A while back on DiabloFans, I noticed a poll that someone ran on the forums on which set people preferred/looked forward to the most. While this was still in the Lightning Whirlwind days, pre SoH fix, IK was leading the way with Raekors trailing far behind the other two. This prompted me to try and think why no one was as excited about Raekors or would find it as appealing to the other sets.
Fast forward three weeks, i'm currently closing in on paragon 500 with every single Barbarian set in my repertoire along with all the flavorful legendaries one could have for any popular barbarian builds these days, including mix-match dual-final-set-bonuses. Yes, i've been extremely lucky and no, this isn't a thread about my drops. However I do want to examine some of these initial receptions and perceptions people have about the different sets people have for barbarians.
While trying to complete my third and final set of the three, Earthquake, I had access to the complete other two sets. What I had found during that time while bouncing back and forth between builds and bonuses was quite interesting and contrary to the initial polled reactions people had. Often a perceived underdog and lesser-discussed set, I made it a mission to try and discover why Raekors wasn't as appealing as the others and maybe find out some redeeming qualities to it. Furious Charge gaining every rune certainly wasn't as flashy as the other sets. But here are my findings:
For Immortal Kings, I was able to stack around 100% elemental damage of Fire, Lightning, and Physical to test out most of the runes properly in various torments. I found that it had great flexibility in creating slightly higher torment survivability with Together As One, although it sort of caps out near Torment 6 when the amount of damage you take actually kills the Ancients quite often and faster than the cooldown of the skill, sometimes providing problems in maintaining them. The Council Rises, along with my perfect AS rolled Taskers and Theos gave my ancients the ability to crit very often for over 12 million at a time. This however, was undermined by the randomness of the AI in terms of targeting when faced with multiple mobs, which happens to be a great portion of the gameplay. This "drawback" proved too inefficient at killing through regular mobs at a faster pace that you'd come to expect from a well-built and groomed Whirlwind build. However they excelled at killing single mobs (read: annihilates single rift guardians) over almost any other Barbarian build I tried. Ancients' Fury is a very volatile rune, as many have predicted and tried. It allows for reliability in Fury-heavy builds such as Boulder Toss and/or HoTA variations. Unfortunately, as controllable as these situations are, their fury regeneration is often plagued too by the clunky AI where the ancients often get stuck in a limbo when off attacking a mob near the edge of your screen/their leash range. With all of these things in consideration, I would place Immortal Kings 4 piece bonus *THIRD PLACE* overall when compared to the other two sets. I do want to point out that the set bonuses leading up to the 4 piece are all extremely strong.
Raekors-- What Immortal Kings lacked, Raekors surpassed.
Fire damage-- Many people these days are stacking fire damage. The Council Rises as Ancients do incredible fire damage. How does Raekors stand up to them? As the Ancients were off doing 12mill crits to whatever random mobs they often pleased, Battering Ram Furious Charge was a controlled and often spammable (thank you Merciless Assault) attack that would crit every single mob the charge grouped up with Dreadnaught rune for 20-40 million damage per mob. This was the surgical efficiency that The Council Rises lacked. It made white mob grinding lightning fast even when compared to beefed up fire Ancients.
Fury heavy builds: Boulder Toss and HoTA variations and more. Ancients' Fury made it possible to sustain such builds with or without the help of a primary attack. Could Raekors do the same? Thanks to the Stamina rune and the spammability of Merciless Assault, I felt that on-demand fury was actually better than IK Ancient's Fury. To get a full Fury bar, you have to wait for the Ancients to attack for somewhere close to 5 seconds unhindered by clunky AI. With Raekor's charge, you get a full bar instantly so you can get back to throwing large rocks or slamming that big hammer immediately. This on-demand full fury bar function felt like a cornerstone in making any build I wanted to work. Even for less fury heavy builds like Whirlwind, a charge once in a blue moon could keep you Whirlwinding for the next 30 seconds unimpeded. I never felt as if I had to run something like Warcry: Charge! or a primary to generate fury. Did I mention that you also deal very solid damage every time you charge?
Survivability. Together as One, essentially permanent Ignore Pain is tough to beat. How can Raekors possibly stand up to Immortal Kings in this department? The answer wasn't as straightforward or as simple. I soon discovered that Raekors contribution to survivability was through another method; one that required a much higher learning curve than Immortal Kings (in which IK rune is passive, requires no such curve). The combination of Battering Ram (increased damage), Bull Rush (stunlock control), and Dreadnaught (aoe monk Cyclone-esque group up) allowed Raekors to surpass IK in the highest of torment levels. While Together as One gave a flat damage reduction, they still suffered from survival problems. Raekors was a built-in, reliable and vital tool that never went away. You can literally stunlock entire groups including elites from 100%-0% by using Furious Charge. While stunlocking, you're doing incredible damage, especially when stacking fire damage. Dreadnaught allowed you to take the fight away from dangerous affixes such as exploding Frozen orbs, or lethal Arcane Enchants, while grouping in more enemies for the kill. With this kind of reliable damage and control, I didn't need Together as One to survive.
By my anecdotal experience, I believe Raekor's strength in reliability, damage, control, and build-making/sustaining abilities are either parallel or surpass Immortal Kings in every department. I hope that fellow Barbarians will continue to embrace Raekors hopefully as much as the other sets too, or be just as excited to completed the set as they do for Earthquake or Immortal Kings. The potential is there, and I hope this inspires some really interesting builds to come.
- SynthRetro
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Remort posted a message on Raekors: A Closer LookPosted in: Barbarian: Bastion's Keep -
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RockmanDoom posted a message on loot share DH party?Will add ye fellow DH,Posted in: Demon Hunter: The Dreadlands
or add me if you like since I'll be at work all day
Zarathustra#1353 - To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
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:D!
This is really good. Every season should be 2 months, no more.
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now you can reroll 10000 times your jewelry if you want/need. i think that this fact is a huge improvement tbh
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i'm pretty well geared and i think this patch is great. now we will be able to upgrade our currents sets by gambling which is great.