dual mace/flail/scepter Barb

[CapnJohn]

Because there is an abundance of undead in D2, and because mace class weapons get a 50% dmg bonus against Undead, it made a lot of sense to me (as a solo player) to wield mace class weapons. Following the "one weapon good, two weapons better" philosophy (please leave the shield advantages for a different discussion) it made sense (to me) to wield two mace class weapons. Now I say mace class weapons because I actually tend to favor the flails, scepters and war scepters over all other mace class weapons because of their faster weapon speed, and because despite their smaller size (compared to 2H-Swords and Mauls) they still do a reasonable amount of base damage.

Now sometimes I play on Bnet but I tend to solo when I do and rarely, if ever, get together with a group, so my dual mace wielding Barb is more concerned with beating up monsters and surviving on his own, than assisting a party or dueling with other Barbs.

My Barb's weapons, as I mentioned, tend to be flails or scepters, and I generally go for the tripled socketed flails or triple socketed war scepters when I can find them or buy them, as it's much easier to get triple socketed weapons than find that ultra-rare Holy Scepter of Smashing or whatever the latest uber-weapon is. Originally I used to drop a Perfect Skull (or as good as I could get) into each weapon, then drop a ruby & sapphire into one weapon, and an emerald & topaz into the other. But now I have LOD (yes, I only just bought it for myself for Christmas) I'm discovering Jewels & Runes that can do what my perfect gems used to do, and more. Now why should I drop in a topaz for lightning dmg when a cool jewel might do lightning dmg AND increase the To Hit %; or it might dish out lightning dmg AND has a 5% chance to cast chain lightning, OR...well, you get the idea. Then there are the Runes, but oddly enough a lot of the runes I find seem to work better on their own than if I try to make a rune word with them, as most rune words for mace class weapons tend to help Paladins more than any other class, and I'm not a Paladin; I'm a Barb who likes smashing things.

So now that I have runes & jewels to pick through, what goes in my weapons sockets is no longer a no brainer, now it's too damn confusing. There's too many choices! Can anyone help a poor Barbarian?

Please bear in mind that I don't do magic runs, and I don't do cow runs, and I don't have 10,000 SOJs sitting on a Mule somewhere, so ultra-rare jewels and runes won't help me. What will help is the experience I know you guys (& gals) out there have from playing LOD. What runes and jewels should I be looking for to go in my triple socketed flails and war scepters?

Thank you.
Capn John

[Raziel]

First semi-cheap suggestion to spring to mind is the "Black" runeword. Works just fine in flails.

Thul + Io + Nef. Only Io can be considered reasonably hard to obtain.

+120% Enhanced Damage
40% Chance Of Crushing Blow
+200 To Attack Rating
Adds 3-14 Cold Damage - Cold Duration 3 Seconds
+10 To Vitality
15% Increased Attack Speed
Knockback
Magic Damage Reduced By 2
Level 4 Corpse Explosion (12 Charges)

Two of thse give you a nice life boost and some cold damage to chill enemies. The damage isn't super, but hey.

[Little Faith]

BTW, how are you building your barbarian?

Given your two-weapon preference I would suggest a Frenzy/Warcry build (First you stun them with Warcry and then you rip through them with Frenzy).

And yes indeed Black is a thing you should look forward to in a near future.

[CapnJohn]

My Barb's primary attack has usually always been Double Swing. I'd max out his chosen Weapon Mastery (usually Mace or Axe - I love Military Picks) and pump up Double Swing and wade into the fray. I realize Double Swing doesn't add to dmg but it does increase the chance to hit, which seemed important enough to me to spend points on. The life & mana leech I'd get from the skulls in the two weapons, and the equipment I'd find which had life & mana leech per hit, often guaranteed that my Barb could stand in the middle of a mob Double Swinging to his hearts content and he'd replenish his mana as fast as he used it. It was amusing to watch his health bob up & down in the middle of a battle as he took hits from monsters then leeched life from them and healed himself. All w/o quaffing a potion.

Of course once my Barb would kill Diablo I'd almost always put the game away for a while before getting it back out and creating a new character and starting again, so my chars would rarely get above lvl30. And I'd hardly ever venture into NM despite knowing the cool stuff you can find further into the game, such as demonhide gloves, armor, etc.

