well, hi all, now to tell you i really like d2 and specialy barbs. OK, to make *THE* ultimate barb u need these: about 190+ str 120+dex 250+vit N

O ene serious. with leechs no probs. u need that str cuz more str = more dmg but not that much (ne wayz with storm shield gives 30 str its gonna go coo) now skillz. MAX- ww // MAX- masterie(preferably swords) // MAX- bo // 15- nat res // 10-15 stone skin // reste split in running and other war cry's OK now the ITEMS. there 2 sets 1 is for poor ppl other for rich bastards poor one helm*arreat* // armor *shaft* // shield*storm* // belt*string* // sword* ccb/doom/fury // gloves*venom* // boots*gore riders / war traves // OK rich set. helm*ber'd perf vamp // armor*0.8 valor // sword*ith cb) // reste same as poor one o and rings and ammy's sry. LL rings (8+)and cresent mooon :) OK FOKX that all good luck dueling and good luck with all

91 barb, 99sorc, 79 zon, 99 zon (bow)

Hello to all my barb friends. Look the real way to a barb for all you beginers is to max out your weapon of choice mastery almost right away. Get it out of the way for god sake. Now you want to start putting points in the following. (iron skin- mid teens) (natural resistanc-15) believe me very good once you get to hell right now just being in normal i am imune to all resistances cause of it. And of course max out ww please. All you do is get a good weapon with a type of leach per hit and you never even need mana. Then when all thats done and you should have it done by mid lvl 70's play with war cries. They are useful no matter who disagrees.

LVL 71 barb right now with current

Okay, this strat is for a Sword Barbarian only.
The stats are as follows. for a level 70: Strength: 210, Dex: 150, Vitality: All EXTRA Points
After level 70, you should split your points as 1 strength, 1 dex, and 2 vitality.
Your skills are as follows. for a level 70: Whirlwind: 20, Beserk: 1, Battle Orders: 20, Battle Commands: 20, Natural Resists: 7, Iron Skin: 5-10
Make sure that you do all the quests that give you stuff. You get a lot of extra skills and stats first.

AABAAACAAAAD --- Level 76 Barb

Okay, this is my Barb Strat.
Lancer Barbs are the best for classic, so to have a good Lancer barb, here are the skills you should save up until you get to level 70, unless you are impatient, BUT don't waste points on useless junk like bash, frenzy, and those things.
The Skills are for a level 70. 20 Spear Mastery, 20 Whirlwind, 1 Berserk, 5 Shout, 15 Battle Orders, 5 Battle Commands, 10-20 Iron Skin
When you get to a higher level, put. 10 in Natural Resistances, 5 in Faster Running
When you are done, put the last points in Battle Order and Battle Commands.
For your skills at level 70, you will need. 250 Str, 150 Dex, And the rest in Vit
REMEMBER! NO ENERGY! Your leech will give it all back. When you get to a higher level, divide your stats into Str and Vit. You should have around 2000 life with your Battle Orders. Make sure before you go into battle that you put your leech items on, what can you do without them?

ABAACAAAD -- Barbarian level 76, Maciamopoo[ta] -- Sorceress level 76, MancerNecr -- Necromancer level 46, ABC-Ez -- Barbarian level 35, Maciam -- Sorceress level 15

Don't pay ne attention to my writing if u want a good barb you absoulty have to have these skills.
Warcries:Battle Command-2to3 skills,Battle orders-10to12 and that basically all. Combat Mast:max out whirlwind,10 to berserk,max out frenzy and that's all only put 1 to the skill to get these. Masteries:on my opinion I went with sword gf and doom so 10 to it to whatever ur using.
Now for at to use well in a lvl 86 barb and this is wat u should use: Helm:Arreats of coarse, Boots:Gore Rider, Belts:ik belt no question or string of ears, Armour:Shaftstop or GladBane, Weapons:Gf and Doom, or u can use 2 lightsabres, Gloves:Up to u, ammy: good one, shield (if u want): Stormshield if u dont want frenzy.

Ok, i hate to say this, but the majority of you are wrong about Barbarians. To simply put this, whirlwind is a bunch of crap. Don't bother. Yes youcan hit lots of enemies at once but i romise if you follow this you will drop just as many enemies with far more control.
First raise your sword mastery at lower levels. use whatever swords you find and hold on to 2, 3 socketed swords. then start saving gems and runes. combine some gems and runes in the cube and get yourself a high damage sword. of course put a point or two in double swing but try to raise your mastery until your able to frenzy.
Armor class is a must and if at all possible get yourself some rattlecage. I say this because it has the ability to make mosters flee. So while your sitting there hacking down on some deamons with a 3000 attack rating you drop them one by one as others return from running.
That should help you guys but trust me on one thing. when you get to diablo that stupid whirlwind move wont let you go toe to toe with him and hack him down with a smirk on your face.

crap im tierd of you guys saying this and that about barbs.my freinds got a barb that cna own anyone.first off all for stats only put only like 120-130 in str because of str mods of ss and ik gaunlets and other crap for dex only liek 100-120 cause of dex mods, as for vit to be a sreious pker you need at leats 250 points in that my frind has about 250 and with his vit mods hes got about 2.5k-3.6k life.then for your skills (if ure gonna be a sword/sheild barb) max out sword mastery,max whirl wind,maxbattle orders for life and mana and wiht the rest do what ever you want.To be a good pk barb you need to use a good sword(ith,furybb,gf),for sheild ss always,helm either arreats or gaze,for gloves ik gaunlest for str and dex,for boots imp shanks or war travs,for belt string,for rings raven spiral and frost,as for armor either 1.08 valor for life and vit or shaft stop for 30% dmg reduce,and as for a ammy i reccomend a good rare ammy liek shadow necklace or corruption collar. PLS NOTE ALSO THAT TO BE AS GOOD AS MY FREIND WITHC USES MOST OF THIS STUFF THAT YOU NEED SOJS A LOT.

I'm going to take care of an item problem, first off GOOD BARBARIANS ARE NOT FOR NEWBS! I have nothing against them (hey I even help them out occasionally) but to have a good character the most, and I mean most vital part is the items. You could be perfect in setting your skills and stat points but without good items your done. I composed a list of great items that just about every barb (over level 67) should be wearing: 1) Stormshield, must I say any more about this one? 2) CCB's or Fury (that is a rune word people) Balrog Blade, this should set your damage up nicely. 3) Shaftstop Shaftstop Shaftsop! A must have, the damage reduce and vitality adds greatly to Barbs. And whatever you do, DO NOT use courpsemourn, that is the most pathetic armor I have seen on a Barb. 4) The gloves are your choice, some nice IAS rare gloves, I personally use Venom Grip unique gloves. 5) War Travelers (they are not impossible to get) or Water Walks. 5) For amulets and rings, try on an SOJ and a good duel leech ring, and a good + skill + vitality ammy. 6) For a helm, Wormskull or Arreats Face (my choice) are a must. 7) Also keep run/walk charms, poison charms, and Barb skill charms in your inventory.
Now the items are out of the way so lets move on to stat points. Strength is your most important stat, your a Barbarian, why wouldnt it be? So try to get your strength 200+. Dexterity, another important stat, which is how often you will land a hit. I'd say keep it 150+ and you should be ok. Vitality, dont listen to other idiots put any other stat points you have into this. Energy, dont bother looking at this one.
Ok off to the fun stuff, skill distributation - MAX WW MAX SWORD MASTERY AND MAX BATTLE ORDERS the three most important skills to a barb. Put 2-4 in Increase speed. 10 in Iron skin. 10 in Shout. And the rest in the skills to build up to those techniques and Natural Resistance with the others.

Hey i just got to say one thing barbs dont just rock up close and personal they rock at range too. All you have to do is make out throwing mastery,15 in double throw,and max out frenzey andput 8 in max stamina and 2 in increased speed. this makes your barb a long distance killing machine in lod and the best thing is u got a couple extra skill points to do whatever u want.these guys rule in normal and when they get better spears can go to nightmare and hell cows simple. they can even tag that annoying zon running away in pvsp.just remember one thing u can put a shield on when things get dicy and u can put points in ww just in case.so dont think that axes and clubs or swords are the best way to go .

You are all noobs. ALL OF YOU. let me break this down simple
skills: Max WW, Max Sword M, Max Bo, 5

in increase speed and natural resist
Stats: strengh 180(260 w/items), Dex- enough to wear balrog balde, Vita-Rest, Energy-Bah
Items: Weapon- Cruel balrog blade of Quickness w/ two 40/15 jewels, Shield- Stormshield, Armor- shaft, rings- Rare/crafted life leech rings w/plus to mana, ammy- cats eye, boots- war travs, gloves- 20 ias rare gloves, belt- good crafted belt, Arreats face
this is the dueler of these days, need i say more

ok i agree with maven if ur a barb with a bow or spear etc. be an amazon.JES!!Well thats not much of a stratagy but i just had to say that i agree with u maven.man barbs with bows and spears.WHAT NEXT BALLARINA TOO_TOOS AND BALLARINA SHOES MAN.

QUICK Barbarian guide to success!
Right, Barbarians can be really tough characters to play, even if you DO know what you are doing. They are not the best PK characters, so don't expect to go slaughtering amazons, assassins, and Sorcs without great difficulty. Here is a timeline of what you should do to make a good barbarian.In normal: Find a good shield and sword. By level 30, try to have some points in Swords Mastery, those are the best weapons. Try to have as many as 10-20 points is sword mastery by level 30. With your remaining points, add about 5 to Iron Skin, and use the others a perquisites. MAKE SURE you put just 1 point into the skill: Concentration. AS for stats points, out of the 150 points you get (not including quest points) you should add 100 to strength, 30 to dex and 20 to vitality In Nightmare: Here you should reach lvl 60 about. By now, you will see the need for some elemental resistances, so put 3 points in Natural resistances, and let item boosts take care of the rest. By now, you should have a good shield and a good sword. Now, it's time for some combat skills. I like to alternate between putting two points in Concentration and then 1 in iron skin until Conc. Is maxed out, and then once it is maxed out you should also max out Iron Skin. As for stat points, your strength should be good, so out of 150, put 50 in strength, 80 in dex, and maybe 20 in vitality. Hell Mode: Okay, this is where things get tricky. most people put lots of points into Berserk, but actually, for a max effect, you only need 1 POINT! So, just put 1 point and let the skill boosting items do the rest. Now, however, you will see that there are a lot more monsters to kill, so put your points into Whirlwind. Max it out by lvl 80, and then you will have a barbarian who can deal with single potent enemies (Concentration) or weak groups (Whirlwind). As for stat point, make sure that by lvl 80 you have at least 210 points in strength (item boosted or not) and 150 in dex. You should be fine. As for equipment, get a Colossus blade, six socets, and pu DOL-ELD-HEL-IST-TIR-VEX runes to create silence, and use it with both your hands. with a charm or two, you should do about 1500-2800 dmg PER CONCENTRATION HIT. It is essential that you have a good life leech item, like the String of Ears belt. Try to get Skullder's Ire or Arkaines Valor for an armor, a Bul-KKathos' Wedding Band for a ring, a Highlords wrath for an amulet, Venom Grip or Lava Gout for gloves, any boots will do, but GET ARREAT's FACE as a helm. If you don't know its a unique slayer guard. There, my barb is lvl 72 and he has all these items, and he ROCKS. Follow this guide and you will rue DIABLO 2!

Patriarch lvl 72 Barb

I am a level 74 sword-barb and this is my strat that i used. For your first 20 skill points, max out sword mastery, trust me, it is the best. next, just add one point for all that lead up to WW. put any remaining into Iron Skin until u reach 30. once at 30, max out WW. u should have about 10 in iron skin and 15 in natural resistance. after that, put about 10 more into leap attack(it helps A LOT in hell mode). for stat points, put enough into strength and dex so u can use the most elite swords in expansion, then go all out vitality.finally, use two swords, instead of a shield.

Jake_Basher level 74 swordbarb

hey, if you dont want to get near the enemies then dont. use double throw and throwing mastery then put some points on increase speed for escaping, then put some points on berserk for physically immune monsters. just get mana stealing rings, amulets or items. resistance is also important but defense is not that imp if your thrower barb.

Hi I have a lvl 32 barb and he killed baal in ten hits. My strategy on how to use the barb is max out sword mast put ten in frenzy and your set. I dont have that good stuff but i kill even unique chrushers in nightmare in one hit. It doesnt matter what stuff you have (although you should of course use the best stuff you can get). Just remember all you need is max sword mast and ten frenzy.

ok im not sayin that these other stratagies suk but this is how u make a real duel barb. put 15 into ur mastery choice. max wirlwind and 1 to berserk. about 13 int battle orders and 11 into nat resist and ncreased speed. for the rest of ur points put into either increased speed or sword mastery. for stats hav enough strent u need about 130 dex and res vitality. no mana is required if u just get some mana steal.

hey i got a lvl 99 barb get these items or else ur gonna die Perf Shaft Arrets dual Ls or Single gf plus SS in stats max iron skin, ww, beserk, sword mastery, Battle Orders, Shout, Some into natural resistance and thats it get at least 250 into strength alot of dex needed and alot of Vit you should have at least 8k defense- 10 k defense at the end MAKE SURE YOU ALWAYS HAVE MORE THAN 2K HEALTH no mana wat so ever and then you will own make sure to also look for some pdsc and resist charms you have those you will own all chars. Thanks for reading have fun with your barb

now i know there are many ways to build a good barb. dont get me wrong mine may not be the best for all, so ill give a little bit about what i know.
1.) axe barbs- as you all should know, max out axe mastery asap. many people only put a few pts. into their mastery and max ww or some other junk like that. i used a six socketed giant axe with five perfect emeralds and a perfect amethyst. i know it was kinda weak but i did the job. after i hit 42 or so i used boneslayer blade on one of my weapon slots and in my other weapon slot i used a guardian naga with a high def. sheild. now the one handed axe with a sheild is a BAD idea. not too many axes out there have high enough dam. if their one handed. after you hit 66 get a hellslayer. nevermind take that back. get one around lvl 50 or so so you know youll have one. hell slayer has the third highest dam. in the game.
2.) sword barbs- once again max mastery. most people say swords are the best. im not going to argue that point right now. sword barbs are the most versitile of all the characters. they can use a 1 handed sword and a sheild, 2 1 handed swords, a two handed sword, or hell even 2 two-handed swords. now the GRANDFATHER(the big daddy of d2 weapons) is the most dam weapon in the game. i went out with my barb and was gonna duel another. he killed me with 3-4 ww's(which for me is unheard of). he was using 2 grandfathers both equipped with 40/15's(40% enhanced dam./ 15%increased attack speed). i kinda like my lightsabre (w/ a 40/15) and a storm sheild(ill get into those later).
3.) mace barbs- undoubtably one of my favorites. pretty much the same shit as before but the weapon class. now for fast attack with two hands, by far the best is baranar's star. great physical and mad elemental damage. many people out there like big @$$ two-handed mauls. yes. their good but slow(except for ik pretty much).
now, for sheilds. im not a big sheild fan. i use a 40/15'd storm sheild(the only godly sheild). i really like it high def. and blocking %. and most of all it has 35% dam. reduction. armor- i use shaft for the 30% dam reduction. i do, however, like courpsemourn. really good def. and irom maiden every 20 hits you take(on average). gloves- ik i also use the boots for the attack rating bonus. i also use chancies if im low on gold or if im mf'ing. belt- string of ears once again an item i use for damage reduction. helm-i use rockstopper 10% damage reduction but im getting a perfect vampire gaze(8% life and mana steal/20% damage reduction)
now naturally most people like to mf, or magic find i offer some advice: barbs have this greaat disposition to find better items and i dont know why.
1.)skullders= great. 2.)perfect chancies= well. perfection. 3.)(2) perfect nagles=awesome. 4.) goldwrap=im running out of words 5.)50% war travelers= hard as hell to get unless your rollin' in the sojs. 6.)stealskull, nice helm to have

whispering 101reaper, sir_sage, or darkrider[90]

fellow players, i have read a lot of strategies and most of them are dedicated about using whirlwind (WW), i am here to give you a more viable option. WW has it's use, but it is more for show than actual game play. the real winner is concentrate (level 18, combat skills). the increased damage is vast superior to anything you get from WW. other pluses of concentrate are the increase to defense, and the static 2 mana cost. WW gives you no bonus to defense, and the increase to damage (once you do get an increase) at no time matches concentrate's bonus. WW also has a high mana cost. the one and only use that WW has, is that you hit multiple targets. in player versus player, a competent player can get out of the way of WW, so it has no use there. in single player it looks good, but as stated before, you get vastly more increase in damage with concentrate. choose any other skills that you desire, my preference is as follows:
sword mastery: 20 (main weapons); mace mastery: 10 (immortal king's stone crusher); increased stamina: 9; increased speed: 9; iron skin: 20; natural resistance: 20; bash: 1 (prereq); stun: 1(prereq); concentrate: 10; berserk: 10 (for immune to physical monsters in hell).
attribute point allocation: strength: 240; dexterity: 220; vitality: 120; energy: 10 (add zero points). i have armor and jewelry to add skills and resistance. i have charms to add resistance and magic find. good luck.

vengeance: level 72 barbarian; he-man: level 99 barbarian; numerous failed trials

OK ,listen up guys my barb is lvl 98 and can beat those zon and sorc ,o and I read a lot of those strategies and, um well u see all those who say "o use this and u have 98% dmg reduce ARE NEWBIES IT STOP AT 75% newbs EVEN IF U HAVE 3000% DAMAGE REDUCE ITS LIKE IF U HAD 75% ,ok that done now for the skills: max out whirl wind, max out ur weapon class masterie (I really baldy prefere swords) and put about 15-max into natural resistance put 5-10 in battle order and 1 into all the other skills. If u still have skills left put them in or shout and battle command or in natural res or bearsek and a few in run faster. Ok now for the stats:put enough str for u to use all ur weapons & armor (usully about 180-200) for dex same about 170-180 and all th rest into life NO ENERGY NO ENERGY Noooo ENERGY don't worry about having no mana with mana leech every thing will be ok. Now for the items: I have 2 choice 1st one is (arreat, shaft, stormshield, venom grip ,sting of ears, inferno stride, c grip, and a manald the sword I like is ccb) the 2nd one is :(a perf vamp, ber'ed barb valor, storm shield, perf string of ears and the rest like the 1st one) both should have 75% dmg reduce the 1st one is the one I prefere because the 2nd COST A LOT the 1st one should o around 45-50 sojs the 2nd one around 60-75 sojs but the 2nd one is better WELL. that's all now u have all u need to go kill some zony.

