Chaos Titan Project

[Shadoway]

Chaos Titan Project

From the start of the new patch and the ladder, I skicked on the casting/ranged side of the game---summoner, archer, hammerdin. Complete opposite of Wolfedude.
http://www.rpgforums.net/showthread.php?t=152003

But now I am bored with those builds and want to try a melee char. I just like to play an "underdog" build, so I choose a dual-weapon whirlwind barb. My goal is too whirlwind all the way to guardianship, Chaos Sanctuary and World Stone Keep included. Thus the build name "Chaos Titan." I decided just to ignore physical immune monsters for now. After all, they are not too common and there should be enough casters if I join a public game.

There isn't much choice for equipments. To avoid IM damage, the weapon must be normal with almost no ED. To be used with WW effectively, the weapon must have good range and reach the last WW breakpoint. After some research, I concluded that a pair of "Steel" Flails will suit my needs the best.

The killing depends on Crushing Blow to reduce monster life rapidly and Open Wounds to finish it off. There is 50% OW on each of the flail, so that is set. For CB, Guillaume's Face is the only choice for helm. Goblin's Toe is the only choice for boots. Gorerider has less CB (bad), more OW (no use, since OW from weapon is sufficient) and more DS (bad, we want to reduce dmg here).

As for the rest of equipment, I want to make it cheap yet useful, since a good build is one that does not depend on rare items. I am considering Sol'ed Shaftstop + Tgod + Dwarf + Raven + Venom Grip (5%CB here and more mods). The most strength demanding items would be the Guillaume's Face at 115 str. Since Tgod adds to str and the char will unavoidably get some +str gears, the real investment in strength is quite low actually. A Glad's Bane could be a good alternative to the Shaftstop.

For the resistance issue, I will need about 175-185% in hell to get maxed. That will be 145-155% after ayna quests and about 100% after some points in Natural Resistance. Still need 70% if I use a 30% ammy (since +skill is not useful to this build, no need a 30% mara). I could use some resist charms, like about 9+% single resist small charms are not expensive. Basically, resist and AR are the two issues I worry the most. Any suggestions?

As of now, my ChaosTitan is at level 6, using two spike club.

 

[CoonerTheRed]

no offense, but chaostitan is a bit of a misnomer, since a titan is a barb with all strength, and relies on huge damage to kill quickly before his low life is an issue...

 

[Maximus]

I thought Titan barbs were all Str and no VIT? Sounds like a really interesting build. Good luck.

/max

 

[CoonerTheRed]

hah hah you're too slow

but yes, the build does look very interesting- keep us up to date

 

[STINGER]

Somoene with an Editor needs to give this a whirl.

Max CB
Largest possible base damage 6 socket weapon fully AMN'd
Load up the LL as much as possible
Stick it on Players 8 and see if you can take around Oblivs while IMed

Classic 1.09 it was a solid build to take a 6 sock weapon and skull it out and run CS with it. It didnt kill well but it leeched enuff to live and hurt things.

The other thing that i always wondered is how does IM interact with Crushing. If it is damage to damage then even the weakest weapon with CB is going to kill you if you are IMed and hit a boss!

BTW, just so you know a WW Barb with a 1-27 flail and lvl 35 will kill himslef in Norm CS, so if you go in there as you say we wont have a chance to see how you do in Hell! Simple Fact!

IM in Norm is more dangerous than it is in Hell, or at least was in 1.09 and i do not intend to test it.

 

[baalos]

I lost my first 1.10 barb to nm IM. Didnt notice the cast and ww'ed and deeds. My current barb wears soe and shaftstop, and seems to get decent protection from IM. Still when I see knights, they get nothing but zerk.

 

[STINGER]

The interaction of IM, Leech and damage is different than in 1.09 and I wish i knew how to combat it.

I lost a lvl 70 or so Barb on two swings of concentrate using that Exceptional hammer and he had a ton of leech on, Tals, sigs, two rings. Two freaking swings of lvl 1 Concentrate, and he had no +skills.!

 

[terrymanning]

Still when I see knights, they get nothing but zerk.

Not to hijack the thread, but. This is what bothers most people. You don’t have to see the knights to be cursed. Heck, you might not even know they are there for them to hit you with IM. I have been hit with it from what seems like two screens away and the curse animation didn’t immediately show up. I only realized I was cursed right before I was dead. Luckily, I stopped swinging in time.

And Stinger is right, in normal difficulty, it just doesn’t take much damage to kill yourself with IM.

TM

 

[Shadoway]

It comes down to two questions then:

1) Suppose CB take out 10000 monster life, is that IM returnable? If is like critical strike, then this build is not viable. But if it is like casting static (crescent moon), I can go ahead.

2) What exactly is the Hell mod IM level? For normal CS, I suppose I won't have WW (lvl 30 skil) by then, I will just use a javalin. In hell mod, suppose I use level 1 WW (-50% dmg), level 5- mastery (for some AR) with a steel flail (4-32), I will do about 40 damage if it is a critical strike.

 

[STINGER]

LVL 1 WW in CS will kill you, its not really all about damage its about hits you cant stop and how many you get in!

In Classic I lost two Barbs lvl 28 or so with lvl 1 conc and a Bonesnap in one hit. Both had Angeleics and all vita but the strenght for Snap!

