Serious question. I’ve googled around and everything I’ve found is struggling hard. I made a barb and leveled to 28 in WT1 and it’s just… terrible. Tried the thorns leveling build, a dumb frenzy build, and a few others. It just feels BAD to play this class.
I have to disagree, I leveled pretty effecticely to 50 using upheaval/deathblow. Its main advantage is that it doesnt require many (if any) specific aspects early on. Once you get to 50 i recommend switching to HOTA. It is easily one of the most cracked barb builds in the mid game and all you really need is the aspect that causes the Shockwave. I recommend frenzy for basic skill because the 24% DR when combined with the revenge heart and aspect that gives basic attacks DR is extremely strong and you will feel insanely tanky.
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why would you try gear specific builds like thorns while leveling up? And a meme frenzy build? Sounds like you’re going about this all wrong.
You can go lunging strike - rend(fury back on hitting things) - ground stomp (40 fury rune) - iron skin healing - steelgrasp with vuln application - iron maelstrom
This works without any aspects at all, you won’t be super quick but gets the job done. Move around with lunging strike, group things up with steelgrasp and to apply vuln to elites. Iron skin when low hp. Iron maelstrom when there’s lots of things spread out, can use this freely as you get the cooldown back quick (change lunging strike to use dual wield so you alternate weapons for iron maelstrom cd and I also took walking arsenal early)
You also have HotA which works too, you just need to do the dungeon with the hota aspect and then put it on an amulet or something
Upheaval/deathblow is okish
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Rend and HotA are a couple of the easier to support (in terms of fury gen).
Grab Leap with fury on hit and Stomp with fury on hit. A ring with Umbral on it will be a big help.
Something like Lunge, HotA/Rend, Leap, Stomp, Rallying Cry, Iron Maelstrom is going to do okay as a fairly unsupported build (meaning without a bunch of legendaries).
If you get a good bold chieftans ring then you open up things with shouts. That’s what I ended doing since I got one early on. WW with the malignant picana vicious gem is very decent for leveling. Electrify everything and let it melt. It’s starting to taper off for me now (lvl 64).
All that said, nothing on the barb side of things will feel anywhere as good as necro, rogue, or druid.
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I leveled a Rend build to 50 and actually am using it still. I modified the ones found online a bit and really focused on synergy with bleeds.
The one thing I flip between is Deathblow vs Rupture. Since bleed can essentially tick down and kill an elite or boss over time without a second hit I wind up having to kite around and waiting. Rupture puts an end to that as it essentially removes the ticks, and deletes the mob.
However, the one downside is farming is painful. I get envious watching others mops up the floor and scoot along while I am busy building and rending and waiting…
Call of the Ancients is great on bosses and elites, you just have to pretend you are nude and kite everything around all the time and be willing to do alot of running back to pick stuff up.
Not looking forward to T4.
This sounds like the exact description of Barbarian. Patient, willing to flee, and reliant on not hitting enemies with weapons.
Good job, D4 team!
Eternal 100 and 65, seasonal 61 and climbing.
Right now, with the punishing speed malignant heart makes a frenzy/double swing build pretty easy to level. Knock everything on it’s back and get free double swings to finish it.
Pick up ground stomp for defense and more free double swings, use disobedience (it sucks now but it still helps) to build defense. Get iron warrior aspect and now your iron skin gives unstoppable as well as more damage resistance.
So now it’s frenzy, double swing, ground stomp, and iron skins.
Last two skills can be whatever. I picked leap for the AoE slow and kick for more stuns.
I actually used that build a long time. The only thing I changed is from frenzy to bash as I have so many forms of long stuns I don’t need the knockdowns from the malignant hearts. Bash isn’t as good as lunge, but it does come with the ability to build fortify off stunned targets so it works well enough.
I use walking arsenal as capstone, so that 100 steps gives me another stun. Oh, and audacity gives me another stun to work with. Speaking of stuns…
Bash w/ Concussion
Ground Stomp
100K Steps Ground Stomp
Audacity
Kick into walls
Makes lots of stunned targets, so if you use it properly you stay at full fury, which works great with a Ramaldnis.
Anyway, TLDR: Leveling a barb isn’t as easy as the others but possible
Agreed, making the best of a bad situation
Double-Swing is actually really easy to level and build with, especially with new Malignants. It is fast paced and does not require 3 Shouts which is great because Shouts feel terrible until you get max roll Aspects, Paragon, and CDR.