Diablo 2 barbarian build: need help!

[Primehunter74]

Hi, my friend is looking for a barbarian build that he can use a sword and shield with. We don't want you to tell us "you need these items that'll take you hours to get". We're not rich. If you can just give us the skills and maybe what stats we need to focus on, again, please no "no need for strength, your items will give you enough", we're starting from scratch, so we wont have much to work with.

Sorry for being angry about that stuff, it's just I can't find any simple builds that don't require fifty expensive items to work.

[nooblade]

I don't really do builds or guides, but maybe some advice will help. Also, theamazonbasin.com has a d2 forum, and that is probably the best place to ask, they frequently play without trading or with much more severe restrictions like not returning to a previous area for leveling.

The sword and shield part is going to make it difficult for an untwinked Barbarian, IMHO. Lots of attack skill options are weakened or just altogether gone due to that choice and I really think that the main bottleneck for that character is damage, not defense. The raw hitpoints that things get in higher difficulties are really terrifying. I prefer using Berserk or Leap Attack with the best two-hander I can find.

But if you're very persistent, and you spend points and use skills wisely, it's easy to set up a situation where you can slowly drop one monster at a time with very little risk to your self. Then the only problem is patience, or for very bad cases, player biology. With a sword and shield in that situation, the things that increase your damage most are actually the magic weapon mods. Prevent Monster Heal, Open Wounds, or just some poison damage (for non-immunes) will stop monster regeneration. Later on, you'll want to add whatever Crushing Blow you can find to lower monster HP by a percentage, and if you happen to have a source of Amplify Damage, it works very well with that. Berserk is usually a great skill for dealing with physical immunes, but you're probably better off just running or leaping around them, if possible.


Alternatively, if you really want to use a sword and shield, then make a Paladin and just pretend he's a Barbarian.

[Fleeing Coward]

nooblade pretty much said everything that needs to be said regarding what you're aiming for in terms of item stats so I'll mainly focus on skills.

I find Battle Orders, Shout and a weapon mastery are the 3 skills you can never go wrong in maxing as well as a point in Batle Bommands.
1 point in Iron Skin, Natural Resistance, Increasd Stamina and Increased Speed never hurts.
1 point in Howl, Taunt, Battle Cry can all help if you learn how/when to use them. War Cry too if you can afford to spare another point.
Other than that pick one combat skill to max and 1 point in Berserk for the physicla immunes - my personal preference is Whirlwind when i make a sword/shield barb but if you want damage and are going to go untwinked, leap attack + a 2 hander (IK Barb pops into mind for a budget version) is usually alot easier since you're limited in options for damage for sword/shield if you're not using [insert overpowered runeword here].

Stats - Split between Strength and Vitality with just enough in Dex for your weapon. An angelic amulet + ring is all you need for the attack rating problem if you really are finding it hard to hit your foes.

Finally, what is your budget like for equipment or are you going the pure untwinked route with no trading? There's plenty of cheap and decent equipment that can be bought for a couple of Pgems each that can really help you out.

[Primehunter74]

well, he has 2 level 60 barbs (one of them is actually the one we need a build for, he messed it up and now that respec exsists we're re doing it) sorry about that, made a mistake on what we were asking for. Seeing as it's higher level than level one, we could probably find him some better gear.

[nooblade]

Well, you can shop for some more interesting things at level 60, I think some of the elite-grade weapons are even available if you care to do power-shopping. Cruel mods are also probably available, which are awesome for regular magic weapons, and you can get a few sockets on top of that enchantment sometimes. But most people don't care to run in and out of town a hundred times. Also you have the best mercenaries in the game available from act 2 Nightmare, choose between Holy Freeze (defensive) and Might (offensive).


A possibly helpful idea is to go for the Titan type of Barbarian. The build uses stat points to increase damage instead of skill points, which could be very helpful for this situation. You get 1% increased damage per point of strength for most melee weapons or their exceptional or elite equivalents (notably, war hammers, mauls, or great mauls get 1.1% per point in strength). With 300-500 points into strength, you'll get a respectable bonus to damage (not quite a Berserk or Leap Attack, but close) which can also be used alongside a nice skill that applies damage quickly like Whirlwind (and, due to the nature of the damage formula for D2, the speed will probably help much more than giving another +500% damage, since ED from skills and stats are added, not multiplied). I'm not sure if it is all changed to magic damage when using Berserk, but I suspect so.

