New player here and I decided to go Barbarian. My friends are also new players and they rolled Sorcerer and Rogue. Shockingly, my friends have died less than 3 times and are sitting at around level 30 on tier 1. I am also on tier 1 at level 16 and I’ve probably died at least 50 times in the early game boss battles. I keep getting overwhelmed in the later phases of the battle. I know they nerfed the Barbarian just before release so I’m seeking advice- should I soldier on with this build or just scrap it and roll a different class? Does Barbarian get better? Because at this point, Barbarian is just not fun for solo play.
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Yes and again YES YES… lol
I have created 4 classes so far, Barbarian by and large is the WORSE class especially with Damage. Your better off playing a Necromancer, its making mincemeat of every dungeon so far. With the Barbarian, i’m lucky to even complete since they bosses just tear me apart.
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Is that in the later difficulties? I have no issue completing stuff in 1 and 2 pre 50.
I had a bit of trouble with my barbarian feeling squishy and relying on potions far more than the druid or sorcerer I had made before him. But two things:
- Barbarian is a melee class and stands in the middle of things far more than my sorcerer or druid (who at least periodically shoves things away with a boulder).
- The squishiness was my fault for being so wrapped up in the concept of damage I had not picked up reasonable amounts of the powers which directly mitigate damage (Fortify is your friend and healing is always good) or do so indirectly (stunned enemies deal no damage and slowed ones have trouble keeping up and so cannot hit you).
Appreciate that you are in a more life draining situation than ranged classes and make use of your survival tools.
Oh, btw…I have mostly played my barbarian solo. I did all of Act 2 solo and am halfway through Act 3 solo. Only non-solo he has done was when I went to help a friend starting a newbie rogue.
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Druids and Barbarians are having bad time leveling till like 50
So ABSOLUTELY NOT the case on my druid. He is a storm summoning, boulder rolling god. Frankly I am amazed Lightning Storm got buffed. It was already good.
I main Barb, you did not choose wrong. And besides, it’s way more badass to master the class no one is good at.
Soldier on. Use Iron Skin with the healing perk to get you through those boss fights. Need more mob clearing? Use Frenzy with Upheaval and make sure to choose the skill perk that builds Upheaval damage up to 10x per basic skill hit. Hit, hit, hit, hit, hit, dash, Upheaval.
I started T2, currently level 53 and entering T3, died no more than five times.
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Ok i was feeling great about barb other day. Today i feel like im swinging a wet noodle while wear paper amour what the hell did you do. World tier one that felt easy is now a challenge with popular build taken from internet. Now i feel like getting a refund if wt1 is that hard for me now i stand no change on hardest dificilty. Feel like i wasted my time on this toon . Blizzard you left me frustrated.
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Thanks for the encouragement my friend 
Find a rotation that works for you, build your gear stats and legendary perks around your abilities, and if you feel yourself lacking in defense or offense, refund certain skills and try others in their place until you find a good balance.
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I have a Barbarian who is almost 20 but now I’m thinking about starting over with a Sorceress instead; there’s too much work for a puny amount of damage and inability to generate Fury, forcing you to just basic AA most of the time. Meanwhile, other classes can just spam abilities with impunity. Blizzard really should have play tested this class better.
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Barbs are quite squishy early on, once you get to 25-ish and start getting some complimenting skills (like OS10 said), you will find survivability and damage increasing. I am into the 40s now with a blend of shouts, thorns, and bleed. Shouts give me (and party) damage reduction, resource generation, fortify etc… I can pretty much stand in the middle of most boss/elite fights on T2 and rotate my skills through safely, with an odd potion to cover missed issues or lack of AoE damage awareness. I don’t really encourage cookie-cutter skill builds, as you need to find a build you enjoy, but there are videos etc that can give you an idea or inspiration for a blend of builds or key skills/passives… We aren’t the biggest damage class, but we are a good class I think, just make sure to put plenty of points into your passives to support the character 
Good luck and happy clobbering
Nah i rerolled to Barb from necromancer. Necro is by far the worst class in the game. Barbs hit world first 100. It’s extremely strong in the mid and late game.
I actually did quit Barb briefly and leveled a Rogue to 24, then went back to Barb just because I wanted to give it an honest chance. I quit in the 30s (for like an hour, out of frustration)
I knew it was going to be a slog, but yeah it feels REALLY bad and I was playing with friends on other classes that were not struggling.
I’m at 56 now and it’s a blast playing with HotA. I finally just said forget these online builds, just figured it out myself and worked off what gear I had and how I wanted to play… and it’s actually better and more fun.
Once you solve some of your fury issues and also get your gear sorted out, it’s quite fun. I can tell you that at 56, I’m hitting incredibly hard and frequently. I’m much more on par with my main partner, a Rogue, and have loads of utility. I actually enjoy it now.
I still think it’s designed poorly if it feels that bad at low levels but all I know is right now I love it and I’m so glad I stuck with it.
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The barb is fine. A lot of players have a misconception of the barb being some kind of tank and it’s not. You have to kite enemies just like the other classes do. If you stand there and let yourself get surrounded or try to go toe to toe with bosses, you will die very fast. You have to think about how you approach enemies. Blindly charging in with no plan will result in you dying over and over again unless you have some really good legendary gear, and even then you will probably die. I avoid death by constantly moving and using AOE attacks when enemies are grouped together. I have only died a couple of times and that was only because I wasn’t paying attention to my health and didn’t pop potions when I should have.
My first char was a barb and I got so fed up I deleted him and rerolled. Complete garbage class.
Barbarian is very clunky to play and you need to spend time to understand what the beep is going on. I play a Lunging Hammer build and it is fun but it took some time to understand how to play and what gear to use. Barbarian feels too much gear dependent in this game and it feels like the devs balanced the whole ability tree towards whirlwind, and then they nerfed it…