Double Swing Barb D2
Parameters of Play
Vanilla Version 1.14d. No mods. That means no PlugY for twinkage. This is a legit vanilla run with all the limitations that entails.
Hardcore mode. If I die, I stay dead. Pretty simple. All items are lost upon death. Doesn't matter if you're 85th level, your character and everything it had, is gone. Death is no longer a minor inconvenience. This will give you a shot of adrenaline sometimes.
Offline. This is a single-player run. No Battle.net, no 3rd-party servers. That means no trading and no Ladder-only runewords. It also means I can't blame an internet connection if I die (lag, dropouts).
/players8 is employed whenever I fancy it. Makes the mobs bigger, harder and less boring, but also gives me more drops, more gold and more XP. I switch back to /players1 when farming the Countess because the vital early rune drops are not affected by the /players command.
Completionist. I delve all optional dungeons (e.g, The Pit). However, I won't waste my time killing every single thing and exploring every nook and cranny. Just the bosses, boss chests and whatever tickles my fancy. If I can't kill something, I move on. I'm not going to spend 15 mins hacking away at Ghostly Hungry Undead at eighth level, when I'm lacking in power and gear.
Pro-tip. Never get cocky. Never play when tired. One lapse in concentration is all it takes for your run to end.
Character selection: Barbarian. Specifically, melee Barb. This is one of the toughest builds to play in Hardcore mode because the aggro is almost always trained on you. Sorceresses and Necromancers are EZ mode in comparison. Plus, Barbs are much more reliant on items. Don't have the right items? You're dead in the water until you get them, it's that simple. Initially, I'm confident enough to eschew a shield in favor of dual-wielding (Double Swing). However, you can respec once per difficulty level.
Character selection: Barbarian. Specifically, melee Barb. This is one of the toughest builds to play in Hardcore mode because the aggro is almost always trained on you. Sorceresses and Necromancers are EZ mode in comparison. Plus, Barbs are much more reliant on items. Don't have the right items? You're dead in the water until you get them, it's that simple. Initially, I'm confident enough to eschew a shield in favor of dual-wielding (Double Swing). However, you can respec once per difficulty level.
Remember that you can quickly switch between weapon wields with the W-key. You can have a second dual-wield on switch, sword and board on switch or a two-hander on switch. Hell, you might even like to go part-throw Barb. Variety is the spice of life. I tend to have a second dual-wield on switch, but it's safer to have a shield on switch.
Please note that this is just the way I have chosen to approach Hardcore mode as a Barb. I do not claim that my course of action is the most efficient, but it's fairly efficient so far, and quite safe... for a melee Barb.
For the first 20 or so levels (Act One), it's all Strength and Vitality. I recommend a very deep hit point pool for Hardcore mode.
Please note that this is just the way I have chosen to approach Hardcore mode as a Barb. I do not claim that my course of action is the most efficient, but it's fairly efficient so far, and quite safe... for a melee Barb.
For the first 20 or so levels (Act One), it's all Strength and Vitality. I recommend a very deep hit point pool for Hardcore mode.
The unique skills and huge stamina and hitpoint pools of Barbarians allow them to frighten, run past or leap over tedious or troublesome monster-mobs en route to exits. Bee-lining to exits allows Barbarians to move on to other zones that yield more XP. Barbarians are the best map-explorers over the first 24 character levels: leap, increased stamina and increased movement rate.
For the first 20 levels I neglected to focus heavily in a weapon (Masteries). I chose to runeword Axes and only put one point into Axe Mastery (for a solid one-off boost). The vast majority of my points went into Double Swing. By 20th, I still had 95% chance to hit Radament, but I wasn't happy, and this was a mistake, so I respecced. The screencap on the left is pumping Double Swing (and not Axe Mastery) whereas the screencap on the right is pumping Mastery to 20 (and only dipping into Double Swing). As you can see: a big difference in both damage and attack rating for the new Barb. Also, what those stats don't show you is that I also have a 29% chance of Critical Strike, thanks to Mastery. While it would have balanced out in in several levels (Double Swing and Mastery are both going to be maxed, anyway), I didn't want to wait that long.
Why Double Swing? Don't have to be concerned with IAS so much. Also, don't need mana-leech.
Why Axes? Axes have no Dex requirement, have decent reach and it's easy to find two and three socket axes in the early going. Go with whatever weapon you like, though.
