So I'm sure most are familiar with the double tornado build which has been becoming increasingly popular. If you don't know what I'm referring to you can read all about it here: http://us.battle.net...opic/5888809698
I gave that build a try, and found it fun, but also found it lacking. I felt like it was only really good against large groups of mobs, was tough to get the ball rolling sometimes, and required a lot of life on hit to be successful. I decided to modify the build and experiment with different setups. First I'll go through each of my skills and passives and explain why I chose them.
The Skills:
Bash - Punish:
The standard double tornado build does not use any main attack skill. I hated that. I didn't like having whirlwind bound to my left mouse button and having to rely completely on fury spenders to do damage. I chose bash over frenzy because I found I rarely was able to keep frenzy at 5 stacks long enough to justify using it. I didn't like that I had to attack five times to charge up frenzy before it started becoming good. The punish rune increases skill damage by 18% and only requires you to attack 3 times to reach full effectiveness. Bash also does A LOT of damage compared to frenzy. The knockback is also really underrated in my opinion. It's great for interrupting enemy attack animations and getting out of surrounds. Having to chase them down after knocking them back isn't a problem at all since I also have sprint.
Seismic Slam - Strength from Earth
I always liked the idea behind seismic slam, but never really could find a place for it in my builds. I found the fury cost way too high to justify it. I tried this skill out with the reduced fury cost rune, and it fit in so ridiculously well l can't imagine switching it out. This skill is critical to the play style of the build and synergizes incredibly well with everything else. The AoE radius and range on this skill is massive and lets you put out insane damage when enemies are grouped up.
War Cry - Impunity
Nothing much to say about this. It's the best buff in the game in my opinion. Additional armor and a huge +50% to all resists is just too hard to pass up. The buff scales incredibly well as you get better and better gear and gives a huge benefit to the entire group if you are into cooperative play. The fury generation is the icing on the cake.
Battle Rage - Into the Fray
I originally always used the +30% damage rune for battle rage because, let's be honest, how can you pass up a flat 30% damage buff? Well the fury generation provided by the Into the Fray rune is ridiculous when combined with a high crit rate. The base skill also gives 3% additional crit and +15% flat damage, which is just amazing. Like the double tornado build, this skill and rune is a staple to the build and I'll explain why later on.
Sprint - Run Like the Wind
Whoever discovered how good this rune is deserves a handshake, because it's just amazing. The movement speed is great for both offensive and defensive purposes, but the tornadoes are a sight to behold. They attack incredibly fast and do respectable damage to every enemy they touch. It also effectively gives you a ranged attack since you can pop sprint, run away from a pack of enemies, and watch as they follow you and die in the process. The attacks from this skill also trigger life on hit and can crit, which have a chance to generate 15 fury with battle rage up. With enough crit chance, you can generate massive amounts of fury.
Wrath of the Berserker - Slaughter
I know what you're thinking. Slaughter? Really? Yes, really. The staple double tornado build uses thrive on chaos, which is great because it allows you to stay in berserker mode for long periods of time assuming there are sufficient enemies around. I tried thrive on chaos, it was good, but it didn't really provide the huge burst damage I wanted. I tried insanity, and that provides good burst, but it really just doesn't come close to slaughter. Slaughter makes it so that for 15 seconds, every critical hit you deal, causes 15-yard AoE damage equal to 155% weapon damage centered around where the crit occurs. Most people don't realize the AoE also hits the main target as well, so this rune is great against single targets too. The synergy with run like the wind and seismic slam is astounding and once you try this rune, it will be hard to go back, I promise. ALSO: keep in mind WOTB gives you 15 seconds of immunity to vortex, jailer, frozen, knockback. This makes some really nasty affix combinations manageable.
Passives: Weapon Master, Ruthless, Inspiring Presence
Weapon master and ruthless should be obvious choices. If you use an axe or mace, which you should, the two passives give you a total of 15% crit chance and 50% crit damage. This ups your damage by a ton and makes slaughter and into the fray that much better. The last passive is really personal preference. I chose inspiring presence because I have 70k hp and the life regen is pretty awesome with the playstyle of this build. I rarely find myself standing in melee range "tanking" hits so the passive life regeneration was more useful for me than a tanky passive like superstition, nerves of steel, or tough as nails. If you are having trouble staying alive, I'd recommend superstition as it does wonders to mitigate elemental damage and has the added benefit of additional fury generation.
