What build for STR-only HC tournament character?

[Jabari]

What build for STR-only HC tournament character?

Heya All,

I'm in a tournament in the SPF, where I need to have a Barbarian that can only assign attribute points to Strength. Luckily, I'm not restricted in any other way. Note that the tournament is untwinked, single-pass only (rerunning areas not allowed).

I'm currently having a really tough time trying to figure out what attack would be best for that.

Other random thoughts:
- Swords and spears are going to be difficult because of the DEX requirements. Flails are probably in that category too, which is unfortunate as they're a fast range-3 weapon.
- Whirlwind is probably not an option, due to extreme difficulty in finding appropriate weapons (range and WIAS considerations).
- It's a hardcore character, so a safe build is much preferred.

Any suggestions?

Thanks!

 

[penco]

Re: What build for STR-only HC tournament character?

My best advice is to go a passive-ish route.

WW will suck due to slow weapons and lack of high damage weapons. In fact, basically all barb attacks will suck due to low weapon damage. An untwinked barb is definitely one of the most difficult characters to play. If you go with any battle skill, Conc WW Frenzy Berserk LeapAttack etc, you will do little noticeable damage without a high-tier weapon.

I have two optionsin mind:
Singer route
20 BO
20 Shout
1 BC
10-20 Warcry
20 Iron Skin
1-3 Increase Speed
1 Increase Stamina
5 Natural Resist
+ prereqs
=96 pts total

Notice how nothing here depends on your weapon. Your task in life will be to support your merc, who will do all the damage. You can pretty easily shop items with good defense ratings, so you can actually achieve a high amount of defense here. The Warcry damage will be low and you won't have enough mana to spam it, so it will only be used for stun and safety.

Ironbarb route
20 Concentrate
20 BO
20 Shout
20 Iron Skin/Weapon Mastery (or split somehow)
1 Battle Command
1 Battlecry
1-3 Inc Speed
5 Natural Resist
+prereqs
=93 total

You will not do much damage, but at least you can do something. You'll want to use a good one-handed weapon so you can hold a shield in the other hand for defense. The best route would be to use a mace/club/hammer type weapon. It will be slow, but Conc is uninterruptible, so you will still get your hits. The huge defense you have will also help you stay alive while you get your slow hits in. Something with a small bit of mana leech will be necessary to keep using Conc.

The Ironbarb/Conc route looks more fun. Remember, you are not going to tank. You will fight along with your merc, and he might even do more damage than you. You will be support. Make good use of taunt/howl for crowd control and use lots of Battlecry to help you get hits and take less damage. Grim Ward might be a good 1-pt-wonder, too.

Good items:
Ring with mana leech/life leech/resists (esp. lightning)
Same for Ammy
Morning Star/ War Hammer with +% Enhanced Damage or Life Leech (shop one of these two as soon as possible and try to shop for their upgraded forms ASAP.)
Any type of helmet with big +%defense (esp. crown class, skull class, and horned class helmets)
Same for Shield
Same for Belt
Same for Boots
Same for Gloves
Same for Armor

I'd socket everything you can with PRubies, as you will need all the life bonuses you can get. A good choice for weapon sockets would be Eth runes or PAmethysts to help you get more hits.

Good luck. This sounds fun, at least through normal.

 

[Jabari]

Re: What build for STR-only HC tournament character?

Cool - thanks!

The conc/ironman looks pretty good - might do that. The other one I'm really considering is a zerker based off of Nightfish's guide - it didn't look too terribly weapon dependant (i.e. use Warcry, hit things with big maul).

Do socketed Rubies in armor (for +life) get multiplied by BO? I read someplace that +VIT on items doesn't but +life charms do, so I'd imagine so but I'd like to make sure.

 

[penco]

Re: What build for STR-only HC tournament character?

The problem with the Nightfish guide you mentioned is that to use Warcry effectively you need massive mana, lots of fcr, and +skills. You will have very little of any of those playing untwinked. Also, Berzerk requires a good weapon no matter how you cut it, and it totally nullifies the defense bonuses from your other skills. The high defense is one of the only things an untwinked barb can do well, too. You also lose the uninterruptible attack that Conc has, which is very bad if you are using a slow weapon.

Yes, the +life from rubies does get multiplied by BO.

