Decent Barb equipment/items help!

[dnaiel]

Hi

Im a level 275 barb using frenzy, although its slow going im doing pritty good but now im in the act 5 in nightmare and although I can handle most things the ice giants kick my ass - and as im going into hell soon I figure its only going to get harder.

I need some equipment advice - im currently using runeword items (including oath of barb, word of barb and other high level runewords) - i've basically exhausted the runewords. I am also using a couple of charm of making's and 5 minor celebrity posters.

So my question is where do i go from here? I've created a few crafted items but they've always been pants - no where near as powerful as runewords. I've tried using adders/cube locks/zy-el scroll to enhance items but all they do is add say +200hp or -132dmg etc. Baring in mind i have 42000hp, 200hp barely touches my hp. I guess if i sit there and run the recipie like 20 - 30 times it might actually make a difference but is this really what I need to do?

Some of them zy-el artifacts look good but some of them arent that great.

I crafted a couple of ctc on hit rings thinking i'd own the place but these turned out to be a disappointment - I guess i just dont do enough elemental damage to make them worth it. If i changed one of my charm of making's to do elemental damage would this be enough to make the do damage to monsters?

I guess i just dont get the crafting items in this game. Any crafted item i create has
next to nothing on it. And the adder's sound amazing +2000% or whatever it is but
when you run the receipe and i get +200hp its stupid - the effort it takes to get the
ingrediants I must be doing something wrong??

Could someone give me few tips as to what I should be heading for at my level. How to actually
make a decent item with crafting techniques other than getting a runeworded item and
repeated running the megaload-elixer recipe a thousand times to make it worth it

At the moment im thinking getting a few major posters together, trying out an elemental
damaging charm of making to make the ctc rings worth it.

And other than that just re-rolling unique items until I find something decent?

Thanks in advance!

[bro]

Do some megaload crafted jewels with elemental damage, damage reduction, replenish, +%hp etc.

<Crf Jewel> + <any Rune> + <Zy-El Scroll> + <crf Ring> -> same <Crf
Jewel> + <Rune weap attrib> x 3000%

<Crf Jewel> + <any Rune> + <Zy-El Scroll> + <crf Amulet> -> same
<Crf Jewel> + <Rune armr attrib> x 3000%

<Crf Jewel> + <any Rune> + <Zy-El Scroll> + <crf Charm> -> same <Crf
Jewel> + <Rune shld attrib> x 3000%

[Hans]

Like Bro stated the Mega Crafted Jewels is one of the major areas to improve on your gear.

The Crafted Belt (use cube lock) is just amazing. You can get life, defence, +skills.

[Crafted Item] + [Stnd Gem] + [mag Ring] + [mag Amulet] + [Key] --> new [Crafted Item] + added ability
[Crafted Item] + [Flwls Gem] + [rar Ring] + [rar Amulet] + [Key] --> new [Crafted Item] + added ability
[Crafted Item] + [Perf Gem] + [crf Ring] + [crf Amulet] + [Key] --> new [Crafted Item] + added ability
[Crafted Item] + [Perf Gem] + uni Ring] + [uni Amulet] + [Key] --> new [Crafted Item] + added ability

The higher grade recipe has a higher return.

[John11]

Get a Zy-El's Requiem if you haven't already. I used Zy-El's Vengeance for my Barb for my weapon. I also made a lot of Zy-El's Anthem's. (To get the diadem/divine scepter gamble for the lower tier items and use the upgrade recipe).

To get the zy-el scrolls, start by farming zy runes from meph and add them to magic collectors to eventually redeem for zy-el scrolls. After you have your diadem and vengeance, shoot for making a megaloaded crafted jewel with lots of gold find (or make a bunch of anthem charms which will help with +vit too).

[dnaiel]

Cheers for the advice - i think im starting to get an appreication for the crafting items now.

I just made a 'bone chain mythril coil' belt that has:
181 defence
14% ctc level 5 nova
+2475 life (based on char level)
+5 mana

I did the craft belt with a ruby with highest grade recipie - twice. And I got 1200 life for each time, I think i was put off originally because I tried crafting items and I got pants stats such as the one in this example (minus the +life) but once you starting adding things such as the life based on char level, you can start seeing where the decent items come from. So basically I just repeat this as much as I want (along with different gem's to get other stats such as increasing the armour etc)

I havent tried the megaload jewels yet but if i socket my belt then I just add in a couple of megaloaded jewels? So I see where that can be good.

Also I havent tried look zy-el requiem and vengene and Anthem's properly but I will - cheers!

Another small question is there a way to upgrade say a mythril coil to a Colossus Girdle?

Thanks!

[Al-T]

It has to be the correct upgrade path so in the case of a Colossus Girdle you need:

Plated Belt-->War Belt-->Colossus Girdle

A Mithril Coil is already elite so it will not upgrade. (Belt-->Mesh Belt-->Mithril Coil).

[dnaiel]

ok cheers