DIABLO 2, LORD OF DESTRUCTION - BARBARIAN GUIDE
Version 1.0, August 25 2002
Written by Loranna (lorannapyrel@hotmail.com)
*** Table of Contents ***
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Section 1: Introduction
Section 2: Legal Notice and Contact Information
Section 3: Why Play as a Barbarian?
Section 3.1: What a Barbarian Cannot Do
Section 3.2: What a Barbarian Can Do
Section 4: The Barbarian's Individual Abilities
Section 4.1: Weapon Styles
Section 4.1.1: Weapon and Shield Style
Section 4.1.2: Dual Weapon Style
Section 4.1.3: Two Handed Weapon Style
Section 4.2: Stat Points
Section 4.2.1: Strength
Section 4.2.1: Dexterity
Section 4.2.3: Vitality
Section 4.2.4: Energy
Section 4.2.5: Suggestions for Stat Distribution
Section 4.3: Barbarian Skills
Section 4.3.1: Combat Skills
Section 4.3.2: Combat Masteries
Section 4.3.3: Warcries
Section 5: Putting It All Together
Section 5.1: What a Barbarian Needs
Section 5.1.1: Crowd Control
Section 5.1.2: Powerful Attack and Physical Immune Killing
Section 5.1.3: Adequate Defenses
Section 5.1.4: Means of Healing
Section 5.1.5: Mobility
Section 5.2: A Suggested Skeleton Barbarian Skill Selection
Section 5.3: Possible Builds Using the Skeleton Skill Selection
Section 6: Hirelings
Section 6:1: The Rogue Hireling
Section 7: Closing Thoughts
Section 8: Revision History
Section 9: Credits
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*** Section 1: Introduction ***
Hello everyone, and thanks for looking at my Barbarian Guide for Diablo
2; this is my first ever attempt at making a guide for a video game, so
please bear with me as I offer my insights into the Barbarian class.
Before we begin, I would like to say that this guide assumes the reader
has a basic familiarity with the game Diablo 2, LoD, and the terms and
conventions used in the game. The guide is also written from a mostly
Single Player, Player versus Monster perspective. I have only been
playing Diablo 2 for a few months at this point; I have never taken part
in any duels, and have only played some limited multiplayer games with
friends via TCP/IP. I don't use Battle.Net, and consequently do not
have access to the sort of equipment one can find for sale from traders.
It is, in fact, for these reasons that I have decided to try writing a
guide for Diablo 2.
Many of the other guides and FAQs I have seen for this game are written
by people who have played for a long time, who have accumulated riches
and ultra-powerful items over that time. Their advice and character
builds, to me, reflect this experience and tend to assume an ability to
choose from the best items in the game for even newly-made characters. I
have no doubts that, for people with the resources to get the equipment
recommended, and maybe a rush to get their character up to high levels
in a day or two, the guides and FAQs I've read are very helpful.
However, to me, not everyone has the luxuries afforded by playing on
Battle.Net, with the multitude of items for sale and the chance to get a
character rushed to high level quickly. People like myself, who play
Single Player most of the time, don't necessarily have access to all the
wondrous items mentioned in these guides. Also, newer players who are
just trying out a Barbarian for the first time, going by one of the
guides written by more experienced players, may not immediately realize
some of the unspoken things these guides do not mention; this is not to
say that the writers of the other guides were wrong in leaving out those
details - they've played the game a lot, and such things to them would
be so obvious as to not need mentioning. And also, several of the
guides I have seen are built for specific types of playing styles - most
notably dueling, or magic find runs, both of which are popular styles of
play, but which might not be what a newer player is looking for ...
I, as a newer player, feel I have a different perspective on the game
than people who have played for years by now; I don't have the uber-
items at hand and am usually playing with only myself and my lone NPC
hireling to face the hordes of demons. I am trying, through this guide,
to offer a different perspective than what other guides I have seen have
had; to speak to those players who, like myself, are relative newcomers
to the game and are wondering how they'll ever attain the demigod-like
power of some of Battle.Net's veterans. I cannot offer tips on how to
make a Barbarian Godly - but I can offer my experiences in how to make
your Barbarian survive the rigors of the battles before him, making use
of what you can find simply by playing the game, without trading, and by
exploiting your Skills to good effect. And if I say something that
makes a veteran look at the Barbarian with a new perspective - well,
then I'll know I wrote something good (^_^)
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*** Section 2: Legal Notice and Contact Information ***
This Guide is my work; GameFAQS Username Loranna, Copyright August 2002.
It is meant for personal use and it is not meant to be used to produce
revenue in any way. Please do not publish or distribute this guide with
intent to sell; also please do not post it on your Web site without
first contacting me and getting my permission
(lorannapyrel@hotmail.com), and even with my permission, please do not
alter, edit, truncate, or otherwise change around my work - even if it's
a spelling mistake. Current sites with permission to post my Guide are
www.GameFAQS.com; should you see this guide on any other site, please
inform me that proper action may be taken.
Whenever I quote numerical data, such as percentage of a skill working,
etc, all such data has come from the Arreat Summit, at
http://www.battle.net/diablo2exp/
People interested in more technical detail about various Skills and the
like - such as the exact progression of damage and attack rating bonuses
- are encouraged to go to the aforementioned website and read up on it
there; Blizzard has done a far better job of compiling that sort of
information than I could hope to do in this guide - plus, they have
screenshots too! (^_^)
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*** Section 3: Why Play as a Barbarian? ***
Barbarians are a powerful fighting class in Diablo 2, with many options
for customizing the sort of fighter you want. Anything form a classic
sword and shield toting hero, to a berserker wielding two large axes, to
a dragoon style warrior who jumps in with a massive pike, to a
specialist in throwing knives, can easily be made with the Barbarian
class. Barbarians also possess a mix of abilities that make them a good
choice for not only solo play, but also group play, with war cries which
can grant bonuses to party members as well as the Barbarian himself.
Barbarians are also a relatively simple class to start off in, as their
primary means of taking down the legions of Hell are through force of
arms, which means that people can jump right into playing a Barbarian
with little effort. Yet, Barbarians have a level of depth to them as
well beyond simple hack-and-slash; the number of skills devoted to
weapons and weapon use offer many options for different combat styles,
war cries provide ways for Barbarians to 'buff' allies and weaken
enemies, as well as control the ability of monsters to even get in close
enough to hit you. Barbarians can be furious, all-out offensive killing
machines, powerful, nigh-unhittable tanks, marksmen who coolly dispatch
foes from a distance, or a mix of all three, and all while providing
backup support for a team taking on Diablo and his brothers. Many of
the Barbarian's skills can prove useful even with only a single skill
point allocated to them, providing Barbarians with potentially a wealth
of options and tactics to play with, or one can choose to concentrate in
just a few skills and become a deadly specialist.
*** Section 3.1: What a Barbarian Cannot Do
Before going into the list of things a Barbarian can do, let me briefly
sum up what they can not do - and then later I will explain how
Barbarians can compensate for these inabilities :)
First off, Barbarians do not have many skills for inflicting magical or
elemental damage. What magical damage they can inflict, is mostly form
skills like Berserk and maybe War Cry (if that skill does magic and not
physical damage) - and Berserk is a melee skill, while War Cry is a
short-range radius. When it comes to striking down foes at a distance
with the power of the elements, Barbarians must look to other sources
than their natural skills; they are, in fact, the only class which lacks
any real elemental damage in their skill set (Sorceresses and Paladins
have ways to use ice, fire, and lightning; Necromancers have poison and
pure magic attacks, and Amazons, Druids, and Assassins all have some
ability to inflict all four elemental attacks, either in melee or in
ranged form)
Second, Barbarians do not have the ability to summon minions - other
than their hireling and party members, the Barbarian faces the hordes of
Hell alone. Only the Sorceress and the Paladin suffer from this lack,
and the Paladin has a skill that can temporarily convert monsters into
minions, offering the Paladin a way around this limitation. Barbarians
can, however, create Grim Wards, which can be used to keep enemies off
of a Barbarian's back as effectively as a meat-shield summon, if not
somewhat more so in the proper circumstances.
These are the Barbarian's most noticeable inabilities; lack of any real
elemental skills, and lack of minion summoning. However, the list of
abilities a Barbarian does have more than makes up for these lacks.
*** Section 3.2: What a Barbarian Can Do
This is just a short teaser list of the abilities available to a
Barbarian; later sections will go into more detail about each of these
abilities in turn.
A Barbarian can ...
- Specialize in almost any sort of melee or throwing weapon, doing
impressive damage
- Control the distance between enemies and himself, thus controlling how
many monsters can get in close to hit him
- 'Teleport' - or, rather, Leap, which is one of the better ways of
getting around in a tight jam as well as a useful attack
- Wield two weapons, and use skills allowing for hitting multiple foes
at once
- Use passive skills which improve defense, stamina, elemental
resistance, and walking/running speed
- Use war cries to raise allies' defenses, life, mana, and stamina,
weaken enemy attacks and defenses, stun monsters, frighten off monsters,
or pull monsters to them (last three part of 'controlling the distance')
- Use skills that can 'pop' corpses, preventing reviving monsters from
raising their dead comrades - and providing a chance to find more items
in the process, or frighten monsters away
- Use combat skills that can inflict tons of damage, provide
uninterruptible attacks, knock enemies away, or stun enemies briefly
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*** Section 4: The Barbarian's Individual Abilities ***
With such an array of abilities from which to choose, deciding what
skills to take, and how many points to invest in each, can be a daunting
task. In addition, there is the matter of stat points to distribute,
what weapons to use, etc - a possibly daunting array of choices for a
new Barbarian player. So, how does one decide what abilities to go for?
*** Section 4.1: Weapon Styles
Before deciding what skills to select or how to allocate your stat
points from leveling, first you should determine a few things about your
Barbarian's preferences for weapons - several of the Barbarian's skills
work best with certain weapon setups and not so good with others.
Example - Frenzy is a skill that requires wielding two weapons to use
it; if you're making a Barbarian who uses swords and shields, or pole
arms, Frenzy is not for you.
The following is a brief description of weapon styles available to
Barbarians, with some suggestions as to the advantages and drawbacks to
each, and what skills each style might want to look into. Note - these
styles are conventions I have made up and aren't actually part of the
game per se; if anything, I would attribute my choice of naming these
styles to Dungeons and Dragons (TM) and other such RPGs.
* Section 4.1.1: Weapon and Shield Style
A classic fantasy staple, this style has the Barbarian swinging a weapon
in one hand and deflecting arrows and blows with his trusty shield.
Said weapon can be either a melee weapon, such as a sword, mace, or axe,
or even a throwing weapon - all of which can be used as melee weapons as
well, though most throwing weapons are much better used as ranged
attacks.
With a shield, a Barbarian gains several advantages. One is increased
defense from the shield; another is the chance to block incoming
physical attacks; a third is an increased chance for having good
resistances to elemental attacks - shields can be socketed with diamonds
and runes to provide better resistances than one might normally obtain
through other items.
Using a shield, however, does limit a Barbarian's offensive abilities -
he gives up the chance to swing two weapons at once, or the ability to
wield a weapon with two hands (two-handed weapons typically do
noticeably more damage than one-handed weapons). This lack of damage
can be compensated for by getting powerful one-handed weapons, pumping
up a Barbarian's weapon mastery in the appropriate weapon, using combat
skills, and by increasing one's attack speed - but overall, a Barbarian
using weapon and shield will do less damage per attack or unit of time
than other Barbarians. Weapon and shield is a defensive, resistance
minded style; the Barbarian is stressing his own safety over his death-
dealing ability, confident that his defenses will keep him safe while he
chops down his foes.
Weapon and Shield also presents one other potential problem - the chance
of getting caught in 'blockstun'; a barrage of attacks deflected by your
shield will cause the Barbarian to go into the blocking animation over
and over, preventing him form moving for a moment. This can be annoying
when you're being fired upon by a dozen blowdart-wielding Flayers and
you just want to take a few steps to the left for some cover ...
Getting a faster block rate, however, can compensate for this problem,
and to my mind, all those attacks that are keeping me in a blocking
animation, had they hit, would likely have me gasping for a medic
anyway, so I prefer to be alive and wading through the fire then dying
and still having to wade through the fire (^_^)
Barbarians going for shield usage have a lot of options available to
them; should they choose to pump up skills like Iron Skin and Shout
(both of which raise defense), and get their hands on a shield with good
blocking percentages, they can become formidable tanks, and by raising
Natural Resistance while using shields socketed with diamonds, they can
often walk into Hell difficulty with resistances near max even with the
steep penalties. Combat-skill wise, only the skills dealing
specifically with two weapons are pointless for this fighter; weapon and
shield style can either use skills like Bash, Stun, Concentrate, and
Berserk to pick off enemies one by one, or else go for Whirlwind and
slice up foes with abandon - and the shield offers Barbarians using
Whirlwind and Berserk an additional layer of defense that they would
otherwise not have. Alternatively, a Barbarian using throwing weapons
can use skills like Howl, War Cry, and Grim Ward to keep enemies at a
safe distance, while his shield gives him a chance to deflect arrows and
other ranged physical attacks while he picks his targets and whittles
the legions of Hell down with deft throws of his weapon.
I, myself, favor the use of the weapon and shield style, both for melee
and for ranged weapons - I use a sword and shield as one weapon
configuration, and a throwing axe and shield for the other. Thus far, I
have found that this style of play suits my inclinations well, and even
if a player wishes to make a two-handed wielder or a dual-wielder,
weapon and shield is a good option to look into when you're just
starting off and have few skill points and good pieces of equipment to
play with.
* Section 4.1.2: Dual Weapon Style
This Barbarian goes for a more offensive approach, wielding two weapons
to carve his foes into pieces. Any one handed melee weapon, and any
sword be it one or two handed, can be used in a dual wielding style by a
Barbarian, as can dual throwing weapons.
By sacrificing a shield in favor of another weapon, a Barbarian
increases the damage he can do per unit of time, and also opens up other
options - it can be hard early on to find a sword with both good life
leech and good mana leech, or with more than one elemental damage, but
by wielding two weapons, you double the options available to you. Have
one sword that does great ice damage, but no leech? Wield it with
another weapon with a bunch of skulls and leech all you want while
freezing your foes (^_^). Of course, there are other ways to get extra
bonuses like this, such as charms, rings, amulets, etc - but having two
weapons gives you that many more options, especially in lower levels
when the really good charms and jewelry can be hard to come by.
The downside to using two weapons is that you sacrifice the protection
of a shield in order to get it, and all the benefits a shield can
provide. However, all the Barbarian's defense-raising skills can still
be used, so one can still make a fairly impressive tank with two
weapons. And high-end weapons can often have bonuses to resists, which
can offset the lack of a shield with runes and diamonds to some degree
(or to a large degree, depending on what you get your hands on)
Skill-wise, the Barbarian using two weapons, especially melee, has
several skills tailored for his style. Frenzy is perhaps the most
notable, allowing a dual wielding Barbarian to increase his attack speed
and movement rate to truly frightening levels and cementing the dual
wielding Barbarian's reputation for being a blender on legs. Whirlwind,
when used with two weapons, hits more often than with just one, as the
secondary weapon slices through the legions of Hell along with the
primary - thus increasing the damage that skill can offer over and above
what a weapon and shield wielder could hope for. Throwing specialists
using two throwing weapons can strike down foes twice as fast using
Double Throw, and still can use all the same skills for keeping enemies
at safe distances that any other Barbarian can.
