Respec time perhaps?

Barbarian
1

Just hit a brick wall at the Arreat Summit Nightmare Mode. My current stats:
Level: 68
Str: 102
Dex: 62
Vit: 250
Energy: 20
All natural resitances (except for fire) are at 75% (is this maxxed?)
Seems like I’m depending on my helper toon more and more. She has more dps than I do it looks like!

My armor/weaps:
Blackhorn’s Face Death Mask
The Spirit Shroud Ghost Armor
Wraith Claw Gauntlets
Loath Shank Light Plated Boots
Bone Lock Plated Belt
Dire Bain Flail
Bitter Blow Flail

My skill tree:
Bash - 3
Double Swing - 22
Double Throw - 3
Frenzy - 22
Mace Mastery - 22
Iron Skin - 6
Natural Resistances - 6

These next skills I haven’t used much of… yet…
Howl - 4
Taunt - 3
Shout - 3
Battle Cry - 3

Not sure what to do at this point. I’ve checked out MrLlamaSC’s vids, but its kinda confusing. Any help would be peachy! I guess I just need a decent rotation maybe?

Cheers

2

Llama’s vids are confusing because he is just a mediocre barbarian speedrunner, nothing more as it pertains to the barbarian.

First, you need to use an Act 2 Offensive merc. He would be doubling your barb’s damage right now.

2nd, and at this point in the character development Bash, Double Throw, Iron Skin, Natural Resistances, Howl, Taunt and Shout should all have just 1 point. That’ll allow you to max out Battle Orders.

If it was a whirlwind barb I’d suggest also maxing out Battle Cry. Since it’s a Frenzy barb you need to decide it you want to boost Berserk, Taunt or Shout. As a new player to the build I suggest working on Shout to boost your barb’s and merc’s defence.

I also suggest you switch out your armour to either of the rune words Myth, Lionheart, Smoke or Treachery. There are juking techniques you can learn to deal with being frozen until you get a belt, helm or ring that provides CBF.

As long as your resistances are at 30% you’ll be fine, just play smart and run back the way you came if taking too much damage, then split the packs up with taunt and howl.

As for ancients, you just need more damage (might merc), more life steel and HP (BO). If one of them is amping you, take him out first.

3

yes 75 is the max you can get, however:

  1. Some items will increase this max.
  2. NM reduces resistances by 40 and Hell reduces by 100, so to have 75 resistance in Hell you need to have items totaling at least 175 to that element.

The Cannot Be Frozen is nice, as are the +1 skills, but barb benefits less from +skills than caster characters often times, so looking for something better would likely help. Runewords like Treachery, Duress, Smoke, Lionheart aren’t too hard to get and are pretty nice.

Fire and Lightning res are usually the ones that are worth prioritizing for general PVM play, IMO.

I think these are all rares or magic? Those types of items have randomized stats, so aside from seeing the “base” item type, it doesn’t really give us much to go on.

The one thing that does stand out to me is that both weapons are Flails, which are normal items. For some specific runewords like Black, Malice, or Steel, where you’re applying special effects like Crushing Blow, Open Wounds, etc. the high attack speed of the Flail can get you far, since you have the special effects to “do the work” in terms of damage, but if you’re using magic/rares that don’t necessarily have those special effects, you might just need to upgrade to higher damage weapons. I do realize that’s easier said than done, especially if you’re playing mostly self-found. You’ve also got 22 points in mace mastery, which is great, but does lock you into mace type weapons.

What do you have as far as runes, gems, etc.? We might be able to suggest some runewords you can try to target.

In general though I suspect you’re just running out of damage.

What is your actual (sheet) damage, attack rating, and life? Any life leach or mana leach?

4

Leaving this comment here, to follow the thread out of interest. I am lower level but seem to be running on the same wall :upside_down_face: