Barb Mage

[Crystalion]

Of course, the most well rounded character would probably ignore energy, keep vitality at a moderate level, and be strong and dextrous enough to use a weapon on the switch for situations where war cry simply doesn't cut it.

Well, if you *aren't* looking at a more-than-warcry Barb build (which MongoJerry can be excused for because he had a specialty storyline build) then you really ought to compare this plan/build with doing a Shockwave Werebear Druid.

Among benefits to consider in the analysis: the Druid has Shockwave, the Grizzly and Maul all stunning monsters into immobility at reasonable mana costs and can choose a vine to produce mana from corpses or use Hunger to leech mana. As of v1.10 this Druid can also have Armageddon up to deliver damage (which suggests, ironically, the poison creeper to keep the stunned enemies from regenning while your 'geddon nukes them).

Both WereDruids and Barbs can have enormous amounts of life. The Druid probably wins out here, though the Barb can have much better resists and DR. The DR doesn't really matter for these builds, as the local monsters will all be stunned... this means dropping out of wereform and having a long synergized duration on cyclone armor is a difficult but interesting proposition.

Yes, I understand that War Cry is a lovely skill, doing *magic* damage (better than Shock Wave) but my point is that it isn't the only game in town for this mode of play.

edit: actually it isn't clear to me from glancing at skills.txt whether Shock Wave and War Cry do magic or physical or some combination. IIRC whatever they do is the same thing, and War Cry synergizes to more damage than SW, but SW ramps up to longer durations than WC. Best to check than take my recollection for granted however.

edit2: hmm, since Armageddon needs all the elemental skills as prereq, dumping an additional 38 points into Hurricane and Cyclone Armor is intriguing (mutual synergy: lots of elemental absorb and 30 net seconds for the Hurricanes--every half minute you drop out of werebear and refresh both then re-werebear) as you get more damage and apparently 600+ elemental damage shield (albeit possibly pre-resist?! yuck).

edit3: as per Pren's comments: if Armageddon sucks, you can still (saving points) do the Cyclone/Hurricane thing. But I don't see why a werebear using shockwave can't then move though the forest of stunned enemies--or do I misunderstand?

edit4: Hurricane used to *not* trigger LEBs... is that still true?