The Playstyle
The general strategy is to maximize fury generation so you can literally spam seismic slam all day long until everything in the room dies. This build shines in Act 3 as monsters tend to be tightly packed in confined quarters (think Keep Depths). Always ensure battle rage and war cry are on you, which shouldn't be hard if you chose Inspiring Presence. When you enter a room and see a group of monsters, bash a few times to stack the +18% damage bonus to skills and generate enough fury for your first sprint. Pop sprint and run around them or through them if you can, to the opposite side of the room. Your tornadoes should now be doing some nice damage and your fury bar should be 100% full since the tornado crits have a chance to generate 15 fury. Face the group of monsters and spam seismic slam until they all are dead. The fury from the tornadoes plus the fury from seismic slam crits should allow you to spam seismic slam for a LONG time assuming you are hitting enough monsters with it. The knockback on seismic slam will basically prevent them from getting into melee range of you and will also prevent ranged monsters from attacking you since they will be "stuck" in the knockback animation, until they die. If they do manage to get into melee range, pop sprint again, run 40-yards or so away to generate a few tornadoes, then repeat until they are all dead. This general strategy should clear out trash mobs with relative ease. Some monsters you still have to watch out for as they seem to be immune to knockback. Those big 4-legged fat things in the Keep Depths are an example of this.
Now for elite packs, this is where WOTB with slaughter comes into play. Your biggest enemy with this build is shielding and invulnerable minions. Everything else should be manageable, depending on your gear level of course. Shielding will severely gimp your burst damage and limit the damage you are able to dish out in those 15 seconds of WOTB. When you see an elite pack, pop sprint and run away from them to spawn a few tornadoes. If they are surrounded by trash mobs, that's great. If they aren't, you might want to consider pulling them to more white mobs. The more mobs the more damage you deal to the elites. Once you have a good size pack grouped up, sprint away from them to spawn a few tornadoes. Once you see them hit the first tornado and start taking damage, pop wrath and watch the damage numbers fill your screen. I actually had to turn off white damage numbers because my computer literally couldn't handle all that damage. EVERY crit your tornado or seismic slam generates, will trigger an AoE explosion for 155% weapon damage. Your tornadoes and slams should be hitting multiple targets and probably critting a lot of them. This will cause tons and tons of explosions and do absolutely insane damage. If they manage to survive the 15 seconds of slaughter, they should be low enough to finish off with more sprint tornadoes and seismic slams with relative ease.
As for bosses, they get absolutely destroyed by WOTB with slaughter. I can kill Azmodan in less than 15 seconds using this build just by running around him with sprint in zerker mode. He'll be getting hit by 3-6 tornadoes at a time since he has a huge hit box, each one causing explosions each time there is a crit. Cydaea is just as easy but more annoying since she likes to run around and not sit still. The spiders she spawn will provide you basically infinite fury though so you can sprint and seismic slam all day until shes dead. You don't ever even have to be in melee range of her.
Conclusion
This is a very fun build and is very effective in Act 3 because of how much it owns the bosses and how the white monsters like to bunch up. There is a gear requirement for this build, which is pretty similar to that of the double tornado build. Crit and crit damage are your friends. The more crit the more effective this build is since everything synergizes with it. Currently I have 45.5% crit chance when buffed with battle rage, but this build can be done with less than that. Keep in mind, just from passives you should be sitting at 23% crit already. Gloves, jewelry, helm, and bracers can all have crit chance on them.
Besides crit stats, you do want some life steal or life on hit, especially if you are having trouble staying alive. Yes life steal is good with this build as your gear gets better since it scales better than life on hit with regard to AoE damage. Also people seriously undervalue life steal right now on weapons. You are more likely to find a good weapon with life steal at a reasonable price than one with life on hit. Belts are the only armor slot that can have life steal so try to find a good belt with life steal on it.
Anyways, constructive criticism and questions are welcome! Thanks for reading.
So iam trying this out, and iam struggling... what gear setup would you suggest? 1h shield, dw, 2h?
