Matriarch/Patriarch/Guardian Archive Thread

Originally posted by Tanksaabas on Oct 12, 2008:

Patriarch Harald - The Immortal King

Meet Harald , my first melee build to finish the game and my 4th pat/mat overall.

Stats:

Level: 84

Strength: 187 (232)
Dexterity: 20 (77)
Vitality: 298 (298)
Energy: 10 (10)

Life with BO: 3680
Mana with BO: 283

Resistances: 75/75/75/75

Skills:
all prereques 1

Whirlwind: 20 (27)
Berserk: 1 (8)

Battle Orders: 20 (26) with dual spirit
Shout: 20 (26) with dual spirit
Battle Command: 1 (7) with dual spirit
Find Item: 1 (7) with dual spirit
Taunt: 1 (7) with dual spirit

also 1 point in increased speed and stamina.

Mace mastery: 17 (22)
Nat Resist: 3 (8)

Gear: Full IK set ofcourse , with two shaels in the maul and um rune in the armour. Also two perfect topazes in the helm. Angelic combo for much needed ar. 19/230 Raven Frost (found while questing and replacing my suckier Raven Frost he was already using).

My charms give a total of 176 AR , 23 max damage , 6 all res , 5 poison res , 56 to health and 1-13 lit damage :p

Merc is with might aura and carries duriels shell , guillaume's and reapers toll.

Gameplay: Played through normal and nightmare /p8. Used my perfect Bonesnap for most of the early game until Bloodtree Stump. Died once in NM Chaos Santuary to iron maiden. Rather dumb death if you ask me. OK casts IM and I hit the guy , whack 50% health down. I'm like what was that , oh iron maiden ok. I'll just attack again , whack dead. That was my only death though. After that I equipped Windhammer and made NM Baal runs until lvl 76 to equip IK armour and the maul. Cruised through hell with /p1 (changed at some places though). This was rather strange. Just today I was at the city of the damned wp , but managed somehow and pretty quickly to get through the latter part of act 4 and whole act 5 in just a couple of hours (I'm even slower you see). Mostly because of the durability of the IK barbarian. Ancients were super easy , one of them had might aura I think but that didn't matter. In about a minute they were all defeated. WSK lvl1 was easy , as was lvl2. Lvl3 had OK and some gloams. Super careful here as I was rather paranoid of IM now. For my grief the same combination was in the throne room. Still I cleared the throne and Baal threw his minion waves at me. Killed them all (didn't even notice Lister , he was taken down so quickly!) without much trouble. After that I stepped through the portal and smashed the big guys head in. He dropped crap as usual.

It was alot of fun and everyone should have an IK barb. The set is awsome. Damage output and survivability is really good. Just needs some ar and you are ready to go.

Finds: Gul from Hellforge (yay!) , 2xStormchaser both horked from bosses , Blade Barrier , Verdungos , the Raven Frost mentioned before , Hellrack and lots of other low level uniques and set items.

Special thanks for Neksja for the armour he gave me when he "quit".

What Next? Gonna look for a nice LK map and start running it. Maybe also I'll take him out on a spin in the WSK. Thanks for reading.
 
Originally posted by TheGuardianXXXIII on Jan 8, 2019:

Patriarch Maximus - The Howling Berserker

==Summary of the creation process==

I really wanted a 2h maul style barbarian. I wasn't really wanting a whirlwind barb since that's what i always played back in the day, so I did some reading around to figure out what viable 2h builds there were. After seeing some of the pit zerker videos i knew i wanted Howl and Berserk to be a part of the build. Most of the non-MF berserk builds focused on warcry or shields which left something to be desired in my mind. I wanted a big maul or axe wielding behemoth and I'm not really a fan of warcry! I found howl & taunt easily covered my crowd control needs (These 2 abilities are OP). Warcry seemed pointless compared to those, especially with Battle Cry to debuff boss/champs (immune to howl/warcry). Howl and taunt seemed more than adequet for crowd control. So i decided to just wing it with a Howling Berserker...

Maximus entered Sanctuary, named after my son, and i gathered up some twinking gear from my stash that his fireball/orb sister PrincessElla (named after my daughter) had been farming. You might notice a striking similarity in this post and @jonny5's recent Pat post. Very similar story - using children's names & farming gear for the next "sibling" and very similar build. I found his post just as i was about to enter hell and it was a big help in finishing out my build and i thought it was cool how similar our style was.

I started him off rocking Sigons, 2 pc angelics and dual bloodrise maces. I upped his bloodrises for a couple of levels until i could use a Bonesnap, which was pretty quickly replaced with a Steeldriver (what an OP weapon for it's level). That was upped as well once i could support the requirements (lol @ -50% requirements on that thing). I could have beat the game with that weapon, especially upp'ing it to the Thunder Maul but i had a juicy IK maul waiting, so i saved the runes.


==Gear & Stats at time of Patriarch'ing==

Helm: GFace w/ 15% IAS/+9 MinDmg jewel
Ammy: Angelics
Weapon kill switch: IK Maul w/ 40%ED/33%ED+1-18 lightning dmg jewels
Weapon caster switch: Suicide Branch + Spirit crystal sword
Chest: Treachery wirefleece
Ring1: Angelics
Ring2: Ravenfrost
Gloves: IK Gloves
Belt: IK Belt
Boots: IK Boots

Raven Frost
Ring
Required Level: 45
Fingerprint: 0x43ae45c1
Item Level: 87
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+233 to Attack Rating
Adds 15 - 45 Cold Damage Over 4 Secs (100 Frames)
+20 to Dexterity
+40 to Mana
Cold Absorb 20%
Cannot Be Frozen

Immortal King's Detail
War Belt
Defense: 247
Durability: 22 of 24
Required Level: 29
Required Strength: 110
Fingerprint: 0x35cc12d4
Item Level: 87
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+36 Defense
+25 to Strength
Lightning Resist +31%
Fire Resist +28%
Set (2 items): +105 Defense
Set (3 items): +25% Faster Hit Recovery
Set (4 items): +100% Enhanced Defense
Set (5 items): Damage Reduced by 20%
Set (6 items): +2 to Masteries Skills (Barbarian Only)

(2 items): +50 to Attack Rating
(3 items): +75 to Attack Rating
(4 items): +125 to Attack Rating

Immortal King's Pillar
War Boots
Defense: 280
Durability: 19 of 24
Required Level: 31
Required Strength: 125
Fingerprint: 0xe52dba35
Item Level: 87
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+40% Faster Run/Walk
+110 to Attack Rating
+75 Defense
+44 to Life
Set (2 items): 25% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
Set (3 items): +2 to Combat Skills (Barbarian Only)
Set (4 items): +160 Defense
Set (5 items): Half Freeze Duration

(2 items): +50 to Attack Rating
(3 items): +75 to Attack Rating
(4 items): +125 to Attack Rating

Immortal King's Forge
War Gauntlets
Defense: 238
Durability: 23 of 24
Required Level: 30
Required Strength: 110
Fingerprint: 0xae16fefa
Item Level: 87
Version: Expansion 1.10+
12% Chance to cast level 4 Charged Bolt when struck
+65 Defense
+20 to Strength
+20 to Dexterity
Set (2 items): +25% Increased Attack Speed
Set (3 items): +120 Defense
Set (4 items): 10% Life stolen per hit
Set (5 items): 10% Mana stolen per hit
Set (6 items): Freezes target +2

(2 items): +50 to Attack Rating
(3 items): +75 to Attack Rating
(4 items): +125 to Attack Rating

Guillaume's Face
Winged Helm
Defense: 217
Durability: 35 of 40
Required Level: 34
Required Strength: 115
Fingerprint: 0x24dd0ff7
Item Level: 87
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+15% Increased Attack Speed
+30% Faster Hit Recovery
+7 to Minimum Damage
35% Chance of Crushing Blow
15% Deadly Strike
+120% Enhanced Defense
+15 to Strength
1 Sockets (1 used)
Socketed: Crimson Jewel of Fervor


Crimson Jewel of Fervor
Jewel
Required Level: 31
Fingerprint: 0x974c0a58
Item Level: 86
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+15% Increased Attack Speed
+7 to Minimum Damage

Angelic Halo
Ring
Required Level: 12
Fingerprint: 0x39ec77
Item Level: 45
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+20 to Life
Replenish Life +6
Set (2 items): +1032 to Attack Rating (Based on Character Level)
Set (3 items): 50% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items

(2 items): +10 to Dexterity

Angelic Wings
Amulet
Required Level: 12
Fingerprint: 0x3900d71d
Item Level: 58
Version: Expansion 1.10+
20% Damage Taken Goes To Mana
+3 to Light Radius
Set (2 items): +75 to Life
Set (3 items): +1 to All Skills

(2 items): +10 to Dexterity

Treachery
Wire Fleece
ShaelThulLem
Defense: 393
Durability: 20 of 32
Required Level: 53
Required Strength: 111
Fingerprint: 0x63ed68f0
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
5% Chance to cast level 15 Fade when struck
25% Chance to cast level 15 Venom on striking
+2 to Assassin Skill Levels
+45% Increased Attack Speed
+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

Shael Rune
Required Level: 29
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Weapons: +20% Increased Attack Speed
Armor: +20% Faster Hit Recovery
Shields: +20% Faster Block Rate

Thul Rune
Required Level: 23
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Weapons: Adds 3 - 14 Cold Damage Over 3 Secs (75 Frames)
Armor: Cold Resist +30%
Shields: Cold Resist +35%

Lem Rune
Required Level: 43
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Weapons: 75% Extra Gold from Monsters
Armor: 50% Extra Gold from Monsters
Shields: 50% Extra Gold from Monsters

Suicide Branch
Burnt Wand
One Hand Damage: 8 - 18
Durability: 15 of 15
Required Level: 33
Required Strength: 25
Fingerprint: 0xcbd05d79
Item Level: 75
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+1 to All Skills
+50% Faster Cast Rate
+40 to Life
Increase Maximum Mana 10%
All Resistances +10
Attacker Takes Damage of 25

Spirit
Crystal Sword
TalThulOrtAmn
One Hand Damage: 5 - 15
Durability: 20 of 20
Required Level: 25
Required Strength: 43
Fingerprint: 0xd27ff686
Item Level: 46
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+2 to All Skills
+25% Faster Cast Rate
+55% Faster Hit Recovery
Adds 1 - 50 Lightning Damage
Adds 3 - 14 Cold Damage Over 3 Secs (75 Frames)
Adds 75 Poison Damage Over 5 Secs (125 Frames)
7% Life stolen per hit
+250 Defense vs. Missile
+22 to Vitality
+96 to Mana
+8 Magic Absorb
4 Sockets (4 used)
Socketed: Tal Rune
Socketed: Thul Rune
Socketed: Ort Rune
Socketed: Amn Rune

Tal Rune
Required Level: 17
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Weapons: Adds 75 Poison Damage Over 5 Secs (125 Frames)
Armor: Poison Resist +30%
Shields: Poison Resist +35%

Thul Rune
Required Level: 23
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Weapons: Adds 3 - 14 Cold Damage Over 3 Secs (75 Frames)
Armor: Cold Resist +30%
Shields: Cold Resist +35%

Ort Rune
Required Level: 21
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Weapons: Adds 1 - 50 Lightning Damage
Armor: Lightning Resist +30%
Shields: Lightning Resist +35%

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

Immortal King's Stone Crusher
Ogre Maul
Two Hand Damage: -10012 - 10899
Durability: 57 of 60
Required Level: 76
Required Strength: 225
Fingerprint: 0x3437613d
Item Level: 94
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Indestructible
+40% Increased Attack Speed
273% Enhanced Damage
+200% Damage to Demons
+350% Damage to Undead
Adds 1 - 18 Lightning Damage
40% Chance of Crushing Blow
Set (2 items): Adds 211 - 397 Fire Damage
Set (3 items): Adds 7 - 477 Lightning Damage
Set (4 items): Adds 127 - 364 Cold Damage Over 6 Secs (150 Frames)
Set (5 items): Adds 204 Poison Damage Over 6 Secs (150 Frames)
Set (6 items): Adds 250 - 361 Magic Damage
2 Sockets (2 used)
Socketed: Ruby Jewel
Socketed: Ruby Jewel of Ennui

(2 items): +50 to Attack Rating
(3 items): +75 to Attack Rating
(4 items): +125 to Attack Rating

Ruby Jewel
Jewel
Required Level: 58
Fingerprint: 0x4fb4d297
Item Level: 80
Version: Expansion 1.10+
40% Enhanced Damage

Ruby Jewel of Ennui
Jewel
Required Level: 58
Fingerprint: 0x86ec17b0
Item Level: 80
Version: Expansion 1.10+
33% Enhanced Damage
Adds 1 - 18 Lightning Damage


Charms:
A mix of damage, AR, life, res, and FHR charms to hit breakpoints and fill in stats.

Fine Small Charm of Strength
Small Charm
Required Level: 21
Fingerprint: 0x353a0bf7
Item Level: 80
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+3 to Maximum Damage
+13 to Attack Rating
+1 to Strength

Ocher Small Charm of Sustenance
Small Charm
Required Level: 17
Fingerprint: 0xc68a9899
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+13 to Life
Lightning Resist +7%

Fine Small Charm of Greed
Small Charm
Required Level: 21
Fingerprint: 0xd1cc711b
Item Level: 58
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+3 to Maximum Damage
+19 to Attack Rating
8% Extra Gold from Monsters

Fine Small Charm of Strength
Small Charm
Required Level: 21
Fingerprint: 0x25c1e9ed
Item Level: 48
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+3 to Maximum Damage
+15 to Attack Rating
+2 to Strength

Sharp Large Charm
Large Charm
Required Level: 21
Fingerprint: 0x2257283b
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+6 to Maximum Damage
+35 to Attack Rating

Sharp Grand Charm
Grand Charm
Required Level: 21
Fingerprint: 0xfccdc86f
Item Level: 43
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+9 to Maximum Damage
+65 to Attack Rating

Small Charm of Vita
Small Charm
Required Level: 39
Fingerprint: 0x2dfc399e
Item Level: 82
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+18 to Life

Small Charm of Balance
Small Charm
Required Level: 29
Fingerprint: 0x536a3484
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+5% Faster Hit Recovery

Coral Small Charm of Shock
Small Charm
Required Level: 20
Fingerprint: 0xd9c4a735
Item Level: 80
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Adds 1 - 3 Lightning Damage
Lightning Resist +8%

Amber Small Charm
Small Charm
Required Level: 32
Fingerprint: 0x5321b27a
Item Level: 80
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Lightning Resist +10%

Sharp Large Charm of Incineration
Large Charm
Required Level: 26
Fingerprint: 0x9c7ac5
Item Level: 88
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+6 to Maximum Damage
+47 to Attack Rating
Adds 10 - 17 Fire Damage

Shimmering Large Charm of Inertia
Large Charm
Required Level: 26
Fingerprint: 0x4a40fff
Item Level: 80
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+5% Faster Run/Walk
All Resistances +6

Small Charm of Vita
Small Charm
Required Level: 39
Fingerprint: 0x63a5174d
Item Level: 80
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+20 to Life

Ruby Grand Charm of Dexterity
Grand Charm
Required Level: 22
Fingerprint: 0x56c21eb7
Item Level: 80
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+6 to Dexterity
Fire Resist +29%

Iron Large Charm of Balance
Large Charm
Required Level: 26
Fingerprint: 0x4f70f25c
Item Level: 73
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+8% Faster Hit Recovery
+45 to Attack Rating

Small Charm of Vita
Small Charm
Required Level: 39
Fingerprint: 0xe785d782
Item Level: 79
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+20 to Life

Merc:
Crown of Thieves (no socket)
Insight cryptic axe
Duriel's Shell

Name: Emilio
Race: Desert Mercenary
Type: Off-Nightmare
Experience: 74849698
Level: 85
Dead?: false

Naked/Gear
Strength: 186/206
Dexterity: 150/180
HP: 1767/1903
Defense: 1302/2270
AR: 1913/409382

Fire: 202/162/102
Cold: 199/159/99
Lightning: 169/129/69
Poison: 169/129/69

Crown of Thieves
Grand Crown
Defense: 299
Durability: 43 of 50
Required Level: 49
Required Strength: 103
Fingerprint: 0xcb2447d2
Item Level: 87
Version: Expansion 1.10+
9% Life stolen per hit
+163% Enhanced Defense
+25 to Dexterity
+50 to Life
+35 to Mana
Fire Resist +33%
94% Extra Gold from Monsters


Duriel's Shell
Cuirass
Defense: 669
Durability: 147 of 150
Required Level: 41
Required Strength: 65
Fingerprint: 0x4eec36b2
Item Level: 59
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+177% Enhanced Defense
+107 Defense (Based on Character Level)
+15 to Strength
+86 to Life (Based on Character Level)
Cold Resist +30%
All Resistances +20
Cannot Be Frozen
+100 Maximum Durability


Insight
Cryptic Axe
RalTirTalSol
Two Hand Damage: 127 - 537
Durability: 51 of 65
Required Level: 59
Required Strength: 165
Required Dexterity: 103
Fingerprint: 0xa512dd65
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Level 16 Meditation Aura When Equipped
+35% Faster Cast Rate
258% Enhanced Damage
+9 to Minimum Damage
213% Bonus to Attack Rating
Adds 5 - 30 Fire Damage
Adds 75 Poison Damage Over 5 Secs (125 Frames)
+1 to Critical Strike
All Stats +5
+2 to Mana after each Kill
23% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
4 Sockets (4 used)
Socketed: Ral Rune
Socketed: Tir Rune
Socketed: Tal Rune
Socketed: Sol Rune

Ral Rune
Required Level: 19
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Weapons: Adds 5 - 30 Fire Damage
Armor: Fire Resist +30%
Shields: Fire Resist +35%

Tir Rune
Required Level: 13
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Weapons: +2 to Mana after each Kill
Armor: +2 to Mana after each Kill
Shields: +2 to Mana after each Kill

Tal Rune
Required Level: 17
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Weapons: Adds 75 Poison Damage Over 5 Secs (125 Frames)
Armor: Poison Resist +30%
Shields: Poison Resist +35%

Sol Rune
Required Level: 27
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Weapons: +9 to Minimum Damage
Armor: Damage Reduced by 7
Shields: Damage Reduced by 7

Breakpoints:
FHR: 86%/142%
IAS: 110% 12 Frame
FCR: 0/63%
Block: 0

Stats (with BO/BC/Shout):
Level: 85
STR: 228 (63 from gear)
DEX: 76
VIT: 315
NRG: 10
Berserk Damage: 3791-6263 (4713-7481 w/ might)
Berserk AR: 15825
Def:3903
Life:3376 (3545 on caster switch)
Mana: 275 (494 on caster switch)

Resistances on kill switch (w/fade):
14/74
-13/47
13/73
-43/17

Resistances on caster switch (w/fade):
43/75
16/75
42/75
-14/46
** You can see how much the caster switch helps with pre-fade resistances.

MF: 25
GF: 58

Skills:
20 Berserk
20 Battle Orders
20 Howl
19 Mace Mastery
1 each Taunt, Battle Cry, War Cry, Battle Command, Increased Stamina, Iron Skin, Increased Speed, Natural Resistance
1 each Leap, Bash, Stun, Concentrate, Leap Attack, Whirlwind
* If I respec to optimize this a bit: leaving out War Cry and possibly whirlwind. I'd also fix my misclick putting 2 points into find item! As i gain more levels i'll finish maxing mastery and work on Shout for synergy bonus and Merc buff.



==Notes on the gear==
Few places to optimize here...
Need to change the GFace jewel but was just too lazy to bother; the 15 IAS is a waste w/ the IK maul. I was kind of waiting to see what hell brought me, but i really didn't feel i needed anything, except maybe a little more resistance when Fade hadn't kicked in yet. Considering giving this gFace to my merc for bosses and putting a new Um'd or Dun/Dmg jewel GFace on. Or Arreats if i ever find it. Could even try the IK helm for full set if i find it..

I really wanted to replace the low level angelic's set, but my jewelery isn't very good and besides another ravenfrost there really wasn't much else i had that was worth it. Really don't like dropping down below 85% chance to hit w/ this build.

I could have waited and found a better 2nd jewel for my IK maul, but i was eager to get to smashing with it.

IK partial set bonuses are very good. This set is deceptively powerful because of the partials each piece of gear gets outside of the total set partial bonuses. Hit recovery, life leech, IAS, +combat skills, +attack rating, tons of elemental damage...

