Nightmare and Beyond

[MonTy]

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.

[Taelas]

I haven't fiddled around with skills too much, but this is the build I completed Normal Mode with:

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/ba...!ZcY!baZaZ

I'm 32 as well.

[MonTy]

...but this is the build I completed Normal Mode with...

How sweet is Revenge? I had a hard time dropping it, really was one of my favorite skills in normal. In Nightmare I'm trying out Rend instead, since I open with it after nabbing everyone with ground stomp.

I've just tried out the passive skill Animosity, and now I don't want to get rid of it. Really nice having 120 Fury and the increased generation is noticeable.

[Taelas]

I've only done the first couple quests until you rescue Cain on Nightmare. I also don't really have a frame of reference for how good my gear is, but I haven't had any problems playing as I did on Normal. Of course, the hardest I've fought so far are the quest bosses up to that point, and a champion pack or two. So far, Revenge works just fine.

I have 510 Strength, 251 Vitality, 232 Dexterity, 1045 Armor, and 432.65 DPS if that helps. (I also have 86 Intelligence, but I don't think that helps much.)

[MonTy]

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, and the damage seems comparable. 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!

[Bolty]

I'm playing a Barbarian as my first character, but I'm only just starting Act III normal. Thus, I have questions for my fellow more-experienced Lurkers:

1) Revenge. Great ability, but what is the "giveaway" that you're ready to use it? I feel like I need Power Auras or something to yell at me that Revenge is up and ready to blow something away with. There has to be something more than just the button lighting up on my skill bar.

2) Do you forsee Barbarians becoming "tanks" in the traditional sense of damage-soakers in later difficulties? Just looking at various skill combinations, plus the use of shields, seems to imply that it would be a viable route when grouping in Inferno difficulty. I still haven't figured out how aggro works in Diablo III, but it feels like mobs stick pretty well to the players who damage them first. As a Barbarian, if I'm running ahead and engaging enemies earlier than my ranged partners, I seem to be able to provide them a lot of cover.

3) Is Frenzy as awesome later on as it seems now? Any time I'm fighting a single boss-type, I switch to Frenzy and just wail on the poor thing once it's built up to a 5 stack. It let me own the heck out of Belial last night. But if fights later on become more hit-and-run because standing in melee range of anything too long is a death sentence, then this skill is not going to stand up.

[Taelas]

I haven't seen any other indicator for Revenge than the button lighting up. It's a 15% shot every time you're hit, so it's only really in groups you'll see it.

I've been doing a lot of hit-and-run style in the later acts of Normal and act 1 of Nightmare, especially on the Skeleton King (who is the toughest boss I've faced yet, though I joined my brother's Wizard for the fight and skipped finding the crown). I imagine with a more defensive/survivable style, Frenzy is the go-to for bosses, but for now, I much prefer Cleave with the Rupture rune, simply because most of the stuff is packs.

There's a lot of defensive stuff for Barbarians, but whether a tank is an effective play-style... I want to say 'yes,' but I haven't tried it.

[MonTy]

My only suggestion for Revenge is to bind it to your 2nd mouse button, it stands out more than your row hotkeys. As far as aggro goes, I was led to believe they target the closest person and that there's no real aggro percentage. I'm not 100% sure but that is what I've been told by other players.

Funny you mention Frenzy and Belial. I just cleared him on Nightmare a minute ago- had to change my build for that encounter and frenzy played a large part in being able to get hits in while I can and run out. He's a tough SOB on nightmare, that's for sure. It's my first death on a Boss and I'm glad they start you from the beginning of an encounter when you die (and no teleports!).

[Kevin]

As far as aggro goes, I was led to believe they target the closest person and that there's no real aggro percentage. I'm not 100% sure but that is what I've been told by other players.

