UtilityThis is for the player who uses what they find. There will be the most variation in this build due to the abundance of possibilities of item drops.
Items: Beggars can’t be choosers. Use what you can get here.
If you can’t find anything better, you can beat the game using Malice and Black Rune Word weapons. Crushing Blow and Open Wounds will be your primary sources of damage, and the -100 monster defense per hit will ensure that you will be able to make contact on a regular basis. It may be necessary to shop for a wand with Life Tap charges for one of your switch weapons.
Attributes: Strength and Dexterity as needed for equipment requirements, the rest Vitality. With poor armor and resists, you may take a lot of damage as a melee character.
Skills: It is best to start out using Double Swing as your primary attack. As you gain levels, Whirlwind will do better damage and hit more targets, so use a respect when you feel comfortable with how much mana it uses. Putting many points into Whirlwind is a waste, it does not add much damage with each skill point. Berserk is necessary for killing physical immunes.
You will be the most dependent on your War Cry skills; they are what keep you alive. Max Battle Orders for the benefit of the party and for longer duration, making it more manageable. Use Taunt to get a one-on-one battle with strong monsters. Grim Ward can offer a circle of protection that most monsters will not cross, that works like Howl except you don’t have to keep casting it. Warcry is an excellent stun skill if you can afford the mana. Battle Cry works very well as a curse to lower defense and damage of monsters to give you an edge over the monsters that might otherwise be too strong.
Mercenary:Town Guard – Nightmare – Defensive/Holy Freeze
Put an Insight weapon on him to take the strain off your Mana, and some life leach gear so he can stay alive. Having mana and slowing down the monsters gives you the best defensive stance, and with poor gear, you will need as much safety as you can get in Hell Mode.
Conclusion:The barbarian is a very versatile character. Making use of the Warcry tree lets you tackle monsters that should be entirely too strong for any comparably equipped melee character.
StandardTypical Barbarian build, fully capable of killing any monster the game can generate with ease. Albeit not the fastest killer, this barbarian is an excellent asset to any team. He can be a tank, holding back monsters from attacking more fragile team members, boosts everyone’s stats, and is a good item finding character.
Items:Immortal King Set. Use the whole set, it has everything you need, great for PvM, and shouldn’t be too expensive. That fills everything except your jewelry slots. Highlords Wrath amulet is best with its IAS, +1 to all skills and Critical Strike. Ring slots are very versatile, craft some Blood Rings for additional life leach, or use elemental absorb from Dwarf Star or Wisp Protector, or more MF with nagelring. Most popular would be a Raven Frost for its CBF, so you won’t be slowed from taking cold damage, but this is arguable since cold does not slow down Whirlwind attack speed, only the movement, so you can potentially land more hits by having cold status effect, so you decide. For switch you could use Naj’s staff or Spellsteel for their charges, or 2x Spirit Rune Word for the FCR and +4 All Skills to Find Item with or 2x Ali Baba’s or Gull Dagger’s for more MF, really whatever you like.
Attributes: Strength as needed for equipment requirements, the rest Vitality. You are the party’s damage tank and you do not wear a shield, so you will want much life.
Skills: Max Mace Mastery and Battle Orders. Put 1 point into the other Warcry and Mastery skills that you will use. The strongest Combat Skill allocation would be to use Whirlwind as your main attack, and Berserk as your secondary attack, distributing your remaining skills between them and their synergies as best you see fit.
Mercenary:Town Guard – Nightmare – Offensive/Might
The Reaper’s Toll will be a nice weapon to cast Decrepify on your enemies, increasing the damage they will take, reducing the damage they do, and slowing them. The might aura provides some additional damage for the team. Treachery Rune Word armor is rather cheap to make, and will help him hit more often, then when fade casts he will be as safe as you could ever ask for.
Lord of DestructionIt won’t be cheap to make a Barbarian that is better than the Immortal King Set can provide, but it can be done. There are many barbarian guides to choose from, and theorycrafters will fight over the finer points until the cows come home. The point is, you are going to make whatever kind of barbarian you feel like with whatever gear you want to, and you’re going to believe it’s the best there is, and for you and your expectations it is! So there’s really no point in spelling out how to make a PvM Barbarian… or at least there wouldn’t be if any of those other guides were right. So, here’s my barbarian set-up, which does it all with, reasonable cost equipment, reasonable damage, reasonable amount of mf, equating to a reasonable balance of speed and safety.