Now I know that people may not agree with me but anyways I have played this game for about 3 months now that may not be along time, but I have learned a lot. I haven’t played D2 expansion so this is only about D2. Barbarians are very good characters, but they are not good with elemental attacks so that’s bad with the immune to physical attack monsters out there lucky for you that can wait till nightmare. Warcries are of course a waste of skill points. I’ve tried a point in all and only use four of them that is find potion which comes in handy when you run out of pots in battle and makes it easy to find full regeneration pots J especially cow runs they can be a pain in Nightmare and Hell. Shout comes in handy to increase my defense for about 10 seconds which helps when going up against a lot of monsters at once. Find Item is kind of useful due to which if you have high magic find you can get some items off those unique monsters I have even picked up a set item with this skill at level one. The last one would be Battlecry because it weakens the enemy, which is useful, because it weakens their defense and also reduces their damage J very useful. Now in Combat Masteries I would suggest maxing out sword mastery because all the other weapons suck sorry fellas it’s the truth and pole arms are very slow speed is the key. Increased Stamina is about a point. Anyways I would suggest about 10-20 to iron skin now I have 8 and that’s a lot due to 100+ % to defense. Increased Speed about a point. Natural Resistances max that out because there comes negative to your resistances in Nightmare and Hell. Now as it goes for Combat Bash is good but it gets out dated. Leap don’t even bother you’ll see why. Doubleswing very good if you’re doing a two sword barb but that’s not my stile J. Stun is ok but don’t worry about it. Double throw I’ve heard of people maxing that out and I have scolded them for it. Leap attack put a skill in it, it’s only good for getting out of a tight situation, and at the first level it causes you to jump ten times farther than leap J. Concentrate for a two handed-sword barb or a one-two handed sword shield barb (since they can use a 2-handed sword like a one-handed with a consequence is cool) is great and should be maxed out. Frenzy I’ve tried it, it’s cool but it says increased attack speed what increased attack speed I think double swing is faster but anyways this is my opinion. I would max out Whirlwind because at first you’re your damage goes down my WW is about 8 damage is up about 10% if I remember correctly and is great for any barb. Berserk put a point in that because not everyone has some kind of elemental damage to there name barbs I mean, and no skill puts anything into that so this would give you this effect if needed which will be cause of the immune to physical attack monsters. The down side is it makes your character more open for attack but if you want I would max that out after everything else but put a point in it till at least you get a sword that adds elemental damage to it. Ok now as stats come to play I would say two strength, two dexterity and one to vitality. Now when I started I made a mistake I put a lot into strength and put about twenty into energy I know I’m going to get e-mails back saying what the hell were you thinking. I know, but I tell you what with my mana leech and high mana anyways I hardly ever run out J even with WW. I now have about one hundred and eighty to strength and like sixty to dexterity I’m putting all my points now into that because I need a better sword and they require a lot of dexterity, I have about fifty to vitality and thirty to energy. Now as it comes to equipment I would say sigon very good set only use the helm belt gloves and boots that’s it. Armor would be ordinate mines about eight hundred to defense. Sword two-handed one with high attack maybe even sockted. Shield I use The Ward good with defense and resistances, and plus ten to strength. You take your choice these are not the best items you will find better. Rings and Amulets would be with mana or life leech and plus to skills and stats and also Magic Find. Now this is a little insider to what you can do if you have any suggestions to me or anything at all e-mail me but don’t harass me about the twenty to energy thing alright.

Nasty Slasher Level 38 Barbarian.

Barbarians are very good duelers, so listen up for the BEST STRATEGY GUIDE EVER. I have played for 4 years, made several barbarians, and have every item I could wish for. This is mainly focused on PvP not player vs. monster.
If you want a good barbarian, read these quick tips:
Strength keep at 150 or less. You can get swords that are strong enough to impale anybody in one hit pretty much, especially if you use whirlwind. If you get the grandfather and find you can’t wield it, get charms that increase your strength, they are massively cheap. Dexterity keep at about 150, you will can later find swords that ignore target defense and/or add greatly to your dexterity. You will need to save your points for a much more valuable stat point: vitality. I would strive to have about 250 vitality, because barbarians get 4 health points per vitality, you will have about 1300 health at level 99. When you use the skill “battle orders,� you will have about 2600 health. This will take you a long way, but only if you have the following items: shaftstop mesh armor, string of ears belt, vampire gaze grim helm, and stormshield monarch shield. For skills, max whirlwind, max battle orders, a lot of increased speed, max iron skin, max the mastery you want to be good in, get 1 leap attack and the rest is up to you. For more information about barbarians or if you want to trade with me at any time, email me at ladiesman02421@hotmail.com. I have a US East realm account, my account name is dv_007. Feel free to add me to your friends list. Good Luck!

1.) Collect all the magic find you can. Once you have about 200 magic find start doind hell baal runs. If you are not high enough level get rushed and sit in hell cows until level 65. Personally I think mauls are the best for barbarions so max out mace mastry. Try to spread out skills dont put to much in one area. A balanced barb should have 20 in mace mastry, 8 in whirlwhind, 20 in leap attack 11 in shout, 6 in battle orders, 7 in natural resistance, 4 in increased speed, 8 in iron skin, and left over skills in areas of your choice. Try to get around 225 strength, 135 in dex, 120 in dex, and whatever left in energy. Try to get a manald heal ring for the mana steal.

OK,hi all some ppl say u need arreat face but. i dont really like it cuz. if u get a vamp. and u have ss/shaft/string if ur string give 15%dmg red (like mine) shaft 30%dmg. red. vamp with 20%dmg. red. ss with 35%dmg. red. what will happen. WELL ULL GET 100%DMG REDUCE. 15+30+20+35 =100 well i acculy dont have (still mfing for ss and vamp) but. ya know. for the rest max out ww/natural res/and the mastery of ur choice(i prefer swords) get 5-10 on iron skin/and rest. dunno for ur helm:vampire gaze(try and get it 20%dmg reduce) armor:shaftstop weapon:lotta choice lightsaber/gf/doombringer/ccb/fury/ith. shield:stormshield boot:ik boot gloves:bah venomgrip. not TOO important belt:string of ears rings:dual leech ammy:+barb skill put enought in str and dex to use armor/weap. ect (ussuly like. 200str 140dex. rest into life dont worry about mana with the leech. ull get it WELL THATS ALL now go and kick some howdy buttsbutts also have 84zon/81mf sorc/76 duel sorc/81barb/79barb/67pally and a bunch of lvl 60and -v

hi, barb lovers, here's my strategy for a perfect PVM and MF barb. to build him, you'll need to do a lot of trading and be very patient, but it's worth it.
1)here's how you need to distribute your stat points: str - put only as much as you need to use silence collosus blades, no more, dex - same as str, vit - put everything else here, eng - put nothing here
2)here's how you need to distribute your skill points: bash - put only 1 point, double swing - put only 1 point, it'll help you a lot in the beginning, double throw - you only need 1 point to get to frenzy, frenzy - max this out, it'll be your primary attack with this barb, leap - i recommend you max this out, it'll help you a lot, sword mastery - max this out, increased speed - put one point here, when you get good gear, it'll be around lvl 10, which is more than enough, iron skin - same as above, natural resistance - you *can* put one point here, but if you manage to obtain the same gear as me, you wont need it, howl - put one point, it'll save your ass in the beginning of the game, shout - put one point here to get to battle orders, battle orders - max it out to get over 3000 health! assuming you distribute your skill points like i recommended and finish all the quests that give you extra skill points, you'll be accumulating extra skill points after lvl 77, and you can distribute these wherever you want.
3)here's the gear you need: dual silence colossus blades - these are not easy to obtain, but you'll find them VERY useful, because they have good damage, great attack speed (not that it really matters with frenzy), mana steal, and, most importantly, 150% bonus to resistances! by the time you finish malah's quest, you'll have all resistances maxed out without needing charms, resistance amulets or rings or anything
vampire gaze - you need it because of dual leech and because of damage reduction. socket it later and put IST rune into it
skullder's ire - you need it for MF. socket it with IST. you can use shaftstop in pvp. another nice armor is guardian angel. don't laugh! it'll increase your max resistances, and if you put on mara's kaleidoscope, you'll have 90% resist all. defense doesn't matter for this barb. i don't recommend arky's cuz it's expensive and not ALL that good.
hellmouth - it'll prevent you from getting frozen and that metheor is good for confusing unexperienced duellers :P
dual bul katho's - it'll give you +2 all skills and life leech is very welcome as well
amulet - use whichever you want. if you use guardian angel, put on mara's kaleidoscope, otherwise it's your call
string of ears - extra damage reduction is always useful
wartravs - you need them for magic find
dual colossus blades socketed with 5-6 IST runes each - make them your secondary weapon combo. when boss is almost that, switch to them. you'll lose your damage and 150% res, but that's no problem at all, cuz you'll have life leech and round 3000 health!

4)strategy for this barb is pretty simple: kill your enemies with frenzy. leap into large groups of enemies to knock them back and kill them. dont worry about dying. you can stand right next to a lightning enchanted multishot stygian doll and his minions and survive for quite a long time, thx to a) max res b) damage reduction c) lots of health. i use this barb and i NEVER die. heck, i never get below 75% health. physically immune enemies are no problem. just get an ice merc in act 3 and you're set.

5) mfing is very easy. with the gear i recommended you, you can get about 556% mf with no mf charms. you can do baal hell in only a few minutes without even taking a scratch. just leap your way to throne of darkness. let your merc kill the stygian furies. kill all baal's minions, let your merc kill physically immune ones - you keep them distracted. then attack baal and damage him until he only has very little health left. before that happens, let your merc get killed - you dont want him finishing off baal for you. when baal is almost dead, just swith to ist-ed colossus blades and finish him off. you'll get tons of good stuff. meph run is even easier. dont kill anyone, just run over to that "peninsula" with portal next to it, and leap to the other side. council members won't be able to follow you. kill meph as you would kill baal. you can do meph hell run in less than 2 minutes if you're fast.

6) i don't recommend this barb for pvp, because colossus blades dont do enough damage, unfortunately. however, with some recombinating, you can turn this barb into a real powerful pvp barb as well.

Hey fellow diablo lovers, this is for all of you classic players (if there still are any after all the xpac fans lol). I have a 77 barb, AssBarbPK he is a sword barb, second best to lance barbs. with shadow mar and all. anyway my barb uses Soul Scratch, of course, the best sword in the game by far, and he use sigons helm and sigons sheild, the shield for the 69% block rate and the 900 ar bonus by the helm. i use silks 514, perfect because of the 5% mana leech and 1 to all skills ain't bad at all. he uses some rare gloves, i forget wut kind but they have 46 resist all 18 to str and 11 to dex and 3 % life and mana leech, he use corruption grip ring cuz of its 6 life leech and 7 mana leech and its good resist, and my other ring is a hard to find viper whorl.
he uses hsarus' boots and gloves, which are highly looked over. boots have an awesome 1100 to ar and belt an awesome 314 defense at my level (similar to sigons belt, but much much better) he uses a perfect eye fo its 7 leech cold damage and 1 to all skills.
for skills, max ur mastery. max ww, max iron skin, about 15 in nat resist. and rest into skills on the tree to get these skills
on ur left click have normal attack in case u run outta mana from ww if ur leech doesn't kick in and whack away and leech it back
always do meph runs, i average about 10 a day
always do cows till level 75, after that do chaos runz
never duel zons above 65, cuz u will ALWAYS lose
always figh pally's cuz they suck
stats -- none in energy of course, 250 max in str 150 in dex, rest into vit (trust me)

77 barb 89 javazon 96 bowazon 78 pally and 81 necro

AHHHHHHH, What is with all you people who say use Whirl-Wind. so it hit more then 1 person, it's damage is obsoleate compared to what I'm about to tell you. Now I've tested this many MANY times, and I wanted to keep this little secret all to my gready little self, but you people just can't figure it out, so here comes good ole me to bail ya out. (ick people, i think the radiation is geting to them) okay. now here's the layout, 1 wep in each hand is great. then you reach night-mare, you get a little cheased off, but you find that you can still live, and without taking the hint you decide to go to hell, whitch turns out to more of a hell then it's name implys, and you people still haven't taken the hint. Use a damn shield. Sure you're big scary Whirl wind won't be as good now but I got more to tell ya. the answer is simple, and you probally saw it at level 18. It's name consentrate. do you people even look at the difference in damage that's posted on this site HELLO. Do the F(&%ING MATH. gezz. Okay now for some real strategy. Their are 2 ways to go in my opinion 1) maces; or 2) swords If you're going mace max out the mastery and get Schaefer's Hammer, If you're going sword max out that mastury, and get yourself a light sabre, or you could get a silence rune-word (if you want a nice treat). In any case for skilld, max out the mastury you're gonna go with, max concentrate,get a point in leap attack, and 1 or more in baserk (err. I know my spelling and grammer sucks, just bare with me okay) now try to get Alot of natural resistance and iron skin, these will help a butt-load, increasd speed and stanima are good too, but don't over do it. War crys are great. if you know what you're doing. if you got enough points left over i recoomend placeing them in 1, 2, or all 3, of thease warcrys - Battle command, shout, and most important - Battle orders- You'll know why once you get about 400 extra life, and 100, extra mana in a matter of seconds, last but not least points. I feel that you should try for abou 100 - 150 dex, because i love attack rating, and when you got about 2000+ damage in 1 hit, It's really sad that you hit only 5% of the time, you'll still have enough for some good vit. and enough so that you'll get a deacent amount of damage from a not-so-deacent wepon. anyhow, if you read any of thease other strategys, you'll know what armor to look for, but with the HUGE defence bonus you get from consentrate. I really don't think you have to worry too much. okay i gave you people my secret strategy, PLEASE don't use it, It's mine, all mine, and it you want a good strategy try thinking about 1, if you need to use this to start you off, but realize there are many many ways to make a good char, and aslong as you realize W.W. is not the king, and more like a death trap, and that concet

I've noticed that most, probably of these strats say Barbs dont need energy. they are absolutely wrong! Now Obviously you need some pts in Energy if you dont hey guess what, you dont have the mana to use your skills. now i recomend maybey 2 or 3 lvs ONLY into energy because it should be enough, especially if you have equip that steals mana back for you. and every one says WW is so friggin awesome, I'll admit it is usefull but I've found that Concentrate is a bit better for barbs like myself who use Axes. I have an ancient axe with 2 P.skulls and a P.emerald, this works very nice with concetrate.

Hello, I'd like to share my strategy for a good rounded out barb. Okay, first I'll tell you what to put your stat points into each level, although many people will disagree, just trust me it'll all work out in the end.
First, every level except multiples of 5 i.e. 5, 10, 15, etc. Put 3 vit points and 1 str, 1 dex. On every 5th level (5,10,15, etc.) put 2 vit and 1 into everything else. Although you may not think this is wise just trust me it'll all work out. Then if you decide to do the stat quest. Put it into what ever you feel like. If for some reason you don't think u'll have enough energy, then put 4 points into energy and 1 into whaever else you need, usually str. I usually put 3 into str and 2 into vit or 3 into energy and 1 into vit and 1 dex.
For skill points, get whaever you need to get up to Battle Orders. Put however many you feel is necessary. Also get Whirl Wind, same thing goes, get whaever you feel is necessary. Then get sword mastery because they are the best kind. Now comes decision time, before you make your barb, figure out what you want to be, a 2 handed sword barb, a 2 sword barb, or a 1 sword 1 shield barb. I prefer the 1 sword 1 shield barb, with 2 sword as my 2nd weapon. If you are gonna be a 2 handed sword, get whaever you can afford, or find, usually a cruel sword is best. If your a 2 sword barb, get 2 good swords that you can afford. If your a 1 sword, 1 shield, get storm shield for good blocking if you can't get that, find a shield with high blocking percentage, and any good sword, I won't say the best sword because it all depends on your budget, i.e what you find, what you have sojs for. Then if you want to mf, get 2 ali baba's if you can for a good 2 sworded barb, you'll have less dmg, but you'll do enough to kill hell mephisto. For armor, wear anything you can that will add skills, or have good d. I like the C. Ornate unique plate, I can't remember how to spell it but it have over 1000 d and does good other adding qualities. For rings, since you won't have a lot of energy, get rings that leech to mana, and another one to add to energy. For amulets, maybe you can get anything that adds skills or energy or leech of some sort. For boots, attempt to buy yourself waterwalks, or ik boots. Then for helms, I like I.K helm and/or Vampgaze if you can. For gloves, I like to use venom grips because they have leech, try to get these. Then belts, I.K. or anything that adds skills or does something good for you. That's about it, hope you like this strategy, change it to your liking, besides that have a good time. All the barbs I've ever made were like this. I've had a level 99 and a level 93, right now I am working on a new barb, Shmi_Skywalker, he's only level 7 hehehe. The other 2 are long gone 1 was hacked, and the other expired :(. Oh well this barb i'm gonna make now is gonna be better because I have sojs.
Level 99, 93, and 7 barb.

