The Barbarian: The Ultimate Barb Thread

[Bane-Thunder-God]

I thought it would be time to have a dedicated Barb thread now that the game has arrived. I'm at level 8 on my Barb. (Got to play last night for like 45mins before going bed for work)

Really can't wait to get Whirlwind. And that Fiery two hand mace shown originally in the demo video of D3. I wonder where that even drops and at what level.

Whos managed to get their hands on their barb? So far im running with the Bash-Stun (rune) combo with the Hammer -Shockwave (rune).

More details to come when I get to play more. Right now I'm at work can't wait to get home to play more.

[Liessa]

Got to level 10 on my barb before hitting the bed and getting some sleep before work (like you, I'm at work atm).

Using Cleave with Rupture and Rend. And Leap of course. Found a nice 17.x dps 1hand Sickle (one of those barb-only mighty weapons) and now zombies just melt...

[Sinister Knight]

Got a good tip elsewhere for Barbs. Having Elective Mode on, bind Leap, Ground Stomp and Cleave. +armor Rune on Leap. Leap, then Stomp, then Cleave = very fast sick AoE dmg to packs.

[Deleted]

Hey,

So I'm currently at the nightmare act 3 on my level 49 barbarian. I just thought I'd make a small post for all those people interested in barbarian builds and some tips, while the game is still fresh and while some people might still actually need some tips.

While playing normal solo, I died once to a pretty stupid mistake at the boss in the beginning of act 4, but I really have no excuses for that. On nightmare solo I died to Belial to another stupid mistake and reading the chat, and I think I've died once or twice after that in co-op play to some champions. Besides that, while I've had some close calls, I've had little difficulties with the barbarian. In any case, that should give you a basis on whether I've been successful with the barbarian or not.

http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/calculato...YSk!dXe!ZbaZZb
http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/follower#0000

There are my builds (barb + templar) as they are right now at level 49. If you don't have those skills yet as you're building up to that setup, then use your imagination and I'm sure you'll do fine.

Frenzy with Triumph
This is your boss killer, as well as one of your healing abilities. Whenever you need fury, or are facing a tougher single opponent, just keep whacking it with Frenzy. In AoE situations you can kill off some smaller enemies to pop Triumph, which will heal you quite nicely.

Whirlwind with Blood Funnel
Whirlwind is your fury spender, and one of your two main AoE weapons. It is also incredibly good for mobility, and chasing mobs, as melee characters have a tendency to stop running before they do a melee swing. With Whirlwind, however, you won't stop. Blood Funnel will heal you a little bit as well, especially in large AoE situations. Excessively using Whirlwind will cause you to run out of fury though, so be careful not to spam it too much.

Revenge with Vengeance is Mine
Revenge is your biggest heal, and it'll heal you for way more than your maximum health in high AoE situations. It will also give you quite a bit of fury due to Vengeance. When your Revenge is ready, try to pop it before it goes gray, but try to be within a large pack when you do.

Ground Stomp with Wrenching Smash
Ground Stomp is your CC (stun), and with Wrenching Smash it will pull enemies from quite far to a nice little pile, which you can then AoE down.

Furious Charge with Merciless Assault
Furious Charge is quite the awesome ability. It does a small knockdown (not really a knockback) to enemies you hit with it, and when combined with Merciless Assault, you can basically spam this for as long as there's monsters to kill. Merciless Assault will drop the 10 second cooldown by 2 seconds for each target hit with Furious Charge, so if you hit 5 or more targets, you can do a new charge straight after. The knockbacks will keep your AoE targets CC'd, as the knockbacks (or knockdowns rather) will stop the enemies from moving, casting, and attacking. I have personally taken down groups of 40-50 on nightmare using this tactic, without really getting a scratch. This ability is so awesome I'm afraid it will be nerfed soon.

War Cry with Invigorate
War Cry is your long buff, and it's required to get the secondary buff from your passive Inspiring Presence, and Invigorate will work as yet another secondary buff. War Cry itself will give you and your allies some armor, Invigorate will give you (and your allies) maximum health as well as give you a health regen (not quite sure if it applies to allies, I would think so since the max health does).

Bloodthirst
3% lifesteal yo.

Inspiring Presence
Inspiring Presence will give you another ticking heal through War Cry.

Superstition
I have been using Superstition due to it giving me a 20% shield against all non-physical damage (poison, ouch!), but I might switch this to Juggernaut later.

