-IAreSoHoly-
20-12-2004, 09:36
I'd love feedback on this. Thanks. (:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
----Introduction----
Welcome to my Buzzard MFer barbarian guide. Thanks in advance to all who read this with an open mind. If you find a flaw in the text or have any comments/questions please email me at SpankyMcGuire@hotmail.com. Now, on to the guide.
What is a Buzzard? Well, Buzzard is the name I gave to the prototype barbarian I played several months ago. It seemed fitting to the style of play attached to this build. Skill-wise, the Buzzard is a barbarian suited only for MFing. It cannot kill anything but it can tank good amounts of damage while sporting a hefty MF.
Please imagine for a moment that your barbarian is a giant ugly turkey which cannot hurt anybody but is a great scavenger. Now imagine this turkey clad in metal armour from head to toe. That is a buzzard barb.
This is the only pacifist build I know of, other than mules. If Buzzard is not to you liking, then perhaps you can imagine this Barbarian as Indiana Jones, a Scavenger, or a Travelling Merchant.
----Stat Points----
Strength: 95 Str for War Travellers. The Travellers will give you 10 Strength if you want to use Skullders at 97 Strength required.
Dexterity: 42 if you wish to use Babas. Base if you're sticking with Gulls.
Vitality: Everything.
Energy: Nothing. With Battle Orders and Mana Potions you'll be fine.
----Skills----
Find Item - 20 points. Some people don't like to max this skill but for this build you'll want to. We aren't worrying about offensive skills so you can spare 20 points here.
Shout - 20 points. This skill along with Battle Orders will make people like you and will keep you alive.
Battle Orders - 20 points. This skill along with Shout will make people like you and will keep you alive.
Iron Skin - 20 points. You are a panzer tank. At level 20 this will add 220% to your defense rating.
Natural Resistance - 20 points. With all of the MF gear you will be seriousely lacking in the resistances department. At level 20 this will add 67 to your resistances.
Leap Attack - 1 point. This skill is terribly important if you don't want to keep dying, especially early on in the game.
(Why Leap Attack and not just Leap? Well, most barbs know that Leap Attack allows you to jump anywhere on the screen, while Leap has a distance based on skill level. Just be careful not to highlight a monster accidentally when you use Leap Attack, or you'll jump into the fray.)
Prerequisites - 2 points. Leap, Find Potion.
Total: 103 Skill Points used.
Now realistically you won't reach level 94 or so to fill all of these skills. Fill up Shout, Battle Orders, Find Item, and one into Leap Attack first. After that I would switch off points between Iron Skin and Natural Resistances.
----Equipment----
-Weapons-
Dual Babas are the best option here. They will grant you Magic Find and Gold Find. They have two sockets...
If you cannot afford to put Ists in the Babas(Can't blame you) then I would suggest some sort of resistance charms. Or you could put Io runes in if you want 40 extra vitality or Lum runes for energy. A Nef rune in each would be a decent idea to knockback monsters since you are a pansy-barb.
Alternative: Gulls will work also, and will give you more Magic Find, but they lack the Gold Find which you'll enjoy with Babas and the damage which might be useful if you ever have to fight something.
Rich man's options: Isted Babas, Isted Gulls, Isted weapons with no dex requirement.
-Armour-
You have two main equally appealing choices here.... Skullders or Wealth.
Skullders will probaby provide a higher defense than Wealth and has 1 to all skills. At level 80 Skullders will tie with Wealth for Magic Find Percentage.
Wealth will have a lower defense but will have a static Magic Find Percentage throughout the entire game. You can make wealth in any three socket armour. 300% Gold Find is also a nice touch, along with 10 to dexterity. The runes are not very expensive... Lem-Ko-Tir
I personally prefer Wealth to Skullders, but the option is yours.
Alternatives: 4 socket armour with topazes.
Rich man's options: Isted 4 socket armours, Isted skullders, Ethereal high defense Wealth, Enigma.
