Uber Trist and Hunger Bears

[Sixstringer]

Haven't built a bear in a while, but as I was reading a few guides on the Hunger Bear, I realized that, though I'm pretty poor, I have a lot of the gear for a Kodiak/Hunger Bear (Guillaume's, Gores, the runes for Duress, some decent weapon choices like IK maul/Athena's wrath with +3 druid skills, etc.). So I thought I'd try to make a Hunger Bear that could do Ubers.

A couple of Questions since I have no experience with Ubers:

1) How useful is Cyclone Armor in Uber Trist? What levels do you need to get it to be useful?

2) The age-old Spirit Question: More CB hits with HoW or more Life? Does a maxed Maul help enough that I can go with Oak?

3) Do I need to max block? I'm partial to two handers with bears, so I'd rather not.

4) What is a solid armor base for Duress? I have a 3os Boneweave, but nothing better. Should I use that or go for a higher defense base to put the runes in?

5) What level do players usually put into Hunger?

Thanks

[Master Zap]

Haven't built a bear in a while, but as I was reading a few guides on the Hunger Bear, I realized that, though I'm pretty poor, I have a lot of the gear for a Kodiak/Hunger Bear (Guillaume's, Gores, the runes for Duress, some decent weapon choices like IK maul/Athena's wrath with +3 druid skills, etc.). So I thought I'd try to make a Hunger Bear that could do Ubers.

A couple of Questions since I have no experience with Ubers:

1) How useful is Cyclone Armor in Uber Trist? What levels do you need to get it to be useful?

2) The age-old Spirit Question: More CB hits with HoW or more Life? Does a maxed Maul help enough that I can go with Oak?

3) Do I need to max block? I'm partial to two handers with bears, so I'd rather not.

4) What is a solid armor base for Duress? I have a 3os Boneweave, but nothing better. Should I use that or go for a higher defense base to put the runes in?

5) What level do players usually put into Hunger?

Thanks

I feel convinced that the best melee attack for a bear to use in ubers is Fireclaws with a maul charge up. IT doesn't matter if its syngerised or not or even if you do any fire damage whatsoever. This one skill has the best AR a melee bear is going to get. Build physical oriented with cb like all the melee's do. Grief would be pretty ideal for this as would a Gris caddy/azurewrath if your not so well off.
I think hunger would be quite doable, but it doesnt have the connecting power that Fireclaws has

I'm in the process of building a hc bear for ubers simply to show it being done.

I'm going
20 maul
20 fireclaws
20 lycanth
5 shockwave
rest in HOW.

(all these assume +10 skills)
Level 30 fireclaws has an Ar boost of: +485 percent


Maul
Current Skill Level: 30
Stun Length: 3.6 seconds
Damage: +20-360 percent
Attack: +310 percent

Hunger is
Attack: +340 percent


Fury for comparison

wolf form

Current Skill Level: 11
To Attack Rating: +200 percent

Fury
Current Skill Level: 30
5 hits
Attack Bonus: +253 percent
Damage: +593 percent
Mana Cost: 4

Feral rage for reference
Attack: +310 percent


Lifetap should make the life stolen from hunger moot, and the ias difference is marginal. The 4fpa common "robo phaseblade" will be tough on the leaching, so it's my opinion to pick a harder hitting wep even if it's a tad slower. Lets keep this in perspective, a 6-8fpa attack is still very fast.


Cyclone armor will be kinda pointless, as it's going to require a large investment to get decent sorb. Once it's broken (it'll break very fast) you wont be able to recast it without shifting, and once you stop melee'ing your no longer leaching which = a dead bear. Besides that human form is to squishy.

For spirit choice? I've always been partial to HOW, lots of people in both camps on this one. A spirit will not live long/at all in ubers so I would boil this down to which do you prefer the rest of the time your not ubering.

1 or 2 hander doesnt really make much difference, the 2handers just have a harder time getting up the res. I think a Sanctuary shield would be prefect for ubers if your going 1handed. A bear will never get up the kinda defense needed to really shine, so the base you use for duress isnt to important provided you have the str to equip this.

I'd build as

Jalas helm , or um'd Gface helm
Coh armor (duress would kill faster if you can still build safely)
tgods belt
Drac gloves
Goblin toe boots
Grief pb
Santuary shield
Highlords ammy
1 ravenfrost , 1 dwarfstar

The other nice option is a Ribby/windhammer/ik maul/ but these will suffer in the res dept

I'd borrow the mercs treachery armor and steal a quick fade, and shockwave the minions when they swarm so you can wail on the ubers with impunity


ymmv

[Jary]

Just getting a feel for your gear I doubt you'll even handle hell comfortably let alone Ubers. Seems like you might be jumping the gun, you might wanna test your char out in hell for a while before you start cubing keys @.@

I agree with just about everything Zap said. I do insist that you go the "full" fireclaw route not only for attack rating & speed, but for finishing purposes. Your crushing blow will take you only so far, but you'll literally spend triple the time finishing off the last sliver of life, which takes some hardcore ~13k+ FC damage and Open Wounds @ 4-5 fpa, and even that takes a while.

You should deffinitely go max block, max damage reduction, max life route. Although spirit's are somewhat worthless once you're in the grind, I'd deffinitely recommend oak anyways. Its just an extra free 3k+ life you're gonna want while initiating battle before you can get lifetap.

I love Grief as a weapon, it was prolly my favorite PvM weapon. However, I'd prolly recommend something just a lil' faster for Ubers, since mainly your worried about consistently landing hits for CB & OW, 8 fpa isn't really "slow", but its not really as fast as you'd want when your surrounded by 6 minions. Griswolds worked pretty awesome for me, but to each his own ^.^