This is a build for an ideal situation of low-movement, single target damage for the Barbarian. I'll go through each skill and rune and explain why I chose that particular combination.
1. Bash with Punish: Indigo Runestone
Bash is the highest damage single-target Fury generator at the Barbarian's disposal, sitting at a healthy 145% weapon damage. Punish provides a 10% damage boost for 5 seconds, stacking up to 8 times for a total of 80% increased damage. This is a huge buff for any low-movement, high DPS situation.
2. Frenzy with Maniac: Crimson Runestone
Frenzy is a single-target Fury generator similar to bash, but it lacks the high damage of Bash. The strength of Frenzy comes in with its innate buff, granting 15% attack speed to Frenzy for 4 seconds and stacking up to 5 times for 75% attack speed. The Maniac Runestone adds an additional effect to your Frenzy buff, increasing your damage by 24%, for a total of 120% increased damage.
My thought process behind these two attacks is pretty simple: Use Bash 8 times to gain the 80% increased damage buff from Punish, and use Frenzy as your main damage damage dealing attack; use Bash once every 5 seconds to keep the Punish buff rolling. With both buffs you will have a whopping 200% increased damage, and 75% increased attack speed for Frenzy.
3. Weapon Throw with Mighty Throw: Crimson Runestone
At 210% weapon damage, this attack is the hardest-hitting Fury Spending attack in the Barbarian's arsenal. The 70% decreased movement speed is also great for the ideal low-movement situation of this particular build. Mighty Throw increases the weapon damage to 462%. This damage is also increased by the 200% enhanced damage from the Frenzy and Bash buffs (the 75% attack speed only applies to the Frenzy skill itself, sadly).
Hammer of the Ancients is a contender for this spot because of the 15% increased crit, but Weapon Throw is superior for reasons I'll touch upon later.
4. Battle Rage with Marauder's Rage: Crimson Runestone
A 30 second buff that increases damage by 30% and critical chance by 4%. A must have buff for any high-dps situation, and particularly potent in this build for: Marauder's Rage: Increases the damage buff to 100% increased damage. In addition to your Bash and Frenzy buffs, this is now a 300% damage increase for all attacks.
5. Call of the Ancients with The Council Rises: Indigo Runestone
Summon your three favorite buddies from Mount Arreat to fight along side you for 15 seconds(no, they won't give extra skill points this time!). With The Council Rises Runestone, each Ancient deals 275% of your weapon damage per hit (up from 100%). This may or may not be affected by other damage buffs.This would also be a nice ability to use to get rid of other mobs swarming and distracting you, so you can focus your damage on a single target.
6. Wrath of the Berserker with Insanity: Crimson Runestone
This is, in my opinion, a must have buff for any Barbarian. With the Insanity Runestone, this buff will grant you 75% enhanced damage, 10% critical hit, and 45% attack speed for 15 seconds. That is just insane!
With all your buffs active in this build, you can obtain 375% Increased Damage!
Passives
Ruthless: An obvious choice, increasing critical chance and damage. No damage dealing Barbarian will be caught without this passive.
Weapons Master: Also a good damage increase passive, granting a different effect for each different type of weapon you can use.
No Escape: This passive is why I feel Weapon Throw is superior to Hammer of the Ancients. It will increase the damage of your weapon throw by 100%, which in my humble opinion is far superior to the 15% crit bonus of Hammer.
This looks very solid. Although, judging by what we've seen so far, I'd assume that most bosses will spawn extra mobs to attack you. I'm not sure if it would be worth it to grab an ability to AoE them down really quick or if keeping all single target abilities to burst down the boss would be more efficient.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
My place really was here. I was too foolish and stubborn to notice. But, what I truly hoped for then was here. Why do I always realize it When I've already lost it.
I'm not sold on using the Ancients without the cooldown reducer as a high damage method. Even if they do a lot of damage when they are out, it is only every 15 seconds for two minutes. I think you can probably do better in terms of consistently high damage with another skill.
