Bare-fisted barb build

[Swarmalicious]

->insert generic 'where is the patch' whine...yada, yada... while I'm waiting, I'll make a :

Bare fisted barb.

I looked for a while, and although I remember mentions of this variant here and there I can't seem to scrape any info together. Anyone familiar with of have a current one running? Aside from what ive got here - any suggestions?

My builds are always loosely put together, for me it leaves the door for discoveries open... it seems too dreary to play knowing where every point will go. I'd rather experiment as I go along than 'fill out a checklist'.

Also, I'd rather not use itamz. (although I am interested in hearing ideas, ie - Sparkling Mail)
This guy will use what he finds along the way, or is able to trade legitimately (hah!).

Anyway, with that said,

Most attack skills work without weapons, right? (excluding of course double throw)

Elemental damage from equip & charms will be utilized. Obviously.

Umm... yeah so there we go. Please go to town with your ideas.



Also, name ideas (because style is everything):
"TheFrenziedFist", "PunchDrunkLove", "Monk_iziMonk_ido" or "Fisticuffalupagus".
(I know fisiticuffalupagus won't fit but you've got to love it) ;)

[Mikedok]

I made a fists only barb pre-expansion. He used bash, battle cry, and battle orders. Bash because it gives +1 damage per skill point. Battle cry because it takes a long time to kill things so it helps if they do low damage. Battle orders for the hp.

Item suggestions: crushing blow items such as goblin toe, +min damage items like bloodfist and iratha's belt.

When it got too boring/tough to continue bare-handed, I added a shield to my barb. If you want to use a shield, plan on increasing dex and/or using twitch. I'd recommend not putting many points into str. Since you don't need high str for weapons, put those points in vit.

Pre-expansion, my character used ice blink which froze all targets all the time. Since that isn't available you may want to get a holy freeze merc. Of course that's in NM.

[Swarmalicious]

Bash sounds good - especially suits the concept of a punch-fighter (reminds me of Forrest Gump too :)). Frenzy and bashing bare knuckled seems like its worth the trouble, if only for the humor value of watching that animation.
I'm not sure if frenzy works without weapons though (I dont have a barb I can check with anymore). Sure hope it does. (edit: played this guy till lvl 6, and since double swing doesnt, I assume Frenzy won't... kind of takes the er... "punch"...ahem... out of him, but continuing with bas and maybe berzerk might still be fun.)

I wish I could get home and play already, if my boss only new how much time I've been paid to daydream about Diab at work. ;)

If anyone has a link to empty handed Att Speed info, I'd love to see it (all the calcs I've looked at only deal with weapon speeds).

-Swm

[jhartelt]

i remember meeting a weapon-less barb once (on Europe). forgot the acc, of course :(

I immediately suggested taking an Amazon for the job because of her evasion skills. he argued, that bash gave extra damage, which an Amazon could not provide. he wanted to build a char akin to box champions in Sport. so he did not want to use elemental charms. I seem to remember, that he added str for damage and used stun inbetween bashing.

just did a quick check on the skills, that my lvl75 s&s barb has available. bash, stun, conc, jump attack, berzerk and ww work without weapon. so, all the 1-weapon skills seem to work with fists.

[Baajikiil]

Bash sounds good - especially suits the concept of a punch-fighter

I made a barefisted barb along with Mikedok when he made his. Note: These characters were made in classic, but the skills/techniques should have stayed mostly the same.

Bash was also very useful because of the knockback. If you constantly knockback an opponent, they can do little against you even if you do fairly low damage. Also by pumping vit instead of str, and liberal use of BO/battlecry/taunt, you can reach a survivability that most other barbs can't match. Unfortunately, you will rarely(alright, never) rival them in killing rates, but it can still be fun.

Battlecry was essential, because it also reduces the defense of monsters. I found that we had trouble hitting without it.

IIRC my char's name was PunchBarb, and his was Punch_Master.

I have made a barefisted paladin before too, they are also amusing while they last.

EDIT: IIRC We were fighting in hell diff chaos sanctuary when we got tired of these characters. We decided to take a break from them, and before we came back to them, LOD came out. LOD destroyed their capability to play in hell diff, and we never got around to remaking them.

It would take twinking of the type of items that we do not posses to make them playable in hell diff in LOD.

