14 replies to this topic

[CyberianK]

Hi there,

I am playing a barb with a HotA build. Mainly because I got myself a Skorn and I do not like the style of WW although I know that it is very good.

I do this build for MP3 farming:
http://eu.battle.net...SPRc!ZYW!YYbZYZ
I am on constant 90-135 fury with this build raising my Crit chance for Hammer by a significant amount. This is needed of course as I got only 46%. The Stun and rend give me my survivability.

For harder difficulties I use this:
http://eu.battle.net...SkRc!ZYV!YZbYYZ



My char:
http://eu.battle.net...724/hero/674569

Maybe you can give me some advice on which slot I should upgrade first. I am thinking of ditching the Endless Path Set amulet and ring. Mainly because I am missing Crit Chance on the amulet. I could switch to lacunis then to retain my movement speed from the ring. What should I go for in amulet and ring and which slots to change also? Atm. I am very broke at only <10kk but I hope to farm some more money soon.

[xaimx]

I think spec wise, I would switch wotb:ToC for furious charge for higher difficulty, since its a very good defensive ability as well as offensive. I have 100% uptime on my Hammer barb.

I would swap your chest out first for an IK or similar chest stat wise. You are missing a lot of resist in that slot. Then I would look at a neck with CC and CD or IAS. It doesn't look like you have much IAS at all, and its a pretty strong stat for hammer build.

[Bishamon001]

Hiya m8t!

I can identify to the not liking the ww style. I hated the spinning style from day 1 hehe.
I too am into smashing things HOTA style!

I had a look at your gear and i would say that your amu's lack of crit chance could give a huge boost by replacing it.
Altough i really like the set, didnt know it existed tbh.Gives some good bonuses but dmg wise you can easily get more crit/crit hit dmg out of two seperated items.
If you replace them i would try to get increased attack speed as well, helps allot for damage and fury regen!

The strenght on your pants/belt and plate is a bit low as well.

I cant post links yet but this is me:

Bishamon#2656

Happy smashing!

[agadabagada]

1, get rid of ur compas rose amy/ring set. the ring is strong but the amy blows :|. Get a real amulet with crit chance + ar/cd/str/vit/damage/armor/attackspeed - doesnt need all of these, but it does need crit chance at a minimum. all 3 pieces of ur IK are good but are the lower rolls (sub 100 str). looking to upgrade those would be helpful but not imediatly necisary. itd give you about 300 more str which is always awesome.

another option you have has to drop the skorn and go duel wield. I do this with my barb and it opens up the option for perma zerk as you expend and gain fury fast enough  - http://us.battle.net...14/hero/6471308 - my char. I swap between ww/hota builds as i use ww for farming and hota for mp7+. With my gear, i was able to hota build through mp10 ghom/rhagnoroth.

another piece u should look into changing is your chest. It gives you huge stats, but no ar or armor....
your boots, have ms/ar but lack str/vit hardcore. boots to be are a terrible investment tho in comparison to other gear. Pants can give you like 100 str/200 vit/socket/ar for 5 mill where as boots with ms/ar/90str/90vit = 50mill. its rediuclous. so just wait till u stumple upon some boots for an upgrade there. Your pants look strong, so no need to adress that yet.

tbh, your gear isnt bad, its just akward. very smart or lucky (whichever you choose ) as to how you geared yourself to end up with the stats you did with that sort of gear, props

[xaimx]

Dual wielding is the way to go IMO with a hammer build for permazerk. Unless you get insane ias, (like mempo+lacuni's+9% ias rolls in every slot that can get it) a 2h build is just going to be sub par. You can look at my gear as another example of what to look for, however keep in mind it took me a while to accumulate.

[agadabagada]

even with that much ias, id still prefer duel wield. as youve probably seen in other barbs threads, if u can make a 2h perma zerk build viable through ias, a dw in the wep slots would just be godlike.

apart from that, I can hardly stand the slugish/sloppy feel a 2h has. my friend rocks a 2h smash rend build with insanity while i run a dw rend smash build with thrive. his build definetly does more burst, but my build is by far more consistent.

[CyberianK]

Thanks for all the great answers.

