In the brutal and unforgiving world of Diablo 4, Barbarians stand as a testament to raw power and resilience. A unique aspect of their strength lies in the Expertise mechanic, a key to unlocking devastating builds and asserting dominance over the legions of the Burning Hells. If you're looking to harness this power quickly, here's your comprehensive guide to farming Expertise effectively.
What Is Expertise in Diablo 4?
Expertise is essentially the Barbarian's mastery over various weapon types. Each weapon type offers distinct techniques and bonuses, enhancing the Barbarian's prowess in battle. From passive effects tailored to specific weapons to benefits that bolster other arms, Expertise is critical in shaping a versatile and deadly warrior.
Gaining Expertise
The path to Expertise is straightforward yet arduous: wield and conquer. Each enemy felled by your chosen weapon nudges you closer to mastery. Whether it's the heft of a two-handed mace or the swift strikes of dual-wielded daggers, active engagement in combat is the crucible in which Expertise is forged.
Farming Expertise Efficiently
While the traditional route to Expertise through combat is effective, certain strategies can significantly accelerate your progress:
Whirlwind: Your Best Friend - The Whirlwind skill is indispensable in your arsenal. Its versatility allows it to adapt to any weapon you wield, making it the perfect tool for farming Expertise across multiple weapon types simultaneously.
Dual-Wield Diversification - To maximize the efficiency of Whirlwind, equip two different types of one-handed weapons. This setup ensures you're not only wreaking havoc upon your foes but also simultaneously honing your skill in wielding both weapon types.
Engage in Dense Combat Situations - Areas teeming with enemies are your ideal battlegrounds for farming Expertise. Dungeons and World Events are ripe with demonic hordes eager to test your metal. The more foes you face, the quicker you'll ascend to weapon mastery.
Why Focus on Expertise?
Expertise isn't just a measure of your proficiency with weapons; it's a cornerstone of the Barbarian's evolution. Mastery over a diverse arsenal ensures you're prepared for any threat Diablo 4 throws your way. With each level of Expertise, you unlock deeper layers of strategy and adaptability, ensuring your Barbarian is a force to be reckoned with.
In the end, the journey to mastering all seven weapon types is a marathon, not a sprint. But with strategic use of skills like Whirlwind and smart engagement in combat-heavy zones, you'll find yourself rapidly climbing the ranks of weapon mastery. Embrace the path of the Barbarian in Diablo 4, and let your Expertise carve a trail of destruction across the face of Sanctuary.
Welcome to our comprehensive guide to the Barbarian class in Diablo 3!
The Barbarian is a powerful melee class, known for their brute strength and relentless aggression. With the ability to wield dual-wielded weapons, or a two-handed weapon, the Barbarian excels in close combat and can deal massive amounts of damage to their enemies.
While the Barbarian may not have the mobility or ranged attacks of other classes, they more than make up for it with their durability and versatility. With the right build and gear, a Barbarian can excel in any situation, whether it be soloing, group play, or even Hardcore mode.
So, let's dive into everything you need to know about playing a Barbarian in Diablo 3.
Basics of the Barbarian Class
The Barbarian class has several unique abilities that set them apart from other classes. These abilities include:
Fury: The Barbarian's main resource for abilities. Fury is generated through attacking enemies and taking damage. It is also used to activate certain abilities and passives.
Bash: A basic attack that deals moderate damage and generates Fury.
Seismic Slam: A powerful attack that deals heavy damage in a wide area, generating Fury and stunning enemies.
Rend: A powerful attack that deals heavy damage over time and generates Fury.
Cleave: A basic attack that deals moderate damage in a wide area and generates Fury.
Whirlwind: A powerful attack that allows the Barbarian to spin and deal damage to all enemies in a wide area, generating Fury.
Leap: A mobility ability that allows the Barbarian to jump to a targeted location, dealing damage to enemies in the area upon landing.
Ignore Pain: A defensive ability that absorbs a large amount of damage, allowing the Barbarian to survive even the toughest of fights.
Furious Charge: A mobility ability that allows the Barbarian to charge towards a targeted enemy, dealing damage and stunning them upon impact.
Threatening Shout: A crowd control ability that taunts enemies and reduces their damage dealt.
In addition to these abilities, the Barbarian also has access to a variety of passive skills that further enhance their combat capabilities. These passives can improve the effectiveness of their abilities, increase their Fury generation, or provide other benefits such as increased critical hit chance or movement speed.
Possible Builds for the Barbarian
One of the great things about the Barbarian class is the flexibility in builds. With a variety of skills and passives to choose from, it's possible to create a Barbarian that fits your playstyle and preferences.
Here are a few popular builds for the Barbarian:
Whirlwind: This build focuses on using the Whirlwind ability to deal massive damage in a wide area. It combines the Whirlwind skill with passive abilities that increase its damage and Fury generation, as well as critical hit chance. This build excels in group play, where it can quickly clear large groups of enemies.
Seismic Slam: Similar to the Whirlwind build, this build focuses on using the Seismic Slam ability to deal heavy damage in a wide area. It combines the Seismic Slam skill with passive abilities that increase its damage and Fury generation, as well as critical hit chance. This build excels in solo play, where it can quickly clear enemies and move on to the next pack.
Bash: This build focuses on using the Bash ability to deal moderate damage and generate Fury. It combines the Bash skill with passive abilities that increase its damage and Fury generation, as well as critical hit chance. This build excels in both solo and group play, and is a great choice for players who prefer a more straightforward
Long time barb player here, I wanted to make a definitive whirlwind barbarian guide for players who like to play barbs and like to do that from ladder start. I have looked around a lot and it seems a lot of the better guides from the past are not accessible, and the one on Icy-Veins leave a lot to be desired, with wrong information and bad gear suggestions. I've left a message on their boards asking if they want help with a guide, but for the meantime I want to put this on reddit as a source for new players and even veterans not well experienced with barbs. I hope this guide helps people and if you have any suggestions or believe some information is bad, please post why and we can go over it, either I can help you or you can help improve the guide.
This guide isn't really to give you a copy and paste format to copy, it's to teach you how WW barbs work and hopefully give enough information that people understand why certain items are best, and so allow people to have the knowledge to gear barbs themselves while knowing why they are doing it. If anyone is good at formatting things like this with contents etc, please let me know.
Why to make a whirlwind barbarian.
Extremely tanky - whirlwind has no synergies, allowing for max investment into shout and battle orders early in the game, this is often overlooked in frenzy vs whirlwind debates. Lategame a well geared barbarian is arguably unkillable, with good gear the only reason to take a shield is to protect from deaths due to client crashes/disconnects, and also to fight stygians while amped :)
One of the highest melee damage specs in the game, bested only late game by extremely expensive Dream Paladins or Fireclaw Druids, yet neither match the all around stats of the whirlwind barb, and both are considerably more expensive to make functional.
