Maybe I'm missing something here. I've been a pretty loyal fan and player of Diablo 2 for the decade it's been out, and I've had my fill of playing a Barbarian far into Inferno mode with D3. There's a few issues I'd love to have resolved for me though.
Obviously there's a giant leap in required gear from Hell to Inferno, and act 1 does a great job of introducing the difficulty to a Barbarian. But there's a huge problem I found with being a barbarian running into elite packs in any act of Inferno. Three of the other classes are very viable ranged classes, so the easiest thing for them to do when they run into elite packs is to kite them. They can pull off the damage they need to play the game that way. There's one build that lets Barbarians pull this off, and it requires a certain set of gear with a certain set of stats. With the inflation on the AH right now and the cost of repairs being raised as they were, I can't afford to spend that much gold on gear that suits the throwing axe build. I don't really want to be forced to grind gold, especially since the drops for it out of objects has been nerfed to the ground, just to gear up for a specific build (or a normal meleeing build) because it isn't fun. In my case (I won't speak for everyone, though I'm sure there are plenty of others with the same issues), I don't have the particular level of gear I need to kill elites/rares to the point where I'm farming them efficiently. There's a completely silly enrage timer that doesn't even allow a player who isn't geared for the content to kite the monster around, having a build either built around throwing axes or WotB. Wrath is an amazing skill, but it's not reliable because again, without the right gear (more gold to throw out at the auction) you can't take the necessary damage to dish out your own.
That leaves me in a situation where I'll be looking for VERY specific elite/rare packs that a Barbarian has absolutely no problem killing (I recall there being around three combinations of manageable ones). Personally, I feel that Blizzard made a mistake with the repair cost buff and the gold drop nerf. It's losing part of the magic of Diablo to inflate the economy in the game in such a way that all of the horrible items are dirt cheap or too expensive, and all of the moderate to amazing items are unrealistically expensive. There's no reasonable way to approach this as an undergeared Barbarian who can tear through hell but can't tackle half of act 1 inferno, let alone act 2. Hopefully there's a solution to the need to kite everything (like removing the rediculous enrage timer) or something else that resolves the gold issues. I really would rather not have to rely on gold farming for weeks in easier difficulties to purchase decent gear because it's not fun. It burns a player out really quickly, but it's the path of least resistance as far as spending goes.
That's my two cents, maybe there's a few veteran Barbs that have the solution I'm looking for.
Barb here. If you're not geared enough to effectively farm act 1, then go farm act3-4 hell. You can actually get upgrades from act3-4 hell enough to farm inferno.
You will feel like you gear up incredibly slow at first and nothing you find will sell for much. I've been there. However, once you pick up and start farming act1-2, the rate at which you will gear up will become much faster (especially with the drop change in 1.03) then it will slow down again once you've almost reached maximum gear.
I've played all spec, range barb, sword and board, 2h, double tornado, etc. and I can tell you that you can make all of them works. Sword and board will give you plenty of room for error since you can outlast anything and just take all the damage, but you will just kill things slower.
I agree that the gear requirement for melee is a bit steeper than range since it's impossible for melee to avoid damage most of the time, while range can just not get hit. However, the change in 1.03 made that gap a lot closer and I feel like the gap is almost at acceptable range now.
Diablo 3 is a farming game, same as Diablo 2 before it. If you're struggling in Inferno, you go back a difficulty and farm to get better gear/gold to buy better gear, then go back and progress further.
That's the entire point of the game. If this is likely to burn you out, then I'm afraid D3 may not be the game for you.
I mentioned that I played D2 for a decade? I figured that would hint that I was used and enjoyed the grind/farming items. Guess not.
It's not the issue that I have to go and farm the items. It's that I'm incapable of doing said farming. As for going back to hell and farming lower level items, maybe I'm just having terrible luck there, because I haven't seen more than maybe one useful thing in a month of going back and forth between the hardest two difficulties.
That being said, the issues I brought up are still relevant as far as gold. I'm not making empty complaints and insults about it, I've given examples and such. But then again, not all of the forum community is known for it's intellectual replies.
