Barbarian Build – Elite Crushing Patch 1.0.8

Barbarians have been suffering in terms of build diversity. Patch 1.0.8 came with quite a few changes to provide a few alternatives to the classical double tornado build.

This particular Diablo 3 Barbarian solo Inferno build has been thought out as a replacement with elite farming in mind. Hammer of the Ancients provides a lot of damage at the expense of Fury which will prove to be quite important for the build. Even if the build is not as efficient for large packs of mobs, it works decently against small groups, especially Elite and Champion packs. This makes it less efficient for Paragon farming but great for treasure hunting.

AoE skills are not completely compromised but the efficiency of the build has been proven by the creator to work best on elite packs. It falls a bit behind in terms of exp farming when compared with the Double Tornado build.

Let’s start with the skill setup:
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Left Mouse Button – Hammer of the Ancients with the Smash rune
Right Mouse Button – Whrilwind with Hurricane rune
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Action Key 1 – Battle Rage with the Into the Fray rune
Action Key 2 – Sprint with the Run Like the Wind rune
Action Key 3 – Rend with the Lacerate rune
Action Key 4 – War Cry with the Impunity rune
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Passive Skill 1: Animosity
Passive Skill 2: Ruthless
Passive Skill 3: Weapons Master

Check out the Skill Calculator here

The Mechanics of the Build:

Gear is fairly important to this build. The biggest damage output is achieved with a two handed weapon with a lot of base damage. With a decent one hand weapon like a good Skorn, Rend becomes more efficient when fighting larger packs. It will also help to drain down elite packs. Attack speed on a two handed weapon will affect how often the Tornados will proc for damage when Sprint is used and the ticks of the Rend DoT damage will be affected but the biggest benefit is the damage output of Hammer of the Ancients.
Hammer of the Ancients has been buffed significantly a few patches ago. The Smash rune increases the damage to 406% weapon damage to all enemies in the strike area.

AoE damage can be enhanced with Attack Speed. Unfortunately, after 18% IAS, the benefits begin to diminish making it not worth the investment to get anything above that. In theory, 18% IAS means 18% more Tornado and Rend ticks per minute which tends to count a lot when the only way to an elite pack is trough a lot of trash mobs.

As mentioned, Hammer of the Ancients will be the main source of burst damage. It can be considered a burst damage skill despite the fact that it does not have a cooldown but it costs 20 Fury to cast. Even with Animosity, the skill cannot be used more than 6 times (2436% total weapon damage dealt with 6 hits) at full Fury. To make it a bit more spammable, some regen would be excellent. Battle Rage into the Fray combined with a decent critical hit chance will surely make a difference. For this purpose, the combination of Ruthless (5% extra crit), Weapons Master (10% critical hit chance with axes) and a Skorn is perfect for the build. Things get even better if a Templar is used for his 8% Fury regeneration.

If gold is not a problem, a Stone of Jordan would also be great. It can provide some extra Fury and some decent stats.

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Barbarian Build – Dread Bomb – Patch 1.0.8

Long time has passed since the most popular barbarian build was focused around Frenzy. The double tornado is still popular but sometimes it can feel boring to play the same thing over and over again. Dread Bomb offers a very fun and effective barb build that seems to remind us of the old Necromancer and his signature ability called Corpse Explosion. Everything that dies caused damage to everything around and Weapon Throw becomes a skill that makes the barb toss corpses around dealing tons of damage.

The build itself seems like a lot of fun as the core setup focuses on getting dead bodies and using them as weapons against other packs of mobs which in return will become corpses as well. It seems like a vicious circle that never end but fun like hell. It fresh and we are happy to add it to our collection of barbarian builds.
Let’s start with the skill setup:
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Left Mouse Button – Cleave with the Rupture rune
Right Mouse Button – Weapon Throw with Dread Bomb rune
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Action Key 1 – Battle Rage with the Into the Fray rune
Action Key 2 – Sprint with the Marathon rune
Action Key 3 – Wrath of the Berserker with the Insanity rune
Action Key 4 – Rend with the Blood Lust rune
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Passive Skill 1: Ruthless
Passive Skill 2: Bloodthirst
Passive Skill 3: Weapons Master

Check out the Skill Calculator here

The Mechanics of the Build:

There are a lot of things going on when using this barb build. Unlike other barbarian builds, the Dread Bomb seems to offer a lot of after-death damage dealing effects. Cleave for instance will cause an enemy killed to explode. While Weapon Throw will be used to throw and existing corpse and make it explode. Things would have been even more extreme if Rend used the Bloodbath rune to cause bleeding victims to inflict the same effect to nearby enemies.

Cast sequence is rather simple. Cleave should be used to bring down mobs while Weapon Throw should be saved for when Fury is at maximum. This means that Weapon Throw can deal 300% weapon damage if used at maximum Fury. It might now sound like much but it works great when being chased by large packs or when fighting elite packs with Jailer affix. However, there is one thing that this barbarian build needs to work efficiently. Just like any other build, Fury generation makes it possible to cast expensive abilities more often. This means that the Weapon Master passive needs to be combined with Maces and Axes for some extra crit chance that works very well with Into the Fray rune of the Battle Rage skill. Ruthless is also a mandatory choice for some extra critical hit chance and damage.

