Realized that 3 of us are lvling barbs and nurhertz has a 60 I figure we should all compare notes.

Currently just entered nightmare thank @douvinsky at lvl 28ish. Upgraded a few pieces and doing about 675 dps.

Currently running both dps passives.
Rend
Cleave
Leap
Stomp
War cry
Revenge

A little scared of nightmare. I noticed douv uses a lot of different skills. What do rest of you use? What should I / we use, and when do we change it up?

Rend - Bloodlust is a must. 9% life steal, if you have enough vitality and can cast it, your health will rarely go below 3/4. Plus you can jump in the middle of crowds and scare the crap out of everyone.

Too funny.

I am playing Barb mainly for fun - appreciating the skills and gears without powerleveling (before i got bored that is). Planning to do MP10 at least up to NM Butcher. If my DH can down Butcher at MP10 previously, to my Barb it should be an easy job.

My skills:
Bash + WW
Sprint + Leap for mobility
Revenge + Ignore Pain for survival (rarely press Ignore Pain for the 65% dmg reduction though, seems not really needed, yet)

Passive:

Nerves of Steel for armor boost
Weapon Master for DPS

My barb just hit 52!!!

At lvl 44 used barb 2 handed I was gifted and dps was 7k.

Currently at 14k dps self buffed. 20k health. 61% damage reduction. Doing WW barb in act 3 hell mp0, but may grind a2 for a bit.

I would say choose 2 of Leap, Charge, Sprint, Ignore pain. That should be enough to get out of sticky situations. Fill the rest with what you enjoy using. The more defensive passives if you are worried about dying (getting into Hell). Life Steal passive all the way through nightmare. Not sure about Hell though, might have lost most of its effectiveness.

Im currently lvl 56. Also used 2h from the start and aiming to hit inferno without touching a shield.

I have a lvl 27 barb doing 500 unbuffed DPS.

I pretty much went for defensive passives.
Nerves of Steel + Bloodthirst. (Although I also like Pound of Flesh for HC. The globes keeps you alive after all)


As for active skills I also went for stuff that keeps me alive.

Frenzy + Sidearm
Rend + Blood Lust (as @nuhertz pointed out, the 9% lifesteal is a must for getting surrounded)

Ground Stomp + Deafening Crash (I'm still in normal, where the stun is amazing. Will see if that is still true in nightmare)
Revenge + Vengeance is Mine (More croud lifesteal)
Battle Rage + Marauder's Rage (Pretty much my only DPS focussed skill)

On my fourth skill I currently still have sprint, but I'm too scared of running myself into something scary so i'm not really making proper use of this one.

Posted by Windvool at 03/24/2013 09:00 PM

I would say choose 2 of Leap, Charge, Sprint, Ignore pain. That should be enough to get out of sticky situations. Fill the rest with what you enjoy using. The more defensive passives if you are worried about dying (getting into Hell). Life Steal passive all the way through nightmare. Not sure about Hell though, might have lost most of its effectiveness.

Im currently lvl 56. Also used 2h from the start and aiming to hit inferno without touching a shield.

Leap can get you out of very dangerous situation.

Official Bnet: 3m EHP Barb died in 5 seconds

I am no shield as well, but DWing since I am still playing with a Born's 1H as offhand.

Posted by douvinsky at 03/24/2013 11:54 PM

Official Bnet: 3m EHP Barb died in 5 seconds

The best thing about that post is how calmly the guy handles it. Obviously he was upset (I have lost a lvl 60 DH so I know the feeling) but he was looking for ways to improve play, and not blaming anyone or complaining about his death. He is simply saying how it happened, and asking for advice on how to avoid it in future... at least, that's how I read it.

@Bort

Agree. And naturally, others responded positively and gave helpful advices.

@Bort @douvinsky Not sure if you guys know, but there's actually more to that story. A while ago there were a lot of threads where users were telling about their high EHP (some can be said to be boasting), but most of them have very low dps. Most players argued there should be a balance of EHP and DPS instead. I believe Ace, the barb with the 3m EHP was one of those high EHP/low DPS barbs making threads announcing his EHP . So with his death thread, people began discussing about the balance of EHP vs DPS again, and it seems to me Ace is still adamant about keeping high EHP vs getting a balance.

aaaah. well i"m in the "balance" team on that one. proven by my duel wield no shield monk

Yes I really dont see any point in making your ehp super high but dps so low you can't kill anything in a reasonable time period.