Now that I have LOD I'm going to try and stick with it, complete Act V then take my Barb on into NM level. And now that I know DS is a poor Barb's Frenzy, I might pump more points into Frenzy and use it as my primary attack with support from the war cries, which I use regularly. That's another reason I love the two skulls and mana leech; when your Barb is screaming his head off while running around the field of battle, you need to be able to replenish his mana fast, and as he's killing lots of monsters, why not reward him for that with mana leech.

[Zyr]

B-b-but-- rune words are so much greater than the sum of their parts! I urge you to
take a good look at Malice, Strength, and King's Grace.

As you've made your fondness for life leeching clear, I'm sure the 5% Life Drain of Malice will appear to be a major disadvantage. I have not found it so; a single item with 5% or greater Replenish Life negates the life drain completely, and that's easily achieved with as little investment as a Chipped Skull and a Flawed Skull in helm or armor. The runes are easily acquired from the Countess, the rune word is usable at level 15, and it's extremely effective against high-HP monsters such as Duriel, Izual, and Hephasto.

Strength in one hand and Malice in the other was a very effective combination for my first Assassin, and I can't imagine that it would be less so for a Barb.

Still, I think I'd save my first Amn rune (and a three-socket Scepter-- this rune word works only in scepters and swords) for King's Grace. The ED is nearly as great as from Black, and you'll probably find the required runes a lot sooner.

[CapnJohn]

Ooohhh, I like the look of King's Grace. That would be just what the doctor ordered.
I have a question though, which may seem like a stupid question. I know with respect to Rune Words, Maces does not mean ALL Mace class weapons, just maces, morning stars & flails, + exceptional/elite versions of those weapons, so....does that mean when it says King's Grace only works in Swords and Scepters, I can also use it in a War Scepter? I think that's the harder hitting scepter from Act IV & V. or is the War Scepter considered a different weapon to the Scepter?

I like the look of Malice over Strength, but the bonuses the Runeword Strength gives to your attributes Strength & Vitality would be hard to pass up. And the -5 life drain from Malice would be very easily negated by a skull socketed helm. For some reason skulls seem harder to come by than any other gems, so I always keep my eye out for a Gem Shrine and upgrade my Skulls using it.

[AtomicKitKat]

Scepter=any hammer-like object that can have Paladin skills on it. Maces=all blunt instruments that are not wands(have Necro skills) or staves(Sorc skills) or orbs(ditto staves)

Oh yes, maces can have +Druid skills on them, and as far as Barbarian Mace Mastery goes, I think it would affect you if you used any of the weapons listed in the first paragraph. Don't quote me on that though.

[adeyke]

Scepter=any hammer-like object that can have Paladin skills on it. Maces=all blunt instruments that are not wands(have Necro skills) or staves(Sorc skills) or orbs(ditto staves)

Very wrong.

Scepter: 1-hand weapon that can have Paladin staffmods
Wand: 1-hand weapon that can have necromancer staffmods
Staff: 2-hand weapon that can have sorceress staffmods
Rod: all of the above

Club: club, spiked club, exceptional/elite versions of these
Hammer: war hammer, maul, great maul, exceptional/elite versions of these
Mace: mace, morning star, flail, exceptional/elite versions of these

Blunt weapons: all of the above; can be characterized as weapons with the innate +50% undead damage bonus; all blunt weapons work with mace mastery

Sorceress orbs aren't a subset of any of these. They aren't blunt weapons. They aren't even mêlée weapons (for purposes of affixes, runewords, etc.).

As for the "maces can have +Druid skills on them" bit...

No weapons have have druid staffmods. There are random affixes that give +druid skills or +druid skilltabs, but the only weapons that can have these are clubs.

[Obi2Kenobi]

Wait a minute! Staves benefit from Mace Mastery?? Hallelujah. :) My whirlwinding staff barb will appreciate this. But isn't there a subcategory for the Club/Hammer/Mace groups?

[adeyke]

They do benefit from mace mastery, yes.

There isn't any item type that includes clubs/hammers/maces that doesn't also include rods. The club/hammer/mace categorization exists only on web sites, where it seems logical to join together, since then you have one normal-sized page instead of three tiny pages, and since clubs/hammer/maces are all blunt weapons that don't have staffmods. Also, the Black runeword works on clubs/hammer/maces, by listing each of these as separate allowed item type.

