Best berserk barb mf off hand?

Hello all, I’m building an mf barb for running Travincal, my goal is to do the runs on the highest players level for runes (ideally p7). I’m ssf offline on console, so can’t trade anything. I’ve tried ww and Frenzy, but they can’t seem to handle higher than players 3 efficiently so next option is Berserk.

For main weapon I’ve got a mid Phase Blade Grief, Helm will be arreats face/ Shako, got highlords, Dwarf Star, nagel, verdungos, war travs, Laying of Hands, gheeds, non barb torch, and will find skullders (eventually) and 2x +3 warcries on switch.

Now I just need to decide what is best for my off-hand. I’m thinking either double isted mosers, an isted storm shield, a Heater Rhyme, or alli baba.

Trying to find the best balance of mf and surviveability. What would everyone recommend?

Initially I was thinking mosers, but Rhyme is comparable and way easier to put together, but I think I have a storm shield on one of my mules, and maybe that would be best on a higher players setting?

Eventually I want to get Enigma, but runes are so hard to come by...

Thanks for the feedback!

I like playing with CBF from Rhyme. Plus it's cheap, and without teleporting, you're definitely not going to want to be frozen here and there, plus you can't really wear Raven Frost due to cold damage reducing your hork results...

Another option is Trang's Girth ( Belt) with Ali Babi offhand with Ists

I like doing Trav with dual Grief (but I am using Frenzy and Berserk just to finish off physical immunes - it's a bit slower than a pure berserker, but not by a lot and it's a less apm build ) and Fortitude (Fortitude also gives 25 FCR, so you hork faster, even with nothing else that boosts FCR you hit a 3rd breakpoint) and on swap I have two Blade Of Ali Baba with 2 Ist each (this also gives lots of Gold). This way you can quickly kill them with ~200-300MF and then hork them with ~500-600MF. This is my favorite way.

If you want to max out MF then I guess Skullder's Ire (with ptopaz - or Ist if want to give up Ist for 1 extra MF vs ptopaz ) and Phase Blade with 6 Ist in the offhand and use Berserk only . If you don't want to spend 6 Ist on that, you can use Ali-Baba with 2 Ist (Ali-Baba with 2 Ist gives 150 mf on lvl 90 vs 180 mf with Phase Blade and 6 Ist).

The really budget setup for me is dual Oath with Skullder's Ire and Harlequin Crest and 2x Blade of Ali-Baba on swap

Unless you want to do hundreds or thousands of runs you don't need Enigma that much. It will speed you up by 2-3 seconds / run, so unless you want to do LOTS of Travincal, it won't add up. Skullder's Ire gives more MF, so I think it's good enough. You will find more unique jewels. If you do 1000 runs 30 sec each, without Enigma it will take you 8.5 hours, without Enigma it will be 9 hours, so I don't see much of a benefit.

If you want to skip Raven Frost and open up a slot for an MF ring, you can use Cham in Arreat's Face or in Harlequin Crest.

Extra tip: you can use /nopickup command while farming Travincal . It's easier to target bodies with Find Item this way, because there are usually lots of items on the Ground

louner wrote: 4 years ago

I like doing Trav with dual Grief (but I am using Frenzy and Berserk just to finish off physical immunes - it's a bit slower than a pure berserker, but not by a lot and it's a less apm build ) and Fortitude (Fortitude also gives 25 FCR, so you hork faster, even with nothing else that boosts FCR you hit a 3rd breakpoint) and on swap I have two Blade Of Ali Baba with 2 Ist each (this also gives lots of Gold). This way you can quickly kill them with ~200-300MF and then hork them with ~500-600MF. This is my favorite way.

If you want to max out MF then I guess Skullder's Ire (with ptopaz - or Ist if want to give up Ist for 1 extra MF vs ptopaz ) and Phase Blade with 6 Ist in the offhand and use Berserk only . If you don't want to spend 6 Ist on that, you can use Ali-Baba with 2 Ist (Ali-Baba with 2 Ist gives 150 mf on lvl 90 vs 180 mf with Phase Blade and 6 Ist).

The really budget setup for me is dual Oath with Skullder's Ire and Harlequin Crest and 2x Blade of Ali-Baba on swap

Unless you want to do hundreds or thousands of runs you don't need Enigma that much. It will speed you up by 2-3 seconds / run, so unless you want to do LOTS of Travincal, it won't add up. Skullder's Ire gives more MF, so I think it's good enough. You will find more unique jewels. If you do 1000 runs 30 sec each, without Enigma it will take you 8.5 hours, without Enigma it will be 9 hours, so I don't see much of a benefit.

If you want to skip Raven Frost and open up a slot for an MF ring, you can use Cham in Arreat's Face or in Harlequin Crest.

Extra tip: you can use /nopickup command while farming Travincal . It's easier to target bodies with Find Item this way, because there are usually lots of items on the Ground

Just in case you weren't aware from Fortitude.. 20% Chance To Cast Level 15 Chilling = unhorkable corpses

Tried it a couple times and saw noticeable amount of corpses shattered whenever it activated. Chains of Honor, Enigma or even Skullders would be better options here IMO.

