batuchka
04-03-2007, 13:48
Ok no idea if there is a demand for this kind of build amongst druid lovers but just wanted to share my experiences with this build :tongue: Hopefully experienced shape shifters could give invalueble tips and streamline this build and i am always keen to learn something new about LOD :cool: Here goes:
The PvM WEREBARB by batuchka
The Werebarb is a barbarian using the Beast rune word and Wolfhowl to transform himself into a bear or a wolf. This guide is written solely for the purely for Player Versus Monster (PvM) and is not intended for PvP play.
With this build the pros are:
1.You have huge life possibly hitting the 8-10k+ region!
2.You have huge defense possibly hitting 15k+! More so in bear form
3.You will, be using standard attack at speeds ranging from 6fpa to 4fpa! Barbarian swing attacks such as berserk and concentrate can get down to 9fpa at best :P
4.Style points!!
The cons are:
1.Your attack rating would be poor as a bear (biggest problem!)
2.With not enough +skills, the duration and life bonuses would be somewhat lessened
3.There *may* seem to be no way of crowd control as you cannot cast War Cry, Grim Ward, etc when in wolf/bear form.
Now that we have an idea what the pros and cons of this build are, we could shore up the weaknesses and let me share with you how to get this Bearbarian to be a really fun character to play! For some this may be novelty character build but I assure you that it is built on sound concepts of survivability, damage, chance to hit and style points: D
The problem of Attack Rating
The biggest problem as pointed out in the earlier section is attaining sufficient attack rating. This build can tank, do awesome damage but as we know if you can’t hit stuff, monsters stay alive! In the next few lines, those of you whose skins start crawling at the mention of Math, I beseech you to indulge me!
Base AR = (Dex * 5) - 35 + ClassBonus (equation 1)
The ClassBonus is:
20 for Barbarians and Paladins
15 for Assassins
5 for Amazons and Druids
-10 for Necromancers
-15 for Sorceresses
AR = (Base + AR + AR/Clvl) * (1 + AR%/100) (equation 2)
What you must remember is that although you turn into a wolf/bear, the class bonus for you is still for a barbarian, and with this let us explore ways of getting enough attack rating to hit and hit HARD any monster that we encounter in hell mode shall we?
Firstly, it may appear that a huge dexterity investment is obvious. Because of the weapon selection and deciding to have maximum block, this is conveniently true. Let us analyze equation 2 then. AR refers to +attack rating which can be had from items such as raven frost ring, angelic combo, weapons with the Fool’s prefix or charms. There are many ways of obtaining decent attack rating if you look at both components (bracketed expressions) of equation 2.
For my approach I shall focus more on the second component i.e. AR%. This is derived from your weapon mastery, enchant, uniques like baranar’s star, runewords like Fury, the Visionary prefix and auras. Note that in wolf from, feral rage offers %AR as well. After a lot of thought, I realized that damage is not a problem and having a glance at what runewords are available this patch, I will now introduce your employee of the year: The Blessed Aim mercenary! With my weapon mastery, blessed aim aura and some tweaks from ravenfrost and charms I obtained 11-12k attack rating in bear form and critters in 8 player hell games found it difficult to hit me (17k defense), with max block/dr and 10k life!
The mercenary’s blessed aim aura is maxed at slvl 18 but this could be increased via +skills items such as COH, Andy’s helm, etc. So with a slvl 35 weapon mastery and slvl 18 blessed aim aura attaining 10k+ attack rating is more than possible. You would probably hit 18k+ when in wolf form and using feral rage. How to tank and keep your mercenary alive will be explored in the next few sections.
Skills Allocation
For some of you, these are all too obvious but for the purpose of completeness let us determine which skills require investment to aid our furry one! In principle this build could be completed about the time when you hit the required level to equip the Wolfhowl D As you may guess only 2 branches are of interest here: the masteries and warcries branches of course!