How much str/vit and such in order to successfully do this... iam dieing in even act 1 using this shit
I'm currently using a dual wield setup, but it should be doable with anything. The most important part is having high crit chance in addition to the usual tanky stats required for all inferno barbarians.
I am doing this now and having a TON of fun in act 1 inferno. After I get more used to the spec I'll try out the other acts. Message me in game, Hoffer! Dies#1550
I am doing this now and having a TON of fun in act 1 inferno. After I get more used to the spec I'll try out the other acts. Message me in game, Hoffer! Dies#1550
Glad you're enjoying it! I won't be online much this week, but feel free to add me: Hoffer#1955
I know you said you prefer to have a fury generator, but I'm curious if you could drop Bash for Overpower: Killing Spree for a more or less sustainable +10% crit chance buff. To deal with the start of a fight, you could trade Inspiring Presence out for Unforgiving. That would make the build look like this: us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/barbarian#eQkiUP!ZYh!YZcYZb (I can't post the link because I've got some weird forum bug telling me I don't have 10 posts yet... Hehe)
The idea would be to start out at 100 fury via Unforgiving and pop Battle Rage, then Sprint, then Warcry which leaves you at 91ish fury. If Seismic Slam and Sprint are self-sustaining here (including for a single mob), fury shouldn't normally be a problem. The only real issue I see is invulnerable minion or shielding causing issues, but that can theoretically be dealt with by not spamming SS if you aren't going to hit at least one unshielded mob.
I can't test this myself because I don't have the crit gear, but I'm curious what you think.
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...and if you disagree with me, you're probably <insert random ad hominem attack here>.
It's a really nice build. My underleveled/undergeared Barb in Hell started killing stuff a lot easier with Bash instead of Frenzy, I never thought about how I could never get to 5 stacks. Then again, I was using Frenzy for an even bigger movespeed buff (moving like lightning :P).
There's just one thing that's different in my build, I'm currently using Furious Charge with Merciless Assault instead of WotB. Against huge groups I can just spam it and deal 780% weapon damage while interrupting attacks.
It's even better when the elites are grouped with white mobs since I can use the white mobs for instant refreshes and really stack up that burst damage on the elites. Iron Impact keeps me alive, and Sprint still makes tornadoes if I time it correctly with FC.
I know you said you prefer to have a fury generator, but I'm curious if you could drop Bash for Overpower: Killing Spree for a more or less sustainable +10% crit chance buff. To deal with the start of a fight, you could trade Inspiring Presence out for Unforgiving. That would make the build look like this: us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/barbarian#eQkiUP!ZYh!YZcYZb (I can't post the link because I've got some weird forum bug telling me I don't have 10 posts yet... Hehe)
The idea would be to start out at 100 fury via Unforgiving and pop Battle Rage, then Sprint, then Warcry which leaves you at 91ish fury. If Seismic Slam and Sprint are self-sustaining here (including for a single mob), fury shouldn't normally be a problem. The only real issue I see is invulnerable minion or shielding causing issues, but that can theoretically be dealt with by not spamming SS if you aren't going to hit at least one unshielded mob.
I can't test this myself because I don't have the crit gear, but I'm curious what you think.
I actually tried something similar to what you suggest. I had whirlwind instead of seismic slam and overpower instead of bash. I learned that you can use overpower while you are whirlwinding and it won't stop you from spinning. Not sure if that's the case with other abilities but I first noticed it with overpower and it was pretty cool. Whirlwind through a large group, use overpower when you are in the middle, and you just keep spinning with the extra crit chance, hopefully lowering overpower's cooldown in the process. I was never really able to keep killing spree up 100% of the time though since it seems AoE crits have a relatively low chance to lower overpower's cooldown. The 18% damage boost from bash is actually really, really good with this build so I ended up using that instead. I found it easier to keep the 18% boost up pretty much at all times.
It's a really nice build. My underleveled/undergeared Barb in Hell started killing stuff a lot easier with Bash instead of Frenzy, I never thought about how I could never get to 5 stacks. Then again, I was using Frenzy for an even bigger movespeed buff (moving like lightning :P).
There's just one thing that's different in my build, I'm currently using Furious Charge with Merciless Assault instead of WotB. Against huge groups I can just spam it and deal 780% weapon damage while interrupting attacks.
