The 1.12 pvp/pvm Wolf Barb Guide


The wolf barbarian has been a very unused build ever since wolfhowl was released in Diablo II, my guide will enable you to make a build which you won’t see every 2 games . This wolfbarb guide will be barbarian vs all so it is not a pure melee set up which could also be made.

Advantages of wolf barbarian:
1. Relatively cheap
2. Huge life
3. Huge attack rating
4. Best fhr of all characters
5. Lots of skill points spare for wacries/masteries
5. Ability to do the ubers
6. Easy to reach maximum resist
7. They are fast
8. They are fun!

Stat points

Strength – Enough to wear your gear, but no more the little damage it gives is no comparison for the life you get from vitality
Vitality – All the rest of the points go in here
Dexterity – Enough to reach max block with storm shield (75% block)
Energy – No points in this

Skill Points

Warcries tree

Shout : 20
Battle Order : 20
Battle command : 1
Prereq : 1

Masteries Tree

Mastery (depending on what weapon you are using): 20
Iron Skin : 20
Increase stamina : 1
Increase speed : 5-10
Natural resist : 10+

Gear

Helm

Cham’d Wolfhowl - for obvious reasons, each skill gives a good bonus so you will want 3/6/6/6 skills

Armor

Archon plate fortitude - best defence for good strength requirement, fort gives good resistances, good life and huge damage so it’s a must for melee characters.

There are other Armors you could wear e.g. stone, but my fort is the one that is best vs every class when used on a melee character.

Belt

Verdungo’s Hearty Cord - the damage reduce, vitality and fhr make this an amazing belt for a wolf barb.

Stashed belt: Thunder gods for the extra light resistance, you can use in pvm or against light characters that get on your nerves in a duel

Shield

Um’d Storm shield – for the block rate, nice resists and damage reduce.

Stashed: shael’d storm shield – this allows you to reach the next faster block rate bp (5 fbr), useful against block able attacks.

Boots

Gore riders – the open wound, high defence, deadly strike and crushing blow make these by far the best boots for everything on a wolfbarb.

Weapon

All the ias on your wolfbarb will come from the weapon so make sure to use phase blades for your runewords.

31+ ias Grief pb – decent ias (5 frames) with good damage and venom, this is my preferred weapon.
Botd pb – high ias with mid damage (6 frames), imho grief pb is a lot better than this
Gris caddy – fastest ias but low damage (can reach 2 frames).

Stashed: doom berserker axe – this weapon totally destroys amazons, they get stuck dodging slowly and can’t outrun you, however it can be considered bm.

Weapons on switch

2 hotos - for +6 werewolf and +6 to warcrys, however 2 bo sticks (+3 warcry weapons) can also be used.

Amulet

Angelic amulet – for the huge attack rating boost.

Stashed amulets: Highlords – the light resist and deadly strike is very useful in ubers.

Rings

2x angelic rings – for the huge attack rating boost.

Stashed: raven frosts – useful against cold characters in duels.
Stashed: wisps – useful against light characters in duels (fc mainly as sorb is bm).
Stashed: bk ring - useful for ubers

Gloves

Dracul’s Grasp – these are very useful, life tap, life leach and strength combine to make it the best glove for pvm(and ubers) however it is considered bm in duels.

Stashed(for dueling): crafted crushing blow gloves – you won’t need ias, the mods you should look for are strength, dexterity and 10% crushing blow. Some people prefer iron rends over crafted gloves for a bit more damage, this is your choice

Inventory

Barb torch
Annihilus small charm
4x fhr small charms (these can have max/ar/fhr or resists).
Max/ar/life charms (if you can’t afford just plain life charms will suffice).
Frw small charms (these can have resists or max/ar/frw) – chose as many as you think you will need to compete with characters that can teleport
1x fhr grand charm (this can have resists or max/ar/fhr).

Extra Information

The equipment in this quide allows you to hit the 4 fps (42 fhr) fhr break point (4x 5 fhr sc, 12 fhr gc and 10 fhr on verdungos belt). The fhr chart is below.

FHR / Frame
0 / 7
9 / 6
20 / 5
42 / 4
86 / 3
280 / 2

With the equipment in this guide you will be able to hit the 6 fps fbr break point and when using the shael’d storm shield you will hit the 5 fps fbr break point, the fbr chart is below.

FBR / Frame
0 / 9
7 / 8
15 / 7
27 / 6
48 / 5
86 / 4

Terms I used in the guide:
fps – frames per second
ias – increased attack speed
fhr – faster hit recovery
bp – break point
frw – faster wun/walk
ar – attack rating
pb – phase blade
hoto – heart of the oak (runeword)
fbr – faster block rate
bm- bad manner(s)



pvm on the wolfbarb is fun and the only thing a good wolfbarb will possibly die to is iron maiden, so be careful if you are making this on hardcore

Doing Ubers

For ubers you will want to grab your stashed highlords and use raven + bk or a similar ring combination.

In tristram you will want to take out Mephisto out first, this is fairly easy on a wolfbarb. To make sure that you get Mephisto first you will need to go north up as far as you can once you go through the tristram tp, you will then want to keep to the edge and go to the bottom left corner. From there you should slowly go up in a north-east direction until you hear Mephisto and see his minions spawn, this far you will want to back up and let Mephisto come to you, then kill him.

Then you will want to separate Diablo and Baal and take them on one at a time, this is fairly easy but can take a while to kill them.

Dueling

I will just give a rough guide against most common characters.

Against melee classes you will want to equip your shael’d storm shield, unfortunately chances are they will win as there character is made purely to win against other melee characters, but you still have a chance and the outcome will be decided on better gear/luck

Against bow amazons you will want to equip your shael’d storm shield and maybe doom (if they don’t mind), just run at them and try to kill them

Against javelin amazons you will want to equip tgods and doom as long as they don’t mind or use far cast

Against hammerdins you will lose if they are good, but to attack them go from the east, west, south area of the paladin for a stronger chance of not getting hit by hammers when attacking them.

Against orb sorceresses you will want to equip at least one raven and let them come to you, then charge them

The rest of the classes you just need common sense to beat and if that doesn’t work then they are probably builds that are VERY hard to beat with a wolfbarb, sorry about that


This guide was written by me - NoWhere

nice guide

thanks

Well done

Interesting...
a Grief PB gets 5 fps, but BoTD Pb gets only 6? Something is wrong... BotD should actually be faster. But Grief is much better...
And i say it 100 times: If u want a good PvP Char to play good PvM, take a hammer, other things will NOT work!

Grief PB has a lot dmg and Indestrucable, but Gris weapon with 4 Shael gets nice 3 (not 2...) fpa.

The Block is very slow, i don't like shields at wolves at all...
Maybe u can use Lanceguard because of the FHR and the DS.

greetings

my bad the grief is 7 fps but it's a lot better than the botd pb
also the build is for fun just making hammer isn't fun once you've made one 5 times and see them every game and this works quite well pvm and pvp
yes the gris caddy is 3fpa not 2, i messed up when using the calculator a little,but the overall damage over the period of time is lower than grief
max block is more beneficial vs all and allows you to tank way more in pvm

thanks for looking at my guide, sorry about those mistakes

This post was edited by NoWhere on Jul 19 2008 03:44pm

Quick Q.

Do +all skill levels boost your shapeshift..? So can you pre-buff like crazy?

yes you can pre buff with maras etc for more life/ar etc from werewolf, +barb skills won't help it though only +all

mmk, that's what I thought.

Nice guide but bloodfists are also a good choice, adding 40 BOable life and 30 FHR, which will help you reach the 86 breakpoint.