The rogue and cleric would mostly likely be up front which would provide at least half cover for the barbarian and wizard. This would be the most basic strategy to deal the most damage and mitigate the largest amount of incoming damage at the lowest resource assuming combat is unavoidable.
This would be the perfect type of encounter for the AG to shine acting in the traditional barbarian fashion and still better off being outside melee range.
The AG is a good tank in this type of encounter just not in the sense of directly eating attacks.
So they are a good tank in several scenarios then? Seems to be a good choice of tank then all around.
Once again it's in spite of being a barbarian not because if it. The AG is good because they don't rely on the the class to function which isn't a good thing to happen if you are trying to use it as an example of why the class isn't bad.
Its an example that this particular subclass can even tank at range while still being able to tank up close.
Its a great example of how the class offers options overall for tanking in various different ways. A high level zealot can literally never be brought down and is free to bring back from the dead. Even killing them has little to no consequence and they are up there for top damage per round of ANY class/subclass.
Bear barbs will eat 95% of all damage thrown at them and if you pick a Kalasthar Barb its 100%. They have effectively double hit points which means enemies will need to tear through 100+ HP as soon as level 5.
Per the DMG: A CR 5 creature is suppose to put out between 33-38 damage per round. That means a party barbarian could eat 3 rounds of full damage from a CR 5 creature at level 5.
They are literally taking all the damage from a creature that is suppose to be a challenge from 4 Level 5 PCs.
I am not sure how one would say this is "the worst tank"
The rogue and cleric would mostly likely be up front which would provide at least half cover for the barbarian and wizard. This would be the most basic strategy to deal the most damage and mitigate the largest amount of incoming damage at the lowest resource assuming combat is unavoidable.
This would be the perfect type of encounter for the AG to shine acting in the traditional barbarian fashion and still better off being outside melee range.
The AG is a good tank in this type of encounter just not in the sense of directly eating attacks.
Except that instead of protecting the Rogue and Cleric, they're letting the Rogue and Cleric take damage instead; that's not tanking at all!
Some quick questions:
Have you ever actually even played a barbarian, like ever?
Where are your mythical superior classes that you insist are hands-down better tanks than the barbarian? You keep insisting that it's the worst tanking class in the game (despite it being the tank class of the game) and yet your hypothetical superior classes are conspiciously still hypothetical only. Instead all you've done is snipe at features you don't seem to understand how to use correctly, and propose increasingly weird scenarios.
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The rogue and cleric would mostly likely be up front which would provide at least half cover for the barbarian and wizard. This would be the most basic strategy to deal the most damage and mitigate the largest amount of incoming damage at the lowest resource assuming combat is unavoidable.
This would be the perfect type of encounter for the AG to shine acting in the traditional barbarian fashion and still better off being outside melee range.
The AG is a good tank in this type of encounter just not in the sense of directly eating attacks.
So they are a good tank in several scenarios then? Seems to be a good choice of tank then all around.
Once again it's in spite of being a barbarian not because if it. The AG is good because they don't rely on the the class to function which isn't a good thing to happen if you are trying to use it as an example of why the class isn't bad.
Its an example that this particular subclass can even tank at range while still being able to tank up close.
Its a great example of how the class offers options overall for tanking in various different ways. A high level zealot can literally never be brought down and is free to bring back from the dead. Even killing them has little to no consequence and they are up there for top damage per round of ANY class/subclass.
Bear barbs will eat 95% of all damage thrown at them and if you pick a Kalasthar Barb its 100%. They have effectively double hit points which means enemies will need to tear through 100+ HP as soon as level 5.
Per the DMG: A CR 5 creature is suppose to put out between 33-38 damage per round. That means a party barbarian could eat 3 rounds of full damage from a CR 5 creature at level 5.
They are literally taking all the damage from a creature that is suppose to be a challenge from 4 Level 5 PCs.
I am not sure how one would say this is "the worst tank"
The rogue and cleric would mostly likely be up front which would provide at least half cover for the barbarian and wizard. This would be the most basic strategy to deal the most damage and mitigate the largest amount of incoming damage at the lowest resource assuming combat is unavoidable.
This would be the perfect type of encounter for the AG to shine acting in the traditional barbarian fashion and still better off being outside melee range.
The AG is a good tank in this type of encounter just not in the sense of directly eating attacks.
So they are a good tank in several scenarios then? Seems to be a good choice of tank then all around.
Once again it's in spite of being a barbarian not because if it. The AG is good because they don't rely on the the class to function which isn't a good thing to happen if you are trying to use it as an example of why the class isn't bad.
Its an example that this particular subclass can even tank at range while still being able to tank up close.
Its a great example of how the class offers options overall for tanking in various different ways. A high level zealot can literally never be brought down and is free to bring back from the dead. Even killing them has little to no consequence and they are up there for top damage per round of ANY class/subclass.
Bear barbs will eat 95% of all damage thrown at them and if you pick a Kalasthar Barb its 100%. They have effectively double hit points which means enemies will need to tear through 100+ HP as soon as level 5.
Per the DMG: A CR 5 creature is suppose to put out between 33-38 damage per round. That means a party barbarian could eat 3 rounds of full damage from a CR 5 creature at level 5.
They are literally taking all the damage from a creature that is suppose to be a challenge from 4 Level 5 PCs.
I am not sure how one would say this is "the worst tank"
Which being ya full circle. Bear totem is nice but the class doesn't have any real way to promote being the primary target past hopefully dealing enough damage to make it so.
Zealots are ok but if they go down the still eat resources in the form of spell slots and HD to get back to a respectable HP amount. Their damage is also just ok. Your run of the mill samurai will constantly out damage them and can actively nova which the barbarian has zero ways of doing so.
A good lv 5 tank could probably go 3-5 rounds against the CR 5 threat and mitigate most of not all the damage. It highlights the flaw with the barb. They only have HP to toss at problems which just isn't that great of a strategy with everything else available.
Incorrect on Samurai as I think you are confusing "Nova" damage with DPR.
Zealots have one the best DPR thanks to Great Weapon Master, Polearm Master, and at will ADV.
As you can see they are VERY good at putting out damage....they do it consistently though and do not "Nova" like paladins, rogues, or samurai fighters.
For me a tank is better when they put out consistent damage as they are ALWAYS a threat and not just a threat 3 times a day like samurai.
Also as stated the enemy has a reason to attack the barb...they will have ADV to do so. Its an easy way to draw the attack to you if you are putting out high damage and make an appealing target.
Granted its a bit one dimensional way of tanking but its a good one none the less.
By the time the zealot has "all day" rages the Sammy has a fighting spirit every encounter. Coupled with what ever lead they gain with a few action surges+ FS the zealot needs to reach 4 rounds every encounter to catch up. The Sammy also has edge of 2 additional ASIs so all those feats the each grab are just cheaper for them. They can still afford to boost their saves(on top of the free proficiency they get) or grab some utility. They could grab expertise in athletics abd shove targets prone and have 3 follow up attacks or some spell casting to lessen the load on the rest of the party.
So the zealot being the best damaging barbarian is struggling to out preform the middle ranking fighter and even too maintain this level of damage they have to cut their defenses using reckless attack which means even more resources being spent.
