This should be the newest and most complete guide to the frenzy barbarian that jsp has ever been host to. As a user of this site for almost a year now and a long time player of Diablo 2, I am taking this opportunity to share a piece of my knowledge about a character build that i thoroughly enjoy playing. I do not and will never take full credit for coming up with all of the information in this guide, it is a collaboration of many people's hard work, many of which i do not know. I would like to give a special thanks to Ancalagon. He has provided a tremendous amount of help and information for building my first good frenzy barbarian, as well as answer almost all of my questions and curiosities about the skill.

Contents
-Intro
-Abvs
-Basics
-Skills
-Attack Speed
-Equipment
-Stats
-Merc
-Inventory
-Final Notes


Introduction to Frenzy

A Frenzy barbarian is a one who's main skill is frenzy. Frenzy is a skill that is only available to dual wielding barbarians and allows them to attack with a great deal of damage delivered with every swing getting faster. The nature of the skill makes it a poor choice for Player versus Player gameplay as it is not immediately fast on the first hit, requires you to stand still while attacking, and does not allow the use of a shield. It does however do substantially more damage than the more popular whirlwind skill and allows chance to cast spells on attack/striking, making in the prime choice for a Player versus Monster based build.

What you can expect a frenzy barb to be able to do (providing adequate gear)
- fast rushes, normal through hell even in multiple player games
- easily setup for +200mf
- fast key hunter
- mini uber killer/organ collector
- uber trist slayer/setup for uber leveling
- fast faced pvm action
- chaos sanctuary seal clear
- be able to kill any monster the game can generate quickly and easily



Useful Abbreviations

barb = barbarian class character
bo = battle orders + other stat boosting warcrys
fhr = faster hit recovery
fbr = faster block rate
fcr = faster cast rate
cb = crushing blow
ds = deadly strike
ow = open wounds
crit = critical strike = double physical damage given
cs = colossus sword
pb = phase blade
ba = z = berserker axe
itd = ignore target defense
pmh = prevent monster heal
cbf = cannot be frozen
ar = attack rating
lt = lifetap curse
ll = life leach
im = iron maiden
ml = mana leach
frw = faster run/walk
pi = physical immune
amp = cursed (when cast on you) = amplify damage curse
merc = mercinary
random runeword abv. = if you don't know them you probably can't afford to make them



Barbarian Basics

Starting Attributes
Strength: 30
Dexterity: 20
Vitality: 25
Energy: 10

Hit Points: 55
Stamina: 92
Mana: 10


Each Character Level
Life +2
Stamina +1
Mana +1
Attribute Point Effect

1 Vitality point gives 4 Life
1 Vitality point gives 1 Stamina
1 Energy point gives 1 Mana



| FHR | Frames | | FCR | Frames | | FBR | Frames |

================= ================= =================

| 0% | 9 | | 0% | 13 | | 0% | 7 |

| 7% | 8 | | 9% | 12 | | 9% | 6 |

| 15% | 7 | | 20% | 11 | | 20% | 5 |

| 27% | 6 | | 37% | 10 | | 42% | 4 |

| 48% | 5 | | 63% | 9 | | 86% | 3 |

| 86% | 4 | | 105% | 8 |

| 200% | 3 | | 200% | 7 |




Diablo 2 Basics

http://www.battle.net/diablo2exp/basics/characters.shtml
http://www.battle.net/diablo2exp/items/magic.shtml#sma




Skills
please visit the links provided for skill tables
http://www.battle.net/diablo2exp/skills/barbarian-combatskills.shtml


put 1 point in every single skill (excluding weapon masteries for weapon types you do not use), most of these are prereq's. You may choose not to do this leaving more points for frenzy synergies. I like to have the skills available for when i need/want to use them.

max frenzy - Your main skill and will likely use it against every monster you face

max battle orders - Main source of life and mana (stamina usually isnt a problem). This is a great skill for team play as it increases the stats of your party members as well (they are usually appreciative). due to lack of +skills items there is the possibility of another barb having a higher level bo than you and thus cancelling it out. If you always have another barb in your game to bo this may not be necessary. I would never make a barb without maxing this skill

max weapon mastery - For your main weapon class. If you do not have final equipment, save some points for this. Weapon mastery provides dmg, ar and crit, it is of the utmost importance that the frenzy barb gets as much ar mods as possible. IF you do not have or are undecided on what your final weapons will be, then putting 1 point into the mastery of the weapons you use is extremely efficient, not as good as maxed, but will help a lot.