My experiences with dual wielding are, admittedly, limited - having
grown comfortable with weapon and shield style, I tend to stick with it
- but I have tried both a dual sword wielding style and a dual throwing
style for comparison purposes. My feeling is that dual wielding style
is a fast and furious, high-risk high-reward method of play - yes, you
hit the enemies twice as much, and with even lower levels of skills like
Frenzy, you can get noticeable increases to speed and movement, but
without a good investment in the defense-raising skills, you are leaving
yourself more open for attacks, particularly ranged attacks like arrows
and blowdarts (War Cry, however, offers a way to make melee range a lot
safer ^_^). If you like playing very offensive-type characters,
however, dual wielding is an attractive option - just be mindful of
allocating skills to help compensate for your lack of a shield's
protection.
One last note on dual wielding; in the few times I used two weapons, I
found that skills like Bash, Concentrate, and Berserk still only attack
with one sword - the sword in your right hand (the hand that typically
wields a weapon if you're also using a shield). If you intend on using
any of those skills with a two-weapon style (Berserk being the one most
likely, in my estimation, to be used by a dual wielding Barbarian
especially in Hell Difficulty), then it's a good idea to have your most
damaging weapon be in your right hand.
* Section 4.1.3: Two Handed Weapon Style
The Barbarian who decides to wield large, two-handed weapons can choose
from some of the hardest-hitting and longest-reaching melee weapons in
the game. Sacrificing both a shield and some of the speed in attacking
that a dual wielder can attain, the two-handed weapon specialist gains
the ability to strike foes with devastating single blows, while
potentially keeping melee monsters at arm's length. And when these
Barbarians Whirlwind, the added reach many two-handed weapons provide
gives their spinning dance of death a little more ability to hit more
enemies that a sword or mace wouldn't hit.
Unlike the other two styles of combat, there is no real ranged version
of the two-handed weapon style; bows and crossbows are not among the
weapons Barbarians can take masteries in, and while nothing prevents a
Barbarian from stringing a bow or wielding a crossbow, their combat
skills are not geared for such weapons as they are for throwing weapons
and most melee weapons. This is not to say a two-handed weapon using
Barbarian is without ranged options; with the ability to switch between
two sets of weapons and shields, a Barbarian wielding a halberd can whip
out a pair of throwing axes in a moment's notice, soften up the
encroaching hordes with a few well-placed axe tosses, then pull out the
halberd again and rain crushing blows upon those unlucky enough to have
gotten in close.
The drawbacks to wielding a two-handed weapon are similar to wielding
dual weapons; namely, the sacrificing of a shield and all the related
benefits therein. However, since the two-handed weapon style uses but
one weapon, they have fewer opprutunities to raise their resistances
through an extra piece of equipment that the dual wielder possesses, or
the extra options of using two weapons with varying special abilities
for double the woe for their enemies. While two-handed weapon users can
strike quickly with the proper equipment, most two-handed weapons are
among the slower weapons in game, thus the style lends itself to a
slower, more deliberate, pace, keeping the enemies at bay with a large
stick and hewing them down with powerful blows - though it is still a
more offensively oriented style of play then, say, weapon and shield.
Skill-wise, the only skills a two-handed weapon Barbarian will likely
avoid are the ones directly related to using two weapons at once.
Again, all the skills for raising defense and controlling the enemies'
distance from you are still viable. Two-handed weapon users are also
more likely to make use of Leap Attack as part of their main offense, as
their choice of weapons, combined with the large bonuses to damage from
Leap Attack, make them more likely to fell even powerful foes with a
cleaving strike from the heavens. Fans of the Dragoons from Final
Fantasy may with to give this style a look; be sure to wear an
aerodynamic helm when fighting though (^_^)
Again, for comparison purposes, I tried wielding two-handed weapons a
few times, mostly pole arms and spears. Pole arms for the most part are
noticeably slower than the swords I have come to love, and spears are as
well (though most spears are a bit faster than most pole arms), and
while I usually use Concentrate with a sword for the extra defense it
provides. With pole arms and spears I found myself falling back more
and more on the Bash skill, to help compensate for the slower attack
speed by keeping the enemies at a safe distance. For me, while I felt
more comfortable with the two-handed style than the two-weapon style, I
still felt somewhat awkward trying to use a large pole arm or spear to
finish off my foes, especially when in areas with lots of ranged
attackers supporting melee monsters. However, in my estimation, a
Barbarian who is mindful of raising their defense-buffing skills and who
is good at playing a slow and steady, strike-once-strike-dead style of
play, will find two-handed weapons to be a good choice. Such a
character may also wish to experiment with knockback from items to
further keep foes at arm's length, though in my experiments knockback
from items doesn't quite seem to work all the time ...
Regardless of what weapon style a Barbarian chooses, many skills
(especially from the War Cries skill tab) will be universally helpful.
And with the weapon masteries, a Barbarian can get decent damage from
most any weapon type, so feel free to choose whatever weapon style you
feel most comfortable with - the legions of Hell should hopefully not
notice the difference (^_^)
*** Section 4.2: Stat Points
Look at some other FAQs for Barbarians, and the advice you'll see for
stat raising often is much the same - enough Strength for
Stromshield/the highest Strength-requirement for the equipment listed as
part of the build, enough Dexterity for max block with your shield at
level 99 (or whatever level you plan on attaining for your Barbarian),
all other stat points into Vitality, and by Cain's Beard man, NEVER sink
even a Single Point into Energy! (^_^)
... Well, there is a certain logic to this advice; life is useful, and
you'll generally want as much as you can get, and once you meet your
stat requirements for whatever your Final Gear will be you don't really
need to put too many points into Strength or Dexterity - most of the
Uber-Equipment Suggestions suggest items and weapons with large damage
modifiers and high AR bonuses or else just Ignore Target Defense, and as
for mana ... well, mana leech anyone?
However, for this guide, I'm not going to go by the usual suggestions
I've seen in other FAQs; the whole idea of this guide is that I'm
assuming you don't necessarily have access to all this Uber Equipment
and have to play through with what you can manage to find. Therefore,
I'm going to look at each stat, see what it offers, and make suggestions
based on that information.
* Section 4.2.1: Strength
The hallmark of Barbarians in fantasy literature and film, Strength is
used for a few things in Diablo 2:
- Determining Melee Damage
- Partially Determining Thrown Weapon Damage
- Used as a requirement for many melee weapons and other gear (armor,
shields, etc)
Barbarians being the type who like using weapons and strong armor,
Strength is important for Barbarians simply for the fact that most of
their favored gear has moderate to high Strength requirements. From my
own experience, the increase in damage done via raising Strength does
not seem all that big at lower levels of Strength - there were times
when it took a good five points increase in Strength to see even a one
point increase in damage done - but at higher levels of Strength, the
increases in melee damage became more noticeable more quickly. Raising
Strength to increase damage will pay off; however, also remember that
it's not just your Strength that raises damage, but also your equipment
and also your Skills - yet another good reason to invest in weapon
masteries (as if a Barbarian needed more reasons for that ^_^).
* Section 4.2.2: Dexterity
Traditionally the hallmark of roguish types, Dexterity in Diablo 2 is
used for the following:
- Determining Attack Rating
- Partially Determining Thrown Weapon Damage
- Determining Bow and Crossbow Damage
- Determining Defense
- Determining Chance to Block with a shield
- Used as a requirement for some melee weapons and all throwing weapons,
bows, and crossbows.
Dexterity is the stat that will affect how often you hit things, and how
well you avoid getting hit back by monsters. When playing this game,
I've noticed that oftentimes, I'll be listed as having an 80% or 84%
chance to hit something, yet in actual play I seem to miss three times
out of four an annoying number of times - without the ability to Ignore
Target Defense, a Barbarian will want to up his attack rating as high as
possible, to be able to land any of those powerful blows of his. Shield
users will want to try to get their blocking percentage as high as they
can - obviously, shields with higher blocking percentages are a plus,
but Dexterity plays a role in determining block percentage as well (the
formula I've seen listed for determining block percentage has often
confused me, as it seems to imply that higher level characters with the
same Dexterity as a character of lower level are less able to block
incoming attacks - somewhat counterintuitive, that.) Throwing weapon
specialists will want higher Dexterity not only for attack and defense
reasons, but also for pumping up their damage, and because their favored
weapons all have dexterity requirements.
* Section 4.2.3: Vitality
Barbarians in fantasy are traditionally hardy people, which would
translate into Vitality in game terms. Vitality in this game actually
only determines a couple things:
- Determining maximum stamina
- Determining maximum Life Points
The increasing of life points is the real draw of pumping up this stat
for many Barbarians, and Barbarians enjoy some natural advantages here -
with each level increase, they gain 2 Life and 1 Stamina naturally, and
every Vitality point adds 4 Life and 2 Stamina. With high Vitality and
using the Battle Orders Skill, Barbarians can have some rather hefty
Life Point totals. Many Hardcore players, who can't afford to die at
all, are purportedly very enamored of the Vitality stat ... but even
Softcore players, who can die and simply suffer the bother of retrieving
their corpse, will want to have more life points, to make those corpse-
retrieving trips fewer and farther between.
* Section 4.2.4: Energy
More the providence of mighty wizards, foul sorcerers, and cryptic
mystics, the Energy stat as far as I can see affects but one thing in
Diablo 2:
- Determining maximum mana
Barbarians, sadly, do not enjoy much advantage in the mana department;
each level adds one mana naturally, and every point in Energy adds - one
additional mana, no more. Not 1.5, for 3 mana per 2 energy, pure and
simple 1 to 1. Still, Barbarians need mana as much as the next
character; you can't Bash and Howl for free, you know (^_^).
* Section 4.2.5: Suggestions for Stat Distribution
Having briefly looked at what each stat offers your Barbarian, I now
make the following suggestions when placing stat points:
- A Barbarian can make due without putting points into Energy. At low
levels, if you are feeling a pinch in the mana department, you can look
to socketing sapphires into helms and armor for mana bonuses, as well as
rings and amulets which offer additional mana. Also look for items and
weapons that offer mana leech and points of mana for killing creatures.
While a Barbarian who invests points into Energy isn't doing anything
wrong - every little bit does help - this is still the stat I would
suggest a Barbarian not invest too heavily in, as the other three stats
offer more for points invested into them than Energy provides, and it is
possible even with the equipment most anyone can hope to find to
increase your mana total to higher levels.
- Not taking the use of stats as requirements for gear into
consideration, I would suggest that Dexterity is as useful if not
slightly more so to raise for a Barbarian than Strength. With a
Barbarian's skills, and with better weapons, damage can be raised even
with a slightly lower Strength, as can Attack Rating and Defense - but
if you can't make your blows land, you can't do any damage no matter how
powerful your attacks. This doesn't mean I am suggesting neglecting
Strength; every little bit of damage helps too - I am merely saying,
that before you go to make your blows as powerful as a titan's fist,
that you make sure you can actually land your hits first.
- Vitality is an important stat to raise; more life points = live
longer, especially in those situations where something goes awry and
you're suddenly trapped in a mob while Fire Walls spring up under your
feet. However, do remember - the point of your armor, shield (if you
have one), resistances, etc is to prevent damage from occurring or
reduce damage taken, and that use of your Skills can help keep monsters
from hitting you too (more on skills in a bit). Having an ungodly
amount of life points is a good thing; having a decent amount of life
points, good defenses and resistances, and the ability to avoid getting
hit through tactics is a better thing (^_^).
- Don't forget that you can find items with pluses to various stats,
both gear and charms; if you can get an extra 30 points of Strength from
items without sacrificing something from your gear you feel you need,
then you can focus on raising other stats for a while and let Strength
be pumped up through your items.
For myself, I have more or less raised my Strength, Dexterity, and
Vitality equally, devoting all five stat points per level raise to one
stat at a time. Sometimes, though, I'll skip raising Strength for a few
levels in favor of just raising Dexterity and Vitality; I tend to do
this whenever I feel I'm more in need of Attack Rating than Raw Damage,
yet still want my Life Points to keep advancing steadily. So far, in
Single Player, I've found that has been working tolerably well so far;
even in Act Four and starting of Act Five Nightmare, using a relatively
decent but hardly Uber Unique weapon (the Ripsaw, socketed with an Amn
Rune because I felt I needed some life leech), I can lay most enemies
low within a few swings. If anything, I'm wishing I had put more points
in Dexterity than I have, so I don't miss quite so often ... but I'm
still hitting often enough to not be in trouble. Except for Nightmare
Diablo, who insists that since he's the namesake villian of the game
that he be big, buff, and overall Better Than Me; I have a few
'councilling sessions' scheduled for later to disuade him from this
notion (^_^).
*** Section 4.3: Barbarian Skills
The Barbarian's Skills are his metaphorical lifeblood; through these
Skills, he can attack his foes, defend himself and his allies, move
around the battlefield, in short do all the things he does in the game.
In this section, I will look at each Skill in as much detail as I can,
offering my own experiences with using the Skill as well as any ideas
and suggestions I can for making said Skill a useful part of the
Barbarian's repertoire - or, at least, my reasons for feeling a Skill is
a little less-than-useful.
* Section 4.3.1: Combat Skills
These skills are the Barbarian's main form of attack. Many of these
skills have low mana costs, making them ideally-suited for the often
mana-poor Barbarian - and once you find yourself some decent mana leech
and some additional mana from items and other sources, you'll likely
dispense with the plain old Attack command almost entirely.
Several skills from this tree offer not only bonuses to attack rating
and/or damage, but also add some sort of additional effect to the
Barbarian's blows. Bash, for example, adds knockback, Concentrate adds
defense, and Frenzy can add attack speed and increased movement rate.
Bash - Level One Skill
Prerequisites: None
Mana Cost: 2
Bash is the prerequisite for most of the other skills on this tree, so
even people who wish to harness the mighty Whirlwind attack must first
learn how to smack their foes around like rag dolls. The Bash skill
adds Knockback to your melee attacks, as well as bonuses to AR and to
damage. It is also, prior to Character Level 6, the only Combat Skill
you will have, so beginning Barbarians will likely want to use it when
they first explore the Den of Evil.
Knockback can, in the proper circumstances, be a very powerful ability.
Even Champions and Uniques can fall victim to Knockback, and monsters
who suffer Knockback while pressed against a wall or other obstacle are
locked in hitstun, their heads snapping back in a most satisfying
manner. If you can isolate a Unique from his horde of minions (the Howl
Skill from War Cries comes to mind) you can smack the unique around,
keeping him hitstunned or simply out of melee range (for uniques with
ranged attacks, Bashing them into a wall is usually better then simply
smacking them hither and yon), or even sending the hapless monster
further and further away from his pack of minions, to be slaughtered in
a nice quiet location of your choosing (this tactic works well with some
sort of way to keep the minions from following - Howl, Grim Ward, and
War Cry all come to mind). Using the Bash Skill lets a Barbarian have
Knockback when he feels he needs it, while leaving him with the option
of not knocking back foes when he wishes to keep them in one place while
hewing them down. Even in later parts of the game, I still use my one
point Bash to teach melee uniques why Barbarians are the chosen
defenders of Mount Arreat.
