Hail all,
I've been trucking along with my Barbarian who just finished Normal, but the Nightmare champion packs had their way with me.
Due to the low monster hitpoints on Normal difficulty, I feel the best skill at your disposal was cleave with the runestone "Rupture". This domino effect of death was clearing 10+ enemies with just a swing or two. Enemies in Nightmare no longer died in a single hit, so cleaving was obviously not going to win the day here.
I've found this build to be my answer. It's really working well by building up defenses with War Cry and Leap, then stunning enemies and drawing them in with Groundstomp and rending them to the face. Bloodthirst really makes this work as you'll still be taking a lot of damage. For single target damage I found Hammer of the Ancients to be the perfect way to unload rage.
We'll see how he progresses through Nightmare. How are your Barbarians doing, and what skills have you been using?
*Update 1 - New build, along with better gear has made Nightmare so much easier. Focused less on rage building/spending skills and instead more on damage and defense. Went back to cleave with rapture- the death splash damage is just too good. I switched out Rend with Overpower to save rage for Hammer of the Ancient. Lastly, I went with more armor from Nerves of Steel passive and 10% life bonus and life regen with the WarCry runestone "Invigorate". The life regen along with bloodthirst is really nice during battle, love seeing my health drop only to fill back up!
*Update 2 - Night and day, is the difference when I changed to this build. I greatly underestimated Seismic Slam- it's decent damage, low rage, and more importantly pushes back mobs. Diablo 3 seems to have a lot of scenarios where melee just can't take the hits, so Seismic Slam is the perfect moment to step back and do some damage from range. Earthquake is also a massive help with Champion packs, tons of external damage over time. Combine that with ignore pain that has the 20% life leech runestone, my survivability has gone through the roof. Breezing through Hell where before each champion pack was a hellish encounter.
*Update 3 - This is my new Inferno Tanking build and it's fairing much better for group play than any other build I've tried.
I've been trucking along with my Barbarian who just finished Normal, but the Nightmare champion packs had their way with me.
Due to the low monster hitpoints on Normal difficulty, I feel the best skill at your disposal was cleave with the runestone "Rupture". This domino effect of death was clearing 10+ enemies with just a swing or two. Enemies in Nightmare no longer died in a single hit, so cleaving was obviously not going to win the day here.
I've found this build to be my answer. It's really working well by building up defenses with War Cry and Leap, then stunning enemies and drawing them in with Groundstomp and rending them to the face. Bloodthirst really makes this work as you'll still be taking a lot of damage. For single target damage I found Hammer of the Ancients to be the perfect way to unload rage.
We'll see how he progresses through Nightmare. How are your Barbarians doing, and what skills have you been using?
*Update 1 - New build, along with better gear has made Nightmare so much easier. Focused less on rage building/spending skills and instead more on damage and defense. Went back to cleave with rapture- the death splash damage is just too good. I switched out Rend with Overpower to save rage for Hammer of the Ancient. Lastly, I went with more armor from Nerves of Steel passive and 10% life bonus and life regen with the WarCry runestone "Invigorate". The life regen along with bloodthirst is really nice during battle, love seeing my health drop only to fill back up!
*Update 2 - Night and day, is the difference when I changed to this build. I greatly underestimated Seismic Slam- it's decent damage, low rage, and more importantly pushes back mobs. Diablo 3 seems to have a lot of scenarios where melee just can't take the hits, so Seismic Slam is the perfect moment to step back and do some damage from range. Earthquake is also a massive help with Champion packs, tons of external damage over time. Combine that with ignore pain that has the 20% life leech runestone, my survivability has gone through the roof. Breezing through Hell where before each champion pack was a hellish encounter.
*Update 3 - This is my new Inferno Tanking build and it's fairing much better for group play than any other build I've tried.