Don't get me wrong the zealot is a solid PC option but the barbarian chassis let's it down like all the others. Sure it's useable but the recommend mode of difficulty is so low you can randomly form a party grabbing each option on a dice roll and still walk through most published content. That's why most people are not aware of the barbarian shortcoming because they never reached the point where they start hitting their ceiling. You start playing games handling 4+ encounters at 3x deadly along side 4-8 other encounters in the same adventuring day the barbarian just feel lackluster. The only exceptions I've seen is when the barbarian is used as a party "buffer".
Wolf totem is amazing in melee heavy parties. It's often overlooked that only the barbarian has to be within 5 ft to give out advantage on all melee attacks regardless of the ally's position. Toss on shield master for some soft control and extra defense and you can safely help the party rack out big hits. To will draw some attention due but rage softens it up to the point you aren't a drain on resources if you are smart.
We already spoke on the AG but to go deeper you could use bugbear/goblin to have the flexibility to be everywhere you want to be and never where team monster wants you. Dipping out of barbarian after you get everything you want can open up some combos with moon druid, monk, fighter, or even cleric to facilitate your party mitigation. I'm a fan of kensei just because it's fun being a high AC barbarian. Nothing prevents agile parry working with armor and shield.
The zealot is constant damage that is less reliant on feats to pull off. The failed save reroll every rage is the best feature they get IMO. It gives the class some protection in their biggest blind spot. It's a good option but behind the previous two.
The wild soul is interesting to me but only in caster heavy parties. Being a spell slot battery isn't flashy but it's rare and easy to see how it can impact the party.
They could also become one of the higher damaging subclasses that's to their mini bless that stacks with other attack bonuses. I could see them given zealot a run for their money but with more set up and less consistency. Wish it had some control on the surges which prevents me from placing it at the same level as wolf totem and AG. At least they have some utility and party support that isn't directly tied to rage.
In my mind barbarians and monks fill a similar design space. Neither is particularly the best at any one thing but they have the flexibility to fluctuate between different roles when the occasion calls for it. the difference is a barbarian starts out really strong and quickly dies off. The Monk on the other hand starts off kind of slow and then ramps up ending up being one of the heartier classes with enough pressure to Force the enemies into some compromised positions. The Monk is not perfect but the designers recognize some of the shortcomings and with additional player options have addressed them. The best thing that happened to barbarian is probably an oversight that allowed ancestral guardian to work at range.
Monks and Barbs are inverse.
One starts very strong and plateaus (Barb)
The other starts slow but as you say gets very good with a lot of ki to play with (Monk)
The fact most campaigns end by 10th level leads me to think more people get more from barb but to each their own.
And no Samurai does not have the sustainable output zealot does. Yes it takes a feat or two but it's worth it to have one of the best damage outputs with 0 resource use.
By the time the zealot has "all day" rages the Sammy has a fighting spirit every encounter. Coupled with what ever lead they gain with a few action surges+ FS the zealot needs to reach 4 rounds every encounter to catch up. The Sammy also has edge of 2 additional ASIs so all those feats the each grab are just cheaper for them. They can still afford to boost their saves(on top of the free proficiency they get) or grab some utility. They could grab expertise in athletics abd shove targets prone and have 3 follow up attacks or some spell casting to lessen the load on the rest of the party.
So the zealot being the best damaging barbarian is struggling to out preform the middle ranking fighter and even too maintain this level of damage they have to cut their defenses using reckless attack which means even more resources being spent.
Don't get me wrong the zealot is a solid PC option but the barbarian chassis let's it down like all the others. Sure it's useable but the recommend mode of difficulty is so low you can randomly form a party grabbing each option on a dice roll and still walk through most published content. That's why most people are not aware of the barbarian shortcoming because they never reached the point where they start hitting their ceiling. You start playing games handling 4+ encounters at 3x deadly along side 4-8 other encounters in the same adventuring day the barbarian just feel lackluster. The only exceptions I've seen is when the barbarian is used as a party "buffer".
Wolf totem is amazing in melee heavy parties. It's often overlooked that only the barbarian has to be within 5 ft to give out advantage on all melee attacks regardless of the ally's position. Toss on shield master for some soft control and extra defense and you can safely help the party rack out big hits. To will draw some attention due but rage softens it up to the point you aren't a drain on resources if you are smart.
We already spoke on the AG but to go deeper you could use bugbear/goblin to have the flexibility to be everywhere you want to be and never where team monster wants you. Dipping out of barbarian after you get everything you want can open up some combos with moon druid, monk, fighter, or even cleric to facilitate your party mitigation. I'm a fan of kensei just because it's fun being a high AC barbarian. Nothing prevents agile parry working with armor and shield.
The zealot is constant damage that is less reliant on feats to pull off. The failed save reroll every rage is the best feature they get IMO. It gives the class some protection in their biggest blind spot. It's a good option but behind the previous two.
The wild soul is interesting to me but only in caster heavy parties. Being a spell slot battery isn't flashy but it's rare and easy to see how it can impact the party.
They could also become one of the higher damaging subclasses that's to their mini bless that stacks with other attack bonuses. I could see them given zealot a run for their money but with more set up and less consistency. Wish it had some control on the surges which prevents me from placing it at the same level as wolf totem and AG. At least they have some utility and party support that isn't directly tied to rage.
In my mind barbarians and monks fill a similar design space. Neither is particularly the best at any one thing but they have the flexibility to fluctuate between different roles when the occasion calls for it. the difference is a barbarian starts out really strong and quickly dies off. The Monk on the other hand starts off kind of slow and then ramps up ending up being one of the heartier classes with enough pressure to Force the enemies into some compromised positions. The Monk is not perfect but the designers recognize some of the shortcomings and with additional player options have addressed them. The best thing that happened to barbarian is probably an oversight that allowed ancestral guardian to work at range.
Monks and Barbs are inverse.
One starts very strong and plateaus (Barb)
The other starts slow but as you say gets very good with a lot of ki to play with (Monk)
The fact most campaigns end by 10th level leads me to think more people get more from barb but to each their own.
And no Samurai does not have the sustainable output zealot does. Yes it takes a feat or two but it's worth it to have one of the best damage outputs with 0 resource use.
How are rages and HP not resources? Either we are talking tier 1-2 where those are still large(r) factors therefore not zero or level 20 which everyone gets upset talking about because it never happens because games end sooner or full casters are running amok.
Fair that casters do run amok in the later tiers. That's why I don't see much go beyond 12 myself.
The damage is still very good without rage thanks to reckless and GWM+PAM. It's more about mitigation of the -5 penalty and the BA attack.
At will ADV is massive for DPR.
HP is a resource for all so it's not really counted IMO.
Have to disagree on HP as none issue especially with a class that supposed to be good at having them. Once you need something beyond what your class provides to stay upright it's a cost one way or the other.
At will adv even at the cost of increasing incoming damage is nice....to bad it's cheap to dip into if you want it. That supports my claim that the class feels like a dead end after the first few levels. A fighter could grab most of what people think make barbarian good and still get three attacks an possibly a subclass capstone as well if one favors it over the barb subclass at 3.
Barbarians from 1-7 is good/amazing as long as adventuring days aren't long but after that it's a wasteland until a capstone that is merely good I can't see arguing that the class isn't hanging out at the bottom of the bunch. You could probably fold most of the champion subclass into the barbarian and still have room for improvements.
Agree barb is best 1-7. I think it starts getting a bit good again at 14 for some subclasses.
Reckless is a very good dip for any STR build I agree.
