Wednesday 25 April 2018

7 Barb Builds For Everything:bounties, t13, rats, meta, ubers, GR and more! + meta zdps



his Guide includes: 4 Charge Barbs, 2 zBarbs, a leech build, a znec and a zmonk, as well as a lot of the stuff I learned from level 70 to Paragon 1500.

I main charge barb for GR pushing, but really that involves a lot of using other builds or charge variants, so I thought I'd share what I learned and how you can gear your barb. Even if you're not a charge barb, the zdps builds are pretty universal and seeing how I adapted the standard GR build for speed clears can be useful.

I will reference these builds, so go check out that link. (One important note is that the element on the gear just has to match your rune on furious charge, so it doesn't matter which element it is, as long as they all match.) It includes the following builds:


  1. Bounty & T13 Avarice CDR Speedfarm Charge: This is your go to build in adventure mode and rifts. (solo or group) (get GR keys, mats, gear, hellfire keys, xp pools, cosmetic items, etc)
  2. GR Pushing: Charge (solo) (get your leaderboard spot)
  3. Solo GR Speeds: Charge (solo) (GR 80ish for leveling gems from 1-70 if you can't group often enough) (can tweak the build to use more MS if you want to drop to GR 50-70 for super fast gems from 1-60 or so)
  4. Hellfire boss fighting: Charge (solo or group) (get your amulet!)
  5. Vault goldfind Leech support:charge/whirlwind (group) (get gold to fund your gem levels in GRs). You can use the same gear on a monk (with leferbve's soliloqy and just use something like the zmonk skills with some movespeed sprinkled in) to get your monk gear.
  6. Pickup Radius WW Rat zBarb for Rat Runs (group) (this is what you should do most of the time; gets you xp and levels gems from 1-100)
  7. Crit, Globes Pull zBarb for meta pushing (firebat wd, zmonk and necro RGK) (level gems from 100-115+)
  8. Shrine LoTD zNecro for Rat Runs (group) (if you find a group that needs a necro instead, most of the gear you can farm with your barb (str is better than int), other than 4 piece pest and 2 cubed items; you can start with 2 piece pest and 2 piece captain crimson, though you may be a bit squishy)
  9. zMonk for meta (gives you more roles you can do in groups; without the serious gear investment of Primal weapons and CoE.) (group) (a bit harder to gear than zNec, but not by much; easier to play)
  10. Starter Build--- after you're done "piecing it together", this is where you want to be, though the SoJ can be a CoE (doesn't really matter)
  11. Piecing it together is a setup of what an early build should prioritize and what your gear might look like as you work toward the starter build.

If I don't mention a context for information it applies to DPS Charge Barbarian, either speedfarm, GR, both, or any damage dealing charge variant.

So, suppose you are 70 and have some janky whirlwind/charge or HotA build and you are working toward the perfect Raekor/IK build. Well, you're in luck, this season's set is immortal King's, and you'll need 5 pieces from that set, so that we can get the 6 piece bonus from IK.

Let's go to the Gearing Essentials:

Refer to the Speed Solo GR build. This is the build you want to aim for while you are working your way to t13, though ancient parthan defenders or strongarm bracers may be better if you are grouping with people who have nemesis bracers.

IK Belt, Raekor Shoulders, IK Boulder Breaker, Standoff for Cube, Royal Ring (possible cube), Band of Might (possible cube)

Now for Boots, Chest, Pants, Helm, and Gloves you need 3 to be IK and 2 to be Raekor. These combined with your royal ring, IK belt & wepaon, and Raekor shoulders will give you 6 piece IK and 4 piece Raekor.

Regardless of your armor cube option, other ring, amulet, and bracers, you are ready to charge barb. For those slots, just find the gear with the best stats (except maybe nemesis bracers, those are handy, but if youre in a group, then someone else may have them), until you find the best in slot items. You can craft yellow items for these slots if you don't have something with the right stats.

So, how does charge barb work?

You mainly deal damage by charging into groups of enemies. If you hit 1 or 5 enemies, your charge cooldown is automatically reset. Normally, it is 10 seconds, so if you miss or hit 2-4 enemies the cooldown will be 10, 6, 4, or 2 seconds (not counting CDR), depending on how many enemies you hit, as the raekor bonus applies every rune, and one of them reduces the cooldown by 2 seconds per enemy you hit.