All remaining points in synergies
Double swing - will increase the ar of the double swing skill. double swing can be useful against mana burn mosnters as with a few +skills, it either cost no mana or regenerate your mana from using it.
Taunt - A useful skill in itself, works like a curse attracting the nearest monster to you and lowering its dmg and ar.
Berserk - This is my favorite synergy for frenzy. Berserk synergy works in the same way that the berserk skill does in that it converts physical to magic damage. Each point put in berserk takes 1% of your frenzy damage and turns it to magic damage allowing you to kill physical immune monsters with your main attack alone. Maxing this skill will allow you to build a hybrid frenzy/berserk barb who is effective in chaos sanctuary as well as give you a more powerful sinlge hit attack against physical immunes but it will leave you defenseless. Beware: this synergy will reduce the physical damage of frenzy!

One Point Wonders (that were not previously discussed)

shout - big boost of def, gets duration synergy from max bo
battle command - great team skill, gets duration synergy from max bo, (you could get this from a CTA on switch, but its worth the point to free up your weapon switch for better things)
warcry - stuns nearby opponents, they cant hit you, fantastic skill for a shieldless barbarian
battle cry - great for vs bosses if you have no other curse, i often use this at the beginning of boss fights
howl - sends them crying, croud control skill, undisputedly useful in chaos sanctuary and for vs ubers
grim ward - works like howl only better because its more permanant, downside it requires a corpse (should be easy enough to get), can trap monsters against walls, stuck in a 40s run going nowhere fast
increase speed - you don't really need this, but it lets you run through town faster than many other characters, less time in town putting stuff in your stash = more time finding better items
iron skin - passive shout, definitely worth a point
natural resistance - great skill, allows you to make more higher damage gear choices, suffers from deminishing returns greatly so usually not worth more than a single point
leap/leap attack - leap has a nice stun can be usefull for getting out of hot spots, leap attack's range is only limited by the edge of the screan so you may be able to jump over obstacles with it easier
double throw - especially useful if you use lacerators or gimmershreds or another throwing weapon on switch to deal with pi's
whirlwind - many will argue that this isn't needed on a frenzy barb. if you have fast weapons there is no need to ignore it as it can kill mass amounts of small weak mosnters faster than frenzy even tho frenzy does more damage. If it only takes 1 hit with ww to kill a monster and there are many of them all bunched together, a 2 frame attack will kill them faster than a 5 frame attack will.

Attack Speed
If you aren't new to the game, this is probably where most of your confusion is, not to worry, it is a widely unknown area and answers are hard to find. I will attempt to spell a few truths out of this murky uncharted water.

Frenzy is a curious skill, and one of the few that lets you use two weapons to attack with. being so it does not work like other single weapon attacks. In a sense, frenzy takes the average base weapon speed of both weapons into consideration when the game decides how fast you attack, with emphasis on the main weapon.

A frenzy barb with two different weapons of different speeds can have up to four different attack speeds that are all variable by how much frenzy is charged up. We of course want the fastest possible attack (5 frames per attack, 2 attacks per frenzy, 10 frame frenzy animation), the fastest attack speed with allow us to do the most damage possible. Not only will faster attack land more hits and thus more damage, but it also gives us higher chances of casting spells and magic effects (like amp, cb, and crit, static field)
for the fastest attack speed, we want a particularly fast weapon to be the main weapon.

Main/Primary weapon is the one which is equipped first. You will be able to quickly change which weapon you want as your primary be re-equiping (double click) your secondary weapon.
The default setup puts your main weapon on your right hand (gloves side). Your right hand will be your main weapon ever time you enter a game, pick up your corpse, or switch to secondary weapons.

As we know from the weapon lists on arreat summit, the more (-) the base weapon speed is, the faster it attacks, and all +xx% increased attack speed actually subtracts from the base number makeing it more (-) than it was before and thus faster




Here's an equation and tables (found by Ancalagon, created by unknown) that you should be able to easily relate to how much ias you need to reach the fastest attack speed

R = right hand weapons base speed with any on weapon ias modifier
L = left hand weapons base speed with any on weapon ias modifier
WSM = combined weapon speed multiplier

right hand primary
WSM = (R + L)/2

left hand primary
WSM = [(R + L)/2] + L - R
you may be able to tell by looking at this equation that the smaller your L and larger your R the smaller your WSM will be
(small meaning more negative and large being more positive)


then simply find your WSM in the corresponding table for what lvl frenzy you have, then find your total off weapon ias on that horizontal, follow that to the top where you can see what frame your frenzy will be attacking at. It specifies the least amount of ias you must have to reach that breakpoint

clearly the more negative your WSM is, the faster frenzy you have.

frenzy Skillvl 20-21 42% SIAS





[bfrenzy Lvl 22

frenzy Skillvl 22-23 43% SIAS




frenzy Lvl 24

frenzy Skillvl 24-26 44% SIAS




frenzy Lvl 27


frenzyi Skillvl 27-30 45% SIAS



This post was edited by MajinKaisa on Sep 24 2008 06:24pm

Equipment
Goals for equipment will be to keep you alive and help you do more damage. Your natural tendancies to increase life, defense, resistances, damage reduce and absorb will all help you.