Be on the lookout for specialist Barb helms. If you're lucky, you will find something like this:
Note the socket. A nice bonus. This is a very powerful level 3 item. I found this item while doing a few Countess runs after I'd reached Act 4.
Note that it is possible, even in the early-going (8th level), to encounter extremely difficult foes, such as Ghostly Hungry Undead. Avoid.
otoh, Don't waste your time killing soft-ass stuff. If the XP bar isn't going up quickly, move on. Don't waste your time on mooks when you start powering up: beeline to enemies that actually reward XP points and items because they are a threat, namely: super-uniques, champions, fanatics, possesseds and ghostlies. Mooks are in your way? Leap over them. Again, go for the XP bombs.
Act 1
Well, it's the first act, and it's Normal mode first, so it's a bit of a doddle even in Hardcore mode. I didn't run up against too much that made me extra careful, and I didn't have any close shaves. I would say the Pit and the Cave level 2 could be deadly for rusty players. Be careful of the archers down there. With /players8 on I was 5th for the Den of Evil, 8th for the Burial Grounds, 14th for Tristram and about 19th by the time I faced off against the act boss, Andariel.
You need 32 Strength to wield an Axe and 36 in order to wear Ringmail. These are both sold by the Blacksmith, Charsi, but they may need to be vendor-farmed. Start looking for 2 socket Ringmail and 3 socket Axes as soon as you get some cash flow going (for Stealth and Malice runewords). They are dead-easy to vendor-farm.
Don't forget your Act One mercenary. They are not utterly useless, only relatively useless. They may only add 5% to your efficiency but when you're taking a breather (say, sipping your coffee), it's nice that they continue mowing down the stragglers. Go for the Rogue Sister who fires cold arrows. Cold is great because it slows the enemy down. Socket weapons with chipped sapphires for on-hit cold. Also be on the lookout for small charms that bestow on-hit cold. This makes a huge difference. With Double Swing, you will slow down entire mobs.
Before you hit the Underground passage, your sister should have a bow like this pretty easily:
Humble but effective. You could also be dual-wielding axes like this (again, easy vendor-farm from Gheed/Charsi):
However, at around fifteenth level, you want to start farming for runes from the Countess. Your choices are Malice (Ith-El-Eth) and Steel (Tir-El).
Early armor runewords are limited to Stealth (Tal-Eth). You want this great armor runeword ASAP for 25% FHR (faster hit recovery) and +movement rate (facilitates more efficient farming). I wouldn't bother with Stealth for your merc but if you're keen on doing extra Countess runs, go for it.
It doesnt take long to farm runes for Malice, Steel and Stealth runewords. The Countess drops up to four runes per kill (confirmed by me), from El up to Ral. Maybe ten runs and 1 hour of your life gone. You will get a good feel for your character doing Countess runs. If you're really keen, go for the helm runeword, Nadir (Nef-Tir). Here it is:
Once you are dual-wielding runified axes and are wearing Stealth, you should be set for the remainder of Act One, and Andariel should drop like a sack of potatoes.
Did I find any notable loot in Act One? Not really. You barely have any magic find so it's just blue items. I did find a few rares, but nothing good for the build. Also found the Axe of Fechmar unique but threw it away. You can't keep everything with limited stash space. Your stash should be full of runes and gems. So Act One loot is basically about getting a few runewords going.
Act 2
Ok, so here's my Barb in the early stages of Act Two. Yep, I haven't died yet!
As you can see, I upgraded Stealth into Splint Mail, which requires 51 Strength. Now, note that great Defense rating. That is due to Barb Shout and Defiance from the defensive Desert Warrior merc. Give that merc Stealth Splint and a Malice Polearm if you want to make him more useful, but it isn't necessary. You mainly want him for his Defiance buff/decoy.
Once you have the Horadric Cube you will get some inventory management relief. Start cubing aka uptiering aka transmuting your gems in order to further free up inventory space (3x chipped ruby = 1x flawed ruby, and so on, up to Perfect).
Remember that you can uptier runes in the same way (3x El = 1x Eld). This allows you to fast-track to Ort, Thul and Amn runes (Amn is very rare in Normal). Which means you open up weapon runewords such as King's Grace (Amn-Ral-Thul) and Strength (Amn-Tir) along with shield runewords such as Ancient's Pledge (Ral-Ort-Tal) and Spirit (Tal-Thul-Ort-Amn).
