[Guide] zDPS Support Barb (Season 19)

Updated for Season 21!

Introduction

Welcome to the definitive zero-DPS (zDPS) Barb guide. In this guide, you’ll find a wealth of information on zDPS builds, but the key things to note are:

  • How to gear for different types of groups
  • How to effectively play the different zDPS builds
  • What distinguishes a good zBarb from a bad zBarb and how you can improve

This guide, like all other guides, is a culmination of many who have spent countless hours and time perfecting zDPS Barb builds. The demand for good zDPS support Barbs has not, and likely will not, diminish. Good zDPS Barbs are crucial to speed and end-game metas. This guide covers the most relevant zDPS Barb builds for S21, tells you how to gear them, the variants associated within each of the builds, and offers tips on how to successfully play them. If you’re looking for the most efficient and rewarding ways to play in speed and end-game groups, read on. But first, take note of the most important part of playing zDPS Barb:

The zDPS Commandments

  1. Thou shalt work hard and commit thyself to several specific tasks such as pulling, buffing, and collecting globes
  2. Thou shalt listen to the DPS players first and foremost and not be sassy
  3. Thou shalt always support thy team and keep the DPS alive
    Failure to adhere to this holy covenant will result in Barb privileges revoked.

The Builds

There are going to be 3 main ways to play zDPS Barb for S21: Globe Gobbler using Cain/Savages for Ratruns, Puller using Cains/Savages for GoD speeds, and Raekor/Savages pixel puller for pushes. Which build you play depends on the kind of content you’re tackling (Rats/GoD speeds or pushes). Below, I’ll cover the builds in some detail. But remember: ask your DPS if they have preferences and change your build accordingly.

As a general rule, the following are key rolls on both builds. Here they are in priority order:

  • CDR on every available piece (55-65% required)
  • Attack Speed for throwing your Spears Faster (for GoD speeds and pushes)
  • Intelligence on any eligible piece (Intelligence gives All Res and we gain Strength from paragon point))
  • Vit on every available piece (1-3 million Life)
  • All Resist on every available piece (All Res > Armor as we naturally get Armor from Strength paragon points)
  • Pickup radius on every available piece (10+ total yards, 22 is ideal) for Rat Runs

Got it? Good. Let’s get into the builds.

Build 1: Globe Gobbler

If you're new to zDPS Barb, you might think that there's only one useful zDPS Barb build--the one you can see from checking the profiles of players who have completed GR 150. However, most players spend 95%+ of their time farming Paragon in some sort of speed group composition that speed-runs lower tiers to quickly and efficiently farm enormous amounts of experience. Ratruns, AKA "Rats," require a completely different team setup compared to what’s shown in the GR140+ clears on the 4-player leaderboards.

The Basics of Rats Meta

Nowadays there is really only 1 build that is needed for Rat Runs. Gone is the way of WW and we now just charge around buffing our team and picking up globes. We don’t need to pull at all as the Necros kill way too fast and you basically just fly through the rift while they destroy everything. Let’s start with a d3planner of the build for your reference: Rats zBarb

Before we had 3 versions of WW but we don’t need those anymore. This charge version is relatively easy to gear for since you are crafting the Cains set and the early main focuses are CDR and Pickup Radius as all we really care about is keeping our buffs up and picking up globes.

Stat Priority

Please remember that correct stats on non-ancient gear will always be better than using ancient or primal items with the incorrect stats.

Pick Up Radius - MANDATORY ON ALL ITEMS

  • This is a mandatory stat on every item that can roll it. You want 22 Pickup Radius, 6 from Rondal’s Locket, and 2 on each of your Helm/Glove/Shoulder/Chest/Belt/Legs/Boots/Bracers.

Cooldown Reduction - MANDATORY ON ALL ITEMS

  • You want as much Cooldown as possible. Diamond in your helmet, then as close to max CDR on your Weapons/Rings/Neck/Gloves/Shoulders as possible. It’s okay to miss a few percent cooldown here and there, but try to get maximum CDR everywhere. We need to keep up Ignore Pain AT ALL TIMES!

Attack Speed – Helps throws those spears faster thus getting quicker pulls. Ideally you would want this on your Amulet/Gloves/Rings/Weapons

General Toughness

  • Intelligence, All Resist, Armor, Vitality.

All other stats are undesirable on your gear.

