[Guide] H90 Frenzy: A simple guide

Barbarian
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After like 20-30 runs at tiers 128-130 i got already small wall. Game wont forgive me battle with high elemental dmg incoming (arcane in small spot or in high density, constructs, succubs etc - all typical nightmares and i often get oneshoted. Thats fine, i dont expect progresing at this anyway but on the beggining with new builid i never skip maps cuz i wanna know how this builid can handle potential worst mobs. And i cant handle at this tier with current eq.

But worst things with S90 is for me…actually same story like HoTA…aiming.
I understand mechanic (i read whole topic with understanding , so i know now about chains, control effects temporany immunes, wrath rotation at right cdr value and all basics u guys talking here about.

Still its one thing i hated my pushes as hota - i have to aim one certain mob to get best results - its typicaly elite mob.

When elite is in density like 25+ mobs its near impossible to aim him unless its big pig like boar, treee or other fat one. If its small gold frog, or something even bigger but still considered as small aiming this and refreshing my BotM is impossible foe me in trash.

Even if i aim this guy i often cannot attack him, my barb staying in place and do nothing.

Second issue is close to first one - i hate charge skill. I made with IK hota rly big values solo (dun remember already but i was top 100 barbs in this builid in certain time when it was strong but i never learnd charging with precise to land on top desired mob and actually be in range to attack him. Usually density got time to kill me when i traying reach my aim and i rage quit cuz this density wasnt even dangerous, i just got no skill with FC to land it right.
Same was with HoTA and here i got even less attack range as i see. Elite at 129 with few mobs around i can kill with easy (unless its ground ice + beam +/or orbiter. But i just suck in density with this builid. When im thinking im close enough but still cannot reach mob with just clicking on him i try force stand and i never land hits on him. Im prob just to slow and thats it. So i already getting mad at this builid cuz its remind me worst moments with my Hota.

Second case - i know optimal as is 7 oath + 2x 7 on eq. I got usable items to setup 7 oath + 1x 7 eq + 1x 5 eq - this will give desired frenzy bp? If not what i be missing if ill go enchantress? She’s totaly stupid and never in range :slight_smile: but i like blondies with 1/4 brain so i actually can try.

I learned wrath rotation and i see big progress in my gameplay, thats one good thing, but it doesnt matter when i got yellow in even medium density.

Actually i cleard 4x 128 from my 20 runs at 128-130. One run 129 cleard 3 sec before but dead like 5 times. 4x 130 fail but it was hopeless fail.

Im actually pretty pro pushes, i got no problem with fishing in few keys hundreds / day (example - i closed yesterday 140 solo WD after ~600 keys burned but i was sure i can do. Mundungu required zero precise if u know how u wanna use your phantasms but uber aiming isnt needed. Its super easy if u know what u do and u dont need any skills. Same with render. I got 4,8k paragon and if i see guardian at least 5% at every 100-150 keys means its just time and ill clear it. But my last 2 hard pusers was render (trivial to play, i even cleard 138 solo in last era without spear but with demoralize. And today solo wd rank 97 euro with 4,8l paragon. But this two dont required to be in ultimate close range, they dont required sic precision and Savage do.

To Rage - u got big heart, i love passion u hosrting this topic so if u can check my current setup for 129-130 and tell what to switch to keep some chance to not drop this builid u can save my poor fat old man >:(

Atm im at 50% sheet cdr but only one roll on weapon and one at gloves.

Especially im interested if 7 oath + 7 weapon + 5 ring will offer this whaat i want. Sorry for this cry but i just writing about problems i meet with this and i know them well - its exactly same story like with hota where i had to FC in range to mob and it was mega hard if he moves just a little or was small type of mob. Im sure i can clear 130, no doubt, but this wont give me motivation and i dont mind waiting 400 keys to super soft wood or fields just to clear 130.

TL:DR Teach me how to deal with spot where we all know what can be. Valuable gold mob inside 20 semi-dangerous trash. I dont use any plugins im solo player and i wont cheat myself, this bad game isnt worth it esp in LB where both take like 80% places (this is just a figure but u know whats im talking about.