So, how do you start a rift with Charge barbarian? You cast call of the ancients, which last forever (or until they die, they don't usually die), which reduce your damage taken by 1/2, you pop wrath of the berserker (giving you movespeed, dodge, and extra damage), you charge into a group of enemies in order to proc your band of might (80% dmg reduction for 8 seconds) and gain some fury. Then you cast battle rage and sprint.

Now you are ready for the rest of the rift, where you ensure you charge into lots of things, and press sprint every 4 seconds. Now, in order to keep wrath of the berserker up at all times, we toss boulders 1 or 2 times (depending on CDR) while at full fury during the 20 seconds while it is up (it's ok if your wrath of the berserker drops off, but you won't deal any damage, as you get 15x damage from the IK set bonus when both WoTB and Call of the Ancients are up). We also use boulder toss to heal, as we have life per fury on our weapon (or less optimally, belt). Your passives and gems all just increase your damage or movespeed and you don't really have to do anything to proc any of them. So, gameplay is:

In summary: Call of the ancients once (to give us damage reduction), Battle Rage every 2 minutes (for damage), Wrath of the Berserker every 20 seconds (for movespeed and damage and defense), Sprint Every 4 Seconds (for speed and damage), Throw boulders to keep Wrath of the Berserker up and Heal Charge to kill things all the time, preferably at groups of things, so that we can keep charging. Go Fast!

Regarding the rune on furious charge. This is flexible. Choose the rune that matches the element type you have on your bracers and amulet (usually to match the hellfire you get) (and possibly SoJ).

About Gear I haven't mentioned:

Amulet: Hellfire gives extra passive, other options that are decent are elemental immunity necks, but they are rare and really hard to get the right rolls on.

Convention of Elements vs Stone of Jordan: Damage Ring. SoJ is really for speed builds where you want consistent damage so that you can instantly kill enemies when you see them, but CoE gives better damage over time (think of fighting a rift guardian for 1-4 minutes).

Avarice Band: Paired with boon of the hoarder, you create lots of gold, pick up gold in a large radius, and run fast.

Bracers: Nems for speed farming, ancient parthans for defense (GR pushing), Strongarm Bracers for Offense (boss fighting; charge triggers them)

Weapon Cube: Standoff: Converts Movement speed to damage for furious charge (cube this)

Ring Cube: Royal Ring vs Band of Might. Early on Cubing band of might is recommended as a perfect roll is crucial. Having 79% instead of 80% damage reduction means you are taking 5% more damage! Royal Ring automatically rolls stats we don't want, which is why in the optimal build it is better to have a perfect band of might and cube your royal ring.

Armor Cube: Vile Ward vs Leoric's Crown. Vile ward makes charge deal more damage the more enemies you hit, ideal for grouping mobs in GR pushing, but good in speed clears too. The consistency that Leoric's crown offers (in terms of CDR) makes it better if you don't need the extra damage (it's 35% per enemy, which is a lot).

The Right Stats:

Generally, this is your stat Priority on gear as a DPS charge barb:

100 Crit Damage > 10 Crit Chance > 20 Elemental Damage = 15% Furious Charge Damage > 50 crit damage > 6% crit chance > Area Damage (or CDR for speed builds) > Str > Vit* > All Res > Life* > Life Per Fury* > Armor > everything else

*You want Life per Fury on Your Weapon (if you don't have it on weapon you can put it on belt... but it is a must have in one of those places!)

Basically you want damage. Your damage doesn't scale with CDR, but your utility (very high clearspeed on low difficulty content) does!

Stat priority For zDPS (Pull, Rat, zMonk, zNec) (pre Paragon 2000 /Augs)

Bonus Healing from Globes (monk only) > Pickup Radius (Rat Barb only) > CDR > Sockets > Crit Chance (Pull only; Solanium) > Attack Speed > Life% > 1000 Vit > Elite Reduction > RCR > 1000 Str > All Res > 1000 Int > 775 Armor > 650 Str > 650 Int > 516 Armor > life per hit

At high Paragon, Mainstat and vit become equal in value (and reduced in value relative to other stats), making other class' mainstat more valuable (e.g. 1000 int > 1000 Str on high paragon zbarb; use d3 planner to play with stats). Always use diamonds in armor on supports.

Pickup Radius and +XP gain are good on all supports, in particular pick radius is good on both zbarb builds

The Right Gems:

For damage we use Rubies, for toughness we use Diamonds. Most of the time, until you are very geared, diamonds are better. Really this will be based off whether you are dying too much are going too slow (while not dying).

