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View Full Version : So I soloed CS with Barb (tips)


Akse
18-07-2008, 22:32
Hey everyone.

Introduction
As you might know soloing Chaos Sanctury with Whrilwind barb has been pain in the butt after 1.10. One morning I woke up and logged in bnet and was looking at my Hardcore barb hanging in the chat room with a Duke name there. As I had been whirling over and over again in City ofDamned and River of Flame, I tought: "I think it's time to make this one a King". With all my characters I have always waited long untill getting the last title. I wanted my characters being worth of the title. So at level 84 I cleared River, there wasn't many people online as usual in Classic HC. So there was one game up with 1 player in there, I went there and after River I gathered some courage to go to the Chaos Sanctuary.

Some acronyms
CS = Chaos Sanctuary
IM = Iron Maiden
WW = Whirlwind
HC = Hardcore

Basic tactics
I didn't yet know what my tactic would be, but it was clear after a few monsters. I had to pull the Doom Knights, Venom Lords and Storm Casters away from the Oblivion Knights. As many know Oblivion Knights tend to stay behind and cast curses/bolts/bonespirits.

Make sure you find some of those walls that CS has plenty also make sure the Oblivion Knights stay behind the corners when you pull the other monsters behind the wall. If you are HC make sure you have enough distance to the Oblivion's since sometimes they might cast over a wall or lava.

After a few pulls you get a hang on this. In HC you have to be very careful in every move you make. I made very short WW's so if somehow some Oblivion Knight casted IM my WW would probably be over when it lands. There was no one to mule with so I just went on with my Martel. So when the non caster monsters are dead you have 1 thing to do. To kill the IM casting Oblivion Knight. This is slightly tricky, but there is a nice trick. The Oblivion Knights have a habit to cast Decrepify when you go to their melee so thats where you want to be! Go next to them, wait for Decrepify and right after that do a couple of short whirlwinds. In 2 player game this was easy since they died quite fast, I don't know if I would dare to do CS in 8 player game since that would increase the risks because you would have to do a lot more whirlwinds. So the Oblivion Knight and his helpers are dead, the easy part is done.

The hard stuff
Whats the hard part? When you have 2 or more Oblivion Knights together, this is the part where making a whirlwind is really dangerous. Even if you get decrepify from 1 Oblivion Knight the others might cast IM on you. I actually had this happen 1 time and it was a near death. It was a short whirlwind that took about 2k hp of me(500 left). So the first of these double/triple packs I made with some risk, but I found out a new way. When you get deeper into CS there are a lot of these _|_ shaped corners. You can actually pull 1 of the Oblivion Knights closer to you and further from the other Oblivion Knightss when going behind those corners out of line of sight. Doing it like this was so much easier. One other trick is to use the good old Leap Attack, but since it doesn't count as ranged attack anymore, it might actually deal massive damage if you get IM(I died with one 29 barb like this when I had concentration from pala), I wanted to test how much damage I take when I hit with IM and I did 1 bash it returned about 1500 damage :( ouch. Also when you leap with all the other monsters around there it will get chaotic and the Leap doesn't always hit. So after you leap many times there and get hit by monsters and bolts and what not it might take even longer than with the pulling tactic.

Berserk is another option but I will talk about this later since I didn't have Berserk when I did this.

Another hard thing is the boss Oblivion Knights. When they have stone skin or extra fast they are quite hazard since you need more whirwinds to either kill them or hit them. Extra fast might be able to run away from you and apply IM.

Seal Bosses and Berserk
The seal bosses, only thing to worry about is to have the area cleared properly. But some of their abilities can be lethal even when you can Whirlwind without fear of IM. I had very easy ones this time. Something to fear of are of course curse, might combo on infector. If you see Lightning Enchanted, watch carefully if he has any other Enchanted. I've been very lucky to get 85 with my barb, I think there are more than dozen times that I've been below 300 hp because of these awful triple ench combos. So make sure you clear the minions out of there first then make a bit longer ww on the boss and drink potions after whirlwind.. you want to be full hp especially when it will die since the explosion will again increase the damage. You can also predict where the lightning bolts go. When you WW him at the first 2 times watch where the bolts go and if the monster like Vizier who likes to stay in 1 place is in the same place try to WW from a direction that the bolts didn't seem to go.

Berserk. When I got level up yesterday I took it immidiately. There have been so many bosses that I haven't been able to kill so I decided to finally take this skill. I generally skipped it in 1.09 since I think there wasn't as much immunes back then. Well I had this funny thing in the game I was in. I had spent about 20-30 minutes to get to Grand Vizier and I said to the Necro in the game. "Omg if some of the bosses are Physical Immune now and I've already spent so much time" aand guess what Infector was immune. So I tought this is it? I went to chat to ask if anyone was awake.. no everyone just idled there. I didn't know what to do but luckily I had friends account and there was a 72 level paladin so I was able to go and finish infector off. Next time I won't have problems.

