My triumphant return! (Patriarch Basher: long)
A character with no blocking: $0
A character with no defense: $0
A character with no vitality: $0
Beating Hell Baal with a Titan Berzerker: Priceless
That's right folks, after a forced month away from D2 I was able to get back to my comp and managed to finish this project. I introduce to you: Basher. The maul-weilding, titan berzerker. I figured that a barb's strength lies in - well, his strength. So I went with that, and Basher is the result.
I think this screenie pretty much says it all:
http://upl.silentwhisper.net/uplfolders/upload7/Stats.jpg
All Stat points went into strength. I was pleased with his final damage level - 12k per attack with his might merc.
Skill points are as follows:
Berzerk - 20 (prereqs 1 each, none in any other combat skills)
Mace Mastery, Iron Skin, Natural Resists - 1 each
Howl - 20
Battle Cry - 6
Battle Orders - 20
War Cry - 20
Find Potion - 1
End-game equipment is:
Arreats Face (IAS jewel)
Crow Caw (IAS jewel)
Earth Shifter (Shael)
Laying of Hands
War Travelers
Highlord's Wrath
Nosferatu's Coil
Ravenfrost
Rare ring with (self-found) with: +20 Strength, +51 mana, +113 AR, 15% Lighting Res, and 50 Poison Damage
On switch were two echoing swords for buffing BO.
Merc: Pratham
Might (I mean, what other option is there for a character who's goal is the most damage possible per swing?)
'Crescent Moon' Eth Great Poleaxe - very secksie weapon
Duriel's Shell
Guillame's Face
A typical battle in normal and noghtmare went something like this... run into the crowd, cast War Cry, kill all the monsters in one hit each (even on players 8). If they start to wake up, hit them with War Cry again.
In Hell things were a little bit different. Gone were the days of blithely running into a crowd of beasties. I learned that monsters canblock war cry. Also, if they are in a hit recovery animation, it wont affect them. Both of these things meant that if I got surrounded at all, I had a helluva time keeping everyone stunned. Then in act 5, i couldn't even run up to the pack before all the ranged attackers would have me dead. So here I finally had to resort to taunting the monsters to me one at a time. When I did this, it took longer, but individual monsters had no chance against that kind of raw power.
The hardest battle by far was the Ancients. Big surprise there, I know. You can't stun them, they are ridiculously fast, have tons of defense, hit incredibly hard (especially if you have no defense) and have tons of hitpoints. I clearly had to change my tactics. I opted to go for the CB setup. Of course I couldn't equip my 'ShaelShaelEthEthEthEth' Phase Blade because the dexterity requirements were simply out of reach. Instead I opted for the same runes in a 6-socket Archon Staff. I wont go so far as to say that it worked wonders, but after an obscenely long time, it did eventually work.
After the ancients, Baal was a walk in the park. I didn't die once and it only took me about an hour of taunting, war crying, and battle commanding the monsters through the WSK. The minions were easy enough to seperate out using taunt, and Baal himself was a simple matter of hitting him with BC, then smacking his *****-ass around with my huge club. All in all, very satisfying.
Some thoughts on my experience. I decided early on to put 5 extra points in Battle Command because I foresaw AR problems, what with the whole 'no points in dexterity thing.' During Normal and Nightmare I was ot at all sure that it was worth it. Maxed Berzerk gives a hefty bonus to AR, and it was my express goal to get my damage as high as possible. So basically, up to act 3 of hell, those points were wasted. It was whole different world in act 4 and 5. I used BC on almost every monster, and it saved my ass several times, especially against nasty unique monsters. Definitely worth the investment.
One surprisngly annoying thing about a char with no vitality: he's got no stamina. This was only a problem in Normal/Nightmare because in hell he never took more than three steps without scanning in front of himself with taunt. But in the early stages he could barely run ten steps without having to rest. Highly annoying. Otherwise, it was a fun, underpowered, yet massively over-powered character all at the same time. You know what they say, the best defense is a good way of making your enemies immobile and defenseless while you smack them with a giant fricking club. Or at least, that's what I say.
http://upl.silentwhisper.net/uplfolders/upload4/Baal2.jpg
http://upl.silentwhisper.net/uplfolders/upload7/Patriarch.jpg
A character with no blocking: $0
A character with no defense: $0
A character with no vitality: $0
Beating Hell Baal with a Titan Berzerker: Priceless
That's right folks, after a forced month away from D2 I was able to get back to my comp and managed to finish this project. I introduce to you: Basher. The maul-weilding, titan berzerker. I figured that a barb's strength lies in - well, his strength. So I went with that, and Basher is the result.
