Matriarch/Patriarch/Guardian Archive Thread

Originally posted by sirpoopsalot on Sep 3, 2008:

Patriarch Schaefer - (Relatively) Max Damage Frenzier

History:
Ever since I made a Fortitude I've been wanting to revisit some barbarian builds and see if the damage increase was very noticeable. Of course, that meant starting with a big-damage weapon(s) and going from there... but I couldn't decide on the weapon to use.

Then, the other day Baal dropped a Schaefer's Hammer (my 3rd or 4th, but I'd traded away all but 1 of them) and it answered the weapon question... Dual Schaefer's Frenzier it is...


Patriarch Schaefer
Level 86
Str: 216
Dex: 78
Vit: 285
Ene: 10

Life: 2753
Mana: 251
Resists: 75f / 64c / 80l* / 46p
*I have so much overstack on my lightning resists that convicted Gloams don't matter.


Misc Stats: (the combined offensive output looks pretty impressive on paper, no?)
21% Critical Strike
62+% Deadly Strike
(normalized that's probably scoring double-damage ~70-75% of the time)
50% Crushing Blow
35% Open Wounds
20% chance to cast level10 Static Field on striking
Slows Target by 10%
5% chance to cast level10 LifeTap on striking

20% Life / 4% Mana leech (without Life Tap)
24% Damage to Mana (very helpful around mana-burners)
48+ Faster Hit Recovery (5 frames)
5.6k Defense

Frenzy AR: 12+k
Berzerk AR: 15+k
LCS Frenzy Damage: 1516 - 4740 / 1580 - 4996 (20% of my damage is 'magical')
LCS Berzerk Damage: 1607 - 5016
Frenzy Attack Speed: 5-frames (fully charged)
Berzerk Attack Speed: ~9-frames (with Frenzy & Fanaticism active)


Skills:
20 Frenzy
20 Berzerk
20 Mace Mastery
15+ Taunt
10+ Double Swing
3 Natural Resists
1 BattleCry (a mistake... I guessed that my AR would be ~50% of what it is)
1 prereq's

+10 Battle Orders & BC (granted by CtA on weapon-switch)
+2 skills (Highlord's Wrath and Battle Command)


Equipment:
W1: Schaefer's Hammer (126%, perfect Dun Jewel of Fervor)
W2: Schaefer's Hammer (137%, with 30/13 Realgar Jewel of Carnage)
Helm: Guillaume's (with fire-res Ruby 26% Jewel of Fervor)
Armor: Fortitude (1.5 / 29)
Ammy: Highlord's Wrath
Gloves: Dracul's Grasp (+12 Str, 10% Leech, 7 LpK)
Belt: Nosferatu's Coil
Boots: Goreriders
Ring1: Ravenfrost (19/239)
Ring2: rare (5L / 4M dual-leech, 29% Fire res, 25% Poison Res, +20 Mana)
Switch: beta-CtA Caduceus + HotO

Charms:
4x Sharp GC of <+99 Life>
1x Shimmering GC of Life (15/18)
1x Steel GC of Inertia (128 / 7)
1x Shimmering LC of Vita (7/34)
4x Sapphire SC of <Life>/Balance (43 res, 44 life, 5 FHR)
1x Fine SC of Balance (2/18/5)
2x Steel SC of Balance (36 & 33)
2x Steel SC of Dexterity (36/1, 33/2)
1x Steel SC of Storms (35 / 1-26)

Merc:
Rozene: Fire Rogue
'Faith' Crusader Bow
eth Andy's Visage (fire res Ruby (29%) Jewel of Fervor)
eth 'Treachery' Archon Plate


Notable Finds:
Io/Mal Hellforge
2x Ko (Countess/levelup runs from 77-79)
Ist Rune (a solitary Horadrim Ancient in Kurast Sewers 1, on /players8) :alright:
Moser's Blessed Circle
Skin of the Vipermagi
Titan's Revenge
Demon Limb

Superior Matriarchal Bow (+3 skills, +3 AR, 5 sockets)
War Scepter (4os, +2 FoH)
... I have no idea if either of those are worth anything, so I held onto them

rare Scarabshell Boots: (37f / 28l resists, 14 MF, 10 FRW)
rare ring: (19 str, 120 AR, 8 fire res, 3% Mleech)
... so close to "great" on both of those

Ruby Jewel (38% ED)
Serpent's SC of Life (17/9)
Small Charm of Good Luck (7%)
Russet SC of Sustenance (6/12)


Notes:
1. I leveled to 77 on /players 8 NM Baal runs, then did 2 levels worth of /players1 Countess runs to get to level79 for equipping the Schaefer's.


2. 10-15 deaths, countless NDE's waiting on Lifetap (more on that in a second).
- 3 in Nightmare to FE explosions,
- 1 in NM to IM,
- 1 during a Countess run (Extra-Strong + Might aura archer pack... while cursed... I relearned how much those gals hurt)
- 5-10 to Iron Maiden in Hell


3. /players8 until around Izual in Hell, with a few drops to /players1-3 in areas with lots of unleechables, and /players1 for the rest of the game after reaching level85.


4. OMG, a Barbarian without 20 points in BO!!! With CtA and +4 life per point in Vit, I figured it wasn't necessary. It wasn't.


5. I was hoping that the 20 hard points in Berzerk (acting as a synergy), coupled with the Lightning damage on each Schaefer's would mean that I never had to switch away from Frenzy against PI's. In some cases, especially on lower /players settings, this worked great (PI/LI is the only exception). But on higher settings it was a lot faster to simply use Berzerk... fortunately, I re-learned that a fully charged Frenzy will increase your Berzerk attack speed while it's active, so his attacks still felt very fast even when forced to use Berzerk.


6. The Rogue merc with Faith wasn't a great fit in this case... With Frenzy's run-speed it was easy to out-run the range of her aura, but the short duration made it hard to get 'too far' ahead of her to have the teleport catch up. On top of that a lot of times my Frenzy-timer would runout just before I got to a new pack... so no Fanat + no Frenzy = very slow first attacks.

Oh well, I would've outrun Act2 mercs too, so it wasn't a big deal... just an observation.


7. I feel like my Dracul's Grasp has a defective lifetap... 5% ctc my arse...

For example, after Ancients in Hell I was ~20M shy of level86, so after getting the WSK2 waypoint I took a timeout for some /players8 Pindle runs. Of the ~7 runs required, 3 of them didn't trigger lifetap when clearing the pack, including twice when Pindle was PI (he takes a lot of hits when you Frenzy (point #5), and since you don't name-lock it's hard to tell he's PI sometimes until after ~10 seconds you're thinking "why isn't he dead yet?"

Likewise, I drank ~10 purple potions against the skeleton packs in Act2 Sewers... I had ~2500 life but they're unleechable... you're telling me I lost that much life - that often - against those wimps that I needed ~10 purple potions waiting for LifeTap to trigger? I call BS.

These were not the only incidents - almost all of Hell was like this. I probably drank close to ~50 purple potions and ~100 red ones all told while waiting for lifetap to trigger.


8. Next up, I plan to revisit Liq's old thread about melee Baal runners. With taunt & overstacked resists he's impervious to Gloams, and with Taunt, semi-patient play (admittedly, not my strong point) and Berzerk he can handle IM quite well too. Throw on scaling damage for Static Field, lots of leech, damage & crushing blow, and he should roll along quite well.

I think I remember someone aleady doing their runs with basically this build, but I'll re-read the thread and search for it, and if not I'll add Schaefer's findings to the mix.
 
Originally posted by Skinhead On The MBTA on Mar 4, 2008:

Patriarch SaltyDog, the Frenzybarb

After being told by Neksja in his recent Pat thread to pat my Frenzybarb, I did 😁 He was great fun to play, and, thanks to War Cry, was one of the two safest characters I've ever played, along with the Fishymancer I played before my restart.

Well, without any further ado, here's the stats that you all want to see!

Name: SaltyDog (named for the Flogging Molly song off their first album)
Class: Barbarian
Experience: 885953581
Level: 83

Naked/Gear
Strength: 155/198
Dexterity: 100/155
Vitality: 245/245
Energy: 10/10

HP: 2875 with BO
Mana: 392 with BO
Stamina: 1193 with BO
Defense: 1248
AR: 4038/6730

Resists: All 75 with Fade

MF: 36
GF: 50
FR/W: 23
FHR: 50

Bash: 1/6
Leap: 1/6
Double Swing: 20/25
Stun: 1/6
Double Throw: 1/6
Leap Attack: 1/6
Concentrate: 1/6
Frenzy: 20/25
Whirlwind: 0/0
Berserk: 1/6

Sword Mastery : 1/4
Axe Mastery : 0/0
Mace Mastery : 0/0
Pole Arm Mastery : 0/0
Throwing Mastery : 0/0
Spear Mastery : 0/0
Increased Stamina : 1/4
Iron Skin : 1/4
Increased Speed : 1/4
Natural Resistance : 1/4

Howl : 1/4
Find Potion : 1/4
Taunt : 1/4
Shout : 1/4
Find Item : 1/4
Battle Cry : 1/4
Battle Orders : 20/23
Grim Ward : 0/0
War Cry : 15/18
Battle Command : 1/4

Gear:
Code:
Arreat's Face
Slayer Guard
Defense: 344
Durability: 55 of 55
Required Level: 42
Required Strength: 118
Fingerprint: 0xdd5b706e
Item Level: 87
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Properties:
+20 to Strength
+20 to Dexterity
185% Enhanced Defense
6% Life stolen per hit
+2 to Barbarian Skill Levels
30% Faster Hit Recovery
20% Bonus to Attack Rating
+2 to Combat Skills (Barbarian Only)
All Resistances +30

Treachery
Mesh Armor
Defense: 200
Durability: 45 of 45
Required Level: 43
Required Strength: 92
Fingerprint: 0xd13ffcae
Item Level: 47
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Properties:
+2 to Assasin Skill Levels
45% Increased Attack Speed
25% Chance to cast level 15 Venom on striking
5% Chance to cast level 15 Fade when struck
20% Faster Hit Recovery
Cold Resist +30%
50% Extra Gold from Monsters
3 Sockets (3 used)
Socketed: Shael Rune
Socketed: Thul Rune
Socketed: Lem Rune

Storm Eye
Ring
Required Level: 26
Fingerprint: 0xc42f1b36
Item Level: 48
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Properties:
+4 to Strength
+15 to Life
+109 to Attack Rating
Fire Resist +6%
Cold Resist +10%
+5 to Light Radius
5% Bonus to Attack Rating

Raven Frost
Ring
Required Level: 45
Fingerprint: 0xd6bcfc5d
Item Level: 59
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Properties:
+20 to Dexterity
+40 to Mana
+159 to Attack Rating
+15 - 45 cold damage with 4 sec Duration
20% Cold Absorb
Cannot Be Frozen

M'avina's Tenet
Sharkskin Belt
Defense: 84
Durability: 14 of 14
Required Level: 45
Required Strength: 20
Fingerprint: 0x67cbddfb
Item Level: 59
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Properties:
+50 Defense
5% Mana stolen per hit
+5 to Light Radius
20% Faster Run/Walk
Set (4 items):
Fire Resist +25%
Lightning Resist +25%
Cold Resist +25%
Poison Resist +25%

Laying of Hands
Bramble Mitts
Defense: 81
Durability: 12 of 12
Required Level: 63
Required Strength: 50
Fingerprint: 0xa969329e
Item Level: 87
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Properties:
+25 Defense
Fire Resist +50%
20% Increased Attack Speed
350% Damage to Demons
10% Chance to cast level 3 Holy Bolt on striking

Goblin Toe
Light Plated Boots
Defense: 33
Durability: 18 of 18
Required Level: 22
Required Strength: 50
Fingerprint: 0xb283a8f2
Item Level: 59
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Properties:
57% Enhanced Defense
+15 Defense
Damage Reduced by 1
Magic Damage Reduced by 1
-1 to Light Radius
25% Chance of Crushing Blow

Highlord's Wrath
Amulet
Required Level: 65
Fingerprint: 0x6615216a
Item Level: 75
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Properties:
Lightning Resist +35%
+1 - 30 Lightning Damage
20% Increased Attack Speed
+1 to All Skills
+15 Attacker Takes Lightning Damage of
3% Deadly Strike

Sandstorm Trek
Scarabshell Boots
Defense: 170
Durability: 14 of 14
Required Level: 64
Required Strength: 91
Fingerprint: 0x6007b004
Item Level: 87
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Properties:
+12 to Strength
+12 to Vitality
159% Enhanced Defense
Poison Resist +66%
20% Faster Run/Walk
20% Faster Hit Recovery
50% Slower Stamina Drain
83 Maximum Stamina (Based on Char Lvl)
Repairs 1 Durability in 20 Seconds

Cranebeak
War Spike
One Hand Damage: 110 - 176
Durability: 25 of 26
Required Level: 63
Required Strength: 133
Required Dexterity: 54
Fingerprint: 0x4d93934d
Item Level: 82
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Properties:
268% Enhanced Damage
+1 - 305 Lightning Damage
36% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
40% Increased Attack Speed
25% Target Defense
Level 8 Raven (15/15 Charges)

Baranar's Star
Devil Star
One Hand Damage: 129 - 159
Durability: 169 of 72
Required Level: 65
Required Strength: 153
Required Dexterity: 44
Fingerprint: 0xa4dba8d2
Item Level: 87
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Properties:
+15 to Strength
+15 to Dexterity
200% Enhanced Damage
+1 - 200 Fire Damage
+1 - 200 Lightning Damage
+1 - 200 cold damage with 7 sec Duration
+100 Maximum Durability
200% Bonus to Attack Rating
150% Damage to Undead
65% Increased Attack Speed
1 Sockets (1 used)
Socketed: Jewel of Fervor

Jewel of Fervor
Jewel
Required Level: 31
Fingerprint: 0x96d1e4af
Item Level: 87
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Properties:
15% Increased Attack Speed

Pre-Buff:
Code:
Echoing Amulet
Amulet
Required Level: 45
Fingerprint: 0x889acb7e
Item Level: 63
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Properties:
+3 to Warcry Skills (Barbarian Only)

Echoing Throwing Spear
Throwing Spear
Throw Damage: 12 - 30
One Hand Damage: 5 - 15
Quantity: 80
Required Level: 45
Required Dexterity: 65
Fingerprint: 0xec0416a9
Item Level: 74
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Properties:
+3 to Warcry Skills (Barbarian Only)

Echoing Throwing Spear
Throwing Spear
Throw Damage: 12 - 30
One Hand Damage: 5 - 15
Quantity: 80
Required Level: 45
Required Dexterity: 65
Fingerprint: 0xa085feb2
Item Level: 86
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Properties:
+3 to Warcry Skills (Barbarian Only)

Charms

Code:
Shimmering Small Charm
Small Charm
Required Level: 25
Fingerprint: 0x8744a7c6
Item Level: 49
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Properties:
Fire Resist +3%
Lightning Resist +3%
Cold Resist +3%
Poison Resist +3%

Snake's Large Charm of Sustenance
Large Charm
Required Level: 19
Fingerprint: 0x1b349354
Item Level: 46
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Properties:
+19 to Life
+15 to Mana

Iron Large Charm
Large Charm
Required Level: 26
Fingerprint: 0x50b9970e
Item Level: 57
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Properties:
+47 to Attack Rating

Steel Grand Charm of Flame
Grand Charm
Required Level: 41
Fingerprint: 0x506b9d35
Item Level: 84
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Properties:
+119 to Attack Rating
+1 - 2 Fire Damage

Serpent's Large Charm of Life
Large Charm
Required Level: 33
Fingerprint: 0x53606f74
Item Level: 61
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Properties:
+6 to Life
+25 to Mana

Large Charm of Sustenance
Large Charm
Required Level: 34
Fingerprint: 0x53b9e13
Item Level: 49
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Properties:
+23 to Life

Lapis Small Charm of Inertia
Small Charm
Required Level: 27
Fingerprint: 0x1e0d3422
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Properties:
Cold Resist +7%
3% Faster Run/Walk

Sharp Grand Charm of Vita
Grand Charm
Required Level: 69
Fingerprint: 0xd89e538f
Item Level: 83
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Properties:
+39 to Life
+68 to Attack Rating
+7 to Maximum Damage

Garnet Small Charm
Small Charm
Required Level: 20
Fingerprint: 0x77a8f7a8
Item Level: 65
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Properties:
Fire Resist +9%

Jade Small Charm
Small Charm
Required Level: 20
Fingerprint: 0x383e2685
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Properties:
Poison Resist +9%

Iron Grand Charm of Strength
Grand Charm
Required Level: 23
Fingerprint: 0xf97f9ecd
Item Level: 36
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Properties:
+4 to Strength
+84 to Attack Rating

Mercenary:
Code:
Name: Jemali
Race: Desert Mercenary
Type: Off-Nightmare
Experience: 67195364
Level: 82
Dead?: false

Darksight Helm
Basinet
Defense: 241
Durability: 17 of 30
Required Level: 38
Required Strength: 82
Fingerprint: 0x69d02940
Item Level: 87
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Properties:
Fire Resist +23%
5% Mana stolen per hit
-4 to Light Radius
Cannot Be Frozen
6% Chance to cast level 3 Dim Vision when struck
Level 5 Cloak of Shadows (9/30 Charges)
166 Defense (Based on Char Lvl)

Duriel's Shell
Cuirass
Defense: 687
Durability: 44 of 150
Required Level: 41
Required Strength: 65
Fingerprint: 0x805db43d
Item Level: 87
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Properties:
+15 to Strength
188% Enhanced Defense
Cold Resist +30%
+100 Maximum Durability
Cannot Be Frozen
103 Defense (Based on Char Lvl)
83 to Life (Based on Char Lvl)
All Resistances +20

The Reaper's Toll
Thresher
Two Hand Damage: 39 - 466
Durability: 57 of 65
Required Level: 75
Required Strength: 114
Required Dexterity: 88
Fingerprint: 0xeb6f613
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Properties:
231% Enhanced Damage
+4 - 44 cold damage with 2 sec Duration
14% Life stolen per hit
Requirements -25%
Ignore Target's Defense
33% Deadly Strike
33% Chance to cast level 1 Decrepify on striking

Naked/Gear
Strength: 181/196
Dexterity: 145/145
HP: 1647/2303
Defense: 1181/4241
AR: 1184/1184

Fire: 189/149/89
Lightning: 166/126/66
Cold: 196/156/96
Poison: 166/126/66

Previously used the Act 1 Rogue that I got given in Act 1 Normal, who used this:

Witchwild String
Short Siege Bow
Two Hand Damage: 34 - 80
Durability: 37 of 40
Required Level: 39
Required Strength: 65
Required Dexterity: 80
Fingerprint: 0x16b3393
Item Level: 87
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Properties:
168% Enhanced Damage
Fires Magic Arrows
2% Chance to cast level 5 Amplify Damage on striking
8% Deadly Strike
All Resistances +40
2 Sockets (0 used)

Notable finds - Ko from Hell Forge, Ko from Eldritch's minions, Naj's Puzzler and Circlet, Demonhorn's Edge, the Cranebeak that he's using.

Like I said before, he was good fun to play, and even PIs were easily dispatched even without using Beserk. He did die a few times, once to IM and once to the Hell Ancients, and a couple of times when I wasn't quick enough with the Full Juvie.

This is actually the first Pat thread I've posted since my restart in the summer last year, even though I've got both my Blizzard Sorc (LadyLuck) and my Hammerdin (BarroomHero) past Baal - they only didn't get threads because they were completely cookie cutter.

PS. Sorry for the lack of screenies, for some reason they are saved as pict files on my computer, which can't be hosted by imageshack.
 