Berserk is magic damage and it can also be nice against the Oblivion Knights. Thers only 1 but. They cast that decrepify that slows you down. They also like to run away from you after they have casted it. I havent tested it yet but I have a 30%ias BH that could be ok even if decrepified. BH+ resist shield sould be pretty nice combo in CS. You get resists, block and are immune to IM when you Berserk. Other test worthy skill would be Taunt. Arreat Summit didn't say anything about it not to work against Oblivion Knights, so with taunt you could pull 1 of them away from others.

Lord De Seis
This is generally easy, but the thing is that he is a boss and he has minions. Same thing is with the other Oblivion Knight bosses around in CS. When there is a boss Oblivion Knight the minions like to stay close to him. So I had some trouble pulling them but then I got a few of the minions down and decided to go on de seis with the same *wait for decrepify* tactic.. and I got him down. Finally.

Diablo
This is just too easy compared to the other things. Just ww untill he dies.. drink HP and mana potions sometimes to keep up mana and life since you can't leech him anymore.

In short
*As much resists as you can get - when you run around there luring monsters the Oblivion Knights can punch some great damage if you have low resists.
*1h + shield is safer than 2h but won't save you if you don't play wise
*Berserk Is nice to have. Immune to IM. Try to get fast weapon for this. It's also needed for Physical Immune seal bosses.
*Lure the non caster monsters away from the casters, kill them then go to melee range of the Oblivion Knights(casters) and kill them quickly.
*Be very careful when there are more than 1 Oblivion Knight. Other one might cast IM on you.
*Watch out the boss abilities. Triple Ench and such are dangerous.
*Kill seal bosses, kill diablo, gather loot. :)

I have to say that I had very easy CS. One of the most easiest I have seen, no hard bosses on the way or anything. So I was lucky.

And btw Diablo dropped me +2 ama amu.. and this leads to why I wrote this "guide"

I posted this to the TDR thread earlier and I was asked if I could make a thread about doing CS with barb.

Just soloed hell cs for the quest with my hc baba.. damn it was intense!
He dropped
+2 ama
11 str
34 light
20 fire res
xtra gold
13% mf
I guess it could be ok for javazons..

I'm quite sure in the next time with berserk and Bh+ Shield I can do this a lot faster. Altho I don't know yet if there will be a next time, since it still is very dangerous :)
If anyone have any more tips please share :)
I have a few softcore barbs that I could use to learn some tricks in there since I rather not train any special stunts in HC.

Anyways thanks to the X for kindly asking to write this. It was quite fun to share my adventure which was a damn exciting one.

I guess that was all I wanted to share thanks for reading.

barty
19-07-2008, 00:52
nice job.
ive found that using war cry can be effective to help a barb clear cs. i used to do it in hc. more frequently on sc, when no pubby games were up. running sc cs with a barb is fun :), people are like what the heck, at elast the new ones.
nice find on the ammy, and i know how u feel to clear cs with a barb, but u did it without warcry so props to you bro, lol. thats pretty hard.
look for my guide im working on, barts swiss army barb. capable of dueling/mfing/bo/rushing/ and clearing cs. partly inspired by your story. makes me wanna relive some of mine. gg, ty, and congrats.
patent pending on name:
[B]SAB/swiss army barb

Arkansaw
19-07-2008, 04:18
Nice job! This thread deserves a bookmark
Maybe it's time to make a non-utility barb for once :)

Akse
19-07-2008, 07:13
barty: hehe yea If one would like to make a real CS barb it would need to have wide variety of skills :) I just made the original ww dude, I didn't even think I would go further than Flayer and 80 level but seems like I'm going :)
Have to check that barb guide.

HegemonKhan
19-07-2008, 09:14
i've learned a bit of the programming ai behavior of oblivion lords (i call them mages, as opposed to the oblivion knights? the skel warriors).

i have NOT tested multiple mages together. but as for my memory, i never remembered them casting IM on me as i encountered them as long as u kill them with one attack.

anyways, heres my trick (understanding) of how to cs with a barb (or phys damage dealing char):

when u do a phys attack the mages are programmed to cast IM on you as we all know unfortunately all too well. go to ww a mob of monsters, bam!, IM'ed and your dead. so here's the trick:

ATTACK (kill) the mages FIRST. this DOES require u to kill the mages in a single attack (which ww should always do if u made your ww barb right and got a good weapon. if u can't kill in 1 attack..the longer u spend striking/attacking the more time u are giving the mages to cast IM on u). but how does this work? when u attack a mage with a phys attack it is programmed to cast IM..so how does this work? the problem for the mages...its too late. they are dead before they can cast IM and so therefore can't cast IM. its not easy going for the mages first and dodging all the other monsters if u got weak resists and low life and low def. but if u can, than cs is easy. take out ("sniper") all the mages with "ww" (or whatever phys attack u use) first. than clean up all the other monsters once u wiped out all the mages.
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methods (and the other methods) for cs'ing with a barb (and/or some other characters):

