So, i got to lvl 75 on my ww barb, got a bonehew with 7% LL + IAS socketed in it.
My resistances are all 60%+ with fire being 75%.
With warcries on i get around 2k life and 3500 defense.
My damage tooltip with WW is nearly 4k.
BUT thing is every single pack i come across and start to ww almost insta kill me with 2 hits. Life leech seems to not wotk at all, and potions doesn’t heal as fast to compensate the damage.
Physiscal immunities and mana burn affixes on elite monsters is a no no.
Even with my light fury amazon i got to act 4 and barb still can’t clear den of evil LOL.
Any tips?
Thanks
The bonehew (ogre axe) needs 60% ias total on weapon to get to the last breakpoint for ww : If you only have one ias jewel or one sheal in it, you’ll have 45-50 ias on the weapon, which means you’ll get 4.16 hits per second. With 60% ias, you’ll get 6.25 attacks per second.
This means that you’ll need life/mana leach from other sources. Doing some more nightmare boss runs will help you there with items. Also try crafting blood rings for leech. I think you might want to try leveling a bit more anyway, to around 80+, which will improve your ability to not get hit as much.
1 Like
Defense doesn’t help all that much, DR is much better. Also 2k HP after BO is REALLY low. You should have at least twice that. A better weapon wouldn’t hurt. What’s your skill and stat allocation look like? Berserk is your physical immune killer.
Is the Bonehew your only source of leach? Hell has a 2/3rds penalty, so if it is, you’re only getting 2.3% back. With 4k damage that’s only 92 HP, and I assume the 4K is a max number, your average is going to be less. Lots of monsters have additional leach resistance on top of that, so it can be even further reduced.
My mostly self-found lvl 75ish Barb is also at about 2200 HP after cries with ~lvl 24 BO so I think that’s about right unless you’re fully decked out with good gear found by other characters. I guess I do have a fair amount of unused stat points though since I’m playing mostly self found, so a more optimized build could be higher there too.
Your damage is better than mine, I’m still using Insight Partizan, and your resistances are better as well. I am just farming Hell Countess for runes to be able to make Obedience and Duress so I haven’t tried to go much farther, but I don’t seem to be as squishy as you sound like, and I kill decently fast even with less damage. I do have 27% tool tip LL though, which helps a lot, and Laying of Hands gloves which gives a massive damage to demons bonus that isn’t counted in the character screen damage I don’t believe, so it’s possible my damage is comparable to yours if you aren’t using LoH.
What’s the rest of your gear and skills setup like? How much AR do you have and what does the tool tip say your chance to hit Hell monsters is? If you’re missing a ton you’re not going to be doing damage or leaching which will make it tough to survive.
Thanks for the replies guys.
I had some Hel, Lem, Lum runes and used some to buy at least 4 pieces of the IK set and removed the LL from bonehew, now i got 2 shael socketed in it. Yeah, it is a lot more fun now… Still having trouble with mana burn tho.
Gotta farm some countess untill i can afford IK chest haha
3 Likes
Yeah my ghetto Barb is wearing Insight and I have 10% ML from Tal’s Mask and another 4 I think from a crafted DL blood ring, and Mana burn enemies still are a huge pain. I think if they fix the “worn items granting aura cycle bug” Insight will help a bit more than it is right now though.
Things like Ghosts are especially annoying since they have native Physical Immunity AND Mana drain, so you run out of Mana to use Berserk on them if you get in a big pack.
1 Like
I think prices are getting cheaper on items now, so if you can handle some countess runs you might be able to get a non-eth reapers toll for an UM (for act2 might merc). It was my earliest trade item and well worth it for the damage and dealing with immunes.
1 Like
Yeah I’ve had my eye on those for sure, actually was going to get one for some Pgems but the trade fell thru. I’m currently just running Hell Countess over and over farming up some runes. Actually hoping for an Um to make Duress so I can retire the Sigs armor I’m still using! Starting to collect some IK stuff so may re-spec into Mace Barb and try to roll with everything but armor and hope to get enough stuff to trade for an armor eventually.
1 Like
I had a couple sigon pieces too, and right to end-game lol. Earlier in game I was at a crossroad were I really wanted duress and to replace other items, but it just made the most sense to just get a reapers first and wait for the rest. I have Duress now - it makes a difference but not nearly as much as reapers added to merc. It does seem like you shouldn’t have to get a reapers, but its sooo hard to increase your damage output with only an UM etc.
I might not be noticing as much difference with/without Duress as I’m scoring multiple hit dual-weilded with gore riders on now.
1 Like
I ended up doing some trades today and getting the rest of the IK set except armor and respeccing to Mace Mastery. 2x Shael 39% CB Maul was quite the upgrade from an Insight Partizan! I moved my Tal’s helm to merc and he’s rocking my old Insight for now. I had Sigs belt/boots/armor and had been using gloves but replaced with LoH. Definitely miss the damage to demons and fire res from LoH to go 5 pc IK, but it’s definitely a net gain with Maul and Duress! I considered 4 pc IK with LoH but think the other 5 pc partial bonuses from everything make it worth it.
My resistances are still not great, so I stuck a Ral and Tal in the helm for now. Common enough I won’t feel bad stripping them out if I ever get the chest or other resistance upgrades.
The faster Berserk speed and all the elemental damage on the maul actually makes the mana sapping PIs not as annoying as when I was hitting them with a slow Partizan. I also did have 2 Puls from farming so I cubed up to an Um and made a Duress in an 11% EDef Wyrmhide I had. Ended up with 191 % EDef (so rolled 180 I guess) and 20% EDmg and a big upgrade compared to Sig armor all around (except visuals LOL).
I’ll still be on the lookout to get a Reapers for my merc and to build enough wealth to trade for IK armor to run the full set, but for now I think I should be able to progress through pretty well!
1 Like
3.5k defense is very low for barb in fairness.
I have mine in 81 or 82 lvl and he has 16.5k :d
You need more than 7% LL in Hell. But that’s easy to get for a Barb. I’d suggest something like Steelskull (a staple melee helm IMO, has everything you need and it’s cheap) or Crown of Thieves. Variety of jewelry as well as crafted Blood items. Keep an eye out for rare Barb helms too, you can hit the jackpot with one.
Skirt the outside if mob,never try to run though nasty mobs. Mana burn on any toon is a pain im sure,it troublessome for sure mele 
I paly mele frenzy mana burn is aweful
Could you share your build and gear on how you achieve 16K defense??
Manaburn for melee is a funkiller. The way it just stops you and red out all skills is not great gameplay. It should be a 1 or 2 second burn for either max mana or a set amount, which could be offset more or less with a manapot.
Use Manapots to regain mana over time, full rejuvs don’t work. Try to whirl the group aside it and not straight through. Try to use longer whirls, so that if you do get hit, you hit back and regain some mana to whirl again.
Physical Immunes with mana burn like ghosts, is basically not worth fighting. The only way that works is to let your merc get aggro, he can tank those all day, then go in with beserk and kill them easilly. The difficult part is for merc to get aggro, as you are usually running in first. Run back and hide around a corner or something.
Edit; I just came up with the idea of jumping away to lose aggro, I don’t know if it works, but it’s worth testing out.
1 Like
Helm: Arreats
Body: Fortitude
Belt: Thunder God’s Vigor
Boots: Gore Riders
Main Hand: Breath of the Dying
Offhand: Stormshield
Ring 1: Ravenscroft
Ring 2: Nothing special
Amulet: Highlords Wrath or Metalgrid
With this gear and warcries, I can get over 20k defense.