
In later difficulties you have to pay more attention to resists and defense since the enemies start to hit harder and die slower (depending on your gear).Class Overview | Necromancer Shadowblight Minions Build | Golem Summoning | Accessibility Options To Change First | Potion Upgrades & Increase Max Capacity | Silent Chests & Whispering Keys | Crushed Beast Bones Locations | Secret of the Spring Quest Solution

It’s not uncommon to spec DS/Frenzy for leveling into normal/NM, but then switch to WW depending on your goals and gear, since in the earlier levels “The best defense is a good offense” really holds true. So even a DW Barb can have decent defense depending on skills and gear. For WW you’re usually using WW if you’re in the thick of things, so you have defense up there.īarb also has several ways to boost defense (Shout, Iron Skin) via skills, and the fact that many barbs are pumping strength anyway means they can wear heavier armor that (typically) has higher defense can help get high defense without bothering with a shield. I’ve found with the speed bonus from frenzy that I can toggle down to walk and still move plenty fast, and retain my defense.

It also goes to zero when you run (but you can walk to retain it, and you retain it during WW - at least according to D2R character sheet) which lessens it’s benefit depending on if you mostly run. That’s why I mentioned shield blocking above, since blocking the damage outright is one of the main benefits of a shield, aside from being a “stat stick” for things like resistances.Īgain for certain PvP situations, having maximum defense is desirable, but often for PvM it’s more of a “nice to have if you can get it without sacrificing something else better”. Defense does not reduce incoming damage once the game has calculated that a hit will land. The other consideration is that in D2 defense is part of the “chance to hit” calculation (the chance that you will hit an enemy or the chance they will hit you), but the respective level of the attacker vs. That leaves your other hand free for another weapon to maximize the WW hits or use the DW skills. With Grief RW being BiS and not using the base weapon damage for it’s damage modifier, it’s common to make them in a 1h weapon, usually PB or Zerker axe depending on the goal. The DR from Stormshield can be really nice.ĭual wielding is required with skills like Double Swing and Frenzy, and it gets you more hits on skills like WW, so it can be very powerful if you don’t need the def/res/block from a shield. For some PvP builds that face other physical damage/blockable attack characters you’ll want a shield with max block, but for PvM it’s largely unnecessary.
