Uzziah
Diabloii.Net Member
Magi barb guides
Often players look to barbarians as the melee character class. Dealing with physical type of attacks and yells, they call war cries. But, a small tribe of rather unknown barbarians headed away from their stereotype and started to work with the arcane skills. These barbarians studied under sorceresses trying to learn how to cast spells. After many years of failing they almost gave up and went back to their typical ways.
A necromancer named Trang Oul came to their rescue. He gave them some equipment to where as armor, the armor enabled them to use 3 skills: fireball, firewall, and meteor. He also taught them the value of high potency poison. Being able to deal huge poison damage would teach them the finer points, of using their weaponry. So the barbarians began their training using charms of poison and arrows covered in potent poisons.
A group of these barbarians decided that fire and poison just wasn’t what they were looking for. They continued looking for more magical skills they could use. What they found will amaze you. They encountered a druid of the high summoner’s order. After a long talk with them he found some items that would enable them to call upon the forces of nature and summon the wolves, bears, and golems of the land. After great practice these barbs became known as the summoner barbarians.
MagiBarbs focus on fire skills and poison skills to kill their enemies. They are only able to use these skills with their equipment. The study of these skills required so much they could not study the attacking skills of their own tribes. Instead they studied defensive and controlling skills.
For the magibarb one needs to build up great defense and learn how to control enemies. Using the following skills enables them to wield their magic with great effect.
Let’s take a look at the main skills being used here.
Stats on the magibarb are pretty similar to other barbs. The barbarians gain no real advantage to mana by placing points in energy so always avoid energy as a stat on a barbarian.
I usually don’t like giving you need this item to make this build work, but this is a very, very equipment intensive build. So I will go over items you will need to be effective. I will also mention items that could make you even more effective.
Trang Oul’s Set
You need 3 of the following items in on your barbarian:
Fire skills
For Synergies the barbarians would use charged items, such as a ring with charges of firebolt, slvl 5 is available. There is only one unique/set item with charges that synergize fireball and that item is Moonfall with its slvl 11 charges of meteor.
But synergies are not the only way to boost fire skills, there are several items with (+x fire skills) they include, Hexfire, Flamebellow, Hell Plague, Leaf runeword, Magefist, etc. Using these items to your advantage will gain you more damage towards your fireball and firewall skills. For the most power out of fireball the barb can use Moonfall and a Hexfire at the same time. For having another skill Hexfire can be replaced with Flamebellow or better yet 2 Flamebellows to really juice up the inferno skill. Having 2 hexfires on later in the game while using firewall will boost your firewall another 6 levels to be much more effective.
Poison Skill
The charm is the greatest source of poison damage for the MagiBarb, with small charms that receive both a prefix and suffix of some sort of poison the rates add and so do the durations resulting in huge total damages. “Toxic small charm of pestilence†is a good example of such charms.
But we need a way to deliver poison to the monsters, I always liked ranged attacks for delivering poison, if you control a monster away from you and use ranged attacks to poison them there is no reason they should deal you damage. This leads to the bow, you can get 6 socketed bows in Hell mode, I found a 6 socketed bow and placed 6 tal runes in it for 451 poison damage over 5 seconds.
For even more power we may want to use facets and other +/-% poison damage items. Using Bramble and Trang’s gloves will force the use of Trang’s helm and Trang’s belt but will result in huge gains on the poison damage. I haven’t done the math yet but if you can socket a bow with 6 poison facets I bet they will give more overall damage. Unfortunately they have poison damage that last 2 seconds which will significantly reduce your poison duration due to how poison damage is calculated.
The MagiBarb has a hard beginning to life. They can’t even use their skills until they are into nightmare. So how do you handle normal? Well Poison and melee/ranged attacks are your only option.
Clvls 0-49
This is the most normal part of the barbs life, the barb can only use melee/ranged attacks hopefully using poison. Place 1 point in howl to start now using poison damage you can howl and scare away enemies the poison will take effect as the monster runs away. The next big concern is gaining defense and life, so focus on Battle Orders, Shout, Iron Skin, Natural Resistances, and your 1 point in Battle Command. Get your choice of merc at this time, for style an act 3 mercenary would suit this build well. Keep pushing levels as fast as you can the build really isn’t fun during this portion, in fact it can be rather grueling to get through.
Clvls 49-62
Now we are able to get 2 parts of Trang Oul’s set on, the gloves and armor. With these two parts we have the fireball skill, also as an added advantage we can get moonfall, hexfire, and hopefully our firebolt ring on. With these items on your fireball should be doing over 600 damage. On the switch you can keep your bow for FI’s and monsters you want to take out with poison damage. This is really a short section of the build and introduces you to your final play style of casting spells. You will want to get the find item skills during this time since you will need mana potions from using fireball in large amounts.