Pls check my builid (and btw issue with 5% as on ring instead 7 is just easy fixable with enchantress so - i feel its like second hota in terms of precise placing and ill eventually do to top 150-maby higher but it wont be enjoyable in any hour.

Or maby there’s something idk yet about gameplan with Savage? Waiting on answer cuz i love how this builid operate, its stylish, pretty squishy, heavy unforgivable (thats all fine untill…) need heavy precision to get what i want in spot.

Thank u Rage, u awesome content creator and i got whole mechanic in basically after 1 hour reading your posts.

Im ns, paragon 4,8, started today but i actually see what is waiting for me. Any easy fix? :smiley: Thank u, luv this community :slight_smile:

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Btw last thing - i dont use any plgins. I dropped TH cuz i never had my personal record clean. But i wont discuss about TH users, i dont care. So never awesome feeling after clear super deep solo push granted like top 50 with low paragon but i saw i i got abilities to ignore trash like 30% value without any grief but here it looks very hard to do for me and its exactly hota barb withsuper good movement skills, its just more freaky, he but gameplay of FC and after it im chaotic flying my cursor to fish elite from medium dense and medium-medium–low semi packed density. quit after 3-4 deads. My 130 i cleard with soft Fields filled with mothers and fatties, but it means nothing as u know if u push something for serious. Sorry long post but i was so hyped after 10 first runs (120-127 with any positioning i can eat alive. I dotn care i wont repeat it anymore, progess 130+ looks hopless. Have a nice day >:(

:smiley:

Current setup from this 20-30 tiers 128-130 nit its not its no heavy as i said. I can dps them if im character not required be on top my mob when some critters are around and as i said this was my one and real issue with my hota, after all i delete him cuz my high rank was so frustrating when even victory at my desired gr was just sad after all

Sry for wall text, but i know Rage will try to help me, barb community is one place where u actually get proper help instead more or less discuarage or simple flame.

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Oh durrr, right, CDR… maybe I should read my own guide!

I like the “125’s” plan, though I think that might be a little too high to clear 100% of the time, which means you’ll see some significant “fishing” effects in your clears, which may distort the picture. Might want to go 122 or 123 instead… just a thought.

Hey Vapala, you really want to try and work on your timing to get CoE and WoTB synced. This adds quite a lot of damage. You need 47-50% CDR to make this happen.

If you really feel like the timing is messing you up, you could consider running the Aughild setup (RoRG in cube, wear Aughild Bracer + Shoulder). With this variant, timing is not an issue, you just pop Wrath whenever it seems appropriate. But, here too, you want a lot of CDR so that you can have Wrath up more often.

As for rerolling stuff to AS, it’s not really worth it in your case. If you want more damage I would instead roll the AllRes on your CoE to CHD.

Alright Red, let’s see what we can do.

Problem 1: Dangerous stuff (Arcane, Smoldering Constructs, etc) kills you.

Solution: Consider skipping. You don’t have to fight every pack and kill every piece of trash. Some elite mobs (Arcane / Horde, for instance) are often just too dangerous to be worth it.

If you do want to stand and fight, sometimes there are things you can do to make it a bit easier on yourself. For instance, if there are constructs around an elite, consider dashing around and focusing on killing these before you try to stand still and take down the elite. Same thing holds true if there is an Enslaved Nightmare around. Getting cursed can get you killed fast, so it’s often worth it to take a short time to kill these mobs before focusing on the elite.

Option 2: Try using WC: Impunity instead of WC: Veteran’s Shout. Some people have had really good success with this swap. It gives you less protection to dodgeable things, like electrified bolts or goatman spears, but more protection against the undodgeable stuff like Arcane, construct fire, Plagued pools, etc.

Problem 2: Hard to aim your Frenzy at elite.

Solution: Just don’t worry about it. It is often best if you can target the elite, but only by a small margin. If it’s hard to do, either because he’s surrounded by too much density or because you’d have to stand in a super-dangerous place, then just attack a different mob. In density, most of your damage comes from Bloodshed + AD anyway, so if you’re attacking basically any mob within 15-20 yards of the elite, then that elite will still end up taking a good chunk of damage.

