Hal's 1.10 Conc Build Guide (Updated Edition)

No Ed, that's a terrible idea. After 5 points, the diminishing returns become terrible. Likewise, most barbs have plenty of +skill items, not to mention all the resists you can get from gear like arreat's and annihi, plus anya quest resists....you seriously only need one point.

-Hal
 
Random thought: Replace mastery with another synergy, then use Freshrender for daggery goodness...easy to hit 9 frames, and the ar shouldn't suffer with FR's mods

*this steams from
Halciet said:
As for a mastery, I personally think axe mastery is the best choice, period. Death Cleaver is a superb weapon, though of course an ethereal one with higher ed on it would be better. Still, yours will do great.
Click to expand...
 
Problem being that there isn't another nice synergy for conc after berserk. You can go for the 20% magic shift with berserk, but you're still lacking.

-Hal
 
Hi, I have question about Find Item skill.
Is this 1 point invested here worth of it ? Do you have good result with it and on which monsters do you use it (all or bosses only) ?
And how you solved problem between FI and Ravenfrosts (it destroy corpses many times if i'm not wrong) ?
 
I love find item, though with the +skills of my echoing weapons on switch, I don't see a need for more than 1 point in it, as I'll have a near 50% chance to get a new drop. What's so great about find item is that when you get a new drop, what can drop is only limited by what the monster can drop, so it's basically like killing the monster again.

As for ravenfrost and nature's peace, I don't like to wear them if I'm going to be using find item. They very much limit the chances I have to use find item as they get rid of the corpses too often. Find Item can only be used on characters that leave a body, so all act bosses and those with cold enchanted corpse explosion are out.
 
Hi all, I need some advice from a fellow barb player. Ive been really interested in making a conc barb for awhile and i have full ik set (except for armor but isnt that always the case lol). I was wondering if this build i have planned for him will fair well, thanks :)

CLvl 80
Skills:
bash x 1
stun x 1
conc x 20

mace mastery x 20
increase stamina/speed x 2 (1 pt each)
nat resist x 1
iron skin x 1

howl x 1
shout x 20
bo x 20
battle command x 1

Stats Base:
Str 150 (not exactly sure how much base ill need so i can use ik maul)
Dex 120
Vit 140
Energy Base

Equipment:
ik helm, gloves, boots, belt, armor (hopefully lol)
raven frost x 1
Dwarf Star or Bul Kathos x 1
Warlords ammy
 
Unless you have annihilus, you'll need 187 base str to wear the armor with the rest of the set pieces (set adds 45 str). Likewise, DO NOT PUT ANY POINTS INTO DEX ON AN IK BARB. The ONLY times you put points into dex are for blocking, or weapon requirements. I REALLY need to finish that barb FAQ, fast.

Otherwise, you're looking ok. Keep in mind that the IK set doesn't work super well with Conc, since it's a very slow weapon and thus takes a LOT of ias to hit decent breaks. Likewise, losing out on the shield kinda hurts...it's generally better as a whirlwind suit. But still, it works. Perhaps with your leftover points put 5 into warcry, incase you need it against ITD enemies, and then maybe the rest into ironskin :)

-Hal
 
Hi, long time, no post in the Barb Forum.

Hal, I have a Conc Barb I'm working on in SP. Hes nowhere close to being done, but I only have a base of 10 into my Weapon Mastery with +2 from other items. Is it really worth dumping another 10 points into the Mastery for some rather blehish returns or is it safe to start going to other places with my skill points?

- Aduna
 
Blehish returns? How so? You're getting 5% damage, 8% ar, and an occasional boost to critical hit %...those are pretty great bonuses for a point expenditure. The only time it will really seem "blehish" is if you're using a weapon weapon or have low base ar for it to capitalize on. With a powerful weapon and nice ar, each point will really pay off.

Or were you meaning finishing off another skill before you finish off mastery? In that case, yes, I would suggest finishing Shout, Conc, BO, and 1 pointers before you really start to work on mastery, and then move on to your filler skill.

