Diablo IV, Diablo 2 and Diablo 3 Forums - Diabloii.Net
Pvp Singer Guide 1.03
EDIT by Garbad --
Here is the link to meemeememremememememememe173's also.
http://forums.rpgforums.net/showthread.php?t=154563
First off barbs are gear intensive, so if you dont have a engima or most of the gear listed on at least the poor man section, this isnt gonna work very well. Also, this is a PVP guide and the only relevant PvM will be baal runs.
Brag Section (Overview): Warcry barbarians have several advantages over whirl/concentrate barbs. They move faster, attack faster, have none of the AR problems that melee barbs have, possess much higher default resist, and are able to perform a variety of abilities that are weak or absent on melee barbs, such as high level leap, howl, super-BO, etc. The only disadvantage is crappy damage compared to most melee barb builds.
Note: in the gear section, i may refer to duped caster rings, or duped boots. This would be imp shanks on west or soul spurs on east, basically the have-it-all boots with stats, run, hit recov, resist, ... The rings, i dont know what they're called on east, but basically refers to the 10 fcr rings with large mana/life/stats/resist.
Optimal Gear:
arreats face, ber
+2 barb 15+ cast amulet with dex, life, mana, etc
enigma dusk shroud
soj
10 fcr ring with str, dex, life, mana, etc
mage fist
arachnid mesh
standard issue duped good boots (imp shank/soul spur/equivalent)
heart of oak flail
stormshield, sur
10x warcry gc with life
annihilus, stats more important than resist for this build
9x 17 mana/5 frw or 20 life
Poor man gear:
arreats with perf saphhire
stormshield with hel
engima
imp shank
magefist
arachnid mesh
heart of oak or wizardspike, if wizardspike socket with fal
2 duped caster rings, 1 + soj if wizardspike
crafted barb amulet with + barb skills and life/mana
10x wc gc with + dex or + life
10x sc with mana
Weapon Switch:
Gavel of Pain for pubbie
Wizardspike + 4 eth monarch for private
Ethereal monarch if not enough str
Alternating Gear for specific fights:
4x sapphire monarch (ethereal if low str)
4x ort monarch (ethereal if low str)
T-god
hotspur boots
+3 warcry weapon
+3 BO barbarian helm socketed with deleirum,
extra soj (s)
Extra hoto or wizardspike
Stats:
str: base
dex: enough for block
vit: rest
energy: none
Skills:
1 leap
1 iron skin
1 inc stamina
1 natural resist
1 increased speed
20 howl
20 battle cry
20 taunt
20 war cry
20 BO
1 battle command
1 shout
Breakpoints:
48 is the target fhr break. Arreat + imps (or legit equivalent) reaches 50.
105 is target cast break for 8 frames
200 fcr is buggy and double tele/missed cast/lags too much
63 fcr is too slow, but you use it if you need to wear tgods or something.
Suggested hotkey setup:
Left click Leap
right click F1-8 (or choice): teleport, warcry, battlecry, taunt, battle command, battle orders, shout, howl
Leveling method (suggested by people on barb forum):
Teleport to throne and howl everything so they run up against the walls and stay there for the next minute and a half. Stun the black souls. Rest is easy. If you have a burning desire to kill something, get a act 2 merc.
Comments on skills, stats, and gear:
mana/life added from +energy/vit on items is not multiplied with BO. mana/life added from lvl based mana/life mods is not multiplied by BO. thus base (direct numerical from items, lvl gain, stat points physically put in, quest potions) life/mana is most desirable since warcry barbs will be able to have lvl 50+ BO. for those who wonder, yes, a sur rune in shield adds more mana than wizardspike. at lleast for this build.
Leap gains 0.66 radius per lvl with a base 1.98 yard radius. Reaches about 0.5-0.75 screen at 600x800 resolution, at skill lvl ~15.
Max taunt last because this has no lvl-dependant pvp benefit.
Place points in the skills with 1 point as soon as you can, after + skills they become strong enough.
Before fights, equip all +skill items in Alternate gear section and BO for a 50+ battle orders. This will not run out (lasts 10+ minutes), and no need for recast.
Strategy Section
General Stratey:
You will run out of mana quickly, so in public games drink mana potions, and in private duels where mana pots are BM, use the mana regeneration switch with wizardspike + 3 or 4 eth rune shield. To acquire a name lock without appearing to do so, use taunt, then switch skills using hotkeys at will. Always walk vs. attackers which have attack that can be blocked. Also, the gear switching in the specific tactics section are entirely optional and mainly applies to 1v1. The barb works fine without switching anything. Use 2 casting weapons instead of weapon/shield if your ina private duel and are fighting a non physical caster.
