edit: Thanks to suggestion from Leh I'm going to call this build the "Vanguard 2h barb build", due to similarity in playstyle with vanguard class from ME universe.
Introduction
After gearing up normal sword and board tank barb until I can tank all the way to diablo, I've decided to start gearing up 2h dps spec for faster farming. I've experiment around with a lot of build and eventually came up with my own build: http://us.battle.net...RTik!ZYc!cZbbac
With this build you are no longer a tank and spank barbarian. You do not stare into enemies until they die of boredom. With this build you are the unstoppable juggernaut. Blood splatter and explode as you spearhead through ranks of enemies. Wherever you charge into, you leave a trail of destruction littered with dead demon corpses.
The main key around this build is the passive berserker rage (gives +25% damage when full fury) and Battle Rage (gives 30% damage buff and 3% additional crit chance). Both of these combined gives you 55% damage boost with 100% uptime. One thing this build is really good for is inflating your paper dps to make you feel better about yourself. My paper dps went up from 39k to a whopping 61k.
Now, let's get into the specifics.
Skills
Bash - Pulverize:
I choose bash over frenzy because, let's face it, if you use 2h you won't be standing still and let the stack builds up. If you are doing 2h build correctly, mobs will be falling left and right and you will not be able to let it build up anyway. You will be doing hit and run for single target most of the time so bash is the clear choice here.
For the rune, I choose Pulverize mostly by personal preference. Onslaught gives the best single target dps so that's also an option. However if you haven't tried Pulverize, I strongly recommend it mostly because it feels AWESOME. Seriously, it has one of the most satisfying animation/sound effect ability in the game, imo. Pulverize also offers you option to finish off multiple weakened mobs and also combo well with Bloodshed and Slaughter rune if you have high crit. Punish rune might also work if you can find the window to stack up.
Furious Charge - Merciless Assault:
This will be your main nuking ability. It has one of the hardest hitting ability in barb's arsenal. It does a whopping 195% weapon damage in a straight line (compare to only 155% from slam), dash into/out action, gets you out of jailer, and even do a mini knockback to enemies in the path. Merciless assault rune allows you to spam this abilities when you hit 5 mobs or more. If there's only a few mobs you will want to bash them into smithereens anyway.
Battle Rage - Marauder's Rage:
I know what you're thinking: Why have a rage spender when you're using berserker rage passive, right? The thing is that Battle Rage lasts for 30 seconds, consume 20 fury. But I've found that Warcry (which is a must have skills for all barb anyway) is also on 30 seconds cooldown and generates 30 fury. This means whenever warcry is off cooldown, you can hit battle rage, then warcry again to regain fury back to full, giving 100% uptime for berserker rage passive buff.
For the rune, Marauder's Rage is the simplest choice if you just want to have mad dps powerhouse. Another possible option is the Bloodshed rune if you have high amount of crit. This also combo really well with Furious Charge since Furious charge does so much damage, the chain explosion will basically wipe out anything near the path of your furious charge.
Warcry - Impunity:
Self explanatory. The 30 seconds cooldown works great to refill your fury whenever Battle Rage needs to be refreshed.
Ignore Pain - Ignorance is a Bliss:
Emergency button that gives you heal and reduce damage done. Basically whenever you find yourself low on health, pop this bad boy and use furious charge at as many mobs as possible and you should heal back to full.
For the last ability, we need a "burn" skill that will take down elite quickly (ideally before ignore pain runs out), I present to you two options:
#1st option => Earthquake - The Mountain's Call:
Earthquake offers a highest burst damage in barb abilities. In fact, I dare to say that it is the hardest hitting burst damage among all the classes. It also stacks with the current damage buff you already have. With the 2 passives giving you 55% damage, most elite packs will die before the Earthquake duration is up, freeing you the burden to figure out their abilities and silly notion like avoiding damage. The rune also works perfectly since the free cost will not ruin your berserker rage passive and the reduced duration is also nice when you found the next elite pack so quickly because stuff die so fast. The downside with this ability is against range mobs and shielded mob (but if you time it correctly shielded mob still dies before their shield could come up again).
