Maybe Barb Masteries need a bump up

[WarBlade]

The damage isnt even close to a paladins potential - through several builds. And only the concentrate barb barb maintains his high survivability.

Meanwhile the Paladin in most cases has no hope of actually reaching what many would assume would be his potential and your assertion of survivability is just plain wrong.

The bezerk barb losses life leach. And for the freny barb now  will give up signifigant survival skills to get damage which is still less than a paladin.

In my 1.09 experience Berserk was either a primary skill to use in conjunction with Concentrate as another primary skill or as a PI alternative when Frenzy was set to fail. While he doesn't lose Life Steal (because he never had it) you are right in pointing out his reduced survivability from no leech and also hsi defence reduction which you didn't mention. At the same time the answer is as it always was: Warcries. One of them can quickly set your character up with 1.4 times his usual life and another provides a virtually limitless potion supply. BTW my old Concentrate, WW, Berserk Spear Barb was operating at reasonable effectiveness, considering the old Lord's Lance of the Locust he's lumbered with at present. I predict he'll be back up to full effectiveness once the pig poker is awapped out with a weapon worthy of 1.10 Hell.

The Frenzy Barb I've been running around Hell level proved to be one of the most highly resilient characters I've tried yet. Before 1.10 his 38% Life Steal was quite a bit over the top, but now it just plain rocks and his damage output was fine (with 29 skill points still to spend). My advice would be to play to a Barbarian's strengths. He has potential to do brutal physical damage and can use it to good effect for leeching purposes. Try comparing that against an Avenger who's leeching is as a standard unskilled attack, and guess which one is constantly reaching for the pots (both blue and red).

Perhaps WW will be viable now which would give barbs 1 good attack. I think Ill try to test it.

Yes, it still effective. Quite a good way to prevent a Barbarian from taking damage actually.

Maybe the thought is trade damage for survival. But if thats the case damage will probably win once people start designing builds

So far survival has not been a problem. OTOH keeping Might mercenaries alive is a tricky one and you might find a point or two extra Find Potion investment is the thing to do under 1.10. I can live with that.