Im new to the mod and playing HC. My barb, planned to be WW, is currently level 25 and hits for ~75-150 damage. I know my gear is horrible (Albrecht twohanded and the armor are the best items I have), but I feel like I should still be able to clear trash in less than 15 hits.

I tried to solo Blood Raven at level 21 and only got her about 1/2 way before I had used all my potions. I had a teeth necro come when we killed Andariel and he cleared a huge room in the time it took me to kill 1 trash monster.

My stats and skills are all going to Vit and Inc Stam, and soon into party life buff. I think I can take a fair amount of damage, but cant deal any.

Am I missing something on the barb, or is this how they play until I get Inc Stam and Battle Orders maxed 21 levels from now?

Barbs are great early game at absorbing damage, but not so great at dishing it out. That's just the balance to their character, otherwise you would have a character that has awesome survival skills AND awesome damage skills and why wouldn't everyone just play that character?

Best bet is to team up with a heavy dmg dealer to crank through the game. After you have a stockpile of goodies, you can make early game barbs that do lots of damage, but it is tough to do without overpowered items.

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People who live in cinder block houses can throw whatever they want.

I did pick the Barb because of the survivability for HC. I just wasn't expecting the damage output to be so wimpy. Guess I will go find me some glass cannons to protect.

Your gear, from what you've posted, is subpar for your level.

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Oh dear god, why me?
This mother fucker hits hard
I'm out of cooldowns

not really, not if u are sword barb ^^ the early dmg mostly depends on what are u going to build, in my case, i only play sword barb, and i get 1k+ dmg around 140%ds, 10%cb and other nice stats using ceglaws set at lvl20, and use that up to a3 or a4, maxing first the mastery and then the bo, sick ar/dmg, just get some random cap with dmg jewels and with ceglaws set and ur dmg its awesome... and if u get lucky and find the runes to upgrade sword, ull use it till a5 ^^ upped ceglaws sword is lvl41 if i remmenber well, playing ww with that nasty sword is awesome, the upped sword its around 120 or 130 dmg the insane AR DS CB and the KB makes its really fun also, it has great speed what makes its cool to use(i use geclaws up to nm). maxing the mastery first allows u to max bo and get 10pts stamina w/o having dmg or AR issues, then u start with ww if that is ur main skill or conc if u wanna go conc barb 10%cb from set and if u get rattlecage and Gtoes, man, bosses will hate u ;D cheap eh?
In my opinion, sword barb is the best barb to start ladder ^^

I am up to level 40 now, still doing very little damage because all my picks go to Inc Stam and BO. I do have one point in mace mastery, item find, and WW. I play grouped with my brother (42 assassin) so I just tank everything while he makes quick work of it. I do have the Ceglaw set and goblin toe boots for bosses, and also have found a barb skill ammy and 2 rings.

We have yet to have the time or find a group for meph, so we have been farming the super unique in Travincal. We have found a lot of items, especially with horking, but the best weapon I have is just Tancreds halberd. Haven't found a good mace yet to make use of my mastery.

My merc is also really weak because she never gets experience because she or I never land the killing blows when grouped. So she is level 29 right now, with weak gear as well. Any good merc gear we find goes to my brother's merc because it is keeping even with his level.

Overall, still the same as at 25. I can take a beating, can't dish one out though.

The ceglaw set sounded like a good idea to get some damage and AR, but it gives up all the life buffs that I am built around. I guess I will just finish BO and Inc Stam, then figure out what else to do. Still have a few levels to think about it.