Hi 👋, new player looking to build a PvM barb.

One of the builds that caught my eye was the Metamorphosis ww throw barb. Looking through past posts looks like sinsofthesun had a maxroll link but this is no longer working.

New to the forum, so not sure how to tag him but could someone help post an updated build?

Thanks in advance!

to the rescue

One thing I would like to clarify is whether to build Beast and Death in Berserker or Ettin axes.

Also, if I look to get a winged harpoon to go along with the lacerator, are there any keys stats to look out for e.g. IAS (if so what %)?

Here’s my double throw ias calc:

https://sins-of-the-sun.github.io/double-throw-ias-calc/?mhWSM=-20&ohWSM=-10&mhIAS=30&ohIAS=30&offWeaponIAS=40&fanaticism=0&frenzy=0&markOfTheBear=1&burstOfSpeed=0&holyFreeze=0&decrepify=0&chilled=0&slowPercent=0

The above linked configuration is showing a standard cookie cutter warshrike (-20wsm) and lacerator (-10wsm) with 40 off-weapon ias (HL + LoH) for 4 fpa (8 total frames).

That’s using MotB and a might+pride merc, resulting in more dps than using a faith merc to reach the last ias bp for 7 frames (3.5 fpa).

This is also resulting in max ias bp on death+beast side, no matter if you chose ettin or zerker as your base.
Zerker keeps higher resell value.
Ettin has 2 advantages tho…
Slightly higher average base dmg.
And for pvm, shorter rangeadder means you can target kill what you want to kill faster instead of spreading your dmg around many targets.
More concentrated dmg = less time to regen (and less targets regenerating at the same time).
More concentrated dmg = capacity to target kill the unique and remove its aura from the rest of the mobs.

I’d recommend you start with warshrike.
The reason is… you get to 100% pierce
And even if it is lower dps than a gg rare, the purpose of going for an hybrid throw/ww is that you use throw against high density and then you swap to ww to finish tankier targets once the trash mobs are dead.
Warshrike is perfect at that.
If you swap warshrike for a rare, sure your dps on paper can go up… but the real effective dps is often negligible on multi-pierced through targets.
You can use a rare + razortail, but still, you lose 17% pierce, 50% crit and the capacity to use another belt such as arach.
The dmg of a rare needs to be A LOT higher than warshrike to beat those downsides.
I’d recommend using a gg rare on any other throw build, but not on this one.

This post was edited by SinsOfTheSun on Jun 16 2026 06:16pm

Thanks so much for clarifying, sounds like ettin axe is the way forward. Really good advice on using warshrikes - much cheaper to build as well.

What does the stat distribution look like? Balance between dex and vit?

Also really cool that a lot of the equips are what I would need for a bowazon in the future! I suppose the barb is much better at boss and herald killing with all the crushing blow, but the bowazon is probably better at general clearing?

If you ever want to resell do berserkers. Theres hardly a market for ettins like Sins said.

Try one or the other or halfway. It’s PvM so won’t matter too much anyhow.

It would be decent for TZs and the heralds.. bowa nah so mush