[ This brings up an important topic: speed. Rifts and GRs should be done in about 2-5 minutes when you are farming for XP. Crank down the difficulty if its taking longer. Move the difficulty up if you melt the enemies and increasing the difficulty doesn't change your clear time by much. ]

In your helm, use a white gem for everything but the most difficult of content (then use purple gem), as CDR makes the build a bit more smooth when you make a mistake or when there just aren't enough enemies.

Legendary Gems for DPS: Trapped for damage and wreath of Lightning for movespeed on all damage variants. Flex gem: Powerful (Speed GR), hoarder (bounties t13 for $$$ and movespeed), stricken (GR)

What to level first? Trapped, then powerful, then lightning. After that hoarder and stricken.

Which to get to 100 first? Gem of Ease and Gogok, as your zDps while be your goto. Then trapped. Stricken should be at about the same level as trapped if you decide to GR push, as it is a pretty important part of pushing (killing the RG can be hard).

What gems do I not really need to level that high? Iceblink (25), hoarder (50,cap), toxin (25), lightning (25); Powerful (75ish). These gems provide little to no benefit leveled beyond these limits (iceblink is actually worse when overleveled). Though I level up a bunch of lightnings and powerfuls use them to aug (I use the highest level one on my dps barb until I use it for an aug)

Legendary Gems for support:

Toxin gem & iceblink: makes others do more damage (toxin is better). Wreath of Lightning's use in support builds is for: 1. your own movespeed, 2. letting your toxin gem hit lots of targets, 3. Aggroing mobs so that they will group on you. Gogok gives cdr and dodge (which are both really good). Gem of ease is because you usually have enough recovery that the life per hit (purple gem in weapon) isn't that meaningful and there are really no better options. extra XP is nice.

Group Roles:

Rat Runs:

The zNecro is the leader. He runs in front of the group and spawns globes for everyone with Land of the Dead (LotD). In order to maintain 100% (or near 100%) uptime, he has to spam abilities (in my build, command skeletons and death nova) in order to reduce his cooldown with zodiac ring, or the Rats (the other necros in the group who deal damage and use a Rathma build) have to kill elites to proc is in-geom. Sometimes when the group kills demons, the zNecro's ahavarian will trigger, giving everyone more xp, cdr, or whatever (a shrine) and it's awesome. This is a reason to keep downtime between runs low (for him they last 15 minutes if he uses gloves of worship). Not every zNec uses this setup; it can make 100% uptime trickier, but its not entirely necessary, and the XP buff is well worth it (and the cdr one makes it a breeze for him to keep up LotD). Often, everyone except the zbarb will die if LotD is not up for long enough, because the znec stuns everything with corpse lance whenver he consumes a corpse (something he does all the time while LotD is up) and the Rats stun everything too, but they can't if they don't have resource.

The zBarb stays near the Rats and follows the zNec, picking up globes, provides movespeed and damage reduction to everyone in the group with War Cry (chilanik's chain), sprint, ignore pain, and threatening shout (cast on enemies). the zbarb also rends enemies, particularly, elites in order to increase party dps. Some zbarb variants run wrath of the berserker (the damage reduction rune) in order to have more movespeed. The zbarb's main job is to pick up globes, hence the emphasis on globe radius on gear (22 is cap, amulet gives 6 and the rest is spread across 8 pieces of gear). The zbarb also pops pylons as soon as he sees them (if everyone is alive and on the same floor). Try to keep ignore pain up on everyone all the time, but especially the rats. Sometimes the znec will be ahead and you can't always get everyone. If the zNec dies, you guys are screwed, because all progression stops and you have to wait til LotD is up again (which can be up to 30 seconds if he hasn't gotten any procs from zodiac ring and he just cast it).