This is designed for a whirlwind-using D2x barbarian. Stats: The basic rule for this is to put enough points into STR and DEX to be able to use your main weapon. if youre going to use a sword barb, which i recommend, you will need to have 180 points in STR, and 110 points into DEX to use your executioner sword or colossus blade, or around 120 str to use 2 smaller 1-handed swords. Your mastery in your chosen weapon will add damage, but also attack rating, which is why you dont need to rely heavily on dexterity to hit. Strength is always good to add, but don't go too crazy. try and focus on vitality instead. Another reason you would want a sword barb is because you can always hold 2 swords OF ANY KIND, as opposed to 1 maul or 1 great axe.
IAS (Increased Attack Speed) is very important for a whirlwind barb. This determines how frequently you will try to hit during each "whirl". My barbarian has 90 IAS altogether and it does very well. shoot for 60 to 80 (you can get nice 20% IAS gloves for chipped gems on any realm. Twitchthroe (studded leather) is also moderately easy to find. twitch gives you 20% IAS, and also 25% increased chance to block, if you decide to use a shield. my barb used this until mid-high level without problems). Leech is also very important, life leech taking more precedence. If you dont have this, you'll tend to lose life gradually whirling through packs of enemies since your defense is null when attacking.
Warcries: 1 in Battle Command. this gives +1 to all skill levels. use this one before using the following: Shout. give this one around 10 points, Battle Orders. give this one 20 points. alternate putting points in this and whirlwind until whirl is at 5, which at that point makes it give a positive damage bonus.
Combat skills: Whirlwind: maxed, of course, Berserk: 1 point in this. this is a huge help against physically immune monsters.
Masteries: Your chosen weapon mastery should be near maxed early on for the attack rating, since youre not going to rely heavy on DEX. Iron skin: put 10-12 into this, Natural resistance: this should be at slvl 10 by hell difficulty. Increased stamina: only 1 point, this is a prerequisite skill, Increased Speed: 3-5 points.
Mercenaries: i would recommend an act2 mercenary that uses HOLY FREEZE (a paladin aura that slows enemies). This cant be avoided if youre close to it. Your merc will not die often if you provide him enough support.,Another idea is an act2 MIGHT mercenary (aura that adds to damage)
Optimal gear to use (for PvMers):head: arreat's face. armor: shaftstop (damage reduced by 30%), gloves: laying of hands (350% damage to demons, 20% ias), ammy: highlord's wrath, rings: life/mana leech rings, swords: both bul-katho set swords. these add a huge bonus to damage to undead and demons, belt: string of ears (life leech and 15% dmg reduced), boots: gore rider (deadly strike 15% (that means your attack does double damage), 15% crushing blow (half your enemy's life is gone))

screwtape-XX (91 whirlwind barb), dospac (82 frenzy barb), bigniqqa (74 polearm/ww barb)

Heres my strat. Everyone says sword is greatest, but my barb beats all sword barbs 10 lvls higher than me all the time. I go mace. Y? Cuz, it does more damage than swords, its one handed, and the dam to undead everyone over looks, but its great. Im using two earthshakers. Get 105 str. 70 dex. 50 en. Rest on vit.
Max the following: Mace masta, Battle Orders, Iron Skin, Nat Resist
put 2 on double swing, 1 on more stam, 2 on faster, and the rest on preqs. With 105 str, u can use gris's armor, and that armor aint bad. I advise you to use a sander boots, cleglaw glove (it slows down enemy, its great) mara's kolidescope, 1 soj, and one bul-kathos wedding band. Dont listen to ne barbs saying max WW if ur gonna be a dueling barb like mine, cuz its so ez to counter (get a 3 ice merc or fire (fire is good, dont listen to ne one saying it sux) Good luck

DA_clowN-Foolz lvl 92 barb

I've a lvl 77 Barb called A_Madman On US EAST. And My strategy has been an equal distribution of stat points One level I'd put all 5 into Vitality, or Energy, or Strength, or Dex I know alot of you would be "Dude Energy is a waste!" But when you get to Hell and you notice you don't hit alot. And so those nice mana steal stuff doesn't work. I have 178 points into STR 110 in Dex 115 into Vitality and 100 into energy (by the way this is including my stat amulet and ring which together give me tons of stat points :) ) 100 energy gives you around 250 Mana, And even that runs out fast with leach rings So I've decided to boot the leach rings in favor of skills
Now for my skill choices. i but 1 point into bash, in fact I've put one point in all of them except Whirlwind iron skin, Sword Mastery, Berserk, And frenzy. Now I know some people say *Bleep* warcries. But theres one warcries that gives a 150% bonus to you defense! And one that gives you an extra skill, and also one that give you More stamina health and mana. Which really helps. This about it, 150% bonus to defense. I have 6,000 defense or so. and that one little warcry cranks my defense to well over 12,000 defense! That puts most monsters(if not all)in the 5% chance to hit category.
i've maxed my Sword mastery, 17 points into Iron skin 7 into N. Resist 18 into WW, and 5 into Berserk, + around 6 or 7 into frenzy. Most would say this is a waste. But listen up. You get around a 50% resist bonus, your whirlwind attack rating is cranked really high. Berserk hurts pretty bad, and I really don't use frenzy that much. But still, with the proper equipment this type of barbarian virtually owns Baal.

OK, you newbs who have been playing Diablo II for a week or two and think you have THE best strategy around don't know what the hell you are talking about. Now that we have that out of the way, I will explain to you my take on the Barbarian class and the most effective way to play a Barbarian.
Pertaining to stat point allocation, I suggest that you put almost all your points into strength until level 40, only getting enough dexterity to be able to hit the monsters. 160 or so base strength is all you need to be able to equip the best swords available(this Barbarian build is the sword/shield type). Aim for 160 dex and the rest into strength. All the rest go to vitality.
For Skills, 20 Sword Mastery, 20 BO, 10 Iron Skin, 10 Shout, 5 inc. speed, 5 Nat. Res. 20 Whirlwind an 1 Berzerk. HAVE FUN. 8)

Heres best way to spread 111 skills in my opinion and ill explain why.
20 Points into Wepon Mastery of your choice because this will help the attack rating and damge of the wepon you use. (I chose Sword because I like to use a shield at times).
20 Points into WhirlWind because you will just tear monsters up with it.
20 Points into Battle Orders because that 92% extra Life,Mana,Stanima will help you and your comrades alot for 144 seconds.
10 Points into Berserk because not only does it do alot of damage but it hits those pesky immune to physical attack monsters.
10 points into Resitances because your are only gaining like 1 point of resistances after you pass 10 and 54% resistances should be plenty. Then you got the 10% scrolls from mala in act 5 so that should raise your resistances along with any Resistance Plus gear you wear.
3 - 20 Points in Shout for a extra defence bonus of 120% - 290% over 20 - 54 Seconds
3 - 20 Points in Iron Skin for a extra defence bonus of 50% - 220%
Note: You can split Shout and Iron Skin up equally if you choose but i think its easier just to have one at 3 and one at 20 because you will receive 340% defence bonus no matter what way you do it. Adding more points to Shout rather than Iron Skin will help You and Your Friends more than just adding 20 to Iron Skin
Combat Skills
1 - Bash, 1 - Leap, 1 - Stun, 1 - Leap Attack, 1 - Concentrate, 20 - WhirlWind, 10 - Berserk
35 Points have been put into the Combat Skills Tree

Combat Masteries
20 - One Wepon Mastery, 1 - Increased Stanima, 1 - Increased Speed, 3-20 - Iron Skin, 10 - Natural Resistances
35 - 52 Points have been put into the Combat Masteries Tree

Warcries
1 - Howl, 3-20 - Shout, 20 - Battle Orders
24 - 41 Points have been put into the Warcries Tree

Now if you have followed these steps you should be an unstoppable killing machine. Go have fun!

Hey Barbarians, don't listen too all those weak@$$ barb who said to max out iron skin and all that crap, well dont believe them. You should definately max out shout instead of that weak@$$ iron skin. These are the things you should max out: 1)Battle Orders, 2)Whirlwind(ww), 3)Sword mastery, 4)Shout, 5)Optional
but you really should put points into iron skin because all those barbs who trys to slash you with their doombringer and grandfather, you would have a bulletproof skin. and you should never get out ran by an amazon so try to put atleast 10 points into increase speed.

I have a Lvl 83 barb and have found that useing the sword is the best way to go and have found a way to make a nice barb wasteing no skill points but this is only for people who already have a higher level barb and are makeing a new one i suggest you have someone rush you past the enite game and then do nothing but leach in hell cows and dont distribute skill points until your atleast lvl 60 personaly i prefer to use swords i use two 1 handed swords so i maxed out sword mastery also max out whirlwind and distribute the other points how you see fit but i suggest only put points on one weapon mastery The reason i say to only use this strat if you have another barb is so when you get to high enough level you can transfer all the stuff from old barb to new one with the help of a friend this allows you to build the barb around your stuff it is alot easyer then finding alot of differnt stuff this also saves alot of money and time in games and when you find better stuff move the old stuff to a mercenarie also if you can do it get as much magic find as posible it helps alot so you will find better items evan if they are not items i can use i can trade them for sojs and gems then i can trade the sojs and gems for better stuff and now for the best part use the socket quest in act 5 to put a socket in a unique or set item sword and put a SUR rune to blind the enemy use this as a secondary sword with the best shield you can find because sometimes like in hellcows when you get overun it helps alot

Ok, first off this is for a sword/shield or 2 handed sword barb. Max Sword Mastery. Max Battle Orders. Max WhirlWind. Max Shout. then put 5 pts in natural resistance. then 5 pts in faster walk/run. this will take u up to lvl 90 some. as for stats put 189 base pts so u can use everything. then only put 110 dex. all else in health. don't touch energy. such a waste. I have a lvl 90 barb who kicks serious ass. trust me this is the only way to build a barb. a good one anyway.

You long winded bastards dont know what your talking about. Get two one handed weapons(preferably swords). Get a mana leech and triumphant amulet/ring. Put 1 point into all skills except warcries and pile down on double swing and a weapon mastery. Get your energy to 14 and double swing forever. I repeat forever. YOU WILL NEVER RUN OUT OF MANA. You will be a virtual god. Try it and dont argue with me.

Paneki, Barbarian Master.

All u barbs out there who think that warcries are a waste, u haven't been a high enuf lvl. When u get to lvl 80 u have nothing more to upgrade. So i suggest that u get them warcries at lvl 60 or so. buy that tiem a 40% increase n life will be a humongous boost. and another thing, don't post up here unless u are lvl 70 or higher, becasue it gets a lot of newbs confused.
Now for some diablo killing tips. If u are having killind d in normal here is what u do; wear as much lightnign and fire resisting items as u can! And when he shoots his lightnign don't run, stand right in front of him! teh lightning hurts less teh closer u are to him!

Ok, i have read a lot of these entries and many of them are totally wrong. Never, EVER use any othe weapon except swords. I have a sword/shield barb at lvl 83 on USWest. He uses a ccb (cruel colossus blade) It does 280-553 damage two-handed and 122-314 one-handed. For the shield he uses stormshield. Armor-shaftstop. Helm - vampire gaze. Gloves - Immortal King's Forge war gauntlets. Boots - Immortal king's Piller war boots. Belt - string of ears demonhide sash. Rings - 2 raven spirals. Amulet - corruption collar. If whoever is reading this is any good at d2x you will know what these items are and how good they are. I have 98% damage reduce. That means 98% of any physical damage inflicted on me is nullified. If you do 1000 damage you will only do 20 to me. Try to get any of these items. Barbs should have tons of defense. Mine has around 10,000. Max out the following skills as soon as you can: Sword Mastery, Whirlwind, Iron Skin, Battle Orders, Shout, Battle Command, and put about 10 points in the following: Increased Speed and Natural Resistances. There are not enough skill points to do all that but i have items and charms that to skills. For stats have around 250 strength, 200 dexterity, 150 vitality, and 10 energy (what you start with). This is the tried and true barbarian build. You can kill anything in the game with this easily, and in duels you will find yourself victorious most of the time. If you ever wanna duel me or trade or just talk myname is slayerkiller, and account name is *majique123.

I've read all these strategies, and they suck. No one wants to hear about your lvl 30 barb. If you want to kick ass you'll do what I tell you! The first step is to add to only one mastery. Then get double swing if you want to become a frenzy barb. Otherwise save your skill points for later. Battle orders is the best war cry, and its sweet. I would also get some iron skin or shout which ever you like. Then get nat. resistances these are very important, especially in nm and hell. Then get lots of ww or frenzy. Frenzy barbs need ww too, but not until later. I recommend 10 into berserk for tough guys and immune to phys. guys. Thats all you need to know.

Boronazard lvl 72 barb, Dummbass lvl 63 barb, Lemartes lvl 42 barb, BiggyMcBigsalot lvl 35 barb, FoulEdTheMauler lvl 35 barb

My barbarian is now at level 72 and I am of this achievement because I am 100% LEGIT. In the long run, my strategy works to your benefit. However, it isn't perfect and you will encounter difficulties. **see the strategy of Slayer Bane (Single Player Character)** I am currently playing at Horagath in Hell Difficulty and have some new advice that like I quoted before "will help someone one way or another."
1) Put one skill point into "double swing" (but first you have to put one skill point on "bash" to be able to select "double swing." and purchase or find 2 weapons (so you can double weild weapons) with elemental properties. (Hopefully, the weapon matches your mastery so that you can get the bonous on your attack rating). Now, set this up and switch to this weapons configuration to take out opponents who are "immune to physical." (NOTE: needless to say, you will have to purchase or find more that one elemental type due to the "other" types of immunities you will face.)
2) Put one skill point into "shout" and set it up in with the double weided elemental weapons. (This will help increase your defense since you don't have a shield and hopefully you'll survive long enough to retreat too!).
3) Don't put too much points in "leap attack." I have a level 15 skill level in this skill and I don't really use it. However, since my character was well devloped and thought out (except for this skill and a levl 1 "taunt," a level 1 skill where the enemies run away, and a level 1 "leap." ), my character still performed and kicked ass! However, I would like to note that in the RARE ocassions that I used "leap attack," It REALLY helped against enemies that shoot out elements everytime you hit them (You know instead of standing there, I "leap attack" and retreat to heal myself in necessary. Then I repeat this that that enemy dies!) and ESCAPING DEATH FROM AMBUSHES! (The MOST common cause of death for ANY character class, especially those that have to do it "mano a mano!"

Champion Bane Level 72 (Formerly "Slayer Bane")

These are my tips on playing a Barbarian Character.
Firstly, to all of you who have characters below about level 50 posting strategies: Although you probably mean well, you simply don't have the experience in the harder levels of the game to give real advice.
I have 4 Barbarians, all are in or through Hell difficulty, the highest is level 76. I'm not saying these are the only way to play a Barbarian and urge you to experiment for yourselves!
SKILLS - Now. Skills are the most important area of your characters development, please experiment with as many skills as possible to find what you like. The skills I consider essential are:
Iron Skin - No matter what type of babarian you make, this should be maxed.
Weapon Mastery - Again max one of these. There is no use to puting points into too many masteries.
Natural Resistance - I don't put more than 5 or 6 points into this as after that the bonus isn't worth the skill point.
Berzerk - You only really need to put one point here, but it is an absolute MUST. Towards the end of Nightmare, and all through Hell you will find monsters immune to physical damage, Berzerk will deliver a nice, powerful blow to these nasties.
After that your skills are pretty much up to you, some commonly recommended skill are:
Leap Attack - The damage of this is huge, but remember it is useless at close range, so really only of use as an opener.
Whirlwind - This is a great skill, however when using it don't equip two weapons. The skill only hits with one anyway, so equip a shield or something 2 Handed.
Double Swing - Great skill in normal, weak later on. If you want to use two weapons I recommend Frenzy, it is much like double swing but with a damage bonus.
My main Barbarian uses a maxed out Concentrate as his primary attack, the uninteruptable attack and defence bonuses are great. I also recommend getting Leap for getting out of tight squeezes.
Warcries are a little pointless in the one player game, but although I don't use any, they are great in multiplayer.
STATS - Your stats should reflect the type of character you create. Maul barbarians should have huge Strength, mine has a strength of 255, and only 40 dexterity! He doesn't hit as much as I'd like, but when he does he devistates. Axe and Sword Barbarians should have a good combination of the two, though I wouldn't bother puting Dexterity to more than 110. Throwing Barbarians need a high Dexterity, but don't neglect Strength, you still need good Armour. No matter what type of Barbarian you make you should have a decent Vitality and no additional Mana. This may sound odd, as many people recommend a little, but Energy is a waste of time and points. None of my Barbarians have put anything into Energy and they never run out of mana, just soccet a Perfect Skull into your main weapon. If you are a throwing Barbarian get yourself some Mana stealing Gauntlets, Amulet or Ring (I also use the no Energy tactic for Paladins, Amazons, Assasins and Fighting Druids).
WEAPONS - The No.1 piece of advice I can give you is contrary to most of the people posting here:
DON'T WASTE TIME LOOKING FOR UNIQUE OR SET ITEMS!
Uniques and Set iems are nice, but chances are you will never find the ones they suggest, if you do, great, but don't hold your breath! To find any really good uniques or set items you have to be VERY lucky, and no legitimate player would trade one of these for anything less than the best equipment.
Instead I recommend finding youself a nice magic or even rare item. My barbarians all wear suits of Shadow Plate. My main Barbo wears Godly Shadow Plate and has a total defense of over 6000. I would soccet my armour or helm with a Cham rune (can't be frozen, very handy!)
For weapons I suggest looking for a Cruel weapon. Cruel is the best damage property there is. Again, my Barbo uses a Cruel Colossus Blade, and he does 1400-3000 damage! (With just Sword mastery and Concentrate). I have Socceted it with a Perfect Skull to steal Mana and Life and am looking for a damage enhancing jewel worthy enough. (Remember third generation items get more soccets from Larzuk than first or second.)
TIPS - Good Characters concentrate their skills in just a few places. Over-Generalisation means weakness.
Remember, Damage enhancing Jewels placed in armour enhance all weapons, not just one.
Cruel weapons and Godly armour, although rare can be bought in stores, so look often.
Don't waste your time with elemental damage on weapons. Elemental damage is not increased by masteries and the like. In later levels just one point of additional "real" damage translated to 7 or 8 points.
Save your imbuements and personalizations for when you find really good items, these rewards are too good to squander on crap.
Don't listen to people posting crap saying this or that is the ultimate style of play, Blizzard has done a great job balencing the characters out and all styles of play are valid.
Experiment with your characters, find what works for you. I have given tips on how I play, try to find your own unique style!
>RAMBLINGS - What the hell are people doing posting strategies about how to play at the start of the game. 'When you first start get the best. ' If you can't get through first town without help, give up.
DAMN IT MAN! Take pride in your appearance! NOTHING is more important than looking good. So what if that ancient armour has 2000 defence, YOU LOOSE A SHOULDER PAD!

