- Jun 27, 2014
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Guardian Eegan - Untwinked Frenzy Barb
Intro
This is my first ever Guardian, so it feels like an accomplishment! In the past I've made it to A5 Nightmare in HC, but never beyond, mostly due to my reckless playstyle. I figured now was the time to fix that. For my first character, I settled on a Barbarian as I felt the bigger the life bulb, the better the chance of making it through the game.
Stats
Level: 87
Strength: 175/175
Dexterity: 100/110
Vitality: 245/245
Energy: 10/20
Life after BO: 3648
Attack Rating: 16135 main-hand, 15022 offhand
Defense: 3785
Damage (w. Might aura): 1188-2886 / 595-1039
FHR: 48% breakpoint
Resists: Fire: 75%, Cold: 16%, Lightning: 75%, Poison: 29%
Skills - (Standard Frenzy Setup)
Warcries: 20 pts in Battle Orders, 1 pt in everything else except Grim Ward.
Combat Masteries: 20 pts in Blade Mastery, 1 pt in the following: Iron Skin, Natural Resistance, Increase Stamina, Increase Speed
Combat Skills: 1 pt in pre-reqs, Leap, Leap Attack, 20 pts in Frenzy, 20 pts in Double Swing
Equipment
Helm: Tal Rasha’s Horadric Crest
Main-hand Weapon: Doombringer Champion Sword (241% ED)
Off-hand Weapon: “Lawbringer” Legend Sword
Armor: “Smoke” Great Hauberk
Gloves: Laying of Hands
Belt: Upped Death’s Guard
Boots: Rare boots with FR/LR/FRW
Ring 1: Angelic Halo
Ring 2: Angelic Halo
Amulet: Angelic Wings
Switch: x2 Echoing Throwing Spears
Charms: Resists, FHR, life.
Equipment notes:
The Tal’s helm was mostly for dual leech, which this build needs especially with the Angelic rings and amulet. The Angelic set made AR a non-issue. “Smoke” was simply for resists. CBF came from the Death’s belt.
I had originally settled on “Oath” / “Lawbringer” as my target for endgame weapons. As I noted in the guardians thread, I put a ton of time into finding bases for “Oath” but when I finally found them I realized I only had the Ancients and Ball quest left so I decided to finish with my swords. Even though that might seem silly after all the effort I put into finding “Oath,” it just seemed like most of my endgame play had actually been with Doombringer / Lawbringer (which seems like a fun play on words), so I wanted the writeup to reflect that.
In addition to its +241% Enhanced Damage, Doombringer adds 30-100 damage, increases maximum life 20%, and also an 8% CTC level 3 Weaken. Paired with “Lawbringer’s” 20% CTC decrepify and Sanctuary Aura, monsters were always debilitated with some sort of curse. Weaken and decrepify actually were operative at the same time a lot, as Weaken had a lower CTC, but the radius is so much bigger than decrep that it would fill the entire screen when it cast. Then decrep would recast, but only on monsters directly around me. This was actually perfect because Weaken would be decreased damage from ranged attackers while decrep was slowing down those directly around me. In areas like the Pits or WSK that made things a lot safer. Doombringer has a 40% bonus to AR, and Lawbringer has -50% Target Defense, so between that and Angelic set yielding a ~15k attack rating, my CTC was very good on nearly all monsters.
Mercenary: Haseen, A2 Might Merc
Helm: Tal Rasha’s Horadric Crest
Weapon: "Insight" Ethereal Colossus Voulge
Armor: Duriel’s Shell
Merc notes:
The mercenary worked well. CBF, some leech, and hard-hitting weapon.
Gameplay:
This was my first Guardian, and it was a truly instructive playthrough. I had been playing him in tandem with softcore projects last year, and untwinked HC just felt like such a grind compared to running areas with fairly optimized characters in SC. I took a break from D2R for a few months, so coming back to it, I figured it was a perfect time to focus on HC and revamp my gameplay style.
I did find it a lot easier to acclimate to untwinked HC, and it made drops that had become mundane exciting again. I realized when I had played Frenzy barbs in SC, I sort of just played like a Zealot. I’d run around attacking enemies real quick and just hold down mouse until dead. Playing in HC led me to learn what all the Warcries were really for. Howl and Taunt made herding monsters easy, and I grew to keep War Cry on right click and Frenzy on left to keep monsters stunned while attacking. Battle Cry was nice for bosses. By the time I got to late Hell, warcries, on top of CTC Decrepify and Weaken and the Sanctuary Aura made for a ton of safety on this build. Many of the things I had been scared of in playthroughs before–e.g., Stygian dolls–could now be handled defensively through warcries and a large life bulb.
In summary, playing HC made me a much better player. It also amped up the excitement of the game quite a bit. The few close calls I had left my heart pounding in a way I’d never experienced with softcore.
Finds:
Socket fillers: two Pul and two Mal runes and a -3/+3 Lightning Facet.