For future reference: the term “desync leap†in this guide refers to the technique of teleporting to a location and clicking leap at the opposite direction on the same screen. This causes the caster to teleport to the destination, disappear from the automap, and reappear a few seconds later at the leaped location. This allows u to “leap†almost 2 screen in distance while also giving you some breathing time. Very useful for attacking/escaping from high damage attackers.
Specific Tactics:
VS Wind Druid: When druid is 0.5 screen away, Leap in place. This causes any minions to be knocked back, destroying ranged-immunity, as well as stunning the druid. Your barb will land at the same time that the druid finishes being knocked back, except now he is disoriented and his minions, if any, are far away. teleport over and spam warcry. If they have bad hit recovery, they'll probably die and not be able to cast. if they have good hit recovery, they can begin casting after 3-4 warcries have connected. Therefore leave the area using leap and not tele as soon as the druid is able to cast again. If the Druid teleports on top of you, WALK downward, casting war cry as you go. This makes his minions be stunned or die, and also allows your 10k defense to prevent block locking from the minions. For druids which do not namelock, keep howling the minions and dodging the tornadoes so they become useless and need to be reoriented or recasted. Optimally, the druid should eventually be forced to namelock you, which is an easy win since the barb can use the aforementioned tactic. Drink 20-30 thawing potions beforehand to get the long-duration 85% cold resist, as well as some overstack in case they have strong hurricane or/and use facets.
VS Fire druid: wear hotspur, otherwise the armageddon and fissure does way too much damage. Same strategy as wind druid, except fire can be resisted. For transportation, short leap, since it keeps you off the ground, and when ur ON the ground, the druid is being knocked back if they’re close enough to fissure (leap radius at lvl 16 reaches ¾ screen) and try to maintain a line of sight barrier such as a rock, or bushes, between you and the druid, so fissure cannot be used. Good enigma fire druids use twister to stun and allow fire to kill, short-leap 1 inch away as soon as u see a teleport animation. The druid will be knocked back on arrival and be subject to a few warcries.
VS melee/rabies druid: Walk away, cast battlecry the first time and warcry the subsequent times. Leap once in a while if they’re substantially faster than you (which usually wont happen unless it’s a wolfbarb or they have vigor aura from teammate). They'll die.
VS Fire Trapper: Use hotspur or hotspur + nokozoan relic (for the hit recov you lose by taking off boots, 95% fire resist is a side benefit). Howl the shadow master. Dont bother namelock-teleporting them when they're running, since u'll miss due to their high run speed. instead, teleport in front of where u think they're going to be and start warcrying, has a much better chance to hit. teleport and warcry while they cast traps. If you get stunlocked, leap out. Leap is uninterruptible, if they have traps waiting at ur destination, prepare to leap again. 2 mana leap = cheaper than a stack of fire traps, u’ll win the mana contest.
VS Lightning trapper: wear tgod and they kinda suck. Many trappers like to cast their traps all at once, close together, so run/leap around until about 8-9 shots have been fired from each trap. Then use the same teleporting strategy as above; the traps will run out after just 1-2 more shots, and the trapper will waste alot of time/mana trying to recast them. This is when they get hit by alot of warcries, and die. Usually, in a public game, trappers are the lamest of the lame; feel free to use an amp charge on Gavel, teleport over and own them with 3-4 cries, then steal their gold to repair your gavel. In private duels is this one of the hardest fights, try to waste they mana and LEAP, not teleport, around when baiting traps. In private duels, if ur hardcore get a 4x lo rune shield and never worry about ppl complaining about absorb again. however tgods works fine. Leap out at the slightest sign of being stunlocked.