It's even better when the elites are grouped with white mobs since I can use the white mobs for instant refreshes and really stack up that burst damage on the elites. Iron Impact keeps me alive, and Sprint still makes tornadoes if I time it correctly with FC.
Furious Charge is really good but the animation at the end of it bothers me. There's a lag time between when you end the charge and when you can take your next action. That rune is really good for packs though since it knocks them all back and you can constantly use it. It's really personal preference between charge and WOTB. You need to ask yourself if you'd rather have 15 seconds of godmode or a short cooldown AoE ability. Keep in mind, during those 15 seconds you are immune to frozen, jailer, knockback, vortex, etc. Without that, those affixes can give this build a significant amount of trouble since you rely heavily on mobility with sprint, I probably should have mentioned that in my original post
Yeah, Furious Charge is really clunky, I wish it had the old animation back from the 2008 reveal video (felt really fluid back then).
Although it is amazing for getting me out of bad situations when I go guns blazing with Iron Impact and overextend. It's not uncommon for me to jump among 10-15 enemies and get surrounded. Furious Charge is amazing to get me out (better than Slam and Bash imho).
Also, the fact that I can cast 4-5 times in a row and do a crapload of AoE damage has a nice synergy with lifesteal (saved my ass a couple times already).
Maybe when I reach Inferno I'll see it's not viable there, gotta try it there.
I totally forgot about that aspect of WotB, thanks for the reminder. Knockback and Jailer are indeed a pain in the ass. I can dodge Frozen easily, but when it's paired with Waller or Jailer it's really annoying. Furious Charge still works while in Jailer btw, you move but are still immobilized on the destination.
I tried this out and had a tough time. My gear is still relatively low. About how much hp/resist/damage do you suggest before this starts to perform?
That depends on which inferno act you are trying to complete. I'd aim for at least 30% crit, preferably 40%. As for tanky stats, I'd aim for at least 700 to all resists w/war cry and 50k+ hp. Act 3 inferno should be manageable with those stats; you can obviously do act 1 with a lot less than that.
I've been loving the Sprint+WW Dual Wield build, but have the same gripes as you guys. This one looks solid (I have always loved Seismic Slam and Bash), so I'll be switching to it tonight and testing it in Act 1.
Great to see more and more viable inferno builds being created for Barbs. Thank you!
Can do Act 1 and 2 with this no problem. It's faster than the WW build too!
Nice! I've been playing around with changing the seismic slam rune from strength from earth to rumble. Rumble makes it so each seismic slam does 3 ticks of damage (1 initial, then 2 aftershocks). The aftershocks can crit, but it's hard to tell if the crits from it can proc into the fray or not. So far it doesn't seem like it's worth doubling the fury cost of seismic slam but I need to test it more I think.
OMG, this build seriously kicks ass. I was stuck in ACT 2 so long until I changed to this build. Now everything is much more smooth and enjoyable. I just signed up here only to say this build rocks, and thanks for sharing!
Build is really intresting.
I did few tries in act 3 as 47k hp, 49k dps 48% crit self buffed Around 600 AR. I am using 2h with socket (70% crit dmg)
And run with 8.2% lifesteal: belt, weapon and passive instead of inspiring presence.
While this build is fun, and lots of packs just die chasing you, others give you hard time, which result into huge repair bill.
So here is a question. Where do i get reliable self heal, obviously 8.2% lifesteal not keeping me up on hard packs. Should i try dual wield with sockets and LOH stones? Or push towards ALL resistance/hp. Good once hander with socket is a bit pricy, as well as Belt with LS or Helm with socket, crit and all resists.
Will dualwielding with 2 crit gems overDPS 2h with 1 crit gem, but higher Top end dmg?
Build is really intresting.
I did few tries in act 3 as 47k hp, 49k dps 48% crit self buffed Around 600 AR. I am using 2h with socket (70% crit dmg)
And run with 8.2% lifesteal: belt, weapon and passive instead of inspiring presence.
While this build is fun, and lots of packs just die chasing you, others give you hard time, which result into huge repair bill.