So, with those abilities, here's what you do:

When doing AoE, collect a large pack (20+ or as many as you feel comfortable with) of monsters, preferably melee so they'll follow you closely. Once you've gotten them into a tight pack, pop your Ground Stomp, as it will pull the pack into an even tighter formation. Then walk to the edge of the pack, and aim a Furious Charge straight through the pack, a bit over it. Your Charge will have it's cooldown reset immediately, so now do the same in the opposite direction. Keep doing this as long as needed, popping Revenge if you take damage, and using Whirlwind whenever you're waiting for the Charge cooldown (for example when you made a mistake). You can finish a monster off with Frenzy to heal a bit more as well.

When doing single targets, just whack them down with Frenzy, hit them with Revenge when it's up, and stun them with Ground Stomp when needed. If they run, chase them down with Furious Charge.

Generally keep your War Cry up, but remember it also generates 30 fury, so you can use that when running low.

As far as your gear goes, I ran through normal dualwielding one-handers, but you'll want to get a good shield and 1-hand combination as soon as you can. Besides that, just stack high vitality and +% life, strength to do damage, and other stats where you can get them. There are way too many to list. Vitality is what heals you, since your heals are percentage based, so that's at least one of the priorities.

As for the weapon stats, try to get a weapon with % of damage done converted to life or +life each hit. Also, +life after kills is nice as well, as is +health from globes.

Also, don't be afraid to use the AH. I've gotten some really sick deals (four legendaries, rest rares) with mere thousands of gold, and they've pumped my guys damage and durability up like crazy. For example, my current weapon has a dps of 74, a weapon I bought from the AH long ago. I'm still doing fine with it. However, I've got a level 51 weapon ready, also bought from the AH, which has a dps of 250. Talk about upgrades.

Well, I hope any of this was useful to the barbarian brethren out there. Please do bear in mind that I'm not saying this is an optimal build; yours may be better. If you've got tips or tricks of your own, feel free to post.

EDIT: For some reason I was completely blind about this thread, thanks for merging my post.

[Dakia]

Merged with existing thread.

[Sinister Knight]

Excellent thanks for the merge, I'm glad I did a search to see how buried the Barbarian theads were.

[Deleted]

Loving my barb, currently sitting at half act 3 nightmare and playing with friends, but some champion groups or elite monster really beat to shit out of me, wallers/chains of fire + arcane enchant can get you instant killed... so survivability is quite low if your not want to change it for every group.

For normal monsters I usually take the combo leap (iron impact) + groundstomp (wrench) + furious charge (merciless assault) = epic BERSERKING MODE!!!
Secondary Skill is use mostly shockwave with switch between stun and increased damage rune

For Boss Fights: Get out that war cry with additional health/reg, damage/crit buff "cry", bash ( punish rune), hammer of the ancients ( 270% Weapon damage), pop your wrath incarnate ulti and with some buffs/debuffs from friends you can easily pull off 20k crits

I think they should rework some skills for instance rend, because i cant wait for enemys to bleed out, overpower i dont get this skill whats good about it, and sprint while i would love to have it active while running around, I feel i cant sacrifice a slot for this doing not much in a massive crowd or if you get trapped also you are melee and will do not much if from range. Call of then Ancients might be good in hardcore but i think i lacks in normal mode with the other ultis being superior

[Draknalor186]

i love my barbarian =O he is 22 atm ^^ and just got a good 2hander.. spamming cleave and bash basiclly, and sometimes blade storm ^^ totally loveing it =P

[Deleted]

@Sydänyö
I modified my current build and took up some suggestions of you. Works even better than my own build, however, is it still viable with say dual wielding or 2h weapons? Atm I'm running with 1h shield which is quite nice as I dont have problems at all. Heck I even took out a rare pack plus 1 champ on hell without dying once.

[Deleted]

is it still viable with say dual wielding or 2h weapons

I haven't tried, but by the amount of damage you get on nightmare and higher, I'd say having a shield is pretty much a must. Could be wrong though.

Also, I can report that (spoilers from act 4 follow)...

...I just took out Iskatu on nightmare solo with this build, except that I have Juggernaut as my third passive now. Got a 155 massacre in that fight. Furious Charge spam for the win!

[RoKPaNda]

Surprised more people aren't using Overpower. That skill is saving my bacon on Nightmare constantly.

[Morogoth]

Frenzy is awesome with a 2 hand. Also, I really love leaping from one floor to another.

my friend: "Hey guys, there is zombies downstairs!"
me: "Stairs? I don't need stairs! LEAP!!!

Like a boss

[Bane-US]

My Barbarian hit 52 this morning and after finishing Nightmare I am starting to realize it's probably time to switch to Sword + Board style because 2-hander pure DPS is just getting me killed more and more.

Opinions/Builds on Sword/Shield anyone?