I'm sorry, but a page ago you were going off about how Barbarians can't force enemies to fight them, yet your pick for best tank is Fighter who… can't force enemies to fight them?
Your entire basis for enemies attacking the fighter is that the fighter does more damage, but you know what else does more damage? A Wizard with area of effect spells, so they're still going to be the more inviting target.
Barbarians may not have extra ways to force enemies to attack them as standard, but they have a built-in way to improve grappling so they're better at doing it with zero extra investment. And they also have Reckless Attack as standard which actively encourages enemies to target them by not only increasing their damage (and can do this far more than a Samurai's limited fighting spirit) but also by making themselves a more inviting target for enemies to actually attack.
They also advantage on DEX saves, speed, advantage on initiative and can't be surprised (basically a free feat), boosted critical damage (which pairs well with reckless attack giving a higher chance of criticals), nearly impossible to interrupt rage and then arguably one of the best 20th level captstones; it doesn't really matter what level you look at, they're still a solid tank throughout, and that's while ignoring sub-class features entirely. They're also not as MAD as people think, as you don't really need high DEX unless you're going unarmoured (most probably won't) so you're really only dependent on STR/CON, so the extra ASIs of fighters aren't that big of a deal (especially if you hit level 20 when you effectively get four bonus ASIs on top of infinite Rage uses), so you can definitely spare at least one to pick up a feat to double down on what the Barbarian is already good at (you know what's better for grappling than expertise? Expertise and advantage).
While it's true you can get a lot of the best features with a few levels dip, your argument was that Barbarian is the worst class, which means you believe there are others that are better (without dipping in Barbarian, since it's so unrelentingly objectively terrible in your view), but thus far all you seem to have done is keep moving the goal posts at random while not making a real case at all. 🤔
And to be clear, I don't want to seem like I'm dumping on fighters in return; fighters are great, but they very much emphasise damage with a bit of added durability, plus some customisation, so they can absolutely tank, and might be plenty for your group (as how much you need a dedicated tank is entirely dependent on your other party members) but better tank than a Barbarian is a very, very, tough sell.
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That's a lot of words to say "you're right, I don't have any legitimate arguments"; you're suggesting that a warlock built using a specific sub-class that needs to use bonus actions to heal itself by a limited amount per turn and with a much, much lower threshold for spike damage only to just about compete is somehow a better tanking "class" than Barbarian who can just take the hits without doing anything other than attacking while angry?
And you've still not built a better tank; if you're relying on an easily killed familiar to help with the aggro then that's hardly an improvement. A Battle Smith Artificer can do that better with a much more durable, easier to use Steel Defender, and I still wouldn't argue that they are a better tank than a barbarian; maybe multi-classed with barbarian they'd be better than a vanilla barbarian, but that's a different issue entirely.
Please don't try to hand-wave the Samurai remarks; you know full well the issue here is tanking, so if you're not arguing a Samurai is a better tank than a Zealot while doing more damage, then you're off topic, as a Zealot puts out a fair bit of damage, while being a solid tank, and also being extra hard to finish off (and easier to bring back, though that's a bit party dependent).
Again, nobody said that other classes can't be used to build tanks, but you said that Barbarian is the worst class for doing it, yet you're failing miserably to show that. But thanks for basically admitting your argument never had any merit to it though; we can all just ignore you and go back to playing our barbarians properly.
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That's a lot of words to say "you're right, I don't have any legitimate arguments"; you're suggesting that a warlock built using a specific sub-class that needs to use bonus actions to heal itself by a limited amount per turn and with a much, much lower threshold for spike damage only to just about compete is somehow a better tanking "class" than Barbarian who can just take the hits without doing anything other than attacking while angry?
And you've still not built a better tank; if you're relying on an easily killed familiar to help with the aggro then that's hardly an improvement. A Battle Smith Artificer can do that better with a much more durable, easier to use Steel Defender, and I still wouldn't argue that they are a better tank than a barbarian; maybe multi-classed with barbarian they'd be better than a vanilla barbarian, but that's a different issue entirely.
Please don't try to hand-wave the Samurai remarks; you know full well the issue here is tanking, so if you're not arguing a Samurai is a better tank than a Zealot while doing more damage, then you're off topic, as a Zealot puts out a fair bit of damage, while being a solid tank, and also being extra hard to finish off (and easier to bring back, though that's a bit party dependent).
Again, nobody said that other classes can't be used to build tanks, but you said that Barbarian is the worst class for doing it, yet you're failing miserably to show that. But thanks for basically admitting your argument never had any merit to it though; we can all just ignore you and go back to playing our barbarians properly.
The warlock in question can actually handle spike damage better as well. ToL gives them 110 more THP as a reaction once a S/L rest so they can eat a larger spikes than the barbarian as well. Not to mention they have about a dozen other tools for mitigation that could just out right prevent the damage.
You are missing the point. Rages are MORE limited than the resources the warlock is using to stay upright while also being extremely limited. The warlock can freely shift any of those things around to do different stuff while the barbarian can only hit stuff and hopefully be hit back. Who cares if they need to spend a bonus action here or there. For the most part it's an open action. The barbarian has to blow a ba the first round of every encounter in this set up where it has infinite rages just to stand a chance. A single short rest is all it took to give the warlock equal footing. Toss on a life cleric dip and the healing halfling racial option from ERfLW and then it really gets silly but the point was an unoptimized choice is already sitting in the same range of straight HP mitigation as the bear totem Who has a +2 higher Con modifier, the tough feat, and the hill dwarf adding to their pool.
Want me to use a druid next, it's worse. How bout a monk? Could even use a ranger to at least make it somewhat close. I wonder if I could do it with rogue without multiclassing..
The familiar isn't at risk. It's invisible, 100 ft away, and behind full cover. If team monster really wants to spend time dealing with that then one again that means a familiar is handling mitigation better than the barbarian because they are reducing threat to the party solely by existing.
The point still stands the barbarian isn't the best at any one thing and doesn't have the flexibility to even choose what that one thing is. If it is the "best" tank it should at least be the better at one aspect of that role.
You don't get to decide what two different people where talking about. If you misinterpret it even after clarification that's on you. Neither the zealot or Sammy are great at tanking but both are equally ok at it. They rely on damage and soft protection to pull it off which is the core issue for the whole barb class sane AG.
i'm sorry to bring this back up after a week.
But you've put so many resources into this. Including multiple actions and bonus actions to keep it going. And yet your still wrong. Even with Tomb of leviticus and it's 110 temp hp from your reaction which also eats up your next turn (which potentially means leaving you vulnerable) is only going to survive one damage spike and it's going to wipe out any other temp hp you might have had when you activate it. meaning that if you get a second damage spike of about 80 or more HP or even worse... fail your save on some maximized spell your just plain unconcious and a free target. your build is spending most of it's time and resources just trying to stay alive.
However the Raging Barbarian. Which is going to have 4 rages by level 6. This means it has potentially enough rages to last all of the fights necessary in your typical average day even if it's not the book thought out average day which suggests at least 1 more fight if not 2. Not only has the Health while raging to take one 110 hp spike like tomb of Leviticus but Can take a follow up one as well without dropping unconcious if damage reduction is effective (which your celestial warlock can't do). So not only is the Barbarian staying alive without all of that extra effort but it's actually dishing out damage to the enemy at the same time as it's doing what is taking your specialized build just about all it has to accomplish the same task because it's not using up most of it's action economy and basically all of it's resources on healing.
