I'm not a fan of going to a4, it's 2 load screens away. haven't timed it but I think with decent frw the a3 town walk is faster. iespecially since with some practice you can end up halfway to ormus before game loads. in the video below, town walk is about 5s if you don't count inventory management.

https://youtu.be/USgmwMYP7ZE

Maybe if your load screens are abysmal. On my end A4 is better and it's not remotely close

just tested, opening tp -> a3 -> wp to a4 takes 6-7s on my end, with load screens taking about 4-5s. So, roughly 1-1.5s slower than a good a3 townwalk with 60%frw, and also with some additional clicks involved which could result in human error.

https://youtu.be/Hf-ncS4Pw00

I've got a ryzen 5600x @4.2 ghz and game is loaded on a Nvme gen3 ssd, so not really sure how much more it could be sped up. GPU is a 1080ti, not sure how much this affects load times. What's your setup?

One interesting thought I had while going through these experiments was the potential utility of an item with telekinesis charges to manipulate wps from a distance. could save some seconds by manipulating wps from a distance, though not sure if this offsets repair costs.

Loading screens sped up massively when I removed "frame cap", for what it's worth.
2080Ti here with a i9-9900k 3.60GHZ, 64GB RAM

Also worth adding: you can move/open the Save & Exit Menu during the loading screen itself by clicking or hitting Esc, etc.
I usually do that when loading into trav, too, to get a tiny bit closer to the Council area.

This post was edited by Exokek on Feb 17 2022 05:55am

i've heard of this before, and thought it only applied when you have applied a lower frame cap (e.g. 60fps). I had mine at 120fps, turned it off, and not 100% sure, but might have been a tiny bit faster. When I switched to 60fps cap, noticed a massive slowdown for sure.

it might be even less than 5 sec. it's just tedious and tiring on the long run. the more you hork, the more SS makes more sense to me.
quality of life point of view ( after 2 decades of playing d2 ) = i find SS > Gavel for those reasons.

Yeah I mean, at that point just use Infinity on the Merc maybe to break Phys Immunity? Might solve all the annoyance in one go, not sure.

your guide is well written and one of the best i saw in this website among plenty garbage ones.
i like guides with facts, and i play gold barb for ages so.. well done.

Ah shit nvm, I keep forgetting Infin only reduces defense, doesn't solve the problem of Phys Immunity (only affects elemental resists, duh).

It does maximize hit rate to 95% at least, but you still need Decrep/Amp Damage to be efficient with damage dealing, and Decrepify lasts 5~ seconds, which makes Stone Skin/Phys Immunity kills reaaaally bad.
I can see a setup like this that uses Infinity as a Merc Weapon, Lem Sword + Beast offhand / Spellsteel swap, where you only use Decrep vs. Phys Immunity: https://d2.maxroll.gg/d2planner/fq0106r3#6

You minimize repairs, and you 100% avoid the need for a Demon Limb/Battle Cry to reduce defense, which means you can just sit back and relax.

Your kill speed vs. Phys Immune/Stone Skin Ismail is going to be aaaaawful, but the others should die alright.
Can also replace Infinity with a more traditional weapon.

A frustration I have with Spellsteel is that you can't Teleport without swapping to it, so it's harder to telestomp/hork efficiently.

An alternative way to play is probably to use a "normal setup" (eBOTD weapon, Arioc's, whatever), and simply use Level 26 Battle Cry (-100% Def) as a default, and ONLY Amp Damage when up against Phys Immunity.

This post was edited by Exokek on Feb 17 2022 08:31am

if someone from ps is interested in making a barb following this guide, i'm selling mine here: https://forums.d2jsp.org/topic.php?t=92435007&f=86&o=0#p605375430
i had a lot of fun and it was very efficient.
ty for the guide