I've been thinking about whether it's at all possible to drop Ignore Pain for some other ability. The 30 seconds cooldown is pretty long. However it's proven to be mostly enough to burn through elite packs or just to heal back up to full when you've made too many mistakes.
Maybe I could swap in iron impact with some survivability/mobility at the cost of not being able to heal but more frequent cooldown. Or perhaps it's at all possible to ignore defensive cooldown altogether and focus on damage.
Am still testing out EQ. Loving it so far, especially when i play with either my WD buddy (Grasping helps keep stuff in it, BBW with + 30 % damage makes the EQ even more powerful), or Monk Tank friend (since she can basically just stand there and take anything, i pop the EQ on her and can then just do hit and runs and charge). Solo, i am not so sure though.
That being said, I am also testing using Leap (Iron Impact) instead of IP. Gives even more mobility (and thus, helps with "kiting" champs inside your EQ), and it does boost my armor reduction to 88 %. I miss the lifesteal from IP though, but I feel as if though that getting life steal on my belt, (about 3 %, which, with bloodthirst, would give me 8,5 % lifesteal pre-inferno reduction) would make up for that.
I am also wondering whether or not cold EQ would be better, since it can be a bit problematic keeping things in there. But that would remove two of the things i love most about using EQ over WotB: lower CD and no fury cost. Hmmmm.
All in all, I would consider the 2 equally viable. But more testing to be done.
EQ scales better solo because at half hp, stuff dies that much faster.
As for keeping stuff in there, popping EQ with Ignore pain is more than enough
Unfortunatly this build sucks compared to frenzy/sidarm and revenge/prov with wotb up in a revenge spec i can revenge spam for 400+ plus aoe.. and altought the charge does give some pretty nice crits and with the cd reduction is quite nice.. but without the heal this build will not allow you to clear the game.
Did you even try it?
Healing is what you need when just stand there and take it... You dont in this build. Thats what you have IP + WotB for.
Ya, exactly. If you're standing there and stack frenzy-sidearm no wonder you're needing all those heals. The idea here is to grab a giant mace and smash them before they can hit you. If I do take revenge as 2h it will not be up most of the time because I'm never surrounded as mobs are falling left and right...
I've played around with modifying this build a bit more. Testing this against other 2h build (like slam build). This build still gives flat out the best dps you could ever have (for those who say you have better dps in tank spec, that's from your gear and i assure you if you swap to this build your dps will increase even more).
Only problem I have is that the burst damage is slightly inferior with 3-2-1 build with both wotb and eq. I tried to work in EQ to my skills but it was hard to drop any. Dropping IP is out of question because it offers you so much survivability. I tried swapping out charge for EQ and rely mostly on cleave to do aoe damage, however it turns out cleave takes much longer to clear trash and it doesn't quite do as much damage in single target anymore.
It turns out that with the flat 55% damage plus, EQ alone without wotb is mostly enough to kill any elite pack (provided you're sufficiently geared for the content). If you think about it, 55% is only half wotb+eq combo, which is usually overkill anyway. EQ also works nicely that it doesn't consume rage (with rune) so it doesn't take a bit to ramp up the damage as wotb would. EQ also has shorter cd so you can burn elites faster, only downside is losing cc immunity from wotb, but with EQ you can just land EQ and run like crazy as mobs literally melt in 3 seconds.
TL;DR - Dropped wotb for EQ gives you much better burst, costs no rage, and shorter cooldown. Nice modification to this build.
Also noticed that if you are slowed when you charge, you charge in slow motion. No control of your character till you reach your destination. And mobs will hit you. That hurts, so always be on the lookout for slowing mobs.
One time, I got knocked by fire chains mob and decided to charge right back. I watched as my character slowly charge along the entire length of fire chains.... needless to say what arrived at the destination was no longer a barb but a bag of exploding flesh..
The crit/critdmg really helps out nicely. I bought a few upgrades and now I can pump my dps up to 46k unbuffed and a whopping 72k buffed. Problem is now my vit is really low.... need to get it back somehow.
Having the time of my life with this build. A very welcome change from SnB.
Cant help but feel like a Vanguard in ME2/3. Charge, charge, CHARGE! Only with a huuuuge two handed hammer instead of a shotgun
Kudos
LOL This is kind of true. Didn't notice that before.
