Hello everyone,
Does anyone know if there a reason why HOTA feels so bad against single targets? I mean i can shred every pack of mobs like there is nothing but suddenly when there is one isolated elite (i’m talking about tier 50+ dungeons), its not rare to have to strike 10 times to kill him. Sometimes i strike 10 time without killing, and i get killed. Then i respawn, strike him 2 times and boom… a single hit takes 90% of his health for some reason and he’s dead. Why, just why? Is it because HOTA struggles with crit chance as it is a single hit? So when there are multiple ennemies around, crit chance is not an issue? I dont get it. It feels so inconsistent and bad.
Bosses are the same story, sometimes it feels like 0 damage is dealt and suddenly out of nowhere a single hit takes 20% of his life… (it is crit, is it overpower, is it a registration of hit, is it a bug … there is no indication on screen with coloured numbers)
Other informations
- initially i thought it was a crit chance issue then i took the potion to increase it, which makes it close to 60% but no, same issue…
- i tried removing the aspect of ancestra force aspect to see if it was causing the problem (thinking it was more an aoe issue) but its exactly the same problem without it.
- i have over crit damage 350%, vuln damage 370%, crit chance 30% and use 2h sword expertise for bleeding + bleeding makes vulnerable from skill tree so ennemies are always vulnerable.
- from paragon, i have roughly +30% against vuln, +30% when fortified (i am always from aspects), +20% crit damage with core, +20% damage with hammers (ish). I dont think its a damage issue, i have 0 issues with packs, even when there are elits within it.
- It’s my first diablo game so i picked barb as i thought it would be simple and effective. But the experience with this class was plain painful since the beginning. I started with rend and ended up switching to HOTA at level 70 because it was doing no damage at all. Overall this class is just not fun. I regret chosing it and requires motivation to keep playing to be honest.
Thanks for help 
and sorry for my broken english, i’m not native
2 Likes
Not sure what you mean by bleeding makes enemies vulnerable. There are five ways to proc vulnerable for Barbs: (1) Exploit glyph - only 3 second window per 20 seconds but guaranteed on direct damage (not bleeds), (2) Pressure Point passive - core skills have 30% chance on Lucky Hit (50% base chance with HOTA + gear affix bonus) to proc vulnerable (BAD), (3) Flay - 30% chance to proc vulnerable, (4) Expose Vulnerability - use a mastery skill and your next core skill will proc vulnerable for 3 second window (with 3/3 skill points invested - yuck), (5) Steel Grasp - guaranteed vulnerable every time, 11 second cooldown with 2 charges by default (8 seconds if you max out cooldown reduction from gear). I like Steel Grasp for dependability although it’s a clunky skill so you have to learn how to use it. Also means you forego Iron Skin, which should be fine in NMD 50-60.
Generally I’ve found the major swings in HOTA power are (1) did you hit with the shockwave, (2) are they vulnerable, (3) did you crit, (4) are you max fury with limitless rage at full? You need all of those conditions for a nice HOTA hit. In addition, you can stun them and get retribution aspect benefit (x40%) and also if you use basic skills you can build up to x30% from expectant. It’s A LOT of conditions to get that 50M+ hit (assuming you have the gear / paragon), usually a nice hit for me means 10-20M (more than enough for anything in NMD 50-60 range) and you can usually also get 2 in a row. But sometimes the stars align and I do get 40-50M.
I meant i use “cut to bone” to increase bleeding effect on vuln targets.
Well from what i understand, there are too many conditions to achieve for a nice HOTA hit. Most of the time i am at max fury and target is vulnerable. I believe my problem is crit chance, wich is quite low. Since HOTA hit itself is slow, i think crit chance needs to be 100% for hits to be consistent. Anyways, thanks, i made my mind to switch to rogue in Season 1 and never go back to barb, it’s too complex
Cheers
If you run the right aspects, use Two-Handed Sword Expertise to create an auto bleed while attacking with a Mace, put ranks in pit fighter and no mercy, put just one point in hamstring to create slowed or “crowd controlled” effect, use all three shoults one the build, use Inbridaled Rage, and use the Exploit glyph to make everything vunerable, raise critical strike with the Wrath Glyph, use Marshal Glypg to lower you shoult cooldowns, use crush glyph to increase mace damage, use Territorial glyph to increase damage on all close enemies, then make sure each item has at least 2 or 3 of the bonus damage to everything I just said, you can get some really high damage hits. But you will have to do ALL I just mentioned, and rely on crit, so its never going to just Bam Bam on every swing, but the build can definitly hang in there. HOTA does have holes in it so it would be a disaterous mistake to nerf it like WW. After that nerf it’s really the only viable build other than a rend build which lacks pretty bad. Players complain in pvp because they may get hit by that random crit but the is a PVE game and it will break the class completely to change HOTA s current state. Not to mention its normally lvl 100s running around the pvp zone frustrating people. its the lvl for the most part. I seen a Scorcerer the other day make people cry in was a Barb never could.
pretty much what jal said. Most of the time ill build everything up, then hit boss with a lunging strike to proc vuln and still have all bonuses ready, then use hota. instead of wasting a big hota hit just to proc vuln(from exploit glyph) and missing out on that big damage boost. Having to rebuild bonus up wastes a good second of the 3 sec vuln time.
i honestly assume your suffereing from not having vuln up when you think you do. Barbs struggle to keep it up unless you use specific skills. Which is hard to fit in when you need to have 3 shouts on your bar. Pressure point is only 30 percent chance on a 50 percent lucky hit. heres a example of how often it will proc vuln
Pressure point: Lucky hit: your core skills have up to 10% chance to make enemies Vulnerable for 2 seconds.
So in order to trigger that effect now you must use a core skill. Lets say you attack with Upheaval. That skill only has a 20% Lucky hit chance.
If Upheaval had 100% lucky hit chance every hit would give you a 10% chance to make enemies vulnerable, but since Upheaval is only 20% lucky hit chance, it’s only 1/5 of that 10% vulnerable chance effect.
So using Upheaval (20% lucky hit chance) will only grant you 2% chance to make enemies vulnerable on every hit instead of the full 10% chance effect.
Then i assume your talking about hamstring and cut to the bone when you said you have vuln up all the time. They proc from your 2 handed sword expertise but hamstring only slows the target making it take extra damage from damaged to slowed or crowed controlled. and cut to the bone only increases bleeding damage on vuln targets, but it does nothing if the target doesn’t already have vuln on it.
Short simple answer. Lack of ways to keep vulnerable up and our low crit chance.
Unless the target is vulnerable HOTA damage is pretty weak. Exploit and Pressure Point help keep vulnerable up. But in my experience there is some kind of bug where Exploit glyph sometimes only lasts 1 second and then I’m stuck just doing mediocre damage until vulnerable procs again.
Even with the best gear our base crit sits around ~40-50% with modifiers on situations increasing it.
If there were more ways to keep vulnerable up and get closer to 100% cc with Lunging Strike/HOTA I think HOTA would be in a better spot, but as it is now it’s very RNG.
ahhhhhhhh thanks that must be it. I did some testing and you are right, when i fight a boss i dont trigger vuln. Ill try triggering it with everything that does help. I has 3 points in pressure point that i removed and didnt notice any difference. It makes sense since HOTA is a unique attack so the 30% chance is bad anyways (but it was super good when i used rend). Thanks