Tudey's 1.12 Balanced Barbarian vs. Caster Guide:So, it is me, Tudey, and I am here to release my Barbarian vs. Caster Balance Guide which I HAVE CONSTRUCTED. Please try not to question too many things as I have played Barbarian for over 3 years and know this game very well when it comes to math. Well, I decided to play again in my spare time and have geared this Barbarian. This is the latest version and you will crush people if you can play Barbarian well. Let us start the guide:
Introduction:The point of this Barbarian build is to offer players a unique alternative to a BvC that is superior to the standard “Grief” Build. People ask me how it is superior and that is simple to understand. Balanced builds will always be the best. You can have 8,000 Life on your Barbarian but if you do no damage, you are just going to die because you fail to eliminate your target before he/she can out damage your health. Sure, you can kill rando commandos with nearly anything but when you come across the experienced player, you will have a hard time winning with a “Grief” build. In 1.12, this is very easy for many characters to do. Damage amounts are so vast on casters that they can easily bring that huge health down quickly. This build is offering you a balance between high health limits and high damage. Everything you need to know based on math that the Diablo II code runs is written within this guide including Attack Rating, Frames Per Attack, Leap and PvP Damage equations so read things carefully and if you have any questions that need further explanation, look these up on Arreat’s Summit or feel free to PM me. Also, if there is an abbreviation or something you do not understand, check out the Abbreviation and Note section of this guide. It will most likely be explained there.
Barbarian Stats With This Build:Name: Garbage
Level: 95
Whirlwind Damage: Ethereal Death Cleaver – 2,073 – 6,308 and “Beast” – 1,576 – 5,409
Berserk Damage: 8,739
Whirlwind Attack Rating: 10,072
Life: 7,406 (No Pre-Buffing except B/O Sticks)
Mana: 508 (No Pre-Buffing except B/O Sticks)
Deadly Strike: 100% Chance
Critical Strike: 23% Chance
Frames Per Attack: 4 FPA with Whirlwind and 9 FPA with Berserk
Resistances: 75% For All In Hell
Abbreviations | Notes:* = Indicates a note that will be in the corresponding explanation sections of this guide
EDC = Ethereal Death Cleaver
Arach: Arachnids Mesh Spiderweb Sash
FPS = Frames Per Second
FPA = Frames Per Attack
IAS = Increased Attack Speed
WW = Whirlwind
Sin = Assassin
Triangle WW = Referring to the act of a player Whirlwinding in small, tight Triangles across a target in order to keep them stunned from consistent FPA hits.
VIT = Vitality
DEX = Dexterity
STR = Strength
“Beast” = Reference to the “Beast” Runeword
Dungoes = Verdungoes Hearty Cord Mithril Coil
AR = Attack Rating
CB = Crushing Blow
DS = Deadly Strike
OW = Open Wounds
CB = Crushing Blow
DR = Damage Reduction
CS = Critical Strike
South Side = the south position below your target where you can lock them before they can lock you
COA = Crown of the Ages Corona
Zerk = Berserk
FCR = Faster Cast Rate
FHR = Faster Hit Recovery
FRW = Faster Run and Walk
MB = Maximum Block
KB = Knockback
CBF = Cannot Be Frozen
Desynch- de-synchronization – a form of lag that makes u think you are somewhere but to the server u are elsewhere usually somewhere in your trail.
Attribute Point Allocation:*Strength: 75 - 90
Dexterity: Base
Vitality: All Remaining
Energy: Base
Explanation:
This Barbarian is completely based on Amplifying Damage to get a pure balance between life, damage and attack rating. Once this is achieved the Barbarian then reaches insane damage limits due to a 100% Chance of Deadly Strike. What most people do not know is how Strength works in building damage. Unlike “Grief”, which is not affected by Damage Multipliers in any way, shape or form due to the +400 Damage being calculated after a full hit and then added after PvP penalties – EDC receives full Damage Multipliers from Strength. Each point of strength is equal to 1% Global Enhanced Damage. This means all Damage Additive items will be multiplied by your total Strength percent. For example, my Barbarian has 400 Strength. This results in all of my charms being multiplied by 400%, my weapons being multiplied by 400%, my War Travelers Damage Amplifier of 15 - 25 to be multiplied by 400% etc. Basically you receive hundreds of extra damage points and even thousands by trying to use as much additive strength gear as possible. Also keep in mind that any additive damage gear you use is also multiplied by the Global Affect of “Beast” Fanatacism. So an item like War Travelers adding 15 - 25 damage also gets multiplied by the 186% Damage Multiplier that a level 9 Fanatacism adds. So in total, you receive 586% Damage Amplification to your Weapons, Charms and any other damage received from items. On top of this percent, EDC and “Beast” are both multiplied by Whirlwind and Axe Mastery. The way these skills work is by multiplying base Weapon damage. Since “Grief” has additive damage that is calculated after PvP penalties, it is unaffected by both Axe Mastery and Whirlwind Damage multipliers. Finally, you can vary between 75 Base Strength up to 90 Base Strength. You will be nearly balanced no matter how much between these two variables you invest. This is a personal choice.
