How to build a barb in diablo 3

[CCCenturion]

HOW TO BUILD A BARBARIAN IN DIABLO 3

(according to the skills as currently described in the Wiki - 7/13/09)

This discussion started in a thread (http://diablo.incgamers.com/forums/showthread.php?p=7187305#post7187305) I posted in the Characters and Skills forum. I had beeen picking apart the various types of skills for the Barbarian and Wizard classes, to see how they interact and fit together, and I noticed a couple of patterns. All of the examples I discussed in my other thread related to Barbarian skills, and so I suppose I inevitably came up with some basic guidelines for how D3 players are going to come up with the successful builds. I can't possibly overemphasize the fact that we still don't know a lot of things, like what the skill point limits are, how the skills improve at higher levels, and what skills will be added or taken away before the game is released. But from what we know now, I'm pretty confident that all Barbs are going to be based on the following principles.

First off, some definitions I'll be using, regarding categories of skills:

ATTACKS: active skills that are used to directly damage and kill enemies. A character will in general want to only specialize heavily in one attack, to be able to kill as efficiently as possible.

BUFFS / De-buffs: active skills that temporarily strengthen the character or weaken enemies. Any character will benefit from being able to use all of the Buffs in his class's tree.

SYNERGIES: passive skills that directly affect one or two active skills. The only characters who will want to focus on a particular synergy will be those who specialize in the corresponding skill.

MASTERIES: passive skills that affect a particular tree or style of fighting. These are broader than Synergies, but not as universally applicable as Mods. Every character will want to max out a couple of Masteries, although lots of them are mutually exclusive. Barbarians have two types of masteries: Tree masteries that improve all the attacks in a skill tree, and Specializations that improve a barbarian's ability with a particular weapon type.

MODS: passive skills that are universally beneficial, providing a bonus that does not apply to a particular attack or build. Every character will want at least one point in each Mod his class offers. I use the name "Mod" for this category since these skills provide the types of benefits that we normally look for in mods from our gear.

[CCCenturion]

UNIVERSAL SKILLS

First off, here is a list of all the "Mod" skills that every Barbarian is going to want at least one point in:

Iron Skin, Scavenge, Critical Attacks, Deliberate Defense, Death Proof, Natural Resistance, Bad Temper, Heightened Senses, Strong Constitution, Savage, Slashing Strike, Destroy Armor, Inspiration, (unnamed Juggernaut skill), Focused Strength, Stubborn, Recovery, Invigorated, Iron Will.
All of these skills will be useful to any Barbarian, regardless of the other skills he chooses to focus in.

Next, here is a list of all the Buffs / De-Buffs that will complement the play style of any Barbarian. Put at least one point in each of these:

Battle Rage, Battle Cry, Ignore Pain, Terrifying Shout, Onslaught, Enrage, Taunt

These skills will be useful to any Barbarian in battle. Keep in mind, they are active skills that will need to be refreshed during play.

[CCCenturion]

SIGNATURE ATTACKS

Now we get to the interesting part of the build (although I'm sure fine-tuning the right balance among the Mods and Buffs will also be interesting), here we need to start making some choices.

Here is the part where we choose our Barbarian's attacks. Some attacks seem to be utilities, that any Barbarian will want to use:

Furious Charge, Leap Attack, Ground Stomp, Revenge

Some attacks, though, will define a character's play style, and will be the ones that define the inevitable cookie cutter builds:

Hammer of the Ancients, Frenzy, Whirlwind, Seismic Slam

(I left out Bash and Cleave, since frankly, I think HotA is going to be way cooler than Bash, and WW will do everything Cleave does and more. But hopefully I'm wrong.)

Each of these signature attacks has a Synergy that goes along with it:

HotA: Mighty Hammer
Frenzy: Relentless Attacks, Berserker State, Increase Speed
WW: Relentless Attacks
SS: Seismic Effect

It's a little strange that Frenzy has 3 synergies while the others only have one, but that could very well change.

Notice that when you choose your character's signature attack, you're also going to want to choose a synergy to max out. With WW, your synergy also works for Frenzy, so that gives you a natural backup skill. Seismic Effect also synergizes Revenge, so that gives the Slammers a backup skill. HotA's synergy doesn't affect a second skill, but there's still an attack missing from the Battlemaster tree, and I wouldn't be surprised if it shares the synergy with HotA. (Blessed Hammer for Barbs??? )

So, your first choice when planning a character is to pick the skill to build your play style around, and next you're going to want to max out the appropriate synergy. On to Masteries and then Specializations.

[CCCenturion]

MASTERIES AND SPECIALIZATIONS

Your first choice of mastery will be obvious: you'll want to choose the Mastery that benefits your primary and secondary skill. So a Barbarian will want to choose one of the following: Power of the Battlemaster, Power of the Berserker, or Power of the Juggernaut. Note that these masteries work like synergies for an entire skill tree, so this choice will boost some tertiary skills for you. Also, Slammers will want to invest heavily in Stunning Blows, which is an extra mastery for the Juggernaut tree. The Battlemaster and Berserker trees, in their current state, have no comparable masteries.

You'll also want to choose a mastery for the type of weapons you plan to use. Here you can choose from Shield Specialization, Dual Wielding Specialization, or Two-Handed Weapon Specialization. These are in the Battlemaster, Berserker, and Juggernaut skill trees, respectively, but they can be used with any attack from any of the three trees.

Note that if you specialize in Dual Wielding, you'll probably also want to max out Double Strike, which gives you a chance of hitting with both weapons at once. That means that you probably don't want to become a Slammer, since you'll have two more masteries to pump up in the Juggernaut tree. Bye bye, skill points. So dual-wielding Barbs will probably focus on WW or HotA.

Also note that if you choose Shield Specialization, you aren't getting any damage bonuses to your weapon. I'm predicting that if that doesn't change, we'll see a lot of Barbs specializing in Shields and then becoming Slammers, since the Juggernaut tree has two masteries, as I mentioned above. Two-hander barbs will be the most flexible, since they'll be doing plenty of damage and only maxing one Specialization, so they can choose any tree they want.

[CCCenturion]

PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER

So now we want to look at all of our choices together, and see what builds are going to work. Every build is going to want to get all of the Mods and Buffs. Then you will need to pick your Attacks and Specializations. Your attack will decide which Synergies and Masteries you will want to invest in, but your Specialization will play a part in determining what attacks are feasible for a given choice of weapon.


If you want your main attack to be HotA or WW, you'll have to max one Attack skill, one Synergy, and one Mastery.
If you want your main attack to be SS, you'll have one Synergy and two Masteries.
If you want to be a Frenzy barb, you have three Synergies and one Mastery.

So your main attack is going to require you to maximize anywhere from three to five skills to perfect it. On top of that, you'll have one or two skills to max for your weapon specializations.


So when it comes to choosing your main attack and your favored weapons, basically you're choosing if you want to maximize 4 to 7 skills. Keep in mind that in D3, the current plan is for skills to have varying point limits, so maximizing three synergies for Frenzy might not be as bad as it sounds; we'll just have to wait and see.