Anyone try a Frenzy Barb, recently?

Barbarian
21

When you use Berserk Ripping aspect (while Berserk, [20-30]% of your direct damage dealt is added as additional bleed over 5sec), there is no need for the 2H sword technique, so it’s 2H axe for the added vuln-dmg.

Regarding weapon swapping, if you go Frenzy + Double Swing, you are just using 1H weapons all the time anyway, I mean I do, if you incorporate some other basic/core skill or one of the Brawling/Weapon Mastery skills that use a weapon, you can work with it.
Steel Grasp does not use a weapon (neither do the other skills I use), and absolutely in no way ever may hell freeze over I am gonna forego the utility it gives to a small-AoE, melee-limited class like Barb, not only enabling Berserk, Vulnerability, guaranteed Slow and possibly Stun (and thus, the relevant dmg-buckets), but it also gathers up enemies (especially those pesky ranged skirmishers) right in front of me where I can cleave through them all with DS (and any AoE, like the Barbers explosion, works to maximum efficiency).

About Lunging Strike, many players praise it especially for the built-in charge, and the maneuverability it adds. While that is surely true, I still think that with the attack speed of Frenzy, the boost to movement speed from berserk (afaik not improving the lunge in any way), and a constant use of evade (+), you can cover that area quite well.
(+)While I was a long time set on the opinion that the boots with additional evade charges were the best pick, I am now totally set on the “reduce evade cooldown per attack” ones. With the atk.sp. of Frenzy, and DS with buffs like the Accelerating aspect (+atk.sp. if your core crits), you can easily dash every other second constantly. Becomes especially fun with NMD mods like Nudging or Poison Dash. :grin:

22

Seismic Slam’s problem was that Boulder Toss basically beat it at everything.

23

Finding proper affix on gear slots is the major issue. Been looking for +weapon mastery damage on gear for the past 20 hours. I have not seen that affix at all. Damn blizzard and their “smart loot.”

24

Well, the crit and vul multis do apply like for everything else, but I understand what you mean, currently the basic skills are not really a reliable damage source. Although, with some basic skill dmg/atksp. mods on gear, plus 6 Topaz, you can produce somewhat respectable damage. The point is, how many utility does the basic skill provide at the same time?
First of all, all basic skills are fury generators, so for most builds, you have to rely on using your basic to fuel your core skills. So if you are using the skill anyway, adding damage to it might not be so bad, based on the frequenzy of use it might even turn out rather impressive. And since Frenzy goes for max atksp., imho it scales quite well given the circumstances. Not saying it should not be improved. :wink:
Then, Frenzy gives the dmg reduction, which is invaluable imo, I know there is reports of people saying it does not work, but for me, I can surely feel a difference when I happen to run out of Frenzy stacks.
Other stuff is proccs like lucky hits, or especially the devious heart that has a chance to knockdown all enemies if the skills atksp. exceeds x% scales extremely well with Frenzy (and is, like, mandatory for any build using Frenzy, imho). So I think there is still quite alot to take into consideration besides the “raw damage”. :thinking:

Disclaimer: I know, “raw damage” is the ultimate Meta, as dead enemies don’t do nothing, I just mean that you also have to consider how you are able to apply that “raw damage”, and regarding your playstyle and preferences, basics may offer alot to your build that makes it somewhat viable to boost their damage. :wink:

25

Lunging is superior to Frenzy in almost every way, with the exception of the damage reduction Frenzy provides. If you use Battle Trance, then Frenzy to build stacks, it becomes a way to utilize the damage reduction from Frenzy, but also boost Lunging’s (the better skill) attack speed. Lunging can use any weapon type, so you can also utilize the damage increase from Mortal Draw, and reduce IM cooldown like nobody’s business.

Frenzy (although it’s my favorite skill) is best used as utility in its current iteration. Lunging smokes it.

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I’m pretty confident that I’ve squeezed more damage out of a pure Frenzy build than anyone else who has documented their build on these forums. Just check the giant Frenzy thread.

You’re not maximizing the damage, brother. Crit, Strength, and Vuln are the biggest damage-scaling mods available.

You want to maximize those, then focus on building your additive bucket to as close to 1,000% as possible.

Ramaladni, a few aspects, Penitent Greaves, and Fists of Fate are the only other multipliers that affect Basic attacks.

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I cleared NM 93 with Frenzy (Battle trance Amulet) + Double Swing for vuln. I am a professional gamer.

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Casual now though, the goal is still to make it to NM 100 and pwn UL before the season ends. Fun thread.

29

Trying different setups so in no way bossy.

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Rob made a Frenzy video/build for Lilith. It works well, but it utilizes Kick for burst damage, Berserk, and Vulnerability.

Without The Barber and Berserk Ripping, it’s impossible. It’s probably very difficult without Kick too. The only viable replacement would be Steel Grasp, and you’d be sacrificing a lot of damage by removing the Kick nuke.

31

I guess it depends on what you’re trying to accomplish?

