Squishy Barbarian Issues?

[SaltLakeAtrocity]

Barbarian almost halfway through Act 3 inferno and I'm wondering why, despite following just about every cookie cutter guide I can think of I cannot for the life of me figure out why I am suddenly so squishy. Don't get me wrong, my gear and stats are far from perfect, but this is a huge discrepancy for minor flaws in gear level to account for. I can barely get 2 or 3 swings off on Plagued or Molten mobs; and all it takes it about 5 or 6 Skeletal Axe Cleavers to reduce me to nothing in less than 5 or 6 seconds. Gorgors/Tremors can pretty much 3 or 4 shot me. Either my dps is low enough to make me unable to support myself with defensive abilities throughout the time it takes to kill things, or I am missing something.

After hours browsing everything, trying every possible build and stat alternatives I could (Spending almost 2 million gold on gear with differing stat priorities), I find myself still unbelievably squishy to rare packs with even the most basic elemental attacks and even white mobs with heavy melee attacks (Such as Axe Cleavers, Colossal Gorgors, Demonic Tremors,etc).

My stats
http://i.imgur.com/ZCMWV.jpg

My build
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculato...QkX!bec!acccca


Trying to stack resistances any higher than they currently are is said to fall subject to massive DR, and isn't going to help my problem much. I know my LoH is low, but even after sacrificing vit/str for about 400 additional LoH (bringing me to about 690 LoH); the issue wasn't resolved. I still got creamed if I took on too many Axe Cleavers and/or Gorgors at once. I can't fathom that, even if i got my LoH a little above 690 that it'd suddenly vastly impact my ability to survive in ways that 690 couldn't do either. I'm aware my block/dodge is extremely low, but I do not have anywhere near the funds needed to really increase my block chance enough to make any significant change to that; so that is out of the question. Another way besides block/dodge will have to do.

I find myself using almost twice the healing utility as most guides recommend, and being unable to last very long as all without said healing utility. I've tried every obvious casual ability switching I can think of to keep the same basic build style (swapping Leap for Ignore Pain; swapping Overpower for ignore pain; swapping charge for ignore pain; swapping berserker rage for tough as nails; swapping superstition for tough as nails) and it either doesn't do much to help at all or just lowers my dps so much I run out of survival resources before everything can die. Even the 30 second cooldown of ignore pain seems to make me a flailing fish for the period of time its on cooldown, so trying to add Earthquake or WotB to my build is almost completely out of the question.

I'm almost completely out of ideas. The countless videos of others running this content with gear just a little bit above mine makes me think there is some fundamental thing I'm missing, but after spending much resources trying to decipher it; I just can't see why the pieces don't connect.

[Sandraudiga]

I'd suggest getting much higher Life on Hit, say 800+, but your avatar makes me less likely to post helpfully...

Seriously, My monk at 1300 resists still takes massive damage from some mobs, only thing you can do is heal up between hits as best you can by a fast attack speed with lots of life on hit. The gorgers especially have high damage attacks that can be avoided by moving away when you see them about to do them.

[Injinjpow]

I just got to act 3 inferno on my barb and all of your stats are better than mine, makes me a little scared to even try progressing thru. I have 42k health, 800 to all resist, an 18% string of ears belt, about 700 life on hit and only 8k damage. Looks like I need a lot of upgrades before I can get anywhere.

[Biged781]

You're aware that your LoH is low
You're aware that your block is low

You seem to think this game is about buying gear and facerolling content. It's not. Inferno is meant to be really hard. You are meant to spend a lot of time in a certain act farming gear to progress to the next act. This is not wow.

That said, there are changes coming which should make your life as a melee easier. 1.0.3 is right around the corner. Drops will be better and mobs are getting nerfed a bit. You're not meant to progress linearly. Can't cut it in Act II+? Go back to Act I and farm. A lot. That is what Diablo is all about.

I can commiserate. I started a barb, but switched to a Wiz. I am farming on my Wiz and passing my barb upgrades as I find them. You are not supposed to fly through inferno, though it is frustrating at the moment, especially as a melee. Other people are doing it though, so just keep farming what you can

[ArMeD_SuRvIvOr]

Swap Overpower for Ignore Pain (with 7 second duration rune) and keep Leap with the 300% armor rune. You Leap in, gain lots of armor, keep Revenging all the way. Once Leap effect is over, pop Ignore Pain. Keep Revenging. Charge for heals, Leap. Potion. Ignore Pain, Leap. Repeat.

Use Tough as Nails, Superstition and Nerves of Steel and you'll live.

