HotA Barbarian (Patch 2.6.4)

[Yolo 40]

16 hours ago, Guest Mydgard said:

Well I changed some thing on your build, because I play HC, there need more protection instead of offense parts of your set. Let"s see my changes:

1. Wrath of the Berserker: Striding Giant rune to get fewer damage. This skill need work continously so need so much CDR to it become possible. Need a Hellfire amulet with Boon of Bul-Kathos or with those 4 skills.

2. Fourious charge: Dreadnought

3. Zodiac ring + Convetion of Elements

4. In Kanai cube Mara's Kaleidoscope for high poison damage. Aquila is must.

5. Legendary Gems: Stricken, Gizzard, Esoteric or Pain Enchancer.

Which build you use? Raekor or IK? 

[DeathMonger 0]

I've really enjoyed playing this build and gotten through GR 100 with it - thank you for taking the time to put it together and share it.

As I've been learning more about the intricacies of the game and how to optimize for different tasks, one thing I've been refining is a build optimized for leveling up gems.  I'm using deadset's WW Wastes build for lower GR, which gives me times under 2:15 up to GR 61 and goes over 4:00 around GR 70.  deadset's IK HotA build gives averages 4:20 for me up to GR 75.  I was looking for something to cover the GR 65+ range - something like the IK HotA speedfarming build but without the gold gear.  I came up with a build that is giving me average times of 3:20 up to GR 74, and it's faster than the regular pushing build up to about GR 90.  Here's how it differs from the main build:

1. Nemesis in place of First Men
2. Hellfire, Focus, and Restraint in place of Endless Walk and Convention of Elements
3. Bane of the Powerful in place of Stricken
4. Cubed First Men in place of Aquila Cuirass or Magefist
5. Battle Rage Ferocity instead of Bloodshed
6. Sprint Marathon instead of War Cry
7. Pound of Flesh from the amulet

This gives much better speed plus the elite spawning from Nemesis without wasting any slots on gold or the Sage's set for death's breath.

Thought I'd share and I think this would be a good addition to the guide.

Edited August 20, 2019 by DeathMonger

[Yolo 40]

If the new Barb bracers will escape PTR, IK HotA should utilize it instead of Aquila, even better if equipped and Bracers of The First Men is moved to the cube (Obviously, it has no range on its affix.) While the Insanity was baseline and the Striding giant only makes up for Aquila's (slightly better due to no Fury dependancy), the Thrive on Chaos rune delivers insane amounts of healing (112k every smash!). The added damage of Arreat's Wail and Slaughter is not groundbreaking, but nice to have. 

[DeathMonger 0]

Another tweak to the high pushing build that I've worked out is to use Nemesis with First Men cubed (or vice versa) until reaching the highest levels I can reach.  This equates to swapping the 20% fire damage of Magefist for the elite spawning of Nemesis, which is a good trade until you need the extra damage to kill monsters in a timely enough manner.

[Elekim 4]

Some minor corrections and clarifications to make the guide more complete and coherent (for new and casual players expecially):

1) The "Role in the Current Meta" section of the Intro page is missing: is it intentional?

2) Reading the Intro page it seems that the IK build is labelled as "Top Tier", while the Raekor variation is ranked "High Tier": am I right?

3) Threatening Shout is a suggested skill in the skill table of the Raekor variation page, while Ancient Spear is suggested in its place in the "Introduction" page. Even though both options are viable, in order to avoid confusion the two skill tables should show the same recommended skills...

4) In the Raekor variation page it is written: "The roster of passives will remain unchanged between variations, meaning you take the trio of damage buffs Berserker Rage, Brawler and Ruthless, and add an emergency cheat death to them with Nerves of Steel". However, Brawler is not the recommended skill for the IK build, nor for the speed farm variation, and it also does not appear in the Intro page as one of the recommended passives for the Raekor variation too! This paragraph and the various skill tables should be fixed coherently...

5) In the speed farm variation page it is written: "If you are clearing Normal Rifts with a group, maintain War Cry on your bar and strongly consider cubing Chilanik's Chain (discussed in the gear section below) for the party-wide movement speed buff. If you are playing solo, you can consider swapping this skill entirely for the short bursts of speed from Sprint Marathon". From this text it seems that War Cry is an alternative for group play, to use with a cubed Chilanik's Chain, and that Sprint is the recommended skill. However, the skill table (both on that page and on Intro page) lists War Cry as the recommended skill for the speed farm variation, while Marathon is not mentioned; moreover, Chilanik's Chain is not mentioned anywhere else in the guide, and in particular it is not "discussed in the gear section below" (probably it was once in the past?). This paragrapgh should be updated and, if War Cry is not the recommended default skill, the skill tables should be updated too.

