THE SPEAR BARB
BY SPECTRE_187


CONTENTS

• INTRODUCTON [1A]
• CONCEPT [2A]
• ATTRIBUTES AND SKILLS [3A]
• EQUIPMENT [4A]
  • MAIN [1B]
  • INVENTORY [2B]
  • STASH [3B]
  • MERC [4B]
• PLAYING YOUR SPEAR BARB [5A]
  • GENERAL OVERVIEW [1C]
  • MATCH SPECIFIC [2C]

INTRODUCTION [1A]

Introduction.. overview.. call it what you will, most people skip this paragraph when they read guides. But, I just figured I'd explain myself. I've used this Spear Barb build since Season 3 of ladder, when I built the spear barb GoddageCheese on Hardcore Ladder USEast. It's a lot of fun, and I've had a lot of success with the build. Some of you may remember a while ago I posted here asking for advice on how I could tweak and fine tune the build to make it better. This is because even though I've used this build for so long, I've decided to go ahead and try to 'perfect' it. Based on a lot of the advice I received, but more importantly, a lot of self-testing, I made a few modifications to the build, and now it's ready for the Show Room Floor.

CONCEPT [2A]

WHY A SPEAR BARB!?

Well back in Season 3 of ladder, I decided to start PVP'ing on Hardcore Ladder. As i found myself a legit dueler (at the time) surrounded by dozens of modders, I had to think long and hard about how to beat chicken. Matt, D2HCX, had given me the idea when I witnessed him kill someone with his 2-handed whirlwinder. Based around his character, I created GoddageCheese.

The main concept is this: To have a high damage output character, capable of killing your opponent in one whirlwind if the dice roll in your favor (two missed blocks can easily be a fatality for your opponent), with lots of life, and, most importantly, the ability to play defensively. Most known cookie cutter barbarian builds can accomplish those requirements, ie the BVC or the BVA, but the spear barb takes the most desirable aspects of a pvp barb and attempts to capitalize on them. Lets look at some of the advantages and disadvantages of using a 2 handed whirlwinder vs a standard dual wield barb.

PROS

• More damage per hit
• Increased weapon range

CONS

• Less hit checks per whirlwind
• Less potential for alternate gear setups

So the main advantage dual wielders have over 2 handers is that, well, they have two weapons! Both 1 handed whirlwind and 2 handed whirlwind have the same maximum breakpoint (hit check every 4 frames). However, with two weapons, you obviously get twice as many hit checks during your whirlwind. So why a spear barb then? Lets look at the PROs I listed.

Damage: The Spear barb will do roughly double the maximum damage as a barbarian using two axes, and about the same or a little more on minimum damage. This means that while the "bvc" gets more chances to try hitting their opponent, the spear barb will usually hit much harder when he does hit. When going up against a high defense character with maximum chance to block, the spear barb is going to shine over a "bvc", as the hits he actually does land are going to be far more significant.

Range: Just what is range? Range is the distance (in tiles), that a melee weapon can hit an enemy. Simply put, the higher the range, the farther away you can be from your opponent and they still take hits from you. Now, this is the big one. This is the main advantage of the Spear Barb, over other types of Barb. If it weren't for weapon range, it'd be completely pointless to play this character. So why is weapon range so important? Lets take a look:

What can we gather from this picture:

• Our spear barb will reach to the pink tiles in this picture
• Any character with a phase blade only reaches to the green tiles
• Any character with a berserker axe only reaches to the light blue tiles

Our barbarian will have a range of 5 (which is the maximum range on any melee weapon in Diablo 2) This means that while wirlwinding, we are able to hit any player up to the pink tiles shown here, in a rough ellipses shape around our character. It will take a lot of practice and a lot of skill with controlled whirlwinding, but once you master it, it is possible to out-range any other melee class with the Spear Barb and attack them unopposed from outside of their range, forcing them to either approach you into your whirlwind, or to flee.

Now, as I said before, the shape of influence around your character is an elipse, (think of an egg laying on its side.) This goes for ALL range in Diablo 2, not just weapon melee range, but also the ranges for all spells and skills. The reason being, is becuase of Diablo II's pseudo-3D perspective.. it's basically a graphical decision made by the developers of the game. So even if you're not playing in "perspective" mode, all skills and attacks use this "egg" shape when determining their range. Based on that, take a closer look at the picture. Study well and you will begin to learn how to best exploit this. We can use this to determine exactly where we need to place our whirlwind to make us safe from our opponent while continuously rolling hit checks against them!

