01-23-2004, 03:25 PM
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.
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.