Travincal Running WW Barb Mini-Guide

[Denton]

Re: Travincal Running WW Barb Mini-Guide

Well, seems like mercenaries have quite low AR.

I found this thread on these forums. Although that information is for version 1.10, mercenary statistics probably haven't changed since then. There's thorough mercenary stats listing on the Amazon Basin too, that thread is ~1 year newer than the one on these forums (2006 vs. 2005), and the numbers for Might merc match.

2478 AR on a level 90 Might merc. That's including the dex bonus. So it seems that an Eth in weapon + 5,5 FPA attack probably is better than no Eth + 5 FPA attack. When I think of it, every now and then I have noticed that the merc seems to miss quite a bit in general, but with Reaper's it's not so obvious because the high chance of casting Decrep probably makes it seem like the merc is hitting very well, whereas in reality the merc might be missing a big part of his attacks...

Does the Blessed Aim "passive bonus" when the aura is not activated (+5% AR per hard skill point) apply for a Blessed Aim merc too? If yes, that might make Blessed Aim merc the king of mercs for council running. For melee characters anyway. That is especially because at higher levels it often takes a while until the merc actually activates the aura, whereas the passive bonus would be "active" right from the start of a game, allowing him to hit considerably more often (Blessed Aim level 18 x 5% = +90% AR when the aura is not active).


Edit: Just now I realized to confirm it from the text files that indeed the merc stats have remained unchanged since 1.10. So the stats in that thread should be true for mercs in 1.13c too. (The hireling stats files are identical to the last bit.)

Edit2: The desert mercenary of course uses Jab skill, which has an attack rating bonus. Although I'm not sure of the Jab level, but seems like it's either capped to 18, or it's 23 or 24 for Might merc and Blessed Aim merc respectively. In either case, that means his AR should be above 6k at level 90. Assuming the AR bonus from Jab even works for the merc. So many unknowns... : \

 

[Todd]

Re: Travincal Running WW Barb Mini-Guide

Metalgrid sounds reasonable I guess. I've never found it so I've never tried it. I have a feeling Highlord's will be better pretty much no matter what though, that DS boost is truly huge. Definitely a possibility though, for sure. Naj's Puzzler sounds reasonable/good too, definitely, since you can wear both Arreat's and Highlord's that way and still have Teleport.

This thread of comments inspired to me to look again at my AR, which I hadn't done since I started running at clvl83. I figured my to-hit sucked then because I was low level, but it still sucks at clvl90 just as much - ~4000 AR with a 67% to-hit. I was previously using a rare Tele/resist ammy and tried swapping that out with both Highlord's and Metalgrid, losing my dual skill swords for Naj's on the switch. Both seemed about the same, but both feel noticeably faster than my old setup. I think I'll stick with Highlord's for the moment. Two questions...

1) Grief's ITD definitely doesn't work on the Unique Council Members (Toorc, Ismael, etc.), correct? Does it work on the minions? The AS doesn't list minions in the ITD-not-applicable list, but I seem to recall reading otherwise somewhere.

2) Now that I'm using Naj's instead of an ammy, Teleport is frequently "forgetting" it's hotkey assignment in between games. This happened with the ammy too, but much more rarely - maybe once every 50-100 games. With Naj's it's like 1 in 3 games, which is quite annoying. Anyone have a solution for this?

 

[ZeN]

Re: Travincal Running WW Barb Mini-Guide

Grief has -25% to target defense though... so that should work against Council and help considerably. I am not sure that LCS shows it at all.

 

[Grisu]

Re: Travincal Running WW Barb Mini-Guide

2) Now that I'm using Naj's instead of an ammy, Teleport is frequently "forgetting" it's hotkey assignment in between games. This happened with the ammy too, but much more rarely - maybe once every 50-100 games. With Naj's it's like 1 in 3 games, which is quite annoying. Anyone have a solution for this?

I remember a similar problem while using Naj's on my Hammerdin. The game would reset the hotkey every time I used ATMA. Maybe it depends, which weapon you have on switch when S&E. But IIRC correctly, that didn't make things better. I just had to live with it :dontknow:

 

[Todd]

Re: Travincal Running WW Barb Mini-Guide

I remember a similar problem while using Naj's on my Hammerdin. The game would reset the hotkey every time I used ATMA.

Mine just seems to reset randomly, even when I never leave D2 or use any other program.

Maybe it depends, which weapon you have on switch when S&E.

I tried that, but it makes no difference. I've gotten in the habit of switching to teleport just before I S&E. Sometimes it will still lose the key - the selected skill just goes back to normal attack and the key assignment is lost. But then at least I can see that immediately when I start the next game.

It's pretty irritating. I can't understand why the magnitude of the problem is so different between the staff and the ammy.

