Hardcore Bear

[zzzackkk]

Hardcore Bear

I was reading up on the Kodiak guide and it looks like a LOT of fun. No steep skill requirements, he makes the ll sound amazing, and the way he describes the speed makes me feel like i wont be missing out on anything. The only problem is, is that when I got towards the item section of the guide he said that "He’ll be looking for very specific pieces of gear," which makes me wonder if I'll be able to use this build untwinked in HC. Please give me some advice to weather or not you think this build will work or not untwinked, if I should expect to have a tough time because that guide is not for HC, or any information you want to give at all. Thanks.

 

[Liquid_Evil]

It barely succeeds twinked as I understand it. He does a great job of selling the build, but absolutely everyone that has tried it that I've talked too about it was less than satisfied.

He makes the leech sound teriffic, but with Hell's penalties and such a low damage base weapon, it isn't near as effective as it is made out to be. That said, I'd still like you to give it a try and get back to me on how it handled. I'm still waiting for someone to tell me it is indeed a pwnworthy build.

 

[phool]

I ended up using maul over hunger when I made a kodiak, with the occasional hunger thrown in for mana leech. I tested it with a variety of weapons, including a 110 IAS/190 ar/15ed pb, shaeled azurewrath, shaeled baranar's star (with several shields, stormshield, spirit monarch, 2x pdiamond mosers), (moderately high) oath eth feral axe, ribcracker and some others. The oath was my favourite and leeched a hell of a lot combined with hunger but maul just killed things faster. Untwinked I think you'd be extremely lucky to have an effective bear though the build is well suited for HC thanks to the almighty shockwave.

I don't want to go too off topic but my review of the build was this

lvl **, maxed werebear, lycan, maul, HoW, 1 pt poison creeper, grizzly, cyclone armour, several in hunger and rest in shockwave.

dracul's grasp/ik/str+dex+dual res+20IAS rares
raven 248/19
111ar/[email protected]/10repl rare with minor mods
metalgrid [email protected] 30x def 40x ar
oath feral axe, 320%ed (155-772)
guillame's face/jalals/kiras
ik belt/credendum/string/dungos
gores/tri-res rares/ik
smoke wirefleexe 87x def/duress AP/treachery wirefleece

lots of charms with comboes of max, ar, life or res or shape skillers, 20/17 anni, high torch.

switch:spirit sword/spirit shield (mostly for shockwaving in baal runs)
merc:reaper's toll, eth duriel's shell, tal helm. normal defensive.
prebuff:demon limb, a must have for me.

example of stats with oath feral.

def - 9k
life - 3.2k
maul damage - 2050-9100
maul ar - 15k
hunger damage - 520-2300 (this was probably after charging maul)
hunger ar - 11.5k
fpa - 7/6
resses - 75 all

I made for ubers where it was ok but not as good as hoped - ar was insufficient to have an amazing cth the ubers, HoW was required so I spent a fair bit of time recasting it, getting enough dexterity for pb meant that I had something like a 35% ctb even with spirit shield, so surrounded by enemies I spent a lot of time in block animation or using shockwave rather than leeching. The manaburning ghosts didn't help either. End result was I mostly used the oath feral but had a pretty hard time of it without help.

I would recommend a bear, but I can't honestly recommend hunger as the build's general primary skill that much. More a great mana leeching utility and effective boss killer.

 

[Jary]

Porky made a HC bear a while back, he can give you tips on how to beat the Den of evil

 

[Porky]

Porky made a HC bear a while back, he can give you tips on how to beat the Den of evil

That was uncalled for.

 

[tigercan]

How about a fireclaw bear?

They're very powerful even with minimal gear, and shockwave plus a big life pool ensures that you'll be pretty safe.
Just guardianed one myself, so they're very viable

 

[MalVeauX]

Heya,

I've long wanted to make a Hunger druid ever since the Famine runeword came along, because it just seemed like they were telling us something. If you're Famish, use Hunger! And of course it's a near perfect hunger weapon (not for speed) in the sense of the damage and the high elemental damage stacking on there. I'll never make Famine, but there's other weapons to try out.

I'll have to play around and see how a hunger bear truly works. I'm curious now.

Cheers, :sunny:

 

[ephik]

How about a fireclaw bear?

They're very powerful even with minimal gear, and shockwave plus a big life pool ensures that you'll be pretty safe.
Just guardianed one myself, so they're very viable

hmm.. how about the fire immunes in hell?

 

[BAMFSpecialOps]

shockwave + merc + bear

 

[tigercan]

Shockwave + merc + crushing blow worked for me.
Open Wounds is handy too

 

[MalVeauX]

Heya,

Any thoughts on the Kingslayer runeword? If put in a Phase Blade, a 5 FPA attack would be doable with some gear swap while having high crushing blow and still being able to pump those resists up nice and high. The weapon itself gives a huge crushing blow & open wound value, combined with Duress & Gores, giving you a great place to start for dealing the hurt.

Also, what about a Voice of Reason phase blade? The % damage to daemons & undead works with the leech right? It'll be slower to get high FPA attacks, but it could be fun since you get CBF on the sword, you get extra Dex, and the number of Orbs you'll blast around while biting stuff and the negative cold resist to enemies isn't shabby. Main flaw being it's just not that fast....

Cheers, :sunny: