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2

Description

Are you tired of spinning and not really winning? Is zooming around the screen too fast getting old? Bored of singing enemies to Death? How about not throwing those daggers fast enough to kill monsters or losing your DEF entirely every time you attack?

Well then this is the Barbarian Guide for you!

(*Note: the above is a parody of bad infomercials and is not to be taken seriously)

In this guide I'll be going over a build that is a personal favorite of mine, but one that not many play - The MF
Concentrate
Barbarian.
(by LuckyAce)

Now you might be thinking, "What, you can MF on a
Concentrate
Barb?"
and the answer to that is: Yes, you can!

First, let's get the Pros and Cons out the way:
Pros
- High Life
- High Defense
- Gains more Defense with every attack
- Rarely Dies
- High Resists
- Makes use of a Shield
- Over 60% Chance to Block (CTB)
- Over 60% IAS (with end-game gear)
Cons
- Single-Target Attacker
- Kills at the same speed as a PitZerker
- Killing Monsters takes a bit longer in Players 5-8

Introduction

As described in game,
Concentrate
is an attack that cannot be interrupted. This means while using this skill, your Barbarian has a greatly reduced chance of simply not attacking. It also improves your AR (Attack Rating) and Defense with each successful swing. Because of the defensive nature of this skill, it is best used with a shield that has FBR (Faster Block Rate), FHR (Faster Hit Recovery) and increased CTB (Chance to Block). These types of Shields are also known as 10/30/20s. When using
Concentrate
, your Barbarian will swing with his left hand weapon only. This means equipping a second weapon to his off-hand slot will have no affect on the damage of
Concentrate
.

[1] Gear, Stats & Skills

Next, let's get into the gear you need for this build. It'll be split into 2 sections, budget friendly, and end-game gear:
Budget Gear
Weapon:
Swordguard
socketed with a
Shael
, Unbending Will in a Superior
Colossus Blade
, or Honor made in a Superior
Zweihander


Alternative Budget Weapons:

Lightsabre
(suggested by @Th3ory)
Crescent Moon, Oath (suggested by @xSD)

Shield: Rhyme, in a
Scutum
or
Hyperion
or 10/30/20 Shield with All Res

Off-hand:
Gull
,
Heart Carver

Head:
Immortal King's Will
, socketed with 2
Perfect Topaz
or a 3 socketed Barb Skiller
Helm
with +Life, +
Battle Orders
,
Shout
,
Find Item
, with 3
Perfect Topaz


Gloves:
Chance Guards
,
Bloodfist


Body: Wealth, in any Normal or Exceptional armor,
Skullder's Ire


Belt
:
Goldwrap
(upgrade to a
Battle Belt
later for an extra potion slot)

Boots
:
Immortal King's Pillar
(adds an extra 25% MF when paired with any other IK set piece)

Amulet:
Angelic Wings


Rings:
Angelic Halo
,
Nagelring
, or rare ring with: Life/Mana Steal, AR, Life, Strength and MF

Charms: Small charms with life, Res, MF, FHR. Grand Charms with +Combat Skills, +Warcries, +Life / +AR +Min/Max damage
Budget Mercenary Gear
For this build you'll be exclusively using the Act 2 Desert Merc with Might Aura. Avoid using the
Holy Freeze
Merc as the cold damage can mess with your ability to hork corpses using
Find Item
.

Weapon: Insight in a
Partizan


Head:
Rockstopper
or
Crown of Thieves


Body:
Duriel's Shell

End-Game Gear
Weapon: Grief, in a
Phase Blade


Shield: Rhyme, in a
Hyperion
or
Monarch


Off-hand:
Blade Of Ali Baba
(2x) socketed with 2
Ist
each,
Heart Carver
/
Blade Of Ali Baba
socketed with 2
Ist

Head:
Harlequin Crest
(
Shako
), socketed with an
Ist


Gloves:
Laying of Hands
or perfect
Chance Guards


Body: Enigma, made in a Superior
Archon Plate


Belt
: Upgraded
Goldwrap


Boots
: War Travelers (45-50% MF)

Amulet:
Blood Amulet
with +1/+2 to Barb Skills, Life, Life Steal, IAS/FHR, +15-20 All Res, +10-20 MF.

