DiabloFans

Quote from Keiser

My point was just that using sleet storm as your primary skill results in a HUGE drop in efficiency the more you have to move. In MP10, you fight fewer monsters, so it works better there. Yes, you can manage MP5. With 600k EHP and 45k DPS. That's how a hardcore character should be built. My Wiz can key farm on MP5 with 100k EHP. You're using extreme survivability to make the skill look good. My argument is that using 600K EHP can make ANY skill build "work" if you have enough time. I could just as easily make a Storm Armor guide with the same premise that it's a sub-optimal build and will "work" eventually.

Yes, people in MP10 and/or uber runs can use Sleet Storm with great effect because they don't have to move, similar in vein to CMWW builds. I'm arguing that in MP1-5 Blizzard with Forked Lightning would be faster.

These are more reasonable assertions than previous.

I agree that Sleet Storm is less efficient, but I'm not using EHP to make the Sleet Storm look good. I'm using EHP because it is the ONLY way to make the skill viable in the presented fashion. Wizards are incredibly squishy as a result of the consistent proc nerfs and lack of reliable damage mitigation outside of CM. By not using CM in this build, I have to get a large enough health pool to actual take the hits that will trigger Ice Armor. I've been using this build for a long time and having started with 30k HP, 400 Res and 3k Armor, I can safely tell you that the build was terrible until I reached higher stats. Meanwhile I can use a CM build with the same stats and enough crit without issue.

There would be no point in using Ice Armor if I couldn't survive the hits required to make it function.

Quote from aloys24

I would love to play all these different builds, but I have a full time job and a life so I'm only putting in 15ish hours of gameplay a week. I really need to try and get the best drops I can in that time to try and build up some gold. The best way for me to do that is a pretty standard WW build.

Interesting ideas, but for most people a barb build without sprint isn't going to be very popular. To get the best drops you really need to grind paragon levels.

I have good news! You currently play more than double the amount of D3 I do in a week! Getting the gear for the builds I am making is not time intensive and will never cost more than 10-20mil. In most cases they can be achieved for 5-10mil with MP1 entry level requirements being 1-2mil max.

I do agree that missing sprint makes this build (and future builds I'll make) less popular, but I'm not much for popularity anyways ;P

Quote from Aldoran

Good and solid work, but you are little bit late, this build is popular for a very long time, but more like a variation of a standart hota build 'with thunderstrike rune to stun enemies'. and that is honestly all, that you can say about that build, do not know why are focusing on this rune so much.

also you are trying to cover all aspects of barbarian in choosen skills, and it does not play good. you can throw away half of your advice, if you loooking on middle-high barbs and doing ~mp6+ and as for beginers: you have so many variants and options, that it will not help them to choose )

It happens, I know not all of my builds will be entirely "new," but this is one of my older builds from months back. I'm only late in the sense that I hadn't yet moved to YouTube. I covered this build while streaming before HOTA gained popularity after the two-hander buff. As for why I'm focusing on this particular rune, it's because that's the whole point of my guides: taking less used runes and showing viable ways of using them regardless of whether or not they're top-tier efficient.

Don't take this the wrong way, but more people have commented (publicly and privately) about my builds being easy to understand while still offering a variety of options than those suggesting I cover too much. I'll keep this in mind, though, should more people start to share your concern.

Quote from Kyoob

Why do you think efficient build must be instantly boring? I play infinite wotb HotS build from time totime,especially uber farming. And its amazing. It's also quite challenging to play the build, as I dont like any cost reducing items for hots. And sprint is so so usefull in so many situations its hard to pass.

However I understand what you are trying to achieve, it's just not anything I'm looking for. What I do like about your video is the graphical design. It looks fancy, and I like fancy stuff.

I don't, I just find the idea of making guides for builds that I neither came up with nor use as being dishonest. I actually use the builds you see in these guides allowing me to get excited about them and draw on real experiences with them. Not to mention that I'd be trading "this build is slow" comments for "congrats on a truely original build! *eyeroll*"

Glad you like the design, though

I actually JUST finished replying to a similar comment on reddit, so some of my reply will be familiar if you read my reddit post.

I could make guides about the more popular builds (as some people, like you, have been asking me to) showing ways to improve them even further (because I happen to be quite good at min/maxing from my strong D&D roots) and no doubt gain a lot of popularity for it. Unfortunately, I'd slash my wrists afterwards and/or be bored out of my mind given that nothing about those builds would be "me." I play (A)RPG games to inject my own personality into them and these quirky builds are how I do that. My goal is "fun" and enough people are enjoying these off-beat builds that I'm satisfied I might be convinced to sprinkle a cookie-cutter build in here or there JUST to say "okay I did it" (such as after a major patch when folks are scrambling), but it'll never be the focus of my channel and there are already plenty of others who do that already.

