Orange You Glad That Rune Dropped: Craft-Centric Tournament

[OldSoldier]

So GaranDarkslayer kilt Baal in NM last night (short update to come, act 5 was long but boring, poor drops and uneventful). I have a question and would welcome any input. I am trying to figure out how to deal with PIs. For the undead ones, Sanctuary is the way to go as far as I can tell since it removes physical resistance as long as the enemies are in its grasp. So even though Garan's primary skill is Smite and the magic damage from the aura doesn't transmit, the actual shield bash damage should transmit just fine (I think and hope this is the case). For regular monsters and stone skin bosses, will simply switching to a pre-requisite skill like Holy Freeze, which barely damages the enemies with its pulse damage, be enough to get open wounds flowing from the crafted belt? Or does the monster need to be damaged somehow by the blow that causes the OW to actually start the bleeding? Am I in for a terrible time dealing with PIs in this case?

If so, my alternative is to employ some OW on the merc. I have runes for both Crescent Moon and Duress, though I have no suitable base items for either at the moment. I think either would work in most of the circumstances presented along the journey, minus of course LI/PI (for Crescent Moon) or CI/PI (for Duress). Any thoughts on this? I've already spent normal Anya personalization on Garan's Black RW and have banked the NM reward. I'd also like to make a Spirit RW out of a nice paladin shield (which I also do not yet possess), so I have to make a tough call on the sequencing of this. Would love input on the mechanics of the OW as well as your opinion on what you'd do for my NM personalization. I have not yet set foot into the Blood Moor, as I am still trying to beef up my resists for the final leg. Right now I'm struggling to get cold and poison into the positive numbers, and fire is about 50+ and lightning is maxed. We have several crafts yet to do hoping for some better rolls.

Thanks in advance!

 

[Grisu]

@OldSoldier: OW is applied if the monster takes any damage at all with the attack that triggers OW. It doesn't matter what kind of damage (physical/elemental etc) it is. BTW, OW is kind of a "negative regeneration", so Resists don't reduce the amount of damage from OW.

OW also triggers, if the monster is already regenerating - i.e. if it took damage from your merc (via HF, Fireball or what else) or from your aura pulse and starts regenerating, a hit with a pure physical damage weapon will trigger OW. Since the damage from a low level aura is very small, the monster will regenerate very fast though and the time frame, in which you can apply OW with your weapon, will be very small, too.

I never heard of pulse damage from auras triggering OW, I am pretty sure it needs a weapon attack to trigger (melee or ranged). But the pulse damage can be the damage that starts the monster regeneration, allowing you to apply OW with your weapon/shield (see above).

Hope that helps with your decision! I went with a HF merc in a similar situation like yours for the non-physical damage. It is not great (esp. against PI mobs), but better than nothing...

You could also craft a Passion RW for the +1 Berserk and personalize it if you have the runes and the base for it

 

[OldSoldier]

Thanks for the input Grisu! I think at this point I'm leaning toward Crescent Moon or Duress for the merc and adding an elemental damage jewel to one of his other available sockets. That would give him the OW, a primary form of elemental damage and (in case it is a dual immune boss) a small amount of additional backup damage. I think once the OW starts that Garan can pile on and continue the OW with smite hits via the blood belt. I'll give it a try. If that fails it'll be a level 1 zeal with Holy Fire or Holy Freeze to start the OW.

 

[Pb_pal]

Quick update pre-RFL.

Officially out into act 2, he's definitely much sturdier now that he's wearing actual gear thanks to all that crafting.

Through Radament, and off on our way to the Maggot Lair he has managed 4 (!) gem shrines so far this act, which has been a great way to replenish crafting supplies after that big session he just had. Coldworm went down, and he was through easy enough to Fangskin.

Another gem shrine to make it 5 in the AS, he totaled the Summoner and then headed straight for the true tomb.

Duriel didn't put up much of a fight, so it was shortly off to the docks where he'll rest now for a bit as the RFL starts up.

