Frenzy Barb! Patch Notes!

[Rage-13139]

@Basshead-11137

I know most you guys don’t play seasons but maybe even using the IB set would work for upcoming season and put both bastions and oathkeeper in the cube.

Yeah, for the coming season I think that is almost certainly going to be the best setup. You’ll need to spam BR to keep up IB stacks, but that should be pretty doable.

@Aleas-1169

Correct me:

All correct.

Thought I’d post an updated version of what I think this build (nonseasonal) is going to look like:

Gear

Head: H90 helm (Str, CHC, Vit, socket-diamond)
Shoulders: H90 shoulders (Str, CDR, Vit, AllRes/life%)
Gloves: H90 gloves (CHC, CHD, CDR, Str/AS)
Chest: H90 chest (Str, Vit, AllRes/life%, sockets-diamonds)
Pants: H90 pants (Str, Vit, Frenzy%, sockets-diamonds)
Boots: H90 boots (Str, Vit, AllRes, Armor)

Bracer: Mortick’s Brace (Ele%, Str, Vit, CHC)
Belt: Undisputed Champion (Str, Frenzy%, Vit, AllRes/Life%)
Amulet: Traveler’s Pledge (Ele%, CHC, CHD, Socket)
Ring 1: Compass Rose (Str, CHC, CHD, CDR, Socket)
Ring 2: BoM or CoE (CHC, CHD, CDR, Socket)

Weapon 1: Oathkeeper (Str, Dmg%, CDR, Socket)
Weapon 2: Echoing Fury (Dmg%, IAS, CDR, Socket) or Pig Sticker (Str, Dmg%, CDR, AS, socket)

Cube: Bastion’s Revered, Depth Diggers, CoE or BoM
Gems: Simplicity’s Strength, Bane of the Trapped, Bane of the Stricken

Skills

Active:

WOTB: Insanity
War Cry: Veteran’s Warning
Battle Rage: Swords to Ploughshares
Threatening Shout: Terrify
Frenzy: any rune
Furious Charge: Merciless Assault (better mobility) OR Leap: Iron Impact (better toughness, avoids walls)

Passive:

Berserker Rage
Boon of Bul-Kathos
Ruthless
Superstition, Nerves of Steel, Juggernaut…?

(Since you’ll be mostly fighting isolated single targets, both Brawler and Rampage are not very useful. Better to take a defensive passive. If you don’t have good CC Reduction rolls on your gear, Juggernaut might actually be worth taking).

I put together a d3planner for the build. The Raekor set is filling in for the new H90 set:

https://www.d3planner.com/554256663

With the change to Bastion’s, I think this build can probably clear roughly GR 129 / 132 / 135 at paragon 2500 / 5000 / 10000.

[MeganeSenpai-1314]

@Rage-13139

hat guy’s going to be running away from you too,

My main concern is about RG, if somehow the double damage is apply to enemies not feared by you but be “hit” by your fear, so the rg will also take double damage although cannot be feared. That’ll be really great.

@Seiya-1765

78.4% on 11 hits

Yeah, sorry, but that isn’t how statistic works. If the fear-on-hit chance is 7% the chance that at least one of the hits applies fear is about 55%

@Seiya-1765

Pain Enhancer is another place where it would get a little insane. If you got on procs on 10 enemies from the AoE on it, then you would get what, 30% increase attack speed on an already insanely fast attack

30% as bonus just only means 30% more damage, relatively less than Simplicity Strength. But it can stack Bane of the Stricken much faster. I don’t have the exact number so I can’t calculate. We’ll have to wait and see people test them in PTR. So are fear-on-hit vs. Falter.
However, it’s so fun to make some new builds for barbs. How long haven’t we have such much fun in D3?

[Rage-13139]

@Seiya-1765

There is also a much higher chance for the fear on EF to proc. 78.4% on 11 hits.