This is especially true if you have the option of standing in an Oculus circle. Ultimately, you’ll do more damage to an elite if you are standing 18 yards away in an Oculus circle, attacking a completely different mob, than if you are right next to the elite, attacking him, but not in an Oculus circle.

As for the “staying in place and do nothing” problem, what I do is hold down the force attack key much of the time, which I have in an easily reachable place ( the ~ key). If I’m worried that my Barb won’t actually be able to reach my intended target because of high density, I just hold this down and attack in place. This makes sure you’re at least hitting somebody. Then once the density thins out a bit I release the key, so that my Barb can again auto-move to the target. Again, if you can’t reach the elite, that’s ok. Just try to spend time in Oculus circles and thin out the density.

Problem 3: Charge isn’t precise.

Solution: I don’t really have a solution for this one. Charge bugs me, too. Often I’m trying to charge into an Oculus circle and I only get halfway there. I think the issue is that if you click on an enemy, you basically charge to the center of their hitbox. So if you want to charge beyond a certain enemy, you need to make sure your mouse isn’t over any part of him.

In other words, just try to charge a little further than you think you actually want to go.

Problem 4: Question about AS on gear

Solution: 7% on Oath + 7% +5% is good enough. You need 12% total to get that frame and you’ve got it, so you don’t need to take Enchantress. You’re better off with Templar or Scoundrel.

Problem 5: CDR

Solution: from looking at your gear right now, it looks like you’ve got the right amount (both weapons, 1 ring, gloves, shoulders, diamond in helm, paragon). So it looks like you’re all set on that.

Alright Red, I hope some of this is helpful. I think you’re at the point where it is going to be a bit of a grind to go higher, but at your paragon I think you can reach at least 132-133 (WarioGetGood has done 135 with paragon in the 5000’s).

Good luck, and let me know if you have more questions.

Edit: 127 down. I augmented my gear up to 21k Str, an increase of 20% over what I had before, so this is not really so impressive (mathematically easier than my 126 of a few days ago).

Still, here it is:

Edit Edit: 128 down. Both 127 and 128 took me about 5 keys each. I’ve also thrown maybe 7 or 8 keys at 129, a few decent attempts so far but no luck yet.

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Hey Rage, I’ve been playing HC Frenzy for S20 and your thread has been a great resource. I was wondering if you could explain how APS works with this build. I have been using Oath and EF and when I check D3 planner it tells me I am hitting 6 frames per second or 10 APS, but I thought that there was a hard cap of 5 APS. Is anything above 12 frames/ 5 APS wasted? Thanks for the thread.

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Completed 124 in season at 1361 paragon, 17.3k mainstats, 44.8% CDR, 70% AD, Azurewrath and APD. Took about 15 keys. Forgot to record it until halfway into the rift. Have never record and post a video before, hopefully it work. Here’s the video.

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Hey Doubletwist, your sheet aps is capped at 5, but your actual attacks can happen faster than this (as quickly as every 2 frames, I believe). So the 6 frame attack you’re seeing is correct!

Well done! Good job on oculus usage. Don’t forget that channeling pylon lets you charge endlessly-- good for getting around!

Any chance you can find a few % of CDR anywhere? It’ll really help out your damage.

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I completed GR 121 solo at 1500 paragon. I used Aughild with Azure. I had full augments at around 110s. This guide and the discussion helped me a lot, thanks guys. As far as I see the topic revolves around solo play, but recently I got into meta gaming circles, and I play with some mid-tier teams as the single target DPS.
So here is my question: Assuming the team has a decent support monk healing very well, and my responsibility is to substantially contributing to elite kills + killing the guardian, how should I adopt my gear? My understanding is that I can drop a lot of defense for more damage. What are your recommendations?

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Hey Bihary,

Congrats on the 121! That’s a good clear at that paragon.

