Fix This.

[Raistlin]

My friend and I are running a Barb / Wizard team (both lvl 38) through Nightmare, and we're not getting anywhere fast.
Our characters totally owned Normal, but once we stepped into NM the struggles began. My Barb ground his way through Act 1, but his Wizard had a really hard time.

Once we got to Act 2 I advised him to hit the vendors for all the Proud stuff he could find, which he did and improved his stats greatly.
I loaded up the Barb with as much Dauntless stuff I could find, which also boosted his stats considerably from his Act 1 gear.

As soon as we got out of the Caldeum gates it was clear that the struggle was going to make Act 2 a tedious affair.
We actually smash through the general monster population with no problem. However, the Boss and Champion packs are slaughtering us.

The Barb has the following stats and skills:
Life: 9838
Damage: 612
Resistances: 15
Life Steal: 4.8%

Skills-
Bash/Clobber - For the stun effect on Bosses and Champs.
Cleave/Rupture - Works really well on closely packed mobs.
Frenzy/Triumph- Seems broken to me. If killing a monster with Frenzy heals any at all it can't be by much.
Ground Stomp/Deafening Crash- Initial mob stopper.
Leap/Toppling impact- A means of escape, and KB when surrounded.
Weapon Throw/Throwing Hammer- For the stun effect and running away monsters and Treasure Trolls.
Ruthless- Increased Critical Hits.
Superstition- Decreased non-physical damage.
Pound of Flesh- I'm needing every health globe I can get. I switched back to this from Bloodthirst which wasn't helping much of anything.

Wizard Stats:
Life: ~9000
Damage:~600
Resistances: unknown.

Skills-
Blizzard/Grasping Chill
Ray of Frost/Snow Blast
Hydra/Venom Hydra
Magic Missiles/Charged Blast
Diamond Skin/Crystal Shell.
Not sure what his passives are.

Strategy- Barb Tanks and Wiz drops a blizzard over him and a Hydra behind him. Wizard takes care of stragglers with MM and RoF.

Works great until a blue or yellow pack shows up, and pretty much not at all if we draw a double.

Any advise would be appreciated.

Thanks.

[Tryzx]

Look on the auction house for a weapon upgrade to raise your dps and build your barb more tanky so you can take care of the champ packs while your friend is safe attacking behind you. He could use Slow Time to help you deal with them.
Try to use warcry; it will help you and your friend survive.

Other than that idk what to say nightmare shouldn't be a problem.


If you struggle that much maybe go back and grind for 1 or 2 levels.

[Axamas]

I cannot say other than what had already been said :
- get better weapons.
- adjust your skills, remove 1 or 2 offensive skills and replace them with defensive skills ;
a wizard don't need 4 offensive skills...in general a build (6 skills) is 2 offensive, 2 defensive, 2 panick button.

For a Wizard it could be :
1 - signaturespell (any primary skill)
2 - blizzard
3 - hydra
4 - diamond skin
5 - any armor skill
6 - any among teleport/mirror image/ frost nova/ slow time

More, skills' choice should be adapted to your stuff and dps to suit your fighting strategy :
- If your dps is high you can go with less defensive skills and no panick buttons, because you are going to one shoot every pack.
- If you dps is low you need to last and survive melees, so you need serious def skills and healing or life leech.

As I've said before, you dps is low, at levl 38 it should be twice what you have got : that is more than 1k.

[Saint Anger]

I haven't played the Wizard yet, so I'm afraid I won't be of much help in that regard. I have played a Barbarian to level 60, though (not rushed). Perhaps I can be of some assistance there.

First of all, get rid of your lifesteal weapons and skills, they're practically useless. In Nightmare the effectiveness is reduced by 40%, in Hell by 60% and in Inferno by 80%. Instead look for IAS (lowest priority after the nerf), sockets (medium priority) and +str (highest priority). 20-40k will net you a very decent weapon for your level. Once you get to act 3-4 hell, start looking around for Life on Hit (which is the best out of the three: life after kill, % lifesteal, life on hit).

How much armour do you have? For (armour) items, look for +str, +vit and sockets. IAS (gloves, rings, ammy) is always nice but don't specifically look for items in this regard. No use looking for resists right now - you'll need some of those when you enter Hell, but by that time you'll be level 50 and your current gear will be way obsolete. Try to look for an armour with three sockets, pants with two sockets and a helm with one socket that already have +STR and/or +VIT. You could also try looking for rings and ammy's (one socket each). Put flawless square rubies (+STR) and flawless square amethysts (+vit, +%life in helm) in them - they go for practically nothing on the GAH. The way you distribute them is up to your discretion - up to level 50 I put three rubies in the armour and one and two amethysts in the helm and pants, respectively. I had a single ring socketed with a ruby as well.

As to your skills, you really need to rearrange those. This is the main reason you're suffering through Nightmare. For example, you're using all three main fury-generating attack skills at the same time (bash, cleave and frenzy) - use a single one and stick to it, with a second one as back-up if you prefer. If you use two weapons use Frenzy, if you use one two-hander or a one-handed weapon and a shield, use Cleave. Throw Bash right out of there. Before a Boss fight, you can put it back in if you want. For general gameplay it's pretty much a waste of a skill slot though.