[JustAGuy]

According to the AS:

Rune Word:
Honor
5 Socket Melee Weapons
Amn + El + Ith + Tir + Sol

Mods:
+160% Enhanced Damage
+9 To Minimum Damage
+9 To Maximum Damage
25% Deadly Strike
+250 To Attack Rating
+1 to All Skills
7% Life Stolen Per Hit
Replenish Life +10
+10 To Strength
+1 To Light Radius
+2 To Mana After Each Kill

I absolutely love this runeword. So very cheap too. A few Countess runs in nightmare will easily give you those runes if you don't have them already. I was lucky enough to find a 5 socket divine scepter with good auto-mods (+2 redemption, +1 conversion, +1 sanctuary) that I use all the time, even in hell, despite it's low damage. When you put it all together, the description for that item practically goes off the screen. :)

[Zyr]

...does that mean when it says King's Grace only works in Swords and Scepters, I can also use it in a War Scepter?

Yes, and it's more effective in a War Scepter than in a Scepter or Grand Scepter-- the average damage is slightly higher than the Grand Scepter's, and the speed is considerably quicker.

You'll be happy to know that suitable three-socket War Scepters can be purchased from Ormus [EDIT: Not Drognan, as I originally wrote :(] in Act III-- but only by a character of level 19 or less. (For characters 20 and above, Ormus displays only Magical items, and rune words do not work in Magical, Rare, Set, or Unique items.) Since you're not concerned with Paladin skills, they'll be cheap, too. B) A word of caution: Rune words in "Superior" items can be quite expensive to repair...

The Black and Honor rune words are very much worth your attention also-- but they're much harder to assemble. The Io rune required for Black is sufficiently rare that there's a good chance you'll find a suitable Exceptional or even Elite three-socket weapon by the time you have the rune. I personally would not consider putting Black in a Normal weapon; a Knout seems about right. Honor has the opposite problem: The runes are easy, but five-socket weapons don't spawn in Normal difficulty, and are, shall we say, less than common in Nightmare. JustAGuy's Divine Scepter is an outstanding chassis for Honor (much better than my Honor Flamberge! <_< Hey, it was the first five-socket weapon I ever saw...), and an Honor Knout would be effective as well.

[Obi2Kenobi]

Actually, you can shop Drognan at any level and still see normal items. This is because the vedors have an item level cap on them. I believe that Drognan's is 24, but I am not sure... It is low enough to not hit the cap for spawning normal items. Something I remember for shopping "White"able bone wands. :)

[Zyr]

Actually, you can shop Drognan at any level and still see normal items.

[EDIT:] You're absolutely right! I was thinking of Ormus and calling him Drognan. :( Original verbiage deleted from this space.

[adeyke]

I think you're getting your vendors mixed up.

Drognan is in act 2.

The (normal difficulty) ilvl caps are:
12 in act 1
20 in act 2
28 in act 3
36 in act 4
45 in act 5

That means even a 99 clvl character can, and does, see white/grey items from normal Drognan.

[Zyr]

I think you're getting your vendors mixed up.

I certainly did! All of my references to Drognan should have been to Ormus. *blush*

[Obi2Kenobi]

Don't feel bad. It happens to best of us, so you who can blame you having it happen to you? ;)

Anyway, thanks for the *correct* level cap for Drognan. :) Speaking of which, do different vendors have boosts, in a manner of speaking? Because Gheed seems to sell a lot more magic items than Charsi.

[CapnJohn]

Karl_Orcslayer is at lvl 29 now, with Frenzy at lvl 4 (or 5 maybe). I wasn't too impressed with Frenzy initially but I decided to give it a chance, I figured it was only lvl 1 at the time and there's not too many skills that stand out at lvl 1, although that first point in a Barb's weapon mastery (any mastery) can seem to make a huge difference with the To Hit and Dmg bonus.

