Good setup for a PvM Barb?

[luigjes]

Just wondering if this setup is any good for a PvM barbarian, please place some comments on the skill distribution.
As you can see i'm going for Polearm because of the long range...

Howl 1
Shout 20
Battle Orders 20

Polearm Mastery 20
Increased Stamina 1
Iron Skin 20
Increased Speed 1
Natural Resistance 7

Bash 1
Leap 1
Double Swing 1
Stun 1
Leap Attack 1
Concentrate 1
Whirlwind 13
Berserk 1

[DontFlameMe]

I would leave 1 point in Nat. Res. and put the rest into WW. One point is usually enough to get you max Lightning and Cold resists, considering if you use Stormshield and Highlord's, and especially if you use CoH. Max Poison and Fire are easily gotten from a 10% SC or two. Also, don't put any points into the Frenzy line if you aren't going to be a Frenzy Barb. That Double Swing point can go to maxing WW, and you have Concentrate and Berserk to fall back on anyway. Good luck~

[luigjes]

I want to put one point in Double Swing because that will make leveling to 30 a whole lot easier, i know it's wasted, but at least going from 2-30 will be a lot easier...

As you might have noticed, i'm going the polearm way, so i cannot use a shield (assuming Stormshield is a shield)

Perhaps i will alter it a bit, i also calculated the life, defense and damage for this char using particular items (runewords)

Life will be around 2k
Defense around 12.5k
Damage around 400-1200

Think the damage is kind of low, so i need to find an option for that issue.

Also, i'm a solo player, so getting uniques is kind of hard for me, since i cannot transfer items over from one char to another...

Thanks for your advices anyways!

[DontFlameMe]

Heh I completely missed the Polearm thing. In that case, then the points you outlined should work fine. And as for being Single Player, you can always use ATMA :p . Sorry for not reading your post more carefully :)

[Omikron8]

The only barb that should max iron skin is a wolfbarb due to not being able to use combat skills. Every barb (except a singer) must have at least one maxed combat skill which in your case is whirlwind.

Leave natural res at 1-3 base pts

and whirlwind barbs are very very frustrating if you play untwinked

[luigjes]

First of all, what is 'ATMA' ?

Since i'm sure i'm not as experienced as you guys are, and since i didn't finish Hell with any character yet, i do not exactly know how to place my skill points.

I think this setup is pretty good for a barbarian, and of course a barbarian is an easy character to play.

About the Iron Skin: i think having much defense is crucial, that's why i wish to max out Iron Skin and Shout, Battle Orders for life & mana.

I'm already at Nightmare now (played a lot yesterday), and everything is going well, didn't put the point in Double Swing as i wanted, because i thought i could run through all acts, and start leveling in act 5, so i was level 24 when i killed Diablo the first time, killed him a second time, which gave me another level, so i reached act 5 on level 25, and finished act 5 on level 32, Baal was pretty easy using whirlwind.

Found a few nice items, some rare rings, amulet, boots, belt, headgear.
Also found 2 unique items, the chain gloves (forgot the name) and Iceblink splint mail, which seems to give me enough defense for now, it's own defense is 170, and shout and Iron Skin boost it to about 800, pretty nice for a level 32 barb i guess, life is around 500 at the moment, and mana around 60-80 which enables me to use all the warcries and whirlwind, also got a bit of mana steal.

Guess i'm still going to max out Iron Skin, perhaps Natural Resistance a bit lower so i can max out Whirlwind, so my new skill distribution should look like this:

Howl 1
Shout 20
Battle Orders 20

Polearm Mastery 20
Increased Stamina 1
Iron Skin 20
Increased Speed 1
Natural Resistance 3

Bash 1
Leap 1
Stun 1
Leap Attack 1
Concentrate 1
Whirlwind 18
Berserk 1

Of course Berserk for the ugly PI's, although i'm not sure if it's enough to kill the PI's with ease, perhaps anyone can tell me...

Thanks for all the helpful comments, and perhaps you got some more for me...

[luigjes]

Btw, the items i would like to use are these:

BotD
Enigma
Delirium

Any comments on that?

[kanonfutter]

Btw, the items i would like to use are these:

BotD
Enigma
Delirium

Any comments on that?

In single player, it is very, very unlikely that you will ever see a zod rune popping by. I have played for years, and the highest rune I ever saw drop was an Um. This includes running the countess ad nauseam. The Hellforge quest in Hell mode might net you an Ist, but as single player, it takes a long time to get there.

I would go for a Smoke, Lionheart or Stone armor for resistances, Smoke at the least will be affordable, and then as good rares as you can get on the rest. When you get around to it, you can run Andariel in hell for some nice gear. If you talk to an NPC back in the camp after killing her, she stays in quest mode and drops a lot of good stuff. Others might suggest Mephisto, but I really find the durance a nuisance. And get ATMA. It is a singleplayer utility that allows you to load items on and off your character, and trade between different characters. There is a link from diabloii.net (http://www.diabloii.net) frontpage.

Good luck

-Kanonfutter (Fellow single player)

[DontFlameMe]

For your items: BoTD in a Great Poleaxe, Enigma in an Archon Plate, and Delirium in a Bone Visage (although Arreat's would work much better). Stat distribution should look like this:

Howl 1
Shout 20
Battle Orders 20
Battle Command 1

Polearm Mastery 20
Increased Stamina 1
Iron Skin 1**
Increased Speed 1
Natural Resistance 1**

Bash 1
Leap 1
Stun 1
Leap Attack 1
Concentrate 1
Whirlwind 20
Berserk 1

** = Any of your un-used skill points go to either of these, depending on which you need/want. Also, instead of putting points here, you can add to Find Potion and Find Item, or the other un-learned warcries, which can come in quite helpful at times.

Get all your pre-requisites in first, then max Battle Orders, WW, Shout, and Mastery in that order. Once you max those, then consider the above options.

P.S.: As the person above stated, it is highly unlikely that you will find the runes to make Enigma and BoTD without using some kind of editor. Your best bet therefore falls with uniques and lower runewords. However, if you are able to find the runes and make the good runewords, more power to you :)

[Halciet]

I concur. 20 BO/Mastery/Shout/Whirlwind, 1 in nat resist, leftovers in Iron Skin. It's much more important to max whirlwind for the increased damage/ar than it is to get the slight increase in defense from Iron Skin. You can still take that very high as it is.

I would keep Nat Resist at 1, as with +skills and battle command it's already going to be hitting diminishing returns. Resists from your gear will help make up the slack as well.

-Hal

[Omikron8]

Two things

1) High defense just like high attack rating suffers extreme diminishing returns. The difference between 5k and 10k defense against hell difficulty monsters is negligible in terms of their chance to hit you.

2) Few points in combat skill of choice = crappy damage + crappy attack rating = more time for monsters to damage you and less ability for you to tank it due to your inferior leech....which is due to your crappy damage + AR :)