Errata
1) Decent A5 Merc alternatives (but Headstriker is the only viable weapon)
=> Budget: https://d2.maxroll.gg/d2planner/dp0106zf#13
=> Endgame: https://d2.maxroll.gg/d2planner/fq0106r3#5
2) "Ignores Target's Defense" doesn't work on Mercenary weapons.
3) Upgraded Hone Sundan can be great if you're using Demon Limb
4) Infinity can be an ok Merc Weapon IF you already have it (95% hit chance)

Hey! If you're here, you're probably looking to hear more about this Goldfind Barb thing.

Odds are you've looked at other Goldfind Barb guides.

If you've followed them & made a character based on them, let me take a guess.
Your Mercenary is using Wealth. Or Treachery.
And Crown of Thieves.
And Bonehew, or Tomb Reaver. Or even Reaper's Toll?
And you're using Echoing Weapons with "+3 to Warcries" on your weapon swap.
You also Leap a lot. Your amulet is +3 Warcries/80 Goldfind, because you just started.
Sound familiar?

I'm so sorry. You were given questionable advice, D2 "wisdom" passed down from generation to generation, to the point where it's just taken for granted.

The first thing we need to define is the goal of a Goldfind Barbarian. Contrary to how most Goldfind builds seem to be constructed, the goal of a Goldfind Barb is not to gather the most gold per Travincal run, but to hit your gold cap as fast as possible. It isn't about getting over 1 million gold per run (which would be inefficient anyway as you couldn't carry it all back in one trip), but about making your "time to gold cap" as low as possible.

Everyone has access to a baseline gold cap of 10 million gold across their main stash & their 3 Shared Stash tabs.
Every character level will increase your gold carrying capacity by 10k. A level 90 Barbarian has a gold cap of 10.9M (10.9 million), so there's never much of a difference in gold cap regardless of your level.
When people speak of a "gold cap" in D2R, they just mean "10 million".

The goal of this guide will be to provide you with information so you can determine what you & your mercenary should equip, depending on where you are on your Goldfinding journey.
Remember that a Goldfind Barb isn't a Barbarian you just start playing at level 1: it is an endgame farming build.

I present to you: the Gavel Demon.

The Basics

Why do you sound so mad about 15-year old advice?
I'm not mad, just baffled and confused. To keep it simple: much of the same advice has been repeated over and over again, everywhere I can find, probably due to a lack of serious testing. I understand that people are reluctant to having their methods challenged, but it's been difficult to engage even folks I consider knowledgeable. So I went and did my homework, spending more than 500 hours over the course of a year and a half testing any relevant combination of strategy & gear I could find or think of. It became clear that a lot of the advice I was given simply wasn't optimal, even in D2 Legacy with pre-0.8 Goldfind gear. It was good enough to find gold and fill a stash, but it never felt like a proper build, with multiple progression milestones and "endgame" gearing goals.

What's so different about this guide?
Not much, really. Then again this might sound crazy, but I wanted to PLAY a Goldfind Barb, not simply hold Leap for 3 minutes. That, I think is where the difference in methodology lies. The payoff in gold farming speed is noticeable if you're willing to be more proactive about gameplay.
I don't put much value on the "purist" aesthetic, which will try to convince you that you should max out Goldfind, +Skills or damage at any cost, no matter what.

This guide is written with the assumption that we're trying to farm Hell Travincal as fast & reliably as possible; if I say something is "bad/worse", it doesn't mean it CANNOT clear Hell Travincal, it just means it's less optimal and will run into issues more frequently. You can clear Travincal butt naked spamming Leap for 10 minutes with a Mercenary geared in items sold by Charsi, but I don't care for that.

The difference between a good Goldfind Barbarian and a bad Goldfind Barbarian build is that the better Goldfind Barbarian build can tackle more of the degenerate affixes that 3 Super Uniques can have without needing to spend 3 minutes spamming Leap. It sucks, it's slow, and it's boring.
Does this mean we have to do more puzzle solving & pay attention? Yes. But that's why it's a reimagining.

Why Barbarian? Why not Sorceress? Or Assassin? Or...whatever else?
Because of Find Item. It's that simple. An enemy dropped loot? In true Barbarian fashion, you slice its corpse open to dig for more.
At level 20, Find Item gives a 51% chance to successfully force a drop out of a corpse. You can't Find Item the same corpse more than once, but 51% extra loot is big.
Find Item can reach up to 57% success rate (level 38 skill), but will end up at 55-56% by the time you're done gearing up (lvl 29/33 Find Item)

Plus, only Barbarians can dual wield efficient Goldfind weapons. So get to it. Roll a Barb.

Why Travincal? Why not Pits? Or Chaos Sanctuary? Or Kurast?
Because the Council is convenient & drops massive piles of gold. It's located close to a Waypoint & has a somewhat predictable layout, so you can min-max a character to target farm the area. You also need a sweet spot where your Mercenary can hit anything without any attacks being wasted, and there are no "useless" kills in a Trav run: with 3 Super Uniques and their 7~ minions spawning relatively close to one another, in a closed off area, every attack your Mercenary makes has a purpose.

