The arsenal system as advertised in the videos for the barbarian was about a guy having multiple cool different abilities that they’d need to pull out different weapons for. A really awesome idea.
currently, the arsenal system is held back by the fact that its difficult to make this work better than just focusing on a single weapon type and then utilizing the other weapons as stat sticks to buff your preferred weapon: Weapon specialization quadruples down on this by encouraging you to care only about one single weapon type.
How do you feel the arsenal system is currently working in its state compared to how its advertised?
What are your views on ways to make the arsenal system more interesting/workable, and what would be your dream list of changes to it if you were in charge?
6 Likes
I’ve been enjoying the rhythm of Lunge, HotA, Deathblow. I think they work really well together as part of the arsenal system.
Lunge is a mobility skill so it’s not about doing damage with it. I set this to Dual Wield.
HotA is 2h bludgeoning ofc, but it’s also my big boom AoE. Most importantly, it’s a fury spender.
Deathblow with the Wrath aspect which gives you up to 200% more damage on your next Weapon Master ability after spending 100 fury makes the rotation make sense. I set DB to 2h slashing.
Lunge to target, spend 100 Fury with HotA, drop a fully buffed Deathblow on something. Easy to maintain since HotA fueling DB is natural, and DB gives berserking. And lunge just fits in cause it lets you zip around.
This also works smoothly with Rend in the place of HotA, but Rend’s range is lacking so I’d swap out Wrath aspect for the Overkill unique so that Deathblow helps shore up the AoE side of things.
The other way you could go with Arsenal is to lean into Brawling skills. Leap and Charge can be set to any weapon which means they’re very flexible. Charge has a bit of a long CD, but Leap has a fair amount of aspect support out there and you can lower it’s CD or reset it with the Stomp/Kick aspect. Pretty easy to have Leap available every 6 seconds.
If I could change anything:
1- Walking arsenal passive could give +attack speed
2- 1000 steps could cast stomp after you change weapon X times instead of having 30s CD
3- Steel Grasp should use a Weapon
3 Likes
Currently walking arsenal doesnt work because no end game barb can afford to use deathblow and eat up a skill slot. Even with the aspect deathblow dmg sucks.
Fun for lvling.
Steel Grasp needs to be able to use a weapon. Though I suspect blizzard’s testing says that’s too powerful for barbarian. We can’t have 100% uptime for Walking Arsenal.
I just find it strange Steel Grasp has a unique. That Unique should of been a legendary aspect instead. While the Hammer of the Ancient aspect should of been a Unique.
4 Likes
ive got walking arsenal on a 100% uptime, im using frenzy (rmb) and lunging strike with whirlwind. im enjoying it a lot since it gains fury super fast while also quickly lowers iron maelstroms cool down.
Im pretty much built for arsenal and dblow. Dblow feels fine depending on how you gear. I use that cc crit aspect that gives you 20% crit on injured along with mortal draw. This makes dblow have about a 80% crit chance for me on injured enemies. I have 500%+ crit damage so i see 2-3 mil crits (i use 2h sword).
Thats a lot of crit dmg! Wowza. Using 3 swords?
It’s fine. Leap/ Kick / Groundstomp. Use groundstomp and kick to reset Leap with the Boundless Leap Aspect. Kicks also provide vulnerability and groundstomp provides CC.
Deathblow for second weapon type.
Core Skill: HOTA.
No basic skills since leap and groundstomp both provide fury and you have almost infinite leap since both kicks and groundstomp reset leap cooldown. Use aspects that refund fury for more fury. Run taunt or Iron Skin for survivability.
Leap quakes from an Aspect also provide damage reduction. Since brawling skills and Deathblow can be specced to give berserk, you’re perma-berserked in combat.
When and why do you use frenzy/lunging strike?
From a leveling standpoint I don’t care for it. Some abilities only allow certain weapon types and if you don’t have a good weapon in that slot you basically don’t spec for/use that ability.
Endgame, I dunno, but it feels like whatever weapons drop kind of dictate what spec you’re going to run until you find better ones or enough to put together whatever build you WANT to run. I don’t necessarily feel this restriction on other classes.
Maybe some unique weapons have great stats or special things on them and being able to essentially have four weapon slots when most classes have one is good, but the class is also balanced around that and barbarians seem to be underperforming severely at max levels other than one specific build so it must not be all that great.
I think they could just make the Walking Asernal passive a build-in mechanic for barb, it would solve a lot of problems. Maybe with some additional number adjust on other passives and skill for balanced.
1 Like
No, 2x maces for stun. Just optimized endgame gear. Crit on everything possible. I have a crazy amulet with 3 to the heavy handed passive and 3 hard points which gives a 30%x crit multiplier.
Because of the iron maelstrom buffs, crit is the best way to build its damage as they buffed its crit chance and gave it a crazy 40%x multiplier. I run the 80% damage to stunned enemies on my 2h and since maelstrom’s first hit stuns it does good damage. With the wrath glyph and its aoe radius it gives you full fury on use as well.
Sigh… the dirty things i could do with a grandfather…
1 Like
frenzy is my basic using dual wield because its fast and gives extra damage reduction, lunging is using my 2h hammer so i can stick to enemys more easily. i also have them both at rank 1 so i can use those points on other passives.
swapping between both quickly builds fury quickly along with the furious impulse passive that gives an extra 6 fury per swap and also lowers my iron maelstrom cooldown.
i like the idea of using walking arsenal and i tried different skill like deathblow or rupture but the cooldowns on them were always too long and im set on using whirlwind so i didnt want to waste my fury on another core skill.
I’d love to incorporate deathblow or leap into my HOTA barb but I just can’t not use three shouts I mean which one do I drop? They are all so strong and have so many talents and stuff buffing them
IMO, replace weapon specializaton with a walking arsenal page as our special feature. Then pick between a number of different abilities you can get taken from both aspects and skill points, with you able to pick a few. (Like choosing things like additional damage, crit, fury, health, DR or cooldown reduction while you have walking arsenal up)
Definitly NO! It becomes a maintenence buff we need to keep up like berserk. Blizzard will balanace barbarian with 100% uptime in mind. Not all playstyle want to use Walking Arsenal or can’t at all.
I leveled my Barb from 50-100 with a Walking Arsenal and Death Blow build and can do NM T60+. People don’t know how to make builds.
1 Like
This is what happens when the development teams turnover multiple times.
We can only hope blizzard fixes this in S2. (s1 set in stone from a development perspective)
Messed around a bit with the Luckbringer aspect which gives you more lucky hit chance when all 3 arsenal buffs are up, I have a +30% one which puts HotA, Lunge, and Deathblow at 65% (they have a 50% base). Paired it with Frostburn gloves (25% chance to freeze) and the Butcher’s Cleaver (Lucky Chance: 100% on Crit to fear and slow). And ofc 3/3 in Concussion (45% chance to stun with a 2h bludgeoning weapon).
Lot of CC.
I dunno how I feel about it just yet, feels like there’s something good there, but gotta spend more time with it.