I made a rule long ago to never enter CS solo with Zerk and i will never again, and if you go in thiere with a Barb you just have to play smart.

I cant describe how much more deadly IM is in 1.10 than it was in 1.09, I just know that it is near impossible to WW in CS at any lvl any difficulty. In 1.09 you could pump up te LL and use a lower damage weapon and use a lower AR, mainly not using AR gear and you could run around like a mad man and have a blast. You stil had risk of death but as long as you used short and controlled attacks you werent going to die to IM. Now Im might hurt you and something then smack you dead, but you could deliver several hits not just 1-2 and live.

I see a dual weailding 1-27 Flail Barb dieing regardless of CB as you will get 1.5 the normal hits and i beleive you might be at last BP but havent looked. This is a TON of hits and even if Im only delivers 50 return damage your lvl 30-35 Barb cant take a full WW of say 5 guys under Im, he MIGHT live thru one target maybe two if you are lucky.

 

[Shadoway]

If I can sacrifice the range advantage of a flail, Blood Crescent Scimitar is a much better choice:

One-Hand Damage: 3 To (9-10) (6-6.5 Avg)
Required Level: 7
Required Dexterity: 21
Durability: 22
Base Weapon Speed: [-20]
+60-80% Enhanced Damage(varies)
33% Chance Of Open Wounds
15% Increased Attack Speed
15% Life Stolen Per Hit
All Resistances +15
+15 To Life
+4 To Light Radius

BTW, I check weapon speed from this site:
http://diablo2.ingame.de/tips/calcs/weaponspeed.php?lang=english
I suppose it is still 1.09 info. The animation of WW has changed; I am not sure if the attack rate is changed. Assuming it is correct, then Blood Crescent already reaches the last breakpoint (two frames for dual-weapon WW) without any socketing.

The max damage is 10. With strength being ~100, that will be 20. Suppose in the worst case it does critical strike everytime (unlikely, since I decided not to invest in weapon mastery after all and the helm will give 15% chance CS), then the CS cancels with level 1 WW damage penalty of 50%. So, eventually the max damage per hit is about 20 (the average is about 8).

Suppose the IM return 500% damage (level 13), the max damage returned is really 100. I really don't know the exact IM level an oblivion knight has. But since my merc doesn't always die in one IM hit, I suppose I am conservative enough for the estimation. Futher suppose I connect 10 hits in one WW (highly unlikely), the total damage returned will be 1000. With a Sol'ed shaftstop (may also sol the helm), that will be 700-7x10 = 630 damage returned. I guess I will have to level up to about level 60 and 2000+ life after BO to attempt this.

The above calculation is for the worst case (i.e. 10 hits per whirl, always critical, always max weapon damage, no monster physical resistance, no monster blocking). That chance would be about Baal dropping me an enigma (runes not yet socketed in armor, of course). On average, before my DR, assume 5 hits per whirl that result in damage (not blocked), the IM damage with 500% return is about 200. After the DR, it is 140-7x5 ~100 damage per whirl. Maybe I should get a prayer merc. Rejuv that 100 damage every time is annoying.

That is my estimation. As for Stinger's comment, I think we have totally different build. The min damage of the worst Bsnap is 90 and the max damage of the best Blood Crescent is 10; plus concontrate adds damage while WW cuts damage in half. But his comment about normal CS being the worst is useful to me. So, after all I cannot whirl all the way from normal to hell. I will just avoid WW in CS for normal and level to 60 with 2000-3000 life to start NM CS.

 

[kardinaal]

I just read in another thread that aura level = monster level/2 (exept for fanatism, tht's Mlvl/4). So my estimated guess is that the level of IM is also Mlvl/2.

If you want my advise on it, use double swing in stead of WW. It's also giving many hits/second, but you can stop when needed. It's also nice to take out the OKs first. And in times of real trouble, you'll have a decent double throw up your sleeve.

There are quite a few barb attacks that don't get penalised by IM. Double throw, Leap Attack (not shure), and zerk. IMHO, why take the risk of wwing through them? There's never been a "one size fits all" attack.

 

[MoUsE_WiZ]

Just tried it SP with an editor (gogo charm w/ 30/30 dual leech +200 life +200% resist all 100% CB 100% OW 50% DR, and flails with 60% IAS as only gear)
Stats were enough for flails and that's it, rest in vit...
The problem I came up with is 175 mana doesn't last very long with storm casters while whirling. Things were dying with reasonable speed (3-4 spins) when I had mana, but I ran into a pack of storm casters and went through something like 16 greater blues and they were almost all still standing
Didn't get a chance to twirl around many OKs.

 

[Shadoway]

Regarding the double swing suggestion: of course. That was the plan. DS on left and WW on right. As for the IM level, it is really hard to get a pricise answer, from my mercs experience, I guess it is about 100%-300%. Thus, I used 500% just to be conservative.

Regardind the mana issue: yes, that's my other worry. I thought of some possible solutions:
1) equip some mana charms and get a mana pool of about 400 (~16 whirl)
2) equip some +mana/kill items could use Nosferatu's Coil to replace Tgod
3) for the high physical resistance monsters, use double swing and some poison sc's (also fire dmg from demon limb's enchant).
4) use damage to mana item (Night Smoke?), getting hit is unavoidable in hell. So if my mana pool is decent, I may not need to drink blue pots too often.