Post by rwbPost by Michael VondungOn Sun, 19 Oct 2003 17:36:08 GMT, Brian Brunner
Post by Brian BrunnerYou could sing it to death. Warcries affect the physically immune.
"PI/Deaf" is a combo I haven't seen.
Has anyone here ever tried to build a Singing Barb that only uses
Warcries. I've heard that it's possible to do but I never tried it.
There was a series of spot reports on a War Cry barb on this forum or
the AGD one i forget and can't do searches from here. But try a Google
search it should come up. Was very entertaining and contained a lot of
good info.
Robert (clcrw west Hard
Core)
This isn't the only writeup about this character, if you want to see them
you can go to Google and search the Alt.Games.Diablo NG for posts written by
Shieldwolf, but his is pretty darn comprehensive, and covers a lot of area.
Ok, this was going to be a quick rundown on how I built my Warcry
Barb, but it's turned out to be almost a guide except for the lack of
organization and good writting. ;) Anyway, to all concerned, this is
basically how I played my Warcy guy. For some examples of his many
feats (feets?) check out my Spot Reports.
The main things I was concerned with for the Warcry Barb was getting a
decent level of +skills, a nice supply of mana and some good resists.
All of the stats and items used were working toward that goal.
Stats:
Strength was taken to 60 at first to wear Frosties. I later added
five more points to be able to wear Silkweave boots. I never wore
anything that took more strength than that so that's where it stayed.
Dexterity isn't needed much in the early years and may never be
needed, depending on what weapon you end up using. I used two Suicide
Branch wands for a long time but as he approached level 61 I started
adding to dex to get to the 75 requirement for Wizardspike.
Vitality and Energy is where the real points should be. As I
mentioned before I found it was more economical to put points in
vitality and get mana and energy from items. I ended up raising
Energy to 80 and it is currently 97 with item bonuses. Working from
memory I can't actually remember what Vitality is but it got a good
number of points. Currently he has a bit over 2000 life and over 3300
mana with BO. He also has 130 saved stat points at level 76.
Originally I saved them in case I needed to add more to Energy. Then
I saved them in case he couldn't handle Hell and I decided to cop out
and give him a weapon. Ultimately I decided that he just didn't need
them. That 130 stat points could translate into 520 life and well
over 1000 with BO. That probably would have saved him a death or two,
but with only three deaths in Hell getting to the Worldstone Keep I
suppose it wasn't too critical.
Skills:
Naturally I maxed Warcry. I also maxed Battle Orders. The rest of
the Warcry tree got one point each except for Grim Ward, which got
none. I've tried this before and I didn't like it. I didn't want the
bad guys running away, I wanted them to come to their death. Warcry
was a good crowd control skill and I didn't need another.
The Combat tree got two points, one in Leap and one in Leap Attack.
No Barb should be without this great mode of transportation and/or
escape. Unlike all my previous Barb he rarely had to use it for
escape. It did find a permanent residence on my left button though
and was used quite a bit to spread the crying around.
The masteries tree got a few points too. One point in Increased
Stamina, Increased Speed, Iron Skin and Natural Resistance. With
+skills this was plenty. He currently has 30 unused skill points.
Items:
While specific uber items are not needed they certainly do help.
Anything that has +skills and mana would be great. Even they aren't
as necessary in Hell as they probably were in the mid levels in NM
because spamming Warcry is useless against non-bosses since the Rogue
is doing all the real damage. A level 20 Warcry cast every 3-4
seconds should work as well as a level 30 Warcry cast 3 times a second
except for uniques and champions which are a bit more of a challenge.
Helm: I used a Peasant Crown until he was high enough to wear
Harlequin Crest. It had +1 skills and a bonus to Vit and Energy,
which is exactly what you need. The Harley is the uber big brother of
the Peasant crown and is definitely a luxury item.
Armor: I wore a Vipermaji for a long time for the +1 skill,
resistance and fast cast. After level 61 and the weapon swap to
Wizardspikes the resistance was no longer an issue. I swapped the
Viper out for a Que-Hegan's Wisdom. It had the same +skill bonus but
also had a few other bonuses of minimal value. Either one of these
would work well. Actually any armor would be fine, but I wanted one
with +1 skills. A four sapphire armor would be fine if mana was more
of a problem than the +1 skill.
I considered a couple of armor swaps along the way. I thought about
wearing a Guardian Angel and getting 90% resist all, but the strength
requirement was way above the 65 he had and I didn't want to waste my
130 spare points. ;) I also thought about a Skulders Ire since it
has the +1 skill I wanted and it might result in a decent find
occasionally with the topazed Harley and dual Gulls on the weapon
switch. Unfortunately I didn't have but one and it's on my MF Barb.
