Failed builds - Don’t waste your high runes!

So i found a +17

Inferno flame bellow the other day, had another in my stash. I finally got around to re-specing one of my barbs to try out the “

Inferno” barb. He had a barb Flickering Flame, all the +gear he could get (less the armour, 4 x 5/5 facets actually adds more damage). So he come out somewhere in the low 50s, Merc had an Infinity.

Rest of the skills were to the stunning

War Cry

And it sux… don’t do it!


Like it works on P1, but i tried P8 and it just kills soooo sloooow. It’s got 5k life, so at least he can tank lots. Could be a build to stand around in

Baal runs to BO everybody, then just stand there tanking and spewing flames at ~850 damage/sec

Nate2.0 wrote: 8 months ago

So i found a +17

Inferno flame bellow the other day, had another in my stash. I finally got around to re-specing one of my barbs to try out the “

Inferno” barb. (...)
Could be a build to stand around in

Baal runs to BO everybody, then just stand there tanking and spewing flames at ~850 damage/sec

This is the issue of every oskill-based build (oskill sensu lato - skills from different classes, either as oskill sensu stricto, charged, aura when equipped, procced and so on).
Unless the skill you want to base build on is a one-point wonder by itself (such as

Guided Arrow or

Zeal), or you have another way to compensate the lack of synergies (such as Sorceress' masteries for

Holy Fire and

Holy Shock), don't bother. High skill level alone is meaningless without synergies.

Rabies druid. I had pretty much best gear, And it did nothing. Best usage it had is hitting a lot against ubers cause the bite is fast.

This probably isn’t the most appropriate place for this post and it’s controversial, but I mainly gotta vent and have a decent story.

In all but very precise gear arrangements and circumstances(I.e lots of Wealth), I think Death on barb sux (compared to Grief).

I’ve been playing the new ladder essentially non stop since Thursday at 5 pm besides eat, sleep and forcing myself to exercise. I started with a sorc with plans to obtain starter gear for a trav barb. To my delight, early in tzs I scored an ethereal zerker

Axe and rolled 5 sockets. It’s the first time I’ve found and not traded for one. Against my better judgement, perhaps in early ladder Delirium I took this as a sign. It was not, and this is a warning.

I started running a zerker barb last night, it has been slow but I need gheeds and gambling. He’s running probably around 2 min runs but is under leveled and besides two shiny gear pieces which I threw a lot of my current net worth into, is very unpolished.

This morning I decided to take the plunge and invest the one of two hrs I have remaining and my last

Gul into a Death. Despite solid 363 roll, after one run, I regretted it. Now, at work, it is sinking in, I ponder why I did this. It’s not the first time I’ve thrown alot into this weapon and experienced this Grief.

I hear people defend it, and I’ve been open to their thoughts. I’ve heard people say they’ve timed it and that it compares with Grief for clear speed. I understand it confers unique benefits which Grief does not and I understand that it’s a cool weapon and wish so much that it compared.

But, for trav and in almost all circumstances besides those which require extensive Wealth, it does not. In fact, even under those circumstances and ideal conditions, I question whether it holds a candle. I can conceive of hypotheticals in which it may meet or surpass but I’ve yet to see it. Even the argument that it’s cheaper than Grief is false. Yes,

Vex

Gul is cheaper than

Lo,

Mal. But accounting for a decent ethereal base cost, during much of the economic cycle, it does not.

Don’t do it. If you trying a ww or zerker barb for the first time or have some experience and want to try Death out before you are wealthy, stop, hold out for Grief. Hell, if you need something now, go buy a mid

Death Cleaver for a few

Amethyst. It will compare, if not be superior to Death without a major supporting cast of items and high levels.

I’m sorry. I’m tired and at work, shivering without a controller in my hands and I’m irritated that the last thing I did was make an impulsive and regretful decision right before having to enter my second life.

Feel free to argue with me about it

Note: I think Death could had potential with Metamorphosis and Beast swap. As annoying that would be. Early ladder? Bad idea. Just say no to Death barb.

Rik wrote: 8 months ago

This probably isn’t the most appropriate place for this post and it’s controversial, but I mainly gotta vent and have a decent story.