Merc obviously needs work, but he held his own fine and i never really felt the need to upgrade him. I doubt Insight is really even needed. With angelic's %dmg to mana it seems overkill. Maybe if i was using Enigma I would need it, but I should probably change his weapon (Amn'd Arinoc's needle or something..) I don't have a Reaper's Toll unfortunately. Of course eth versions of all his stuff would be great. PrincessElla's merc has a VampGaze but i didn't want to steal gear from other chars.

One of the favorite parts of my gear setup was my caster switch. I'm sure i could have optimized these a little more, but this switch was awesome. It gave me +3 skills, huge boost to resistances, stats, faster r/w, 63% FCR breakpoint, 142% FHR breakpoint, and other utility. Using this for buffing was nice, very fast and boosted buffs. Using it for find item was awesome, could hork a whole pile of corpses super fast. Using it for howl & battlecry was amazing.. nothing interrupts you when you cast that fast and have that amount of FHR. This fit w/ my playstyle of running, howling away fodder, and smashing bosses/interesting monsters very well. On this switch i also had around +75% FRW.

==Playstyle==
I have to say, this was one of the most fun characters i remember playing in D2. The playstyle was very fun. You have crowd control and utility for just about every situation imaginable. As i briefly noted above, having super fast R/W speed and Howl really made questing smooth and fun. Tons of annoying monsters like jungle flayers and mosquitos? Hah, Howl and keep running for something more interesting. Swarmed by frezy death lords? Hah, Howl & taunt each one back individually. Gloams got you down? Juke the lightning with your 75% FRW and Taunt them. They stop shooting you and kindly walk right up to you so you can smash their face. Taunt has VERY generous targetting so you just spam click around the edge of the screen and you can grab them all (same thing for pesky archers). Ooo, juicy boss pack but surrounded by 100 annoying monsters? Howl! Challenge the boss, defeat him in 1v1 combat. Boss or Champions hitting you too hard? Battle Cry to reduce their damage and defense signifcantly and smash!. Not to mention killing everything in 1-3 hits is really fun :D

Having a 12 frame 2h attack was awesome. With good FHR and a fast attack, you have a significantly more reliable berserk attack. Early on in the game i did have issues with getting interrupted a lot and stuck in hit recovery animations forcing me to use Concentrate a lot. Once i had Treachery and hit 13 FPA w/ Steeldriver that all changed. With IK Maul it got even better @ 12 FPA and I was able to handle multiple monsters much easier.

As to be expected with a shieldless and 0 defense build, you will take damage so you will use pots more than other characters, but it wasn't too bad. I never found myself suffering from a lack of pots. Being able to hork bosses/champs really keeps your supply of reds and purples up to par. You also have concentrate/whirlwind as backup skills to leech with for some extra sustain if you want to save some reds. This build really allowed you to fight what you wanted to fight and skip what you wanted to skip or manage them in bite sized chunks. Extremely safe build, even with no defense or shield. Howl is seriously OP, and taunt is great. Really fun being able to focus on boss/champs while questing


==Questing and challenges==
Overall questing went very smoothly. I did a single play through everywhere (no grinding or farming) until i needed a couple levels at the end to hit 85. I played on /players8 the whole way until hell where i used /players 3 until i got my IK maul and went up to /players5. WSK i set it back down to /players3 which almost felt like cheating, but it kept things moving smoothly and dying in 1-3 hits. I kept forgetting to reduce /players on act bosses which made for some looonnggg bossfights lol. Those were the only times my potions supply was challenged. I had to use concentrate a lot to avoid running dry, hence the longer fights.

Duriel was a pushover on all acts. I always had some source of cannot be frozen and just toggled between berserk and concentrate as needed. Nihlathak is a breeze since you don't kill any of his monsters, just howl them away and go berserk him a couple times. Hell baal was annoying simply because he wouldn't stop teleporting. I never had a baal fight involving so many teleports. Leap attack was very handy here as it allowed me to jump straight to him and avoid the knockback spell. 75% crushing blow really helped and he never cloned so that was nice. Nothing really notable on the other act bosses, just your basic attrition slug fests on high /players.

The main weakness of this build is being swarmed by multiple bosses and champions. It's rare, but when it happens it's rough because the bosses and champs are immune to howl. At this point you have 6-8 souped up monsters with mods & usually cursed hitting you at once. Battlecry is your only tool, which is pretty fantastic and mitigating the incoming damage. I usually BC'd then stutter stepped around trying to force them to move while i attacked to reduce the number of incoming attacks. And of course lots of pots.


One of the most memorable moments was hell Act 5 bloody foothills. I don't know if i got a glitched map or what, but it spawned with an ungodly amount of skeleton fire archers EVERYWHERE. It was hilarious. I mean it was like the game triple spawned them or something. Had i been on another character it probably would have been painful, but Maximus just dodged the arrows w/ his super fast RW speed and howled them away.

Hellforge wasn't great, but ok i guess. A Hel and a Lem, at least both useful runes.
For drops.. not a lot of good stuff (not surprised since i ran 0 MF). I did find some nice base items for runewords though. A few eth armors i ebugged for future merc armors and some white weapons/armors i'll try my luck at socketing later. I found 2 cat's eye ammy's and and Blackhand key.


==My near death moments==

- NM Act 2 palace cellar.. i ran into a room loaded with archers and mages and just wasn't expecting the influx of damage, and where i learned how the Howl level vs. monster level works. I ALMOST died there. Purples saved the day long enough manage them. In hell i was ready for it with a nearly maxed howl, and just ran in howling/taunting through it and killing the bosses and fun monsters lol.
- Hell act 1 pits: Cursed multishot archers almost did me in, i just wasn't expecting it. Again, purples saved me long enough to get the crowd control rolling. This is also when i really developed the caster switch stutter step howling technique. Running at +75% FRW and 63% FCR breakpoint w/ maxed out Howl allows for complete control of the screen and all enemies.
- Hell Act 2 Tal's Tomb. Not sure why, but this place was brutal. Tight quarters with massive monster density, magic immunes, and tons of boss packs.. the vipers + wraiths + Unravellers + mummy poison clouds + skelles... place just seemed to have my number and was killing my merc really quick. Just way too cluttered to really process what was happening and kill efficiently. I ended up howl-skipping a lot of this and just cleared the Oriface room. Duriel was actually a reprieve from the rest of the tomb lol.
- Hell Act 3 Travincal council: I tried to take them head on and i almost paid for it with my life. Purples + howl plus caster switch GTFO run speed helped make it out so i could fight them in smaller chunks lol.
- Hell Ancients: My first and only death. Eager to finish the game, I was level 83 when i challenged them. I must have had an unlucky spawn, because i got 1-shot by a leap attack. I decided to level to 85 doing Chaos Sanc. Next time it was much much easier. No 1 shots or even near-1 shots. I almost wonder if Fade wasn't active when i challenged them the first time...
- Hell WSK - Lister. This wasn't really a near-death, because i expected his pack to be nearly impossible. I tested the waters and it just wasn't happening. I drug them out and speed-demoned back to throne room and skipped them.


All in all, loved the build, would highly recommend it to anyone looking for a different style of barbarian. That said, I'm not sure what i want to do with him now. Grinding exp on this character is probably not something i am going to do. No AOE damage on area clears for XP is A LOT of clicking and very time consuming. So he'll probably linger under level 90 for the foreseeable future. Might throw a few MF pieces on him for a poor man's pindle/pit zerker (like shako and wartravs)... who knows! lol.

Thank you all ! Sorry for the lonnnnnnggg post.
 
Originally posted by @TheNix on Apr 22, 2018:

1.14 – 3 of 7: Patriarch LoudestHeard, the indecisive

Patriarch LoudestHeard, un-Wolfbarb

LoudestHeard started his life as a Singer Barb, but, after finding Wolfhowl, I decided to go down the Wolfbarb route. The problem with that is Wolfhowl cannot be equipped until clvl 79 and by that time he got there double swing was working so well that I decided to keep going: so here he is, LoudestHeard, the almost-Wolfbarb!


Level: 84

St – 140 (175)
Dx – 50 (110)
Vt – 315 (347)
En – 10 (10)

HP: 3064 (after BO)
Mana: 267 (after BO)

Def: 10,272 (after Shout)
AR: 8,075/7910 (after BA and Enchant)


Damage:

Double Swing: 996 – 1955 / 1249 – 1867

Resists:

Fire: 75
Cold: 75
Ltning: 75
Poison: 75

Skills:

Bash: 20/24
Mace Mast: 20/22
Shout: 20/22
Battle Ord: 20/22
Battle Cry: 4/6
Nat. Resist: 4/6

One each in Double Swing (6), Increases Stamina/Speed (3), Iron Skin (3), Howl/Taunt/Battle Command (3)



Equipment:

Weapon 1:

Baranar’s Star
Nord’s Tenderiser

Weapon 2:

Upped “Shael” Ribcracker (297%ED – juicy!)


Arreat’s Face with +12% Resists jewel
”Duress” Scarab Husk
Lava Gout
Gore Rider
Verdungo’s Hearty Cord
Atma’s Scarab
Manald & Raven Frost


Merc (Act 2 –Blessed Aim)

Rockstopper
“Treachery” Chaos Armour
“Obedience” Thresher


Random musings:

For a great deal of this build it was a walk in the park. I started with a point in Bash, a few points in Mace Mastery, then a point in Double Swing and I was off. In used dual Civerb’s Cudgel all the way from clvl 9 to 42, then dual Aldur’s Rhythm until Baranar’s Star; pumping up MM all the way. Shout and BO kept my HP and Defence on the up and up, and the Merc’s BA kept the AR solid too; especially with the minor boost from Enchant. Once I was able to put Atma’s Scarab on and Amp Dam started to kick in, things rollicked along. I was well into Act 1 Hell before I reached the level requirement for Wolfhowl and I though “what the hell, this build is good enough already”. The points that I had been saving I pumped into Bash (a damage synergy for Double Swing) and the train kept a’roll’n. There was no stopping the build until I hit the Crystalline Passage and rescuing Anya. Four deaths in 20 minutes rocked me; two in the CP, one getting Anya, and even Pindle got me. They were completely bizarre deaths too! I drank a fat purple, I heard the sound of the potion being taken and I had a single hit point left when the death screen appeared! The Replenish Life +11 on Verdungo’s?? Being totally pissed off at this stage I made straight for the Ancients and kicked their arses, then kicked Baal bony butt too. In the end I never really used my juicy Ribcracker, Bash worked well enough but Double Swing was so much better. An inauspicious end to a character that was going so well; other than the changes of mind that is!!!
 
Originally posted by @Trim on May 5, 2009:

Patriarch Troubled_W., the Throwbarb

It seems as though there's been a recent glut of Barbarians that have utilized Double Throw lately... so allow me to introduce MY Double Thrower! Presenting, Patriarch Troubled_W.

The Inspiration:
If someone plays Diablo II: Lord of Destruction with a bit determination, one will inevitably face the Ancients high atop Mount Arreat. And if you find yourself toe to toe with them in Hell difficulty, it's almost a guarantee you'll be frantically pounding potion keys and scrambling away as the trio shows no mercy to you and your mercenary. What strength! What agility! ...What a moron that Korlic is, Leaping around and trying to impale you from on high! [sidestep FTW]

During the battles with the Ancients, it always seemed to me that Madawc, the Double Throw Barbarian, is the first to be defeated. I personally focus on Korlic at the start, and somehow it's Madawc that disappears in a golden fog before both his compatriots. "How can this be?' I ask myself. "Are Throwbarbs too weak to withstand a few misguided projectiles or some poorly placed spells? Is Madawc truly the best example a of Throwbarb? I believe it's time to find out for myself and to create my own elite protector of the Worldstone!" And thus, Troubled_W. was born.

The Stats:
Patriarch Troubled_W., level 82

LCS (pre-buffed):
1033-4125 / 956-3882 damage; 866 Life; 50/30/0/11 Resists
LCS (post-buffed with BC, BO, Shout, Might, Venom, & Fade)
1695-6236 / 1571-5697 damage; 1402 Life; 75/75/69/75 Resists

Stats: (with gear)
Str: 120
Dex: 193
Vit: 165
Ene: 10
Unused stat points: 65

Skills:
20 Double Throw
20 Double Swing
20 Throw Mastery
9 Battle Orders
1 in Bash, Howl, Taunt, Shout, Battle Cry, Battle Command, Increased Stamina, Iron Skin, Increased Speed, & Natural Resistance
Unused skill points: 12

Gear:

Weapons: Dual Gimmershreds
Switch: Dual Gimmershreds
Armor: 'Treachery' Wire Fleece
Helm: Kira's Guardian Tiara (68 Resist All)
Gloves: Laying of Hands Bramble Mitts
Belt: Razortail Sharkskin Belt
Boots: Gore Rider War Boots
Amulet: Crescent Moon (6/14 dual leech)
Rings: Dual Ravenfrosts (+246/234 AR. +16/17 Dex)

3 Steel Grand Charms of Maiming/Sustenance
2 Steel Small Charms
1 11% Poison Resist Small Charm

Merc: Emilio, ActII Nightmare Offensive (Might aura)
Weapon: The Reaper's Toll
Armor: Etheral Duriel's Shell
Helm: Guillaume's Face

Goals:
I had three main objectives before creating this character, all of which were firsts for me after years of playing this game. But it was all created around the Gimmershred; an example looks like this:

Gimmershred
Flying Axe
Throw Damage: 45 to 200
One-Hand Damage: 51 to 197
Quantity: 153
Required Dexterity: 108
Required Strength: 88
Required Level: 70
Axe Class - Fast Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 85
Fingerprint: 0xe1c74e5c
+204% Enhanced Damage
Adds 218-483 fire damage
Adds 29-501 lightning damage
Adds 176-397 cold damage over 4 seconds
30% Increased Attack Speed
Increased Stack Size


The first goal, and most simple, was to make a successful Barbarian utilizing Double Throw. He must be capable of killing every enemy; no parking would be allowed. That's where the four dusty stacks of Gimmershreds came in with their high elemental damage. Second, use a Might merc to boost damage. Speaking in terms of safety, I've always gone with Holy Freeze to slow monsters and keep my merc alive. To regain an element of safety, though, my third goal was to give my merc a Reaper's Toll for its CtC Decrepify. Again, after years of playing, I found my first Reaper's a couple months ago. I hadn't yet created a character that wasn't mana intensive (read: Insight sticks rule) or that had progressed far enough into the game to equip a Reaper's. And in the end, 99.8% of my goals were met! More on this later...

Progression:
I'm lacking some of the twinking items that are becoming increasingly popular, such as Envy gear or a 1.09 Ravenclaw. I gave him the best I've got stashed away, which was basically a Rixot's Keen at clvl2, then the full Death's set with dual Death's Touches once he met the requirements. The 3-piece Angelic combo was equipped at clvl12. Wearing a 2xTir helm and Gorefoots for mana leech, skill points were dumped into Double Swing liberally until the mana cost was virtually nil.

Acts I & II went very quickly at /p8, but without any source of enhanced damage killing started to slow tremendously by Act III. I dropped it to /p3 once I hit clvl27 after the Spider Cavern to hasten his progress, then motored ahead to Act V. As per my usual habits, I ran Eldritch until clvl40, replacing the Death's Touches with dual Bloodletters. I also gave him dual Fleshrenders for the Crushing Blow mod against uniques/champions. By the time he hit Baal, he was at clvl44, the level where he could equip Deathbits, his first throwing weapons. I tried using them against Baal himself, but because I had saved skill points and not invested in any skills yet I resorted to the Fleshrenders rather quickly.

Nightmare began with dual stacks of Deathbits and dropping all my saved skill points by maxing Throwing Mastery and Double Swing. Kill speed improved dramatically; although I started NM at /p5, it was quickly bumped up to /p8. I procured my Might merc in Act II, completing my first goal. My first death was in the Maggot Lair; I ran straight up to a CE/FE scarab, and the enhanced charged bolts dropped me in two shots. Other than that, though, Nightmare was a breeze and was overall a cakewalk. The gear changed according to character level: Razortail and a Ravenfrost at 45, Gore Riders at 47, and add in a Rockstopper, Crow Caw, and Cat's Eye for IAS and resists.

The Final Gear-Up:
It wasn't until this point that I started to think about end-game gear, and it caused some long deliberation. Gimmershreds require clvl70, which is exactly how high I go while doing NM Eldritch runs. Again, killing speed went through the roof. But looking ahead, I could see some problems down the road. I'd soon be dropping the merc's Insight for the Reaper's and no longer had any life or mana leech. The best solution I had was the Crescent Moon amulet, but that broke up the still-used Angelic combo. Although I had maxed Double Throw for it's AR bonus, chance-to-hit was steadily dropping, and losing the Angelic combo made things intolerable. Add in a second Ravenfrost and all the Steel charms I could muster. Replacing the Cat's Eye with the Crescent Moon also dropped my IAS breakpoint by a notch or two; I also noted my resists were pretty horrible and would only get worse in Hell. Lacking the most basic Barbarian helm everyone should have, an Arreat's Face, I planned to use the best resist helm in the game, a Kira's Guardian. And lastly for the double effect of IAS and CtC Fade for resists, I yanked the Treachery from my Daggermancer and put it to very, very good use. In the end, I think this was probably the best set-up I could muster with the gear I had, and it all worked out in the end.

Hell was breached at clvl74, three levels short of the Kira's. I did some NM Pindles and some Hell Blood Moor runs, but as soon as my merc hit clvl75 I gave him his Reaper's and moved ahead cautiously. As we progressed through Hell, my AR wasn't great. It wavered between a 80-85% chance-to-hit, but even when an attack missed it usually put an enemy into hit recovery.

Honestly, though, once that Reaper's was put into play, all the pieces clicked together and the build started making sense. Repairing four stacks of Gimmers is quite expensive (just under 30k), but they're totally worth it. Barbs have some great crowd control skills in War Cry, Howl, and Taunt... and I never needed a single one. Once Fade triggered and the Kira's was available, the Throwbarb could tank well enough until the merc ambled in and Decrepified everything. The all-around elemental damage took down all enemies, the Decrep lowered physical resists/immunities, Might added substantially to the already high-damage duo, and the merc's Crushing Blow annihilated all the act bosses. We were unstoppable.

...Besides two enemies, that is. My second and final death was against a unique pack of PI Fanatic Frenzytaurs in Act V. My closest waypoint was four areas back and I knew I'd never recover the corpse, so I S&E'ed, forgoing my "must kill everything' goal. Also, Lister was 2-Hit KO'ing my merc and I was antsy to finish, so I parked him, too. Only these two enemies were saved from my wrath.

The WSK was slow and challenging. Baal's minions were wrecking my merc but the Throwbarb's life never dipped below 75% full. And Baal took probably four minutes in total because he summoned a clone early and kept teleporting so the merc kept attacking the wrong one. In the end, though, it was Troubled_W. and his trusty merc standing tall in the Worldstone chamber.

Finds:
This character, from start to finish, was not meant to be any kind of Magic Finder. And with the exception of the Angelic combo in the early game, I don't believe he ever had any MF on him at all. So as you might expect, zero set/uniques dropped from the start until Act IV Hell. However, the Diablo gods smiled upon me in late Hell, and with zero MF a Highlord's Wrath (grailer!) dropped in the Bloody Foothills, some Sandstorm Trek's dropped in an icy area, and then in WSK1 a Verdungo's (another grailer) formed from out of the ether. Pretty amazing, if you ask me. I also netted a plain Lightning skiller in late NM (my first). And lastly, the Hellforges were Lum/Io. Top-notch! :p

Wrap-Up:
There are a couple loose-ends to note. He had a 5.5fpa, which isn't too shabby. Also, besides Battle Command, there are zero +skills anywhere in this build, which I find to be highly irregular (if I had an Arreat's Face, though, that would most likely change). And finally, I forgot to do the Anya quest in Hell! I got so hyped about beating the game, I just skipped right past it. The third resistance scroll would have put my resists up to 75 in all categories after Fade triggers.

Future plans for the character include... retirement, I think. After a gear tweak and possibly dumping skill points into Find Item, I may do a few Pindleskin runs to see what we see. But I've already got a pure Blizzer that can do relatively fast runs, so I don't see it evening out. Still, this was a very fun & satisfying build and I'm very glad I made him. Retirement isn't necessarily a bad thing, right?

