Concentrate Build Help

[September 28, 1987]

Like the Zeal thread, having a few issues. Already talked with a few people regarding both (mainly Omnicide) but I'm still at a loss what to do.

This is even harder because I can be fine without using specific items but it's sacrificing defense for life which Concentrate thrive off of.

I am 'trying' to remake a Zealer, specifically for PvP because anything else I find boring and somewhat difficult.

I'm not totally sold on what I have planned out. I have always liked and used Angelics on my Zealers but with Death, Highlords is a necessity if I want max IAS.

Here is what I have anyway.

Helm:

- Ethereal Upped Arreats (I like except strength requirements are more difficult than I thought).

- Guillames (more useful against non-melee).

- Arreats (Not a fan since lacks defense but gives me the strength I need).

- Coa (Have but won't be using). No point.

Amulet:

- Highlords (probably main)

- Angelics Amulet

Weapon:

- Grief Phase Blade (turns out I need the IAS from Phase Blade for IAS which is unfortunate but yeah).

- Ethereal Death Berserker (throwing it on anyways)

- Ethereal Breath of the Dying Berserker (same as above)

Armor:

- Fort AP (a pure melee armor, hard to pass on). Downside is lacks strength which is what I need most.

- Enigma (not sure if I should use instead of Fort). It would help a lot for teleport, FRW and strength but Fort has a lot more defense). I don't think it's a good idea but opinions? I'll still keep so I can tele in spots but question is would it be better to build with? Lol.

- Ethereal Valor (#1)

Shield:

- Stormshield; socketed with 8 Dex, 4 Life Rep, 20% Fire Resist, -15% Req Jewel. (Jewel is necessary since this shield is my heaviest item and/or gives me the strength to wear others items. I'm not changing the shield since SS+Verdungos give max DR <-- needed).

Gloves:

- Steelrends. (Defense, CB are big factors here).

~ Dracs but I don't BM melee.

Rings:

- 2x 230+AR/20 Dex Matching Raven Frosts

- 2x Matching Angelic Rings

~ Highlords/Raven seem best.

Belt:

- 36+/15 Verdungos (Not a hard choice to make considering I can receive nice life/max DR with it).

Boots:

- Upped Gores.

Inventory:

- Basically same as Zeal inventory.
- 18/17 Btorch
- 19/12/6 Anni

Again, problems with strength without Enigma. Maybe Upped Arreats isn't a great idea since I could use the strength to be able to wear Steelrends.

Any pointers or suggestions? I'll consider anything but I have an idea of what I like and dislike already. Just trying to make it the best as I can.

Thanks.

[Omnicide]

Keep the Upped Arreats. I still say a non eth with -req jewel would do better, but we've been through that, heh.

Ammy/rings I prefer angelics for AR (obviously) but the Highlord's/Ravens would be good for non-melee.

If you can get the IAS for Death then you can use that...otherwise the swing will be horribly slow. Grief PB, I'm afraid.

Fort=the armor for melee. But for non-melee I recommend at least having an enigma for tele/conc (or zerk)

SS I won't get into because it's the only shield for a PvP barb.

You're pretty much stuck with Rends in melee. If you plan on tele/zerking you can use Dracs and Zerk won't get life return from it. (I may be wrong on this, but since berserk doesn't benefit from LL, I figured it was applicable)

Gored=obvious.

So...your zealer is going to be pure melee and the conc barb is going to try to go against non melee too or? That's the gist I got...the only reason I put the non-melee recommendations. ._.;

[September 28, 1987]

I like to keep to pure melee but look at the pubs, it's pretty obvious it rarely happens. And I wouldn't mind some challenge against casters even if I die and it's a massive fail.

Even I join melee games with a non-melee. But then again, I'm still sold that there is a difference melee-wise from Whirlwind and Smite compared to like Zeal, Fury and Berserk, etc.

[Omnicide]

I think the only way WW isn't melee is how you move while using it. Other than that it's a multi hitter like Fury and Zeal.

[September 28, 1987]

I guess.

I just don't like it so I discriminate.

[Omnicide]

I know.

At least we can both agree smite isn't melee.

[Barloc]

(eh I was thinkin pvp etc when I posted this)


1 jewel with IAS on it allows you to hit max speed with greif phase. Which isn't bad if and when you swap to angelics.

I think fort trounces most armor, at least for bvb conc/ww anyway.
If your going to be able to equip rends, then your str probably wont be too far off from equiping sacred.

You might wanna consider 2 helms, for when you swap out the rings. like eth upped zod'd & a cham'd upped for example.

I know.

At least we can both agree smite isn't melee.

:mad:Yeah no doubt, how you guys been anyway:rolleyes:?

[September 28, 1987]

Thanks.

Barloc, you've been gone for a while it seems. How's things with you also?

[Barloc]

Good man ty. Had a job change, been playin less but still with same ol' barb.

[Omnicide]

Eh not much has changed on my end. Still trying to find a perfect balance of BvB and BvC that can still handle both relatively well. Heh.

[Barloc]

Nice to see your still alive 'n kickin'.

I dunno, I say low req fort+greif barb for ww - life.
For conc I prefer sacred/upped arreat - def/damage.

Seems to me that lower req / high life generally dominates in ww, makes perfect sense pvp wise.

Conc feels a bit different.

Of course, this all has to be backed up with charms as you know. So if a ebotdz/sacred (or whatever fort) barb smacks you down, he's probably sporting mass damage scs too- ala crimson.