ATTRIBUTES AND SKILLS [3A]

Attributes

Real basic here. We're going:
Strength: Base
Dexterity: Base
Vitality: Everything
Energy: Base

This is strictly an Enigma barb, so we'll be getting our strength from here. Torch + anni gives us enough to wear Enigma, which gives us enough to wear Arreats. The rest of our requirements comes from our rings + Arreats, so basically we can get away with being 100% vitality this way.

Skills

Again, real basic here. We're going:
Whirlwind: MAX
Spear Mastery: MAX
Battle Orders: MAX
Shout: MAX
Increased Speed: ONE POINT
Natural Resistance: ONE POINT
LEAP: REST OF POINTS

Whirlwind is our main attack, so maxing it will of course optimize the damage and attack bonuses. Spear Mastery is needed for the Attack bonus, as well as the critical strike. The extra damage doesn't hurt either. Battle Orders and Shout, that's a given. Only a select few pvp barbs can get by without maxing Battle Orders, usually hardcore barbs that get outside buffs from their lvl 55 bo mule anyway. That's not us. The single point in Increased Speed combined with Engima will give us a nice run/walk speed. Not only does this help for making contact with fleeing casters, getting them into namelock visibility, but also it will help our whirlwind move slightly faster, which helps take us out of range quickly when we whirlwind away from telesmiters and hammerdins that love stomping. Maxing shout will make sure that you don't instantly die vs other Barbs, since we have no option for a shield or good dr here. Natural resistances, this is a given. One point can beef up our res quite a bit. Dumping the rest of the points into leap helps, as we won't have as large a leap radius as some BVC builds, unless you level very high. None the less, leap is still invaluable for stunning casters and setting them up for dance of death manuvers.

EQUIPMENT [4A]

MAIN [1B]

Weapon: Ethereal Breath of the Dying Ghost Spear:
Figured I'd start with the most interesting topic of discussion in this section. Some people, when they think of a spear barb, automatically think "War Pike". Some have never even heard of a Ghost Spear and don't even know what it is. Basically Ghost Spear is the elite Spear class weapon right before War Pike. It does less damage than War Pike, but it has the same range, and most importantly, it has a base weapon speed of [0]. War Pike has a base weapon speed of [20]. What does this mean for us?

Lets take a look at Whirlwind. Whirlwind pulls IAS directly from your weapon, and from no other source. Whirlwind uses different breakpoints depending on if you're using a two handed weapon, or a one handed weapon. Here are the whirlwind breakpoints for a two handed weapon:


Two-handed weapons
Breakpoints: 15, 0, -10, -30, -60.
Number of frames in-between hit-checks after frame 8: 14, 12, 10, 8, 6, 4

Basically this means that for a ghost spear, which has [0] base speed and 60% ias on breath of the dying, we hit the 4 frame breakpoint. In other words, with a ghost spear, our barb will attack the enemy every four frames while he's in the whirlwind state. Whirlwind automatically does a hit check at the 4th and 8th frame, which is our "free hits". BOTD War Pike only reaches the 6 frame breakpoint. This means that compared to Ghost Spear, War Pike will only really get two hit attempts per whirlwind unless you're doing VERY long whirlwinds. With Ghost Spear, it's going to be hitting very well with each whirlwind you make. Again, for the non believers, I'll say it in no uncertain terms. There is a HUGE difference between the 2nd to last breakpoint and the last one. Barbs using War Pike simply fail, they are forced into making VERY short whirlwinds to try to and ride on the two free hit checks, and that makes it really difficult to capitalize on our increased weapon range.

In conclusion, the difference in damage between Ghost Spear and War Pike is simply not significant enough to warrant sacrificing an entire breakpoint. Their damage is close enough, that I can pretty much declare that Ghost Spear WILL cause more damage to your opponent than War Pike, based entirely on the fact that you will hit more often.

As for why Breath of the Dying? Simply, for a two handed weapon, it's the best. It has up to 400% enhanced damage, going up to 415% if you had a superior shell. +60 to all attributes is really nice boost for us: life, mana, attack rating.. etc. It also helps us wear our really heavy gloves.

Helmet: Arreat's Face: +100 to attack rating +15 to maximum damage jewel
Arreat's is a no brainer. The +20 strength helps us wear our gloves on this buld, while the +20 dex is necessary for using Ghost Spear. The bonus to attack rating also helps, as well as the + to skills. We choose a 100ar 15max jewel because, quite frankly, increased attack speed outside of your weapon does not help whirlwind. Unfortunately, because of a very strict stat point requirement for Ghost Spear and for our Steelrend, we can't substitute Arreats out for Crown of Ages on a circumstantial basis. We'll pretty much be wearing this helm at all times except prebuffing. Also of note: Due to a very specific attribute requirement this build uses, we cannot upgrade our Arreats.

