Patriarch Ulthrakk, Concentrate Barb

Crudesash

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Feb 19, 2021
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So I finally have my 1st new Pat since...2005?. It was tedious at times, but rewarding as always. Mostly untwinked, with just a little bit of MF/Rune runs along the way.

This character started back in the fall of 2018, during the hype leading up to Blizzcon, hype that was dashed by the poorly planned rollout of Diablo immortal. I got the character as high as A3 NM, and then went back to playing WoW.

2 plus years later, and this time, the hype was real. I dusted off the old barb and plunged back into the wilds of Kurast. The only item of note he had was an upped Bonesnap, and it worked very well splatting mobs in NM. I had one death in NM, vipers in Nil's room, but otherwise NM was a breeze.

We get into Hell, and things get tough. BS still has good killing power, but I was taking lots of damage and doing a lot of running and porting. So I reworked the barb into a sword and board Conc build, and the best one hander I had was...Hexfire. Much slower kill speed, but survivability was so much better. Finished A1 with no great drops.

Got into A2...and killing speed slowed to a crawl. I switched around a few weapons, like Coldsteel Eye, Sureshrill Frost, but nothing really did any better...so I parked the barb and rolled a Sorc. Got her into A2 Hell (eventually to A5), and started having trouble keeping the Merc alive, despite an eth Meat Scraper...so went back to the Barb, and for a while I'd alternate back and forth. During one of these back and forth, the sorc found Demonhorn's Edge, and that was a huge upgrade from the rare helm I'd had previously. After stalling with the Sorc on the Ancients, I focused on getting the Barb to Patriarch; much better survivability, albeit way slower. But things improved after finding what would eventually be my end game weapon, the Demon Limb.

The rest of the game kind of had a steady pace to it; a few deaths here and there but mostly pretty tanky, steady speed. The Ancients took a lifetime, and so did Baal, but in the end he died, and rewarded me with 4 useless rares.

One thing that made survival trivial in some areas was a wand with life tap that I had on switch. Quite a few packs were nullified by the amazing leech from that skill. I was praying for a Dracul's to drop, but alas, it was not to be.

As for the future...it is such a slow build that I can't see much beyond LK runs, as he has the double campfire map. Maybe if I had about 20-30% CB I'd maybe try to get to level 90, but for now I think I'll focus on getting the Sorc past Baal, and some other projects.

End game stats (regular/geared), Level 83
STR 148/161
Dex 207/207
Vita 163/163
Energy 10/10
Life 2057 (with BO,BC)
Mana 283
Def 4308
AR 5737 (Conc)
75 Resist All with BC

Skills: 20 in Bash, Conc, BO; 10 in Berserk, 8 in Shout, 1 in prereq's and utilities, and a point in axe/mace/sword mastery. I wound up using all 3 respecs on this character; from 2H Conc to 1H Conc, to 1H Berserk, back to 1H Conc, and I had a bunch of points saved for masteries but never found a better weapon than the DL, so I just made them one point wonders.

Gear
Demonhorn's Edge, bad roll, +1 to each tree
+1 Barb Skills Ammy
Demon Limb, 196% ED, 8% LL, socketed with 38% ED Jewel, 234% total ED
"Myth" Mesh Armor
"Rhyme" Luna
Laying of Hands
Rare belt, 30% CR, 13% PR
Natalya's Soul
2 really awful Rare rings that I could never seem to upgrade
135/37/15 Gheed's, +251 PD SC, bunch of various resist charms.

Merc:
Rockstopper
Duriel's Shell
Eth upped Meat Scraper, 115-596, 175% ED, 10% LL

As for finds, it was mostly slim pickings, but a few decent items: Flamebellow, Demon Arch, Wildhammer. Best rune drop was a Mal from the Hell HF.

Thanks for reading, and I hope to add a Mat post here in a few days!
 
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Congrats on your first Patriarch in quite a while! And thanks for sharing; it's always interesting to see what sort of gear people end up with on (nearly) untwinked, (nearly) single pass, melee characters. Also, congrats on that Gheed's! If you found that with this character I'd definitely name that your top find of the items you mentioned! (y)
 
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Thanks! Yes, the Gheed’s dropped on the way to Andariel as I recall. In hindsight I really should have crafted blood gloves for CB; LoH has some nice mods but CB really shines on boss fights, even with the Hell penalties. I’m going to be starting a Frenzy Barb that only uses Crafted gear, I’m really curious to see how far I can get. A few folks made it to Guardian in the craft tourney, so I’m looking to them for inspiration.
 