So here is a question. Where do i get reliable self heal, obviously 8.2% lifesteal not keeping me up on hard packs. Should i try dual wield with sockets and LOH stones? Or push towards ALL resistance/hp. Good once hander with socket is a bit pricy, as well as Belt with LS or Helm with socket, crit and all resists.
Will dualwielding with 2 crit gems overDPS 2h with 1 crit gem, but higher Top end dmg?
2hander and dual wield should both be viable. 2hander is cheaper obviously since you only need to buy one weapon. If you post what kind of elite packs you are having trouble with maybe I can give you some tips. I haven't met an act 3 pack I haven't been able to kill, but yes some are harder than others.
Very curious about the build, but don't really have any gear yet to support it I guess, would it possible for anyone or the OP to post a small video of this stuff in action to really see when what skill is activated and how that synergizes with the build you have choosen?
I actually started up a stream on twitch.tv tonight. I can record some gameplay if people are really interested in seeing it.
Invul. packs. Lots of RDD packs on spiral level on the road to spider boss and azmodan. Melee packs look pritty easy, especially if they do molten and arcane, frost stuff. Like you are becoming molten lord by your own. But if its kiting heavy hitting pack, like self buffing shamans (goat peaple). Or something trapping you with wall in narrow room, you pritty much skrewed. I blame lack of self heal, my tanky build had. In some cases i tear packs apart, in others, its a repair bill fest, when you die fast, getting cought into CC or mob crowd. So its rather intresting, if i throw a bit of LOH into it, like one 400 loh stone into Offhand and try it with dualwield. I see you have lots of LOH from your old wirlwind build, i am missing that much, just rerolled, build up some crit, so crit and dps part is good, now its all survival against hard shoot-kite packs, who wont chase you around with your tornado )
Invul. packs. Lots of RDD packs on spiral level on the road to spider boss and azmodan. Melee packs look pritty easy, especially if they do molten and arcane, frost stuff. Like you are becoming molten lord by your own. But if its kiting heavy hitting pack, like self buffing shamans (goat peaple). Or something trapping you with wall in narrow room, you pritty much skrewed. I blame lack of self heal, my tanky build had. In some cases i tear packs apart, in others, its a repair bill fest, when you die fast, getting cought into CC or mob crowd. So its rather intresting, if i throw a bit of LOH into it, like one 400 loh stone into Offhand and try it with dualwield. I see you have lots of LOH from your old wirlwind build, i am missing that much, just rerolled, build up some crit, so crit and dps part is good, now its all survival against hard shoot-kite packs, who wont chase you around with your tornado )
Sorry for bad english, my second language.
Those goat shaman are indeed really frustrating and can be hard to deal with. They do insane damage when they buff each other. If they are giving you that much trouble then it's probably best to just farm the elite packs in the rest of the act then skip them and go right to Cydaea. Life on hit can help since it works off the tornado damage. The only other tip I can give you is to be patient and try to lure them into your tornadoes as much as you can.
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Before I get into the specifics, here is a link to the build I've been refining over the past week:
http://us.battle.net...kiUP!ZYX!bYcYZb
So I'm sure most are familiar with the double tornado build which has been becoming increasingly popular. If you don't know what I'm referring to you can read all about it here: http://us.battle.net...opic/5888809698
I gave that build a try, and found it fun, but also found it lacking. I felt like it was only really good against large groups of mobs, was tough to get the ball rolling sometimes, and required a lot of life on hit to be successful. I decided to modify the build and experiment with different setups. First I'll go through each of my skills and passives and explain why I chose them.
The Skills:
Bash - Punish:
The standard double tornado build does not use any main attack skill. I hated that. I didn't like having whirlwind bound to my left mouse button and having to rely completely on fury spenders to do damage. I chose bash over frenzy because I found I rarely was able to keep frenzy at 5 stacks long enough to justify using it. I didn't like that I had to attack five times to charge up frenzy before it started becoming good. The punish rune increases skill damage by 18% and only requires you to attack 3 times to reach full effectiveness. Bash also does A LOT of damage compared to frenzy. The knockback is also really underrated in my opinion. It's great for interrupting enemy attack animations and getting out of surrounds. Having to chase them down after knocking them back isn't a problem at all since I also have sprint.
