Seismic Slam Barbarian

[Valks 2,373]

This thread is for comments and feedback about our Seismic Slam Barbarian build guide.

[Guest Hophsta]

Really enjoying playing this is past seasons.

Thinking this should work very nicely in S16 with the big buff to Might of Earth  (6) piece Set bonus increased from 5600% to 20000% and free RRoG, letting you slot in CoE easily or something else.

Any recommendations for S16

[Valks 2,373]

11 hours ago, Guest Hophsta said:

Really enjoying playing this is past seasons.

Thinking this should work very nicely in S16 with the big buff to Might of Earth  (6) piece Set bonus increased from 5600% to 20000% and free RRoG, letting you slot in CoE easily or something else.

Any recommendations for S16

The S16 update is now in with recommendations on what to replace, enjoy! ?

[Guest Kurotou]

I've been loving this build for the past few seasons, but I've been wondering if there's any recommendation's you'd have to get around the anti-synergy of No Escape and Battle Rage - Bloodshed. Unless the build really aims to keep them in the 15-20 yard range exactly at all times, you can only really proc 1 or the other, which has always bothered me about the build. Or is it mostly that No Escape is a great boon for single target and Bloodshed just helps when we're mobbed anyways?

[Guest Prcofix]

I changed it up a bit. Added lut socks for extra leaps in the cube and changed call of the ancients rune to fury. TO cover the together as one loss i put unity on me instead of convention of elements and the templar, changed bane of the stricken to powerfull.I have only one ancient piece so far, nowhere near great stats on the gear and i'm doing around GR80 in 5 mins being invincible. When war cry, battle rage and wrath are all on, endless walk at max defense and leaps buff on i have over 1B toughtness. Damage could be a bit better, but it will come with better gear drops and augments.

I think the lut socks are worth the bit damage you loose by droping the convention of elements.

[Valks 2,373]

On 1/18/2019 at 11:28 PM, Guest Kurotou said:

I've been loving this build for the past few seasons, but I've been wondering if there's any recommendation's you'd have to get around the anti-synergy of No Escape and Battle Rage - Bloodshed. Unless the build really aims to keep them in the 15-20 yard range exactly at all times, you can only really proc 1 or the other, which has always bothered me about the build. Or is it mostly that No Escape is a great boon for single target and Bloodshed just helps when we're mobbed anyways?

The most important thing is that priority targets are within 15-20 yards, not all targets. You'll get used to positioning like this and kiting to ensure the priority targets are in that range. If you can keep more enemies there, it's great, but as long as you don't have your main target sat on top of you 24/7, it works well. This is especially true on RGs.

[Valks 2,373]

11 hours ago, Guest Prcofix said:

I changed it up a bit. Added lut socks for extra leaps in the cube and changed call of the ancients rune to fury. TO cover the together as one loss i put unity on me instead of convention of elements and the templar, changed bane of the stricken to powerfull.I have only one ancient piece so far, nowhere near great stats on the gear and i'm doing around GR80 in 5 mins being invincible. When war cry, battle rage and wrath are all on, endless walk at max defense and leaps buff on i have over 1B toughtness. Damage could be a bit better, but it will come with better gear drops and augments.

I think the lut socks are worth the bit damage you loose by droping the convention of elements.

This is definitely viable at lower GRs, but you will struggle immensely as you get higher up in GRs. You need Stricken to clear Rift Guardians or you simply have no chance of killing them in time at high GR levels. The same goes for CoE. You'll survive fine, but you won't clear the rifts in time.

[Guest Risen]

I see some people on leaderboard dropped perma wrath to equip istvan pair weapon(2 ik piece only). It somehow feel more HOTA-like and deliver around the same dps with more toughness. I mean (50% dmg) to (30% dmg and ias) seem fair trade, and faster stacking of stricken on solo boss without minions.

[Knutsanity 15]

11 hours ago, Guest Risen said:

I see some people on leaderboard dropped perma wrath to equip istvan pair weapon(2 ik piece only). It somehow feel more HOTA-like and deliver around the same dps with more toughness. I mean (50% dmg) to (30% dmg and ias) seem fair trade, and faster stacking of stricken on solo boss without minions.