Day 2 of this. Still loving the build. Act 1 is a breeze (but then again, it always were;) ). Act 2 you need to play a bit more tactical, at least with my gear, but still very enjoyable.
Act 3 I have only tried briefly as this build, but I believe i just need a bit more gear before i can farm it comfortably.
Suggested names for the build:
Vanguard (it really, REALLY reminds me of that ME playstyle)
The PAIN-TRAIN!
Freight-train-build
God I love running over entire packs with charge! Again, kudos on the build, was the breath of fresh air my barb needed.
Only thing that kinda bothers me in this build is when you go in "dry", ie. no rage. It takes a bit to build up.
I like the Vanguard idea! If I had thought of ME earlier I surely would've named this thread "Vanguard barb 2h build"
I managed to clear entire act3 with this build, so it's definitely doable. You have to play a bit defensively, and more vit and res definitely helps! Sounds like your gear is almost there yourself, just keep trying.
Having no rage can be a pain, but then again you only does 25% less damage as oppose to many other build that need a whole time to set up (and surely a few charges will bring your rage pool back to full again).
One problem that I kept running into, however, is the furious charge animation stuck. You are completely immobile for a good 1 second or so after you land your charge, so sometimes when charge becomes buggy and stop short, extra charge (no pun intended) for no reason, or simply just bad positioning from my part I can land in the middle of arcane sentry and fall dead. Also sometimes against some combo I find that it's better to be a bit more patient and save your charge for when you need to get out of jail or only when you know it will get refresh, as being caught with charge off cd can be a pain sometimes.
I enjoy my tactics much more
1. Make friends
2. Get dps up to 35k
3. Let monk friend run in first
4. Pop WOTB jump to 80k dps and kill everything
5. ?????
6. Profit
OT I am enjoying 2h dps but like I said since I hate single player games I almost never play alone and therefore don't have to worry as much about defensive stats.
Using this build my 40k dps jumps to 61k when fully buffed (which is up 100% of the time). This allow me to 1 shot almost every mobs in act 2 and defensive stat becomes much less of a concern cz dead stuff cannot do damage :P. Against elites I just pop wotb+ignore pain and my dps goes up to 150k and can pretty much kill elites before ignore pain wears off.
I find that 2h barb tend to not scale really well for 3-4 players though. With 4 players the mob hp becomes so big you can't effectively 2-3 shot them anymore unless your party are all focusing them down. With more players (especially with range players who doesn't help you tank) I had to play a bit more defensive or I will die a lot.
THIS BUILD bringed back the joy to play as a barb to me. I have seen other builds, but based on really good weapons and gear, or crazy high IAS (before the nerf). Back in the day, I gave up hope on my barb, since I was obligued to sword and board, and got no money.
I changed the build a little to suit my needs instead of Wrath of the Berserker I use Earthquake (The Mountain's Call) and Ancient Spear (Dread Spear) in the place of the furious charge. When I see a rare pack I just earthquake+ignore pain, they melt and keep me at full health, If anybody try to run... I hook them back.
I loved the build its great for the 2 handed lovers! if you invest a little on crit, the big numbers start poping everywhere!! +1 to you good sir!!
I'm glad you like it Interesting modification. How did you find the lack of aoe work out for you?
I have 22k dps, 38% crit, 312 crit damage, 50k hp, 6,5k armor and ~500 res without wc. And my gear is worth like ~3 milion. I can do a2 with eyes closed, tank everything (even molten/plaued/arcane) and kill packs in few second if i pop up wotb.
This build is total nonsense to me. I just don't see why i should drop so much of my defense in order to cheese play in a3? I bet you die there A LOT and kitting single pack for 3 minutes.
I have the same and gear for sword and board spec as well. As I've mentioned, I used to do sword and board until I realize I can already breeze through everything in this game. After that gearing so I can survive better becomes kinda pointless.
The whole point of this 2h spec is to HAVE FUN! (It's a game, remember) And sword and board, while easy to play, is very slow and inefficient in terms of farming (sure, with wotb u can kill elite so fast but you still take a while to kill normal pack while I can kill whole white pack in one hit with a 2 hander).
Yes I do die a lot, at first. It takes some getting used to, because you cannot just stand and tank in plague/arcane/molten anymore (I could if I just pick up my shield, but then it gets pretty old real quick). After a while you get used to avoiding damage and survive a lot longer. No, I do not kite elite for 3 minutes because barely anything still stands after Wotb wears off.
