After nearly 400 hours, I'm finally speeding my Barb through to level 60 which is a laughably easy endeavor. Man, Barbs are crazy powerful.

Anyway, I'm not looking to be able to run MP10 Inferno, but I am looking for an interesting challenge. I'm wondering it it's possible to run a thorns build through MP0 Hell, at least. I should be able to get the thorns damage up over 17,000 before bonuses. Tough as Nails would bump that into the 25k range. I giggle when I think about Reflects Damage elites killing themselves... So I'm looking for advice from experienced Barbs. Is there anyone else that's tried going whole hog on this on a Barb? I've heard of WD doing it before.

My ideal goal would be to run all of Hell MP0 with only actively attacking bosses. What kinds of skills would you recommend? Are there are obscure skills or gear choices that I might not be considering? This is definitely a theme build so anything goes from a peculiar gear perspective, but I am trying to keep this a low-budget build.

I have most of my gear together already, but I'd be willing to swap some around with only Cindercoat and Death Watch Mantle shoulders as non-negotiable. If shield blocks proc thorns, Helm of Command and Stormshield seem like a good idea for survivability. I've been aiming for Strength/Vit/AR/thorns gear with a strong emphasis on thorns, obviously.

@ecocd

As far as skills, Leap/Iron Impact (gives you 100% armor) and Overpower/Crushing Advance (35% ALL damage reflection for 4 seconds) is really efficient...

Revenge, since your going to be getting attacked a lot.

Just wondering.... What about adding a legendary or two with a proc to spawn minions?

The only ones I can think of are the set rings that spawn a skeleton.

@ZRyoku16 Revenge is in the theme of punishing enemies for punishing you, but it's an active skill right? I'm not sure it qualifies for the theme. If the build isn't working, though, it will be a great addition.

@Khan has a similar idea and if I equip some dinky blue socketed ilvl 15 dagger, I wouldn't be doing any respectable amount of damage with the skill itself. Another great suggestion.

@nuhertz I believe you're thinking of The Wailing Host which create skeletons when you attack. I do like the idea of gear that procs a retaliatory attack, like Andariel's Visage. I would have to give up the helm socket, though. Hmm. Are there others I'm missing?

I completely forgot about ranged damage, though. I guess I just have to run past those enemies.

Schaefers hammer! Up to 50% chance to attack with lightning on hit, does take your cd and cc into account. Can even hit those ranged!

Hmmm, very nice. That will require testing. It seems like a fantastic option for weapon swapping, though it will require testing. I'll have to take quite a few ranged hits to get it to proc so I wonder how much damage it causes. I really need to get Cohen up to level 60 and into Hell this week.

I used it on a monk tank in inferno BEFORE it was nerfed and did quite well. It is 2h, but the damage is tied to the weapon and not your dps, so stack cd and cc, and it does decent damage. I was doing 20k dps at that point, but my lightning procs were closer to 80k dps.

Posted by ecocd at 02/04/2013 10:10 AM

I completely forgot about ranged damage, though. I guess I just have to run past those enemies.

Ah, thats what Leap is for.

1) Make sure War Cry is on
2) Leap into battle
3) Hit Overpower
4) Hit Revenge when it lights up
5) Hit Rend

Edit: Revenge doesn't seem that great with this for me and Rend seems just "ok". Someone else try it out.

*sniff* It's just ... just ... so beautiful!



I ran Skycrown Battlements without any trouble. The Hammer is insane. I don't see the Deathwatch Mantle Knives fly out, but I'm sure they're there. I've got a bid in on a thorns 37% Poison Nova Andariel's Visage which would complete the set as far as I'm concerned. As of yet, I don't need the +% Life Gem I have to give up for the Thorns Visage. I also have a bid in on a Thorns / Life After Kill Amulet that would be superb.

I had no problem with Elite packs on Hell MP0, especially when firing off War Cry and Ignore Pain. Ranged attackers have been cleaned up by a 47% Schaefer's Hammer. I don't think I'll be able to run the bosses without attacking, but I'm fairly certain I can get through all of Act 3 otherwise.

I shall call it the Pacifist Run. No attacks, no followers. Just me, Unforgiving and Sprint against the worst Azmodan can throw at me.

I drastically underestimated the power of the Pacifist Barbarian. The only attacks I needed to get through not only Act 3, but also all of Act 4 was the 2nd Sin Heart and a few Growths in Act 4. While in Act 4...



And of course, the victory photo:



I imagine Inferno will be another matter. I suppose I'll run around for 5 minutes, but my quest has been completed. Evil has been defeated by the powers of non-violence.

(okay, okay, so it was basically The Hammer that cleared Act 3 and Act 4, but I never actually swung said hammer)

Just awesome.

Every Barb has its thorns!

@ecocd There is nothing quite like having double the thorn damage than your sheet DPS.

And in reality his thorns DPS has to be at least 3x what shows on his sheet as well.

Posted by nuhertz at 02/10/2013 09:37 PM

And in reality his thorns DPS has to be at least 3x what shows on his sheet as well.

Against Izkatu's minions, it could've been over 5x sheet dps! I earned a considerable Massacre Bonus there without touching the keyboard or mouse.

Posted by ecocd at 02/10/2013 10:01 PM

Posted by nuhertz at 02/10/2013 09:37 PM

And in reality his thorns DPS has to be at least 3x what shows on his sheet as well.