Besides, it would require a strength investment too.
Gloves: Frosties. I put them on and never took them off. The 40%
mana bonus is too good to pass.
Rings: Soj's on both. I stole them off of my retired Sorc. Bonus to
skills and mana.
Belt: He wore a Nightsmoke early on, but switched to a Gloomstrap and
never looked at another belt.
Boots: He wore Waterwalk for a long time but eventually switched to
Silkweaves.
Amulet: Currently wearing a +2 to Warcrys rare ammy with a small
bonus to life and mana. He may be better off wearing the +3 Warcrys
magic ammy in the stash for the extra man and life from a higher level
of BO. I'll have to test that if I think about it.
Weapons: As I said already, he dual wielded Suicide Branches until
level 61 and switched to dual Wizardspikes. If I had to pick the
items that made the most contribution to his success I'd have to say
the Spikes. They give 75% resist all each which along with Natural
Resistance and Anya quests takes care of all his resistance needs. If
there were no cap he would have about 125% resist all in Hell right
now. They also give good bonuses to mana, mana regin and 50% faster
cast each.
In charms, he has mostly +mana charms, but also a couple of +1 Warcrys
charms and maybe a +life charm lost in there somewhere. But mana
charms are the most important.
Strategy and Tactics:
In the early 30's the stun length and damage of Warcry are fairly low
so mana becomes an issue. At that level he was picking up and
drinking a lot of blue pots. Soon the blues were of little use since
a Super mana only gives a Barb 100 mana, which isn't much to a mana
pool quickly passing 1000. Soon enough mana became high enough that
it replenished itself if he didn't spam Warcry too much. After
getting the Spikes and the Harley his mana issues were pretty much
over. The early 80 points in Energy helped a lot though they really
don't effect his total mana much now.
Warcry alone kills well in Normal, even in full games. In NM it still
does well since by then it is maxed and you should have a few +skills
items. In NM the Rogue is a big help, but Warcry will kill in full
games but requires a big mana supply. I did most of my leveling
soloing the Ancients Way and Worlstone keep in NM in games as big as I
could find.
Battle Orders works on the base mana, not the mana total that is
augmented by Frosties and Stones so it's important to get a good base
of mana from +Energy and +mana items. Warcry will stun normal
monsters 100% but has a reduced chance for champions and uniques. It
seems that it can stun anything in the game except Act bosses. It may
take several cries to stun a boss and then you need to keep Warcry
going to keep them stunned. Of course you can let it expire while you
regin mana but the will certainly get a few licks in while you try to
stun them again.
My Rogue used a Cliffkiller (+2 skills) and Vipermaji (+1 skill) for a
long time to get the +3 skills lightning hose. This let her wear some
form of leaching helm, which eventually became a Tal's Mask. At level
69 I switched her to an Eaglehorn (+1 skill) and Peasant Crown (+1
skill). I really didn't see much change in her effectiveness using
the Eagle over the Cliffkiller.
My main tactic was to activate some monsters and retreat back to the
Rogue. As they came close I would stun them while the Rogue hosed
them down with lightning. If I managed to stun them away from the
Rogue (which was often the case with ranged attack opponents) I would
move to the far side and draw the Rogue in to them.
If the opponent was lightning immune I could just wait and let the
intermittent Fire Arrow take them out or I could open the merc window
and remove her hat. This drops her down to +2 skills where she fires
off alternating cold and fire arrows. I met at least one boss who was
fire and lightning immune so this turned out to be very important. In
places where the Rogue can fire across obstacles like the River of
Flame or the Frozen River I would often drop her down to +2 skills
since the lightning wouldn't reach across anyway. I considered giving
her a +2 Valkyrie Wing and swaping her armor out for a nice 50%
resistance Smoke. I decided that control over the skill points would
be a bit more difficult with that setup, so I never tried it.
Bosses can be stunned and with a healthy supply of mana they can be
kept stunned. Only the LE bosses were a pain since Warcry sets off
the lightning. These often required a retreat or two to keep the
Rogue and/or Barb alive. The real challenge was the Act bosses who
cannot be stunned. My main tactic with them was to make sure to keep
Battle Cry active and keep the bosses focus on the Barb and away from
the Rogue. Reducing the damage with Battle Cry let the Barbs potion
consumption keep up with the damage taken, although purples were often
required for quick relief.
Of special concern in Act 5 is the nasty "Magic Maiden" that those
harpies lay on you sometimes. The first time I ran into them I almost
cried myself to death before I realized what was happening. For a
while I managed to keep life just above mana to prevent that, but
after switching to the Wizardspikes and Harley that was much more
difficult. For these nasties I generally stun once and let the Rogue
finish them off.