So, if you want to play this set as a RGK, with the support of a support Monk + Barb, you have 2 options:

  1. The “Chinese” RGK. This one is a little tankier than option #2, but still very squishy compared to the solo build.

Wear CoE + Compass Rose in your ring slots, Traveler’s Pledge as Amulet, and put RoRG in the cube. Then, you’ll wear Aughild bracers and shoulders. (So, no BoM).

For an off-hand, you can choose between Doombringer and Pig Sticker (rather than Azurewrath / Cold, so you don’t unintentionally build up CC resist when you shouldn’t). Technically, Pig Sticker can get you the fastest clear, but only if you draw a RG who counts as a “Human” or “Beast” (only Agnidox, Sand Shaper, and Hamelin, I believe) so it is less consistent than Doombringer.

For skills, you are going to swap Charge for WW:Dust Devils, and for passives you will run Weapons Master- Boon - Ruthless - Berserker Rage. (The purpose of WM is to keep up your fury when WWing).

WW:DD stacks Stricken really fast, even faster than Frenzy, so when you get to the RG, you are going to WW for a bit to stack Stricken, then switch to Frenzy for the kill. The actual amount of time to spend on each depends on a variety of factors, like the level of the rift, the number of players, whether the RG has adds or not, your own level of STR + other damage stats, etc. So you’ll have to mess around with it a bit to figure out the right balance.

You want about 40% of the total time it takes to kill the RG spent on WW, and 60% on Frenzy, but as I said, the actual amounts of time will vary.

A page (In Chinese) on the setup here:
bbs.d.163.com/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=173830681

And video of it being used, here:
www.bilibili.com/video/av96015765/

  1. The “European” RGK. This one does even more damage (about 33% more), but is extremely squishy.

Wear Focus + Restraint, plus Squirt’s Necklace, and put CoE in the cube. For bracers, you’ll be taking Mortick’s Brace. For an off-hand, you can again choose between Doombringer and Pig Sticker.

For skills, you will again swap Charge for WW:Dust Devils. You’ll again take the same 4 passives: Weapons Master- Boon - Ruthless - Berserker Rage.

Again, you want to hit the RG with WW for a while before switching to Frenzy.

Since Squirt’s essentially halves your toughness, you are very fragile with this setup, so you’ll need good shielding and defensive buffs from your supports!

Rob’s video on this setup is here. (Note that he has Spear in place of WW, which will slow down kill time): [D3 2.6.8 PTR] FRENZY BARB 150 RGK SUB 2 MIN ELEMENT DEBUGGED - YouTube

Hope this is helpful. If you give these a try, let us know how it goes.

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Awesome RGK info, was looking for exactly this.

Thoughts on flavor of time instead of squirt"s for the Euro RGK? seems like keeping the squirts buff up would be pretty tough on elite packs which damage everywhere. Or are you taking the L on elites and just wearing squirts for RG?

How do you fear, freeze, or stun enemies? the supports do it for you?

WW to build stricken on elites also or only on RG?

Thoughts on dropping rorg and aughilds from chinese RGK and cubing oathkeeper then using istvans paired blades and mortick’s?

Would the 30% attack speed make up for the 30% damage difference and 20% physical damage on doombringer?

Further thoughts:
-Keeping up Istvans stack and frenzy stack wasnt too bad (guess it would be same as F+R).
-Dont know difference between 45% damage reduction vs 30% armor and morticks. Thinking aughilds permanent buff is probably better.
-keeping fury topped was somewhat of an issue, but does it matter if berserker rage is not applying during ww stricken stacking? Fury should fill up pretty fast once its Frenzy time.

Im a noob so im sure im missing something.

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I did a bit of experimenting today and I managed to get 123 down, paragon 1580, full upgrades on ancient gear.

First and best setup was EF, physical / nemesis bracers, 122 in first try , 123 in one or two keys, about 50 sec left.

The second setup included Doombringer (considering that i have stun on gloves, fear on helmet and freeze on belt), it was underwhelming. Less damage and survivability, failed several keys 123 and 122, no completion.

Third was Azurewrath, cold setup, but missing two upgrades. Failed a couple of keys at 122 and called it a night. Definitely needs more tweaking, but I like the freeze and the quality of life is a major upgrade compared to EF.