VS ww or claw assasin: Walk, howl the shadow master. 6 second casting delay = assassin will give up trying to make more shadow master after a bit. Walk around until they they dragon flight, then walk north to minimize the hits. if they run after you to claw or ww, leap in place whenever they come within half a screen to knock them back, and then teleport over and warcry, then after 2-3 cries, walk away and warcry them as they chase. Also, leap at them when they're mid-ww, u'll end up at the position u clicked on, they will be knocked back as soon as they finish the ww and you can teleport over and do some warcries. dont forget to use battlecry the first time so their damage is nerfed (by a small bit, u never know when that helps though, in close fights)
VS Foh paladin: Wear topaz shield, tgod also if foh damage is excessivly high or the paladin is excessivly good at dodging. Dont move in and out since that exposes you to conviction, and as u leave u'll be subject to a couple of freebie fohs. Therefore be as aggressive as possible and break off only if your mana is gone. V/T pallies have smite also and this can be annoying, but usually you have pretty good lightning reists already without a change of shield, and can simply put on a couple lightning resist grand charms or something, and be fine. The smite will also be less powerful than if the paladin was pure smite, and use the smiter tactics below.
VS smite/zeal/charge: walk away and keep warcrying. leap perpendicular to the charge direction for about 0.25 screen distant and warcry, this both knocks them away, pulls u out of charge-lock, and also gives u an opportunity to yell again. dont forget to use battlecry the first time. Walk or leap around/between puddles, charge paladins hate puddles. Without charge, they’re simply another meleer running after a guy with a ranged attack, and be subject to warcries. If they are vigor-running, leap once in a while to open up the distance.
VS Hammerdin: DO NOT namelock-teleport them, you end up on top, which is where the hammers hit. instead, teleport directly to the bottom or left hand side, where its a blind spot. its pretty easy to accidentally click their name the first few times, if u start getting hit, leap away immediately. tele wil be interrupted by being hit by a hammer and most likely wont work, causing you to take more hammers and die, so use leap which is uninterruptible. its best to attack when theres few or none hammers flying yet, dont wait till hes sitting in the middle of a whole field. if they ARE in fact sitting a field of hammers, leap at them or teleport to the blind spot; they'll get knocked away and u'll end up in the direct center of the field, free of hammers. The only disadvantage is that they might charge you and knock u into the hammers again, but usually they're so surprised u aren’t dead that they don’t do this.
VS fire/lightning sorc: they guys have energy shield, usually. Put on hotspur/tgod/nokozoan where appropriate. Run around, dodge the fire balls, then namelock and spam warcry, or teleport to the opposite direction of where they are aiming their shots, warcry twice, short leap AWAY, namelock tele, and spam warcry. The point of this complicated manuver is to keep the sorc's cursor off your head as long as possible, and have the sorc eating warcries as soon as he does get a cursor on you. For sorcs that tele madly, just try to namelock and warcry, and leap in place when they’re anywhere on screen. If ur lucky the kb radius will catch them and you can tele over while they’re still finishing kb. However, in 95% of fights all u have to do is namelock and start warcrying and they die.
VS orbsorc: wear raven frost or sapphire shield or both. Same strategy as above, they might have a huge eshield cause orb sorcs have lots of spare points to pu tin telekinesis and warmth and eshield. just use alot of cold resist and it'll be almost as good as using raven frosts.
VS Blizzard sorc: raven frost wont help, first hit of blizzard is bugged and absorb doesnt work. instead, drink about twenty thawing potions ahead of time ( gives +50 cold reists, +10 max reist, and lasts for 30 seconds; the duration stacks but the resist wont) also wear the sapphire shield. namelock tele and warcry. also, if they’re standing in the middle of a blizzard, short leap towards them in zigzags to dodge the ice blasts until u see them being knocked around. At this point, tele over and spam warcry. if u find yourself stuck in hitrecov due to inferior damage/bad fhr/low health/whatever, leap away.
VS WW barb: Get a battlecry on him as soon as possible. WW barbs either try to run at u and ww or tele to various sides of you and WW. When approached by a running attack, walk away and warcry as you go, a few will end up hitting him. Since he's faster, short-leap forward to knock him back, usually this gains you about a half screen worth of distance. If a puddle is in sight, leap across that. Dont use teleport too much since its interruptible, and it doesnt keep you off the ground nor does it guarentee safety when you land. Vs the sort that teleports at you, leap about 0.25 screen distant in the opposite direction of where the barb came from, preferably across a puddle. When leaping over a wwing barb, leap alot earlier than you think because its desynced and the barb is a couple inches ahead of where he appears to be. Just take advantage of warcry's large range and all but the best ww barb will die. Even the best die sometimes, too
VS Throw/Hybrid barb: Throwing is bugged to do not nearly as much as displayed, it might hurt if u get hit too much though, so just walk and dodge the spears, pretty soon they'll run out. On hybrids, use same anti-ww strategy as above, but be looking out for javs.