6) In the Gear page it is written: "Convention of Elements' [...] ideal stats are Crit Chance, Crit Damage, an open Socket and either Area Damage or a flat Damage increase". Is Area Damage preferable to flat Damage (as the table of stat priorities suggests), or they are really equally good?

7) In the Gear page it is written: "[Istvan's Paired Blades] offer a significant toughness and attack speed increase that matches the Life per Fury Spent restorative mechanic of the build". However, Life per Fury Spent is mentioned only for the Belt, and as the 4th stat priority: is it so important? If so, should it be moved up the list of the belt's stat priorities?

8] The Compass Rose has 5 primary affixes, including Strenght and Movement Speed: probably it is better to re-roll Movement Speed into something else, achieving 5 good primary affixes (one of which will remain Strenght): isn't it worth to add "Strenght" to the list of stat priorities, even if in 6th place, to show it's better to keep it and reroll Movements Speed instead?

9) In the speed farm variation page, two more Sage's set piece should be labelled as "Best in Slot" in the table of stat priorities (with their IK counterparts marked as "Alternative"). Following the "Best in Slot" labels as they are now one will end up with 7 IK pieces, 0 Sage's, and a RoRG...

10) Stone of Jordan (recommended on the speed farming variation) naturally has +Elemental damage % (hoping to get Fire...), Increase damage against elites (not rerollable), Strenght (that can be rerolled into a socket) and just one more stat: thus, the order in which its stat priorities are written should be choosen carefully. Given as it is, the recommended 4th stat is Crit Chance. Do you confirm it is more valuable than Crit Damage? Always?

11) Ring of Royal Grandeur (recommended on the speed farming variation) naturally has Strenght, Increased Attack Speed and Life per Hit, none of which is among the "top four" stat priorities listed in the table: thus, probably it would be better to recommend a well-rolled Band of Might as the worn ring, and to cube RoRG, or am I missing something?

12) For the Helm slot, why is "Critical Hit Chance" missing from the list Stat Priorities: isn't it far better than Vitality?
For Fury of the Ancients, is Vitality really more important than Area Damage?
For Raekor's Burden, is Vitality really more important than Area Damage and CDR?
Why is Armor among the stat priorities for the Pants? It is of little use for a Barbarian, it's the only item where Armor is mentioned as a stat priority, and it's the 5th affix on the list... Isn't it better to remove it entirely?
For the Boots slot, is "Vitality" really more important than "Hammer of the Ancients %"?
For the Amulets, are "Crit Chance" and "Crit Damage" more important than "Fire Damage"?

13) The weapons in the IK build and speed farm variation have the same first half of stat priorities (sockets, damage, strenght, plus the free HotA % for the IK Boulder Breaker), but then they differ: Area Damage, Increased Attack Speed and Damage % for The Slanderer and Little Rogue, Damage % and Life per Fury Spent for Immortal King's Boulder Breaker. Why "Area Damage", an important affix for the two swords as well as for many other item slots, is not even mentioned for the mighty weapon? Why "Damage %" is ranked two position higher for IK Boulder Breaker? Why is IAS only present for the swords, and nowhere else across the gear of both builds? I'm still a casual player: please explain me, and help me better understand the game (and thus improve my playing)...

14) In the Paragon Points section, the priority for the Core slot are: 1. Movement Speed up to 25% cap, 2. Maximum Fury, 3. Strength, 4. Vitality. Since Strength and Vitality have no cap, it is not clear which is the recommended point allocation after reaching 25% Movement Speed and maximizing Fury: all into Strenght? Or alternatively one point into Strength and one into Vitality?
Similarly, for the other slots, is there a recommended rotation for allocating Paragon Points? For example: is it better to maximize Crit Chance before moving to Crit Damage, or raising them both together one by one? Or PP should be spended to compensate gear imbalancies (for example prioritizing Crit Damage if you have more Crit Chance from gear)?

15) For the 5 sockets of Torso and Pants the guide suggests Rubies (for Damage) and/or Diamonds (for Toughness): how many of each? Is there a recommendation or it's completely up to personal preference? Is the choice linked to the stats rolled on gear, or to the number and allocation of paragon points?

16) The usual link from the Gear page to the Follower page is missing. Which is the best follower for the HotA Barbarian specifically? Templar, Scoundrel or Enchantress? With which gear (Thunderfury with Wyrdward? Freeze of Deflection with Justice Lantern? ...)? With which skills (Inspire or Guardian? Mass Control or Focused Mind? ...)?

17) Which is the best Legendary Potion for this build?

[Valks 2,375]

13 hours ago, Elekim said:

1) The "Role in the Current Meta" section of the Intro page is missing: is it intentional?

Yeah, for some builds I believe Deadset basically just stopped adding it/removed it because the builds had no place at all in any meta. The rankings in the menu instead helps to rank these, We'll try to get a bit more consistency across the board for this.

