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Battleragers were a fun concept in the Drizzt books but didn't translate particularly well into 5e. They were a fun contrast to the more traditional Battlehammer dwarves, but definitely needing a major overhaul to be a very active choice to play, particularly against the other subclasses.

One thing I think Battleragers should have been was a Heavy Armor Barbarian. Instead of limiting it to spiked armor, which is not a good medium armor the best of times, they maybe could have made it so that this subclass gives you proficiency in Heavy Armor and Allows you to rage while wearing heavy armor. If it had abilities based on armor, I feel like the subclass would open up interesting character options.

You aren't kidding about the Storm Herald and the party tricks. Played a halfling Tundra barbarian once, and, after hitting level 6, went back to my home and was able to make ice-cream out of season (i.e. winter) because he could make things cold enough.

please do more of these on other classes!

If you get all the way to Level 20, the Zealot Barbarian is also S-tier, because at Level 20 Barbarians get unlimited rages per day, meaning they can use that Level 14 Zealot ability to remain too angry to die essentially forever.

I literally just finished a 1-20 campaign as an Ancestral Guardian and you're an absolutely insane tank that can really cover for your party. If you think about it as long as you're up and fighting the rest of your party almost never need worry about not being resistant to the type of damage an enemy's attacks do and then the spirit shield on top of that makes you insanely strong in boss fights. An incredible tanking subclass for sure.

me and a friend joined a game as a married couple. he was a wild magic sorcerer and I was a wild magic barbarian. it was very chaotic and also very fun to play as we never fully knew what to expect and it kept us both on our toes. There was bonus laughter in our DnD group when they found out that my character got there abilities through intercourse with the sorcerer. wear protection, Avoid STWM

I play a Storm Herald Barbarian in my Sunday game, and the DM allowed me to change the rule to change the terrain on a long rest. That simply change made it a lot more usable and able to adapt to different biomes without having to wait on a big level up.

I know Path of the Giant showed up in UA, a while back and needs play testing to be more official. But so far it's the most fun I've had running with a Barbarian in a long while. Great video, I look forward to seeing future subclass break downs if you plan on doing them!

For the Battle Rage Barb I do as follows. (1)Any race can use it. (2)The armor is not limited to the standard spiked armor and you can craft higher versions of it, ex- Half Plate Spiked Armor. (3) Any of the features that deal damage actually scale with magic armor, ex- +1 Spiked Half Plate makes all your features do 4 damage instead of 3. Sometimes I would allow a 1d4 bonus damage if its an armor of some sort of resistance. Their armor is a weapon and should just be reflected by their unique mastery over it. (4) This is an on and off one I use based on the other players classes because new classes are way stronger then older, I sometime will allow them to eventually swap to heavy armor and not hinder barbarian features with it. Hope anyone who sees this likes these rules for their games.

Why did the Barbarian mug the bard? So he could have all the lute. F*** you it's funny.

Seeing the Barbiebarian joke, I have to mention that that is a character I'd like to play in Pathfinder 2e: a Toy Poppet Barbarian. Personally I'll go with Giant Instinct because I love the imagery of the Tiny doll hulking out to like 20 feet tall.

The one thing I'd say is about Berserker which you said but didn't show, is the intimidation ability uses your *charisma* to intimidate, which is not a stat most barbarians can even afford. Not to mention by that point in the game and onward a lot of things become more immune to fear; i don't think it deserves D tier, but definitely C.

So glad to see Ancestral Guardians gets some love. Everyone loves the Bear Totem, but it's biggest critique is if the bad guys see you're just absorbing damage, they'll turn their focus to the party Wizard or Sorcerer since there's no reason to attack you. Combine it with Reckless Attack and they all but HAVE to swing at you. Plus you can still deal great damage with extra attack and GWM

Glad to see new a subclass tier list video, can't wait for one about Warlocks and Monks

People forget that frenzy is another way to rage. So you can still rage in a normal fight and then pull a frenzy when the situation requires "super rage".

Totem Eagle is my new favorite subclass, you get the free disengage like a drunken master monk, can see for TWO MILES at lvl 6, and can "fly" (super jump 40-50ft depending on your speed) at 14.

I wish there was a a good option that would combine the flavor of beast barbarian and totem barbarian. Like, you choose the animal you transform into each time you rage, gaining natural weapons like beast barbarian does, but also other abilities like totem barbarian does. If you transform into bear, your damage reduction improves and you become large. If you choose wolf, you can get pack tactics and trip attack at later level. With tiger you get ounce etc. On later levels you could scale up the natural weapons and add more cool abilities to each form. There are already dnd novels that have this concept, only thing missing is mechanics for it.