Originally posted by SnickerSnack on Nov 11, 2009:

Patriarch Abel

Intro:


wikipedia said:
Abel was born in Nedstrand, Norway (near Finnøy) to Søren Georg Abel and Anne Marie Simonsen, "the daughter of a shipping merchant."[2] Abel's father had a degree in theology and philosophy and his grandfather was an active Protestant minister at Gjerstad near Risør. After the latter's death, Abel's father was appointed as minister at Gjerstad. In 1815, Abel entered the Cathedral School in Christiania (now known as Oslo). A new mathematics teacher, Bernt Michael Holmboe, was appointed in 1817. Seeing Abel's talent in mathematics he encouraged him to study the subject to an advanced level. When Abel's father died in 1820, the family was left in strained circumstances, and Holmboe supported Abel with a scholarship to remain at school and raised money from his friends to enable Abel to study at the Royal Frederick University. Abel entered the university in 1821 and graduated in 1822.

The build:

frenzy

skills: base/combat/buff (add one for BC)

Double Swing: 8/14
Frenzy: 20/26

Sword Mastery: 12/16
Natural Resistance: 3/7
(plus one point wonders)

Howl: 1/5/8
Taunt: 20/24/27
Shout: 1/5/8
Battle Orders: 20/24/27
Battle Command: 1/5/8

stats:

LCS

Name: Abel
Class: Barbarian
Experience: 1204810197
Level: 86

Naked/Gear
Strength: 122/147
Dexterity: 80/126
Vitality: 308/313
Energy: 10/25
HP: 1417/1601 (3478 with BO)
Mana: 95/137 (310 with BO)
fhr: 4 frames
ias bp: ?, good, but not the highest one

Fire: 75
Cold: 75
Lightning: 73
Poison: 75

frenzy Damage: oath/458-6532, death/1991-6196
ar: oath/8799, death/9424

gear:

Main weps: Oath 1.07 eth cryptic sword, Death 1.07 eth colossus blade
switch: demon limb (hel), echoing axe
armor: Duress Archon Plate
Helm: Arreat's (shael)
Belt: String of Ears
Gloves: Laying of Hands
Boots: Gores
Rings: raven, carrion
ammy: mara's

Raven Frost
Ring
Required Level: 45
Fingerprint: 0x7f9e3b30
Item Level: 59
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+225 to Attack Rating
Adds 15 - 45 Cold Damage Over 4 Secs (100 Frames)
+19 to Dexterity
+40 to Mana
Cold Absorb 20%
Cannot Be Frozen

String of Ears
Demonhide Sash
Defense: 109
Durability: 22 of 22
Required Level: 29
Required Strength: 20
Fingerprint: 0x4f4d48e3
Item Level: 49
Version: Expansion 1.10+
7% Life stolen per hit
+169% Enhanced Defense
+15 Defense
Damage Reduced by 15%
Magic Damage Reduced by 13
+10 Maximum Durability

Gore Rider
War Boots
Defense: 157
Durability: 34 of 34
Required Level: 47
Required Strength: 94
Fingerprint: 0xb583606
Item Level: 87
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+30% Faster Run/Walk
15% Chance of Crushing Blow
15% Deadly Strike
10% Chance of Open Wounds
+192% Enhanced Defense
+20 Maximum Stamina
Requirements -25%
+10 Maximum Durability

Laying of Hands
Bramble Mitts
Defense: 86
Durability: 12 of 12
Required Level: 63
Required Strength: 50
Fingerprint: 0xaf61ca9b
Item Level: 87
Version: Expansion 1.10+
10% Chance to cast level 3 Holy Bolt on striking
+20% Increased Attack Speed
+350% Damage to Demons
+25 Defense
Fire Resist +50%

Duress
Archon Plate
ShaelUmThul
Defense: 1397
Durability: 60 of 60
Required Level: 63
Required Strength: 103
Fingerprint: 0xd640ea69
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+40% Faster Hit Recovery
13% Enhanced Damage
Adds 37 - 133 Cold Damage Over 2 Secs (50 Frames)
15% Chance of Crushing Blow
33% Chance of Open Wounds
+175% Enhanced Defense
-20% Slower Stamina Drain
Cold Resist +30%
All Resistances +15
3 Sockets (3 used)
Socketed: Shael Rune
Socketed: Um Rune
Socketed: Thul Rune

Carrion Wind
Ring
Required Level: 60
Fingerprint: 0xb606b53a
Item Level: 87
Version: Expansion 1.10+
10% Chance to cast level 10 Poison Nova when struck
8% Chance to cast level 13 Twister on striking
7% Life stolen per hit
+158 Defense vs. Missile
Poison Resist +55%
10% Damage Taken Goes To Mana
Level 21 Poison Creeper (15/15 Charges)

Arreat's Face
Slayer Guard
Defense: 327
Durability: 55 of 55
Required Level: 42
Required Strength: 118
Fingerprint: 0xccefca17
Item Level: 87
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+2 to Combat Skills (Barbarian Only)
+2 to Barbarian Skill Levels
+50% Faster Hit Recovery
20% Bonus to Attack Rating
6% Life stolen per hit
+171% Enhanced Defense
+20 to Strength
+20 to Dexterity
All Resistances +30
1 Sockets (1 used)
Socketed: Shael Rune

Mara's Kaleidoscope
Amulet
Required Level: 67
Fingerprint: 0xcb1578c0
Item Level: 87
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+2 to All Skills
All Stats +5
All Resistances +27

Demon Limb
Tyrant Club
One Hand Damage: 94 - 171
Durability: 65 of 65
Required Level: 63
Required Strength: 107
Fingerprint: 0x67e5886d
Item Level: 80
Version: Expansion 1.10+
195% Enhanced Damage
+123% Damage to Demons
+150% Damage to Undead
Adds 222 - 333 Fire Damage
7% Life stolen per hit
Fire Resist +16%
Repairs 1 Durability in 20 Seconds
Level 23 Enchant (20/20 Charges)
Requirements -20%
1 Sockets (1 used)
Socketed: Hel Rune

Echoing War Axe of Vileness
War Axe
One Hand Damage: 10 - 18
Durability: 26 of 26
Required Level: 45
Required Strength: 67
Fingerprint: 0x436705fe
Item Level: 94
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+3 to Warcry Skills (Barbarian Only)
Prevent Monster Heal

Oath
Cryptic Sword
ShaelPulMalLum
One Hand Damage: 33 - 550
Durability: 23 of 23
Required Level: 61
Required Strength: 89
Required Dexterity: 99
Fingerprint: 0x1709b73
Item Level: 87
Version: Expansion
30% Chance to cast level 20 Bone Spirit on striking
Indestructible
+50% Increased Attack Speed
379% Enhanced Damage
+75% Damage to Demons
+100 to Attack Rating against Demons
Prevent Monster Heal
+10 to Energy
+11 Magic Absorb
Level 17 Iron Golem (14/14 Charges)
Level 16 Heart of Wolverine (20/20 Charges)
Ethereal
4 Sockets (4 used)
Socketed: Shael Rune
Socketed: Pul Rune
Socketed: Mal Rune
Socketed: Lum Rune

Death
Colossus Blade
HelElVexOrtGul
One Hand Damage: 195 - 513
Two Hand Damage: 460 - 909
Durability: 26 of 26
Required Level: 63
Required Strength: 144
Required Dexterity: 80
Fingerprint: 0x77a72a83
Item Level: 87
Version: Expansion
100% Chance to cast level 44 Chain Lightning when you Die
25% Chance to cast level 18 Glacial Spike on attack
Indestructible
429% Enhanced Damage
20% Bonus to Attack Rating
+50 to Attack Rating
Adds 1 - 50 Lightning Damage
7% Mana stolen per hit
50% Chance of Crushing Blow
43% Deadly Strike (Based on Character Level)
+1 to Light Radius
Level 22 Blood Golem (15/15 Charges)
Requirements -20%
Ethereal
5 Sockets (5 used)
Socketed: Hel Rune
Socketed: El Rune
Socketed: Vex Rune
Socketed: Ort Rune
Socketed: Gul Rune

charms: (some good ones)
Grand Charm of Maiming
Grand Charm
Required Level: 37
Fingerprint: 0x19508bb5
Item Level: 51
Version: Expansion
+18 to Maximum Damage

Steel Large Charm of Vita
Large Charm
Required Level: 50
Fingerprint: 0xdc9a3cdc
Item Level: 80
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+60 to Attack Rating
+29 to Life

Steel Large Charm of Sustenance
Large Charm
Required Level: 44
Fingerprint: 0x933c1c4b
Item Level: 80
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+72 to Attack Rating
+22 to Life

Grand Charm of Maiming
Grand Charm
Required Level: 37
Fingerprint: 0x1f8606cc
Item Level: 57
Version: Expansion
+20 to Maximum Damage

Sharp Grand Charm of Vita
Grand Charm
Required Level: 69
Fingerprint: 0x9e924d21
Item Level: 83
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+10 to Maximum Damage
+64 to Attack Rating
+40 to Life

Steel Grand Charm of Vita
Grand Charm
Required Level: 69
Fingerprint: 0x2f866d28
Item Level: 83
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+98 to Attack Rating
+36 to Life

Amber Small Charm of Vita
Small Charm
Required Level: 39
Fingerprint: 0xb3fd9b88
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+20 to Life
Lightning Resist +11%

Amber Small Charm of Dexterity
Small Charm
Required Level: 32
Fingerprint: 0x26140aec
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+2 to Dexterity
Lightning Resist +11%

Smoking Small Charm of Vita
Small Charm
Required Level: 56
Fingerprint: 0x96bb8de
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Adds 7 - 12 Fire Damage
+17 to Life

Lizard's Small Charm of Vita
Small Charm
Required Level: 39
Fingerprint: 0xd411f3aa
Item Level: 80
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+20 to Life
+2 to Mana

Amber Small Charm
Small Charm
Required Level: 32
Fingerprint: 0x249049b6
Item Level: 71
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Lightning Resist +11%

merc:
Name: Hazade
Race: Desert Mercenary
Type: Off-Nightmare
Experience: 77238840
Level: 86

Naked/Gear
Strength: 188/240
Dexterity: 151/151
HP: 1807/1893
Defense: 1330/2499
AR: 1922/1922

Fire: 163/123/63
Cold: 200/160/100
Lightning: 170/130/70
Poison: 240/200/140

Andariel's Visage
Demonhead
Defense: 482
Durability: 11 of 11
Required Level: 83
Required Strength: 92
Fingerprint: 0x4d074a19
Item Level: 87
Version: Expansion 1.10+
15% Chance to cast level 15 Poison Nova when struck
+2 to All Skills
+35% Increased Attack Speed
9% Life stolen per hit
+108% Enhanced Defense
+27 to Strength
+10% to Maximum Poison Resist
Fire Resist -7%
Poison Resist +70%
Level 3 Venom (6/20 Charges)
Ethereal
1 Sockets (1 used)
Socketed: Ruby Jewel of Fervor

Duriel's Shell
Cuirass
Defense: 687
Durability: 140 of 150
Required Level: 41
Required Strength: 65
Fingerprint: 0x790349b1
Item Level: 59
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+186% Enhanced Defense
+107 Defense (Based on Character Level)
+25 to Strength
+86 to Life (Based on Character Level)
Cold Resist +30%
All Resistances +20
Cannot Be Frozen
+100 Maximum Durability
1 Sockets (1 used)
Socketed: Perfect Amethyst

The Reaper's Toll
Thresher
Two Hand Damage: 40 - 472
Durability: 38 of 65
Required Level: 75
Required Strength: 114
Required Dexterity: 89
Fingerprint: 0x1dda7adc
Item Level: 87
Version: Expansion 1.10+
33% Chance to cast level 1 Decrepify on striking
235% Enhanced Damage
Ignore Target's Defense
Adds 4 - 44 Cold Damage Over 2 Secs (41 Frames)
14% Life stolen per hit
33% Deadly Strike
Requirements -25%

Leveling: Don't remember the early game. 79 to 85 was done in the pits, mostly on /p5.

Deaths:

wikipedia said:
While in Paris, Abel had contracted tuberculosis. For Christmas 1828, he traveled by sled to again visit his fiancée in Froland. He became seriously ill on the journey, although a temporary improvement allowed the couple to enjoy the holiday together. Crelle, at the same time, had been searching for a new job for Abel in Berlin, and did manage to have him appointed professor at a university. Crelle wrote to Abel on April 8, 1829 to tell him the good news, but Abel had died two days before.

A couple due to over confidence. One was a pretty nice death while leaping out of a triple unique pack with cursed and fanat. Died on landing. :p No IM deaths - proper use of leap/howl/berserk. 👍

The Throneroom had dolls and OKs, and I had not a single death there. 👍

Finds:

amber small charm of vita in the pits (readout in spoiler)
snake's small charm of balance (pits)
amber small charm of dex (pits)
hellforge: fal
baal: cranebeak
lots of socketed elites, some eth

maybe a few others, don't remember

Comments:

Deciding where to put the last ~20 skill points was a bit tough. High damage weapons carry you a long way in terms of damage output (obviously), and ar charms with enchant are good enough. I knew from the start that I wanted to max taunt, but after that....mastery? Don't need ar, and 6% more damage when you have ~1000% is meaningless. In fact, I may have overspent in mastery and double swing. For a while, I considered putting more points in Battle Cry, but it overwrites/is-overwritten-by curses, so that was out. Maybe more in shout would have been nice.

Anyway, I think he came out pretty well balanced. He played norm/nm at /p8 of course, and Hell varied among /p1-8. The early game was played with Rogue with Harmony, so yes, Abel commuted circles around anything he liked. It was nice to use something besides an Act 2 Desert Warrior for a while, but I eventually went back.

For a while, he wore Atma's Scarab and the merc swung Obedience. It worked well, but 2% isn't a lot, so it didn't trigger often, and PI ghosts were a pain. He had been wearing a Lionheart Wire Fleece with Atma's and some res charms, so I switched those out, made him Duress in an Archon Plate, and he wore that with Mara's and more ar charms. (This allowed me to hel out the Ort that was in the Arreat's and put in a shael to get the 4 frame FHR bp.) I put Reaper's on the merc. This worked very well until I hit the tunnel areas in act 5 with the PI frenzytaurs. Decrep leaves them at a high physical resist, so I started keeping atma's and obedience in the stash for when it was needed. Another irritation was mana burners. He had enough points in Double Swing for it to be free, but with only one hard point in bash, the damage was weak compared to frenzy, about half as much on average. The problem with mana burners is that once you're surrounded, you can't escape. You can't howl or leap for a few seconds after being burned, so I had to be careful sometimes, or be quick with a potion.

This build is quite a lot of fun, though that might have something to do with the weapons. I'm not sure I'd play one untwinked.

Future for this character:
Maybe some baal runs. The minions are a snap even at /p8 for this character. This is one character that is made well enough that I might look into mping with him.

Maybe pits.

Maybe I'll swap my HotO in for that echoing axe. :)

Thanks:

udgard for the 1.07 base items
ipsilantee for runez
Eleyb for the mara's
ash housewares for his frenzy barb guide
someone made a good guide about running a barb through CS using leap/howl/berserk. don't remember who.

Neils Abel: all of it

Fun fact: today I may have stumbled on an original proof of a theorem in abstract algebra. I was working a problem in an assignment, and I tried to prove it one way that ended up needing a certain thing. There's another way to prove the original thing, so maybe I can invert it and have a unique proof of the "certain" thing. 👍 I know, that's nonsense to most, but I'm pretty stoked.
 
Last edited:
Originally posted by SunsetVista on May 6, 2015:

Patriarch Silumgar - Magic Find Axe Frenzybarb - from the Barbarian Brothers Tournament

Patriarch Silumgar
Magic Find Axe Frenzybarb
Untwinked, Single Pass, Softcore 1.13 RWM GoMule

from the Barbarian Brothers Tournament - https://www.purediablo.com/forums/threads/2015-barbarian-brothers-tournament-by-azimuthus.227/

Silumgar is named after an extremely avaricious dragon from Magic: the Gathering, to fit the treasure hunting theme of the tournament. Only barbarians and Act V mercs were allowed. At level 12, all non-quest skillpoints had to go to Find Item until it was maxed. Only /players 1 was allowed, all quest rewards had to be used in their act, and there was no returning to previous areas for shopping. Score was based entirely on sets, uniques, and runes found.

I chose to play a Frenzybarb with Axes because I had never done that before and was interested in trying to optimize single pass, untwinked, axe progression. I'd never used an Act V merc before either. It's been a long time since I did single pass, /players 1 Normal and Nightmare. So it seemed like an interesting challenge.

Stats in Hell on Frenzy Switch with Battle Command and Battle Orders up
1585124145394.png

Base Skills (plus 1 from Tarnhelm and 1 from Battle Command):
20 Find Item
20 Frenzy
17 Axe Mastery
13 Battle Orders
5 War Cry
5 Natural Resist
One-point Wonders: 1 Howl, Taunt, Battle Cry, Battle Command, Bash, Double Swing, Concentrate, Leap Attack, Berserk
Prereqs: 1 Find Potion, Shout, Iron Skin, Leap, Stun, Double Throw

Skill Progression: I got some utility and prereqs as soon as possible, along with 4 points in Axe Mastery. Then Find Item was maxed, as required. The point from Radament went to Leap Attack. The Izual points went to Double Throw and Battle Orders. After Find Item was maxed at lvl 31, I put points in Battle Command, Frenzy, a few more points in Battle Orders for duration, and prereqs for Berserk and Natural Resist. Then I worked on maxing Frenzy. I put more points in Natural Resist than I normally would, so that I could keep wearing mf gear. I had Battle Cry for NM Duriel and put 5 points in War Cry early in Hell, when I was too low level compared to the areas for Howl to work anymore. The last several points were split between Battle Orders and Axe Mastery, with the mastery coming out ahead since I felt I had plenty of life but needed to hit things harder and more often.

I prioritized Magic Find above everything else for almost the entire game. At level 84 in WSK I was still wearing mostly magic find gear and so was the merc. 296 on Frenzy kill, 451 on merc kill on Frenzy switch, 416 when opening chests and using Find Item, 571 on merc kill on mf switch.

Silumgar's Gear:
Head: Tarnhelm socketed with ptopaz
Amulet: rare amulet with 20 all res and mana leech
Body: 4ptopaz gothic plate
Belt: rare plated belt with fhr, cold and lightning res
Ring 1: iron ring of fortune
Ring 2: rare ring with AR, life leech, all res, and mf
Gloves: rare gloves with 20 ias and mf
Boots: garnet greaves of luck
Frenzy switch:
Weapon 1: 'Crescent Moon' Ettin Axe
Weapon 2: Grandmaster's Berserker Axe with Amn and damage jewel
MF/hork switch:
Weapon: Blade of Ali Baba with 2 mf jewels
Shield: 'Rhyme' bone shield

Sigemund's Gear (Act V Merc from Normal):
Crainte Vomir with Amn
Circlet of Luck with ptopaz
4ptopaz gothic plate

Extra Tricks/Honorable Mentions:
wand of lifetap (early bosses before I had to use Battle Cry instead), staff of teleport (just in case and to maintain single pass status), various resist rings, Small Charm of Winter (to slow Baal just a little more), 'Edge' for gambling, amulet of luck, Chance Guards, Manald Heal, Gore Rider (for bosses), Leviathan and Wormskull (for Sigemund for Ancients), Andariel's Visage (for Sigemund for Hell Cows), and all the weapons used along the way (details below).

