Blood's 2nd Guide: Presenting the BO Barb

[Bloodangel26]

OK guys, this is my 2nd guide, 1st specific character guide, so constructive critisim welcome

The BO Barb:

Table Of Contents:

1. Introduction.
2. SKill Points.
3. Stat Points.
4. Equipment.
5. Closing Remarks.

Section 1: Introduction.
This build will not seem useful to many people. If you do not have 2 comps or d2loader it will pretty much seem like a waste of time to you. However, those of you who play diablo with me often will tell you how helpful this character can be. This guide is for a pure BO barb. THIS BUILD AS LISTED IS NOT CHEAP, but properly equipped, this barb will make your party practically invincible. Now on to the build.

Section 2: Skill Points.

This section is pretty easy and offers much room for customization.

1 pt in Howl: prerequisite to Shout.
MAX Shout: godly defense for your party.
MAX Battle Orders: duh, this is the whole reason for the build.
As many points in Battle Command as you need to get your cries to last as long as you need them, but definitely at least 1
1 pt Increased Stamina: run farther and prerequisite.
1 pt Increased Speed: running faster is fun
MAX Iron Skin: helps make your Barb an awesome tank(this is optional in case you want to make a "hybrid").
1 pt Natural Resistances: more resists are always good.
REST: whatever you want. I recommend Concentrate or Whirlwind just so your barb can do some damage if you need him to.

Section 3: Stat Points.

This section is also pretty easy. You may wish to add more points in strength and dexterity if you want to use your barb to fight.

Strength: We do not need any points here.
Dexterity: You might need to add 10-20 depending on how good your charms are and what BO sticks you get.
Vitality: All your points will go here to make your barb a tank.
Energy: ABSOLUTELY DO NOT put any points in here.

Section 4: Equipment.

This section is the difference between making your party uber, and making them GODS. The point here is to get as many points into BO as possible. If you cannot afford the gear listed, use the best gear you have for pure stat points.

Helm: +3 BO +3 warcries magic barb helm for +6 to BO. Or if you cannot find one of those, Delirium runeword made from a white barb helm with +3 to BO. This will give you +5 to BO and +2 to everything else.
Amulet: +3 to warcrys ammy
Armor: Enigma if you can afford it for the +2 skills and strength. If you cannot afford Enigma, use the 1.11 runeword Myth or a +2 arkaine Valor(this will probably require you to put a few points in strength)
Weapon #1: +3 BO CTA(gives +4 to BO). Or if you cannot afford that, Echoing Throwing Spear(or any Echoing weapon that gives +3 to warcries).
Weapon #2: HOTO for +3 all skills. Or if you cannot afford that, Echoing Throwing Spear(or any Echoing weapon that gives +3 to warcries).
Belt: Arachnid Mesh. No other choices, must have the +1 to skills
Gloves: IK gloves. These do not matter too much, I use IK for the +20 strength and dex
Rings: 2 sojs, 2 BKs, or 1 of each. Notthing else will do, need the + to skills.
Boots: Treks or Marrowwalks. For the +to strength and dex.
Inventory: 9 warcry gcs, highest anni you can afford, highest barb torch you can afford. If you want to be able to use your barb as a mule(I do) you can use less GCs.

Section 5: Closing Remarks.

If you follow this build exactly, you will have lvl 54 BO and lvl 45 Shout. This will give you and your party HUGE life and defense. This can be incredibly helpful ubering, baaling, chaosing, rushing, or anything else you would want to do. As always, thanks for taking the time to read my guide. I do not claim to be the first person to think of this build, but I did think of it myself and as far as I know I am the first person to actually write it out.

[FrogMan]

Nice, simple easy build to follow

[FraterPerdurabo]

Nice guide, but I disagree with some things.

Instead of Delirium, use a magical Barb helm that gives +3 warcries +3 bo. You get +1 more bo than from Delirium, and also +1 to Shout and BC. Of course non-warcry skills will suffer (-2), but hey, the purpose of this build is to bo.

