Namely a pet-less/totem-less build that works with big whopping weapons and shouts. Druid is nice, but the class is built around pets/totems.
Tried doing it in BM and Shaman, but uh… Yeah. No go. Unless someone has any builds that work, I’m going to have to go back to Rogue.
Beastmaster sorta loses out on some value by not going pet. but interestingly enough is the most barbarian related in fantasy. it focuses on melee, being tanky, and having aspects of animals to help it do battle.
Aspect of the shark stacking Beastmaster is very much barbarian pilled. You throw the pets on simply to proc some bonuses.
But yeah. if we consider something like D4’s barbarian, you wont really get that. As D4 has Barbarian/Druid. one is the raw beef fighter type, and the other is nature/pets/transform.
LE has the primalist, which combines those two archetypes into one.
Barb will be here someday. They keep talking about it in the dev streams. When? Not soon, but it’s coming eventually, lol.
Just go pure werebear.
You’re a big beefy dude, ripping apart enemies with your bear hands.
You’ve got shouts, which enable frenzy, a better frenzy than Barb ever had since it hits AOE by default.
you’ve got Maul which can trigger Upheaval, and which is very satisfying to use to crush a bunch of foes at once.
You don’t need to drop a single totem, or bring a single pet.
You definitely want to grab some BM passives (aspect of shark and boar are far too good to pass up), but ultimately my Werebear Druid fulfilled my Barb fantasies to a T. The only thing it doesn’t have is Whirlwind, but if you want to spin to win, or want to specifically SEE the big 2 hander rather than just wielding it, Sentinel is the way to go. Then you have auras you can activate rather than specifically shouts, but that’s really splitting hairs. More importantly from a “feel” perspective though Werebear just ‘feels’ like way more of a rampaging monster than Sentinel does, which is why for me it was a better fit for that class fantasy.
For skills, I’d go:
Werebear (focusing on rage recovery, Fury Leap on maul, and either Upheaval on Maul or Maelstrom on Swipe)
Swipe (focusing on Aspects, big reach and leech, and / or armor shred)
War Cry (focusing on Berserker stuff, pulling them in not pushing out, and possibly crit stuff)
Fury Leap (focusing on damage, area, and resets, unless you need ailment cleanse)
Upheaval (focusing on Tremblor, and either damage with Hindering Tremors and Earthbreaker or area with Quarry Maker) -or- Maelstrom (focusing on physical conversion and the windfury route); depends on which you prefer and what route you went with werebear.
No summons, no totems, just a giant bear absolutely wrecking opponents.
Both Beastmaster and Shaman can be played without totems or pets. That is as close as you can get right now.
I see what you did here, and I like it.
Beastmaster focusing on shark aspect is what you want as others have mentioned, there’s pure phys/lightning swipe spam for something like a frenzy barb or you can go Earthquake with swipe/tempest strike as a generator for a more slam playstyle.
Warcry and Maelstrom(autocast from warcry) are generally used as self buffs along with Frenzy totem to buff on bosses. Wolf is also typically used just for the Howl buff+Aspect of Lynx but not necessary.
As some have mentioned, there’s several Primalist builds that give that barbarian / berserker feel. But you can also pull this off as a Sentinel. I really enjoy Forge Guard with a 2hander, rive, lunge, and forge strike. It just feels good. Werebear feels amazing to play, and Beastmaster is fun too.
Thank you for the suggestions and ideas, I sincerely appreciate it. The issue is that for me, the Primalist/Beastmaster feels like the old World of Warcraft Melee Hunter if you go solo pet, and I HATE the Hunter. Actually, I HATE pet classes in general.
The Druid is tanky, but the damage is abysmal. It takes me so long to kill anything.
And the Shaman feels like a frost bitten version of the D3 Witch Doctor, and that’s the one class that I’ve never capped in that game.
I’ve been playing Diablo style Loot Based ARPGs, and if I can I always like to go Warrior or Barbarian (In the general term, in PoE I love the Marauder).
I also tend to play offensive melee builds in these games (though typically bruiser style where I’m tanky enough to face tank) and Sentinel fits that theme much better than Primalist does imo. Sure Primalist has a lot of the standard Barbarian skills (Earthquake, Upheaval, Leap) but Sentinel just feels more like a Frontline warrior where Primalist feels more like a melee caster (like Spellblade).
I’d also give an honorable mention to Melee Falconer and Bladedancer when using sword and shield. My fire melee falconer was probably the most fun melee build I’ve played in the game with fiery explosions everywhere