-Headgear-
Immortal King's Will is my favourite choice. With decent defense, 37% Gold Find, 25-40% MF, 2 to Warcries(Battle Orders, Shout, Find Item) and TWO SOCKETS I really don't think there is any better option. The maximum MF for this helm is 90% with Ists, 88% with two topazes. This helm looks groovy.
Harlequin Crest(Shako): Blah. This helm is used by everyone and therefore I wish I could omit it. It is great, though, so I can't. With 74% Magic Find if you socket it and add a topaz, 2 to all skills, increase to Life and Mana, and 10% damage reduction you can't go wrong.
WARNING: When your barbarian wears this he will look like a circumcised penis.
Alternatives: 3 socket Helms with Topazes.
Rich man's options: Add Ists to your Ik Helm or Shako, or a 3os Helm.
-Gloves-
Chance Guards. I won't waver here... Chance Guards are the glove for Magic and Gold Finders. Nuff said.
Rare gloves make good poor man's alternatives.
-Belt-
Goldwrap. I have nothing else to recommend.
-Boots-
War Travellers are the best option for the Magic Find and the faster Run/Walk. These can be expensive though.
Alternatives: Rare boots with MF and other good mods. Plain magic boots with MF.
(Note: I am almost positive that you receive a magic find bonus when you equip the Ik helm and Ik boots together. Ik boots require 140 strength, though, so they are a rash option. The run/walk on Ik boots is better than War Travellers.)
-Amulet-
I would stick with a plain magical amulet with 30% MF or so. If you can find a plus skill amulet with MF then YAY!
If you are REALLY worrying about your crappy resists then slap a Metalgrid or a Mara's Kaleidoscope here. (COWARD)
-Rings-
Constricting Rings. (Just kidding)
Any ring with Magic Find will do. Nagelrings are good, plain magic rings with Magic Find and resistances are better.
-Recommended Setup-
Hypothetically speaking at level 80....
Baba - 60 Damage, 80% MF, 200% Gold Find
Baba - 60 Damage, 80% MF, 200% Gold Find
Wealth - 400 Defense, 100% MF, 300% Gold Find
Ik Helm - 170 Defense, 80% MF, 37% Gold Find
Chances - 26 Defense, 35% MF, 200% Gold Find
Goldwrap - 35 Defense, 30% MF, 65% Gold Find
War Travellers - 12- Defense, 40% MF
Magic Amulet - 30% MF
Magic Ring - 25% MF
Magic Ring - 25% MF
TOTAL: 525% Magic Find, 1002% Extra Gold From Monsters
Your life will be huge with Battle Order. With Shout and Iron Skin your defense will be bearable. Your Resistances will suck... that is unavoidable unless you have resist charms.
----Strategy----
-Leveling and Socializing-
You will not be able to level this barbarian alone. You have to join public games and party with people.
Please remember that you cannot kill much of anything later in the game. Early on, up until Nightmare or so, you might be able to hurt something with Baba's, but generally you will be useless offensively. People may catch onto this and dislike you for it. There are some things you can do to prevent or deal with this....
-You can run up to monsters and just hit them with your crappy Babas or Gulls or whatever. To an unfocused eye it will look like you are actually doing something useful. You can tank damage a bit so you aren't in too much danger if you pick your enemies right.
-You can carry decent weapons on your weapon switch so that you can actually hurt things. This will be hard, though, since your Dexterity and attack rating sucks.
-You should make sure your party is always BOed and Shouted. These two skills make you useful, and therefore people will be less willing to deny you.
-You can offer to run places for your party. You can tank and should have faster run/walk. You can also leap.
-You can just come out and say 'Hey guys, I am wielding two babas and I can't kill anything. I can tank though and provide Battle Orders and Shouts.' Sometimes people accept this, sometime they don't. I personally think that doubling their life/mana and tripling their defense is more than adequate to make up for your uselessness.
-You can tell your allies 'Hey, I won't touch any items except those that I find off of corpses.' They will like having less competition.
-Horking-
Now we come down to the whole point of this build.
