Travincal Running WW Barb Mini-Guide

[Denton]

Re: Travincal Running WW Barb Mini-Guide

I keep seeing Whirlers with 20 points in Item Find.

If a person has a HOTO on switch and the usual semi-uber gear it seems like once you've got a 50% chance on Item Find that any points beyond that are wasted. In my case, I have 8 hard points in IF and with my gear I'm already at 50%. For that reason I stopped pumping Item Find and currently have 6 unused skill points.

Wouldn't those extra 12 (20 minus 8 equals 12) points be better spent somewhere else like Shout for example?

Shout is a defensive skill that marginally helps with survival. With good enough gear (damage and life steal) a WW barb can survive any council roll without much if any trouble, regardless of defense, so Shout isn't needed.

After maxing the crucial skills (WW, Mastery, BO) and putting point(s) in the useful support skills (Increased Speed, Natural Resistance etc.), there aren't any skills that can actually increase the barb's damage and thus council run speed (well, putting more points into Berserk could help vs. Decrep-broken PI's, but the overall benefit would be practically non-existent).

Find Item is a bread and butter skill for a council running barb, so even a 1% increase in the Find Item chance is beneficial for the runs overall. That, in my opinion, makes Find Item the best place to put remaining skill points into. Maxing Find Item can bump the chance up to 55% without much trouble, by utilizing +skills weapons on switch.

In short, it's just simply effective to put the remaining skill points into Find Item, as long as your barbarian has already maxed the damage skills and is surviving without trouble.


Speaking of damage and efficiency, I definitely find it worth it to make a "titan"-oriented build for council rune hunting, so that the barb has just enough life to survive any council roll. It seems to me that many if not most people have their barb's life in multiple thousands. I do realize that something like ~3-4k life is good for a gold or magic finding barb, because that gear provides less damage than pure damage setup -> less life steal. But as I babbled earlier in this thread, vs. council ~1,5k max life (after BO) is easily enough for a well equipped barb. Rest of the status points can go into Strength for considerably increased damage.

Of course I do realize that in the end it's a matter of preference. A higher life barb doesn't immediately die if he stops attacking near monsters, whereas a titan barb kills a little faster.

Titan approach is especially beneficial for a barb that doesn't use Fortitude, as it evens out the difference in total Enhanced Damage % compared to a Fortitude wielding barb.

 

[helvete1]

Re: Travincal Running WW Barb Mini-Guide

I dumped points in find item until I reached 55% with my BO knives switch. Rest I dumped in nat resists. With anya quest and my nat resist, I'm already at ~10% penalty instead of 100% as one would be with no quests and no nat resists. Makes gear choices easy, since arreats + fort has a lot of resists already, and LoH provides stacked fire res for conviction/hydra

 

[Arkardo]

Re: Travincal Running WW Barb Mini-Guide

Speaking of damage and efficiency, I definitely find it worth it to make a "titan"-oriented build for council rune hunting, so that the barb has just enough life to survive any council roll.

Don't do it.

Well, at that time, my barb was level 82 and was using an upped ribby. I suppose if your barb is, say, 87+ and has Grief and whatnot, it could be doable. However, I'd just shoot for at least 2k-2,5k life.
It would be something different if 1.13 final solves the mana burn bug. I'd say you could go as low as 1,5k and still be safe.

 

[Todd]

Re: Travincal Running WW Barb Mini-Guide

Don't do it.

Well, at that time, my barb was level 82 and was using an upped ribby. I suppose if your barb is, say, 87+ and has Grief and whatnot, it could be doable. However, I'd just shoot for at least 2k-2,5k life.

I think Denton's point is more that you can overdo it with Vit without really thinking about if you just follow the usual "enough Str and Dex for gear" mantra you would use for most characters. Whether your safety threshold is 2500hp, 2000hp, or 1500hp depends on your gear and style.

I've got about 2500hp after BO on my whirler right now, and I find that more than sufficient. I've died only once in a couple hundred runs, and that was because I was intentionally pushing it to see how far he could go. That's with ~18% LL, a (non-eth) Grief BA, a mediocre Oath, and a significant DR coming from String and Leviathan. I'm pretty sure I could settle for 2000hp, but I'll wait to respec since I might change some more gear.

 

[Denton]

Re: Travincal Running WW Barb Mini-Guide

Upon previewing my post, I see I was owned by Todd, gg.

Don't do it.

Well, at that time, my barb was level 82 and was using an upped ribby. I suppose if your barb is, say, 87+ and has Grief and whatnot, it could be doable. However, I'd just shoot for at least 2k-2,5k life.
It would be something different if 1.13 final solves the mana burn bug. I'd say you could go as low as 1,5k and still be safe.