Against Izkatu's minions, it could've been over 5x sheet dps! I earned a considerable Massacre Bonus there without touching the keyboard or mouse.

video? :D

Wow, totally awesome experiment! Makes me think that Ghandi's philosophy of non-violence really *does* work! :-)

So according to this, it looks like you're pretty close to the maximum possible value for Thorns...just out of curiosity, what items are your "weak" points holding ya back...? :)

@Khan: +1 for the Poison reference, which was exactly what I was thinking when I saw this thread..! :)

From the Ask Dev thread:

The Topaz, on the other hand, is a different story. No -- the damage from the Topaz is not competitive in comparison to other gems. Thorns damage in general is underpowered in the game and we're looking to correct that n the future. While we're discussing a number of ways to do this, the favored idea internally is to allow Thorns to benefit from your primary stat (Strength, Dexterity, or Intelligence). So if you have, say, 2000 Intelligence as a Wizard or Witch Doctor, then your Thorns items will do +2000% damage, much like your weapon damage. This is, of course, a huge buff to the Thorns property and there is no specific timeline on when we're going to make such a change.

Somehow, I don't think they're going to allow me to have 768,803 thorns damage. I'm sure they would drop the thorns bonus on the passive, but that would still leave me with 512k thorns damage. I think thorns is going to remain the way it is pretty much permanently. (I actually have 188 more Strength than before which would push me over 80k thorns, but who's counting?)

@eastdragon42, I've made a few changes to me gear and the max stats table is a bit behind, particularly with the jewelry affixes being out of date since they can roll alvl 63 now. I'm not cerain how Cindercoat and Death watch Mantle work, but I'm going to say maximums at 5452 and 3998, respectively. I've recalculated them. I have a total of 22,008 out of a potential. My Gear / Max Gear

Helm / 1224 / 1454
Shoulders / 3287 / 3998
Chest / 4593 / 5452
Gloves / 1404 / 1454
Bracers / 1224 / 1454
Belt / 2508 / 2544
Pants / 1260 / 1454
Boots / 1453 / 1454
Amulet / 2324 / 2544
Ring / 1328 / 1454
Ring / 1403 / 1454
Total: 22,008 for me out of 24,716 possible

I have Strength on all but the Death Watch Mantle Shoulders which can't roll with bonus Thorns and Strength so they're not just completely random pieces of equipment. Most have Vitality or Life%, too.

@ecocd

Lol if only they'd done the topaz changes they discuss in the "Ask the dev's" you'd be able to mow inferno asleep!

Q. What is the point of adding a Marquise Topaz to a weapon (Melee attackers take 2500 per hit)? What happened to the proposed buff to Thorns?

The damage from the Topaz is not competitive in comparison to other gems. Thorns damage in general is underpowered in the game and we're looking to correct that n the future. While we're discussing a number of ways to do this, the favored idea internally is to allow Thorns to benefit from your primary stat (Strength, Dexterity, or Intelligence). So if you have, say, 2000 Intelligence as a Wizard or Witch Doctor, then your Thorns items will do +2000% damage, much like your weapon damage. This is, of course, a huge buff to the Thorns property and there is no specific timeline on when we're going to make such a change.

http://www.d3rmt.com/blizz-tracker/thread/7895009644/

@ninjax * points to post #19 above *

Posted by ecocd at 02/11/2013 01:36 PM

eastdragon42, I've made a few changes to me gear and the max stats table is a bit behind, particularly with the jewelry affixes being out of date since they can roll alvl 63 now. I'm not cerain how Cindercoat and Death watch Mantle work, but I'm going to say maximums at 5452 and 3998, respectively. I've recalculated them. I have a total of 22,008 out of a potential. My Gear / Max Gear

Helm / 1224 / 1454
Shoulders / 3287 / 3998
Chest / 4593 / 5452
Gloves / 1404 / 1454
Bracers / 1224 / 1454
Belt / 2508 / 2544
Pants / 1260 / 1454
Boots / 1453 / 1454
Amulet / 2324 / 2544
Ring / 1328 / 1454
Ring / 1403 / 1454
Total: 22,008 for me out of 24,716 possible

I have Strength on all but the Death Watch Mantle Shoulders which can't roll with bonus Thorns and Strength so they're not just completely random pieces of equipment. Most have Vitality or Life%, too.

Amazing. & I imagine since you weren't focusing on traditional affixes such as critical hit chance, critical damage, or attack speed, your equipment was probably relatively cheap too, right?

It seems like life regeneration would be a nice thing to add to your equipment too, if you could squeeze it in... :-) hehehhe...

Posted by ecocd at 02/11/2013 04:28 PM

@ninjax * points to post #19 above *

lol oops, I think I had this thread open for ages before replying and might have not seen your post :)

Posted by eastdragon42 at 02/11/2013 10:20 PM

Amazing. & I imagine since you weren't focusing on traditional affixes such as critical hit chance, critical damage, or attack speed, your equipment was probably relatively cheap too, right?

It seems like life regeneration would be a nice thing to add to your equipment too, if you could squeeze it in... :-) hehehhe...

I bought the whole set through bidding so I think it cost about 2.5 - 3 million. That was mostly for the Strength, Vitality and All Resist, though. The only time I've seen Thorns impact the price is a high bonus Thorns Cindercoat. The Topaz (which I forgot to include in the calculations) was about as expensive as the rest of the gear, but I can use it for MF when it's not providing a Thorns Bonus.

Life on Kill and Life Regeneration have both proven very useful. Assuming everything dies in 1 hit, if they do less damage than my total Life on Kill, I'm completely guaranteed to be life neutral after any given fight. Life Regeneration and kills with The Hammer both ensure I catch up with any heavy hitters. This is why I think I could actually get through a great deal of Inferno MP0 if I had that much patience.

I also managed to kill 3 of 4 Treasure Goblins I saw with The Hammer which was a pleasant surprise.

@ecocd could you screengrab/list your gear? Your barb in your profile now has a bunch of IK items which I don't think you were using for thorns :)

Looks like you're doing a HoTA barb! I love HoTA. How does he run with that gear?