Guide to Playing a MF Concentrate Barbarian

Are you tired of spinning and not really winning? Is zooming around the screen too fast getting old? Bored of singing enemies to Death? How about not throwing those daggers fast enough to kill monsters or losing your DEF entirely every time you attack?

Well then this is the Barbarian Guide for you!

(*Note: the above is a parody of bad infomercials and is not to be taken seriously)

In this guide I'll be going over a build that is a personal favorite of mine, but one that not many play - The MF Concentrate Barbarian.(by LuckyAce)

Now you might be thinking, "What, you can MF on a Concentrate Barb?" and the answer to that is: Yes, you can!

First, let's get the Pros and Cons out the way:

Pros

- High Life
- High Defense
- Gains more Defense with every attack
- Rarely Dies
- High Resists
- Makes use of a Shield
- Over 60% Chance to Block (CTB)
- Over 60% IAS (with end-game gear)

Cons

- Single-Target Attacker
- Kills at the same speed as a PitZerker
- Killing Monsters takes a bit longer in Players 5-8

Introduction

As described in game, Concentrate is an attack that cannot be interrupted. This means while using this skill, your Barbarian has a greatly reduced chance of simply not attacking. It also improves your AR (Attack Rating) and Defense with each successful swing. Because of the defensive nature of this skill, it is best used with a shield that has FBR (Faster Block Rate), FHR (Faster Hit Recovery) and increased CTB (Chance to Block). These types of Shields are also known as 10/30/20s. When using Concentrate, your Barbarian will swing with his left hand weapon only. This means equipping a second weapon to his off-hand slot will have no affect on the damage of Concentrate.

[1] Gear, Stats & Skills

Next, let's get into the gear you need for this build. It'll be split into 2 sections, budget friendly, and end-game gear:

Budget Gear

Weapon: Swordguard socketed with a Shael, Unbending Will in a Superior Colossus Blade, or Honor made in a Superior Zweihander

Alternative Budget Weapons:

Lightsabre (suggested by @Th3ory)
Crescent Moon, Oath (suggested by @xSD)
—
Shield: Rhyme, in a Scutum or Hyperion or 10/30/20 Shield with All Res
—
Off-hand: Gull, Heart Carver

Head: Immortal King's Will, socketed with 2 Perfect Topaz or a 3 socketed Barb Skiller Helm with +Life, + Battle Orders, Shout, Find Item, with 3 Perfect Topaz
—
Gloves: Chance Guards, Bloodfist
—
Body: Wealth, in any Normal or Exceptional armor, Skullder's Ire
—
Belt: Goldwrap (upgrade to a Battle Belt later for an extra potion slot)
—
Boots: Immortal King's Pillar (adds an extra 25% MF when paired with any other IK set piece)

Amulet: Angelic Wings
—
Rings: Angelic Halo, Nagelring, or rare ring with: Life/Mana Steal, AR, Life, Strength and MF
—
Charms: Small charms with life, Res, MF, FHR. Grand Charms with +Combat Skills, +Warcries, +Life / +AR +Min/Max damage

Budget Mercenary Gear

For this build you'll be exclusively using the Act 2 Desert Merc with Might Aura. Avoid using the Holy Freeze Merc as the cold damage can mess with your ability to hork corpses using Find Item.

Weapon: Insight in a Partizan
—
Head: Rockstopper or Crown of Thieves
—
Body: Duriel's Shell

End-Game Gear

Weapon: Grief, in a Phase Blade
—
Shield: Rhyme, in a Hyperion or Monarch
—
Off-hand: Blade Of Ali Baba (2x) socketed with 2 Ist each, Heart Carver / Blade Of Ali Baba socketed with 2 Ist

Head: Harlequin Crest ( Shako), socketed with an Ist
—
Gloves: Laying of Hands or perfect Chance Guards
—
Body: Enigma, made in a Superior Archon Plate
—
Belt: Upgraded Goldwrap
—
Boots: War Travelers (45-50% MF)