VS Warcry barb: Greet each other warmly and compare ur gear, then talk about how many sorcs you owned that day.
VS Bowazon: Warcry > bow shooting, period, so if you see their bow out, teleport over immediately and start warcrying; they'll lose if they try to tank. Against ones that shoot one arrow, run, shoot one arrow, run, walk around a bit, take some damage if you have to, and figure out generally what area and pattern they're running in. then start teleporting to places you think they';re going to be.
VS Various Javelin zon: Lightning fury is harmless, but plague jav hurts. Poison length reduction is bugged/a feature not to work, so if you DO get poisoned, go as aggressive as you can for the remaining duration since u cant get poisoned again. Drink large amounts of anitdote pots beforehand to get the 85 poison resist. VS charged strike, wear tgods for sure, and keep walking away and casting warcry. since the bolts on charged strike are released BEFORE defense check, the bolts come out anytime they try to poke; therefore maintain a bit more distance between them than u "think" you should, and leap alot to keep them back. warcry when they get close; dont try teleporting on top of them unless your using like full absorb/resist, and while standing still, zons are almost impossible to hit. If you want to go aggressive, use the desync leap mentioned in the general strat section, since charged strike does enough damage and triggers before defense check so extra protection is needed.
VS bonemancer: In a pubbie, use gavel amp charges and namelock-warcry, dont forgot your botd merc. usually that does the trick. In private duels, your best bet is to ask for no bone armor recasting, cause otherwise you wont win, period, unless the necro sucks or you get very lucky. if they dont recast bone armor, then use the same strategy as against a fireball sorc.
VS poisonmancer: stack antidote pots the same way you would for blizzard sorcs and thawing pots. keep namlock-teleporting; they have weak or no bone armor, and no high damage direct attack, so usually accurate teleporting and lots of antidote pots drunk beforehand will kill them easily. An interesting effect is that leap seems to be very good at hopping over poison nova shots; i havent used it this way much but i bet it could be useful.
Target life/mana is about 5.5k/1.3k, more if u have godly gear. with sage this gets as high as 6500. no, the mana is not deficient, if the correct tactics are used, even if warcry costs 50 mana a cast.
Thats about it, *blobs or *thedarkchild] on USWEST for a fight or questions
EDIT by Garbad --
Here is the link to meemeememremememememememe173's also.
http://forums.rpgforums.net/showthread.php?t=154563
First off barbs are gear intensive, so if you dont have a engima or most of the gear listed on at least the poor man section, this isnt gonna work very well. Also, this is a PVP guide and the only relevant PvM will be baal runs.
Brag Section (Overview): Warcry barbarians have several advantages over whirl/concentrate barbs. They move faster, attack faster, have none of the AR problems that melee barbs have, possess much higher default resist, and are able to perform a variety of abilities that are weak or absent on melee barbs, such as high level leap, howl, super-BO, etc. The only disadvantage is crappy damage compared to most melee barb builds.
Note: in the gear section, i may refer to duped caster rings, or duped boots. This would be imp shanks on west or soul spurs on east, basically the have-it-all boots with stats, run, hit recov, resist, ... The rings, i dont know what they're called on east, but basically refers to the 10 fcr rings with large mana/life/stats/resist.
Optimal Gear:
arreats face, ber
+2 barb 15+ cast amulet with dex, life, mana, etc
enigma dusk shroud
soj
10 fcr ring with str, dex, life, mana, etc
mage fist
arachnid mesh
standard issue duped good boots (imp shank/soul spur/equivalent)
heart of oak flail
stormshield, sur
10x warcry gc with life
annihilus, stats more important than resist for this build
9x 17 mana/5 frw or 20 life
Poor man gear:
arreats with perf saphhire
stormshield with hel
engima
imp shank
magefist
arachnid mesh
heart of oak or wizardspike, if wizardspike socket with fal
2 duped caster rings, 1 + soj if wizardspike
crafted barb amulet with + barb skills and life/mana
10x wc gc with + dex or + life
10x sc with mana
Weapon Switch:
Gavel of Pain for pubbie
Wizardspike + 4 eth monarch for private
Ethereal monarch if not enough str
Alternating Gear for specific fights:
4x sapphire monarch (ethereal if low str)
4x ort monarch (ethereal if low str)
T-god
hotspur boots
+3 warcry weapon
+3 BO barbarian helm socketed with deleirum,
extra soj (s)
Extra hoto or wizardspike
Stats:
str: base
dex: enough for block
vit: rest
energy: none
Skills:
1 leap
1 iron skin
1 inc stamina
1 natural resist
1 increased speed
20 howl
20 battle cry
20 taunt
20 war cry
20 BO
1 battle command
1 shout
Breakpoints:
48 is the target fhr break. Arreat + imps (or legit equivalent) reaches 50.