I mentioned that I played D2 for a decade? I figured that would hint that I was used and enjoyed the grind/farming items. Guess not.
It's not the issue that I have to go and farm the items. It's that I'm incapable of doing said farming. As for going back to hell and farming lower level items, maybe I'm just having terrible luck there, because I haven't seen more than maybe one useful thing in a month of going back and forth between the hardest two difficulties.
That being said, the issues I brought up are still relevant as far as gold. I'm not making empty complaints and insults about it, I've given examples and such. But then again, not all of the forum community is known for it's intellectual replies.
You certainly did mention that you've played D2 for a decade, yet apparently you have a problem with D3 when it asks you to do the exact same thing that D2 did. Somewhat confusing.
Inferno is a brand new difficulty. D3 hell = D2 hell. So if you had no issues with farming for D2 in Hell, then you should have no issues with farming for D3 in Hell either.
Why is gold farming unfun, while D2 farming is? You're killing monsters for loot in either scenario. It's the exact same thing: the gameplay hasn't changed, so there's only one option left. You've changed and no longer find the same thing fun anymore. Which is ok, but not any fault of Blizzard's.
As a final note, calling people idiots because they give you an opinion you dislike isn't really a great way to make friends, nor carry a decent discussion.
My personal opinion is that barbs being forced to get defensive gear almost exclusively is kinda boring and a design mistake that i'm hoping bliz will fix in 1.04 to open up maybe better ways of controlling mobs or killing them before they kill you.
Sounds like someone hasn't been playing since 1.0.3 in which blizz fixed that exact problem...
Just wait it out. The economy will get more stable and items will go down in price, people will realize they ain't selling stuff with people not having as much to spend anymore with the repair costs and nerfed gold drops.
So I don't know, take a break and maybe try out the Monk, maybe you will fare better for the moment!
To be honest, while I don't know how gear dependent is Barb, I could roflstomp Act1 as Monk with 500-600dps weapon, shield and 400+ all res, including standing in most crap on ground.
Just hit the AH and get some decent (not top) gear. Nearly everypony is farming first Act1 now, even those who were doing Act3 before drop change, and you get streams of yellows that make possible to buy decent starting gear for pennies (like ActII clearing 200k gear Monk).
What really gets me is your mention of enrage timers and how big a problem they are.. Just how low is your dps? Would be nice to know what kind of stats / gear you're running around with atm.. and what build you're using aswell..
You can buy gear good enough for Act 1 Inferno on the AH for really cheap. Heck... some items with low values of all resist, vit and str are going for 5-10k. If you lower your standards you'll be able to buy gear to easily do Act 1 without spending more than 1 million.
OP: Barbs are gear dependent, but you can buy gear on the AH that will let you farm Act 1 for very cheap. I mean, a budget of 25k per slot should easily get you gear that is good enough if you are smart about how you gear up. After that, its a lot of farming Act 1 till you get enough gear for act 2 (which is a WAYY smaller step than it was pre-1.03).
Well, I found some very useful information from you guys on this. Thanks for the posts (sorry for the earlier rage, I get irritable at 4 in the morning, what you said as advice was helpful as well).
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Obviously there's a giant leap in required gear from Hell to Inferno, and act 1 does a great job of introducing the difficulty to a Barbarian. But there's a huge problem I found with being a barbarian running into elite packs in any act of Inferno. Three of the other classes are very viable ranged classes, so the easiest thing for them to do when they run into elite packs is to kite them. They can pull off the damage they need to play the game that way. There's one build that lets Barbarians pull this off, and it requires a certain set of gear with a certain set of stats. With the inflation on the AH right now and the cost of repairs being raised as they were, I can't afford to spend that much gold on gear that suits the throwing axe build. I don't really want to be forced to grind gold, especially since the drops for it out of objects has been nerfed to the ground, just to gear up for a specific build (or a normal meleeing build) because it isn't fun. In my case (I won't speak for everyone, though I'm sure there are plenty of others with the same issues), I don't have the particular level of gear I need to kill elites/rares to the point where I'm farming them efficiently. There's a completely silly enrage timer that doesn't even allow a player who isn't geared for the content to kite the monster around, having a build either built around throwing axes or WotB. Wrath is an amazing skill, but it's not reliable because again, without the right gear (more gold to throw out at the auction) you can't take the necessary damage to dish out your own.