Gear Readouts and Charms
Code:
Silumgar's gear readouts
-----
Tarnhelm
Skull Cap
Defense: 11
Durability: 18 of 18
Required Level: 18
Required Strength: 15
Fingerprint: 0xc89444d0
Item Level: 40
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+1 to All Skills
75% Extra Gold from Monsters
70% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
1 Sockets (1 used)
Socketed: Perfect Topaz
-----
Raven Heart
Amulet
Required Level: 40
Fingerprint: 0x9f066a70
Item Level: 67
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+1 to Paladin Skill Levels
5% Mana stolen per hit
+7 to Energy
All Resistances +20
Magic Damage Reduced by 2
-----
Gemmed Gothic Plate
Gothic Plate
Defense: 132
Durability: 55 of 55
Required Level: 18
Required Strength: 70
Fingerprint: 0x4beb2c82
Item Level: 48
Version: Expansion 1.10+
96% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
4 Sockets (4 used)
Socketed: Perfect Topaz
Socketed: Perfect Topaz
Socketed: Perfect Topaz
Socketed: Perfect Topaz
-----
Brimstone Buckle
Plated Belt
Defense: 14
Durability: 24 of 24
Required Level: 9
Required Strength: 60
Fingerprint: 0x6e412984
Item Level: 30
Version: Expansion 1.10+
5% Chance to cast level 3 Frost Nova when struck
+17% Faster Hit Recovery
+19% Enhanced Defense
Cold Resist +20%
Lightning Resist +19%
-----
Iron Ring of Fortune
Ring
Required Level: 31
Fingerprint: 0xac0e6cae
Item Level: 73
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+34 to Attack Rating
23% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
-----
Ghoul Loop
Ring
Required Level: 48
Fingerprint: 0x7988bdc
Item Level: 60
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+95 to Attack Rating
4% Life stolen per hit
+6 to Energy
+3 to Mana
All Resistances +8
8% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
-----
Spirit Hold
Light Gauntlets
Defense: 16
Durability: 18 of 18
Required Level: 35
Required Strength: 45
Fingerprint: 0x2c0c851d
Item Level: 61
Version: Expansion 1.10+
12% Chance to cast level 4 Nova when struck
+20% Increased Attack Speed
+13 to Attack Rating
+39% Enhanced Defense
+12 to Mana
25% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
-----
Garnet Greaves of Luck
Greaves
Defense: 15
Durability: 24 of 24
Required Level: 19
Required Strength: 70
Fingerprint: 0xbecda189
Item Level: 68
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Fire Resist +21%
35% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
-----
Silumgar's Crescent Moon
Ettin Axe
ShaelUmTir
One Hand Damage: 102 - 205
Durability: 17 of 24
Required Level: 52
Required Strength: 145
Required Dexterity: 45
Fingerprint: 0x29128c35
Item Level: 80
Version: Expansion 1.10+
10% Chance to cast level 17 Chain Lightning on striking
7% Chance to cast level 13 Static Field on striking
+20% Increased Attack Speed
212% Enhanced Damage
Ignore Target's Defense
-35% to Enemy Lightning Resistance
25% Chance of Open Wounds
+10 Magic Absorb
+2 to Mana after each Kill
Level 18 Summon Spirit Wolf (30/30 Charges)
3 Sockets (3 used)
Socketed: Shael Rune
Socketed: Um Rune
Socketed: Tir Rune
-----
Grandmaster's Berserker Axe
Berserker Axe
One Hand Damage: 76 - 225
Durability: 16 of 26
Required Level: 64
Required Strength: 138
Required Dexterity: 59
Fingerprint: 0x539226f5
Item Level: 30
Version: Expansion 1.10+
218% Enhanced Damage
+299 to Attack Rating
Adds 2 - 7 Fire Damage
7% Life stolen per hit
2 Sockets (2 used)
Socketed: Amn Rune
Socketed: Realgar Jewel of Passion

Realgar Jewel of Passion
Jewel
Required Level: 37
Fingerprint: 0x816b028f
Item Level: 52
Version: Expansion 1.10+
27% Enhanced Damage
Adds 2 - 7 Fire Damage
-----
Silumgar's Blade of Ali Baba
Tulwar
One Hand Damage: 29 - 65
Durability: 32 of 32
Required Level: 35
Required Strength: 70
Required Dexterity: 42
Fingerprint: 0x7f024c9f
Item Level: 49
Version: Expansion 1.10+
86% Enhanced Damage
+6 to Dexterity
+15 to Mana
210% Extra Gold from Monsters (Based on Character Level)
11% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
84% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items (Based on Character Level)
2 Sockets (2 used)
Socketed: Jewel of Prosperity
Socketed: Emerald Jewel

Jewel of Prosperity
Jewel
Required Level: 19
Fingerprint: 0x24b2015c
Item Level: 68
Version: Expansion 1.10+
7% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items

Emerald Jewel
Jewel
Required Level: 12
Fingerprint: 0x67e69d95
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
4% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
-----
Rhyme
Bone Shield
ShaelEth
Defense: 21
Chance to Block: 40
Durability: 40 of 40
Required Level: 29
Required Strength: 25
Fingerprint: 0x9d809521
Item Level: 20
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+40% Faster Block Rate
20% Increased Chance of Blocking
Regenerate Mana 15%
All Resistances +25
Cannot Be Frozen
50% Extra Gold from Monsters
25% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
2 Sockets (2 used)
Socketed: Shael Rune
Socketed: Eth Rune
-----

Sigemund's gear readouts:
-----
Crainte Vomir
Espandon
One Hand Damage: 23 - 76
Two Hand Damage: 52 - 117
Durability: 44 of 44
Required Level: 42
Required Strength: 73
Required Dexterity: 61
Fingerprint: 0x6c9c6a36
Item Level: 75
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+20% Faster Run/Walk
+50% Increased Attack Speed
194% Enhanced Damage
7% Life stolen per hit
Slows Target by 35%
-70 to Monster Defense Per Hit
Damage Reduced by 10%
1 Sockets (1 used)
Socketed: Amn Rune
-----
Circlet of Luck
Circlet
Defense: 20
Durability: 34 of 35
Required Level: 19
Fingerprint: 0x7e0ef080
Item Level: 24
Version: Expansion 1.10+
59% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
1 Sockets (1 used)
Socketed: Perfect Topaz
-----
Gemmed Superior Gothic Plate
Superior Gothic Plate
Defense: 135
Durability: 61 of 62
Required Level: 18
Required Strength: 70
Fingerprint: 0x14e48b8
Item Level: 36
Version: Expansion 1.10+
96% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
Increase Maximum Durability 13%
4 Sockets (4 used)
Socketed: Perfect Topaz
Socketed: Perfect Topaz
Socketed: Perfect Topaz
Socketed: Perfect Topaz
-----

Charms:
-----
Gheed's Fortune
Grand Charm
Required Level: 62
Fingerprint: 0x2f5e67b4
Item Level: 86
Version: Expansion 1.10+
129% Extra Gold from Monsters
Reduces all Vendor Prices 12%
39% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
-----
Beryl Grand Charm of Balance - 12 fhr, 13 poison res
Amber Grand Charm - 28 lightning res
Cobalt Grand Charm - 24 cold res
Garnet Large Charm of Inertia - 5 frw, 11 fire res
Iron Large Charm of Balance - 8 fhr, 45 ar
Sharp Large Charm of Dexterity - 4 max damage, 37 ar, 3 dex
Viridian Small Charm of Dexterity - 6 poison res, 1 dex
Emerald Small Charm - 11 poison res
Lapis Small Charm of Inertia - 3 frw, 7 cold res
Fine Small Charm - 3 max damage, 14 ar
Russet Small Charm - 7 fire res
Amber Small Charm - 11 lightning res
Russet Small Charm of Life - 5 life, 7 fire res
Steel Small Charm - 36 ar
Amber Small Charm - 11 lightning res
Steel Small Charm of Fire - 36 ar, 2-4 fire damage
Toxic Small Charm - 100 poison damage over 5 secs
Cobalt Small Charm - 9 cold res
Azure Small Charm of Sustenance - 12 life, 5 cold res

Weapon Progression
Code:
weapons used along the way:
Act 1 Weapon:
-----
Eagle Edge
Large Axe
Two Hand Damage: 7 - 16
Durability: 27 of 30
Required Level: 3
Required Strength: 35
Fingerprint: 0x9afbf948
Item Level: 8
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+10% Increased Attack Speed
16% Enhanced Damage
Adds 1 - 1 Damage
+18% Damage to Demons
+32 to Attack Rating against Demons
-----
Shopped this from Fara:
-----
Brutal Broad Axe of the Bat
Broad Axe
Two Hand Damage: 14 - 25
Durability: 35 of 35
Required Level: 10
Required Strength: 48
Fingerprint: 0x9010aa2c
Item Level: 20
Version: Expansion 1.10+
44% Enhanced Damage
4% Mana stolen per hit
-----
Gambled and rerolled a pair of War Axes to Double Swing with at lvl 22, palace cellars
-----
Fine War Axe
War Axe
One Hand Damage: 12 - 22
Durability: 15 of 26
Required Level: 12
Required Strength: 67
Fingerprint: 0x5c6c9a31
Item Level: 25
Version: Expansion 1.10+
24% Enhanced Damage
+23 to Attack Rating
2% Mana stolen per hit
3% Life stolen per hit 1 Sockets (1 used)
Socketed: Skull
-----
Hailstone Sever
War Axe
One Hand Damage: 13 - 22
Durability: 26 of 26
Required Level: 3
Required Strength: 67
Fingerprint: 0x3c5894a1
Item Level: 25
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+10% Increased Attack Speed
27% Enhanced Damage
+1 to Minimum Damage
Adds 6 Poison Damage Over 2 Secs (50 Frames)
-----
Shopped from Halbu:
-----
Massive War Axe of the Leech
War Axe
One Hand Damage: 16 - 29
Durability: 25 of 26
Required Level: 15
Required Strength: 67
Fingerprint: 0x923c6f85
Item Level: 32
Version: Expansion 1.10+
62% Enhanced Damage
4% Life stolen per hit
-----
Dropped in Chaos Sanctuary, used to kill Diablo:
-----
Blood Impaler
War Javelin
Throw Damage: 16 - 45
One Hand Damage: 7 - 29
Quantity: 47
Required Level: 18
Required Strength: 20
Required Dexterity: 20
Fingerprint: 0x62cff73a
Item Level: 33
Version: Expansion 1.10+
21% Enhanced Damage
+7 to Maximum Damage
+33 to Attack Rating
Adds 1 - 2 Fire Damage
Requirements -20%
-----
Gambled in Act V:
-----
Beast Mangler
War Axe
One Hand Damage: 17 - 40
Durability: 26 of 26
Required Level: 13
Required Strength: 67
Fingerprint: 0xeeaa6de4
Item Level: 35
Version: Expansion 1.10+
77% Enhanced Damage
+9 to Maximum Damage
+54 to Attack Rating
Adds 65 Poison Damage Over 7 Secs (175 Frames)
-----
This dropped for Sigemund in Act V, previously he was using a shopped Flamberge of the Leech:
-----
Glyph Bite
Flamberge
One Hand Damage: 19 - 34
Two Hand Damage: 27 - 57
Durability: 26 of 26
Required Level: 15
Required Strength: 60
Required Dexterity: 39
Fingerprint: 0x73b1137d
Item Level: 33
Version: Expansion 1.10+
41% Enhanced Damage
Adds 1 - 3 Damage
+23 to Attack Rating
7% Life stolen per hit
Poison Resist +8%
Ethereal
-----
NM Andariel was slain with these suboptimal weapons:
-----
Savage War Axe of Fire
War Axe
One Hand Damage: 17 - 31
Durability: 26 of 26
Required Level: 19
Required Strength: 67
Fingerprint: 0x747acaf1
Item Level: 40
Version: Expansion 1.10+
75% Enhanced Damage
Adds 1 - 9 Fire Damage
-----
Fiery War Axe
War Axe
One Hand Damage: 10 - 18
Durability: 26 of 26
Required Level: 18
Required Strength: 67
Fingerprint: 0xec742cfa
Item Level: 42
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Adds 24 - 54 Fire Damage
-----
New merc weapon!  In hindsight, I wish I had saved the mf jewel.  This weapon is too slow.
-----
Gemmed Dacian Falx
Dacian Falx
One Hand Damage: 23 - 49
Two Hand Damage: 45 - 100
Durability: 26 of 26
Required Level: 25
Required Strength: 81
Required Dexterity: 10
Fingerprint: 0x7ab2d1a7
Item Level: 51
Version: Expansion 1.10+
10% Enhanced Damage
+3 to Minimum Damage
Adds 75 Poison Damage Over 5 Secs (125 Frames)
7% Life stolen per hit
9% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items Ethereal
4 Sockets (4 used)
Socketed: Cinnabar Jewel of Joyfulness
Socketed: Jewel of Prosperity
Socketed: Amn Rune
Socketed: Tal Rune
Cinnabar Jewel of Joyfulness
Jewel
Required Level: 3
Fingerprint: 0x2552bcdf
Item Level: 46
Version: Expansion 1.10+
10% Enhanced Damage
+3 to Minimum Damage

Jewel of Prosperity
Jewel
Required Level: 19
Fingerprint: 0x89a85e0c
Item Level: 33
Version: Expansion 1.10+
9% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
-----
Crafted Blood Naga from base dropped in NM Arcane Sanctuary:
-----
Carrion Rend
Naga
One Hand Damage: 33 - 94
Durability: 19 of 26
Required Level: 41
Required Strength: 121
Fingerprint: 0xd3f8b5fb
Item Level: 50
Version: Expansion 1.10+
109% Enhanced Damage
+62 to Attack Rating
3% Life stolen per hit
+10 to Life
-----
An extremely lucky drop in a NM false tomb, this was Sigemund's endgame weapon:
-----
Crainte Vomir
Espandon
One Hand Damage: 23 - 75
Two Hand Damage: 52 - 115
Durability: 23 of 44
Required Level: 42
Required Strength: 73
Required Dexterity: 61
Fingerprint: 0x55916595
Item Level: 52
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+20% Faster Run/Walk
+50% Increased Attack Speed
189% Enhanced Damage
Slows Target by 35%
-70 to Monster Defense Per Hit
Damage Reduced by 10%
-----
Some Crushing Blow for NM Duriel:
-----
Strength
War Axe
AmnTir
One Hand Damage: 13 - 24
Durability: 26 of 26
Required Level: 25
Required Strength: 67
Fingerprint: 0x757b58ad
Item Level: 47
Version: Expansion 1.10+
35% Enhanced Damage
7% Life stolen per hit
25% Chance of Crushing Blow
+20 to Strength
+10 to Vitality
+2 to Mana after each Kill
2 Sockets (2 used)
Socketed: Amn Rune
Socketed: Tir Rune
-----
It was replaced soon with a better one:
-----
Strength
Naga
AmnTir
One Hand Damage: 21 - 60
Durability: 26 of 26
Required Level: 25
Required Strength: 121
Fingerprint: 0x96f91016
Item Level: 49
Version: Expansion 1.10+
35% Enhanced Damage
7% Life stolen per hit
25% Chance of Crushing Blow
+20 to Strength
+10 to Vitality
+2 to Mana after each Kill
2 Sockets (2 used)
Socketed: Amn Rune
Socketed: Tir Rune
-----
Found this in Act 1 Hell:
-----
Cruel Ettin Axe
Ettin Axe
One Hand Damage: 111 - 222
Durability: 24 of 24
Required Level: 52
Required Strength: 145
Required Dexterity: 45
Fingerprint: 0x82c60fad
Item Level: 75
Version: Expansion 1.10+
237% Enhanced Damage
-----
Shopped from Fara and rerolled with chippies:
-----
Cruel War Spike
War Spike
One Hand Damage: 96 - 155
Durability: 24 of 26
Required Level: 59
Required Strength: 133
Required Dexterity: 54
Fingerprint: 0x145d98c4
Item Level: 25
Version: Expansion 1.10+
223% Enhanced Damage
7% Life stolen per hit
1 Sockets (1 used)
Socketed: Amn Rune
-----
Shopped from Hratli and rerolled with chippies:
-----
Grandmaster's Berserker Axe
Berserker Axe
One Hand Damage: 71 - 212
Durability: 25 of 26
Required Level: 64
Required Strength: 138
Required Dexterity: 59
Fingerprint: 0x5f111ffb
Item Level: 30
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+40% Increased Attack Speed
199% Enhanced Damage
+274 to Attack Rating
2 Sockets (2 used)
Socketed: Shael Rune
Socketed: Shael Rune
-----
Grandmaster's Berserker Axe
Berserker Axe
One Hand Damage: 76 - 225
Durability: 25 of 26
Required Level: 64
Required Strength: 138
Required Dexterity: 59
Fingerprint: 0x539226f5
Item Level: 30
Version: Expansion 1.10+
218% Enhanced Damage
+299 to Attack Rating
Adds 2 - 7 Fire Damage
7% Life stolen per hit
2 Sockets (2 used)
Socketed: Amn Rune
Socketed: Realgar Jewel of Passion

Realgar Jewel of Passion
Jewel
Required Level: 37
Fingerprint: 0x816b028f
Item Level: 52
Version: Expansion 1.10+
27% Enhanced Damage
Adds 2 - 7 Fire Damage
-----
An Um rune from the Kurast Bazaar enabled this:
-----
Crescent Moon
Ettin Axe
ShaelUmTir
One Hand Damage: 102 - 205
Durability: 19 of 24
Required Level: 52
Required Strength: 145
Required Dexterity: 45
Fingerprint: 0x29128c35
Item Level: 80
Version: Expansion 1.10+
10% Chance to cast level 17 Chain Lightning on striking
7% Chance to cast level 13 Static Field on striking
+20% Increased Attack Speed
212% Enhanced Damage
Ignore Target's Defense
-35% to Enemy Lightning Resistance
25% Chance of Open Wounds
+10 Magic Absorb
+2 to Mana after each Kill
Level 18 Summon Spirit Wolf (30/30 Charges)
3 Sockets (3 used)
Socketed: Shael Rune
Socketed: Um Rune
Socketed: Tir Rune
-----

Gameplay and Thoughts:
Taunt:
Stops monsters from using ranged attacks and makes them move towards you instead. Moving monsters don't attack, so I used this to kite things in circles around my merc so he could kill them while taking minimal damage. Later, instead of having to run in circles, I taunted everything to me and then kept them all stunned with War Cry. Taunt breaks the "leash" to the boss that minions have, allowing them to be pulled singly in many cases. If a monster is running away because of low health, Taunt will bring it back towards its doom. Taunt doesn't wear off, but the taunted creature can be distracted by a hit from the merc and might need to be taunted again. Sometimes it didn't work when that happened.

Howl: Makes things run away, if they are lower level than character level plus ranks in Howl. Moving monsters don't attack, so keeping things running around even in a small space can be good crowd control. Minions run, but bosses don't, so it's a good way to separate them to get rid of a troublesome aura for example. One of the best uses was against the frenzy trees in NM to keep them from stunlocking my merc. Because I was playing at /p1, I was usually a little lower than the area level that I was questing in. Before I got War Cry, each level gained was precious, because then I might be able to Howl minions away.

Battle Cry: Works on bosses to cut their defense in half and damage by one fourth! This was great, as it allowed me to wear mf gear instead of worrying too much about attack rating. It also let my mercenary tank more monsters without taking serious damage. I had to be careful though, because using Battle Cry on leapers crashed the game.

War Cry: Absolutely amazing! 6 points gives a 2 second stun duration which is enough time for a few swings of either Frenzy or Berserk. Even things that are immune to magic can still be stunned. Oblivion Knights and Minions of Destruction can be stunned. Champions and uniques supposedly have a 10% chance to be stunned, but I never relied on that. Having a single target attack is not a problem when everything is stunlocked.

Double Swing: Faster than Frenzy before it charges up, since you seem to hit with both weapons at once. I didn't have the points to spare to pump this to 9 for a free attack, but maybe another time.

Leap Attack: In addition to utility in the Arcane Sanctuary and Act 3 jungles, it's possible to jump over the rivers in Act 1 that sometimes bisect the outdoor areas. It's possible to Leap Attack to the other side of a blocked door. It helps a lot to avoid being surrounded when running through already cleared areas to maintain single pass status.

Bash: The small ar bonus was better than normal attack against early bosses. This skill was great at separating champion packs of Cantors, Sextons, and Hierophants so that they could not heal eachother.

Frenzy: Pretty good skill, decent ar and damage. The movement speed is silly. The attack speed is nice when charged, but high base attack speed is already good to charge faster, so it wasn't as sweet as I had hoped. Sometimes my 1 point in Berserk seemed more effective than 20 points in Frenzy, and that was frustrating. Silumgar did not have points left to synergize Frenzy. A fully synergized Frenzy is probably much stronger than I'm giving it credit for. The best things about Frenzy are major style points for dual wielding and cast on strike effects work.

