Barb Endgame Build

After reading threads about barbs and how they aren’t great area clearers, I’m wondering why Phoenix wouldn’t be a huge boost to damage.

Build would look like Grief, Phoenix, Fortitude,

Laying of Hands, Arreats with a 40/15 and whatever else I might be missing.

Why does no one talk about Phoenix with a barb?

Thanks for your responses in advance.

Because Phoenix isn't as good for a barb as it is for other classes. They either
a) don't replace some other shield with it but a 2nd weapon
or b) if they don't have a 2nd weapon and instead 1hand a 2hander with it, the weapon dmg is cut significantly to get Phoenix, reducing the overall dmg gain significantly (if not eliminating it entirely or even resulting in a drop)

.

Skills killing everything on your screen in the blink of an eye (like

Corpse Explosion/

Lightning Fury) are what make good area clearers. No amount of %ed will allow you to keep up with that.
Besides, barbs have no trouble killing single targets and are great elite snipers. A 6

Ist off-hand PB is much better for that purpose.

Unless it was "fixed" in D2R, Phoenix spell proc causes a brief cast delay (0.44 sec, IIRC). Most skills are disabled during this delay, which leaves

Whirlwind a possible choice for Phoenix, since it can't proc

Firestorm.

The rest of the items you listed are typical for almost any PvM barb, so no issues there.

I’m just wondering why I can’t go through Chaos and one tap everything. Gotta be doing something wrong.

I prefer BOTD (2-handers) for an end game barb build.

I use Grief for PVP, BOTD for PVM

I tried two griefs and didn’t feel like it did anything to damage.
I feel like the potential 400% damage Phoenix would bring would be better than having a Grief in the off hand.
Wouldn’t the damage scale?
Like with Fortitude?

Barbhero wrote: 2 years ago

I tried two griefs and didn’t feel like it did anything to damage.
I feel like the potential 400% damage Phoenix would bring would be better than having a Grief in the off hand.
Wouldn’t the damage scale?
Like with Fortitude?

Define "scale".

A weapon as added damage gets multiplied. A Phoenix gets added to the existing multiplier.

So just for the sake of simple math, let's say you have a 2-hand weapon with 200 dmg.
Say you then have
- 200ED from strength
- 300ED from Fortitude
- 200ED from a might merc

That leaves you with 700ED or 1600 dmg total.

Now, assume you add a Phoenix to that for 400ED. You would now have 1100 ED or 2400 dmg total.
BUT using a Phoenix turns your 2hander into a 1hander, meaning its damage goes down (typically close to cut in half). So if you now drop your 200 dmg to 100 and use the same 1100ED, you actually end up with 1200 dmg total, meaning the fact that you equipped a Phoenix actually drops your damage if you started out with a 2-hander.
To contrast, if you take out the fort and might merc then you start out with only 200ed or 600 dmg. Adding Phoenix to that would then put you at 600ed on 100 dmg or 700 dmg total.

While the numbers were tuned towards simpler math, the Principle holds. If you have hardly any ED yet, then Phoenix should improve your dmg (possibly a fair bit). However, the more off-weapon ED you already have (more str, fort, multiple auras, ...), the less benefit you get from Phoenix, up to the point where it does nothing or worse yet, past that point, where using Phoenix actually starts dropping your damage.

Comparing Phoenix to a 2nd 1-hand weapon works similarly (albeit with different factors playing into it, depending on your build, such as IAS changes and whatnot). The more ED you already have, the less relative benefit you get from equipping a Phoenix, up to the point where dropping that 2nd weapon becomes more of a loss than Phoenix can make up for.

Khegan wrote: 2 years ago

Unless it was "fixed" in D2R, Phoenix spell proc causes a brief cast delay (0.44 sec, IIRC).

Druid's

Firestorm casting delay will no longer share its cooldown with other skills after patch 2.4.
This should theoretically solve the Phoenix issue, I wish I thought about testing this on PTR.

Zelym wrote: 2 years ago

Druid's

Firestorm casting Delay will no longer share its cooldown with other skills after patch 2.4.
This should theoretically solve the Phoenix issue, I wish I though about testing this on PTR.

I didn't notice that change, but yeah, that should remove the delay for all skills globally. And if so, that's going to make Phoenix viable in more builds.