Skills:

Ignore Pain - Mob Rule: This is your highest priority buff to make sure both Rat DPS have it AT ALL TIMES. If the DPS consistently don’t have this buff, they’ll get angry when they get feared/knockbacked/vortexed and you’ll find yourself looking for a new party with a big red boot shaped welt on your backside.

Sprint - Forced March: Movement Speed for the whole party. Obviously a great choice for speed-farming.

War Cry - Veterans Warning: Our DPS Necros will be wearing Squirts so they want to avoid being hit as much as possible to keep the buff up so Veterans Warning adds a nice Dodge Change that assists with this which is then doubled because of the 2 Piece Bonus of the Savages set equally a 60% dodge change along with 40% armor from War Cry itself.

Threatening Shout - Falter: Damage increase for the team which like War Cry is doubled thanks to the Savages set. Enough said.

Furious Charge - Merciless Assault: This skill helps with mobility and procs Strongarm’s 30% damage increase effect. This also procs our Band of Might which gives us up to 80% DR for 8 seconds so make sure you charge at least once every 8 seconds to keep this up. Finally this also procs Gogok which helps to increase our own Attack Speed, Dodge Chance and CDR.

Leap - Iron Impact: Nothing is worse than being left behind by your Necros as they Bloodrush a gap, stairs, or a cave tunnel and you are left behind and have to take the long way around and when you get there your team is dead. This skill eliminates that issue. Leap allows you to stay with your team and keep the damage train rolling. While this was considered a meme skill before and taking WoTB was prime that is really not needed anymore and its better to have this on your bar to stay together as a cohesive unit. Trust me you’ll thank me later when you don’t have your team complaining that you can’t stay with them.

Skills To Avoid:

Rend: Though the skill claims to offer 10% more damage, this isn’t really the case. Instead of approaching the elite to Rend it, the zBarb should instead of picking up globes. Extra globes for the DPS means far more DPS than what Rend gives, as well as the added safety of healing. Rend may be considered if you’re doing 10~15 minute Rath Meta Gem-ups, but you’d be much better off using the SP Wizard meta to do 119s in 5~8 minutes instead. 2~3 minute Exp/Hr runs don’t benefit much from Rend, and having this skill equipped is one of the biggest earmarks of an inexperienced barb.

Call of the Ancients: This is by far the most laughable skill that I’ve seen barbs bringing to ratruns. 10% more Crit is not needed as the team has Iceblink and a zNec, and the fury rune is also useless, as fury issues are fixed using the 4th passive slot.

Passives

Pound of Flesh: More movement speed, means you can do your job better. And a little life regen is always good.

Nerves of Steel: This lets you drop toughness from your gear, and also pickup globes inside the middle of Molten Explosions without flinching

Inspiring Presence: Doubles your Falter/War Cry duration and heals your team for 3% health per second which is extremely nice given all the Health drains that Necros suffer from Blood Rush/Simulacrums/Blood Novas.

Superstition: Nice amount of Fury generation and also a decent amount of Toughness.

Legendary Gems

Gogok of Swiftness: 15% Cooldown Reduction, 15% Attack Speed Increase, and a large amount of Dodge Chance.

Gem of Efficacious Toxin: Toxin makes the enemies you hit take 10% increased damage from all your teams’ attacks, and also makes all enemies you hit deal 10% less damage to your team. Both a DPS increase and a source of Damage reduction for your team. You only have to level this gem to 25%. Any points above that is a waste.

Wreath of Lightning: 25% more Movement Speed. Remember, Movement Speed and Pickup Radius are your main priorities, and thus Wreath of Lightning’s 25% Movement Speed is extremely valuable.

DO NOT USE ESOTERIC. The zBarb should almost never be dying, no matter what. You don’t need Esoteric.