Act V Merc: He had no leech for almost the entire game, and it didn't matter much with his amazing natural regen, although Battle Orders and the 10% damage reduction on the sword certainly helped. He was only really in trouble while poisoned. I had read that Act V mercs had extra poison resist, but this did not seem to be true, either on the lcs or from experience. His Stun attack was great, but his Bash was annoying at times. He'd Bash things out of range of my Battle Cry, Bash things and then switch targets so the first target would heal up, Bash things toward uncleared areas and pull more monsters, and Bash ghosts, stranglers, succubi, and wisps off of solid ground so that I would have to reposition them to get the drops. He was very aggressive and I had to run far back to make him disengage; he would frequently try to ruin my pulls by charging in and stunning something. Overall, though, he's not that bad. He'd see more use if the Act 2 mercs didn't both use the highest damage weapon type and have auras.

Rangeadder 2 Axes: Amazing! The longer range made it easier to stand behind my merc so he could soak damage, charged bolts, mana burns, and death explosions. I could reach Act 3 river watchers with ease to get a little extra experience. It's too bad that white or socketed Berserker Axes are so rare in single pass; I would have preferred Crescent Moon in a zerker axe, but the Ettin Axe was still an awesome untwinked weapon.

Harder than expected: Beetles! When a beetle is hit by War Cry, it releases its volley of bolts, so that wasn't usually a good idea. Swarms or stairtraps of beetles required the highest potion consumption. Also, since my damage was low, I relied heavily on keeping things stunned with War Cry, so champion packs of just about anything posed more of a threat than usual. With all the magic find gear, I had less resists than usual; my fire resist was especially low. Battle Orders made that still viable, but it was risky, not something to try on hardcore.

Easier than expected: Wisps! Normally pulling them one at a time is a difficult, dangerous, and tedious ordeal, but Taunt was tremendously helpful. Once in close range, War Cry kept them stunned and mostly harmless. Also, things with added cold damage. My only source of cbf was 'Rhyme', so being chilled did slow us down, but it wasn't as bad as I'd feared.

Finds: 38% Chance Guards, Blade of Ali Baba, 39% Gheeds, 2 Hone Sundans, Vipermagi, Andariel's Visage, Um, Mal. No Grailers this time, but I found plenty of nice things. Every drop worth points was recorded on this spreadsheet as part of the tournament. SunsetVista's Treasury link:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/13aArSpA6lPNG_QBH-j9NDB1JbPNRxQOYqPTgotWff7I

Hellforge: Ith/Lum/Um
Imbues: useful +3 Find Item Fanged Helm/junk Twin Axe/meh Superior Colossus Sword
Sockets: Circlet of Luck/Tarnhelm/Crainte Vomir
Personalized: Chance Guards/Blade of Ali Baba/'Crescent Moon' Ettin Axe

NDEs: several, mentioned in the tournament thread. I played carefully with low damage and mf gear. Overall, this character was pretty safe with the large life pool and War Cry stunlocking most things.

Deaths: None!

Silumgar will now retire to lounge on his mountain of loot. Should he get restless, his LK map has 2 fires near the waypoint, so he can go open some boxes.

Thanks for reading! I hope this helps anyone considering an untwinked Frenzybarb with axes! =)
 
Last edited:
Originally posted by Swiller on Apr 10, 2008:

Patriarch Pretzel, The Disciple of Bul Kathos

I was halfway tempted to simply write, "Well, I killed Baal" just so I could surpass Frosty's thread, but Thyiad would probably ban me, or at least slap me with a wet trout.

So here we go.

Some time ago I read a thread in the barbarian forums about the feasibility of a frenzy barbarian that wore both the Disciple and Bul Kathos sets. Naturally, the majority of BNet folks said it was impossible without Ebotd or Enigma. Surprise. But the idea intrigued me, so I started the build. It took me a long time to reach patriarch. Not because it was hard, but because I had little time to play for several months. I was hoping I'd get major style points for being the first (as far as I know) to use both sets at once. Alas, maxgerin just had to trump me. Thanks, max. (But sarcasm aside, good job. 👍)


STATS

Strength: 128 (189)
Dexterity: 76 (124)
Vitality: 295
Energy: 10


SKILLS

Battle Orders: 20 (29)
Battle Command: 1 (10)
War Cry: 1 (10)

Sword Mastery: 20 (27)
Increased Stamina, Increased Speed, Iron Skin, and Natural Resists: 1 (8)

Double Swing: 20 (30)
Frenzy: 20 (30)

Prerequisites: 1


GEAR

Rich (BB code):
  • Arreat's Face - 15% IAS jewel
  • Dark Adherent
  • Telling of Beads
  • Laying of Hands
  • Credendum
  • Rite of Passage
  • Manald Heal (Hey, I needed mana leech)
  • Ravenfrost
  • Bul Kathos' Tribal Guardian - Shael
  • Bul Kathos' Sacred Charge
Charms: Expert's Grand Charm Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus Required Level: 42 Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion Item Level: 61 Fingerprint: 0x622522af +1 to Combat Skills (Barbarian Only) Sounding Grand Charm Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus Required Level: 42 Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion Item Level: 66 Fingerprint: 0xa1a4066b +1 to Warcry Skills (Barbarian Sounding Grand Charm Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus Required Level: 42 Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion Item Level: 81 Fingerprint: 0x217911c0 +1 to Warcry Skills (Barbarian Only) Small Charm of Vita Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus Required Level: 39 Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion Item Level: 80 Fingerprint: 0xee0cd44a +20 to Life Small Charm of Vita Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus Required Level: 39 Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion Item Level: 80 Fingerprint: 0xcc1babcd +20 to Life


MERCENARY

Haseen, the Act II Might Mercenary

  • Vampire Gaze
  • Duriel's Shell
  • Reaper's Toll


ANALYSIS

Well, what do you expect? I'd love to say that the Disciple and Bul Kathos sets will render you an unstoppable killing machine, but that's just not the case. Pretzel is a skilled swordsman, but far from a master swordsman. Yeah, so the combined sets give excellent resists and +550% Damage to Demons. But honestly, if it weren't for two things, I probably would have grown disgusted with this character a long time ago:

1. The Mercenary was invaluable. Without the ctc Decrepify on Reaper's, I would have had a much harder time. I should also point out that the mercenary was using this for a long time:

Rich (BB code):
The Reaper's Toll
Thresher
'Shael'
Two-Hand Damage: 61 to 717
Durability: 33 of 33
Required Dexterity: 79
Required Strength: 104
Required Level: 75
Polearm Class - Very Fast Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 87
Fingerprint: 0xa5229e9a
+240% Enhanced Damage
Adds 4-44 cold damage over 1 seconds
12% Life stolen per hit
Requirements -25%
20% Increased Attack Speed
Ignore Target Defense
33% Deadly Strike
33% Chance to cast Level 1 Decrepify on striking
Ethereal (Cannot be Repaired), Socketed (1: 1 used)

I think the raw awesomeness of it contributed to my success quite a bit. It has since been traded to bassano for a Griffon's, which is more than fair. But I digress. Without the high physical damage and ctc Decrepify, PIs would have been a pain. I suppose could have just used Berserk, but 0 defense sucks and I don't like to die.

Were PIs a pain? My, yes. I especially hated the mana burn types, like Ghosts. I was stuck fighting this guy for what seemed like hours, only to meet this one moments later. Oh, joy.

2. The other main reason I think this character was successful is WarCry. I was perfectly content to be surrounded by hell's minions, because this powerful skill kept me alive. Stun them, then hack away. Stun them again when it wears off, and hack away. Rinse and repeat. I identified right from the beginning that I wanted WC to be a high slvl, but two sounding GCs were all I had. None the less, it worked like a charm. We've all been surrounded by those nasty Flayers before, and I usually dread that area. But Pretzel tore through it with ease thanks to this skill.

In short: He kills (and is incredibly safe) but he'll never kill as fast as other frenzy setups. Someday (now that I've mastered frenzy) I'll try out more potent weapons and maybe a maxed WarCry. But for now I have an amazon and a sorceress to finish.

Thanks for reading about Patriarch Pretzel, everybody!


P.S. I had more screenshots (like for the gear and stats) but Image Shack is trying my patience. :rant:

Pps. Yes, I needed to put another 15 IAS jewel in my armor to reach the next breakpoint. But he killed fine without it, and I decided I'd rather save that Larzuk quest.
 
Last edited:
Originally posted by Swiller on May 21, 2008:

Patriarch Scourge (Guess what weapons he used)

My first (and last completed) frenzy barbarian was more of a novelty build, using both the Disciple and Bul Kathos sets. I recently decided that I deserved a new Frenzier--one far more powerful and durable than his green-wearing brethren.

I give you Patriarch Scourge.


STATS

Strength: 85 (149)
Dexterity: 40 (77)
Vitality: 375
Energy: 10 (20)


SKILLS

Leap Attack: 1 (9)
Berserk: 1 (9)
Double Swing: 20 (28)
Frenzy: 20 (28)

Mace Mastery: 20 (27)
Increased Stamina: 1 (8)
Increased Speed: 1 (8)
Iron Skin: 1 (8)
Natural Resists: 1 (8)

Taunt: 1 (10)
Battle Orders: 20 (29)
Battle Command: 1 (10)


GEAR

  • Highlord's Wrath
  • Arreat's |Face
  • "Gloom" Archon Plate
    Gloom
    Archon Plate
    'FalUmPul'
    Defense: 1724
    Durability: 55 of 60
    Required Strength: 103
    Required Level: 63
    Item Version: Expansion
    Item Level: 87
    Fingerprint: 0x502f7cf9
    +10 to Strength
    +231% Enhanced Defense
    All Resistances +45
    -3 to Light Radius
    10% Faster Hit Recovery
    5% Damage Taken Goes to Mana
    Half Freeze Duration
    15% Chance to cast Level 3 Dim Vision when struck
    Socketed (3: 3 used)​
  • Dracul's Grasp
  • Nosferatu's Coil
  • Gore Rider
  • Ravenfrost
  • Rare Ring with mana leech, +strength, AR, blah, blah
  • Switch - 2 x Echoing Swords
  • "Oath" Scourge
    Oath
    Scourge
    'ShaelPulMalLum'
    One-Hand Damage: 16 to 559
    Required Dexterity: 67
    Required Strength: 115
    Required Level: 57
    Mace Class - Fastest Attack Speed
    Indestructible
    Item Version: Expansion
    Item Level: 87
    Fingerprint: 0x444f3698
    +10 to Energy
    +316% Enhanced Damage
    50% Increased Attack Speed
    Prevent Monster Heal
    75% Damage to Demons
    150% Damage to Undead
    +100 to Attack Rating against Demons
    +15 Magic Absorb
    Indestructible
    30% Chance to cast Level 20 Bone Spirit on striking
    Level 16 Heart of Wolverine (5/20 Charges)
    Level 17 Iron Golem (12/14 Charges)
    Ethereal (Cannot be Repaired), Socketed (4: 4 used)​
  • Stormlash
    Stormlash
    Scourge
    One-Hand Damage: 11 to 309
    Durability: 53 of 65
    Required Dexterity: 77
    Required Strength: 125
    Required Level: 82
    Mace Class - Very Fast Attack Speed
    Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
    Item Level: 87
    Fingerprint: 0xae6386fa
    +287% Enhanced Damage
    Adds 1-473 lightning damage
    30% Increased Attack Speed
    150% Damage to Undead
    Attacker Takes Lightning Damage of 30
    33% Chance of Crushing Blow
    +7 Lightning Absorb
    20% Chance to cast Level 18 Tornado on striking
    15% Chance to cast Level 10 Static Field on striking​


MERCENARY

Emilio, the Act II Might Mercenary

  • The Reaper's Toll - 'Shael'
  • Crown of Thieves
  • Duriel's Shell


ANALYSIS

Utter pwnage. High life leech, open wounds, deadly strike, Crushing Blow, prevent monster heal, hit slows target; and chance to cast Static Field (Stormlash), Dim Vision (Gloom), Life Tap (Dracul's) and Decrepify (mercenary). This guy cuts through even the most daunting boss pack with relative ease, even on players 8 in Hell.

Leveling was also a breeze. A "Black" Tyrant Club and Fleshrender worked beautifully until level 57, and then the "Oath" and an "Honor" scourge until I could equip Stormlash at 82.

Some might question all the chance to cast curses, because they can overwrite each other. But generally, it wasn't an issue. The Dim Vision seemed to trigger mostly on ranged attackers (and thus, farther away); while Life Tap and Decrepify occurred on the melee types. I tried to avoid fighting the same things as my merc, so that their curses wouldn't overwrite. It worked well. Really, no matter what curse was currently active, it was useful.

Ghosts were an issue, however. I just hate those damned things. Conversely, Gloams were no problem.

I only died twice. Why? If you guessed "Iron Maiden" you get a cookie. Later on I began the slow (but effective) method of luring away the Doom Knights with Taunt, then using Berserk on the Oblivion Knight itself.

There was one real highlight of the Scourge experience. This.

The long wait to use Stormlash was well worth it. Scourge deals a ton of damage and is practically unstoppable. I adore him. Thank you for reading about him.
 
Last edited:
Originally posted by Tanksaabas on Feb 19, 2009:

Patriarch Meelis - The One Eard Frenzier

Hi SPF! Another one gets the patriarch title. This time it's a sword wielding frenzy and war cry hybrid. The character is old and was parked at Hell Act 1 for a long time. At that time I didn't have good gear and kill speed was mediocre and every bosspack was a potential NDE :crazyeyes: Several months later and my SP wealth is much better. But the real reason why this guy fought till the end is because of the awsome forumites here whom I had the pleasure of MP'ing through Hell.

Name: Meelis
Class: Barbarian
Experience: 1005140978
Level: 84

LCS

Strength: 135/205
Dexterity: 70/121
Vitality: 300/359
Energy: lol

Health: 3478 with BO
Mana: 317

Skills:

All prereques at 1

Frenzy: 20 (25)
Double Swing: 10 (15)
Bezerk:1 (6)

Battle Orders: 20 (27) <-- all warcries with dual spirit for the fcr
Battle Command: 1(8)
War Cry: 10 (17)

Sword Mastery: 16 (19)
Natural Resistance: 5 (8)
Increased Speed: 1 (4)

Gear:

Arreats with Pdiamond
Lionheart Wire Fleece
Gore Riders
Highlords Wrath
Raven Frost
Verdungos
Draculs Grasp
Rare ring with ml%
1.07 eth BB "Oath"
eth "Oath" cryptic sword

Readouts:
Code:
Arreat's Face
Slayer Guard
Defense: 325
Durability: 55 of 55
Required Level: 42
Required Strength: 118
Fingerprint: 0x7e55a9f
Item Level: 86
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Properties: 
+20 to Strength
+20 to Dexterity
169% Enhanced Defense
4% Life stolen per hit
+2 to Barbarian Skill Levels
30% Faster Hit Recovery
20% Bonus to Attack Rating
+2 to Combat Skills (Barbarian Only)
All Resistances +30
+100 to Attack Rating
1 Sockets (1 used)

Lionheart
Wire Fleece
Defense: 418
Durability: 32 of 32
Required Level: 53
Required Strength: 95
Fingerprint: 0x67a0c789
Item Level: 79
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Properties: 
All Resistances +30
All Stats +10
+15 to Strength
+5 to Dexterity
+10 to Vitality
+50 to Life
20% Enhanced Damage
Requirements -15%
3 Sockets (3 used)

Gore Rider <-- see , no more lionheart
War Boots
Defense: 144
Durability: 34 of 34
Required Strength: 94
Required Level: 47
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 99
Fingerprint: 0xc9b679f6
+20 to Maximum Stamina
+167% Enhanced Defense
+10 Maximum Durability
Requirements -25%
30% Faster Run/Walk
10% Chance of Open Wounds
15% Chance of Crushing Blow
15% Deadly Strike

Highlord's Wrath
Amulet
Required Level: 65
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 86
Fingerprint: 0x2470aa3a
Lightning Resist +35%
Adds 1-30 lightning damage
20% Increased Attack Speed
+1 to All Skill Levels
Attacker Takes Lightning Damage of 15
31% Deadly Strike (Based on Character Level)

Raven Frost
Ring
Required Level: 45
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 86
Fingerprint: 0x196ae74
+15 to Dexterity
+40 to Mana
+155 to Attack Rating
Adds 15-45 cold damage over 4 seconds
20% Cold Absorb
Cannot Be Frozen

Verdungo's Hearty Cord
Mithril Coil
Defense: 153
Durability: 16 of 16
Required Strength: 106
Required Level: 63
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 99
Fingerprint: 0x54631a90
+39 to Vitality
+103 to Maximum Stamina
+132% Enhanced Defense
Damage Reduced by 13%
Replenish Life +10
10% Faster Hit Recovery

Dracul's Grasp
Vampirebone Gloves
Defense: 133
Durability: 14 of 14
Required Strength: 50
Required Level: 76
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 86
Fingerprint: 0x81f7785a
+11 to Strength
+102% Enhanced Defense
8% Life stolen per hit
+7 Life after each Kill
25% Chance of Open Wounds
5% Chance to cast Level 10 Life Tap on striking

Havoc Band
Ring
Required Level: 74
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 86
Fingerprint: 0xaf73df8
+14 to Strength
+21 to Attack Rating
All Resistances +5
6% Mana stolen per hit

Oath
Balrog Blade
'ShaelPulMalLum'
One-Hand Damage: 88 to 506
Two-Hand Damage: 329 to 800
Required Dexterity: 77
Required Strength: 175
Required Level: 53
Sword Class - Fastest Attack Speed
Indestructible
Item Version: Expansion
Item Level: 99
Fingerprint: 0x631246b0
+10 to Energy
+302% Enhanced Damage
50% Increased Attack Speed
Prevent Monster Heal
75% Damage to Demons
+100 to Attack Rating against Demons
+13 Magic Absorb
Indestructible
30% Chance to cast Level 20 Bone Spirit on striking
Level 16 Heart of Wolverine (20/20 Charges)
Level 17 Iron Golem (14/14 Charges)
Ethereal (Cannot be Repaired), Socketed (4: 4 used)

Oath
Cryptic Sword
'ShaelPulMalLum'
One-Hand Damage: 27 to 445
Required Dexterity: 99
Required Strength: 89
Required Level: 61
Sword Class - Fastest Attack Speed
Indestructible
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 86
Fingerprint: 0xfaf232f1
+10 to Energy
+287% Enhanced Damage
50% Increased Attack Speed
Prevent Monster Heal
75% Damage to Demons
+100 to Attack Rating against Demons
+12 Magic Absorb
Indestructible
30% Chance to cast Level 20 Bone Spirit on striking
Level 16 Heart of Wolverine (20/20 Charges)
Level 17 Iron Golem (14/14 Charges)
Ethereal (Cannot be Repaired), Socketed (4: 4 used)

The BB was actually traded from Bassen. So big thanks to him for letting it go 👍

Merc had reapers , guillaumes and treachery with an extra spoonful of might on top.

Gameplay: I really really like frenziers! And I'm planning to do at least 1-2 more. As this barbarian was parked for a long time I dont remember much from early game. Only thing I recall was how stupidly easy it was.

Hell was played p8 and mp from start to end. With all the damage output and auras between the players the early acts just melted. Later on I was more careful as even with 3k health you could go down very quick. I remember how in act 3 durance 1 blunderbore boss took out 2900 hp with one hit (while I was cursed). War cry was dead useful also. I could run in the middle of the pack and stun everyone. This way the rest of the MP crew made short work of all the various monster we encountered. It was especially good against Oblivion Knights in the Chaos Sanctuary and WSK.

Only died twice , both times in hell and nope not to IM. Once to OMG's daggermancer (though I killed him first before he had his revenge :D ) and the other time I died because of lag. Right when I run in a bosspack I get a 10 second lagspike...

Oh and the hellforge was a lousy Lem.