My eternal frenzy Barb can comfortably solo a level 75 NmD and that’s good enough for me for now. Frenzy, HotA, DB, Steel Grasp, Iron Skin, Threatening Shout. Crit hit, crit damage, ALL the Vulnerable, all the berserking, all the DR. Fists of Fate, Wallop passive node with a 1h mace/1h sword. 2h axe for big initial chop down and bleed apply with berserk ripping + aesthetics. 2h sword it’s probably more consistent tho.

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Frenzy is very viable on the Seasonal realm. I killed Uber Lilith with a Frenzy build. Used The Barber + Berserk Ripping for that build. Very strong, especially with +3 brawling skill ranks on your amulet and +4 ranks of Kick on your pants. Use Frenzy for your main damage, keep Berserking up as much as possible. Use Kick with the talent that makes it consume all your fury. Then grab the passive that gives you +3 seconds of berserking when you use a brawling skill (Kick is one of those skills). Use Butcher’s Cleaver + Ramaladni’s dual-wield, and you want the +50% attack speed aspect on 2h slashing weapon (sword is ideal).

Don’t use Battle Trance unique amulet – it’s a noob trap since the primary property on it is +attack speed for NON-FRENZY skills, and since Kick is your only other damage ability in this build besides Frenzy, and since Kick is a cooldown skill, the Battle Trance unique is literally a useless item for this build. On top of that, the amount of damage scaling per rank of Frenzy is much less than that of other Core skills (Frenzy is a basic skill and they get less +damage per additional rank compared to Core skills), making the +3 ranks of Frenzy on the amulet amount to a very small damage increase. In exchange, you have to give up 30% damage on your amulet from the lack of Edgemaster’s aspect (30% [x] more damage when your fury is full – which is so often is in this Frenzy build).

Wrath Glyph is very important in this build too, for fortify and fury generation. Frenzy generates 7 fury baseline at max stacks (4+3), and Wrath Glyph adds 3 more fury on crits (with 40% crit chance this is worth roughly 1.2 Fury per Frenzy attack on average). So we can say Frenzy generates about 8.2 fury per hit on average, before calculating additional resource generation like the 1.56x increase from your shout, or the usually 15-20% from willpower, and another roughly 20-36% possible from +res gen rolls on both of your rings. This means when you dump your fury with Kick, because of your high base fury generation with Frenzy plus the crazy attack speed of it, you are back to full fury very fast.

For your ultimate, I would use wrath of the berserker for another source of berserking, since if you’re not berserking you’re not able to apply bleeds from berserk ripping, which is where all your real damage comes from. So you want to use your shouts, wrath of the berserker, and Kick, to keep up berserking at all times if possible. Smart rotation between these abilities, plus getting lucky with Disembowel procs, means you can be in a state of berserking almost all of the time you’re in combat, giving you access to your full damage almost all the time. I love this build for the minimal downtime, and because kick makes stuff vulnerable, which really helps pump huge damage into bosses and elites.

Speaking of berserking, two of the best things you can do is get +berserking duration on your boots and amulet. You can also get it on pants, but you need DR while Fort, Total Armor, and DR from Close, leaving you room for only one last 4th stat. You’d be picking between +4 ranks of Kick or +30% berserking duration. It’s better to get +ranks of Kick on pants since it lowers the cooldown on your Kick ability, which is how you apply vulnerable if mobs don’t die within the 3-second Exploit glyph window.

You can get up to 31.5% duration to berserking on one roll on your boots. That makes your 3 second berserking duration after using kick turn into a 4 second berserking! 1 extra second of berserking uptime from Kick is 1 less second of downtime with no berserking before your shouts come back up or your next charge of Kick has cooled down. This is very important to the build too so wanted to mention it!

Enjoy!

33

How does lunge drop IM CD?

34

Direct Damage on weapon swap gives 1 sec IM CD. You can bind anything to Lunging making swaps fast.

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35

Ah ok it’s the swapping mechanic inherent to IM not LS specifically, thanks

36

Correct. Because you can bind it to any weapon and travel a short distance with the Lunge, if you have enough IAS you can swap very quickly. While the other Basic Skills may have the same animation iFrames, you are getting the advantage of the Lunge and not having to move potentially between enemies to get the benefit of the swap.

37

I was pleasantly surprised by the movement range and speed. Twas a nice add to my brawler build.

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38

The only thing I dislike about it is the stabbing animation for 2h slashing weapons. It should…you know…slash.

39

Bludgeoning feels like a mortal kombat move

40

Ok, so it doesn’t look like a ‘pure’ Frenzy build is viable. I agree lunging strike is far superior. Maybe I’ll have frenzy as my left click for the stacks then swap to lunging strike on right click.

Then I can mess around with 2 1-handers (still thinking twin axes) and a good heavy 2-handed pounder for lunging strike, (say maybe a big @$$ maul?). I like that 20% bleed from 2-handed swords, so use that as my technique.

Go full on Topaz x4 on weapons. Get any berserking skills. Skulls on ammy and rings (thinking outside of season 1 of course), and rubies in armor for extra life so I can go crazy on mobs. I love charge too much to get rid of it, so I will have that.

Hmmm. makes me wonder what season 2 will be all about, maybe the theme will allow for more versatile builds to flourish.