This build is NOT for those who want the path of least resistance in progressing through the game. It's about having fun doing tons of damage for a change. It can also farm lower content much more effectively (I one shot through almost everything in act2). If you want the best way to not die and have highest chance to progress, go sword and board. Playing 2h is a gamble that they die before you do.
Heck, if you like sword and board so much, you can even do it with this build. Swap out bash for frenzy, ruthless and weapon master passives for armor ones and you should be good to go, except that now you're doing 55% more damage than you used to.
i have 300 crit dmg and im lovin it, pop all cds and elites explode in seconds also lifesteal is awesome for this
im very happy with low investment (like 1.5m) got a beast, my wd had like 5m investment and it sucked
Yes! Unlike some builds that rely heavily on into the fray, this build can work with almost any gear should you choose. In this sense it require very little gear replacement from what you already had. Although optimally stacking some crit% and crit dmg seem to be the best way to boost up your dps. I myself has stacked some crit and crit dmg (don't remember the value on the top of my head), and my crit can go up to like 200k (without wotb).
Of course lifesteal helps greatly, but I've played this without it and the rate at which you kill stuff is fast enough that health globes is more than enough. Note that attack speed is almost useless for this so that's one stat less you have to worry about.
Theoretically, I think this build is probably the highest dps you could ever obtain (as all the +dmg passive and active is there, minus brawler). The burst damage is also good but inferior to wotb+eq combo (but if you can reliably spam merciless assault it comes pretty close). Maybe if you can swap out ignore pain and put in EQ (and somehow manage to survive) this might actually work, too.
I have around 30% crit and I think around 180% crit damage. However, neither of those stats are required at all for this build (as oppose to build like range barb or double tornado that rely on into the fray proc and heavily dependent on crit).
You're really only trying to maximize your weapon swing damage so whatever gives you the best boost in dps will help (except for ias. While ias improves your paper dps it does not make any of your abilities hit any harder).
Unfortunately I do not have any way to record a video
One good thing about this build is the health globes. Somehow, I often find that there are plenty health globes around compare to other build, perhaps because I kept charging pass the mobs so I didn't pick them up as soon as they dropped.
If I find myself low on health sometimes I just aim my charge pass some health globe and just heal myself back to full.
This build definitely work for act3 since I've just killed Cydae+Azmodan with this build. Cydae is a joke with so many spider adds giving infinite charge, while Azmodan can be a bit challenging (but who farms boss anyway?).
As far as gearing goes, I feel like 30-40k hp is plenty for this build since life leech does not scale with max hp like revenge. You will want to get "enough" res and armor to survive long enough between charge (you will be a bit vulnerable while stuck with charge animation). Life leech is actually optional, since even with some you will be depending mostly on health globe and IiB to heal back to full (Remember, the goal is to kill them before they kill you), however with life leech you will be able to lasts longer with the heal you're getting. On tougher mobs you will have to manage health globes a bit in order to heal between Ignore Pain cooldown. Sometimes you might just have to kite until charge and ignore pain cooldown comes back up again.
My stat when I did act 3:
life 3.5k
armor 5000
res 500 (unbuffed. You want to aim for 800+ buffed for act3)
dps 30k
life leech 3%
LoH 0
For act 2, I find that only 600 res buffed is enough and I was able to swap in some more mf/dps gears. I steamrolled through act2 with 40k dps unbuffed (which brings me to ~60k buffed), but act2 can be easily done with much less dps and a bit more patient.
The only real trouble with this build is the elites (the more mob you're fighting the easier it gets, really). On tougher mobs you will have to manage your cooldown a bit and perhaps just keep kiting and only damage them with furious charge without getting hit until your gear allows you to take more damage. If you're having trouble staying alive then try wotb + ignore pain combo and just aim at taking one down before you die, but this build you can actually kite and charge them to death if you're careful enough.
How about to maximize the dmg/heal output to replace Ignore pain with Revenge:provocation since you always are into the fray you get it more often than Ignore pain.
I've thought about that. The problem is, you actually won't get to use revenge that much since you should never ever be in the middle of enemy packs (you should zoom past them). For normal mobs they are staggered after charge anyway, so they won't be hitting you, and for elites the heal from revenge will not be enough to outheal the damage they deal. I feel that ignore pain buy you just enough time to burn them down before their damage becomes too much to handle (unless you massively outgear the content, it will be very hard to sustainably tank elite packs as 2h relying on revenge alone).
