I've had abit of snoop around the forum, and I've noticed the common perception is that Barbs cannot do speed runs due to gear dependance and single target eliminations. I've had abit of a thought about it and came up with a strategy to get barb through normal. 100% runs seem rather dull, and i want to avoid it, but i am still working on what to skip for barb, seeing as it needs the gear that the quests often provide.
Level - aiming for 21, but might need to be around 24.
Stats;
Str - 75
DX - 65
VT - rest
EN - 15
Skills;
Combat - Bash(6), Leap(1), LeapA(1), Stun(1), DS(1), DT(1), Conc(4), Frenzy(1)
WC - Shout 2+, everything else 1 each except find pot/item
Passive - ThrowM(1), Any melee weapon(1), Iron skin(1)
Equip
The equipment seems to be the achillies heel of barbs. so i'll try to adress what i can here. The easiest way to get decent equip other than luck manipulation would be runewords and crafted items, heres a few of what i am talking about.
Steel
Tir (3) + El (1)
Works: Sword, Axe, Mace
Doesn't work: Maul, Great Maul, War Hammer
Clvl Required: 13 +20% Enhanced Damage
+3 Minimum Damage
+3 Maximum Damage
+50 Attack Rating
50% Chance of Open Wounds
+1 light radius
+2 mana per kill
25% Increased Attack Speed
Malice
Ith (6) + El (1) + Eth (5)
Works: All Melee Weapons
Clvl Required: 15 +33% enhanced damage
+9 max damage
+50 Attack Rating
100% chance of open wounds
-100 monster def/hit
Prevents Monster Heal
-25% target defense
Life drain -5
Holy Thunder
Eth (6) + Ral (8 ) + Ort (9) + Tal (7)
Scepters only
Clvl Required: 21 Level 7 Chain Lightning 60 charges
-25% Target Defense
+60% Enhanced Damage
+75 Poison Damage over 7 secs
+5% Maximum Lightning Resistance
+60% Lightning Resistance
+21-110 Lightning Damage
+5-30 Fire Damage
+3 to Holy Shock
150% Damage vs. Undead
Ancient's Pledge
Ral (8 ) + Ort (9) + Tal (7)
Shields
Clvl Required: 21 +43% Cold Resistance
+48% Fire/Lightning/Poison Resistance
10% Damage Taken Goes to Mana
+50% Enhanced Defense Recipe is given by Qual-Kehk as a reward for completing the second quest in Act Five. The inherent bonuses on Paladin shields will stack with the runeword properties.
Rhyme
Shael (13) + Eth (5)
Shields (All types)
Clvl Required: 17 Cannot be Frozen
40% Faster Block Rate
20% Increased Chance of Blocking
Regenerate Mana 15%
+25% to all Resistances
+25% to Magic Find
+50% Extra Gold from Monsters
Nadir
Nef (4) + Tir (3)
Headgear (all types)
Clvl Required: 13 Level 13 Cloak of Shadows (9 charges)
+50% Enhanced Defense
+2 mana per kill
-3 light radius
+30 Defense vs. missile
+10 Defense
+5 Strength
-33% gold from monsters
Stealth
Tal (7) + Eth (5)
Body Armor
Clvl Required: 17 25% Faster Casting Rate
25% Faster Hit Recovery
25% Faster run/walk speed
-3 magical damage taken
+15% Mana Regeneration Rate
+30% Poison Resistance
+15% Maximum Stamina
+6 Dexterity
Myth
Hel (15) + Amn (11) + Nef (4)
Clvl Required: 25 3% Chance To Cast Level 1 Howl When Struck
10% Chance To Cast Level 1 Taunt On Striking
+2 To Barbarian Skill Levels
+30 Defense Vs. Missile
Replenish Life +10
Attacker Takes Damage of 14
Requirements -15%
As you can see, Most of the runes with exception of Hel and Shael will be relatively easy to obtain, namely the countess in A1 drops 2-3 of them. It covers Armor, Helm, Shield and Weapons. Its just a matter of finding the right items with the amount of sockets. Malice is especially nice, I've found 2 hits on most things and it'll bleed to death in a few seconds. Holy Thunder may be scepters only, but its got a nice +26-140 elemental dmg and 75 poison dmg. Pretty nice for a 1hander.
For Crafted items, Blood seems to be the way to go.