Amulet: Blood Amulet with +1/+2 to Barb Skills, Life, Life Steal, IAS/FHR, +15-20 All Res, +10-20 MF.
—
Rings: Perfect Dwarf Star, Blood Ring with Life/Mana Steal, AR, Life, Strength, IAS, All Res and MF
—
Charms: 35-40% Gheed's Fortune, Small charms with life, res, MF, FHR. Grand Charms with +Combat Skills, +Warcries, Life / +AR +Min/Max damage.| Annihilus, Barbarian Torch|

*Note: I strongly recommend using Enigma for this build, while pricey, it offers exactly everything your Barb needs to really excel at MFing. I also advise against using Fortitude. While it's a great runeword in it's own right, the biggest draw back on it for this build in particular is its chance to cast Chilling Armor. Since you'll be up close in monsters faces, having them frozen and then shatter impacts the chances of you horking items from them. This goes for regular and unique monsters.

End-Game Mercenary Gear

Weapon: Ethereal The Reaper's Toll, or Pride
—
Head: Harlequin Crest ( Shako), Crown of Ages, or Ethereal Andariel's Visage
—
Body: Ethereal Fortitude, made in an Archon Plate, Boneweave or Balrog Skin (Personal fav)

*This build can also double as Gold find Barb. But if you want to stick to strictly MF, use a Gull and forgo the Blade of Ali Babas. I prefer to have a mixture of both MF and GF. With end-game gear, you should sit around 350-690ish MF depending on your gear choices.

Diving into Stat Point distribution, Skill Point distribution and Early Leveling:

Stat Point Distribution

- Strength: Enough to wear your highest requirement piece of gear. (With the End-Game set up, this should total around 95-100)
- Dexterity: Around 150-155. This is to make sure you have at least 60%+ CTB with end game gear.
- Vitality: All left over points go here.
- Energy: No points here. Barbs get all of their Life/Mana from Battle Orders.

*An example of what your stat points may look like at Lvl. 94 (this is without Battle Command, Battle Orders or Shout being casted):



*End-Game Stats with Battle Command, Battle Orders and Shout casted:

Skill Point Distribution

- Warcries: 1 Pt to Howl, 20 Pts to Shout, 20 pts to Battle Orders, 1 Pt to Battle Command
1 Pt to Find Potion, 5-7 Pts to Find Item (This is to increase the chances of horking items from corpses. Ideally you want anywhere from 52-55%. You can also make use of Heart Carver to up the % without adding in too many points)

- Combat Masteries: 20 Pts to Blade Mastery (formerly Sword Mastery), 1 Pt to Iron Skin, 1 Pt to Natural Resistance, 1 Pt to Increased Stamina, 1 Pt into Increased Speed.

- Combat Skills: 1 Pt to Bash, 1 Pt to Stun, 20 Pts to Concentrate, 1 Pt to Berserk (this is to help with any Physical Immune monsters you may run into in NM and Hell. It also provides Concentrate with magic damage each level), 1 Pt into Leap

*Extra Points: Depending on your Barbs needs, you have a few options to place your extra skill points into:

- Iron Skin: Great for an extra boost to defense, especially if you plan on playing this build in Players 5-8. An extra 3-4 points is good here.

- Bash: Gives Concentrate a little more raw damage. 3-4 points is also good here.

- Natural Resistance: If your resists are a bit lacking in Hell, adding 3 points into this skill should fix things.

Early Leveling Guide

Because of the Nature of Concentrate as a skill, I don't recommend starting out as this type of Barbarian. It's very difficult to level with as it's a Single-Target Attacker that makes use of Shields. Because of this, I suggest playing a simple Frenzy Barb until you're able to acquire a lot of the gear you need, through finding it yourself, or trading. So for this, just follow any well known budget Frenzy guide out there. Once you have everything to do a Budget version of this build, I recommend respecing anywhere from Lvl 75-80.

