Freaky Builds plz

[belladonna]

lol i am new to these forums so bear with me. Basically after building ever one of the main builds, u know the ones i have become quite interested in the unusual. I would firstly like to thank for that the post on the jabber :p she is currently pwnin most melee llds. i was thinkin about makin a pvm nec and was wondering what damage mages actually do? And if lower res would signifcanly increase there damage. a pure mage nec perhaps or maybe an attraction nec (not sure what the main attack for an attraction nec would be though perhaps psn).

Also if u have any ideas for other unusual chars plz inform me on the build u used.

[Barl]

I was thinking awhile back of a barb whose main attack war cry (the warcry skill that does damage and stuns enemies). The strategy would be to lower defense with battle cry and then "attack." Using probably as many +skills and highest def possible. Im not sure the dmg would be high enough for a build like this.

Since War Cry's synergies are Howl, Taunt, and Battle cry, the skills for this build would be:

20 war cry
20 Howl
20 Taunt
20 Battle Cry
The rest into Iron Skin; but minus 1 in leap

items would be: Tarnhelm, 2x +2 barb skill swords ( or 1 +2 sword and a sheild with good to-block), Twitch i guess (If you are using a sheild), or a good ornate. A +2 barb 20%fcr good life/vit ammy. Gloves could be anything with life/fcr/fhr, maybe bloodfist. Boots could be gorefoot for the +2 to leap.

I've made all the calculations, and battle cry reduces defense by 44%, and the damage is around 600-700, and I believe it is considered physical damage.

Stats would be all vit.

(NOTE: A lot of this could change if someone informs me that fcr does not work for warcries)

Correct me if I'm wrong on anything.

UPDATE: With adding 2x sojs, and battle command, that brings the skills to lvl 29, and the damage to 1058-1104, and the defense reduction to -106%.

And yes, I am insane. But now that I think about it, lowering defense with Battle Cry wouldn't do anything, seeing as I don't think you have a "chance to hit" the opponent, but trather it "just works." But Battle cry is a synergy, and it also lowers their damage, too.

[CoopMoe]

i thought +skills didn't help synnergies...

[Barl]

i thought +skills didn't help synnergies...

It doesn't, and I had to recalculate that a few times. But If you add a point in a skill that has the synergies maxed, the damage (or whatever is going up) will go up with the added percentages, if I am correct. If the synergies did go beyond the max of 20, the damage would be around 1.4 or 1.5k.

[Fearlessone]

Two very interesting posts above. Mostly cuz these are the two "Different" builds I made this ladder, to smashing success.

First, the pois nova necro. I have a complete classic build post on this, last post on 5-30-05 (go to the red 'Search' feature above, then "Advanced Search": keyword -choose title only post- is "poison nova" and choose ONLY the classic forum on the right hand list.) Mage necros use bonespirits/ spears or poisnova. Only lower res boosts damage of any mage necros. Most bspirit necros use decrep to slow monsters and help the melee players kill them. But lower res cursing necro helps all sorcies, foh pallys, lightn/pois zons and, of course, POISON NOVA. It will about double their damage. Attraction is a good skill to use in emergency situations, but without lowres (u cant use 2 curses at once...) poison will be a slow killer. Probably bspears and corpse expl would be good with attraction.

Warcry. I have a COMPLETE pvm warcry classic build guide buried in the 'pvp warcry barb' post from about a month ago. From my and other peoples vast exp with this build, ur setup is somewhat out of kilter. First, bcry wont help warcry since it gets thru any defense and shield, and we have no damage redux gear here in classic. But bcry is a GREAT skill that u will have MAXED so use it!! Forget about iron skin, with 80 skill points, where the hell u gonna get points to spare for that skill, which u dont need anyway since u got warcry and bcry. Go the rest with: one in leap and leapattack, and a big wad in battle orders, and one each in natres, ironskin, and maybe fasterrun.

Warcry gear. Yeah, much of what u suggest is what I and others thought at first. Trouble is, even with 25% higher damage, u are casting warcry SLOW! so speed it up with shards, and dump the shield when u get some good resist rings or ammy, or on the belt or boots. Helm: psapp or pskulled for the MANA. Mana and fastcast are King and Queen in warcry. Gorefoot is a good choice, although one lousy skillpoint in leapatt gives u total mobility, and then find boots with 30%frw, big +mana, dual resists. U only need a +2 barb ammy, 10% fcr + resists, this maxes the fcr speed. Soj is nice, but dont forget resists, a +50-60 mana ring with +life or decent resists may keep u alive, despite the higher damage with an soj.

