I think most barbs right now are just playing, and being annoyed altogether at playing a barb 3 seasons in a row already knowing the outcome. Like I was hyped after following MannerCookie's video's, for the ZDPS builds, SS, HOTA, WW I said "finally" barbs will have a place in groups and be competitive w/o fishing hard for "perfect rifts"(act 1 mobs) stuck in a non social charge build. However, blizz snuffed the power of the zDPS build, and nerfed all the item's associated with the build including turning the seismic treads affix, into the dread iron belt. Then they nerfed Battle Rage "Bloodshed", and removed the bracers taking away the ability to sustain a major toughness buff and healing while dealing competitive damage to match DH currently.
I'm not crying here, but at some point Blizz has to just let it go and treat this game like an ARPG and stop balancing it like an MMO. All they did was successfully diminish a class in the eyes of its community. It wouldn't come at a shock that the charge barb do even better this season, since it's prob the most stable build, oh wait it too requires bracers to fully function for toughness that currently is still bugged given Furious Charge doesn't have a stun rune but still can proc the 12% mitigation from Parthan Defenders, if fixed then charge builds won't work.
Any easy fix to our single target problem would be to change "Sword & Board" into something that allows us to dual wield 2h's, giving us a nice stat stick like Furnace or Gavel so group builds using HOTA/SS builds could be competitive. Put the Fury Gen on the Wrath set instead of Rend allowing the use of a 2h, and not being fury starved while maintaining a +6IK/+4WW build. Maybe tut the bracers back in and just allow it to have the toughness rune or life per fury spent giving us much needed survivability allowing us 2 active WOTB runes rather than all 5. I can QQ all day, and I'm sure everyone reading this will say play a DH then, well I like my barb, but I almost don't want to level a 4th one.
Honestly Torchlight 2 solved this issue with ease in the Vanilla game(unmoded) by giving the player 2 stash chest with 6 tabs each. 1 chest was your community stash for all characters, and 1 personal chest for each character. Blizz over the years have taken great ideals, or reworked their own versions of what worked from other MMO's/MODS and patched right into WOW. An example of this would be Rift launching with "loot all" and WOW a year later implementing this function due the forums asking "why can't we have group loot" like in Rift?
Well, "Why can't we have 2 separate chest" Blizzard, like in Torchlight 2? Also since I'm on the subject of what other ARPG's do slightly different, why can't we socket items using the blacksmith, then enchant the item? Like the use of a Ramaladni's gift actually has a damn blacksmithing hammer as its on use click....Rather than having to break damn near perfect rings/necks just to remove it's primary for a socket since anyone who's min/max will always dump the primary for the socket. Which would bring up the issue of why a socket even has to count as an affix, when other games treat them as a secondary or even a purchasable upgrade. When enchanting is used correctly, we can enhance an item or remove the undesired stats vs. the current of removing say LPH only to roll a 50%CHD(facepalm yelling WHY!) then re-roll again for the fucking socket.
Also I only play one class really, dabble a bit in others but mostly play barb only. I have 5 sets of gear, and like 1/2 of the higher end rings/neck/2h/1h/belts/bracers to interchange elemental damage types. This is due to me being paranoid that blizz will retroactive a so/so item into a godly one, or maybe I am a pack rat lol. Either way blizz should start looking at the other big ARPG's no different than how they treat WOW by making quality of life changes almost exclusively due to public outcry when being compared to the MMO that offers the change.
I've been having a lot of issues with cold leapquake as well, given I understand it doesn't fare well to charge builds however for my play style I just enjoy the leap. I know in every ARPG there will always be one uber build per class and, several sub-optimal builds. For me I just like to leap and, it kinda sucks to see my favorite build not be able to push level 30+ not to mention even have any presence on the leader boards.
ATM, I can get to 29-30 more so 30 if I get good density. The Barbs essentially do all my single target, while I clear many champ packs by leaping to pull them a bit closer then double jump/rend leap away on the 3rd to save my ass given the leap rune I use pretty much will kill you if not careful. I'm stuck not getting a good neck that I can re-roll, and kicking myself about my current one equipped since, it was the first 70 item I picked up and, got the 100%CD first roll or else I would use Bane of Power. So right now I'm stuck, I have all the pieces to make a sub-optimal fire charge build w/o furnace but, don't really enjoy the play style.
One fix I would love to see which could help out big, is to either work in or replace that useless passive S&B with something that allows us to equip two 2h's. I think this would not only fix the single target issue for charge/leap builds and, open the floor for some crazy D2 style barb action.
This is my current build as of late. I use a pretty simple set up with high damage, survivability, and control. I farm T4 very efficiently while still hunting down that last piece of earth quake, and Ik I'm missing to tie it all together. I just got my Lut Socks, so any day now I'm crossing my fingers for that final piece. So the rotation is quick, I use Ground Stomp with Wrenching Smash to round up clusters of mobs, lay down an Avalanche with Volcano, then Smash them to bile & blood using Hammer of the Ancients with Smash off course. The fillers I use in between Ground Stomp cd are, Whirlwind with Volcanic Eruption mows down white mobs, and Bash with Instigation for a fury generator on the fly just to keep things moving on single target. I'm using Reapers's Wraps while using Battle Rage with Sword of Ploughshares since I have over 50% crit chance and, see tons of health globs keeping me in the fight w/o ever really needing the fury generator on almost all AOE fights.
Passives I bounced around through a few of these early on using Rampage, Unforgiving, Superstition, and Ruthless was pretty self exclamatory. Now in days since I'm using the 3 piece IK, I replaced Unforgiving with Bloodthirst combined with Superstition allows you to sit in *some* ground effects spamming your Hammer for life when in a bind. I eventually replaced Ruthless with Weapons Master only because I crafted a Devastator to push over 100% fire skill damage and 50% crit chance with it being a mace.
