Just finished Act 2 in hell and I'm crushing. I'm level 58 with ~16k HP (buffed with Warcry) and 9k DPS. I also have some resist all and physical dmg reduction. I'm using axe and shield (24% block shield + 5% block stat).

LC - Frenzy with Sidearm
RC - Seismic Slam with reduced fury cost
1 - Leap with armor
2 - Ground Stomp with pull
3 - Warcry with + HP (not 60 yet so can't get resist yet but I will be getting that)
4 - Overpower with damage reflect

Passives are all the defensive ones. From what I'm reading, this may not work at all for inferno, but I really like having a ranged ability. I see a lot of people have issues with the little flying guys in Act 2, but seismic slam owns them really bad. The other thing I don't see much is overpower with damage reflect. Everyone uses revenge, but I hate that I have to get hit for the proc. I like to avoid getting hit as much as possible. Should of rolled a Wizard or Demon hunter I guess.

The way this game is designed is that you won't progress much with just the gear you find.

I modified my build a bit and had a lot more success in Act 3 and 4 in Hell. Currently level 59.

LC - Cleave + Damage
RC - Frenzy + Stun
1 - Rend + Healing
2 - Revenge + Vengence is Mine
3 - Jump + Armor
4 - Ignore Pain + Added Time

Passives are Pound of Flesh, Superstition, and the one that gives you extra armor when you're at or below 20% life.

I didn't have to use Ignore pain much so I could probably switch that out. I'm pretty hard to kill with this build. I also upgraded a couple via AH at the same time and picked up a couple hundred strength. I am doing a lot more damage and also taking a lot less. I had no idea how much Rend would heal for. It actually does a non-insignificant amount of damage, too.

I can finally get 5 neph stacks in a3 and kill siegebreaker thanks to my new stormshield.

I strongly recommend any barb to get an ss if they want to farm a3+, it makes a pretty big difference. Before the ss i couldn't kill a single elite pack in a3.

my weapon is still horrible tho its under 700 dps and only vit stat on it.





p.s. relentless might be better than superstition, you basically get 20%more hp vs all dmg.

In case any one else is has low dps and isnt killing elites fast enough so they go in rage mode, just take a quick wp and back and the rage will disappear.

i had wanted to do this too, but gave in to the auction house at some point in NM. in retrospect i realize that it would have been a ridiculously hard and long grind trying to solo through hell with a barb on only the gear i'd found -- probably not even half as rewarding as how frustrating and boring it would get. the difficulty and drop rates are truly designed around the auction house, which kind of sucks, but you get used to it, and playing the auction game itself can add its own interesting element to the game

i have ~15k gold though because I actually had fun and tried crafting random things, upgraded the jeweler, etc. idk sucks to play this like a game and get shafted for not powergaming the **** out of it

You could probably double your dps if you buy a weapon for 15k.

ill do 4 or 5 butcher runs and if that fails I'll submit to AH'ing.. sigh

soloed act 4 today!

goddamn izual took me 20+ tries with different builds

finally decided to just cheese him out and run around the circle while tyrael does half the job

I killed izual 3 times (1 try each) with super pro boneweave hauberk block.

He never gave me anything that didn't suck balls though, so I stopped.

Plz to be telling me why I suck, just got to act 1 inferno and am basically useless, I've stacked a ton of str and vit, 46K HP, what do I need?



I know I need a better weapon, it's like 420 dps.

your resists are basically nonexistent. hahaha

also you need minimum 20% block.

What level are you? Because looking at it, you have <90 resist of any kind. You have no melee damage reduction. That's the jist of it. No life per hit.

Looks to me like you need to work on your resistances. Start looking for gear that has Resistance to All Elements.

I'm blasting through Act 1 and unbuffed, just logged in, my lowest resistance is Fire Resistance at 368.

My highest is Physical at 494.

Not that those numbers are "great," but they've been good enough to make Butcher runs pretty trivial. I struggle going through Act 2 because that is a whole new ballgame.

Your HP is a lot higher than mine. My vitality is 881.

You may need a better shield too, just looking at your block amount, it appears on the lower side -- just comparing it to mine which is 1960-2794.

Also, what is your build? That may have something to do with it. Look up a few posts to where I posted my current build.

And, try to get a better weapon. My weapon is a 730.1 dps sword and it works like a charm.

But do not that I am continually looking for weapons and gear to upgrade so that I can continue to progress.

I see, so it seems like my zeal for HP has been misguided, taht sacraficing a few K of life for more resists is actually way better for survivability at this point, makes sense.

technically you should be able to get max vita+max all res on every piece of gear except your weapon, with some high strength thrown in there too.

IMO if you have to compromise, for barbs:

All res = vita > armor = life on hit > attack speed = strength > +% life> dex until around 500 > intel


The more resistant you get, the more life on hit and attack speed becomes important to sustain yourself through a2+ inferno


Vita gives you two things, a lot of max hp, which makes your revenge and charge 8% max hp heal better. And also, it buffs your armor passive that gives 1 armor for every vita. All res is pretty monstrous for barbs since we get +50% from warcry, oh, and that we actually need it too unlike 3 other classes that dont mind getting 2 shotted.

Also, this is purely on a theory level that "if you want to survive a fight here is what you want". But things like strength and attack speed in practice are still extremely good even compared to vita and all res, you actually want to kill things and find items faster, not only survive. But again, its useless if you die too much. Nothing takes more time than running back to bosses again and again, or even not killing them at all in the end.

ps: not putting reduced melee/ranged/elite dmg in it for the sake of simplicity, but obv theyre baller stats.

for comparison here's mine im pretty proud of <3. Giving him a bit of rest and will probably level and gear a witch doctor now.


with warcry and enchantress on:



also -5% from elites not showing anywhere

Damn, you farm a lot. You have like double my ToS. And we're in the same act

act 2 confirmed impossible

1,360 Strength @ 7,431 DPS (1239 Vitality) - Basically uselss

1,386 Strength @ 25,540 DPS (1183 Vitality) - Proud

W.T.F.?

It's because weapon DPS adds a massive amount of damage. Kirby probably has a 1,400ish 1 handed weapon vs Cotton's 400ish 1 handed weapon. Their strength is similar so you can say Kirby's weapon is roughly 3.5x better than Cotton's assuming they have the same passives/etc..

I bought a lot of gear that had +to all resistance and it did indeed help a ton, the 2K or so HP I lost is nothing compared tot he damaage I'm not taking now. My DPS still sucks though but I at least don't get murdered in half a second.

Which would account for 800 of the DPS deficit. Where is the other SEVENTEEN THOUSAND DPS coming from?

That's one thing that Blizzard does that drives me ****ing insane.

Because you don't add it. There's a lot of multiplication involved.

400 DPS weapon = ~7k damage
1200 DPS weapon = ~21 damage (to make the math easier)

If a 2000 DPS weapon happened to exist it would be ~35k DPS.

This is also why a lot of people are upset at legendary weapons. They don't understand how the item level (the number attached internally to the item to let the game know how strong it can be) ties into the item's strength. There could be a MASSIVE difference between 2x level 60 items (note: in this context I'm talking about the required level to wear it).

In D2 it was common to reference items in 2 ways. ilvl = item level , clvl = character level (the level to wear it).