Dual Rift Frenzy

[Hymn]

20% Chance To Cast Level 16 Tornado On Striking
16% Chance To Cast Level 21 Frozen Orb On Attack
20% Bonus To Attack Rating
Adds 160-250 Magic Damage
Adds 60-180 Fire Damage
+5-10 To All Stats (varies)
+10 To Dexterity
38% Damage Taken Goes To Mana
75% Extra Gold From Monsters
Level 15 Iron Maiden (40 Charges)
Requirements -20%

Aside from a 4 socket Caduceus being ridiculously hard to find, I think with the right equipment this build could work with some rhythm. Has anyone tested this?

[neno]

Where's the dmg? :P

[Spankeh]

fire, cold, magic, and non enhancable physical damage...

why put you barb thru the pain?

[Hymn]

Where's the dmg? :P

Relying on the damage from frozen orb, tornado (for stun), magic damage (LOL 500 magic damage on frenzy?), using (perhaps) nightwing's vale and something like, i dunno, tyraels might or chains of honor, something along those lines.

It's not a conventional build obviously.

[TheWorldEnds]

I always thought about doing Rift on Barb with Double Swing. Nightwing's and Ormus for +40% cold skill damage with facets.

[Hymn]

I always thought about doing Rift on Barb with Double Swing. Nightwing's and Ormus for +40% cold skill damage with facets.

Would be seriously lacking in the resist department. AR would be fine with frenzy, you'd need to abuse dracs though to stay alive.

[frenzy kujaku]

I may have been mistaken, but I am half certain there is no weapon mastery in Barb's arsenal that can boost the damage of scepters. Rift is made only in polearms and scepters, unless scepters belong to the mace class, in all likelihood, frenzy with scepters may be a good idea on paper but not practical.

However, along this interesting line of unconventional frenzy barb, would it be of interest to you to use a cheap alternative Voice of Reason in swords or mace?


Voice of Reason
15% Chance To Cast Level 13 Frozen Orb On Striking
18% Chance To Cast Level 20 Ice Blast On Striking
+50 To Attack Rating
+220-350% Damage To Demons
+355-375% Damage To Undead (varies)
+50 To Attack Rating Against Undead
Adds 100-220 Cold Damage
-24% To Enemy Cold Resistance
+10 To Dexterity
Cannot Be Frozen
75% Extra Gold From Monsters
+1 To Light Radius

Although the CtC for frozen orb (1% lesser) and level of frozen orb (13 vs 21) is less than Rift and CtC is on striking not attack, considering that it has % Damage to Demon, % Damage to Undead, -24% Cold Resistance, cannot be frozen mode and the prospect of maxing sword/mace mastery, in terms of physical damage, it may not suffer as much as Rift scepters even though LCS will not reflect that damage. Furthermore, when coupled with another possibly unconventional runeword "Lawbringer", the combination of frozen orb/ice blast, decrepify, sanctuary (against undead and all round undead knockback), 7%LL and RIP factor, that may be a better prospect for a frenzy barb built to be unconventional. Since cold attacks and decrepify will slow down the monsters greatly, it may also be exciting to add on an Act2 HolyFreeze Merc+Reaper's Toll (Additional decrepify) or Act1 Cold Arrow+Ice Bow (Holy Freeze+ CtC Frost Nova) equipped with BlackHorn (20% Slow Target)+eFort (Chilling Armour for slowing long range attackers). The predicted effects could possibly be super slowed monsters (affected by chill, holy freeze, decrepify and 20% slow target) and if undead, knocked back periodically by sanctuary (slowed and knockback), while you advance and attack at normal if not faster speeds (if socketed in PB and wearing IAS eq such as LOH or highlords). As stated in Spank's guide and commonly known, decrepify on Lawbringer reduces the physical resistance by 50% as well. Thus, all the damage that VoR produce against bosses (DtoDemon) or Oblivion Knights (DtoUndead) is 50% more.

As you have mentioned and also stated in Sara's Rift-a-sin guide by Master Zap, nightwing may be useful if intending to pursue a pure cold attack frenzy. In that light, perhaps a holy freeze act2 merc equipped with infinity may be more appropriate.

If I were to build this VoR (Voice of Reason)/(LB) LawBringer Frenzy Barb, I will wear:

Weapon 1: VoR Phase
Weapon 2: LB Phase
Armour: Fort (for ed%) or Enigma (for the versatile TP and FWR)
Helm: Nightwing (for -cold resist and cold damage) or Gullimare (for CB)
Amulet: Highlords (for IAS/DS), Maras (for resist) or Cat's eye (IAS/FWR)
Gloves: LOH (IAS/DtoDemons) or Draculs (Lt, +Str, OW)
Boots: Gore (as always)
Belt: Nos coil (IAS, LL, +str and 10%slow)
Ring1: Carrion (CtC Twister for 0.4sec Stun and LL)
Ring2: Rare ring (+AR, +all resist, +ml), Ravenfrost (for AR, +dex, not for CBF)

The obvious flaw as pointed out by Neno and Spankeh is 'where is the damage?' As already stated, being an unconventional build, the damage output cannot rival conventional grief/LW/Beast/BOTD/Death etc frenzy barbs. This build may also suffer when fighting non-demon and non-undead monsters, i.e, Vipers in Halls.

However, considering that this build has enhanced damage from Fort, CB+OW from Gullimare+Gore, IAS from LOH+Nos, DS from Gullimare, DtoDemons from LOH and VoR, DtoUndead from VoR, decrepify from Lawbringer, a touch of frozen orb/ice blast and -cold resist, and a final sprinkle of sanctuary from Lawbringer and holy freeze and slow target from merc, it is tempting to speculate that this build can be a viable contender in general PvM games. Assuming level 30 Frenzy, and 30%IAS from LOH and Nos, a 5.5 fpa will be reached with phase blades. The eventual outcome is considerably fast attack speed and measured damage output against super slowed and lowered physical resist monsters with all round effect auras and spells for some degree of crowd control.

However, this is entirely pure speculation. Real-time gaming is needed to test if such a build is viable and can hold his own in 8 player games and ubers.

Nonetheless, the idea of 2-Rift-barb remains an intriguing prospect.

Cheers
Frenzy Kujaku

[Hymn]

A while ago, my friend made an "alternate damage" melee sorceress, which drew it's damage from 6 different types. While this character had skills designed to help (he was using tyraels might and azurewrath as his main weapon, dream diadem as his helm and phoenix as his shield) via masteries, it still was unconventional, and awesome. I don't think the barb would suffer as much from lack of skill support, as barbs have some of the best passive skills in the game (iron skin, resist mastery, BO) that don't dictate your build at all.

Dual rift would turn him into a procarian. He would have to rely on that 16% chance to cast frozen orb, doing about 241 damage per shard without any other equipment. While this doesn't seem like much, he can cast it much faster than any sorceress in the game, with more versatility than a kickasin or a zealadin.

[vknez]

scepters falls under mace mastery (same as staves)
thing is that skills with casting delay (tornado and frozen orb) will interupt your attack in duration of that delay. thats why i hate phoenix shield on fire claws druid (with firestorm having much lower delay)