 

[smips]

Re: Travincal Running WW Barb Mini-Guide

Hey all,
A thought just occurred to me while I was running. I regularly pick up all the gold the council drops in case a HR is being blocked by too many items being on the screen(I run on /p3). Is this really a good idea, or am I just slowing myself down? I use WW with both the 'Stand Still' and 'Show Items' keys pressed, so while my barb is dancing around the screen I can see all the drops occur. I figure if I'm wasting my time with the gold pick up, then I should definitely find out. I know that's a pretty good chunk of my run time.

 

[ZeN]

Re: Travincal Running WW Barb Mini-Guide

That annoys me as well, since I rarely can hear the rune drop. And picking up gold with Barb takes ages - running around all blue. That's why I've given up on him for now and just run it with the Blizzy - Infinity on merc removes cold immunity all the time, except when Ismail Vilehand spawns cold immune (probably 1 in 10-15 runs, from my experience).

 

[Todd]

Re: Travincal Running WW Barb Mini-Guide

I always pick up gold. It slows things down, but assures me I'm not missing anything and also gives me time to process blue items for charms and jewels. And it's a lot of gold... I've got 25 million in the stash for gambling at the moment. That's nice when I'm playing other characters too, as I don't even bother evaluating items to sell with them anymore and only pick up items that could be genuinely good. It's much faster just to use the barb's council money since he finds it so efficiently. With the gold pickup and the occasional ID'ing of potentially good rares, my runtimes average a little under 90 seconds, including all time stashing and repairing.

As for the freezing, I think I'm going to start carrying a row of thawing potions in my belt. Haven't bought one of those in close to a decade now...

 

[ZeN]

Re: Travincal Running WW Barb Mini-Guide

If that's your run time you may want to consider switching to Blizzy (if you have one).

I timed it with two setups on p3:

1. CTA + Infinity merc: 37 seconds/run on average

2. Reaper merc + no CTA: 47 seconds/run on average

Couple of points I think swing it towards sorc for me - much more MF/GF (402/598 at the moment) and TK - picking up gold is much easier - also teleporting helps showing hidden items much faster.

EDIT: 47 seconds is from memory - so I might be off a bit.

 

[Todd]

Re: Travincal Running WW Barb Mini-Guide

If that's your run time you may want to consider switching to Blizzy (if you have one).

I don't have a Bliz sorc, much less an Infinity to go with it. But remember that Barbs are getting 50% more drops due to horking - your times are actually not so far from mine if you multiply them by 1.5. If I go all-out speed, take a quick look for obvious HR's/charms/uniques, hork, recheck, and exit I get very close to a minute. But I don't care to play so frenetically. It's a game, not a job.

 

[Todd]

Re: Travincal Running WW Barb Mini-Guide

Almost forgot to mention... I figured out a workaround for the hotkey bug. If I switch weapons back to axes and then back to the staff right before I exit, the hotkey assignment will always stick. It doesn't matter whether the Teleport skill is actually selected or not, just so long as the weapons are switched back and forth. I still can't figure out why it sometimes sticks even when I don't do that, but at least it's an easy fix.

 

[ZeN]

Re: Travincal Running WW Barb Mini-Guide

if you consider 1.5 times the drops for Barb on p3 - than you have to run at 55 seconds per run to match me - and that doesn't consider MF or GF (150 - 170K per run is nothing to sneeze at). Doable, but as you said - seems kinda frenetic to me. Fabian is probably going to disagree though.

But of course - not having Infinity/CtA will slow it down considerably, not having Blizzy is just a crime though :wink:

Also - I am like you - those times are pretty casual IMO, nothing frenetic about them. I pick up stuff and ID it right on the spot (2x4 open space in inventory + cube), I could skip that and just unload it through GoMule, shaving off another 5 - 8 seconds, I'd guess.

EDIT: after running some more while paying attention to gold found - it appears that per run number is lower than I stated - around 110 - 120K. FWIW.

 

[Todd]

Re: Travincal Running WW Barb Mini-Guide

if you consider 1.5 times the drops for Barb on p3 - than you have to run at 55 seconds per run to match me...

I was comparing to the 47 seconds, which is closer (70 secs), not to the 37. My Barb has one Grief (non-eth BA) and no Fortitude - not in the same league as an Infinity-equipped Sorc.

...and that doesn't consider MF or GF (150 - 170K per run is nothing to sneeze at).

My Barb has 138MF and 146GF. Is your Sorc wearing Wealth/Chancies for the GF? I assume Chancies at least, since you don't need LoH.

Also, I'm including time to pick up and cube gems/runes. The efficient path would be to ignore those, I'm sure.

Doable, but as you said - seems kinda frenetic to me. Fabian is probably going to disagree though.

No doubt. But for fun, I'll reset the counter and try to speed it up a bit. That average goes all the way back to the beginning of my runs anyway, and I think I'm a bit faster now.