Rings: Perfect
Dwarf Star
,
Blood Ring
with Life/Mana Steal, AR, Life, Strength, IAS, All Res and MF

Charms: 35-40%
Gheed's Fortune
, Small charms with life, res, MF, FHR. Grand Charms with +Combat Skills, +Warcries, Life / +AR +Min/Max damage.
|
Annihilus
, Barbarian Torch|


*Note: I strongly recommend using Enigma for this build, while pricey, it offers exactly everything your Barb needs to really excel at MFing. I also advise against using Fortitude. While it's a great runeword in it's own right, the biggest draw back on it for this build in particular is its chance to cast
Chilling Armor
. Since you'll be up close in monsters faces, having them frozen and then shatter impacts the chances of you horking items from them. This goes for regular and unique monsters.
End-Game Mercenary Gear
Weapon: Ethereal
The Reaper's Toll
, or Pride

Head:
Harlequin Crest
(
Shako
),
Crown of Ages
, or Ethereal
Andariel's Visage


Body: Ethereal Fortitude, made in an
Archon Plate
,
Boneweave
or
Balrog Skin
(Personal fav)

*This build can also double as gold find Barb. But if you want to stick to strictly MF, use a
Gull
and forgo the
Blade
of Ali Babas
. I prefer to have a mixture of both MF and GF. With end-game gear, you should sit around 350-690ish MF depending on your gear choices.

Diving into Stat Point distribution, Skill Point distribution and Early Leveling:
Stat Point Distribution
- Strength: Enough to wear your highest requirement piece of gear. (With the End-Game set up, this should total around 95-100)
- Dexterity: Around 150-155. This is to make sure you have at least 60%+ CTB with end game gear.
- Vitality: All left over points go here.
- Energy: No points here. Barbs get all of their Life/Mana from
Battle Orders
.

*An example of what your stat points may look like at Lvl. 94 (this is without
Battle Command
,
Battle Orders
or
Shout
being casted):

Image

*End-Game Stats with
Battle Command
,
Battle Orders
and
Shout
casted:

Image

Skill Point Distribution
- Warcries: 1 Pt to
Howl
, 20 Pts to
Shout
, 20 pts to
Battle Orders
, 1 Pt to
Battle Command

1 Pt to
Find Potion
, 5-7 Pts to
Find Item
(This is to increase the chances of horking items from corpses. Ideally you want anywhere from 52-55%. You can also make use of
Heart Carver
to up the % without adding in too many points)


- Combat Masteries: 20 Pts to
Blade Mastery
(formerly Sword Mastery)
, 1 Pt to
Iron Skin
, 1 Pt to
Natural Resistance
, 1 Pt to
Increased Stamina
, 1 Pt into
Increased Speed
.

- Combat Skills: 1 Pt to
Bash
, 1 Pt to
Stun
, 20 Pts to
Concentrate
, 1 Pt to
Berserk
(this is to help with any Physical Immune monsters you may run into in NM and Hell. It also provides
Concentrate
with magic damage each level)
, 1 Pt into
Leap


*Extra Points: Depending on your Barbs needs, you have a few options to place your extra skill points into:

-
Iron Skin
:
Great for an extra boost to defense, especially if you plan on playing this build in Players 5-8. An extra 3-4 points is good here.

-
Bash
:
Gives
Concentrate
a little more raw damage. 3-4 points is also good here.

-
Natural Resistance
:
If your resists are a bit lacking in Hell, adding 3 points into this skill should fix things.

Early Leveling Guide
Because of the Nature of
Concentrate
as a skill, I don't recommend starting out as this type of Barbarian. It's very difficult to level with as it's a Single-Target Attacker that makes use of Shields. Because of this, I suggest playing a simple
Frenzy
Barb until you're able to acquire a lot of the gear you need, through finding it yourself, or trading. So for this, just follow any well known budget
Frenzy
guide out there. Once you have everything to do a Budget version of this build, I recommend respecing anywhere from Lvl 75-80.