One note on the hitstunning effect of knockback when an enemy is pinned;
generally, while faster weapons can keep a foe hitstunned with no time
to recover, a slower weapon like a pole arm (assuming you are lacking
any Increased Attack Speed) may not be fast enough to keep them pinned
to a wall without being able to strike back. For people using slower
weapons who want to keep enemies unable to retaliate, try knocking them
back into the wall, but not actually following up in toe-to-toe range to
keep them stunned, instead standing just out of weapon range or so, and
giving them enough time to take a step or two forward. This way, even
though they'll recover from the hitstun, they still won't be able to get
close enough to you before your next swing knocks them back into the
wall, so they'll be pinned between a rock and a sharp stick.
Sadly, Act Bosses and Superuniques do not fall victim to Knockback, so
no Bashing Diablo around the Chaos Sanctuary for you (^_^).
Nonetheless, the option to add Knockback selectively to your melee
attacks is one I consider useful, and even with one point only invested
in this skill, it still has a permanent home on my hotkeys. One of
these days, though, I swear I shall find the mythical Sword of
Smackdown, and beat the Act Bosses around their stages like rag dolls -
oh yes, someday ... mwa ha ha ha!
Leap - Level Six Skill
Prerequisites: None
Mana Cost: 2
Leap! Soar through the sky; put mere mortal athletes to shame with your
hang time! ... Well, maybe not. (^_^)
The Leap Skill is one of two 'movement' type skills the Barbarian can
learn; using Leap can let you jump over enemies, small obstacles, and
other things impeding your path to the Slaying of Evil. However, of the
two 'movement' skills (Leap and Leap Attack), Leap is somewhat the
lesser of the two for a number of reasons.
Leap's range is based on the number of skill points invested; at lower
levels the range is rather - short. As in, you can hope to Leap over
the lone Fallen standing between you and his Shaman, but that's about
it. In order to have a decent range, you need to put a lot of points
into Leap - and even at maximum skill levels, the range Leap can achieve
is as far as what Leap Attack can offer - for one skill point. Almost
anyone who has played Barbarians for any length will suggest that saving
your skill points, and putting a single point into Leap Attack at Level
18, is a far more economical way of getting a far-reaching movement
skill for your Barbarian.
Leap causes a small radius of Knockback where you land, though it does
not cause any damage. Again, compared to Leap Attack (which offers the
same knockback and a swing at an enemy with high bonus damage), Leap
seems to come up short here. However, the knockback effect can offer
some limited crowd-clearing ability. Don't try to rely too much on it,
though, as a form of crowd control ...
This is not to say that Leap is useless; Leap costs a small amount of
mana per use, and can be helpful for escaping being surrounded, getting
past cannon fodder in narrow confines to get at bigger threats (like
Shamans and Greater Mummies), and for avoiding danger. Prior to Level
18, it is not a bad idea to have Leap hotkeyed for such situations. You
will, however, most likely not want to invest any points beyond one in
this skill, and when you get access to Leap Attack, Leap will likely be
retired in favor of it's more powerful cousin - however, if you find a
good Barbarian Helm that offers a few levels in Leap, you'll have a
decent Poor Man's Teleport Skill with short range, but for a paltry 2
mana, which will serve you well until you reach Level 18.
Double Swing - Level 6 Skill
Prerequisites: Bash
Mana Cost: 2
Okay, it's not Whirlwind, nor is it Frenzy. It is also a skill I tend
to not use much at all, since I favor a weapon and shield style.
However, it is a low-level skill which allows you to attack two enemies
at once in melee range, and the mana cost stays fixed at 2. Double
swing makes your Barbarian swing the two weapons in his hands quickly, a
lot more quickly than just using the regular Attack command, and if two
enemies are next to you, you'll swing a weapon at both of them with the
increased speed this Skill offers.
Sadly, this skill doesn't offer any damage bonus, only bonuses to AR -
and the bonuses offered start off at low percents, though they do grow
steadily. However, the AR bonus from this skill will not, from what I
have seen, ever compare with what even a couple points in Frenzy can
offer. In addition, Frenzy is a fixed mana cost of 3, and Frenzy offers
everything Double Swing does, with additional bonuses for damage, attack
speed, and movement rate. For these reasons, I would expect that, much
like Leap, a Barbarian will likely only invest one point into this
skill, and when the more powerful Frenzy becomes available, this skill
will be retired in favor of Frenzy. Until Level 24, however - this
skill offers a Barbarian a chance to hit two enemies at once for damage,
something no other Barbarian Skill at a comparable level can do, and
offers some increased attacking speed - not true Increased Attack Speed
so much as just making your two sword swings happen in one action (which
is, effectively, doubling how quickly you get attacks off, but still is
technically not the same as IAS I believe). While you're rising in
level, if you dual wield, you may wish to use this skill, as it's
available early on and is a prerequisite for the most powerful dual-
wielding skill anyway. And again, if you find a Barbarian Helm with
this skill on it, your one point investment will yield better returns.
Stun - Level 12 Skill
Prerequisites: Bash
Mana Cost: 2
"There's one; set for Stun." (^_^) This Skill sounds very useful in
theory; a successful strike will render a opponent helpless for a brief
time, letting you continue to rain blows on them while they stare
helplessly at the halo of stars over their head. In practice, though, I
have found this Skill to be a bit less than useful, compared to other
skills a Barbarian can acquire.
To its credit, Stun is another 2 mana flat rate Skill, and Stunning your
opponent can be a useful tactic. The problems with Stun, however, are:
1. It only does base damage; the skill offers only a bonus to AR, and
not a great one at that compared to other skills.
2. The Stun length requires several points to be invested before it is
long enough to be useful as a way of keeping a single enemy helpless.
3. The advantages of Stunning an opponent with this skill can be
acquired either through the use of the Bash skill to knock an opponent
into hitstun, or else by use of the War Cry Skill at Level 30 - and War
Cry affects a radius around your Barbarian, allowing you to Stun several
opponents, while inflicting damage to them at the same time.
In my experiences, for one point in Bash, I can keep a single opponent
helpless as effectively as if I had about 5 or more points in Stun,
especially if I can knock that opponent into a wall, and those 5 or more
points, invested into War cry, will allow me to stun multiple enemies
while inflicting some minor damage to all of them in one fell swoop.
Since I already had Bash by this point, and planned on investing in War
Cry down the road, and since this skill didn't offer any bonus damage, I
put a point into Stun as a prerequisite for the next two Skills down
this skill branch, but never made much use of it other than to test it
out. However, I won't say this skill is totally useless, and you may
find Stun to be to your liking.
Double Throw - Level 12 Skill
Prerequisites: Double Swing
Mana Cost: 2
The ranged version of Double Swing, and another skill I have not used
all that much, but from all my time spent reading the GameFAQS Diablo 2
Message Boards and faqs, this would seem to be a bread-and-butter skill
of a pure Throwing Barbarain. With this skill, your Barbarian throws
both throwing weapons in hand in a quick one-two combo, gaining a bonus
to AR while he's at it. The Barbarian is the only character in the game
who can throw two weapons at once, and this is the Skill which allows
for that.
From reading some of the faqs on Throwing Barbarians on GameFAQS, I was
led to believe that, at least for Normal difficulty, Double Throw is
best reserved for bosses and tougher opponents, as the normal throw
commands seem to be sufficient for taking out Fallen, Skeletons, and
other Cannon Fodder enemies. Also from these faqs, I was led to believe
that investing points in this skill beyond a certain point is really
only recommended if you are finding it difficult to get through your
enemy's defense. After managing to find myself a Horned Helm with a
couple levels in Double Throw, I set my sword and shield Barbarian off
to confirm these ideas, try out this Skill, and experiment with using
two throwing weapons in general. (I also privately vowed afterwards
that from now on it's Jawbone Caps and Fanged Helms for me; I felt a bit
silly running around in a Horned Helm and don't get me started on
Assault Helmets ... ^_^)
At first, I tried to pretend that Diablo 2 is Street Fighter 2 by
putting Throw on the left-click, Throw Left on the right-click, and
putting my old E. Honda Hundred Hand Slap skills to use by tapping both
in a continual rhythm. Upon relating my experiences thus tomy friend
DragonKat, he suggested that I just assign both to the left-click, leave
the right-click open for Warcries, and simply switch hands when running
low on ammunition for one hand ... I can now, though, say with some
confidence that even dual throwing Barbarians will not really feel a
need to try to throw both weapons in hand unless they are, in fact,
looking to use Double Throw. Even if for no other reason than trying to
left-click, right-click, left-click etc is still slower than Double
Throw's throwing speed, makes it that much more difficult to get a lock
on a target, and ties up both mouse buttons for attacks when you'd be
better off having a Warcry ready for use in case of emergency. (Thanks
to DragonKat for being the voice of reason for someone who does a lot of
Diablo 2 playing at three in the morning ^_^).
Bouts of silliness aside, my estimation of this skill is that it really
only offers a Barbarian two things - better chance to hit from the AR
bonuses, and faster monster killing at the expense of burning through
both your sources of ammunition at once. Given that a Barbarian can
deal with common grunt enemies by using Warcries to keep them at bay and
pick them off at their leisure, this Skill in my estimation is geared
more towards dealing with the tougher foes - Champions, Uniques, and
Superuniques - who aren't as easily kept at bay by a Barbarian's Skills.
There is, however, a certain fun to be had playing the Throwing
specialist's answer to a John Woo character ... (^_^). Since the
primary benefit I see that this Skill offers is the chance to toss both
your throwing weapons in one action at an enemy, I tend to agree with
what I've read in other guides, that more points in this Skill are
really only needed if you feel you need the AR bonuses; if you've got
enough AR to get you through most situations, you probably don't need to
invest more points in this Skill.
Leap Attack - Level 18 Skill
Prerequisites: Leap
Mana Cost: 9
For those of you who have patiently waited since Level 6 to see your
Barbarian soar through the air like he had on jet thrusters in his
boots, your patience is rewarded. For fans of Final Fantasy who wish to
recreate the Dragoon Class, your desires are met. For anyone else, you
now have the chance to get one of the few 'Teleport' type moves in the
game - with a fixed mana cost of 9, a fixed maximum range even for one
skill point, and with an attack tacked on upon your landing, which even
at level 1 in the skill adds good bonuses to AR and damage. It is good
to be a Barbarian (^_^)
Leap Attack is just that - you leap, you land, you knock back opponents
like the Leap Skill and take a swipe at one of them in the process - or,
if you wish, you can simply Leap Attack to a spot on the ground by
holding down the Shift Key when using it, for leaping over rivers, up
and down elevated areas, into the fray and out of a dire situation.
While Leap Attacking, you are considered to be a ranged attack - plus,
you can't be hit while in the air (but you can be hit upon landing).
Even if you never use this skill to land an attack, the usefulness of it
as a means of moving around will make it well worth having it hotkeyed.
Barbarians with Throwing Mastery can pick their sites from which to
throw their weapons with impunity, always staying a step ahead of the
crowd; melee Barbarians can soar high over hordes of Cannon Fodder to
strike at more dangerous and annoying foes - like ranged attackers and
reviving monsters.
As an actual attack, Leap Attack has a fair amount of power even at
lower levels - and putting extra points into this skill will increase
the damage dealt; fully maxed out, with a maxed out weapon mastery and a
nice high-damage weapon to back it up, Leap Attack can deal a lot of
damage with just one hit. However, as an attack, Leap Attack suffers
from a lack of speed - you have to sail through the air, then land and
hit your foe, and many enemies can simply by moving dodge the incoming
Flying Barbarian of Doom. Also, you cannot do a Leap Attack on someone
immediately adjacent to you - a regular attack comes out instead. Thus,
you need to have at least some small amount of distance between you and
your target for the attack to come out. The fact that enemies can move
away from the Leap Attack does tend to limit it's usefulness, and the
fact that you must leap, hit, then leap again to attack someone else (or
move a few steps away to leap for the same target) means that using this
skill as your primary means of killing will require patience. However,
not all monsters move around all that much - Greater Mummies, for
example, tend to stand in place to shoot at you and heal/revive undead,
making them easy targets for Leap Attack. And monsters can't always
move away form small hops - a short Leap Attack does the same amount of
damage as a long one, so people wishing to emulate Dragoons can still
hit things with their jumps, and stunning/slowing enemies also does
wonders for providing easy targets.
One word of warning - while leaping into a cluster of monsters looks
cool, if you get attacked and stunlocked by the horde, escaping will not
be easy; would-be Dragoons may wish to pick away at the edges of a crowd
rather than jumping into the thick of things - unless they intend to
Whirlwind their way through the horde once they drop in (^_^) Also, I
have found that 'leapfrogging' is a useful way to use Leap Attack - you
Leap Attack at one enemy on the edge of a group, then immediately Leap
Attack another enemy on another edge of the group, leapfrogging between
the two of them till one dies - or, alternatively, you can leapfrog
between more than two foes. And while you're at it, no reason not to
toss a War Cry in after your initial assault; your enemies are busy
minions of evil, and should stop for a moment to reflect on the finer
things in life anyway - like the business end of your weapon (^_^)
Concentrate - Level 18 Skill
Prerequisites: Bash; Stun
Mana Cost: 2
Even with just one point invested in this Skill, Concentrate is one of
my bread-and-butter attacks; when using this skill, your attack becomes
uninterruptible, you gain a bonus to defense, and you get a bonus to AR
and damage - all for 2 mana per swing. About the only drawbacks to this
Skill, is that you can hit but one opponent at a time with it, and the
Skill doesn't in itself prevent the enemy from hitting you, merely
ensures that your swing will get through even if they do overcome your
heightened defense.
At only 2 mana per swing, even modest amounts of mana leech will let you
build back your mana from using this Skill with decent damage output -
in fact, whenever I need to build back mana, I use this skill over
regular attack, even with the 2 mana cost; my mana ball never fails to
build back up when I use Concentrate for leeching, assuming I'm not
attacking a horde of Skeletons or the like. With even a few pluses to
skills from items, even only one point spent on this skill will yield a
solid attack skill to fall back upon, should you wish to spend skill
points elsewhere, such as Whirlwind (which needs a major point
investment to reap major awards for damage bonuses).
Again, however, Barbarians wielding two weapons will swing only their
right-hand one for Concentrate, so dual-wielders will not get the full
benefit of having two weapons for attack if they use this skill.
However, weapon and shield users, and two-handed weapon users, have no
such problems ...
Frenzy - Level 24 Skill
Prerequisites: Double Swing; Double Throw
Mana Cost: 3
My first experience with this skill was when the Moon Lord enemies in
Act Five Normal used it on me; I was and still am thankful that the
computer does not seem as adept at using this skill as a human player
would be, however, as Moon Lords are fast and tough as it is - were they
to take full advantage of this Skill, I doubt I'd have made it to Baal
in one piece (^_^)
Frenzy is the ultimate specific skill for dual-wielding Barbarians; when
using Frenzy, every successful double hit landed increases your
Barbarians movement rate and attack speed, up to the maximum bonuses
allowed per your skill level in Frenzy. Each additional level in Frenzy
raises your AR and damage bonuses (which start off at decently good
levels and only get better as the skill level rises) as well as the
maximum bonuses to movement rate and attack speed. Combined with the
Increased Speed skill Barbarians can get, one can, I hear, zip around
the screen like lightning at high enough levels of this skill. With
some increased attack speed from items, naturally fast weapons, and high
levels in this skill, Barbarians can slice and dice with the best of
them.
