Newly created Barb with a few questions regarding different skillsd

**Nèmein** · 08-08-2012, 19:12

My Barb is 26 in Act 3 and at the moment we're not having too much difficulty. My other character is a DH and I haven't played a Barbarian since Golden Axe...so I had a little adjustment period to the "stand your ground" plan of attack. However with some decent gear (mostly selffound and one or two heirloom rares from the DH) I'm moving nicely through. But I have found myself running into a couple of questions that I hope folks here can answer quickly or link me to a thread where it was previously discussed.

1) Is Earthquake really as awesome as it seems? It almost seems to good to ever take off the bar. I popped Battle Rage and Quake on Belial and he was gone as soon as my Frenzy hit 5 stacks. Coming from the amount of vaulting and pattern decoding and smokescreening I did with my first run of Belial on my DH I literally could not believe it. Tbh I barely use it but when I do the world melts. Will anything come close to this level of power and threaten his spot on the bar as I go forward?

2) Is there a 'serious' use for Call of the Ancients? Other than trying to rack up some high kill streaks in Act 3 , for example by popping this and furious charging my way through everyone then hitting quake in my last mob when the Ancients go all D2 stone on me, is this a reliable skill? I haven't attempted the math but it seems like a bit of a CC skill more than damage since I don't think they can be aimed.

3) Is it safe to say that your fury will be at max quite often? At the moment I'm running Frenzy(just switched from Sidearm to Triumph) , Quake, Ground Stomp (Wrenching Smash), Furious Charge, Revenge (Vengeance is Mine), and Battle Rage. Passives I'm using are Berseker Rage and I've just switched from Inspiring Presence to Bloodthirst. I find that primarily I just attack with Frenzy and Furious Charge when its up. I'm using Fury for Battle Rage and basically that's it. Once or twice I got nervous with some iffy Revenge procs so I popped Quake. Otherwise I'm mostly on full Fury. Is this too many Generators? Should I be looking at Spenders a la WW? Or should i just be waiting for WotB and using that, Quake and Battle Rage as my spenders. Things have been going so smoothly that I've felt no impetus to try the newest skills as they come like I did on the DH.

In any event I'm having a ball with this class I'm just hoping to get some insight from the community.

**liquid_mage** · 08-08-2012, 20:05

1. Earthquake is very good, especially with 2 handers. I moved away from as I could only have 1 I win skill on my toolbar and I picked WotB. Earthquake stays in one spot, I can chase down monsters that flee with WotB.

2. I really don't see call to ancients used in hardly any of the published barb builds.

3. Quite a few barb builds use no fury spenders. If you use a build with no fury spenders Berserker Rage is very good. Many of the fury spenders skills are very meh.

**VagrantKing** · 08-08-2012, 20:19

1. Earthquake is really awesome but not its cooldown.
2. I agree. Have not seen many late game builds that take this skill.
3. Max Fury is normal with most tank builds. Fury usage depends on the current build you are running. I recommend grabbing a Fury spender personally. It forces you to manage your Fury and makes battles much more interesting.

**Harsh Tradewind** · 09-08-2012, 09:44

1. Earthquake is definitely powerful but once activated it just sits on one spot - its rather "situational" though. For all around, go for WotB.

2. Ancients are cool, but they seems like not cooperating at times like who should they be focusing to attack. But they are perfect "human body shields". LOL

3. Its ok running with max fury. If you're spending alot, you might consider "fury generating skills or rune effects".

**Nèmein** · 09-08-2012, 15:46

Thanks for the responses. I've not yet unlocked WotB but I can't lie it does seem like its a super-barb button. I could easily imagine quake+wotb being enough to basically stand toe to toe with most champ packs/bosses even in less than ideal gear straight through NM.

I just switched quake for WW just to get a feel for a spender and its cool...it gives a very different feel to things that I don't mind it at all. Not sure it'll maintain my interest but I will keep up with the different runes and see how it plays.

I will continue to play around with Ancients just to see if they take any aggro at all although my gut is telling me...no. I realize that I really need aggro pulled from me but I'm still a DH...and more importantly I'm curious of Ancients purpose beyond being a nod to LoD.

**Karth** · 09-08-2012, 16:28

Whirlwind is a really bad spender to use for actually dealing damage. Try siesmic slam, hammer of the ancients, or even rend (especially with the first rune while leveling when you have a ton of dps). Whirlwind's mainly useful for its side effects - freedom of movement, synergy with other skills, the 1% life per crit rune, etc.

**Sentarius** · 09-08-2012, 16:52

Originally Posted by Karth

Whirlwind is a really bad spender to use for actually dealing damage. Try siesmic slam, hammer of the ancients, or even rend (especially with the first rune while leveling when you have a ton of dps). Whirlwind's mainly useful for its side effects - freedom of movement, synergy with other skills, the 1% life per crit rune, etc.

As a WW user, I agree with this. I use it primarily for mobility.

I had a lot of fun from where you are into late NM playing a max-fury build with HotA (runed for extra damage) spam for packs, followed by war cry runed for extra fury to quickly get back to max. I forget the exact details and it was neither the optimal build then nor viable beyond, but it was lots of fun.

**Nèmein** · 09-08-2012, 18:15

Originally Posted by Sentarius

As a WW user, I agree with this. I use it primarily for mobility.

I had a lot of fun from where you are into late NM playing a max-fury build with HotA (runed for extra damage) spam for packs, followed by war cry runed for extra fury to quickly get back to max. I forget the exact details and it was neither the optimal build then nor viable beyond, but it was lots of fun.

Yaknow, I barely used HotA! I will have to go back and see how it is because I agree the mobility seems to be the major difference while using WW. It would be nice to use a big hitter type spender.

As far as optimally meh, I'll probably begin to worry about optimal in Hell...but likely never as long as its fun.

These insights are awesome I really appreciate it.

**Sentarius** · 09-08-2012, 19:11

It works well with Ground Stomp - Wrenching Smash, because the rune that makes HotA do more damage also reduces the size of the AoE. But it is still AoE.

**Nèmein** · 12-08-2012, 15:24

Originally Posted by Sentarius

It works well with Ground Stomp - Wrenching Smash, because the rune that makes HotA do more damage also reduces the size of the AoE. But it is still AoE.

I'm sure if followups are the norm on this board but you undersold how well this would work out. Although I miss Quake and WotB is beyond what I thought it would be I find myself taking it off my bar because I find myself sort of...waiting to progress to the next area until its up just in case something goes awry, there is something about using HotA after drawing in lots of mobs and then popping a revenge proc that feels nice. It did give me a less than ideal Ghom fight however. I think Quake or WotB (both?) would've been smart there.

Enjoying the barb even more than when I first posted so thanks for everything so far.