[2] Gameplay Tips

Below are some helpful tips I've come up with over the years of playing this build:
Tips
- Make use of
Leap
(especially if you don't have Enigma for
Teleport
)
. Use
Leap
to push unique monsters away from their minions to target them better. This is done by clicking closer to where your Barbarian is standing. This will cause him to preform what I like to call "baby leaps". If this is done in succession, monsters will be continuously knocked back and will spread out.

*An example of "baby leaping": - Use
Teleport
to reposition yourself and get your Merc to safety if he's losing life too rapidly.
If you have
Teleport
from Enigma, doing this is especially useful against The Council. The most important thing for your Merc in this situation is to prevent the hydras from mass-targeting him. Each time you
Teleport
, he will reappear next your barb.

- Know your Barbs limits and when to pull back in combat. Despite the high survivability of the MF
Concentrate
Barb, it is always best to know when to pull back from a situation, lest it result in Death. For example, when approaching unique monsters with
Fanaticism
, Extra Fast and
Amplify Damage
, its better to solo out the unique monster itself rather than take them all head-on. Doing so could result in a bad situation very quickly.

[3] Best Farming Areas [2.4]

Here's a list of the best places and monsters to farm with this build:
Travincal
This build was practically made to constantly run
Travincal
. The council will go down quickly in Players 1-4 and many good items can be horked from them, including HRs.
Dwarf Star
shines here, as with it the fire from the hydras practically heals you.

*An example of drops from a Trav run, Players 1, before horking:
Image
The Swampy Pit
Joining the lvl 85 area roster in 2.4 is the Swampy Pit. While considered dangerous for some other MF builds, the MF
Concentrate
Barb has no trouble at all here. The abundance of Souls, Dolls, Zombies and Bats makes it the perfect place to farm for uniques and HRs.
Shenk the Overseer
&
Eldritch the Rectifier
A favorite spot among many MF builds, Shrenk and Eldritch are fairly easy to kill and can be done so quickly with this build for the chance at good drops. I recommend baby leaping at Shenk to push his minions away to better take him down quickly.
Rakanishu
&
Tristram
Raka is actually quite a good unique monster to farm. Not only is he easy to find, but he'll often drop unique or set items. Plus, taking the portal to
Tristram
is never a bad idea. You can find a lot of good items from horking the corpses of the unique monsters that spawn in there, as well as HRs.
The Pit
A great and easy area for to farm for uniques, set items and base items for runewords. The monsters here, especially the
Fallen
, have a higher chance of dropping socketed and ethereal items.
The
Arreat Plateau
This area is best farmed in players 3-5. It has a decent amount of monster density, and plenty of elite monster packs to hork. It also contains the new Lvl. 85 area "The
Pit of Acheron
" as an optional farming area.

[3.1] Other Farming Areas (Suggested by D2io members)
Nihlathak
/
Nihlathak's Temple
(Suggested by @xSD)
xSD wrote: 1 year ago
Really cannot leave out
Nihlathak
as a fantastic place for a Conc barb to farm, especially a budget/MF one now with the Tomb Vipers fix.

Nihl is one of the easiest bosses for Conc barbs as you can WW/
Leap
through all of halls,
Leap Attack
to him,
Howl
, and then just Conc him to Death. It's how I tend to ladder start if I really want to focus on pushing a less played class.

[4] Closing Thoughts

While those who MF with a Barbarian often choose the PitZerker as their go-to, I feel the MF
Concentrate
Barbarian deserves some spotlight as an alternative (and safer) build to farm with. This is a build I have been personally playing through my D2 play history of nearly 20 years, and it has only gotten better with time. Though it can't kill monsters as fast on Players 5-8 it, I still feel it can hold its own to a PitZerker. I have not seen many PvM
Concentrate
build guides, especially ones centering around MF, so I suppose you could say this is an "original build" of sorts.

I also want to thank @Th3ory for encouraging me to make this guide and share it with everyone here. I was hesitant at first given that Barbarian is one of the least played classes in D2R, and more hesitant since it revolves around a skill most barb players either use for PvP or BvB.

I hope to all the Barb players who read this guide or those looking to try out a niche build in general, you'll give this build a chance either on NL or for Ladder Season 1.

- LuckyAce
Description by LuckyAce
5

Can be used to make Runewords:

7
Are you tired of spinning and not really winning? Is zooming around the screen too fast getting old? Bored of singing enemies to Death? How about not throwing those daggers fast enough to kill monsters or losing your DEF entirely every time you attack?

