page#2841: Hi there! Well, I am a mid-thirties guy from Germany. As a gamer I primarily play Diablo3, while professionally I spent the last couple of years as a Researcher at University and doing and saying smart stuff. What fascinates me both privately and professionally is figuring stuff out, which is part of the reason I am kind of hooked on Diablo3 - although Diablo likes to sneakily keep actual mechanics in the background :p
Originally I only really started posting in the US Forums after having participated in the 2.1. PTR and people kept asking questions about Barb mechanics and how Raekor could get into higher Grifts. That is kind of when I got more involved and started spending a lot more time in the forums. I had a lot of fun theorycrafting and discussing all things Barbarian over the last year. Barb forums quickly became one of the main reasons for me to stick with Diablo3.
page#2841: I used to be a total sports freak until I splintered my ankle last year. Still got a 12” steel plate in my ankle/shin, but it is coming along. Anyhow for a couple of years I used to mostly do Capoeira (Brazilian martial art), rock climbing, bodybuilding and running. Although the broken ankle is a big hit, that story is not over. I will be back! (Barbs like Arnie! ^^)
So, since currently sports is only a pretty small part of my leisure time, I mostly divide my attention between good TV shows, good books and Diablo 3 and forums.
A very dear hobby of mine has always been to look for good books, especially in English. I kind of started to read almost exclusively in English at the age of 15 (my parents sent me to England for summer vacation and told me they would pay for all the books I brought back home). Ever since then I kind of sifted through tons of books by going through second hand shops wherever I can find them, and it is very surprising how many good books can be found that way. Especially weird older sci-fi novels! On average though, I have to admit, I dismiss 3 books I started reading per everyone I end up finishing (usually in one night then, because if it is good, I HAVE to keep on reading!), but the gems I find are totally worth it.
Additionally I really like cooking and experimenting with different food, especially with weird stuff where I usually have no idea what it actually is. And I love it spicy, which is especially fun when over the years, the girls I dated usually did not like spicy, so I was always challenged to make the food so irresistible that they could still not stop eating it. Ok I tuned down the spicy part a bit for those occasions, but just a little :D
Oh and I drive a bike. The kind with too much horsepower that should be nerfed but is just too much fun.
page#2841: My gaming history started with my 2 elder brothers getting a Commodore64 and a ton of different games. Unfortunately, since I was the little brother, that meant mostly watching, and later, when we had a PC and LANs became a thing, I sometimes got the chance to use the worst computer in a 4player LAN that nobody wanted to use and try to compete with my brothers (is there any better incentive for a little brother to be good at gaming? :p) Eventually I got more clever in getting more time at the PC, even though my parents were really strict about that (had to buy a few spare keyboards, cause my parents kept taking them away).
Anyhow, the most memorable games for me over the years were Civilization I, Doom I+II, then Warcraft II, Diablo I, Starcraft/Broodwar and then foremost Diablo II, playing HC as a Barb. After D2 though, I took a long break from gaming and concentrated on University and “RL”. When they announced D3 though, I knew that my abstinence was over and it was all the reason I needed to learn about computer hardware again, start building a Gamer PC, and “test” it on SC2 first and then move over to D3 later.
page#2841: Uh … there is not much besides Diablo currently. I tried a few games in the last 2-3 years, and I really loved Skyrim and Dragon Age. All other games kind of rather had not captured my interest for long or just didn’t leave too big of an impression afterwards.
page#2841: I just finished gearing a Rolands Crusader to have an option for Single Target dps in groups. A RL friend of mine just came back to D3 and I am mostly playing with him right now on EU. Although 2 Barbs is fun, it might be nice to level some gems in higher grifts eventually, so someone has to provide the Single Target dps and I am not putting on heels!!! :p
page#2841: Nope, not in a clan. I have a friends list and use end game communities I feel I am way too inconsistently active for a clan.
page#2841: Well back when Raekors was viable for high grift group play (*hint*hint* Blizz), we had a Conduit at the beginning of a level while we spawned the RG at the exit. So I ran back to the Conduit. I assumed that the others were fighting the RG all the while and just clicked the Conduit without asking and ran back as fast as I could. Unfortunately, all three waited in the next level for me to tell them to come back before I clicked the Conduit because they did not want to get killed by the RG. Got some choice words over TS there ^^
page#2841: It wasn’t really a moment, but a process, which was on ptr 2.1. when Grifts were introduced and the scaling of mob HP and especially incoming damage just felt insane. I had always preferred Raekor over Leapquake, and at first, without Vilewards, it was a tough competition to keep up with the leapquakers that I enjoyed thoroughly. I think I was the only Raekor in the top 10 in the first iteration.