Elding the Tesladin, lvl 58 - NM Kurast Docks

 

[Norcim]

@OldSoldier: Duress does have cold damage on it, so that could help with triggering OW on PIs. Plus it might shatter some corpses which can be useful. And Garan or the merc could use it, so you have some flexibility. For PIs, does the chance to cast static from Crescent Moon trigger even if no physical damage is done? Not sure how On Striking works with that, but that could be a nice bonus for packs of PIs to soften them all up. For what it's worth, Valryka didn't find a single elite white polearm until mid-Act 2, so finding a good base for that could be tough if you needed it earlier in Act 1 for places like the Countess Tower. Valryka resorted to some poison damage and OW and was able to slowly make it through, but we only had to do this for LI/PIs so doing this for every PI sounds pretty daunting.


Valryka and team started out in the Rocky Waste and found that it had no LIs, so we went up to P5. I went down to P3 to start the Stony Tomb and quickly hit a triple boss pack of Burning Dead Mages. This was really tough, as these guys run away once they get damaged so it's hard to focus on one to bring it all the way down without it running back into the pack and dragging Kasim to his death. We were eventually able to pull the packs apart enough to pick off a minion here and there in between trips to town to heal. We finally got one of the bosses alone and so I burned a few full rejuvs on Kasim since I knew if we went to town he'd run back into the crowd and we'd lose our chance to finish him off. Decoys only lasted a second here, so Valryka couldn't do much other than just spam them. I tried to get in some shots with the bow when possible to apply poison damage, but we had to be careful when doing this since our resists take a hit on the bow switch. I was able to grab a screenshot at the very end of the final boss. The well you can see in the screenshot was a huge help in this fight, as it kept refreshing itself it seemed like every time we went to town. We weren't really in danger, so I wasn't worried about dying here but it was definitely a pain because I didn't want to keep resurrecting Kasim or burn all my full rejuves.


The Halls of the Dead were a total slog. Soooooo many LI Hollow Ones... The burning dead were no problem, but we had no corpse disposal method so they just kept getting resurrected. We hit 3 champion packs in here, and it was really difficult to set up those fight so that Kasim and the Valk would target the same boss while I tried to keep the others occupied with Decoys and occasionally fired a few arrows to prevent regen. Possessed Hollow Ones were the worst, as they are almost PI as well. This guy took forever to bring down.


Valryka would also have to run around and try to take out any resurrected undead because if they got close to him Kasim would always stop what he was doing to attack them, then run off to fight a different Hollow One. I needed both him and the valk working on the same one to bring them down. It was almost at the very end of the Halls when I realized I could spend 3 of my 18 saved skill points and get freezing arrow, which would shatter the corpses. So dumb to not think about this until so late, but glad I did because it will be really useful in the false tombs. This would have greatly simplified the fight with the Burning Dead Mages in the Stony Tomb as well.

The Far Oasis started with 3 straight LI/PI scarab bosses, including Beetleburst.


This guy decided to go all out and add Conviction on top of LI/PI, which put Valryka's resists into very scary territory around the lightning bolts.


The one point FA (4 with + skills) was invaluable in this area at keeping Kasim alive. The freeze lasts just long enough when spammed to keep minions frozen. Kasim usually can hold his own when he's not getting hit by more than one monster at once. We picked up a plain white thresher in the Far Oasis, which is the first white elite polearm I've found. Also need to point out that we are still at 0 found magic ceremonial/mat javs.

I was worried about slogging through the Maggot Lair but it actually wasn't that bad. We didn't hit a ton of beetles, but FA was incredibly helpful when we did to keep things moving along. I put one point into Pierce so we are at a 34% chance at level 2, which isn't great but it did go off more than I would have expected for that low of a chance and <50% CTH. FA doesn't really do that much damage but the safety is huge. At the next muling spot I plan to go through our stashed charms and see if we have any with + cold damage and a second decent mod to try to boost the freeze length a bit.

