BVC barb question

[sonikki_]

seems like there isnt any guide for bvc barbs (if there is point me to it please =), so i decided to just ask this here.. why use beast/grief, beast/doom etc when you can use 2h botd ghost spear for example? more damage, good range, fast enough for ww.. ?

[RetroStar]

seems like there isnt any guide for bvc barbs (if there is point me to it please =), so i decided to just ask this here.. why use beast/grief, beast/doom etc when you can use 2h botd ghost spear for example? more damage, good range, fast enough for ww.. ?

Grief/Beast offers a lot more mods than a 2 hander. You also get more hit checks with 2 weapon. Beast offer OW/Str/etc which is superior to 2 hander.

Generally tele will bring you to the range 3 to attack without missing so the ghost spear is overkill.

[oneBlast]

seems like there isnt any guide for bvc barbs (if there is point me to it please =)...

" I have this build to level 92 right now, with some tweaks to skills:

20 WW
20 Axe Mastery
20 Battle Orders
15 Leap (full screen stun w/ most setups)
9 Natural Res (64% res all w/ most setups)
6 Inc Speed (Decrep + Inc Speed = Still faster than Bone Spirit)
6 Shout (duration synergy, trade off with leap/NR as you see fit)
1 Battle Command (Cheap +1 all)
1 Zerk (For bonewalling/ironmaiden/summon using necros, if in doubt, carry a life tap wand.)
1 Howl (Summon scattering tool)
1 Bash (Prereq, useless)
1 Leap Attack (Prereq, useless)
1 Conc (Prereq, useless)
1 Stun (Prereq, useless)
1 Inc Stamina (Prereq, useless)

With 64/57 base str/dex this is really flexible, and has just over 6300 life w/o any special items for BO prebuff.

This lets you do things like: BER/BER COA, Highlords, Ravens, Str/Fhr/Res boots *cough*WB*cough*, Dracs, EBOTD Z/Beast Z, HEL Widowmaker, Enigma (Wyrmhide for looks), Arach.

This is nice when dealing with 2-3 level 97 botted hammerdins, a cold sorc, a fire sorc, and a town hopping glass cannon spammer bowazon all in one team in a pub game.

Other useful things include 2x Doom zerks on weapon swap instead of warcry items -- you only lose 2 skills, but the ~12 dmg aura is useful for getting last hit on something, makes AA bowazon spammers useless, and makes runner trappers or charge desyncing paladins much quicker to deal with. ""

Just add into your calculations Torch stats, if you have one.

[F1R3STR1D3R]

seems like there isnt any guide for bvc barbs (if there is point me to it please =), so i decided to just ask this here.. why use beast/grief, beast/doom etc when you can use 2h botd ghost spear for example? more damage, good range, fast enough for ww.. ?

Actually when you compare it grief + beast does way more damage after every consecutive 4th frame after the first 4th frame than botd ghost spear. The damage from both the weapons is done in one frame (one still can miss, while the other can hit though). Since you most likely will be doing namelock + tele + triangular ww, you don't need range 5 unless you plan on doing whirl-aways which is not a good idea if you want to kill those casters quick, you will end up dead. Grief + beast also offers cb, ds, and ow while botd doesn't.

[F1R3STR1D3R]

" I have this build to level 92 right now, with some tweaks to skills:

20 WW
20 Axe Mastery
20 Battle Orders
15 Leap (full screen stun w/ most setups)
9 Natural Res (64% res all w/ most setups)
6 Inc Speed (Decrep + Inc Speed = Still faster than Bone Spirit)
6 Shout (duration synergy, trade off with leap/NR as you see fit)
1 Battle Command (Cheap +1 all)
1 Zerk (For bonewalling/ironmaiden/summon using necros, if in doubt, carry a life tap wand.)
1 Howl (Summon scattering tool)
1 Bash (Prereq, useless)
1 Leap Attack (Prereq, useless)
1 Conc (Prereq, useless)
1 Stun (Prereq, useless)
1 Inc Stamina (Prereq, useless)

With 64/57 base str/dex this is really flexible, and has just over 6300 life w/o any special items for BO prebuff.

This lets you do things like: BER/BER COA, Highlords, Ravens, Str/Fhr/Res boots *cough*WB*cough*, Dracs, EBOTD Z/Beast Z, HEL Widowmaker, Enigma (Wyrmhide for looks), Arach.

This is nice when dealing with 2-3 level 97 botted hammerdins, a cold sorc, a fire sorc, and a town hopping glass cannon spammer bowazon all in one team in a pub game.

