Later stage Dagger barb opinions wanted:

E

Eblocher

New member
Later stage Dagger barb opinions wanted:

Well I just got my daggerbarb to level 68 in Act 5 NM last night.

His gear is:
4% Arreats - clean
2 fleshrippers - clean
Gore riders
Saracens chance ammy
T-gods
Blood gloves 10% IAS 3% LL 10% CB life resists blah blah
Lionheart Ornate
Ravenfrost
Rare mana leech ring with life and resists

Skills are (after + gear):
Maxed BO
Shout 18
WC about 9
Frenzy 12
Double Swing 14

Other necessary skills with out pluses
Zerk 1
BC 1
Nat Resist 1
Grim Ward 1

He has 3225 life after BO 75, 85, 75, 75 resists in NM. All future points going into Vitality. No hell quests done yet.

HF merc with 12% LL COT
Ethereal spirit forge
Kelpie snare
(I know his gear needs upgraded)

Questions:
Is Highlords the best ammy for him? If not what else?

What should I socket into the fleshrippers? Amns, Shaels?

What into the arreats? UM ED jewel?

How will I best deal with the ranged attackers? Grim ward and taunt?

How high would you go in War Cry? I want a decent stun length and range and lots of leech and life. I need that with no block.

Would a shaft and Reapers be the optimum for the merc.

Well those are my thoughts. This is a rebuild of my .09 daggerbarb. He will have tons of CB and DS, life and leech. The lackof a mastery, alows him to have alot of other skills at decent levels. And if I get 2 "black" fanged knives, I think he could be a good clone killer too.

Any thoughts are welcome.
 
I like Durress, not sure what it will cost you in reqs to use that over Lionheart, but its hard to pass on the damage and CB and D from Duress. Sorry, but Imo Lionheart is just not a great Hell Armor anymore for melee due to its Defense mostly.

Arreats socketing will be based mostly on needs.....res then rez, but ED if ya can.

Socketing the weapons will have alot to do with your level of Frenzy. Not sure where speed stops increasing, but those daggers are so fast hell you may not need more speed except for at charge up.

Most mercs dont need PDR with BO, but they do need resisits, so Shaft may not be the best way to go. there are many ways to go, from a Cheap Girz with Runes to Durress, or whatever! If you happen to find or have a Vamp it may be better to go there and get leech and some PDR and leave the Armor free for resist concerns.

Warcry....i think this is a personal issue. You are in NM, and I think the stun lenght changes in HEll IIRC so maybe step into Hell and see how the lenght is for you and make a judgement call. Sure would be nice to get that to a point and stop and place points elsewhere. I do know that a lvl 1 wiht +skill works in Hell, but it sure as hell isnt the way to get a reasonable stun lenght so you can kill alot. My Frenzier from last season had lvl 20 wiht skills and it may of been a bit much.

hot key that Battle Cry, it is a very good one point wonder. For Frenzy builds I usually go liek this with my keys

F1 WC
F2 BC
F3 DS
F4 Frenzy
F5 Leap
F6-8 BCom, Shout, Orders

Zerk on left attack

Works for me, maybe not you.....

Ammy....if you can fit the Amp Ammy in the build it would be nice, but if merc has Reapers it would be a bit pointless. Highlords is definelty a good choice also! Saracens is one of those ammys I try to avoid......i hate the heart stopping IM sound!
 
Stinger covered nearly everything I could have thought of with the exception of one item: Draculs Grasp. IMHO, a frenzier (especially one that is using weapons as fast as a fleshripper and can afford to miss the IAS on other good gloves) must use these. I would ditch the saracens for a crafted blood ammy or other skill ammy with resists as the saracens chance to cast IM will overwrite the life tap on draculs grasp (and, as Stinger said, that heart stopping IM sound stops me cold too). Also, the life after kill and life leech, along with the strength bonus make these gloves irreplaceable. This will also allow you to put ED jewels in your fleshrippers (I would think they are fast enough with frenzy to not need any additional IAS) as the life tap is all the life leech you will ever need.

Duress would be very nice with the CB and OW, or if you are wealthy and have resistance problems, chains of honor would be pretty nice too. As Stinger said, lionheart lost its endgame potential in 1.10 due to no increase in defense but the two just mentioned both have defense increases.

With ranged attackers, taunt is superb. Especially with those pesky archers and gloams. Then when you draw them in, warcry to stun then hack away. Regarding warcry, 3-4 second stun length is pretty sufficient, especially with fast weapons like fleshrippers.

For the merc, I also prefer resistances over DR, especially with him having your battle orders. An often overlooked armor for this is Duriels Shell. It has great defense, life bonus, resistances and CBF. Bang for buck, there is no better merc armor out there. You could also upgrade the kelpie, but it is such a slow weapon. The slow is nice, but I would try to find an ethereal Ariocs or ethereal Bonehew. Reapers would be good if you decided against the draculs as the curses would overwrite, but to me draculs are irreplaceable.

As for the Arreats, check your faster hit recovery breakpoints. If you need 20% over and above whats already on the helm, you could always shael it. FHR is something a lot of people overlook that I consider very important. Otherwise, if your resists aren't maxed, um it. Or you could ED it. Or if you if you feel you could ue more life, just slap a PRuby in it.

I hope this helps.
 
Or if you if you feel you could ue more life, just slap a PRuby in it.
Click to expand...