Both my chars with these builds shot up to near the top of their char ladders, the warcy barb has died about 9 times total getting to lvl 91 softcore. He is very useful in cs runs. No monsters in the cs are poison immune. :drink:

[fredsta54]

@belladona: yes, jabbers own :)

I have made a skeleton mage necro on classic, and it is slow in some areas obviously but it is safe and it can solo hell w/o 2 much frustration.

Just get max fire/lightning resist, as much + skills as possible and have fun


@fearlessone: war cry barbs are safe and fun but their killing speed pales in comparison to even a lvl ~50 hammerdin. Id make a holy bolt paladin over this anyday, which is even more unique and powerful.

And about your psn nova necro, i have tested it, it is very safe and can solo with ease, although in p8 hell games the killing speed is bad, at least in hell cs which is almost the only area in the game i am intersted in.



Fred

[eggo]

I have a Holy Fire/Shock Pally in progress..currently owns Act1 normal :D

[fredsta54]

hmm freaky builds eh?

holy freeze//holy shock ranger. It works, and is viable, just be prepared to cry about your awful ar once u reach lvl 85.


PvM necros on classic are rare, and fun. Pvp poison zons. Lightning sorceresses. er, i can probably think of lots more but nature calls




Fred

[PetePizza]

Building a Storm Ranger right now. Currently clvl 30 and running norm River and CS. Armed with Wizendraw currently main aura is Holyshock, it's fun to never run out of arrows.

I get some dumb comments from time to time, like "OMG bowadin sux" but, whatever. Fighting through the CS alongside a hammerdin and a strafazon is serious fun.

Hey fred, what do you consider good gear for a Hellbound ranger?

[Locke07]

My favorite build is a holyfire ranger using a raven claw, does nice damage and people seam to think your a noob, but is interesting. What bow would a storm ranger use, and that is holy shock/ holy freeze right?

[fredsta54]

well, i have tested several difirent combinations for hell storm rangers and the most succesful one was:

angelic ammy and 2x angelic rings (because your ar is bad)
tarnhelm (your only +skill)
twitchthroe and deaths combo (to achieve 9fps)
rogues bow (extremely fast and resists//ar)
30 r/w boots with high lightning and fire resist


definately max out holy shock n synergies before holy freeze. Holy freeze is more of a backup, against lightning immunes.

lvl 21 holy shock synergized does 4k damage max, which with a 9 fpa ranged attack can dish out some damage.


Resistances are not a big problem b/c, using this setup you can place every point into vitality, giving you 1.6k+ life at lvl 85. As long as fire and lightning resists are posotive youll be ok. Just pick em off at the edge of your screen



Fred

[belladonna]

Since you where talkin about rangers i thought i should add this rather neat build, although its requires a friends help. Basically what we did was he built a chanter and i built a din with convic. Entered a pvp game he chanted my raven bow and with convic on pretty much destroyed the game.

Another din build i saw a while back was a holy shock dagger thrower he had tonnes of ias and did pretty well for himself. I guess with those 3 auras (hshock,hfreeze,hfire) any number of builds are possible.

Fredstar did u use lower resist as the main curse with skeleton mages and maybe some revives to raise fallen mages.

[Murrogh]

Since you where talkin about rangers i thought i should add this rather neat build, although its requires a friends help. Basically what we did was he built a chanter and i built a din with convic. Entered a pvp game he chanted my raven bow and with convic on pretty much destroyed the game.

Another din build i saw a while back was a holy shock dagger thrower he had tonnes of ias and did pretty well for himself. I guess with those 3 auras (hshock,hfreeze,hfire) any number of builds are possible.

Fredstar did u use lower resist as the main curse with skeleton mages and maybe some revives to raise fallen mages.

ya.. dagger thrower... I always thought that might work pretty good cuz you can use a shield still.
correct me if im wrong but you don't need any AR when using raven bow do you? it never seems to miss for me.

[fredsta54]

ya.. dagger thrower... I always thought that might work pretty good cuz you can use a shield still.
correct me if im wrong but you don't need any AR when using raven bow do you? it never seems to miss for me.

Ravenclaw would be a good choice if i were to use holy fire, but holy fire sucks past nm, and lightning and cold damage wouldnt autohit w/ ravenclaws splash damage.

So im 100% sure ravenclaw is a bad bow for a holyshock//holy freeze ranger.


@belladona: the basic build for a lord of mages necro is

max skel mastery
max skel mage
~5 pnts to lower resists (you can increase this for a bigger radius to make it look cooooooolll)
1 to rest of summoning skills
Max CE
And as for the spare points, i personally invested into firegolem. If you plan on soloing you will have to have some initial way of gathering corpses (you cant use a merc) I used firegolem, along with LR, he can take out the weaker enemies with ease. He is also a great tank. You could also use bone or psn skills to get the intial body, but i think firegolem is superior.