Your Build does marginally better at level 14 when Celestial Warlock gets the ability to pop itself back up from the dying state and regain half it's hitpoints once a day, but that's still only going to be maybe 50 hitpoints and only push your normal hp maximum up to something around the range of 95-100. So you can go down to just a concentrated hit after you pop back up if you don't get that topped up right away. And the Barbarian will have been able to take that hit as well and still be standing. In fact by level 14. The Barbarian will have been able to take another 110hp Blow and still be standing so it could actually survive your third damage spike as well. Not only because 110 hp is only 55 hp to a raging barbarian. Which means all 3 spikes that have killed your specialized Warlock/sorcerer build 3 times over is only about 90% of the barbarians hitpoints to go down once... Without Using any extra features. You'd have to Circumvent it's Damage REduction on all of the spike damage attacks and all 3 of them wouldn't even kill the barbarian twice at level 14. it'd just barely manage it at level 11. Though. A single Heal Spell on the druid. Despite being 6th level and REquiring the healer of the party one of only 2 of their highest level spell slots at level 11 Would offset the damage enough that when the First one didn't kill. The second turn of spike damage wouldn't kill either. it's a High Cost. But it's much less than All of your warlock-builds 5th level spell slots and their extra class feature healing dice and everything else. If Damage REduction is in play. This is effectively 140more hp instead of just the 70 as well. Which is more than enough to entirely reset the Barbarian's health pool.
As an interesting little side note. The Average healing on a level 5 cure wounds is 25hp. it's maximum is 45. But on a Barbarian with it's Damage reduction in play it's EHP of 50. meaning that for those 3 heals your warlock build did on itself totally 135 hp. It's effectively 150hp on the Barbarian on average even without maximizing the roll. You actually have the potential to heal the barbarian for more effective health than you heal yourself. Even with a Build that is entirely built around healing yourself. Making the Barbarian a more effective use of your resources than trying to face tank like the barbarian.
On top of that. The Barbarian has at least as good but likely better AC than the Warlock as well and the ability to give a small constant boost to it's AC whenever it wants to through it's ability to use shields. Something the warlock can't do even if it does invest in Dex enough to get a similar AC in just light armor. Then we get to include the fact that the barbarian is naturally more resistant to many stuns than the Warlock. if you can solve the Wisdom Issue you would deal with many of the other stuns not taken care of by the barbarians naturally high con saves.
The point is the generalist warlock playing the fool and sitting in one place eating a ton of unnecessary damage can function in the same role as the barbarian but of they forgo the whole concept of eating damage=tanking they will absolutely destroy the barbarian. The vast majority of enemies wouldn't even get close enough to the warlock to eat past their maximized HD let alone the rest of it. They don't have to trade HP to function but if they do they still do just fine where the barbarian has to stay in a position hopefully eating damage if the DM plays nice. The warlock's worse tactic is the barbarian's only option. They have the freedom to move around their tools and resources to address the challenge. The barbarian has one tool and it's only marginally better than this unoptimized warlock. Like I mentioned above one could toss on a life cleric dip and the healing halfling subrace and increase the EHP by 40% everyday before you bring in spending spell slots. AoV /mass healing word+ discipline of life can reverse more damage in a single casting to the whole party than a barbarian can hope to mitigate over an entire day. One SR slot can put that efficiency of an entire class/subclass. Alternatively the mark of storm can get you conjure elemental which is like having a summoned barbarian 2/SR. Generalist builds still.
Got a flying flameskull dropping fire balls on the party? Mr. Lock has about 4 different ways to handle that. The barbarian and rest of the party will eat it. Got few chain ogres heading your way? The warlock could safely isolate one at will and probably the second if they wanted to spend a spell slot by which they cut the encounter in half. The barbarian would take half damage but everyone else in range wouldn't. Mob of goblins? Bandits shooting at the party from the tree line? Final fight in BGDiA? Exactly how many types of encounters that aren't just 1-2 melee type NPCs that have no additional movement or options that can only deal single target damage is the bearbearian even halfway decent at assuming they have the rages left and the party has the resources to spare to toss away on healing?
I love how you keep saying that this Warlock isn't optimized when it clearly is. You've optimized it for self heals. Additionally, you've mentioned that you could take a three level dip to get all of the barb goodies, but a barb could take a 3 level dip to get the warlock goodies including GotELO and Fiendish Vigor. The spell slots wouldn't be as high, but they don't need to be if most of the spell slots are used on utility.
Here's the deal. You clearly don't like barbarian. That's fine, you don't have to like it. It doesn't play the way that you like to play. That doesn't mean that there is something wrong with the class and admitting that it's just personal preference doesn't mean that there is something wrong with you. You won't be able to defend the position that barbarians are the worst tanks because it's objectively not true. However, you can defend the position that they aren't a fun class for you to play as a tank because of XY&Z, which is essentially what you have done. The sole difference is that you are insisting that everyone agree with you, which clearly won't happen. As such, you can just let it go and everyone will be happy. Barbarians will still be the worst tanks for you and they'll still be awesome tanks for others. It is possible for both statements to be true!
As for the other aspects, other classes have tools to accomplish many different things. However, I think you are confusing the purpose of a tank. It's not to be the ultimate incoming damage mitigater, it's to focus the heaviest hitters onto them to allow the rest of the party to clean up the trash and then attack the heavy hitter relatively unmolested. The barbarian can weather several blows from such a foe. The warlock could weather one, pop tomb of Levistus, and then effectively get bypassed. Meanwhile, the party with the barbarian facing the heavy hitter can have the warlock control another heavy hitter through control spells and effects, clear trash through AoE or split Eldritch Blast attacks, or focus fire a high priority target without having to worry about having the heavy hitter smash their face in.
Tanking is more about controlling a big hitter. Damage mitigation on a party level is more of a healing/crowd control effort. However, all of that gets rolled up into general strategic action for the party. Basically, it doesn't matter how the job gets done as long as it gets done and everyone enjoys playing. Many people enjoy playing the barbarian and usually do so playing the tank roll to great effect.
Do you have to agree with that statement? No. That's part of the beauty of the game. It doesn't have to mean the same thing to each player. Enjoy your next session!
That's a lot of words to say "you're right, I don't have any legitimate arguments"; you're suggesting that a warlock built using a specific sub-class that needs to use bonus actions to heal itself by a limited amount per turn and with a much, much lower threshold for spike damage only to just about compete is somehow a better tanking "class" than Barbarian who can just take the hits without doing anything other than attacking while angry?
And you've still not built a better tank; if you're relying on an easily killed familiar to help with the aggro then that's hardly an improvement. A Battle Smith Artificer can do that better with a much more durable, easier to use Steel Defender, and I still wouldn't argue that they are a better tank than a barbarian; maybe multi-classed with barbarian they'd be better than a vanilla barbarian, but that's a different issue entirely.
Please don't try to hand-wave the Samurai remarks; you know full well the issue here is tanking, so if you're not arguing a Samurai is a better tank than a Zealot while doing more damage, then you're off topic, as a Zealot puts out a fair bit of damage, while being a solid tank, and also being extra hard to finish off (and easier to bring back, though that's a bit party dependent).
