I recently leveled a Barbarian to level 60 after killing Inferno Diablo on my Witch Doctor in 1.0.2, as I didn't want to deal with the IAS nerf impact until after WDs were rebalanced.
I have to say, I love not dying. I cleared Act 1 while dying maybe twice.
But now, everyone's going towards high crit damage 2H builds.
I don't mind if it blows away sword and board, but I would prefer to build a tanky shield barbarian.
Does anyone have some tips for gearing up a shield barbarian in 1.0.3?
I don't mind if the gear is expensive, but I'd like to have a good idea of what to work on with a couple million, and where to go from there.
Spec discussion too, why not.
Any barbs still successful in A3 without a big crit damage 2-hander? Is life on hit most important, or shield block, or resists/armor? Etc.
I was able to do all of Act 3 with 50 life on hit. It's definitely great if you can get it, but it's not entirely necessary.
My other approximate buffed stats were: Health: 72,000 Armor 10100, All Resist: 680, Block chance: 22%, DPS: 11k.
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My place really was here. I was too foolish and stubborn to notice. But, what I truly hoped for then was here. Why do I always realize it When I've already lost it.
I'm currently using a 540dps weapon with 260 vitality and 648 life on hit.
My shield is a 20% block SS with vitality and all resist.
9500 armor, 60K health, 875 phys resist and 730 others (buffed), as well as 217 life per second.
What would you prioritize -- more block (better shield or legendary armor with block), more life on hit, or more vitality/resists/armor? Or even a higher damage weapon?
I don't know where you get the idea from, but sword and board is far from being obsolete and there's very few barb going towards "high crit damage 2H build".
Sword and board is still, and possibly always be, the easiest way to progress as it allows a lot of room for error. However, it is not the most efficient way to farm due to how slow it kill stuff (act 3 5NV+siegebreaker run can take anywhere from 45m-1hr as sword and board), so it's true that some people are experimenting with some dps build as the game settle down to farming phase (me myself included).
As for gears, the most important piece of gear for sword and board is possibly shield. Go search for shield with +9% block and try to find sacred shield (3-4k block value) with block % as high as possible (max is 29% for sacred shield). You don't really have to worry if your shield has stats or not, unless you're willing to pay for them. Sure if you have plenty of money you can fancy some 32% block stormshield if you want, or slab around justice lantern, helm of command, string of ears, etc...
Then you basically have to max vit/res/armor and after you can stay alive through anything, try to boost your dmg up so you kill faster. You can get LoH or a socket 1h weapon if you can afford it, but you don't need LoH to progress as snb barb. That's essentially all there is as far as "gearing sword and board barb" goes.
This spec will get you all the way through diablo with sufficient gear. Just chain leap: iron impact (4 seconds) -> ignore pain: iron hide (7 seconds) -> leap: iron impact (4 seconds) for a maximum 15 seconds of near invulnerabilty and every elite pack will seem like cakewalk to you.
I'll add my own perspective here, my personal opinion is that you can have the best of both worlds. With high enough dps, you don't need to keep your defensive stats as high (you're killing stuff faster than it can kill you). I'm running sword and board, but I sit at about 55k dps with full fury and Overpower up (peaks at over 120k when WotB is up). That's the build I use for act 1 and 2 farming. When I do acts 3 and 4, I replace overpower with War Cry for the extra resists though I could probably do it either way. The beauty of this game is that you can do it loads of different ways. I personally like this build because I can play 'tanky' but I can blow stuff up with the best of them too. Most elite packs die within the span of a single WotB, many I don't even bother to use Wrath because they would die before it was even half-way through.
I've previously done mine with ard 36k hp, 20% block 1.1k phy resist, all others ard 900 to prenerf act 3 with high survivalbility and minimal death (Old gear). Only Act 4 you need abit more HP/block/resist to not skip any pack you've come across.
Have around 1.3k ish LOH with spear.
Passive Tough as nail, Weapon Master and Ruthless.
For me, i always kill Range 1st and try to ignore melee adds for Revenge proc (it will kill them sooner or later). Always kill the ones that hit you the hardest 1st, When you are overwhelm, Leap and tank, and your LOH will gives most of your hp back, if it doesn't Ignore Pain and will be fine, and if you are still stuck, hope your leap is back on, and GTFO, kite, wait for ignorepain again and they will die. But at the moment. Elite tend to stuck on stairs and they heal back to full, which is retarded. Ah well, kill 1 at a time.
Melee can't kill you that easily unless you are really being overwhelm (30:1). or Colossal Elite pack with image Zzzz
Armor 8.5k
17k dps
I also tend to swap to my 2H in the mid of fight when WOTB is up to burn elites down...when my HP is low...pop potion, swap back to SNB just incase i go splat.
Leap and ignore pain is too good to give up, if you are progressing. When you gear gets better (more resist and dps), you can take out leap and replace with Battle rage (30% dmg) if you want to.
Btw, you don't need gear that cost millions and millions, there are many ways you can avoid unnecesasry dmg. However, even with the best gear/high dps, you will still need a fair bit of awareness to not die. Till one day, you have like 1500 resist all, crazy armor, insane dps and charging in to a pack of inferno Act3/4 act and killing stuff that feels like in Hell Mode w/o depending much on CD, you would want to learn how to kite elite/adds better. Buy gear as if you want to clear content, but not BIS.
I'm currently using a 540dps weapon with 260 vitality and 648 life on hit.