For your gear, +%maximum mana, + skills, and fire and lightning resist are superior. Fhr, psn and cold resist are not so important due to the army in front of you. Hell, ill even go as far as suggesting sigons shield for its large block and + skill



Perfect gear in my eyes would be

frostys
2x sojs
+2 priz necro ammy
sigons shield
+2 nec wand with resists, + to mage and mastery, fcr isnt nessecary.
goldskin? dare i say silks? i dont wanna say silks but itd probably be more useful than a 24 fhr life tri resist armour.
Nightsmoke is cool
r/w fr/lr boots are ideal

w/ lvl 30+ mages and mastery, you will be able to solo hell no trouble at all, and you wont have to worry about ar problems like fishymancers do.



Fred

[Fearlessone]

Is a fire golem viable with, i suppose lower res curse, in late hell for getting that first corpse? My necro used a nice naga+amp as a meleemancer before 1.10 to get the first corpse, worked beautifully thru hell csruns.

The 'good old days' in 1.08 and 1.09 for rangers, before the hitpoints and physical resistances climbed, u could kill with fan + a nice bow in a reasonable amt of time thru late hell. And a ranger in Nm diablo runs was godly!!!

Hmm....enchanting a rangers bow, now thats something I never thought of, maybe there is hope for my old ranger now. He still has a nice wad of skill points to spend, and conviction looks good for the party. Problem with hell/hell rangers would be the high hitpoint fire immunes: doom knights, venom lords. But they would work nicely against oblivion knights and storm casters.

Still, the choice of bows u guys make seems to be puzzling. And u act like u are killing monsters so fast that life regen isnt important and the necessary poison damage needed to counteract it isnt talked about either.

[SwampBox]

Also if u have any ideas for other unusual chars plz inform me on the build u used.

pure static sorc. theyre actually kinda decent support chars especially in cs runs

cant kill anything on their own though.

[fredsta54]

pure static sorc. theyre actually kinda decent support chars especially in cs runs

cant kill anything on their own though.

thats just stupid

[Murrogh]

pure static sorc. theyre actually kinda decent support chars especially in cs runs

cant kill anything on their own though."

what you mean by pure static?
that's only 20 skill pts.. you have plenty of other skill to finish them off with.

[Fearlessone]

You dont even need 20 to do extremely well with static, 10-12 points + skills can make u very powerful in cs or cow runs, or any game for that matter. So that leaves 40-60 points for full synergy in 'something' + lots of skill points left over for warmth, mana shield, whatever...

It's amazing that only perhaps 20% of sorcies have a good level of static. The rest have only one point and are too frady-cat to get close enough to do any damage, they wait till diablo to use it, if even then.

[SwampBox]

you then put the rest of your points into whatever you want but just keep static as your main attack (pretty much put into the armors,warmth,tele,maybe even enchant)

like the thread says its a bizarre char. but i have seen sorcs use static alone in cs for 10 cs's strait

[Fearlessone]

you then put the rest of your points into whatever you want but just keep static as your main attack (pretty much put into the armors,warmth,tele,maybe even enchant)
...like the thread says its a bizarre char. but i have seen sorcs use static alone in cs for 10 cs's strait
Well, then they are just 'Pure' Lazy sorcies...as are most chars are. I mean all that sorc does is alternate between tele and static and maybe once in a while hotkeys over to a buff like mana shield or shiver armor. :bonk: That still leaves a buttload of skill pts for something like orb to slow all the monsters down in between static frenzies. *

My new sorc is an enchantress. That will take 60 skill points to max (enchant, warmth synergy and fire mastery). :surprise: With that big buttload of skill points being swallowed up, all other attacks and buffs force the remaining skill points to be sparingly spent. Static requires only a half dozen points or so (+skill items) to do MAJOR widespread damage. Now FIREWALL is a good skill to finish them off, and u already are going to max fire mast, so dont ignore the rest of the fire tree. Or u can enchant urself and try to make the kill - with a shard is possible, bow? thats worth trying. Dex matters here unless u can get an 'Ignore target defense' item. Are there uniq bows that always hit?

*orb has alot of prereq points, which is annoying, t-storm is fewer since u already are down to static on the lightning tree...

Edit: couldnt find any ITD uniq bows, but Raven Claw adds 50% to AR. The Dirk Diggler is ITD. Uniq sabre is ITD. There is a uniq crossbow with pois damage. Hellplague is good for +2 fire skills, fire damage, leech, speed etc... And there is a 2handed uniq Halberd with all sorts of 'Prev monster heal', 'Slows monster', 'Gaping, Hideous Wounds' blah blah blah

[Immortality]

What about a frenzy baba with maxed faster run skill... I'd doubt it be ne good for pvp. just for messing around. Threads, Bloodfist/Clegs, 2 decent nagas should do the trick.