It depends on how you're finding your killspeed and survivability (and how many Countess runs you want to do in order to fund the runewords). You need to be 25th level in order to equip Strength, King's Grace and Spirit, anyway.
Now, Act Two itself. You will note that elemental resistances are a lot more useful in Act Two, but they are still not necessary, so I wouldn't go out of my way to get them at this point (shield runewords), because you should have a deep hit point pool and lots of healing potions. Buffed with Shout and Defiance, my Barb is feeling very solid at this point. I think I'd have to go out of my way to get myself killed, in order to be killed.
Ok, so here is my Barb that beat the Act Two boss, Duriel:
No probs. Just used Double Swing. And yes, I just sped-run Act Two. I'm not into playing Normal mode at all; it's a total bore for experienced players and the enemies fall like leaves in autumn. Nightmare is more exciting and Hell is where it's at for the experts.
Ok, so here is my Barb that beat the Act Two boss, Duriel:
No probs. Just used Double Swing. And yes, I just sped-run Act Two. I'm not into playing Normal mode at all; it's a total bore for experienced players and the enemies fall like leaves in autumn. Nightmare is more exciting and Hell is where it's at for the experts.
Act 3
Here you will find glorious Double Swing even more useful. Basically, against the midget hordes. You will also note the useless vendors; it's all blue magical crap and no baseline stuff with sockets for Strength. Thus, since there is no way to transmute magical garbage into normal, you need to farm your baseline if you really want it (weapon racks). That said, those Malice axes that you crafted back in the midway point of Act One? They will still tear Act Three a new asshole. Well, Meph will take some beating but you can still push through at 25th level, and that's exactly what I did.
Yep, still not dead. Let's see how we go in Act 4. It is possible that at this point you won't be feeling confident. I mean, Act 4 is a big step up. If that's the case, I recommend doing Trav runs.
Act 4
Here we are at the start of Act Four. This is with Shout, Battle Orders and Defiance active:
If you haven't done so already, it's time to dump your Malice axes and upgrade to Strength ones. Strength is a huge, huge step up from Malice. 25% crushing blow is badass. Your Barb will feel reborn.
If you haven't done so already, it's time to dump your Malice axes and upgrade to Strength ones. Strength is a huge, huge step up from Malice. 25% crushing blow is badass. Your Barb will feel reborn.
Also, crushing blow stacks. Thus, you want to dual-wield with two Strength axes. As a bonus, you'll also get a nice raw boost to Strength and Vitality (40 and 20) and some decent life leech for added survivability. Again, badass.
One Strength is what made the Chaos Sanctuary and Diablo himself much less of a headache in this run, since I found no awesome rares for my build.
Thing is, the Amn rune is not easy to find in Normal mode. There is only a 10% chance that it drops in the Hellforge. Well, I got lucky. But cubing up an Amn from lesser runes from Countess runs would be possible, though it would take ages.
And yeah, I just runeworded a plain old two socket axe bought from Charsi in Act One. It isn't easy to find a war axe with two sockets. And if you find a normal white war axe and have Larzuk socket it, then it's going to come out with 6 sockets (the max for the item). Which is useless to you because the Strength runeword requires exactly two sockets. And while it's possible to socket a white weapon in the Horadric cube, it's random how many sockets you come out with (1-6). And that requires Ral, Amn, Perfect Amethyst and a white war axe each time you attempt to get two sockets! So I just said "To hell with it" and got the boost I needed from a crappy Act One axe. It'll do for now. Also, I'm not concerned about spending an Amn because they're common in Nightmare mode, coming up next. And in Nightmare I might find an appropriate Naga (exceptional version of the war axe). (The elite version, found in Hell, is called the Berserker Axe).
Thing is, the Amn rune is not easy to find in Normal mode. There is only a 10% chance that it drops in the Hellforge. Well, I got lucky. But cubing up an Amn from lesser runes from Countess runs would be possible, though it would take ages.
