Elven Curve Blade Barbarian?

[Xero127]

Hey all. I am not too familiar with the nuances of this game so I thought that I would ask here if the following build is viable. Basically I am using a Mad Dog Barbarian but with weapon finesse and an elven curve blade. Here is the build:

Human
Chaotic Good
7/20++/16/16/7/7

1 Mad Dog - Weapon Finesse, Weapon Proficiency Elven Curve Blade, Animal Companion - Wolf, Desna
2 Mad Dog - Pack Tactics
3 Mad Dog - Danger Sense, Weapon Focus - Curve Elven Blade
4 Mad Dog - Rage, Reckless Stance
5 Mad Dog - Ferocious Trip, Combat Reflexes
6 Mad Dog - Danger Sense
7 Mad Dog - Dazzling Display
8 Mad Dog - Increased Damage Reduction
9 Mad Dog - Improved Critical - Elven Curved Blade
10 Mad Dog - Damage Reduction
11 Mad Dog - Greater Rage, Shatter Defenses
12 Mad Dog - Increased Damage Reduction
13 Mad Dog - Damage Reduction, Dodge
14 Mad Dog - Throat Cutter
15 Mad Dog - Combat Expertise
16 Mad Dog - Increased Damage Reduction
17 Mad Dog - Tireless Rage, Extra Rage
18 Mad Dog - Danger Sense
19 Mad Dog - Damage Reduction, Critical Focus
20 Mad Dog - Swift Foot, Mighty Rage

My teammates will be as follows:

Seelah - Tank
Ember - Fire DPS
Sosiel - Heals
Arueshalae - Ranged DPS
Greybor - DPS/Offtank

I will likely be playing on a lower difficulty so I will not necessarily need an optimal build. I just wanted to make sure that there would be no glaring flaws.

Thoughts?

[nazeer28]

You would need to take Myth Finesse as a feat, that will allow you to use any weapon with finesse descriptor to use your dexterity for damage instead of strength, or take slashing grace feat to do the same thing.

[Xero127]

Why Mythic Finesse and not regular weapon finesse? According to this site's description of Weapon Finesse elven curve blades are included:

https://pathfinderwrathoftherighteous.wiki.fextralife.com/Weapon+Finesse

And I do not think that slashing grace accommodates elven curve blades.

[Warbird]

Originally posted by Xero127:

Why Mythic Finesse and not regular weapon finesse? According to this site's description of Weapon Finesse elven curve blades are included:

https://pathfinderwrathoftherighteous.wiki.fextralife.com/Weapon+Finesse

And I do not think that slashing grace accommodates elven curve blades.

Weapon Finesse will only increase your accuracy with light weapons by using high dexterity.

Mythic Finesse will add your dexterity bonus to the damage of any weapon you use with weapon finesse.

It really is not the same.

Also, if your Strength is higher than your Dexterity, using weapon finesse is a total waste because basically any melee weapon ( including light weapons ) can be used with Strength.
Weapon finesse is really only a thing for characters who have high dexterity and low strength.

[Warbird]

Also,

an Elven Curve Blade Barbarian is certainly viable but it would synergize better with Strength because your Rage ability gives more Str and not more DEx you see.

You would be better off throwing away the weapon finesse feat and simply use your Str with the elven blade + your rage. Barbarians already are low on feat compared to fighters, it is best that all your feats be premium useful.

[Triple G]

^
What he said. Barbarians are more the brute force guys - not so much the guys with "elegant" weapons.

Some elf fighter with the elven curved blade would be neat though. Either fighter, or slayer.

And if anything fails: Only because the curved blade is a finesse weapon doesn´t mean it wouldn´t work with strength. The finesse thing is optional. It still has the higher critical range, and works the same as strength weapon without the additional feats.

In game it´s more about what armor You use. High dex is usually low armor value and have the dex modifier as replacement, while You can raise the dex beyond what the lightest armors would provide (except harakiri armor, or mage armor, which have no penalty, and clothes can be buffed with magic vestment), and high armor value is usually low dex. And obviously dex is more important for any ranged character. While in game armor isn´t represented very well. It somehow works, but it´s not the min max approach.

[hilburnashua]

Originally posted by Warbird:

Also,

an Elven Curve Blade Barbarian is certainly viable but it would synergize better with Strength because your Rage ability gives more Str and not more DEx you see.

You would be better off throwing away the weapon finesse feat and simply use your Str with the elven blade + your rage. Barbarians already are low on feat compared to fighters, it is best that all your feats be premium useful.

In WotR they use the Unchained Rules for Barbarians, which is a straight bonus to hit and damage with melee and thrown weapons. Not a bonus to Strength like core Barbarians. All Rage effects work like that in WotR in fact.

[Yannir]

Do you intend to use your pet as a mount?
I did a Stag-riding Mad Dog Elf and it was pretty awesome. But I used a longspear, and focused a bit more on mounted feats. Going for a dex build is also kinda pointless if you're riding. You want a little Dex to make your Mobility checks higher but no more than 16 I'd say.

[hilburnashua]

I had a build where I had Camilla specced into Instictual Warrior using a Elven Curved Blade to to Vital Strikes. With the increase to AC from Instintual and the mythic Mage Armor ability she was damned hard to hit, had huge movement and could get in and do a Vital Strike nearly anywhere on the board and do massive damage. Was very effective.

Also had a build where I had Sosiel build into Armored Hulk and Vital Striking with an Elven Curved Blade (there is a very powerful one in chapter 4 or 5) that was still pretty good.

Slashing grace won't work with a two handed weapon so you will definitely need mythic weapon finesse to make that build work if you plan on going dexterity. I would also pick up Piranaha Strike instead of Combat Expertise, and much earlier.

Since you are already planning on having a 13 Int I would suggest you build the barbarian for tripping to work in conjunction with the wolf. Although wolf might not be the best animal (if your minmaxing) since wolf's automatically get trip so the fercious trip ability doesn't do much.

Alternately, if you want to keep that dazzling display line you can build the wolf to also intimidate (and he is going to be much better at it quite frankly if you build him right) so when he hits and intimidates the opponent is already flat footed for your attacks. In that case, get rid of combat expertise and consider dropping your Int down a bit. With Reckless rage your AC is not going to be good and Combat Expertise just isn't going to bring it back up enough to matter. Although, if you keep combat expertise with a dexterity build I would consider taking armor focus, light and mythic armor focus light - avoidance at some point to make it so whatever armor your going to wear won't limit your dexterity to AC.

Never take extra rage feat, Just take Limitless Rage mythic power.

If I was trying for this kind of build I would go something like

1- weapon finese, exotic weapon proficiency - elven curved blade
3- piranha strike
4 - reckless stance
5 - combat expertise
7 - trip
8 - inspire ferocity
9 - agile maneuvers
11- improved critical - elven curved blade
12 - improved damage reduction
13 - greater trip
15 - tandem trip
16 - improved damage reduction
17 - coordianted maneuvers
19 - combat reflexes
20 - swift foot (or Improved damage reduction especially if you are going to use wolf as a mount)

I would take combat reflexes late since you don't usually get a ton of AOOs.

I would take piranaha strike early since you won't be able to get dexterity to damage until mythic 2 so the extra damage from piranha strike is going to be useful.

There are absolutely tons of fun stuff you can do with Mad Dog.

[GunStarX]

You want to get power attack with a 2h weapon, so you can get +5 damage per 4 bab with mythic power attack. You need 13 str for that, but you should be able to use a belt to boost str. I would still prefer to start with a minimum of 10 str so you aren't always encumbered with gear. You can set your starting dex to 19, so you end with 24 at level 20.

[Triple G]

...And if it´s about criticals i´d suggest to take critical focus always. Not for the follow up feats, as those aren´t super strong in the game for the most part, but for the +4 to confirmation checks alone, if You don´t have some spell going on which automatically confirms any criticals, or You min max it that way, that You would hit everybody on a 2 anyways. You probably want to make use of the 15-20 crit range. Just saw that You added it at lvl 19. Would take it earlier. Basically after improved critical.