Nice options for gear progression if you have the right knowledge
It's fun and can clear all content, in end game gear it can clear high end farming areas very well.
You can not be put into hit recovery
More flexible gearing options than other barb specs - you do not need cannot be frozen.
Buff your friends
Arguably the best rune finder for online play, possibly bested by endgame Sorc/Paladin/Amazons farming Chaos Sanctuary, but it's close.
Diablo 2 used to run at 25 frames per second. D2R now runs past this, however the vast majority of core game mechanics still operate within 25 frames/segments per second. Increasing or decreasing values of hit recovery/block/attack/cast speed etc reduce the amount of frames required for your character to complete these animations, thus making them faster.
Hit recovery - When your character receives more than 1/12th of their maximum health in damage in a single hit, they are put in to hit recovery animation. The base frame length for this animation is 5, meaning a barbarian in a normal attack/running(non whirlwind) animation will be unable to move/attack for 5 frames, or just under 0.20 seconds. This is important, it means whirlwind barbarians do not lose dps when hit, Frenzy and Berserk barbarians do, it's another reason why WW is so much stronger than other barb specs.
Block rate - The same as above, but for blocking. Our base block rate is 4 frames, or around 0.15 seconds.
Attack speed, again the same as above, however it's worth noting now that whirlwind actually operates slightly differently, attack speed is based on the weapon(s) in hand and the ias on that weapon only. For other attacks it operates normally, increased attack speed on other pieces of gear will make your normal attack animations faster.
Whirlwind is based off of weapon speed and increased attack speed found only on the weapon itself.
Whirlwind always makes a hit check (the game calculates if you hit any targets in range) every 4th and 8th frame.
While dual wielding, the game makes a hit check with the main hand only on the 4th frame, then it does hit checks for both weapons on the 8th frame and every x frames after based on weapon speed.*
While wielding a 2handed weapon, the game makes a hit check every 4th and 8th frame, then every x frame after based on weapon speed.
A character can not be put into hit recovery animation or blocking animation while whirlwinding, but they can still be hit and they can still block.
The chilled effect from cold damage does not change your attacks per second during whirlwind.
Decrepify does not reduce your attacks per second while whirlwinding, however it does reduce your damage.
Like attack speed, on weapon effects like crushing blow or deadly strike only apply to the weapon they are on, not both. ty /u/daanno2 for noticing this wasn't in the guide.
Whirlwind can not proc on kill/on hit spell effects, if you are using obedience and want the enchant you need to kill a few mobs with concentrate/berserk to get it to proc. ty /u/daanno2 for noticing this wasn't in the guide.
Frames per attack during whirlwind animation after the 8th frame :
Base weapon speed shown in brackets is 10, it has an additional 40% increased attack speed. 10 - 40 = -30.
So the IK maul hits the second to last whirlwind breakpoint, it needs 30% more ias to hit the last breakpoint, so if we put 2 sheals in it, or 2x 15 ias jewels, it hits max attacks per second with whirlwind.
What I can't tell you:
*Some people claim both weapons make a hit check on the 4th frame and not just the main hand, and some people claim after the 8th frame the weapons hit at alternate intervals (not the same time, it's extremely difficult to get the right information on this.)
Dual wield whirlwind has a bit more in-depth mechanics based off of weapon speed and weapon range, it doesn't actually class each weapon individually all of the time. I don't want to put this in the guide however as I'm not 100% convinced anyone really knows anymore, I've found a lot of sources on old pvp boards but nothing I'm confident enough to put in the guide as fact. If anyone has good information on this please post. I would rather put my hands up and say I'm not 100% sure on this rather than give you bad information/advice.
So we know that no matter what:
Whirlwind always hits on the 4th and 8th frame regardless of weapon speed with a 2 handed weapon.
Whirlwind always hits on the 4th frame with the mainhand and on the 8th frame with both weapons while dual wielding.
It's only after frame 8 that weapon speed takes effect on our hits per second, or FPA (frames per attack).
We can negate the lack of speed on slow 2 handers by ensuring we do short whirlwinds, since for the first 8 frames (just under 0.25 seconds), we always hit the same amount of times - this is very important for early-mid game gearing options, as it means we aren't limited in weapon choices provided we know the drawbacks of slow weapons and how to negate them.
It's best to have two one handers with the same ias to work out our damage reliably
It's best to hit max breakpoint on any weapon we use
You get raw attack rating from dexterity (4 per point) and items. It's worth noting that pumping dexterity is a very inefficient way to gain attack rating.
The game also calculates your chance to hit with your level, which is very important. You will gain a few % chance to hit vs level 85 mobs from levelling to 85 from level 80 alone, with no improvements in your attack rating.
The weapon mod -% target defense is very strong, reducing the armor value of an opponent so increasing your chance to hit significantly, works on bosses.
The weapon mod ignores target defense is extremely strong, giving you a flat 95% chance to hit on all monsters except bosses and uniques. This is one of the strongest melee mods in the game, and arguably the strongest, allowing us to completely negate attack rating, only really hurting us against Baal and Ubers when in end game gear.
Damage Calculations and how to calculate our damage
The game multiplies base weapon damage by our enhanced damage % found on skills/items.
To simplify it for us, we calculate our mean damage:
If we have a weapon that does 50-100 damage, we add both values and divide by 2 to find out average. 100 + 50 = 150, 150/2 = 75.
We then multiply out average damage by our % enhanced damage. Say we have 150% from whirlwind, and 150% from weapon mastery, it's a total 300% enhanced damage. 75 x 3 = 225, + 75 from our base damage = 300 average damage per hit. We then multiply this by *deadly/critical strike rates (please see below).
On weapon % enhanced damage effects our base weapon damage, and is multiplicative with our % enhanced damage found on off weapon sources. Non weapon enhanced damage % is additive.
Deadly and Critical strike
Both of these work in exactly the same way, they give us a chance to do double damage.
The game then checks to see if we land a deadly strike, if successful, we do double damage. If we miss we no longer have a chance to do double damage for that hit.
So, from this we know that 30% critical strike and 50% deadly strike gives us a 65% chance to do double damage. Since 30% of our strikes land a critical strike, 70% miss, 50% of those missed hits land a deadly strike. 50% of 70% is 35. 30 + 35 = 65. So when we do our damage calculations, we multiple our total damage in this case by 1.65.