And yeah, I just runeworded a plain old two socket axe bought from Charsi in Act One. It isn't easy to find a war axe with two sockets. And if you find a normal white war axe and have Larzuk socket it, then it's going to come out with 6 sockets (the max for the item). Which is useless to you because the Strength runeword requires exactly two sockets. And while it's possible to socket a white weapon in the Horadric cube, it's random how many sockets you come out with (1-6). And that requires Ral, Amn, Perfect Amethyst and a white war axe each time you attempt to get two sockets! So I just said "To hell with it" and got the boost I needed from a crappy Act One axe. It'll do for now. Also, I'm not concerned about spending an Amn because they're common in Nightmare mode, coming up next. And in Nightmare I might find an appropriate Naga (exceptional version of the war axe). (The elite version, found in Hell, is called the Berserker Axe).
Act 5
Here I am at thirtieth level. Buffed with Battle Command, Battle Orders, Shout and Defiance. I'm just about to take on the necromancer, Nihlathak.
Your enemies in the Act Five finale are stunlock, freeze and decrepify. Taking on Baal's minions at the Throne of Destruction is not easy at 30th level. You may have to break up the packs. Baal wasn't so hard for the above-pictured build, he was just a bit tedious. Took about 10 mins to lay the smackdown.
v1.0 Diablo 2 Hardcore Melee Barbarian: Basics
You can read about the profound differences between v1.0 and v1.14d in my Diablo 2 review.
Stat-wise, Vitality is numero uno (life aka hit points). Only increase Strength to wield the weapon of your choice and wear the heaviest armor possible. The rest of your points go into Vitality unless your weapon of choice also has a Dexterity requirement (mostly swords).
In Act I vendor-farm Scale Mail (36 Strength); Act II Splint Mail (51); Act III Plate Mail (65); Act IV Gothic Plate (70). In Act IV you should try to farm a very high defense Gothic Plate, preferably with the Mammoth mod for +life. Remember that Def is %-increased by Shout and Life by Battle Orders war cries.
Barbs live and die by their arms and armor. Always vendor-farm the next tier of arms and armor upon reaching the next Act. And purchase uptiered life pots. Then go back and grind the boss of the previous Act until the XP gains flatten before returning to the current Act.
Normal and magical arms and armor are vendor-farmable in v1.0; indeed, magical arms and armor are the heart and soul of v1.0 itemization. You can vendor-farm fast run/walk boots through Charsi or Gheed in Act I. Magic-find and gold-find magical items are easily vendor-farmed in Act II.
Always loot gems and mana pots. Mana pots are not sold in v1.0 and there are no runes, jewels or charms in v1.0.
Always loot staffs, wands and scepters. If found in Act I they can sell for over 5,000 gold in Act II; if found in Act II they can sell for over 15,000 gold in Act III. And so on scaling through the Acts...
Always loot rings and amulets; they can make the Barb so much more powerful with the right mods.
Maps of all Acts are rolled and set in stone upon game-start. what varies from map-run to map-run are the placeables (chest, shrines) and mob-spawns. However, v1.0 mob-spawns can result in extreme difficulty: massive and strong mobs. There is also much less variability in mob-spawns.
+1 Mana After Each Kill is one of the best weapon mods because it allows the Barb to keep double-swinging on mobs.
Note that in these runs I only farm XP and items when I perceive the run to be getting too tedious or dangerous. Conversely, I don't farm just to get better items if I can keep progressing or go on to beat the game.
v1.0 Axe Double Swing Barbarian Hardcore (self-imposed)
v1.0 of Diablo II does not have an official Hardcore mode, but I self-imposed one. My v1.0 double swing Barbarian slew Andariel at 13th, Duriel at 18th, Mephisto at 21st and Diablo at 25th.
For the most part, Axe Barb wielded the Vicious War Axe of Performance (dmg 15-20, enh. dmg) and the Soldier's War Axe of Worth (dmg 13-22, enh. dmg) (both were purchased magical weapons).
v1.0 does not have runes, jewels or charms. Thus, we rely on gems. Axe Barb did not find enough skulls to cube up to get one max life-/mana-leech socketed war axe going, let alone two of such to dual-wield, yet socketed weapons of all kinds are easily purchased. However, he did find two magical life-/mana-steal rings, which compensated somewhat. Also, Diablo dropped a rare life-/mana-leech ring at game's end.
Armor-wise, the Barb purchased Crimson Gothic Plate of the Mammoth (def. 129, fire resist +5%, +37 life) and Great Helm of the Mammoth (def. 31, +31 to life).
