Patriarch ZodBarb – Beastly Barb

ffs

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Feb 7, 2017
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Character #3 in the Zod Sept, as the yet again creative name might suggest. ;)

Never played a Wolfbarb but wanted to for a very long time, so finally got around to it. Some time ago I found a nice 6/6/6 Wolhowl and when starting this sept I knew the Barb would be using that.

Pat screenshot at lvl 87:

Screenshot008.jpg


Some gameplay in CS:



Sturdiest character in this sept so far. He played on P8 really 99% of the time, hence the relatively high level (87) when finishing. I only turned it down to speed up normal Ancients and in (Hell) Tal Rasha's Tomb because it spawned tons of ghosts, otherwise P8 all the way including Hell Ancients and Baal. Sometimes it took him a while to clear bigger groups, but it was always pretty smooth gameplay.

As for his journey, I'll again make it easy for me and refer to the first update post – including twinking, playthrough, drops and some other info until transitioning to the Werewolf build at lvl 79.

Nothing too spectacular happened for the remainder of Hell after the update. It was all pretty easy really, even on P8, with no particularly interesting drops.

Final gear:
  • Wolfhowl (36 ED, life jewel)
  • BotD eth BA (366 ED)
  • Beast BA
  • Fortitude AP
  • Highlord's
  • Steelrend (53 ED)
  • Verdungo's
  • Gore Rider
  • Raven
  • Dual leech/resists/AR ring
  • Merc: Andy's, Reaper's, Treachery
  • Inventory: Sharp GCs and Fine SCs with life, cube, tomes
Merc used Pride instead of Reaper for a good portion of the playthrough since I didn't always want to wait for him to finally come along and proc Decrep.

I didn't run any numbers but figured Steelrend were a nice fit for him. He had several off-weapon ED sources so that Demon ED from LoH was not the biggest gamechanger, and I observed the mobs that somewhat slowed him down a bit here and there were never demons. Given I had a ton of strength points (see below) I figured why not use these for a change. I chose Verdungo's over SoE just because Feral Rage provides more LL than needed anyway, and the extra life and some FHR were welcome, resulting in more points being moved to strength again.

Final stats:
I initially went for str/dex for gear and rest vit, but that was overkill on the safety side (for SC at least) with >6k life. So I respec'ed a second time and went somewhat titan-style.
  • Enough vit for 4k life
  • dex for gear
  • rest into strength.
At lvl 87 he had 440 strength. Don't think I ever went for 400+ on any char before.

Final skills:
  • 20 Axe Mastery
  • 20 BO
  • 20 Berserk
  • 10 Natural Resistance
  • 1 BC, other mastery skills, pre-reqs
  • Rest Shout
Using all remaing points to boost (and eventually max) Shout alongside Fortitude gave him really high defense (~15k or so), and it moreover doubled as a nice boost to Berserk damage when focusing down the occasional PI boss.

Natural Resist because it enabled him to pretty much ignore resists otherwise and to focus on damage/life charms in his inventory.

Feral Rage max damage was around 9.1k in the end, some 11k when using Pride.

Since he "had" to use a Zod item I went for BotD, and it's a great weapon of course, though I would have used Grief for some extra damage otherwise.. and will likely try it out if just for the sake of comparison.

In conclusion: Very fun character, damage is alright and he's incredibly tanky. Wolfhowl is awesome! Shout-out to @Pb_pal whose ongoing HC 99er Wolfbarb project constantly reminded me to check him out as well. :)
 
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Very nice Pat, and the titan-ish approach was a nice twist. Looking forward to the Druid, given my plan to use one the Earthshifters that I’ve picked up.
 
Awesome, great vid too! Wolfbarbs are great once they get going, glad to see you had so much fun, and thanks for the reminder to get back to mine and work on finishing him ;)
Please do :) I assume you have Berserk skilled as well, have you put many points into shout as well? Just curious because Berserk damage is actually very high with this build, and if it wasn't for the huge leech from Feral Rage it would actually be faster. So what I'm wondering is whether it makes sense to include Baal himself earlier than for other characters because it might not take long to kill him with Berserk.

Very nice Pat, and the titan-ish approach was a nice twist. Looking forward to the Druid, given my plan to use one the Earthshifters that I’ve picked up.
I'm looking forward to the Druid as well. Eth Earth Shifter should hit very hard, though I must admit the eth Ribby I have would be a nice weapon to try as well. Whether Armageddon and those Fissure procs do something meaningful remains to be seen. :) When I recently played my (first) Earth Shifter Druid (this guy) I went for a similar build, but more with focus on elemental skills and casting Fissure myself against big non-FI groups. This time I will fully focus on physical damage ofc.
 
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Please do :) I assume you have Berserk skilled as well, have you put many points into shout as well? Just curious because Berserk damage is actually very high with this build, and if it wasn't for the huge leech from Feral Rage it would actually be faster. So what I'm wondering is whether it makes sense to include Baal himself earlier than for other characters because it might not take long to kill him with Berserk.
I actually don't have it skilled on mine, no. I haven't even given it thought really, since I'm very focused on survivability with him so I've only really considered Feral Rage and staying in wolf form.

I will have to test how quickly zerk can take Baal down though, because if it can do it safely then it's probably a faster option, as you say. Great idea!
 
Hm after checking attack rates I think with Grief it's probably not worth it since you have 5 FPA Feral Rage vs 9 FPA Berserk (in my case with BotD BA it was a smaller difference). With Grief, the higher dmg/AR and Baal having 0% MR (but 50% PDR) is probably still not enough to make Berserk better than Feral Rage... still curious as to how well it works, but maybe shouled be tested with an SC character.. don't want Stevesy's blood on my hands. :D
 
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Nice! I see Wolfbarbs, I have to (y).

Shame we won't get to see 500+ strength though, BOTD and all.. :ROFLMAO:
 
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