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    posted a message on Natural movement for Melee Characters with a Gamepad

    There are already lots of videos out there on how to set up Xpadder for Diablo 3, but I couldn't quite get a good feel for movement with any of them. This is partially due to an old gamepad with overly sensitive analog sticks.

    In this video, I show how I used an old Joystick program called DXTweak2 to get perfect movement for a character. The rest of the profile isn't really set up for ranged, however, so for now I'm only advertising this for Melee characters.

    Link to Xpadder: http://www.xpadder.com/

    Link to DXTweak2: http://www.wingmanteam.com/latest_software/gadgets.htm
    Posted in: Diablo III General Discussion
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    posted a message on Nerf to WotB:ToC what are us Barbs going to do now? (New build to tryout)
    This is just a brainstorm, so don't flame if you hate the idea. It seems that the CC immunity is what makes WotB really game-breaking. What if ToC was kept as is, but the CC immunity only lasted for the original 15 second duration?

    This wouldn't break any builds, players would still have a short-term powerful CC breaker, and beyond the 15 seconds players still have to be smart and skilled about placement and avoiding CC.
    Posted in: Barbarian: Bastion's Keep
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    posted a message on Need some help and sugestions
    Quote from DocSun

    However that competitive nature does get me from time to time. I don't have to be perfectly Min/Maxed but I would love to know if I am on the right track for gearing up reguardless I mean I see such high damage outputs; is it just the Gold I don't have yet combined with poor luck with drops?

    Give it time and eventually you will see some high money items. I also came back after a long break and had awful gear. From paragon levels 1-30 I never had an item sell for more than 2 million gold, and suddenly things changed. I suppose I should attribute it partly to higher MF, but in the same day I found 3 items valued for 150 million + each. I equipped 2 of them, sold the other, updated my gear and gained about 60K dps plus a couple hundred thousand EHP.

    Be patient, enjoy the game, earn some paragon levels and the good drops will come.
    Posted in: Barbarian: Bastion's Keep
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    posted a message on Double Mobility - A Build for 2-handed Barbarians
    Quote from bruteMax

    Nice writeup. :)

    Would this build have enough DPS to down ubers fast enough at MP8+? You suggest swapping out for HOTA if you want more DPS, but if doing so I would also suggest swapping out the BR rune for Into the Fray to be able to use HOTA more. I'd also switch out the def passive for Superstition in this case.

    Definitively on MP8 (I've done it several times) and my gut says it's enough for 9 and 10 as well. Since so much of your single target damage is Frenzy, I use an Immortal King's belt with +Frenzy damage. The thing that has kept me from trying ubers higher than 8 is fear of dying to Kulle and Siegebreaker. The other two portals are pretty easy. Good point about Battle Rage - Into the Fray. Soon I'm going to try that rune and Thrive on Chaos to see if I can permawrath to nullify Kulle's slowing bubbles. Thus far I've used Leap to simply jump out whenever he casts one on me. That works fine, but it does decrease damage output a bit. I'm not sure this build will generate enough fury to keep Wrath up, but I'll see how it goes.

    Quote from Maragno

    would this be more efficient (faster/easier) than a 'cleave / rend' with sprint (marathon) build?

    On lower MP, I'd definitely use some build with Sprint. On MP7+, my intuition says Double Mobility would be faster because the extra damage from Charge in burning down large packs will make up for the increase in travel time without Sprint. You should time a few runs of each and let us know how it turns out.
    Posted in: Barbarian: Bastion's Keep
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    posted a message on Double Mobility - A Build for 2-handed Barbarians
    Double Mobility - A Build for 2-handed Barbarians


    Table of Contents:

    1) Introduction
    2) Abilities and Passives
    3) Gearing Strategy
    4) Playstyle tips

    5) Modification for Uber Bosses
    6) Conclusion


    1. Introduction

    This is a build I use for playing at higher Monster Power. It is well suited to key farming, can be easily modified for uber bosses, and is also good for those times you are tired of farming easy stuff and desire a challenge. The key theme of the build is mobility. If played correctly, you will never have to worry about being immobilized by Jailer of Frozen mobs or caught in Arcane, Molten, Plagued, or Fire Chains.

    One of the great properties of this build is being able to dive into medium and high Monster Power at modest gear levels. I originally took a break from Diablo 3 starting in June of 2012 when Inferno was still very, very hard. My gear was pretty bad given that I had barely been able to farm Act III Inferno. Upon returning and retooling my favorite sword and board build for use with a 2-handed weapon, I was pleased to be able to start key farming at MP5, and after investing 2-3 million gold in my gear MP7 was soon a reasonable level to farm. Now that I've been back a couple of months and sold a few good items, I can key farm MP9 and solo uber bosses at MP8 without much hassle.

    Another great property is the relative cheapness with which you can buy gear for this build. As will be explained in Section 3), you will be able to avoid items for which the competition is highest.

    I do not claim that this build is especially original. You will find slight variants and perhaps even the exact same build with a brief search. What I aim to do is provide a bit more in-depth information about the playstyle and perhaps encourage new barbarians to experiment beyond the standard Whirlwind builds that are currently popular.

