Future Gear/Build

Zimgo - Dreamweaver

Hey everyone,

I have a level 90 cleric, but I've semi-retired him for now and decided to start working on a barb. I'm currently level 46 and I decided I'd plan ahead to what I want to end up with at level 89 (I won't end up getting the 90 gear until mid-late 90s so I figured I'd go for a slightly sooner goal).

First of all, I'm following a build that I've been told at least a hundred times not to follow, and I've read in numerous threads on the forums that it's a 'dumb idea'. Basically I'm stat-ing just enough points into dex/str do use H.A. of my level, but not enough dex/str to use weapons my level. The remaining points I'm putting into vit, which gives me slightly higher defensive/hp stats than barbs that can use weapons of their level (I have 5.8k hp fully buffed and in tiger form atm). I'm doing this because I want to be a 100% tank, I truthfully couldn't care less about my damage - I'm leaving that to the DDs in the squad. Why is this build such a bad idea? Does damage really matter that much for holding aggro (if damage does matter that much for a barb, the devs. really need to make better aggro skills o.o)? Can anyone explain a bit more than other places I've read that basically just say "lol n00b fail dun do it"? b:chuckle

Secondly, this is a link to the gear that I'm hoping to have by the time I hit 89. I don't cash shop at all (can't afford to) so I have to earn everything in-game through playing. My questions are, is this technically possible in the game (ie. I'm not wearing something restricted to another class or something that's not implemented in the game)? Would it be respectable gear for a level 89 or would I be laughed at? Is it too much to actually earn in-game, reasonable, or could I easily earn more?

A quick comment about the gear shown above. You'll notice that the weapon I chose is a 3-star and non-refined. Again, that's cause I don't care about damage and I don't want to spend valuable coins getting a weapon that does a lot of it. All I need in a weapon is something that gives me a decent boost to accuracy.

Any comments, suggestions, or help you could offer would be great! I just want to know if I'm heading the right way or if I should change something now before it's too late (a.k.a. too expensive in-game) to fix.

Thanks everyone! b:victory

[edit] Forgot to mention, I know I chose p.def ornaments over m.def ones. The reason for that is because I really want my gear to reduce physical damage taken by as much as possible. And since I can't afford to cash shop to get better p.def armor, I'm using the ornaments to compensate. I don't mind the fact that I have to be careful/intelligent about managing magic mobs. Barbs get a good deal of skills that can help them out with that, and I can use genie skills, apo pots, etc. to compensate further . [/edit]

Cybetron - Harshlands

Firstly, don't worry about people laughing at your build. If you can make your build work and prove to be a good tank, with enough survivability and ability to hold aggro, then you need not listen to anyone else. It is your build and your toon. I've a barb with the same build as you, he's a level 100 using pan gu's axe (exactly 252 str and 54 dex) and the rest in VIT - but we aren't here to talk about me b:chuckle

Now, the first thing you have to learn as a barb is YOU WILL EASILY GET YOUR GEAR. You are the tank so farming mats from TTs is easy for you. I recommend that you aim for 90s gear as well and equip it once you get to 90. Believe me, you will easily be able to farm it.

Nevertheless, here's the build that you can have with 80s gear:

http://pwcalc.ru/pwi/?char=454e678751fbef11

I tweaked yours a bit. You will be able to afford Flawless shards even without cash shopping. Grinding for an hour or two would get you the coin needed to buy one. So replace all the beautiful shards with flawless. Changed your hammers to Calamitys (most affordable terrific axes and a must). Sky Demon's Pearl is 300k as a mold - if you sell 2 mats of a TT80 you will be able to afford it. This build is a decent one with 15k HP in tiger mode.

Set your goals high. If you are a good tank then you will be able to afford most of the items by farming TTs or other instances whenever you are on. Being a barb you will never be left without a squad unless you are bad at your job. Good luck b:victory

zedowski

Take a look at this: http://pwcalc.ru/pwi/?char=30f84f8ca127ece6
Self buff only, human form

Zimgo - Dreamweaver

Good to know there are some barbs out there built the way I'm heading, I was starting to think that I wouldn't be able to hold aggro without a weapon equal to my level :P.

Thanks for the modifications of the gear, it's appreciated . I think I'm gonna lay down a plan for level 100 and then work backwards through 90, 80, 70, and 60 just so I can know where I'm headed (I'll use the equipment from the set you recommended as I can). My only questions are about the axes. My cleric happens to have a set of cala axes in the bank that were given to me free by a friend, but they're only +1 with 1 socket. Since I don't care about damage that much, do I really need to get them to +4, or could I use the money to get the 2nd socket and some awesome +acc shards? Also, something I've always been worried about with cala axes is how they can do 5% damage to you, that's a lot more damage %-wise than basically any mob that hits me (if I was able to use the axes now it plays out as follows: I have 5.8k hp, so the 5% damage from cala axes would be 290, and phys mobs hit me for about 80-90 atm... that's like taking ~3.5 hits every time the axe "ticks"), so wouldn't cala axes (even though they give a good boost to HP and damage) just end up killing me? Last question about the axes, if I were to AoE... say Arma, and the axes increase my damage coincidentally, I'd take 50% damage from Arma and then what... only 5% from the axes, or 5% per mob from the axes? x_X

Thanks again for the very helpful reply, and hopefully I'll have no problem finding a squad just like you say :P. On my cleric I was told the same thing but I can almost never find a TT squad, or any higher-level instance for that matter (takes 1-3 hours of searching). I'll post in here with the other 60-100 level builds once I finish them!