It's worth noting that it is actually possible to get 100% deadly strike from gear, negating the need for critical strike, although no use for whirlwind barbs, it does mean a frenzy barb using 2 death runewords can actually forgo weapon mastery in favor of more damage from synergies, provided they have enough attack rating. This also opens up the possibility of a very cool Axe + Sword frenzy build :)
Open Wounds
Gives attacks a chance to inflict a bleed DOT effect on monsters.
While monsters are under this effect, they can not regenerate life.
Useful for bosses with large hp pools, not much use for general PVM.
Crushing Blow
Provides a chance to reduce a monsters current health by 12.5%
Worth noting current, not maximum.
Prevent Monster Heal
Prevents monsters regening life, however open wounds also does this, probably one of the weaker melee stats except if you don't have open wounds.
What is dangerous to a whirlwind barb
Whirlwind barbs are essentially unkillable for most content. You hit too fast and leech too much to really be killed. If you are in endgame gear, you could spin almost indefinitely through 10 packs of fanat minotaurs without dying, literally for hours, because the chances of them all successfully hitting you while you not hitting them enough times in succession to leech back the damage are astronomically small. However some things are very dangerous to us, and it's important to know what in order to know how to best deal with it, especially if you play hardcore.
Mana Burn - If we have no mana we can't whirlwind, if we can't whirlwind we can't leech, if we can't leech we eventually die.
Physical Immunes - If we can't deal physical damage we can't leech life and we can't leech mana.
Because of the above two things, mana burn and physical immunities mean we can be put in to hit recovery - this is bad.
To deal with these things, we need to berserk, meaning we have 0 defense so we will be put into hit recovery again - manaburn/physical immunity creates a very bad loop of no damage + no leech + hit recovery animations for whirlwind barbarians, in conjunction it's our kryptonite.
Gloam/high elemental damage monsters with conviction auras - barbs naturally have very easy access to high resistances, however enemies with conviction and high damage can pose a danger.
Stygian dolls - the only real counter to this is a stormshield or max block with significant damage reduction from other sources. You can outleech them in hell, but it requires 45%+ lifeleech, which isn't really an ideal figure to aim for. If you get amped while fighting these sit back and let your merc do the dirty work.
Any situations with the above things together. A room with gloams + a conviction aura with minotaurs with physical immunity + mana burn and something like fanaticism is a very dangerous room, I have almost ripped 2 times on my main barbarian since launch, both cases were rooms such as these when he was a bit worse geared than now.
Please note that although these are dangerous, with good game and itemization knowledge you can still kills these things moderately safely and quickly, a well prepared whirlwind barbarian can kill anything.
How do we deal with these situations?
By preparing our barbarian with clever gear choices.
For Minotaur/Phys immune/Mana burns we get off weapon IAS to make sure we berserk fast, and we dump all available skill points after our core build in to berserk. The goal is to make sure when you need to berserk you do it fast and with a lot of damage to remove the danger ASAP.
For Gloams - don't consider your fire or lightning resist capped at 75 in hell, another 50-75 points goes a long way into making your barbarian a real tank for any situation the game might throw at you.
By stacking our HP to make we it takes a very, very large amount of damage to put us in to hit recovery
By using Arreats to take us to a very good Faster Hit Recovery breakpoint, while also giving us a lot of + points into berserk.
Skills
By order of importance:
20 Whirlwind
20 Weapon mastery
20 Battle orders
Natural resistance until capped
20 Shout
Increase speed
Find item
Battle cry
Pretty self explanatory, use battle cry for bosses, when in early game gear you will need more in natural resistance, as your gear gets better you need less and less. I often have 5-8 points in this on levelling barbs/ladder starts and then respec later and have 1-3.
Gear
Weapons
BiS - double grief Berserker axes
Runner up - double grief Phase Blades
3rds - BOTD 2 hander/1handers/Beast
Explanation on Berserker Axe vs Phase Blades - Zerkers give a bigger AOE radius, slightly more damage and don't require high dex investment, netting us a good 500+ HP over phase blade users. Considering Grief as ignore target defense, the AR bonus from the dex needed for phase blades is largely wasted. Berserker axes are the true minmax option for a WW barb.
Counter Argument - Phase blades provide faster, thus safer berserking, and don't need to be repaired. Phase blades are slightly faster than Berserker axes during normal attack animations, but when decrepified or frozen they are significantly faster. Phase blades also always hit the whirlwind breakpoint, berserker axes need 34% for max whirlwind breakpoint and 35% for a 10 frame berserk with laying of hands + highlords. Grief Phase blades always get a 9 frame berserk with the same gear, regardless of ias roll.
Personal preference I guess, for me I prefer the smoother clears that Zerker axes provide.
Armour
Bis - Enigma
Close runner ups - Fortitude/CoH/Skulders
3rds - Guardian Angel/Shaftstop/Leviathan
Amulet and rings:
Bis - Highlords
Dual leech rings/Ravenfrost
Runner up - angelic combo if you don't have ignore target defense, mana leech ring with good stats.
Gloves
Laying of hands, unless you are a singer barb always use these.
Boots
War Travelers or Gore Rider - personal preference, a bit more damage vs a bit more mf. I take Gores but War Travelers are not a bad pick, but a lot more expensive.
Belt
String of ears 100%, do not use Verdungo's. Verdungo's is a pvp belt. Life gained from +Vitality items is not effected by Battle orders, Verdungos gives a minor 120-160 life increase over string and 10% faster hit recovery. The hit recovery does not take us past a breakpoint asssuming we are using Arreats, and is eclipsed by damage reduction + life leech from string.
The only barb who should take a Verdungo is a berserker, for everyone else String is vastly superior, it just makes you tankier for most content.
Helm
Arreats for normal people
Guillaume's Face for maniacs.
Arreats is the better all around helm, but for raw damage Guillaume's is stronger, however despite being cheaper individually, it works out being a bit more expensive since you need to find resists from other places.
Mercenary
Act 2 blessed aim or preferably Might.
Reapers toll is sort of a must.
Levelling weapons:
Insight runeword
Obedience runeword
Both slow, but give access to high % ed weapons in exceptional and elite polarms, and with short whirlwinds we can get around the slow attack speed without losing as much dps as we need to, insight helps with this especially due to mana costs of short whirlwinds, both solid picks.
Good Budget Items:
IK Maul (double sheal)
Windhammer (sheal)
BIS Budget gear:
I had a look on a softcore trading site, this is probably the best setup at the cost of 1-3 Lem runes and some pgems. And that's probably overpriced, I would say you can pick up all the below gear with perfect gems with the exception of Gore Riders and Guillaume's.