Meta: Pull Barb is in charge. He picks the spots for the monk to drop his inner sanctuary (usually at T's where you can pull from multiple directions). War cry when moving, pull mobs to group, grab pylons (at opportune times, not immediately), keep IP up on the WD at all times. The witchdoctor does damage throughout the rift and kills groups of mobs. The necro RGK cleans up Elites and kills the rift guardian (RGK stands for rift guardian killer), he scouts and helps aggro mobs toward the WD. The monk sits on the WD and protects him. As barb, you keep your buffs on people, but roam out and pull mobs toward "the spot" (whichever spot has the WD with inner sanctuary and the monk, the one you chose at a T or in the middle of an open area). You can basically only pull mobs 2 times before waiting a few seconds (maybe 10?). So you go to 1 side and pull a bunch of mobs and then back to the other. You stomp to spawn globes and pick em up, because the WD gets more damage when he has globes. You have to communicate about when to pop pylons other than shielding; usually you just pop the shielding when you see it. Monk just makes sure that he and the witchdoctor don't die. He keeps the sanctuary up, along with all of his group buffs, enemy debuffs, and self buffs. He can spam his pull to heal everyone (it scales with health globe healing bonus, hence the emphasis in the gearing section). Don't CC the RG within 10 seconds of the RGK trying to kill it. He stacks his bane of the stricken first). (crowd control abilities; this includes furious chargeand ground stomp; even ancient spear, even though it doesn't affect him if you have % chance to stun, freeze,etc on your gear (belt or weapons i think); for monk it includes his pull, the 3rd strike of his generator and any attack if he has % chance to CC on gear. Basically just don't CC the RG at all, though you do want your toxin gem effect on him, just try not to have chance to CC on gear.

Miscellaneous Useful Info:

When farming Hellfire Amulets Solo, start with diablo, as he is 1 target, rather than 2, it makes not running out of charges easier; as when you first open a new game you have 0 charges and only recover about 1 if you run straight to the boss portals.

Once you are over Paragon 1200ish getting XP pools is pretty useful (provides 25% experience gained for a certain amount of XP, you can stack up to 10 pools at once), though they are lost on death. Good spots to find them can be found here. usually I only check the orange ones (not the blue ones; based off the text coloring system on that page). This site is only and doesn't include 1 good one I know of: A4, the realm of fractured fate. From the spawn point, immediately go to the right and make a left at the first intersection; then follow it most of the way to the end. You can find 1-4 pools doing this (usually 1 or 2; sometimes 0). Most of the other locations are right near the spawn point. Of course, you can use cow sticks if you have them.

As a barb, you shouldn't die often, so stacking up 10 XP pools solo (once you are around Para 1300+ or so) can be worth it before you group. Just don't do something stupid and die. That's why I use nerves of steel in all my builds. I don't want to lose my pools. Your goal when doing anything in T13 should be to collect pools (unless you're fighting uber bosses) and Death's Breaths (and other mats) while you are doing whatever you are doing (and get keys from the keywardens if you are doing bounties in the same zone or perhaps when you've finished all the bounties).

Look up the numlock trick for all the zdps builds.

1% crit chance =10% crit damage (when they are at that ratio in your stats); In our barb builds, we tend to have more crit chance (from battle rage and WoTB), so crit damage is a bit more valuable.

Splitfarm bounties in public groups. It won't be slower than doing it alone (in T13).

With every character ever, boots + paragon =25% movespeed first priority. With charge barb, we want Fury then strength.

Make sure you clear GR 70 solo as soon as you can so that you have the chance of getting a primal ancient item.

As you clear rifts, hang on to yellow 2-handed mighty weapons to upgrade into legendaries (mighty belts are good too, if you have a weapon you are satisfied with).

80% Band of might is super important, start with it in the cube and wear royal ring until you find a BoM with double cirt, socket, and 79 or 80%.

There are a million other things I could put here, but I won't. My main advice is: you have to play in groups if you want to be high on the leaderboard, also you meet people and have fun. Join discord channels, clans and chat with people. It's the only way you can keep playing this game for a long time.

HOW TO SPEND BLOOD SHARDS & CRAFTING MATERIALS

I made a spreadsheet.

Spend Bloodshards on Armor (Boots, Pants, Chest, Gloves, Helm, Bracers):

First get all the right set pieces: (highest chance of getting boots, pants, chest, helm, gloves, since there is RK and IK, also shoulder you can get vile ward or RK)

Spend crafting mats on Uprgading Rares or Reforging Legendaries For Weapons:

2-Handed Boulder Breakers

(if you don't have standoff, upgrade legendary polearms)

Rings and Mighty Belts are kind of in between in terms of efficiency with shards or mats. For spending shards you want to do:

armor > rings > Mighty belt > weapon (don't spend on weapon). (for mats priority is reverse order)

You can upgrade mighty belts and mighty 2H weapons as you find them, or reforge the one you want (have to do bounties).

To get your first band of might, you can even go on a lvl 1 barb and spend shards on rings at kadala (assuming you want to cube it), because there is a smaller pool of possible legendary rings, so you have a higher chance of getting it, though this is a better season starter tactic.