Coldworm's lair was super fun (and pretty!) with LS. I never got a great screenshot of it lighting the whole room up but with all the maggot babies in there it was awesome! We were on P1, so it was also super effective; we wiped the whole room out super fast.


We found a great helm after clearing that room out that would really help if we'd been a fire druid:


I cleared out the whole of Claw Viper level 1 before we went down to level 2 so I was able to get Valryka and Kasim to level 81. We went down and got jumped by Fangskin almost immediately. I was able to get a Decoy up to pull some heat off and cast a few LS on his minions before he amped us and Kasim went down. I bailed through the stairs, resurrected Kasim, and went back in thinking I might have to do a suicide run past him further into the room and then hop through a TP and run all the back from the WP to get him away from the stairs. Turns out that was unnecessary as the LS must have killed everything except Fangskin as I was bailing. Fangskin was the only one left when we went back down and he stood no chance since he went after the Valk, who just laughed at his attempts to hurt her.


So we've finished clearing all of the outdoor areas of Act 2 and are taking a break before going underground. We had found a magic Ghost Spear in either the Far Oasis or Lost City so I went for one more Safety spear craft. I thought maybe I'd get something awesome and it would simplify my options for the personalization but alas it rolled about the same as the current Hyperion Spear.

I'm tempted to head back to NM now and put the white thresher into Larzuk's hands to ensure we get 5 sockets, then I'll make Kasim an Obediance and personalize it. I think that the damage increase will be invaluable, plus he'll get some bonus fire damage from enchant and a huge bonus to resists. I had been thinking of using this on the Kuku to use it with FA, but I think that the Anya bow with FA will be OK to keep us moving along. The extra pierce from Kuku would be great, but I'm not sure I want to go for IA anymore since it won't be that damaging and Kuku doesn't give us a huge boost to FA compared to the Anya bow, which also has poison damage.

@PhineasB I know in the rules it mentions not changing difficulties during an act (to prevent map re-rolls), but I thought that if I did this before starting the palace cellars that it could be OK since since these are completely new areas that don't require running through any previously cleared ones. If anyone thinks this is breaking the rules then I will hold off until completing the rest of Act 2

I'm thinking I might hold off on using the res of our saved skill points until Act3 (if we make it) to see how the team does against all the LI flayers. I could almost max FA but the mana cost would go way up and the damage still wouldn't be that great. Might still be enough though for the flayers though. Otherwise I could max PS and finish the Valk; I'd be very deadly against everything non-LI but would have to hope that Kasim and the Valk and low level FA would be good enough. So many decisions......

Conqueror Valryka, Level 81 CS/LS(and occasional FA) zon. Act 2 Hell. About to start the Palace Cellars.

 

[Jocular]

@Norcim

Wow, that looks like a brutal half of an act!

@Pb_pal

Nice to see Duriel dropping something good for once

 

[skiffcz]

@Pb_pal

Nice to see Duriel dropping something good for once

Wait, what? I missed the screenshot for the first time - no townportal drop? Is this some black magic?!

 

[skoolbus]

Welp, back into the fray. Going to join with a Necro just using curses, CE, and a golem of some sort. I recently tried a Necro with curses only and it was going fine (albeit a tad slow) until I hit the wrong button and teleported into a mob and deeds... So... I'll be doing something similar, though I will use skeles for norm, then just respec to speed through a little bit. Good news is, unless I get extremely lucky and craft an ammy with teleport, I won't have to worry about that this go around!

Not sure how fast I will be going, been playing a lot of Grim Dawn lately, trying to get all the way through HC there.

Agni, Level 12 Curse Necro, Stony Field

 

[Grisu]

@skoolbus: Welcome back! Wow, so good to see so many well-known faces (avatars? nicknames?). Good luck with Agni! I guess D2R brought you back?

Lugh, the Concetrate Barbarian, cleared the Den of Evil on /p5. But it took ages (although it was safe), so I will probably continue on /p3 or even /p1...

