Loving my Barb! And Ripping up the place

[squigipapa]

Loving my Barb! And Ripping up the place

Hi Guys,
So I'v been working on an IK barb. I was going conc. but then along the way decided to put some into WW as well. So I maxed BO, Shout, put one in all of the pre-req's etc. Along the way, I found a normal, (white) cryptic axe in the pit with my zon. I used the cube recipe and ended up with 5 sockets in it. I had some of the runes needed and traded for the rest. I made a doom cryptic axe, got perfect +370% ED. My plan was to give this weapon to a might merc for my IK barb.
So anyway, I hit lvl 67 last night, and I'm not able to equipt the IK armor and maul yet and my merc isen't high enough lvl for the cryptic axe. So I decided to use it myself. I LOVE IT!!! my barb is tearing up the place! with my might merc, I'm doing 7303 max dmg, and I have only one psn charm in my inv. it's a 100pd grand charm. So basically 7203 real dmg. The holy freeze is slowing everything to a crawl. I haven't gone into hell yet, I've been doing baal runs to lvl up. I can rip through the ws keep full of black souls etc. wearing an enigma (cheap one, because someone made it from an embossed plate!) my str is at 299. I'm actually thinking of scrapping the IK set idea and going pole arm barb. he looks killer cool!! with that cryptic axe and I haven't had this much fun playing a barb for a long time. I did a diablo run last night (switching to bezerk because of IM) and only died once because of a stupid mistake, I was IM'd and hit conc instead of zerk, I was dead after one hit!
Anyway, just wanted to share my barb joy with everyone! As for the build of the barb I was loosely following Hal's conc guide but adapting it to my taste. The only place I'm really suffering is in the AR department, sometimes I have trouble to hit, but tonight I'll be throwing a demon limb on his weapon switch for the added ar, and maybe I'll go with angelic ammy+ring, not sure yet .. I'll see how it goes.

 

[skilledlord]

congrats, however, nightmare and hell is a whole different story :evil:

 

[sJw_shan]

lol yup. tell me how nm and hell goes for you =).

 

[squigipapa]

well, I started hell last night.. I finished act 1 without a problem, Andarial dropped in like 10 or 15 seconds. I've been doing pit runs to try and lvl up to 76 so I can wear the IK armor. Last night I hit lvl 73 with only a couple of pit runs. I ran into every type of immunity there. I switch to zerk for any PI's and it rips them down pretty quick. The only time I've really run into problems is when I'm cursed. Whenever I have something above my head there are problems. I usually just throw up a tp and head back to town and heal when I'm cursed.
So all in all hell is not too bad so far. after BO my life is around 2.5k, after enchant from my demon limb, I have like a 90% chance to hit, def is around 12k. Nightmare is nothing, I did a couple of NM baal runs last night, solo tanking baal and bringing him down in like 30 to 40 seconds. My problem with hell is that my resistances are not up to par. I have negitive pretty much everything, but that should change once I throw the IK armor on, and after that I'll see, I may drop a couple of points into Nat. Res. But all in all, I'd say I'm doing fine in hell so far. I'll have to see how the later acts go.

 

[Gorny]

Natural Resistance has diminishing returns after about 10 points or so, so when you notice a decrease in resistance gained between one point level an d the next...stop adding points and let + to skill items do the rest.

 

[squigipapa]

So... I hit lvl 76 tonight, put on the rest of the IK set, and solo'd up to act 4 hellfordge. No problems yet. I'm tearing up the place! I mean I don't know who says that barb's are no good since 1.10, but they haven't played an IK barb for sure! The only time .. and I mean ONLY time I have ANY problems whatsoever is when I'm cursed. I mean it took me like 30 or 40 seconds to take out meph in an 8 player game. I tanked the councle members on durance 3 then meph and never gulped so much as one health potion. Basically all I have is the IK set, I don't have a stash full of 3/20/20's or anything like that, I have like 2 or 3 vita charms with between 16 and 19 life, no poison charms anymore except for one that has 40 pd over 4 seconds (I believe) I got rid of the one 100pd charm that I had whenever I hit 76 because the maul has more than enough poison for my likeing.
Anyway, I'm going to play my barb up till about lvl 85 (he's 78 now) I want to solo hell baal in an 8 player game as well as solo Dclone. Then I'm planning on writing a guide, well more of a "my barb's life story", exactly what I'm using, my stat/skill allocation, dmg, ar, playing strategy etc. I haven't hired a merc yet, I plan on getting a might merc later on but I want to really play the barb totally solo for now to see how far I can push him.
I will say though, at lvl 75 in hell it was a little tougher, I was gulping health pot's, but before IK armor pretty much all of my resistances were negitive, I only had one point in nat res. (9 after +skills equpt.) but whenever I put on the IK armor in hell at lvl 76, all my resistances went up to 75 except cold which is 73. That totally changed the game ..
Anyway, that's all for now, this is the end of my boreing rant ..

 

[skilledlord]

i would be interested in making a ik barb, but i don't have the armor yet...let's see how u do against range attackers ^^ however, if u can beat baal with ease, then u do have quite a good barb there.