How to Barrowin Farm for Fun and Profit

This is a guide on how to do the infamous Barrowin swap for fun and profit!

A disclaimer - You will need to have access to Barrowin. If you don't, this guide isn't for you.

1. Formation

Here's the formation.
Pretty simple requirements - Must have Minsc, Must have Barrowin.

Minsc is chosen as DPS because he has an AoE strike and will always hit the closest enemy. He can also gain every buff (save for Hitch) in this formation. Feel free to use someone else over Hitch.

Note: for a full album link, go here: https://imgur.com/a/PJRj2

2. Watch for Minsc to attack

As soon as Minsc attacks, move him down to your bench by clicking on him and dragging him there. Watch his blue bar to see when he's about to attack or just wait for him to move to the enemies.

3. Watch Barrowin's Blue Bar

Now grab Minsc from the bench, but DO NOT place him in formation yet. Just hover your mouse (with the button held) over his spot. Watch Barrowin's blue bar. When it's nearly complete, let go of the button to place Minsc.

4. Pick Up Minsc

As soon as Barrowin attacks, click again and hold it to pick him up. Now drag Minsc down to the bar.

5. Stack Hammer Buffs

Repeat steps 3. and 4. three more times. This will "stack" 4 Blessed Hammers on Minsc and use very little of his attack timer. At the fourth time, drag him back down to the bench to save the Blessed Hammers.

6. Remove Minsc and Wait...

Now just wait for mobs to pile up on Nayelli. You can stack 100 mobs. I usually wait for them to enrage - they glow periodically, start to grow, and deal more damage. Also, once they enrage, no more mobs will spawn until there are less than 100 on the screen.

At higher levels, you'll have to watch Nayeli's health bar. You may not be able to stack a full 100. Be sure to attack prior to Nayelli dying!

(Optional) Remove Barrowin from formation, and place in Tyril (in the appropriate slot for his buff). This will boost your base damage because Tyril buffs much larger than Barrowin. Minsc already has his 4x Blessed Hammer stacks saved, so you don't need Barrowin in formation at this point.

7. KILL SHOT!

Next, place Minsc in formation, and wait for him to attack. He'll kill all the mobs up front with a massive 4 stack Blessed Hammer.

You can use this with other characters, but Minsc and Jamilah usually benefit the greatest. If you need to practice the timing, Jamilah is better because she is more forgiving with a slower attack speed.

You can also repeat this during the same stage, which is great for boss stages. With good timing, you can use this to blast out a 4 stack Hammer buff every 15-20 seconds.

Advanced Tactic: You can use all benched characters to "save" a 4 stack Blessed Hammer, and recall them at any time to swing with the mighty hammer. The game saves the Hammer Stacks between stages.

This "works" extremely well because Barrowin's Blessed Hammer yields a separate multiplier for each stack. At 4 Hammer Stacks, you get Blessed Hammer^4 as a buff. That's pretty extreme. It also means the most important gear in terms of upgrading damage right now is Barrowin's 3rd item - her Amulet.

As an example: adding a mere 30% to that item does the following:
1 Hammer Stack: 30% more damage
2 Hammer Stacks: 900% more damage
3 Hammer Stacks: 27,000% more damage
4 Hammer Stacks: 81,000% more damage

[Psylisa]

@Shisou - another recent update removed keeping hammers on the bench altogether.
Guide is deprecated.

[Shisou]

I don't know how this should work. Each time if I put them (Strix) to bench or swap it out (with Minsc) all hammer blessings are removed.

[WabbaCat]

I heard... very disappointing...
I had just gotten to try it out really.... didnt even get to push far into any missions to really profit from it. Just didn't feel like sitting there and building up those hammers over and over again.
And now I've missed the opportunity altogether

[Psylisa]

Barrowin's Hammers have received a major nerf with the latest update.

While you can still stack hammers, the return is vastly diminished (a mere 6200% for 4 hammers) and generally not worth your time over using Tyril.

[WabbaCat]

O.o

<---- this idiot wasnt using the swap button...
I hate myself now...

[Psylisa]

@OrangeMade Yes, it works like that. You can either drag and drop the champion off, or you can use the swap button.

[OrangeMade]

Does this work if you simply Swap Minsc with another Champion in his bench slot? (If you have one of course. )

I've found it interesting that if both champions are leveled and you swap, they swap directly into the formation slot of their bench partner.

If it worked, it would reduce the general DPS drop when you pull Minsc - and is pretty near instantaneous.

(I'm not quite invested in trying the farming myself, not my sort of style. Yet I'm quite curious if this would work.)

[Psylisa]

@Mabbakittyu - you can absolutely do that. Minsc is a bit faster, so it might be better to store 3 and then move back on the 4th.

[WabbaCat]

I made a macro to help with the issue...
now I can just keep my cursor away from the bench so I dont get the UI issue- click the macro and it activates and moves faster than I can for moving the champion to the formation and back, so I dont have to worry about using too much time

I only stack 3 hammers and place Minsc(dont have strix) back when I can get the 4th hammer and do the kill shot at the same time...
is this a correct usage of it? am I missing any kind of bonus by not storing the 4th hammer?

[Psylisa]

Also, it should be noted that once you've loaded 4 hammers, you don't have to use them immediately. I find it much easier to load 4 hammers when enemies are light, then swap in to unleash them once you have a bunch on screen (or a boss). You encounter less memory issues with the game this way.