Will anyone really use bash/frenzy?

[galzohar]

Obviously they are superior for single-target, but single-target (or other situations where the single target skills are superior) just doesn't seem to be common enough to justify - That is what this discussion is about in a nutshell.

[Ixnatifual]

One point to taking out single mobs faster is that you reduce the amount of damage the mob group can do to you more quickly, since a mob still does full damage as long as it has any health left. Could be a handy thing in Inferno. And against bosses, of course.

[Doppel]

Yes, i was thinking just that. If all things are equal then it's better to take out one enemy of the two instead of doing half damage to them both.

[meangreen]

Yes, i was thinking just that. If all things are equal then it's better to take out one enemy of the two instead of doing half damage to them both.

Another viable option could be gear. If http://diablo.incgamers.com/forums/s...-skill-affixes is any indication of what gear could look like then gear could play a big factor into your build.

[DoxieVon]

From my open beta play experience frenzy+rend was way better than cleave+whatever. I think Single target dps will be more important as the game goes on and rares/uniques/bosses/treasure goblins/etc get stronger/hurt more. It'll become about burning down the stuff that can kill you before it does kill you. Bash/frenzy with stun rune will make any single target fight LOLOL as long as its stunable, or you could rock Frenzy with 5% damage per stack rune will boost ALL your damage done by 25% one your at the 5 stacks.

[Smash]

Pulverize has similar range as the third hit of Deadly Reach and as most monks will tell you Deadly reach is really good, range or otherwise. I think it has the potential to beat Broad Sweep or Rupture in tight corridors. Other playstyle choices may change this however. If you like to jump into the middle of crowds, then you're better off with Cleave in general.

The projectile of Sidearm has lower damage (27.5% per hit on average), but you'll also have much higher attack speed with it and if it's indeed a generic projectile, then it has more than double the range of Pulverize.

I think both may turn out to be good alternatives to Cleave.

It will be depend on scenarios but until there will be something like worm level from D2 i really do not see Pulverise to shine, mobs just too easy crowd around you.
Of course, i do not know how width will be line area from pulverize, on paper it looks worse than no runed Deadly Reach.

Pulverize need to hit 4 addition targets to be similar in total damage to Broad Sweep that hit only ONE :/.

Sidearm has 48% dps potential if i counted right but random part may screw this for me too much.

Mind that all this is base upon open beta levels, all may change later.

Similar to WD i found that i was killing faster with no runed Firebats than runed because cone>line.

One point to taking out single mobs faster is that you reduce the amount of damage the mob group can do to you more quickly, since a mob still does full damage as long as it has any health left. Could be a handy thing in Inferno. And against bosses, of course.

Yes, i was thinking just that. If all things are equal then it's better to take out one enemy of the two instead of doing half damage to them both.

Another viable option could be gear. If http://diablo.incgamers.com/forums/s...-skill-affixes is any indication of what gear could look like then gear could play a big factor into your build.

Agree with all of you, even in beta when i was fighting knockback enemy like unburied, he was more threat than trash.

That is why i wrote Cleave/Bash or Cleave/Frenzy was very useful.

From my open beta play experience frenzy+rend was way better than cleave+whatever. I think Single target dps will be more important as the game goes on and rares/uniques/bosses/treasure goblins/etc get stronger/hurt more. It'll become about burning down the stuff that can kill you before it does kill you. Bash/frenzy with stun rune will make any single target fight LOLOL as long as its stunable, or you could rock Frenzy with 5% damage per stack rune will boost ALL your damage done by 25% one your at the 5 stacks.

Sadly Rend felt little slow to me, but you have a point about this combination offer more in single target dps.
Which rune would you pick for rend?

Okey i need opinion on Punish vs Maniac, do they do same thing or not, tooltip as always isn't very clear.

[Youngtimer]

Can we say that Frenzy is the most powerful single target skill of the Barbarian?

If so, than I could imagine an AOE-CC/Stun build that spit packs of enemies into several one-on-one fights by keeping the rest in CC. Really challenging because of the timing, but i think there will be some players who are able to master the mechanic of HotA + Thunderstrike as a controlled chain-reaction: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/class/bar...f-the-ancients

I think a Frenzy Build can be developed around that idea that your Hammer+Thunderstrike will be your finishing/execute skill. Keeping the pack AOE stunned, focus fire on a single target but just into "execute" range and then > Thunderstrike to keep the stunlock up.

While doing this, i recommend to follow the order at 0:26min in this awesome clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Sso3h0xMJA

Youngtimer,
who has already set his axe on stun!

[HardRock]

Pulverize need to hit 4 addition targets to be similar in total damage to Broad Sweep that hit only ONE :/.

You forget about the base damage of Bash. Pulverize does 150% damage to the first target and 38% to every additional target in a 26 yard line. Against 4 targets in a line it would do 264% damage in total, while Broad Sweep would do 159%. Which skill will be better will depend on the circumstances.

Sidearm has 48% dps potential if i counted right but random part may screw this for me too much.

Sidearm will proc on 25% of hits for 110% damage. I prefer to average that for 27.5% damage on every hit, for easier calculations. With Frenzy's much faster attack speed Sidearm has the potential to be the best for AoE DPS, but you lose you control over the AoE damage compared to the other generators.

Like I said, all four runes (with Rupture) are perfectly viable, but in different scenarios and with different skill setups or playstyles.

Rend felt little slow to me

Use it only with a slow, high DPS weapon. It's damage doesn't scale with APS and it doesn't stack with itself, so you shouldn't use it with fast weapons.

Okey i need opinion on Punish vs Maniac, do they do same thing or not, tooltip as always isn't very clear.

Punish increases the damage of all skills, Maniac probably only increases Frenzy's.

[ElementEight]

Maniac probably increases all of your damage. Why?

The Frenzy tooltip mentions that it increases FRENZY attack speed, not your attack speed, unlike Maniac, which mentions your damage, as opposed to FRENZY damage.

Just looking at raw numbers, Frenzy/Maniac becomes the best single target damage dealing generator, as it ramps up to 231%, far superior to Bash/Onslaught's 194%. But, you have to take this ramp up time into consideration.

It's interesting to note that one of the best Barbarian single-target damage abilities is actually a generator. It appears to only be beat by Hammer of the Ancients/Smash, which expands 20 fury per cast. By taking the Berserker Rage passive into account, our Frenzy/Maniac can deal up to 289% at full rage! (231*1.25). Pretty crazy. Of course, this is assuming basic a linear scaling of attack speed-to-damage, for I lack the actual info as to how attack speed works.

[Superstate]

Can we say that Frenzy is the most powerful single target skill of the Barbarian?

Not necessarily, no.

Just looking at raw numbers, Frenzy/Maniac becomes the best single target damage dealing generator, as it ramps up to 231%, far superior to Bash/Onslaught's 194%.

This is only true in 0 ias scenarios (I'm assuming you're multiplying 1,1 * 1,2 * 1,75 = 2,31).

Maniac is surpassed by Onslaught at exactly 60% IAS (from any sources, including dw and so forth) in terms of normalized weapon damage dealt. In terms of fury gain, Frenzy is never at any point better at generating fury than any version of Bash.



The majority of you seem to be looking at it from a normalized %wpn damage output / cycle when comparing between abilities. Sometimes that's enough to determine how strong insert random is in relation to insert random two, but in this case it is too much of a simplification.