Barbarian Builds

[Kazgrel]

Back in D3 vanilla I played my barb a lot, but with life steal gone I just can't see a way to get life back as barb, I played my barb to 70 in beta and was insanely disappointed by lack of "you got a huge hit, fill your health", was I playing him wrong? I used to play 2h wota later switched to seismic build. Been playing monk in ROS, since they are very nice at life per hit healing.
I notice people don't use the rend+0.5% life steal, so how do you get life back?

Life per fury used. Somewhat more specifically, the bloodthirst passive. For more hilarity I also run the superstition passive and and just stand in any ground effect (minus arcane orbs) and heal through it with hammer/ww spam since I end up with unlimited fury, lol.

[fenrirx]

whirlwind - windshear (lightning dmg)
rend - ravage
earthquake - the mountains call (lightning damage)
leap - call of areats (pull of the earth set, drops an earthquake with the earthquake rune you are using, lightning damage)
sprint - run like the wind
WotB - insanity

i have +80% lightning damage with thunderfury + odyn son (which both proc lightning dmg attacks)

[FraQture]

I'm going for a Fire build. Works great farming Rifts in T2-4.

Running with:

Frenzy - Maniac
Hammer of the Ancients - Smash
Overpower - Revel
Battle Rage - Bloodshed
Avalanche - Volcano
Wrath of the Berserker - Slaughter

Passives:
Superstition
Animosity (Just for quick Rage build, but can be replaced)
Unforgiving
Bloodthirst

I went from a WW build to this and don't regret it a second. I had abit of luck on a pair of Magefist gloves and Maximus. Maximus is what what makes me wanna play Fire build. It could have rolled better, but is still okey. Rolled over 1k Strength, 20% more Fire Dmg, 1421-1657 Fire Damage, socket and 2677.2 DPS.
But the best thing of all of this weapon, is it's secondary.

Guess most of you know what the secondary does on Maximus, but I'll explain it for those that don't. The secondary is: Chance on hit to summone a Demonic Slave. But the thing about this slave is that you get a Fire Chain between you and the slave, which hits for a insane amount.
Since it's Fire damage I guess when you get more increase Fire damage on gear and it will hit even harder.

But it's basically free damage, and hit's for around 2-5mill dmg every second when the fire chaing touches monsters. So with that and all of ur abilitys things just melt on T1-3.
I recommend everyone to try it if they can get a hold of Maximus with a decent roll

[Cyrops]

Life per fury used. Somewhat more specifically, the bloodthirst passive. For more hilarity I also run the superstition passive and and just stand in any ground effect (minus arcane orbs) and heal through it with hammer/ww spam since I end up with unlimited fury, lol.

I see, last time I checked it was like 140hp per fury (my barb is like 64 atm) so I thought it sucked donkey butt, gonna try it.

- - - Updated - - -

I'm going for a Fire build. Works great farming Rifts in T2-4.

Running with:

Frenzy - Maniac
Hammer of the Ancients - Smash
Overpower - Revel
Battle Rage - Bloodshed
Avalanche - Volcano
Wrath of the Berserker - Slaughter

Passives:
Superstition
Animosity (Just for quick Rage build, but can be replaced)
Unforgiving
Bloodthirst

I went from a WW build to this and don't regret it a second. I had abit of luck on a pair of Magefist gloves and Maximus. Maximus is what what makes me wanna play Fire build. It could have rolled better, but is still okey. Rolled over 1k Strength, 20% more Fire Dmg, 1421-1657 Fire Damage, socket and 2677.2 DPS.
But the best thing of all of this weapon, is it's secondary.

Guess most of you know what the secondary does on Maximus, but I'll explain it for those that don't. The secondary is: Chance on hit to summone a Demonic Slave. But the thing about this slave is that you get a Fire Chain between you and the slave, which hits for a insane amount.
Since it's Fire damage I guess when you get more increase Fire damage on gear and it will hit even harder.

But it's basically free damage, and hit's for around 2-5mill dmg every second when the fire chaing touches monsters. So with that and all of ur abilitys things just melt on T1-3.
I recommend everyone to try it if they can get a hold of Maximus with a decent roll

I was thinking of going fire build myself, still leveling my barb right now, though.
Never had Maximus drop before :/ (farmed over 200 rifts on my monk on T1).

[Kazgrel]

@cyrops: the bloodthirst passive also scales with the increased health from health globes stat, making said stat even more useful.

Also I pick up loh via paragon points.

[Ciddy]

Level 65, so this will probably be very different when I reach level cap. This setup is at least fun with Wrath of the Berserker, because something is going to die when I pop it.

Frenzy - Sidearm (chance on hit to throw the piercing axe in a line)
Wrath of the Berserker - Insanity (damage bonus while active increased by 50%)
Revenge - Provocation (gives 3 charges of Revenge)
Seismic Slam - Permafrost (Cold damage and slowing effect on whatever it hits)
Battle Rage - Marauder's Rage (damage bonus increased by 15%)
Avalanche - Snow-capped Mountain (Cold damage)

Passives: Weapons Master, Brawler, Unforgiving.

