Barb leveling

At level 41, Obedience and Whirlwind has good clear speed.

Double Mania at 39 is good.

Not sure what's good at 21. Maybe double blood letters (you don't have to WW, you can Frenzy with them as well).

Double (once-upped) Rixot's Keen looks solid with high CB as well. (Black has more CB at lvl 35)

double Civerb's Cudgel til lvl 30,

baba leveling is always painful

Death's Disguise is a strong set for a barb in normal difficulty. All res, life leech, flat damage, cannot be frozen, massive ias and best of all: 25-75 cold damage on the weapon! But I would probably use a different second weapon. Malice is very strong. A good setup until you reach Nightmare.

Schinzilord wrote: 4 days ago

Sorry to hijack this thread, but are there guides for this type of leveling (unconstrained access to BiS at each level)? I am right now levelling my Pala, and using Zealot with Civerbs has good clear speed in Act 4 normal. Will use Strength and Honor at respective levels. Levelling guides are always focused on ladder starters.

maxroll's leveling guides list some gear options that will mostly not be available when starting ladder. But it recommends Holy Fire in normal (because this is clearly the strongest build for normal) and to switch to Blessed Hammer when Holy Fire starts falling off. So not a good guide for leveling with Zeal.

https://maxroll.gg/d2/guides/paladin-leveling

Good for bosses and unique monsters: Open wounds and lowered defense of monster, so you can hit easier.

King's Grace is a slight upgrade, but not super good.

I have decided for myself that leveling a barb in Nightmare is best with War Cry using double Spirit, Lore, Magefist and Stealth.

Currently I am playing a Barb HC ladder. I used the Death set together with the Dagger and armor of the bane set. The Dagger is quite fast and the two pieces give you 80% enhanced damage. Both of the weapons I upgraded and you can get quite far in nightmare with this setup (plus GFace).

A sleeper sword is Hexfire imo. It is still usefull until act 1 hell.

For beginning of hell I used Lightsabre and Doombringer which is still my current setup at level 81. In my stash I have an azurwrath waiting for me at level 85 and it will replace my Lightsabre. I am still using Double Swing. Don't know why but I like the playstyle...

A while back I levelled my Barb with a Fleshrender and an Aldur's Rhythm. This is also not a bad setup.

ganseng wrote: 5 days ago

thx.. use double Death's Touch for now

sad, again, to have two mules with melee weapons and four mules with sets, and nothing to choose from

Cow King set Boots for fire dmage
Cathan set any 2 pieces for fire damge
5 socket flails with 5* Tal runes or 5*perfect rubies.
Rest slots : Sigongloves and other parts of the set for swing speed.

ganseng wrote: 16 hours ago

and I'm preparing for the next snail sprint from 21 to 25. then the barb will get his Cow King's Leathers and King's Grace

what a true royalty!

At lvl 27 you can make Honor, which is much stronger than King's Grace.

Honestly, just use singer barb until L75 and/or beating Hell. Spec to a real build with Akara after. Not worth the pain of AR whiff time lost. Maxing any combat skill can take you through Normal though. 1-30 whatever, 30-75+ singer, then real barb build with one Hell respec leftover chance just in case you goof it. 100% hit rate AOE is the faster clears and it stuns to keep you relatively safe as a bonus. You only need dual Spirit swords and some resist to beat Hell with any Insight polearm on A2 merc if you don't want to guzzle pots for days.

Unless you prefer old-school style where every point is permanent and you have to follow your end game tree precisely from L1 and do some maths

SizzleZap wrote: 1 hour ago

Honestly, just use singer barb until L75 and/or beating Hell. Spec to a real build with Akara after. Not worth the pain of AR whiff time lost.

Unless you prefer old-school style where every point is permanent and you have to follow your end game tree precisely from L1 and do some maths

Barbs learn to sing at lvl 30. So how do you to lvl 30?

And AR is easy to fix with Angelic Halo + wing.

Edited with better explanation. Google for speed leveling guides as well since there probably is YouTube or Twitch steamers showing even better methods than us dinosaurs use by now!