[Spheres of Power / Might] how good is the Worldsoul Incarnate Barbarian?

[Naoki00]

I've seen this archetype sitting around for a bit and I'm thinking about giving it a try for a character, but since it's Rage variant Rapture doesn't appear to apply the same type of attack/damage buff as normal rage I'm a little hesitant to just dive right in and I'm wondering what the consensus is on it from the boards. I was also considering mixing it with the Berserker archetype from SoM (they should stack if I read it correctly), but I'm not sure if trading out so many rage powers would be a good idea for the spheres trade. Been a while since I built a barbarian at all and remember a lot of those were pretty integral to some builds.

For reference: Worldsoul Incarnate

[GM Rednal]

The same buff? No. But you do get Mighty Blow, and it's not long at all before you're getting enough Vitality Points each round to make that a pretty constant buff, and you can still augment it with most rage powers.

[Naoki00]

Alright I can see that, though because Mighty Blow only goes to one die roll does that mean it can be for both an attack and damage since it's different dice, or only for one or the other since they are 'part' of a single type of action?

And that doesn't give me too much in how it compares to just playing a regular barbarian or what can be stacked with it. I'm just unfamiliar with it and how the other abilities make up for things

[GM Rednal]

The kicker is that you can spend the points as a free action - i.e. basically as many times as you want each round. Attack rolls and damage rolls are different rolls, so you have to spend more points, but you also have the points to spend.

If I had to summarize... -Taps chin- Mighty Blow is basically equivalent to the normal Rage bonus for accuracy and damage (a +4 bonus to your score is a +2 bonus to your modifiers), and you still get rage powers. What separates them is that Worldsoul Incarnates are better at defense and self-recovery, and probably a little lower on pure offense when you get into higher levels. If you're using Fight or Flight, you're basically at +6 AC compared to a regular Barbarian against your target(s), and that's pretty significant for improving your overall ability to survive. Vicious Cycle grants you an extra attack, and that's not chump change for your output, either. And, notably, the whole Vitality Points system is extremely flexible - with a new pool of points every round, you can adapt to changing situations.

Overall, I think it's a solid archetype that compares quite well to a regular barbarian.