Hey guys I was just playing around with the calculator wondering if the passive 'Relentless' could ever become a core aspect of a build. Here's what I cooked up, feel free to modify. I know avoiding health globes, and safely and purposely lowering your health to 20% might become a bit tedious in the higher difficulties, worth a try anyway I guess?
This build allows constant Battle Rage and WOTB buffs, unlimited whirlwind (without the need for a golden rune) and seismic slam for decent AoE damage with knockback. It was a toss up between Hammer of the Ancients and Weapon throw for single target damage, but the slowdown effect and long range attack on WT, i think anyway, suits this build better. Thoughts?
I was playing around with this idea myself a while back. As far as your build goes, I'd probably drop Ruthless for something to add survavability, Tough As Nails, Nerves of Steel, maybe even Superstition. Something like that. I'd probably switch Seismic Slam for either War Cry with Crimson or Indigo, or Threatening Shout with Golden. You can't use seismic slam at the same time as you're using whirlwind, so it seems better to use a skill which would increase your survivability considering you'll be under 20% health as much as possible.
mocaorca, Seismic slam is the AoE which can be spammed since there's no need for fury, whirlwind is just a skill that I thought might come in handy if I did accidentally pick up a health globe or something. Since I don't really want mobs getting close to me at 20% health I'd swap whirlwind out for another buff. And, I think you're right about Ruthless if this build IS going to be viable it needs all the damage deflection available. So scrap Ruthless and add Tough as Nails. Question about that, would 100% extra armour negate the same amount of non physical damage as Superstition (obviously depending on your base armour value), or does non physical damage hit the same amount regardless of armour?
Superstate, I reckon that in both normal and nightmare this build will hold it's own if the user is careful enough and doesn't just go for the hack/slash barbarian playstyle. With Hell difficulty this build probably won't get so far, like I said we'll see. Inferno, well, let's just forget about that for the moment. But the point is that after lowering yourself to the 20% mark there'll hopefully be enough armour and speed buffs to avert or dilute whatever damage you can't manually dodge, but the main focus is not to get attacked in the first place. Hence the spammable knockback and ranged attack.
EDIT: Here's a reworked version, Frenzy looks a lot better than Bash when it comes to single target damage, and when runed has a nice ranged effect going for it. I was tossing up between Frenzy or Leap but cooldowns make me frown.
I just realised something pretty amazing - look at Wrath of the Berserker. I'm wondering if you can activate the skill multiple times before it's initial effect wears off. If so we have a buff AND a very impressive AoE attack, which could be somewhat spammable. That leaves room to throw Seismic Slam out and chuck in Whirlwind again! Which should be pretty good at demolishing large groups. Also I changed Threatening Shout's rune to golden because obviously if enemies have less attack speed they can't do as much damage! All in all this build has around 85% damage reduction without even taking the armour value into account.
Maths: A zombie does 10 damage per hit (for the purpose of this example)
[Relentless] > 50% off 10 = 5
[Threatening Shout damage reduction] > 50% off 5 = 2.5
[Threatening Shout speed reduction] > 40% off 2.5 = 1.5***
Therefore, if you think about it you are taking the same amount of damage (or even less) proportionally as if you had 100% health without using Relentless. Plus the added bonus of absolute unrestricted use of fury! Tell me you're not excited about that?
*** I'm almost 100% sure this isn't how 'attack speed translating into damage' works, but my train of thought was that if 40% slower attack speed, dmg/sec would be reduced by 40%. Just correct me if I'm wrong, I almost certainly am.
EDIT: Scrap this, WotB has a cooldown of 120 seconds....
I'm pretty sure Wrath of the Berserker has a cooldown. It was 120 seconds I think, but I don't see it listed anymore. And seismic slam, I wonder how big the arc is, it's probably a narrow arc for 45 yards foward. My build focused around using weapon throw as my spamable.
And as for viability, it may not be viable, but it might be, and I'll undoubtedly have fun fooling around with it, so why not? That's one of the nice things about being able to freely switch skills. I rushed so many characters through D2 so I could try builds like this.
This is definitely not a hardcore build. And it's not even a main build plan for me. This is the kind of stuff I do when I get bored. Figuring out how to make non typical builds work (not neciserily well) is fun to me.
Akse, I think that's some kind of typo. They're supposed to be level 4 runestones listed on the calculator and if it reduces it to 0 at level 4, what would it do at level 7? Plus it doesn't seem likely they'll give you free whirlwind even at level 7.
