The Tanky DPS 1H+Shield Barbarian

Trang

Australia324 Posts

August 13 2012 13:13 GMT

Please note, this OP was written during patch 1.03. Most principles still apply. Main differences are new viable skill builds, and the option of sacrificing some tankiness for damage through skills or gear. Some discussion about patch 1.04, particularly Rend, starts at page 3.

UPDATE HISTORY
15/08/12: Added Part 4.1 about knowing your gear slot potentials, weighing slots as offensive/defensive/balanced, maximising EHP on a single slot.
17/08/12: Further example elaborating on HP sustain/damage received break even points, linked in Part 3.3.

PREFACE

Hi TLers, my name is Trang. Some of you may recognise me as someone who has lately been quite active on the Barb Builds/Discussion Thread. To my pleasant surprise, against a backdrop of WW/Sprint being flavour of the month, there still seems to be an interest in the what is known as the Tank Barb, 1H+Shield Barb, Sword and Board Barb, or whatever you want to call it! This motivated me to advise my fellow barbs on how to progress down this line. Unfortunately, however, I have lately found myself answering the same questions over and over, not to anyone's fault. I can totally understand how people are discouraged by the prospect of looking backwards though a 118 page thread, just to find information.

This is why today I am creating this thread to put all information on 1H+Shield Barbs in one place, away from the distracting chatter of WW/Sprint Barbs

Also, sorry about the big walls of text, I’m used to writing in prose (lawyer). But I’ll try my best to present the information effectively through good structure and highlighting key points.

1 INTRODUCTION

1.1 What is the Tanky DPS Barb?

I prefer to use the term Tanky DPS Barb. What is a Tanky DPS Barb? It is more than just a Barbarian which uses a 1-hand weapon and a shield. The philosophy behind a Tanky DPS Barb is as follows: maximise DPS meanwhile being tanky enough to fight uninterrupted and indefinitely without reliance on Fury, Cooldowns or Life on Hit.

- Unlike a WW/Sprint Barb, you do not rely on gimmicky Fury management, high Critical Chance for Overpower, or Life on Hit for sustain.

- Unlike a simple Tank Barb, your only purpose isn’t to simply attract attention away from your DPS-centric party members, since on your own it would take forever to kill anything.

- Unlike Dual-Wield or 2-Hand Barbs, it is not about the fine balance between being able to burst down enemies in time before they kill you first, and/or kiting while waiting for cooldowns like Ignore Pain/Leap --- and you certainly don’t want to be dependent on waiting for Wrath of the Berserker/Earthquake to cooldown before you can burst elites in time.

- Instead, you rely on having a very high EHP (Effective Hit Points) and using Revenge as your primary reliable source of sustain, while maximising your damage potential (in terms of both skills and gear).

As an example, here is my Tanky DPS Barb as it is today (buffed with Warcry, Battle Rage and Enchantress):

Gear: http://i.imgur.com/xrqQe.jpg

Skills: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/barbarian#WVSRkP!ZVb!accacZ

1.2 Why play the Tanky DPS Barb?

With my current barb, my key stats are as follows (I will explain later why these are the important stats I am focussing on):

- DPS: 48,500

- EHP without block or dodge: 2,135,000
- EHP with dodge, without block: 2,372,000
- EHP with block, without dodge: 3,953,000
- EHP with block and dodge: 4,393,000

My EHP with block is calculated assuming enemies hit for 70K unmitigated damage (ball park average for Act 3 Inferno).

To put the EHP in context, against attacks that cannot be blocked, I can take on average 33 hits before dying. Against blockable attacks, I can take a whopping 62 hits before dying.

Taking out the luck factor of dodge altogether, I can reliably take 30 unblockable hits, and 56 blockable hits. NB For the rest of this post I will assume the absence of dodge, since at 10%, it is a less reliable measure of EHP.

Now let’s take into account Revenge (Provocation). 30% of hits will allow me to use Revenge to get back 5% of my EHP per target. Using the EHP numbers above, 5% EHP is equivalent to 1.5 unblockable hits, or 2.8 blockable attacks. Assuming that I have at least 3 targets within my Revenge range, my Revenge will keep me at full HP indefinitely. Against only one target, I can sustain almost indefinitely if its attacks are blockable.

Of course, these numbers are based on assumptions (such as all attacks being 70K damage unmitigated). Elite affects throw this out a bit. Meanwhile being surrounded by many white/trash mobs makes sustain ridiculously easy.

As you can see the Tanky DPS Barb is super tanky. Mine can take on 3 elite packs at a time. Meanwhile I am dishing out 48.5K DPS with your Frenzy (Sidearm) which does a small AoE, and 220% AoE weapon damage per Revenge. As a Tanky DPS Barb, you also feel pretty badass --- the more enemies you are surrounded by, the more you can stand in the middle and laugh as it becomes easier to sustain off of Revenge.

But why play the Tanky DPS Barb over other builds? Here are some things to think about:

1. You don’t have to wait for 2 minute cooldowns to burst elites.

2. No fury gimmicks. This means you are not useless in a party game.

3. No reliance on defensive cooldowns. This means you can tank for longer in party games without having to kite. This also means lag will not affect you as badly --- just hold down left click, spam right click, and laugh at the thought that you don’t care about the lag.

4. No reliance on Life on Hit to keep your health up. True, you use Revenge. But if you feel like it you can run around like an ass hat and take 30+ hits before engaging, without dying.

5. Not dependent on Critical Hit mechanics. You don’t need to stack the all expensive Critical Hit Chance gear on your armor slots just to stay alive or keep fury up.

6. Not dependent on Attack Speed. Unlike LoH IAS Monks, you don’t care how fast or slow you hit. You can hit slow and hard if you want to be badass, or swing faster if that’s your thing. This opens up your weapon type choices --- ie you are not limited to 1.4 APS Swords, but can also use Spears/Maces etc.

2 STUFF EVERYONE NEEDS TO KNOW

So you decided you want to play a Tanky DPS Barb now. Or you didn’t. Doesn’t matter. This is stuff which everyone needs to know to make the right choices about progressing their character.

2.1 Understand EHP (Effective Hit Points)

You will need to know the relationship between VIT, RES, Armor and %Life on how it affects your EHP. There are numerous useful guides out there. I will not go into it, but I will reiterate that there are no diminishing returns on any of these stats, so if you still think there then I suggest you go and do the research (which unanimously says there are no diminishing returns).

For the Tanky DPS Barb, all that matters in terms of your tankiness is EHP. Not your, total HP, not your All RES, not your Armor, not your Damage Reduction %. EHP, and EHP alone, is the number which determines how many hits you can take before you die in the absence of sustain. As for sustain, in our case, Revenge sustain scales with EHP, unlike LoH for example which scales off Damage Reduction (RES/Armor). Therefore, only EHP matters.

2.2 Understand DPS (Damage Per Second)

That ‘Damage’ number on that character sheet of yours is determined by many factors. Make sure you understand the relationship between Damage (from weapons and other gear), STR, AS (Attack Speed), CC (Crit Chance), CD (Crit Damage). Keep in mind that contrary to what anyone else might say, there is no single stat that will always be the better one to stack for everyone’s situation at every stage of their gear development. There seems to be a Crit Damage addiction as of late, and everyone prioritises a socket on a weapon when simply more flat Damage or STR would do a better job for the same price. So for us Tanky DPS Barbs, all that matters is the ending DPS stat as shown on your character sheet.

There is one small qualification, in that slower AS for the same DPS will mean harder hitting Revenges, but it’s a small point which you don’t have to worry about too much.

As for Crits, none of our mechanics rely on CC, so there is no need to prioritise it if the DPS is the same. Keep in mind though, that as you stack more CC and CD, they synergise for large DPS increases, so you might consider this for the long term.

2.3 Use a EHP/DPS Calculator

Ever had a situation looking at the AH, thinking ‘hmm I don’t know if this is better or not’? Ever seen the many many posts on forums saying ‘Is this item X or item Y better’? For the latter question the best answer is always ‘it depends on the rest of your gear’. Not everyone’s gear is the same, so the quality of one item depends on what your overall stats are based off your other gear. Please, use a calculator. They will also give you a better understanding of how EHP/DPS increase with other stats.

Here is the calculator I use: http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/4797101607?page=2#24

EDIT: 2.4 Know Gear Slot Potentials

I am covering this in Part 4.1 under GEAR, but this is stuff that everyone needs to know. So I'm putting a note of it here. Every class and build can benefit from knowing this.

3 OVERALL APPROACH TO THE TANKY DPS BARB

Okay now we’re getting into the meat. Here is my overall approach to progressing a Tanky DPS Barb.

3.1 Tank first, build DPS later

As stated previously, a Tanky DPS Barb wants to be able to attack continuously without needing to kite. Therefore, you need to be sufficiently tanky first. Then afterwards, you can build your DPS to kill faster. Do not try to do it the other way. I have seen many barbs with 30-40K DPS, but very low EHP, and they say they struggle to kill Act 3 elites before enrage timers. Meanwhile, in my Barb's early days I could kill Act 3 elites before the enrage timer with under 20K DPS. Why? Because I was able to attack continuously, without wasting any time kiting.

You first need to build your EHP so that you can tank Act 3 comfortably. I don’t know how much is the minimum, but I imagine about 1,500K EHP will make you comfortable for the majority of situations in Act 3/4. (Edit: this is just a ballpark figure, not a rule. The EHP you need will depend on your Skill build too, which is covered below. So you can probably get away with less, but since I didn't start measuring my EHP until I was already past 1,500K I don't know how much less). You want to be able to stand in the centre of a crowd of white monsters and be able to survive for a minute without relying on much more than Revenge. If you can’t do this, you won’t survive the harder elite fights. Abilities like Leap/Furious Charge/Ignore Pain are only there to save you in a tough situation (walled into arcane beams, or you are really unlucky with Revenge procs). You can’t rely on them as your primary tanking skill because of their cooldowns.

As for Shields and Block Chance, it deserves it's own section, so I have a section on that in the Part 4 which focuses on Gear.

3.2 Every bit of EHP makes a difference

Every little bit of EHP can make a real difference. You might have worked this out when reading my discussion above about the calculated number of hits I can take, and EHP worth of hits I sustain back through Revenge.

Here’s another way of putting it, and I’m making up numbers here to illustrate the point. Say you have 40K HP, and your EHP is such that you take 5000 damage a second, but your Revenge gives you back 4000 life a second. You are at a net loss of 1000 damage a second. You will die in 40 seconds. Now, let’s increase your EHP by 10% (often achievable with just one slot upgrade). You now take only 4545 damage a second, and you heal back 4400 life per second through Revenge. Your net loss is now 145 damage a second --- you can now survive for 4-5 minutes. Pretty big change for one item slot huh?

EDIT: a more elaborate example demonstrating this idea of a HP/Damage break even point here: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=360185&currentpage=2#23

3.3 Skills depend on your gear and playstyle

The only skills that I consider to be mandatory are Frenzy (Sidearm), Revenge (Provocation), War Cry (Impunity), Nerves of Steel. I think they are self-explanatory. So you have 3 active skills and 2 passives left. You will try to squeeze in as much offense as you can with the rest of the abilities, but there’s only so far I would go, which I will explain below.

A FULL tank build would use Frenzy, Revenge, War Cry, Threatening Shout, Furious Charge (Dreadnought), Leap (Iron Impact)/Ignore Pain (Ignorance is Bliss) with Nerves of Steel, Tough as Nails and Superstition.

As your gear becomes more tanky, you can gradually switch out abilities for DPS.

First offensive skill I would add is Wrath of the Berserker (Insanity). The extra damage, and immunity for Crown Control effects, are crucial to taking down difficult elites before taking too much damage. Next, I would add Berserker’s Rage (Marauder’s Rage) for the extra 30% DPS. As far as DPS skills go for a Tanky barb, I think those two are sufficient. You still want one defensive skill for when you get into tough spots. Which skills to favour out of Threatening Shout, Furious Charge, Leap and Ignore Pain are your own personal preference. I personally like Furious Charge for the extra sustain and ability to reposition/disengage.

As for passives, the first to drop is Superstition, and then Tough as Nails. I would probably drop Superstition for Ruthless before dropping one of my defensive skills for Berserker's Rage. Also, personally, I find that Weapons Master does not provide a big enough DPS increase to make it worthwhile to drop Tough as Nails.

A few notes on other skills that I don’t like in spoilers:

Brawler:
+ Show Spoiler +

I do not rate Brawler at all. Sure you will often find yourself surrounded by many mobs. But the hardest battles are those where you are up against Elites without any extra trash mobs. If there are many mobs around, Revenge should get you through the fight. When there are no trash mobs around, you want maximum single target DPS so you can kill it before your Revenge sustain is not able to keep up.

Maniac rune on Frenzy:
+ Show Spoiler +

Ok, so given that many people do not agree on Sidearm v Maniac, I've looked into it a bit more.

Firstly, there are varying reports about whether the Sidearm axe grants extra LoH or not: http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/4888178773. It may be bugged, nobody seems to knows for sure. I can't tell you either way because I don't use LoH.

Secondly, here is a thread with discussion on the pros and cons of Sidearm and Maniac: http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/4848675017

I think it summarises well the different arguments people are making. It appears from this that Sidearm and Maniac are within the same ball park. Differences in effectiveness probably depend on your setup of gear and other skills. Anyhow, these are my reasons for me using Sidearm.

1. A reliable 27.5% dps boost on a single target, that does not depend on getting Frenzy stacks. Keeping Frenzy stacks might sound trivial, but if you think about it, the hardest fights are those elite fights where they kite you a lot and/or throw down effects that you have to kite (eg Frozen/Arcane etc). In these fights expect to lose your stacks often. Why are you trying to boost your ability to clear lots of trash mobs (which frankly you can just ignore and run past since you are a Tanky Barb), when you should be focussing on making the hardest fights easier (these are the important fights too since they drop the loot!). In these difficult fights, you're really looking more realistically at an average of 10-15% damage boost from Maniac.

2. Since I'm a Tanky Barb my only 2 sources of damage are Frenzy and Revenge, so Maniac is boosting only Revenge. Revenge damage is nice, but I don't rely on it for damage, so I don't consider boosting it with Maniac a big deal. Like I said before, the hardest fights are those ones with just elites, and so your Revenge won't proc all that much. In addition with those kiting elite mobs, your Revenge probably will only manage to hit one target at a time. In these difficult fights, do I want a 10-15% overall damage buff or a solid 27.5% boost that can sometimes hit targets that aren't in range of your Revenge too.

3. Sidearm helps clear those annoying ranged mobs, so you don't have to go chasing them as much.

3.4 Life on Hit is nice, but don’t rely on it

Everyone that says you need X minimum LoH to tank Act 3 is just stating their own personal story of how they did it. LoH isn’t the only way through. If you have sufficient EHP, Revenge with the occasional Furious Charge will be enough sustain to keep you alive. Think of LoH merely as reducing the EHP bar you need to reach to tank Act 3 (think back to the way I talked about net HP loss per second in Part 3.2). But consider this for a moment. Once you are sufficiently tanky, you will be replacing gear for more DPS.

Here's an example. Is it easier to replace an amulet with 100 STR and 200 VIT for an amulet with 200 STR and 200 VIT, or to replace an amulet with 100 STR, 100 VIT and 300 LoH for an amulet with 200 STR, 100 VIT and 300 LoH. You guessed it, the upgraded LoH amulet is WAY more expensive.

Another example, you have a 1H 800 DPS sword. And now you want more DPS. Well, getting a 950 DPS 1Hander with 300 LoH is going to cost you as much as it costs you to just get a 1050 or 1100 DPS 1Hander without LoH.

Moral of the story: LoH is always welcome, and certainly nice. But do NOT rely on it to tank, because once you do this it will be much more expensive to replace gear for more DPS.

3.5 Adding DPS --- Skills first, STR second, Crit last

Okay, so you can tank Act 3 now, but you kill things kind of slowly. How do you approach increasing your DPS?

First, tweak your skills, using the method described in Part 3.3. Why? First, it costs nothing, and you can tweak as much as you want through trial and error to see how much DPS you can get away with. Secondly, you will eventually be working towards a balanced tanky/DPS skill set up (something like my skill set up). Consider again Part 3.1: tank first, DPS later. If you know you can tank effectively with a balanced skill set up, then you know that any further items you buy to increase DPS will not reduce your tanking ability provided it maintains your current EHP. If, however, you change gear before skills, and you spent millions of gold to have 25k DPS with a full tank skill setup, and you decide you want to work towards that 40k DPS, then guess what --- you might find with your new skills that you are no longer able to tank, and you have to replace all your gear AGAIN.

After you have a balanced skill setup, next is gear. I did say STR then Crit (Chance and Damage), but really this is just a guideline. Whatever you can get your hands on is good. However, keep in mind that generally speaking, armor with VIT/RES/STR is easier to come by than VIT/RES/less STR/CC for the same price. DPS calculators will help you work out how best to increase your DPS. Keep in mind also that STR does increase your Armor. Cost and Armor are the reasons why I suggest STR as your first goal.

As for attack speed, it is nice, but don't give it any special treatment over a similar DPS increase from STR or Crit. Why? Revenge, which is a great source of AoE damage, does not scale off IAS. So it's nice, but not necessary.

4 GEAR, GEAR, GEAR

Yeah yeah, we know this game is all about gear. So I’ve taken some extracts from the Barb thread to demonstrate some of my principles in practice. I put each part in spoilers to reduce clutter.

Shields --- Block Chance is King --- Sacred Shields, Stormshield, Helm of Command, Justice Lantern, etc:
+ Show Spoiler +

On July 19 2012 02:16 Trang wrote:

5. Block chance is king: Bonus block chance is really big. You are a 1H + Shield user. Why would you not try to maximise your block chance? You may as well get 50% extra dps as a 2hander if you aren't utilising your shield. The effect of block chance is hard to quantify from the character sheet alone. However, my experience, and the experience of many others shows that it makes a HUGE difference. You want all the block chance you can afford.

Buy a shield with high block chance and decent ALL RES. They are not expensive. Do NOT waste money on a Storm Shield, they are overpriced and their block amount is lower than the Sacred Shield. Get ONLY a Sacred Shield (iLvl 63). Start out with a 20% block chance with 70+ Res Sacred Shield. 20% is the highest natural block chance without any +%block attributes on the shield. These should be dirt cheap. Once you have more cash, try to get a higher block chance (27 to 29% is great) and then extra attributes like STR/VIT/CRIT once you have even more money (but these are expensive).

Helm of Command is so easy to get that it should be mandatory. One with average, but still useful, roles is cheap (meaning VIT with a bit of STR, or maybe a socket). Justice Lantern is very expensive, but if you can afford one, get one, though I would only try to get one once you are at the stage where you are thinking about trading tankiness for DPS --- since before that point you really just need to focus on maximising that EHP for as cheap as possible.

Additional notes: I now use this calculator to take into account block chance: http://rubensayshi.github.com/d3-ehp-calculator

Every extra 1% block chance gives me 75K more EHP against blockable attacks. This is HUGE, and is the reason why I still run with a Justice Lantern.

Now below, some discussion regarding Storm Shield and Justice Lantern. Feel free to form you own opinion on it!

On July 21 2012 06:21 BlueBird. wrote:

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On July 21 2012 02:50 Trang wrote:

On July 20 2012 21:36 BlueBird. wrote:

I like your sword and shield guide, however I'd like to comment on storm shield...

Stormshield isn't really overpriced, according to the ehp calculator I was using, block amount difference between a sacred and a stormshield doesn't matter whatsoever when i take a 70k hit(avg hit from act 3 mobs). Also you can't block the things that can actually kill you in act 3, molten, firechains, plagued etc.

5% elite reduction(extremely extremely important) and all resist and high block chance, make stormshield a really really cost effective item for survivability, especially if you get good dps stats on it. I have not seen a sacred under 50 mil that compares on an ehp calculator to my 8% crit stormshield, and have only seen a few above 100 million, the reason to go for a sacred is actually for crit + magic find + high resist + str/vit + good elite reduction + 7+block chance on the same piece, which you sadly can't get on a stomshield, so if your going for the best best best end game gear stormshield is not it, you can get much much better sacreds, I just haven't seen any of them on the ah, I think I saw a really good one for 180 mil once

. Considering my stormshield with 8 crit was only 30 mil, and I think they are cheaper now, I got a pretty damn good deal.

Helm of command is good, it can have good stats for a barb and that block chance is great.

Justice Lantern is just awful now, I don't recommend anyone ever getting one of these, they might be good defensively, but you can't block the stuff that can actually kill you, and the low ilvl of the ring makes it awful for dps stat rolls, which the ring is a great place to get.(low attack speed, low crit dmg, low crit chance, low min/max dmg, low resist rolls even) Basically I don't think people should be rocking justice lantern anymore. Only unique rings really worthwhile is skull grasp, and well rolled bul kathos)

Interesting post, and it motivated me to do some extra research on the numbers. I really like to have open discussions on this stuff! Below are a few of my thoughts after reading yours. Please note, my numbers are based off my own gear (ie EHP).

Stormshield - block amount: Yes, it seems that if Act 3 mobs do on average around 70k damage a hit, then with my current gear (97% total damage reduction) the higher block amount of a sacred shield is wasted. Harder hitting mobs will mean there is some benefit from the higher block amount of sacred shields, but its small. So very good point you made here!

Stormshield - elite damage reduction, and unblockable damage: Yep, I agree with your point how the main threat is elite damage, and often the dangerous stuff like Molten is not blockable. However, an elite damage reduction of 5% for me amounts to only an extra 120k EHP for me (from 2180k to 2300k). So it is useful if you can afford it, but not huge. To put it in perspective though, a typical Storm Shield will have 1000 Armor (+ extra 80 from STR) and 65 RES. Compared to a sacred shield with 1150-1200 Armor and 75-80 RES, thats an EHP decrease of around 60k for me. So the increase from 5% elite damage reduction is a measely 60k for me (or 2.7%), which is only equivalent to 40-45 VIT for me. Nice but not big. Let's continue the analysis

Stormshield - cost: However, I'm not convinced that the Storm Shield is more cost effective. A 27% block sacred shield with 75 All Res will go for 1M. A 27% block chance Storm Shield will cost a lot more than that, probably 10M+, definitely no less than 5M. Adding some crit on these shields, the Sacred Shield will cost you 5-10M, meanwhile the SS would be easily 20M+. Of course the Storm Shield has the extra 80 STR too, but I have my other gear slots for STR, I want to maximise my block/crit with my shield.