In all but very precise gear arrangements and circumstances(I.e lots of Wealth), I think Death on barb sux (compared to Grief).

I agree with you. Also, that's why it's called Grief. It's what you feel when you make something else instead.

Rik wrote: 8 months ago

[..]
In all but very precise gear arrangements and circumstances(I.e lots of Wealth), I think Death on barb sux (compared to Grief).
[..]

In all but very precise gear arrangements and circumstances (which are independent of Wealth), Death on anything sux (compared to Grief).

There's two things primarily that make Death good (if not exceptional) for particular use cases and driving it to eclipse even Grief in those use cases:
- The massive crit (when picked up in your remaining gear) allows you to break the 100% relatively easily, removing the RNG factor from it, allowing you to plan for it and optimize in terms of # of swings/hits.
- 50% crushing blow is just exceptional.

Both of the above CAN outweigh even the extraordinary performance that Grief offers but they will only do so in very particular scenarios (build + targets + remaining gear + ...).

For most uses though as well as average overall performance across various activities, Grief can easily be pushed to eclipse anything Death can do by something like 50% (obv. depending on build) which makes it not even a contest.
This is especially true for low to medium life targets (with Trav being a prime example) where the crushing blow does comparatively little and the inconsistency of Death (due to the hefty dmg spread) can really screw you over to the downside while it will hardly matter to the upside (if at all), thanks to Grief only taking a couple hits for most things there anyways.

Frost Nova sorc. I got her all the gear, everything GG and it's just awful unless maybe on p1. Back to Blizzard.

I'm honestly a bit surprized 2 people put down the

Bone Spear Necromancer here, because that is honestly one of the builds I've had the most fun with.
I reject the label of "pathetic". It's laying waste to enemies at a perfectly decent speed (tough there are better builds out there).

I takes some investement to get going tough.
I had to reach lvl 94 before I fully maxed every synergy for Bonespear. I also invested quite a bit in gear to reach a lvl 50

Bone Spear with 125 FCR, but he was great fun.

I think you guys just quit to early

The one who fell the most short of my expectations was my Ww Barb.

It's not "bad", but a bit mediocre when I was hoping it would be ... more.

Goggen wrote: 8 months ago

The one who fell the most short of my expectations was my Ww Barb.

It's not "bad", but a bit mediocre when I was hoping it would be ... more.

Give your merc reaper's and slap Enigma on. It's very good anywhere (counting item find in).

Goggen wrote: 8 months ago

I'm honestly a bit surprized 2 people put down the

Bone Spear Necromancer here, because that is honestly one of the builds I've had the most fun with.
I reject the label of "pathetic". It's laying waste to enemies at a perfectly decent speed (tough there are better builds out there).

Isn't it because of CE and curses? Those skills are too good (read: OP) to be skipped on any[/] necro build, so the performance is due to those skills, not BS.

Blubbalutsch wrote: 11 months ago

I add my voice to

Enchant-Ranged Attack sorc because shes a hell of a glass cannon leading to lots of displeasing moments aka deaths

She becomes an absolute tank with a lvl 40

Energy Shield, and even if you have a weaker ES, it still makes her reasonably tanky. The build also makes good use of lifesteal on sorc amulets/circlets, which is otherwise a dead stat, so good gear can also be cheaper than for other sorcs.

or.houster wrote: 8 months ago

Goggen wrote: 8 months ago

The one who fell the most short of my expectations was my Ww Barb.

It's not "bad", but a bit mediocre when I was hoping it would be ... more.

Give your merc reaper's and slap Enigma on. It's very good anywhere (counting item find in).

I allready have both of those. This is the build I'm using: https://maxroll.gg/d2/d2planner/ne3y0sao

Again tough. I'm not saying it was bad. Just a bit "meh" when I was hoping for awesome.

Goggen wrote: 8 months ago

I'm honestly a bit surprized 2 people put down the

Bone Spear Necromancer here,
I reject the label of "pathetic".

I had to reach lvl 94 before I fully maxed every synergy for Bonespear. I also invested quite a bit in gear to reach a lvl 50

Bone Spear with 125 FCR, but he was great fun.