[Demoncrash]

This is a damn good build to clear late Norm, early Nightmare mob packs. I am currently level 34 and soloing Act 1 Nightmare and can vouch for its effectiveness at least up to Skelly King (where i stopped playing)

[Sinister Knight]

Very nice Vid, thanks for the link Demoncrash!

[NoRest4Wicked]

A fun build I enjoy playing in Nightmare mode is a throwing spec, it pretty much lets you tear through any elite/champion pack before they even reach you.

The set up I used is
Cleave, Reaping Swing
Weapon Throw with Ricochet
Battle Rage with Marauder's Rage
War Cry with Charge!
Ignore Pain with Ignorance is Bliss
Leap with Iron Impact
The passives I used were
No Escape (This is what really makes the build good, if you crit you gain 2x the fury throw costs...If you are attacking a group of 4+ you can pretty much fill your fury bar using a spender)
Ruthless
Animosity.

Also, I use the scoundrel for his 3% crit buff to keep those crits/fury regen rolling!

It might seem like a weird spec, but with Throw putting a slow on it's target, hitting another target and giving you fury to use it, it can be quite powerful. Also, I use a 2h weapon because well, I rarely get hit.

[Judge Malthred]

What is the difference/advantages between dual wielding or 2h?

[Demoncrash]

What is the difference/advantages between dual wielding or 2h?

The main(and most noticeable) difference is the attack speed, 2hand being slower where DW is faster. Personally iv'e not seen any noticeable difference in overall damage to say that one has an advantage over the other, though the fast attack speed does make DW and Sword and Board builds popular for keeping bosses and other nasty mobs semi stun locked thanks to Bash + Clobber rune.


Speaking from personal experience, most of the time the content will out level your gear and you will find yourself using a shield more than you would like to, as staying current isn't easy with AH prices of Nightmare equipment being ridiculously high.


Would also like to point out that Force's build in the video a few posts above is working like a charm in Act 2 Nightmare as well(both solo and grouped). Makes quick work of a lot of the champ mobs, though you might wanna switch to the Lacerate rune at lvl 33 for the added bleed dmg.

[Judge Malthred]

I prefer the look of 2h, but it seemed strange that similar level 1h and 2h weapons had about the same DPS. Does the offhand weapon suffer penalties in dmg?

[Keile]

Personally, I LOVE using the sword and board.

Get a good 1h, put a Ruby in it then gem the rest of your stuff with Amethysts for VIT. Get the 20% reduced non-physical passive (sometimes I choose pound of flesh for more healing, it varies), the 25% increased armor passive (can switch to the 100% of Vit to armor one once you get higher VIT, MIGHT be better, dunno. But at level 34 the 25% is better by about 300 armor for me).

This build is based on keeping the Bash buff up and Battle Rage up to increase your damage, while maintaining a LOT of survivability.

Use:
Cleave with the exploding rune on it
Bash with the rune that increases damage (6% more damage per bash up to 3x. Keep this up while cleaving enemies).
Battle Rage with increased damage rune
Leap (This is the bread and butter for this build imo. I leap into the group of mobs before my friends can get there. My barbarian is built tough enough that he can easily survive on his own for at lease a few seconds in Nightmare and deal a lot of damage quickly to the group before my allies arrive to finish them off.)
Seismic Slam with the Increased Damage and Knockback rune. (Again, really useful. If shit hits the fan leap out of the fray and slam them away. Also great to quickly turn around and knock enemies away from allies).
And finally Berserker Rage. The extra damage is nice, but it also grants 20% dodge.

This build has made my Barbarian a very successful tank for me and my friends.

I sometimes alternate between Battle Rage and the armor shout (name escapes me atm) as needed, but typically I dont need it that baddly. Also I sometimes switch out Berserker Rage for the Ancients as those 3 can really save you in a pinch. Enemies will focus THEM rather than you as you run out of combat to heal.

On bosses, change out Cleave for Frenzy with the Side Arm rune. Best one I have for that one atm, the other rune I have simply makes it heal me when I kill someone....

Boss tactics:
Bash 3x
Frenzy 5x and keep this up!
Battle Rage up at all times.

Continue to frenzy while weaving in a Bash every couple seconds to maintain that buff (you cannot see the buff on you, but it lasts 6 seconds). If you have a friend on a Witch Doctor, have them put up their haste buff and you will see Frenzy work its magic.

I only have 2 deaths on this character so far, so I'm doing SOMETHING right.

I prefer the look of 2h, but it seemed strange that similar level 1h and 2h weapons had about the same DPS. Does the offhand weapon suffer penalties in dmg?

Yes, they do. I noticed this when I took up a shield over DW. I actually GAINED dps over the DW when I used a shield because the shield had so much STR it out weighed the second weapon!