PDA

View Full Version : Ravens Tank Barbarian Guide


Raven
01-04-2008, 01:06 PM
Tank Wirlwind Barbarian build By Raven


This build is Mainly geared for PvM, But it does have some options to make it more PvP based. And its been more then proven to get the job done. The number of skills and stats Are based on reaching Level 90.


Table of Contents

I. Skills
II. Stats
III. Gear, Stash and Inventory
IV. Merc. Information
V. Breakpoints
VI. PvM & PvP Strategies
VII. Abreviations


I. Skills

By order

Masteries

Axe Mastery - 20
Increased Stamina - 1
Increased Speed - 1
Iron Skin - 3
Natrual Resistance - 3

Combat Skills
Bash - 1
Leap - 1
Stun - 1
Concentrate - 1
Leap Attack - 1
Wirlwind - 20
Berzerk - 1

Warcries

Howl - 1
Shout - Points applied by level After all other skills are maxed
Battle orders - 20
Battle command - 1



II. Stats

Strength - 70
Dex - 50
Vitality - All Remaining Points
Energy - None

The build dosent call for much in the way of strength becuase your gear will make up for the loss. Also your Dex will be Pretty high after gear goes on.

III. Gear, Stash and Inventory

Mainly the gear youll need to be wearing is what the build is based apon. You can make some changes but try not to get to far away from the original gear setup. But if its a bit high end for you the Right side Listing in Parentheses with show additional options. Depending on Gear chages you may need to adjust charms and other gear to hit the desired breakpoints.

Gear

Helm - Arreats ( Haliberds Reighn, Nice rare combat helm with a good stregth dex mod, Shako)

Armor - Fortitude ( Arkaines valor, Gladiators Baine, Duress)

Weapon - BOTD Eth Berzerker axe ( Runemaster Ettin axe, Grief, Death Cleaver, Beast)

Shield - StormSheild

Gloves - Dracs ( Soul Drainers)

Belt - Verdungos ( Nasferatus, Bladebuckle)

Boots - Gores ( Sandstorm Treks)

Rings - Angelics ring, And raven frost (dwarfstar, Rare dex mod ring)

Amulet - Angelics

Weapon swap - 2x Warcries Weapons

By means of damage Greif would be a better weapon, but i find the the additional +30 attributes and high damage from BOTD are to good to pass in a PvM setting. Fortitude is prctically a Barbarians Bread and butter. Strormshield is Grade A for this charctaer type. Its really not Replacible. Your gores and your dracs are for OW, and CB. The rest of your gear is strait combat based. High dex numbers and great mods.

Inventory

Barbarian Torch

Annihilus

9x Warcries Grand Charms - Preferably with these mods
2 - 12%FHR
7 - Life

FHR and Max damage Small Charms are the way you need to go.Try and get at least Five 5% FHR Charms to hit the desired Breakpoints.

Stash

Your Stash items are ment to help you with special situations, in PvM you More then likely wont ever need them away from your Equiped gear.


2x SOJ or Bul-kathos wedding band - Completely Prebuff based.

+3 warcries ammy - Completely Prebuff based

5 BO Delirium - Completely Prebuff based.

Greif Berzerker Axe - Grief is more of a BvC Item. When your dueling casters Block dosent Apply, So Swapping your StormSheild with Greif will be Maximizing your ablities agianst the current character type.

Enigma - The Enigma needs to be around the same Requriements as you base gear, so be carefull what you make it out of or what kind you buy. This item allows you to teleport therefore Giving you a means of getting close to Casters and running character types. Also comes in handy for Prebuffing.

Widow Maker - When your using your Enigma and your greif it a good call to have this in your weapon swap. The Item gives Guided arrow.

IV. Merc Information

In PvM This merc setup can help a ton.

Act 3
Nightmare
Offensive

This merc grants you a might aura increasing your damage

Gear
Helm - Crown of theives
Armor - Bramble
Weapon - Doom

Total you will be aquiring A holy freeze aura from Doom slowing down your emeny movement, Thorns aura helping your defensive ability, and Might boosting your damage.