Big thanks for Skiff , Smips , Neksja , Dune , Omgwtfbbqpwned and others I mp'd with. We certainly had some interesting conversations :p

See ya!
 
Originally posted by @Thyiad on Jun 29, 2008:

Patriarch WarpEight

If you remember my Plan, you may remember I'm doing a Sept using the Infinity. Slowly. ;)

Patriarch WarpEight

Here is WarpEight the first or third (if you count the two sorceresses) of that Sept. He's a Frenzy Barb using Gemmed Phase blades for main weapons, the damage increased by Infinity on the Merc.

Why a Frezier, you ask? Well I was going to do a WW barb holding the Infinity and with an inventory chocked full of damage charms. I probably still will, if Mungo doesn't do it first. But this seemed like a good idea and a bit different.

Stats and Skills

Stats and Skills

Life : 1780 / 969 | Mana : 309 / 87
Resists: Pretty good with the Anya quest and Fade. A fire resist charm will be popped on for future play.

Maxed Frenzy
3/4 in Taunt, Iron Skin and Natural resistances
15 in BO, 11 in Shout

You'll see his has high dex; that's because from the start I wanted to use Death on switch. This lead me to using phase blades for the main weapons; that wasn't my initial idea but the repair frequency was driving me nuts.

The Gear

Basically a couple of six os blades with a load of 1-80+ light damage jewels in. Cheap and cheerful. :)
Code:
Gemmed Phase Blade
One-Hand Damage: 31 to 35
Required Dexterity: 136
Required Strength: 25
Required Level: 54
Sword Class - Very Fast Attack Speed
Indestructible
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 80
Fingerprint: 0xb96a4403
+19 to Attack Rating
+5 Defense
Adds 6-525 lightning damage
Socketed (6: 6 used

Gemmed Phase Blade
One-Hand Damage: 31 to 35
Required Dexterity: 136
Required Strength: 25
Required Level: 54
Sword Class - Very Fast Attack Speed
Indestructible
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 86
Fingerprint: 0xdb1e3c91
Adds 6-575 lightning damage
Socketed (6: 6 used)

Switch:
He used Honour for a long time and that worked really well. Once he got the Death on, he swapped around for a bit with Lightsabre (Azurewraths' level requirement euch) and settled on Frostwind. Thanks Hrus.

I rarely used the switch. Things died ok with the gemmed phase blades.

Code:
Death
Colossus Sword
'HelElVexOrtGul'
One-Hand Damage: 171 to 462
Two-Hand Damage: 400 to 796
Required Dexterity: 66
Required Strength: 136
Required Level: 60
Sword Class - Slow Attack Speed
Indestructible
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 84
Fingerprint: 0x7b14f7e3
+340% Enhanced Damage
+50 to Attack Rating
Adds 1-50 lightning damage
7% Mana stolen per hit
+1 to Light Radius
Requirements -20%
20% Bonus to Attack Rating
50% Chance of Crushing Blow
Indestructible
25% Chance to cast Level 18 Glacial Spike on attack
100% Chance to cast Level 44 Chain Lightning When You Die
Level 22 Blood Golem (12/15 Charges)
39% Deadly Strike (Based on Character Level)
Ethereal (Cannot be Repaired), Socketed (5: 5 used)

Frostwind << good idea Hrus!
Cryptic Sword
One-Hand Damage: 16 to 254
Durability: 44 of 44
Required Dexterity: 109
Required Strength: 99
Required Level: 70
Sword Class - Very Fast Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 88
Fingerprint: 0xe11af037
+230% Enhanced Damage
Adds 237-486 cold damage over 6 seconds
25% Increased Attack Speed
+8 to Arctic Blast
Half Freeze Duration
Freezes Target +4
15% Cold Absorb

Gear didn't change much from nightmare but he wound up with:

Treachery, Vamp Gaze, Laying of Hands and Gore Riders
Ravenfrost, Natures Peace, Crescent Moon
Couple of FHR charms; hit the 48 BP, a couple of resist charms and a couple of damage charms.

The HF Merc kept the Darksight helm and Prudence but swapped the Blackleach Blade to Infinity at 65ish. (I forget to do it at 63.)

Progress

He used my standard twinking gear for most of normal, stepping up a little in Nightmare. Progression was ok, the biggest problem was the leech; as you can see in the thread I made. Swapping Angelics for Crescent Moon was a good plan though. I had never used Natures Peace for most of the time before but it made life a lot easier in places. Something I shall consider using again. Certainly if I rebuild, I need to be a bit more thoughtful over the weapons I chose for switch.

Lava Gout were great fun for gloves but I swapped to LoH for the extra damage to demons. The IAS didn't hurt either. I wanted a decent swing rate on main and switch weapons. Treachery is great armour and the IAS/FHR helped but the def was low. Not helped by my poor shouts.

Things got interesting as I hit hell. Quill rat issues. Big style. Went back to nightmare for a couple of Baal runs and those extra levels helped. No problem now and was cheerfully on P3 for a fair bit of the time, trying to make up some experience.

Act three went quickly. Ok, I grabbed the newly-Tal'd Pushkin to give him the Trav and DoH2 Waypoints. I had started walking the jungle and hopped my way to the Spider Forest WP. When I realized I'd been trundling around the wrong dungeon looking for whatever body part is in there, I thought "stuff it" and zipped.

Act 4 was mostly ok. As in, "mostly OK's". Those irrating things that breed died pretty quickly, though. Izual was dull but died eventually without too much hassle. That was a theme. Things either died or I had an big problem and legged it.

Back on P1, the CS was tiresome. I made one attempt - and I confess I was shifting at this point, the HF annoyed me - and died. As I'd bounced up the RoF a rescue wasn't going to go well so I left it there.

Grabbed Mungo for an MP and as he HAS a point in beserk, things went much better. To be fair, this was a patience issue on my part. WarpEight is perfectly capable of doing the CS becuse he doesn't one hit kill himself, I was just impatient.

Act five was pretty quick. Rescued Anya, and as usual, wish I hadn't bothered. Pindle dropped something so dire I think even Mungo didn't bother to snarfle it.

I think the Ancient's had an urgent appointment. They didn't hang around long.

The WSK was fine; a nasty pack of succubi made worse by us not drawing them off. I did at least have a few points in taunt. :p The minions went down pretty quickly as did Baal. He deserves to die for the drop. Meh.

Finds

Not a hugely lucky boy. I could have kicked him at the HellForge when he produced an io rune.

Other notables:
Code:
Number of Items : 7

1: Soul Harvest
Scythe
Two-Hand Damage: 18 to 45
Durability: 33 of 33
Required Dexterity: 31
Required Strength: 31
Required Level: 19
Polearm Class - Fast Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 87
Fingerprint: 0x67db502
+5 to Energy
+52% Enhanced Damage
+45 to Attack Rating
All Resistances +20
10% Mana stolen per hit
30% Chance of Open Wounds
Ethereal (Cannot be Repaired)

2: Visceratuant
Defender
Defense: 107
Chance to Block:  60%
Smite Damage: 8 to 12
Durability: 46 of 68
Required Strength: 38
Required Level: 28
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 86
Fingerprint: 0x604a80b4
+115% Enhanced Defense
+30% Increased Chance of Blocking
+1 to Sorceress Skill Levels
30% Faster Block Rate
Attacker Takes Lightning Damage of 10

3: Death Wrack
Battle Scythe
Two-Hand Damage: 34 to 66
Durability: 60 of 65
Required Dexterity: 82
Required Strength: 82
Required Level: 40
Polearm Class - Fast Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 79
Fingerprint: 0xc62986fa
+32% Enhanced Damage
+58 to Attack Rating
+11 to Minimum Damage
+7 to Maximum Damage
Adds 1-260 lightning damage

4: Large Charm of Lightning
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 10
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 25
Fingerprint: 0xe9f96be9
Adds 1-10 lightning damage

5: Large Charm of Sustenance
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 34
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 56
Fingerprint: 0x423097a0
+24 to Life

6: Snake's Large Charm
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 18
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 43
Fingerprint: 0x7f97bbc6
+16 to Mana

7: Stormspike
Stiletto
One-Hand Damage: 47 to 90
Durability: 18 of 24
Required Dexterity: 97
Required Strength: 47
Required Level: 41
Dagger Class - Fast Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 88
Fingerprint: 0xe3d2d934
+150% Enhanced Damage
Adds 1-120 lightning damage
Attacker Takes Lightning Damage of 20
25% Chance to cast Level 3 Charged Bolt when struck
+1 to Maximum Resist Damage (Based on Character Level)

As I said, not a lucky boy. Baal dropped a Bonehew. :banghead:

Lessons learnt

I was MPing with Mungo from Hell Chaos sanctuary onwards; I don't have a point in beserk and it was getting tedious. With a good tank, this guy is actually pretty good.

The maggot lair was actually fun. I went through it twice with this guy. The types of monsters which are usually a gigantic pain were easy; PI, mana drainers. I could MF him and run there for a change actually.

I've no idea what damage he did with those weapons when the conviction kicked in but huge chunks of damage came off monsters. Really if he was more optimized and beefed up the merc, he'll be quite a little fighter.

The thing I did notice most was that I need the merc for the aura. Now whenever I've played a character that has a merc aura, it's been a sorceress and the merc just ... follows. Not here. That was a big difference to me and not one I really came to grips with.

The speed was a bit much for me. I found it quite hard to control. Guess my old reflexes are failing. :p

Future plans or Rebuid?

I'm unsure right now. In a party he is great, despite his low level. However, the extra BO that Mungo provided during our MP really showed up how little I had in BO and shout, plus the lack of +skills from gear/charms. Def went from about 3k to 6ish. Life from 1.7k to 2.2k ish.

On a rebuild, I'd think more carefully about the switch weapons. Without onboard IAS, the Treachery was almost mandatory. Perhaps should have put in five damage jewels and one Shael. :whistling:

And interesting idea that definitely has some room for improvement but wasn't a totally stupid idea.

👋

The Name

Too much Star Trek.

Credits

Atil (as always)
Everyone who contributed to the Plan
Mungo for MP
You for reading
:)
 
Last edited:
Originally posted by TopHatCat64 on Nov 24, 2018:

Patriarch Aridestus - Doom/Lacerator Frenzy Barb

Stats

Code:
Lvl 82

Frenzy Damage (Doom): 3338-7459 (w/ Might)
Frenzy Damage (Lacerator): 1655-2639 (w/ Might)

Life: 3581 (w/ BO)
Resists: 75 F, 31 C, 80 L, 31 P
Str: 110 | Dex: 82 | Vit: 303

Skills

20 Frenzy
20 Double Swing
20 Taunt
20 Battle Orders
6 Axe Mastery
1 Battle Command

Gear

Code:
Arreat's Face 'rare demon/undead damage jewel'
Highlord's Wrath
eth 'Doom' Berserker Axe
'Fortitude' Archon Plate
Lacerator
Laying of Hands
String of Ears
Gore Rider
Corruption Whorl rare ring*
Raven Frost
Switch: Beta CTA / eth 'Spirit' Monarch

Merc: eth 'Infinity' CA / 'Fortitude' Archon Plate / Crown of Thieves 'ias jewel'

Charms (combined stats): 169 life, 75 min damage, 13 max damage, 14% frw, 8 str, 5% fhr

Corruption Whorl
Ring
Required Level: 65
Fingerprint: 0x147b1f7
Item Level: 84
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+5 to Minimum Damage
+115 to Attack Rating
5% Mana stolen per hit
8% Life stolen per hit
+43 to Mana
Lightning Resist +20%

The Planning Stage

Next up in my informal series of "How Can I Get That Amp Damage Weapon to Work?" is Lacerator. Lacerator (as everyone knows at this point) combines a huge 33% chance to cast Amp on striking with an even larger 50% chance to cast an overwriting Terror. Having nearly torn my hair out playing various Passion-wielding characters, finding a way to deal with HCMTF is always a challenge.

How can you enjoy Lacerator's pros while minimizing it's cons? Doom is one possible solution. My hope was that Doom's combination of Holy Freeze + Freeze Target would slow down/immobilize fleeing monsters enough that I could quickly kill them without too much hassle.

Aridestus is named after a genus of the spider wasp - a type of wasp that paralyzes spiders with its sting before laying its eggs on it.

Leveling and Observations

I toyed a bit with using Death instead of Doom, but Death's glacial spike proc was less reliable at slowing/freezing. The GS sometimes misses and it doesn't always pop off, whereas Doom's Freeze Target is always working every time you hit.

In practice, the pairing of Doom and Lacerator worked just as I hoped. The amount of fleeing monsters was reduced by Freeze Target and the ones that did flee ran away at slower pace then in my past experiences with monster flee weapons. On top of that, Frenzy's boost to run speed meant that I could easily outpace any flee-ers or I could quickly pull them back to melee range with a timely Taunt.

The amp proc went off very reliably, and I think the game wanted to test me because I faced just about every type of physical immune in my playthrough. When I watched the health bars of PI's I was attacking, you could tell when Amp procced, because it took huge chunks off their life. It took a bit of patience since Amp alternated pretty frequently with Terror, but it definitely got the job done. The toughest monster I encountered was a Stone Skin frenzytaur unique that was already naturally immune to physical. That took some Howling to separate him from the rest of his minions before I slowly ground him down when Amp popped off.
 
Originally posted by TopHatCat64 on Sep 19, 2009:

Patriarch Kohlsaat - Chill/Slow/Freeze Frenzy Barb

Patriarch Kohlsaat

The Planning Stage

Wondering what I was doing with that Frostwind back in July? I was inspired by Maxicek's idea for a Lawbringer frost zealot. I've always wanted to use Lawbringer in some capacity but I could never figure out a good use for it. I decided to spin Maxi's idea a bit and try a frenzy barb built around the idea of neutralizing groups of monsters through cold damage/chilling, slow, and freezing. As such I have a fairly unconventional loadout for a melee barb.

The Chill/Slow/Freeze Tally:

Chill:
Vampire Gaze, Eye of Etlich, Frostwind, Duress, Lawbringer, M'avina's Icy Clutch, Raven Frost, cold damage charms, CTC Frost Nova from my rare boots, Holy Freeze aura from merc, CTC Frozen Orbs from merc

Slow: CTC Decrepify from Lawbringer, Nosferatu's Coil, Holy Freeze aura from merc

Freeze: Frostwind

Kohlsaat is named after the tip of a Russian island in the Artic Ocean...plus it sounds cool 😉

Leveling and Observations

In practice, the closer monsters got to me, the less of threat they become.

Off the screen/edges of the screen: Monsters get hit with stray bolts being flung off my merc's frozen orbs and start to approach.

1/3 of the way to me: Holy Freeze takes effect and monsters start to slow down.

2/3 of the way to me: Monsters are now in range of the Frost Novas popping off of my boots and Decrepify takes effect as monsters get further slowed.

Melee range: All my cold damage is brought to bear as whoever I'm attacking gets permanently frozen until shattering.

What's interesting about frozen monsters is that their animation gets reset upon thawing. So if they were in the midst of swinging at me, they wouldn't finish their blow on unfreezing, they'd go back to their standard "resting" posture.

Max Taunt, which I used previously on my taunter Sledge, was useful in bringing ranged attackers into my vortex of cold.

Lawbringer's Sanctuary aura made undead even less of a threat since they ping-ponged between sloowwwly approaching and then getting pushed back.

Lawbringer's RIP mod seemed to work on every monster, as I constantly saw the "red soul" coming off monsters I just killed. I really don't think LB was ALWAYS delivering the killing blow so perhaps it was just some graphic oddity.

As usual, no deaths for this barb.

Finds
I was pretty rune lucky with Kohlsaat, I got a Lem and Pul during questing and an Um from my NM hellforge.

Stats
Code:
Lvl 82
Frenzy Damage w/ Frostwind: 490-2789
Frenzy Damage w/ Lawbringer: 454-1427
AR: 6309
Life: 3570
Resists: 70/31/71/31

Str: 74 | Dex: 66 | Vit: 355

20 Frenzy
20 Sword Mastery
20 BO
20 Taunt
3 NR
1 Berserk
1 BC

Gear
Code:
Vampire Gaze 'Ral'
The Eye of Etlich
Frostwind 'Shael'
'Lawbringer' Cryptic Sword
'Duress' Archon
M'avina's Icy Clutch
Nos' Coil
Raven Frost
Stone Touch Ring*
Bramble Nails Boots*
Dual +3 War Cry Spears on switch

Merc: Crown of Thieves / 'Rift' Eth Thresher / Duriel's

Stone Touch
Ring
Required Level: 51
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 85
Fingerprint: 0x23733bc1
+11 to Mana
+117 to Attack Rating
+8 to Minimum Damage
All Resistances +11
Level 4 Dim Vision (30/30 Charges)

Bramble Nails
Greaves
Defense: 53
Durability: 24 of 24
Required Strength: 70
Required Level: 29
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 62
Fingerprint: 0xc7935b3b
Lightning Resist +39%
Poison Resist +30%
30% Faster Run/Walk
10% Faster Hit Recovery
5% Chance to cast Level 3 Frost Nova when struck
+41 to Defense (Based on Character Level)
 
Last edited:
Originally posted by Vang on Aug 27, 2008:

Patriach BloodyFrenzy!

Shortly during my Hell run-through of my Bone Spear necro using lifetap, I found the unique sword bloodmoon I wanted to make a barbarian with a bazillion lifeleech, and no Dracul's Grasp, as well: I don't have any, and they are amazing, but if it doesn't trigger..

So onward LIFELEECH! After scanning over the various items, to either do whirlwind or frenzy, I came upon the conclusion that low-mid 20's was about the max, on everything but one weapon. RuneMaster. Now to effectively hit a 5.5fpa breakpoint(not great, but not bad) I needed 35-40%ias, depending on the gear I had. Which meant one would only have 21%lifeleech, while the offhand carried the full 35%.

With wanting to kill somewhat fast, I did remove my helmet(Tal's or Crown of Theives) So I lost 10% from that for Guillaume's Face.

Overall I had:

8%x2 rings: 16%
amulet: 5%
gloves: 5%
Belt: 6%
Weapons: 21%/35%

For totals of: 53%main and 67% offhand (divided by 4 in hell of course, for 13% and 16%roughly)

Quick run through of hell, with only one death in act2 in Palace Cellar, got taken out by a quad pack of 3 archer packs and 1 poison skeleton mage pack. Overall I was a hard to kill beast, as my life steal was a ton per/hit for hell. With the little crowd controls nasty packs weren't an issue with Warcry and Howl(Howl was very good as it allowed me to run through parts of act2 with ease) I am wearing Soul Drainers for the theme, and with my merc's Reaper's Troll cursing was fun(Weaken has a huge radius, so it worked out quite well actually) Sorry I can really elaborate on focal points, he is just a normal frenzy barbarian with a focus on lifeleech. I stole life against everything but the immunes, and berzerk followed through when it needed be.

*Drops: Lem from H/Hellforge, and thats about it. A few normal uniques thats about all.
*Note I actually only had a 6fpa, I didn't socket my G.face with a 15%ias jewel due to not paying attention. Shael in it to hit the 86%bp for faster hitrecovery.

Stats:
286Str(did a 3str/2vit split for the most part once I got my 45dex)
45Dex
164Vit
Life: 1919
Resist with Fade active: 60/85/75/43
AR w/ enchant from demonlimb: 5k
Damage without venom/enchant: 1100-2250 roughly each(little variance)


Equipment:

G.Face
Treachery Balrog Skin
Dual RuneMasters
Goblin Toe
String of Ears
Soul Drainers
2x 8% life leech rings
5%LL +1barbarian skills amulet

Switch: Dual Spirits for buffing
Mercenary: Reaper's Troll, Upped Shaftstop, G.Face.
 
Originally posted by AJK on Feb 21, 2007:

Oops, I pat it again.

Grr... This game sucks. Me back in.

I posted a goodbye thread some time ago. I lied. I'm back. That's what you get if you try to kick the habit while you still got two(***) unfinished characters stashed on a disk somewhere that really really need to kick Baal's bottom.