#2nd option => Wrath of the Berserker - Insanity:
Used to be my #1 burst ability only until I've discovered that EQ actually gives better burst. The main appeal for this, however, is the crowd control immunity. If you want to just kill stuff fast, then EQ is slightly better, but if you want more controlled fight, wotb is also great. Test both out for yourself and choose one that suits your style better. If you have very high crit, slaughter rune is also something nice if you're hitting many mobs with furious charge or pulverize rune.
Passive: Ruthless, Weapon Master, Berserker rage:
All these buffs should be self explanatory since the goal is to ditch out as much damage as possible. Remember that dead enemies do not deal damage.
Playstyle
The playstyle is relatively straight forward. You open with CHARGE! CHARGE! CHARGE! until you cannot charge anymore. Aim your furious charge so it pass through as many mobs as possible. Try to make it so that you don't land somewhere nasty as the animation lock after charge can kill you sometimes (Desecrate arcane etc.). Once you charge back and forth most of the mobs will be dead on the floor. Good thing with furious charge is that most mobs will be temporarily stunned when hit so you won't be taking much damage from them. Finish up the remainders with some well aimed pulverize.
For elites, first make sure you have battle rage up and your fury is full. Then, walk into as many elites as possible, pop EQ and ignore pain and watch as they fall besides you. If after EQ mobs are still alive you might want to save furious charge for those frozen/jailer/nasty ground aoe. use IiB to heal up whenever you need to. Shielded mob might give you a hard time but with a well timed EQ they can still be burned down no problem.
Since there really isn't any fury spender, you don't have to manage your fury at all. Just make sure you use warcry right after refreshing battle rage and your berserker rage buff should be 100% up while fighting.
Gear
Good thing about this build is that it works with any type of gear, unlike some build that requires a lot of loh or crit chance. The only thing is you will need enough dps for this to work (and of course, some minimal survivability). Remember that the goal is to kill the enemies before they kill you, not outlasting them.
The single most important piece of gear is the 2h weapon. For 2h weapon you will only want to look at the min-max damage number and not the dps. This is because furious charge takes the same animation time regardless of your attack speed. I would suggest going for 0.9 speed mace here for the damage and the weapon master bonus. However, if you find bash animation taking too long to avoid some damage, this also works with slightly faster weapon.
Another stat that actually helps a lot with this build is lifesteal. I know you're thinking "but lifesteal is only 20% effective on inferno". The thing is even with 3%*.2 = 0.6% lifesteal, with the amount of damage you're dealing you will heal you about 1-3k for each furious charge (lifesteal works really well with aoe). Lifesteal stat is mostly ignored at the moment so it shouldn't be too expensive to fetch those gears on the AH. You can only get lifesteal on weapon or mighty belt. Try to get the one with close to maximum 3.0% as possible. Life on hit will not be as effective given how slow the swing timer is, but lifesteal will heal you more than life on hit could possibly give you with this build.
Conclusion
While this might not be the best spec in terms of survivability, it has very high maneuverability and gives you very high damage number. If you're bored with going sword and board and watch as mob dies from boredom, pick up your 2h and dash forward to enemy lines and start mowing them like a true barbarian would!
I leveled my Barbie with Furious Charge - Merciless Assault, and I've never had so much fun in this game... And because of the interrupt/'knockback'/CC factor, groups can't really do anything while you're zipping through them back and forth...
I switched to the heal rune when I hit 60, but this thread helps tempt me back to the joys of super charge...
You know, this looks fun. I'm currently using a different 2H spec, but I always did like that Charge rune. I remember facing off against an Illusionist Unburied pack somewhere in the Cathedral and just chain charging them for 10 minutes. It was a blast.
You know, this looks fun. I'm currently using a different 2H spec, but I always did like that Charge rune. I remember facing off against an Illusionist Unburied pack somewhere in the Cathedral and just chain charging them for 10 minutes. It was a blast.
Yes, Merciless Assault rune itself is a pretty fun rune to use. With enough mobs around you could chain charging all day long. Only thing stopping you from charging nonstop tend to be the fact that mobs kept dying in 1-2 charges (which is actually a good thing). I can easily land 200k crit (w/o wotb) with this build. The mini knockback is pretty nice at stopping enemies from hitting, too.
