Rating
+1

HC Season 12 Starter IK HOTA w/Shield

Seasonal
Hybrid
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Skills

  • Hammer of the Ancients Smash
  • Furious Charge Merciless Assault
  • Battle Rage Bloodshed
  • War Cry Veteran's Warning
  • Wrath of the Berserker Insanity
  • Call of the Ancients Together as One
  • Nerves of Steel
  • Berserker Rage
  • Bloodthirst
  • Sword and Board

Items

More Details
  • Legendary Gems

    • Esoteric Alteration
    • Bane of the Trapped
    • Pain Enhancer

Kanai's Cube

  • The Gavel of Judgment
  • Aquila Cuirass
  • Band of Might

The items I most often see in HOTA cookie cutter builds (even season starter builds) is slanderer/little rogue and traveler's pledge/compass rose. These items are NOT easy to gamble for as there are many rings and swords and the cube isn't a huge help either. I wanted to be able to solo clear GR 60 and up to a GR 70 for the chance to get primal ancient items to drop without needing to find every single specific piece of gear that the cookie cutter builds tell me to use. My best option to accomplish this was to take the justice lantern I found (not required) and combine it with a high block chance stormshield + the sword and board passive to boost my toughness.


For the weapon, use your strongest 1 handed weapon (preferably ancient) and for the amulet, use whatever you can get. Hell fire is probably the most predictable option to farm.

Paragon Priorities

Core

Movement Speed
Maximum Resource
Primary Stat
Vitality

Offense

Critical Hit Chance
Critical Hit Damage
Attack Speed
Cooldown Reduction

Defense

Resist All
Life
Armor
Life Regeneration

Utility

Area Damage
Life on Hit
Resource Cost Reduction
Gold Find

Basic paragon priorities...Movement speed to 25%, then work on strength OR fury depending on your crit chance.


For offense, focus on crit whenever possible (shield, rings, amulet, gloves, helmet, bracers) as Hammer of the Ancients will eventually reach near 100% crit chance.


For defense, res all is barbarian's weakness stat, so focus on that, followed by either life% or armor, whichever you are lacking the most in.


For utility, area damage is the obvious choice, followed by life on hit. Resource cost reduction isn't necessary since the ancients will keep your fury full. Also, we are relying on life per fury spent to heal ourselves, so resource cost reduction also reduces the healing we receive when we spam HOTA.

Build Guide

The main concept is to use the HOTA mechanic (increases crit% based on your maximum fury) plus the crit% that you get on your rings, amulet, gloves, helmet, bracers AND shield, to make HOTA basically always crit, using starter gear. At that point, the Battle Rage rune Bloodshed will begin to work its magic. You make up for your short comings in toughness through the aquila cuirass chest and band of might in the cube, along with call of the ancients together as one, the 30% dodge chance from war cry and the two shield options (justice lantern and sword and board). Using this set up you can have 50-60% block chance (half of that in damage reduction) and 30% dodge chance, along with respectable damage that will farm T10-13 at a comfortable pace and help you to reach GR 70 solo.


I created this build for HC Season 12 as a new player, with the intent to use the items that are easiest to get. The IK set will come from the season journey, the shoulders and bracers are easy to gamble, it seems like I find shields often enough that I should make use of them, and the cube makes mighty weapons easy to convert from rare to legendary (there aren't that many mighty weapons in the game).


I understand that at face value this build isn't going to clear GR 80+ and top the leader boards, but it is a reliable and safe way to begin a HC seasonal journey. So if you are looking for a slightly different take on IK HOTA and you can't find all the goodies, let me know what you think of this build. Please keep in mind that this is a work in progress and I am open for any suggestions to improve.


Cheers!