Also why mac BC? With all of that equipment, you will have a huge number of +warcries. All the +skills will only add to the duration, but at level 20, you already have 3+ minutes. That is more than enough for your typical Baalrun, and of course you will be BOing in the meantime as well. In my opinion, 1 point in Battle Command is more than enough. Instead, you could use those points to max out the mastery of your weapon, or more into passive skills, such as Iron Skin.

Maybe you should add in Barb FCR, FHR and IAS breakpoints as well. I think that for FCR, it should be 10,37,63,105,200, but I have no clue about the frames. Because of this, a BO barb can be converted into a great Throne teleporter, because of his high resists and massive life pool. For that, instead of CTAs, use 2xHoto (2x40%), Trang gloves (20%) and Arach (20%). You will lose +2 warcries, but you can get your party to the Throne very safely.

[Phallock]

Nice guide, and interesting comment by Frater for a hybrid. Might have to make one of these someday.

[L4E]

actually, his weapons on switch could be hotos, combined with arachs he gets 100fcr and with a +3wc/5-10fcr ammy he gets 105, which is i guess enough to tele to throne, without sacrificing any bo, but then u wont really have any switch weapons o.o
plus the point of being a bo barb is to give bo to ur party, which includes the character that will tele

i think it would be best to use delirium since it has huge ass defense and more useful stats than an extra skill, so that ur barb can tank anything

[FraterPerdurabo]

actually, his weapons on switch could be hotos, combined with arachs he gets 100fcr and with a +3wc/5-10fcr ammy he gets 105, which is i guess enough to tele to throne, without sacrificing any bo, but then u wont really have any switch weapons o.o
plus the point of being a bo barb is to give bo to ur party, which includes the character that will tele

i think it would be best to use delirium since it has huge ass defense and more useful stats than an extra skill, so that ur barb can tank anything

Depends on whether you want to do anything or not... You could have HOTOs as primarys and CTAs on switch, which will give you a +2 bo, or you could HOTOs on switch and have Beast and Grief Berserker Axes as primarys.

On the other hand, I don't think that HOTOs are bad alternatives to CTAs. Hoto will act as +3 warcries, booting your Shout and BC as well, while CTA will only give +1 warcries and +3 BO (only +1 bonus to Shout, instead of +3 with Hoto).

Also, besides +10 VIT, the mods on Delirium are utterly useless. Magical helms can have more life and other nice mods.

edit: If you would use proper weapons as primarys, I'd say use Dracul's instead of IK gloves. Ultimate tank.

[Bloodangel26]

interesting comments guys, thanks. frater that is an interesting idea to use him as teleporter, but my pally actually has even more life than this guy with his BO. i think this is due to the rest of his gear.

also i often use this barb to accompany me in mf games to make it a little easier and increase chances of drops a little, so having the extra time on the cries helps there because i pretty much mf everything. also i always have him just sit on the waypoint for baal runs...i dont let him have any xp because that would lower the xp for the rest of the party.

HOTO would be pointless unless you are going to use him for tellying because you can just get +3 to warcries spears and they are just as useful.

the problem with using dracs to help tank is that then you would have to actually attack. when i use this guy as a tank, i just have him sit there and take damage while i am on another character doing the killing

and about the magic helm, i did not know those existed...added to the guide. also changed some fonts to make it a little easier to read since it didnt show up quite how i wrote it out.

glad you guys enjoy my guides....psn/summon hybrid necro coming soon

[FraterPerdurabo]

By the way, +6 bo helms can only be magical. On rares, you can only have +5.

I still think that more than 1 point in BC is a waste though eek:

[Bloodangel26]

well, you really dont have anything else to spend it on unless you are going to use this barb as a killer too...but this barb cannot make a very effective pvp and it cannot really do that well pvm either unless you sacrifice a lot of BO points, so if you want to make this barb you are better off not bothering to try to make him into something else too. i suppose you could put more points into natural resists, since this barb doesnt have very good resistances unless you use the HOTOs. here i'll make a little change to the guide regarding BC

[DiGiTaLiS]

i like the guide 10/10 i'm building this right now

[Bloodangel26]

thanks digi, if you have any questions about it, let me know.

