1.10 Leap Attack Barbarian

[Swarmalicious]

It's easier to refer to me that way*points to title of post*

AKK. Check. B)

[Swarmalicious]

Great guide, Swarm; an enjoyable read, too. Let's see if it holds up for 1.10 final.

-Bolty

Feels great to get a compliment from a personal hero (blush). :D

I guess its back to the drawing board if doesn't hold up, though I think most of my energy for the project has been expended. Any kind of work what so ever makes me sleepy. :blink:

[Brista]

OK, things I particularly liked that made it an outstanding guide

- it's very funny
- it explains how to use particular moves as opposed to the item-oriented or skills-oriented approaches that are more common. Priceless stuff
- lots of well thought out tactics that I didn't know - after playing Barbs for 3 years!
- interesting use of the Diablo back story. It's as if D2X were a role-playing game after all
- very good use of language (speaking as someone who studied language). It's not school marm grammar but the effectiveness of the communication is superb
- it makes me want to make one

Nits:

Its also great for the bash/leap combo

bash/LA combo

Howl ... great through the whole game

Howl stops working if you get ahead of the mlvl/clvl curve.

Monkeycid: Howl ... will cause monsters to flee if (clvl+1+slvl)>mlvl

source: http://www.monkeycid.tk/

Weapon Mastery ... For pure damage, investing in Leap is better.

OK, let's have a quick look at the maths. +10% per point of Leap on a Barb doing about +1000% ed is around 1%. 1% chance to do double damage is equivalent, in terms of damage output over time. So Mastery, where it gets you an extra point of critical strike, beats Leap because it adds in AR and ed% on top of a crit bonus which is equivalent to Leap's ed% bonus

Besides crits are fun :)

Taunt
Not a nit, but additional strategies. It works round corners. Handy in places like the Act 2 Sewers or Worldstone Keep where you can get a ranged attacker to come round on his ownsome
It picks up close targets so you can scout with it in dangerous areas. Just right click the blackness and if there's a monster there it will be taunted and come out to play and if not it doesn't use mana
(Might be best to check these in the 1.10 build before adding them)

Leap
Since you're pumping for both radius and damage synergy it's worth noting that radius tops out at skill level 17

This bonus can only be found on special items such as "The Spirit Shroud" unique Ghost Armour, or the "Death's Guard" set sash. Keep yer eyes peeled.

Both of these items seem otherwise rather poor for this build. Ravenfrost is what I think you should recommend for Cannot Be Frozen.

Again, splendid job, thanks. Could I suggest you post a heads up in the AB Barb room, I'm sure they'd enjoy it too? :)

[Occhidiangela]

V. Was your Barbarian painted Green?

- with envy? No way, he's a confident bastard.

I guess I was too oblique in my reference reference to THE HULK. :o

Leap, Bash, Leap Attack Big guy who hollars out loud a lot and smashes the dickens out of things. Put green armor all over this Barbarian, and you have the Diablo II version of

The Ever Lovin' Hulk!

[AtomicKitKat]

QUOTE 
This bonus can only be found on special items such as "The Spirit Shroud" unique Ghost Armour, or the "Death's Guard" set sash. Keep yer eyes peeled.

Both of these items seem otherwise rather poor for this build. Ravenfrost is what I think you should recommend for Cannot Be Frozen.

We...ll, defense isn't really that much of a factor if they're only doing 1/2 their normal damage or less(Battle Cry), or if they can't respond(Continuous Bunnyhop Leaps) Even more so if you're playing a 3str/2vit(not even counting BO...) character all the way... In that case, resists actually matter MUCH more...

[AtomicKitKat]

Post in the "New Variants?" thread, dammit! :P And comment on my "Avengers" theme. :) I mentioned Hulky there. And I've been making Hulk comments all day while playing my SC Barb Booyaka. :P Except that he doesn't use Bash. :P I like to think of his Battle Cry as an "intimidating roar" ;)

[Dagni]

OK, let's have a quick look at the maths. +10% per point of Leap on a Barb doing about +1000% ed is around 1%. 1% chance to do double damage is equivalent, in terms of damage output over time. So Mastery, where it gets you an extra point of critical strike, beats Leap because it adds in AR and ed% on top of a crit bonus which is equivalent to Leap's ed% bonus

Besides crits are fun :)

Yeah, but consistant one-hit kills are fun too. B) The occasional critical might be equal in damage output over time when fighting, say, Izual, but if a modern Leap Attacker is anything like a LA or Charger pre-1.04, then a critical can often be massive overkill against most regular monsters, depending on your weapon and the player count. Even if the monsters tend to take 2 or 3 hits, that makes a critical useless 33-50% of the time.