 

[PhineasB]

@Norcim Nice progress, and perseverance with those LIs! I'm still working through the LI solution, but it's helpful to see your progress leading the way for context of the scope of the challenge.
No concerns at all about switching Difficulties when it's at a place where the map change doesn't impact terrain to be covered. I hadn't meant it as a strict rule and wasn't really thinking about the spots in A2 and A4 where there's no issue there. I should probably go back and clarify that piece in the rules.

 

[Jocular]

Welp, back into the fray. Going to join with a Necro just using curses, CE, and a golem of some sort. I recently tried a Necro with curses only and it was going fine (albeit a tad slow) until I hit the wrong button and teleported into a mob and deeds... So... I'll be doing something similar, though I will use skeles for norm, then just respec to speed through a little bit. Good news is, unless I get extremely lucky and craft an ammy with teleport, I won't have to worry about that this go around!

Not sure how fast I will be going, been playing a lot of Grim Dawn lately, trying to get all the way through HC there.

Agni, Level 12 Curse Necro, Stony Field

Meleemancer with a side of Golem?! lol I love the SPF.

 

[PhineasB]

Orange finished up A2 NM last Sunday evening, and cleared up to LK on Thursday after work. I did an hour of Cows for RFL yesterday evening, but wasn't really enjoying it. And since having fun is my goal when I play D2, I left that aside and returned to Orange earlier today, finishing A3 and just completing A4. She had one close call, with a big purple saving her from a double pack in A4 that had HF, amp and fanaticism and were all LI (lightning spitting dog types). But other than that pretty safe progress, proceeding cautiously as I wait to hit lvl 69 to try more crafts.

Palace and AS were smooth, and then we picked up a nice surprise with Ko dropping in one of the false tombs. That makes Harmony an option for LI solution, possibly skipping cold arrow and going with Magic Arrow or Guided Arrow to address any chance to hit issues I don't think jab is a workable solution due to low damage and AR, so it will result in deeds for sure if I use it too far into Hell.

We then had a Black Hack sighting, as an LI Unraveller who was a bit of a challenge. Along the way we saw a Lance in the shopping screen and had picked up another pEmerald. Merc was so weak, I figured it was worth another attempt even with lower odds on affix than waiting. I'm glad I did; he can actually do damage and leech life back!

With that upgrade in hand, we took out the big bug, not even needing a trip to town after dropping to p3 for the fight:

A3 was uneventful, with the Ormus ring useless. But we started rerolling GCs once I had one with ilvl >50, eventually netting a nice Cobalt GC of Sustenance showing up on the fourth attempt. No stair traps in the Temples, and Sarina was a walkover with perfectly placed Decoy, before Meph was dispatched in due course:


A4 was more challenging, with the Pitspawn type dogs rolling in City of the Damned, where they are LI. Jab was next to useless with the Maiden Javelin from Normal Anya (I've since up'ed). So it was mostly targeting the Fleshspawners and finger mage types , while the merc dealt with the LIs. Thankfully they seem to have low physical resist and low life, so it didn't become tedious. She had a close call almost immediately upon coming down the stairs, with amp, fanaticism, HF double pack pouncing, with one extra fast. Thankfully she had cleared a little bit before they woke up, and she could retreat safely to the stairs with Decoy blocking while she TPed back to town to resurrect the merc.

Smooth sailing in RoF, with HF delivering an Um, which is handy but doesn't have an obvious use at the moment. Then CS, and the OKs. We were greeted by this guy, who might have gotten Orange if she hadn't thrown out a Decoy before advancing to the entrance. It poofed right away, so I knew there was trouble ahead and cautiously navigated the extra fast and mana burn. She might have gotten swarmed otherwise. Then this LI OK, who was mixed in with three other normal OK packs and took a lot of care. And for escalating difficulty, this LI OK with HF, who regenerated almost as fast as Orange and Leharas could dish out damage when decrep was active (as it was the entire time). But only almost Once we got him pinned, a little less than 2 minutes was needed, but he fell.

