Since ITF* is laying on its deathbed, and gonna get slain tomorrow here on the Eu servers, i thought it could be nice to record a video showing 3 of the most popular builds perma WotB builds fueled by ITF, in its honor.
First off we have a ww/nado/hota barb farming VotA.
Next we have a ww/nado/rend barb farming Halls of agony level 2.
And lastly a throw barb farming Arreat Crater level 2.
At least i have something to look back at when i get bored in the snailing pace of patch 2.01
Hope you enjoyed the video
* = As we know it.. RIP
PS: Don't flame me to much about the music, they were mostly picked for the lyrics
First of all...I like the music. I don't know why people would flame it. I listen to plenty of hardcore and death metal too, but I love bands like that. Falconer's one of my favorite power metal bands actually. Anyway...
I don't know how to handle all the melodrama surrounding the Barbarian. Especially when it comes to a class that's losing builds that are that overpowered and that close to being seriously broken. Honestly, people get into these ruts of thinking a wildly OP/broken style of gameplay is fun, then it gets taken away and they actually have to WORK on a build, and suddenly it's not fun anymore. It's really fascinating to me how often that plays into peoples' innate pessimism...
Which really, just feeds my own optimism. I observe peoples' disdain over permawrath/ww barbs not being viable EN MASSE anymore (as I'm sure clever use of legendaries or rares can make at least almost infinite WW builds work, I guarantee it), and I use it as a reason to try my best to build an awesome Barb and show what they can do.
I'll give ya some examples of stuff I came up with on the PTR, that totally beat anything I had on the live game...
1) Rage Skill Build...I threw Call of the Ancients, Earthquake and Wrath of the Berserker on my active skill bar all at once. Obviously, since they all have high cooldowns, Boon of Bul-Kathos is wise to go with (at least in the expansion, it won't take up a 1/3 of your passives), and definitely going to want Cooldown Reduction gear (something previously unavailable in the live game), as well as some other smart active skill choices both to generate Fury AND keep up the attack on your own.
2) Distance Build...Weapon Throw generates Fury now (Ricochet is good for a little AOE), combine that with Overpower - Storm of Steel (no Fury cost, just a Cooldown which can be reduced with Crits and lots of Attack Speed), Seismic Slam (got a pretty decent buff in the updates as I've seen, as well as some elemental flavor), maybe Leap, Animosity, Berserker Rage (for the extra damage while on full Fury), maybe War Cry - Charge and/or Ground Stomp - Foot of the Mountain for a nice burst of Fury. Maybe put Call of the Ancients on there, the rune where the Ancients generate Fury for you as they attack is really handy.
Hell, if you really want Whirlwind to subsist?
Use the Hurricane rune. It draws enemies in close, where you can use skills like Overpower - Momentum for a good burst of Fury, maybe you can even go against the grain and use Cleave - Reaping Swing for a little extra Fury Generation...Hammer of the Ancients, Earthquake and Rend are all great for tight packs.
And this isn't even taking into account a single legendary item, many of which I'm POSITIVE would make some of these builds insanely effective. :-D
one question as you seem to be an experienced player maybe you can say what will be the most important changes for my Barb in patch tomorrow?
What are items changes to my current items except life leechs effectiveness being reduced?
Does Life on Kill still work nowmally? I heard Crit is also nerfed? Also which skills of ours got changed? I play a HotA Barb with Skorn and full IK currently.
Since i didn't get the RoS invite myself, i cant give you any other tips then just play the game and figure out what works for you
But yeah, life on kill still works.. But ~ 5k health points per kill don't mean that much when your rocking a 200k+++ health pool on your character. And we lost alot of critical hit chance with the nerf/change to nearly all of our barb passives.
one question as you seem to be an experienced player maybe you can say what will be the most important changes for my Barb in patch tomorrow?
What are items changes to my current items except life leechs effectiveness being reduced?
Does Life on Kill still work nowmally? I heard Crit is also nerfed? Also which skills of ours got changed? I play a HotA Barb with Skorn and full IK currently.
The most important changes are that Battle Rage - Into the Fray, Berserker - Thrive on Chaos, and Whirlwind - Hurricane are all being significantly changed and the current Spin2Win playstyle for the Barb is going away as we know it. Apparently with some Legendary setups, Whirlwind - Wind Sear is still very good, but you'll want to pick and choose abilities based on your gear (%Elemental Skills rolls, amount of CHC, IAS, Life, etc.). No single build seems to stand out more from the rest without Legendary effects.