[2] Gameplay Tips

Below are some helpful tips I've come up with over the years of playing this build:

Tips

- Make use of Leap (especially if you don't have Enigma for Teleport). Use Leap to push unique monsters away from their minions to target them better. This is done by clicking closer to where your Barbarian is standing. This will cause him to preform what I like to call "baby leaps". If this is done in succession, monsters will be continuously knocked back and will spread out.

*An example of "baby leaping":

- Use Teleport to reposition yourself and get your Merc to safety if he's losing life too rapidly. If you have Teleport from Enigma, doing this is especially useful against The Council. The most important thing for your Merc in this situation is to prevent the hydras from mass-targeting him. Each time you Teleport, he will reappear next your barb.

- Know your Barbs limits and when to pull back in combat. Despite the high survivability of the MF Concentrate Barb, it is always best to know when to pull back from a situation, lest it result in Death. For example, when approaching unique monsters with Fanaticism, Extra Fast and Amplify Damage, its better to solo out the unique monster itself rather than take them all head-on. Doing so could result in a bad situation very quickly.

[3] Best Farming Areas [2.4]

Here's a list of the best places and monsters to farm with this build:

Travincal

This build was practically made to constantly run Travincal. The council will go down quickly in Players 1-4 and many good items can be horked from them, including HRs. Dwarf Star shines here, as with it the fire from the hydras practically heals you.

*An example of drops from a Trav run, Players 1, before horking:

The Swampy Pit

Joining the lvl 85 area roster in 2.4 is the Swampy Pit. While considered dangerous for some other MF builds, the MF Concentrate Barb has no trouble at all here. The abundance of Souls, Dolls, Zombies and Bats makes it the perfect place to farm for uniques and HRs.

Shenk the Overseer & Eldritch the Rectifier

A favorite spot among many MF builds, Shrenk and Eldritch are fairly easy to kill and can be done so quickly with this build for the chance at good drops. I recommend baby leaping at Shenk to push his minions away to better take him down quickly.

Rakanishu & Tristram

Raka is actually quite a good unique monster to farm. Not only is he easy to find, but he'll often drop unique or set items. Plus, taking the portal to Tristram is never a bad idea. You can find a lot of good items from horking the corpses of the unique monsters that spawn in there, as well as HRs.

The Pit

A great and easy area for to farm for uniques, set items and base items for runewords. The monsters here, especially the Fallen, have a higher chance of dropping socketed and ethereal items.

The Arreat Plateau

This area is best farmed in players 3-5. It has a decent amount of monster density, and plenty of elite monster packs to hork. It also contains the new Lvl. 85 area "The Pit of Acheron" as an optional farming area.

[3.1] Other Farming Areas (Suggested by D2io members)

Nihlathak / Nihlathak's Temple

(Suggested by @xSD)

xSD wrote: 4 years ago

Really cannot leave out Nihlathak as a fantastic place for a Conc barb to farm, especially a budget/MF one now with the Tomb Vipers fix.

Nihl is one of the easiest bosses for Conc barbs as you can WW/ Leap through all of halls, Leap Attack to him, Howl, and then just Conc him to Death. It's how I tend to ladder start if I really want to focus on pushing a less played class.

[4] Closing Thoughts

While those who MF with a Barbarian often choose the PitZerker as their go-to, I feel the MF Concentrate Barbarian deserves some spotlight as an alternative (and safer) build to farm with. This is a build I have been personally playing through my D2 play history of nearly 20 years, and it has only gotten better with time. Though it can't kill monsters as fast on Players 5-8 it, I still feel it can hold its own to a PitZerker. I have not seen many PvM Concentrate build guides, especially ones centering around MF, so I suppose you could say this is an "original build" of sorts.

I also want to thank @Th3ory for encouraging me to make this guide and share it with everyone here. I was hesitant at first given that Barbarian is one of the least played classes in D2R, and more hesitant since it revolves around a skill most barb players either use for PvP or BvB.