Block % cost effectiveness: My EHP calculators tell me that each 1% block chance gives me about 76k EHP against blockable attacks. This is huge. This means that a 27% block chance sacred shield with 75 RES which goes for 1M is WAY more cost effective against blockable attacks than the cheapest 3-4M Storm Shield with only 19-21% block. Against unblockable attacks, then yes Storm Shield is better, but only slightly as discussed above, and I reckon for the extra cost you can just get 50 VIT on your shield and it will fill in the gap against unblockable attacks AND give you a higher %block chance for blockable attacks.

Justice Lantern: Considering that 1% block = 76k EHP for my gear, that's 836k extra EHP against blockable attacks from the 11% block chance of the justice lantern alone. Then there's the extra 100 Armor and 60 VIT. As far as defence goes, it's a hugely cost effective in terms of item slot use. 15-20M gold for 900K extra EHP on a single item slot is pretty good. And hey, at least it's not 40M+ like a Skull Grasp!.

I can see what your saying about the cheap sacred being really cost effective, 1 mil is a nice cost. But I think stormshield is still a great go to shield in between that one and an insane sacred. Maybe I'm asking too much from sacred but on NA there are zero I'm interested in with crit, mf, all resist search. All resist + crit chance + block chance search doesn't leave me with any results either ;/.

I still can't get behind justice lantern, mobs just don't hit me hard enough for me to care about 900k ehp vs non elemental damages(even though 900k ehp is pretty damn insane for 1 piece of gear). If it gave you 900k ehp vs molten or something then i can see it being worth a slot(no questions asked), but I'd much rather have an all resist + vit + offensive stats in that slot. I think if your comfortable with this much ehp then it's ok, but I'd work on transitioning away from it so you can farm even faster, but feel just as comfortable.

Reiterating the principle of Tank before DPS + comments on prioritising Physical/Fire over other Resistances:
+ Show Spoiler +

On July 30 2012 11:37 Trang wrote:

Show nested quote +

Also furious charge, which is a much lower cool down, heals you and repositions you

Only WotB breaks frozen though

Show nested quote +

Agreed, LoH/Life Steal/Life Regen are not necessary per se. Think of Revenge as your primary source of sustain, and these stats only supplement the Revenge sustain you already have. In this sense, they lower the bar you have to reach in terms of EHP in order to tank for long enough, but if your EHP is sufficiently high you won't need them.

Boss fights like Diablo/Ghom where your Revenge hardly ever procs are an exception though, because an inexpensive amount of LoH will go a long way to making those fights easier --- so just have a weapon and amulet on switch for that.

Show nested quote +

You took your weapon off on your screenshot so looks like you have no DPS

It's ok, you mentioned you have around 25k in your previous post anyway.

Alright, so 25k dps is pretty good for where you're at. I was farming Act 2 fairly comfortably with lower DPS than that, and able to solo until the end of inferno on something like 15k.

This might sound a bit strange, but you will need more tankiness to kill faster. It makes sense when you think of it the following way. There's your character sheet DPS, and your actual DPS. If you are kiting half the time, you are actually doing half the DPS shown on your character sheet. If you are tanky enough you will be able to dish out the full amount of DPS without interruption. You want to aim to be able to keep attacking while standing in one elite effect, like Plague or Molten. This way you will be able to take down elites with much less interruption, and with 25K DPS you should be able to take down some or all of a pack within your WotB (in Act 2 anyway). Being able to tank 2 or more effects at once is what you're aiming for eventually, but right now at least be able to tank one effect.

Skills: Can't see your passives right now, but looking at your Armor it looks like you have dropped either Nerves of Steel or Tough as Nails? I certainly would keep both Nerves of Steel and Tough as Nails at the moment. Use Superstition if you feel elite effects are really messing you up badly, otherwise Ruthless.

Gear: Your STR is pretty good, you don't need more right now. It's actually your VIT/RES that are lagging behind. Some more Armor would always be nice too. I would say concentrate on increasing the VIT/RES/Armor on your gear slots without sacrificing STR, and worry about Crit later once you have about 1400-1500 STR and VIT, 10K+ Armor buffed (easier to achieve with both Armor passives), and 800+ RES buffed. These are just ball park figures, extrapolating from what I have now and based off my fuzzy memory. When gearing, take note of which Armor slots favour what stats. Finding high VIT is easy on Chest and Pants.

Edit: I just noticed your Crit chance is very good already. You don't need more right now

If you can't achieve a higher All RES without spending too much, prioritise Physical and Fire. Most damage dealt to you is physical, and most nasty elite effects are fire. Just remember to pay extra attention to dodging Arcane Enchanted. In my honest opinion Plague/Electrified aren't real threats on their own, and Frozen is only deadly for the lock rather than damage. So having your current All RES but 900 buffed in both Physical and Fire will also work. It will all depend on what good buys come up on the AH at the time.

Also consider getting a Helm of Command. The block chance will make a difference. I would aim for some STR, good VIT and a socket. It doesn't need RES. It'll be cheaper to find a HoC with 150 VIT than one with 80 VIT and 50 RES and the EHP is about the same on both. The socket is the most important, with a Star Amethyst (500k) thats 15% life, which is worth over 150 VIT on it's own in terms of EHP. Of course extra Armor is nice, but not as high priority as the other stats on your HoC.

On the subject of block chance, see if you can snag yourself a Sacred Shield (iLvl 63) with 70+ RES and 27-29% block. Just a blue one will do, you only need to search for RES and +% block. It will only cost you between 200k - 1M depending on the block amount, and your luck. If you really are on a budget, you can settle for 25% block for 100k or lower.

Hope this helps

Importance of movement speed on your boots, dealing with kiting mobs, illusionists and nightmarish:
+ Show Spoiler +

On July 30 2012 11:51 Trang wrote:

Show nested quote +

Your stats are very good! Elite packs that run away will always be annoying. Try your best to corner them. 12% movement speed on your boots will also make quite a difference for these enemies. Personally, I'm willing to sacrifice some VIT/STR to for the movement speed.

Also illusionist mobs are a sword and board barb's wet dream most the time, because we can hit them with Revenge for sustain! I do agree the kiting elites with illusionist are extra annoying though. If you aren't already, turn on monster HP bars with numbers. You can use the HP numbers to work out which one is the real one as it always has the most HP.

Nightmarish can also be annoying. If you need to, use WotB with Insanity to burst down 1 mob or 2 during the CC immunity. This will then reduce the frequency of the fear coming up.

Sorry if I am stating stuff you already know, but hope this helps.

One last thing, you said you have 30k DPS with 5x Frenzy. This suggests to me you are using Maniac. Try Sidearm instead. Here's my discussion on how I compare the two runes: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=338323&currentpage=117#2334
I would like to add on top of that discussion, if you are having trouble against elite packs that kite, and also illusionists, then Sidearm will be more useful for you than Maniac.

All about the incremental increases, also don’t underestimate solid STR/VIT/RES over things like Crit:
+ Show Spoiler +

On August 08 2012 12:50 Trang wrote:

Show nested quote +

You're making progress. At this point in the game, it's mostly about incremental increases. Searching all your slots on AH to see what small upgrades you can find at a good price. At the moment though, there are a few particular slots that jump out at me.

First, your chest has no All RES, you're going to want 50+ on those. Also a higher item level armor will get you more base armor, (+Armor affix is even nicer). Don't be afraid to drop a little STR on your Chest, since your Chest is a strong defensive slot since it favours VIT (refer to this page here http://www.d3rmt.com/guides/diablo-3-item-stat-maximum-values/)

Your bracers have nice STR and perfect Crit. However, they aren't really helping you tank. It's ok to drop 2% or so Crit Chance so that you can get some VIT or RES. You could even drop it all together to get both VIT/RES. It's your call, play around with the numbers in a DPS/EHP calculator. But remember that as Sword and Board barbs, none of our mechanics depend on Crit Chance. Sure, it gives us more DPS, but it holds no special value compared with STR, provided both give the same DPS increase.

Another upgrade could be some extra %Life or VIT on your Shoulders, but I understand if you want to hold onto your MF and it's expensive to get an upgrade there. Shoulders are also a STR slot, so don't feel the need to sacrifice STR for VIT on shoulders.

Some VIT on your Amulet might also help. 200 STR/200VIT with some extra stats don't cost too much. Sometimes you'll find one with extra %Life or RES for pretty cheap. I don't know how much it costs to keep MF on it though. Again, keep in mind I run without LoH, and prefer solid EHP increases over small amounts of LoH. 200 VIT is nothing to scoff at, but it's your call if you prefer the LoH.

Other than that, it's all about gradual upgrades. Eg, extra VIT/%Life on you Belt, higher Armor on your Helm (or any slot you can find one actually), and better combined STR/VIT/RES on any slot you can afford.

Hope this helps.

Edit: forgot to look at your weapon. Yes I agree with SkyR, that you want a better weapon. More raw DPS, or socket, either is fine, it depends what you can get at a good price. However, at this stage I think you need to focus on making yourself a bit more tanky --- 27K dps is respectable --- then you can worry about upgrading your weapon later.

Upgrading your weapon --- Hairy lays down the law on Crit Damage addiction + my additional comments:
+ Show Spoiler +

On August 08 2012 14:12 Trang wrote:

Show nested quote +

Yep totally agree with you there about doing the maths. This is why I always reiterate the importance of understanding all the factors that affect EHP/DPS, and using EHP/DPS calculators to compare gear. At the end of the day, all that matters is the end result of how high you can get your key stats (EHP/DPS/%Block for 1H+Shield Barbs) for the best prices you can find at the time. It doesn't matter what stats you use to get there.

+ Show Spoiler +

On August 09 2012 15:33 Trang wrote:

Show nested quote +

A socket let's you put in a Crit Damage gem, that's 70% Crit Damage for about 600K. As for whether it's better to spend the same amount of gold on a socket or extra flat DPS depends on your current gear and Crit Chance. I'll reiterate the necessity of comparing items with DPS calculators. Nobody's situation is exactly the same, there is no general rule that applies for every case at every stage of gear progress, and you can only know what is better by looking up the numbers for your own character.

When reading advice about weapons, keep in mind that there are two primary reasons why people often talk about sockets as being the be all and end all.

First, dual wielders prioritise sockets for the huge + Crit Damage. This is true for WW/Sprint barbs especially, where the off-hand damage is not very important, so they value stats over DPS.

Secondly, once you are at end game with a 1100+ DPS weapon and decent Crit, for your next upgrade it becomes harder to get a higher raw DPS weapon that will give the same increase as a weapon with the same DPS and a socket (over 1200 DPS on a 1H isn't so common compared with 1100 DPS with a socket).

For people who are in either of these situations, the considerations affecting what makes a good weapon upgrade are unlikely to be the same as for you. So be wary, not all advice about weapons necessarily applies to your situation. Again, use a DPS calculator to compare similarly priced weapons with different stats, and you will see for yourself what is best for you right now.

In my experience, when I was at a similar stage of gearing, I found it cheaper to get decent DPS + STR on a weapon than to go looking for a socket. Something like ~1000 DPS with ~100 STR, depending on what you can afford. But you can confirm that for yourself

Anyway, as stated in a previous post, I still think you need to upgrade some of your armor slots first.

Hope this helps.

So you’re comfortable farming Act 2, but not quite Act 3? Here’s an example of a road map of how to progress:
+ Show Spoiler +

On August 10 2012 00:34 Kerans wrote:

Show nested quote +

On August 09 2012 15:59 Trang wrote:
+ Show Spoiler +

On August 08 2012 18:09 Kerans wrote:
Since we're back to the subject of sword&board barbs, anyone care to suggest what to do from here?

http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Kerans-2706/hero/1803066

I went for some built-in mf quite some time ago, and I'm up to the point where I can farm act 2 without a care in the world, but act 3 is still rough. Res are 828 (cold) to 940 (phys and fire), armor is 8800 (with warcry and enchantress), dps is 36k with battle rage, crit% 32.50 and crit dmg 309% with battle rage.
Thank you!

1. I prefer Tough as Nails over Superstition, since most unavoidable damage is physical, and many elite effects can be minimised through proper positioning.

2. I like that you have boosted your Physical and Fire RES higher, it's something I recommend as being a more affordable way of boosting your EHP against the majority of incoming damage. In general, your RES is good, and you don't need to look for more right now.

3. Your Crit stats are good enough, so you don't need to look at upgrading that right now.

4. Consider using an Amethyst in your Helm of Command. If it makes you able to farm Act 3 when you otherwise cannot, it's worth dropping 27% MF for it.

5. What you're looking for are incremental increases to STR/VIT. Any extra Armor is icing on the cake, but not something you should actively search for. At this stage you are thinking of each slot as a combined STR+VIT, and you can convert %Life to its equivalent amount of VIT for the purposes of this tally (in my case its between 12-13 VIT). So aim to increase the combined STR+VIT as much as possible on each slot, without dropping too much RES --- dropping a bit here and there is OK, but you're trying to make progress here, not break even.

Eg see if you can get +100 on pants, +50 on gloves, +50 on bracers and so on. Eventually, these increases all add up, and you would have the same Crit/Res, but a large amount more Life and Armor (from STR and Nerves of Steel), and maybe more DPS depending on if you are more STR or VIT heavy.

Unfortunately, MF makes it a bit more costly to get these upgrades. You're either going to have to pay the big bucks, or be willing to drop some MF to be able to farm Act 3 for the better chance to get iLvl 63.

6. After you get yourself some more STR/VIT (something like a combined 3000+, give or take depending on +%Life), see if you can get higher raw damage on your weapon. Also don't limit yourself to a socket. A 1100 DPS weapon with STR, might turn out better for the same price --- check all your options on a DPS calculator.

7. Next try to get a Shield with 27% or more block chance, 60+ RES, and some Crit. It won't matter too much if you drop 2% Crit Chance or something, the extra % block chance is huge. I think I worked out for myself that each 1% gave my barb 75K more EHP against blockable attacks. This is the one reason why I have chosen to keep my Justice Lantern, but seems like I'm one of the last people around still running with one.

Edit: 8. Try to get some RES on your Chest. Sure you will lose some STR in the process, but that means you can concentrate on making your Right Ring more focussed on VIT/STR/Crit instead of RES. Keep in mind, Chests can get max 80 RES, but rings only 70 RES. Chests also have access to less kinds of affixes than rings, and you can craft 6 affix Chests, making Chests with STR/VIT/RES way more common than STR/VIT/RES Rings. This means that it is easier to find upgrades on your primary stats while maintaining 60+ RES on your Chest than it is to do the same for a Ring. Therefore get RES on your Chest so your Rings can focus on core stats (STR/VIT/%Life) and damage affixes (IAS/CC/CD).

Hope this helps

This is just the kind of road map I was hoping for

As a matter of fact I just tried going back to Act 3 today, after dropping and Amethyst in the HoC (which I do everytime I try Act 3), getting a sacred shield with 23% block chance and all res (and a little less crit% indeed) and switching Ruthless for Tough as Nails, and things went smooth indeed for pretty much everything which didn't have extra health, some mobs I was even able to almost burst down in a single WotB.
Yeah, chest is indeed the next piece of the puzzle, I'll definitely work on that. Thanks again man!

EDIT: 4.1 Know Gear Slot Potentials

One of the most important things for knowing what to prioritise on what gear slots is knowing what every slot can potentially spawn with.

Use this reference page here: http://www.d3rmt.com/guides/diablo-3-item-stat-maximum-values/

You need to know this by heart for the following stats: STR, VIT, RES, %Life, CC, CD, IAS.

OK so let's apply some of these ideas. Each Armor slot favours one Core Stat, except Gloves which have 2 favoured stats, and Bracers which have none. For our purposes, Shoulders and Belts can spawn with 300 STR, and Chests and Pants can spawn with 300 VIT. Every other Armor slot can get only 200 STR/VIT. Rings get 178 of any stat, and Amulets 302 of any stat.

What does this mean? When looking for gear, prioritise high STR on Shoulders/Belts, and high VIT on Chests/Pants, to maximise their potential. Of course, you will try to get good STR/VIT otherwise on these slots and others too, but if you ever wondered why 125 STR and 125 VIT bracers seem so expensive for what you get, this is your answer.

Please note that the below is not intended to be any rule that must be followed. It's only a general guide is as to why it is most cost-efficient to gear in a certain way. If you find a good bargain that is contrary to the analysis below though, go ahead and buy it!

Offensive, Defensive, Balanced Weightings for Gear Slots

Now, I try to think of slots as either offensive or defensive or balanced. Shoulders/Belts are offensive because of the high STR. Chests/Pants are defensive. Helms, well your helm will be a Helm of Command. Bracers/Gloves are up to you, for me Bracers are balanced, and Gloves are more offensive. Boots for me a balanced since I run Sage Seekers for the 12% MS. My Amulet, and Ring (except my Justice Lantern) are balanced to offensive slots. You can see these weightings correlate with the STR/VIT/Crit stats these slots can spawn.

For the purpose of the following discussion, we will assume that 1 RES = 1.5 VIT. The ratio depends on your current gear, and chances are 1 RES < 1.5 VIT, but the round numbers make it easier. We'll also assume that 1%Life = 12 VIT. Again this ratio could change depending on your gear.

Now for a good, but not amazing, item slot with a defensive focus, I try to aim for around 60-80% of the defensive stat potential for the gear, and then 25-50% offensive stat potential. It is the reverse for a slot with an offensive focus. For a balanced slot, I try to get 40-60% for each stat. As you become more developed in gear, you will start to break past these ranges. These numbers are just a rough guideline, and I'll explain why I recommend this approach through examples below:

Example 1 --- Defensive Chests

First let's compare offensive versus defensive weighting for a Chest. Assuming a Chest with 50 RES, it is easier and cheaper to find a Chest with 200 (out of 300) VIT and 50 (out of 200) STR than a Chest with 125 VIT and 125 STR. This is because they are simply more abundant.

Ok so let's get more specific, and look at just the defensive stats. How do I weigh up RES/VIT priorities when searching the AH? Assume 50 STR. A Chest with 50 (out of 80) RES and 180 VIT is cheaper than 70 RES and 150 VIT, and the EHP-worth is about the same. Again, this is because Chests with 180 VIT are more abundant than Chests with 70 RES.

Because of this, you can get a Chest with 60 RES, 175 VIT and 75 STR for under 1M, while a Chest with 70 RES, 125 VIT and 100 STR will cost you more.

Example 2 --- Offensive Belts/Shoulders

Assuming 50 RES, try searching for a Belt with 125 STR and 125 VIT. Now try searching for a Belt with 175 STR and 50 VIT. Which one was cheaper? You bet, the second one. Try the same for Shoulders, you will find the same thing.

Maximising EHP for a Single Slot --- Amulet Example

As I described above, with the Chest example, sometimes it is cheaper to go for mid-range RES to get a higher VIT. Let's look at an example where the difference is more pronounced, the Amulet. For me the Amulet is a balanced to offensive slot. You want good STR, as well as one or a combination of CC/CD/IAS. You also want one or two defensive affixes though --- RES/VIT/%Life.

So let's consider the max defensive stats on your Amulet: 70 RES, 302 VIT, 14% Life. What does this translate to in terms of EHP using VIT equivalents. 105 VIT from RES, 302 VIT, 168 VIT from %Life. Flat VIT is the clear winner.

Many people on the AH don't understand EHP very well, and there tends to be an obsession with RES. You will notice on forum threads people always talk about how much RES they have or need. This is good for us. Guess what, it's easier and cheaper to find 75 VIT than 50 RES on an Amulet. It's easier to find 200VIT than 125VIT+50RES. Use and abuse this.

Further still, and this is something that breaks this 60-80% of potential guideline I was talking about. People undervalue %Life on Amulets for some reason. It is easier to find 80 VIT + 12%Life than 225 VIT or 150VIT + 50 RES. This is significant, because once you are add in the presence of 200 STR with a bit of CC/CD/IAS, then suddenly people realise that an extra 200 VIT is worth of a lot gold too, but people fail to price VIT + %Life together as high as they should be.

5 CLOSING REMARKS

The Tanky DPS Barb may not be as flashy as the WW/Sprint Barb or as bursty as a Dual-Wield/2-Hand Barb, but hopefully I have shown you that what makes the Tanky DPS Barb good is versatility. We’re good solo, but also in parties. Because of our innate tankiness that does not really on LoH, Cooldowns, or Fury gimmicks, we can tackle any situation the enemies throw at us --- swarms of mobs, multiple elite packs, bosses.

If you’re already trying to make a Tanky DPS Barb, good on you, keep persevering and I hope this post has helped you in some way. All the best!

Thanks
Trang

Kerans

Italy58 Posts

August 13 2012 13:29 GMT

On behalf of anyone who's trying to get anywhere close to the monstrous amount of EHP you're sporting I take off my hat to you, Trang. Excellent contribution and effort on your part with this thread.

vol_

Australia1608 Posts

August 13 2012 13:43 GMT

Thanks for keeping the tank barb fire burning Trang, I will read the whole thing eventually

Some of your comments in the barb thread have helped me out a lot thou so thanks.
Pretty jelly of your gear, I am at about 1,500,000 ehp pre block 46% block with 32k dps and 900 LOH.
There are a few elites at the end of act 3 that can kill me with crazy affixes but that is about it. Looking to get rid of my LOH for some more EHP and DPS but I will wait till the patch comes so I can balance my character to accomodate the adjusted difficulty.

The last moster damage nerf saw a huge reduction in tank barbs, this next one will hopefully make 2H builds viable. Looks like shields are gonna get even cheaper and with monsters hitting softer its going to be easier to reach that point where you can facetank 3 packs with good DPS. It's a good time to be a tanky barb!

Trang

Australia324 Posts

August 13 2012 13:44 GMT

On August 13 2012 22:29 Kerans wrote:
On behalf of anyone who's trying to get anywhere close to the monstrous amount of EHP you're sporting I take off my hat to you, Trang. Excellent contribution and effort on your part with this thread.

Thanks, and you're welcome! Hope you don't mind I used your case as an example for gear advice

Trang

Australia324 Posts

August 13 2012 13:51 GMT

On August 13 2012 22:43 vol_ wrote:
Thanks for keeping the tank barb fire burning Trang, I will read the whole thing eventually

You're welcome and yep, I hear ya regarding the patch. I also hope that the 1.4 patch changes to iLvl 61 and 62 weapons will make it easier to find a decent DPS 1-Hand weapon

PS Happy Birthday :D

trinxified

Canada7774 Posts

August 13 2012 14:01 GMT

I really like this. I wanted to do this too, but I couldn't find a decent high block% shield, and a decent helm of command for my limited 100 mil (had to re-gear every piece), so I decided to jump on the bandwagon and do WW/Sprint.

