Reload&Bonk - Hota UR/OP

Ain't got no time for shiny new skills, bad luck with Ubers or want some early "season proof" gameplay ?
This good ol' Hota reload build will help you cruise through the season by alternating Lunging strike and Hammer of the Ancients, taking full advantage of very fast weapon swap ** and **resource spending mechanics.

Rotation

1. Pop your Wrath of the Berserker and triple shouts to beef up and start Berserking
2. Lunging strike on the nearest pack
3. Hota the priority targets (Boss, elites, buffers)
4. Repeat

Pro tips

1. Pocket Commanding Shout and Wrath of the Berserker if you feel like they could be better used later (Freezing elites, Zombies, Hard bosses or packs)

This build is all about using Lunging strike and Hammer of the Ancients in a 1:1 ratio.

Damage wise, Hammer of the ancients will be our main offensive tool and we'll juice it up by combining multiple Damage boosts based off Berserking, Resource spending, Max resource, Weapon swap and ;everyone's season 2 favorite; Overpower. Attack speed will be the nitro of that beefy engine, and increase the rate at which we benefit from above mechanics.

For defense, we'll rely on Multiple Damage Reduction sources, loads of Fortify and Max Health, Capped armor and resistances and well, making sure mobs are dead before they can really hit you.

Supporting this simple gameplay will be performed by our dear Triple Shouts + Wrath of the Berserker combo, making sure we always have a skill ready for unexpected scenarios.

Pros and cons

Pros

• Simple, just left click + right click and jump around !
• Leveling friendly
• Only 2.5 paragon boards to start pumping
• Smooth gameplay with loads of attack speed, there's no need to overkill things
• One hit KO and Big numbers will still be very satisfying to watch
• No required uniques or ubers

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Cons

• A bit squishy in the first few seconds as you build up Resource, Berserk and Fortify
• Requires a good Defensive Chest armor (make sure to check out the recommended gear stats tab) to feel nice and cosy

Leveling

Reload & Bonk - Hota OP/UC (Leveling)

Main Skills and Gameplay

How do we put the build in motion ?
To answer that we'll split the gameplay in 3 sections

Damaging Skills

Our main damage output will be performed through a combo of :

• Lunging Strike (Reload)
• Hammer of the Ancient (Bonk) beefed up by Unbridled Rage (keystone passive)

We will use DIFFERENT WEAPONS (known as weapon swapping) for each skill (2H sword for Lunging Strike, 2H mace for HotA) in a 1:1 ratio (1 Lunging for 1 HotA) to guarantee a good Overpower uptime.

Supporting Skills

To support the main damage combo, we will use our 3 shouts that you can pretty much launch before engaging every other pack of monsters.

• Rallying Cry : For a 7.5sec buff that gives us %resource gen, Unstoppable (proccing Tibault's Will and GhostWalker Aspect) and Movement speed.
• War Cry : For a 7.5sec buff that gives us Berserking and a 15% Damage boost
• Challenging Shout : For a 7.5sec buff that gives us 40% DR

On demand Skills

In case of emergencies, some skills are better saved, in our case Wrath of the berserker is the golden one, here when to use it and why.

• (First Pack) Start of the dungeon : Wrath of the Berserker allows you to start Berserking and doubles up your Berserking buff bonus (25% extra damage becomes 50%) for its 5 sec duration (or more ?). So if the density is high, go and use it.
• (On demand) Boost/Unstoppable/Resource : Wrath of the Berserker also gives you the Unstoppable status for the duration of the buff on top of the aforementionned damage boost. So if you're stuck in a trap, freezing to death in the middle of 50 mobs, lacking resource, or in need of killing a big target fast (bosses), saving it for that moment could come in handy !

You will find In Depth details below regarding each mechanics this build is using.

In Depth Mechanics 1/3 (Offense, Resource)

Berserking

Our goal here is to maintain Berserking at all time, in order to do so we will use :

• Reliable Berserking sources to start berserking such as: Enhanced War Cry (Skill tree), Wrath of the Berserker (Skill), Combat Lunging Strike (Still tree)
• Berserking extensions sources to keep berserking such as: Relentless Berserker's Aspect (Aspect), Blood Rage (Paragon legendary node), Wrath of the Berserker (Skill)

Combining those will manage to always make you go angry during combat.