Blood Gloves Magic Heavy Gloves/Sharkskin Gloves/Vampirebone Gloves
Nef Rune
Perfect Ruby
Any Jewel
Crushing Blow (5-10)%
(1-3)% Life Stolen Per Hit
+(10-20) To Life
Blood Belt Magic Belt/Mesh Belt/Mithril Coil
Tal Rune
Perfect Ruby
Any Jewel
Open Wounds (5-10)%
(1-3)% Life Stolen Per Hit
+(10-20) To Life
Blood Amulet Magic Amulet
Amn Rune
Perfect Ruby
Any Jewel
5-10% Faster Run/Walk
(1-4)% Life Stolen Per Hit
+(10-20) To Life
All of the above mats are very easy to obtain, with the exception of perfect ruby. Its eventually obtainable, its a matter of when can you get it. Getting blooded gloves early with its CB will help out during boss fights. In addition, you can also Imbue a weapon in A1, which helps bridge a gap between gear requirements. If somehow a jackpot is scored by finding an item that sells for 10k, the option of buying charged items becomes a possibility.
Strats for Acts
Act1 - If we're talking about 100% run, then rush to blood raven first, then move to darkwoods to get the scroll and rescue cain. Aim for cain and the special mobs for exp, the tp out. The ring thats gotten afterwards can be good sales if money is needed, buy javs with the money. After that, it would be a good time to do den for reasons that you get more stam and you can port out of den afterwards and go straight to DW wp. Countess shouldnt take too long and it drops juicy basic runes to make Steel. After that, just rush through and do the other 2 quests as such.
Level bash to kill things, but put 1 point into howl to scatter melee fest. you can still hit the monsters as they are running away. pick up and store any javalins you happen to find. Its got great throw damage for its level, and it can be used to kill a pack of special monsters you couldn't melee. in the first few levels, if you see a monster that wouldnt be overkilled with jav, use it. its alot faster. Double Throw does alot of damage once its learnt, but it uses up stockpiles too quickly. If scepters and blunts are found, keep them and switch to them when hitting masses of undead. once gotten double swing, use dw and blitz through as much as possible until hits become fairly hard, then put on a shield and use bash to get through whats left. Use antidote pots and look out for poison res rings or -duration items, it'll be useful for andy and A2. finally, when fighting bosses, use Shout + BC so that even if you only have 70% chance to hit, BC will bring down the defence by 50%.
A2 - Do all of the quests, Leap through arcane sanc and as much of act as possible. Use Tower shield(req 75str) or any good shield aginest durial. Would be nice if the shield has +chance to block +block speed +cold resistance. Build up Malice if haven't done so already. Bash / Conc aginest durial, and keep BC and Shout up and use Blessed aim merc. Keep self alive and durial focused on self and bleed / CB durial whilst letting the merc finish it off.
A3 - Make a bee line towards the kalim artifacts and giblet. Wouldn't worry about the statue as thats easily farmed. Use leap to skip rivers and skip council members if possible, use howl to scatter the non special ones. Once gotten to Meph, use Double Throw and avoid its ice spheres. By the time you get a 3 socket war sword or axe, upgrade them to malice.
A4 - Start getting blooded items ready and fire resistance up. Use Leap for the river and use CoS from nadir helm to get through much of chaos sanc. Its mostly iron maiden and clustered of ranged thats going to screw with you. melee could be feared, whilst you can be free to move on or pick them off. One thing though, Chaos sanc should be proceeded with caution, much too easy to get killed in there. With diablo, I wouldn't melee him unless 1) got flurry AND bleed/CB 2) got high def and fire resistance. use lots of tps, and grind him away with DT.
A5 - Not much to say, just leap all the way to quests. use the Ancients runeword shield and lure pack 3-5 of baal's minions out with flurry if level 24 else leap and howl. with baal, its back to using a shield and leap through his wave attacks if you're using throws. Ancients aren't too bad. Keep shield, shout and conc up and bleed them and range them until they're down to one then flurry/DS to finish them. When fighting baal, Hope that bleeds, CBs and merc damage would be enough. Same as durial, keep BC, Shouts, and BO ups whilst if possible back up and use DT or use it for flurry and switch back to sword and board.
Flurry lasts 6 sec. BC last 12sec, Shouts and BO will most likely last around 40sec. If switching could be fast enough, for every 2 flurries do a BC, for 3 BC refreash Shout and BO. in the meantime pot up and use conc / bash.
Overall, this requires alot of actions of atleast 8 skills that you need to switch around and use constantly in a minute, but with so much utility, you can be prepared for many situations and boost the current abilities.
With merc, A2 blessed aim is good. if ar is enough definance or A3 cold merc is a good choice. A1 merc could be used if aginest diabio / meph and with a Zephyr bow.