Where else would you put the points, anyways? You can easily max conc, bo, shout, mastery, put 15 into ironskin, 5 into warcry, 1 in nat resist/inc speed/bcomm/berserk/find item and then all the pre-reqs and have an uber-tank, not wanting in any department. I need to revise the guide to reflect that as my optimal choice.

-Hal
 
It's the MFing Part thats bothering me. I prefer to have a good base for FI pointwise because I find myself too often not having a large enough chance if I put in a point and pray for +skills. Maxing 4 things really strains the point/level income I'm currently at, (lvl 79) and I need those extra points into FI to make it anywhere near useful enough to use on Pit Runs. Damage is taking a side burner to being a simple meat shield for my friends Sorcs and Zons. The other thing is, I doubt I'm going to play him until level 99, even level 90, which means that I lose out on those skill points, making the strain really hurt. I just want to know that for this purpose, is putting the few saved points I have into the Mastery really a good idea in my case.

- Aduna
 
Hi Hal.

Thanks for great guide. I made my first Conc Barb some time ago and I haven't played too much with him now. He is level 70 and uses the following equipment: Death Cleaver, Duriel, Arreat, Highlord, Gerke, Dwarf Star, Manald Heal and IK Gloves, Belt and Boots. He is only at act 1 hell right now. His AR is kinda low; 4410 :(, but defense is better; 9633 with Shout and 16234 with Concentrate. His resists are 62, 64, 75 and 34 in hell and stats with items are 180, 144, 232 and 10. He has 2614 life with BO and doesn't die often. The only problem IMO is - damage. He is doing only 591-1811 with his Death Cleaver (Though I haven't picked mastery yet, but will it increase my damage when well? Axes seem to be a good option to me.). So my questions are: What would be a good but pretty cheap weapon for him? And is Duriel good enough armor for him? I have been thinking of Gloom because of nice resists and defense.
 
Aduna:

Ah, well, in that case, if you're not really doing much of the killing and you want the extra Find Item, you can go ahead and drop more into it. Didn't realize that you were going for a MF sub-template =)

Tuoppi:

To be honest, aside from BotD, Death Cleaver would probably be the next weapon I'd suggest. It doesn't have extremely high damage unless it's ethereal with a Zod, but it make up for it with all of that deadly strike. Between that, highlord's, and mastery, you should be doing double your display damage virtually every hit.

Go ahead and get a mastery. Axes are, overall, the best choice for a 1h/shield barbarian, and if you can manage to get a eBotD berserker axe, you'll have the best 1h weapon around. Mastery will give you more critical strike and a swift shot of ar, along with some more damage as well. Try and pick up some max damage charms, and perhaps socket your Arreat's with an ED or ed/ias jewel. That will help out a bit. Other than that, just keep on trucking, and try and amass some wealth so you can trade for something amazing like BotD or Beast, or an ethereal, zodded version of your current weapon.

As for armor, duriel's isn't exactly the best armor you could hope for. It's a really nice mid-game armor, but as you get larger, you'll want to get something nicer; Gloom is alright, as are the expensive armors like CoH, Enigma, Valor, and Steel Carapace. I likewise think that the new runeword armor, Duress, is an excellent, excellent piece of gear, and is probably the most affordable power-armor you can get in that the highest rune is Um. Throw that in something along the lines of an Archon Plate and you should see a nice boost to both defense and killing speed (thanks to the inherent combat mods on the armor).

-Hal
 
Hey, I'm sorry I forgot about the MF part. But now I really like the Conc Barb as a potential MFer. Problem is, I've lost all my Bnet chars to the 3-month rule and need to rebuild. Another thing I should mention is that I absolutely HATE shields. (I see a shield on a Barb, I think Paladin on Steroids :teeth: ) What sort of gear and skill outlook should I try and aim for down the road?
 