Armor:: Enigma Mage Plate
Well this is just one of the lowest base strength Enigmas, which is quite popular since every character in the game except Sorcs can wear this armor with Anni and Torch alone. It also gives us nice faster run/walk, which is going to make our Barbarian quite light on his feet. You want to try to go for the highest +defense roll you can get here. This build can't really substitute Engima out for Fortitude due to be so dependant on the strength bonus.

Belt: Verdung's Hearty Cord. 40 vitality 15% dr
Since our barb can't wear a shield, and he can't wear Crown of Ages like most BVC's can.. we're stuck with very low damage reduce %. That's why we NEED verdungos. As even a little bit of DR can help. We'll have 23% DR with Enigma + Dungos. The +40 to vitality will also give your hit points a nice little bonus. Nothing to write home about, but it's better than nothing.

Gloves: Steelrend Unique Ogre Gauntlets
Don't underestimate these. Get 60% enhanced damage and +20 to strength. This will add a nice 1,000 damage boost to your whirlwind. A lot of people don't realize these babies really do increase your damage that much. Many shy away from using them because of their strength requirement, but because our main weapon is Breath of the Dying, we can use these with no points in strength at all.

Boots: Gore Rider unique War Boots
We use these for the deadly strike, and also the faster run walk. Unfortunately we cannot upgrade these to an elite version, because of our attribute requirements.

Rings: Raven Frost unique ring(s) +250 attack rating +20 to dex
With the Attack Rating and Dexterity bonus these will give you a nice solid boost to your overall whirlwind attack rating. Not as much as Angelics, however, but we cannot use Angelics on this character for two reasons. #1, we need these rings to get the dex required for Ghost Spear without spending any attribute points. #2, we need Highlords for deadly strike, which brings us to our next

Amulet: Highlord's Wrath unique Amulet
We simply need this for deadly strike. Grants us 33% at level 90. Since our weapon is Breath of the Dying and not Grief or Death like some other barbs are fond of using, we have to get our deadly strike from other sources, such as Gore and Highlords. We can't substitute out for Angelics because of our need for ravens to grant us dex. But don't worry, you will see there is another item combo we can swap to for insane AR bonus which will be covered in the Stash Gear section.

WEAPON SWITCH
Here we use the standard barb switch. Call to Arms of at least +3 to battle orders (pointless to get higher because of oskill penalty for Barbarians) as well as Heart of the Oak. This setup will grant us +7 to battle orders, due to Call to Arm's +1 to all skills. The reason we don't use two Call to Arms' is because then our Shout level would be too low.

INVENTORY [2B]

TORCH/ANNI
I've actually toyed with the idea in the past of not using these in exchange for squeezing more melee charms, but it's just not worth it. The +40 attribute bonus from a perfect attribute Torch and Anni is necessary for using all of our equipment with no attribute spending, allowing us to maximum our vitality. The Resistances also help, since this barb doesn't have a lot of swap out gear like a standard BVC does. Resistance is actually a small problem on the Spear Barb, so Anni/Torch is a must have.

Grand Charms: +132 to Attack Rating +45 to life
Well when I first started playing Spear Barb back in season 3, up until just very recently, I always used thirty seven 3max/20attack rating/20 life small charms. I've come to realize several things. First off, on a Spear Barb, we don't need the +100 or so to max damage, just based on the fact that we use a freaking 1300 damage weapon. BVC's need this +max bonus to make their damage more significant, we do not. What we do need is a high attack rating, and this is the best way to get it. Using these grand charms you get over double the amount of attack rating you'd get from all 3'20'20's and you only lose 135 plus to life. It's an even trade off. I've done a lot of self testing, and I admit I came to this decision based on advice that was given to me.

Again, we use Steel Grand Charms of Vita instead of 10max/65ar/45 life gcs, because we don't NEED the max damage bonus. Seriously, we do a LOT of damage without it, so maximizing our Attack Rating is simply the best path to take here.

Small Charms: +36 to Attack Rating +20 to life
This is what we use under our grand charms. Again, we don't NEED 3'20'20s, our damage is high without it. So again, we want to maximum our attack rating here. I currently still have 3'20'20's under my gcs on my current barb, but I do plan to migrate over to 36'20's down the road. This will maximum attack rating, which is necessary, especially since we can't use beast for a fanaticism attack rating boost.