[Loits]

Did you even test this build? 2 cta3s only give +5 to bo therefore it's a total waste. I would recommend a cta3+hoto giving you the maximum of +7 to bo.

As frater stated 1 point in command is enough.


If you are gonna do pvm with your barb then:

Usually bo barbs are used as wc barbs but i personally don't find them that good, I'd recommend maxing whirlwind and 1 point in concentrate. To help out in baals you might wanna use 2 botd bas since they have nice mana and life leech but if you are going for damage use grief+beast bas.

Also any barb should get a minimum of 40frw from the frw skill.

1 point in natural resi is not enough, usually go for 3-5.

Leap is also damn useful even in pvm and a couple of points there would be good aswell.

Edit: for pvm maxing iron skin is useless since monsters have low ar and if you need a tank use storm and max block. The best tank is beast+storm with max block and in bear form since you get a massive life increase.

When using max block don't forget to walk cos running decreases block to 25% on any build. It's pointless to max block and go around running cos you basically take away your advantage and also decrease your life.

Edit: also this build will not be able to hit anything in pvm since you get about 4k ar, recommended ar for pvm is 10k.

[DiGiTaLiS]

i have a hammerdin and i am creating this building purely for the bo, bc and shout. right now i have the gear stated in the guide.. if it should be changed so the skills get higher let me know please.

[Bloodangel26]

Did you even test this build? 2 cta3s only give +5 to bo therefore it's a total waste. I would recommend a cta3+hoto giving you the maximum of +7 to bo.

As frater stated 1 point in command is enough.


If you are gonna do pvm with your barb then:

Usually bo barbs are used as wc barbs but i personally don't find them that good, I'd recommend maxing whirlwind and 1 point in concentrate. To help out in baals you might wanna use 2 botd bas since they have nice mana and life leech but if you are going for damage use grief+beast bas.

Also any barb should get a minimum of 40frw from the frw skill.

1 point in natural resi is not enough, usually go for 3-5.

Leap is also damn useful even in pvm and a couple of points there would be good aswell.

Edit: for pvm maxing iron skin is useless since monsters have low ar and if you need a tank use storm and max block. The best tank is beast+storm with max block and in bear form since you get a massive life increase.

When using max block don't forget to walk cos running decreases block to 25% on any build. It's pointless to max block and go around running cos you basically take away your advantage and also decrease your life.

Edit: also this build will not be able to hit anything in pvm since you get about 4k ar, recommended ar for pvm is 10k.

if you'd actually read my guide thoroughly you would find the answers to all this.

[Loits]

Did you even test this build? 2 cta3s only give +5 to bo therefore it's a total waste. I would recommend a cta3+hoto giving you the maximum of +7 to bo.

Weapon #1: +3 BO CTA(gives +4 to BO). Or if you cannot afford that, Echoing Throwing Spear(or any Echoing weapon that gives +3 to warcries).
Weapon #2: +3 BO CTA(gives +4 to BO). Or if you cannot afford that, Echoing Throwing Spear(or any Echoing weapon that gives +3 to warcries).

if you'd actually read my guide thoroughly you would find the answers to all this.

I did read what you wrote and i think YOU should read what i wrote.

[Bloodangel26]

YES I TESTED THIS BUILD I USE IT EVERY TIME I RUN BAAL! stop spamming my guide. 2 +3 or higher CTAs will give you +8 to BO and 2 hotos gives +6. please learn to add before you critique my builds

[Loits]

Noob, you didn't test shit.

I made a video for you:
http://media.putfile.com/Diablo-2-bo-check

[Bloodangel26]

so...according to your "video", you lose points in BO by adding more +to skills?

[Loits]

If you still don't beleave me consult arreats from time to time:

http://www.battle.net/diablo2exp/skills/basics.shtml

Pay close attention to this section:
Skill Points that work for Any Class ("oskill" Skill Points)

[Bloodangel26]

i actually just looked that up before you posted it. next time you want to be "helpful", try not coming off as a jackass and people will be more inclined to listen to you. also if you would have mentioned the "oskills" first i would have had an idea what you were talking about.