@xaimx
I will try if WotB:ToC works with me. I did try before and couldn't keep it up so I ditched it again. Worth another try. I plan on getting IK chest and boots in the long run for the fury boost and maybe a hammer cost reducing item. That would be a big help with my build as I could switch some fury skills for more useful ones. They are very expensive though and I might skip them If I get my hands on other cheaper alternatives

@Bishamon001
Before I had a Crit Amu for 55% CC. It lacked some other stats though. But I will definitely go there again. Same with me regarding HotA and WW did use the Hammer from day 1 just cause I like killing stuff with one blow.

@agadabagada
I agree on dual wield being best. It is just so expensive getting high crit, high DPS 1h weapons best with Str/Vit/LL also. Thats why I use a SKorn because it was cheap. I might go DW though in the future.
And thanks for your opinion regarding my strange gear. I know it is unusual. Especially the Compass Rose/Travelers Pledge, they did serve me well with the high MF but it is time to ditch them.

So I think I will go for a better chest next as it might be cheap and after that I will go for ring and amu. But I will save some money first because I don't want to loose too much stats compared to now.
After that I will switch my IK stuff with better ones. Hopefully I will be able to get some nice IK boots/chest also. But I do not mind some Ice Climbers/Fire Walkers dropping :-) then I skip the 5-IK.

[RenescoD3]

agadabagada, on 07 November 2012 - 10:03 AM, said:

1, get rid of ur compas rose amy/ring set. the ring is strong but the amy blows :|. Get a real amulet with crit chance + ar/cd/str/vit/damage/armor/attackspeed - doesnt need all of these, but it does need crit chance at a minimum. all 3 pieces of ur IK are good but are the lower rolls (sub 100 str). looking to upgrade those would be helpful but not imediatly necisary. itd give you about 300 more str which is always awesome.

another option you have has to drop the skorn and go duel wield. I do this with my barb and it opens up the option for perma zerk as you expend and gain fury fast enough  - http://us.battle.net...14/hero/6471308 - my char. I swap between ww/hota builds as i use ww for farming and hota for mp7+. With my gear, i was able to hota build through mp10 ghom/rhagnoroth.

another piece u should look into changing is your chest. It gives you huge stats, but no ar or armor....
your boots, have ms/ar but lack str/vit hardcore. boots to be are a terrible investment tho in comparison to other gear. Pants can give you like 100 str/200 vit/socket/ar for 5 mill where as boots with ms/ar/90str/90vit = 50mill. its rediuclous. so just wait till u stumple upon some boots for an upgrade there. Your pants look strong, so no need to adress that yet.

tbh, your gear isnt bad, its just akward. very smart or lucky (whichever you choose ) as to how you geared yourself to end up with the stats you did with that sort of gear, props

Sure the amulet sucks...http://us.battle.net...38/hero/3581306

[FineAgedTequila]

I love 2H with HoTA build.  Using a pretty decent skorn and I do have about 32% IAS... got lucky on a few pieces of my gear.  I use Thrive on Chaos and can for 2/3 uber fights I can typically maintain almost 100% uptime on Wrath through the fight (only exception is if someone stun locks Siege while he's picking me up, of course).

I'm curious though, I don't have the 1H to try DW, but why would that be so much better?

[xaimx]

FineAgedTequila, on 07 November 2012 - 06:24 PM, said:

I love 2H with HoTA build.  Using a pretty decent skorn and I do have about 32% IAS... got lucky on a few pieces of my gear.  I use Thrive on Chaos and can for 2/3 uber fights I can typically maintain almost 100% uptime on Wrath through the fight (only exception is if someone stun locks Siege while he's picking me up, of course).

I'm curious though, I don't have the 1H to try DW, but why would that be so much better?

Much faster attack speed, allowing more crits/sec and much easier to keep the duration of your wotb at full. If you can maintain 100% uptime with a 2h setup then by all means go for it, but its just far easier to maintain it while dual wielding, especially when you are getting picked up by seigebreaker, chasing those fat shielding shamans ect.