In the beginning of my post I said that with good enough gear a WW barb can survive any council roll, I meant that also in the case of building a titan oriented barb for council, I just forgot to add that in my post's "titan barb" paragraph.

Council running with a titan oriented build does require good equipment, but not absolute high end. My "PvM barb" is level 89, has just a bit over 1,4k life, 23% damage reduction (Enigma + String), 21% life steal (going by memory, could be +-1 off), 7% mana steal and at least fire and lightning resists are near max. With those numbers my barb seems to survive any and all council rolls without trouble by using a good roll Grief PB + mediocre roll Oath BB (non-1.07 base). Mana burn can require a little bit more care though, but it's manageable. I use Enigma instead of Fortitude for the mobility Teleport provides, and on a titan build the difference in total edmg% between those two armors isn't as big as it would be on a high vita barb.

Seeing as my barb is ok with Grief + mediocre roll Oath, I would say the barb would do about the same with two good roll Oaths. Before Oath I used an Azurewrath as the secondary weapon, it has a lot less damage than even a mediocre Oath, and still my barb survived just fine.

Edit: Forgot to include that my barb gets +70 max damage from charms, nothing exceptional there, but it helps. I run at p3.

 

[Arkardo]

Re: Travincal Running WW Barb Mini-Guide

In the beginning of my post I said that with good enough gear a WW barb can survive any council roll, I meant that also in the case of building a titan oriented barb for council, I just forgot to add that in my post's "titan barb" paragraph.

Council running with a titan oriented build does require good equipment, but not absolute high end. My "PvM barb" is level 89, has just a bit over 1,4k life, 23% damage reduction (Enigma + String), 21% life steal (going by memory, could be +-1 off), 7% mana steal and at least fire and lightning resists are near max. With those numbers my barb seems to survive any and all council rolls without trouble by using a good roll Grief PB + mediocre roll Oath BB (non-1.07 base). Mana burn can require a little bit more care though, but it's manageable. I use Enigma instead of Fortitude for the mobility Teleport provides, and on a titan build the difference in total edmg% between those two armors isn't as big as it would be on a high vita barb.

Seeing as my barb is ok with Grief + mediocre roll Oath, I would say the barb would do about the same with two good roll Oaths. Before Oath I used an Azurewrath as the secondary weapon, it has a lot less damage than even a mediocre Oath, and still my barb survived just fine.

Edit: Forgot to include that my barb gets +70 max damage from charms, nothing exceptional there, but it helps. I run at p3.

You seem a bit... defensive? Sorry if my previous post seems offensive in any way. I just wanted to point out that my titan barb was chanceless versus the Counsil, even on /p1.

 

[eMPii]

Re: Travincal Running WW Barb Mini-Guide

I finally found i jah rune and can make an enigma. But I have a problem because i have already put 1 point in increased speed. And with my current setup i get 28% run/walk from skills and 30% run/walk from gore rider. If I use enigma its 45% on top of that. So my question is if I must make a new char or if its ok with so much run/walk for the ww. I already made the reset skills quest for this char.

 

[Fabian]

Re: Travincal Running WW Barb Mini-Guide

1. There's always the opportunity of more respeccs if you find the Essences the act bosses drop.

2. One point in Increased Speed is not a big deal at all. I use Enigma and Gore Riders, and while I don't have any points in IS since my last respeccing, I've had it before and I don't think there's a huge difference or anything. The entire Council is a pretty big target anyway, so it's not too difficult to not miss when there's 13 of them. In my opinion.

 

[Todd]

Re: Travincal Running WW Barb Mini-Guide

Maybe build the Enigma for some other character? Especially if you have a Tele amulet already. I have a mediocre rare Tele ammy and I can't see Enigma helping me all that much beyond that. I'd rather have Fortitude for sure.

 

[Denton]

Re: Travincal Running WW Barb Mini-Guide

Arkardo, no need to apologize, I didn't take your post as offensive. And I didn't intend my post as a defensive one, I tried to remain neutral and objective.

Speaking of objectivity, I do like titan oriented WW barb so my opinion on that is biased. But I just wanted to point out the fact that a barb doesn't need very high life in order to be effective at council, as long as his damage and life steal are high enough. It's quite fun to see the barb's life bulb jumping back and forth between ~20% and 100% life when facing a dangerous council roll.

