High Council Horker :: Help!

Hey Guys,

I'm thinking of finally remaking this Barb. I'm just not content with the speed of the Kills as a WW barb, nor the terrible Item Find level even with echo sticks. I'd like to have a Merc/Cry barb that just holds down the fort, with loads of GF% and let's the merc do the real damage.

So while I gather up what is needed to do this, reading suggestions, one thing came to my mind:

How do we keep ourselves alive against the elemental damage? Resistances are poor here with all the Gold% stuff stacked on. How does everyone do this? Or does having 4000 life make the difference?

Cheers!
 
MalVeauX said:
Hey Guys,

I'm thinking of finally remaking this Barb. I'm just not content with the speed of the Kills as a WW barb, nor the terrible Item Find level even with echo sticks. I'd like to have a Merc/Cry barb that just holds down the fort, with loads of GF% and let's the merc do the real damage.

So while I gather up what is needed to do this, reading suggestions, one thing came to my mind:

How do we keep ourselves alive against the elemental damage? Resistances are poor here with all the Gold% stuff stacked on. How does everyone do this? Or does having 4000 life make the difference?

Cheers!
Click to expand...

put more points into NR
use an anni sc
drop goldwrap for a caster belt with resist/greed
drop the uniq boots for rares with resist/greed
use resist/greed charms
use 2 Wspikes as main and ali's on switch (only use for FI and for last hit)
drop wealth for goldskin (upgraded if you have the str)
drop CoT for a rare circlet (+skills, fcr, greed, resist)
try and make a +barb/caster amulet with resist

the thing with a caster gf barb is you can go with base str/dex and all vit. then use a might merc with insight. using the 2 Wspike will give you the mana/resist you need. warcry/greed charms would be best for this build if you can find them.

-Tempus-
 
-Tempus- said:
put more points into NR
use an anni sc
drop goldwrap for a caster belt with resist/greed
drop the uniq boots for rares with resist/greed
use resist/greed charms
use 2 Wspikes as main and ali's on switch (only use for FI and for last hit)
drop wealth for goldskin (upgraded if you have the str)
drop CoT for a rare circlet (+skills, fcr, greed, resist)
try and make a +barb/caster amulet with resist

the thing with a caster gf barb is you can go with base str/dex and all vit. then use a might merc with insight. using the 2 Wspike will give you the mana/resist you need. warcry/greed charms would be best for this build if you can find them.

-Tempus-
Click to expand...

Thanks man; this is more what I was looking to see. Something affordable without all the enigma and ebotd stuff.

So here's the skinny:

Skills,

20 Find Item
20 Battle Orders
20 Shout
20 Warcry (lock down while the merc beats away?)
?? Nat Resists (5 minimum, but basically every thing else)

Gear,

My gear can be setup as above, with minor varations.
I would probably opt for twin-alis, or perhaps some cheap 6 socket crystsal swords full of little greed jewels (lower str, zero dex req; not interseted in MF). Inventory is full of 35~40% ghreed charms, and small 10% charms too. Enough space to grab runes if they drop (but only like 3 spaces). A chromatic circlet of greed would be great, but may take a long while to gamble that. Perhaps a 3 socket barb helm with +find item + gold find jewels?

Mainly it's the Merc I worry about, since he has to kill:

~900 damage Insight (Eth Col. Voulge)
~Upped Gold Skins perhaps? (Would eth Goldskin be hard to obtain?)
~Crown of Theives (upped if possible)

Also, would it be wise to run with a Teleport amulet for control?

Cheers!
 
MalVeauX said:
That's definitely not the highest. It's pretty average for the % total. However, it's a start. Now that I have my weapon in mind, I can focus the build around that, and everything else quickly becomes a simple option to swap out.

Cheers!
Click to expand...

lem'ed ali-babas (2), wealth, chancies, goldwrap (or a rare with gf on it), dwarfstars (use both not just for the gf but also the fire absorb), arreats (you still need resist, ar bonus, and skills), and rare ammy with gf (and hopefully resists/skills). you can use rare boots with gf but i would recomend something to cover whatever you are deficient in be it resists or whatever. a good friend of mine uses a setup like this and has made 600k from the council on 1 run (he did sell rares =)
 
MalVeauX said:
I manage about 200k to 300k per run
Click to expand...


