BvC guide by Loits

[Loits]

BvC Guide (Pure PvP build, useless in PvM, build a light soso for that)

Duelling barbarians are usually looked down upon because noobs watch bvc videos on the net (such as these: bvc - Google Video ), make one and then get owned izi by tal sosos. There are so many bvc variations on the net and most of them suck although the base idea is the same.

The most common bvc build is to make one that relies on enigma all the time but this will not be the most effective one because you need to use fortitude from time to time.


Skills:
20 Whirlwind
20 Axe Mastery
20 Leap (I like maxed some people leave leap at lvl 14 (lvl 19 with minimum +skills eq) but imo maxed helps a lot.
5-7 Increased speed
1 Natural Resi
20 Battle Orders
1 Battle Command
The rest in Shout.

My argument for maxing leap:
I've experimented with 1 point in leap 14 and maxed, maxed is definately the best option. Why? fb soso is a real pain to duel if they have gosu es and max block and they have the advantage of range from where they can spam you with fbs therefore even if you can't namelock + gg ww them then maxed leap will hinder their spamming and hence keep you alive longer. Same with blizzard, if they can see you from the edge of their screen they can blizz you and in hell 2 blizz hits = gg therefore it's much safer to use maxed leap and keep them away from you hence giving you a advantage since you can choose when to attack. If you think that you can tele away from closing fireballs than that's a wishful assumption, while you are in mid leap and you see the fireballs coming then it's too late to tele away. Maxed leap also helps against 200 fcr fbers who tend to desync a lot of their fireballs.

Why do we need increased speed? With minimum eq you should get it to lvl 14 where it gives 40% frw. 40 from skill+ 45 from eni and 30 from boots give you 115 frw. FRW is used to desync like smiters, at 150 frw you can do pretty long desyncs but 115 is enough for us to desync a ww now and then, catching our opponents by suprise.


Useful FHR breakpoints:
27%
48% <-- with the eq i listed you should be hitting this one all the time but when you equip kiara vs foh you'll drop to the lower one, but vs a pure foh it's not a big deal. 48% fhr is enough for any situation and more is not needed.

Useful FCR breakpoints
0%
9%
20% <-- going with 20 fcr against casters is possible but not recommended.
37% <-- this is the ideal one that you should hit most of the time.
63% <-- this one is reachable with 08 valk and increases your efficiency by quite a bit but it's an item you can do without.


Items that you will need:
These items are recommended, i'm not stating that: "Build WIll FAIl without 111!!!1!111!!" these although you'll have a very difficult time of making something out of your barb.

Info on Crushing Blow:
Crushing blow has nerfed effects in pvp but it is still useful, saing that it's not useful enough to max out on cb equipment. It does reduces opponents hp by 1/10 th therefore it's especially good to have it against high hp opponents.


Weapons:
Grief ba 34+ ias
Beast ba as high str as possible
Grief + Beast combination is the best weapon combo a barb can use.
2 Doom bas for bo and pubbing but in serious duels you should change for:
2 bo daggers that take up 3 spaces per knife in your inventory.
Widowmaker (Um) A lot of people use Hel to reduce the dex requirement but i don't because i prefer more ow but equiping it will be a problem. Explaned later but only applies for the EU NL. On other realms you should Hel it.
Demon limb, used for enchant (in pubs).

Some people disagree with using a widowmaker against a hammer and they go with just a forti, that way you have more life because you can use bo weapons as well as space in stash but this only really works against hammers who are offencive by deafult, some(sometimes noobier) hammers tend to be really defensive and there is nothing you can do against them without a widow.

Dooms are useful in pubs because you can avoid duels against amas/smiters and those are quite common these days. The holy freeze also helps against fc amas and so on.

Armors:
Eni mp, a no brainer you need the tele and other gosu mods that armor offers.
Forti, main reason for it is damage.

Gloves:
Trang, mainly for fcr
Draculs, str, ow and ll (why ll is important? explaned later)

Rings:
2 20 dex ravens
2 fcr rings with following mods: 10fcr/95+ar/75+mana/res
2 angelic halos
1 20% sorb wisp

Helms:
Kira (Ort)
Coa (Ber, Ber)
Arreat (15ias/15all resi jewel) try to get a 6ll one (why is ll important? explaned later)
08 Valk, useful but not necessary.
http://www.ggd2.com/valk08.jpg

Ammys:
Highlord
Angelic
Metalgrid You should never actually need this ammy but in some team duels you end up with screwed up eq combination where you might be craving for both ar and resi, this is the time for that ammy.