Any1 tried this b4 and is the run speed really fast?

[belladonna]

i have seen a frenzy barb in pvp and he was disturbing lol. he was duelin my nec and i guess he snuck around my back (proubly killing bloor moor monsters to gain speed :p) and started running at me from behind, he was uber fast with his blinkbats and irathas and was wielding a 2 naga combo as u described, i only got to see one and it was about 120 somethin. even with decrep on him he managed to gain ground and attack. its was scary when u see you bone armor being ripped off in a manner of seconds. i just barley survived by a quick bone prision and spearing him to death. they are very rare to see but i was ammazed when i finally saw one.

[fredsta54]

i have seen a frenzy barb in pvp and he was disturbing lol. he was duelin my nec and i guess he snuck around my back (proubly killing bloor moor monsters to gain speed :p) and started running at me from behind, he was uber fast with his blinkbats and irathas and was wielding a 2 naga combo as u described, i only got to see one and it was about 120 somethin. even with decrep on him he managed to gain ground and attack. its was scary when u see you bone armor being ripped off in a manner of seconds. i just barley survived by a quick bone prision and spearing him to death. they are very rare to see but i was ammazed when i finally saw one.


pure frenzy barbs are effective and fun in pvp. I made 1 but i pulled the plug on the poject. It cannot beat any melee character. Chargers, n00b ww barbs, zealots, anything will kill them. Vs sorcs they are amazing. You can desynch with them very easily.




Fred

[Fearlessone]

Back when frenzy barbs were really fun (before the hated 1.10), it was fun to see my frenzy barb at the end of a major kill being able to keep up with the teleport sorc on her way to the next seal. This was without high level faster run or blinkbat's. But then who needed that? my baba had 2x+2 swords and a +2 ammy and battlecommand. With the huge increased run speed u get out of even a lvl 10 frenzy with those +skill items, only the overpowered new pally charge skill blows it away.

That necro mentions casting decrep to slow the frenzy barb down. A necro can cast decrep on a frenzy barb AFTER he is already next to him, but not while he is running around, he is running just too fast, he will be out of the decrep range in a blink. One interesting barb skill once u are next to a necro - they will likely cast boneprison and trap both of u, so the necro isnt going anywhere - is to use a nice level warcry skill. It stuns the necro making it hard for him to cast anything. :lol:

[Locke07]

@fearlessone: For your enchantress use a raven claw bow, the splash damage from the exploding arrows will always hit adding your enchant damage.

Edit: About the frenzy barbs, I have never seen one on classic, but I do know some odd things happen on xpac when you max frenzy and Increased run/walk. Plus adding a lot of frw in your items. My friend made a barb to do that and found out the once he charged up frenzy to the maximum, that he would appear invisable to other people making it an easy kill, don't know if you could do it on classic?

[Fearlessone]

For your enchantress use a raven claw bow, the splash damage from the exploding arrows will always hit adding your enchant damage.
Oh, i c. Thats an item I would normally ignore, probably can get one for a lousy pskull now. So its NOT just the attack rating bonus that excites people. My enchant is now something like 1165, and that is causing quite a stir in the games I play. The odd thing is, my own personal damage after enchant is over 4000. I play LoD, and havent seen ANYTHING LIKE THIS!!


About the frenzy barbs, I have never seen one on classic, but I do know some odd things happen on xpac when you max frenzy and Increased run/walk. Plus adding a lot of frw in your items. My friend made a barb to do that and found out the once he charged up frenzy to the maximum, that he would appear invisable to other people making it an easy kill, don't know if you could do it on classic?
Not surprising u havent seen any frenziers, patch 1.10 actually SLOWED DOWN our frenzy attack :creep:, putting it in line with LoD frenzy, which has all the glory items to speed it up, shael's, uniq gear, frw charms loaded into ur inventory, etc... Apparently bliz slowed down the initial frenzy speed in Lod because of these glory items. Then they applied this to US HERE IN CLASSIC in 1.10, grrr... where we dont have any of these overpowered items to counteract. :rant:

As for invisible attackers, the only ones here in classic I've seen are the hackers, the scrollers or scroll lock, where some hammerdin can see u offscreen on his minimap and then charge right into u with hammers blazing, or such, anyway, u dont stand a chance. Essentially as bad as the legitimate (but cheesy) teleport wind druids in LoD.

Frw items in classic: boots (30%frw) and blinkbats(10%). Any light armors or bone shields can keep u 'weightless' and stay quick. And thats it.