Barb noob needs help

[Hobbs]

Hey guys,

since i play d2 if never played a barb. Now the time has come for me to do so. Im just interested in PvM and need some help.

Here are my gear gueses.

Arreats
Highlords
Forti (which armor ?)
Gores
Dungo
Rings = ?? ( 2x raven ?)
Dracs / Steelrends ?
Last Wish Ba / Grief Ba ?

I just noticed that i realy have no res, is it possible to play without them ? Will i kill everything with this low res ?

Gimme your gues, suggestions !

[Groo]

Thanks for your PM Hobbs. I will gladly add my thoughts.

For helm pvm there is really nothing else than arreats that counts. For pvm - try to get hands on one with 6ll. Life leech in pvm is a real lifesaver Then the question is what to socket in your areats. I always end up using 40ed 9str jewel. ed/max or min dmg is wrong option due to the well known bug, when socketed in any non-weapon item. Personaly I always hit max attac speed without even more ias, but if you dont; ed ias jewel is an option for frenzy, but obviously not for ww, where ias from anything besides weapons is a waste.

Highlords is the mostly prefered option, yes. Personally I only use cat's eye however - but don't listen to me here - I'm a speed freak

Fortitude is the way to go indeed. Personally I roll in non-sup armour since I dislike high repair costs. If you consider resell-value and perfection though, 15ed elite armour is the way to go. 15ed ap is most valuable (but looks ugly imo) - Personally I prefer kraken. Most important to me is to roll perfect 1,5 life lvl, but any forty is good ofc.

Gore riders are great boots. You will benefit a lot vs bosses of the 20% crushing blow. Alternative is war travellers. They are also very nice, but I really prefer gores.

Verdungo is very good belt. If not 40/15 you can get them really cheap too. Only go for 15%dr though - even with 35-39vit you can buy such for a vex only. Howeveer you must consider your total life leech. If you go grief/last wish combo, as I have done this ladder, you will have rather low life leech, since those weapons doesnt provide any leech. So in this case I rather recommend string of ears. 8ll and 15%dr combo is mandatory here imo.

As for rings 1 raven is enough imo. The other ring should be a BK5 or a nice crafted blood ring (ar, ll, str, life and res prefered here)

As for gloves pvm there are 2 options imo. Draculs or Laying of hands. You must ask yourself the question - Do I need the life tap curse, and do I have enough life leech? If you can say no to q1 and yes to q2; use Laying of hands. If not use Draculs. Remember you only need 1 of the 3 great melee curses (amp, decr og life tap). If you go last wish, you already have life tap, so no use for dracs if life leech is enough. I would say its enough with arreats, String and BK5, so I would go Laying of hands in this case.

Weapons is the most important decision. Last ladder I went axe with botd/beast combo. It was amazing! This ladder I go sword with last wish pb/grief pb. It's amazing. Axe would be little higher dmg but slower, but main reason I go pb's is the wonderful absense of repair costs (remember what I said about my disliking of repair costs )

With this setup + torch and anni, resist will not be an issue at all. Even thoug I have only max/ar/life charms and no resist charms besides torch and anni, I have 75/80/75/75 resists in hell (and that is BEFORE the amazing fade is activated from LW, and BEFORE my BC push up my natural resist even higher ) That 80lr comes from forty, and is only possible with close to max res on anni and torch when you use cats like me. If you use highlords however, 80lr is a piece of cake


Don't forget your merc. His auras is very important for you! a2 might merc is the best way to go (however if you go Last wish you already have might, so holy freeze merc might be an defensive option - personally I only go might merc though - remember, same auras stack )
For helm there are many good options; tals, CoT are good cheap solutions. Andariels and gaze are expensive solutions, specially good eth ones.
For merc body armour, nice cheap solutions are duriels, or shaft. Best solution is fortitude in ebug elite armour. Even more here life pr lvl is more important than res.
As for weapon - poor solution is eth reapers, which is very nice. Mark then that you musn't have cursing items on yourself (like last wish or draculs) as it override the decr curse. Best end solution is pride or infinity in eth elite polearm. I can't deside which I like the most. I have used both, and they are both equally great imo. The infinity merc has best survivability though, so if I have to choose, I would recommend infinity.