I will try to outline some of the better gear choices, not just by how easy they are to come by, but also how effective they are. Please note that some equipment is required for fast paced play styles and that there may very well be other choices that will work well. Please visit the arreat summit for all your gear choice possibilities: http://www.battle.net/diablo2exp/items/

Helmet, there is really only two choices here, both are pretty cheap, this can be a good place to make up ias or res with socketing
- Guillaume's Face, large amounts of cb, some ds and a little str and fhr make this the prime choice. It is simply the highest damage helm you can get
- Arreat's Face, offers skills, ar, dex, ll, and res to what guillaume's has to offer. purely a safe choice but looses the most important feature, the cb and crit
- Steelskull, ias, dual leach, and mf built right in, not a bad choice
- Vampire Gaze, dual leach, %dr, mdr and good looks

Amulet
- Highlords Wrath, offers skills, ias, lr, and lots of sexy crit. First choice for a frenzier
- Atma's Scarab, ctc amp, and ar are great. if you don't need the ias or have no other means to kill pi's this is your ammy
- Metalgrid, pretty good choice if you need resistances, also has def and ar
- Angelics, to be combined with rings for dex and life bonuses, i think it adds some ar too if im not mistaken

Armor
- Enigma, expensive but if you want to be doing rushes, mfing bosses, and key running you will pretty much need this armor, it also makes you be able to place your merc to maximize his effectiveness
- Fortitude, probably the best armor a frenzy barb can get, tons of res, def, freeze opponents, and damage make it an ideal choice
- Duress, cb, ow, resists, damage, and actually a decent amount of cold damage, all round good cheap armor choice
- Lionheart, resists life attributes and damage, really good mods for a bargain


Gloves
- Laying of Hands, ias and 50fr are nice, but 350% damage to demons make these gloves shine. I've heard it said that 1/3 of the monsters in the game are demons, and it is worth noting that some of the highest life monsters are demons, including act bosses and ubers. clearly the best choice
- Dracul's Grasp, you'll want these for dealing with the ubers, it is the best source of ctc lt available, and not by coincidence they also come with ow to stop their massive life regen. not needed for most pvm situations tho
- if you can't find or afford loh, I have to recomend giving up on building a physical based melee character

Belt
- String of Ears, simply the best belt, you need some ll, dr is nice, mdr is great.
- Nosfuratu's Coil, if you need ias go for it, having ll too, but also slow target and str make it a very close second to soe
- arachnids mesh, its nice for +skill and slows target, fcr might be useful too if you teleport or warcry a lot

Boots
- Gore Rider, best damage boots you can get with all the magic effects you could dream of
- War Traveler, good source of mf, also adds damage
- Goblin Toes, good cb boots

Rings
- Ravenfrost, face it, you need cbf, dex is nice, and a little extra mana and cold sorb never hurt anyone
- Rare ring with ll, ml, ar, fcr (if you use enigma)
- Angelics ring, to be used with amulet, gives life and life replenish and maybe a little ar too





Weapons
This in itself could be an entirely different section of this guide, there are simply tons of possibilities. I will simply give you some of the things you will want to look for on a weapon, and you already have the information to do calculations on how much ias you need. and provide a couple of my favorite setups.

You will want to pick a weapon that are fast, have high damage, and chance to cast magical effects and spells. ll and ml are nice but you can get them from other sources. It should be noted that if you attempt to kill the ubers, some source of -% to target defense (like the eth rune) is extremely useful, this will allow each sucessive swing a better chance of landing.

Personal favorite weapons
This is a nice well rounded setup

(main left) Grief pb - extremely fast and high damage, some crit, has eth rune, ctc venom and has -enemy poison res, ITD and indestructible!
(right) Death cs - highest damage weapon you could ask for, has tons of cb and ds, ctc glacial spike freezes enemies, only source of ml you need, nice ar mod, indestructible makes it a prime choice for an eth weapon. too bad its slow

Stormlash and Sheaffers can be used with great success, high ctc static field with some cb and decent damage takes down lots of enemys very swiftly

Azurewrath, deserves mentioning, combined with a high damage weapon this will be the best for killing any undeads and also does reasonable damage by itself

Insert other expensive runeword weapon here, because obviously the harder it is to get the better it is. just kidding, thats a lie but here are some things that you will want to look for
- high damage, more damage faster killing more fun yay!
- high speed, one of your weapons should be fast so you can attack more frequently doing more damage over time
- high chances to inflict magical effects like deadly strike, crushing blow, even ow is nice, or to cast high damage spells or curses or anything that makes your enemys take more damage
- -target defense, you will want this for boss battles especially, as it gives you a better chance to hit them over time
- ignore target defense, lets you forget about ar for normal monsters
- ar, helps you land more successful hits
- life and or mana leach, nice for keeping those bulbs full


