PvM Physical Immunity: Accomplished.

[Odd]

I got bored of my uber-twinked chars with the godly item builds and such, and started looking for something NEW. something unique. something thats actually PLAYABLE. my bard... sure, he can stun a group of monsters around him very effectively, but he cant DO anything with it. so, i played around a bit, and found something really strange. I present to you: The Pacifier.

slvl 49 taunt causes -101% damage and -101% attack rating, making you literally impossible to hit by any non-boss monster, and causes them to follow you. now, if the target cant land a hit on you 95% of the time (theres a 5% min cap on AR) and that last 5% of the time its attacks do negative damage to you, what happens then? it heals you! this is one variant i think combines the viability that most people want with the break from being a cookie cutter build.

unfortunately, you dont have many choices on equipment for this build. this is what it takes to achieve slvl 49 taunt:

+3 warcries barbarian helm with +3 to taunt
+3 warcries amulet
+3 warcries 1hweapon x2 (like echoing swords for example)
+1 warcries grand charms x10
+1 all skills armor, such as spirit shroud, que hegans or vipermagi. arkaines valor requires slvl 85, and is impractical for this variant.
+1 all skills rings, such as The Stone of Jordan or Bul Kathos' Wedding Band x2
this leaves a 1x10 space in your inventory, and your choice of gloves, belt, and boots, as well as your 2nd weapon slot.

thats only +28 skills, you say? well, the barbarian comes prepared for this: Battle Command! It adds that last required +1 skills you need in order to go from "practically immune" to "literally immune."

now, of course you'll need to max taunt. what else is needed? lets see:
you have immunity to all melee attacks, so the only attacks to fear are ranged attacks. get some nice resists (somehow) and that will no longer be an issue. ranged physical attackers, although they arent melee, do depend on AR, so they dont do damage once taunted either.

Now, your damage capabilities are suffering quite a bit here. Luckily, we have a ton of points left over, so you can distribute them however you wish in order to make yourself still capable of dealing damage. personally, id choose berserk. with berserk, you get some huge damage boosts, and the 50% physical immunity in hell no longer means anything to you. you cant leech, but with a vast majority of attackers rendered offenseless against you, life leech shouldnt be much of a problem. your only concern after that is mana leech, and at 5 mana per pop, berserk isnt likely to put you in a need for amassing energy. for this reason, id recommend using 2 sojs and a que hegans armor for the mana boosts.

any questions, comments, or addons would be greatly appreciated, i just came up with this so there's likely stuff to be worked out. also, if someone else has done this before, and im not the first to come up with it, then let me know so i dont piss someone else off :P

[WarBlade]

Sounds like a CD Key Banned variant to me. :huh:

[Loschonorg]

5% of the time its attacks do negative damage to you, what happens then? it heals you!

sorry i couldn't find the exact thread but someone already tested: the -ve dmg done doesn't heal. but that's not enough reason not to do this build tho :D

[Odd]

sorry i couldn't find the exact thread but someone already tested: the -ve dmg done doesn't heal. but that's not enough reason not to do this build tho  :D

then in that case, we can drop off 3 of the skills... making that barb helm much easier to find :)

[Den]

Umm... sorry to rain on your parade but MonkeyCID reported the same thing in his Barb guide less then a week ago. :huh:

[Occhidiangela]

Include Battle Cry and damage reduction equipment. You can get a close to 100% Phys resistance doing that as well, plus, the other advantage of Battle Cry is that it drastically lowers the Defense Rating for the monsters, making them virtually ITD.

You can Taunt them to you with one point, then Battle Cry the mob and then kill them much more effectively.

One nice side effect about your build is the insane Battle Orders bonuses that you wil accrue for Mana and HP. :)

I forget who posted the discussion on the old Armory about this, I think it was Warblade, but the build only needed you to get Battle Cry to about 30, and a few Damage Reduced items took care of the rest. Circlets at high levels typically have -20 Damage when gambled, and I found a -25 Damage amulet the other day. If your +3 +3 Taunt helm has three sockets, you could put in three sol runes for -21 DR. Or, a +3 battle cry helm with three sockets/Sols. Or, if you have them lying around, Ber.

Lots of ways to peel the onion. :)

Consider this: Battle Cry works against bosses, and Taunt does not. You might want to consider that tactically.

Thanks for the Min Max post. :)

The only monsters you wont be able to handle with this is Oblivion Knights, as they don't come a running when Taunted. War Cry to stun them, since you will have it at 25-30 with your set up, then Frenzy/BattleCry to finish them off. Or WW.

There are so many choices. :)

[Occhidiangela]

If you play HardCore realms, this might be a nice way not to die to Frenzy taurs when lag spikes occur. :)

WHy ban a CD key for taking Taunt to the extreme limit? I mean, it is a CLVL 6 skill: how un uber can you get? Add one point into bash and one into weapon Mastery, and you have a lovely little tank.

What's not to like? :)

I wonder if there is a cap on DR? I forget the discussion on that, but IIRC, no one had found one.

[WarBlade]

WHy ban a CD key for taking Taunt to the extreme limit?  I mean, it is a CLVL 6 skill: how un uber can you get?  Add one point into bash and one into weapon Mastery, and you have a lovely little tank.

What's not to like?  :)

The chance of anyone obtaining that equipment list in a legit fashion is rather small. ;) The character will very likely be packed with dupes . . .