I'm probably going to change some stuff next time I log in because the above hasn't been working that great for me. Probably gonna see what I can do to get Rend back in there. I'm also still rolling with Skorn, but I haven't picked up anything better yet. Really want to go back to dual wielding if I ever pick up good enough 1h weapons. I also have a lot of the "cold skills do ____ more damage" gear, which is the reason for the Seismic Slam / Avalanche runes.

[esoterickk]

Was previously using a Fire Barb HotA build, but as I have Shard of Hate the WW/Lightning build was just too strong
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/E...4/hero/1804444

Frenzy - Smite
Battle Rage - Bloodshed
Whirlwind - Wind Shear
War Cry - Invigorate
Sprint - Marathon
Avalanche - Lahar

Bloodthirst
Unforgiving
Juggernaut
Superstition

Have a 2446 dps Shard of Hate and only +% lightning damage is a 20% Reaper's Fear. Can easily smash through T3 solo and carry 4man public groups also, but yet to try T4 though (waiting for more lightning pieces/TF I guess).

Probably going to drop Frenzy for Weapon Throw lightning runed, but even though don't need fury generators with 3pc.. just kept it because it wouldn't let me skill into another ability (I think I can rebind my left click ability to something else and then choose some other skill) and felt awkward having my left click not being a fury gen. If so, might swap it for Overpower with lightning as it doesn't stop the WW cast and the extra 8% buff crit works nicely.

Don't really enjoy the WW playstyle but it's just far too strong... Still trying to get to the point where HotA build surpasses the WW build, but hasn't happened yet (have 2pc IK with royal ring for 3pc, cindercoat, 20% fire strongarms and fire % Ouroboros and still is a lot slower than WW )

[Bigbazz]

Shard of Hate is getting fixed "cough" nerfed "cough" tonight, it will no longer proc as it does. Lightning based builds will be pretty weak now and Fire builds will be the way forward. The uproar on the Blizzard forums is absolutely crazy. Blizzard did not have the balls to call it a nerf and carefully worded it to try to deflect the incoming storm by stating it was a bugfix (which is technically true, but whether they fix unintended bugs is always a matter of balance)... The Shard of Hate has been around since the Beta and it's been well known how strong it is for a long long time.

Anyway, Blizzard have effectively ruined my character and a lot of work that I've put into it, I probably don't have the patience to keep playing this and completely regearing my char only for them to... for example, nerf Maximus/Cindercoat/Unity.


It's a shame that they have to resort to this kind of stuff with Diablo, especially when their motto was "There is no such thing as too much power in Diablo 3". They should have just made all the useless legendaries less useless, and added some more overpowered ones, as they did in Diablo 2 times.

[Coldkil]

"There is no such thing as too much power in Diablo 3".

Right.

So a weapon with a huge proc with a bugged no internal CD and a 100% proc chance is clearly working as intended. it's not about making other legendaries less useless, it's about bringing the bugged one back where it should have been.

Shard of hate is not strong or oevrpowered, it's simply and only BUGGED. Its strenght derives from a thing that shouldn't even have been here - you can be angry or whatever, but you cannot stop Blizzard to fix errors in the game.

It's like if One with Everything granted immunity to damage or boosted resistances the double as it should - you wouldn't be complaining much about it.

With the fix, you'll be doing less damage, but build syniergies and toughness won't be touched; hence the viability of the build remains untouched.

[Cyrops]

Was previously using a Fire Barb HotA build, but as I have Shard of Hate the WW/Lightning build was just too strong
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/E...4/hero/1804444

Frenzy - Smite
Battle Rage - Bloodshed
Whirlwind - Wind Shear
War Cry - Invigorate
Sprint - Marathon
Avalanche - Lahar

Bloodthirst
Unforgiving
Juggernaut
Superstition

Have a 2446 dps Shard of Hate and only +% lightning damage is a 20% Reaper's Fear. Can easily smash through T3 solo and carry 4man public groups also, but yet to try T4 though (waiting for more lightning pieces/TF I guess).

Probably going to drop Frenzy for Weapon Throw lightning runed, but even though don't need fury generators with 3pc.. just kept it because it wouldn't let me skill into another ability (I think I can rebind my left click ability to something else and then choose some other skill) and felt awkward having my left click not being a fury gen. If so, might swap it for Overpower with lightning as it doesn't stop the WW cast and the extra 8% buff crit works nicely.

Don't really enjoy the WW playstyle but it's just far too strong... Still trying to get to the point where HotA build surpasses the WW build, but hasn't happened yet (have 2pc IK with royal ring for 3pc, cindercoat, 20% fire strongarms and fire % Ouroboros and still is a lot slower than WW )

I don't enjoy WW build as well, don't like it from D2 days >.>

Leveled my barb to 70 yesterday, running with this build:

Bash - Onslaught (I believe the extra hits from rune trigger LOH?)
HoTA - Smash
Leap - Call of Arreat
Avalanche - Volcano
Revenge - Retribution
War Cry with 20% increased resists (Currently using Furious Charge - Merciless Assault to spam normal bounties)

Passives: Juggernaut, Weapon Master, Bloodthirst and Superstition.

