Hello, I would like to provide some tips to people who starts new Season as Barbarian. To provide several ways how to get items because as we know Barbarian has mostly tough life in term of getting items on his own. He can be great, well probably best eventualy at finding items, but you need expensive decent equip for that. Not like sorceress who can farm almost with nothing easy. So I decided to share some usefull tips for anyone interested how to get items if you start ladder with barbarian from 0 and you dont use for example JSP to trade.
It is definitely not easy to progress as Barbarian in game if you go solo, so I highly suggest to find dedicated group and go start ladder together. If you will not have own group, simply keep joining games where people do progress in game, you might not do any significant damage but you will still be very valuable team mate because of your supporting skills. Skill Leap can also help you a lot and you can basicly skip almost everything with exception of few fights which you can do with some other people.
I would like to say few things in general about gameplay as you start. Your main focus should be anything with magic find
and anything you can sell for a lot of gold to vendors so you can gamble later. If you play with others who are damage dealers, focus on stuff to help group but mainly to
invest into find item and find potion to improve chance of Find item skill. Keep and upgrade topazes, 3 socket helms and armors are you target for inserting them. You can get 3 socket Breast plate and 2 socket helms easily at blacksmith in ACT II. And when you make level 20, start gamble for Boots and gloves. Preferably rare ones with +atleast 15% Magic find and other usefull mods. It is very important to get a lot of MF early, because that will help you to get better chance to find other unique items with MF by using Find item skill. Your main tool to find items will be Find item
skill so use it as much as you can and if you dont have a lot of mana, use it just on unique and champion monsters. Or ghost type monsters.
I will now write about 4 methods I often use when I cant do much damage myself to kill monsters, some are better than others, but I dont want to say what is best, its up to you to try and decide. I used all these metods in past and every single one provided results. And for most of them you dont really need almost any equip or just easily to get items.
Scavenging
If you dont play with friends and have issue to kill anything alone, this way is perfect way to get some items easily. You simply join games where players farm and progress and use Find item skill on bodies laying around. Its best to be little bit behind so other players dont take stuff you hork. It is best to do this in maps which have high monster level so you can get better items. This method is not that effective as other players can pick up items you hork and also sometimes certain skills destroy bodies you want hork. But its
very cheap as you only need items with magic find to improve your chance to get something.
Objects hunting
Very easy way how you can get a lot of jewelry and some runes too without any requirements for equip. Just boots with high FRW are usefull for this. You go into maps with high density of objects and click on them. Locked objects are even better as in full games they can drop up to 8 items.
Superchests can drop even more items. This method require preferably full games with additional 7 players for increased drop so it might be bit problematic to consistently find full games, especially on hardcore. Best is to have some friends or group who often does split farming games. There is more places you can go with high number of objects but only some of them are suitable for Barbarian who doesnt have teleport. Best is Lower kurast
because of very high density of objects and easy accesibility. Objects there can drop runes up to Ber. It migh happen that some other people have same idea so I suggest going Upper Kurast too as it is same as good almost. Kurast Bazaar is also doable, but layout is little bit worse as you have to go inside buildings a lot. Other place I often go for variability are outside locations in ACT IV. Density of objects is not that great, but there is still enough of them. Nobody goes there ever in full games too so you can roam there freely. And runes can drop here up to Cham. There is few other places you can visit but I dont do them personaly: Durance of hate which has high density of objects but problematic layout and monsters, Sewers(ACT III) and Nihlathak temple + outside zones of ACT V where density of objects in not great and also its somehow
difficult to navigate and spot them. I believe Frozen Tundra is best for objects.
Pindleskin runs with twist
Barbarian is in my opinion best Pindleskin runner in game and I do this every time with him. It is little bit harder method to master as you use multiple skills and need special setup. Benefit is that you can stack insane amount of MF and dont need expensive items for this method. You will
not be killer here, you mercenary will be so Mercenary weapon is most important part of gear. He needs strong enough weapon to solo kill Pindleskin. I usualy use Tomb reaver, but it can be expensive early so try to get your hands on Bonehew. Its not expensive item and you can buy it from someone for good price. Ethereal version is even better if you can get hands on that one. Use Eld runes in sockets which increase damage against undead.