Switch weapons
this is where you can put what you want to have. I personally wish i could equip more than 2 sets of weapons at once with this character, he has so many useful weapon switches.
- lacerator, great to throw for ctc amp, removes pi and gives huge damage boost vs bosses and others
- wizzard spike, get two of these and they will let you reach the blindingly fast 105 fcr bp and give a lot of mana for teleporting
- stomshield, put this on with a grief when you go berserking or teleporting through dangerous areas. useful for hardcore players or those berserk barb hybrids going for 99
- hoto/cta/+3 warcry sticks/spirit/any +skills item, use these to make your bo stronger
- heart carver/gull dagger/6 ist sword/6 lem sword/ali baba, switch to these and use find item with your mf barb. thats whats great about mfing with a barb, you find twice as many items as other characters could.
- a different weapon setup altogether, you have a weapon switch for different weapons entirely if you want. i would often run around with death + grief on main, and lw + azurewrath for vs undeads (like soulds and such, lt is nice cuz you cant leach from them and don't you dare say lw doesnt do any damage, with sanctuary vs undead you will own with a broken short sword)




Mercinary
You don't need a merc, but they can help.

Act 2 from Nightmare difficulty Offensive (might aura) is your best option, more damage!
eth gear is better of course on a merc, more def and damage

Reaper's Toll - best weapon you could possibly ask for, high ctc decrep, ds, ll, and very good damage on an eth one. this will destroy pi's and liquify non pi's

Vampire gaze - you may say the ll isnt needed since reapers has some, but i say the more the better, and it has nice dr

Treachery - makes your merc attack fast as hell, fade, venom, and stacked res. Originally i just put it on him to hold for when I wanted to uber, but quickly found out it is the best merc armor.

Insight - make this in a thresher too so its just as fast as reapers, but you would only use this if you were teleporting a lot



Stat Allocation

Energy - nothing, you can get mana from insight, items, and leach, nn more, bo already gives you a ton

Dexterity - only enough to equip your gear, it is a terrible source of ar and def, you can't block without a shield

Vitality - as much as you need to survive, if that means all of it, so be it. In Most cases you will only need about 2k-3k life with bo, so no need to dump too many stats in here.

Strength - as much as you can get, this will add lots of damage




Inventory

there is no need to spend a lot on your inventory, but everyone has their own ideals, depends what you want to do the most with your barb

torch
anni
gheeds
empty space, its great for picking stuff up
resistance charms will probably fill most of your charm space. cheap 15@ grands and w/e you need to hit max res will be benefitial
Ar charms
Lifer charms
max/min damage charms
mf or gold find charms if you like that sort of thing, i prefer to have more space to pick things up
charms with a combination of any of these things




Additional Notes IMPORTANT!

- Weapon range is a factor! when you click on a monster with frenzy, you will run up to it and swing with your fast hand weapon first then the other weapon follows suit. If the first swing is with a longer weapon than the second, the second weapon might not hit if you are out of range with it, it is important to use a same range or longer weapon on the second hand to ensure they both hit, or alter your play style to ensure you are close enough so they both have the chance of landing.

- you will want cbf from something in your equipment to help you stay fast, being frozen is annoying

- Find a balance between damage and safety be that from equipment, stats, skills, or player skill. But more damage is more fun of course

- if you plan on using this barb to solo ubers, you will want the maximum damage items and decent charms (fort, guillaume's)

- put frenzy on your right click skill and hover the cursor around

- make use of all the warcries and you should be invincible, howl and taunt your way through dangerous scenarios

- use your merc's treachery to prebuff fade before venturing to uber tristram

- Even though you do not have a shield, if you have high end LOD equipment you will have lots of defense, and more may not help you get hit any less as the floor for chance to get hit is at 5%

- enjoy killing everything

- I've tried to keep this brief, so if there is anything left out feel free to post and I or others will try to help you

Every body's choosing to hold these shovels and bury me

hate to say it but i've seen better frenzy guides. this is very basic, it lacks a decent layout and writing style... a lot of it is just copy/pasted from other sources (tables, stats etc).. no damage calculations... weapon speed tables are messed up... you recommend "one point in every skill"... berserk is the worst synergy ever...

it's not so much a guide as a "basic ideas about frenzy"

edit: don't get me wrong, i'm sure you know a lot about the build, but you don't present it very well

This post was edited by FoxyG on Sep 26 2008 03:38am

how to ignore the iron maiden? i was killed by doom knight ....

iron maiden cannot be ignored, you must be alert in the presence of im casters

use howl to spread out the other monsters (it wont effect oknights) then berserk the oknights
go to town and talk to the healer to get the curse removed quickly

looks alright ;=)

ty
i rephrased some things that sounded aqward and removed the outside link that may or may not be provided in my profile

Every body's choosing to hold these shovels and bury me