    2. Abilities and Passives

    Active Abilities:


    Frenzy - Maniac: Swing for 110% weapon damage. Frenzy attack speed increases by 15% with each swing. This effect can stack up to 5 times for a total bonus of 75% attack speed. Each Frenzy effect also increases you damage by 4%. Playing on high MP means you won't be one-shotting every mob, and elites have significant health. Most packs will last long enough for Frenzy to stack to 5. With the selected rune, this provides a large damage boost to your Rend and Furious Charge.

    Rend - Blood Lust: A sweeping strike causes all nearby enemies to Bleed for 700% weapon damage as Physical over 5 seconds. Gain 9% of the damage done by Rend as Life. This ability is the one that keeps you alive. Using a big, slow 2-handed weapon means that this ticks for a lot of damage and returns a lot of health. Also, even though the damage numbers are always white, this ability CAN critically hit for huge amounts of damage and life steal. At my gear level with Battle Rage and Frenzy stacks, Rend crits for ~2.5 million damage total and returns 45K health total.

    Leap - Iron Impact: Leap into the air, dealing 85% weapon damage to all enemies within 8 yards of your destination and slowing their movement speed by 60% for 3 seconds. Gain 100% additional Armor per enemy hit for 3 seconds after landing. This is your initiator. The most dangerous moments occur just as you engage an enemy pack. The extra Armor gained from the rune keeps you alive until you can get a good Rend flowing. It can also be used to get out of a dangerous situation or to take a shortcut in some maps.

    Furious Charge - Merciless Assault: Rush forward knocking back enemies and inflicting 195% weapon damage to enemies along the path of the charge. Cooldown is reduced by 2 seconds for every target hit. This ability serves many functions, including Fury generation, area of effect damage, and escaping dangerous situations. It is based off of weapon damage, so it benefits greatly from big slow 2-handed weapons. The rune makes it truly awesome for large groups of enemies. Hitting at least 5 will eliminate the cooldown entirely, allowing you to zip through enemies like an NFL linebacker. This crits for ~700K damage at my gear level.

    Battle Rage - Marauder's Rage: Enter a rage which increases damage by 30% and Critical Hit Chance by 3%. A large, flat increase to damage. This applies, of course, to Rend ticks and thus indirectly increases your life steal.

    Wrath of the Berserker - Insanity: Increases Critical Hit Chance by 10%, Attack Speed by 25%, Dodge Chance by 20%, and Movement Speed by 20% for 15 seconds. While active your damage is also increased by 100%. When this is active along with Battle Rage and 5 Frenzy stacks, your tooltip dps should more than quadruple. The selected rune does mean you cannot keep this up permanently for the movement speed bonus, but it will trivialize most elite packs.

    Passive Abilities:


    Ruthless: Critical Hit Chance increased by 5%. Critical Hit Damage increased by 50%.

    Weapons Master: 10% Critical Hit Chance with Maces/Axes (the only part that really matters!).

    For your third passive, you have a few options. If you usually die from a single large hit then I recommend

    Tough as Nails: Increases Armor by 25%
    or

    Nerves of Steel: Your Armor is increased by 100% of your Vitality
    depending on which one yields more armor for your particular gear set. If you tend to die slowly over time to damage that life steal from Rend can't keep up with, try

    Bloodthirst: Gain 3% of all damage done as Life.

    3. Gearing Strategy

    Most of your damage will be coming from Rend and Furious Charge, so you want to maximize these abilities. It is obvious that weapons with high average damage (not damage per second, but flat damage) benefit these the most. A big, slow 2-handed Axe or Mace is best. Theoretically Maces would be better as they are slower, but the huge amount of Critical Hit Damage available on a Skorn will easily outperform a Mace. Because this build requires only a modest amount of Fury generation, Mighty Weapons are not worth considering.

    Notice that neither Rend nor Furious Charge benefits from Increased Attack Speed (IAS), so the only benefit IAS gives is to your single target Frenzy strikes. This understandably makes IAS less attractive for this build than for a Whirlwind/Tornado build. IAS is still a desirable stat for single target damage, but it should be near the end of your damage stat priority list.

    +Damage is another attribute that does not benefit this build as much as others. It will increase weapon damage by a small percentage yielding a small percent increase for Rend and Furious Charge, and single target strikes with slow weapons are not frequent enough to see a large benefit. Again, it is not a bad stat, but you will get more bang for your gold from other stats.

    However, both abilities can critically hit, so Critical Hit Chance (CHC) and Critical Hit Damage (CHD) will increase ALL of your damage sources. The Weapon Master passive gives Maces and Axes a 10% increased CHC which is further boosted by the Ruthless passive. Thus an approximate damage stat priority is

    Str = CHC = CHD > +Dam > IAS

    Now, not having much IAS means your tooltip dps can be deceptively low compared to other barbarians. That's ok, ignore it. Remember that the tooltip number is only a measure of single target dps under restrictive circumstances. Turtel has posted a nice explanation of this here. Your area of effect damage will be very high, which is much more important and will still lead to a good farming speed at high MP.

