BvC Barb guide

[fredsta54]

Hey all.

Its Fred

This is the BvC barb guide i was thinking of making, and i did, so here it is

This isnt gonna be a really long guide with lots of diffirent gear suggestions. This guide is based on my very strong opinion of the "best" setup, and how to make this barb using my advised setup.

Although there are Bva's, BvB's, and speeders, this barb is pretty much between a speeder and a bva. The only thing this barb should not duel is another barb, which you can avoid easily by evading them.

This barb is a very good all around dueler and excels in public duel games (it can take on 7v1 duels with some difficulty)


This is like a speeder only it uses a maxed leap, and can have a 120 cr//lr shield as backup against very strong foher/// cold sorc.


let it be known that this character is not unviable or anything like that, imo its the best dueler (overall) on classic.

The maxed leap may seem a little bit wierd but once you try it/// i describe it i think you will get to love it


Anyway i should stop rambling and get on with the actual "guide"

Basically this character is 100% done at lvl 80, more lvls=more vit and increased speed or natural resist.

STATS:

121 strength after gear
base dex
rest to vit
0 energy

SKILLS: Your skills should look like this @ lvl 80

20 leap
20 bo
20 ww
20 wep mastery
1 increased speed
1 nat resist
1 battlecommand
1 to the presquites


EQUIPMENT: the best part of any guide Be warned this gear is not *cheap*, you will have to have some funds to make it, i will probably add a poor mans section later.

***Main Setup***


Weapons: 2 nagas with 125+ damage and 200+ ar. You can obviously be viable with lower damage nagas but 125 and 200 ar is the average damage id say so shoot for these. They will probably cost you about an soj each. (at least where i play) Obviously look out for better mods. If your very, very rich you can afford 300+ ar 135+ nagas with other great mods.

------ Just get the best you can afford without sacrificing funds for other parts of gear.------

Armour: Hawkmail. gets you to 90 cr, (even after cold mastery most of the time) and increases your run/walk speed.

Belt: Rare belt with fhr, resists. Also look for + strength and life, but not over resists

Gloves: rare with high resists

Boots: 30 r/w, 2 resists over 30, possibly fhr

Jewelry: +1 barb prismatic ammy. For richer players get stacked cold or light resist and + stats.

Get +100 + ar rings with resists. + stats and + min is also nice.

Helm: resists , fhr, life.

When i say resists, basically just get 75 fire resist in hell, then stack up lightning and cold as much as you can



Other gear for specific fights: against certain characters you will need "crutches" to help you win. Against a very good foher switch out 1 of your nagas for a 120 lr shield. Against godly cold sorcs switch out a naga for a 120 cr shield. Then your pretty much invincible to those spellcasters.

AGainst high defence hammerdins you want to have angelic rings + ammy ready

Also have a mini bo prebuff if you want more life and mana.

This is all for now, tommorow i will add specific strategies and possibly more guide for dueling against specific characters and whatnot.



-Fred

[TheCerberus]

My cheap version, for ladder resets/realm switches:

http://forums.diabloii.net/showthread.php?t=342041

[fredsta54]

Originally Posted by TheCerberus

My cheap version, for ladder resets/realm switches:

http://forums.diabloii.net/showthread.php?t=342041

your guide uses the ithara set and most gear is dirt-cheap. U also have only 1 point to leap

[fredsta54]

Guide update. I forget to mention hotspur vs godly fire sorceresses.

SPecific dueling techniques vs characters

VS bone necro- A hard matchup, against very good necs with 75% block, nice bone armour and fhr. A very good tactic is to leap off screen, slowly towards them until you knock them back completely against a wall. Then they have nowhere to run and they wil be stunned. Advance for the kill.

VS sorc- Just leap to stun and run up and ww them. Against amazing cold sorcs switch to 3 saph shield. Against an aa fireballer, or 110 fcr fbler, switch to hotspurs if needed.

VS foher- Chase them down and ww them to death, if they have lots of +skills, or are simply very good, equip a 3 p topaz shield to negate their attack almost completely.

VS Hammerdin- You might wanna switch to angelics for more ar to get past their probable high defense. Hammerdins are usually a challenge, so leaping them, doing a few quick ww's then retreating is often a good tactic.

VS cs///guided zon- Vs cs zon, just ww them, they will die quicklly. AGainst bowazon, just outchase them or leap + quick ww.