That seems to be my experience from playing a witch doctor. I can AoE some stuff at range and it will come at me, a barbarian charges in afterwards and they stop coming for me. My minions would cause the same effect. I think the one caveat is that you need to do damage (or heal) to get noticed or at least with the minions. Just getting a zombie dog or gargantuan closer to the mob via a recast doesn't seem to change them over to it until they have hit it.

So I think it might be as simple as "aggro is held by the nearest target that has done damage." There are of course some randomly targeted secondary attacks on bosses it seems (the skeleton king charge for example), and random target AoE attacks or "floor efffects" which should be familiar to any former WoW player and were around in D2 as well.

So ranged mobs will often attack ranged toons that may have initiated combat because the melee range toons AoE didn't hit them.

There may be some sort of aggro threshold but I haven't observed one in game yet.

[Treesh]

As far as aggro goes, I was led to believe they target the closest person and that there's no real aggro percentage. I'm not 100% sure but that is what I've been told by other players.

That seems to be my experience from playing a witch doctor. I can AoE some stuff at range and it will come at me, a barbarian charges in afterwards and they stop coming for me. My minions would cause the same effect. I think the one caveat is that you need to do damage (or heal) to get noticed or at least with the minions. Just getting a zombie dog or gargantuan closer to the mob via a recast doesn't seem to change them over to it until they have hit it.

So I think it might be as simple as "aggro is held by the nearest target that has done damage." There are of course some randomly targeted secondary attacks on bosses it seems (the skeleton king charge for example), and random target AoE attacks or "floor efffects" which should be familiar to any former WoW player and were around in D2 as well.

So ranged mobs will often attack ranged toons that may have initiated combat because the melee range toons AoE didn't hit them.

There may be some sort of aggro threshold but I haven't observed one in game yet.

For players, it does seem to be proximity, but for followers they mostly ignore them unless the templar does his taunt. Haven't played enough with actual pets to see if it's the same as players or if it works more like followers.

[MonTy]

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.

[ObsessedAvenger]

Man, I have not been on this site for ages! Good to know that it is still around, as well as Bolty. My barb is level 52 and I have just killed the Skellie King on Hell mode. My barb is severely undearged with level 39-44 yellow gear. I have in the range of 16K hps, 4K armor (with Shield) and a 151 dps 1-handed axe. My passives are the 2 armor skills and Superstition. My resists are horrible as well, which I need to rectify fast. I have both Shouts (forget what runes are by name), Revenge (runed for proc chance), Fury (furned with stun), Seismic Slam, Earth Quake. Some champion packs give me problems and I die a couple of times, given my low resists and hps. I find that positioning is key in these fights. I intend to farm some gear and up my stats in Hell as opposed to NM. I am going to see how far I can get into the game on Hell mode with my poor set-up and hope for some upgrades along the way.

[Taelas]

I don't play much, mostly because I get horrible disconnects all the time, which annoys me enough that I no longer feel like playing. So I'm still in Act 1 NM, but I'm around level 37 at the moment. I normally don't have too many problems just using Cleave with Rupture and Hammer of the Ancients with Rolling Thunder, with Revenge (with Vengeance is Mine) and Wrath of the Berserker (with Arreat's Wail) as panic buttons and I try to keep up Battle Rage with Ferocity as much as possible (though it falls off far too much). My play style philosophy is kill them before they kill me, so I focus mostly on DPS rather than survivability, which I feel keenly when I'm up against something I can't kill fast enough, or Revenge doesn't light up enough for me to save my skin (though this does not happen very often). I should probably use the Smash rune for Hammer of the Ancients instead of Rolling Thunder, as I only really use Hammer when trying to beat an opponent down as rapidly as possible. My passive are also focused on DPS (Ruthless, Weapon Master, and Berserker Rage).

Oh, and of course I use Leap (trying out Iron Impact at the moment, otherwise I've been using Toppling Impact), but what kind of Barbarian doesn't use Leap?

[Bolty]

I wouldn't mind a critique of my current build (level 53) by any Barbarian experts out there.