Here is one potential side effect of using Phoenix.

Achieving max block is going to take a large dexterity investment. I suppose maxing block isn't 100% necessary, but it's generally recommended on a melee character.

Ironembraced wrote: 2 years ago

Here is one potential side effect of using Phoenix.

Achieving max block is going to take a large dexterity investment. I suppose maxing block isn't 100% necessary, but it's generally recommended on a melee character.

Highly unlikely anyone is going to try to achieve max block on a

Monarch; it's preferable to keep block chance as low as possible to avoid getting block-locked, especially for a shield that doesn't have FBR.

Khegan wrote: 2 years ago

Ironembraced wrote: 2 years ago

Here is one potential side effect of using Phoenix.

Achieving max block is going to take a large dexterity investment. I suppose maxing block isn't 100% necessary, but it's generally recommended on a melee character.

Highly unlikely anyone is going to try to achieve max block on a

Monarch; it's preferable to keep block chance as low as possible to avoid getting block-locked, especially for a shield that doesn't have FBR.

To each their own.... but I will never build my melee characters like that.

With a shield equipped, you will be hitting less & leeching less.... & without the block, taking in the same amount of damage that you would without a shield.

Though, with high enough defense, this might not be an issue.

Have you tried Lawbringer in offhand? That seems to do the trick for me.

Decrepify weakens most things down to about 1 hit kills.

The question now becomes - I have all the runes for Phoenix now - should I take the chance and try to roll a good one or just save the runes?

I can't say that I have experience in this realm, but especially with the change to Act 1 mercs, using Faith or Brand on a

Fire Arrow merc, with Lawringer in the offhand, with either Grief or Phoenix in the other would seem pretty good. But even still, I'm not sure this would compete with Necro or Amazon, or even Sorceress for that matter.

If you use Lawbringer and Brand everything would be covered in either Amp Damage or

Decrepify all the time. I'm still not sure that's better than Faith though, and I haven't testing such things. If you used Brand though then maybe Grief + Phoenix would be good, with the merc putting Amp Damage on everything.

Currently using:

Lawbringer and Grief

Would

Oath + Grief be any good?

or Ebotd + Grief?

Short version:
Keep the runes and try - as already written - with a two-handed Breath of the Dying ... unless you like playing with 1h and shield.


Longer Version:
I have a max

Colossus Blade Breath of the Dying Barb that can also switch to one-handed Grief

Zweihander and

Stormshield (for style,

Stormshield for +35% Damage Reduce = 50% with

String of Ears) .
The Grief

Zweihander needs some more Dex points than I should need for 2h Breath of the Dying only, but that's ok for me .... I don't have max block (it should be 33%).
With the Life, Defense and max Resists it doesn't matter anyway imho.


Have tested dual Grief and / or Grief / Lawbringer, and it's not my thing.
I also think that it doesn't quite come close to 2h Breath of the Dying (on Player 1-4) in terms of damage ... It feels slower (maybe just a feeling).

Grief has constant damage, Breath of the Dying CAN have way higher numbers on hit .... especially with Crushing Blow.
Of course, if you have a low attack rating, Grief hits more often than the other variant.


Unfortunately, Pride for merc doesn't bring much to Players 7-8 either.
I also had thought about building a Phoenix, but I don't play much one-handed than it would be worth it for me.


In the calculator:
With 2h Breath of the Dying I have a

Whirlwind damage of approx. 66k,

Concentrate is 35k.
With Grief and

Stormshield it's 48k / 31k for me.
With Grief and Phoenix (400% Damage calculated, if you have luck) it will be at 66k / 38k.

As long as you can trust the numbers, it wouldn't be worth the runes to me ... .. unless you like playing with 1h and shield.


But on Players 7-8 it still takes forever compared to Sorc / Pala.

I did a test build to see and this is what I got using Phase Blades against Players 8

Baal. Grief + Lawbringer 70.72 second TTK using

Frenzy. Grief + Oath 67.12 TTK, Grief + Ebotd 64.95,Grief + Pheonix 66.01,Grief + Grief 55.32, and Grief + Last Wish 37.73seconds for

Frenzy w/ A1 Faith merc using Phase Blades, Enigma, arreats, steelrends, gores Doubt the base will change it much but that's my best guess at what your offhand should be.