New to Diablo

[LancEr]

Hi,
I just bought Diablo, Diablo 2 and Lord of Destruction. I have tried a few characters myself before searching the internet for guides and tips. After 10 attempts, I finally managed to get a character to Act 3 Normal(LOD). Then, I found that my character was horribly built and I deleted it. It was then that I decided to seek other people's help.

Here are my questions(Mostly regarding LOD):
1. I am thinking of building a Babarian. How should I distribute my attribute points? For example, how many points should I put in Vitality every level up etc. Also, what are the main skills that a Barbarian should have?

2. As for equipment, what should I look out for in helms, amulets, rings, charms etc? Also, what should I put in my socketed items?

3. Please give me some help on how to deal with specific monsters. For example, Fetish/Flayer/Soul Killer Shamans who take away half of my life orb in a second, Scarab demons with deadly lightning bolts and Champion Unravellers with poison that can reduce my life to 1 in seconds?

Any help with the 3 questions above will be appreciated.

-LancEr

[--Pete]

Hi,

There are some guides at http://www.lurkerlounge.com/diablo2/strategy/ which can be of some help although they are obsolete because of the version changes. And with 1.10 more or less coming out, the changes will continue and good strategy will have to be evolved again.

For now, I have been following a fairly simple build with Ugar, my 1.10 Barb, and it has been working OK. So, this is neither optimal not sophisticated but it is getting the job done :)

1 . . . How should I distribute my attribute points? . . .

I've been putting 1 point per clvl into Vit and using the other points as needed to equip gear. At clvl 35, he has 60 unallocated stat points. Except for act end bosses and brain farts on my part, he survives battles quite nicely at players 8.

. . .what are the main skills . . .

I like to focus on one weapon (in Ugar's case an ax) and usually max that. In addition, a point in Leap and Leap Attack are well worth it for the maneuverability. Other than that, I have a tendency to go with Combat Masteries since they don't take mana and that simplifies my life (after all, if I wanted to play a magic user, there are better classes than the Barb. :) )

2 . . . what should I look out for in helms, amulets, rings, charms etc? . . .

Life steal and life regen are nice. He has 7% steal and a total of 11% regen -- keeps the belt drain down. Other than that it is nice to have lots of damage, especially in elemental and poison. Cold, of course, is doubly valuable. He carries a few charms to add the elemental that he doesn't get from other gear. Resistances are good, especially lightning which I try to max. And, of course, the ability to do vast amounts of damage is what the barb's all about :)

So, from the gear that falls and you can buy (and don't overlook gambling, most of Ugar's gear came from friendly wagers) try to build up in those general areas. Use sockets to fill in the gaps, realizing that you'll go through a number of "outfits" before your barb gets full grown.

3. Please give me some help on how to deal with specific monsters. . . .

Poison and cold are both handled best by items that reduce the duration, IMO. Sometimes it is worth keeping an item or two (rings and ammys being nice and portable) for specific cases. Lightning is tempered somewhat by resistance. Not having a merc that is shooting the lightning monster also helps a lot :). There are places where you can stand and hit a lightning enhanced monster and not be hit, find them, learn them and try to use them. Other than that, "divide and conquer" is a valid strategy. Because of monsters that resurrect others, it can't be applied too simple mindedly. But a point in leap attack will let you draw the small fry away from the resurrector and then get back to kill him. Sometimes that has to be applied a couple of times.

EDIT: Forgot to mention -- you can switch between two setups. Use one of them for a ranged weapon. Sometimes the best way to get lightning monsters is to hit them with a ranged weapon, especially if you do a fair amount of cold damage.

Other than that, I'd say observe and learn from what is happening. If you avoid using all your stat and skill points right away, you can add them judiciously as you find problems.

--Pete

[Occhidiangela]

A. Put a point into Find Potion. It does two things.

1. It rolls the dice for a chance to find a potion. Whee, save a gold piece or two, get a shot at a full rejuve late in the game

2. It destroys the corpse, which means that it can't be raised by the Shaman, UnRaveler, etc.

B. Put a point into Taunt. (WarCry) It is one of my favorite one point wonders.

What does Taunt do for you?

It allows you to break bunches of critters into smaller bunches who have to come running to you. It also allows you to call the "raisers" to you. For example, you can call a Shaman to you, you kill him. Now that no one is raising Fallen, you can kill them without them rising up again. Likewise, all those undead in Act II who keep getting up again after you had just whacked them.