This write-up took a lot longer than I meant to (and a lot more real estate than I'd imagined, too!), but the reason for it is because this build was great. I loved it and haven't been so excited to beat Hell in a long time, as is apparent because this is only my second Hell Baal beatdown since my restart about a year ago. My biggest complaint overall was my lack of high AR, which could potentially be attributed to less-than-stellar gear. But really, even with an 80% chance-to-hit, once this build starting using throwing weapons this build was fun 99% of the time. If you've got some random elite throwing weapons (or even four stacks of Gimmershreds!), consider having some fun tossing heavy weapons ant some hapless baddies.

Lastly, this character's name isn't really Troubled_W.; it's truncated because it's potentially offensive. My method for choosing character names is to anagram a build's description and take a logical two-word combo. For instance, my 'BlizBaller' is named Brazil_Bell; likewise, my single tree Blizzard sorc, or my 'Single Sorceress' is SclerosesReigns. So if you really want to know his name, do the legwork for 'Double Thrower' and figure it out yourself. Keep the answer to yourselves, please; there's kiddies that read these forums, too! :whistling:

I'd like to thank all of you who actually made it to the end; I almost didn't myself! Questions? Comments? Think this was waaaaay too long? I certainly do! I sometimes forget I was an English major; verbose much? 😁
 
Last edited:
Originally posted by Tom_S on Mar 31, 2005:

Patriarch Warm_Soup

Finally finished my first 1.10 char.

My second pat after the necro. I think it's the first time i have 2 mat's/pat's since 1.00 :p

Warm_Soup
Lvl 84 Barbarian

Skills:

20 BO
20 Shout
20 Concentrate
20 Sword Mastery
1 Many others (~15)

Status:

Stre: 167 (~215)
Dext: 170 (~215)
Vita: 168 (not sure)
Ene: 10
Damage: ~3000 (two handed)
AR: 12000
Life: ~2500 (lvl 31 BO)
Defense: ~20000 when using concentrate (lvl 31 Shout)
Resists: 75 All

Equipment:

Arreat's
Disciple Set
No shield (kept Whitstan's on inventory)
Raven Frost
Rare Ring: LL, Resists, AR
Assorted Charms: Life, Resists, AR, Damage, Defense
Weapon 1:

Glyph Skewer
Highland Blade
One-Hand Damage: 81 to 230
Two-Hand Damage: 249 to 357
Durability: 119 of 150
Required Dexterity: 104
Required Strength: 171
Required Level: 49
Sword Class - Normal Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10 Expansion
Item Level: 87
Fingerprint: 0xdf0922d7
+272% Enhanced Damage
+138 to Attack Rating
Adds 1-2 fire damage
Adds 5-57 lightning damage
6% Life stolen per hit
+1 to Combat Skills (Barbarian Only)

Weapon 2:

2x Echoing Swords

Merc: Defiance

Tal's Mask
Lionheart
Reaper's Toll

Barbs have been my fav class since the beggining, so when 1.10 came out deleted everything (like for the 5th time) and started over with this guy.

Left him hanging in Act1 Hell and made a necro, among other chars, to get some equip for him.

The Reaper's on the merc was a HUGE help and made killing a little less slow.

Didn't have much problems after getting some stuff for him.

Act Bosses get wasted by Laying of Hands.

I must be the luckiest guy with the Ancients. Killed them on the first roll.
While the Merc kept the thrower busy took out the leaper. When he was gone the thrower had only a sliver left and then it was the whirler who kept whirling through me the whole time. 2 potions and 5 minutes later they were dead.

The WSK levels were very slow going. Lots of taunting and running.

Got those red star witch thingies that killed the merc right there.
Revived him only in Throne Room.

The Minions didn't give much trouble except for the Mummies and Baal died after some whacking while beeing Decrep most of the time.
The reward: Butcher's Pupil Cleaver :urrah:

The only monsters that gave him some problems were ofcourse OKnight's :\

Notable finds: FlameBellow sword in one of the Ice Caves though i still kept using the rare one and TVigor belt from the tree guy guarding the entrance to Lower Kurast.

A fun char that i'm going to use to do LK runs at P8 wich he does surprinsingly well :)

Next to finish my Frost/Zeal Paladin who is in Act2 Hell.
 
Originally posted by TopHatCat64 on Sep 8, 2008:

A Rock and a Hard Place: Patriarch Champ - Wolf Barb / Patriarch Triton - Conc Barb

Patriarch Champ

The Planning Stage

I had previously built a wolfbarb but, for whatever reason, it never really clicked for me and I ended up abandoning him shortly after I hit the level for Wolfhowl. I think it was burn out from 78 levels of normal attack. I've always liked defensive-oriented builds, partly because of my own personal mindset and partly because I don't have the wealth to build the top end weapon runewords. So far, I've tried a PDR zealot, a PDR zerker, and a blinding/knockback strafer. Here, I was curious if a ridiculous amount of life would prove more or less safe.

I was re-intrigued when I noticed the Wolfhowl Bassen posted in the IFT - it had a great roll. A quick trade and the cornerstone for my barb was set. Ordinarily, I try for a quirky take on an established build but I built Champ pretty much to the letter. The goal here was simple, see how close I can get to 10k life while still maintaining max resists and a high attack speed.

Champ was named after Lake Champlain's famous monster (I'm an avid fan of cryptids) but not for any relation - I just like how it rolls off the tongue.

Observations and Leveling
For Champ, I planned him out to level 90 and realized I had an extra 14 points after the usual Wolfbarb layout. Figuring I'd need some way to combat PI's, I dumped 11 points into Berserk and it's synergies. Just like that, my barb had an identity until I could wear Wolfhowl. The trusty Ribcracker paved the way for all 89 of his levels. With my other gear, I was grinding everything down with 100% crushing blow. I didn't acquire my intended weapon, Gris' Caddy until KV's fortuitous giveaway. Man that thing is fast!

Really nothing gave him much trouble and a decent amount of Berserk kept him safe in IM-intensive areas. Having over 9000 life was a tremendous asset that made even the worst situations survivable. There were times when I was mashing clusters of dolls and I saw my life cut in half but I stayed cool knowing I still had about over 4000 life left in the tank. Very reassuring.

He, along with Triton, are the only two Pats I've made without a single death. I've never been a huge fan of barbs but they are built to last.

Stats
Code:
Lvl 90
Life: 9004 | Mana: 437
Resists: 75/75/75/75
Defense: 15025
Feral Rage AR: 6641
Feral Rage Damage w/ Might: 926-1249

Str: 60 | Dex: 20 | Vit: 455 | Nrg: 10

20 BO
20 Shout
20 Mace Mastery
20 Iron Skin
11 Berserk
5 Natural Resist
1 BC
Pre-reqs

Gear
Code:
Wolfhowl 'Hel'
Mara's 29
'Duress' Archon
'Blood Clutches' crafted gloves
'Rune Buckle' belt
Goblin Toe
Raven Frost
'Doom Touch' ring
Griswold's Caddy w/ 4 Shael / 35 HoTo
Hoto on switch / empty hand (I swap the first Hoto back and forth)

Charms: 500 life, 275 ar, 8 max dmg, bit of poison res

Wolfhowl
Fury Visor
'Hel'
Defense: 377
Durability: 35 of 35
(Barbarian Only)
Required Strength: 110
Required Level: 79
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 88
Fingerprint: 0xfb4d0c8
+14 to Strength
+15 to Dexterity
+10 to Vitality
+150% Enhanced Defense
Requirements -15%
+5 to Feral Rage
+6 to Werewolf
+6 to Lycanthropy
+3 to Warcry Skills (Barbarian Only)
Level 15 Summon Dire Wolf (18/18 Charges)
Socketed (1: 1 used)

Blood Clutches
Sharkskin Gloves
Defense: 38
Durability: 14 of 14
Required Strength: 20
Required Level: 73
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 89
Fingerprint: 0xacfbf472
+13 to Strength
+14 to Dexterity
+18 to Life
+32 to Mana
Poison Resist +5%
2% Life stolen per hit
10% Chance of Crushing Blow

Rune Buckle
Demonhide Sash
Defense: 68
Durability: 12 of 12
Required Strength: 20
Required Level: 63
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 87
Fingerprint: 0x52412e03
+24 to Strength
+38 to Life
+97% Enhanced Defense
Lightning Resist +13%
Poison Resist +27%

Doom Touch
Ring
Required Level: 74
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 96
Fingerprint: 0x9aa7a09e
+40 to Life
+32 to Attack Rating
Fire Resist +24%
6% Mana stolen per hit


----


Patriarch Triton

The Planning Stage

After I finished with Champ I wondered how much my 15k defense played in his survival. I pondered it for a bit, shelved it and went on with my life. A post in the basin sparked my interest when someone found a Sword Guard and wondered what build could best put it to use. I actually suggested a Conc barb, seeing as every mod on it was geared towards defense. Like many of you, whenever I make a suggestion for a build, I want to build it myself. Yes, this is why I wanted a Sword Guard in the SPTF.

I ran some numbers in a damage calculator and was little worried about how low my damage was going to be, even when I upped the sword to a Colossus blade but I figured I'd try anyway.

I like to name my Barbs after military terms and a browse through the name of Ironclad ships eventually lead me to submarines. The USS Triton, I liked that. Sounds strong, defiant. Triton it was.

Observations and Leveling
Ok yes, Concentration isn't exactly the fastest attack around but I was fine with 12 frames. Normal and NM were no problem so I powered up my offense first, maxing Conc then BO, then Sword Mastery, and finally Shout. I didn't need a shield until Hell so I went two handed most of the way and I was killing just about everything in 2 or 3 hits.

Things slowed down a bit in Hell once I stuck on Stormshield but I was still extremely safe behind all my defense and now blocking. Things got a little dicey against two of everyone's favorite monsters, dolls and gloams. One pack of dolls took me down to almost nothing but my merc held them as I retreated and healed. Gloams in the WSK took some patience as my life was not nearly as good as my other barbs since I pumped a lot into str to wear a Sacred armor Stone. Couple close calls but I made it through without a death, like Champ.

Stats
Code:
Lvl 82
Life: 2630 | Mana: 493
Resists: 75/75/74/73
Defense w/ Conc: 34216
Conc AR: 9403
Conc Damage w/ Might: 825-3047

Str: 167 | Dex: 84 | Vit: 244 | Nrg: 10

20 BO
20 Shout
20 Conc
20 Sword Mastery
7 Iron Skin
1 Berserk
Pre-reqs

Gear
Code:
Arreat's Face '40 ed jewel'
Cat's Eye
'Stone' Sacred Armor
LoH
Nos' Coil
Goblin Toe
Raven Frost
'Viper Eye' Ring
Up'ed Sword Guard 'Shael' / Stormshield 'Pdiamond'
Dual +3 WC glaives on switch

Charms: A bunch of fine/sharp charms

Swordguard
Colossus Blade
'Shael'
One-Hand Damage: 69 to 181
Two-Hand Damage: 161 to 320
Durability: 49 of 50
Required Dexterity: 55
Required Strength: 95
Required Level: 70
Sword Class - Fast Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 87
Fingerprint: 0x21328908
+179% Enhanced Damage
+20% Increased Chance of Blocking
+100 Defense vs. Missile
+200 Defense vs. Melee
All Resistances +20
Requirements -50%
Required Level +7
20% Increased Attack Speed
20% Faster Hit Recovery
30% Damage Taken Goes to Mana
+410 to Defense (Based on Character Level)
Socketed (1: 1 used)

Stone
Sacred Armor
'ShaelUmPulLum'
Defense: 2170
Durability: 60 of 60
Required Strength: 232
Required Level: 66
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 88
Fingerprint: 0x8de651e1
+16 to Strength
+10 to Energy
+16 to Vitality
+266% Enhanced Defense
+300 Defense vs. Missile
All Resistances +15
60% Faster Hit Recovery
Level 16 Clay Golem (16/16 Charges)
Level 16 Molten Boulder (80/80 Charges)
Socketed (4: 4 used)

Viper Eye
Ring
Required Level: 46
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 85
Fingerprint: 0x1eafa75c
+8 to Dexterity
+86 to Mana
Fire Resist +14%
Poison Resist +24%
4% Life stolen per hit
5% Mana stolen per hit
 
Originally posted by tragor on Dec 16, 2008:

Happy Christmas - Tragor's second Mat/Pat

Having achieved success once, it seemed only right that I actually try to do it again. To that end, let me introduce ....

Patriarch Tragora, Conc/Zerk barb, Level 86

What can I say? I like melee characters and almost got a Guardian with a previous attempt at this build. In fact, that would have been my first success. Typical of me to almost score a Guardian before I've even got a Mat/Pat. Never do things the easy way.

Not much to say about playing style. He's a basher because that was the first decent weapon he found. Copious amounts of IAS and FRW were very handy, as was the Kelpie he found in early Hell (don't remember exactly where). Also very useful was the +48 all res Ward shield. The Kelpie and Ward were both up'd to good effect.

Thought he'd have trouble at the end but he cruised from Ancients to Baal with no real issues. Biggest problems came from Gloams and Black Souls (non-stop mana drain) in late A5.
- Ancients - Got lucky and managed to get them completely separated. One at a time, they were easy, though the whirler was Extra Strong and did stupid damage if he got spinning.
- WSK 1 was straightforward.
- WSK 2 found Black Souls and Stygian Dolls. Black Souls were a pain in the a**.
- WSK 3 brought OKies and the dreaded IM. Multiple one-shot suicides for the merc.
- ToD was a very nasty mix - OKies, Horadrim thingies and more Black Souls. Everything he killed was being raised by the damn Horadrim. Became a game of "hunt the Horadrim" while trying not to get IM spammed by the roving OKies.
- Minions and Baal - After the rest of the level, both of these were a walk in the park. In fact, no potions were used in dispatching Baal, a first for me.

Play sequence
Normal - /p8
Nightmare - /p8
Hell - /p2 until ToD then down to /p1 to finish

Don't have access to the details for now but here's what I remember:

Str - 213
Dex - 135
Vit - 218
Ene - 26
(including all bonuses)

Life - 2200 +/- (with cries)
Res - 75's across the board (thanks Anya)

Skills
Cries - Shout 20, B.Orders 20, B.Command 1, B.Cry 4
Masteries - Mace 4, Iron Skin 2, Nat Res 2
Combat - Concentrate 20, Berserk 20

Equipment
Helm - Rare Destroyer Helm (from Anya), +2 all barb skills, one big resist
Armour - Trang Oul's Scales, Def 850+
Shield - The Ward, up'd, Def 206, +48 all res
Gloves, Belt, Boots - Sigon's, 30% IAS, 40% FRW, 50% MF
Jewelry - Mahim Oak ammy, Nagelring, random rare ring
Weapon - 3-socket Aldur's Rhythm w/ 2 jewels and a p saph, 45% IAS, 68-102 base dmg, plus cold and lit dmg

With Might merc and cries, total damage for concentrate was about 850-1100. Total damage for berserk was around 950-1300.


Merc, Act II Might merc
Helm - Guillaume's Face
Armour - Rare, ethereal boneweave, Def 1282, one good res
Weapon - Kelpie, Up'd, 110-450 dmg, slow target 75%
Res's - 75, 75, 50, 50
Life - about 3700 with cries

Max damage for the merc was about 2680.

That's about it. Not sure what to do with him now. May add some MF gear and try to find a good Meph map. Don't know. Open to suggestions.

Thanks for listening. Out.
 
Originally posted by uglyfred on Dec 12, 2013:

Patriarch Navajas, (Almost) Max-Dex, Max-Damage Double Throw

History:
I made a Double Throw barbarian once upon a long time ago, but I invested significantly in his defensive abilities & equipment. After dragging that character through hell, I was surprised by his lack of need for a defensive focus while being underwhelmed by his offensive output. The shortcomings of that project always stuck with me, so I decided it was time to revisit the build and increase the offensive output - possibly to the point of making a glass cannon. Plus, I've never done a base-vita character before, and this seemed like as good excuse as any.

The character's name is taken from Danny Trejo's short-lived character in the movie Desperado: click


The Build:

Skills: (+2 from Highlords and Battle Command)
20 Throw Mastery
20 Double Throw
20 Double Swing
20 Battle Orders
3 Natural Resists
1 Taunt, Battle Command, Increased Speed, Leap Attack

Damage:
LCS: Primary Weapons: (2x Warshrikes)
LCS: Physical-Immunes & Bosses: (2x Lacerators)

Gear:
2x Warshrikes
2x Lacerators
'Fortitude' Archon Plate
Guillaume's Face (FireRes/IAS jewel)
Highlord's Wrath
Dracul's Grasp
Nosferatu's Coil
Gore Riders
Ravenfrost
Ring2:
Bitter Whorl
Ring
Required Level: 66
Fingerprint: 0xc684d69
Item Level: 75
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+1 to Maximum Damage
2% Mana stolen per hit
+20 to Strength
All Resistances +10
Lightning Resist +22%
7% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items

Backpack:
2x more Warshrikes
9 slots for various shimmering charms of 'life'
17 slots for various Fine/Sharp charms of 'life' or Balance
Tome of Town Portal

Merc:
Might aura
'Pride' Cryptic Axe (1.07 base)
'Treachery' ethereal Archon Plate (the Lem used to make this was my best drop for this character, btw)
Vampire Gaze

Miscellaneous Numbers:
Attack Speed: 4.5 frames (Warshrikes) / 5 frames (Lacerators)
Double-Damage: 100% (Warshrikes) / 72% (Lacerators)
Open Wounds: 35% (Warshrikes)/ 68% (Lacerators)
50% Crushing Blow
17L/2M leech
48 FHR


Notes:
1. I really wanted to go pure-dex, but the sacrifices just didn't justify that last little push for damage/AR. As it is, I spent 30 hard points into strength, and that investment allowed me to keep my attack speed high while also having a nice collection of +life charms. If I'd gone pure-dex I would've had to sacrifice one of those two. But the drive for high dexterity was part of the reason for the rare ring I chose (since I do have better options overall, just none better that happen to have a huge +stats boost, some resists, and the source of mana leech that I wanted).


2. Having played through this game several dozen times already, I took a shortcut by going as a standard Frenzier until level 68 (NM Pindleskin), and then respec'ing him to a thrower. Leveling a thrower isn't impossible by any stretch, I was just lazy about investing the time to do it.


3. Weapons choices. While I was putting this idea together, I did a little bit of research before deciding which weapons to use. My old stash of miscellaneous rare weapons is pretty underwhelming when it comes to thrown weapons, so rares were ruled out. Javelins have nice damage but small enough stack sizes that they were eventually ruled out too. Gimmershreds are nice, but the elemental damage really doesn't fit well with the rest of the focus I had in mind (i.e. Pride + Might). That pretty much leaves Warshrikes & Lacerators, which was covered very nicely by sirpoopsalot:

sirpoopsalot said:
Gimmershreds vs. Lacerators: When I got to the barracks in Act1 Hell, I tracked down some Ghosts & tried both to see which I liked better for fighting against Physical Immunes. I normally HATE the ctc Flee mod, but in this case it wasn't so bad - the 33% Amp Damage generally did enough immunity-breaking that things died before they could run away. And the decent amount of Open Wounds scored a few kills while things were fleeing too (another advantage for the Dracs/Arreats/Goreriders setup). Also, the Amp Damage was handy for fighting montsters that wouldn't flee... Lister, Baal, etc. went down quick and easy, partially because of Amp Damage.

In the end, Lacerators made for a very nice backup weapon. I considered going 1xWarshrike + 1xLacerator on each switch, but I'm glad I didn't. The way I did it, the 50% flee only happened around physical immunes - instead of quite often. That made it much more tolerable when it did come up.

Not to mention, carrying 6 throwing weapons instead of 4 meant I could stretch a town-trip a little longer if I felt like it. Still, repairs were a very, very common occurrence. I don't think there's anything a throwbarb can do to avoid that inconvenience beyond carrying 6-8 stacks of Warshrikes in his backpack.


4. When I was doing that research, I came across another very interesting quote:

Liquid_Evil said:
Throwbarbs are pretty neat, but no love for Grim Ward? That's the one barb build that can actually capitalize on that lesser used skill.

... I'd never ever spent a single point in Grim Ward before, so I decided to heed this advice & play around with it. Initially I had 5 hard points in Grim Ward. As a Frenzier going through on /players8, I actually loved it for clearing door jams and ambushes or even just dangerous/annoying swarms (like in the Act2 tombs when you get 834 skeletons getting perpetually ressurected by a pack of Horadrim Ancients). But once I switched over to a base-vita throw barb, I really didn't like running up to a corpse in a pack and casting a spell, since I'd often get whacked a couple of times before my slow casting speed got through to get the ward up.