The drawbacks to Frenzy, however, are that while you gain lots of
increased speed and the like, you still have to hit your enemies one by
one - though, it is possible to use other skills while in a Frenzy, and
nowhere is it said you can't use War Cry, Howl, and other such skills to
convince your enemies to wait a few seconds while you chop them to
pieces. However, the bonuses for Frenzy last but a few seconds, so make
it March as they say. I've also read that, with high enough levels in
Frenzy, at some points your character can get so fast you start losing
control of him - before you realize it, you're halfway to next week
while your foes are staring mutely at the trail of dust and fire your
boots left (^_^) (Incidentally, it's a shame we can't see images of
slack-jawed skeletons and greater mummies trying to comprehend how you
suddenly became faster than a greased Lightning Fury while you zip
around slashing away with gusto). The short period of time during which
Frenzy lasts can be annoying too if you were hoping to charge up Frenzy,
then switch to, say, dual throwing weapons and try to emulate a machine
gun; while you may be able to finish off foes quickly like that, for
large hordes you may have to do a lot of switching between melee for
Frenzy charge ups, and Double Throw for mowing people down, and in my
experiences with using throwing weapons with my Barbarian, I've
generally wanted to stay out of melee range as much as possible when
relying on my throwing skills.
Whirlwind: Level 30 Skill
Prerequisites: Bash; Leap; Stun; Leap Attack, Concentrate
Mana Cost: 25 at level One, +1 Mana per Two levels thereafter (26 at
Level 3, 27 at level 5, etc)
The main reason many people, from what I've read, decide to play
Barbarians, Whirlwind is touted by many as a staple for the Barbarian's
arsenal of crowd control and swift death dealing. With this skill, the
Barbarian spins with weapons outstretched, slicing into any enemy
foolish enough to be caught in his path. Dual wielding Barbarians will
hit 50% more often than single-weapon Barbarians, with the left-hand
weapon accounting for the extra hits, and longer reach weapons mean
slightly wider swaths of destruction when Whirlwinding.
Whirlwind is also among the most mana-intensive of the Barbarian's
skills; Level one starts at 25 mana per pop, and every two levels in the
skill raises the mana cost by one. Whirlwind also starts off with very
low damage; this is offset some by the chance for multiple hits, but the
skill requires a generous amount of points to be pumped into it before
it starts dealing damage bonuses comparable to, say, level one
Concentrate - and the AR bonuses for this skill are not all that high,
either. And by generous amount of skill points, I mean something on the
order of 15 to 16 Skill points before a single hit from Whirlwind is on
par with a single hit from Level 1 Concentrate. When Whirlwinding, you
are unable to use potions, can still be hit by monsters, and can still
block hits if you are using a shield - so you can sometimes end up more
chewed up than the enemies you just dashed through, if you're not
careful.
I have played around with Whirlwind some, having at one point raised the
skill up to level 10 or so. For me, I found that Whilrwind ... wasn't
really what I had thought it to be. To offset the danger of getting
killed while whirlwinding, I tried often to mix in a level 10 War Cry to
stun foes before whirlwinding through them a couple of times, but the
low AR bonuses and damage bonuses tended to mean that things often did
not die - and at 29 to 30 mana per whirlwind, on top of the cost for the
War Cry to keep everyone in place and docile, I tended to burn through
my mana like nothing no matter what. Granted, my equipment at the time
was hardly the best - not that much mana leech, a sword with a max
damage of 25 or so (Single Player Normal was most unkind, and refused to
drop a 5 or 6 socket Flamberge or something for me to turn into a
Runeword like Honor or Silence - never mind I didn't even have half the
runes for Silence I don't think anyway ^_^) Based on my own admittedly
somewhat limited experiences, and what I have read from the GameFAQS
boards on Diablo 2, I surmise that Whirlwind requires the following in
order to become the potent force of destruction I have heard it called:
1. Maxed out Whirlwind Skill
2. Maxed out Weapon Mastery
3. High-damage output weapon - something Exceptional or Elite,
preferably with a Cruel modifier
4. Decent to high levels of mana leech
5. (Optional) Lots of pluses to skills from items, charms, etc.
From my perspective, this is a very high level of investment, requiring
not only 40 points of skills just for this one attack, but also
equipment that I as a Single Player user will not hope to see until
sometime in Hell Difficulty - or which, people on Battle.net will have
to pony up a fair number of Stones of Jordan for if they're just
starting out (hope you brought a wheelbarrow for the chipped gems if
you're starting off ^_^). Granted, most of the time a Barbarian would
likely want to max a Weapon Mastery and a Combat Skill to go along with
it, but that still leaves the matter of equipment needed to make the
Whirlwind viable. All this, and there is also the matter of enemies
being able to hit you while you use the skill, unless you have some way
to ensure they are otherwise occupied - or, can do so much damage that
even in Hell, with the global 50% damage resistance, you can mow down
the legions of the Three before they can even get their attacks off.
With all this taken into consideration, I have concluded that, while I
do think Whirlwind is a fun-looking and potentially devastating skill,
the amount of work I would need to make it remotely effective is not
worth it, until such time as I have access to the high-end equipment
that will let me use Whirlwind consistently, with little fear of getting
knocked out of it because I'm missing my foes and they're hitting me as
I pass by. Until then, I might as well just pump up War Cry, toggle on
my trusty Concentrate Skill, and chop down foes one by one while they
stare at me helpless to resist - a strategy that works relatively well
with even modest mana leech, 10 to 12 levels of War cry, a minor amount
in Weapon Mastery, and a Level One Concentrate (plus the wisdom to know
when to fall back and thin out the hordes swarming after me, of course.)
If you are able to meet the equipment needs to make Whirlwind viable,
however, then you should have a powerful tool of mass destruction at
your command.
Berserk - Level 30 Skill
Prerequisites: Bash; Stun; Concentrate
Mana Cost: 4
This is the skill which Barbarians tend to use against Physical Immunes;
Berserk offers large bonuses to AR and damage, and the damage bonus is
all 'pure magic' damage, like Bone Spear or Spirit. Maxed out, with
high-end equipment and Weapon Mastery, a Berserk swing can lay low many
foes in an amazingly short amount of time.
However, such power carries with it several disadvantages; using Berserk
temporarily lowers one's defense to Zero, ensuring that an enemy will
hit unless you have a shield and manage to block the attack - a point in
favor of the weapon and shield style of fighting. Berserk is also a
melee-only skill, requiring the Barbarian to get in close, and you
cannot leech life or mana from enemies when using it. Fortunately, the
mana cost remains constant at 4, but for those Barbarians who pride
themselves in being pure throwing masters, that's rather small
consolation.
Using Berserk while in a crowd is a Bad Idea, as I found out the hard
way - if a Unique is Physical Immune, make sure his minions are all dead
or elsewhere when you go running up to him in a berserk rage (^_^). As
for crowds of Physical Immunes, should you be unlucky enough to meet
some - well, this is what Howl, War Cry, and Grim Ward are for; a
Berserker will want to render his enemies powerless to strike back while
he hews away. All is fair in love and Smiting Evil, after all.
Unlike many other Skills in this list, where I find even a single point
enough to make do, Berserk is a good skill to pump at least a few points
into even if it's not your main attack of choice; you want to finish off
fights using Berserk as quickly as possible to lower the chances of
retaliation from other enemies, and so you can go back and leech off of
something to build your mana back up (or drink a potion too, of course).
Still, most sources I have seen seem to advocate around 5 points as
being a good level of investment, assuming a high level in a Weapon
Mastery, and I currently see little wrong with those assessments.
However, if you are finding you are having problems killing Physical
Immunes fast enough, an extra point or two in Berserk is a good idea, or
else finding enough elemental damage from charms and items to make up
the slack. And if you wish to max out Berserk and use skills like War
Cry to control crowds while smiting them, then you will be feared even
by Hell Difficulty monsters; this is a path I can see my own Barbarian
potentially developing into, given my love of War Cry.
* Section 4.3.2: Combat Masteries
The majority of the Skills in this tree are passive skills devoted to
specific weapon types; the remainder are all passive skills that any
Barbarian can enjoy benefits from having - in fact, many other classes
would probably wish they had some of the passive skills a Barbarian is
privy to (^_^)
The conventional wisdom that I have seen is that, for the weapon
masteries, one should pick a single weapon mastery and stick with it
exclusively, maxing it out or at least putting a good 10 or more points
in it. Especially if one is using Whirlwind as their staple attack,
given my own estimations of that Skill, there is a fair amount of sense
to the conventional wisdom. However, I have found that there is some
benefit to building up two different masteries, namely a melee weapon
mastery and throwing mastery. Whereas other people would see this as
diluting a Barbarian's effectiveness by spreading his weapon skills and
supporting skills too thin, I have found that many of the Barbarian's
Warcries have applications for both melee fighting and ranged fighting,
and that several Warcries are still useful even with minimal
investments. Therefore, I see branching into these two masteries as
making a melee Barbarian with a good ranged attack to fall back on.
Since the six weapon masteries are functionally the same, only applying
to different weapons, I will clump them together in this section when
dealing with them.
Sword Mastery, Axe Mastery, and Mace Mastery - Level 1 Skills
Prerequisites; None
Mana Cost: None (Passive Skill)
These are the three Weapon Masteries a Barbarian has immediate access to
(well, almost immediate - soon as he gets a single skill point, that
is). All three of these weapon types come in both one handed and two
handed versions, though only swords may be wielded one-handed by
Barbarians despite them being two-handed weapons (two-handed axes and
mauls, for example, must be used with two hands even by the mighty
Barbarian)
Generally, swords are faster weapons, though perhaps not as damaging as
axes and maces, axes are average speed and damage, and one-handed maces
are generally fast but not as powerful as a sword, whereas a two-handed
maul is slower than a sword but more powerful even compared to a two-
handed sword. Mace style weapons also gain 50% extra damage against
undead, which is useful in any Act in the game, though more so in Act
Two, which is littered with undead left and right.
Spear Mastery, Pole arm Mastery, Throwing Mastery - Level 6 Skills
Prerequisites: None
Mana Cost: None (Passive Skill)
These weapons are the long ranged options for a Barbarian - spears and
pole arms have the longest reach of any melee weapon, and throwing
weapons ... well, are meant for range (^_^). Other than the throwing
weapons, however, the weapons in these masteries are all two-handed
weapons. Weapon speeds tend towards average to slow for spears and pole
arms, and average to fast for throwing weapons.
Increased Stamina - Level 12 Skill
Prerequisites: None
Mana Cost: None (Passive Skill)
The first of the skills on this Skill Tab that do not focus on a
specific weapon, Increased Stamina does just that - it increases one's
effective stamina by a certain percentage, which rises as you put more
points into the Skill. While Stamina is not the first thing I worry
about when putting together a Barbarian, extra stamina never hurts; even
at level one, this skill means I can run without pause 30% longer than I
would have otherwise, and recover from my marathon sessions a little
faster than others would. The increase in percent of stamina raised
also is quite nice - a flat 15% increase per level. While that still
did not entice me to spend more than a single point in this skill, it
did make me rather happy when I found that +2 to Combat Masteries amulet
... between that and a couple other skill pluses from my meager
equipment, my stamina was nearly double normal, all for one Skill point
investment.
Given that Barbarians start with good stamina, get decent stamina for
every point of vitality, and that stamina-increasing items are not
uncommon, I do not think even the most dedicated sprinter in Diablo 2
will feel a need to pump this particular skill up beyond a few points -
with pluses to skills being available on equipment, and even just from
finding/buying Stamina potions, you can dash around all day with few
worries. However, a point spent here, in addition to making Increased
Speed available, will also give you that much more stamina to play with
- a minimal investment which will yield rewards both immediately and
later, and which can grow even without additional points dumped into it.
Iron Skin - Level 18 Skill
Prerequisites: None
Mana Cost: None (Passive Skill)
Iron Skin is much like Increased Stamina, only for Defense instead of
Stamina; every point in Iron Skin increases your overall Defense stat by
a percentage, which while not growing nearly as fast as Increased
Stamina's percentage does, still nonetheless can get to impressive
numbers at high skill levels. Maxed out, you will more than triple your
defense stat.
About the only Barbarian that wouldn't benefit at all from this Skill is
the dedicated user of Berserk; Iron Skin does not stop Berserk from
dropping your defense to Zero. However - even dedicated users of
Berserk may want to switch to some other attack skill when they feel a
need to leech life and mana from enemies, and at that point defense will
become important again. Therefore, most anyone will want at least one
point in this skill, in my estimation. From my own experiences, one
point plus whatever you get from pluses to skills is usually enough for
a shield-using Barbarian, as they have the luxury of blocking available
to them. For the rest of the Barbarian population though, this is a
good Skill to look into investing several points in at least, along with
the Shout Warcry - and as I said before, if a weapon and shield user
wishes to become Arreat's Unhittable Tank, investing moderately to
heavily in this skill is something to consider.
Increased Speed - Level 24 Skill
Prerequisites: Increased Stamina
Mana Cost: None (Passive Skill)
For charging headlong into the fray, and for noble advances to the rear,
Barbarians often turn to Increased Speed. This Skill works just like
the Faster Run/Walk mod that many magical footwear items possess - only,
a Barbarian can dump more skill points into this skill, or else use
pluses to skills, to get bonuses to run/walk over and above what his
equipment offers.
Again, this is a good skill to invest at least one point in, especially
if you have items with pluses to skills to your name. Wether you wish
to put more points into this skill beyond one will likely depend on what
equipment you can get your hands on and how much you find yourself
running around as part of your strategies. I, personally, have found
myself quite happy with just one point so far - but I also have managed
to find rare and set item Boots with around 30 to 40% faster run/walk,
and have about +3 to +4 to combat skills overall from my usual gear, and
I tend to play at a slow and steady pace, walking rather than running,
taking time to investigate all the nooks and crannies, and generally not
minding if I spend a couple of hours on just one map - I can always go
back some other time, take the direct route to the next level, and move
onwards. And I don't duel either, and thus don't often find myself
needing to outrun a volley of Guided Arrows or Bone Spirits, or flee the
path of a Whirlwind doing about 3,000 points of damage either (^_^)
Another factor to consider when looking into dumping points into this
skill is that it suffers from diminishing returns; after the first few
levels, additional levels start raising your speed by very small
incremements. From level one to level 5, you'll go from 13% to 28%
increase; from level 5 to level 10, you'll go from 28% to 36%, and by
level 15 you'll barely be hitting 40% ... from just looking at these
numbers, I would suggest that even the most dedicated sprinters would
probably be better off putting no more than 5 or 6 points in this skill,
and relying on pluses to skills and items with bonuses to run/walk speed
for the remainder of their fleetness of foot.
Natural Resistance - Level 30 Skill
Prerequisites: Iron Skin
Mana Cost: None (Passive Skill)
Every class, thanks to one of the Act Five quests, can develop a certain
amount of natural resistance to the four elemental forms of damage -
fire, cold, poison, and lightning. And every class can find items that
raise their resistances to one or more of these elements. And every
class, walking into Nightmare and Hell difficulty, will learn that their
resistances just took a stiff hit - up to -100% in Hell of what they had
in Normal.
Fortunately, the Barbarian is able to raise his resistances through this
skill, and thus enjoy a higher level of protection from the four
elemental damages than he would otherwise be able to have. Yes, other
classes can raise their resistances too - Paladins have auras which do
this, for example - but the Barbarian can do it through a passive skill.