I think this screenie pretty much says it all:
http://upl.silentwhisper.net/uplfolders/upload7/Stats.jpg
All Stat points went into strength. I was pleased with his final damage level - 12k per attack with his might merc.
Skill points are as follows:
Berzerk - 20 (prereqs 1 each, none in any other combat skills)
Mace Mastery, Iron Skin, Natural Resists - 1 each
Howl - 20
Battle Cry - 6
Battle Orders - 20
War Cry - 20
Find Potion - 1
End-game equipment is:
Arreats Face (IAS jewel)
Crow Caw (IAS jewel)
Earth Shifter (Shael)
Laying of Hands
War Travelers
Highlord's Wrath
Nosferatu's Coil
Ravenfrost
Rare ring with (self-found) with: +20 Strength, +51 mana, +113 AR, 15% Lighting Res, and 50 Poison Damage
On switch were two echoing swords for buffing BO.
Merc: Pratham
Might (I mean, what other option is there for a character who's goal is the most damage possible per swing?)
'Crescent Moon' Eth Great Poleaxe - very secksie weapon
Duriel's Shell
Guillame's Face
A typical battle in normal and noghtmare went something like this... run into the crowd, cast War Cry, kill all the monsters in one hit each (even on players 8). If they start to wake up, hit them with War Cry again.
In Hell things were a little bit different. Gone were the days of blithely running into a crowd of beasties. I learned that monsters canblock war cry. Also, if they are in a hit recovery animation, it wont affect them. Both of these things meant that if I got surrounded at all, I had a helluva time keeping everyone stunned. Then in act 5, i couldn't even run up to the pack before all the ranged attackers would have me dead. So here I finally had to resort to taunting the monsters to me one at a time. When I did this, it took longer, but individual monsters had no chance against that kind of raw power.
The hardest battle by far was the Ancients. Big surprise there, I know. You can't stun them, they are ridiculously fast, have tons of defense, hit incredibly hard (especially if you have no defense) and have tons of hitpoints. I clearly had to change my tactics. I opted to go for the CB setup. Of course I couldn't equip my 'ShaelShaelEthEthEthEth' Phase Blade because the dexterity requirements were simply out of reach. Instead I opted for the same runes in a 6-socket Archon Staff. I wont go so far as to say that it worked wonders, but after an obscenely long time, it did eventually work.
After the ancients, Baal was a walk in the park. I didn't die once and it only took me about an hour of taunting, war crying, and battle commanding the monsters through the WSK. The minions were easy enough to seperate out using taunt, and Baal himself was a simple matter of hitting him with BC, then smacking his *****-ass around with my huge club. All in all, very satisfying.
Some thoughts on my experience. I decided early on to put 5 extra points in Battle Command because I foresaw AR problems, what with the whole 'no points in dexterity thing.' During Normal and Nightmare I was ot at all sure that it was worth it. Maxed Berzerk gives a hefty bonus to AR, and it was my express goal to get my damage as high as possible. So basically, up to act 3 of hell, those points were wasted. It was whole different world in act 4 and 5. I used BC on almost every monster, and it saved my ass several times, especially against nasty unique monsters. Definitely worth the investment.
One surprisngly annoying thing about a char with no vitality: he's got no stamina. This was only a problem in Normal/Nightmare because in hell he never took more than three steps without scanning in front of himself with taunt. But in the early stages he could barely run ten steps without having to rest. Highly annoying. Otherwise, it was a fun, underpowered, yet massively over-powered character all at the same time. You know what they say, the best defense is a good way of making your enemies immobile and defenseless while you smack them with a giant fricking club. Or at least, that's what I say.
http://upl.silentwhisper.net/uplfolders/upload4/Baal2.jpg
http://upl.silentwhisper.net/uplfolders/upload7/Patriarch.jpg