105 is target cast break for 8 frames
200 fcr is buggy and double tele/missed cast/lags too much
63 fcr is too slow, but you use it if you need to wear tgods or something.
Suggested hotkey setup:
Left click Leap
right click F1-8 (or choice): teleport, warcry, battlecry, taunt, battle command, battle orders, shout, howl
Leveling method (suggested by people on barb forum):
Teleport to throne and howl everything so they run up against the walls and stay there for the next minute and a half. Stun the black souls. Rest is easy. If you have a burning desire to kill something, get a act 2 merc.
Comments on skills, stats, and gear:
mana/life added from +energy/vit on items is not multiplied with BO. mana/life added from lvl based mana/life mods is not multiplied by BO. thus base (direct numerical from items, lvl gain, stat points physically put in, quest potions) life/mana is most desirable since warcry barbs will be able to have lvl 50+ BO. for those who wonder, yes, a sur rune in shield adds more mana than wizardspike. at lleast for this build.
Leap gains 0.66 radius per lvl with a base 1.98 yard radius. Reaches about 0.5-0.75 screen at 600x800 resolution, at skill lvl ~15.
Max taunt last because this has no lvl-dependant pvp benefit.
Place points in the skills with 1 point as soon as you can, after + skills they become strong enough.
Before fights, equip all +skill items in Alternate gear section and BO for a 50+ battle orders. This will not run out (lasts 10+ minutes), and no need for recast.
Strategy Section
General Stratey:
You will run out of mana quickly, so in public games drink mana potions, and in private duels where mana pots are BM, use the mana regeneration switch with wizardspike + 3 or 4 eth rune shield. To acquire a name lock without appearing to do so, use taunt, then switch skills using hotkeys at will. Always walk vs. attackers which have attack that can be blocked. Also, the gear switching in the specific tactics section are entirely optional and mainly applies to 1v1. The barb works fine without switching anything. Use 2 casting weapons instead of weapon/shield if your ina private duel and are fighting a non physical caster.
For future reference: the term “desync leap†in this guide refers to the technique of teleporting to a location and clicking leap at the opposite direction on the same screen. This causes the caster to teleport to the destination, disappear from the automap, and reappear a few seconds later at the leaped location. This allows u to “leap†almost 2 screen in distance while also giving you some breathing time. Very useful for attacking/escaping from high damage attackers.
Specific Tactics:
VS Wind Druid: When druid is 0.5 screen away, Leap in place. This causes any minions to be knocked back, destroying ranged-immunity, as well as stunning the druid. Your barb will land at the same time that the druid finishes being knocked back, except now he is disoriented and his minions, if any, are far away. teleport over and spam warcry. If they have bad hit recovery, they'll probably die and not be able to cast. if they have good hit recovery, they can begin casting after 3-4 warcries have connected. Therefore leave the area using leap and not tele as soon as the druid is able to cast again. If the Druid teleports on top of you, WALK downward, casting war cry as you go. This makes his minions be stunned or die, and also allows your 10k defense to prevent block locking from the minions. For druids which do not namelock, keep howling the minions and dodging the tornadoes so they become useless and need to be reoriented or recasted. Optimally, the druid should eventually be forced to namelock you, which is an easy win since the barb can use the aforementioned tactic. Drink 20-30 thawing potions beforehand to get the long-duration 85% cold resist, as well as some overstack in case they have strong hurricane or/and use facets.
VS Fire druid: wear hotspur, otherwise the armageddon and fissure does way too much damage. Same strategy as wind druid, except fire can be resisted. For transportation, short leap, since it keeps you off the ground, and when ur ON the ground, the druid is being knocked back if they’re close enough to fissure (leap radius at lvl 16 reaches ¾ screen) and try to maintain a line of sight barrier such as a rock, or bushes, between you and the druid, so fissure cannot be used. Good enigma fire druids use twister to stun and allow fire to kill, short-leap 1 inch away as soon as u see a teleport animation. The druid will be knocked back on arrival and be subject to a few warcries.
