so,
planning to make a frenzy barb and it to have a frenzy barb merc 
like a bro team.i like the concept dun judge me lol.
now cut to the chase, weapons.
on my barb i plan go with death+botd. as death+grief dun have
prevent monster heal for ubers/clones. + glacial spike and LL of botd.
for merc i wanted put last wish+beast for the might+fanaticsm aura that would not only benefit merc dmg but my dmg too being buffed by the fana+might.that or dual beast.
yes im aware for merc dps alone double ehereal headstriker outdmg lw+beast thanks to the deadly strike doubling dmg, but lw+beast have the benefit of increasing my own dmg thx to auras and providing life tap too and fade to the merc for his survival improve.
your thoughs? will fana and might aura stack?
is my double aura from merc for buff main caracter stupid and i shud instead focus on merc dps alone?
ty for your inputs.
Prevent monster heal does not work against ubers, you need open wounds.
Beast is for axes and hammers, the merc uses swords.
If you really want to stack auras, go for A2 merc with might aura, plus RW pride (lvl 16 conc aura). You may use beast yourself and combine it with BotD.
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aww ty for pointing the beast stuff hugs
If cost is not an issue and you want auraās and Frenzybroās, you could do dual Grief Phase on your Barb and dual Last Wish Phase on your Merc, Life Tap and Fade do not stack, but Might Aura does and your merc will give a lvl 34 Might Aura.
He will also have a great Crushing Blow and damage.
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nice that definitly an idea to follow.
guess with dual lw on merc, i cud also grief+death instead botd, for the big crushing blow and deadly strike.
ty for the advice
You could however your damage output with dual grief would be higher (including the CB damage in the mix), while being more limited in gear choice.
Death is low damage in a Phaseblade (lower base damage and cannot be ethereal) thus a Berzerker Axe would be better, this would also need Axe Mastery instead of Sword Mastery thus the Grief would need a Berzerker Axe as well resulting in the need of more IAS on gear limiting your armour choice to Treachery or Hustle or having lower attacks per second which lowers your damage even more.
For CB and DS you could rely on Gore Riders, Highlords and Guillaumeās Face (though the damage increase from Guillaumeās Face is low compared to Arreatās while Arreatās being the overal better helm).
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i see,
make sense. but with frenzy speed goin up the roof as u swing does ias on gear really matter that much for this build since with the buff of frenzy your atack speed become flashy?
the dex reqs for phase lade vs berserker is alot of dex point that cud be used in str fr dmg no?
but yh duel grief for the flat dmg bonus independent of proc chance seems nice .
Well depending on the amount of attack rating you get on charms dexterity increases damage more then strength, due to the fact that ubers are more difficult to hit, even with the -25% defense from Grief (Ignore Defense does not work on Bosses).
It shouldnāt take to much dex to reach the Phase Blade though (20 Anni / 20 Torch / 20 Arreat / 20x2 Ravenās would mean 16 points into Dexterity).
Personally think those 16 (or more without perfect gear) is well worth it
With dual Phaseblade you would need low to mid 30 attack speed, which the Griefs might already have and Laying of Hands is a great pair of gloves when fighting demons so I would advise them anyway and the 20 ias on them will ensure dual Phase Griefs are at max APS, same is not true for Zerkers these would need more IAS, Phaseblades are very fast in comparison.
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My favorite weapon combo for frenzy barb was lawbringer + death. Even though lawbringer doesnāt do any damage, I could still clear the game on p8.
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When I do ubers on my Frenzy barb, I do swap Arreats for Umād GFace for the extra CB.
I run Greif/LB PB (use life tap wand on switch when needed, but Barb often has enough HP that you donāt need it constantly, so you can take advantage of the decrep for most of the fight), SoE, Raven, Highlords, Gores, LoH, Fort and a random mix of bad charms lol. Do usually prebuff with Fade from Treachery.
I want to try out eDeath/BotD combo at some point, but havenāt found good bases or Zod rune yet lol, but for Ubers, the extra CB/DS isnāt really needed, but I havenāt timed it back to back, so Iām not saying itās not an improvement.
Between the decrep proc and the Sanct aura I think LB is an awesome off hand for Frenzy barb!
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never though of LB but the decrep seems indeed sweet from it
does the grief -25% target defense and Lb -50% target defense stack? hows does it affect uber/clones. same for decrepify?
but indeed even if LB has no dmg boost the - monster def + decrep act as a dmg increase they take
Yeah I really enjoy it as off hand with Frenzy, it procs decrep really often and that adds a lot of damage and can break most PIs. The Sanct aura means Undead get shredded super fast, and since a lot of PIs are also undead, it really takes away one of the physical melee pain points. Sanct can be kind of annoying in Arcane and Chaos sanctuaries since the knock back will push fliers like ghosts and stormcasters off the paths, making them annoying to engage sometimes. I often will use my weapon swap to let them come back into range in conjunction with a taunt, if I donāt want to skip them.
So -target defense % only applies to attacks made by the user and only by the weapon itself, so when you attack with Greif, the to-hit calcs act as if the targetās defense is 25% lower, and when you attack with LB, it treats it as if the targetās defense is 50% lower (which works out to the equivalent of 2x AR). So unfortunately you donāt get 75% for each hit.