Well then this is the Barbarian Guide for you!

(*Note: the above is a parody of bad infomercials and is not to be taken seriously)

In this guide I'll be going over a build that is a personal favorite of mine, but one that not many play - The MF
Concentrate
Barbarian.
(by LuckyAce)

Now you might be thinking, "What, you can MF on a
Concentrate
Barb?"
and the answer to that is: Yes, you can!

First, let's get the Pros and Cons out the way:
Pros
- High Life
- High Defense
- Gains more Defense with every attack
- Rarely Dies
- High Resists
- Makes use of a Shield
- Over 60% Chance to Block (CTB)
- Over 60% IAS (with end-game gear)
Cons
- Single-Target Attacker
- Kills at the same speed as a PitZerker
- Killing Monsters takes a bit longer in Players 5-8

Introduction

As described in game,
Concentrate
is an attack that cannot be interrupted. This means while using this skill, your Barbarian has a greatly reduced chance of simply not attacking. It also improves your AR (Attack Rating) and Defense with each successful swing. Because of the defensive nature of this skill, it is best used with a shield that has FBR (Faster Block Rate), FHR (Faster Hit Recovery) and increased CTB (Chance to Block). These types of Shields are also known as 10/30/20s. When using
Concentrate
, your Barbarian will swing with his left hand weapon only. This means equipping a second weapon to his off-hand slot will have no affect on the damage of
Concentrate
.

[1] Gear, Stats & Skills

Next, let's get into the gear you need for this build. It'll be split into 2 sections, budget friendly, and end-game gear:
Budget Gear
Weapon:
Swordguard
socketed with a
Shael
, Unbending Will in a Superior
Colossus Blade
, or Honor made in a Superior
Zweihander


Alternative Budget Weapons:

Lightsabre
(suggested by @Th3ory)
Crescent Moon, Oath (suggested by @xSD)

Shield: Rhyme, in a
Scutum
or
Hyperion
or 10/30/20 Shield with All Res

Off-hand:
Gull
,
Heart Carver

Head:
Immortal King's Will
, socketed with 2
Perfect Topaz
or a 3 socketed Barb Skiller
Helm
with +Life, +
Battle Orders
,
Shout
,
Find Item
, with 3
Perfect Topaz


Gloves:
Chance Guards
,
Bloodfist


Body: Wealth, in any Normal or Exceptional armor,
Skullder's Ire


Belt
:
Goldwrap
(upgrade to a
Battle Belt
later for an extra potion slot)

Boots
:
Immortal King's Pillar
(adds an extra 25% MF when paired with any other IK set piece)

Amulet:
Angelic Wings


Rings:
Angelic Halo
,
Nagelring
, or rare ring with: Life/Mana Steal, AR, Life, Strength and MF

Charms: Small charms with life, Res, MF, FHR. Grand Charms with +Combat Skills, +Warcries, +Life / +AR +Min/Max damage
Budget Mercenary Gear
For this build you'll be exclusively using the Act 2 Desert Merc with Might Aura. Avoid using the
Holy Freeze
Merc as the cold damage can mess with your ability to hork corpses using
Find Item
.

Weapon: Insight in a
Partizan


Head:
Rockstopper
or
Crown of Thieves


Body:
Duriel's Shell

End-Game Gear
Weapon: Grief, in a
Phase Blade


Shield: Rhyme, in a
Hyperion
or
Monarch


Off-hand:
Blade Of Ali Baba
(2x) socketed with 2
Ist
each,
Heart Carver
/
Blade Of Ali Baba
socketed with 2
Ist

Head:
Harlequin Crest
(
Shako
), socketed with an
Ist


Gloves:
Laying of Hands
or perfect
Chance Guards


Body: Enigma, made in a Superior
Archon Plate


Belt
: Upgraded
Goldwrap


Boots
: War Travelers (45-50% MF)

Amulet:
Blood Amulet
with +1/+2 to Barb Skills, Life, Life Steal, IAS/FHR, +15-20 All Res, +10-20 MF.

