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[Sirus]

Here's the thing about Saltzpyre's repeater pistol, unless it got changed in a recent patch resulting in massive riots...

It actually is AP, despite that not being reflected in the stat screen. An alt-fire blast at close range will instantly annihilate a stormvermin up to the highest difficulty levels, and will continue one-shotting them after with proper traits. That's why people use the repeater, and why it's actually one of the most-used guns for him on Nightmare and Cataclysm.

Rapier is great fun and fast, but I think "The meta" calls for his twohander instead. Rapier is perfectly fine though, even on higher difficulties, provided you get the right traits and can reliably poke stormvermin eyes with the thrust (yes, melee weapons can headshot too).

When you get a pair of drakefire pistols for Bardin, try him out some more too. Turns him into a miniature Sierra, with infinite ammo and a heat cooldown. Also, the alt-fire cone of death doesn't hit friendlies, hehe.

Hm, interesting. I could have sworn that my first attempt with the repeater pistol was an abject failure, completely ineffective against anything with armor (and everything else as well - seriously, it was a green-rank item and even trash mobs took two hits to kill more often than not), but I'll give it another go next time I pick one up.

And yes, I'm aware that melee weapons can score headshots. I actually have quite a lot of fun "dueling" stormvermin, stabbing them in the face repeatedly while avoiding or blocking their counterstrikes. Of course, the damn dwarf usually swoops in and steals my kill with his two-handed hammer, but if he's busy I can take out quite a few stormvermin all by myself with the rapier!

[Kagus]

It is possible that it actually did get changed, although the only repeater-related changelog I remember offhand was the one where Kruber's repeater rifle finally got AP, after a long and tragic era of being completely crap.

Just remember to only use the alt-fire, as that's the thing that works against the stormies.

Oh, yeah... And hitting the reload button when you've emptied the gun but the automatic reload animation hasn't started yet will reload the gun faster than letting the game handle it. Applies to crossbows and such as well. And you can fire shortly before the animation is finished.

[Draignean]

I've played Kerrilian out to level 20-something, and I just now switched over to Bardin after I convinced my partner to give it a go.

Wasn't terribly impressed with his ranger class, though I was absolutely in love with the over-and-under shotgun he gets. It mows down hordes, it one shots stormvermin and the unarmored chaos brutes, it has relatively generous ammo, and has a nice alt-fire shove. Give me an ammo box and I'll hold ground until the ratmen die of old age. With an axe in the off-hand, I was happy with the build.

Then I got to level 7 and tried Ironbreaker with Hammer and board, plus drakefire pistols. Jesus. H. Christ. I'm invincible. I'm not an amazing player, but I was barely scratched in encounters that were leaving everyone else half dead. Use drakerfire pistols to clear heavies and sweep mobs until you almost overheat, swap to the board and ram yourself between the remaining enemies and allies while your heat recovers. Repeat as needed.

[nenjin]

It's generally what I've noticed. On Champion runs the party will average between 400 and 1200 damage taken (usually with the wizard taking top spot.) The person playing Iron Breaker almost always clocks in at sub 300, and is usually the last one left standing in our group.

[umiman]

You shouldn't use the shield on the Ironbreaker (yeah, it's completely counterintuitive).

This is because of several reasons:

1. You don't need the extra stamina from the shield. But the extra dodging from a single handed hammer / axe / or double handed hammer is super useful. A lot of attacks can't be blocked so there's a lot of dodging involved. With a shield, this can get problematic.
2. You do way more damage without the shield. Attacks and combos are faster and better. Shield and hammer is particularly problematic because it has very little AP damage.
3. Shield's charge attack is just an extra bash. You don't really need this as Ironbreaker, though it is fun. It's particularly annoying since most shields have two charge attacks, one that actually does damage and one that doesn't. And if you want to do the one that does, you have to animation cancel the one that doesn't. And if you want to just bash, then you have to animation cancel the other.
4. The shield is mostly there to CC hordes. Ironbreaker has so many ways of doing this and the best ways for him tend to be his ranged options.

Here's a video going into more detail: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GstjQFDwnnI

I personally mainly use the one-handed axe. I think the DPS of it is easily the best of all the Ironbreaker weapons. I personally prefer it to the double-handed hammer.

[nenjin]

I dunno. Ironbreaker with a shield just basically stands at the front and absorbs all incoming attacks without issue while everyone behind him swings and shoots over his shield. Works pretty well. The only downside is you lose some DPS for those actually hard boss fights like the Chaos Spawn.