My shield is a 20% block SS with vitality and all resist.
9500 armor, 60K health, 875 phys resist and 730 others (buffed), as well as 217 life per second.
What would you prioritize -- more block (better shield or legendary armor with block), more life on hit, or more vitality/resists/armor? Or even a higher damage weapon?
You can definetly drop your LoH weapon in favour of higher dps/str/vit combo, increasing resists to 1K isn't bad too. Also some LoH amount you can pick from amulet. But all in all your stats are pretty fine even for act 3, i would look for a ways to increase dmg without sacrificing survivability.
And yeh sword&board builds are fine, you can push to pretty high dps with them remaining very tanky. And with amount of cash some ppls pour into 2H builds to show imba crits you can build nearly unkillable swoard&board barb. To each their own)
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I have to say, I love not dying. I cleared Act 1 while dying maybe twice.
But now, everyone's going towards high crit damage 2H builds.
I don't mind if it blows away sword and board, but I would prefer to build a tanky shield barbarian.
Does anyone have some tips for gearing up a shield barbarian in 1.0.3?
I don't mind if the gear is expensive, but I'd like to have a good idea of what to work on with a couple million, and where to go from there.
Spec discussion too, why not.
Any barbs still successful in A3 without a big crit damage 2-hander? Is life on hit most important, or shield block, or resists/armor? Etc.
Thank you all.
My other approximate buffed stats were: Health: 72,000 Armor 10100, All Resist: 680, Block chance: 22%, DPS: 11k.
My shield is a 20% block SS with vitality and all resist.
9500 armor, 60K health, 875 phys resist and 730 others (buffed), as well as 217 life per second.
What would you prioritize -- more block (better shield or legendary armor with block), more life on hit, or more vitality/resists/armor? Or even a higher damage weapon?
Sword and board is still, and possibly always be, the easiest way to progress as it allows a lot of room for error. However, it is not the most efficient way to farm due to how slow it kill stuff (act 3 5NV+siegebreaker run can take anywhere from 45m-1hr as sword and board), so it's true that some people are experimenting with some dps build as the game settle down to farming phase (me myself included).
As for gears, the most important piece of gear for sword and board is possibly shield. Go search for shield with +9% block and try to find sacred shield (3-4k block value) with block % as high as possible (max is 29% for sacred shield). You don't really have to worry if your shield has stats or not, unless you're willing to pay for them. Sure if you have plenty of money you can fancy some 32% block stormshield if you want, or slab around justice lantern, helm of command, string of ears, etc...
Then you basically have to max vit/res/armor and after you can stay alive through anything, try to boost your dmg up so you kill faster. You can get LoH or a socket 1h weapon if you can afford it, but you don't need LoH to progress as snb barb. That's essentially all there is as far as "gearing sword and board barb" goes.
For spec, just use the most common snb spec: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/barbarian#WVRXSk!bVe!acZacc
This spec will get you all the way through diablo with sufficient gear. Just chain leap: iron impact (4 seconds) -> ignore pain: iron hide (7 seconds) -> leap: iron impact (4 seconds) for a maximum 15 seconds of near invulnerabilty and every elite pack will seem like cakewalk to you.
Have around 1.3k ish LOH with spear.
Passive Tough as nail, Weapon Master and Ruthless.
Leap - 300% armor Iron Impact
Ignore Pain - 20% hp steal
WOTB - Insanity
Warcry - impunity
Revenge - 30% provocation
Frenzy - Sidearm
For me, i always kill Range 1st and try to ignore melee adds for Revenge proc (it will kill them sooner or later). Always kill the ones that hit you the hardest 1st, When you are overwhelm, Leap and tank, and your LOH will gives most of your hp back, if it doesn't Ignore Pain and will be fine, and if you are still stuck, hope your leap is back on, and GTFO, kite, wait for ignorepain again and they will die. But at the moment. Elite tend to stuck on stairs and they heal back to full, which is retarded. Ah well, kill 1 at a time.
Melee can't kill you that easily unless you are really being overwhelm (30:1). or Colossal Elite pack with image Zzzz
Armor 8.5k
17k dps
I also tend to swap to my 2H in the mid of fight when WOTB is up to burn elites down...when my HP is low...pop potion, swap back to SNB just incase i go splat.
Leap and ignore pain is too good to give up, if you are progressing. When you gear gets better (more resist and dps), you can take out leap and replace with Battle rage (30% dmg) if you want to.
Btw, you don't need gear that cost millions and millions, there are many ways you can avoid unnecesasry dmg. However, even with the best gear/high dps, you will still need a fair bit of awareness to not die. Till one day, you have like 1500 resist all, crazy armor, insane dps and charging in to a pack of inferno Act3/4 act and killing stuff that feels like in Hell Mode w/o depending much on CD, you would want to learn how to kite elite/adds better. Buy gear as if you want to clear content, but not BIS.
Follow the stats pattern (Resist > Vit > Str)
You can definetly drop your LoH weapon in favour of higher dps/str/vit combo, increasing resists to 1K isn't bad too. Also some LoH amount you can pick from amulet. But all in all your stats are pretty fine even for act 3, i would look for a ways to increase dmg without sacrificing survivability.
And yeh sword&board builds are fine, you can push to pretty high dps with them remaining very tanky. And with amount of cash some ppls pour into 2H builds to show imba crits you can build nearly unkillable swoard&board barb. To each their own)