You might want to consider remaking this barb or atleast regearing him. That is not much gold at all. I average about 250-300k per run, in D2 classic. Also, I would suggest lvling more, 86 in xpac doesn't give you a whole lot to work with. My trav runner in classic is lvl 90 and does quite well.

I know this doesn't apply directly to LOD but heres my setup anyway to give you an idea of what to look for:

Skills
20 BO
20 Mastery - mace
20 WW
Natural Resists - enough for ~60 resists with +skills
FI enough for 51% with +skills
1 in all prereqs, battle commands, inc speed, bezerk

Items
Helm: Tarnhelm
Armor: Goldskin (huge source of resists in classic and 100 gf)
Gloves: Chance gaurds
Belt: Goldwrap
Boots: Rare with fr, cr, lr, gf, +9 dex
Amulet: Rare with +1 Barb, fr, life, gf
Ring: Rare with +117 ar, +9 dex, 3 mana leech, 6 life leech, 28 cr, 5 pr
Ring: Rare with +117 ar, +1 dex, +2X fr, +2X lr, +4 max dmg
Weapon: Rare Martel de fer (Martels are king in classic)

When horking I switch to dual gulls. You LOD people don't realize how lucky you are to have a weapon switch, I have to manually switch between my weapon and two gulls.

I dont remember the exact amount of gf, but it is somewhere over 500. My resists are all maxed (except pr ~50). Fire is stacked so it is still ~70 with conviction on. My life is about 3300.

I know that everything has more def in LOD, but in classic maxing shout wouldn't make much of a difference, maybe in LOD it does - I don't know, but other people have said to max shout, so I would guess that it does to some degree. You could always get all the other skills to the levels you want and then dump the left overs into shout. This would still allow you to get a decent lvl shout. My barb at 90 and only +3 skills still has 2 unused points, so assuming you have more +skills and can get to atleast the same lvl, you can get several points into shout.

I'm not sure how much this helps you, or even if it does at all, but it is my 2 cc's.
 
Thanks for the comments,

However, a few points: lvl 86 in LOD is easily achieved and grants plenty to work with. 4 more levels isn't going to make things suddenly work. Items and skill points make things work--all of which are what the question is.

Also - If you follow the thread, I had already started asking about re-making, since my initial drops of 200/300 were low. Hence reviving the thread to ask on how to remake it.

--- Regardless, thanks for the ideas.

I'm still looking for how to equip the Merc so that he has has the "Cannot Be Frozen" mod, high defense and a solid smashing weapon. The barb gear is actually fine for the time being, as I can equip him for the new build that was mentioned above, using the Cries and letting the Merc do the killing.

Cheers!
 
MalVeauX:
i dont think max shout is a good idea, you'll be using warcry on monsters (stuff cant attack if they cant move) also your items dont give you a good base def so max shout isnt going to help much there. use the 20 points for battlecry, that will give warcry more dmg and you can cast it after you cast warcry. what i do is use taunt to pull monnsters to my merc then use warcry to stun them and then battlecry for less dmg. i then recast warcry as needed.

going with a higher lev barb does a few things.
merc can lev higher (so he is stronger)
you get more skill/stat points to use
you can hold more gold in stash/body
if you use this char to gamble the odds to get mods will be better as you lev him up
if you use the char to craft (and gamble for the magic items) those items will be higher then what can drop in the game

my main LOD gf barb is 99 so i use him for all that stuff
my main D2Classic gf barb has aways been 86 but i dont use him to gamble (and he is old)

WhiteLightning
ya if only they would add a weapon switch to classic... keeping 2 "The Patriarch" uniq greatswords on a char without a switch is a pain. that and if you keep a full MF set and a full GF setup + 10 or so rings/amulets on the the guy makes it hard to to keep other junk. that and the half size stash..