The Diablo fight was a challenge on p7, with his physical hit taking off more than a third of Orange's life and him deciding to use that instead of lightning hose and firestorm attack. We had three town trips before Diablo fell. The action shot was pretty cool, so I figured I'd include it too:



Other drops of note were Vile Husk and Tal's mask. Her biggest issue is lack of IAS, so I'm really hoping for some IAS gloves. The Jade JoF will be used in her end-game armor or helm (which hopefully come with a socket between them). I'm enjoying this so plan to keep focused on Orange for now, hopefully finished A5 NM tomorrow.

Orange, Level 67, A5 NM, Shenk Beware!

* * *

Forumite     Character         Class   Lvl   Progress
--------     ---------         -----   ---   --------
Skiff        ColdFever         Sorc    77    Guardian
Norcim       Valryka           Zon     81    A2 H
Grisu        Lugh              Barb    ??    A1 H
OldSoldier   GaranDarkslayer   Pal     ??    A1 H
PhineasB     Orange            Zon     67    A5 NM
Pb_pal       Elding            Pal     58    A3 NM
Vildecor     Rowena            Sin     48    A1 NM
Babyhell     ItsATrap          Sin     21    A2 N

Spoiler: Deeds

Forumite   Character   Class   Lvl   Progress
--------   ---------   -----   ---   --------
zemaj      OUGNecro    Nec     33    A3 N

 

[Jocular]

Well, FoH+Conversion is pretty cool. They work surprisingly well together. One of the biggest complaints about using FoH for PVM is the combination of single target+casting delay. How the hell can you take care of a large group of mobs? Conversion! But Conversion doesn't have any added AR...Conviction! Not only that, but you don't have to spend any extra points to have access to Conversion. Here's some numbers as to its efficiency: 1 point=7%, 5 points=25%, 9 points=33%, 15 points=39%, 20 points=42%. IMO 9 points is the minimum you'd want, 25% chance feels too much like a roll of the dice. On a few occasions I attacked 8 times in a row before it worked.

Anyways, the Cow level was a lot of fun. I was actually lol'ing in real life because I couldn't believe how well FoH+Conversion synergize compared to my expectations. Here's an action shot. You can see one converted cow at the front of the pack. A few times I took on herds of cows ~30 thick. Admittedly burning through many, many potions.



Unfortunately, this all came crashing down on my head immediately upon entering NM. I stopped using Conversion in Blood Moor/Den of Evil since there weren't any mobs large enough to warrant it. Then came along BishiBosh. I still ignored Conversion (yes I'm dumb) because I was a bit south of the Fallen Encampment and didn't think it was necessary just yet, despite being more crowded than I would like.


Then I looped around above Bishibosh to avoid the Fallen in the above picture. Bad idea...a pack of Dark Hunters swooped in. I used FoH once (why? why???!), which was my downfall. I should've immediately turned tail and ran, and used my previous strategy of leading encounters with Conversion. But since I have zero FCR% and only 12%FHR I got caught up. I converted one, used a few frantic potions, and deeded



I think the most painful thing about this deeds is that I was less than 3 levels away from finally crafting...good lord what a tease this character turned out to be lol. I also only had about 1 hour of playtime with FoH/Conversion and was really enjoying the combination. With a Holy Freeze merc providing an extra layer of crowd control (along with his holy freeze damage bolstered by Conviction) I think this build could be truly hell viable, even untwinked. Just slow. With twinked gear you could even play around with using an Act III cold merc. But it will require a lot of careful playing due to FoH's large activation radius when clicking your mouse, and making sure to use conversion even before you think it's necessary



PopeJohnPaul_II, Level 48, A1 NM, DEAD! SO VERY DEAD.


P.S. I am planning to try this again, but with a barb. A mace-wielding Bash/Stun/Double Swing Barbarian teaming up with an Act V merc for some great bro time. I appreciate any and all suggestions. My current idea for skill distribution is:

20 Bash
15 Stun
8 Double Swing
20 Mace Mastery
15 Battle Orders
1 to Berserk, Iron Skin, Natural Resistances, Battle Cry, Battle Command Find Item

Which would equal level 81. Low AR on my combat skills means high reliance on Battle Cry.