If your looking to gear into this it's a slow grind, it's good you have the Cindercoat and Magefist for they are the entry items into fire barb from what I've been told. I hope you this sort of helped out. I'm no where in comparison to some of these late game barbs, but I'm climbing up there.
0
I think most barbs right now are just playing, and being annoyed altogether at playing a barb 3 seasons in a row already knowing the outcome. Like I was hyped after following MannerCookie's video's, for the ZDPS builds, SS, HOTA, WW I said "finally" barbs will have a place in groups and be competitive w/o fishing hard for "perfect rifts"(act 1 mobs) stuck in a non social charge build. However, blizz snuffed the power of the zDPS build, and nerfed all the item's associated with the build including turning the seismic treads affix, into the dread iron belt. Then they nerfed Battle Rage "Bloodshed", and removed the bracers taking away the ability to sustain a major toughness buff and healing while dealing competitive damage to match DH currently.
I'm not crying here, but at some point Blizz has to just let it go and treat this game like an ARPG and stop balancing it like an MMO. All they did was successfully diminish a class in the eyes of its community. It wouldn't come at a shock that the charge barb do even better this season, since it's prob the most stable build, oh wait it too requires bracers to fully function for toughness that currently is still bugged given Furious Charge doesn't have a stun rune but still can proc the 12% mitigation from Parthan Defenders, if fixed then charge builds won't work.
Any easy fix to our single target problem would be to change "Sword & Board" into something that allows us to dual wield 2h's, giving us a nice stat stick like Furnace or Gavel so group builds using HOTA/SS builds could be competitive. Put the Fury Gen on the Wrath set instead of Rend allowing the use of a 2h, and not being fury starved while maintaining a +6IK/+4WW build. Maybe tut the bracers back in and just allow it to have the toughness rune or life per fury spent giving us much needed survivability allowing us 2 active WOTB runes rather than all 5. I can QQ all day, and I'm sure everyone reading this will say play a DH then, well I like my barb, but I almost don't want to level a 4th one.
1
Well, "Why can't we have 2 separate chest" Blizzard, like in Torchlight 2? Also since I'm on the subject of what other ARPG's do slightly different, why can't we socket items using the blacksmith, then enchant the item? Like the use of a Ramaladni's gift actually has a damn blacksmithing hammer as its on use click....Rather than having to break damn near perfect rings/necks just to remove it's primary for a socket since anyone who's min/max will always dump the primary for the socket. Which would bring up the issue of why a socket even has to count as an affix, when other games treat them as a secondary or even a purchasable upgrade. When enchanting is used correctly, we can enhance an item or remove the undesired stats vs. the current of removing say LPH only to roll a 50%CHD(facepalm yelling WHY!) then re-roll again for the fucking socket.
Also I only play one class really, dabble a bit in others but mostly play barb only. I have 5 sets of gear, and like 1/2 of the higher end rings/neck/2h/1h/belts/bracers to interchange elemental damage types. This is due to me being paranoid that blizz will retroactive a so/so item into a godly one, or maybe I am a pack rat lol. Either way blizz should start looking at the other big ARPG's no different than how they treat WOW by making quality of life changes almost exclusively due to public outcry when being compared to the MMO that offers the change.
0
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Valkris-1888/hero/51742213 my seasonal barb cold/quake
ATM, I can get to 29-30 more so 30 if I get good density. The Barbs essentially do all my single target, while I clear many champ packs by leaping to pull them a bit closer then double jump/rend leap away on the 3rd to save my ass given the leap rune I use pretty much will kill you if not careful. I'm stuck not getting a good neck that I can re-roll, and kicking myself about my current one equipped since, it was the first 70 item I picked up and, got the 100%CD first roll or else I would use Bane of Power. So right now I'm stuck, I have all the pieces to make a sub-optimal fire charge build w/o furnace but, don't really enjoy the play style.
One fix I would love to see which could help out big, is to either work in or replace that useless passive S&B with something that allows us to equip two 2h's. I think this would not only fix the single target issue for charge/leap builds and, open the floor for some crazy D2 style barb action.
0
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Valkris-1888/hero/1326708
This is my current build as of late. I use a pretty simple set up with high damage, survivability, and control. I farm T4 very efficiently while still hunting down that last piece of earth quake, and Ik I'm missing to tie it all together. I just got my Lut Socks, so any day now I'm crossing my fingers for that final piece. So the rotation is quick, I use Ground Stomp with Wrenching Smash to round up clusters of mobs, lay down an Avalanche with Volcano, then Smash them to bile & blood using Hammer of the Ancients with Smash off course. The fillers I use in between Ground Stomp cd are, Whirlwind with Volcanic Eruption mows down white mobs, and Bash with Instigation for a fury generator on the fly just to keep things moving on single target. I'm using Reapers's Wraps while using Battle Rage with Sword of Ploughshares since I have over 50% crit chance and, see tons of health globs keeping me in the fight w/o ever really needing the fury generator on almost all AOE fights.
Passives I bounced around through a few of these early on using Rampage, Unforgiving, Superstition, and Ruthless was pretty self exclamatory. Now in days since I'm using the 3 piece IK, I replaced Unforgiving with Bloodthirst combined with Superstition allows you to sit in *some* ground effects spamming your Hammer for life when in a bind. I eventually replaced Ruthless with Weapons Master only because I crafted a Devastator to push over 100% fire skill damage and 50% crit chance with it being a mace.
If your looking to gear into this it's a slow grind, it's good you have the Cindercoat and Magefist for they are the entry items into fire barb from what I've been told. I hope you this sort of helped out. I'm no where in comparison to some of these late game barbs, but I'm climbing up there.