Weapon Mastery
Weapon mastery is compulsory for the purposes of getting good damage, attack rating and critical strike. The higher the level you ramp this up the better! Furthermore in your pre-furry days, this together with your loyal blessed aim ally whom you had hired from act 2 normal mode shall see you through! With BO and Shout being synergies to Concentrate and Berserk respectively, attack rating is the only problem as you will not put more than a point more in any combat skills. This would also encourage the healthy habit of hoarding +all/barb skills items early in the Bearbarian life. A ‘Lore’ in a +3bo/+3 Warcry barb helm would be an awesome pre-furry item! Weapon Mastery + Feral rage = Good AR.
Battle Orders
High level BO + Lycanthropy+Wereform = HUGE life. Enough said! On another note, BO synergises Concentrate in your pre-furry days and let’s face it: what barbarian build does not feature maxed BO?
Shout
High Level Shout + Werebear = HUGE defense! This along with huge life makes the Werebarb an awesome tank to behold. Shout is also a synergy to Berserk in case you wish to go with that in your pre-furry days.
Your build is ok with just these 3 skills and any type of barb with these skills maxed can be converted to a Werebarb. If you want more insane defense then max out iron skin but another option is maxing berserk if u play solo and want to have a solution to iron maiden and physical immunes. I maxed iron skin and dump rest of points into berserk :P
Item Selection
The principle behind items selection is: + all skills, damage reduction, stats and resists/life. With that let me tell you what I chose and more importantly the rationale behind these choices!
Helm
There are many good choices here but I shall go through some of the top ones. Readily available is the unique Harlequin Crest Shako. This gives a flat +2 all skills and though the +life/lvl could not be boosted by BO, the 10%dr and +2 all stats make it a good choice!
If you decide to play as purely a bearbarb then look for a 3BO/3 Iron skin Delirium and you won’t regret it! The ctc confuse, defense and skills make it an awesome choice.
My choice for this build however is the unique Fury Visor: Wolfhowl. Look for one with +6 Lycanthropy and this would give the most hit points from any other helm. This also allows more room for fun as you can turn into both a bear and a wolf! According to your weapon great socketing options are ed/ias, Jah rune or some nice rare jewel.
Armor
Like I said, remember to look out for +all skills, damage reduce and resist. An easy option here would be Chains of Honor in a light armor such as mage plate or dusk shroud. What I used was a Dusk Shroud Enigma because in the end I put almost nothing into strength and some dex while ALL the rest goes into vitality. Remember this is PvM so 75% block is not really necessary – you can get by with 60% block with storm shield and 17k defense trust me!
Belt
This is where you want to get more damage reduce, +life or fast hit recovery. Surprisingly, the set troll belt is a good choice with +66 life and cannot be frozen! I maxed out my damage reduction and slapped on some more leech with the String of Ears demon hide sash ^^ The unique mithril coil Verdungos Hearty Coil is another awesome endgame choice but I have yet to find a perfect %dr as yet! An honorable mention would be crafted blood belts with huge life.
Shield
I have narrowed it down to 3 choices here. They are: the unique monarch, Sanctuary runeword in Hyperion shield or the unique pavise. I went with the good old storm shield!
Jewellery
As with many other melee set ups, Highlord’s Wrath amulet was what I went with. Even that +1 all skills would be of use! With high level weapon mastery and coupled with the deadly strike on this amulet, you actually hit nastier as you level up! Ring 1 would be ravenfrost, preferably a near perfect one as the +dex and +AR would all be welcomed assets! Ring 2 could be anything from high crafted life leech rings, rares, soj or my choice Bul-Kathos Wedding Band. +1 all skills and life leech is too intoxicating a mix for this build I guess! Another possibility is nature’s peace and seeing monsters RIP and using the oak sage charges to boost your life further ^^
Gloves
Well I gave it away when I mentioned the unique Vampirebone gloves. This allows you to cast lifetap on striking and you, your mercenary and party members would thank you for it! It has +strength, open wounds and life leech in built in it too! Other decent options are: Steelrends for ed/cb and Lavagouts for the ctc enchant. Crafted 10% crushing blow/stats gloves are also possible choices! With 11k AR lifetap and all the rest trigger like crazy and i can pick out the non life tapped monsters to attack and leave life tapped monsters for my mercenary to feast on: D
Boots
As with a lot of melee builds I went with Goreider war boots. War Travellers is also a good choice or treks. I just could not pass up the juicy mods on gores hehe
Weapons
Ah yes this is what some of you would be intrigued to know that made this build the big bad bully in hell! After some research into this area and testing some weapons out these are some ideal endgame options in my opinion:
1) 100-120ias Griswold's Redemption Caduceus
This weapon comes with 40ias and depending on your luck, 3-4 sockets. If you are rich and have a 4 socketed caddy, then smack in 4*ed/ias jewels and u have a weapon that ‘thwacks-thwacks’ at 4fpa with 20 OIAS which u got from highlords anyway. Wolbarbs need 120ias in this to hit 4fpa.
