Need some help with a twist on a Double Throw Barb:

General Discussion
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So, as we are getting deeper into ladder season 6 I am dusting off an older build from season 4. I am constructing a double throw barbarian and I thought I could use some advice on how to round him out. This season I have had relatively good luck with my hunts and I put together the equipment to really push this guy to the limit. I want to see how far I can push the build, but I am taking a slightly unusual approach with it. So, I thought I would go over it and see if anybody has some good ideas about how I could get the most out of it. He just hit hell difficulty and I am looking towards his end game setup.

Skills:
Combat:
Bash 1
Leap 1
Double swing 1
Double Throw 20

Warcries:
Howl: 1
Shout: 1
Battle Orders: 20
Battle Command: 1
Find Potion: 1
Find Item: 1
Grim Ward: 1

Masteries:
Increase Stanima: 1
Increase Speed: 1
Iron Skin: 1
Natural Resistance: 1
Throwing Mastery: 20
Spear Mastery : 1

So, that is my skill spread at level 90 that will leave me 29 skill points to use

Stats: Enough for gear and max Vit

Gear:
Weapons 1: Eth Lacerator
Weapon 2: Eth Gimmershred
Weapon Swap: 230 ED +4 skill Eth Ariocs Needle (zod Rune)
Helmet: 3 Warracies, 6 wearwolf, 6 feral rage, 6 lycanthropy wolf howl
Ring 1: Raven Frost
Ring 2: Dual Leach, 19 fire res, 28 lighting res, 14 poison res, 45 AR
Gloves: 20 IAS, 19 cold res, 18 poision res hit power gloves

So, we have the core of the typical double throw barb after the 2.4 update here. However, the wolf howl and arioc’s needle, are somewhat out of place on the traditional take on this build. I am using the summon dire wolf charges on wolf howl to get 3 dire wolfs. This gives me some minions to serve as a front line that I can launch missles from behind. Much like a bowazon would use a valkery as a meat shield. They tend to survive surprisingly well on lower player counts with the high level battle orders. If I am in a bigger party it doesn’t matter as much.

The Arioc’s needle serves as a +4 to skills buff stick for my battle orders, shout and battle command much like most barbs carry 2 spirit swords or +3 warracies throwing weapons in their off hands. However, since I am using wolf howel, I can transform into a werewolf and attack with ariocs needle in feral rage. The spear gives +4 to werewolf, feral rage and lycanthropy from the hat. It’s also has a 50% deadly strike on itself paired with the rest of my kit. It deals between 4500 and 8200 physical damage a hit with feral rage with only one hard skill point investment in spear mastery. This gives me an additional 1800 health and a solid melee skill if I want to go hand to had without investing in something like stun or concentrate leave me more skill points for other options.

What I want to ask the community before I spend some high runes to piece this out is what direction do you think would be the most effective.

Option 1: Fortitude + High Lords Wrath

So, this is the traditional pick for this build if you aren’t using enigma. Fortitude provides the frozen armor proc, high def, 300% off weapon ED and 30 all res. High lords gives an additional 25 ias, and enough deadly strike to generate infinite throwing weapons with a 60% chance for critical hits. I already have the 30 all res fortitude ready to go.

Option 2: Peace + Barb Amulet

This seems like the less practical option against the last one. However, I have a +2 barb skills, dual leach, 18 all res, 29 to life amulet. However, since I need the an additional source of critical hit chance I am taking the amazon’s peace rune word. This gives +2 to critical strike or another 32% chance with the +1 from my anni. This also generates infinite throwing axes. However, when paired with Arioc’s needle, this goes up to +7 or a 49% chance plus the 50% from Arioc’s need. So, I am basically garenteed double damage on every hit with it. I only get 30 cold res and 20% FHR from peace. But, this also gives me a level 15 valkerie as well. Not a powerful unit on hell difficult, but another free body to draw fire.

Other Factors:

I also need to figure out my boots and belt for this build, but that is a secondary thought. I could also use some advice on what I should do with my merc. Last time I ran an act 2 might merc with Insight, Andarials visage and treachy. I have more resources to equip him this time around and I don’t need the mana regen from insight. So, any advice there would be helpful. I do have an eth reapers toll, but I not sure if I want to fight him between my amp damage and his decrepify procs. Likewise, would a cure hat be worth more than the +2 levels of might from Andys?

Last Skills:

So, I have a fair number of open skill points left and I need to figure out where to spend them. As I see it I have 3 good options

Option 1: 20 points in double swing

Nothing complicated here just another 160% off weapon ED to double throw to max that part of the build out.

Option 2: 20 points into spear mastery

Not a monumental improvement, but this would better balance my damage between the 2 combat styles.

Option 3: 20 points into shout.

If I went with fortitude, my def is already high enough. However, this would help the survivability of the dire wolves, my merc and anybody else in my part along with extending the duration of my Warcries.

I am open to any other ideas on where I should put my points and any other gear suggestions. So, if anyone has thoughts to share I would appreciate it.