Rings: Perfect
Dwarf Star
,
Blood Ring
with Life/Mana Steal, AR, Life, Strength, IAS, All Res and MF

Charms: 35-40%
Gheed's Fortune
, Small charms with life, res, MF, FHR. Grand Charms with +Combat Skills, +Warcries, Life / +AR +Min/Max damage.
|
Annihilus
, Barbarian Torch|


*Note: I strongly recommend using Enigma for this build, while pricey, it offers exactly everything your Barb needs to really excel at MFing. I also advise against using Fortitude. While it's a great runeword in it's own right, the biggest draw back on it for this build in particular is its chance to cast
Chilling Armor
. Since you'll be up close in monsters faces, having them frozen and then shatter impacts the chances of you horking items from them. This goes for regular and unique monsters.
End-Game Mercenary Gear
Weapon: Ethereal
The Reaper's Toll
, or Pride

Head:
Harlequin Crest
(
Shako
),
Crown of Ages
, or Ethereal
Andariel's Visage


Body: Ethereal Fortitude, made in an
Archon Plate
,
Boneweave
or
Balrog Skin
(Personal fav)

*This build can also double as gold find Barb. But if you want to stick to strictly MF, use a
Gull
and forgo the
Blade
of Ali Babas
. I prefer to have a mixture of both MF and GF. With end-game gear, you should sit around 350-690ish MF depending on your gear choices.

Diving into Stat Point distribution, Skill Point distribution and Early Leveling:
Stat Point Distribution
- Strength: Enough to wear your highest requirement piece of gear. (With the End-Game set up, this should total around 95-100)
- Dexterity: Around 150-155. This is to make sure you have at least 60%+ CTB with end game gear.
- Vitality: All left over points go here.
- Energy: No points here. Barbs get all of their Life/Mana from
Battle Orders
.

*An example of what your stat points may look like at Lvl. 94 (this is without
Battle Command
,
Battle Orders
or
Shout
being casted):

Image

*End-Game Stats with
Battle Command
,
Battle Orders
and
Shout
casted:

Image

Skill Point Distribution
- Warcries: 1 Pt to
Howl
, 20 Pts to
Shout
, 20 pts to
Battle Orders
, 1 Pt to
Battle Command

1 Pt to
Find Potion
, 5-7 Pts to
Find Item
(This is to increase the chances of horking items from corpses. Ideally you want anywhere from 52-55%. You can also make use of
Heart Carver
to up the % without adding in too many points)


- Combat Masteries: 20 Pts to
Blade Mastery
(formerly Sword Mastery)
, 1 Pt to
Iron Skin
, 1 Pt to
Natural Resistance
, 1 Pt to
Increased Stamina
, 1 Pt into
Increased Speed
.

- Combat Skills: 1 Pt to
Bash
, 1 Pt to
Stun
, 20 Pts to
Concentrate
, 1 Pt to
Berserk
(this is to help with any Physical Immune monsters you may run into in NM and Hell. It also provides
Concentrate
with magic damage each level)
, 1 Pt into
Leap


*Extra Points: Depending on your Barbs needs, you have a few options to place your extra skill points into:

-
Iron Skin
:
Great for an extra boost to defense, especially if you plan on playing this build in Players 5-8. An extra 3-4 points is good here.

-
Bash
:
Gives
Concentrate
a little more raw damage. 3-4 points is also good here.

-
Natural Resistance
:
If your resists are a bit lacking in Hell, adding 3 points into this skill should fix things.

Early Leveling Guide
Because of the Nature of
Concentrate
as a skill, I don't recommend starting out as this type of Barbarian. It's very difficult to level with as it's a Single-Target Attacker that makes use of Shields. Because of this, I suggest playing a simple
Frenzy
Barb until you're able to acquire a lot of the gear you need, through finding it yourself, or trading. So for this, just follow any well known budget
Frenzy
guide out there. Once you have everything to do a Budget version of this build, I recommend respecing anywhere from Lvl 75-80.

[2] Gameplay Tips

Below are some helpful tips I've come up with over the years of playing this build:
Tips
- Make use of
Leap
(especially if you don't have Enigma for
Teleport
)
. Use
Leap
to push unique monsters away from their minions to target them better. This is done by clicking closer to where your Barbarian is standing. This will cause him to preform what I like to call "baby leaps". If this is done in succession, monsters will be continuously knocked back and will spread out.