EDIT#2: one line in the wrong space, didn't follow the chain of thought.

[the Langolier]

Yes, bash in an excelent skill! It will increase your physical damage from 2-4 to a whopping 4-7 (the knockback is useful though).

When was the last time any of you punched anything? Enemies nearly regenerate faster than you can dish out damage. You will need a lot of elemental damage. Of course, this really defeats the purpose of "boxing". Give it a try and let me know how it turns out.

[Striker]

When was the last time any of you punched anything?  Enemies nearly regenerate faster than you can dish out damage.  You will need a lot of elemental damage.  Of course, this really defeats the purpose of "boxing".  Give it a try and let me know how it turns out.

Well, load up on poison charms and you can pretend that you're doctoring up your gloves. That'll take em down! :lol:

[Baajikiil]

When was the last time any of you punched anything?

Hehe, as mentioned, our punch barbs were in classic, not LOD. We did make it to hell diff... It was playable at the time, but the game has changed much since pre-LOD.

Well, load up on poison charms and you can pretend that you're doctoring up your gloves. That'll take em down!

Since it was classic for our punch barbs, poison damage was not so readily available. IIRC we both ended up with using rare rings that had poison damage on them. We absolutley needed the poison damage to stop monster regen, otherwise any leaders would be unbeatable.

Also,

Yes, bash in an excelent skill! It will increase your physical damage from 2-4 to a whopping 4-7 (the knockback is useful though).

Umm... note that bash adds +1 min damage per lvl in the skill. Sooo, at lvl 20 it will add 20 damage to your min punch damage as well as the % increase that adds to your item based damage(the +min or max damage on equipment such as rings/ammys). In actuallity, unless you have a large amount of +min or max equipment, bash is the best combat skill possible for a punch barb.

Also, as I said, we made our barbs in classic, where large amounts of +min/max damage items were not available. They simply did not exist yet. IIRC we used bloodfist(+5 min), iratha's belt(+5 min), and whatever rares we could find with + to min damage. Also, we both had iceblink armor, which in at the time froze opponents every strike, not with a lvl based formula. Goblin Toe was also more effective as there was no global physical resist.

Nowadays though, in the world of +15 max damage jewels, and uniques such as War Travelers(+15-25 damage), a twinked punchbarb would probably be better off with berzerk or WW or some such. Twinking seems to take the fun out of a punchbarb now though IMHO.

I must admit though, I'd be amused to see a fully twinked/uber gear puchbarb WW in hell diff games :D

[ldw]

There was some sort of punchadin guide around.
The gist of it was picking specific damage adding aura (including holy shock!) and concetrating on +min +max adder and elemental dmg items since %ED doesnt.. .. add ... much ... to ... clenched fist :P
One can also stay away from heavy str pumping for dmg.
There was some mention of bloodfist as low lvl twink item anyway I dont recall that much of it but
GOOD LUCK with barb!

[Sickywicky]

I had the idea a while ago to make several unarmed chars without weapon,shield or charms for duelling with some friends on hc with the lv capped at lv30. Should be an awful lot of fun I plan to use full iratha's set + Gorefoot and some other stuff with leech to make a "Zangief".(Remember that big russian guy from streetfighter with his spinning fist attack ?) Good luck with your boxer :)

[Obi2Kenobi]

I just made one of these, too. I am going to make it Whirlwind, just for comical value. :P

[BlackLightning]

Hey,
I just thought of something funny.
You could use your bare-fisted barbarian, and make him a kind of "mugger". You could put points into Find Item (The theft), leap attack (For jumping in and out of the crime scene), and taunt (For attracting the potential-next-victim).

Thought it would be kind of funny to see a barb jump in, bash a monster against the wall, and use Find Item when they're done. Again, Find Item is kind of expensive Mana-Wise (If you use it repeatedly), so all the points you don't put in strength can go to other areas.

Hope you enjoyed the little bit of comic relief! :lol:

[Sir_Die_alot]

A potential way to get leeching is +10 max grand charms can drop in normal act 5. Cube grand charms you find here and pray you roll one of these. With enough time spent doing this you could get 10 charms and it would be like you were using a 100 damage weapon workable with all skills. :)

This makes me think of something; if a weapon is unuseable but equiped (you don't have enough str or dex to use it) would that weapon's mastery apply to a max damage charm?