Arioc's Needle (sheal) https://diablo.fandom.com/wiki/Arioc%27s_Needle - sleeper overpowered and probably one of the most overlooked weapons in the game. 50% deadly strike, max whirlwind breakpoint, +2-4 skills and ignore target defense. If you ever do a single player playthrough and find this item don't throw it, if you ever make a barb it's strong enough to do hell with comfortably. The deadly strike puts it's damage well past Bonehew's* (*with a highlord amulet) and the ignore target defense frees up our ring and amulet slot, giving us room for resistances or leech/a highlord :).
Bonehew (double sheal)- better damage than Arioc's until you get a highlords, but you need to use angelic ring + amulet.
Obedience - very slow, but the crushing blow + resistances + ability to get a self casted enchant make it very strong.
IK Helm OR Guillaume's Face - if you are struggling for resistances take IK and put some Ral/Ort runes in it.
Ring 1 Mana/Life leech or resistances/anglic
Ring 2 Mana/Life leech or resistances
Amulet with Mana/Life leech or resistances/angelic
Wealth runeword/Smoke runeword/Black Hades
Laying of Hands
IK Belt or string - if you are struggling for resistances it's a choice
IK Boots or Gorerider
I'm probably going to make the above budget build to demonstrate how strong Arioc's is, but need to make another barb to do it since all my characters are hardcore and I don't want to rip a level 90+ barb in test gear :)
So this one is a little late, isn't it? I truly apologize, but a pesky goblin named Gamescom whisked me away and stole my attention for much of the week! :) Now that we're here though - welcome to Season 18, with the theme of the Triune! Throughout Season 18, circles of power will spawn during combat, which empower characters in various ways; they affect combat from the humblest character beginnings, all the way to the highest of Greater Rifts. These newfound effects will cause you to reposition, shift and weave through combat more than you might be used to - and personally, I find it a great incentive to try out some of the more mobile builds.
Patch 2.6.6 brings some unexpected and exciting changes, introducing jewelry that rivals some of the most popular staples, reworks crafted sets into very powerful and enticing options for builds, and brings the usual round of reworks and additions of legendary powers to items - some of which are incredibly potent! Amulets like the Flavor of Time and Squirt's Necklace will shake the position of Hellfires in many builds, while legendary powers like Echoing Fury and Messerschmidt's Reaver will surely bring out new builds, as well as enhance older ones. And by the way, Mortick's Brace came back. Hell, it was about time.
BASICS GUIDES AND CONQUEST GUIDES
Before moving on to class impressions and recommendations, I just want to give a quick pointer to the new basics and conquest guides that I compiled recently. If you are new to the game, returning after a long break, or simply have friends that you want to get into Diablo, give those a read:
As a guide hub, Icy Veins receives a ton of messages on a regular basis for topics like these - I hope they are of use to the community and answer a lot of questions for Seasons to come!
A guide that will take you through the leveling process efficiently and optimize your seasonal Barbarian. Some of my personal endgame build highlights for this Season include:
The Earthquake is one of the steadiest performers in the Barbarian roster; an AoE-heavy, visually satisfying playstyle with a rock-solid rotation. In Season 18, the build is improved with the addition of Mortick's Brace - much like other Barbarian builds, of course, since you can't argue with the addition of all Wrath of the Berserker runes - which helps with the troublesome survivability of the build. The addition of Messerschmidt's Reaver is another curious option for the build, vying for the Kanai slot to bring you steady WotB uptime.
Hammer of the Ancients is a signature Barbarian playstyle that revels in melee destruction, slamming down the mighty Gavel of Judgment onto the demonic hordes with unrelenting precision. Turning the Legacy from a Nightmare into a Dream (see what I did there?) does wonders for the legendary-based HotA build, as it is now free to keep the triumvirate of Convention of Elements, Band of Might and Zodiac Ring at the mere cost of a legendary gem slot. WotB performance is assisted not only by Mortick's, but also the addition of the revised Echoing Fury and its insane attack speed bonuses - directly feeding into your Zodiac CD resets.
You can't get a more clear description than "Whirlwinding" for what this build does; a spin-to-win, medieval lawnmower of a playstyle, this is by far the smoothest and most satisfying farming build. A long-standing lament of Barbarians is its lackluster performance in GR pushing, and while it's not quite solved yet, the Whirlwind barb is greatly boosted by Mortick's Brace (solving some of the survivability issues) and Echoing Fury (which is now a fixture to IAS-dependent builds). Add The Flavor of Time on top of it all for the delicious doubled duration of Pylons, and Whirlwind gets a much needed spike of power.
A guide that will take you through the leveling process efficiently and optimize your seasonal Crusader. Some of my personal endgame build highlights for this Season include:
Empowered by their resource-free playstyle, Blessed Shield Crusaders cover the battlefield in Captain America-like barrage of fiery steel. Exchanging the Legacy of Nightmares for a Legacy of Dreams, this mighty Crusader build gets to keep a potent jewelry combo of Convention of Elements, Justice Lantern and Unity, and even adds The Flavor of Time on top. I'm sure you can imagine what doubled pylon duration does to a build that is already rock-solid in most fighting situations.
Where this build lacks in flashiness, it more than makes up with approachable and easy-to-grasp, yet top tier performing playstyle. Despite its somewhat subdued visuals, the devastating efficiency of the Invoker Thorns Sader is undeniable. Staying true to its 'understated powerhouse' reputation, Invokers simply adds an Echoing Fury to its lineup - and will proceed to decimate high tier GRs once again.
Affectionately called the 'Janitor Crusader', Sweep Attack-based Rolands quite literally clean up battlefields in precise, blindingly fast arcs (on top of the most satisfying ASMR 'whoosh' of the sweeps, you can't deny). The newest addition to the build is the craftable Captain Crimson, which plays wonderfully into the needs for cooldown and resource management of the build, and even empowers you for it. And then there's the prospect of running Messerschmidt or Echoing fury into the Cube (or just play it straight with Furnace), enhancing different aspects of the build... quite promising for an underdog.
A guide that will take you through the leveling process efficiently and optimize your seasonal Demon Hunter. Some of my personal endgame build highlights for this Season include:
The emergence of the Rapid Fire build finally brought the close range, Tommy gun-like fantasy of the Demon Hunter class to life - all in a destructive, methodical playstyle that isn't afraid to get into the thick of fights and chaingun-and-grenade its way out. In Season 18, the swap from Legacy of Nightmares into Dreams allows the Rapid Fire DHs to keep their protective powerhouses - Elusive Ring and Unity, while bringing extra devastation with Convention of Elements and The Flavor of Time on top.