Written Gear Explanation for those who can’t access D3planner:

Helmet (Leoric’s)

  • Intel
  • Vit
  • All Res
  • Pickup Radius
  • 100% Bonus
  • Diamond in Socket

Amulet (Rondal’s Locket)

  • Vit
  • CDR
  • Attack Speed
  • Pickup Radius
  • HGB

Bracers (Strongarm’s)

  • Intel
  • Vit
  • All Res
  • Life per Hit
  • Pickup Radius
  • As close to 30% knockback as possible

Shoulders (Savages)

  • Str
  • Vit
  • All Res
  • CDR
  • Pickup Radius
  • HGB
  • Diamond in Socket

Chest (Savages)

  • Str
  • Vit
  • All Res
  • Pickup Radius
  • HGB
  • Diamonds in Sockets

Gloves (Cains)

  • Int
  • Vit
  • Attack Speed
  • CDR
  • Pickup Radius
  • Phys Res

Belt (Cassius or Chilaniks)

  • Str
  • Vit
  • All Res
  • Life
  • Pickup Radius
  • 6 Second IP for Pride of Cassius or 40% Movement Speed for Chilanik’s

Pants (Cains)

  • Intel
  • Vit
  • All Res
  • Pickup Radius
  • Diamonds in Sockets

Boots (Illusory Boots)

  • Intel
  • Vit
  • All Res
  • Armor
  • Pickup Radius

Ring 1 (Oculus)

  • Vit
  • Attack Speed
  • CDR
  • As close to 85% increased damage bonus as possible
  • Phys Res

Ring 2 (Band of Might)

  • Str
  • Attack Speed
  • CDR
  • As close to 80% Damage Reduction bonus as possible

Weapons (In-Geom)

  • Intel
  • Attack Speed
  • CDR
  • 10 second CDR bonus
  • Amethyst in Socket to start and switch to Gem of Ease once survivability isn’t a problem

Weapon (Echoing Fury)

  • Str
  • Attack Speed
  • CDR

Kanai’s Cube

Messerschmidt’s Reaver: Reduces the remaining cooldown of one of your skills by 1 second when you slay an enemy. This makes keeping all your buffs active dramatically easier. And while we ourselves are not actually killing anything this skill procs off any party member making a kill so with the Necros destroying everything this thing is procing constantly. Nothing else goes here….period.

Pride of Cassius or Chilanik’s Chain: For this slot, use whichever belt you don’t have equipped. It’s very important to pay attention to the legendary affix of these items. You strictly want a 40% Chilanik’s equipped, or a 6 second Cassius. Having both is mandatory.

Flavor of Time: Pylon effects last twice as long. This amulet has become a game changer since the skill was updated. Minus a Power Pylon this helps us with any other bonus. Double CDR, Double Shield, Double Speed. Get the idea? With how fast you fly through RatRuns many times a pylon can last the remainder of the rift using this amulet in the cube.

Paragon Points (Apply in Order listed Below)

Core

  • Movement Speed
  • Vitality/Strength split 50/50. Gives live and armor which keeps us alive

Offense

  • CDR
  • Attack Speed
  • CHC
  • CHD

Defense

  • All Resist
  • Life
  • Armor
  • Life Per Second

Utility

  • RCR
  • Life per Hit
  • NO AREA DAMAGE!!!

Build Explanation, Tips and Tricks and Advanced Strats:

A Rat Barb’s (the term coined by the community to refer to zDPS Barbs used in Ratruns) job is to pick up health globes for the team whilst maintaining Buffs such as Ignore Pain, War Cry, Threatening Shout and Sprint as close to 100% uptime as possible. The more globes he picks up, the safer the team will be, but also the more DPS the team will deal due to how the DPS build works. Globes give the DPS resource to deal damage, and the DPS are infinitely resource hungry; your DPS Necros require an insanely high amount of health globes at all times in order to do high damage.

This means that Movement Speed and Pickup Radius are your top priority stats. The higher these are, the easier it will be to pick up more globes for the team, which means both a safe team and a high DPS team.

There are 2 main states in which a RatGroup team is in during runs:

  1. Fighting an Elite, aka “Set-Up on an elite”
  2. “In-transition”, aka travelling forward between elites.

Even when there is a large amount of Trash mobs, experienced zNecros (who lead the group) will slow down, rather than stopping on the trash. But with some less experienced zNecros, you might see some weird things, so just keep in mind there may be a few oddball situations.

Let’s cover your job in both scenarios: Once you load into the GR, start by giving the whole party IP, War Cry, and Sprint. You want to maintain all these buffs, especially Ignore Pain, throughout 100% of the GR.