There is few other weapon options but most of them have some issues like cold damage for example which can destroy body of Pindleskin and you will
not be able to use find item on him. Helm and Armor is not really important on merc for this so stack MF in those positions. Since Pindleskin is sometimes immune to physical damage so you have 3 options, kill him yourself, skip and go next or somehow deal with his immunity and lower it.
I personaly prefer to use Lacerator or Gavel of pain as both can cast Amplify damage. Lacerator is better, but it might be tough to get hands on it early in ladder. Gavel of Pain is cheap but require a lot of strength so you will have to waste a lot of additional attributes to have enough.
Lacerator on other hand needs quite high dexterity, but you will most likely have it anyway for Grief Phase blade. It is also possible to have Reapers toll on switch for mercenary if you have that. If it takes more time to kill him while being immune than going next, just skip and go next.
Now I would like to explain method of farming as you need special skill setup for that and strategy. You will need high level of Find item with Find potion of course to maximize chance to hork another items from Pindleskin, rather high level of Howl and 1 point or more in Grim Ward but thats completely optional. Grim Ward is basicly just to help you when your merc is weak and takes him too much time to kill minions from pindleskin group if you look for some XP also. I will now describe process of killing. As you go into red portal, use your support shouts on you and mercenary and run inside so you are close to Pindleskin pack where you need to use Howl. That will make everyone except Pindleskin scared and run away in fear so your mercenary as he goes in attacks Pindleskin. Be ready to Howl again is needed as some individual undead sometimes lurks in or minions will lose it if killing takes too much time. Then use Find item skill on Pindleskin and go next and reapeat. It will need some practice to master this method so be patient. On yourself of course stack as much MF as you can and your equip can be just fully focused on MF. I sometimes use Grim ward when I need help with some experience when I cant find decent games to level up in groups. You simply use Howl in same way and after Pindleskin is down, you let your merc to kill one additional undead and then use Grimward on his body which lowers Physical resistance for rest of his group making them easier to kill
for your mercenary. What is probably hardest about this method is to get on high enough level so Mercenary can use bonehew or Tomb Reaver(req lvl 85). I suggest using 3 socket helm with Amethysts for merc and armor if he doesnt have enough strength to use Bonehew. Or some set, unique items with a lot of strength.
Arcane Sanctuary - Ghost Farming
I dont think I have ever seen anyone doing this before. Farming Arcane sanctury and ghosts there is not something new but specific way how I do it with just basic equip is something I found out myself. Ghost are great to drop jewelry and most importantly runes. And this method is in my opinion quite decent if you are too weak for Travincal or other zones if you cant kill alone. This method require some skill and practice to master and is little bit time consuming to be honest. You need few things for this Method, ACT III fire Mercenary and Spirit RW sword for him. Other equip with +skills on him if really helpfull. You also need some decent level so his damage actualy does something. Skills you need are Find item, Find potion as synergy, War Cry and atleast 3 skill points in Leap skill.
Now I will explain process of how you do this as it has few steps. First you will have to pick one direction in Arcane Sanctuary and use Leap to to gather all ghosts from that section to follow you. After you gather all ghosts, go back on path which leads to Waypoint, but far enough from it so you dont lure Ghosts you gathered to waypoint, use TP to go town and re-enter Arcane Sanctuary from Waypoint. Then go different section and repeat process. Once all 4 section have gathered ghosts, hire Fire Mercenary and go to first section. As ghost aproach to you, spam War Cry so they are stuck but be carefull so they are on path so you will be able to hork them. You mercenary will take just few Fireball shots to kill all of them. Then use find item and repeat with other 3 sections. I suggest doing killing for all 4 sections at once, because if you do one by one gather->killing, you will have to waste gold to rehire mercenary all the time. This method is little bit dangerous for Hardcore as in my experience it sometimes happens that Leap will show animation of you jumping but in reality you are still stuck so it can kills you as you are dragging huge pack of enemies behind you. Also it is more dangerous if there is elite pack of ghosts who are extra fast. Sometimes also happens that Goat men or Banished will lure close to waypoint. You will have to either kill them or lure them away with howl for example.
Edit: formating sucks, i will make it better when i will be behind pc ::
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also if you use grim ward everyone is slowed like snail. Unless howl effect overides it, i am not sure now.