The Multishot build embraces the long-range powers of the Unhallowed Essence set, bringing the "lone archer eclipsing the sun with arrows" archetype to life. The screen-wide decimation of Multishot has never been sweeter, now that it adopts Squirt's Necklace and Captain Crimson's set into the setup - extra incentives to stay alert, on the move and always shooting your (now stronger) volleys of death.
The ninja-like, assassin playstyle of Shadow Impale ramps up in power so fast, that it often sits at the top of the leaderboard for a week, waiting for slower builds to catch up. Impale DHs vault in, plant a dagger in an elite's back (usually ending its life outright), and then disappear in the shadows, onto their next target. I'll be honest, this build hasn't budged much - but it's so damn satisfying that I can't help but point it out.
A guide that will take you through the leveling process efficiently and optimize your seasonal Monk. Some of my personal endgame build highlights for this Season include:
Although not particularly exciting, this is a purposeful highlight; Inna is the free set of the Season, and the (relative) ease of starting an Inna Wave of Light build can take you very far into the Season with relatively minor time investment. Inna WoL is a tried and tested build that combines the inherent screen-clearing AoE of Explosive Blasts with the forgiving, easy-to-play Inna set. If you're looking for something to breeze the Season with, this is a strong contender.
Roll your eyes as you might at another WoL season, you simply can't argue with the skill - from the relative safety that Tzo Krin's Gaze provides, you can obliterate the screen with Wave of Light spam, dropping blazing clusters of holy power on demon upon unsuspecting demon. The transition of Legacies - from Nightmares to Dreams - allows you to keep all S17 toys, and the trio of Convention of Elements, Unity and Zodiac (DPS, protection and utility staples respectively) is now strengthened even further by The Flavor of Time. Double duration of Pylons on a build that benefits from pretty much all of them? Yes, please!
Lashing Tail Kick builds are the counterpart of their WoL bretheren; getting into the fray where WoL keeps to the side, and melting the enemy in a flurry of Chuck Norris spin-kicks. You might argue this is a weaker build - and it is - but similarly to its WoL brother, it gets to keep all synergistic legendary jewelry from S17 and add The Flavor of Time on top, plus the option to deviate into Echoing Fury if the cubed Flying D isn't consistent enough for your tastes.
A guide that will take you through the leveling process efficiently and optimize your seasonal Necromancer. Some of my personal endgame build highlights for this Season include:
Love them or hate them, you can't deny Singularity Necromancer is one of the most ruthlessly effective summoner builds in the game; cold, calculating and intensive to play (both in terms of resource management and, befitting of Necromancers, frailty of the character). Replacing The Legacy of Nightmares for that of Dreams, Singularity Necros stay at the peak of their offensive power through Convention of Elements, Krysbin and the Circle of Nailuj rings.
Let's get one thing out of the way: this is a quirky and slow-to-construct build. But there is an undeniable appeal to an army of undead minions that cripples - and eventually destroys - the enemies through their own attacks. In Season 18, Thorns Necros get to add Squirt's Necklace, adding another massive source of damage to a build that already benefits so much from its deliberate, calculated pace.
Nova Necromancers are an evocative playstyle, spilling fountains of (literal) bloody destruction from their bodies, which grow in efficiency the more enemies you throw at them. In reality, the build has its issues (the mechanics and numbers on items like Bloodtide Blade are a culprit), but the build is damn fun, and I wanted to give it a little spotlight just for that.
A guide that will take you through the leveling process efficiently and optimize your seasonal Witch Doctor. Some of my personal endgame build highlights for this Season include:
The Carnevil Witch Doctor summons an army of swarming minions at his side, whose adorable mimicking of his blowdart attack - and positively horrifying attack speed - are a sight to behold. This has been a long time coming; Zunimassa has been building up in power over the course of a few patches, with set and item changes that slowly inched it up in viability. Season 18 will be the triumph of this oldschool build, with the Zuni Fetishes empowered by the craftable Aughild set (fitting just right into the vacant slots of the setup) and the Attack Speed madness of Echoing Fury in the Cube.
With power to match his imposing name, the Jade Harvester is a force to be reckoned with - crippling the enemies with damage over time effects, and then recklessly diving in to 'consume' and apply their entire duration instantly with a well placed Soul Harvest. This build now benefits from the Captain Crimson craftable set, as well as The Flavor of Time amulet, keeping it high in the WD pantheon of builds.
Keeping a trio of overprotective, lumbering, undead giants at your side is the signature of this build - another take on the summoner fantasy, this time relying on stitched-corpse voodoo dolls to pummel your enemies to the ground. This setup, while still in need of buffs, got a nice addition in the form of the craftable Spite ceremonial knife; granting you the Humongoid rune for free, its legendary effect opens you to experimentation both in GRs and speedfarm with this build.
A guide that will take you through the leveling process efficiently and optimize your seasonal Wizard. Some of my personal endgame build highlights for this Season include:
Transforming the Wizard into an unstoppable being of Arcane destruction, the Achon build simply has it all - power, mobility, versatility. For the modest investment of two relatively easy-to-obtain sets - Vyr and Chantodo - this build will take you into the highest of Greater Rifts, and with a relatively simple to grasp playstyle to boot. One of the strongest builds in S18. Definitely the one with the best power-to-time-invested ratio.
The Star Pact Wizard has a rather complex rotation and playstyle, but rewards it with a monstrously powerful punch - arguably, the strongest one in the game right now. In a densely packed fight, no other build will deliver comparable punishment as the arcane juggernauts dropped by the (fittingly nicknamed) Bazooka Wiz. Oh, and now it gets to play with extra Pylon duration from The Flavor of Time, as if what it had wasn't enough. Geez.
Thank you so much for reading this and my guides! Good luck and have a great Season 18!
P.S. There is a ton of work I am doing in the background at the moment, but in the coming weeks you can expect a massive revision to the way our builds are presented, as well as another clean sweep of old artifacts - I think you will be very pleased! :) Stay tuned!
I think i have just found a Seismic slam build that works better than the current stickied one. Perhaps need a few tweaks to perfect it but i thought i should post it here to let someone else run with it.
If you like the seismic slam build stickied on the barbarian reddit you should give this a go. This is a higher damage variant that is easier to play and has far higher uptime for dealing damage.
The build uses the Might of the Earth 6p bonus for its main source of damage and the Immortal king 2p bonus with Call of the Ancients (Together as one + Ancients Fury (Fury of the ancients in Cube)) as a source of unlimited fury and a solid defence in place of using the Band of Might in the Cube ring slot with no downtime or timers to worry about.
The Endless Walk (ring and amulet) can be used in place of focus and restraint as an alternative +100% damage source whilst reducing the need to worry about keeping F+R procced as well as freeing up a ring slot for extra damage or defence. http://www.d3planner.com/882926804 Core Items
5 pieces of Might of the Earth Set
2 pieces of Immortal King Set (Must use the belt)
2 Pieces of Endless Walk Set (Amulet and Ring)
Fury of the Vanished Peak (2H Mighty Weapon)
Bracers of Destruction (Bracers)
Convention of Elements (Optional ring slot)
Kanai's Cube Slots
The Furnace
Fury of the Ancients
Ring of Royal Grandeur
Skills
Seismic Slam - Permafrost (Right Click)
Call of the Ancients - Together as One (Left Click)
Leap - Toppling Impact
Earthquake - Chilling Earth (optional)
Warcry - Veterans Warning
Battle Rage - Bloodshed
Passives (all optional)
No Escape
Relentless
Rampage
Ruthless
Gems (all optional)
Esoteric Alteration
Bane of the Trapped
Bane of the Stricken
Alternatively Use
Iceblink
Zai's Stone of Vengeance
Paragon
Stack for damage
No need for cooldown reduction (points in last)
Zero points into resource cost reduction (or just enough to reduce the resource cost of seismic slam to 15 fury per cast)
Item Stat Priorities
Crit Chance
Crit Damage
Cold Element +
Attack Speed
Strength
Vitality
Seismic Slam damage
Resist all
Life +
Armour
Pros + Cons + Build Logic
(+) Damage output equals that of the current stickied seismic slam build without using COE and exceeds it whilst using it.
(+) Unlimited Fury whilst Call of the ancients is up. Meaning no need for fury generating passives for more damage or defence.
(+) Together as one provides permanent + 50% damage resist without having to worry about the 8 second timer on band of might and unlike Unity works in multi-player consistently.
(+) Free ring slot that can be used to double defense with unity or band of might or alternatively boost damage with COE
(+) 95% of your time can be spent attacking with seismic slam = greater damage output (No need to waste time proccing Focus+restraint or leaping 3 times to regen fury)
(+) Good Crowd Control with Earthquake (Chilling Earth) to keep enemies at a distance for No Escapes +30% damage to proc - Leap (Toppling Impact) helps by pushing enemies away.
(-) If you die you have limited fury generation or defence until Call of the ancients is off cooldown. (can be countered with careful cooldown management)
(-) Endless Walks double damage mechanic takes a few seconds to max out. It works fine when fighting elites and in high density areas but will likely not reach full power against mobs that you can kill quickly.
(-) Build is slow moving unless you swap out earthquake for Sprint
(-) Focus and Restraint Variant More effective in group play
(-) Without Fury Passives can have Fury problems in T-X group play
(-) Slightly Lower defence than Stickied build
(-) Not as good at pushing for the highest greater rift as Charge or Earthquake/Boulder builds
Useful fast barb is the cookie-cutter spec for group play barbarians. With this spec, barbs are probably the best class right now for clearing out trash mobs and providing some neat party buffs (mostly speed ones). This spec is primarily used for greater rift speed-runs, but it also works excellently for group T6 rifts & bounty farming.
Step 1: Gear
If you don't have six pieces of the WotW set, go out and find them. If you've only got five, you can substitute the focus & restraint for a RoRG and something else, but you'll lose a lot of damage so just go find six okay?
Helm, chest, shoulders, pants, boots, and gloves are all WotW pieces. There isn't really any flexibility here at all.
Weapons are a pair of Bul-Kathos (lovingly termed the 'Burger King' henceforth) swords.
Rings are the ubiquitous Focus & Restraint pair. These provide a ton of damage. If you don't have the pair yet, you should run a Convention of the Elements and Leorics or whatever. Just find them. Obviously if you only have five of the six set pieces, run a RoRG until you get the last one.
Amulet just use something with hella dps. Hellfire amulets are probably BiS (there's a lot of good passives for a ww barb), immunity amulets & eye of etlich (ranged dmg reduction) come close second.
Bracers are pretty flexible. Lacunis or Steady Strikes are probably the strongest since you can use the innate IAS% rolls to help you reach new WW/DD breakpoints. Failing that, Reaper's Wraps are a solid choice for more resource generation. Nemesis bracers will make you very popular with your crew.
Belt is flexible too, but it should be a Chilank's chain for the movespeed buff. Witching hour is good too for DPS obviously if you need to carry your team (or maybe you just hate them and want them to stay slower than you that's fine too). Kotuur's Brace and String of Ears are solid choices for HC players.
Step 2: Skills
Whirlwind obviously. Blood Funnel is the most popular choice as the healing makes you more robust. Also it's physical damage, so you can use it with the Pain Enhancer gem for even more damage. Some people seem to use Wind Shear but personally I've never seen the point - you shouldn't really be having fury problems with this spec.
Bash - punish only to proc the extra 50% damage buff from your Focus & Restraint, and also give you a little damage boost in the process. This slot is pretty flexible - use any generator you like.
Wrath of the berserker - Insanity is kind of a no brainer. You get a huge damage boost, movespeed, survivability, and CC immunity. It has a long cooldown, but when doing fast GRs you'll probably find a channeling pylon every run so you can keep it up a reasonable amount of the time. Or you can use...
.. [alternative] Overpower - Momentum instead of WotB if you are having fury problems or cba with long-cooldown skills.
Battle Rage. Bloodshed is great for more damage. Alternatively if a few members of you team are using Reaper's wraps,Swords to Ploughshares is a popular choice for more health globe fun.
Sprint - Forced March - give your team a movespeed boost. If you use Marathon, you're a scumbag. Think of the team.Unless of course you're running bounties or solo, then Marathon is a must-have.
War Cry - Impunity - toughness boost for you & your team and also the skill that procs Chilank's Chain for even more team move-speed fun.
Step 3: Passives
These are pretty much listed in order of how good they are for this spec.
Weapons master - with the burger king swords, this will give you a ton of fury generation whenever you're hitting stuff. If you're using wind shear you could probably drop this, but frankly I don't know why you'd want to :)
Rampage - useful fast barbs are best at clearing out trash and this skill synergises with that really well. More damage & armour from all that strength juice is great.
Berserker rage again is a really good choice. When you're spinning through large packs you will have near full fury, so this +25% damage boost is a no brainer. It can be a little tricky to keep up against RGs or elites, but barbs this build isn't really meant for single target dmg anyway.
Brawler - huge damage boost when spinning through packs, easy enough.