And when in Hell Difficulty, when the undead monsters in the later
levels start raining meteors on your head, or when Andariel decides to
show off her funky poison spray attack, you'll be happy to have as much
resistance as you can get (^_^)
Like Increased Speed, Natural Resistance suffers from diminishing
returns, though not quite as steeply as Increased Speed does to my
estimation. Also, this skill does not offer any protection from pure
magic damage - so a Bone Spirit from an Oblivion Mage is still something
to fear. Nonetheless, this is, in my estimation, a good place to
consider investing several points of skills. How many skill points
you'll want to invest will depend on what equipment you're able to
procure, how capable you are at dodging elemental attacks, and how many
skill points you have free in your planned skill allocation for your
character.
One good thing about Natural Resistance to consider, is that since you
can use it to increase your resistances, you will need that much less
resistance available from items and charms, potentially letting you take
advantage of other useful magic modifiers instead. For this reason,
five or six points in my estimation is a good level of investment
overall for most any Barbarian, especially if you have pluses to skills
as part of your gear's bonuses.
* Section 4.3.3: Warcries
Barbarians aren't just masters of hacking and slashing; they have a
selection of skills that can add positive status effects to themselves
and their allies, and induce negative status effects to their enemies.
Used properly, these skills can do a lot for increasing your Barbarian's
survival rate - a stunned or frightened enemy isn't trying to hit you,
an enemy with its defense and damage lowered is more likely to die more
quickly and is doing less damage to you, increasing your life and mana
levels lets you fight longer and live through more punishment, and
raising your defense never hurts.
In addition to skills that give the Barbarian and his allies bonuses,
and give his enemies penalties, this skill tab includes a few skills for
'popping' enemy corpses, thus preventing monster resurrection - and,
also, offering a chance for a Barbarian to find some useful item or else
make said corpse into an temporary adjunct to the Barbarian's forces.
Howl - Level One Skill
Prerequisites: None
Mana Cost: 4
With a mighty bellow, the Barbarian causes monsters within a small
radius around him to run away in fear. The greater the level of skill,
the longer and further the enemies will run away.
This skill is among the earliest ones a Barbarian can have access to,
and it does have certain weaknesses. Like many of the Warcries
available, this skill won't affect Champions, Uniques, or Super Uniques
- so, no, you can't make the Lord of Terror run away from you no matter
how fearsome your bellowing (^_^). Also, in higher difficulties, I've
noticed that the skill stops working on certain classes of monsters
altogether - mummies and flayers are the ones I've noticed for right
now, and I'll update this section with any others I may discover later.
Howl also suffers from a small problem which I believe is more a bug
than an actual intended drawback; should a frightened monster find its
immediate avenue of retreat blocked, they'll still be under the effects
of the Howl (and thus, apparently, not re-Howl-able until it wears off),
but will revert to their normal course of behavior. - A Barbarian who
lets his enemies get too tightly packed before Howling may thus discover
he's surrounded by a bunch of frightened, sniveling monsters ... who are
still hacking away at him, because they have nothing better to do until
someone shows them the exit.
Despite these shortcomings, however, I consider Howl to be a useful part
of a Barbarian's repertoire, especially in his early levels. Lacking
the spells and skills of the Amazon and Sorceress, which can easily hit
multiple targets for damage, and the ability to summon meat shields like
the Necromancer and Druid to do fighting for him, the Barbarian is left
with the matter of handling large crowds of enemies, many of which will
seek to damage him through melee blows. A frightened enemy is running
away from the Barbarian, and consequently is not hurting the Barbarian
during that time. Howl is a form of crowd control, letting the
Barbarian keep the hordes off his back while he picks a single target to
feel his wrath. Especially before learning the mighty Whirlwind or War
Cry, this is the skill for Barbarians who do not wish to become paste at
the hands of a unruly mob of beasts. And if Champions or Uniques are
part of the crowd - a Barbarian can still scare off their minions, and
fall back, luring the champion away from his friends to be dealt with in
a place of the Barbarian's choosing (I usually choose near a rock - with
Bash as my left-click attack, and Howl on my right in case his cronies
decide to wander down to find their boss ^_^)
Given the radius effect of Howl, starting at 'ground zero' and emanating
out from the Barbarian, I have found that it is useful to let off a Howl
before the enemies rushing towards me are actually within Howl range, so
that they run into the effect as I do it - the timing takes a little
practice but isn't too hard, in my experience, to learn. This both
decreases the chance that my Howl will be interrupted by a monster's
attack, and makes it less likely that the monsters frightened off will
be cut off from all lines of retreat from the monsters behind them -
thus making it less likely I'll be swarmed by a bunch of frightened
monsters that aren't running away due to inability to shove their own
comrades in arms aside. This also usually leaves the one or two
stragglers in the pack out of the Howl's radius of effect, so they don't
get frightened off - but that simply means they get to be the first to
taste the steel of my blade, and by the time they're dead, their
companions are usually ready to come back and suffer the same fate.
With care and cunning, I can usually avoid getting mobbed to death
through use of this skill in the early levels prior to getting the more
potent skills.
Howl is a skill which, in my experience, is perfectly useful even with
one single point of skill invested in it; more levels simply add to the
length of time that the enemy runs away, and at the highest levels, you
could, possibly, frighten a foe off the map - well, actually, I don't
know if that's even possible, but still ... (^_^). Howl is a fairly
common skill to find on a Barbarian-specific helm, so if you feel you
need a higher-level Howl for your early levels, you can probably find
yourself a helm to accommodate your needs - but for me, the great draw
of Howl is that it offers a useful ability for minimal skill point
investment, which will serve me well until I have access to higher-level
skills. And, even once the 'better' skills are available, a Barbarian
can still find use for this first Warcry; just be aware that, at higher
difficulties, the skill seems to lose its punch against certain foes it
once affected.
Find Potion - Level 1 Skill
Prerequisites: None
Mana Cost: 2
The first of the three skills a Barbarian can learn to affect corpses,
Find Potion is just that - you use it on a slain monster, and with luck
a potion will appear. Essentially, you are trying for a second attempt
at getting an item drop from a monster, only with this skill the items
are limited to health, mana, and rejuvenation potions. The percentage
chance of the Skill working rises with more points in the Skill, and the
quality of the potions you can find increases with the Act you are in -
lower quality in Act One and Two; better quality (full Rejuvination
potions and Greater Life/Mana potions) in later Acts.
Although the percentage chance for this skill working is comparatively
low early on - just 15% at level one of finding a potion on any one
corpse - the skill is cheap to use, costing only 2 mana. And, given the
number of monsters you'll slay even in the early parts of the game, the
odds of you finding enough potions to keep you stocked with life and
mana are fairly good - even with level one in this skill, I've had times
when I had so many potions found that I was selling them for cash - and
making decent money off of them (for Act One Normal prior to reaching
the Dark Wood, at least). All you lose for an unsuccessful attempt is a
couple points of mana, which can be regained through leeching, drinking
a mana potion, or even just sitting back and waiting a moment.
Other than its use as a potential supply of potions, this skill offers
one other, significant advantage in combat - corpses that have this
skill used on them cannot be raised. If you're beset by hordes of
revivable minions and lots of reviving monsters to bring them back, it
can be difficult at times, especially at lower levels, to make your way
through the hordes and kill the reviving monsters first. With this
skill, however, a Barbarian can prevent a corpse from being raised -
with patience, even the large hordes of Fallen and Fallen Shamans found
in the early parts of Act One can be whittled down to more managable
levels, and your Barbarian can move in to finish off the shamans without
worrying that the Fallen he just slew will get up and attack him again.
A word of caution, though - if you Find Potion at the same time a
shamman goes to revive the corpse you're using, more often than not, the
Shaman will beat you to it. When there are a large number of shamanas
and other reviving beasts present, it's still a good idea to lead
monsters away from them for the kill, and then use this skill to ensure
that they stay down.
Like the other two corpse-affecting skills, Find Potion will work on any
monster except for Super Uniques, such as the Act Bosses. In my
experience, one point is all you'll ever really need in this skill;
there are always more corpses to be had, should you need them - though
you may have to kill some monsters to get those corpses. Also, when
playing with others such as Necromancers (who have a lot of summons that
require corpses), try to avoid going wild with this skill - unless you
know he's not going to want that Oblivion Mage for his own undead army.
(^_^)
Taunt - Level 6 Skill
Prerequisites: Howl
Mana Cost: 3
Barbarians aren't just good at frightening monsters off; they can also
insult monsters better than anyone. With the Taunt Skill, a Barbarian
makes a single monster stop whatever they were doing and rush over to
attack him in melee combat, causing the monster to also suffer a penalty
to damage-dealing and defense which starts off at very low levels, but
rises with additional skill levels.
Like Howl, Taunt will not work on Champions, Uniques, or Super Uniques,
nor certain other beasts; I remember not seeming to be able to Taunt
Oblivion Mages last time I was in the Chaos Sanctuary, and Flayer
Shamans more often than not are too hyper to notice I'm insulting their
parentage, leaving me with egg on my face. Taunt also affects only one
monster at a time - either the monster you have highlighted with the
cursor (for Taunting a specific beast), or else the nearest one to you
(if you don't highlight any specific monster). Taunt also seems to
suffer from the same bug as Howl - if something impedes the Taunted
monster's path to you or knocks them back on their way to you (such as a
knockback effect from Bash or a weapon, or just a bunch of lead-footed
monsters), then they'll still be 'Taunted', but will otherwise act
however they normally would. Since Taunt doesn't wear off like other
Warcry effects, this 'bug' means you can't re-Taunt them (and make them
come back to you) unless you overwrite the Taunt effect with that of
Howl or Grim Ward.
Despite the fact that Taunt suffers from these limitations and bug, and
that the damage and defense reduction is rather small unless you dump a
lot of points into this skill, Taunt is still a valuable part of a
Barbarian's arsenal. A Taunted creature, assuming nothing bars its way,
will stop whatever it was doing and come over to attack you physically.
Skeleton archers will stop shooting their bows until they're within
reach of your sword; Fallen Shamans and Greater Mummies will stop
reviving monsters and shooting at you until they're close enough to hit
you with their hands or daggers. And while they're running to you,
monsters don't stop to avoid incoming missile fire ... Taunt lets you
bring an enemy to you. Melee Barbarians will like the fact that they
can stop missile-shooting enemies from taking potshots from afar and
make them come into range of their swords and axes; throwing Barbarians
can make a monster running around evasively instead come to them in a
mostly predictable line, making targeting much easier.
Taunt's range is roughly a full screen from what I've seen, if not very
slightly longer; I've occasionally managed to Taunt enemies that were
mostly off-screen by pushing the cursor to the edge of the screen and
Taunting away. This range makes Taunt somewhat useful as a scouting
tool, though from what I've seen you need line of sight in order to make
Taunt work, unless the monsters are just around a corner or to the side
of a doorway.
Taunt works well in conjunction with Howl and Grim Ward; either of those
skills can be used to send packs of monsters running, and then Taunt can
be used to summon one specific monster back for a beatdown. In fact, if
you have a Grim Ward up and are standing right behind it, you can Taunt
a foe, watch him run to you, let him get scared off by the Grim Ward,
then Taunt him again to run at you, all while anyone else around on your
side can take potshots at the poor hapless monster. When using throwing
axes, I've found this to be a wonderfully fun way to keep the monsters
from ever really hitting me while letting my Rogue hireling and I plunk
away with impunity.
Since Taunt's greatest value, in my estimation, lies not so much in the
negative damage and defense modifiers it applies to monsters (that's
basically icing on the cake), but rather in the fact that you can use it
to draw monsters to you selectively, and keep ranged attackers and
revivers from shooting at you or reviving while they come at you, I feel
a single point in this skill is all a Barbarian really needs to make
good use of the skill. Though, at really high levels, the damage and
defense penalties inflicted on monsters through Taunt do become
noticeably high - up to 43% at level 20 - so a Barbarian who is looking
to focus primarily on using Warcries to support other party members
might want to look into investing some points here. For a patient party,
being able to lure a large nasty monster to its doom is a nice, safe way
of slaughtering the demonic hordes.
Shout - Level 6 Skill
Prerequisites: None
Mana Cost: 6
Shout is the first Warcry a Barbarian can learn which allows him to
grant a positive effect for himself and his allies - namely, raising
their defense value for the duration of the Shout. Even at level one,
Shout can double your effective defense for a few seconds, and both the
defensive bonus and the length of time it lasts rise steadily (albeit
slowly) with additional skill points invested.
Shout, like Iron Skin, is one of the two skills a Barbarian can use to
add noticeable amounts to their defense. Shout has the double advantage
of both being able to affect friendly units (which Iron Skin cannot),
and by having a better defensive bonus than Iron Skin provides - the
difference is most notable in the early levels of these skills, though
Iron Skin at higher levels makes valiant strides to catch up with Shout
in terms of defensive bonus. Shout, however, costs mana, and can wear
off, whereas Iron Skin's bonuses will last all the time. When facing
hordes of monsters, having your defense suddenly drop is a Bad Thing -
especially right before that Moon Lord brings his axes down at your head
...
As a weapon and shield using Barbarian, I've found that my shield's
defensive bonus and blocking ability, combined with my frequent use of
Concentrate, often provides me with adequate defense for most situations
- but when there's a boatload of ranged attackers like archers shooting
away at me from several angles, and a lot of monsters trying to mob me,
I've found that even a level one Shout's defensive bonus helps out -
even if it only makes me a few percent less likely to be hit, that few
percent can mean the difference between getting peppered badly while
falling back to more defensible ground, and being mostly hale and whole
when I find more solid cover from the ranged attackers. When I
experimented with using pole arms and dual wielding swords, however, I
began to earnestly wish I had pumped a few more points into this skill
along with Iron Skin ...
How many points you spend here will depend not only on your own
defensive needs, but also on whether you're playing a Barbarian in party
situations and feel your party could use the defensive bonuses this
skill provides. Even Single Player Barbarians, however, can use
hirelings - and hirelings like the Town Guard and the Barbarian (second
cousin to your Barbarian, they tell me ^_^) tend to charge into the fray
and tend to not use shields; a Single Player wanting to take advantage
of the more offensive auras a Town Guard merc can provide may very well
want to invest a few points into Shout to make his hireling more likely
to not get killed when the hordes of demons show up.
Find Item - Level 12 Skill
Prerequisites: Find Potion
Mana Cost: 7
Find Item is, for the most part, identical to Find Potion in function.
The major difference is that instead of only being able to make a corpse
'drop' a potion, any item that monster could have dropped in dying can
potentially appear Potentially, you can find even rare items and Unique
Items using Find Item, but you can also find quivers of arrows and piles
of gold just as easily ...
Again, the chance of finding an item with this skill is kind of low -
and even at higher levels, the chance of it succeeding doesn't really
get much better than 50%. However, again, all you are gambling is a few
points of mana, and so long as some Necromancer wasn't planning on using
said monster to bolster his Loyal Minions, you lose nothing major for
failure ... at worst, a potential Grim Ward you could have set up to
help with crowd control. As I have taken to saying though, "There are -
always - more corpses ..." (^_^)
If you have managed to find a few pieces of equipment with magic find
modifiers on them, equipping them and going around looking for monsters
- especially Champions and Uniques - and using Find Item on every corpse
in sight, can oftentimes yield a fair bit of profit, even if it is all
just gold profit from selling off all the stuff you find (good for
supporting gambling habits at least). The bonuses to magic find will
NOT increase the chance of the Find Item skill working; however, it WILL
improve the chances of any items found through the skill being magical
or better. If you are finding yourself suffering problems dealing
sufficient damage to monsters in an area, or being able to weather their
attacks, it's not a bad idea to return to the last couple of areas where
you were doing fine in, and doing some item-hunting. If nothing else,
you can use whatever gold profits you make from extensive slaying and
Find Item using to fund a gambling spree to further your chances of
finding something to help you out.
