[NEEDED]The Dreamwalker, a guide to a 1.10 untwinked barbarian [NEEDED]
I desperately need this guide!
I desperately need this guide!
[NEEDED]The Dreamwalker, a guide to a 1.10 untwinked barbarian [NEEDED]
- Thread starter BudaNET
- Start date
Lucky for you, i wanted to build one, so i copied it to a .txt file 
ith 1.10 coming in and messing up all builds, I took a good look at the newly emerged barbarian, and saw an oppurtinity. I'm a hardcore player so I place survival above all else. This guide shows you how to make a surviving barb that has a decent chance of also killing things in the process. He was crowd control, good damage, and doesnt need much to work. In fact, he could very well go without any weaponry at all if need be. He's not your most killing barb, but you stand a decent chance to survive with him, through hell and all.
The Dreamwalked is absed on a Warcry barbarian but instead of going purely warcry he uses his warcrys to enhance his melee capabilites and distract his enemies. He does not use many combat skills and does not use a mastery untill very late in his game (in fact, you cvan pass through hell without ever sticking a single point in a mastery). A Dreamwalker can be build with max block or no block at all, all to your own preferences. Due to the nature and setup of the skills he chooses to maximize, he is extremely versatile. You could say he's a jack-of-all-trades, but I found that for survival, this is a pretty good setup.
Build completion: level 80 with all skill quests (so level 80, act 4 hell).
Skill placement
Combat Skills
1 point into Leap Attack
1 point into Concentrate for normal attacking
1 point into Berserk for dealing with PI's
prereqs for the others, and if you are feeling silly also one point into Whirlwind for added moboility and flexibility.
Masteries
after level 80, max the mastery of the best weapon you have. Unless you want to spend points elsewhere that is, like for example in Taunt.
5 points into Natural Resistance (this is the dropoff point for me, after which I can spend my points better elsewhere. This is an IMHO of course).
1 point into Increased speed if you feel like it
Warcrys
20 points into Howl
Howl has several bonusses. Firstly, with maxed howl at level 80 you can scare off any monster in the game due to the clvl+slvl vs mlvl formulae for scaring monsters. This is nice, since in 1.10 you do not want to get swamped. Secondly, Howl adds synergy damage to Berserk, 10% per level. Although points purely spend in Berserk yield more damage for that attack, Howl also adds a 6% bonus to Warcry, which is an offensive capability for this barbarian build.
20 points into Battle Orders
Obligatory for every barb it seems, and so for this build. Battle Orders give a huge boost to mana and life, and you'll need both in this build. As an added bonus, it also gives a 10% synergy damage bonus to Concentration. Concentration itself only adds a 5% bonus to damage.
20 points into Battlecry
Battlecry is one of my favorite warcrys to use. It drops the enemies damage by a massive 44% when maxed out. If that is not awesome enough, it also drops the enemies defense by 88%. You will not need much AR to be able to hit your enemies. And as a plus, you get a 6% bonus synergy to Warcry.
20 points into Warcry.
Warcry is your group-damage dealer. Although the radius is relatively small, the stun effect is too good to be passed by. The more stun the better. With Howl and Battlecry as synergies, your warcry gain a 246% bonus to damage (+6% due to a pt into Taunt as prereq). Although the damage does not work against PI's, the stun does, and then you can easily zerk them.
Stat points
Basically, there are two ways to approach a non-twink build. Since you do not use any mastery, you can use any weapon you find. This means that you can either pick a specific category and invest stats for that, or be versatily and invest for using as many weapons as you can find. With the investment to use colossus blades for example, 189 Str and 110 dexterity, you can go for decent block and any 1-handed weapon apart from a few, very high dexterity needing weapons. This is the most versatile approach and also yields some blocking. Personally I prefer the 2nd approach which is the Strength approach.
Screw block! I'm serious. Forget it! Warcry will stun the enemy, and if not stunned, then Battlecry will reduce their effectiveness by almost 50%. Going for strength only means that you have more points to spend into vitality, and more vitality means more life. When going full strength you have two more options. 189 Strenght for the nastiest one-handed weapon in the game (the Legendary Mallet) or 230 Strength for the nastiest 2-hander in the game (the Ogre Maul). Yes, I do know that Thunder Mauls exist, but 252 Str is a bit much even by my standards. If you ever have the luck to find a good Thunder Maul then by all means invest into Strength a bit more.
The full strength approach also allows you to wear any armor you come across, and that is very nice, especially when looking at the Mercenary choice. I mean, if you do find that Templars Might, you'd better be ready to use it right? Or if you are still using that double-upgraded Silks of the Victor... well, then more strenght is basically a plus.
Energy, ah, yes, forget it, even if you plan to use warcry more than melee capabilities. Either you find some mana leech item and you can leech mana back, or you find some +mana gear and get 600-700 mana after BO. Either way, it will do, as you are not constantly spamming warcry but also use your melee capabilities.
Equipment choices
Well, since this guide is ment for untwinked play, I cannot tell you to get this or that item. What I can offer is some advice on usefull equipment choices:
1) if you go 2-handed always have a 1-handed weapon with a +res shield on switch. This comes in handy when discretion is the better part of valor.
2) Faster Hit Recovery is good! You need about 30% to be able to escape most situations.
3) Resistance, resistance, resistance. Elemental attacks hurt.
4) Speed is not an issue
Although it is nice to have a deadly speedy attack, this build cancels the need for that by its warcrys and the use of concentrate. Speed is good, but dont sacrifice resistances for speed.
5) Leech is not an issue
Life leech has been nerfed, Only Life Tap offers any significant advantage these days, and untwinked builds are unlikely to find much life leech anyway. Mana leech is still nice, but I'd not focus on life leech over resistances, +life or +mana
6) Runewords
Tal-Eth. Cheap, effective, and the IDEAL runeword for this build at lower levels. Its perfectly alright to use Tal-Eth untill level 99. The FC helps your warcrys, the mana regen helps your mana pool, the FHR helps your melee capability, and the run//walk helps you run away, away, AWAY!
Ral-Ort-Tal in a shield is a good choice for a secondary shield.
Playing the barbarian
Um yeah, thats nice, all those silly skill choices, but how are you going to place them while levelling you wonder. Well, thats easy. Firstly, you willwa nt to invest some points into Howl (levels 1-6). After level 6, you save points unto level 18, only placing in needed prereqs. At level 18, you spend some 6 points into Battlecry. At this point you have already heavily been using that one-skill-point wonder Taunt. From level 24 and upwards, you start investing into Battle Orders. At level 30 however, you invest into Warcry and natural resists, forgoing Battle Orders untill you have 5 points into Natural resists. After that I suggest dual ivnesting into BO and warcry, although you can easily invest as you see fit. After all, this is merely advice and not a strict rule. Remember that each point in BO also increases your concentrate damage. At any rate, by the time you enter hell at level 70-75, you should have maxed out BO, Warcry and Battlecry, or be pretty close. The only thing that remains to max then is Howl.
Why max Howl last? At any given point it is almost as easy to stun monsters as to scare them off. Your Clvl should always be pretty close to the Mlvl, so you wont have that much trouble scaring the monsters off.
This build allows for great strategical variation in the approach of attack, and with taunt as one-skill wonder point, concentrate, berserk and warcry every area of the game should be passable. I wont say that you will do it with ease, but you will be able to survive any area provided you pay attention to what you are doing.
Good luck!
---------------
comments plz!
Baranor
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03-12-2003, 06:46 AM #2
Baranor
Member
Join Date: Jun 2003
Posts: 1,527
Woops, forgot the section on mercenaries.
Basically there are three choices:
Holy freeze merc
Might merc
Defiance merc
ith 1.10 coming in and messing up all builds, I took a good look at the newly emerged barbarian, and saw an oppurtinity. I'm a hardcore player so I place survival above all else. This guide shows you how to make a surviving barb that has a decent chance of also killing things in the process. He was crowd control, good damage, and doesnt need much to work. In fact, he could very well go without any weaponry at all if need be. He's not your most killing barb, but you stand a decent chance to survive with him, through hell and all.
The Dreamwalked is absed on a Warcry barbarian but instead of going purely warcry he uses his warcrys to enhance his melee capabilites and distract his enemies. He does not use many combat skills and does not use a mastery untill very late in his game (in fact, you cvan pass through hell without ever sticking a single point in a mastery). A Dreamwalker can be build with max block or no block at all, all to your own preferences. Due to the nature and setup of the skills he chooses to maximize, he is extremely versatile. You could say he's a jack-of-all-trades, but I found that for survival, this is a pretty good setup.
Build completion: level 80 with all skill quests (so level 80, act 4 hell).
Skill placement
Combat Skills
1 point into Leap Attack
1 point into Concentrate for normal attacking
1 point into Berserk for dealing with PI's
prereqs for the others, and if you are feeling silly also one point into Whirlwind for added moboility and flexibility.
Masteries
after level 80, max the mastery of the best weapon you have. Unless you want to spend points elsewhere that is, like for example in Taunt.
5 points into Natural Resistance (this is the dropoff point for me, after which I can spend my points better elsewhere. This is an IMHO of course).
1 point into Increased speed if you feel like it
Warcrys
20 points into Howl
Howl has several bonusses. Firstly, with maxed howl at level 80 you can scare off any monster in the game due to the clvl+slvl vs mlvl formulae for scaring monsters. This is nice, since in 1.10 you do not want to get swamped. Secondly, Howl adds synergy damage to Berserk, 10% per level. Although points purely spend in Berserk yield more damage for that attack, Howl also adds a 6% bonus to Warcry, which is an offensive capability for this barbarian build.
20 points into Battle Orders
Obligatory for every barb it seems, and so for this build. Battle Orders give a huge boost to mana and life, and you'll need both in this build. As an added bonus, it also gives a 10% synergy damage bonus to Concentration. Concentration itself only adds a 5% bonus to damage.