*An example of "baby leaping": - Use
Teleport
to reposition yourself and get your Merc to safety if he's losing life too rapidly.
If you have
Teleport
from Enigma, doing this is especially useful against The Council. The most important thing for your Merc in this situation is to prevent the hydras from mass-targeting him. Each time you
Teleport
, he will reappear next your barb.

- Know your Barbs limits and when to pull back in combat. Despite the high survivability of the MF
Concentrate
Barb, it is always best to know when to pull back from a situation, lest it result in Death. For example, when approaching unique monsters with
Fanaticism
, Extra Fast and
Amplify Damage
, its better to solo out the unique monster itself rather than take them all head-on. Doing so could result in a bad situation very quickly.

[3] Best Farming Areas [2.4]

Here's a list of the best places and monsters to farm with this build:
Travincal
This build was practically made to constantly run
Travincal
. The council will go down quickly in Players 1-4 and many good items can be horked from them, including HRs.
Dwarf Star
shines here, as with it the fire from the hydras practically heals you.

*An example of drops from a Trav run, Players 1, before horking:
Image
The Swampy Pit
Joining the lvl 85 area roster in 2.4 is the Swampy Pit. While considered dangerous for some other MF builds, the MF
Concentrate
Barb has no trouble at all here. The abundance of Souls, Dolls, Zombies and Bats makes it the perfect place to farm for uniques and HRs.
Shenk the Overseer
&
Eldritch the Rectifier
A favorite spot among many MF builds, Shrenk and Eldritch are fairly easy to kill and can be done so quickly with this build for the chance at good drops. I recommend baby leaping at Shenk to push his minions away to better take him down quickly.
Rakanishu
&
Tristram
Raka is actually quite a good unique monster to farm. Not only is he easy to find, but he'll often drop unique or set items. Plus, taking the portal to
Tristram
is never a bad idea. You can find a lot of good items from horking the corpses of the unique monsters that spawn in there, as well as HRs.
The Pit
A great and easy area for to farm for uniques, set items and base items for runewords. The monsters here, especially the
Fallen
, have a higher chance of dropping socketed and ethereal items.
The
Arreat Plateau
This area is best farmed in players 3-5. It has a decent amount of monster density, and plenty of elite monster packs to hork. It also contains the new Lvl. 85 area "The
Pit of Acheron
" as an optional farming area.

[3.1] Other Farming Areas (Suggested by D2io members)
Nihlathak
/
Nihlathak's Temple
(Suggested by @xSD)
xSD wrote: 1 year ago
Really cannot leave out
Nihlathak
as a fantastic place for a Conc barb to farm, especially a budget/MF one now with the Tomb Vipers fix.

Nihl is one of the easiest bosses for Conc barbs as you can WW/
Leap
through all of halls,
Leap Attack
to him,
Howl
, and then just Conc him to Death. It's how I tend to ladder start if I really want to focus on pushing a less played class.

[4] Closing Thoughts

While those who MF with a Barbarian often choose the PitZerker as their go-to, I feel the MF
Concentrate
Barbarian deserves some spotlight as an alternative (and safer) build to farm with. This is a build I have been personally playing through my D2 play history of nearly 20 years, and it has only gotten better with time. Though it can't kill monsters as fast on Players 5-8 it, I still feel it can hold its own to a PitZerker. I have not seen many PvM
Concentrate
build guides, especially ones centering around MF, so I suppose you could say this is an "original build" of sorts.

I also want to thank @Th3ory for encouraging me to make this guide and share it with everyone here. I was hesitant at first given that Barbarian is one of the least played classes in D2R, and more hesitant since it revolves around a skill most barb players either use for PvP or BvB.

I hope to all the Barb players who read this guide or those looking to try out a niche build in general, you'll give this build a chance either on NL or for Ladder Season 1.

- LuckyAce

7
User avatar

Th3ory 385

Paladin Americas PC
Very cool guide man - thanks for having the courage to write and post it. Cheers to you. You did a thorough and aesthetically pleasing job friend.

Tagging @udyret and @billymaysed in the event you think this is worth taking into D2IO user guides or placing elsewhere.

