I designed this build to be one that thrives against large groups of enemies. This build also makes use of extreme + damage modifiers, well, because big numbers are fun. Finally, it is designed to expend almost no Fury, making Fury management a non-issue, and taking advantage of the Berserker Rage passive.
If these are calculated multiplicatively, they give a x 2.91 modifier to all damage.
How to play this build:
Gather up at least 3 (likely more) enemies. Frenzy until full Fury and buff stacks. Use Overpower and Revenge when available (should be very freqeuently), use Earthquake on big packs (less frequently, but uses no Fury with chosen rune). Keep up Battle Rage and War Cry. Overall pretty simple, and no Fury management.
If you are in a pack of at least 3 enemies, and multiply the skills by the 2.91 modifier calculated above:
- Frenzy does 320% weapon damage per swing at +75% attack speed
- Revenge does 640% AOE damage (with 30% proc rate)… should almost be spammable in large packs
- Overpower does 756% AOE damage (resets with crit, although this build doesn’t necessarily focus on stacking crit)
- Earthquake does 4656% damage to each enemy over 8 sec (582%/sec) over a very large range, usable every 1min 45sec. The beauty of this skill is it’s a very large AOE and it’s a DoT. You hit the button once and you can continue to Frenzy/Overpower/Revenge while it ticks away… 4600% weapon damage to all enemies for a single global cooldown on a reduced cooldown and fury-less is hard to pass up. Goes with the theme of an AOE brawler too.
Survivability:
Because this build is meant to be in the fray with packs of enemies, and given the supposed difficulty of Inferno mode, survivability was definitely something I had to account for.
Revenge – the more enemies around you, the more often this procs, and the more health you get back per use. As an example, if you have 1 monster hitting you, it procs X times, and you heal 5% per use (= .05X). If you have 2 monsters hitting you, sure your health drops twice as quickly, but Revenge procs 2X times, and you heal 10% per use (= .2X)… essentially you lose health twice as quickly, but restore it 4x faster than you did with only 1 enemy. It’s actually easier to stay alive when surrounded by enemies.
Overpower with Revel – more AOE damage than Revenge, but more importantly, more heal than Revenge. If you only have 1 enemy, with a hypothetical crit rate of 25%, it will reset 1 in 4 uses. Now, if you are surrounded by 4-5 enemies, with a hypothetical crit rate of 25%, it should almost always crit at least 1 enemy per use, meaning it will reset very often, and heal for even more per use (7% per enemy near you). Just like with Revenge, your survivability could theoretically go up as you get more enemies nearby.
War Cry – +50% Armor means although you’re getting hit often, it’s for less health each time… you want to be hit for Revenge to proc, so getting hit for less is nice (Dodge chance on the other hand would not help Revenge). With the Invigorate rune, it’s also synergistic with Overpower and Revenge, as the +10% max health means the heals from Overpower/Revenge are 10% more effective (since they’re based on max health as well). On top of that, you get the 890 health/sec. Depending on itemization/sources of damage in Inferno difficulty, the Impunity rune might be more beneficial than Invigorate.
Flexibility: War Cry may be exchangeable for another skill (preferably non-fury spender) such as Leap Attack, especially if jumping out of packs proves to be more beneficial to survivability than what War Cry gives you.
As far as single-target boss fights, you could change out the Brawler passive for something like Ruthless or Bloodthirst. The playstyle wouldn't change much... Frenzy as primary, Overpower/Revenge when up. Earthquake should still be useful in single-target fights, as 4600% weapon damage for one global cooldown is nice... but given its 105 second reset cooldown, this might be better changed out for another skill for bosses. Hard to say at this point.
Comments are appreciated… keep in mind the theme is an AOE brawler that utilizes max-fury for extra damage. Survivability is important too.
The more I look at it, the more I think Leap Attack (Iron Impact) is more useful than War Cry (Invigorate).
1) +300% armor with 40% up time (4 sec every 10) > +50% armor with 100% up time. Especially given the effective up time will be greater than 40% if you account for the fact that Leap Attack will cooldown when you are in-between battles.
2) Being able to leap out of tough situations, or being able to leap towards ranged/casters probably outweighs the +10% health and 890 health/sec. It can act as a better "Oh sh%!" button than War Cry can.
3) Style points. Being able to jump into the fray, or over barriers is part of what makes the Barbarian sweet. Jumping towards new packs might mean more up time for the Frenzy buff too.