But of course - not having Infinity/CtA will slow it down considerably, not having Blizzy is just a crime though :wink:

If I could find another Tal armor/ammy, I'd make one. But the only ones I have are on my Meteorb running Pindle/Meph.

 

[ZeN]

Re: Travincal Running WW Barb Mini-Guide

Setup:

Shako w/ PTopaz
Skullders w/PTopaz
Chancies
Rare Lightning/Fare/MF boots
Goldwrap
2xDwarf (might be unnecessary - 1 might be enough, but 100% GF is nice anyhow)
26@ Mara (I have an MF/2 cold skills ammy, but Mara has more resists)
Oculus (surprisingly - teleport is never triggered by Hydras) + 12@ jewel
35 FCR Spirit (so I am at 65FCR BP)
Gheeds
5xchilling skillers
7 shimmering sc = 29@ res all
6MF/11FR sc

Merc:

Gaze w/ Um
GA w/Um (stolen from my hammerdin)
Infinity Thresher

Again - I've never played her for speed - 37 seconds is very casual (as I also pick up almost all rare and jewels/gems/charms) and she can be optimized some more (more MF etc), but it's good enough for me.

EDIT:

due diligence - my last 30 and 40 runs (measured them separately) averaged 39.5 seconds for some reason.

EDIT2: perhaps when I measured it at 37 - I was running it a bit more frenetically. Nevertheless - 40 seconds is still good for me. Requires 60 seconds from Barb to match.

 

[Fabian]

Re: Travincal Running WW Barb Mini-Guide

A small nitpick perhaps, but 40 second runs with 0% hork on p3 is the equivalent of 64 second runs with 55% hork, not 60. That's a pretty sizable differance, I think.

Other than that, please don't mind me

 

[ZeN]

Re: Travincal Running WW Barb Mini-Guide

I was going by Todd's 50% hork, and I still don't understand how you got to the 64 seconds. The higher the hork % - lower equivalent run time should be.

May be I should look at it this way:

amount of drops from 11 (I always forget - 11?) Council members (and that not taking shattering into consideration - which I would guesstimate is 1 member per run, but I might be wrong) per run with 55% hork should be 17 (correct me here, it's kinda late).

That is achieved, on average in 62 seconds by My sorc. So that's what the run for a Barb should be to match it.

It's 5:30 am, so I might be missing something.

 

[Todd]

Re: Travincal Running WW Barb Mini-Guide

I was going to point out the shattering as well - you can't avoid the occasional cold damage from the merc's Reapers. 1 shatter per run seems about right, which makes 1.5 very close to correct. Close enough for me, anyway.

I was going by Todd's 50% hork, and I still don't understand how you got to the 64 seconds.

Just figure that each Barb run counts as 1.5 (or whatever multiplier) runs compared to other classes. Or in other words, multiply your time by 1.5 to figure how long it would take you to do a run and a half. That's the appropriate comparison. So Fabian multiplied 1.55 x 40 = 64.

I spent a little time to find a better map, did some practice runs, and just finished a set of 35 /p3 runs at a hair under 1:19 average. That includes time to pick up gold, ID rares, stash stuff when necessary, restock pots/scrolls, and repair weapons. I didn't pick up gems or crafting supplies (blue Vampirebone Gloves, etc.), but am quite confident I got all the good stuff. Not too stressful either. But I don't think there's much room for improvement. Maybe I could reroll the map a jillion times to find a perfect one, but I hate doing that and this one's pretty good - one group in the "outer ring" of the temple and another inside. The only problem is that Toorc (in the first ring a little away from the others) occasionally wanders off. Mostly I'd just need better gear - Fortitude and another Grief would help, but I've got better uses for 2 Lo runes if I ever find them. For anyone playing along at home, here's my setup for reference...

clvl90, Str 344, HP ~2400 w/BO
Grief (normal Berserker Axe, ~+360dam, 38IAS)
Oath (eth 1.13 Small Crescent, ~260ED)
Arreat's w/pTopaz
Leviathan w/pTopaz
Laying of Hands
War Travellers
String of Ears
Highlord's Wrath
2x rare rings
Gheed's + various Steel and Fine charms, 3x4 free + cube
Might Merc w/Shael'd Reapers, Sol'd eth Glad Bane, and Ral'd Vamp Gaze
138MF, 146GF

This has been a great thread, BTW. Thanks to Fabian for the OP and to everyone else for all the comments.

