Could I go frenzy with 2 butcher pupils?
What would be a good starter budget build for barb?
Currently using Bonesnap for whirlwind but holy hell WW is so awful. I have 2 butcher pupils in the bank though.
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Double butcher’s are great for nightmare, they have all sorts of useful mods, ok damage and pretty fast so by all means use them, clearly a better choice than ww with bonesnap.
When you reach hell and become underpowered with the pupils take a look at this thread as it covers options (budget) for frenzy in hell, Frenzy barb budget weapons?
cheers
BTW if you socket your Bonesnap and put a Shael in it, it will hit the next WW Breakpoint and WW will feel a lot better, I suspect. I haven’t been able to find a Bonesnap yet in D2R my experience is in legacy D2, but I’ve had a lot of fun taking a WW Bonesnap barb through. I socket it with a Sheal and then when I have the stats to still use it, I upgrade it from Maul to War Club. That’s lasted me until I could equip the IK Maul and transition into full IK.
I know D2R has some “bonus” WW bugs compared to Legacy though, the main one is that you’re not getting some of the early frame checks, which were critical for slow weapons. My IK WW Barb (2x Shaels in Weapon so hits last WW BP) has still been a lot of fun to play and kills in Hell pretty well, so I suspect the reason Bonesnap feels bad right now for you (depending on how far you are) has a lot to do with not hitting WW break points, and the bug which isn’t giving you the “free” hit checks that it should be.
That said, I agree with what ALDO said on Butcher’s Pupil, so that can be a great way to go too. Depending on where you are in the game I can also understand not wanting to “blow” a socket quest on a Bonesnap, but if you can spare that and a Sheal it might be worth your time to try it rather than re-spec into Axes/Frenzy. Just depends on what your ultimate goal is.
Bonesnap is base weapon speed [10], which means that it only hits the first WW BP, [15], so it has 14 full frames between hit checks. Normally you’d get 2 “free hit checks” at 4th and 8th frame, but that appears to be bugged in D2R, which is why that probably feels pretty bad.
Putting a Sheal in Bonesnap gets you to [-10], which is the 3rd 2H WW BP, so you get a hit check every 10 frames, which works out a lot nicer.
IK Maul is the same [10] base speed, but comes with 40% IAS and 2 sockets, making it [-30], which is the 4th WW BP, and able to hit the last 2H WW BP, [-60], with the addition of another 30% IAS, either from 2x Sheals (that gets you another 40% and 10% is “wasted”) or 2x 15% IAS jewels. The Jewels can be a better option if they give additional mods in addition to the 15% IAS, but Sheals are usually the cheaper option.
Bonesnap has the nice ED range, huge 40% Crushing Blow, and very nice cold and fire res, so it’s a pretty nice progression weapon. IK Maul is pretty decent with it’s ED, IAS, and Crushing Blow, but really starts to shine with the set bonuses giving it a ton of elemental and magic damage.
So if you’re not likely go want to go full IK, then the maul progression through IK Maul may not make as much sense. Another non-IK set Maul progression option would be to end up with a BotD Thunder Maul for massive damage. This lets you use some of the other really nice unique and RW pices for the other gear slots that IK takes up, as well.
When I was building my barb up as my first character (so no hand me downs) I ended up using an Insight Partizan for all of NM, and that had the same [10] speed as Bonesnap, but quite a bit more damage to make the hits it did get count. It got me to Act 1 Hell and I ended up being able to farm/trade for the rest of the IK set minus armor, which got me through the rest of the game and able to trade me for the armor. That was also pretty early in release though, I’m not sure if the WW “free frame bug” has existed since D2R release or if it was accidentally folded in on one of the later patches, so it’s possible [10] speed 2H weapon in WW feels worse than it did when I went through.
An Up’d Bonesnap with a Sheal would likely also see you through all of NM and deep into Hell if you wanted to go that route.
Upgrade those pupils as required and you are set! 
Two puls are too much. He can get better weapons. If he’s got puls I’d look for Schaefer’s hammer, Astreon or other weapons.
2 butcher pupils? are great axe to start and after you have the option to upgrade the axe
just message me in game , i keep some item to help new player charley222
#1304
FYI - My HC barb died so many times i ran out of gear. I ended up using bloodletters until 42ish when i could use Aldurs. I triple shaeled the first one so it had 90% IAS, and triple p Skulled the second one. It had something like 22% leeches.
It pwned.
I will suggest equip 1 Lawbringer PB.
That sanaction aura will provide like 600% to undead and the 20% to cast decrepify.
together with loh, will be 350% to demon and 600% to undead. not to mentioned that -50% defense is so useful.
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