Help With Uber Frenzy Barb

[donshi]

I decided I want to make a frenzy barb to run Uber Tristram. It seems there are abundant discussions on this topic, yet all the information is scattered across the boards. Adopted primarily from Spankeh's guide, this is what I intend my gear/build to be.

Equip:
helm: arreat's face + um
armor: enigma AP
belt: verdungos
boots: goreriders
gloves: draculs
amulet: highlords
rings: ravenfrost + BK
primary: ebotz
secondary: edeathz
switch: 2 elacerators

Skills:
1 in Bash
1 in Double Swing
1 in Double Throw
Max Frenzy
1 in Natural Resist
1 in Iron Skin
1 in Howl
1 in Shout
Max Battle Orders
1 in Battle Command
Max Weapon Mastery
Max Taunt
Rest in Double Swing

I need some general critiques on my gear/build. Here are some specific concerns that I have are
1) Enough AR or will I need angelic set?
2) Not enough res.. With anni+torch I'll have a total of +75 to @res. Where should I add more, and what about for mephisto?
3) What Mercenary should I get? I feel like A1 with faith + COH + Guillames would work best.
4) Will giving up 2 levels of double swing (to get increased speed) considerably weaken frenzy?
5) Any better alternatives for weapons on switch?
6) Draculs seems to be a staple barb weapon, but I feel like 34LL + Lifetap is more than necessary. Should I replace with another glove?

Would really appreciate the help. Thanks!

[Barloc]

1) for AR, I don't think BK offers alot, 2 ravens would be better imo. You could prebuff with demon limb, which would put you 18k+ if your charms are good.
2)for ubers you should be using CoH on yerself.
3) Mercs arent important.
4)mmm I doubt it since a barb with GG gear could put just a single pt. in frenzy and kill
ubers.
5) well if you feel you need dracs, which many do, then lacerators amp will negate tap etc. I don't see a switch needed.
6) 'I Think' spankeh was a big fan of LoH + decrepify for pure damage, but there's nothin wrong with dracs and tapping for security.

[Croup]

1. I think you should switch your BK for another Raven or a rare/crafted ring with high LL, strength, AR, resists, etc. I think you're fine for AR anyway (don't know for sure unless I saw the numbers), but that's a change worth making.

2. Use Chains of Honor instead of Enigma. That's probably the easiest way, and it's better armor for you in Uber Trist anyways. Keep the Enigma for key running, but switch to CoH when you actually run Ubers.

3. I like the exact merc that you stated after your question. Odds are an Act 2 or Act 5 merc will die, no matter how well you gear them up. Act 1 mercs stand a shot at least, and the Fanaticism aura off of Faith will really help you out.

4. It wouldn't CONSIDERABLY weaken your damage or anything, but Increased Speed is unnecessary so I don't see why you would want to bother. If it's just a personal choice thing, then yeah, go ahead. It won't be a huge issue.

5. If you were a sword barb, I would tell you to try out Lawbringers on the switch to use to cast Decrepify. But since you're an axe barb, I don't think you can do much better than the Ethereal Lacerators.

6. If you're comfortable running Ubers without Life Tap, then definitely switch to Laying of Hands. 350% Enhanced Damage to Demons (read: all the Ubers). That'll help out your damage a lot, just make sure that you're ok being without Life Tap. As long as you are, then make the switch because LoH is definitely better.

Good luck with the character. The only other comment I would make is that I like String of Ears more than Verdungo's, but that's pretty much a personal preference thing. Both belts are fine. Let us know how it goes.

[frenzy kujaku]

1) Is this your first frenzy barb? If so, maybe you will like to play safe and wear Beast/LW instead for safety (life tap) and get the hang of frenzy in ubering before going the brave route (Amp damage).

2) However, if you prefer to go the amp damage route, Lifetap on Drac overrides Amp Damage on ELacerators. Wearing Drac defeats the purpose of dual Elacerators stated by Spank's and pointed out by Bartoc. This build you want to make is pure damage with all other requirements important only to outlive the ubers. The idea is 'they must die before you die'. So switch to LOH instead. Assuming your frenzy skill level is about 30 in total, 20IAS from LOH is all you need to hit 4.54 attacks/second. That's the second fastest possible attack/sec for frenzy. The additional IAS from highlords will not help you reach the next breakpoint. That's because you will need to get 45% IAS to reach max speed. Your merc's Fanaticism aura or LOH+Highlords+15IAS jewel socketed arreats will allow you to reach max attack speed.

3) I do not foresee any problems with your AR if you have max/ar scs in your inventory. You will possibly get a 70% chance to hit the ubers with max/ar charms. Prebuff, as suggested by Barloc, will boost it to ~73-75%.

4) I do have a question on your life. What is your life? You should be hitting more than 5K life (6K stated by Spank) to pull off a amp damage stunt. Prebuff with max BO gear (meaning, at least +3 warcry sticks, amulet, helm, BK/SOJ rings and a few warcry GCs will be sufficient) will be awesome to begin with.

5) Your life leech is at best 26% w/o COH and no dracs, 34% with COH and no dracs. As pointed out by Croup and Spank, strings will fare better in this amp build since you will get 42% (assuming you are still wearing the BK ring and COH) life leech. That will be very very handy.