STASH [3B]

BM Prebuff gear
It's not a terribly large amount of prebuff gear, so it doesn't take a while to swap out. Simply a +5 bo (or +6 bo if you can afford it) helm, 2x stones of jordan, and arachnid mesh spiderweb sash. Put these on, go switch to hoto/cta, and bo. You should have a nice level 45 or 46 bo depending on which helm you got. If you want to go overboard you can have a few +Warcry Skills grand charms to swap out with your GCs, but ultimatly that's going too far. We also have a demon limb for self chant, this will increase your attack rating bonus.. every little bit helps. Of note is that this type of prebuffing is considered bm in many dueling circles. I suggest to keep this around for public free for all encounters.

Alternate Gear
Hsaru Boots and Hsaru Belt (set items)
This is basically the same as using Angelic Rings + Angelic Amulet. It gives you attack rating based on character level and ends up giving our attack rating bonus a very large boost, again, just like Angelics does for other barbs. This is our option for boosting AR vs certain high defense and block characters. We don't get any attributes from our boots/belt/gloves on this character, so we can safely swap these out. Your defense and DR% takes a hit, but the ar boost goes way up. It's a nice choice for fighting Hammerdins. The only problem here is we lose our 15% deadly strike from Gores. But sometimes, we simply need the extra attack rating just to hit certain opponents.

Tri Res gloves and absorb belts.
Yep, versus most sorcs we don't really need that extra 60% damage from Steelrend. We can use a tri res glove just to maximize our resitance, and a tgods for lighting, as well as Snowclash for cold. We're still not going to be able to absorb as well as a BVC does since we cannot remove Arreats, but it will help make a difference. Since our spear will usually demolish any caster if we get a clean hit.

BM TOOLKIT
Anyone who duels should have a Bad Manner Toolkit on hand. This can help turn the tides in public free for all matches in which manners go out the window.

Treachery Runeword. Just slap it in the lowest possible strength armor you can. Wear this and go run cricles around monsters in some random waypoint. Yes, running around the monsters makes you take more hits than standing still, since our defense goes to zero while in run mode. This will allow us to cast fade, which given the resistances of this Spear Barb, is really necessary for certain hard hitting sorcs. The fade will also boost our damage reduce as well, so basically you can fade for any matchup and see positive results.

Gavel of Pain unique Martel De Fur ('Hel'ed)
For certain tough duels you will want to prebuff your cries first, and then swap out CTA and Hoto for this. The hel rune allows us to hold it, otherwise you won't have enough strength on our weapon switch. Basically, this gives us 3 charges of Amplify Damage curse, and it's relatively cheap to repair. I'm sure everyone knows, Amplify Damage doubles your physical damage by way of nerfing your enemy's physical resistance by 100%. Basically switch to gavel, amp, switch back to botd, and whirlwind. If you practice a lot and work on your timing, you can eventually get good at amping people while they are very near you, and getting in your spear whirlwind before they realize its too late.

On this build, an amped enemy is dead VERY fast when you hit them with deadlystrike.

MERCENARY [4B]
This goes hand in hand with our BM toolkit. This is not allowed in 1v1 gm duels or team gm setting, but for pubs it's a nice addition.
Merc Type: Act 2 (Blessed Aim)
Weapon: Etheral Pride Cryptic Axe (+20 to concentration boosts your whirlwind damage tremendous)
Armor: Etheral Fortitude Archon Plate (the standard for pvp mercs)
Helm: Crown of Ages 2x bers. Nice resistance and damage reduce. Keeps our merc alive a little bit longer.

Basically if your merc can activate his Blessed Aim aura, our attack rating sees a nice solid boost, and with Pride, our damage goes up. It's not worth it to me using a might merc along with pride.. our damage is NOT a problem on this character. The Attack Rating boost is simply too valuable.

PLAYING YOUR SPEAR BARB [5A]

GENERAL OVERVIEW [1C]

The three main pillars (pun intended) of the Spear Barb are Damage, Range, and Percsision. Basically our strategy for the most part is to be patient, attack safely and not stupidly, and make every hit count. As discussed in the CONCEPT section, we learned that the spear barb can out range many common meleers. For this reason we take a different approach against smiters and meleers then most BVCs will be able to take. Against casters we generally play the same way that a BVC would play.