Why let the Mercenary do all the work?
The Mercenary alone can already clear fast enough while you maximize your Extra Gold & Magic Find. You are fully equipped to support your Mercenary with Battle Orders/Shout, as well as War Cry stuns & repositioning. Your weapons and charms are a very large part of your Goldfind %, and sacrificing them for more DPS is unnecessary. And believe me, you won't be idle anyway if you play a Goldfind Barbarian properly: you'll be shouting, enchanting, cursing, popping corpses & teleporting all over, looting & picking gold up frantically as combat unfolds. This is no lazy Goldfind Barb. But if you absolutely want to DPS, I can't stop you.

Can I Magic Find, too?
Yes, and you probably should. You can split your focus between Goldfind & Magic Find. I recommend you don't go too far so far in the Magic Find direction as to become a bad MF character. You get plenty of Magic Find just wearing some of the cookie cutter gear. For the sake of pure Magic Finding, there are MANY better spots than Travincal.
Going all-in on Goldfind will generally put you in the ballpark of 2600% Goldfind/200% Magic Find, whereas leaning more towards MF with your weapons will consistently have you in the 2300% Goldfind/400% Magic Find ballpark, with almost no trade-off. Both are perfectly good to gold cap quickly, with MF builds yielding more Magic, Rare & Unique drops.


The Farming Strategy

Before I even show you a build, or items, I'll go through the general strategy. This will help contextualize gear choices & the build.
Your gameplay routine will consist of these steps, over and over:

=> Waypoint to Trav
=> Battle Command, Battle Orders, Shout
=> [RECOMMENDED at low gear levels: Equip Demon Limb (from Cube or Inventory), Enchant your Mercenary, then unequip.
=> Weapon swap to Gavel of Pain
=> Teleport to Council (not with Enigma, no worries)
=> Cast Amplify Damage on the Council; if the Council is split in 2 packs between the inner & outer area, curse the outside, then Teleport inside & curse the rest
=> Weapon swap to your Goldfind weapons
=> Stay in Melee Range of enemies & begin using War Cry; this will rarely stun the Super Uniques, but minions will be consistently stunned
=> As your Mercenary lands kills, walk around and use Find Item to pop corpses to loot mid-combat, War Crying as needed
=> The Council is dead.
=> Scroll of Town Portal to A3 (keep in belt)
=> Stash your gold and unidentified loot in A3
=> Waypoint to A4
=> If necessary, repair with Halbu; rule of thumb is you should repair when you have 0-1 Amplify Damage charge left on Gavel of Pain
=> If you feel it's necessary, refill Potions & Scrolls of TP
=> Save & Exit

Additional notes:
- Try and soak Hydra fire when it could be a danger to your Mercenary, especially with an undergeared Mercenary. You're basically unaffected by them if properly geared, but your Mercenary takes full damage from them.
- Don't hesitate to focus on using Find Item directly after a kill is confirmed; you're trying to get out of here as soon as possible.
- When you want an enemy focused (it runs away, has as a bad Aura, etc.), Teleport on top of it to force your Mercenary to attack it.
- If stragglers haven't been touched by Amp Damage, you can use Battle Cry on them. Do NOT use Battle Cry on enemies with Amplify Damage, as it overrides Curses.
- When the Council has Conviction or Fanaticism auras, it's fine to be more careful & Teleport to isolate kills, or even Leap to stun them until it's safe.
- If your Mercenary dies and you think you can still handle this particular Council, go down to Durance of Hate, portal & resurrect him/rebuff.
- Always fill your main stash first since you use gold to repair from it.
- When you Teleport, your Mercenary may not VISUALLY look like he's following you, but he's there.
- You can pre-emptively click on your desired destination during loading screens & your character will begin moving there before you even see them. Particularly useful when going back to town & clicking in the direction of the stash, or to hop onto the waypoint faster, or to move to the rightmost corner of the waypoint building in Travincal when you load.

Your Build

Here's my Goldfind Barbarian: https://d2.maxroll.gg/d2planner/fq0106r3#1
That setup allocates only a single point in War Cry & dumps all excess points into Natural Resistance, Increased Speed & Battle Cry (to help vs. stragglers unaffected by Amp Dmg)

Let's get this out of the way: you probably want to be level 81+ for a Goldfind build to feel like it's worth bringing in Hell Travincal. Between the higher base Resistances, the chance to hit a Super Unique enemy (66% at lvl 75 || 75% at lvl 81 || 84% at level 90), the base Defense & the ability to wield the best budget weapon available, it makes a big difference.
Simply farming Nightmare Trav at a steady pace with your highest goldfind gear is a good alternative otherwise, for pure goldfind setups. A lot of people like to moan about Nightmare Travincal being worthless, but it's a legitimate way to goldfind cap quickly. Fast goldcap means you can sell the in-game gold faster, or gamble GG items that'll help you fund your eventual entry into Hell. The issue with Nightmare is that, well, you are severely limiting your loot table for Runes & lowering the quality of your Magic/Rare items. With Nightmare items, your Gamble Packs will be worthless & you should focus on maxing out Goldfind above anything else.

Now that this is out of the way, I would love to tell you I have an exact build that'll be optimal no matter the state of your gear, but that's not how it works.
What I have is a clear basic template, from which all modifications can be made. This is a pretty standard & cookie-cutter starting point.