20 points into Battlecry
Battlecry is one of my favorite warcrys to use. It drops the enemies damage by a massive 44% when maxed out. If that is not awesome enough, it also drops the enemies defense by 88%. You will not need much AR to be able to hit your enemies. And as a plus, you get a 6% bonus synergy to Warcry.
20 points into Warcry.
Warcry is your group-damage dealer. Although the radius is relatively small, the stun effect is too good to be passed by. The more stun the better. With Howl and Battlecry as synergies, your warcry gain a 246% bonus to damage (+6% due to a pt into Taunt as prereq). Although the damage does not work against PI's, the stun does, and then you can easily zerk them.
Stat points
Basically, there are two ways to approach a non-twink build. Since you do not use any mastery, you can use any weapon you find. This means that you can either pick a specific category and invest stats for that, or be versatily and invest for using as many weapons as you can find. With the investment to use colossus blades for example, 189 Str and 110 dexterity, you can go for decent block and any 1-handed weapon apart from a few, very high dexterity needing weapons. This is the most versatile approach and also yields some blocking. Personally I prefer the 2nd approach which is the Strength approach.
Screw block! I'm serious. Forget it! Warcry will stun the enemy, and if not stunned, then Battlecry will reduce their effectiveness by almost 50%. Going for strength only means that you have more points to spend into vitality, and more vitality means more life. When going full strength you have two more options. 189 Strenght for the nastiest one-handed weapon in the game (the Legendary Mallet) or 230 Strength for the nastiest 2-hander in the game (the Ogre Maul). Yes, I do know that Thunder Mauls exist, but 252 Str is a bit much even by my standards. If you ever have the luck to find a good Thunder Maul then by all means invest into Strength a bit more.
The full strength approach also allows you to wear any armor you come across, and that is very nice, especially when looking at the Mercenary choice. I mean, if you do find that Templars Might, you'd better be ready to use it right? Or if you are still using that double-upgraded Silks of the Victor... well, then more strenght is basically a plus.
Energy, ah, yes, forget it, even if you plan to use warcry more than melee capabilities. Either you find some mana leech item and you can leech mana back, or you find some +mana gear and get 600-700 mana after BO. Either way, it will do, as you are not constantly spamming warcry but also use your melee capabilities.
Equipment choices
Well, since this guide is ment for untwinked play, I cannot tell you to get this or that item. What I can offer is some advice on usefull equipment choices:
1) if you go 2-handed always have a 1-handed weapon with a +res shield on switch. This comes in handy when discretion is the better part of valor.
2) Faster Hit Recovery is good! You need about 30% to be able to escape most situations.
3) Resistance, resistance, resistance. Elemental attacks hurt.
4) Speed is not an issue
Although it is nice to have a deadly speedy attack, this build cancels the need for that by its warcrys and the use of concentrate. Speed is good, but dont sacrifice resistances for speed.
5) Leech is not an issue
Life leech has been nerfed, Only Life Tap offers any significant advantage these days, and untwinked builds are unlikely to find much life leech anyway. Mana leech is still nice, but I'd not focus on life leech over resistances, +life or +mana
6) Runewords
Tal-Eth. Cheap, effective, and the IDEAL runeword for this build at lower levels. Its perfectly alright to use Tal-Eth untill level 99. The FC helps your warcrys, the mana regen helps your mana pool, the FHR helps your melee capability, and the run//walk helps you run away, away, AWAY!
Ral-Ort-Tal in a shield is a good choice for a secondary shield.
Playing the barbarian
Um yeah, thats nice, all those silly skill choices, but how are you going to place them while levelling you wonder. Well, thats easy. Firstly, you willwa nt to invest some points into Howl (levels 1-6). After level 6, you save points unto level 18, only placing in needed prereqs. At level 18, you spend some 6 points into Battlecry. At this point you have already heavily been using that one-skill-point wonder Taunt. From level 24 and upwards, you start investing into Battle Orders. At level 30 however, you invest into Warcry and natural resists, forgoing Battle Orders untill you have 5 points into Natural resists. After that I suggest dual ivnesting into BO and warcry, although you can easily invest as you see fit. After all, this is merely advice and not a strict rule. Remember that each point in BO also increases your concentrate damage. At any rate, by the time you enter hell at level 70-75, you should have maxed out BO, Warcry and Battlecry, or be pretty close. The only thing that remains to max then is Howl.
Why max Howl last? At any given point it is almost as easy to stun monsters as to scare them off. Your Clvl should always be pretty close to the Mlvl, so you wont have that much trouble scaring the monsters off.
This build allows for great strategical variation in the approach of attack, and with taunt as one-skill wonder point, concentrate, berserk and warcry every area of the game should be passable. I wont say that you will do it with ease, but you will be able to survive any area provided you pay attention to what you are doing.
Good luck!
---------------
comments plz!
Baranor
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03-12-2003, 06:46 AM #2
Baranor
Member
Join Date: Jun 2003
Posts: 1,527
Woops, forgot the section on mercenaries.
Basically there are three choices:
Holy freeze merc
Might merc
Defiance merc
Skitril said:
Did you look in the stickies today !!!!
They are empty
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