Mysteries of the Mighty Barbarians.

[Dryr]

Any suggestions for upgrades under a mil (other than rings)? I need lots more life as a barb, but I've been focusing on resists and loh/regen... Is % lots better than a ton of VIT?

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/D.../hero/20660372

[-Zer0-]

They nerfed Inferno so hard. Just beat Act II and it was a total breeze. Beat Belial first try in about 2 mins on Barb.

They really did. I decided to clear out all the bosses the other night for the hell of it and aside from 1-2 packs in Act 3...clearing 2-4 was pretty damn easy. Still rough in some areas, but not painstakingly overwhelming now.

[Julian]

looks like you don't really have enough AR to sustain taking more than one hit so you can try a glasscannon build where you essentially just try to dodge everything. ideally you'd want a lot of AR/HP so you can take a few hits but there's not much of an in between. even right now at best i can take 2-3 hits max before i die and that cost me quite a bit to get there. as such you'd be switching out shadow power for smokescreen/lingering fog. you'd also be changing your prep rune to backup plan. you could keep vengeance but i'd wayyyyy rather have steady aim. and definitely go with hungering arrow instead of shatter shot. it might be difficult at first but you need to think of it as one of those airplane top-down arcade games where you have a million bullets flying at you in all kinds of patterns and you're trying to dodge them all. GC is how all DH's were forced to play pre-1.03 anyway so don't think it impossible if you do.

one thing about using smokescreen instead of gloom and cluster bombs on reflect damage: you're gonna have to time it so that you hit smoke the moment the first bomb hits the monster. that way you get to evade all the damage reflected back at you. it's not like gloom where you activate it before and anything you cast while it's on gets absorbed.

gearwise, see if you can find a higher dmg x-bow (though that might be difficult with crit dmg on it) and don't worry about life on hit, an essentially meaningless stat on DH. grab a bodypiece and a quiver with as much discipline as you can get, which shouldn't be too hard to find if you're looking to just break even on the dex of your current pieces (well quiver might be expensive with 7.0 cc but look anyway). bracers shouldn't be too hard to upgrade if you're swapping out AR for more dex, and a helm with dex, crit chance, and OS shouldn't be too expensive either.

also might want to look up some youtube vids to see gc playstyle if you're not sure about it. i watched this one when i first started farming A3 and it helped me out a lot. the guy also has a few more vids on how to deal with different types of elites. and while i realize he's not using cluster bombs at least you can get an idea of how you want to be moving around http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4rHYhfq6tw

one last thing: use your scoundrel and give him a cold bow with blind, multishot, and the crit ability. it will make a huge difference. gl

Thanks for the suggestions.

I like being able to survive at least a hit or two, that way I can use stuff like gloom/prep/potions to stay alive. I'm currently using vengeance and vault since cinder is so broken right now, planning on swapping those out for smokescreen once it's nerfed.

What did you mean on hungering arrow? shatter shot is a rune for it so not sure if you said something but meant something else.

Will do on the other stuff, thanks a bunch!

[Julian]

lol, so I figured out that sorting by newest items, and keep spamming search, you can find stuff as soon as it comes up.

Grabbed a 1096dps xbow w/ 1621 life after kill (not a TERRIBLE thing to have) 62% crit dmg and a socket

for 868k :D

oh, here's another question:

Having 3mil left, should I look into just buying a higher tiered emerald gem? I only have +50% crit dmg, not sure how upgrading that would be in terms of bang/buck compared to other upgrades

[kisada]

yeah I meant Devouring arrow. also forgot about the new vault thing as I haven't played dh since the patch. vengeance is a good choice

[Dakk-Siren]

I prefer Spray of Teeth over devouring arrow because of the reliance on crit over the flat 35% chance to do the extra damage.
Also, could anyone tell me why people choose SP/gloom? Only reason i can think of is for a reflects damage elite pack but a well timed smokescreen + cluster bombs takes care of those easily.

I got 4mil and some extra change to spend, this is my current gear: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/J...4/hero/3111146

Cleared act2 np, although not extremely comfortably, it's not difficult. Having a lot of trouble in act 3, though. Not really sure what gear upgrades to prioritize with the amount of money I have, so looking for any suggestions you guys may have.

From what I can tell you need to get some +discipline on your gear. You basically need +9 discipline to be able to use smokescreen 3 times in a row which makes getting out of bad situations easier or gives you more flexibility on using fire vault to take care of double fast elites. If i can give any advice to any dh is drop sharpshooter. Yeah the big number on damage is cool but the passive is garbage, it was great in normal to hell but once you have any amount of crit it becomes garbage. Really the only other passives that are not complete shit for dh (other than steady aim and archery) is vengeance and tactical advantage. I personally use TA for solo and vengeance when i play with my 2h barb buddy(who is an absolute beast and basically cannot die) because he picks up the globes which means more ball lightnings/clusterbombs/discipline.
I would suggest trying to get the Natalya's 2 piece (head and chest) they are around 10m together on US. The 7% crit is awesome.
Here is my profile: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/D.../hero/12396335
I love the current build I am using, it clears act 2 farming runs in like 35 minutes and usually have no problems with act 3 other then the reflects damage, fast, soul ripper packs in the towers. I can usually take 1, and I mean ONE hit from an act 3 ranged attack which allows a little leeway from just hoping you dodge.
Next on my list to buy is Inna's pants. the extra crit and move speed will help alot.

[Ollieyk]

I am so completely converted to 2 handed builds on Barbarian. I've been struggling through with a sword / board build in Act 3 forever, switched up my build to a 2-hander build with less resist but more STR / Crit and steamrolled the Seigebreaker run in less than 30 minutes. It's amazing...My Mace only has 1.1k dps but in DPS calc it pissed all over a 1400DPS mace with 100STR, little less native crit and socket. (No idea how...).

http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/M.../hero/13584900 for anyone interested. Critique would be good too

[kisada]

I prefer Spray of Teeth over devouring arrow because of the reliance on crit over the flat 35% chance to do the extra damage.
Also, could anyone tell me why people choose SP/gloom? Only reason i can think of is for a reflects damage elite pack but a well timed smokescreen + cluster bombs takes care of those easily.

you are completely wrong about sharpshooter. i've already written like 3 posts about it so i don't care to elaborate again. all i'll say is the fastest runs i ever had were with sharpshooter. TA/vengeance/all that other stuff are fluff skills compared to SS and unnecessary.

WRT spray of teeth vs DA: some guy mathed it out and basically determined that the only way you could out damage DA with SOT was with 86% crit chance. obviously nobody's going to get that but SOT is still quite useful. personally i switched once i could get my SOT crits to one-shot trash mobs in A3 because the utility is far greater with a cluster bomb build. if your crits can't one-shot trash mobs in whatever act you're doing, you'll want to stick with the highest DPS rune possible, which will be DA.

[Mrf]

you are completely wrong about sharpshooter. i've already written like 3 posts about it so i don't care to elaborate again. all i'll say is the fastest runs i ever had were with sharpshooter. TA/vengeance/all that other stuff are fluff skills compared to SS and unnecessary.

WRT spray of teeth vs DA: some guy mathed it out and basically determined that the only way you could out damage DA with SOT was with 86% crit chance. obviously nobody's going to get that but SOT is still quite useful. personally i switched once i could get my SOT crits to one-shot trash mobs in A3 because the utility is far greater with a cluster bomb build. if your crits can't one-shot trash mobs in whatever act you're doing, you'll want to stick with the highest DPS rune possible, which will be DA.

I've got a 40% crit rate and I still agree 100% about using Sharpshooter. I've tried dropping it a number of times in parties and solo, but it takes so much longer to kill things I've gone back to it full time.

[kisada]

yeah, for me it got even better as i went from 30% to 40%. my current crit rate is at about 50% right now and i can't really use both steady aim and sharpshooter at the same time (forced to use TA cause of nat's). but in testing one vs the other the run times tend to equal each other with SS having the slight edge. when i get a nice bow i'll resume testing, as i sold mine pre-patch.

[Mrf]

Trail of Cinders nerf in 1.0.5:
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/top...0437675?page=1

"Even though we posted in all of the patch notes and previews that it was going to do 1500% over 3 seconds, we really meant to only have it do 300% over 3 seconds. We didn't notice it did 5 times as much damage when testing it, but DH started having fun, so it has to be nerfed."

[Dimmauk]

Trail of Cinders nerf in 1.0.5:
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/top...0437675?page=1

"Even though we posted in all of the patch notes and previews that it was going to do 1500% over 3 seconds, we really meant to only have it do 300% over 3 seconds. We didn't notice it did 5 times as much damage when testing it, but DH started having fun, so it has to be nerfed."

Fucking lame

[Odesseiron]

Fucking lame

No shit. Seemed to good to be true. Enjoying it and spamming while I can!

[Thuronn]

No shit. Seemed to good to be true. Enjoying it and spamming while I can!

At least you've gotten use out of them, I'm sure there are many people who today/tonight bought a pair and are now QQ'ing at Blizzard.

[Julian]

lol at all the bitching in that thread

EVERYONE should have known a nerf was coming, because it was way too overpowered as a defensive skill, and incredibly broken. Instead of just ninja fixing it, or hot fixing it without any warning, they came out and told everyone that it was WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY stronger than intended, and that they were going to tone it down, but they're giving us warning that they'll be doing it next patch. It's what everyone wanted out of them. Yet everyone still bitches, lol. Poor blizzard.

[Odesseiron]

lol at all the bitching in that thread

EVERYONE should have known a nerf was coming, because it was way too overpowered as a defensive skill, and incredibly broken. Instead of just ninja fixing it, or hot fixing it without any warning, they came out and told everyone that it was WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY stronger than intended, and that they were going to tone it down, but they're giving us warning that they'll be doing it next patch. It's what everyone wanted out of them. Yet everyone still bitches, lol. Poor blizzard.

SHould have play tested their own game!

[arus2001]

Eh, just par for the constant stream of DH nerfs, really. Sure, it may be wtfawesome in the hands of the pimped, for those not so much, just trying to position yourself better to use it could get you killed, nevermind how I seem to fight mobs that try to avoid the trail.

[kisada]

meh, makes no difference to me as i still haven't played DH post patch.

i do think it's funny, though, cause it's yet another example of blizz's negligence/incompetence.

[Dimmauk]

They better not fuck with arcane destruction!

[Roranora]

..back to Rattling Roll >_>;