None of your items are changing. This simultaneously makes "Legacy" (the new term for pre-patch gear) gear both very good and very bad. Things like Legacy Mempo can roll IAS AND CHC, whereas new Mempos can only roll IAS, Quadfecta will almost cease to exist if you didn't already have one, and newer gear can roll upwards of 400 of a Primary stat (up from most rolling up to about 200).
LoK still functions as it always has, but play speed has been reduced such that LoK has become a stat that's "nice to have" (others will argue against it) as it will help refill your health after combat, rather than relying on spiky Lifesteal a la Wrath of the Lich King tanking.
Crit hasn't necessarily been nerfed, but the availability of it has gone down significantly. It's something you'll want to continue to aim for.
I noted above that our primary Spin2Win abilities are being drastically changed. Other than that, the majority of abilities haven't gotten anything more than a damage rework to bring everything in line. The biggest change would be Weapon Throw and Ancient Spear: Weapon Throw is now a Generator, and Ancient Spear no longer pulls in by default (Harpoon rune still has this functionality) and can do some pretty respectable damage. Seismic Slam has also gotten much better, and if you play HotA now, I would suggest trying out Slam when the servers go up.
I know i gonna miss it at least.. :-(
One last hurrah for Into the Fray @ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNk10lMrVSU
First off we have a ww/nado/hota barb farming VotA.
Next we have a ww/nado/rend barb farming Halls of agony level 2.
And lastly a throw barb farming Arreat Crater level 2.
At least i have something to look back at when i get bored in the snailing pace of patch 2.01
Hope you enjoyed the video
* = As we know it.. RIP
PS: Don't flame me to much about the music, they were mostly picked for the lyrics
Rest in pieces, dear OP rune
I don't know how to handle all the melodrama surrounding the Barbarian. Especially when it comes to a class that's losing builds that are that overpowered and that close to being seriously broken. Honestly, people get into these ruts of thinking a wildly OP/broken style of gameplay is fun, then it gets taken away and they actually have to WORK on a build, and suddenly it's not fun anymore. It's really fascinating to me how often that plays into peoples' innate pessimism...
Which really, just feeds my own optimism. I observe peoples' disdain over permawrath/ww barbs not being viable EN MASSE anymore (as I'm sure clever use of legendaries or rares can make at least almost infinite WW builds work, I guarantee it), and I use it as a reason to try my best to build an awesome Barb and show what they can do.
I'll give ya some examples of stuff I came up with on the PTR, that totally beat anything I had on the live game...
1) Rage Skill Build...I threw Call of the Ancients, Earthquake and Wrath of the Berserker on my active skill bar all at once. Obviously, since they all have high cooldowns, Boon of Bul-Kathos is wise to go with (at least in the expansion, it won't take up a 1/3 of your passives), and definitely going to want Cooldown Reduction gear (something previously unavailable in the live game), as well as some other smart active skill choices both to generate Fury AND keep up the attack on your own.
2) Distance Build...Weapon Throw generates Fury now (Ricochet is good for a little AOE), combine that with Overpower - Storm of Steel (no Fury cost, just a Cooldown which can be reduced with Crits and lots of Attack Speed), Seismic Slam (got a pretty decent buff in the updates as I've seen, as well as some elemental flavor), maybe Leap, Animosity, Berserker Rage (for the extra damage while on full Fury), maybe War Cry - Charge and/or Ground Stomp - Foot of the Mountain for a nice burst of Fury. Maybe put Call of the Ancients on there, the rune where the Ancients generate Fury for you as they attack is really handy.
Hell, if you really want Whirlwind to subsist?
Use the Hurricane rune. It draws enemies in close, where you can use skills like Overpower - Momentum for a good burst of Fury, maybe you can even go against the grain and use Cleave - Reaping Swing for a little extra Fury Generation...Hammer of the Ancients, Earthquake and Rend are all great for tight packs.
And this isn't even taking into account a single legendary item, many of which I'm POSITIVE would make some of these builds insanely effective. :-D
But yeah, life on kill still works.. But ~ 5k health points per kill don't mean that much when your rocking a 200k+++ health pool on your character. And we lost alot of critical hit chance with the nerf/change to nearly all of our barb passives.
Thanks for liking the video