You just have to be a bit careful against mobs that are immune to knockback (like the big turkeys in act 3, and some elite packs) and you tend to get stuck in the animation after charge. But these problems can be easily avoided by carefully aiming where your charge lands.
nice tip on the charge, i was lvling my barb as 2h the damage is sick, i was hiting 90k crits on lvl 50 rofl but the main problem of my build was large packs i had died bcoz aoe's were bad, then i tested the charge and im in love with it <3
i was thinking in buy 60 gear for ww but i think im gona stay as 2h i like big numbers
How about to maximize the dmg/heal output to replace Ignore pain with Revenge:provocation since you always are into the fray you get it more often than Ignore pain.
How about to maximize the dmg/heal output to replace Ignore pain with Revenge:provocation since you always are into the fray you get it more often than Ignore pain.
I've thought about that. The problem is, you actually won't get to use revenge that much since you should never ever be in the middle of enemy packs (you should zoom past them). For normal mobs they are staggered after charge anyway, so they won't be hitting you, and for elites the heal from revenge will not be enough to outheal the damage they deal. I feel that ignore pain buy you just enough time to burn them down before their damage becomes too much to handle (unless you massively outgear the content, it will be very hard to sustainably tank elite packs as 2h relying on revenge alone).
Plus, I find that with a bit of lifesteal from weapon (working on getting a good mighty belt), one well placed charge is more than enough to heal you back to full. Do not underestimate lifesteal with the amount of dps you're ditching out.
curious about the stats and gear you have. I die to every champ pack with this. Granted my gear is rather shit, so I will need to use my monk to get the gear. How much dps is needed?
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I can see what you see not. Vision milky, then eyes rot.
When you turn, they will be gone. Whispering their hidden song.
Then you see what cannot be. Shadows move where light should be.
Out of darkness, out of mind. Cast down into the Halls of the Blind
i can't handle act 3 champs yet but i did try a build very similar to this in act 3 for shits and giggles. I was able to kill all normal mobs but most champs wipe the floor with me. Although i didn't have any defensive passives and i had revenge instead of ignore pain. I think i'll give it a try again with more tweaks to my build...i can farm act 1 and 2 though pretty easily with the build.
unbuffed
30k hp
22k dmg
5k armor
185% crit dmg
17% crit (this will increase to 27% when i get a mace or axe)
500 ra
800 LoH
no regen or LL
After reading this though i think imma try get some lifeleach into my build and add more damage and probably ignore pain. I was trying to stack LoH but i'll probably try for more LL and see if my damage is enough to power through the 80% DR on LL. Quick question. What is your resistances at and are you able to do act 3 and 4 with this build? with warcry(impunity) my lowest resistance is at 800. I'm kind of thinking of dropping some resistance for more damage...possibly rings, amulet, helm or possibly for a life leach might belt. nice post btw...i love merciless assault, only last week did i actually try to work it back into my build but i've been doing a charge/sprint build. I'll probably give berzerker rage a try for more dmg and take out sprint for battle rage.
This build definitely work for act3 since I've just killed Cydae+Azmodan with this build. Cydae is a joke with so many spider adds giving infinite charge, while Azmodan can be a bit challenging (but who farms boss anyway?).
As far as gearing goes, I feel like 30-40k hp is plenty for this build since life leech does not scale with max hp like revenge. You will want to get "enough" res and armor to survive long enough between charge (you will be a bit vulnerable while stuck with charge animation). Life leech is actually optional, since even with some you will be depending mostly on health globe and IiB to heal back to full (Remember, the goal is to kill them before they kill you), however with life leech you will be able to lasts longer with the heal you're getting. On tougher mobs you will have to manage health globes a bit in order to heal between Ignore Pain cooldown. Sometimes you might just have to kite until charge and ignore pain cooldown comes back up again.
