Peresvet
02-12-2008, 02:12
I have made a Barbarian who's task is to destroy whole mobs of monsters quickly. This was done in HC, a rather unconventional build, and he has succeeded in beating Hell solo by level 81, including ancients (twice), Nihlathak (five times), and cows without top-end gear and in a spectacular fashion :D
I would just like to share the build and my experience, get your comments and maybe give ideas to some other players.
The idea was to cast mass effect spells to reduce hitpoints of whole mobs while killing single targets quickly and being able to not get stuck on any kind of immune monsters.
His gear in hell was
-Crescent Moon Balrog Blade (since lvl 53)
10% Chance To Cast Level 17 Chain Lightning On Striking
7% Chance To Cast Level 13 Static Field On Striking
+20% Increased Attack Speed
+180-220% Enhanced Damage (varies)
Ignore Target's Defense
-35% To Enemy Lightning Resistance
25% Chance of Open Wounds
+9-11 Magic Absorb (varies)
+2 To Mana After Each Kill
every single mod on this great weapon is important, and note that static field does not scale down in effectiveness when there are more than one player in the game, like crushing blow does. It will deal twice the damage when the monsters have twice the hitpoints.
-Voice of Reason Balrog Blade (since lvl 53)
15% Chance To Cast Level 13 Frozen Orb On Striking
18% Chance To Cast Level 20 Ice Blast On Striking
+50 To Attack Rating
+220-350% Damage To Demons
+355-375% Damage To Undead (varies)
+50 To Attack Rating Against Undead
Adds 100-220 Cold Damage
-24% To Enemy Cold Resistance
+10 To Dexterity
Cannot Be Frozen
75% Extra Gold From Monsters
+1 To Light Radius
This was paired up with crescent moon for the freezing and mass damaging effects of frozen orb and ice blast, high cold damage as well as the important 'cannot be frozen' mod.
-Duress Kraken Shell (since lvl 62)
+40% Faster Hit Recovery
+10-20% Enhanced Damage (varies)
Adds 37-133 Cold Damage 2 sec. Duration (Normal)
15% Chance of Crushing Blow
33% Chance of Open Wounds
+150-200% Enhanced Defense (varies)
-20% Slower Stamina Drain
Cold Resist +45%
Lightning Resist +15%
Fire Resist +15%
Poison Resist +15%
An awesome piece of armor all around, adds crushing blow, open wounds and even more cold damage to both of your swords (remember -24% cold resistance on the Voice of Reason)
-Guliamme's face with 15% and 84 AR jewel
Not surprisingly, extra 35% of crushing blow and 15% of deadly strike on this piece improve your killing speed significantly. Arreats can be used for a more durable barbarian, but many of its mods aren't as effective on this build (like extra AR, life leech)
-IK belt
-Lava Gout gauntlets
+150-200% Enhanced Defense (varies)
2% Chance To Cast Level 10 Enchant On Striking
Half Freeze Duration
Adds 13-46 Fire Damage
+20% Increased Attack Speed
Fire Resist +24%
Mainly for the 20% IAS and cool looking red flaming swords :) A litte fire damage helps as well. Glove choice could be improved with some nice crafted gloves, or maybe even sander's or bloodfist?
-Aldur's Boots
Whatever you like here. I like the 10% damage goes to mana.
-Nature's Peace ring
Slain Monsters Rest In Peace*
Prevent Monster Heal
Poison Resist +20-30% (varies)
Damage Reduced by 7-11 (varies)
Level 5 Oak Sage (27 charges)
Mainly for the -11 damage received and prevent monster heal. Because you are damaging so many monsters with static, orb, open wounds, not having the whole mob heal will help your kill speed a lot.
-Crafted blood ring with 3% life leech, 13 life, 22% light res, and +13 str.
Had nothing better.
-Amulet of life everlasting, -23 damage received.
Perhaps highlord's would be better, but I really liked the significant safety from physical attacks provided by battle cry combined with total - 34 dmg received. This is important because while this build can kill the whole mob faster than a barbarian with a huge damage weapon that hits one monster at a time, the mob will not start thinning out right away -- rather you will swing swing swing, killing off a monster here and there, and then after a few seconds the whole mob will crumble as you slay the wounded crowd. Also relatively low physical damage of the build (and only 3% life leech I had) meant that I couldn't afford to take too much damage frequently.
The main skills of use were:
Battle Orders (20) - the usual double hitpoints, was casting at a modest 27 from just two echoing weapons.
Battle Cry (20) - this 'curse' I find is terribly underestimated. At level ~21 it reduces monsters' defence by nearly 90% and damage by about 44%. This meant I did not need to worry about AR at all and still get nearly 95% chance to hit, could kills champions, bosses and act bosses very quickly because of crushing blows landing nearly every time. And, each succesful strike had chance to cast static, orb, ice blast or chain lightning and damage more targets.