2) Shael Horizon’s Tornado Scourge
No do not laugh! This has ctc tornado, slows target and hits at 5fpa bear speed! Very decent choice if you ask me!
3) Grief in Phase Blade
This sword may be slower (6 fpa/bear or 7fpa/wolf) than the previous weapons but with high level weapon mastery and that +damage modifier, I immediately settled for this one! The deadly strike coupled with weapon mastery, gores and highlord’s means you are more than likely dealing double physical damage too! Being indestructible and ctc venom are nice too. This could be used at clvl 59 ^^ The ITD does not work with super uniques and act bosses but the %ed to demons does hehe
4) Kingslayer in Phase Blade
This hits 6fpa in bear mode with 35oias and the mods cb/ow/+%AR speaks for itself! A really hell viable weapon and not too steep a price. You could even self find the runes yourself.
5) Other possibilities
If you find an ethereal rare dimensional blade with Fools, 280ed+, 40ias with 2 open sockets kindly PM me ok? Or even a champion, cryptic and legend sword: P An EBOTD in warspike hits 6fpa while its bigger cousin the zerker hits at 7fpa in case you were wondering. A shael Stormlash Scourge also seems juicy despite being a tad slower (7 fpa) with static and crushing blow! I have also tested a pure bear barb with a dream barb helm (3bo/3 iron skin) + dream troll nest and if you manage to hit 4fpa attack then I hold the opinion that it is worth it. Another is using a Phoenix Monarch and go all out physical damage. With this and Concentration aura from merc and hitting a fast 4-6 fpa attack, being offensive is an understatement: P In fact the more corpses u create the faster you replenish life/mana with the redemption aura from Phoenix.
Switch
Well one slot would have to be beast. Other slot could be spirit in broad sword or HOTO flail. If you want to play as pure wolfbarb then Mangsong, dual Hotos or dual spirit broads are your options.
Charms
Annihilus small charm and a barb torch. These give huge stats, resists and the +skills really make this build shine. Look for Warcries and/or Masteries GCs with life as well. Charms are a good source to stock up on +AR or even better try to obtain max/ar/life small charms! Plain 20 life small charms REALLY boost life with this build. Basically other than skills, life and AR are to be had here: D
Mercenary equipment decision
Now many people are going to ridicule you in multiplayer games for selecting a blessed aim mercenary. His aura gives you some priceless boost to attack rating to deliver the payload but how do we ensure that he does enough damage himself to stay alive and aid you further? His blessed aim aura has a HUGE radius and we are grateful for that but I asked myself how could he help me up my damage to insane levels? The answer if you had not guessed is the Pride rune word! Pride does not give %ed on the weapon but hang on a bit: P I will share what I did with my mercenary. An ethereal Pride in cryptic axe gives him that juicy Concentration aura. To ensure more damage and defensive capabilities, I slapped on a Fort in Dusk Shroud and he never dies with his hit blinds target from Pride, chilling armor from Fort, me confusing monsters and life tapping the rest lol He does not require any life leech on him due to life tap and to put the icing on the cake, set winged helm turns him to a decent boss killer too ^^ You could also equip a Delirium on him should u decide to have some crowd control when in furmode.
