The Front Line Barb Guide - Topic

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Nov 16 2012 06:56am

http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/barbarian#WcgikP!YZV!YZYbcZ

The skills

Active

Frenzy-Smite This skill is absolutely brilliant. 20% Chance to smite with a 75 bonus to attack speed can keep the key wardens and ubers pretty much perma stunned for most of the fight. It also interrupts certain attacks.

Rend-Blood lust This is the new revenge, it has a cost of only 20 fury and will help keep you at top health. Unlike revenge you won't be waiting around for it to become active so it's much more viable.

Threatening shout-Demoralize A very underused skill. I take this over battle rage because my role is to be the front line and take damage while other people deal damage. Demoralize pulls all enemies close to you so your rend hits a lot more mobs. The ubers are immune to the taunt but the 20% damage reduction still effects them (as far as I can tell)

Ignore pain-Ignorance is bliss Yes, Yes it is. This is your emergency back up plan for those times you're low on health and stood in 10 stacks of desecrater. One Rend while this is active will heal you 100k+

War cry-Impunity This is a great team skill and boosts everyone's armour (and resistances? unsure). It will help keep you and your team alive

Wrath of the berserker-Insanity "Where is your permanent CC immunity?" I hear you ask, I don't need it is the short answer. I will be stood in the middle of everything so jailer isn't a problem (fear can be a pain) and popping ignore pain just before being frozen (if wrath is on cool down) is enough to keep you alive. The 100% bonus damage is amazing and will help in uber fights and while farming stacks and keys.

Passives

Weapon master Because I use an axe and I want a free 10% crit chance but you could easily switch this out for blood lust if you lack in life steal or nerves of steel if you want more armour

Ruthless Best barb passive 5%cc 50%cd

Tough as nails This should increase your armour a lot more than nerves of steel (unless your some kind of 100k health mega barb maiac)

The gear

I'll suggest a few things for the higher price bracket players and some alternatives if you're strapped for gold.

For the wealthy

Helm - Mempo - For obvious reasons. This gives a nice boost to health and attack speed as well as resistances that are extremely important in this build - Aim for high strength and maybe vita if you can find it. For the rich rich go for crit chance too.

Shoulders Vile ward is another obvious choice here, it rolls high strength, resistances and armour naturally and can roll vita.

Bracers There is absolutely no need whatsoever in spending 120 million on Lacuni prowlers because they give very little protection. You could easily buy a set of bracers with strength, vitality, armour, all resistances and crit chance for a fraction of the price

Chest Immortal kings – This is the best choice by a long way. It naturally has masses of strength, resistances, vitality, armour and three sockets. Gaining the two or three set bonus will increase your resistances and damage reduction too which is a bonus.

Boots Immortal kings stride. Naturally has decent strength, vita, resistances, movement speed, reduced CC

Belt Immortal kings tribal binding. This gives a great bonus because they naturally have high resistances, strength and life steal. Aim for a boost to frenzy damage. If you want lamentation then feel free but I think that using IK boots, belt and armour is the best option (over any other combination of three pieces)

Gloves Trifecta gloves with strength,vita,res or any combination of these. They’ll give a nice boost to your overall damage and we’re not avoiding damage all together with this build but it’s our secondary function. My gloves give a total of 11% of my overall damage (150strength 8ias 20crit damage 8.5 crit chance)

Pants Depth diggers if you’re richer than me but you can easily find a pair of pants for less than 10 million (or even 5) with 100+ strength, 100+ vita, bonus armour, 50+ resistances and two sockets.

Offhand Storm shield, preferably with crit chance and a high armour and block roll. The sell for in the region of 40-100million for a decent 30+ block with crit chance but it’s definitely worth the price.

Main hand The butchers sickle, this always rolls crit damage and life steal which is important but most importantly it has a chance to drag enemies to you which has the same effect as smite on bosses. For one with around 950+ damage 50cd and 1 socket you are looking at 50mil+ and with strength that’s 100mil+. This is pretty important as it will keep your perma stun up and also helps vs naturally kiting, extra fast, extra annoying mobs.

Jewellery Trifecta rings and amulets are overpriced for what they do. Aim for crit chance and damage with strength and vita or just crit damage and vita, strength, armour and all resistances.

Budget gear

The over saturated market of yellows is your friend.

Helm IK Helm, can roll low stats so can be found pretty cheaply. Alternatively a helm with strength, vita, armour, crit chance and a socket will do (or the best combination of those you can afford)

Shoulders Strength/vita/armour/all res is cheap and easy to find

Bracers There are thousands of strength/vita/all res crit chance bracers on AH for next to nothing

Chest Strength/vita/all res 3 sockets (and bonus armour)

Boots IK boots are pretty cheap because they can roll low stats but are still very good. You can also find strength, vita and all res boots for a low price

Belt IK belt can be found rather cheaply, alternatively a mighty belt with strength, vita, all res and life steal

Gloves IK gloves can be found relatively cheaply but alternatively you can get a pair with strength vita all res and crit chance or damage (or both maybe)

Pants 2 sockets with strength vita and all resistances are quite cheap depending on the levels. You might get lucky and find some high rolls underpriced.

