Questions about council farming

[Naturallog]

Hello SPF!

I recently came back to D2 and I'm giving single player a serious try for the first time. I found I don't enjoy LK running, and I could use a Zod, so I figured council was my best bet. Now, on to the questions.

1.) I can't seem to find a guide specifically for this, so I'd like some gear suggestions before I blow a lot of wealth on gear I don't need. Rarity is not an issue, I'm rather patient. My current list of ideal gear is as follows:

Weapons, kill swap: Grief PB, BotD CB
Weapons, caster swap: 2x low HotOs (I'll be trying for a perfect one for my pally)
Helm: Guillaume's face "Um"
Armor: Enigma
Gloves: Laying of Hands
Belt: Upped String of Ears
Boots: Gore Riders
Amulet: Highlord's Wrath
Ring1: Ravenfrost
Ring2: Dual Leech rare or crafted ring
Charms: Steel/sharp GCs, resist SCs

My concern with this setup is the lack of resists and skills. I'll have to use quite a few charms, and possibly hard points in natural resistance to make up the res. The caster swap leaves me at only +9 to find item. Swapping to Arreat's solves both problems, but comes at a cost of 35% crushing blow and 15% deadly strike.

2.) Mana burn. It's really annoying. Is there a good way to deal with it? I've got concentrate on left click and I'm currently just trying to whack something then get a WW off before the mana is burned off again. Sometimes it works, sometimes I get stuck unable to WW until I'm forced to drink a purple. Does it get better with Enigma pulling the merc into the picture? He's kind of useless now.

3.) What /players setting is best for this? I read a rune finding guide in the sticky that suggested 3 players was the best setting for rune drops, but I don't know if this holds for council. They don't have a normal mob's drop table.

Thanks in advance for any answers, or just general tips. I'm sort of new to single player farming.

 

[pharphis]

can't give a lot of advice since I've barely run council myself, but try using the stairs to position the merc with you for decrep from reaper's toll

(before you have enigma ofc)

 

[Loot Skywalker]

There's a great trav guide stickied here, somewhere. Hopefully someone can link it for you. A couple of things from my personal experience, though your mileage may vary:

1a: Council will not drop Zod. Sorry.

1b: If your playing 1.13 also invest in natural resists... That's what token of absolutions are for. Make a trav barb and know you can respec him later. Hard points in find item? Of course you should! There does come a point of diminishing returns...
Make sure you are up against that edge on both skills.

1c: Dwarf star is a must ... Unless you're ultra cool and have a 1.07 LoH, but even then it is still a good idea to wear dwarf star. If you have good LL/ML elsewhere then rolling with two Dwarfstars is a brilliant idea, especially if you like gold. And who doesn't like gold? With Dwarfstars, fire heals you, and there are hydras everywhere... Healing you. Dwarf also reduces other types of damage tremendously... Ravens are entirely overrated for trav barbs using ww... You really don't care if you are frozen or not... It won't hurt your run time, and
The extra cold dage
Means you'll hork fewer bodies. Dwarfstar is also why you choose arreat... You'll get the 6 ll, and your resists are much better. I roll with a 2 skill, 6 ml, misc resist ammy over high lords, because I like to wear two Dwarfstars when I'm in my goldfind gear running trav.

2. Mana burn sucks. Here are a few things that help. In single player, you can spawn a stable well in the trav courtyard, which will be there every time you go farming. It's a good place to retreat to if things start going south... Like when you're hit with a mana burning pack and there are so many hydras that you failed to notice the council member currently chewing your barb's face off is physically immune while your merc stands by idly, playing with the moat serpent... I hate it when that happens! Seriously though, don't hesitate to drink mana pots as soon as the mana burn hits. With a proper build you'll have the mana burners killed and cleared in one pot, two at most, which you will likely hork back anyway.