While I'm not TRYING to be inefficient, because believe it or not, I'm one of THE most efficiency driven people you could meet (when I was streaming I covered the AH a great deal and participated in a podcast), I derive more enjoyment from the creativity of a build than the pure efficiency of a build. For example, I hate whirlwind. I really do. It's just a dumb ability (to me). Likewise, I HATE the keyboard faceroll of CM Wizard and the mindless "roflazor" of Archon. The abilities don't follow any kind of theme, there is no personality to them, it's just a smattering of "the best" abilities in the game.

I'm also completely backwards (according to many people) in that I don't actually play Diablo (any of them) to "find the nice shiny oranges" nor do I care how slow/fast I clear things because I'd be playing an MMO if I wanted to hop on a treadmill. For this reason I also don't care for the Paragon system, have yet to craft a hellfire ring (or even attempt to) and don't bother with ubers unless I'm in a party that basically forces me to. I think a lot of people forget that these kinds of games are also about developing a character and with the itemization of this gaming being completely borked, the only real way left to do that is with your build.

Quote from ErlendOlsen

Nicely made guide as usually, but again i dont agree with the build.

I dont want to sound like a jerk, but i think this is a pretty bad version of the HotA build.

You got no sprint, no perma wotb, no perma hammerspam. (single target)

I think "different" is the word you're looking for, and you're going to dislike ALL of my Barbarian builds because I specifically try to avoid commonalities between them. You don't even have to watch my guides to say "No perma WOTB, no sprint, this is slow and sucks" because you're going to be right most of the time. I'm purposely avoiding putting that particular combination into every, single, build, because it's boring and defeats the purpose of my guides. It's the same with CM Wizards. I don't think you're a jerk at all, but I think you're missing what I'm trying to accomplish.

Also, you can certainly achieve "perma WOTB" with this build. . . if you want to. I cover this in the guide. You can also "perma hammerspam" with this build. . . if you want to. It's in the guide as well. I take a lot of time researching popular builds so that I can address them in the rune option portion of my guides. In this case, I mentioned Thrive on Chaos and how to use it, the benefits of attack/move speed and -HOTA items with Mighty Weapon being a route for those that are interested. Obviously you're dual-wielding which can be quite strong, but the whole point of this build is to use Thunderstrike with a massive two-handed weapon to stun things.

Efficiency really isn't something I worry about which is probably going to be a problem for you given your preferred playstyle.

Nice video btw! (Hate the song, though Xp)

I actually get a LOT of legendaries, but they always suck. . . horribly. I have yet to find a single item worth more than 10mil on the AH :*(

Clearly my bad luck is balancing your good fortune ;P

Just posted the next guide for a Thunderstrike Barbarian

I'm back with another guide! If you missed my last guide for a Sleet Storm Wizard, you can find it here:

This build uses Thunderstrike's stunning mechanic to focus on heavy burst damage for guaranteed AoE stuns. Overpower and Rend provide considerable hands-free damage with multiple options for increasing survivability as needed. Battle Rage with Into the Fray supports the spamming of Thunderstrike, but you can opt for a Mighty Weapon and -HOTA items if you want to use Marauder's Rage.

Feedback and/or criticism is welcomed and appreciated as always

Quote from Keiser

Quote from Peter8111

I tried this build yesterday. It works great, but only with melee mobs. How can I deal with casters ?

You can't.

It's like Rain of Toads that you can only cast over yourself (slightly larger), and if you move, it stops damaging. This is the reason it never gained traction when WW's coefficient got nerfed. Sleet Storm's proc coefficient was FOUR TIMES WW's, but if you can't damage or get procs while repositioning, it's not going to be a very good build. I have tried it. Less than 90 seconds into the build preview video the OP gets hit by berserker slams. Stops damaging them. Doesn't show what this build is like in areas with many ranged units. Tracking guys down one by one with sleet storm is pretty annoying, and will turn off most people that try this. Unusable against single targets unless you have crazy crit/APOC.

At this point in Diablo 3's life EVERY skill is viable if you have 600k EHP (like the OP) or 200k DPS. I guess some of the posters in this thread believe build diversity is being able to outgear content... and all gear pretty much outgears MP0/MP1 now. OP doesn't struggle to stay alive > MP1 with that EHP, but boy those elite packs take a while. Imagine a pack of casters that you can only reach 1 at a time of in late Act 3.

Forked lightning > sleet storm.

I'm going to assume you didn't watch the entire guide as you're implying that I hid the weaknesses of the build. I always discuss the challenges these builds will face and I am very clear about Sleet Storm's. Also, you're completely mistaken about needing "crazy crit/APoC" to use this build against single targets. My AP is completely stable against groups OR single targets. The only drain on my AP is needing to use Blizzard too often due to repositioning. Per my linked stats, I only have 12.5% Crit Chance and 10 APoC from bracers with 4 crit, a ring with 3.5 crit and Storm Crow. I'd hardly call that "crazy." Even with a 1H and source, my CM Wizard can run Sleet Storm just fine against single targets with 30% Crit and 19 APoC (also not "crazy").