My stat when I did act 3:
life 3.5k
armor 5000
res 500 (unbuffed. You want to aim for 800+ buffed for act3)
dps 30k
life leech 3%
LoH 0
For act 2, I find that only 600 res buffed is enough and I was able to swap in some more mf/dps gears. I steamrolled through act2 with 40k dps unbuffed (which brings me to ~60k buffed), but act2 can be easily done with much less dps and a bit more patient.
The only real trouble with this build is the elites (the more mob you're fighting the easier it gets, really). On tougher mobs you will have to manage your cooldown a bit and perhaps just keep kiting and only damage them with furious charge without getting hit until your gear allows you to take more damage. If you're having trouble staying alive then try wotb + ignore pain combo and just aim at taking one down before you die, but this build you can actually kite and charge them to death if you're careful enough.
One good thing about this build is the health globes. Somehow, I often find that there are plenty health globes around compare to other build, perhaps because I kept charging pass the mobs so I didn't pick them up as soon as they dropped.
If I find myself low on health sometimes I just aim my charge pass some health globe and just heal myself back to full.
I have around 30% crit and I think around 180% crit damage. However, neither of those stats are required at all for this build (as oppose to build like range barb or double tornado that rely on into the fray proc and heavily dependent on crit).
You're really only trying to maximize your weapon swing damage so whatever gives you the best boost in dps will help (except for ias. While ias improves your paper dps it does not make any of your abilities hit any harder).
Unfortunately I do not have any way to record a video
i have 300 crit dmg and im lovin it, pop all cds and elites explode in seconds also lifesteal is awesome for this
im very happy with low investment (like 1.5m) got a beast, my wd had like 5m investment and it sucked
i have 300 crit dmg and im lovin it, pop all cds and elites explode in seconds also lifesteal is awesome for this
im very happy with low investment (like 1.5m) got a beast, my wd had like 5m investment and it sucked
Yes! Unlike some builds that rely heavily on into the fray, this build can work with almost any gear should you choose. In this sense it require very little gear replacement from what you already had. Although optimally stacking some crit% and crit dmg seem to be the best way to boost up your dps. I myself has stacked some crit and crit dmg (don't remember the value on the top of my head), and my crit can go up to like 200k (without wotb).
Of course lifesteal helps greatly, but I've played this without it and the rate at which you kill stuff is fast enough that health globes is more than enough. Note that attack speed is almost useless for this so that's one stat less you have to worry about.
Theoretically, I think this build is probably the highest dps you could ever obtain (as all the +dmg passive and active is there, minus brawler). The burst damage is also good but inferior to wotb+eq combo (but if you can reliably spam merciless assault it comes pretty close). Maybe if you can swap out ignore pain and put in EQ (and somehow manage to survive) this might actually work, too.
THIS BUILD bringed back the joy to play as a barb to me. I have seen other builds, but based on really good weapons and gear, or crazy high IAS (before the nerf). Back in the day, I gave up hope on my barb, since I was obligued to sword and board, and got no money.
I changed the build a little to suit my needs instead of Wrath of the Berserker I use Earthquake (The Mountain's Call) and Ancient Spear (Dread Spear) in the place of the furious charge. When I see a rare pack I just earthquake+ignore pain, they melt and keep me at full health, If anybody try to run... I hook them back.
I loved the build its great for the 2 handed lovers! if you invest a little on crit, the big numbers start poping everywhere!! +1 to you good sir!!
THIS BUILD bringed back the joy to play as a barb to me. I have seen other builds, but based on really good weapons and gear, or crazy high IAS (before the nerf). Back in the day, I gave up hope on my barb, since I was obligued to sword and board, and got no money.
I changed the build a little to suit my needs instead of Wrath of the Berserker I use Earthquake (The Mountain's Call) and Ancient Spear (Dread Spear) in the place of the furious charge. When I see a rare pack I just earthquake+ignore pain, they melt and keep me at full health, If anybody try to run... I hook them back.
I loved the build its great for the 2 handed lovers! if you invest a little on crit, the big numbers start poping everywhere!! +1 to you good sir!!
I'm glad you like it Interesting modification. How did you find the lack of aoe work out for you?
