I just wanted to share the build I'm using here as I initially started building a classic WW barb and when I did get to a point where the build worked I decided to see what I could do if I switched out my weapons for a 2H and did something different.
In the end I've come to enjoy this build much more than the standard WW: Hurricane + Sprint: Run Like the Wind build. I haven't done the math to compare either build's effectiveness so this might be less effective overall than the WW builds but I'm not trying to compare, this is just something I'm having fun with.
GEAR
First things first. This build is just as gear dependent as your standard WW build. It basically depends on critical hits to proc fury generation with Battle Rage: Into the Fray. My current gear setup gives me 47% base crit chance and I wouldn't try this build with anything below 40% chance for the fury generation alone. I haven't tried the build with a 2H mighty weapon yet so if you're going to use a Mighty Weapon you could probably do with less crit chance.
The other stat that is a corner stone of the build is life leach, not life on hit. Since this build doesn't focus on doing a ton of hits per second I chose to focus on life leach and keeping my damage output as constant as possible. The higher your DPS, the more life you will leach, obviously, and the way this build works really makes it easy to deal widespread damage. I'm currently at 68k base DPS and 8.7% life leach and my life usually spikes up to full with a single Seismic Slam into a crowd.
And although the above mentioned stats are the ones I consider the most important for this build you can't neglect your Strength and Vitality stats. I'm running almost 2k Str and 1k Vit so you will want to get around there in those stats. It is also really important to get a 2H with high Critical Hit Damage % and a Socket to boost it up even more. Once you get your Str up this will be the stat to look for to get your DPS sky high. I'm still not at over 100k DPS but I'm sure if I can replace my current 2H (a cheap Skorn) I can get there easy with the rest of the stats I got.
The gear is the main reason why I refer to this build as an alternative to WW built barbs because the gear loadout is pretty much identical except for the use of a 2H vs dual wielding a good 1H with a dagger stat stick.
SKILLS
This is my current skill loadout: http://us.battle.net...YckR!YZV!YbZacY
I've played around with the build extensively and there is some flexibility on some skills, I'll point them out but there are 4 skills that are essential for this build to work.
Left Click: Use whatever you like honestly. I'm using Cleave: Broad Sweep because it synergizes with my IK belt that has the damage bonus for Cleave. Each of my Cleaves deal 185% weapon damage and I can leach life pretty well just with this one skill if I need to. I wouldn't recommend Frenzy because if you lose your momentum it will be really hard to get your Fury back up using Frenzy alone if everything is on cooldown and you don't have any Fury left for a Seismic Slam.
Right Click: Seismic Slam: Rumble. (ESSENTIAL SKILL #1) This is the bread and butter of this build. The only alternative Rune I would use instead of Rumble is Strength From the Earth if you still don't have your crit chance over 40% as to make Seismic Slam cheaper to cast but it can't compare to how much fury you can regenerate with the Rumble rune. Why Rumble? Because it CAN crit! The whole point is to keep Battle Rage: Into the Fray up and once you start slamming away from mid range into a mob you'll see the rain of critical hits blow up and your Fury will continue spiking to full allowing your to just keep slamming away! The only time this falls apart is when there is only one target or if you have bad aim. Make sure you keep changing your position so that your slams will go through a mass of monsters. If you slam into empty ground you will lose your momentum real fast. Yes the rumble will keep criting on a single target but it won't be enough to keep it going indefinitely so you will have to use something else to deal damage and recover Fury for a bit in between castings. I use Rend to keep dealing damage and leaching life and I Cleave a few times in between slams when dealing with a single target. Don't forget to keep Battle Rage: Into the Fray UP AT ALL TIMES! If you don't you will slam 3 or 4 times before you start swinging your 2H into the air. TIP1: use Shift when casing Seismic Slam. It gives you much more control over where you can stand while casting. In effect the build works like a mid-range barb instead of a straight up melee barb. When fighting Elites you can step away from the DOT effects and keep slamming from a safe spot on the ground while holding Shift. TIP2: use the CC effects of each Slam's knockback! I've use'd the slam's knockback to defend party members when in Coop by moving monsters away from Wizards and DH's for example, or to interrupt Fallen Maniacs or Heralds of Pestilence. You can move entire mobs around if you keep pushing forward while slamming instead of waiting for them to walk back to you. If you're DH friend lays down some traps, push the mob on to them!
