Barbarian: Resists/AC Def bonus/ Passive 2hander/axe bonus?

[nein11]

aren't barbarian suppose to get 1% all resist per level? and defense/AC bonus.

also is there some hidden passive 2hander/axe bonus?

[tanis83]

Well, based on the documentation, for each character level, barbarians get:
5 Attribute Points
+2 Life
+0.5% Elemental Resistances
+0.3% Physical Damage (only at levels 4 to 60, levels 1 to 3 make up 1-1 innate damage)
-0.2% Critical Hit Chance (only at levels 1 to 10, after 10 it stops decreasing)
-0.5% Critical Hit Damage (only at levels 1 to ???, after ??? it stops decreasing)
Physical Resistance drops from 20% to %6 at level 2, to %2 at level 3, to %0 at level 4

[nein11]

hmm interesting . i wonder if the AC/defense bonus is given to barbarians like in hellfire..

[ander357]

What's the straight dope on stat distribution? If I'm starting a barb and have no stash should I put all my points in strength or should I also put points in dexterity and vitality? If so what's a good rule of thumb? Thanks!

[Wendigo]

It's not so much a straight "from beginning to end" rule of thumb; the game changes as it progresses and you have to as well. I like to split it into 5-level, 25-point chunks: for the first 5 levels, all your points can go into STR since barbs have absurd hit points; then you need to work on DEX to start hitting those damn blue skeletons. For barbs it's actually more like a rule of ~not~ thumb since the one thing you never need to do is put a lot of points into VIT since they have so many hit points and built-in resistance.. as Sun Tzu said, a good DPS is the best defense.

Although I'd advocate that this is a rogue-like so rules of thumb aren't very useful. Your gear and the monster rolls are going to be different so you'll need slight alterations to your skill set. Bigger, though, is that you want to consider your play style; for instance, my sorcerer is being played hardcore and I'm on a laptop so hotkeys are hard to reliably hit in the heat of the moment so I have a few more points in their VIT than most people would consider optimal. Is your barb the kind of guy who's going to go down swinging or try to disengage and pick off stragglers? Are you fine with pots and Town Portal scrolls or will you eventually want to ever get a few MP? What's your strategy vs run-and-gun enemies like those damn succubi? Are you patient enough to reload each and every time you get a bad monster roll? How many hours do you want to spend farming for gear to fill in those holes in your plan you've noticed?
Ugh. /soapbox. Sorry, I've noticed there isn't a lot of condensed strategy on this forum so I tried to cram it all in there.

[ander357]

right on. i appreciate the info!

Based on what you're stating stat point distribution is heavily influenced by gear drops. i speculate theres not much latitude then with how to distribute them because I personally wouldnt put any points into MAG and relatively few points need to be put into VIT because of the HP and RA gained by just levelling the character; which basically just leaves DEX.

Ive read other posts researching the forum that state putting all points into STR (due to damage scaling) but my theory is players that are able to do that have an established stash.

Thanks again!

[Wendigo]

Well, I don't think you should change your point distributions based on gear (a few points here and there to make sure you can equip awesome swag is fine), since gear will change throughout the game. Barb skills rely on STR, and DEX is great because not only does it improve raw damage (in the form of increased crits) but also helps AC and fast-class weapons which are just better, so most/all your points into STR or STR+DEX and you're optimized regardless of gear. Sorry if I wasn't making sure that was my central message while I was ranting.

Where gear becomes super-important for barbs is the Magic, and that's where your play style comes into play since you will always need to pick gear for it (that is, dungeon gear, aside from your book-reading pajamas in town). Not having access to even simple spells like Lightning Bolt really makes things tedious when you have to chase down each and every. single. succubus. in. the. friggin'. game... but on top of that you'll get some enemies that the classic barbarian hack-and-slash is going to be brutal or lethal if you can't wear them down or kill them before they get to you (i.e. champion packs). So if, for instance, you get Queen Bitch, a succubus special who shoots at you and then runs away, and every time you hit her she does about 3/4 of your life with her lightning enchant even with max resist, your choices are:

1. Die.
2. Leave the dungeon, quit the game, and reroll. Pray she and her sisters never appear and be prepared to do the same if they do. Adjust to your new life as a barbarian who will never enter Valhalla for their cowardice.
3. Run at the death, drink an entire belt of potions, hope your button-mashing skills are up to the test with your optimized gear and stats. Put on Yakety Sax in the background as you do laps around the entire level a couple of times and begin to wonder just how those ludicrous thigh boots stay on while she's jogging because you're that bored.
4. Hey, you have a bow! You're never going to win Hunger Games with it but at least you didn't have to sacrifice your sweet optimized gear to eventually get this one done.
5. Maybe shoot a fireball for once in your life.

