Slam Gore - Terrorists blew up my homeland

Don't leap into a frenzy because this is such a great weapon. See how much I sold this for after the jump.

Why would anyone want to slam Gore? He invented the internet.

You can probably guess today's topic by looking at the weapon.

Barbs

I would seismic slam that

Barbarians, Barbies, Babas, whatever you wanna call 'em. For those who haven't rolled a Barbarian yet, here's a little barb-blurb:

Barbs are the only surviving class from Diablo 2. The Diablo 3 rendition is older, wiser, and the females talk like they are retarded most veteran of all classes. Barbarians have a very visceral melee combat style; a swing of the axe will cause blood and guts to spew everywhere. Bodies will explode as they get blown offscreen. Turn up your bass speakers, folks. 

I'm pretty sure Blizzard designed this class first, because it definitely has the most polish. The skills have depth and the class can be played in many different ways. Let's go over the common types of Barbarians that I see in the wild:  

Type 1: Barbs that don't know how to play. This isn't really a build, but most barbs I see are either way too defensive with no dps, or super glass cannon. Barbs are given skills and passives that can swing his defense or offense extremely wide; it's important to keep a good balance so you can actually survive and deal damage at the same time. 

Type 2: A tanky Barb that is primarily defensive. Stacking 10k defense, 1000 resist all, and 75k hp is not a problem for this kind of Barbarian. His abilities give him massive amounts of bonus armor and resists, as well as max hp or regeneration for boss fights. He will never die. And while he can dish out damage and play Inferno, he still isn't going to kill anything within a reasonable time frame. Death for enemies come by old age and attrition, rather than a swift blow to the head.  

Type 3: A farming Barb. Here is a Barbarian that I can respect. He's got a good 8k defense, 750 resist all, and maybe 50k hp. But more importantly, he's loaded to the teeth with damage. He farms Act 3 and Act 4 with ease, and relies on the timeless mantra of kill before you get killed. These barbs can be using a high % blocking build, a dual wielding critical damage build, or the ever-popular flavor-of-the-month build: The whirlwinding barb.

Now you'll probably wonder why I laid out the list like that. The reason is that these types of barbs are one and the same. The barbs are played by the same player, but in different stages of gameplay. Up until Inferno, most Barbs are type 1. They've stuck with a build they liked and somehow been able to overpower most mobs with perhaps a little help from the AH.  

Now, don't be bashful if that was you, I was like that as well; I advanced to level 60 without using Revenge (a key Barb skill) a single time. All that time, I was wondering how the Barbarian was supposed to heal himself.

NM and Hell

A brand new player is quite capable of sprinting through most parts of Nightmare and Hell because there isn't a proper scaling difficulty curve. Nightmare and Hell do not feel like the Nightmare and Hell of D2. They feel like normal and normal+. So when a Barb player gets to Inferno Act 1, he feels a sudden whirlwind of new concepts and ideas that he now has to learn, in order to survive.

As soon as he heads out the gate to the first area, the player will notice that a zombie can kill his Barb in a couple of meager hits. He wants revenge, so he charges out there and starts whacking away. This time he survives.

But five minutes later, he dies again. This time to a champion mob. And again. And again. The player soon realizes that his build sucks. So he does what he feels a Barb does best: Go defensive. Just look at the barb. He's big. Bulky. He looks like he can ignore pain and take hits without dying.

What a bunch of cleaver skill names

To justify this, the barb has multiple passives that boost defensive attributes. Equipping two of these passives will add an easy 3,000 defense, allowing the Barb to leap from being 1-shotted to a tanking machine. However, the barb is charged with an important task: Don't overdo it. It's easy to stack defenses until you can't possibly die. But for every defensive passive, it's one less offensive passive that can be carried.

The type 2 Barb might get the player to Act 3. At this point, he realizes that he can't actually tank forever. Or rather, he doesn't want to. Too many annoying champion affixes, too much kiting, too much work. Not enough killing. The player decides that he wants to able to fight back. So he looks at his gear: Strength, Vitality, Resist all.

"What else do I need?" He thinks.

That's when the real journey starts and the puns stop.

