I am trying this build, although I have never done it anywhere before (vanilla or HU).

I plan skills:
1 in each 1pt wonders
20 double throw
20 frenzy
20 battle orders
20 increased stamina
10+ double swing (the rest of available pts after prereqs)

should I be putting more than one point in each spear, axe, and throwing mastery?

Equipment wise, maybe gimmershred and gargoyle bite? Or maybe some runeword faith/ice/brand/the one with valkyrie? Also, CoA, Levi, nosforatu belt, war trav boots, draculs gloves. Metalgrid and skill rings or elemental set?

Looking for suggestions as this is just a guess for now. Any input is appreciated.

Throwing mastery wouldn't hurt, I guess. But.. why do you max berserk?
Also, 1 point in Grim Ward could be fun and useful. (not sure if it's among 1 point wonders)

Frenzy might be better than Double Swing too.

er whoops, not berserk, but frenzy ... lemme change that

throw mastery
double throw,
inc stamina,
bo
frenzy + 1 pointers

put howl to good use to keep some distance between you

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Unless you want to do some closecombat occasionally, I would max throwing mastery instead of one of the synergies. If you look at it, it gives 30+10% damage/level, 60+10% attack/level as well as some critical strike (41% chance at skill level 20).

Edit: agreed with DoD. I would still put 1 point on grim ward, it's fun! And you don't have to stop throwing to howl, it provides sanctuary for 40 seconds which you and other ranged party members can use against melee enemies.

you will want to go in close at times to charge up frenzy before throwing at the big guns like wyrms/marilyths etc. also, maxing mastery raises attack rating. with low ar you will miss to much and drop your dps by alot

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So I want to run in and use Frenzy to build up attack speed, then run back out and start throwing? Do the bonuses from frenzy continue to work after I switch back to double throw?

Yes, frenzy stays on you for 12 seconds.

Nice. Good to know.

So updated skills:
1 in each 1pt wonders (maybe grim ward?)
20 double throw
20 throwing mastery
20 increased stamina
20 battle orders
x the rest in frenzy

Does the spear and axe mastery stack with throwing mastery when using the appropriate weapons (i.e. throwing spear or throwing axe)?

No, axe mastery only helps when meleeing and spear mastery don't work at all for throwing weaps afaik.

Btw, I wouldn't do the frenzy thing, you run out of javs/axes fast enough anyway.

Spear mastery benefits javs in melee. I tested in SPlayer. A zombie took several hits with regular attack and no SMastery, then died in 1 hit with lvl 20 SMastery.

My throw barb characters had a lot of trouble finding decent weapons from about level 30 to lvl 80. There's no decent replenishing weapons for those levels, so I ended up running around with some EmeraldCraft harpoons (I did the whole Frenzy route, so I really liked the enhanced defence for melee) with 4 ForgeRunes in the cube at all times. It was quite a hassle, so I got pretty tired f the character quickly. It also forced me to melee most of the time, which was alright, but my character never really did well unless he was throwing. Don't forget that if you use the last jav of a runeword, the stack dissapears. ForgeRunes only repair up to 255 quantity, and crafted/gemmed javs repair for upwards of 1M to get them past 255.

If you mainly play your characters after Hell difficulty, then you should be fine.

If you want to play the character in norm, you might want to get weaker but replenishing javs, thenand socket your gear and javs with +Dmg stuff. You might be alright with that.

I have mostly been using two "ith" frosty headhunters and am doing 600 damage or so per jav (I'm only level 24). It is weird that the quantity is not displayed anymore, once I socketed them, but they do still disappear. It is costing less than 100 gold to repair them from when they are in the red even with the socket. Was your character on the last ladder? Maybe the patch has made some changes.

Replenishing javs should cost only 1 to repair under any circumstance except eth. Eth replenishing javs cannot be repaired. I didn't think to add that detail earlier, but it was one of the reasons I mentioned using replenish javs with +Dmg sockets. I was thinking of just rolling a rare ThrowingSpear, since it's 4-sockets.

The quantity can still be found if you switch to regular throw attack, since the number remaining is shown on that skill icon.

My character was a few ladders ago, but there have been no changes to that build or the items he used, as far as I can see.

I'm glad to see that my idea of using replenishing javs with +Dmg socketables is working out fairly well for you. 600 dmg seems a bit on the low side, but I guess you've got a pretty thin point spread due to IStamina and BO. Since you probably haven't been tanking much, you might want to put off maxing both life buffs before you've had the chance to improve your offense.

I've never seen anyone ever finish a throw barb. Between the hard coded slow ass replenish and smith runes only repairing up to 255, it just becomes way too tedious to have any fun. Shame as it really is a fun build to play outside of the quantity problems.

a few things i have to say here:

yes double throw barbs are fun, that's true.

double throw's %AR bonus doesnt apply as a friend of mine cleared up for me, as any %AR bonus granted by a skillfunc doesnt apply to missiles.

to the modmakers and other: you do know that in skills txt there's a column called "noammo" and if you set that column to "1" guess what, it doesnt consume any missile quantity(obviously on works with skills that consumes missiles)

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there is no sig

So the attack rating granted for a skill that only uses missles (double throw) doesn't apply when using missles? This seems silly.

heh well its true, blame blizzard for their shitty coding, it also affects java and bow skills as well.

but yes the %AR bonus doesnt work on missile skills

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sol is correct on the missile skill ar% boost...sucks ... your best bet is to get a ton of flat AR, so you will no question need a rare or craft with 4 sockets for 4 uber thysts... youll need the 1200 flat ar if you want to be able to hit anything

Update on my throwing barb.

I am currently a level 86 in act 1 hell. I have kept 4 weapon sets of repairing throwing weapons, rotating the ones I use. By the time I have blown through the last set of weapons, the first set has fully repaired. They seem to repair one jav/axe in about 5 sec. This works well, but I am constantly switching what weapon I am using ... which is a little wierd, I have to remember what each one does, but its not a huge problem, the physical damage is the important part.

I used dual lacerators (lvl 76) to get through nightmare, the 33% chance to cast amp was critical for bosses, and I am now looking for eth lacerators to get my damage up for hell. I am currently using dual wraithflights to produce my max damage of 48k per jav. Wraithflights are also great for the extreme leech by using two of them and the the ghosts reanimated run great interference. A quick switch back to lacerators is a quick sorce for amp and then wraithflight quickly cleans everything up.

I tried using crafted/rare javs, but the no repairing javs/axes was really annoying and I didnt want to bother with repair glyphs, since they only do 255 quantity anyway. Plus you have to keep socketing new ones with new gems. So I just used the multiple unique weapons instead of smith repairing one good set (not much break in the action).

Stat points seem to be the most important part of the build as the percentage bonuses to attack rating and damage really increase the damage dealt with every strength or dex point.

I have been using the frenzy route and it works, plus the synergy for double throw is actually a lot of damage.

I am currently having no trouble by myself in a1 hell, but the bosses are getting harder because of the physical damage resist across the board. I needed a party to get through nm diablo and nm baal/minions (as to be expected with HU).

The build plays somewhere in between a frenzy barb and a bowazon, not to either extreme, but still effective ... and you get the benefit of having lots of life and can share an excellent BO to the party you are with.

It's a fun build and I recommend it to anyone who is looking for a change of pace for ranged attackers.