Perpetual Wrath of the Berserker

[Jedouard]

So, I am shooting for a perpetual Wrath of the Berserker. Here's the build: http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/barbarian#bSiQVP!ZYW!ZZYZZc (possibly Furious Charge}Stamina instead of Furious Charge}Merciless Assault)

The goal of this build is to crit all the time and keep Wrath of the Berserker going forever, which requires earning a lot of fury. Fortunately, earning a lot of fury becomes the same thing as critting with Battle Rage}Into the Fray. But, I really will have to be "in the fray" at all times for this build to work because I can't afford to lose a second of fury earning. That's why I like the build: it demands constant engagement.

I've underlined all the fury buffs and chance-to-crit buffs for the sake of ease.

PASSIVES:
Ruthless: Adds 5% crit and 50% crit damage.

Weapons Master: Adds 10% crit, but, hopefully I will have enough crit already to be able to forego axes and maces for the mighty weapons to add 3 fury per hit. If not, then I guess I need that crit bonus.

Animosity: adds 10% to fury generation.

ACTIVES:
Wrath of the Berserker}Thrive on Chaos: adds 10% crit and adds 1 second to duration for every 25 fury gained.

The Battle Rage}Into the Fray: adds 3% crit and gives 15 fury per crit. As I understand it, some AoE's determine critting on a per-monster basis instead of per cast. I hope the AoE's I have chosen do this, but even if they don't, this skill/rune is vital to this build.

Revenge}Best Served Cold: Adds 10% crit for 12 seconds, costs nothing and saves my life if I get in a jam, which I plan to be in without any other life savers besides an escape from Furious Charge. Rune may be changed for Vengeance is Mine for more 5 fury/enemy hit and improved life gain, or for Provocation so you can cast it more often.

Overpower}Killing Spree: Adds 10% crit for 6 seconds, costs nothing and will be the main skill for my build since I should be critting often enough to almost spam it, especially if it is a per-monster crit, not a per-cast crit. Rune may be changed for Momentum to generate 12 fury/enemy hit.

Furious Charge}Merciless Assault or Furious Charge}Stamina: The Stamina rune adds 8 fury for each target hit, which, given the AoE on this, is great to keep Wrath of the Berserker going. However, the Merciless Assault rune, which reduces the cooldown by 2 seconds for every target hit, might be necessary for survivability or may even earn me more fury from Battle Rage}Into the Fray if the Furious Charge crit is per monster rather than per cast.

Cleave}Reaping Swing: 5 fury per cast plus 3 fury per hit.

THE IDEA:
It's simple enough:
Furious Charge into groups.
Cleave and Overpower to heart's content.
Revenge to save my hide or Furious Charge to escape.
Keep Battle Rage active at all times.
Keep Wrath of the Berserker going for as long as possible and re-cast it whenever it goes off and the cooldown expires.

I really hope I have sufficient chance to crit so that I can use the Weapons Master Mighty Weapons' fury bonus instead of the Axe/Mace crit bonus. Here's why:

(All these calculations will include the Animosity fury bonus.)

Take Cleave}Reaping Swing, for example. If I have three enemies around me, then I get 15 fury. If I have the Mighty Weapon's bonus from Weapons Master, that goes up to 25 fury, the magic number. If Cleave is a per-cast crit and I crit 50% of the time - I would hope that would be the minimum for a build like this - then probability would place that number 34 fury thanks to Battle Rage}Into the Fray. But if crit for Cleave is per monster, 50% crit would instead make that number 51 fury.

Do the same for Furious Charge}Stamina. Three enemies would yield 43 fury. The Mighty Weapons' boon would make that 53. 50% to crit, would make that 61 if it were per-cast crit thanks to Battle Rage}Into the Fray, but if it was per-monster, it would be 78.

In case your curious, if I went with Furious Charge}Merciless Assault, three enemies would yield 17 fury. Mighty Weapons boon would make that 26. 50% to per-cast crit would make that 35, but 50% to per-monster crit would make that 60. The yield on a single Furious Charge}Stamina is much higher than Furious Charge}Merciless Assault at three enemies, but if you're hitting three enemies, Furious Charge}Merciless Assault can be used every 4 seconds instead of 10. So there are a handful things to take into consideration in making this decision: whether it is per-cast or per-monster crit, how often will I want/need to use Furious Charge, how many monsters do I generally hit and how high is my crit chance. I'll have to wait to see, but I am leaning toward Merciless Assault since the char is rather susceptible to control-impairing effects like fear and come Inferno, I may need to get out of or back into action more quickly than once every 10 seconds. So, let's hope for per monster crit.

YOU MIGHT ASK...
You might ask why I don't use Hammer of the Ancients. Well, the crit bonus was significantly dropped in Patch 14, I believe, to 3% (I might be wrong, though). This isn't reflected in the calculator yet. Also, its AoE overlaps with my other skills, making it redundant. In this build, Furious Charge just seems much more useful since it let's me get across the screen immediately, get lots of fury and deal a lot damage to a rather large AoE (given what else the skill does).