Then when Vilewards got introduced, for a while I ran uncontested and mostly competed against myself since others had to switch completely while I could concentrate on optimizing, which I enjoyed immensely because every level I advanced was presenting me with new challenges that at first seemed unsurpassable, but I kept at it and had a real nice progression curve going. I had a lot of fun figuring out ways to increase damage and survivability. I guess those first 2 iterations were the most enjoyable experience in D3 I had to date
page#2841: It is not really a question of being drawn to it, but rather, how could any other class in any kind of RPG ever have the same kind of allure as the melee brute. Guess I watched too much Conan in my youth or read too many fantasy novels and always liked the Fighter more than the Mage. Although Pug the Sorcerer was kind of an alluring personality too, or Zeddicus Zu’l Zorander. Hm … come to think of it, I have no idea why I am so in love with the melee brute, but the melee brute it is!!!
page#2841: I’d say tactical melee glass cannon. Get in as much as possible, while using every tactical angle available to get an advantage while doing as much damage as possible while taking a lot of risks.
page#2841: Lol. Bloodshed ^^ Uncontested. Why? Because it double dipped! Well it used to :p I loved how it worked together with physical and elite dmg, spreading out your dmg equally and allowing you to kill elites more effectively by using white mob damage to splash on the elites. It made for a very smooth AOE experience and the optimization for it was a lot of fun for me (chc, chd, phys, elite, debuff dibs values and playstile optimization).
page#2841: For 2.2. I am currently running Raekor with F+R for speed lower 40s, Raekor with RoRG/Crown and SOJ for T6 and Waste/IK/Oath variants for testing/fooling around. I am planning to experiment a lot with different WW builds.
Although my Raekor gear still is pretty bad on live (I think I spent more time on ptrs than on live), for most purposes in the game, Raekor is still pretty much king.
WW is very easy to get into though and shows very good results quickly and especially more consistently and gearing is done a lot faster. I will probably get an Ancient BB before I get an Ancient Furnace and the non-reliance on CDR makes the affix lottery a lot better. But honestly, for me, the pace of 6Waste/4IK is too slow. I like the faster paced 6 IK/Oath, unfortunately it is not competitive without Morticks for solo. Well, the era is still young!
page#2841: Quite a few actually.
For one, decent Raekor gloves. I am still wearing really bad ones. I already got perfect IK and Waste gloves in Ancient, but I am still wearing badly rolled non-ancient Raekor gloves
Then ofc Ancient Furnace and Ancient BB as the most important weapons for the two builds. I am still running around with the mediocre Furnace that I found in the second week after ROS release :/
page#2841: Well since IK set is the generic set for future builds and because we obviously (!) will get some form of Morticks back, we need some competition there:
Shoulders+Bracer Set, each got one affix, unlocked only when wearing both pieces:
- Threatening Shout’s radius is increased by 15 yards, grants +40% MS for 15 seconds and gains the effect of the Demoralize rune. The taunt duration is increased by 4 seconds. Threatening Shout now sends enemies into a stupefied frenzy to attack you, increasing their movementspeed by 60%, but in their confusion their attacks deal 50% less damage.
- You charge up the power of your Hammer with an additional small jump for up to 8 yards prior to hitting your target, dealing 400% more damage. Your overall attack duration is increased by 30% via the addition of the jump.
Obviously it would need tweaking and the details need to be hammered out a bit more to make sure the taunt, damage reduction and movementspeed buff cannot be used for WW builds (too easily), but the basic idea is that I like gameplay that is tactical and needs situational awareness, trying dangerous stunts and getting away with it. As such I like the principal of having to go into an area and having to “prepare” the mobs, but NOT just by sucking and stunning the whole map together. As such I would like to see more taunt mechanics applied and I think Threatening Shout is perfect for that (well if the taunt works reliably! :p)
The idea would be, that you can taunt as many mobs as you want, but you would not survive it if you just stood there. So you have to try and use good positioning and choke points to survive the taunt.
Then ofc it needs a nuke to really get this build going and since we already have that new Gavel of Judgement, I would totally opt for Hammer of the Ancients and I kind of like the mix of having high MS, taunting enemies, good positioning and then having a slow but heavy nuke for the assembled crowd.
The mini jump from HotA is not only there to visually signify the stronger hit, but also to serve as mini escape and for positioning, since mobs swarming around you sometimes need to be jumped over.
Additionally, that build would have great Single Target Damage. And Barbs have a great longing for that!
page#2841: It would be less about changing the class, but more about making it more rounded out and making sure it got more build options, which would be a lot of little tweaks. Well, if it had to be just one single thing, I guess that would be to make sure Boss fights are a LOT more enjoyable for Barbs overall. Or having a group slot for higher Grift groups
page#2841: Does the spit on the ground animation count as a quote? Because then I would take that one!
page#2841: Read Tao’s Barb FAQs! Well everyone else already redirected to CC’s Compendium, and I cannot really just give the same answer, so I opt for reading Tao’s thread!
page#2841: Wordmaster#1125, because his words are beautiful (his eulogy for Bloodshed is a masterpiece! http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/16544975279?page=2#32) , or Baconinja#1209, because Bacon is awesome (the stuff to eat ofc)!
page#2841: Yes! Can we get a more direct form of communication with development for all things Barb related?
Oh wait … for this interview? Uh … it seems to me that the questions are already rounded out pretty well!!! Good job!
page#2841: We don’t do that in civilized countries! Poor cows! If I ever visit Norway though, I will remember to do that!
04/15/2015 08:05 PMPosted by BaconinjaHey Grimiku, you goathead! I know I am awesome but you haven't interviewed me yet!
