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Description

Hey y’all, got a fun new barb build I’m trying out, let me know what you think! It’s probably not new, but it sure is fun!

Is normal barb farming boring? Do you hate having your stash full of gold? Want to make an Amazon, necro and Druid jealous they can only summon from their own skill trees! Try this build out! It’s not that expensive to get the gear together. It’s centred around some interesting items, specifically added skills and charges, giving your barb the best summons in the game!

Gear:

Head:
Shako
and
Wolfhowl

Amulet: seraph’s hymn,
Metalgrid
, or any other +2 all skills
Armour: any +1/2 all skills, Stone
Weapon: Harmony
Belt
: arachnid’s mesh, or razor tail
Gloves: frost burn
Boots
:
Silkweave
, war travellers, or any other preferred
Boots

Rings:
Carrion Wind
, nature’s Peace or
Wisp Projector
, soj or bul kathos wedding band
Charms:
Annihilus
, barb torch, warcry skillers and res charms

Merc: act 2 might with Insight, Treachery, and
Helm
of choice

Skills: everything into the warcries! Less the 1 point wonders in masteries.

Stats: enough strength to wear gear, around 200 points into vitality, the rest into dex to increase your bow attacks!

Play style:
Step 1: You need some pre-buffing here, first step is to cast a
Valkyrie
from Harmony (May need to re-roll a couple times to get +6), before you cast it you’ll want a
Shako
on
Helm
, a +1/2 all skills armour, +skills rings. This should give you a level 16+
Valkyrie
! You have to keep Harmony equipped or your
Valkyrie
will disappear.

Step 2: Now to cast the rest of your summons - change out your
Helm
to
Wolfhowl
, armour to Stone, rings to either
Carrion Wind
/
Wisp Projector
, and nature’s Peace. Now you can cast
Clay Golem
from Stone, a Spirit of oak or other Spirit from your rings,
Poison Creeper
from
Carrion Wind
, and 3 dire wolves from wolf
Howl
!

Step 3: Go to your favourite farming spot and
Battle Command
, battle order and
Shout
everything making your summons strong!

Step 4: (Optional) you could morph thanks to
Wolfhowl
, but it’s also just as fun to run around yelling enemies to Death beside your new army. Your normal bow attack is actually fairly decent too. As a final step you can
Revive
monsters thx again to Harmony!

Step 5: You’ll need to collect at least 80k gold to recharge all your summon charges, but this is pretty easy to get. While you could
Revive
monsters, the recharge of that will require at least 200k gold, so if you want to take on a boss you could!

Step 6: Profit!

Let me know your thoughts, I’m finding it really fun to play! Definitely not for players 8, but you should be ok throughout most of the game. I ran into trouble in the world Stone keep and
Nihlathak
, but everything else should be fine!
Description by Nate
5

Can be used to make Runewords:

7
User avatar

Nate 527

Switch
Hey y’all, got a fun new barb build I’m trying out, let me know what you think! It’s probably not new, but it sure is fun!

Is normal barb farming boring? Do you hate having your stash full of gold? Want to make an Amazon, necro and Druid jealous they can only summon from their own skill trees! Try this build out! It’s not that expensive to get the gear together. It’s centred around some interesting items, specifically added skills and charges, giving your barb the best summons in the game!

Gear:

Head:
Shako
and
Wolfhowl

Amulet: seraph’s hymn,
Metalgrid
, or any other +2 all skills
Armour: any +1/2 all skills, Stone
Weapon: Harmony
Belt
: arachnid’s mesh, or razor tail
Gloves: frost burn
Boots
:
Silkweave
, war travellers, or any other preferred
Boots

Rings:
Carrion Wind
, nature’s Peace or
Wisp Projector
, soj or bul kathos wedding band
Charms:
Annihilus
, barb torch, warcry skillers and res charms

Merc: act 2 might with Insight, Treachery, and
Helm
of choice

Skills: everything into the warcries! Less the 1 point wonders in masteries.

Stats: enough strength to wear gear, around 200 points into vitality, the rest into dex to increase your bow attacks!

Play style:
Step 1: You need some pre-buffing here, first step is to cast a
Valkyrie
from Harmony (May need to re-roll a couple times to get +6), before you cast it you’ll want a
Shako
on
Helm
, a +1/2 all skills armour, +skills rings. This should give you a level 16+
Valkyrie
! You have to keep Harmony equipped or your
Valkyrie
will disappear.