Key 1: Ground Stomp: Wrenching Smash. This is my favorite crowd control skill. I use it with Wrenching Smash because of the range it adds. I usually walk up to a mob and I cast this somewhere a little further than the front lines then I walk back away from the mass of stunned monsters, position myself with the proper aim to cast Seismic Slam across the stunned mass and towards monsters behind them and slam away! Ground Stomp also has the added benefit of interrupting any actions from any monster you're fighting up against. For example, you're walking around the Keep and out of no where you see 6 fallen maniacs running for you. Just cast Ground Stomp to catch them, slam them once and they're all gone. The biggest benefit is concentrating a mass of monsters you can slam into.
Key 2: Rend: Ravage or Blood Lust. I use this instead of Earthquake mostly against larger monsters and elites to keep Life Leach going or to apply a widespread DOT on a mass of monsters that I Ground Stomped. I find myself using Ravage more often for the range rather than Blood Lust as my Seismic Slams already leach enough life for me even when I'm fighting elites but if your DPS is still not high enough you could go for Blood Lust as casting it while surrounded by elites is a surefire way to keep your life in check. Also the damage from Rend when you have a huge 2H and tons of DPS is pretty crazy. Feel free to experiment with whatever you like here. I've even used WW here instead of Rend just for fun but it doesn't serve it's purpose as well as Rend in this particular skill slot for this particular build. I haven't really played with Hammer of the Ancients but it could also work well in this slot.
Key 3: War Cry: Impunity. Self explanatory, nothing to see here. Select it, keep it UP, enough said.
Key 4: Battle Rage: Into the Fray. (ESSENTIAL SKILL #2). Simply put, without it the build will fall appart, so use it and ALWAYS keep it up before casting any Seismic Slams. You will be sorry if you don't! Just to recap from above, Into the Fray has a chance to add 15 fury per critical hit, Seismic Slam: Rumble makes the critical hits rain down, witch makes your Fury spike up to full most of the time. Got it? Ok good... Moving on. This also adds more overal DPS to all your abilities witch equals more life leach as well.
Passive 1: Weapons Master. (ESSENTIAL SKILL #3). Be it with an Axe or with a Mighty Weapon you will want this skill to help keep your Fury generation going. With an Axe = more crits = more fury regen from Into the Fray. With a Mighty Weapon, uh... Self explanatory.
Passive 2: Ruthless. (ESSENTIAL SKILL #4)Well, maybe not so essential if you have super godly gear and have over 50% crit chance without it, then and only then could you possibly switch this out for whatever you may like. I get to 47% with it, and the extra damage overall plays well into Life Leach.
Passive 3: Tough as Nails or Nerves of Steel: Use the one that results in the greatest Armor stat. If you have super godly armor and don't need the armor bonus feel free to use something else.
I'm running 5 pieces of Immortal King for the set's Fury generation bonuses (the cheapest I could afford, they aren't exactly the best rolls, probably totaled 50mil for the entire set still), a cheap Skorn I picked up for 5mil, the Lacuni Prowlers I picked up for 3mil and the rest of the gear (rings, ammy, shoulder and pants where around another 12 mil). I'm looking forward to upgrading to a 1.4k+ 2H with 200%+ base crit damage % stat, a socket and equal or more life leach as in my current Skorn.
I'll work on recording a video of him in action to demonstrate how I play him.
Video came out a bit fuzzy, I'll try to re-upload with better quality later, sorry
i'd like to play on US servers, 50 mil for 5 IK pieces...on EU cheapest chest is 70-80mil
seems like a good build but nothing can compare to WW's speed and thus efficiency, especially if doing "alkaizer runs", not to mention the reason why i switched from 2H to dual wield and that is constantly getting stuck in middle of animation because of slow attack speed
If you already have a WW barb all you have to do is equip a big 2H with life leach on it and change your skills to try it out. It isn't necessarily more efficient than the WW+Sprint build but I personally find this more fun and in your face and WW'ing all over the place. I prefer a more tactical approach so I'm having a blast with it. I can't get myself to go back to WW'ing after getting used to it.
I forgot to mention that the WOTB + Thrive in Chaos works with this build as well but as soon as everything dies so does your WOTB since you don't have sprint to dash around to the next mob. But I did use it a few times while making runs on public games and it worked wonders those times where 2 or 3 elite mobs bunched up together!