If I had invested in vita, Grim Ward could be somewhat useful with a Double Throw build because getting interrupted for hit recovery would be a lot less frequent (and, again, it can be useful to a Frenzier too, since he's already in the middle of the action and has the FRW to chase down fleeing monsters). But as Navajas was designed, he was fragile enough that I'd rather rely on Howl, potions, and FRW if I get swarmed and keep my distance as much as possible at all other times. So a 2nd respec quest was eventually used to remove & redistribute the points I had placed in Grim Ward.


5. Ironically though - of course - the one death Navajas had was to a door jam in the Act2 tombs. In this case, I was a little too cocky and had unknowingly let Battle Orders expire, then proceeded to walk through the door without the merc. An extra-strong/cursed pack took out his ~600 hitpoints before I even noticed my life begin to drop a tiny bit. I was able to (cautiously) retrieve my corpse without a save & exit though.

After that he had maybe another 2 or 3 NDE's, mostly because I was too lazy or complacent to drink purple potions when I noticed my life twitch significantly. Dolls hurt, of course, and he was lucky to not encounter PI Frenzytaurs or Convicted Gloams (though I did have a little bit of overstack on lightning resists, just in case).

Overall though, even though I built Navajas with base vita, he was generally able to handle swarms with ease (even when Life Tap was slow to trigger) and only needed to use Taunt or Howl ~5 times through all of hell difficulty. Physical Immunes were a little slow, and I was careful not to get swarmed by them, but Lacerators did just fine in every case I encountered. The only areas Navajas had any difficulties whatsoever were in the Frozen Tundra (2x unleechable skeleton types & 1 type of physical immune), and with some huge packs of Physical Immune Hell Witches on WSK3. Higher /players settings would probably cause some problems too since forcing monsters into hit recovery was easy on low settings but would eventually become difficult to achieve consistently.


6. This was the build I was planning to complete before taking another break from D2. As it is, I don't know if it's going to be a break, or a "break." Before I started this project a few days ago, I was a little burned out on MF/rune runs. But this was a leasurely build that helped relieve that feeling somewhat, and I'd also like to knock one more grailer off of my self-found list before quitting for a while (though at 4 remaining TC 87 uniques I could easily do another 10k Pindle runs and not get one of the ones I want). So I guess I'll probably stick around for a little longer... maybe.
 
Last edited:
Originally posted by Unrsrvd on Sep 24, 2006:

Patriarch Taer, the IK Barb!

Since I neglected to post a Mat thread on my sorceress (I'm a very lazy person), I felt like I should go through the motions this time around. This is my first melee pat after all (3rd mat/pat)! 😁

I cruised through Normal and Nightmare on players8 and didn't really have any problems or slowdowns at any point. In Hell, I started with p8 but changed to p1 for Act II. Act III was done with p8 again, Act IV on p8 until Chaos Sanctuary where I switched to p1.

Hell Act V had some painful parts, namely rescuing Anya. I don't think I've ever seen so many Gloams. Sheesh. Hurty. 💫 Went on p8 until Ancients, where I switched to p1 and that's how I finished the game too. There were no Oblivion Knights in WSK or Throne, some gloams but they drop quick on p1.

No significant finds really, best being a Mal rune from Hellforge and a Mastery skiller from Hell WSK.

There were a couple of deaths. First death, big surprise (not!), was in Normal Chaos Sanctuary. "Hey, I think I recognize that sound... *looks at empty bulb* Yeah, that's Iron Maiden all right". Second death: NM WSK. "Ooh, an Oblivion Knight, better take him out quickly! *leap attack* *cursed mid-air* Ok, taunting is a better strategy". Third death: Hell Chaos Sanctuary. The winged demon fellow from one of the seals had mana burn. Surrounded by his group, no chance to leech or leap out, quick death. Valiantly recovered my corpse though... running around naked and dodging the group was quite exciting.

Stats and gear:

Character name : Taer
Character type : Barbarian
Character level : 86
Character exp : 1152783604

Strength : 187
Energy : 10
Dexterity : 20
Vitality : 308

Skills:

Combat: 20 WW, 1 Berserk and 1 in prerequisites for these skills.
Masteries: 20 Mace, 1 in each Increased Speed and Stamina, Iron Skin and Natural Resistances.
Warcries: 20 BO and Shout, 1 in every other warcry except Grim Ward.

Further skillpoints will be spent on Iron Skin, I think.

Fully buffed, Taer had a bit over 4k life, AR around 12k, some 13k defense. All resists at 75 (Hell).

Gear selection was quite unsurprising, being an IK barb and all. Full IK set, Angelic amulet and ring, Ravenfrost. Couple of standard echoers on switch, nothing spectacular on charms, mostly life and two mediocre AR GCs. And oh, two Mastery skillers.

Might merc was used. His eq: The Reaper's Toll, ethereal Duriel's Shell and Tal Rasha's mask.

All in all, this was a very fun character to play. 😃 I'm not quite sure what I'll do with him now that he's completed the game. I suppose running Pits and Cows perhaps for itamz is in order. Flayer Jungle p8 for sure! Focus on getting big piles of items, not so much hunting for gold and green, but for things like runes and socketed gear and such.

And of course, I will have to start a new character now... :scratch:
 
Originally posted by Vang on May 6, 2009:

Patriarch Volgram and his brother Hollis

STORY TIME

Volgram and Hollis, are twin brothers, both Barbarians. During their childhood, both played and had each others back everyday. Then Volgram heard word of an evil spreading like plaque throughout the world, and he told Hollis they should go and defeat this evil and come back as heroes.

Hollis, said no, and Volgram left out on his own. He helped the Rogues, the Town of Lut Gholein, the Ancient City and Natives of Kurast, and finally he slayed Diablo down in the gates of hell all on his own. Hearing Baal has ventured farther and to their homeland, he headed off, maybe his brother would finally join him, to at least say their homeland. He found out his brother was captured or killed, and Volgram was in a blood thristy rage. He charged through the foothills, killed that blob Shenk, and finally found some follow friends. He freed them, and alas none was his brother. He heard word of two more prison cages, and set out to finally free them, second cage was no different. The third cage came into view, and he saw his brother.

Brother Volgram said, it is time. Hollis knew what he meant and told his brother he would never leave his side on a quest to rid evil. So they ventured forth. They were proven worth by the Ancients at Mount Arreat, and slayed Baal and were given a grand heroes welcome upon coming back him.

CHARACTER BUILD AND BEGINNINGS
I don't know how I got this idea, but it honestly came partial to pass when my wife was playing pogo on my pc, and doing some stupid puzzle badge, and the pictured featured two mushrooms. So I thought about 2 characters wearing the same equipment and such, and decided hey..maybe 2 Barbarians, i have two Arreat's Face, now to find 2 swords, and 2 armors.

Skills I decided would be the same, at least combat skills, and no other active skills other than 3 buff warcries(Battle Orders, Command, and Shout) I would use Stun and Bash only as well. So Sword Mastery, and 1 in all the others, with a few leftovers in Natural Resistance if I get high enough.

So looking at weapons, and my runes, I decided I didn't like any of the uniques, all to slow. I didn't have two puls, so dual Oath was out of the question as I didn't feel like HF rushing this week. I did have just about everything else, including 3 Ums. So I looked at my swords, Balrog Blades and Legend Swords I had multiple that had 3 sockets, and with me eyeing crescent moon, I looked to see which would be better speed wise, and Legend Sword Gave me 2.5APS or 10fpa with 83%IAS.

Two pieces down, and now armor..I couldn't reach a middle ground, and since Hollis was weaker than me, after all he got captured, I would give him Fortitude, and I would wear an offensive armor(yeah..fortitude is defensive :whistling: ) Crow Caw as I had just enough to make it elite(basically clear of runes now and need to do some HF rushing to replenish those mid levels now)

So, with a set idea, I made two crescent moons: *side note, should of actually made Hollis and got them personalized, would of been cool*)

Volgram's:

Crescent Moon
Legend Sword
'ShaelUmTir'
One-Hand Damage: 66 to 168
Two-Hand Damage: 150 to 282
Durability: 44 of 44
Required Dexterity: 100
Required Strength: 175
Required Level: 47
Sword Class - Very Fast Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 81
Fingerprint: 0x2f82ce02
+201% Enhanced Damage
20% Increased Attack Speed
Ignore Target Defense
25% Chance of Open Wounds
+2 to Mana After Each Kill
+9 Magic Absorb
10% Chance to cast Level 17 Chain Lightning on striking
7% Chance to cast Level 13 Static Field on striking
Level 18 Summon Spirit Wolf (30/30 Charges)
-35% to Enemy Lightning Resistance
Socketed (3: 3 used)

Hollis's:

Crescent Moon
Legend Sword
'ShaelUmTir'
One-Hand Damage: 63 to 161
Two-Hand Damage: 144 to 270
Durability: 44 of 44
Required Dexterity: 100
Required Strength: 175
Required Level: 47
Sword Class - Very Fast Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 81
Fingerprint: 0xec786ced
+188% Enhanced Damage
20% Increased Attack Speed
Ignore Target Defense
25% Chance of Open Wounds
+2 to Mana After Each Kill
+9 Magic Absorb
10% Chance to cast Level 17 Chain Lightning on striking
7% Chance to cast Level 13 Static Field on striking
Level 18 Summon Spirit Wolf (30/30 Charges)
-35% to Enemy Lightning Resistance
Socketed (3: 3 used)

GAMEPLAY


At 33, I saved Hollis. We proceded to do save Anya, rekill the ancients, and do Baal runs until I could equip my endgame weapon at 47. Used various other weapons until then.
At 60, I returned to do my normal Den, Rad, Tomb/Potion, Izual and level Hollis and then Act5 Barbarians, Anya, Ancients again, and Baal runs until 76

Act1 through Baal dead took about 4 1/2hrs total start to finish. That was extremely fast. I died once in Act4 to some Fant minions from the OK spawn. Act 2 maggot Lair Physical/lightning Immune beetle to a deadly blast of lightning.

Overall, everything was easy. When we were side to side, nothing could stop us, as stun and bashing everything works quite well at putting everything either shut down or in hit recovery. It was the times when I was jumping around a bunch of mobs. Barbarians(player and hiring) are both pretty sturdy much more than than other classes. I was able to run over the game. Physical Immunes died quite quickly with all the lightning going off and my couple charms(toxic small charm helpss x1 and a 60%open wounds)and the random Lightning Immmune/Physical immune do take a bit longer to Open wounds them down.

More on Bash and Stun, both are extremely effective, and work great in a high damage with high speed attack(Maybe E-bugged Oath Feral Axe, Champions Axe for example) would be so much better. I was very happy with the speed and performance of this attack. It was a very defensive based ability and literally made any hard target a soft target, Stun half of Lister's pack and then whack them down, rinse and repeat.

CHARACTER STATS and EQUIPMENT

Volgram, Level 81

STR: 175(205)
DEX: 75( 128)
VIT: 240(250)
LIFE w/ BO level 27: 2568
AR: 5k Bash/Stun, ITD on weapon

LCS Bash: 1364 - 2899
LCS Stun: 1148 - 2463

SKILLS:
20(26) Bash
20(26) Stun
20(27) Battle Orders
20(26) Sword Mastery
1 howl
1(8) Shout
1(8) Battle Command
1(8) Increased Stamina
1(8) Increased Speed
1(8) Iron Skin
5(12) Natural Resist

Equipment:
Crescent Mood Legend Sword
Arreat's Face
Highlord's Wraith
Crow Caw upgrade(1104base defense)
Sting of Ears
Ravenfrost
Nature's Peace(PMH and RIP mod!)
Laying of Hands
War Traveller's(41%)

Hollis:
Arreat's Face
Crescent Moon
Fortitude

Charms: Life, Max Damage, 3 Mastery GC

FINDS: HF H/Hel, +cold skills/7life GC, various uniques/sets of exceptional/elite, and crescent moon amulet.

Next up? No idea, something will come.
 
Originally posted by TheWorkingBoor on Feb 25, 2012:

Patriarch CrazyIvan, not a cookie-cutter

Frenzy barbarians. I enjoy playing them, but after making 2 or 3 in the past, it's a pretty generic build at this point. Pick a couple of your hardest hitting weapons, and then it's:

20 Frenzy
20 Weapon Mastery
20 BO
0-5 in the usual utility skills
and the remaining points split somewhere between Taunt and Double Swing for their synergy bonuses (and intermitent use).

Your strategy is to stun or separate the hard-hitters (if you can) and mow everything else down, and hope your mercenary manages to run fast enough to actually contribute something to your battles. The major weakness of a Frenzy build will be your interruptible and shieldless attack making you a sponge for receiving damage, especially because you're stationary while engaged with packs.

... Yawn.

Looking at that weakness though, I realized that Whirlwind is a nearly perfect counterpoint to that. And if, like a lot of barbarians, you've got points in Leap Attack and Berserk, Whirlwind is only a single skillpoint away. Not only that, but eventually, the real epiphany dawned on me:

Taunt and Double Swing provide an 8% damage boost to your Frenzy. Additional skillpoints in Whirlwind also provide an 8% damage boost (and an Attack Rating boost too). So if your Frenzier uses Whirlwind enough, it's really a wash on whether it's better to spend the points in your damage synergies, or Whirlwind itself. And actually, because Whirlwind doesn't need synergies (err... it doesn't have synergies), it's perfectly viable with a few skillpoints. So you can build a traditional Frenzier and synergize your Frenzy damage so you can wander around getting spanked by hard-hitters. Or you can take a little less Frenzy damage and gain another attack - a primary attack - one that significantly cuts back on your weakest parts of Frenzy.

So I'm here to introduce:


Crazy Ivan, the Whirling Frenzier

or, if you prefer,

the Frenzied Whirler :p


Level 90

Str: 138
Dex: 136
Vit: 312
Ene: what's that?

Resists: 75f, 45c, 80l, 45p
Life: 2997
Mana: 317
FHR: 48

AR: ~7.8k whirlwind, ~10.3k Frenzy, ~8.9k Berserk
Damage: Grief + LCS = who knows


Skills:
20 Whirlwind
20 Frenzy
20 Sword Mastery
20 Battle Orders
1 Battle Cry, Battle Command, Taunt, Berserk, Increased Speed, Natural Resists, prerequisites
4 points unspent (will either go to WarCry or Taunt)


Equipment:
2x Grief Phaseblades (low rolls)
Arreat's Face (AR/IAS jewel)
Highlords Wrath
Fortitude
Laying of Hands
String of Ears
Goreriders
Ravenfrost
rare dual-leech/AR/resists ring

Sharp/Fine charms of Life/Balance/Inertia
1x Shimmering SC of Strength
Switch: 2x Cresent Moon PB's

Mercenary: Might aura
eth Reapers with IAS jewel
eth Andy's Visage with fire-resist/IAS jewel
eFortitude


Miscellaneous Details:
Experts will quickly point out that a charged up Frenzy doesn't increase your attack speed when whirling - only your movement speed. This is true. Critics would point out that the increased movement speed of during whirlwind is often a bad thing because it's harder to get multiple hits on targets... this critique, while somewhat true, only focuses on the worst aspect of the combined attacks while ignoring three important (potential) points for combining them. (Sidenote: a more realistic critique is that because of your low mana pool, leeching actually can be a little more troublesome at high speeds - but potions can get you through it).

However, first and foremost, whirling with a high rate of movement can be done quite well if you control your movement accurately. It takes a moderate amount of practice, but if you're experienced with using Whirlwind it is possible control your movement enough negate the worst impacts of your increased speed. Think of it in comparison to a PvP barbarian using short, precise whirls to hit an intelligent, unpredictable, mobile target - the PvP'er is going to have a much bigger disadvantage than a PvM frenzy-charged whirler, yet Whirlwind is considered a perfectly viable skill for PvP.

In addition to that, one benefit you get from the increased movement speed is your ability to retreat quickly and easily. So if you get stuck in a swarm while Frenzying (which can happen pretty easily) you can switch over to Whirlwind and just spin out of the swarm.

Finally, if you have good damage, maybe you only need ~2-4 hits to kill an enemy. So you can whirl across the entire swarm very quickly, and kill the majority of enemies in one or two passes. This is especially true on lower /players settings.

So although high foot-speed is often considered a bad idea with Whirlwind, I don't think it's necessarily bad at all. In practice I actually found the accelerated movement to be sweet most of the time. The only times I didn't like it was for tougher unleechables and individual, slow moving monsters. For example:

Act Bosses. I'm hoping to adapt this build a little and give it a go at some full-experience Baal runs (p1/p8/p3... you know the routine). That's what the Cresent Moon weapon switches are for - Frenzying and hoping to use the Static Field to get a good start on removing Baal's hitpoints. For finishing Baal off, so far I've found Whirlwind a little faster than Frenzy. But those six seconds while Frenzy's still active after the switch are a little bit of the pain in the butt. I might try switching to DoubleSwing for a few seconds, to see if it's a better fit.


Overall:
After seeing how well this build works, I'm kind of surprised such barbarians are either non-existent or not mentioned. It has a small sacrifice to top-end damage, but adds a 2nd primary attack in exchange. For a Frenzier, you gain the safety, mobility and uninteruptible attack of whirlwind. For a whirler, you gain the access to the higher attack rating and chance-to-cast effects from Frenzy.

In concept, I'd say it's a similar to a Strafer/Multi-Shot bowazon using different attacks for different situations (though, admittedly, the bowazon often has skillpoints to spare and the barbarian does not).

So if you can't decide between Frenzy or Whirlwind next time you feel like making a barbarian, why not try both?
 
Originally posted by TheWorkingBoor on Apr 2, 2012:

Patriarch Hitmeifucan, the High-offense Concentrate barbarian

This project came about because of 2 different things:

1. I built a Berserker that did 20k average damage, but he had no shield (and no defense and no leech) and I found he absorbed a lot more damage than I enjoyed. I didn't really want him to play like a glass cannon, but he did. Concentrate provided defense & leech, which seemed like it could be a worthwhile addition in exchange for sacrificing a little power.

and

2. Looking through the mat/pat compilation (my favorite thread), I noticed the Concentrate barbarians that were there generally were of two different molds: Heavily-Twinked/All-Defense, or "poor-mans" equiped/new(ish) to D2. I certainly don't want to disparage anyone's build or effort, but it didn't seem like any of the heavily-twinked Concentrators had really utilized one of the most underrated aspects of D2's game design: balance. As most/all of us are aware, going with a build that's all-offense can leave you lacking in other areas (defense, MF, resistances, fighting immunes, etc). The same is true for all-MF builds, all-defense builds, and just about any singular-focused idea you can come up with (though those builds can have significant benefits too). And it seemed like the other Concentrate barbs had - almost uniformly - made the choice in favor of all-defense.

But a lot of the time in D2, it makes just as much sense to have "a little of this" and "a little of that," instead of a singular focus. And Blizzard has, for the most part, done a remarkable job of making a lot of different ideas/builds viable, while at the same time making it pretty darn difficult to build a character that's perfect for every situation.

So I set off to build a Concentrate barbarian that didn't have "amazing" defense, but had "pretty darn good" defense. And in exchange for that small sacrifice, I gained 100% Crushing Blow, 100% Deadly Strike, and offensive power that's probably about as good as a Concentrate Barbarian can reasonably hope for.


Hitmeifucan, level86
(Sorry for the lack of screenshots - I need a new harddrive first :crazyeyes:)

20 Concentrate
20 Sword Mastery
20 Battle Orders
20 Shout
6+ Iron Skin
1 Taunt, Battle Command, Increased Speed, Natural Resistances, Berserk, Leap Attack, prerequisites

Str: 136
Dex: 136
Vit: 292
Ene: 10

Life: 3142
Mana: 259
Resists: 75f/36c/80l/36p (cold resists go up to 75 on switch)

Concentrate AR: 10.6k
LCS Concentrate Damage: 5-12k (being the LCS, obviously those numbers are before 100% Deadly Strike kicks in)
Berserk AR: 8.4k
LCS Berserk Damage: 5-12k

Base Defense: 13k
Defense while "Concentrating": 19.5k
Switch Defense: 16k
Switch Defense while "Concentrating": 24k
Switch Block: 50%

Gear:
eDeath Colossus Sword (made in a 1.07 base)
Fortitude
Guillaume's Face (Vermillion Jewel of Fervor)
Highlords Wrath
Laying of Hands
Nosferatu's Coil
Gore Riders
Ravenfrost
rare leech/AR/resistances ring

switch: Grief PB + Stormshield (FireRes + -requirements jewel)
Charms: Sharp/Shimmering/Fine of Balance/Life

Merc: Fire Rogue
Faith Crusader Bow + eFortitude + Stealskull (Jewel of Fervor)


Miscellaneous Details:
1. ~15k average damage + 100% Crushing Blow? Yes please. :nod:

2. "Only" 13k defense with no shield was certainly adequate; with his good damage & leech (14%), more defense would've just been gratuitous.