For all those people who think Swords are the best, long live. The sword is the best weapon in the game. Think of this, if you pk an Amazon, you will definetely want to block whatever they shoot at you. If you have a weapon that requires two hands, you will not have a chance in hell of winning. And, you must never get out ran by anybody. Here are the things you might wanna have: Lightsaber, Arreats Face, Arkaines Valor, Immortal King Boots, Decent Gloves, Whistans Guard, Cats Eye Amulet, Raven Frost, Manald Heal, and A mana and life leeching belt.

From BarbarianAncien-lvl 82

hey all. everybody says that the way to be a great barb is to be big and buff. LOTS OF STRENGTH. but this IS NOT the way the way to greatness as a barb is to get DEXTERITY. if u have a shitload of strength and no dex. u wont be able to hit anybody, therefore not being able to use that shitload of strength u have to do dmg (i tryed w/ my first barb doing the big/buff thing AND IT DIDN'T WORK when u get to act 3,u need lots of dex to hit the fetishes. the way to go when u lvl up is 1(or none) into strength, 2-3-4 into dex. and 1 into vitality. screw the energy. do u see barbs casting spells much? no, and u get enough items in the game that pump up ur mana so having almost no energey is not a prob. as for skills. choose a wpn class and STICK WITH IT. swords are the best, good rounding of dmg, speed, and magicalness. GET 20 SKILL POINTS IN THAT WPN'S mastery. DOUBLE-SWING and FRENZY are the best. for two wpn barbs that is. if u use 2 wpns that can be held in 1 hand, keep a fucking good sheild in ur 2nd wpn slot, and use it against the bosses. IRON SKIN and NATRULE RESISTANCE are two hell of good skills, they will save ur life in the chaos sanctuary, the oblivion knights and whatnot have helll of good magic attacks. not much resistance will get u screwed: AKA DEAD. in nightmare and hell. when u get swarmed my the hell of pumped up fallen and fetishes u will need defence (IRON SKIN)
good playing

Skills:
max masteries of ur chioce,((sword is best for pvp n don forget shield!!), max iron skin', max ww,max battle order, max shout (if u dont want to put any pt on battle command), one on battle command, one on berserk, one on natural resistance.(thats all pts u will have)
stat(pvp barb): str 189 (with items), dex 230 (with items), via all de rest. energy 0
stat(BvB barb vs barb): str abt 250, dex abt 230, via abt 200, energy 0
(try to left abt 20 stats pts for adjustments)
if u build ur barb like wat i told ya,with kick ass gears, ur barb rules!

ChaoticKhorne
lvl 98 PvP barb s/s(sword/ shield), lvl 80 BvB barb s/s, lvl 99 mf(magic find) barb

I have seen so many people write in to this page saying that the best way to defeat Diablo is to avoid him and pick off his minions until he's alone. Well, I'd just like to know, What are you people thinking when you run around and open up ALL the seals without stopping to deal with the enemies that appear? I find the best way to defeat The Chaos Sanctuary is to pick off all the enemies and THEN open the last portal, Its much easier and costs less health. Also, I've found that a spearbarb does not work nearly as well as a good sword and axe combination with double swing or frenzy, I used THAT against The Dark Lord of Terror himself and I defeated him in 10 minutes without going below the 3/4 health line.

Sir Jagamund, lvl 27 Barbarian.

I curruntly have a level 38 Barbarion. He rocks, and those of you who think a pole arm is the way to go don't know anything. Here's what you have to do. Start of by putting points into strength, worry about mana later. and your stats should go into bash and sword masteries. as you move on put a skill point in leap so later on you can have leap attack, I think it's the best barbarian attack. You should use the best sword available to you, speed and damage is the key. Now they gave you two hands for a reason so put a sword in one and a sheild in the other, good defence and good block percentage, I prefer The Ward Gothic shield or Isenharts Pary Gothic Shield. Later on Put stats in mana an dexteriry. Then start putting stats in Whirlwind. Don't worry, put about 3 points in resistance and you'll find plenty of armor and jewewlry to fill in the gaps. You'll need the resistaces for later in the game because just about all of the monsters have Elemental proporties. Warcries aren't really all that great because some will back fire, Ex. If you use Howl they will have a chance to heal. Two handed swords are the best when your a barbarian. There so long so you don't need to get to close. I currently have Viper Scratch Flamberge which is great. There also great because there so fast and have great damage ratings. Remember even though it's two handed you can carry it in one, good idea. Defence and attack rating are a must. Without them you can't hit any thing and they can rack up damage on you. Stamina stats are useless. You'll most likely find boots that increase them greatly. Remember I've got a level 38 barbarian that could defeat any one of the others that say anything else so trust me.

These strategies are for those brave souls who decide to make a Hardcore barbarian. When playing ANY Hardcore player, the main thing to remember is take it slow. Don't rush to complete the quests. Start new games and go through the first few areas a couple times to build your levels. Like any barbarian, focus on one level group and put your skill points into that weapon.
Don't change your playing style because of any of these strategies that you read, no matter what. If you like playing a certain way, than play that way. What works for me is using double swords, with emphasis on the following skills: Sword Mastery, Frenzy, Leap Attack, Whirlwind, Berserk, Iron Skin, and Natural Resistance. My first point went into Bash to open up the tree; the rest went into Sword Mastery until I levelled enough to get Double Swing and Leap. I put one point into these and proceeded to put the rest into Sword Mastery until Level 12. I put one point into Increased Stamina, Stun, and Double Throw and the rest into Sword Mastery. At 18 and 24, I put points into Increased Speed, Leap Attack, Iron Skin, Frenzy and Concentrate. I built up Iron Skin and Leap Attack, which are two very important skills in my opinion. Frenzy got more points, though. It is simply deadly when used as your main attack. You move faster, hit more, and hit harder. I use it as my only attack 90% of the time. Increased Speed doesn't need too much more than a few points. At 30, you get the best skills: Whirlwind, Berserk, and Natural Resistance. I wouldn't recommend using Berserk too much in Hardcore; it lowers your defense, which is VERY bad when you can only die once. I went the defensive route, building up Iron Skin and Natural Resistance to ridiculous levels right away. It helped enormously in Hell with all of the Undead Fighter Mages running around. From here, I put points into Frenzy and Whirlwind, using Frenzy as my main attack and Whirlwind as my right-click in most cases. If I fought a boss with stone skin, I used Berserk once in a while, but not too much. I mainly just built a huge defense and used Frenzy and Whirlwind. I didn't put any points into Warcries and it didn't seem to matter too much, although I didn't play with others all that often. Again, just modify this to fit your playing style.
As far as stat points go, I went with 2 Strength, 2 Dexterity, and 2 Vitality at level up unless I wanted to get to use some item I picked up that I didn't meet the requirements of. After a while, I went 1 Strength, 1 Dexterity and 3 Vitality. Life is very important at the higher levels and especially in Hardcore.
I highly recommend trading, especially when you first start out. In Hardcore, players are typically more generous about giving away or trading stuff cheap. Try to trade chips for set pieces and trade those set pieces for other ones you can use. I had Berserker's Arsenal and Death's Disguise sets both at the same time, which helped immensely. You get so many bonuses from set items that it is really worth investing some time and energy into trading for complete sets. After a while, I traded Berserker's Hatchet for another Death's Touch, having two life stealing swords. As you go up in level, look not only for items that add defense, but also resistances. Life steal is always good, and items that add mana after kills or steal mana are good if you use Frenzy or Whirlwind a lot, like I did.

Barbarian strategies? You've come to the right place. I have had my Barbarian for a year now, but to tell you the truth, he is only on level 30. I might not have him on a high level, but I sure as heck have a great strategy. here are the skills I use in order of importance.

COMBAT SKILLS 1. Frenzy-Put about 15 skill points into it.
2. Concentrate-Put about 2 skill points into it. (put only one skill point into the rest)
NOTES: BERSERK IS TOTALLY OVERRATED. DON'T WASTE SKILL POINTS ON IT. IT IS STUPID TO USE SKILLS LEARNED ON LEVELS OVER 12 ON THOSE WEAK EVERYDAY MONSTERS.

COMBAT MASTRIES 1. Iron Skin-Only needs 3 skill points.
2. One of the 6 "MASTRIES". Whichever you use most.-2 or more Skill points. NOTES:THESE ARE ALL PASSIVE SO DON'T WORRY ABOUT MANA. FOR ALL OF YOU ASSASIN USERS, THE 6 "MASTRIES" ARE NOT REMOTELY LIKE CLAW MASTRY.

WAR CRIES 1. Howl-This is one of the most important skills. Put in as many points as possible.
2. War Cry-This is the only attack outside of the Combat Skills that directly damages the opponent. put in about 20 points. NOTES: FIND POTION AND FIND ITEM ARE JUST ABOUT AS USEFUL AS A SCREEN DOOR IN A SUBMARINE. THEY JUST GET YOU WALKING AROUND FROM CORPSE TO CORPSE WITH A CHANCE TO FIND SOME THING WHILE YOU GET KILLED BY MONSTERS. THESE ARE NOT PASSIVE SKILLS SO THEY MUST BE EQUIPPED. THAT MEANS THAT AS ALL THESE MONSTERS ARE ATTACKING YOU, YOU ARE TRYING TO SWITCH YOU SKILL BUT YOU CAN'T BECAUSE THEY'RE ALL OVER YOU AND LAG IS MAKING THE POINTER USELESS SO YOU CAN'T EVEN REACH YOUR SKILLS. THIS IS A WASTE OF MANA AND EITHER WAY DOES NOT GIVE A PRIZE WORTH THE TROUBLE.

hey. im a level 35 barb, and i have to tell u some things. if ur a barb, i suggest u use axes. i kick ass with a bloodletter gladius which does 33-100 damage. i dont really like swords but that is kick ass. forget about mana it sucks, just up your strength, dexterity and vitality. u should up your masteries and combat skills. double swing is crazy so USE IT! screw sheilds once u get to a higher level. it's better for whirlwind. once u first get to nightmare or hell, up ur resistances alot.ull need it. when facing baal, up concen trate, then (if ur playing battlenet with other people) go behind baal (he'll ignore u) and keep bashing him with double swing. watch out for festering apparendas. up ur dexterity to help u hit him better. ive got a 94% chance of hitting diablo and a 90% chance of hitting baal.(normal) also for other guys, once u kill the cow king, u cant make a cow game until u kill diablo/baal again.

johnthebomb US EAST

Here are the items my lvl 62 Barbarian is wearing:Helm: Duskdeep (unique), Armor: Ornate Plate (rare - 720 def) imbued, Left Hand: Ancient Sword (rare - 31-77, 5% mana leech) imbued, Right Hand: Ancient Sword (rare - 33-70, 7% mana leech) imbued, Belt: Sigons Wrap (set item - 2 per character lvl to defense), Gloves: Sigons Gauntlets (set item - 30% increased attack speed. ), Boots: Sigons Sabot (set item), Rings: 2 rare rings with a total of 9% life leech per hit and resistances against fire, lightning, poison and ice. Amulet: a rare amulet (str + 14, min damage +5, resistance against fire, lightning and ice)
With every hit my barb leeches 19% life. (10% - sigons set, 9% rings). I always use double swing and as alternate attack i have lvl 8 whirlwind. Because of the 30% increased attack speed my barbarian hits really fast. I had no problems killing Duriel (hell). I just stand in front of him and keep hitting him. When i get hit by Duriel my life refilles just as quick as using an potion (I hit often because of my high attack rating). I have max fire, ice and lightning resistance in hell. Magical damage is reduced by 2, and physical damage is reduced by 9. Min damage +7, max damage +8.
Strenght is by far the most important attribute for the barbarian you should always pump at least 2 points in it per lvl-up. You should get your strenght to at least 170 so you can wear an ornate plate armor (find a normal one and imbue it - that is if you plan to go on after you finished the game on normal difficulty). You should also put some points in vitality. Life is very important especially on hell difficulty (you should at least have 600+ life). I have 560 life and an aura enchanted (increases strenght) cow on hell (secret cow level) kills me with one hit. Per lvl-up i devided my points almost alway 2 in strenght, 1 to 2 in dex (i have 68% theoretical chance to hit diablo on hell, though when i actually try to hit him it seems more like 20% [he probably has some passive dodge ability], in this situation the fast double swing really comes in handy) and 1 to 2 in vitality. Never put any points into energy.

Here are my stats: str 192 162-363, 161-332
dex 128 2438, 2332, 3384 (defense)
vit 102 299 (stamina), 565 (life)
en 11 72 (mana)
fire 75
ice 75
lightning 75
poison 52

I think the passive skills (combat mastery skills) are the best. I've got 20 points in sword mastery (the best weapons for the barb), 1 in increased stamina (this is really more then enough to alway be able to run), 3 in increased speed. 20 in iron skin, this is also a very usefull skill (per point your defense increases 10%, when you are wearing high defense armor this number can be quite large: for me with every skill point invested in iron skin my defense increases with 54) Natural Resistance 8 points (for me just enough to get max fire, lightning and ice restance).
Furthermore i have no skillpoints invested in the warcries section, and just a few in the combat skills (6 in double swing, 8 in whirlwind), why 5 more in doubleswing? well, because its my main attack and the 5% increased AR is better then investing my skill points in some skill I never use (for example leap attack or concentrate). I also got one in berserk (you need this skill to kill the physical resistance enemies on hell).
A last word: the imbue quest at chapter 1 is the best way to get great rare items. You should keep the ability to imbue untill you find some normal exeptional items YOU want to have in a rare form. I chose to imbue 2 ancient swords and 1 ornate plate. Because of these items my barb is near undefeatable. When you start to imbue; exit the game and backup your save game; re-enter the game and imbue your item; if it is what you want keep it otherwise exit the game put your old save game back and imbue again, repeat the proces untill you got the item which is best for you.

Scimitair, level 62 Barbarian.

I was reading this page and i saw heaps of people say that Duriel is THE hardest boss in all of d2. well. with a barbarian, double swing is fine until u get to about the middle of act 2 when u need some badass damage. and the one handed weapons just dont cut it. so what u do is find urself one BIG axe or someting, and put ur right click skill on stun, preferably with 4-5 skill points on it. then just waltz up to Duriel and bash the living crap out of him. he canrt attack back, and by the time he recoveres from the stun, u have already bashed him again, so hes still stunned. this way he does NO damage to you, and his ridiculous amount of hit points just fade away. im not telling you my level cos im not"over 60".

and for those barbs who dont know what to put skill points into, i have 1 in polearm mastery, 4 in sword, and about 13 in whirlwind and 5 in berserk. this way i can use the huge damage polearms, and kill normal monsters quickly with the two swords. and eventually you will HAVE to put some points into berserk, its the only way to kill physical immunes in hell and stone skin bosses in 4/5 nightmare. i hope this works for you.

Ive been using a barb and heres my stratagy
1. MAX OUT SWORD MASTERY
2. Max out ww
3. Max out battle oder
4. like 10 into natrual resistances
5. a couple points ointo iron skin
6. 5 into increase speed
7. 1 into berserk for the imune to phisical
8. put any weopon as secondary and set it as leapattack so if ur stuc you can leap right out
Thats about it for he stats. I recoment a sword and shield barb because in nightmare and hell, it really helps.