I have 22k dps, 38% crit, 312 crit damage, 50k hp, 6,5k armor and ~500 res without wc. And my gear is worth like ~3 milion. I can do a2 with eyes closed, tank everything (even molten/plaued/arcane) and kill packs in few second if i pop up wotb.
This build is total nonsense to me. I just don't see why i should drop so much of my defense in order to cheese play in a3? I bet you die there A LOT and kitting single pack for 3 minutes.
I have the same and gear for sword and board spec as well. As I've mentioned, I used to do sword and board until I realize I can already breeze through everything in this game. After that gearing so I can survive better becomes kinda pointless.
The whole point of this 2h spec is to HAVE FUN! (It's a game, remember) And sword and board, while easy to play, is very slow and inefficient in terms of farming (sure, with wotb u can kill elite so fast but you still take a while to kill normal pack while I can kill whole white pack in one hit with a 2 hander).
Yes I do die a lot, at first. It takes some getting used to, because you cannot just stand and tank in plague/arcane/molten anymore (I could if I just pick up my shield, but then it gets pretty old real quick). After a while you get used to avoiding damage and survive a lot longer. No, I do not kite elite for 3 minutes because barely anything still stands after Wotb wears off.
This build is NOT for those who want the path of least resistance in progressing through the game. It's about having fun doing tons of damage for a change. It can also farm lower content much more effectively (I one shot through almost everything in act2). If you want the best way to not die and have highest chance to progress, go sword and board. Playing 2h is a gamble that they die before you do.
Heck, if you like sword and board so much, you can even do it with this build. Swap out bash for frenzy, ruthless and weapon master passives for armor ones and you should be good to go, except that now you're doing 55% more damage than you used to.
I enjoy my tactics much more
1. Make friends
2. Get dps up to 35k
3. Let monk friend run in first
4. Pop WOTB jump to 80k dps and kill everything
5. ?????
6. Profit
OT I am enjoying 2h dps but like I said since I hate single player games I almost never play alone and therefore don't have to worry as much about defensive stats.
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edit: Thanks to suggestion from Leh I'm going to call this build the "Vanguard 2h barb build", due to similarity in playstyle with vanguard class from ME universe.
Introduction
After gearing up normal sword and board tank barb until I can tank all the way to diablo, I've decided to start gearing up 2h dps spec for faster farming. I've experiment around with a lot of build and eventually came up with my own build: http://us.battle.net...RTik!ZYc!cZbbac
With this build you are no longer a tank and spank barbarian. You do not stare into enemies until they die of boredom. With this build you are the unstoppable juggernaut. Blood splatter and explode as you spearhead through ranks of enemies. Wherever you charge into, you leave a trail of destruction littered with dead demon corpses.
The main key around this build is the passive berserker rage (gives +25% damage when full fury) and Battle Rage (gives 30% damage buff and 3% additional crit chance). Both of these combined gives you 55% damage boost with 100% uptime. One thing this build is really good for is inflating your paper dps to make you feel better about yourself. My paper dps went up from 39k to a whopping 61k.
Now, let's get into the specifics.
Skills
Bash - Pulverize:
I choose bash over frenzy because, let's face it, if you use 2h you won't be standing still and let the stack builds up. If you are doing 2h build correctly, mobs will be falling left and right and you will not be able to let it build up anyway. You will be doing hit and run for single target most of the time so bash is the clear choice here.
For the rune, I choose Pulverize mostly by personal preference. Onslaught gives the best single target dps so that's also an option. However if you haven't tried Pulverize, I strongly recommend it mostly because it feels AWESOME. Seriously, it has one of the most satisfying animation/sound effect ability in the game, imo. Pulverize also offers you option to finish off multiple weakened mobs and also combo well with Bloodshed and Slaughter rune if you have high crit. Punish rune might also work if you can find the window to stack up.
Furious Charge - Merciless Assault:
This will be your main nuking ability. It has one of the hardest hitting ability in barb's arsenal. It does a whopping 195% weapon damage in a straight line (compare to only 155% from slam), dash into/out action, gets you out of jailer, and even do a mini knockback to enemies in the path. Merciless assault rune allows you to spam this abilities when you hit 5 mobs or more. If there's only a few mobs you will want to bash them into smithereens anyway.