Frenzy (up to around lvl5 at first, just to get decent swing and run speed, +AR% and +DMG% aren't a big concern, ended up with 8). Used to wind up and then switch to double swing for a few seconds, then switch back to frenzy.
Double Swing (started at lvl2 to get mana down to 1, then raised to about 5 to lower mana consumption and add a little extra damage to frenzy) Double swing while frenzied is necessary to get maximum swing speed and also in mana burn packs (this guy had no mana leech)
Bash (lvl1) always on left click to help take care of nasty gloam, thorned hulk, frenzytaur and other council bosses. Frenzied bash with 95% chance to hit is pretty awesome.
Shout (lvl20) not essential but good to have!
Iron Skin, Natural Resistance (both lvl5)
Sword Mastery (lvl3 by the end)
Leap Attack (1) very useful for rare escape.
Increased Stamina/Speed (only raised to 1 at act 4 hell)
The barbarian had no big trouble in any of areas of hell, although anya's rescue was rather slow because of a bad gloam infestation.
One thing I did not anticipate was that when frozen orb is cast, he cannot swing for a second or so, and will quickly relocate around the mob if you have right mouse button pressed. But in the end this turned out good as it just allowed me to 'curse' some new monsters with battlecry and change position to avoid being hit by arrows and other things :)
He also does not instantly kill himself to Iron Maiden (use double swing instead of frenzy then) and can survive 3-4 hits while cursed.
Rushing people through normal and nightmare areas is also a lot of fun because you don't need to stop to battlecry and can spend very little time between mosnters, hitting often and casting frozen orb, chain lightning and static which clear the screen very quickly (for a barbarian, he still cannot compete with lightning fury amazon, although by spending less time running between packs than the amazon you make up a lot of slack in killing speed).
He could be improved by making Crescent Moon in an axe and Voice of Reason in a mace so that you do not need to invest into dexterity, but that does not look nearly as cool as two balrog blades!
Just so you have an idea, stats were
3200 life (with lvl27 BO)
10,000 defence (with lvl 27 shout, 15K with defiance merc)
1600 AR (doubleswing) 2300 AR (frenzy), this was good enough.
197 str, 95 dex, 260-270 vitality.
75 fire res, 59 cold res, 75 light res, 10 poison res.
display damage of about 600-1600 and 400-1200 (includes about 180 poison, slightly more with might merc), misleading ;)
That is it!
I would just like to share the build and my experience, get your comments and maybe give ideas to some other players.
The idea was to cast mass effect spells to reduce hitpoints of whole mobs while killing single targets quickly and being able to not get stuck on any kind of immune monsters.
His gear in hell was
-Crescent Moon Balrog Blade (since lvl 53)
10% Chance To Cast Level 17 Chain Lightning On Striking
7% Chance To Cast Level 13 Static Field On Striking
+20% Increased Attack Speed
+180-220% Enhanced Damage (varies)
Ignore Target's Defense
-35% To Enemy Lightning Resistance
25% Chance of Open Wounds
+9-11 Magic Absorb (varies)
+2 To Mana After Each Kill
every single mod on this great weapon is important, and note that static field does not scale down in effectiveness when there are more than one player in the game, like crushing blow does. It will deal twice the damage when the monsters have twice the hitpoints.
-Voice of Reason Balrog Blade (since lvl 53)
15% Chance To Cast Level 13 Frozen Orb On Striking
18% Chance To Cast Level 20 Ice Blast On Striking
+50 To Attack Rating
+220-350% Damage To Demons
+355-375% Damage To Undead (varies)
+50 To Attack Rating Against Undead
Adds 100-220 Cold Damage
-24% To Enemy Cold Resistance
+10 To Dexterity
Cannot Be Frozen
75% Extra Gold From Monsters
+1 To Light Radius
This was paired up with crescent moon for the freezing and mass damaging effects of frozen orb and ice blast, high cold damage as well as the important 'cannot be frozen' mod.