 

[Zelator]

Re: What build for STR-only HC tournament character?

You don't need FCR and lots of mana to use warcry ....

I'd do like this:

20 berserk
20 BO
5 mastery
rest in synergies

You'll get some nice dmg from this.

Oh @Penco.. do you think the game was made so you could mule your eBotDz and Griefz? No it wasn't, originally it was made playing it untwinked - its actually do-able with a barb as well. Frenzy & zerk do great untwinked and so do concentration. Yes, barbs do need a little better gear to be as good as a fishy untwinked but the truth is - a barb can go with very crappy items and still do fine untwinked. To me it sounds like you haven't played the game without dupewords - but we will see at ladder reset.

Sorry - I don't like such comments. I always get angry when I hear this - same with when I hear hammerdins need enigma's to be good.

 

[penco]

Re: What build for STR-only HC tournament character?

You don't need FCR and lots of mana to use warcry ....

I'd do like this:

20 berserk
20 BO
5 mastery
rest in synergies

You'll get some nice dmg from this.

Oh @Penco.. do you think the game was made so you could mule your eBotDz and Griefz? No it wasn't, originally it was made playing it untwinked - its actually do-able with a barb as well. Frenzy & zerk do great untwinked and so do concentration. Yes, barbs do need a little better gear to be as good as a fishy untwinked but the truth is - a barb can go with very crappy items and still do fine untwinked. To me it sounds like you haven't played the game without dupewords - but we will see at ladder reset.

Sorry - I don't like such comments. I always get angry when I hear this - same with when I hear hammerdins need enigma's to be good.

No... I play SP and LAN only. I have never had access to dupewords. Until very recently, I always played untwinked. I speak from experience when I say that untwinked barbs are extremely hard to play. Yes, it can be done. Any build can be done. You could probably clear Hell hardcore with a potion-throwing barb if you had enough time on your hands. However, not everyone has that kind of time or skill. Especially when you consider that this guy is playing hardcore and for a competition, a mana-dependent two-handed barb is not the smoothest way to go. I'd recommend a conc barb since it can still have crowd control and take advantage of barb's extremely high defense powers, even untwinked.

Anyway, sorry if you misunderstood me. I hate dupewords as much as you, I think. Anyone who needs ebotd to beat the game might as well go do something else. Yet, I think it is quite reasonable to say that some builds are very hard without decent gear.

 

[Nightfish]

Re: What build for STR-only HC tournament character?

You don't need any mana at all to use Warcry effectively. Just get some damage goes to mana items and you'll be fine. You take a hit or two, mana bulb is full again. Unless you die from 500 points of damage there's no problem.

 

[Jabari]

Re: What build for STR-only HC tournament character?

You don't need any mana at all to use Warcry effectively. Just get some damage goes to mana items and you'll be fine. You take a hit or two, mana bulb is full again. Unless you die from 500 points of damage there's no problem.

500 will probably be fine, but a second hit might not be. (No-VIT, so I'm guessing I'd have around 1000-ish HP after BO, and that might be too optimistic...)

I was thinking that I could regen life/mana by using a Prayer/Insight merc instead. I lose Might, but losing 160-ish off-weapon ED doesn't seem like a big deal when put into context of the rest of the Zerker off-ED huge numbers.

I will (probably) go as a Zerker over Conc for a couple of reasons. The numbers for Zerk and Conc come out pretty close actually for off-ED in my specific scenario, except that Hell monsters (assuming that I get that far) have a MUCH higher physical-resist than magic-resist in general. Also, I'd be using Warcry anyway even with the Conc build.

One thing that I've noticed with the Zerk build is that it seems really skill-point intensive. Is it ok to not put the full 20 in Warcry - would around 10 be ok? I was thinking something like this:
- 20 Zerk
- 20 B.O.
- 10 Weapon Mastery (crits are a big DPS increase, and more AR is always good)
- 10 Howl
- 10 Shout (synergies split to allow both sides to be useful on their own)
- 10 Warcry
- 5 Find Item (semi-untwinked, single-pass - 5 seemed like a good number)
- 9 "one point wonders and prereqs" (not including Increased Speed or Leap Attack - 2 more for each of those)

That's 94 points total already (!), and that's with 30 skill points worth of damage still available, and 10 more Warcry points as well.