Clvls 62 onward
You will now be able to get the 3rd Trang Oul’s set item, the belt. With this you will be able to use firewall and melee skills, holding monsters in the firewall while beating them senseless with a melee poisoned weapon. From here on your play style is yours to choose, the better you use your ablities the better a magi you will become.
The Magical Barbarians
Introduction
Introduction
Often players look to barbarians as the melee character class. Dealing with physical type of attacks and yells, they call war cries. But, a small tribe of rather unknown barbarians headed away from their stereotype and started to work with the arcane skills. These barbarians studied under sorceresses trying to learn how to cast spells. After many years of failing they almost gave up and went back to their typical ways.
A necromancer named Trang Oul came to their rescue. He gave them some equipment to where as armor, the armor enabled them to use 3 skills: fireball, firewall, and meteor. He also taught them the value of high potency poison. Being able to deal huge poison damage would teach them the finer points, of using their weaponry. So the barbarians began their training using charms of poison and arrows covered in potent poisons.
A group of these barbarians decided that fire and poison just wasn’t what they were looking for. They continued looking for more magical skills they could use. What they found will amaze you. They encountered a druid of the high summoner’s order. After a long talk with them he found some items that would enable them to call upon the forces of nature and summon the wolves, bears, and golems of the land. After great practice these barbs became known as the summoner barbarians.
MagiBarbs
Introduction
MagiBarbs focus on fire skills and poison skills to kill their enemies. They are only able to use these skills with their equipment. The study of these skills required so much they could not study the attacking skills of their own tribes. Instead they studied defensive and controlling skills.
Skill Layout
For the magibarb one needs to build up great defense and learn how to control enemies. Using the following skills enables them to wield their magic with great effect.
20 Iron Skin
1-5 Natural Resistance
1 Increased Stamina
1 Increased Run/Walk
20 Shout
20 Battle Orders
1 Battle Command
10 Howl
1 Taunt
10-20 Battle Cry
1 Find Potion
1 Find Item
1 Grim Ward
1-5 Natural Resistance
1 Increased Stamina
1 Increased Run/Walk
20 Shout
20 Battle Orders
1 Battle Command
10 Howl
1 Taunt
10-20 Battle Cry
1 Find Potion
1 Find Item
1 Grim Ward
Let’s take a look at the main skills being used here.
- Howl/Grim Ward – This is a bread and butter skill to the magibarb, using poison which takes extended amounts of time to work, there is nothing like scaring away monsters and shooting them in the back with poison bolts. Another use for this is chasing enemies down the firewall.
- Battle Cry – This is the magibarb’s boss killing skill, many bosses do not respond to howl, but Battle Cry will lower their defense and make their hits much weaker. Using Battle Cry when facing bosses will enable the tanking and mass destruction of melee hits while keeping the boss in the firewall.
- Shout, Battle Orders, Battle Command – These are your character building skills they all increase the stats of your character. Battle Command even raises the damage your firewall produces.
- The remaining skills are for rounding out the character, for instance the find item skills are there for the emergency case when the barb runs low on mana potions, or when a bit extra gold is needed for repairs.
Stats
Stats on the magibarb are pretty similar to other barbs. The barbarians gain no real advantage to mana by placing points in energy so always avoid energy as a stat on a barbarian.
- Strength – Enough to equip items, the barb is more of a caster character thus the bonuses associated with strength is really not worthwhile for this build.
- Dexterity – Enough to equip items, the barb is not doing melee attacks so AR is not an issue, also for the most part the barbarians defense is high enough that even low blocking %’s will be highly effective. Initially I suggest about 100 dexterity, but suit it to your equipment.
- Vitality – What ever you have not placed elsewhere should go here, remember you are using Battle Orders and as a barbarian you get 4 life per vitality point. You can achieve high life totals with this build.
- Energy – Nothing, Never place points in energy for a barbarian, +mana items will always be more effective on barbarians.
Equipment
I usually don’t like giving you need this item to make this build work, but this is a very, very equipment intensive build. So I will go over items you will need to be effective. I will also mention items that could make you even more effective.
Trang Oul’s Set
You need 3 of the following items in on your barbarian:
In order of earliest clvl of equipping
- Trang Oul’s Gloves
- Trang Oul’s Armor
- Trang Oul’s Belt
- Trang Oul’s Helm
I know they each have specific names but I like to refer to set items by their item type it makes planning with them easier.