*WEAPON
*Axe - they rock hard, but they're slow(not my choice)
*Sword - not much damage but swings faster.(recommended)
*Mace - a little bit of sword and axe, and the 150% to damage to undead is good.
*Polearms,Spears - good range, good for Whirlwind barbs.
*Throwing weapons - forget this one

SKILLS
*Weapon Mastery (20 points), *Battle Orders (14-20 points), *Battle Command(1 point is enough), *Find Item(8+ points, optional). *Concentration(10+ points)- for two handed weapon wielder. *Frenzy(10+ points)- for double weapon weilder, *Double Swing(1 point) - for double weapon wielder. *Berserk(5 points)- only used for physically immune monsters, *WhirlWind(10+ Points), *Iron Skin(6-10 Points), *Natural Resistance(10+ Points), *Increased Speed, Stamina(1 points)

*STATS
STR - 2, DEX - 2, VIT - 1, ENR - 0
if your playing solo or hardcore, try to set a STR goal to reach, after reaching it only put 1 point in STR and add the other points to VIT.

*THE DEFENSE
This build is based on my lvl 87 hardcore, single player game Sword Barb, so it survived hardcore hell, sofcore hell would be just easy. my key to this barbarian is life, 2 points on VIT after reaching my goal STR, a maxed battle orders(you could have 1500-2000+ life) with iron skin, natural resistance to make you a little bit hard, and you'll be the next to to invulnerable.

*THE DAMAGE
I used concentrate on killing boss it gives you a little less damage compared to berserk but it gives you a hell lot of defense, whirlwind is also the key to my success wiping out monsters in a blink of an eye, kills boss monsters much better too! if u know how to control them, Leap attack get's rids of the monsters that ressurect their minions(fallen shamans,unraveller), and berserk is used to get rid of physically immune monsters, since it adds magical damage. Frenzy and Double swing is the alternative of Concentration. but i suggest you should use a two handed weapon.

*THE EQUIPMENT
with this kind of barbarian build you can wear a lot of magic find and forget about the defense and resistance, if you want to wear magic find then, try putting points in find item since it helps, i have a lot of good items because of it, and find a lot of mana/life stealing item, so you'll survive much longer, since it fuels you and your whirlwind and other combat skills; it is also required for every weapon using character in D2X.

Patriarch Rhazul, LVL 87 Sword Barb.

I have had about 6 barbs on my acount throught the time i created it and it took 3 barbs just to get a good equation which is barbs are about raw power and unless you have the items to back it up you are never going to be as good as those guys out there with everything under the sun on mules i aint a rich player but i have 3 barbs currently on my account that if i could outfit them with all the stuff they would be unbeatable ne ways to make a good barb you gotta plan ahead pick out which mastery he is going to be and only points in that wep mastery not a single one in any others than work on all your skills by 1 point each to get up to battle orders (which you need cause even with 350 vit i can still top you in life and i only have 160-170) whirl wind and nat resis now sare your points with iron skin and nat once you get up to the high level skills make sure to max out whirlwind and your mastery than get a moderate amount of points in both nat resistance and iron skin and an easy way to get a lot of life this is generally saved for the higher up barbs once you get max whirlwind and mastery than you can get a good 15-max out on your battleorders and mabye a few in shout so before battle it will give youa boost now char points you should always have a lot of strength on a barb so at least on a sword barb at leasta 200 strength 110+ dex 150+ vit and leave energy alone now on mace and axe at least 225 strength now the secret to a good barb is leeching if you have mana and life leech crap find a way to put it on your barb so that he get the max effect without affecting his dmg or def now if you have good equipment and you equip your barb right he wil be incredibly powerful with this strategy and that is coming for level 77 OneHand_Stupid (mace class uses IK Maul) level 53 TwoHands_Stupid (sword class uses Honour Colossus Sword) and level 49 ThreeHandStupid (axe class uses Boneslayer) oh and if you read this PLZ GIMME A HELLSLAYER THEY ARE OF THE HOOK

I have had a few barbarian characters here so I have done a little bit of trial and error to learn what has worked best for me, currently I am using a barbarian which is at level 44, and I did get there the legit way as well. OK as for the stats, most of you should have already figured out that energy is not the most important stat to go with but there is a little bit of importance to it for when you want to use skills like frenzy or bash a lot, unless you want to hold onto a lot of mana potions, you will find more use of them when you get into the higher levels unlike when you firstly start the character. I usually put 1 point to vitality every level, and the others go to dexterity and strength, I personally like the dexterity a little bit more, because no matter how hard your barbarian may hit, if he has low dexterity which pretty much mean, he is clumsy and has bad aim, your dead, that is all there is to it. Bash is good if you want to use a two handed weapon but I personally prefer to use two separate weapons, it increases your attack speed by very much, twice and much damage in the same amount of time as a weapon and shield. Often monsters will not even have time to attack before they are smacked up twice and laying on the ground dead, not much to complain about there, but don't get two excited right off, the two handed attack is useless, only put 1 skill point into that, save it up for frenzy, you will understand why later, and also i have found the passive skills to be of much importance as well, especially natural resistance, for when you get to the nightmare and hell worlds where they drop your resistance big time, you will be thankful to have it then instead trying to attack a lightning enchanted monster and getting killed by 2 or 3 lightning charges for example, and in the end, lose gold and experience, i have learned this the hard way. (trial and error) As for weapon proficiency, i prefer the axe, they are usually the hardest fastest hitting weapons i have found, and you will usually find plenty of them for upgrading often, but do not concentrate on them completely because you never know when you may come across an excellent maul or sword that will put your axe to shame, so about 5 or 6 in axe, sword and mace classes, should do you good until you get to the much higher levels of the game, them add more as you see fit. Iron skin is also of importance, the stamina, i put 3 into as well as the extra speed which i plan to put more into as i feel i am strong enough, so i can move around and avoid or attack monsters that much quicker. "no running away because i will out run you" As for your mercenary, go with the rogue, i have found that to work the best for me, keep the very first one you come across, she is some awesome back-up for you, because if you hook her up with a good bow like the one i have (21-47 damage, 50 poison over 5 seconds, fast attack speed) and a few other things to it as well, you can sometimes just stand there and watch a nice group of monsters just fall and die all around you, whirlwind, only one use for that that i can see, large groups of monsters, other then that i do not even touch it, rely on frenzy if you have a two weapons, or bash if you choose to go with the two handed weapon. well thankyou for taking the time to ready my opinions, you can take my advice or do whatever you want to, but overall just have fun with that game, that is what it is all about.

Hi! I'm playing the expansion in normal mode. I'm a level 36 elemental druid druid on act 5. My best weapons are volcano, hurrician and armmagedon. I use a griz as a meat shield and have the original merc I hired from act 1. The merc shoots freeze arrows. She's deadly. The merc gets the best bows, armor and helm I can get. I also use a couple of ravens and cyclonic armor. The two ravens are scouts. I watch them flying around and if they take off, I trouble is near. Get the cyclonic armor up to at least six and keep renewing it. I put 5 pts. into spirit wolf, 6 into dire and so far 2 into griz. The griz needs about 3 more skill pts. but it rocks now. I layer volcano, arrmmageddon and hurrician one after the other. Bam! bam! bam! If you like artic blast you'll love hurrician! It's like a super freeze in a circle around you. I use it freeze enemies and then my griz and merc take them out. I took diablo out with volcanoes and my griz. Hit and run. Make the griz in front of diablo. while old red skin kills the griz put a volcano underneath him. It took about ten volcanos (level 4). The merc died in the first round. Mephisto I took out with two ravens and a level two volcano. I did not follow the conventional wisdom of putting up to 40 max pts. into mana. I've got about 60 pts. in energy. and I have several items which regenerate life and mana. I don't need a solar or carrion vine. I can toss heavy weather spells one after the other and keep going.
Spirit of the barbs, vs. wolverine vs oak spirit. The oak spirit is weak and stupid. It always wanders into the middle of a fire fight and gets toasted. What about the wolverine spirit? My merc and griz 'kick ass' already, don't need it. I like the spirit of barbs. It is tough. I don't have a keep making another one like I did with the oak spirit. Also do the math! At level one the barb spirit has a life of 105. At level one the oak spirit has a life of 30. If your fighters don't take as much damage, they live longer! And if they live longer, they can do more damage. Put one point into fire, boulder, fizzures only. Beef up volcano, hurrican and armmaggedon. Fizzures is not very reliable. If you need to target your fire power, don't use fizzures. It's random. Put a volcano under some monster! Barbacue time!
Twister and tornado are too random to be effective. One point only. Wait until hurricain, then lay down a few points. Don't put more than one point into each vine. The poison vine is weak and don't waste points on it. One point only.

I see where a few geniuses point out that "having a good sword rocks!" Well, no kidding, Einstein. Let's consider strategies that are independent of having great equipment. After all, you can always "borrow" great equipment from your other characters.
Swords are the best weapons for barbarians. I recommend a healthy dose of sword mastery and concentrate. Use one handed swords because shields are key. If you can find a 3 socketed tower shield, grab it and stick three of the best diamonds you can find in it. It will provide you with good blocking and high resistances. Then you don't need to waste skill slots on resistances later on. Concentrate also has the advantage of making your barb immune to being stunned (as concentration permits an "uninterruptible" attack).
War cries are useless. Shout is the only one worth having simply because it can clear nasties away from a portal so others can get through. Find potion is great because you can accumulate enough of the various types of potions so you can make rejuvenation potions. They are invaluable.
Barbarians are best if you design them to just wade in and smack stuff around. Missile barbs stink. Grow a pair already. Put your ability points in strength, vitality and dexterity. Mana doesn't help a barb much, especially if you use concentrate a lot (it is cheap).
If you can manage to find equipment that increases speed and provides life steal, grab it. If concentrate and sword mastery are high enough, your barb will rarely miss and will do a good deal of damage. If you are also stealing life as you beat on your opponent, you can stand there all day until your enemy goes down (especially if you have rejuvenation potions ready).
Strategies that drive opponents away are a waste of time (bash and shout). How can you kill something if it runs from you. Stun isn't bad depending on what you are fighting.

Carry two balanced axes and spread most of your skill points between axe mastery, throwing mastery, double hit, and double throw. Put double hit on the left mouse and double throw on the right. You can chop through the basic fodder with double hit and take out bosses or ranged attackers who are hanging back with double throw. Double throw is pretty powerful - the damage is comparable to my melee attacks. There are two main drawbacks- one is lower defense which you can compensate for by having life stealing items, the other is you have to go back to town to fill up your axes- although by the time you've thrown 130 axes you usually have something worth selling.

Beltaine level 37 barb.

I have a lvl 60 barb .It is a good charector you should pick him to start off with. online when you need to level up go to act 5 bloody hills. and start at bottom off hill and kill all the evil that walks the ground untill you reach the frig way point.( secound way point) When done with that you should have leveled up at least 1 or twice.
To get money you should pick up all iteams you find and sell them to the person in what every act you are in who repairs iteams.Its important to have tonw portals on you at all times so you can do that. You will find that in doing this you will make money very fast> its important to have money because you will need it when you start to buy armor with 500 defence, and weapons with high attack damage.
All i can say is it is not easy to get to lv.60 it takes time and skill .

Ok first of all i have been playing this game for a while and started soo many chars. For the one who said ppl who think sword/shield barbs are "idiots", well ure wrong i have started a barb who uses hellslayer. but i have experienced that even with 200 dex u cant hit $hit in duels and have about a 75% chance of hittin cows. sword/shield barbs rule in duels b/c u can block soo many hits from any weapon. wiht a 1 handed weapon like polearm, axe, etc cant block so they will die in like 3-4 shots of an arrow. (well my zon has eaglehorn soo it will knock u out for sure). So if u use polearm dont think u will rule in duels. i;d say 1 handed weapons for barbs are most likely to be used in pvm. and sword/shield can be used in pvp or pvm. u dont need to have vit the most if u have battle orders b/c when u max it out u have double ure regular lfe. soo plan on putin most of ure points in dex and strenght. for energy put nothin in it. each level u get gives u mana. I think my chars have been built perfect for me. Anyways thanks for u who have read and tookin my advice l8ts. My hightest char right now is Arch_AngelPkzon - level 89, and the rest of my chars are i the 80-86's

For my barbarian i maxed out the combat mastery of my choosing. I put the skills that i got from quests into bash, concentrate, whirlwind and all those. I then max out iron skin and then max out resistances. These really help in dueling or in nightmare and hell. I then level up whirlwind and beserk for bosses and hell mode. For stats, in the beginning i put alot into strength and vitality. with every 5th lvl into dexterity. i put none into energy until lvl 20. there is no point if you get an item that helps you renerate mana or one that adds to mana until that lvl. For the swords you may have to add more to dexterity more often. say every 3rd lvl. Charms that add to defense may be useful with iron skin at a high lvl. they might look like they suck but one that gives +15 to def, may actually give you +100 or so with iron skin. This has worked well with my lvl 54 barbarian.

OMG… Don’t listen to people lower than lvl 70 cause they got no exp. The ultimate barb is a sword barb and will use da one handed perfect Grandfather Colossus Sword, Stormshield, Vampire Gaze (helmet), Shaftstop (armor), IK glove, IK boot, and IK belt. Strength is most important, then vita, then dex. PUT NO PTS IN MANA. Get a mana leech ring. Max out whirlwind, max out sword mastery, max out natural resistance, TRY maxing iron skin, 5pts into leap, 5pt in warcry that gives u life, and 5 in increased speed. If you follow dis u have a kick @$$ barb and will not be beaten even by the toughest sorcs.

Patriarch LMNTLstrong-gy LVL 72 Sword Barb

ok, ive read every single strategy, and ive taken all of their peices of advice (including some of my own) and put them together in one thing.---------to start out, chose one type of weapon and max out the masteries. swords kick major *** so use them or die.
----do not use warcries
----whirlwind is ok, but use it wisely.
----Dont use berserk, it brings your defense all the way down to 0.
----use iron skin, but dont max it out. get it to about level 7 or 8
----use natural resistances instead of relying on items to boost your resistance (save it for mana)
----when boosting stats, NEVER, let me say that again for those who didnt hear me the first time NEVER put any points into energy, even if you dont need to put it into anything else. at first, put 2 in strength, 2 in dexterity, and 1 into vitality until about level 20, then you can do whatever you want, just DONT PUT ANY INTO ENERGY.
----when using swords, always use a sword and sheild. when i faced Diablo, I couldnt beat him because i didnt have any sheilds and i spent so much on town portals and my companion that i couldnt buy one, and i couldnt find one either.
----keep your companion all thru the game! for the first 2 acts, use the one you got from Kayasha in act 1. when you get to act 3, find one that does cold damage. i cannot express how much you need cold damage. any normal charachter is frozen solid, and the special ones can hardly move. i dont even have to do anything anymore, because my compainon just freezes everyone.
----in regards to the town portals, always have 20 with you at all times! you may think that you only need one, but what if you forget. and whenever youre about to fight a major boss (i.e. andariel, Duriel, Mephisto, Diablo, Baal) so if you die, you can always come back to the same spot.
----when looking for items, try to get ones that have life/mana steal and extra mana. also, get items that up your dex. when it comes to fighting diablo, every hit counts. if you miss, you will die.
----STAMINA, STAMINA, STAMINA, STAMINA. When it comes to fighting people, you want to run. if not, you will die.
----you will not beleive how many times ive tried to beat diablo and failed so i had to start all over again.

I see alot of people saying beserk is usless. Put at least 1 into it because you most of the time cannot destroy enemies that are immune to physical without it (especially in Hell difficulty). Beserk adds 160% magic damage at lvl 1. Unles you already have a huge magical weapon make sure you have this before Lut Golein in Hell mode.

Here are the Skills to a Perfect Dueling Sorc:
10 to Static, Max out ThunderStorm, Max out Lightning Mastery, Max out Frozen Orb (very important), 10 to Cold Mastry, Max out Warmth, 1 to Teleport, 1 to Energy Shield, 1 to Shiver Armor (I perfer more cuz of more Defense Bonus)

Just find a good staff to start off with most preferably a +1 skill staff. Just wait til you kan get the Static Skill. Just keep using Static until u reach Lvl 30 (Let everyone do the work for YoU. hehe) Be sure to have as Many +Plus Skill Points as possible cuz the more the Merrier. And have a High Resistence to Cold and Lightning. (those are killer) Just follow my advice and you'll be DoPe. TrUsT mE.