[SaltLakeAtrocity]

I'm currently biding my time until I can afford 1200+ LoH, as maybe that might help a little bit (even though in the month or so that it will take me to get it that high, I'm sure it will be nerfed haha). But after spending half the sum of money I had to get my LoH to 690 and failing to see my situation improved even a little bit, its hard to believe that 800 or 900 would suddenly turn everything around. Is there a specific point that you (or anyone else) has found that the tables turn and LoH starts feeling significant? I'm sure attack speed helps too, but that's yet again another expensive stat that's a pain in the ass to stack without losing everything else in process.

Is there a stat sheet somewhere that shows ideal LoH, attack speed, etc balancing?

---------- Post added 2012-06-16 at 12:29 AM ----------

Swap Overpower for Ignore Pain (with 7 second duration rune) and keep Leap with the 300% armor rune. You Leap in, gain lots of armor, keep Revenging all the way. Once Leap effect is over, pop Ignore Pain. Keep Revenging. Charge for heals, Leap. Potion. Ignore Pain, Leap. Repeat.

Use Tough as Nails, Superstition and Nerves of Steel and you'll live.

When the mobs hit as hard as Axe Cleavers, Gorgors, and Tremors do; taking one melee hit (which is required to proc revenge) even with the leap armor buff reduces you (at least at my gear level) to sub 50% health. If there's enough mobs present for Revenge to even heal you back to full health, then you'd be one-shot the moment you land (again, even with the 300% armor increase).

Getting rid of Berserker Rage, unless there's some way I can change my rotation to do more dps without relying on WotB or Earthquake to do so (in which I am all ears), more often than not causes it to take so long for me to kill even basic white mobs that I run out of healing utility before they can die.

I really do appreciate the replies, and don't want to sound like I'm taking anything or anyone for granted; but you literally did respond with a suggestion I directly stated I have tried in my original post. lol

---------- Post added 2012-06-16 at 12:40 AM ----------

You're aware that your LoH is low
You're aware that your block is low

You seem to think this game is about buying gear and facerolling content. It's not. Inferno is meant to be really hard. You are meant to spend a lot of time in a certain act farming gear to progress to the next act. This is not wow.

That said, there are changes coming which should make your life as a melee easier. 1.0.3 is right around the corner. Drops will be better and mobs are getting nerfed a bit. You're not meant to progress linearly. Can't cut it in Act II+? Go back to Act I and farm. A lot. That is what Diablo is all about.

I can commiserate. I started a barb, but switched to a Wiz. I am farming on my Wiz and passing my barb upgrades as I find them. You are not supposed to fly through inferno, though it is frustrating at the moment, especially as a melee. Other people are doing it though, so just keep farming what you can

I never expected to faceroll content. For the most part I love the challenge provided in inferno mode, and honestly dislike the idea of nerfing (and thus de-valuing) the hardest difficulty of the game. I also love the theorycrafting element to this game as well, and by no means QQing over having to look at different gear elements. I am no stranger to difficult gameplay, and am not following the "its too hard, I need my life easier" bandwagon.

My original post was merely trying to figure what obvious element I might have been missing.

When I said I was squishy or having issues; I mean that the simplest mobs can flatline me faster than a Lamborghini can reach 60 miles an hour. It's almost, quite literally, unplayable. I tried increasing my LoH (significantly in fact), and it didn't help me even a little bit. I am unable to increase my block chance significantly with my current resources, and can only passively hope for more Dexterity in whatever upgrades I can manage to increase my dodge. Therefore if increasing my dodge/block is my only hope, then again the game isn't hard; its merely unplayable. This, among evidence I've seen that other Barbs just a little above my gear level can clear the content, leads me to believe there is an option C somewhere in the abyss of theorycrafting.

[PBitt]

I'm in a very similar position (in lesser gear) but I'm discovering after act 2 a lot of the 'little things' matter more...and a thing you are facing in which I have a similar problem is that you have way too much HP and not enough str/dps to compensate...and while there are a few ways to play successfully, revenge is about the only thing you have to keep you alive for more than 2 seconds and it doesn't cut it with the huge amount of damage incoming for most mobs...esp with bosses. High resists/armor/hp does not make you stop taking a crap-ton of damage in a short window, a combination of life-per-second, LoH and even a weapon with life-steal if you can get one with other good stats helps, though I don't think the latter matters that much unless your dps is very high. And while not mandatory, if you can find a pieces with reduced melee/ranged attacks those should help too.

Your resists are overkill...regardless of how you play, a barb's stats need to be relatively balanced, you could easily lose some of that (and some HP) for damage related/healing related stats...again, I'm in the same position but from all the barbs I know that have beaten the game haven't done it simply with all resist/vit/str and nothing else...as I've noted that gets you through Act 1 like it's normal mode, act 2 with some struggling, and just getting your ass beat once you hit Belial and onwards.

[Celidion]

Your shield, it's really bad. Get a 26%+ block sacred shield, preferably with ~50+ All Res.

[Yalingo]

Quoted from another thread.

