I've been experimenting with passives yesterday and to my surprise, Bloodthirst seems not to be affected by the 80% decrease of life leech on Inferno difficulty.
Can anyone confirm this?
Can't tell about this, but this brings me a question. Is life steal on weapons worth it?
Okay, after further using Bloodthirst I am quiet sure that it is not affected by the 80% life leech reduction you should see on Inferno. I am leeching the exact same numbers per hit be it Normal, Hell or Inferno.
If this is true, DPS oriented barbs just have another viable passive skill alternative.
I am currently running Bloodthirst, Ruthless and Nerves of Steel.
But I would highly appreciate if someone would try this and get back here to confirm my observations.
I have tried bloodthirst using a 2 hander but found it did not up my survivability much. The damage is too spikey for the life steal to be effective. My philosophy is to always gear/spec my barb in line with the most difficult elites that I might face (and not around normal mobs/easy elites/bosses). The most dangerous are the heavy-hitting melee mobs (fatties and phase beasts) and range mobs with multiple DPS affixes that runaway often (succubus), and in my opinion a damage reduction passive works better in these sort of situations.
After multiple runs of both act 2 and 3, I have found the most effective farming method is act 2 using a sword and board. I avoid crit altogether (only because it is out of my price range) and stack strength only to boost my DPS.
Using berserker rage and brawler and weapon master, along with maniac rune for Frenzy, my DPS in normal combat can reach 50K without wrath. This allows me to annihilate any act 2 elite packs within the 15 second frame with no chance of death.
My other skills are, warcry/earthquake/revenge/sprint.
Sprint is the reason why I do not do act 3 instead of act 2. In act 2, I can ignore all white mobs and hunt down elite packs sprinting as much as possible, but in act 3 I have to drop sprint for a survivability skill (leap or ignore pain). I generally kill 30-40 elite packs over an entire act 2 run, within 90 minutes. I get 40-50 rares per run.
In act 3, it takes me three hours to clear from Siege onwards and only get about half the amount of rares.
I have been lurking around these forums for a while and this is my first post. Firstly I want to thank you all, especially Zrave, for all the helpful ideas. The purpose of this post is to pick the brains of those of you who would like to volunteer some advice. I have been farming Act 2 elites with my friends (Wizard and Demon Hunter) and it has not been too painful. I rarely play solo. The wizard does 250k dps+ and the Demon Hunter does around 125-150. I would like to make these runs more efficient for us by increasing my DPS and survivability, especially since we are looking forward to Act 3. I have uploaded screenshots of my current gear and stats at the following links:
i.imgur.com/x4zDV.jpg (Gear 1/2)
i.imgur.com/ug4V4.jpg (Gear 2/2)
i.imgur.com/xKl73.jpg (Stats without Warcry)
i.imgur.com/2iS8m.jpg (Stats with Warcry)
My passives are: Berserker Rage, Weapon Master, and Nerves of Steel/Tough as Nails (whichever one gives me more armor)
My current talents are:
Leap with Iron Impact
Revenge with Provocation
Warcry with Impunity
Wrath of the Berserker with Insanity
Frenzy with Sidearm
Furious Charge with Dreadnought
I have tried replacing Warcry with Overpower with Crushing Advance.
I also have been using Furious Charge for a quick heal and to get the hell out fire at the same time.
My questions are:
1. What pieces of gear should I look to replace first?
2. Which stats should I be aiming to change first?
3. Should I be using Overpower? Or any other changes to my build.
4. How does Overpower - Crushing Advance work against Reflect Damage mobs? Should I use it on them or not?
Thank you for your time. Feel free to contact me in-game as well.
Eazycheeze#1810
I've been using Ground Slam for when I need to kite some stuff because my gear is still low. I wish I could use leap instead of it but I can't. Anyone have an idea how to not die when you get surround (unable to move) with Fire Chains and/or Molten and/or Desecrater and/or Plagued and/or Arcane Enchanted? Its such a pain.