I hope to all the Barb players who read this guide or those looking to try out a niche build in general, you'll give this build a chance either on NL or for Ladder Season 1.

- LuckyAce

Very cool guide man - thanks for having the courage to write and post it. Cheers to you. You did a thorough and aesthetically pleasing job friend.

Tagging @udyret and @billymaysed in the event you think this is worth taking into D2IO user guides or placing elsewhere.

Thank you for the kind words! I had a lot of fun writing this guide and I hope everyone who decides to give the build a try has fun with it too.

Friend, you definitely have a talent for writing. I'm sitting at work with a cappuccino mug and reading this manual, which I don't need at all, because I never play a barbarian - this is the only character I don't have and won't have. But, it was pretty damn interesting. I read it from the first to the last word. My life would definitely be easier if all the character guides were so accessible to the noobs in the game. Thanks. Definitely a pleasure to see such work.

Moondew wrote: 4 years ago

Friend, you definitely have a talent for writing. I'm sitting at work with a cappuccino mug and reading this manual, which I don't need at all, because I never play a barbarian - this is the only character I don't have and won't have. But, it was pretty damn interesting. I read it from the first to the last word. My life would definitely be easier if all the character guides were so accessible to the noobs in the game. Thanks. Definitely a pleasure to see such work.

Thank you! I’m glad you enjoyed the read! This is actually the first guide I’ve ever written for D2 despite my lengthy play history with the game. I’ve wanted to for years now but I could never find a community forum I liked enough to discuss and share my ideas with. I can safely say I’ve finally found it now.

Teebling wrote: 4 years ago

Love this guide, so well formatted and presented.

Have given you contributor status for this OP - also looks like it has already been added to the guides sticky too.

Thank you Teebling! This was such a great way to start my morning. I honestly wasn’t expecting such positive feedback or to become a site contributor over night. It’s an Honor, really!

I do have some other guides I’m thinking about writing for Barb, as it’s the only class I play so all of my experience and knowledge lies there. I formatted this guide in a way I would have personally wanted a Barbarian guide formatted and I’m glad others are enjoying it so much as well.

Eventually I’ll update it with gameplay footage of me running through my favorite farming spots to showcase how fun it is to play.

Teebling wrote: 4 years ago

Love this guide, so well formatted and presented.

Have given you contributor status for this OP - also looks like it has already been added to the guides sticky too.

Already told Lucky to give me a crash course in gfx forum design!

Really cannot leave out Nihlathak as a fantastic place for a Conc barb to farm, especially a budget/MF one now with the Tomb Vipers fix.

Nihl is one of the easiest bosses for Conc barbs as you can WW/ Leap through all of halls, Leap Attack to him, Howl, and then just Conc him to Death. It's how I tend to ladder start if I really want to focus on pushing a less played class.

Really cannot leave out Nihlathak as a fantastic place for a Conc barb to farm, especially a budget/MF one now with the Tomb Vipers fix.

Good point, I had almost forgotten about him. Personally I don't run him, but I'll add it into the guide to give it more farming diversity. If anyone has any other areas they think would be good farming spots for a MF Conc Barb, share them here and I'll add them into the guide

awesome looking guide. thanks for taking the time to make this. and now i hope you're making one for the Double Throw potion barb too. i'd love to read more about it.

Udyret wrote: 4 years ago

awesome looking guide. thanks for taking the time to make this.

Thank you and you're welcome!

now i hope you're making one for the Double Throw potion barb too. i'd love to read more about it.

That is actually on my "to write" list, so yes! Once I get all the gear I need to make it work, I'll be writing a guide for it. I'll be considering it an "odd ball" build, and one to exclusively play just for fun.

I also plan to write a guide on another Throw Barb build I sometimes play. I call it "The Elemental Thrower". It should be more viable now given the buff Throwing Mastery and Double Throw got in 2.4

LuckyAce wrote: 4 years ago

Really cannot leave out Nihlathak as a fantastic place for a Conc barb to farm, especially a budget/MF one now with the Tomb Vipers fix.