Horking is the term used for the find item skill. When a barbarian uses the skill on a corpse he makes a 'Hork!' sound. As a Buzzard your life revolves around horking. Once you are leveled and equipped your job in hell will be to ally with people and hork the corpses that they slay. Here are some tips to make your life easier.
-If you hold down the hork button without selecting a corpse your barbarian will run and hork any corpses that he encounters.
-Try to avoid horking corpses until your party members have moved on. When I played my Buzzard a guy might catch on to what I was doing after a while and stand right next to me after a monster was slain so that he could steal my hork drops.
-Try not to ally with classes that use corpses. This includes Summoner Necros, Necros that like to explode corpses alot, Assassins who use Death Sentry, Paladins who use Redemption alot, Druids with Carrion Vines or Solar Creepers and perhaps other which I cannot think of.
-Try to avoid allying with parties that do most of their killing with cold skills. This destroys corpses and leaves nothing to hork. Frozen Orb sorcs are terrible for this reason.
-You can't hork act or quest bosses. No Shenk.
-Unique monsters are excellent for horking. Don't limit yourself to just uniques, but don't ever pass up a unique either.
-Hell cow runs are fun places to hork and can be very profitable.
-Travincal runs in hell are, in my opinion, the absolute BEST places to hork. You will come out with a buttload of gold, if nothing else.
-I believe the number of players effects hork drops.
-I think that you may be able to hork the corpses in Pindle's Garden before they rise. This makes you really useful on pindle runs.
-If you have a friends who MFs the Pits or Tunnels or Masoleum or Cows or whatever, offer to go along with him. He'll love the BO and Shout, and you'll love the corpses. Just make sure he isn't a freezer or a corpse thief.
-You can hork fire enchanted monsters that have exploded. Its just really messy.
----Mercinary----
In the spirit of the Buzzard I suggest having no mercenary. If you want to change this build a bit, though, then hire a defiance or might merc from Act2 and level them until they can kill Hell Cows and Hell Travincal for you. In this way you won't have to hork in public.
----Finally----
Thank you for taking time to read this crazy build.
I have uninstalled Diablo 2 since it was taking up too much of my time. I may start writing more builds to help deal with the withdrawls.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
----Introduction----
Welcome to my Buzzard MFer barbarian guide. Thanks in advance to all who read this with an open mind. If you find a flaw in the text or have any comments/questions please email me at SpankyMcGuire@hotmail.com. Now, on to the guide.
What is a Buzzard? Well, Buzzard is the name I gave to the prototype barbarian I played several months ago. It seemed fitting to the style of play attached to this build. Skill-wise, the Buzzard is a barbarian suited only for MFing. It cannot kill anything but it can tank good amounts of damage while sporting a hefty MF.
Please imagine for a moment that your barbarian is a giant ugly turkey which cannot hurt anybody but is a great scavenger. Now imagine this turkey clad in metal armour from head to toe. That is a buzzard barb.
This is the only pacifist build I know of, other than mules. If Buzzard is not to you liking, then perhaps you can imagine this Barbarian as Indiana Jones, a Scavenger, or a Travelling Merchant.
----Stat Points----
Strength: 95 Str for War Travellers. The Travellers will give you 10 Strength if you want to use Skullders at 97 Strength required.
Dexterity: 42 if you wish to use Babas. Base if you're sticking with Gulls.
Vitality: Everything.
Energy: Nothing. With Battle Orders and Mana Potions you'll be fine.
----Skills----
Find Item - 20 points. Some people don't like to max this skill but for this build you'll want to. We aren't worrying about offensive skills so you can spare 20 points here.
Shout - 20 points. This skill along with Battle Orders will make people like you and will keep you alive.
Battle Orders - 20 points. This skill along with Shout will make people like you and will keep you alive.
Iron Skin - 20 points. You are a panzer tank. At level 20 this will add 220% to your defense rating.
Natural Resistance - 20 points. With all of the MF gear you will be seriousely lacking in the resistances department. At level 20 this will add 67 to your resistances.
Leap Attack - 1 point. This skill is terribly important if you don't want to keep dying, especially early on in the game.
