Hey everyone! I was thinking about building a Barbarian if I ever decide to play next ladder. But I do need help deciding gear and skill distribution for a starting Barbarian. Yes I know this is a hard character to play through ladder with but with the right gear and strategies, it can tear through Hell difficulty before building up to a full gear setup.
I was thinking about building a Double Swing/Whirlwind hybrid. First lets focus on the gear than the stats/skills distribution. Here is a summary of the build:
Gear-
Grief pb (would need a budget option first)/Lawbringer pb
Lionheart or Duress
Arreats or Guillaume’s Face
Highlords
Laying of Hands
Gores
Raven Frost
Str/Dex blood ring
Wilhelm’s Pride
Skills-
20 Whirlwind
20 Blade Mastery
20 Battle Orders
20 Find Potion
rest Bash
1 Double Swing
1 Berserk
1 Increased Stamina
1 Increased Speed
1 Iron Skin
1 Natural Resistance
1 Battle Command
Attributes-
Strength: enough to wear gear
Dexterity: enough to wear Phase Blades
Vitality: all the rest
Energy: lol
Other inputs are welcome. I want work up with some of my friends for the new ladder. I could use advice on early and mid game gear so I can work around this character much better. Thanks!
Gear setup seems reasonable to start with.
Since you are putting 20 into Find Potion I’m assuming you’re going to be horking a lot (although you don’t have FI listed at all, you are intending to get it, right??) so you may want to get another source of CBF to avoid the cold damage on Raven Frost. I’m questing/levling through with a WW Trav barb right now myself (only in Act2 Hell currently though, I don’t get much playtime and I’m taking it slow), and am choosing Trang Belt. Similarly I like Duress a lot, but the cold damage mans if you’re horking a lot, you may want to steer clear. I’m seeing how far Lionheart takes me in my new WW Trav barb. Smoke, Gloom, and Treachery may be other good cheap options, although with PBs you likely won’t need the IAS from Treachery (although I think you will need it to hit last BP when decrep’d yourself), the Fade proc is nice.
I assume you’re planning on Unbending Will, Oath, etc. to use before you get Grief?
What does Double Swing get you in this build? Only thing I can think of is you’re planning on using it to try to proc decrep from Law Bringer since CTC doesn’t work with WW? TBH I’m not sure the time spent doing that will be faster than just killing outright, especially with Grief. You have Berserk for PIs, and the Sanct aura from LB will shred undead PIs even before decrep procs (at least based on my Grief/LB Frenzy barb). I’ll be interested to hear thoughts from others as well as your thoughts and experience though! I could see it maybe being worth it on high life targets like bosses, etc. whereas easier prey you just outright WW dead.
I guess DS would be useful if you get mana zapped as a decent damage/ar way to attack with super low mana cost, but I typically find conc to work well there (albeit slower than DS for sure)
What were you planning for merc?
personaly
no point to drop 20 point in find potion and item if you dont hold 2 ali baba and are not mf , sure this dont affect rune find , but why give up on mf on a new season , here a cheap build for new season gl
Yes I am and sorry I forgot to mention Find Item in my post. And yes again I plan on procing Decrepify using Double Swing. It’s not a bad skill either. Sure it’s not the strongest but it can still be a nice skill to play around. Especially around small crowds you don’t want to just use Whirlwind against. Both skills seem to work well together.
I don’t know. Maybe Might merc with Insight or Obedience.
And thanks Charley222!
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Back in the day I never bothered with Insight for melee chars, then during my D2R launch progression with Barb I used an Insight Partizan as my weapon all through NM and early Hell, and after I upgraded past that, I put it on my merc until I got Reaper’s Toll. The mana regen is really nice in taking the bite out of WW leach needs, although obviously once your damage is in a good place, 5-6% ML is usually enough.
Obedience is cool, but it also has Cold Damage. I’m going to see how Arioc’s Needle does with the +4 skills giving Might a bonus on my hork barb. I’ve also had good luck with double Amn Bone Hew to avoid cold damage, although it has pretty high requirements. Reaper’s Toll is great but again, cold damage! I guess if you kill fast enough that your Merc isn’t getting the killing blow very often it’s probably not a huge issue.
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I would suggest you start with level 8 double swing at least and back off whirlwind until a late nightmare respec. That would put the mana cost of it at zero meaning you dont have to worry about insight or mana leech until you reach decent gear. Also helps wiyh AR in early hell until you get you torch and anni together. Once you get geared redpec into whilwind. Usually best paired with an blessed aim or might merc paired with eth reapers toll
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The only expensive part is finding or trading for a Reapers Toll that is ethereal. Several points into Double Swing would make a lot of sense if you don’t have mana leech gear to help you leech mana. The AR comes in good use too. Thanks for your input!
You said grief with a ladder start barb. I’m already confused. But it could happen after a week or two, hell I found two Lo runes players 1 single player.
Good luck!!
Do you want a step by step guide or just general advice?
You can get a grief within a few days but its easier to for a botd on ladder start because Zods are cheap.
Death is going to be expensive because MA Mosaic is going to destroy the mal and gul market. Ironically its going to be harder to make an oath unless you do it yourself.
Melee is not going to have a good time this ladder.
Guys I found a ladder reset team and now I’m committed to make a druid this coming ladder. Things turned out differently than I expected. Oh well. At least I found a good group of people to do a ladder reset team with. The leader is kind of forcing me to build a fury druid. I can always start out as a fire druid until I get more gear to respec it to fury.
I played zerker last season and used ali baba off hand x2 gull on swap with starter gear. Horked my way to grief then got enigma. Ran travincal,pindle,countess until my eyes bled. Got enigma pretty early then never looked back ran all content seal pop howl zerk seal guardians cs runs ez pz. I run in a party of 3-8 friends. If you are solo i would suggest using the unbending will phase blade or headstriker until you get grief i liked the unbending will PB because of the ias and durability. I also had an oath balrog blade that i used in between unbending will and grief. Really depends if you get a good eth base oath will carry you. This is what i used last season at start.
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