Contents Outline

1. The Bare Essentials
2. Statistical Analysis
3. Equipment Issues
4. Combat Tactics
5. Shrines
6. Way of the Mystics
7. Character Development

When it comes to meleeing capabilities, there is absolutely no character class that can match the level of devastation that the barbarian can reach (the bard comes close though). While the barbarian is intellectually challenged and has almost zilch ranged abilities, he can tear opponents apart in a matter of seconds.

The Bare Essentials

Life    : 18 + 2�Vit(character) + 2.5�Vit(items) + 2�clvl
Mana : Mag
Damage with Axes and Clubs : Str�clvl / 75
Damage with Other Weapons : Str�clvl / 100
Bonus Damage w/o Shields : Vit�clvl / 100

The barbarian is able to wield two-handed swords (and great swords) and mauls in one hand, allowing the use of shields with these weapons. However, shields give only half their ac to barbarians, so most barbarians would sacrifice blocking in exchange for greater fire power.

As stated before, barbarians are excellent melee fighters, able to deal out large amounts of melee damage at a faster rate than other classes (unarmed speed as per shield):

 
In particular, barbarians are skilled axemen, gaining the following advantages with axes:

• faster swing speed (0.40 for normal axes),
• greater damage done compared to swords,
• bonus damage due to lack of shield usage,
• built-in stability (ie recovers faster),
• ability to hit three adjacent enemies.

Lastly, a barbarian is also very difficult to kill:

• high life (due to high vitality),
• bonus ac equal to 1/4 of character level,
• stunned only when damage dealt >= 1.25�clvl,
• +1% resist all per level,
• recovers faster when using axes.

The special skill that barbarians have is the rage skill:

• For 12 seconds, it adds 2�clvl to Strength and Vitality, and 1.5�clvl to Dexterity.
• For 12 more seconds, during a lethargy phase, it lowers Strength, Dexterity and Vitality by the same amount (counted from normal values).
• Afterwards you loose 2�Vit life. There is a bug however so if you click on any item in your inventory your life is restored.

While this skill can be useful at times, I would say that it would only grant the ability to overkill creatures. Afterall, the barbarian can kill almost any creatures with ease.

Statistical Analysis

Strength. Strength offers nothing to a barbarian other than the ability to use heavy armour and weapons, as well as greater damage per blow. 90 Strength is all you really need, above that is luxury.
Starting/Maximum Value: 40/255

Dexterity. Hitting the enemy is of utmost importance for a barbarian. Dexterity gives much needed to-hit for the barbarian and should be maxed as soon as possible.
Starting/Maximum Value: 20/55

Magic. Maxed out right from the start, showing just how intelligent a barbarian can get. While magic may seem alien to barbarians, certain spells does have its uses. 20 Magic is needed for Town Portal, which isn't that hard to attain.
Starting/Maximum Value: 0/0

Vitality. A very important stats for barbarians, vitality provides much needed life and increases the damage of shieldless barbarians as well.
Starting/Maximum Value: 25/150

Life. A warrior that constantly goes toe-to-toe with enemies naturally needs high life values.

Mana. For such an mentally challenged character class, mana is not very essential except to cast certain spells, mostly for convenience (ie Town Portal and Teleport).

Armour Class. While not a true neccesity, most barbarians would do well to have a high ac since they usually go into melee situations and are incapable of blocking. A high value >280 will virtually grant invulnerability to a high level barbarian.

To-Hit. What can be more important to a barbarian than the ability to hit the enemy? To-hit is of course important but this need can be off-set by items of bashing or the Ring of Engagement.

Damage. Spectacular damage can be done that is not shown. Remember that a barbarian can critical hit just like a warrior (clvl% per hit), doing double damage. Items like Bloodslayer and Civerb's Cudgel also deals triple the total damage.

Resistance. With the bonus resistance of a barbarian, at middle to high levels a barbarian needs only one resistance item to max out, hence having the option of mana-adders as a jewel prefix.

Equipment Issues

Firstoff, weapons...

Prefixes. A barbarian's natural weakness is his ability to hit people, so good prefixes should carry some form of to-hit bonuses.

• "King's" series is of course ideal, giving to-hit bonuses as well as damage bonues.
• "Strange" series is likewise very powerful in the hands of barbarians, since they provide HUGE chunks of to-hit and a barbarian can still do massive damage with them.
• "Jester's" prefix is one which is more controversial since it would require some form of jewelry support in order to use effectively. With a Jester's Axe, the barbarian will do between 0 to 6 times TOTAL damage (average 2x), giving rise to damage going into four digits.

