Hal's 1.10 Conc Build Guide (Updated Edition)

Dave:

Aye, it's been mentioned before, and the main reason it was left out is that it went against the theoretical function of the conc barb. I plan to do some more testing with it in the future, however, once things get stablized on my UO server, classes calm down, and I finish work on the website and barb faq. It will be mentioned in the optional one-pointers, more than likely.

GA is indeed a nice armor, I just don't use it a lot in general as they are better armors overall. I'll look into it and think about adding it to the armor section.

-Hal
 
Hey hal, i hate to disagree with ya but my understanding of warcry is you need lots of points in it to get the stun time up to a reasonable amount. At one point it wouldn't be worth the damage or the stun. I think if it was mentioned it would fit in better in the remainder options section along with berserk, bash and iron skin. I do agree with you that it kind of defeats the point of high defence, but if survivability is your goal it would be better then Iron Skin IMHO.
 
This is true, I was figuring with a good +6 or more skill, it would have a decent 2 or 3 second duration though with just one point, though I havn't looked at the chart. Well do some testing on it this weekend before we get back to polishing the server.

-Hal
 
great build hal, well done!

just a quick question, and im not sure if its been talked about yet because i havent been able to read through the 6 odd pages. will this build comfortably get me thru the game on single player, or will i have difficulties? im new to the forums and im not sure about all the terminology but i only play the game on single player, i havent set up battle net yet..
 
Sm17h,

Sure, it will get you through sp rather well, though obviously the better gear you can manage, the more exceptionally it will perform. It won't kill excessively fast, as that's just a downside to conc, and this will be emphasized if you have poor luck finding good weapons, but it's probably the sturdiest barb build around, as far as survivability.

-Hal
 
I'm curious about the PVP aspect of this build. If you're planning on dueling, should you still max your mastery last? I've read different takes on this issue. Half say max it first, others suggest last. As this is one of the more comprehensive guides, I'd like to hear your insights. THX.
 
:winner: Great job Hal!!!! Excellent Guide and I also would like to thank all the people who have kept this thread alive, great insight and questions people.
I started my first Conc. Barb last night and he is now 21st lvl and I hope to have him upto high lvl after this weekend. I will post more then. I have been thinking about armor and resist and such. I think I am going to go high def., Guardian Angel ,and get 95% resist and max DR and max black with a storm shield.
anyhow more next week.
 
You say to use a BOTD Zerker Axe. But would a Silence Zerker axe do good too? I know its only 200% ed but it provides massive bonuses to resists, +2 to all skills, magic find... Would this axe work? Just a question
 
jcos:

If you plan on pvping with the build, you'll probably want to wait until you're upwards of 80-85 to start, at which point you should have already maxed all of your 4 base skills, so it's not really a big issue.

Dada:

Silence works decently, and it nice for the rests and skills and such. Unfortunately, it lacks high-end damage, powerful combat mods, and, most importantly, IAS, which you really need a lot of on a conc barb. It would serve you well for awhile, but it's easily outstripped by items like BotD, Doom, Beast, and even shoppable items like Cruels; you can definately use it whilst playing and such, though sooner or later you'll probably want to upgrade to something more effective.

-Hal
 
Never thought I'd see the day

So I've finally put together almost all of the gear I need to make a godly conc barb. Of course, the area I am missing a godly item in is the weapon. I've only done it a couple of times now, but I cubed up a decent zerker axe. It's got +1 skills, 250% ed (80-250 dmg) and +19 life most notably. Until I can afford the runewords for either botd (duh) or famine (elemental dmg so I don't have to switch to berserk all the time), it'll have to do.

I wanted to ask about the clvl requirements to get the highest ed mods when cubing. I have a lvl 87 sorc who cubed my zerker axe, is she the right lvl to most likely get the highest ed mods or is she too high/low? I just wanna make sure I get the most bang for my buck as staying stocked up on ingredients takes some time.

Wow, I just spent the past 2 days forgetting about crescent moon. I have the runes to make it, just need a 3 socket axe... It looks to me like crescent moon would make a better choice than a crafted weapon unless I got really lucky.

Anyways, thanks for all the info, I've learned a lot from it. And nice build guide. *shakes his head*
 
I've been wanting to build an IK Barb and then I saw this guide and couldn't resist building an IK/Conc Barb.

So now I have the plan pretty much laid out, I'm at lvl 71 now going strong to get my IK set equipped at lvl 76.

My gear will be as follows:
IK helm (socket 2 x ias/6-8 min dmg)
IK armor (socket ias/15 max dmg)
IK maul (socket shael + ias/13 max)
IK belt, gloves, boots (of course)
Highlords
Bul Kathos ring
Ravenfrost

This will give me last frame conc attack at 11 fps and (I think) the most ed/$ spent with the IK set. Had to give up a nice charm for those jewels, but hey.. what can you expect? I'll also get 75% light res (+ an additional 35% from Highlords in case I get cursed), 72% fire res, 44% cold res and 54% poisonres out of the box. Now, with a raven I guess cold is fairly taken care of, but I should probably get me some more poison res.

