Old School Whirlwind Barbarian

[420]

Old School Whirlwind Barbarian (Updated)


Concept
The idea here was to recreate my sword and shield PvP whirlwind barbarian from Diablo II using similar skills in Diablo III.

Build: Skills

Profile: SuperPsych


Weapons

Primary: One handed weapon and shield.

Secondary: Two handed weapon. (Looks cooler during Whirlwind.)


Strategy
Items and skills focus on defense: Armor (strength), block rate, resists, life steal, and life regeneration Life on Hit (ie "tank" build).

Passive Skills: Focus on boosting armor and life steal.

Before Combat: Use War Cry (Invigorate rune) to boost armor, max life, Fury, and gain life regeneration.
I switched the Invigorate rune to Impunity for the 20% increase to resistances. High level monsters do so much damage that life regeneration becomes useless unless it is stacked really high with skills and items, while % damage reduction scales with higher damage.

Entering Combat: Leap (Iron Impact rune) into enemy pack or single target to boost armor then Whirlwind (Wind Shear rune) along the edge of the pack/target while Fury lasts.

Combat: Attack using Frenzy (Maniac rune) to build up five counters then Whirlwind stopping occasionally to hit once with Frenzy to reset the cooldown before it runs out.
Replaced Frenzy with Bash (Clobber rune) because I needed some kind of stun effect to use against particularly difficulty targets. Also, it's less annoying than having to stop Whirlwind every couple seconds to attack with Frenzy in order to keep the counter at 5.

For extended battles alternate between War Cry and Leap to gain Fury or Revenge (Vengeance is Mine rune) to gain life. When things get really hairy, call in some backup with Call of the Ancients (Duty to the Clan rune).


Preferred Follower
The Enchantress follower's armor boost, charms, and AoE damage skills all compliment the melee tank build nicely. She'll stand on the sidelines disrupting the enemy while you go about your demon slaughtering business.



Here is the basic idea behind the build:

Diablo II Skill -> Diablo III Equivalent*

Frenzy -> Frenzy
Leap Attack -> Leap
Whirlwind -> Whirlwind
Battle Orders -> War Cry
Iron Skin -> Nerves of Steal and Tough as Nails

*Originally I was considering using Weapons Master for Diablo II's Sword Mastery but ultimately decided that I didn't want to be restricted to a specific weapon type.

Here is an example of how much armor you can get with a good defensive Barbarian build:

Top number is without War Cry (items and Passive Skills only).
Middle number is with War Cry active.
Bottom number is with War Cry and Leap (Iron Impact) in effect.




-420

EDIT: Added weapons.

EDIT: (8/24/12) Added "Preferred Follower".

EDIT: (10/26/12) Updated for patches 1.0.4 and 1.0.5

[420]

Update!

SuperPsych's build has been updated for patches 1.0.4 and 1.05.

-420

[Mo]

That Iron Leap bonus is nuts but of course it depends on how many monsters are around you where you land.

[420]

Well, I decided it was time to put SuperPsych to her true purpose and copy the first player to reach Paragon level 100. Some people may have heard of Alkaizer runs, and I decided this weekend to go with the build. I may go back to the defensive build some day but for now this seems good for farming MP3 for keys and I may try cranking it up when I'm over this head cold.

So here is the new setup:

Concept
The goal of this build seems to be maximizing damage output while generating enough Fury to stay in Berserker mode permanently.

So far I am lacking two major item mechanics to make this build really work. First, I need +24% (the max) faster movement speed. Right now I have none. Second, I need a 2-handed Mighty Weapon (or 2 1-handed Mighty Weapons). Right now I'm settling for a 2-handed hammer for the increased crit chance from Weapon Master and Fury generation from Battle Rage (Into the Fray rune).

With this setup I can take any elite group in MP3 while almost always staying in Berserker form. The main problem is getting started, before getting Fury up and all the skills going this build is extremely vulnerable.

Build: Skills

Profile: SuperPsych


Weapons

Primary: Two-handed mace/axe.

Secondary: Nothing so far...


Strategy
Since this is someone else's build, I've sort of had to figure out what to do with the skills.

The idea, I believe, is to get Fury up with a couple hits from Bash (Instigation rune) then activate Wrath of the Berserker (Thrive of Chaos rune) and Battle Rage (Into the Fray rune) then Whirlwind (Hurricane rune) while spamming Sprint (Run Like the Wind rune). Rend (Bloodlust rune) is an amazing combo to get completely full health when you notice your life rapidly dropping. It does 700% damage to everything near you and returns 9% of all that damage as life.

When this build gets going I can destroy a group of Lurker (act 2 melee snake people) champs with Fast, Molten, Plauged, and Fire Chains in MP3 with no problems. I have yet to test this build on higher MP levels however as I think I will need to upgrade my equipment first.


Preferred Follower
Sticking with the Enchantress (same skills). With her Messerschmidt's Reaver she does over 6k damage!


-420