Guide Goldfind WW Barb

Preword:
This guide will cover how to build and equip a Whirlwind based Goldfind Barb. Some people prefer a shouter barb for the higher extragold equippable but from my experience an WW based barb will have around 50-100% faster killing speed and hence can make more travincal runs in shorter time and get more drops beside gold (eth treks, eth andys, perfect uniques, maras, sojs, etc...).
I want to mention that a gold finder can be the most profitable character for starters and seasoned players depending on your luck when gambling. The focus should be on circlets/coronets and get some really good rare/magics worth alot of ber's. It's also a must-have character for everyone going deep into crafting to have the gold gambling the magic base items.

Overview:
Farm Travincal hell (or nightmare*) in less than one minute to get alot of gold ~arund 500k-1M per run
Use Find Item skill (from now on "horking") to get more drops/gold than other characters
More equippable +extragold than any other character (at least when horking)
Barbs have the advantage to equip alot of farming gear with their Natural Resistance Skill and maxxed Battle Orders without losing survivability
Stay away from cold damage to shatter corpses by any means!

(* Trav nightmare is used to farm good rare jewels by many players. I would still recommend a usual char like sorc, hammerdin, necro,.. to make faster runs and get more rare jewels in the long term.)

Stats and breakpoints:
Str: Enough for equipment and if you want to increase damage put some points here, 3500-4000 life with bo is enough so invest here after that.
Dex: Enough for equipment (we will go for dual grief Phaseblades in this guides (see below). They require 136dex.
Vita: Get enough to stay alive . I recommend 3500+ life after bo.
Energy: base

Fhr: We dont care since we use whirlwind that makes us imune here
Fcr: 9 / 20 / 37* are the reachable breakpoints on a maxxed extragold equipped barb. These breakpoints will increase horking speed which is very nice to have. I used to play without any fcr back in classics diablo but trust me here when I say that 9+fcr on your equip will make much more fun!
(*37fcr will require at least one fcr ring with 40eg max, so it's not recommended)

Skills: (leaving out not important/not usable ones)
Masteries:
20 Sword Mastery (we will use Grief Phaseblades instead of Berserker Axes, see below)
1 Iron Skin (shout will add more defense than this skill and also boosts merc)
1 Faster Run Walk (good to have without teleport)
1-X Natural Resistance - This skill is dimishing and we will get +Skills from Amulet, Torch, Anni, Battle Command. You can still put in like 5-7 points if your inventory/equipment leeks the important fire and light resistance. It also depends on your Anni/Torch stats but feel free to put a few points here if you must.

Shouts:
10++ Shout - All rest skillpoint will go into this in the end.
20 Battle Orders - a must have on any barb build
1 Battle Command - for prebuff Shout/Bo as all barbs do
~10-14 Find Item ("horking") - other guides recommend to max it out but I think it's not good idea. With Anni, Torch, Amulet and Skillers you can reach level 20+ to give you a ~50% chance to find item. I have currently skill level 22 (52% chance) with items/battle command. The skill suffers from high dimishing returns and you are better off putting a few points into Natural Resistance or Shout than pushing this. On skilllevel 40+ you reach a chance of 60%. It's not worth it...

Combat Skills:
20 Whirlwind - base killing skill so max it out
1 Berserk - to kill physical imunes

Equipment:
I will give an equipment setup which works just fine and is relatively cheap and easy to selffind. But I will also add best possible options for rares/crafts and still have the maximum extragold for those slots. I will leave out the ultimate / non existant stuff like artisan tiaras of wealth which nobody gambled yet / nor do I think they are really useful for this build.

Helm: Crown of Thieves (Socketed with Lem or Cham) - up to 100eg, lifeleech, fire res and dex to wear the Grief phaseblades. Very good for us.
Armor: Wealth Runeword (preferable in 3sox AP or any low str base / "lightarmor" for run malus)
Weapons: 2 Grief Runeword Phaseblades - Phaseblades can not break which saves us repair costs compare to BA Griefs and the actually benefits from Grief BA over Grief PB is the range in minimal high average dmg. The range doesnt matter at all if you monster wont run away from you. So just WW on them and super-uniques and their minions have a smaller chance to flee/kite you. BA's have a average dmg higher than PB's but with Grief it doesnt really matter. BA's will break and need at least a rollof 34+ias on whirlwind to rech max cap, so if you roll 33ias/400dmg grief on ba - just reroll^^ ) Any ias on grief roll works for PB to reach max fpa.
Weapon switch: 2 crystal swords 6sox Lem'd (can use any 1handed 6sox weapon you have the requiremends) = 900%eg on horking
Gloves: Chanceguards - 200eg and 40mf. Best in slot for us.
Rings: 2x Dwarfstar - 100%eg 15%fire absorb 40life - you cant get anything better. Rare/Crafted rings can have 40%eg on top if you want to reach higher fcr breakpoint.
Boots: Option1: Infernostride's 70%eg max fire + fireresist are easy to get and works fine, but rare/crafted boots can be better here:
Option2: Rare/Crafted boots: 30Frw/80%eg/Fire Res/ Light Res/ dex - good ones are hard to get.
Belt: Option1: Goldwrap up to 80%eg, 10ias for Berserk - easy to get but rare/crafted belts are much better here:
Option2: Rare / Blood Crafted Belt(10OW): 80%eg 30Str or 60-80Life 30Fres and/or 30Lightres - gl getting one!
Option3: Crafted Caster Belt: 10fcr 60life 30Str 80eg 30res - this is the only way to reach higher fcr without losing maximum extragold. I dont think many people use to craft those belts so you can try to craft one yourself if you want...
Amulet: Rare/Crafted: 80%eg 2Barb 10fcr Str Life Dex manaleech lifeleech Res +++ - Crafted Amulets can have 20fcr to reach the breakpoint but are very hard to get. Just use what you can find and helps you, even magic Amulet 2barb/80%eg works here. But I highly recommend to get at least 9+fcr as horking will be faster this way.