  1. While “Set up” or fighting an elite, a common mistake barbs make is thinking they need to charge the elite constantly, doing tiny charges back and forth hitting the elite a million times. DON’T DO THAT, that picks up absolutely 0 globes for your team. As soon as your party engages an elite, immediately charge into the elite JUST ONCE to apply your toxin and debuffs, then start moving in a circular or oval shape around your Necros. BIG CIRCLES please, you want to keep all your Necros on your screen at the same time, and then move in as big of a circular pattern as possible. This is because the more square-area of ground you cover, the more health globes you will pick up. This gives your DPS the fuel they need to deal damage, but also the HEALING they need to survive nasty affixes and attacks they will inevitably receive. NEVER STOP MOVING! If you aren’t moving then you aren’t picking up globes.

  2. Whilst “In Transition”, or moving forward between Elite Packs, a common mistake is that I see barbs consistently a screen behind the Necros. This is because Necros spawn half their globes in front of themselves, and the other half behind. The oversimplification of “Pick up as many globes as possible” has caused 95% of barbs to think that staying a few screens behind, where the most health globes are lying around, is the best place to be whilst in transition. THIS IS UNTRUE. If the barb is too far behind, almost all of the globes won’t benefit the team because the Necro’s are too far forward, out of range to receive the globes.
    It is better to stay directly on top of the DPS Necros (or at least within 40 yards); they’ll receive more globes, more healing, and deal more damage. It’s also far easier for the barb to maintain their buffs on the Necros this way. A good zNec is generally half a screen ahead of the rest of the team; ideally, both the DPS and the Barb should be right behind the zNec. It is widely known that a health globe heals the whole team, no matter who picks it up. It’s a lesser known fact that the range of this healing effect, is based on the position of the PERSON who picks it up, NOT the position of where the globe was on the ground. More specifically, when a player picks up a health globe, only party members within 40 YARDS of that player gains the healing and effects of the health globe. As a ratbarb, you must attempt to remain within that range of your DPS at all times. Refer to this picture to see how far 40 yards is:

I repeat: It is imperative that the Rat Barb stay on top of his Necromancers, not behind them.

There are several important reasons this is the case.

  • Firstly, this provides the buffs (Sprint, IP and War Cry) the team needs to travel quickly.

  • Secondly, this also provides the Rathma DPSers with the Health Globes needed to summon their Damage-Dealing Pets along the way, allowing them to deal damage and kill all the White Monsters along the way, and ensures they arrive at each new Elite pack at Maximum Damage Output, instead of having to re-ramp their damage up slowly each time they face a new elite.

  • Thirdly, this allows the Barb’s damage buffs, Strongarms, Falter and Toxin to be applied to monsters that are still near the DPS, instead of the ones already left behind.

There’s a big difference between a party that had to kill 20 elites and ended up spawning the boss on Floor 6, and a party that killed all the trash mobs between elites and spawns the boss on Floor 3. Not only do you spend less time fighting elites, but also save half the travel distance.

With that said, there’s one more key rule to playing Rat Barb, and it is this: NEVER LEAVE PROGRESSION ORBS BEHIND.

As is the case with most globes, it is the barb’s job to pick these globes up. They’re purple, you can’t miss them. Your team had to work hard to kill elites to make these spawn, don’t let that effort go to waste. Note that Grotesque and Horror elites (aka “fatties”) delay the time before their progression orbs spawn, so make sure you wait a little for them to spawn before moving forward.

Additional Tips

  • If one of your Necros falls behind, make sure to GO BACK and give the tardy Necro the speed buffs he needs to catchup to the rest of the team.

  • It is important to try to keep Ignore Pain on all three Necros despite them being split up, which is definitely harder than normal. However, prioritize giving War Cry and Sprint to the tardy Necro who got left behind, as the extra movement speed will help him catch up to the party.

  • Don’t fall behind the Necros in transition. Keep your buffs active on the DPS at all times, and when stationary, move in big circles around the Necros, not the elites.

  • Don’t sit on elites doing 1 yard back and forth zigzags. Try to cover as much area as possible.

  • Don’t fall behind your Necros in transition, they don’t get as many globes this way, stay directly on top of them, for reasons explained above.

  • Give the DPS’ers the globes they need to fuel their damage skills, and everything will work out.

Illusory Boots and Electrified/Waller Affix

A lot of Barbs think that Whirlwind means you don’t get any benefit from using Illusory boots. This is untrue, Illusory boots lets you pass through wallers and hold force move against electrified packs.

