I recently started playing again and decided to try the whole CM thing. I assembled a set of gear and at the moment a can farm MP6 rather decently. I'm having a hard time finding any upgrades for my gear though. The whole attack speed break point thing keeps confusing me, and well I just don't know which item to improve. Budget is about 50 mil. Here's the profile.
hitting 3 monsters for 130% each (390% total) seems allot better then hitting 1 target for 169%
really dont see why, the damage aint that mutch of a diffrance anyway and most of the time it will benefit you more then not.
also your only way of getting fury from 0 fury is war cry... silly if its on cd and you for some reason get 0 fury...
this build got some cracks...
Well I go with mighty throw because it always generates fury on critical hit, while ricochet has a chance to. So fury generation is much better with mighty throw, since often you only have one or two targets, or your targets are too far apart for ricochet to work.
That's why I go with mighty throw as fury generation/one target skill,genarating tons of fury to use rend on packs. I rend down an entire pack, then use mighty throw to take down the troublemakers (and replenish my fury in no time).
Also, this build has its benefits if you want to take down some bosses in your runs.
You're right though about the war cry problem. But since 1.04 that's not such an issue anymore. When I run out of fury (which happens rarely), I just run up to a monster and hit it a couple of times (and get his as well) and my fury is replenished already. It's a downside, but it happens rarely and I still find it way less annoying than ancient spear.
did you try using a mighty weapon in MH once you got decent crit chance?
Haven't tried that, but I don't see how it would be better. In my experience, Myghty Throw generates far more fury than Ricochet, so fury generation is fine. It would just be a loss of dps.
I came up with this build to be somewhat of a ranged/melee hybrid really. You can be in the thick of battle and mow down 50 fallen with a single rend (while having them heal you), or take out archers, wasps and treasure goblins from a distance.
I just got rid of ancient spear because I found it rather unreliable, even with more than 50% crit chance it often doesn't crit (which, I guess, is normal). I find it way more fun to Mighty Throw and then take out groups/ heal with rend.
In the end it comes down to playstyle and what your gear allows though. This build allowed me to keep using the ranged barb I enjoy, while at the same time kind of tank in co-op games.
I've been playing a throwing barb since 1.03. I could easily farm act 1, but was dying regularly in act 2. After 1.04 I changed up some skills and just a few pieces of gear, and now I finished the game and farm act 2 with ease (probably act 3 as well if I had any decent gear).
Before, I was using ricochet and ancient spear (tried various runes on that one). This combination has several problems:
- It feels stupid attacking a single target with a multi target spell (ricochet)
- Often there are not enough targets to get decent fury generation out of ricochet. Even with a good crit chance, this caused occasional fury problems with bosses.
- Ancient spear is actually rather useless and in my opinion overrated. If you use the life leech rune, it requires a lot of dps for it to be worth something. The rune that pulls several targets is nice, but you end up pulling several enemies to you AND even with high crit chance, there's a chance you won't crit and won't be able to spam.
All in all, I found this build annoying. Another problem I had was that since I'm a barb, people seemed to expect me to tank at least a bit, which was hard with this build. So I changed things up a bit:
Mighty throw: Extra damage and perfect for single targets. Moreover, it will generate tons of fury on crit (with no escape). I found that with this rune, my fury was almost always full! Hence, I replaced ancient spear with:
Rend (Blood Lust): This skill is the perfect solution for all problems. It allows you to tank a bit if necessary (in fact, I prefer to be surrounded now). If you prefer kiting (or need to) that's also fine, you just run in, turn the mobs into a bunch of life regenerators, run out again and mow them down with axes. It also solves the one target problem of Mighty Throw. Trash monsters drop dead in a matter of seconds with this skill. If you keep battle rage up, you should gain more than enough fury using mighty throw to apply Rend whenever you need to. Don't spam it on the same monster! The timer will only refresh, it does not stack! The only time you should spam it is when there are 500 monsters all around you and you want to tag them all.
The rest is fairly standard:
Ignore Pain (Ignorance is Bliss): Panic button, turns you invincible. Don't hesitate to use, fairly low cooldown.
War Cry (Impunity): Would be stupid to go without it. Also, it's your only initial fury generator. Still it's no disaster if it's still on cooldown and you need fury. Since 1.04 you will auto-attack, which gains fury, and in the process you'll get hit a couple of times, for more fury.