General Gameplay
I am the type of person who does not bother a lot with gaining a slight advantage and having items in stash for prebuff so whatever I mentioned in the items section are basically it : P You could switch out beast and slap on dual echoing weapons and seraph’s hymn/3 warcries amulet to BO/Shout out before going bear mode but meh!
This Werebarb is played just like any swing attack based barbarian except you can’t cast any spells/war cries in fur mode. Special things to note are OB Knights and Physical Immunes (PIs) If you really want to kill these buggers then shift out and zerk away. Even with one point in zerk, your AR (Blessed Aim) and damage (+skills/Shout/Concentration) would send PIs/OB Knights to the dark depths of hell hehe For quick travel you may want to remain in human form and teleport to a place/boss and simply shift for the kill.
Credits and resources Section
Zero Unit for inspiring me to think hard about how to make bear mode work with a barbarian. His wolfbarb and palabear guides are a must read for those of you meaning to make non cookie cutter builds that are really fun to play and never fail to leave people gawking lol. His are more PvP oriented though.
Dracoy and Co as this is another guide that I had quoted their work! The formulas for blocking, fcr, etc are all in their work. A link to their work:
http://strategy.diabloii.net/news.php?id=551
Weapon speed calculator which applies to non druids as well:
http://home.comcast.net/~thedragoon/wereformadvanced.html (http://home.comcast.net/%7Ethedragoon/wereformadvanced.html)
Attack Rating calculator:
http://dpw.bounceme.net/ar_calc.html
Last but not least you dear reader for reading this guide! Cheers: D
Appendix
Worked example to manually calculate attack rating:
Clvl 76
Dex to achieve 75% block with Stormshield = 174
Equation 1 : Base AR = (174 * 5) - 35 + 20 = 855
Equation 2: AR = (Base + AR + AR/Clvl) * (1 + AR%/100)
Slvl 35 weapon mastery : 300%AR
Slvl 18 Blessed Aim aura : 330%AR
Assume +AR from ravenfrost, charms, etc = 500
Final AR @ clvl 76 with blessed aim aura active:
= (855+500+500/76) * (1+ [300+330]/100)
=1361*7.3
=9.9k (with standard attack with bear barb for example)
The PvM WEREBARB by batuchka
The Werebarb is a barbarian using the Beast rune word and Wolfhowl to transform himself into a bear or a wolf. This guide is written solely for the purely for Player Versus Monster (PvM) and is not intended for PvP play.
With this build the pros are:
1.You have huge life possibly hitting the 8-10k+ region!
2.You have huge defense possibly hitting 15k+! More so in bear form
3.You will, be using standard attack at speeds ranging from 6fpa to 4fpa! Barbarian swing attacks such as berserk and concentrate can get down to 9fpa at best :P
4.Style points!!
The cons are:
1.Your attack rating would be poor as a bear (biggest problem!)
2.With not enough +skills, the duration and life bonuses would be somewhat lessened
3.There *may* seem to be no way of crowd control as you cannot cast War Cry, Grim Ward, etc when in wolf/bear form.
Now that we have an idea what the pros and cons of this build are, we could shore up the weaknesses and let me share with you how to get this Bearbarian to be a really fun character to play! For some this may be novelty character build but I assure you that it is built on sound concepts of survivability, damage, chance to hit and style points: D
The problem of Attack Rating
The biggest problem as pointed out in the earlier section is attaining sufficient attack rating. This build can tank, do awesome damage but as we know if you can’t hit stuff, monsters stay alive! In the next few lines, those of you whose skins start crawling at the mention of Math, I beseech you to indulge me!
Base AR = (Dex * 5) - 35 + ClassBonus (equation 1)
The ClassBonus is:
20 for Barbarians and Paladins
15 for Assassins
5 for Amazons and Druids
-10 for Necromancers
-15 for Sorceresses
AR = (Base + AR + AR/Clvl) * (1 + AR%/100) (equation 2)
What you must remember is that although you turn into a wolf/bear, the class bonus for you is still for a barbarian, and with this let us explore ways of getting enough attack rating to hit and hit HARD any monster that we encounter in hell mode shall we?