This section will be realtively brief, as I'll cover specific matchups in more detail in the next section. The things I want to touch on are technique and decision making. First, lets look at "Long Whirlwind" vs "Short Whirlwind"

A "Short Whirlwind" is a whirlwind which moves your barb a very short distance, usually by whirlwinding to a location right next to your barb. One technique that is used with short whirlwinding is the "Dance of Death" also more commonly called "Tri Ww'ing." In this technique, you whirlwind in tight little circles around your opponent, mostly desiring a trianglular pattern. When you short whirlwind, you are riding off of the whirlwind skills two "free" hit checks, which roll on the 4th and 8th frame of the whirlwind animation. In this way, even a barbarian with a slow weapon can abuse the "free" hits and effectively emulate having a faster weapon by doing very short ranged whirlwinds. The purpose of Dance of Death is to place an opponent into stun or block lock, preventing them from fleeing. On our build, we use the Dance of Death to mostly prevent "Casters" from escaping us. We won't use this technique except against a sorceress or bone necro who can only survive by maintaining a large distance from us.

A "Long Whirlwind" is mainly a defensive manuver in which we whirlwind to a location rather far from our barb. A barbarian with a slow weapon speed will not desire doing this, since after the 8th frame, which falls early into his whirlwind animation, he will effectively "stop hitting", or hit very rarely during his whirlwind. Since our weapon hits the max breakpoint, we remain deadly the entire time we're in the whirlwind state. Long Whirlwinding does have disadvantages, such that it can make you an easy target for those who avoided your path, and it can give your opponent a chance to escape. However the long whirlwind is invaluable for fighting opponents like smiters and hammerdins. One of the keys to effectively initiating a long whirlwind is knowing how "long" to make it. You don't want to go excessive. In fact the most effective long whirlwinds are still relativly short range, so that you will end your whirlwind state in a timely fashion and be able to react to any of your opponents counter manuvers in time.

Lets take a look at some more specifics..

MATCH SPECIFIC [2C]

vs Paladins

Smiters

SETUP: Swap out your belt and boots for Hsaru, you'll need the attack rating.
Optional: Prebuff your bo and carry the hel'ed Gavel of Pain on switch

Often viewd as any Barbarian's worst nightmare.. the Spear Barb is actually designed to have an edge on smiters. As far as we're concerned, there are two general types of smiters here. Aggressive smiters, and passive smiters. An aggressive smiter will often wear enigma and attempt to repeatedly teleport on top of you and shift smite. We counter this by doing the Long Whilrwind away from them. Becasue of move speed, we are able to cover ground quickly while in the whirlwind state, and that helps take us out of the smiter's range even as he teleports on top of you. Because of our weapon's speed and range, this will give us free chances to hit the smiter without taking (much) damage. One of the traps we fall in vs aggressive smiters is that they will often react to long whirlwinds by trying to teleport into our path rather than directly on top of us. This is why when I said that "long" whilrwinds were essentailly somewhat SHORT in distance, it was quite an important point to make. We want to make sure we can change directions when that happens, and initiate a counter vs their "passive" in-place smiting.

Passive smiters are those who play excessively defensive or who attempt to play "smart". They may litteraly sit on a spot and shift smite your character, waiting for you to foolishly whirlwind through them. NEVER whirlwind through a smiter. This is sucide even with barbs who can stack DR... and we don't have a lot of DR on this build. They will eat your lunch. So for passive manuverse, we abuse our weapon range. Remember the Concepts section? I mentioned the egg-shaped invisible "bubble" around our characters. For countering a passive smiter, you have to be very intimate with this range. But for the most part, if you do short ranged whirlwinds to the immediate side of your opponent, this will put you in the range in which you can start hitting them while their smites aren't hitting you. The proper way to do this is to whirlwind at their side in an up and down motion.


In this pic, the sorc represents a smiter standing in place shift smiting at you. The lime green arrow represents where we place our whilrwind. You want to go back and forth along that arrow using short burst whirlwinds. Once you get the distance and timing mastered, and it will take practice, you will find that when doing this you are going to start hitting the smiter and not be reached by his smite at all. If it's a phase blade smiter this is even easier to pull off, if its a berserker axe smiter you have to be a bit more pecise.

Once they realize they're getting hit without being able to reach you, they will likely change tactics. Be ready to pull off a defensive long range whirlwind away from them if they come at you. Timing is key, if you get caught off guard it's going to get very ugly for you. If you can pull it off properly you will get one or two free hits from then, then get more free hits as they wrecklessly enter into your weapon range yet again while you're initiating a long range whirlwind.

