LoL frenzied axeman

[Count Duckula]

I started myself a frenzied axebarb who lives off the land. Looking for advice on where to put skill points and stat points.

So far, I've got 1 point in Bash, 1 point in Double Swing, 1 point in Double Throw, 1 point in Howl, 1 point in Shout, 1 point in Taunt, 1 point in Find Potion, 1 point in Find Item, 2 points in Increased Stamina, and the rest in Axe Mastery. I think I have 1 point left over.

I put 10 points in strength, 10 in dexterity, and 10 in vitality. The rest are undistributed.

What should I be aiming for as a LoL? I plan to max Axe Mastery and Frenzy, but where else should I put points? I also use throwing weapons when I can't replace my axes. Would points in Double Throw and Throwing Mastery be useful?

[Brista]

I think the key to playing a frenzy barb is to keep frenzy charged. The basic way to do this is to map Frenzy to the right mouse button and move around the map on click lock allowing your Barb to auto-target monsters that get in his way.

Just for this purpose you might want to pump increased speed a little. It can make the difference between reaching that next monster while the charge is still full and having the charge lapse just as you run smack into a boss pack

I have one who is almost no twink (he got given a rare sword early on but has now out-grown it). It is actually quite easy to find a new monster within 6 seconds as long as you don't get distracted

As for the main skills, it's Frenzy and mastery for AR and damage; BO for safety and party-friendliness, Natural Resistance for, err, not dying

Thrown, Double throw, Taunt, Find potion, Leap attack, Ironskin and Find item are all worthy one pointers. Howl might be useful as a one-pointer if you are keeping close to the monster levels.

One last point about it is that it looks amazing as you whizz through monsters killing everything. Heavily twinked players will pant after you seeing nothing but corpses. Everyone I meet assumes my Barb is twinked to the gills. If this is coop, I'm sure you'll experience this reaction. It is kind of nice in an ego-boost kind of way :D

I would be interested to read how you get on

[Nebuul]

SaggySpeed was my frenzy barb. First, he was . . . well his equipment was a few strokes better than par.

My strat was to get frenzy going then switch to double swing. If it was a big mob, I would WW out of it (only 1 point in WW) to keep from being surrounded. As necessary I would switch to berserk. Even vs. physical immune, it is worth it to get your frenzy going good before switching to berzerk, 'cause then you berzerk really really fast. I have never met another character, with the possible exception of ultra tank, that could survive more easily than my frenzy barb. This is due to extreme resists as well as leeching ability (due to the frequency of hits).


Equipment:
Guardian Angel socketed with CHAM rune (No freeze)
2x Silence Berserker Axe
1.08 Arreat Face Unsocketed/Clean
5% Bul Kathos Ring x2
Gore Riders
Perfect Maras Amulet (I think -- may have been a rare barb amulet)
Random Barb Charms and fast run/walk charms

Skill Distribution:
Battle Orders 20
Axe Mastery 20
Frenzy 20
Whirlwind 1
Natural Resist 1
Iron Skin 1
Increased Speed 1
Battle Command 1
Berserk (Everything Else)


On a side note, his resists were so high that the game marked him "Immune" to cold mastery, so cold sorcs did absolutely nothing to him (90% resist to cold damage leaves very little damage)

[Count Duckula]

Thanks for the tactics advice, Nebuul, I do appreciate it...but your "dream gear" is all a fantasy to me.

Live off the land is a variant from D1 where a player never buys ANYTHING from merchants, never gets items repaired, only talks to townies with exclamation points, never IDs with Cain, and finds all the gear and potions needed. I'm never going to get a high enough MF to find most of those items, and I'm not a big fan of MF anyway. :P (My idea of sweet gear: a three-socket axe.)

Yaga-Shura is 26 at the moment. I've put more points into Find Potion, Increased Stamina, and movement rate. First point of frenzy, but still using double swing till it gets good. I plan on maxing Axe Mastery, Frenzy, and putting 10 points into potion find, double swing, and movement rate.

Thoughts?

[Nebuul]

Use frenzy AND double swing.

Frenzy's only use, IMO, is to get your speed up. Then you just do a whack or two with frenzy every few seconds to keep it going. It isn't a "double swing until frenzy gets good," it is a "always double swing but frenzy also."

[Guest]

I have made 3 frenzy barbs so far. Switching to double swing isnt a great idea IMO. You loose the frenzy damage bonus and onnly get the speed adavantage when you that.

[Nebuul]

Well, my experience was that the bonus from frenzy wasn't nearly as good as the bonus from the extra attacks.

At level 20, you get +185% weapon damage only from frenzy.

Lets say with frenzy you attack 5 times, and with double swing you attack 8 or 9 times. Those extra 3 or 4 attacks are at your full str modified + elemental damage + mastery modified weapon damage. No way frenzy can compete with that kind of damage output.

[D2Player69]

So this "live off the land" restriction you've imposed is an Iron Man variant. Very neat!

I would recommend no more points into Increased Stamina. Generally speaking, one point invested there is more than you'll ever need. After level 12 or so, the Stamina boost you get just from leveling up is enough to keep you from running out of Stamina except in very odd circumstances. And every point in Vitality will give you more Stamina, too.

Remember that your defense rating is zero and your shield block (I know your character probably doesn't use a shield) is reduced to 1/3 normal when you run. So when moving from monster to monster during a battle you'll want to walk, anyway. Also, it might just be my old-man reflexes, but I find it very, very hard to get a click-lock on a critter when Frenzied up if I'm running.

Best wishes,
John H
D2Player69@aol.com

[SolidWolf]

I'm just coming back from like 1.5 years away from the game, but I recall my frenzy barb being the most fun build to play. Probably the best secondary skill that I used with him was warcry. When surrounded, you just belch off a warcry to stun, then frenzy to leech back the mana fast. Rinse and repeat. It makes for an awesome tank in coop groups, and you can save groupmates that are in trouble with the stun, too. As a LoL, you you'll probably want to wait until you find/make enough mana leech to do this, though.

[Kharohz]

heh

with the possible exception of ultra tank

possible.. bleh ;)

[Jeunemaitre]

STOP putting points in increased stamina. You'll get all the stamina you need from points in vitality. Besides, stamina potions are what, the third most common thing to drop in the game behind "nothing" and thawing potions?

Please don't nit-pick, I know there is probably a reference somewhere that I could find to figure out exactly how many drops there are between stamina potions, but the point is you don't need skill points here, they're better used elsewhere...