Barbarian guide: how to tank and deal damage in plate — talents, build, PvE and PvP

The Barbarian is Zarhold’s toughest class and one of only two that can both take the hits and deal the damage. If you like standing in the front line, pulling the boss onto yourself and being the last one standing, this is your class. In this guide we’ll look at how to play a Barbarian: their cards and Class Power, which talent trees to take early on and at level 60, what to wear and how to play in dungeons, raids and the arena.

The Barbarian at a glance

• Group roles: tank or damage dealer.
• Armour: plate — the heaviest type; anything lighter can be worn too.
• Resource: Rage. It’s the same Crystals everyone has: 1 on your first turn, one more each turn up to 10, and whatever you don’t spend is lost.
• Health at level 60 without gear: 632 — more than any other class and almost twice the Mage’s 331.
• Cards: 21 of their own and 3 more from talents — one in each tree.
• Difficulty: low to start. The Health pool forgives mistakes and the deck makes sense from the first fight.

Strengths and weaknesses

Strengths:

• the largest Health pool in the game plus plate — the Barbarian survives hits that would drop anyone else;
• flexibility: the same deck works for both tanking and dealing damage;
• cheap cards that give Crystals back, so a turn is rarely wasted;
• control: one card makes the enemy lose a turn, another cuts their damage by 25% for 3 turns;
• the attacking Class Power halves the target’s healing — an unpleasant surprise for healers.

Weaknesses:

• no healing for allies — the Barbarian only heals themselves;
• most of the damage is single-target; there’s just one card that hits all enemies;
• the strongest strikes are expensive (6 and 7 Crystals) and come online towards the middle of a fight.

The Barbarian’s deck: key cards

In Zarhold you don’t build your deck by hand: all 21 class cards and the cards of your learned talents go into battle, and if you have fewer than thirty cards the deck is topped up with copies of cheap ones. Every card with its description is in the Barbarian’s Spellbook. Here’s what the class is built on.

Rage and tempo

Three 1-Crystal cards deal a little damage or none at all but give Crystals back: two return 2, one returns 3. Another card draws 2 cards and returns 1 Crystal. This is the Barbarian’s fuel: in the early turns these cards let you play a strike you otherwise couldn’t afford yet.

Stances

Two stances last 3 turns: the attacking one adds 30% to the damage you deal, the defensive one cuts damage you take by 30%. Use the attacking stance before a run of big strikes and the defensive one when an enemy is about to hit hard or when you’re holding the boss.

Defence

Two shield cards (14 and 22 base), a self-heal and a strike that also restores your Health. A shield absorbs damage before it reaches your Health.

Control and debuffs

• a taunt card: in a party against creatures, enemies attack only you right away and for 2 of their turns, dealing 40% less damage to you; it has no effect one-on-one or in PvP;
• an armour-breaking strike — the target takes 20% more damage from all sources for 3 turns;
• a thunderclap — the target deals 25% less damage for 3 turns;
• a stunning shockwave — the enemy loses their turn.

Damage

Bleeds (two cards that deal damage at the end of each of the enemy’s turns for 3 turns), a strike on all enemies for 5 Crystals and two finishers for 6 and 7 Crystals. Base card numbers grow with Power: the more a card costs, the bigger the share of Power it gets.

The Barbarian’s Class Power

Your Class Power is the round button that costs 1 Crystal, once per turn. Which one you have depends on your specialisation — the tree with the most points in it:

• the two attacking trees (and no specialisation, before level 10) — a strike after which the target receives half healing for 2 turns;
• the defence tree — Taunt: bonus armour, and in a party against creatures enemies attack you right away and for 2 of their turns, dealing 40% less damage to you; usable again after 3 turns. One-on-one and in PvP, Taunt only gives armour.

The numbers for every power by tree are in the Class Power reference.

Barbarian talents: three trees

Talents unlock at level 10 and you get a point for every level — 51 by level 60. Each row of a tree opens for every 5 points in it, and the top talent needs 20 points in its own tree. A hero can only have one top talent per loadout. The Barbarian’s trees hold 37, 38 and 42 ranks — 117 in total — so you can’t learn everything: talents are about choices.

1. The first tree — weapons and precise strikes. Attacking. Its talent card is a heavy single strike for 3 Crystals.
2. The second tree — bleeds and relentless pressure. Attacking. Its talent card is a strike with a bleed for 4 Crystals. One of the talents in its last row lets you wield a two-handed weapon in both hands.
3. The third tree — the shield-bearing tank. The only Barbarian tree that grants Taunt, and so the only one for tanking. Its talent card is a 2-Crystal strike that also puts up a shield.

The talent cards sit in the fourth row of their trees: level 25 at the earliest. Every tree with its talent and rank counts is in the Talent trees reference.

What to take early on

Until level 20 you have only one specialisation, so for open-world quests take an attacking tree: your Class Power hits the enemy and cuts their healing. Put your points into one tree in a row — that opens the next rows and the talent card faster.

A level 60 build

From level 20 a hero has two specialisations, and they suit the Barbarian especially well:

• Spec A — attacking: 21 points in your chosen attacking tree (20 to reach the top talent plus the top talent itself), the other 30 into bonuses from the neighbouring trees;
• Spec B — tanking: 21 points in the defence tree, the rest into whatever supports your survival.

Switching specialisations, loadouts and talent resets are free. How to count points and put a build together is covered in “Talents in a card RPG”. You can test a new build right away: the Try out button in the talents window takes you to the training dummy.

