About Fear. I was looking for ways to make H90 2pc bonus useful.
- Fear is hard CC. Shares diminishing returns with Stun, Blind, Charm and knockbacks.
- TS-Terrify rune: base duration 3 seconds. Affected by H90 2pc bonus - fear duration increased to 6 seconds. NOT affected by inspiring presence passive. I don’t know if it is intended, but if Inspiring presence affected fear from terrify rune, this passive could potentially have some value as DPS boost for H90.
- If you use Charge or Ground Stomp before using TS-Terrify, affected enemies will get just 4 seconds of Fear duration due to diminishing returns, effectively -30% double damage window. If you use Charge + Ground stomp before TS-Terrify, enemy is feared for 2 seconds, -60% double damage window. Subsequent Fears are even shorter.
- Terrify is NOT affected by Yellow (and blue?) elites’ natural 25% CC resistance, elites are feared for full 6 seconds. Don’t know if it is intended.
To sum it all up, casting GS or Cold Rush, or both, before using Terrify is actually bad gameplay. Using Wrenching Smash is even worse, as you get both knockback and stun before fear, first fear becomes 2 seconds, subsequent fears even shorter.
Solution to make most of Fear duration can be Slow effects. Slow is light CC, which doesn’t get diminishing returns. There are 30%, 60% and 80% slows in the game. Different Slow effects stack, up to 90%+, which makes catching targets easy.
The problem is: Barb does NOT have many options regarding Slow usage in conjunction with H90. GS-Deafening crash, a good 80% slow for 8 seconds, comes after stun, and thus we have only 4 seconds of initial fear to deal damage. TS-Intimidate (60% slow) is another rune for TS and cannot be used.
Followers: Templar with Intimidate skill (80%), Thunderfury (30% for 5 enemies) and EoJ (60%) on paper looks good, but in real combat he usually hangs in the back meleeing random single white enemies.
Soundrel with Crippling Arrow+Multishot seems better option, testing him atm.
Hope this helps.
EDIT: Frenzy-Smite messes Fear up royally. It’s old design, from the days when CC had no diminishing returns.
I suggest Frenzy-Smite rune should be reworked to 60% Slow.