Well, if you don't want to use a shield, you should really consider making a whirler instead. Conc barbs and 2h weapons don't go well together, since Conc is a regular swing attack, and thus the amount of ias needed increases horrendously with a slow base speed weapon. Likewise, 2h weapons have a regular swing type speed penalty, which makes it hard to get to a decent frame with them.

Using a shield would give you another slot of MF to boot (rhyme, 4 ist monarch).

If you do stay conc, then you'll probably want to take up the 15/5 skin/warcry option I mentioned earlier, since that stun will help out a lot, and the defense will offset the lost defense from a shield (though you're still hurting for blocking). Gearwise, use anything you like. My mf whirl barb is still weaing the same gear he had in .09 (Travs, Goldwrap, Shako, Skulder, Chanceguards, rhyme, 2 dual leech mf rings, +2 barb/mf ammy, and loads of 6 and 7% small charms). For a weapon, perhaps something like tomb reaver.

-Hal
 
Hi and thanks for the great guide!

I'm about to run off and make one now, but I'm not uber rich like everyone else with BoTD falling outta my.. ears:p

The best 1 handed weapon I have is a 130% Schaefer's hammer. Will this be able to do reasonably well in hell? I'll have a nord's waiting at lvl 68 to stick with till lvl 79 for the shaef's also.

Crap, I just checked the calculator (I suggest you put a link to the german speed calc in your guide?) and poor shaef's is slow as tar. I can probably get the 79% ias in order to get it to 11 frames, but 10frames is 127%ias and way beyond me w/o resorting to ias armour. Is 11 frames still too slow?

But I'm not sure what to go with up till lvl 68? (nords) Any suggestions?

Thanks for your help! :clap:

EDIT:
gear at the moment would look like (pvm)
weapon?, SS, arreat's, highlords, ravenfrost, dual leech ring, gore riders, blood gloves (20ias, 8%cb), probably duress armour (15%cb and 33%ow). assorted sharp charms or vita stuff. 2 echos on switch.

merc: act2 might with cruel warpike of lamprey (amn/amn - 22% life leech), shaftstop, gaze. or maybe that bonehew thingy instead :p
 
I usually suggest using the purediablo.com version of the ias calculator instead, since the german one can be a bit difficult to understand for new players. The dii one is much simpler, with just 3 fields you have to fill out =)

I usually don't like getting below 10 frames on a weapon, but even at 11, you're going fast enough to keep your defense/uninterruptable bonuses up. Still, you might want to be on the lookout for something else, such as stormlash. Otherwise your gear looks great. For early leveling, I'd just use whatever you could find, as there arn't many nice low-level unique maces to tout. You maybe try for a cruel or rare weapon, or trade for a Fury mace of some sort on the cheap. Otherwise, you might just have to tank for people in multiplayer games to get exp until you get to 68.

-Hal
 
So I was playing around with a setup that maxed CB as best I could and added in a good amount of OW and DS. Normal setup would be gores (15% CB, 15% DS, 10% OW), highlords (34% DS at current lvl), arreats, coh, ss, botd zerker, dracul's (25% OW), ravens, verdungos, and a bk.

I tried switching out coh for a duress (15% CB, 33% OW), botd zerker for heaven's light scepter (33% CB, -33 target def, 20% ias), just switching those two items gave me 63% CB vs. 15%, 68% OW vs. 35%, and same DS at 50%.

I was surprised to find out that the heaven's light, even though it dropped my dmg to 2.5k from 6.5k, had enough CB from my gear to actually hold its own pretty well. It didn't kill quite as fast as the zerker with duress, but if you threw 2 bers in the 2 open sockets of the weapon, that would bring you to 100% CB. That's expensive to do, almost as expensive as a botd, but I bet it would tear things up. The biggest problem with this is that my attack rating drops a whole 4k, from 10k, by not using the botd.

Anyways, a CB setup could possibly kick some serious *** with a conc build. I just thought I'd throw in my 2 cents to the experts seeing as I haven't seen much mention of actually building your gear around CB.
 