Something I forgot to bring up for playstyle -- as far as weapon choice for this build, large damage two-handed swords would be best.
This is because all abilities (except for Frenzy) are limited by cooldowns or procs, meaning they are not limited by attack speed like the spammable abilities are. Typically if you dual wield, you hit for less, but attack quicker, and the dps averages out about the same as a slow-swinging, hard-hitting two-hander. If you rely on abilities that are not limited by attack speed (such as Revenge, Overpower, Earthquake, and Leap Attack), then raw damage is more important than dps... hence two handed swords would be best.
Dual wielding generates fury faster, but that isn't an issue with this build as you won't be spending much fury.
Good to know about the damage modifiers being additive rather than multiplicative. It would lower some of the numbers I originally posted, but overall, the build makes use of almost all the big modifiers that exist for the barbarian, so it's still getting as high as you can.
I also looked at making a WotB Thrive on Chaos build. In fact, that's how I arrived at the build I posted here. I spent some time thinking about trying to maintain WotB as long as possible... but realized that (as far as damage goes) it really only give a 25% attack speed bonus and 10% crit. In designing my WotB build, I also included Weapon Throw Dread Bomb as a Fury dump so that I could keep "generating" fury to prolong WotB.
I suddenly realized that if I didn't bother dumping fury (aka stayed at max fury), and grabbed the Berserker Rage passive, I would increase damage by 25% at all times (more than off-setting the WotB 25% increased attack speed which is only up some of the time time). Also, the 10% crit WotB gives would be offset by going from using Mighty Weapons (which my WotB build used to help with fury generation) to using Axes/Hammers with the Weapons Master passive... or better yet, by switching to Swords (in my opinion 15% damage > 10% crit).
Suddenly I had a build with better damage than WotB offered, with more consistent uptime, that didn't require trying to maintain fury generation by rushing to the next pack of enemies and remembering to dump fury, and opened up two ability slots (from the loss of WotB and Weapon Throw). Earthquake just seemed to fit well into the theme I made.
Just something to consider. Pre-nerf, WotB was amazing. Now it's been nerfed rather hard, and while good, may not be worth the trouble of designing an entire build around anymore. The Insanity rune (+100% damage) is admittedly huge, but then you give up Thrive on Chaos, which means its duration can no longer be extended, and will only be active for 15 seconds out of every 120 (or 90 using Boon of Bul-Kathos).
In my opinion, WotB should be increased to some degree.
You don't have a fury dump. You will be at max fury quickly, and therefore won't make good use of the Thrive on Chaos rune because you can't generate any more fury. If you need a good fury dump, I would consider looking at Weapon Throw Dread Bomb.
You also have a rune to generate fury even quicker on your Overpower skill, but again, have no reason to generate fury since you have nothing to spend it on. Might consider another rune... or if you do end up using a fury dump, then keeping as it is might be beneficial.
Defensive skills are nice (especially for Inferno I'm sure), but you sacrifice 25% damage from losing Berserker Rage and 30% damage from Brawler, then lose the heals of Overpower and Revenge (which can be considered "defensive" in a sense)... ultimately you lose significant damage and lose the survivability of Overpower/Revenge in order to gain the survivability of armor from Tough as Nails/Nerves of Steel.
I also feel Earthquake, which is 3500% weapon damage (if additive) or 4600% weapon damage (if multiplicative) in an AOE every 105 seconds is likely a bigger nuke button than WotB (25% increased attack speed and 10% crit) for only 15 sec every 120 sec, presumably used with Frenzy which is single-target only. On single targets/bosses, WotB might be better though.
Finally, Revenge with "Vengeance is Mine" makes the heal 50% more effective (7.5% vs 5%), but Revenge with Provocation doubles the proc, meaning it makes the heal 100% more effective (10% vs 5%) and makes you do twice the AOE damage. Just something to consider.
Is it actually known yet wether or not you need to actually 'generate' fury? Or is it so that you can just overcap your fury and WotB duration will increase with its rune regardless, as long as you use fury generating attacks.
No, I guess it's not known yet. Can't be tested in beta yet. It's literally the last rune available to the Barbarian too, so it will be a bit before enough people get there to actually test it out.
