Need Your Expertise - Best Current Options For A High Powered Barbarian Build Within My Restrictions

I've been playing barbarians going back to the original Diablo. I like the fact that they can tank so well, can solo anything when well constructed, and there is a lot of fun gear to play with. What I have increasingly grown tired of is the need to whack each and every bad guy on the screen with either your sword, or an

Axe, or a

Maul, etc. That has gotten VERY old. Its why I felt the need to start dabbling in bowazons, but they are too squishy to solo well, or farm well at high levels.

To overcome that problem with my barbs, I created

Whirlwind builds in the past. While most of the quality build guides still recommend that as a supposed top barbarian build, I have literally not seen a single barb using ww since coming back to D2 when the Resurrected - ROTW. Not one. That can't be by chance.

So, I'm about to respec my level 50 barb. I have no idea what my best options might be for a truly powerful build that does not require me to whack every enemy with a weapon. I am not interest in yelling a lot of war cries, or throwing things (unless it works like a bowazon does and mows down everything around you).

I would appreciated any thoughts on truly powerful barbarian builds that fall within what I am looking for, and can reliably solo, and farm at high levels. Any assistance appreciated. Thanks.

At lv 50, I use poison 6os weapon x 2 and

Frenzy,

Double Swing. it will be just enough to play nm and let level to 59 which you can equip Grief.

the other soso but okay is dual wield perfect blood letter, play WW. But it is not strong as poison bar.

leox wrote: 15 hours ago

At lv 50, I use poison 6os weapon x 2 and

Frenzy,

Double Swing. it will be just enough to play nm and let level to 59 which you can equip Grief.

the other soso but okay is dual wield perfect blood letter, play WW. But it is not strong as poison bar.

This works great, but the problem with Grief is that its quite darn expensive runeword for a fresh character for example as season begins.

I'm running

Travincal with my WW-Barb "Gigachad". It might not be Meta, but a lot of fun. There are WW-Barbs out there.

Just get yourself something like this and go WW

Chiqu wrote: 6 hours ago

Just get yourself something like this and go WW
botd.jpg

Let me just... hold on.. *HGNNNNGNGGNHGGHHHHH* there we go, just had to sh-t a couple of Hrs out.

Thanks Slapshot for bringing this up!
Schnorki wrote, ”You don't want to use WW anymore: WW is out”. Could you expand on that?

The reason I am asking is because I have a lvl 87 WW barb that is extremely underwhelming. I beleive he has pretty good gear, Arreats, Fortitude armor, Highlords, BOTD in

Eth CB in weapon hand and Death in

Eth CS in off-hand, he is using IK gloves,

Boots and

Belt (maybe these last three items are sub-prime?) I have also tried dual-weilding Greif in PB, it wasn’t any better than the above.

I have an act1 merc with Faith bow for

Fanaticism

I have at least one character of every class and they all work well enough, what have I done wrong with this one?

Schnorki wrote: 8 hours ago

Sounds a lot like you're limiting yourself to "just don't play barb".

You don't want to throw things: throw barb is out.
You don't want to

Shout at stuff:

War Cry is out.
You don't want to use WW anymore: WW is out.
You don't want to whack things with a weapon: literally every other real barb build is out.

There might be some gray area I guess with something silly like

Leap Attack if "whack things but jump around, too" is enough to offset your "don't want to whack things".
And in theory, there's a bunny barb in which case you simply have your merc whack things instead.

But realistically, if your primary concern is that you don't want to swing at things, you really shouldn't be focusing on the class designed almost exclusively around swinging at things.

That's (in part) why I for one keep one of every class with distinctly different builds, just to get some variety when I feel like it and not be stuck at "only have 1 class, 1 playstyle, ever only whacking things face to face".

I would be fine using

Whirlwind I've simply seen zero players using it all this time. I was really inquiring whether it was still a valid, effective choice? We have a level 87 barb usere here saying outright that it is "extremely underwhelming"

Chiqu wrote: 6 hours ago

Just get yourself something like this and go WW
botd.jpg

That looks awesome, but who is ever really going to have a

Zod rune?

Kbob2 wrote: 5 hours ago

Thanks Slapshot for bringing this up!
Schnorki wrote, ”You don't want to use WW anymore: WW is out”. Could you expand on that?

