Preferred offhand sword for WW Barb (Trav horker exclusive)

Ok so I'm almost done building my Trav horker for single player. Grief main hand. I will NOT be making Breath of the Dying (which is my offhand for online barb) since I'd rather use my Zod elsewhere.

There seems to be a plethora of options, but I want to see what y'all use. The caveat is I don't want any cold damage on the weapon (shattered corpses bad). My merc will be using The Reaper's Toll (cold damage, I know, but this is a minimal issue), Kira's Guardian, and Guardian Angel.

I pondered Dreadfang, but the Amplify Damage proc is useless if merc is using Decrepify. Mana leech is somewhat a concern, but not necessarily needed, as I will likely use a dual leech ring.

Oath, Unbending Will, or an upped Headstriker are what I am seeing as decent options. Anyone have any other ideas that I might like better? Note that high rune access is slim right now, but I can always hold off to find more.

The rest of my gear is pretty standard. Grief, Arreat's Face (or Guillaume's Face), Highlord's Wrath, Verdungo's Hearty Cord, Gore Rider, Laying of Hands, Enigma (or Duress, Treachery, Hustle), Dual Leech ring, SoJ (or something else not yet decided). No Raven Frost (might Cham the helmet or get CBF elsewhere if I want it).

Again, this barb will be used for horking Travincal about 99% of the time. Also, I'd prefer not using dual Grief, as I'd like to use my next Lo elsewhere. Thanks!

Death in an ethereal Colossus Sword ?
Will grant you mana leech.

justinman114 wrote: 2 months ago

Ok so I'm almost done building my Trav horker for single player. Grief main hand. I will NOT be making Breath of the Dying (which is my offhand for online barb) since I'd rather use my Zod elsewhere.

There seems to be a plethora of options, but I want to see what y'all use. The caveat is I don't want any cold damage on the weapon (shattered corpses bad). My merc will be using The Reaper's Toll (cold damage, I know, but this is a minimal issue), Kira's Guardian, and Guardian Angel.

I pondered Dreadfang, but the Amplify Damage proc is useless if merc is using Decrepify. Mana leech is somewhat a concern, but not necessarily needed, as I will likely use a dual leech ring.

Oath, Unbending Will, or an upped Headstriker are what I am seeing as decent options. Anyone have any other ideas that I might like better? Note that high rune access is slim right now, but I can always hold off to find more.

The rest of my gear is pretty standard. Grief, Arreat's Face (or Guillaume's Face), Highlord's Wrath, Verdungo's Hearty Cord, Gore Rider, Laying of Hands, Enigma (or Duress, Treachery, Hustle), Dual Leech ring, SoJ (or something else not yet decided). No Raven Frost (might Cham the helmet or get CBF elsewhere if I want it).

Again, this barb will be used for horking Travincal about 99% of the time. Also, I'd prefer not using dual Grief, as I'd like to use my next Lo elsewhere. Thanks!

Offline I'd probably go with Unbending Will, for the simple reason that it's so cheap.

Would you go for an ethereal base for Oath or do you want to use those charges?

Are you using any guide? I wanted to build a horker, but found the builds a bit weird. Like, there are builds for Gold finding, horking, Trav farming, I got kinda lost (I never play with barb). Any recommendations?

Lawbringer would be an option maby, it has 7% Life leech lvl 1 Decrepify, only 3 mid tier runes.

You can make it in Phase Blade or Cryptic Sword

It's indecently expensive, but my WW Barb likes his Grief + Last Wish combo. LW just offers so many useful offensive and defensive stats

DrunkAkuma wrote: 2 months ago

Lawbringer would be an option maby

Not really for two reasons :
1/ There are demons so Sanctuary wont proc
2/ You don't want them to rest in Peace because you can't hork them

Tornado_OLO wrote: 2 months ago

Death in an ethereal Colossus Sword ?
Will grant you mana leech.

You know, I thought Death had cold damage on it, but it looks like it's just the Glacial Spike proc chance, which WW won't affect, so maybe this is the way. I assume it won't proc if I smash things with Berserk, but idk if that alternates weapons. I don't have a spare Vex right now, however.

vued wrote: 2 months ago

Would you go for an ethereal base for Oath or do you want to use those charges?

Don't care about the charges, not sure if I have a suitable ethereal base yet though.

mikelessar wrote: 2 months ago

It's indecently expensive, but my WW Barb likes his Grief + Last Wish combo. LW just offers so many useful offensive and defensive stats

I would love this, but hell will freeze over before I get all those runes on single player. 1 Jah so far!

Baudolino wrote: 2 months ago

Are you using any guide? I wanted to build a horker, but found the builds a bit weird. Like, there are builds for Gold finding, horking, Trav farming, I got kinda lost (I never play with barb). Any recommendations?

I basically use all the gear I listed on my online horker, but eBotD for my offhand, and for swap, two double- Ist-ed Ali-Babas for hork MF. I don't care about Gold too much, but he gets a lot anyways. For skills, just WW, BO, BC, Sword Mastery, the 4 one point mastery wonders, max Find Potion, and the rest in Find Item.