3. /players8 all the way. Though I must confess that I didn't feel like leveling a single-target-attack melee build all the way from zero, so he was a Frenzy barb until attaining the NM respec quest, at which time he became a full-time Concentrator.

4. The only minor difficulty he had was with the poison damage and 8-bajillion unleechable skeleton archers in Act2 (which wasn't really that dangerous as long as I drank the occasional potion). I didn't do Nihlathak, but the Vipers would likely cause problems too.

5. But his real nemesis is definitely the Ghost/Specter unleechable (i.e. like the ones in the Arcane Sanctuary). Everywhere he encountered them, they seemed to tear him up pretty quickly & easily. They were so powerful against him that I wonder if they have bugged AR to provide 'Ignore Target Defense' or something. His only death came against a double boss pack of these, and his only ~10 NDE's came against them too.

6. The Grief+Stormshield was intended to be my "I actually need more defense" switch, but of course I never bothered to actually use it. I should've around Ghosts/Specters, but didn't. :p

7. He was a nice break from my MF-septavirate, but he's going to the retirement bin. I prefer my melee characters to have multi-target and/or fast attacks, and his 10-frames-per-swing doesn't really qualify.
 
Originally posted by Xdeathfire on Aug 6, 2007:

Patriarch TevashSzat, Concentrate/WW Hybrid

Well, this is my first Patriarch ever, a concentrate/whirwhind hybrid, and felt I did pretty well with him.

Name: Patriarch TevashSzat
Level: 80
Strength: 158
Dexterity: 167
Vitality: 160
Energy: Base
Health: 881 (1700 with BO)

Skills:

Masteries:
17 Sword Mastery
1 Iron Skin
1 Natural Resist
1 Increased Stamina
1 Increased Speed

Warcries:
1 Howl
1 Find Potion
1 Find Item
1 Shout
20 Battle Orders
1 Battle Command

Combat Skills:
1 Bash
1 Stun
1 Leap
1 Leap Attack
20 Concentrate
20 Whirlwind

Items:

Helm: Vampire Gaze
Armor: "Duress" Boneweave
Weapon: Lightsabre
Shield: Rhyme Grim Shield (I actually have the runes for Sanctuary but couldn't find a good shield to make it out of)
Boots: Gore Riders
Gloves: Chance Guards
Ring1: Ravenfrost
Ring2: Rare LL ring with +Str, +Life, and Resists
Ammy: Rare ammy with +1 barb skills, +life, +resists

Merc:

Defiance Merc
Helm: Tal Rasha's Mask
Weapon: Bonehew with 2 Ruby Jews
Armor: Skullders Ire

I have around 16k defence during concentrate and with merc and 70% block near making it quite hard for most melees to hit me.

Normal and Nightmare went by using mostly self found gear. Once I hit Hell, killing speed reduced drastically and I had to trade and upgrade all of my gear. Once I got to the Countess, I ran her way too many times for me to count correctly to get 2 Ums. Was very lucky and managed to get Tal's Ammy on my second run. Made Duress with one and made a crescent moon cryptic sword with the other. Was planning to using the crescent moon as my weapon, but the killing speed with it disappointed me greatly probably due to my lack of ias so I stuck with the lightsabre. Andy fell easily, drops were unmentionable.

Act 2 was extremely easy and I breezed through that except for when I had to fight the Horadrim Ancients which I really really hated since whenever they were uniques, the boss always happens to be immune to physical and magical making them near impossible to kill for me. I just ran through everything though so nothing that bad there. Duriel was easy, but drops weren't anything spectacular.

Act 3 was where things started to get really annoying. First of all, I got stuck in the Great Marsh for a very long time trying to get in the Flayer Jungle. ¾ of the way through it, I had to exit out. When I tried to continue, I accidentally pressed nightmare and had to redo the map. In my new map, it turned out that the Flayer Jungle entrance was next to the Spider Forest not the Great Marsh.

Things went pretty well in the Kurast areas with everything easily killed. Did a couple of runs in Lower Kurast and got some half decent charms. Once I got into the Durance did I realize how much I hated Blood Lords. I just hate them. Period. I have died so many times to them its not even funny and they always spawn with the worst mods possible. Like the two Blood Lord packs that spawned in Durance 3 next to one of the council member uniques. The council member had fanaticism aura, stone skin, and extra fast; 1st blood lord pack had might aura, mana burn and cursed; third blood lord pack had holy freeze aura, extra fast and extra strong. Took me forever to kill them, but Mephisto after that was very easy.

Act IV was a pain too. I rain through the first area cause I really wanted to kill Diablo and get the Act done. In the area where Izual was, I got a terrible spawn: Gloams and those Lords that use Inferno. Every boss I met would amp damage me and ended up parking half of the map. Was very unlucky with Izual though and had to run through about 30 super health/ full rejuv pots killing him cause there happened to be 2 gloom unique packs next to him.

Chaos Sanctuary was even worse because the Oblivion Mages seem to have forgotten all of their curses cept for Iron Maiden and Decripify. What would happen is that they Iron Maiden me so my merc dies instantly and I switch to berserk. Once they cast decripify, I switch to cocentrate cause I kill faster and have better survival with it compared to Berserk. Then, halfway through 1 swing, they would suddenly IM me again and I die. Repeat 4 or 5 times and I finally cleared the seals and killed Diablo.

Act V was okay I guess. Ran through every area cept for Crystalline Passage, Areat Summit, and Worldstone Levels. Went and killed Baal, but sadly didn't drop anything that special.

My next project: Xdeathfire the CL/Orb Sorc which will be my MFer
 
Last edited:
Originally posted by zaphodbrx on Aug 5, 2012:

Patriarch Ralf- untwinked single pass co-op Barbarian.

This character was played over the course of a few months with an IRL friend who played a sorceress. Nearly all of the game ( except hell act V ) was played in coop mode, with untwinked and single pass. It was great fun, so I would like to share it with all of you.

Patriarch Ralf - concentrate barbarian

Level 84

Endgame LCS

Skills

20(21) Concentrate
20(21) Mace mastery
20(23) Battle orders
7(10) Warcry
5(6) Natural resistance
2(5) Howl
9(12) Shout
1 point in Battle command, Battle cry, taunt, iron skin, increased speed, pre reqs.

Equipment

Bonesnap ogre maul
Treachery curiass
Immortal King's Will
Beast finger gloves
Entropy wing amulet
Skull Whorl ring
Plague coil ring
Hsaru's iron stay
Hsaru's iron heel
Spirit longsword ( switch )
Spirit flamberge ( switch )

Code readout

Code:
Ralf's Bonesnap
Ogre Maul
'Shael'
Two-Hand Damage: 301 to 415
Durability: 60 of 60
Required Strength: 225
Required Level: 63
Mace Class - Fast Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 49
Fingerprint: 0x26a03a07
+292% Enhanced Damage
Fire Resist +30%
Cold Resist +30%
Required Level +12
20% Increased Attack Speed
200% Damage to Undead
40% Chance of Crushing Blow
Socketed (1: 1 used)

Treachery
Ralf's Cuirass
'ShaelThulLem'
Defense: 196
Durability: 49 of 50
Required Strength: 65
Required Level: 43
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 63
Fingerprint: 0x8762e930
Cold Resist +30%
50% Extra Gold from Monsters
+2 to Assassin Skill Levels
45% Increased Attack Speed
20% Faster Hit Recovery
25% Chance to cast Level 15 Venom on striking
5% Chance to cast Level 15 Fade when struck
Socketed (3: 3 used)

Immortal King's Will
Avenger Guard
Defense: 174
Durability: 55 of 55
(Barbarian Only)
Required Strength: 65
Required Level: 47
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 39
Fingerprint: 0x69a8ba17
+125 Defense
37% Extra Gold from Monsters
67% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
+4 to Light Radius
+2 to Warcry Skills (Barbarian Only)
Socketed (2: 2 used) <--- wanted to put jewels of fervor instead of topaz, but no Hel :(

Entropy Wing
Amulet
Required Level: 42
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 66
Fingerprint: 0xa373854f
+6 to Strength
+12 to Life
+14 to Maximum Stamina
All Resistances +5
4% Life stolen per hit
5% Faster Run/Walk

Skull Whorl
Ring
Required Level: 46
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 75
Fingerprint: 0xf31ab0f5
+19 to Life
+106 to Attack Rating
Magic Damage Reduced by 2
Fire Resist +4%
Lightning Resist +31%
Cold Resist +4%
Poison Resist +4%
4% Mana stolen per hit

Plague Coil
Ring
Required Level: 19
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 37
Fingerprint: 0xf7e43def
+20 to Attack Rating
Fire Resist +21%
4% Life stolen per hit
7% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
10% Faster Cast Rate
14% Chance to cast Level 5 Charged Bolt when struck

Hsarus' Iron Stay
Belt
Defense: 215
Durability: 16 of 16
Required Strength: 25
Required Level: 3
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 17
Fingerprint: 0xfe0d08af
+20 to Life
Cold Resist +20%

***Partial Set Item Bonuses***
+210 to Defense (Based on Character Level)
***Partial Set Item Bonuses***


Hsarus' Iron Heel
Chain Boots
Defense: 9
Durability: 16 of 16
Required Strength: 30
Required Level: 3
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 20
Fingerprint: 0xf1edeb61
Fire Resist +25%
20% Faster Run/Walk

***Partial Set Item Bonuses***
+840 to Attack Rating (Based on Character Level)
***Partial Set Item Bonuses***

Beast Finger
Heavy Gloves
Defense: 11
Durability: 14 of 14
Required Level: 70
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 73
Fingerprint: 0x5ddcd770
+11 to Dexterity
+17 to Life
+58% Enhanced Defense
3% Life stolen per hit
10% Increased Attack Speed
10% Chance of Crushing Blow
10% Chance to cast Level 3 Nova when struck

Spirit
Long Sword
'TalThulOrtAmn'
One-Hand Damage: 3 to 19
Durability: 44 of 44
Required Dexterity: 39
Required Strength: 55
Required Level: 25
Sword Class - Fast Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 36
Fingerprint: 0x3cee1287
+22 to Vitality
+104 to Mana
+250 Defense vs. Missile
Adds 1-50 lightning damage
Adds 3-14 cold damage over 3 seconds
+75 poison damage over 5 seconds
7% Life stolen per hit
55% Faster Hit Recovery
33% Faster Cast Rate
+2 to All Skill Levels
+5 Magic Absorb
Socketed (4: 4 used)

Spirit
Flamberge
'TalThulOrtAmn'
One-Hand Damage: 9 to 15
Two-Hand Damage: 13 to 26
Durability: 50 of 50
Required Dexterity: 49
Required Strength: 70
Required Level: 25
Sword Class - Fast Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 54
Fingerprint: 0x6bc89b39
+22 to Vitality
+98 to Mana
+250 Defense vs. Missile
Adds 1-50 lightning damage
Adds 3-14 cold damage over 3 seconds
+75 poison damage over 5 seconds
7% Life stolen per hit
55% Faster Hit Recovery
33% Faster Cast Rate
+2 to All Skill Levels
+8 Magic Absorb
Socketed (4: 4 used)

Mercenary: Act 2 nightmare offensive (might )

Gear

Code:
Hawkmail
Tigulated Mail
'Ort'
Defense: 358
Durability: 36 of 36
Required Strength: 86
Required Level: 30
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 27
Fingerprint: 0x8da5a55
+93% Enhanced Defense
Lightning Resist +30%
Cold Resist +15%
+15% to Maximum Cold Resist
Required Level +5
10% Faster Run/Walk
Cannot Be Frozen
Socketed (1: 1 used)

Crown of Thieves
Grand Crown
Defense: 334
Durability: 29 of 50
Required Strength: 103
Required Level: 49
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 74
Fingerprint: 0x2b5c7782
+25 to Dexterity
+50 to Life
+35 to Mana
+193% Enhanced Defense
Fire Resist +33%
9% Life stolen per hit
89% Extra Gold from Monsters

Insight
Halberd
'RalTirTalSol'
Two-Hand Damage: 52 to 161
Durability: 55 of 55
Required Dexterity: 47
Required Strength: 75
Required Level: 27
Polearm Class - Normal Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 35
Fingerprint: 0x8884a0bf
+5 to Strength
+5 to Energy
+5 to Dexterity
+5 to Vitality
+259% Enhanced Damage
+9 to Minimum Damage
Adds 5-30 fire damage
+75 poison damage over 5 seconds
23% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
+4 to Critical Strike
35% Faster Cast Rate
190% Bonus to Attack Rating
+2 to Mana After Each Kill
Level 14 Meditation Aura When Equipped
Socketed (4: 4 used)

The journey

I kept track of the whole journey and it's quite a lot! Props to anyone who reads it all

Normal mode

The journey

May 7th. Ralf and Cleopatra have started their epic journey today. Cleared the den of evil, killed Blood Raven, went through the underground passage and got the scroll, then rescued Cain. Not much to report other than the usual early game nuisances- running out of stamina, no gold, crap weapons, no mana to speak of, etc. I've been putting points into bash, and then double swing, intending to go for some sort of double swing build. The sorceress is leveling firebolt. We have decided to do untwinked single pass, so we also cleared out Mausoleum, cave, and other optional areas. Players setting was set to 8.

May 13th. We raided the countess tower today and found a Ral rune. This might be useful for a 'Leaf'staff later, nice. Lots of chipped gems gems have been collected. The topazes have gone into helms and armors, and I socketed two chipped emeralds into a two handed sword, and two skulls into another 2h sword for leech ( though it's not much ). I also found a cool helm that will last for a long while, probably even more so if I make Lore in it at some point.

Gemmed Jawbone Cap
Defense: 12
Durability: 23 of 25
(Barbarian Only)
Required Strength: 25
Required Level: 3
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 7
Fingerprint: 0x9b88428e
18% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
+2 to Mace Mastery (Barbarian Only)
+1 to Axe Mastery (Barbarian Only)
+1 to Sword Mastery (Barbarian Only)
Socketed (2: 2 used)

We fought our way to the outer cluster waypoint, not forgetting to clear the pits and such. Ralf is still using double swing with some points in bash. The effectiveness is decreasing, specially compared to the sorceress who has just obtained fireball and is dominating. We still have our rogue mercs. One of them has a bow with an envy jewel that I found, but it doesn't do much.

May 15th. Andariel is now dead. We have saved our imbue quests for now. No unique items at all and Andariels drop was a bunch of crap. I am now seriously doubting the whole untwinked barbarian idea. There are just no good weapons at the moment, from shops or monsters. We are getting by because of sorceress fire skills and that the barbarian is a good tank. The sorceress is putting half the stat points in energy, half in vita. This is a smart choice- we aren't going to have insight anytime soon, and sorceress without mana is just sad.

May 16th. Spent an hour shopping new items. A +1 to fireball 2os staff ( best I could get ), 3 os breast plate, 3os ringmail, heavy boots of fortune, chain gloves of chance, viridian belt of strength. This filled some gaps in our build and will be used for various things. Then we set out to kill Radamant. He dropped crap, but on the way we got a Tir rune so as to finally make 'Leaf'. The sorceress is now very powerful and carries 89 MF. I used the 3 chip gem recipe to reroll claymores 5-6 times and got a claymore of slaying, in which I socketed a +4 maxdmg jewel and a skull. It still sucks though. I am now looking for Tir and El runes.

We also changed our mercs. One defiance and one prayer merc are serving us well. We bought some random items from shops for them.

May 17th. We ventured out into the rocky waste. Lighting resist is really low and the beetles are very dangerous. This is getting depressing. We pick up all rings and amulets and eventually find one with +11 lite res. Still isn't enough,.

We have obtained the horadric cube after fighting with large numbers of skeletons, mummies, beetles and other creatures. Eager to test it out, we cubed a few gems and obtained two diamonds. Time for the savage polearm recipe! ( which thankfully I remembered from memory, as annoyingly there is no internet here ). The first try yielded a savage voulge of alacrity, which I handed the merc. The second produced- oh joy!- a weapon which I knew would be amazing for the rest of normal- a savage Bill of Gore!

Savage Bill of Gore
Two-Hand Damage: 24 to 103
Durability: 48 of 50
Required Strength: 95
Required Level: 25
Polearm Class - Normal Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 50
Fingerprint: 0x21d8a1ae
+78% Enhanced Damage
+9 to Maximum Damage

Ralf still has three more levels to go before he can use it, but it has rekindled my enthusiasm. And I probably need to respec to concentrate. Double swing isn't really working as well as I thought, and one can't use it with a polearm obviously. I have a point in find item, and use it on bosses. Mana still a big pain. No Tirs, but some Els found.

May 18th. We are finally getting some nice items. A Tir dropped, so I made steel in a claymore. Also, I have respeced to concentrate, and changed the build around a bit. Hsaru's boots dropped in the maggots lair, along with Arctic belt. I was just thinking how nice it would be have Hsarus belt too, when, hey presto, it dropped! This may be Ralf's endgame items. The scaling attack rating is great, and other good bonuses. We have hit level 24, so now we have Battle orders and meteor. The horadric staffs have been created. Yes, we have two of them.

We have acquired decent nice rare items too.

Death Hold
Ring
Required Level: 13
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 19
Fingerprint: 0x27788435
+1 to Dexterity
+5 to Life
+7 to Mana
+20 to Attack Rating
Lightning Resist +30%

Doom Spur
Heavy Boots
Defense: 7
Durability: 14 of 14
Required Strength: 18
Required Level: 9
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 17
Fingerprint: 0xe34a7270
+13% Enhanced Defense
Lightning Resist +20%
Cold Resist +5%
13% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
Repairs 1 durability in 33 seconds

Claw viper temple destroyed, and we have assembled two horadric staffs.

May 19th.

A few minutes in, and Ralf hits level 25. Nice, he can now equip the savage bill of gore. The concentrate damage has shot up to 99-400, which is enough to own p8 monsters, though not obviously as good as sorceress fireball. 7 points in polearm mastery, 7 in concentrate and remaining in 1 pointers, prereqs, battle orders. We fight our way through harem, palace cellar and arcane sanctuary and are showered with green items. A second Hsaru belt and arctics belt, clegaw's claw, Cathan's rule, Isenhart's helm, Berserker's hatchet. All useless obviously. Look Blizzard , you want to make a green battle staff, don't make it utterly suck compared to a runeword that only costs Tir and Ral. One thing that might come in handy would be Hsaru's buckler, but we haven't found it. The full Hsaru set gives Cannot be frozen, and with concentrate a shield isn't entirely out of the question. The only other easy way to get CBF which is the rhyme runeword also requires a shield. No uniques yet, which is annoying.


Leap attack and teleport came in handy in the arcane sanctuary. The summoner was in the fourth one we checked, and we proceeded to Tal Rasha's tomb. The tombs are insanely annoying areas so we did not bother to do full clear of all the tombs. Then we got ready to battle players8 Duriel. The plan was to have me cast BO/shout and then tank the giant bug while the sorceress lobbed meteors and fireballs. It was easier than I thought, I only had to drink two red potions. He did not attack the mercs, which was just as well, and I had buffed my cold resist to 85% with thawing potion. Duriel dropped handsomely for a change- 3 rares ( admittedly useless ) and a shadowfang unique two handed sword - ahh nice! I immediately equipped it alongside 'Steel'claymore and threw my claymore of slaying away. It makes for a good mana leech/mana recovery setup with 1 point double swing on switch, and is a candidate for upping later, thanks to the nice dual leech.

May 21st.

We have made our way to Act 3 with the assistance of Meshif and set out into the jungles. Soon we found the jade figurine and completed the quest. The spider forest led to the flayer jungle immediately and we could not find the spider cavern which was weird. So we went to the flayer jungle waypoint, completed the gidbinn quest ( decent rings at Ormus's ) and then took a back path into the spider forest which was apparently the way to get there. Anyway we recovered Khalim's eye, and found two nice items along the way. One is the Soul Harvest unique scythe. If I can up it, it could replace the savage bill- the manaleech and 20 resistance seems nice. Strange thing, I almost never bothered to know what the stats of these types of items were. But they are useful in untwinked. The second is a nice rare helm.