Firstly, it may appear that a huge dexterity investment is obvious. Because of the weapon selection and deciding to have maximum block, this is conveniently true. Let us analyze equation 2 then. AR refers to +attack rating which can be had from items such as raven frost ring, angelic combo, weapons with the Fool’s prefix or charms. There are many ways of obtaining decent attack rating if you look at both components (bracketed expressions) of equation 2.
For my approach I shall focus more on the second component i.e. AR%. This is derived from your weapon mastery, enchant, uniques like baranar’s star, runewords like Fury, the Visionary prefix and auras. Note that in wolf from, feral rage offers %AR as well. After a lot of thought, I realized that damage is not a problem and having a glance at what runewords are available this patch, I will now introduce your employee of the year: The Blessed Aim mercenary! With my weapon mastery, blessed aim aura and some tweaks from ravenfrost and charms I obtained 11-12k attack rating in bear form and critters in 8 player hell games found it difficult to hit me (17k defense), with max block/dr and 10k life!
The mercenary’s blessed aim aura is maxed at slvl 18 but this could be increased via +skills items such as COH, Andy’s helm, etc. So with a slvl 35 weapon mastery and slvl 18 blessed aim aura attaining 10k+ attack rating is more than possible. You would probably hit 18k+ when in wolf form and using feral rage. How to tank and keep your mercenary alive will be explored in the next few sections.
Skills Allocation
For some of you, these are all too obvious but for the purpose of completeness let us determine which skills require investment to aid our furry one! In principle this build could be completed about the time when you hit the required level to equip the Wolfhowl D As you may guess only 2 branches are of interest here: the masteries and warcries branches of course!
Weapon Mastery
Weapon mastery is compulsory for the purposes of getting good damage, attack rating and critical strike. The higher the level you ramp this up the better! Furthermore in your pre-furry days, this together with your loyal blessed aim ally whom you had hired from act 2 normal mode shall see you through! With BO and Shout being synergies to Concentrate and Berserk respectively, attack rating is the only problem as you will not put more than a point more in any combat skills. This would also encourage the healthy habit of hoarding +all/barb skills items early in the Bearbarian life. A ‘Lore’ in a +3bo/+3 Warcry barb helm would be an awesome pre-furry item! Weapon Mastery + Feral rage = Good AR.
Battle Orders
High level BO + Lycanthropy+Wereform = HUGE life. Enough said! On another note, BO synergises Concentrate in your pre-furry days and let’s face it: what barbarian build does not feature maxed BO?
Shout
High Level Shout + Werebear = HUGE defense! This along with huge life makes the Werebarb an awesome tank to behold. Shout is also a synergy to Berserk in case you wish to go with that in your pre-furry days.
Your build is ok with just these 3 skills and any type of barb with these skills maxed can be converted to a Werebarb. If you want more insane defense then max out iron skin but another option is maxing berserk if u play solo and want to have a solution to iron maiden and physical immunes. I maxed iron skin and dump rest of points into berserk :P
Item Selection
The principle behind items selection is: + all skills, damage reduction, stats and resists/life. With that let me tell you what I chose and more importantly the rationale behind these choices!
Helm
There are many good choices here but I shall go through some of the top ones. Readily available is the unique Harlequin Crest Shako. This gives a flat +2 all skills and though the +life/lvl could not be boosted by BO, the 10%dr and +2 all stats make it a good choice!
If you decide to play as purely a bearbarb then look for a 3BO/3 Iron skin Delirium and you won’t regret it! The ctc confuse, defense and skills make it an awesome choice.
My choice for this build however is the unique Fury Visor: Wolfhowl. Look for one with +6 Lycanthropy and this would give the most hit points from any other helm. This also allows more room for fun as you can turn into both a bear and a wolf! According to your weapon great socketing options are ed/ias, Jah rune or some nice rare jewel.