Was thinking of that, don't have the Ancient 2 handed set weapon for perma wrath anyway yet. But seeing my buddies HotA LoN Cold build with 2 1 handers with freeze and cold dmg got me thinking. I think it would come down to whether the Ancients can keep your fury up with the increased attack speed. If they can, I think it would be much better than perma Wrath, or for me right now I have the Furnace in the cube and am wearing a real nice 2 hander for the seismic slam, it's likely better than that too. But I don't have the Cold 1 handers or set 2 hander to personally test between the 2 options, or even 3 if you like the thought of the furnace which is no where near as good as the other 2 options I'm guessing. 
If the Ancients can feed you enough fury while dual wielding and even during the times you can WotB, then it should be dual wielding all the way I'd guess. As long as you have WotB to pop at important times it sounds super good over the course of 15 minutes. Maybe even a cooldown gem in the helmet and cooldown/attack speed leg gem could put you where you need to be. But this all depends on the ancients ability to give you crazy amounts of fury. They easily keep up with my 2 hander speed, but I don't think I can even hazard a guess til I try it. Anyone have some experience with this? It could help us figure out our goal build.

But Honestly with the Azurewrath for cold Dmg, and the one that freezes 20% chance or so, very well rolled, It seems worth a thought at least. I'm no where near being able to try it, but was thinking I may end up there in time. 

Edited April 5, 2019 by Knutsanity

[Elekim 4]

Some minor notes:

1) Wrath of the Berserker and Call of the Ancients are suggested skills for both builds (GR and speed farm), but with echanged buttons (3 and 4 vs 4 and 3): why?

2) At the beginning of the speedfarm page it is written "The HotA Barbarian can deal reasonably well with Normal Rift farming...". "HotA" should be a typo, right?

3) In the speed farm page there are two slightly different setups suggested, but they are outlined in a way I found a little confusing: the first one uses War Cry (the suggested skill), Avarice Band (BiS ring), a cubed Goldwrap and Boon of the Hoarder (presented as "alternative" in the gem section, where Esoteric Alteration is the suggested third gem); the second one uses Sprint (presented as an optional skill), Band of Might (mentioned only in the "adapting Kanai's Cube" section, but not on the table or in the "adapting gear" section), a cubed Chilanik's Chain and (I suppose) Esoteric Alteration (the gem suggested if one prefer to stay away from the gold triumvirate setup is not clear...).

4) Which are the best-in-slot Potion and Follower for this build?

[Tasandmnm 0]

I am thinking of going to this build from the Leap/Earthquake build with 6 Might pieces. Main thing I hate losing is my mobility not having Lut Socks in the cube. Is this build viable with Lut Socks cubed instead of Fury of the Ancients cubed?

[Knutsanity 15]

On 6/8/2019 at 4:28 PM, Tasandmnm said:

I am thinking of going to this build from the Leap/Earthquake build with 6 Might pieces. Main thing I hate losing is my mobility not having Lut Socks in the cube. Is this build viable with Lut Socks cubed instead of Fury of the Ancients cubed?

No not at all. The best part of this build is the constant flow of fury from them. The extra distractions for enemies of having 3 ancients out there at all times as well. Those are the reasons to switch. Without constant fury so you can spam the seismic slam the whole time you are better off staying with earthquake. And unlike most classes this seems to be the only option to give enough fury to spam spenders. Other than HotA hitting 3 or less all the time. 
So I mean you could at the expense of 50% extra dmg taken(other Ancients rune), but that's a lot just to be able to leap consecutively. Leaping is awesome, I know, but once every 6 seconds or so is enough. Suppose you could have a T16 and speed farm build saved with lut socks at the expense of the 50% dmg taken, and a GR pushing build saved with the recommended.  

[Elekim 4]

Some minor corrections and clarifications to make the guide more complete and coherent (for new and casual players expecially):

1) The "Role in the Current Meta" section of the Intro page is missing: is it intentional?

2) In the Skill page, the table lists "Together as One" as the rune of choice for Call of the Ancients, while the text below and the Intro page say "Ancient's Fury" is the rune to choose. Is seems that "Together as One" is a typo, and should be replaced by "Ancient's Fury", right?

3) Wrath of the Berserker and Call of the Ancients are suggested skills for both builds (GR and speed farm), but with echanged buttons (3 and 4 vs 4 and 3): why?

4) One more IK set piece (for example Immortal King's Eternal Reign, as listed in the Intro page) must be labelled as "Best in Slot" in the table of stat priorities on the Gear page (with its MotE counterpart marked as "Alternative"). Following the "Best in Slot" labels as they are now one will end up with 6 MotE pieces, 2 IK and a RoRG...

5) Stone of Jordan naturally has +Elemental damage % (hoping to get Cold...), Increase damage against elites (not rerollable), Strenght (that can be rerolled into a socket) and just one more stat: thus, the order in which its stat priorities are written should be choosen carefully. Given as iti is, the recommended 4th stat is Crit Chance. Do you confirm it is more valuable than Crit Damage? Always?

6) I did not understand how important "+Life%" is for this built: it is present (which is not so common among the builds on this website) on the gem socketetd into the helm, and as a stat priority on Belt and Shoulder, but only as 5th affix (and thus not present on a perfectly-rolled item). If "+Life%" is not important (and the Amethyst in the Helm is there only because this build does not benefit from CDR of a socketed Diamond), maybe the socket on the helm should be moved to the 4th place in the lists of stat priorities, and the "+Life%" entries could be removed from the list for Belt and Shoulder (since they already are 5th...); if "+Life%" is a good affix for this build, maybe it should be added to other items too (the Chest Armor, for example)?

7) For the Helms, is Crit Chance more important than Seismic Slam %?
For Spires of the Earth, is Vitality really more important than Area Damage?
Why is Armor among the stat priorities for the Pants? It is of little use for a Barbarian, it's the only item where Armor is mentioned as a stat priority, and it's the 5th affix on the list... Isn't it better to remove it?
For the Boots, is Vitality really more important than Seismic Slam %?

8] In the Paragon Points section, the priority for the Core slot are: 1. Movement Speed up to 25% cap, 2. Maximum Fury, 3. Strength, 4. Vitality. Since Strength and Vitality have no cap, it is not clear which is the recommended point allocation after reaching 25% Movement Speed and maximizing Fury: all into Strenght? Or alternatively one point into Strength and one into Vitality?
Similarly, for the other slots, is there a recommended rotation for allocating Paragon Points? For example: is it better to maximize Crit Chance before moving to Crit Damage, or raising them both together one by one? Or PP should be spended to compensate gear imbalancies (for example prioritizing Crit Damage if you have more Crit Chance from gear)?

9) For the 5 sockets of Torso and Pants the guide suggests Rubies (for Damage) and/or Diamonds (for Toughness): how many of each? Is there a recommendation or it's completely up to personal preference? Is the choice linked to the stats rolled on gear, or to the number and allocation of paragon points?

10) The usual link to the Follower page is missing. Which is the best follower for the Seismic Slam Barbarian specifically? Templar, Scoundrel or Enchantress? With which gear (Thunderfury with Wyrdward? Freeze of Deflection with Justice Lantern? ...)? With which skills (Inspire or Guardian? Mass Control or Focused Mind? ...)?

11) Which is the best Legendary Potion for this build?

12) In the speed farm page there are two slightly different setups suggested, but they are outlined in a way I found a little confusing: if I understood right, the first one uses War Cry (the suggested skill), Avarice Band (BiS ring), a cubed Goldwrap and Boon of the Hoarder (which is, however, presented as "alternative" in the gem section, where Esoteric Alteration is the suggested third gem); the second one uses Sprint (presented as an optional skill, and only in the text below the skill table), Band of Might (mentioned only in the "adapting Kanai's Cube" section, but not on the table or in the "adapting gear" section), a cubed Chilanik's Chain and (I suppose) Esoteric Alteration (the gem suggested if one prefer to stay away from the gold triumvirate setup is not explicitly clear...). Thus, decide if the recommended setup is the gold trimvirate (and thus the "alternative" label should be moved from Boon of the Hoarder to Esoteric Alteration, and Band of Might should be added as"alternative" to the table of stat priorities) or not (and thus you have to change the recommended skill to Sprint and the BiS ring to Band of Might, leaving Avarice Band as "alternative"), and change the text accordingly.

[Valks 2,373]

I've passed it on to Deadset, thanks Elekim!

[albabe 33]

I think this build will be updated for 2.6.7 .  I cant wait to see what DeadSet thinks.

[Yolo 40]

On 11/17/2019 at 3:23 PM, albabe said:

I think this build will be updated for 2.6.7 .  I cant wait to see what DeadSet thinks.

Sadly, there is not much room to add the "new" legendary to this build, because it needs IK weapon to achieve the 4 set bonus w/ RoRG, and FotVP is much stronger than Fjord, so it stays in the cube. 

[Guest Hookums2005]

14 hours ago, Yolo said:

Sadly, there is not much room to add the "new" legendary to this build, because it needs IK weapon to achieve the 4 set bonus w/ RoRG, and FotVP is much stronger than Fjord, so it stays in the cube. 

With the new update the IK set will mostly likely be replaced with 5 pieces of the MotE set and 2 pieces of captain set with RorG. This new build will make beautiful use of Fjord along with Echoing Fury. Combine with Fury of ancients shoulders in cube to generate resource and 50% damage mitigation from all in one rune and you have a very fast seismic slam spamming monster. This further goes well with the seismic slam bracers for even more damage. Cube vanished peak, add the endless walk set and obsidian ring and boom you have a viable seismic slam build. 