PangitGuyA - LvL67 SoRc

Hey all the Barbarians out there, when you first started training a barbarian, you must of put a lot on strength. Im not saying that this isnt good, but you the things you really need to focus on are STR, VITALITY and DEX. Never, I mean never put any pts into ENERGY. this might sound crazy, but Barbarians dont need energy. I know, your wondering, if i dont have MANA how am i going to use my spells. Well, all you need is mana and life steeling equipment. For example, if you find a ring that regenerates your mana by 8% after every kill, put it on.
Also, i have a great strategy to kill bosses. One, dont try and fight the bosses until you are atleast 6 lvls higher than them.(Andariel:lvl 12, Duriel: lvl 18, Mephisto:lvl 26, Diablo: lvl 40, Baal: Lvl 42) If you are too low, they will just breathe on you and you will fall right to the floor. Here is what i would suggest for a barbarian.
when you fight bosses with minions, hit one minion so that you get its attention, then run. You now have to kill them one by one. After that, you can now focus on the boss. Use leap attack to get to it then give it everything you have.(When you have half your life left, heal) Your best strategy is HIT AND RUN. When you fight bosses like Mephisto Baal and Diablo, use Leap Attack then Whirlwind.
Here are the things i think would make a great Barbarian: Whirlwind: max it out Battle Command: Max it out Natural Resistance: Max it out
And here is a great way to spread out your Attribute points. When you reach lvl 50: Strength:35%. Dex:30%. Vitality:35%. Energy:0%

ive read a bunch of the other strategies and, while some have some good ideas, others are just junk. first of all, before you even start, you have to know where youre going in the future. i suggest going the sword barb route. i have a level 36 barbarian, which isnt that high, but he is close to invulnerable. heres the thing i used, DONT use a two handed sword or use two swords at once, its probably one of the dumbest things you can do. im ruling in nightmare with a tulwar(falchion) that does 21 to 48 damage, and with masteries and other items, does about 100-225 per hit which isnt that high. i have 16 in sword mastery, 8 in iron skin, 1 in stamina (with a helm that increases it by 1), 5 in natural resistance, 3 in leap attack (1 in the prerequisites), 1 in whirlwind, and 1 in beserk. i use concentrate and leap attack the most. heres the key to my success. i use a shield, and am fast. i use a tower shield that gives 11 to all resistances and somehow have a 70% block. another very useful item is sanders boots (i dont remember the actual name but its in the SANDER set). they give 100 to attack rating, 10 to dexterity, 5 to strength, and give a 40% boost to my speed. speed is essential because it allows you to move around and attack various enemies and then get back. i mean, what good is doing huge amounts of damage if you get your ass kicked in the process because youre slow and vulnerable?
but. the shield is the key, when facing diablo, i didnt die because i would block his attacks. i could run in, do some concentrate, then run back, and block the magic crap. same with baal, i got him in a corner, used my concentrate until i had no mana, then bashed the crap out of him and whenever he attacked, i would block it most of the time.
an idea for points. dont waste time with energy and get your vitality to around 40 then just put in 3 to strengh and 2 to dexterity, and then alternate every time you go up a level. i dont miss very often, i had a 79% chance to hit diablo and 74% to hit baal, and did huge amounts of damage, and my defense was quite high.

Now for all of yuu IDIOTS who think the barb is the easiest character to play with then you're dead wrong. If anything he is the hardest. Also if you think that sword barb is the way to go because he can block you're as wrong. A barb is most powerful when hes using a pole arm and has 15 or 20 in polearm mastery. As for skills, put ur first 5 into your chosen mastery (polearm if you're smart) then split the next 25 points between bash, different warcries, and everything you need in order to learn whirlwind. As soon as you reach level 30 put all your skill points into whirlwind but dont start using it until it reaches level 5. Put most of your points into strength and vitaliy. Now if you want to make a dueling barbarian put a ton of points into vitality so that by the time you reach the higher levels you would have about 350 vitality, 150 strength, 100, dexterity, and about 80 vitality (just try to get some fastest boots and a charm of inertia).

I currently have a level 25 barbarian, and have strictly adhered to a few rules. First and foremost, barbarians are all about damage, dishing out and recieving. I have dropped all the auxiliaries, such as warcries, energy and the like, instead, gearing solely at passives, vitality, dexterity, and strength. It's my suggestion that you raise all three evenly. At first it may not seem as if it makes much sense, but the fact is. it doesn't amtter how hard your barbarian can hit, if he can't land a blow. The same applies with vitality. No matter how strong he is, if he can't take the punishment, get out. So, keep those even, and max out axe mastery. So far as I've seen, the hardest hitting weapons in the game are axes. While you're maxing that out, find items that replenish your life. Finding a few skull gems and a socketed helm can help, as can a number of rings and amulets. It may be tempting to go for items that protect from certain attacks, such as fire or poison. but DON'T DO IT. reason being, eventually you're going to have god aweful resistance to that anyway, but added to the fact that even at low levels, your barbarian will start getting upwards to 1 or 2 hp a second. This means you'll save on hp potions. Speaking of potions, ALWAYS keep rejuvination poitons in the first column. Those are undeniable life savers. They heal you two or three times as fast as a regular heal poiton, and that can help in a pinch. As for armours, I suggest going for the highest armour class you can get, except with boots. if you find yourself some boots of pacing, hang onto them. So, now that you have this guy, how do you play him? Well, you play him riding the ctrl button. Run. run EVERYWHERE. especially during battle. Ranged attacks can't hit you if you're not there. And your barbarian will be able to peg most enemies in one hit. Also, you'll rarely run out of stamina simply because your vitality is so high.

Hi i am currently using the barb. I have read all the above stratergies and find some are utter lies. If u want a strong barb then go with swords or polearms as swords are pretty strong and have good attack speeds but pole arms are unmatched in strength and can attack from a short distance away.( but pole arms have slow attack speeds usually).my barb uses a sword and a shield but i have a secondary weapon arsenel of two swords.Now to tell you about the skill points. it is best to save as much as you can at the start for you will need them later but add ONE to double swing ONLY ONE. Also add one to leap so you can get leap attack.Once you reach level 18 add one to leap attack.( leap attack rocks it does average damage but is REALY useful for getting out of large crowds).meanwhile add points to sword or pole mastery which ever you choose BUT CHOOSE ONLY ONE! You should also be adding points onto iron skin, natural resistance and the to stamina recovery and speed increase skills. Add one to stamina recovery but max out the rest.Now once you reach level 30 MAX OUT WW! IT ROCKS LIKE HELL!Thats all you need dont add stuff to frenzy, concentrate or berserk only once you have finished the above.Oh wait also dont add stuff to any of the war cries they suck and waist to much mana.Now onto stat points keep adding points to strenght and dex make sure they are about even because whats the point of being strong when you cant hit them thats why strenght and dex are a must. keep adding points on to them until they reach 100-200(depending on your level). you can add alittle onto vitality but you dont need to much because you would have already added stuff onto stamina recovery and speed increase. (stop adding onto stamina when you reach 50-70).Once you have done that keep adding stuff onto strenght and dex( rememer to keep them around even ).That is my advice and it has worked fine for my level 96 barb in fact my barb is ultamate so follow my advice and you will be an invinceable ass kick'n barb " I HAVE TOUGHT YOU WELL SO NOW GO OUT AND SMASH SOME SERIOUS BUTT" THANKS FOR READING MY INFO AND IT WILL HELP YOU FARE WELL.

ALAN - CHCH, LEVEL 96 BARB US EAST

If you are a barb who loves to duel over the internet( and who dosent) there are 3 main attack skills that you should Lvl up. First is Leap attack(i love it) when i was justa young barb and fought against people who had it thats what would kill me because they would go so high i would lose them and they would come down on me and kill me. Next is Wirlwind it is great when its time to get on the ground with them it will totally kick but they will run at you and you will start the attack and by the time time they figure out what is happeming they are already dead. The final is beserk it is the ultimate attack against internet fruits. use it and they will die.

When Facing Diablo there are 4 main skills to help with lower the chance of getting hit or the effect of his attack of the barb that you should Lvl up on before you face him. 1st is increased speed this is very important because you could have very good armor but it will slow you down and leave you open for Diablo( Plus he use a lot of elemnetal attacks so good armor will be useless). Next is inceased stamina, Lvl it up a bit beacuse if you can run fast but dont have the stamina to hold that run your in trouble. Next is natural resitance, Put a good amount of points into this because not only will it help you out with diablo but with the act5 and the other difficulties. The next is Iron skin you should put some skill points into it( but don't over load it) this is just incase you get to close for comfort and Diablo starts swinging at you

If u want to have a the best pvp barb read what i have to say.the first thing u need in vampire gaze has 20% reduced dmg then get shaftstop has 30% reduced dmg then get string of ears has about 10-18% reduced dmg then get tiamats rebuke or gerks sancturary ok after ur done with that find a kick ass sword my sword is doombringer expac 3 ohm runes in it also expac the sword do 500dmg 2 hand and 343dmg in 1hand and doombringer is a champion sword ok for boot get some with 40% faster run i use IK boots there ok but not the best but if u dont beleave whisper burning_blades and get ur ass pked my char name

I just want to point out that people need to realize that there is more to making an effective barb then choosing a mastery and using WW. Everyone can do that. A less-taken, but just as effective idea is to use Frenzy. A dual-sword wielding barb using frenzy and berserk for physical immunes can handle any act in the game. I always used to think that WW was the best skill in the game. But I once played in a game with three others barbs, all of who were using maxed Frenzy, and I used max WW. I had the least amount of kills. You just can not keep up with them. Speed (because of using frenzy) will keep you alive, even in the Hell Chaos Sanctuary. WWs great and all, but Frenzy deals more damage, and you won't die as often in the middle of it. Keep that in mind Most newbies neglect warcries. In general, this is not a bad idea, but a necessary skill is Battle Orders. Get it as high up as possible, especially in hardcore. The other warcries aren't as useful, despite what you think. I see a lot of barbs using Battle Command, and its effects really aren't as useful as you think.

Sasmodeus, lvl 79 Barbarian

The barb is the last caracter i made and so ive heard alot about them and so here is what i decided to take.
Stats: STR: I always took to 100 str as soon as possible, i did that so i could equip huge D armor at the start
DEX: i took alot of dex next so i could use good spears,pike,lances etc, and barb needs alot of this to actually hit the enemy
VIT: Get lots of vitality once you have enough str and dex, i mean what good is doing tons of damage if you just die while attacking anyway
EN: take no energy, EVER! i just use a few items that add 30-40 mana instead

Skills: Masteries: lvl 20 in weapon mstrey for the weapon you use, i would recommend spear, sword, or mace mastery. Take 1 lvl in stamina mastery, any more than 1 are a pathetic waste Get speed mastery up to 5-7, after that i wont go up by as much, but if your like me and love speed, then i say hell go for it and get it to 15 to have an extra edge in duels You definitely need iron skin to at least lvl 5, i recommend getting this to lvl 1--15 later on. The most important mastery for nm and hell is natural resist in my opinion, on average get about 5-6 in this, for resist addicts you should take more, even though it may seem like a waste at higher lvls then look at it figurestively, say a sorc has does 600 damage on average with ts, even if your Nresist skill only adds 3% more resist, 3% of 600 is 60 less damage, and thats alot.
Combat Skills: Get ww maxed, and get lvl 1-5 beserk, thats the only ones you should get past lvl 1. just set left action ion to beserk and other to ww and otehr skills
Warcries. some ppl are just so dam stupid it makes me mad, it takes 3 skill points to get Shout and Battle orders, JUST 3. and ppl say thats its a waste, how. lvl 1 shout doubles your d, even if its only for 12-14 seconds, DOUBLE DEFENSE, all you need to do is use it and run into some enemies, its a must for dueling, AND if you still arent convinnced to take it then listne to this, my reg defense with iron skin and my armor is about 1300, once i use shout its about 2000, i get hit about 12% of the time average by most enemies in hell. 1 more skill and you get Battle orders at lvl 24, at lvl 1 it im pretty sure it increases life by 40%, not to take this skill would be foolish, im lvl 49, i have about 680 life without battle orders, with lvl 8 battle orders my life goes up to 1020 and lasts a little over a minute. Im lucky, i got duel leech with +40 mana, so i use that and im up to 240 mana, if your going to be a ww barb then i cant advise you not to take this skill. And, although you can think what you want, i think battle commands is an excellent skill to invest 1 point into and heres why, right before you duel a sorc or elemntal minions, using BC increases natural resist, before dueling barbs and meleepallys using it will improve defense, damage, and AR, and if you use use BC then Battle orders and shout then both of those will be up a lvl as well. That one is up to you thoough, i just think that ppl are way to ignorant to think that using 1 skill for something like that is a waste.

Aeowulf- lvl49 LanceBarb, Demisa- lvl61 Sorceress, Khinison- lvl35 chargadin, Diahz- lvl32 Necromancer, Solslayer- lvl40 Bowzon

Look swords are the best damn weapons on the whole game (for the barbarian) well anyways jack up sword mastery, iron skin, and natural resist, you'll need to get frenzy and whirl wind also, don't even mess with berserk 'cause it drops your defense to ZERO. get energy to 30 and try to keep your dexterity up with your strength and vitality is important too if you want to stay alive on hell. But whatever you do, dont waste your skill points on warcries they suck horribly.

Very useful barbarian strategy. It's simple - just put BASH (skill, needs level 1) instead of your normal attack (left button). I'm a level 36 barbarian and have a level 1 bash - and it works wonders. The damage done is far greater as normal although a little bit slower. It has also knockback. Mana cost is a mere 2 points. Well, I have enough mana to use Bash all the time… My rare pike (35-140 dmg, +227 att.rating) is slicing the enemies to small pieces. ESPECIALLY with Bash. I also tried another character for which I made bash level 10. Well, you must try it to see it…

Until now i'm in level 44, i only havee died once in act 4 because de skeleton mages, i think i of most helpful skill is find potion, because starting from the act 4 you can get full rejuvenation potions, and those help you a lot, in less than 10 minutes you can get your full belt of full rejuvenation, the best atack is concentrate it help you a lot with defense, another skill very helpful is the weapon you use, y recomend use only 1 wepon for use a shield too, in my case is the sword, bastard or giant, barbarian can use them with 1 hand, the barbarian is a little slow, so put a couple in stamina and speed, for defense specialy if you use doble swing and don't like shields iron skin and natural resistence, for last the war cries, my favorite is war cry, with this you can kill a lot of enemys very fast and the last skill i recomend, battle command, to increases your skills,to the barbarians it's very helpful the items that increase your skills, because it uses a lot of pasives, so i recomend 1 item, find a (2) socketed helmet only barbarian, with a skill that helps you and insert the runes ort + sol, and this will increase your skills +1, theres a lot of those helmets around, so just open your eyes and keep pressed ALT.

Thanos Barbarian Level 44

i know the best way to get the ultermet barb lissen to some one who knows what he is on about i have a lev 99 barb called farget-ffs the trick is to go up on sword mastery (or weapon you want to use) don't forget to go up 1 lev on bash then when you get to lev 6 go up on double swing with barbs use 2 weapons trust me big clubs suck zoom up on that untill you can get wirl wind in the end get max on the weapon mastery of your choice double swing and wirl wind oh and go up on increase speed then you can run in fast cut up the enemy and wirl wind out when you find out your about to die hehe ;-) if you are max on them you can go up on what you want if you would like to change a coupple of things i wont stop you this just works for me i hope it works for you have fun cutting them evil mothers up :-)

In act five, the monsters that run up to you and explode are annoying and dangerous. Ive found a brilliant way of getting round them. Learn the battle cry "War cry" hotkey it to F1. Get leap for F2. When you see one, let him get to stand right next to you, quickly hit F1 and use it, immediately hit F2 and leap away. They wont explode for as long as they're stunned!

I believe strongly in specialization. My Barbarian is a level 41, and specialization has proven very useful, provided you have friends to cover the skills you lack. My favorite tactic: Double Swing. Use it exclusively. Use axes, swords, whatever, but use the double swing. Make sure your chance to hit is high, but don't worry about lots of damage. Double swinging is all about speed, and making sure you hit. Add in cold damage if at all possible. Your rapid speed, in conjunction with frozen enemies, will grant you almost certian victories against regular monsters, and is very effective against uniques and bosses as well. It will probably be required to have some mana steal, to balance the small amount of mana used by the double swing.
Do not get surrounded. Speed is great, but useless when being hacked at from all sides. Make good use of the leap attack to make a devastating blow at the beginning of battle, and to flee when, or if you get surrounded.
I would not reccomend this strategy to a single player, but in a party of at least two, your melee ability would be unmatched. I have though, used this strategy alone, and it works quite well. I have not expirimented greatly with other barbarian strategies, so I certianly cannot say this is the best one.

Sphinx, level 41 and rising

Hi, I have a lv 71 lance barb in X-pack. He has killed baal in hell already. I noticed some1 here called maven said spear and polearm barbs suk and they should play amazon. I would like to say that first of all no decent zon uses spears anymore or polearms. Also, barbs with lances arent as bad as u think. My barb kicks azz with a 3 socketed cruel war pike(752 dmg) with a ohm, 40% ed jewel, and p skull. One more thing. 2 axes or 2 swords suk dick. better off using a good 2h sword like the grandfather or doombringer or cruel claussus or somethin unless ur gonna be a frenzy barb. And also, azurewrath. wonder how u got to hell with taht piece of shit. How much dmg u do with it. 500. pathetic. o ya and theres no way u r lv 98 with that thing unless ur a leecher or some nerd who got to lv 98 in act1. LOL. Socketing it is such a waste. Now for some real stuff. The eq on my barb are pretty good. I have a areats face, just about the best barb helm there is. a dual leech ring 6/7 and a raven frost. a rare ammy pluz 2 all baba skillz. imk gloves, 20str, 20 dex. nat's boots, 40% fast run/walk, rare dusk shroud, over 900 def and got arkaines valor waiting for me like about 1500 def with pluz 2 all skillz and insane life, mavin'as belt, 20% faster run/walk, 5% mana steal. I also have a gull dagger(100% mf) for magic finding. i killed baal in normal at lv 31 nm at 50 and hell at 64 with a couple of friends. right now i usaully do mef runs or lv up in bloody/cow runs. I use whirlwind right now. It rocks. I killed nightmare diablo with it in like 12 whirlwinds at lv 45 that time. For me the hardest boss would be duriel. Some of u may think its easy but in hell he has a hella lotta life and i killed him with my sorc friend who static fielded him 6 times like 10 novas and 1 of my ww. and his stupid aura keeps chilling me. his charge does 1 heck a lotta dmg. killed my friend in 1 hit and brought me down to 345/1021 in i hit. In normal however he was quite easy. i just bashed him to death with some other ppl.
TIPS FOR KILLING BOSSES:
andy: in normal u should try to get as much fast run/walk and poison resist as possible as her poison is quite annoy and can bring u down to 1 life if u dont have enough resists. In nm and hell u shouldnt have as much trouble cause u can ww her and have more resists.
duriel: for duriel i usally kill him with some friends. in normal i tried bashing him to death and it seemed to work pretty well. in nm, i leaped attack him while my allies distracted him. in hell i just let my friend lower his life and i ww.
mephisto: the easiest boss in the game. IMO. what i do is i just find the entrance to lv 3, leap attack across the portal to meph, skipping the guys guarding the sides. This works for norm/nm/hell. It also works with sorc teleport.
Diablo: In normal, try to party with a lv 30 din that has salvation. That way u dont have to worry about resists. ww worked fine for me but for those of u under lv 30 (highly unrecommended hehe. ) leap attack him and start bashing. If he is about to use his lighting whatever leapattack away. In nm and hell u just ww him till he dies. u wont have to worry about resists cause u probably have enough already.
Baal: (for those with D2X-pack) i suggest doing this in a party unless over lv 35 or has very good items from transfers. for the big azz packs of summons that baal has, let a sorc take care of it and ww whats left over. when u get into the chamber, tell ur sorc ally to static field baal while leap attack onto him and stun him or soemthin. in nm and hell it wont work cause baals got to much life to be killed by stun so just leap attack him and start ww.

One strategy that everyone dowplays is using warcries. I have a level 22 Bard with lvl 7 shout and I can whoop most people between lvl 22 and 29. I have 7 sword mastery, 1 howl, 1 taunt, 1 bash, 1 stun, 1 concentrate and 1 battle cry. Battle cry is awesome in dueling. I almost beat a level 38 lance barb with it! Shout is another valuable skill. Once I cast it, I have 1049 defense at level 22! and it lasts for 26 seconds. IMO get Cleglaw's Pincers. They rock at dueling. I have the full cleglaw's set and cathans seal which gives me 6% life/mana steal and a ring and an amulet which give me combined +15 replenish life. Just get life/mana steal and replenish life. They will keep you alive in duels.

EvilTyrant lvl 22 Bard

to all you LOD and classic fans out there who want a real kick-ass barb who can take out amazons: READ!
1. try playing the different character classes. this may seem a long start but it makes you know every strength and weakness of other characters as you play the game yourself.
2. start your barbarian with focus on swords and shields. i recommend swords because you can equip yaself with a shield. you may say that its awful and weakly but i can assure you that it saves you alot of full rejuvs and mouse-clicks.(especially in multiplayers). try reaching level lvl 28-29 when you face diablo himself. EQUIP a tower shield with focus on def and resist all. i luckily found a rare tower shield with high def when i defeated mephisto. and oops, i almost forgot as you move your way up to lvl 30, try the 2-2-1 strategy on stats. NILANJAN had a good point on this. have at least 1 for leap, 15 for sword mastery and spend(optional) at least 6 skill points distributed evenly on the warcries(SHOUT, BATTLECMD, & BATLLEORDERS). save other skill points on WWind and Berserk. but i only leveled the berserk out to 3 i focused 4-5 skill points on concentrate. wanna know why? it's damn uninterruptible. and get leap attack also. try find items with skill bonus on leap attack and the warcries or best find items with bonus to all skill levels.(at least 2).
3. try to max out sword mastery as much as possible. and open a new mastery when you reach lvl 45 give it at least 2-3 usually mace mastery or axe mastery. i admit that spears, polearms and throws have good ranges but it lowers def for barbs. and the solution for that is a good colossal or any long sword available for sword barbs. when it comes to ranges. and you may ask on how to hit 'em? fire your dexterity as much as possible to 190. and find rings leeching mana n life! plus if lucky amulet with bonus on attack rating and let it be prismatic(all resist).
4. try reaching strength to 220-221 when in lvl 70-. and find the unique storm shield aegis. have larzuk socket it hopefully 2 or 3 and save ber runes for it. for the head try finding vampiregaze. same strategy as for the shield. and when you reach lvl 80 plus or luckily lvl 99. get arkaine's balrog skin. NOTE: don't yah worry on how to find such items, when you reach lvl 80-. it is now possible that the game permits YOU to have the TREASURES when you kill monsters and keep playing. i may say.
5. it's a real work-out ain't it? and take note that don't depend heavily on your barb with swords and shields: IT's a Matter of Timing and Real Strategy.
OTHER notes:
have on the look-out for iron maidens. it might kill yah so be CAREFUL.
timing and tactics can you defeat a heavy junctioned amazon, it might deter you a little. have equip with high fast hit RECOVERY and defense vs. missiles.
so goodluck folks and keep those sword and shields bashing. you may not accept to choose frenzy or handling two weapons at once. if you do then master the axes. and do you know RUNEWORDS?

Ok first of most of these people dont have a clue on what they are talking about, first only put points in the the skills that you will not use till you get to frenzy, max it. Then before frenzy get one into leap attack, countinue to save point for the masterys because you will never find a good weapon in nightmare inless you beg someone for one. So countinue to save point for mastery and iron skill and natual resitace, so once you hit lvl 18 start upin iron skin then once you hit lvl 24 add iron skin natuaral resistance and frenzy every new lvl. This will give you an awsome skill cuz it gives you faster hit rate you run like a banche and it helps with damage and attack rate that is better then all except ww. Ok once you have maxed frenzy and iron skin and natural resistance be sure to have put the few occation points in to ww so that it will be maxed, have two one handed weapons mases, axes or swords as you frenzy attack then once you have ww maxes have a sick high damage lance as your second set of weapons so while in battle just hit w to change your attack damage and ww everything to death. Once you get a weapon that you plan to use for the remander of your char or a class that you plan to stick with max out that mastery. So all in all you will have 20 points in to irons skill 20 in to natural resistance 20 into frenzy and 20 into ww, all in all tha tis 80 points so the rest all go onto your mastery, and you can have a second mastery with all of those extra points you get from each act, remember the best time to kill the anchients is lvl 20 you will get 4 lvls, at lvl 40 you will get 7 lvl and at lvl 60 you will get 5 lvl. Then you stat points you would in the begining put them all into strength so that you can use a good armor eary in the game then use 2str 2dex 1vit, once you hit about 100 strenght go 1 str 1 dex then 3 vit. Good hunting, and good luck dont listin to any of these strats of peopel less then lvl 30 cuz they have no clue what they are talking about.

Of all the tips I have read on this page, only a handful mention the relative merits of using a mace-class weapon. I am a die-hard mace wielding barbarian (level 51, incidentally) and would like to explain why.
1.) The heavier maces, such as mauls, great mauls, war clubs and martels, do about 10-20% more damage than their spear-class counterparts. The notion that spears do the most damage is simply not true. Maces do the most damage. (at least at the higher levels, which is what everyone is interested in anyway)
2.) The heavy maces have the same range as spears. Don't believe it? Try and see.
3.) All maces have that 150% damage bonus when fighting undead opponents. Considering the number of undead monsters encountered during the course of the game, this represents a singularly unique advantage.
4.) The total number of unique maces in the game is 11. Total number of unique spears? Only 5. Statistically, the chances of finding a unique mace are more than double the chances of finding a unique spear.
5.) Unlike spears and swords, maces do not have a dexterity requirement (with the exception of the flail). This means that you can put many more attribute points into strength if you are a mace-wielder. That ornate armor you would love to wear but can't because you have to put half of your points into dexterity instead of strength? If you carry a mace, this type of problem will never arise.
6.) Let's face it: The spear look is out. Were you to meet a barbarian on the street, what are the chances that he would be carrying a spear? A nice, big, mean-looking battle hammer would be much more fitting to his personal decor.
7.) Not to offend anyone's delicate sensibilities, but the spear is clearly a phallic symbol. What are you really saying by walking around with it in your hands? It seems to me that any barbarian wielding a spear-class weapon is more bent on establishing their manhood as a function of size than on doing any serious battle.

well..if been on Bnet awhile and iv made a great duel barbaian. focus ur skills on battle orders. whirlwind. ironskin. sword mastery. and some into increased speed. i prefer using a cruel collosus and ading a socket from larzuc. for ur armor get a shaftstop..the dmg reduce ads to the dueling style. headgear. i prefer arreats face but if u definitly cant find 1..get a high dmg reduce vampire gaze. shield u most definitly need a stormshield for its dmg reduce and mods.now rings and ammys. get 2 raven frost they rly help in situations. ammy u get this 1 ammy (i forget the name) byt it adds 1 to ur skills and 12 to all ur stats. ur belt must be a high % dmg reduce string of ears and ur boots try finding a real fast walk i prefer snaders riprats b/c of their 5dex and 5str adding. ur stats focus on all except mana. get a ton into vitality and dex. getn high str but let arreatsd face add that quick stats that u can put into dex or vitality instead. im lvl 82 with 2.5k life killing jiust about any1 with 1 hit. bowazons dont stand a chance against me. well thank u and try it out it works

From lvl 82 Barbarian

my barb is 76 lvl now and playing in hell right now. and hes really fun to play with. first of all, ill talk about barbs skills. that is how i planned my barbs skills
there are 3 main skills that i went for: 1. WW (max) 2. Any MASTRY (max) 3. Battle Orders (max) and there is one more mastry of ur choice that u can max.
natural resistance no more than lvl 13. b/c after it u only increast it by 1 so no use putting any point in that. i suggest to go for barserk. b/c in act5 hell it will help u alot to kill those immune to physical monsters. rest of the skills are just 1 for prerequsite.
HINT: use very fast attack rate weapons b/c it affect ur WW speed and how many times u hit in one round. so get a VERY HIGH SPEED weapon.
HINT: my barb leach 20% life and 19% mana. so i do not have to worry about any life potions and mana especially. sice i get full in sec with WW
ur not gonna believe that. in act4 nm i did not use any mana and life potion till i get to diablo. so get some equipments with mana and life leach that is MUST for the barb.
now to get to the states points. that is how i organized my points. NORMAL: ( i stayed in normal till lvl 50 ) and str: 150 dex:100 vit: 75 eng:10 (did not put any points in energy)
NM: ( i stayed in nm till lvl 75 ) and str: 200 dex: 150 vit: 105 eng: 10 (did not put any points in energy)
HELL: till the end. =) str: 200 dex: 150 no more than that no put ur concentratoin on life and mana(little on mana)..(every lvl up: put 4 points in life and 1 point in mana)
this is my division of states points and now i have life:around 600 and mana:around 200 with soj
so my barb is very success fun till now. he is an ax master and really really good. some of the strategies here are really really good but some are just madness. SUGGESTION: to see how to make ur character good --> VISIT pk games and check it out how barbs do there. and chat with them. =)

I have the best startegy for Barbs, without a doubt. What you have to do is Max out the Axe, Sword or Mace Mastery (don't use anything else) and then start adding to Iron Skin until level 30, when you max out Natural Resistance. It increases your defense and Attack by about 200%. After this finish maxing out Iron Skin. Your defense will increase by 220%, Resists +67% ALL, Attack Rating 180% and Dmg 123%. This way in Hell difficulty you won't miss or get hit nearly as much, and if it's magic, it won't hurt half as much. After this you need to start working on Attack Skills so max out Double Swing. That's an additional +110% to attack rating, so you probably won't miss 95% of the time. After this put your last skill points into either Whirlwind or another Mastery (your choice - you can either kill with different weapons or kill with two of the same weapons - spinning)
To start off for stats, put +2 to strength, +2 to Dexterity and +1 to Vitality until your done maxing out Iron Skin, Mastery of Choice and Natural Resistance (around level 60) then start adding +3 to strength, +3 to dexterity, +2 to Vitality and +2 to Energy for every 10 stat points. (Each level: +1 to Strength, +1 to Dexterity, +1 to Vitality and +1 to energy - Alternate the X-tra point between Strenth and Dexterity) Do this the rest of the game - you should end up with enough Mana and everything to last you a long time. If you need extra Strength to use that super armor, then take away from dexterity - but if you can try to even it out again in the end.
This strategy has worked for me all the way through Hell difficulty Diablo; without dying or having to use potions on Hell Diablo. I am maxed out. Thanks for listening to my strategy - it has worked for me twice and it will work for you.

Level 99 Sword Whirlwind Barbarian >-> DarqueMist
Level 90 Sword/Axe Barbarian >-> BlaqueMist

I have the best strategy for a barb.
max out ww. max out a mastery ( i use a lance so i maxed spear) Then achieve only the minium amount of strength and dex u need ( i only need 170 strength and 89 dex for lance and to wear an ornate plate) Put all the other skill points into vitality because you will die really fast in hell if u r a ww barb, like most barbs, and u dont have alot of hp. At least get a min. of 500 hp by lvl 60.
For equipment i would get Helm- undead crown (life leech) Armor- rare ornate plate Boots- something with mana leech like gorefoot (2%mana leeech) and dont forget aster run and walk. gloves- i would really get frostburns but if u cant, get some mana leech gloves. rings- get a good mana leech rings like manald and a good life leech ring. ammy- mana leech weapon- really high damage (optional) some life or mana leech
remember to save your imbues cause that where u will get the best weapons from.

Lance-raser lvl 89
sword-raser lvl 83
maul-raser lvl 68

Hi,I'm curently playing a lvl 79 sword/shield barb and in hell dificulty vs baal i dont lose 1 health point.Here are some tips i suggest.
1)GOOD LEECH-if you have problems because of low health,just get a leech weopon so that you stay alive (at level 18 I killed duriel with 150 health with 15% life leech and good dmg).
2)GOOD DMG-The most worst thing for a barb is to have low dmg-especialy if you a dueler.So dont be dumb and pick dmg over statistics (sword that does 10-50 dmg with +10 all res, OR a sword that does 30-70 dmg with no atrubutes.DONT BE AN IDIOT TAKE A LOOK AT THE DMG PICK THE ONE WITH MORE DMG.
3)SKILLS-What i suggest in skills is from clvl 1-20 you sould have the weopon of choice mastered so you can pack on the damage and get easy levels.From clvl 20-30 either get battle orders high lvl(very useful) OR save up points for WW or Natural Res, OR all into iron skill till ww.30+ Try to get ww,ironskin,weopon of choice and a warcry (if your a WC barb) mastered.

BARB CLVL(S/S) 79
SORC CLVL 81
ZON CLVL 92
BARB (LANCE) CLVL 99

I have read enough of these so-called perfect, flawless strategies. They are all the same, they talk about how to make the perfect barbarian but they forget the most important thing: How to defeat DIABLO. Defeating Diablo is not that difficult. The most frequent mistake is to invest in heavy armor, this is WRONG. Armor will slow you down, SPEED is the most important weapon against Diablo. If you are fast enough, you can fight him for over an hour without loosing any life. The difficult part about Diablo is not his red lightning, but the fact that it is very hard to hit him. You need a lot of atack rating. Forget about whirlwind, because you will only be around level 28 when you face him. Mercenaries are also usefull for a diversion. Diablo will not heal himself if you use a portal and cold will work great against him. Oh, and save your gems, they rule.

ABBADON_Level_95 Barbarian (Swords)

this is wattoxx again. I have one more thing to say. Another good choice for a good solid barbarian. Choose the mace class, and you can get a good character. Use my other starategy, except change the mastery to mace, and get a good martel. Start with a basic maul, and work your way up. My mace barb is only lvl 30, but i got bonesnap, and im pretty good. try to get either snap or steeldriver to begin with, then get a good martel. In combat with maces, if u get a good enough maul, just bash guys till 30, while using the occasional leap attack. it is simple. Keep lvling. The maul is good because of its damage(almost up with a lance) and speed. Also if u have the xpac, there are some sweet ones out there. (cranium basher, immortal kings, silence thunder maul)

Nite_mauler lvl 30 mace barb

I am absolutely appaled to see barbariens using lances, spears or polearms-it's discraceful! If you want them, piss off to amazon land. The thing you need to have are either two swords or two one-handed axes-it's the only way. Simply then max out frenzy and double swing, and you're in business. If your beginning, try and find Azurewrath(crystal sword, appears in gold), it kicks butt! Then if you have expansion get the Smith to socket it, fill it with a decent rune, personalize it and it's amazing. Polearms and lances, whatever next!

From Maven, level 98 Barb (almost 99)

Yeh guys you have it all wrong. Sure a ww barb is great, but they can't do jack in hell unless you have a really kick ass weapon. So heres my way of making a barb. First, rule never put any stats into mana and always try to keep you dex even with your str. This really helps with your ability to hit your target all the time. Next, put one into bash and one into double swing and the rest into mastery until your level 30 when you can get frenzy. SAVE THE EXTRA POINTS if you blow them on something such as bash ect you'll be screwed in the long run. Now what you want to do is max out frenzy and then get at least 10 into beserk. The reason being frenzy is a passive skill for 3 seconds and it allows you to hit your target so fast that they can never recover. O yeah also along the way make sure you put 1 or 2 into natural resist and then try to max out armor. THIS REALLY HELPS IN HELL.
As far as items go you need two kick ass swords that have a min of fast attack speed. Some armor with at least 800 d (myn has 1208 but I used 800 up till level 80). Some mana and life leach rings and an amie that adds to skills. Gloves boots belts and helms don't matter too much but I would suggest IAS and over 100 d on all of them.