Stats
Strength: 136. This is essential to use your Hel Rune-socketed Gavel of Pain.
Dexterity: 0
Vitality: Everything, all of the time.
Energy: 0



1 Howl
1 Taunt
1 Battle Cry
1 War Cry
20 Shout
20 Battle Orders
1 Battle Command
1 Find Potion
20 Find Item

1 Increased Stamina
1 Increased Speed
1 Iron Skin
1 Natural Resistance

1 Leap

Is that it? Is the build finished at level 60?
No. It's just the skeleton. The barebones skeleton.

Once you have the barebones build allocated, equip your gear & evaluate where to put the rest of your skill points. With your gear equipped, your goals are as follows:

- Get War Cry to a stun duration of 3 seconds
- Get Increased Speed to 30% Faster Run/Walk
- Get Natural Resistance to the point where you're comfortable with tanking elemental damage, ideally with resists maxed. That'll depend on the rest of your gear. Level 16 Natural Resistance is where diminishing returns kick in hard, and it's usually the right place to stop.
- If you have the point to spare, don't hesitate to get Leap to about level 6. We rarely use it, but level 6 is enough for 12 yard jumps & a 6-yards radius stun when the enemy affix combos are painful. It's large, but not large enough to push back enemies so far the Mercenary will need to chase them.
- If final points in Find Item don't hit an extra 1% breakpoint (levels 22, 24, 27, 29, 32, 38), put them elsewhere.

If your charms & gear push you to these thresholds easily, dump excess points in Increased Speed & Natural Resistance. You'll gain nothing from having an 8-second duration level 36 War Cry that costs you nearly 50 mana per activation. Using the best gear & charm setup, you should have no more than 1 point in War Cry (+7 from Charms, +2 Amulet, +2 Helm, +3 Torch, +1 Annihilus).

Okay. I'm really just here for the gear. What do I put on?
Buckle up baby butt, we're onto the fun stuff.

Some guidelines first:
- You want a source of Teleport
- You want to apply Amplify Damage to the Council as consistently as possible
- You may want to give your Mercenary Level 23 Enchant with Demon Limb
- You want a source of Teleport
- You want a source of Teleport

Teleport, Teleport, Teleport. Okay, got it. Why?
Teleport is the cleanest & fastest way to:
- Min-max travel time from WP to Trav
- Get in the right spot to begin War Crying & applying Amplify Damage
- Move between inner & outer areas of the Council zone
- Speed up your Mercenary's pace when chasing enemies
- Get you or your Mercenary out of trouble
- Target specific enemies by teleporting directly over them, at which point your Merc will attack them
- Move quickly to a fresh corpse to pop it with Find Item

It does everything. The fact that it hasn't been made a staple in Goldfind Barb guides until this point kinda surprises me, but maybe it's in a guide I haven't seen. And yet, most knowledgeable Goldfind Barb players recognize that a good Teleport amulet is invaluable for runs to go well.

Do we need Enigma, then?
No, not at all. We use, say, 10 charges of Teleport on an average run, which cost roughly 37k gold to repair.
The extra 300% Goldfind from Wealth generates about 80k~, which means we net 40k per run for using Wealth over Enigma. This adds up.
The argument in favor of Enigma vs. Wealth is Strength, which frees up more Vitality, and the 45% Faster Run/Walk. Unfortunately, it's possible to already clear Hell Trav under 1 minute without needing the extra FRW.
I'm not saying Enigma is bad and could never work; it's just unnecessary and, for most starting players, way too costly.

The Weapons

"The Default Hybrid": Dual-wield two Blades of Ali Baba, each socketed with 2 Lem Runes. At level 90, with 2 Lem Runes in each, together they provide 750% Goldfind and 180% Magic Find. This is my personal favorite; I value unidentified Magic & Rare items. Plus, Ali Baba is a fairly cheap way to get Goldfind relative to the other option.
"Pure Goldfind" Setup: No contest, the best pure Goldfind option is to dual-wield 6-socket Crystal Swords, socketed with 6 Lem Runes. Together, they provide a total of 900% Goldfind.
"But I REALLY Like Magic Find" Setup: Dual-wield two Blades of Ali Baba, each socketed with 2 Ist Runes. At level 90, with 2 Ist Runes in each, together they provide 450% Goldfind and 300% Magic Find. I don't love this, as I think you're trading off a ton of goldfind for inefficient Magic Find affected by diminishing returns, but sometimes you just wanna swim in Rares.
"I Refuse to Give Up a Charm Slot" Setup: In your main hand, equip a 6-socket Crystal Sword with 6 Lem Runes. In your off-hand, use a Demon Limb socketed with a Lem Rune. The level 23 Enchant on Demon Limb will turn your average Mercenary into a heat-seeking missile that never misses. Together, the weapons will give you 525% Goldfind, and your Mercenary will be turbocharged. Again, you can also just carry Demon Limb in your inventory and do a quick switcheroo before heading over to the Council. This is most effective when you're not at the highest rungs of the gearing echelon and want to speed up your Mercenary's killspeed vs. the Super Uniques.