(Why Leap Attack and not just Leap? Well, most barbs know that Leap Attack allows you to jump anywhere on the screen, while Leap has a distance based on skill level. Just be careful not to highlight a monster accidentally when you use Leap Attack, or you'll jump into the fray.)
Prerequisites - 2 points. Leap, Find Potion.
Total: 103 Skill Points used.
Now realistically you won't reach level 94 or so to fill all of these skills. Fill up Shout, Battle Orders, Find Item, and one into Leap Attack first. After that I would switch off points between Iron Skin and Natural Resistances.
----Equipment----
-Weapons-
Dual Babas are the best option here. They will grant you Magic Find and Gold Find. They have two sockets...
If you cannot afford to put Ists in the Babas(Can't blame you) then I would suggest some sort of resistance charms. Or you could put Io runes in if you want 40 extra vitality or Lum runes for energy. A Nef rune in each would be a decent idea to knockback monsters since you are a pansy-barb.
Alternative: Gulls will work also, and will give you more Magic Find, but they lack the Gold Find which you'll enjoy with Babas and the damage which might be useful if you ever have to fight something.
Rich man's options: Isted Babas, Isted Gulls, Isted weapons with no dex requirement.
-Armour-
You have two main equally appealing choices here.... Skullders or Wealth.
Skullders will probaby provide a higher defense than Wealth and has 1 to all skills. At level 80 Skullders will tie with Wealth for Magic Find Percentage.
Wealth will have a lower defense but will have a static Magic Find Percentage throughout the entire game. You can make wealth in any three socket armour. 300% Gold Find is also a nice touch, along with 10 to dexterity. The runes are not very expensive... Lem-Ko-Tir
I personally prefer Wealth to Skullders, but the option is yours.
Alternatives: 4 socket armour with topazes.
Rich man's options: Isted 4 socket armours, Isted skullders, Ethereal high defense Wealth, Enigma.
-Headgear-
Immortal King's Will is my favourite choice. With decent defense, 37% Gold Find, 25-40% MF, 2 to Warcries(Battle Orders, Shout, Find Item) and TWO SOCKETS I really don't think there is any better option. The maximum MF for this helm is 90% with Ists, 88% with two topazes. This helm looks groovy.
Harlequin Crest(Shako): Blah. This helm is used by everyone and therefore I wish I could omit it. It is great, though, so I can't. With 74% Magic Find if you socket it and add a topaz, 2 to all skills, increase to Life and Mana, and 10% damage reduction you can't go wrong.
WARNING: When your barbarian wears this he will look like a circumcised penis.
Alternatives: 3 socket Helms with Topazes.
Rich man's options: Add Ists to your Ik Helm or Shako, or a 3os Helm.
-Gloves-
Chance Guards. I won't waver here... Chance Guards are the glove for Magic and Gold Finders. Nuff said.
Rare gloves make good poor man's alternatives.
-Belt-
Goldwrap. I have nothing else to recommend.
-Boots-
War Travellers are the best option for the Magic Find and the faster Run/Walk. These can be expensive though.
Alternatives: Rare boots with MF and other good mods. Plain magic boots with MF.
(Note: I am almost positive that you receive a magic find bonus when you equip the Ik helm and Ik boots together. Ik boots require 140 strength, though, so they are a rash option. The run/walk on Ik boots is better than War Travellers.)
-Amulet-
I would stick with a plain magical amulet with 30% MF or so. If you can find a plus skill amulet with MF then YAY!
If you are REALLY worrying about your crappy resists then slap a Metalgrid or a Mara's Kaleidoscope here. (COWARD)
-Rings-
Constricting Rings. (Just kidding)
Any ring with Magic Find will do. Nagelrings are good, plain magic rings with Magic Find and resistances are better.
-Recommended Setup-
Hypothetically speaking at level 80....