Black Gun

Germany4482 Posts

August 13 2012 16:31 GMT

really a great guide, lots of effort put into this. although i personally prefer builds with a moving attack (aka ww, which only works well in combination with the cookie cutter sprint/ww build...), this is great info, particularly for those guys who are not rich enough to afford all the crit gear for double nado.

vol_

Australia1608 Posts

August 14 2012 13:54 GMT

On August 13 2012 23:01 trinxified wrote:
I really like this. I wanted to do this too, but I couldn't find a decent high block% shield, and a decent helm of command for my limited 100 mil (had to re-gear every piece), so I decided to jump on the bandwagon and do WW/Sprint.

You must be aiming pretty high, I have spent nowhere near 100 mil on my gear and I am farming act 3

dadde

Italy314 Posts

August 14 2012 14:13 GMT

ehy trang!this guide seems wrote for my barb!i m having a lot of problems tanking in act 3 while the rest of my party try to dps (we play inferno always in 4).really good job dude!

Burrfoot

United States1176 Posts

August 14 2012 14:30 GMT

#10

Nice write up, this was what I imagined barb play to be more like before all the wrist-excercisinh WW specs out there. I hated the WW play style mostly other than the fact it was essentially immune to cc the entire time you could keep wrath up.

Hairy

United Kingdom1169 Posts

August 14 2012 17:30 GMT

#11

Very nice writeup, and it makes sense given the situation in the barb thread (it felt a little like two conversations were going on at once). I also noticed the quote - cheers

Your playstyle was one that I was initially going for, before I discovered WW/sprint and thought it looked fun. Now that everyone and their mother is WW/sprint I feel a little dirty being yet another of the pack, so I may venture back in this direction. I don't think I'd need to change much gear; probably just a shield, justice lantern and HoC.

hunts

United States2113 Posts

August 14 2012 22:49 GMT

#12

Nice guide, and nice to see more barbs sticking to the sword and board instead of jumping on the double tornado bandwagon!
Here's my barb, though I don't think my gears quite as impressive. The 1 other barb friend I have that still plays does the double tornado and keeps wondering how I live with 0 life on hit lol.

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/hunts-1629/hero/13785460

Trang

Australia324 Posts

August 15 2012 03:25 GMT

#13

Yeah, I'll be the first to admit that gearing the Tanky DPS Barb is not cheap. The fact that you don't need to stack Crit only makes it more bearable

I think that relying on solid core stats (STR/VIT/RES) though is always a safe bet, and in that respect I think that we are pretty resilient to any adverse effects from future patches. Who knows what the changes to skills in 1.04 will bring to the viability of WW/Sprint Barbs compared to Barbs with solid stats.

Hairy, in terms of switching between the two builds, I guess it depends on your gearing philosophy. If you have good core stats, then it is easy to transition to a Tanky DPS Barb. Good, but not amazing, Shields and Helms of Command are relatively inexpensive (under 2M). The more expensive Justice Lantern is optional, I like it, others don't. If you are Crit heavy though, then you might have to look to drop a bit for more STR/VIT.

It goes the other way too. A 1H+Shield Barb will just have to switch out his Helm of Command/Justice Lantern/Shield for a stat stick off-hand weapon, and helm/ring with CC, and depending on how much CC you already have, swap some VIT for Crit on slots like the gloves/bracers/amulet, and you're good to go.

Hunts, I've had people in game tell me "Lol you have no LoH". I then proceed to run around killing elites without bothering to dodge Arcane/Frozen/Molten explosions/Plague and so on, and they shut up, haha. The funniest is when I kill a bunch of Molten elites, and just loot without caring about the blast, and because they see me stay, they forget about the Molten blast and die trying to loot too.

Nice Barb by the way. One thing I noticed though is that your life would be easier if you squeezed in a little more VIT. One example where you can squeeze in more EHP is your amulet. 52 All RES, will probably be equivalent to roughly 70-75 VIT in terms of EHP (might be more or less for you). It's way easier to find 150-200 VIT than 52 RES on an amulet, seeing as the max VIT on an amulet is 300, while the max RES is 70. +%Life is also another stat that often comes cheap on amulets.

This makes me thinks I should add in a section about knowing your gear slot potentials ... might add it in when I've got more time

Edit: I added in a new section about gear slot potentials and weighing offense/defensive stats on each slot.

pedduck

Thailand468 Posts

August 15 2012 04:24 GMT

#14

Any suggestion in gerneral for the up coming patch? Should I sell my helm of command and justice lattern and buy it back after patch? Thanks

Trang

Australia324 Posts

August 15 2012 04:39 GMT

#15

Pedduck, I'm not the kind of person to speculate. I have no idea what the patches will bring to legendaries to be honest, and whether it will affect our Helm of Commands/Justice Lanterns by a lot. We would have to wait for when Blizzard releases more patch details, but by then any chance for profit would be reduced. But, hey, that's why they call it speculation, you're taking a chance on something you think might happen, but don't know for sure will happen. In my case though, I only paid 2M for my Helm of Command, and 11M for my Justice Lantern. Compared to the expensiveness of upgrading other slots, I won't be too bummed out if I lose a few million in value, since I'm pretty sure solid STR/VIT/RES items will retain good value (relative to other items anyway, we don't know what will happen with systematic market inflation/deflation).

My aversion to speculation is part of why I play a Tanky DPS Barb who relies mainly on the core stats of STR/VIT/RES, since I can say with certainty that these stats will never stop being solid (by contrast IAS stackers got hit hard last patch).

Edit: just read the Blizzard preview on Legendary Item changes. Some legendaries are not being buffed, and Helm of Command is one of them

vol_

Australia1608 Posts

August 15 2012 10:17 GMT

#16

On August 15 2012 12:25 Trang wrote:
The funniest is when I kill a bunch of Molten elites, and just loot without caring about the blast, and because they see me stay, they forget about the Molten blast and die trying to loot too.

I love it when this happens haha

Randomaccount#77123

United States5003 Posts

August 15 2012 12:53 GMT

#17

--- Nuked ---

trinxified

Canada7774 Posts

August 15 2012 23:36 GMT

#18

On August 14 2012 22:54 vol_ wrote:

Show nested quote +

You must be aiming pretty high, I have spent nowhere near 100 mil on my gear and I am farming act 3

Can I see your gear? Here's mine: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/trinxified-1614/hero/2139049

Trang

Australia324 Posts

August 16 2012 08:42 GMT

#19

I've spent less than 100 mill on my gear, I worked it out to be around 80M. To be honest, my gear is probably worth a lot more than 100 mill, but I've gotten gear at bargain prices from just being patient on the AH. I don't play so much any more, so my gear changes quite infrequently. But when I was more active I was spending probably 1-2 hours a day on the AH.

Here's a link of how much I paid for my gear: http://i.imgur.com/0jCeP.jpg

Keep in mind, most of this gear was bought a month ago, or earlier even. I've only replaced one slot in the past 2 or 3 weeks.

I've colour coded a bit what I think about the price I paid versus it's worth at the time. It's less about price difference, and more about difficulty of buying though (how quickly do you have to click that buyout button).
Red = Holy shit that was cheap, I only got this because I was the first person to see it.
Orange = Really good deal, probably would have been swept up by someone else within 15 minutes at most.
Blue = Good deal, would have been bought in under an hour I'm sure.
White = I bought these items on bid rather than buy-out. I think I paid a decent price for it.

Some of these pieces would have inflated in price by now, so you probably shouldn't expect to get gear as good for as cheap. But you get the picture that you can get good prices if you patient. If you're lucky you'll get a 'LOL' moment like my Chest piece ... haha.

PS I realise my Gloves, and Rings especially were absurdly cheap for what they have. At the time I got them patch 1.03 had just come out, and not everyone had quite caught on about the value of Crit yet

Still, the Gloves/Right Ring were still cheap even without the Crit, which is why I put them in the Red category. My Justice Lantern is worth a ton now for having both CC/CD, however, at the time everyone was looking for Justice Lanterns with STR or IAS, which is why I put it as Orange even though in terms of cost/value it was really bloody cheap.

Kerans

Italy58 Posts

August 16 2012 08:58 GMT

#20

Jesus, when you get over 65k HP Revenge becomes a thing of immense beauty...

pedduck

Thailand468 Posts

August 16 2012 09:43 GMT

#21

As of now I estimated that it would take just around 50m to get 700 resist 12000 armor and 40+ block with 3000 str+vit. The problem is to put cri chace and cri damage in to those gear gonna double or tripple the cost. Hopefully some new legendary after patch might help.

Black Gun

Germany4482 Posts

August 16 2012 16:12 GMT

#22

On August 16 2012 18:43 pedduck wrote:
As of now I estimated that it would take just around 50m to get 700 resist 12000 armor and 40+ block with 3000 str+vit. The problem is to put cri chace and cri damage in to those gear gonna double or tripple the cost. Hopefully some new legendary after patch might help.

3000 str and 3000 vit and 700 ar unbuffed and decent crit chance and crit damage on one set of gear - and all that for 150m? what exactly are you smoking?
1.5 billion sounds more reasonable for such extraordinary stats.

Trang

Australia324 Posts

August 16 2012 16:12 GMT

#23

On August 16 2012 17:58 Kerans wrote:
Jesus, when you get over 65k HP Revenge becomes a thing of immense beauty...

Isn't it! It takes a while to get to the point where Revenge alone lets you tank Act 3, but when it happens you suddenly feel unkillable

The thing with a Barb is that things often feel on the extremes of either super easy or hopelessly hard. But every small increase will make more and more stuff feel super easy until eventually the whole of inferno is easy.

Taking my net damage per second example further:

Say you are fighting a 3 elite pack in Act 3, and they each attack 0.5 times per second and after taking into account elite effects do 110K unmitigated damage a hit, for a DPS of 55K. With a 35% block chance, which is achievable with only a Helm of Command and no Justice Lantern, most damage will be reduced to zero, but not the elite effects. We'll consider this a 25% reduction in damage for simplicity's sake. So you you take 41.25K DPS per Elite. So that's 123.75K damage per second you are taking, unmitigated. We'll round this down to 120K DPS since you are pro and can dodge elite effects right?

You are attacked 1.5 times a second, your Revenge procs 0.45 times a second. Assuming you can hit all 3 with Revenge you are getting 6.75% EHP back per second. For simplicity I'll round it to 7%, which makes sense since you have the occasional Furious Charge or Potion to save your ass anyway

.

So, receiving 120K unmitigated damage a second, and healing back 7% EHP a second, let's calculate your EHP loss per second starting at a low EHP of 500K.

500K EHP --- Damage = 24%EHP/sec --- net loss of 17% EHP/sec --- You die in 6 seconds, ouch, this is impossible!
600K EHP --- Damage = 20%EHP/sec --- net loss of 13% EHP/sec --- 7 seconds. I thought inferno got nerfed, wtf?
700K EHP --- Damage = 17%EHP/sec --- net loss of 10% EHP/sec --- 10 seconds. Seriously guys, what's the deal?
800K EHP --- Damage = 15%EHP/sec --- net loss of 8% EHP/sec --- 13 seconds. Why does anyone play barb?
900K EHP --- Damage = 13%EHP/sec --- net loss of 6% EHP/sec --- 17 seconds. Wtf, barb is shit.
1000K EHP --- Damage = 12%EHP/sec --- net loss of 5% EHP/sec --- 20 seconds. I feel like giving up.
1100K EHP --- Damage = 11%EHP/sec --- net loss of 4% EHP/sec --- 25 seconds. So I read that the DH is pretty good.
1200K EHP --- Damage = 10%EHP/sec --- net loss of 3% EHP/sec --- 33 seconds. Or maybe I should play Wizard?

1300K EHP --- Damage = 9%EHP/sec --- net loss of 2% EHP/sec --- 50 seconds. This isn't bad, maybe I'll try a bit longer.
1400K EHP --- Damage = 8.5%EHP/sec --- net loss of 1.5% EHP/sec --- 67 seconds. Hey stuff is starting to die now.
1500K EHP --- Damage = 8%EHP/sec --- net loss of 1%EHP/sec --- 100 seconds. Hey barbs aren't so bad actually.

1600K EHP --- Damage = 7.5%EHP/sec --- net loss of 0.5%EHP/sec --- 200 seconds. Lol, this is pretty easy actually.

1700K EHP --- Damage = 7%EHP/sec --- break even --- Never die --- Lol, barb why did I ever doubt you?

1800K EHP --- Damage = 6.7%EHP/sec --- net gain of 0.3%EHP/sec --- Never ever die. My barb is so badass.
1900K EHP --- Damage = 6.3%EHP/sec --- net gain of 0.7%EHP/sec --- Seriously never die. Lol can't be bothered dodging Molten/Arcane/Frozen anymore.
2000K EHP --- Damage = 6%EHP/sec --- net gain of 1%EHP/sec --- Even 1000 ping doesn't kill me. Yawn.

2100K EHP --- Damage = 5.7%EHP/sec --- net gain of 1.3%EHP/sec --- I think it's time to write a Barb guide, lol <--- this is me

As you can see it is hard for a pretty long time, and only gradually gets less hard. But eventually you hit this golden threshold, where suddenly pretty quickly it goes from super hard to pretty bearable to so easy you can play with your eyes closed.

A few other notes on the above:
1. In fact it will often be easier as there will usually be trash mobs triggering more Revenges, and being additional targets for Revenge.
2. Often, you only need to last as long as, or slightly more than the duration of WotB. After that, you will have usually killed at least one elite, and done extra damage to the others from Sidearm/Revenge. So 30+ seconds of tanking 3 elites is probably enough time to make it manageable. Taking into account point 1 above, you will probably also get a free 10+ seconds of tanking as well, since trash mobs will put you easily into the positive (grace period is probably a bit shorter for the extremely low EHPs).
3. Of course for Act 1 and 2 you hit this golden threshold, where things get easy really quickly, way way earlier

PS Kerans, nice to hear you are getting to experience that 'hmm this is pretty easy' point now

Trang

Australia324 Posts

August 16 2012 16:14 GMT

#24

On August 17 2012 01:12 Black Gun wrote:

Show nested quote +

I think he means a total STR+VIT of 3000

Which is quite achievable. 12000 armor unbuffed is really bloody high, so I assume he means buffed too

Black Gun

Germany4482 Posts

August 16 2012 16:24 GMT

#25

On August 17 2012 01:14 Trang wrote:

Show nested quote +

I think he means a total STR+VIT of 3000

Which is quite achievable. 12000 armor unbuffed is really bloody high, so I assume he means buffed too

ok, 3000 combined str and vit and 700 ar buffed with decent crit for 150m sounds doable, albeit hard.
but im from EU and ive heard that our AH is ridiculously overpriced compared to the US one. so maybe its not too hard to get this on US...

Hairy

United Kingdom1169 Posts

August 16 2012 16:40 GMT

#26

On August 17 2012 01:24 Black Gun wrote:

Show nested quote +

I'm in EU; my barb has 2900 combined str+vit, and there is no way in hell my gear is >150m. That would be an average of 11.5 million per item! My average item value is half of that, if not less. And that's bearing in mind I have 51.5% crit, 329% crit damage, attack speed etc; if we're talking about building a tanky barb without the expensive crit items 50m is definitely feasible.

pedduck

Thailand468 Posts

August 16 2012 17:43 GMT

#27

On August 17 2012 01:24 Black Gun wrote:

Show nested quote +

I mean 3000 from total str+vit. but the point is even at 1800 str and 1100 dps 1 hand weapon, the damage is just around 20K+ If I want to be Tanky DPS barb (like Trang) I will eventually have to stack cri and cri damage. That would cost a lot more than just Tanky barb. and if I trade of my EHP for my DPS, I will become DPS barb not The tanky dps barb.

TheRealArtemis

687 Posts

August 16 2012 21:19 GMT

#28

My gear costed me about 150 mill. Some I got cheap, some didnt. And I honestly think it would cost around 500+ mill to get those stats.

http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Artemis-2465/hero/876094

I Consider myself a tanky DPS barb, without the crit though. I just need some pants with str sockets, and I should be golden. 12k armor, 40 block chance? 700 all res unbuffed. yeah. you cant get that for 50 mill. But would love to see a budget guide to that.

But though I am wearing my ridiculous Lacuni ^ Could get alot more with a solid bracer, but hey, I love me movement and attack speed. Plus I can get away with it^

Trang

Australia324 Posts

August 17 2012 00:10 GMT

#29

TheRealArtemis, and Pedduck if you aren't already, try using Ruthless/Marauder's Rage. Without those two, I'm sitting on 31K DPS. But those two skills bring me up to 48K DPS.

Also, if I take off ALL my Crit stats, but keep Ruthless/Marauder's Rage, I still have 35K DPS buffed, which is quite respectable for having no Crit or IAS stats at all.

You can achieve pretty decent damage using just those two skills, provided you have the EHP to be able to afford it. Which I know you can TheRealArtemis, your EHP is pretty big already, so you can afford to drop Superstition and either Ignore Pain or Leap.

TheRealArtemis

687 Posts

August 17 2012 00:33 GMT

#30

On August 17 2012 09:10 Trang wrote:
TheRealArtemis, and Pedduck if you aren't already, try using Ruthless/Marauder's Rage. Without those two, I'm sitting on 31K DPS. But those two skills bring me up to 48K DPS.

Also, if I take off ALL my Crit stats, but keep Ruthless/Marauder's Rage, I still have 35K DPS buffed, which is quite respectable for having no Crit or IAS stats at all.

You can achieve pretty decent damage using just those two skills, provided you have the EHP to be able to afford it. Which I know you can TheRealArtemis, your EHP is pretty big already, so you can afford to drop Superstition and either Ignore Pain or Leap.

Well, I doubt Im changing leap for something else. That skill alone have saved my ass from being chain frozen on top of arcane several times, plus its very good to chase down ranged mobs. But, I am "trying" to switch out ignore pain, for something else in act3.

Its pretty useless in act2 for me. I usually run earthquake there, with Wrath. Those 15 sec are enough to take out any elite pack, or close to.

But I dont know if Marauder's Rage is worth it, in the end, instead of Ignore pain. I dont always use Ignore pain, when I meet mobs in act3. But there are those moments where its nice to take 65%less dmg, like if your trying to chase a molten, shielding, arcane mix.

And I do kill the mobs fast enough, unless its an ekstra health mob. 25k dmg, with 5 stack frency.

In the end, I want my barb to be as close to 30k base dmg, before frenzy, with 100k health. =_0 But I feel I need some crit gloves for that kinda dmg. And Im trying to save gold for the new legns. ^^

Big G

Italy835 Posts

August 17 2012 17:32 GMT

#31

This was my style as well, then I realized that farming act II with high MF is much more efficient and I didn't need a ton of EHP. So I gradually traded stats for magic find, reaching +170% base mf with good dps (42k atm) and enough survivability to never die. Build and setup (sword&board) are still very standard, only exception is Sprint-Marathon which I'm experimenting with. And Cleave-Broad Sweep instead of Frenzy.

Trang

Australia324 Posts

August 19 2012 03:45 GMT

#32

On August 17 2012 09:33 TheRealArtemis wrote:

Show nested quote +

The thing is that changing skills is free. But changing gear is expensive. If you're using Ignore Pain only occasionally, then you can afford to drop is for extra damage if you already have one other defensive skill. You won't have to be chasing those annoying mobs for as long if you can kill them faster. Also, that 5 seconds of reduced damage every 30 seconds isn't all that reliable compared with a permanent +30% DPS.

Not only that, it will be more cost effective to boost your EHP through gear, and get the extra damage from Marauder's Rage. If you consider all my analysis in my OP and above, it will be plain that gearing up for +30% damage is more expensive than +30% survivability (which only requires less than +10% in EHP)

Trang

Australia324 Posts

August 19 2012 03:48 GMT

#33

On August 18 2012 02:32 Big G wrote:
This was my style as well, then I realized that farming act II with high MF is much more efficient and I didn't need a ton of EHP. So I gradually traded stats for magic find, reaching +170% base mf with good dps (42k atm) and enough survivability to never die. Build and setup (sword&board) are still very standard, only exception is Sprint-Marathon which I'm experimenting with. And Cleave-Broad Sweep instead of Frenzy.

Whatever floats your boat mate. My advice is aimed more at breezing through Act 3, than farming efficiency as I don't really farm any more these days. Just waiting for the game to give me more incentive in terms of end-game goals than just stockpiling more gold ... then I might have a reason to start farming again

hunts

United States2113 Posts

August 19 2012 03:54 GMT

#34

On August 19 2012 12:48 Trang wrote:

Show nested quote +

I was like that too, tried farming act1/2 in MF gear but it was boring. So now I play a bit, but when i do i just do act3 and am aiming at replacing my gear with act3/4 capable gear with MF. Stuffs pretty expensive though

Kerans

Italy58 Posts

August 19 2012 20:29 GMT

#35

On August 17 2012 01:12 Trang wrote:

Show nested quote +

PS Kerans, nice to hear you are getting to experience that 'hmm this is pretty easy' point now

Nice indeed Trang, here's where I am so far

http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Kerans-2706/hero/1803066

I finally switched chests (god, that was a costly upgrade) for one with All res and some better pants: still keeping superstition because I just seem to be a magnet for Horde-Plagued mobs, and speccing full tank with 32k DPS (buffed) is still enough to cause some serious havoc. And I keep the topaz in the helm because Revenge generally keeps me standing up through all but the hardest of mobs anyway, even with "only" 62k HP

Trang

Australia324 Posts

August 21 2012 08:49 GMT

#36

Hmm don't see any significant buffs from patch 1.04. Some things will make our lives easier (eg weaker arcane beams, less kiting from some mobs etc) but really those things make everyone's life easier. At least we didn't get nerfed in any way though

dadde

Italy314 Posts

August 21 2012 09:17 GMT

#37

what about Rend+Blood lust? 700% dps with life on damage seems quite interesting
...isnt it?

Trang

Australia324 Posts

August 21 2012 10:17 GMT

#38

On August 21 2012 18:17 dadde wrote:
what about Rend+Blood lust? 700% dps with life on damage seems quite interesting
...isnt it?

Seems more of a buff to 2H Barbs to be honest. The only skill I might consider dropping is Battle Rage, because the other skills are just too necessary/good. We'll have to wait and see if the new Rend/SS/HoA are good enough to be worth dropping a quasi-permanent 30% damage increase, but I imagine that if they are good enough, then they would benefit 2H barbs way more for how they provide burst which scales with flat weapon damage.

vol_

Australia1608 Posts

August 21 2012 11:50 GMT

#39

Act III and Act IV
Normal monster health increased by 10%
Elite monster health reduced by 2.5%
Overall damage done by all monsters reduced by 15%

15 fucking percent.

