Theorycrafting with The Barbarian: A Guide for New Players

From atop the

Arreat Summit, a proud and mighty warrior stands valiantly. His thunderous voice can be heard for miles, and his strength can be seen by the trail of demonic corpses he's laid to waste. He is truly capable of almost anything...

Welcome to Theorycrafting with The Barbarian: A Guide for New Players - by LuckyAce

[1] Introduction

In this guide we'll be exploring ways to theorycraft with our favorite grunting and master of all weaponry killing machine. For those who don't know what theorycrafting means, to put it simply: It's analyzing game mechanics to come up with optimal builds and strategies to play. Great examples of this are ones you may already be familiar with like the

Frenzy Barb,

Whirlwind Barb, etc. We're going to explore and understand how a Barbarian build is created, the thought process behind it, and it's intentions. With doing so, those who have an interest in playing this class can then use this knowledge for themselves to create something all their own. This guide won't really delve into things like breakpoints, etc. Remember, the focus here is for new players.

Whether a build is viable or not is not entirely the focus here either, but rather, what can be created based on the items available to the player, in conjunction with the Barbarian's skill arsenal. So with that being said, let's dive into understanding the Barbarian himself:

[2] The Barbarian and What Makes Him Tick

Before we can theorycraft with a Barbarian, we must first understand what makes him tick. Meet Rygar, he'll be our helper for this guide. Every Barbarian starts out with a set number of points to Strength, Dexterity, Vitality, and Energy. When a Barbarian levels up, he will always gain 2 Life per level. Adding a single point into Vitality will always give him 4 Life. See, easy right? Let's take a look at his stats a little more closely:

Attributes

At Lvl. 1 he will always start with: 30 Strength, 20 Dexterity, 25 Vitality, and 10 Energy. Any time you put a point into one of these attributes, it will increase the numbers correlating to them - adding a point into Strength increases his physical attack damage, while adding one into Dexterity increases his attack rating and chance to block (if he's using a shield). Depending on what kind of Barbarian you're trying to build, the number of points put into Strength and Dexterity matters a lot. Speaking of attack damage and attack rating, lets talk a little bit how that works:

Attack Damage: In the Barbarian's case, he deals Physical Damage, always. This is only not the case if you equip him with a weapon that deals an elemental damage in addition to its physical damage type. There are 4 types of elemental damage: Fire, Cold, Lightning and Poison. The more strength you give your Barbarian, the more damage he'll do! But raw strength isn't enough, he'll need a good weapon to really land those powerful blows.

Attack Rating: Attack rating is what helps your Barbarian hit those pesky monsters he's trying to slay. If his attack rating is too low, he'll simply miss his target, even if it's right in front of his face. Dexterity helps increase his chance to hit monsters, but depending on what kind of Barbarian you're trying to make, you want to be careful how many points you put here. There are a plethora of items a player can choose to increase their characters attack rating, but for the Barbarian, his best choice (early on and even sometimes into early end game) is The Angelic's Amulet and Rings. These will help greatly increase your Barbarian's attack rating, as it scales with his level.

Next let's move on to his skills. The Barbarian has a wide array of skills at his disposal, some of which can be used for purposes other than their tooltip descriptions. Part of the fun of playing a Barbarian is experimenting with his skills and seeing what different combinations you can create for a build. Here is a brief overview of his 3 skill trees:

Warcries

Howl: Causes Monsters to Flee
—

Taunt: Causes Monsters to attack you
—

Battle Cry: Lowers a Monster’s attack and defense
—

War Cry: Damages and Stuns all nearby enemies
—

Shout: Increases your Barbarian's defense, and nearby allies
—

Battle Orders: Increases Life, Mana, and Stamina or your Barbarian and nearby allies
—

Battle Command: +1 to all Skill Levels of your Barbarian and nearby allies
—

Find Potion: Finds potions from monster corpses
—

Find Item: Finds items from monster corpses
—

Grim Ward: Slows monsters, increases damage dealt to them, and causes them to flee