Reasonable Goals:
9 frame case rate (switch)
200 MF
75 lightning and fire resists in hell
49% Find Item (switch)
4000 Life
800 Mana (switch)
Items:-2x Grief Rune Word, Phase Blade
-Azurewrath Phase Blade
-2x Spirit Rune Word, (any 2x sword or sword/shield)
-Immortal King’s Will, set Avenger Guard (2x Perfect Topaz)
-Enigma Rune Word, (any)
-Highlord’s Wrath
-Gore Rider, War Boots
-Laying of Hands, set Bramble Mitts
-String of Ears, Demonhide Sash
-Raven Frost
-Ring: mana leach is suggested, preferably a dual leach ring with +min damage, AR, resists, whatever you like or can find
- Annihilus, Hellfire Torch, Gheed’s Fortune
Most of the time you will be using 2x Grief PB, they do massive damage with speed to spare. Some areas have many undead monsters, in which you will put Azurewrath in the secondary weapon slot, not only to repel them for unparalleled safety, but also to nullify all of their positive physical damage resists. 2x Spirit on switch with a combined +63% faster cast rate, is the best combination of +all skills, FCR, and Mana, letting you Find Item and Teleport like a Champion. Teleport isn’t only for finding bosses quickly and rushing friends, it also positions your mercenary to optimize your collective damage output, and give your merc some safety since they smart enough to leap out of danger. IK helm just looks better than SZACKO
.
Optional additional Equipment (for Ubers):
-Soul Drainer, Vambraces
-Marrowalk, Boneweave Boots or Life-Tap charges wand/dagger
Personally I like Marrowalk for Life-Tap charges here, so you don’t need to switch and it has a higher slvl so longer duration. Soul Drainer gloves are not only for the dual leach, but the -50 monster defense per hit lets you hit those high mlvl and defense Uber Bosses at a much more reliable rate. Take the Treachery to prebuff fade and Guillaume’s Face off your mercenary, Whirlwind and Howl/Grim Ward like a crazy person and they will go down with ease.
Mercenary:Town Guard – Nightmare – Offensive/Might
The Reaper’s Toll unique Thresher, Treachery Rune Word armor, Guillaume’s Face set Winged Helm.
Attributes: Strength and Dexterity as needed for equipment requirements, the rest Vitality. This will give you around 4000 Life which should be more than enough to stay alive in any situation the game can throw at you, even on Hard-Core mode.
Some players believe that 2000 life is enough, primarily for Soft-Core PvM, and that is fine. I would suggest for those players to still stat vitality, and use their skill points on skill damage synergies instead of Battle Orders.
Skills: 20 Sword Mastery
20 Battle Orders
20 Frenzy
2 Find Item (if you followed the equipment precisely, 1 extra skill point gives 2% more chance, which is probably worth it?)
1 everything else (Exclude other weapon masteries)
Remainder – Frenzy Synergies, or Whirlwind, or Howl
This barbarian is skilled much like a Frenzy Barbarian, but plays like a hybrid.
Whirlwind is the highest damage melee skill since it boasts the fastest attack speed while dual wielding, there’s no arguing over this, that is just how it is. It hits hard and fast enough that additional points don’t necessary award much merit. You also move around while you’re using this skill and can’t use potions, so it leaves you and your team vulnerable. It is a powerful skill indeed, but has its time and place
Berserk does massive damage but is fastest at 9FPA, and leaves you completely defenseless. Great skill, but you’ll only use it against non-undead physical immune monsters. If you absolutely love this skill, I have to recommend putting extra points into the Howl synergy since it not only adds damage, but the increased radius makes it much more effective.
Frenzy is my preferred Combat Skill since you can just hold down the right mouse button and wave the cursor around, watching the monsters being obliterated. It is an uninterruptible attack, making it far superior to Double Swing, and hits faster than attacks other than whirlwind. The tremendous FRW boost enables your barbarian to walk faster than most characters can run, keeping your defense in check.
Double swing is my preferred choice of Frenzy synergy. With a few points invested, it actually has a negative mana cost, meaning you regenerate mana while using it, which can be handy against mana burn monsters.
End NotesI wish to extend special thanks to:
TitanSeal
onderduiker
Eywa
Ancalagon
and the rest of the SnG_Team that have put up with my Nuden-Theorycrafting while I sit naked on a chair.
Blizzard – Please re-enable Iron Maiden.
This post was edited by MajinKaisa on Mar 26 2011 05:16pm