The spawn points of Arcane Enchanted beams have been adjusted slightly to be more spread out, and their damage has been reduced by approximately 30%

Fire Chains damage has been reduced by 20%

so I guess we just run through and pull the entire act now right? Aoe down 10 elite packs at a time?
If only such a massive area existed

I guess my days of dying are over.

Trang

Australia324 Posts

August 21 2012 12:04 GMT

#40

Yeah vol_ it's going to be piss easy now to tank Act 3. With my current EHP, I might not even need a shield to tank multiple elites anymore. If that's the case, I might consider getting a 2H weapon or off-hand, and extra helm/ring to switch out for solo farming. The shield style might become an intermediate step until you have the EHP to tank using 2H or DW builds. But ultimately I still want to keep a shield for party play, and I hope that the shield style will remain worthwhile eventually in PvP.

The patch timing is unfortunate for me though. I'm going on a 3 week overseas trip in a couple of days, so I'll miss out on experiencing all the big changes, and I won't get to profit from the market before it stabilises. Well, hopefully I hear good news regarding barbs on my return though

Hairy

United Kingdom1169 Posts

August 21 2012 21:21 GMT

#41

While I praise the write-up very much for its quality (it really is a very good post), I tried the build today and wasn't really having much fun (I thought I'd try it out to see if it's something I wanted to gear towards). It was pleasing to be able to stand and tank incoming damage like a boss, but I feel pathetic to how I perform as WW/sprint. I actually levelled up using a build extremely similar to this, but I don't see myself going back any time soon.

I am getting pretty tired of sprinting, though... perhaps a flashy 2H build using one of these fancy new patch weapons? :D

Trang

Australia324 Posts

August 23 2012 02:13 GMT

#42

Ok so I played around a bit with Rend (Bloodlust). It's good, but I can't say definitively if it would make things easier or not for the other Barbs out there because I already have no trouble surviving. Also, so far I have played mainly with my friends in a 4 person party, so it was hard to measure the effectiveness of the different build variations I tried. But here's a few points I noticed or thought about:

1. Sustain functions similarly to Revenge --- It is good sustain provided you have sufficient DPS. Sustain is proportional to number of mobs around you. In this sense it benefits and suffers from the same characteristics as Revenge --- ie makes you invincible when swarmed by many enemies, but less effective sustain against few enemies. There are some differences between Rend and Revenge which I cover below though ...

2. Rend's sustain scales off your DPS and Damage Reduction (Armor/RES), but not your HP or EHP --- maybe it is a better pick for people with high DPS and RES, but average HP. Probably best just to give it a shot and see what works better for you.

3. Rend sustains over time rather than immediately --- This means that you can regen life while you are kiting an Arcane effect. Pretty useful. However, the downside is that unlike Revenge, if for some reason you take a burst of damage, then you cannot get a burst of HP back as quickly. This mean's that if you do not keep your Rend constantly up, (eg you forget to cast Rend, or you get CC'd by Frozen or Nightmarish or something) then you might be putting yourself in danger if you are not sufficiently tanky to survive until Rend brings you up again. Meanwhile, in such situations, a cast of Revenge can often quickly bring you up to full again.

4. Rend depends on fury rather than chance procs --- Rend's frequency of use depends on you attacking, rather than you being attacked. The rate at which you are generating fury is generally constant so long as you can attack continuously, and it's usually enough to spam Rend. Meanwhile, for Revenge there are more factors that might affect how often you get hit, the main one being the presence of other party members. In a 4 man party you don't get hit very much, which means that Rend could be a more reliable than Revenge in these cases. There is a downside to Rend though, in that at the start of fights or if you are kiting a lot, you may be lacking fury. In these cases, you may struggle to get the fury up and start to gradually sustain back if you are against enemies that deal bursty damage. Meanwhile with Revenge, you simply run in, cast Revenge, and continue attacking as per usual.

5. Where to fit Rend in your build? Obviously you need a primary skill (haven't tried Bash/Cleave enough to know if they are worth taking instead of Frenzy) and War Cry, and I don't see why anyone would want to drop WotB once they have it. That leaves Revenge, Battle Rage, and your defensive skill --- in my case Furious Charge.

The first combination I tried was dropping Furious Charge. My sustain was monstrously easy with Revenge and Rend both. However, whenever I was completely surrounded, and had 3 arcane beams and desecration hitting me, I had no mobility to get out. Without the EHP I had, I wouldn't have stayed alive, and sometimes I did in fact die carelessly. The thing is that sustain was easy with Revenge alone already in the majority of cases, and it was only in tough situations like the one I just described where I needed Furious Charge to reposition. In this sense, Rend in place of Furious Charge made the easy stuff easier, but the harder stuff harder.

The second combination I tried was replacing Battle Rage for Rend. Survivability was off the hook. I had both Revenge/Rend as well as Furious Charge for mobility. As for damage, the jury is still out on that one, I couldn't work out if it was increasing my damage output by much or not because I had a full party of 4. I get the feeling the damage is probably a bit higher. Because of the double sustain skill set I could probably try dropping Tough as Nails for Weapons Master as well to further increase damage. Will have to try it out some more.

The third possibility is replacing Revenge with Rend. This is to maximise damage by keeping Battle Rage, meanwhile keeping Furious Charge for mobility. Revenge and Rend both serve very similar roles. In terms of sustain, I think the circumstances will dictate whether Rend over Revenge increases or decreases your sustain potential. My gut feeling is that solo, Revenge is a safer sustain option, but Rend will do a bit more damage. Like I said, I haven't really been able to play solo much to test this out though. Also, Rend will only be good sustain if you have good DPS, like I have. I would think that if you are still sub 20K DPS, Revenge is without a doubt more reliable sustain. As alluded to above, in a party Rend might be more reliable if your DPS is decent. Again the point at which one becomes better than the other will probably depend on a lot of things: your DPS, your HP, your RES/Armor, solo/party play. Best thing is to try it out.

6. Rend crits and refreshing Rend --- here's a quote of a post I made half an hour ago in the Barb thread about refreshing Rend and Rend crits:

On August 23 2012 10:31 Trang wrote:
If you watch Rend closely, you will notice that individual ticks don't crit. What happens is that at the moment when you cast Rend and it hits a target, the game will then determine if there is a crit for each target. If you don't crit, the ticks are as per usual. If you do crit, then you will notice all the ticks will be higher than usual. During all this no yellow numbers appear. This means that in a normal fight when you are dishing out other damage too then it is hard to tell if you scored a crit and on which monsters.

The thing with refreshing Rend is that you if you crit, you can overwrite a crit by refreshing Rend with a non-crit Rend, effectively reducing your damage output. While this might sound bad, if you are refreshing Rend at regular/consistent intervals, then the overall effect in terms of crit distribution is the same anyway. On the other hand if you were skilled enough at reading your damage numbers you could continue to refresh Rend until you do in fact crit. You would probably only bother to do this when you have reduced the fight down to just the elites or for single bosses. I couldn't be bothered myself.

So the conclusion is refresh as you need to, either to make sure you have Rend active on as many enemies as possible, or to ensure damage when you expect your damage output will be interrupted (either by mobs kiting or anticipated CC effects like frozen).

Now, I have yet to try Hammer of the Ancients or Seismic Slam. The problem with them is that they don't increase your tankiness/sustain. Therefore, the only slot I can see myself giving up for one of them is Battle Rage. They would have to do enough damage to warrant dropping Battle Rage.

This concludes my analysis so far. Unfortunately, I won't have time to play for at least 3 weeks, as I'm going on an overseas trip tomorrow. Please keep the discussion going without me

Trang

Australia324 Posts

August 23 2012 02:17 GMT

#43

On August 22 2012 06:21 Hairy wrote:
While I praise the write-up very much for its quality (it really is a very good post), I tried the build today and wasn't really having much fun (I thought I'd try it out to see if it's something I wanted to gear towards). It was pleasing to be able to stand and tank incoming damage like a boss, but I feel pathetic to how I perform as WW/sprint. I actually levelled up using a build extremely similar to this, but I don't see myself going back any time soon.

I am getting pretty tired of sprinting, though... perhaps a flashy 2H build using one of these fancy new patch weapons? :D

No probs, Hairy, it's not everyone's style. Just like WW/Sprint isn't mine. I hope I have still provided info that has been useful to you though

I just played around a bit with a cheap 2H weapon using Rend. I am probably doing more damage, but damn, I just can't get over how slow my attacks are. After being used to a 1.40 aps weapon for 99% of my time as a barb, I just can't get used to the slow attack speed. Didn't enjoy the feeling of attacking so slow, so I switched back

iLLusive

United States274 Posts

August 23 2012 03:46 GMT

#44

Trang could I get a link to your Bnet profile to see your current gear / spec? Also done very good since patch in selling off some craftable helm / belt / shoulders so have 250$ sitting on my acct and intend to take that into a good weapon / maybe new helm or rings(Rings might be too expensive). So guess im asking if you could buy an AFFORDABLE 1hander in 25-50$ range would you still looking for just weapon DPS / str in the search?

Thanks for breakdown of Rend think I will keep my build as is and slowly work past my 25k current DPS as I feel I am pretty tanky in Act 2 and do ok in Act 3 just lack DPS.

Trang

Australia324 Posts

August 23 2012 04:12 GMT

#45

Sure: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Trang-6265/hero/3963417
My gear is mostly the same as before. Only change I think is my shield, which I managed to pick up at a bargain price of 2M this morning. So far I've still got the old skill setup until I get to play around more in a few weeks time. I put in a Ruby in my helm last night, just for the bonus EXP, so a bit less HP than usual.

Also, I think I just happened to have WotB active when I left the game (testing my numbers

) My DPS is actually around 49K with Marauder's Rage.

As for a weapon, I'm sure you can get pretty good stuff for $25-50. The market is in a volatile state now though, because of how iLevel 61 and 62 weapons have been made stronger. You could try to either capitalise on somebody underpricing an item, or wait for the market to stabilise. In a few days, the market might end up saturating with decent weapons and cause them to be quite cheap. On the other hand, the patch is bringing more players back to the game, so there might be a higher demand for good weapons that are beyond what iLevel 61 and 62 weapons can achieve. I'm not much of a speculator, so it's up to you how you want to approach it. I don't trade on the RMAH though, so I don't know too much about how well the market follows the GAH.

I think that within your budget you can find a weapon with solid DPS/STR. But I think at that budget you're hitting the point where it's also worth searching for Crit Damage/Socket as well. You probably won't find something comparable in terms of DPS for cost, but you might get lucky! Compare what you find in a DPS calculator

vol_

Australia1608 Posts

August 23 2012 10:58 GMT

#46

Your thoughts on Rend were helpful Trang thanks, I also can't figure out where to put it the build.
Battle Rage is at the top of my list of skills to cut but I think I will use the higher damage rune if thats the case, although your idea for taking out an armor passive for weapon master sounds good too, I'll give them both a shot over the next few days.

E: Blasting through the keep depths with weapon master and rend blood lust, I have 28k dps and just blasted a pack of health link lashers before way before wotb went down. It is sooo sweet for white mobs too, u can just run past and rend them once with a few requiring a revenge to finish off.
Got the hang of hitting rend then just running away to gear swap, so much less painful than having to wait for follower to dps.
Rend is awesome.

E2: Running 'Rendvenge' with just the 1 armor passive Im clearing act 3 much faster and even had a run with no deaths :O

dadde

Italy314 Posts

August 23 2012 19:20 GMT

#47

Trang,may i ask you a tip?
i got 3 rings,and i dunno how to combine them.here are my stats with 2 combinations...but i dunno which one to use!what wuld you do ? I m a tank and i like playing in party (i really hate solo), so my main job is to "bleed" for the others.On the other hand,i dont want to bhe ABSOLUTELY USELESS.

The screens are taken with 2 active bufs : Damage one (rage) and Res all (the scream).
Sorry for the italian link,but i got D3 in ITA :S

Can you help me?thanks.Actualy i've jsut started ACT 4.

[image loading]

Dave

Markwerf

Netherlands3728 Posts

August 24 2012 11:57 GMT

#48

Rend seems awesome for this build. The damage it does is insane, I feel you do much more damage with it then with battle rage. The lifesteal rune may not be as good as the heal does not seem that significant but the extra damage rune is very good as well.

I also feel bash -> punish is better then frenzy now if you're not running any (significant) life on hit.

frenzy with sidearm does 1.1 * 1.25 * 1.75 = 2.4x damage to single unit with some splash.
bash with punish does 1.65 * 1.24 = 2x damage but also gives your other spells a 24% buff.
Bash is also better from the first strike whereas frenzy needs more time warming up, bash with punish is active in 3 attacks timings, frenzy needs 3.95 attack timings (1 + 1/1.15 + 1/1.30 + 1/1.45 + 1.60)

With rend the bash punish definately does more damage and works a bit better with kiting as losing stacks is not as bad as with frenzy. Plus 24% damage on your rend really makes it an awesome aoe, with the lifesteal even a decent sustain.
The knockback and faster fury generation are just gravy and make it even sweeter for quickly firing off rend and Wotb, especially when you don't have battle rage to worry about anymore.

Trang have you tried this setup:

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/barbarian#acSVkP!ZYb!bZcccZ

I think it will let you do far more damage while actually having better surviveability. You lose the 30% from marauder rage but gain 15% from weapons master which with the insane damge from rend let's you steal quite some life. I'm pretty sure bash is an upgrade over frenzy for you as well, either you are kiting in which case bash is better for sure or you are standing surrounded by guys in which case the extra damage from rend because of bash stacks outweighs frenzy as well plus against a single target the knockback is good as well.
Personally I think leap with iron impact is better than dreadnough as well but that's personal preference. The increased armor from leap is great with healing effects like revenge/rend and i prefer it for positioning over dreadnaught. It's also better against low amount of units as the armor effect is independant of hitting units whereas dreadnaught isn't. Finally leaping into a fight is pretty good because of the armor effect lasting afterwards whereas charging into a fight doesn't do anything if you're full health already. Anyway either are quite similar so it doesn't matter too much.

vol_

Australia1608 Posts

August 25 2012 00:46 GMT

#49

I will have to try bash, found myself running low on rage when i spam rend too much.

Edit: Bash actually gives too much rage and when the boost to rend damage is factored in is comparable DPS to Frenzy. ~~One downside to Bash I noticed is it takes slightly longer to finish a bash and cast a Rend and feels smoother with Frenzy~~ (this seems to just have been some good ol aussie lag). It's a tough call and they feel different to use so I think its safe to say use whatever feels best for you.
Im using Bash for now because it sounds like cannons firing ^_^

bruteMax

Canada339 Posts

August 31 2012 13:27 GMT

#50

I love this thread, quite possibly the most informative and well-written in the D3 forums.

I switch between s&b and a simple dw build and with my gear farm act 3 fairly comfortably. I'm squishy when I swap in the MF gear so I have to time the last elite mob somewhat carefully.

Here's my profile with s&b gear: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/bruteMax-1914/hero/3288774

I wish I had a bit more all-res and vit, but overall the sustain from Rend and the heals from Revenge keep me in the thick of things most of the time. Looking for a decent Hallowed Storm to get that extra all-res and dps boost.

Mainly just want to add that I dropped WotB in favour of Leap. I find with Battle Rage I have more than enough dps to drop elite packs fairly easily. The problem with WotB is that it's too good lol. My dps gets too high and I end up without enough time to swap into MF gear. With WotB active a Rend tick usually finishes off the last elite mob before I finish swapping gear. Argh! I also miss having a mobility skill, and Iron Impact gives me the def bonus I need when swapping into MF gear.

I used to use Maniac rune but the Sidearm rune does kill stuff faster. I mutter a thanks to Trang everytime I see 100k crits from a Sidearm proc.

Any advice on the gear/build? I use pretty much the same armor when I dw.

iLLusive

United States274 Posts

August 31 2012 18:42 GMT

#51

So Trang I have run into a wall and hoping you can provide some suggestions. I feel I am very comfortable with this spec and rarely die in A3 but I clear pretty slow. What would be 2 items I could replace that would really bump up my DPS from 32k?

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/iLLusive-1834/hero/20808608

Tried the WW build but I need more practice so I am sticking to sword & board since it's fine playstyle for my current schedule. I get maybe 1 to 1.5 hours to farm every other day and maybe 1 day off every 2 weeks (which just happens to be today!) so I really want to build up my paragon and killing stuff faster is going to accomplish that. I see tank builds with 50-75k DPS I just need to figure out what I am lacking that will still let me survive A3.

bruteMax

Canada339 Posts

August 31 2012 19:04 GMT

#52

I'm no Trang, but my guess is get rid of Cleave and swap out an def passive for weapons master.

TheRealArtemis

687 Posts

August 31 2012 21:17 GMT

#53

On September 01 2012 03:42 iLLusive wrote:
So Trang I have run into a wall and hoping you can provide some suggestions. I feel I am very comfortable with this spec and rarely die in A3 but I clear pretty slow. What would be 2 items I could replace that would really bump up my DPS from 32k?

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/iLLusive-1834/hero/20808608

Tried the WW build but I need more practice so I am sticking to sword & board since it's fine playstyle for my current schedule. I get maybe 1 to 1.5 hours to farm every other day and maybe 1 day off every 2 weeks (which just happens to be today!) so I really want to build up my paragon and killing stuff faster is going to accomplish that. I see tank builds with 50-75k DPS I just need to figure out what I am lacking that will still let me survive A3.

If I were you I would get rid of that justice lantern ring. Since the nerf, Inferno has pretty much become a free ride. You dont need all that block. I got a 32% stormshield and doing just fine. (given that I also have alot of all res/hp) I even switched out my helm of command for a tempo twilight, because now I can stack as much dmg without hurting my survivablity.

http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Artemis-2465/hero/876094

Second, perhaps the amu. It does really nothing but give a ton of hp. If you want a dmg boost, you need the crit or attack speed.

I myself is trying to get myself as much dmg now that inferno has gotten alot easier. Before I had a 400 loh gem in my sword, doesnt even miss it anymore. I just really really need some good gloves but those things costs a to.

See.Blue

United States2673 Posts

August 31 2012 21:58 GMT

#54

If this is my current profile:

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/seeblue-1408/hero/18697939

What should I invest in more of to go down this road? And also is life on hit worthwhile still?

iLLusive

United States274 Posts

August 31 2012 23:01 GMT

#55

Thanks for the replies folks but I thought as a sword and board build crit was really to not benefit in comparision to pure STR? Did the patch change how Crit works for us DPS wise or something?

So I have np replacing the Justice Latern should I just seek a ring with roughly 75 str / 3 crit maybe some Loh or ias?

Looked at Tempo helms but I don't have 20-50m to spend on a helm right now is there any more affordable options in like the 5-10m range or 10ish$ on RMAH?

I am really open to any critisism out there being I have been basing my gear off profiles here and stats important to have enough Health / AR and armor to survive Act 3 comfortably. Been doing that for a few weeks so I now need to increase my DPS to increase speed of runs.

farvacola

United States18857 Posts

September 01 2012 18:29 GMT

#56

This thread is awesome, as sword and board just seemed the most natural way to play a D3 barb for me personally. Thanks Trang.

incinerate_

172 Posts

September 02 2012 15:24 GMT

#57

On September 01 2012 06:58 See.Blue wrote:
If this is my current profile:

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/seeblue-1408/hero/18697939

What should I invest in more of to go down this road? And also is life on hit worthwhile still?

It would be helpful to know how tight your budget is. Cheap upgrades should be your off-hand ring (look for something with comparable strength, and some VIT. Other good things to have are %Life, All Res (but see Trang's guide), Fire and or Physical Resist are also a definite bonus. I would also upgrade the bracers (look for STR, VIT, All Res, Phys or Fire Resist are a bonus). I know Magic Find is tempting, but this should not be your first priority.

If you can afford to lose the LoH sustain on your amulet I would also consider replacing it by sth with more Str, Vit, %Life. But the other slots are more easy to upgrade in my opinion.

Also the block chance of your shield is rather low. The highest spawn is afaik 20%. I would upgrade that rather sooner than later.
In general your hitpoints seem very low. So I would definitely look for some more VIT and %Life.

Edit: Spelling.

Burrfoot

United States1176 Posts

September 03 2012 14:00 GMT

#58

Speaking of block chance, how good is block overall? Should be fairly easy to stack 50% with 2x justice lanterns, HoC, and buffed 1.04 shield. There is also a new weapon and some pants that have block too. All are quite cheap nowadays. I read you can block ground effects and fire chains, but figured I'd ask in this thread... Is everything blockable minus status effects or whatnot?

Kerans

Italy58 Posts

September 03 2012 14:14 GMT

#59

On September 03 2012 23:00 Burrfoot wrote:
Speaking of block chance, how good is block overall? Should be fairly easy to stack 50% with 2x justice lanterns, HoC, and buffed 1.04 shield. There is also a new weapon and some pants that have block too. All are quite cheap nowadays. I read you can block ground effects and fire chains, but figured I'd ask in this thread... Is everything blockable minus status effects or whatnot?

I don't think you can stack 2 JLs. That aside, I find block to be awesome around the 30-35% range, I'm at 31% with 11k armor, 900-1100 AR and 60k HP and whenever I get a fire chain mob I just ignore it. That said, you can't block desecrator, plagued, arcane and frozen, so that, coupled with the last nerf of 1.0.4, would lead me to suggest that JLs are overkill right now, and personally I'd say the same of block itself above 27-28%. Personally, if I could get my hands on a reasonably priced 27-28% block/CC/AR/STR sacred, I'd probably ditch my HoC for something more offensive-focused.

Burrfoot

United States1176 Posts

September 03 2012 14:21 GMT

#60

I believe you can equip a 1.03 and 1.04 JL at the same time. Haven't personally confirmed though. So you can block fire chains but not arcane? As melee the main problem affixes I have are molten on a mob that runs..

Kerans

Italy58 Posts

September 03 2012 14:31 GMT

#61

On September 03 2012 23:21 Burrfoot wrote:
I believe you can equip a 1.03 and 1.04 JL at the same time. Haven't personally confirmed though. So you can block fire chains but not arcane? As melee the main problem affixes I have are molten on a mob that runs..

You're not alone man

but no, only thing that works against molten is fire resistance as far as I know.

