05-13-2003, 08:43 PM
My very first CD2 character was a polearm barbarian. I started him the day the game came out and had no clue that he would end up somewhat similar to the cookie cutter builds (swords & lances were always more popular though). With stormspire being one of the rarest drops in the game, hwainin's being a joke past nightmare, and my poor luck with cruel shopping, I kind of gave up on polearms for most of LoD.
Who knows if the elite unique polearms will be any easier to get, but in any case I'll be making a polearm barb early on for the nostalgia. Cubing a giant thresher/great poleaxe with the chip recepie will be nice because any cruel will be good enough to hit that final WW breakpoint with 3 shael's in it (assuming speed breakpoints don't change).
However, for ladder play, I may start with a Werewolf for the 'live off the land' flexibility that feral rage and hunger give. Not to mention that any half decent weapon with some IAS on it will work ok with fury. Usually I play one character until I find a 'keystone' item for some other build, and then I go start that build. Once I have a few decent items I'll start trying out some new 'synergy' characters. I'm a hopeless self-twinker... :P
Until I get a feel for the new monster AI - all my mercs NM onward will be holy freeze for a while. If the monsters are really moving/attacking faster, then slowing them down will be even more useful for defense.
Who knows if the elite unique polearms will be any easier to get, but in any case I'll be making a polearm barb early on for the nostalgia. Cubing a giant thresher/great poleaxe with the chip recepie will be nice because any cruel will be good enough to hit that final WW breakpoint with 3 shael's in it (assuming speed breakpoints don't change).
However, for ladder play, I may start with a Werewolf for the 'live off the land' flexibility that feral rage and hunger give. Not to mention that any half decent weapon with some IAS on it will work ok with fury. Usually I play one character until I find a 'keystone' item for some other build, and then I go start that build. Once I have a few decent items I'll start trying out some new 'synergy' characters. I'm a hopeless self-twinker... :P
Until I get a feel for the new monster AI - all my mercs NM onward will be holy freeze for a while. If the monsters are really moving/attacking faster, then slowing them down will be even more useful for defense.