Ground Stomp or Furious Charge with crimson runes seems like a better choice. Stomp gives you some control with stun, and Charge gives you more mobility and a higher % damage. Either one would work and likely provide more useful than the sporadic bursts from the Ancients.
I really like this build, but the lack of an AoE for solo play kinda bugs me out a little...
I tried messing around with it, and came up with something.
What if you switch Call of the Ancients for Earthquake with golden runestone (reduces cost to 40 fury and cooldown to 50 seconds)
And then switch your Weapons Master passive skill for Boon of Bul-Kathos (you would gain the benefit for Earthquake and Warth of the Berserker). That also would get your Earthquake an awesome 20s cooldown.
I just think that might work better, but it's hard to say anything without trying it in game for real.
I'm not sold on using the Ancients without the cooldown reducer as a high damage method. Even if they do a lot of damage when they are out, it is only every 15 seconds for two minutes. I think you can probably do better in terms of consistently high damage with another skill.
Ground Stomp or Furious Charge with crimson runes seems like a better choice. Stomp gives you some control with stun, and Charge gives you more mobility and a higher % damage. Either one would work and likely provide more useful than the sporadic bursts from the Ancients.
I see the Indigo Call as a boss/big enemy usage. They might not be tough enough to survive very long versus a boss, so the 85 second duration increase becomes useless if they die. The bonus damage makes them all more powerful for however long they are alive up to that 15 seconds, and may provide better overall damage if you can throw damage taken debuffs on an enemy (like parying with a monk or DH).
TLDR: Indigo definitely has a place for boss fights. Duration increase or cooldown decrease is more important if you're using them to clear rooms rather than fight bosses.
I imagine many builds which will outperform this build in many situations. Just looking at it, you're going to be buffing battle rage asap. Then you're basically going to hit bash->frenzy->bash->frenzy->frenzy->weapon throw (repeat) or something similar. There are a few things I don't like about this build.
Survivability:
-No life leech
-No (aside from WotB) added mobility or demobilizing effects (potions go)
-No extra added life, life regen, armor, etc
Damage:
-No Area of Effect, What are you going to do when things live longer than one or two hits and surround you
-This to me seems somewhat tedious to keep going. You're not going to receive the full benefit of your skills until most things are dead. As soon as you run out of enemies to fight you're going to lose the frenzy and bash buffs and start over from square one
-I might even say that the damage of this build on single targets looks inferior to the sustained damage of other builds which perform other roles just fine, given the time it takes to vamp up to be at near-equal fighting power.
Utility:
-Has good cooldowns, but you didn't pick up BoBK. And again little/no added mobility
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/barbarian#afWYQP!bYV!YZZZYZ
1. Bash with Punish: Indigo Runestone
Bash is the highest damage single-target Fury generator at the Barbarian's disposal, sitting at a healthy 145% weapon damage. Punish provides a 10% damage boost for 5 seconds, stacking up to 8 times for a total of 80% increased damage. This is a huge buff for any low-movement, high DPS situation.
2. Frenzy with Maniac: Crimson Runestone
Frenzy is a single-target Fury generator similar to bash, but it lacks the high damage of Bash. The strength of Frenzy comes in with its innate buff, granting 15% attack speed to Frenzy for 4 seconds and stacking up to 5 times for 75% attack speed. The Maniac Runestone adds an additional effect to your Frenzy buff, increasing your damage by 24%, for a total of 120% increased damage.
My thought process behind these two attacks is pretty simple: Use Bash 8 times to gain the 80% increased damage buff from Punish, and use Frenzy as your main damage damage dealing attack; use Bash once every 5 seconds to keep the Punish buff rolling. With both buffs you will have a whopping 200% increased damage, and 75% increased attack speed for Frenzy.
3. Weapon Throw with Mighty Throw: Crimson Runestone
At 210% weapon damage, this attack is the hardest-hitting Fury Spending attack in the Barbarian's arsenal. The 70% decreased movement speed is also great for the ideal low-movement situation of this particular build. Mighty Throw increases the weapon damage to 462%. This damage is also increased by the 200% enhanced damage from the Frenzy and Bash buffs (the 75% attack speed only applies to the Frenzy skill itself, sadly).