* * *

Forumite     Character         Class   Lvl   Progress
--------     ---------         -----   ---   --------
Skiff        ColdFever         Sorc    77    Guardian
Norcim       Valryka           Zon     81    A2 H
Grisu        Lugh              Barb    ??    A1 H
OldSoldier   GaranDarkslayer   Pal     ??    A1 H
PhineasB     Orange            Zon     67    A5 NM
Pb_pal       Elding            Pal     58    A3 NM
Vildecor     Rowena            Sin     48    A1 NM
Babyhell     ItsATrap          Sin     21    A2 N

Spoiler: Deeds

Forumite   Character   Class   Lvl   Progress
--------   ---------   -----   ---   --------
zemaj      OUGNecro    Nec     33    A3 N
Jocular    PopeJohn... Pal     48    A1 NM

 

[Grisu]

@Jocular wow, that is sad news! You definitely had a run there! Good to hear you enjoyed the build though! Have to try it out some time, too, I guess...but yeah, Conversion is too unreliable for my taste...

About the barb: I found AR to be the main problem for my barb, esp. because my upped Bonesnap doesn't have any inherent AR. So items with +AR and +Dex will be highly sought after!

I actually went for the safer route of maxing BO first, even putting 5 points in Natural Resistance.

And I really love the earlier recommendation of a War Cry build! Makes the character so much safer! I especially like the combo with Taunt: Taunt the ranged monsters, let them come close - bam! War Cry! Take them down safely with my weapon. Mana intensive, but safe.

Also, did I mention I love Taunt? If you activate Battle Cry, you already have one point in it. I use it often, esp. against archer boss packs in Hell.

The idea with a Barb merc is nice, but maybe you'll need the AR from a BA merc...

Good luck!

 

[Jocular]

@Grisu

Ty for the condolences. I hope I'm not overselling the build, lol. It definitely will be slow and relying on Conversion is really touch and go. Especially against a pack of FrenzyTaurs in Act V Hell, or Urdars in Act III/IV, I can't imagine how frustrating it would feel to get a few unlucky Conversions rolls in a row and then deed! But...the synergy between Conversion and Conviction and the need for more meat shields for FoH...there's something there to be explored. With equipment a bit less restrained lol.

As far as the barb I love taunt too I never really understood them until I played around with Howl+Taunt and then their style of melee combat became addicting, even with just single target attacks. Though, I've never had a barb build that relied on 3 different combat skills and 3 different crowd control skills at the same time so...we'll see how it goes

And I like the idea of War Cry, but dang it takes 11 skill points to get a 3 second stun! At what point did you find the stun length to be 'worth it'?

One last thing that's more just me just talking to myself...but I sorta understand the Barb combat skill tree now, and why the synergies are what they are. Bash, Stun, Double Swing, and Concentrate all synergize with at least one of the other skills listed. Either +ED% or AR%. I'm guessing the devs thought we would invest a similar amount of skill points in each and use them situationally. Concentrate for small groups/single enemies with a big 2-handed weapon, Bash for focusing down a single dangerous monster you need to keep in hit recovery, Stun for some crowd control, and double swing to deal with mana burn and larger groups of mobs. The only problem is that the synergies aren't strong enough and if you invest 40 skill points equally you end up with Concentrate that does "enough" damage, a 3-second stun, and a woefully underpowered Bash and Double Swing.

I think on an untwinked build you simply don't have enough +skills to make it work, and have to take 10 points from Stun and put them into Bash, since Bash increases Conc *and* Double swing. This leaves you with 3 relatively competent skills, and still 20 points in a Weapon Mastery and 15 in Battle Orders. Perhaps for HC it would be better to swap those last two skill investments. Hmmmmm...but each point into Double Swing only improves its AR by 5%, and does nothing synergy-wise for the other skills and thus you could get Stun back to 10 skill points (which will also benefit both Conc and Bash with +ED%). But a lvl 1 Double Swing costs mana...oh the theorycrafting goes round and round.

