any other suggestions besides Leoric’s? I get the feeling it doesn’t much matter… max pur, solid cdr, decent toughness, and you’re good to go.
Things that help are making sure your group is working together properly and in the right GR level. Znec is the leader and should be about one screen ahead scouting for elites. If you are running 2 minutes trash will be dead instantly. The two dps necros should be slightly staggered so nothing gets missed. The zbarb should stay with the dps at all times. Always follow the znec even if they go the wrong way and skip anything the znec skips. Zbarb charge+TS elites/RGs.
What I’ve been seeing so far is the groups don’t even get on audio. Maybe the necs are on audio but it doesn’t matter if the barb is since they just follow the rats. I figure the znec being able to call out elites and pylons to the rats would be helpful, but I don’t know if they’re on audio or not. Generally seems like they just know what to do without talking. Granted, I’ve been fortunate to be mostly in groups who are paragon 2-3k or more.
Exception was this afternoon where the nec who told me to max out xp was also telling the other necs what to do. They did seem pretty inexperienced compared to others I’ve played with. To your comment about working together properly, I was noticing them not going the same way together, and I think one of the rats was staying behind trying to kill worthless trash. It was confusing me cuz I wasn’t sure which nec to stay with.
Looking for advice on how to play zbarb in various situations. If I had a regular group to run with in 2-, 3-, and 4-player configurations we could work out strategies together, but I don’t have that so I’m connecting with strangers in clan and communities. A few times I’ve had a little 2-person game going for an hour or two, but what I find is they don’t know how to properly play off a zbarb, and I kinda have the idea but don’t know enough about their class to tell them what to do, and even if I did sometimes they think they know better and won’t listen. 
As a result we always end up just both playing dps. Like this morning I was with a demon hunter doing 90s in 1:30. This is fun and good for leveling gems fast, better than being stuck solo doing 78s in the same time, but leaves me wondering if I could get that DH to tweak his build to play off my zbarb, and what exactly should my configuration be? I think the rat zbarb would good for general speeds, why not, but people seem to talk about it like it’s only for rats. Could I do 100s instead of 90s with this DH if he played off my zbarb?
The guide here is great, but focuses on rat runs and higher pushes. What if I find myself in other situations, especially 2 player with any good dps class.
What about 2 barbs together? Ran into that on Saturday. Played and chatted with him for a while, which was interesting because he had a rend build with hexing pants instead of mantle, and blade of tribes in the 4th cube slot, and a couple other oddities, and wouldn’t listen to my advice. I even pointed him to Chris’s #4 slot on the leader board, to no avail!
For non rat speeds in season you want strongarms, nems, executioner(when frailty is not taken), Toxin gem. You can inspect arnold to see my ww zbarb I use for 150s. Only change is the extra cube slot which would be nems or fire amulet. You can drop spear for sprint if its really low to help your dps get around better. Wreath of light and estoric gem can be swapped if your taking too much damage. This will def be the case if you are doing zbarb 150s sub 1k.
Double barb you will be stuck in sub 110s for speeds. Barbs don’t have the damage the be group damage class.
So you use ww instead of fc, BK’s instead of IP’s. I like FC for mobility but I can see WW/BK being nice too, if a bit more smooth and methodical. Is it just a preference or would you recommend your approach?
MoC, Aquila, and Leoric’s instead of Raekor pieces - you’re getting a lot of extra toughness in exchange for FC, downside I suppose being that with FC you’re never at risk of BoM dropping, whereas you could slip up with only GS, but not really a problem if you’re practiced. This toughness seems like enough reason to swap out Raekor’s if you need it, but you could still use FC over WW if you preferred it, so I’ve deduced that must just be a preference.
You were doing 150s sub 1k?
saw this post in the Greater Riftings community this morning:
BS Necro looking for 119+ speeds/meta
I’m ignorant about Necro builds, but that’s referring to Bone Spear, not Rathma, correct? And therefore my pur barb does not apply? Would the BS Necro take a different type of zbarb in the group?
I’m a little confused what people mean by “speeds”. I take it roughly to mean under 3 minutes, and fast enough that spearing/grouping wouldn’t apply. In solo I typically use GS for grouping in runs up to 10 minutes, keeping FC for mobility, only swapping in spear for FC when pushing the max, so I would think the same would apply in groups.
Sorry for all the questions. I read one of your posts in another thread from a while back that the most important thing for the zbarb is to be confident, so I want to understand as much as I can so I can join whatever group with some confidence and hopefully not look like total idiot.
there are downsides to ww zbarb. It is slower and you are required to stomp frequently for band of might. With charge you have both charge and stomp in the build so band of might is up 100%. In metas the zbarb is supposed to be the leader. You need to decide everything the group does. This is why confidence is important. This is also the reason great zbarbs make great solo renders because they understand how to manipulate trash and the optimal time to move. I always reccomend discord or other voice communication. You can not direct a team by typing. For rats the necro is the lead so it is a little different.