Regarding Decrepify, only hits from LB are able to proc it, but once itās cast, any enemies that get hit with it are cursed with Decrepify just like any other application of the curse, so effected enemies are slowed by 50% and have their damage and physical resistance reduced by 50%, regardless of the source of the physical damage. So if you swing with LB, cast decrep, anything in 12.5 yard radius is cursed, and the next swing from Grief will take into account that -50% physical resistance.
Amazon Basin has a pretty good write up on the -Target Defense% stuff: Target Defense - Basin Wiki
yeah lack of %ED on LB is kind of a bummer, but it would probably be pretty OP with that. Plus this way you donāt feel bad at using a relatively low damage fast base like PB for it, b/c the base damage doesnāt matter. Itās also kind of nice for a frenzy barb that intends to hork (Find Item) since IMO the biggest draw back of LB is the cold damage that risks shattering corpses AND the slain monsters rest in peace mod. But with it being relatively low damage compared to Grief (or Oath, lw, botd, etc) , you end up with most kills happening with the main weapon, so itās less of a factor.
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worried tho of my merc survivability.
yes last wish for aura etc butā¦mercs tend to die.
would a dual botd on my merc sound absurd ? stats, manasteal, life steal, good dmgedā¦and could be ethereals.
thinking also what if act 1 merc with faith for lvl 15 fanaā¦or lvl 3 enchant merc with +8 fire skills gear for a big enchantā¦what would benefit more my dmg without dyingā¦act 1/3 being ranged for a melee barb that cud be goodā¦
Act 5 mercs are pretty hardy, I think they got even more of a defense or HP buff when D2R did the merc balance changes and they got frenzy, but I might not be remembering correctly.
The only Barb merc experience I have is with my Fant Zealot, and he has Full Sazabi which gives 15% LL and then he uses LB PB on off hand (which is 7% additional just on the LB hits, which is pretty low phys damage).
I could see Arreats being enough if you had damage from LW Grief, etc. especially with Fort. eBotD would likely also kick plenty as well, and as you mentioned youād get more leach that way. Problem with BotD is it has to be PB (Frenzy merc can only use 1h swords), and a lot of that %ED is āwastedā on (relatively) low damage PB. You could also potentially swap to CoH for the leach if Arreats by itself wasnāt enough. I guess itās all about how much damage you want him doing vs. buffing you.
Thing about Act 3 Enchant merc is that he doesnāt have Warmth and Fire Mastery synergies that a sorc gets, so enchant damage is pretty lack luster compared to say, the 4-6+k enchant damage bonus you get from a high level enchantress. AR boost can be nice, but I figure if youāre at the point where you can afford dual eBotD or Last Wish, you probably have good charms and the rest of the GG items and donāt really need ARā¦ Greifās ITD and -25% def also means on most normal monsters AR isnāt as critical.
Iāve never been able to afford Faith Act 1 merc so I canāt say, but remember that Fant bonus to āothersā is much less than to self, so lvl 15 fana is 144% ED while lvl 17 Might is 200% ED. Fant does have the 110% AR and 33% IAS though, so depending on where you are on break points it may be better?
EDIT: With Last Wish heāll be casting Life Tap a lot and shouldnāt have any survivability concerns! Although Iām not sure how often LT will be up if you use LW with LB since LB will be casting decrep as well.
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thanks man great help>cheers
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FYI - Act 5 mercenary can clear uber Tristram on his own! That is a bro, a straight up murder buddy. You got keys and a BRO??? Uber Tristram BRO-DOWN!!! <3
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how did u equip yours ? me so far got 2 ideas in mind . dual lw for the lvl 34 aura even if its less dmg for him compared to dual head striker, but it benefits me.
or act 1 freezing arrow girl with faith or ice for fana/holy freeze and delirium helmet. ultimate cc with freezin enemies and making them kill each other from the delirium helmet.
me using dual grief and grief/lb as a change for deal with immunes
double LW
Guileās Helm
Treachery
absolutely ridiculous on ubers
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Keep in mind heāll get level 34 Might, youāll get alternating lvl 17 Might auras based on how aura stacking works, Iām pretty sure. Still +200%Ed for you so I think your point still stands, just wanted to point it out to avoid disappointment.
BTW I think barbs built in CC 1 point wonder skills Taunt, Howl and Battle Cry are sufficient for progression, and once you have end game gear I feel like you can just tank and shred stuff so well you donāt really need it, so Iād probably say of your two thoughts, the first is better. I do use howl for minions in uber trist and as mentioned will use taunt for the occasional flying monster thatās off the map, but I feel like itās faster to just charge in and frenzy everything to death than bother with a ton of cc once you get end game gear.
BTW if you put frenzy on right click you can hold it down and your barb will run towards the mouse pointer and auto attack anything in his path. Much more fun to me than having to shift click or manually select each enemy.
On my Zealot Iāve been able to replicate this by setting Zeal to quick cast that corresponds with my ābackā button on mouse, so I can do the same thing but hold down that button instead and use rmb skill as an aura.
The ābackā button trick is also awesome for berserk on the Frenzy barb for groups of PIs when you donāt want to wait for decrep. Frenzy charged berserk with grief PB auto attacking the next monster is pretty awesome. Su my frenzy barb has DS on lmb (in case of jeans drain although less of an issue now that they changed mana burn), frenzy on rmb, leap attack quick cast set to middle click and berserk quick cast set to ābackā button. I leave āfwdā button as default run/walk toggle.
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nice. why everyone love treachery so much tho ? the fade on being struck seems low chance ? i got a sweet eth hauberk for it incaseā¦
fade of lw dual + fade of treachery stack ?