Warcry using Barb Guide v. 2 by memememe173

[deadbeater]

I am working on a taunt/knockback combo. I taunt, and my 'useless' defiance merc knockbacks the taunted. Very amusing and effective.

for additions to the new version:

Viable gear to use from levels 1 to 60 (a reminder to meme and all those who post builds: not everyone gets godly gear, nor does eBay buying).

Razorswitch, for example, is a niiiiice midlevel item: 175 mana, 80 life, 30 per cent fast cast, 1 level to all skills, 50 resistance, magic reduction. What more do you want? Oh yeah, be able to wield 2 of these.

 

[Dead_Guy1]

A nice combo for lvl 25-60 is using 2 spirit crystal swords.
+2 To All Skills
+25-35% Faster Cast Rate (varies)
+55% Faster Hit Recovery
Adds 1-50 Lightning Damage
Adds 3-14 Cold Damage
+75 Poison Damage Over 5 Seconds
7% Life Stolen Per Hit
+250 Defense Vs. Missile
+22 To Vitality
+89-112 To Mana (varies)
+3-8 Magic Absorb (varies)

Pretty nice.

 

[QuickShifter]

A nice combo for lvl 25-60 is using 2 spirit crystal swords.
+2 To All Skills
+25-35% Faster Cast Rate (varies)
+55% Faster Hit Recovery
Adds 1-50 Lightning Damage
Adds 3-14 Cold Damage
+75 Poison Damage Over 5 Seconds
7% Life Stolen Per Hit
+250 Defense Vs. Missile
+22 To Vitality
+89-112 To Mana (varies)
+3-8 Magic Absorb (varies)

Pretty nice.

I think a pair of good spirit swords in themselves may even replace dual wizardspikes (at level 61), for utility value. Ok from dual wizardspikes you get maxed resists, but thats actually where the advantage ends, unless you are shooting for 200% FCR. IF one is going for 110% FCR dual spirit with vipermagi and some other source of FCR will be enough.
So if one ia aiming for 110%FCR i would say a pair of dual spirit swords may be better than wizardspikes.

 

[GovernerOfCali]

That runeword did not exist when this was written... but I think I would agree with you....

Weapons
+2 To All Skills <---improvement
+25-35% Faster Cast Rate (varies) <---will have to be made up elsehwere
+55% Faster Hit Recovery <---insane good!
Adds 1-50 Lightning Damage <--whatever
Adds 3-14 Cold Damage<--whatever
+75 Poison Damage Over 5 Seconds <--whatever
7% Life Stolen Per Hit <--whatever
+250 Defense Vs. Missile <--nice i guess
+22 To Vitality <--with BO... nice
+89-112 To Mana (varies) <--with BO, VERY nice
+3-8 Magic Absorb (varies)

The only downfall I see is the FCR and resists... instead of 2 swords, one sword and the sheild would give you better resists... lets see....
50-70% fast cast on your dual spirit words
20% from arachnid mesh (70-90% now)
... then you can swap out magefists, a help with fcr, an amulet/ring combo.... lots of options. Yeah, this is actually probably a better setup then dual Hoto or dual Wizzy. More skills, more life, more mana (after BO)

I think a pair of good spirit swords in themselves may even replace dual wizardspikes (at level 61), for utility value. Ok from dual wizardspikes you get maxed resists, but thats actually where the advantage ends, unless you are shooting for 200% FCR. IF one is going for 110% FCR dual spirit with vipermagi and some other source of FCR will be enough.
So if one ia aiming for 110%FCR i would say a pair of dual spirit swords may be better than wizardspikes.

 

[wheel-of-doom]

Another great mercenary weapon

the rune word insight is a great mercenary weapon heres a picture of a perfect one ...it recovers mana at an insane rate, it does decent damage AND its really cheap (well maybe not the socketed weapon)

 

[deadbeater]

I don't play on ladder, so what use is it??

 

[chien]

I don't play on ladder, so what use is it??

Oh, then you should try it out on ladder. This cheap RW makes WC barb a really fun to paly. No need to worry about mana anymore. You could continue casting 20-30 war cry non-stopped at decent frames (9 or 8 frames/sec). This somewhat could make up the low damage/high mana cost of it. Give it a try if you love to play WC barb. Believe me, you'll get addicted with Insight merc I give almost all my spell-casting char one "insight" polearm. I don't even put 1 single pt in energy in my WC barb

If you play non-ladder, i guess specral shard (2 of them) is good for low lvl for its huge FCR and some mana and some resist. Suicide branch is alsot good for mid-lvl with good FCR and plus skill and life and increase mana. At higher lvl, dual wizardspike is best IMHO. Huge mana, FCR, resist (Hoto will be good,too. But too expensive if you need two.).

