Okay, so I tried following one of these so-called budget builds, copying similar money caps and stats for a barbarian. The thing is that I had a far bigger budget but felt that I didn’t get much out of it. When I gave it a try on MP5, I felt that I was even less effective, despite being able to pull out more damage. Maybe it was my spec or perhaps missing an item or two, but I felt like the gear I purchased was far less effective than what I normally have on my barbarian.
So the thing is that the high end barbarians use Immortal Kings gloves and chest for the two set bonus, Innas Temperance and Lacuni Prowlers for movement boosters, Ice Climbers with a socket, Mempo of Twilight, Vile Wards, Skorn, Witching Hour (or Immortal King’s Tribal Binding for the price) as well as some other items to boost up vitality and resistance. I was missing the Mempo of Twilight and Witching Hour, but have everything else. Maybe my amulet and ring (it not being a trifecta) could hurt me slightly. However, the stats tended to be slightly lower with my resistance hurting and missing out on some life-on-hit at the end of the day. While I could kill things at an okay rate, I found it far more difficult to regenerate fury and had survivability issues since my overall resistance was lower on top of the missing life-on-hit compared to my normal gear set.
I might give it another try but I feel like I’m missing something (besides the spec). That said, I’m not using that popular strategy for gearing. Instead, I’m using the 5 piece bonus set for Immortal Kings, along with Depth Diggers and Bul-Kathos’s dual weapons. My current set puts me at 130k compared with 170k DPS but I gain more in terms of resistance and life regeneration capabilities. The big thing though is that I don’t have as many fury issues as my fury is passively regenerated.
On a side note, I might give Diablo 3 another shot since I’m feeling slightly burnt out of World of Warcraft. I think my toons on World of Warcraft are mostly in a good spot but the constant grind is wearing thin on me. But Diablo 3 is something that has been in the back of my mind for a while now (along with Path of Exile and Baldur’s Gate 2) and I’m hoping to relax a bit by having less time consuming games.