Barbarian Build Show Case Thread

Barbarian
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I’ll start with the standard active gold find and mf barbarian build, budget rune find. Everything is explained in the video except I used budget gear mostly. This is the gear you should strive for:

Disclaimer for people who like to misinterpret: Best in Slot means best possible.

Best in Slot for the active WW Goldfind:

helmet: rare tiara with +2 to barb, resistance, goldfind, teleport charges (very important) and 2 sockets socketed with cham rune and lem
armor: wealth runeword
primary weapons: 2 x grief phase blade (2 x 6 lem-ed phase blades for extreme people)
secondary: 2 x lem-ed alibabas
amulet : highlord’s wrath
gloves: perfect chance guards
belt: 1 x upped goldwrap
rings : 1x dwarfstar + dual leech ring with AR
boots: infernostride 70% gold

inventory: torch, anni, gheeds and charms with % more gold

Playstyle:
Game after game kill the council, collect money, stash everything, id useful stuff you find. You’ve got a super high chance to find a high rune there (Ohm, Ber etc.). Whenever your stash can’t accept money anymore, you go gambling. Having a lvl 93+ character is going to make your chance of gambling a rare or crafting items with the best mods possible optimal. Use an edge bow for its 15% reduced vendor prices and a gheeds with 15% reduced vendor prices to gamble more for the same amount of money.

Best in Slot for the active WW MF:

helmet: shako socketed with a cham rune
armor: enigma or skullder’s ire socketed with Ist rune
primary weapons: 2 x grief phase blade
secondary: 2 x lem-ed alibabas (2 x 6 ist-ed phase blades for extreme people)
amulet : highlord’s wrath
gloves: perfect chance guards
belt: 1 x upped goldwrap
rings : 1x nagelring+ dual leech ring with AR
boots: war traveler

inventory: torch, anni, gheeds and lots of 7mf small charms

Playstyle:
Visit lvl85 areas, ignore normal monsters, jump over them or hop. As soon as you see a super unique pack kill them all then hork every single one of them. Chaos Sanctuary and pits are close by and have got densely packed mobs. This is how you get griffons, Tyrael’s etc. It doesn’t hurt to add Pindleskin at the end of the run. Just one shot him with berserk.

Best in Slot for the active WW Rune find (kill speed):

helmet: guilli socketed with cham
armor: enigma
primary weapons: 2 x grief phase blade
secondary: 2 x hoto
amulet : highlord’s wrath
gloves: laying of hands
belt: string of ears or arachnid mesh if you aim at 105fcr BP
rings : 1x dwarfstar + dual leech ring with AR
boots: gore rider

inventory: torch, anni, resistance and attack rating/max damage charms

Playstyle:
Visit lvl85 areas, indiscriminately kill any densely packed group of monsters, hork them. Ignore lone monsters lurking around because it is a waste of time. Teleporting and faster run and walk provided by enigma speed up things by a lot. You need to reach at least 63% fcr for faster clear speed. Cheap solution to double hoto would be to use two wizzard spikes. Paired with a 10fcr ring one could even reach 105fcr BP. Then you tele and cast as fast as a sorc . Without enigma, chaos sanctuary is the best place to venture into. Make active use of the leap skill. A barb is very mobile without enigma unlike a druid.

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Helpful and concise! GG

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I described in the short description videos how to make a gold finder barb after attaining an oath and some items. Getting an oath is THE turning point of a melee barbarian’s life. So I assume one arrives pretty much naked from nightmare in hell and looks around for ways to farm the countess in act1 and pits for the base and runes. There are possibly many other ways to achieve the same goal. I didn’t have a bad belt and a mana leech ring but any, really any manald would do the same. I also assumed weapons which are basically throw aways at the start of the ladder (not interesting for smiters, hammerdins or sorcs at all) which you can attain by making perfect gems. The quest is also possible with two honor runewords. I didn’t have them at the time I made the video. Sorry for the length but without gg gear knowledge IS power.

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This thread and the time/effort you put into it and the vids is so cool I love it. Very useful.

