Best Barbarian Ladder Spec: Berserker
Barbarians are the dark horses of Ladder Season 2 meta. Their amazing crowd control abilities (Howl, Leap) combined with their strong survivability, amazing FCR frames and powerful Berserk damage grants them a spot in the meta.
While Barbarians suffer in dealing good boss damage, they can take crucial meta team roles by offering extremely fast and safe CS runs or Throne Teleports. The Berserk Barbarian is definitely one of the visible specs in the highest levels of the ladder.
The strengths of the Berserker are as follows:
The potential weaknesses of the Berserker are as follows:
As it can be observed, the Berserker/Pitzerker Barbarian can fulfil different roles in the meta. They can match or at least compete against the Chaos Sanctuary clear speed of Hammerdins and prepare Diablo. Combined with the brutal power of Grief runeword and survivability provided by Stormshield, they have Howl which isolates Chaos Sanctuary Seal Bosses and makes it very safe for the Barbarian to kill them with Berserk. They can teleport to Baal Throne as fast as Sorceresses, and use their crowd control abilities to offer safe TP’s for the rest of the premade to enter the throne. They have Battle Orders which provides great survivability.
Their weaknesses can easily be eliminated by having other synergy classes in a team composition. Their only weakness is low boss damage in Players 8, which is an important factor. This makes it challenging to place Berserker Barbarians either into S tier, or high A tier.
We suggest that the increase in Barbarian numbers is also due to items becoming more available in the ladder. Two months have passed since the launch of ladder Season 2, and naturally items and runes have become more accessible. This fact provides an advantage for Barbarians who specifically want to use Grief runeword or items such as Stormshield.
Final Verdict for Berserker Barbarian: S tier (or at least high A tier)