Image
Image
7
OP
Thank you for the kind words! I had a lot of fun writing this guide and I hope everyone who decides to give the build a try has fun with it too.

7
Friend, you definitely have a talent for writing. I'm sitting at work with a cappuccino mug and reading this manual, which I don't need at all, because I never play a barbarian - this is the only character I don't have and won't have. But, it was pretty damn interesting. I read it from the first to the last word. My life would definitely be easier if all the character guides were so accessible to the noobs in the game. Thanks. Definitely a pleasure to see such work.
7
User avatar

Teebling 5763Admin

Europe PC
Love this guide, so well formatted and presented.

Have given you contributor status for this OP - also looks like it has already been added to the guides sticky too.

7
OP
Moondew wrote: 1 year ago
Friend, you definitely have a talent for writing. I'm sitting at work with a cappuccino mug and reading this manual, which I don't need at all, because I never play a barbarian - this is the only character I don't have and won't have. But, it was pretty damn interesting. I read it from the first to the last word. My life would definitely be easier if all the character guides were so accessible to the noobs in the game. Thanks. Definitely a pleasure to see such work.
Thank you! I’m glad you enjoyed the read! This is actually the first guide I’ve ever written for D2 despite my lengthy play history with the game. I’ve wanted to for years now but I could never find a community forum I liked enough to discuss and share my ideas with. I can safely say I’ve finally found it now.
Teebling wrote: 1 year ago
Love this guide, so well formatted and presented.

Have given you contributor status for this OP - also looks like it has already been added to the guides sticky too.
Thank you Teebling! This was such a great way to start my morning. I honestly wasn’t expecting such positive feedback or to become a site contributor over night. It’s an Honor, really!

I do have some other guides I’m thinking about writing for Barb, as it’s the only class I play so all of my experience and knowledge lies there. I formatted this guide in a way I would have personally wanted a Barbarian guide formatted and I’m glad others are enjoying it so much as well.

Eventually I’ll update it with gameplay footage of me running through my favorite farming spots to showcase how fun it is to play.

7
User avatar

Th3ory 385

Paladin Americas PC
Teebling wrote: 1 year ago
Love this guide, so well formatted and presented.

Have given you contributor status for this OP - also looks like it has already been added to the guides sticky too.
Already told Lucky to give me a crash course in gfx forum design!

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7
User avatar

xSD 143

Barbarian Americas PC
Really cannot leave out
Nihlathak
as a fantastic place for a Conc barb to farm, especially a budget/MF one now with the Tomb Vipers fix.

Nihl is one of the easiest bosses for Conc barbs as you can WW/
Leap
through all of halls,
Leap Attack
to him,
Howl
, and then just Conc him to Death. It's how I tend to ladder start if I really want to focus on pushing a less played class.
7
OP
Really cannot leave out
Nihlathak
as a fantastic place for a Conc barb to farm, especially a budget/MF one now with the Tomb Vipers fix.
Good point, I had almost forgotten about him. Personally I don't run him, but I'll add it into the guide to give it more farming diversity. If anyone has any other areas they think would be good farming spots for a MF Conc Barb, share them here and I'll add them into the guide

7

 Deleted User 632 0

 Guest
awesome looking guide. thanks for taking the time to make this. and now i hope you're making one for the
Double Throw
potion barb too. i'd love to read more about it.
7
OP
Udyret wrote: 1 year ago
awesome looking guide. thanks for taking the time to make this.
Thank you and you're welcome!
now i hope you're making one for the
Double Throw
potion barb too. i'd love to read more about it.
That is actually on my "to write" list, so yes! Once I get all the gear I need to make it work, I'll be writing a guide for it. I'll be considering it an "odd ball" build, and one to exclusively play just for fun.

I also plan to write a guide on another Throw Barb build I sometimes play. I call it "The Elemental Thrower". It should be more viable now given the buff
Throwing Mastery
and
Double Throw
got in 2.4

7
User avatar

xSD 143

Barbarian Americas PC
LuckyAce wrote: 1 year ago
Really cannot leave out
Nihlathak
as a fantastic place for a Conc barb to farm, especially a budget/MF one now with the Tomb Vipers fix.
Good point, I had almost forgotten about him. Personally I don't run him, but I'll add it into the guide to give it more farming diversity. If anyone has any other areas they think would be good farming spots for a MF Conc Barb, share them here and I'll add them into the guide
Yeah he's particularly good there because you can join
Baal
games, BO the sorc/TPer, do Nihl and then join the rest of the party for waves 3-5 and
Baal
.