[Folly]

If you're trying to top the dps charts as Ironbreaker, you're doing it wrong. Just go Slayer if that's your goal.
Ironbreaker with a shield can keep entire waves floored without taking any damage. He is crowd control, with the bonus of never taking healing supplies for himself.
Dodging is really only needed on bosses, and then it's just not reliable. Under ideal situations, fighting a boss alone in a big open room, yeah dodges will get you through with less damage taken compared to shield. But when a boss spawns in a cramped area with swarms and specials backing him up, your team will need someone who can stand there and take it while they do their grisly work.

[nenjin]

Not even trying to top the DPS charts. But there have been a couple instances where a Chaos Spawn has shown up in a really shitty place, the rest of the team died and the Ironbreaker just couldn't put out the damage to finish the CS.

Of course, positioning is everything for most boss fights. I really hate that it seems damn near impossible to solo the Chaos Spawn, even if you know how to avoid that tentacle life drain attack.

[umiman]

The point is that the one handed hammer and two handed hammer can CC crowds better than the shield can due to the nature of their attacks (one handed attacks really fast and basically bashes everything at hyperspeed whereas the two handed has huge AOE) and the one handed axe does way more damage.

So there's no real reason to use the shield as the shield is slower, does less damage, and CC's less than the hammers. Also has less dodge. Its only benefit is more stamina, which you don't need. After all, against bosses who can't instabreak all your stamina shields you can already block them forever with just a one handed weapon and with bosses that damage you through block or break your shields, you need to dodge.

I prefer to use the one handed axe because I can CC crowds with flamethrowers. So I don't need the hammers. Also I have an orange one handed axe so it's basically the only choice for me. Not to mention I like the axe's natural AP damage, which when combined with the ludicrious attack speed (my orange gives me a lot of AS%) just chumps enemies to paste. If I had an orange one handed hammer I would like to compare performance.

When I play Ironbreaker I'm usually top of every single score except for special kills. Most damage, most ranged kills, most melee kills, least amount damage taken, etc. There's no real reason to play any other class. I think IB is really easymode but I can't get enough of the flamethrowers. When I try to play anything else my performance is usually subpar, which speaks volumes to how strong IB is.

The DPS output from one handed weapons is unreal on him. You should just craft a random one handed axe or hammer on him and give it a shot before knocking it. It sounds stupid but it's really noticeable how much of a difference it makes.

[Folly]

Flamethrower is pretty effective when you have the rats funneled into a narrow line, and have allies to cover you when you need to recharge, and you don't have to worry about friendly-fire. Though if you know what you're doing, almost any ranged weapon can be equally effective under those circumstances, and most of them can be effective from much longer range. Flamethrower is good, but it's not unique, and it's not top tier.

Shield+Axe can tear through any armored enemy plenty effectively. 1H axe might do it a bit faster, but the sacrifice to survivability is massive. In higher difficulties where enemies hit harder and there are fewer heals, that's an easy choice.

Saying that shields CC less than hammers is just ridiculous. With the right talents and equipment, shield is basically 360 degree block and push and should never run out of stamina. A hammer will stop hard the instant an armored enemy enters the fray, while shield push effectively has infinite cleave.

[nenjin]

I agree with Folly that at higher difficulties, being able to CC with offense gets harder and harder. Guys stop getting stumbled as often by your attacks, the odd guy takes three hits instead of two sometimes, they can pile in with numbers so great they max out the # of enemies you can cleave at once and you start taking hits even as you're splattering a pack. And that's before elites start getting mixed in to hordes so dense, especially at choke points, you can't see them even as they're attacking. At that point it becomes nice to have a shield guy up front just taking the hits all day, preventing them from pushing you back and letting you just power cleave over and over again over their shoulder. The shield is a teamwork weapon.

I will say that the Flamethrower almost seems too OP even on Champion. But I've also seen the limits of what it can do. Sustained swarms will overheat it, and it is pretty inefficient against elites. Working with someone who is using a flamethower and knows how to coordinate with you though, you can trivialize a lot of swarms.

[umiman]

At the end of the day it's a coop game not a competitive one and IB is so easymode you could probably do well with the shit-tier pickaxe. I wish the pickaxe was more viable though, it seems more dorfy. I mean, I use the flamethrower despite it being worse than the drakefire pistols in almost every way. I just like using it.

I tried playing Slayer once and kept dying every 10 meters.

[Kagus]

I tried playing Slayer once and kept dying every 10 meters.

I'm not sure if it's ironic or not that this is literally what their intended purpose is.

[Folly]

Slayer is one of those classes that really absolutely needs the level 20 talent to gain temporary health on kills.

Also, Slayer's intended purpose is less about dying quickly, more about dying well.

[nenjin]

Their intended purpose is to amuse their team as they go catapulting over the first wave and in to the heart of the swarm.