I MIGHT ASK...
I am not sure if it is still considered to be "gaining fury" if you have already topped off your fury bulb and you cast a skill and/or receive damage that (would) earn more fury. I hope it is still gaining fury, but if not, I might need to find another fury spender because Wrath of the Berserker and Battle Rage are insufficient. Furious Charge or Cleave would have to go, and if it is Cleave that goes, Furious Charge would need to take the Merciless Assault rune since it would be my only source of fury and I would thus need to use it often. The replacement skill for either of these would need to be per-monster crit and allow for repeated fury-spending damage to as many targets as possible without knocking too many of them out of melee range or restricting them from getting into melee range. My choices are, therefore, limited to Rend}Ravage, Hammer of the Ancients}Rolling Thunder, Weapon Throw}Ricochet, Seismic Slam}Crackling Rift and Sprint}Gangway. I'd really have to see which one compliments the build best before making a decision.

Only Rend}Ravage and Hammer of the Ancients}Rolling Thunder avoid impairing movement and both of them have pretty sizeable AoEs in the immediate vicinity of the character. They would make good replacements for Cleave, but bad replacements for Furious Charge because I would be left without a way to damage monsters across the screen. Weapon Throw}Richochet and Seismic Slam}Crackling Rift would damage monsters across the screen. Weapon Throw}Ricochet will get damage to up to three enemies across the screen, but it will slow the enemies, which could be bad (or good if I have an irritating caster/ranged monster). Seismic Slam}Crackling Rift also goes across the screen, but it has knockback. Fortunately, the Crackling Rift rune allows me to pinpoint the knockback, which means enemies peripheral to the Seismic Slam will still be able to move in. Lastly, Sprint}Gangway seems nearly identical to Furious Charge since it gets my char across the screen and does damage (albeit along the way instead of at the end). The problem is that the damage is puny and does unwanted knockback and the skill requires me to spend too much time directing the movement when my fighting needs to be fast paced for the build to work.

Any information, ideas or suggestions?

[Jaago]

Into the Fray has an unspecified chance to generate that 15 fury on criticals. I wouldn't be very optimistic about that chance being any higher than 1/3, could be even less. Fury on hit on Weapon Master is always vastly superior to the +critical% for fury-generating purposes, since 10% * 15 = 1.5 fury additional gain even if Into the Fray proc chance would be 100%. Moreover, Momentum rune on Overpower will generate more fury than the +critical% rune effect.

No one here knows whether gaining fury at maximum actually counts for WotB, or not. That will probably have to wait for a couple of months. Even if it doesn't you can simply spam your Battle Rage to spend it, since you can cast it in the middle of your other actions without stopping, as far as I've gathered. Of course there are also some fury spender options that could use that fury to actually damage enemies. I'll definitely be testing Dread Bomb rune on Weapon Throw.

[Jedouard]

Jaago,

Good point about Battle Rage}Into the Fray's "chance" thing. I missed that. I will be interested to see how often it goes off. This is one more reason to hope for per-monster crits. This means I will probably need to pay more attention to fury generation than I previously thought - at least until I can finds some items to boost it.

So, I am thinking that, at least until I get good items, I will have no choice but to go with Weapons Master-Mighty Weapons, but I am hoping that as my items improve, my on-item fury generation will make this redundant. I think I’m probably more likely to get this fury-generation redundancy than chance-to-crit redundancy from Weapons Master-Axes/Maces because I’d imagine that 100% chance to crit will be a lot harder to achieve than +3 fury per hit. I am approaching Overpower}Killing Spree versus Overpower}Momentum with the same logic. Hopefully, after I get on-item fury generation mods, I won’t need that much fury from skills that could otherwise buff my chance to crit.

If I do need that much fury, then the perpetual Wrath of the Berserker build stands to lose its coolness because I would be sacrificing 20% chance to crit from Weapons Master and Overpower}Killing Spree just to keep 10% from Wrath of the Berserker, and this means it is harder to spam Overpower.

On the other hand, saying Wrath of the Berserker only gives 10% chance to crit is wrong since increasing attack speed 25% and movement speed 20% means more opportunities to crit. Moreover, if most of the crits trigger on a per-monster basis, achieving 100% chance to crit may not be that important to spamming Overpower. If Overpower is a per-monster crit and I have a 60% chance to crit and there are four monsters around, I should be able to immediately recast Overpower 97.4% of the time.

Regarding Weapon Throw}Dread Bomb, my concern with this is the need for a corpse. Many crit death animations destroy the monster, so I am worried I wouldn't be able to cast it that often. But, Blizzard seems to have moved away from the whole corpse-regent thing for the Witch Doctor, so maybe this isn't a real concern. I'd still be sad to lose Furious Charge, though, since it has so much utility. You would need 67 fury for Dread Bomb to meet Furious Charge's damage. And Furious Charge has the value of getting me into range for my other skills, earning a lot of fury and potentially saving my life. Maybe I will just have to cast Battle Rage over and over if I have to keep my fury bulb from topping off.