[albabe 33]

Thanx DeadSet!

[Guest Garion]

I don't get how you achieve a permanent upkeep of Call of the Ancients and Wrath of the Berseker as stated in the build description.

Wearing all the recommended gear of the build I get a base CDR of 51% with CDR on gloves, shoulders, Cpt Crimson set, 1 Ring, diamond slotted in helmet and Paragon.

So the remainder of the cooldown should be covered by the Zodiac ring ... however in the best case both skills are just 60-75% on cooldown when they expire, even though I'm constantly hammering with Seismic Slam and without COTA active my fury generation basically stops.

Am I missing something here ?

btw anybody can tell me why a flat addition of all CDR% from gear and Paragon does not result in the CDR number shown in my character details ? (flat sum would be much higher)

My character details show me 50.93% CDR and I have

8% on gloves, 8% on shoulders, 8% on ring, 12.5% from diamond, 20% from Crimson set and 10% from Paragon ... sums up to 66.5% .!!

[Yolo 40]

Because the stacking of the CDR stats from different sources is multiplicative, not additive. 

Math:(x%reduced cooldown means 100-x% of the cooldown remains.) 

1-(0.92*0.92*0.92*0.875*0.8*0.9)=1-0.490573344=0.50942656

Which means your cooldowns get a 50,94% reduction. 

[Guest Martin]

On 12/5/2019 at 3:07 PM, Guest Garion said:

I don't get how you achieve a permanent upkeep of Call of the Ancients and Wrath of the Berseker as stated in the build description.

This is my issue as well... At first I though that it was because I did not have all the gear pieces. Now I have them, and as you state -- there is not a 100% upkeep of Call of the Ancients.

Dealing damage for 20s followed by 10s hiding in the corner is not fun.

How is this build supposed to be played!?

I replaced the Fury of the Vanished Peak with Messerschmidt's Reaver and that makes it almost playable. But there's a lot of damage lost.

[DeathMonger 0]

 

On 12/5/2019 at 9:07 AM, Guest Garion said:

I don't get how you achieve a permanent upkeep of Call of the Ancients and Wrath of the Berseker as stated in the build description.

I just picked up this build and I'm having the same problem.  I figure the answer must be in making sure that you're consistently hitting enemies with your slams all the time.  Maxing out cdr is the obvious idea, but the guide suggests getting it at least to 50%, and I have mine at 55.32% and I'm still having trouble with it.  Increasing attack speed could also help by proccing obsidian faster. 

Other thing to be mindful of is to not cast battle rage and war cry needlessly so that obsidian procs aren't wasted on them.  The guide mentions using war cry for fury generation, but that's pretty useless compared to fury of the ancients.  For that matter I guess it's better to be without WotB than CotA since you die without CotA; can't even slam when you're fury's out.

[Guest EbonyF]

Question: maybe im domb but....is it possible to slot messerschmidts reaver over fury of the ancients and still make this work? I did....and i slotted the Earthen Might passive over Rampage....it works well....i just wonder if it will work in the later GR pushing, even though i lose some Fury generation

 

THOUGHTS?

 

[Guest ShadowLich]

Strange choice to use "Together as one" as rune  and cube "Fury of the ancients".

I am cubing "Bracers of Destruction" wearing "Mortick's brace" and use "Ancients fury" as rune this way still have the 50% dmg reduction and other bonuses from Mortick's.

Other thing I use "Band of might" and "Squirt necklace" instead of Endless Walk... 

 

[Behdirah 0]

I guess the skills and/or cooldown have changed since this guide was created after hearing all the people having trouble with maintaining the cooldowns.

Since it is quite hard to maintain call of the ancients and wrath of the berserker you can opt for a build without uptime on wrath of the berserker by going for 2-set immortal king (Call of the ancients lasts until they die) by using the belt slot instead of the captain crimson.

This gives you quite a bit of freedom:

• No "obsidian ring of the zodiac" needed -> Replace with "Band of might" for 80% dmg reduction
• All stats for CDR can be replaced with offensive/defensive stats
• You can even opt for replacing wrath of the berserker alltogether for another skill
• No need for the boon of bul-kathos -> Free passive slot

I'm not sure how this plays out on higher level grifts as i'm still getting by in my crappy gear. At my level (~75 grifts) I actually got a big improvement on survivability without sacrifizing damage.