Great Post and Guide Written by Zrave from Diablo 3 Forums
I wanted to share a new build I’ve been working on for playing in groups. I don’t think the tank barbarian build I use is very effective in groups, for several reasons, but mainly because:
1) Additional players and losing the enchantress make you take a lot more damage so the gear requirement to tank mobs goes up a lot.
2) You can’t rely on always having aggro and mobs neatly stacking on you for revenge spam.
Without further delay, here’s the new build I’m working on. I call it the linebacker, because it reminds me of a famous warrior build I designed for Guild Wars.
us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/barbarian#beYgXk!YhZ!cYZYac
(You must have a Mighty Weapon for this build to work.)
I played a variant of this build during Temerity’s initial run up to Inferno Diablo, but I’ve since made some improvements on it that have made it a lot more powerful. It’s still not complete but I haven’t been playing enough in groups to test everything I want. I decided to release the build in a “beta” stage so that those of you that regularly play in groups can test it out and maybe together we can perfect it.
As you can tell by the lack of revenge, this build is not designed to tank packs of mobs. Rather, it is designed to support a ranged dps group by not allowing enemies to reach them, while contributing to the ranged damage.
Reasoning behind each skill:
- Seismic Slam (Strength of the Earth): The idea for this skill is that with the Weapon Master passive and using a Mighty Weapon, each target you hit gives you back 3 rage, while a well aimed Seismic Slam often hits more than 5 targets. The Strength of the Earth rune reduces the cost to 15 rage, basically allowing you to seismic slam forever.
youtube.com/watch?v=pDbMw9ZHzrw
- Cleave (Gathering Storm): I wanted to have something to use while rage was low, and cleave fits nicely. I chose the Gathering Storm rune because Elite packs are immune to knock back, so I need something other than seismic slam to keep them away from your casters. Also, it’s helpful against ranged enemies. I have not tested this enough to know if it’s the best choice.
- Ground Stomp (Wrenching Smash): A solid all around skill, earns its slot due to the defensive options it provides. It can however also be used offensively, gathering up enemies to be more effectively AOE.
- Threatening Shout (Demoralize): This is one slot I’m unsure of. I wanted the defensibility afforded by the shout, and the Demoralize rune works as a second peel and is invaluable against ranged units, especially annoying ones like the Morlu Incinerator. It might not be needed.
- Leap (Iron Impact): I always like having at least one mobility skill, and the iron impact rune also gives you a very nice defensive cool down. Best used right after a Threatening shout so that the taunted enemies’ damage is mitigated.
- War Cry (Impunity): Solid buff, reduces your personal damage taken by quite a bit and also helps everyone else in the party. Especially useful if you have a monk since they stack resists.
Passives: I may not need this much rage generation, but during my tests I had issues with Weapon Master returning me less than it should. I wanted to make the Seismic Slam consistent, but since the build is not exactly gimp without it, perhaps it is not necessary.
Weapon Master is a necessity for the Seismic Slam combo so it definitely earns its slot.
Unforgiving is there because I wanted to have an initial clip of rage to work with at the start of the fight. Perhaps not necessary if I rely instead on the rage generating skills for the same purpose.
Ruthless is for increased dps. I visualize this build as having the potential to gear more offensively, since it doesn’t have to tank packs of mobs. Sadly both brawler and berserker rage are inappropriate, since rage will not be maxed and enemies are actively being pushed out of melee range.
It may be necessary to use some defensive passives anyway, testing will show.
Things to test:
- Wrath of the Berserk (Thrive on Chaos) – This has amazing potential, since so much rage is being generated in this build. I need to know how much additional duration would be gained in a typical fight to determine if it’s worth it.
- Battle Rage – Perhaps the build wants to maximize DPS rather than just control.
Known weaknesses:
Elite champs and bosses are immune to knock back, drastically reducing the effectiveness of the Seismic Slam combo. While you can help out in other ways, especially if there are also regular mobs aggro-ed at the same time, I find that often I just try to keep the pack aggro-ed and kite them around while ranged DPS kills them. This may be valuable still, but is definitely a weakness in the build.
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