All comments about Find Potion's uses in depriving reviving monsters of
bringing back their minions from the grave also apply to Find Item,
though Find Item does cost a bit more in mana and isn't as likely to
produce a healing item; in my experience, I tend to retire Find Potion
in favor of Find Item for my corpse-popping needs, but other Barbarians
may feel that Find Potion's lower mana cost makes it better for keeping
dead monsters dead.
Battle Cry - Level 18 Skill
Prerequisites: Howl; Taunt
Mana Cost: 5
With another fearsome bellow, a Barbarian using this Skill imposes a
penalty to monster's Defense rating and damage dealing ability
simultaneously, making his foes easier to hit and weakening the power of
their strikes. Battle Cry affects all monsters in a small radius, much
like Howl's radius of effect, and the effect wears off with time; the
penalties for enemy defense and damage, as well as the length of time
those penalties last, increase as this skill rises in level.
Unlike many of the other Warcries, this skill CAN affect Champions,
Uniques, and Super Uniques; even the Prime Evils can be weakened through
this skill. I am not sure if the damage weakening affects all damage,
or just physical damage, though I suspect it to be the latter - that,
combined with the fact that it is a short-range radius effect, makes
this skill somewhat less useful than one might hope. However, consider
- even at level one, for a few seconds, you can not only halve the
defense of any monster near you (making them that much easier to hit),
you can impose a 25% damage penalty to their attacks - which is about as
helpful as having 25% damage reduction on in terms of taking less
damage, from those enemies for that period of time. Should you have
actual damage reduction, although I doubt the effects would stack
directly, you can still reduce the damage a monster deals out - and that
means less damage for you to have to reduce, hence even less damage you
take in the end. For those Barbarians who don't have Damage Reduction,
this skill offers a form of substitute; for those people with damage
reduction, this skill is a way to make it even more effective.
Also, the effects of this skill, because they are targeted to monsters
within your radius of affect, can benefit party members as well; a
monster with lowered defenses is easier for everyone to hit, and a
monster with weaker attacks deals less damage to anyone caught in its
path. If your Barbarian is the type to get in there toe-to-toe with
monsters, use of this skill can make you last longer and make you kill
things faster (or, at least, make your blows land effectively more
often). Battle Cry also, from my experience, stacks with the effects of
Taunt, and is not erased by the effects of Howl and Grim Ward.
How many points you should invest into this skill depends on how much of
a support role your Barbarian wants to play; for most Barbarians
favoring melee weapons and the classic Barbarian Smashes Things Good
philosophy, even one point in this skill is a decent enough investment -
if you're going to be in toe-to-toe range, especially with the likes of
Diablo, you might as well take advantage of what penalties you can
inflict upon your enemies, especially the tough ones. For Barbarians
who wish to be a more support-oriented character in multiplayer games,
this skill is a good one to invest points in; between you and the
necromancer, you can keep a lot of enemies weakened (I don't know if
Battle Cry stacks with other Necromancer curses, but even if it doesn't,
two cursing types can keep even more enemies affected). Barbarians who
wish to specialize in throwing weapons, since - in my experience -
they'll be keeping their distance more likely than not, may not find
much use for this skill; however, if a horde of monsters swarms you, and
you use War Cry to stun them, hitting them with Battle Cry before
leaping to an optimum throwing position will make your ranged attacks
that much more likely to hit. Therefore, a single point here might not
be a bad investment for even a pure throwing Barbarian, and with pluses
to skills from items, even one point can yield decent levels of skill.
Battle Orders - Level 24 Skill
Prerequisites: Howl; Shout
Mana Cost: 5
If there is one thing most Barbarian builds touted in current circles
can agree on, it's that Battle Orders is a skill that should be maxed
out, or nearly so, at some point in your Barbarian's career. Some
people will advocate maxing this out early before maxing out bread and
butter attacks like Frenzy and Whirlwind; others will say max out your
other skills first, but as soon as your mastery and
Whirlwind/Frenzy/Beserk is maxed, start dumping all your free points
here ...
Admittedly, this is a very potent skill, one useful for both solo
players and team members; quite simply, this skill lets you raise your
stamina, life, and mana maximums for a period of time. The percentage
of maximum increase, as well as the time during which the skill lasts,
increases with more skill points - starting at around 35% bonuses for 30
seconds at level one, and hitting 92% bonuses for 144 seconds - almost
two and a half full minutes - at level 20. It is very hard to argue
that almost doubling your effective life and mana isn't desirable,
especially when it's not just your life going up, but everyone's on your
side.
There is one small caveat to this skill; it raises maximum but not
current life, stamina, and mana - you must either wait for your values
to replenish themselves, quaff a potion or three, or else rely on leech
in order to get the benefit of having higher maximums. For people with
decent amounts of leech, this isn't that much of a problem, however -
and so long as you remember to periodically renew the Battle Orders
before the effects fade, you'll keep those extra points you gained,
though if the effects wear off, you'll have to build the extra points
back up again when you recast Battle Orders. Those who make frequent
use of this skill are well advised to learn how to keep track of how
much time has passed even in the thick of battle to keep it active.
So, how many points should one put into this skill? Definitely, at
least one point as soon as you are able is not a bad idea - any
Barbarian can benefit from being able to raise their max life and mana
by 35% for tough situations, and pluses to skills from items will make
this one point investment go even further. Oftentimes, I like to use
this skill prior to encountering an Act Boss or other Superunique I know
can give me trouble - I tend to alternate between this skill, Battle
Commands, and Battle Cry to keep my skills raised, my max life and mana
buffed up, and my enemy weakened, and use the fading of the Battle Cry
as my reminder to renew each skill (might as well play it safe, going by
one of the shorter times any of those skills' effects last.) Unlike
many Barbarian players, however, I do not feel that this is an Absolute
Must Max Out Skill ...
Yes, fully maxed, Battle Orders offers a lot of benefit, but with
careful tactics a Barbarian can control the ability of enemies to
actually get blows in on him to a fair extent. Between my resists, my
blocking with a shield, my use of War Cry to keep enemies stunned, Taunt
to make ranged attackers come to me, and Leap Attack to simply get out
of the five blazing Firewalls, plus the 12 potions of full rejuvenation
I typically carry, I can with cunning and care avoid a lot of the damage
my foes would seek to deal out and heal quickly if I do take a beating;
the bonus afforded by Battle Orders, for my strategies, is useful but
not strictly necessary. For large bosses, like Diablo - definitely,
I'll want it active; in those cases, no matter how much I try, if I want
to get in any blows to my enemy I'm going to have to risk taking some
substantial damage, and extra life then will often mean the difference
between being seriously hurt and being dead. For the unruly mobs of
Hell's legions, however, I've found that I can - usually - get through
situations with just my normal maximums for life and mana, making Battle
Orders more of a Boss Strategy for me.
On the other hand, Barbarians playing a support role will likely want to
max this skill out as much as possible - in 8 player games, with the
increased life and toughness of monsters especially in Hell difficulty
(and the ever-lurking specter of Lag Spikes and Random Disconnects), a
potent Battle Orders is a party's best friend. And in Hardcore Mode,
where you get but one life for a character (and thus, every point of
life you can muster becomes precious) this skill takes on an even
greater importance. My final advice to Barbarian players is this - feel
free to invest as many skill points into Battle Orders as you feel you
want or need, but do not feel this skill HAS to be maxed out in order to
let you survive; remember that cunning and patience are oftentimes as
effective in ensuring survival as an extra 500 hit points.
Grim Ward - Level 24 Skill
Prerequisites: Find Potion; Find Item
Mana Cost: 4
The last of the Barbarian's corpse-affecting abilities, and the only
such Skill that doesn't offer a chance at getting some sort of item,
Grim Ward is the Barbarian's closest answer to the summons available to
the Necromancer or Druid. By popping a monster corpse, a Barbarian
using this skill creates a small totem composed of his enemy's bones,
which has the effect of constantly casting a Howl-like effect capable of
affecting any non-Champion, Unique, or Superunique that wanders within
the radius of effect. The radius at which the totem can affect monsters
increases with extra skill points, being somewhat small at level one,
but increasing steadily as skill level rises. No matter how high the
skill, monsters will run for a few seconds only, and the totem will
remain standing for 40 seconds before collapsing.
The totem itself, from what I can tell, does not offer any real hard
protection; attacks and players can pass through it, so it doesn't
really serve as a 'meat shield'. Despite this drawback, Grim Ward does
effectively chase off any regular monster which gets too close - and
while it doesn't work on Champions, Uniques, and Superuniques, it DOES
from what I've seen work on those regular monsters which seem to gain
immunity to Howl in higher difficulties. Properly used, a Grim Ward or
three can keep monsters off your back as well if not more so than any
summon designed to be a meat shield (like the Amazon's Decoy or the
Necromancer's Bone Wall), at least for the forty seconds that the totem
lasts.
In my experiences, this skill is good for many styles of play a
Barbarian can employ, but really comes into its own when used in
conjunction with Taunt by a Barbarian using throwing weapons. Once I've
killed a monster, I'll use Grim Ward to set up the totem, then stand
right next to the totem and fire away. When enemies get too close, they
get frightened off - and I pick one to Taunt to lure him back, while I
and my rogue hireling pick him off. As more enemies die, I set up more
wards, using corpses as cover to protect my advance, and thus can keep
my foes from getting within striking distance. Should ranged attackers
be present, I'll Taunt them to come to me, then focus my efforts on
killing them next.
This is not to say a melee Barbarian has no use for Grim Ward; luring a
Champion or Unique to one area near corpses, then setting up Grim Wards,
is a good way to ensure that you can hack away on the hapless monster in
privacy. And, in confined areas with lots of revivable monsters and
their revivers, a Grim Ward or two in the midst of the legions of the
soon-to-be-revived dead can give you breathing room - nothing is as
funny as seeing a skeleton brought back to life only to immediately run
away in fright because he saw the remnants of one of his friends set up
like a demented Lego-ologist's latest creation (^_^)
For the most part, I have found that one point invested in this skill to
be relatively sufficient - with my meager +2 or +3 to all Barbarian
skills afforded by my current equipment, this is enough to make my Grim
Ward's radius of effect large enough for me to work with. If you
absolutely cannot find any pluses to skills on equipment for your
Barbarian, and find that Grim Ward is to your liking but the radius
isn't great enough for your needs, then an extra skill point or two
should be sufficient - but this is, in my estimation, yet another of the
Barbarian's skills where minimal investments are enough to yield
positive results. Once I got Grim Ward, it replaced Howl on my hotkeys,
though there is no reason for a Barbarian to not employ both at once
should he feel Howl serves his purposes even in higher levels.
War Cry - Level 30 Skill
Prerequisites: Howl; Taunt; Shout; Battle Cry; Battle Orders
Mana Cost: 10 at Level 1; +1 Mana per additional skill level (11 at
Level 2; 12 at level 3, etc)
The adulations and praise other Barbarians give to skills like Whirlwind
and Frenzy, I instead attribute to War Cry; to my method of play and way
of thinking, this is THE skill all Barbarians should be learning in
their quest to rid the lands of evil. No other skill in the Barbarian's
arsenal has proven to me to be more effective in crowd control and horde
management.
Ahem. All obvious bias aside (and I will freely admit I am biased about
this skill's power and utility ^_^) War Cry is yet another radius affect
skill that affects enemies. In this case, the effects are direct
damage, and inflicting stun status, leaving enemies helpless for a
period of time.
Before going off again on how great this skill is, let me first mention
its drawbacks; once again, this is not a skill that really affects
Champions, Uniques, and Superuniques - they are immune to the effects of
stun from this skill, though they do take damage from it. The damage
done, even at maxed out levels, is also not that potent compared to what
you can likely deal with your weapons - at most, this skill can inflict
160 points of damage at level 20, which will not exactly overwhelm the
minions of the Three on Hell Difficulty. The stun length, also, is
rather short at low levels; a mere second at level one, and growing by
0.2 seconds every skill level thereafter. Unless you have godlike
attacking speed, you need to pump points into this skill to make it be
effective. And once again, this is a short-range effect; if you want
enemies to be stunned, then you will have to go over to them and stun
them.
One other drawback to this skill that I have noticed is that enemies can
occasionally block or even avoid its effects entirely. This is most
noticeable with the Cat People enemies found in Act Two - all of whom
seem to have the passive dodging skills of the Amazon class, and who
have given me many headaches as I try to stun a crowd of them only to
see some or all of them lean to the side to evade my bellowing roar.
Then, while I'm asking myself - how - the - heck - one dodges a shout at
close range, I get pelted until I finally do get the War cry to stun
them ... at which point said Cat People usually learn why you do not
provoke a Barbarian to a Berserk fury (^_^). Still, the fact that some
enemies can nullify this attack's effects (along with dodging my melee
blows and axe tosses, and my hireling's arrows, and probably anything
else I could throw at them if I thought to bring an item with spell
charges ...) is a point against this skill - though, if I'm right and
those Cat People have the Evade Skill (which purportedly lets one dodge
even spell effects), then I feel somewhat better ...
Having said all that, I now say - all the weakness of this Skill are
things that a Barbarian can comfortably not worry about, since the Skill
offers the ability to stun enemies. Multiple enemies. Multiple enemies
in melee range, where you can chop them down while they stare at you
helplessly. And you can use War Cry over and over again, doing some
damage to the enemies each time and freezing them in place while you
pick them off at your leisure. A stunned enemy cannot hit you, and stun
length is not decreased in higher difficulty levels, unlike
chill/freezing times. While that Whirlwinding Barbarian is slicing
through the hordes of monsters and hoping he doesn't get hit while
Whirlwinding, my Barbarian is quietly taking his time, alternating
between Berserk and Concentrate as the mana bills demand, and taking
heart in the fact that his devotion to the animal totems has made his
enemies' limbs weak and heavy, unable to be raised against him. Some
may call that cowardly; I prefer to think of it as delivering Evil it's
Just Deserts - you know those monsters would terrorize the weak and
helpless if they could; now let them know the feeling of helplessness
they have instilled in innocents for so long before they are sent back
to their infernal pits - RAR!
... ^_^ Sorry; got a tad carried away there. One too many D&D games as
a youth. ^_^ ...
Back to more gameplay-related matters, War Cry is a skill that most any
Barbarian can find benefit in. A melee Barbarian can keep all his
enemies nearby dazed and helpless, letting him attack with impunity. A
ranged attacker being beset by a mob can stun the mob, fall back a few
yards, and proceed to pick away at them before they fully recover. A
Barbarian who focuses on support Skills will find that stunning a large
mess of enemies is a great set up for hitting them all with Battle Cry
to weaken them, then taking a second or two to use party-friendly Skills
like Shout and Battle Commands to strengthen his friends before the
crowd wakes up - assuming, of course, the Barbarian lets them recover
and act instead of War Crying again. A Frenzy-based Barbarian can stun
enemies and slice them to bits before they can recover from even one or
two War Cries; a Berserking Barbarian has fewer worries about no defense
when his foes can't move to hit him. Even the Whirlinding Barbarian, if
he can spare the points to raise War Cry to a useful level, will find
this skill helpful; those concerns about being hit by enemies while
Whirlwinding become moot if your foes simply stand there waiting to be
hit, no?