Again, nobody said that other classes can't be used to build tanks, but you said that Barbarian is the worst class for doing it, yet you're failing miserably to show that. But thanks for basically admitting your argument never had any merit to it though; we can all just ignore you and go back to playing our barbarians properly.
The warlock in question can actually handle spike damage better as well. ToL gives them 110 more THP as a reaction once a S/L rest so they can eat a larger spikes than the barbarian as well. Not to mention they have about a dozen other tools for mitigation that could just out right prevent the damage.
You are missing the point. Rages are MORE limited than the resources the warlock is using to stay upright while also being extremely limited. The warlock can freely shift any of those things around to do different stuff while the barbarian can only hit stuff and hopefully be hit back. Who cares if they need to spend a bonus action here or there. For the most part it's an open action. The barbarian has to blow a ba the first round of every encounter in this set up where it has infinite rages just to stand a chance. A single short rest is all it took to give the warlock equal footing. Toss on a life cleric dip and the healing halfling racial option from ERfLW and then it really gets silly but the point was an unoptimized choice is already sitting in the same range of straight HP mitigation as the bear totem Who has a +2 higher Con modifier, the tough feat, and the hill dwarf adding to their pool.
Want me to use a druid next, it's worse. How bout a monk? Could even use a ranger to at least make it somewhat close. I wonder if I could do it with rogue without multiclassing..
The familiar isn't at risk. It's invisible, 100 ft away, and behind full cover. If team monster really wants to spend time dealing with that then one again that means a familiar is handling mitigation better than the barbarian because they are reducing threat to the party solely by existing.
The point still stands the barbarian isn't the best at any one thing and doesn't have the flexibility to even choose what that one thing is. If it is the "best" tank it should at least be the better at one aspect of that role.
You don't get to decide what two different people where talking about. If you misinterpret it even after clarification that's on you. Neither the zealot or Sammy are great at tanking but both are equally ok at it. They rely on damage and soft protection to pull it off which is the core issue for the whole barb class sane AG.
i'm sorry to bring this back up after a week.
But you've put so many resources into this. Including multiple actions and bonus actions to keep it going. And yet your still wrong. Even with Tomb of leviticus and it's 110 temp hp from your reaction which also eats up your next turn (which potentially means leaving you vulnerable) is only going to survive one damage spike and it's going to wipe out any other temp hp you might have had when you activate it. meaning that if you get a second damage spike of about 80 or more HP or even worse... fail your save on some maximized spell your just plain unconcious and a free target. your build is spending most of it's time and resources just trying to stay alive.
However the Raging Barbarian. Which is going to have 4 rages by level 6. This means it has potentially enough rages to last all of the fights necessary in your typical average day even if it's not the book thought out average day which suggests at least 1 more fight if not 2. Not only has the Health while raging to take one 110 hp spike like tomb of Leviticus but Can take a follow up one as well without dropping unconcious if damage reduction is effective (which your celestial warlock can't do). So not only is the Barbarian staying alive without all of that extra effort but it's actually dishing out damage to the enemy at the same time as it's doing what is taking your specialized build just about all it has to accomplish the same task because it's not using up most of it's action economy and basically all of it's resources on healing.
Your Build does marginally better at level 14 when Celestial Warlock gets the ability to pop itself back up from the dying state and regain half it's hitpoints once a day, but that's still only going to be maybe 50 hitpoints and only push your normal hp maximum up to something around the range of 95-100. So you can go down to just a concentrated hit after you pop back up if you don't get that topped up right away. And the Barbarian will have been able to take that hit as well and still be standing. In fact by level 14. The Barbarian will have been able to take another 110hp Blow and still be standing so it could actually survive your third damage spike as well. Not only because 110 hp is only 55 hp to a raging barbarian. Which means all 3 spikes that have killed your specialized Warlock/sorcerer build 3 times over is only about 90% of the barbarians hitpoints to go down once... Without Using any extra features. You'd have to Circumvent it's Damage REduction on all of the spike damage attacks and all 3 of them wouldn't even kill the barbarian twice at level 14. it'd just barely manage it at level 11. Though. A single Heal Spell on the druid. Despite being 6th level and REquiring the healer of the party one of only 2 of their highest level spell slots at level 11 Would offset the damage enough that when the First one didn't kill. The second turn of spike damage wouldn't kill either. it's a High Cost. But it's much less than All of your warlock-builds 5th level spell slots and their extra class feature healing dice and everything else. If Damage REduction is in play. This is effectively 140more hp instead of just the 70 as well. Which is more than enough to entirely reset the Barbarian's health pool.
As an interesting little side note. The Average healing on a level 5 cure wounds is 25hp. it's maximum is 45. But on a Barbarian with it's Damage reduction in play it's EHP of 50. meaning that for those 3 heals your warlock build did on itself totally 135 hp. It's effectively 150hp on the Barbarian on average even without maximizing the roll. You actually have the potential to heal the barbarian for more effective health than you heal yourself. Even with a Build that is entirely built around healing yourself. Making the Barbarian a more effective use of your resources than trying to face tank like the barbarian.
On top of that. The Barbarian has at least as good but likely better AC than the Warlock as well and the ability to give a small constant boost to it's AC whenever it wants to through it's ability to use shields. Something the warlock can't do even if it does invest in Dex enough to get a similar AC in just light armor. Then we get to include the fact that the barbarian is naturally more resistant to many stuns than the Warlock. if you can solve the Wisdom Issue you would deal with many of the other stuns not taken care of by the barbarians naturally high con saves.
The point is the generalist warlock playing the fool and sitting in one place eating a ton of unnecessary damage can function in the same role as the barbarian but of they forgo the whole concept of eating damage=tanking they will absolutely destroy the barbarian. The vast majority of enemies wouldn't even get close enough to the warlock to eat past their maximized HD let alone the rest of it. They don't have to trade HP to function but if they do they still do just fine where the barbarian has to stay in a position hopefully eating damage if the DM plays nice. The warlock's worse tactic is the barbarian's only option. They have the freedom to move around their tools and resources to address the challenge. The barbarian has one tool and it's only marginally better than this unoptimized warlock. Like I mentioned above one could toss on a life cleric dip and the healing halfling subrace and increase the EHP by 40% everyday before you bring in spending spell slots. AoV /mass healing word+ discipline of life can reverse more damage in a single casting to the whole party than a barbarian can hope to mitigate over an entire day. One SR slot can put that efficiency of an entire class/subclass. Alternatively the mark of storm can get you conjure elemental which is like having a summoned barbarian 2/SR. Generalist builds still.
Got a flying flameskull dropping fire balls on the party? Mr. Lock has about 4 different ways to handle that. The barbarian and rest of the party will eat it. Got few chain ogres heading your way? The warlock could safely isolate one at will and probably the second if they wanted to spend a spell slot by which they cut the encounter in half. The barbarian would take half damage but everyone else in range wouldn't. Mob of goblins? Bandits shooting at the party from the tree line? Final fight in BGDiA? Exactly how many types of encounters that aren't just 1-2 melee type NPCs that have no additional movement or options that can only deal single target damage is the bearbearian even halfway decent at assuming they have the rages left and the party has the resources to spare to toss away on healing?
I love how you keep saying that this Warlock isn't optimized when it clearly is. You've optimized it for self heals. Additionally, you've mentioned that you could take a three level dip to get all of the barb goodies, but a barb could take a 3 level dip to get the warlock goodies including GotELO and Fiendish Vigor. The spell slots wouldn't be as high, but they don't need to be if most of the spell slots are used on utility.