Skill Points Allocation:Axe Mastery: 20
Whirlwind: 20
Battle Orders: 20
Battle Command: 1
*Berserk: 1 (This is where you should invest skill points if you exceed your desired levels in all other skills)
*Leap: 16 - 20
Increased Speed: 1
Natural Resistance: 10 - 14
*Shout: 15 – 20 (This is where you invest skills lastly in case you are stopping at levels under 95)
Explanation:
Leap:
What 99.9% of Diablo players do not realize is how leap works. Every Barbarian Guide I have ever seen thinks that the Radius they see (such as 18.6 Yards) is the radius the leap will affect a player. This is completely incorrect. Leap has a hidden Radi much like Blessed Aim has a Hidden, passive 5% bonus to attack rating per level. For each Point into Leap, it gains a .66 Radius gain for Leap effectiveness in addition to its Base 1.98 Radius. So to figure out how many points you want to invest into Leap, do this simple math equation:
(1.98 + (slvl * 0.66) > Result What this means is to take the base Radius of a Level 1 Leap which is 1.98 Yards and add the Skill Level of Leap multiplied by .66 (e.g. 20 x .66 + 1.98 = 15.18) and round the result down since it will always be less than the indicated formula. Diablo code rounds everything down no matter how close to a whole number the decimal is. So, for this build I recommend 16 Skill Points into Leap versus 20 because once your + skills is added onto the Leap level, you result in a level 28 and 32 Leap. This results in 20 yards vs. 23 Yards since the result is rounded down no matter how close to a full number it is. 20 yards is just the right amount because it keeps them within your leap lock whereas 23 yards gives a player the chance to teleport out of its raidus.
Shout:
This is simple, this skill synergizes duration to Battle Command and Battles Orders, it adds 10% Damage to Berserk per level and it adds 10% Defense Bonus per level. Investing skill points into this skill is more than a good idea.
Berserk:
This is the one area where “Grief” has a slight advantage over Ethereal Death Cleaver. Berserk converts Physical damage to Magical damage thus the +400 Damage is multiplied by Berserk since it converts the damage after calculating a physical hit. EDC will still do far more damage until one thing comes into factor – Damage Reduction. Because Deadly Strike is calculated before Damage reduction, it takes a large hit before it is converted into the Magical Damage from Berserk. To sum this up, any character utilizing 38% or higher Damage Reduction will take less damage from Berserk using EDC than a “Grief” would initiate. The damage difference ranges between 205 - 325 PvP damage depending on the damage of the physical hit being converted and the range of damage reduction a player is using. If a player is not using efficient damage reduction e.g. 10% or less, EDC can deal between 550 - 680 more PvP damage than “Grief”.
Equipment:Barbarians are based on IAS, so check out your IAS break points before getting any bright ideas. Here is a link:
http://diablo2.***/tips/calcs/weaponspeed.php?lang=english*Helmet: Arreats Face Guardian Crown socketed with “Cham” Rune
*Amulet: Highlords Wrath Amulet
Armor: "Enigma" Runeword
*Weapon I: Ethereal Death Cleaver Berserker Axe socketed with “Zod” Rune
*Weapon II: “Beast” Runeword Berserker Axe
Weapon Switch: 2x “Heart of the Oak” Runeword
*Shield: 1.08 Stormshield socketed with “Eld” Rune
*Belt: 24% Faster Hit Recovery | 10% Chance of Open Wounds | + to Strength | + to Life Crafted Belt
*Greaves: War Travelers
Gauntlets: Steelrend Ogre Gauntlets
Ring I: 10% Faster Cast Rate | 110+ to Attack Rating | +20 to Strength | 35+ to Life | 25+ Mana | Resists
Ring II: 10% Faster Cast Rate | 110+ to Attack Rating | +20 to Strength | 35+ to Life | 25+ Mana | Resists
Charms:
[9x] +10 to Maximum Damage | +74 – 76 to Attack Rating | +44 – 45 Life Grand Charms
[10x] +3 to Maximum Damage | +19 - 20 to Attack Rating | +20 to Life Small Charms
1x Annihilus (My Barbarian is Calculated with a 20 | 19)
1x Hellfire (My Barbarian is calculated with a 20 | 20)
***Stash Equipment***
1x Thundergods Vigor War Belt
1x Hotspur Boots
2x Raven Frost Ring
1x Wisp Projector Ring
1x Crown of the Ages Corona with 2x ‘Ber” Runes
*1x Trang Ouls Girth Troll Belt
1x Verdungoes Hearty Cord Mithril Coil
1x Cats Eye Amulet
1x Angelic Wings Amulet
2x Angelic Halo Ring
1x Immortal King’s Pillar or Hsaru’s Iron Heel Chain Boots
1x Hsaru’s Iron Stay Belt
1x Waterwalk Sharkskin Boots
1x +6 to Battle Orders +6 to Shout Helmet (This is what I use. You may have something different because you are dumb as hell and care about a Blue or Red Color versus getting better stats. I also am pretty lazy so I do not Pre-Buff with this Helmet too often.)