3. Player settings depend on your relative kill speed you are comfortable with... 3-5 usually gives great results. You'll hork at p7 so invest In find item. There's a stickied guide
Somewhere but I normally roll at p5 with no issues

If you're playing hardcore, remember that once every hundred runs or so the council is REALLY going to try to kill you, and they might succeed if you don't have an escape plan, like a good well in the courtyard or a nearby precast tp. Believe it or not the aura that I really hate is might, combined with extra fast, extra strong mana burners.

 

[RobbyD]

The key to Council running is having a durable Merc with Reaper's to proc Decrep. Once the Merc has fallen, the run becomes more dangerous and tedious. I found that the merc is not that durable with Andy's/Forti - I went with Guardian Angel with a resist/FHR jewel and a Kira's Guardian with a Shael, and he's much more durable. That being said, I'll respond to each of your specific questions:

1. I don't have an Enigma and don't consider it necessary... plus, you're citing resist concerns... I suggest CoH or Forti and just run to the Durance door and back again - that will position your merc. I also don't recommend having a RF on your Barb - you want him cold cuz it doesn't slow his whirl, but does slow his progress, so he hits MORE. You might also want to replace G-Face with Arreat's, but that's less crucial.

2. Whirl ALL the way through the crowd, so if you get burned, you're still whirling and have a chance to leech back some mana.

3. I run /P8, but I've read many folks here like to do it on /P3.

 

[maareek]

Thread on Council running: Travincal WW Barb Guide. It's an old thread, but the basics should be there.

1. Resists don't have to be that high (certainly if you're HC you may want them higher,) I'm pretty sure my best and longest term Trav runner had 30-50 fire and light res and barely, if, positive on the other two and he hardly ever died. If res is a problem, swap Guillaume's for Arreat's. Crushing Blow is not really that important (it helps, but if you're dying then it's not worth having it over not dying) in these runs so you're mostly just losing the Deadly Strike, but you are also replacing it with a little bit of damage (both from the +5 strength and the +4 to WW) so I wouldn't rate it that big of a loss if you need the protection from Arreat's. Personally, I've always used Arreat's; it adds so much.

Also as far as gear goes, I would suggest dropping Ravenfrost since I don't want any CBF on my Trav barb, as slower whirls mean more time spent dealing damage (unless you shoot off a bad whirl, of course, but planning to make mistakes seems a little counter productive to me). I agree with Loot's suggestion of Dwarfstar (although absorb will never actually heal you in the current version of the game, dwarfstar's integer MDR greatly reduces the damage from hydras, which have small per hit damage but hit both relatively quickly and in large numbers, making it an enormous boost to staying power/safety.) You can go without it if you need something else from the ring slot, but if you don't then it's a little extra safety net and a little extra gold never hurts.

2. If you don't have a source of teleport you should do the following: get a map that spawns the council in a good location (together, preferably near the stairs, but most important is together ... tbh this is also true for if you have teleport, but then you want them near the wall) then run in, pop down the stairs then back up, this will bring the merc to you.

As for the merc, I have found in my running that keeping the merc alive is one of the biggest hinge points of good, consistent, enjoyable trav running as having Decrepify helps speed things up quite a bit. Being at a high level contributes to his safety more than most factors, but to help I try to, as much as possible, fight in the middle of the hydras so that as many as possible target me and I try to stay near him both to act as a lightning rod and to kill baddies as fast as possible (dead baddies don't throw out more hydras or wander around punching poor Waheed for commenting on how they've let themselves go) though this is largely due to me having a map where they spawn just to the left of the stairs, making this all much easier. The only really dangerous spawns I find are ones with Conviction and even after thousands of runs I haven't come up with a solution I really like to it: sometimes I try to take down the troublesome boss immediately, sometimes I focus on preventing the merc from taking as much damage as I can, but sometimes neither of those really seem to work so I just abandon the run. As for gear, I like giving him CBF (he actually needs it), good resists and integer MDR, if at all possible, because MDR effects damage BEFORE resistances, making it extra powerful against conviction, but even then I'm not sure what I like most. My most used setup is Glad's Bane + Vamp Gaze, but I've tried quite a few others.

