How do you build a Pitzerker/Trav barb

As the title states, what gear do I need to make a good Pit Zerker and Trav Barb? Are they basically built the same? (non-ladder) I plan to save up to make one as it looks fun and efficient, plus all I'm running now is a Blizz Sorc and Hammerdin and would like to find other fun finding builds. Are they good at rune finding?

Thanks in Advance.

The only thing you really need to make a trav zerker zerk hard is Grief and any sort of anti-freeze. Personally, I've grown quite fond of Rhyme for that as it adds the anti-freeze, makes for easy max block and still adds some MF and GF on top of that.

You can handle P8 (albeit not exactly fast) with literally just that and completely steamroll P1 (1-2 hits for minions, ~3 for the bosses) with it as your only offensive gear.

That way, you can focus on MF and GF in literally every other slot, ending up with well beyond 1k GF and 400 MF in killing gear and somewhere around 2k GF and 600 MF when swapped for horking. Give or take a (fair) bit on either side, depending on whether and how hard you prioritize GF or MF.
(Personally, I prefer to focus on GF as MF for a horker/zerker is very easily pushed into ranges of heavy diminishing returns regardless whereas GF just keeps giving)

Side note:
You want your Grief to roll at least 32 IAS (on a Phase) so that between the Grief and

Goldwrap alone, you're hitting a 9 frame attack.

Schnorki wrote: 2 years ago

The only thing you really need to make a trav zerker zerk hard is Grief and any sort of anti-freeze. Personally, I've grown quite fond of Rhyme for that as it adds the anti-freeze, makes for easy max block and still adds some MF and GF on top of that.

You can handle P8 (albeit not exactly fast) with literally just that and completely steamroll P1 (1-2 hits for minions, ~3 for the bosses) with it as your only offensive gear.

That way, you can focus on MF and GF in literally every other slot, ending up with well beyond 1k GF and 400 MF in killing gear and somewhere around 2k GF and 600 MF when swapped for horking. Give or take a (fair) bit on either side, depending on whether and how hard you prioritize GF or MF.
(Personally, I prefer to focus on GF as MF for a horker/zerker is very easily pushed into ranges of heavy diminishing returns regardless whereas GF just keeps giving)

Side note:
You want your Grief to roll at least 32 IAS (on a Phase) so that between the Grief and

Goldwrap alone, you're hitting a 9 frame attack.

So I assume Grief, Rhyme ( or whatever else), Enigma,

Goldwrap, Travs, Nagel or 2, Ammy?, and chancies or IAS gloves?

You don't need IAS gloves. A 32 Grief +

Goldwrap covers all of your IAS needs (takes 42 total to

Cap zerk at 9 frames with a phase). So I'd say

Chance Guards are a given.

Beyond that and anti-freeze, it becomes pretty much entirely a matter of taste and priorities:
Do you want to shave a couple seconds off trav runs with

Teleport but also don't want to deal with repairing charges? Enigma. Do you instead want even more gold find? Wealth.
Do you want to focus on MF?

Nagelring,

War Traveler, ... Do you want to focus on GF?

Dwarf Star,

Infernostride, ...
Do you want to focus on even more MF for horking? 6-

Ist phase blades. Do you want to focus even more on GF for horking as well? 6-

Lem phase blades. Do you want to balance both?

Blade Of Ali Baba with 2

Ist or 2

Lem or a combination of both.
And so on and so forth...

The options are fairly wide spread, very much depending on your focus. With MF vs. GF being the primary concern.

The only thing you might need to think about beyond that is how to get just a little more res to

Cap but just how applicable that is also depends on the gear resulting from your choices above.

Personally, I like the Enigma approach, simply because I don't like charges (and because my zerker still teles the occasional

Baal run or now following

Terror runs for lvling). But speaking solely in terms of trav farming, it really doesn't make too much of a difference. The extra gold you'd get from Wealth is more than enough to cover the occasional repairing of a tele

Charge neck and still have plenty left over.

Oh and just make sure that none of your or your merc's gear has any cold damage or 'slain monsters rest in Peace' on it as that reduces/eliminates corpses to hork.
That includes aura/skill cold. So no A2

Holy Freeze merc or A1

Cold Arrow or the like!

Skip the Enigma. Go with Chains of Honor and just

Leap. If you're gonna do Pit and other areas (worse drops, better variety, though I personally NEVER tire of

Travincal), then Enigma becomes an option.

Arreat's Face socketed with

Cham > everything.

Stormshield socketed with

Ber for survivability.

I pretty much laid it out for you on the second page in this topic: forums/mf-and-character-build-questions-t1155523.html

Oh yeah, skip the merc. You don't need them. Even though you can equip them to be virtually immortal in

Travincal, they really won't be adding much to your one- or two-hit kills on everything.