On the other hand, there will probably be plenty of level 60s two days after launch, but whether or not those people pause long enough to read these forums is unlikely.
a good build over-all and more specialized for pve... but i'd trade overpower for ancient spear w/ grappling hooks to lure some enemies and activate your brawler passive, although it wouldn't matter much if there are lots of mob
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http://us.battle.net...SeRg!YgX!ZabYcb
I designed this build to be one that thrives against large groups of enemies. This build also makes use of extreme + damage modifiers, well, because big numbers are fun. Finally, it is designed to expend almost no Fury, making Fury management a non-issue, and taking advantage of the Berserker Rage passive.
+ Damage modifiers: 20% (Frenzy), 30% (Battle Rage), 15% (Weapons Master – Swords), 30% (Brawler), 25% (Berserker Rage).
If these are calculated multiplicatively, they give a x 2.91 modifier to all damage.
How to play this build:
Gather up at least 3 (likely more) enemies. Frenzy until full Fury and buff stacks. Use Overpower and Revenge when available (should be very freqeuently), use Earthquake on big packs (less frequently, but uses no Fury with chosen rune). Keep up Battle Rage and War Cry. Overall pretty simple, and no Fury management.
If you are in a pack of at least 3 enemies, and multiply the skills by the 2.91 modifier calculated above:
- Frenzy does 320% weapon damage per swing at +75% attack speed
- Revenge does 640% AOE damage (with 30% proc rate)… should almost be spammable in large packs
- Overpower does 756% AOE damage (resets with crit, although this build doesn’t necessarily focus on stacking crit)
- Earthquake does 4656% damage to each enemy over 8 sec (582%/sec) over a very large range, usable every 1min 45sec. The beauty of this skill is it’s a very large AOE and it’s a DoT. You hit the button once and you can continue to Frenzy/Overpower/Revenge while it ticks away… 4600% weapon damage to all enemies for a single global cooldown on a reduced cooldown and fury-less is hard to pass up. Goes with the theme of an AOE brawler too.
Survivability:
Because this build is meant to be in the fray with packs of enemies, and given the supposed difficulty of Inferno mode, survivability was definitely something I had to account for.
Revenge – the more enemies around you, the more often this procs, and the more health you get back per use. As an example, if you have 1 monster hitting you, it procs X times, and you heal 5% per use (= .05X). If you have 2 monsters hitting you, sure your health drops twice as quickly, but Revenge procs 2X times, and you heal 10% per use (= .2X)… essentially you lose health twice as quickly, but restore it 4x faster than you did with only 1 enemy. It’s actually easier to stay alive when surrounded by enemies.
Overpower with Revel – more AOE damage than Revenge, but more importantly, more heal than Revenge. If you only have 1 enemy, with a hypothetical crit rate of 25%, it will reset 1 in 4 uses. Now, if you are surrounded by 4-5 enemies, with a hypothetical crit rate of 25%, it should almost always crit at least 1 enemy per use, meaning it will reset very often, and heal for even more per use (7% per enemy near you). Just like with Revenge, your survivability could theoretically go up as you get more enemies nearby.
War Cry – +50% Armor means although you’re getting hit often, it’s for less health each time… you want to be hit for Revenge to proc, so getting hit for less is nice (Dodge chance on the other hand would not help Revenge). With the Invigorate rune, it’s also synergistic with Overpower and Revenge, as the +10% max health means the heals from Overpower/Revenge are 10% more effective (since they’re based on max health as well). On top of that, you get the 890 health/sec. Depending on itemization/sources of damage in Inferno difficulty, the Impunity rune might be more beneficial than Invigorate.
Flexibility: War Cry may be exchangeable for another skill (preferably non-fury spender) such as Leap Attack, especially if jumping out of packs proves to be more beneficial to survivability than what War Cry gives you.
As far as single-target boss fights, you could change out the Brawler passive for something like Ruthless or Bloodthirst. The playstyle wouldn't change much... Frenzy as primary, Overpower/Revenge when up. Earthquake should still be useful in single-target fights, as 4600% weapon damage for one global cooldown is nice... but given its 105 second reset cooldown, this might be better changed out for another skill for bosses. Hard to say at this point.
Comments are appreciated… keep in mind the theme is an AOE brawler that utilizes max-fury for extra damage. Survivability is important too.
1) +300% armor with 40% up time (4 sec every 10) > +50% armor with 100% up time. Especially given the effective up time will be greater than 40% if you account for the fact that Leap Attack will cooldown when you are in-between battles.
2) Being able to leap out of tough situations, or being able to leap towards ranged/casters probably outweighs the +10% health and 890 health/sec. It can act as a better "Oh sh%!" button than War Cry can.