Suffixes. If you are going into pure melee, combat related suffixes would be ideal.

• "Haste" series gives faster swing rate, better stunlocking chances and thus faster kills. Duh.
• "Blood" is a power add-on to the barbarian's arsenal, giving 5% lifesteal. Considering thw amount of damage a barbarian can deal, this is very significant and a barbarian can stay in the dungeons almost infinitely without having to resurface for pots.
• "Vampires" is useful when you have to resort to telekilling (esp. against an all-witch level 15). Granted the limited mana a barbarian has, vampiric weapons will refill the barbarian's mana ball with each hit. Definitely economically viable.
• "Bashing" series allow the barbarian to kick serious butts since they remove up to 87.5% of the enemy's ac.
• "Peril" is yet another controversial suffix. Like jester's, it requires some form of support from other equipment, most notably lifestealing helms. Doing x2 total damage to enemies is good but the x2 weapon damage to oneself can be damaging on the long run.

Weapon Damage Analysis Charts for Barbarians:

Uniques. Three uniques are comes to mind here.

• "Bloodslayer". The ultimate weapon against demons; an axe that does TRIPLE total damage against demons. Need i say more? Combined with Helm of Sprits/Undead Crown, you will rock.
• "Civerb's Cudgel". A far weaker version of bloodslayer (cos it's a mace, not an axe) but is also a viable replacement as it is easier to find.
• "Messerschmidt's Reaver" is a decent axe but any Great Axe of Blood/Haste/Speed would be far more ideal.

Nextup, armour. Here is where you have to make a choice between high and low ac. High ac offers invulnerability and god-like abilities while low ac gives better magical prowess and greater fun.

High AC armour. Strictly ANY armour that gives over 220 ac would be good. Godly or Holy Fullplates are almost ideal here. With the lack of shields, armour is where most of the ac would come from.

Low AC armour. Prefix will almost certainly be +resist in order to max out resistance without having to use jewel slots. A +all suffix would be good, though any others would probably do just as well.

Helms are next on the list. There are three kinds of helms you would want. Those that steals life, those that gives high ac and those that adds to mana/stats.

Lifestealers. Life is a precious commodity in hell/hell, so anything that gives you extra would be nice.

• "Undead Crown" steals between 0-12.5% life and is easily available from Leoric in single player. An excellent helm to use in combination with high damage weapons. Combine with weapons of blood for cumulative effects.
• "Helm of Sprits" adds of Blood to your weapon (steals 5% life). Much more difficult to find (check out Nightmare Church level 2-3) but the only alternative in multi-player.

High AC. Another way to preserve life is to avoid being hit!

• "Godly Helm of Whales" gives up to 45 ac and +100 life. High ac and high life makes a barbarian much harder to kill.
• "Gotterdamerung" gives ac 60, -40% light, +20 all, -4 damage from enemies but denies you resistance. I would recommend using this unidentified instead as the zero resistance can really kill.
• "Royal Circlet" gives ac 40, +10% light, +10 all, +40 mana. Great ac, no disadvantages, adds magical cababilities; need i say more?

Low AC.

• Obsidian headgear is the alternative to high ac, freeing up a jewel slot. Body armour can be used to provide the required amount of ac if needed. Suffixes that +stats would be nice here.

Jewels would depend entirely on your setup. Two uniques stand out though:

• "Ring of Engagement" is the key to a low to-hit barbarian, removing up to 87.5% of the enemy's ac, greatly reducing the amount of to-hit needed.
• "Karik's Ring" is a very hard to find ring available only in single player. +60 to vitality is a great bonus to a barbarian despite the -30 disadvantage (who needs magic anyway?)

My personal choice:

• Godly Fullplate of Nothing (Wirt),
• King's Great Axe of Speed (Griswold) with a Jester's Axe of Swiftness in backup,
• Undead Crown (Leoric),
• Obs/Zod x1, Dragon/Zod x2 with a Ring of Engagement in backup.
• A setup giving very large and fast damage coupled with lifesteal and max resist with sufficicent mana to cast spells. A potential add-on to this would be the Bloodslayer which i have yet to find.
• An alternative is a King's Axe of Vampires for telekilling purposes.