I made it into Act IV last night after Frenzying Mephisto, and saw the true potential of this skill. I then cruised through the first few sections of Act IV without too much of a problem (I was using Players 5 to boost my XP gain) except for those invisible critters that shoot lightning all over the place, they made me catch my breath when my health fell from full to damn near empty in barely a second. I still have my Rogue from Act I shooting Ice & Poison arrows all over the place from the socketed battle bow I got her back in Act III, thank heavens. I'm sure she kept me alive several times, she earned her retainer last night for sure. I started using Frenzy a little more often when I got it to lvl 4 (or 5) but it still drops my Mana considerably (I only have 40 or so mana right now) so I have to use it sparingly, but it sure helped me mop up those bugs and Flesh Demons. I made it to the River of Flame before realizing I hadn't killed Izual, so I trotted back upstairs, found him and Frenzy'd him to death, on Players 5 no less. It took a little while to kill him but my Life & Mana leech were working well, and despite him freezing me occasionally (although he spent a large amount of time frozen himself), I didn't use a single potion during our little toe-to-toe slugfest. It robably helped as well that my Rogue was sticking Poison & Ice arrows into him by the dozen. Finally Izual fell and I continued down into the River of Flame.

I found Hephasto, killed him and his crew (using Frenzy until I ran out of Mana), smashed Mephisto's soulstone and got three skulls and a rune for my trouble. A normal skull, a flawless skull, and a perfect skull!!! I fought my way through the rest of the River of Flame to Hadriel, activated the WP, and it was only when I was depositing my skulls in my stash that I realized the Rune I'd picked up was ITH!!! I already had El and Eth, and a 3 socketed Flail was sitting empty in my stash, it was time to create a Malice Flail. Yes, I know I was supposed to put Malice in a War Scepter, but I was already lvl 26 by the time someone mentioned Drognan & Ormus having a cap on supplying non-magical socketed War Scepters. Not only did they no longer have vanilla 3-socketed Scepters, but just about all of the Scepters were priced at 200K or more! Insane! So Malice went into a Flail. I figure if I picked up Ith that easy, I'll find it again later on (someone mentioned doing a Countess run for Ith, El & Eth?)

Now I had Malice AND a Perfect Skull which offers +5 life regen (& close to 20% mana regen) IF I could drop it into some socketed armor. Problem is no-one had any socketed armor, not even socketed helms. I didn't want to wield Malice only to bleed to death, so I popped in & out of The Fortress several times checking Armor & Helms to no avail. What I finally found was a Plated Belt offering +5 Life Regen, perfectly countering Malice's -5 Life drain AND allowing me to carry 16 potions. So I still have my spare Skulls in my stash, I can wield Malice w/o any penalty, and I have plenty of potions to back me up if needed.

Equipping the chunkier of my two triple socketed Flails alongside "Malice" I now dish out (approx.) 100 to 200 dmg with each hand. Bear in mind my Strength is not yet triple digits, Mace Mastery is at lvl 18 or so while Frenzy is just getting started at Lvl 4 (or 5), and I'm still only playing the normal level and haven't beaten Diablo yet.

Feeling cocky I WP'd to the River of Flame, strolled past Hadriel towards the Chaos Sanctuary, squishing any bugs & flesh demons foolish enough to get in my way. The first shrine right inside the Chaos Sanctuary's front door was an XP shrine, awesome! With a magical banner above my head I ran screaming into Diablo's house, hit my first mob and Frenzy'd them to death...I had to gulp down a potion or two though.
Wanting to make the most of that XP shrine I ran in further and took on a second, larger mob, and gulped down a couple more potions...but my health was still dropping and NOW I WAS FROZEN!!! AND BEING SHOT AT!!! AND I'D RUN OUT OF POTIONS!!! RUN AWAAAAYYYYYY!!!!

I just made it out of there alive, and my Amazon made it out in one piece too...but with more health than I did!!! WTF!!! I don't think I was holding Ctrl and handicapping myself...but maybe I was. Maybe in my enthusiasm to enter the fray, and subsequent panic, I held down Ctrl and helped the mob kick my a$$. Anyway, I like Frenzy, I know it works and I like the look of my Malice Flail. But I think I need a few more levels under my belt, and maybe a few more skills points assigned, before I head back into the Chaos Sanctuary.

I'm not scared of dying, really I'm not ;) but if Diablo's minions can beat the $hit out of me I am not ready for Big D, not yet.

I want to thank everyone who's posted here for all of the advice and the fantastic discussion we've got going. I really appreciate all of the comments. Keep 'em coming.

[Obi2Kenobi]

One of the reasons you may have been losing health quickly is that the Oblivion Knights may have cursed you with Iron Maiden (causing you to damage yourself).