CT Legacy

United States57 Posts

September 04 2012 07:04 GMT

#62

Rend for me is awesome! I've been using a 2H build since the game came out. with Frenzy/maniac the DPS is pretty insane. Right now i'm pretty low with all mf/gf gear. But you give up a little bit of tanky-ness for a lot of killing power. 700% of your weapon damage with a 2H is a TON. tick are usually around 10k and i'm sure I could get a lot more in my full gear.
I think the buff was awesome and I did the whole 1H LoH build just for solo-ing and its great but in a party I much prefer 2H rend/revenge. Still stuck in A2 but haven't updated all of my gear since the patch so I don't really see a problem getting a bigger boost when I do update

McNulty

Norway184 Posts

September 04 2012 07:25 GMT

#63

On September 04 2012 16:04 CT Legacy wrote:
Rend for me is awesome! I've been using a 2H build since the game came out. with Frenzy/maniac the DPS is pretty insane. Right now i'm pretty low with all mf/gf gear. But you give up a little bit of tanky-ness for a lot of killing power. 700% of your weapon damage with a 2H is a TON. tick are usually around 10k and i'm sure I could get a lot more in my full gear.
I think the buff was awesome and I did the whole 1H LoH build just for solo-ing and its great but in a party I much prefer 2H rend/revenge. Still stuck in A2 but haven't updated all of my gear since the patch so I don't really see a problem getting a bigger boost when I do update

Thing is, 2H has "always" worked perfectly fine in A2. That's the only thing I ever played on my barb, and with a self found 2H weapon and AH gear for about 8 mill, A2 was no problem.

However, once you get to Skull cleavers, Tremor, Quillrats, Spearmen and all that other nasty, slow hitting stuff in A3, the problems arise. On alot of the elite groups, you take more damage than you are able to recover from. Skull Cleavers are especially nasty, since their slow attack speed gives very little Revenge procs, but hurts like hell.

Sure you can kill alot of the elites, but most of them will require atleast 1 death. Atleast at my gear level I found it to be inefficient for farming...

Have not played much Barb since patch, so can't say for sure how it pans out with the stat buffs to two handers, the new skills and so on. I guess it should work pretty good with decent gear and the right skills (no shit sherlock). Tried out the new 405% dmg rune for Hammer, and must admit the crits with it and 2H are pretty funny. With WOTB up the standard number is 800-900k, and the highest I've had have been 1,2 million.

vol_

Australia1608 Posts

September 04 2012 08:43 GMT

#64

I think if you go 2 hander a slam build would be better than rend/revenge in act 3. Rend and revenge are such tanky skills and if you arent using a shield you probably want to avoid getting surrounded and instead line em up!

After reading bruteMAXs comment and upgrading my weapon I dropped WotB for Battle Rage and im loving it, I really hated the 2 min CD and with the Bash buff up I am at 66k dps now and the rends are so beautiful.

Big G

Italy835 Posts

September 04 2012 13:11 GMT

#65

I love Rend with my style, I usually sprint & leap back and forth while spamming rend over 9000 mobs. I'ts very fun. Shield is still useful, 200str and 10%cc can outperform most 2handers while providing a lot of survivability.

http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/BigG-2621/hero/412709

daredpanda

United States60 Posts

September 05 2012 20:47 GMT

#66

First of all. GREAT GUIDE!

I've found my self at a rut. I can solo act 2 no problem. Act 3, I need more EHP. Any advice for which of my armor pieces i should upgrade first?

And how do you farm for good gear and gold? I noticed in your gear you have no mf. I've been incorporating mf in my gear so I can get some gold and good gear to sell

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/RedPanda-1900/hero/13142956

thanks!

Kerans

Italy58 Posts

September 06 2012 00:25 GMT

#67

On September 06 2012 05:47 daredpanda wrote:
First of all. GREAT GUIDE!

I've found my self at a rut. I can solo act 2 no problem. Act 3, I need more EHP. Any advice for which of my armor pieces i should upgrade first?

And how do you farm for good gear and gold? I noticed in your gear you have no mf. I've been incorporating mf in my gear so I can get some gold and good gear to sell

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/RedPanda-1900/hero/13142956

thanks!

Try to get some more all res on your gear, first of all on your shield (a sacred is not mandatory, but it sure helps with a decent block chance), and more all res on the rest if it if you can. Ditch Juggernaut for Superstition if your budget does not allow this - or rather, ditch Juggernaut whatever you put in its place, in my honest opinion. Jewelry aside, I think that you can skimp on all res on 1 or 2 slots max, but that's just me. Plus, Rend/Blood Lust+Revenge+Furious Charge+Ignore Pain is way too much defensive stuff, try switching one of those for Battle Rage/Marauder Rage for some more DPS, which might actually help you survive some encounters. As for farming, time, patience, an absolute resistance to boredom and constant knowledge of Murphy's Law are the key ingredients.

EDIT: What on earth are you doing with anything but Impunity on War Cry???

daredpanda

United States60 Posts

September 06 2012 03:12 GMT

#68

On September 06 2012 09:25 Kerans wrote:

Show nested quote +

Thanks for the advice. I run with Impunity. Invigorate was just something I was showing to a friend earlier. I don't run with that.

icyF

Finland305 Posts

September 06 2012 06:18 GMT

#69

Hey guys, I've read through this thread and picked up some good advice on the way. I'm currently in Act 2, and some of the tougher elites give me a hard time.

What would you guys suggest I upgrade next in my gear? I currently have around 1m in cash, so maybe just one or two items at most?

http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/icyF-2668/hero/8645775

Good advice is very much appreciated!

edit: And a very big thanks to Trang for creating this guide!

daredpanda

United States60 Posts

September 06 2012 07:00 GMT

#70

Correct me if I am wrong, but I think you should do fine if you change your skills around. I prefer bash w/ pulverize. Better fury generator for rend. And maybe change GroundStomp to FuriousCharDreadNaught. Those are my thoughts. I dont't know where you should start with gear.

Hairy

United Kingdom1169 Posts

September 06 2012 08:30 GMT

#71

On September 06 2012 15:18 icyF wrote:
Hey guys, I've read through this thread and picked up some good advice on the way. I'm currently in Act 2, and some of the tougher elites give me a hard time.

What would you guys suggest I upgrade next in my gear? I currently have around 1m in cash, so maybe just one or two items at most?

http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/icyF-2668/hero/8645775

Good advice is very much appreciated!

edit: And a very big thanks to Trang for creating this guide!

Skills:
I would suggest changing Ground Stomp to Leap + Iron Impact. Iron Impact is actually better than ground stomp defensively, because you are near-invincible while the buff is active. Furthermore, it works for enemies that are a little further away (eg spear throwers), that would not have been hit by your ground stomp stun (because Iron Impact is a buff that is active on you, not a debuff that you must apply to enemies). AND, because enemies are not stunned, they can proc your revenge ability. Plus, it's fun and gives good maneuverability.

Your other skills are fine. You shouldn't need another healing ability; Revenge and Rend should be plenty.

Gear:
The main problem is that your all resist is too low. When going for this build, you want to really push your EHP very high... and your resist is just not high enough. Many of your pieces of gear don't have AR, and the pieces that do don't have very much. This is your primary issue; improving your AR should be your focus! Also - try picking up items that have ALSO have some physical, or fire resist.

Your health is ok, but it could be higher; you have a monstrous 40% life bonus, but you don't have the vitality to make that really shine.

I would also suggest you change your weapon. It isn't very good DPS, and it has no stats that really benefit you at all: that lifesteal is basically pointless, because your DPS is so low it's going to give you a completely insignificant amount of healing. A 1H weapon with ~950 DPS and huge strength/vitality is probably affordable for you, and would give a significant boost.

I note that your gloves have critical strike damage on them. Bear in mind that critical strike damage is a completely pointless stat without a good critical strike chance!

icyF

Finland305 Posts

September 06 2012 10:32 GMT

#72

On September 06 2012 17:30 Hairy wrote:

Show nested quote +

Thanks very much for the quick relpy! I will try this out once I get home.

One more thing tho, do you think it would be vise to swap those rubies in my chest and amulet for amethysts to get my vitality up? If I get a better weapon the loss in strenght shouldnt be an issue.

goof

Norway53 Posts

September 06 2012 11:10 GMT

#73

Hey!

I've been keeping an eye on this thread for a while, because it describes the way I like to play my barbarian the most. But what I'm having issues with is the DPS. I'm really clueless on what to upgrade to increase my DPS so I can make farming A3 more efficient. As it is now I can easily play through both A3 and A4, but it takes a long time, and I feel that I should be able to reduce the time I spend on each A3 farming run.

My barb can be seen here: http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/goof-2739/hero/11585476

I have recently swapped out the shield for a dagger in an attempt to gain DPS, but right now I feel like I lack the survivability I need to play comfortably in A3. With a shield I have about 25k DPS.

I would be grateful if someone took a look at my profile and gave me some hints on which items I need to swap out.

Oh, and I only have about 15M gold right now.

Hairy

United Kingdom1169 Posts

September 06 2012 11:30 GMT

#74

On September 06 2012 19:32 icyF wrote:
One more thing tho, do you think it would be vise to swap those rubies in my chest and amulet for amethysts to get my vitality up? If I get a better weapon the loss in strenght shouldnt be an issue.

That seems sensible. However, I would recommend you go and spent your money on upgrades first. If you then need further health, change the gems as that's easy

Right now you're taking more damage than you're able to heal; the two ways to correct that issue is to A) reduce the damage you take (i.e. improve your AR like I suggested in my previous post), and B) increase your healing. The reason for increasing your health is so that revenge gives you more healing!

Hairy

United Kingdom1169 Posts

September 06 2012 11:35 GMT

#75

On September 06 2012 20:10 goof wrote:
Hey!

I've been keeping an eye on this thread for a while, because it describes the way I like to play my barbarian the most. But what I'm having issues with is the DPS. I'm really clueless on what to upgrade to increase my DPS so I can make farming A3 more efficient. As it is now I can easily play through both A3 and A4, but it takes a long time, and I feel that I should be able to reduce the time I spend on each A3 farming run.

My barb can be seen here: http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/goof-2739/hero/11585476

I have recently swapped out the shield for a dagger in an attempt to gain DPS, but right now I feel like I lack the survivability I need to play comfortably in A3. With a shield I have about 25k DPS.

I would be grateful if someone took a look at my profile and gave me some hints on which items I need to swap out.

Oh, and I only have about 15M gold right now.

Well, the easiest thing by far is simply to change your mainhand weapon. If you're using this style, you don't need ANY healing from your gear; it all comes from skills (revenge / furious charge / rend ). It's simply not necessary.

Go grab yourself a 1100 DPS weapon with your cash (and put your shield back on) and you'll see a substantial improvement in damage. You don't even need a gem slot etc; a gem might improve your overall damage by say... 30%. But all your damage comes from one weapon. So, you may as well just increase your weapon's DPS by 30% instead, for exactly the same gain overall. Weapons without crit damage or a slot tend to be dramatically cheaper, and well within your price range.

icyF

Finland305 Posts

September 06 2012 11:49 GMT

#76

On September 06 2012 20:30 Hairy wrote:

Show nested quote +

That seems sensible. However, I would recommend you go and spent your money on upgrades first. If you then need further health, change the gems as that's easy

Much appreciated!

TheRealArtemis

687 Posts

September 06 2012 15:21 GMT

#77

On September 06 2012 20:35 Hairy wrote:

Show nested quote +

I dont think that loosing all loh will be a good idea. Its true, that revenge prob gives us about 85-95% of our regen, but there are those cases where a loh weapon is good to have. Revenge gets triggered by hits right? So, what about Monster skull cleavers? or golgors. Their hit rate are really slow/medium, but they hit for alot. So our revenge wont get triggered every 2 sec, like with other monsters. mix that in with plaque or molten, and revenge simply isnt build for that. Its designed to get triggered by monster with a high attack speed.

My loh weapon+amu makes sure that even when my revenge doesnt get triggered Im still in the position of regaining life no matter what. OR at least, making sure my hp doesnt drop 5k per sec. my char IS build so I can live without loh, but I still love the system of having like a hp regen backup.

Hairy

United Kingdom1169 Posts

September 06 2012 16:15 GMT

#78

Suit yourself. The new heal from Rend is strong, and I just didn't find it necessary to use any LOH when I was experimenting with tanky builds. Perhaps that's due to the fact that I have better gear, which means I take less damage and rend heals me for more?

trifecta

United States6795 Posts

September 06 2012 17:59 GMT

#79

I've been using Rend with pretty average gear and it works well w/o loh. Just run into the middle of a trash mob, pop rend and then fight elites. rinse and repeat. Health rarely gets into the red unless I'm fighting elites with multiples of plague/arcane/desecrator/etc.

My profile:
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/trifecta-1413/hero/3486871

PS: any suggestions for cheap upgrades?

goof

Norway53 Posts

September 06 2012 19:12 GMT

#80

On September 06 2012 20:35 Hairy wrote:

Show nested quote +

Thanks!

I'll give it a shot! But I find that the LoH is really nice vs. elites with extra health and molten, for instance. Where revenge just isn't enough.

But I'll try with a better weapon!

Serpico

4285 Posts

September 06 2012 22:53 GMT

#81

I love tanky anything in rpgs/mmos. The feeling of being this armor clad behemoth that you can't kill just seems really cool. I have a lvl 18 barb right now but unfortunately there's no way to do it quickly other than to hurry up and grind it out

TheRealArtemis

687 Posts

September 07 2012 01:21 GMT

#82

On September 07 2012 01:15 Hairy wrote:
Suit yourself. The new heal from Rend is strong, and I just didn't find it necessary to use any LOH when I was experimenting with tanky builds. Perhaps that's due to the fact that I have better gear, which means I take less damage and rend heals me for more?

Meh. maybe I havent tested Rend with 'blood lust' enough on act 3, but I can do just fine without ekstra hp regen. But it is a nice replancement for loh. Just think that a nice high loh is better, then what Rend BL can offer. Besides, I cant say no to the ekstra dmg the +900% lacerate gives. Mobs just melt so much faster. Espacially ranged. dont have to chase them so often.

akatama

Romania982 Posts

September 08 2012 11:05 GMT

#83

Really nice guide, than you for writing it, it has helped me so much trying to progress in Inferno. I am now at a strange point with my gear, in the AH most direct upgrades are somewhere in the millions and I only have 5-6 mil total so I can't really afford to experiment.
my barb
Any cheap stuff I might have overlooked? I believe the weapon and helm should be my next pieces to improve, but is there something I'm missing? Also in regards to a socket on the helm, do you think I could drop a exp or mf gem in there, or should I go for a amethyst for the % life?

vol_

Australia1608 Posts

September 08 2012 11:41 GMT

#84

Your belt could get a a big vit boost for cheap and your bracers shouldnt be too expensive to upgrade either.
More strength and AR with less vit might be better bang for your buck shoulder wise.

The gem just depends on what you need. If you dont need the health then XP gem and a spare helm with natural mf + socketed mf for swapping is the best I guess.

icyF

Finland305 Posts

September 17 2012 05:52 GMT

#85

Found a stormshield the other day with 34% block chance. Needless to say, my sword and board barb became way better and I can actually farm ok-ish in act 3-4 now.

pedduck

Thailand468 Posts

September 17 2012 09:28 GMT

#86

1.0.5 seems like an end to this build. so sad. Everybody else will get 25% damage reduction next patch while we get almost nothing.

Hairy

United Kingdom1169 Posts

September 17 2012 09:48 GMT

#87

On September 17 2012 18:28 pedduck wrote:
1.0.5 seems like an end to this build. so sad. Everybody else will get 25% damage reduction next patch while we get almost nothing.

Um, what?

They are reducing damage to such a huge degree on inferno so that even if you DON'T take War Cry, you will take less damage than before. This means you can keep War Cry for even less damage taken, or (if you can comfortably do inferno now) change that skill for an offensive skill to speed up your farming.

vol_

Australia1608 Posts

September 17 2012 09:59 GMT

#88

I guess he means with such low incoming damage whats the point of tanking

It depends on what the new players 8 is like I guess.
I just switched to WW spending 2 mil to try it out and I dont think I can go back. Dieing a lot learning the build thou, havent died in about a month in tank mode

TheRealArtemis

687 Posts

September 17 2012 10:10 GMT

#89

On September 17 2012 18:59 vol_ wrote:
I guess he means with such low incoming damage whats the point of tanking

Yes, I wont switch style. Even if normal inferno will be alot easier and parties wont have any use of a "tank/war cry" anymore. But I have high hopes that the "8 player" command will make inferno terribly hard, and all the DH and WW barbs actually need a tank again. ^^

Perhaps, it will be so hard that we can atually sell our service to people =P

Trang

Australia324 Posts

September 17 2012 13:20 GMT

#90

Hey guys, sorry I have not been able to reply during the past few weeks since I have been on holiday overseas. I'm home again, but about to get really busy soon, so I can't be as active as I would like

I hope that your questions have been answered in the mean time by the many other quality posters in this and the Barb thread, but if you are still looking for an answer for a previously asked question, feel free to ask again

On WW/Sprint versus Tanky builds

Regarding the state of the game in 1.04, once you have a budget where you can afford to go WW/Sprint, there is no question that the Tanky Barb is not as efficient. WW/Sprint simply the best for farming paragon levels, at least in patch 1.04.

Patch 1.05 will make it even less necessary to be Tanky. It does mean, though, that you can still go Sword and Board and drop War Cry for another offensive skill or Sprint (Marathon).

However, keep in mind that there will be PvP in some point in the future. In PvP the WW/Sprint build will not be viable because of how fury hungry the build is. Also, players are smart enough to avoid/run away from Sprint tornadoes.

We will have to see whether 2H, DW or 1H+Shield builds fare better in PvP. I think that the issue for melee characters will be whether you can stay alive long enough before those ranged characters run out of cooldowns/resources (ie discipline) to avoid your attacks. Once they have depleted their mobility/escape skills, then we have free reign to smack them down, and they will go down quickly unless they go tanky (in which case they will do no damage to Tanky Barbs at all). For this reason, I think that Shield users will fare very well. Given the above, I think that having 50% block chance with high damage reduction, negating 50% of incoming damage, will outweigh the 20-40% DPS increase from DW or 2H.

In addition, we have yet to see what these patch 1.05 Infernal Machine and Monster Power features will bring to the game, but I think that there may be some use for Tanky Barbs for at least Infernal Machine fights, which sound more like uber single boss fights than elite pack/monster swarm fights (in which case the WW/Sprint build might not perform so well). If the Monster Power feature increases monster damage as well as HP, then the Tanky Barb might have some use once again for farming paragon levels or gear, depending on how much more efficient it is to farm at high Monster Power.

Therefore, even if you want to switch to WW/Sprint for farming paragon levels (which I'm now trying out currently myself), I suggest that it is worth holding onto your shield and/or gearing with the switch back to tanky in mind. For example, Shoulders, Chest, Belt, Pants and Boots slots don't offer any IAS/Crit, so these slots can be the same for Tanky and WW/Sprint builds. Look to making those slots really good, with high amounts of RES/STR/VIT/%Life (of course 12%MS for boots). That means they will be useful for Tanky builds, but also provide you the good STR and EHP foundation so that you can focus more on IAS/Crit on your other slots for WW/Sprint farming.

On Tanky Barb Skill Builds

As for good Tanky Barb builds, there are a lot of viable options now.

1. Bash (Onslaught) is better than Frenzy now if you're running with Rend, which I think everyone should be running with, except for those at the very early stages of gearing for Inferno. It has better single target DPS, and the fury generation is better. Some people like the Punish rune. I haven't tested it extensively or done the maths, but I find the knock back too irritating, which is why I haven't given it a serious try yet.

2. For farming, if you are strong enough you can try to squeeze in Sprint (Marathon). I can't remember who was the first person to suggest it. I think Big G runs it though. I tried it a little myself and I like it. Props to whoever suggested it.

3. Rend (Bloodlust) is awesome. Try to work it in your build. On Page 3 I broke down my first impressions on Rend when patch 1.04 went live. I still think the analysis holds.

a. If you are struggling to tank with low EHP, but have moderate or better DPS. You can run Bash, Revenge, Rend (Bloodlust), [Defensive Skill], War Cry, WotB. This gives you super sustain, and still a defensive skill for an escape.

b. If you're tanking easily with high EHP, but DPS is low and need faster kill potential. You can run Bash, Revenge, Rend (Lacerate), Battle Rage or [Defensive Skill], War Cry, WotB. With low DPS, Rend (Bloodlust) won't give you much sustain, but Revenge scales well with EHP. In this case, Revenge will continue to perform adequately for sustain, while Rend won't, so we keep Revenge for sustain while using Rend (Lacerate) for damage.

c. If you're tanking easily with moderate/high EHP, and have moderate to high DPS. You can run Bash, Rend (Bloodlust), Battle Rage, [Defensive Skill], War Cry, WotB. With high DPS, Bloodlust provides sustain that is comparable with Revenge's sustain. Since you are tanking easily, you can replace Revenge with Rend so that you have more offensive power. The rest of the skills remain balanced.

d. If you never die with very high EHP, and moderate to high DPS. You can run Bash, Rend (Bloodlust), Sprint (Marathon), Battle Rage, War Cry, WotB. I think this is the best for farming if you are strong enough to tank with only Rend sustain, War Cry and WotB. You have no escapes, so you need to be strong before you choose to do this. If you die occasionally, then it negates the added farming efficiency given by Sprint. This is the build I now run when I go Tanky Barb.

4. Dropping War Cry? I don't think it's a good idea. Not yet anyway. It is still so amazingly cost effective for one skill slot. You are better off changing your gloves or other gear slots for more damage stats or something like that, than dropping War Cry. Patch 1.05 will probably change this though.

Let me know what you guys think

TheRealArtemis

687 Posts

September 17 2012 15:46 GMT

#91

Wellcome back Trang! my mentor ^^

After the 1.04 patch I switched everything around. No more vit gems, 2 defensive passives for offensives. Give a ton more dmg now. ^^ and still doesnt die =P

Yes, Rend is a monster. I pretty much one shot everything (within the 5 sec) with rend, lacerate rune. It helps alot clearing out ranged mobs, but also just huge groups of monster in general. And in my case, since I run with frenzy, I dont really have any AOE dmg dealer, besides revenge, so I think it fits 1h board pretty well.

On an unreleated note. Seeing how war cry gets "nerfed", is it better to aim for more all res, seing how its harder to get closer to 1k. Im thinking in relation to the "player 8 command".

Its really hard to predict how hard its going to be. I think in terms of farming regular act 3 inferno, it doesnt matter. 6-8 unbuffed is probably enough. but if the monster dmg scales insane/arcane etc, it might be "wise" to invest some money on as much all res as possible?