Boots:
25 Dex dancers
Hsarus
Gores
Triple resi boots (fire/cold/light) these ones are heavily duped so finding these shouldn't be a big problem. There are some duped ones that also give a lot of strenght, use those to equip your forti with hel widow.

Belts:
Hsarus
Verdango
Arac
Tal belt
Bug Belt (Siggard's Stealth) EU NL only i think.
http://img354.imageshack.us/img354/5...shot0021lp.jpg
Ow belt with strenght/10% ow/life other mods to be used with Hel ed widow if you don't have duped boots that give str. otherwise use tal belt to equip widow (Hel).

Charms:
Anni Here stats are more important than resisi
Torch ---||---
4 5fhr/5all resi small charms
33 3/20/20s or charms as close to these, on ladder it's best to use 9 gcs rather than all scs.

Other charm possibilities would be using some 20life/11light resi and 20life/11cold resi charms instead of the 3/20/20s. Even 5 of each boosts your resi by a significant amount and comes handy although in hell the cold resi ones won't come into effect since you'll have -100% anyway, so those are mostly for nightmare 1v1s. The light resi ones are much more useful than the cold resi ones, 10 of those will work wonders.

Other Useful Equipment:
Infernostrides, these are legit in gm duels unlike spurs but after you gain some experience you find that you might not need them any more.

Trechery, another popular armor that people like to have in their chest for fade but unfourtunately because of the lack of space you can't fit everything in, if you really wanted that armor drop the dual Dooms although dual Dooms>Trechery in pubs. I don't use trechery myself because if you have gosu eq the small 60+ resi stack is useless to you although you do get 15 dr but you can do without that. The stack is useless because you really only need to stack against fohs and blizz sosos and against those in hell pubs you need to stack a lot more than just the 60+ resi.

Cta3+Hoto these two weapons will increase your bo lvl slightly but they take up a lot of space aswell, although the extra life is always good. :)
6 Sox Ba with Light resi Jewels, it's better to use a ba instead of a 4 topaz monarch when duelling fohs because with the monarch you lose 1/2 of the hits you make even though they don't compare to Griefs damage it's always good to have an extra hit to cause fhr for your opponent, the cheaper option is a monarch ofcourse if you really need the resi.


Stats:
I have not specified what str/dex/vita you have to have because that depends on the eq quality you manage to scrape together, if you can equip the Vs hammer eq without strenght bug then you are fine, that's the most extreme eq option out there.


How do i use all of those things, lol? (+duelling strategies)

BvCs show their strenghts mostly in 1v1 duels althoug they are valuable in tvts aswell. I partake in gm duels that take place in nm and 1 sorb per element is allowed, a good channel to find those is OP DUEL on EU for ladder and nl duels.

Deafult Eq Set
Eni+grief+beast+2 dooms+to gloves+arac+gores+highlord+2ravens+arreat. Illustrated below:
http://img287.imageshack.us/img287/7...uidetxtex8.jpg
Every other eq set is based off this one, if i have not specified an item in the following Vs guides then it's the deafult one from this set. With this eq set you should have about 8k+ ar and 6k+ life.

Vs Hammer
Imo it's a 50/50 duel but the chances of winning are only those if the barb is skilled. Unskilled hammers easily pwn noob babas.
Arreat with the 15ias/15 all resi jool. The ias in the helm is used for this type of situations, it increases your widow speed by 1 frame, it might not seem a lot but it is. Fortitude, lol forti lol? well yes, the ww damage is important here, you can equip forti by using bug belt + 2 raven + highlord + dancers + draculs. The points you need to put into strenght depend on your Beast +str, anni torch and so on. Have widow on switch! Make sure you never tele on top of the hammer, that is suicide, have them tele/charge you but make sure you are ready to ww straight away. if the hammer catches you with widow equipped then you are dead. In real life though hammers are noobs, good hammers only stop for 1 second to spam one hammer and then they tele/charge to the next spot in an attempt to surround you, it's also much harder to avoid single random hammers than a whole bunch spinning around. I've also see one hammer use something that looked like a frost nova, dunno if that was % chance to cast on hit or something but it increased the duel's difficulty because he was able to slow me down and have time to spam hammers to my path. Someone help me with finding out what that item/skill was.

Vs Smiter
Use either coa+eni+verdango or coa+eni+hsaru belt+hsaru boots, in the latter eq choice ench yourself with demon limb to get gosu ar. I find this a fun duel because it's very challenging but in the end you always tend to win. Basically make sure you don't run out of mana but perform short wws so the smiter doesn't have time to tele into your ww even if he uses holy freeze.