 

[OldSoldier]

I suppose it is time for a good update for GaranDarkslayer.

First, a few cool pics for nostalgia since I don't think I've updated with pics since before NM Hellforge.

NM Hellforge drop. Nice one!


Diablo was not hard with 50% CB on /P1 (why go higher except for some XP?)


Anya's NM reward (this is his full time shield now - another premade socket without spending a Larzuk reward, woo hoo!)


His new full time amulet. I like that LR baby! 10% FRW is nice too. I've tried to make a few since then but nothing has been very good and I am running low on Emeralds and Rubies.


Nihlathak himself was not difficult, but Tomb Vipers were in this level and I did not feel like dying so close to the end of NM so I skipped two wings.

We didn't have too much trouble in the ToD, even though a boss pack of Death Lords greeted us. Smite is not really fair when it stuns for 4 seconds.


Baal barely moved. We smashed him quickly (at /P1 of course) and he went down in probably less than 15 seconds.


Upon entering hell difficulty (at level 74), we re-evaluated a few items based upon maxing fire and lightning resistances. We were able to get fire and lightning to 75%, cold to 19% and poison, well who cares. It is positive at least.

We did make a pretty sweet safety craft for our merc. It rolled two damage modifiers and knockback. The knockback must be a functon of the length of the weapon, because when ole Gulzar knocks folks back, they move a LONG way. The fact that we got a 190% ED lance and we're sporting Fanaticism means that the merc does more than his fair share of damage. It is a shame that I'll likely replace that weapon soon (probably after defeating Andariel) in the interest of dealing with PIs.


Undead PIs like this guy were an easy target with Sanctuary aura. I put one point into it and kept it for undead PI only.


It is guys like this that really had me worried. We tried really hard to kill ole Treehead. We got the OW going from Garan's blood belt by striking him with a level 1 zeal and allowing a few lightning damage charms to do their thing, and it worked. Once the OW got going, we got into a safe spot where his lightning bolts would miss Garan (Gulzar was not so lucky but he wasn't doing any good anyway) and continuously smited him. Sometimes his bleeding would stop and he would regenerate so I'd have to go back to zeal. Eventually Garan ran out of potions (we only used our reds and blues in this fight) and Treehead's life bar was about at "Tree" and going up, so I let him go. In this case, having the merc wear a Duress would not have helped since he was PI/CI, but I think him using a Crescent Moon would have worked. So we are on the lookout for a suitable weapon for the merc to use Crescent Moon.


Almost immediately afterward, we picked up this little jewel:


Too bad the strength requirement is too high, or we'd really enjoy the usage of it (after finishing the act of course, I need to go back to NM to personalize it).

To further my character's movement onward, we met a crossroads again when heading to see the Countess. Ooze Fang was extra fast and he had at least 8 minions, and a level 1 Sanctuary was not enough to keep them off of us, so I went back to Akara and asked her to help us start over. Garan had 8 points in Conversion and its pre-requisite skills, which promptly went between Redemption and Sanctuary instead, to ease in situations like this.


I had high hopes for being able to use conversion with a thorns merc. I used conversion probably five times. The problem with it is not that it doesn't work (although Mind Blast is far superior) it is that it needs to work RIGHT NOW when called upon and it is too unreliable in that split second when I decide it is needed. There were a few times in the NM Durance that I'd convert a zombie and they'd still come after Garan! Their blows would never land, but I don't need the monsters chasing my character, I need them advancing toward the enemies, soaking up FE doll explosions and undead archer arrows.

So, with this in mind, I decided to (at the end of the act) retrieve a NM holy freeze merc and switch to the Crescent Moon once he reaches level 76. I can do this because with a crafted armor I can get to 185 Str with him at level 76, which the current merc is at now (but obviously will not be once we start over again with a new merc). I hated doing this because I've already done a smite paladin a couple of times and I wanted to do something else, but alas it is too late. None of our gear supports other builds so Smite to the end sans conversion/thorns. Bummer.

