Frenzy HotNS Barbarian Skills and Runes
On this page, we explain how to choose and use your skills when playing Frenzy HotNS Barbarian in Diablo 3. Updated for Patch 2.7.3 and Season 26.
Active Skills |
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Passive Skills |
Rotation
Due to the mechanics of Frenzy — a heavy single
target-oriented skill, even with the added AoE supplements from
Bastion's Revered — the playstyle boils down to swift movements
across a Rift with
Furious Charge, finding Elite enemies and high
priority trash packs, mowing them down and moving on, leaving stragglers behind.
Keep in mind the requirements of
Merciless Assault and always aim for
roughly three enemies or more to obtain an instant reset of its cooldown. You
should also try and maintain your
Frenzy stacks, so you do not have
to build them up from scratch at every fight — easily achievable with a
quick swing at a random enemy in between
Furious Charges. When you
stumble upon desirable targets as described above, apply the
Threatening Shout
Falter debuff and focus the prioritized enemies with
Frenzy. While this build cannot keep up
Wrath of the Berserker
at all times, with a decent amount of cooldown reduction you should have it
available at every significant fight. Last but not least, keep up your passive
buffs —
War Cry and
Battle Rage — active at all times
for a massive increase to both survivability and damage, respectively.
Skills and Runes
The main focus and namesake of the build is Frenzy; one of the
staple Barbarian generator skills, elevated to a damage dealer through a
combination of the Horde of the Ninety Savages set powers and dedicated legendary
items like
Oathkeeper,
The Undisputed Champion and the cubed
Bastion's Revered. Note that for the sake of example, we have selected the
rune
Berserk, but due to the legendary belt's powers you obtain the
powers of all the runes, and can theoretically alter it to any element of your
choosing since they all share the same 0.75% proc coefficient. Take special note
of the powers of the lightning rune,
Smite — its Stun proc will
regularly trigger the damage amplification powers of your 2-piece set bonus.
Lastly, to better inform your gearing, you should know that while the the 15%
attack speed per
Frenzy stack is additive with itself, it is a
separate multiplier in your attack speed calculation, making attack speed rolls
on gear desirable (there are no diminishing returns.)
As discussed in the rotation section above, you will be strictly using
Furious Charge for mobility; and quite often at that. You will combine
your reasonable cooldown reduction rolls on gear with the self-sufficient CD
reset mechanics of the
Merciless Assault rune. In most circumstances,
this will allow you limitless mobility to seek out a favorable fight. If you
decide to go all-out on DPS and alter this build to use
Focus and
Restraint instead of our basic suggested setup, you will also need a
spender in this build — thus, alter this skill slot to
Rend.
Note the mechanics of the 2-piece Horde of the Ninety Savages set bonus:
doubling the effectiveness of Shouts. This effect covers all three skills in
your Tactics category: War Cry,
Threatening Shout and
Battle Rage. Considering how powerful even their base bonuses are,
implementing them in a HotNS build is a no-brainer.
War Cry is a staple defensive buff of Barbarians, providing a substantial armor buff as a base effect, and adding a massive Dodge chance increase via the
Veteran's Warning rune. The rune's bonus scales excellently with the set, all but enforcing it as mandatory for the survival it provides. The skill's duration long exceeds its modest cooldown, but do not neglect to reapply it at regular intervals.
- The default defensive role of
Threatening Shout is flipped into a 25% additive damage buff against affected enemies in a 25-yard radius, matching the needs of a close combat spec like the Frenzy Barbarian perfectly. With its generous 6-second duration and the Cooldown Reduction you will have to spread on gear anyway, you can reasonably achieve permanent uptime of the damage bonuses.
Battle Rage is a staple of the class, bumping up both damage and Crit Chance. While its 2-minute duration can catch you off guard, never allow
Battle Rage to drop — it is a solid source of damage, especially with the AoE-oriented
Bloodshed rune.
Sporting significantly less uptime — around 40% even in highly optimized
gear setups — Wrath of the Berserker is nevertheless included for the
incomparable stat buffs it provides, along with the humongous damage increase of
the
Insanity rune. In general, limit the use of this skill to
elite engagements; ideally, activate it the moment you reach the cycle of
Convention of Elements that matches your
Frenzy rune, as this
will result in two full burst cycles of the ring while under the effect of
Wrath of the Berserker
Insanity (see this
build's gear page for more information).
This concludes the overview of the active skills, now let us look through the passives.
Passives
Rampage is a staple in Barbarian endgame builds, as they often
emphasize swift movement from battle to battle, seeking and creating additional
density through skills and trash killing efficiency. The Frenzy Barbarian is
no exception. With the potential to stack up to 25% additional Strength,
increasing your damage and toughness substantially, it is important to learn to
keep this passive up. Always being on the move towards bigger fights, where
killing trash enemies will feed your stacks, is crucial.
In a pure generator build such as this one, Berserker Rage has
virtually permanent uptime and provides a substantial 25% damage increase.
Lacking the Wrath of the Berserker-resetting powers of the
Immortal King set or a reasonable
way to implement
Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac, the HotNS Frenzy Barb employs
other tactics to lower this crucial cooldown — the inclusion of
Boon of Bul-Kathos plays a major part, shaving 30 seconds off the standard
2-minute cooldown.
You have a degree of freedom when picking out your final passive slot. A
general recommendation is to take Ruthless, which adds a 40% damage
multiplier against enemies below 30% health — saving you critical time
during fights against foes with high health pools, especially Rift Guardians.
Another safer option for this slot is
Nerves of Steel, the Barbarian
version of the standard cheat death passive. As a melee spec that tackles
sources of damage spikes (Electrified, Fire Chains) on a regular basis, a fail-safe on a 60-second
cooldown is never a bad choice.
Changelog
- 10 Apr. 2022: Guide reviewed for Season 26.
- 09 Dec. 2021: Reviewed for Season 25.
- 22 Jul. 2021: Rune and passive recommendations revised.
- 06 Apr. 2021: Additional passive clarifications and choices.
- 28 Mar. 2021: Revised passive recommendations.
- 18 Nov. 2020: Revised Frenzy rune recommendation to fit itemization choices.
- 30 Jun. 2020: No changes required for Season 21.
- 07 Mar. 2020: Revised active skill rune recommendations and some additional passive alternatives.
- 06 Mar. 2020: Guide added.
More Barbarian Guides
Builds from Other Classes
This build is presented to you by Deadset, one of the very few professional Diablo 3 players. Deadset regularly publishes video guides on Youtube and streams on Twitch, where you can see how this and other builds play out in practice.
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