Mastery still might be better given the other bonuses :), but I don't think that a 1% chance of a critical is nearly as good as a net +1% increase in damage for a Bazooka ...err, Booyaka. :P

- Dagni

[Arutha]

It works round corners. (...) Just right click the blackness and if there's a monster there it will be taunted and come out to play (...).

My experience of the skill in 1.10 is that you now have to actually target a monster with it for it to work.
Confirmation / infirmation is welcome, but I'm afraid that tactic (imo bordering on exploit) is no longer available.

[GenericKen]

GenericKen & lemekim:

What I read was from this post at the Amazon Basin. Obviously this person's experience doesn't agree with yours. Perhaps I should go download those edited characters and test this out some time too.

Uh...............

That post agrees with us. The damage is additive.

[AtomicKitKat]

Could always just leap into the fray(large knockback radius), BattleCry anyone who comes close, then leap attack the ranged attackers. Even at level 1, BC reduces physical damage by 52%... Taunt has its uses of course, like luring OBKs from hiding... But BC has the advantage of being able to affect bosses, as well as making most targets essentially ITDable, saving valuable stat points from dexterity. :D

[Zath]

I don't mean the original poster, but Rataxes in a reply. His posts were edited though, so I'm not sure if I was hallucinating or he just corrected his account. Guess it's probably additive after all then. In that case, the common solution of using a Might merc could significantly diminish the need for investing in synergies.

[Occhidiangela]

Two observations from last night.

1. Not sure if this is new or not, but Find Potions no longer works, at all, on skeletons and wraiths. Find Item does. I first noted this when I tried to FP on skeletons in the Catacombs last night, with a barb that I am going to build with Taunt/Frenzy/Berserk (yep) then again in the Halls of the Dead.

Didn't FP used to be usable to "kill off" skeletons too? Or has my memory eroded.

2. Find Potion and Fallen/Carvers/Devilkin/Dark Ones. I played around with this a lot last night. When battling Fallen, etc, with a Shaman nearby, you can sometimes kill one and invalidate his corpse quickly with Find Potion. However, if you are within a frame of two of the Shaman raising him, you sometimes get this result:

You FP, he raises, but the next time you kill the same fallen, since you hit him with FP, his corpse no longer shows up "red" with FP selected and he can't be raised. So, he can be brought back to life once if you don't beat the Shaman's raising spell by ___XX___ frames.

I just don't know what the break point is, but at least if you are quick with the right click FP, any given fallen is not going to get raised "again."

[Swarmalicious]

My experience of the skill in 1.10 is that you now have to actually target a monster with it for it to work.
Confirmation / infirmation is welcome, but I'm afraid that tactic (imo bordering on exploit) is no longer available.

- just tested it... still seems to work, and around corners too - seems as long as there's a path for the target to get to you they are affected. Didnt work "across" things, like barriers or rivers.

Didn't FP used to be usable to "kill off" skeletons too? Or has my memory eroded.

- it did. Intended change maybe? Cant leech off 'em, why would they have mana & life potions then? Just a thought...




Oh yeah, and the Hulk :D I git it! They sure grow them dense in New York.


EDIT: Also wanted to mention, that a friend and I have been playing around in a5 hell all afternoon, and despite my barb doing 14k damage (broke down and dl'd nobbie' s item mules) we were consistently, indisputably, and completely getiting our buttocks handed right to us.
Large, balanced parties may really be the only way to get ANYTHING done on the realms, as far as late game goes...

[GenericKen]

I don't mean the original poster, but Rataxes in a reply. His posts were edited though, so I'm not sure if I was hallucinating or he just corrected his account. Guess it's probably additive after all then. In that case, the common solution of using a Might merc could significantly diminish the need for investing in synergies.

Um, might is additive too, besides being unaffected by conviction.