And yes I did a 4 man 150 last season at 850 paragon. Its was brutal but I just needed to stay alive long enough for the broken theme to do its job. I do not ever reccomend a sub optimal build but it is what I run and prefer to use. Pretty much what it comes down to. If a decent group has a ww zbarb they wont ever rank very high but it wont cost them a clear. A sub 8 minute 150 is doable with ww zbarb but a sub 6 minute 150 is rare. With charge sub 6 minutes happens all the time. It is just the fact that charge has the ability to pull so much more trash faster then ww zbarb.
Thanks for the insight as always Chris. Helps me keep learning.
So I got in a rat group this morning. First funny thing was one of the rats says, “Dude, none of your gear is augmented.” I was thinking is he talking to me, then the znec says, “Are you talking to me?” Then I said, “I’m not augmented, but don’t need to be,” ane the znec said “same here.” Then the dude just left, and we were like, da fuh, did he leave because we weren’t augmented?
Anyway, these rats were like 2000-2500 paragon, so we had some good runs at 120, then one of them left. The one who stayed says, “I think it will be more efficient to run bone spear.” I asked if I should change anything, no answer, so I just ran with my rat build. Seemed fine. After a few runs one of them says, “hey barb, ground stomp would help.” So I switched leap to ground stomp, but didn’t change anything else.
I’m getting the picture that zbarb is really flexible. Many different ways to set it up that all work. I notice e.g. you have gem of ease in your arnold build, and also Obsidian instead of Messerschmidt’s.
So first question i have for you on your run this morning. When the bone spear necro asked you to change to run stomp was this a rat run or a speed meta? If it is a rat run charge is all you need for the strongarms buff. On top of that everything should be frozen so stomp wont grouping anything and they will stay frozen in place. Leap is very important for jumping over walls and off ledges in order to keep pace with the rats. If it was something other then a rat run then stomp is always helpful.
This is the number one lesson of playing zDPS Barb.
The number two lesson is that you’ll be asked to change this or that to fit certain groups/styles of play. Some requests you’ll be able to guess as soon as the group comes together; others will be more esoteric.
The number three lesson is that a great many players are terrible at communication and/or so obssessed with speed and efficiency that they’ll drop/kick from groups that aren’t setup 100% to their liking the instant they appear in town. That moment you had will be repeated, ad infinitum, and it will happen even with players you know. If you find a specific group of players who communicate and don’t mind some delays here and there, and they’re nice, you lucked out. Keep them on your friends list and try to link up with them whenever you’re on.
Forum Mod Edit: This post has been edited by a moderator due to language. Blizzard Support - Forum Code of Conduct
I don’t know the difference between rat run and speed meta. I understand rats to be speed meta just from them being the “most effective tactics available” for speeds, or so I thought. Help me out with understanding the distinction.
My understanding is that were doing “rat runs”, which I thought meant DPSers using Rathma builds, but I was searching around to learn more about different group compositions and landed on Icy Veins. Their guide defines Rat Runs as consisting of 2 LoD Singularity Mage Necromancers rather than 2 Rathma Necromancers, so I’m confused about that, but in any event it was called a rat run. Then the guy said let’s run bone spear instead, saying it’s more efficient than “rat”. My stomps were definitely effective at grouping around elites, so I’m sure at that point they were playing BS, not freezing anything.
Interesting you mention Rats freezing things, because I’ve never noticed that before, but apparently I’ve been with pretty skilled Rats for the most part, who know which level to play, because they’re always killing things fast, with runs ranging from 1.5 to 3 minutes. This morning was the first time I’ve been asked to group at all - didn’t notice any freezing.
But then this afternoon I got into a game from the “Looking for Group” community where the player said “looking to get into a group for 120s, tired of running lower rifts,” which was funny and tipped me off it wasn’t going to be an experienced group, but I was like what the hell, good chance for me to try different things with no pressure.
Side story - first run I embarrassed myself by forgetting I was in my gold build. And these guys, they wouldn’t abort the run, GR120. Finished it in about 16 minutes. I died so many times - first time ever my gear got totally obliterated - went from yellow to red. My toon was running around naked! 
So anyway, I get my right build, but this group not being that good, probably should have been playing 110 or 115, our runs were clocking 5-7 minutes. Second run I grabbed my spear, this is my chance to finally try it in group play. But they were freezing everything, so I couldn’t pull hardly anything. At first I was like, am I doing something wrong? I wasn’t used to the keys I had stomp and spear on, so I thought maybe that was it. With my solo barb I have Spear on L, WW on R, Stomp on 4. Here I had FC on L, Spear on R, so it felt like maybe I was accidentally charging things, interfering with my spear. Maybe there was something to that - it takes a little bit for the muscle memory to kick in for new key configs and play styles - but then I was like nah, all these damn mobs are frozen!