The reason I am asking is because I have a lvl 87 WW barb that is extremely underwhelming. I beleive he has pretty good gear, Arreats, Fortitude armor, Highlords, BOTD in

Eth CB in weapon hand and Death in

Eth CS in off-hand, he is using IK gloves,

Boots and

Belt (maybe these last three items are sub-prime?) I have also tried dual-weilding Greif in PB, it wasn’t any better than the above.

I have an act1 merc with Faith bow for

Fanaticism

I have at least one character of every class and they all work well enough, what have I done wrong with this one?

don't dual wield a WW barb. don't use a 1-handed weapon (the only exception is Grief + shield).
pick either the the CB, or the CS.
make sure you reach the 4 frame ias breakpoint: (with 2-handed weapons only swords can reach 4 frame attack)
for the botd CB only 15 more ias needed.
for the Death CS you need 90 ias. (a WW barb should use a CB for Death.)
generally use gface with botd, andariels with Death.

Slapshot wrote: 15 hours ago

I've been playing barbarians going back to the original Diablo. I like the fact that they can tank so well, can solo anything when well constructed, and there is a lot of fun gear to play with. What I have increasingly grown tired of is the need to whack each and every bad guy on the screen with either your sword, or an

Axe, or a

Maul, etc. That has gotten VERY old. Its why I felt the need to start dabbling in bowazons, but they are too squishy to solo well, or farm well at high levels.

To overcome that problem with my barbs, I created

Whirlwind builds in the past. While most of the quality build guides still recommend that as a supposed top barbarian build, I have literally not seen a single barb using ww since coming back to D2 when the Resurrected - ROTW. Not one. That can't be by chance.

So, I'm about to respec my level 50 barb. I have no idea what my best options might be for a truly powerful build that does not require me to whack every enemy with a weapon. I am not interest in yelling a lot of war cries, or throwing things (unless it works like a bowazon does and mows down everything around you).

I would appreciated any thoughts on truly powerful barbarian builds that fall within what I am looking for, and can reliably solo, and farm at high levels. Any assistance appreciated. Thanks.

Buy my IK-Set and Start wreck them - i also can offer 2 skillers for Barb

krathkor wrote: 3 hours ago

Kbob2 wrote: 5 hours ago

Thanks Slapshot for bringing this up!
Schnorki wrote, ”You don't want to use WW anymore: WW is out”. Could you expand on that?

The reason I am asking is because I have a lvl 87 WW barb that is extremely underwhelming. I beleive he has pretty good gear, Arreats, Fortitude armor, Highlords, BOTD in

Eth CB in weapon hand and Death in

Eth CS in off-hand, he is using IK gloves,

Boots and

Belt (maybe these last three items are sub-prime?) I have also tried dual-weilding Greif in PB, it wasn’t any better than the above.

I have an act1 merc with Faith bow for

Fanaticism

I have at least one character of every class and they all work well enough, what have I done wrong with this one?

don't dual wield a WW barb. don't use a 1-handed weapon (the only exception is Grief + shield).
pick either the the CB, or the CS.
make sure you reach the 4 frame ias breakpoint: (with 2-handed weapons only swords can reach 4 frame attack)
for the botd CB only 15 more ias needed.
for the Death CS you need 90 ias. (a WW barb should use a CB for Death.)
generally use gface with botd, andariels with Death.

Great, thanks for the tip! I was not aware of only using one weapon for WW

im a big WW barb fan. I usually use ebotd and edeath in berserker axes, and it absolutely slaps.
I like

Frenzy too, but WW will always be my favorite. It's so sturdy and strong up to like p3

Idea: since there is a Riftsin build, based on proccing

Frozen Orb from Rift with

Dragon Talon, how about making a Riftbarb, using

Frenzy? And maybe an off-hand Doom? Sure, it's not a meta build, but given your restrictions, there aren't a lot of options left.

I found WW to be boring. If I want to be that lazy in game,

Strafe/multi amazon does it better. She's a better lawnmower than barb.

Frenzy is fun build..running at high speed is unique to barb. You can hold right click and the skill will auto target. I do have WW still, but I use it to reposition. Also handy for dealing with high damage packs. You can damage and kite away.

I'm using Grief plus

Azurewrath for weapons. I also put 8 hard points into

Increased Stamina so

Frenzy lasts 9.2 seconds instead of 6.4 (1 hard point only) seconds. I'm mostly playing p1-3 so a lot of time traveling between packs.