Gunter, the Barbarian Mage

[MongoJerry]

The Grand Vizier's pack came out and many of the minions immediately started shooting their mana drain attack (which was very annoying) and stayed out of range of War Cry. Yep, you guessed it, I Taunted each of them and they stopped using their mana drain attacks, gathered in a nice stunned circle, and waited patiently to be burned to a crisp or poked with a big pointy stick. The pack fell quickly.



I hit De Seis's seal and when De Seis's pack came out I got a little too cocky. I figured Gunter could take whatever De Seis could dish out, so I leap attacked the whole pack of Doom Knights and started spamming War Cry.

It wasn't a good idea. De Seis was being allowed to dish out free attacks and those attacks hurt. After quaffing a couple of full rejuv potions, because the red ones weren't healing me fast enough, I decided it was time to back off. I leap attacked past the pack into the main part of the Chaos Sanctuary and then used Taunt to lure the Doom Knight minions away one or two at a time so that they could be safely killed away from De Seis. Once all of De Seis's minions were dead, Gunter and his mercenary could focus on De Seis himself and he died without further incident.



As everyone knows by now, the Infector got a major upgrade in 1.10 and he and his minions' infernos can really hurt. About half of Infector's pack rushed to surround and melee Gunter and the other half bunched up behind the ones in front and cast their infernos. But a few simple Taunts took care of that. (I told you in my very first posting that these adventures would be brought to you by the skill Taunt). The Taunted Venom Lords stopped casting their infernos and circled around to try to melee Gunter -- which means that they got in the range of War Cry. After that, all that was left to do was take out the Infector himself.

That's when I realized just how stupid the above strategy was. If the Infector had turned out to be immune to physical as well as his usual immune to fire like he was for Grizabella, then I'd be in real trouble. Or at least, I'd be in an awkward situation of having to keep a pack of minions at bay with my War Cry while trying to kill the Infector with the pathetic amount of non-fire elemental damage I and my merc are able to deal. If the Infector had spawned as immune to physical, I would've leap attacked out of there, tp'd to town, taken a waypoint to another act to clear the Taunts on the minions, come back, and used the same strategy I used with De Seis -- Taunt minions away from the pack and kill them one or two at a time and then take on the Infector when he's alone.

However, it turns out the Infector wasn't immune to physical, and my mercenary focused on the Infector right from the start and took him down. I kept the minions stunned and let my mercenary mop them up. I haven't quite figured out all of the quirks of the mercenary AI, so I'm not sure if the mercenary just attacks whatever monster is closest or if he attacks the last monster that hit him as long as the target is in range. Whichever one it is, it works well for Gunter, because in a large pack of stunned monsters that includes a boss, the mercenary often ends up attacking the boss as either the first or second monster he attacks. This is either because the other monsters stay at the edge of War Cry's range and the boss can come in the circle and therefore he will be the closest target or else the boss is the only one doing damage to the mercenary, so the boss gets targeted. Either way, it works well.

By the way, in the screenshot above, you can see that the Infector, the guy in blue, is also stunned with the rest of the pack. Bosses and champions do get stunned by War Cry every once in a while. I read an old singing barb guide that was written before LoD was released that said that War Cry would stun bosses if they're less than a yard away, but all of the testing I've done hasn't shown that to be the case anymore. I've tried all kinds of tricks to try to make the stun work on bosses and champions in a repeatable way but nothing has worked. At this point, I think it might be a random effect -- like there's a 5% chance on each War Cry cast that a boss or champion will get stunned or something like it. It sure is nice when it happens.

Gunter leveled in the middle of the battle with the Infector's pack. He became an 82nd level barbarian mage. I dropped the skill point into Howl, and then it was time to take on Diablo.



I replaced Gunter's 30% magic finding amulet with the Rising Sun amulet he found in the Arcane Sanctuary. It gives +2 to fire skills and absorbs 61 points of fire damage (based on character level) among other stats. I hit the seal, walked onto the central platform and waited for Diablo to appear.

And I had the most pathetic fight I've ever had with hell Diablo in my life. Understand that I'm an old D2 hand who was #13 on the USWest hardcore sorceress ladder right before LoD came out (Ariel_hc). My sorceress was built for taking out Diablo, because that was the only way to level back then once you got to the high 80's. I can't tell you how many hundred times I killed him, and yet there was always that ever present fear. Was this the time I was going to lag right in the middle of Diablo's lightning breath? Was this the time I'd get tripped up on something and be too slow to recover with potions?

This Diablo is just a hollow shell of that formerly dangerous beast. His lightning breath? Laughable. It doesn't even start for several yards. If Blizzard is going to nerf Diablo this way, then they should at least have his AI know not to bother shooting the lightning breath against characters who are standing right next to him. His fire attack? Pathetic with max fire resist. As Grizabella showed, the damage is easily repairable with red potions. In Gunter's case, the Rising Sun amulet made it so that he took absolutely no damage from any of Diablo's fire attacks. That left Diablo with just his melee attack which is always pathetic and even more so against someone with 75% block. I quaffed two full rejuv potions during the battle -- not to repair damage but to recharge the mana ball. I didn't want to bother going back to town to refresh potions. This guy wasn't worth the trouble.

So Diablo died without any trouble at all. He dropped a rare ring, a rare mancatcher, and an Atma's Wail. The ring and mancatcher ended up being junk, but the Atma's Wail is kind of cool. If it had some resistances on it, I'd give it to my merc, but it's a nice haul nonetheless. I'll mule it away for a future character.


So Gunter did the impossible. He traveled deep into the burning hells and not only destroyed Mephisto's soulstone but also fought and defeated Diablo himself in his own lair.

Gunter returned to the Pandemonium Fortress and told Cain and Tyrael all that he had done. He wondered what his father would say now about his odd barbarian mage son and felt a longing to return home and tell his friends and family all that he had done.

Just then Tyrael told Gunter some disturbing news. Baal was still alive and intended to open a rift that would allow the minions of hell to poor out into the mortal realm. What's more, he had gathered a great army that was attacking not just any city but Gunter's own home, the ancient citadel of Harrogoth, which guarded the Worldstone that maintained the separation between the mortal realm and hell. Gunter must return to Harrogoth not to tell his tale but to save his homeland and the world from destruction.

Gunter raced into Tyrael's portal to Harrogoth. He couldn't see how a simple barbarian mage like himself could make a difference when there were so many more powerful warriors manning Harrogoth's defenses. But Gunter knew that he had to go home and help his people in any way he could.