If push comes to shove against an agressive lifetapping smiter, go grab your Gavel of Pain and amp them. Just be careful that you do not get telesmited while your gavel is out as you will be momentarily open to attack when you cast amplify damage.

Basically, beating the smiter is something that's going to take patience and a lof of skill-- but I say our spear barb can do it more effectively then any standard dual axe barb can hope to. Their advantage is that they can stack dr and use doom to slow the smiter down, our advantage is we can land much more painful blows and attack them without EVER entering the smiter's range. There are, however, limitations. Although the strategy disccused here will help you overwhelm 90% of the smiters out there, there are still those exceptional smiters out there who can simply abuse their character advantages to the point where you simply cannot pull off a consisent win. Ultimatly a life tap smiter will be able to go excessively aggressive against you, lessening your chances of victory. Throw in a smiter with auto aim teleport and IAS hacks and you're pretty much toast. All in all, use common sense, good judgement, and most importantly, duel "Smarter, not harder." It's not IMPOSSIBLE to win, but it is definitly one of our toughest matches


zealers

SETUP: same as smiter

They actually have a huge advantage over you based on us not having a shield. Treat them EXACTLY like a smiter, using all the same strategy but do not EVER whirlwind THROUGH them. You MUST abuse your weapon range and defensive playstyle to beat these. I'm not going to go too indepth here, as the strategy for fighting them is exactly the same as vs smiters.

hammerdin

SETUP: Primary or Hsaru's if you have trouble breaching their defense

Just like smiters, we can group Hammerdins into either an aggressive or passive group. Either it'll be one of those hammerdins who tries to constantly telestomp you and hammer directly, or one of those vigor charge hammerdins who will constnatly try to desynchronize their location from your screen and set up defensive hammer fields. To beat a hammerdin, there are a few key strategies you have to utilize. First and foremost is to be defensive.

When fighting one of those stomp-happy hdins, we Long Whirlwind to the south-west direction, which takes us into their blindspot. This is often a technique that you can and should use ahead of time if you ANTICPATE an immenet telestomp. If you're feeling very bold you can initiate several VERY short range "in-place" whirlwinds to try and overwhelm them, but this is something you should do only if they have shown to have low defense and take a lot of hits. It's probably safer to continue to play defensively.

Another good tactic to use is to leap. A leap will interupt a hammerdin's attack and knock him back slightly. Many barbs know about the power of leap, but don't know how to effectively abuse it vs a hammerdin. You don't want to leap a hammerdin and then just jump right into his hammer field. It may stop him from casting, but it won't remove the hammers he's already placed. The best way to catch a hammerdin off guard with leap is to lure him out of his hammer field. If the pally is fond of teleporting or charging to a different location, you have to wait until he MOVES. He may teleport near you and begin casting, you want to leap as soon as he moves, and if you knocked him back while he had minimum hammers out, or better yet before he was able to cast, NOW is the time to teleport near him and engage him with whirlwind. It may be tempting to try giving him the Dance of Death and attempt to place him in block lock. If he has low defense this WILL work, however it's a huge gamble. The last thing you want to do is try to repeatedly whirlwind a hammerdin while he's spamming. If you're excessively missing a lot of hits, as in he's not even going into block mode vs you, it's time to put on hsaru belt + boots and enchant yourself. The extra AR will go a long way.

Honestly this is a tough matchup too that can be frustrating for any barb, but patience is a virtue. Eventually even the most defensive hammerdins can be goaded into going agressive vs you. Once you have them chasing you, you are at the advantage. Just remember, utlize your weapon range and punish his mistakes. Catch them off guard and hit and run as necessary. For a BM matchup I don't suggest amping, as they can simply retreat and cleanse the curse off of them, or simply go into an extra defensive mode trying to bait you, since they know a greedy barbarian will try to get in as many hits as they can while their opponent is amped. Also becasue this duel may be a long one, you probably want to keep your BO setup on weapon switch so you can rebo as needed.

FOH'ers

This is actually a really tough duel for the Spear Barb. We're simply not capable of stacking our resitances like a regular BVC is. You can put on TGODS to at least lessen the blow a little, since we wont' need DR vs a pure FOHer. It wont' help much, but if it makes the difference between dying in three hits and dying in two hits, it's worth it. Basically you want to stay on them hot and heavy. FOH is one of the easiest skills to interupt. You want to definitly give them the Dance of Death and try to get them in recovery lock. If necessary, you'll have to wear hsasru belt + boots to get extra AR, but it's more desirable to keep your gores on for that little bit of extra deadlystrike. This is one of those duels where every extra little bit of damage you can dish out will be needed. Honestly, winning this duel is just luck. Did your hits get through, or did he block a few times and get an FOH in.