Offhand A shield with a decent block amount, high armour and all resistances. No one buys or uses shields and this makes it really easy to find decent ones for a low price. A good roll would be 26+ block, 1100+ armour 40+resitances 4+ crit chance, 50+vita and 50+ strength.

Main hand You can get a low damage butchers sickle for a low price or go for a basic one hander with as much damage as you can get on your budget. Consider your build and find something that will help you the most. Do you need more life steal? Do you have low vita? Is your crit damage low? Then pick accordingly.

Jewellery Aim for more vita, strength, resitances and armour. Crit chance and damage are a bonus but don’t waste your money on increased attack speed unless you’re happy you’re not sacrificing something else for it.
Try to get at least two pieces of the Immortal kings set for the massive resistances bonus.

You’re gear aims to give you
1600+ Strength
800+ Vita
800+ Bonus armour
450+ Resistances
20+Crit chance
150+ Crit damage

The key farmer

You can do this in a group or alone but it’s faster as a group. MP5+ should be no problem.

Act 1 The Key of Destruction will drop from Odeg the Keywarden in Act I - Fields of Misery
Places to find a lot of elite packs close together are the halls of agony, leorics manor and the festering woods.
This guy isn’t too bad, just go in and whack him to death simple as.
Act 2 The Key of Hate will drop from Sokahr the Keywarden in Act II - Dahlgur Oasis
Places to find a lot of elite packs close together are the desolate sands and the archives of zultan khulle.
This spin to win barb wannabe is pretty annoying but deals more damage at a distance so just stay close and your smite/sickle will interrupt his spins.

Act 3 The Key of Terror will drop from Xah'Rith the Keywarden in Act III – Stonefort
Places to find lots of elites close together are everywhere or you could try
 The Keep Depths Level 1
 The Keep Depths Level 3
 The Bridge of Korsikk
 Rakkis Crossing
 Arreat Crater Level 1
 Tower of the Damned Level 1
 Arreat Crater Level 2
 Tower of the Cursed Level 1
 The Core of Arreat

This guy is pretty homofagtastic because he doesn’t want to stay still and the slow is irritating. Just chase him around and smite him! STAY DOWN BITCH!

Act 4 The Blacksmithing Plans will drop from Nekarat the Keywarden in Act IV - Silver Spire Level 1
Places to find elites are ??? I dunno because I hate this act. It’s layout is stupid and elites are always far apart. Just look around for some elites and kill them.
This guy is pretty hard because he randomly just explodes or something and it deals a ton of damage but you only have to find 1 plan and I get 1 at MP1 so yeah.

The ubers
So you’ve got your keys and you wanna uber. Do it with friends or hunt for a group on chat or something. People always wanna uber and they might bring machines.
Open one portal at a time in case you suck too hard and didn’t read the build properly (or everyone in your group still uses cracked armour and deals 10 damage)

Leoric and Maghda Another spin to win barb wannabe here. Try to keep the kings attention while your squishy friends run around aimlessly screaming “OMG DAT DMG” and reviving each other. Taunt his minions whenever you can and rend like a mad man. Use your ignore pain whenever his spin takes you low (or his random bugged haters gonna hate walk of doom). Once that skeletal tickle bitch is dead focus on the witch. She is pretty lame and most of her damage comes from her arcane sentry. When she shields make sure you with until her minions come and then taunt them and rend them to bits. She is pretty easy alone so don’t worry.

Ghom and Rakanoth Ghom does nothing. He is just there for show, the poison isn’t even close to the true uber pre 1.05 Ghom so just ignore that scruffy fat retard for now. Rakanoth will focus you if you’re close but might occasionally teleport to another player. His spinny attack of no effect can be smited and they both spawn lots of creeps so you can taunt them and rend them to keep your hp full. Nice and simple. Once Rakanoth is crying in the corner you can kill Ghom.

Siege and Kulle This is the hard one. You need to try and agro siege and get your friends to keep Kulle fighting them. Once you have siegey wiegys attention then bring him to the corner (far left or far right) of the map while your friends all kill Kulle. Once you get that down the rest is easy. Assuming your friends aren’t terribad they shouldn’t struggle too much vs Kulle and once he’s dead Siege is a piece of cake. He won’t deal too much damage to you and you can pretty much perma stun him because he doesn’t run around like an idiot.

After killing all three you get the Hallfire torch which gives 3 to all skills of a random class, resistances, bonus stats and a chance to cast hell fire. Remember that the paladin and soso torches are worth a lot more for some reason.

Hope you all enjoy my guide. Let me know what you think and if you have any improvements.

Edit for layout

This post was edited by fullmetalsilverback on Nov 16 2012 07:05am