I should point out that once the merc is into his 90's deaths become quite rare, regardless of the setup. Twice an hour, if that, generally, and when they do happen it's either to a Conviction spawn (and not always to that) or some ridiculous physical damage spawn (at least two of Amp/Might/Fana), so it's really not that common. I just include the former because the goal is always to get the merc to NEVER die, right?

Now, as for mana burn, generally the way you get around mana burn/unleechables is by performing long whirls through additional enemies but I find that not optimal in trav running because it takes you away from the merc, who both needs your help to survive and boosts your damage and, therefore, run times. I've always found concing the nearest baddie completely okay for refilling the bulb enough to get another whirl off, but if you aren't then finding a way to get some Damage Taken Goes to Mana should work. A Vulpine (iirc) jewel stuck in the hat should take care of the issue, but if it doesn't then looking to increase your damage or mana leech will probably do the trick.

3. p3 if you are well geared/feel comfortable doing it. If not, then do p1 until your gear and/or technique improve.

 

[Naturallog]

Thanks for the advice. I'll try a dwarf star over my raven frost, and swap to Arreat's over Guillaume's. I'm a big fan of enigma, but I might try out fort and see how it goes.

My merc's gear is a bit of an issue currently, I have no vamp gaze, gladiator's bane, or reaper's toll. I've been running with guardian angel, tal mask, and obedience weapon. It gives 90 all res, but he melts if conviction or fanatacism is up. I need to run some more meph/pindle, I guess.

 

[helvete]

Dwarf star? Nonono, there is 15mdr on string of ears already, don't need more. Hydra damage suffers from PvP penalty and is only dangerous to merc, which is why he should probably wear Guardian Angel and Um'ed Tal mask.

Enigma makes runs a LOT safer and faster, and comes with +2 all skills which helps natural resist, find item, increased speed etc, and with a tremendous amount of +str which helps damage.

Go for the arreats, socket it with a +40% damage jewel, or a +30% rare one with fhr and/or resists. Avoid +max/min on such jewels due to the bug.

With this build you have a lot of skill points to play around with. 20WW 20mastery, 1point wonders, then when you know your gear split remaining between BO, natural res and Find Item. BO is more life, but you should be safe with 2k life after BO if you can leech enough. With Arreats, String and 2 rare/crafted rings you could have as much as 38% leech, which is huge. Natural resist has diminishing returns, so don't put more points if you only get 1% more resist all after gear and BC bonus. Find Item also has diminishing returns, but get to at least 50% (more safety with more BO and resists) and preferrably 55% (after which the diminishing returns get stupid).

Don't go any higher than players 3 setting; runs get noticeably slower and items will start to clog up the ground, leaving you uncertain as to if you've missed something, which kills run speed as well. Find Item is only dependant on the skills level; if it triggers a drop, three items will always drop.

 

[zaphodbrx]

Dwarf star + SoE = enough MDR to make you immune from hydra no matter what your resists.
Though cold novas might be a bit of a problem that way ( esp. without sorb from ravenfrost )

Tbh the most important aspect is a merc with Reapers. if you don't have that, it's always going to be hard.

 

[Gripphon]

Read guide maareek has posted, it covers important basics. I'll add some info on top of it.

Arreat vs Guilaume's. Guil gives a little bit more damage, but you lose lifeleech, resists, AR via dexterity and probably 1% item find. In the end, Arreat is better cause it gives a lot of things, so use it instead Guilaume's. It really adds very little damage, not worth to sacrifice all other good things Arreat gives.

Remove ALL cold damage sources from your barb, including Ravenfrost. Last thing you want is to shatter corpses having less successful horks. It's the biggest downside of Ravenfrost and why it should never really be used in Travincal. Rare ring with ar and lifeleech is much better and will give you more than Raven anyway.