By the way, I do have a different “survival” build that heavily uses Dread Bomb. It is based on maximum mobility, minimum melee engagement: http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/barbarian#XSYdRf!VTU!ZZZaZc. With the exception of Ignore Pain}Iron Hide, the active skills boil down to using Ancient Spear and Ground Stomp to suck enemies in; using Leap}Launch to lock them in place and move away; using Furious Charge to charge back to the original point of departure for the Leap; and using up all my fury on Weapon Throw}Dread Bomb every time the fury bulb fills up. (This build accounts for the change of Leap Attack to Leap.) The passive skills are just survival. The combination of Relentless and the natural 30% damage resistance give the barb 80% damage resistance when below 20% health, and Ignore Pain ups that to 145%. Juggernaught is an obvious must for this build, which relies heavily on being able to move. Tough as Nails is the one skill I am unsure about; Bloodthirst, Superstition, No Escape, Weapons Master and Ruthless may be better depending on whether life steal, resistances or crits better suit my play or if I need more damage from Ancient Spear and Weapon Throw. The pitfall of this build is that all the skills have cooldowns of 10 or more seconds. The exception is Furious Charge}Merciless Assault, which, if I aim it correctly, will have a 0-second cooldown. If the cooldowns become an issue, I might have to trade out Weapon Throw for Seismic Slam.

[djxput]

Into the Fray has an unspecified chance to generate that 15 fury on criticals. I wouldn't be very optimistic about that chance being any higher than 1/3, could be even less. Fury on hit on Weapon Master is always vastly superior to the +critical% for fury-generating purposes, since 10% * 15 = 1.5 fury additional gain even if Into the Fray proc chance would be 100%. Moreover, Momentum rune on Overpower will generate more fury than the +critical% rune effect.

No one here knows whether gaining fury at maximum actually counts for WotB, or not. That will probably have to wait for a couple of months. Even if it doesn't you can simply spam your Battle Rage to spend it, since you can cast it in the middle of your other actions without stopping, as far as I've gathered. Of course there are also some fury spender options that could use that fury to actually damage enemies. I'll definitely be testing Dread Bomb rune on Weapon Throw.

ya I know so many unknowns - Im looking at a similar build as the OP; but wonder how the battle rage (into the fray) will work if its worth it; or like you suggested perhaps just going for overpower momentum ... I hate being limited by timer's thou like overpower is; rather be just limited by rage ...

[Jedouard]

... I hate being limited by timer's thou like overpower is; rather be just limited by rage ...

Well, if you can get your chance to crit high enough, the timer disappears. That and Into the Fray are the main reasons I want to favour crits as much as I can. I'm really hoping crit for Overpower is determined per monster, not per cast and that Into the Fray has a meaningful chance to proc.

[iESCAPISM]

While I have little to add or question in regards to the OP's build I just wanted to say that it all looks very interesting.

I'm curious though: don't all AoE attacks have individual to-crit chance? From my understanding they do, as I have heard of no AoE that either crits everything or nothing at all. Please enlighten me if there is record of such a mechanic though. My money is on crits being per-mob rather than per-cast, for all manner of AoE attacks.

Another thing I'm willing to bet some RMAH money on is Berserker benefiting from rage gained beyond the cap of the rage bulb. Anything else would be absurd and not at all an enjoyable mechanic.

None of the above is fact though, only what I personally think make the most sense.

[Jedouard]

I haven't heard of any skills that have a per-cast chance to crit, but then I've only heard info on the forums about a few AoE skills, and non of that was official.

I agree about it being no fun if you have to keep your fury from topping of to benefit from Wrath of the Berserker}Thrive on Chaos, but sometimes the devs have a different view of what is fun. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

[Elfik]

Apparently every hit has an independent chance to crit, from what beta testers have posted on the forums. That doesn't rule out the possibility of skill that have an all-or-nothing crit mechanic, but I doubt they will be in. After all, isn't a critical hit critical because it hits a weak spot on the target and because it happens to be a particularly powerful instance of a skill. To me it seems like a crit should involve the interaction of both skill and monster, but maybe I'm reading too deep into it. ...So AoE attacks will proc more crits.

[HardRock]

I haven't heard of any skills that have a per-cast chance to crit, but then I've only heard info on the forums about a few AoE skills, and non of that was official.

I can confirm, that all available AoE skills in the beta calculate its crit per target and not per attack. Based on the color of their damage numbers, DoTs don't seem to crit at all.

As for resource gains on crit, I couldn't try Fury on crit, but I could test AP on crit with a Wizard. I posted my findings here: http://diablo.incgamers.com/forums/showthread.php?824910-Crit-based-procs-AoE-skills

[Kblavkalash]

Remember in earlier patches Wotb had 45% IAS and that was huge, now it's only 25%, so I dunno how worth is to even trying to keep it up. I mean you sacrifice all sorts of things just to keep this skill going when it's not even that good anymore.

[Jedouard]

Thanks for the info, Hardrock.


Remember in earlier patches Wotb had 45% IAS and that was huge, now it's only 25%, so I dunno how worth is to even trying to keep it up. I mean you sacrifice all sorts of things just to keep this skill going when it's not even that good anymore.

It depends what you mean by worth it. I don't know that it will make the most effective build in the world, but it's a fun challenge to see if you can maintain berserker-state forever.