A bad FOHer will just sit there and cast at you, they're not so hard. A good FOHer will charge or even teleport to keep himself away from you. Duels vs those types of FOHers are VERY hard for the Spear Barb. Good luck.

FOH/SMITE hybrids

This is probably the hardest Paladin for our Spear Barb to beat. They can peg with FOHs from a distance, whittling your health down, and then smite you out when you go to attack them. Beating a good V/T requires a lot of skill and quick reaction time. The key is to wait until they have their FOH hotkeys up and strike when they begin casting you. Once they switch to smite it's time to long whirlwind away from them. Remember when they are in smite mode treat them like a smiter. If they're going to try defensive smiting you, abuse your weapon range and try to attack them from a distance. Depending on the power of their FOH they'll either cirpple you or slowly drain your life with each cast. Either way we are not comfortable when dueling a V/T or T/V especialy. There's not a lot more to add here, just play your best and pray. It's going to be a lobsided duel in his favor.

vs barbs

bvcs

SETUP: Primary and or hsaru depending on their defense rating
Optional: Hel'd Gavel of Pain on switch

Other Barbarians have two advantages over you. They can slap on a Crown of Ages to out DR you, and their two weapons get in twice as many hits as our single weapon. This is going to be an interesting duel because it depends on the attributes of your opponent as to how you go about fighting them. If their defense rating is low enough, you may be able to just whirlwind through their whirlwinds and out damage them. If this is the case just be somewhat defensive and lay on the hurt. More likely than not, however, they'll out-hit you and you need to be defensive. Refer to the weapon range picture in the Concept and vs smiter section. KNOW THIS RANGE! It is possible to outrange a berserker axe barbarian, even while they are whirlwinding. This will make for a long duel and require loads of skill and pateince, but it is possible to keep whirlwinding next to their whirlwind path and try to enter them into your 5-range zone. Often a bvc will react to this by trying to whirlwind more aggressively into you, or even try to tele-whirlwind you. Punish these mistakes, as it's mistakes like that will allow you an easier victory.

For really tough BVCs that seem to shred you up and you just can't seem to hit them a lot, it's time to amp them. Wait until they are in mid-whilrwind, as you will die so fast if you pull out gavel and get tele-whirlwinded. Once they are in mid whirlwind, preferabbly a long-whirlwind, switch to gavel and amp them, then quickly switch back. Now resume the duel but enjoy the benifits of dealing double damage to them. Don't get greedy though, just because they are amped doesn't mean you should try to wrecklessly whriwlind them offensively. Continue to be defensive and see how he reacts.

Good luck, and if you win make sure you tell them they just lost to a Spear Barb

bvas/bvbs

Setup: Hsaru belt + boots for sure
Hel'ed gavel of pain for sure

This one is almost as hard as the V/T to beat. They're designed to kill BVCs, and when it comes to barb vs barb, we're basically like a primative version of a BVC. We don't even have the benifit of rolling double hit-checks from two weapons. Basically this matchup pits you against an insane defense, max block, full dr barbarian. It's VERY hard to beat with a Spear Barb. Abusing weapon range and playing ultra defensively is a must, as well as amping them when they leave themselves open. Even if it's supposed to be "GM" theres nothing really GM about picking on a poor defensless spear barb on a max block full dr high defense character. Just be defensive and try to whirlwind from outside of their range. Try to catch them teleporting and use hit and run tactics. The ONLY advantage you have against them is your damage. You will deal far more damage on a hit for hit basis than they can hope to. Just use your defensive tactics to make sure you get in more hits then they do, it's your only chance.

melee barbs

Setup: see bvas/bvbs

This is basically "Zerkers/Concers". Treat them as you would a smiter, abusing your range and whirlwinding away from them. They'll have a hard time catching you, but do NOT whirlwind through them. Becasue we have no block, whirlwinding through them will give them a chance to hit you. These guys often have max block and full dr, so go defensive. Amp can't hurt. Good luck.

vs Necros

Bone Necro

Setup- Regular

A good bone necro, properly played, has an overwhelming advantage against ANY barbarian. There's no exception with us, but our only advantage over other barbs is our higher damage. This will help break down their bone armor and hit them more. Basically their is one factor to consider that determines our chance at victory. Is the necro Block or Non Block? If they are block... good luck.