Cybetron - Harshlands

Aggro holding depends alot on your squad setup and your own damage. The build that I gave you is probably the most "aggro-holdable" going by your own commitment of restricting your str and dex. My barb (with similar build) surely wasn't able to hold aggro from alot of high leveled (95+) DDs (especially the heavily cash shopping ones) but then again, this toon (with massive str build, refines of weapon and demon skills) also fails in that aspect. But don't worry about holding aggro after 90s, you will find your own way.

Your build will hold aggro till you are 90, especially with those calamitys. Most of our aggro management is skill based anyway. The extra damage that we do is just a reinforcement.

Calamitys, or rather the zerk effect, is one of the best elements in this game for barbs. When you would be tanking in squads (which is 90% of your PWI life) you will be accompanied by a cleric whose sole job would be to heal you. The 5% of HP hit that you take from Calamitys is healed by a single IH from cleric. But in return you get DOUBLE DAMAGE.

Arma with a zerk effect and a crit = biggest p damage in game. You will start loving the zerk effect (sacrificial stirke) so much that you'ld use start using Arma just to see big numbers pop up on your screen b:chuckle Each zerked hit only takes 5% off your HP. No less, no more. b:pleased

Zimgo - Dreamweaver

zedowski wrote: »

Take a look at this: http://pwcalc.ru/pwi/?char=30f84f8ca127ece6
Self buff only, human form

That looks good too, seems a fair bit more expensive though because of increasing everything to +3, and seeing as I'm not cash shopping would I be able to make much use of that by the time I can afford it all before needing to upgrade to 9x gear? The immacs in the weapon would be ideal, but those can be around 1mil coins each, right? I also understand where you're coming from with the tome of +7str and +6vit, but I really like the 4 extra vit (that's 115 extra hp in sage tiger with a regular level 10 hp buff). As long as I have enough str/dex to use HA I don't need any more. I like that you lowered the cala axes to +3 (I may even go to +2 tbh), +4 seemed a bit too expensive for the slight extra damage it does. I like the belt that you chose, but I also like the one that was already there. Yours gives much more HP (135 more), but far less p.def (292 less), both of which I basically want to be drunk on, so I have to make a choice there (and the 3 mp recover would help out endlessly in grinding, maybe I should get both and switch to the more useful one at the time?)... b:lipcurl

Also, the build I suggested had 209 vit, 202 str, and 44 dex - how come you switched 7 of the vit to dex? And I forgot that you can reset stats to 3, good call b:thanks

Thanks for the input! I'll have to look into it a bit more b:laugh

Cybetron - Harshlands

You would be able to afford +4ing your axe. You will end up with so many mirages late game that not +4ing it would be impossible b:chuckle Trust me, I started slow, thinking I'ld have to settle with low refines and bad armor, but when you start tanking those instances and making friends you will get much better armor and refines.

A +10 vit tome will give you +10 vit but a +7 str and +6 vit will give you +13 vit. Since you will already have +7 str you can now aim for 202 - 7 str and dump the 7 points in vit. So effectively, you will have +13 vit.

Zimgo - Dreamweaver

Cybetron - Harshlands wrote: »

Arma with a zerk effect and a crit = biggest p damage in game. You will start loving the zerk effect (sacrificial stirke) so much that you'ld use start using Arma just to see big numbers pop up on your screen b:chuckle Each zerked hit only takes 5% off your HP. No less, no more. b:pleased

That's good to know, I was mainly worried that if I was tanking 4+ mobs at once and I used an AoE if it was gonna do 20%+ damage to me instantly, glad to know it won't :P. Can you tell when it does the zerk effect besides taking damage and doing more? As in, does it say something on-screen?

Cybetron - Harshlands wrote: »

You would be able to afford +4ing your axe. You will end up with so many mirages late game that not +4ing it would be impossible b:chuckle Trust me, I started slow, thinking I'ld have to settle with low refines and bad armor, but when you start tanking those instances and making friends you will get much better armor and refines.

A +10 vit tome will give you +10 vit but a +7 str and +6 vit will give you +13 vit. Since you will already have +7 str you can now aim for 202 - 7 str and dump the 7 points in vit. So effectively, you will have +13 vit.

Thanks for pointing that out, so here's another equipment set based on what's been suggested. I've changed the stats around a bit (let me know if the str is just too low to keep aggro, I want to have it as low as possible, but I need to be able to tank :P) and switched up some of the gear to mix-and-match between the mentioned sets.

Thanks again, you have no idea how helpful this is b:laugh

Kephras - Heavens Tear

With luck, patience, and a healthy supply of mirages, you can do +3 or even +4 everything without spending a dime on D.Orbs. As for "low damage", only thing I want to point out there is that while your damage is more or less irrelevant on [?] bosses, it does help considerably on anything your level, since DD's are doing full damage. When you start getting further up you might see yourself having a tougher time tanking BH and FB runs. For TT and Frost later on, it likely won't matter. Two things that will help you out though:
-Avoid Devour since it'll increase the damage from phys DDs like BMs, Archers, and Sins and ultimately hurt your aggro.
-Sunder is almost as good as FR for holding hate, use it often if you find yourself slipping up during a run.

Gear seems fine to me, got nothing useful to contribute there.

Zimgo - Dreamweaver

Luck isn't something I tend to have on my side, so hopefully my patience will make up for that :P. Thanks for the tips, luckily I plan on doing tons of TT's and other "[?]-boss" dungeons. I find that BHs and FBs, even though they give great xp, tend to get boring around 59/69 when you're basically "forced" by everyone to start wine-ing them. On my cleric, since BH69 started at level 80 I've only done 2 BHs, and both of which were with a squad that went unwined. I like the difficulties and strategies that plenty of mobs in the dungeon pose, even if they take 2-3 hours to do sometimes :P. So yes, TTs, FCs, and more ftw :P.

Thanks again for the info!