Pain Visage
Horned Helm
Defense: 38
Durability: 135 of 135
(Barbarian Only)
Required Strength: 45
Required Level: 12
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 21
Fingerprint: 0x8695055d
+6 to Life
+24% Enhanced Defense
Lightning Resist +12%
+2 to Pole Arm Mastery (Barbarian Only)
+1 to Sword Mastery (Barbarian Only)
Poison Length Reduced by 25%
Repairs 1 durability in 33 seconds

I am considering replacing my earlier fanged helm for this. Sure, I will lose the MF, but I anyway let the sorceress get the last hits on bosses, and she is packing 102% MF. My MF is really only useful for hork, which I use now and then. I have reached level 27. This is the point where I would normally have equipped inisght, but in untwinked, who knows how long that will take.

We have also found a third (!) Arctic belt, and a second Hsaru boot. Hsaru boot/belt seems to be a solid combo that is easily obtained in untwinked play.

May 23rd

Starting out in the flayer jungle, we fought our way through act 3. Nothing too difficult, though Durance 3 gave us a bit of a hard time. We now have one extra Khalim's Will which is basically of no use since the compelling orb is already smashed. More green items all over the place- Arcanna's Deathwind, Berserker's helm, Cathan's armor and other crap. I have a feeling we may complete all the low level item sets at some point.

Mephisto dropped a Crushflange. 50% fire resist and 33% CB seems appealing, but act bosses give us no problem anyway and the knockback on the weapon is unsuitable for regular play.

May 24th

An eventful day. Act 4 drops incredibly well, despite being a very annoying and hard area in general, but the sorceress-barbarian combo makes it easy. We gathered Tir, Tal, Sol runes for the eventual insight, and made the runewords 'Stealth'and 'Lore'. We put these on an act 3 cold merc which replaces the defiance merc. It would be good on the sorceress too, except for the fact that MF is really important.

On the way to kill Izual, a random monster dropped Hawkmail. This is a great item. Sure, the defense sucks ( unless somehow upgraded to Loricated mail ), but Cannot be Frozen is golden. I have put it on now and thrown away my topaz armor. The sorceress is getting most of the important kills anyway, and I am not bothered to use find items anymore.

I have hit level 31 and put two points into Natural resistance and warcry. Warcry is great for crowd control, and my resistances are now very high/max. The sorceress has also respeced all the points out of firebolt and put them into meteor and fire mastery. Our combined damage and tanking ability is through the roof.

We did the hellforge quest unpartied twice and gathered two sets of gems and runes. Niicee. One perfect ruby was used to craft these delightful blood gloves.

Cruel Claw
Heavy Gloves
Defense: 5
Durability: 7 of 14
Required Level: 32
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 21
Fingerprint: 0x59aa7188
+10 to Life
+15 to Attack Rating
Lightning Resist +22%
2% Life stolen per hit
22% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
+1 to Light Radius
8% Chance of Crushing Blow

Another sapphire was used to make a cobalt ring using the recipe ring+thawing potion+sapphire. It didn't give any good result, but there aren't may good uses for sapphires. Two diamonds were used to cube another two savage polearms, but the results were crap.


My 26th

We started out from the river of flame and cleared out chaos sanctuary. A Duskdeep dropped there ( which I passed to the merc ), and an Angelic sickle from Diablo, but otherwise nothing outstanding. Diablo was much tamer than what I remembered from my first untwinked character. It probably helped that we had prepared well- maxed fire and lightning resist on me, BO,Shout, battlecry and the sorceress stayed a safe distance away. Diablo was taken on at players 8, just like all of Normal mode.

It is now time for Harrogath and Act 5! We have resumed full-clear gameplay- We are going through ALL regions in their entirety, even though they are very large areas. The first two quests were done and I created an Ancient's pledge in a Large shield for the sorceress to use on switch in areas requiring high resistance. We also found a decent orb to match. We then rescued Anya- my resists are way over max now except poison, and then proceeded to slay Nihilithak the traitor. Anya gave us some un-exciting rare items as thanks for the rescue. The sorceress is getting owned by blood mana curse. We will have to do something about that in the next respec.

Nihilithak's temple was filled with annoying skeletons that come back to life after dying. Still, we made our way through and picked up some nice rares. However, the biggest catch was something that would otherwise be overlooked as trash- a white halberd. Since it had dropped in Halls of Pain I guessed it was between ilvl 26-40 and dragged it to Larzuk's. And since we had been saving up runes, it resulted in this beauty..

Insight
Halberd
'RalTirTalSol'
Two-Hand Damage: 52 to 161
Durability: 55 of 55
Required Dexterity: 47
Required Strength: 75
Required Level: 27
Polearm Class - Normal Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 35
Fingerprint: 0x8884a0bf
+5 to Strength
+5 to Energy
+5 to Dexterity
+5 to Vitality
+259% Enhanced Damage
+9 to Minimum Damage
Adds 5-30 fire damage
+75 poison damage over 5 seconds
23% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
+4 to Critical Strike
35% Faster Cast Rate
190% Bonus to Attack Rating
+2 to Mana After Each Kill
Level 14 Meditation Aura When Equipped
Socketed (4: 4 used)

Nice roll on the enhanced damage too! Unfortunately Ralf still lacks dexterity to use it, but will get it in the next 3 levels. Meanwhile I passed it to the merc, which is just as well, since it is a prayer merc and gets double the healing. No more mana troubles now! Good for the sorceress, and also for me, since warcries really cost a lot of mana.

Speaking of which- more power to polearms! We found a Dimoak's hew, which I considered upgrading, but lost interest in the idea after obtaining insight. We also cubed two more savage polearms and obtained a savage partizan and a savage bill. Both are now rendered obsolete. Perhaps the savage partizan can be passed to the merc after I take the insight from him.

Our persistence with cubing 3ring->amulet recipes payed off as we obtained an amulet of luck ( 35% magic find ) for the sorceress . I also got a nice amulet with cold resist and manaleech, though the manaleech is rendered useless now. We will wait till level 51 to cube blood amulets and caster belts.

Nihilithak was stomped without any problems, went up to the glacial trail waypoint and stopped there. Personalize quests have been saved up.

May 31

We ventured through the ice caverns, fought ancients on Arreat's summit and defeated Baal in the Worldstone chamber. Normal mode has been completed, without much difficulty, even on players 8. Ancients went down really easy. Baal's drop was crap unfortunately, and we didn't get very much on the way there either. Since we were doing full clears, we went into drifter caverns, infernal pit and other such areas that are normally skipped.

We started in nightmare mode and finished the first quest. In the cold plains we found a 4 socket bill and a 4 os longsword. Since we had been saving up runes for a while, we could make another insight for the merc ( goodbye savage polearms ) and spirit. However the sorceress lacks dexterity to wield the longsword so we have given it to the cold merc at the moment. Insight is totally amazing in ways I never even realized. 190% bonus to attack rating- hell that's better than 20 levels concentrate, +4 critical strike - not sure how that stacks with mastery but still good, 23 mf- cool, 259 ED- holy **** better than anything else at this stage, 35 fcr, 5 all stats, mpk, hell this thing is awesome all over the place. And ofcourse, the awesome meditation aura.

We also found some items like the iron jang bong staff, which is basically bad in every way compared to spirit. Berserkers full set has been completed, not that it is much use now. Completed blood raven quest, and got the stony field waypoint.

Nightmare

June 2

We have rescued Cain for the second time, and stormed the Countess tower. We got a bunch of items, like Bverrit keep shield, ironstone war hammer, grim reaper war scythe, Pelta lunata, steelclash and other mostly useless stuff. However we got a great item - Immortal King's will! Even though a bad roll ( 27 mf ), it's good. I socketed it with 2 flawless topazes and now my MF is also very high, close to that of sorceress. 67 helm, 23 insight, 22 gloves, 7 ring = 119 mf. Not bad.

We also found a 4os broad sword and made another spirit in that. The sorceress wields that now, alongside ancient's pledge shield. The leaf staff on switch is rapidly becoming useless, unfortunately. The sorceress has also respeced to full lightning skills, to try them out.

I have also used nightmare respec to correct my build. Removed useless skills like find item and double swing, and put 5 each in natural resistances and warcry. Warcry is actually really useful for an untwinked player.


June 3

Andariel awaited us in the catacombs, and we slew her without much effort. She dropped a great prize- a bonesnap maul! And not just any bonesnap too, but a 292 ed one! Wow. Upgraded it to exceptional with the Ral+Amn+P emerald recipe ( had to cube some thuls for Amn ), and got this beauty:

Bonesnap
War Club
Two-Hand Damage: 207 to 305
Durability: 60 of 60
Required Strength: 124
Required Level: 30
Mace Class - Slow Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 49
Fingerprint: 0x26a03a07
+292% Enhanced Damage
Fire Resist +30%
Cold Resist +30%
Required Level +5
200% Damage to Undead
40% Chance of Crushing Blow

Even though I have 8 points in polearm mastery ( and now put one in mace mastery ), bonesnap leaves insight halberd well in the dust. This might well be my endgame weapon.

Since we have reached level 51, I crafted some blood amulets and caster belts. They're not great, but better than what we have currently ( I was making do with an amulet with +39 life earlier ), so we equipped them. Blood amulet:

Blood Torc
Amulet
Required Level: 50
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 46
Fingerprint: 0xca673d62
+13 to Strength
+17 to Life
+3 to Maximum Damage
2% Life stolen per hit
5% Faster Run/Walk

We travelled east to Lut Gholein, and changed our mercs. Initially we bought a holy freeze and might merc, but holy freeze sucked a lot so we went back to normal and switched it for prayer. It seems HF is even more useless for untwinked than it is for twinked character, while prayer+insight is amazing. Time for some merc stock taking..

Ralf's merc: Might- insight halberd, Sigon's visor, Sigon's shelter ( nice 10% leech and AR bonus )
Sorceress merc: Prayer: Insight bill, Duskdeep, Darkglow.

We went into the sewers and wreaked vengeance upon Radamant. Then we ventured out into the desert and found the Dry hills waypoint. I am no longer going to list random useless items we find, just the ones we actually use. I have equipped spirit long sword ( earlier carried by cold merc ) and Sigon's guard shield as the weapon switch for +3 skill buff on warcries. The main is bonesnap, as I passed the insight halberd to the merc.

June 3

We travelled through the far oasis to a disgusting place called the maggots lair. This is not even wide enough for two characters to pass through abreast. Lightning and it's pierce shined though. After getting the staff from the chest, we went to the lost city, cleared it and the ancient tunnels, then the claw viper temple. No significant drops though. It is surprising how difficult simple things are to get in untwinked. Shael runes for instance. We found one. The first one, cubed from sols went into the bonesnap, and the second, also cubed from sols was used to upgrade hawkmail armor to tigulated mail. Now I need another to make 'Rhyme'for the sorceress but there are none. Two Dol runes have been found though, which are mostly useless. The horadric staff has been assembled, and we proceeded into the palace cellars.

June 5

The remainder of act 2 did not take long to complete. We found the summoner on the first try ( thank god for leap attack and teleport in the arcane sanctuary ). And Tal rasha's tomb was very annoying as well, but we completed it. A good thing the prayer merc is nullifying most of the heavy poison damage. Duriel's drop was epic - 4 scrolls of town portal and a blue! Oh well. Then we traveled again to Kurast and found the jade figurine to complete the first quest.

June 6

We breezed through Act 3 at an unexpectedly fast pace. All quests were completed, and most of the optional areas too, like ruined temples. Only the Durance of hate levels were the difficult part, mainly because of dolls and annoying meteors. Mephisto ( and the entire act ) dropped crap. Highlights were 2 jewels of fervor, some fine and steel charms, and I made my second spirit in a flamberge. The weapon switch is now 2x spirit for prebuff on warcries. Oh, and I nearly forgot- one of the ruined temple areas dropped a Skin of the Vipermagi! Now that is an amazing sorceress endgame armor, though we are now still sticking to 3 topaz armor. The sorceress has equipped whitstan's guard+spirit broadsword ( to deal with physical damage ), and spirit broadsword+ 3 pdiamond large shield ( replacing ancient's pledge, to deal with elemental damage ), on switch. She is packing an astounding 230% mf, and it's paying off somewhat. Blocking on the whitstan's is 50%.

June 8

We proceeded to fight the demons of hell in act 4. Nothing too difficult here- warcry stunned hard stuff and concentrate is awesome defensively. No good drops here- a unique ring and amulet dropped but they were Nokozan's relic and manald heal zzz. Diablo dropped a ripsaw flamberge and some other awful stuff. However we did get one hell of a rune from the hellforge- a PUL rune! YEAH! Now I will be able to upgrade my bonesnap to ogre maul as soon as I get a Lum rune ( or Io rune, as we have two Ios already ). It'll also need a respec for the huge amount of str needed but that's fine and needed anyway to get rid of now-useless points in polearm mastery. Having an elite weapon for hell mode is a huge relief. The other rune was a Ko ( we did the quest twice, unpartied ). That's not so good, but we'll see.

We have not decided on the sorceress skills yet- whether to go full lightning or dual tree with frozen orb. Currently lightning, CL and LM are maxed, and remaining points are saved up. Level 66 now, and planning to do a bunch of crafting at level 71.

Uune 10

An eventful day. After clearing the bloody foothills, we entered the realm of Abbadon, where a great prize dropped- a Lem rune. Nice, along with the Ko there are many options opened up. If it were single player I'd probably make Lawbringer, but with sorceress physical immunes are unlikely to be an issue ( plus, zerk ), and besides I don't want to give up prayer or might for a barb merc ( carrying it myself would be cumbersome ). Treachery seems to be a good candidate- ias will help concentrate quite a bit, plus fade is awesome, but I would have to give up CBF on hawkmail, so that's not good. The Ko and Lem could be used to upgrade it to a loricated mail, but even in a defense focused build, that doesn't sound like a great idea. Then there's wealth runeword, which is out for obvious reasons, and finally voice of reason runeword, which might be useful if the sorceress were to respec to cold. Decisions, decisions, decisions...

Other than that.. we finished all the way upto Anya quest. Nihilithak's portal is open and Anya rare items were crap as usual. A lum rune dropped, which means the upgrade to bonesnap is a certainty without messing around with cubing Ios. I haven't upgraded it yet of course, which would be an own goal ( not enough str ), waiting for hell respec. An undead crown too ( merc helm? ) and a shael, so we finally made a rhyme kite shield for the sorceress.

June 14

Nihilithak the traitor met his rightful end today. Nothing much to report in terms of items. One of the temple levels were very annoying- horadrim, razor quillbeasts and maggots. No tomb vipers though and it was a relief. So far the most difficult enemy is proving to be the hell temptresses due to their bloodstars which ignore defense and amp damage. We ascended to the glacial trail, and then to the frozen tundra waypoint.

June 15

Today is a good day to be a champion! We went upto the arreats summit and fought the ancients at p8. The sorceress died to madawc the thrower but the three were unable to put a dent in my armor ( concentrate is awesome1!1 ), and then we proceeded to Worldstone keep. Good lord. Huge hordes of annoying and dangerous enemies awaited us. Flesh spawners , zealots and defilers on level 1, gloams and beetles on the second and oblivion/doom knights, hell temptresses on the third. The gloams weren't too hard, but the doom knights did insane damage under amp and I had to back off after stunning them with warcry. Luckily they aren't immune to lightning. We did encounter a gloam that was PI+LI, but the sorc used frozen orb ( which is at level 15 ) and we killed it.

Baal, then. Throne didn't spawn dolls, but more OKs and witches, still not too difficult. None of the waves were too much of a problem, because of warcry and lightning damage, and then we proceeded to kill Baal. His drop was okay for once - bloodfist and peasant crown ( ethereal, but that's okay ). Aaaand.. It's time for Hell difficulty! Feeling confident, We went into the Blood Moor without changing any gear. A massacre. The sorceress proceeded to die three times in a row ( once getting one hitted by some zombie ), and the mercs kept dying too. I'm not too happy either.. things are rapidly taking out half my life in big chunks. Due to high def, hp and warcry Ralf has not died yet.

We decided to give up on MF and change into full battle gear. New equipment- Bonesnap ogre maul ( after respecing to have enough str and max mace mastery ), treachery curiass, new crafted blood gloves and amulet. SKin of vipermagi and peasant crown for sorceress.

Hell

June 23

Act 1 is started in earnest today. Not much to report actually. Not having CBF from hawkmail is proving to be a pain. I have given it to the merc and am switching the treachery back and forth sometimes after fade proc. We did upto black marsh.

June 24

Act 1 complete. Died once in pits due to fanaticism archers. It's time I started using taunt actually. That spell is awesome. Also, we have now used up all 6 of our imbue quests on white circlet and got.. nothing! Not even anything better than a 'lore' coronet that the sorc is using. They all seemed to have + necromancer skill levels. Oh well. Hell mode is being played on p5.

June 27

Act 2 complete. Bug poison damage from Radamant and then again bug poison from Coldworm were the biggest worries, as was not having CBF. Drops were no improvement on what we already have.

June 30

Act 3 complete .Mostly p5, dropped to p1 for durance 1 and 3. Council was hard. Amusing bosses such as dual CI/LI plus stone skin started making their appearance. Kurast temple containing the book had a fearsome stair trap that we beat somehow without dying. Meph dropped treads of cthon. That about sums up Hell mode drops. I really want a Hel rune at this point to socket jewels of fervor into the IK will but it's just not dropping.

July 4

Act 4 complete. Stygian hags big pain due to their respawning. Taunt helped, but not much. Gloams spawned in the plains but with taunt and frozen orb they weren't a big issue . Did river of flame thrice, on p3. Hellforge was Um and Ko. The only thing that I can think of Crescent moon runeword for sorc. The only base we have is 3os rune sword but luckily sorc has enough str and dex for that. Annoying CI/LI Oblivion knights showed up which were a pain to kill with decrepify. Died once in chaos ( second death ) due to BO running out and not noticing. Diablo dropped crap.

August 5

After a long gap due to various IRL reasons, we lost the sorceress in a hard disk crash. Ralf thus had to go it on his own to make Patriarch. He played on p1.

Bloody foothills: demon imps and easy stuff
Frigid highlands- slingers and stuff like that. Need to switch to CBF after fade proc.
Crystalline passage: required 1 reroll, PI frenzytaur. wraiths big pain because PI/mana burn and have to berserk them while hitting blue pots.
Frozen river: succubi had to be taunted
Halls of anguish/pain - respawning stygian dogs, hierophants and zealots, big pain, taunt helped a lot.
Nihilithak- no tomb vipers. wraiths, surprisingly easy. Taunted skeletons and ice spawns near Nihilithak to make them come out.
Ancients- cursed so two rerolls. Third one very easy
WSK1 - heirophants and zealots buffed up by those funny blue things ( defilers ). Turns out that defilers are un-tauntable. Who would have known.
WSK2- gloams. These things are the most dangerous monsters ever invented. Huge lightning damage, mana burn, unleechable and 90% physical resistance. Strategy used was Taunt, warcry and then berserk. Also exploding things and demon spawn.
WSk3 - Oblivion knights, frenzytaur. champion pack of frenzytaur was a big pain because it couldn't be taunted.
Throne- gloams+horadrim. Taunted. Venom lords
Waves- Wave 2 a major pain. Forgot to switch to cbf equipment so slowed huge, bug poison. Council really easy ( taunted ), wave 4 easy, wave 5 lister PI but not too hard. Baal easy and dropped crap.

Ralf is finally a Patriarch!

Screenshots

Lem rune
Ko rune
Nasty stair trap
One of those really annoying bosses
Oblivion knights
Ancients
Gloams
Council
Endgame LCS and Baal drop


Thoughts

-I really enjoyed playing untwinked single pass, liked a lot of the low end items.
-Coop mode is really fun.
-Developed a great appreciation for the skills howl, taunt, battle cry, warcry. Which I almost never use otherwise.
-Barb is really hard to play untwinked. Most of the game was co-op so it didn't matter, but the last leg really felt hard, even on p1. Single target attacks suck.
-I was hoping to get some random Ber or something, but no such luck
-Future plan: Retirement! Pretty much that, maybe respec into some MF character.

Thanks for reading!
 