Zealot is my favorite. My favorite character was a zealot barbarian wholey and vehemently committed to doing the will of the gods. Though he was quite fuzzy on what that will was, and wasn’t even entirely sure which gods were involved 😂 it gave a quick easy fun way to pursue anything the rest of the party was doiy

I played a ancestral guardians 5/thief 7 barbarogue gnome, built around using grapples to climb onto enemies. It was a seriously good tank, and a lot of fun

Dude love your content. You keep it short and sweet. You explain classes really well without fully getting lost in it. Keep you the hard work my guy. You gain a new sub today.

Great video, also I just wanted to tell you you are the only person whose ads I never skip, even when watching video for the second time. They are really creative and entertaining. Easily top1 ad maker in the world period

My issue with Wild Magic is how long it takes to resolve its effect. If you roll flumphs you're rolling up to six times for an effect that doesn't even really do anything. It's neat for maybe 5 combats, then everybody dreads how long the freaking barbarian of all class' turn is going to take.

I think barbarian subclasses should have some utility built into them base barbarian doesnt get many utility optios, but if those are baked into the subclasses that could be pretty good like the speak with animals ritual one subclass gets; or givving each subclass two extra proficiencies from a list of fitting options

Pro Tip: The wording of the Wild Magic Bolstering Magic is different than other boosting features... and adds to the meta d20 roll, which means you can make a non-crit a crit with the bonus

My favorite barb is my tabaxi path of the desert storm herald barbarian. Add a fire flavor to her abilities, a glaive, and plenty of space, basically anything in 10 feet was getting whacked by some kind of action. Plus, her carefree CG personality made her a riot in RP situations.

I once had my Air Genasi Wild Magic Barbarian pull off a really sick move that the wild magic surge boosted so well. He ran down the yardarm of the ship they were on and jump to the ship attacking us. At the jump he used levitate (racial ability) to give him a lift. He then raged, this dropping the levitate and activating wild magic. The roll of the table landed on radiant energy bursting out of his chest to hit his enemies as he landed. I felt like Thor on the rainbow bridge in Ragnarok. By far one of my all time favorite D&D moments!

Love barbs. Just want some more mechanically challenging / interesting subclasses. Bear Totems and Zealots are my faves. And Wild Magic is fun. One day I'll try for a Beast

Quick, informative and well said. Definitely need videos for all classes.

You did forget the Wild Magic barb's other amazing ability: their magical sonar ping. It's a six second detect magic, as an action. Take any feat that gives you a bonus action attack, and that invisible spellcaster is about to make a concentration check as the "mindless brute" knows exactly where they are and is now approaching them sideways. Can do it a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus per day. So, it has a short duration but you just need to find your mark. Also, with a little creativity, each of those wild magic abilities stay useful throughout play. Be that a reusable misty step, a retaliatory damage with no range restriction or just a good old fashioned difficult terrain within 15 feet of me so good luck running, buddy. That level 10 is huge. Run in and just keep rolling, praying on ones. I should see if my DM will let my turtle wear a metal collar and have someone cast heat metal on it so I can just be a magical disco ball of chaos.

Zealot barb forever

I really like what bone wizard did to the berserker. He basically changed frenzy to instead force the creature you bonus attacked to attack you with an opportunity attack. They can choose to not take it but they need to pass a wisdom save.

Oh my god that segway from bit to ad was smooth asf, didn't see that coming

Finally~ been waiting for one of these since the fighter Subclass video

I know it's not a WoTC official subclass, but the Path of the Juggernaut from the Tal'dorei Reborn book is a TON of fun to play as well

Currently playing a Beast Barb It’s fun being absolutely *B R U T A L*

I would absolutely LOVE to see a community engagement series, given your great content and particular POV. The general gist would be "Help! Fix my build!" and offer ways to optimize a build that you may have chosen for your character, but realized wasn't panning out like you'd hoped. Example. I have a newish paladin that I chose "Oath of the Crown" for, and am having some buyers remorse. If there were some "This Old Build" tips and tricks to help me claw back some joy and value from the build, I'd be all ears!

I've been looking for exactly this video! Just hit level 3, and I've been trying to figure out what subclass to pick. Going Storm Herald of the Sea for my Aarakocra Barbarian!

I love the flavor of barbarian, but I dislike the lack of a complex subclass. I'm on board with them having many simple ones for newer players or people who just wanna unga bunga, but I'd love one that gave me choices to make like a battlemaster or spellcaster.