Wondering what are your thoughts on this “budget” trav/pit frenzy MF/GF build for p1 solo bnet:

2 x 5OS Rune Masters. Shaelx3, Istx2 in mainhand and 5x Ist on offhand, 2x Ali babas on switch (Lems or Ists in both)
IK helm with 2x Ptopaz
Wealth
Highlords
Dual Leech ring rare, dwarf star for trav, nagel for pits
Goldwrap
Rare boots with FRW, MF/GF and maybe res too but those might be expensive, maybe crappy war travs (more affordable)
Chancies

Depending on your charms you get around 550+ MF, 750+ GF on kill weapons with similar MF (at level 90) and 1400+ GF on switch when horking council with ali babas (with lems).

I say “budget” since it does take 7 ists to socket the weapons but most everything else is cheap and can be bought with pgems/keys/mid runes.

IMO it’s a great balance in terms of value between MF/GF/clear speed without having to use enigma, grief, 6x ist PB etc. You can play around with how many shaels in the mainhand but imo 3 shaels to hit 7.5 frames is needed. You run faith merc but that defeats the budget part and we aint that rich in beginning of ladder.

BTW I did eventually make my 2x shaefer frenzy barb with your suggestions on gearing and he’s a lot of fun. Also experimenting with stone crusher on off hand but think I like dual shaefer more.

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In theory, your build should work fine. In practice, try to kill the council with double runemasters in p1. Then record the time required. Leave the rest aside, just try to kill them then we can discuss your build indepth :slight_smile:
Also going all mf on council sounds alluring in theory but maxing goldfind on them is more consistent/rewarding.
When I’ve got time, I’ll also present the classic war cry barb.

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Yeah I haven’t gotten around to testing it but I’ll give it shot when I can. Gonna be out of town this weekend. I could also just stick to actual weapons to kill council and switch to ali babas for horking and it might be more effective in terms of clear speed and survivability.

I was also thinking of using this to run pits and maybe dual Rune Masters would be better for that since MF is more important and monsters are easier to kill.

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Frenzy mace setup progression:

Frenzy sword setup progression:

No high rune used., both setups are p8 viable. I prefer the Schaefer setup even though it is slower.

Upgrade of the sword frenzy setup with a grief pb.

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Crossbow Barbarian Build Showcase

-MandingoDragoon-

Behold, the legendary, the mythical, the extraordinary, Crossbow Barbarian. They said it couldn’t be done. They were wrong.

-Equipment-
Upped Buriza w/Perfect Skull
Hellrack w/Perfect Skull + Shael
Upped Duriel’s Shell w/Um
Guillaume’s Face w/Um
Cleglaw’s Pincers (knockback+25%slow OP)
Rare belt w/ FHR + Str + Resists
Rare boots w/ FRW + Dual/Tri Resists
Angelic Ring x2
Angelic Amulet

-Skills-
20 Shout
20 Battle Orders
1 Battle Command
1 Battle Cry
20 Iron Skin
5 Natural Resistance
5+ Improved Speed
15+ Leap
+Prerequisites

-Stats-
Enough Str for Crossbows
Enough Dex for Crossbows
Rest into Vitality
No Energy

-Explanation-

Buriza and Hellrack is the perfect combination for a Crossbow Barb. Buriza naturally has 100% pierce, and of course, huge damage in general, such that no bow skills or masteries are really even needed, it’s that strong. This is your general use weapon and AoE damage.
Hellrack is swapped to for Bosses or single targets, the huge boost to Attack Rating helps greatly, and there is no need for any Pierce on such targets. Along with the same massive damage as Buriza, if not more + elemental damages, this pairs extremely well to round out your weapon choices.

Upped Duriel’s Shell → Huge Armor rating, Cannot Be Frozen (which we had to get from somewhere due to needing Angelic Combo), resists, Str, what more could you ask for? This is a big reason why a Crossbow barbarian can reach upwards of 20,000 defense. Perfect for this build setup.

GFace → Obvious reasons

Cleglaw’s Pincers → Knockback is needed because it’s a Crossbow barb, and the 25% slow effect is also “Just OP”. Despite being level 4 requirement, these are literally your endgame gloves, lol

Rare Belt/Boots → Could slot in anything you want here, this is just what I went with for more resists/stats/FHR/FRW.