Also, once you get into MP7+, monsters start chunking your hp a lot. At that level of gear you should be using lifesteal as your primary sustain stat. The faster attack speed means you can heal up faster, and not as much of your healing is overheals. You can easily die in 1 second in high MP if you aren't careful, and getting your HP back every half second or so instead of every 3/4 of a second makes a big difference.

[xaimx]

agadabagada, on 07 November 2012 - 11:05 AM, said:

even with that much ias, id still prefer duel wield. as youve probably seen in other barbs threads, if u can make a 2h perma zerk build viable through ias, a dw in the wep slots would just be godlike.

apart from that, I can hardly stand the slugish/sloppy feel a 2h has. my friend rocks a 2h smash rend build with insanity while i run a dw rend smash build with thrive. his build definetly does more burst, but my build is by far more consistent.

agree

[FineAgedTequila]

Interesting.  With a 100m gold budget, what would you recommend trying to get for a MH/OH combo?  Right now I use my big HoTA build for Ubers on 7 and farming on MP8, then I switch to WW to get some xp and run around like an idiot.  ideally I'd like to use the same weapons for both setups...

[xaimx]

FineAgedTequila, on 07 November 2012 - 06:59 PM, said:

Interesting.  With a 100m gold budget, what would you recommend trying to get for a MH/OH combo?  Right now I use my big HoTA build for Ubers on 7 and farming on MP8, then I switch to WW to get some xp and run around like an idiot.  ideally I'd like to use the same weapons for both setups...

As high damage as you can afford with cd/ls/socket. Aim for all three of those stats, however you can just go with socket and one or other if you cant afford the trifecta. Str makes them extremely expensive, like 400m+ when you get over 1k dps. You need an axe or mace main hand for weapons master bonus (an EF can work well, altho the fear is annoying but on ubers its extremely good). Offhand doesn't matter just good damage.

as a side note, do not use EF for ww spec, its soooooo annoying

Edited by xaimx, 07 November 2012 - 07:30 PM.

[Fizbini]

with enough crit and fury generation (IK set and or mighty weapon, into the fray) u dont even need a primary builder like bash.  i personally dont even run with one when going 2 hander.. also with skills like iron impact or threatening shout u get massive damage reduction and fury generation.  people saying use 2 one handers to keep WOTB up is rather ridiculous.  might as well just go insanity...  its to hard to manage fury IMO with hammer builds unless your on a boss fight.   the whole point of going hammer is to melt single targets...  2 1handers do substantially less damage for rend and hammer. btw if your using 2 1 handers u might as well just WW to win.  2handers are much funner for hammer builds as you get such huge crits.


i use only 2 offensive skills.  hammer and rend (gear with - rend cost)

Edited by Fizbini, 07 November 2012 - 08:23 PM.

[agadabagada]

RenescoD3, on 07 November 2012 - 11:48 AM, said:

agadabagada, on 07 November 2012 - 10:03 AM, said:

1, get rid of ur compas rose amy/ring set. the ring is strong but the amy blows :|. Get a real amulet with crit chance + ar/cd/str/vit/damage/armor/attackspeed - doesnt need all of these, but it does need crit chance at a minimum. all 3 pieces of ur IK are good but are the lower rolls (sub 100 str). looking to upgrade those would be helpful but not imediatly necisary. itd give you about 300 more str which is always awesome.

another option you have has to drop the skorn and go duel wield. I do this with my barb and it opens up the option for perma zerk as you expend and gain fury fast enough  - http://us.battle.net...14/hero/6471308 - my char. I swap between ww/hota builds as i use ww for farming and hota for mp7+. With my gear, i was able to hota build through mp10 ghom/rhagnoroth.

another piece u should look into changing is your chest. It gives you huge stats, but no ar or armor....
your boots, have ms/ar but lack str/vit hardcore. boots to be are a terrible investment tho in comparison to other gear. Pants can give you like 100 str/200 vit/socket/ar for 5 mill where as boots with ms/ar/90str/90vit = 50mill. its rediuclous. so just wait till u stumple upon some boots for an upgrade there. Your pants look strong, so no need to adress that yet.

tbh, your gear isnt bad, its just akward. very smart or lucky (whichever you choose ) as to how you geared yourself to end up with the stats you did with that sort of gear, props

