Barbarian gear progression

I want to try a

Frenzy barbarian playthrough. I know this game does not favor melee builds, and don't take me wrong, i know with the right gear melee builds can get crazy endgame. BUT....
Can someone viably play the game without boosting or respecing into a caster level until endgame?

So far i completed normal. I went for full sigon's with cathan's ring for life leech and angelic combo for attk rating. For weapons

Tal

Tal

Tal

Flail and Malice. I watch mrllamasc if you can't tell. It started strong but as acts progressed now at level 27 damage is pathetic. Thinking of upgrading to double Honor for now and then maybe Unbending Will? Just need to know how to gear this build early and mid game. There is alot of content out there for endgame gear.

If you have any suggestions please share. Especially about weapons. All the other slots i know more or less what to with, but i won't turn down any advice.

Thanks in advance!

I've been using this guide for a

Frenzy Barb. Aside from the Grief sword, all the other gear is quite easily obtainable.

Collect those Rals and Perfect Amethysts and you should able to trade for almost everything you need.

And who says this game doesn't favour melee builds?

Dual Black is enough to finish normal.

Fleshrender +

Aldur's Rhythm are able to let you finish nighmare.
Once you reach level 59, Grief is bis.

The above posts are great, assuming you have and want to gather, trade, build Grief, etc.

My response here is assuming you are just playing through the game, finding things yourself, fairly poor, etc. I do this all the time because I love the playthrough experience, and while melee isn't a breeze like casters, it's still fun!

Sigon's Complete Steel is great when you're just starting out, but once you get closer to Nightmare, the full set bonus falls off quickly.

Sigon's Shelter in particular scales poorly and is easily outclassed by many other normal and nightmare level options. However!

Sigon's Gage +

Sigon's Visor are absolutely amazing together, giving you high +Attack Rating per level, 30% attack speed, 10% life steal, and 10 Str, and if you so desire, you can even socket the

Helm to get some resists or whatever else in there. That pair of armor pieces can easily go with you all the way to Hell difficulty.

Sigon's Sabot and/or

Sigon's Wrap are fine pieces, and still give the +30% attack speed and 10% life steal when paired with the gloves, but they can be replaced with better items as you play though the game.

So, that means at least you'll be replacing

Sigon's Shelter quickly, then likely

Sigon's Sabot and

Sigon's Wrap. I won't give specific sugestions for

Belt and

Boots, since those are very much 'use what you find' and there's a lot of variety.

Some great contenders for the chest -

Smoke is an amazing leveling runeword, bringing a massive 50 all resist and 20% faster hit recovery. Dropping a

Lum rune unfortunately requires Hell countess, but you can cube up to it from Nightmare Countess if needed. It can also be dropped by a variety of Nightmare level monsters, bosses, and superuniques, with Nightmare

Andariel having 1/1305 odds on p1. Those odds aren't great, but if you have to farm in order to progress your character, she can drop a variety of useful things that can make the farm better.

Twitchthroe is a great DPS armor with +stats, socketable with resistances.

Goldskin has 35 all resist, which is quite nice, and is socketable with more resistances if desired. Its +100% gold find can help you gamble more too

Skin of the Vipermagi, while intended for casters, still has good resistances, socketable with more, and +skills does benefit shouts on a barb.


For weapons -

Honor is great and easily remake-able as you find useful bases.

Black is a good boss killer, but worse than Honor against trash and more expensive with an

Io rune (1/3 of the

Lum for Smoke). I'd probably make one and either use it as offhand or in stash for bosses on a

Frenzy Barb.

Unbending Will is superb, but on a playthough, it can be hard to get both a

Fal and an

Io rune.

Bloodletter is actually quite good early nightmare, as the damage is comparable with Honor when you factor the +2-4 to mastery, which grants damage, AR, and Crit.

Headstriker is usually reserved for a merc, but is also good on a leveling barb, again comparable with Honor.

Crainte Vomir is an amazing sword and I'd say better than Honor, but at required level 42 can't compete with Unbending Will if you have the ability to make it.