If you go Frenzy, lose the Triumph rune - instead use Sidearm, it procs rather often. If you use Cleave, stick with Rupture and switch to Reaping Swing at level 47.

Lose Weapon Throw - at this point it's a total waste of a skill slot.

Skills that are too good to pass up on:

- Revenge: this will be your main source of healing. ALWAYS USE THIS SKILL. At your current level, use the Retribution Rune with it - at level 52, swith to Provocation.
- Wrath of the Berserker: crit hit chance +10%, attack speed +25%, dodge change +20%, movement speed +20%... Brilliant skill, especially coupled with insanity (level 40). Boss & elite fights become a cake walk with this.

Skills you should consider:

- War Cry with Hardened Wrath: increases your armor by 40% for 60 seconds. That's huge. At level 60 you can switch out to Impunity, which gives you +20% armor and a whopping +50% to resistances. A godsend for Inferno.
- Battle Rage with Marauder's Rage: increases your damage by 30% - the cooldown on this skill is insanely low so you can keep it on pretty much all the time (provided you have fury).
- Furious Charge with Dreadnought (level 56): heals you by 8% of your life for each target hit. Not really worth it prior to late Hell/Inferno, though.

You could keep Leap, but change Toppling Impact to Iron Impact (gives you 300% armor for a couple of seconds). Ground Stomp is a decent skill as well, but I find that in Softcore I didn't need it all that much. In Hardcore it's almost a necessity for mob management. Consider switching that one out as well.

As to your passives, throw out Superstition and switch in Nerves of Steel (armour is increased by 100% of vitality). Remember those +vit amethysts we put in your sockets? These now increase your armour as well. Also, consider losing Pound of Flesh - Revenge should be enough to heal you in most situations. When things get hairy, use a pot - and if you die, no biggie. Pound of Flesh is a skill you really *must* consider for Hardcore but for Softcore it's worthless as long as you have a decent character build.

Instead, consider the following passives:

- Berserker Rage (you do 25% more damage when at full Fury) - this seems like a waste of a passive, but with my own Barbarian I'm pretty much at full Fury all the time, so consider this one for extra damage (especially if you use both Frenzy and Cleave as main attacks).
- Weapons Master (if you use axes like I do, this gives +10% crit hit chance).
- Tough as Nails (increases your armor by an additional 25%).

As Axamas suggested, always go for a balance between your skills. Just to give you an idea, this was the build I used through Nightmare and Hell:

Main Attack 1: Frenzy with Sidearm (for single targets)
Main Attack 2: Cleave with Rupture and later on Reaping Swing (for mobs)
Skill 1: Leap with Iron Impact until level 40 or so, then I switched to Battle Rage with Marauder's Rage
Skill 2: Revenge with Retribution and later on Provocation
Skill 3: War Cry with Hardened Wrath and later on Impunity
Skill 4: Wrath of the Berserker with Insanity
Passive 1: Nerves of Steel
Passive 2: Berserker Rage (since most of my skills don't use that much Fury I'm pretty much always at 100%)
Passive 3: Tough as Nails, switched to Weapons Master later on

To give you an idea: this 'build' gives you +100% armour (Nerves), +25% armour (Tough as Nails), +40% armour (Battle Cry with Hardened Wrath) for a total of +165% armour.
Damage-wise, we have 110% (Frenzy) or 120% (Cleave), +30% (Battle Rage with Marauder's Rage), +25% (Berserker Rage) for a total of 165% damage (with Frenzy) or 175% damage (with Cleave). This is more than doubled with Wrath of the Berserker.
If we switch Tough as Nails for Weapons Master we lose +25% armour but gain +10% crit hit chance (with Axes), or +5% (with Ruthless when not using Axes).

Play around with a couple of those skills and see what combination you like best. Leap is a very good escape button, and I had a really hard time switching it out, but in the end I liked Battle Rage more. For Hardcore I would never consider switching out Leap though. Also, there is an option to 'unbind' the skill slots (so you can assign your own hotkeys to any skill you want - this is more complicated but you can use alot more skills).

[Siege Valgore]

All I can say is Saint Anger is 100% correct. Too many Attack skills and not enough defensive skills. I use Frenzy as my main attack skill and Seismic Slam as my secondary (Right Click). I also use Revenge, Warcry, Ignore Pain and Wrath of the Berserker. I am pretty much unstoppable in Hell Diff.

You ABSOLUTELY need to get your DPS up. At level 38 you should be doing at LEAST 1k damage. Your life is pretty decent but could see 10k or so at that level. As for resistances you will want them at around 20-35 or so (Or higher if you can)

[spiffymcbang]

I do want to applaud you for using self found items so far. Good job. I am trying to use only self found also but found that with the amount of time I play I don't have the time to keep replaying areas to try to get better drops. So I have bought weapons, shield and gems off the AH. :(

I will say I found it frustrating that I could buy items from the AH that matched my level but could only find items based on where I was in the game about 8-10 levels below me.