Waller is an elite affix that makes the elites spawn walls randomly around a player. Getting blocked by a wall can possibly mean a few seconds where your DPS won’t be receiving the optimal amount of Resource and Healing that they need to deal damage and stay alive. Waller is generally just a big inconvenience and a pain for the barb, as it tends to block narrow walkways and prevents you from keeping up with the team. Illusory boots will allow you to walk straight through these walls, which is a very nice Quality of Life bonus.

Electrified is an affix that spawns dangerous, blue electric bolts on the ground EACH TIME THE ELITE IS HIT BY ANY ATTACK. This means that upon engaging an Electrified pack, a good zBarb will generally stop Whirlwinding, and simply hold down his force move button to run through monsters without triggering extra danger for the team. Fortunately Electrified has an internal Cooldown, albeit it an extremely short one, so they can’t spawn an infinite amount of bolts. But it’s still good practice to avoid Whirlwinding electrified elites without a good cause. Generally speaking, it is especially important to avoid attacking electrified elites on narrow maps where the bolts are tightly funneled, and on the first elite pack of each GR, when the DPS may not have had time to fully activate all their defenses. The DPS are extremely vulnerable at the start of each GR and takes some time for them to gain all their damage reduction buffs.

Shock Towers on Pandemonium Fortress

Pandemonium Fortress maps (Aka the Malthael Map) have little structures called Shock Towers that spawn on certain walkways.

THESE THINGS ARE DEADLY!

The highest cause of death to a good Rathma DPS is shock towers triggered by unknowing supports.

The reason why these shock towers are feared is because they possess an extremely lethal “shock” attack that 1 shot-KO’s any Necro struck by it. What’s worse is this attack has INFINITE range, and is an AoE effect. However, these shock towers only begin their attack when a player comes within 30 yards of the shock tower, and this attack takes a few seconds to “charge up” before activating.

What this means is that anyone who ventures too close to a shock tower, either needs to kill the shock tower within roughly 1.5 seconds, or die somewhere away from their party members, alone as to not get others killed. Once you get within the activation range of a shock tower, you won’t be able to escape this attack unless the shock tower is killed before the attack finishes charging up, or if you have a shield pylon.

Example Scenario: The 3 Necros identify a shock tower, and pause just outside of its Activation Range (30 yards) and try to kill it from afar before moving forward. A clueless zBarb comes rocketing along with all his Movement Speed buffs and ends up too close to the shock tower, activating its attack with himself as the target. Shortly after this occurs, the Barb sees the 3 Necros have paused behind him, and returns to stand on top of them completely oblivious that the shock tower is imminently about to shock him, and the 3 Necros that he’s now standing next to. All 3 Necros will watch the shock tower charge up, shock the Barb, and either proc their Cheat-Death passive, or end up completely dead thanks to the Barb.

Sadly, this “example scenario” is EXACTLY what happens with 99% of inexperienced barbs who run with a rat group. If you see your Necros stopping suddenly in a Pandemonium Map walkway, STAY BEHIND THEM. Trust me, messing this up will get you kicked in record time. The only exception to this is when your team has a shield pylon active, in which case teams can freely run past shock towers without fear of death.

This is what a shock tower looks, like, and what 30 yards around it looks like:

Build 2: GoD Speeds

This build is new for S21 and potentially could be the new speed meta. This composition uses 1 or 2 DPS DHs that are using the GoD set and then a zbarb and 1 or 2 other support classes. This could be a zMonk, zNecro or zDH. This composition has potential to rival RatRuns this season but that is still up in the air depending on final patch notes and what the masses play. This looks to be a nice change of pace from RatRuns. Luckily the build for this playstyle isn’t too far off from how you would set-up for RatRuns. The only real change is you switch out Leap for Ancient Spear to do some pulling and switching Superstition to Relentless in your passives. A d3planner of the build with ideal rolls can be found here GoD Speeds Starter zBarb. The stat priorities mirror what’s listed in the RatRuns section above. There are also a few changes you can make to increase your XP gain a little bit once you feel comfortable enough playing the build. The changes are putting a Ruby in your Helm, switching Band of Might to a Hellfire Ring and putting the Band of Might in the cube instead of Flavor of Time. You also would switch out one of the Amethyst’s in a weapon to a Gem of Ease. This is really only recommended once you have some serious paragon and squeezing out this little bit of XP gain actually helps in the long run if you are running these all day. A d3planner of this particular version can be found here GoD Speeds XP zBarb The play style of this build is very different from Pacman and will take some practice to play well. How to play the pull barb is written out in better detail below the Raekor Push Build description.