[September 28, 1987]

I just found out how difficult this is going to be. With the gear listed, I put around 75 points into Strength (I can't use the Arreats/Steelrends added strength). Which is A LOT but none of my gear is adding +Strength except for the gear I use at the end.

And about 20-30 in Dex for block. I forget what it was but wasn't too much.

1-1.5k Conc
1-1.4k Berserk
14k AR
18k Defense (32k swinging)
75% Block
50% DR
4.4k Life

None of the stats/skill quests done and I planned everything on my BO Barb (so I still have the 91 Barb to hopefully make better).

Also, the skills throw me off.

Sword Mastery, Concentrate, Battle Orders seem like necessities.

Bash, Iron Skin, Shout, Berserk are the others I'm not positive what's more useful than the other.

Any suggestions, either of you. o_O

Thanks.

[September 28, 1987]

opmm;lsm;la

People are avoiding this.

Are my stats kinda bad, average or yeah/na? Any insight?

[dainbramage]

Err, grief and fort alone should give you more than 1.5k damage. You ought to be doing more damage per hit than a WW barb, I suspect your damage numbers are off.

[jrob624]

damage might be listed as 1.5k but with griefs hidden damage you should be doing somewhere around 5k or so.

[Omnicide]

Considering I'm betting you're using the LCS for Grief's numbers that looks ok.

The AR and defense kind of have me bothered. Is this before putting points into other skills?

Shout definitely.

After that I'd say either Bash for damage or Iron Skin for defense. Berserk should mostly be saved as a one pointer.

So right now here's what I say is low in my eyes:

AR (14k AR seems scary low...of course if it's going to be used in pure melee it's backed up by the huge defense, but vs some crazy defense characters...that's going to be a challenge for you. Also is this without AR charms?)
Def (It should get higher when you max Shout, but I would think upper 20's/lower 30's should be a good number to go for)
Life (Is this without a full stash of lifers or?)

[September 28, 1987]

Err, grief and fort alone should give you more than 1.5k damage. You ought to be doing more damage per hit than a WW barb, I suspect your damage numbers are off.

Yeah, using the LCS.

Thanks jrob.

Considering I'm betting you're using the LCS for Grief's numbers that looks ok.

Yep.

The AR and defense kind of have me bothered. Is this before putting points into other skills?

Shout definitely.

After that I'd say either Bash for damage or Iron Skin for defense. Berserk should mostly be saved as a one pointer.

So right now here's what I say is low in my eyes. [quote]

I just threw everything on my BO Barb (because I only use him for that) to test with.

The stats would all be lower than if I actually made him right. I just put points into what I thought was right without having doing any skill quests, etc.

[quote]AR (14k AR seems scary low...of course if it's going to be used in pure melee it's backed up by the huge defense, but vs some crazy defense characters...that's going to be a challenge for you. Also is this without AR charms?)

A few but not a whole lot. I'm going to re-work the inventory a little because a number of charms are Life/Resist ones which won't mean anything to me.

14k is low with Highlords/Dual Ravens though?

Def (It should get higher when you max Shout, but I would think upper 20's/lower 30's should be a good number to go for)


I knew Defense was my weakpoint along with life.

I think I left Shout at level 1. I wasn't really sure if Shout or Iron Skin were better and I max Battle Orders/Sword Mastery and Concentrate already maxed out.

The rest I put into synergies then the leftovers went into Iron Skin with like 3 going into Bash & Berserk.

Again, I wasn't really sure and it was a dead character so I wanted to test things out.

Life (Is this without a full stash of lifers or?)

Bit of both.

I think it's mainly because I wasted a ton of strength trying to wear Stormshield. I think I might have been basing off Enigma's strength (what I had one originally without realizing it) when I was planning out how much I would need to equip all gear.

Thanks for the responses all. I was getting anxious.

[Omnicide]

I just threw everything on my BO Barb (because I only use him for that) to test with.

The stats would all be lower than if I actually made him right. I just put points into what I thought was right without having doing any skill quests, etc.Ohhhhh this is basing it on the other barb. I thought you were getting close to done on the real deal, I was getting kind of scared there.

A few but not a whole lot. I'm going to re-work the inventory a little because a number of charms are Life/Resist ones which won't mean anything to me.

14k is low with Highlords/Dual Ravens though?Yeah...especially since you're going for melee only...but I'd fear vs casters that come in to raid the game.

Anything under about 18-19k seems low to me, I'm spoiled it seems. 14k is good with Highlord/Ravens...but overall it seems low to me considering characters with at least 20k defense or so.

I knew Defense was my weakpoint along with life.

I think I left Shout at level 1. I wasn't really sure if Shout or Iron Skin were better and I max Battle Orders/Sword Mastery and Concentrate already maxed out.Shout and Iron Skin both increase the same amount per level. 10%.

The rest I put into synergies then the leftovers went into Iron Skin with like 3 going into Bash & Berserk.The only Synergies are BO, Bash and Berserk...and Berserk's synergy is kind of laughable. After Shout I'd say either max Bash or Iron Skin...or split evenly between both. It's really about damage vs defense on that end.

Bit of both.

I think it's mainly because I wasted a ton of strength trying to wear Stormshield. I think I might have been basing off Enigma's strength (what I had one originally without realizing it) when I was planning out how much I would need to equip all gear.Hm yeah and if it's on a barb that was already built for something else, I can understand how the life was lower than I thought. The way I see it, if you can get up to 5k life, you're doing pretty good. And I can't say how many times I had to reset editor because I found out my strength was based off enigma. Dx

Thanks for the responses all. I was getting anxious.Anytime Gunit. o;