The Ultimate War Cry Gold Find Barbarian Guide
Introduction:
I love building a gold find barb every season because of the thrill of finding the best gold find equipment, gambling amazing stuff (Maras, Sojs, Amazing Circlets/tiaras/coronets, Rare amulets, and 10fcr rings with crazy stats), and if you get bored, the ability to sell massive in game gold for forum gold with little to no effort.
This build is geared more towards all +gold find and the ability to control Travincal rather than a +gold find/magic find build. I personally choose gold find over magic find because in the end, gambling has the chance to yield faster and better stuff that will sell for forum gold.
I truly believe this is one of the best guides/builds you can do for a gold find barb. I have perfected it over many seasons and believe that this is far superior to any other build out there.
Skills:
Warcries Tree:
Howl: 1
Taunt: 1
Shout: Max
Battle Cry: 1
Battle Orders: Max (+ life is a must for trav)
War Cry: Max (personal choice, explanation below)
Battle Command: 1
Find Potion: 1
Find Item: Max (Better your chance at getting something good when you hork)
Combat Masteries:
Increased Stamina: 1
Increased Speed: 1
Ironskin: 1
Natural Resistances: 1 initially after you maxed the ones listed above to max. Then put the rest into here
Things you can do to vary the build
(I suggest you stick to the above until you are comfortable with a GF barb, then you can experiment however you want)
Varying build tip: Of the people who I have helped with this build, I have seen people not need natural resistances as much. If you so choose and can gain resistances else were, you may want to put your extra skill points into battle cry (reduces defense and attack and allows u to kill even quicker). At lvl 10 Battle Cry you can reduce enemy effectiveness by -68% defense, -34% damage, and lasts 33.6 seconds. At lvl 16 you can reduce enemy effectiveness by -80% defense, -40% damage, and lasts 48 seconds. So you can see by pumping up battle cry it will help you out a lot. It will also increase War Cry damage, which you don’t necessarily need but any little bit helps.
I only suggest this is if you feel comfortable with your build and your resistances.
--Explanations of the skills will be talked about later.
Stats:
Strength: as much as it takes to wear your armor. Before you build your barb, I suggest getting highest torch and annihilus possible, then building your character.
Dex: None
Vitality: All the remaining points should go here.
Energy: None
Gear:
**Side note: the first choice such as Helm 1: will often be the easiest route and least expensive. The people without huge wallets will want to consider these first. In no way does this mean you should get both(unless u want to). This is just like option 1 option two.
Your Gear
Helm 1: Ik helm (37gold find + 2 open sockets, socket with 2x Lems = 137 gold find)
Helm 2: Artisans Tiara of Wealth: 41-80% natural gold find with 3 open sockets. Socket with 3x lems = 191 – 230% gold find. (This will cost u a considerably amount)
Weapons Main: 2x 6os Crystal swords socketed with all lems 12x 75% = 900gold find.
Weapons Switch: 2x +3 Warcries weapons. Echoing Glaives etc. (for buffing you and your merc. Also stick with glaives as spears require more dex)
Belt 1: 80% gold find Goldwrap
Belt 2: 80% gold find with FHR or FCR with +Life / Mana/ Str Etc. (will pay more for better stats but worth it)(ex. I use 8fcr 10fhr 37life, 20 mana, regen mana 7, 80% gold find crafted belt)
Rings: 2x Dwarfstars : 100% gold find per ring = 200% gold find.
Boots 1: 70% gold find Infernostrides (cheap, fire resist, and 70% gold find)
Boots 2: 80% gold find boots with FRW/ FHR / Fire resist etc. (will pay more for better stats but worth it)
Armor: Runeword “Wealth” in preferably high defense 3 open socket armor.
Amulet: Aim for an amulet with +1 or +2 barb skills or +1/+2 warcries and 70-80% gold find. Extra mods like FCR, Mana, Life, Resists, and Str etc are nice. (expect to pay more for better stats)
Stash: Runeword “Edge” Bow for when you want to gamble. It’s a must because of the 15% vendor reduction. It’s very cheap and easy to make. Just go to A1 normal Charsi and search for a 3os bow. Run out of town, rinse repeat till u find one. Then socket it with Tir Tal Amn.