the bad thing with melee class goldfind chars is they need to get leech from the weapon or jewelry. to get high greed, LL, ML, AR, resist isnt easy. thats why its often better to use a lower dmg weapon with the right mods then to just go with a power weapon. the nice thing is a old bonesnap can still be a nice weapon, its not as nice a 300 dmg martel but it works.

oh and use a goldskin if you have one, 2 of them if you got them. when you find a Lem use it to make a wealth for your barb. when you find a 2nd one make an eth elite wealth for your merc. if happen to find an eth goldskin and have the runes upgrade it and let the merc use it untill you can make him a wealth. you'll want to put the wealth on the barb. since your gf adds to the merc's gf on his kills the 300% will be used there and also when you use the FI on the dead.

you dont want cant be frozen on the merc, its cold dmg and will shatter some of the bodies (= less gold)

-Tempus-
 
-Tempus- said:
you dont want cant be frozen on the merc, its cold dmg and will shatter some of the bodies (= less gold)
Click to expand...
Having the cannot be frozen mod does not add any cold damage. Duriel's shell or a Cham rune.
 
Is a Duriel's Shell worth upgrading for the Merc? It has all the mods... great piece of armor really, including the CBF and res's and the strength is always good (to use col. voulge). That leaves my helm open for pure leech (Crown of Thieves) on him. Sound decent or not worth the upgrade price? Also, if possible, what would be the defense basically as a Haubrek? Over 1k?

If my merc is taken care of, I can take care of the barb's equip since he's much easier to equip than the merc and survives longer.

I'm thinking about a raw vitality build, using equip and charms to gear up. Though I may take a tiny bit of strength to reduce charm use to guard as much as possible for the Greed stuff.

Good call on the Shout; I actually didn't think of it for me, I was thinking of it for the Merc, but it's true, if the council is stunned, then defense won't be needed.

20 FI
20 BO
20 WarCry

That's for sure... leaving battle cry and nat resists for the rest.

As for character level, I know higher is always better, but in my case, I just don't have to real drive to go past 86, because at that point it's just so slow. So I tend to work as 86 as the end point.

Cheers all!
 
Update on old WW Barb that was made from this thread:

-- I made a game to farm the Council and got a "Diablo Walks the Earth" message after the screen shook for a bit. I never saw this before, but I heard about it. Anyhow, I held the game and loaded another character on my girlfriend's PC on her copy of the game. I entered the game with my Necromancer and took off my gold find gear and replaced it with Crushing Blow gear (Willham's face, Goblin Toe, Crafted Blood Gloves and a Duress). That coupled with my poison and ITD Needle spear (fastest WW).

I showed my girlfriend how to simply stand there and cast Clay Golem and Decrepify over and over on the Uber Diablo (who spawned at the Stoney Field, where Rashuneshu usually is). He was locked up and slowed to a crawl. I then simply WW'ed him and saw the Crushing blow (over 80%) triggering over and over. After about a minute, he died and I had a new unique charm.

Anyhow - I was surprised how easy it was and wondered.... was it supposed to be this easy? Or was I just lucky or something?

Anyhow - remaking Gold Find barb and he now has help from his Annihilus Charm! :)

Cheers!
 
Final Update:

I remade the Barb, he's currently lvl85 and finished with all quests, etc.

He's not the fastest, best, or anything. But I was on a budget and quickly slapped together everything I needed.

Gear:

Helm - IK Helm (with 2 rare jewels, each had goldfind/magicfind/resists)
Armor - Wealth Mage Plate
Boots - Inferno Strides
Gloves - Chance Guards
Amulet - Rare; +Barb Skill; Resist all; +17 str; +mana; +life
Rings - Dual Dwarf Stars
Weapons - Dual Alibabas (one has dual freedom jewels, with big 30% resists - it lowers the req and it adds a big dex bonus; the other ali has more gold find jewels in it).

Merc Helm - Crown of Theives
Merc Armor - Duriel's Shell
Merc Wep - Eth Col. Voulge Inisight (886 damage)

Charms - Lots of 38~40% Ghreed Charms, small 10% ghreed underneath each.