Here's the deal. You clearly don't like barbarian. That's fine, you don't have to like it. It doesn't play the way that you like to play. That doesn't mean that there is something wrong with the class and admitting that it's just personal preference doesn't mean that there is something wrong with you. You won't be able to defend the position that barbarians are the worst tanks because it's objectively not true. However, you can defend the position that they aren't a fun class for you to play as a tank because of XY&Z, which is essentially what you have done. The sole difference is that you are insisting that everyone agree with you, which clearly won't happen. As such, you can just let it go and everyone will be happy. Barbarians will still be the worst tanks for you and they'll still be awesome tanks for others. It is possible for both statements to be true!
The barbarian is MaD so swinging the Cha for the warlock dip is both expensive and you can't cast while raging so it excludes a lot of the options and flexibility.
This warlock isn't optimized at all for any one thing. It's a middle of the road utility/support guy. There plenty of room to narrow the focus and could ramp their tanking up a few notches at the expense of some damage but that was the point. You could replace the bearbearian in any party with this warlock and function the same if not better.
I like barbarians. I enjoy DMing for them but I also have come to recognize that they fell short of fulfilling the role they set out to be. Objectively they have little to no tools outside a narrow scope of encounter types and challenges that they don't even have the ability to say they are the best at. The ease other classes have at replacing them is frustrating. No class is required to be successful in 5e but it would be nice for players who want to play barbarians not to feel like the most forgettable impact unless the DM constantly adjusts the game. There are dozens of ways to get Piles of cheap replaceable HP bags that don't exclude the risk of PC death and of you still want to act in the traditional "hit me" fashion there are more effective paths to take like a tiefling moon druid rocking gobs of free HP on top of 3 of the most common element resistance at the low cost of a feat one the the lowest ability reliant subclass in the game. Then you factor in being a druid on top of that. The barbarian feels anemics. Fun aside it has little substance to start with and loses steam the whole 1-20 journey. I don't need anyone to agree with me because that is just a fact. Most barbarians don't have better EHP than a backline caster even though that's all the have. Doesn't matter how effective they are to heal because someone else has to provide it. It doesn't matter how good they are at reducing damage if they already take more than most other classes. Even if they do somehow get the point of having a good EHP then they have no real ways to make sure they are even the target to begin with. Those aren't problems you can have wave away by saying to each their own.there isn't a single aspect of the game they shine at and they don't have the general abilities to spread out to be helpful outside that narrow band. There isn't a barbarian in 5e that can't be replaced with a better option.
I don't even care that it's little bit on the low end if it wasn't also just so darn one dimensional. Heck the RK fighter is a better barbarian than a barbarian on top of the freedom of the ASIs.
Your Build isn't middle of the Road. it isn't average utility. It's so specialized it hurts. And it takes all of it's resources to do just one part of the barbarian.
Let's just quite lying about that right now. The Barbarian is doing all this hp stuff without even bothering with a subclass. But you've got a highly specialized build with particular subclasses and requiring particular dips and such just to work to that standard. And even trying to deviate from it a little is a great blow to the comparison. Every Spell you cast, Every turn you take not defending yourself. It all just cracks your specialization in half and it's just not very good at them.
That flameskull?
ignoring the fact tht it's a CR 4 against level 11's... you can't even kill it in one turn with your Warlock build without using up resources, You can't dispell it's spells more than once, you can't deal with it effectively if it goes first and cast's blur and then uses shield against you. It's fireballs are not a great threat to the party with only a DC 13 dex save. That's fairly decently made by a fair chunk of the party and Half the party likely can kill it on their own in one turn. This is only a threat to the group if there is like 4 of them, and they roll fairly high on their initiatives. But your Warlock even if it handles one cannot handle the other three. The Barbarian on the other hand. Stands a good chance of wiping one of them off the map in a single turn with average damage and the typical Barbarian build without bothering to get into any kind of build specialization or even any particular subclass without using any resources that takes away from anything else. In Fact the Typical barbarian build could deal with a single flameskull without even bothering to rage. They still average 20 damage a swing and the flameskull only has 40 hp. Eldritch Blast doesn't even Compare at level 11 even with Agonizing blast. your looking at 3 attacks with an average of 10 damage a piece so 30 average damage for the round and you still don't beat one of them. Your forced to use a leveled spell to accomplish the task.
This is just one of the examples about how your build is not as generalist as you claim and it just happens to be an example that you brought forth. your Build has sacrificed so much of it's resources and identity and focus to healing to be able to have even close to similar the same Hp as a Barbarian does that it can't even deal with threats without seriously lowering it's tanking ability. And this is anything but the Worst Warlock Build. Your actually using a highly regarded and highly optomized build entirely focused around healing to pretend it was a tank to try and claim that the average barbarian tanks badly.
Barbarians are also not MAD in any way. They rely primarily on two stats. That's it. That's all they really need. Everything else is a bonus and just shoring up weaknesses or building for dips or things like that. People fall into the trap of thinking that they need to use Unarmored Defense since they have it so they have to figure out how to get their stats up for that. But it's not needed at all. Specially for tanking. Even with their Capstone giving a boost to AC through Unarmored Defense it's still not needed. So you actually never need higher than a 14 dex on your barbarian. But that doesn't stop people from building all kinds of suboptimal "Dex Based" "Tanking Builds" with various gimmicks for Barbarians to try to squeeze those points out of the character to make it work.
The Reality is. You can probably get more out of boosting a Barbarians Wisdom rather than it's dex if you really want to focus on a third stat. Because that will help protect against various incapacitations more than pumping that dex will protect them.
And All of this I'm mentioning. it's purely bottom of the barrel average barbarian stuff. it's all you've ever been comparing. Your highly specialized one trick pony that can desperately try to do something else at the cost of the one trick you've taught it. Against just the general aspects of the Barbarian without doing anything special. By Taking particular gear, picking particular Subclasses, and just plain changing how they use certain abilities the Barbarian has a varied arsenal of things that your warlock cannot do, and most of them are without resource cost and decent action economy costs at most.
Just as an example of specifics. A Storm Herald against that Flameskull can use their Desert Storm aura to give themselves and all those within 10' of them fire resistance. Meaning not only can they kill that flame skull in one round but on top of that they can potentially ensure the entire party takes half damage at worse and a decent chance of taking quarter damage. So even if there are 4 of them and they all throw fireballs on the same turn they've already potentially drastically cut down that damage in a way that your warlock would be hard pressed to deal with. This is on top of your harping on hp of the Barbarian as the only thing they can do as just one example of how they might have much more to offer in the tanking department that your warlock does not have.
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Its an example that this particular subclass can even tank at range while still being able to tank up close.
Its a great example of how the class offers options overall for tanking in various different ways. A high level zealot can literally never be brought down and is free to bring back from the dead. Even killing them has little to no consequence and they are up there for top damage per round of ANY class/subclass.
Bear barbs will eat 95% of all damage thrown at them and if you pick a Kalasthar Barb its 100%. They have effectively double hit points which means enemies will need to tear through 100+ HP as soon as level 5.
Per the DMG: A CR 5 creature is suppose to put out between 33-38 damage per round. That means a party barbarian could eat 3 rounds of full damage from a CR 5 creature at level 5.
They are literally taking all the damage from a creature that is suppose to be a challenge from 4 Level 5 PCs.