I am interested, though, about when the WotB cooldown will start. Is it after you cast it or after you revert to normal. The latter would really put a damper on this build. Anyone play the Blizzcon arena build with it?

[HardRock]

I am interested, though, about when the WotB cooldown will start. Is it after you cast it or after you revert to normal. The latter would really put a damper on this build. Anyone play the Blizzcon arena build with it?

In the PvP demo last year, its cooldown started when you used the skill. You can see it clearly in this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTZkR5J7N6s&t=2m9s

Of course it's possible, that it was changed since then.

[Jedouard]

In the PvP demo last year, its cooldown started when you used the skill. You can see it clearly in this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTZkR5J7N6s&t=2m9s

Of course it's possible, that it was changed since then.

Thanks for the link. I looked, but didn't that vid.

[Such Violent Storms]

Mighty Weapon +3 Fury per hit is much much better, and Frenzy is superior in generating Fury (6 per hit, doubled attack speed, enhanced damage) just from sheer frames per attack speed. Maybe Cleave is just as good, no one really knows. You also have to have survival buffs, like resistances, because the zerker relies on always attacking things so it gets hit a lot. Staying alive is always easier on paper than in-game, especially in Hell/Inferno. I've devised the ultimate permazerker build but I dare not share it until closer to release, since skills and whatnot can still be updated. And I like it too much.

[Jedouard]

Mighty Weapon +3 Fury per hit is much much better, and Frenzy is superior in generating Fury (6 per hit, doubled attack speed, enhanced damage) just from sheer frames per attack speed. Maybe Cleave is just as good, no one really knows.

As of the latest calculator, Frenzy has no runes to generate any fury per hit. Or were you referring to a stack with Might Weapons +3 fury? if it is the latter, I was still under the impression that you only hit with one weapon at a time with Frenzy, but just much faster - 75% faster to be exact, after five hits. But I'm not sure how long that stack lasts or what resets it.

I am sceptical that Frenzy will generate more Fury than Cleave with or without a stack. For Frenzy with the Mighty Weapons fury bonus, it would be 1 enemy * 1.75 speed increase * 3 fury = 5.25 fury. For Cleave with the Mighty Weapons fury bonus and Reaping Swing rune, it would be 1 enemy * (3 fury + 3 fury) = 6 fury. Unless you have skill specific items that change something, Cleave returns 114% the fury (5.25:6) all other things being equal, and that is when Frenzy is at its optimal state of 5 stacks and Cleave is at its worst state hitting only one enemy.

The only thing I could see tipping the scales in Frenzy's favour is if you are facing a single enemy and you are using Battle Rage}Into the Fray, in which case the increased frequency with which you hit that single enemy would increase your crit-based fury generation. But, that goes away as soon as a second enemy shows up since crits are, as Hardrock said, per enemy, not per skill activation.


You also have to have survival buffs, like resistances, because the zerker relies on always attacking things so it gets hit a lot. Staying alive is always easier on paper than in-game, especially in Hell/Inferno. I've devised the ultimate permazerker build but I dare not share it until closer to release, since skills and whatnot can still be updated. And I like it too much.

I am hoping that on item leech, Wrath of the Berserker's 20% dodge, the Barb's native 30% damage reduction, the armor bonus from Strength, and Revenge will keep me alive, particularly if I go the Revenge}Provocation or Revenge}Vengeance is Mine route.

[Superstate]

@Such Violent Storms

Frenzy does not hold a candle to Bash Instigation on single target, or Reaping Swing on multiple targets, for fury generation. I also find all these perma-wrath builds misleading, as they seemingly often tend to focus on single target perma-wraths. As cool as they sound, they are only "realistic" in AoE situations in the sense that while you actually have mobs up, you can easily maintain it with WMMW, Reaping Swing and so on, but once they drop off, so will your duration.

Frenzy also never doubles your attack speed, it increases it by 75% at the very most, which is only true for non-dw builds. For DW builds the maximum increase is ~63%. If you add WotB to the equation, the increase of Frenzy is, at most, ~51% (we assume WotB ias is additive here, all IAS buffs found so far in d3 is additive, even Shrine IAS, so it's not just a guess). The variable here is the gear IAS; if you have any (which you are likely to have), this value drops even further.


You should probably revise that ultimate build of yours if it includes Frenzy. And stop saying that it's superior in generating Fury, that's not even true on single-target (and far from the truth on multiple targets). It is just barely better than Bash without runestones for dual-wielding, using WMMW. If you're not using WMMW, it isn't even better than base Bash (and it's never at any point better than Bash Instigation for fury generation).

[Jedouard]

Just a heads up: Overpower has been changed from resetting cooldown on crit to reducing the cooldown by 1 second on crit.

[HardRock]

But I'm not sure how long that stack lasts or what resets it.

I'm fairly sure that Frenzy lasts 3 seconds. A Frenzy hit (and nothing else) will reset the duration of all stacks.