Resource management

HotA must be used at max fury for bonus damage thanks to Furious Hammer of the Ancient 1/1 giving us bonus dmg for each point of fury you had when using it.
In order to reach that resource cap, it's very important to have:

• Flat fury gain sources such as: Lunging strike (Skill), Furious Impulse 3/3 (Skill tree), 2H mace expertise (Barbarian passive), Wrath Glyph (Paragon), Fury on Kill (Paragon), Tuskhelm or Joritz (Unique Item), Aspect of Unrelenting Fury (Aspect)
• %Resource generation bonuses to multiply those sources (multiplicative with one another, so the more the merrier) such as: Rings affixes (Items), Banished Lord Talisman (Unique Item), HotA (Buff), Rallying Cry (Skill), Prime Wrath of the Berserker (Skill tree), Prolific Fury 3/3 (Skill tree), Willpower (Stat)

Overpower

We will force our next skill to overpower (displayed a buff) by using:

• Weapon swap sources such as : Earthstriker Aspect (Aspect)
• Resource spending sources such as : Banished Lord Talisman (Unique item)
  All those together will allow you to overpower quite often (albeit less than S2 due to less overpowering sources) and reliably your HotA.
• Other sources such as : Combat Bash (Skill tree), Bone Breaker (Paragon Legendary Node)

In Depth Mechanics 2/3 (Offense)

Critical hit

Critical Hit Chance is a damage mechanic that gives us a base chance (5%) to deal damage based off :

• (Multiplicative) Flat non scaleable x1.5 damage multiplier
• (Additive) %Critical Strike Damage bonus (Items/Paragon/Skill tree) such as Wrath Glyph (Paragon), Weapons Affix (Items), Grandfather (Unique)
• (Multiplicative) Other multipliers (Items/Paragon/Skill tree) such as Might Glyph (Paragon), Brute Force 3/3 (Skill tree)

It is possible to increase your change to critical strike by using:

• Flat %chance increase (Gloves/Rings)
• Conditional %chance increase (Aspects, Gloves, Paragon) and items such as Ring of Red Furor

Vulnerable

We'll rely on two ways to apply Vulnerable

• Exploit glyph (Paragon) which we combine with Outburst 1/3 (Skill Tree) and Tough as Nails 1/3 (Skill tree) dealing direct Thorn dmg to mobs hitting us, proccing the Glyph.
• Senechal Construct (Seasonal Schnitzel) giving us a chance to apply Vulnerable to damaged targets with Breaking Support (Tuning Stone)

Attack speed

To increase our attack speed we're using :

• CAP1 sources such as : Joritz (Unique Item), Gloves (Item), Ring of Red Furor (Unique Item)
• CAP2 sources such as : Accelerating Aspect (Aspect), Carnage (Paragon Legendary Node)

This should allow us to reach about 110% AS (+ elixir) during combat.

In Depth Mechanics 3/3 (Defense/Mobility)

Max Health

Can be increased in two ways:

• Flat value Max Health sources such as : Maximum Life Affix (Items), Unique items
• %Max Health sources (multiplicative with one another, so the more the merrier) such as : Imposing Presence 3/3 (Skill tree), Unique items, Rubies (Gems), Paragon nodes (Paragon)

Fortify

Fortify mechanic pose a problem for barbs, which is "If I regain my health faster than I gain Fortify, I'm no longer in a fortified state" and we tend to HEAL A LOT (potions, shouts, Invigorating Fury 3/3 etc) passively.
The solution to that problem is to cumulate two sources of fortify

• On demand Fortify generation such as: Iron skin (Skill), Mighty War Cry (Skill tree)
• Sustained Fortify Generation such as: Aspect of Numbing Wrath (Aspect), Strategic Rallying Cry (Skill tree) and Warbringer (Paragon legendary node)

Armor

Armor caps out at 13500 armor vs lvl154 mobs (NM100).
To reach that cap you can either increase your flat armor value (easy for barbs thanks to strength scaling and paragon nodes), or increase your %armor value (NOT multiplicative with one another)
In order to increase our armor we are stacking:

• Flat value armor sources such as : Armor from Strength (Stat), Paragon node (Paragon), Armor ilvl (Items), Juggernaut's Aspect (Aspect)
• %armor sources such as : Legs/Chest/Amulet affixes (Items), Disobedience Aspect (Aspect)