3) Style points. Being able to jump into the fray, or over barriers is part of what makes the Barbarian sweet. Jumping towards new packs might mean more up time for the Frenzy buff too.
The new build becomes: http://us.battle.net...deRg!YgX!ZacYcb
Something I forgot to bring up for playstyle -- as far as weapon choice for this build, large damage two-handed swords would be best.
This is because all abilities (except for Frenzy) are limited by cooldowns or procs, meaning they are not limited by attack speed like the spammable abilities are. Typically if you dual wield, you hit for less, but attack quicker, and the dps averages out about the same as a slow-swinging, hard-hitting two-hander. If you rely on abilities that are not limited by attack speed (such as Revenge, Overpower, Earthquake, and Leap Attack), then raw damage is more important than dps... hence two handed swords would be best.
Dual wielding generates fury faster, but that isn't an issue with this build as you won't be spending much fury.
Imagine a 4600% weapon damage Earthquake with http://us.battle.net.../item/warmonger
Same one I will be entering the contest with.. http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/barbarian#WedcSV!XYg!ZYcbbc
I also looked at making a WotB Thrive on Chaos build. In fact, that's how I arrived at the build I posted here. I spent some time thinking about trying to maintain WotB as long as possible... but realized that (as far as damage goes) it really only give a 25% attack speed bonus and 10% crit. In designing my WotB build, I also included Weapon Throw Dread Bomb as a Fury dump so that I could keep "generating" fury to prolong WotB.
I suddenly realized that if I didn't bother dumping fury (aka stayed at max fury), and grabbed the Berserker Rage passive, I would increase damage by 25% at all times (more than off-setting the WotB 25% increased attack speed which is only up some of the time time). Also, the 10% crit WotB gives would be offset by going from using Mighty Weapons (which my WotB build used to help with fury generation) to using Axes/Hammers with the Weapons Master passive... or better yet, by switching to Swords (in my opinion 15% damage > 10% crit).
Suddenly I had a build with better damage than WotB offered, with more consistent uptime, that didn't require trying to maintain fury generation by rushing to the next pack of enemies and remembering to dump fury, and opened up two ability slots (from the loss of WotB and Weapon Throw). Earthquake just seemed to fit well into the theme I made.
Just something to consider. Pre-nerf, WotB was amazing. Now it's been nerfed rather hard, and while good, may not be worth the trouble of designing an entire build around anymore. The Insanity rune (+100% damage) is admittedly huge, but then you give up Thrive on Chaos, which means its duration can no longer be extended, and will only be active for 15 seconds out of every 120 (or 90 using Boon of Bul-Kathos).
In my opinion, WotB should be increased to some degree.
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/barbarian#WUPeSR!VbY!aYcYaa
Just with a little more defensive skills
You don't have a fury dump. You will be at max fury quickly, and therefore won't make good use of the Thrive on Chaos rune because you can't generate any more fury. If you need a good fury dump, I would consider looking at Weapon Throw Dread Bomb.
You also have a rune to generate fury even quicker on your Overpower skill, but again, have no reason to generate fury since you have nothing to spend it on. Might consider another rune... or if you do end up using a fury dump, then keeping as it is might be beneficial.
Defensive skills are nice (especially for Inferno I'm sure), but you sacrifice 25% damage from losing Berserker Rage and 30% damage from Brawler, then lose the heals of Overpower and Revenge (which can be considered "defensive" in a sense)... ultimately you lose significant damage and lose the survivability of Overpower/Revenge in order to gain the survivability of armor from Tough as Nails/Nerves of Steel.
I also feel Earthquake, which is 3500% weapon damage (if additive) or 4600% weapon damage (if multiplicative) in an AOE every 105 seconds is likely a bigger nuke button than WotB (25% increased attack speed and 10% crit) for only 15 sec every 120 sec, presumably used with Frenzy which is single-target only. On single targets/bosses, WotB might be better though.
Finally, Revenge with "Vengeance is Mine" makes the heal 50% more effective (7.5% vs 5%), but Revenge with Provocation doubles the proc, meaning it makes the heal 100% more effective (10% vs 5%) and makes you do twice the AOE damage. Just something to consider.
No, I guess it's not known yet. Can't be tested in beta yet. It's literally the last rune available to the Barbarian too, so it will be a bit before enough people get there to actually test it out.
On the other hand, there will probably be plenty of level 60s two days after launch, but whether or not those people pause long enough to read these forums is unlikely.