Good point, I had almost forgotten about him. Personally I don't run him, but I'll add it into the guide to give it more farming diversity. If anyone has any other areas they think would be good farming spots for a MF Conc Barb, share them here and I'll add them into the guide

Yeah he's particularly good there because you can join Baal games, BO the sorc/TPer, do Nihl and then join the rest of the party for waves 3-5 and Baal.

Additionally, he doesn't kill AoE, so most of the Corpse Explosion is completely negated. Also helps finding Grand Charms that can be re-rolled for Pgems.

I'll also mention that fantastic intermediate weapons on Conc barbs can be Crescent Moon PB (CtC static and CL are very good to add some AoE clear and boss killing) or an Oath Cryptic Sword.

TBH, I'm probably going to ladder start something like this or play this to 79 til I can properly respec Wolf Barb.

I had entirely forgotten about Cresent Moon and Oath being a thing. I’d usually end up finding a Swordguard or make Honor in a good Zweihander base. But - I’ll include those in the budget gear section. Thank you for the suggestions

LuckyAce wrote: 4 years ago

I had entirely forgotten about Cresent Moon and Oath being a thing. I’d usually end up finding a Swordguard or make Honor in a good Zweihander base. But - I’ll include those in the budget gear section. Thank you for the suggestions

Not to extend, but I also think Azurewrath can fit into this model as well. I have done Frenzy Setup's with Azurewrath and Crescent Moon. Could maybe add this as well into budget gear although the RNG on rolling an Azurewrath vs. Lightsabre can always be tricky.

Th3ory wrote: 4 years ago

LuckyAce wrote: 4 years ago

I had entirely forgotten about Cresent Moon and Oath being a thing. I’d usually end up finding a Swordguard or make Honor in a good Zweihander base. But - I’ll include those in the budget gear section. Thank you for the suggestions

Not to extend, but I also think Azurewrath can fit into this model as well. I have done Frenzy Setup's with Azurewrath and Crescent Moon. Could maybe add this as well into budget gear although the RNG on rolling an Azurewrath vs. Lightsabre can always be tricky.

Lightsabre could work well with this on your way to obtaining a Grief, but I would recommend against an Azurewrath simply due to all that added cold damage. It would cause monsters to occasionally shatter, thus preventing you from horking them =P

Oh also need to mentioned Unbending Will. Can literally carry the entire mid-game for some mid-runes.

xSD wrote: 4 years ago

Oh also need to mentioned Unbending Will. Can literally carry the entire mid-game for some mid-runes.

Yes. I'm planning to update the guide to include this soon.

n1ce guide. was looking for something like this.

This build is so under spoken, at least for me. So useful, really. Glad I stumbled upon this thread.

I built a Trav Barb on bnet exclusively for gambling with Gold, farming some essential gear at start of ladder race, and to get any kind of runes here and there are just cherries to the cake, so to speak. However, the entire time, I've been following the cliché build of Berserk. Indeed, he is so powerful, and quick to kill all the councils on solo bnet farming, but with this build the tradeoff is that my merc gets to wear BoTD to be stronger/faster, but I need to not be lazy and HP/Mana pot a lot more often (due to never being able to leech with zerk).

But hey, this is players 1 bnet trav farming, you don't need to be so extremely strong to clear the councils before they start healing each other and slowing down your runs! Yes, Grief makes life that much easier for Barb but, Concentrate builds allows me to be lazy as can be, nearly never have to pot, and definitely never die -- however, I noticed my merc essentially must be wearing an Eth Reaper's Toll for the occasional phys immune council to not get healed before dying. Kill speed is identical to the zerker with botd merc, but a lot simpler running routine with all the ability to leech. Just wish the merc didn't die more often when not using botd, but it's okay, I get more than enough Gold anyway lol.

I thank you for your contribution LuckyAce!