Can someone explain to me how a full arsenal Barb is supposed to work?

Barbarian
1

I always wanted to play a full arsenal build with maelstrom and resets, but I can’t figure out how this is meant to work, perhaps someone can shed some light here.

Right now I’m around level 80, have mostly trash items with 2 exceptions that allowed me to play a rupture build, which only works as long as I’m not in a single-target fight (i.e. every day it’s worse as elite density drops).

So this is what I understand. This build requires 4 slots dedicated to attack spells: One with greathammer, one with greatsword, one with 1-handed weapons, and Maelstrom… so only 2 slots for defense/utility?

On top of that, there’s almost no unique support. I have looted the 100,000 steps boots but I also don’t understand it, stomp is cast on a 30 second cooldown… stomp is such a worthless spell and this item will cast it on 2-3 times the actual spell cooldown, and grant some negligible fury. And the cooldown only resets properly if you drop one of the weapon charges, if you are fighting all the time and never reset your charges you can’t take advantage of that it seems.

On top of that, this build only yields 45% damage if you keep up 3 buffs that last only 6 seconds, vs unbridled rage’s 135% damage that only requires offsetting 100% cost increase, which is not that hard to do…

What am I missing here?

2

Stomp is 15sec CD at rank 1 lol

3

Get rid of your basic attack. Use Rend as your generator Steel Grasp, Death Blow, Rupture, Iron Maelstrom, last slot for utility or defense. In return you can get permanent Vulnerable, Berserk and Fortify.

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4

Thanks a lot for the idea! Using all 3 mastery skills is something I never thought about.

EDIT: I’m watching the video and it struggles a lot, I can do tier 30 on my level 80 barb just fine using whirlwind and rupture so I would need a good excuse to swap to this build as it stands right now.

I will still give this one a try.

5

That was a Tier 31 as a level 75. The mobs were 10 levels higher and I wasn’t running Aspect of Disobedience when I recorded.

The build isn’t going to compete with WW. It’s not meant to. It’s more of a proof of concept that you can make a viable build without a basic and without stacking shouts and still be perfectly fine.

I see so many people crying about build diversity and not able to do this or that, this build is a giant middle-finger to them.

6

-Consider dropping Iron maelstrom.
-Go 3 shouts, Deathblow, Any combination of other attacks, could be double swing, hotA, Upheaval etc. Take into consideration your avaliable aspects/uniques
-Consider Charge - uses a weapon, gives unstoppable, can give berserker…

Arsenal specific aspects give you berserk, fortify , fury, Overpower, lucky hit.

7

Charge only gives you Unstoppable for a split-second and then you can get CC’ed again. It’s not viable in higher NM unless you are already stacking Reduced CC from Quick Impulses Passive and Fleeting paragon node.

8

It breaks CC, it is an extra. It is as an extra attack for cycling through weapons, it can start berserk, CC enemies, etc.

9

I’ve been using the Fitbit boots (100,000 steps) just for the earthquake/leap build. Basically, I’ve found that arsenal concept itself is meh compared to combining it with another. Using the leap quakes it starts to work.

Lvl 78 atm and can pretty easily clear lvl 90 nightmare dungeons. The damage feels better than the whirlwind build but I had to swap to iron skin (with the unstoppable aspect) to ensure I didn’t get slapped by CC in high dungeons. The build has solid AoE and is just a lot more fun than the whirlwind, hold-one-button, build.

I use Lunge, Leap, and any core skill to get the three weapon types (seriously any of em). The free ground stomp is just one more thing to reset the cd on leap.

10

I plan on testing a Leap/Charge/Stomp Quake build on another Barb once I get to 90 on my current one.

It looks like it could be a super fun, super mobile stompy boi.

11

Ooooh right, the video says level 10+ so I thought it was tier 10. The quest does say 31.

That brought a smile to my face actually. Thanks again for the contribution.

@bonemancer:
The whole point is USING MAELSTROM. If I wanted to use other stuff I wouldn’t use full arsenal, I’d probably go either with the berserk key passive or the one that grants 135% more damage for 100% cost.

12

But as you can perceive, the design of Arsenal limits you too much if you pick Maelstrom. Dropping the shouts is bad. You don’t have room for 3 attacks + Malestrom + shouts. If you are looking for THE BEST setup, you must include all shouts.

Edit: Also, Maelstrom is the worst of all ultimates.

Edit 2: Think about this:
Malestorm is just 3 attacks, but on a 60s cd. If you are using it, means you are not using all your other attacks that synergise: HotA, Deathblow, etc. Even if you want to have the Arsenal Passive AND have an ultimate, picking Wrath of Berserker is better.

13

You’re missing a few key points:

-there’s an aspect that gives fury gen, which can replace a shout, and another that gives huge lucky chance, plus a constant 45% global damage boost.

-the idea is to spam Maelstrom by constantly reducing its cooldown with ground slam AND by constantly swapping weapons/attacks - Maelstrom counts as 3 swaps itself. Each swap + dmg shaves 1 second of cooldown, and stomp gives you 1 sec per enemy hit.