3 days ago i was in the same boat as you then i saw the light - whole point of all barb dps builds is crit / crit damage so that sword has to go and replace with a mace/axe - swap beserker for ruthless its then a process of slowly replacing block with more crit / crit damage - nerves of steel / tough as nails whatever gives u more armor
swap charge dreadnaught with ignore pain with ignorance with bliss (play style change your going to be alot more toe to toe with mobs now after the beserker and IP wears off)
7k res 7k armor and make sure ur hp is around 50k over (1k vit with 25 life%) the str around 1500 - 6% attack speed (one piece) crit around 40% and damage to about 220% with a 900dps weapon and you will hitting the 30k mark and start seeing the light
Since the 1.03 patch I have been completely roflstomping act2.
My barb has 60k hp, 800 res (buffed) 9k armor (buffed) and 40k dps (weapon master, ruthless and 5 frenzy stax with last rune, 30% crit, 144% crit dmg). My DPS is so high because I have a 1200 dps 1h sword with high stat rolls, which I found in 1.03 act2.
The DPS jumps to about 100k when using beserker insanity, which is enough to kill any elite pack in 15 seconds.
The new tactic I have been using which I recommend for others to try is using rend (life steal rune is my preference, but if you are really tanky then switch to the higher dps one) along with revenge.
The basic combo I use is leap (to get into the middle of the pack, + iron impact to mitigate all dmg) then rend which starts a huge DOT and life leech (I get about 500-1k life a tick), after a second or two hit revenge and start frenzy, after 5 stax if everything isnt dead hit rend again and revenge as it comes up.
The idea is that the bonus 20% dps from frenzy feeds into rend and revenge which is doing 200+% weapon dmg in an aoe. You can very easily 1 shot entire packs with this (leaps 80% dmg, rends 210% and revenges 220%) all in about 1 second (thats like 500% weapon dmg in a couple of second, or 600% if you have frenzy 5 stacked), all on top of your frenzy hits.
The other nice thing is you can use rend to kite those really nasty packs that make you nigtmare away (assuming WOTB is down), you just pop rend and even after they nightmare you, they keep taking the 210% dmg while you are unable to attack.
Good luck!
EDIT: Also to those with low dps 1 handers and life on hit. Ditch them! You dont need loh anymore. Sell them and upgrade to the biggest, fastest 2 hander than you can find. Unless you get lucky like me and come across a really wonderful 1 hander. Loh is not necessary with a big health pool + resists + revenge + rend + 1.03 nerfs + potion + beserker etc. if you need the loh to survive you would survive better with just more EHP and higher dmg to kill things faster. Just my 0.02c
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I have tried bloodthirst using a 2 hander but found it did not up my survivability much. The damage is too spikey for the life steal to be effective. My philosophy is to always gear/spec my barb in line with the most difficult elites that I might face (and not around normal mobs/easy elites/bosses). The most dangerous are the heavy-hitting melee mobs (fatties and phase beasts) and range mobs with multiple DPS affixes that runaway often (succubus), and in my opinion a damage reduction passive works better in these sort of situations.
After multiple runs of both act 2 and 3, I have found the most effective farming method is act 2 using a sword and board. I avoid crit altogether (only because it is out of my price range) and stack strength only to boost my DPS.
Using berserker rage and brawler and weapon master, along with maniac rune for Frenzy, my DPS in normal combat can reach 50K without wrath. This allows me to annihilate any act 2 elite packs within the 15 second frame with no chance of death.
My other skills are, warcry/earthquake/revenge/sprint.
Sprint is the reason why I do not do act 3 instead of act 2. In act 2, I can ignore all white mobs and hunt down elite packs sprinting as much as possible, but in act 3 I have to drop sprint for a survivability skill (leap or ignore pain). I generally kill 30-40 elite packs over an entire act 2 run, within 90 minutes. I get 40-50 rares per run.
In act 3, it takes me three hours to clear from Siege onwards and only get about half the amount of rares.
My stats: ~700 resist, 7.5K armor, 60K HP, 50K incombat DPS.
Also guys I wanted to announce another million gold challenge, dps edition. I'll use 1m gold to make a full dps set and complete Act 3.
