I run a 2h Barb, and I have no problem with Act 2 Inferno (with the exception of Belial). You do not need to be super tanky to be a Barb in Inferno, and I have never used a 1h and shield in Inferno while solo. In some ways the best defense is a good offense.
Could you guys share your stats and builds?
Cause atm I have 2 ways of doing NM act1:
1) solo or group; 2h; seismic slam (15fury cost) + wrath + earthquake + ignore pain + unforgiven
kite all normal packs with seismic slam and enjoy the rage generation from unforgiven passive
elite packs = pop all cooldowns, hope I kill it before the cooldowns end, retry until I do
2) group; sword and board; shitload of stun/support skills
I'm the support bitch that follows the demon hunter around as a bodyguard
and both aren't really 'fun' so after reaching NM I now only play 2hrs a day because I get bored after!
I've farmed up hell act4 about 10~15 times orso and when looking for gear on AH I can't really find any improvements in vit/str below 1mil buyout so I think my gear is good
Might be me, but you're talking about Nightmare mode right? I can't see how you can have problems with NM. Aside from 1 rather annoying combination of abilities on a champion pack at the start of Oasis (On those whirlwinding mobs) I have yet to die from something that was too hard. The only other reasons I died was things like: Oh i'll soak that shit up! Then comming to a conclusion that I just better could've decided to Leap / Stun them or something.
Anyway, I've cleared most of NM with the following build:
I won't act like this build is super, but as I said, it worked for me on almost everything. I hate long CD abilities though, and i'm no fan of Revenge either, waiting on a ability to proc in order to get healed is WAY too random for my taste, but as i'm working my way through hell now i'll try to get that sorted in the process.
To sum it up though, NM basicly allowed me to just go ape-shit dmg wise and kill it before it kills you.
sorry inferno, I'm used to writing NM (nightmore) from playing swtor where it was the highest difficulty xD
Nightmare (and first 90% of hell) is fine imo for barb, you can still have the real barb vibe while playing a bit more careful there
I run a 2h Barb, and I have no problem with Act 2 Inferno (with the exception of Belial). You do not need to be super tanky to be a Barb in Inferno, and I have never used a 1h and shield in Inferno while solo. In some ways the best defense is a good offense.
Could you guys share your stats and builds?
Cause atm I have 2 ways of doing inferno act1:
1) solo or group; 2h; seismic slam (15fury cost) + wrath + earthquake + ignore pain + unforgiven
kite all normal packs with seismic slam and enjoy the rage generation from unforgiven passive
elite packs = pop all cooldowns, hope I kill it before the cooldowns end, retry until I do
2) group; sword and board; shitload of stun/support skills
I'm the support bitch that follows the demon hunter around as a bodyguard
and both aren't really 'fun' so after reaching inferno I now only play 2hrs a day because I get bored after!
I've farmed up hell act4 about 10~15 times orso and when looking for gear on AH I can't really find any improvements in vit/str below 1mil buyout so I think my gear is good
Let's not start discussing revenge again ... almost all topics seem to end up with a discussion on revenge -.- (ps. blocks do trigger it, since you still take dmg, dodge doesn't I think).
im pretty sure dual wielding gives you 15% attack speed, not 25%.
Sword and board is definitely viable, the real question is, is dual wielding/2hander viable in inferno.
edited post for +aspd and I think that's the better question and matching it; is any skill build without at least 2 passive and 3 active defensive skills viable.
I get the idea that the way they intended to be able to play a 'real' barb (like the feeling you get when doing normal and you can just go mad in melee instead of kiting/shield and being a support b!tch in your group) would be if you can get such good gear that you're running around with 40k hp, good lifesteal and enough damage to make the lifesteal count ...
there are actually a lot of ppl running around with dual wield and reducing their damage because of it!
- when you DW you will be hitting with your main hand and off hand, 1 after the other.
- DW increases your attack speed by 15%.
this means that if your offhand is less powerful then your main hand, there's a good chance that that actually becomes less dps, even with the 15% attack speed increase!
when you have a new main hand (or want to try finding a new offhand) you should always be checking how much damage increase you get from equiping it vs not having an offhand and consider in your head how much that damage increase is from the strength on the offhand!
for me, I found a shield with about the same amount of strength on it as my old offhand (100ish) and it was a dps increase! just because my offhand has 100dps less then my mainhand!
So shield is very much viable unless you have both a very good main hand and offhand it will be a better choice!
Now on a side note, when you're looking for a shield, get one with high armor and good stats, don't bother going for the blocking, since that really doesn't increase your survivability much, since the block is before the damage reduction from armor and thus blocking 2k damage isn't that much EH:
inferno random mob hits you for 10k with 2k shield block and 70% armor reduction:
10k - 2k = 8k - 70% = 2400 health loss
inferno random mob hits you for 10k with just 70% armor reduction:
10 - 70% = 3000 health loss
so a 2k block saves 600 health, with most shields having between 12% and 15% and even with the awesome ones having up to 20% chance that will at most be 1% damage reduction!
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sorry inferno, I'm used to writing NM (nightmore) from playing swtor where it was the highest difficulty xD
Nightmare (and first 90% of hell) is fine imo for barb, you can still have the real barb vibe while playing a bit more careful there
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Could you guys share your stats and builds?
Cause atm I have 2 ways of doing inferno act1:
1) solo or group; 2h; seismic slam (15fury cost) + wrath + earthquake + ignore pain + unforgiven
kite all normal packs with seismic slam and enjoy the rage generation from unforgiven passive
elite packs = pop all cooldowns, hope I kill it before the cooldowns end, retry until I do
2) group; sword and board; shitload of stun/support skills
I'm the support bitch that follows the demon hunter around as a bodyguard
and both aren't really 'fun' so after reaching inferno I now only play 2hrs a day because I get bored after!
I've farmed up hell act4 about 10~15 times orso and when looking for gear on AH I can't really find any improvements in vit/str below 1mil buyout so I think my gear is good
0
edited post for +aspd and I think that's the better question and matching it; is any skill build without at least 2 passive and 3 active defensive skills viable.
I get the idea that the way they intended to be able to play a 'real' barb (like the feeling you get when doing normal and you can just go mad in melee instead of kiting/shield and being a support b!tch in your group) would be if you can get such good gear that you're running around with 40k hp, good lifesteal and enough damage to make the lifesteal count ...
0
there are actually a lot of ppl running around with dual wield and reducing their damage because of it!
- when you DW you will be hitting with your main hand and off hand, 1 after the other.
- DW increases your attack speed by 15%.
this means that if your offhand is less powerful then your main hand, there's a good chance that that actually becomes less dps, even with the 15% attack speed increase!
when you have a new main hand (or want to try finding a new offhand) you should always be checking how much damage increase you get from equiping it vs not having an offhand and consider in your head how much that damage increase is from the strength on the offhand!
for me, I found a shield with about the same amount of strength on it as my old offhand (100ish) and it was a dps increase! just because my offhand has 100dps less then my mainhand!
So shield is very much viable unless you have both a very good main hand and offhand it will be a better choice!
Now on a side note, when you're looking for a shield, get one with high armor and good stats, don't bother going for the blocking, since that really doesn't increase your survivability much, since the block is before the damage reduction from armor and thus blocking 2k damage isn't that much EH:
inferno random mob hits you for 10k with 2k shield block and 70% armor reduction:
10k - 2k = 8k - 70% = 2400 health loss
inferno random mob hits you for 10k with just 70% armor reduction:
10 - 70% = 3000 health loss
so a 2k block saves 600 health, with most shields having between 12% and 15% and even with the awesome ones having up to 20% chance that will at most be 1% damage reduction!