I was doing Master at ease, could probably switch to T1 even with 'leveling gear', only have Mad Monarch, but it's lvl 69 and with dex from my monk.

[Deleted]

So a weapon with a huge proc with a bugged no internal CD and a 100% proc chance is clearly working as intended.

It's obviously not working as intended but you know what? It was fun. It was powerful. It actually felt L E G EN D A R Y.

Comparing an overperforming item with a very low drop chance that only certain players will find, to a passive skill that literally all players can use is obviously not a fair comparison. And even if it was, the item in question doesn't make you invulnerable like your bugged skill would.

At least for a barbarian there are really only a handful of viable "end game" weapons, most of them are lightning damage; SoH, Thunderfury, Odynson, Fulminator. These weapons all vastly out perform the other weapons bugged or not. So how long until these other weapons are "brought in line" with all the other generic, uninspired +6 randomly generated stat legendaries? How long until they start bringing other "game changing" legendaries into line with the rest of the generic ones?

Bottom line is that the VAST majority of legendary items in this game are generic and boring with only a handful feeling truly LEGENDARY. They actually give people things to focus on and aim for.

[Coldkil]

It's obviously not working as intended but you know what? It was fun. It was powerful. It actually felt L E G E N D A R Y.

First: many of the uninspiring legendaries are level up versions of low level ones which don't have special affixes. Though i agree that most if not all legendaries should have something like this - their power should come from that little orange text that makes an item completely different from the rest.

Second: you have at least 4 weapons to choose for endgame, and we're talking only about lightining builds. If i look at my DH i have only Natalya and Calamity - for any build. The rest is simply under them. So don't talk about a few choices - there's people who have even less than you. Anyway also on this point i agree that while SoH is bugged and needs to be fixed some more variety on items is something really desired; more options don't hurt but give players more things to aim for.

I can understand people going berserk, but the truth is that they can only chill out and continue playing, since this is not a nerf but a fix.

I'd really like (as i think the vast majority of players) to see more orange text around.

[cFortyfive]

The soh nerf definitely sucks and I don't think any of the other weapons will do.
Soh was keeping barbs fun and not being bad at least as far as I am concerned and for the time being I am going to play another class that works decently on t6 as anything else seems pretty uninteresting at this point and I am not in the moot to tank for the wd/wizard/dh overlords.
Personally I don't like any of the alternative builds yet and especially not anything with Hota/jumps/earthquake/barbarmy/whatever clunky crap. Maybe though someone comes up with something not shit and Blizzard considers a couple buffs like finally making Unforgiving baseline for instance.

[Bigbazz]

Right.

So a weapon with a huge proc with a bugged no internal CD and a 100% proc chance is clearly working as intended. it's not about making other legendaries less useless, it's about bringing the bugged one back where it should have been.

Shard of hate is not strong or oevrpowered, it's simply and only BUGGED. Its strenght derives from a thing that shouldn't even have been here - you can be angry or whatever, but you cannot stop Blizzard to fix errors in the game.

It's like if One with Everything granted immunity to damage or boosted resistances the double as it should - you wouldn't be complaining much about it.

With the fix, you'll be doing less damage, but build syniergies and toughness won't be touched; hence the viability of the build remains untouched.

They said it themselves, they fixed it due to people crying that it was overpowered. They had months of beta to know that it was working as it was, the fix was done in the name of balance. It was a bugfix that had only become a "bug" when the term was convenient. It does not matter if the 100% proc was unintended, it took them a long long time to decide to "fix" it, nobody had any reason to believe it was not working as intended, and ultimately it made for a really interesting weapon.

"There is no such thing as too much power in Diablo 3" was their motto and time and time again they go against that motto, it does not matter if you call it a bugfix or a nerf, the result is the same. And there is a problem with that because really Shard of Hate is exactly how a legendary weapon in a Diablo game should be, they should not be stat sticks with a legendary title like the majority of legendary weapons. There is nothing wrong with a weapon having a 100% proc chance and no internal cooldown, this isn't World of Warcraft, it's Diablo.

The viability of the lightning WW build does not remain untouched, WW and it's proc coefficient is based around life on hit being too strong at vanilla launch. The result of this coefficient means the attack itself does pretty pathetic damage, has ridiculously low life on hit efficiency, does not work properly with weapon master (making mighty weapons useless), by that you're meant to generate 1 fury per hit, but instead you have 13% chance to generate 1 fury per hit. Shard of Hate is now also effected by that 13% coefficient, meaning that not only will it now have an internal cooldown, but it will have just a 13% chance to proc.

It basically means if you were playing in T4 above then pack up your bags and get building a fire set, hope they don't nerf Maximus, Stone of Jordan, Cindercoat, and Unity.

The lightning whirlwind build was only viable due to Shard of Hate, it was a build changer.

[Deleted]

Can anybody give me a build which is focused around earthquake and avalanche damage? i can see some nice passive talents benefits those two spells, like a big aoe build for farming, would this work?

Any help would be much appreciated!