Leap Attack Barbarian Guide

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 Notes: Any Items with specialized or niche uses have a superscript that refers here.
1) Only use Naj's Puzzler, a Staff of Teleportation, or a Teleport Charge Amulet for Teleport Charges if you have not yet acquired Enigma.
2) Used before you has access to decrepify on your Mercenary, and as a source of Teleport charges instead of Enigma.

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 Build 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

• At the beginning of each run, swap to your +x to Skills equipment and cast Battle Command 2 times, and then Battle Orders. Refresh these buffs as soon as they expire (approx. every 3-5 minutes).
• Use leapattack to quickly travel to your farming spot. Unless there are walls, this will be faster than running in most circumstances. If you have an item with Teleport, use Teleport for short-distance traveling when farming Super Uniques such as Pindleskin. Repair to replenish these Charges or use the Horadric Cube Recipe if Gold is low (ortrune + Any Chipped Gem).
• Use leapattack to target Elites and move your Barbarian into attack range. If the target is not killed by the first attack, swap to berserk to finish them off.
• If the area around your target is dangerous or making it difficulty to select a specific mob, short-hop with leap by clicking directly on top of your Character to spread out mobs and Stun them. Systematically leapattack to each new mob if they are outside of melee range until the pack is dead, or all high priority targets have been killed.
• Once the Elites in an immediate area have been killed, use Find Item on each Elite corpse with your highest Magic Find Weapon-Swap. Known as "Horking", this gives a chance of loot dropping a second time!

Act Bosses

• If you don't have lawbringer/thereaper'stoll on your Mercenary yet: Cast decrepify charges from spellsteel on Act Bosses before engaging them with leapattack and then berserk to finish the job.

Immunities

• If you don't have lawbringer/thereaper'stoll on your Mercenary yet: Cast decrepify charges from spellsteel to break Physical Immunes, and/or use berserk once you're in range.
• bonebreak allows this build to begin dealing damage while the Mercenaries decrepify further decreases their Physical Damage Reduction.

Late-Game

• While on your Faster Cast Rate-granting Weapon-Swap, use Teleport from Enigma to travel to your Farming Spot or between Elite Packs.

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.

Faster Cast Rate (FCR)

Faster Cast Rate is not required for this build, but later breakpoints can be utilized once you gain access to enigma. Note: FCR only controls the animation speed of the Character, and not any internal Cooldowns spells have.

Increased Attack Speed (IAS)

Increased Attack Speed (IAS) speeds up your attack animations. Weapon Bases have different IAS Breakpoints. Reach the 72% IAS Breakpoint on the Standard Build. Consult the d2planner for other bases.

Grief Ettin Axe

Faster Hit Recovery (FHR)

Faster Hit Recovery increases survivability. Aim for at least the 48% 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.

Gear Changes

• Damage Reduction: Equip Stormshield with an eldrune instead of a Ruby Jewel of Virility. Its % Damage Reduction, Increased Chance of Blocking, and Resistances drastically increase your survivability.
• Stacking Resistances: Stack your Fire/Lightning/and Cold Resistances beyond the default maximum values of 75 each (175 total in Hell). Stacking 85 additional Resistances in Hell completely negates the Conviction Aura of any Elite Boss or the Oblivion Knight's Lower Resist Curse.

Stat Point Changes

• Allocate enough Stat Points into Strength to wear Stormshield.
• Allocate enough Stat Points into Dexterity to achieve maximum Chance to Block (75%).
• Put all remaining Stat Points into Vitality.