Armor
Like I said, remember to look out for +all skills, damage reduce and resist. An easy option here would be Chains of Honor in a light armor such as mage plate or dusk shroud. What I used was a Dusk Shroud Enigma because in the end I put almost nothing into strength and some dex while ALL the rest goes into vitality. Remember this is PvM so 75% block is not really necessary – you can get by with 60% block with storm shield and 17k defense trust me!
Belt
This is where you want to get more damage reduce, +life or fast hit recovery. Surprisingly, the set troll belt is a good choice with +66 life and cannot be frozen! I maxed out my damage reduction and slapped on some more leech with the String of Ears demon hide sash ^^ The unique mithril coil Verdungos Hearty Coil is another awesome endgame choice but I have yet to find a perfect %dr as yet! An honorable mention would be crafted blood belts with huge life.
Shield
I have narrowed it down to 3 choices here. They are: the unique monarch, Sanctuary runeword in Hyperion shield or the unique pavise. I went with the good old storm shield!
Jewellery
As with many other melee set ups, Highlord’s Wrath amulet was what I went with. Even that +1 all skills would be of use! With high level weapon mastery and coupled with the deadly strike on this amulet, you actually hit nastier as you level up! Ring 1 would be ravenfrost, preferably a near perfect one as the +dex and +AR would all be welcomed assets! Ring 2 could be anything from high crafted life leech rings, rares, soj or my choice Bul-Kathos Wedding Band. +1 all skills and life leech is too intoxicating a mix for this build I guess! Another possibility is nature’s peace and seeing monsters RIP and using the oak sage charges to boost your life further ^^
Gloves
Well I gave it away when I mentioned the unique Vampirebone gloves. This allows you to cast lifetap on striking and you, your mercenary and party members would thank you for it! It has +strength, open wounds and life leech in built in it too! Other decent options are: Steelrends for ed/cb and Lavagouts for the ctc enchant. Crafted 10% crushing blow/stats gloves are also possible choices! With 11k AR lifetap and all the rest trigger like crazy and i can pick out the non life tapped monsters to attack and leave life tapped monsters for my mercenary to feast on: D
Boots
As with a lot of melee builds I went with Goreider war boots. War Travellers is also a good choice or treks. I just could not pass up the juicy mods on gores hehe
Weapons
Ah yes this is what some of you would be intrigued to know that made this build the big bad bully in hell! After some research into this area and testing some weapons out these are some ideal endgame options in my opinion:
1) 100-120ias Griswold's Redemption Caduceus
This weapon comes with 40ias and depending on your luck, 3-4 sockets. If you are rich and have a 4 socketed caddy, then smack in 4*ed/ias jewels and u have a weapon that ‘thwacks-thwacks’ at 4fpa with 20 OIAS which u got from highlords anyway. Wolbarbs need 120ias in this to hit 4fpa.
2) Shael Horizon’s Tornado Scourge
No do not laugh! This has ctc tornado, slows target and hits at 5fpa bear speed! Very decent choice if you ask me!
3) Grief in Phase Blade
This sword may be slower (6 fpa/bear or 7fpa/wolf) than the previous weapons but with high level weapon mastery and that +damage modifier, I immediately settled for this one! The deadly strike coupled with weapon mastery, gores and highlord’s means you are more than likely dealing double physical damage too! Being indestructible and ctc venom are nice too. This could be used at clvl 59 ^^ The ITD does not work with super uniques and act bosses but the %ed to demons does hehe
4) Kingslayer in Phase Blade
This hits 6fpa in bear mode with 35oias and the mods cb/ow/+%AR speaks for itself! A really hell viable weapon and not too steep a price. You could even self find the runes yourself.
5) Other possibilities
If you find an ethereal rare dimensional blade with Fools, 280ed+, 40ias with 2 open sockets kindly PM me ok? Or even a champion, cryptic and legend sword: P An EBOTD in warspike hits 6fpa while its bigger cousin the zerker hits at 7fpa in case you were wondering. A shael Stormlash Scourge also seems juicy despite being a tad slower (7 fpa) with static and crushing blow! I have also tested a pure bear barb with a dream barb helm (3bo/3 iron skin) + dream troll nest and if you manage to hit 4fpa attack then I hold the opinion that it is worth it. Another is using a Phoenix Monarch and go all out physical damage. With this and Concentration aura from merc and hitting a fast 4-6 fpa attack, being offensive is an understatement: P In fact the more corpses u create the faster you replenish life/mana with the redemption aura from Phoenix.