I think you guys just quit to early

I either define pathetic as arousing pity or miserably inadequate. It’s a pity

Bone Spear necro starts becoming viable at lvl 94 with quite a bit of gear, because up to that point it’s miserably inadequate!

I’m half joking - it’s a safe steady build, probably good for PvP too, i just respec’d one of my spare necros to try it out just in case i missed something, and yea for me it still clears content slower than my WW barb, with essentially zero MF, so i stand by my assessment!

For me it’s on the same level as a

Vengeance paladin, or

Impale/fendazon - i do like those builds, but i just cannot recommend them, and would also label them as pathetic.

Also to be fair there’s not a lot of high runes required - like 3 for the Bone necro? The rest of the gear is totally SSFable, so it’s got that

not a build and not exactly fail - but Last Wish is something you can postpone to after you are filthy rune-rich. It is a nice quality of life item for a

Frenzy as off-hand weapon.

For the Necro builds, most people don't like them because of the CE AD combination, which are basically useful for every Necro builds and make them look like same.

basicnecromancy wrote: 8 months ago

For the Necro builds, most people don't like them because of the CE AD combination, which are basically useful for every Necro builds and make them look like same.

Yes I almost never make a necro because of that. Maybe I'll make a challenge necro no CE this season.

or.houster wrote: 8 months ago

basicnecromancy wrote: 8 months ago

For the Necro builds, most people don't like them because of the CE AD combination, which are basically useful for every Necro builds and make them look like same.

Yes I almost never make a necro because of that. Maybe I'll make a challenge necro no CE this season.

I believe other than pure summoner, every other build could work. Summoner, however, also works but really slow.

basicnecromancy wrote: 8 months ago

For the Necro builds, most people don't like them because of the CE AD combination, which are basically useful for every Necro builds and make them look like same.

I'd say that's one of the benefits of this build. I honestly rarely bother to use CE once the

Bone Spear get's powerful enough. At the start you allways need to spam some spears to create the corpses, and after that it often (provided you had good positioning when you started to spam spears) feels almost as quick just to throw out a couple more spears for the mop up then to first curse and then use CE which is at least 2 casts.

For optimum play you should probably still use CE as well, but you can easyly play with just Bone-spam for a different feel.

Nate2.0 wrote: 8 months ago

Also to be fair there’s not a lot of high runes required - like 3 for the Bone necro? The rest of the gear is totally SSFable, so it’s got that

Yes and No. In just actual runes yes, you only need high runes for an Enigma and CtA on swap. However, in terms of value some of the gear can still be quite expensive. If you want a Venomous

Circlet of the Magus with 2 sockets that's multiple

Jah's in value. A good Amulet, a good base for White and Tri-res

Boots can also be very expensive if you want top gear. If you can compromize a bit on qualitiy it does have really nice budget-options available tough.

Queegon wrote: 11 months ago

Pure

War Cry barbarian. Looks nice on paper but the damage output just isn't there. You run out of 1500+ mana in a couple seconds where even Insight merc has a hard time keeping your uptime (regen at ~120, mana upkeep at ~140).
And when your mana reserves are gone you are either chugging non-stop or have to rely on merc to do damage.

Not great for

Travincal runs, anyway, which is what my goal was. Swapped to basic botd+grief

Frenzy with double lw act5 merc instead. Much faster + much more goldfind + not as skillpoint-hungry. I'm glad I explored it (this was after the buff to it) but I'm giphy.gif No ragrets.

wc.jpg

No way bro! I ran WC barb a couple seasons ago and it was legit fun. I could farm anything in the game, including ubers and dclone (assuming your merc is cracked out for those fights). Is it S tier? Of course not, but it can still do anything in the game.
I ran dual hotos and it was eating mana like nothing so you do need full rejuvs and equal points into energy/vitality. You cannot skimp on the energy/mana on your stats or gear because of the mana cost per second.

I think people on here are genuinely expecting every single build to be as good as cold sorc, hammerdin, smiter, etc... There are plenty middle of the road builds that are still viable, they just aren't amazing. I actually enjoy the game more playing off meta builds and

War Cry barb is by far the best one I've experienced so far. We've been playing the same meta for 20 years so there's no shame in shaking it up.

I broke down my build here: https://mastuh.blogspot.com/2022/10/dia ... r-cry.html