I have spent the past 2 Days leveling Throwing Barbarian, Currently only level 38 Because Its VERY VERY hard to level using straight Double Throw. Here’s MY opinion.
- The changes to Throw Mastery are SPOT ON!. So amazing i can throw for days.
- Most Fun for a build I’ve played in a long long time.
- The Damage and LACK of it and Lack of Good throwing weapons Destroys this build, Not to mention the Attack Rating is Pitiful!. NORM Baal takes 15 MINS! because all you see is this. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXHitXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX.
Please Fix ATTACK RATING for ALL Melee and Throwing Weapons, and for the love of god Give Throwing weapons MORE DAMAGE!. Lacerater is the only good throwing weapon and I’ve never seen it drop EVER!.
1 Like
Dont have them, and we only get 3 days before reset…
Sadly there are barely good throwing weapons for the barb.
You need to find nice rares for the leveling process. I hope they will introduce at some point more low and mid tier uniques.
Well throw build has access to one of the best weapons, lacerator which provide constant amplify damage.
This is true but the variety is lacking, especially while you are still below lvl 68.
1 Like
Variety is lacking because throwing weapons need more unique version. I hope blizz will add eventualy new unique items.
I am level 50 Throwbarb selffound in PTR right now, in act 5. I used just Doublethrow for every fight, no frenzy/concentrate or etc.
I have decent over 70% hit chance on monsters. Of course bosses less. But thats not problem of just throwbarb that you miss. Its more all physical hitters problems in general.
I have 4800/3600 attack rating with 105 dexterity, 105 strength, 110 vitality.
20 Throw mastery, 14 Doublethrow, 3 Grimward, Rest 1 points.
I got some random Blue/Magic Javelins I bought from merchants: 12-63 dmg 257 ar. 27-82 dmg. No other mod.
I wreck every monster as throwbarb from safe distance, i am surprised how much better it is compared to when I did frenzy or ww playthrough barbs. The base damage on blue throwing weapons is so much better than 1-handed melee weapons.
I would say that there is missing Normal version of Unique throwing weapons. Maybe add ones with some % crushing blow, and its done.
Base Problem of nearly everything is that magic and rares weapons (also armors) are hard to come by. They should take a look at these. This would improve the whole leveling process for everybody, especially melees/bowies. They should remove some of the unnecessary affixes / suffixes, so that the whole game does not need to be balanced around uniques and runewords.
1 Like
Do you think doing hell is possible for self found?
I am goin to find out if I can do hell. I have finished Nightmare, level 55.
I did not excess farm any area, just progressed through the game and killed monsters along the way. But I must admit I got lucky and dropped Gface on some Unique Flayer. But used it only for Nightmare Ancients, since its 115 strength requirement and I got like 75 str when i dropped Gface. After Ancients I decided to not use it, cause in casual playthrough noone drops Gfaces like that.
But from what I experienced now - that its faaaar easier to play throwbarb than melee barb. And throw damage is much greater than melee 1-handers you can buy from vendors.
Oh and side note: I am using Frenzy merc. He s great tank, seems to last longer than Act 2 merc. So duo barbs 
1 Like
Yeah glad to hear it, this was my experience out of PTR that the throw barb was actually much more enjoyable than melee. When I got to hell though, the constant repairing made me stop.
You played it on first iteration of 2.4 PTR I assume before quantity fix. I played Throwbarb there too, ended at lvl 35 act3, it was miserable with quantity.
But the Quantity issue seems fixed in this iteration of PTR. You just throw throw, and throw and throw.
Now I found out its better to use low Quantity(30-120) Javelins compared to (200+) Axes/Knives, couse they pack more punch and throw further.
Now the thing about throw vs melee barb is in my opinion that as ranged character you dont need much safety and can go full damage:
- much more Dexterity over Vitality means you have greater % to hit monsters and damage. As melee barb without much life you get torn apart by group of monsters.
I dont remember on my melee barb playthrough having ±4000 attack rating without much gear…
- you can pump just Throw mastery, Doublethrow and 1 point wonders. That makes your damage much higher again. As melee barb without much points in BO you are too squishy to face monsters.
1 Like
How much more damage does throwing mastery offer over melee? I haven’t actually looked into it
Damage bonus is equal, Throw mastery has +2% more AR and Pierce. The Pierce can really spike the damage.
I’ve noticed the Devs solution to the ‘ranged’ builds has been to add damage. The main problem with the ranged skills like Blade Fury, Strafe etc has always been AR/missing too much. Spiking their damage is a bad solution, sure they do high damage but generally miss a lot. Then we the players figure out how to get the AR up and we start hitting like a truck with a bow or a shuriken. People getting into melee range and hitting with a hammer don’t put out that kind of damage
1 Like
Yeah I really loved the AR changes to masteries.
The key to getting good throwing weapons is to gamble for rares and then up the base when you get a good one.
Throw speed and pierce make a HUGE difference in throw barb damage.
I did find AR to still be an issue at endgame in this PTR.
Throwing mastery does not add dmg/AR if you melee swing with a throwing weapon, which should be the case IMO. Then you can combine double throw with frenzy.
I did not meant Throwing mastery offering bigger damage. Its the base weapon damage on throwing javelins. Even throwing axes/knives suck.
Look and compare rest of the damage numbers yourself. I ll throw just one example:
Normal swords do from 4 avg dmg (Scimitar) to 16 avg dmg (Great sword)
Normal javelins do from 10 avg dmg (Javelin) to 21 avg dmg (Throwing spear)
Same goes for Exceptional, Elite versions.
And we know that good base damage on weapon is important, since % enhanced damage work much better there, then % dmg from skills, stats, gear apply more. So even Blue Javelins can pack a punch.
From this experience I had and the numbers I see I think if they bumped up base damage of weapons more, even melee won’t struggle so much during playthrough.
Sidenote: since now Throwbarb can use Ethereal weapons, you can even have a Blue/Magic ethereal Stygian Pilum with 300% enh damage, 40% increased speed and you do 124-448 damage - Thats almost double the damage of Unique eth Warshrikes 119-203.