Step 2: Now to cast the rest of your summons - change out your
Helm
to
Wolfhowl
, armour to Stone, rings to either
Carrion Wind
/
Wisp Projector
, and nature’s Peace. Now you can cast
Clay Golem
from Stone, a Spirit of oak or other Spirit from your rings,
Poison Creeper
from
Carrion Wind
, and 3 dire wolves from wolf
Howl
!

Step 3: Go to your favourite farming spot and
Battle Command
, battle order and
Shout
everything making your summons strong!

Step 4: (Optional) you could morph thanks to
Wolfhowl
, but it’s also just as fun to run around yelling enemies to Death beside your new army. Your normal bow attack is actually fairly decent too. As a final step you can
Revive
monsters thx again to Harmony!

Step 5: You’ll need to collect at least 80k gold to recharge all your summon charges, but this is pretty easy to get. While you could
Revive
monsters, the recharge of that will require at least 200k gold, so if you want to take on a boss you could!

Step 6: Profit!

Let me know your thoughts, I’m finding it really fun to play! Definitely not for players 8, but you should be ok throughout most of the game. I ran into trouble in the world Stone keep and
Nihlathak
, but everything else should be fine!
7
I don't know if I'll give it a try anytime soon, but I love the concept. So many different summons and such a silly build!

I appreciate the write-up. Good stuff!

[PC — SC Ladder — UTC+1]
Open to haggling. Add me if offering BIN.
Perfect Gems
and Shape Shifting GCs are also accepted.
7
OP
User avatar

Nate 527

Switch
Edit: the Peace armour and passive/magic skillet charms don’t buff
Valkyrie
, only the + to all skills do
7
How does the +6 to
Valkyrie
work on a barb? It's not a
Charge
so you wouldn't be able to cast it, no?
7
it is an o skill on the Harmony so any class can use it (capped at +3 for amazon)
7
Faith, save on the
Revive
charges until you need them for a boss, also
Fanaticism
7
User avatar

Schnorki 3024Moderator

PC
Cute concept.

Though between the low lvl charges and no synergies whatsoever to improve those summons, I would be a tad surprised if this was in any way really viable for the summons themselves (i.e. not just your merc killing stuff while summons look cute).
7
OP
User avatar

Nate 527

Switch
Schnorki wrote: 1 year ago
Cute concept.

Though between the low lvl charges and no synergies whatsoever to improve those summons, I would be a tad surprised if this was in any way really viable for the summons themselves (i.e. not just your merc killing stuff while summons look cute).
Yea it’s not a meta shifting build, more just a proof of concept. After I did a bunch of trav and meph farming I had everything to make the build, so I just wanted to see how many summons I could get on a barb. You could make it better if you swapped out the Stone for Enigma, but then you’d have to use the
Iron Golem
/metal grid combination, which isn’t bad if you had the right base, you could maybe make it out of a cheap Insight then swap the merc’s weapon or merc to get some other auras.

But all the summons do compliment each other fairly well, the golem,
Valkyrie
and wolfs coupled with the oak Spirit and maxed bo get some great life bonuses and are quite tanky.

Damage wise I swapped my frostburns for the gloves that proc
Weaken
on strike, which helps when coupled with the
War Cry
that does the same thing, so monsters do go down fairly quickly, nothing compared to a
Frenzy
barb, sorc or Hammerdins, but still enough to enjoy the unique play style!

I’d be interested if anyone has any thoughts on other summon options!
7
Yeah the BO will make then survive decently. Then, if you wanted to ratchet up the price, throw a Pride on the merc!

I am available for trading every other week, limited trading on my off week.
Thanks for understanding.

Bouncing back and forth between D2 and D4
7
OP
User avatar

Nate 527

Switch
Update*

So I did try this build with Enigma and
Metalgrid
, making an
Iron Golem
out of a cheap Insight and gave my merc an Obedience, it’s awesome. Sure you need to recast golem each game, but I find at least one base every game anyways, and the runes are easy to get too, so for me it’s worth it to not have to chug mana pots during my runs. I also swapped out the gloves for
Chance Guards
, Great way to do mf in the level 85 areas. It’s essentially the same as a singer barb, but better!
7
OP
User avatar

Nate 527

Switch
*update*

Damn, with patch 2.5 saying that your
Iron Golem
from
Metalgrid
will persist between games, this just got real!