Skills,

20 BO
20 Warcry
20 BattleCry
20 Find Item
10 Nat Resists

Total Gold Find: 1645 (me) + 87 (merc) = 1732% gold find.
Total Magic Find: 334%

Notes:

I finally finished it yesterday and did runs for a while. Not only is the magic find good, but the gold was great. Much better than the WW barb I built previously from this thread. This new barb, with the help of a few of you to switch to the Merc as the killing switch, works much better. I was seeing 30k to 70k piles of gold on average, and the higher find item makes a massive difference from before. Even if it's not a big % change, I saw the difference in my coffers. I filled my 2.15 million gold + personal carrying space on character in 3 runs most of the time (4th run if drops were terrible). I find horking the gold and then selling the good selling items (wands, scepters, staves, etc) that are small to be the best and fastest way. I also quickly kill Eldritch as well for a chance for a double drop and more items to sell.

So far, my lowest was 430k for the runs I was doing.
My highest, so far, was 1.2 million in one run (that was nuts though).

Anyhow - cheers all and thanks! I'm much more enjoying gambling :)
 
MalVeauX said:
Final Update:

I remade the Barb, he's currently lvl85 and finished with all quests, etc.

He's not the fastest, best, or anything. But I was on a budget and quickly slapped together everything I needed.

Gear:

Helm - IK Helm (with 2 rare jewels, each had goldfind/magicfind/resists)
Armor - Wealth Mage Plate
Boots - Inferno Strides
Gloves - Chance Guards
Amulet - Rare; +Barb Skill; Resist all; +17 str; +mana; +life
Rings - Dual Dwarf Stars
Weapons - Dual Alibabas (one has dual freedom jewels, with big 30% resists - it lowers the req and it adds a big dex bonus; the other ali has more gold find jewels in it).

Merc Helm - Crown of Theives
Merc Armor - Duriel's Shell
Merc Wep - Eth Col. Voulge Inisight (886 damage)

Charms - Lots of 38~40% Ghreed Charms, small 10% ghreed underneath each.

Skills,

20 BO
20 Warcry
20 BattleCry
20 Find Item
10 Nat Resists

Total Gold Find: 1645 (me) + 87 (merc) = 1732% gold find.
Total Magic Find: 334%

Notes:

I finally finished it yesterday and did runs for a while. Not only is the magic find good, but the gold was great. Much better than the WW barb I built previously from this thread. This new barb, with the help of a few of you to switch to the Merc as the killing switch, works much better. I was seeing 30k to 70k piles of gold on average, and the higher find item makes a massive difference from before. Even if it's not a big % change, I saw the difference in my coffers. I filled my 2.15 million gold + personal carrying space on character in 3 runs most of the time (4th run if drops were terrible). I find horking the gold and then selling the good selling items (wands, scepters, staves, etc) that are small to be the best and fastest way. I also quickly kill Eldritch as well for a chance for a double drop and more items to sell.

So far, my lowest was 430k for the runs I was doing.
My highest, so far, was 1.2 million in one run (that was nuts though).

Anyhow - cheers all and thanks! I'm much more enjoying gambling :)
Click to expand...


How is your killing speed? I don't see any FCR items used. I assume that your main attack is war cry,right? I used to have one singer barb in 1.10. It was fun to war cry very very fast but it required some FCR gears. Or you just use it to stun baddies and let your merc kill? Is it good enough for Hell ?

Chien
 
MalVeauX said:
Final Update:
My highest, so far, was 1.2 million in one run (that was nuts though).
Click to expand...

its alway good when you have to run back to town to stash your gold before you even sell anything :thumbsup:

keep your eyes open for these items
100%gf CoT for merc (lem it if you get one with +95%) 12%LL

try doing some runs with the wealth on the merc. if you do a good job with warcry/battlecry he shouldnt die. with a 2nd wealth you'll add 300% more gf to your build.

3 socket circlet of greed +3 lems (upto 230%gf)
1-2 socket rare/magic circlet +2 barb, fcr, greed (upto 180%gf)
3 socket barb helm with +3 skills (bo, warcry, FI)
magic barb helm with the right +skills

dont spend all the gold in one place...