Tornado_OLO wrote: 2 months ago

DrunkAkuma wrote: 2 months ago

Lawbringer would be an option maby

Not really for two reasons :
1/ There are demons so Sanctuary wont proc
2/ You don't want them to rest in Peace because you can't hork them

WHAT, I did not Know that, I had a Lawbringer on my Act 5 Mercenarys Off hand when playing a WW Barbarina, toguh I did most of the killings, so horked alot, but I never noticed that

Reaper's Toll cold damage will make you a sad horker. I use Dreadfang off-hand (Grief MH) and highly recommend that setup, then find an alternative merc weapon

Baltar wrote: 2 months ago

Reaper's Toll cold damage will make you a sad horker. I use Dreadfang off-hand (Grief MH) and highly recommend that setup, then find an alternative merc weapon

It's not a problem, I've been using Reaper's on my online hork merc for ages and I lose maybe 1 corpse every 2 runs on average. Well worth the mass Decrepify proc! The problem I have with Dreadfang is that WW does not proc things, so I have to switch to something else to proc instead of just spinning to win.

Lawbringer makes sense if you're planning to fight against undeads like in Chaos Sanctuary.
Orherwise it's not that relevant.

Your merc will proc amplify with Dreadfang.

Tornado_OLO wrote: 2 months ago

Lawbringer makes sense if you're planning to fight against undeads like in Chaos Sanctuary.
Orherwise it's not that relevant.

Your merc will proc amplify with Dreadfang.

Hmm, I hadn't considered an a5 merc, I never mess with them and they are still foreign to me! Does he survive hydras? I basically have to use Guardian Angel and Kira's Guardian to keep a2 merc alive.

justinman114 wrote: 1 month ago

Hmm, I hadn't considered an a5 merc

Sorry, I tied a knot in my brain.

Yes, A5 merc is way more tankier than A2. Anyway, don't expect him to stay alive while standing in hydras without hitting.

if you want to try something different, put on a Guardian Angel, perhaps with a Vex, instead of Enigma, and a good old Silence as offhand, btw my a5 dual vield barb merch with Grief, Last Wish, Chains of Honor and Crown of Thieves rarely dies doing trav runs.

justinman114 wrote: 2 months ago

Ok so I'm almost done building my Trav horker for single player. Grief main hand. I will NOT be making Breath of the Dying (which is my offhand for online barb) since I'd rather use my Zod elsewhere.

There seems to be a plethora of options, but I want to see what y'all use. The caveat is I don't want any cold damage on the weapon (shattered corpses bad). My merc will be using The Reaper's Toll (cold damage, I know, but this is a minimal issue), Kira's Guardian, and Guardian Angel.

I pondered Dreadfang, but the Amplify Damage proc is useless if merc is using Decrepify. Mana leech is somewhat a concern, but not necessarily needed, as I will likely use a dual leech ring.

Oath, Unbending Will, or an upped Headstriker are what I am seeing as decent options. Anyone have any other ideas that I might like better? Note that high rune access is slim right now, but I can always hold off to find more.

The rest of my gear is pretty standard. Grief, Arreat's Face (or Guillaume's Face), Highlord's Wrath, Verdungo's Hearty Cord, Gore Rider, Laying of Hands, Enigma (or Duress, Treachery, Hustle), Dual Leech ring, SoJ (or something else not yet decided). No Raven Frost (might Cham the helmet or get CBF elsewhere if I want it).

Again, this barb will be used for horking Travincal about 99% of the time. Also, I'd prefer not using dual Grief, as I'd like to use my next Lo elsewhere. Thanks!

Rune Master
5 Ist or 5 Lem depending on your swap.

Bizington wrote: 1 month ago

justinman114 wrote: 2 months ago

Ok so I'm almost done building my Trav horker for single player. Grief main hand. I will NOT be making Breath of the Dying (which is my offhand for online barb) since I'd rather use my Zod elsewhere.

There seems to be a plethora of options, but I want to see what y'all use. The caveat is I don't want any cold damage on the weapon (shattered corpses bad). My merc will be using The Reaper's Toll (cold damage, I know, but this is a minimal issue), Kira's Guardian, and Guardian Angel.

I pondered Dreadfang, but the Amplify Damage proc is useless if merc is using Decrepify. Mana leech is somewhat a concern, but not necessarily needed, as I will likely use a dual leech ring.

Oath, Unbending Will, or an upped Headstriker are what I am seeing as decent options. Anyone have any other ideas that I might like better? Note that high rune access is slim right now, but I can always hold off to find more.

The rest of my gear is pretty standard. Grief, Arreat's Face (or Guillaume's Face), Highlord's Wrath, Verdungo's Hearty Cord, Gore Rider, Laying of Hands, Enigma (or Duress, Treachery, Hustle), Dual Leech ring, SoJ (or something else not yet decided). No Raven Frost (might Cham the helmet or get CBF elsewhere if I want it).

Again, this barb will be used for horking Travincal about 99% of the time. Also, I'd prefer not using dual Grief, as I'd like to use my next Lo elsewhere. Thanks!

Rune Master
5 Ist or 5 Lem depending on your swap.

Swap gonna just be dual isted ali-babas