2x 451 Poison Damage Small Charm
*1x 5 Socket 15% Enhanced Damage Superior Berserker Axe socketed with 3x 15 IAS | 15 All Resist Jewels and 3x “Um” Runes to receive +45% to All Resists, +45% Increased Attack Speed and +75% Chance of Open Wounds
*1x 5 Socket +3 Attack Rating Superior Berserker Axe socketed with 3x 15 IAS | +100 to Attack Rating Jewels and 3x “Um” Runes to receive +303 to Attack Rating, +45% Increased Attack Speed and +75% Chance of Open Wounds
And any further items you wish to use
***OVER ALL GEAR NOTES:***
Keep in mind your Barbarian is a balanced build utilizing a fuck ton of strength. Because of this, go for the highest defense possible on the items you prefer. If you like Tigulated Armor for “Enigma” due to looks, get yourself a 15% Enhanced Defense Superior Loricated Armor like I have. You receive almost 2,400 points of defense extra if you do this. The same applies to Arreats Face. Why go with a perfect 363 Defense Slayer Guard when you can use the Guardian Crown version and get 502 Defense like mine has. This also results in nearly 1,500 points of defense.
*Helmet:
No one really takes regard to this but this is a huge factor in any Barbarian – Cannot Be Frozen. Just like an Amazon a Barbarian is based on IAS for Whirlwind Breakpoints. People think if you get frozen you hit a target more. LMFAO WOW YOU ARE WRONG. When you are frozen your 4 FPA Whirlwind drops to 8 FPA effectively reducing the attempted hits by 3 per Whirlwind Cycle. You want to make sure you Cannot Be Frozen. Since this build uses 2x FCR Rings, you must receive CBF elsewhere.
*Amulet:
This option is self explanatory. You receive +1 to All Skills, a nice 35% Deadly Strike and massive Lightning Resist. The whole purpose of a Damage Amplifier build is to amplify that huge damage even more. To do this you want to utilize 100% Deadly Strike.
*Weapon I:
Ethereal Death Cleaver is what this whole build is about. You want to achieve insane damage limits and then Amplify that damage further by 100% Deadly Strike. Now here is the down fall. Whirlwind is based on the lead weapon, in this case it would be “Grief” versus Ethereal Death Cleaver as your lead weapon. Since the inherited mods of these items are only calculated by the lead weapon, the “Beast” does not receive the +400 damage from “Grief” nor the 66% Deadly Strike from the EDC. So, you only have 100% Deadly Strike on your lead weapon and +400 Damage on “Grief” side.
*Weapon II:
You have 35% Deadly Strike plus the 23% Critical Strike from your Axe Mastery on the “Beast” side to land a Critical or Deadly Strike with “Beast”. CS and DS do not stack but they act the same as having multiple DS items. They give you an overall % when combined. So, “Beast” has a 58% Chance to Deal Double Damage with this build. This is true in most builds using “Grief”, the majority of players have a Highlords, Gore Riders and Axe Mastery totaling a 73% Chance to Deal Double Damage with “Beast”. The difference is the average “Grief” build is hitting 3,100 Damage on the “Beast” side so when you land a Deadly Strike, you really do not trigger much damage. Now with this build, you do over 5,400 Damage on the “Beast” side which results in 6,200+ Damage versus 10,800+ Damage when DS is applied. This calculates to 775 PvP Damage versus 1,350 PvP Damage which is approximately a 75% Damage difference. Even without a Deadly Strike, the average damage a “Beast” deals with this build is far superior to the “Grief” build.