Battle rage (Into the Fray): I've experimented with different runes, but I think you really need it to play comfortably with a throwing barb, especially in this build. Make sure it's always on. A trick I use is to cast it together with War Cry whenever War Cry comes off cooldown. Like that you'll always have fury to keep your Battle Rage up. Without it you're crippled. If you try this build and you run into resource problems, chances are you're not keeping battle rage up.
Wrath of the Berserker (Insanity): Not essential, but I love it against crowd control and with bosses. Solves all problems that Rend doesn't.
Passives are of course Weapons Master, Ruthless and No Escape.
Items
Equipment wise I recommend going as DPS-oriented as possible. Of course you'll need a decent amount of crit chance. I'm at 51% now (with my mediocre gear) and that's fine. The key pieces are:
- Off-hand I'd recommend the three-hundredth spear. Preferably one with a socket, so you can get 70% crit damage easily.
- Main hand a mace or axe with life leech. I prefer this over LoH since our attacks will be relatively slow. A mace is a little better than a same-dps-axe, since the attack speed is lower, which improves your rend and fury management.
- Belt: a decent belt can be hard to find, since you'll both need life leech and reduced weapon throw cost. I have one with 4 reduced cost now, which works fine.
For this build, it's not necessary to bother with skull grasp or whatever, since you'll gain enough fury to keep up both.
On a final note, this build works better in some areas than in others. It's a charm in act2 farming routes, where there are lots of little meelee chars surrounding you and you can get the most out of rend. In act 3 it seems to be less effective in certain areas with lots of ranged monsters, but still viable.
Like many posters here, I ran into quite a dissapointment when entering act II. My damage output is fine for now, but I die almost instantly. I already changed up my build a bit (picked both armor passives and changed earthquake for leap):
Is there a way to know for sure whether attack speed matters for a skill? My intuitive guess would be that "click to attack" skills all depend on speed, while "one shot" skills depend on damage. But then how am I supposed to know hydra uses speed as well?
I'm sure this question has been asked before, but I've been away from the forums for a while and I can't find it right now.
Which number is actually used for the "weapon damage" skills use? Can I see this number somewhere? Is it dps or damage (i.e. will wielding a 2h axe with the same dps as a dagger result in more damage on Earthquake?)
It could be either really. The dragon is a standard fantasy figure so no surprise there. And the lion rampant is one of the most common elements of heraldic imagery. The wolf might be a throwback to the druid from D2, as well as the stag actually.
If there was also a kraken in there I'd be more convinced
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I recently started playing again and decided to try the whole CM thing. I assembled a set of gear and at the moment a can farm MP6 rather decently. I'm having a hard time finding any upgrades for my gear though. The whole attack speed break point thing keeps confusing me, and well I just don't know which item to improve. Budget is about 50 mil. Here's the profile.
http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Coenan-2534/hero/30641916
Also, is there any way to incorperate a socketed helm into this build without losing the Arcane on crit?
Thanks!
Well I go with mighty throw because it always generates fury on critical hit, while ricochet has a chance to. So fury generation is much better with mighty throw, since often you only have one or two targets, or your targets are too far apart for ricochet to work.
That's why I go with mighty throw as fury generation/one target skill,genarating tons of fury to use rend on packs. I rend down an entire pack, then use mighty throw to take down the troublemakers (and replenish my fury in no time).
Also, this build has its benefits if you want to take down some bosses in your runs.
You're right though about the war cry problem. But since 1.04 that's not such an issue anymore. When I run out of fury (which happens rarely), I just run up to a monster and hit it a couple of times (and get his as well) and my fury is replenished already. It's a downside, but it happens rarely and I still find it way less annoying than ancient spear.
I just got rid of ancient spear because I found it rather unreliable, even with more than 50% crit chance it often doesn't crit (which, I guess, is normal). I find it way more fun to Mighty Throw and then take out groups/ heal with rend.
In the end it comes down to playstyle and what your gear allows though. This build allowed me to keep using the ranged barb I enjoy, while at the same time kind of tank in co-op games.
I've been playing a throwing barb since 1.03. I could easily farm act 1, but was dying regularly in act 2. After 1.04 I changed up some skills and just a few pieces of gear, and now I finished the game and farm act 2 with ease (probably act 3 as well if I had any decent gear).