 

[stephan]

Re: Travincal Running WW Barb Mini-Guide

Perhaps it's worth posting a budget setup that works for me at p3:

Tal Helm
Lionheart
Upped Ribcracker 'Shael' (mine is 276% ED so not top of the bill)
LoH
Hsarus belt and boots.
a rare AR ll ring and a rare AR dual leech ring
ammy is +1 skill with some res, not even really worth noting.

charms are to fix res and the rest whatever AR/damage I had.

merc:

Reapers
GA 'Ral'
Kira's 'Ral'

Comments:

-I've put 200 points in strength which puts me at about 3.1k life at level 83.
-The Ral's in the merc gear really help against conviction so far. I was afraid he might still have problems with LE, but doesn't seem to be the case.
-The mana leech from just Tal's is enough.
-Since the my ammy is pretty awful a switch could be made with angelic combo, SoE/Wilhelm's pride and for example Nat's boots.

Although I haven't tried it yet an interesting budget armor is Black Hades.

 

[ZeN]

Re: Travincal Running WW Barb Mini-Guide

I want to semi-resurrect this.

What do you guys do ( if anything is possible at all ) to make your merc activate the might aura faster?

So far - all my runs ( those at least that I observed ) went on without him activating it at all.

 

[BetaBlocker]

Re: Travincal Running WW Barb Mini-Guide

There isn't much to do ZeN. For the b.net crowd you have an issue of temp bans if you are to fast with your runs so there you generally kill Eldritch or something. But in SP I would say that just going at it without the aura is better for run speed. So, basically don't count on that ED to make it viable - but that's not needed...

 

[ZeN]

Re: Travincal Running WW Barb Mini-Guide

I suspected that short of killing something there is nothing you can do.

However, after doing some runs now ( at p3, before it was p1 ) I see that the might does get activated towards the end of the fight, alas, when all of them are dead.

Perhaps one should factor this in when considering p5 or p7. The fight might start slower but the eventual time might be close to p3, since might will boost the damage and improve speed.

EDIT: have I made a record of using a word 'might; in one sentence?

 

[zerth]

Re: Travincal Running WW Barb Mini-Guide

It's probably mentioned already, but Grief/Beast is actually faster than dual Grief if you use Enigma (just did some test runs). I suspect Grief/Grief is faster if you use Fortitude though...

Also, I get the point of the Titan build, but does anyone have actual data for the highest damage council can inflict? I recall at least once getting down to 1K health (4.7K max life) with one hit.

 

[Tanksaabas]

Re: Travincal Running WW Barb Mini-Guide

How much of a difference is p8 from p3 actually? p8 for me is much slower than p3 runs , so maybe despite the more drops it's better to have faster runs? I still wax the council no matter the mods they have at p8.

 

[Arkardo]

Re: Travincal Running WW Barb Mini-Guide

The most melee damage they can do is 120. With Might on a monster that has Fanatism (I think the level would be Monster Level / 4 = 88 / 4 = 22, right) and is Extra Strong, that's 250% + 407% + 150%= 807%, making that about 1k damage, 2k if you're cursed and have no DR. When the attacking monster is also Fire or Lightning Enchanted, or has Spectral hit, this damage is increased further by elemental damage, which in turn are increased if you're Convicted. However, I don't see the total damage topping 3k.

EDIT: didn't factor in the player setting. I guess it's possible to have 3,5k+ damage that way.

 

[maxicek]

Re: Travincal Running WW Barb Mini-Guide

It's probably mentioned already, but Grief/Beast is actually faster than dual Grief if you use Enigma (just did some test runs). I suspect Grief/Grief is faster if you use Fortitude though...

From calculations that I have done, 2x Grief does more damage that Grief+Beast. I suspect that the difference in run time is down to the AR boost from Fanaticism, not the damage. I prefer to use Steel GCs to Sharp for exactly this reason.

 

[zerth]

Re: Travincal Running WW Barb Mini-Guide

You are correct, the increase in overall damage output (hence about 5 secs faster runs as far as I can tell) is mostly from additional AR (my Beast does less than 60% damage than my 2nd Grief anyway) AND from additional merc damage and speed (procs decrepify faster).

I also use Steel GCs of sust/vita and steel SCs of sust/vita/resists (specifically 6 GCs and 7 SCs).

However there is a downside, now the merc on /p3 shatters a couple corpses each run (cold damage on reaper's).

Edit: Just checked the speed calc for the merc damage increase

55 ias and no fanaticism is 6 fpa
55 ias and 9 slvl fanaticism is 5 fpa (last bp btw)

This is 1 attack per second more. Not to mention the 100% additional off weapon ed.

 

[Belthazor]

Re: Travincal Running WW Barb Mini-Guide

From calculations that I have done, 2x Grief does more damage that Grief+Beast. I suspect that the difference in run time is down to the AR boost from Fanaticism, not the damage. I prefer to use Steel GCs to Sharp for exactly this reason.

I haven't done the calculations myself yet, but the mercs aura might factor into this as well. Sometimes it takes him a while to activate it. I have a suspicion that Grief+Beast might do more damage than dual Grief without an activated Might aura.