What my friend meant to say was Io Rune (10 vit = 40 life) :)


I'd take a highlords over the saracen's especially if you dont' need the res and life (that's saracen's right?)

As well, I use Duress on my Paladin, great armor, open wounds, crushing blow, cold damage, resist, I love it. I'd suggest the same for your build, again, resistances willing.
 
Thanks for the replies!

Well I currently have a wire fleece duress on my MF necro merc. I could always use that.

I will have to see what my resists are in hell and then determine if I need to UM the arreats.

I also have an upped arreats available to me, but I have to get to 196 str to use it. I guess if I'm going to max shout and go defense as well then it might be a good option. Maybe an ED-req jewel in it. (assuming that I have resists covered with charms)

I thought about draculs and I guess I need to get a pair.

Still pondering the ammy. If I use Draculs then in order not to override lifetap, Highlords may be best. the more DS the better.

I guess that I have to think that with a 40% ed jewel in the Fleshripper's it potentially becomes 80% regularly with the amount of DS I have.

Another question, can IM be overcome with enough leech and life?

People are asking me what kinda barb are you? that is between getting hostlied of course.


OH wildcard. I have a +1 Valor that I can use if I live that long too. Any more thoughts?
 
If you're putting points in str for the upped Arreat's, I dont' see the harm with going with a valor.

Another question, can IM be overcome with enough leech and life?
Click to expand...

A lvl 1 Iron Maiden Returns 200% Damage
Here's my reasoning, it may not be true, according to some pros, but here goes, I'm assuming a lvl 1 IM is casted on you:

If you deal 100-200, it returns 200%, so 200-400 returned to you (100-200 with 50% DR), with 50% DR, you would need 100% LifeLeech, or 200% with no DR.
Sadly, this is in normal mode.
Given you didn't have DR:
Norm : 200% LifeLeech needed
Nightmare: 400% LifeLeech needed (1/2 leech penalty)
Hell : 800% LifeLeech needed (1/4 leech penalty)

That sound right veterans?

*quick edit* I'd try to get IM'ed in chaos sanctuary in norm, hit a guy, and see how much damage you take compared to your damage to get the IM value (%) That's how much leech you'll need in norm. 200% sounds a little too unrealistic
 
Damage taken from IM kills you before you leech anything, at least, that's how I understand it. Wouldn't matter if you had 900% leech, it's all about order of operations.
 
Silkweed said:
Damage taken from IM kills you before you leech anything, at least, that's how I understand it. Wouldn't matter if you had 900% leech, it's all about order of operations.
Click to expand...

Yep. It is like absorb; the damage is applied, then the life gain. Think of it as a bank account; if you have 10 dollars, and withdraw 15, regardless of how much you have coming in tomorrow, you will still be overdrawn...

:scratch:
 
SilverDin said:
What my friend meant to say was Io Rune (10 vit = 40 life) :)
Click to expand...

Ehrm, no.... sure you get 40 life, but that 40 life bonus from IO does not multiply by battle orders (or oak sage...).

Try this simple exercise. Take a barb with maxed BO. Make him naked or something. Find an item with + vitality (tgods, or verdungos, or maybe just a weapon with IO stuck in it). Check your life before and after you put on that item! You will find that even WITH battle orders, you only get +4 life per vitality bonus from the item! Now try it with a perfect ruby in the helm. You will get the proper bonus from battle orders multiplying by the life bonus from the helm.
 
Stinger, you actually use the F keys as hotkeys? I bound all of mine to the left hand so that I wouldn't have to play musical fingers when I wanted to chug a juvie or something.

I had a Frenzy/WC barb last season, and my setup was like this:

Ring Finger from top to bottom, these correspond to the left button
Q - Doubleswing
A - Frenzy
Z - Zerk

Middle Finger, these correspond to the right button
W - Leap Attack
S - Warcry
X - Taunt

Index Finger, these make up an "L" pattern for casting warcries
E - Battle Command
D - Battle Orders
F - Shout

So if your hand is in a "typing" position, your skills will be Frenzy and WC, which are your two main skills. I find this works on all of my characters as well. I assign a column for a particular purpose. I try to be consistent too, so for instance, I use W as a "mobility" skill (Leap Attack, Teleport, Dragon Flight).
I still have the F keys as bindable, but I only use them for extremely rarely used things. Such as "unsummon" on my necromancer.
 
I have played around with keys in the past and the F# keys work best for me. My large had lays very relaxed being able to use the Fs for skills 1 is always a juv and 4 is always a blue for mana. 5 is my ctrl (stand still attack) mainly used for Hammerdins.
 
Yeah i also you the F keys. I have since i've been playing. It's usually something like this.

F1: Shiver Armor/Cyclone Armor/Bone Armor etc.
F2: Energy Sheild/Oak/Valk/Golem etc.
F3: Static/Decoy
F4: Always reserved for teleport, even if i dont have it.
F5: TP
F6: My main attack skill


If i would change it to different hotkeys i would get confused, but it still works fine for me.
 
Bah! hotkeys who needs em.

As it turns out attack speed isn't a problem. I am running around and attacking like mongoose on crack!

But I would love to switch out a rare mana leech ring for a great rare LL ring with resists and 16 str on it. that would easily allow me to get the upped arreats and would further boost my defense. the question is that I don't think I can afford to give up the CBF on the Raven. And if so where do I get my mana leech from?
 
Dual leech rare rings can get some nice strength and other stats on them, to include AR and resistances. You might try to trade for one of those.
 
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