Angelic Rings+Amulet → No mastery, no skills, means low attack rating in general…gotta get it up to a reasonable level somehow, someway. Angelic x2 Combo is the perfect answer.

-Playstyle-

So this build as mentioned earlier, does reach 20,000 defense rating, which means enemies in Hell have ~10% chance to hit you, despite wielding a Crossbow. How is this achieved? Well, we have 20 into Shout and 20 into Iron Skin (mostly due to no other skills being worthwhile), and then we use a Defiance Mercenary on top of that (also synergizes well with our powered Shout, he will rarely die). Speaking of the mercenary, we employed an Ethereal Stone Armor runeword, to truly maximize the huge armor rating we both have. And then we simply use standard Reaper’s Toll + GFace to round out the merc, for obvious reasons. Leap is used anytime you are surrounded or want to create space, or for simply getting away or moving around. Otherwise, it’s important to “plant your feet” while firing your Crossbow, to keep your massive armor rating intact. You honestly won’t have to use Leap too often for defensive purposes, because you are already not going to be taking much damage, even when surrounded. The Perfect Skulls are used in the weapons because otherwise the build has no source of Leech. While it’s a small amount (4%LL/3%ML), it will help when you get Mana Burned, or just for generally increasing your life slowly but surely over time as you attack.

This is truly one of the most fun, unique, creative builds I’ve ever made, or played. Most anyone who sees it in action, thinks it’s both funny, and awesome. They said it couldn’t be done…prove them wrong.

One last thing I would say for the future, is Grim Ward may become a thing this build would employ, though I’ve heard the next patch’s version of it is bugged at this time. But that is something to consider. I would also propose a change to “Throwing Mastery” to “Ranged Mastery” such that it includes both Throwing Weapons and Bows/Xbows. They’re already adding Pierce to it…and there’s no real or good reason why Barb should be “locked out” of being able to use Bows/Xbows with some proficiency…they can master all weapons, but not Bows/Xbows? I mean c’mon…this wouldn’t even be broken or anything, but simply allow more of a path for this sort of build to function at a more viable level (it is viable now, it’s just…not as viable as it could or should be). Of course, you can also take it a more offensive route, going with a Might or Blessed Aim mercenary, but I didn’t find those to be great options for this particular build as it’s not really attacking very fast anyway…it’s more of a “I’m gonna stand here and shoot at you till you die, and there’s nothing you can do about it because I’m so tanky” build. Of course, feel free to experiment with your own versions! Please enjoy.

2 Likes
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I got time to test this out.

Here’s my gear besides my weapons:
IK Helm x2 ptopaz
Wealth
Highlords
Upped Goldwrap
Dwarf star
Dual leech, resist, AR ring
20 FRW, FR, CR 72 GF, 17 MF greaves
Some crappy charms that aren’t really that good

So I tried it out with my original weapons which was 2x shaefers and then 2x Rune Masters
The shaefers mainhand has shael, off hand unsocketed.
I purposely respecc’d and have 0 points into any weapons mastery. Max frenzy, max double swing, rest into mixture of BO, find item, 1 point wonders/prereqs

Stats: 314% MF, 912% gold on kill, I’ll eventually get dual ali babas on switch but dont have that yet.
Did 5 runs which was annoying and tedious: 24 min 05 s. Of note that was WITHOUT CBF which if i had that would’ve been a bit faster.

I have 3x shael into mh rune master and other is unsocketed. If I put ists in there my stats would be 524% MF with 912% GF with more on switch with alis.

5 runs: 27 min and 32 s. Also slow and tedious, not fun.

Obviously this would’ve been faster with weapon mastery maxed out but still too slow killing mainly because council members kept healing each other and I was also too squishy. I didn’t die in any of the runs but I did have to kite a lot, use tons of pots and rejuves.

This was also done without a merc since I didn’t want that to skew anything.

My conclusion is both options are too slow and you’re right about the dmg. My thought is now I’m gonna try to get a Grief BA and run Grief BA/5 socket rune master frenzy/zerk and see how much better that is.

EDIT: As a side note I did find a random shako off one of the council members during my testing so that was nice.