-Tempus-
 
@Chien,

I do not do the killing. That's why I changed to this setup, as par the advice of the others who were posting in my aid. The idea is to use the Barb to carry all the GoldFind gear, while using him as the "control" and allowing my Merc to be the "damage" source. My merc does well over 5,000 damage per hit, and he easily chops through the Council very quickly. 2 or 3 hits, and he drops the normal minions (he hits everytime with my battle cry on them; and they do not attack back when they're all stunned by my warcry). Warcry isn't there for damage, it doesn't damage anything in hell--it's there for the nearly 6 seconds of stun time (less damage to us both; easy to fight them). Killing speed is quite nice; the merc does it all. I simply use Taunt to pull the minions to me, then warcry them to stun them in a circle. Then I battlecry to make them easy to hit. The merc wastes them quickly. Then I hunt down the other council members who cannot be stunned. The only time I have trouble is when a Physical Immune member appears. Those are terrible as we cannot hurt him; but we can ignore him too (I drag him away, then wayponit->portal to leave him parked away from the others; problem solved).

@Tempus,

Yea man. I'm still keeping eyes out for better and better gears to eventually have it maxed out and all. But for now, it's working great and I can gamble every 3 or 4 runs pretty much, so I'm happy with it as a start. It's much more efficient and yeilds more gold than my earlier incarnation using the barb as the killer with WW and that spear. Good thing I payed gems for the stuff haha.

Thanks again!
 
MalVeauX said:
@Chien,

I do not do the killing. That's why I changed to this setup, as par the advice of the others who were posting in my aid. The idea is to use the Barb to carry all the GoldFind gear, while using him as the "control" and allowing my Merc to be the "damage" source. My merc does well over 5,000 damage per hit, and he easily chops through the Council very quickly. 2 or 3 hits, and he drops the normal minions (he hits everytime with my battle cry on them; and they do not attack back when they're all stunned by my warcry). Warcry isn't there for damage, it doesn't damage anything in hell--it's there for the nearly 6 seconds of stun time (less damage to us both; easy to fight them). Killing speed is quite nice; the merc does it all. I simply use Taunt to pull the minions to me, then warcry them to stun them in a circle. Then I battlecry to make them easy to hit. The merc wastes them quickly. Then I hunt down the other council members who cannot be stunned. The only time I have trouble is when a Physical Immune member appears. Those are terrible as we cannot hurt him; but we can ignore him too (I drag him away, then wayponit->portal to leave him parked away from the others; problem solved).


Thanks again!
Click to expand...

Oh.. I used to make one WC barb with lots of FCR and enimga (with the help with insight RW in merc). Actually, he can kill in Hell (not phy-resist ones, of course :) People just "WOW" when they see WC barb can kill that fast :) For sure, if you stack all GF gears, there is no room for +skill/FCR anyway. However, it looks like a good idea,though. More money = more gambling :)

BTW, you could replace wealth of enigma if you want. You get better control (you tele right near the baddies, you merc will just right next to them) and a bit more MF. You lost the 300% of GF from "Wealth",though.

Enjoy!

Chien
 
MalVeauX said:
@Chien,

@Tempus,

Yea man. I'm still keeping eyes out for better and better gears to eventually have it maxed out and all. But for now, it's working great and I can gamble every 3 or 4 runs pretty much, so I'm happy with it as a start. It's much more efficient and yeilds more gold than my earlier incarnation using the barb as the killer with WW and that spear. Good thing I payed gems for the stuff haha.

Thanks again!
Click to expand...

i think the problems you had with a ww goldfind barb are more because of your items and not the build. you said you were using a spear before? what kind of speed did it have, did it even hit -30 or -60 speed?

if you want to kill phy imms with your barb you can try and make a passion pole, but you may not have the str to use an elite one.

the way i play my main goldfind ww barb is just like you play your singer. with 1 point base in warcry i can stun monsters while my merc kills them but since i also have max mastery, ww and points in zerk i can kill phy imms when i need to. even with low lev warcry and without fcr items i can recast warcry in time to keep the monsters stun locked. the same thing works well for conc.

you can also try and find a item that will cast amp to use vs the phy imms.

