Frenzy Barb setup-Hlp

[fireNsmoke]

Im making a frenzy barb to do ubers when at a higher lvl .. Which 4 skills do i max. Im putting points in vit for the moment till i get better weps.. Which weps should i try to get or make.. What kind of armor,helm,gloves,boots,amulet. What items do i need formy act 2 merc....

[JuniorHigh]

Get lots of Life Tap, mainly Dracul's Grasp.

Max BO, Frenzy, Taunt and Double Swing and Weapon Mastery. Get the best, fastest, most damaging weapons you can.

For Merc, try to get something with physical resist removal... Infinity was it called? The one with Sanctuary. There are great guides out there, take the time to read them.

[Ric Magnum]

I tend to stay away from mercs as a frenzy barb. My playing style is to aggresive to support a merc. I always crash into packs of enemies and start swinging. More often than not, when the battle is done, so is my merc and I am out of 50K gold. I was going to try having a bow merc with a faith for the added damage and attack speed of faith because she seems to stay a decent distance away while I am attacking. Granted you will not be able to have access to some of the better equipment granted auras from a a2 merc but you will get that additional boost in damage and attack speed and you wont be constantly seeing your local merchant to res your merc. Just my personal preference.

[wimmer]

I use a cold merc from act 2, and he survives everything but the Ubers. I have a pierre tombale on him and some hi def magic armor. I use arreats for regular runs and guillaumes for the Ubers for the extra CB. DeathCB also adds good CB percentage.

[HardyTarget]

As weapons I'd suggest ebotdz and edeathz, if you can afford them.
I tried beast on my frenzy barb and it breaks very fast since you'll be hitting pretty fast due to frenzy's increasing ias++

[Eilo Rytyj]

Off the top of my head... a decent set up for general PvM would be:

EBotDZ - main hand
EDeathZ - off hand
Arreat's Face + IAS Jewel
CoH
Laying of Hands
Thundergod's Vigor
Gore Riders
Highlord's Wrath
Raven Frost x2 or Raven + ring of your choice.

You don't need Life Tap all the time. That setup gives you 23%-29% normal life leech on BotD hits, and 11%-14% ll on Death hits, and you should be using Battle Cry and/or Taunt to lower the damage you take. Tgods makes you highly resistant to Souls/Gloams. Death will have 65% CB for taking down bosses. As an added bonus, with LoH, Highlord's and an IAS Jewel you'll hit the fastest Frenzy speed with slvl 32+ Frenzy, IIRC.

Skills should be 20 in Battle Orders, Frenzy and Axe Mastery. 1 point in War Cry, Battle Command and prereqs, as well as Natural Res, Iron Skin and Leap, and maybe Berserk for PI's. Final skill points to be spent on either Taunt or Double Swing as a Frenzy damage synergy, or War Cry for more stun duration.

Crowd control and staying alive should be easy, you should cast Battle Cry on everything that moves, Taunt powerful ranged monsters, and Howl when swamped. War Cry can be used to stun mobs. Death's Glacial Spike proc also provides a little help with crowd control and survival too. You shouldn't ever feel you need Life Tap when Battle Cry works so much better in most situations, plus you've always got a 100% chance to cast Battle Cry too, whenever you feel like it. The only real problem you'd have is against Physical Immunes, and Iron Maiden, neither of which Life Tap helps against anyway. For PI's and IM, it's Battle Cry, War Cry to stun, and Berserk away.

Mercs aren't always bad, a merc will benefit from your Cries, and will survive just as well as you, since they're basically just melee characters like yourself. An eth Obedience Thresher would be one of the best weapons you could give an Act 2 Might merc for a Frenzyer; you don't want your Merc to cast curses that override Battle Cry, and Infinity doesn't help you at all when Battle Cry already lowers enemy defense by a huge amount already. Last Wish on an Act 5 merc is definately out of the question; Life Tap overrides Battle Cry :( . An Act 1 Rogue with a Faith would be a good choice, the IAS will get you swinging at the fastest frames, Inner Sight helps your chance to hit even more, so does Fanaticism, she doesn't die to IM, and her Cold/Fire Arrow skills help with PI's (they convert physical to fire/cold dmg).

Here's a challenge: do Uber Trist without Life Tap, using Battle Cry and Howl to minimise the damage you take. It's not impossible if you know what you're doing.

[sirwhere]

I did like 10 frenzy incursions into uber tristam with grief and lawbringer. Merc was defiance merc and had infinity to drop the ubers defense. Used laying of hands gloves. No need no dracs. Used battle cry to drop uber defense even more before decrepify from lawbringer triggered.

Beat them ubers every time :)