Same thing with Fortitude, avoid that crap if you can. You don't want to shatter corpses. Especially don't use anything else if you have Enigma, it's far superior armor. Also don't use Fortitude on merc for same reason, simply ignore this armor when you run Travincal.

Hydra damage is no problem at all, with LoH + natural resistance + arreat you have fire resist high enough to ignore hydras as some kind of threat to you. You should care only for merc. From resistances, priority from my point of view is this: 1. cold resist, 2. lite resist, 3. fire. Cold because 2 cold explosions in a row can easily take down your barb no matter how perfect your whirling technique is, unless you have tons of life on your barb. Lite is rarely ever dangerous, but if you are not careful, random lite enchanted boss can take you down. In general resistances are not so important. I personally always max them, but also I have a "bad" habit of leveling barbs to level 95 in Travincal, so I don't want to die at all.

Take care of MF as well, MF is very nice for Travincal. Probably second best place for farming facets, best place to farm rare rings and jewels. Have at least 150+ MF on your barb, but don't overdo it cause it's not really needed.

Mana burn problem: Simply, have 3%+ mana leech on your barb and master whirlwind technique which is quite hard actually. Proper way of using whirlwind is to cast it at beginning of killing and don't let go ww button at all until all minions are dead. Even if they are manaburn, they usually won't have time to stop you from whirling, timing of their attack must be pretty much perfect for that. If they burn you, have 1 point double swing and hit nearest minion to fast regain mana back and continue whirling.

As opposed to guide, I say Arachnid Mesh is best belt possible for trav barb. It gives you easy access to 105 fcr breakpoint as well to 56% item find with dual hoto and one 10 fcr ring. That is ideal trav running barb you can have and you should aim to have. 63% fcr is ok for starters so is string of ears if you think you need more protection.

Merc: Tried several setups, one is simply the best. Shael in Reaper's, Kira's Guardian as helmet (CBF, FHR and resists) + Guardian Angel. If you have ias jewels with fire resist, stick in. With this setup your merc might have 90 fire resist even under conviction aura, and Guardian Angel gives merc good chance to hit against bosses (otherwise merc has like 2k AR which is extremely low) + CBF and FHR helps merc to hit more and faster triggering more curses and healing faster. Tried several setups on merc, some of them can work, but this is simply the best on my conclusion because it gives everything vital for merc survival. Only thing merc can die from is random fanaticism + might pack in travincal, those can kill your merc in under a second if their hits pass. For anything else merc will be like a mountain.

However, for that you need Reaper's, most important item for travincal barb cause it gives biggest damage difference. Farm it first, without it merc might be squishy. I don't have reserve setup for merc without Reaper's, I guess some things can work.

To put it all together, ideal trav barb would look like this:
Arreat, Highlord's, Enigma, dual Grief, Arachnid Mesh, LoH, Gore Riders, 2 rare rings with mana/life leech and resists/AR/mana whatever you find useful. Hoto+hoto on switch, 105 fcr breakpoint, 56% item find. Also roll map where minions are together. Practice whirling technique and possibly horking technique with alt on (very hard to master).

For additional info, visit this thread: http://diablo.incgamers.com/forums/threads/looking-for-some-help-optimizing-my-ww-trav-barb.843291/

In that thread you will find 2 examples of Scrcrw's travincal barb running which is very nice demonstration of how it's ideally done + tons of other infos you might find useful.

Also, here you have 3 my travincal barb videos if you want. Check whirlwind technique in all Scrcrw's and mine videos, that's the way you should practice it. Also my videos demonstrate very good horking technique where you see everything that drops very fast and it's extremely hard to miss rune that way, but it takes time to master it. Also presented running with both act 4 trick as well as standard act 3 running.

Video 1
Video 2
Video 3

 

[RobbyD]

My runs are much slower that Gripphon's. Do what Gripphon says.