I am not sure how one would say this is "the worst tank"
Except that instead of protecting the Rogue and Cleric, they're letting the Rogue and Cleric take damage instead; that's not tanking at all!
Some quick questions:
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Incorrect on Samurai as I think you are confusing "Nova" damage with DPR.
Zealots have one the best DPR thanks to Great Weapon Master, Polearm Master, and at will ADV.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1sVbgG1No5PMMz4QbBnS4d0xSEPT0whP84J3iB2X_Mjk/edit?usp=sharing
As you can see they are VERY good at putting out damage....they do it consistently though and do not "Nova" like paladins, rogues, or samurai fighters.
For me a tank is better when they put out consistent damage as they are ALWAYS a threat and not just a threat 3 times a day like samurai.
Also as stated the enemy has a reason to attack the barb...they will have ADV to do so. Its an easy way to draw the attack to you if you are putting out high damage and make an appealing target.
Granted its a bit one dimensional way of tanking but its a good one none the less.
Monks and Barbs are inverse.
One starts very strong and plateaus (Barb)
The other starts slow but as you say gets very good with a lot of ki to play with (Monk)
The fact most campaigns end by 10th level leads me to think more people get more from barb but to each their own.
And no Samurai does not have the sustainable output zealot does. Yes it takes a feat or two but it's worth it to have one of the best damage outputs with 0 resource use.
Fair that casters do run amok in the later tiers. That's why I don't see much go beyond 12 myself.
The damage is still very good without rage thanks to reckless and GWM+PAM. It's more about mitigation of the -5 penalty and the BA attack.
At will ADV is massive for DPR.
HP is a resource for all so it's not really counted IMO.
Agree barb is best 1-7. I think it starts getting a bit good again at 14 for some subclasses.
Reckless is a very good dip for any STR build I agree.
Champ/Barb sounds like a fun combo.
I'm sorry, but a page ago you were going off about how Barbarians can't force enemies to fight them, yet your pick for best tank is Fighter who… can't force enemies to fight them?
Your entire basis for enemies attacking the fighter is that the fighter does more damage, but you know what else does more damage? A Wizard with area of effect spells, so they're still going to be the more inviting target.
Barbarians may not have extra ways to force enemies to attack them as standard, but they have a built-in way to improve grappling so they're better at doing it with zero extra investment. And they also have Reckless Attack as standard which actively encourages enemies to target them by not only increasing their damage (and can do this far more than a Samurai's limited fighting spirit) but also by making themselves a more inviting target for enemies to actually attack.
They also advantage on DEX saves, speed, advantage on initiative and can't be surprised (basically a free feat), boosted critical damage (which pairs well with reckless attack giving a higher chance of criticals), nearly impossible to interrupt rage and then arguably one of the best 20th level captstones; it doesn't really matter what level you look at, they're still a solid tank throughout, and that's while ignoring sub-class features entirely. They're also not as MAD as people think, as you don't really need high DEX unless you're going unarmoured (most probably won't) so you're really only dependent on STR/CON, so the extra ASIs of fighters aren't that big of a deal (especially if you hit level 20 when you effectively get four bonus ASIs on top of infinite Rage uses), so you can definitely spare at least one to pick up a feat to double down on what the Barbarian is already good at (you know what's better for grappling than expertise? Expertise and advantage).
While it's true you can get a lot of the best features with a few levels dip, your argument was that Barbarian is the worst class, which means you believe there are others that are better (without dipping in Barbarian, since it's so unrelentingly objectively terrible in your view), but thus far all you seem to have done is keep moving the goal posts at random while not making a real case at all. 🤔
And to be clear, I don't want to seem like I'm dumping on fighters in return; fighters are great, but they very much emphasise damage with a bit of added durability, plus some customisation, so they can absolutely tank, and might be plenty for your group (as how much you need a dedicated tank is entirely dependent on your other party members) but better tank than a Barbarian is a very, very, tough sell.
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That's a lot of words to say "you're right, I don't have any legitimate arguments"; you're suggesting that a warlock built using a specific sub-class that needs to use bonus actions to heal itself by a limited amount per turn and with a much, much lower threshold for spike damage only to just about compete is somehow a better tanking "class" than Barbarian who can just take the hits without doing anything other than attacking while angry?
And you've still not built a better tank; if you're relying on an easily killed familiar to help with the aggro then that's hardly an improvement. A Battle Smith Artificer can do that better with a much more durable, easier to use Steel Defender, and I still wouldn't argue that they are a better tank than a barbarian; maybe multi-classed with barbarian they'd be better than a vanilla barbarian, but that's a different issue entirely.
Please don't try to hand-wave the Samurai remarks; you know full well the issue here is tanking, so if you're not arguing a Samurai is a better tank than a Zealot while doing more damage, then you're off topic, as a Zealot puts out a fair bit of damage, while being a solid tank, and also being extra hard to finish off (and easier to bring back, though that's a bit party dependent).
Again, nobody said that other classes can't be used to build tanks, but you said that Barbarian is the worst class for doing it, yet you're failing miserably to show that. But thanks for basically admitting your argument never had any merit to it though; we can all just ignore you and go back to playing our barbarians properly.
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i'm sorry to bring this back up after a week.
But you've put so many resources into this. Including multiple actions and bonus actions to keep it going. And yet your still wrong. Even with Tomb of leviticus and it's 110 temp hp from your reaction which also eats up your next turn (which potentially means leaving you vulnerable) is only going to survive one damage spike and it's going to wipe out any other temp hp you might have had when you activate it. meaning that if you get a second damage spike of about 80 or more HP or even worse... fail your save on some maximized spell your just plain unconcious and a free target. your build is spending most of it's time and resources just trying to stay alive.
However the Raging Barbarian. Which is going to have 4 rages by level 6. This means it has potentially enough rages to last all of the fights necessary in your typical average day even if it's not the book thought out average day which suggests at least 1 more fight if not 2. Not only has the Health while raging to take one 110 hp spike like tomb of Leviticus but Can take a follow up one as well without dropping unconcious if damage reduction is effective (which your celestial warlock can't do). So not only is the Barbarian staying alive without all of that extra effort but it's actually dishing out damage to the enemy at the same time as it's doing what is taking your specialized build just about all it has to accomplish the same task because it's not using up most of it's action economy and basically all of it's resources on healing.
Your Build does marginally better at level 14 when Celestial Warlock gets the ability to pop itself back up from the dying state and regain half it's hitpoints once a day, but that's still only going to be maybe 50 hitpoints and only push your normal hp maximum up to something around the range of 95-100. So you can go down to just a concentrated hit after you pop back up if you don't get that topped up right away. And the Barbarian will have been able to take that hit as well and still be standing. In fact by level 14. The Barbarian will have been able to take another 110hp Blow and still be standing so it could actually survive your third damage spike as well. Not only because 110 hp is only 55 hp to a raging barbarian. Which means all 3 spikes that have killed your specialized Warlock/sorcerer build 3 times over is only about 90% of the barbarians hitpoints to go down once... Without Using any extra features. You'd have to Circumvent it's Damage REduction on all of the spike damage attacks and all 3 of them wouldn't even kill the barbarian twice at level 14. it'd just barely manage it at level 11. Though. A single Heal Spell on the druid. Despite being 6th level and REquiring the healer of the party one of only 2 of their highest level spell slots at level 11 Would offset the damage enough that when the First one didn't kill. The second turn of spike damage wouldn't kill either. it's a High Cost. But it's much less than All of your warlock-builds 5th level spell slots and their extra class feature healing dice and everything else. If Damage REduction is in play. This is effectively 140more hp instead of just the 70 as well. Which is more than enough to entirely reset the Barbarian's health pool.