The only thing I could see tipping the scales in Frenzy's favour is if you are facing a single enemy and you are using Battle Rage}Into the Fray, in which case the increased frequency with which you hit that single enemy would increase your crit-based fury generation. But, that goes away as soon as a second enemy shows up since crits are, as Hardrock said, per enemy, not per skill activation.

I must be missing something here. Why would another enemy affect the Fury generated by Frenzy?

Also, while crits are always per target (its never an all or nothing kind of deal when you attack), how resource gains from crits work with multi-target skills is still unknown. With Arcane Orb and Wave of Force, AP on crit didn't work at all with the Wizard when I tried it. I didn't gain any AP per attack, nor per target.


Just a heads up: Overpower has been changed from resetting cooldown on crit to reducing the cooldown by 1 second on crit.

Hopefully that's 1 sec per target and not per Overpower, otherwise it wouldn't make a difference. Although it's worth noting, that crits have only a chance to reduce the cooldown, it's not guaranteed.

[Jedouard]

The only thing I could see tipping the scales in Frenzy's favour is if you are facing a single enemy and you are using Battle Rage}Into the Fray, in which case the increased frequency with which you hit that single enemy would increase your crit-based fury generation. But, that goes away as soon as a second enemy shows up since crits are, as Hardrock said, per enemy, not per skill activation.I must be missing something here. Why would another enemy affect the Fury generated by Frenzy?

Yes, you missed that I was referring to Frenzy+Battle Rage}Into the Fray in comparison to Cleave+Battle Rage}Into the Fray. Maybe I wrote that poorly in the post. What I meant was that when both those skill combos are used to attack a single enemy, the increased speed of Frenzy will give it more chances to crit, but when two or more enemies are in melee range, Cleave has more chances to crit, and given the build type, you should have two enemies near you quite often. This all, like you said, assumes that Battle Rage}Into the Fray activates on each crit and is not limited to one crit per cast. (But I think that would be weird to assume otherwise for a skill like Cleave.)

Regarding Overpower and all these other "has a chance to" skills, I wish they would give us a number. I hate not having the mechanics info in game and having to search for it elsewhere.

[HardRock]

Oh, OK, that makes sense.

I would also like to know the proc chance of certain abilites as well. I wonder why Blizzard hides them. Could it be that they're using "WoW's" proc per minute system?

[Jedouard]

That's probably a good bet. But even so, I wish they'd display. The only thing they are doing by not displaying it is prolonging the process of us figuring it out by forcing us to comb through mined data.

[iESCAPISM]

Regarding the uncertainty of "has a chance to" mechanics, chances are (see what I did there?) they will also have an internal cool down, like Blizz became fond of putting into WoW. Judging from how they are selling skill cool downs by saying it allows them to make the skills more powerful, it might be close to safe to assume that the same philosophy is used for proccs. Even if it would only be a 1 sec CD it would still effect the usefulness of the skill, so let's cross our fingers that's not the case.

...reading what I just wrote I realize there is nothing but fact-free worries in that paragraph, but m'yeah.

[HardRock]

I don't think that proc cooldowns are needed. I can't think of a proc in D3 that's powerful enough to warrant a cooldown, like trinkets did in WoW. Short cooldowns, like a few seconds wouldn't really make sense either. If they want to balance procs between weapon types, then they should just base the proc chance on weapon speeds and be done with it.

[Sooru]

I don't think that proc cooldowns are needed. I can't think of a proc in D3 that's powerful enough to warrant a cooldown

I agree wholeheartedly. If I can keep a group stunned for 4 of every 12 seconds with Ground Stomp while generating 30 fury or kill them all in couple of seconds by Whirlwinding some random procs shouldn't matter at all. Only place where they might need regulation is life leeching or healing procs.

[Jedouard]

I have to disagree with you two, Hardrock and Sooru.

Look at Battle Rage/Into the Fray. It seems easy enough to get your crit chance up around 50%, which would mean you'd get 15 fury for every other hit if there was no chance proc on it. If there were a 20% chance proc, 10% of your hits would yield you 15 fury. Given how many AoE skills the barb has, it's seem there's a potential for managing a every 3 seconds. That sounds fine to me, but I don't know what the resource balance in the game is. If an extra 15 fury every 3 seconds, then there are some solutions, namely:

(1) Lower the fury gain. But this could lead to the issue of the skill not helping enough to be worth it, particularly if it on the less frequent side. Changing from 15 fury to 14 fury on a proc that, say, goes off every 3-4 seconds could be a huge deal, and I am inclined to think so given how the devs have tweaked fury generation and spending by 1 or 2 points repeatedly throughout the beta.

(2) Lower the chance to proc. But, if the proc is set too much below 20%, for example, it may becomes infrequent and sporadic. That would be fine for a game where you spend a lot of time on a single enemy, you have a huge number of skills to select from and/or macros to quickly take advantage of those procs. But for a game like D3, with its short battles, limited skills and lack of macros, you need at least some predictability about how your character will function in order to choose your build and play it effectively.

(3) Have a higher proc rate, but an interval limit on it. This works quite well in D3 because once you get an idea of that rate, you can build something around it. You have an idea of what combinations will work if you get X fury every Y seconds.

