In Need of Tank-baba guide

[esveritas]

Hi there,

I was wondering if anyone knew a nice pvm tank guide for i.e. cs runs?
It'd probably be stating the obvious if I said it should be a baba.

So could anyone help me out here at both the skill part as the equip part?
I should also be able to kill some mobs, not specifically great mobs, but at least be worth playing with^.^

Greetz,

[És] Veritas

[WarlockCC]

I'm guessing lots of life, lots of res and for skills you might want to include high level leap, since that pushes monsters away from you and into hit recovery.
I guess if I wanted to make such a barb I would use Iratha's(yes, I'm still a fanboy), hawkmail, hotspurs, 3D shield(preferably tower type), maybe Jade Tan Do if you get annoyed with poison damage, otherwise, perhaps a naga or a gothic sword for a damage weapon.
Max WW, max mastery, max BO, level 10 or so natural res skill, maybe a skillpoint in faster run walk skill and then start upping your leap(not leap attack).
Might even be better to up your leap before maxing your mastery.
Statswise I'd get exactly enough str for the gear and dump the rest into vit.
Since you'll be using naga or gothic sword, you won't need any dex (other then the 25 dex Iratha's gives).
The above will hardly give you AR, so you might want to keep a Angelic armor on switch in case you need to hit and kill things. Most of the time you'll be leaping anyway.
In CS's, try to find out what the party wants, do they want the monsters pushed towards them or away from them.
Most sorcs/necs prefer away from them, but within their attack range. Hammerdins tend to prefer you push the monsters towards them, since that will grind the stun-locked monsters up in their hammers.

[fledgeling]

I dont understand the idea of a tank barb in a CS run. Barbs die in CS due to iron maiden.
You can either build a typical travi/MF barb and just re-equip him to leech in CS (basically shield with block/res and stacked res) or make a warcry barb, who will be able to BO the team and stun the opponents (dont expect him to deal any real damage).

[phool]

In LoD you can have a char go afk in a room full of pretty much any mobs for half an hour and still be at full health when you come back, thanks to being able to stack pdr mdr rep res and sorb. This is somewhat useful when self leveling but mostly just a novelty at the extreme, though you can still kill fast in LoD with such a setup. In classic though you can't really do this at all, just build a char with a bit more health or def or res or leech at the sacrifice of damage, fcr or whatever.

Conc barb is probably the tankiest thing in classic but you still have to drink pots, attack to leech or use skills like warcry or leap to keep stuff off you. A pala with something like maxed holy shield, defiance, prayer, 1 pt insight and the rest in resist fire and lightning (these have a hidden totally passive +.5 max res per level) would be able to tank passively if properly equipped and a high enough level. Not against much though, replenish life is pretty lame and there aren't any great sources of it. The final tank option would be an ES sorc but I don't think 85% is really high enough for effective immunity.

[goomba]

a passive healer is the only thing I can think of that can tank a lot of damage in the cs without doing a lot of active killing. make no mistake they can also solo two of the seals at high enough levels.

I can't think of any real reason why one would simply want to make a cs tank. if just reaching a high level on the ladder is the goal, or getting to a cLvl high enough to get decent gambles is the goal, any of the standard cs-viable builds is sufficient.

note: if you really aren't interested in killing, make a sorc that's got max teleport, max warmth, max telekinesis, max es, and what ever's left over for your favorite frozen armor.

seek to equip yourself with high rez items with tons of rep if possible (note this stuff gets expensive cause it's also very useful pvp/svs)

sure you won't kill anything, but you'll have very little trouble not only flipping seals, but also standing in the middle of the hoards while the more active characters do the killing.

*shrug*

[fledgeling]

if you want to make a really weird character, make a sorc with 80 points into the shields+mastery and perhaps energy shield

I finished leveling mine at 60 due to boredom and lack of good cs games


the best 'tank' for cs is a hammerdin : )

[struikje]

a passive healer is the only thing I can think of that can tank a lot of damage in the cs without doing a lot of active killing. make no mistake they can also solo two of the seals at high enough levels.

I can't think of any real reason why one would simply want to make a cs tank. if just reaching a high level on the ladder is the goal, or getting to a cLvl high enough to get decent gambles is the goal, any of the standard cs-viable builds is sufficient.

note: if you really aren't interested in killing, make a sorc that's got max teleport, max warmth, max telekinesis, max es, and what ever's left over for your favorite frozen armor.

seek to equip yourself with high rez items with tons of rep if possible (note this stuff gets expensive cause it's also very useful pvp/svs)

sure you won't kill anything, but you'll have very little trouble not only flipping seals, but also standing in the middle of the hoards while the more active characters do the killing.

*shrug*

I don't know how es differs in lod from classic, but stacking up on resists isn't the best idea, since for all dmg taken to mana, resists are automatically set to 0.
Another thing is the manaburn that unique monsters have, and there are quit a few unique groups in cs, so chances are rather big you'll have at least one manaburner in one cs .

Struikje

[goomba]

I don't know how es differs in lod from classic, but stacking up on resists isn't the best idea, since for all dmg taken to mana, resists are automatically set to 0.
Another thing is the manaburn that unique monsters have, and there are quit a few unique groups in cs, so chances are rather big you'll have at least one manaburner in one cs .