War Cry is a party-friendly skill as well - in it's own way. Is the
Sorceress in the party trying to set up a Meteor or Firewall? Hey
presto - the enemies can't move! Does the Paladin really want to try to
get Conversion off? Here he goes - a bunch of practice dummies just
waiting to be shown the Light! Does the Druid wish to play Zombie
Bowling with his Molten Boulder? Taunt a few fools - er, foes, towards
you, let loose with a War Cry, then Leap Attack to safety as yon Druid
friend shows off his Mad Candlepin Skillz - STRIKE! (^_^)
Unlike some of the other Warcries, which can make do easily on but one
skill point, War Cry in my estimation needs at least a modest investment
of points to be effective. I have found that level 10 to 12 in the
skill, where the enemy is stunned for three seconds give or take a fifth
of a second, is a good level of effectiveness - I can get about four or
five swings off in that period of time even with next to no increased
attack speed and still have a second to recast the effect - and with
decent mana leech, I can keep this up for as long I have to. I
eventually plan on maxing War Cry since it's become my bread-and-butter
skill, but even builds which rely on other skills can benefit from a few
points here - and if you have a good amount of pluses to skills from
equipment, one or two points may be all you need here to get a Skill
capable of rendering your enemies helpless for a couple of seconds,
before you unleash your devastating main attack.
Battle Commands - Level 30 Skill
Prerequisites: Howl; Shout; Battle Orders
Mana Cost: 11
The last of the Barbarian's party-buffing skills, Battle Commands raises
every friendly unit's skill levels - in skills they have at least a
point in - by one for a short period of time. The amount of time the
skill increase lasts rises with higher levels of Battle Commands. And
no, before you ask, you cannot use this skill multiple times to raise
your skills over and over - trust me; I tried (^_^).
Compared to, say, Battle Orders, Battle Commands may sound a bit -
anticlimactic. After all, when you have a level 24 skill which can
nearly double your life and mana at maximum levels, and then you go to a
level 30 skill which only adds one to your skill levels for a period of
time - a somewhat short period of time at that compared to said life and
mana doubling skill - one may wonder why Battle Commands wasn't the
level 24 skill and Battle Orders the level 30. Then again - this skill
can theoretically add up to 30 temporary skill points to your character,
even if it's only one point per skill (and chances are you'll not use a
good five or six of those skills anyway, since most people tend to
ignore all masteries except the ones they've chosen to specialize in).
Looked at from that point of view, maybe this skill is the more
impressive one after all - especially since it can add those 30
theoretical skill points to each member of your whole party in a
multiplayer game.
For Barbarians who play solo, this skill is still helpful for that
little extra bit of 'buffing' especially during boss fights - again,
when facing Act Bosses, I've found using Battle Commands, then Battle
Cry, then Battle Orders to be a helpful strategy. For my needs, so far
as I have seen, a single point in this skill was enough to give me a
useful ability, even if the time it lasts is kind of short. Barbarians
who wish to play a more support-oriented role may wish to invest a few
more points into this skill simply to increase the length of the effect
so they need not cast it again every 10 seconds or so.
------------------
*** Section 5: Putting It All Together ***
Okay, so now that you've been regaled with descriptions of the style of
weapons a Barbarian can use, seen the advantages that raising each stat
can offer, and read discourses on most of the skills available to
Barbarians, the burning question is "How do I put together a Barbarian
from all this?"
The answer is - however you wish. However, even I admit that answer is
a cop out, so going into a bit more detail ...
*** Section 5.1: What a Barbarian Needs
Rather than making any firm suggestions on specific skills/equipment, I
will attempt to suggest what general things a Barbarian should be
looking into:
* Section 5.1.1: Crowd Control
The Three Prime Evils are powerful enemies that all Barbarians must
someday face - but to get to the Prime Evils, you'll need to wade
through countless hordes of monsters first. Corrupted Rogues, Flayers,
Venom Lords - a lot of the monsters in Diablo 2 like to get in your face
before attacking, and without some way of handling the crowds, you'll
soon find yourself as one of those Corpses other players overturn hoping
for loot.
There are a few ways a Barbarian can deal with managing crowds:
- Freeze Them In Place: War Cry can stun crowds for a few seconds,
giving a Barbarian time to get out of the way or start hacking the mob
to pieces. An Act Three Cold Merc can cast Cold Spells to freeze foes;
an Act Two Nightmare Difficulty Holy Freeze Merc can slow everyone down
to much more manageable speeds.
- Make Them Run Away: Howl and Grim Ward can both scare off monsters,
keeping them from attacking you for a few seconds while you pick your
targets. Weapons with Howling and Wailing modifiers can make enemies
run away as well - equipped on either you or your merc, these weapons
can substitute to some extent for an actual Howl.
- Hit Them Lots: If your unruly mobs die before they can deal out too
much damage, you're safe, no? Whirlwind can hit multiple enemies;
Frenzy can offer enough movement and attack speed bonuses that you can
zip around the crowd and hit monsters left and right.
* Section 5.1.2: Powerful Attack and Physical Immune Killing
Yes, kind of obvious, but the question of Physical Immunes is an
important one to Barbarians, since their primary attacks are physical.
Also, if your Barbarian doesn't have at least one nominally effective
attack, you'll be in for a very long haul ...
As for ensuring a Barbarian does adequate damage, there are several
things he can do:
- Pump up a Weapon Mastery: For Barbarians who don't like to rely on a
single Combat Skill for fighting, but instead like to alternate between
Combat Skills for various situations, the obvious thing to do is to try
to put as many points into your chosen Weapon Mastery as possible; the
bonuses for your weapon mastery will make whatever Combat Skill you're
using at the moment that much more effective.
- Concentrate on a Single Combat Skill: If, on the other hand, you know
that you really want to use Leap Attack as part of your main combat
strategy, or that you plan on relying on Berserk to kill the hordes of
Hell, then by all means put as many points into that Combat Skill as you
can spare. Combined with Weapon Mastery, the bonuses from a pumped up
Combat Skill will make your attacks that much more deadly. This is, in
fact, the general philosophy behind many of the builds offered by other
FAQs, with the Whirlwind specialists being one of the most noticeable.
- Raise AR, or get Ignore Target Defense: Not so much a means of
increasing damage dealt as a way to insure that you'll be doing any
damage at all, raising your chance to hit monsters or getting weapons
that let you ignore the monsters defense stat will increase the number
of blows that will actually land, thus increasing the amount of damage
you do overall.
- Raise Attack Speed: Raising the power of an attack is one way to get
more damage; another is to simply swing a lot faster than normal,
relying on a multitude of blows to equal or surpass the damage dealt by
a single, more powerful strike. The Frenzy Skill raises a Barbarian's
Attack Speed among other things, and various magical items can offer
bonuses to Attack Speed as well.
There are a couple ways a Barbarian can deal with Physical Immune
monsters:
- Use Berserk: This skill was seemingly designed with Physical Immune
monsters in mind, and also includes a hefty damage bonus for the
Barbarian. It does not, however, help out a Throwing Specialist much,
unless they don't mind getting in close ...
- Use Items Which Offer Elemental Damage: Weapons with elemental damage
modifiers, jewels which offer elemental damage, charms of elemental
damage - all these can be used by a Barbarian to get around Physical
Immunity, and for a Throwing Specialist Barbarian, allow for inflicting
damage to PI monsters at range.
* Section 5.1.3: Adequate Defenses
Adequate defenses includes not only physical defense, but also elemental
resists as well - damage reduction would also fall under this category,
but on items, damage reduction is usually only found on the higher end
pieces of equipment. Ways Barbarians can up their defenses are:
- Pump Up Skills That Primarily Offer Defense Bonuses: Natural
Resistance, Shout, and Iron Skin would be the three main skills to look
at when considering raising your defenses for your Barbarian.
- Use Other Skills That Can Add Defensive Bonuses: Concentrate adds a
defense bonus; if your damage is decent enough even in Hell with the
global damage resistance, using Concentrate is still viable. Battle Cry
can lower the damage monsters do - which is another way of raising your
own defenses, effectively ...
- Use Equipment With Good Defenses And Resists: Shield users have some
advantages here, since a shield allows for blocking as well as adding
defense and potentially adding resists from socketed runes and diamonds.
Non-shield users will want to look into getting higher defense armor
than a shield wielder may feel he needs to survive, and bonuses to
defense and elemental resists are good mods to look for on both items
and charms.
* Section 5.1.4: Means of Healing
Technically, a Barbarian can always run back to town when seriously
hurt, but a little more self-sufficiency would be nice ... (^_^) There
are several ways a Barbarian can keep himself in one piece while in the
field:
- Use of Life and Mana Leech: The most popular method of self-healing
in Diablo 2, life and mana leech allow you to restore a percentage of
the damage you deal to monsters to your life and mana respectively. The
greater the damage you deal, the greater the amount of life and/or mana
you can get back; the higher the percentage of life and/or mana leech
you possess, the greater the amount of damage you are dealing that gets
returned to you as healing becomes. Ideally, you want high amounts of
damage as well as high amounts of life and mana leech - especially if
you use mana-intensive attacks such as Whirlwind.
One caveat to life and mana leech, from what I've read and heard: the
amount of damage returned to you as healing for both leeches is
effectively halved in Nightmare Difficulty, and quartered in Hell
Difficulty, compared to what you would expect to see in Normal. While I
cannot confirm those exact numbers with hard math (i.e., going around
with a calculator and testing first in Normal, then in higher
difficulties), I can confirm that, even with the same amount of leech in
Normal and Nightmare, and even slightly higher damage in Nightmare than
Normal, I was leeching noticeably less in Nightmare than Normal anyway.
All the more reason to try to get as much leech as you can (^_^)
- Use of Life Replenish and Mana Regeneration: Various items offer a
mod for Replenishing Life; the greater the total of your Life Replenish,
the faster your Life points will regenerate while playing - you start
with zero life replenish, but can get this mod on jewelry, on armor and
shields, and even by socketing Skulls into armor and helms, among other
ways. While you would need a lot of Life Replenish to be able to heal
back the damage monsters deal in higher difficulties fast enough to be
'safe', life replenish is great for those moments of quiet while you're
walking around looking for your next foes.
Mana Regeneration works a little differently than Life Replenish; Mana
Regen is expressed as a percentage, such as Regenerate Mana +20%.
Everyone regenerates mana naturally; from my experiences, it seems the
rate of natural mana regen is set so that, starting from no mana, you'll
refill your mana points after a few minutes of rest. Mana Regen
shortens the time it takes for complete regeneration of mana: in the
above case, a Barbarian with +20% mana regen would completely refill his
mana from zero 20% faster than he would otherwise obtain - so if it took
10 minutes normally (just for example; I know it doesn't take nearly
that long, so Don't Panic ^_^), then having 20% mana regen would let you
recover all your mana in about 8 minutes and 20 seconds roughly, 100%
mana regen would let you recover completely in 5 minute, and 200% mana
regen would let you regenerate in less than 3 and a half minutes.
Because of the way mana regeneration works, the higher your mana total,
the faster you'll seem to get back points of mana - a Barbarian with 10
mana regains 2 points more slowly than a Barbarian with 100 mana,
because the rate of recovering all mana is the same for both, but the
second Barbarian's percentage of mana lost is a lot smaller than the
first's. Therefore, another way to keep yourself in mana is - get more
mana (^_^)
- Use Potions: No one said you can't use what you find; health and mana
potions are relatively common items to find off of monsters - and
Barbarians have a Skill that lets them seek out potions specifically
from the bodies of the slain. If you're low on leech and life/mana
replenish, and haven't been finding too many potions - might as well go
looking for some with your Skills (^_^).
* Section 5.1.5: Mobility
Barbarians can be formidable tanks, yes - but even tanks occasionally
come into situations where they're not soaking up damage like they'd
like to be, and need to make a tactical withdrawal. Also, when ranged
attackers are besieging you, it's nice to be able to get to them quickly
and dispatch them before you become a pincushion (^_^). The Barbarian
has a couple ways to add to his mobility:
- Use Leap or Leap Attack: These Skills are the Barbarian's answer to
the Teleport spell; you're relatively safe for the second or two you're
in the air, and Leap Attack's range even at Level 1 is still pretty much
Full Screen. Being beset by Flayers? Leap over the stream and watch
them have to scramble for a bridge - or else just stare at you in mute
frustration from the other bank. Be aware though, that your hirelings
are not bestowed with leaping ability - so you may end up leaving your
trusty companion behind by accident.
- Increase Run/Walk Speed: The Increased Speed Skill is made for making
your Barbarian more fleet of foot, and the Frenzy Skill's bonuses
include faster run/walk bonuses. Also, various items, notably boots and
other footwear, come with bonuses to run/walk speed.
*** Section 5.2: A Suggested Skeleton Barbarian Skill Selection
With the above points in mind, I will now make a suggestion for a
Barbarian Skill Point build - however, rather than a full build, I am
instead going to suggest a skeleton build, including things I feel
nearly any and all Barbarians will want to have, and leaving enough
skill points left that most any sort of Barbarian can then be designed
with these suggestions in mind.
In no particular order, the Skills I suggest are:
War Cry - at least a modest investment (5 points or more). War Cry, in
my estimation, is the best Skill a Barbarian has for crowd control, and
virtually any strategy I can envision a Barbarian using can benefit from
having the enemies stunned for a couple of seconds. Just to be on the
safe side, even assuming a Barbarian will find pluses to skills on
items, I am suggesting a modest investment here to give at least a
modestly decent stun length - I, myself, would feel more comfortable
with 10 points in this skill, but I'm trying to be 'stingy' with my
suggestions here to allow for more freedom in customizing later.
At least one Weapon Mastery - as many points as you feel comfortable
with, moderate investments at least (10+ points). I, myself, like using
two weapon masteries - sword and throwing, and am planning on raising
both to at least moderate levels (10+). I would not advise trying to
get more than two weapon masteries, however, and instead looking to find
a single weapon type (or two weapon types, such as I did) which seem to
suit your fancy best, and concentrate on those. Those weapons will be
your major means of dealing damage, and the masteries will be your major
way of increasing your damage from those weapons.
Natural Resistance - at least a modest investment (5 points or more).
Elemental attacks will become increasingly more dangerous in later
difficulties, both from the monsters' increased stats and the resistance
penalties you'll suffer. The Barbarian can raise his resistances
through a passive skill; in my estimation, a Barbarian should really
take advantage of this Skill's benefits rather than just leave his
resistances completely to his items.
Increased Speed - minimal investment (1 point). Walking and running
faster never hurts, especially when seeking to dodge the incoming
fireball. At least one point here will let you take advantage of pluses
to skills from items, thus yielding more rewards for your investment,
and in any event even a single point will bolster your movement rate
over and above what your items provide.
Leap Attack - minimal investment (1 point). The mobility Leap Attack
offers is, in my estimation, too good to pass up - and the wait from
Level 6 to level 18 to upgrade from Leap to Leap Attack is worth holding
off on spending points into Leap to me as well.