Plenty of people would scoff at losing the awesome bonus from Vitality, Barbarians get 4 times the points you spend in Vit in hitpoints (1200-2000 or more in this case), but you have plenty of skills to offset that. Especially with a maxed Battle Orders doubling your hitpoints, perhaps maxed Battle Cry halving enemy damage and almost negating enemy defense, a point in Howl scaring away huge mobs, and one point in Taunt disabling the ranged attacks of normal enemies (the kinds of things FC was saying). Plus you can get items with hitpoints, or just put a few points in Vitality if it's going rough.

Unfortunately, the concept doesn't synergize well with the shield, which I would want points into dexterity to give 75% blocking (shields don't do much for you other than that blocking). A dagger uses dexterity and strength together, but only .75% per point for each, not really ideal either (no mastery and its valuable Deadly Strike, and it wouldn't work very well with Whirlwind due to weapon range). The sword is acceptable since it can attack pretty quickly, and that helps Whirlwind do damage several times in a frame. Most Titan Barbarians would take a War Pike or a Thunder Maul near the end of the game and soup up the speed with some runeword or some simple shael runes and ED jewels, FYI.

You can use the information on the Arreat Summit for weapon breakpoints to reach the fastest Whirlwind possible with the equipment you have. If you reach 4 frames per hit-check, not too difficult for swords (say, a Cruel Falcata of Quickness, you might even be able to buy one in town with a level 60 character, although the weapon range is really low!), then it's close to attacking 6 times in a second. 45 average damage Falcata x ~250% ED from Cruel x (300% ED from 300 Strength + ~100% ED from Whirlwind) x 6 attacks per second ~= 2,700 damage per second, sounds acceptable. If a normal Barbarian has 100 Strength, then the Titan Barbarian used 200 extra points in Strength (or more) to double his damage with Whirlwind. You'd be able to kill Baal in Hell in half an hour, I guess, if my calculation is correct and also if you can hit him reliably. Much faster if you have Crushing Blow as well.

[Fleeing Coward]

Unless you're a purist and don't trade at all, I'd argue it's almost always quicker to just gather pgems and rals to trade with if you're poor. Plenty of budget options available to you if you want to do some minor trading for gear. Nothing there should cost you an arm or a leg:

Weapon (all can be gained for pgems if not free from the right people):
Frostwind Cryptic Sword
Lightsabre Phase Blade
Djinn Slayer Ataghan
Bul-Kathos' Sacred Charge Colossus Blade
Doombringer Champion Sword
Bloodmoon Elegant Blade

First 3 can reach the fastest WW breakpoint with a shael ( 2 for Djinn Slayer), last 3 offer some nice stats/damage and all of them provide as good damage if not better as something you can shop with bonus stats.

Armor:
1)Sets option: IK set - everything bar the armor can be gained for a couple of pgems and together provides alot of decent bonuses. You can just use the boot/belt/glove triplet as well and team it up with decent armor/helm.
2)Helm: Guillaume's Face Winged Helm (If you need CB) or Arreat's Face Slayer Guard (If you don't need CB)
3)Boots: Gore Rider War Boots (CB + OW) - no real competition here
4)Belt: String of Ears Demonhide Sash/Verdungo's Hearty Cord Mithril Coil (DR + other stats)
5)Gloves: Dracul's Grasp Vampirebone Gloves - only semi expensive item on the list but it's stats are amazing. If you can't get it, there's always the IK combo mentioned above or try your hands crafting a blood glove = Nef + Perfect Ruby + Jewel + Heavy/Sharkskin/Vampirebone Gloves.
6)Shield: Stormshield Monarch - Your ultimate aim, there's just no real competition at the high end, Whatever shield you can find at lower levels until you get it or even Ancient's Pledge runeword for some decent res.
7)Armor: Runewords are the way to go here - Duress: Shael Um Thul or Stone: Shael Um Pul Lum are decent or at the cheap end Lionheart: Hel Lum Fal is an often overlooked option.

Sounds like you and your friend are playing non ladder. Judging by your location, I'll assume US east but if you happen to be playing on US west, drop me a PM and I can set your friend up with some decent gear free of charge if you want. I rarely play anymore and most stuff are just collecting dust on my mules these days.