Skills
This is the build I use:
http://us.battle.net...ikRP!YfZ!aZbcYZ
Before, I was using ricochet and ancient spear (tried various runes on that one). This combination has several problems:
- It feels stupid attacking a single target with a multi target spell (ricochet)
- Often there are not enough targets to get decent fury generation out of ricochet. Even with a good crit chance, this caused occasional fury problems with bosses.
- Ancient spear is actually rather useless and in my opinion overrated. If you use the life leech rune, it requires a lot of dps for it to be worth something. The rune that pulls several targets is nice, but you end up pulling several enemies to you AND even with high crit chance, there's a chance you won't crit and won't be able to spam.
All in all, I found this build annoying. Another problem I had was that since I'm a barb, people seemed to expect me to tank at least a bit, which was hard with this build. So I changed things up a bit:
Mighty throw: Extra damage and perfect for single targets. Moreover, it will generate tons of fury on crit (with no escape). I found that with this rune, my fury was almost always full! Hence, I replaced ancient spear with:
Rend (Blood Lust): This skill is the perfect solution for all problems. It allows you to tank a bit if necessary (in fact, I prefer to be surrounded now). If you prefer kiting (or need to) that's also fine, you just run in, turn the mobs into a bunch of life regenerators, run out again and mow them down with axes. It also solves the one target problem of Mighty Throw. Trash monsters drop dead in a matter of seconds with this skill. If you keep battle rage up, you should gain more than enough fury using mighty throw to apply Rend whenever you need to. Don't spam it on the same monster! The timer will only refresh, it does not stack! The only time you should spam it is when there are 500 monsters all around you and you want to tag them all.
The rest is fairly standard:
Ignore Pain (Ignorance is Bliss): Panic button, turns you invincible. Don't hesitate to use, fairly low cooldown.
War Cry (Impunity): Would be stupid to go without it. Also, it's your only initial fury generator. Still it's no disaster if it's still on cooldown and you need fury. Since 1.04 you will auto-attack, which gains fury, and in the process you'll get hit a couple of times, for more fury.
Battle rage (Into the Fray): I've experimented with different runes, but I think you really need it to play comfortably with a throwing barb, especially in this build. Make sure it's always on. A trick I use is to cast it together with War Cry whenever War Cry comes off cooldown. Like that you'll always have fury to keep your Battle Rage up. Without it you're crippled. If you try this build and you run into resource problems, chances are you're not keeping battle rage up.
Wrath of the Berserker (Insanity): Not essential, but I love it against crowd control and with bosses. Solves all problems that Rend doesn't.
Passives are of course Weapons Master, Ruthless and No Escape.
Items
Equipment wise I recommend going as DPS-oriented as possible. Of course you'll need a decent amount of crit chance. I'm at 51% now (with my mediocre gear) and that's fine. The key pieces are:
- Off-hand I'd recommend the three-hundredth spear. Preferably one with a socket, so you can get 70% crit damage easily.
- Main hand a mace or axe with life leech. I prefer this over LoH since our attacks will be relatively slow. A mace is a little better than a same-dps-axe, since the attack speed is lower, which improves your rend and fury management.
- Belt: a decent belt can be hard to find, since you'll both need life leech and reduced weapon throw cost. I have one with 4 reduced cost now, which works fine.
For this build, it's not necessary to bother with skull grasp or whatever, since you'll gain enough fury to keep up both.
On a final note, this build works better in some areas than in others. It's a charm in act2 farming routes, where there are lots of little meelee chars surrounding you and you can get the most out of rend. In act 3 it seems to be less effective in certain areas with lots of ranged monsters, but still viable.
What do you think?
I'm actually trying to be only moderately tanky, but it seems that for now it's almost impossible to go full dps from act2 on :/
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/barbarian#WXkVRP!VbZ!caccbZ
These are my current items:
And these are my current stats without War Cry.
What I gather from similar topics is that my life is incredibly low. Are there any other changes I should make? Any item I should definitely replace?
Is there a way to know for sure whether attack speed matters for a skill? My intuitive guess would be that "click to attack" skills all depend on speed, while "one shot" skills depend on damage. But then how am I supposed to know hydra uses speed as well?
Which number is actually used for the "weapon damage" skills use? Can I see this number somewhere? Is it dps or damage (i.e. will wielding a 2h axe with the same dps as a dagger result in more damage on Earthquake?)
If there was also a kraken in there I'd be more convinced