While all these alternatives people are coming up with may more or less compete with sprint/whirlwind in terms of damage and survival (though not really even after the nerf, as the damage and survival are still pretty massive), the real problem with non-sprint build is how slow they run through the level. Even at higher monster power levels, your speed is very important, at least if you're not playing at a monster power level that's extremely inefficient for you.
i'd like to play on US servers, 50 mil for 5 IK pieces...on EU cheapest chest is 70-80mil
seems like a good build but nothing can compare to WW's speed and thus efficiency, especially if doing "alkaizer runs", not to mention the reason why i switched from 2H to dual wield and that is constantly getting stuck in middle of animation because of slow attack speed
Yeah I wouldn't believe 50mil for 5 IK pieces, cheapest chest I've seen in the last 2 weeks was 90m, and outside gloves your looking at 30m each for the rest.
Also saying he got a LL Skorn for 5 mil.. yeah right
i'd like to play on US servers, 50 mil for 5 IK pieces...on EU cheapest chest is 70-80mil
seems like a good build but nothing can compare to WW's speed and thus efficiency, especially if doing "alkaizer runs", not to mention the reason why i switched from 2H to dual wield and that is constantly getting stuck in middle of animation because of slow attack speed
Yeah I wouldn't believe 50mil for 5 IK pieces, cheapest chest I've seen in the last 2 weeks was 90m, and outside gloves your looking at 30m each for the rest.
Also saying he got a LL Skorn for 5 mil.. yeah right
The skorn was cheap because it didn't roll such high Crit Damage and it didn't go over 1.4k DPS overall. The IK pieces I got a steal on boots, gloves and helm from someone on the Trade channel who let them go for 30mil all three of them. The chest I bought with real money for about $15 and the belt for $5. So right around 50mil for the 5 set pieces. Deals are out there just gotta search for them and be patient.
Just tried this build on my Barb, its straight f****in insane. I'd like to help by pointing out that Stone of Jordan with good elite bonus and Seismic Slam + crit chance is like a must have.
I'm doing A3 with MP5 without any changes at all just fine. I do need some more DPS though, 81k isn't cutting it. Haven't been able to kill a single goblin yet so my Skorn will have to go as soon as I save up enough gold to upgrade it.
And for what it's worth with my current gear the standard WW build is working much better for me now in the new patch but the Seismic Slam build offers much more versatility and control of the situation. I got killed like 4 times by Heralds of Pestilence and Fallen Maniacs using the WW + Sprint skill spec and I haven't died a single time yet with my Seismic Slam spec.
Running MP5 and 5 stacks of NV with almost 300% MF is pretty crazy to, I got two pretty awesome lvl63 rares on the single run I've done witch was Keep Lvl 1 - 3, Fields and Bridge all the way to Siegebreaker. Not finding anything below lvl58 is pretty awesome as well.
i'd like to play on US servers, 50 mil for 5 IK pieces...on EU cheapest chest is 70-80mil
seems like a good build but nothing can compare to WW's speed and thus efficiency, especially if doing "alkaizer runs", not to mention the reason why i switched from 2H to dual wield and that is constantly getting stuck in middle of animation because of slow attack speed
Yeah I wouldn't believe 50mil for 5 IK pieces, cheapest chest I've seen in the last 2 weeks was 90m, and outside gloves your looking at 30m each for the rest.
Also saying he got a LL Skorn for 5 mil.. yeah right
The skorn was cheap because it didn't roll such high Crit Damage and it didn't go over 1.4k DPS overall. The IK pieces I got a steal on boots, gloves and helm from someone on the Trade channel who let them go for 30mil all three of them. The chest I bought with real money for about $15 and the belt for $5. So right around 50mil for the 5 set pieces. Deals are out there just gotta search for them and be patient.
Ok a Skorn with LS even at 1.1k dps was over 100m even with a low crit roll pre patch, even now post patch they still are over 70m... and if you truly found idiots willing to part with IK that cheap then your the luckiest man alive, cause even the crap pieces sold for 30m easy
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In the end I've come to enjoy this build much more than the standard WW: Hurricane + Sprint: Run Like the Wind build. I haven't done the math to compare either build's effectiveness so this might be less effective overall than the WW builds but I'm not trying to compare, this is just something I'm having fun with.
GEAR
First things first. This build is just as gear dependent as your standard WW build. It basically depends on critical hits to proc fury generation with Battle Rage: Into the Fray. My current gear setup gives me 47% base crit chance and I wouldn't try this build with anything below 40% chance for the fury generation alone. I haven't tried the build with a 2H mighty weapon yet so if you're going to use a Mighty Weapon you could probably do with less crit chance.