VS melee/rabies druid: Walk away, cast battlecry the first time and warcry the subsequent times. Leap once in a while if they’re substantially faster than you (which usually wont happen unless it’s a wolfbarb or they have vigor aura from teammate). They'll die.
VS Fire Trapper: Use hotspur or hotspur + nokozoan relic (for the hit recov you lose by taking off boots, 95% fire resist is a side benefit). Howl the shadow master. Dont bother namelock-teleporting them when they're running, since u'll miss due to their high run speed. instead, teleport in front of where u think they're going to be and start warcrying, has a much better chance to hit. teleport and warcry while they cast traps. If you get stunlocked, leap out. Leap is uninterruptible, if they have traps waiting at ur destination, prepare to leap again. 2 mana leap = cheaper than a stack of fire traps, u’ll win the mana contest.
VS Lightning trapper: wear tgod and they kinda suck. Many trappers like to cast their traps all at once, close together, so run/leap around until about 8-9 shots have been fired from each trap. Then use the same teleporting strategy as above; the traps will run out after just 1-2 more shots, and the trapper will waste alot of time/mana trying to recast them. This is when they get hit by alot of warcries, and die. Usually, in a public game, trappers are the lamest of the lame; feel free to use an amp charge on Gavel, teleport over and own them with 3-4 cries, then steal their gold to repair your gavel. In private duels is this one of the hardest fights, try to waste they mana and LEAP, not teleport, around when baiting traps. In private duels, if ur hardcore get a 4x lo rune shield and never worry about ppl complaining about absorb again. however tgods works fine. Leap out at the slightest sign of being stunlocked.
VS ww or claw assasin: Walk, howl the shadow master. 6 second casting delay = assassin will give up trying to make more shadow master after a bit. Walk around until they they dragon flight, then walk north to minimize the hits. if they run after you to claw or ww, leap in place whenever they come within half a screen to knock them back, and then teleport over and warcry, then after 2-3 cries, walk away and warcry them as they chase. Also, leap at them when they're mid-ww, u'll end up at the position u clicked on, they will be knocked back as soon as they finish the ww and you can teleport over and do some warcries. dont forget to use battlecry the first time so their damage is nerfed (by a small bit, u never know when that helps though, in close fights)
VS Foh paladin: Wear topaz shield, tgod also if foh damage is excessivly high or the paladin is excessivly good at dodging. Dont move in and out since that exposes you to conviction, and as u leave u'll be subject to a couple of freebie fohs. Therefore be as aggressive as possible and break off only if your mana is gone. V/T pallies have smite also and this can be annoying, but usually you have pretty good lightning reists already without a change of shield, and can simply put on a couple lightning resist grand charms or something, and be fine. The smite will also be less powerful than if the paladin was pure smite, and use the smiter tactics below.
VS smite/zeal/charge: walk away and keep warcrying. leap perpendicular to the charge direction for about 0.25 screen distant and warcry, this both knocks them away, pulls u out of charge-lock, and also gives u an opportunity to yell again. dont forget to use battlecry the first time. Walk or leap around/between puddles, charge paladins hate puddles. Without charge, they’re simply another meleer running after a guy with a ranged attack, and be subject to warcries. If they are vigor-running, leap once in a while to open up the distance.
VS Hammerdin: DO NOT namelock-teleport them, you end up on top, which is where the hammers hit. instead, teleport directly to the bottom or left hand side, where its a blind spot. its pretty easy to accidentally click their name the first few times, if u start getting hit, leap away immediately. tele wil be interrupted by being hit by a hammer and most likely wont work, causing you to take more hammers and die, so use leap which is uninterruptible. its best to attack when theres few or none hammers flying yet, dont wait till hes sitting in the middle of a whole field. if they ARE in fact sitting a field of hammers, leap at them or teleport to the blind spot; they'll get knocked away and u'll end up in the direct center of the field, free of hammers. The only disadvantage is that they might charge you and knock u into the hammers again, but usually they're so surprised u aren’t dead that they don’t do this.
VS fire/lightning sorc: they guys have energy shield, usually. Put on hotspur/tgod/nokozoan where appropriate. Run around, dodge the fire balls, then namelock and spam warcry, or teleport to the opposite direction of where they are aiming their shots, warcry twice, short leap AWAY, namelock tele, and spam warcry. The point of this complicated manuver is to keep the sorc's cursor off your head as long as possible, and have the sorc eating warcries as soon as he does get a cursor on you. For sorcs that tele madly, just try to namelock and warcry, and leap in place when they’re anywhere on screen. If ur lucky the kb radius will catch them and you can tele over while they’re still finishing kb. However, in 95% of fights all u have to do is namelock and start warcrying and they die.