Struikje

true about the mana burn. that being said, that "repper" I made that had the armor we shant speak of that I traded for, maxed warmth, and a high level energy shield (7 pskulls in total worth of rep + dtm gear) could teleport at will through the cs.

I confess I don't know the full details/calcs on how es is supposed to work - especially in conjunction with dtm, and/or resists - and confess to not having done any truly scientific/empirical testing. (nor much reading about same - it's mostly a build/type that doesn't interest me a lot)

I can state that when I stood behind the "tanking" hammerdin on infector (and thus really didn't get physically struck) that the fire damage I sustained whilst wearing hotspurs and the 38 priz shield was laugh-able,.

however, if I happened to be hit with the lower resist curse, it seemed that fire damage was a bit more worriesome.

*shrug* it was purely an experiment that I did when I came across some a5 gear for silly cheap, and still had my laptop fired up with the extra d2 cd key, and had the chanters at my disposal.

much like my couple day foray into LOD it satisified my curiousity. however, if someone is interested in something unusual, they could explore that route, but do so a bit more methodically than I ever would. :thumbsup:

[fledgeling]

you discussed the armor we should never speak of so many times, that you ought to remake the sorc and posts the results anyway : )

[goomba]

you discussed the armor we should never speak of so many times, that you ought to remake the sorc and posts the results anyway : )

If I still had access to that account, I would actually think about it.

It was neat having 7 pskulls worth of rep on top of maxed warmth...

[Fearlessone]

I dont understand the idea of a tank barb in a CS run. Barbs die in CS due to iron maiden.
You can either build a typical travi/MF barb and just re-equip him to leech in CS (basically shield with block/res and stacked res) or make a warcry barb, who will be able to BO the team and stun the opponents (dont expect him to deal any real damage).

Actually, I don't understand most of you guys' responses to this simple poster. First off, he doesn't and shouldn't have to make leap a major part of his plan. He said tank barb, not stomp barb, and said he has hopes to be able to kill mobs. And I'm not sure where he said he was limited to a naga or gothic sword. :banghead: Only dumb barbs die in the CS due to iron maiden. Dumb for joining runs that are going too fast and arent bothering to kill most of the oblivions and dumb for not using the powerful warcry skill. And once you have indeed warcried and killed the oblivions (its an art, its not ez, and thank god it takes effort to learn how to do this instead of just pressing an 8k hammers button and killing all in 3 seconds) then you can ww away at the mobs, doing real damage. And warcry can kill off mobs all by itself(a pure warcry barb can), although to approach the killing power of a hammerdin, you will need an amping or decrep necro to help you.

The desync/lag problem with Iron Maiden: you cannot be Iron Maidened if you have successfully warcried an oblivion. If it's a mage boss, you only have a 20% chance of warcrying him and he will decrep you if you are at close range. If you are not decrep'd then you aren't next to him. Try swating once at him. I use berserk on the left icon and ww and shouts on the right one. Mages will always only cast decrep when you are next to them. So, what you see on the screen postionally is not always correct. Sometimes what is over your head is wrong. Sometimes the warcry might have worn off a split second before, usually then you will be decrep'd.

Tank barb: resists should be at least 55% each for f/l/c. You can go one or 2 handed, with or without shield, just use a good wad in natres. Warcry is a MUST for an active fighter(lvl 10 is good), unless you dont care about dying and plan on finishing around lvl 83. Choosing the type of cs run you join is important. YOU can determine how fast the run will go by simplying putting that in the name of the run and having a few friends there with you to back you up. In the old days, pre Oct.28th 2003, you could easily do cs runs with 30% or so life leech, now you must avoid IM. If you do, you can get your barb up to maybe lvl 92, and still be a fighter. Ranged elemental damage is very bad in the cs, you just have to take out the oblivions using warcry, berserk and finally ww when you are sure you won't get IM'd. Infector mob: warcry and battlecry them, and then immediately begin ww'ing, because you will still be taking major damage from the Infector. LIfe leech is important here. You will kill them fairly easily unless he is conviction aura'd, then you have a problem. Don't expect any dins around to give salvation aura like they used to in the good old days. Vizier: ez, just kill off all mages first. De Seis: warcry works unless you get lagged. Warcry-battlecry his mob, then run up to De Seis and ww him once. Repeat the warcry, as his mob is a pissed off and angry one. Hopefully, orbs and other attackers will distract most of his mob. Never ww de Seis in the direction of his mob, you don't want ur ww to end in the middle of a fanatic mob.

[phool]

This reminds me of GW, where tank has massively different connotations; to some players it simply means the warrior class, to most pvp players it means noob warrior trying to pvp with just about the highest dpsing class, using defensive pvm skills.

For me in Diablo tank means someone who just sits there unassisted while all the hordes of hell try and take a bite out of them... and fail. cow video (http://www.ramanon.com/themightygoat/CowCarnage.wmv) from http://forums.diabloii.net/showthread.php?t=550206

The paladin build, probably the most effective entirely passive variation, is called an abbot, but like I said this can't work in classic.