Quote Originally Posted by Rhedyn View Post
Or you get the weapon Focus chain and save bumping feats and you can play a warrior+
That's only 10. You're halfway done. Which weapon? With the weapon so central to your build, what steps do you take to protect it? Barb loses his axe, he picks up the next weapon he can reach. Fighter loses his sword, he damn well better find another of the same type of sword.

To be clear and stay on-point, my argument was that fighter is more complex than barbarian not that it is better.

Optimizing a fighter, pouring though feats and variant class features, is a waste of time if being "optimal" is an issue. It doesn't matter if an optimal barbarian is easier to make than an optimal fighter.
You're still not using that word right. If playing the most optimal character is the goal, that puzzle was solved ages ago with pun pun. If it's to play the most optimal martial non-caster character, you're probably looking at an amalgam of warblade, fighter, barbarian, and maybe one or two other classes. If the goal is to play the most optimal -fighter- then there -is- a solution to that as well.

2D8HD is most certainty not going to be trying to "get the most" out of a particular class and if we are caring about relative strength at all, you recommend going druid, summoning, and having the DM pick and run your summons for you. You don't recommend martial anything.
All the more reason to choose barbarian over fighter. You pick your feats, you pick your items, and you go. Even if you gave almost no thought to it, you're still pretty close to baseline competence. A fighter picking his feats and gear at random will be substantially worse off than a barbarian doing the same. The only thing to worry about is the rage feature and it's no more complex than being subject to a buff or two from one of the party casters.