[D2R SC] Patriarch Dickinson - the master singer barbarian

[drmalawi]

Name: Dickinson
Class: Barbarian
Level: 84
Build: War Cry "Singer"




Namned after one of my favorite singers, Bruce Dickinson of Iron Maiden, I wanted to focus on just getting as high damage output as possible and see what the performance could be. Usually, "singers" are used for MF-ing, focusing on getting high MF and Find Item. This barb was already rich, I mean look at the gear he uses... also singers are probably the fastest way for a SSF barbarian to "beat the game" with since they only need fcr and +skills gear (and 1000 mana pots).

Skills:

• War Cry, Howl, Taunt, Battle Cry all 20 points (level 39 with Battle Command)
• Shout, Battle Command 1 point (level 20 with Battle Command)
• Battle Orders 9 points (level 28 with Battle Command)
• Natural Resistance, Increased speed 1 point (level 13 with Battle Command)

Stats:
str 53 to wear Monarch, 0 dex, 232 vitality, 210 energy.
With gear: 164/63/276/252

Gear:

• Enigma mage plate
• Insight staff (we used dual HoTo's up to level 75 where merc can use Reapers) (reason for staff is because it looks like a microphone-stand)
• Maras
• SoJ
• Rare ring with 10% fcr, fire, lightning and poison resistances
• Rare Circlet with 1 barb skill, 20% fcr, 20% all res, 34% Fire res and 3 mdr. No socket, I was tempted to Larzuk this and put a Mal rune or something into it.
• Magefist
• Arachnid Mesh
• Silkweave

Switch: HoTo + Phoenix monarch. Prebuff and soaking up corpses for life and mana.

Torch, Anni, Bone Break sunder charm, 7 War Cry skillers some with various stats. Small charms 3 mana+fhr, rest were just mana+life.

Merc:
Defiance, Cure helm, Reapers 'Shael', Duriels shell upped 'Um'

Build idea was to take War Cry damage output as far as I reasonably could (with maxing resistances and having a somewhat comfortable gameplay mana-wise). Hence we wield Insight ourselves and let merc proc decrepify with his Reapers Toll. I was pretty pleased with the result actually. The only problem I really had was act bosses, Baal in particular... we used 18 full rejuvs for that fight! Ranged monsters you can either howl away or teleport and stun them, and then teleport back to where you were killing stuff. A level 39 War Cry with all synergies is 2044-2088 dmg with 8 frames casting speed so not too shabby, I wish the radius could be increased with levels since 4,6 yards is not that high... so it felt like playing a tankier Nova Sorc sort of.

No notable drops, I think a Lem rune was the highlight drop for this dude.

Here are some more cool pics and a sample gameplay video (p8 Eldritch/Shenk/Pindle). Also inside spoilers are some notes I took along the ride.

Thanks for reading!


Dude how can you hover like that, are you hanging from strings attached to the ceiling?

Spoiler: Normal

Started with double swing with two 6 sockets crystal swords with various gems/jewels/runes to get high elemental/poison damage
Charms with frw, stealth etc to run quicker than any amazon can teleport!
Death 2piece set
act1-3 p8 except travincal and meph
at lvl 24 teleport staff to quickly pass through the game
act 4 we lowered to players 1 and used ort runes in swords
hit lvl 27 after clearing first seal in CS, hired blessed aim merc
Killed Diablo (p1) at lvl 27
Gave merc insight once he got to lvl 27 too
Did Eldrich runs (p8) to get lvl 30
Respec into singer: barb helm +3 warcries with 3xPerfectSapphire, Vipermagi, 2xSpirit, magefist, rare rings amulet with resistances and mana, rare boots with resistances…
Killed Baal (p1) at lvl 33
Nightmare here we go

Spoiler: Nightmare

will try p5 for a while
Killed Andy (p5) at lvl 43
lvl 43, new gear: five war cry skillers
Changed merc to Defiance
Killed Duriel (p5) at lvl 52
Once we got to flayer jungle in act 3, increased to p8
At lvl 55 equipped dual HoTo, war cry is now at lvl 39 with BC and 29 points in synergies.
We did trav, durance and meph at p1 just to speed up
Killed Meph (p1) at lvl 59
Start act 4, will do players 3 until diablo
NM hellforge: Shael…
Killed Diablo (p1) at lvl 62
Will do Eldrich until lvl 65 so we can use Enigma
lvl 65: enigma, 10% fcr ring, SoJ, Tgods belt, made Cure, one more skiller. AMerc got upped Duriels shell, vampgaze and eth Thresher insight
lvl 69: last war cry skiller
Killed Ancients (p1) at lvl 69 had to drink one super mana pot and one full rejuv
Back to players 8, feels like playing a tankier but less damage output nova sorc…
Baal waves were a bit too hard to do p8 so lowered to p1 from wave 3 and onward
Killed Baal (p1) at lvl 70, had to go back to town and buy more super mana pots… drank like 12
Will do some TZ etc to level up a bit before hell.
lvl 70: Anni
Level 75 is where we can equip the final gear piece; torch & Bonebreak & Reapers (merc)

Spoiler: Hell

Started hell at lvl 75 with final gear, except Arach.
p1 for now just to see if build works
last respec: adjusting stats with anni and torch
each level up will be 2 energy, 3 vitality
Increased to players 5 (p1 for act bosses) which will be the goal for this playthrough. Might have to lower also for stuff like travincal etc
Killed Andariel (p1) at lvl 77 one full rejuv needed
Killed Duriel (p1) at lvl 80 one full rejuv needed
Killed Travincal councils (p1) at lvl 81
Killed Meph (p1) at lvl 82, merc and barb had one drink each
Try act 4 on p3 (except diablo)
Hell HF Hel
Killed Diablo (p1) at lvl 82, not a single full rejuv used, teleported around and soaked up corpses
Did some p8 Eldritch/Shenk runs to get to lvl 83
Killed the Ancients (p1) at lvl 83, one full rejuv needed.
Rest of the game we just did p1 to finish this Pat
Killed Baal (p1) at lvl 84, 18 full rejuv needed!!! xD

 

[Miron]

Well done!, congrats on the pat!

Any future plans for him? MF role?

 

[drmalawi]

Well done!, congrats on the pat!

Any future plans for him? MF role?

I already have a MF singer barb character, so I think this guy will retire, just use his well earned socket quests. This was more of an experiment/challenge and not out of "need" so to say. Maybe I will try to improve the build, level up and see if I can do some kind of p8 TZ's with him and eventually hit 99... we'll see.. maybe one day I will craft a 2barb/warcry + 20%fcr amulet

I did a gear change, changed amulet to a 20% fcr 82mana, and gloves to frostburns. This made him have +1400 mana in total and level 37 War Cry (damage down to 1913-1989 so a 6% damage decrease, also rerolled his insight staff to get lvl 17 medidation aura meant that now he can cast war cry (almost) endlessly (mana burn etc still a "danger") and made the gameplay a bit smoother since needing to weapn swap and hunt corpses to drain is lowered.