Make Barbarian Great Again!

Or at least help me try!

I am asking for anyone to help with advice or suggestions and feedback as to what I can do to improve my build for Lab runs if this is at all possible.
I have invested a lot into this barb build and its just not performing nearly as well as I had hoped. Dies very easily even in sub level 5 Labs, chugging pots constantly. In a Lab 2 just yesterday I ran one step too far and ate multiple ranged attacks from the harpies and insta died.

Bellow are screens of all my gear and D2stats.

Edit: I don't know if its the game or D2stats glitching but my pierce should be -195% all with the pierce bonus that Ord Rekar offers from base Nephalim spirit level. Regaurdless, my damage is lower that I'd have wanted but in a perfect world that would have been solved by a better aoe multi hitting attack that (my intended build would make use of treewarden morph + thornstrike to that end). My main issue however is how soft the character is despite having a decent absorb roll on the sleep, 80 all ress and 20k hp.

A time machine to s1

On a more serious note 20% phys resistance seems kinda low for tackling hardest content. did you get TA trophy for 5% dr?

I would say that having only 20% phys resistance is horrible when playing a melee character, other than that not sure though, also your fhr and ias numbers are very freaking low, I think you should get more of each to hit better frames, use a speedcalc from the tools page, that's my 2 cents

Thanks for the feedback! Yes I know the attack speed is very slow, I've been considering swapping the 6x borgins vigils I'm using in the weapon (to maximize defense due to lack of runemaster) for ias/life/ber craft jewels. I would have liked a better phys ress roll on my Nats but.... I do have a ta trophy and a Vizjun trophied sleep (i swap this and the sleep pictured depending whats giving me trouble) for phys ress as well.

It's mostly incoming ranged damage that is what gives me trouble though. Incoming melee I can burn down fast enough to not be relevant and when I get swarmed it's still not an issue cause i can blink back and my merc can tank more of a beating than I + I have a solid line up of reanimates (Qor boots for titans equipped on my merc, Durandal for Void Archons, metal head for w/e the beast bull things are and trap rats from my kabraxis charm).

I'm assuming it's elemental damage the harpies are dealing to me and that is what has been giving me the most trouble out side of high elemental damage from the corrupted class mobs which really blew me away when I fought one of them dealing cold damage in a lvl 4 lab and I have 5% + 5 flat cold absorb it was still wrecking me.

your max res is far too low for labyrinth farms

Crash wrote:your max res is far too low for labyrinth farms

Even for 5 and below which are wrecking me currently? Where should it be and what could you suggest to get there without giving up nearly all my pierce? I know I can give up the nats cause it rolled -2, I could farm any lotteried amulet, I could forfeit my 3 piece for witch hunters hood. But all these things devastate my already mediocre damage. The only real option I am seeing if higher max ress is the solution would be to sacrifice defense and swap the borgins vigils I'm using for pgems if that seems viable?

why would anyone ever not immediately shard a borgin's jewel

you'll need like 83-85 max res. the damage (physical too) scales up fast as you move up the tiers. you're generally going to lose damage and opt to survive, since you can't re-enter.

Crash wrote:why would anyone ever not immediately shard a borgin's jewel

you'll need like 83-85 max res. the damage (physical too) scales up fast as you move up the tiers. you're generally going to lose damage and opt to survive, since you can't re-enter.

Was expecting I would need more defense and as my phys ress is fairly low exacerbating that, at 10% tcd they seem like a solid choice imo.
(as a side note I really feel borgins vigil are vastly under rated, 10% tcd aka double an On rune without the level 100 req + 2% uninteruptible + unlike a rune they can be luckied for stats or even lotteried as they are unique for 10% ress all)

Yeah I agree with what you're saying about giving up damage to survive since I can't re-enter. I guess I could look into gems or seeing if I can get my hands on some

Zann Esu's Stone

Zann Esu's Stone
Jewel
Required Level: 100
Item Level: 115
Can be Inserted into Socketed Items
5% Cast Speed
+3% to Spell Damage
Maximum [Random Elemental] Resist +1%

and think about swapping out either my nats (no idea what I would swap that with) or my quov tsin for anything thats been lotteried.

Thanks for the feedback! I'll return with news of how things go once I make adjustments :bounce:

I think rebound may work very well in lab since there are a lot of walls you can rebound easily. High level rebound and GLADIATOR'S DOMINANCE give you very very high bonus magic damage.

You can go block, and go ranged on top of it. Lab is not very friendly for melee builds. You can mitigate most damage by not getting hit by stuff as being ranged.
But even melee, with glad dominance passive, 75% block is huge improvement to survival, and deadly strike bonus partially makes up for loss of damage while using 1h weapon.