2 handed barbarian Berserker build post patch 1.05

[Halabash]

I've been playing a barbarian for a few weeks now and I've always wanted a go 2 hand with it. I know Whilrlwind is good but if you want to try something else that is Highly effective........

Halabash’s 2 Handed Berserker Build (halabash#1511)

I watched Kongor’s. (kingkongor#2672) HoA live stream and adapted it to my 2 handed barbarian. He is a good resource for Barbarians.
Here is a 2 Hander guide short and concise, if you are having success with whirl wind go ahead and keep using it, If you want to swing a big weapon and look like how we all imagined the class to be read on.

This is pretty simple, first we need to know what is working against us which is easy. The big issues are using a 2 handed weapon eats up both weapon slots and 2 handed weapons swing too slow for reliable health retun. Why would you ever want to go 2 handed when whirl wind is so good right now?
The current dual wield builds out there work to essentially speed up the barbarian. This one is no different.

The points below correlate to the skill order as well.

1. A big weapon means your skills hit harder that’s a big important fact

2. Barbarians like Demon Hunters actually have to mouse over targets to get the skills to maximize, which requires some good hand-eye coordination. Other DPS in the game is “spray and pray” aoe so barbarians are also probably going to develop good kiting and dodging skills. Since dps numbers are going to lie to you it is more important how you play your Barbarian.

3. 2 handed Barbarians need life from damage not life on hit, your life on hit will never keep you up, you’ll swing too slow, so you need to maximize life return with skills. DON’T STAND IN THE FIRE/PLAGUE/ARCANE

4. As a 2 handed barbarian embrace a good offense is a good defense.

5. Wrath of the Berserker is a gimmick spell, used to augment your character and fix all the things inherently wrong with it. You must use this spell it’s the only real non negotiable with this build.

6. You’ll need to make up for that missing shield through armor and resist and good dps and vitality.

Skill order and my button preference below

Left Mouse: Cleave / Broad Sweep Why? You hit many targets for big damage.

Right Mouse: Hammer of the Ancients / Thunderstrike or Smash. Why? HoA is the most forgiving with rule 2 due the tiny aoe and it does lots of damage, the rune is more of a personal preference, I like the control, you may want more damage.

1st action button: Rend/Bloodlust. Why? Look I’m not a fan of cookie cutter or mandatory skills. You don’t have to pick this one up, but it’s so good I can’t get a better return on life(on demand) unless I am in certain situations (see berserker at end), the skill puts a dot on the mob for 700% weapon damage,
you get 9% back as health and it stacks with the number of mobs around you. Secretly this is how to get around missing a 2nd weapon as well.

2nd action button: Battle rage/ Into the fray. Why? Allows you to spam abilities like HoA and get fury on crits, also it passively bumps up your dps on normal non crits.

3rd action button: Wrath of the Berserker / Thrive on Chaos. Why? simply put synergy with the other skills and you can’t be cc’ed when this is up. (See berserker at the end)

4th action button: Warcry/ Impunity for resist buff but you can use whatever you want. You’ll need certain stats on gear. I’ll list that below.

Stats: The order I prefer is Attack speed 20%>Strength>Resist 500s> HP29k>Crit. You want your HP to be about 29k or higher so you can eat a big hit and give your passive healing a chance to work. I also like ignore durability and high armor.

Passives: Superstition, Blood thirst, Ruthless
Why? These particular passives help with survivability in the higher monster powers. Superstition lowers your resist requirement allowing you go get more dps on your gear, blood thirst helps with life return and Ruthless for the crit buff. Use what you like.

Last note.
The numbers for the gear are very cheap to attain as no one is really rolling 2handed right now. I know there are some really good weapons out there, get what you want just make sure you weapon damage is very high. Giving up resist means your skills are improving with your Barbarian. Going lower than recommended for any stat is fine figure out how you like to play.

Berserker: With high crit and attack speed and resist, you will be able to pop wrath of the berserker and only have to hold down HoA. Your crits will keep wrath going, you will also be un cc able and with rend up you will regain reliable health and wrath will eventually return more health through blood thirst passive as your damage output goes through the roof.


Thanks for reading.

[Vook]

Hm...bought myself a Skorn and...this is working surprisingly well. Powering through elite packs like they're nothing, (without using Wrath) whereas my WW build would struggle against most elites.

Though, due to the lack of Sprint and the fact that you have to stand still to attack, it's quite a bit slower than WW. I'll keep playing with it and see how it goes.

[Halabash]

Hm...bought myself a Skorn and...this is working surprisingly well. Powering through elite packs like they're nothing, (without using Wrath) whereas my WW build would struggle against most elites.

Though, due to the lack of Sprint and the fact that you have to stand still to attack, it's quite a bit slower than WW. I'll keep playing with it and see how it goes.

You are very correct, most fighting is done standing still, unless your dodging some dot, and it is very slow compared to ww. My gear isn't the best but as I gain speed the build gets better for me. Thanks for checking it out too! and I am jealous of your skorn

[Vook]

and I am jealous of your skorn

It only cost 300k :P

But yeah, used this build and a Skorn, didn't change any of my other gear, and completely blew through MP4 Act 1, when previously I was struggling on MP2 with a WW build. Hell, I cleared Act 1 even faster than my 100k dps wizard does. Elites die really quickly and pose little threat of death (unless they have arcane or are a really high damage mob), and in general I just feel like a tank with all the insane healing from Rend.

Screw wizard, I'm sticking with my barb for now!

[Butler to Baby Sloths]

http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/F...79/hero/321688

Is my gear, and I blast my way through act 3 MP5 fairly easily, although certain combinations (reflect, molten, electric and mortar is really sucky) are very hard and take a certain amount of time.

Vital Statistics:
215k damage at full fury with battle rage and 3x bash buff, a bit over 500k with Wrath of the Berserker up.
55% crit
460% crit damage
1932 Strength
1105 Vitality

44900 life
5900 armor
300-500 resists
2.9% life steal (can't find a decent weapon with life steal and enough damage and crit damage to not be a severe damage loss)

173% gold find
178% magic find (MP5 bonus, without NV stacks)

My Bash has started to crit for over a million damage with WotB+Insanity :O

[Vook]

although certain combinations (reflect, molten, electric and mortar is really sucky) are very hard and take a certain amount of time.

Yeah, Reflect/Electrified is just stupid. Too much damage coming back at you. I find that those packs, I just Rend and kite.

But yeah, I'm going along Inferno at MP4 and it's really fun just plowing through everything and taking barely any damage with Rend's healing. Wish I had known about this sooner!

[Drunkenfinn]

Definately a nice spec for higher MP levels where you cant just run through killing everything with WW

Playing the throw spec on my Barbarian atm but might give this a go later on.