Combat Masteries

Blade Mastery (formerly Sword Mastery): Improves attack rating, damage and

Critical Strike chance with Sword and Daggers (1h & 2h)
—

Axe Mastery: Improves attack rating, damage and

Critical Strike chance with Axes (1h & 2h)
—

Mace Mastery: Improves attack rating, damage and

Critical Strike chance with Maces (1h & 2h)
—

Polearm Mastery: Improves attack rating, damage and

Critical Strike chance with Polearms (2h only)
—

Throwing Mastery: Improves attack rating, damage,

Critical Strike chance, chance to

Pierce, chance to not consume quantity and replenishes quantity on

Critical Strike with Throwing Weapons (1h only)
—

Spear Mastery: Improves attack rating, damage, and

Critical Strike chance with Spears (2h only)
—

Increased Stamina: Increases your Barbarian's stamina
—

Increased Speed: Increases your Barbarian's run/walk speed
—

Iron Skin: Improves your Barbarian's defense rating
—

Natural Resistance: Improves your Barbarian's resistances

Combat Skills

Bash: Deals damage to enemies and knocks them back
—

Leap: Allows the Barbarian to jump and knock back enemies when he lands
—

Leap Attack: Allows the Barbarian to jump and attack an enemy when he lands
—

Whirlwind: Spins around in a straight path and deals damage to enemies(your weapon choice matters for this skill. More on this later)
—

Stun: Stuns enemies for a short period and increases your attack rating
—

Concentrate: An attack that cannot be interrupted. Improves your Barbarian's attack rating and defense with each swing
—

Berserk: Deals magic damage to enemies at the cost of losing all your defense temporarily
—

Double Swing: Swings with 2 weapons and can hit 2 targets if possible, or one target twice
—

Double Throw: Throws equipped throwing weapons
—

Frenzy: Swings 2 weapons at once. Each successful attack increases your overall run/walk speed and attack speed

[2.1] Understanding His Skill Synergies

Most of the Barbarian's skills have synergies. This means that they'll increase the damage, or duration etc. of another skill of his if points are added into it. For example, let's look at

Battle Orders, and

Concentrate. For every hard point (meaning, not getting points to a skill from wearing gear) you put into

Battle Orders, it increases the damage

Concentrate does by 10% per level. Simple right? Some of the Barbarian's skills have multiple synergies that can power a single skill (like

Frenzy). It's up to you, the player, to play around with each skills synergy to see if you can create a build with it. That's part of the fun of D2R after all!

Let's look at some player favorite skills and their synergies to start off:

Frenzy

Frenzy is one of the most used Barbarian skills as a main attack, and for a good reason! With each successful attack, it increases his speed, and his attack speed. The end result is gotta go fast. The following skills boost the power of

Frenzy:

Double Swing (+8% damage per level),

Taunt (+8% damage per level),

Increased Stamina (+0.4% seconds per level) and

Berserk (+1% magic damage per level).

Looking at this you may think, "Huh,

Taunt is kind of an odd synergy for

Frenzy isn't it?" some may agree, some may not. Some players will choose to level up

Taunt to max out

Frenzy's power, but others may choose to forgo that synergy and level up another skill like

Shout instead, for example, despite it not being one of

Frenzy's synergies.

Berserk

Berserk is a powerful skill that deals a ton of magic damage. Best used with a shield and a great (and most common) way to magic find on a Barbarian. It has only two skill synergies,

Howl, and

Battle Orders. Both increases the Magic Damage of

Berserk by +10%. It is important to note that

Berserk does not deal Physical Damage. This means this is the Barbarian's only way of dealing magic damage to monsters.