I have a build I want to test with this, but I’d need to respec a bit. Might try it this weekend and see if I can Maelspam.

14

I’ve been playing a Maelstrom build using Stomp, Leap, Deathblow (want to get rid of this) with your choice of basic and core skill. Currently using Bash and Upheaval but I would like to use HOTA if I get any + skill for it. Current upheaval is level 10. You can get a ring aspect to reduce Leap to potentially 0 sec CD if you get like 10 levels of leap + some CDR. I just hit level 71 and so need to farm the ancestral rares that I need. I run an attack rotation that is leap, basic attack, upheaval, basic attack, deathblow, basic, upheaval and repeat.

16

you single-handedly are keeping the Copium stocks thriving, huff away!

17

Why do you NEED iron maelstrom? It’s just a damage skill. My build revolves around death blow and I just maintain the walking aresonal buffs. One day when I have time I’ll make a video about it. But I use bash, upheaval and dearhblow. I use dual maces for my dual wield aresonal trigger.

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18

I’m only 67 so I can’t say I know this will work on your level but right now my build has 2 spenders and it seems to work on WT4.

bash
whirlwind
double slice
ground stomp
war cry
iron maelstrom

abuse that 4 second stun on ground stomp to stab people with double slice, then whirlwind when it’s on cd. bash for more stuns if I’m low on fury.

19

Okay, I’ve been running the Arsenal Iron Maelstrom build and I’m lvl 73.

Skills

Lunge (DW)
Hammer of the Ancients (2h Bludgeoning)
Deathblow (2h Slashing)
Steel Grasp, Stomp
Iron Maelstrom

Elixir of choice: Curative Elixir. Reduces poison and negative effects by 50% (negative effects include CC).

I personally chose to build heavy into defensives since HotA and Deathblow produce a lot of damage with Vuln + Crit damage + their legendary aspects.

My notable defensive reductions are:
Damage reduction from Vulnerable: 13.4%
Damage reduction from Close enemies: 31.3%
Damage reduction from Bleeding: 11%
Damage reduction while Fortified: 33.4% (this will go higher when I go back to the Bonebreaker paragon board)
Also use Aspect of Might that grants 20% damage reduction when I use a basic skill for 5.5 seconds (not as good without a high duration roll, 5.5 seconds is about as long as an walking aresenal buff).

Key Aspects

Weapon Master’s Utility Aspect
Weapon Master skills have an additional charge and have a XX% change to stun for 2 seconds.

Aspect of Ancestral Force
HotA quakes outward dealing XX% of its damage.

Aspect of Retribution
Distant enemies have an 8% chance to be stunned when they hit you, and you deal XX% increased damage to stunned enemies.

100,000 Steps
When you trigger all key passives of Walking Arsenal you cast Stomp and gain XX fury. 30 second internal CD.

Notable Aspects

Aspect of Encroaching Wrath
After spending 100 fury your next Weapon Mastery Skill deals XX% more damage (up to 200% on perfect rolled piece)

Aspect of Unrelenting Fury
Killing an enemy with a Core skill refunds XX% of its base cost. Only triggers once per cast.

Mother’s Embrace
Hitting 5 or more enemies refunds XX% of the resource cost.

Aspect of Numbing Wrath
Each point of fury gained at max fury grants XX fortify. (This is one of the best fortify generators in the game if you choose to lean into fortify for defense).

You can use any Ultimate you prefer tbh. Iron Maelstrom does provide a few other benefits in this build – doing all three attacks instantly triggers the 100,000 Steps boots. The first attack is a wide conal stun. It inflicts bleeding. It hits the entire screen. It’s CD is reduced by weapon swapping. Looks cool af.

My second favorite to pair with this build is Call of the Ancients. Massive fury gen while your homies are out means you can spam HotA infinitely and have max Fortify the entire time. It’s fire and forget which mean you can pick out priority targets or group mobs with Grasp.

Skills and Paragon at 73 (I am missing 12 paragon points from renown, still working on it).
d4builds .gg/builds/5cd27ccb-7f6e-4745-972b-0e32b160a8db/ (please note the space after d4builds)

20

Thank you DeeBeep for the video/build link.

I had been working my way up as a Bleed build making use of Rend, Rupture, and Iron Maelstrom, and had been contemplating putting Death Blow into the build. Reaching WT3 on him last night, one of the first things to drop for him was 100,000 Steps.

Looking for information on 100,000 Steps brought me to this thread and your video. While I do not have some of the aspects you do, I think 100,000 Steps and the ones I do have are going to make me pretty happy. Just did a trial run without every aspect in place, just the bare bones and it is quite nice.

Thx!

21

I also run a walking arsenal build. d4builds .gg/builds/5d74962e-61fb-4646-b1fc-0872329cd0c6/ it tried to maximise luckbringer aspect.