My goal is to tank and provide cover/protection for any glass cannons partied with me. I find the build is decent enough for soloing, at least through Act I Hell, despite its total lack of offensive powers. It features many snag-and-grab abilities to cluster enemies in bunches to be mowed down by my groupmates, along with CC (stuns and snares) and survival cooldowns. Ironically, the build just completely ignores one of the key mechanics of the Barbarian class (Fury), because only one skill actually uses Fury at all.

I go sword and board, trying to find the fastest decent weapon that I can, since higher speed attacks help to proc more Frenzy stuns and just get monsters' attention faster.

The problems I encounter are ones that I don't think are unique to my build. When those champion packs come a-callin', I run into one of two scenarios:

1) My gear and spec give me enough survivability to stand toe-to-toe with what I'm tanking (sans moving out of fire/plague/etc, of course), allowing me enough healing through dropped health orbs to stay alive.

2) My gear and spec don't give me enough survivability to stand toe-to-toe with what I'm tanking, which means I have to keep retreating, which means I don't even get any health orbs, which means I'm essentially dead weight to my party.

There are very, very few occasions where I get that happy medium - the ability, via skilled play and good use of cooldowns, to sort-of tank a boss or champion pack enough to allow my teammates breathing space. So it's either "I've got this, blast it down" or "AHHH, RUN AWAAAAAY!"

I'm pretty sure this is just due to the design of the game. The health orb mechanic forces a melee tanker to either be able to stand their ground and eat the orbs to heal back moderate damage, or not be able to even enter melee range at all. It's disappointing. I can Ground Stomp a pack to stun them, use my Ignore Pain cooldown, quaff a potion, and then I'm generally out of options besides the occasional Ground Stomp.

Also, the Frenzy stun rune is supposed to give me a 20% chance to stun my opponent, but I don't see it working against many boss types in Hell difficulty. I assume this is intended, but it also seems random - like it'll work on some bosses, but not others. How reliable is this rune?

Should I change War Cry's rune to Veteran's Warning for the 15% dodge chance? I pondered this as the health gain of Invigorate is soooo nice, especially with the Inspiring Presence passive.

Passives: how good is Superstition? Bloodthirst (3% of damage returned as life) seemed quite lame compared to the health regen of War Cry/Invigorate, so I dropped it.

[MonTy]

Hail Bolty,

I've recently switched to a tank oriented build as I'm grouping more in Inferno and I can't recommend Revenge enough. Combined with the Runestone "Provocation", it'll provide you with a fairly reliable heal and damage. Also, since you're aiming to be the meatshield I'd go with Leap runed with Iron Impact. It greatly negates that dangerous moment when a group focuses their attention solely on you. When a tough Champion pack is in your sights I'd go with Ignore Pain and Wrath of the Beserker. It allows you to absorb, heal, and dish out some serious damage. The single greatest benefit to my character in Inferno is Ignore Pain with WotB.

This is the build I'd recommend trying. Let me know how you find it: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/ba...bec!YccabZ

[Bolty]

Hey MonTy,

Thanks - I can see the powerful synergy between the Leap rune and Revenge+Provocation. The Leap gives you initial damage mitigation to keep you alive until your first Revenge opportunity, and you just ride that out with the 30% chance to proc. That's a great synergy.

But you've chosen a number of offensive skills/runes still. Wrath of the Berserker feels like a purely offensive skill. Yes, there's some Dodge added on use, but leaving out Ground Stomp leaves you without an insanely powerful 12 second cooldown AoE stun that I've found to be completely invaluable.

I'm definitely going to try replacing Cleave with Revenge. Thanks.

[Kevin]

Hey MonTy,

Thanks - I can see the powerful synergy between the Leap rune and Revenge+Provocation. The Leap gives you initial damage mitigation to keep you alive until your first Revenge opportunity, and you just ride that out with the 30% chance to proc. That's a great synergy.