Lookin' good! Let's get into the next part of this guide, and arguably the biggest one that will determine how you go about making your very own Barbarian build:

[3] Understanding Item Modifiers (for Barbarians)

Every item in the game has something called "modifiers". Players will often shorten this to "mods" when referring to an items properties in game chat. Here's an example of an item and it's modifiers: As you can see, when equipped it will give your Barbarian +20 to Attack Rating and +10 to Strength. So how do you determine what item modifiers are good for Barbarian's? Simple. Barbarian's love Physical Damage, first and foremost. So, when searching for items to potentially make a build around, you want to keep an eye out for things like "Adds 10-25 damage" for example. Other item modifiers like Crushing Blow, Open Wounds, and Deadly Strike are also well loved by Barbarians. Let's briefly go over these 3 item modifiers since they are very important to a Barbarians playstyle and builds:

Crushing Blow

Without going overboard on explaining, Crushing Blow is identified in-game by a little pinkish-red splatter effect on an enemy. It reduces a monster's life by 1/4th if triggered successfully by an attack (1/8th on unique monsters and by 1/10th on other players or their mercenaries) This item modifier can be stacked, meaning you can have multiple items with Crushing Blow.

Open Wounds

Much like Crushing Blow, Open Wounds can also be stacked by multiple items and reduces a monsters health, but in this case, over a set period of time (8 seconds). As you level up, the amount of damage Open Wounds causes to a monster (or another player) scales with you.

Deadly Strike

Deadly Strike functions differently than Crushing Blow or Open Wounds. Deadly Strike is [Double Damage]. Every time your Barbarian attacks, the game will roll for a chance to perform a Deadly Strike based on the % chance from your gear. If the attack is successful, he'll deal double his damage with that attack.

Now that we have the basics of how item modifiers work and what kinds you should be on the lookout for to add to your Barbarian's arsenal, lets look at the different types of weapons he can use and their attack speeds.

[3.1] Melee Weapon Attack Speed

Melee Weapons are a Barbarian's best friend. Each melee weapon has an attack speed ranging from Very Slow to Very Fast. Depending on the Barbarian build you want to make, it's important to think about the skill your using, and how fast you'll be attacking with your weapon of choice(because attacking as slow as molasses is no fun). Let's quickly go over each weapon-type that applies to the Barbarian:

Maces

Maces are known for their high maximum damage and +damage to undead, but every

Mace isn't created equal. Some have very fast attack speeds, and others have very slow. Generally speaking, 1h maces will always attack faster than 2h maces.

Swords & Daggers

Swords are special when equipped by a Barbarian, as he's the only class in the game that can dual-wield 2h Swords in both hands as if they're 1h weapons. This opens up for lots of different build opportunities! On average 1h Swords will always fast-very fast attack speed, but 2h Swords often come with Normal attack speed - to Fast attack speed.

Daggers on the other hand, will always have fast-very fast attack speed.

Axes

Like Sword and Daggers, Axes can have attack speeds of Normal-Fast depending on the type. While technically underpowered, they are known for their high minimum damage and some Barbarian players will gravitate to a certain 1h Axe to make a certain popular melee runeword in it.

Polearms & Spears

Polearms and Spears are 2h-only weapons. Depending on the type, they can have very low minimum damage (like

Bardiche’s) or higher maximum damage (like

Lance’s).

Because of their 2h-only nature, they are best suited for Barbarian builds focused on the

Whirlwind skill.

Throwing Weapons

Throwing Weapons are 1h only and are the only weapon types with a set quantity before they run out and need to be repaired. Unlike other weapons, these have a chance a % chance to

Pierce when you level up

Throwing Mastery.

Finally, we're ready to dive into making our very own Barbarian build! With this newfound knowledge under our belts, we can explore one of the most fun aspects of D2R:

[4] Making a Barbarian Build

So you've made your Barbarian, and you aren't sure what direction you want to take him in just yet, but as you're traveling through The Rocky Wastes, an item drops from a monster. Its a unique Polearm, so you pick it up and identify it: You study its modifiers closely. +55% Deadly Strike stands out to you immediately, as well as the weapons damage, +Attack Rating, +3 to Barbarian Skills and +30% Hit Recovery. After taking a look at your stash and seeing a pair of

Gore Rider's,

Guillaume's Face, and

Highlord's Wrath, you decide you're going to make a

Whirlwind Barbarian focused around this weapon and Deadly Strike. Reading into the weapon you found a bit more, you realize that it's not a bad choice to use for

Whirlwind, especially upgraded.