The Essentials You'll ALWAYS Use

Gloves: Chance Guards. 200% Goldfind, up to 40% Magic Find. Yeah, I mean. Just use them. Don't go full hipster on me with some "OH BUT I HAVE THIS TRIRES PAIR OF GLOVES WITH 40% GOLDFIND". I don't care, baby butt. Just put on your Chance Guards.
Body: "Wealth" Runeword (Lem+Ko+Tir), in Light Armor (Archon Plate ideally). You can TECHNICALLY use Goldskin if you don't have Wealth, but switch off it as soon as you can.
Ring 1: Dwarf Star with "Magic Damage Reduced By 15"
Ring 2: Dwarf Star with "Magic Damage Reduced By 15". The 15 can be important to fully absorbs Hydras' fire damage when you have two.
RECOMMENDED - Demon Limb : Level 23 Enchant will scale your mercenary's Attack Rating to the point where he won't be missing the Super Uniques as much, and that'll make your clears much faster.
Weapon Swap: Gavel of Pain, socketed with a Hel Rune (-20% Requirements). The Amplify Damage charges from this item can't be found anywhere else, and they TRIPLE your Mercenary's damage. Hell monsters have 50% Physical resistance, and this sets their Phys Resist to -50%. Your Mercenary's attack now deals 150% of its damage instead of 50%. It also breaks Ismail's occasional Physical Immunity in the process.
Alternative Weapon Swap: Okay, so you're broke. You have nothing to your name. You CANNOT under ANY CIRCUMSTANCE acquire ANY Teleport Amulet or Teleport Circlet. It just CANNOT be done. At all, period. You stare at the abyss, and the abyss just looks away in shame. Well, okay. There's something out there for you: Spellsteel. It's a cheap Unique weapon nobody wants that grants you 20 Teleport charges AND can also provide you with 30 charges of Decrepify. Let me get this straight before you get any ideas: this is NOT a good substitute for a proper Teleport Amulet, and Decrepify is a tiny radius, low damage version of Gavel of Pain's Amplify damage. But hey, if you're absolutely broke with nowhere to go for Teleport charges? This will be okay.

The Belt You CAN Replace But Don't Have To

Belt: Goldwrap. 80% Goldfind, 30% Magic Find. Upgrade it for the potion slots. It's good. It's solid. I think every Goldfind Barb's journey begins with this, and it'll be something you go back to whenever you want more Magic Find.
Belt Alternative: A Rare belt with resistances & as close to 80% Goldfind as possible. If you abandon Goldwrap for a 74% Goldfind belt but can max out your resistances, that's good. Strength is also nice since it frees up stat points for Vitality. 17%+ Faster Hit Recovery is a good perk, too.



The Helm You SHOULD Eventually Replace

Helm: Immortal King's Will, with 2 Lem Runes socketed. That's 137% Goldfind, as well as 25-40% Magic Find. And it buffs your Warcries. Absolutely nuts. It's an insanely cheap helmet that does almost everything you want it to, so use it if you're just starting out.
Helm alternative 1: Berserker's Coronet of the Magus, with 2 Lem Runes. I'm sure many looking at this will think I've gone insane, but nonetheless, it's still optimal for our purposes. 20 Faster Cast Rate (FCR) is a huge amount for Barbarian breakpoints, and you get it because gold per run doesn't matter, only time to gold cap matters. It speeds up your Shouts, your Amp Damage from Gavel of Pain, your Teleport, your Find Item spam, your War Cries. Faster casts keep you safe, help reposition your Mercenary much faster, etc. Name it, 20FCR does it. And you get +2 Barb skills, which makes you cooler. I will give up a perfect IK's Will for this any day*
High end helm alternative 2: A Rare Circlet, with a mix of 20FCR, high Goldfind, +Warcries or Barb skills, Teleport charges. Even consider a +Barb/Tele/20FCR without Goldfind, since you can at least put 1 Lem in it. That's how important FCR & Teleport are.

*If, for whatever reason, you struggle to keep pace with the speed of combat already, FCR may be less important. In that case, try to get +2 Barb with Faster Run/Walk or Goldfind.



Boots & Amulet

Boots: People will tell you to use Infernostride bEcAuSe fIrE rEsIsT iS tHe mOsT iMpOrTaNt aT tRaViNcAL (hint: it's mostly important for your merc, but you have Dwarf Stars). They're cheap, they're okay, very stable, very predictable, very goldfind, very fire. That being siad, the increased maximum fire resist looks better than it is, and they have only 20% Faster Run/Walk, which isn't ideal. We like to run. Boots are made for running, and that's just what they need to do.