Battle Rage - Marauder's Rage:
I know what you're thinking: Why have a rage spender when you're using berserker rage passive, right? The thing is that Battle Rage lasts for 30 seconds, consume 20 fury. But I've found that Warcry (which is a must have skills for all barb anyway) is also on 30 seconds cooldown and generates 30 fury. This means whenever warcry is off cooldown, you can hit battle rage, then warcry again to regain fury back to full, giving 100% uptime for berserker rage passive buff.
For the rune, Marauder's Rage is the simplest choice if you just want to have mad dps powerhouse. Another possible option is the Bloodshed rune if you have high amount of crit. This also combo really well with Furious Charge since Furious charge does so much damage, the chain explosion will basically wipe out anything near the path of your furious charge.
Warcry - Impunity:
Self explanatory. The 30 seconds cooldown works great to refill your fury whenever Battle Rage needs to be refreshed.
Ignore Pain - Ignorance is a Bliss:
Emergency button that gives you heal and reduce damage done. Basically whenever you find yourself low on health, pop this bad boy and use furious charge at as many mobs as possible and you should heal back to full.
For the last ability, we need a "burn" skill that will take down elite quickly (ideally before ignore pain runs out), I present to you two options:
#1st option => Earthquake - The Mountain's Call:
Earthquake offers a highest burst damage in barb abilities. In fact, I dare to say that it is the hardest hitting burst damage among all the classes. It also stacks with the current damage buff you already have. With the 2 passives giving you 55% damage, most elite packs will die before the Earthquake duration is up, freeing you the burden to figure out their abilities and silly notion like avoiding damage. The rune also works perfectly since the free cost will not ruin your berserker rage passive and the reduced duration is also nice when you found the next elite pack so quickly because stuff die so fast. The downside with this ability is against range mobs and shielded mob (but if you time it correctly shielded mob still dies before their shield could come up again).
#2nd option => Wrath of the Berserker - Insanity:
Used to be my #1 burst ability only until I've discovered that EQ actually gives better burst. The main appeal for this, however, is the crowd control immunity. If you want to just kill stuff fast, then EQ is slightly better, but if you want more controlled fight, wotb is also great. Test both out for yourself and choose one that suits your style better. If you have very high crit, slaughter rune is also something nice if you're hitting many mobs with furious charge or pulverize rune.
Passive: Ruthless, Weapon Master, Berserker rage:
All these buffs should be self explanatory since the goal is to ditch out as much damage as possible. Remember that dead enemies do not deal damage.
Playstyle
The playstyle is relatively straight forward. You open with CHARGE! CHARGE! CHARGE! until you cannot charge anymore. Aim your furious charge so it pass through as many mobs as possible. Try to make it so that you don't land somewhere nasty as the animation lock after charge can kill you sometimes (Desecrate arcane etc.). Once you charge back and forth most of the mobs will be dead on the floor. Good thing with furious charge is that most mobs will be temporarily stunned when hit so you won't be taking much damage from them. Finish up the remainders with some well aimed pulverize.
For elites, first make sure you have battle rage up and your fury is full. Then, walk into as many elites as possible, pop EQ and ignore pain and watch as they fall besides you. If after EQ mobs are still alive you might want to save furious charge for those frozen/jailer/nasty ground aoe. use IiB to heal up whenever you need to. Shielded mob might give you a hard time but with a well timed EQ they can still be burned down no problem.
Since there really isn't any fury spender, you don't have to manage your fury at all. Just make sure you use warcry right after refreshing battle rage and your berserker rage buff should be 100% up while fighting.
Gear
Good thing about this build is that it works with any type of gear, unlike some build that requires a lot of loh or crit chance. The only thing is you will need enough dps for this to work (and of course, some minimal survivability). Remember that the goal is to kill the enemies before they kill you, not outlasting them.
The single most important piece of gear is the 2h weapon. For 2h weapon you will only want to look at the min-max damage number and not the dps. This is because furious charge takes the same animation time regardless of your attack speed. I would suggest going for 0.9 speed mace here for the damage and the weapon master bonus. However, if you find bash animation taking too long to avoid some damage, this also works with slightly faster weapon.
