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 Post subject: Frenzy Barb
PostPosted: Mon Mar 28, 2011 7:04 pm 

Joined: Fri Mar 25, 2011 1:59 am
Posts: 10
I am currently playing a Frenzy Barb in a two man party. My teammate is running a Bone Necro. We had been getting through Normal decently enough, but have hit a rut in Act 5. The Ancients were pretty tough, but doable. Baal (actually more specifically, Baal's minions) however has stopped us dead in our tracks. I feel that the Necro's damage is up to par, but my own damage is lacking quite a bit and my ability to Tank has gone from fantastic to useless in the course of one act.

So here is where I am at, I was hoping that if I posted the relevant information from my build I might be able to get some pointers on either 1) Ways in which I should change the build; 2) Itemization; and if all else fails 3)Alternative (preferably still Barb) build I could roll up instead.

Build (level 62)

Skills
Battle Orders (20)
Sword Mastery (20)
Frenzy (15)
Increased Stamina (3)
Iron Skin (1)
Natural Resistance (1)
Battle Command (1)
Increased Speed (1)
Perquisites (1)

Tanking Stats (while buffed)
Health: 3.4k
Defense: 10k
Damage Reduced by 70
Magic Damage Reduced by 86
Life Steal: 14 % (per Weapon)
All Resistances: 75%

Weapons
Ginther's Rift w/ Starstone Skull
Emerald Crafted Dimensional Blade w/ Starstone SKull, 40% ED, 20% IAS
-Shown Damage (42-133)

If you need any other information to help me out, let me know. All in all, as far as I can tell, my main problems are that I cannot do enough damage (my weapons quickly become obsolete after getting them) and recently the second of Baal's minions is putting out damage that I cannot possibly withstand (which may be because I cannot life leech enough to survive).

Your thoughts on the build, or its itemization, would be greatly appreciated.
I do have the means available to reallocate my Skill Points if I so choose, but I really enough the Frenzy skill and would prefer to stick with it if that can be done.


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 Post subject: Re: Frenzy Barb
PostPosted: Mon Mar 28, 2011 7:14 pm 
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your lifeis alittle low due to not raising increased stamina. You can get way with it np though by socketing diamonds in allopen armour/helm slots. aim for about 70-80 DR and PDR and you should be able to tank fine (remember to walk not run).

Have the necro cast lifetap against the second baal wave and wear a diamond craft armor for it. You will ignore his phys res (its very high) and leech lots with lifetap.

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 Post subject: Re: Frenzy Barb
PostPosted: Mon Mar 28, 2011 7:20 pm 

Joined: Fri Mar 25, 2011 1:59 am
Posts: 10
Already socketing my armor/helm with Diamonds (note that my DR values are right around what you suggest, the diamonds in my helm could use an upgrade though). Life tap is not something I had considered though, will that continue to be a viable tactic against bosses or will it only get me a little further before I hit a brick wall?


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 Post subject: Re: Frenzy Barb
PostPosted: Mon Mar 28, 2011 7:33 pm 

Joined: Sat Jan 02, 2010 1:36 am
Posts: 971
Life tap essentially full heals you when you hit something as long as you're doing damage.


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 Post subject: Re: Frenzy Barb
PostPosted: Mon Mar 28, 2011 9:23 pm 
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Damiel Urith wrote:
Already socketing my armor/helm with Diamonds (note that my DR values are right around what you suggest, the diamonds in my helm could use an upgrade though). Life tap is not something I had considered though, will that continue to be a viable tactic against bosses or will it only get me a little further before I hit a brick wall?


I recomend lifetap + sanctuary for any undead boss.Lifetap removes the effect of the drain column in monstats.txt so all your lifesteal gear becomes active+ you get bonus lifesteal. The sanctuary sets the undead enemys phys resist to 0 for the user so you will leech alot.

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 Post subject: Re: Frenzy Barb
PostPosted: Tue Mar 29, 2011 3:14 am 

Joined: Fri Mar 25, 2011 1:59 am
Posts: 10
I feel fairly confident that the advice you guys have given me so far will help me get past the current rut (and thank you for that) but I would still like some general feedback on my build so far. Specifically (1) Does a Frenzy Barb stand a chance in Hell (no pun intended?)? (2) What weapons/stats on weapons should I be looking for as I progress into NM? (3) If the answer to (1) is "no" what kind of Barb would work better?


