For the love of god! Save me!

[Occhidiangela]

:ph34r:
My barbarians  level 71 and in hell act 3. Heres his equipment set up:

Natalyas Totem/IK helm/Blackhorns face(Helm)(donno what to choose)
Blessed ornate plate(Armour)
Butchers pupil(Axe) and moser's shield with 2pd. On switch have a Buriza(xbow)
Crafted saftey amulet(The 4 random mods stink)/rare amulet with + to warcries(Ammy)
Laying of hands(Gloves)
Rite of pasage(Boots)
Gloom's trap(Belt)
Manald heal & Stone of Jordan(rings)

It's taken me plenty of Nm Baals runs to get this stuff. (and a few hell andy runs too :P )

Why am i dying so often? What am i doing wrong? Is this setup any good? Help me out here people.

I use concentrate and battle cry/battle orders/shout.

before i hit the big D himself  :wacko:  I need better equipment i think. What sort of stuff can i expect at this point of time? My MF tops out at 200 roughly.

any more info needed, please let me know.

Cheers
:ph34r:
[right][snapback]66435[/snapback][/right]

EDITED: I realize yesterday's reply was a bit hurried, so I have added a few questions and comments. 1-27-2005.

A small part of your "to hit" problem lies in the Level Gap. 71 vs 80 something. The slower the bad guys die, the more often they get a shot at you. The less often you hit them, the slower they die. Using Battle Cry is a good technique to improve your base "to hit" chances and to cut their damage to you. However, if swarmed, you can die sorta quick.

As a reminder: % Chance to Hit for Melee Attacks: 100 * AR / (AR + DR) * 2 * alvl / (alvl + dlvl)

AR = Attack Rating; alvl = Level of Attacker; dlvl = Level of Defender.

Conversely, their 80-82 alvl versus your dlvl gives them a bonus to hit you due to level differential.

For you, the reduction is rougly 71*2/(71+81) (.934) and their bonus is 81*2/71+81 (1.07) so there is roughly a 7% penaly to you and a 7% bonus for them. FWIW.

Q: May I assume that you have you maxed out Axe Mastery?

1. What is your total leach percentage, and how much life do you have with and without BO?

2. Have you tried to use Taunt in a tactical sense? Taunt is a prereq for Battle Orders in any case. To split some of the bad guys off into smaller, bite sized groups, Taunt at range, kill a few at a time using your Battle Cry and Concentrate pattern, rinse and repeat. It has an added bonus, before you overwrite it with BattleCry, of reducing their AR and Damage to you. Only applies to regular monsters, Champs and Bosses are immune to Taunt.

3. What kind of mercenary are you using? Some Act II mercs help more than others in Hell. Ii have found that a two socketed Lance, with Amn Tir (Strength Rune Word) is a decent weapon that uses stuff you have probably found by now. Crushing blow does not hurt, and the life leach helps keep the merc alive against all but Undead and Act End Bosses.

4. How are you Handling Physical Immunes? Berserk?

5. Is your problem Undead Soul Killers, i.e., the exploding bi*** rats from hell? Or is everything killing you?

5. What part of Act III are you in? Taunting the Flayers who shoot at you with blow guns is a good way to reduce the "death by a gazillion little missiles" problem.

6. What is your resists posture? From your equipment, it appears that you may be a bit low on resists. Low on resists will be a real mess for you in Hell Act IV, particularly fire, from the Balrogs, and Lightinig, the gloams. Not to mention the Abyss Knights and Oblivion Knights.

For What It's Worth:

7. Butcher's Pupil is a fine Axe. Monster HP are high in Hell, takes a while to kill each one, as you have not doubt noticed.

8. For hats . . . I suggest, given your current equipment, Blackthorn's Face. You might want to socket it with a resist rune, pick an element, or an Um, if you have one, since its Prevent Monster Heal and Slows Target are very handy Mods. Monster Regeneration rates, especiallly for mini bosses, are rather nasty in Hell Difficulty. PMH shuts it off for the duration of most fights.

The poison damage on your gloves does something similar, stops regen for a few seconds (until your next hit hopefully) so maybe the IK hat, socketed with two resist runes(Ral and Ort are a good choice) or with a couple of Sol runes (if you have them they will add up to -14 Physical Damage reduced.) The +2 to Warcries does not hurt, certainly.

9. You can probably gamble some good belts, not sure why you focused on Mana Regen with your equipment, however, not everyone drinks blues as often as I do. With mana leach severely curtailed in Hell Diff, I just accept that I have to drink more and pick up the blue pots that drop consistently. To each his own.

10. Boots and Belts with decent resists I have gambled frequently. Depends on how much gold you tend to pick up and how often you pick up items (staves, wands, Sceptres, orbs) that go for big bucks at vendors.

11. Consider rings with resists in your set up. Low resists on your amulet and ring slots may be a place to, versus certain foes, change up equipment. The rare +warcries amulet has, I hope, some decent resistances?

12. Have you put a point into Battle Command? A buffing order like this: Battle Command, Battle Orders, Battle Command, Shout helps boost all of your warcries and masteries and skills a bit. More points from + warcries and + skills just means a shorter refresh for the +1 boost.

13. Hang in there. You may want to go back to Acts I and II and build a few levels in Champ/Boss rich areas before hitting Act IV.

Occhi