I'm glad you rated my favorite subclass (Beast Barb) a higher rank than what most others give it.

I’ve played both an Ancestral Guardian and a Zealot barbarian in the same campaign (Tomb of Annihilation) and I enjoyed playing the Zealot more. Admittedly that was my Lizardfolk Paladin-Barbarian multiclass who was so dumb that she spoke in the third person and her most common phrases were “Litrix bite!” and “Litrix eat!” (The other character’s most common response was “Litrix no!” 😂) Litrix really was too angry to die which really helped when we did the ToA epilogue. She’s actually getting a mention in the homebrew campaign I’m running because she’s my favourite ever character to play!

The thing with berserkers, though, is that they excel in a situations where every class and subclass excels. On one encounter days, wizards can burn all their slots and divination portents/abjuration arcane wards/war mage power surges, sorcerers can use every sorcerery point, warlocks can blast their max level spells, fighters can second wind and action surge and use all their superiority dice/samurai fighting spirits. Even just having the huge hp pool of any barbarian subclass makes one encounter days pretty easy to go nuts in.

Genuinely love these videos they’re so interesting

Totem is a lot of fun, so is Zealot, love em both. Currently playing a totem barb taking a 3 level dip for echo knight fighter, tons of fun

I think Intimidating Presence actually makes me angrier (no pun intended) than Frenzy does. It has 6 problems that I can see and they are, in no particular order: 1.) Fear as a condition is bad for Barbarians. Barbarians are a melee centric class, indeed, they are *the most* melee centric class, I would argue, and Fear doesn't allow enemies to come nearer to you willingly. 2.) It is single target. This one isn't all too bad except it compounds horrifically with the next few problems I will list. 3.) It costs a full action to use. This is a major problem. This is a subclass that is focused on damage, and this ability severely limits your damage output on the turn you use it. 4.) It has no inherent duration and must be actively upkept every single turn at the cost of an action, making the previous problem WAY worse. 5.) It is a level 10 feature. This means that, in a lot of campaigns, this may be THE LAST subclass ability your character obtains, and it's just not very good, even ignoring the final problem. 6.) It is not based on any ability Score Barbarians would use. This one actually may be the single biggest, and indeed, most baffling problem associated with the ability: it is based on your charisma. Barbarians rely on 3 different stats at base to function correctly: Strength, Dexterity and Constitution. It's especially baffling, because it's flavored as you being big and scary, so why isn't it STRENGTH BASED? Now, I admit, this one is just a result of early 5e design, but it's something that is so limiting to the ability that it, quite frankly, is just a flavor ability. Truly, I consider Intimidating Presence to be the WORST ability in the game, excluding maybe base book Beast Master's Animal Companion, because you will NEVER use it. It serves no purpose, especially at the level you obtain it at, for Christ's sake. It's worse than a 3rd level spell at a level when full casters have *5th* level spells, and is counter to what a Barbarian WANTS to do. It's cool flavor, but if I were redesigning Berserker, I would both change the Ability Score to Strength and fully just give Berserker a second level 10 ability, as this one is actually worthless for them outside of roleplay.

it is a rare commercial so funny that i WANT to watch it all the way through... and then watch it again to show other people

Im actually playing a bulked out half-elf (half human) battlerager who was found by travelling dwarves as a abandoned baby and grew up in a dwarf fortress. The point of him adventuring beyond his home is that his name was retracted from his familys dwarven tree and exiled shortly after his father died. All of course because of the fact he is of course a battlerager, an axe idiot. He now roams searching a way to cope with the loss of his adoptive fathers last name, releasing his copius rage defending others to redeem himself in his eyes.

Your way of explaining things aré awesome. Thanks AND More pls 🤙

That advertisement segway was brilliant 😂

good stuff. will ya make a longer video on the one dnd changes?

This video ist so helpful. Currently homebrewing a subclas

As a DM I changed the frenzy and some abilities of the barbarian for example fatigue has become a bearserker mechanic you can take a fatigue to transform a strength, dexterity or constitution roll into a natural 20 or in combat cancel a status effect or control effect. Mindles rage I added that if you get hit you have to roll a die to enter rage as a reaction and intimidating presence in combat is automatically activated for every enemy that sees you when you critical or kill

Neat to see you doing ratings!

I love Storm Herald and Beast so much, idk that they are mid, they have a concept in mind and they deliver it well.

Beast barb has a lot of potential based on how you use it. Like picking a race that has a prehensile tail feat. Or lets say you can get a large type attribute to your character size.