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 Post subject: Re: Frenzy Barb
PostPosted: Tue Mar 29, 2011 12:18 pm 
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regarding the original post.
Frenzy is a low DPS (Damage per second) skill for a barb for two reasons: [1] slow attack speed (maxes at 5FPA) [2] you use 1h weapons. It is however a great tanking skill because you keep the boss locked in place. If you want raw damage though, a frenzy build will be disappointing. Whirlwind is where a barb's damage is.

Since you are traveling with a necromancer, try to get him to invest points in Amp damage. That will make a MASSIVE impact on what you can do, especially late game. A barb + necromancer who has maxxed out Amp can duo most bosses in Hell, even with a lower DPS skill like Frenzy.

As PureRage posted, you are going to want to max out Inc Stamina to get the life boost from it.

Life leech is going to start to become pointless very quickly. As you can see from this table: http://blue.arimyth.com/BossResists.html The Drain Effectiveness (DE) on most bosses is high and when combined with the difficulty penalty, that makes life leech pretty pointless in many circumstances.

If you want some heavier hitting weapons, take a look in to some of the eth runewords available such as Honor, Loyalty or Death. They can pack a serious punch and aren't too costly in runes.

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 Post subject: Re: Frenzy Barb
PostPosted: Wed Mar 30, 2011 1:54 am 

Joined: Fri Mar 25, 2011 1:59 am
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Thanks for the feedback blue. Your suggestions raise a few questions for me though, mostly about Amp Damage. How does investing in this skill benefit it? From what I can see the amount of -phys resistance per point spent in the skill is less than one per skill point spent. Is this inaccurate, or does even this small bonus eventually make it worthwhile? How high can this penalty eventually get?

My concern over this matter comes from taking a look at the boss resist charts recently... and well things look bleak. Unless Amp Damage can get exceedingly high, it seems like I will be S.O.L before too long here. So a few follow up questions, are there other ways to lower physical resistance that I am missing? I tried looking into this myself and came up with nothing of use (Decripify which does nothing for me). Just trying to get some idea of what options are available to me.

Final question, if I were to go with a WW barb at some point in the future instead of my current build, what "basic build" might you suggest? I have never really messed around with Barbs too much and am even more at a loss of what to do with one in this mod. Thanks in advance for any replies.

Btw: used some of the advice earlier in this thread and my necro companion and I are now stomping happily through NM, thanks for the tips.


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 Post subject: Re: Frenzy Barb
PostPosted: Wed Mar 30, 2011 2:12 am 
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Damiel Urith wrote:
My concern over this matter comes from taking a look at the boss resist charts recently... and well things look bleak. Unless Amp Damage can get exceedingly high, it seems like I will be S.O.L before too long here. So a few follow up questions, are there other ways to lower physical resistance that I am missing? I tried looking into this myself and came up with nothing of use (Decripify which does nothing for me). Just trying to get some idea of what options are available to me.


As a pure physical damage character, you are pretty SOL later in the game.
Last patch, Amplify Damage could reach 70% easily (with 1 point invested), capping out at around ~90% if you maxed it and geared for it heavily. Now the best Amp you're looking at is ~55.
If a Necromancer doesn't max Amp you're stuck in the 25ish area, which won't even bring some choice bosses below 100% physical resistance. This means having max'd Amplify Damage in tow is the only way to deal anything close to significant damage to a boss in Hell.
This has also been discussed to death, and the issue with physical resistance this patch brought is supposed to be fixed at some point.

There are no other sources of physical pierce in the game outside of Amplify Damage or Decrepify, so no other options can make up for the lack of physical pierce available now.

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 Post subject: Re: Frenzy Barb
PostPosted: Wed Mar 30, 2011 3:38 am 

Joined: Fri Mar 25, 2011 1:59 am
Posts: 10
Ah. Well thanks for the heads up. I suppose I will probably just roll with the Amp Max idea for now. Thanks for the quick reply.


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