V. Breakpoints

FHR

0%---9
7%---8
15%---7
27%---6
48%---5
86%---4 < Aiming for this Breakpoint
200%---3

FCR

0%---13
9%---12
20%---11
37%---10
63%---9
105%---8
200%---7

There not a whole lot of Need for FCR unless you want to Tele fast, I leave it up to you if you have a need to do so.

With the listed gear you should have 65% chance to block, its completely up to you if you want to make changes in your charms or stat distribution to get to the 75% Max.

VI. PvM and PvP Strategies

When your playing PvM you really Depend on the leech of your items to keep you alive along with you large amount of life. When your running through your first 3 acts you should really have no problem once all you gear is on. When you get into Act 4 You get into Place where you’ll be iron maidined. When the curse is active hitting anything with wirl or concentrate with pretty much kill you instantly. Switch over to Berserk to continue killing. If it gets a bit to hot try and space them out, berserk does not allow you to leech. Your stash has some items you can use to prebuff for more life. With the listed prebuff gear you should be sitting at around level 53 BO's, giving you around 6k life. Prebuff then get your arreats fortitude amd rings amulet back on to fight. Your angelic’s is pretty vital to your AR and blocking, so don’t get to far away from it. Also you ravenfrost Id fairly vital to you AR and block.


PvP

Ok, first off if being Bad Manner doesn’t bother you, you might want to get a doom to duel sometimes. Its really pretty Bad manner but it Gets the job done really well with its holy freeze aura.

Barb Vs Elemental Druid's - Elemental Druids are really a Pain in the *** To a lot of Characters. What They like to do is tele on top of you and summon stack, so if you wirl into them you’ll hit nothing but summons do relatively no damage to the Druid. When he starts Telein around start doing short small leaps. What this does is allow you to knock back his summons opening him up to attack.

Barb Vs Sorceress's / Caster's - Get your enigma, and your widowmaker on, swap out your Stormshield and Replace it with Greif. Block dosent matter because she’s a caster. What she will try to do is stay out of reach and basically spray and pray out her attacks. If shes casting from outside the screen Switch to widowmaker and pop her with a few rounds, if she rushes you to telebomb you, switch to Greif BOTD and wirl the hell out of her. If she tele's away Kepps teleing and popping guided arrows at her until either she dies or moves in closer where you can telebomb wirl her.

Barb Vs Hammerdin - Get on your enigma and widowmaker Swap. Hammerdins duel one of two ways, they either Spam hammers waiting for you to run in after them, or they tele bomb you. If he tele bombs you, Wirl down and Away from him and tele out after your wirl ends. It forces him to keep telebombing you and getting hit before his hammers can connect, becuase hammers fly outward from the top of the paladin If he sits back and spams them, hit him with guided arrows forcing him into you, to wirlwind him.

Barb Vs Smiter - Swap out your Stormshield for greif. Smiters ignore target defense so a shield is pointless. The idea is to try and kill him before he can lifetap you or kill you. Wirl away from him, he has to come to you, so when your wirling away your frames will hit him as he is trying to land his hits.

Barb Vs Melee - Your base gear should suit you fine against Melee characters, just wirl in a triangle form, and you should kill most everyone.

Barb Vs Trap Assasin's - Bust out that enigma Greif and Widowmaker again. Trap assassin pose a problem because they can catch you between wirls and mindblast you, and even if you land a hit on a trapper if she doesn’t die your gonna be in a hard place. What works for me is teleing in on the Assassin, wirling her and teleing back out. Most trappers wont take hits from you but if they take it they will roast you if you sit still to long. If she keeps running, shoot some Guided arrows out and keep moving. Traps can ruin your day if enough of them connect at once, so stay and stay to where if you must be hit by them, it only be one or two.


VII. Abreviations

PvP - Player Against Player
PvM - Players against Monsters in the game
SS - Stromshield
FHR - Faster hit recovery
FCR - Faster Cast rate
BO - Battle orders
AR - Attack Rating
OW - Open wounds
CB - Crushing blow
BOTD - Breath of the Dying

MadMardegan
01-04-2008, 01:12 PM
Wouldn't Mastery GC's be better? You get speed, AR, resists etc from one. You could you the warcry as a prebuff but that could get a bit annoying.