Critically important affixes

For weeks after the game launched, that's how players built their Barbs. Nobody had a type 3 barb. Before the whole critical damage explosion, most Barbs were building only Str, Vit, Resist all, Life on hit, and attack speed. No wonder they sucked in Act 3. (You could probably argue that every class was doing this, and you'd mostly be right)

Let's jump to now. The current metagame revolves around critical hits. Stack as much critical hit chance as you can, and get as much bonus critical hit damage as you can afford. The multiplicative scaling can easily net you 50k+ dps while dual wielding.

You want crit % on shield, gloves, amulet, rings, bracers, and helm. This is obviously assuming you are planning on using a shield. You want crit damage on weapons, gloves, amulet, and rings. The most important thing is getting a weapon with both a critical hit damage affix as well as a socket; this can easily double your damage. Don't be afraid to buy 600 or 700 dps weapons with these mods, they are going to do more damage than a vanilla 1000. Run a dps calculator if you are unsure of your final damage.

So, criticals are the key affix for building a powerful barb. What does this imply? For starters, that probably means that you should get a scoundrel.

Get this

Put your axe into it

And my Galraki!

One key requirement to maximizing critical hit % is tied to this key skill:

They should have just called this skill Axe Mastery

10% critical hit chance is quite a bit. That's like 2.5 rings worth of crit. If you are planning on getting a Barb, you should plan on getting an axe.

Caveat: Weapons Master only applies to the weapon on your main hand. As long as you have an axe there, you are fine. I imagine that it's implemented this way to prevent axe prices from inflating with respect to other weapons. 

Once you have your gear and an axe (or two), you might be thinking... which build should I run? Let's go over the general set-ups.

Sword Axe and Shield

AnS... ugh, that sounds so stupid. I'm still going to call it SnS. 

SnSnHoC

This build is the least complicated of all Barb builds: Get a 1-hander, get a good shield. Oh right, get the Helm of Command too. The free bonus % block chance is just too valuable to forgo. The HoC also happens to be a crafted item, so there is a wide range of rolls on the market. Get the one that suits you best.

With the Helm of Command and a shield with a +% block affix, you will be tanky. Just make sure your shield also has crit % (up to 10%) so you're still competitive in terms of damage. Because the shield absorbs so much damage (it blocks, adds defense, and possibly resist), it downgrades the need for having extremely good gear on other parts of the body. Because of this, SnS is by far the cheapest build and is well suited for beginners.

2-handed

These still exist? Go back to last month. Or next month (patch 1.04).

Dual wield

Pick up an axe and any other weapon type (like Slam Gore). Now go whack things really fast. Dual wield builds are the way to maximize dps because of the potential 200%+ critical hit damage from your second weapon, as well as the dual wielding 15% attack speed bonus. These types of builds require more armor in other places, as well as more Life on Hit in the weapon to stay afloat. A weapon with a socket, critical hit damage, and LoH is also going to be costly. I've sold (and sniped) several weapons with these affixes at extraordinary prices. Just be aware that this build is going to cost significantly more than an SnS setup.

You have no skills

I guess I'm not paying da bills

An SnS or dual-wielding build can go in a variety of different ways. For non-combo builds, the Barb's skills are quite interchangeable; most of the slots just depend on your play-style. You can go fury-consumer with a Hammer of the Ancients spam build. You can also go fury-builder with a frenzy & cleave setup. You can even use Rend effectively. There's plenty of options. Weapon throw? There's a real build for that (which conveniently requires crit %), go look it up.

The reason I don't include these skill templates is because there are just too many options. The key thing to know is that your gear really only depends on if you decide to go SnS, dual-wield, or dual-whirlwind. No matter what your template is, stacking critical % and damage is going to be the best way to go. Part of the fun is figuring out what you like. So don't be shy, try out different templates and go with what you like.

And yes, I did just lie to you. There are builds that require mass IAS instead of crit, but I feel those are inferior. So I ignored them.

With that said, I will talk about one build.

Every class has a combo build that is absurdly broken and is devastating when used properly. If Blizzard cared more about skill balance rather than player attrition, they would probably nerf these builds into the ground. For the Barbarian, this overpowered combo build is known as Double Tornado Whirlwind.

Double Tornado, what does it mean?