Vs Windy
Coa+verdango the rest deafult, your ar will be on the low side but don't worry about it too much. This is where having gosu ll is important, a max dr, max block dudu will be a tough opponent therefore leeching off his wolves/bear is a perfect oppourtunity to even the odds. I've even seen some bvcs use fcr rings with life leech against max block+max dr dudus.
Sometimes i like to use Unsummon+oak lock on dudus but it doesn't end up well all the time, best is to not namelock and tele just behind the dudu to get a hit or 2 in, don't stay in close proximity for long because a max dr and block dudu can tank your wws pretty well, if you are unlucky with getting a few good grief deadly stikes in. A cheap trick of using howl also works wonders. :) Another way to duel a windy would be using fortitude and widowmaker, ww through wolves or the dudu himself and fire some guided arrows on his ass when he teles away to recast.

Vs Boner
Deafult eq (use 08 valk if you want) A max block+max dr boner is probably the only caster you'll have a very difficult time against. If he knows what he's doing then it'll be very hard to win. In this duel it's important to be vary of invisible spirits! it's better to run away from spirits rather than tele away because the teleing animation takes ages at 37% fcr but if you have been slowed by the golem then you have no other choice.

Vs Soso (any)
Deafult eq (use 08 valk if you want) Just leap the hell out of them, most sosos are dumb spammers anyway, good ones tend to lure you next to a wall where they cast meteors and spam fb the reason they do that is because their meteors have a higher chance to hit that way. Good blizzers are difficult if you use 2 fcr rings, that means that you can take 3 hits max and you are dead. Keep clear of teleing into the soso while he is casting blizz all over himself and get him to move out to be offensive.

Vs Trapper
wisp+widow+raven+tal belt/bug belt+dancers, most assassins are easy enough without widow but some you have to make offensive to get them away from the traps where it's your turn to own.

Vs Foh
This is an annoying duel, because you see an illusion of your opponent and you have to predict where to tele and ww, I'd use resi boots+kiara ort + highlord + 2 ravens but if the foh switches on defiance between fohs then use wisp + angelic duo. Sometimes you might find that the listed qeuipment is not enough for you to have a change against a foh especially in hell, therefore you could use a 6 sox ba with light resi jools or a 4 topaz monarch.


Just post if you want me to go in furhter detail in some of the issues, comments/critisism is welcome. I'll be adding to this all the time, when i remember new things. Also post questions.

[Ares]

Awsome guide man! That belt is pretty cool but i think you should include a west or/and east items since most of us are on east/west

[PoTatoes]

yay bvc guide..gonna take a full look after im done with my hw

[crimson-tide]

some of the most basic gear choices for this char, but an excellent guide for the amount of space it takes up :) can easilly tell u know a good bit about the bvc, yet u are lacking in ur stragegys, ur mainly listing equipment, you should go more indepth on how to duel that class... this is the only thing i see that this guide is lacking..... nice in all other aspects. not really original gear, but this is proven to work time and time again, might want to list treachery for fade for the extra DR and Res. this would be a good rough draft for a guide, the thing this is seriouslly lacking is dueling stragegys......

oo ya ive seen that bugged belt before its sick.... if only it were on East and West i would say get 1 lol..... ya the belt is wicked lol

your also missing some casters, more of the most dangerous 1's like FOher, and with 46 FHR, im pretty sure their are some classes that would just pwn you. like singers and the mb/wof trappers lol i forget their name

[PoTatoes]

why da hell did you quote the whole friggin thing...is it so there will be like 5000000000000 pages for this thread -_-?

btw..maras is out of the pic right? not suppose to use it for a bvc right?

[Loits]

Crimson-tide: Unfourtunately trecheri doesn't fit into your chest, if i dropped dual dooms, i'd use a cta3+hoto for bo and only my third choise would be a trechery. <-- added that in

added more info on charms
added eq info on fohs

The only time you won't hit 48 fhr is against a foh and then the fhr is not so important, in all your other duels you must have 48 though. :)

I wouldn't worry too much about WoF assas and Singers. :)

I'll give a east/west non bug belt eq option after i get back from school.


Potatoes: Yeah, maras is a nice ammy but not for babas, most of the time a baba should never take off highlords because of the crazy 34%deadly strike.

[crimson-tide]

Crimson-tide: Unfourtunately trecheri doesn't fit into your chest, if i dropped dual dooms, i'd use a cta3+hoto for bo and only my third choise would be a trechery. <-- added that in

added more info on charms
added eq info on fohs

The only time you won't hit 48 fhr is against a foh and then the fhr is not so important, in all your other duels you must have 48 though. :)

I wouldn't worry too much about WoF assas and Singers. :)

I'll give a east/west non bug belt eq option after i get back from school.