That looks like a great build. I would be willing to try it out. I really like the idea of the build you are using, but it might lack survivability. There is a lot of build testing to do. Great idea.
Haha, everyone talking about survivability, are you not seeing the amount of 'life tradeoff' here? THERE IS NONE. You have the SAME amount of life as before and unless something hits for a percentage of your maximum health, there is no difference in having a full globe and a 20% globe. All because of damage negation. Geezuz...
Mocaorca, you're exactly right with the cooldown thing... absolute bummer I thought i was in with a winner haha. Which leads me to the problem: Do I want WotB anymore? If I do, what's my new AoE going to be? Would you guys consider whirlwind with mini tornadoes AoE? I think all up each small one hits about 250% wd, with the main attack hitting around 275-300% per second.
I'm pretty sure I changed seismic slam around after the first post, the 'arc' damage turned me off because, well, it's not really AoE it's an arc. Here's the new build without WotB as an AoE. Basically the same as the other one just with a few tweaks.
That's too many offensive skills man Was looking at Bravado earlier, it's Ignore Pain with the golden runestone. Might be something to swap Wrath of the Berserker with. You'd definitely get to use it more often and although it's not a lot of damage, or spamable, it still gives you the knockback plus some more damage reduction.
Looks like 'kill everything in sight' build. If ur going for pure dps to match more dps oriented DH or wizard, this might be a good build. But in real situation esp in PvM, you will need survivability or at least some cc like ground stomp
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This build allows constant Battle Rage and WOTB buffs, unlimited whirlwind (without the need for a golden rune) and seismic slam for decent AoE damage with knockback. It was a toss up between Hammer of the Ancients and Weapon throw for single target damage, but the slowdown effect and long range attack on WT, i think anyway, suits this build better. Thoughts?
Superstate, I reckon that in both normal and nightmare this build will hold it's own if the user is careful enough and doesn't just go for the hack/slash barbarian playstyle. With Hell difficulty this build probably won't get so far, like I said we'll see. Inferno, well, let's just forget about that for the moment. But the point is that after lowering yourself to the 20% mark there'll hopefully be enough armour and speed buffs to avert or dilute whatever damage you can't manually dodge, but the main focus is not to get attacked in the first place. Hence the spammable knockback and ranged attack.
EDIT: Here's a reworked version, Frenzy looks a lot better than Bash when it comes to single target damage, and when runed has a nice ranged effect going for it. I was tossing up between Frenzy or Leap but cooldowns make me frown.
Maths: A zombie does 10 damage per hit (for the purpose of this example)
[Relentless] > 50% off 10 = 5
[Threatening Shout damage reduction] > 50% off 5 = 2.5
[Threatening Shout speed reduction] > 40% off 2.5 = 1.5***
Therefore, if you think about it you are taking the same amount of damage (or even less) proportionally as if you had 100% health without using Relentless. Plus the added bonus of absolute unrestricted use of fury! Tell me you're not excited about that?
*** I'm almost 100% sure this isn't how 'attack speed translating into damage' works, but my train of thought was that if 40% slower attack speed, dmg/sec would be reduced by 40%. Just correct me if I'm wrong, I almost certainly am.
EDIT: Scrap this, WotB has a cooldown of 120 seconds....
And as for viability, it may not be viable, but it might be, and I'll undoubtedly have fun fooling around with it, so why not? That's one of the nice things about being able to freely switch skills. I rushed so many characters through D2 so I could try builds like this.
According to the skill page it reduces fury cost to 0.0, thats the highest level right (highest rune?)?
Should make me feel like in the old times whirling around!
RIP: Demon Hunter: lvl 50 | Barb: lvl 60 (plvl 5) | Monk: lvl12 & lvl70 (plvl 200)
Akse, I think that's some kind of typo. They're supposed to be level 4 runestones listed on the calculator and if it reduces it to 0 at level 4, what would it do at level 7? Plus it doesn't seem likely they'll give you free whirlwind even at level 7.
Mocaorca, you're exactly right with the cooldown thing... absolute bummer I thought i was in with a winner haha. Which leads me to the problem: Do I want WotB anymore? If I do, what's my new AoE going to be? Would you guys consider whirlwind with mini tornadoes AoE? I think all up each small one hits about 250% wd, with the main attack hitting around 275-300% per second.
I'm pretty sure I changed seismic slam around after the first post, the 'arc' damage turned me off because, well, it's not really AoE it's an arc. Here's the new build without WotB as an AoE. Basically the same as the other one just with a few tweaks.