VS orbsorc: wear raven frost or sapphire shield or both. Same strategy as above, they might have a huge eshield cause orb sorcs have lots of spare points to pu tin telekinesis and warmth and eshield. just use alot of cold resist and it'll be almost as good as using raven frosts.
VS Blizzard sorc: raven frost wont help, first hit of blizzard is bugged and absorb doesnt work. instead, drink about twenty thawing potions ahead of time ( gives +50 cold reists, +10 max reist, and lasts for 30 seconds; the duration stacks but the resist wont) also wear the sapphire shield. namelock tele and warcry. also, if they’re standing in the middle of a blizzard, short leap towards them in zigzags to dodge the ice blasts until u see them being knocked around. At this point, tele over and spam warcry. if u find yourself stuck in hitrecov due to inferior damage/bad fhr/low health/whatever, leap away.
VS WW barb: Get a battlecry on him as soon as possible. WW barbs either try to run at u and ww or tele to various sides of you and WW. When approached by a running attack, walk away and warcry as you go, a few will end up hitting him. Since he's faster, short-leap forward to knock him back, usually this gains you about a half screen worth of distance. If a puddle is in sight, leap across that. Dont use teleport too much since its interruptible, and it doesnt keep you off the ground nor does it guarentee safety when you land. Vs the sort that teleports at you, leap about 0.25 screen distant in the opposite direction of where the barb came from, preferably across a puddle. When leaping over a wwing barb, leap alot earlier than you think because its desynced and the barb is a couple inches ahead of where he appears to be. Just take advantage of warcry's large range and all but the best ww barb will die. Even the best die sometimes, too
VS Throw/Hybrid barb: Throwing is bugged to do not nearly as much as displayed, it might hurt if u get hit too much though, so just walk and dodge the spears, pretty soon they'll run out. On hybrids, use same anti-ww strategy as above, but be looking out for javs.
VS Warcry barb: Greet each other warmly and compare ur gear, then talk about how many sorcs you owned that day.
VS Bowazon: Warcry > bow shooting, period, so if you see their bow out, teleport over immediately and start warcrying; they'll lose if they try to tank. Against ones that shoot one arrow, run, shoot one arrow, run, walk around a bit, take some damage if you have to, and figure out generally what area and pattern they're running in. then start teleporting to places you think they';re going to be.
VS Various Javelin zon: Lightning fury is harmless, but plague jav hurts. Poison length reduction is bugged/a feature not to work, so if you DO get poisoned, go as aggressive as you can for the remaining duration since u cant get poisoned again. Drink large amounts of anitdote pots beforehand to get the 85 poison resist. VS charged strike, wear tgods for sure, and keep walking away and casting warcry. since the bolts on charged strike are released BEFORE defense check, the bolts come out anytime they try to poke; therefore maintain a bit more distance between them than u "think" you should, and leap alot to keep them back. warcry when they get close; dont try teleporting on top of them unless your using like full absorb/resist, and while standing still, zons are almost impossible to hit. If you want to go aggressive, use the desync leap mentioned in the general strat section, since charged strike does enough damage and triggers before defense check so extra protection is needed.
VS bonemancer: In a pubbie, use gavel amp charges and namelock-warcry, dont forgot your botd merc. usually that does the trick. In private duels, your best bet is to ask for no bone armor recasting, cause otherwise you wont win, period, unless the necro sucks or you get very lucky. if they dont recast bone armor, then use the same strategy as against a fireball sorc.
VS poisonmancer: stack antidote pots the same way you would for blizzard sorcs and thawing pots. keep namlock-teleporting; they have weak or no bone armor, and no high damage direct attack, so usually accurate teleporting and lots of antidote pots drunk beforehand will kill them easily. An interesting effect is that leap seems to be very good at hopping over poison nova shots; i havent used it this way much but i bet it could be useful.
Target life/mana is about 5.5k/1.3k, more if u have godly gear. with sage this gets as high as 6500. no, the mana is not deficient, if the correct tactics are used, even if warcry costs 50 mana a cast.
Thats about it, *blobs or *thedarkchild] on USWEST for a fight or questions