Boots you actually want: 30% Faster Run Walk, as close to 80% Goldfind as possible, and hopefully good Resists. That's it. That's the boots. Massive bonus points if you get Magic Find as well. One thing to note: it is IMPOSSIBLE to get Faster Run/Walk + Goldfind + Magic Find + Faster Hit Recovery. Faster Hit Recovery is the least useful of the 3 for us, but it won't hurt to have if your boots don't have Magic Find. If you have a pair of boots with only 20% Faster Run/Walk but all the good stuff, that'll be fine too; it will probably be better than Infernostride anyway. Just prioritize 30FRW when possible.

https://i.imgur.com/jLX1Sfn.png

Amulet: When you start your goldfind Barbarian journey, the Amulet slot will likely be the easiest place to find Teleport charges, and so we'll start with that in mind. On Magic Amulets, Teleport charges only really come with either +Skills or +Resists. Once you enter the realm of Rare Amulets, you start being able to roll Goldfind alongside Teleport, and that's what you REALLY want. The +Skills and Resists are nice, but Goldfind/Teleport is really your endgame. I've used Amulets that provided no +Skills for Barbs but had Goldfind/Teleport, and that's fine. You can even use a Druid amulet for all I give a shit, as long as you've got Teleport & good Goldfind. Here are some examples:

https://i.imgur.com/4thOi8t.png

Charms

Your Inventory has space for 7-8 Grand Charms + 10 Small Charms + 1 Large Charm (or less, if you want to keep space to loot)
You'd love your Large Charm to be a Barbarian Torch, even if it's the lowest rolls possible.
You'd love a Small Charm to be an Annihilus, even if it's the lowest rolls possible.

From there, all you want are good Goldfind Charms.
If low on Resists, prioritize Resistance Charms over Goldfind. Can't farm gold when you die!
The best charms for this purpose are the 40% Goldfind/15% All Resists Grand Charms.
Better that you use a 21% Goldfind/14% AllRes charm than die when you get looked at by a Lightning Enchanted Council member.
All Res Charms can be expensive, so don't hesitate to pack simpler Goldfind+Elemental Resist Charms, as needed.

In a hypothetical min-maxing world, the safest Charm setup would be one that puts our Resistances at 250%.
With the Hell penalty, we have 150% Resists left.
When a Conviction Aura Council Member shows up, we lose another 75%, leaving us safe at 75%.

Is this worth doing? Eh, probably not; best to focus on this when you're done with EVERYTHING ELSE. The lesson to draw from it is: All Resist/Goldfind Charms are good.
And then there's also Goldfind/Magic Find Grand Charms (40GF/12MF), if you wanna push GF/MF further.

Then there's the obvious Warcry Skiller, with +1 to Warcries. Don't use a plain Skiller, better to use 40%GF.
A Warcry Skiller with Goldfind however is good. It buffs Find Item & Shout/Battle Orders, which is relevant.
That said, more than 80% of Shout's power is in the first 20 points, and Battle Orders at 20 is enough to clear Hell.
Don't reject Skillers, but don't worry about not having them.
The biggest relevance of stacking +Warcries is when it helps reach a Find Item breakpoint, as Charms/gear take Find Item success rate from 51% to 56%.
From level 20 Find Item, you'd want +13 to reach the optimal Find Item breakpoint (level 33). Battle Command gives you +1!
That said, 90% of the value of Find Item is in those first 20 points!

https://i.imgur.com/TT4hoe1.png[/I]

This post was edited by Exokek on Dec 3 2021 02:40pm

Your Mercenary's Build

If there is one topic that has people disagreeing when it comes to Goldfind Barbs, it's the topic of Mercenary gear. Incidentally, it's by far the topic on which I see the most absurd and nonsensical information spread. Most of the information I see out there comes from spreadsheet warriors that think the best way to farm Travincal is by "Leap Locking" the council by spamming Leap over and over, waiting for the Mercenary to be done taking his sweet time killing them, only then strolling up to the corpses, in max Goldfind gear, to massage the corpses' bellies while softly whispering "hork hork hork hork".

Listen, if THAT were the best way to farm Travincal, I'd agree with the most common gearing choices.
But as I've stated prior, that method is slow & inefficient. I suspect it might even precipitate neurodegeneration due to how little input is required of the player.

First thing first: you will want to use the Act 2, Nightmare Difficulty Offensive Mercenary.
This one comes bundled in with the Might Aura.

I've done the insane thing of actually trying out Act 1, 2, 3 and 4 Mercenaries JUST IN CASE something unknown could be discovered, but to no avail.
I've put in high runewords in Ethereal Colossus Swords for the A5 Mercenary, in the hope that MAYBE they'd be tanky enough to warrant using. But no.

Before we begin, a list of things NOT to do:
- DO NOT understimate the power of a higher level for your Mercenary. A level 90 Mercenary hits Super Uniques 10% more often than a level 80. A level 90 Mercenary has +10 to All Resists over a level 80 Mercenary. This is EXTREMELY IMPORTANT. I see too many people just throw themselves
- Do NOT use Reaper's Toll. It deals Cold Damage & frequently wastes corpses by shattering them frequently. Even if you can't freeze/shatter a Super Unique, it's still not worth it. Decrepify also overrides Amplify Damage, but is a much weaker Curse. If its damage was good enough to justify using, I would tell you to use it. It isn't.
- Do NOT use Tomb Reaver. It wastes corpses by reanimating them & ONLY catches up in DPS with competing options once you have Lo Runes socketed. The only upside is the Resistances it provides, but we can get that elsewhere. If its damage was good enough to justify using, I would tell you to use it. It isn't.
- Do NOT use Bonehew. Why the fuck that weapon ever became popular is beyond me, but stay the hell away from it. It's not like there aren't equally cheap alternatives out there at higher levels. That being said, it's a fine low level Merc weapon.