Personally, I tend to hate most procs, but I understand why this one is in there: the game already has a passive that adds fury to every hit and runes that add fury to every hit. Having yet another version of this would be monotonous.

[HardRock]

With Into the Fray I would prefer a system, where the Fury bonus would be based on your APS and its chance to trigger would be 100% on crits. For example, you would gain 15 Fury at 1 APS, but only 7.5 at 2 APS.

The proc per minute system would also work well. You would have a 50% chance to gain 15 Fury at 1 APS (on average 30 PPM) and 25% chance at 2 APS (still 30 PPM).

I would be fine with either of those and your third idea doesn't sound bad either, as its very similar to the PPM system. The difference would be that with your system the number of procs per minute could be fixed.

[Such Violent Storms]

@Such Violent Storms

Frenzy does not hold a candle to Bash Instigation on single target, or Reaping Swing on multiple targets, for fury generation. I also find all these perma-wrath builds misleading, as they seemingly often tend to focus on single target perma-wraths. As cool as they sound, they are only "realistic" in AoE situations in the sense that while you actually have mobs up, you can easily maintain it with WMMW, Reaping Swing and so on, but once they drop off, so will your duration.

Frenzy easily holds a candle. It holds multiple candles. So many candles it looks like someone is holding a spotlight.

You are really underestimating Frenzy. In sheer frames per attack, Frenzy, if it's anything like D2's Frenzy, can knock off critical hits and other on-hit chances (in D3, what are these? I know there's "life/hit"-type things which are very helpful with Frenzy. Is there Crushing Blow or something similar? IIRC there isn't, sadly) faster than any other skill. A Maniac-runed Frenzy build based around critical hits (Battle Rage, runed Revenge) can, I believe, easily outperform cleave. With so many chances to critical, Into The Fray-runed Battle Rage buffed by Animosity and Weapons Master can make Frenzy superior.

So no, I don't need to "change my build." I don't think you know what you're talking about.

[HardRock]

Superstate was absolutely right about Frenzy and the other generators.

If you look at them by themselves and with the same gear, Bash with Instigation is the best against one target and Cleave with Reaping Swing is the best against multiple targets if you want to maximize your Fury gain.

Frenzy may turn out to be a good choice when combined with other skills like Weapon's Master and Battle Rage's Into the Fray, depending on its chance to trigger.

[Such Violent Storms]

Superstate was absolutely right about Frenzy and the other generators.

If you look at them by themselves and with the same gear, Bash with Instigation is the best against one target and Cleave with Reaping Swing is the best against multiple targets if you want to maximize your Fury gain.

Frenzy may turn out to be a good choice when combined with other skills like Weapon's Master and Battle Rage's Into the Fray, depending on its chance to trigger.

This would be so much easier if we had FPA tables for all the barb's attack animations. Actually, it would be easier if we had the game -cough-

If I can hit 60% or higher critical hit chance, which seems quite easy even without access to item info, then Frenzy at max speed with Into The Fray seems like it would generate more Fury over time than Instibash (Bashigation? Inbashion?) not to mention any of the other plethora of procs available on weapon mods.

[HardRock]

It most likely would. A 25-30% chance to crit at level 60 seems like a good bet, even without trying too hard.

Also, I would go with Bashigation. :)

[Jedouard]

With so many chances to critical, Into The Fray-runed Battle Rage buffed by Animosity and Weapons Master can make Frenzy superior.

So no, I don't need to "change my build." I don't think you know what you're talking about.

You have misunderstood how criticals work for AoE skills. It is not the skill itself that crits, but the damage on the enemy. So, if you Cleave two enemies, you have two chances to critical; three enemies, three chances to critical; etc..

No one is sure how Into the Fray procs. It says "critical hits have a chance to generate 15 fury", but we do not know what that chance is or if it has an interval limit. In either case, Frenzy only fairs better than Cleave for proccing Into the Fray if you are fighting one enemy. As long as there is more than one enemy, Cleave will be hitting more individual targets, which means more opportunities to crit, which means more procs (even if you have to wait for the interval to end). The only thing that would change this is if the devs gave it a once per cast proc, which seems not in the order of things.

And because Into the Fray is a proc, not an every-time thing, once you have more than one enemy, Cleave/Reaping Swing will likely generate more fury than Frenzy, all things being equal, since it has increased consistent native fury generation.

Frenzy against one enemy after achieving top speed: 1.75 IAS * (5 fury base + (1*3 Fury from Mighty Weapons)) = 14 fury.

Cleave against one enemy from the first hit: 5 fury base + (1*3 fury Reaping Swing) + (1*3 fury Mighty Weapons) = 11 fury.
Cleave against two enemies from the first hit: 5 fury base + (2*3 fury Reaping Swing) + (2*3 fury Mighty Weapons) = 17 fury.
Cleave against three enemiesfrom the first hit: 5 fury base + (3*3 fury Reaping Swing) + (3*3 fury Mighty Weapons) = 23 fury.

Don't get me wrong. You could make an awesome crit Frenzy build and you may have/might come up with ways to deal with more enemies and generate fury while doing so, but the point of this build was to keep Wrath of the Berserker going perpetually, not to make a crit Frenzy build. Changing Cleave for Frenzy does not accomplish that perpetuity given the other skills chosen and, in fact, is probably a worse choice for criting and fury generation for all encounters besides those against one enemy.

