Now that Blizzard has released the skill calculator, I thought it might be fun to start theorycrafting and sharing potential builds. Here's what I've come up with this morning while trying to stave off boredom at work.
Magic Find Barb
When they first announced D3, the Barbarian seemed like the last class I wanted to play. I've always been averse to melee characters in general and, even though I ran around a fair bit in Diablo II with my WW Barb, it was never nearly as fun as my Bolt/Orb Sorc and Javazon. Now that I've been poking around I've made an interesting discovery that has made me completely flip my opinion of the Barbarian.
Anyone who was super serious about D2 knows that in that game, magic find was king. "Playing" D2 meant getting a Sorc to a high enough level to repeatedly kill Mephisto/Baal/Pindleskin/cows while rocking nothing but magic find gear and magic find charms. Well in D3 it seems that Barbarians are the only class that effectively get a bonus magic find effect from their abilities with proper Runestones. I made this build to take full advantage of this unique ability.
Frenzy - Crimson
The idea behind this build is maximizing the effectiveness of Battle Rage which gives all critical hits a 20% chance to drop additional treasure or health globs. For this purpose Frenzy makes the most sense as a rage generator. Unlike other abilities that increase attack damage, Frenzy increases attack speed and more attacks means more chances to crit. Since none of the rune effects improve the chance to crit, I figured the most sensible one would be Crimson which grants a maximum 120% increase to Frenzy damage.
War Cry - Alabaster (Obsidian)
More appealing for the ability to frontload an encounter with a free 30 Fury, the bonus max health/health regen seemed most in line with the general theme, staying up close and swinging for as long as possible. Depending on how pervasive elemental damage is at higher difficulties, it may be more efficient to slot in an Obsidian rune instead for the extra resists.
Threatening Shout - Obsidian
Only there because it grants a 22% chance to drop extra treasure. With its short duration it may only be useful right before the enemy dies depending on how fast Fury can be generated.
Hammer of the Ancients - Golden
Synergy! An ability that grants a whopping 55% chance for additional treasure or health globes whenever it crits. It also has an innate 15% critical hit bonus, making it the defacto Fury dump.
Battle Rage - Obsidian
The inspiration behind this entire build, grants a bonus to crit and a 20% chance for additional drops whenever any attack crits.
Overpower - Crimson
But you need to be able to deal damage too right? Not only does this greatly improve group combat with a strong AoE skill, but it costs no Fury (you just need to crit with an attack to use it), and it grants you a buff for an additional 22% crit with the right rune.
Bloodthirst
Maybe this is just the D2 player in me but I feel like health drain is a key to success in Diablo.
Ruthless
More crit chance and more crit damage, a no-brainer when it comes to a build like this.
Inspiring Presence (Weapons Master/Superstition)
More passive health regen seems like a good thing and having to cast Battle Rage less often means more Fury for Hammer of the Ancients. However, if Fury is plentiful then it may be worth picking up Weapons Master instead for the extra 5% crit with Maces/Axes. On the other hand, if elemental damage is the endgame killer then Superstition may become a necessity.
ROCKETEER! Demon Hunter
Demon Hunter was another class that seemed boring, mostly because I couldn't find any set of skills that would make it resemble my beloved Javazon. The thought of having to manage of two separate resources just made it seem more unappealing. Then I saw a little passive ability that mentioned an extra 100% damage from rockets. Wait what? Rockets?
It seems like a number of Demon Hunter abilities can also, with the proper rune, fire off homing rockets. HOMING ROCKETS. Of course once I became aware of this I knew that I HAD to make a rocket man/rocketeer build.
Multishot - Obsidian
The go-to ability for attacking large groups of enemies + rockets.
Strafe - Obsidian
The ability to attack while moving + rockets sound amazingly useful when fighting smaller groups/single enemies.
Rapid Fire - Obsidian
For optimal single-target damage + rockets, this ability is the way to go. Also with Marked for Death synergy, it should actually generate Hatred instead of costing Hatred.
Marked for Death - Golden
The bonus damage is just the icing. A 40% chance to generate 35 Hatred every second off of any of your attacks combined with 3-6 attacks per second with either Strafe or Rapid Fire equates to infinite hatred as long as Marked for Death is active.
Companion - Crimson
With all the bases covered as far as active damage is concerned, the remaining slots should be dedicated to passive or fire-and-forget damage. Free damage plus a snare that happens on its own is great. Also spiders are awesome.
Sentry - Obsidian
More passive damage plus passive rockets. Woot.
Fundamentals
Infinite hatred with Marked for Death is only useful when your target is marked for death. Weaker enemies will likely be dying too fast to warrant the Discipline costs of refreshing Marked for Death which means an alternative source of Hatred generation is necessary. Fundamentals seems like an incredibly solid way to achieve this, just 2 normal shots = a free Multishot.
Custom Engineering
Double duration for Marked for Death and Sentry effectively doubles your Discipline regeneration. If Discipline regenerates fast enough this may prove to be unnecessary, but Blizzard seems to be implying that it is verrry slooooow.
Ballistics
When making a rocket themed character, double rocket damage seems like a good idea.
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I've also got an idea for a Melee-zard but I probably should end this now before I get in trouble. Anyone else come up with any potentially exciting builds? I'm surprised that the two classes I originally felt the least interested in are now looking like the first two characters I'll be creating. I just need access to a shitton of level 7 Obsidian runes.
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