Last edited:
Originally posted by Zefru on Oct 18, 2008:

Patriarch Kozan, the Iron Berserker

Just killed Baal with my 3rd Mat/Pat, my first melee build and first Barbarian. He was an Iron Berserker that followed Asmodeous' build very closely. I have to say it was a great build and tons of fun. Very safe character, don't recall any deaths(I'm sure there were some) and only a few NDE's early on when my weapon was reaching the end of it's usefulness. Of course once he was able to equip his end game weapon that was no longer a problem.

Equipment:
Guardian Angel
Arreat's Face
StormShield (pDia)
Highlord's Wrath
Verdungo's Hearty Cord
Dracul's Grasp
Waterwalks (mostly)
Dual Raven Frost Rings

and finally what made the build so much fun..
Code:
Grief
Phase Blade
'EthTirLoMalRal'
One-Hand Damage: 31 to 35
Required Dexterity: 136
Required Strength: 25
Required Level: 59
Sword Class - Fastest Attack Speed
Indestructible
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 88
Fingerprint: 0xcf448834
Adds 5-30 fire damage
+14 Life after each Kill
32% Increased Attack Speed
Adds +395 Damage
Ignore Target Defense
-25% Target Defense
Prevent Monster Heal
+2 to Mana After Each Kill
20% Deadly Strike
35% Chance to cast Level 15 Venom on striking
1% Damage to Demons (Based on Character Level)
-25% to Enemy Poison Resistance
Socketed (5: 5 used)

Thanks for that Lo Meph!

Merc:
Duress
Vamp Gaze
Insight Thresher/The Reaper's Toll

Backpack: Misc Resistance, AR and Life charms to get Resistances maxed at 90+

Skills at Lvl 82 when Pat'd:
Beserk 20
Howl 20
Shout 20
Battle Orders 20
Battle Command 1
Pre-Req's, Increased Stamina, Increased Speed, Iron Skin:1
Natural Resistance: 2

Hell HF: Ist
Other notable finds: None that I recall but my memory sucks. Few grailers, etc.

Character was truly a joy to play. When things got tough life went down nice and slow so there was always time to chug a potion. And with howl maxed the mobs would just scatter when you needed them too. I've only ran Baal a few times now at P1 but that was no problem and fairly quick. I may look into adding a bit more PDR but I'm not sure what I'll be using him for from now on.

Now... on to a Paly using the Grief also or an Amazon for my Windforce next??

Z
 
Originally posted by zerth on Jan 14, 2009:

Champion Hork-Bajir (Enigma/Grief Berserker Barb)

Hork-Bajir


First of all, I do not know what a Hork-Bajir is. I googled hork, it came up on the first 10 results, it sounded cool and the rest is history. I suck at melee characters. Come to think of it, this is the first melee character I've played since I started playing seriously SP. The last one was a frenzy barb in version 1.09d iirc. But after I found a second LO and made Grief, I thought, how bad can it be? Well, it is not that bad, but having to point and click at least once per monster kill is not my thing. Having said that, I really enjoy this char and will probably level him at least up to 90 (hitting 90 with the Ancient's quest hopefully).

Stats

Clvl: 83
Life: 3445
Mana: 297
Resists: 75/75/75/75

Strength: 181
Dexterity: 188
Vitality: 339
Energy: 10
MF: 231

Skills

+6 all skills, +2 combat skills, another +1 all from BC, another +4 all on switch

Taunt, Shout, Find Potion, War Cry, Battle Cry, Battle Command, Find Item: 1
Howl, Battle Orders: 20

Sword Mastery: 20
Iron SKin: 1
Natural Resistance: 2

Bash, Stun, Concentrate: 1
Berserk: 20

Observations

Stat/skill points: Strength is enough to be able to equip Stormshield without charms at clvl 90. Now (if I die) I use couple +5 str large charms to put it on. Dexterity is enough for max block. Energy is base. Rest on Vitality. Maxed Berserk and BO. Howl is Berserk synergy and an awesome crowd control skill. Maxed sword mastery boosts primarily AR (if I wanted damage, I would max shout) and gives a nice chance to do double damage (OK, it doesn't exactly stack with Highlord's and Grief's Deadly Strike, but it's a nice bonus). In any case slvl27 sword mastery is +158ed, not much less than the +200ed from maxing shout. I consider the build complete at this point, adding points to shout won't boost damage significantly (I already have +780 from Berserk, +158 from SM and +180 from strength - what's another +100-200?). Remaining points options are: a) Boost Find Item to 50% (with weapon switch) and Natural Resistance, so I can ditch some resist charms and add to increased stamina/speed and b) add to War Cry. I haven't made up my mind yet really.

Standard equipment: Stormshield is Shael'd. This puts him at 4 frame block, which makes block lock less of a danger. Arreat's is Shael'd as well to get 5 frame FHR (no other sources of FHR) on primary weapon switch. Grief, Enigma and Arreat's are no brainers. War Travs are used for MF, but carry a nice +15-25 damage as well. Ravenfrost boosts AR, saves dex points and has CBF. On switch I have 2 Spirit swords with total FCR > 63. These give very nice mana, fast tele and reduce the hit recovery animation by one frame (although with overkill FHR). I actually made new spirit swords on Broad Swords so that I can tell which switch I have on easily.

Optional equipment: BKWB is used for the +1 skills and life. I might switch this one out for a good rare (something with AR/resists and possibly life/mana/dex), but I have to check what I have. Verdungo's is on for the 15%dr and extra Vit and chance guards for the 40 MF. Switching these to LoH and Goldwrap is a no brainer and totally recommended :whistling:.

Gameplay tips

Well, so far, I only farmed Act5 S/U (Pindle, Eldritch, Shenk) to level and did CS runs for fun. Tele to the pack, Howl, switch, kill the S/U, switch, hork, tele away. I suspect I can do the same on the Pits, but I haven't given it a shot yet. Maybe I will need war cry as well there, we shall see.

Mercs

Apart from the usual Act2 might merc (with Insight) that can be used for general MFing, a good idea is an Act3 cold merc with Lawbringer for ultimate crowd control on CS (plus he doesn't die from Iron Maiden). I use a Hel'd Stormshield, Kira's, Lawbringer and Guardian Angel and it works pretty well considering the low char/merc level.

Itamzz

Code:
Arreat's Face
Slayer Guard
'Shael'
Defense: 340
Durability: 52 of 55
(Barbarian Only)
Required Strength: 118
Required Level: 42
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 87
Fingerprint: 0x14d31be7
+20 to Strength
+20 to Dexterity
+181% Enhanced Defense
All Resistances +30
6% Life stolen per hit
+2 to Barbarian Skill Levels
50% Faster Hit Recovery
20% Bonus to Attack Rating
+2 to Combat Skills (Barbarian Only)
Socketed (1: 1 used)

Highlord's Wrath
Amulet
Required Level: 65
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 87
Fingerprint: 0x3c6e0b9
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)

Enigma
Superior Light Plate
'JahIthBer'
Defense: 874
Durability: 56 of 60
Required Strength: 41
Required Level: 65
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 85
Fingerprint: 0xd63ed9c9
+15% Enhanced Defense
+750 Defense
Damage Reduced by 8%
Increase Maximum Life 5%
+14 Life after each Kill
45% Faster Run/Walk
+1 to Teleport
15% Damage Taken Goes to Mana
+2 to All Skill Levels
+62 to Strength (Based on Character Level)
83% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items (Based on Character Level)
Socketed (3: 3 used)

Grief
Phase Blade
'EthTirLoMalRal'
One-Hand Damage: 31 to 35
Required Dexterity: 136
Required Strength: 25
Required Level: 59
Sword Class - Fastest Attack Speed
Indestructible
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 85
Fingerprint: 0x9894b92a
Adds 5-30 fire damage
+12 Life after each Kill
39% Increased Attack Speed
Adds +365 Damage
Ignore Target Defense
-25% Target Defense
Prevent Monster Heal
+2 to Mana After Each Kill
20% Deadly Strike
35% Chance to cast Level 15 Venom on striking
155% Damage to Demons (Based on Character Level)
-20% to Enemy Poison Resistance
Socketed (5: 5 used)

Stormshield
Monarch
'Shael'
Defense: 459
Chance to Block:  72%
Required Strength: 156
Required Level: 73
Indestructible
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 87
Fingerprint: 0xa465f02c
+30 to Strength
+25% Increased Chance of Blocking
Damage Reduced by 35%
Lightning Resist +25%
Cold Resist +60%
55% Faster Block Rate
Attacker Takes Lightning Damage of 10
Indestructible
+311 to Defense (Based on Character Level)
Socketed (1: 1 used)

Verdungo's Hearty Cord
Mithril Coil
Defense: 127
Durability: 11 of 16
Required Strength: 106
Required Level: 63
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 87
Fingerprint: 0xb68f5c9e
+36 to Vitality
+102 to Maximum Stamina
+93% Enhanced Defense
Damage Reduced by 15%
Replenish Life +13
10% Faster Hit Recovery

Raven Frost
Ring
Required Level: 45
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 87
Fingerprint: 0xe5c84259
+20 to Dexterity
+40 to Mana
+234 to Attack Rating
Adds 15-45 cold damage over 4 seconds
20% Cold Absorb
Cannot Be Frozen

Bul-Kathos' Wedding Band
Ring
Required Level: 58
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 87
Fingerprint: 0x4f87daae
+50 to Maximum Stamina
4% Life stolen per hit
+1 to All Skill Levels
+41 to Life (Based on Character Level)

Chance Guards
Chain Gloves
Defense: 27
Durability: 9 of 16
Required Strength: 25
Required Level: 15
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 87
Fingerprint: 0xaba22830
+21% Enhanced Defense
+25 to Attack Rating
+15 Defense
200% Extra Gold from Monsters
40% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
+2 to Light Radius

War Traveler
Battle Boots
Defense: 136
Durability: 44 of 48
Required Strength: 95
Required Level: 42
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 87
Fingerprint: 0xd47ca376
+10 to Strength
+10 to Vitality
+184% Enhanced Defense
+15 to Minimum Damage
+25 to Maximum Damage
+30 Maximum Durability
Attacker Takes Damage of 8
50% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
25% Faster Run/Walk
40% Slower Stamina Drain

#############################>Switch

Spirit
Broad Sword
'TalThulOrtAmn'
One-Hand Damage: 7 to 14
Durability: 31 of 32
Required Strength: 48
Required Level: 25
Sword Class - Normal Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 85
Fingerprint: 0xc0c37af0
+22 to Vitality
+105 to Mana
+250 Defense vs. Missile
Adds 1-50 lightning damage
Adds 3-14 cold damage over 3 seconds
+75 poison damage over 5 seconds
7% Life stolen per hit
55% Faster Hit Recovery
31% Faster Cast Rate
+2 to All Skill Levels
+3 Magic Absorb
Socketed (4: 4 used)

Spirit
Broad Sword
'TalThulOrtAmn'
One-Hand Damage: 7 to 14
Durability: 32 of 32
Required Strength: 48
Required Level: 25
Sword Class - Normal Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 81
Fingerprint: 0xfc2ac632
+22 to Vitality
+90 to Mana
+250 Defense vs. Missile
Adds 1-50 lightning damage
Adds 3-14 cold damage over 3 seconds
+75 poison damage over 5 seconds
7% Life stolen per hit
55% Faster Hit Recovery
33% Faster Cast Rate
+2 to All Skill Levels
+8 Magic Absorb
Socketed (4: 4 used)

#############################>Charms

Shimmering Grand Charm
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 27
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 80
Fingerprint: 0x4f7cbb1a
All Resistances +14

Shimmering Grand Charm of Quality
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 33
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 80
Fingerprint: 0x5e21090f
+2 to Maximum Damage
All Resistances +15

Expert's Grand Charm of Vita
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 69
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 80
Fingerprint: 0xc9851db6
+37 to Life
+1 to Combat Skills (Barbarian Only)

Shimmering Grand Charm of the Glacier
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 27
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 88
Fingerprint: 0xa772e843
All Resistances +14
Adds 3-7 cold damage over 1 seconds

50: Gheed's Fortune
Grand Charm
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 62
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 82
Fingerprint: 0x989b8a0d
118% Extra Gold from Monsters
39% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
Reduces All Vendor Prices 15%

Shimmering Small Charm
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 25
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 80
Fingerprint: 0x750ec012
All Resistances +5

Shimmering Small Charm
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 25
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 80
Fingerprint: 0x194a9468
All Resistances +5

Shimmering Small Charm of Sustenance
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 25
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 85
Fingerprint: 0x16469c0d
+13 to Life
All Resistances +5

Shimmering Small Charm
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 25
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 80
Fingerprint: 0x79ae647d
All Resistances +5

Small Charm of Good Luck
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 33
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 80
Fingerprint: 0xc6fad991
7% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items

Small Charm of Good Luck
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 33
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 86
Fingerprint: 0xd745a482
7% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items

Small Charm of Good Luck
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 33
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 79
Fingerprint: 0xe00bc7af
7% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items

Small Charm of Good Luck
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 33
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 80
Fingerprint: 0xba68c9d
7% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items

Small Charm of Good Luck
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 33
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 80
Fingerprint: 0xc8a1af34
7% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items

Stalwart Small Charm of Good Luck
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 40
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 85
Fingerprint: 0x8ad46904
+23 Defense
7% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items

Small Charm of Good Luck
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 33
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 80
Fingerprint: 0xa8b5d7ee
7% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items

#############################>Merc stuff

Guardian Angel
Templar Coat
'Um'
Defense: 825
Durability: 60 of 60
Required Strength: 118
Required Level: 47
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 85
Fingerprint: 0xe1a05185
+200% Enhanced Defense
+20% Increased Chance of Blocking
Fire Resist +15%
+15% to Maximum Fire Resist
Lightning Resist +15%
+15% to Maximum Lightning Resist
Cold Resist +15%
+15% to Maximum Cold Resist
Poison Resist +15%
+15% to Maximum Poison Resist
+1 to Paladin Skill Levels
+4 to Light Radius
30% Faster Block Rate
207% Bonus to Attack Rating Against Demons (Based on Character Level)
Socketed (1: 1 used)

Kira's Guardian
Tiara
Defense: 141
Durability: 17 of 25
Required Level: 77
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 88
Fingerprint: 0xc28f81e7
+101 Defense
All Resistances +68
20% Faster Hit Recovery
Cannot Be Frozen

Lawbringer
Crystal Sword
'AmnLemKo'
One-Hand Damage: 5 to 15
Durability: 12 of 20
Required Strength: 43
Required Level: 43
Sword Class - Normal Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 88
Fingerprint: 0xbe4de2c
+10 to Dexterity
+209 Defense vs. Missile
Adds 150-210 fire damage
Adds 130-180 cold damage over 5 seconds
7% Life stolen per hit
75% Extra Gold from Monsters
Slain Monsters Rest In Peace
-50% Target Defense
Level 17 Sanctuary Aura When Equipped
20% Chance to cast Level 15 Decrepify on striking
Socketed (3: 3 used)

Stormshield
Monarch
'Hel'
Defense: 451
Chance to Block:  72%
Required Strength: 133
Required Level: 73
Indestructible
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 88
Fingerprint: 0xd84b4c49
+30 to Strength
+25% Increased Chance of Blocking
Damage Reduced by 35%
Lightning Resist +25%
Cold Resist +60%
Requirements -15%
35% Faster Block Rate
Attacker Takes Lightning Damage of 10
Indestructible
+311 to Defense (Based on Character Level)
Socketed (1: 1 used)

PS: I now have officially more Champion threads than Pat/Mat threads :crazyeyes:
 
Last edited:
Originally posted by AJK on Jul 20, 2006:

Patriarch MissPiggy, golddigga

Poor barb MissPiggy. He lost his parents in a freak lawnmower accident when he was just four years old. Taken in by monks, he was given the name MissPiggy, which means 'He who plays with dead animals'.
This was no lie. As he grew older, he became better and better in finding money and other assorted trinkets inside the remains of dead beasts.

While the guests at parties loved his pulling-hats-out-of-a-rabbit trick, the monks were less happy with him practicing his skills on the livestock they required for nourishment. It suffices to say that he received a swift kick in the pants as soon as he turned 18. He was destined to wander forever, until he came across a nice set of chickens at a small camp in the Blood Moor...

MissPiggy is my gold horker barb. I found the idea over at the Barb forum, and the prospect of eternal loot appealed to me. Unfortunately I borked the build pretty badly by deciding to use Frenzy as a kill skill. I should have used WW, or so, but thanks to the wonder of interconnected computers, I and others managed to pat him.

Oh, I guess you want to see the gear and stats, so here it goes:

Patriarch MissPiggy:

Skills: 20 Find Item, 16 Battle Orders, 20 Frenzy, 6 Sword Mastery, 11 Double Strike, and prereqs.
Resists: 85/-28/57/-45 (!!!???!)

Gear:
Code:
Hat............ Crown of Thieves, 92% GF, 9% Life Leech
Amulet:........ Magical, +3 warcry, +31% GF
Sword 1:....... Lightsabre
Sword 2:....... 'Grief' Phase Blade
Armor:......... 'Wealth' Breast Plate (leftover from previous sorc), 300% GF
Glove:......... Laying of Hands
Belt:.......... Immortal King's Detail
Rings:......... Dual Dwarf Stars
Boots:......... Infernostride, 70% GF
Weapon switch:. Dual Ali Babas, socketed with 104% GF jewels total
Charms:    ....... Mostly GF, a few resists

Total GF:......    870, 1383 on switch (lvl. 82 babas)

As I said before, it's a miracle he became Pat. He died so often, even in normal, that I once thought about renaming him to 'Splat' with ATMA. I was so used to the safety of a zealot that this half-arsed frenzy build got me killed more often than there's stars in the sky.

I decided to go to MP for help. First I MP'ed with Hamburger for a while, because the poor barb was only lvl. 72 when starting in Hell (+1 to noob points for me). A Lo rune dropped in that game and Hamburger, in a deed of ultimate sportsmanship, let me have it.
I meditated for a few weeks, and decided to go ahead and make 'Grief'. Bye bye vanilla status, barb.

Suddenly my half-baked frenzy synergies stopped being a problem, because most of you probably know what Grief does...
MissPiggy suddenly became a force to be reckoned with. He still died a lot, because of low resists and the fact that I spent only a few points in BO (+2 to noob points).

I thought it'd be nice to at least grab a roon in act IV, so I appointed a volunteer (thanks little sister!) to rush me. HF gibbed (gab?) Pul.
We steamrollered over act V too (you wouldn't believe how tough a BO'ed army of undeath can be) and behold the Pat.

Oh, how does he do as a gold horker you ask?
Here's a set of kills+horks of the Hell Travincal High council (listed in kilocoins):
414, 115, 367, 262, 237, 225, 377, 421, 290, 389,
270, 179, 290, 209, 343, 259, 287, 188, 441, 180,
averaging ~280K a run (taking ~5 minutes at /P1)
 
Last edited:
Originally posted by Colorless Green on Feb 7, 2009:

Patriarch Yitzhak, Singer

Patriarch Yitzhak, Level 81 Singer


Str: 60 (70)
Dex: 30 (55)
Vit: 400 (452)
Ene: 10 (15)

Life: 3809
Mana: 994
Resists: 75/75/75/75
Defense: 4239
War Cry Damage: 1610-1656
War Cry Mana Cost: 50
War Cry Stun Length: 9 seconds

Skills:
Howl: 20 (38)
Taunt: 20 (38)
Battle Cry: 20 (38)
War Cry: 20 (41)
Shout: 1 (19)
Battle Orders: 4 (22)
Battle Command: 1 (19)
Increased Stamina: 1 (15)
Increased Speed: 1 (14)
Iron Skin: 1 (14)
Natural Resistance: 1 (14)
Leap: 1 (14)
Leap Attack: 1 (14)

Equip:
Delirium Jawbone Visor (+3 War Cry/+1 Increased Stamina base)
Skin of the Vipermagi (Um)
Trang-Oul's Claws
Gloom's Trap
Sander's Riprap
Mara's Kaleidoscope
The Stone of Jordan
The Stone of Jordan
Heart of the Oak Flail
Spirit Broad Sword
Switch: Lawbringer Crystal Sword
Switch: Spirit Broad Sword

Charms:
Code:
Sounding GC of Maiming
Sounding GC of Maiming
Sounding GC of Quality
Sounding GC
Sounding GC
Serpent's GC of Sustenance
Serpent's SC of Balance
Serpent's SC of Vita
Serpent's SC
Serpent's SC
Serpent's SC

Prayer Merc: eth Insight Thresher, eth Treachery Wyrmhide, Wormskull


I'm not really sad to have this character finished. The build looks like so much fun on paper, and is actually a good bit of fun for a while, but in hell it just becomes a chore. It's pretty much impossible to actually die, but even on p1 hell takes quite a while due to the damage and mana issues. The high mana cost was annoying, but enough potions dropped to keep me moving. The average fight (99% of them) consisted of running up and holding down right click and waiting for a bit while everything stands still and takes tiny bits of damage for a while.