@MeganeSenpai-1314

Yeah, sorry, but that isn’t how statistic works. If the fear-on-hit chance is 7% the chance that at least one of the hits applies fear is about 55%

Well, EF can give you up to 22% fear on hit chance, and I’m guessing Seiya’s number comes from his personal EF, which I’m guessing has about 13% fear chance. At 22% you’d actually have a 93.5% chance of fearing on 11 hits. But, again, I’m guessing those 10 additional hits won’t proc anything, including fear.

[Seiya-1765]

@DieHarder-11668

Could you please give us a D3 planner link of what your using so I can fiddle around and theory craft a bit with?

I can one up that a bit:
https://us.diablo3.com/en/profile/Seiya-1765/hero/117848323

That is the actual character. As Rage showed, there are better pieces to use, but I do not have useful affixes on them on top of not being ancients.

I just noticed something, I logged out with Bastion equipped in the cube, but it kept Scourge, which I used for all of 2 minutes. That was because I was curious if there was anything silly that might work for the season. Scourge will be all but useless. Stalgard’s Decimator has potential on a LoN/LoD build. When I tried it last night, I could get a machine gun going.

@MeganeSenpai-1314

Yeah, sorry, but that isn’t how statistic works. If the fear-on-hit chance is 7% the chance that at least one of the hits applies fear is about 55%

@Rage-13139

EF can give you up to 22% fear on hit chance,

You hit the number I used exactly Rage. 13%, and then a little, is what I thought it was, but when I was pulling up the profile, I found out I did not remember right, it is 18.4%.

@Rage-13139

One final thought for now: if we really are seeking to fight just one guy , then maybe Echoing Fury is not the best choice, after all.

It might still be because of the guaranteed fear on hit chance. As I said in passing earlier, it seems to help with clean up quite a bit. Movement plus more attack speeds does help, as well as quicker movement to the next group.

@Basshead-11137

but maybe even using the IB set would work for upcoming season

And this would blow EF out of the water…, I never tried the bash trick with it…, one sec, BRB.

AND…, Bash plus Blade of the Warlord CAN stack IB. The more you know. Now while it maybe an option, that would require all cube slots to be weapons, which would be a possible huge downside.

[Rage-13139]

@Basshead-11137

I know most you guys don’t play seasons but maybe even using the IB set would work for upcoming season and put both bastions and oathkeeper in the cube.

@Rage-13139

Yeah, for the coming season I think that is almost certainly going to be the best setup. You’ll need to spam BR to keep up IB stacks, but that should be pretty doable.

Actually, hold on a sec. If you do that, you’ve got to pull either Depth Diggers or CoE out of the cube.

And I think that the extra AS from 5 IB stacks is only going to take you from a 9 frame attack to an 8 frame attack, which adds about 12.5% damage. (Or maybe, since they are swords, with 1.4 APS, it would take you from an 9 frame to a 7 frame? In this case you’d be gaining 28.6% damage…)

Coupled with the 30% IB damage boost, and depending on the frame increase, that’s either 46.25% or 67.18% more damage. That’s definitely less than you’ll get from DDs, and I think it’s also just a little less than you’d get from CoE, considering how “bursty” your playstyle is likely to be.

But, if you are going to try this out, I’d say dropping CoE is better than dropping DDs.

[Basshead-11137]

Yeah I plan to try to test a variety of builds to see how they do. The key is getting a decently leveled seasonal player during the ptr period. We shall see. I’m more worried about just testing the flat nonseasonal build since that’s what’ll determine the final output of the build when it goes live.

[Venaliter-1813]

I feel like I should defend my barbarian brethren that 2 pieces set bonuses shouldn’t be “if this happens, awesome!”. That’s more a legendary affix. Set bonuses should be consistent stuff you can engineer to take advantage of, imo.

[Aleas-1169]

I just tried LON Frenzy with Rimeheart and Frostburn… RH almost doesn’t work on elites. No epic proc fest…

[Cacmeister-1706]

Has anyone confirmed if the 2-piece bonus effects just the base skill or selected rune?

[Rage-13139]

Nope. I suspect it’s the selected rune as well as the base skill, but we’ll have to wait till Thursday to see.