Lawbringer is a good situational offhand. The

Decrepify proc can help both with survivability and damage, the

Sanctuary Aura shreds undead, rest in Peace prevents horking, but also blocks Shaman/Unravelers from rezzing enemies and denies Nilithak's

Corpse Explosion and it's not very expensive. The physical damage is poor though. I'd have it on swap or in stash for specific situations.

If you're not using swords,

Butcher's Pupil is really good, but again can't complete with Unbending Will for the level requirement.

Upping a

Bloodrise is comparable with Honor with the +50% Damage To Undead, 25% Chance Of Open Wounds, 10% Increased Attack Speed, 5% Life Stolen Per Hit, and 50% bonus to Attack Rating factored in.



Other tips -

Wearing

Angelic Halo and

Angelic Wings gives massive attack rating once more. Between it and the Sigon's Gloves +

Helm, you shouldn't have attack rating problems at all. This frees you up for using a Might Mercenary instead of

Blessed Aim. Alternatively, if you want to rely on Angelic's for Attack rating, you can swap

Sigon's Visor for one of the new resistance runewords. Hearth in particular is beautiful as it grants Cannot Be Frozen in addition to nice res and absorb. Using Hearth can also help you if you don't have

Raven Frost yet or want to use a dual leech ring or something. Having the head slot free can also let you use

Guillaume's Face, which is a fantastic damage head.

always put faster weapon as primary (glove side)

Frenzy attack speed is determined by primary only

Only one thing to add, a major component of doing damage is actually hitting. Angelics, three piece sigons, and

Raven Frost are good sources of attack rating, but another good place to get it is from your charms.

You probably know this already, but your character level is a major factor in the chance to hit calculation. It slows down your playthrough, but it's worth taking extra time to level and farm to keep your (character level and therefore) chance to hit high.

There are many items that drop in Normal and NM that you can use, as many people have already mentioned. You do need to farm at each stage to get some better items though with a

Frenzy Barb.

I would include

String of Ears,

Arreat's Face. As I also like to play through the game I was even using

Bloodfist until I reached Hell.

Consider a reasonable amount of life leech, this is the only way to survive as a

Frenzy Barb IMO.

Later on the runeword Treachery is easy enough to build and works in Hell.

Doing enough DPS is the main problem for the Barb, getting the right weapons if the most difficult part but there are many Uniques and even Rares that are usable.
Other weapons I don't think have been mentioned are

Ginther's Rift,

Coldsteel Eye,

Butcher's Pupil. I love the General Tan Do Li Ga for lower levels

I think Lawbringer is probably the best you can aim for without grinding end game items. It helps out so so many aspects of the game.

Thank you all for your answers so far! If you can think of other notable unique single handed weapons for the window between 27-41, keep em coming.

Also are ladder only runewords like Hustle and Cure available now for non-ladder?

Coldsteel Eye and

Bloodletter both very good

Frenzy weapons

ladder only RWs-
runewords/#filter=Ladder%20only

krathkor wrote: 10 months ago

Coldsteel Eye and

Bloodletter both very good

Frenzy weapons

ladder only RWs-
runewords/#filter=Ladder%20only

so the answer is no? Can't be crafted in non-ladder? Why are you filtering them?

Severon wrote: 10 months ago

Also are ladder only runewords like Hustle and Cure available now for non-ladder?

REMOVED because I'm wrong

You're sure that these are not transferred from ladder @winterkill ?

In Theory these runewords should NOT be craftable in NL as of now.

Necrarch wrote: 10 months ago

You're sure that these are not transferred from ladder @winterkill ?

In Theory these runewords should NOT be craftable in NL as of now.

Correct, I have never even created a ladder character on D2R.

But I'll go see if I can make one right now, just to check.

EDIT: Well, now, what a situation. The Hustle I hustled to make is hustling off to

Charsi. It didn't work on online non-ladder. However, I then hopped into my single player and made one. Worked fine. So..... I guess I'm just wrong! The ones I *thought* I made on non-ladder online.... must've been bought and I just don't remember?

Either way, Necrarch is right. Apparently we can't make the 2.6 RWs on online non-ladder atm.

Yes, they do work online ladder and offline single player, but NOT online non ladder.

What a Hustle hassle !

Maaan. Lawbringer became so OP with that >600% damage to undead. It tears through them in hell like butter, especially those physical immunes.