The equipment could have been improved - I'd planned for a setup with more +skills involving mesh, but as I was playing p1 I didn't hit level 80 until immediately before hell ancients, so I figured I might as well finish the game in my current setup. I didn't even realize my merc was still using wormskull - I'd probably thought I'd already switched it to vampire gaze when I was swapping his gear around. I don't think it would have substantially improved my kill speed, though. I also planned for a 200 fcr setup, but given the mana issues, I think that a whole lot more warcries at less damage would not actually be an improvement.

On the plus side, this is probably the safest build in existence, even over fishymancer. I didn't even bother to use my high level taunt/howl/etc for crowd control because, well, you don't need to control crowds that are just standing still watching the swirlies spin around their heads. Everything but act bosses is stunnable, up to and including superuniques, baal's minions, and the ancients. Act bosses were all easy enough because of my ridiculously high life, though baal took a really long time due to my low damage and him spamming the mana burn attack. I think I went back to town to buy more potions at least half a dozen times.

Quick side note that I wanted to point out: ctc delirium = teh suck (particularly in areas packed with ranged piercing monsters), but switching acts real quick to cancel delirium = teh pwn.

Physical immunes were the other problem I had, besides tedium and delirium. I handled the majority (undead) with sanctuary, which worked wonderfully, but against PI non-undead I was pretty much helpless. Insight on the merc was an absolute necessity, so I couldn't go with the standard reaper's solution. Fortunately, what with a 9 second stun, my tactics boiled down to one quick warcry then kthxbai. I don't normally like to have to skip monsters in hell, but meh, I figure I was doing enough tedious work just trying to drag this char through hell.

All that being said, I don't think I'm going to immediately retire this char. He's absolutely pwn in MP baals (where other people can do the damage and I provide the crazy safety), and he's a really entertaining char when you're not worrying about how long it takes to kill even the easiest monsters.

Ist from hell HF, nothing else of note, really.

So, to sum it up, while this guy looks good on paper, I'm afraid I'll have to recommend against trying to play him if you're only going to play solo. It's really boring. If you're a fan of MP, though, definitely give it a shot - it's an extremely interesting char when you're moving fast enough that you're not just sitting there holding down the warcry button and watching TV or something.


Next up: feral wolf, golemancer, dclaw sin, possibly others.

-CG
 
Originally posted by Crazy Runner Guy on Jun 22, 2008:

Pat. GetRichQuick: A whole lotta gold

I've always wanted a gold-find barb. The impediment, however, was always my lack of Lem runes that I knew I would need. Well, after trading for them, I made mine and named him GetRichQuick. He has one purpose: kill High Council members, Hork them and then distribute the money to a lvl 96 character, who will them gamble for Lancers [gloves] of Alacrity and Boots with fire and light res and fr/w. Here's some stats:

lvl 82

STR: 138/113
DEX: 59/22 (should be at 58, but I have a light res charm that gives +2 dex)
VITA: 360/360
nrg: base/base

Life: 3886 (slvl 21 BO)
Mana: 337

WW AR: 4275
WW dmg 1: 435-1308
WW dmg 2: 445-1327

Zerk AR: 4441
Zerk damage: 502-1509 (can't remember which axe)

Conc AR:3945
Conc dmg: 586-1764 (can't remember which axe)

RES: 85/-12/75/-12

Gear:
274 DC /w UM
280 DC /w ed% jewel (total 280% ed)
Wealth Archon (300% GF)
Crown of Thieves /w Lem rune (148% GF)
Crescent moon
Chance Guards (38% MF; 200% GF)
IK Belt
Inferostride (70% GF)
Gheed's (151% GF)
Switch: 2x Ali baba /w 2x Lem (150 GF + 205 scaling GF + 82% scaling MF)

Total Horking GF: 1578%
Biggest pile: ~75K

Merc:
Reaper's Toll /w Amn
Guardian Angel
Kira's /w Ral

Skills (pre +1 BC):
20 WW
20 Axe master
20 BO
1 BC
1 Zerk
1 Inc. Speed
11 Nat. Res
9 Item Find (42% after BC)

A few comments on gear:

Death Cleavers are the most under-rated axes out there. With Grief, Beast and Oath axes out there, these babies don't get used a lot. I don't have a huge rune stash and I don't HF rush, so I don't have any of those. So I use DC's. I love them, mostly beause they have huge ED, huge DS and lots of speed. For this setup, they are great.

I don't have CBF on this guy. It works for this setup and monsters, but I don't recommend going without it questing. It is just too annoying if you were to be running. However, without CBF, I move slower and therefore get more hits in.

My AR is low, but it works fine because of the amount of hits dual-wielding WW gets in. The AR is even boosted by multiple 100+ AR Steel GC's (of sus/vita). The DS helps get kills. The merc's decrepify also adds damage (-50% enemy physical resistance) and breaks PI's. However, the Reaper's does some cold damage. This makes some Council shatter, and I don't get to hork them. Despite this, I will stick with the Reaper's, mostly because of the Decrep. I have also tried an Eth C-Moon (in a Cryptic Axe) and a shael'd Steel Pillar. Neither worked better.

I chose to ignore poison and cold res, and it has worked just fine. The additional max fire res is great, and the Infernostrides are the perfect boots for it. The only worry I have is getting hit by a FE/CE explosion at close range. I rarely die, but it happens every once in a while. Also, the Blizzard from the healing-shaman things tends to hurt.

Some of the other GF barbs listed in the Pat/Mat compilation use LoH instead of Chance Guards, both the fire res and damage to demons (350%!). I think the kill is fast enough to justify not using them. Also, I like the additional gold. Also, the Ali Baba's have scaling GF at +2.5% GF/lvl, making an additional 5% per clvl.

Happy reading.

Gear/charm readouts below:

Charms
Code:
2: Cobalt Small Charm of Greed
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 20
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 80
Fingerprint: 0x898683ed
Cold Resist +9%
10% Extra Gold from Monsters

3: Gheed's Fortune
Grand Charm
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 62
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 85
Fingerprint: 0x5d6cab51
151% Extra Gold from Monsters
37% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
Reduces All Vendor Prices 14%

4: Steel Grand Charm of Vita
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 69
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 86
Fingerprint: 0xe367eb10
+37 to Life
+124 to Attack Rating

5: Steel Grand Charm of Sustenance
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 53
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 88
Fingerprint: 0x346f4fb7
+35 to Life
+105 to Attack Rating

6: Steel Grand Charm of Sustenance
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 53
Item Version: Expansion
Item Level: 90
Fingerprint: 0x1e519a52
+35 to Life
+125 to Attack Rating

7: Amber Small Charm of Fortune
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 32
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 85
Fingerprint: 0x8aa14ce7
Lightning Resist +11%
4% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items

16: Steel Grand Charm of Sustenance
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 53
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 66
Fingerprint: 0xdaf04edb
+32 to Life
+123 to Attack Rating

17: Amber Small Charm
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 32
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 80
Fingerprint: 0x90f49a92
Lightning Resist +11%

18: Amber Small Charm
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 32
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 61
Fingerprint: 0x5c5fb305
Lightning Resist +10%

19: Amber Small Charm
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 32
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 64
Fingerprint: 0x6eb7f43c
Lightning Resist +10%

20: Steel Grand Charm of Sustenance
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 53
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 85
Fingerprint: 0x382d6bb1
+34 to Life
+103 to Attack Rating

21: Coral Small Charm of Dexterity
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 20
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 84
Fingerprint: 0x83768848
+2 to Dexterity
Lightning Resist +9%

22: Ruby Small Charm of Sustenance
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 32
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 88
Fingerprint: 0x99e4e4cd
+14 to Life
Fire Resist +11%

26: Coral Small Charm
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 20
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 99
Fingerprint: 0xca807526
Lightning Resist +9%

27: Steel Grand Charm of Sustenance
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 37
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 53
Fingerprint: 0x62494a6e
+30 to Life
+98 to Attack Rating

28: Steel Grand Charm of Sustenance
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 37
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 49
Fingerprint: 0x432bb66
+29 to Life
+100 to Attack Rating

55: Fine Small Charm
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 21
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 85
Fingerprint: 0x5ba26854
+19 to Attack Rating
+3 to Maximum Damage

Gear:

Code:
8: Crown of Thieves
Grand Crown
'Lem'
Defense: 300
Durability: 50 of 50
Required Strength: 103
Required Level: 49
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 83
Fingerprint: 0xafd54629
+25 to Dexterity
+50 to Life
+35 to Mana
+164% Enhanced Defense
Fire Resist +33%
12% Life stolen per hit
148% Extra Gold from Monsters
Socketed (1: 1 used)

9: Crescent Moon
Amulet
Required Level: 50
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 88
Fingerprint: 0xa13d0154
+45 to Mana
Magic Damage Reduced by 10
3% Life stolen per hit
15% Mana stolen per hit
-2 to Light Radius
10% Damage Taken Goes to Mana

10: Wealth
Archon Plate
'LemKoTir'
Defense: 439
Durability: 60 of 60
Required Strength: 103
Required Level: 63
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 88
Fingerprint: 0x147c0962
+10 to Dexterity
300% Extra Gold from Monsters
100% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
+2 to Mana After Each Kill
Socketed (3: 3 used)

11: Dwarf Star
Ring
Required Level: 45
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 88
Fingerprint: 0x4e64df10
+40 to Life
+40 to Maximum Stamina
Heal Stamina Plus 15%
Magic Damage Reduced by 12
100% Extra Gold from Monsters
15% Fire Absorb

12: Dwarf Star
Ring
Required Level: 45
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 99
Fingerprint: 0x7f54d30c
+40 to Life
+40 to Maximum Stamina
Heal Stamina Plus 15%
Magic Damage Reduced by 15
100% Extra Gold from Monsters
15% Fire Absorb

13: Immortal King's Detail
War Belt
Defense: 142
Durability: 23 of 24
Required Strength: 110
Required Level: 29
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 99
Fingerprint: 0x359c97bf
+25 to Strength
+36 Defense
Fire Resist +28%
Lightning Resist +31%

14: Infernostride
Demonhide Boots
Defense: 95
Durability: 12 of 12
Required Strength: 20
Required Level: 29
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 87
Fingerprint: 0x64843297
+123% Enhanced Defense
+15 Defense
Fire Resist +30%
+10% to Maximum Fire Resist
Adds 12-33 fire damage
70% Extra Gold from Monsters
+2 to Light Radius
20% Faster Run/Walk
5% Chance to cast Level 8 Blaze when struck

15: Chance Guards
Chain Gloves
Defense: 27
Durability: 15 of 16
Required Strength: 25
Required Level: 15
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 99
Fingerprint: 0xf3691de
+25% Enhanced Defense
+25 to Attack Rating
+15 Defense
200% Extra Gold from Monsters
38% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
+2 to Light Radius

51: Blade of Ali Baba
Tulwar
'LemLem'
One-Hand Damage: 30 to 66
Durability: 32 of 32
Required Dexterity: 42
Required Strength: 70
Required Level: 43
Sword Class - Slow Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 87
Fingerprint: 0xa151e20c
+15 to Dexterity
+15 to Mana
+90% Enhanced Damage
150% Extra Gold from Monsters
205% Extra Gold (Based on Character Level)
82% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items (Based on Character Level)
Socketed (2: 2 used)

52: Blade of Ali Baba
Tulwar
'LemLem'
One-Hand Damage: 28 to 63
Durability: 32 of 32
Required Dexterity: 42
Required Strength: 70
Required Level: 43
Sword Class - Slow Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 59
Fingerprint: 0x39933980
+9 to Dexterity
+15 to Mana
+81% Enhanced Damage
150% Extra Gold from Monsters
205% Extra Gold (Based on Character Level)
82% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items (Based on Character Level)
Socketed (2: 2 used)

56: Death Cleaver
Berserker Axe
'Um'
One-Hand Damage: 89 to 265
Durability: 21 of 26
Required Dexterity: 59
Required Strength: 138
Required Level: 70
Axe Class - Very Fast Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 86
Fingerprint: 0x16cb7382
+274% Enhanced Damage
+9 Life after each Kill
40% Increased Attack Speed
-33% Target Defense
25% Chance of Open Wounds
66% Deadly Strike
Socketed (1: 1 used)

57: Death Cleaver
Berserker Axe
One-Hand Damage: 91 to 269
Durability: 20 of 26
Required Dexterity: 59
Required Strength: 138
Required Level: 70
Axe Class - Very Fast Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 86
Fingerprint: 0xb75ee9af
+280% Enhanced Damage
+8 Life after each Kill
40% Increased Attack Speed
-33% Target Defense
66% Deadly Strike
Socketed (1: 1 used)

Ruby Jewel
Required Level: 58
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 70
Fingerprint: 0x224b6d2f
+32% Enhanced Damage

Mercenary Items : 

1: Guardian Angel
Templar Coat
Defense: 816
Durability: 36 of 60
Required Strength: 118
Required Level: 45
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 99
Fingerprint: 0xfe4cd124
+197% Enhanced Defense
+20% Increased Chance of Blocking
+15 to Maximum All Resistances
+1 to Paladin Skill Levels
+4 to Light Radius
30% Faster Block Rate
205% Bonus to Attack Rating Against Demons (Based on Character Level)

2: Kira's Guardian
Tiara
'Ral'
Defense: 110
Durability: 25 of 25
Required Level: 77
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 87
Fingerprint: 0x13149bf4
+67 Defense
Fire Resist +86%
Lightning Resist +56%
Cold Resist +56%
Poison Resist +56%
20% Faster Hit Recovery
Cannot Be Frozen
Socketed (1: 1 used)

3: The Reaper's Toll
Thresher
'Amn'
Two-Hand Damage: 39 to 462
Durability: 65 of 65
Required Dexterity: 89
Required Strength: 114
Required Level: 75
Polearm Class - Fast Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 85
Fingerprint: 0x4cd18fdf
+228% Enhanced Damage
Adds 4-44 cold damage over 2 seconds
20% Life stolen per hit
Requirements -25%
Ignore Target Defense
33% Deadly Strike
33% Chance to cast Level 1 Decrepify on striking
Socketed (1: 1 used)

Also, one really sweet recent find:

Code:
49: Noxious Tiara of Speed
Defense: 47
Durability: 40 of 50
Required Level: 52
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 85
Fingerprint: 0xa4554856
30% Faster Run/Walk
+2 to Poison and Bone Skills (Necromancer Only)
 
Originally posted by @Cyrax on Dec 14, 2007:

Patriarch Tonedeaf the singing barb

Hi all. Did it again. This time it's a singer barb. I was torn between this name and Pavarotti. Since i didn't want to be remembered of the latter everytime i played the choice was clear. It became Tonedeaf.

Level: 80

Life: 3893
Mana: 710

Resists: all maxed (what do you expect with 2 wizzies?)

Stats

Str: 60 (60)
Dex: 65 (69)
Vit: 360 (360)
Eng: 10 (21)

Skills

maxed BO, battle cry, howl and of course war cry
als points in one point wonders
spare points are going to taunt

War Cry damage: 837-873

The gear:

Code:
Echoing Amulet of Fortune
Required Level: 45
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 85
Fingerprint: 0x94c6d417
22% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
+3 to Warcry Skills (Barbarian Only)

Slayer's Fanged Helm
Defense: 20
Durability: 35 of 35
(Barbarian Only)
Required Strength: 35
Required Level: 22
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 68
Fingerprint: 0x2de2e914
+1 to Barbarian Skill Levels
+2 to Battle Cry (Barbarian Only)
+2 to Spear Mastery (Barbarian Only)

Wizardspike
Bone Knife
One-Hand Damage: 23 to 49
Required Dexterity: 64
Required Strength: 32
Required Level: 61
Dagger Class - Fast Attack Speed
Indestructible
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 87
Fingerprint: 0xbcf9efe0
Regenerate Mana 15%
Fire Resist +87%
Lightning Resist +75%
Cold Resist +75%
Poison Resist +75%
Increase Maximum Mana 15%
Requirements -15%
50% Faster Cast Rate
Indestructible
+160 to Mana (Based on Character Level)
Socketed (1: 1 used)

Wizardspike
Bone Knife
One-Hand Damage: 23 to 49
Required Dexterity: 64
Required Strength: 32
Required Level: 61
Dagger Class - Fast Attack Speed
Indestructible
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 87
Fingerprint: 0xad4dc1c2
Regenerate Mana 15%
Fire Resist +81%
Lightning Resist +75%
Cold Resist +75%
Poison Resist +75%
Increase Maximum Mana 15%
Requirements -15%
50% Faster Cast Rate
Indestructible
+160 to Mana (Based on Character Level)
Socketed (1: 1 used)

Myth
Mage Plate
'HelAmnNef'
Defense: 253
Durability: 60 of 60
Required Strength: 47
Required Level: 25
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 88
Fingerprint: 0x670b7ff6
+30 Defense vs. Missile
Replenish Life +10
Attacker Takes Damage of 14
+2 to Barbarian Skill Levels
Requirements -15%
10% Chance to cast Level 1 Taunt on striking
3% Chance to cast Level 1 Howl when struck
Socketed (3: 3 used)

Frostburn
Gauntlets
Defense: 47
Durability: 24 of 24
Required Strength: 60
Required Level: 29
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 75
Fingerprint: 0x33f54f1
+10% Enhanced Defense
+5% Enhanced Damage
+30 Defense
Adds 1-6 cold damage over 2 seconds
Increase Maximum Mana 40%

Dread Fringe
Vampirefang Belt
Defense: 87
Durability: 14 of 14
Required Strength: 50
Required Level: 51
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 82
Fingerprint: 0xf0202b6f
+7 to Life
+17 to Mana
+37% Enhanced Defense
Regenerate Mana 4%
17% Faster Hit Recovery
8% Faster Cast Rate
Repairs 1 durability in 33 seconds

Eagle Spiral
Ring
Required Level: 41
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 65
Fingerprint: 0x982e74
+11 to Energy
+4 to Dexterity
+4 to Mana
+75 to Attack Rating
Replenish Life +6

Nagelring
Ring
Required Level: 7
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 87
Fingerprint: 0x986c217
+65 to Attack Rating
Magic Damage Reduced by 3
Attacker Takes Damage of 3
30% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items

Beast Shank
Wyrmhide Boots
Defense: 78
Durability: 12 of 12
Required Strength: 50
Required Level: 45
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 85
Fingerprint: 0xd7842d0f
+12 to Mana
+30 to Maximum Stamina
+24% Enhanced Defense
Regenerate Mana 7%
Fire Resist +20%
Increase Maximum Mana 4%
20% Faster Run/Walk

Also 2 WC spears on switch and 2 WC skillers.

His companion is a might merc with Tal mask, treachery archon and insight thresher

Not much to say about this char. Because war cry stuns enemies it's very safe with melee attackers. When dealing with large numbers of ranged attacks the lack of leech made me feel a bit uncomfortable. Either going for the frigid WP or when going through the frigid highlands i encountered a lot of burning archers. And when facing a few ranged attackers you can taunt them, but when you're being shot at by more then 10 archers it's kind of a different story.
Other then that no real problems. IIRC didn't die once. PI's were annoying because i couldn't hurt them. Because of this lots of leaping in the arcane sanctuary. The third branch i tried there was the right one. After that i had to park the occasional PI.
Really annoying (and boring) was the Baal fight. I had to blame myself for this. Didn't think of muling on a kelpie so he'd stay still. And also forgot to get my merc some CB:duh:. And since i didn't have any myself it became a very long fight. He cloned himself when almost at full health. And with no slow he'd (well both of them) teleport and use manaburn constantly. This meant many trips back to town. After about 15 to 20 minutes and a few more clones i finally had him down.
Although i liked him i don't think he'll be used much after this. I'm thinking of rebuilding my frenzy goldfind barb (travi runs are taking way to long) and replacing it with a singing version. I think that'll cover all my singing needs. Not sure if this will be my next project, but definately in the near future.
 
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