-Duress Kraken Shell (since lvl 62)
+40% Faster Hit Recovery
+10-20% Enhanced Damage (varies)
Adds 37-133 Cold Damage 2 sec. Duration (Normal)
15% Chance of Crushing Blow
33% Chance of Open Wounds
+150-200% Enhanced Defense (varies)
-20% Slower Stamina Drain
Cold Resist +45%
Lightning Resist +15%
Fire Resist +15%
Poison Resist +15%
An awesome piece of armor all around, adds crushing blow, open wounds and even more cold damage to both of your swords (remember -24% cold resistance on the Voice of Reason)
-Guliamme's face with 15% and 84 AR jewel
Not surprisingly, extra 35% of crushing blow and 15% of deadly strike on this piece improve your killing speed significantly. Arreats can be used for a more durable barbarian, but many of its mods aren't as effective on this build (like extra AR, life leech)
-IK belt
-Lava Gout gauntlets
+150-200% Enhanced Defense (varies)
2% Chance To Cast Level 10 Enchant On Striking
Half Freeze Duration
Adds 13-46 Fire Damage
+20% Increased Attack Speed
Fire Resist +24%
Mainly for the 20% IAS and cool looking red flaming swords :) A litte fire damage helps as well. Glove choice could be improved with some nice crafted gloves, or maybe even sander's or bloodfist?
-Aldur's Boots
Whatever you like here. I like the 10% damage goes to mana.
-Nature's Peace ring
Slain Monsters Rest In Peace*
Prevent Monster Heal
Poison Resist +20-30% (varies)
Damage Reduced by 7-11 (varies)
Level 5 Oak Sage (27 charges)
Mainly for the -11 damage received and prevent monster heal. Because you are damaging so many monsters with static, orb, open wounds, not having the whole mob heal will help your kill speed a lot.
-Crafted blood ring with 3% life leech, 13 life, 22% light res, and +13 str.
Had nothing better.
-Amulet of life everlasting, -23 damage received.
Perhaps highlord's would be better, but I really liked the significant safety from physical attacks provided by battle cry combined with total - 34 dmg received. This is important because while this build can kill the whole mob faster than a barbarian with a huge damage weapon that hits one monster at a time, the mob will not start thinning out right away -- rather you will swing swing swing, killing off a monster here and there, and then after a few seconds the whole mob will crumble as you slay the wounded crowd. Also relatively low physical damage of the build (and only 3% life leech I had) meant that I couldn't afford to take too much damage frequently.
The main skills of use were:
Battle Orders (20) - the usual double hitpoints, was casting at a modest 27 from just two echoing weapons.
Battle Cry (20) - this 'curse' I find is terribly underestimated. At level ~21 it reduces monsters' defence by nearly 90% and damage by about 44%. This meant I did not need to worry about AR at all and still get nearly 95% chance to hit, could kills champions, bosses and act bosses very quickly because of crushing blows landing nearly every time. And, each succesful strike had chance to cast static, orb, ice blast or chain lightning and damage more targets.
Frenzy (up to around lvl5 at first, just to get decent swing and run speed, +AR% and +DMG% aren't a big concern, ended up with 8). Used to wind up and then switch to double swing for a few seconds, then switch back to frenzy.
Double Swing (started at lvl2 to get mana down to 1, then raised to about 5 to lower mana consumption and add a little extra damage to frenzy) Double swing while frenzied is necessary to get maximum swing speed and also in mana burn packs (this guy had no mana leech)
Bash (lvl1) always on left click to help take care of nasty gloam, thorned hulk, frenzytaur and other council bosses. Frenzied bash with 95% chance to hit is pretty awesome.
Shout (lvl20) not essential but good to have!
Iron Skin, Natural Resistance (both lvl5)
Sword Mastery (lvl3 by the end)
Leap Attack (1) very useful for rare escape.
Increased Stamina/Speed (only raised to 1 at act 4 hell)
The barbarian had no big trouble in any of areas of hell, although anya's rescue was rather slow because of a bad gloam infestation.
One thing I did not anticipate was that when frozen orb is cast, he cannot swing for a second or so, and will quickly relocate around the mob if you have right mouse button pressed. But in the end this turned out good as it just allowed me to 'curse' some new monsters with battlecry and change position to avoid being hit by arrows and other things :)
He also does not instantly kill himself to Iron Maiden (use double swing instead of frenzy then) and can survive 3-4 hits while cursed.
Rushing people through normal and nightmare areas is also a lot of fun because you don't need to stop to battlecry and can spend very little time between mosnters, hitting often and casting frozen orb, chain lightning and static which clear the screen very quickly (for a barbarian, he still cannot compete with lightning fury amazon, although by spending less time running between packs than the amazon you make up a lot of slack in killing speed).
He could be improved by making Crescent Moon in an axe and Voice of Reason in a mace so that you do not need to invest into dexterity, but that does not look nearly as cool as two balrog blades!
Just so you have an idea, stats were
3200 life (with lvl27 BO)
10,000 defence (with lvl 27 shout, 15K with defiance merc)
1600 AR (doubleswing) 2300 AR (frenzy), this was good enough.
197 str, 95 dex, 260-270 vitality.
75 fire res, 59 cold res, 75 light res, 10 poison res.
display damage of about 600-1600 and 400-1200 (includes about 180 poison, slightly more with might merc), misleading ;)
That is it!