Switch
Well one slot would have to be beast. Other slot could be spirit in broad sword or HOTO flail. If you want to play as pure wolfbarb then Mangsong, dual Hotos or dual spirit broads are your options.
Charms
Annihilus small charm and a barb torch. These give huge stats, resists and the +skills really make this build shine. Look for Warcries and/or Masteries GCs with life as well. Charms are a good source to stock up on +AR or even better try to obtain max/ar/life small charms! Plain 20 life small charms REALLY boost life with this build. Basically other than skills, life and AR are to be had here: D
Mercenary equipment decision
Now many people are going to ridicule you in multiplayer games for selecting a blessed aim mercenary. His aura gives you some priceless boost to attack rating to deliver the payload but how do we ensure that he does enough damage himself to stay alive and aid you further? His blessed aim aura has a HUGE radius and we are grateful for that but I asked myself how could he help me up my damage to insane levels? The answer if you had not guessed is the Pride rune word! Pride does not give %ed on the weapon but hang on a bit: P I will share what I did with my mercenary. An ethereal Pride in cryptic axe gives him that juicy Concentration aura. To ensure more damage and defensive capabilities, I slapped on a Fort in Dusk Shroud and he never dies with his hit blinds target from Pride, chilling armor from Fort, me confusing monsters and life tapping the rest lol He does not require any life leech on him due to life tap and to put the icing on the cake, set winged helm turns him to a decent boss killer too ^^ You could also equip a Delirium on him should u decide to have some crowd control when in furmode.
General Gameplay
I am the type of person who does not bother a lot with gaining a slight advantage and having items in stash for prebuff so whatever I mentioned in the items section are basically it : P You could switch out beast and slap on dual echoing weapons and seraph’s hymn/3 warcries amulet to BO/Shout out before going bear mode but meh!
This Werebarb is played just like any swing attack based barbarian except you can’t cast any spells/war cries in fur mode. Special things to note are OB Knights and Physical Immunes (PIs) If you really want to kill these buggers then shift out and zerk away. Even with one point in zerk, your AR (Blessed Aim) and damage (+skills/Shout/Concentration) would send PIs/OB Knights to the dark depths of hell hehe For quick travel you may want to remain in human form and teleport to a place/boss and simply shift for the kill.
Credits and resources Section
Zero Unit for inspiring me to think hard about how to make bear mode work with a barbarian. His wolfbarb and palabear guides are a must read for those of you meaning to make non cookie cutter builds that are really fun to play and never fail to leave people gawking lol. His are more PvP oriented though.
Dracoy and Co as this is another guide that I had quoted their work! The formulas for blocking, fcr, etc are all in their work. A link to their work:
http://strategy.diabloii.net/news.php?id=551
Weapon speed calculator which applies to non druids as well:
http://home.comcast.net/~thedragoon/wereformadvanced.html (http://home.comcast.net/%7Ethedragoon/wereformadvanced.html)
Attack Rating calculator:
http://dpw.bounceme.net/ar_calc.html
Last but not least you dear reader for reading this guide! Cheers: D
Appendix
Worked example to manually calculate attack rating:
Clvl 76
Dex to achieve 75% block with Stormshield = 174
Equation 1 : Base AR = (174 * 5) - 35 + 20 = 855
Equation 2: AR = (Base + AR + AR/Clvl) * (1 + AR%/100)
Slvl 35 weapon mastery : 300%AR
Slvl 18 Blessed Aim aura : 330%AR
Assume +AR from ravenfrost, charms, etc = 500
Final AR @ clvl 76 with blessed aim aura active:
= (855+500+500/76) * (1+ [300+330]/100)
=1361*7.3
=9.9k (with standard attack with bear barb for example)