I spent my skills on 1 in bash, leap, stun, leap attack, ww and zerk, 20 in conc. I got 1 in howl, taunt, battle cry, war cry and BC, 20 in shout and BO. Also got 20 in mace mastery and 1 in incr. stamina and speed, iron skin and natural resi.

With my 2 cry swords on switch this gives me a lvl 35 shout and BO.

Now I was wondering, is the iron skin added before the shout or just put on top? Cuz if it's added before then I think I'll put my remaining points in iron skin.. if not, then where should they go? No, I don't like grim wards, so I won't be using that even tho they can be potentially useful. If I find myself in a sticky situation I ww outta there and run on home :)

Also got 2 skillers to each tree, if I failed to mention that.. which I think I did.. yes. Even think I got a 3rd for the mastery tree somewhere.. hmm..

note to self: Look around for 3rd mastery skiller..
 
Ironskin is addative, it does not precede shout. All of the defense boost skills only take your base defense (including dex bonus) into account.

Likewise, the last conc breakpoint is 9 frames, though the IK maul can only make it to 10, but even then it is ridiculously hard to get there (280% ias). 11 frames takes 163%, which you manage.

-Hal
 
Know what's weird? Got mine to 80 with 4k life with BO, 14k Def with Shout - 24k when swining, and close to 10k AR. I just finished Act4/5 Hell and have only died 2 times overall, from IM. One thing that's annoyed me is now I'm finding Zerk MUCH better than Concentrate. This guy is a total tank and leech doesn't matter 9/10 times. I can stand in mass group and use Zerk and barely worry bout life. When I need the leech and swing with Concentrate. Zerk is lvl 10 and Concentrate is 25ish with Zerk doing 400 more dmg. Think is, Zerk is PLOWING compared to Concentrate. It seems to kill 2x faster even with it being interuppted and Concentrate not. I'm using Zerk over Concentrate now =\ and am quite ready to remake and get that Zerk to 25+.
 
jbeast said:
Know what's weird? Got mine to 80 with 4k life with BO, 14k Def with Shout - 24k when swining, and close to 10k AR. I just finished Act4/5 Hell and have only died 2 times overall, from IM. One thing that's annoyed me is now I'm finding Zerk MUCH better than Concentrate. This guy is a total tank and leech doesn't matter 9/10 times. I can stand in mass group and use Zerk and barely worry bout life. When I need the leech and swing with Concentrate. Zerk is lvl 10 and Concentrate is 25ish with Zerk doing 400 more dmg. Think is, Zerk is PLOWING compared to Concentrate. It seems to kill 2x faster even with it being interuppted and Concentrate not. I'm using Zerk over Concentrate now =\ and am quite ready to remake and get that Zerk to 25+.
Click to expand...

For my two cents I built my barb up to lvl 94 and he has both concentrate and berserk maxed. I find I use concentrate more, I use zerk for bosses and I use concentrate on all groups, i have fair decent gear and i find when doing baal runs if I have to switch to berserk only cuz of the presence of Oblivion Knights (ie Iron Maiden) I start to get booted around big time. Of course if you have botd zerker axe and other such godly gear you may not have the trouble I did when using Zerk. If you did decide to go the pure zerker route you may want to invest in warcry for the stun.
 
Hello, Hal:

I want to know whether you can provide a more detailed guide on CO barb's training, like sasja's Meteorb Sorc's guide. I mean a guide telling us when (at every lvl) to put how many skill points into which skill.

I know your guide is not so detailed coz you want to give ppl freedom to train at his own will. But for noobs as me, it is more easy to follow a certain successful pattern. Freedom is not what we want now.

Would you?

Thanks for your great work.
 
Was using eth BoTD Zerk, Enigma, etc and some pretty good charms. I can see how for a lower level gear Concentrate is better but once I got higher up I noticed my Zerk was so much more useful than Concentrate. The kill speed was much better even with only 400 more dmg and with the good gear I didn't need leech that badly. If I came into a mass group or a boss and something that could slowly get my life down I'd just use Concentrate to grab it back but that is really the only time I've used it recently. Not saying the build sucks, it's great I'm just a little annoyed I didn't discover this before. The 0 defense doesn't even seem to matter.
 
jbeast said:
Was using eth BoTD Zerk, Enigma, etc and some pretty good charms. I can see how for a lower level gear Concentrate is better but once I got higher up I noticed my Zerk was so much more useful than Concentrate. The kill speed was much better even with only 400 more dmg and with the good gear I didn't need leech that badly. If I came into a mass group or a boss and something that could slowly get my life down I'd just use Concentrate to grab it back but that is really the only time I've used it recently. Not saying the build sucks, it's great I'm just a little annoyed I didn't discover this before. The 0 defense doesn't even seem to matter.
Click to expand...