Seismic Slam - Strength from Earth
I always liked the idea behind seismic slam, but never really could find a place for it in my builds. I found the fury cost way too high to justify it. I tried this skill out with the reduced fury cost rune, and it fit in so ridiculously well l can't imagine switching it out. This skill is critical to the play style of the build and synergizes incredibly well with everything else. The AoE radius and range on this skill is massive and lets you put out insane damage when enemies are grouped up.
War Cry - Impunity
Nothing much to say about this. It's the best buff in the game in my opinion. Additional armor and a huge +50% to all resists is just too hard to pass up. The buff scales incredibly well as you get better and better gear and gives a huge benefit to the entire group if you are into cooperative play. The fury generation is the icing on the cake.
Battle Rage - Into the Fray
I originally always used the +30% damage rune for battle rage because, let's be honest, how can you pass up a flat 30% damage buff? Well the fury generation provided by the Into the Fray rune is ridiculous when combined with a high crit rate. The base skill also gives 3% additional crit and +15% flat damage, which is just amazing. Like the double tornado build, this skill and rune is a staple to the build and I'll explain why later on.
Sprint - Run Like the Wind
Whoever discovered how good this rune is deserves a handshake, because it's just amazing. The movement speed is great for both offensive and defensive purposes, but the tornadoes are a sight to behold. They attack incredibly fast and do respectable damage to every enemy they touch. It also effectively gives you a ranged attack since you can pop sprint, run away from a pack of enemies, and watch as they follow you and die in the process. The attacks from this skill also trigger life on hit and can crit, which have a chance to generate 15 fury with battle rage up. With enough crit chance, you can generate massive amounts of fury.
Wrath of the Berserker - Slaughter
I know what you're thinking. Slaughter? Really? Yes, really. The staple double tornado build uses thrive on chaos, which is great because it allows you to stay in berserker mode for long periods of time assuming there are sufficient enemies around. I tried thrive on chaos, it was good, but it didn't really provide the huge burst damage I wanted. I tried insanity, and that provides good burst, but it really just doesn't come close to slaughter. Slaughter makes it so that for 15 seconds, every critical hit you deal, causes 15-yard AoE damage equal to 155% weapon damage centered around where the crit occurs. Most people don't realize the AoE also hits the main target as well, so this rune is great against single targets too. The synergy with run like the wind and seismic slam is astounding and once you try this rune, it will be hard to go back, I promise. ALSO: keep in mind WOTB gives you 15 seconds of immunity to vortex, jailer, frozen, knockback. This makes some really nasty affix combinations manageable.
Passives: Weapon Master, Ruthless, Inspiring Presence
Weapon master and ruthless should be obvious choices. If you use an axe or mace, which you should, the two passives give you a total of 15% crit chance and 50% crit damage. This ups your damage by a ton and makes slaughter and into the fray that much better. The last passive is really personal preference. I chose inspiring presence because I have 70k hp and the life regen is pretty awesome with the playstyle of this build. I rarely find myself standing in melee range "tanking" hits so the passive life regeneration was more useful for me than a tanky passive like superstition, nerves of steel, or tough as nails. If you are having trouble staying alive, I'd recommend superstition as it does wonders to mitigate elemental damage and has the added benefit of additional fury generation.
The Playstyle
The general strategy is to maximize fury generation so you can literally spam seismic slam all day long until everything in the room dies. This build shines in Act 3 as monsters tend to be tightly packed in confined quarters (think Keep Depths). Always ensure battle rage and war cry are on you, which shouldn't be hard if you chose Inspiring Presence. When you enter a room and see a group of monsters, bash a few times to stack the +18% damage bonus to skills and generate enough fury for your first sprint. Pop sprint and run around them or through them if you can, to the opposite side of the room. Your tornadoes should now be doing some nice damage and your fury bar should be 100% full since the tornado crits have a chance to generate 15 fury. Face the group of monsters and spam seismic slam until they all are dead. The fury from the tornadoes plus the fury from seismic slam crits should allow you to spam seismic slam for a LONG time assuming you are hitting enough monsters with it. The knockback on seismic slam will basically prevent them from getting into melee range of you and will also prevent ranged monsters from attacking you since they will be "stuck" in the knockback animation, until they die. If they do manage to get into melee range, pop sprint again, run 40-yards or so away to generate a few tornadoes, then repeat until they are all dead. This general strategy should clear out trash mobs with relative ease. Some monsters you still have to watch out for as they seem to be immune to knockback. Those big 4-legged fat things in the Keep Depths are an example of this.