Zero187 wrote: 4 years ago

Just in case you weren't aware from Fortitude.. 20% Chance To Cast Level 15 Chilling = unhorkable corpses

Tried it a couple times and saw noticeable amount of corpses shattered whenever it activated. Chains of Honor, Enigma or even Skullders would be better options here IMO.

I tried Chains of Honor, but it's faster to kills monsters with Fortitude, so I use that and this is the option I like the most. So I guess to each its own.

louner wrote: 4 years ago

Zero187 wrote: 4 years ago

Just in case you weren't aware from Fortitude.. 20% Chance To Cast Level 15 Chilling = unhorkable corpses

Tried it a couple times and saw noticeable amount of corpses shattered whenever it activated. Chains of Honor, Enigma or even Skullders would be better options here IMO.

I tried Chains of Honor, but it's faster to kills monsters with Fortitude, so I use that and this is the option I like the most. So I guess to each its own.

How about Enigma? Teleport + Magic Find + Skills + Dmg reduction + no cold damage. That's my top choice.

Zero187 wrote: 4 years ago

louner wrote: 4 years ago

Zero187 wrote: 4 years ago

Just in case you weren't aware from Fortitude.. 20% Chance To Cast Level 15 Chilling = unhorkable corpses

Tried it a couple times and saw noticeable amount of corpses shattered whenever it activated. Chains of Honor, Enigma or even Skullders would be better options here IMO.

I tried Chains of Honor, but it's faster to kills monsters with Fortitude, so I use that and this is the option I like the most. So I guess to each its own.

How about Enigma? Teleport + Magic Find + Skills + Dmg reduction + no cold damage. That's my top choice.

I just tried a few runs with Enigma and with Fortitude. With Fortitude the average run time for 3 runs was 20 seconds (from waypoint to killing everything). With Enigma it was either two or three seconds faster or similar.

IMO it's just not worth it to get Enigma just to do Trav farming. I get it why people like to use it there, but I just don't bother.

6 Isted Phase Blade is the best offhand you can get (with a main hand Grief PB). Prior to 2.4, having an Ali Baba as an offhand weapon was slowing down my swings considerably. Not sure if they fixed this. In addition, there was a pretty extensive guide on Travincal farming and the conclusion was that speed / efficiency wise, P3 was the best setting. On a side note, Berzerk Barbarian is awful for Travincal farming in my opinion, mostly due to no life / mana leech. I'd go WW any day.

Understood, from what I understand they fixed the offhand speed thing. I tried ww, but being on console, ww doesn’t translate well, just like blizzard and to a lesser extent Teleport: you can’t “target” where to skill goes, just a direction, then it goes about half a screen
length. So ww for me is not as fast as Frenzy.

Looks like there was more discussion about armour than off hand weapons haha, I think I’ll try both Ali baba and Rhyme and just see which one works out better for me. I still am waiting on skullder’s ire to drop... come on hell Andy! How many more runs do you want from me?

Nate wrote: 4 years ago

Looks like there was more discussion about armour than off hand weapons haha, I think I’ll try both Ali baba and Rhyme and just see which one works out better for me. I still am waiting on skullder’s ire to drop... come on hell Andy! How many more runs do you want from me?

If you are non-ladder PC I can give you a socketed Skullder's Ire for free, just add me on bnet.

Nate wrote: 4 years ago

Understood, from what I understand they fixed the offhand speed thing. I tried ww, but being on console, ww doesn’t translate well, just like blizzard and to a lesser extent Teleport: you can’t “target” where to skill goes, just a direction, then it goes about half a screen
length. So ww for me is not as fast as Frenzy.

Gotcha. Sorry, I've never played Diablo on a console and have no idea what works and what doesn't Do you guys not have PCs?? I'm kidding )

louner wrote: 4 years ago

If you are non-ladder PC I can give you a socketed Skullder's Ire for free, just add me on bnet.

Pretty sure he mentioned he is playing on console a few lines up

louner wrote: 4 years ago

Zero187 wrote: 4 years ago

louner wrote: 4 years ago

I tried Chains of Honor, but it's faster to kills monsters with Fortitude, so I use that and this is the option I like the most. So I guess to each its own.

How about Enigma? Teleport + Magic Find + Skills + Dmg reduction + no cold damage. That's my top choice.

I just tried a few runs with Enigma and with Fortitude. With Fortitude the average run time for 3 runs was 20 seconds (from waypoint to killing everything). With Enigma it was either two or three seconds faster or similar.

IMO it's just not worth it to get Enigma just to do Trav farming. I get it why people like to use it there, but I just don't bother.

Thanks for the info! Those are some good comparisons. And the fact no broken corpses with Enigma means it's definitely the best choice, if you can afford. I run my barb everywhere, so it's worth it being able to Teleport Merc out of bad situations for myself.

And sorry if this got a little off topic from OP's offhand weapon question!