Baba - 60 Damage, 80% MF, 200% Gold Find
Baba - 60 Damage, 80% MF, 200% Gold Find
Wealth - 400 Defense, 100% MF, 300% Gold Find
Ik Helm - 170 Defense, 80% MF, 37% Gold Find
Chances - 26 Defense, 35% MF, 200% Gold Find
Goldwrap - 35 Defense, 30% MF, 65% Gold Find
War Travellers - 12- Defense, 40% MF
Magic Amulet - 30% MF
Magic Ring - 25% MF
Magic Ring - 25% MF
TOTAL: 525% Magic Find, 1002% Extra Gold From Monsters
Your life will be huge with Battle Order. With Shout and Iron Skin your defense will be bearable. Your Resistances will suck... that is unavoidable unless you have resist charms.
----Strategy----
-Leveling and Socializing-
You will not be able to level this barbarian alone. You have to join public games and party with people.
Please remember that you cannot kill much of anything later in the game. Early on, up until Nightmare or so, you might be able to hurt something with Baba's, but generally you will be useless offensively. People may catch onto this and dislike you for it. There are some things you can do to prevent or deal with this....
-You can run up to monsters and just hit them with your crappy Babas or Gulls or whatever. To an unfocused eye it will look like you are actually doing something useful. You can tank damage a bit so you aren't in too much danger if you pick your enemies right.
-You can carry decent weapons on your weapon switch so that you can actually hurt things. This will be hard, though, since your Dexterity and attack rating sucks.
-You should make sure your party is always BOed and Shouted. These two skills make you useful, and therefore people will be less willing to deny you.
-You can offer to run places for your party. You can tank and should have faster run/walk. You can also leap.
-You can just come out and say 'Hey guys, I am wielding two babas and I can't kill anything. I can tank though and provide Battle Orders and Shouts.' Sometimes people accept this, sometime they don't. I personally think that doubling their life/mana and tripling their defense is more than adequate to make up for your uselessness.
-You can tell your allies 'Hey, I won't touch any items except those that I find off of corpses.' They will like having less competition.
-Horking-
Now we come down to the whole point of this build.
Horking is the term used for the find item skill. When a barbarian uses the skill on a corpse he makes a 'Hork!' sound. As a Buzzard your life revolves around horking. Once you are leveled and equipped your job in hell will be to ally with people and hork the corpses that they slay. Here are some tips to make your life easier.
-If you hold down the hork button without selecting a corpse your barbarian will run and hork any corpses that he encounters.
-Try to avoid horking corpses until your party members have moved on. When I played my Buzzard a guy might catch on to what I was doing after a while and stand right next to me after a monster was slain so that he could steal my hork drops.
-Try not to ally with classes that use corpses. This includes Summoner Necros, Necros that like to explode corpses alot, Assassins who use Death Sentry, Paladins who use Redemption alot, Druids with Carrion Vines or Solar Creepers and perhaps other which I cannot think of.
-Try to avoid allying with parties that do most of their killing with cold skills. This destroys corpses and leaves nothing to hork. Frozen Orb sorcs are terrible for this reason.
-You can't hork act or quest bosses. No Shenk.
-Unique monsters are excellent for horking. Don't limit yourself to just uniques, but don't ever pass up a unique either.
-Hell cow runs are fun places to hork and can be very profitable.
-Travincal runs in hell are, in my opinion, the absolute BEST places to hork. You will come out with a buttload of gold, if nothing else.
-I believe the number of players effects hork drops.
-I think that you may be able to hork the corpses in Pindle's Garden before they rise. This makes you really useful on pindle runs.
-If you have a friends who MFs the Pits or Tunnels or Masoleum or Cows or whatever, offer to go along with him. He'll love the BO and Shout, and you'll love the corpses. Just make sure he isn't a freezer or a corpse thief.
-You can hork fire enchanted monsters that have exploded. Its just really messy.
----Mercinary----
In the spirit of the Buzzard I suggest having no mercenary. If you want to change this build a bit, though, then hire a defiance or might merc from Act2 and level them until they can kill Hell Cows and Hell Travincal for you. In this way you won't have to hork in public.
----Finally----
Thank you for taking time to read this crazy build.
I have uninstalled Diablo 2 since it was taking up too much of my time. I may start writing more builds to help deal with the withdrawls.