Curious if any Barb mains discovered any optimal builds for leveling without relying on legendary powers.
If so, what and why?
I tried a few variations and am most likely going with WW for mobility but the thorns build caught my eye.
Personally I would recommend checking out the legendary powers that are available in the codex and design a build around those. After learning them from the dungeons you can rely on having them and imprint them on rares whenever you want. (assuming you have mats)
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I used these builds for all betas. They are good beginner builds. Specially the double swing against single targets.
There’s, some hidden gems along the skill tree, like outburst+tough as nails (defensive area) + hamstring (weapon master area), a single point in each, lets you inflict bleed AND slow anything that touches you. Add on top of that some points on no mercy (WM area again)… And now you have 9% extra crit chance for 5 secs against anything that touches you, forever.
Not to mention that its a pasive way to increase stagger on bosses.
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I did a barb the last two betas and end game beta. I like Lunging strike for the builder. This lets you charge from mob to mob quick and hits like a truck. You can spec into this to heal you 2% hp for hitting a healthy enemy. Then for the spend just use HOTA. Its nice just for a aoe clear but you can just left click stuff to death if you scale lunging strike.
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I had a bash build with double swing that was wonderful and cleared just fine in decent gear. Apart from that thorns is a easy way to suppliment any of the builds very easy to scale it to very high dmg numbers.
I used Lunge with Deathblow. It carried me through WT2 in the last couple betas just fine without any Boss problems (I did not play end-game beta). Of course I used Ground Stomp, Iron Skin and Leap as well. Pretty much one shotting every non-boss mob and was able to destroy dungeon bosses just fine.
I’m just hoping we see some build diversity and not a lot of cookie cutter setups running around.
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Yep I used Lunging Strike - Hammer of the Ancients - Death Blow - Then I got Aspect of Ancestral Echos and switched to Upheaval. Lunging Strike is my new Favorite, did a lot of my killing with it alone using a 2 hander.
A suggestion for a no legendary might be the Thorns passives for a little help along the way, they got nerfed but I’ve seen they still work.
For Barb it looks as though every core skill has a build around it. Barb seems to have some decent choices. I’ve used HOTA, Upheaval, Rend w/thorns (B4 the nerf) so far.
Need to look at double swing (which has an odd animation) and WW.
cant go wrong with rend early game. once you have more fury to play with you can go into WW no problem. going WW without some fury help I think is not optimal.
as a stepping stone double swing can be pretty good. Low fury cost, sets up vulnerable for deathblow/charge as example. knocked down enemies give fury back you can spam double swing on downed enemies.
from there its a matter of deciding if you want shouts, how many or stomp/leap/charge. shouts are better for bosses and the others are better for clear. depends on the build of course shouts is good for WW
My main curiosity was a build that does decent damage and doesn’t need to be rerolled for viability while leveling.
I wouldn’t want to waste time, gold and mats to reroll my blue or yellow gear to thorns as an example.
I tried to mimic d2 frenzy / double swing build, but it was horrific at multiple targets. Upheval or ww seemed great. I didn’t play with hota too much since it didnt mow down large groups the way I would want.
What barb build is everyone planning to level with prior to legendary drops?
rend first levels, then double swing I think. both of them do fine without legendaries. other builds might to but I think these are safest at start. around level 40-50 I start heading into either WW or Hota. from 60+ im going all in for a hota build.
you dont need to reroll.
what really is the main deciding factor between like 25->40ish is what items drop. If leap lego drops that adds 500% dmg to it, Im going double swing leap. No rerolls just letting new gear replace the old. legendary drop is a huge enough power swing in its own. No need to min max everything just after. If WW item drops I go WW. You wont be able to choose your drops. so you can be a bit flexible until legendaries start raining from the sky then head for your intended build.
I’d recommend trying to get vulnerable procs and berserker procs as a barb. Vulnerable priority. Except for that can pick most skills and it will work, unless you try something weird like only thorns and nothing else build. if you run out of fury there is skills for that, if you die you have huge mitiation skills, if you want mobility we have that.
Well here’s my plan - I hope it helps :
Main Skill : Frenzy
Frenzy since on 3 stacks you can generate extra 2 rage per hit + the overall attack speed is good not to mention the fact you get some 24% dmg reduction while with 3 stacks of frenzy.
Core Skill: Hammer Of The Ancients.
It costs you only 35 fury and on top of that with enhanced hammer of the ancients you get 1 stack of 3% more fury generation per enemy hit - so pretty good for rage generation with frenzy.
But the REALLY COOL part is Furious Hammer Of The Ancients: For every unspent point of fury you get the same amount of bonus % dmg. So if I have 100 fury I got 100% more dmg. So essentially I would do 200% on max fury, 165% next and 130% on next.
Highly advise you to go to 100 fury , pump one hammer, get back your rage with frenzy asap, pump another one , and another one. Essentially you doing 200% on every hammer hit ever 2 secs.
Works like mad with Challenging Shout when being hit you generate extra rage vs huge groups and of course with Rallying Cry.
Here’s the really sweet part. Your Paragon Board will let you have up to 200 fury from paragon skills and maybe your gear will put that up to 220-250 fury ?? Not sure how much the gear will increase but you get a minimum of 200 fury from paragon for sure.
So that means you get 300% dmg from hammer of the ancients on max fury max level - At least. That’s counting before Wrath of the Berserker - with Wrath - you definately gonna hit some 800% Diablo Immortal meme value % with the Unconstrained Perk.
And I just advise you invest in passives in general and go for the 3 shouts challenging, war cry and rallying cry + raid leader and booming voice.
Main idea is put passives for survavability on top of passives combined with passives for dmg and Wrath Of The Berserker for the giga ultra dmg. Simple 2 ability build for PvE and leveling with 3 defensives + 1 ult.
Rend with rupture using a two handed sword. Flay or lunging strike as your generator.