The way to fight a Necromancer is to lure them. If they are far away spamming attacks at you, teleport away from them. Telepor them off your minimap making sure to get far enough to way so that he won't spirit train you as he follows. Once you see them come up onto your map it means he was teleporting and now is the time to attack. Always try to dance of death a necro and put them in stun/block lock. Don't hit and run as he can keep recasting bone armor and tank more of your damage. If he gets close throw a leap down to stun him so you can telestomp and dance of death him. It's going to be a really tough fight. A smart Necro can even abuse puddles and rocks/walls to try to cripple our whirliwnd, or sit in a bone wall he cast, which takes hits away from him.

Then there's REALLY bm necros, who will summon revives as a meat shield. In this case you may try aggressive offensive play, as our Breath of the Dying weapon will leech life off of his summons. However if your taking damage greater than your leech, it's time to fall back. Also beware of really bm tactics like Iron Maiden which will absoltly shred a 10k damage Spear Barb with ease.

Basically just try to attack them head on, give them very little breathing room, and try to take them down with our overwhelming damage.

vs Druids

Wind Druids

setup- regular

The wind druid can be a tough opponent if they are max block, or an easy opponent if they are not. The main thing with Windys is that they have to be basically right on top of you to attack you. This is really good for us, since you can shred them with painful Dance of Death or just abuse long retreat-whirlwind when they telestomp you. Either way they will have a huge disadvantage against you. Wind Druids are just one of those classess that will have a real hard time beating our spear barb. Things to look out for is do not telestomp on them while they are spaming nados or you will go crying to Akara in pain. Basically be defensive, leap stun them and then punish them while they're defenseless. Don't underestimate the damage they can put out either.

Even a block druid will have very low defense, so it's not hard to trap them in block lock. When attacking always try to destroy their oak sage before you go in for the kill, this will cut their hitpoints in half and make for an easy kill. Relax, it's just a wind druid. These guys are absoltuly no problem for our Spear Barb

Shapeshifters

Setup: see vs smiters

Treat them as you would the smiter or more accuratly, the Zealer. Do NOT whirlwind through these guys, they will eat you ALIVE. You have to be defensive. If they're pure fury it's much easier for us. If they're rabies, you're in for a hard duel. When going on the offensive always take their oak out first, and then absue weapon range. If they just lock onto you always whirlwind away from them, they'll have a very difficult if not impossible time hitting you.

vs Casters (all)

This counts for pretty much all sorcs as well as other "caster" type builds. They're not hard for the spear barb with a few exceptions, every now and then you run into a max block sorc with decent DR, in which case we're actually in for a tough matchup. For Casters you play exactly like a BVC does. Stay on them hot and heavy, don't let them put any space between yourself and them. Use leap to stun them out and then telestomp dance of death them. When you telestomp a fleeing caster always use short whirlwinds, you dont' want to get stuck in a long whilrwind and give them a chance to escape. Generally even a block caster will have a low defense rating, so a properly executed tri-ww will screw them over anyways.

Beware defensive casters. Do not teleport ontop of a sorc who's sitting in her multi-stacked blizzard/meteor for example. Play smart and punish their mistakes. These duels aren't hard at all for us, even if we're not a "BVC" in a traditional sense, we play just like one in these cases, usually for the same results. Our main disadvantage is not having a setup really to stack high resistances, so it's crucial to lay on the pain as quickly and effeciently as you can, and end the duel quickly.

CONCLUDE
That's everything, have fun.

You can't wear eth Ghost Spear (153dexreq) with base dex and that equipment.
(Base 20dex + anni 20 + torch 20 + arreat 20 + ravens 40 = 120dex)
+GL HF catching casters with 0fcr.
+GL HF vs opponents making physical damage with 15%dr.
This build have zero versatility.

Nice layout on guide though.

This post was edited by RaBBit3x on Feb 7 2010 04:50pm

My barb is wearing it with base str and dex. Like i said you get the strength from Engima and Arreats, you get the dex from 2x 20 dex ravens and Arreats. Basically the Arreats lets you wear your spear. This is why we can't take Arreats off to wear Crown of Ages, it's our permenant helm.

very nice build

ty
Some of the credit also goes to D2HCX since I got the idea from his barb in S3

This post was edited by Spectre_187 on Feb 7 2010 04:46pm

GS barbs aint nothin new

overall seems good and new fun way to work heh

the inventory needs more..

your fhr resist seems to lack alot..

oh and not to say about fcr.. will be hard to hit dif whore casters..