-Tempus-
 
I saw you wanted to know my equip/skills earlier. So i'll post em now anyways.

Helm: Arreats Lemmed. I know cot is better but i just like the res all and +skills too much

Amulet: 22 all res ,76 gf magic amu
Armor: Wealth
weapons: 2xali baba lemmed, on switch 2x wc spears for prebuff bo
gloves: Chanceguards
Belt: Str, res, goldfind rare belt
Boots: 30frw, res, goldfind rare boots.
Rings: 2x dwarfstar.

Charms: Barb torch, gheeds, goldfindcharms. 8 spaces free to pick up and id items.

Merc, might aura:
Botd eth warpike
Wealth
Kira's guardian lemmed or ias jewe
(cbf and some stacked res on merc if council got convict, A nice bigdamage weapon for the less fortunate might be an ethereal insight but you'll need a lifeleech helm then, cot or tal mask, and duriels armor for cbf)

It's ashame obedience runeword got colddamage on it. But if you don't mind shattering some bodies and you notice your merc does too low damage then this weapon might be a good thing for your merc.
The same goes for a eth reapers toll. The decrep would also remove the physical immunity wich sometimes can be annoying but it also does annoying cold damage.

To increase the mercs killing speed and his weapon has lifeleech you could also provide him with guillaumes helm. You can also off course throw a fortitude on him.



Skills:
Maxed battle cry: -50%damage and -100% defence.
Maxed warcry for enough stun duration (not for damage)
Maxed find item
Maxed bo
Rest in masteries and shout

0 points in mana, low points in str, all in vita.
Your manapool will be empty very very quick. But it's not a problem. The council has manaburn very often anyways. Just take 8manapots with you in your belt.

I bo myself and merc with bospears at the waypoint. With no lifecharms, all goldfindcharms i get around 4.5k life. I run up to the council, if there are champions, uniques before i get to them i let my merc kill em. Also if i see those annoying blizzard/lightning casting monsters i make sure my merc kills them first. At the council i use 1x warcry then walk down to all of them till they all got battlecry on them. If i see my merc is getting bashed i keep casting warcry often and make sure i are being attacked also as diversion, i also use leap then to keep them of swarming my merc when he is getting bashed.
If my merc trails off just run a little bit to the way where you want your merc to reappear next to you.

If he does fine i already pick up some gold and items and id themm and do find item already a bit.
I use around 4 manapots and 4 healing pots per run.

If 1 of the councilmembers is physical immune and my merc is attacking him i use leap as long till the merc attacks another councilmember, or i lure him away and let my merc fight him while i run back to the rest of the council and my merc will reappear with the phsysical immune gone. Or i just leave the game =). Another option is to use a wand with amplify damage or decrep charges on your switch, it will remove the physical immunity. There really aren't so many physical immunes (i would say 1 in every 10 games).

My goldpiles that drop can get over 100k. I make 400k to 1.2 million per run with an average of 750k.

Don't forget to get yourself a gheeds and to equip an edge runeword bow when you are ready to gamble. That should get you some good discount on all items.
 
@ Tempus,

Yea, earlier in the thread, I made a WW barb with a -60 break point spear (the Ar..something Needle). The damage wasn't very impressive, but he killed the Council and horked them all the same. The gold was just too minimal as I was doing a lot of runs to actually get the gold up and wasn't enjoying how it worked out. It's just that balance between having the Leech, Resis and GoldFind was such a hassle. Now, with this singer, things run smooth, there's no close calls, and the gold is filled in just 2 to 3 runs, tops.

@ Gimmershred,

Thanks for the listing, though a little late, as it's already finished now :)
My runs take 2 or 3 tops to fill my gold, and the killing speed is great. I average much higher gold now. I only see 70k+ piles of gold on the higher end, but the speed makes up for it. After selling items, I'm just full. And my Edge is on my weapon switch because I generally gamble right away on Circlets hehe.

Cheers guys!
 
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