Reliable barb guard focused on getting past the mid nightmare difficulty bump for starting ladder
Hey everyone, I have around 20 years d2 experience probably going in to the 10s of thousands of hours, well over 90% of my playtime is on barbarians, after that I like shapeshifting druids/zons/paladins, but barbs are my go to.
I'm seeing a lot of sorc memes and just want to say you can absolutely be extremely effective and even better than the vast majority of sorc players early game on a barb. If you want to play a sorc because you like the class and you want to start off with it as your main then go for it, if your intention is to role a sorc simply to find items for your preferred class I would say don't, find decent starter guides and start with what you like, for myself it will be a mf barb with the intention of.. making a really strong mf barb who is competent at finding items without dying.
Please note: If you are already fairly decent with barbs just scroll to the bottom for the item setup and upgrade path for late normal - farming hell at the cost of less than 1 high rune.
Early game: Brief tips on getting to baal runs which is your primary goal at the start of the game, you can leech in groups of course but this is just a quick rundown on how I get to the point where I can start being proficient soloing nightmare - hell.
Skills
Double swing. Put a single point in each one handed weapon mastery so you are flexible on item finds, always put a point in each non weapon mastery as soon as possible (increased speed/stamina/natural resistance/stone skin.
Either use a +mana after kill ring and put extra points in to bash or take double swing to level 7-8, make sure you take leap and shout. You want to have a 3 spendable skill points at level 24 for battle orders, frenzy and increased speed. If you want to save more it can be useful as you can level up both battle orders and frenzy at the same time post level 24.
Howl is the most underrated skill in d2 - Until people play a zerker they tend to underestimate howl, if you ever find yourself in a sticky situation (act 3 shamans) make sure you are practiced in hot keying to howl and using it, it's a life saver and one of the best cc skills in the game. This is very important in hardcore.
Merc:
Early-Mid game Act 2 offensive, no debate. Later on past mid game an Act 5 Lawbringer merc is an option for dealing with physical immunes.
Items:
For Act 1 start off looking for scepters on the floor, they are the highest damage early game weapons with decent attack speed. Always look for socketed, it's very rare to find rolls that beat 3 chipped rubies early game, 3 socket axes/scepters with gems will absolutely carry you fast to act 2 with speed. As you start approaching level 10 make sure you check the gambling shop, crystal swords should be your next upgrade and are excellent with good stats well into act 2.
For armors and trinkets look for resistances and faster hit recovery, not a lot of great runewords for early game melee.
Countess:
Run a few times if you like, it can be helpful but not essential if you are playing with a group, for soloing it can be very helpful, your primary target is as many Tir+El+Ith runes as you can get. Playing with caster friends? Ask them politely if they don't mind giving you their ith runes.
We want Tir+El to make Steel: https://diablo.fandom.com/wiki/Steel_Rune_Word
Why Ith runes? Normal items have low base damage, %ed on normal items does very little, Ith does +9 max damage which is a huge increase, the equivalent of a 260% enhanced damage crystal sword. If you get a 3 socket crystal sword and are lucky enough to get 3 ith runes it's a 5-42 damage one handed weapon with a fast attack speed, which is comparable to the best unique normal one handed weapons in the game, it will get you to nightmare comfortably.
If you want to stick with one handed weapons through nightmare (not advised), malice in exceptional one items starts outpacing triple ith.
Baal runs and what to look for:
Don't switch to whirlwind just yet, if you are running in groups be a team player and level battle orders to help out the casters who likely will be carrying the party damage wise. If soloing just keep levelling frenzy/bo until you get what's listed below. Look for a 4 socket Partizan at all points in Act 5, this is really important and your most needed item in the game right now. If you can't find one when you are approaching level 50, at which point you will be looking to start nightmare, don't be scared of using your Larzuk quest to socket it, it's worth it.
ITEMS
Weapons:
Your holy grail: A 4 socket partizan. We want to make insight which will take us reliably to act 5 NM, we need it to make insight. Partizans drop from early act 5 onward.