An ideal perfect might merc whose sole purpose in life is to boos your damage will give you about 300% ed at level 99 (yeah right).

That's the same as 10 points in a vengence synergy doubled by conviction.

[Occhidiangela]

1. Find pots no good against ANY undead: zombies, skeletons, wraiths, so far.

2. Find item does them just fine. :)

3. Taunt does indeed work around corners. :)

[Zath]

GenericKen:

Yes, I know Might is additive. What I meant is that when every bonus is additive, an extra +300% from Might will reduce the need to invest heavily in synergies. Leap Attack, for example, already grants a +670% damage bonus at Slvl 20. Add some strength bonus and a Might merc and you'll easily hit the +1200% mark. At this point, maxing out Leap for its syngetic bonus will only improve your total damage by 15%. So is a 15% increase in your damage output worth 20 skill points? In this particular case, it may be since Leap has some useful side benefits as well, but the same can't always be said for other synergies.

Edit: Vengeance and Conviction can be seen as a special case here, since the Vengeance skill only multiplies the base damage from weapons to produce its elemental damage. This does not diminish the effect of a Might merc however. As aura stacking is no longer possible in v1.10, a Paladin who wishes to use the Vengeance and Conviction combo as his primary attack will not be able to flash Fanatism and/or Meditation on the side. If this Paladin also chooses to invest skill points in Resist Fire/Lightning/Cold for their synergetic bonuses, he may find himself hurting badly from a lack of life and mana leech. A Might merc can help tremendously here by increasing the physical damage of Vengeance and increasing the amount of life and mana that can be leeched back from your attacks.

[Jarulf]

>The game treats Leap Attack as a ranged (not melee)
>attack, so Iron Maiden doesn't apply. You may leap
>around in the Chaos Sanctuary without fear!

For some reason, I thought that had been changed.

Well, I have not checked the beta so no idea what they changed, however, it has really never been the way to start with (and I doubt they changed THAT part of the skill. As I have said before, from the game point of view, there really isn't ranged or non ranged attacks. There are just plain attacks. They can be more or less generically initiated by missiles were a special flag WILL be set but I think the only or one of the few cases that happens is with CB where it gets lower effect. LA does not set that flag though since it is not a missile. It can also be generically initiated by skills and most attack skills do so. This is typically done in advance and the attack then continue it works when your animation of the skill reaches the proper part (where a few things is done, unpacked (the attack data previously calculated) and so on together with Thorns, IM. Life Tap and various cold armor, all in the same function. This is NOT done for LA. It simply cut some corners and only when you land does it really make the attack, all at once, basically directly calling the tohit/damage calcs and then the combat resolution (which will call resistance code if it was not done through damage code which it was not for LA) thus skipping the function that for example check for Thorns and LA.

Yeah, so it is a technical nitpick but still I think it is "dangerous" to imply it is a ranged attack, one might get the wrong idea it has less CB effect for example.

[AtomicKitKat]

Is that LA still gets all the benefits of a regular melee attack, minus the penalties? :D

KnockBack, Blushing Crow, Chance to cast on striking/attack, CS/DS, mastery, etc, all still work? I'm gonna see how sick I can get it. >:)

[Occhidiangela]

The "Embalmed" class of undead do indeed cough up potions for Find Potion.

[Occhidiangela]

While messing about this morning with Taunt, it looked to work this way:

...................Barb1...("Your mother was a hamster!")
.........Barb2..................("You silly knees bent running about Abyss Knigggets!!")
-----------------|..|-------------------------------------------
......MonsA.........MonsB.............MonsC

Barb 1 can Taunt MonsB and sometimes MonsA, depending on slight angle adjustments. Pure line of sight not required, but something very close to Line of Sight seems a prerequisite.

Caveat: with soft walls, the kind that atatcks get through, sometimes Taunt seems to go through that wall as well.

EDIT: Addition. The "Open Roofed" buildings in Lower Kurast, etc, allow you to taunt over or through the wall, unlike underground walls in underground settings, but of course the monsters run around trying to find you, poor things! :)

Barb2 can successfully Taunt MonsB but not MonsA.

Neither Barb can Taunt MonsC.

|..| = door
----- = wall
...... pebblies and dirt on the floor. :)