HC Barbs!.. How are you guys doing?

[AlexanderBarin]

They specified them as elite/champion enrages, but with Blizz you never know.

To be honest, I kinda like the idea of major boss enrages in HC. The feeling of going in, knowing that if you don't make it in a certain time, you're dead, is pretty powerful. Remember the bosses are purely artificial challenge, they drop no better loot than elites. If someone wished to be really careful, and avoid facing, say, Belial's enrage, they could simply ask a friend for A3 first WP.

[mrmud]

They specified them as elite/champion enrages, but with Blizz you never know.

To be honest, I kinda like the idea of major boss enrages in HC. The feeling of going in, knowing that if you don't make it in a certain time, you're dead, is pretty powerful. Remember the bosses are purely artificial challenge, they drop no better loot than elites. If someone wished to be really careful, and avoid facing, say, Belial's enrage, they could simply ask a friend for A3 first WP.

Except its totally not fun if you go in blind without knowing the inherent dps requirement of the fight.
At least for champions/elites you can (usually) run away if they enrage.

[Luna Wolf]

Luna, you're doing fine! As far as your weapon goes, in my experience buying leveling gear, I actually tend to do the opposite of 'go big or go home'. Don't waste a bunch of extra gold for a minor improvement. If you have two level 43 weapons for sale for example, and one of them is 150k more gold for 15 more DPS, save your 150k and buy the cheaper, and only slightly less powerful weapon. Save the big bucks for your high end level 60 gear.

A couple minor skill tweaks could be made if you're going for an 'optimal' build, but in nightmare, you'll be just fine playing whatever build you find fun. That said, I find Cleave+Rupture to be a ton of fun, since you blow up packs at a time. It's not as effective in Inferno, but it's an awesome leveling skill, give it a shot instead of Frenzy for now!

A couple ideas on skills when you get a bit higher up, I'd drop whirlwind. Unless you build is centered around that as your main skill, you're better off putting Wrath of the Berserker on instead. If you start feeling squishy, drop Earthquake for Warcry, and/or Weapons Master for Tough as Nails.

I find barbs to be the most fun to level, as they're still plenty tough normal through hell to avoid much risk of dying unless you're undergeared or very, very reckless. As a result, you can stack up on damage gear, toss on cleave+rupture, and blow through everything. WoTB+EQ on champs/bosses is very satisfying too!

Good luck!

Hi Matt, thanks for the feedback. At level 47 now, just started Act 3. I can tell Ghom will be a pain in the next mode. Swapped Whirlwind for Wrath of the Berserker and discovered why barbs favor it in the forums. Really awesome and have been blowing through champs with it. Playing with Cleave + Rupture and Frenzy - can't decide which is "better" but it doesn't make much of a difference in NM for me so far.

[lanceuppercut]

Playing with Cleave + Rupture and Frenzy - can't decide which is "better" but it doesn't make much of a difference in NM for me so far.

Cleave/Rupture got phased out for my current barb about A3/NM, it (or rather my equipment) outgrew it.

It wasn't doing enough damage per swing so swapped it out for Frenzy/Sidearm (Smite for NM diablo, it was fun stunlocking his *** but pointless as even if Inferno guys weren't more immune to the stun, i'd rather take Sidearm for the aoe damage) but for me, I didn't feel comfortable using Frenzy unless I had a decent chunk of LoH and attack speed as a 2nd priority to get to over 2 attacks per second.

[Intolerance]

Still haven't progressed into A3 inferno. Trying to save up gold to buy upgrades (weapon is 1st priority), but can't seem to find anything for much less than 10m (weapon- 20m) that offers any sort of considerable upgrade.

Here's my gear: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/c.../hero/21089499

I've spent the last couple of weeks trying to force myself to farm A1 for stuff to sell, but I'm so bored of A1 that I haven't spent much time farming, instead getting the other four classes to level 60 and setting up cheap goldfind gear on DH that runs NM, working towards the 100k DH kills achievement. I'm sitting on ~23m gold. I probably need at least 50m in upgrades to start pushing A3, perhaps more.

Back to the grind =/

Ok, time for an update.

I managed to upgrade some gear. Spent a ton. Take a look via the link in the quoted post.

I can farm a2 now with no problem. Getting ready to push into a3, just want to try to get a new weapon and some combination of ammy/rings to get ideally 1k+ LoH.

edit: Signal Fires lit in A3 with little problem. Encountered three elite packs- two champs and one unique. Nothing bad, shielding with easy affixes and arcane with nothing dangerous. Gonna try to get the catapults raised next.

[VHD]

Successfully took down Inferno Belial and finished first quest of A3. Champs have such high hp in A3, but I was able to deal with the damage output... not comfortably, but I'm still alive.

Probably back to farming A1 or A2 archives before I make much more progress in A3. Barb gear is just so expensive in the AH - need to find my own stuff I guess!

[Solwolf]

Probably back to farming A1 or A2 archives before I make much more progress in A3. Barb gear is just so expensive in the AH - need to find my own stuff I guess!

That's why (until 1.04) I played a Monk - Babas are so much easier and safer to play in HC than any other class, so naturally their good gear will be mondo expensive.

[VHD]

I can't tell if prices are going to go up or down. On the one hand, higher quality items are much more common in the AH due to increased drop rates, changes to weapons, reduction of monster hp, etc.

However, making it easier to farm/succeed also means more gold collected per player, right?

I'm guessing weapon cost will drop significantly and the rest will stay about the same - and that barbs will remain the most popular for HC.

[ZappaFan]

I think eventually we are going to see more quality items in the AH due to more players farming at least Act I Inferno. Once that happens prices will go down. Right now at the very beginning people are still trying to get pre-patch prices for gear. I think one thing will happen pretty quickly and that is most pre-patch shields are losing their value.

I can't tell if prices are going to go up or down. On the one hand, higher quality items are much more common in the AH due to increased drop rates, changes to weapons, reduction of monster hp, etc.

However, making it easier to farm/succeed also means more gold collected per player, right?

I'm guessing weapon cost will drop significantly and the rest will stay about the same - and that barbs will remain the most popular for HC.

[sOFrOsTy]

I want to agree with you, but I don't think it is true. And here is why. The Auction house only allows 10 items at a time, therefore it isn't of value to a player to post something that is going to pay less than say, 100k. So all these lower level items aren't even being posted because of the 10 item limit. If we could post 30-40 items at a time, I would gladly throw up all my trash for 1k.