For your

Whirlwind Barbarian you decided on the following skills: [1]

Howl, [1]

Taunt, [5]

Battle Cry, [10]

Shout, [20]

Battle Orders, [1]

Leap, [1]

Leap Attack, [20]

Whirlwind, [1]

Bash, [1]

Stun, [1]

Concentrate, [1]

Berserk, [20]

Polearm Mastery, [1]

Increased Stamina, [1]

Increased Speed, [1]

Iron Skin, and [1]

Natural Resistance.

After a bit of leveling and testing, you finally make it to Hell mode. You step into the

Blood Moor and take your first

Whirlwind at a champion pack and they all die instantly. Success! You've built yourself a Deadly Strike

Whirlwind Barbarian using a weapon most would overlook.

Take Pride in your growing knowledge of Barbarian's and how they work. Who knows, maybe someday in the future you could make a Barbarian build that uses Bows and

Arrows

[5] Closing Thoughts

The Barbarian is one of the least played classes in Diablo 2 / R, but despite his unpopularity with most players, he still continues to shine in ways one may not expect. He's always full of surprises and if you decide to theorycraft and experiment with him, you'll find that he can do just about anything.

- LuckyAce

[Bonus] Barbarian Lingo Index

Barbarian Lingo

Since Diablo 2 itself is over 20 years old, players back then had to use shorthand to refer to item names, character skills etc. due to character limitations in game chat. Despite time passing, players still use these old shorthand terms to refer to things in D2R.

Below is a list of shorthand terms and what they mean when referring to Barb skills, related items etc. by players:

1h & 2h = 1 handed and 2 handed melee weapons
—
BO =

Battle Orders (also refers to

Shout and

Battle Command)
—
WW =

Whirlwind
—
Conc =

Concentrate
—
Zerker =

Berserk (refers to the skill and build)
—
BvB = Barb vs Barb (refers to PvP only)
—
Hork =

Find Item (the sound he makes when using it on a corpse of a monster. Hork hork!)
—
Singer =

War Cry (refers to the build itself, and the sound a Barbarian makes when using

War Cry)
—
Nat Res =

Natural Resistance
—
IK = Immortal King's Set

Great work, again! Thank you!

BTW, this was the first time, I read the term "Theorycrafting" and really like how it looks and sounds.

Teebling wrote: 2 years ago

Another great piece of analytical work here, and beautifully presented as always. I really link the angle towards new players wanting to try Barbarian.

Thanks again LA

Thank you as always for the kind words. Since Barb is one of the least played classes overall, and my favorite, I figured I’d write something for new players wanting to try them, or even those who have played before but have never played a Barb.

This took me a few days to write and I had to do a tiny bit of research to help my brain remember certain things. But, I hope this helps people wanting to give the Barb a shot.

This will also probably be my last Barb guide for awhile. There’s some testing I have to do in NL after S1 ends and if all goes well I’ll be writing my most niche Barb guide yet

I'll just say that throwing horker barb with freshly discovered and enliterated by devs synergy with

Find Potion can be a way to start solo ladder. With new dual wield buddy of course.

Decided for tomorrow I'm going to start a barb and immediately funnel into a

Wolfhowl to go Wolfbarb. Combine it with some value points in

Find Item and swap MF gear and should have a fun little toon to ladder with.

Battle Cry: Lowers Monsters attack, defense (and resistances. This is a hidden tooltip new players may not know about)

Hey, LuckyAce, could you explain something about that part in particular? Are those elemental resistances of monsters like "- enemy element_name resistance" or something else?

Thanks @LuckyAce, added this to our list of D2io guides by members in the pinned link thread.

Chasodey wrote: 2 years ago

Battle Cry: Lowers Monsters attack, defense (and resistances. This is a hidden tooltip new players may not know about)

Hey, LuckyAce, could you explain something about that part in particular? Are those elemental resistances of monsters like "- enemy element_name resistance" or something else?