So lesson learned: if the necs are freezing things, stomp and spear are useless.
Other than that, I don’t know what difference it makes what builds they’re running because I’m just buffing my team and running around picking up globes. So it seems to me that the only thing that matters is how quickly they’re killing things. Under 3 minutes, no grouping needed. 3-5 minutes, ground stomp is useful. 5+ minutes, time to bring in the spear.
Yeah… other than this guy, who I guess was a little rude (and wrong) but who cares, I’ve found people to be cool overall. Whenever they tell me I’m running the wrong gear or skills I change it and thank them. Some things contradicted the guide here but I agreed with their logic, e.g. don’t really need FoT for rats. Might as well gear up for xp instead.
Related to my above comment, I add to this 2.a.: “the customer is always right!” Even if I’m doubting what they’re telling me to do is optimal, I’ll just do it. Like the player that wanted to switch to bone spear - I’m pretty sure we were doing better as rats.
Speed meta means running the highest possible rift for the fastest exp. So right now necro/sader/zbarb/zdh are running 140s in the 5 minutes range. This gives them comparable slightly less exp then rats but they can level there gems so much higher and be prepared for getting max 150s. With rats it is the opposite. You run whatever lvl gets you the 2 minute clears.
Do you need to bring your spear for 5-minute clears?
I would say anything that does not involve a znec and over 4 minute clears should have spear. Even in a 4 minute clear there is time to gather trash for the necros poison cycle. Ultimately that decision is up to the group you run with. They may opt for sprint instead. Like you said earlier all these abilities are flexible. Pretty much you have 3 decisions every time you run. Executioner or echoing fury? Find out if a necro is running frailty. Spear or sprint? Find out how long the necro/rgk plans on taking for the entire run. Rat or meta build? is there a znec. Make those changes and your set.
LOL huh?
There was no language in the original post that in any way, shape, or form violates the COC.
Thanks, this is helping me immensely.
Posting LFG in the Greater RIftings and Rift it Forward communities today, I got nothing. In fact I think I’ve never gotten anything posting LFG myself; the only way I’ve gotten in rat runs is someone else posting “looking for zbarb for rat runs” or equivalent and me responding. But even that didn’t work today, so I said what the heck, I’ll just open a public group and run 90s or 100s, whatever we can do, probably carrying 2-3 leeches. So we run a few 90s with my rend barb, a dps dh, and a couple leeches. On a cool side note, we did one in 1:21, which I think is the fastest run I’ve ever done. Then I suggest I play zbarb and we synergize, and he says cool. Few rounds later the leeches have dropped out and capable players take their spots. Next thing you know we’re doing 115s, then 120s. Maybe one of the players was playing zdh or znec, not sure, we didn’t even talk about it. Later a 2800 nec swapped in and he’s like, nah, we’ll do 125. Then 130, 132, 137. Finally we tried a 140 and were close but didn’t beat the timer. All in a public game, no audio communication. The nec was communicating where to go by just leading the way and sometimes planting his flag so the yellow circle would flash on the minimap.
Once we started 130+ I switched to the meta build with the spear and did my best to group. I did ok I think. One problem I keep having is I charge when I’m trying to pull. Need to get used to the key and mouse-click rhythm. Wondering if there’s a better setup than L:FC, R:AS, 4:GS. Any tips would be appreciated. I started to figure out that I just need to lay off the left mouse button when I’m right-clicking for AS, and get used to that timing, so if that’s the answer then I’m starting to get it.
I’m dumbfounded that I had no survivability problems whatsoever even at 140. I have not augmented a single piece. Paragon 1381 now; started the day in the low 1300s.
My pickup radius is 27 - I’m proud of that, though I’m second-guessing how important it is since you don’t even have Rondal’s Locket in your Arnold build. 
If you want to look at my build it’s the Juggernaut toon. I have the starter meta build loaded right now (with pigsticker and stormshield).
Thanks again for all the excellent guidance - you, Free, Basshead, everyone.
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zBarbs are tough. Last season due to the buff, I was able to zBarb GR 150 @ 1100 paragon less than a month into the season. Now in non-seasons with more paragon (2.2k), I can survive face tanking multiple elite packs at GR 150.
Managed to make #913 on the 3 Player leader board - Tier 140 in 14:33. Not that I’m very good myself but one my teammates was patient and coaching me. I’m getting better at pulling but need more practice and experience to know where to plop down and a better feel for how far to roam. BTW this teammate is the same one I met in a public game a couple days ago, so +1 for public games! I’ve found some people to be “interesting” but it’s mostly been good.
Side note: I’m finding zero people who are interested in voice comms. It works ok but for sure I’d learn faster with a live coach. I’m also running into a number of things I’ve never heard of before, like the pool trick.