Barbarian Inferno Farm Strategy Guide

[Zrave]

Jokerfiend, you may be interested in watching my new video on gearing your barbarian on the auction house

This video also shows all of my current pieces of gear for those that are interested.

youtube.com/watch?v=GutiXJOpwVg

The reason I don't have relentless is because it doesn't work if you are above 20% when you get hit. So for example, if you are at 21% of your life, say 10k, and get hit for 9k, relentless will not mitigate any of that damage. That seems risky to me, but I believe that as your max hp, resists, and armor increase, Relentless will eventually become very good, since any hit you take will be for only a tiny percentage of your max health and therefore this risk I mention is minimized. I think I may be reaching the point where that is true for me, but it may not apply to most barbarians so it's not really fitting to recommend off the bat.

I dislike life steal, either from Bloodthirst or the Ignorance is Bliss rune for Ignore Pain because in the Inferno Difficulty any lifesteal healing is reduced by 80%. I first learned of this from Kripparrian's video:

youtube.com/watch?v=33UDzGZTHPI&list=UUeBMccz-PDZf6OB4aV6a3eA

In it he explains why you should go for life on hit instead.

If you're playing with friends, I think control options such as Ground Stomp(Wrenching Smash) or Threatening Shout(Intimidate/Demoralize) become appealing. While I like Threatening Shout in general, and even used it the first time I soloed Diablo on Inferno, I feel that having the mobility of both leap and furious charge is quite nice for soloing. For example, if I farm up 5 stacks to do a boss such as Siegebreaker, I may want to skip through the cursed tower part instead of killing everything to reach Cydaea/Azmodan.

I like the concept of Wrath of the Berserker but it just doesn't work for me at the moment. My dps is pathetic at 7k so even using wrath it's not enough to burst down an enemy. When I increase my dps I'll reevaluate it Don't forget that using Furious Charge while you are jailed will break the effect, and I'd also like to share a trick I discovered to avoid being frozen:

youtube.com/watch?v=jX-0i91C-VM

[Kanx]

MASSIVE props on creating this guide/thread Zrave.

Me and my girlfriend were hitting a wall with most Elite packs in Act II.

She still is.

However, i've now ditched her and i'm now excelling in solo from using tips from this thread.

I need to get lucky with some + Life on Hit items coming my way.

[Deleted]

Question:

I am stacking vitality, which means I have 48k HP but 5.6k DPS. Should I swap out 5k HP for a bit more dps?

[Deleted]

If you're farming Act 1 with those stats Gourmandises I'm sure you'll be fine because I only had a slightly bit more dps than you and can kill everything without a problem. Survivability is far more important than killing speed.

On top of that my fight with the butcher took so long that he went into enrage (whole floor was on fire) and I still managed to beat him because of good resists

[Amontoya86]

I used a similar spec with 2 key differences.

Instead of Leap I use Seismic Slam with the Stagger rune (stun). This is great for stunning at a distance while making room if your cornered and it does good damage. I like being able to dump my rage.

Instead of the passive ability Nerves of Steel, I use Relentless. It is an absolute life saver when low on health (especially if you are stunned/frozen/etc). If you pop it with Ignore Pain, you take NO damage.

[Deleted]

Tried Butcher a couple of times yesterday, got about 10% down before being killed 3/4 times, looked this up, gave it a spin, 1 shot the guy, absolute stunner! Good work!!

[Deleted]

good point.. i'm gonna try it

[Starry101]

Very nice guide, this thread should get a sticky.

[Baracuda]

I CBA to use WotB in inferno, don't like having to rely on CDs.

[-Skye]

Thanks for this bookmarked for future reference, great guide and I'll be using it when my baby barb reaches inferno.

[Venant]

how do you beat elite packs of soul rippers (those things in act 3 that shoot the tongue at you), whatever damage type they do is insane

[Zrave]

Venant, I recall having more trouble trying to run away from them when I was undergeared, but don't recall a particular difficulty trying to fight them. I guess the annoying part about them is that they have an undodgeable ranged attack.

Also I'd like to announce an update, act 4 farming video has been uploaded! Here is a 2 minute highlight:

youtube.com/watch?v=gKySUl3gJ1I

[mxl]

hmm when am i rdy to move from act1 to act2 ? its rare i die in act1 but in act2 i get 2 shot more or less :/ my stats are here hp 41k armor 7823 dps 8200 block chance 22% block amount 3706-4704 all res around 400 with war cry

[Bigbazz]

Cool guide but you are wrong about the sidearm rune being better than maniac for single target. Sidearm is without a doubt the best all-round rune (though I survived act 1/2 simply because of smite when my gear was weak), but on single target bosses Maniac provides considerably and very noticeably more damage. I'm sure someone has made the effort to explore the math with the way that percentages and damage stacks (I was going to take a look today, but the game won't log in), I've come to this conclusion from playing, specifically how much longer it takes to kill the butcher on inferno with sidearm vs maniac.