Potatoes: Yeah, maras is a nice ammy but not for babas, most of the time a baba should never take off highlords because of the crazy 34%deadly strike.

lol, i didnt add up how much u had in ur chest and such to really find out lol, my bad

but it can be nice to use, if u really dont need the 2x dooms

i have seen many newbs guides on thsi site, and this is by far one of the better 1's probably one of the best barb 1's

[Ares]

You just about need every axe lol :) my friends bvc had everything Ebotz Griefz Doomz LastwishZ x2 lol... Coa and such so i think you should add that in also

[PoTatoes]

wait loits, does the deadly strike affect work in pvp, because a bunch of people tell me before when i used a hl for my smiter that deadlystrike doesnt affect people in pvp (meaning that it wont work)

just need a verification on that

[crimson-tide]

wait loits, does the deadly strike affect work in pvp, because a bunch of people tell me before when i used a hl for my smiter that deadlystrike doesnt affect people in pvp (meaning that it wont work)

just need a verification on that

Deadly strike DOES work in PVP, but it doesnt work for Smite, just like life leech, and mana leech wont work for Smite, only Crushing Blow works for Smite

that is what they mean by deadly strike doesnt work in pvp, or they might not know lol, then they would jsut be plain newbs

[PoTatoes]

k ty crimson

[crimson-tide]

lotus, i know some bvcs that will use beastz and lwz wat are ur views on that? cause with that setup can be very deadly when lwz hits a chance of curhsing blow is very high whihc will reduce their life plus ur normal damage, just wondering wat ur views on that setup is ?

k ty crimson

lol i checked arreatsummit on smite when i made mine, and i was made to find out that info lol, but yea deadly strike, life leach, and mana leach wont work with smite its a pain in the ass too espically in ubers when u have no mana lol

[PoTatoes]

thats where mana pots come in handy, finally :)

[crimson-tide]

thats where mana pots come in handy, finally :)

LOl that and BVB dueling lol


Lotus when u say to put leap at 14 base skill, u might just want to put they like to get ti to 26 leap with all their gear on lol, cause their might be a few out their that wont need to get it to 14 for 26 leap and their might be some that needs mroe than base of 14, but i dont understand why u max leap now lol

[PoTatoes]

hmm. when i made my last bvc, i did max leap, but i rarely used it. would it ok to instead of putting all those points in leap and into the skill that adds def?

[Loits]

Invisible: sry but there really is no use for botds or last wishes in a pvp build, if you want you can equip a last wish and fury to turn your barb into a frenzy barb and do trist. You can also swap out your grief and use a botd while you are baaling or pvming because you need the mana leech but those are useless for a pvp orientated build.

Crimson: If can trade me a last wish ba with 34 ias on it, i'll ditch my beast straight away from my deafult duelling set, where i need strenght i'd have to go back to beast though.

Potatoes: To play a bvc well, you've got to leap A LOT. Leap is such a great skill giving your opponents double knockback witch hinders their spells/skills.

To be honest, i'd take double dooms over trechery anyday when pubbing because you don't have to worry about smiters that tend to take up 2-3 slots in every duel game now and you render modding amazons useless. The increased resi is no good against blizzard or foh because you actually need to stack a lot more than the 60+ resi gained from trechery. Resis are generally not a problem if you have nice equipment and the small strechery stack is pointless.

added info on leap
added reasons against widowmaker
added hel widow option
added info on crushing blow
pimped dooms some more
added info on trechery
updated strategy vs hammer
updated strategy vs soso
updated strategy vs boner
updated strategy vs windy
updated strategy vs smiter

[crimson-tide]

lotus, i was saying use last wish, with beast lol, and forget greif/botd

and wats a soso? u mean sorc? by reading it seems u mean sorc, or is it a certain type of sorc? lol

although, theres no ias on it, whihc blows so i guess i just answered my question? lol

[Loits]

You don't use last wish at all in a ww build because it has no ias on weapon therefore you won't hit the last ww breakpoint.

soso = sorc

[crimson-tide]

you could always use lw for fade, lol, cause thats a fade worth having, like lvl 20 right? or maybe its 17 lol

[PoTatoes]

i love you loits, this guide is like my freaakin wall paper :) im making a bvc just to start d2 again on west ladder for pvping. i spent over 100fg just for some crap items..to bad i owe like 50 bucks to my friend