How to become a sucessful and exceptional barbarian in inferno difficulty

[MartyrOz]

I'm quite dismayed.

Tough as nails, Superstition, Nerves of Steel

61,600 HP
9300 armour
1154 physical resistance
850 elemental resistances
12% dodge
43% block
26% cc reduction

And act 3 is a complete wreck. 33% of packs I can handle, 33% require multiple deaths and 33% are impossible.

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[saint_of_killers]

What about Ground Stomp?

i too would like to know

[gakky]

/sigh.


FYI:
The [Sidearm] axes hit your target if you're fighting a single mob.
25% of 110 = 27.5% average added damage per swing.
At full stack, [Maniac] is only 20%.
So if you're just using WotB[Insanity] and attacking, then [Sidearm] is 100% superior even on a single target.

There IS reason to use [Maniac] though if you combine the damage bonus with Earthquake.

example:
20000 damage on char sheet
pop WotB[Insanity] = 40000 damage
5 stacks of [Maniac] = 48000 damage
Earthquake = 960k damage

20000 damage on char sheet
pop WotB[Insanity] = 40k damage
Earthquake = 800k damage
So we're at -160k damage.
We average 7.5% more per hit from [Sidearm] axes, so while WotB is up:
160k = ((40k*1.075)-40k)*x
x= ~53 hits.
In order to get off 53 hits during WotB you'd have to average OVER 3.5 hits per second. That's just not going to happen with most builds. You WILL catch up eventually though... far before earthquake is up again.

[Sidearm] is simply superior damage in nearly every situation.

Maniac and Insanity are skill damage which is additive. Together you get +220%damage. So Maniac is 10% or less damage, depending on how much other skill damage you have.

[RAJOD]

Here are my rough estimates on the resistances you need for each act if you want to be relatively tanky and abstain from dying while fighting champions:

For Act I you will need around 200-300 all resistances.

For Act II – 500+

For Act III – 700+

Act IV – 1k+

While these numbers might seem high, remember that War Cry with Impunity rune will help you achieve them.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------If you disagree with something I wrote go ahead and write it, I welcome some constructive criticism and your own opinions on the matter. I will try to keep this class compendium up to date and add stuff to it on the weekly, maybe even daily basis.

Could you clear up what those numbers for me?

When I look at my stats it says cold resistance 40 (assumed out of 100) then if I hold the mouse over it it will say reduces damage 15 percent from level 49 monsters.


Are you saying those numbers instead of 30-40 range will somehow go to 1000 by the time i get to level 60?

That is quit a jump. Maybe im missing something about resistance values. Please clarify.

[VagrantKing]

The is no limit on resistances like there was in D2.

Once you get higher lvls (50+), the 'all resistance' stat drops more often on items. So it is much easier to hit the high resistances numbers mentioned.

[Gootch]

Revenge does a bigger portion of your damage than frenzy. However, I think sidearm results in more healing from life per hit and thus works better defensively? Also, sidearm works regardless of how many frenzy stacks you have running.

Someone explain that one. Which would be best, life on hit doesnt come by much and i dont have any of it.

Also i have a fairly decent Barb tank build and cannot pass through act 2 solo. I am able to run with a friend up to Belial, trying to down him at the moment, but cant do it on my own. I have 1000+ resist on everything, 9k armor, and 30k life. My dps is like 13k or so. I'm at work or id post a pic of my details. Im using the standard tank build, War Cry/Impunity, Revenge, Frenzy/Sidearm, Leap/Iron impact, WotB. Using the 2 armor passives and Relentless. I can survive a decent amount of time but i'm not immortal and i cant burn the champ packs down fast enough. After i die i run back and most of the time they either enrage or are at full health. Bosses and trash are no problem, but the champ and elite packs give me problems about 75% of the time. I have really good gear for Str/Resist all are my primary stats i focus on. I cant afford gear with Str/Vit/Resist all because the AH is way out of wack. Who has 10 million gold per piece? I sure dont. Any advice?

[edistotiger]

The AH isn't out of whack. The most desirable gear should be the most expensive, and you can always expect to pay a large premium for items that have "everything."

Still, the stats that you mentioned should be plenty sufficient to get you through Act II. What are you struggling with? Is it specific affixes or combinations of affixes? Have you tried using Superstition in place of Relentless or Nerves of Steel? Do you have a shield with decent blocking?

[Gootch]

Have not tried to use superstition yet, I am using passives for armor at the moment. Yes i have a shield with good block. Ive dont lots of research and read numerous threads about what i should have and should do. I do all of them but just cant solo people. For example, tried to solo Belial Last night. Phase 1 cake, phase 2, really hard. I couldnt dps him down to get to phase 3. Using all my abilities leap every 10 seconds, ignore pain at the most opportune times, even hitting him 2 or 3 times and dodging his big swoop hit, then hitting him again. I would just survive long enough to get him close but cant stay alive forever. Its driving me crazy because i have pretty decent gear and way over what everyone says i should have to be able to do act 2. Using a 1h 700 dps weapon. I figured well lets try it Dual wielding my other 650 axe with 15% ias. With my shield gone i lose 900 armor and 65 resist all keeping my resist all and armor totals still pretty darn high. Its like i sent a lamb into a pen of lions, i got destroyed, couldnt take any hits at all and was dying super quick.

[galzohar]

13k dps should be plenty for killing most/all act 2 elite packs without enrage. Though some tend to run away a lot, which means you might have to kill 1/2 of them, have them enrage, go to town to reset them and then kill the other 1/2 after they heal up and stop the enrage (though sometimes there is a bug where they will stop the enrage without resetting to full HP).

I you can tank most elite packs in act 2, you should be able to tank belial phase 2 as well. Just keep hitting the boss while ignoring the adds, they'll die to revenge spam anyway and they should heal you (via revenge procs) more than they damage you if you have enough EHP.

If your EHP feels low for act 2, get threatening shout. I think it's much more useful than ignore pain for that purpose. Slow rune is nice, though any of the rune options work since the main purpose is the 20% damage reduction which acts as a 25% EHP boost, equivalent to several millions of gold spent on gear upgrades.

Your EHP is about 500k, so you should be just barely good for act 2. If you use this build you shouldn't have problems:
http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/calculato...Pgk!beV!accZac

Notice I prefer furious charge, because sometimes I just need that extra healing. But leap with iron impact isn't a terrible choice either, since the extra armor does let you take a lot less damage and thus gives you some more time to heal up with revenge. I still prefer just outright healing right away when revenge fails rather than getting an armor boost when I'm already low HP and hope for a last second revenge proc.

Additionally, try get a high block chance and value shield. I keep buying some that have a secondary stat for 50k and reselling for 200-500k depending on the stat... You just gotta search well! Filter for shields with at least +5% block, sort by armor, and only look at the shields with the icon that corresponds to the 3700-4700 block value. Set max buyout for something that you can afford, so you don't waste time looking at items you're not going to buy anyway. If you want to get a good deal (good stats for the price), only look at items that have at least 1d11h left on the auction. Anything else is pretty much guaranteed to be a bad deal, since nobody bought it for >1-2 hours.

If you fix your spec and maybe upgrade your shield and up your EHP a bit, at least belial phase 2 should become easy for you. For tank barb it's all about lasting forever, nothing more nothing less! Tanks aren't about killing them before they wear you out, it's about wearing them out because you can't die. If you can die, you're either messing up the gear, skills or the way you use them.

[Vanchatron]

Brilliant guide, thank you.