This isnt even a questionable difference, there is a massive difference in how fast I kill the butcher with maniac vs sidearm.

hmm when am i rdy to move from act1 to act2 ? its rare i die in act1 but in act2 i get 2 shot more or less :/ my stats are here hp 41k armor 7823 dps 8200 block chance 22% block amount 3706-4704 all res around 400 with war cry

Your resistances are too low, far too low. You can afford to lose some health in exchange for resistances and you could also use with raising your dps to around 11-14k. My health was floating around 28-35k when clearing act 2, but my resistances between 600-800 and damage at around 13-17k from what I can remember.

Best case scenario you gain 200+ resistances, 4000+ dps and don't lose any health. But you will have to compromise unless you find some really nice gear.

[Zrave]

Bigbazz - did you use any other damage dealing abilities? Maniac will buff other skills.

For frenzy alone, the math points to sidearm, but I can run some tests to see if Maniac is working differently from the tooltip.

[Bigbazz]

Bigbazz - did you use any other damage dealing abilities? Maniac will buff other skills.

For frenzy alone, the math points to sidearm, but I can run some tests to see if Maniac is working differently from the tooltip.

Frenzy + wrath of the berserker, battle rage (I using warcry instantly after battle rage to push my fury back to full), including berserker rage passive.


Basically I was using smite in general play, then switched to maniac for act 1 farming, then read this guide and tried sidearm again, but went back to act 1 for some gear farming and realised the butcher was taking a lot longer to die, so then I did a few runs switching between the 2 and maniac is considerably better, I just stand there using frenzy.

I still think sidearm is the best allrounder, but on pure boss damage the way damage stacks in this game (that I can't test the maths because I can't log in) is influencing the damage to be considerably higher with maniac on pure single target.

[Moist]

Maybe one day I'll use a full out tank build, but for now even act 2 wasn't overly difficult with a sword and board dps setup (Shout for armor/resists, revenge, shout for 30% damage, Wrath of the beserker, Sidearm frenzy and a spare skill to play with, currently furious charge because It made my first (and solo) Belial kill dead easy. And for passives, weapon master, Ruthless and nerves of steel.

I'll admit it is probably a more unforgiving and challenging playstyle I've chosen, but oh so fun. 50k health with 800 health per second regen, 70% reduction from armor, 400 resists, and a splattering of other stats. But most importantly, somewhere near 38k dps. In a great deal of places I have to play better to survive, but I definitely don't waste time. Farming is trivialized when your sidearm axes 1-shot the average mob. It's been a slowish process to acquire the gear to accomplish my setup so far, but taking the time to farm up the lvl 58-60 rares needed to achieve a relative amount of survivability combined with ~1500 str, 30% crit and 250% crit damage is more that worth it to be able to play such a fun way. The main thing required is a decent weapon I must admit, but AH searches for lvl 60 weapons with str/vitality and crit damage can prove a HUGE benefit if you can snag a cheap 800dps rare in the first few seconds before someone snags it. I just need to find another decent weapon so I can dual wield farm again.

[Zrave]

Bigbazz - I timed myself killing the siegebreaker using only frenzy with Maniac or Sidearm and did not notice the "significant damage increase" that you mention. Both kills were within a second of each other, and while there was some noise I believe a large effect would have revealed itself.

Also, I'm pretty sure that all damage increases are additive: If you have 20% from Maniac, 30% from Battle Fury, and 100% from Insanity you have 150% increase, not 2*1.2*1.3 = 3.12 = 212% increase

However, damage increases would multiply into frenzy Sidearm, making it more effective in this respect. Maniac works well if you are surrounded by mobs and doing Revenge, but I find that the most challenging fights are either single target bosses or small packs of elite mobs, against which you often don't have the option of keeping the frenzy stack at 5 the whole time, and a sidearm proc often hits two targets for a substantial damage increase.

Also we're forgetting the biggest reason to use sidearm - Each enemy the throwing axe hits will trigger life on hit effects.

Again, the difference is small and they each have their moments, so I don't think you're gimping yourself by choosing one over the other.

[snwboardn]

Excellent guide Z... I can't believe how much more damage and punishment I can take. The only problem is my DPS is dreadful, and there is nothing worse than not being able to kill a treasure goblin with 5 stacks of valor... But without this build I would never make it to 5 stacks in the first place. Hopefully I will be able to find some nice gear.

[Deleted]

how can u put str so low ?! i would put it more of like on 4th place,... % DMG + armor i mean that alone is better then single resistence. + % in hP just get in helm+(mybe) ofhand-shield other places is lol,

maybe some lifeleach would help ? i mean i see life on hit but no life steal