I’ll start by saying that my main class is necromancer.
So I don’t have a bias when it comes to the barbarian.
I recently completed an honest playthrough (not stealing from shared stash until post game)
on all 3 difficulties with him, as a frenzy build, and I’ve gotta say his performance was incredibly poor especially in hell difficulty….until post game when I gave him a Grief PB.
(Still had fun tho, just cause the game is good)
Comparing him with other melee classes I’ve played like the zeal Paladin and fury druid… he is far behind.
The zeal Paladin doesn’t even need Grief. I can throw a Nords Tenderizer on him and he absolutely wrecks shop.
Same with the fury werewolf druid. I just put a reapers toll on him and my goodness. Shocked at how good he is for such budget gear.
With the barbarian, he really struggles even with dual Doombringers, or the bul kathos set. It’s just slow and doesn’t put out the damage like the other melee classes I’ve tried.
Has anyone else noticed this?
Another thing that bothers me about the barbarian, is the mastery skills. He’s supposed to be a master of weapons, yet he’s the only melee class that can’t switch between different weapon types without losing a ton of damage and AR.
I’m not sure what the solution to this would be, but it seems backwards, given the class description at the character select screen.
Though frenzy does attack multiple monsters while in the fray, it’s not designed for that purpose. It’s designed to attack and kill one monster at a time. Attacking multiple trash mobs at once is best achieved with double swing. You can learn to pluck individual monsters in a pack by running in targeting one, then run out, then run back in targeting another, reapeat. Just don’t stand in a crowd using frenzy. When you’re in that position, ether get out and do what I said previously or switch to double swing.
Atma’s is the best amulet, and two rares, each with 5% to proc amp damage is the best way to go without godly rune words and uniques. As well, I like to use an act 2 nm might merc with a weapon that procs amp. Amp damage plus might aura is epic killing power.
Here is an example of how good the build can be.
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Thank you for your reply, and helping me understand this character a little better.
Am I supposed to build up with frenzy and then use double swing to attack with?
They seem the exact same to me except that frenzy builds up speed.
What is the advantage of double swing?
And am I supposed to max out bash for it’s damage boost synergy with double swing?
Atmas is really good. I was using it, But I swapped it out for cats eye, because I’m using a grief/lawbringer setup right now.
Other than synergies, double swing has two specific purposes. One is to quickly decimate most trash mobs surrounding the barbarian, and two is to deal with monsters that have mana burn. Double swing at lvl 9+ doesn’t require mana.
Double swing, when backing up double throw or frenzy, doesn’t need the bash synergy. Your grief’s damage at double swing speed is more than enough, while boosted by frenzy’s attack speed is even better. And so yes, a barb all frenzied up then switched to double swing kills monsters twice as fast as if the barb wasn’t in a frenzy.
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