Inventory:
Torch (res > stats for a gold barb)
Anni (res > stats)
Gheed's 160eg/15 reduced vendor prices
GC's: up to 40%eg + adds - useful adds are: Max dmg/ar, Fire / Light / @ res, Warcry Skiller - just use 40%eg plain if you have nothing better.

Mercenary: (all Eth items can be used as Real but you will lose defense then and mak sure you get one source for cnbf. The best setup depends on your weapon and how much ias on equipment you need. Use an attack speed calculator here)
Helm (15ias/lem/Ral,Ort, Um): Eth bugged Crown of thieves, Eth bugged Andys, Eth Kiras
Eth Armor: Wealth Runeword, Treachery Runeword, CoH Runeword, Duress, Duriel's (Ral/Ort/Um/15ias) - my favourite, Gladiator's bane (Ral/Ort/Um/15ias)
Eth Belt: Gold wrap, Nosferatu, String of Ears
Eth Weapon: Insight (if yu dont have manaleech on Amulet), Botd, Tombreaver (shael/ias/ed/Lem),... many more. I prefer Insight here because it's cheap and useful if you dont have manaleech on Amulet.
Ring: BK 5ll, dwarf, rare/crafted: lifeleech, life, str, res,...
Amulet: Highlord, maras, Rising Sun, rare/crafted: res life str,...
Boots: Infernostride, Goreriders, rare/crafted with extragold, frw, res,....
Gloves: Eth Draculs (my favourite on my setup), Chanceguards, LoH, rare/crafted 20ias +res...

Strategies:
You run to the council since we dont use teleport.
If your mercenary gets stucked on stairs to council go down the stairs to durance of hate and back up to control him.
The only way you can die are those situation when you face light enchanted + conviction councils. So try to get at least some GC's with res or good rare/crafts on slots mentioned.
The ways your merc can die: when he hits physical imunes and cant leech up. Use townportal Hotkey then and go back to micromanage him. Otherways are if he gets stucked on walls/stairs or council members have light enchantment + conviction. Well, sometimes merc dies you farm 500k+ and he costs 50k revive...np!

GL Gambling amazing stuff!

 

Greetings,

Your build is good. I like it.

But..
The merc himself is using the EG from the char.
So why to fight monsters with barb?
I guess i know the answer: you are using insight, your merc is not strong enough (if he dies). The second weapon for merc, which you mentioned is .. perfect.
Yes, its more expensive and it`s not easy to find... but ias/ed/rez and 3 socks (225% EG = 3 lem) .
If we consider, that our barb has ~2700 % extra gold with the equipment(2xweapons x 6lem) and our merc has ~600% extra gold than the total amount of extra gold which we have is between 3300% EG and 3500% EG.

Imporntant notice: I use LoH gloves for merc (20% ias, 350% dmg to demons, 50% fire rez), treachery armor (ias/ fade / 50% EG) and Atma amu (for amlify)

So what`s the diifference between our strategies:
When i enter nm game - the merc is killing everything for between 15 sec and 20 secs. I do not do anything. Just watching and horking after.
When i enter hell game - i go in the middle and i start leaping. Why? Because it`s one of the best CC spells in my opinion in the game. In this time, the merc is dealing his work. One game = less than a minute.

P.S.1 : I`m from hardcore. The things mentioned above are trust-worthy and tested.
P.S.2: The only difference in the barb equipment - i prefer 3bo/3 sock helm (150% EG while Crown of Thieves max 100%EG)
P.S.3: The skills which im using are different (because i`m not fightning with the barb): i put points in natural rezistance/leap/bo and frenzy ( why frenzy: i like walking as fast as possible) .

Regards,
MM

 

Allright, thx for input.
There are many ways to equip a mercenary here, so I listed more options for every slot. The goal is building the merc with good ias breakpoints and this depends on your Insight / weapon base. For some ppl it's even better to use andariels instead of CoT or LoH gloves instead of draculs. But I like to have all ethereal items on my merc and he has defense with shout ~50K which is also handy.
Atma's Amu works fine too if your merc wont need more ias but I prefer the draculs for lifetap here and dont want to use more curses. A dual wielding Grief's barb has alrdy very high dmg and when lifetap procs you simply can not die. Also I wonder how you equip cnbf on your merc without kira's/duriel's/gladiator's bane? Socketing a Cham Rune is always an option but a very expensive one..

I played a shouter barb last season but I rather like to kill things on my own because it's more fun and faster imo. Those 3bo/3shout/3Natural Resistance/3 Find Item/.... 3sox helms are a good option for a shouter, but a WW barb should use CoT here. The fire res, dex, lifeleech, life you get are more benefitial imo.
The shouter can reach much higher EG (~around 500-1000) with his merc killing but it's really slow compared to a WW barb. Putting a point in frenzy is also an option if you can spare those 3 Skillpoints. It depends on your equipment/inventory I guess if you wont need higher natural resistance.

 

Yup, different strategies.

The merc i`m using right now has ~150ias, which for cryptic axe (tomb reaver) means 4.54 attacks per second (the highest bps which we can reach). Kira or Cham can be used for cnbf.. but i`m pretty satisfied with fade // treachery - everything like frost, pzn lasts seconds.

Currently i`m getting from 1mln up to 1.5mln per hell game (~3400%EG merc+barb).
I suppose its up to the players to choose - fight or wait merc.

Good job