Full stop, that’s gotta be one of the funniest sponsorship segments I’ve seen in a while

The other down side to the frenzied rage ability is that it basically restricts you to a 2 handed weapon or shield barb. I keep a home rule that treats frenzied rage to be like flurry of blows for a dual wielder, allowing for 2 strikes

Not only did I sit all the way through the ad dunking on brits, but I watched it again

I run a much more homebrewed battlerager and its so much fun just being a Grapple-Tank that knees people in their chests with spikes. A lot of changes, but the biggest one is that you can also add your constitution modifier (max of +2, unless you get medium armour master) to the AC of your spiked armour. ie 14+dex+con for a maximum of 18, 20 with a shield (though you're probably not going to be using one).

Solid list. Definitely enjoy the beast barbarian, but I'm very curious to see what the official release of the Path of the Giant subclass will look like in a couple of months. The fact that you could be a barbarian who can throw weapons and still get your Rage bonus intrigues me.

The weakness for Zealot’s Rage Beyond Death is that it does make them immune yo dying when they’re below hit points but they can still be killed by other things, Power Word Kill, getting brain eaten by mind flayer, or getting decapitated by a vorpal sword.

I played a zealot barb with an eldritch claw tattoo for a one shot and it was so much damn fun, barbarian with 2 sources of bonus damage and some range

I played a warforged wild magic barbarian named Hijax in a one shot. Basically glitched out when raging to flavor the wild surges. I’d play it again. It was so fun.

Totem Barbarian is totally nuts, specially when the DM allow multiple animals build, since rules as written the DM can allow you to choose different animals on later levels of the subclass. My second favorite definitely the Ancestral Guardians one. One of my favorite characters was a lizardfolk, who wanted to eat everything possible in the world, AKA Toriko, it was hella fun walking in combat with draconic spirits protecting my allies while I went full bite mode on my enemies using only a loincloth a shield and a cart full of goodies to eat tied by a rope.

I'd say that Totem, Zealot, and Ancestral Guardian are all equally good for different reasons. Totem takes the least amount of damage and has multiple options for damage, tanking, mobility, or utility. Ancestral Guardian is a great Tank preventing others from taking damage or punishing enemies that deal damage. Zealot is the best offensive damage dealing barb with great "can't die won't die" features. Can't go wrong with these 3 subclasses.

A big reason Frenzy barbs get flack is MOST barbs get Great Weapon Master or Polearm Master; both of which can give you a bonus action attack with out getting exhaustion; or you can DW for free. The ability is still pretty good, but we already get feats that give us the same without the downsides.

That greenscreen intro was nice 👌

My group had a path of the beast barbarian play with us last summer. He really carried us in combat, and was certainly a beast.

Been rolling a Wild Magic Eladrin Barb. DM and I came up with an extended and improved list of wild magic table and its so much fun!

Thank you for giving Berserker a fair shake like it deserves.

I currently have a ancestral guardian name aegis, that is constantly saving his friends. I love my little goblin boy

I played a Storm Herald based on Frankensteins monster in a oneshot once. It was fun, although I didnt fully understand how Rage worked since I hadnt played a Barbarian before.

Played a wild magic barb and loved it. The teleport ability was so op and had my DM laughing and frustrated at the same time!

Point about Berserker: 1DD buffs them nicely by making exhaustion not nearly as debilitating. The subclass is flawed, sure, but it needs just a few little tweaks to be great: 1) ignore exhaustion while raging 2) make intimidating presence based on strength instead of charisma. Giving it AoE wouldn't hurt either, since other classes have similar abilities at lower levels. 3) make retaliation based on your reach instead of static 5 feet.

"Path of the Mr Beast"💀 I'm definitely using that as a character concept 😂 Idk WHEN, but I'll use it 🤣

3:25 , something similar happened to Lovecraft and he wrote The Shadow over Innsmouth

My favorite barbarian subclass is the mistwood barbarian from Tome of Heroes which is a sort of barbarian assassin that gets reckless attack and rage bonus in thrown weapons and also misty step. The book also has the path of thorns barbarian which is just a better battlerager with no restrictions and the thorn damage increases as you level up. Zealot is also really good in deadly campaigns, (mine had 9 pc deaths not counting revives) for free revives.

I reworked path of the Storm herald in my game because both me and my player found it lacking. So instead of a fire aura that deals a low amount of damage I made it so when they raged they would explode similar to a fireball but not as powerful. At later levels after they raged they would become enreathed in flames and enemies attacking them would take fire damage. Both me and my players found it really fun.