Inventory Charms 1:
Gheed: With highest possibly gold find. 160% gold find is max on gheed.
Grand Charms: 9x 40% gold find
Small Charms: 10x 10% gold find
Optional, but highly suggested: Sacrifice a grand charm and pick up a barbarian torch and annihilus.
Inventory Charms 2:
Gheed: 160% gold find /x/ 15% vendor reduce (where X is Magic find) 160/40/15 is a perfect gheeds.
Grand charms: 8x +1 warcries with 35% -40% gold find on the same charm. Ultimately you are trying to get all +1/40%. (Expect to pay a lot for these)
Small charms 1: 10%gold find /11% single resist (fire, lightning, cold, psn)
Small charms 2: 10% gold find / 5 all resistances.
Barbarian Torch: 20/20 or 18+/15+ torch
Annihilus: 20/20/x or 15+/15+/x (where x is experience, up to you)
Merc Gear:
Helm: 100% gold find Crown of thieves. Eth 100% gold find Crown of Thieves is better for the defense, but you will pay more for it. Socket this with a Lem for a total of 150% gold find.
Armor: Runeword “Wealth” in high defense Ethereal 3 open socket armor.
Weapon 1: Ethereal Bonehew with 2x lems = 150% gold find in the weapon (requires high str on merc, and thus higher level before u can begin. Explained Below)
Weapon 2: Ethereal 3os Tombreaver socket with 3x lems = 225% gold find in the weapon. (Expect to pay a lot for this. In my opinion it’s the best possible gold find barb merc weapon)
Merc Skills:
You will want to go to A2 Nightmare and choose Offensive (Might) Merc. Reason for this is, combined with War Cry, you and your merc do not need Holy freeze. It’s best to have the extra damage from might.
General Strategy:
Take the way point to Travincal, switch to the 2x +3 warcries sticks. Buff Battle command first, then Battle orders, then shout. Switch back to the lem’d crystal swords. Proceed to Run to Archway. This is just before you go down to Durance of hate lvl 1. Stop just underneath the archway or just before it. The reason for this, you trap all of the council members at this point. (You may often encounter council members all piled up just before the archway. This is fine, run directly up to them and War Cry them. You also may encounter them split up, half in the section below the archway and half above, this again is fine, continue to the archway and allow them to one by one come to you). Once you have them at the archway you continue to stun them with War Cry. In between one of the stuns, switch the 2x +3 warcries sticks and do Battle Cry. This will reduce their defense and their attack and allow them to be killed quicker. Immediately switch back to the lem'd crystal swords. Then watch as your Merc kills every single one of them. After they are dead, by personal preference, leave the 2x 6 lem’d Crystal swords equipped and hork or (find item) all of them. I prefer gold over the +6 skills bonus on find item.
The reason for this positioning is it prevents you from being attacked if one of them gets loose, while still being able to stun them. You may take occasional hydra, but with a good War Cry, you can reduce the hydras. Also with your gear and fire absorb, hydras are a joke and should be no problem even if there is a mess of them up. If you do get a lot, do not panic, they are generally harmless.
Some problems that can be associated with this and any build are: Geleb or one of the other super uniques has amplify damage and or is extra strong and or has Fanaticism aura. These can pose problems because if one of them does get loose, it could hurt. Most of the time you don’t have to worry as your War Cry + Merc will take care of them. Another problem is Ismail being immune to physical. As I state below, he can auto focus your merc and drastically reduce the time it takes to kill trav. Try your best to lure him away, or reposition your merc to have him kill the others (hork as soon as they die, when all are dead except Ismail, make a new game).
Question/Answer Section:
Question:
What level do you need for this build
Answer:
84 - 86+. If you are lucky and can get an Eth 3os Tombreaver you can start at 84, but if you aren’t, your merc needs bonehew and requires 185 str. You do not get any str on your equipment and is a waste to socket Crown of thieves with Fal. Also 86+ increases your chances to gamble something decent. I suggest spending time and getting your barb to 90-93. It will pay off in the end just through gambling.
Question:
Why War Cry and not a leap build?