[Free-1746]

@Rage-13139

So all the enemies you aren’t targeting with Frenzy are going to run away (this is another reason I suspect / hope that Bastion’s Procs will have proc rate 0- so they don’t get Smited and stuck standing near you), and they’re going to be running away for quite a while. The enemy you are targeting with Frenzy will most likely get stunned by Smite, and then you’ll cut him down with 11x Frenzy damage. Keep in mind, too, that with only one target remaining, your damage will double, via Stricken, in about 8 seconds.

If this is how it works in practice, the set is oriented as an elite hunter where you find a pack, scatter nearby trash with Terrify, and focus all of Bastion’s additional Frenzy hits onto single targets. Hmm.

In theory, this could be fun, but only if the damage is potent enough to allow us to burst down elites before CC immunity hits; keep in mind that all the applied Stun and Fear will add up to the CC cap within a few seconds. I’ll have to test it, but I don’t think we’ll keep any elites locked in place very long, and we’re going to lose the 2-piece damage buff vs the RG after a few seconds. Stricken stacks and the sheer volume of Frenzy hits may make up for it, but I’m still skeptical.

@Rage-13139

And, if so, that’s a great thing. It means we’ll have a build that isn’t dependent on density, which will set it apart from all our other builds. It’ll enormously decrease the need for fishing in GR pushes.

I’m very much in favor of finally having a build for Barbs that focuses on single-target damage and doesn’t need game-crushing density. That said, the damage has to be there to make it worth using over LON/LOD with Bastion’s and UC, and I don’t think the set is quite there yet. The CDR requirements are also going to be meaty, especially for low-Paragon or early-Season players, but then that’s the case with most of our builds. Guess we’ll find out this weekend.

Regarding weapons, as you push higher and things take longer to kill, EF will lose its effectiveness, so I’m banking on Sunkeeper or any fast elemental weapon (Azurewrath, Doombringer, etc) for the additional elemental multiplier.

Hmm. Still so many questions about how this is all going to work. At least we’ll have some fun tinkering around with this set.

[Cacmeister-1706]

So for a 4 person group could we be looking at zbarb with the shouts… an Rbarb as is for trash (minor tweaks to optimize with season theme) and a frenzy RGK who acts as a second zbarb gathering density until the end…and … insert zmonk, znecro, trash killer Necro, trash killer wiz or zdoc?

Honorable mention to the AoV sader… and new spirit barrage WD. Possibly?

[Mathris-1909]

@Free-1746

In theory, this could be fun, but only if the damage is potent enough to allow us to burst down elites before CC immunity hits; keep in mind that all the applied Stun and Fear will add up to the CC cap within a few seconds.

Yeah this is my biggest concern as well. Given how fast Frenzy is going to attack, the extra hits on Bastion’s (which I really hope Rage is right on and they don’t proc anything but we don’t know yet) I imagine we’re going to cap the CC on even an elite in a reeeal short order with the stun from Smite before we even get the chance to fear them more than once. I really do appreciate the devs trying out something new and crazy I just don’t think this is the way to go. There are too many things clashing and running counter to one another for it to be fun to play. Will it work? Oh I’m sure we can get it work, but if it becomes a chore or tedium to play like Raekor HotA is it really worth all the effort? I have my doubts.

[Rage-13139]

@Free-1746

In theory, this could be fun, but only if the damage is potent enough to allow us to burst down elites before CC immunity hits; keep in mind that all the applied Stun and Fear will add up to the CC cap within a few seconds. I’ll have to test it, but I don’t think we’ll keep any elites locked in place very long, and we’re going to lose the 2-piece damage buff vs the RG after a few seconds.

@Mathris-1909

I imagine we’re going to cap the CC on even an elite in a reeeal short order with the stun from Smite before we even get the chance to fear them more than once.