There are many ways to increase your mana in non-ladder setting (like mana charms, Shako,....). However, believe me, you'll still drain the mana really fast even you got big mana pool. With my lowly lvl28 war cry (dual wizspike), it costs 38 mana/ cast. If you cast at 8 fps, that is 114 mana/sec. Even with 1000+ mana, you'll pretty much run out of mana in few seconds of countinous casting. In Hell mode, it is not fun to have no mana for every few seconds. Or you have to wait this ladder season end and then you can get your hand on Insight weapon.

Just me 0.2 cent

Chien

 

[Quietus]

Just wanted to say, that I've been working on building a warcry barb for a little while now, and I am having an absolute BLAST with him. I would, however, like to point out a few things.

There were a few people asking about Howl, and why you would max this before taunt. In my opinion, having enemies run screaming is better than having them come close to you. Taunt is all about getting the enemies to you, it does this effectively with one point. Howl, on the other hand, gets to have a radius equal to the entire screen, and will send monsters scurrying off into corners for 30 seconds easily. You want crowd control? That's your ticket.

The serpent lord staff idea is actually a very good one. I won't use it myself, because I use dual hotos on switch, 15% req jewel wizzys normally. I originally thought the hotos would be better... I find going from 850 to 1200 mana makes a HUGE difference. Add in the 15% mana regen on each and you have a winning combination. However, I would like to point out the utter uselessness of a Jah rune in it. You would only be using this Noobstick against Monsters. Please take a look at Battle Cry :

Level 20 battle cry : 57.6 second duration, -44% target damage, -88% target defense

The defense reduction increases 2% per level. With level 26 war cry, you reduce an enemy's defense by 100%. Why waste a Jah rune when 5 mana does the same thing?

I haven't got much experience as far as mercs go, I'll be leveling one myself shortly - probably an act 2 might merc, try and work my way toward giving him an ethereal cryptic axe doom. But then, I play pvp so I need that extra damage.

What would I like to see added to this guide? Perhaps some advice on the possibility of 200% fcr casting - it reduces your damage, and your mana cost, but WOW will I be casting quickly when I get my 20% fcr ammy. It's expensive, not for those without deep pockets, or the willingness to try and get hold of some unusual items. I picked up a 2 barb skill, 20 fcr, 18 res all circlet for approximately a pul rune on nonladder. cheap!

Also, any advice on pvp would be good. I've found it difficult to deal with ww, due to it being uninterruptable. It's tough to win sometimes, but that's more to do with my aim than anything.

 

[Snatchary]

I don't understand why you would put points in leap and leap attack if you are using an enigma. Wouldn't teleport accomplish the same thing?

 

[sir goatscelot]

I don't understand why you would put points in leap and leap attack if you are using an enigma. Wouldn't teleport accomplish the same thing?

Leap is not used for attack purposes, but the stun with knockback effect it has. This keeps monsters in constant knockback lock similar to using bash but you dont even have to be near them to do it The range of the knockback depends on the skill lvl of leap. So a high lvl leap knocks back a very long way. This is used mostly to keep a party from being overrun by the badies that your WC radius can't effect. Most Singers have leap on the left mouse button and use it that way with WC's hot keyed on the right. It's fun to play but I wish they would give the skill a lower mana cost or more dmg. Have fun with it.

 

[Beary]

I have a question...So a singer barb shouldnt put any points into combat other then leap and leap attack?

 

[deadbeater]

The real downfall of Spirit is that it is a item that can only be made in ladder. I NEVER play on ladder.

To answer the combat question: I do 1 level of 2-weapon, then go 1 level Berserk for the rest of the game, vs pi's. But yes, main attack is Leap Attack. Vs pi's and Baal, I use Battle Cry and crack--Ribcracker that is.

I can achieve 200 fcr easily:

Helm--rare circlet with 20 fcr, and 20 all resistance! I don't care that it doesn't have levels, I am using this!

2 of any Wiz/Suicide/Shard--100 fcr (and up to 150 all res)

Vipermagi--30 fcr (and 33 all res)

2 rings--each at 10 fcr--20 fcr

Add magefist--20 fcr,

and a 10 percent fcr crafted ammy or belt,

you get 200 fast cast rate.

And that's without arachnid.

 

[BildBenny]

About the mana-cost of War Cry; Use an Insight Polearm/Staff*.

*Equip it on yourself, your Merc should have a Reaper's Toll

 

[Yochefguy]

While I have a lot of fun with this build it is definitley not a good killler. When I did a meph run he couldn't kill me but it took a long time to kill him. I do 968 damage with my Warcry and I Battlecry first of course.