Uh, okay. So what's the BEST Mercenary setup?
Impossible items aside (i.e: https://i.imgur.com/2bgokRB.png), and assuming budget isn't an issue at all, the build below is the setup that offers the most consistently fast "time to goldfind cap".

- Ethereal Arioc's Needle, socketed with a 15% Increased Attack Speed/35%+ Enhanced Damage Jewel
- "Chains of Honor" Ethereal Archon Plate. Light Armor means your Mercenary moves faster, and faster is better
- Ethereal Andariel's Visage, socketed with a 15% Increased Attack Speed/35%+ Enhanced Damage Jewel



Why?
It's simple, really. Your goal as a Goldfind Barb is NOT to protect your mercenary 24/7 with stunlocks, it's to cap your gold fast. This means your Mercenary needs to fend for himself while you're busy popping corpses, evaluating the battlefield, or looting gold & items. You WILL be supporting your Mercenary with War Cry, or Teleport repositionings to stomp enemies, but that doesn't mean you want to babysit Emilio every time you go out. It's slower, and you're not here to take notes & write a fucking dissertation on Travincal's architecture.

This setup provides:
- 16-18% Life Leech, depending on your Andariel's Visage rolls.
- The 75%IAS breakpoint for Arioc's Needle, which means Jab has 5.56 hits per second
- 8% Damage Reduction
- Overcapped resists, which cover Andariel's negative Fire Resist and more, making a Conviction council less threatening
- 200% Damage to Demons, and the Council is all Demons
- Ignores Target's Defense vs. the Minions, which makes kills against them EXTREMEL quick & consistent
- +8 to ALL of your Mercenary's Skills (Might Aura, Jab). This is an incredible amount of attack rating & damage output

It's worth mentioning that if it weren't for Chains of Honor, this setup would be slightly inferior to an eBOTD War Pike with Fortitude/Andariel's Visage by virtue of lacking optimal life leech/sustain.
Also note that while "Ignores Target's Defense" doesn't work against the tougher Super Unique Council members, it's not much of a problem, especially if you're using Demon Limb. The damage of an Eth Arioc's Needle is great regardless, since it comes with a powerful built-in 50% chance for Deadly Strike.

An equally good alternative is the following setup, using two great Runewords. The upside to this setup is that you're not using a Ber Rune on an Ethereal Armor for Chains of Honor... on your Mercenary. And you can sell the pieces more easily once you're done with the build.

- Ethereal "Breath of the Dying" War Pike
- Ethereal "Fortitude" Light Armor (Archon Plate preferred)
- Ethereal Andariel's Visage, with a 30% Fire Resistance socketable (anything from a Ral Rune to a godly Rare Jewel with ED/Damage vs. Demons)



This setup provides:
- 20-25% Life Leech, depending on your BOTD/Andariel's Visage rolls. This is a massive amount.
- The 80% Increased Attack Speed breakpoint for the War Pike, thanks to Andariel's Visage. More attacks, more Jabs, more damage, more life leech, more sustain.
- Maxed out resists thanks to Fortitude & the cancellation of the negative Fire Resist on Andariel's Visage.
- Very high Enhanced Damage & Defense thanks to Fortitude.

Some smug people will tell you that "akshully, Fortitude is baAaAAAaad because it can freeze enemies & shatter their corpse with Chilling Armor", which triggers off the Hydras' fireballs. And they say that like the occasional Minion shatter (Super Uniques don't shatter) is going to put a meaningful dent in your farming speed, when Fortitude is giving you 300% Enhanced Damage & wrecking face on the flipside.

Meanwhile, the same people are using Wealth on their Mercenary because it says "Goldfind". You can just tune those people out. It's okay.

Well, you get it.

Both of the setups listed above CAN wrap up a whole farming routine under 1 minute, from game start to full repairs.
Their damage is good, their defenses are good, and the Mercenary's sustain is good. Pick your favorite one.

Godly Arioc's/Chains of Honor Mercenary Setup: https://d2.maxroll.gg/d2planner/dp0106zf#7
Godly eBOTD/Fortitude Merc Setup: https://d2.maxroll.gg/d2planner/dp0106zf#6


So... why not Wealth & Crown of Thieves?
First thing to notice: your Mercenary's Goldfind & Magic Find are only 65-66% effective. Why? Because you don't just get items from your Mercenary's kills: 33-35% of your drops come from Find Item, and your Mercenary's Goldfind/Magic Find has absolutely no impact on it.

Consequently, a Mercenary wearing a perfect Crown of Thieves with a Lem Rune & Wealth Armor is not providing 450% Goldfind/100% Magic Find, but 300% Goldfind/66% Magic Find. That's a good amount of Goldfind & Magic Find, but it's a fraction of the 2300%+ Goldfind you ALREADY have without the Mercenary.

Here's a clearer illustration of the problem with the Wealth/Crown of Thieves setup, measured against Toorc Icefist, cursed with Amplify Damage.
Toorc Icefist is a council member. He's ALWAYS there. He ALWAYS has Stone Skin. It sucks. And other Council members sometimes have Stone Skin, too.