Situational: Nerves of steel - if you find yourself dying more than 1-2 times per rift, swap in this skill. A couple of deaths are okay, but as your death timer creeps up you're slowing your whole group down.
Situational: Other defensive passives like superstition or the +armour one I always forget the name of are fine if you need them. Hopefully as your gear improves you can try and wean yourself off these skills.
Step 4: Gems
Again in order of how great I think they are. Pick three. Taeguk is a must have since it's really easy for a WW barb to keep up stacks. Bane of the Trapped is a no-brainer for most classes - doubly so for melee classes like barbs. Bane of the powerful is a big damage buff that when you're running quickly you can keep up 95% of the time. Pain Enhancer is an okay choice, but most of the time you'll be spinning through packs and not on them so you probably wont get the most out of the IAS% increase. Step 5: The end
Congratulations you're now a super useful fast barb. Most of this is gleaned from having watched Alkaizer play so I can't take any credit for it.
It it appears many Barbarians aren't really sure what to do! It gets filled with questions about what build to run, how to upgrade gear, and etc. I hope to answer a few of those here (so I can link people to them, later on) and help these newer guys get a hang of things. Really general stuff here, don't expect anything fantastic, and if you are anything but a beginner, you may not find much use out of this. If you have anything to add, let me know in the comments!
Barbarians really don't need toughness as much as we used to, so if you're still stacking those Vitality gems and All Resists, you may not need them as much as you think.
Gem Priority:
Helmet Use whichever you prefer!
Diamond for Cooldown reduction.
Ruby for Experience.
Topaz for Magic Find.
Amethyst for Health.
Armor Ruby or Diamond for most uses. Amethyst if you have low health.
Ruby for Strength
Amethyst for Health
Diamond for All Resist
Weapon Always use Emerald!
Emerald for Critical Damage
Builds
There are a couple builds that are viable right now, each one having a different use. Here are some main ones, to get you started.
Useful for less geared players while still enabling them to clear higher Torment levels. Based around getting as much Maximum Rage as possible, then using it all up in one huge Ancient Spear (Boulder Toss) hit!
Everyone has their own Whirlwind build, but as long as you're using Whirlwind (Wind Shear) you should not have any problems with Fury generation, especially with Unforgiving.
Based on staying max range and attacking from afar.
Gear
It's really hard to recommend exactly what to go for with the removal of the Auction House and how Legendary/Set items are now Bind to Account, but here is some generalized information:
Along with this, +Skill Damage stats are really strong as well. This, including bonuses to Elemental Damage can cause a significant amount of extra damage, regardless of what the tool tips say!
Area Damage
If you are unsure of what Area Damage is, let me give you a short run down.
Every attack has a 20% chance to deal damage equal do your AreaDamage% to all nearby enemies. For example, if you have 30% Area Damage, you have a 20% chance to deal 30% of that hit to all nearby enemies! This stacks with Rend and Battle Rage (Bloodshed) to cause a huge amount of Area Damage to everything! Works great for Whirlwind builds as well!
Paragon Points
Core
Strength - Our best stat here, for the most part.
Movement Speed - Grab this if you are not maxed out at 25%.
Maximum Fury - Grab this one if you are running a Boulder Toss build.
Offense
Critical hit Damage - Pretty much our best stat here, try out the others if you'd like, however.
Defense
Life - Always an option!
Resist All - Really strong stat here.
Life Regeneration - Have not done any decent amount of testing, but this could potentially be strong if you already have a ton of All Resist.
Utility
Area Damage - Definitely the best thing for your points!
Resource Cost Reduction - For some builds, this helps tremendously to give you continuous use of your Fury Spender. I'm still biased towards Area Damage, however.
Life On Hit - For higher Torment levels, this could be good, but I feel the damage increase from Area Damage is way too strong to give up.
Gold Find - Essentially useless if you play on high Torment Levels, as your Gold Find maxes out at 300%.
That's my little Barbarian Generalization, hope it helped you. If I didn't leave a comment and let me know your thoughts!
Since public games are incredibly popular and beneficial to go to now, I thought it'd be handy to have a general idea of what people should be gearing towards for each monster power. Especially since people will join MP10 with too low DPS (including myself!) without knowing that they're a huge hindrance to the group.
You can already see multiple posts with people complaining about teammates slowing the group down because of deaths or low DPS.
All
kill MOST elite packs under 30 seconds (disputed: see comments)
kill trash under 3-5 seconds
deaths average 0.25 or less per elite pack
Barbarian
MP10: 650k EHP (55k HP for act 1 HoA), 200k DPS (170k solo)
Wizard
Critical Mass Build Wiki Guide MP5: 2.307 aps, 40% crit chance, 50k dps 400+ life on hit, 20+ APoC 3500 armor, 500 all resist, 35k hp MP7: 2.501 aps, 45% crit chance, 75k dps 800+ life on hit, 20+ APoC 4000 armor, 550 all resist, 35k hp MP8+ with 2.501 aps and highest DPS: 2.501 aps, 55% crit chance (Frost Nova: Deep Freeze will also be a big help), 150k+ dps 800+ life on hit, 20+ APoC 5000 armor, 700 all resist, 45k+ hp MP8+ with 2.73 aps and decent DPS: 2.73 aps, 50-55% crit chance, 125k+ dps 800+ life on hit, 20 APoC 5000 armor, 700 all resist, 40k+ hp MP8+ with 3.01 aps and lower DPS: 3.01 aps, 50%+ crit chance, 75k+ dps 800+ life on hit, 20 APoC 4500 armor, 650 all resist, 35k+ hp MP10 ubers with decent dps and a solid freeze: 2.73 or 3.01 aps, 55%+ crit chance, 100k+ dps 800+ life on hit, 20 APoC 5500+ armor, 700+ all resist, 40k+ hp SNS Build
These tips are for players who are willing to put in some extra effort to maximize their DPS output and are already familiar with the build. Although they seem difficult to do at first, over time they become natural and instinctive. Also, its impractical to try to pull these off perfectly all the time, but just by actively using them and succeeding a reasonable amount of times you should be able to obtain a substantial DPS boost.
The gear he was using was a combination of the pieces I haven't sold yet from his old barb gear and CDXLIV's barb. You'll notice that a lot of his pieces have been sold to him already. Still need to sell his EF though.
Ciao, il mio nome è and cdxliv run a D3 stream at www.twitch.tv/cdxliv where they have a balanced mixture of viewer runs, giveaways and educational content.
Ever since they released the big mac barb guide (only follow the skill section and the mechanics section the AH section is now obsolete in terms of best efficiency ) I have built more than 100 more barb kits for viewers and giveaways. I would like to think my set building skills have improved drastically since the early days of the stream and I would like to release an updated collection of vods for a variety of different barb builds that will help out a new barb in every situation.