Tornadoes are just god's way of killing mermaids

If you're going to dual wield, you must try this out. Otherwise, it would be like going to France and not eating French Fries, or going to Germany and not eating German chocolate cake. Go Google Double Tornado Whirlwind or take a look on the Barb forums for the exact specs. There's enough literature out there that covers the details, so I'll only skim over the basics.

The whirlwind build allows an almost-indefinite uptime of Whirlwind and Wrath of the Berserker by clever usage of skills that generate massive amounts of fury. Because of the flurry of attacks per second that Whirlwind provides, Life on Hit scales extremely well. LoH is of utmost importance in this build. Another key requirement for this build is a massive amount of critical hit chance; a 25% bonus from gear is usually the minimum to use this build effectively.

I've run this build to reasonable success, but I definitely have issues with it. My biggest gripe is that it's just too fast and strong. It's a real concern; sometimes I can't put my mf gear on fast enough before the monsters collapse before me. /FirstWorldProblems

The real downside is the cost of the build; running this in Act 3 will require a significant investment to farm at the speed you see in the videos. You need a solid chunk of Life on Hit (1500~) as well as good armor and resists, or you'll be eaten alive. For beginners, it might be best to focus on reaching the minimum amount of LoH and defense in order to survive Act 3 first. Picking up dps via Critical hit damage affixes can come later. That's why I highly recommend a weapon with sockets; they have this dual utility built in. Use Amethysts for the LoH until you are comfortable with the build, and then gradually dial it onto Emeralds.

Take a look at my Barbarian's profile for specific details (make sure you look at the softcore one):

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/yun-1680/hero/3082375

Skills

Here's the skills you'll be using. I'm present them in the order that's easiest to understand.

Battle Rage - Into the Fray

This is the key skill that allows this build to work. Every time you get a critical hit, you have a chance to gain 15 fury. Keeping this shout up at all times is the most important thing. Beginners usually have a bad sense of timing and let this go down, causing them to run out of fury immediately and die in a crowd of monsters.

Warcry - Impunity

A defensive shout that also gives you the initial Fury to cast Battle Rage.

Sprint - Run Like the Wind

The majority of your damage in this build comes not from Whirlwind, but this skill. As you move around with this skill enabled, you drop little tornadoes that whirl and deal damage to monsters on top of it. Those little tornadoes add up to do an absurd amounts of damage. Each cast of the skill will generate multiple tornadoes; make sure you're constantly moving and have a fast move speed to optimize this skill. Get +12% move speed boots.

Whirlwind - Hurricane

The real purpose of this skill is to pass through enemies to lay down your sprint-tornadoes in the best location: In the middle of the crowd. You must take the Hurricane rune as it allows you to move quickly and drop a large amount of sprint-tornadoes.

Bash - Instigation

This is what you use if you need to some quick fury. In Berserker mode, Bash can also be used to increase the duration of the Zerker form. Try not to use this skill unless it's a 1on1 situation against a ranged kiting mob. Simply running around the enemy with Sprint up will do more damage to a single target than Bash can.

Wrath of the Berserker - Thrive on Chaos

This is one of the great benefits of running this build. If you bypass the learning curve, you can eventually maintain the Zerker mode almost indefinitely. This means you are immune to jailer, frozen, and other nasty affixes, as well as affording you a half dozen other bonus effects.

Troubleshooting:

I'm including a small section dedicated to trying to solve basic Whirlwind build problems. If you don't know how the build works, I highly recommend you look on Youtube for videos of it in action. There are plenty to chose from. Once you have actually tried the build, then come back and read this section.

Problem: I charge in and die instantly.

Solution: Your gear probably sucks. Get better defense and resists. Is your Berserker mode on? You might want to get a shield to bolster your stats instead of trying dual wield option.

Problem: I charge in and die while Whirlwinding.

Solution: Get more Life on Hit. This is key. Most beginners will run into this issue. Sometimes the mob might be too difficult if you don't have the best gear. In this case, try to run around the perimeter and drop Sprint-tornadoes. You don't have to be constantly whirlwinding; the most important thing is to be constantly moving around, because that causes your Spring skill to drop tornadoes on the ground; these deal the majority of the damage.

Problem: I charge in and die slowly.

