The TLDR 2H Barb

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zaito90
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I used ignore target defense and it works well when using normal attack, the problem is when using deathgaze, it rarely proc anything.
smartasss
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Ignore target def does not work on bosses.
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aerial
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You will have more than enough attack rating if you follow recommended items/upgrades. Especially after recent change that many sources add flat AR. We are basically back to hit chance almost as during visegrip era.
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Steak
Acid Prince
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proletariat
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I keep coming back to this guide for the charms list, locations and videos for tips -> Fantastic guide
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aerial
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No barb changes in 1.4, except blood hatred:
BLOOD HATRED:
Now requires a single melee hit to activate
Duration scaling increased by 100%
Enemy fire, cold and lightning resistance reduction increased by 50%
Life on attack now has a Base Level synergy
Health degeneration is now a fixed 2% of maximum life per second
Now decreases weapon physical damage by 50% + 10% per skill level


This is clearly tweaked for pure elemental builds as it adds negative enhanced damage, quickly nulifies skill %ed.
To sum this up, degen is weaker, duration is very long (buffs), pierce now smaxed goes to around 30% (buff but still average), life on hit is greatly reduced, it used to be slvl synergy, now base points, big nerf. And finally and probably most importantly you don't need to hit xx times to charge it, one hit maxes it out. Before 1 hit = 1 slvl worth of bonus, so having slvl 70 of the skill in endgame, required 70 hits to get full bonus, paired with short duration, skill was very difficult to use. Now 1 hit, and bonus is active.

Here example of maxed skill on high level character:

Image

Overall it has potential, but comes at quite heavy damage penalty, and most powerful aspect of the skill = life on hit, is reduced quite hard. 600 is of course nothing to ignore, but it is no longer 2-3k like it used to be which was absolutely crazy, if you could somehow live with this annoying windup.

Other thing is, if we are at elemental builds, using ele weapons, they were buffed too, 30% attribute scaling buff and procs were buffed.
All of this doesn't affect original build since we are phys based, this would require not only go with elemental base axe but also use kraken stance oskill, which changed build entirely.
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AlphaMagnum
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Sorry! I totally missed the more obvious thread for this question.

EDIT:

What does an elemental barbarian look like? Do you use Nephalem Spirit with maxed +skills?
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aerial
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AlphaMagnum wrote:Sorry! I totally missed the more obvious thread for this question.

EDIT:

What does an elemental barbarian look like? Do you use Nephalem Spirit with maxed +skills?


I would still stick to runemaster+runes.
If you go both kraken stance and neph spirit, you will be glass cannon, no defensive layers. Imo for build to feel good it needs either runemaster combo for big defense, or glad dominance + dex for block. Niether of those are possible if you select neph spirit.
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AlphaMagnum
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What are the best sources of Kraken Stance? Would it be viable to combine it with the Thunder King of Sescheron?
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aerial
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Crafted helm and weapons. Can't see it in affix docs now for some reason, but it used to be craftable on weapons as well. So dual wielding +29 kraken stance and same form helm, you'd get crazy high level. Of course getting good other mods on main hand at least would be mandatory. And for offhand ideally big pierce, because it works with main hand.

Issue with thunder king weapon is, that extra stormblast projectile only works in single wield mode. It was nerfed after 1.0, when ppl abused it using grandfather in main hand, resulting in crazy double stormblast dps.

Build based on kraken stance has its own challenges, as it has hidden synergy from all barb stances. So more random points you dump into stance tree (stances you will not use), more damage kraken starnce grants. So if you want big damage, you gonna be very skill point starved.

Another way would be go bear stance and neph weapons, but that would result in less elemental damage (since it is weaker than heavily invested kraken stance) and less defense (bear alone is weaker than spirit guide + runemaster).
One more downside of going ele weapons for damage is that it scales off your offensive stats, can't really afford investing into vitality. Phys build such as this from guide, that gets most of its ed from wolf stance, stops investing into str after gear req is met and rest goes to vit. Alternatively block uberskill version can do same with going dex for block. If you go elemental, ele weapons, or neph spirit, it promotes maxing str.
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