Werewolf Barbarian Guide

Feral Rage* from Wolfhowl is your only Damage Skill that also provides Faster Run/Walk, Life Stolen per Hit, +x% Damage and +xx% Attack Rating bonuses. A successful hit from Feral Rage triggers a "red ball" to spin around your Character. The bigger the ball, the more powerful the bonuses.

* Increased Attack Speed Skills (IAS)

enchant*: increases the target's Attack Rating by a large amount and adds a small amount of Fire Damage. This buff last for over 11 minutes when cast from demonlimb. This AR is pivotal to maximize your Chance to Hit.

Leap* allows you to jump over and through objects, allowing you to clear obstacles you could not pass with walking or running. It also causes a radial Knockback effect to stun monsters. The jump distance scales with Skill Level. (Only works in Human Form)

Werewolf* transforms the Barbarian into a Werewolf! It grants Increased Attack Speed, Attack Rating, Life and Stamina while active.

Lycanthropy* is a Passive Skill. Every Skill Level adds +5% Maximum Life, and 20 seconds to the duration of Werewolf form.

Battle Cry* is an Area Of Effect (AOE) Skill used to reduce the Defense and Damage of your foes.

blade Mastery* increases your Damage, Attack Rating, and Chance to Critical Hit with Maces and Staves (not indicated).

Shout* increases the Defense of all party members by a percentage of their current Defense.

Battle Orders* is one of the most iconic Skills that originates from the Barbarian. This Buff grants you and your party a percentage based amount of Life, Mana, and Stamina. It is one of the best buffs in the entire game!

Battle Command* grants you and your party +1 to All Skills for its duration.

Increased Speed* is a Passive Skill that increases your run and walking speed.

Iron Skin* is a Passive Skill that increases your Defense.

Natural Resistance* is a Passive Skill that increases your Resistances to all Elements and Poison.

* Faster Cast Rate Skills (FCR)
* Skills that do NOT utilize either FCR or IAS

While every Stat in the Desirable Stats column is useful for this build, we highlighted the Priority Stats in Teal so you can easily identify the Most Important Stats on them.

Hover over any Item to see a pop-out with the full Item description.

Gear/Base Notes: Any Items with specialized or niche uses have a superscript that refers here.
1) Angelic Halo and Angelic Wings are great for boosting your Attack Rating significantly. You can even add another ⁣Angelic Halo to stack even more Attack Rating!
2) Death's Hand and Death's Guard are fantastic budget options granting you Increased Attack Speed, Cannot Be Frozen, All Resistance, and x% Life stolen per hit!

The areas below are efficient farming locations that make use of the build’s strengths. Other farming spots might not be as effective due to immunities or bad layouts. These areas are strong without a Sunder Charm.

Anything that has a ✔ in the "Starter" column can be farmed with the Starter Variant.

Act 1

Act 2

Act 3

Act 4

Act 5

Your Mercenary serves an incredibly important role to the overall success of your build. They can be a front line tank, provide a pivotal Aura, and/or deal Physical Damage to kill enemies with Immunity to your Skill set.

Act 2 Desert Mercenary

Reaper’s Toll, Might

Use a Desert Mercenary with Might Aura to significantly boost your Physical Damage. Equip him with The Reaper’s Toll for a 33% Chance to cast Decrepify on striking, slowing down and increasing Physical Damage dealt to enemies. Decrepify can even break some Physical Immunities.

Mercenary Gear Options

Your Mercenary needs maximum Resistances, Life Leech, a high damage Weapon, and high Defense and/or Damage Reduction to stay alive reliably. Cannot Be Frozen is also a great stat for maintaining Mercenary DPS and leech. Ethereal gear is preferred since it doesn't lose durability.

The Mercenary is hard to keep alive until you have the minimum gear recommended in this guide. Remember you can drag Healing Potions onto the portrait, or shift + 1/2/3/4 to directly feed them a Healing Potion from your Belt. The Mercenary also gains bonus Resistances from Thawing Potions and Antidote Potions.

If your Mercenary dies in battle, you can revive them from any of the Mercenary NPCs in each Act. This does come with an increasing cost, capping at 50,000 Gold. Keep that in mind and decide if the Mercenary is currently worth the cost.

General

• Switch to the secondary Weapon Swap (it gives you more + to Warcries) and cast Battle Command 2 times, Battle Orders, and Shout at the beginning of each run. Make sure that these buffs stay active all the time, they are essential to your survivability.
• Cast enchant and Werewolf and get ready to BLAST!
• In combat use Feral Rage and keep it fully charged at all times to give you Faster Run/Walk, Life Steal, Damage and Attack Rating bonuses. Each successful hit increases the size of the swirling red ball until it is maxed out, indicating the maximum strength of the skill.
• In human form Leapattack is a great way to move from place to place.

Immunities

• Use a Mercenary with The Reaper's Toll for Decrepify to deal with Physical Immunes and dish out more Physical Damage.
• Bone Break breaks ALL Physical Immune monsters and brings them to 95% resistance. Pair this with a source of Grim Ward, Amplify Damage, or Decrepify.

Breakpoints in Diablo 2 are the minimum values required to reduce the frames of an action. Below are the important breakpoints considered for this build. For more information on the mechanics involved, check out our in-depth Resource: Breakpoints.

Increased Attack Speed (IAS)

Increased Attack Speed speeds up your attack animations. Weapon bases have different IAS breakpoints. Values for recommended weapon options provided below. Consult the d2planner for other bases.

Grief Phase Blade

Faster Hit Recovery (FHR)

Faster Hit Recovery (FHR) increases survivability. Aim for at least the 42% FHR Breakpoint.

For all Hardcore gameplay, your primary focus is increasing your Resistances, Damage Reduction, Chance to Block and Maximum Life. This can mean sacrificing overall power level for a more secure playstyle.

This build can become Hardcore viable with key changes to the Skills, Stat Point allocation, and items. Review the changes below before building this character, as they may differ significantly from the normal build.

Stat Point Changes

• Put enough Stat Points into Dexterity to maintain 75% Chance to Block with Stormshield.

Item Changes

• Use a Grief Phase Blade and Stormshield for added Damage Reduction and Chance to Block.
• Use Shimmering Small Charm of Vita over Fine Small Charm of Vita for more over capped Resistances.