Also combat expertise sounds good. But if You have fighting defensively, power attack, and combat expertise going, You have quite the reduction of attack value. I´m unsure if that´s the way to go as damage dealer guy, who should also bring in the critical hits. Even more so as dex build, when You can buff strength quite a bit more - to counter that, while 2/3 of the feats are for adding to the AC, which is the same as dex does passively anyways. And i´d also suggest to take the mythic power attack for a 2h build. And with a pet You basically don´t need much defense for Yourself, as the pet can tank, while You deal damage.

[canuck250]

Bless weapon is a level 1 spell and dirt cheap for a pot, to auto confirm hits, critical focus feat is too expensive esp for a barb who doesn't get many.

Outflank is one of the best feats for melee, get it by level 7 for all melees for a big party boost. Esp with good crit range weapons like the ECB, I def would give Seelah a or dual scimitars to pair with this. I would delay dazzling display/shatter until 13-15, around the time you get frightful aspect, which is basically a free cast of dazzling (your mad dog damage dealer does not want to use the dazzling display ability just the passive from shatter defence).

If you have a pet, you do not 'need' ac if you ride it so going str for more damage would be my go to.

1-Power attack, EWP- ECB
3-cleave
5-cleaving finish
7-outflank
9-lunge
11-imp crit ECB
13-dazzling
15-shatter
17-combat reflex
19-whatever

Use cleave until you get your 2nd attack (level 6).

I do like @Hilbs trip concept as that plays into the mad dog class, I just would take tandem trip before greater trip, a reroll over a +2, not a big deal. Only issue with this is vs enemies immune to trip, which are some of the more difficult fights. But with high dex, I would also try to lean more into AoO, have more allies with good crit range, perfect for a Dae or Cam dual wield rapiers on a wolf, they don't do damage but they sure proc a lot of crits, aka AoO which equals more trips and damage from the mad dog.

Also consider putting Sosiel on a pet with a bardiche to melee with Seelah and Mad Dog. Altho with greybor later on, might be too many melee bodies. So maybe if in act 2 you need more of a frontline put Sosiel up there.

[Triple G]

Originally posted by canuck250:

Bless weapon is a level 1 spell and dirt cheap for a pot, to auto confirm hits, critical focus feat is too expensive esp for a barb who doesn't get many.

It means You need to cast it, as single target spell. I wouldn´t say it´s dirt cheap. Perhaps with a mod, which auto-buffs stuff, or if there would be a communal version of it. Critical focus works passive without clicking anything, while it´s of course not 100% auto-confirm, but probably close when OP says he likely plays on a lower difficulty.

Also if going for cleaving finish, i´d suggest the improved version for unlimited additional attacks, especially with a 2h crit build.

I´m unsure if dazzling display and shatter defenses is needed at all. At least You don´t need it on core, as i didn´t choose it for anybody - and as this is a pet build, it´s likely that this party is far better than mine, with only Bismuth as pet, and one character basically just running with me to have 6 people in the party - as kind of special purpose character. Actually Sosiel didn´t contribute much also, except for the main bunch of the buffs, and as damage dealers i had like 2 people. Main with a 2h greatsword, and Arueshalae with her bow - occasionally Nenio with phantasmal killer or weird, or selective sirocco, but most of the time she would cast a 1d3 cantrip which usually showed as 0 (reduced) if she hit with it. That´s by far not optimal...

[canuck250]

just cleaving finish is fine, it is nice to get the improved version but due to barb not having bonus feats it sucks burning the 2 cleave feats to get a bit more aoe dmg which isn't a huge issue to deal with later in the game. The op said they do not care about full optimal anyways.

I was talking about the potion cost of bless weapon is dirt cheap. You do not need communal crit as you only need to cast it on a couple of people. It is a low level slot which gets less important later into the game so easy to hold a few slots for auto crit. Barbs again have no bonus feat so burning it on something that can be replaced a low level spell makes it an expensive feat. Extra power early game which cleave gives and finish for the rest of the game makes the cost of those 2 much easier.

Also shatter is not needed for most of the game on core but is very useful on the hardest fights and still is useful on trash fights. I def would encourage a new player getting shatter def on melee characters. Overall more hit is better then damage so rather the 2 feats for shatter def over getting improved cleave finish.

One last edit, even with Lunge, the elven blade isn't a reach weapon, you will not get the full effect of improved cleaving finish most of the time anyways.