Build 3: Raekor Push

This build is the go-to zDPS Barb build for end-game pushes (generally anything over 120 utilizes the 4-piece Raekor bonus for practically unlimited charges and grants the Barb an incredible amount of speed and mobility. With the introduction of the Savages set we now have added 2 pieces of this set for doubling the effectiveness of our shouts.

You’ll play this build in higher end speeds and end-game pushes, defined as content that is truly pushing the limits of what your group can do. For me, I play these in anything from 120-140+. This is how you get your gems to 120+. These kind of pushes will also net you lots and lots of experience. There is a starter version of the build that uses Pig Sticker and Stormshield for added Damage Reduction as you learn the build. A d3planner of this build can be found here: Sword/Shield Meta zBarb. Once you are comfortable with the build you can switch out the sword and shield to Istvan’s Blades. A d3planner of this version of the build can be found here: Meta zBarb

Specific Requirement Notes:

  • 60%+ CDR for Permanent Ignore Pain
  • 3 Piece Raekor
  • 2 Piece Savages
  • Illusory Boots
  • 6 Second Pride of Cassius or 40% Movement Speed Chilaniks
  • Pig Sticker/Stormshield to start off
  • Istavan’s Blades once you have higher paragon and know how to play the build

Skills

Furious Charge - Any Rune: Mobility and crowd control

Ancient Spear - Rage Flip: Used to pull groups of trash and elites to the DPS. Mobs will go CC immune after 3 pulls so accuracy counts

War Cry - Hardened Wrath, Veteran’s Warning, or Impunity: Boosts toughness. Rune depends on what DPS wants/needs

Ground Stomp - Wrenching Smash: Packs Mobs for Trash Clearer to hit

Threatening Shout - Falter: Boosts DPS especially more now with Savages set

Ignore Pain - Mob Rule: Massive toughness boost. Provides CC immunity and is essential for keeping the DPS alive – never let this go down!

Passives

Nerves of Steel: This lets you drop toughness from your gear, and also pickup globes inside the middle of Molten Explosions without flinching

Inspiring Presence: Doubles your Falter/War Cry duration and heals your team for 3% health per second which is extremely nice given all the Health drains that Necros suffer from Blood Rush/Simulacrums/Blood Novas.

Superstition: Nice amount of Fury generation and also a decent amount of Toughness.

Relentless: Extra Toughness when your life drops below 35% so you can get out of danger.

Sword and Board: Switch out Inspiring Presence for this when you are just starting out and learning the build. Since you are using Stormshield you gain 30% Damage Reduction and 20% reduced Resource Cost

Gear

Helm (Raekor/Savages)

  • Str
  • Vit
  • All Resist
  • Pickup Radius
  • Diamond in Socket

Shoulder (Raekor/Savages)

  • Str
  • Vit
  • All Res
  • CDR
  • Pickup Radius

Chest (Raekor/Savages)

  • Str
  • Vit
  • All Res
  • Pickup Radius
  • Diamond in Sockets

Amulet (Rondal’s Locket, Flavor of Time)

  • All Res
  • Life
  • Attack Speed
  • CDR
  • Pickup Radius

Bracers (Strongarms)

  • Int
  • Vit
  • All Res
  • Life per Hit
  • Pickup Radius

Belt (Pride of Cassius or Chilanik’s)

  • Str
  • Vit
  • All Res
  • Life
  • Pickup Radius

Gloves (Raekor/Savages)

  • Str
  • All Res
  • Attack Speed
  • CDR
  • Pickup Radius

Pants (Raekor/Savages)

  • Str
  • Vit
  • All Res
  • Pickup Radius
  • Diamonds in Socket

Boots (Illusory Boots)

  • Int
  • Vit
  • All Res
  • Armor
  • Pickup Radius

Weapon (Pig Sticker)

  • Int
  • Vit
  • Attack Speed
  • CDR
  • RCR
  • Amethyst in Socket

Shield (Stormshield)

  • Int
  • Vit
  • CDR
  • RCR

Weapons (Istvan’s Paired Blades)

  • Int
  • AS
  • CDR
  • RCR
  • Amethyst in Socket

Ring 1 (Obsidian)

  • CDR
  • AS
  • RCR
  • Physical Res

Ring 2 (Band of Might)