Resistances

There are multiple ways to approach this but we'll go with the standard approach here:

• Main resistances - Fire/Lightning/Poison resistances capping: 3x60% singular resistance on Chest and boot (Items)
• Secondary resistances - Frost/Shadow resistances capping: ~=Rings/Amulet sub stat (Items), 2x30% gems + 1x5% Diamond Gem

Movement Speed

Movement speed starts at 100% and caps at 200% and can be increased in two ways:

• Static movement speed source such as : Boots/Amulet affix (Items), Swiftness 3/3 (Skill tree)
• Dynamic movement speed source such as : Berserking (Buff), Rallying Cry (Skill), Wrath of the Berserker (Skill), Ghostwalker Aspect (Aspect)

Season Mechanic - Season of the Construct

The season of the Construct gives us a new pet; the Senechal Construct or Schnitzel (thanks @Vlad); with two active abilities known as Governing Stones that you can each link with up to 3 passive abilities known as Tuning Stones.

The setup explanations can be found below
Flash of Adrenaline : Player buffs are always desirable

• Tactical support : Lower the skill cooldown
• Duration support : Extends the buff duration
• Safeguard support : Gives us DR for the buff duration

Lightning Bolt **: Named itself, very good since **Tempest doesn't spread/multicast as expected.

• Breaking support : To give us a Vulnerable debuff source and break barriers
• Bleeding support : Bleed sources are always nice
• Multishot support : Moar lightning bolts !

We are valuing a ranged Damage over time here for it's continuous damage, multi targetting and utility capabilities.

Alternative Setup/Uniques

Shaco and Grandfather
Congratz, you no longer need weapon swap !

Ring of Starless Sky
Congratz you can achieve peak dps !

• Remove Aspect of Unrelenting Fury

Godslayer Crown
Lower version of Tuskhelm

Melted Heart of Selig
Got better use in different builds

Paragon Board

Probably the most cost effective board for a Strength Glyph.

• Ire Glyph for the %Dmg while Berserking bonus
• As many rare nodes as possible as their requirements are easy to get (especially early on)

2nd Board - Carnage

The best board for any Glyph giving %bonuses to Magic nodes as we can find %DR vs Close range and %Dmg while Berserking bonuses in range.

• Might Glyph for the %Bonus to Magic nodes
• As many rare nodes as possible as their requirements are easy to get (especially early on) and are Berserking related

3rd Board - Blood rage

Absolutely mandatory for every barb Build as it provides us with %Dmg while Berserking and the Legendary Node scaling off the same stat

• No Glyph there as the pathing is horrendous and Rare nodes are related to bleed (which we won't use)
• Rotated board to access the nearby %Dmg while Berserking nodes
• Blood Rage Legendary Node as the damage bonus is too good to pass

4th Board - Warbringer

A staple for any Hota/Ramaladni build, compatible with Strength/Dext/Willpower and Magic nodes Glyphs with excellent pathing and rare nodes (Max fury/Fortify related), Elemental resistance focused when its design counterpart, the Weapon Master board is more focused toward Armor.

• Crusher Glyph (non maxed as we lack points) for the %Dmg while wielding a Mace and Multiplicative %Overpower Dmg
• As many Magic/Rare nodes as possible as their requirements are very good to have later on and Max fury related
• Warbringer Legendary Node as we want a solid Fortify Generation tool for our overpower build

5th Board - Bone Breaker

Staple for Overpower builds, compatible with Dext Glyphs otherwise, very quick in &out pathing. Legendary node would desirable but pathing going there is a Tetris nightmare (pretty much forced to enter the board from two entrances)

• Wrath Glyph (minimum investment) for the %Critical Hit Damage and mostly the 3 Fury on crit

6th Board - Decimator

All rounder board, best paired with Willpower Glyphs, good for Vulnerable damage and providing %Max life nodes, Legendary node is easy to access and a solid multiplier for any build (even better for Overpower ones)

• Exploit Glyph (minimum investment) for the %Dmg vs Vulnerable and Vulnerable debuff
• Couple of Magic and Rare nodes for Max Health along the way
• Decimator Legendary Node which is an easy to get x1.1 to x1.2 (with overpower) dmg mult on top of the Vulnerable debuff

FAQ

AMA on discord
beatdropper

23/01/2024 : Initial version
29/01/2024 : Update