attack that allows the Barbarian to quickly reach an enemy that is out of reach.
Battle Pound: A ground attack that does damage to all enemies around the Barbarian.
Strategies
Soloing with the Barbarian would be almost impossible unless you start off as another character who can build barriers like the Squire / Countess or the Apprentice / Adept. You could go a round or two and build barriers at all of the key choke points, switch to your Barbarian, and hope that you can kill all your enemies before your barriers fail. By yourself without any barriers, it would be next to impossible to guard the Crystal, especially if there are more than one. You physically cannot be in two or three places at once.
When you DO have a friend who is able to play the role of strategist and defense, you’ll really be able to truly shine as you slice your way through mobs with only the worry of running out of health. You can upgrade and repair your friend’s towers if you have excess mana to spare, in fact I recommend it. Since your friend is the only one who can build towers, let him focus on what you can’t do while you upgrade and repair them. This will free up your friend’s mana pool to keep building those precious towers until the defense cap.
The Barbarian works best, in my opinion, as an offensive support class. Note the word, “support.”
Also, it is important to know your stances and when to use them. For example, activate Turtle Stance when you need to tank, not when you are trying to reach the other end of the map quickly.
Due to the Barbarian’s ability to dual wield, equipping weapons works a little differently. Comparing weapons only work with the left hand, which unfortunately means that you can be continuously upgrading the left hand’s weapon while retaining the very first weapon you ever picked up in the other. You’ll have to manually change weapons on the right hand via the Hero Information Screen.
Overall, the Barbarian is a great offensive support class, but requires help from a friend who can build defenses to fully reach his potential. If you have a bunch of friends who prefer to be the strategist and have the defenses covered, then by all means, satisfy your inner Chewbacca / Chuck Norris / Tonya Harding by bringing out this character class.
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