Uniques/Sets: Some useful drops like Thundergod’s Vigor, Titan’s Revenge x2, War Trav’s (eth), Rune Master. From Flavie report:
Going forward, I'm not sure of my plans for him. The next logical step would probably be to make a sorc so I could farm some runes and some gear until I can turn this guy into a Pit/Pindle zerker and build my HC gear so I could complete a Sept in HC. We'll see. I'm afraid of playing a sorc in HC, as I feel I could easily get one-shotted and I don't know if I could deal with such heartbreak!
Intro
This is my first ever Guardian, so it feels like an accomplishment! In the past I've made it to A5 Nightmare in HC, but never beyond, mostly due to my reckless playstyle. I figured now was the time to fix that. For my first character, I settled on a Barbarian as I felt the bigger the life bulb, the better the chance of making it through the game.
Stats
Level: 87
Strength: 175/175
Dexterity: 100/110
Vitality: 245/245
Energy: 10/20
Life after BO: 3648
Attack Rating: 16135 main-hand, 15022 offhand
Defense: 3785
Damage (w. Might aura): 1188-2886 / 595-1039
FHR: 48% breakpoint
Resists: Fire: 75%, Cold: 16%, Lightning: 75%, Poison: 29%
Skills - (Standard Frenzy Setup)
Warcries: 20 pts in Battle Orders, 1 pt in everything else except Grim Ward.
Combat Masteries: 20 pts in Blade Mastery, 1 pt in the following: Iron Skin, Natural Resistance, Increase Stamina, Increase Speed
Combat Skills: 1 pt in pre-reqs, Leap, Leap Attack, 20 pts in Frenzy, 20 pts in Double Swing
Equipment
Helm: Tal Rasha’s Horadric Crest
Main-hand Weapon: Doombringer Champion Sword (241% ED)
Off-hand Weapon: “Lawbringer” Legend Sword
Armor: “Smoke” Great Hauberk
Gloves: Laying of Hands
Belt: Upped Death’s Guard
Boots: Rare boots with FR/LR/FRW
Ring 1: Angelic Halo
Ring 2: Angelic Halo
Amulet: Angelic Wings
Switch: x2 Echoing Throwing Spears
Charms: Resists, FHR, life.
Equipment notes:
The Tal’s helm was mostly for dual leech, which this build needs especially with the Angelic rings and amulet. The Angelic set made AR a non-issue. “Smoke” was simply for resists. CBF came from the Death’s belt.
I had originally settled on “Oath” / “Lawbringer” as my target for endgame weapons. As I noted in the guardians thread, I put a ton of time into finding bases for “Oath” but when I finally found them I realized I only had the Ancients and Ball quest left so I decided to finish with my swords. Even though that might seem silly after all the effort I put into finding “Oath,” it just seemed like most of my endgame play had actually been with Doombringer / Lawbringer (which seems like a fun play on words), so I wanted the writeup to reflect that.
In addition to its +241% Enhanced Damage, Doombringer adds 30-100 damage, increases maximum life 20%, and also an 8% CTC level 3 Weaken. Paired with “Lawbringer’s” 20% CTC decrepify and Sanctuary Aura, monsters were always debilitated with some sort of curse. Weaken and decrepify actually were operative at the same time a lot, as Weaken had a lower CTC, but the radius is so much bigger than decrep that it would fill the entire screen when it cast. Then decrep would recast, but only on monsters directly around me. This was actually perfect because Weaken would be decreased damage from ranged attackers while decrep was slowing down those directly around me. In areas like the Pits or WSK that made things a lot safer. Doombringer has a 40% bonus to AR, and Lawbringer has -50% Target Defense, so between that and Angelic set yielding a ~15k attack rating, my CTC was very good on nearly all monsters.
Mercenary: Haseen, A2 Might Merc
Helm: Tal Rasha’s Horadric Crest
Weapon: "Insight" Ethereal Colossus Voulge
Armor: Duriel’s Shell
Merc notes:
The mercenary worked well. CBF, some leech, and hard-hitting weapon.
Gameplay:
This was my first Guardian, and it was a truly instructive playthrough. I had been playing him in tandem with softcore projects last year, and untwinked HC just felt like such a grind compared to running areas with fairly optimized characters in SC. I took a break from D2R for a few months, so coming back to it, I figured it was a perfect time to focus on HC and revamp my gameplay style.
I did find it a lot easier to acclimate to untwinked HC, and it made drops that had become mundane exciting again. I realized when I had played Frenzy barbs in SC, I sort of just played like a Zealot. I’d run around attacking enemies real quick and just hold down mouse until dead. Playing in HC led me to learn what all the Warcries were really for. Howl and Taunt made herding monsters easy, and I grew to keep War Cry on right click and Frenzy on left to keep monsters stunned while attacking. Battle Cry was nice for bosses. By the time I got to late Hell, warcries, on top of CTC Decrepify and Weaken and the Sanctuary Aura made for a ton of safety on this build. Many of the things I had been scared of in playthroughs before–e.g., Stygian dolls–could now be handled defensively through warcries and a large life bulb.