Basically when playing this character, your main skill is leap, ww is just the killer. leap is as important to you as teleport is to a sorc (well, almost)


Hostile barbs wont even touch you, you can leap over them like leapfrog.




-Fred

[fredsta54]

suprised no1s commented///flamed me yet =P

[Murrogh]

Originally Posted by fredsta54

suprised no1s commented///flamed me yet =P

I'm not going to flame you... in fact i'm in the process of making one myself.
:clap:

Just need to get a couple good nagas. I'm going to try to imbue one before I spend my sojs. I've used 9 imbues so far with no avail. probobly about 9 imbues I can still do once I find some more imbueable nagas.

[ethos]

I would use a Ancient axe over 2 nagas, because for some reason using 2 weapons in classic doesnt seem to work as well as using a 2handed weapon. Also, i would consider getting only ~14 in leap and investing the rest into nat resist, because at lvl 14 leap has a 1 screen radius iirc.
Im in the process of gettin itams to build a bva myself. Im gonna get a high damage martel with ias (i have my eyes on a certain 276 40 ias) and put like 5+ points into zerk. With fast attack speed (twitch/deaths) I will make mince-meat of necros, because if you leap around bone spirits cannot hit you, and i should kill them in 3 zerks

[fredsta54]

Originally Posted by ethos

I would use a Ancient axe over 2 nagas, because for some reason using 2 weapons in classic doesnt seem to work as well as using a 2handed weapon. Also, i would consider getting only ~14 in leap and investing the rest into nat resist, because at lvl 14 leap has a 1 screen radius iirc.
Im in the process of gettin itams to build a bva myself. Im gonna get a high damage martel with ias (i have my eyes on a certain 276 40 ias) and put like 5+ points into zerk. With fast attack speed (twitch/deaths) I will make mince-meat of necros, because if you leap around bone spirits cannot hit you, and i should kill them in 3 zerks

The reason, for the most part, 2 nagas > ancient axe is less weapon switching, about the same dmg per ww, except with the 2 nagas you hit more often, just less damage so i guess you could say it does more damage over time, and the way of killing your opponent is 2 or 3 quick whirlwinds in a triangular pattern around your opponent, as opposed to just doing long ww's with a lance or axe, which can be dodged and then you will be attacked

2 nagas stuns///reels your opponent into fhr easier.

Maxing leap is... imo... not a waste of points. It is maxed not for how far the actual leap is but for the added knockback. You will be doing tiny "hops" anyway.

Extra points into nat resist is very diminishing and the extra ~10 resists wont matter at all when you have 75 light///90 cold even with cold mastery or conviction applied.

1 point into zerk is sweet, although i wouldnt put in 5, unless i had nowhere else to place my points. Generally, even vs necs though, ww kills them faster, if you odnt give them time to recast their bone armour.


if you wanna use a mart though, thats up to you :/




Fred

[Murrogh]

So how much strengh would you reccomend?
if you advise angelic against Hammeradins that would bring the +str from items to only belt and gloves without having a 3sock amythest
so about 100 str would be about right str right? +20 from belt

[fredsta54]

on my bvc i only have +6 strength from gear. My base strength is 115. Dont rely on specific gear with stats to use your gear, because you never know when you might find a better ring, that you cannot use due to it has no + strength. I mean, whats 200ish life out of 3k+?

The only reason i have 115 base is because i know my gloves (happen to have +6 strength) will never change.

Dont have some crazy method of putting diffirent gear on to use a specific item. You also would only want 1 angelic ring and the ammy, as excessive ar is not needed except to hit high defence barbs which you wont be dueling against anyway.

Basically get base strength as high as 121 if you want, then pump the rest into vita. You should have 90 cold resist with a sorc using >lvl 27 cold mastery. You should also have 75 light resist with conviction on you, so excess life is not that important. (this is if you have 3 soc shields on, only needed vs talented players)

The only real challenge are good hammerdins and necros.

Skill placement is

20 leap
20 axe mastery
20 bo
20 ww
1 increased speed
1 nat resist
presquites.

"finishes" at lvl 80, although if you lvl further it means more increased speed and/or nat resist. Wait. Not nat resist. Increased speed. You actually have nothgin to gain by increaseing your resists. The only exception wuold be a sorc teamed up with a foher, which isnt that common, and you'd prbably find inc speed more useful neway