First off, Hal, amazing guide. I'm tired of the typical cookie cutter WW barb, so I decided to give this a try as a dueler...

Over the course of the last week, I traded everything I had. I got runes, PGems, and did Hellforges. Now, I traded it all for this gear (USeast Ladder). Within the next 2-3 days, I'm about to start my Conc Barb dueler. I tried to cover every possible weakness when picking my gear. Here's my setup:

Helm: Upgraded Arreat's Face (6% LL/193% ED) with a 40% ED/9 Dex Jewel
Gloves: Dracul's Grasp (9% LL/15 Str)
Boots: Upgraded Gore Rider (187% ED)
Belt: Verdungo's Hearty Cord (+40 Vit/12% DR)
Armor: Enigma Wire Fleece, 1213 Defence
Ring 1: Raven Frost
Ring 2: Perfect Carrion Wind
Amulet: Highlord's Wrath
Shield: Stormshield (with Um rune if necessary)
Weapon: Beast Berserker Axe (stats unknown, I've yet to make it, waiting to trade for the axe)

Prebuff-
Demon Limb
+3 Warcries Amulet
Dual Echoing Weapons

Charms-
Annhilius, 1/17/17/8, self found =]
Grand Charm, +1 Combat Skills, +18 life
+100 Poison Damage, 5% faster hit recovery SC
+175 Poison Damage, 1-22 Lightning Damage LC
Misc Small/Large Charms, with +max, +ar, +life

Skills
Concentrate: 20 points
Battle Orders: 20 points
Shout: 20 points
Axe Mastery: 20 points
Increased Stamina: 1 point
Increased Speed: 1 point
Iron Skin: 1 point
Natural Resistance: 1 point
Howl: 1 point
Battle Command: 1 point
Stun: 1 point
Bash: all remaining points

Stats
Strength: just enough to use biggest item
Dexterity: hopefully enough for max block
Vitality: everything else
Energy: none

Strategy would obviously be to go to line Inner Cloister or someplace, do my cries with prebuff gear, and Enchant myself. Then, I would use my good run/walk speed to get right upclose to whoever, and give them one helluva smack. I won't kill on pure damage, rather with crushing blow, deadly strike, and open wounds. I will have over 50% of each, I think. For annoying characters, like teleporting blizzard sorcs and bone necros, I'll use my Enigma and teleport right after them.

I'll keep you guys updated with how he does. His name will most likely be FatalChron, unless I can think of a better adjective to stick in front of Chron. Let me know what you think of the build =]
 
I don't see any fcr gear to go up against teleporting characters. If you're gonna go up against a bone necro or cold sorc that tele's, you should grab some gear that'll give you over 63 fcr to hit the 9 fps bp. A sorc will likely hit 8 fps bp (105 fcr), and a few will go all out and hit the 7 fps bp (200 fcr). It's hard to compete with a sorc since you share bps and she is much less reliant on gear, but you should at least get close if you wanna really have a chance.

I'd suggest switching out ss for wizspike (50 fcr, resists, mana) and verdungos for arachnid's (+skill, fcr), since that will be enough for the 9fps bp and you don't need blocking or pdr.
 
I want to make a Concentrate/Berserker build. So I need some information.
I'm gonna use:

- eth BOTD BA 355%(unlucky me...)
- Arreat 17x% cham
- SS um
- gores
- 2 angelic rings with amulet
- Verdungo's 15% 35vit
- Stone Archon(1900def) or Duress Archon(still to make)
- blood gloves: 10%CB, 8 str, 2 dex, 14life, 17x def (for big def)
- life charms, ar charms.

Stats:
- 186 str in total (with storm)
- 200 dex @ lvl 90
- 350-400 vit points

Skills:
- 20 conc
- 20 axe mastery
- 20 cry
- 20 BO
- 10 Berserk
- reqs and one point wonders

I'd would to know, from the ones who have similar chars:

- dmg with berserk, ar with berserk
- dmg with conc, ar with conc, def with conc...

I put this on a berserk thread too...
 
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