[Superstate]

I'm not certain if you are trolling or not, but I guess an analysis of Into the Fray and its possible proc mechanics can be useful for any reader. But first, let me clear up a few statements you have made so far:



You are really underestimating Frenzy. In sheer frames per attack, Frenzy, if it's anything like D2's Frenzy, can knock off critical hits and other on-hit chances (in D3, what are these? I know there's "life/hit"-type things which are very helpful with Frenzy. Is there Crushing Blow or something similar? IIRC there isn't, sadly) faster than any other skill. A Maniac-runed Frenzy build based around critical hits (Battle Rage, runed Revenge) can, I believe, easily outperform cleave. With so many chances to critical, Into The Fray-runed Battle Rage buffed by Animosity and Weapons Master can make Frenzy superior.


- Nowhere have I been making estimations, these are pure numbers. As such, there is no underestimation going on.
- Frames per attack is not relevant in modern games, as such, all your statements concerning frames are practically moot. This has been discussed to death before, and Bashiok has commented many months ago and said that Diablo 3 uses a much more frequent tick rate than the stone-age 25 frames in D2.
- Life on hit is certainly more powerful with Frenzy, however, it is no output gain, which is what we're discussing.
- You don't want to compare to cleave on one target, use Bash. Cleave will come into its own on 2 or more targets.
- Animosity is only a fury multiplier, as such it does not yield any more to Frenzy than it does to Bash or any other skill.

That was a few things, you had more strange statements in your other posts but I reckon I should get going with my analysis! :thumbup:


So you're correct in that Frenzy has one advantage; slightly higher attack speeds. This isn't as powerful as you think, as I'll show you, but regardless. In this particular post I'm not going to dabble in whether I believe IoF (or other procs) are ppm-based or not. Suffice it to say; IoF is a bad choice so this is almost a moot point from the start but anyway!

IoF is indeed one proc that sustains WotB. A perma-wrath Barb does not have many possible procs to choose from, outside of BR and WotB itself (Slaughter). Overpower probably (hint: it's not worth the skill slot).


Into the Fray Yield

The following calculations does not take into account if it's a ppm mechanic or not that procs IoF. The reason for this is because for the following calculations it simply isn't relevant (ppm's are also percentual chances, but with a twist).


The fury yield of IoF as an average fury gain per swing will always look like this:

C * p * IoF Fury = x fury

C - Crit Chance
p - Proc Chance
Iof Fury - The fury it procs (15)

http://img62.imageshack.us/img62/9484/iofyield.jpg


Let's assume an extreme case; 100% crit and a 100% proc rate on IoF, this then equals to:

1 * 1 * 15 = 15 fury

IE the average gain of IoF is the maximum 15 fury per swing (since we always crit and we always proc).

Let's assume something a bit more realistic (but still slightly over the top if you ask me);

50% crit, 50% proc rate.

0,5 * 0,5 * 15 = 3,75 fury

Wow, that's a lot less! However, let's use this average fury gain per swing to see the value of Frenzy combined with IoF. First we need to setup the scenario we're using Frenzy in. Because I'm kind, I'll set the conditions to favor your argument Such Violent Storms. In other words, no gear IAS. The base weapon speed does not "matter", since it is also just a multiplier, which means that it doesn't matter which weapon speed you use, the outcome is going to be the same.

Bash: 1 + DW + WotB = 1 + 0,15 + 0,2 = 1,35
Frenzy: 1 + DW + Frenzy + WotB = 1 + 0,15 + 0,75 + 0,2 = 2,1

Frenzy APS / Bash APS = 2,1 / 1,35 = ~1,55

With no gear IAS, Frenzy will hit ~55% faster than Bash (notice that it's not 75%).


So that's the attack speed, we know that Frenzy will hit 55% faster than Bash at all times with zero gear IAS, WotB and dual-wielding, regardless of weapon speed.




Now for the fury gain, we'll be checking out the fury per swing of the abilities first. We're using the average IoF of our high-crit, high proc chance above.

Bash Instigation - 12 fury + WMMW + Avg IOF = 18,75 f/swing
Frenzy - 3 fury + WMMW + Avg IOF = 9,75 f/swing

Now let's introduce the differencies in attack speed.

Bash Instigation FPSwing = 18,75

Frenzy * Frenzy APS% = ~15,2

Note: we don't multiply Bash Instigation since we normalize the APS to Bash, so it makes no difference (since we're multiplying Bash by 1).


Bash Inst FPSwing / Frenzy FPSWING = ~1,24


Using these proc rates and crit rates, dual-wielding, zero gear IAS and WotB, Bash Instigation will yield ~24% more fury than Frenzy regardless of weapon speed.


For the hell of it I tried Reaping Swing as well, and guess what; it yields ~17% more fury than Frenzy using the same conditions (no gear IAS, dw and WotB and so on). And that's on one target. I guess I don't even need to add that Reaping Swing is going to excel on multiple targets. And even further, it's assuming C = 50% crit and p = 50% proc chance. If the IoF proc is lower / crit lower, Frenzy is relatively weaker, and vice versa.