Im thinking right now to buy either some IK boots, or some Ice climbers. Cant really decide which to buy. The IK will give me alot more movement speed, (24 total) and additional 60 all res due to set bonus, Making my all res 800 unbuffed. but the Ice climbers will give me alot more armor/strength, plus alot more hp. the % life alone will give me 10k+ hp.

But I dont know if the 60 res all will be better, because then I can dump the war cry/impunity for something else.

I dont know if I overthink this too much, or too little. the patch is probably a long time away.

http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Artemis-2465/hero/876094

I dont even know what im doing with this char anymore lol. nr 40 EU EHP >__> But that without the puzzle ring.

JustPassingBy

10776 Posts

September 17 2012 15:57 GMT

#92

I think what the tank build of a barbarian really lacks is the ability to draw all aggro on himself.
If there were something like that, I can see this build to be one of the most popular partners to play with for the more fragile classes.

kazansky

Germany931 Posts

September 17 2012 18:11 GMT

#93

First of all, huge props to Trang for the fantastic thread that is easily the best in this forum, it made my really love my tanky barb, and I don't care how 1.05 changes the setup as I just enjoy the way sword and board barb is played :-)

I have a very special question regarding my gear, as I play selffound. The only way apart from luck to improve my gear would be crafting. I own a decent share of 6 stat recipes but I'm not sure which item I should try to improve at first by crafting, or if it is possible at all. (Yeah, I know, gems need upgrades too)

http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Kazansky-2804/hero/1775591

I can tank and farm act3 properly, even more with party, so he's not as helpless as he might look to people that buy gear, but I would still be thankful for some insight.

Hairy

United Kingdom1169 Posts

September 17 2012 18:30 GMT

#94

On September 18 2012 00:57 JustPassingBy wrote:
I think what the tank build of a barbarian really lacks is the ability to draw all aggro on himself.
If there were something like that, I can see this build to be one of the most popular partners to play with for the more fragile classes.

Threatening Shout - Demoralize? It's not exactly an aggro ability like you might find in WoW, but better than nothing.

Big G

Italy835 Posts

September 17 2012 19:28 GMT

#95

Ground stomp - wrenching smash? I played a lot with GS a the beginning, but it was so heavily nerfed against elites that it became useless very fast (it was also detrimental with revenge). With the incoming CC changes, ground stomp and rend together should be very very good for a tanky barb.

Anyway, what I personally need is a replacement for WotB. As dps rises (I'm at 82k with mf gear, otherwise near 100k) even the worst elites aren't really a problem, so I find myself saving indefinetely WotB as an emergency button, for like chain-freeze or double pack or whatever. Eh, sometimes that emergency never comes. I guess I'll wait patch 1.0.5 to see if "players 8" brings in some real difficulty.

@ Trang: yeah it was me!

Duvon

Sweden2360 Posts

September 17 2012 19:31 GMT

#96

I haven't started A3 yet, but at around 25k dps, 1k AR, 8k armor and 16k hp (all buffed), A2 was a breeze with Rend. No WotB, it's overkill I felt.
Crafting a new helmet and putting strength gems in the chest will probably get you some way too kazansky.

Trang

Australia324 Posts

September 18 2012 00:47 GMT

#97

TheRealArtemis, I think that the War Cry nerf won't necessarily mean having to stack more RES. While the nerf will decrease our EHPs, it will also reduce the EHP bar required ... at least in the core game. We have yet to see what happens with the Monster Power and Infernal Machine features. From memory in D2, going from 1 player to 'players 8' would increase damage by 43.5%. If D3 is going to be something similar, and it turns out that playing at high levels of Monster Power is far more lucrative, then we may need even more EHP than we have with a pre-nerfed Way Cry to now to tank. It's too early to tell what exactly will happen, and the best I can suggest is keeping your gear balanced, and emphasising those core VIT/STR/RES/%Life stats, as they will never go out of fashion --- which you are already doing.

As for the boots, I would just work out what the EHP would be with each --- if you can work out what it would be with the War Cry nerf. I imagine the Ice Climbers will give more EHP. You would then consider if the EHP deficit is made up for by IK's 12%MS and higher RES, which is a little more valuable for you because you run with LoH. Personally, I am willing to sacrifice some EHP for 12%MS.

Kazansky, damn man, props to you for playing without the AH. I can't imagine how much harder it would be to gear up. I'm not too sure which slots will be the best to craft for. The thing about crafting is it's very 'spiky' in terms of luck. Most of it will be trash compared to what you have, so I would think that crafting involves just as much luck as farming loot. Basically you're at the point where I start to talk about incremental increases. Your gear has the stats/affixes there, they just need to incrementally get bigger values. Most of your gear is at the point where upgrades are costing more than 1 mill a piece on AH, and at that point it will just be luck and persistence to find better gear if you aren't using the AH.

If you feel you'd like a bit more EHP, your weakest slot is your helm, and maybe a shield with higher block chance could. But I imagine that crafting a shield with block chance as well as good affixes will require a lot of luck. It's not so easy to get a Helm with STR/VIT/RES/Socket all in one too. If you feel you can drop some EHP for damage, then you can gun for more STR on your Shoulders, and try to craft offensive affixes on your Gloves (IAS/CC/CD). Not sure what else to say, since I haven't tried gearing without the AH before.

Trang

Australia324 Posts

September 18 2012 01:04 GMT

#98

Regarding aggro in party games. Yeah I feel the same sometimes that it's not that great. However, I find that as long as you run in first, and your friends position themselves well, then it shouldn't be an issue if they have the DPS they are meant to have as a DPS character. Even if you only manage to draw half the mobs, at least that's half as many for them to deal with, and hopefully they can deal with it quickly. Aggro may become a much bigger issue with the introduction of Monster Power, depending on how the feature pans out. We might have to give skills like Ground Stomp and Threatening Shout a whirl. But for now I feel there's no need to ... except maybe in hardcore, but I don't have the connection to play that

Big G, regarding WotB, yeah I have also sometimes felt like I might try dropping WotB. If you aren't already using Rend or Marauder's Rage it could be worth taking out WotB for the extra damage. When I hit 79K DPS I also felt like I didn't use WotB often. However, I'm also at the point where I don't need a defensive skill like Furious Charge/Leap any more. So even with WotB I can still fit in Bash, Rend, Sprint, Battle Rage, War Cry. Maybe I could bring back Revenge for extra AoE damage, and for the sustain so that I can run Rend with Lacerate or Ravage for even more damage.

Still, one of the things that annoys me most is getting CC chained by a Frozen/Nightmarish elite pack, and even though I don't need WotB to survive, it really is just a luxury in these cases so that I don't have to deal with it.

Maybe try running with Bash, Rend (Lacerate/Ravage), Revenge, Sprint, Battle Rage, War Cry?

icyF

Finland305 Posts

September 18 2012 06:08 GMT

#99

On the topic of aggro, there is also Ancient Spear with Harpoon or perhaps even Grappling Hooks, though I feel Harpoon is better in most situations. So Ancient Spear (Harpoon), Groundstomp (Wrenching Smash/Deafening Crash), Threatening Shout (Demoralize) or Leap (Death from Above), or any mix of these should be efficient for aggroing/tanking mobs.

I tried out Ancient Spear the other day and found it pretty useful against those pesky kiting mobs.

Zrana

United Kingdom698 Posts

September 18 2012 06:43 GMT

#100

As an alternative to my ww build i run with 2hander, cleave, rend, leap+stun, groundstomp+wrenching, warcry and battlerage+bloodbath.

I know this is a 1h+shield thread but i wanted to add my 2 cents about how nice stuns are (even atm before buffs) in groups. Whats nice about them is even though they don't last very long, seconds really do count in a decent party, and additionally when a mob is stunned it re-chooses it's target after the stun wears off. As far as i can tell mobs aggro the first player they see and then have a %chance to change target if damage is being done to them from another source. This means you can run or leap into a group, rend, cleave, then groundstomp when they start to switch targets (buying a lot more time for the ranged) and then simply keep rend up, alternate leap and stomp for stuns and cleave when everything else is on cd.

This is imo the most effective way of controlling mobs, staying alive and dealing damage to them in a group situation that i've yet found.

trinxified

Canada7774 Posts

September 19 2012 17:54 GMT

#101

Hey Trang and all tank experts, I switched my weapons to go back to 1-hand/shield build (coming from the trendy WW/sprint build).

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/trinxified-1614/hero/2139049

What do you guys think? And how is my skill spec setup? Stats are buffed only with Battle Rage. I don't think I need a defensive skill as I'm very well geared, at least I think so.

Although, I don't even use WotB either at all, so I'm considering just switching that to Leap.

icyF

Finland305 Posts

September 20 2012 04:52 GMT

#102

On September 20 2012 02:54 trinxified wrote:
Hey Trang and all tank experts, I switched my weapons to go back to 1-hand/shield build (coming from the trendy WW/sprint build).

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/trinxified-1614/hero/2139049

What do you guys think? And how is my skill spec setup? Stats are buffed only with Battle Rage. I don't think I need a defensive skill as I'm very well geared, at least I think so.

Although, I don't even use WotB either at all, so I'm considering just switching that to Leap.

Dang. Thats some heavy gear!

You probably dont need Revenge and Rend for sustain with all that LoH, so maybe you could get Leap or Sprint for more mobility? I don't speak of experience as I have inferior gear, but just my thoughts

Also Tough as Nails would give you more armor bonus than Nerves of Steel.

I have also found that Bash with Onslaught, as Trang recommended, is really good. Maybe try that or Frenzy with Sidearm?

Trang

Australia324 Posts

September 20 2012 05:00 GMT

#103

trinxified, you are pretty tanky, so if you think you can manage without Blood Lust, maybe try Rend (Ravage) for mass AoE and rely on only Revenge for sustain. I think for a Rend user Bash (Onslaught) is better, since your AoE damage is covered by Rend, you can spam Rend more with the fury, and I feel it has better single target damage for you. Regarding single target damage, I haven't tested this extensively, and it's probable that Frenzy (Sidearm) provides more at 5 stacks. However, with your whopping damage, you could probably one shot a whole of stuff when you crit with Bash so maybe a primary that is stack-independent is better. This setup means Rend (Ravage) will easily take care of white mobs while you bash down the elites extremely fast. As for Bash, I prefer Onslaught because it removes the really annoying knock back effect.

On top of Bash, Rend and Revenge, you'd then use Battle Rage of course. Probably also War Cry, at least until patch 1.05. War Cry is just too cost effective to drop at the moment, and you probably couldn't afford drop Blood Lust AND a defensive skill AND War Cry all at once.

As for the last slot, well, I've also pondered in my last post whether WotB is necessary. I also don't activate it often any more, but I find it just saves me from the irritation of being CC-chained. It probably doesn't save me much in terms of time, but it saves my blood pressure from going too high, hahaha

If you don't feel you need WotB or a defensive skill, I would throw in Sprint (Marathon). You already have enough offensive skills to be using between Bash/Revenge/Rend. Those 3 will keep you occupied enough, and you probably don't have the time to be casting other abilities, especially when Revenge spamming is so important for staying alive. Also, who wouldn't want more run speed? If you use Sprint AND Rend, then definitely use Bash over Frenzy I think.

Conclusion: Bash (Onslaught), Rend (Ravage), Revenge (Provocation), Battle Rage (Marauder's Rage), War Cry (Impunity), Sprint (Marathon).

Give it a spin and tell me what you think. I would love to hear feedback since I haven't been able to test this specific setup myself, and my DPS is also nothing like yours, so only you can test what works best with your stats. Been really busy, so my barb has not progressed much since about 2 months ago ... and still really busy, so it's not going to get any better for me!

trinxified

Canada7774 Posts

September 20 2012 05:41 GMT

#104

Thanks for the response Trang and icyF.

@icyF, because of my high Vitality, Nerves of Steel actually gives me more armor.

@Trang, I've tried every rune with Bash, especially Onslaught the most, and it doesn't give me much benefit as I'm one-shotting most white mobs crit or no crit. I'm going to stick to Frenzy-Maniac since I decided to drop WotB, and at least that would be my way of killing bosses/elites very fast. And doesn't 5-stack Maniac also boost Revenge/Rend just like Bash-Punish?

Now I ended up replacing WotB with Overpower-Crushing Advance. I like it because it allows me to face-tank everything much better, and also that extra AoE damage when I use it. Since my crit chance is at 59.50% when fully buffed, I reset the cooldown pretty quickly (Frenzy contributes to this). As far as replacing the rune on Rend, I rather just stick to Bloodlust for maximum life back possibility.

icyF

Finland305 Posts

September 20 2012 05:57 GMT

#105

On September 20 2012 14:41 trinxified wrote:
Thanks for the response Trang and icyF.

@icyF, because of my high Vitality, Nerves of Steel actually gives me more armor.

@Trang, I've tried every rune with Bash, especially Onslaught the most, and it doesn't give me much benefit as I'm one-shotting most white mobs crit or no crit. I'm going to stick to Frenzy-Maniac since I decided to drop WotB, and at least that would be my way of killing bosses/elites very fast. And doesn't 5-stack Maniac also boost Revenge/Rend just like Bash-Punish?

Now I ended up replacing WotB with Overpower-Crushing Advance. I like it because it allows me to face-tank everything much better, and also that extra AoE damage when I use it. Since my crit chance is at 59.50% when fully buffed, I reset the cooldown pretty quickly (Frenzy contributes to this). As far as replacing the rune on Rend, I rather just stick to Bloodlust for maximum life back possibility.

Am I missing something? Your account page says 1541 Vitality, and 11708 armor. So 25% increase in armor should give you lots more than 1541.

Trang

Australia324 Posts

September 20 2012 06:54 GMT

#106

trinxified, no probs. If Overpower lets you tank easier, go ahead

If/when you get to the point where tanking isn't an issue any more, then try Sprint (Marathon) since if you one shot most mobs you may as well get that movement speed boost :D

icyF, I posted about this a couple of days ago in the Barb thread since someone else in that thread made the same mistake too, don't worry it's a common mistake

Here's the answer you're looking for:

The explanation for this is the presence of War Cry and the Enchantress Buff [...]

If you had both Nerves of Steel and Tough as Nails your Armor would be as follows:
Armor = (Armor from gear + STR +VIT) x (1 + 0.20 + 0.15 + 0.25)

That means if you already have War Cry and Enchantress, but neither Nerves of Steel nor Tough as Nails:
- Adding Nerves of Steel would increase your buffed armor by VIT x 1.35
- Adding Tough as Nails would increase your buffed armor by (Current buffed armor) x 0.25/(1+ 0.20 +0.15)
ie Adding Tough as Nails will increase your buffed armor by a further 18.5% --- NOT 25%.

In most people's cases, Nerves of Steel is better than Tough as Nails.

Alternatively, you can rearrange the formula to work out your new buffed armor if you replaced Nerves of Steel with Tough as Nails

New armor = (Current armor - 1.35 x VIT) x 1.185

In trixified's case if he replaced Nerves of Steel with Tough as Nails, his new armor would be:

New armor = (11708 - 1.35 x 1541) x 1.185 = 11408

... which is lower than his current armor with Nerves of Steel.

Hope I explained this satisfactorily

icyF

Finland305 Posts

September 20 2012 07:14 GMT

#107

On September 20 2012 15:54 Trang wrote:
trinxified, no probs. If Overpower lets you tank easier, go ahead

Here's the answer you're looking for:

Show nested quote +

Ahh, thanks for clearing that up

Hairy

United Kingdom1169 Posts

September 20 2012 08:20 GMT

#108

Of course, you could always just switch armour passive for 5 seconds and see if it went up or down

shadowrunner99

Belarus93 Posts

September 20 2012 18:31 GMT

#109

I need a lot of help I can beat Act III but not Act IV. Should I change my skill set up? I also have ~3.3 mil to play around with. Appreciate any help.

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/shadowrunner-1162/hero/13967798

antihobo

Canada121 Posts

September 20 2012 20:11 GMT

#110

shadowrunner99: I would suggest switching out hammer of the ancients for Rend with blood lust and threatening shout for either leap (iron impact) or furious charge (dreadnought).

What are you having trouble with specifically?

TheRealArtemis

687 Posts

September 20 2012 20:40 GMT

#111

On September 21 2012 03:31 shadowrunner99 wrote:
I need a lot of help I can beat Act III but not Act IV. Should I change my skill set up? I also have ~3.3 mil to play around with. Appreciate any help.

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/shadowrunner-1162/hero/13967798

Your shield needs an huge upgrade. 20% block is simply too little. Try to find an get it 30-34% block.

+ Show Spoiler +

I actually have an old legacy stormshield im willing to sell to you for 1 mill.to help you out. IF you are interested.
[image loading]

You will loose some hp, but I think it will be worth gettin the block chance higher. You can find several legacy stormshields that have 29-32 block, with str, vit and all res, for the amount of gold you have.

I dont like your eternal union ring. Im sure you can find a better ring on AH, that gives you 80 str, 80 vit with 60-70 all res with the rest of the gold. Im not quite sure why you have it. Is it because of the
reduce 3% dmg from melee?

But there are more options, you can find 1k dps weapons that has 100+ vit and a socket for 1-3 mill. you can either put an Loh gem in that will help some, but not alot. Loh only really shines when you get 1k+ of it. but even if you have below that amount, it all helps.

Regarding the skill setup, you can swap hammer of the ancient for "ignore pain- ignorance is bliss" to help boost the survivability, when the tough mobs comes around.

You can also use rend - blood lust, great way to deal damage and heal yourself

Other then that, its tough to change things around when you only have 3 mill play with.

I think everything else looks fine.

EDIT. spell checking etc etc. =__=

Trang

Australia324 Posts

September 21 2012 00:36 GMT

#112

shadowrunner99, the others have some good advice. I would just add that your gear is enough to beat Act 4, and you just need to tweak your skills a bit. Definitely drop Hammer of the Ancients. I would take Rend (Blood Lust) instead. I would then take Bash (Onslaught) instead of Frenzy so that you have the extra fury to spam Rend --- you want to keep Rend ticking on as many monster as you can at a time for max healing.

As for your defensive skill, Threatening Shout is okay, if you like it. It really depends on what your needs and style are. Threatening Shout gives reduced damage and movement speed, useful for chasing. Really, I think the slow effect makes it more useful in party games than solo games though. Ignore Pain (Ignorance is Bliss) let's you continue to attack with impunity for a few seconds and heals you back up (great for Ghom and Diablo+Clones).

But, I personally prefer to have one defensive skill that provides mobility so I can get out of tough spots, eg being walled into Arcane and Molten. For these reasons I advocate Leap or Furious Charge. However, since I use a defensive skill to get out, I prefer Furious Charge as it heals you on the way out, so that you can re-engage immediately. Leap really shines at letting you engage, sure it makes you take very little damage after leaping away, but it won't heal you so you then you have to wait 10 seconds again to re-engage.

Also, I like Tough as Nails more than Superstition. My mentality is that you should be trying to dodge elite effects if you don't have the EHP to face-tank them. There's no enrage timer, so if you're just trying to beat Act 4 once, you're in no rush, and you can dodge those effects all day long.

LingsAreBunnies

United States103 Posts

September 21 2012 08:20 GMT

#113

reading the spring coefficient nerf, I decided to stash my ww gear and try to build a 1h + shield build w/ rend, since Im not sure if Ill be able to keep up wotb permanently.

so far, my runs doesnt feel that much different, instead of perma wotb + sprint and running through trash, now its nearly perma 50% sprint and only stopping to rend. elites tend to be faster with rend + bash, and really annoying elites can be bursted down in 2-3 seconds with wotbb/insanity.

however, I die noticeably more often now since I cant just ww through monsters anymore and I still die very fast vs damaging affixes. so Im thinking of increasing my defenses more now. which slots should I replace to be able to get the most EHP without giving up too much dps?

https://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/INeedLings-1648/hero/3247163

budget is about 100m or so.

feels like what Im trying to do is a bit different than whats described in this guide, I find rend to be a lot more powerful because of my extremely low EHP and higher dps, and Im not really trying to get enough EHP to be able to afk in arcane, rather just enough so I can somewhat comfortably survive getting bursted down before rend kicks in. My main problem is that most of the options I can think of to get my EHP up results in huge hits in my dps, which might not even increase my survivability much since it would end up weakening my sustain.

any advice at all would be grealy appreciated! ^^

another thing, does rend get stronger with more attack speed?

Garesh

Germany5 Posts

September 21 2012 09:41 GMT

#114

@Lings

As Noob i say: increase the blockchance of ur shield. 15% is quite low.

icyF

Finland305 Posts

September 21 2012 10:28 GMT

#115

On September 21 2012 17:20 LingsAreBunnies wrote:
reading the spring coefficient nerf, I decided to stash my ww gear and try to build a 1h + shield build w/ rend, since Im not sure if Ill be able to keep up wotb permanently.

so far, my runs doesnt feel that much different, instead of perma wotb + sprint and running through trash, now its nearly perma 50% sprint and only stopping to rend. elites tend to be faster with rend + bash, and really annoying elites can be bursted down in 2-3 seconds with wotbb/insanity.

however, I die noticeably more often now since I cant just ww through monsters anymore and I still die very fast vs damaging affixes. so Im thinking of increasing my defenses more now. which slots should I replace to be able to get the most EHP without giving up too much dps?

https://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/INeedLings-1648/hero/3247163

budget is about 100m or so.

feels like what Im trying to do is a bit different than whats described in this guide, I find rend to be a lot more powerful because of my extremely low EHP and higher dps, and Im not really trying to get enough EHP to be able to afk in arcane, rather just enough so I can somewhat comfortably survive getting bursted down before rend kicks in. My main problem is that most of the options I can think of to get my EHP up results in huge hits in my dps, which might not even increase my survivability much since it would end up weakening my sustain.

any advice at all would be grealy appreciated! ^^

another thing, does rend get stronger with more attack speed?

I would assume rend does not scale with IAS, however, I am not 100% sure of that.

As for the most obvious upgrade: the shield. As Garesh already mentioned, that's the most obvious upgrade. A Stormshield would be the best option, tho it might hurt your DPS. But the +30% block chance is just so good.

If you feel that rend is not enough survivability you might want to try out Furious Charge with Dreadnought or Revenge with Provocation for further sustain.

Those are the changes I can come up with right now. Maybe Trang can help you out with more subtle changes, as he seems to be the go-to guy on this build

icyF

Finland305 Posts

September 21 2012 10:29 GMT

#116

double post.

vol_

Australia1608 Posts

September 21 2012 10:50 GMT

#117

Lings, I started to never die in act 3 with arcane beams being really all I had to avoid and triple des/ plague might hurt when i dont have enough mobs around:
55k hp
950 AR (1100 FR/PR)
10k armor
41% block
I had no LOH or lifesteal 65k dps using only rend and revenge for heals.