Come watch it live on my stream at 10PM EST on June 25th
http://www.twitch.tv/zrave
I have been lurking around these forums for a while and this is my first post. Firstly I want to thank you all, especially Zrave, for all the helpful ideas. The purpose of this post is to pick the brains of those of you who would like to volunteer some advice. I have been farming Act 2 elites with my friends (Wizard and Demon Hunter) and it has not been too painful. I rarely play solo. The wizard does 250k dps+ and the Demon Hunter does around 125-150. I would like to make these runs more efficient for us by increasing my DPS and survivability, especially since we are looking forward to Act 3. I have uploaded screenshots of my current gear and stats at the following links:
i.imgur.com/x4zDV.jpg (Gear 1/2)
i.imgur.com/ug4V4.jpg (Gear 2/2)
i.imgur.com/xKl73.jpg (Stats without Warcry)
i.imgur.com/2iS8m.jpg (Stats with Warcry)
My passives are: Berserker Rage, Weapon Master, and Nerves of Steel/Tough as Nails (whichever one gives me more armor)
My current talents are:
Leap with Iron Impact
Revenge with Provocation
Warcry with Impunity
Wrath of the Berserker with Insanity
Frenzy with Sidearm
Furious Charge with Dreadnought
I have tried replacing Warcry with Overpower with Crushing Advance.
I also have been using Furious Charge for a quick heal and to get the hell out fire at the same time.
My questions are:
1. What pieces of gear should I look to replace first?
2. Which stats should I be aiming to change first?
3. Should I be using Overpower? Or any other changes to my build.
4. How does Overpower - Crushing Advance work against Reflect Damage mobs? Should I use it on them or not?
Thank you for your time. Feel free to contact me in-game as well.
Eazycheeze#1810
swap charge dreadnaught with ignore pain with ignorance with bliss (play style change your going to be alot more toe to toe with mobs now after the beserker and IP wears off)
7k res 7k armor and make sure ur hp is around 50k over (1k vit with 25 life%) the str around 1500 - 6% attack speed (one piece) crit around 40% and damage to about 220% with a 900dps weapon and you will hitting the 30k mark and start seeing the light
chests can have decent vit 200+ and then 3 sockets
pants can have decent vit 200+ and then 2 sockets
My barb has 60k hp, 800 res (buffed) 9k armor (buffed) and 40k dps (weapon master, ruthless and 5 frenzy stax with last rune, 30% crit, 144% crit dmg). My DPS is so high because I have a 1200 dps 1h sword with high stat rolls, which I found in 1.03 act2.
The DPS jumps to about 100k when using beserker insanity, which is enough to kill any elite pack in 15 seconds.
The new tactic I have been using which I recommend for others to try is using rend (life steal rune is my preference, but if you are really tanky then switch to the higher dps one) along with revenge.
The basic combo I use is leap (to get into the middle of the pack, + iron impact to mitigate all dmg) then rend which starts a huge DOT and life leech (I get about 500-1k life a tick), after a second or two hit revenge and start frenzy, after 5 stax if everything isnt dead hit rend again and revenge as it comes up.
The idea is that the bonus 20% dps from frenzy feeds into rend and revenge which is doing 200+% weapon dmg in an aoe. You can very easily 1 shot entire packs with this (leaps 80% dmg, rends 210% and revenges 220%) all in about 1 second (thats like 500% weapon dmg in a couple of second, or 600% if you have frenzy 5 stacked), all on top of your frenzy hits.
The other nice thing is you can use rend to kite those really nasty packs that make you nigtmare away (assuming WOTB is down), you just pop rend and even after they nightmare you, they keep taking the 210% dmg while you are unable to attack.
Good luck!
EDIT: Also to those with low dps 1 handers and life on hit. Ditch them! You dont need loh anymore. Sell them and upgrade to the biggest, fastest 2 hander than you can find. Unless you get lucky like me and come across a really wonderful 1 hander. Loh is not necessary with a big health pool + resists + revenge + rend + 1.03 nerfs + potion + beserker etc. if you need the loh to survive you would survive better with just more EHP and higher dmg to kill things faster. Just my 0.02c