I know it’s early but I’m very disappointed in the build variety of barbarians so far. It’s shout builds only because anything else is too weak to compete. Even found the unique chain pull axe but giving up a shout on the bar is simply not worth it. Anyway with the start of the first season I’d like a class with some variety to play around with different builds. Any recommendations?
I play rogue and I think there’s like a decent amount of viable builds. Im running barrage with poison and ice that’s a lot of fun. I started with pen shot/shadow which was also cool. Then of course there’s the twisting blades rogue.
You might consider sorc? You can try out different elements or combinations of them, though I’m not sure how many of them are viable.
For season 1 I’m gonna play necro for the minions. Maybe I’ll start with bone spear/blood since ive heard bone spear is very strong and blood skills are satisfying to use.
I settled on Rogue too, after playing around with Druid and Barb. Running a flurry with poison build at the moment and enjoying it. Problem I have is there’s almost too many ways to be effective, whether you want to do ranged or melee
Haven’t played much of necro get, saving that for season 1 as well so feels fresh.
Druid has decent variety, but it depends on what sort of comparisons you are making. For pushing the very highest of NM-dungeons there is going to be less variety, in all classes.
There’s always one top build for solo pushing and that’s fine but on the way there I’d like to switch it up sometimes. Maybe have some unique drop and build something around that. At some point a unique 2h sword for bleed builds dropped but the skill/weapon effect is so weak and clunky that it simply isn’t worth it. Not even close. That’s what I’m trying to avoid.
Yeah but for a lot of us that isn’t the most important. But something to keep in mind for sure.
Yeah but I think that’s where the difference is. What is build diversity? Even if there are a “best build for X” (pvp, NM dungeons, open world content) - likely those will be different builds, and thus you have achieved build diversity.
So its about what perspective we take when we talk about build diversity. Is it to have several builds that can do X content at the highest level from one class? is it for builds to do several avenues of content at a high competetive level?
Druid has the most viable builds.
I am current playing HotA-barb with no shouts at all. Is it optimal? I don’t know, most likely not. Works for me though.
I actively avoid following guides etc, because it’s to easy to optimize the fun out of the game. Most likely there will always be the „best“ build, even if only mathematically. ¯_(ツ)_/¯
Played ww barb at start but i found it a bit boring so i tried a bleed build and was okayish in solo. Not so much fun when i played with friends and saw how much dmg they deal. After switching back to ww it’s so much better, also i would like to experiment more without feeling completely weak.
“Shout builds” aren’t a thing, since all shouts are support skills. There isn’t anything like the Singer/War Cry Barbarian from D2.
You’re right that the skill system in D4 tends to homogenize builds due to powerful cooldown skills though. Sorc has the same exact issue, where you keep the same 4 cooldown defensive skills in every build.
The class with the most skill diversity overall is Rogue I think, although there are still several skills with next to no use at the moment. Rogue at least has lots of options for Core skill/spender, and a variety of play styles (melee, ranged, traps).