With your DPS and lifesteal I think you can sacrifice some armor and resist but you might want more of a surplus of HP to avoid getting bursted down. It will give you more time for revenge to proc and rend heals to kick in.

I also think use either WOTB or battle rage no need for both. I prefer BR for tanking because I could sit in CC for 10 seconds and not die anyway.

Leap is my favourite skill in a tank build. I always thought it was op and its still strong after patch imo.

Trang

Australia324 Posts

September 22 2012 02:45 GMT

#118

LingsAreBunnies, unfortunately, for more EHP, you will have to sacrifice some DPS. You are lacking both VIT and RES. Your Belt, Bracers and Rings/Amulets are slots where you can easily boost EHP by a lot for an equally big drop in DPS. Another place where you might find some more EHP are your gloves. Because of the cost, you may have to be willing to drop down to 100 STR IK Gloves so that you can get extra VIT.

On September 21 2012 17:20 LingsAreBunnies wrote:
feels like what Im trying to do is a bit different than whats described in this guide, I find rend to be a lot more powerful because of my extremely low EHP and higher dps, and Im not really trying to get enough EHP to be able to afk in arcane, rather just enough so I can somewhat comfortably survive getting bursted down before rend kicks in. My main problem is that most of the options I can think of to get my EHP up results in huge hits in my dps, which might not even increase my survivability much since it would end up weakening my sustain.

The real strength of a 1H + Shield Barb is the ability to face-tank almost anything (ie 'afk in arcane'), in order to be able to attack without interruption. The strength of the build is less in the character sheet DPS, but the actual practical DPS. If you have 100k DPS but lack the EHP, forcing you to kite such that you are attacking only half the time, then your true DPS is only 50k. Now, in most cases the effect of being able to attack without interruption probably does not outweigh the loss of character sheet DPS (it can make a HUGE difference for really tough elites though). So while your true DPS is probably a little lower than say a DW Frenzy build, you are giving up a bit of true DPS for the luxury of being unkillable --- especially useful for people with high ping (eg Australians like me).

Anyway, so what I am saying is that if you are not wanting to be able to face-tank everything, then perhaps the 1H + Shield Barb is not for you. What you seem to describe with low EHP, but just enough to survive until Rend kicks in, seems to be more of a 2H Barb build. A 2H weapon would make Rend do massive damage. Personally, I couldn't put up with the feel of the super slow attack speeds, so it's not my thing, but maybe you would like to consider it.

shadowrunner99

Belarus93 Posts

September 22 2012 21:02 GMT

#119

Thank you antihobo, Trang, and TheRealArtemis. Beat Diablo with full stacks after your advice.

Big G

Italy835 Posts

September 22 2012 23:30 GMT

#120

With the incoming patch, time to say goodbye to my beloved Leap.

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/barbarian#acUkSR!ZYe!ZZbcZa

What can I say? I love Furious Charge (merciless assault), I'm definitely faster than before against huge packs.

oneofthem

Cayman Islands24199 Posts

September 23 2012 14:09 GMT

#121

you guys think barbs will become more popular in coop setting? i bought a lot of stormshields hoping they will rise post patch, but it seems like ww barb is still pretty op.

TheRealArtemis

687 Posts

September 23 2012 15:13 GMT

#122

lol. Im guessing you saw the kripp video of him talking about buying items up that might be popular later on?

imo barbs have always been popular in co-op. A barb with warcry that can keep all the nasty mobs that one shots you, away from you is still a good ally to have.

Edit: and seeing how rangen DH and Wiz have to kite alot vs the monster lvl 10, a good barb is nice to have. but the stormshields have to be good. imo its a waste of gold if you bought under 29% and without the str, vit, %life and res all.

Gotmog

Serbia899 Posts

September 23 2012 17:59 GMT

#123

I got to diablo on inferno, and can't seem to be able to deal with him....
what kind of stats and spec do i need for him specifically ?
I have 1k + resists, 18-20k dps, 40-50k hp...but no lifesteal.

icyF

Finland305 Posts

September 23 2012 18:27 GMT

#124

On September 24 2012 02:59 Gotmog wrote:
I got to diablo on inferno, and can't seem to be able to deal with him....
what kind of stats and spec do i need for him specifically ?
I have 1k + resists, 18-20k dps, 40-50k hp...but no lifesteal.

What's your EHP and your skill build? Link your character, please.

ArC_man

United States2798 Posts

September 23 2012 18:36 GMT

#125

Against Diablo it's better to drop some DPS in favor of LoH to sustain. If you have something like 600+ LoH even with 10k dps the fight will be a breeze.

Gotmog

Serbia899 Posts

September 23 2012 19:19 GMT

#126

Done :D
Thank you, life steal did the job :D

oneofthem

Cayman Islands24199 Posts

September 23 2012 19:20 GMT

#127

no i got my shields way early rofl. like a few days before kripp's video on speculation that barbs will need more defense. had i known the exact contour of the ww nerf (or in this case, non-nerf), i'd have invested in weapon throw belts or skorns.

a week ago you can get a ss with 10% life and 32+% block for less than 5m.

Kazeyonoma

United States2912 Posts

September 24 2012 00:36 GMT

#128

switched to 'tanky dps' in preparation of 1.0.5. i know i'm wearing a lot of 'ww style' gear still, but i seem to be doing okay in act 3 and act 4, any advice?

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Kazeyonoma-1662/hero/14226

Heckster

United States5 Posts

September 24 2012 01:43 GMT

#129

Hello TL!
I have been trying to play this style for awhile and was wondering what I should upgrade next. I am able to solo diablo in inferno and only have trouble against some elite packs and affix combinations.

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Heckster-1984/hero/818134

Thank you for the advice!

alexnos

Romania32 Posts

September 24 2012 08:10 GMT

#130

hi there,

I've been farming A3 comfortably and am looking for the next upgrade and i can't decide on what needs upgrading first.
If some with more exp can tell me it would be much appreciated.

http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/NOS-2628/hero/1665858

I know i need movement speed,that is next,but i want to go all out on dps while keeping my shield.

bruteMax

Canada339 Posts

September 24 2012 15:21 GMT

#131

On September 24 2012 17:10 alexnos wrote:
hi there,

I've been farming A3 comfortably and am looking for the next upgrade and i can't decide on what needs upgrading first.
If some with more exp can tell me it would be much appreciated.

http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/NOS-2628/hero/1665858

I know i need movement speed,that is next,but i want to go all out on dps while keeping my shield.

You certainly seem tanky enough.

I'll throw in my 2 cents by suggesting you should first look to upgrade your weapon. I'm on the NA server but I'm sure a 1hand axe/mace with more str and vit and higher dps can be had for a few million. Do you find you need the LoH and life steal?

Also have you considered dropping WotB? Try replacing it with Sprint:Marathon to get the movement speed you're looking for. Boots with 12% movement speed plus the stats you already have cost many millions.

Remember Trang's advice on max'ing stats on gear. With that in mind I think your chest and pants are possible areas for upgrades to your vit.

TheRealArtemis

687 Posts

September 24 2012 15:26 GMT

#132

On September 24 2012 09:36 Kazeyonoma wrote:
switched to 'tanky dps' in preparation of 1.0.5. i know i'm wearing a lot of 'ww style' gear still, but i seem to be doing okay in act 3 and act 4, any advice?

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Kazeyonoma-1662/hero/14226

Personally I wouldnt use "frenzy-sidearm" I never understood the use of this rune. You allready have alot of AoE damege from rend and revenge, so you might as well choose the rune that gives alot more dps. - Maniac.

If you're farming act 3 without dying, or rarely dying, I would also switch out one of your armor passives. Use weapon master for that ekstra 10% crit chance. With that Axe you got, you will hit almost 35% which is quite nice. See if you can spare the one that gives you the least amount of armor.

But you dont really have that much vit, hp or % life. If you started to stack those alot more, those armor passives wont even be missed.

But regarding upgrades, maybe your gloves. they dont have anything that gives you more hp (if you're aming for that dps tanking barb)

It wouldnt hurt to got 1-2% down in crit chance to gain alot more str, vit and all res, and/or attack speed. Pants need sockets, but im sure you know. You can also find some shoulders that gives you the same stats, but with 100 vit more. on AH for cheap gold. But thats on EU.

On September 24 2012 10:43 Heckster wrote:
Hello TL!
I have been trying to play this style for awhile and was wondering what I should upgrade next. I am able to solo diablo in inferno and only have trouble against some elite packs and affix combinations.

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Heckster-1984/hero/818134

Thank you for the advice!

Well, like many other that shield need to go. it got nice stats, but you cant keep it. ^^ try to find a shield in your price range that got as close to 29-30% block chance. Try also to find one that got as much %life and vit as possible, with all res offcause.

If you're not to keen on switching shield just yet, you need to get some more all res. 400 unbuffed is way to little for a tank. whenever you buy items, make sure they always have 70-80% all res. There are items where below 70% all res is okay. like legens, rings, amulets. Gettin 70% allres on those iterms while having good stats are either imposssible to find, or too expensive.

But you're on the right track. You could go through your items on the AH, and see which of them you can upgrade for cheap. Alot of items have dropped in price since the patch.

trinxified

Canada7774 Posts

September 24 2012 21:57 GMT

#133

Here's my build using Overpower instead of WotB:

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/trinxified-1614/hero/2139049

I'm quite strong already, so WotB is kinda a useless skill at the moment. Overpower - Crushing Advance let's me tank those suiciders more effectively and also get extra AoE damage. With my high crit chance, I can reset the cooldown very quickly.

It's even going to get better in patch 1.05 when Rend is "kinda" buffed, and Overpower with less cooldown.

I'm currently still trying to slowly improve my EHP and DPS all at the same time, so it's a work in progress. Getting hard now as items aren't being posted up on the AH, and it's harder to sell too.

Trang

Australia324 Posts

September 25 2012 10:55 GMT

#134

Hi guys, I am sad to say that I am, for the near future, retiring from Diablo 3 and these forums. My work commitments have recently gotten crazy. And in terms of what little spare time I have left, Diablo 3 or games are not at the top of my list right now. So, unfortunately I will not be able to reply to people's questions during this period of time. I'm not trying to be dramatic here, just letting you guys know that if I'm not replying it's not because I don't like you

I hope that through this thread, I have at least introduced you guys to taking a holistic approach to building your character, where you clearly identify your goals and how to measure meeting those goals, and use a strong understanding of game mechanics to build towards that.

There are a handful of good posters now in this thread who I'm sure can keep the discussion on the Tanky Barb going, as I'm sure there will be more of us Tanky Barbs the closer we get to PvP.

All the best, and bye for now

Trang

Gatsbizzle

United States132 Posts

September 25 2012 16:00 GMT

#135

I discovered this thread a few weeks ago and it helped me clear Inferno yesterday on my barb. Sad to see you go, Trang. Hope you can find time in the future to return to the discussion!

jetburger

United States87 Posts

September 25 2012 19:01 GMT

#136

Why oh why did I wait so long before switching over to this style of play??? Just last night I made the switch, spending 1.5M on 3 pieces of gear. It's so much more efficient and less frustrating than my old style of play (which was a Sprint variant that used Furious Charge-Merciless Assault instead of WW).

But anyway I'm hoping you guys can take a look at what I've got so far and suggest some skill and gear tweaks.

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/sblubs-1555/hero/5286892

Not sure if I calculated it right, but I think I have around 900k EHP, I'm trying to farm act 3 SeigeBreaker/Cyd/Azmo. I died about 5 to 7 times in the whole run. I think right now I can just barely facetank Azmodan and kill him just as the 1st wave of black pools fades away, but I am on the edge of death for a good 10 seconds during that fight.

I really love my life leech which is why I have almost 6% in gear and I'm using Bloodthirst. But if you guys tell me that it's inefficient I will change it.

Gear-wise is there anything I could upgrade for around 500k-1M per piece? I'm willing to spend more if the improvement is really worth it, I guess

Also, I know this is a no-no, but I am actually using Leap-Iron Impact constantly as part of my tanking prowess. And I have died a couple of times due to not being able to escape when I needed to leap out because of cooldown.

As Gatsbizzle said, sorry to see you go, Trang, and hope to see you back soon.

icyF

Finland305 Posts

September 26 2012 05:29 GMT

#137

On September 26 2012 04:01 jetburger wrote:
Why oh why did I wait so long before switching over to this style of play??? Just last night I made the switch, spending 1.5M on 3 pieces of gear. It's so much more efficient and less frustrating than my old style of play (which was a Sprint variant that used Furious Charge-Merciless Assault instead of WW).

But anyway I'm hoping you guys can take a look at what I've got so far and suggest some skill and gear tweaks.

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/sblubs-1555/hero/5286892

Not sure if I calculated it right, but I think I have around 900k EHP, I'm trying to farm act 3 SeigeBreaker/Cyd/Azmo. I died about 5 to 7 times in the whole run. I think right now I can just barely facetank Azmodan and kill him just as the 1st wave of black pools fades away, but I am on the edge of death for a good 10 seconds during that fight.

I really love my life leech which is why I have almost 6% in gear and I'm using Bloodthirst. But if you guys tell me that it's inefficient I will change it.

Gear-wise is there anything I could upgrade for around 500k-1M per piece? I'm willing to spend more if the improvement is really worth it, I guess

Also, I know this is a no-no, but I am actually using Leap-Iron Impact constantly as part of my tanking prowess. And I have died a couple of times due to not being able to escape when I needed to leap out because of cooldown.

As Gatsbizzle said, sorry to see you go, Trang, and hope to see you back soon.

First I would recommend switching either Battle Rage or WotB for Revenge with Provocation. That should give you much more survivability, while also giving you a good chunk of AoE damage. Try it out before you start upgrading your items.

First thing I spot needing an upgrade is the shield. 200+ str and vit is good, but a block chance of 27% or more should boost your EHP even with significantly lower str and vit. A Stormshield would be ideal with 32+ block, but those are pricey so search for a sacred shield with decent stats and a good amount of block chance. Also a decent Helm of Command with a socket can be bought for less than 1m, giving you even more block chance.

You can get a better chest and pants for less than 1m. Here you could try maximising the attribute slots, as both can give up to 300 vit. So aim for something with 200+ (250+ is ideal) vit, 2-3 sockets, and some str or all res.

Those are the easiest/cheapest upgrades that I can spot. After these try upgrading you boots and rings.

Remember to check with your EHP calculator how much gain you get from every upgrade before buying. And f.e. here you can find the max values each slot can give.

Those should get you started. Have fun!

jetburger

United States87 Posts

September 26 2012 16:31 GMT

#138

Thanks for the tips, icyF. I made some changes as suggested.

-changed Battle Rage to Revenge-Provocation
-bought 32%block Stormshield for 1M (I didn't know I could get it for this price!)
-bought new chest and pants for about 500k total

Using a proper EHP calculator, my new EHP is 1.3 million reliable and 1.5 million EHP unreliable but this doesn't include the significantly improved block %. Doing the same Seige/Cyd/Azmo run once more, I still died about 4-5 times, but those deaths were to waller/arcane combos and double elite packs with double arcane. I was in no real danger in the Azmodan fight even though it took a bit longer due to loss of DPS. Overall a decent improvement, I think.

Eventually I'd like to get to the point where I can switch back to Battle Rage because I don't like having to use both Revenge and Rend for my sustain. When I'm chasing those annoying enemies that kite and run away all the time, I usually only have time to use one of those abilities before they run away again.

findingthelimit

Hong Kong219 Posts

October 01 2012 21:44 GMT

#139

Hey, I'm pretty new to diablo, got to level 60 pretty quickly because its only the first 2 weeks of college, and got some free items from a great guy on TL. But I actually don't know anything about the game!

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/ZYXlimitLSR-2987/hero/18083824

there's my character... i don't know how to improve him! all the items i got for below 250k in the auction house, i might have gotten ripped off a few times but generally the stats are alright, except that my weapon sucks, i have no strength, no crit, thus no dps.

everything on the AH seems super expensive now! i look for an upgrade for my pants, and they all cost at least 500k. I currently have 600k. Can anyone give me advice as to what upgrade I should look for first? I feel like my chest could give some str, and i need a new amulet and ring. yet justice lantern is unaffordable for me, and decent amulets that are an upgrade seem to cost a ton too.

also, i'm thinking of replacing the gem in my helmet to a purple one. help needed!

thanks in advance <3

edit: i'm in act 2 infernal btw. Feel like my dps is a bit too low...

icyF

Finland305 Posts

October 02 2012 06:34 GMT

#140

On October 02 2012 06:44 findingthelimit wrote:
Hey, I'm pretty new to diablo, got to level 60 pretty quickly because its only the first 2 weeks of college, and got some free items from a great guy on TL. But I actually don't know anything about the game!

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/ZYXlimitLSR-2987/hero/18083824

there's my character... i don't know how to improve him! all the items i got for below 250k in the auction house, i might have gotten ripped off a few times but generally the stats are alright, except that my weapon sucks, i have no strength, no crit, thus no dps.

everything on the AH seems super expensive now! i look for an upgrade for my pants, and they all cost at least 500k. I currently have 600k. Can anyone give me advice as to what upgrade I should look for first? I feel like my chest could give some str, and i need a new amulet and ring. yet justice lantern is unaffordable for me, and decent amulets that are an upgrade seem to cost a ton too.

also, i'm thinking of replacing the gem in my helmet to a purple one. help needed!

thanks in advance <3

edit: i'm in act 2 infernal btw. Feel like my dps is a bit too low...

Hi there!

First thing that comes to mind is swapping out those Amethysts in your chest and amulet for Rubies, to increase str and thus also damage. If you then find it hard to survive, swap the Topaz in your helm for an Amethyst, as you also said yourself.

If you have trouble killing stuff, you could try out Rend with Blood Lust (or Lacerate for additional damage, if survivability is not an issue for you) instead of Furious Charge. I think Ruthless would give you a better boost in damage than Weapons Master with that spear, try it out! If you die very rarely, or not at all, you could switch out Tough as Nails or Nerves Of Steel (try out with full buffs which gives more armor) for Ruthless or Weapons Master.

As you don't have an abundance of gold, there is really no quick fix. You just need to grind it out, and look for cheap upgrades in the AH. The first things I would look for are a better pair of boots, a better ring than that unique one and new pants. Try to utilize the maximum values of str and vit for each slot, f.e. as close to 300 vit as possible on chest and pants, and as close to 300 str as possible on belts and shoulders. Here is a link to one chart of maximum stats per slot.

Remember to always check with your EHP calculator when buying something if you are not 100% sure about it.

findingthelimit

Hong Kong219 Posts

October 02 2012 07:07 GMT

#141

On October 02 2012 15:34 icyF wrote:

Show nested quote +

Thanks for your reply! I spent around 300k today and I think my dps got significantly higher, which is great! I don't have time to mingle around with skills yet, but I'll do that when I have time :D

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/ZYXlimitLSR-2987/hero/18083824

As a follow up question, I was too scared to skill followers' abilities so they're all left untouched. Can you lend me any advice as to what skills I should add, as a board barb? I feel like spells such as hex might not be so good as I would want the opponents to be hitting me such that revenge would proc, and I also don't know why follower I should be using.

Thanks for your help again! :D

Grovbolle

Denmark3813 Posts

October 02 2012 07:15 GMT

#142

On October 02 2012 16:07 findingthelimit wrote:

Show nested quote +

On October 02 2012 15:34 icyF wrote:

You can always retrain your followers

icyF

Finland305 Posts

October 02 2012 08:01 GMT

#143

On October 02 2012 16:07 findingthelimit wrote:

Show nested quote +

On October 02 2012 15:34 icyF wrote:

I see you have gained about 3k damage. For 300k that is really good!

Most SnB barbs go with Enchantress. Powered armor and Focused Mind are the skills most used, I believe. Erosion seems to be pretty good too, and the first slot is totally up to you

Hairy

United Kingdom1169 Posts

October 02 2012 10:00 GMT

#144

On October 02 2012 16:07 findingthelimit wrote:

Show nested quote +

On October 02 2012 15:34 icyF wrote:

You can retrain your followers at any time for free.

Go with the enchantress; she will give you an armour buff and an attack speed buff, that will really help out.

Levistus

1134 Posts

October 03 2012 05:50 GMT

#145

guys just want to know. which is the better Tank, monk or barb? thanks.

goof

Norway53 Posts

October 03 2012 06:31 GMT

#146

On October 02 2012 16:07 findingthelimit wrote:

Show nested quote +

On October 02 2012 15:34 icyF wrote:

Hey!

I would just like to give you some tips on what I would change in your build:

- Replace Tough as Nails (Or Nerves of Steel, whichever leaves you with the most armor) with Ruthless. It seems like you have enough EHP to sacrifice some for higher damage. And higher damage will also increase survivability!
- Replace furious charge with Battle Rage (Maurader rune), because you already have an escape ability (Leap) and you should have enough healing from Rend and Revenge. And with the higher damage from Battle Rage and Ruthless, Rend will heal you more, as it's based on damage done.
- Get resist on your boots! (Or get 12% movespeed on them. This also increases survivability!)

And as a general rule you should look into getting critical hit chance on your items. This is cheap on gloves and amulets. Even just getting 20% crit chance you should see increase in DPS.

So no fek

United States3001 Posts

October 14 2012 18:31 GMT

#147

Just wanted to say thanks for this thread (and also for directing someone else here from the other thread.) I just hit 60 a few days ago and have been sword and board almost the entire game, loving every minute of it. I was trying to skim the other thread for builds/advice, but as someone mentioned, it's almost entirely WW discussion and I really didn't have any idea what I was reading.

I did buy a cheap set of WW gear to see if it might fit my play style. Only messed around with it for half an hour or so (buying the gear probably took longer), but I just don't think I'll ever grow used to it. Sword and boarding has been very good to me, however; other than a few deaths and some things taking longer than others to die, I haven't had too much trouble (I quit for the night after killing Ghom.) I skimmed through this thread and can already see some changes I'm going to make (Maniac -> Sidearm) and I'll definitely be plugging all of my stats into the calculators later tonight.

Thanks again for the awesome work! :D

My profile: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Sonofek-1524/hero/27563625

antihobo

Canada121 Posts

October 15 2012 07:55 GMT

#148

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/antihobo-1677/hero/3308073

Looking for advice on upgrades. My budget is approx. 15m, assuming I sell my mainhand. Approx. 12 mill assuming I keep my mainhand,

I was doing super tank from earlier patches and am transitioning into dps tank (as I've seen some great builds/chars in this thread). I'm thinking my best bet for more damage is getting a high dps mainhand with crit dmg + socket, but I'm afraid of losing the LOH from my mainhand and I'm in the dark a bit about the inc LoH nerf and the switch to life steal.