Anyhow, *drumroll*, AJK presents, *louder drumroll*, A terrible killing force called, *drumroll, crack, *snap drumstick in half**,

Patriarch JackTorrance, lvl. 87, Titan zerker.

Statz & Skillz:

Zerk(20), Shout(20), Howl(20), various prereqs
War Cry(14), Find Itam(1), Natural Resistance(2)
Battle Orders(1), Battle Command(2, oops)

Stat points: Str 465, Dex 20, Vit 25, Ene 10

Resists: 65/50/75/15 (before Fade)

Tools of the trade:
Arreat's Face [PDiamond]
Highlord's Wrath
'Death' eth Silver Edged axe (*)
'Treachery' Archon Plate
Laying of Hands
Thundergod's Vigor
Gore Rider
Raven Frost [20/241]
Chaos Hold (**)

Switch: Gull + Heart Carver (gib itam now)

Charms: life charms (+241 life), AR charms (+299 AR) + a few resist charms

The Pain:
Berserk damage: 7495 - 14K (BO active), 8579 AR
Concentrate damage: 3752 - 6878 (BO active), 4458 AR

Deadly Strike: 90% chance
Critical Strike: 18% chance
Chance to deal double damage: 91%
Effective average zerk damage per hit: 20.5K (!!!)

The moron:
Prayer enhanced, coupled with an 'Insight' Thresher (lvl. 14 meditation, 211% ED)
Suit: Leviathan
Hat: Rockstopper
Life: ~2700, Def: ~13000 <--- A much better tank than me.

Gameplay:
This character was born out of a question that had to be answered. A question of PAIN. I thought that it'd be an interesting experiment to witness the amount pain a titan zerker could inflict upon its surroundings. The answer is 20.5K average. Another answer is that the surroundings also inflict a lot of pain on the zerker. Especially since he's a Titan, AKA, too dumb to distribute his own stat points sensibly.

*ping, level up*
Titan: "Hrrgg, me stronger!"
Cain: "Stay a while and listen as I tell you to save some points for your health."
Titan: *smash Cain*

I also decided to stuff most of my stat points in pain enhancers: zerk synergies and weapon mastery. This unfortunately meant a low level of Battle Orders. I figured that a shallow life pool doesn't benefit that much from a high level BO.

The weapon of choice is a 'Death' axe. Chosen because there's only one thing better than pain, namely two pains. The goal of this build was to achieve as close to 100% DS as possible. With the setup listed above I get 'only' 91% doublepain, but I just couldn't let go of Arreat's face (swap for Guillaume's). I really needed the resists and AR bonus.

Since this build dishes out the hurt so well, I decided to go /P8 throughout the entire game. Including the ancients. And Baal :(. The little critters in Hell died in one hit, and the larger ones took four hits at most. The biggest problem however, was that poor JackTorrance also took three-four hits before going belly up. I really had to learn how use tactics (Taunt + War Cry). Barbs and tactics? Yes, barbs and tactics.

Since zerk is a one-hit only attack that doesn't leech, I decided to go with the Prayer merc + Insight combo that has served me well in seeing an all-dex amazon to guardian. The biggest difference being of course that the zerker had to go toe to toe with evil. The meditation aura nicely supplied a steady income of blue stuff I converted into hurt. The Prayer's healing also proved to be sufficient to refill the red ball in between fights.

Dangerous stuff:
- Late Act V.
- Champion packs. They don't stun (well, they do stun from time to time) with War Cry and therefore have racked up a nice amount of dead JackTorrance.
- Stygian dolls. Low life + cute little dolly going *plop* = danger. Weird enough I didn't die once to the little bastards. Probably because I played safe and slowly with those critters around.
- Playing too fast. This kills. A titan barb has no safety margin.

Easy stuff:
- All act bosses except Baal, surprisingly. I used Battle Cry and Concentration for the win.
- Physical immunes. Physical. Immune. I lol'd.
- Archers. *taunt*, "What did you call my mother??!!", *whack*

---

(*)
Death
Superior Silver-edged Axe
'HelElVexOrtGul'
Two-Hand Damage: 462 to 820
Required Dexterity: 42
Required Strength: 123
Required Level: 55
Axe Class - Normal Attack Speed
Indestructible
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 85
Fingerprint: 0xb49b181
+382% Enhanced Damage
+15% Enhanced Damage
+51 to Attack Rating
Adds 1-50 lightning damage
7% Mana stolen per hit
+1 to Light Radius
Requirements -20%
20% Bonus to Attack Rating
50% Chance of Crushing Blow
Indestructible
25% Chance to cast Level 18 Glacial Spike on attack
100% Chance to cast Level 44 Chain Lightning When You Die
Level 22 Blood Golem (15/15 Charges)
43% Deadly Strike (Based on Character Level)
Ethereal (Cannot be Repaired), Socketed (5: 5 used)

(**)
Chaos Hold
Ring
Required Level: 60
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 94
Fingerprint: 0x84accd8b
+9 to Dexterity
+34 to Life
+113 to Attack Rating
Lightning Resist +20%
+1 to Light Radius
Level 4 Poison Dagger (30/30 Charges)

(***)
Other character: a 2.5 element enchantress. I could post a mat thread if anyone's interested.
 
Last edited:
Originally posted by AJK on Mar 1, 2007:

I made an invincible barb!

After spending a few nights behind my PC, computing various survival strategies, I've come up with an invincible build. While this build can be adapted to various character classes, I've chosen to pick the barb, since his appearance exudes sheer invincibility and awe.

I present to you,

Expansion Character Melonfarmer, lvl. 1, Barbarian

Stats

Str: 30, Dex: 20, Vit: 25, ene: 10
Unspent stat points: 0

Skills
None at all, see tactics.

Gear
Weapon: Hand Axe
Shield: Buckler

Inventory
Scroll of Town Portal
Scroll of Identify

Tactics
The survivability of this character is guaranteed by following one simple rule:
--> Do not leave town!!! <--
It's dangerous out there.

By staying in town, might/cursed/conviction gloams/archers/creatures cannot touch him.
Exploding stygian dolls? No promlemo.
Frenzytaur champion packs? Laugh at them from another Act.

This character is even the fastest Magic Finder around. You can hit the chest near the campfire within a second each run. Beat that Tunnel Runners!

My retirement plan for this character: chasing chickens. The brother of my milkman's nephew's daughter's uncle's donkey's owners' sister's daughter says that if you chase a chicken three times around the encampment they drop a single gold coin. I will get rich in no time and gamble circlets for profit. By selling my equipment I already got an 8gp head start.

Edit: Drat! Wrong forum. Could a mod please move this guide?
Edit2: Right forum! Swift action by our beloved moderator Hrus! 👍
 
Originally posted by bcoe on May 12, 2010:

Patriarch Cepphus_Grylle (tele-zerker)

Patriarch Cepphus_Grylle


This is my attempt at a tele-zerker. I've been hemming and hawing about which character to use in the upcoming MF league round focusing on Diablo drops. I've read some about using a teleporting berserker as a good CS-runner. It made a lot of sense pre-1.13 when IM was such a threat. I had a berserker abandoned at the beginning of Hell, so I re-equiped and re-specced him a bit (from sword mastery to mace mastery) and pushed him through hell.

The other motivation for this character was that I had a Lo sitting around from the last MF league (trav running). I considered making another Fortitude (eth, probably, just for morons), but that seemed dull. I was looking at trying to combine teleporting (enigma) on a zerker with enough offense/defense to be able to kill in and survive the chaos sanctuary. It seemed problematic to get adequate FCR, ED%, and resists all on one character. Then I remembered that Fortitude can be made in weapons, has some nice defensive mods, and has FCR. AHA! I found an old oath scourge that I haven't used in ages, hel'd out the Oath, and made a Fortitude scourge. Yum...

The name is the latin for the Black Guillemot. It's a beautiful diving seabird found on the coast of New England. Kind of looks superficially penguin-like, but actually isn't related to them...

STATS:
Name: Cepphus_Grylle
Level: 85
Strength: 96 (198)
Dexterity: 35 (74)
Vitality: 379 (389)
Energy: 10 (10)

Life: 3950 (after BO)
Mana: 503 (after BO)


Skills (after + skills):
Bash: 1/9
Stun: 1/9
Concentrate: 1/9
Berserk: 20/28

Mace Mastery: 20/28
Increased Stamina: 1/9
Iron Skin: 1/9
Increased Speed: 1/9
Natural Resistance: 3/11

Howl: 20/26
Shout: 20/26
Battle Orders: 6/12

LCS:
LCS
Berserk Damage: 860-11k
Concentrate Damage: 540-6606


How I got there:

He was leveled up to the mid 70s as a fairly standard Grief/stormshield-wielding zerker. He was started probably about 1.5 years ago, and was left in A1 hell. I don't remember the early times, much. Once I had this plan in mind, I leveled him in the Pits to 80, where he could equip his end-game gear. Hell was pretty easy after that. Howl is a fabulous skill for getting through quests quickly.

On to equipment....

Equipment:
Head: Arreat's Face (Ruby jewel)
Amulet: Raven Wing (crafted, 25%MF, 20FCR, +2 masteries)
Armor: Enigma Breast Plate
Weapon: Fortitude Scourge (eth-bugged)
Shield: Phoenix Monarch
Switch: 2x HoTO
Belt: Arachnid's mesh
Gloves: Laying of Hands
Rings: Ravenfrost (19 dex/ 244 AR) and a SoJ
Boots: Wartravellers

MF: 245 Block: 16
GF: 128
FR/W: 70
FHR: 30
IAS: 20
FCR: 65


Charms:
All SCs (mostly fine, some steel)

Resists: 85/47/80/47

Merc: Ice rogue with Faith ward bow, Fortitude Archon plate, Andarial's Visage

Finds:
Hellforge: (don't remember)/Io

Thoughts:

This was a lot of fun. Tele-zerking is great. He's wonderful in the pits. Teleport into the middle of a mob, howl once or twice (they go off fast thanks to 65FCR), and zerk the boss. In the pits, he 1- or 2- hits most enemies on p1, so the runs go by very fast. He's not as good in the CS as I hoped. When you howl in tight spaces (like where the seals are), the monsters seem to get confused and go back to attacking you. Without any DR, his life bulb yo-yo-ed quite a bit in there. Still, he got through it fine and would work well as a CS/Diablo runner. I guess I was hoping he would compete speed-wise with the very best, and he's not quite there. Very fun, though, and I think I'll use him for at least a portion of the MF league coming up.

I have mixed feelings about his gear. I think he probably would have been better with a spirit shield, grief PB, and a prayer/insight merc. Then he would have had tons of damage (with a tighter damage range), enough FCR, and mana/HP regen from the merc. The phoenix shield is OK. The damage boost is nice (without it he's at 702-8805, so about 1300 average), but not incredible. I think there are better shields (Stormshield for DR, Spirit for FCR/FHR/mana/skills, Lance guard for Deadly Strike) that aren't so ridiculously expensive. The CtC firestorm may actually lead to less DPS, actually. It interrupts attacks pretty frequently. The Redemption is nice, but doesn't really protect you that much. Not worrying about corpses is nice, but it kind of prevents you from using Find Item, and doesn't kick in fast enough to save you all the time. Good for style, but not much else, I suppose.

I am quite happy about the fortitude scourge. It worked as expected. If it only had IAS, I could imagine many builds using it. I made it in a scourge because it seemed like a good balance between speed and damage. I still needed a Faith merc to get to 10 fpa. I'm now trying to think of what other builds could benefit from a weapon with 300ED, 25FCR, 29resists, but no IAS. Maybe a teleporting zealer...

I think I'll run him through the CS for a few more levels. He's a lot of fun, and does have enough MF to actually count... Hopefully his luck will start kicking in with some nice drops...


Thanks for reading.
 
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Originally posted by Colorless Green on Jul 11, 2008:

Patriarch Agnasi, Astreon's Zealbarb

First of all, a big thanks to NagisaFurukawa for the astreon's, which is the entire reason for this build - I volunteered to do a weird build using the item in exchange for receiving it. Weird, in this case, meant non-pally, and therefore, presenting...

Patriarch Agnasi, Level 84 Zealbarb

Str: 105 (131)
Dex: 120 (140)
Vit: 280 (280)
Ene: 10 (10)

Zeal Damage (per LCS - doesn't include +dmg, so it's completely inaccurate): 1340-1711
Average Zeal Damage (per a calc, counting DS/CS, but no guarantee I didn't forget something): 2927 - animals, 3075 - undead, 3961 - demons
Zeal AR (per LCS): 8056
Defense: 15531
Life: 3058
Mana: 295
Resists: 74/75/80/85

Skills:
Zeal: 0 (5)
Berserk: 0 (5)
Leap Attack: 1 (5)
Mace Mastery: 20 (24)
Increased Speed: 1 (5)
Iron Skin: 1 (5)
Natural Resistance: 6 (10)
Shout: 20 (30)
Battle Orders: 20 (30)
Battle Command: 1 (11)
War Cry: 18 (22)

Equip:
Andariel's Visage (AR/IAS jewel)
Fortitude Archon Plate
Laying of Hands
String of Ears
Gore Rider
Highlord's Wrath
Raven Frost
Bone Whorl ring (dual leech, resists, +min)
Astreon's Iron Ward (Shael)
Passion Phase Blade
Echoing javs on switch

Might Merc: Reapers, Treachery, IAS Tal's Mask


This char performed a good deal better than I'd anticipated, though with a high level war cry it's kinda difficult to screw up. Four frame zeal, 3-4k average damage, and 48% CB make it pretty quick to tear through whatever's nearby, particularly when whatever's nearby is just standing there soaking up hits with swirlies over their head.

I played hell on p5 up until maggot lair, which I had a terrible time with for some reason I still haven't entirely been able to figure out - I had several one or two hit deaths from non-unique, non-minion beetle lighting bolts, even with 80 LR (or ~63 or something after the first when anya kicked in) and ~3k life. Anyways, after I got annoyed with that, I dropped it to p3 and kept it there for the rest of the game. I could have easily done anything up to p8 given enough patience (gg war cry), but I only have limited amounts of patience. At p3 things died quite quickly pretty much without exception.

Fal from hell HF I think, and the AR/FCR/ML/res all ring I posted in the IFT yesterday, no other interesting finds.

Maggot lair was annoying as previously mentioned. OK's weren't a problem thanks to berserk (in the event of multiple non-clustered OK's) or warcry (when they're all within the warcry range). Ancients were ridiculously easy - I split them up immediately after awakening them, then individually each went down in a couple seconds. Fortunately, there weren't any scary mods, though two did spawn stone skin and required berserk. Baal's minions were nothing (gg warcry), Baal himself went down pretty quick to 48% cb and zeal. He didn't drop anything besides a failed set archon plate.

Anyways, that was fun. I love weird builds.

-CG
 
Originally posted by Crazy Runner Guy on Dec 11, 2006:

Bert and Ernie, the dual dueling Pats

Here's a dual pat thread of two semi-clone PvPer's Liq and I have been working on for a while.

Here's liq's write up:

My main focus in Diablo these days is creating optimized hybrids (usually for the purposes of dueling). CRG and I were talking over MSN about character variants not often played and what we could do to blend two characters together. We lept around different character classes before finally settling on a Whirlwind/Thrower hybrid. The skill points looked pretty straightforward. We would create the characters and each try and max the following: Battle Orders, Weapon Mastery, Throwing Mastery, Whirlwind, and Double Swing (this is a %dmg synergy to Double Throw)

We named our guys "Bert" and "Ernie" after the Sesame Street duo. They are not clones, but definately brothers in arms. The gear we each used differed greatly. This is mostly in part to us just having seperate stashes and different items to call on. The other main reason had to do with how we wanted the characters in general. CRG focused on +life/defensive items while I concentrated on +dmg/offensive items. We each had to weigh what we wanted in our characters and optimize accordingly. We each had wild and somewhat unconventional choices.

My gear:
Grief Phase Blade and Azurewrath s/Um- I borrowed my druid's Grief and my retired wolfbarb's Azure. I thought it was a nice combo and it looks quite sexy. I also use a -req Stormshield for opponents I need block against. (I do realize that an Oath might be better because of the dmg boost from Fort, but I wanted to stick with phase blades to keep the strength low)
Dual Ethereal Lacerators- Part of the reason for building this character was because I had 2 of these ethereal badboys. OW, nice dmg, replenish, and most importantly: Amp dmg.
Fortitude Archon- I wanted exceptional dmg and saw nothing better than this armor. 300% ED, enough said.
Nosferatu's Coil- I knew I wanted 10% slow target (not to mention that sweet IAS bonus) so I built this belt into the character from the get-go.
Dual Ravenfrosts- +36 dex, 441 AR, 40% Cold Absorb and the all important CBF. (I used just 1 raven and a dual leech ring during leveling)
Highlords- Scaling Deadly Strike, +1 skills, and lightning resists. I really wanted to use this ammy rather than a partial angelics combo for the AR.
Gore Riders- Great boots. Every duelers favorite. I was originally going to use Hsaurus boots/belt combo for the sweet AR bonus but couldn't forsake my Nos Coil.

How then did I boost the AR if I skimped on the Hsaurus and Angelics combo? (In PvP, a mandatory 12K++ AR is needed) This was the main problem with my gear that I had to overcome. Here was my answer...
Sigon's Helm and Sigon's Gloves- It is little known that together these items have a scaling AR set bonus. It's not the 12 per lvl of angelics or the 10 per lvl of Hsaurus, but its a comfortable 8 per lvl. They also offered +10 str, 10% life leech (great for PvM), and 30% IAS. I socketed the helm with a (poison resist) 15% IAS jewel as well. With 75% total IAS, this character threw his axes at the fastest breakpoint, something I had wanted to achieve.

CRG's gear was equally odd. He built his character with knockback as a number one priority. (Something I did not.) He swore by it in the leveling process and got it via a Giant Skull. I was skeptical on how it would work with whirlwind in duels but would have liked it if my gear could have managed it. For pure PvM, I'd think Cleglaws Pinchers would be a real nice glove choice. CRG also used a .07 Valor, dual Death Cleavers, and some other stuff I did not. We both agreed on the Lacerators though. Although the range is poor, the Amp dmg is too good to pass up in duels.

At level 87, these are my skills.
Whirlwind- 17
Battle Orders- 20
Sword Mastery- 20
Throwing Mastery- 14
Double Swing- 14

His stat points are standard, enough str to hold items, enough dexterity for max block with SS, and all the rest in vita. His important stats are as follows:


Life: 3363 (pretty low for a barb, but I didn't invest in super godly charms for him and he doesn't have +6 to warcries with Echoing switch like most)

Defense: 5517

Defense with stormshield and Chilling Armor from fort: 9128

WW Attack Rating (Enchant): 10199 (15662)

Throw Attack Rating (Enchant): 7333 (12698)

WW damage: Hard to say with Grief, but seems good

Double Throw damage: 1K-7K, 1K-6.5K[/list:fd5b00c894]
His resists left something to be desired, but most of SP PvP is melee oriented and I didn't notice much of a problem in PvM. I might regear for elemental chars (throw on a pdiamond mosers or something like that)

CRG'S WRITE UP HERE

So liq and I like hybrids. A lot. We haven't seen a barbarian hybrid in a long time (I know Zhao has one, and Strijdje had a thrower a long time ago). Thus I bring you, Bert and Ernie, the twin Pvper's.

Both are WW barbs designed with lacerators on switch. Because both chars lack enigma, we're using them to combat ranged characters. Also, a quick throw at a charging character could trigger amp, and thus WW gets so much sweeter.