The other stat that is a corner stone of the build is life leach, not life on hit. Since this build doesn't focus on doing a ton of hits per second I chose to focus on life leach and keeping my damage output as constant as possible. The higher your DPS, the more life you will leach, obviously, and the way this build works really makes it easy to deal widespread damage. I'm currently at 68k base DPS and 8.7% life leach and my life usually spikes up to full with a single Seismic Slam into a crowd.
And although the above mentioned stats are the ones I consider the most important for this build you can't neglect your Strength and Vitality stats. I'm running almost 2k Str and 1k Vit so you will want to get around there in those stats. It is also really important to get a 2H with high Critical Hit Damage % and a Socket to boost it up even more. Once you get your Str up this will be the stat to look for to get your DPS sky high. I'm still not at over 100k DPS but I'm sure if I can replace my current 2H (a cheap Skorn) I can get there easy with the rest of the stats I got.
The gear is the main reason why I refer to this build as an alternative to WW built barbs because the gear loadout is pretty much identical except for the use of a 2H vs dual wielding a good 1H with a dagger stat stick.
SKILLS
This is my current skill loadout: http://us.battle.net...YckR!YZV!YbZacY
I've played around with the build extensively and there is some flexibility on some skills, I'll point them out but there are 4 skills that are essential for this build to work.
Left Click: Use whatever you like honestly. I'm using Cleave: Broad Sweep because it synergizes with my IK belt that has the damage bonus for Cleave. Each of my Cleaves deal 185% weapon damage and I can leach life pretty well just with this one skill if I need to. I wouldn't recommend Frenzy because if you lose your momentum it will be really hard to get your Fury back up using Frenzy alone if everything is on cooldown and you don't have any Fury left for a Seismic Slam.
Right Click: Seismic Slam: Rumble. (ESSENTIAL SKILL #1) This is the bread and butter of this build. The only alternative Rune I would use instead of Rumble is Strength From the Earth if you still don't have your crit chance over 40% as to make Seismic Slam cheaper to cast but it can't compare to how much fury you can regenerate with the Rumble rune. Why Rumble? Because it CAN crit! The whole point is to keep Battle Rage: Into the Fray up and once you start slamming away from mid range into a mob you'll see the rain of critical hits blow up and your Fury will continue spiking to full allowing your to just keep slamming away! The only time this falls apart is when there is only one target or if you have bad aim. Make sure you keep changing your position so that your slams will go through a mass of monsters. If you slam into empty ground you will lose your momentum real fast. Yes the rumble will keep criting on a single target but it won't be enough to keep it going indefinitely so you will have to use something else to deal damage and recover Fury for a bit in between castings. I use Rend to keep dealing damage and leaching life and I Cleave a few times in between slams when dealing with a single target. Don't forget to keep Battle Rage: Into the Fray UP AT ALL TIMES! If you don't you will slam 3 or 4 times before you start swinging your 2H into the air. TIP1: use Shift when casing Seismic Slam. It gives you much more control over where you can stand while casting. In effect the build works like a mid-range barb instead of a straight up melee barb. When fighting Elites you can step away from the DOT effects and keep slamming from a safe spot on the ground while holding Shift. TIP2: use the CC effects of each Slam's knockback! I've use'd the slam's knockback to defend party members when in Coop by moving monsters away from Wizards and DH's for example, or to interrupt Fallen Maniacs or Heralds of Pestilence. You can move entire mobs around if you keep pushing forward while slamming instead of waiting for them to walk back to you. If you're DH friend lays down some traps, push the mob on to them!
Key 1: Ground Stomp: Wrenching Smash. This is my favorite crowd control skill. I use it with Wrenching Smash because of the range it adds. I usually walk up to a mob and I cast this somewhere a little further than the front lines then I walk back away from the mass of stunned monsters, position myself with the proper aim to cast Seismic Slam across the stunned mass and towards monsters behind them and slam away! Ground Stomp also has the added benefit of interrupting any actions from any monster you're fighting up against. For example, you're walking around the Keep and out of no where you see 6 fallen maniacs running for you. Just cast Ground Stomp to catch them, slam them once and they're all gone. The biggest benefit is concentrating a mass of monsters you can slam into.
Key 2: Rend: Ravage or Blood Lust. I use this instead of Earthquake mostly against larger monsters and elites to keep Life Leach going or to apply a widespread DOT on a mass of monsters that I Ground Stomped. I find myself using Ravage more often for the range rather than Blood Lust as my Seismic Slams already leach enough life for me even when I'm fighting elites but if your DPS is still not high enough you could go for Blood Lust as casting it while surrounded by elites is a surefire way to keep your life in check. Also the damage from Rend when you have a huge 2H and tons of DPS is pretty crazy. Feel free to experiment with whatever you like here. I've even used WW here instead of Rend just for fun but it doesn't serve it's purpose as well as Rend in this particular skill slot for this particular build. I haven't really played with Hammer of the Ancients but it could also work well in this slot.