Now for elite packs, this is where WOTB with slaughter comes into play. Your biggest enemy with this build is shielding and invulnerable minions. Everything else should be manageable, depending on your gear level of course. Shielding will severely gimp your burst damage and limit the damage you are able to dish out in those 15 seconds of WOTB. When you see an elite pack, pop sprint and run away from them to spawn a few tornadoes. If they are surrounded by trash mobs, that's great. If they aren't, you might want to consider pulling them to more white mobs. The more mobs the more damage you deal to the elites. Once you have a good size pack grouped up, sprint away from them to spawn a few tornadoes. Once you see them hit the first tornado and start taking damage, pop wrath and watch the damage numbers fill your screen. I actually had to turn off white damage numbers because my computer literally couldn't handle all that damage. EVERY crit your tornado or seismic slam generates, will trigger an AoE explosion for 155% weapon damage. Your tornadoes and slams should be hitting multiple targets and probably critting a lot of them. This will cause tons and tons of explosions and do absolutely insane damage. If they manage to survive the 15 seconds of slaughter, they should be low enough to finish off with more sprint tornadoes and seismic slams with relative ease.
As for bosses, they get absolutely destroyed by WOTB with slaughter. I can kill Azmodan in less than 15 seconds using this build just by running around him with sprint in zerker mode. He'll be getting hit by 3-6 tornadoes at a time since he has a huge hit box, each one causing explosions each time there is a crit. Cydaea is just as easy but more annoying since she likes to run around and not sit still. The spiders she spawn will provide you basically infinite fury though so you can sprint and seismic slam all day until shes dead. You don't ever even have to be in melee range of her.
Conclusion
This is a very fun build and is very effective in Act 3 because of how much it owns the bosses and how the white monsters like to bunch up. There is a gear requirement for this build, which is pretty similar to that of the double tornado build. Crit and crit damage are your friends. The more crit the more effective this build is since everything synergizes with it. Currently I have 45.5% crit chance when buffed with battle rage, but this build can be done with less than that. Keep in mind, just from passives you should be sitting at 23% crit already. Gloves, jewelry, helm, and bracers can all have crit chance on them.
Besides crit stats, you do want some life steal or life on hit, especially if you are having trouble staying alive. Yes life steal is good with this build as your gear gets better since it scales better than life on hit with regard to AoE damage. Also people seriously undervalue life steal right now on weapons. You are more likely to find a good weapon with life steal at a reasonable price than one with life on hit. Belts are the only armor slot that can have life steal so try to find a good belt with life steal on it.
Anyways, constructive criticism and questions are welcome! Thanks for reading.
Here's my gear for those wondering: http://i48.tinypic.com/2hq4i14.jpg
Here's the build in action in Act 3 inferno: http://www.twitch.tv...955/b/323510256
I'm currently using a dual wield setup, but it should be doable with anything. The most important part is having high crit chance in addition to the usual tanky stats required for all inferno barbarians.
Glad you're enjoying it! I won't be online much this week, but feel free to add me: Hoffer#1955
The idea would be to start out at 100 fury via Unforgiving and pop Battle Rage, then Sprint, then Warcry which leaves you at 91ish fury. If Seismic Slam and Sprint are self-sustaining here (including for a single mob), fury shouldn't normally be a problem. The only real issue I see is invulnerable minion or shielding causing issues, but that can theoretically be dealt with by not spamming SS if you aren't going to hit at least one unshielded mob.
I can't test this myself because I don't have the crit gear, but I'm curious what you think.
There's just one thing that's different in my build, I'm currently using Furious Charge with Merciless Assault instead of WotB. Against huge groups I can just spam it and deal 780% weapon damage while interrupting attacks.
It's even better when the elites are grouped with white mobs since I can use the white mobs for instant refreshes and really stack up that burst damage on the elites. Iron Impact keeps me alive, and Sprint still makes tornadoes if I time it correctly with FC.