Summoner barb could be a real thing!

After 2.5 drops I’ll try this out again and see if the changes actually add anything
7
Persistent IG is great but it still depends on the item that carries the
Charge
as I read the notes so it's not completely viable for every build after all. But for those kind of experimental build, perfect.

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* I trade both ladder and non-ladder, please check before asking.
* All my trades are for runes, keys (especially KoT and KoH) and essences!
7
User avatar

rikus 126

Amazon Americas PC
this is amazing.
a huge barbarian carrying a tiny gentle bow, summoning like crazy and turning into some
Werewolf
..

would love to see a video gameplay of this!

PS
did anyone actually try this or this is still on theory??

goodluck, and may the RNG god be with you.
7
Barb-o-mancer lol. Looks to be fun at the cost of being able to do any sort of AoE or crowd control dmg with the exception of
War Cry
. I'd be surprised if this is viable in players 3 hell, if so that's good enough for me since that's usually what the games I'm in are at.
7
User avatar

Schnorki 3024Moderator

PC
I'd honestly be surprised if it is even viable in P1, seeing how nothing gets any synergies in that zoo.
May try it out later on though just for shits and giggles.


Disclaimer:
Yes, of course it'll be viable in P1...everything with a merc is...but you know what I mean.
7
OP
User avatar

Nate 527

Switch
Yes I have actually built this character, it is super fun on p1, and it works, but I’d keep it to pit farming.

Once 2.5 goes live I’m going to try it out again, sounds like we may even be able to swap out weapons like Harmony without losing the
Valkyrie
, if that’s true then this build really opens up and you could have some significant options for weapons/other skills
7
User avatar

Schnorki 3024Moderator

PC
Nate wrote: 1 year ago
Once 2.5 goes live I’m going to try it out again, sounds like we may even be able to swap out weapons like Harmony without losing the
Valkyrie
, if that’s true then this build really opens up and you could have some significant options for weapons/other skills
I do believe you read the patch notes wrong. The change is referring to a bug that caused IG to disappear on inv updates/new games. Changing/fixing that merely means that if you switch out other pieces and/or join a new game, it'll stick around. It does NOT mean that you can equip a piece of gear with a summon
Charge
on it, only to then unequip it for something else while still keeping the summon active.

That having been said...this build is...weird.
It works. But really only for three reasons:
1) Merc (with fort and
Eth
reaper's in this case)
2) HOW from
Wisp Projector
buffing said merc
3)
Metalgrid
Iron Golem
built using a Beast to buff said merc even further

All in all, that leaves the merc with ~9k damage, meaning he can basically solo anything.

All of the other summons - while cute - are honestly just in the way. They do no damage whatsoever (as expected, due to lack of synergies and lvl) and really the only thing they do do is stand in the way and block the merc from actually getting to his target.

Basically, if you drop all of the other summon gear and go only for wips +
Metalgrid
and then
Leap
around like an idiot to keep HOW and IG alive, it performs SIGNIFICANTLY better than it does with all of the other summons added. Which..is interesting. But pretty much as expected, sadly.
Still cute though.
7
OP
User avatar

Nate 527

Switch
Cool!

Yea I read you could keep the Harmony equipped but you could use your weapon swap without her disappearing, if not, oh well.

Yea there’s a fine balance with the summons, you want enough so your merc doesn’t get dogpiled, but not so much he doesn’t just sit at the back and only emit aura. I think the
Valkyrie
and
Iron Golem
are good Argo targets.

I recently did make a fort and Faith, so I might try it out with a manic pixie Dream girl. I’m using her on my throw barb and the attack speed, elemental damage (fire from the bow, Ice from her skills) and
Confuse
proc is really something, it may be a better way to keep all the summons alive!
7
User avatar

Ravoc 122

PC
I believe you can get a much higher level
Heart of Wolverine
from Oath, and then swap that out. As long as you keep
Wisp Projector
on as well, the summon should remain.
7
One thing I’d like to chime in on is how good the
Clay Golem
you can summon off of Stone is. I’ve been playing through the game with one and it’s fantastic for crowd control and very tanky with Warcries.
9

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