*Belt:
This belt is simply an Amazing option. There are two belts the standard shitty BvC build uses, Verdungoes and Arachnid Mesh. Now you can feel free to use either of these belts, but if there is nothing causing you to use these belts e.g. Dungoes will be more effective than any other belt vs. a Smiter or Hybrid Amazon, than why not increase your damage, life and Open Wounds as well as FHR. What 99.9% of people in this game do not know is any item that adds vitality does not get affected by Battle Orders. So Dungoes which adds 40 Vitality adds 120 Life and nothing more where as my belt which has 72 Life adds 182 Life. If you are a player that wishes to use 37% FCR versus 20% FCR, then feel free to use Arachnids Mesh but honestly if you need 37% FCR you are playing a BvC wrong.
*1.08 Stormshield
You can read the Amazon section of this guide for the full suit for Maximum Block but basically this shield is amazing to reach Max Block with Base Dexterity. The block limits are higher than that of 1.09 Stormshield saving you an instant 14 Dexterity points and once you “Eld” it, you move up to saving 32 Dexterity Points. Again, move to the Amazon Strategy in this Guide to read how to obtain Maximum Block.
*Greaves:
War Traveler’s Battle Boots are the absolute best choice for this build. These boots offer Strength for Damage, they add 15 - 25 Damage for Damage Multipliers and they add a small amount of Vitality. If you can get a hold of them, get yourself an upgraded pair for the Defense gain. Finally, people question Gores vs. War Travelers well listen up randoms. You already have 100% Deadly Strike on the Weapon that matters the most. The additional 15% Deadly Strike is fairly useless and the open wounds does less damage than the additive damage from War Travelers. As for Crushing Blow, if you want Crushing blow you are an idiot and have no clue what Crushing blow does. Let me explain what CB does in PvP. CB reduces a players base health limit by a certain percent. In PvP, that percent is 1/10 or 10%. Now the catch here is BASE HEALTH REDUCTION. Base health refers to Vitality invested, Life Gained Per Level (2 for a Barbarian) and the 3 Health Potion Quests. Items adding Life, Vitality and Battle Orders as well as Oak Sage do not affect the Crushing Blow calculation what so ever. It is only Base Health. So for an example this means a Level 95 Barbarian with 425 Base Vitality invested has 2003 Base Health (55 Life starting at level 1, +2 life gained Per level so 94x2 and +60 Life from Potion quests). This means Crushing Blow will reduce his Health by 200 Points when activated. Sure, 200 is a decent chunk of health but that’s vs. a Level 95 Barbarian – the highest life character in the game. So, unless you have 50%+ on Both Weapons, you do not have a good chance of inflicting a Crushing Blow hit before you kill a target.
*5 Socket Berserker Axe with 15% Enhanced Damage:
This weapon is created to kill one character class and one character class only - an Energy Shield Sorceress. You may come across two types, a Max Block Energy Shield Sorceress and a Max Block Energy Shield Sorceress with Maximum Damage Reduction. Either way, the Open Wounds will completely dominate these builds. To finish it all offer, I use 2x 451 Poison Damage Small Charms vs. these builds as well to bring their Health down to 1 with the first Infliction of Open Wounds. Now all you have to do is 2 Damage so that 1 damage goes to Energy Shield and one Damage goes to health. I am pretty sure you can manage to do that.
*5 Socket Berserker Axe with +303 attack Rating:
This weapon is created to kill one character class and one character class only – Paladins. There are tons of types of Paladins but the fact still stands that they all have a fuck ton of Defense. The plan here is to crank up the Attack Rating and Open Wounds and place on some poison damage small charms. You are not focusing on damage dealing so for this suit, I go with Drac’s, this Axe, “Beast”, Immortal Kings Pillar War Boots, Angelic Amulet and Rings and if I do not need DR, I change Immortal Kings Pillar to Hsaru’s Iron Heel and my Belt to Hsaru’s Iron Stay. With this I achieve 100% Open Wounds on my Primary, Lead Weapon and 65% Open Wounds on “Beast”. I also achieve 44,829 Attack Rating.
Explanation- Charms:
Again, this is a Balanced Build and because of this, I look for the best mathematical balancements in every aspect including Charms. You simply cannot beat the Grand Charms when it comes to balance between Damage, Attack Rating and Life. If you wish to go with Small Charms you can and you will gain around 335 more Life but you will lose 1,304 Attack Rating and 382 Damage. This is simple math, 335 Life is not even going to give you another hit from any character in Diablo II but 1,304 Attack Rating and 382 Maximum Damage will take you a long way.