Overall EF looks like a beast for solo play.

Outside of a few low level pubs, I have never tried group play. Do you guys have any thoughts on what would be my GR range in a four player setup, as RGK (considering 120-123 solo with different setups at paragon 1580)?

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If you’re sticking to pubs (which is what I mostly do unfortunately), you’ll be lucky to find a group that can clear 115 in less than 5 min. I would say for public groups 105-110 is the sweet spot. When it’s lowbies I’ll just carry them through 95s and level new gems.

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I have a similar level barb as yours (1600), my consistent solo range is 121. I played with some noobish meta teams and here are my results. (My teammates were at similar paragons as I am - around 1400-1700)
Me+WD - 125
Me+WD+support barb - 126
Me+WD+support barb+monk - 129
These levels were all reached at first or second try.

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Thank you Rage for the detailed answer. That is a lot of new info and gear change to digest. I think I will move incrementally - I will swap out BoM for CoE and see how I can still stay alive.
At the level I am playing (up to GR 130), killing the RG was never an issue - went down within a minute. So I am not convinced yet why I would need to specialize so heavily for this purpose.

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I did 120 with 1289 paragons with azure setup istvans and echoing fury anybody pushing frenzy did notice one thing in common you can clear one level easy and another 100 keys and nothing there is real wall also my personal thought, call it conclusion is that we orbit around wrong idea focusing solo elites i think if we want clear higher we need do something for density scaling and only thing I can imagine is going very high area damage setup because there is no way for perma zerker elites are always in group with minions in solo they will follow you, how bad this biuld suffer from split damage is visible on rg like Hammelin or saxtris when minions pop suddenly damage stops, i am currently playing my WD and cruss for paragons I’ll go back to frenzy little latter and I’ll try to play it like generator monk ultra high ad like 140+ area range, with high life per hit and cooldown

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Rage, you write: " As for the “staying in place and do nothing” problem, what I do is hold down the force attack key much of the time, which I have in an easily reachable place ( the ~ key). If I’m worried that my Barb won’t actually be able to reach my intended target because of high density, I just hold this down and attack in place. This makes sure you’re at least hitting somebody ."

I must be missing something big here…
Where is the force attack key? In options key bindings I can only see “Force stand still” and “Force move”. So how do you set up this force attack action?

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I think you’re generally not going to contribute too much (except your doubled shouts) until you get to the RG. Compared to Bazooka WD, your damage in density is super low. But: you could take Flavor and hope for a power pylon at the boss. As for WW: generally, just on the boss.

With either of these setups, you really need supports to help keep you alive. So if your WD blows up all the trash and some blues and only one yellow elite is left standing, it’ll probably be best to just move on, rather than the whole group waiting there protecting you while you finish off that elite (unless, of course, he’s inches from death).

Since, with this setup, we’re mainly concerned with single target, the Smite rune on Frenzy takes care of that for you.

Offensively, this will be roughly equivalent to Aughild, since both give you two separate 1.3x multipliers, with a little extra value on higher attack speed- due to Stricken stacking- making up for the lost 20% elemental on Doombringer.

Defensively, 30% armor will give you between 16 - 18% mitigation. Aughild’s actually only gives you 40.5% mitigation vs elites (100 * .85 = 85 , 85 * .7 = 59.5 , 100 - 59.5 = 40.5). So 30% armor plus Mortick’s is considerably better than what you get from Aughild, but of course only when WOTB is active, otherwise it’s considerably worse.

Nope, doesn’t matter.

Anyway, this setup will probably be about equal to using Aughild. Give it a try and see how it goes!

Oh, you definitely don’t! You can definitely get the job done at GRs in the 130’s just with the basic setup. The variants I offered are for min-maxing.

I meant “force stand still”. I actually do think of it as “force attack”, though, since that’s more accurate as to what it does. For instance, I use it a lot with WW. In this case, holding this key down while also pressing WW definitely makes you attack using WW, even with no enemies around, but you certainly don’t stand still (i.e. you don’t just spin in place).