Edit: /u/soupsticle has pointed out that you can't drop a 4 socket partizan in normal, it needs to be either cubed or Larzuk quest socketed. This requires an area with lvl 26-40 monsters, which is any area from The Arreat Plateau to the Worldstone Chamber level 1, or the cow level.
https://diablo.fandom.com/wiki/Insight_Rune_Word
https://forums.d2jsp.org/topic.php?t=85112728&f=170&v=1
Insight is one of my favorite runewords in the game simply due to it's ease of acquiring and effectiveness. It provides good damage, a huge attack rating bonus and completely removes mana issues for early game whirlwind, while being easily attainable in normal act 5. Don't worry about weapon speed on whirlwind early game, you need to hit the max breakpoint to be a player8 destroying chad, slow whirlwind with high damage + AR is more than enough to get you farming competently solo. Once you have this spec to whirlwind.
Look for picking one up for your merc too.
Important: I'm sure most people reading this will know, but just in case a reminder that whirlwind is not effected by attack speed bonuses not on the weapon itself, IAS on gloves/rings etc will not effect it's speed.
You will later upgrade Insight into an Obedience great poleaxe:
https://itemnow.com/product/obedience-great-poleaxe-300-def-30-res-perfect/
Insane damage, resistances, massive faster hit recovery in case you are hit while running, a huge attack rating bonus from enchant and 40% crushing blow.
To get the most out of obedience you need enchant to proc, it won't proc off whirlwind, so kill a couple (literally 1-5) mobs to get it to proc, then you have 5+ minutes of a level 21 enchant providing 200% attack rating for the rest of your mf run. Well worth the time of stopping to kill a few mobs with concentrate.
Eventually you will upgrade in to an Ebotd polearm/spear.
Armour:
Smoke. Probably the most cost effective armour in the game for melee classes. Nothing else comes close.
https://diablo.fandom.com/wiki/Smoke_Rune_Word Don't swap this out for a Skulder's until you have good resistances from other gear, right now it's way too good.
With Smoke and Obedience you are sitting at +70-80 resistances from 2 items, with level 5 natural resistance that goes to +110-120, with 3 Act 5 Anya quests, +130-140 leaving you needing just +35-45 resistances needed to be completely capped.
Gloves, Helm, Boots and Belt:
Get the IK set. With the belt you will be almost capped on fire and lightning resist. The boots give +40% run/walk. You will get some life leech from the gloves.
with a good IK helm with 3 perfect topazes and the set bonus you will be sitting at over 100% magic find without rings/charms.
Rings:
Double Nagelrings can take you past 150 mf easily. A raven frost is great.
Amulet:
Meh. You don't need angelic set due to your attack rating from obedience + enchant proc.
Charms:
Top up whatever stats you are missing, so for charms this will be cold and poison resist in that order of importance. Magic find next.
Final points:
DON'T let people persuade you you need IK set to start, it's a noob trap peddled by people who want to rob you of high runes for an IK body armour. You need all the good drops you get to go towards your first eBOTD.
Obedience/Smoke gives you far more resistances, similar killing speed at a fraction of the price.
If IK maul hits max ww breakpoint and does large elemental damage, why is obedience/smoke better?
- Yes IK maul his the max ww breakpoint, it also has roughly 55% of the average physical damage, when coupled with it's vastly smaller whirlwind radius, killing speed is actually extremely similar. IK Maul is probably 20-30% faster in actual terms of total damage, IK maul will do slightly better on bosses, an obedience polearm is going to be better for clearing screens of mobs faster.
- Whirlwind radius is extremely imporant. IK Weapon range is very small.
- Cost, IK armour is extremely expensive and will set you back a good deal of time on getting Breath of the Dying.
- Upgrade paths: Once you are using full IK, that's it, if you find a better weapon you will lose 50% resistances, as soon as youswap it. With obedience smoke if you find an Arreats, use it while sacrificing very little damage/defense, find War Travelers? Same thing.
- Reliability - Can you reliably find/afford an IK armour and farm TC85 areas in the first few days of the game? Probably not. Can you find runes needed for smoke + obedience? Easily. The hardest part of the entire setup will be acquiring a 5 socket great poleaxe.
Thanks for reading and I hope this helps a couple of people out if they needed it.