This was only about items, and not for plasing stats and skills. There are many great guides for that though. personally I recommend frenzy, but again - thats just me

Viel glück mit dein Barb und viel spass Hobbs
Die deutchen haben übrigens ein sehr gutes waffengeschwindigkeits Calculator gemacht, die is stark empfehlen:
http://diablo2.ingame.de/tips/calcs/weaponspeed.php

[crawlingdeadman]

remember, same auras stack )

not in this case, higher level aura will take precedence over the lower level.

[Karth]

I disagree strongly with some of the gear suggestions, but first off, what kind of barb are you making? Frenzy? WW? Other?

Headgear: 6% life leech arreat's or Guillaume's. If you can get your res and leech settled, guillaume's 15% deadly strike and 35% crushing blow is absolutely fantastic. Arreat's is always a nice choice though and keeps other gear less complicated.

Amulet: Highlord's without a doubt.

Armor: I really like the maneuverability of Enigma, especially since I'm likely to have a lot of ED through using a titan build (just enough vitality to survive, then pump strength). I probably wouldn't mind not having it on a frenzy barb though.

Boots: Gores for sure.

Belt: If you want DR, String of Ears is much better than Verdungo for pvm. It has life leech and it has "magic damage reduced by X" which while it seems pitiful can actually help a lot, especially versus council hydras. Dungo only has 40 vita max... so +120 hp compared to a big chunk of leech.

Rings: 1x raven for sure, the other ring depends on what weapon you're using. If the weapon doesn't have mana leech, a dual leech ring is great.

Gloves: Laying of Hands is the strongest choice for any build in my opinion.

Weapons: this is where it depends on build. No point giving advice without knowing which.

Switch weapons: hoto/hoto is my choice for teleporting speed and +skills, but others work fine too.

[Hobbs]

Thanks for the awesome answer here @ all of you.
Realy helped me out. @Karth i realy have no clue what´s the best PvM build as a barb. Help me out

[Pyrotechnician]

This may be a couple days late, but figured I answer your question. There really is no "best" PvM barb build (although I'm sure others will disagree with me). Your main builds are as follows:

Frenzy: Faster attacks, fast movement (I consider this one the speeder)
Concentrate: Highly defensive, lower damage, slower but safer compared to other builds.
WW: AOE, higher depdendce on off weapon ed as skill ed is minimal, no ctc effects during whirl.
Beserk: High Damage, Low defensiveness, single target

Other builds include singer and double thrower but are uncommon in comparison.

All are really dependent on your playstyle and what you want to do. I've tried them all, I really enjoy my zerker, but when I want to run around like a mad man I enjoy the frenzy build. The reason your weapon choice is dependent on your build is due to the amount of increased attack speed you may or may not need to hit certain breakpoints.

[Causa]

Oh my, I'm going to keep an eye here because I have no idea what my lvl59 barb will become.
While I'm not rich and can't afford lot of godly runewords or rares I'm playing now my first barb ever in d2.

More speculation and pointers wanted.

-Causa

[shuy]

Oh my, I'm going to keep an eye here because I have no idea what my lvl59 barb will become.
While I'm not rich and can't afford lot of godly runewords or rares I'm playing now my first barb ever in d2.

More speculation and pointers wanted.

-Causa

At lvl 59 you cannot have good barb with WW and frenzy - you must choose one of them.

If you cannot afford some runewords you can use Lionheart armor, more expensive but still cheap weapon option is Oath, average price Kingslayer, very cheap weapon are unique maces - Baranar Star + uped Fleshrender.

And... when you will be able to make expensive armor - CoH is better then Forti

[Pyrotechnician]

I don't necessarily agree with the above, for a highly focused melee build, Fort is almost always going to be superior to COH due to the increased ed%, life, and defense bonuses. The plus skills aren't really essential and the huge res bonus isn't usually needed on a barb due to natural resistance coupled with charms. Also, I have a concentrate/WW barb and I feel that once you reach higher levels a combination of skills is viable.

[shuy]

My comparison CoH and Forti was a small provocative joke. Only barb which I use is UberFrenzier. In Tristram CoH is better but in the rest of game depends on the player style.
I mention CoH because people see 300ED on Forti and only few notice 200ED vs demons, 20 str (damage bonus), 2 skills (scombat skill - damage/AR bonus, masteries bonus - damage/AR/CS/nat resistance/iron skin/, warcry bonus - life from BO, def from shout).
Anyway if you do not need resistances Forti can be better, especially vs animals and undead (only 100ED)

Summing up - Lionheart + oath/black scourges + IK glo/belt/boots is good enought to play Hell solo. (leap over PI)