Additionally I have seen some people go with heavy Attack Rating charms such as 132 AR Grand Charms and 36 AR Small Charms. This is just the dumbest thing I have ever seen in my life. Let me explain why. Attack Rating is based on three things, the Level of your character, the Level of character you are attacking and the amount of defense that character has. Just because you have a bunch of attack rating does not mean you are going to hit them more. In order to hit more times within a whirlwind attack, you need further IAS which is not possible to pass 4 FPA with Whirldwind. 4 FPA is the Maximum Whirlwind can reach. If you want to know how many hits you can land you need to figure out the following formula:
tFPS / aFPA > TAAFrame 4 and Frame 8 are always going to hit due to Diablo II code so if you are using a weapon that is slower than 4 FPA you will still hit on Frames 4 and Frames 8 of the animation.
What this formula is stating is that tFPS = Total Frames Per Second (Diablo Runs on 25 Frames Per Second) is divided by aFPA = Attackers Frames Per Attack will, equal your total TAA = Total Attacks Attempted rounded down of course because the game always rounds down as stated before. So for example, if we have 4 FPA with Whirlwind, the formula will work as follows:
25 / 4 > 6.25 = 6TAAThe only reason a player may think they hit more because certain characters you are facing have less defense allowing the maximum amount of hits a 4 FPA whirlwind can achieve to land pass a players defense. Now this does not mean if you go get an extra 3,000 Attack rating that you will start hitting players with defense more, you must use the equation Diablo II runs in order to figure out the Attack Rating you need. This goes back to my whole point of using AR charms to be pointless because you need tens of thousands of attack rating points to bypass character level and defense. Here is the equation:
AR = 100 * 2 * alvl / (alvl + dlvl) = X(dDEF * 2 / alvl) = Attack Rating NeededSo the explanation of this equation is AR = Attack Rating, alvl = Attacker Character Level, dlvl = Defenders Character Level and dDEF = Defenders Defense. So for an example let us say we have a level 95 Attacker versus a Level 95 Defender and that Defender has 4,500 Defense, which is about the maximum every Caster will have because they rarely get high defense items due to low strength with the exception of a Paladin and Barbarian. So, anything over the following attack rating level is not really needed:
AR = 100 * 2 * 95alvl / (95alvl + 95dlvl = 190) = 100( 4,500dDEF * 2 / 95alvl) = 9,473 Attack Rating needed to Hit this Target the maximum times a 4 FPA Whirlwind can attempt to hit.
Now of course AR does not bypass chance to block so you can still be blocked up to 75% of the attempted hits.
Now as I said, this will work with the exception of a Paladin and Barbarian. The average Defense of a Paladin is 16,500. If you plug that dDEF level into the equation using the same Attacker and Defender Levels, you need 34,736 Attack Rating. Good luck getting that without sacrificing a plethora of essential items and still being able to deal enough damage to kill your target. So again, trying to build your attack rating up is just stupid. You will be absolutely fine at 10,072 AR vs. the majority of Casters. Just have a good plan versus Paladins which you can read in the Strategy section of this Guide.
Explanation- Gear:
Once you receive all of this Damage Amplification, you will see numbers like my 6,308 Whirlwind Damage. Now, here is the real beastly damage. Deadly Strike works by multiplying your current hit to a PvP target by 100%. It receives PvP penalties still but it increases your damage at insane rates. For example, if I were to hit a full maximum damage hit of 6,308 with my EDC, I would now do 12,616 Damage. So, you result in the following damage comparison using this formula for EDC and “Beast”:
EDC:
(maxDMG *2 = X*.125 = PvPDMG) = 1,577 PvP Damage
(avgDMG *2 = X*.125 = PvPDMG) = 1,175 PvP Damage
(minDMG *2 = X*.125 = PvPDMG) = 518 PvP Damage
BEAST:
(maxDMG *2 = X*.125 = PvPDMG) = 1,352 PvP Damage
(avgDMG *2 = X*.125 = PvPDMG) = 825 PvP Damage
(minDMG *2 = X*.125 = PvPDMG) = 394 PvP DamageWhat this formula is saying is that you take your Maximum, Average and Minimum Damage for each Weapon and multiply it by 2 to figure out the math for Double Damage. Once you have this result you then multiply it by the PvP penalty of Diablo II which is 1/8 which equals .125 then once this equation is complete, you will find your damage for each variable. To further figure out your damage, you must know how much Damage Reduction a player is utilizing. If a player is using 25% Damage reduction, you take the total PvP Damage result and multiply it by the remaining decimal equal to the Damage Reduction percent minus from a total of 100%. For example, 25% Damage Reduction equals to 100% Total Damage Dealt - 25% Damage Reduced = 75% Dealt:
6,308 * 2 = 12,616 * .125 = 1577 * .75 = 1,182 PvP Damage