 

[Sir Lister of Smeg]

Re: Travincal Running WW Barb Mini-Guide

My barb hasn't reached Travincal yet, is now somewhere in act II hell, but I just got seriously disappointed by a supposedly quite godly weapon, The Grandfather. I'd been using dual ethereal Oath highland blades since level 49 and now hit 81 so tried the granny (while retaining one Oath) and immediately my survivability dropped severely. In advance I thought the damage per hit would be more or less equal, and the low speed of the granny offset by the increase in chance to hit. First disappointment was seeing the political character screen display only a 10% increase in attack rating instead of the 50% as I'd hoped for (although assumed it would be less because of how ar is calculated - I still expected 20% or more). Then in actual action in spite of having a bit more life, the bulb went down far faster then with the dual Oath setup, and it did not fill back up quickly enough. Maybe shaeling would do something, but in any case it leads me to the question of how do different swords rate (this character will start looking for high runes, and I could make Death, but for now, let's assume only unique and set swords (since I have all of them) and how they compare to Oath)?

So I can start with saying:
Oath ethereal highland blade > The Grandfather

What about Azurewrath, Bul-Kathos' Children, etc?

Other gear for now is: laying of hands, raven frost, thundergod's vigor, gore rider, naj's light plate, arreat's face, rare ring with mana steal, fire and cold resist, 20 strength and 39 life, rare ammy with resist all and lightning resist, 24 strength and a little dr and mdr, for the rest min damage, max damage and ar charms. on switch heartcarvers for horking. hell is done so far at players 7 except for areas with many unleachable undeads, those at players 3, this went all fine with the dual oath, but not with oath/grandfather.

How should I deal with dual physical and magical immunes, such as Dark Elder? Is Demon Limb's enchant enough (I did not yet carry that due to having the Heart Carvers), or should I get some elemental damage swords on switch? If so, which ones? Apart from Azurewrath (which I can't use yet), The Grandfather, and Bul-Kathos' Children I have all set/unique swords double so I could use two of the same, which would be best?

Sorry for the ot, but it's still about a whirlwinder although not yet in Travincal just general questing.

 

[ZeN]

Re: Travincal Running WW Barb Mini-Guide

Just to clarify - I was trying a different a bit twisted way to get to Fabian's number and failed.

The simple one is: 1.55 * 40 = 62 and not 64

@Sir Lister of Smeg

I would guess that speed matters. A lot. So you leach less and kill slower.

 

[nirolo]

Re: Travincal Running WW Barb Mini-Guide

My barb hasn't reached Travincal yet, is now somewhere in act II hell, but I just got seriously disappointed by a supposedly quite godly weapon, The Grandfather. I'd been using dual ethereal Oath highland blades since level 49 and now hit 81 so tried the granny (while retaining one Oath) and immediately my survivability dropped severely. In advance I thought the damage per hit would be more or less equal, and the low speed of the granny offset by the increase in chance to hit. First disappointment was seeing the political character screen display only a 10% increase in attack rating instead of the 50% as I'd hoped for (although assumed it would be less because of how ar is calculated - I still expected 20% or more). Then in actual action in spite of having a bit more life, the bulb went down far faster then with the dual Oath setup, and it did not fill back up quickly enough. Maybe shaeling would do something, but in any case it leads me to the question of how do different swords rate (this character will start looking for high runes, and I could make Death, but for now, let's assume only unique and set swords (since I have all of them) and how they compare to Oath)?

So I can start with saying:
Oath ethereal highland blade > The Grandfather

I assume you're using Whirlwind. For the raw damage, The Grandfather should do slightly more damage than an Oath. The problem is the attack speed. While whirling with no IAS on Grandfather, you're doing 3 FPS attack (8 attacks per sec), if you put a Shael in it, you'll do 2,5 FPS (10 attacks per sec), with 2 Oaths, you'll do 2 FPS (12 attacks per sec). If you Shael the Grandfather, you should be as good as 2 Oaths, considering it adds some nice bonuses.

What about Azurewrath, Bul-Kathos' Children, etc?

How should I deal with dual physical and magical immunes, such as Dark Elder? Is Demon Limb's enchant enough (I did not yet carry that due to having the Heart Carvers), or should I get some elemental damage swords on switch? If so, which ones? Apart from Azurewrath (which I can't use yet), The Grandfather, and Bul-Kathos' Children I have all set/unique swords double so I could use two of the same, which would be best?

Sorry for the ot, but it's still about a whirlwinder although not yet in Travincal just general questing.

I don't think using the Azurewrath would beat your raw physical damage, it could be used as a utility weapon while in Undead Areas, or for specific Undead target running ( like Pindle).

As for the dual imune target, Enchant won't be enough, since it adds cca. 100 fire damage. Frostwind or Azurewrath seem like the best options with their cold damage. If your AR is high enough, you might try a Gimmershred, too. But you won't be able to whirl, cause you can't leech mana, and it will be tedious, if you're on higher player settings. You can also try using Tiamat's for more elemental damage, since you'll probably attack those targets with Concntrate. Reaper's will help a lot with breakable immunities.

P.S.

If you have Higlord's Wrath, definitely use it.