I am getting rocked in Nightmare. Please help.

[London]

Hey everyone, I beat normal fairly easily, although I was dying pretty often. I have about 2.1k life. Not sure what my armor is off the top of my head, and my DPS is around 48x.xx or so. I am using a 1h rare axe and a rare shield. I die somewhat easy to large group of white mobs. I tried using a 2h, but that took my life way down as I get a good amount of life from my axe/shield combo. This is in Act 1 Nightmare, and I'm the only person in the game; so it's the 'easiest' it can be for being NM.

I am using cleave as my main attack, and seismic shock wave as my off attack. I am not posting from home, but from what I remember. I also have earthquake, and the shout that gives me fury. I don't remember what else I have.

Can anyone suggest a good build that will allow me to put down some good damage. Also, is everyone buying their gear from the AH? Finding it? Please help!

Thanks for reading,
London

[Ilandalar]

I do not remember what values I had when I was on NM but the AH can provide very cheap upgrades that can make a huge huge difference. Set it up to search for weapons/armor with strength/vitality (you don't need any other attributes) and then look for the ones with low buyout price. A high DPS weapon should be a priority followed by upgrading your pieces that have no/low str/vit on them.

Your second attack is not exactly the best in my experience as it has the highest fury cost of the lot and relatively low damage and falls more into the utility category (has that knockback). Try to pick something like HotA or WW. I've also heard that Revenge/Rend builds are good but never tested them.

Also excluding the main/off attacks you have 4 slots to try to fix whatever problems you're having (one should be a ultimate ability though). So if you're dying too much look into Ground Stomp with Revenge or any other defensive alternatives (Ignore Pain is also great). Or if you're killing too slow and not dying as much try some offensive shouts/abilities here (but a high DPS weapon will fix that more than anything).

Secondary 'attributes' to look for are sockets. Rubies in 2-3 socketed weapons are great. Amethysts in helms are also good.

Hope it helps you out a bit.

[London]

Noted. Will scour the AH when I get home and search for some of this stuff. Thanks!

Also, is crafting even worth dumping money into now, or not?

[PunishMyHeaven]

Your second attack is not exactly the best in my experience as it has the highest fury cost of the lot and relatively low damage and falls more into the utility category (has that knockback). Try to pick something like HotA or WW. I've also heard that Revenge/Rend builds are good but never tested them.

I highly disagree with this. I absolutely love seismic slam, even more so once I put the glyph that gives it a 70% chance to stun for 1.5 seconds.

For the OP though, I wouldn't worry TOO much about your skills, as much as it is your gear. I didn't have much of a problem with Act 1 in nightmare, and I had about the same amount of health as you do. It was in Act 2 where i started to really struggle. I usually did decent enough damage, though maybe I just got really lucky with weapon drops. What got me was the amount of health.

Once i started to sacrifice some damage in exchange for health, I started having a much easier time with it. I really noticed this in Act 3 nightmare, where I had 6k health, and everything was hitting me for about 1000. I bought 2 pieces of gear from a merchant, and got lucky and found a legendary ring with a good amount of health on it, and I jumped up to 12k health. At that point, I was able to survive long enough to have an actual fighting chance, instead of getting destroyed in 1 or 2 seconds.

I haven't bought anything from the Auction House yet, but I would suggest either trying to just push through and start using items with more vitality on them as you find them, even if it costs you some damage, or go and try farming act 4 in normal if you need to. When I started Hell, I was taking a ton of damage, so I started farming act 4 nightmare to gear up some. I found 2 new weapons, that ended up giving me a damage increase from about 1700 to 2200. Going to try another act 4 run and hope for some gear with a little more life.

Edit: Just thought I'd put the skills I use in here. If I'm dual wielding, I used Frenzy with Sidearm rune (I now use the smite rune I believe it is, now that it's unlocked), and with a two hander I use Bash with the chance to stun. The others are Ground stomp with the rune to extend the range, Furious Charge with the cooldown reduction per enemy hit rune, Earthquake with the rune that makes it an ice patch, and Seismic Slam with the rune that gives it a 70% chance to stun. My last skill I tend to alternate depending on what I think I need, or what I feel like trying. Usually it's Threatening Shout with the rune that also slows enemy movement by 30%.