This entire skill setup points out one obvious fact. The damage of the weapon equipped will have a significant influence over the total damage output which calls for two handed weapons such as a Skorn. A decent one should cost around 10 million gold which is a rather reasonable price. It is also important to understand that the damage of the weapon and the skills will influence how much health regen the barb has. The Bloodthirst passive and the Rend Blood Lust rune should be enough to maintain decent survivability when a Skorn is used and makes this barbarian build even more efficient.

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Barbarian – Rend Build for 1.0.8

We’ve noticed that a lot of people that visited D3wall actually looking for a Barbarian Rend build. This could not go unnoticed and research has been done to find a viable Inferno solo Barb Rend build that can work even with MP10.

The build itself is actually a variation of the old Double Tornado build. Both builds still work today but the Rend skill seems to add more DPS. Sustainability had to suffer a bit as the War Cry skill with its Impunity rune has bee replaced with Rend. At the same time, the absence of the resistances bonus is compensated by the life return of Rend in conjunction with the Blood Lust rune.

All in all this solo Inferno Barb build shows great potential to work on MP10 as long as there is enough survivability to not die from one shot.
Let’s start with the skill setup:
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Left Mouse Button – Bash with the Clubber rune
Right Mouse Button – Whrilwind with Hurricane rune
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Action Key 1 – Rend with the Blood Lust rune
Action Key 2 – Sprint with the Run Like the Wind rune
Action Key 3 – Battle Rage with the Into the Fray rune
Action Key 4 – Wrath of the Berserker with the Thrive on Chaos rune
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Passive Skill 1: Bloothirst
Passive Skill 2: Ruthless
Passive Skill 3: Weapons Master

Check out the Skill Calculator here

The Mechanics of the Build:

Sustain is the core element of the build. Higher levels of Monster Power requires a lot of gold to be invested into gear but also a viable solo inferno build. Rend is a perfect pick to gain a lot of HP regen while dealing tons of damage. The Beauty of it is that lower end gear that would offer enough sustain for MP7 but not for MP10 using the Double Tornado build, will work on MP10 with the Rend build just because it offers more DPS and life regend from damage dealt with the aid of the Blood Lust rune. It is important to notice that the Barb will take significantly more damage due to the absence of the War Cry rune with the Impunity rune. Balanced gear setup should compensate a bit the lack of resistances.

Bash has been picked as a fight initiator and a Fury generating skill. From that point onward, if the crit chance is high enough, Battle Rage with the Into the Fray rune will provide decent regen. Due to the Weapons Master passive, item choices might get limited but, even if Rend is the kind of skill that scales better with two-handed weapons, the build works best with two one-handed ones. Let’s not forget that this is a variation from the original Double Tornado build. Fury regen is still important. Gear can help as well with the regen.

Last but not least, the remaining selection of skills should be used whenever there is enough rage. Sprint with Run Like the Wind rune will provide enough mobility in order to get large packs clumped together so that they can be Whilwinded easier. The extra life regen from damage dealt will make this Barbarian solo Inferno Rend build fun and viable.

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Barbarian Solo Inferno Build – Barb Leaper 1.0.8

Tired of double tornado build? How about a leaping barbarian? Today’s Bariabian solo inferno build takes a not so new idea and updates it for patch 1.0.8. The Leap Barb focuses more of mobility, escapability, mass stuns and a lot of health regen. With the right combination of skills, life on heat gear becomes optional which actually makes this particular setup much more cheap to achieve. Less gold will be required for new gear acquisition. Some might spend some time to think just how fast farming will be with this build.

Easy to say that the speed of a double tornado build is difficult to replicate but the Leap Barb can get quite close. Due to the Leap skill, mobility problems become less of a concern. Also, the main advantage is that this build provides much more mobility than other solo Barbarian inferno builds and it is cheap at the same time. 10 to 50 million gold should be enough to get started with it or existing gear can work just as well. But before everything else, the skill setup needs to be looked at.

Here is the skill selection for the build:
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Left Mouse Button – Frenzy with the Maniac rune
Right Mouse Button – Earthquake with The Mountain’s Call rune
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Action Key 1 – Leap with the Death From Above rune
Action Key 2 – Overpower with the Revel rune
Action Key 3 – Revange with the Provocation rune
Action Key 4 – Warcry with the Impunity rune
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Passive Skill 1: Ruthless
Passive Skill 2: Bloodthirst
Passive Skill 3: Brawler

Check out the Skill Calculator here

The Mechanics of the Build:

What can be clearly seen right off the bat is that Fury regeneration is only obtained by using Frenzy. Everything else just consumes it. This means that Fury consuming abilities cannot be spammed. This might seem like a good enough reason for this barbarian solo inferno build not to work but gear can complement the gaps of the skill setup. Fury on crit is a great pick in terms of gear affixes.

Moving on to the rest of the skills, the Leap skill comes to play. Due to the rune used, each time the Barb lands right in the middle of a pack of mobs, all of them will get instantly stunned for 3 seconds. After 3 seconds, Overpower and Revenge can be used to regain some HP. In most cases, the use of the two skills should be enough to avoid unnecessary deaths.

The passives chosen for the job are pretty much standard except for Brawler which actually makes perfect sense. Since the build was designed to give the Barb the ability to jump in the middle of monster packs, Brawler adds a bit more sustain to the setup.

Gear-wise, not much can be said. What might not be obvious is the fact that the build will work best with a slow two-handed weapon such as the Skorn. The higher the damage the harder Earthquake will hurt. Even if the skill has a relatively high cooldown, its damage multiplier cannot be ignored. Having a skill that deals 2000% weapon damage can hurt a lot.

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