Gunter, the Barbarian Mage

[MongoJerry]

GUNTER: ACT I

On his journey to the Rogue Monastery, Gunter met hundreds of refugees streaming out of the lands near Tristram. He heard horrifying stories of the dead rising from the grave and cruel demons ravaging the countryside. Worst of all, he heard that many members of the once proud Rogue Sisterhood had turned to evil and were participating in the slaughter of the innocent. Gunter realized that Esmerelda was right. These were dark times indeed.

But Gunter also heard some heartening news. Some rogues still remained true to the Light and were making a brave stand against the murderous onslaught. Gunter had visions of a mighty stone citadel standing against the dark tide like his home city of Harrogoth. He planned to join the mighty Rogue army and help them sweep their monstrous foes from the land.

But when he stepped into Rogue Camp, he found something quite different. The citadel turned out to be nothing but a spartan dusty camp surrounded by a hastily erected wooden barricade guarded by a handful of archers. Instead of a mighty army, he found a demoralized ragtag band of refugees huddling behind the wooden walls and waiting for the attack that would surely come. This group needed a hero to arrive soon or all hope would be lost. Gunter shuddered. Did he have what it took to be a hero?

Inside the camp, Gunter was greeted warmly by Warriv, a caravan leader. His caravan had taken refuge inside the Rogue Camp when he learned that the eastern pass had been overrun by monsters. He told Gunter that rumors were circulating that Diablo himself roamed the countryside, but Gunter cast that idea aside as idle speculation. Gunter also met Charsi, the camp blacksmith who seemed a bit more forward than the barbarian women Gunter was used to, and Gheed, an arms dealer of questionable reputation.

Gunter offered his services to Kashya who seemed to be the military leader of the camp, but she spurned his offer. Many powerful adventurers had apparently passed through the camp and had made grand promises only to get themselves killed by the monster hordes. Kashya could not see how a barbarian mage ("Who has ever heard of such a thing?") could possibly help the rogues when so many more powerful adventurers had failed to do so. However, Akara, the Rogue spiritual leader, gave Gunter a warmer reception. While she too was skeptical of the idea of a barbarian mage, Gunter's tales of his past adventures seemed to impress her. When she learned that Esmerelda herself had sent Gunter to help the Rogues, she felt that she had no choice but to give this stranger an opportunity to prove himself. She sent him on a mission to clear out a cave just outside of camp where monsters were massing for an attack. If he was successful, he would then be sent on bigger and more dangerous missions.

Gunter readily accepted the assignment. Was he prepared for the challenges ahead? And could Gunter be the hero the rogues needed to reclaim their monastery and bring peace to the surrounding land?



Until I played Gunter, I had never seen the Taunt skill used before. I had never used it before and had never seen any barbarian partymates use it. I'll be honest with you and state right here that through a combined 18 months of intense Diablo 2 play (broken up by an 18 month hiatus), I have only sparingly played barbarians. I mostly play sorceresses and a little bit of amazons and necromancers (I was #13 on the USWest hardcore sorceress ladder right before LoD came out). The highest level barbarian I've ever played was a level 57 cookie cutter whirlwinder who I stopped playing, because well let's just say he didn't fit my playing style. Most of the barbarians I came across were also typical cookie cutter whirlwinders with the occasional berserker or throwing barb thrown into the mix. Needless to say, I haven't seen the skills on the left side of the War Cry skill tree used much in actual combat.

But after seeing Taunt in action, I can't believe that I haven't seen it used before. A simple one point investment in this skill can allow a barbarian to shut down packs of missile fire monsters and monsters that raise other monsters from the dead. I have two theories as to why Taunt has not been used very much until now:

1. In earlier versions of D2, missile fire monsters weren't nearly as scary as they are in 1.10.

2. The Arreat Summit description of Taunt gives short shrift to what the skill actually does. It says that Taunt causes a monster to go into a "blind rage" and "is useful against Monsters that run away from you." I can imagine that a lot of people would ask "Why would I want monsters to come attack me?" and "Who cares if they run away? I can just chase them down."

I think more people would use Taunt if it were given a label that really described what it does: A Skill That Causes a Monster to Stop What It's Doing and Come Get It's Butt Kicked. That may be a little long for a skill name, but it would accurately describe what it does.