Excellent, hero!

Many years ago, when I played only on bnet, I had a frenzy barb that I called my 'shark build.' As long as he's moving and hitting, he's alive due to life leech. I was never rune rich on bnet, and I never had a good melee character (aside from a budget smiter for ubers ... I think Baranar's Star was his main weapon...), so that's not due to crazy good items. It was a bit like a mostly untwinked SP character.
 
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Excellent, hero!

Many years ago, when I played only on bnet, I had a frenzy barb that I called my 'shark build.' As long as he's moving and hitting, he's alive due to life leech. I was never rune rich on bnet, and I never had a good melee character (aside from a budget smiter for ubers ... I think Baranar's Star was his main weapon...), so that's not due to crazy good items. It was a bit like a mostly untwinked SP character.
Yes, it should be a nice change; when I first started playing back in 1.09, I was using double swing until the 40’s, I don’t remember why I didn’t use Frenzy, but it was one of those moments where you realize how little you know about the game. I then leveled another Barb to use it, but I wound up going berserk and never really went back to Frenzy, so it’ll be kind of new as well.
 
I do love concentrate barbarians. I wish more people would try them :D
It was a slow play style due to lack of a really good weapon, and my aforementioned absence of CB, but man it’s a tanky build.
 
Interesting read.
Concentrate barbarians have a special place in my heart since it was something I tried just around the time I started to understand diablo II more, and was also the first barbarian build I really enjoyed.
The fact that he also had a bigger bag of tricks (one point wonders etc) than the fishymancer I played just before also astonished and amused me.

I so recognize myself in your description of the mastery skills. 1 point in a few, then save many points which are never used. I am very seriously considering making my upcomeing barbarians tied to one weapon for just this reason.

What was the reasoning with using the myth armour? Was it lack of other drops, or was it something with that runeword that you really liked?
 
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Interesting read.
Concentrate barbarians have a special place in my heart since it was something I tried just around the time I started to understand diablo II more, and was also the first barbarian build I really enjoyed.
The fact that he also had a bigger bag of tricks (one point wonders etc) than the fishymancer I played just before also astonished and amused me.

I so recognize myself in your description of the mastery skills. 1 point in a few, then save many points which are never used. I am very seriously considering making my upcomeing barbarians tied to one weapon for just this reason.

What was the reasoning with using the myth armour? Was it lack of other drops, or was it something with that runeword that you really liked?
Maybe for the +2 BO?
 
Maybe for the +2 BO?
That was the "only" reason I could think of aswell, but I feel like a armour of the whale or even a 3-4 pRuby armour would give you more HP. (No time to do the math on it, this is just my intuitive feeling.)

I mainly ask since that is definately not an armour I've seen often, and I would love to know if @Crudesash68 saw anything in it that I don't.
 
That was the "only" reason I could think of aswell, but I feel like a armour of the whale or even a 3-4 pRuby armour would give you more HP. (No time to do the math on it, this is just my intuitive feeling.)

I mainly ask since that is definately not an armour I've seen often, and I would love to know if @Crudesash68 saw anything in it that I don't.
I wish I had a clever reason for using Myth. but it was the best I could make around late NM, and I just got used to using it.

I found a Shaftstop in A4H, while looking for Izual, and you'd immediately think, bam! there's your endgame armor, and I probably should've stayed with it all things being equal, but it just felt better with the extra skill points. Logic says the 30% DR trumps all, but playing Conc with all that defense, plus max block, I took more damage from losing the 6-8 points lost in Resistance, since I really only took heavy damage from elemental sources. To be fair, I also didn't run into any Cursed Aura Extra Strong Pit Lords either :rolleyes:

In re the Mastery points...on my initial build, I was pumping Mace Mastery since I was using the upped Bonesnap, but after doing all the switching and settling on 1H Conc, I wasn't satisfied with the weapon damage and kept holding out for Rune luck to make Oath, at the very least, and while Demon Limb was better than my other options, I kept feeling like I'd find something better...and so I had the 20 points sitting there...then I just decided to put one each in Mace, Sword, & Axe in case something great happened, and just pumped Bash and Shout, and nothing great did happen, and Baal got beaten to death with a demon's arm (or leg), which is poetic, I think.
 
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I've got a Lvl 82 Frenzy barb I just equipped with my Fortitude and Grief/The Vile Husk...he was struggling before I handed him better gear and I'm thinking about making him a dedicated Beserk or Conc barb solely for MF runs.The better gear makes a huge difference as expected but I'm not liking something about the build currently...
 
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