Eth Arioc's Needle + Wealth + Crown of Thieves gives us 24k~ DPS and 5 hits per second
Eth Arioc's Needle + Chains of Honor + Andariel's Visage gives us 41.5k~ DPS and 5.56 hits per second

That's a whopping 17.5k DPS difference. The DPS-oriented setup deals 170% the damage than the Goldfind oriented setup. That's almost twice as much.
The CoH/Andariel's setup gives us more damage, more frequent hits, and more frequent life leech. Corpses on the ground faster, so we can use Find Item faster.

Can Wealth & Crown of Thieves account for such a large enough chunk of your total Goldfind & Magic Find that you'd slice your Mercenary's combined DPS and survivability by 70%+ for it? Absolutely - fucking - not.
Your Mercenary will AT MOST account for 15%~ of your total Goldfind, but he's 100% of your damage output & a large part of your own survivability at times.

You are the Goldfind Barbarian.
Heis here to make corpses.

The only place you should be okay with using Wealth/Crown of Thieves is when you're farming Nightmare, where damage matters a LOT less for fast clears.

Is this it? Is there no other way way of gearing up a Mercenary without this expensive stuff?
Hell no. There are plenty of alternatives, depending on where you are in your Goldfinding journey.
Barring the impossible Ethereal Rare Weapons with 450%ED/200% Damage to Demons however, just know that the two aforementioned setups come out on top, with the Chains of Honor pulling slightly ahead.

I won't mention it for every item because it's a given, but you should always aim to get Ethereal versions of anything on your Mercenary. They are preferable, but not mandatory.
The most important item to get an Ethereal version of is your Weapon, due to how much damage scaling it represents relative to the rest of the gear.
Better have an Ethereal weapon with the lowest roll possible than a non-Ethereal weapon with the best rolls.

Mercenary Gear Options & Upgrades

Deadass Broke & Not Even Level 81 Yet
~~ https://d2.maxroll.gg/d2planner/dp0106zf#1 ~~
What the hell why are you trying to farm Hell Travincal!?
Anyway, here's something to get you started. Good luck, friendo.
Weapon: B...Bo...Bonehew, with 2 Amn Runes. Listen, you can't use Arioc's Needle because you're not level 81 yet. It doesn't mean Bonehew is good, okay?
Helm: Guillaume's Face, socketed with a 15% Increased Attack Speed Jewel. Your Mercenary's Strength is somehow too low for Bonehew so dress him up with this.
Armor: Duriel's Shell, socketed with a 15% All Resists Jewel (or an Um Rune). You also need the Strength from this for your Bonehew.
Inventory: Keep a Demon Limb around so you can Enchant your Mercenary during the buffing phase, after you shout. This will help with the consistency of hits.

This setup makes angels weep. That's all there is to it. I mean, you can kinda make it work if you know what you're doing. It'll be an uphill battle, though, you've been warned.
Truth is, you should probably be farming Nightmare at this point. And if you farm Nightmare, here's what you could use instead.

Nightmare Farming Mercenary:
~~ https://d2.maxroll.gg/d2planner/dp0106zf#8 ~~
Weapon - if under level 84: Upgraded Hone Sundan, socketed with 3 Lem Runes
Weapon - if level 84 or above: Tomb Reaver, socketed with 3 Lem Runes
Armor: Wealth Light Armor
Helm: Crown of Thieves, socketed with a Lem Rune

I know, I know. I talk a lot about being the best Goldfind Barbarian imaginable, about how we want to farm Hell Travincal at record speed, but some people just want to fill up their stash with Mercenary revival money. Or they value the gold, and nothing else, because they're degenerate gamblers. This old school "Max Goldfind at all costs" setup does it well on Nightmare, even with Tomb Reaver eating your corpses. But don't overdo it, okay? Don't get an Ethereal 3-socket Tomb Reaver with 270% Enhanced Damage to farm Travincal, on either difficulty. Please.
If you wanna overspend to push your Goldfind Barb, there are better things to get.

Level 81, Low Mercenary Setup
~~ https://d2.maxroll.gg/d2planner/dp0106zf#2 ~~
Weapon: Arioc's Needle, +2 to 4 Skills, socketed with an Amn Rune
Helm: Tal Rasha's Mask, socketed with a 15% Increased Attack Speed Jewel
Armor: Duriel's Shell, socketed with a 30-40% Enhanced Damage Jewel
Armor alternative: Shaftstop, socketed with a 15% All Resists Jewel

This setup is the lowest I'd recommend to do Hell Trav SOMEWHAT comfortably.
You get decent damage & your Mercenary's resistances/damage mitigation are good enough once you add it all up.
The life leech is bumped up thanks to the Amn Rune, which is more reasonable on this budget than trying to push insane DPS.

Level 85, Average Mercenary Setup
~~ https://d2.maxroll.gg/d2planner/dp0106zf#3 ~~
Weapon: Arioc's Needle, +2 to 4 Skills, socketed with an Amn Rune
Helm: Tal Rasha's Mask, socketed with a 15% Increased Attack Speed Jewel
Armor: Gladiator's Bane, socketed with a 15% All Resists Jewel
Armor alternative: Black Hades, socketed with THREE Jewels => 1x 15% All Resists Jewel & 2x 15% Increased Attack Speed Jewels

The resistances aren't ideal with Gladiator's Bane, but the damage mitigation makes up for it. With this armor, the Mercenary is no longer really threatened by the Hydras, even though all the general enemy affixes can pack a punch.
If you opt to use Black Hades', you get faster attacks & more damage output (= more life leeched), but you lose a decent bit of passive damage mitigation. A perfectly viable choice, but you may need to soak hydras when they become overbearing.