Furthermore, I specifically mention the minimum recommended stats for starting MP 1 (which is much lower than what I have) while showing how far my stats can take me. I'm able to clear MP 5 comfortably (albeit slowly) and can handle the majority of packs in 6 and a few in 7. If what you were saying were true and I am clearing MP 1 due to over-gearing, then I shouldn't be sitting in MP 5 with little trouble. You might argue that being slow is an example of struggling, but that's kinda the point of these guides: finding suboptimal builds and making them work. That said, there are posts in this thread and other threads where players have used Sleet Storm successfully all the way up to MP 10.

To me, it seems like you're using the lower efficiency of this build to exaggerate the weaknesses of Sleet Storm.

Quote from Peter8111

I tried this build yesterday. It works great, but only with melee mobs. How can I deal with casters ?

Try using the triple freeze variation using Blizzard with Frozen Solid and Frost Nova with Shatter. If you get on top of ranged elites and land Frost Nova while around trash, you can kill the trash to trigger additional Novas while Blizzard occasionally freezes them. It's usually enough to kill 1-2 (more if horde) of the pack before chasing down the straggler(s). It's even better if melee trash trigger Ice Reflect to continue freezing the running elites.

Give this a whirl:

http://us.battle.net...gXYS!YgW!YcZccZ

If you're already maintaining a high up-time on Frost Nova, you probably don't need Crystallize and Crystal Shell. You can trade them for Diamond Shards and Frozen Storm, both of which add AoE damage, can crit for CM/APoC and don't interrupt Sleet Storm. This will further increase the spammability of your Frost Nova due to added crits AND net you better healing through LoH or LS as both affect these runes.

You could go even further and drop Magic Weapon for Explosive Blast at that point as you shouldn't have any trouble maintaining it. Your other abilities will do less damage, but EB could make up for it. It's worth experimenting with even if you didn't like it before.

Either way, every single ability does damage or increases your damage.

Quote from Whysperr

I'm currently using a Barrage + Bears variation and loving it. MP6 is doable solo although it's obviously not as efficient as on lower MPs.

I've tried a pure Bears build and a Bears + Spiders + VQ build, and while both are fun to play I'm really fawned on the variation I'm playing now. Bears are very powerful but can be tricky to use against Wallers or enemies that you need to kite a lot. With Bears + RoE + Barrage you have strong burst against groups or single target with your back to a wall, and a strong sustained attack that can be used at long range and ignores most walls.

The other change I made was substituting Horrify for Zombie Dogs w/ Life Link for a constant 10% DR rather than 800 armor. Truthfully I'm not sure off the top of my head which would be better in terms of sheer damage reduction but I've used that on other builds with good results.

http://us.battle.net...8/hero/13404654

Zombie Dogs are actually a solid choice given that you've dropped Grasp of the Dead. Now you have guaranteed dogs and DR. The only thing Horrify can offer you is the long fear so that is what you should base your decision on. If you have problems with elites getting too close, then Horrify is a good option. Given that you have Zombie Bears, I don't expect that to be the case, so Dogs will likely serve you best

Quote from Moola

I been using sleet Storm for over 2 months now. Im sitting at 210k dps, 67% crit chance with 600ish res. I tank mp10/ubers pretty well.
So I dont have to repost all that boring information heres a link to what I use and such, also what Im looking for.
http://www.diablofan...ost-tank-build/
Works very well, just not done with all my gear yet.

I'll go drop a few tips in your thread when I finish replying to comments

Quote from redcinder

Is this just a fun build or is it actually viable because I cant see any quick clearing in your videos ?

It's certainly viable, but it sounds like you consider being fast a measure of viability. It's slower than standard CM or Archon so you probably wouldn't consider this viable for you. I will say that it can have a slight advantage on lower MP levels where you start doing damage immediately while a CM wizard has a slight windup. Archon wizards win at all MP levels, though.

Psh build diversity. . . that's just a story gamers tell to scare young developers at night ;P

Glad you enjoyed it!

Also, just posted the next guide for a Sleet Storm Wizard

I'm back with another guide! If you missed my last guide for a Spirit Barrage Witch doctor, you can find it here:

This build uses Ice Armor's freezing mechanics to facilitate channeling Sleet Storm and tanking without Critical Mass. You can opt for pure damage with Jagged Ice or push the higher MP levels with the triple freeze combo of Ice Reflect, Blizzard with Frozen Solid and Frost Nova with Shatter.

Feedback and/or criticism is welcomed and appreciated as always