3 Likes
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Nice thread for showcasing barb builds

I present to you guys my 505 mf frenzy, unkillable* travi barb - not really budget not really that expensive tho.

*unkillable, as long as you attack life stays at max

Shako / topaz
Upped Skullders / topaz
Nagel/Mf ring with LL/Mf Barb ammy
War travs
Dracs - essential for invincibility
Dual Griefs PB’s (no repairs) - 2 low ones like the vid go for 1 LO - essential for the speed
Upped 2x goldwrap
Small mf charms + max dmg and Gheeds (anni and torch optional)

I know people run gold find more with travi barbs, but Im stacked with gold and this mf build brought me some really nice stuff from travi. (Also nice for any other areas in the game - no problems)

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I stand by stacking mf in travs has got diminishing returns after the initial set of runs :smiley:
Superb build for console players, they can keep one button pressed down. The clear speed was good. Where is your source of cannot be frozen though?

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No source :D, outside of travi I switch the nagel for ravenfrost.

At travi I keep the bodies nice and fresh without cold dmg, and is not such a nuissance that I need to get it elsewhere (cannot be frozen)

Thx mate, will post other builds once I record, cheers!

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Good job actually testing your setup!
Your grief setup is going to work but will be more expensive than a 2hand ebotd. Why? Zerking with ebotd gpa or ghost spear results in more damage than grief, no repair costs and instead of a dual leech ring you could wear a 30mf nagelring or a dwarf star

I cham-ed my helmet out of convenience, yeah, not the cheapest solution but offers most gear flexibility.

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It is a good option, actually found a cham a few days back and have no use for it other than trading for 3-4 ists, might switch the topaz in the shako. thx for the tip, slipped my mind

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For people who were asking what a gold find barb is also good for:

It is the same equip of our initial goldfind barb. Thanks to double dwarfstar corpse explosion isn’t that scary either.

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Yeah the grief is gonna take this thing out of the budget category i was hoping to stay in but at this point im willing to accept my experiment failed and just want it to work.

Id prefer not to go the ebotd 2h route bc i also want this to be versatile enough to mf a few places when i get bored of trav, like pits and pindle. I want to stick with freanzy since im not running enigma. I still plan on using a 5 sock rune master with 5x ist in my off hand rather than 2x grief or grief pb + 6 ist CS bc ill still be able to kill stuff faster.

I didnt mention that i ran 2x 5os rune master in pits a couple times and it wasnt too bad in terms of kill speed and that was without any axe mastery.

Plus you cant leech with berserk since its all magic dmg so the dual leech in ebotd goes to waste. Also rune master gives me CBF which is a nice bonus that lets me skip getting a cham rune. A cheap grief BA will run me Ohm+ to Lo so at least its not crazy expensive, esp since the ias on it doesnt matter when it comes to frenzy since ill be at 7.5 frames regardless with the 30 ias from highlords and goldwrap. I could try to get one 35 ias if i ever decide to drop highlords though…

And im willing to accept repair costs since ill be picking up a ton of gold anyway. Cant be worse than when i was using naj puzzler to teleport on my assassin and eating 100k repair cost nearly every run :grinning:

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2h eboted does more damage than grief with berserk.
You don’t need to go all out berserk. I put just 1 point, the barb is a WW barb. You leech with WW inbetween.
About cost, you can do the same with a single oath balrogblade. For one handed, you pair the most damaging one hand oath, eth ettin axe, with your runemaster offhand. You still WW and berserk, no problem.
Try out, that’s cheap.

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Yeah ill give that a shot. Thanks for the all the advice!

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You just need 45ias to hit last WW break point, I’d pair a shael with 2 nice 15ias/ ed vs undead or demons jewel. They are cheap.

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So i made an oath in an eth ettin axe real quick (only 266% ED roll bleh) but tested it out running with the exact same setup and also maxed out axe mastery this time. Much better running trav, the prevent monster heal is also nice. I also had my merc with me this time and spec him out with some better gear so that helped as well.

Able to run a few runs averaging about 2 min per run now instead of like 4-5. Can probably get even faster with a grief and I could afford one but I like a budget build since I’m a cheap a$$ :D. Maybe one day council will drop a Lo and I’ll make a grief with that.