 

[Naturallog]

Wow, the videos really show what enigma can do. The arachnid mesh 105 FCR setup sounds great as well, I didn't really get into sorceress till I tried it with the 105 breakpoint. My map looks very much like the ones in the videos with the council bunched outside the building, but I can't capitalize on it due to lack of teleport.

I think for now I'll re-roll a map with the council inside so I can use the steps to position my merc, and eliminate all the +cold damage from my gear. I didn't really think about it since I just automatically throw raven frost on physical damage characters. Bad habit I guess.

 

[Loot Skywalker]

Some good advice here. I'm surprised at the mix reaction for dwarf star, but when I played on Binet years ago it was also underrated there, by many knowledgable and skilled players... It's easy to understand why... The ring is very common, and the stats aren't that sexy at first glance, and they're entirely defensive in nature, with some extra gold kicked on. But if you use a dwarfstar for awhile, you learn to appreciate it. But then I'm playing hardcore, where most consider fire enchants to be the most dangerous bosses, so a dwarfstar is literally welded to the finger of every one of my characters. The absorb is terrific vs Fire and the
mDr helps against most everything else. And don't forget the gold! My runs take twice as long as the ones posted, but with over 1500% gold find on the hork switch, I regularly gamble some fairly incredible fcr and dual leech rings, rings which are near godly, which i keep in my stash whenever I am running trav, so I can use at least one dwarfstar.

 

[maareek]

To be fair, once you are rocking Grief + another good weapon the Dwarfstar really isn't that necessary as using that ring slot to increase leech probably ends up doing roughly the same or more in terms of survivability (once I switched away from dedicated GF Trav runs with my old barb I also dropped the dwarf star and wasn't too fussed about it) but for newer/less well-geared runners or those looking for more safety it is always good. Also the gold isn't a huge draw for most since you'll still get a ton of gold even without gearing specifically for it if you are running for high runes (or good charms, or good jewels or anything really). I'm a supporter of the Dwarfstar, in general, as a suggestion to those wanting to do the runs, but the runner will be better at the runs without it once you get past a certain damage threshold, so people not suggesting it shouldn't be that surprising.

If we're on the topic of gold, though, let's have a short shoot off-topic and have me point you towards this thread. Goldfind competition we did back in '09 that Fabian kept improving his char on and blew the lid off of years later. IIRC, I had the best performer among non-teleporters, but it was only a fraction of what Lord Fabian could achieve (and doubtless my luck came only from the axe I made my Death in, which came courtesy of His Holy Runnerness himself). ;p Should be an interesting read if you want to fill up your coffers for a few more gambling sessions (and who doesn't love a good gamble session every now and again?) though you should keep your jaw a safe distance away from your desk while reading.

 

[Loot Skywalker]

Ha! Yeah I'll head there now and read through. Sounds like a fun read, and thank
you very much for the heads up. My gold find could be much higher, but I'm balancing it with mf and kill speed, as I'm still rebuilding from scratch. It isn't my goal to break any records, just to have a nice trav barb which finds plenty
Of gold and uniques with a reasonable kill speed. I do use grief+beast, so I suppose I don't really need a dwarfstar, at least by your logic, but the gold Is always nice, And I consider it a safety thing: relying too heavily on Life leech eventually kills your character, no matter what your AR is: the Math catches up and you perform a string of unlucky misses, or all your hits somehow land on the one PI you failed to notice... It can take thousands of runs, but it will happen, and if you're in hc then once is too many. The dwarf won't prevent that situation, but it does help, as will taking shorter whirls along the leading edge to allow for rejuv slamming. I consider mdr and fire absorb essential for nearly every character... There are one or two exceptions like ES Sorcs and such. If you can get fire absorb and
Mdr from other sources without trading off as much as a few leech points, great! Good for you!

 

[RobbyD]

One thing - every once in a while one or two of the Council are PI. Now the Decrep breaks it, but they are still very highly resistant (and my merc inevitably tries to tank him exclusively). I find that having the Grief in the right hand and some points in Zerk is a very nice way to take down a PI Geleb or whoever very quickly.