I actually tried something similar to what you suggest. I had whirlwind instead of seismic slam and overpower instead of bash. I learned that you can use overpower while you are whirlwinding and it won't stop you from spinning. Not sure if that's the case with other abilities but I first noticed it with overpower and it was pretty cool. Whirlwind through a large group, use overpower when you are in the middle, and you just keep spinning with the extra crit chance, hopefully lowering overpower's cooldown in the process. I was never really able to keep killing spree up 100% of the time though since it seems AoE crits have a relatively low chance to lower overpower's cooldown. The 18% damage boost from bash is actually really, really good with this build so I ended up using that instead. I found it easier to keep the 18% boost up pretty much at all times.
Furious Charge is really good but the animation at the end of it bothers me. There's a lag time between when you end the charge and when you can take your next action. That rune is really good for packs though since it knocks them all back and you can constantly use it. It's really personal preference between charge and WOTB. You need to ask yourself if you'd rather have 15 seconds of godmode or a short cooldown AoE ability. Keep in mind, during those 15 seconds you are immune to frozen, jailer, knockback, vortex, etc. Without that, those affixes can give this build a significant amount of trouble since you rely heavily on mobility with sprint, I probably should have mentioned that in my original post
Although it is amazing for getting me out of bad situations when I go guns blazing with Iron Impact and overextend. It's not uncommon for me to jump among 10-15 enemies and get surrounded. Furious Charge is amazing to get me out (better than Slam and Bash imho).
Also, the fact that I can cast 4-5 times in a row and do a crapload of AoE damage has a nice synergy with lifesteal (saved my ass a couple times already).
Maybe when I reach Inferno I'll see it's not viable there, gotta try it there.
I totally forgot about that aspect of WotB, thanks for the reminder. Knockback and Jailer are indeed a pain in the ass. I can dodge Frozen easily, but when it's paired with Waller or Jailer it's really annoying. Furious Charge still works while in Jailer btw, you move but are still immobilized on the destination.
That depends on which inferno act you are trying to complete. I'd aim for at least 30% crit, preferably 40%. As for tanky stats, I'd aim for at least 700 to all resists w/war cry and 50k+ hp. Act 3 inferno should be manageable with those stats; you can obviously do act 1 with a lot less than that.
Great to see more and more viable inferno builds being created for Barbs. Thank you!
Nice! I've been playing around with changing the seismic slam rune from strength from earth to rumble. Rumble makes it so each seismic slam does 3 ticks of damage (1 initial, then 2 aftershocks). The aftershocks can crit, but it's hard to tell if the crits from it can proc into the fray or not. So far it doesn't seem like it's worth doubling the fury cost of seismic slam but I need to test it more I think.
I did few tries in act 3 as 47k hp, 49k dps 48% crit self buffed Around 600 AR. I am using 2h with socket (70% crit dmg)
And run with 8.2% lifesteal: belt, weapon and passive instead of inspiring presence.
While this build is fun, and lots of packs just die chasing you, others give you hard time, which result into huge repair bill.
So here is a question. Where do i get reliable self heal, obviously 8.2% lifesteal not keeping me up on hard packs. Should i try dual wield with sockets and LOH stones? Or push towards ALL resistance/hp. Good once hander with socket is a bit pricy, as well as Belt with LS or Helm with socket, crit and all resists.
Will dualwielding with 2 crit gems overDPS 2h with 1 crit gem, but higher Top end dmg?
2hander and dual wield should both be viable. 2hander is cheaper obviously since you only need to buy one weapon. If you post what kind of elite packs you are having trouble with maybe I can give you some tips. I haven't met an act 3 pack I haven't been able to kill, but yes some are harder than others.
I actually started up a stream on twitch.tv tonight. I can record some gameplay if people are really interested in seeing it.
Sorry for bad english, my second language.
Those goat shaman are indeed really frustrating and can be hard to deal with. They do insane damage when they buff each other. If they are giving you that much trouble then it's probably best to just farm the elite packs in the rest of the act then skip them and go right to Cydaea. Life on hit can help since it works off the tornado damage. The only other tip I can give you is to be patient and try to lure them into your tornadoes as much as you can.