I know my rings could both be better and my chest can be upped with sockets fairly cheaply, but LoH on rings is expensive as hell and I'm not willing to change my amulet... That's where my confusion is rooted.

Any advice is welcome.

Black Gun

Germany4482 Posts

October 15 2012 08:47 GMT

#149

On October 15 2012 16:55 antihobo wrote:
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/antihobo-1677/hero/3308073

Looking for advice on upgrades. My budget is approx. 15m, assuming I sell my mainhand. Approx. 12 mill assuming I keep my mainhand,

I was doing super tank from earlier patches and am transitioning into dps tank (as I've seen some great builds/chars in this thread). I'm thinking my best bet for more damage is getting a high dps mainhand with crit dmg + socket, but I'm afraid of losing the LOH from my mainhand and I'm in the dark a bit about the inc LoH nerf and the switch to life steal.

I know my rings could both be better and my chest can be upped with sockets fairly cheaply, but LoH on rings is expensive as hell and I'm not willing to change my amulet... That's where my confusion is rooted.

Any advice is welcome.

i wouldnt worry too much about the lost LoH.
first of all, rings and amus will drop with better stats and in much larger quantity after the patch, so that it will be substantially easier to get some LoH from there.
additionally, revenge is not getting nerfed while monster damage is, so that the amount of additional healing from sources like LoH, LoK or LS will lose in importance.

antihobo

Canada121 Posts

October 15 2012 21:31 GMT

#150

Thanks for your help!

alpenrahm

Germany629 Posts

October 16 2012 02:38 GMT

#151

my hardcore barb is rocking inferno eZ now

thx trang.

http://www.d3rmt.com/guides/diablo-3-item-stat-maximum-values/

this link proved to be very helpful in conjuction with your neat guide. The only thing i might want to add is that, from what i have tested, the barb benefits more from berserker rage then ruthless. Simply due to the fact that you dont have any fury dump besides WotB anyway. So if you time things right you can charge some elite pack, activate WotB and imediatly after that use warcry to get your fury lvl back to max and kill an elite pack before wotb runs out.

Gatsbizzle

United States132 Posts

October 16 2012 15:20 GMT

#152

Well, since Rend was buffed a lot of people added it into their skill loadout, so there is a fury-dump now (the damage and little bit of extra sustain is nice!). That said, I do miss the days of rocking BR without any fury-dumps.

alpenrahm

Germany629 Posts

October 16 2012 22:26 GMT

#153

fuck -.- i died

Shrubbles

Brazil29 Posts

October 17 2012 02:21 GMT

#154

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Shrubbles-1335/hero/904308

Any hints on what should I focus on now?
I still don't get all this EHP stuff, and my budget is not very high (5 millish).
I know I have lots of room to improve, just can't seem to find what is the most important, and can't seem to find cheap equipment that can give me some decent buff.

Any help appreciated.

icyF

Finland305 Posts

October 17 2012 06:04 GMT

#155

On October 17 2012 11:21 Shrubbles wrote:
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Shrubbles-1335/hero/904308

Any hints on what should I focus on now?
I still don't get all this EHP stuff, and my budget is not very high (5 millish).
I know I have lots of room to improve, just can't seem to find what is the most important, and can't seem to find cheap equipment that can give me some decent buff.

Any help appreciated.

How well can you manage inferno act 3? Maybe you could drop Nerves of Steel or Superstition for Ruthless for a bit more damage? Raising you strenght should be your main focus in terms of higher damage right now, after that comes critical hit chance and damage.

Check THIS for maximum values of stats each slot can roll, and check the AH for equipment with as close to that max as possible. Getting items with all of str, vit and all res is pricey, so try to look for particular stats in particular items.

Right now you have 225 (385 with gems) combined strenght and 437 combined vitality from your shoulders, chest, pants and belt. If you find a chest with 230+ vit, pants with 230+ vit, shoulders with 230+ str and a belt with 230+ str you get up to a total of 460+ of each, and that is before the potential gems. These should all together be affordable with a budget of less than 1,5m. So search for items with one stat, all res and preferrably sockets, if you find something with another useful stat too, that is always a bonus.

Try to check out all the items you want before you actually purchase them, so that you dont end up with having spent 2m gold and got +0 as the total outcome on stats. It takes a bit of time, but making good deals is much more rewarding than making useless deals

Grovbolle

Denmark3813 Posts

October 17 2012 06:20 GMT

#156

You should be able to upg. your weapon for cheap.

Shrubbles

Brazil29 Posts

October 17 2012 06:47 GMT

#157

Thanks a lot icyF, I followed your advice, they were a charm!
I can take MP2 much easier now... my damage went from 18k up to 31k, and my hp went up from 46k to 54k, and i spent like 4mil total!
Love you man!
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Shrubbles-1335/hero/904308

Hairy

United Kingdom1169 Posts

October 17 2012 08:52 GMT

#158

Hey guys,

You might have seen me post around here a bit before, but this time I'd actually like some critique of my barb! I sold some of my good WW/sprint gear (necklace/ring) before the patch to re-buy later, so I'm currently dressed in my tank gear. My rings and necklace were bought on the cheap (~1.3m total for all 3 items), so I wouldn't be surprised if they are comparitively weakest (especially given the new patch).

I'm just looking for a general overview of where I am in terms of gear. Any build suggestions are also welcome, as I pretty much have knowledge mastery of ww/sprint variants and not much else.
http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Hairy-1750/hero/2281818

Big G

Italy835 Posts

October 17 2012 11:33 GMT

#159

Chest and helm seem weak. You have a bit too much survivability I guess, 66k hp with those resist and block is a lot... I would switch for a ruby or topaz on the helm.

For farming efficiency I always suggest some mobility skill, like Sprint (marathon), Leap or Furious Charge.

My current build: http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/BigG-2621/hero/412709 (it performs better with a 2H or a slow 1H though)

bruteMax

Canada339 Posts

October 17 2012 14:11 GMT

#160

Wow Hairy, do you really use LMB for Revenge? I get the feeling the skills were slapped down in a hurry.

Your gear is awesome. There's nothing really that stands out as weak unless compared to your other gear slots. So for example your gloves seem weak due to their low str/vit.

You have way too much def stats (too much armor, too much life, too much res) so unless you are attempting to slog through MP10, grab some gear to up your crit% and dmg.

Or alternatively just drop all your def passives and drop War Cry.

Hairy

United Kingdom1169 Posts

October 17 2012 16:43 GMT

#161

I've been using spacebar for most movement for months (a side-effect of using ww/sprint build with no fury builder). The benefit of using the keyboard for frenzy is that it's really easy to move AND attack, as you just hold down the button

antihobo

Canada121 Posts

October 18 2012 08:19 GMT

#162

Anyone having success with warcry or impunity substitutes? And I keep hearing about hota builds, but I've never seen one. Is it just hota instead of rend?

ArC_man

United States2798 Posts

October 18 2012 08:32 GMT

#163

Overpower with crushing advance is a decent warcry substitute.

Trang

Australia324 Posts

October 18 2012 08:58 GMT

#164

Thought I would drop in just to say hi. I haven't played any D3 in about a month, and I know nothing about patch 1.05, so I can't really be very helpful with up to date advice. Been just flat out with work unfortunately

Good to see that there's still a reason for people to play the Tanky Barb though. Also, Hairy, good to see you here! If only, you decided to try the switch while I was still around

First it was me to try a little WW/Sprint, but at least I still had your advice to go by. Looks like some other quality posters have got it covered though

Anyway, that's the end of my totally pointless post, feels kind of strange to be posting without provide advice or my opinions on D3. See you all in maybe a month again, haha. Keep the Tanky Barb spirit going!

LingsAreBunnies

United States103 Posts

October 18 2012 09:48 GMT

#165

I been running hota and ww, ww is better for lower mp farming because of the higher mobility, but hota feels much better vs ubers and at higher mp levels where mobility isnt as important, since it does significantly more damage, you heal a lot more with life steal. also hota focuses your damage on one target much better, so you can snipe out the dangerous threats much faster compared to ww. I run frenzy-maniac for the buff to hota and to have an easier time to keep up the fury with the fast attack speed and high single target damage. Other than that its basically the usual, maybe overpower-crushing advance instead of warcry. With my current stats, I can do up to mp6 ubers with ww, with frequent deaths on mp7. while with hota up to mp7 comfortably, or mp8 with frequent deaths.

https://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/INeedLings-1648/hero/3247163

Grovbolle

Denmark3813 Posts

October 18 2012 10:58 GMT

#166

Since prices are dropping faster than 14-year old girls panties at a Justin Bieber concert, I'll just pitch in.

If anybody have any old gear they want to sell at a "reasonable" price, PM me.

I know that in a week or 2, prices will have plummeted so if anyone have anything they can't sell but is useful for a guy like me, let me know. I want to improve my DPS without sacrificing too much EHP.

This is my Barb, not a WW guy, so no stats sticks
http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Grovbolle-2191/hero/3595430

Note: Looking especially for: Gloves with more DPS less survivabillity, shoulder, pants chests and jewelry.
Note note: IK gloves and chest are of course appreciated

Edit Note: Got a Skorn from my friend yesterday and some decent gloves. (still looking for upgrades though, don't mind the build, was plowing a friend through NM MP 10 to level his ALT.)

Kerans

Italy58 Posts

October 21 2012 14:10 GMT

#167

Hi guys,
1.0.5 finally got me back to D3, and it does look like fun, tried going for an MP3 Act 2 VotA run and managed to drop an IK belt (decently rolled, no less) right away, but I think my 1.0.4 1h+shield barb could use some upgrading, given how much prices have gone down in the AH. Suggestions about the build are more than welcome, since I don't know if I should finally cave in and switch to a WW barb or not. Got about 45-50 mil in the bank, here's the outfit

http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Kerans-2706/hero/1803066

Thank you!

EDIT: Welcome back Trang

Big G

Italy835 Posts

October 21 2012 15:16 GMT

#168

Your dps is very low, you need as much cc as you can get, through gear and build (passives). Get some life steal or loh too.

wallen

Italy28 Posts

October 21 2012 19:09 GMT

#169

I've stopped playing right after 1.0.3 and I came back to try the game for 1.0.5. I've bought a bunch of items ( http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/wallen-2341/hero/173433 ), I was used to play with a one-hander and a shield. I am currently doing pretty well in farming keys on MP5. I was wondering if there is a more advised build for 1h+shield nowadays.

So no fek

United States3001 Posts

October 26 2012 22:32 GMT

#170

I've been farming MP5 pretty easily for awhile, but it was still a bit slow, so along with a weapon upgrade (had a socket, so it increased my DPS by about 18k, from 50k o.O) and dropped a lot of defensive skills.

My current setup hasn't completely updated: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Sonofek-1524/hero/27563625

I've replaced Tough as Nails with Weapon Master.

I absolutely tear through normal mobs, and with WotB I tear through blue packs, too. It definitely is easier for me to die, but it's only really a problem in packs that would have been a problem with my old build; I just die quicker to the arcane sentry if three of them spawn on top of me in a narrow hallway.

I was a bit hesitant to swap out WarCry for Battle Rage, but it's a change I can live with even if I go back to one Defensive Passive in the future. There are two things I'm still half tempted to try:

1. Swap out Berserker Rage with another passive. I'll probably keep it as it, since I'm at full fury most of the time except for at the start of the fight or when I use a skill that uses some fury, but I quickly get back up then. I'm tempted to try the Brawler skill, since I'm almost always surrounded by at least 3 enemies, if not more. Though it wouldn't be very helpful for when I actually decide to go kill bosses versus just farming keys.

2. Mess around with Furious Charge. It's a great escape ability and I've grown to like it at least as much as Leap, but I wonder how I'd do if I swapped it out with something else. I'd be curious to see how Sprint would work with the rest of my build; I wouldn't try to become a sword and board WW barb, but I would love to have some more movement speed. The downside would obviously be that if I'm surrounded while tanking something nasty on the ground, I can't escape like I could with Furious Charge/Leap.

findingthelimit

Hong Kong219 Posts

October 27 2012 07:18 GMT

#171

I honest don't know why my EHP is so low when I input my stats in the calculator :C, here are my stats:

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/ZYXlimitLSR-2987/hero/18083824

it seems like even though i upgrade according to the philosophy as 1 ALLRES = 2 VIT, I am approaching diminishing returns at this point, rolling with 1366 Vitality and ~170 ALLRES.

what should the ratio between vit/ALLRES be?

i'm really confuzzled as to what I should get, and what component I should upgrade. I thought i'm at the stage where I should be purchasing items with some CC/CD, until I realized my EHP is horrendously lower than what i expected...

i'm farming infernal MP1 btw.

thanks for your replies in advance!

icyF

Finland305 Posts

October 27 2012 08:53 GMT

#172

On October 27 2012 07:32 So no fek wrote:
I've been farming MP5 pretty easily for awhile, but it was still a bit slow, so along with a weapon upgrade (had a socket, so it increased my DPS by about 18k, from 50k o.O) and dropped a lot of defensive skills.

My current setup hasn't completely updated: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Sonofek-1524/hero/27563625

I've replaced Tough as Nails with Weapon Master.

I absolutely tear through normal mobs, and with WotB I tear through blue packs, too. It definitely is easier for me to die, but it's only really a problem in packs that would have been a problem with my old build; I just die quicker to the arcane sentry if three of them spawn on top of me in a narrow hallway.

I was a bit hesitant to swap out WarCry for Battle Rage, but it's a change I can live with even if I go back to one Defensive Passive in the future. There are two things I'm still half tempted to try:

1. Swap out Berserker Rage with another passive. I'll probably keep it as it, since I'm at full fury most of the time except for at the start of the fight or when I use a skill that uses some fury, but I quickly get back up then. I'm tempted to try the Brawler skill, since I'm almost always surrounded by at least 3 enemies, if not more. Though it wouldn't be very helpful for when I actually decide to go kill bosses versus just farming keys.

2. Mess around with Furious Charge. It's a great escape ability and I've grown to like it at least as much as Leap, but I wonder how I'd do if I swapped it out with something else. I'd be curious to see how Sprint would work with the rest of my build; I wouldn't try to become a sword and board WW barb, but I would love to have some more movement speed. The downside would obviously be that if I'm surrounded while tanking something nasty on the ground, I can't escape like I could with Furious Charge/Leap.

1. If arcane is the issue, maybe you'd want to try Superstition instead of Weapon Master or Berserker Rage? I have not really used Brawler that much, so can't say if it is worth it.

2. Sprint can really shave off some extra minutes from your typical farming run, if you feel you can survive without Furious Charge or Leap. However, if you die more often because you have no escape ability, it really isn't worth it as you lose all the time you have gained by running back to where ever you were. Maybe try to search for a decent pair of boots with +12 movement speed instead?

icyF

Finland305 Posts

October 27 2012 09:07 GMT

#173

On October 27 2012 16:18 findingthelimit wrote:
I honest don't know why my EHP is so low when I input my stats in the calculator :C, here are my stats:

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/ZYXlimitLSR-2987/hero/18083824

it seems like even though i upgrade according to the philosophy as 1 ALLRES = 2 VIT, I am approaching diminishing returns at this point, rolling with 1366 Vitality and ~170 ALLRES.

what should the ratio between vit/ALLRES be?

i'm farming infernal MP1 btw.

thanks for your replies in advance!

First off, you need to sacrifice some of that DPS for EHP, because dying more while killing faster only nullify eachother. I counted 118 all res, and approximately 50-100 of each res on top of that. This is VERY low. You might want to try Superstition instead of Nerves of Steel, or Ruthless if you can get a bigger increase in EHP while not losing too much DPS.

Also, you might want to consider swapping out at least one of these: belt, boots, pants, chest or shoulders for a piece with 50+ all res. You will most likely have to sacrifice some strength (or vitality, but I don't recommend sacrificing vit if you aim to increase EHP) to do so, but your overall EHP should increase. If you can find a piece of gear that doesn't make you sacrifice anything in return, buy it if it fits your budget.

Your DPS should be enough for farming MP1 fairly efficiently, as long as you don't die

findingthelimit

Hong Kong219 Posts

October 27 2012 17:02 GMT

#174

On October 27 2012 18:07 icyF wrote:

Show nested quote +

you see, when i bought my no ALLRES gear, i thuoght it would increase my EHP, because the OP said something like he typically counts 1 point of res as 1.5 points of vit, and usually less.

for instance, let's say i started with a pair of gloves with

180str
50vit
50allres

i upgrade it to get something with

200str
160vit
no res

shouldn't that increase my ehp, since i'm counting 1 point of res as more than 2 points of vit during that upgrade? or is that a sidegrade?

Hairy

United Kingdom1169 Posts

October 27 2012 17:40 GMT

#175

The recommendation that 1 resistance is ~= 1.5 vit is assuming people have roughly standard amounts of health and resistances. Essentially, the OP was basically saying to be careful not to "over-focus" on AR, and that often you may be better cutting the AR slightly and getting a chunk more health instead. Unfortunately, you've misunderstood, and skimped on the AR entirely

All the stats are a balancing act: to get the best character, you want to balance your stats quite evenly. I find it easiest to explain when talking about DPS:

Let's say you have a barbarian with:

100 strength
+75% crit
+600% crit damage
+50% attack speed

This would be silly, but it should illustrate the point - it's obvious that the biggest increase to his DPS would be through increasing his strength. He could get another 100 crit damage, but that wouldn't actually increase his damage very much because his attacks hit for such wimpy damage. As one stat gets higher it's proportional importance decreases, and the OTHER stats increase in importance.

Defense works the same way. To increase your EHP you need basically need to balance AR, vitality, and armour. I hope that made sense!

Use this site to create your own 'class build'. You can import from bnet profiles, so it's very convenient.
http://d3up.com/b/58559 (that's my character). At the right, you can see some statistics. It works out EHP gains by stat, and DPS gains by stat. For example, my EHP ones are:

+1 Armor	52.16
+1 Dexterity	142.42
+1 Intelligence	57.86
+1 Strength	52.16
+1 Vitality	356.77
+1 Resist All	578.62
+1% Life	3,652.72
+1% Block	0
+1% Melee Reduce	4,316.85
+1% Ranged Reduce	4,316.85
+1% Elite Reduce	4,316.85

What I like to do is take those stats, and divide them by vitality to see how important they are in comparison. That would mean:


+1 Armor	0.146
+1 Dexterity	0.399
+1 Intelligence	0.162
+1 Strength	0.146
+1 Vitality	1
+1 Resist All	1.622
+1% Life	        10.238
+1% Melee Reduce	12.099

findingthelimit

Hong Kong219 Posts

October 27 2012 18:24 GMT

#176

On October 28 2012 02:40 Hairy wrote:
The recommendation that 1 resistance is ~= 1.5 vit is assuming people have roughly standard amounts of health and resistances. Essentially, the OP was basically saying to be careful not to "over-focus" on AR, and that often you may be better cutting the AR slightly and getting a chunk more health instead. Unfortunately, you've misunderstood, and skimped on the AR entirely

All the stats are a balancing act: to get the best character, you want to balance your stats quite evenly. I find it easiest to explain when talking about DPS:

Let's say you have a barbarian with:

100 strength
+75% crit
+600% crit damage
+50% attack speed

+1 Armor	52.16
+1 Dexterity	142.42
+1 Intelligence	57.86
+1 Strength	52.16
+1 Vitality	356.77
+1 Resist All	578.62
+1% Life	3,652.72
+1% Block	0
+1% Melee Reduce	4,316.85
+1% Ranged Reduce	4,316.85
+1% Elite Reduce	4,316.85

What I like to do is take those stats, and divide them by vitality to see how important they are in comparison. That would mean:


+1 Armor	0.146
+1 Dexterity	0.399
+1 Intelligence	0.162
+1 Strength	0.146
+1 Vitality	1
+1 Resist All	1.622
+1% Life	        10.238
+1% Melee Reduce	12.099

That's incredibly helpful. TYVM! :D

TheRealArtemis

687 Posts

May 03 2013 01:23 GMT

#177

Bump!

Any TL'ers still rocking the 1h shield or have I become alone? Would be nice to see what kind of gear other 1h shield classes are using O_o Espacially since the thread hasnt been alive since the 1.04 patch it seems.

Battlenet profile
+ Show Spoiler +

http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Artemis-2465/hero/876094

Diablo progess
+ Show Spoiler +

http://www.diabloprogress.com/hero/artemis-2465/Conan/876094

Big G

Italy835 Posts

May 03 2013 01:38 GMT

#178

Sadly, Echoing Fury after patch 1.05 has killed sword&board barbs. That +0.25aps is just too much of a difference in terms of dps, and when you have a class with a potential 12% life steal... dps is the only thing that really matters as long as you don't get one-shotted.

http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/scandalo-2837/hero/26653

This is a friend of mine, with one of the best shields on EU server. He likes a balanced setup and loves PvP... but even with godly gear he's slower in PvE than the average dual wield guy.

TheRealArtemis

687 Posts

May 03 2013 02:04 GMT

#179

On May 03 2013 10:38 Big G wrote:
Sadly, Echoing Fury after patch 1.05 has killed sword&board barbs. That +0.25aps is just too much of a difference in terms of dps, and when you have a class with a potential 12% life steal... dps is the only thing that really matters as long as you don't get one-shotted.

http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/scandalo-2837/hero/26653

This is a friend of mine, with one of the best shields on EU server. He likes a balanced setup and loves PvP... but even with godly gear he's slower in PvE than the average dual wield guy.

Indeed. A 1h shield barb functions best versus Ubers or solo runs when farming. Nothing beats the WW farming or the power of a CM wizards. But its okay, I think we all did know that 1h tanky dps barbs werent meant to be effecient at farming =)

Which is kinda a shame, considering the power a 1h can actually have with the right gear.

btw, your friends barb is quite awesome! Im happy to see others out there >_</

I hope blizz will try to balance the game a bit more. It seems like the only build they want people to have is a high DPS build. They like to promote teamwork, but they still buff the peoples DPS and nerf the damage that inferno does, so that there is no need for a tanky shield class, that wont drag the team down. life steal and DPS is indeed what the game is all about now. Who needs HP if you insta heals ^__^

WaZ

United States108 Posts

May 03 2013 03:16 GMT

#180

heres my shield barb http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/WaZ-1854/hero/20269737
but I am kinda stuck and bored maybe will switch to a skorn or 2h dno

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