Hardcore barbs, Frenzy vs Cleave vs Bash post 1.0.4?

[sOFrOsTy]

I am curious how the hardcore barbs are feeling about the changes to fury generators. Have you switched to any of the other options since the patch, or you still sticking with Frenzy SideArm?

Here is my experience thus far.

I love BASH! I cannot believe I am saying this, because Bash at its core is a pretty boring attack. But I am enjoying Bash, for only one rune. Onslaught. Onslaught causes 2 reverberations that hit for 25% of weapon damage each. Now to be clear, much like Frenzy, Bash is single target (unless you use the last rune which shoots a straight line shockwave for 38% weapon damage to everything in it's path). And it doesn't feel as fast as Frenzy once it is in full swing, however it feels faster than Frenzy prior to the 5 stacks of Frenzy. Frenzy takes 5 hits to bring it all the way up to it's 75% speed increase. Before you get to level 5, Frenzy doesn't feel that much faster than any of the other Barbarian attacks. Bash, with Onslaught rune, feels fast insantly. Because of those 2 extra hits that happen after the initial blow, Bash feels like your attacking quicker than you actually are which makes for a fun experience.

Now, I don't know if mathmatically single target, bash is worse or better than Frenzy, (im guessing slightly worse), but it doesn't feel like it. Here are the numbers, and if someone can do some basic math on this to let me know what it is, great!

Bash: 165% damage per hit, +25% for first reverberation, +25% for second Reverberation.

Frenzy: 110% damage per hit, +75% speed increase after 5 strikes. (side arm rune +25% chance to throw an axe that does 110% damage to all enemy it hits in a straight line). Also the last rune for Frenzy that adds +4% damage per swing up to 20% total at 5 stacks.


For me in game it looks like this.

I have 12,000 DPS on my barb displayed in my character screen. With Frenzy/Sidearm I hit for 6800 at the lowest, up to 9900 at the most with each attack. (my weapon speed is 1.40). With bash, I hit for 15000 on the low end, and 21000 on the high end, and each reverberation hits for 2000-2300.

I love bash, it is fun, has a great sound affect as well. I hate every other rune for bash though. That 20% chance to knock back is actually more annoying than helpful.


Secondary skills, I have to just point this out even though the main topic was fury generators. Rend, with Lascerate rune, is completely insane post 1.0.4. 906% Damage over 5 seconds to all enemies around you is insane damage! When I'm in a game solo, 80% of the trash mobs throughout act 1 die after just one Rend with 12,000 dps. It speeds up champ fights, trash mob fights, and with the new graphics they added for bleeding and the new graphical affect of rend itself, it is really fun.


What Fury generating and fury spending skills are you barbs using?

[CappyTan]

I have been trying Cleave with Broad Sweep for act 1 farming and it seems much more effective than Frenzy.

Since now we are more concerned with killing trash, Frenzy was just driving me nuts. Cleave feels great for just mowing down the white monsters. It's also great for champ packs. The only spot it feels worse is against elite packs when he is the only guy left standing (kinda obviously worse here), but that is just minor.

I haven't tried Bash or any of the other runes yet.

[Grishok]

For what it's worth, on my lvl 36 Barb I'm using Cleave - Rupture for normal play (Bul Kathos guides my hand! all the time) and Bash +8% Damage rune for bosses (in combination with HotA with 407% damage). Working extremely well, but I'm only in A1 NM, so cannot comment on inferno usability.

PS Experimented a bit with Rend + LL rune, not bad, but somehow I prefer to kill the baddies as quickly as possible. Rend works best when kiting a bit, in current difficulty I can just smash everything in 2 hits. Maybe nice for inferno?

Edit: some positive comments on Rend from barbs in inferno: http://diablo.incgamers.com/forums/s...s-doing/page13

[VHD]

Tried Cleave in A1 inferno but felt way too slow. Revenge and/or Rend takes care of the small group aoe.

[omgChubbs]

I never thought I would be leaving Revenge out of my barb build, but I've recently swapped it for Rend with Life leech rune and am totally impressed with it. Being able to get right into a pack and rend right away rather than waiting for revenge procs has sped up my killing ability, and the amount of life I'm leeching back keeps my globe full all the time, if you havent tried it out, I'd definitely recommend it

[VHD]

I never thought I would be leaving Revenge out of my barb build, but I've recently swapped it for Rend with Life leech rune and am totally impressed with it. Being able to get right into a pack and rend right away rather than waiting for revenge procs has sped up my killing ability, and the amount of life I'm leeching back keeps my globe full all the time, if you havent tried it out, I'd definitely recommend it

I had the exact same impression. This works exceptionally well for cases where you are doing A1 runs (for example) while overgeared. However, I'm deeply suspicious that it just won't be enough for later acts when trying to progress. I'm guessing for Act 3, I'll want to run both Revenge and Rend.

[ZappaFan]

I had the exact same impression. This works exceptionally well for cases where you are doing A1 runs (for example) while overgeared. However, I'm deeply suspicious that it just won't be enough for later acts when trying to progress. I'm guessing for Act 3, I'll want to run both Revenge and Rend.

I'm running Revenge (Provocation) and Rend (Lacerate) in Act II and have really liked it. I tried the leech rune with Rend and it just didn't seem to be leeching much. I will have to give that a try again.

[VHD]

Just finished A2 run with this build (no Revenge) and it worked fine - however I was running with a group of 2 monks and another barb, so I'm not sure it proves anything