I hope you understand you can get chance to fear on helm, weapon, and ring. Please don’t just try to get your way, and let the developers do their thing.
It sounds cool to me.
I like all of the banter and ideas from all the Barbros here. Cheers.
I have toyed a lot with Frenzy and I strongly agree that the Fear part will be a P.I.T.A. Chasing monsters down and then having to rebuild Frenzy stacks was not a fun play style. You play Frenzy to be a human blender not a “hey come back here you guys”.
Double attack speed on Bastions would be great.
Lastly, I have always found Frenzy stacks fall off way to fast. Some maps with low density become “I should just restart this Rift”. Maybe UC makes Frenzy stacks last twice as long too?
You do realise that Frenzy is a direct, melee-range attack, right? So, if mobs get feared and run away, that means we have to run after them to kill them, i.e. they’re creating a melee build where mobs will regularly be feared out of range. The whole point of Frenzy is standing still and hitting a mob at increasing frequency. Having to stop to run after it means it’s way more likely to lose your stacks.
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I fear this set will become Waste/Rend 2.0 (pre-Ambo’s) where fear will be ignored and not used. No puns intended.
We’ll probably be very purposefully excluding (or at least flagging as outliers) Seasonal performance runs of this set from our data and observation for this reason. It’s called out twice in the PTR blog that we’re very aware of how this Season’s buff could impact the power of the new sets, and we heavily encourage testers focusing on these sets to try them with non-Seasonal characters.
Oh, don’t worry, I’ll be roaming and reading as much as I can, though if you want to shoot me a compilation from folks’ thoughts during PTR, it does always save me time!
We do want to give this concept a go. That doesn’t mean we’re committed to it going live as-is, but we feel it’s worth trying out in at least the PTR environment. Certainly, not everything that sounds fun plays out in practice, and not everyone’s definition of fun is the same. We’ll be looking at a variety of feedback, including your community’s strong theorycrafting as well as general sentiment about its playability from all kinds of sources.
It’s almost certain we won’t get things right on the first pass. Design is an iterative process. I’m glad we have such a passionate community willing to provide us constructive feedback to help us get there!
Now, don’t mind me, I’ll go back to lurking and reading everything like the all-knowing being I am (lol) without you being aware. 
22 Likes
Yes. Look at ww-rend at 140. WW has much better healing.
Agree.
No other better options. lol.
It might be an option + boulder toss for better healing. But I may prefer rage flip gather a lot of mobs.
Yes.
More thoughts about RGK.
Currently the fastest stricken stacking skill is WW-dust devil. People may consider using WW first and Frenzy later. (especially when you have a power pylon nearby)
Hmmmm.
This Frenzy set doesn’t wow me tbh. Never been too interested in a Frenzy focused set. Thornzy was interesting because it was Thorns. Frenzy is basically just HOTA imo. Never seen the appeal of having both. Especially since Gavel lets you spam HOTA.
I’m more excited for the Witch Doctor and Wizard sets.
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Hmm, this setup would be less good, I think, than Depth Diggers in the cube and Compass Rose / BoM / CoE. You’ll lose about half your damage using a CC variant.
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Will the double shout/fear bonus be applied to the wearer only or the entire party? And if the fear buff does apply to party does the person wearing need to proc it or can another party member proc it? If so speed barb runs will be so good. Speed meta for sure. 2xwwrend/zbarb/frenzybarb. pop TS-terrify on coe cycle for a big explosion.
This all sounds fantastic, Nev. I’m looking forward to testing it, and I love the creativity that went into the set’s design.
That said, as has been brought up in this thread (and on the thread in GD), using Fear is a bad idea for several reasons:
- It’s a hard CC and will quickly cap. Once monsters are immune, I assume we’ll lose the damage bonus, and it will be mostly useless vs RGs and Juggernauts.
- It causes mobs to flee. While the designers might envision players hunting down monsters who flee in terror, the reality is going to be an exercise in frustration. Frenzy has to close to melee and have a more or less stationary target to ramp up damage (and, via this set, accrue damage reduction). Relying on Fear is going to disrupt this, big time.
Again, it’s too early to know for sure if the above concerns are, in fact, real concerns, but I predict that the feedback on the Fear mechanic will be universally as follows: frustrating and unreliable.
I hope the development team is willing to act accordingly if my prediction is true.
I also predict that the build is going to have issues with DR and healing, but we’ll need to get some hands-on time to test and find out.
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Just was watching Rob and Wudi theory crafting this and both agree the damage output is going to be way too low off the initial numbers. Also when it comes to RGs you can’t fear them so there goes the double damage potential on them.
I’ll be testing this build out as well on the ptr on nonseasonal and be trying out the version Rage suggested first. Will provide feedback here as I test. Thinking maybe adding ground stomp to stun after they are feared to prevent them running away. Let’s hope we can get this build the love it needs and get it up to shape by season start cause it has some potential just needs a little TLC.
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I think your right. Weapon Throw might have a made better Primary set.
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When I ran lon frenzy thorns a few seasons back I had a piece with fear on it and even at low fear chance it was awfully annoying. Needless to say I replaced that piece as soon as possible. It was not enjoyable at all.
I also remember back in vanilla running EF, at least then I was using on a monk and I could cyclone strike feared enemies back to me, but still annoying. Who can forget the vanilla WW barbs running echoing fury and fearing everything…
I like that they are trying to think outside the box, but I don’t think fear is the right call here. It’s basically counter-intuitive to the playstyle of frenzy…
The only thing that could make it worthwhile is if the damage was hugely multiplied to feared enemies. If I have to chase these bastards around I better wallop them when I catch them 
Obviously, we haven’t played the build yet, but in my experience with fear in builds is unpleasant to say the least.
Hota with EF nowadays isn’t too bad, but I’m not intentionally stacking fear, so maybe, but have my doubts.
2 Likes
With CRD and Crimson’s, you can use Morticks and get perma-Wrath. That’s 50% more DR and another damage multiplier, plus the potential for IP. This build will definitely use Band of Might, but it’s going to need something other than 50% additional DR in the mix to be viable, especially when it might run into problems with healing; Bloodshed will almost certainly be the best BR rune, and there’s no access to stuff like Life per Fury or Bloodfunnel.
Personally, would really like a build that doesn’t have to gear toward perma-Wrath, but I suspect push variants will inevitably want it on the bar.
Sure, but it’s still a bad idea:
Hoping maybe instead of Morticks the Braces of Sescheron might work for keeping us alive and avoid using WotB. Obviously has to be tested to see. Got a few ideas bouncing around in my head.
I hope so, but consider that Mortick’s will give us 50% more DR and damage. I just don’t see any bracer beating out Mortick’s 
Yeah I get it. On paper this build just looks a little lackluster in the damage department. But we got two weeks to provide feedback so hopefully we can get it going the right direction.
1 Like
RIght on, brother.
I think the devs are banking on that Fear effect, but we’re not going to get much damage out of that, and we’ll get even less once CC immunity caps/the RG has had enough of our nonsense.
Buffing the damage numbers will be pretty simple. Getting them to reconsider that Fear effect . . . that’s the part that worries me. Just hoping we don’t end up with Blackthorne’s 2.0.
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I generally agree that fear as a mechanic poses gameplay problems–importantly, I agree it will likely be more frustrating than fun to chase fleeing enemies.
To the extent the devs want to capture the fantasy of enemies cowering before the barbarian, a gameplay/fantasy compromise might be to make threatening shout - terrify function like the Witch Doctor horrify skill, where enemies are feared in place. I could even envision something like the 2 piece providing that “threatening shout gains all runes, and enemies feared by the barbarian cower in place.”
3 Likes