But you've chosen a number of offensive skills/runes still. Wrath of the Berserker feels like a purely offensive skill. Yes, there's some Dodge added on use, but leaving out Ground Stomp leaves you without an insanely powerful 12 second cooldown AoE stun that I've found to be completely invaluable.

I'm definitely going to try replacing Cleave with Revenge. Thanks.

Keep in mind that stunned enemies can't hit you and so revenge may not proc. I don't know the exact build he tried but Frag set up a build with our HC toons where he complained that things were stunned/controlled well enough that he wasn't getting the revenge procs he was hoping to get. So that is something to keep an eye out for at least when you have a build that is utilizing revenge.

[MonTy]

I created a quick video of the build in action: http://youtu.be/YSBAyBm4pds?hd=1 - it still has trouble against some champion packs, but he's able to get through Act 1 Inferno more efficiently than any other build I've tried.

I also had a hard time giving up war stomp, I used it forever and loved the Wrenching Smash runeword. But as Gnollguy mentioned, it seemed to counteract the premise behind the build. Survive getting hit, get healed, and do some damage in return.

I wanted to reply to your other questions. I too was disappointed in the passive skill Bloodthirst. I had designed a heavy hitting build around it, but it just wasn't enough healing. Plus you can get items that give +% healing on damage, so better off going that route than taking up a passive. I found I couldn't live in Inferno without superstition- I tried taking it off but always ended up back in my passive skills. IMO there's two mandatory passives for a tank barb: Nerves of Steel & Superstition- I've been toying around with the third, but I found my lack of rage spending and my need for DPS makes Beserker Rage the optimal choice.

[Bolty]

Awesome tips, thanks. Looks like there's two schools of thought on Barb tanking:

1) Use as much CC as you can, and kite until the CC is available again.
2) Stack as many healing abilities as you can, and generally forgo CC.

Both methods obviously also stack survivability talents and defense. I've been trying method 1, which may be why I was always running into the "I can tank it or I run for my life" issue. I look forward to trying out method 2.

Oh, and edit: is Tough as Nails (25% armor passive) not that great? I notice it doesn't seem to grant as much armor as I'd expect it to, like it's only boosting base armor from gear or something.

[Roland]

Oh, and edit: is Tough as Nails (25% armor passive) not that great? I notice it doesn't seem to grant as much armor as I'd expect it to, like it's only boosting base armor from gear or something.

I would imagine that 25% is additive, not multiplicative. That seems to be in line with most other skills (although I'm not 100% certain on damage, i.e. +15% damage to slowed enemies from Cull the Weak may be on "base" damage as well; I'm simply not sure). I should think it would get a little OP otherwise.

I can confirm MonTy's build for Inferno, seeing as how I was there when he started to change it up. It was a night and day difference in our ability to clear Inferno (especially since prior his DPS was just too low to make any difference whatsoever). In this game the best defense is still a good offense, even for a tank, so if you're neglecting your damage in favor of "tanking" ability even in multiplayer you're going to find it rough. MonTy entered Inferno with 8k DPS, and he was barely scratching things. I had 12k DPS and it took me awhile to melt enemies. I'd be much more comfortable if I could get up around 15k+ DPS, especially as a Demon Hunter (who has to kite almost everything at that level), but I'd say 10k is the absolute minimum for Inferno - maybe 12k. Just a tip from another perspective.

I found so long as MonTy could keep most of the mobs off me I could handled a few stragglers. I think it's important in multiplayer to know your companions' abilities, and rely on them. Just ask MonTy - I kited a champ pack solo while he was busy dealing with another one. I lived to finish off the rest, while he died at least once (poor guy). You shouldn't need to tank everything. Just take enough pressure off your friends to let them breathe. If they're going to survive the later difficulties they're going to need to learn to do it on their own. You simply can't handle everything once you hit Inferno. Ask MonTy about our run in with the Fast / Extra Health / Reflects Damage / Vampiric spiderling elite pack we came across in the Spider Caverns. (Hint: Suicide park for the win! )