For Barbarian, when to use certain skills

[warriorrk]

Hi, I'm a barbarian level 32 and I'm not sure which skills to use and when. For instance, I got whirlwind which says does -50% damage but whenever i use it, it rarely works and costs a lot of mana. When is the best situation to use it? How do you use it effectively? If Battle Cry, gives -25% damage wouldn't it just be better to use that? Same question goes with berserk: When do I use it?

What's the difference between damage and attack? For instance if it says -50% damage that means that it takes 50% less hit points to kill the monster right? What does attack do then, as in 100% attack bonus? Is that attack rating?

Also, what's better to use: battle order or battle command?

Thanks

[gorash]

Hi, I'm a barbarian level 32 and I'm not sure which skills to use and when. For instance, I got whirlwind which says does -50% damage but whenever i use it, it rarely works and costs a lot of mana. When is the best situation to use it? How do you use it effectively? If Battle Cry, gives -25% damage wouldn't it just be better to use that? Same question goes with berserk: When do I use it?

What's the difference between damage and attack? For instance if it says -50% damage that means that it takes 50% less hit points to kill the monster right? What does attack do then, as in 100% attack bonus? Is that attack rating?

Also, what's better to use: battle order or battle command?

Thanks

u should try this in the barb thread but i'll help u with what i know.
max ww (whirlwind), it'll start at -50% dmg with 1 pt and will get up to ~100% dmg at 20 pts. wear somethign like a manald to get the mana leech as i can understand that it costs a lot of mana.
the -50% dmg works like this, lets say u do 3k dmg, with this -dmg% in play, u'll only do 1.5k.
100% attack bonus refers to ar (attack rating). the more u have, the more % u will hit a monster.
be sure to max bo (battle order) and 1 pt into bc (battle command)

hope this helps a bit.

[ZinkChromate]

you know, I just finished my IK barb thanks to my Hammerdin and I haveta say that even with all that on he's not the best char ever. My hammerdin absolutely destroys him no contest so before you go to far with this you might wanna puroose other options. Otherwise get really good godlies

[Grumpy Old Wizard]

you know, I just finished my IK barb thanks to my Hammerdin and I haveta say that even with all that on he's not the best char ever. My hammerdin absolutely destroys him no contest so before you go to far with this you might wanna puroose other options. Otherwise get really good godlies

Well, what can compare to a hammerdin? Hammers are waaaay too powerful.

I'm quite suprisedthat you are not happy with your IK barb! A properly built IK barb rocks! IK WW barbs can easily run any area of the game. They have to be careful around oblivion knights of course, but immunities are no problem.

Without pulling up my IK barb, here is basically how I built him for a MF horker.

12ish ww, 20 shout, 20 bo, 12ish mastery, 1 berserk/bcommand/nat resist, all pre-reqs, 1 in Battle Cry. Enough in Find Item to get to 50%. Rest into Ironskin.

Strength for gear (187 max), 0 dex, and the rest into vitality.

I found decent IAS/ED jewels for the hammer (double IAS or IAS/shael hits the max breakpoint for the weapon. I put a 40ED jewel (which I also found) in the armor. I put perfect topazs in the helm for MF.

Dual MF rings, rare warcry amulet with MF.

I think I use a couple of warcry and a couple of mastery charms.

IK has lots of pluses to skills so all your one point wonders are great. :)

Reguardless of whether the build is IK or not, maxing WW and mastery is not necessary. 10-12 points in each is sufficient. WW is a great skill. Don't give up on it. Post your build (including equipment in the barb forum and maybe we can help you improve him.)

[jiansonz]

Hi, I'm a barbarian level 32 and I'm not sure which skills to use and when. For instance, I got whirlwind which says does -50% damage but whenever i use it, it rarely works and costs a lot of mana. When is the best situation to use it? How do you use it effectively? If Battle Cry, gives -25% damage wouldn't it just be better to use that? Same question goes with berserk: When do I use it?

What's the difference between damage and attack? For instance if it says -50% damage that means that it takes 50% less hit points to kill the monster right? What does attack do then, as in 100% attack bonus? Is that attack rating?

Also, what's better to use: battle order or battle command?

Thanks



Battle Cry is sort of a curse that will "stick" to monsters in a close radius from your barbarian when he casts it. It will reduce the physical damage they dish out to him, and it will lower their defense a lot, making them much easier for your barb to hit (most noticable in the late game). You can nail the monsters with Battle Cry, then use any combat skill you want when their are still under the effect of it (you can see the 'red ball' thingie above their head).

Whirlwind is an attacking skill that lets you (hopefully) hit several monsters in rapid succession. However, at the early skill levels, the damage you deal per hit will have a penalty: the '-50% damage' (so each hit will actually do less damage than Attack does). Whirlwind needs a very damaging weapon in combination with a good amount of mana steal to be effective, and allow you to use it without drinking loads of potions.

When the description on a skills says that "Attack" gets a bonus, yes, that is the Attack Rating.

The best thing is to use BOTH Battle Orders and Battle Command! Once I had a decent duration on all the three 'pre-combat' warcries with my barb, I kept them running the whole time. I cast the cries in this order before fighting any monsters:
* Battle Command
* Battle Orders + Shout (the order of these two doesn´t matter)
* Battle Command again (so it boosted itself and I would have +1 to all skills a while longer before I needed to recast my warcries)

Battle Command needs only one point, because more points only add duration. The synergy points from Battle Orders will be enough to make it last.

Berserk has an easy answer:
For any barb who isn´t specialized in Berserk itself (i.e. a Berserker), one point in Berserk is enough to get the job done in some otherwise tricky situations. Use it against:
* Physical immune opponents. Berserk converts all the physical damage to magic damage and gives a hefty damage bonus, too.
* Any area with Oblivion Knights. They use the Iron Maiden curse, which will reflect several hundreds % of the physical damage you deal back to you. Since Berserk doesn´t deal any physical damage it´s completely safe to use when you are Iron Maidened, as long as you have at least 4 mana left (if you are out of mana, your barb will do a Normal Attack, so beware).

[warriorrk]

Just wanted to say thanks for all your guys' help. I appreciate it. I've manage to make whirlwind more effective by adding skill points to it. It's gotten more effective, but the one irritating thing about it is that if I'm too close to a monster and try to use whirlwind, my barb won't even whirl--he'll just do a normal attack--but I lose 26 mana for it. I guess you have to be far away to do the whirlwind effectively.

[AnimeCraze]

Don't click on the enemy while WWing. Click on a spot past him. That should solve the problem.

[Grumpy Old Wizard]

Don't click on the enemy while WWing. Click on a spot past him. That should solve the problem.

Yep. Hold down your stand still button and click anywhere but on a monster. Be sure to hold your click and you will continuously whirl until you run out of mana, which unless you run into mana burn or physical immunes is never if you have decent mana leech. Usually it is best to whirl along the outside of packs primarily rather than directly into the heart of them. I think at least one WW on the barbarian forum discusses WW technique.