Note: Taunt does not work on bosses or champs, so when you run into a Shaman pack with a Shaman boss and Shaman minions, you may need to "kill it, immediately cast Find Potion" since you can't Taunt the boss Shaman over to you for dispatch.

Taunting Fetish Shamans works to get them to stop raising flayers, and makes them come to you. Fire resistance is needed to withstand their fire blast, which is a form of Inferno.

What I typically do when low on fire resistance, tactically, is approach them, and then "circle around them" while they shoot their fire, and then jump in and attack when the Inferno stops. The AI won't lead you with the Inferno, so by arcing around the Shaman, even at pretty close range, his spray stays behind you. If you use Leap to close that last bit of distance, the skill Leap provides a slight knock back which stuns them for a short while, during which they won't spray you with their next bit of Flaming Halitosis.

Unravellers: You have 4 rows on your belt. If you are not going to pump Poison resistance, which is fine, Lightning and Fire are more important, make sure one row has black antidote potions in it so that when you turn green, you drink, in this order, black and red or black and purple potions. That takes care of you until the next breath.

Items with "reduces poison length" and "poison Resistance" are handy as Pete pointed out. If you will be in an area with lots of poison critters, switch your rings/amulets to those with the most poison resistance and poison reduction. That should help a bit.

As for Skills:

When you get to 24, make sure you get a point into Battle Orders. That warcry boosts both Mana and Health for a short time, very handy indeed.

As for items:

I would suggest that unless you have found the Green Berserker's Helm and Armor, to keep an eye out for Barbarian Only Helms. Skills handy to have at your level would include:

+2 or +3 to the Weapons Mastery you have chosen.
+ to Combat Skills, or your preferred Combat Skill
+ to Leap or Leap Attack

Unless you found a great piece of gear, I have found that per gold piece spend for outcome achieved, Gambling is best used, in Normal Difficulty, for

Gloves
Boots
Belts
(By act V, I tend to Gamble for a Rare Pike if I am using an Act II Mercenary.)

Your Mileage May Vary

You can get rares with multiple affixes, with multiple resistances. I am a bit of a scavenger, and I do a lot of "item recycling" just to be sure I have a well funded gambling kitty every so often.

As you go up in level, the potential quality of the gambled items improves.

Skills and Builds:

What most folks typically do is pick a Combat skill at the high end of the skill tree and only put prerequisite skill points, at one each, into skills that get you there. Example: One point each into Bash, Stun, Concentrate, Berserk, then max Berserk.

They also choose a weapon type, be it Axe, Sword, Spear, Mace, Pole Arm, and max that mastery as soon as they can. (Per Pete's Suggestion.)

Folks typically max out Battle orders for two reasons: Health and Mana. (See above.)

That should take you to the end of nightmare. After that, mix and match to taste, at least on point in each passive mastery, Increased Speed, Stamina, Iron Skin and Natural Resistances is a pretty standard approach to get at least a little benefit from those passive masteries.

Pick one that looks interesting to you, and have at it.

[roguebanshee]

Also, what should I put in my socketed items?

Armors & Helms : Rubies (+ health) & Saphires (+ mana) are good for low level characters

Shields : Diamonds & Um-runes (+ resist all) are the usual option if you lack resists

Weapons : Rubies, Saphires, Emeralds, Topaz', Ith-runes, Tal-runes, Ral-runes, Ort-runes, Thul-runes & Sol-runes all give some damage which is nice for a barbarian. If you find yourself missing a lot then Amethysts & El-runes may help too (dexterity and tha apropriate weapon mastery will also help here).

Various jewels will useful too, but these are random and should be valuated individually.

You should also check out what Rune Words you are able to make, these will usually boost you significantly more than adding random gems/jewels/runes but they are offset by more stringent requirements.

Finally you should check out the Cube Recipes to add some more options for your equipment.

Note that the information in those two links are for 1.09 (+ some more or less correct information for the 1.10 beta) and most rune words will not work in previous versions, some cube recipes may be different too. If you are playing on bnet you will be using 1.09d and should be able to trust the links.

Btw. Use skill hotkeys if you aren't already, they can help a lot.

[DeathByDesign]

are you playing on realms and if so what realm?

[LancEr]

Pete, Occhidiangela and roguebanshee: Thanks a lot for the advice.
DeathByDesign: I am playing the 1.10 beta now. I played on the realms for a short while before downloading the beta. However, I don't really like the realms as my frame rate drops drastically and my ping shoots up to incredibly high numbers when I am playing on the realms.

LancEr