Ever thought of doing a Gavel Barb for trav only? It provides you with as much GF and MF possible without having to

Sacrifice it for stats to kill the council by yourself. This guide https://forums.d2jsp.org/topic.php?t=88673150&f=87 sums it up pretty nicely. The equipment itself is a bit pricey, tho, as the Barb sucks without having high-end gear on your merc.

Edit: Just found a second

Jah Rune there within 500 runs or so using this build. Really recommend spot to farm

iamergo wrote: 2 years ago

Skip the Enigma. Go with Chains of Honor and just

Leap. If you're gonna do Pit and other areas (worse drops, better variety, though I personally NEVER tire of

Travincal), then Enigma becomes an option.

Arreat's Face socketed with

Cham > everything.

Stormshield socketed with

Ber for survivability.

I pretty much laid it out for you on the second page in this topic: forums/mf-and-character-build-questions-t1155523.html

Oh yeah, skip the merc. You don't need them. Even though you can equip them to be virtually immortal in

Travincal, they really won't be adding much to your one- or two-hit kills on everything.

Ah, yeah I remember that. that is really expensive for me right now as I might just barely be able to get the

Lo for Grief so a COH,

Cham and

Ber would be VERY hard for me to get on top of everything else. I will however work towards that goal eventually. Still trying to work my way to an eventual Auradin (for fun).

Recently saw a pit zerker in action and it looked really fun so figured I would revisit this build.

You mainly trav run for charms, jewels, and runes right? How often do you find something of worth, and can you uber with a bit of gear change up? Just curious.

Blindfire187 wrote: 2 years ago

You mainly trav run for charms, jewels, and runes right? How often do you find something of worth, and can you uber with a bit of gear change up? Just curious.

I built this boy during season 1, but haven't played him for like five months now. Mainly

Travincal farming, yes. I can't tell you exactly how often I found something of worth, but the answer in my head is "on the regular."
You can definitely uber with this barb, just need to stack that CB.
As I mentioned back in that topic, I will give you a non-ladder Grief for free if you message me.

Blindfire187 wrote: 2 years ago

iamergo wrote: 2 years ago

Skip the Enigma. Go with Chains of Honor and just

Leap. If you're gonna do Pit and other areas (worse drops, better variety, though I personally NEVER tire of

Travincal), then Enigma becomes an option.

Arreat's Face socketed with

Cham > everything.

Stormshield socketed with

Ber for survivability.

I pretty much laid it out for you on the second page in this topic: forums/mf-and-character-build-questions-t1155523.html

Oh yeah, skip the merc. You don't need them. Even though you can equip them to be virtually immortal in

Travincal, they really won't be adding much to your one- or two-hit kills on everything.

Ah, yeah I remember that. that is really expensive for me right now as I might just barely be able to get the

Lo for Grief so a COH,

Cham and

Ber would be VERY hard for me to get on top of everything else. I will however work towards that goal eventually. Still trying to work my way to an eventual Auradin (for fun).

Recently saw a pit zerker in action and it looked really fun so figured I would revisit this build.

You mainly trav run for charms, jewels, and runes right? How often do you find something of worth, and can you uber with a bit of gear change up? Just curious.

Just for the record:
A

Stormshield

Ber is beyond overkill for a trav zerker (or any normal zerker). Even with 0 def and no leech, barbs aren't that squishy. Even more so if you do max out block.

Schnorki wrote: 2 years ago

Just for the record:
A

Stormshield

Ber is beyond overkill for a trav zerker (or any normal zerker). Even with 0 def and no leech, barbs aren't that squishy. Even more so if you do max out block.

Well, I was rich enough to try it, and the difference was noticeable. I didn't like max block though. It was interrupting the flow of the zerk whacking.
Also, in

Travincal, everybody is squishy, and overkill is warranted — if you can afford it, in my opinion.

Guess it depends on the player count you're aiming for. I do my farming on P1 (thanks to no online /players) and those trav runs typically end with between 85 and 95% life still left, with no defense other than capped res and max block (i.e. no phys dmg reduction and the like).

Reducing MF/GF stats just to go from never potting to still never potting feels like a bit of a waste, not even considering that you're paying extra to do that.

But yeah, if you run P8 and hence take longer to kill and subsequently take more hits in the process, it starts to look a bit different.

Schnorki wrote: 2 years ago

Reducing MF/GF stats just to go from never potting to still never potting feels like a bit of a waste, not even considering that you're paying extra to do that.

Well, I actually aimed for 0%MF/0%GF. The barb doesn't even wear a

Gheed's. Gold finding became old and annoying very fast. And magic find is pretty useless in

Travincal, so in my mind, it was the other way around: I was sacrificing kill speed (damage, chance to hit, run speed) for MF which was of no use to me.

And you don't actually need P8 to occasionally get in trouble in

Travincal without my overkill setup.