6) With regards to all resistances, you probably know that prebuff with treachery is essential. The Um in your arreat's will probably be redundant with treachery fade and COH, since you will get +65 (COH) +30 (Arreats) +60 (treachery Fade) +54 (level 10 Natural resistance assuming torch+anni+BC+arreats+COH+highlords), +40 (Torch+Anni, assuming best roll), +15 (jewel on helm), +30 (anya quests), +others (rare ring or gcs if necessary to get +300 all resistance). As pointed out by Croup, a rare ring with all resist and some life leech with strength and AR will probably do better to free up the socket for 15IAS/15 all resist jewel. Also, frenzy doesn't benefit much from +1 skill from BK. Use BK for prebuff.

7) With regards to skill allocation, frenzy barbs are pure offense creatures. As eloquently put by Spank's, so long as you find the back of their skull, you rule. So more damage is best. Increased speed is not necessary if you wear Enigma for key hunts/mini ubers and definitely not necessary when ubering. You are going to stand there and whack away, not run away. If you run, you die. You whack, you live.

8) I will also suggest switching to gullimare's face against Baal after you are done with Meph. 100% CB from Death+gore+Gullimare and Amp damage is potentially the most lethal attack against Baal.

Cheers
Frenzy Kujaku

[donshi]

Thanks for the responses guys. Very helpful.

I'll be switching to a LoH + COH + string of ears + LL AR res rare ring + a lot of the prebuff equip mentioned.

Few more questions for you guys.
How much IAS do I need on top of lvl 15 fanaticism to reach fastest frenzy speed?
(or where can I find frenzy breakpoints?)
Best weapon for merc's faith?
What rune/jewel for merc's guillame's?
Best charms to hold asides from torch/anni? (assuming max-ed resistances)

[frenzy kujaku]

1) The link for the breakpoints was taken from http://diablo3.ingame.de/tips/calcs/speedcalc_titanseal/speedcalc_english.php
You can find this link in the stats forum as well.
To answer your question, if you have level 15 fanaticism on you, you don't need anymore IAS from any equipment. You will reach 5fpa with that fanaticism. Hence, as stated in one of the posts in Spank's frenzy thread, if you are paired up with a smiter, go with dual eDeath. It will be immensely damaging without sacrificing any speed. However, I am not sure if the Act 1 merc can survive being mobbed without life tap. My act 2 merc survives because he hits hard and accurately (Beast Fanaticism, LW might, merc's BA and Conviction infinity). If necessary, I usually protect my merc by running to him and howling repeatedly before going back to whacking the ubers. It is quite a useful strategy.

2) Merc weapon: I prefer a fast bow. Hence Great bow or Blade bow is the best in my opinion. Act 1 merc cannot use zon bow.

3) I equipped my merc with Kiras to survive meph. Guillmare is suitable for baal and diablo. Perhaps, it will work against meph too since act 1 merc is not standing close to meph.

4) Max-AR-life, Max-AR-5fhr, Max-AR-dex and Max-AR-Str will be the best. Max-AR-life is what you should aim for because you are going to tank and not lifetap back.

Cheers
Frenzy Kujaku

[frenzy kujaku]

I have tested your listed changed gears on ubers solo. Except for strings (Nos coil 6%ll) and highlords (Maras), the rest of the gear are similar (meaning, COH AP 8%ll, Arreats 3%ll, eBOTDz 13%ll, eDeathEttin, LOH, upped gore, rare ring, ravenfrost and all the abovementioned prebuff). My life is approximately 4.3K. Using Amp damage in place of life tap, I found the following:

1) Being a life tap user, I found it confusing to switch from dual lacerators to Botd/death. When I switched, I wasn't sure if I switched and had to check the LCS to make sure.

2) The duration of amp damage is short. I had to constantly (at least 4 times with Baal) switch weapons to maintain the amp damage. Sometimes, the ubers did not have amp dam on them because it ran out and I did not switch in time.

3) Against Meph, pots are very essential. Against Baal, not so. Against Diablo, not necessary at all. I burnt out 4 full rej pots and 2 mana pots in total.

4) Once Amp damage is triggered, the ubers lifebar go down much faster than when using lifetap. However, because I am still relatively new to using amp damage, I felt that it took longer than when using life tap. This could be because of inexperience with lacerator switching and the duration of amp damage. I will test a few more times to get the hang of things.

5) I have tested this gear setup together with a Zealer. The zealer's gear include griefPB and LOH, instead of LW and dracs, thus no lifetap was evoked. We were gunning solely with amp damage. We took less than 1 min to clear ubers. Once Amp damage is triggered, they fell in a few seconds.

Preliminary conclusion:

Amp dam frenzy requires more attention to whether amp dam is triggered, when it is running out, when my life is too low and when fade runs out (if I am taking longer than usual). It is definitely more exciting than lifetap, since there's an element of dying and requires more participation on your hotkeys. (i.e. lacerator-frenzy -> howlx2 ->weapon switch-> Botd/Death-frenzy -> howlx2 -> count the seconds -> weapon switch to lacerator -> and so forth).

Life tap frenzy simply whacks away mindlessly, only having to bother about whether the lifetap is triggered. It is safe and less exciting knowing that you will not die unless there is a massive lag. There is lesser hotkeying since only frenzy (left click) and howling (right click) is needed. Fade will also not disappear because of active LW.

I will test this gear setup with 15%IAS Gullimare's face, so that I can reach max fpa and achieve 100%CB on Death and 50% on Botd. I will test if this gear setup can fell them before the amp damage runs out.

Cheers
Frenzy Kujaku