Another stat that actually helps a lot with this build is lifesteal. I know you're thinking "but lifesteal is only 20% effective on inferno". The thing is even with 3%*.2 = 0.6% lifesteal, with the amount of damage you're dealing you will heal you about 1-3k for each furious charge (lifesteal works really well with aoe). Lifesteal stat is mostly ignored at the moment so it shouldn't be too expensive to fetch those gears on the AH. You can only get lifesteal on weapon or mighty belt. Try to get the one with close to maximum 3.0% as possible. Life on hit will not be as effective given how slow the swing timer is, but lifesteal will heal you more than life on hit could possibly give you with this build.
Conclusion
While this might not be the best spec in terms of survivability, it has very high maneuverability and gives you very high damage number. If you're bored with going sword and board and watch as mob dies from boredom, pick up your 2h and dash forward to enemy lines and start mowing them like a true barbarian would!
I switched to the heal rune when I hit 60, but this thread helps tempt me back to the joys of super charge...
-Alamar
Yes, Merciless Assault rune itself is a pretty fun rune to use. With enough mobs around you could chain charging all day long. Only thing stopping you from charging nonstop tend to be the fact that mobs kept dying in 1-2 charges (which is actually a good thing). I can easily land 200k crit (w/o wotb) with this build. The mini knockback is pretty nice at stopping enemies from hitting, too.
You just have to be a bit careful against mobs that are immune to knockback (like the big turkeys in act 3, and some elite packs) and you tend to get stuck in the animation after charge. But these problems can be easily avoided by carefully aiming where your charge lands.
All in all, this build can be pretty fun
i was thinking in buy 60 gear for ww but i think im gona stay as 2h i like big numbers
I've thought about that. The problem is, you actually won't get to use revenge that much since you should never ever be in the middle of enemy packs (you should zoom past them). For normal mobs they are staggered after charge anyway, so they won't be hitting you, and for elites the heal from revenge will not be enough to outheal the damage they deal. I feel that ignore pain buy you just enough time to burn them down before their damage becomes too much to handle (unless you massively outgear the content, it will be very hard to sustainably tank elite packs as 2h relying on revenge alone).
Plus, I find that with a bit of lifesteal from weapon (working on getting a good mighty belt), one well placed charge is more than enough to heal you back to full. Do not underestimate lifesteal with the amount of dps you're ditching out.
unbuffed
30k hp
22k dmg
5k armor
185% crit dmg
17% crit (this will increase to 27% when i get a mace or axe)
500 ra
800 LoH
no regen or LL
After reading this though i think imma try get some lifeleach into my build and add more damage and probably ignore pain. I was trying to stack LoH but i'll probably try for more LL and see if my damage is enough to power through the 80% DR on LL. Quick question. What is your resistances at and are you able to do act 3 and 4 with this build? with warcry(impunity) my lowest resistance is at 800. I'm kind of thinking of dropping some resistance for more damage...possibly rings, amulet, helm or possibly for a life leach might belt. nice post btw...i love merciless assault, only last week did i actually try to work it back into my build but i've been doing a charge/sprint build. I'll probably give berzerker rage a try for more dmg and take out sprint for battle rage.
As far as gearing goes, I feel like 30-40k hp is plenty for this build since life leech does not scale with max hp like revenge. You will want to get "enough" res and armor to survive long enough between charge (you will be a bit vulnerable while stuck with charge animation). Life leech is actually optional, since even with some you will be depending mostly on health globe and IiB to heal back to full (Remember, the goal is to kill them before they kill you), however with life leech you will be able to lasts longer with the heal you're getting. On tougher mobs you will have to manage health globes a bit in order to heal between Ignore Pain cooldown. Sometimes you might just have to kite until charge and ignore pain cooldown comes back up again.
My stat when I did act 3:
life 3.5k
armor 5000
res 500 (unbuffed. You want to aim for 800+ buffed for act3)
dps 30k
life leech 3%
LoH 0
For act 2, I find that only 600 res buffed is enough and I was able to swap in some more mf/dps gears. I steamrolled through act2 with 40k dps unbuffed (which brings me to ~60k buffed), but act2 can be easily done with much less dps and a bit more patient.