Key 3: War Cry: Impunity. Self explanatory, nothing to see here. Select it, keep it UP, enough said.
Key 4: Battle Rage: Into the Fray. (ESSENTIAL SKILL #2). Simply put, without it the build will fall appart, so use it and ALWAYS keep it up before casting any Seismic Slams. You will be sorry if you don't! Just to recap from above, Into the Fray has a chance to add 15 fury per critical hit, Seismic Slam: Rumble makes the critical hits rain down, witch makes your Fury spike up to full most of the time. Got it? Ok good... Moving on. This also adds more overal DPS to all your abilities witch equals more life leach as well.
Passive 1: Weapons Master. (ESSENTIAL SKILL #3). Be it with an Axe or with a Mighty Weapon you will want this skill to help keep your Fury generation going. With an Axe = more crits = more fury regen from Into the Fray. With a Mighty Weapon, uh... Self explanatory.
Passive 2: Ruthless. (ESSENTIAL SKILL #4)Well, maybe not so essential if you have super godly gear and have over 50% crit chance without it, then and only then could you possibly switch this out for whatever you may like. I get to 47% with it, and the extra damage overall plays well into Life Leach.
Passive 3: Tough as Nails or Nerves of Steel: Use the one that results in the greatest Armor stat. If you have super godly armor and don't need the armor bonus feel free to use something else.
Here is a link to my barb's profile: http://us.battle.net...12/hero/1609275
I'm running 5 pieces of Immortal King for the set's Fury generation bonuses (the cheapest I could afford, they aren't exactly the best rolls, probably totaled 50mil for the entire set still), a cheap Skorn I picked up for 5mil, the Lacuni Prowlers I picked up for 3mil and the rest of the gear (rings, ammy, shoulder and pants where around another 12 mil). I'm looking forward to upgrading to a 1.4k+ 2H with 200%+ base crit damage % stat, a socket and equal or more life leach as in my current Skorn.
I'll work on recording a video of him in action to demonstrate how I play him.
Video came out a bit fuzzy, I'll try to re-upload with better quality later, sorry
If you already have a WW barb all you have to do is equip a big 2H with life leach on it and change your skills to try it out. It isn't necessarily more efficient than the WW+Sprint build but I personally find this more fun and in your face and WW'ing all over the place. I prefer a more tactical approach so I'm having a blast with it. I can't get myself to go back to WW'ing after getting used to it.
I forgot to mention that the WOTB + Thrive in Chaos works with this build as well but as soon as everything dies so does your WOTB since you don't have sprint to dash around to the next mob. But I did use it a few times while making runs on public games and it worked wonders those times where 2 or 3 elite mobs bunched up together!
Yeah I wouldn't believe 50mil for 5 IK pieces, cheapest chest I've seen in the last 2 weeks was 90m, and outside gloves your looking at 30m each for the rest.
Also saying he got a LL Skorn for 5 mil.. yeah right
The skorn was cheap because it didn't roll such high Crit Damage and it didn't go over 1.4k DPS overall. The IK pieces I got a steal on boots, gloves and helm from someone on the Trade channel who let them go for 30mil all three of them. The chest I bought with real money for about $15 and the belt for $5. So right around 50mil for the 5 set pieces. Deals are out there just gotta search for them and be patient.
And for what it's worth with my current gear the standard WW build is working much better for me now in the new patch but the Seismic Slam build offers much more versatility and control of the situation. I got killed like 4 times by Heralds of Pestilence and Fallen Maniacs using the WW + Sprint skill spec and I haven't died a single time yet with my Seismic Slam spec.
Running MP5 and 5 stacks of NV with almost 300% MF is pretty crazy to, I got two pretty awesome lvl63 rares on the single run I've done witch was Keep Lvl 1 - 3, Fields and Bridge all the way to Siegebreaker. Not finding anything below lvl58 is pretty awesome as well.
Ok a Skorn with LS even at 1.1k dps was over 100m even with a low crit roll pre patch, even now post patch they still are over 70m... and if you truly found idiots willing to part with IK that cheap then your the luckiest man alive, cause even the crap pieces sold for 30m easy