  • Str
  • CDR
  • AS
  • Physical Res
  • 80% Damage Reduction

Cube

The Executioner - Kills all enemies at 10%. There really isn’t anything better to put here and also makes you feel good that you get credit for all the elite/RG kills!
Chilanik’s or Pride of Cassius - For this slot, use whichever belt you don’t have equipped. It’s very important to pay attention to the legendary affix of these items. You strictly want a 40% Chilanik’s equipped, or a 6 second Cassius. Having both is mandatory.
RORG - Needed since you are equipping both Savages and Raekors so you get the required set bonuses

Legendary Gems

Wreath of Lightning: Extra Movement Speed and aggros mobs
Gogok of Swiftness: Increases Attack Speed, Dodge Chance and Cooldown Reduction
Gem of Efficacious Toxin: Boosts DPS and lowers incoming damage
Esoteric Alteration: Can be used early on instead of Wreath of Lightning when you’re playing the Pig Sticker and Stormshield version for added DR and All Res

Paragon Points (Apply in Order listed Below)

Core

  • Movement Speed
  • Vitality/Strength 50/50

Offense

  • CDR
  • Attack Speed
  • CHC
  • CHD

Defense

  • All Resist
  • Life
  • Armor
  • Life Per Second

Utility

  • RCR
  • Life per Hit
  • NO AREA DAMAGE!!!

How To Play The Pull Builds
Unlike playing RatRuns, these builds requires you to be much more active. In many ways, the zDPS Barb is the group leader in GoD speeds and pushes. Your responsibilities include:

  1. Keep your team alive with IP.
  2. Pull mobs to the DPS
  3. Stack mobs for DPS (Ground Stomp version)
  4. Scout and call-out Pylons, then pop them at the appropriate times

So, when you jump into a GR, hit War Cry, Sprint, and pop IP and make sure you’re covering your DPS (IP is active in line of sight). Move a little ahead of the group, freezing enemies with Charge, until you find elites in density. Do not stop on lone elites or small groups of trash. You need density, though a lot of the time it’s up to you to create density.

GoD Speeds
When your Heal Monk sets up Sanctuary, it’s time to go to work. Apply War Cry and IP, then start pulling. First, aggro nearby trash and pull. If your DPS aren’t taking much damage, go further out in search of more trash and elites. Always aggro first with Charge and Wreath. Save spear pulls for crucial moments or long distance pulls. Every few seconds, return to the group to reapply IP.

But wait. Since you’re not using a channeling skill with the Zodiac ring, how are we resetting Cooldowns? The answer is to use Spear. Pull far-away mobs into the trash clearer. Pull elites in, too. Make sure you get your Cooldowns reset but don’t make elites and trash CC immune.

While we’re talking about pulls, please note that Spear has a strange interaction with mob hit boxes, so it’s going to take some practice to get this right. For the most part, you want to pull in a straight line. Holes in the ground, debris, or corners will obstruct your pulls and detach mobs from your spear, so make sure there’s nothing between you, the mobs you’re pulling, and the spear’s path of travel. Mobs will sometimes get stuck in doorways or on corners, and you may need to get behind them, pull them away from the door at an angle, and then pull them straight through the doorways. Again, this is something that takes time to learn.

And keep in mind that Rage Flip can fling mobs and elites away from your group! If you spear mobs that are in close proximity to the DPS–which is where you want them to be–they will be sent flying across the screen, making you work twice as hard to get them grouped all over again. In short, be precise with your pulls, and spend time getting the hang of how far Rage Flip will send certain mob types.

When your DPS kills elites, gather the globes, apply War Cry/Sprint for speed, and move on. If your DPS are taking too much damage–like, for instance, if you’ve grouped together several packs of Arcane Desecrators, don’t go very far to pull. Instead, stay close to them and apply IP.

Ground Stomp (Credits to Chewingnom and the EU guys for the creation of this variant)

The style above for GoD Speeds is basically the same but you now incorporate Ground Stomp instead of Sprint. The AOV Sader (or whatever the big DPS build is current) is based on burst DPS, meaning that area damage is incredibly strong, and thus packing and pixel-pulling becomes one of the most important sources of DPS.

How does this work?