The only real trouble with this build is the elites (the more mob you're fighting the easier it gets, really). On tougher mobs you will have to manage your cooldown a bit and perhaps just keep kiting and only damage them with furious charge without getting hit until your gear allows you to take more damage. If you're having trouble staying alive then try wotb + ignore pain combo and just aim at taking one down before you die, but this build you can actually kite and charge them to death if you're careful enough.
If I find myself low on health sometimes I just aim my charge pass some health globe and just heal myself back to full.
can you post a vid of this in action?
I have around 30% crit and I think around 180% crit damage. However, neither of those stats are required at all for this build (as oppose to build like range barb or double tornado that rely on into the fray proc and heavily dependent on crit).
You're really only trying to maximize your weapon swing damage so whatever gives you the best boost in dps will help (except for ias. While ias improves your paper dps it does not make any of your abilities hit any harder).
Unfortunately I do not have any way to record a video
im very happy with low investment (like 1.5m) got a beast, my wd had like 5m investment and it sucked
Yes! Unlike some builds that rely heavily on into the fray, this build can work with almost any gear should you choose. In this sense it require very little gear replacement from what you already had. Although optimally stacking some crit% and crit dmg seem to be the best way to boost up your dps. I myself has stacked some crit and crit dmg (don't remember the value on the top of my head), and my crit can go up to like 200k (without wotb).
Of course lifesteal helps greatly, but I've played this without it and the rate at which you kill stuff is fast enough that health globes is more than enough. Note that attack speed is almost useless for this so that's one stat less you have to worry about.
Theoretically, I think this build is probably the highest dps you could ever obtain (as all the +dmg passive and active is there, minus brawler). The burst damage is also good but inferior to wotb+eq combo (but if you can reliably spam merciless assault it comes pretty close). Maybe if you can swap out ignore pain and put in EQ (and somehow manage to survive) this might actually work, too.
I changed the build a little to suit my needs instead of Wrath of the Berserker I use Earthquake (The Mountain's Call) and Ancient Spear (Dread Spear) in the place of the furious charge. When I see a rare pack I just earthquake+ignore pain, they melt and keep me at full health, If anybody try to run... I hook them back.
I loved the build its great for the 2 handed lovers! if you invest a little on crit, the big numbers start poping everywhere!! +1 to you good sir!!
I'm glad you like it Interesting modification. How did you find the lack of aoe work out for you?
I have the same and gear for sword and board spec as well. As I've mentioned, I used to do sword and board until I realize I can already breeze through everything in this game. After that gearing so I can survive better becomes kinda pointless.
The whole point of this 2h spec is to HAVE FUN! (It's a game, remember) And sword and board, while easy to play, is very slow and inefficient in terms of farming (sure, with wotb u can kill elite so fast but you still take a while to kill normal pack while I can kill whole white pack in one hit with a 2 hander).
Yes I do die a lot, at first. It takes some getting used to, because you cannot just stand and tank in plague/arcane/molten anymore (I could if I just pick up my shield, but then it gets pretty old real quick). After a while you get used to avoiding damage and survive a lot longer. No, I do not kite elite for 3 minutes because barely anything still stands after Wotb wears off.
This build is NOT for those who want the path of least resistance in progressing through the game. It's about having fun doing tons of damage for a change. It can also farm lower content much more effectively (I one shot through almost everything in act2). If you want the best way to not die and have highest chance to progress, go sword and board. Playing 2h is a gamble that they die before you do.
Heck, if you like sword and board so much, you can even do it with this build. Swap out bash for frenzy, ruthless and weapon master passives for armor ones and you should be good to go, except that now you're doing 55% more damage than you used to.
1. Make friends
2. Get dps up to 35k
3. Let monk friend run in first
4. Pop WOTB jump to 80k dps and kill everything
5. ?????
6. Profit
OT I am enjoying 2h dps but like I said since I hate single player games I almost never play alone and therefore don't have to worry as much about defensive stats.