I made my barb after gaining a bunch of MF’d gear on sorc so the barb has leveling items all the way up.
He still struggles a bit. Im act 5 normal as a frenzy barb and i have 4 more lvls before i can equip my bloodletters (imagine if i didnt have em) and im getting spanked wearing half sigons, chance guards and some nice boots and ammy/rings.
I couldnt imagine having no leveling items and doing it from scratch… yuck. Barbs rely so heavily on gear and even WITH support from my sorc this guy is sloooow to trot.
It was pretty rough in the beginning. I ended up upgrading a Bonesnap Maul to a Warclub which helped for awhile and used it for ww in nightmare. Slow though which means you get less hits. I Stlll had 2 sigon pieces at Hell Baal, mainly for the life leach. Used crafting and got a decent leach ring. If you can’t get high runes yet you’ll have to settle for uniques or set items. Barb sucks without a halfway decent weapon…
I started with barb on D2R since it’s my favorite class. But yes it’s a lot more challenging than classes that can kill with little to no gear.
I did DS/Frenzy and made due with steel and malice thru act 5. Baal and Lister were definitely tough. Would have been really happy with partial Sigs! I couldn’t get life leach for the longest time. Finally got a Pruby for blood gloves and wound up with only 2% 
Ended up getting some inspiration from a post on reddit and made an insight partizan and respecc’d to WW and it’s been pretty smooth sailing even though insight is pretty slow.
I’ve had decent luck with getting some Sigs pieces and cathans and made a blood ammy that came out okay and a ring that came out kind of trash but at least I now have a decent amount of life leach which was really hurting me. Still no mana leach but with insight equipped (when it feels like actually giving me meditation) and some +mana after kill it’s working out okay.
I love Bonesnap and then up’d Bonesnap to start with! BTW it hits an extra WW breakpoint with a shael rune which helps a lot of you’re willing to blow a socket quest on it. I think I used that with Sigs pieces a few ladders ago until I got IK Maul and high enough level to use it.
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Nice. I have dual bloodletters and went WW so im cruising in Nightmare atm but who knows how long that will last. Got dual bloodmoons waiting too.
Barb is MUCH slower than sorc. Holy hell the balance is non existant
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Nice! Sounds like you have some good progression planned!
Yeah definitely. I almost bailed and did look into shopping for a good “leaf” staff base to start a sorc, but decided to stick with it for now.
That’s why I’m definitely okay with them doing some balance tweaks to make ssf or ladder starter barbs a bit more competitive with the other classes. Not sure if that’s a numbers tweak in the skills or a rescaling of some of the melee items, but the melee builds can be pretty lacking until you get the GG items.
I’ve never made a polearm barb before, but done most of the other weapon types, so I figured it would be fun. My plan is to transition into an Obedience Polearm at some point and see how far I can go with that. Only just started Act4 nm though so it’s going to be a while. I don’t have a lot of time to play these days.
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The d2 mods like path of diablo added jewels that had melee splash on them. Gives all single target barb abilities AoE splash. Huge improvement. Makes Frenzy/Zerk barb awsome
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Yeah I had read that. I sort of wonder if instead of giving melee aoe too they should just up the power so they are good at single targets or something to still keep the classes feeling differently, but I guess a barb is still running up to hit things in the face and that will always be different from casting spells from afar.
Hi insidious - yep, I sheal’d the Bonesnap to try to improve the hits. I tried a double shael IK Maul later, but without other set pieces it seemed weak. Sticking with Baranar’s Star and Nord’s Tenderizer ww for now. Ripping Hell bosses apart with those is damn good. Cheap too!
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Yeah I think IK really shines when you’ve got enough pieces for all the item specific partial set bonuses. Need 5 pieces for mana leach on the gloves, or PDR on belt, the maul gets a ton of elemental damage, etc. Doing belt/gloves/boots is pretty decent general barb stuff but then you miss out on some nice other options. Helm is also nice with sockets and mf but sort of lack luster - it’s definitely no Arreats or Gface!
Like you said if you’re wearing 3 or 4 other pieces then the maul becomes pretty cool. CB, speed, sockets and nice damage mods are nothing to sneeze at, but the elemental damage add ons are pretty nice.
As sets go IK is not bad but of course it can’t compete with the best unique and set items and the body armor is pretty rare. It is definitely Hell viable though, makes maxing resistances pretty easy and does acceptable damage.
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Ik’s is definitely designed to be best with the full set. a few of the items are good when you just have a few: Boots and gloves are solid pieces together, you get IAS and some nice defensive boosts, and a bit of MF. Full set is amazing.
Barbs are definitely gear dependent, and as a melee build, they are slower to grind through stuff. If your used to a sorc in good gear, it will feel slow. but the have lots of flexibility and control in their kit.
I feel that the worst are for them is the late 20’s when there are fewer gear upgrades, and you don’t have access to the juicy level 30 skills.
I think one of the easiest ways to level a barb is to start with doube swing, swap over to war cry until your high enough to choose something else. war cry kills slower, but is an AoE, keeps mobs perpetually stunned, and is safe to farm with until you get the gear to work one of their other builds.
Maxroll has a great barb leveling guide that breaks that setup down, and I used it on my Barb. made the trip easy up through high 50’s until I switched over to a DW WW build and used the Oath I had made to farm until I got my IK set.