What do you guys think, Act 2 or Act 5, with BiS gear.
Currently running Act 2 but the cold shatters from Eth Reaper's is kind of annoying, not sure if its worth it. Kills fast though.

A2 might. Ebotd wp, gbane, Andy’s. Socket with res from what I’ve read - or ariocs, fort, Andy’s.

This post was edited by Pynosauras on Jan 18 2026 03:27pm

using a gold find barb is a complete waste of time. they are not profitable in terms of recouping the gear it costs to build it and it does produce results just not as fast or effective as a standard mf sorc. i converted my gf barb into a support bo barb. if you have a support bo barb you have high level bo bc ba and with some mf from gear on the default gear you can pop super chests with high fcr that is the best use of a barb i have found as its terrible melee pvm.

What do you mean by best-in-slot gear in that context? highest damage or highest %gold?
gold finder is supposed to be a cheap character with easy to find gear, mine only runs travincal in nightmare difficulty. Your merc does not need forti - infinity (even if that would absolutley work), if you can afford such gear you probably do not need that character.

I prefer act 2 merc with might aura. But the new act 5 frenzy barb with two 1-handed sword is decent as well, suitable swords are harder to find though
Best use a very fast weapon with decent damage, and possibly avoid cold damage to not shatter the corpses.

Bonehew would be my first choice for uniques, tomb reaver is fine but the chance to revive is also a corpse destroyer , same for reaper's toll. Upgraded hone sundan for 45% crushing blow maybe?

For runeword weapons, hustle is stupidly fast, crescent moon with its static field, insight always a decent choice even if you do not need the mana regen. Highest damage would be obediance, but again it has cold damage.

For barb merc you absolutely want at least 1 headstriker unique sword ( preferably etheral upgraded), other one can be another HS, crescent moon , oath, hustle, or even something a liitle more expensive like kingslayer.



For armor, goldskin has decent resists and defense while providing some extra gold, hustle or treachery provide decent atack speed bonus (do not mix treachery with hustle weapon though) , guardian angel can save your mercenary from those nasty hydras. Duress is fine, but cold damage again. Duriel's shell is also a great choice for its cannot be frozen coupled with life and resistances.

For helm, crown of thieves is the most obvious choice with life, leech, fire resistance and gold find. Guillaume's face provides lots of crushing blow for faster kiling . Of course the usual tal mask, bulwark, andy's, vampire gaze wourk for that, Barb merc CAN use barb-only helms , that includes 2 good options : Areat's face, and IK helm.

I essentially am trying to go for highest gold per hour, with some mf to hork, currently running on hell with act 2 might merc, eth reapers with ed/ias jewel, eth upped crown of tieves, eth fort. I spam leap on my barb and the merc just pounds, seems to work pretty good so far.

This is the way, if you also mf Hell is good. If you need gold more, try doing quick nightmare travincal runs, it is faster and allows a cheaper, weaker but more gold oriented gear for you and your merc.
Having a damage swap on yourself might be useful, especially in hell.

Ebotd wp, eth upped crown of thieves, fort or ebug wealth
Ebug wealth is a fair bit slower but alot more gold. You can also use a eth tomb reaver with lems but again it's alot slower than Ebotd warpike.

My best two gold runs from trav back in the day:
$1357007 - april 2013
$1420010 - aug 2012

A good run for MF too is trav/fire eye/shenk/lower kurrast. Alot of people don't know about fire eye for a non-tele run. Go through the arcane sanctuary portal and he's right there and there's often a pack of champs that spawn there. Hope this helps.