There is more to be said about procs in general, and whether they use ppm or not, but I would be surprised if they didn't. I wish I had more time to answer questions and other posts during the week, but it's hard for me to find the time.


Remember that all these values account for zero gear IAS and dual-wielding. Adding IAS weakens Frenzy even further, decreasing IAS (in this case by going 2handers) will increase the value of Frenzy. Decreasing proc rate / crit rate from 50%/50% lowers the value of Frenzy even further, and vice versa.



I don't think you know what you're talking about.

:whistling:

[Lucas S]

Great info and analysis mate. You are really our resident barb guru :yes:

[Superstate]

@Jedouard

You've also missed that Frenzy IAS is additive. It only adds 75% IAS in scenarios where you have absolutely zero IAS. IE no WotB, no dual wield bonus, no gear IAS, no shrine, no WM Spear/Polearms, no nothing. This is the main reason why Frenzy isn't as good as many people expects it to be. If this was to change, a complete re-evaluation has to be made.

@Lucas S

That's very kind of you to say, it makes me happy. I've spent quite literally hundreds of hours relating to theorycrafting Diablo 3 and Barbarians (if including building Decimation), so I'm glad to hear someone appreciating the efforts. :nod:

[Jedouard]

@Jedouard

You've also missed that Frenzy IAS is additive. It only adds 75% IAS in scenarios where you have absolutely zero IAS. IE no WotB, no dual wield bonus, no gear IAS, no shrine, no WM Spear/Polearms, no nothing. This is the main reason why Frenzy isn't as good as many people expects it to be. If this was to change, a complete re-evaluation has to be made.

I just left that out. I figured it could change, and it is too difficult to accommodate all the item and synergy variables into the math. I also didn't want to look like I was skewing numbers for my argument. But, if it stays like it is, the fact that Frenzy won't boost item or skill-based attack speed just pushes the crit frequency and fury generation in Cleave and Bash's favour once Wrath of the Berserker is active and/or once +IAS skills/items are being used/worn.

I didn't mean you any disrespect with the comment above. I think there will be plenty of good Frenzy builds. I just thought that the confusion about Frenzy versus Cleave/Bash in this build came from how AoE criticals work. If there were more skill slots - and I'm kinda glad there aren't - I would add in a single target attack, but since I plan on being in the thick of it and since this build's Cleave gets more fury and more opportunities to crit any time there is two* or more enemies, I had to go Cleave.

*If there is an interval on the Into the Fray proc, then hitting one enemy with Bash may still earn more fury than hitting two enemies at the same time with Cleave. But then the question arises of how well this build would survive without the ability to hit multiple enemies at once.

[Superstate]

I just left that out. I figured it could change, and it is too difficult to accommodate all the item and synergy variables into the math. I also didn't want to look like I was skewing numbers for my argument. But, if it stays like it is, the fact that Frenzy won't boost item or skill-based attack speed just pushes the crit frequency and fury generation in Cleave and Bash's favour once Wrath of the Berserker is active and/or once +IAS skills/items are being used/worn.

I didn't mean you any disrespect with the comment above. I think there will be plenty of good Frenzy builds. I just thought that the confusion about Frenzy versus Cleave/Bash in this build came from how AoE criticals work. If there were more skill slots - and I'm kinda glad there aren't - I would add in a single target attack, but since I plan on being in the thick of it and since this build's Cleave gets more fury and more opportunities to crit any time there is two* or more enemies, I had to go Cleave.

*If there is an interval on the Into the Fray proc, then hitting one enemy with Bash may still earn more fury than hitting two enemies at the same time with Cleave. But then the question arises of how well this build would survive without the ability to hit multiple enemies at once.


There is absolutely a ton of variables that goes into what the output actually becomes. My posts in this thread has not reflected many of them at all. I've only been focusing on one thing; which is the best for fury generation. To easily and quickly calculate what the impact of the total damage dealt when including item synergies, the Maniac buff, and other things, you really do need a spreadsheet. If only there was one easily at hand that could perform this task.. and if only it started with a D.. :wink:


Frenzy is without a shadow of a doubt viable. Nobody is arguing that (at least I don't). I was responding to whether it was the "ultimate" choice or not. It definitely isn't in the PvM game, where you probably have more than one enemy around most of the time. In the PvP-game I really don't think there is any viability behind a perma-wrath build due to obvious reasons (they keep running, don't they), so that's not really a topic I'm even considering.

And once again, perma-wrath to me only means "it won't run out before the pack is mostly dead".

[ElementEight]

Just from experience in how stuff like that generally works, I've personally always included bash with the +fury per hit rune if I was looking to generate fury as much as possible on particular builds.

If frenzy generates 3 per hit at 75% more speed (best case scenario, since it doesn't work like "that"), it's pretty obvious that 12 is going to be better. Or 10. Not sure about the numbers. Just a feeling.

[Such Violent Storms]

And that, my friends, is how to get someone to make a graph for you. :D