Answer:
I have never personally tested leap, but I have ran with numerous barb gold finders over the course of 4+ seasons in doing this and have seen a lot of different builds. The reason I don’t do leap is, it tends to knock back the mobs all over the place and can be time consuming positioning all of them to corner them (intended strategy for leap build is to go to durance 1, round them up and leap them into a corner). For War Cry build, you don’t have to do this and they all come to you, allowing your merc to stay in 1 position and kill faster.
The reason I choose War cry is that you are able to have them come to you and stun almost all of the Travincal for 6+ seconds depending on the skill on the War cry. The super uniques like Ismail, Geleb, and Toorc can be stunned, but chances are it will take a few tries.
Question:
Is this build mana intensive and what about mana burn?
Answer:
It can be mana intensive. I suggest carrying 2 or 3 rows of mana pots, 1 or 2 rows of health pots, or all Full rejuvs rows(Later when you become comfortable, you can carry 1 row of teleport scrolls, 1 row of identify scrolls and the rest Full Juvs or Mana/Heal pots). If you constantly spam War Cry, you will go out of mana fast. The trick is to time your War Cries. With a good build you have around 7+ seconds before it wears off. At about 6 seconds, refresh it. Adjust for higher/lower skill War Cry. Rinse repeat. If you run into one of the super uniques being a mana burner, try and cope with it as best as possible. You can try to spam War Cry and see if he gets stunned or you stun, then use a pot, stun again etc. Ultimately test and adjust to what feels comfortable to you.
Question:
What difficulty trav can you do with this build?
Answer:
Hell Travincal. I have never personally taken the time or wasted time on doing nightmare trav. Some people prefer this because you can do it so fast, but you will over time yield less gold and drops.
Question:
How fast does it take you to run trav?
Answer:
With good gear and experience you can do trav in less than 2 minutes. Expect to average around 2-3 mins. I average around 1 min 30 seconds. The only time I run into trouble is if Ismail is immune to physical. Then it becomes a task to pull the merc off him (seems like Ismail auto attracts the merc every time and has his devout focus).
Question:
How much gold do you get per run?
Answer:
With my current gear at around 3150% gold find between me and my merc, I get between 750k and 1.3 million. In a bad run where you get a lot of blue/rare drops, it can drop to around 500k (this is where I say GF is better than MF).
Question:
Do you take the time to sell blues or rares?
Answer:
Not generally. But I will take the time to identify items such as rare rings, rare amulets, jewels, coronets, tiaras, circlets, and charms etc. Use your best judgment. The faster you can get onto the next run is better than taking 5 mins to sell 35k stuff.
My theories
--disclaimer: These are opinions and experiences. Feel free to do whatever u want with your barb, but I'm just sharing with you what I have noticed over many years.
The whole point of a GF barb is to acquire insane amounts of gold. Try and get as much gold find as possible. Stay away from Ali-babas and other gear with +mf. If you want to do a GF/MF barb then go for it, but in my opinion building up MF takes away from your ability to gather as much gold as possible. If you want to do MF, build a sorc or paladin. Leave the mf to them and the GF to us the barbs.
DO NOT sacrifice gold find for damage. I'm telling you even with Eth Bonehew, Eth Wealth, and Crown of thieves, your merc will still be able to kill insanely fast without sacrificing your gold find. If you want a really good merc weapon I suggest investing in an Eth 3 open socket Tombreaver with near perfect stats as stated above. This will improve your damage and your gold find.
DO NOT put skills into any combat specs such as sword mastery, pole arm mastery etc. It’s a waste as you should not even be hitting the mobs. Let your merc kill because he gains your gold find + his gold find. It’s the reason why all good gold find barbs let their mercs kill rather than have them kill.
Conclusion:
After reading this strategy I hope it helps you build an amazing gold find barb. With this build it will allow you to easily take on Hell trav and enjoy the many benefits. Feel free to customize your barb anyway you want to, but over the years, this is the build I have stuck with and have never had any problems with it. I hope I have explained this build well enough to prove to you that this build is great build for a gold find barbarian. In any case, I hope you have fun with this character and are able to find amazing stuff. Good luck!