Hammer of the Ancients is a contender for this spot because of the 15% increased crit, but Weapon Throw is superior for reasons I'll touch upon later.
4. Battle Rage with Marauder's Rage: Crimson Runestone
A 30 second buff that increases damage by 30% and critical chance by 4%. A must have buff for any high-dps situation, and particularly potent in this build for: Marauder's Rage: Increases the damage buff to 100% increased damage. In addition to your Bash and Frenzy buffs, this is now a 300% damage increase for all attacks.
5. Call of the Ancients with The Council Rises: Indigo Runestone
Summon your three favorite buddies from Mount Arreat to fight along side you for 15 seconds(no, they won't give extra skill points this time!). With The Council Rises Runestone, each Ancient deals 275% of your weapon damage per hit (up from 100%). This may or may not be affected by other damage buffs.This would also be a nice ability to use to get rid of other mobs swarming and distracting you, so you can focus your damage on a single target.
6. Wrath of the Berserker with Insanity: Crimson Runestone
This is, in my opinion, a must have buff for any Barbarian. With the Insanity Runestone, this buff will grant you 75% enhanced damage, 10% critical hit, and 45% attack speed for 15 seconds. That is just insane!
With all your buffs active in this build, you can obtain 375% Increased Damage!
Passives
Ruthless: An obvious choice, increasing critical chance and damage. No damage dealing Barbarian will be caught without this passive.
Weapons Master: Also a good damage increase passive, granting a different effect for each different type of weapon you can use.
No Escape: This passive is why I feel Weapon Throw is superior to Hammer of the Ancients. It will increase the damage of your weapon throw by 100%, which in my humble opinion is far superior to the 15% crit bonus of Hammer.
Let me know what you guys think!
Ground Stomp or Furious Charge with crimson runes seems like a better choice. Stomp gives you some control with stun, and Charge gives you more mobility and a higher % damage. Either one would work and likely provide more useful than the sporadic bursts from the Ancients.
I tried messing around with it, and came up with something.
What if you switch Call of the Ancients for Earthquake with golden runestone (reduces cost to 40 fury and cooldown to 50 seconds)
And then switch your Weapons Master passive skill for Boon of Bul-Kathos (you would gain the benefit for Earthquake and Warth of the Berserker). That also would get your Earthquake an awesome 20s cooldown.
I just think that might work better, but it's hard to say anything without trying it in game for real.
*edit: typos
I see the Indigo Call as a boss/big enemy usage. They might not be tough enough to survive very long versus a boss, so the 85 second duration increase becomes useless if they die. The bonus damage makes them all more powerful for however long they are alive up to that 15 seconds, and may provide better overall damage if you can throw damage taken debuffs on an enemy (like parying with a monk or DH).
TLDR: Indigo definitely has a place for boss fights. Duration increase or cooldown decrease is more important if you're using them to clear rooms rather than fight bosses.
you have 0 survivability
Survivability:
-No life leech
-No (aside from WotB) added mobility or demobilizing effects (potions go)
-No extra added life, life regen, armor, etc
Damage:
-No Area of Effect, What are you going to do when things live longer than one or two hits and surround you
-This to me seems somewhat tedious to keep going. You're not going to receive the full benefit of your skills until most things are dead. As soon as you run out of enemies to fight you're going to lose the frenzy and bash buffs and start over from square one
-I might even say that the damage of this build on single targets looks inferior to the sustained damage of other builds which perform other roles just fine, given the time it takes to vamp up to be at near-equal fighting power.
Utility:
-Has good cooldowns, but you didn't pick up BoBK. And again little/no added mobility
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/barbarian#agYWUh!bYd!babbaZ or http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/barbarian#agYWUh!bcd!YaZbaZ
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/barbarian#agYZhU!Yba!baZZZa or(not as much) http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/barbarian#agdZhP!Yba!baaZZb
OR EVEN
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/barbarian#agTYjU!eca!YaZZaY
(not really on the last one or so JK)