Level 90, High Mercenary Setup:
~~ https://d2.maxroll.gg/d2planner/dp0106zf#4 ~~
Weapon: Arioc's Needle, +2 to 4 Skills, socketed with an Amn Rune
Helm: Andariel's Visage, socketed with a socketed with a 15% All Resists Jewel, Um Rune, or 30% Fire Resist Rare Jewel with other great mods.
Armor: Gladiator's Bane, socketed with a 15% All Resists Jewel or Um Rune

This is starting to come together. With Andariel's Visage & Arioc's, your Mercenary's Skills (Might Aura + Jab) are clocking in a potential +6 Skills, which makes him a lot more accurate & deadly.
The life leech is still too low to give up Amn Rune on your Arioc's, unfortunately.
That being said, if we DID want to give up the Amn Rune and rely on Andariel's Visage Life Leech alone, we could run a Shael in the Weapon & a 15% IAS jewel in the Armor. That would push us to a new IAS breakpoint, which isn't benign.

Level 90+, Very High Mercenary Setup:
~~ https://d2.maxroll.gg/d2planner/dp0106zf#5 ~~
Weapon: Ethereal "Breath of the Dying" War Pike
Helm: Andariel's Visage, socketed with a 15% All Resists Jewel or 30% Fire Resist Rare Jewel with other great mods.
Armor: Gladiator's Bane, socketed with a 15% All Resists Jewel or Um Rune

At this point you're pretty much pushing the boundaries of what your Merc's gear can do, and we're one Fortitude armor away from the GG setups presented earlier.
Using an eBOTD War Pike with Andariel's Visage, we get tons of life leech. We reach the 80% IAS breakpoint.
Without Fortitude however, the resistances are a little on the low side, so instead of a Ral Rune we'll use two Um Runes.

Conclusion

I'll leave you with an off-the-cuff video showcasing the build in action, with somewhat different gear setups.

I hope this was interesting to you.



Shout out to for the great back and forths, as well as for constantly replying to my insane PMs.
Also massive thanks to those that kept telling me that I was full of shit and that my ideas sucked, because it kept me trying.

This post was edited by Exokek on Oct 28 2021 04:32pm

Glad to see someone did what I thought about doing but never got around to. Stellar guide bro, just briefly skimmed it but I’ll read it all later.

This really should be stickied as the other guides are old and just…wrong. Fuck even maxroll’s guide ain’t all that great. And IcyVeins…:uses fucking Tomb Reaver as “BIS” so no comment there.

Seriously great work bro, appreciate the mention. I think this is more or less “figured out” now. Surprised it took us 20+ years to realize that items like Gavel and Arioc’s exist lmfao.

+1 Both and are subject matter experts here, have done a lot to innovate on this outdated build.


Also, I'm slightly bias towards the magic find route (600%+ mf on my old build), giving me this awesome screenshot:



This post was edited by cjw236 on Oct 28 2021 03:45pm

your botd merc setup doesn't look good
guilli much better: lose 1 ias bp which is 10% more dps, but gain 15%ds which is 15%more dps and also you gain 35%cb, and possibly cham for cbf

This is an excellent guide. I actually saw selling a full GF barb and benefited from reading and checking out the Maxroll setup.

This post was edited by Kerygma on Oct 28 2021 04:56pm

Was gonna edit my post but it appears I cannot lol.

Figured I'd post this here for anyone that'd be interested before I can't find it anymore lmfao.

https://forums.d2jsp.org/topic.php?t=87637117&f=268&p=582070117#p582070117

Not super end game but I'd say it's above mid grade.

Tried it. Cham'd GFace is basically equal damage to Ral'd Andy, except you lose 10% life leech and the faster attack speed, which is relevant when you're trying to let the merc do his own thing or telestomp.
A Ral'd Visage has a better damage range per hit upfront (+2 Might) & comes with all the extra perks.

GFace is a perfectly fine helmet, but the whole idea is not to need to worry about your Merc's ability to self-sustain.



Really? I was under the impression it affected them equally, based on old Legacy information. I would love a source/test for this to correct it.

This post was edited by Exokek on Oct 28 2021 04:51pm

You know what, I both mis-remembered and mis-read Amazon Basin on this. You are correct! I'm editing my prior comment. (See here: https://www.theamazonbasin.com/wiki/index.php?title=Mercenary)

Anyway, 10/10 guide, and I've added it to my list of barb builds in my profile. I'm doing some testing on a Zerker build at the moment that I think basically keeps up in terms of "gold per minute," but I still have some more work to do.

This post was edited by Kerygma on Oct 28 2021 04:57pm

Yeah; with Lem Swords this caps in roughly under 20 minutes, a bit slower with Ali Babas.

Gimme that Zerker life

This post was edited by Exokek on Oct 28 2021 05:03pm