Bow Barbarian Guide

So just for fun, I decided to try something entirely new and different. I started out a Barbarian, just like any other Barbarian, except his first real weapon was a Long Bow he found on the ground. Yes, I decided to suck it up and try out a Bow Barbarian.

As you might expect, this build has benefits and drawbacks. But some of the drawbacks are also benefits. For example, the entire Combat Skills tree is useless, as are the specific weapon type masteries (Mace, Sword, etc.) What this really means is you have more freedom for variety in your character.

Table of Contents:

Equipment

The first thing I took in to serious consideration was what equipment I could reasonably use. The Bowbarb build is unfortunately very item dependent, by which I mean if you have bad equipment you will not last much past normal. I actually went through the DiabloII.net armor and weapon lists to collect relevant stats such as req's, attack speed, and armor class. Here's my list:

Bows:

• Razor Bow - 25 str, 62 dex, 8-22
• Double Bow - 58 str, 73 dex, 11-26
• Rune Bow - 73 str, 103 dex, 14-35
• Gothic Bow - 95 str, 118 dex, 10-50
• Blade Bow - 76 str, 119 dex, 21-41 (expansion only)
• Great Bow - 121 str, 107 dex, 12-52 (expansion only)
• Hydra Bow - 134 str, 167 dex (expansion only)

Crossbows:

• Arbalest - 52 str, 61 dex, 14-27
• Chu-Ko-Nu - 80 str, 95 dex, 14-32
• Ballista - 110 str, 80 dex, 33-55
• Pellet Crossbow - 83 str, 155 dex, 28-73 (expansion only)

There are interesting featured about all these bows that are interesting to note. For instance, the Arbalest and Chu-Ko-Nu seem very similar except for an extra 5 max damage on the Chu, which has much higher requirements. This actually becomes a much greater difference when you take in to account the much faster attack speed on the Chu, a -60 compared with the Arbalest's -10. With Sigon's gloves and other items on, along with Twiththroe and Goldwrap, the attack rate on the Chu can easily drop well below -100, making it a much better bow for your stat points.

For the Bow Barbarian, attack speed is everything. As such, the Ballista and Hydra Bow should only be used if you have a Buriza Bo-Kyanon or Windforce (both only in the expansion) already in wait for your Barb. For the same reason, I decided specifically to only list these bows as high level options. I use a Chu-Ko-Nu. I've based the Armor selection on the assumption that you don't have a Buriza or Windforce in wait, and such will have at most 95 strength. Since damage on a bow increases with dexterity, not strength, you really do want just enough points in strength to make do.

Armor:

• Mage Plate - 55 str, 225-261 def
• Dusk Shroud - 77 str, 361-467 def (expansion only)

On the assumption that only a Gothic Bow or Chu-Ko-Nu will be used, these are the armors you can equip without spending unnecessary points in strength. Mage Plate is a popular armor to begin with, because of the low str/def ratio, unequalled in D2Classic for high level armor.

Boots:

• Mesh Boots - 65 str, 37-44 def
• Battle Boots - 95 str, 39-47 def
• Wyrmhide Boots - 50 str, 54-62 def (expansion only)

Again, on the assumption of Gothic Bow or Chu-Ko-Nu. However, the Battle Boots have an extra 30 str required, for only another 2-3 def, so it's not really worth it for the extra 15 str if you're using a Chu-Ko-Nu.

Belt:

• Battle Belt - 88 str, 37-42 def
• Vampirefang Belt - 50 str, 56-63 def (expansion only)

Both these have 16 potion slots, so all is good in the land of I NEED HEALING!!!!

Helmet:

• Grim Helm - 58 str, 60-125 def
• Hydraskull - 84 str, 101-145 def (expansion only)

Of all the helms in D2Classic, the Grim Helm has the highest possible defense at a very low strength requirement. A lot of players I know use these.

Gloves:

• Battle Gauntlets - 88 str, 39-47 def
• Vampirebone Gloves - 50 str, 56-65 def (expansion only)

Pretty self explanatory.

These selections all assume that you're not using any -req items, in which case the requirements will obviously be lower. My equipment set for a long time was as follows:

Skills:

Combat Masteries:

So what skills do you need? It's obvious that only 3 Combat Masteries are going to be cared about at all, namely Iron Skin, vital for this build, Natural Resistances, for all Barbs, and Increased Speed.

This is one of the few (the only?) builds that require a maxed Iron Skin. As a Bowbarb, you're going to be standing around shooting a lot, and since you're not moving defense will not be pointless. You don't really want a lot of points in Shout because that bonus goes away if you don't refresh it every so often, and if you're in the middle of a fire fight you can not afford to stop to yell at someone and not do damage.

Natural Resistances should be put at precisely 13. At level 13, this gives resist all +60. You don't want to go higher than 13 because of diminishing returns giving you +1 resist for each subsequent level, it's just not worth it. Besides, +60 gives you plenty of options for equipment choices already.

Increased Speed is pretty self explanatory. The faster you go, the harder it will be for things to keep up with you. Wearing Stealth armor and Sigon's boots belt and gloves, along with level 7 Increased Speed, gives you an extra 80% run/walk speed, all of which is absolutely critical. Ideally, you want to be able to walk at the speed of a run.

Combat Skills:

All are useless, as they only affect melee weapons. Saves you 27 skill picks for not having 20 WW and 1 Berserk, +1 in all the prereqs.

War Cries:

The most important War Cry early on is Battle Orders. You are going to need all the health you can get. You want to max this war cry out. The other Yells you want to have are Grim Ward, War Cry, Battle Commands, and Shout.

War Cry stuns your monster foes and deals them damage. The stun will allow you to recast Battle Orders if you want to, but more importantly give you time to run to a fall-back position. Or, if you're confident in your mana potions, you can War Cry all your enemies to death if you max the skill. It can do over a hundred damage to all monsters in range at high levels.

Shout gives a nice defense bonus on top of your Iron Skin. You should keep this at 1 for a while, for the simple boost, then pump it when you've nothing left to pump. Iron Skin at level 20+ will give you the freedom to not need to boost this for a while.

Grim Ward is vital. It scares your foes in to running around madly in no direction in particular, but more importantly it prevents them from attacking you as you shoot them in the back of the head. You want to max this.

Battle Commands is a given. All Barbs should have this at 1, if for no other reason than fun. Although, its real purpose is to give you extra life and make your Grim Ward more effective.

Summary of Skills:

As you see, there are precisely seven skills you need to even concern yourself with.

• Natural Resist at 13
• Iron Skin at 20
• Increased Speed at 7 with 1 in Increased Stamina as a prereq

• Battle Orders at 20
• Grim Ward at 20
• War Cry at 10
• Shout at 4
• Battle Commands at 1

=99 points total, you don't even have to get to level 90 to make this an efficient build. These stats can be achieved at level 88. If you want to have fun, put two Gulls on your weapon switch and start putting points in Find Item and go on item hunts, you have one there already.

Stat Points:

This really varies depending on what weapon you are going to use, and whether or not you will use War Cry a lot or a little. You should not have more in strength and dexterity than you need to field your equipment, the rest simply get distributed between vitality and energy as you feel you will need them. Most Barbs don't put anything in energy, though a friend of mine has a barb with more mana than life because his main attack is War Cry. He's not very effective, but he's fun.