    Life Steal (LS) is built into Rend, but depending on your gear you may want or need more. Early in my gear progression I ran with just under 9% (3% on belt and 6% on weapon) and I was nigh unkillable as long as Rend was up. As my damage increased, I suspected that 9% was overkill. I dropped LS from my weapon allowing me to purchase one with much better damage stats. As a result my tooltip dps increased nearly 30k and 3% LS from my belt was sufficient. As a rule, I suggest running with as little LS as you can safely handle so that your item budget is free for dps stats.

    A note on Movement Speed (MS): It is an essential attribute for lower MP where monsters die very rapidly in relation to travel time between packs. However, as MP increases and monster health becomes much larger, you will spend a greater percentage of your time fighting and less traveling. For this reason I view MS as necessary for low MP, but a luxury for higher MP key and uber boss farming. Get it if you have the gold to burn, but don't prioritize it over damage and survivability. Personally I use boots with 12% MS but keep my Lacuni Prowlers in the bank for use with lower MP runs.

    MS, IAS and +Damage are some of the most sought after attributes which leaves less competition for items lacking them. This allows you to gear your barbarian for much less than a comparable Whirlwind build.

    Here is a link to the gear I farm keys with: http://d3up.com/b/29...kolmagorov-dps# You'll notice one of my rings has IAS on it, but that was a drop that was too good not to equip; it was not bought from the Auction House.

    There's really nothing about the build that calls for a specific Follower setup, so do whatever you like best. If you stack CHD, then the Scoundrel will give the highest damage increase. Personally I use the Enchantress outfitted with Magic Find and Gold Find because I feel the 5% armor buff makes up for the damage differential between 3% Crit and 3% IAS (only about 2K dps for my barb, or about 1.2% of total dps). If you do use the Enchantress, I recommend NOT selecting a skill from the first tier. The knockback is bad because you like enemies to be tightly clumped for Rend and Charge, and the charm is bad because it may send an enemy you are beating on running away from you.

    4. Playstyle Tips

    For white mob packs where all enemies have similar health levels, I find it most efficient to ignore Frenzy stacks and to alternate Rend + Furious Charge. Start with a Leap for the increased Armor and Rend if you have enough Fury, otherwise Charge through as many mobs as you can. Simply try to keep Rend up on as many mobs as possible and use Furious Charge on cooldown.

    For packs where some mobs have significantly more health than others, such as Colossal Golgors, attack that mob to stack Frenzy up to 5 while keeping Rend on any nearby mobs. You can also use short range Charges for high burst damage, but don't Charge so far away that you will lose Frenzy stacks before making it back to the big mob. Usually this means by the time the big mob is down, all the little guys are dead from Rend.

    I recommend playing on the highest MP such that elites and rares lose 80% or more health during Wrath of the Berserker. If you happen upon an elite pack while WotB is down, be smart about using Leap and Charge to stay alive. Usually Leap is better for initiating combat and chasing down runners, while Charge should be saved for escapes.

    5. Modification for Uber Bosses

    For uber bosses, Furious Charge is less helpful as you will not be fighting huge packs of mobs (except for Skeleton King's minions, but those are trivial). Also, there is a rare but annoying bug with Furious Charge: sometimes you will be caught in game textures and must leave game to become unstuck. This is annoying when key farming but infuriating when fighting uber bosses and you waste an Infernal Machine. For these encounters, I suggest replacing it with


    War Cry - Impunity: Unleash a rallying cry to increase Armor by 20%. All of your resistances are increased by 20% while affected by War Cry
    for increased survivability. If you prefer to increase damage rather than effective health, you could go with Overpower - Killing Spree, Hammer of the Ancients - Smash, or really whatever else you fancy.

    This is the gear and build I use for uber bosses. It's mostly the same, but I do switch out Hellfire Rings and use an Amethyst in my helm rather than a Ruby. http://d3up.com/b/23...kolmagorov-ehp#

    6. Conclusion

    Thanks for reading! Please leave any suggestions and criticisms. Thanks to Turtel for his 1.0.6 Barbarian guide for covering the basics, and Aaron Cox for maintaining d3up.com.
    Posted in: Barbarian: Bastion's Keep
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    posted a message on Having issues with Act 2 Inferno, need advice...
    Seems to me that your stats should be sufficient for Act II. What is your playstyle like?

    I ask this because a few small playstyle changes made enough difference for me to farm Act 3. I use a 2-hander but my build is very similar to yours. The only difference is that I use Leap with Iron Impact rune rather than Ignore Pain.

    I prefer leap because the damage reduction from Iron Impact has much higher uptime than Ignore Pain. I'll leap into a pack, beat them up for 4-6 seconds, and if my health begins to drop after the armor buff is gone I'll charge out and heal myself to full. Then I'll run away for 3-4 seconds until Leap is off cooldown then repeat.

    What was killing me before was trying to stand toe-to-toe with elite mobs without a damage reduction cooldown like Leap.
    Posted in: Barbarian: Bastion's Keep
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