From what I understand

Battle Cry is classified as “magic” and is meant to reduce monster defense and damage. It works sort of like

Amplify Damage, where it removes immunities like “immune to physical” on a monster. I read this ages ago and from testing on Barbs of mine this seems to be the case.

If I’m wrong however, someone please correct me so I can fix that part of the guide.

Also it is worth mentioning that

Battle Cry is best used on a WW Barb as it requires you to be next to monsters to cast.

BillyMaysed wrote: 2 years ago

Thanks @LuckyAce, added this to our list of D2io guides by members in the pinned link thread.
image.png

You’re very welcome Billy. It’s much appreciated, as always

LuckyAce wrote: 2 years ago

Chasodey wrote: 2 years ago

Battle Cry: Lowers Monsters attack, defense (and resistances. This is a hidden tooltip new players may not know about)

Hey, LuckyAce, could you explain something about that part in particular? Are those elemental resistances of monsters like "- enemy element_name resistance" or something else?

From what I understand

Battle Cry is classified as “magic” and is meant to reduce monster defense and damage. It works sort of like

Amplify Damage, where it removes immunities like “immune to physical” on a monster. I read this ages ago and from testing on Barbs of mine this seems to be the case.

If I’m wrong however, someone please correct me so I can fix that part of the guide.

Also it is worth mentioning that

Battle Cry is best used on a WW Barb as it requires you to be next to monsters to cast.

Wait, wait, wait, wait...what?!
That doesn't sound right.

Admittedly, I never much looked into

Battle Cry but if it had a hidden mechanic to actually reduce resistances and remove immunities, that should be rather widely known by now and it would be used all over the place! BC can be pushed well beyond 100% with relative ease which would make it better than

Decrepify. Better than

Amplify Damage. And if such a hidden mechanic included elemental resistances, better than

Lower Resist. In fact, an act 5 barb (who now has it) would break more immunities than an Infinity would.

That does not seem like the kind of thing that goes unnoticed by the masses..or me for that matter, considering how long I've been playing this game.

Defense is actually defense. Aka that thing that compares against your attack rating when you try to hit something. That's normally nothing to do with resistances, physical or otherwise. As a result, it would also not break any immunities and not increase any damage output. It would merely make you hit more often.

Schnorki wrote: 2 years ago

LuckyAce wrote: 2 years ago

Chasodey wrote: 2 years ago

Hey, LuckyAce, could you explain something about that part in particular? Are those elemental resistances of monsters like "- enemy element_name resistance" or something else?

From what I understand

Battle Cry is classified as “magic” and is meant to reduce monster defense and damage. It works sort of like

Amplify Damage, where it removes immunities like “immune to physical” on a monster. I read this ages ago and from testing on Barbs of mine this seems to be the case.

If I’m wrong however, someone please correct me so I can fix that part of the guide.

Also it is worth mentioning that

Battle Cry is best used on a WW Barb as it requires you to be next to monsters to cast.

Wait, wait, wait, wait...what?!
That doesn't sound right.

Admittedly, I never much looked into

Battle Cry but if it had a hidden mechanic to actually reduce resistances and remove immunities, that should be rather widely known by now and it would be used all over the place! BC can be pushed well beyond 100% with relative ease which would make it better than

Decrepify. Better than

Amplify Damage. And if such a hidden mechanic included elemental resistances, better than

Lower Resist. In fact, an act 5 barb (who now has it) would break more immunities than an Infinity would.

That does not seem like the kind of thing that goes unnoticed by the masses..or me for that matter, considering how long I've been playing this game.

Defense is actually defense. Aka that thing that compares against your attack rating when you try to hit something. That's normally nothing to do with resistances, physical or otherwise. As a result, it would also not break any immunities and not increase any damage output. It would merely make you hit more often.

I always thought it worked more like

Amplify Damage, and I remembering reading it from one of those D2 wiki sites ages ago, but if that’s not the case at all, I’ll remove that part from the guide.

It’s weird because in testing it really did seem like that was the case, but maybe something else was happening that I overlooked. Regardless, changing that part around