750K MP8 UBER BARB you have to use this with a budget CM that can perma lock down. It's super cheap way to get the hellfire ring if your main class is struggling with the fights .
100K MP0 REND FARM BARB if millions of gold seems like an astronomical number to you then this is your starter barb, it's purpose is to FARM and Paragon Level with the best bang for the buck. consult the rend video below for spec explanation.
10M MP10 WW BARBThis is just to survive high MP with it's a WW kit that can live on MP10 but will thrive on mp7-8 it's for the WW purist if they still want to go with this spec.
MP0-1 REND BARB TUTORIAL, 80-120M EXP/HR This is what every barb should be using for both MF and P leveling, it is by far the most efficient way for barbs to do it
10M WW/Hota Hybrid Build I believe this is the new meta game shift for barbs, by replacing a single skill for Hammer of the Ancient this kit can farm for Keys faster than pure WW still has the mobility of WW and can also do Ubers faster.
You absolutely DO NOT need to build many different sets, in fact the only thing that requires changing between sets are the skills and the weapons maybe the jewelry. In reality you can have a swiss army knife Barb for 15M that can transform itself by just swapping weapons and jewelries.
Once you start fighting with WotB up and start to WW, you will do double damage even after the WotB is over, as long as you keep spinning.
Also be careful that when you enter Berserker during WW, the damage bonus will not be applied! Make sure to activate WotB then WW
I've been incorporating this with Earthquake to provide decent burst dmg for elite fights. Keep in mind the CC effects such as freezing can interrupt your WW.
You should already know by now, that there are few good Hardcore twink items, and leveling of your toon can be pretty hard.
So I want to introduce you this new awesome method! You can easily level your barbarian from level 50 to 60 in a couple of hours. It is a manual job though, as this level range is the hardest to level in the game obviously.
If you want someone ells to power level you, they must be an insanely geared and be able to smash though hell act 3-4 monsters and you still need to stay near that seeder.
Now here is the trick:
Get your toon to level 50 and have the 3rd act hell quest 4 (stones etc.)
Get some gear with a good dps and vitality, helm with red gem for sure, +exp per kill is a good option.
Take the quest, talk to NPC, go to armory.
Go in the middle of the scene, turn on the EARTHQUAKE (freecast rune works great) and kill all the shadow spiders.
PROFIT - 35-45k exp per 30 sec. run is awesome in HardCore with almost no risk to loose your barb.
The other close solo farming manual method is hell act 1 first quest, but it is only 50-60k exp per 2-3 min run.
I was looking for an upgrade for my off hand when I found a really low DPS dagger with amazing stats. The stupid AH won't let you compare gear to what you have equipped so I used a DPS calculator and found that the low DPS dagger would actually increase my overall DPS. And since I'm using the Double Tornado build, my tornadoes are now doing a ton more damage.
Pic of stats + weapons (Slice Ember was my old off-hand):
This is a variant of the sprint-tornado builds that have been circulating Reddit the last few days but adds a new tweak: Leap and Furious Charge allow you to more strategically place tornadoes at a faster rate. Also, this build is more versatile and does not have impossible elite comps to worry about (shielding molten wallers...). So far, I am easily clearing a3 Inferno with it with very bad gear: 33k health, 550 resists, 900 life on hit and 4800 armor.
If you've used a sprint build, you know that placing your tornadoes is key, and if you do, you can get 8+ hits per second going with overlapping tornadoes, giving you 7000+ life regen per second while Into the Fray keeps your rage at max, allowing for infinite sprinting. But, it can be hard to place your tornadoes properly when you're getting knocked back, walled, or cornered. Thus, mobility is key for getting down the insane regen.
The exact mechanics of laying tornadoes are still unclear, but they seem to place tornadoes on intervals of distance-traveled without stopping. So, if you leap or charge, you instantly leave 2-3 tornadoes on the ground because you traveled pretty far.
The proper strategy for this build is:
Get your buffs up
Start sprinting away from the pack of elites until they are in a straight line following you.
Refresh sprint, Leap behind the line (drops 2-3 tornadoes instantly), then immediately Furious Charge back to where you started (dropping 1-2 more tornadoes).
At this point, you have about 6000 regen per mob being hit by the 5 tornadoes, and so you can survive turning around to build 5 stacks of frenzy (for 20% more damage with Maniac). Skip this step if the mob can literally one-shot you.
As soon as your tornadoes stop spinning, kite away for 4 more seconds getting the elites back in a line, turn around to refresh frenzy, and at this point your Leap/Charge cooldowns are ready again.
Repeat from the top infinitely.
It can be tricky keeping the 5 stack of frenzy up, but if you lose it it's no big deal, just less damage.
The key advancement for this build besides getting tornadoes down faster is that Iron Impact allows you to ignore most elemental damage abilities. The skill gives you 300% more armor for 4 seconds after leaping, which raised my armor mitigation to like 89.5%, quadrupling my EHP. Thus, you can safely leap into molten trails, poison or even arcane beams and survive long enough to get the charge off and out of the mess (you're often 1 shot with the standard sprint builds in this scenario making them 1-trick ponies and easily countercomped). As you charge through the pack, you gain an additional 8% health per mob hit, which almost always tops me off. This combo makes just about any combination of elite characteristics easily manageable.
Your mileage may vary with this build, but I feel like it is a much more robust, well-rounded version of the sprint-tornado builds that have been lolling about lately. Also, it doesn't feel as gimicky as those builds (or the 5-second burst builds).
I hope this is helpful to someone!
For more details:
One thing I forgot to add: Another reason why this build is more well-rounded against the various elite types is because:
leap can jump over walls
furious charge can break out of jailers
both leap and furious charge can help you never get cornered and always avoid arcane beams and other hazards
fear is a non-issue because as you run away feared, you are still dropping tornadoes and still doing damage and getting regen
most other abilities, such as freezing orbs or long-animation 1-hit meleers, are effectively countered by your inherently superfast movement speed, allowing you to get out of harms way very easily.
Why I don't have Wrath of the Berserker:
I tried it, and it certainly made some elites easier, but it felt too unreliable for me because it did almost nothing against the elites I had the hardest time with: shielders, invulnerable, or wallers (because I couldn't keep the rage gen high enough). If I had a 7th skill, that's what it would be, but the only skill I could drop for it would be War Cry, which just lowered my EHP too much. Once over-geared I expect to be able to resubstitute it in. It's great for farming though, but now that i'm in Act 4, I need to be able to survive some 1-shotting abilities, which requires War Cry.