What makes Taunt so great? Consider the simple Carver camp in the screenshot above. I'm sure you all have dealt with this camp hundreds of times. There are always a ton of carvers around and 5-6 shamans who raise every carver you kill. The typical strategy is to kill the shamans first, but that usually means running into the middle of the camp where you can get swarmed. And it also means running all around the area hunting down and killing all of the shamans before you can deal with the main carver pack. By running around and meleeing the shamans, you end up waking up all kinds of other nasty monster packs that you have to deal with at the same time that you are killing all of the carvers. Plus, anytime any monster dies, all the carvers scatter and it's a pain hunting down and destroying them.

But now what happens if you have Taunt? Now, you can meet the carvers head on as they come. In Gunter's case, he can stun the carvers with War Cry and keep them from running away. If a shaman starts raising carvers, a barbarian can cast Taunt on the shamans. A Taunted shaman shuts down, stops raising carvers, and slowly makes its way toward the barbarian, thinking it can take on the barbarian with his tiny knife. Once all of the shamans are Taunted, the carvers can be killed and they will stay dead. When the shamans finally get to the barbarian, they can be dispatched quickly (or in Gunter's case, stunned quickly). If there's an off screen shaman that you missed who is raising carvers, that's no problem. Just move a little bit in his direction until he's on screen, cast Taunt on him, and go back to the pack. Unlike the typical strategy, you don't have to actually run over to him and wake up any extra monsters. In fact, you often don't need him to actually be on the screen. You can just Taunt the edge of the screen and off screen shamans and any carver minions will often come strolling toward you. Carvers who run away can also be taunted back to the pack for a quick stun or kill.

Taunt also works well for archer and quill rat packs. If you're being bombarded by arrows while you're dealing with a pack of melee monsters, you can Taunt the archers. They will stop firing and slowly come toward you and join the pack of monsters you are whittling down with your Whirlwind or other attack skill. It also stops monsters from using many of their special attack skills like charge. Taunt is a fantastic skill and I highly recommend a 1-point investment even if you're not playing a barbarian mage.

There are a couple of caveats to this. If you back away from a monster after it closes to melee range, it will go back to its regular AI and use its special attacks. Taunt is a permanent condition, so a monster that is taunted can't be taunted again (unless one takes a waypoint to another Act and comes back which seems to erase the previous Taunt). Also, if a monster's path finding routine can't find a way to get to you, the monster will go back to using its special attacks. For example, I cast Taunt on the shaman in the burning house in the Cold Plains. He stopped raising carvers for a moment and came to the edge of the house. He stopped there and then went back to raising carvers. Also, in nightmare Act V, I Taunted skeleton archers in the Bloody Foothills. At first, they'd stop firing, but if their path finding routines couldn't find an easy way to get to me, they'd start firing again. So when you're Taunting a monster, it's good to position yourself so that there aren't any large barriers between you and the monster.



Here's another screenshot of Taunt in action. While Gunter was dealing with a couple of rogue archers, a couple of skeleton archers were pelting him with arrows. So, he taunted them. They stopped shooting and slowly made their way to the stairs where they got promptly stunned along with the rogue archers and the misshapen coming up from the left. Incidentally, if you're being pelted by lightning balls from misshapen, you can taunt the misshapen and they'll stop shooting at you and instead try to come melee you.



Enough on Taunt for now. How well did Gunter handle Act I? Pretty darned well. Most monsters fell pretty much according to plan. I can already tell that champion packs are going to be Gunter's bane, however. Boss packs aren't too bad, because the minions can be stunned. But dealing with four champions who can't be stunned all at the same time can be troublesome.

Blood Raven was a pain, because she moves so much and so fast now. She wouldn't sit still for the Firewall and when she moved, she'd quickly get out of range of War Cry. The merc usually got distracted by the zombies and since Gunter doesn't have teleport, Gunter couldn't easily direct the merc to attack Blood Raven. This is definitely a huge disadvantage compared to Grizabella. Gunter had to make do with doing whatever damage he could deliver during the times Blood Raven stood still. I'm thinking of shopping for a staff with teleport charges on it for use in special situations.