Barbarian gear and weapons

• Armour: plate. The Barbarian can also wear mail, leather or cloth, but their own type gives the most protection.
• Weapons: sword, axe, mace, dagger, staff, bow, polearm and fist weapon — the widest choice in the game.
• Off hand: shield.
• Two-handed: staff, polearm, and the two-handed versions of the sword, axe and mace.
• Two weapons: yes. Hands are equal for every class: a one-hander plus an off-hand item carry as many stats as a two-hander.

At level 60 the Barbarian’s goal is the Tier 1 set Bulwark of the Unbreachable Wall: eight pieces of item level 232 from heroic raids and world bosses. The 2-, 4-, 6- and 8-piece bonuses depend on your active tree and don’t work in PvP. Details are in “Tier sets in an MMORPG”, and every class’s armour and weapons are in the Armour and weapons reference.

Which race to choose for a Barbarian

Any race can be a Barbarian. If you want to squeeze out every bit, match the race’s permanent bonus to your role:

• for a tank — Health: the Gartan get +10%, the Durgar +8%, the Grumak and the Vaerin +5% each;
• for a damage dealer — Power: the Kogran, Nakar and Shaydar get +6% each, the Velion +5%;
• for the arena consider the Morven: no crowd control makes them lose a turn — while stunned they simply have 1 Crystal.

Race is a nice extra, not a life sentence. Every bonus is in the All races reference.

The Barbarian in PvE: dungeons and raids

A dungeon takes a tank, a healer and a damage dealer; a raid or a world boss takes a tank, a healer and three damage dealers. The Barbarian can fill the tank or the damage slot.

As a tank

• Queue as a tank only in the defence tree: the tank role works through Taunt, and only that tree has it.
• A boss attacks whoever has dealt it the most damage. Taunt pulls enemies onto you for 2 of their turns right away, then there’s a rest turn — and it’s ready again after 3 turns. A tank’s damage makes triple threat, so the boss usually stays on you during the rest turn.
• The board shows who every enemy is targeting. If the boss isn’t looking at you and Taunt is ready, the game will prompt you: “Use Taunt!”.
• The taunt card in your deck is a backup way to win an enemy back while the button is resting.
• Hits on “everyone” strike the whole group, and no taunt saves you from them — that’s what shields and the defensive stance are for.

As a damage dealer

Hit harder than anyone, but don’t pull the boss off the tank. Put up the attacking stance before expensive strikes and stun dangerous enemies. A long fight is risky: the boss enrages, and every stage adds 18% to its damage.

Step-by-step raid prep is in “Your first MMORPG raid”, and the roles in detail are in the knowledge base article Group roles.

The Barbarian in PvP: arena and duels

In the arena (1v1, 2v2, 3v3 and 5v5), on the battleground and in duels the Barbarian plays an attacking tree — Taunt doesn’t hold opponents and only gives armour.

• Class Power against healers. The power’s strike halves the target’s healing for 2 turns — use it on whoever is being healed.
• Bleeds and the armour-breaking strike work well together: a weakened target takes more damage from both strikes and bleeds.
• The stun takes away your opponent’s turn, but afterwards the target has at least 2 turns of their own when they can’t be stunned again.
• Remember the PvP rules: you can’t lose more than 60% of your Health in a round, from your 10th turn healing and shields weaken by 10% a turn, a card shield lasts 2 turns and can’t exceed 30% of your Health, and the deck isn’t reshuffled — once you run out of cards, fatigue damage begins.
• Defence in PvP is Resilience from PvP gear; Hardiness from regular gear doesn’t work in the arena.

All the rules are in the knowledge base article Special PvP combat rules, and modes and ratings in “PvP in a card game”.

Common beginner mistakes as a Barbarian

1. Queueing as a tank in an attacking tree. Without Taunt the boss goes to whoever hits hardest. Check your specialisation before the queue.
2. Saving up Rage. Crystals don’t carry over to the next turn — what you don’t spend is lost. The cards that return Crystals are there to let you play more this turn, not “later”.
3. Taunting blind. Watch where enemies are aiming: Taunt is only ready again after 3 turns, so don’t waste it while the boss is already hitting you.
4. Wearing Hardiness gear in the arena. In PvP only Resilience protects you.
5. Using a stance at the wrong time. The attacking stance belongs before a run of strikes, the defensive one before the enemy’s heavy turn; both last 3 turns.

Barbarian FAQ

Is the Barbarian a tank or a damage dealer?

Both. Your specialisation decides the role: the defence tree makes the Barbarian a tank with Taunt, the other two trees make them a damage dealer. From level 20 you can keep both specialisations and switch with one button outside combat.

Which Barbarian tree is best for solo play?

Either of the two attacking trees: their Class Power hits the enemy and halves their healing for 2 turns. The defence tree is handier as a second specialisation for dungeons.

Can a Barbarian wield two two-handed weapons?

Yes, but only with a talent from the last row of the second attacking tree (it takes 20 points in that tree) — it lets you wield a two-handed sword, axe or mace in your off hand too. Without it the Barbarian holds a shield, a second one-hander or a single two-handed weapon.

How much Health does a Barbarian have?

632 at level 60 without gear — more than any other class. Gear, talents and race add on top.

Can I reset my Barbarian’s talents?

Yes, at any time and for free. Specialisations and loadouts switch for free too.

The bottom line

The Barbarian is the best pick for anyone who wants a sturdy hero, an easy-to-read deck and a place in every group: today you hold the boss, tomorrow you hit it alongside the damage dealers. Start with an attacking tree for quests, add a tanking specialisation at level 20 — and the dungeons are waiting. Create a Barbarian and find out what it’s like to be the last one standing. And if you’re still choosing a class, see “Which class to choose”.