[Ilandalar]

I've leveled him in normal and a little bit in nightmare (level 6 artisan) and no it was not worth it one bit. That gold could have been used to buy upgrades all the way to hell. Cheap 300+ DPS weapons are 15000-30000, that's like 1/2 presses of that train button. If I were to start fresh again I would not spend one bit on them. Also I used to salvage a lot and all I have to show for it are a few hundred essences, now I just vendor the items.

[London]

Should I be vendoring my blues/yellows? I am level 6 crafting as well, and so far it hasn't gotten me anything useful. :(

Are there actually 'good' drops in Act 4 normal? Should I just farm the entire act? Bosses only?

[Ilandalar]

Are there actually 'good' drops in Act 4 normal? Should I just farm the entire act? Bosses only?

Well I find farming lower difficulties a little boring and potentially very unproductive. The AH is overflowing with all sorts of items and upgrades are really cheap even for higher difficulties. You could be in A2-3 NM by the time you find decent upgrades in A4 normal. And even then I bet there will be better items for you on the AH.

Should I be vendoring my blues/yellows? I am level 6 crafting as well, and so far it hasn't gotten me anything useful. :(

As a rule I vendor my blues/yellows except yellows with +Main Stat/Vit which I sell on the AH.

[PunishMyHeaven]

Are there actually 'good' drops in Act 4 normal? Should I just farm the entire act? Bosses only?

I only suggested farming act 4 normal as an alternative to buying stuff on the auction house. If you did choose to give it a try, I'd do the whole act. Bosses don't give much for loot compared to the champion and rare packs.

You could be in A2-3 NM by the time you find decent upgrades in A4 normal. And even then I bet there will be better items for you on the AH.

But you could also argue that if he doesn't spend a little bit of time farming act 4 normal, he won't make it out of act 1 nightmare anyway, and just get more frustrated from dying all the time. It really just comes down to what you feel like doing. I feel like the time I spend looking in the auction house to find the items I want, I could spend farming act 4 and get enough upgrades to progress anyway.

[Ixnatifual]

In my experience all you really need on the AH for Nightmare as a Barbarian is a good weapon (make sure it's really big, slow and hard-hitting if you're going to use my build below). The rest of the stuff you can get cheap from the in-game vendors or from drops. Stack Strength and Vitality.

In Nightmare, unless you have a defensive build or extremely good items, you typically don't want to stand next to too many guys at once. This means you're often in situations where Bash or Frenzy are safer to us. Plus your Fury spenders provide plenty of AoE for weak packs, while Earthquake annihilates elite groups.

Currently using this build: http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/barbarian#aekSiT!ZYX!bZbaab

I'm currently well into Act 2 Nightmare. I'm not entirely convinced Inspiring Presence and Warcry (Invigorate) are totally worth it, so you might want to experiment with that. On the other hand, I haven't died in Nightmare yet, so maybe they are. My tactic is to keep Warcry and Berserker Rage up, snipe a few stragglers to build up Punish for maximum damage, then Furious Charge to deal a ton of damage straight up. Seismic Slam when you've nicely lined up the monsters or if you're trying to separate or gain distance to dangerous elites. Often elites can be dealt with just by running up to them and doing Earthquake, but it's sometimes more fun to do it without Earthquake.

A safe way to fight is to do a Bash, move away a bit before they start swarming you, do another Bash, move away a bit, etc. It's easy keeping health and Punish up this way, and before you know it your charge is ready again for grinding them into dust, and you got lots of fury for some slamming. And when they see you're out of Fury and think it's safe to attack, use Warcry and slam them some more.

Also don't forget Furious Charge can help you escape a sticky situation while ripping the guys cornering you a new one at the same time.

[Ilandalar]

Just dropping by to say that my level 24 wizard (start of A3) has 450 DPS (your listed DPS) and 4k life (double your HP) and I expect these numbers to go up (way up) by the time I hit nightmare.

So whatever you pick be it farming or buying stuff from the AH or vendors look to improve your health/DPS before moving on. Of course try not to shoot for too much, just enough to feel like you can kill/survive in an efficient manner.