Overall, theres still many things to cover and i intend to build it up, but from what i can see so far, its quite feasable to do a barb speed run within 3 hours, hopefully close to 2.
Level - aiming for 21, but might need to be around 24.
Stats;
Str - 75
DX - 65
VT - rest
EN - 15
Skills;
Combat - Bash(6), Leap(1), LeapA(1), Stun(1), DS(1), DT(1), Conc(4), Frenzy(1)
WC - Shout 2+, everything else 1 each except find pot/item
Passive - ThrowM(1), Any melee weapon(1), Iron skin(1)
Equip
The equipment seems to be the achillies heel of barbs. so i'll try to adress what i can here. The easiest way to get decent equip other than luck manipulation would be runewords and crafted items, heres a few of what i am talking about.
Steel
Tir (3) + El (1)
Works: Sword, Axe, Mace
Doesn't work: Maul, Great Maul, War Hammer
Clvl Required: 13 +20% Enhanced Damage
+3 Minimum Damage
+3 Maximum Damage
+50 Attack Rating
50% Chance of Open Wounds
+1 light radius
+2 mana per kill
25% Increased Attack Speed
Malice
Ith (6) + El (1) + Eth (5)
Works: All Melee Weapons
Clvl Required: 15 +33% enhanced damage
+9 max damage
+50 Attack Rating
100% chance of open wounds
-100 monster def/hit
Prevents Monster Heal
-25% target defense
Life drain -5
Holy Thunder
Eth (6) + Ral (8 ) + Ort (9) + Tal (7)
Scepters only
Clvl Required: 21 Level 7 Chain Lightning 60 charges
-25% Target Defense
+60% Enhanced Damage
+75 Poison Damage over 7 secs
+5% Maximum Lightning Resistance
+60% Lightning Resistance
+21-110 Lightning Damage
+5-30 Fire Damage
+3 to Holy Shock
150% Damage vs. Undead
Ancient's Pledge
Ral (8 ) + Ort (9) + Tal (7)
Shields
Clvl Required: 21 +43% Cold Resistance
+48% Fire/Lightning/Poison Resistance
10% Damage Taken Goes to Mana
+50% Enhanced Defense Recipe is given by Qual-Kehk as a reward for completing the second quest in Act Five. The inherent bonuses on Paladin shields will stack with the runeword properties.
Rhyme
Shael (13) + Eth (5)
Shields (All types)
Clvl Required: 17 Cannot be Frozen
40% Faster Block Rate
20% Increased Chance of Blocking
Regenerate Mana 15%
+25% to all Resistances
+25% to Magic Find
+50% Extra Gold from Monsters
Nadir
Nef (4) + Tir (3)
Headgear (all types)
Clvl Required: 13 Level 13 Cloak of Shadows (9 charges)
+50% Enhanced Defense
+2 mana per kill
-3 light radius
+30 Defense vs. missile
+10 Defense
+5 Strength
-33% gold from monsters
Stealth
Tal (7) + Eth (5)
Body Armor
Clvl Required: 17 25% Faster Casting Rate
25% Faster Hit Recovery
25% Faster run/walk speed
-3 magical damage taken
+15% Mana Regeneration Rate
+30% Poison Resistance
+15% Maximum Stamina
+6 Dexterity
Myth
Hel (15) + Amn (11) + Nef (4)
Clvl Required: 25 3% Chance To Cast Level 1 Howl When Struck
10% Chance To Cast Level 1 Taunt On Striking
+2 To Barbarian Skill Levels
+30 Defense Vs. Missile
Replenish Life +10
Attacker Takes Damage of 14
Requirements -15%
As you can see, Most of the runes with exception of Hel and Shael will be relatively easy to obtain, namely the countess in A1 drops 2-3 of them. It covers Armor, Helm, Shield and Weapons. Its just a matter of finding the right items with the amount of sockets. Malice is especially nice, I've found 2 hits on most things and it'll bleed to death in a few seconds. Holy Thunder may be scepters only, but its got a nice +26-140 elemental dmg and 75 poison dmg. Pretty nice for a 1hander.
For Crafted items, Blood seems to be the way to go.