And that's just something nobody else can tell you how to play.

[ander357]

Good deal. Thanks for the replies! I've found increasing AC makes a very big difference related to potion use. I wanted to try to atleast get though normal mode with a very fast attack speed axe but found sword (very fast AS) and board is the way to go.

[Wendigo]

Yup. It's sad but 2H weapons just won't get you there. A fast sword not only applies more damage but increases your crit output and affix damage, and that block chance on a shield is crucial, so a 2H ax has to be about twice as good as your sword and your board (combined!) to be worth considering. Plus, like, all the good uniques you're going to find are swords, especially in normal.

Raw AC is good up until about level 9/ Horazon's Sanctum, then start sacrificing it for resistances. By that point you should have enough HP to tank your way through packs anyway. Luckily the barb grows resists naturally so you don't have to go balls deep like a warrior does, but it's still going to be the most beneficial juggling act. Concentrate on Lightning and Fire resists so you don't get cheesed by champion packs, but of course Mag/Cold are always good too.

[ander357]

@wendigo

I'm up to clvl 30 and in nightmare and things are going pretty smoothly.

I noticed something about brains collected in your signature block. What is that referring too?

[Wendigo]

Oh goody someone asked! *claps giddily
During the Black Mushroom quest, after you collect the mushroom itself the healer Pepin sends you on a quest to collect a demon's brain for a healing elixir he's making. After you receive that message, the next demon-type creature you kill drops a brain to bring back; normally that's just as simple as finding the next monster since most of the monsters on levels 9 and 10 are demon-type, or backtracking a little, no big deal. Instead of doing that, though, I've been going on quests to harvest the brain from some of the more notable demon-type uniques in the game: the Butcher is the easiest (there are very few demon-types on level 2 and those you do encounter you just have to make sure to not kill on your way to his chamber); Izual was a pain in the butt because I had to ignore the quest until I was right outside his lair (after you kill the demon holding his key) near the end of the game... but I laughed for a good 10 minutes at the little pink brain he dropped right next to Azurewrath*. The ultimate goal, of course, is to harvest Diablo's brain, although that would require a lot of patience and I'm honestly not sure if the game will even let you do it.
It's also just a marker for the fallen. I play all my characters hardcore (I delete them when they die) so it's a convenient way to keep track of how many I've had/how deep I've gone because you can only do the quest once per character per difficulty level.

I'm glad you're enjoying the character. I love playing barbarians and this mod is fantastic so it's good to see the word spreading.

*- Edit- At some point I started thinking about Izual's speech when you encounter him, the "How much suffering does it take before you lose your grace" thing (overall just a great quote), except instead it was "How much suffering does it take be- aaugh, my brain!" Perhaps a bit of a dumb joke but it had me in hysterics.

[ander357]

@wendigo

Thats brain thing is pretty creative on your part.

Playing HC has to got to be pretty sketchy in this mod; what's the highest level you've obtained doing so?

This mod is awesome; the crafting system definitely adds a whole new dimension. Playing it is like playing D1 with D2 stuffed inside it.

If you get a chance check out Diablo The Hell; it's also really cool. Although definitely stays more in line with D1.

It's pretty easy to sink a lot of hours into both mods.

[Wendigo]

Meh, you just gotta take your time. Make sure you telekinesis those chests from behind a blast wall and spend a few additional seconds over any enemies with their own light source. I figure the original Diablo 1 is one of the grandfathers of HC, back when we were all on dial-up and emails had a progress bar, so it's only fair to do the legacy proud by carrying on the tradition. My current barbarian (Bobarian IV) just got to level 34 in HC, edging out my sorcerer who I made into a farmer for a while after a few too many close calls with immune-all champion packs.

This mod definitely gave me the Diablo 1 bug again, so I will almost definitely check out your mod after I've finished this one... but this one is hella fun and I often regret I don't get to play more of it already so it might be a while before that happens.

[ander357]

@wendigo

I wish I had your patience; my barb (JesusHitler) is up to clvl 31 and I've probably already died atleast 50x.

I played POE HC for a few years which was definitely a lot of fun but don't really have the time for that anymore.

If I had more time I'd probably have a D2 HC character going now but have been devoting most of my spare time to this mod while taking a break from Diablo The Hell (which you definitely need to check out, its been in constant development since 2006 and has all the hellfire levels incorporated as well; but you only need diabdat.mpq to run it).

I'm starting to figure out that some of these champion monsters cannot be face tanked; even with maxed out resists.

[Kosiciel]

Reviving this topic.

So how does barbarian handles two-handed weapons? Does he prefer axes, or all options (maces, swords) are viable (aka no speed bonus or anything like that)?