War Cry is pure physical damage, so right now the only thing Gunter has that can damage physical immunes, like Griswold pictured above, is his Firewall and the occasional Fireball. If possible, I would like to get some elemental damage on Gunter's merc. My ultimate preference for a weapon would be 'Crescent Moon', but Gunter is still an Um short of making it. The good news, however, is that even though War Cry does not damage physical immune monsters, it can still stun them as long as they are not bosses or champions.

I did have some success in getting some decent equipment for Gunter's merc. Griswold dropped a Vampire Gaze which I immediately gave Gunter's merc. In addition, I gambled on circlets for a while and got a Circlet of Venom. I'd hate to replace a Vampire Gaze with a simple Circlet of Venom, but it does give Gunter the option of using a good runeword weapon like 'Honor' and still be able to stop monster life regeneration (if the monster is not poison immune) if the opportunity presents itself. For now, the merc is still wearing the Vampire Gaze and I'll continue to gamble on circlets in the hope of getting a good rare with poison damage on it.

In addition, Gunter found a rare 170% enhanced damage partizan (91 to 202 damage) with +102% damage to demons and (here's the kicker) 7 poison damage over 3 seconds. That's a huge improvement over the 32% enhanced damage thresher he was using before. In addition, Gunter used the new gem recipes to try to roll a good weapon. He found a socketed hyperion spear and used the 3 normal gem recipe to make it into a magical socketed hyperion spear. When it turned out to be junk, he then rerolled the magical properties several times using the 3 flawless gem recipe. So far, nothing extraordinarily good has shown up, but he'll keep trying. Obviously, the best mod would be a cruel hyperion spear, but I'd settle for something in the +100% enhanced damage or better range. The nice thing about this recipe is that the weapon comes out automatically with sockets, so one doesn't have to spend a socketing quest reward to socket it with a perfect emerald, Amn, or Shael. I'm trying this recipe on a hyperion spear, because it's a fast weapon and all of the elite polearms and spears deal approximately the same amount of average damage per time (fast weapons have less base damage and slow weapons do more base damage which evens things out). A hyperion spear is as good as anything else to try the recipe on. Eventually, I'd like to make a good runeword weapon or find a good rare or unique weapon for Gunter's merc. I'll also probably spend my last imbue trying to make a weapon for him the next chance I get.

Using the Heart Carver I have on weapon switch which gives +4 to Find Item and Find Potion, I've been running Find Item on all the monsters I kill. It's been a fantastic tool that has helped me get lots of extra cash, items to sell at the shop, gems, the socketed hyperion spear on which I'm using the gem recipes, potions, and even a pair of Laying of Hands gloves (why couldn't a pair have dropped for Grizabella?). The extra potions have been a godsend and have helped prevent the need to go back to town as much as I did in nightmare. Once my mercenary's equipment is more settled, I'll start running Find Potion on bodies, hopefully making it so that Gunter can spam his spells all he wants and not have to go back to town at all. It'll be kind of like how a hammerdin uses his redemption aura. A barbarian mage/singer should definitely spend a point or two in Find Potion if he's not lucky enough to find a Heart Carver of his own.

The Countess gave Gunter a Nef and an Eld. Grrr...



But the good news is that Gunter defeated Andariel and successfully completed all of Act I. Andariel dropped a rare amulet that gives +1 to sorceress skills. Unfortunately, it does not boost the Firewall damage given by the Trang-Oul's set. Too bad.


So Gunter defeated the evil queen Andariel and earned the respect of the Rogues. Even Kashya, who had greeted Gunter so coldly, had to admit her astonishment at Gunter's success where so many more powerful adventurers had failed before. At last it was time to say farewell to the Rogue sisters and journey to new destinations for there was no longer any doubt that Diablo, the Lord of Terror, had indeed arisen anew. Gunter said farewell to the beautiful and talented blacksmith Charsi. Perhaps, he thought, he might one day return to these fair lands.

And so Gunter set off with Warriv and the wise Cain, the last of the ancient Horadrim order, to the great desert city of Lut Gholein. No doubt Gunter would have to prove himself yet again to a new set of people. But would Gunter have what it takes to meet the challenges that lay ahead?