After a long wait for more than a decade Blizzard finally released Diablo 3 this year (old news now). There are positives and negatives in the latest edition of Diablo. Anyway, more on that later. This post is for the Barbs out there who are having issues with progressing through Inferno.

The current build I have has been experimented a thousand times (figuratively) and I have died hundred times (literally) to balance out my character. And still I die sometimes in Act 2 when fighting desecrators and the damned Arcane/Holy damage elites and champion packs. Bosses with above damage skills can be killed better if you can kill the minions first.

Screenshots of my current gear focused separately on Strength and All Resistance – just to show how much you require to complete Act 2 in Inferno difficulty. As per the videos I have seen from other players and being on the D3 forums I have experimented this build and looks confident to take on Belial. Only change you may require is to use Earthquake skills on your Right Click. Everything else should be fine.

This buld and gear is not for “Tank” build but a balanced build. You may have notices that survivability is no longer the number 1 concern, but survivability along with higher DPS.

Firstly, this is definitely NOT the best build. But this IS one of the cheapest builds for Inferno Acts 1 & 2.

My gear:

1. Main Hand Weapon – Get a 800+ DPS weapon with a socket – preferably a dagger or sword. We need speed here. We need to be really fast. Why? We are going to kill all the elites, champion packs and bosses withing 15 seconds. That’s correct, we want to finish them off within 15 seconds so that their rage timer does not come on. (Sometimes I am able to kill them even if the rage timer comes on, though).
2. Off-Hand – I play with dual wield and with a shield. For Act 2 I am playing with a shiled because of its block rate. To start off try and get a Sacred Shield (even a blue will do) with a %block change and +All Resistance. If you can get some Strength and Vitality on the shield – awesome.
3. Helm – Try and get a Helm of Command Legendary Helm with a socket. The Helm of Command has bonus block chance which is going to save your life plenty of times. The socket is required to put in a %Life Amethyst gem – again don’t compromise here.
4. Rings and Amulets – I have concentrated on Crit Hit Chance on the jewelery. You could mix and match with +All Resistance as well as long as you have Crit Hit Chance somewhere else.
5. Other Armor – For Shoulders, Chest, Pants and Boots try and get as much Strength and Vitality as is affordable to you. Totally you will have to have a minimum of 1000+ in Strength and 800+ in Vitality.
6. Attributes I am missing due to higher costs

• Life on Hit and Life Steal % – These are extremely good attributes to have for Acts 3 & 4. Actually, I have been told it is going to be almost impossible to play higher acts without these attributes.
• Arcane / Holy Resistance and Fire Resistance – These two should be about a 100 higher than the other resistances. Unfortunately, not so in my case. I am looking to upgrade here.

And my skill sets for both elites and normal packs.

My next blog post should be about how to make the money to buy the above gear.