So yeah: with this build, I hold down both “force stand still” and Frenzy much of the time that I’m in density. This prevents those situations where my Barb might be stuck and unable to reach his intended target, which if you’re only holding Frenzy, will result in him just standing there, doing nothing.

You can try out running the “high-AD setup” I discuss in the OP, which has 138% AD, but I can tell you now it won’t significantly increase your speed at clearing density (about 4.5% faster at most, with weaker single-target due to slower Stricken stacking). I broke down the numbers on that here:

The issue is that your base damage gets chopped up into smaller and smaller pieces, the more density you’re facing. So adding more AD doesn’t significantly improve your clearing speed. It’s good up to 94%, because it doesn’t conflict with other damage rolls, but beyond that, you have to start sacrificing AS, CHC, CDR, or Elemental%, all of which are a bad trade.

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Thanks Rage for all the replies!
__

In the solo department, I hit GR 121 at aprox 1400 para. I’ve got 1-2 minutes that i may be able to fit another level or two into, but I’m close to the wall at this point (and seems like everyone else is about in the same place) and been more interested in tinkering and reforging for RGK gear lately.

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Sure thing, man. Good job on the clears. And yes, the damage wall is the real deal…

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Hey Rage,

Yesterday I cleared GR122 in 10 minutes (18,5k main stat) and got myself in the EU leaderboard.
This was after I the jackpot and found a primal compass rose with str, chd, socket and attackspeed so I rolled chc on it. This was a relief for me after spending thousands of shards on rings, upgrading yellows and reforging for a usable compass rose.

Before the compass rose I had cleared a few times 122 but with EF setup I had te feeling I did more damage with the axe. Also because I have 2 primal EFs, one with STR, AS CDR and one with STR, %dmg and AS (haven’t rolled anything on the last one yet). What also helped me witht the clears was the force stand still which I wasn’t using before.

This is how my gear looks like now.
https://www.d3planner.com/137744985
I rolled CDR instead of CHD on the BoM because I still miss CDR on my Oathkeeper otherwise my CHC/CHD ratio would 50% - 600% rougly. Is this a wise decision? I also have a non ancient COE with CDR, CHC and CHD with 192%.

To clear higher GRs i’m looking for a better Oathkeeper and ancient ring with the stats you described in your awesome guide :smiley:

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Hey Barudi,

Congrats on the clear, and making the leaderboard. If you can do 122 in 10 minutes, I’m sure you can go 1 or 2 higher without spending a ton of keys. Also, nice find on that primal Compass rose. Other than rolling a useless secondary, it’s pretty much perfect.

So: the reason I call for hitting 46.67% CDR in the guide is that this lets you pop Wrath right as you get to your CoE damage phase, and have it up for that phase and the next one. Then, on cooldown, you miss only one damage phase, and catch the next one. If you fall below 46.67, then you miss this synchronization, which costs you a bunch of damage.

It looks like you’re sitting at 43.01%, which means you pretty much miss a damage phase on each WOTB pop, unless you wait an additional 16 seconds to get to the next damage phase. Both of these (wait, or pop WOTB out of sync with CoE) cost you a bunch of damage (at least 10%).

But, the way for you to get up to 46.67 is to roll AS on your Oathkeeper to CDR, and keep the CDR on your BoM. This costs you a half frame on your Frenzy, and 50% CHD, which collectively costs you about 12% damage.

If you switch to the CoE you mentioned, you can have both CDR and CHD, but you’d still have to reroll your OK to CDR, and you end up losing some damage from less Str and CoE not being at 200% (about a 4% damage loss).

Oof. Ok, you basically have 2 options:

  1. Maximize Wrath: Roll AS on OK to CDR, keep CDR on BoM.
  2. Maximize base damage: Keep AS on OK, roll CDR on BoM to CHD.

I would tend to favor the first approach, since having Wrath up more often not only gives you damage but also protects you from CC. But the second approach will also work. Just don’t mix-and-match the two. You either want to get your CDR above 46.67% (option 1), or just focus on increasing your damage (option 2).