Bert's stats

Stats: (with gear)

141 STR
193 DEX
541 VITA

5019 life (4001 w/o Valor)
588 Mana
7348 defense w/o shield
(not sure on def /w shield, but 75% blocking)
(Above numbers are w/o echoing weapons used)

274% DC 'um'
280% DC /w ed jewel
183 Lacerator
(151 lacerator to accompany once I go RWM/RRM)
07 Arkaine's Valor (+2.5 vita/clvl, +2 life/clvl, isn't BO-able)
+33 str 2 soc G-Skull (/w 2x IAS jewels)
+15 str drac's
39/15 Dungo's
20/183 raven
20/244 raven
Cat's Eye
Gore Rider
-req SS in stash

11698 AR for WW
~570-1780 WW damage

(XXX) AR for DT (shoot! didn't write down!)
~280-2050 DT damage (/w 183 lacerator)

Above numbers are with enchant.

Charms:
4x iron/steel of vita
7x sc of vita
7x mana/life sc
2x iron sc of balance
4x Sharp GC of sustenance
3/11/13
3/15/10
3/15/20
3/20/2 str

DS/OW/CB
WW:
~85% double damage (counting crit strike)
60% OW (25% from off-hand axe)
25% CB
Throwing:
68% OW
~32% DS
25% CB

20 WW
20 Axe
20 Throwing
BO
1 BC
2 Inc. Speed (25%, iirc)
2 NR (40%)

The build is premised on using lacerators to trigger amp when an enemy approaches, then use WW (offensively/defensively, etc) once amp triggers and enemy is close. I can also WW /w lacerators, but the amp will not trigger then. Res is the only immediate weakpoint, with 20/-20/-10/-30 going for me. However, with SP PvP so melee-oriented, I thought I could get away with it.

Giant Skull is key to this build. It will knock around anyone who gets near me, and helps disorient smiters. It may knock people out of WW range, however, it also stuns them slightly, letting me get back into killing. This works on both axes and both lacerators.

I played throwers in v1.09 to much sucess, especially the LLD ones (1k life, 500 PvP damage b/c of bug, all at slvl 21). I hope this char is gets the same success.

crg

I'll add more later, but I've got to go to class.
 
Originally posted by @Cyrax on May 23, 2009:

Patriarch EmperorMoo, the story of the real cow king

When the trouble began...

It all began a few years back. When evil first touched the earth. In a small town out in the hills near Mount Arreat a small barbarian boy lived a carefree life. Until one day some of the first forces of darkness appeared in his village. They started to slaughter all. Not caring whether it was man, woman or even small children. The small boy was fortuned enough to be able to hide in a nearby stable. But what would happen if someone would check if anyone was in there. Luckily there were some cow skin hides laying around to hide under. While evil got very near, it did not find the child. And whilst hiding under these cow skins he swore he'd make them pay for what they did to his village.
But he also remembered a story his father used to tell him. It was about a wolf hiding amongst sheep and remain unseen in the process. There were no sheep where the boy lived, but because he was hiding underneath something else he got an idea. Maybe cow skins would work too.
After the pillaging of his village he stayed hidden for several more days just to be sure none would spot him. And then years started passing by where he'd be running and hiding from evil for most of the time. But every once in a while he got a chance to kill a monster that strayed from the pack. He could get close, very close, using his cow skin as cover. And thus EmperorMoo was born.
As he grew up and became larger and stronger the cow skins didn't make a very good cover anymore. But he had grown attached to the things that once saved his life. Also because of this his small, easy to conceal, weapons were no longer of use. So he started looking out for something bigger and better. It was not an easy search. But some time later he did find what he was looking for. A nice big polearm. Now he didn't have to get up close anymore and could stay out of harms way. And more importantly now he was ready to lead the assault to reclaim Mount Arreat and the World Stone from the Prime Evils.

So now the intro is out of the way. Here's some details about the build. I choose concentrate as the main skill. This because it resembles the attack the cows use. As a backup i went with berserk because it's both a synergy for concentrate and an excellent way of dealing with PI's. Of course to resemble the cows i had to use a polearm. I could have gone with one of the usual suspects, but wanted something different. And because i was already looking for a build to use my nice rare this was the opportunity.

Stats

lvl 81

life - 3054
mana -280

resists

fire - 56
cold - 28
lighting - 66
poison - 38

str - 125 (/166)
dex - 70 (/110)
vit - 295
ene - base

skills

max BO, concentrate, berserk and polearm mastery
some utility skills
and spare points will go to bash (concentrate synergy)

damage

concentrate 1275-2988 (/w might 1561-3664)
berserk 1411-3309 (/w might 1697-3985)

attack rating

concentrate 11.871
berserk 14.901

gear:

cow king hat (socketed with 11% resist all/+8 min dam jewel)
cow king armor (socketed with 11% resist all jewel)
cow king boots
highlord's wrath
ravenfrost
scintillating ring of the lamprey
blood claw
bone lock
wraith picket

readouts:

Code:
EmperorMoo's Cow King's Horns
War Hat
Defense: 122
Durability: 12 of 12
Required Strength: 20
Required Level: 37
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 84
Fingerprint: 0x375bea58
+8 to Minimum Damage
+75 Defense
All Resistances +11
Attacker Takes Damage of 10
35% Damage Taken Goes to Mana
Half Freeze Duration
Socketed (1: 1 used)

EmperorMoo's Cow King's Hide
Studded Leather
Defense: 57
Durability: 32 of 32
Required Strength: 27
Required Level: 26
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 64
Fingerprint: 0x9a3acae7
+30 to Life
+60% Enhanced Defense
All Resistances +29
18% Chance to cast Level 5 Chain Lightning when struck
Socketed (1: 1 used)

EmperorMoo's Cow King's Hooves
Heavy Boots
Defense: 40
Durability: 14 of 14
Required Strength: 18
Required Level: 13
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 64
Fingerprint: 0x216b9a0d
+20 to Dexterity
+34 Defense
Adds 25-35 fire damage
25% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
30% Faster Run/Walk

Highlord's Wrath
Amulet
Required Level: 65
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 88
Fingerprint: 0x1ba23312
Lightning Resist +35%
Adds 1-30 lightning damage
20% Increased Attack Speed
+1 to All Skill Levels
Attacker Takes Lightning Damage of 15
30% Deadly Strike (Based on Character Level)

Raven Frost
Ring
Required Level: 45
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 87
Fingerprint: 0xcfe4524
+17 to Dexterity
+40 to Mana
+219 to Attack Rating
Adds 15-45 cold damage over 4 seconds
20% Cold Absorb
Cannot Be Frozen

Scintillating Ring of the Lamprey
Required Level: 65
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 80
Fingerprint: 0x70c6eaa7
All Resistances +15
8% Life stolen per hit

Blood Claw
Sharkskin Gloves
Defense: 62
Durability: 14 of 14
Required Strength: 20
Required Level: 57
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 94
Fingerprint: 0x64d796f6
+14 to Life
+57% Enhanced Defense
3% Life stolen per hit
3% Mana stolen per hit
20% Increased Attack Speed
10% Chance of Crushing Blow
Repairs 1 durability in 33 seconds

Bone Lock
Vampirefang Belt
Defense: 128
Durability: 14 of 14
Required Strength: 50
Required Level: 63
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 86
Fingerprint: 0xd6216c0a
+21 to Strength
+100% Enhanced Defense
Fire Resist +27%
Lightning Resist +18%
17% Faster Hit Recovery

Wraith Picket
Partizan
Two-Hand Damage: 135 to 338
Durability: 65 of 65
Required Dexterity: 67
Required Strength: 113
Required Level: 48
Polearm Class - Very Fast Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 99
Fingerprint: 0xaa9dd916
+298% Enhanced Damage
Adds 1-103 lightning damage
5% Life stolen per hit
6% Mana stolen per hit
40% Increased Attack Speed
+40 to Maximum Damage (Based on Character Level)
+1336 to Attack Rating (Based on Character Level)

The help: Vikhyat (might merc)
Duriel's shell
Vamp gaze
The reaper's toll

The trip to hell:
Normal and NM were easy because of twinking. Still managed to get myself killed twice in NM. First was because of watching tv while encountering a might enchanted bosspack. The second was almost equally dumb and was in the CS. I thought there was only one OK nearby so i could attack him with concentrate. He would curse me with decrepify because of me being close to him. Only i missed the OK on the very top of my screen. I was dead even before i heard the sound of IM.
Total of deaths is 5 IIRC. The others weren't as dumb as the first two, but if i played a bit more carefully, all would be avoidable.
Didn't even have any real problems throughout the game. First excessive twinking. Then at lvl 27 picked up an insight polearm. So i got some serious early-game damage. Then when it started to slow down i could equip my new end-game toy and that made short work of just about everything.
Also did Nihlathak in all difficulties for the personalizing of my cow set.
Ancients were easy. Though i was very fortunate on the rolls. 2x fire enchanted + stone skin and one extra strong + magic resistant. They went down in less then a minute. Just to be safe i let my merc have the final blow on both FE's.
Only really hard part actually started right after defeating the ancients. When entering the WSK i got death lords. And lots of them. With hardly any space to move i got champions and 2 bosspacks. One of them with might aura and an extra strong boss. Combine that with the amp from nearby witches and you've got some serious dangerous. But with some skill and some luck i managed to pull through without dying (though the merc was less lucky). After that it was pretty easy. Just had to watch out for some FE beatles at the second lvl and IM in the throne but nothing really serious.

Why did i make this character you ask? Well that's because i could combine two things i wanted to do. First was to make a pat/mat with the cow king set. The second was to make a character that could use my nice rare polearm. And as you can see i even used some other junk i had laying around to complete the character (magic ring, crafted gloves, rare belt).

I wanted to upgrade the weapon for even more damage. So i was very happy when at the forge in NM a pul dropped. I was thinking this character was paying for it's own upgrade. But later when i actually wanted to upp it i found out that the pul was for upgrading uniques. Not rares. That would require an um rune. That was not funny! So i decided to stay with my weapon as it was and see how far i would get before i'd feel the need to upgrade. But it kept going fine and since the forge in hell dropped a hell i didn't really feel like spending that um. Maybe i'll do that some day, but since i recently used quite a few runes i'm keeping what's left in my pocket for now.

General thoughts about the cow set:
It's mostly a crappy set. The hat really doesn't even have one good thing about it. The armor is no better except for a little resist all. The boots are at least somewhat decent.
Luckily the complete set gives some useful bonusses like strength, IAS, MF and also static field. The last was fun on some occasions. When being hit a lot and having a lot of monsters in close range they lost hp's fast (unles being LI). Nevertheless, with so little good aspects it just proves the SPF point that you don't need all those highend RW's to complete the game.
And despite all the above, the thing i missed the most about the set is turning into a cow. Or at the very least give me my freakin' aura. If i actually would have turned into a cow i probably wouldn't have used concentrate but WW instead. Imagine a whirling cow!

All in all i did have fun playing this char. Mostly because it's pretty far from cookiecutter. And i hope you all had some fun reading this.
 
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Originally posted by drmalawi on Feb 25, 2018:

Patriarch Dougal - Elemental Double Swing Barbarian

Short summary:
Double swing barbarian with dual Gimmershreds and Trechery.

Weekend warrior (https://www.purediablo.com/forums/threads/2018-weekend-warrior-tournament-by-diablotwoindc.216/)

Theme/story:

The IK set gives huge amount of elemental damage, crushing blow and damage reduction. The main usage of the set is to use Whirlwind and apply all that joozy elemental and magic damage as well as the crushing blow in a rather quick manner. The armor is a very rare item and many players are still missing it (myself included).

My fav weapon on a conviction zealer is the gimmershred. Pretty fast attack and plenty of fire, cold and lightning damage, which is increased futher by the conviction aura (which also makes attack rating less important). I have had the idea to use gimmershreds and double swing as main combat skill for a while (these were the weapons I used for my first Pat double throw barb btw).

By reading about DiabloTwoinDC's post about his/hers Elemental barb in the Weekend Warrior thread, I thought that now the time is ready for me!

So there you have it, my version of poor man's IK barb!

-----------------------------------------

Pros:
You attack really fast all the time, nothing is really immune to you. Double swing has only one syenergy - and if you can get AR elsewhere, you just need Double swing at level 8 to reduce mana cost and you can put 12 points into something else (Howl, Battle cry, shout or why not War cry?). You don't get the increased run/walk speed from frenzy so you have more controll here. I know that you can walk instead, like @Grape is doing here
;)

Cons:
Low enhanced damage on the double swing skill. Low physical damage means not so good life leech and you "have to" rely on Life Tap. Short range on Gimmershred and you need 95% IAS off-gear to reach fastest breakpoint (see table below).

Comparison to the GimmerShred conviction zealer:
You have to get that attack rating up since you don't have conviction (well, you can have it if you have an infinity merc), that is why I went with a Blessed Aim merc (holy freeze would have been safer, but not as fun). You can't block, so you need high life and damage reduction. You don't have conviction, at least not I didn't, but the double swing is easier to attack fast with compared to my old GimmerShred paladin. Zeal without Fanatiscm seems to have that problem - hard to get 4fpa zeals.

I got a nice level 3 lower resist wand from Baal a few months ago and tohugh that I could use it alot on this build. But ended up using Life tap charges instead due to the low physical damage and life steal.

-----------------------------------------
Gear:
Dual Gimmershreds (that's whats this char is about!)
G-face with IAS and attack rating jewel.
Laying of hands
Ravenfrost
Rare ring with AR, lightn res and life leech
Gore riders
Highlords amulet
Threchery in Greak Hauberk (perfect for IAS and applying fast poision damage)

1 War cry skiller, Rest of charms where all res and small charms with lightning damage. Should probably have used vita charms, but damage is more fun!

Switch/buffs: Demon limb, teleport staff, life tap dagger, Lower res wand from Baal (level 3 lower resist).

Leveling gear: Normal - 6 sockted crystal sword with Ort's and 6 socketed crystal sword with Ral's.
Nightmare - Aldurs maces with Ort's.

-----------------------------------------

Merc: Act II blessed aim. Vamp gaze with Shael, E-bugged Diamond mail Threchery, Ethereal thresher Cresent moon (really underestimated weapon).

-----------------------------------------
Stats:

AR (with blessed aim & demon limb charge) 9,5k

Damage (venom & demon limc charge) 1168 - 3584

Double physical damage chance: 72% (Critical strike 30%, Deadly strike 60%

Crushing blow: 50% (G-face, Gore Riders)

Defence: 3137

Damage reduction: 30% (String of ears, Fade from trechery)

Life Steal: 15% (String of ears, rare ring)

Resistances (without fade): Fire 75% (65%), Cold 68% (18%), Light 75% (62%), Poison 47% (-3%)

Skills: Double swing 20, Bash 20, Axe Mastery 20, all masteries 1 except Natural resistances which had 2, War cry skills: 1 Battle Cry, 1 Battle command, 20 Battle orders, 3 Shout (rest will go into here if I continue).

Life: 2838 (with BO)

Mana: 261 (with BO)


-----------------------------------------
Attack speed breakpoints with Flying axes:
(from Titan seal)

Code:
IAS    attack speed [ticks]    attacks per second
0      8     3.12
5     7.5     3.33
14     7    3.57
26    6.5    3.84
44    6    4.16
72    5.5    4.54
125    5    5

-----------------------------------------
Noteable finds:
Lum and Titans javelin from Nightmare Duriel.
Jewel with 39% ED and 9 Strength. Curse GC skiller in Nightmare. Fal rune Hell HF Quest. Unique Kraken shell Leviathan in WSK (first one in SP for me yay). Lem rune from Lister pack.

Number of deaths: 2 (might aura cursed crushers in canyon of magi)(Misplacement caused instant death at the Ancients)

----------------------------------------
Build variation:
If you want more saftey, consider using Howl and/or War cry. Dual lawbringers on switch could be an option to fast decrepify a large group of monsters.

Future plans:
Nothing with this dude, he is done! Well, perhaps if/when I make Infinity, he will have a second chance :)

I wanna try to whirlwind with dual gimmershreds for the perfect IK-"mimic". Also I wanna do a double swing barb that focuses on physical damage. I think my Oath Small crescent and Lacerator will be a good choice... or perhas dual crescent moon phase blades?

Thank you for reading this far.

 

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Last edited:
Originally posted by Foxtrue on Mar 14, 2010:

1.09 Diablo 2 Classic Baron Firefox Concentrator / Berserker hybrid

This is the story of Firefox the concentrator / berserker barbarian.

As a young boy, Firefox was fascinated by his berserker grandfather stories. He dreamed of adventures where he could defeat the evil demons and undeads that plagued the Sanctuary using his berserker skill. That is a power that can devastate almost any enemy and even ignore the curses of the necromancers that were corupted by the Greater Evils ! I have to learn this skill said him to his grandfather.

His grandfather started teaching him this magnificent power. As the time passed Firefox grew into a fine young man, a berserker barbarian. In his training to become the perfect berserker he learned about concentration but did not cared much about it.

One day when he was hunting, he saw a large group of champions zombies preparing to atack a barbarian village. He readied his sword and atacked them. He cut thru five of them but was begining to take too many hits from them to swing his sword. He was preparing to temporary retreat but then he saw a young barbarian that killed quite a few of the zombies coming to his help. His sword atack was relentless but not as powerful as Firefox's berserk. The young barbarian that helped him was using a shield and many zombies hits were blocked by it.
After all the champions zombies were cut to pieces, Firefox thanked his helper and they became good friends. His new friend name was Smartbear. Impressed by the defensive skills of his new friend, Firefox asked him what kind of skill was using. It's concentration, replied Smartbear, don't you know it ?
I learned about it briefly in my training but I did not pay much attention to it said Firefox. You are mighty, said Smartbear, but sometimes a slow but safe way to fight comes in handy. The young berserker agreed and with Smartbear help became a decent concentrator.
After a few years, Firefox left the barbarian lands and started adventuring in the rest of the Sanctuary.




Firefox is a level 88 concentrator/berserker and my first Baron.

Firefox level 88 final stats:

Strength 125 (147)

Dexterity 100 (135)

Vitality 300

Energy 10

Firefox final skills:

Warcries:
1 Howl
1 Shout
20 Battle Orders
1 Battle Command

Combat Masteries
20 Sword Mastery
1 Iron Skin
13 Natural Resistences

Combat skills
1 Bash
1 Stun
20 Concentrate
20 Berserk

Gear:

Weapon: Ripsaw Flamberge (normal+nightmare) / Rare Zweihander (hell) + 6 Perfect Emeralds Ballista (backup)


Storm Barb Rare Zweihander

One-Hand Damage: 44 to 74
Two-Hand Damage: 65 to 114
Durability: 150 of 150
Required Dexterity: 94
Required Strength: 125
Required Level: 39
Sword Class - Fast Attack Speed
Item Version: Standard
Item Level: 76
Fingerprint: 0xe72dd35e
+108% Enhanced Damage
+202 to Attack Rating
+3 to Minimum Damage
+50 poison damage over 5 seconds
6% Mana stolen per hit

Armor: Twitchthroe (general) /Rattlecage (Diablo)

Gloves, Helmet, Belt, Amulet: Iratha's Finery

Shield: 3 Perfect Diamonds Tower Shield

Boots: Goblin Toe

Rings: Magic ring + Rare ring

Jade Ring of the Locust
Required Level: 35
Item Version: Standard
Item Level: 74
Fingerprint: 0x207ed594
Poison Resist +30%
6% Life stolen per hit


Rune Circle
Ring
Required Level: 47
Item Version: Standard
Item Level: 75
Fingerprint: 0xf60b036f
+12 to Strength
+15 to Maximum Stamina
+3 to Minimum Damage
Fire Resist +19%
6% Life stolen per hit

I first started this barbarian as a berserker but ended up using the one point Concentrate most of the time. After completing my berserker skills I started to use skill points fot concentrate. In the end, a agressive build turned into a very good all-rounder. One enemy-Berserk, a mob of enemies-Concentrate. In the Chaos Sanctuary this combination was quite good. Concentrate for most enemies and if I got Iron Maiden-ed I cuted my way out with Berserk. Diablo was easier with Concentrate actually.