1. go after the source of the IM which is the mage

1A. kill the mage, so it can't cast IM
1B. stun the mage (warcry or stun..if anyone ever used it..), so it can't cast IM
1C. don't use a phys weapon attack (magical like berserk skill or do elem damage with no or tiny phys damage that can't harm u much)
1D. kill with a phys spell attack (warcry). IM only returns damage from a phys weapon damage attack, not from spell damage attacks
1E. get it into stun lock (knockback like from leap/smite skills or weapon/gear)
1F. if possible, blind the mage from skills (dim vision, necromancer) or weapon/gear
1G. if possible, have the mage engage other monsters or be the target of other monsters from skills confuse/attract (necro) or conversion (paladin)

2. separate the mage (IM) from u and your targets

2A. lead the monsters or the mage away from each other. get out of IM's cast range.
2B. knockback the mage out of range of being able to cast IM on you with leap (barbarian) or sanctuary (paladin)

Arkansaw
19-07-2008, 19:15
Interesting, but Dim Vision does not work on Oblivion Knights. I played the summoner long ehough to note that ;)

EagleEntek
20-07-2008, 17:09
15 weap mastery
15 ww
15 bo
5 nat. res
7 leap
1 beserk
7 warcry
1 taunt
:-:

ww used on everything in CS - tactic - use taunt on all the monsters to attract them away from the mages. ww the monsters - OR - run through them to attack the mage directly. For multiple mages, attract monsters away and kill seperatley, then return and leap or warcry the mages to temp. stun them, and ww the closest one. Repeat for the others.

The barb has all the right tools to attack the CS solo, and with bo's, stun crys, leap (knockback + stun), taunt (attract minions away from boss), grimward (prevent monster entering safe zone) you should find it no problems.

No one said you have to MAX every skill...

HegemonKhan
20-07-2008, 22:39
forgot those skills, haha!

taunt and grimward....how could i forget taunt!!!

Slik
21-07-2008, 00:13
Against Oblivion Knights Cleglaw's are quite useful.

Another way of taking care of them first would be to equip some items with low dmg, IT and OW. Then watch them bleed to death (Knights have low hp) and finish off the rest with good old WW.

TraderScope
21-07-2008, 08:15
when u do a phys attack the mages are programmed to cast IM on you as we all know unfortunately all too well. go to ww a mob of monsters, bam!, IM'ed and your dead. so here's the trick:



The mages cast IM frequently even if you don't attack them at all, though :/

HegemonKhan
21-07-2008, 12:33
i haven't seen this. mages as far as i've seen only IM u when do a phys attack. maybe they do. but i always kill them imediately with a "ww" (if im a barb) and don't even give them a chance. see a mage.."ww" it..kill it! no IM to worry about:D

maybe some one else did a phys attack and u were in near the person and caught with IM as well as or instead of him.

Akse
21-07-2008, 13:56
I've seen IM on my sorc several times. They pretty much cast it random.. Sometimes in softcore I've been doing loads of ww inside a pack of monsters and getting some other curses, else i would have died a lot back then.

TraderScope
21-07-2008, 18:11
i haven't seen this. mages as far as i've seen only IM u when do a phys attack. maybe they do. but i always kill them imediately with a "ww" (if im a barb) and don't even give them a chance. see a mage.."ww" it..kill it! no IM to worry about:D

maybe some one else did a phys attack and u were in near the person and caught with IM as well as or instead of him.

I think they cast it random, to anyone that is in the cast range (which is quite large). I was soloing CS with my Frost Orb sorc and I think the mages were having a really bad day..whenever I entered from the portal I would have IM casted at me immedietly :/

HegemonKhan
24-10-2008, 02:35
i think the fire elem mages (oblivion lords with the red-orange fireball in hand) probably can cast IM as one of their random curses (they cast a random curse when u are NOT attacking or NOT within 1-3 weapon range)

i think this is how AI oblivion lord cursing works:

4 elem types of oblivion lords (i call them mages. so if i say mage i mean oblivion lord)

1. fire (red-orange fireball in hand)
2. cold (blue ish "fireball" in hand)
3. lit (white ish "fireball" in hand)
4. poison (green "fireball" in hand)

*all 4 types of mages cast decrepify when u are within ~1-3 weapon range of them

*all 4 types of mages cast IM when u use a phys damage attack with/from using a weapon.

*when not doing the above 2 things, they cast a RANDOM curse from a set selection of curses (LR, weaken?, amp?, IM?). the elem type of mage seems to make the mage cast a certain curse more often than others for its random curse cast. for example, IM seems to be chosen frequently for a fire elem mages random curse selection. whereas for the 3 other elem types of mages they NEVER cast IM as one of its random curse casts. cold type mages seem to cast decrepify as one of its random curse casts too. lit and poison might cast LR often as its random curse cast.

*i may not be quite right with this...but i feel strongly i am on to something that is close to this as to how oblivion lord mages' AI chooses and determines the curses they cast.

fredsta54
24-10-2008, 14:42
i have soloed cs in sc many times, even ran itg 1 player for exp and drops with my 2h beserk/warcry barb, the build imo is the second best barb build next to ww. 1 point ww for leach. all the dmg you do is magic while the monsters are stunned, its suited for hc, unfortunately on hc my guy died at lvl 60.



Fred