Sure the amulet sucks...http://us.battle.net...38/hero/3581306

his amy sucks. thanks for nit picking <3

"with enough crit and fury generation (IK set and or mighty weapon, into the fray) u dont even need a primary builder like bash.  i personally dont even run with one when going 2 hander.. also with skills like iron impact or threatening shout u get massive damage reduction and fury generation.  people saying use 2 one handers to keep WOTB up is rather ridiculous.  might as well just go insanity...  its to hard to manage fury IMO with hammer builds unless your on a boss fight.   the whole point of going hammer is to melt single targets...  2 1handers do substantially less damage for rend and hammer. btw if your using 2 1 handers u might as well just WW to win.  2handers are much funner for hammer builds as you get such huge crits."


i use only 2 offensive skills.  hammer and rend (gear with - rend cost



so... you do know that total dps is a direct indicator of the amount of damage you will output with a hammer build right? Unlike ww spec, which is MUCH harder to determine who does more damage, hota builds are quite straight foward. So, if you have 110 dps on duelwield and 110dps on 2h, your doing the same damage. Also, as xaimx stated, its much more consistent. when i 2h build, i have 1.2 attacks per second, and when i dw, i have 1.8. I go from expending about 20 fury per second to about 35-40. Being that ToC only needs 25 expended per second (given that you can regain it fast enough) the 35-40 fury spent gives he a 10-15 overhead, allowing me to REGAIN second on thrive on elites, or high hp mobs. My current dps is 110k which makes most mobs take a while in mp10. In mp5, i run sprint instead of warcry, so i can keep it up easier between mobs which i melt much faster.

Another thing, as mentioned, my heals are in much quicker secession. With 3% ll (kinda low i know...) I heal about 5+k per hit and a quantom f ton from rend. My health income is less spikey and more consistent than a 2h build, which is what i prefer. And.... at 110k dps.... as long as rend crits, i have more than enough heals.... Enough to do ghom/rhag. Couldnt do siege/khule (need like x2 dps, 500000 movespeed, and another 3% lifesteal), and havnt tried sk/magdha yet.

yet another part is... the +25% attackspeed/+10 cc is huge for the build AND keeping toc up itself. it puts my attacks per second up to around 2 (40 fury per second) and my crit chance to around 70ish (axe main hand). With full fury (115), i have about a 90% chance of criting. WIth hota-smash .8 coeficient, thats a very large chance to get fury back, allowing more spams and more ToC. I have also found, just hitting 2 mobs at once actually gains me fury from half a bar to full in a couple hits. At first i thought this skill was an utter single target skill (ran this build way back in 1.03 before the damage buff when it would sometimes miss the fucker standing directly infront of you) but now, it seems to have a very large aoe.

The final part is with inanity.... you only have god mode for 15 seconds.... If you can kill an mp10 elite in 10 seconds (or ubers), then go for it... but i, for one, am not able to. And without ToC, my biggest issue with my barb is that he takes micro stuns from damage.... to the point where i cant even get a rend off.



"2handers are much funner for hammer builds as you get such huge crits" i think the issue in debate here is personal preference. Ive already stated my distain for 2handers alone. I belive their sluggish nature is boring and bad where as others think its good. Its a game, do what you prefer. xaimx and i prefer fast and low damage crits.

My frind runs a 2h smash barb who crits for 1mill normally and 1.8mill with insanity really slowly. I crit for 400-750k a hit at 2x per second. I think its ever better when your game's sound glitches out after useing smash so much as all game sounds other than a short milisecond of the smash sound plays XD.


as a side note, do not use EF for ww spec, its soooooo annoying" - I roflled so hard... My friend used to run an EF on his ww barb until i told him he either swaps it out or im not playing with him haha. Its not only counter productive to the ww barb spec (clumping mobs up rather than spreading them with fear) but you pay about 10x more than you need to for low level EF's.

I used a cheap 10k gold EF when i first was playing aroiund with the smash build... and it is nice in terms of the attackspeed, but i got rid of it asap... I would rather have slower attackspeed, and work on getting ias gear than have an ef..... so annoying

Edited by agadabagada, 07 November 2012 - 09:12 PM.