That leaves me in a situation where I'll be looking for VERY specific elite/rare packs that a Barbarian has absolutely no problem killing (I recall there being around three combinations of manageable ones). Personally, I feel that Blizzard made a mistake with the repair cost buff and the gold drop nerf. It's losing part of the magic of Diablo to inflate the economy in the game in such a way that all of the horrible items are dirt cheap or too expensive, and all of the moderate to amazing items are unrealistically expensive. There's no reasonable way to approach this as an undergeared Barbarian who can tear through hell but can't tackle half of act 1 inferno, let alone act 2. Hopefully there's a solution to the need to kite everything (like removing the rediculous enrage timer) or something else that resolves the gold issues. I really would rather not have to rely on gold farming for weeks in easier difficulties to purchase decent gear because it's not fun. It burns a player out really quickly, but it's the path of least resistance as far as spending goes.
That's my two cents, maybe there's a few veteran Barbs that have the solution I'm looking for.
You will feel like you gear up incredibly slow at first and nothing you find will sell for much. I've been there. However, once you pick up and start farming act1-2, the rate at which you will gear up will become much faster (especially with the drop change in 1.03) then it will slow down again once you've almost reached maximum gear.
I've played all spec, range barb, sword and board, 2h, double tornado, etc. and I can tell you that you can make all of them works. Sword and board will give you plenty of room for error since you can outlast anything and just take all the damage, but you will just kill things slower.
I agree that the gear requirement for melee is a bit steeper than range since it's impossible for melee to avoid damage most of the time, while range can just not get hit. However, the change in 1.03 made that gap a lot closer and I feel like the gap is almost at acceptable range now.
That's the entire point of the game. If this is likely to burn you out, then I'm afraid D3 may not be the game for you.
It's not the issue that I have to go and farm the items. It's that I'm incapable of doing said farming. As for going back to hell and farming lower level items, maybe I'm just having terrible luck there, because I haven't seen more than maybe one useful thing in a month of going back and forth between the hardest two difficulties.
That being said, the issues I brought up are still relevant as far as gold. I'm not making empty complaints and insults about it, I've given examples and such. But then again, not all of the forum community is known for it's intellectual replies.
You certainly did mention that you've played D2 for a decade, yet apparently you have a problem with D3 when it asks you to do the exact same thing that D2 did. Somewhat confusing.
Inferno is a brand new difficulty. D3 hell = D2 hell. So if you had no issues with farming for D2 in Hell, then you should have no issues with farming for D3 in Hell either.
Why is gold farming unfun, while D2 farming is? You're killing monsters for loot in either scenario. It's the exact same thing: the gameplay hasn't changed, so there's only one option left. You've changed and no longer find the same thing fun anymore. Which is ok, but not any fault of Blizzard's.
As a final note, calling people idiots because they give you an opinion you dislike isn't really a great way to make friends, nor carry a decent discussion.
Sounds like someone hasn't been playing since 1.0.3 in which blizz fixed that exact problem...
Just wait it out. The economy will get more stable and items will go down in price, people will realize they ain't selling stuff with people not having as much to spend anymore with the repair costs and nerfed gold drops.
So I don't know, take a break and maybe try out the Monk, maybe you will fare better for the moment!
Just hit the AH and get some decent (not top) gear. Nearly everypony is farming first Act1 now, even those who were doing Act3 before drop change, and you get streams of yellows that make possible to buy decent starting gear for pennies (like ActII clearing 200k gear Monk).
How is your DPS so low?!?!
I had 14k DPS (before Frenzy buff) when I ENTERED Inferno..... (As a Barb) By Act 2 im rolling 18k (base, before Frenzy buff)
My humble suggestion?
Depending on your build, swap out one of those passives for the +crit one, or the full fury damage increase.