Any way since you are having trouble, these guys have great suggestions, but also do not hesitate to switch the quest to an earlier one and replay it. You can aways go and switch it back to align with your maximum progression you previously had made in the game.

good luck.

[Acemac]

Elective mode?


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[Acemac]

My dh had like double that HP moving into nm


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[Raistlin]

I do want to applaud you for using self found items so far. Good job. I am trying to use only self found also but found that with the amount of time I play I don't have the time to keep replaying areas to try to get better drops. So I have bought weapons, shield and gems off the AH. :(

I will say I found it frustrating that I could buy items from the AH that matched my level but could only find items based on where I was in the game about 8-10 levels below me.

good luck.

Thanks. Yeah, we're trying to run the game on what it provides, but that is proving to be frustrating. I'm finding that the drops are below where I need them to be. Crafting currently provides quality items that are either too low or too high for my current clvl.
Granted the AH is part of the game, but I'm trying to avoid that route for now.

With some selective shopping and crafting his life has been incresed from 9838 to 11889. Damage is up to 923 from 612.

Perhaps I can be of some assistance there...

That's an understatement If I ever read one.
I figured the skills were misaligned, especially the passives.
Thanks for a ton of insight.

Your thoughts on Ignore Pain?

I cannot say other than what had already been said :
- get better weapons.
- adjust your skills, remove 1 or 2 offensive skills and replace them with defensive skills ;
a wizard don't need 4 offensive skills...in general a build (6 skills) is 2 offensive, 2 defensive, 2 panick button.

For a Wizard it could be :
1 - signaturespell (any primary skill)
2 - blizzard
3 - hydra
4 - diamond skin
5 - any armor skill
6 - any among teleport/mirror image/ frost nova/ slow time

I'll pass that on. Thanks.

Elective mode?

Absolutely.

Thanks all.

[Saint Anger]

That's an understatement If I ever read one.
I figured the skills were misaligned, especially the passives.
Thanks for a ton of insight.

You're quite welcome, I'm glad to have been of some help!

Your thoughts on Ignore Pain?

You're absolutely right, I forgot all about Ignore Pain. This is definately also one of those skills you really should consider as well. The skill itself is very useful (65% damage reduction for 5 seconds, can be boosted to 7 seconds with Iron Hide or made to affect the entire party with Mob Rule). This is basically your most important 'panic' escape button when things go downhill, very fast.

How much you would actually be using it depends on your gameplay though. Seeing Siege Valgore is running it with his barb build, as are many others, it's usefulness is out of the question - it's a very good skill. I ran around with it for some time myself, and while it saved my hide on more than one occasion, I eventually switched it back out.

I only ever really needed it when surrounded by bosses (& minions) or champion packs with a combination of nasty affixes (jailer, arcane ench., plagued or mortar, fast, horde etc.). On about half of those occasions, Ignore Pain saved my hide as my health melted away, but the other half of the time it was like a drop on a hot plate and even Ignore Pain couldn't save me.

I would strongly suggest you try it out and see if you like it for yourself though, and thankfully in elective mode you can have as many skills as you prefer. ;-)

Some other thoughts: the War Cry shout also affects your party, which means not only will your own armor be boosted by 40% (with Hardened Wrath), but also that of your party members. ;-) They will love you for that, especially with 50% more resists (with Impunity).

The Relentless passive (when below 20% life, damage is reduced by 50% and skills cost no Fury) is also a useful passive, though it's hard to choose this one over some of the other passives you can pick from. You can only ever have three at the same time (as opposed to skills with elective mode), and with a barb we should be aiming for a balance between offense, defense and panic (as Axamas suggested). Too many panic buttons and the build becomes skewed. :-)

Another useful skill is Threathening Shout with Falter, which reduces damage by enemies in a radius of 25 yards by 20% for 15 seconds. When used together with Relentless and Ignore Pain (which I wouldn't necessarily suggest as two 'panic' buttons combined with Shout buttons are a bit much), this can mean a whopping 135% damage reduction.

As far as skill choices go, Revenge, Wrath of the Berserker and War Cry are simply too good to pass up on. Leap with Iron Impact, Battle Rage with Marauder's Rage and Ignore Pain with either Iron Hide or Mob Rule are a close second - skills you really should consider. Other skills can be useful in certain situations (ground stomp, furious charge, threatening shout) etc. As far as Passives go, these are the most useful ones: Ruthless, Nerves of Steel, Weapons Master, Berserker Rage, Tough as Nails, Relentless. Brawler and Boon of Bul-Kathos also have their uses, but imo not worth picking over any of the aforementioned ones.

Play around with these skills (preferably in elective mode) and see what you like best. :-)

Also, when you have the basic build laid out, don't be afraid to try new combinations! When you use Wrath of the Berserker first, for example; and then pop an Earthquake, it will do over 4000% weapon damage - great fun!