Hello fello DII enthusiasts. I have been playing for a short time and have a level 40 Barbarian who just entered nightmare. I know for some of you that is not exactly a great achievement, but he is magnificent. Most of the strategies I have seen here tell you where to put your skill points, so I will tell you where Curlain, my barbarian, has his. he has 20 points in sward mastery, 1 point in increase stamina, 4 points in increased speed, 7 points in iron skin, 5 points in natural resistance, 1 point in leap, 1 point in leap attack (these are both augmented 3 by a helm), 1 in howl and 1 in taunt. Yes, thats right folks no points in concentrate or in whirlwind or any of the other so called indespensible skills. Curlain is strong and smart. That is the idea of strategy to me. knowing how to fight without getting in too much trouble, not in the special skills and certainly not in what he wears (ie silks or other elaborate armors that are not available to younger characters). so what are his strategies. 1st, he fights in doorways and narrow areas as often as possible. you may ask why, well, he can not be surrounded, nor does he have to fight more than one enemy at a time that way. it gives him a big advantage because the enemies strategy is superiority of numbers not necessarily strength. 2nd, he tries to make sure he is never surrounded even in open areas. he does not have to fight in all directions at once and has an open route to back off a bit and regroup, heal, or book through a portal. 3rd, take advantage of the rogue hireling in acts 1 and 2 of normal and then hire an Ironwolf with cold powers in act 3 and take him with you throughout all the rest of the levels. he is still useful even in nightmare because he can freeze the enemies making it a bit easier for you to find your tactical advantage and then smash 'em. As far as items, try to make sure you pick things up and especially pick up the gold that the monsters drop. most of my items have been found, including things that regenerate life and one that steals 5% life. the one thing i do buy is armor. the founds ones in normal level simply are not a good as the ones you can buy, at least not the full, gothic or ancient plate armors. My guy has died, I am not going to lie to you, but its normally at the hands of a lessor enemy because his mistess loses her concentration and lets him die. He has not died at the hands of any of the Main bosses (diablo and that lot). I hope that the newbies find this useful and that those of you who are more experienced see that there are other ways to become a victor than fancy tricks.

First off, you need to max out your sword mastery and equip two swords. At the same time put all of your stat points into strength until strength is about 150. Then, put about 15 points into double swing and get your dexterity up to 100. After this is done, max out Iron Skin and get your strength up to 170. After that is done, max out Elemental Defense and put all of you points into Dexterity. I'm at level 45, and this strategy has done pretty good for me. Also, remember to equip only the best arsenal.

i don't have the expansion yet so this isn't very up to date but if you don't have the expansion i can tell you how to make a kick butt barbarian. First pick your weapon mastery. i like spear best because they do a lot of damage. max out that before lvl 25.also on the way get leap, leap attack, bash, stun, and concentration. at lvl 30 get ww. max that out before lvl 55. put 5 into natural resistance, five into iron skin, and don't bother with the war cries; they take way to much mana and it only lasts for a small amount of time. for equipment get a good lance, for armor get iceblink, for boots get threads of clon, for belt get gold wrap, for gloves get frostburn, get rings that have mana and life steal; you'll need it with whirl wind, for a helm get whatever you want, and get a ammie with a lot of resistances.
P.S. If you need money get a lot of magic find equipment, go to travincal and magic find there until you get what you want. you also can get a lot of good gems.

This is my strategy that has worked for me. First like always put 20 skills on any maestry of your choice. I like polearms or swords. Then get leap attack, just put 1 skill level on it. All you need it for is to get away from monsters that surrond u. This will help u a lot expecially in acts 2 and 4. Then put 2 or 3 skills on Increased Stamina so u done have to worry about your stamina runnig out. Then put 20 skills on Iron Skin and Natural Resistance. This help a lot expecially in nightmare and hell. For stats go to around 30 for energy and the rest in the others. This has gotten me really for in my single player barb who is at lvl 56. I am also using this stratigies for my multiplayer barb too.

Psy_Corps_Trooper lvl 28 Barb

the barb is the best character in the game if you make him correctly. He is also very easy to lvl up if u use the right weapons and skils. I have a lvl 63 lance barb, and i got there relatively easily. For skills I just stuck to the basics, and maxed spear mastery, ww, and put a bunch into the passive skills, iron skin, and nat resistance. I also put 5 or 6 into leap attack because that is all u will use upto lvl 30 and ww. It also helps u through out the game(cow lvl-jumping away from those damn bovines). After u max ww and put enough into the passives consider war cries. The only one worth it is battle orders. Put a bunch in there if u have extra skills. For stats, i just made sure to get 170 str for ornate and like 90 dex for a lance. After u get enough points for a ornate and lance pour stat points into vital. in hell u die quick.NOTHING INTO ENERGY.

Equipment-Tarn, or good grim helm like 199+ def.+good mods.Also think about a mf helm(for finding sweet rares) just stick 3 topazes into a death mask. Gloves watever(mf or leech or IAS pick), weapon-Lance-i dont think it matters a whole lot on damage, just get over 250, and get sweet mods. i have a 257 with dual leech and IAS, and im ok. Boots(either dual runwalk/hit recov, or mf or both) use watever u find or trade for. Belt-goldwrap is nice(IAS, MF), or maybe a rare war belt with cold damage. Armor- I tried using iceblink but felt that it was not as good as just having some cold damage and a real high def. ornate. My ornate is 876 def. with fastest hit recov, and resistances. RESISTANCES ARE KEY! Trade for things with high resistances esp. LIGHTNING(diablo and cow king) Jewelry-sojs arent worth it for barbs except for trading. u really want leech rings. trade watever it takes to get leech rings, because they dont drop any more. Mana leech and life leech are important for ww.Get a nice ammy like eye(leech and +1 skills and cold damage) or a rare +2 or 1 skills with resistances or leeches.

combat-Just ww through all acts norm and nm, and u should be about lvl 45-50 entering hell. I went at 43(oops) and lvlved in act 1. people come to nm and hell very early, and just die, and lose exp. Its best to lvl up and then u wont die easily. When u reach hell go through the acts quickly just doing important quests(like den, imbue, izual all the Qs that give u good stuff), and lvl in acts 3-4 for th best drops and exp. Then at around lvl55-60 kill diablo by yourself if u can so u get the good shit that drops. After 60 u can either lvl more in act4 repeatedly killing diablo or do the cow lvl a lot. I do the cow lvl A LOT! it has the best exp, and great items fall. I found iceblink in a hell cow lvl. Only hell and nm cow lvls are really worth it. Normal is too easy, and u get no exp. Barbs rock if u do them right. peace out

wattoxx lvl 63 barb

With the Barbarian, regarding allocation of skill points, I've had a coupleof ideas.
Number 1: Put only one point into skills you aren't going to depend on later in the game. It may be difficult to survive up till level 18 (Leap Attack), but the next strategy should help with that a bit.
Number 2: When you aren't putting points into Combat Skills, put them into a mastery. This will give you a healthy amount of damage (Level 10 Barbarian -30 damage- 7 to Sword Mastery), enough, at least, to get through to about midway through Act II.

To get a really kick @$$ barabarin, that can easily beat up Andariel:
1. Get a really good weapon, like the Gnasher, and put a lot of points on to Axe Mastery.
2. Put a lot of the Stat's points on to vitality, I beat Andarial with 50 points on vitality, AND I didn't use a single healing potion!!
3. Jump up and down repeatedly 'cause you got yourself a beeching Barbarian.

-Patrick, Lv 19 Barbarian

Ok, my strategy is to save your points when you are low, because you get them a lot easier. Use stats in chunks of five, just because that 60% 20% 10% crap won't work when you are looking to be able to use something with high dex. or strength. Do not spread out the masteries, stick with one! I Personally like axes or swords, lances, maces, etc. usually have a really high max, but a really low min. Do not use any battle calls at all! They are worthless unless you have 20 points to put them on. 2 seconds of more life ain't Jack. With my first barb, I put a lot on find item which really helped to get more money, but I had to put a lot more stats on energy than I should of, which was my only downfall. Do not point any on energy, it will only weaken him a lot in the long run. I suggest putting stats on strength and dex. the most, usually 5 more strength than dex. each turn, putting vitality on every 2 turns or so, but stamina and life go up every level anyways, so that helps. I suggest using two weapons in one slot and either a two-handed weapon or a one handed and a shield in slot 2 (expansion only), but shields don't do much unless you find one with enhanced defense and have a lot of dex. I would also suggest finding a really good magic one handed item the socket in act 5 (expansion only). With my one Assassin, I socketed a magic claw and got 366-388 poison over 7 seconds with it, so I could hit something let it move away, and it would die on its own. Very helpful with a big crowd and if you have monster flee. I would also suggest putting a lot on stone skin and nat. resistance. This is very helpful for when you have -25% or -50% in nightmare and hell. Trust me, neagtive resistances are not good at all. I would also suggest using battle.net. You gain a lot of experiance if you are not in a party with 6 other people making the monsters that much harded. I got up 5 levels in two hours (8-13), but some of my party memeber at points did not a thing, so that slowed me down. Thank you for taking the time to read my statedy, which will work wonders, by the way, for you.

Obesasmo level 13+ barb-USEAST
Sir Phantasim level 36 barb-single
Bruce_Lee level 36 kick-ass Assassin-single
Phantasmo level 7 barb-single

I have a lv 54 barbarian and I have only died about 10 times and most of those on Baal and co. on normal mode because I wasn't prepared. Well to start off I suggest getting skill points into a weapon mastery, spend your first 5 points on one of these. It doesn't matter which one though I don't recccomend throwing or spears. Swords are reasonable as they are good at the start but it is hard to find truly awsome ones later on. So axe,mace or polearm is the choice to make. I have barley ever used a shield instead opting for both hand on a weapon but if you die a lot it might be a good idea. Most of the warcries are pointless except for the health/mana boost but you have to waste skill points to get there so I should have left out that altogether. Other skills to but points into are foremost whirlwind and element resist, they are both important, when you get to lv 25 you should save points up so you can put a point into both when you go up levels. Apart from them pump up your chosen weapon and iron skin for protection. Concentrate can also be useful for a younger barbarian as it is has more power than a normal attack. For skill points avoid energy instead try to get a bonus from a charm or ring for mana. Put points into strength at the beginning so you can wear better armour and use better weapons, after that just concentrate on dexterity and vitality depending on how your character is faring. For a mercenary hire a warrior mage in act 3 with cold speciality he will make playing solo a lot easier. I prefer him even to the mercenaries in act 5. If you want to duel get your oponent away from the town and then lay into him with all you have. Try not to fight necromancers since iron maiden gives them an annoying advantage

i have an easy way to get a super powerful barb. simply lie cheat and steal to get corruption rift charms.think with 100%chance to get magic items and +7 skills if u can miaculously get three you will be unstoppable.I have a legit barb at lvl 45 with 75 natural resistances.so i'll see ya'll around and remember get them rift charms

lvl 45 S&S barb
'backstabber '!

Here's my strategy for the coolest character in Diablo 2, Barbarians. Unless your playing mutiplayer, don't bother with warcries for they are completely useless in single player games. Also, don't be fooled about putting all of the barb's stat points into strenght, for dexerity and vitality are also part of the recipes of a powerful barbarian. Try not to waste your stat points on mana, leave that to the necromancers, and sorceress's. The only kind of combat skills you need to place points on are double swing, and leap. Double swing would help you defeat bosses easier if you wield two weapons. Leap seems to be a pretty useless skill, however it is very useful in leaping over hordes of hells minions, and escaping while you are surrounded. Try to get armor not only for its defence but also look for armor with some sort of natural resistance (especially lightning resistance). For most of your skill points, place then into the combat masteries tab. All the skills in that section are passive, so you don't have to select it to use the skill, and are automatically added on. Since I've beaten the game I can give you tips for the act bosses.
Andariel: Kill all her minions in the room before her chamber. Once your ready, open the double doors that lead to her room. Go in the room a little, and once you can see Andariel and a few minions coming out of the room, start running back to the enterance to the catacombs level 3. kill off her minions, then fight her with double swing near the enterance of the catacombs level 3. If you find yourself unable to heal, quickly run for the exit (the catacombs). and once you healed, go and finish her off.
Duriel: Not to difficult. Make sure you have some cold resistance, because he is a master in cold attacks. Make sure you don't use a weapon with cold attacks, for he is 100% resistant to cold attacks. Other then that, use double swing and hack away. Make sure you have alot of healing potions.
Mephisto: He isn't that hard, however his minions are just hell. Once you defeat the lord of hatereds minions, he would have three uniques guarding him. Make sure you take out every one before you take Mephisto. Don't stay far from him or else he would continueously attack you with lightning attacks. Go close and hack away with many healing potions would be my best advise.
Diablo: all I got to say is have fun dieing many times against him, dieing against his unique guards (the Grand Vizier of chaos: extra strong, fire enchanted) Lord de Seis: (extra strong, aura, thief) Infector of Souls: (Extra fast, spectral hit)). And they are surrounded by minions of their type. Good Luck.

Sir Seth da Slayer

Ok I read over most of these strats and I can see the vast majority of the ppl writing in are fairly new, probably lay with really good items to begin with or something but I can tell you strategies of PRO barbarians; as a barbarian you have 2,make that 3coices that are SUPER;whirlwinding with a 300 lance with mana steal and an ice blink so they never get away, 1 giant axe with a ton of damage and a really pumped leap attak so speed wont matter and finally 2 pretty nice rare executioner swords with a nice pumped up frenzy. All 3 own at level 80 (I got those three types to this level).
For the first one(lance) what ya do is max spear mastery ASAP with maxed whirlwind about level 15 iron skin and 5 natural resists a good supply of 1-3 in all the other masteries(faster running) depending on how many +1 coz they good early on a good supply of afew points in battle orders+about 50 mana and a 6-7% life steal so u can continually whirlwind and an iceblink on top to make sure u never miss and always KIK ASS. This guy's my favourite with his sweet lance :) Next is the BIG axe and leap man. About the same masteries here as the other except change spear with axe and also u have less prereqs to pump a nice little leap attak(almost 700% extra damage at like level 10 or so) so with the extra points left in this guy considering putting a point in either; more masteries,frenzy as a back up attak or battle orders to help ya out a bit.I got frenzycoz it's a change from leaping all the time he'sfun andpaksa POWERFUL blow with his nice hefty axe!(u will need more health with him--he gets ht more)
Now for by far the most popular barb for some uncanny reason ;) the 2 executioner sword frenzier with really fast moderate daamge.Once again change axe mastery with sword and leap attak with frenzy. With the one or two extra points left in this buggar I put some in battle orders. Later on I plan to get about 5 in whirlwind as a bakup attak.This dude is a really slow leveler but after playing the other two slow swingers looking at his arm movement's speed is incredible!
Well there ya have it 3 beautiful barbs straight from the pros..Just remeber don't be tempted to put more than one point in a crappy prereq just coz it works then. and also finding good wepons takes time and powerful friends so I recommend beg for a semi descent one to last u to act 3 nightmare wen everything's availabe and remeber have fun.

barbs kick a*s. Its a good idea to focus your single player quests in upgrading your combat mastery tab. A barb is ment for melee and power, so don't bother in wasting your stat points on that mana crap. Since a barbrian is a strong character on his own, it is not neccessary to hire mercinaries in act 1, and 2. However if you feel the need for a companion, it is a good idea to hire a mercinary in act 3. Try to either to buy a lightning or cold attack solider. Don't even bother to by a troop that is less then level 24, and make sure they have the fast cast skill. Put 1 or 2 skill points into increased stamina and try to max out in natural resistance and iron skin.Try to focus yourself into one type of weaponary ( sword,axe,mace) so you can focus on one type of weapon mastery.For mana skills its a good idea to place 1 point on double swing, one on leap attack and 1 on whirlwind. Lightning is the most powerful element, so try to get armour that is lightning resistant, or jewelry.
Tips for boses: Andariel: kill all her minions on the first side of the door. THen open the double door lowering her and a few minions out. Slay all her minions that comes out with her and run to the exit to catacombs level 3. fight her near their so you can escape if you are indanger.
Duriel: not much stradegy except, get some cold resistant items, make sure you have many healing potions
Mephisto: pretty easy
General tip: don't wast skill points on warcries unless in multiplayer, get the best kind of belts you can find so you can hold more potions, always carry a tome to town portal.

Ok i hv read all these posts several times and u know what? MOST OF THEM HAVE CRAPPY INFO. now we hv to look at the bright sde of being a barb. being able t hold 2 wepons dont mean u should use 2 wepons it means u should use a 2 handed wepon+a shield. i hv a lvl 50 swordbarb and i can tell u that vit and having a godly sword is the most important thing in ur career. first find a good sword, hopefully it will hv dam higher then 120 and maybe leech. second get a good armor. get all stats req to use these and then PUMP VIT. if u dont hv enough vitality and hp ur not a good barb and will not survive in a4 hell, all that has to happen is the ww stoping in the middle of a crowd and puff there goes another 10% of ur xp. so pump vit and NEVER put ne point into energy. btw i only happened to invest a point into find potion in my late 40s and i noticed that it helped alot, i would make a battle command (+skills) and start cutting people open looking for full rejuvs. it helps so try not to overlook it. ww is ur main weapon, after lvl 4 it starts giving positive dam, pump it until lvl 13, after that its a waste after all those patches and all that bullsh/tt the dam has to go down so dont pump it past 13. by the time u get ww ur sword mastery should alredy be maxed out and try not to waste ne points into the double swing row er berserker since they wont make u lvl as fast as ww will. thanx for ur time

DemonSwordBarb- swordbarb lvl 60