Axe Barb purchased one belt of +99% gold and one gauntlets of +86% gold. He also purchased an amulet of magic-find +21%, greaves of fast run/walk and belt and ring both of replenish life +3.
Not being able to employ the /players command makes the game much harder. Also, most of the v1.0 mercs are useless to Barbs except for the Act III cold merc, which holds mobs in place via freeze.
v1.0 Mace Double Swing Barbarian Hardcore (self-imposed)
Maces have +150% dmg vs. undead, which are tougher than most other monsters and yield more XP per kill. +150% dmg vs. cadaverous, skeletal and ghostly undead is a non-trivial bonus.
Mace Double Swing Barb found much better items that Axe Double Swing Barb.
Thus, Mace Barb run was much easier than Axe Barb run.
Mace Barb slew Andariel at 12th, Duriel at 17th, Mephisto at 22nd and Diablo at 24th.
Mace Barb wielded Brutal War Hammer (dmg 17-30, enh. dmg) and Brutal War Hammer of Bashing (dmg 17-31, -38 monster def per hit, enh dmg) (both were purchased magical weapons). War Scepters can only rarely be purchased in Act IV (I didn't bother vendor-farming them).
Armor-wise, Mace Barb purchased Glorious Gothic Plate (def. 201, 89,852 gold) and found Strong Bone Helm of the Colossus (def. 50, +53 to life).
Mace Barb purchased one belt of +105% gold and one gloves and one boots of +99% gold. Thus, he was swimming in gold. He also found gloves of magic-find +33%, gloves of +16 Strength and boots of fast run/walk.
Mace Barb also found magical ring of +31 mana / +19 life and amulet of +36 mana. Ormus rare ring bestowed +1 mana per kill. This allowed Mace Barb to keep Double Swing going almost always, without the need for mana pots (which cannot be purchased in v1.0). Mace Barb also found many gems, but did not use them. Mace Barb only hired the Act III faster-casting cold merc.
v1.0 Sword Double Swing Barbarian Hardcore (self-imposed)
Sword Barb turned out to be more powerful than Axe/Mace Barb. This is because of the faster attack rate of the sword-types I chose to wield (Short Sword, Broad Sword, War Sword). In addition, Sword Barb yielded better drops and even more gold than Mace Barb.
Sword Barb had 150k gold stashed and another 150k gold stuffed into his pockets when he faced off against Mephisto at the end of Act III. He had +382% gold-find total by mid-Act III [1]. He was looting Champion corpses for up to 3,000 gold. How he was able to even move while carrying so much gold is anyone's guess.
Sword Barb wielded Act II Broad Swords through most of Act III since magical War Swords cannot be vendor-farmed in Act III-IV. The Broad Swords were Warrior's Broad Sword of Slaying (10-25) and Vicious Broad Sword of Carnage (10-32).
Armor-wise, he found Blessed Plate Mail in Act III (def. 186). Sword Barb also found boots of Fastest Run/Walk and two rings of +1 Mana After Each Kill. He also had +8 minimum damage from belt and ammy. This is very strong offense/defense for Act III; it is end-game arms and armor.
Sword Barb slew Andy at 13th, Duriel at 18th, Mephisto at 23rd and Diablo at 25th.
Act IV was not so kind to Sword Barb. However, he was able to upgrade his armor and helm to Blessed Gothic Plate of Spikes (def. 209) and Azure Crown of the Mammoth (+39 life). He could not vendor-farm magical War Swords to upgrade his magical Broad Swords, putting him at a disadvantage (Normal War Swords can be purchased and magical/rare War Swords can drop in Act IV, but magical War Swords cannot be vendor-farmed in Act III-IV).
That said, Sword Barb pushed through Act IV wielding his magical swords of Act II; it was enough because the other drops increased his damage (+8 minimum from non-weapons). Sword Barb could have changed to other sword-types, but he wanted to stick with fast short swords.
At the end of Act IV Sword Barb yielded two drops that can be sold for 20,000 gold in Nightmare Act I; one a normal War Staff, the other magical Full Plate Mail (the armor was a Diablo drop).
Sword Barb only hired the Act III faster-casting cold merc.
[1] End-game gold-find: belt of 118%, boots of +113%, gloves of +94% and amulet of +57%.
Thus, I have now prepared three v1.0 Barbs for Nightmare mode. More to come in July of 2026!
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