Spend all your mats on your boulder breaker. It is the most important thing. Do this until you have an ancient boulder breaker with Str and life per fury (preferably over 4.2K DPS, not counting attack speed bonuses.. you don't want attack speed). Remember to gift it. Also note, that sometimes it is better to roll the damage range than to roll % damage, especially if the intial damage range is very low. Use a weapon damage calculator to help you.

Remember you have to do A1 bounties to get the ring of royal grandeur (can drop from A4 too, but about 1/4 the chance).

Alternate Gear choices

Reasons for different gear choices:

Before I told you what to do and when. Now, I want to help you understand why we use certain gear so that you can make your own variants. I will also listen certain items and when they are useful.

Core Gear: IK 6, R4, Royal Ring, Band of Might, Standoff

Core Skills/Runes: Marathon, Battle Rage, Together as One, Insanity, Boulder Toss, Furious Charge (correct element rune), Bane of the Trapped

Flex slots: Damage Ring, Amulet, Passives, Bracers, Armor Cube, Battle Rage Rune, Legendary Gems, Armor Gems

Rings: Convention of Elements, Avarice Band, Stone of Jordan. CoE has the highest average damage per second, whereas stone of jordan has the best minimum damage per second, thus SoJ is more consistent and CoE is better average DPS. The rings are definitely interchangeable in builds as they serve the same role, but when you are speed clearing, often the consistent damage is more important than the higher overall damage. If you have an Augmented CoE and and non-Augmented Stone of Jordan, probably just opt for the CoE, though the elite and elemental damage for SoJ are huge. Avarice band just makes it easier to pick up gold when you use boon of the hoarder. The "gold" variant that I use has the advantage of more movespeed (also dont worry about picking up all the gold; and make sure you have a pet equipped, because they help get gold too), which translates to damage, thanks to standoff.

Bracers: Ancient Parthan Defenders are a huge defensive boost (whenever you stun stuff with charge). Nemesis Bracers are best for speed clearing stuff and adding mobs to "kill" bounties and finding death's breaths. Strongarms are the best damage options; I really only use these for uber boss fighting, since there are no pylons. Nemesis bracers are so good.

Armor Cube: Leoric's is good for speed farming, but if you need damage vile ward gives a ton. Goldwrap can make you practically invincible...most of the time, which means you'll die a lot, just use leoric's crown or vile wards. Regarding the weapon cube, in-geom is good for speed farming, but you lose the HUGE bonus from standoff, so its not worth.

Battle Rage Rune: Bloodshed gives huge damage and is the best for damage no matter what. Ferocity is fine for speed farming, because you go fast and get 10% damage and 15% movespeed (which is damage)

Legendary Gems: Trapped gives huge damage. Only use bane of the stricken for greater rift pushing (not speed clears) and for uber boss fighting. Use lightning gem for everything: It helps you aggro mobs so you can group them in pushing and it gives movespeed for damage (and to go fast of course). If you feel too squishy, you can use esoteric alteration, but then you need physical resistance on your gear to compensate for the bonus you get to all your other resists, and eventually you'll ditch it, because as a barb damage is your problem not tankiness (usually). Bane of the Powerful is good for speedfarming, as it gives you elite damage (and elite damage reduction), as well as a general damage bonus. Unlike trapped, it gives a damage bonus that is additive with a lot of your other bonuses (called DIBS, damage increased by skills: includes battle rage, wrath of the berserker, bane of the powerful).

More about DIBS and damage calculations: There are different categories of damage multipliers, and it is important to try to get some from each group. So there is weapon damage range (+damage), main stat (strength), damage increased by skills, bane of the trapped, set bonuses ( i believe this is separate from DIBS), % Furious Charge Damage Increase, Elemental Damage Increase, Crit (chance and damage), Elite Damage, Bane of the stricken, (other gems like zei's and i think simplicity's strength),... these are all separate categories that get multiplied together. But, if you have to bonuses in the same category they add.

Example: say you deal 100 damage: +20% Cold Damage (assuming cold rune on charge), gives you 120 damage, 20% more damage. If you already have +20% cold damage and get +20% more cold damage you deal 140 damage, rather than 120, a 16.667% increase, but if that second 20% was elite damage, you would deal 100(1.2)(1.2)=144 damage. So stacking different bonuses is more effective. This is why we use stricken (when we can stack it) and trapped, rather than powerful.

The main takeaway is: Furious Charge % on your chest and shoulders are HUGE damage increases. %Elemental Damage is Huge, a must have on your bracers (remember, it doesn't matter which element you use, so long as it matches the rune you have selected on charge and the element on your other gear; elemental damage can be gained on bracers, amulet, and stone of jordan (or CoE orange text)). Also use bane of the trapped!

Passives: There are 5 great barb passives, but are all a bit situational.

Berserker's Rage: Huge damage increase (25%), if you can keep your fury up; can be difficult if you clear quickly or have to throw lots of boulders, ultimately, a good choice in all variants.

Ruthless: Huge Damage increase (about 10%). If you 1 or 2 shot every mob, it is never below 30% to trigger this bonus, so in that case, opt for something else. However, against rift guardians and mobs in greater rifts, this is a 10% damage increase.

Rampage: The best barb passive by far. 25% damage bonus and about a 20% armor boost, except against rift guardians without adds (added monsters), since you can't trigger it then. Always use this, except when fighting uber bosses.

Brawler: 20% Damage increase, whenever there are 3 or more mobs. Great against everything except rift guardians and uber bosses. Use in most variants.

Nerves of Steel: Not dying is good. At higher paragon, experience pools become more meaningful (since the xp they give is based on your level and it takes more time to get 1 level at higher paragon.. say, 1100+). Keeping your death timer down in GRs is good. Not having to restart your Wrath of the berserker cycle is good. I use this in all build variants, but at lower levels, outside of greater rifts it is not as important, and can be skipped. Pre-hellfire, probably cut this one.

So far, Rampage and nerves of steel aside, all the passives have been damage focused. Barbarians have a few good utility and movespeed ones as well.

Pound of Flesh gives you up to 20% movespeed (and 10% life regen/second), if you pick up enough health globes to keep it stacked, which is great for any speed farming build, as it makes you run faster and deal some extra damage (though not as much damage as the passives listed above).

Boon of Bul-Kathos: The part we care about is: reduces the cooldown of wrath of the berserker by 30 seconds. This means you have to throw 1 less boulder every wrath of the berserker cycle (1 less every 20 seconds). I have 174 fury (50 from paragon, 24 on my weapon, 100 base, and I wish i had 12 on my belt), so each time I toss a boulder, I reduce the cooldown on wrath of the berserker by 17x3=51 seconds. With 42% cdr and Boon of bul-kathos, my cooldown is 51 seconds. Thus I can throw 1 boulder and instantly reset my cooldown. This is a bit excessive, i can cut 20 seconds worth of CDR, since WotB lasts 20 seconds. So, with 170 fury you want enough cooldown reduction so that you only need to throw 1 boulder, so the cooldown can be 71 seconds (51 gets reduced from tossing a boulder and the ability lasts 20 seconds), which is about 23% CDR. Alternatively, with ~42% CDR (leoric's crown + 2 pieces with 8% CDR), you don't even need boon of bultkathos, and your cooldown is about 70 seconds. Really, this is a bit excessive and CDR is more useful for making it so that you never runs out of charges on furious charge, so maybe skip this one. (If you have paragon in fury, you have anywhere from 150-186 Fury, so a full fury boulder toss reduces the cooldown anywhere from 45 to 54 seconds, with only 100 fury you reduce the cooldown by 30 seconds per full fury toss).

Superstition: One of the best defensive options, gives 20% more damage reduction to everything except physical damage. If you ever use a build with this, ideally 2-3 of your secondary resists will be +Physical Damage Resistance, so that you don't die easily to physical attacks.

Tough as nails: 25% more armor. This thing is great! You have tons of armor, so it gives you even more. If you are in a group, you are probably using war cry (zdps), which means, that 25% is being added to the 20% from war cry. so it's a bit less effective. Though 25% seems like more than 20%, increasing armor by 25% does not reduce damage by 25%. Superstition is often better, because our all resist is relatively low compared to our armor.

Next tier: Relentless gives 50% damage reduction when below 35% life, effectively giving you 35% extra toughness, but generally you want to heal if you are missing about half your life, so this one is not ideal.

zDPS passives:

Inspiring presence: double duration of shouts is great, then you dont have to threatening shout enemies as often; 3% max life regen is pretty nice (think 2 million life, means 60,000 life/second).

Sword and Board: 30% damage reduction and 20% fury cost reduction,.... what's not to like??? O.. i guess you have to use a shield.

tl;dr look at the builds in the link near the top. they make you go fast and kill things in D3 or they are a way for you to get better gems or more XP by helping others kill things.

Note: can't figure out how to remove augs on website, once they are on there, so level 1 augs can be ignored