You guys are still thinking about it the wrong way. The Fear isn’t really for the elites, it’s for everybody else. You’re right that for that elite, who you’re hitting in the face with Frenzy 6x / second and to whom you’re applying multiple procs of Smite stun and EF fear, he’s going to reach CC immunity really quickly.

But: so what? You won’t get the Fear damage bonus very much, true. But that guy isn’t going to go anywhere, he’s going to be doing his best to attack you. Or in short, if he’s CC immune, then he’ll be attacking you, and if he’s not, then he’s going to get Feared and then Stunned in quick succession. So you’re not going to have to chase after that guy.

The real damage bonus of Fear occurs when it pushes all the other enemies outside the 15 yard Bastion’s proc radius. I mean, if you’re trying to kill an elite and there are 10 other mobs surrounding him, then deploying TS:Terrify is essentially going to increase damage dealt to your target by 1000%, because it prevents those 10 mobs from soaking up your Frenzy damage.

As for that elite you’re fighting: well, assume you are timing your fight to CoE cycles. If you pop WOTB just as your damage cycle begins, by the time you get back to that cycle for the last 4 seconds of WOTB, you will be doing about 200% more damage (because of Stricken stacks) than you were when you first started attacking. In other words, you will be doing more damage, even having lost the +100% fear bonus.

All that said, if this build is going to be able to hit the high 130’s - low 140’s that the devs seem to be aiming for, I think it is still going to need a roughly 6 GR boost from somewhere (that means another source of +150% damage / a 2.5x multiplier).

That extra damage could come from buffs to the 2 piece, 6 piece, Undisputed Champion, or possibly a new bonus on Vambraces of Sescheron…

[DieHarder-11668]

I think it’s safe to say that this set is win for all classes. If everything pans out, this will be the first set of it’s kind. And every class has been wanting to get hands on a build that isn’t density focused. I have to say that this was very creative of the Dev team.

[Seiya-1765]

@Rage-13139

possibly a new bonus on Vambraces of Sescheron

I would go for this since Vambraces heals you pretty quickly when you get hit hard as the video shows. It would be better if it was a flat primary rather than skill specific in my book though.

Right now, I am going to hold any predictions until Thursday when I can see how Bastion actually functions. That is going to handle most of the work in my opinion.

Which is both good and bad. Good for LoN/LoD builds, but also a little odd in general to have that much of a game changer on a normal legendary.

Oh well, just two days to go.

[Rage-13139]

@Seiya-1765

Which is both good and bad. Good for LoN/LoD builds, but also a little odd in general to have that much of a game changer on a normal legendary.

It’s a lot like Ambo’s, which is another item almost as powerful as a set bonus, all by itself.

[Free-1746]

@Rage-13139

You guys are still thinking about it the wrong way. The Fear isn’t really for the elites, it’s for everybody else .

No, I get it, but if that’s the case, why is there a damage bonus tied to it? You can see that there’s some conflicted design there, right?

If we retain the bonus on mobs effected, but immune, to Fear, it won’t matter. Otherwise, that’s a considerable chunks of damage we will be losing.

[Phoenix-1330]

If you fear an RG, even though they don’t flee, will they still take a damage bonus?

[Rage-13139]

@Free-1746

No, I get it, but if that’s the case, why is there a damage bonus tied to it? You can see that there’s some conflicted design there, right?

I think what might have happened is that they thought up the Bastion’s bonus first.

Then, they were like “Hmm, this is going to work best when that damage is loaded onto a single target. How do we make that happen?” And then they thought of TS:Terrify, and decided to double the shout durations. After that, they just glued a damage bonus onto the fear debuff, without really thinking about how it was going to work.

So yeah, the fear damage bonus is kind of incidental / superfluous. You could cut it entirely and it wouldn’t make a big difference. BUT: you would still have to use TS:Terrify, whether it has the possibility of causing a damage bonus or not. Because there isn’t really another skill that can scatter enemies in the same way.

@Phoenix-1330

If you fear an RG, even though they don’t flee, will they still take a damage bonus?

Based on the way the 2-piece is written, I think it’s super unlikely.