I'll past the rest of this comment on to Deadset to get fixing. Thanks!

[Elekim 4]

@Deadset: There some confusion about Chilanik's Chain... On the Skill section it is written: "If you are clearing Normal Rifts with a group, maintain War Cry on your bar and strongly consider cubing Chilanik's Chain (discussed in the gear section below)"; but in the Cube section there is no mention of it... But in the Gear section it is written: "Chilanik's Chain is a strong addition to a HotA speedfarming build when played in groups, replacing Immortal King's Tribal Binding": but that will leave only 4 Immortal King's Set items (or, if you don't use the Sage's Set, 6 IK items but a worn Ring of Royal Grandeur...)!!!

So, the group variation with War Cry and Chilanik's Chain will have the belt cubed or worn? With Sage's Set or not? With RoRG or not?

[albabe 33]

Very curious what deadset thinks about this build in 2.6.7!

[albabe 33]

How long does it usually take DeadSet to post his New Builds after a Patch?  I'm really interested in the Three (3) new Barb Builds.

[Guest Skill Help]

Hello!

I'm using "Barbarian HotA Build with Immortal King".

I have a problem with that. Based on the description, I'd spin Legs (Immortal King's Stature) on the "All Resistance" in the description.

However, you can't spin it because only these are:

+ 654 -755 Armor
Regenerates ..... life per second
Increases Bash Damage by ...%
Increases Frenzy Damage by ...%
Increases Weapon Throw Damage ...%
Increases Cleave Damage ...%

Current Stats:

Primary: 562 Strenght
                 577 Vitrality
                 Increases Frenzy Damage by 13%

Which stat should I spin on?

Thanks.

[Orthios 271]

53 minutes ago, Guest Skill Help said:

Hello!

I'm using "Barbarian HotA Build with Immortal King".

I have a problem with that. Based on the description, I'd spin Legs (Immortal King's Stature) on the "All Resistance" in the description.

However, you can't spin it because only these are:

+ 654 -755 Armor
Regenerates ..... life per second
Increases Bash Damage by ...%
Increases Frenzy Damage by ...%
Increases Weapon Throw Damage ...%
Increases Cleave Damage ...%

Current Stats:

Primary: 562 Strenght
                 577 Vitrality
                 Increases Frenzy Damage by 13%

Which stat should I spin on?

Thanks.

All Resistance is mutually exclusive with the individual resistances which are secondary stats.  So if you have a piece with, say, Physical Resistance or Lightning Resistance on it, you can't roll a primary stat to All Resistance since you already have a Resistance stat on the piece.

[Guest d1v1d3d]

Would it be better to cube Remorseless and Echoing fury and use my Primal Ancient Solanium and Primal Ancient Telranden's Hand? Also I got Illusory boots primal Ancient and use them with Ring of Royal Grandeur for the IK set bonuses. Is that the smart thing to do or stick to this gear guide?

[Guest reb7254]

I don't understand the point of the Traveler's Pledge in the speed farming variation.

[Guest XanaxCrimea]

Is focus and restraint rings plus flavor of time a decent alternative if you don't have a good traveler's pledge rolled?

 

Hota can proc both rings pretty reliably and flavor of time is pretty useful.

[Guest Kira]

On 1/19/2019 at 6:06 AM, Guest Ezra said:

How can the fury Regen on this build keep up with spamming hota?

With The Gavel of Judgment in the cube it return 25 fury if you hit 3 or less enemys. so you cant run out

 

[Bubble181 14]

Minor fix: for the speedfarming variation, the text states Squirt's Necklace, but the overview table still lists Traveller's Pledge. Which doesn't make much sense with Focus & Restraint as rings 😉

[Deadset 108]

On 7/29/2021 at 5:09 PM, Bubble181 said:

Minor fix: for the speedfarming variation, the text states Squirt's Necklace, but the overview table still lists Traveller's Pledge. Which doesn't make much sense with Focus & Restraint as rings 😉

Thanks! Submitted a fix.

[Guest Calinix]

Wouldn't it be preferable to cube bracers of the 1st men over mortik's brace. This would give you the full 500% increased damage. 

[Bubble181 14]

15 hours ago, Guest Calinix said:

Wouldn't it be preferable to cube bracers of the 1st men over mortik's brace. This would give you the full 500% increased damage. 

As far as legendary powers go, yes - cube the one with a variable.

I'm not sure about the other rolls though, B1M may have undesirable guaranteed rolls. 

[Deadset 108]

Yep, it would be sensible to have Mortick’s worn and Bracers of the First Men cubed for the vast majority of situations, since. the Cube will maximize the B1M unique damage buff. I will correct this in a future version of the guide.

[Guest Haake]

Since the buff to Remorseless, this build is much stronger than a low tier build.  I'd rate it on par with Savages now.