As an interesting little side note. The Average healing on a level 5 cure wounds is 25hp. it's maximum is 45. But on a Barbarian with it's Damage reduction in play it's EHP of 50. meaning that for those 3 heals your warlock build did on itself totally 135 hp. It's effectively 150hp on the Barbarian on average even without maximizing the roll. You actually have the potential to heal the barbarian for more effective health than you heal yourself. Even with a Build that is entirely built around healing yourself. Making the Barbarian a more effective use of your resources than trying to face tank like the barbarian.
On top of that. The Barbarian has at least as good but likely better AC than the Warlock as well and the ability to give a small constant boost to it's AC whenever it wants to through it's ability to use shields. Something the warlock can't do even if it does invest in Dex enough to get a similar AC in just light armor. Then we get to include the fact that the barbarian is naturally more resistant to many stuns than the Warlock. if you can solve the Wisdom Issue you would deal with many of the other stuns not taken care of by the barbarians naturally high con saves.
I love how you keep saying that this Warlock isn't optimized when it clearly is. You've optimized it for self heals. Additionally, you've mentioned that you could take a three level dip to get all of the barb goodies, but a barb could take a 3 level dip to get the warlock goodies including GotELO and Fiendish Vigor. The spell slots wouldn't be as high, but they don't need to be if most of the spell slots are used on utility.
Here's the deal. You clearly don't like barbarian. That's fine, you don't have to like it. It doesn't play the way that you like to play. That doesn't mean that there is something wrong with the class and admitting that it's just personal preference doesn't mean that there is something wrong with you. You won't be able to defend the position that barbarians are the worst tanks because it's objectively not true. However, you can defend the position that they aren't a fun class for you to play as a tank because of XY&Z, which is essentially what you have done. The sole difference is that you are insisting that everyone agree with you, which clearly won't happen. As such, you can just let it go and everyone will be happy. Barbarians will still be the worst tanks for you and they'll still be awesome tanks for others. It is possible for both statements to be true!
As for the other aspects, other classes have tools to accomplish many different things. However, I think you are confusing the purpose of a tank. It's not to be the ultimate incoming damage mitigater, it's to focus the heaviest hitters onto them to allow the rest of the party to clean up the trash and then attack the heavy hitter relatively unmolested. The barbarian can weather several blows from such a foe. The warlock could weather one, pop tomb of Levistus, and then effectively get bypassed. Meanwhile, the party with the barbarian facing the heavy hitter can have the warlock control another heavy hitter through control spells and effects, clear trash through AoE or split Eldritch Blast attacks, or focus fire a high priority target without having to worry about having the heavy hitter smash their face in.
Tanking is more about controlling a big hitter. Damage mitigation on a party level is more of a healing/crowd control effort. However, all of that gets rolled up into general strategic action for the party. Basically, it doesn't matter how the job gets done as long as it gets done and everyone enjoys playing. Many people enjoy playing the barbarian and usually do so playing the tank roll to great effect.
Do you have to agree with that statement? No. That's part of the beauty of the game. It doesn't have to mean the same thing to each player. Enjoy your next session!
Your Build isn't middle of the Road. it isn't average utility. It's so specialized it hurts. And it takes all of it's resources to do just one part of the barbarian.
Let's just quite lying about that right now. The Barbarian is doing all this hp stuff without even bothering with a subclass. But you've got a highly specialized build with particular subclasses and requiring particular dips and such just to work to that standard. And even trying to deviate from it a little is a great blow to the comparison. Every Spell you cast, Every turn you take not defending yourself. It all just cracks your specialization in half and it's just not very good at them.
That flameskull?
ignoring the fact tht it's a CR 4 against level 11's... you can't even kill it in one turn with your Warlock build without using up resources, You can't dispell it's spells more than once, you can't deal with it effectively if it goes first and cast's blur and then uses shield against you. It's fireballs are not a great threat to the party with only a DC 13 dex save. That's fairly decently made by a fair chunk of the party and Half the party likely can kill it on their own in one turn. This is only a threat to the group if there is like 4 of them, and they roll fairly high on their initiatives. But your Warlock even if it handles one cannot handle the other three. The Barbarian on the other hand. Stands a good chance of wiping one of them off the map in a single turn with average damage and the typical Barbarian build without bothering to get into any kind of build specialization or even any particular subclass without using any resources that takes away from anything else. In Fact the Typical barbarian build could deal with a single flameskull without even bothering to rage. They still average 20 damage a swing and the flameskull only has 40 hp. Eldritch Blast doesn't even Compare at level 11 even with Agonizing blast. your looking at 3 attacks with an average of 10 damage a piece so 30 average damage for the round and you still don't beat one of them. Your forced to use a leveled spell to accomplish the task.
This is just one of the examples about how your build is not as generalist as you claim and it just happens to be an example that you brought forth. your Build has sacrificed so much of it's resources and identity and focus to healing to be able to have even close to similar the same Hp as a Barbarian does that it can't even deal with threats without seriously lowering it's tanking ability. And this is anything but the Worst Warlock Build. Your actually using a highly regarded and highly optomized build entirely focused around healing to pretend it was a tank to try and claim that the average barbarian tanks badly.
Barbarians are also not MAD in any way. They rely primarily on two stats. That's it. That's all they really need. Everything else is a bonus and just shoring up weaknesses or building for dips or things like that. People fall into the trap of thinking that they need to use Unarmored Defense since they have it so they have to figure out how to get their stats up for that. But it's not needed at all. Specially for tanking. Even with their Capstone giving a boost to AC through Unarmored Defense it's still not needed. So you actually never need higher than a 14 dex on your barbarian. But that doesn't stop people from building all kinds of suboptimal "Dex Based" "Tanking Builds" with various gimmicks for Barbarians to try to squeeze those points out of the character to make it work.
The Reality is. You can probably get more out of boosting a Barbarians Wisdom rather than it's dex if you really want to focus on a third stat. Because that will help protect against various incapacitations more than pumping that dex will protect them.
And All of this I'm mentioning. it's purely bottom of the barrel average barbarian stuff. it's all you've ever been comparing. Your highly specialized one trick pony that can desperately try to do something else at the cost of the one trick you've taught it. Against just the general aspects of the Barbarian without doing anything special. By Taking particular gear, picking particular Subclasses, and just plain changing how they use certain abilities the Barbarian has a varied arsenal of things that your warlock cannot do, and most of them are without resource cost and decent action economy costs at most.
Just as an example of specifics. A Storm Herald against that Flameskull can use their Desert Storm aura to give themselves and all those within 10' of them fire resistance. Meaning not only can they kill that flame skull in one round but on top of that they can potentially ensure the entire party takes half damage at worse and a decent chance of taking quarter damage. So even if there are 4 of them and they all throw fireballs on the same turn they've already potentially drastically cut down that damage in a way that your warlock would be hard pressed to deal with. This is on top of your harping on hp of the Barbarian as the only thing they can do as just one example of how they might have much more to offer in the tanking department that your warlock does not have.