Also I want to know how you are getting so much life and mana in your build. I get 2.6K Life and 1.5K Mana and thats with a lvl 43 BO with my +3Wc Spears on the switch.

Overall I find it a lot of fun in a party doing Baalruns, but I can't really find anything else he is good for. I'm lvl 84 now and I would never delete him because I think its an unusual build but if there is something else it is good at let me know. I will list the equipment I presently use.

+3BO Delerium
BP Enigma
+3 WC 23mf Ammy
2 hel'd Wizspikes
2 Sojs
Frosties
Silkweaves
Arachnid Mesh
Only charms I have are 2 small life charms and a Barb Hellfire


Maybe its an equipment problem?

Thanks :wink3:

 

[rild]

I have a few questions here:
1. Is this is doable for single player?
2. How the singer can do with the PI monsers?

 

[Maniphesto]

How do you kill PI's when solo?

 

[rild]

How do you kill PI's when solo?

yep - how I can kill PI monsters in single player?

 

[mclarke]

yep - how I can kill PI monsters in single player?

you dont, its NOT a single player build, its very equipment intensive if you dont have the equipment its not a viable build look here for what equip i reccomend then you can see why its not really a single player build (if you tried you'd encounter these problems:
lvl 1-29 need to use normal attack
physical immunes = unstoppable basically (casting amp/decrepify will remove some of the phy immunes but some will still be annoying and this requires charges which annoys me)
Damage should reach about 800, with so low fcr its will take a century to kill anything
Your fcr will be crap
Items will be hard to find (cant use spirits cos ur not on ladder on bnet unless u use rwm)

The only way it becomes viable is if you transfer a large amount of items to him, untwinked hes useless

For my pvp version of a singer go here: http://www.purediablo.com/forums/showthread.php?t=456920

 

[mclarke]

sorry about my last post i was probably annoyed at something basically you need a mercenary for pis, equip him with dragon + dream (for elemental damage) and botd (for leech and huge damage), OR you can curse them with amplify damage/decrepify for most of them this REMOVES PI in some cases it wont (stone skin locusts in act2 = good example usually, if they dont have stone skin it works) so a reapers toll is also a VERY good idea on your mercn (im presuming you get a holy freeze merc cos they are too good not to have except when u want huge physical damage which is where might comes in) if you use a reapers toll other equip might be something like andys helm (ll/str for dmg and useful vs andy + other poison users) and forti/coh/duriels even he just needs fair damage and decent leech, the reapers toll casting decrepify will help him stay alive and he should reach around 4-7k life after bo so he will just need leech to get back his life (which reapers toll has some but i would reccomend a lil more just in case)

 

[danc133]

The 3 D's

sorry about my last post i was probably annoyed at something basically you need a mercenary for pis, equip him with dragon + dream (for elemental damage) and botd (for leech and huge damage), OR you can curse them with amplify damage/decrepify for most of them this REMOVES PI in some cases it wont (stone skin locusts in act2 = good example usually, if they dont have stone skin it works) so a reapers toll is also a VERY good idea on your mercn (im presuming you get a holy freeze merc cos they are too good not to have except when u want huge physical damage which is where might comes in) if you use a reapers toll other equip might be something like andys helm (ll/str for dmg and useful vs andy + other poison users) and forti/coh/duriels even he just needs fair damage and decent leech, the reapers toll casting decrepify will help him stay alive and he should reach around 4-7k life after bo so he will just need leech to get back his life (which reapers toll has some but i would reccomend a lil more just in case)

I got this idea after reading a necro guide that worked with stacking auras. It's not as effective for the necro but does work with a singer. The 3 D's are Doom, Dragon, and Dream. Place this on a might merc and he is a killing machine.

Breaking it down, Doom a great merc weapon, that gives holy freeze and a +2 skills that bumps his might and jab not to mention a 1 in 20 hits to cast volcano. Dragon, Chance to cast venom and hydra decent defense and holy fire. Dream helps defense while also granting holy shock.

You owe it to yourself to try this once. You don't need decrep to slow they are slowed by 50%. They don't heal after he hits them. They are damaged by a small degree by the time they get on the screen. When venom kicks in ( which is often) you have fire, lightning, cold (with a - cold resists), poison, and a decent physical dmg not to mention a 1 in 4 chance of open wounds.

I use this merc with a singer and a teleport amulet. Teleport in warcry then smack a monster with my hoto flail. I use drac's gloves to trigger life tap so he needs no leech. I can easily do any place in the game.

Just my $.02 worth :soapbox: First Drink is on me!