Raven
01-04-2008, 01:16 PM
Per buff is pretty *** sometimes. And everyone whines about it being BM. Mainly WC GCs are the best well rounded without prebuffing. Not prebuffed (meaning without BK's and Wc ammy and such) This guy gets 6k life. And he does enough damage to be comfortable. Yea Masteries would bring up the damage, but it wouldnt be as big an impact as having high BO's

Anubis
01-18-2008, 01:58 AM
o wow, look there's a barb guide that is amazing that isn't stickied. MISSED ONE MOD

Omnicide
01-19-2008, 08:43 PM
Per buff is pretty *** sometimes. And everyone whines about it being BM. Mainly WC GCs are the best well rounded without prebuffing. Not prebuffed (meaning without BK's and Wc ammy and such) This guy gets 6k life. And he does enough damage to be comfortable. Yea Masteries would bring up the damage, but it wouldnt be as big an impact as having high BO's*cough* Prebuff IS BM. ._.;

It depends on which end you want to go for.

I agree that WC GCs take care of the two big tank goals...life and defense.

Masteries is more spread out to give a multitude of bonuses. Personally I go for Masteries but that's because I like having high AR and def. ;D

Either is a good choice, period.

Agreed on the possible sticky, not sure if things run the same way as they used to.

Ayliffe
01-19-2008, 10:16 PM
*cough* Prebuff IS BM. ._.;


Lol i see what you mean Omn.


For mastery gc's: I tried doing that, i found you don't get enough Ar from them and they seem to be a bit of a waste. I prefer Ar/Life gc's and ar/md/frw gc's, and nice mix of those and wc gcs along with some nice sc's is best i think.

Omnicide
01-19-2008, 10:33 PM
Eh...I value having Def/AR so I went Masteries.

To me AR is the killer above everything. I used to have Steel/Vitas but...since I'm going for a more BvB toned BvA I need the defense/AR...thus Masteries. The AR should be enough to take out casters as is...and since I have ten res scs...I'm all set on res. So then all I need is to take care of defense vs other melees.

I dunno...I'm just saying Masteries work best for my build. Any combination of charms widely known to be good on barbs should work.

Raven
01-21-2008, 09:53 AM
Well being more PvM based this guy is a life fiend. Lifer gc's, and lifers sc's all the way. As much of a boost in BO as you can get. Mastery gc's are more PvP based when ya think about it. The life s better PvM given it much easier to hit baal then it is to hit another barb.

Omnicide
01-22-2008, 01:22 AM
Oh yeah I forgot this thing is PvM based...I'm way too PvP oriented. D: I can see why WCs would be more useful now, especially if you're doing it with someone else.

Raven
01-22-2008, 03:14 AM
Yea in party games this is an awsome build. The build can handle PvP just find but there are better pvP geared builds availible.

grb345
02-12-2008, 02:04 AM
this build is the bomb...im currently making a build like this :D

Ayliffe
02-12-2008, 04:43 PM
Vs. casters i'd highly suggest using beast Grief rather than Ebotdz grief, the fanat aura adds intense damage, and the open wounds is nice

Raven
02-12-2008, 06:06 PM
I would normally agree with you, but i havent put a beast on him scince he was made. Im not one to say use soemthing if i honesty havent used it. But i dont see any harm at giving it a try. I just got used to dual greif and botd grief.

@grb345- Thanks bud.

Ayliffe
02-13-2008, 12:12 AM
The Open wounds is really nice on it, as well as the HUGE damage boost.

Raven
02-13-2008, 10:57 AM
I just got done finishing out his inventory. He has strait 3/20/xx And its amazing. Went ahead and tried out beast. Its a good call for sorcs and pallys. But i still like botd on the assasins, and necros.

Raven
02-14-2008, 03:05 AM
Becuase the chance of a leaper being able to land a hit is slim to none in PvP and not so big of an improvement in PvM. A WW barb can handle all aspects of the game by just putting a point into Zerk. Try using a leaper in a PvP game and you'll understand.