Heck at lvl 56 I have almost the same dps (24k buffed atm) as these ehp tanks.

This is what I think for Hardcore, speaking generally of all classes, and I do not have any supporting stats.

For a certain MP level,

At SC we can set a bare minimum EHP then go all out maximising DPS for super efficient farming, at which things should melt in one or two shots. Being a glass canon, you still die once in a while.

At HC, I believe it is something like target a bare minimum DPS, then go all out maximising EHP to keep yourself super alive. Maximising EHP since you do not want to "die once in a while". The bare minimum DPS is a DPS level which is able to help you melt things before they are capable of posing really big threats.

Taking my HC toons as example:

1) 88k DPS 405k EHP WD, MP1

88k DPS is enough to melt those mobs before they become a threat. 405k EHP is on the low, but together with the crowd control from EF (mine has close to 20% Fear), from Maximus + Enchantress (a Big Demonic Tremor turned into a little chicken?) and the back up Spirit Vessel I feel pretty safe. My pupils still dilate when I am cornered by two elite packs but I can pretty much still stay alive and kill them.

If I have extra gold (say 100m?) to spend, I would rather spend it on EHP instead of DPS. The time when I want to upgrade DPS would be when I have enough to up my EHP already (i.e. already spend the extra 100m), and I want to tackle higher MP levels. For now I am satisfied with the efficiency and "safety" at MP1. I always play with the disconection in mind. I figure I might still survive MP1 should a disconnection happen, hoping that my enchantress and pets can take down MP1 low HP mobs.

2) Monk with <50k DPS and 660k EHP (excluding dodge/ block)

50k seems low, but is actually fine when you can spam Wave of Light. I think this is one of the skills that received a nice DPS boost from Blizzard a while ago (not too sure on this). I haven't been focusing greatly on monk, but I would try to up her DPS further without sacrificing EHP - atm quite hard to achieve without a big budget.

Currently lvling a barb on HC, lvl 9 so far using Bash(Clobber) with Rend. Ground Slam 1/Leap 2.

Playing it on MP10, saw a few others were doing this also.

Im pretty much just Rending right now and alot of stuff just drops down with ease.

I hit 60. Did some minor gearing and got to 24k dps I buffed and 640k ehp unbuffed. My AR is way too low as its at 431 currently. Might give in and buy a storm shield and helm of command. If either drop for you'll holler!

Posted by Mehsiah at 03/25/2013 05:45 PM

Currently lvling a barb on HC, lvl 9 so far using Bash(Clobber) with Rend. Ground Slam 1/Leap 2.

Playing it on MP10, saw a few others were doing this also.

Im pretty much just Rending right now and alot of stuff just drops down with ease.

If you are continuing with MP10 and just want a feel of the "safe" stats for bosses, I have some stats for your reference. My barb is going to face Normal MP10 Diablo soon (edit: server up, killed Diablo with 6.4k HP, 2.3k Armor, 718 DPS), and plan to continue MP10 till NM Butcher.

Started my barb journey in Nightmare MP10. Killed Skeleton King - with a wood "Wildwood" and a leg shield "Denial".

I am testing out a few "mobility" skills, so far so good.

- Furious Charge, oh yea Barb can glide too
- Leap
- Berserker
- WW

I actually killed Skeleton King with lower stats then yours.

Throndul (Lv10) Barb
-44.3 dmg
-120 armor
-510 HP

It took awhile even with good dps. Used a sword/shield approach.

Posted by Mehsiah at 03/27/2013 11:03 AM

I actually killed Skeleton King with lower stats then yours.

Throndul (Lv10) Barb
-44.3 dmg
-120 armor
-510 HP

It took awhile even with good dps. Used a sword/shield approach.

From my table in my previous post, my barb's DPS is significantly lower than yours at 21 DPS (your 44.3 dmg is more than double of mine)..............believe me it was a torture. In later trial my monk with 32 DPS already did much better than my barb. Higher DPS is actually better in this fight.

Spent some money. Curious as to what a normal HC barb run for inferno content. Anyone have links to read? I might be too attached to my SC WW barb build.