Introduction -
The Sacrifice Barb is a Barbarian who uses a War Scepter of Sacrifice and makes use of their high defence very well. They can get very good overall stats, and are well balanced all round chars.
In my experiance, a good Sac Barb will demolish TS Sins, Sac Pallys, Bash Barbs, and Sac Necros. But there are two major problems; Jabbers and Smiters. A good Jabber will beat a Sac Barb, and Smiters just cut straight through the huge defence. Kickers do pretty well against them since they get high attack rating, but I've not lost to a Kicker before. The advantages that Barbs have over other chars is they get 4 Life per point in Vitality, whereas most chars get 3. Also, Mastery is a big help, giving damage, attack rating, and crit strike.
Moving onto the most important part of any lvl 9 char, the items.
There will always be more than just the choices I list, but I'll try to list the best ones.
Helm
Sigons Helm is the cheap option, since you already have other Sigon pieces this allows you to permanently use Deaths Belt if you prefer it to Sigons belt. Socket it with a Max Damage jewel. And another thing, make sure it's 60 Def (perf).
3 Socket Crown is another good but cheap option, socket it with max damage/AR jewels that possibly have defence on them but make sure the crown is 15% ED.
3+ Shout 3 Socket Barb helm - this is another good option, but very hard to find. Same sockets as the crown here.
I've only seen one very good eth/rep crown, but I think this would probably be the best choice due to the massive defence, aslong as it has two sockets.
Armor
4 Socket Ancient Armor is the number one choice here, socketed with Max/AR/(Def if possible) jewels, make sure two of them have -15 req to bring the reqs down to 70 Str. Make sure it's 15% ED.
Another choice is an eth bugged Ancient Armor with 4 sockets with the same jewels as before, but if you make one of these I recommend only using it for the important duels where you need extra def so that you don't waste durabilty.
You could also use an eth/rep Ancient Armor but I don't think it would be worth it because of having less sockets.
Shield
My first choice is a high defence Bone Shield of Deflecting, these are nice because they are easily shopped from drognan. Make sure it gets two sockets at larzuk, and socket with similar jewels to those in your helm (max/ar/def).
If you can get your hands on one, an eth/rep/deflecting/2 socket Bone Shield is the number one choice. But good luck on getting one.
You could use Sigons, but I don't recommend it since you'd need to waste a max/-req jewel on it.
Gloves
Sigons, no other option. Make sure they have perf 15 Defence.
Boots
Sigons again, no other choices here either, and again, make sure they have 15 Defence.
Belt
Sigons is my choice but you might want to get half freeze duration on one piece of your jewelry.
Deaths belt is also a choice if you insist on having Cannot Be Frozen, but this means you will have to use Sigon Helm or Shield so that you still get the 100 Def Bonus.
Rings
The best possible ring would be 95AR, 2 Str, 2 Dex, 5 Life Replenish, 5 Life.
Make sure yours have atleast 75 AR and some other stats as listed. Half Freeze Duration is a desirable mod if you're using Sigon belt.
A cheaper option here is Nagelrings since they can get up to 75 AR.
Amulet
The best possible amulet would be 35AR, 5 Str, 5 Dex, 10 Life, 12% DTM, 5 Life Replenish.
Try to get one as close as possible to this. Again, if you don't have it on one of your rings, Half Freeze Duration is a desirable mod if you're using Sigon belt.
There aren't really "easy options" for your amulet, just try to find a good one, or try gambling.
Weapon
The most important part of a Sacrifice Barb, because without it, it wouldn't be a Sacrifice Barb.
You can get up to level 11 Sacrifice charges, try to get atleast level 10 charges.
Also if you're lucky enough to get a nice prefix, my favorite is "Fine" (ED/AR).
Make sure it gets two sockets. Socket it with Max/ED/AR jewels.
I think a lvl 95 char is needed to shop a lvl 11 Sac charges Scepter, I'm not 100% sure on it though.
Switch Weapon Slot
The weapon here really doesn't matter, I prefer to use Crushflange for 10 Strength. Read the next line to see why...
Sigon shield should be here, for +1 Skills when casting Shout. You can use a -15 Req jewel in here or you can just equip Crushflange to get enough strength.
Alternatively you could use a nice throwing weapon here with Sigons shield.
Skill Placement
Mace Mastery - 9 Points
Howl - 1 point, required for Shout
Shout - 4 points
The rest of the points you are free to do what you want with them, Leap or Bash, whatever you want.
You could even put some into Throwing Mastery if you have a throwing weapon on switch.
Dueling Information
What to expect vs other chars (this is all from my own experiance, yours may vary)
Jabbers - these will kill you if they are good, because of their fast attack and ability to lower your defence. There isn't much you can do against a good Jabber, just hope for the best.
Sac Paladins - unless they get a few lucky hits then they should go down no problem at all, your defence should keep them off long enough for you to kill them.
TS Sins - these really suffer against your high defence, many times I've dueled these they have had trouble getting up their charges because of the defence and are dead before they can release them.
Sac Necros - these are often scared of, since they have Bone Armor, and Clay Golem, and can get amazing damage. Although they have low attack rating, so they can barely get through your defence. Nothing to worry about here.
Kickers - annoying chars to duel against, but I haven't had too much trouble from them.
Smiters - don't even waste your time, a good Smiter should beat any high defence char hands down.
Ice Blast Sorcs - it all depends on their playstyle and how lame they are with liferep. Can't really say anything here but make sure you equip Deaths Sash.
Other Information
Try to get atleast 700 Damage/1600 Attack Rating/450 Life/1250 Defence
On my Sacrifice Barb my stats weren't amazing, but I was #2 (maybe #3 depending on if there were any other godly Jabbers out there) melee on the realm.
It's easily possible to get over 1800 Defence with an eth bugged Ancient Armor.
Remember it's going to cost alot of gold repairing your weapon.
A nice thing about this char is that you don't need mana pots. And Sacrifice doesn't take any of your life either since it's from charges.
I've probably missed something off so feel free to point it out, I will post up one of my old screenshots later as an example.
Of course my stats aren't the best, but they're fairly good, and like I said before it was #2 or 3 melee on the realm, second only to a Jabber.
I did get bored half way through writing this guide, so it probably looks crap... maybe I'll repost it later or something.
This post was edited by ste91 on Sep 27 2007 05:15pm