We ended up having no trouble with the Countess and cube socketed the Ogre Axe (it got three). Onward ho!


GaranDarkslayer, level 76 smiter. Blar.

 

[Grisu]

@Grisu

And I like the idea of War Cry, but dang it takes 11 skill points to get a 3 second stun! At what point did you find the stun length to be 'worth it'?

Hmm, depends on the weapon speed, I guess. I like to get at least 5 hits in before I have to recast War Cry. With War Cry, you don't need Stun though, which saves you a few points. I myself don't like changing attack skills around too often - it's already taking all of my hotkeys to map all my crowd control skills and such (Battle Command, Battle Orders, War Cry, Battle Cry, Taunt, Leap Attack/Teleport (I have an amulet), Howl, Find Item are already 8, + Berserk against PIs...if I needed more hotkeys for Bash, Stun and another attack I'd need more than 26 letters in our alphabet

About Concetrate and its uses: I don't know if Concetrate isn't better with one-handed weapons than with two-handed weapons because of the "attack cannot be interrupted". You basically skip your block animation, but still block, which I think is awesome. But it is also good with 2h-weapons, because you don't go into hit recovery. The damage is kind of meh though - I rather spend extra points in Mace Mastery than in Concentrate, because it is barely lower and also supports my Berserk attacks

 

[Jocular]

Hmm, depends on the weapon speed, I guess. I like to get at least 5 hits in before I have to recast War Cry. With War Cry, you don't need Stun though, which saves you a few points. I myself don't like changing attack skills around too often - it's already taking all of my hotkeys to map all my crowd control skills and such (Battle Command, Battle Orders, War Cry, Battle Cry, Taunt, Leap Attack/Teleport (I have an amulet), Howl, Find Item are already 8, + Berserk against PIs...if I needed more hotkeys for Bash, Stun and another attack I'd need more than 26 letters in our alphabet

About Concetrate and its uses: I don't know if Concetrate isn't better with one-handed weapons than with two-handed weapons because of the "attack cannot be interrupted". You basically skip your block animation, but still block, which I think is awesome. But it is also good with 2h-weapons, because you don't go into hit recovery. The damage is kind of meh though - I rather spend extra points in Mace Mastery than in Concentrate, because it is barely lower and also supports my Berserk attacks

lol I am very quickly realizing that I need my brain be 50% larger to keep up with a barb build that has 4 situational main attacks. All of the hotkeys, which attacks are most beneficial when, and which warcries to use, combined with a shifting battlefield...I'm currently playing inefficiently and dangerously trying to get a handle on it. For this to work I'd need decision making skills and APM like a starcraft player who has played this build for 4000 hours and can decide what to do, when, on the fly, w/ zero thought

 

[Swamigoon]

I'm having fun in SC, leveling up a Stun barbarian right now. Four RMB skill hotkeys (Shout, BO, Stun, War Cry) have been enough so far for normal and NM, but from what I read here, maybe I should allocate and practice with some more hotkeys, for other warcries and combat skills, before I wade too far into hell.

(For participants in this "Orange is the new hotness" tourney: thanks for letting some of us hijack your thread, and mourn the loss of PopeJohnPaul_II with our little side discussion about barbarian skills.)

 

[Jocular]

@Swamigoon

The memorial service has been appreciated

Regarding warcries: As silly as it sounds, it feels, uh, empowering to use Howl+Taunt competently. Plus it makes previously deadly situations much more manageable, and it only takes 8-10 skill points (6-8 Howl, 1 Taunt, 1 Battle Cry). You are complete control over the battlefield when you're in the zone, howling everyone away and targeting exactly which monsters you want to kill first. Add in Battle Cry as well to reduce the monsters' damage and defense and Hell becomes much less scary. I have just as much fun playing a Barb that makes full use of crowd control Warcries as when I'm playing a Pstrike sin.