I never suggested there was anything wrong with pushing a skill to a limit.

[Occhidiangela]

Missed the subtlety.

However, looking at the difference between 30 points in Taunt and Battle Cry, I note that . . .

Taunt puts Damage reduced at 65% and Battle Cry Puts it at 54% at level 30. It takes 27 points in Battle Cry versus 24 Points in Taunt to get to 51 percent damage reduction.

Not that hard to get to slvl 30 legitly, but it may take a shred of luck.

Add 20 points.
a +3 Warcries hat or circlet, not that uncommon. I gamble Circlets a lot once I get past level 50.

a +3 warcries amulet. Not all that uncommon, but a nice find when you find it. If you cube all rings and amulets you dont want to use . . . :) as some do . . . you'd be surprised what can pop out and make your day.

Berserker's Armor. Not that uncommon. We are at 27 already.

The last three are the hard part. And a +3 warcries weapon, when shopping with perhaps a higher level char, or gambled by a higher level char, could be twinked, (yeah, I know, not in SP) and passed on without any cheating at all, and not all that much effort. Or, a little luck with one or two WarCry charms, or a lot of luck with Perfect Gems and large amulets, and it is not that far beyond reason. :)

OK, so let's say we went for a level 30 Battle Cry or Taunt, which is the preferred approach?

Taunt: No waiting, monster comes to you and your party. More Damage Reduced per point expended. Monsters hit less often while you hit them. They are nicely grouped for your Necro friends, or Assassin friends, to level with CE or Death Sentry, or for Meteor's from Sorceresses . . .

Battle Cry: You are getting toward ITD by level 25, and have -108 Def Rating on the monster at levle 30! If you are playing by yourself, this approach is attractive, since you have Taunt anyway as you go up the tree: call them to you and slice through them post haste since you will almost never miss.

If you are playing with a spell caster team mate, or an Amazon Team Mate, I would suggest the 30 Points in Taunt. You and your merc, who are tanking, get less damage and hit less often while your team mates do not need the neg Defensive Rating.

While I agree with you that the likelihood of 49 points is remote in the legit realm, it is doable if 'legit' trading is possible. :)

[Den]

Taunt puts Damage reduced at 65% and Battle Cry Puts it at 54% at level 30.   It takes 27 points in Battle Cry versus 24 Points in Taunt to get to 51 percent damage reduction.

Occhi:
Here's what I remember from the thread. A5 Hell monsters do a max of about 115. That does NOT count auras, critical strikes, and a couple oddities like Dolls.

It only takes a few items DR items can lower the total in a hurry. A circlet and ammy will get you to 40-50 alone, I think Gerke's will give another 15, and you can Safety Craft a couple more too. Add add a String for 10% DR. You get where I'm heading, it doesn't take all Uber gear.

Now combine your 65 DR + 10DR% with your level 27 Battle Cry for a total of 61DR%. If and when the you get hit for 115 damage. You'll take 31 damage (115-65(*61)). That's nothing to a Barb.

Even if you get run across a Cursed boss should live, each hit you take should net you 171. That's much better then 345!

[Odd]

The chance of anyone obtaining that equipment list in a legit fashion is rather small.  The character will very likely be packed with dupes . . .

uhm, sorry to say, i've never seen anyone dupe the equipment i said above. all of it is either common enough or not worth enough for the dupers to worry about. i mean cmon, put yourself in their position:

"dupe this windforce, or this +3 warcries amulet?"
think about it :lol:

the only dupes that might show up on this char are the soj's / bul kathos rings, but i've found many bk rings and i've actually found ONE soj, so its not like all of em are dupes.

EDIT: and interesting ideas about battle cry also :) i made a mf barb that used slvl 24 battle cry with berserk, laying of hands, and hellslayer. took out hell meph in 5 hits :)

EDIT2:

Umm... sorry to rain on your parade but MonkeyCID reported the same thing in his Barb guide less then a week ago.

yes, thats where i found out about the slvl 49 taunt. what he didnt do is elaborate on how to GET that high of a level of taunt, or its possible uses :P anyways, good point.

[Loschonorg]

actually... its quite hard to get full immunity. even if you really do -100% curse from taunt, i wonder how it'll mesh with this discussion: The lowdown on Decrepify, Weaken & Battly Cry.

[Den]

Wow, that's a great post Loschonorg. Thanks for the link. It's good to know that the aura enchanted crowd is still as deadly as ever.

All in all, BC, Decrep & Weaken all proved effective against most meleers except the really dangerous ones, i.e. the aura enchanted crew. Against non-aura meleers, these skills work as well as -% dmg gear, e.g. Weaken like a casteable, area effect Stromshield (-33% damage). Against cursed non aura meleers, they are twice as effective as -% dmg gear, whose damage reduction is treated like physical resist & gets plastered badly by AD. Against aura enchanted meleers, Weaken, Decrep & BC are all but useless & inferior compared to -%dmg gear - whether a Fanatic Moon Lord hits you with 400% dmg bonus going or with 367% when Weakened is by & large irrelevant, you'll live in a world of hurt either way .

[monkeycid]

I found this stuff long ago, but I never got around to test it (I don't want to download trainer programms cause I fear trojans etc)

A poster name Icy finally tested this and reported it at the Amazon Basin a few days ago. This is the thread.

Enjoy :)