The Barb has a skill named Ground Stomp: Wrenching Smash which is incredible for pixel-pulling when used the right way, just like Sweep Attack on Crusader back in the day. Chewingnom ended up clearing from 145 to 149 in less than 3 days and his group most certainly thinks that Ground Stomp is the best skill to use on Barb as 6th skill for endgame pushing. Ground Stomp introduces a quite different, more slow-paced playstyle. As a Barb you’ll focus more on the packing and less on the pulling than without Ground Stomp, and your group will move slowly as one man every rotation. Your main role during the rift will basically be to play Tetris with Mob Hitboxes. This also means that Cyclone Strike on the Monk isn’t needed anymore. The best option is replacing Cyclone by the Cold Tempest Rush to proc Zodiac and Iceblink, which means you can replace Tsunami by another generator. Concussion for 20% damage reduction is probably the best choice for season currently.

For more showcase of Ground Stomp, Chewingnom uploaded his GR149 clear that you can see here:

Remember: A good zBarb makes or breaks a group. You are the key to a party’s success. If you fail at your job, the DPS can’t do their jobs.

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Hi folks. I’ve made this guide a WIKI so that various contributors can edit as needed.

I REALLY don’t want to keep up this guide as I’m not playing much zBarb these days, so some of y’all really need to step up and help out on this one. A lot of this material is outdated and needs to be re-written.

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So I can’t do links since I’m too low a trust level currently but I was able to do the two tick marks to put the urls in they just aren’t clickable. So I updated the whole guide to reflect current builds to the best of what I’ve seen including bringing in Raine’s Rat run guide and fleshing out the Raekor section a bit and add the ground stomp version. PLease let me know your thoughts and where any tweaks can be made.

Thanks for the additions, Bass! I just skimmed it and it looks like you’ve done some excellent work! I may edit and tweak here and there, but this is a much-needed update to a very important guide!

I can also make your links into actual hyperlinks, so don’t sweat it. They’re not giving out many TL3 upgrades right now, but until you get there (which will be soon), I can modify links for you.

Thanks again!

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Awesome! The links look real good when working properly as they imbed right in the post and show the actual pictures for the imgur ones which is very nice. No problem! Glad to help out the community. Please let me know if you need any help bringing over and/or updating any of the other guides.

I did some editing on the OP and had to stop right around the discussion about Rechel’s Ring. I’ll come back and edit more in the near future. The post looks good, but still needs a lot of clean-up with regards to grammar, syntax, and formatting.

Thanks for cleaning it up. Wanted to get a rough draft up to make sure you were happy with the improvements. Surprised the imgur link didn’t auto imbed and show the actual image in the post. It was doing that for me in the preview when I first copied it all in.

EDIT: I have gone through this guide and edited it and thinks its pretty well set now for the rest of the season. Please feel free to go through and give any feedback!

Bass, in the R Push build, shouldn’t Ground Stomp be Wrenching Smash, and not Jarring Slam?

Yep! My mistype! Fixed! Good catch!

Ok, I think I fixed all the links and such. If you spot anything amiss, let me know!

The Written Gear Explanation for those who can’t access D3planner need to be bolded. I forgot half the bracket on the first b

And under that for shoulders the diamond bullet isn’t properly bulleted. Other than that it looks great!

Huh?

I don’t follow.

Under the rats section the Section Title: “The Written Gear Explanation for those who can’t access D3planner” needs to be bolded. Its the title before I list out each gear piece and best rolls for each item. Then on the shoulders one the last bullet didn’t bullet right. Sorry if I originally explained that all funky.

Are you able to make those changes or do I need to?

if I do it’ll invalid all the links again. I can change it then you can fix the links again. Sucks we have to do it that way.

No prob, I’ll get to it later!

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So I want to edit the blog but I don’t want to wreck all the imgur images I added so free can you add the following to the zdps guide:

Rats barb won’t change
For pull barb you can add FoT to the amulets along with Rondals cause if the whole group is rocking FoT then use it. Also if there is no Necro in the group you can use Executioner in the cube then instead of In-Geom. Other than that the guide remains the same. Should be TL3 here soon. Only 1.1k more posts to read :slight_smile:

Haha, sure!

Where exactly do I add/change?

I went in and updated the info. I had to break the links so you will need to fix those. By next season I’ll be TL3 so I can do it without the assistance haha.

Also I couldn’t change the title to be Season 18 I would assume since you are the owner of the post. So this is all ready to go to start the season will update if anything changes.

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