Berserk - at least minimal to modest investments (1 to 5 points+). This
is the Skill that lets you have some attack which will affect Physical
Immunes irregardless of your equipment; it's worth including in your
repertoire for those situations.
Find Potion - minimal investment (1 point). For 'popping' corpses of
monsters that tend to get back up if nothing else, and for a little
extra chance to keep your healing supplies stocked up at all times.
Battle Orders - at least minimal investment (1+ point). If for no other
reason than to have some small life and mana upping ability for
protracted battles, like Boss fights. I say at least minimal
investments, just because I'm trying to be 'stingy' with my assessments
in this section, but even still this is a good place to consider putting
Skill Points if you want to have even more life and mana available.
Taking into account all the prerequisites for these Skills (prereqs get
one skill point), my suggested Barbarian Skeleton Skill Build looks
something like this:
Warcries Tree
- Howl: 1 point
- Find Potion: 1 point
- Taunt: 1 point
- Shout: 1 point
- Battle Cry: 1 point
- Battle Orders: 1 point
- War Cry: 5 points
Total ------- 11 points
Combat Masteries Tree
- One Weapon Mastery of Choice: 10 points
- Increased Stamina: 1 point
- Increased Speed: 1 point
- Iron Skin: 1 point
- Natural Resistance: 5 points
Total ------------- 18 points
Combat Skills Tree
Bash: 1 point
Stun: 1 point
Concentrate: 1 point
Berserk: 1 point
Leap: 1 point
Leap Attack: 1 point
Total ------- 6 points
TOTAL POINTS ALLOCATED: 11 + 18 + 6 = 35 Skill Points
Again, this build is not meant to be a complete build; these are merely
my suggestions for Skills practically every Barbarian can make good use
of, with a mention of places where I think more than one Skill Point is
a decent investment. With these Skills, a Barbarian has: some method of
Crowd Control, a decent attack with a specialized weapon, mobility,
extra defenses both physical and elemental, a way to deal with Physical
Immunes, and a way to both 'pop' enemy corpses and keep his healing
supplies stocked. And that's using only 35 out of a possible 110 Skill
points earnable, leaving a lot of points free for customizing a
Barbarian.
*** Section 5.3: Possible Builds Using the Skeleton Skill Selection
With the above build in mind, here are some ideas for ways to build a
Barbarian, based on concepts I've seen in other faqs:
Using this basic template, a Barbarian wanting to specialize in
Whirlwind can get 10 more points in the Weapon Mastery, then 20 in
Whirlwind itself - so the points spent are now up to 65. Another 19 to
pump up Battle Orders like many Barbarians like to do, and you've spent
84 Skill points - given that 12 Skill Points are obtainable from quests,
that's 72 Skill points needed from leveling - so by level 73 you'd have
your Whirlwind, your Weapon Mastery, and your Battle Orders all
potentially maxed, and still have from levels 74 on up to add Skill
points to other skills - like Shout or Iron Skin for defenses, or
Natural Resistances for resists, or Berserk for killing Physical Immunes
that much more quickly, or whatever you want.
Again using this template, a Frenzy specialist will likely want 20
points in Frenzy, with 2 points needed for prerequisites - so the points
spent for this Barbarian would be 57 points. With a mid-level weapon
mastery and maxed out Frenzy, you now still have up to 53 points to play
with; 19 for maxed out Battle Orders leaves you with 34 points still
free, and you can potentially get the template skills and your primary
attack plus Battle Orders to these levels by level 65, leaving time to
to pump up your defenses still - or, playing more cautiously, invest
points into Shout and Iron Skin at lower levels while you're levelling,
up to a point you feel comfortable with. Or you can go all out offense,
pump up your Weapon Mastery, rely on pluses to skills to shore up your
defensive skills and other tricks should you have such items, and be a
blender on legs.
A Berserk specialist will likely want maxed out weapon mastery - another
10 points bringing us up to 45 using the template, then 19 more in
Berserk for a really massive attack, and just for argument's sake let's
say maxed out War Cry for keeping everyone stunned. 45 + 19 + 15 = 79
points spent, leaving still potentially 31 points to spend to bolster
his abilities - maybe a few in Iron Skin and Shout for when he's trying
to leech back life, a point in Grim Ward for additional crowd control,
and of course Battle Orders ...
A Dragoon will be much like a Berserk specialist, except that instead of
maxing Berserk he'll max Leap Attack and may not necessarily feel he has
to max out War Cry since his defense still works (unless he Berserks a
lot while on the ground). So, 35 points for the template, plus 10 for
maxed out mastery and 19 for maxed out Leap Attack is 64 Skill points,
and from there you have still 46 points to use to bolster your defenses,
resistances, crowd control, etc, in whatever manner you please.
For a Throwing Barbarian, likely they'll want maxed out Throwing
Mastery, need at least one point in Double Swing, one in Frenzy, and say
at least 10 in Double Throw for AR bonuses ... that's only 57 points
before even looking to max out Battle Orders or raise other skills for
extra defense/speed/what have you ...
All of these suggestions assume that a Barbarian will want to max out
whatever their primary attack is as much as possible. However, a
Berserker may find 10 points in Berserk is enough to let him kill things
as fast as he feels he has to, especially if he has a decent weapon to
back his attacks up; a Dragoon may decide that 5 to 10 points in Leap
Attack is enough and focus on raising the skills used in their ground
game more; and Blizzard has never said that a Throwing Master,
Whirlwind, or Frenzy Barbarian - has - to max out Battle Orders
completely or else be unable to beat the game.
------------------
*** Section 6: Hirelings ***
Even Single Player Barbarians don't have to go it alone; Diablo 2 offers
a choice of different Hirelings to aid your quest. The Rogues of Act
One, with bows and elemental arrows, provide supporting fire; the Town
Guard of Act two provide auras like a Paladin's and a potent pole arm-
wielding muscleman; the Iron Wolves of Act Three, with elemental spells
along with swords, offer some magical support; the Barbarians of Act
Five provide a powerful tank who can take damage and bash things almost
as well as you can. (^_^)
In my own experiences, I have only used one mercenary so far - an Act
One Rogue, typically a Cold Arrow specialist. Why her over the others?
Actually ... no real reason whatsoever; I just happen to like the Rogues
more than the other Mercenaries, and in other games Ice has always been
my favorite element. Since she's the only Hireling I've had any
experience with, I'll offer what thoughts and ideas I can on using a
Rogue to bolster your fighting ability, and if I ever try another
Mercenary someday ... well, that's what updates are for (^_^).
*** Section 6:1: The Rogue Hireling
Sister to the Rogue who bravely fought Diablo in the first Diablo game
(and who, apparently, didn't succeed as well as we could have hoped,
else we wouldn't be here to begin with ^_^), the Rogue Mercenary stands
ready to cut down your foes with her bow.
The Rogue has the basic Skills of Inner Sight, either Fire or Cold
Arrow, and possibly Critical Strike from the Amazon Skill lists - the
last one I'm not certain of, but I've seen a few cases of my rogue
getting the flash of a critical hit and doing extra damage, so I think
she does, in fact, have this skill (though it doesn't happen often, so
don't start thinking you'll have a Howitzer in leather boots working for
you just because I said the Rogue seems to have Critical Strike ^_^)
Rogues can equip any bows except Amazon-specific ones - but not
crossbows - and any non-class specific armor or helm that their stats
will allow them to wear. Like all Hirelings, Rogues have infinite nama
and can use their Skills whenever they want, and have natural life
replenish that restores their health in blocks of Life points - every so
often, a Rogue will get back x number of Life points, as opposed to
getting them back one at a time like a PC would with life replenish.
Important Note: Holding down Shift while hitting the key for any belt
slot will cause the potion therein to be used on your Hireling - even if
you're a full screen apart. Hirelings are also healed when you drink
from wells - yet another reason to like fresh mineral water (^_^).
AI-wise, the Rogue prefers to keep her distance, moving away from
monsters to pick them off with a steady stream of arrows, generally
aiming for whoever is closest to her. She is not the most inclined to
act as a meat-shield for you, nor are her hit points really geared for
such duty. This doesn't mean she can't take a few hits, but she's not
the sort of person who deals well with being mobbed ...
Since the Rogue only equips bows, helms, and armors, her outfitting
options are a mite more limited than your Delux Wardrobe Set, complete
with gloves, boots, jewelry, and what have you. In my experiences, I've
found that equipment that raises my Rogue's Dexterity (for better
defense and bow damage), Life points (for better death-tolerance),
elemental damage (for PI monsters) and life-leeching (for cutting down
on having to use my potions on her) tends to go a long way in helping my
rogue live longer and be a contributor to the Slaying of Evil.
One note on equipping the Rogue - if you are able to equip her with an
item or bow which offers +1 to all skills or Amazon skills, she will be
able to use both cold arrows and fire arrows. Having two levels in
skills from items seems to do nothing at all, and I hear at three levels
of skills from items, your Rogue thinks she's Opera Vectra from Star
Ocean, Second Story and starts blasting foes with a stream of lightning.
Soon as I find the spare equipment to test that, I intend to find out
for myself ... (^_^).
Given that the Rogue likes to keep her distance, any strategies which
keep monsters safely at arm's reach will not only help her live longer,
but also give her more time to plunk arrows into monsters. Some little
tricks I've developed to use my rogue to good advantage are:
- Taunting Enemies Through Her Line of Fire: Taunted foes will ignore
most anything other than getting over to you - though if an ally wanders
into their path, I've seen Taunted foes take a quick swipe at them
before continuing heading to me. However, I've also found that letting
my Rogue pick a spot to stand and shoot from, then Taunting an enemy and
moving myself so the Taunted foe has to pass through my Rogue's firing
zone, is a most amusing way to lure monsters to their doom. Why do all
the work when you can make the hired help pull their weight? (^_^)
- Taunting With Grim Wards: As I mentioned before, using Taunt in
conjunction with some Grim Wards is an excellent way to make the legions
of Hell act like hapless yo-yos - and because the Rogue prefers to hang
back and shoot from a distance, she's perfectly happy to stay with you
behind a Grim Ward and let you intice fleeing foes to come back for more
arrows in their gut.
- Grim Warding a Doorway: If most of the enemies in a room are melee
monsters, tossing up a Grim Ward right in the doorway will pretty much
seal the outside off from the monsters within - and your Rogue (and you
if you use ranged weapons) can fire into the room with impunity.
- War Cry For Everyone: When you stun the enemies with a War Cry, your
Rogue will generally pick one of the foes to shoot at a time; if you
want to finish off enemies more quickly, try to concentrate on attacking
the one she's shooting so it dies more quickly. Or, you can leave her
to pick away at her victim while you tackle someone else.
- Invisibility, Made Useless: The Rogue's Inner Sight will illuminate
enemies, even in dark conditions and if they become invisible - making
it easier to keep track of who is around you and where. Incidentally,
Barbarians making use of Warcries like Taunt and Battle Cry can 'tag'
invisible foes in much the same way - but the Rogue can also do it, and
having two people who can flag foes for future killing are better than
one, not to mention the Rogue doesn't have to worry about mana like you
do (^_^)
- Message For You Sir!: The Rogue's eyesight is keen; oftentimes when
you're wandering through a new area, she'll move on ahead a bit, and if
she sees enemies she'll stand firm and start shooting. I've found this
to be helpful as advance warning to expect trouble around the next
corner, and because the Rogue attacks from a distance, she doesn't
usually get so close to the enemies that when I get there, she's in a
pool of her own blood.
- Man, D2 Rogues Can't Jump ...: Sadly, your Rogue will not take to the
skies when you start doing Leap Attacks; if you aren't careful you may
end up leaving her behind - which may be a good or bad thing depending
on the situation. Also, when experimenting with Whirlwind, I've noticed
that when I start trying to Whirlwind through a horde of monsters, my
Rogue wants to follow - usually to her detriment as she's not spinning
with blades extended like I was ...
Is the Rogue the best Hireling for a Barbarian? That depends on the
individual player - I imagine a fair number of Barbarians would prefer
to use a Might Act Two Mercenary and reap huge damage bonuses from that
aura, or use the Holy Freeze Merc as part of crowd control, or what have
you. My advice on this matter is this: choose a mercenary you think you
like, try working with them, and if they seem to offer your style of
play benefit, then stick with them, and learn how not only to make your
mercenary complement you with their powers, but also how you can
complement your mercenary's style of fighting for better survival of
both parties.
------------------
*** Section 7: Closing Thoughts ***
And now a few general opinions of mine, on the Barbarian and playing the
game ...
The most important thing to remember when playing a Barbarian in Diablo
2, is simply that - it's a game, it's your character, and don't be
afraid to do something that others might advise against if you will have
fun with it. In my guide, I've tried to give a detailed idea of how all
the Barbarian's Skills work, and offer some suggestions for what sort of
things I feel all Barbarians can benefit from - but if you have an idea
of your own that you like playing, then go for it. Do you like using
the Stun Skill, even though I said I felt it was not one of the
Barbarian's most effective Skills? Then by all means pump it up with
Skill points as high as you like - if you like it and you have fun
playing the game using that Skill, then use it. Make your Barbarian
suit your style of play.
Also remember, that no one is saying you have to compete with other
players, especially if you're playing Single Player or Multiplayer
Player versus Monster; so what if the sorceress can do 7000 points of
damage a second with her Firewall and who knows how much with her Frozen
Orb? If you can hold your own, you're doing fine. If that sorceress
feels you're holding her back because you're barely scraping the 1000
mark for damage, then chances are your playing styles aren't meshing
well anyway; don't feel you have to match or top everyone else you see
or hear about, and play the game to have fun. With luck you'll meet
people who will enjoy playing with you if you play multiplayer and not
have to worry about competing with your own party, when the real enemy
is Diablo and his hordes.
Though I know little of the sorts of scams, hacks, and other dangers
that can beset a person online, even I am aware that such things do
exist, unfortunately - have fun, but not at the expense of others, and
when online, please be careful. Nothing can be as frustrating as having
all your hard work in making a character destroyed because someone
managed to hack your account and did What Have You to your character and
items.
That's everything; I hope you found this guide helpful and informative,
or at least interesting to read (^_^). If you have any questions,
comments, or the like, again I can be reached at
lorannapyrel@hotmail.com; please include in the subject heading that
your e-mail is about my Diablo 2 guide. Helpful criticism and comments
are welcome; flames, 1337-laden messages, and the like will be summarily
ignored, and if you have any questions, I will do my best to answer them
------------------
*** Section 8: Revision History ***
Version 1.0; August 25, 2002: After a couple of weeks of planning,
typing, late-night playing, and discussing with a couple of friends, the
first version of this guide is done! YAY! Here's hoping it gets
accepted ...
------------------
*** Section 9: Credits ***
Finally, credit where credit is due ...
I give credit to Blizzard, for making this game that has so eaten up my
current free time.
I give credit to Sega and Sonic Team for making Phantasy Star Online,
for that was the game which introduced me to online gaming to begin with
- which contributed to me looking into this game.
I give credit to CJayC for creating GameFAQS, and the many FAQ writers
before me who have given me inspiration from reading their guides.
I give credit to my friend DragonKat, a fellow GameFAQS user, for
offering to review my guide before I sent it out, and for offering his
advice on what he's seen other Barbarians do with some Skills I never
really used much prior to making this guide.
I also give credit to myself for managing to put this guide together
despite my own laziness (^_^)
August 25, 2002