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Thank you for sharing your insights! I'll definitely try your Heat Wave suggestions once I get some Arcane Dust to build out a Crimson set.

The Heatwave animation is quite fast if you studder-step (force move, spam Heave). This seems to be a bug.

Greetings esteemed and more educated Wizards,

I recently decided to give your class a try and I'm running into a few points that I think would most efficiently be answered by more experienced players.

Here's my current Fire build of 2 days: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Gnada-1471/hero/10502451

I didn't like the feel of Meteor and nothing else seemed to be very good so I went with Heat Wave, which is a lot of fun.

1) How do Wizards heal? Or, is it really just all about mitigation and whatever Regen and Life per Hit you stack?

2) Any suggestions for improving the current build? I know I need a Magefists, Arcane per Crit helm, and more +Heat Wave rolls, and a better weapon.

3) Any other suggestions for Fire builds pre-Wand of Woh?

Many thanks,

G

It should be helpful if you linked your D3 profile here. For others interested in helping: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/heavyset-1794/hero/30604037

I would recommend taking greater advantage of your Reapers Wraps and Fire Dmg Stack and dropping Whirlwind. WW is lagging behind other abilities significantly right now.

A build along these lines should improve our character a lot: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/barbarian#WelURk!ihej!cZabbc

Goals

1. Increase your Fury pool so you can effectively use Seismic Slam or Hammer of the Ancients. Use paragon or gear or Animosity

2. Increase your Fury production. Use Swords to Plowshares for more globes, globes + Reapers Wraps = more Fury. The ultimate solution here is 4pc Immortal Kings set with Call of the Ancients - Ancient's Fury

3. Increase your Damage Output. Seismic Slam is incredibly good now--much better than WW. With an increased Fury Pool and Regen, you will be able to spam Seismic more. Use of Avalanche - Volcano is one option. You can also use Wrath of the Berserker if you like, but Volcano will give you Fury and synergizes well with a big Fury dump from Seismic and your fire stack.

Once you get some set items built up you can change your build accordingly.

Easy Gear Fixes

• I would recommend farming up mats for an Aughild's Shoulders and Helm until you get more Barb set pieces. For 2 pcs of gear + RORG, this is the best addition you can make to your character quickly and easily.
• You also need to get a Ring of Royal Grandeur as soon as possible.

Secondary goals...

• Finish Earth or Immortal Kings set 4pc
• Get Lut Socks
• Build up a set of Cooldown Reduction gear. You'll need this for many builds
• Build up a Physical set of gear

Hope that helps!

Quote from Kshatriya

okeej guys ur are all right, i must have have missed that. thanks for pointing that out. Then would u say utars roar vs azurewarth?

Situational. Utar's is probably a better general weapon for you. Azurewrath is probably a better general weapon for your Templar, unless you are fighting undead. I don't have a huge amount of experience using Azurewrath since I don't find Cold builds very enjoyable (so far), but it does work well with a high attack speed Templar for sure.

The Sunkeeper is still your better option for mainhand Leapquake when compared to the Utar's Roar. It's close, but Sunkeeper had the higher damage range. Washi, and my original post, are correct.

Sunkeeper is without question better. If anything you should have the Sunkeeper in your mainhand as the slower, more damaging weapon typically has greater benefits there. Don't look at the DPS... look at the damage range (in this case 1426-1921).

Azurewrath is pretty good on a high attack speed Templar btw!

I haven't tested with the necklace, but it likely will work. The help is tons of fun and definitely worthwhile for the sake of fun (and charming elites).

Attacks like Seismic, HotA, Ancient Spear alternate primary and secondary weapon damage. This is a well documented and tested game mechanic.

Quote from Kshatriya

Quote from Gnada

I had a lot of fun with Raekors Physical WW and Rend. Sort of a Charge -> Rend - WW+Run like the wind type of thing. I was able to complete T6 rifts with that build using Unity. But, it's slow and maybe only slightly better against single targets than other Raekor builds.

Best things we can do as a Barb community in that regard:

1) Petition Blizzard to change the 2pc and 4pc Raekor bonus to something truly useful. 4pc should be on par with the Crusader set or 3pc IK and help address the poor single target element of the build.

2) Address the issues with Furious Charge (animation "pause", pathing issues, possible change to mob drag to make more compatible with group play).

3) Address the issues with Ancient Spear strength and useability. Should have one of each element (cold and lightning add). The Flip rune is a pointless ability.

go ahead and post it there

Post what specifically?

I had a lot of fun with Raekors Physical WW and Rend. Sort of a Charge -> Rend - WW+Run like the wind type of thing. I was able to complete T6 rifts with that build using Unity. But, it's slow and maybe only slightly better against single targets than other Raekor builds.

Best things we can do as a Barb community in that regard:

1) Petition Blizzard to change the 2pc and 4pc Raekor bonus to something truly useful. 4pc should be on par with the Crusader set or 3pc IK and help address the poor single target element of the build.

2) Address the issues with Furious Charge (animation "pause", pathing issues, possible change to mob drag to make more compatible with group play).

3) Address the issues with Ancient Spear strength and useability. Should have one of each element (cold and lightning add). The Flip rune is a pointless ability.

You now have one of the best Spears I've seen. BTW, 300th Spear with Leapquake is really fun!

No leaping Fire Barb is viable all the way through to T6. However, I think you should try going the 4pc IK route and compare results (mine were excellent).

Seismic Slam is without question a stronger ability than Ancient Spear currently (which is a shame given how nice of a 300th Spear you have).

Try using CotA - Ancients Fury + Seismic Slam (you can use HotA - Smash, but Seismic is better) with no Fury Generator (drop weapon throw). Note you might need the Unforgiving passive to do this and Max Fury paragon (large fury pool is very helpful).

Using this build, a Barb can pump out massive AOE damage (my crits are 30 million on elites) and generate enough healing to stay alive. Seismic is superior to HotA due to range and AOE now after Patch 2.05.

Unfortunately, Raekors and Furious Charge are just in a weak place and Boulder Toss is about the only place they even have a spark, let alone shine.

Don't run it at all. Drop the spender, beef up on CDR and run Wrath of the Berserker and CotA instead.

Otherwise, with a spender use Reapers Wraps and Swords to Plowshares for extra healing and Fury regen.

I can Spam Seismic Slam with that setup and its a LOT of damage on top of the Earthquakes.

I think if they left the 100% 2yr bonus in full-time it would feel about right to me now. Or maybe even just +50%.

Slaying monsters feels rewarding now. When I made my original post pre-100% bonus, it did not.

Overall, I'm having a lot more fun with the bonus loot week than I did in the past. That's what counts most. Games feeling fun while playing is good.