Is very good yeah, but on the flip side the other initial totem choices are also pretty good, eagle and elk both make you a bastard for chasing people down, wolf is excellent for a melee dogpile tiger is probably the only part that feels shit, plus you can mix and match totems on the subsequent choices. That's part of why I love it, there isn't really a single part of the subclass that feels pointless or shit and depending on what type of campaign you're in you can pretty easily mold the barb to handle the shit you deal with most, even intrigue campaigns can find a use for the grug who can talk to the rats in the castle to pick up tidbits of info that might come in handy.