Blood Gloves Magic Heavy Gloves/Sharkskin Gloves/Vampirebone Gloves
Nef Rune
Perfect Ruby
Any Jewel
Crushing Blow (5-10)%
(1-3)% Life Stolen Per Hit
+(10-20) To Life
Blood Belt Magic Belt/Mesh Belt/Mithril Coil
Tal Rune
Perfect Ruby
Any Jewel
Open Wounds (5-10)%
(1-3)% Life Stolen Per Hit
+(10-20) To Life
Blood Amulet Magic Amulet
Amn Rune
Perfect Ruby
Any Jewel
5-10% Faster Run/Walk
(1-4)% Life Stolen Per Hit
+(10-20) To Life
All of the above mats are very easy to obtain, with the exception of perfect ruby. Its eventually obtainable, its a matter of when can you get it. Getting blooded gloves early with its CB will help out during boss fights. In addition, you can also Imbue a weapon in A1, which helps bridge a gap between gear requirements. If somehow a jackpot is scored by finding an item that sells for 10k, the option of buying charged items becomes a possibility.
Strats for Acts
Act1 - If we're talking about 100% run, then rush to blood raven first, then move to darkwoods to get the scroll and rescue cain. Aim for cain and the special mobs for exp, the tp out. The ring thats gotten afterwards can be good sales if money is needed, buy javs with the money. After that, it would be a good time to do den for reasons that you get more stam and you can port out of den afterwards and go straight to DW wp. Countess shouldnt take too long and it drops juicy basic runes to make Steel. After that, just rush through and do the other 2 quests as such.
Level bash to kill things, but put 1 point into howl to scatter melee fest. you can still hit the monsters as they are running away. pick up and store any javalins you happen to find. Its got great throw damage for its level, and it can be used to kill a pack of special monsters you couldn't melee. in the first few levels, if you see a monster that wouldnt be overkilled with jav, use it. its alot faster. Double Throw does alot of damage once its learnt, but it uses up stockpiles too quickly. If scepters and blunts are found, keep them and switch to them when hitting masses of undead. once gotten double swing, use dw and blitz through as much as possible until hits become fairly hard, then put on a shield and use bash to get through whats left. Use antidote pots and look out for poison res rings or -duration items, it'll be useful for andy and A2. finally, when fighting bosses, use Shout + BC so that even if you only have 70% chance to hit, BC will bring down the defence by 50%.
A2 - Do all of the quests, Leap through arcane sanc and as much of act as possible. Use Tower shield(req 75str) or any good shield aginest durial. Would be nice if the shield has +chance to block +block speed +cold resistance. Build up Malice if haven't done so already. Bash / Conc aginest durial, and keep BC and Shout up and use Blessed aim merc. Keep self alive and durial focused on self and bleed / CB durial whilst letting the merc finish it off.
A3 - Make a bee line towards the kalim artifacts and giblet. Wouldn't worry about the statue as thats easily farmed. Use leap to skip rivers and skip council members if possible, use howl to scatter the non special ones. Once gotten to Meph, use Double Throw and avoid its ice spheres. By the time you get a 3 socket war sword or axe, upgrade them to malice.
A4 - Start getting blooded items ready and fire resistance up. Use Leap for the river and use CoS from nadir helm to get through much of chaos sanc. Its mostly iron maiden and clustered of ranged thats going to screw with you. melee could be feared, whilst you can be free to move on or pick them off. One thing though, Chaos sanc should be proceeded with caution, much too easy to get killed in there. With diablo, I wouldn't melee him unless 1) got flurry AND bleed/CB 2) got high def and fire resistance. use lots of tps, and grind him away with DT.
A5 - Not much to say, just leap all the way to quests. use the Ancients runeword shield and lure pack 3-5 of baal's minions out with flurry if level 24 else leap and howl. with baal, its back to using a shield and leap through his wave attacks if you're using throws. Ancients aren't too bad. Keep shield, shout and conc up and bleed them and range them until they're down to one then flurry/DS to finish them. When fighting baal, Hope that bleeds, CBs and merc damage would be enough. Same as durial, keep BC, Shouts, and BO ups whilst if possible back up and use DT or use it for flurry and switch back to sword and board.
Flurry lasts 6 sec. BC last 12sec, Shouts and BO will most likely last around 40sec. If switching could be fast enough, for every 2 flurries do a BC, for 3 BC refreash Shout and BO. in the meantime pot up and use conc / bash.
Overall, this requires alot of actions of atleast 8 skills that you need to switch around and use constantly in a minute, but with so much utility, you can be prepared for many situations and boost the current abilities.
With merc, A2 blessed aim is good. if ar is enough definance or A3 cold merc is a good choice. A1 merc could be used if aginest diabio / meph and with a Zephyr bow.
Overall, theres still many things to cover and i intend to build it up, but from what i can see so far, its quite feasable to do a barb speed run within 3 hours, hopefully close to 2.
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