Other useful things include 2x Doom zerks on weapon swap instead of warcry items -- you only lose 2 skills, but the ~12 dmg aura is useful for getting last hit on something, makes AA bowazon spammers useless, and makes runner trappers or charge desyncing paladins much quicker to deal with. ""

Just add into your calculations Torch stats, if you have one.

If those skills (leap, nat resist, inc speed) are at base that is not the way to go. You will only need 40% with inc. speed and 60% nat. resists due to the diminishing returns on both skills. So you will only need 3-4 points in each base with most setups. For leap the level needed for full screen knockback for 800x600 is 19 and for 640x480 is 14, so try to achieve those levels with your gear.

[Gotcha]

If those skills (leap, nat resist, inc speed) are at base that is not the way to go. You will only need 40% with inc. speed and 60% nat. resists due to the diminishing returns on both skills. So you will only need 3-4 points in each base with most setups. For leap the level needed for full screen knockback for 800x600 is 19 and for 640x480 is 14, so try to achieve those levels with your gear.

Is that 19 (leap) the total number for 800x600, not the base number which would be 6 more with his setup items (+6 with items listed) which would be 25 total with gear?

[oneBlast]

If those skills (leap, nat resist, inc speed) are at base that is not the way to go. You will only need 40% with inc. speed and 60% nat. resists due to the diminishing returns on both skills. So you will only need 3-4 points in each base with most setups. For leap the level needed for full screen knockback for 800x600 is 19 and for 640x480 is 14, so try to achieve those levels with your gear.

Where does it say they should be at base m8?
It says to have them at lvl6 base without the torch.
Count in +3 from torch, and you have all these skills at lvl3 base.

[RetroStar]

Is that 19 (leap) the total number for 800x600, not the base number which would be 6 more with his setup items (+6 with items listed) which would be 25 total with gear?

Total. Lvl 19 leap does not cover corners. Lvl 22 covers the corners I believe.

[sonikki_]

i went and made my bvc barb in hc ladder europe with botd ghost spear (360%, lucky me).
after a few duels and couple of pk rounds in baal runs, the only succesfull duels (read: ears) were the pk runs, and in serious duels the ghost spear didnt make enough dmg on the sorcs i dueled. thanks to loads of resist charms abd absorb gear i still survived each duel, even vs. infinity using amas, light sorcs, fire sorcs and cold sorcs.
maybe you were right and i should rebuild with axe mastery and beast/grief or something.
definently cant afford 2x doom axes though.. :P

[mcm]

If those skills (leap, nat resist, inc speed) are at base that is not the way to go. You will only need 40% with inc. speed and 60% nat. resists due to the diminishing returns on both skills. So you will only need 3-4 points in each base with most setups. For leap the level needed for full screen knockback for 800x600 is 19 and for 640x480 is 14, so try to achieve those levels with your gear.

BVCs have plenty of spare points by level 90, especially so with a torch. Here are the reasons for that skill allocation:

Natural Res @ 64%: With the very specific setup of gear I use, this gives me enough res to fight a grief using T/V who has -150 conviction without giving up PDR, damage, or AR. As mentioned in the prior notes, trade this off with points into shout as you see fit for your specific gear. For my setup I wanted to have 85% light res in hell after -150% conviction against the best of the best T/V you could possibly imagine. This means 335% light res total: 30% (Anya) + 30% (Fort) + 35% (Highlords) + 30% (COA) + 49% (Boots) + 20% (Anni) + 56% (Fade) + 20% (4x 5fhr/5res SCs) = 270, which left me needing 65% from Natural Res.
Inc Speed: For mobility the faster you move, the better. But for WW, the slower the better HOWEVER there is a point that you can be going too slowly. Against decent opponents they are probably going to get away from your WW's even if you're hitting or making them block, so you cant be sitting there in WW animation for too long after they have moved on otherwise you are at risk of being attacked while immobile. So to cater to the effects of golem slow, this much inc speed is about optimal w/ respect to effect vs diminishing returns.

As someone mentioned, this was all laid out before torches, so obviously you can change quite a crapload of skills, namely taking 3 off leap, natural res, and inc speed right off the bat due to +3 from torch. This saves you 9. Then you might want to take 2 more off natural res since you're getting up to 20% from torch, meaning you've saved 11. Dump those into shout, or maybe get a point in frenzy and put more points in zerk.

Having said that, you can never have too much resists or too high level leap :)