Fire skills
For Synergies the barbarians would use charged items, such as a ring with charges of firebolt, slvl 5 is available. There is only one unique/set item with charges that synergize fireball and that item is Moonfall with its slvl 11 charges of meteor.
But synergies are not the only way to boost fire skills, there are several items with (+x fire skills) they include, Hexfire, Flamebellow, Hell Plague, Leaf runeword, Magefist, etc. Using these items to your advantage will gain you more damage towards your fireball and firewall skills. For the most power out of fireball the barb can use Moonfall and a Hexfire at the same time. For having another skill Hexfire can be replaced with Flamebellow or better yet 2 Flamebellows to really juice up the inferno skill. Having 2 hexfires on later in the game while using firewall will boost your firewall another 6 levels to be much more effective.
Poison Skill
The charm is the greatest source of poison damage for the MagiBarb, with small charms that receive both a prefix and suffix of some sort of poison the rates add and so do the durations resulting in huge total damages. “Toxic small charm of pestilence†is a good example of such charms.
But we need a way to deliver poison to the monsters, I always liked ranged attacks for delivering poison, if you control a monster away from you and use ranged attacks to poison them there is no reason they should deal you damage. This leads to the bow, you can get 6 socketed bows in Hell mode, I found a 6 socketed bow and placed 6 tal runes in it for 451 poison damage over 5 seconds.
For even more power we may want to use facets and other +/-% poison damage items. Using Bramble and Trang’s gloves will force the use of Trang’s helm and Trang’s belt but will result in huge gains on the poison damage. I haven’t done the math yet but if you can socket a bow with 6 poison facets I bet they will give more overall damage. Unfortunately they have poison damage that last 2 seconds which will significantly reduce your poison duration due to how poison damage is calculated.
Poison basics
The Tao of Poison is the best source for fully understanding poison damage. When it comes down to it you can estimate your overall poison damage by adding rates and averaging durations. So you want to look for high rates and long durations, if you can deal 100 poison damage in 2 seconds or 200 in 4 seconds you will find that the 4 seconds is better not because it deals more over all damage but because it does not decrease your duration as much.An example: I have the 6 tal bow and a 50 poison damage over 2 seconds small charm. To get my total damage I have to solve for rates:
451/5 = ~90
50/2 = 25
Then I solve for durations.
5
2
Now rates add, and durations average.
90+25 = 115
(2+5)/2 = 3.5
Finally I multiple rate times duration.
115 * 3.5 = 402.5
The small charm has reduced my total damage by ~49 points. But the rate at which those points are removed is much higher.
451/5 = ~90
50/2 = 25
Then I solve for durations.
5
2
Now rates add, and durations average.
90+25 = 115
(2+5)/2 = 3.5
Finally I multiple rate times duration.
115 * 3.5 = 402.5
The small charm has reduced my total damage by ~49 points. But the rate at which those points are removed is much higher.
Play Style
The MagiBarb has a hard beginning to life. They can’t even use their skills until they are into nightmare. So how do you handle normal? Well Poison and melee/ranged attacks are your only option.
Clvls 0-49
This is the most normal part of the barbs life, the barb can only use melee/ranged attacks hopefully using poison. Place 1 point in howl to start now using poison damage you can howl and scare away enemies the poison will take effect as the monster runs away. The next big concern is gaining defense and life, so focus on Battle Orders, Shout, Iron Skin, Natural Resistances, and your 1 point in Battle Command. Get your choice of merc at this time, for style an act 3 mercenary would suit this build well. Keep pushing levels as fast as you can the build really isn’t fun during this portion, in fact it can be rather grueling to get through.
Clvls 49-62
Now we are able to get 2 parts of Trang Oul’s set on, the gloves and armor. With these two parts we have the fireball skill, also as an added advantage we can get moonfall, hexfire, and hopefully our firebolt ring on. With these items on your fireball should be doing over 600 damage. On the switch you can keep your bow for FI’s and monsters you want to take out with poison damage. This is really a short section of the build and introduces you to your final play style of casting spells. You will want to get the find item skills during this time since you will need mana potions from using fireball in large amounts.
Clvls 62 onward
You will now be able to get the 3rd Trang Oul’s set item, the belt. With this you will be able to use firewall and melee skills, holding monsters in the firewall while beating them senseless with a melee poisoned weapon. From here on your play style is yours to choose, the better you use your ablities the better a magi you will become.
Adding a 4th piece of Trang Oul’s set may get rid of the charge bug by giving the meteor Oskill, make sure that you are ok with that and replace your moonfall with hexfire, or similar.
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