Solution: If you are still dying, then it's probably a play mistake. You might be whirlwinding in a tiny circle and not generating an tornadoes. Also, depending on your gear and the elite mob, they might just do too much damage. In this case, you want to use a "hit and run" approach. Simply activate Sprint, and do a single straight pass through the enemy mob using Whirlwind. Then keep running in that direction. Hopefully that laid down enough tornadoes that the LoH is now healing you. Once you've healed enough, repeat.

Problem: I run out of Fury.

Solution: Run around more so the sprint-tornadoes can do their thing. Keep an eye on your fury bar and never Whirlwind yourself into a bad situation. WW is only to be used when you have >50% Fury. Otherwise, just run around with sprint and drop tornadoes. Tornadoes are the cheap, effective way of rebuilding fury.

Problem: I run out of Berserker mode often.

Solution: Try to ignore small groups. Let your "sprint-tornadoes" deal damage to them to build fury and prolong the form. One key misunderstanding is that you need to kill every mob before moving on. Wrong. If you do this, then you will not be able to keep up your Zerker form. 

  

Let me explain the correct way to do it:

When I come up an elite mob, I will kite them until I find another elite mob. I make sure that they're chasing me (by not running too fast), and use Sprint to drop tornadoes and deal damage to them. When I find the second elite mob, I'll kill about half of them and look for the next elite mob. Repeat until I get to a door, at which point I kill everything chasing me. I do this for a couple of reasons:

1. I continuously have a mob chasing me, eating my sprint-tornadoes as I move and charging my fury.
2. Because they are eating my tornadoes, my LoH is triggering and I'm healing. 
3. Because they are eating my tornadoes, they are taking damage without my need to actually do anything to them directly. I'm dealing damage while moving.
4. When I finally pull 2 mobs together, my LoH triggers twice as much because I'm hitting twice as many monsters at the same time. This allows me to get away with much less LoH in the build.
5. Ranged elite mobs are practically impossible to kill without wasting time chasing them around. They die much faster when a melee mob is chasing you at the same time; this lets you build fury off the melee mob in order to continuously whirlwind the kiting mob.

This is really the key to the build: Don't try to kill each mob individually. Kite them from one mob to the next. This is not intuitive unless you watch videos of good players running this build, which I heavily recommend before attempting the build.

Your sword sucks because it's not an axe

Very true. It's also missing critical hit damage and a socket. So I was pleasantly surprised when it sold.

But why did it sell? Time to use your brains and wits here. What build, from above, would it be a good fit for?

The answer, not surprisingly considering I only talked about one build, is the dual-wield whirlwind build:

1. If you Googled the build, you will know that it consumes Fury very quickly. The +max fury affix affords you an extra second to theoretically crit and restore your Fury pool.
2. 800 Life on Hit is significant. All dual wielding builds require ungodly amounts of LoH to be sustainable. This weapon has an ungodly amount.
3. High dps. When duel-wielding, your weapon dps is averaged between your two weapons. Remember when I said that weapons with crit damage, socket, and LoH were expensive? Chances are that you only have a 7xx dps weapon with those mods. A 950 dps sword will round out your average.
4. Respectable attack speed. The faster you hit, the more times LoH triggers, the more healing you get. By no means is this as fast as a dagger or normal sword, but it's also not the slowest of the bunch (spears and axe).

So there you go. After hyping critical hit damage, sockets, and axes, this weapon doesn't have any of those things. And it still sold for a decent amount. Do you feel like you just got trolled? Teehee.

There's a lesson here: Having an effective Barbarian is the first step you can take in order to properly judge Barb weapons. Hell, you could apply that to any class, really. Have you ever found a wand and had no idea what it was worth, simply because you didn't have a Wizard? If you really want to make a killing on the RMAH, you should ideally to have 5 * Lvl 60 classes so you can learn about the hot builds and more importantly, the gear necessary to execute these builds.

After all, getting to 60 isn't the same as getting to 99 in D2. It's faster, it's easier. You don't have to be a neckbeard to do it. It might take just 3 days with a big Ruby in your hat.

The first thing I did in the game was to level all my classes to 60; I wanted the ability to exploit any broken builds as they soon as they were found. And right now, the flavor-of-the-month build is the Whirlwind Barbarian: I recommend you go roll a Barb and try it if you haven't already.

May all your barbs be type 3.

Scroll down to see how much I sold the sword for.