Stat Priority:

Resist All / Vitality (try to get both on every piece)
Strength
Life on hit (in the hundreds)
Attack Speed
% Life
Armor
Physical or Fire Resistance (Desecrate, Molten, Fire Chains, Mortar are all fire and problematic)
Life regeneration (Always nice for when you're kiting, especially during boss fights)

Furthermore it's important to maximize your block chance. I currently have 47% with a Sacred Shield, Justice Lantern, and Helm of Command, but I realize that not everyone will have access to that. Block % is the most important statistic on your shield and often overlooked. Also, try to have at least 3k blocked amount, which can outright negate most hits if you have high armor and resists.

Other desireable legendaries are the String of Ears belt to reduce melee damage taken (as high percentage as you can afford each point is better than the previous one), the Band of Fallen heroes is a nice ring with Resist and Vitality, the Blackthorne Medal is an amulet with attack speed and life on hit.

Bring the Enchantress companion for her Powered Armor buff, it makes a huge difference.

[Juno86]

Your armor is also extremely low. Most people don't seem to realize armor also negates spell damage.

[Laurcus]

Okay, two things to clear up.

1. Resistances do NOT diminish. The rate that they convert to a percentage diminishes. This is done to counterbalance the fact that resistance becomes exponentially better with every percent. It actually scales pretty linearly. The difference between 1000 and 1500 is pretty similar to the difference between 500 and 1000.

2. Armor and resist do the exact same thing. Really, you can pretty much just divide armor by 10 and think of it as that amount of resist. Armor, like resist, also does not have diminishing returns. Life on hit will not keep you from being instagibbed. Armor and resist will.

[Juno86]

Okay, two things to clear up.

1. Resistances do NOT diminish. The rate that they convert to a percentage diminishes. This is done to counterbalance the fact that resistance becomes exponentially better with every percent. It actually scales pretty linearly. The difference between 1000 and 1500 is pretty similar to the difference between 500 and 1000.

2. Armor and resist do the exact same thing. Really, you can pretty much just divide armor by 10 and think of it as that amount of resist. Armor, like resist, also does not have diminishing returns. Life on hit will not keep you from being instagibbed. Armor and resist will.

However, Life on Hit does do something necessary when we don't dodge or block, regain our life pool back up. It shouldn't be considered as highly, but still a necessity imo.

[Laurcus]

However, Life on Hit does do something necessary when we don't dodge or block, regain our life pool back up. It shouldn't be considered as highly, but still a necessity imo.

100% Agreed. Life on hit is amazing. If someone is being instagibbed though, more life on hit isn't the answer.

[SaltLakeAtrocity]

Okay, two things to clear up.

1. Resistances do NOT diminish. The rate that they convert to a percentage diminishes. This is done to counterbalance the fact that resistance becomes exponentially better with every percent. It actually scales pretty linearly. The difference between 1000 and 1500 is pretty similar to the difference between 500 and 1000.

2. Armor and resist do the exact same thing. Really, you can pretty much just divide armor by 10 and think of it as that amount of resist. Armor, like resist, also does not have diminishing returns. Life on hit will not keep you from being instagibbed. Armor and resist will.

If I understand you right, stacking a couple hundred more all resist may actually help me? While I definitely understand I need more LoH as well, getting higher resists would actually still be quite a bit easier in the mean time until I can get my LoH noticeably higher.

[Juno86]

If I understand you right, stacking a couple hundred more all resist may actually help me? While I definitely understand I need more LoH as well, getting higher resists would actually still be quite a bit easier in the mean time until I can get my LoH noticeably higher.

And armor. You have the armor of someone DWing or using a 2H which isn't all that awesome for someone sword and boarding.

[Dexiefy]

drop overpower for ignore pain with 2 sec duration rune
my barb when completing act3 had
38% block
40k hp
15% dodge
16k dps unbuffed
no life on hit
almost no life/sec
about 9.5k armor
and only skill build difference we have is you use overpower with revel while i use ignore pain with bonus 2 sec duration... and i really recommend you switch for that.
Also i was running with 17% string of ears and justice lantern+helm of command for bonus block.

Tough again, i mostly run through a3. I can clear keep etc just fine, but fields of slaughter? i vanish. phasebeasts? lets just park them somewhere...
Overall i recommend running through tower of the damned... succubus to reduce physical ress, phasebeasts with 190482039840923840983240238 life and sick dmg, lickers everywhere... really not fun...

[Laurcus]

If I understand you right, stacking a couple hundred more all resist may actually help me? While I definitely understand I need more LoH as well, getting higher resists would actually still be quite a bit easier in the mean time until I can get my LoH noticeably higher.

Yes, more armor, more all resist. They can both be stacked infinitely. And honestly, that's the secret to breaking the game. With perfect enough stat rolls it will eventually be possible to become so tanky that everything hits you for double digit damage.