Additionally, he doesn't kill AoE, so most of the
Corpse Explosion
is completely negated. Also helps finding Grand Charms that can be re-rolled for Pgems.

I'll also mention that fantastic intermediate weapons on Conc barbs can be Crescent Moon PB (CtC static and CL are very good to add some AoE clear and boss killing) or an Oath
Cryptic Sword
.

TBH, I'm probably going to ladder start something like this or play this to 79 til I can properly respec Wolf Barb.
7
OP
I had entirely forgotten about Cresent Moon and Oath being a thing. I’d usually end up finding a
Swordguard
or make Honor in a good
Zweihander
base. But - I’ll include those in the budget gear section. Thank you for the suggestions 👍

7
User avatar

Th3ory 385

Paladin Americas PC
LuckyAce wrote: 1 year ago
I had entirely forgotten about Cresent Moon and Oath being a thing. I’d usually end up finding a
Swordguard
or make Honor in a good
Zweihander
base. But - I’ll include those in the budget gear section. Thank you for the suggestions 👍
Not to extend, but I also think
Azurewrath
can fit into this model as well. I have done
Frenzy
Setup's with
Azurewrath
and Crescent Moon. Could maybe add this as well into budget gear although the RNG on rolling an
Azurewrath
vs.
Lightsabre
can always be tricky.

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7
OP
Th3ory wrote: 1 year ago
LuckyAce wrote: 1 year ago
I had entirely forgotten about Cresent Moon and Oath being a thing. I’d usually end up finding a
Swordguard
or make Honor in a good
Zweihander
base. But - I’ll include those in the budget gear section. Thank you for the suggestions 👍
Not to extend, but I also think
Azurewrath
can fit into this model as well. I have done
Frenzy
Setup's with
Azurewrath
and Crescent Moon. Could maybe add this as well into budget gear although the RNG on rolling an
Azurewrath
vs.
Lightsabre
can always be tricky.
Lightsabre
could work well with this on your way to obtaining a Grief, but I would recommend against an
Azurewrath
simply due to all that added cold damage. It would cause monsters to occasionally shatter, thus preventing you from horking them =P

7
User avatar

xSD 143

Barbarian Americas PC
Oh also need to mentioned Unbending Will. Can literally carry the entire mid-game for some mid-runes.
7
OP
xSD wrote: 1 year ago
Oh also need to mentioned Unbending Will. Can literally carry the entire mid-game for some mid-runes.
Yes. I'm planning to update the guide to include this soon.

7
n1ce guide. was looking for something like this.

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7
This build is so under spoken, at least for me. So useful, really. Glad I stumbled upon this thread.

I built a Trav Barb on bnet exclusively for gambling with gold, farming some essential gear at start of ladder race, and to get any kind of runes here and there are just cherries to the cake, so to speak. However, the entire time, I've been following the cliché build of
Berserk
. Indeed, he is so powerful, and quick to kill all the councils on solo bnet farming, but with this build the tradeoff is that my merc gets to wear BoTD to be stronger/faster, but I need to not be lazy and HP/Mana pot a lot more often (due to never being able to leech with zerk).

But hey, this is players 1 bnet trav farming, you don't need to be so extremely strong to clear the councils before they start healing each other and slowing down your runs! Yes, Grief makes life that much easier for Barb but,
Concentrate
builds allows me to be lazy as can be, nearly never have to pot, and definitely never die -- however, I noticed my merc essentially must be wearing an
Eth
Reaper's Toll for the occasional phys immune council to not get healed before dying. Kill speed is identical to the zerker with botd merc, but a lot simpler running routine with all the ability to leech. Just wish the merc didn't die more often when not using botd, but it's okay, I get more than enough gold anyway lol.

I thank you for your contribution LuckyAce!

If we have a trade, just add me to bnet rather than waiting for a delayed forum response please, thank you!
9

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