Character development:

Normal:
1-50 levels

Skills:
20 Sword Mastery
1 Iron Skin
13 Natural Resistences
1 Bash
1 Stun
1-Concentrate
16-Berserk

Nightmare:
51-68 levels

Skills:
1 Howl
1 Shout
12 Battle Orders
1-Battle Command
4 Berserk

Hell:
68-88 levels

Skills:
8 Battle Orders
19 Concentrate

players x settings ->leveling up

Normal - players 8

Nightmare: players 1 until Mephinsto waypoint, players 3 for level up items finding at Mephisto, players 8 Chaos Sanctuary

Hell: Players 3 until level 81 and I entered Hell. Hell Mephisto runs provided the Rare Zweihander.

On Chaos Sanctuary I used from players 4 to players 8. A level 87 Chaos Sanctuary run provided about 2 milion experience on players 8.

Weapon choice:

The Ripsaw Flamberge was great for normal and nightmare, the open wounds and mana steal came in handy.

As for the endgame weapon I liked the Zweihander because of its speed and decent strength requirements. The Executioner Sword was too slow and too heavy for my taste.

Problems:

Normal: Piece of cake

Nighmare:Bremm and his friends that came sometimes LE/MSLE, Uniques/Champions Stygian Dolls death explosions on more than players 1, Fanatical Unique Maulers

Hell:Lord de Seis Extra fast MS / Mana Burn and his Oblivion Knights, Fanatical Uniques.

One point wonders:

Bash: Extra fast Uniques / Extra strong can be hit locked to a wall, a life saver with a strong fanatism aura uniques such as council members or maulers.

Stun:If you can lead and fight one on one normal monsters that got fanaticism aura and hit hard (maulers) with this skill and a fast weapon you can win the battle with no health loss.

Hope this sort of mini guide helps someone.

Questions and suggestions are most welcomed.
 
Last edited:
Originally posted by Grape on Feb 9, 2017:

Patriarch Aether - Rare and Ethereal only Concentrate Barbarian

Introduction:

After doing a magic only Amazon, there obviously has to be a rare only Barbarian, right? Actually, Aether is a bit older character, as this was started during the summer already. And because rare only is not enough, let's go ahead and make it ethereal only too, while we are at it...

Probably half a dozen characters were started and finished while Aether slowly progressed through the game. Big chunk (Norm, NM and the first two Acts of Hell) were played before the autumn, until I picked him up recently again. He was upgraded all the time, still, and that was one reason I hesitated to finish him too soon.

As is common with my characters, there is often some certain item that inspired the whole thing. This time it was the weapon Aether used. It just had to be used, so something was to be made around it. Another theme I settled for (that I though would fit well with Concentrate), was to not only use ethereal items only, but to use eth items with the most defense I could find.

To not make things too straightforward, I added a rare (and eth) only mercenary to the picture as well. Desert merc sounded the most obvious with either Defiancy or Might aura, but in the end I could not resist the idea about two Barbarians.


Items and build:

Aether was all about his items. Shiny, transparent and sturdy. I'll make an exception from my usual approach and post the readouts for those one by one. Some are more impressive than others, but I feel that I managed to put quite a nice collection together.

Weapon:
Carrion Scalpel
Phase Blade
One Hand Damage: 232 - 263
Indestructible
Required Level: 69
Required Strength: 15
Required Dexterity: 126
Fingerprint: 0xb2a69c96
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
10% Chance to cast level 3 Nova on striking
+30% Increased Attack Speed
406% Enhanced Damage
+216 to Attack Rating
7% Mana stolen per hit
Required Level +12
Ethereal
1 Sockets (1 used)
Socketed: Ohm Rune

Ohm Rune
Required Level: 57
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Weapons: Enhanced Maximum Damage
Armor: +5% to Maximum Cold Resist
Shields: +5% to Maximum Cold Resist
Found from Travincal as a Crystal Sword. I appreciated that speed, so I didn't need a lot of additional IAS and was not slowed down to a crawl when hit by a cold damage (no CBF..)

Helmet:
Spirit Veil
Fury Visor
Defense: 427
Durability: 35 of 35
Required Level: 61
Required Strength: 119
Fingerprint: 0xdddef76a
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+15% Increased Attack Speed
+144% Enhanced Defense
+40 Defense
+37 to Life
Poison Length Reduced by 25%
Repairs 1 Durability in 20 Seconds
Required Level +12
Ethereal
1 Sockets (1 used)
Socketed: Bone Jewel of Fervor

Bone Jewel of Fervor
Jewel
Required Level: 31
Fingerprint: 0x58fe7169
Item Level: 88
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+15% Increased Attack Speed
+40 Defense
Quite a fitting jewel, I'd say. With that Phaseblade and its 30 IAS, this allows me to hit a 9 FPA Concentrate, which is the fastest available.

Shield:
Storm Ward
Monarch
Defense: 484
Chance to Block: 32
Durability: 86 of 86
Required Level: 66
Required Strength: 146
Fingerprint: 0xe435da60
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+15% Faster Block Rate
10% Increased Chance of Blocking
+4 to Maximum Damage
+140% Enhanced Defense
+6 to Mana
Repairs 1 Durability in 33 Seconds
Required Level +12
Ethereal
1 Sockets (1 used)
Socketed: Pul Rune

Pul Rune
Required Level: 45
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Weapons: +75% Damage to Demons
+100 to Attack Rating against Demons
Armor: +30% Enhanced Defense
Shields: +30% Enhanced Defense
Well, that is not a Storm Shield, but we like that defense! With my dex, I had 51% chance to block.

Body armor:
Ghoul Jack
Sacred Armor
Defense: 1811
Durability: 31 of 31
Required Level: 66
Required Strength: 222
Fingerprint: 0xe9167604
Item Level: 12
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+101% Enhanced Defense
+18 to Life
Fire Resist +26%
Attacker Takes Damage of 8
Repairs 1 Durability in 20 Seconds
Ethereal
1 Sockets (1 used)
Socketed: Pul Rune

Pul Rune
Required Level: 45
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Weapons: +75% Damage to Demons
+100 to Attack Rating against Demons
Armor: +30% Enhanced Defense
Shields: +30% Enhanced Defense
If you wonder about the ilvl, it is imbued with a level 8 character.

Boots:
Havoc Track
Boneweave Boots
Defense: 212
Durability: 16 of 16
Required Level: 66
Required Strength: 108
Fingerprint: 0x6771f652
Item Level: 94
Version: Expansion 1.10+
14% Chance to cast level 5 Nova when struck
+136% Enhanced Defense
+8 to Dexterity
Lightning Resist +21%
Fire Resist +19%
Repairs 1 Durability in 20 Seconds
Required Level +12
Ethereal
Courtesy of Diablo, it seems. Was a nice surprise to find these from my stashes.

Belt:
Havoc Lash
Troll Belt
Defense: 175
Durability: 18 of 18
Required Level: 74
Required Strength: 141
Fingerprint: 0xbf8a3652
Item Level: 88
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+95% Enhanced Defense
Lightning Resist +13%
Poison Length Reduced by 25%
Attacker Takes Damage of 3
Repairs 1 Durability in 20 Seconds
Required Level +12
Ethereal
There's some obvious room for improvement, but that's true for every items slot.

Gloves:
Grim Hold
Ogre Gauntlets
Defense: 234
Durability: 24 of 24
Required Level: 71
Required Strength: 175
Fingerprint: 0xc40b431a
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+19 to Attack Rating
+121% Enhanced Defense
+5 to Dexterity
Fire Resist +7%
Half Freeze Duration
Repairs 1 Durability in 33 Seconds
Required Level +7
Ethereal
Another find from Travincal. For a long time I had a pair with under +100 % ED, so it was really nice to find an upgrade for those.

Jewelry:
Dread Emblem
Amulet
Required Level: 63
Fingerprint: 0x7d9bc07a
Item Level: 93
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+1 to Barbarian Skill Levels
Adds 1 - 5 Fire Damage
+29 to Strength
+16 to Dexterity
Cold Resist +19%
All Resistances +16

Doom Touch
Ring
Required Level: 60
Fingerprint: 0xc95e4a2d
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+8 to Minimum Damage
+113 to Attack Rating
5% Life stolen per hit
+38 to Life
All Resistances +11
Poison Resist +25%

Bone Loop
Ring
Required Level: 66
Fingerprint: 0x42c6725f
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+101 to Attack Rating
7% Life stolen per hit
+20 to Strength
All Resistances +5
Poison Resist +7%
Shame about the +1 skills amulet, but could you say no to those stats?

Switch weapons:
Skull Skewer
Battle Dart
Throw Damage: 33 - 75
One Hand Damage: 25 - 50
Quantity: 136
Required Level: 48
Required Strength: 15
Required Dexterity: 42
Fingerprint: 0x6c3cbdbe
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+2 to Barbarian Skill Levels
111% Enhanced Damage
+282 to Attack Rating
Adds 50 Poison Damage Over 5 Secs (125 Frames)
5% Mana stolen per hit
+2 to Strength
Ethereal

Grim Gnarl
Truncheon
One Hand Damage: 52 - 69
Durability: 28 of 28
Required Level: 39
Required Strength: 78
Required Dexterity: 33
Fingerprint: 0x912a990b
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
10% Chance to cast level 3 Nova on striking
+2 to Warcry Skills (Barbarian Only)
+5 to Maximum Damage
+150% Damage to Undead
Adds 1 - 2 Fire Damage
Adds 15 - 33 Cold Damage Over 2 Secs (50 Frames)
Ethereal
Rare and eth, right? Besides the usual buffing I also used these when Howling.

Mercenary:
Demon Brow
Corona
Defense: 653
Durability: 25 of 50
Required Level: 78
Required Strength: 164
Fingerprint: 0xe5cdbdad
Item Level: 94
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+10% Faster Hit Recovery
+230% Enhanced Defense
+26 to Life
+5 to Mana
Lightning Resist +7%
Required Level +12
Ethereal
1 Sockets (1 used)
Socketed: Pul Rune

Pul Rune
Required Level: 45
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Weapons: +75% Damage to Demons
+100 to Attack Rating against Demons
Armor: +30% Enhanced Defense
Shields: +30% Enhanced Defense

Armageddon Carapace
Diamond Mail
Defense: 1881
Durability: 14 of 14
Required Level: 54
Required Strength: 121
Fingerprint: 0x38b3e89d
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+156% Enhanced Defense
Poison Resist +20%
Magic Damage Reduced by 3
Poison Length Reduced by 75%
Attacker Takes Damage of 7
Ethereal
1 Sockets (1 used)
Socketed: Pul Rune

Pul Rune
Required Level: 45
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Weapons: +75% Damage to Demons
+100 to Attack Rating against Demons
Armor: +30% Enhanced Defense
Shields: +30% Enhanced Defense

Fiend Needle
Colossus Sword
One Hand Damage: 158 - 396
Two Hand Damage: 354 - 684
Durability: 41 of 50
Required Level: 72
Required Strength: 172
Required Dexterity: 85
Fingerprint: 0x98d38d46
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
278% Enhanced Damage
+11 to Minimum Damage
+219 to Attack Rating
7% Life stolen per hit
Level 2 Concentrate (20/25 Charges)
Required Level +12
Ethereal
1 Sockets (1 used)
Socketed: Amn Rune

Amn Rune
Required Level: 25
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Weapons: 7% Life stolen per hit
Armor: Attacker Takes Damage of 14
Shields: Attacker Takes Damage of 14
That sword was the last upgrade I got for this character before finishing. Wish I found that earlier, it made a big impact on Sigurd's killing speed. Before that we had a ~200ED Highland Blade.

Inventory:
Shimmering Grand Charm of Dexterity
Grand Charm
Required Level: 27
Fingerprint: 0xd21ccd4b
Item Level: 88
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+4 to Dexterity
All Resistances +13

Steel Grand Charm of Vita
Grand Charm
Required Level: 69
Fingerprint: 0x32e97740
Item Level: 94
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+132 to Attack Rating
+40 to Life

Fine Small Charm of Vita
Small Charm
Required Level: 39
Fingerprint: 0xd3d9701f
Item Level: 80
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+3 to Maximum Damage
+13 to Attack Rating
+19 to Life

Fine Small Charm of Vita
Small Charm
Required Level: 39
Fingerprint: 0x2890bbf3
Item Level: 80
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+3 to Maximum Damage
+19 to Attack Rating
+17 to Life

Fine Small Charm of Inertia
Small Charm
Required Level: 27
Fingerprint: 0xab982155
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+3% Faster Run/Walk
+3 to Maximum Damage
+18 to Attack Rating

Fine Small Charm of Vita
Small Charm
Required Level: 39
Fingerprint: 0xae23e68c
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+3 to Maximum Damage
+19 to Attack Rating
+20 to Life

Fine Small Charm of Vita
Small Charm
Required Level: 39
Fingerprint: 0x528be504
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+3 to Maximum Damage
+17 to Attack Rating
+16 to Life

Fine Small Charm of Inertia
Small Charm
Required Level: 27
Fingerprint: 0xa175da31
Item Level: 81
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+3% Faster Run/Walk
+2 to Maximum Damage
+20 to Attack Rating

Horadric Cube
Fingerprint: 0xa833e0b7
Item Level: 13
Version: Expansion 1.10+

Shimmering Small Charm of Vita
Small Charm
Required Level: 39
Fingerprint: 0x92c99569
Item Level: 88
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+17 to Life
All Resistances +4

Shimmering Small Charm of Vita
Small Charm
Required Level: 39
Fingerprint: 0x6170c05c
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+19 to Life
All Resistances +5

Sharp Grand Charm of Sustenance
Grand Charm
Required Level: 37
Fingerprint: 0x7c7e989f
Item Level: 80
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+10 to Maximum Damage
+50 to Attack Rating
+29 to Life

Sharp Grand Charm of Sustenance
Grand Charm
Required Level: 53
Fingerprint: 0x9ce2fb4
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+10 to Maximum Damage
+68 to Attack Rating
+32 to Life

Steel Grand Charm of Vita
Grand Charm
Required Level: 69
Fingerprint: 0x8a20d9b6
Item Level: 94
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+126 to Attack Rating
+36 to Life

Steel Grand Charm of Vita
Grand Charm
Required Level: 69
Fingerprint: 0xb4a3d0ce
Item Level: 80
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+111 to Attack Rating
+40 to Life

Fine Small Charm of Sustenance
Small Charm
Required Level: 21
Fingerprint: 0xcb5e5d19
Item Level: 88
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+3 to Maximum Damage
+20 to Attack Rating
+11 to Life

Fine Small Charm of Vita
Small Charm
Required Level: 39
Fingerprint: 0x1ccc8e66
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+3 to Maximum Damage
+11 to Attack Rating
+20 to Life

Shimmering Grand Charm of Dexterity
Grand Charm
Required Level: 27
Fingerprint: 0xaf2c7972
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+4 to Dexterity
All Resistances +14

Steel Grand Charm of Vita
Grand Charm
Required Level: 69
Fingerprint: 0x93a6ca36
Item Level: 88
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+128 to Attack Rating
+37 to Life

Fine Small Charm of Vita
Small Charm
Required Level: 39
Fingerprint: 0xa8e1cb65
Item Level: 80
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+3 to Maximum Damage
+20 to Attack Rating
+16 to Life

Shimmering Small Charm of Vita
Small Charm
Required Level: 39
Fingerprint: 0xd719bb3b
Item Level: 80
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+19 to Life
All Resistances +4
I used a mix of Combat, Warcries and Masteries skill GCs until Hell Act III, just to give those some use even once. Then I switched to these. I felt like Aether deserved the best.

This is how his LCS look like when fighting Baal:
1585213263362.png

Little playing video (some items were upgraded after recording this):

Skills and stats:
Name: Aether
Class: Barbarian
Experience: 844430622
Level: 82

Naked/Gear
Strength: 173/222
Dexterity: 125/162
Vitality: 197/197
Energy: 10/10
HP: 965/1446
Mana: 91/97
Stamina: 345/345
Defense: 31/3383
AR: 610/2016

Fire: 154/114/54
Cold: 121/81/21
Lightning: 136/96/36
Poison: 134/94/34

MF: 0 Block: 51
GF: 0
FR/W: 6
FHR: 0
IAS: 45
FCR: 0

Bash: 8/9
Leap: 0/0
Double Swing: 0/0
Stun: 1/2
Double Throw: 0/0
Leap Attack: 0/0
Concentrate: 20/21
Frenzy: 0/0
Whirlwind: 0/0
Berserk: 1/2

Sword Mastery: 20/21
Axe Mastery: 0/0
Mace Mastery: 0/0
Pole Arm Mastery: 0/0
Throwing Mastery: 0/0
Spear Mastery: 0/0
Increased Stamina: 1/2
Iron Skin: 1/2
Increased Speed: 1/2
Natural Resistance: 8/9

Howl: 1/2
Find Potion: 0/0
Taunt: 0/0
Shout: 10/11
Find Item: 0/0
Battle Cry: 0/0
Battle Orders: 20/21
Grim Ward: 0/0
War Cry: 0/0
Battle Command: 1/2

BO for life, Natural Resistance enough for little over max res, Zerk for PIs and Howl for my only source of crowd control. Defense was ~11k when not Concentrating.


Journey:

I played according to the build during the whole play through, apart from the rare and eth part. Those waited for Hell. Early norm was Berserker's set, then Sigon's. Not 100% sure about NM, but I think I used Butcher's Pupil, and then the same, but upgraded to elite. Switched to my end game items when they became available.

Single target attack and no source of crushing blow etc. modifiers do not make for the fastest character ever. Probably one of the reasons this took awhile, well and trying to upgrade this was another main reason. But little, not too long playing sessions, were enough to keep this interesting and quite bearable in the end.

Screenshots:
1585213213331.png
No memories from Act I, so I think it went without problems.

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Act II though, I remember it was quite a grind. I even have a screenshot with me saying "!what a relief" when entering Duriel's lair. Lots of PI ghosts were the main reason for the troubles. I suffered my only death with Aether in the Claw Viper Temple, where I got surrounded and mana burned by a swarm of many boss packs. Couldn't Howl them away, and just watched my life bulb disappear after some miserable juv drinking.

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Carrying on with the ghost theme. This, with another boss pack near by, were the only real troubles during Act III. It's not that easy to bring these down with Berserk, when your mana is being drank empty all the time, along with hitting you really hard. Many trips to town was needed to bring both the packs down. I'm not totally sure, but I think the other pack had a Might or Fanaticism, too.

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Devil Maggot the not-so-dead. Only encounter we couldn't kill during our play.

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That Waypoint was damned easy to find. We took a tour de city anyway, as after fighting some souls earlier these felt nice and smooth. Nothing too dangerous during the River of Flame and Chaos. Not sure what was the rune from forge, but Travincal dropped a Gul earlier.

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I was really lucky with monster spawns in Act V. This, with mana burn, reminded me of those ghosts I was not really longing for. The well nearby provided to be really helpful, as it was re-filling really quickly, so eventually we got this guy down. Ancients had Sigurd killed, but I took them by myself, then. Took a little while, and some rejuvs were needed, but it was all fine.

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WSK levels were easy. Hell Temptresses (PI) during the third level, but no bad boss spawns. Souls in throne along with OKs, Demon Knights and Vipers. Souls did hurt, but patience and luring 1-2 at a time to fight was the key. Howl was really handy against the waves. Lister was mana burn, but luckily no PI. Baal fight lasted for a nine and a half minutes. Not that bad I guess, but being used to having CB with my melee chars it was definitely longer than the usual fight.


Afterword:

This much defense made for a quite a sturdy character. I can imagine that with the more usual melee items, it would also kill quite a lot quicker. Two hander would potentially work really well also, I think. Howl was enough crow control, but I can see why someone would use a wider number of skills, also.

So with this it was Concentrate Barb, eth only and rare only: tick off from the list! BUT, I have more of rare/magic only characters planned, and one was also played to the Hell already during the summer as well. Not in a hurry with those, and I'll let the ideas cook slowly, as well as keeping an eye for some more special items in the meantime.

Thanks for reading! Let's hear some comments, questions etc. :)

P.S. Aether had only WSK and Baal left for the last playing session, so not a lot of precious time away from Rune Finding League were wasted ;)
 
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