I noticed the same thing with zerk until you get to Baals minons.
(I have basically the same equip with my lvl 90 barb.)

His minons knock me around whenever I try using zerk. They drain my
life bulb too quickly. Zerk kills faster but I have too switch to conc too
much to kieep my life up. (my life is around 3k using BO).

Just my .02 worth.

Jac
 
johny:

I put a bit of leveling advice in the FAQ section, if you take a look in there. I may try to add a more in-depth leveling section in a future revision, once things calm down around here. If you find you need more help, just page me on ICQ (I got your messages last night, but since you were afk and I have a LOT of meetings today, I went to bed).

-Hal
 
Hey! Kinda new to the forums but whatever, I need some advice on my conc barb...I dont know if I need to remake him or what to upgrade first, any of you with smarts mind to help me out? Thanks, Heres my Setup:

BASE:
70 STR
67 DEX
367? VIT (I think)
13 Ene (Miss clicks..wasnt paying attention)

With Equip:
302 STR
224 DEX
428 VIT
~65 ENE

Skills: (This is where I might need to remake...my bud's convinced me to get WW....I dont know)
Conc: 18
WW: 17
BO: 20
Shout: 15
Sword Mastery: A sad 14
Nat Res: 1
Iron Skin : 1
Leap:1*(Not needed if no WW in build)
Leap Attack:1*(Not Needed if no WW in build)

With Equip: (and skill cry)
Conc: 28
WW: 27
Sword Mastery: 22
Nat Res: 8
Iron Skin: 9

~With WC Stuff
BO: 43
Shout: 38

Gear:
15% IAS Arreats (Will have a 40/15 By end of 2nite)
368% Eth BoTD CB
40/15 MAX SS (Bugged?)
Enigma Dusk
2X Raven's
Thundergod's Vigor
Marrowalks
20% IAS 14str/dex Gloves OR Ik Gloves OR Dracs
+2 Baba Skills, 10% R/w, 19 STR, 20 DEX, +58 Life, +56 Mana Ammy
2X Echoing Spears
2X SOJ (For Cries)
1XDemon Limb (Duh)

Charms:
18X 3/20/20
1x 40 Life/14 Res all GC
1x Combat GC
1x Anni (17/17/7)
15X Random Decent Charms (Not great though..Like random crap heh)
7X WC GC (For Cries Than off)

Stats:
IAS % (With Rare Gloves) = 95% IAS (2nd last bp?)
Damage: 1850-5250 (CONC)
Defense: 29K (Depends on gloves, can hit 30K I think) With Conc (With Shout)
AR: 17.7 K With Demon Limb
Block: 75%
PDR: 43% (Enig/SS/Tgods) OR 50%+ (String/Enig/SS)
Life: 6000+

Now, I do PvM, rush a friend, help some friends out doing random stuff, playin around, lvl'ing, questing, but I am Also PvP and value PvP highly, most likely over PvM cause I got other chars for that... I am Melee only, except for havin fun with caster/thrower/misc classes that I wanna challenge. I Dont think ive lost a melee duel yet ( Havnt dueled like much at all, I'd hazard a guess of about ~15), but I got a match with a friend comin up and hes good, were gonna do melee and I need to win. WW comes in handy with PvM a lot, and with killin nec's/sorc/zon/other ****, but conc is my melee, which Is what I want to kill all in. BTW melee is not ww for this case lol, so its kinda useless. Now, If I remake my barb do I lower the str or dex even lower? Cuz i know i can still wear all equip a lot lower, and still have max block to. (Only lvl 85, need to get to 90 :( ) Anyways, would It be wise to do that? More vita will help? Or just prolong my death against good conc'ers....Anyways If I remake no WW, max conc/bo/shout/mastery, than iron skin or bash with rest, will I notice a increase in melee performance? Id have another ~20 skill points to use...What equipment should I upgrade, other than the arreats...and is the SS worthless cuz max bugged? Do i go with 43% PDR or 50%? Should I invest in a zerk or will it wreck the rest of my equip with the cost, and are more 32020 the best option? Enigma best option for armor? Boots? And should I upgrade to about a 375-80% eth botd cb, will damage increase be worth the price? Sorry for the tons of questions, but Hal you seem kinda of a really smart guy on this sorta thing....Thanks for any help :P
 
UPDATE: I have gotten my 40/15 arreats, damage went up around 100 min 200 max, and I just got offered a 372% Eth botd zerk for my eth botd cb (368%) and 2 290, and 4 32020. Should I take deal and make new barb?
 
Log in to Reply / Create Site Account
Remove Ads - Go PurePremium

Latest posts

Back
Top