Combat Tactics

Three simple advices:

1. Retreat when necessary. Charging into mobs gives you quick experience (i know, i do it all the time) but if you find too many foes to handle or a mixture of melee and ranged, retreat to thin out the enemy lines and kill them off.
2. Lifesteal is great! In melee/ranged combo situations, if you have lifesteal, take out the mob first as you will probably lose no life overall and the ranged pesks can be taken out from there. In full melee situations, there is almost nothing to fear.
3. Telekill. Check out bolty's guide to high level warriors for this. While expensive to use, vampiric weapons would work wonders in this case.

For other tactics, refer to Bolty's Guide at:
http://www.personal.psu.edu/users/r/d/rdm139/

Shrines

Most classes would shun many shrines but for barbarians, shrines are a blessing. Traditionally evil shrines such as fascinating, sacred and ornate would take away mana in exchange for spell levels but this has NO effects on barbarians, so they can get spell levels for free.

As such, there is also no need to fear cauldrons and goat shrines since the only bad shrines now are:

• Murphy's shrines, which lowers durability or takes away gold (which can easily be replaced)
• Glowing shrines, which takes away experience (which can be earned back)

Thus, no permanent damage can be done and at lower to middle levels, there is nothing much you can lose if you touch shrines.

Going into hell for the first few times, i would always seek out the two cauldrons per level from 13-15 and hopefully get some useful effects out of them.

Way of the Mystics

While barbarians are intellectually challenged, it doesn't mean that spells are barred totally. Below is a list of spells that i personally find useful:

Healing

• not particularly useful but certainly good when in dire straits. mana is better used for teleport and town portal
• 17 magic to learn first level.

Holy Bolt

• for drawing out Diablo and taking out Leoric (???)
• 17 magic to learn first level (can get from shrines though).

Infravision

• good for seeing what monsters awaits you...
• cannot learn but 23 magic to use.

Search

• good for finding missing jewels.
• 25 magic to learn first level.

Telekinesis

• excellent item recovery spell.
• 33 magic to learn first level.

Teleport

• the essence of the "telekill" tactic, this spell is useful for the quick dismiss of ranged attackers.
• unfortunately, it takes damn long to learn (took me until level 35 to gather enough +magic items)
• 105 magic to learn first level.

Town Portal

• a convenience spell.
• 20 magic to learn first level.

Due to the barbarian's innate pathetic spell casting times, offensive spells are almost always not worth it.

Charged bolts, Firebolt and Holy Bolts can easily be raised to level 15 though.

Character Development

Starting out as a barbarian is easy and brainless. You go into the dungeons with your club and your shield and start hacking. Enemies go down fast and you should have no problems getting free healing from pepin.

Level 1-5. Get an axe as soon as possible. With your low dex, you can't block much anyway, so might as well get the full range of combat abilities by getting an axe (no, don't waste your hard-earned money) from the dungeons. Should come real soon.

All level up points should go into dexterity to max it out first as you will be VERY heavily dependent on being able to hit the enemies. Collect all magical items you find and sell them (except axes). Keep +magic items though. Money will be important in your next stage of life.

Level 6-10. Kill Butcher and Leoric. This should be easy if you have decent to-hit or a knockback items. HIgh life would keep you alive long enough. Keep the Undead Crown if you are playing single player.

At this stage, start shopping a bit at griswold and look out for any axes of peril (ideally small axe) or jester's axe. These axes are powerful weapons in the future. They cost money though, so hopefully you will have enough.

Buy town portal scrolls if possible to save time.

Level 11-25. Collect more stuff, get yourself some nifty +to-hit or +dex stuff as you will need to hit the enemies. Doppelganger's Axes are almost ideal at this stage as it would generate more monsters for you to kill (of Blood in combination with this would be even better still.

By this time, your dexterity would be maxed out. Work on your strength until you can wear heavy armour (90 strength) but occasionally add some vitality as well as vitality elixirs are not for sale.

Look out for books of town portal as well as it would save much needed time and money instead of buying town portal scrolls.

Level 26+. From here, you will probably have developed your own style and is ready to kick some butt with your new found weapons. For me, going to dungeons even in hell/hell is easy. Melee levels are a stroll in the park while mixed levels are decent as i would not lose life against the melee enemies. Chasing ranged attackers can be a chore but I have gotten used to it by now (me chose no Telekill way... too lazy to learn).

Ice(BNR)
"Magic? Who needs magic? Me axe does the job all the time. Grrr..."

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