Plus, I find that with a bit of lifesteal from weapon (working on getting a good mighty belt), one well placed charge is more than enough to heal you back to full. Do not underestimate lifesteal with the amount of dps you're ditching out.
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Maybe I could swap in iron impact with some survivability/mobility at the cost of not being able to heal but more frequent cooldown. Or perhaps it's at all possible to ignore defensive cooldown altogether and focus on damage.
Anyone got any thoughts?
EQ scales better solo because at half hp, stuff dies that much faster.
As for keeping stuff in there, popping EQ with Ignore pain is more than enough
Ya, exactly. If you're standing there and stack frenzy-sidearm no wonder you're needing all those heals. The idea here is to grab a giant mace and smash them before they can hit you. If I do take revenge as 2h it will not be up most of the time because I'm never surrounded as mobs are falling left and right...
Only problem I have is that the burst damage is slightly inferior with 3-2-1 build with both wotb and eq. I tried to work in EQ to my skills but it was hard to drop any. Dropping IP is out of question because it offers you so much survivability. I tried swapping out charge for EQ and rely mostly on cleave to do aoe damage, however it turns out cleave takes much longer to clear trash and it doesn't quite do as much damage in single target anymore.
It turns out that with the flat 55% damage plus, EQ alone without wotb is mostly enough to kill any elite pack (provided you're sufficiently geared for the content). If you think about it, 55% is only half wotb+eq combo, which is usually overkill anyway. EQ also works nicely that it doesn't consume rage (with rune) so it doesn't take a bit to ramp up the damage as wotb would. EQ also has shorter cd so you can burn elites faster, only downside is losing cc immunity from wotb, but with EQ you can just land EQ and run like crazy as mobs literally melt in 3 seconds.
TL;DR - Dropped wotb for EQ gives you much better burst, costs no rage, and shorter cooldown. Nice modification to this build.
Original build has been edited.
One time, I got knocked by fire chains mob and decided to charge right back. I watched as my character slowly charge along the entire length of fire chains.... needless to say what arrived at the destination was no longer a barb but a bag of exploding flesh..
The crit/critdmg really helps out nicely. I bought a few upgrades and now I can pump my dps up to 46k unbuffed and a whopping 72k buffed. Problem is now my vit is really low.... need to get it back somehow.
I like the Vanguard idea! If I had thought of ME earlier I surely would've named this thread "Vanguard barb 2h build"
I managed to clear entire act3 with this build, so it's definitely doable. You have to play a bit defensively, and more vit and res definitely helps! Sounds like your gear is almost there yourself, just keep trying.
Having no rage can be a pain, but then again you only does 25% less damage as oppose to many other build that need a whole time to set up (and surely a few charges will bring your rage pool back to full again).
One problem that I kept running into, however, is the furious charge animation stuck. You are completely immobile for a good 1 second or so after you land your charge, so sometimes when charge becomes buggy and stop short, extra charge (no pun intended) for no reason, or simply just bad positioning from my part I can land in the middle of arcane sentry and fall dead. Also sometimes against some combo I find that it's better to be a bit more patient and save your charge for when you need to get out of jail or only when you know it will get refresh, as being caught with charge off cd can be a pain sometimes.
LOL This is kind of true. Didn't notice that before.
Using this build my 40k dps jumps to 61k when fully buffed (which is up 100% of the time). This allow me to 1 shot almost every mobs in act 2 and defensive stat becomes much less of a concern cz dead stuff cannot do damage :P. Against elites I just pop wotb+ignore pain and my dps goes up to 150k and can pretty much kill elites before ignore pain wears off.
I find that 2h barb tend to not scale really well for 3-4 players though. With 4 players the mob hp becomes so big you can't effectively 2-3 shot them anymore unless your party are all focusing them down. With more players (especially with range players who doesn't help you tank) I had to play a bit more defensive or I will die a lot.
I'm glad you like it
I have the same and gear for sword and board spec as well. As I've mentioned, I used to do sword and board until I realize I can already breeze through everything in this game. After that gearing so I can survive better becomes kinda pointless.
The whole point of this 2h spec is to HAVE FUN! (It's a game, remember) And sword and board, while easy to play, is very slow and inefficient in terms of farming (sure, with wotb u can kill elite so fast but you still take a while to kill normal pack while I can kill whole white pack in one hit with a 2 hander).