In Normal I just sort of slowly pushed my way through. I had noticed a lot of HC players often did full clears, and someone commented that if you had cleared an area and got into a dicey situation, you could always run back without fear of monsters, knowing the preceding areas were clear. That made a lot of sense to me, and also made the danger of Frenzy (running around extremely fast) something that could play in my favor–i.e., I could run back to a clear area if I got in trouble. I didn’t do full clears all the way through, but I certainly did in a lot of areas, especially where there was danger. Early runewords like “Steel,” “Malice,” were helpful early on.
In Nightmare, I stopped at the Countess as I usually do to farm the runes for “Smoke.” I also used runewords like “Black” and “King’s Grace” in NM, and equipped “Insight” on the merc.
I ran NM Mephisto for a bit, and he was largely the source of the following unique weapons I used in NM-Hell. This list is in order, insofar as I remember:
Hexfire
Eth Ginther’s Rift
Cloudcrack
Todesfaelle Flamme
The Vile Husk
Heart Carver
Headstriker
Djinn Slayer (Shael) (these last few might have come from NM Baal, can't remember)
I ran NM Mephisto for a bit, and he was largely the source of the following unique weapons I used in NM-Hell. This list is in order, insofar as I remember:
Hexfire
Eth Ginther’s Rift
Cloudcrack
Todesfaelle Flamme
The Vile Husk
Heart Carver
Headstriker
Djinn Slayer (Shael) (these last few might have come from NM Baal, can't remember)
In transitioning to Hell, I focused on running the Countess for the runes for “Oath” and “Lawbringer” running the Pits for the bases. When I bored of these activities, I would quest a bit, trying not to rush things too much.
“Lawbringer” was an absolute game-changer, and stayed in my offhand for the rest of the game. Gone were the days of fearing physical immunes, and for areas like the Pits, it was amazing to be able to leech off undead. Running through the Durance of Hate, having dolls knocked back by the Sanctuary aura was a nice touch.
I ended up with the runes for “Oath” twice over, but still had no viable elite, ethereal base. I ended up making “Crescent Moon” in a Legend Sword, but I’m not sure if it was much of an upgrade over Djinn Slayer. Eventually, I moved to thinking I might make it in maces (Scourge/Seraph Rod) and respect to Mace Mastery. The lower strength and dex requirements would make for more life (by my calculations, over 4k life) and be about the same as using sword bases as far as speed. But after some consideration, I realized I had already completed most of the game with swords, and decided to make the final push.
The Ancients weren’t too bad, and Baal’s waves I handled mostly by staying out of the range of his decrepify and taunting the minions to me slowly so the merc and I didn’t have to take on an entire wave at once.
Baal himself just took a long time to kill. I forgot to keep my pair of Goblin Toes in the stash, so I had no Crushing Blow to speed things along, but he went down easily enough.
“Lawbringer” was an absolute game-changer, and stayed in my offhand for the rest of the game. Gone were the days of fearing physical immunes, and for areas like the Pits, it was amazing to be able to leech off undead. Running through the Durance of Hate, having dolls knocked back by the Sanctuary aura was a nice touch.
I ended up with the runes for “Oath” twice over, but still had no viable elite, ethereal base. I ended up making “Crescent Moon” in a Legend Sword, but I’m not sure if it was much of an upgrade over Djinn Slayer. Eventually, I moved to thinking I might make it in maces (Scourge/Seraph Rod) and respect to Mace Mastery. The lower strength and dex requirements would make for more life (by my calculations, over 4k life) and be about the same as using sword bases as far as speed. But after some consideration, I realized I had already completed most of the game with swords, and decided to make the final push.
The Ancients weren’t too bad, and Baal’s waves I handled mostly by staying out of the range of his decrepify and taunting the minions to me slowly so the merc and I didn’t have to take on an entire wave at once.
Baal himself just took a long time to kill. I forgot to keep my pair of Goblin Toes in the stash, so I had no Crushing Blow to speed things along, but he went down easily enough.
Finds:
Socket fillers: two Pul and two Mal runes and a -3/+3 Lightning Facet.
Uniques/Sets: Some useful drops like Thundergod’s Vigor, Titan’s Revenge x2, War Trav’s (eth), Rune Master. From Flavie report:
- Normal Uniques (78 of 116) (67.24%)
- Exceptional Uniques (55 of 119) (46.22%)
- Elite Uniques (3 of 85) (3.53%)
- Normal Sets (48 of 62) (77.42%)
- Expansion Sets (21 of 65) (32.31%)
Going forward, I'm not sure of my plans for him. The next logical step would probably be to make a sorc so I could farm some runes and some gear until I can turn this guy into a Pit/Pindle zerker and build my HC gear so I could complete a Sept in HC. We'll see. I'm afraid of playing a sorc in HC, as I feel I could easily get one-shotted and I don't know if I could deal with such heartbreak!
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