1:45 i didn't forget the Battle Rager existed because they're one of my favorite character groups in the Forgotten Realms novels! I made one of my characters grow up idolizing Thibbledorf Pwent!

The long distance Ancestral Barbarian never even occurred to me. If you take Thrown Weapon Fighting you can have a lot of fun. Also if your concerned about running out of Thrown weapons you have three options, Eldritch Knight for Weapon Bond, Soulknife for Psychic blades, or Artificer for Returning Weapon.

One of my first characters was a wild magic barbarian goblin. It was a lot of fun adding that extra chaos to an already chaotic character.

I love this class, and my favourite thing to do with my last character was attempt to do the craziest shit possible with a stacked strength score and advantage on athletics checjs

for me PERSONALY Berserker will always be C Tier just cos of Frenzy's "When your rage ends, you suffer one level of exhaustion." that is a death sentence if your DM does few Long Rests in sessions and you must use your features not as a "i get to use if i want" but "i MUST use or i'm dead weight" by 3lv's of Exhaustion you're using it as an offset any more you may as well have picked a Fighter and ran it pure

The chip damage of the storm Herald is fantastic but how low the damage remains makes it a rough choice

Currently playing a Totem Warrior and they are the best tanks in the game. I took an effective 219 damage and had 1 hit point left before my team got the kill.

This was a fun overview of the Barbarian subclasses, but I am kind of curious..is there ever going to be a follow-up video for the classes touching on the subclasses from partnered content or the stuff made by WOTC affiliated DM's? Was curious to see your opinion on Path of the Depths

Pro tip, that 1 mile view range on the eagle barbarians is an absolutely incredible combo with the druids shape shifting or any of the "wilderness scout" classes/subclasses.

Perfect, just the video I wanted right now

I played a barbarian once who didn’t ‘rage’ per se, but entered into a sort of Neo-style bullet-time state where opponents just seemed slower. Trained by the setting’s equivalent of zen masters. Was very cool. And so much different to the usual ‘hulk smash’ style of barb.

Bruh. Did you actually look to your left foot the wolf totem while recording this video? Good on you brother, that's just incredible showmanship. I had to rewind to see that. You are an S Tier presenter my man.

Couple changes. Zealot is S tier they got everything going for them but additional subclass options (which is pretty standard for 5e) Wild magic is A tier just from what I've seen in play. Yes berserker's other features are great but in +90% of games you do something after combat even if it's just more combat and exhaustion cripples everything outside of combat. So I'd say easy A if fixed or low C if not.

“Totem Barbarian is the best subclass in the game” Divination Wizard and Twilight Cleric: “ Hold my beer”

I had a younger kid I DMed for want to play as a lizardfolk battle rager. When I looked it over and realized how bad it was I sold him on a modified idea. I basically turned his lizardfolk into a horned lizard. Attacks made against him would deal retaliation wether they missed or hit. I gave him some fancy attacks like his own version of a spin dash, bull charge and spike explosion. I even let him collect lost and she'd spikes to make weapons and arrows that would add a damage over time bleeding effect to weapons made with them. The effect would stack as a way to encourage him to share them with the other players at the table.

I had a zealot Barbarian in the Curse of Strahd campaign, and he consistently destroyed every encounter with just his great weapon master feature, and also being he was a fallen Aasimar he had necrotic shroud out whenever he ran into a fight. He would crit so often, and hed reduce enemies to corpses in no time flat.

Thx I needed to help my friend

Battlerager is a 2nd edition Kit for Dwarfs, it has a long history going back to 1993 and the Dwarven Handbook [It might have made an appearance in Dragon before this. That is why it is restricted to Dwarfs, as homage to this Fighter Kit for Dwarfs.

Played a Totem Barbarian (Bear at level 3) in a Tomb of Annihilation campaign. That character was the only one to survive from Session 0 through the epilogue. During the final boss battle (without giving away any spoilers), based on the way the turn order worked out, my character was subject to two Finger of Death spells, plus a Disintegrate, and received a grand total of *three* real HP of damage. The main drawback in that fight was the Frightened condition, which limited the melee damage that he could do.

Rufus Hound The Rough Knight was a Battlerager Barbarian, but they re-specced (via a quest) to a Paladin half-way through the campaign.

All right I think we need to see a "What class+race combo has the highest output" video. Whether its the Goliath Barbarian, the Dark Elf Rogue, or the Gnomish Artificer. What Race's are the best for the Classes? Also this made me go make a changeling wild magic barbarian just to see it on paper :D!