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Option 4: Put them extra points into Item Find/Potion Find… Hork Hork Hork!!!

:smiley:

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Seems like the standard Gores/Travs would work pretty well here. Gores may be overkill in terms of DS but the OW and CB are still nice.
Other semi-common options like IK, Alders, Waterwalk, etc, seem reasonable as well.

Belt do you want Razortail for the pierce? I know Mastery gets you to 46% at lvl 20 so you’ll be in decent shape, but adding the 33% to get you closer to 100 may be worthwhile.

If not, typical melee go-tos like SoE or Verdungo’s make a lot of sense. If you need IAS Nos coil. If you need CBF then Trangs can be an interesting option that opens up ring slot (or helm socket).

If you’re using IK boots then the belt can also be neat. Combo IK boots + Belt you get 31% LR, 28% FR, 25 STR, 40% FRW, 110+50 partial = 160 AR, 44 Life and 25% MF. Throw the gloves in you get 20 STR/DEX, 25% IAS +2 BComb, another 25 flat AR and 25% FHR, but giving up that sweet %dmg to demons and fire res from LoH may not be worth it.

When I was first reading your skill allotment, I immediately picked up on this one missing, so my gut feel is for that…

I think you need to maybe play a bit and see how often you really play as a wolf using Feral Rage. If you don’t end up doing it much, these points would be wasted. If you do it a lot then the extra damage seems good.

I’m sort of in the camp that defense for most PVM situations is a “nice to have if you’re not sacrificing anything else better for it”. Since you’re not using Enigma you’re going to be running around a lot to reposition, I assume, and defense drops to 0 when you run. I think whatever you get from 1 point + skills will probably serve you and the summons just as well.

Other interesting options would be some combination of Find Item and Find Potion as TDJ mentions to get your hork game on.

Frenzy to charge up for DPS and IAS buff? May not be worth the time it takes to charge up, depending on IAS break points, and this is now a 2nd melee situation when you already have FR, but it might be worth thinking about.

Overall interesting build but I wonder about how much you’ll really end up using Wolf+FR mode vs. throwing. I’ll be interested to hear how it turns out!

1 Like
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First, I have no advice…
I found a perfect Wolf Howl, and gave it to a friend that has 2 high end Barb builds (lvl99 and lvl97), hoping he would humor me and at least try it out… best of my knowledge, it’s still sitting on one of his mules.

Very interesting build, I dig it… good luck.
Not sure if you record your game play (I do not) but if you do, I’d love to see that Barb in action with Dire Wolves scurrying about.

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I have at least one (not perf though) sitting on mules that I’ve been meaning to try out. I’d probably go a more traditional wolf barb build where you stay in wolf and use FR, though. If I end up getting enough D2R play time to try it out, I’ll let you know!

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So, some followups on this build. I appreciate the feedback and it was helpful. After some testing with several of the idea, I ended up going with fortitude and highlords over the peace and more traditional barb amulet. The valkerie is a little inconsistent and it’s hard to keep buffed as it keeps geting recasts on attack every 2 to 3 enemy packs. Likewise, the added IAS from high lords and 300% off weapon ED from Fortitude offer the better overall damage curve. For the boots and belt slot I went with a string of ears and Aldurs boots. I needed some fire restist with the final gear and while gore riders are really nice I already have enough critical hit chance and crushing blow is less effective on a ranged build. I went with string of ears to add some more life leach and counter the phsical damage increase from a bone break sunder charm I added.

My skill points ended up in double swing for the double throw damage synergy and I added a point into battle cry to cut enemy defense if I am having trouble hitting a particlar target. The dire wolves are not amazing. All in they are doing about 400 physical damage a hit with my merc’s might aura and their 1.5 x damage from eating a corpse. But, they have enough health that they can normally survive a few areas with my battle orders off of a single charge. They are there to draw fire and give me something to attack from behind, which is the whole reason I am using wolf howle over the more powerful arriat’s face.

For the Merc I ended up going with a reaper’s toll and treachery. I decided I didn’t care if his decrepify overwrites my amp damage. I just want as many things cursed with increased physical damage at all times. I am still up in the air if I want the cure hat for the level 1 clensing aura or andarial’s visage for the extra 20% off weapon ED from the extra 2 levels of might.

As for how often I use Ariocs needle with Feral rage, the answer is it depends on where I am fighting. With the +1 from high lords, +4 from ariocs needle my anni I have level 12 in all the werewolf skills. The Ethereal Ariocs has a base damage of 171 to 587, so transformed with feral rage, my mercs might arua and 1 hard point in spear mastery I deal 2100 to 6040 damage accoding to the character screen. With that I have a 79% chance to deal double damage between high lords, the needle and spear master for 4200 to 12k. Plus I am attack one frame faster than I would with concentrate or berserk. Last, the wolf transformation gives me an additional 1300 health, and feral rage adds 44% life stolen per hit and a 35% FRW bonus on top. Not a bad combat option for one hard skill point. So, if I can leach life and don’t mind getting close this does see a lot of use.