Conviction on Toorc/Geleb/Ismail + a boss pack of night lords/four champion hierophants is one way they halt you. The other one is Might + Fana + Cursed. With my setup, you never change pace regardless of what mod combinations the game may throw at you.

iamergo wrote: 2 years ago

Schnorki wrote: 2 years ago

Just for the record:
A

Stormshield

Ber is beyond overkill for a trav zerker (or any normal zerker). Even with 0 def and no leech, barbs aren't that squishy. Even more so if you do max out block.

Well, I was rich enough to try it, and the difference was noticeable. I didn't like max block though. It was interrupting the flow of the zerk whacking.
Also, in

Travincal, everybody is squishy, and overkill is warranted — if you can afford it, in my opinion.

What would the stats look like? It has been an very long time since I've built a barb and it was a WW IK barb pre runwords haha. Never made a zerker before.

Blindfire187 wrote: 2 years ago

What would the stats look like? It has been an very long time since I've built a barb and it was a WW IK barb pre runwords haha. Never made a zerker before.

At lvl 89, he's got 51% physical damage reduction (capped at 50%).
188% fire res (capped at 85%) + 15% fire absorb.
176% light res (capped at 85%) + 20 flat light absorb.
168% cold res (capped at 75%).
208% poison res (capped at 75%).
Magic damage reduced by 12.

42% FRW. I'm using

Infernostride and CoH. With Enigma and something like Aldur's

Boots you'd be even speedier, though I still prefer the max fire and phys res of my choices.
30% FHR, 35% FBR, 53% Deadly Strike.

10,105 attack rating. 9,893 defense rating.
4594 life/266 mana (with BO).
75%

Find Item chance (with dual Heart Carvers on swap).

iamergo wrote: 2 years ago

Blindfire187 wrote: 2 years ago

What would the stats look like? It has been an very long time since I've built a barb and it was a WW IK barb pre runwords haha. Never made a zerker before.

At lvl 89, he's got 51% physical damage reduction (capped at 50%).
188% fire res (capped at 85%) + 15% fire absorb.
176% light res (capped at 85%) + 20 flat light absorb.
168% cold res (capped at 75%).
208% poison res (capped at 75%).
Magic damage reduced by 12.

42% FRW. I'm using

Infernostride and CoH. With Enigma and something like Aldur's

Boots you'd be even speedier, though I still prefer the max fire and phys res of my choices.
30% FHR, 35% FBR, 53% Deadly Strike.

10,105 attack rating. 9,893 defense rating.
4594 life/266 mana (with BO).
75%

Find Item chance (with dual Heart Carvers on swap).

Ah, I meant stat placement when leveling. I assume some balance of Dex, STR, and Vit and ignore energy, but do I just get enough STR to use equipment or going beyond for more damage a good thing?

My horker:
Grief
Moser’s for all res
Arreat with

Cham
Wealth

Archon Plate
Chancies
Goldies

Infernostride
Angelic Amulet and Rings

On switch, Ali Baba with

Lem x2,

Heart Carver with

Lem,

Nagelring x2, and an Echoing Amulet of Wealth (3/80)

My merc:
Non-

Eth The Reaper’s Toll with

Lem

Eth

Crown of Thieves with

Lem

Eth

Guardian Angel with

Lem

Just keep hitting whatever your merc hits and you’ll never lose a corpse to the non-

Eth Reaper.

Decrepify helps kill everything faster. With GF at these levels, you will see 15-25k gold piles and need to gamble every few Trav and Pit runs. All you need is enough dexterity for max block and vitality for 1200 life (use a Call To Arms in your cube). Put the rest in strength for better killing speed.

Blindfire187 wrote: 2 years ago

Ah, I meant stat placement when leveling. I assume some balance of Dex, STR, and Vit and ignore energy, but do I just get enough STR to use equipment or going beyond for more damage a good thing?

Oh. Max vita all the way. The purpose of the build is to shrug off any amount of punishment for uniform, fast runs. Full inventory of max damage/AR charms is good enough to boost that absurd Grief damage. With Vitality giving you 4 health points per, I just didn't find investing in strength for damage or dexterity for AR worthwhile comparatively, especially considering how much your charms can add.

Max vita is fine too! Just depends on your personal preference. I enjoy the damage and two-shotting all of the Trav uniques. Needing to use potions once in a while and the risk of dying once in a blue moon just makes the game more interesting.

For me, playing a max vita barb on softcore removes the risk and reward.

iamergo wrote: 2 years ago

Blindfire187 wrote: 2 years ago

Ah, I meant stat placement when leveling. I assume some balance of Dex, STR, and Vit and ignore energy, but do I just get enough STR to use equipment or going beyond for more damage a good thing?

Oh. Max vita all the way. The purpose of the build is to shrug off any amount of punishment for uniform, fast runs. Full inventory of max damage/AR charms is good enough to boost that absurd Grief damage. With Vitality giving you 4 health points per, I just didn't find investing in strength for damage or dexterity for AR worthwhile comparatively, especially considering how much your charms can add.

I'll have to amass those charms then. that will take a little while but with all the help you gave it won't take that long. Thanks again, this barb is well underway now thanks to you.