Yes I do die a lot, at first. It takes some getting used to, because you cannot just stand and tank in plague/arcane/molten anymore (I could if I just pick up my shield, but then it gets pretty old real quick). After a while you get used to avoiding damage and survive a lot longer. No, I do not kite elite for 3 minutes because barely anything still stands after Wotb wears off.
This build is NOT for those who want the path of least resistance in progressing through the game. It's about having fun doing tons of damage for a change. It can also farm lower content much more effectively (I one shot through almost everything in act2). If you want the best way to not die and have highest chance to progress, go sword and board. Playing 2h is a gamble that they die before you do.
Heck, if you like sword and board so much, you can even do it with this build. Swap out bash for frenzy, ruthless and weapon master passives for armor ones and you should be good to go, except that now you're doing 55% more damage than you used to.
Yes! Unlike some builds that rely heavily on into the fray, this build can work with almost any gear should you choose. In this sense it require very little gear replacement from what you already had. Although optimally stacking some crit% and crit dmg seem to be the best way to boost up your dps. I myself has stacked some crit and crit dmg (don't remember the value on the top of my head), and my crit can go up to like 200k (without wotb).
Of course lifesteal helps greatly, but I've played this without it and the rate at which you kill stuff is fast enough that health globes is more than enough. Note that attack speed is almost useless for this so that's one stat less you have to worry about.
Theoretically, I think this build is probably the highest dps you could ever obtain (as all the +dmg passive and active is there, minus brawler). The burst damage is also good but inferior to wotb+eq combo (but if you can reliably spam merciless assault it comes pretty close). Maybe if you can swap out ignore pain and put in EQ (and somehow manage to survive) this might actually work, too.
I have around 30% crit and I think around 180% crit damage. However, neither of those stats are required at all for this build (as oppose to build like range barb or double tornado that rely on into the fray proc and heavily dependent on crit).
You're really only trying to maximize your weapon swing damage so whatever gives you the best boost in dps will help (except for ias. While ias improves your paper dps it does not make any of your abilities hit any harder).
Unfortunately I do not have any way to record a video
If I find myself low on health sometimes I just aim my charge pass some health globe and just heal myself back to full.
As far as gearing goes, I feel like 30-40k hp is plenty for this build since life leech does not scale with max hp like revenge. You will want to get "enough" res and armor to survive long enough between charge (you will be a bit vulnerable while stuck with charge animation). Life leech is actually optional, since even with some you will be depending mostly on health globe and IiB to heal back to full (Remember, the goal is to kill them before they kill you), however with life leech you will be able to lasts longer with the heal you're getting. On tougher mobs you will have to manage health globes a bit in order to heal between Ignore Pain cooldown. Sometimes you might just have to kite until charge and ignore pain cooldown comes back up again.
My stat when I did act 3:
life 3.5k
armor 5000
res 500 (unbuffed. You want to aim for 800+ buffed for act3)
dps 30k
life leech 3%
LoH 0
For act 2, I find that only 600 res buffed is enough and I was able to swap in some more mf/dps gears. I steamrolled through act2 with 40k dps unbuffed (which brings me to ~60k buffed), but act2 can be easily done with much less dps and a bit more patient.
The only real trouble with this build is the elites (the more mob you're fighting the easier it gets, really). On tougher mobs you will have to manage your cooldown a bit and perhaps just keep kiting and only damage them with furious charge without getting hit until your gear allows you to take more damage. If you're having trouble staying alive then try wotb + ignore pain combo and just aim at taking one down before you die, but this build you can actually kite and charge them to death if you're careful enough.
I've thought about that. The problem is, you actually won't get to use revenge that much since you should never ever be in the middle of enemy packs (you should zoom past them). For normal mobs they are staggered after charge anyway, so they won't be hitting you, and for elites the heal from revenge will not be enough to outheal the damage they deal. I feel that ignore pain buy you just enough time to burn them down before their damage becomes too much to handle (unless you massively outgear the content, it will be very hard to sustainably tank elite packs as 2h relying on revenge alone).
Plus, I find that with a bit of lifesteal from weapon (working on getting a good mighty belt), one well placed charge is more than enough to heal you back to full. Do not underestimate lifesteal with the amount of dps you're ditching out.