Wolfbarb Theorycrafting

My dad told stories of his ultimate Barbarian who, dual wielding swords with insane poison damage, would just beat the literal snot out of Diablo in a few seconds with poison damage in original Diablo 2. This was an offline character, though, and we've started playing D2R. I want to surprise him some day with an ultimate

Werewolf Barbarian gear set. I have an idea, but my knowledge is limited, so here goes:

Wolfhowl - Obviously, the centerpiece of the set and the must-have item if I want to make this gift meaningful. I will not remove this item, so don't try to say "That's not optimal" or "That's not meta" or whatever other objections you may have.

Duress Armor -

Shael +

Um +

Thul - I was looking at runewords and this one looks like it would be the best for a barbarian who's just running around, beating the snot out of everyone. I know there are better runewords; if you have an idea, I'd like to hear it. Also needed are suggestions for a base.

Bul-Kathos' Children - Because Wolfbarb has a static number for attack speed, these normally slow weapons with insane damage boosts make each swipe of Wolfbarb's

Claws a devastating hit.

Bul-Kathos' Wedding Band - Life steal!

Like I said, I want to hear your suggestions and advice on everything BUT the helmet. It's gotta be fun for the wolfbarb playstyle. and if you want to know something about my dad, he really likes being able to punch people so hard that they explode, so keep that in mind.

Bul-Kathos' Children set is awful unfortunately. For weapons, you'd want Grief +

Stormshield or upped

Ribcracker. Since wolf form has such terrible block speed, you might want to skip

Stormshield. You could dual wield weapons but, in wolf form, I believe the second weapon is just a stat stick. For armor, Fortitude, there is no comparative since you are doing melee damage and Fortitude gives 300% ED. Duress is a nice cheaper alternative. At least one source of Cannot be Frozen, so you can either put a

Cham rune in your

Wolfhowl or use a cheap

Raven Frost ring.

EMzx25 wrote: 1 year ago

Bul-Kathos' Children set is awful unfortunately. For weapons, you'd want Grief +

Stormshield or upped

Ribcracker. Since wolf form has such terrible block speed, you might want to skip

Stormshield. You could dual wield weapons but, in wolf form, I believe the second weapon is just a stat stick. For armor, Fortitude, there is no comparative since you are doing melee damage and Fortitude gives 300% ED. Duress is a nice cheaper alternative. At least one source of Cannot be Frozen, so you can either put a

Cham rune in your

Wolfhowl or use a cheap ravenfrost ring.

This is exactly the kind of response I wanted, thank you.

I don't have much to contribute but the idea is very sweet and wholesome so I wanted to offer some pgems/lower runes (i dont have much) or like a

Key of Terror to help U fund this build

Yeah this is so cool. Can we make this into a donation initiative guys? Anything ThisIsKobold might need?

I have a LoH I don’t use and a Anni with decent roll. On non-ladder right?

I think I have a

Wolfhowl on a mule. I also habe a 5 socket

Berserker Axe, if you decide to make a Grief.

Teebling wrote: 1 year ago

Yeah this is so cool. Can we make this into a donation initiative guys? Anything ThisIsKobold might need?

Wow thank you all so much

I'll try to contact you when I'm able to get online.

This idea is one that I've entertained ever since I heard D2R was going to be releasing: Take my dad's favorite item from the original, and surprise him with it. The fact that you guys want to help me do that is beyond words for me. I'm an author, I put words together for fun, but I can't properly say how happy this makes me.

I wish I had more items I could possibly give you guys in return for this, but all I have is some junky runes.

I recommend trading for or making the Grief in a

Phase Blade for fastest ias breakpoint and no repair cost. Up to you though.

I have a five socket

Phase Blade that you can have for free if needed. Unfortunately, I just threw out a Wolf

Howl the other day because nobody wanted it (was listed free too). Also a

Raven Frost if needed.

Love the idea behind this.
Let us know what your final gear list looks like so donations can be more targeted.

That having been said, just based on your first post, feel free to hit me up for a 5% bul kathos, a

Raven and a solid anni to get you started.

Might have a few more bits to add once you decide on the final set of gear you're after.

PS:
What's your b.net tag (seems to not be in your profile here)? Sad but true: there's always some folks who go "OMG FREE STUFF?" and try to hijack it. Don't need some imposter reaching out.



Just an idea off the top of my head:
If he likes knocking stuff out hard, odds are he also likes swinging something a bit bigger and more menacing so..Death

Eth

Glorious Axe? Combine that with a highlords (got that for you if wanted ) and an ed/ias jewel in the head, along with a Faith merc and it drops down to 8 frame attacks while shifted/on rage. Could push that to something like 40k+ base DPS (fort,

Steelrend, gore) all while running around with a solid 75% crushing blow and just over 100% crit chance. Fun side effect..with a setup like that you can very comfortable sit at well over 7k life/20k+ defense, amplifying the "titan feel" a bit more.

Disclaimer: The speed noted above was based on maxroll, seeing how I personally don't bother with shifting druids and hence never tested the speeds for them post-change myself in any worthwhile way. Warren shows it all a fair bit slower but the cutoff remains. So...that part might be off. But oh well.

I just updated my profile with by B.Net tag. And, I'll be making a game pretty soon. If you want the name & pass, lemme know :3

I'd say figure out a gear list first. And while you do that, I'll go get some sleep for a change.

Happy to throw some pieces your way over the next couple days though, overlapping on-time permitting.

Schnorki wrote: 1 year ago

I'd say figure out a gear list first. And while you do that, I'll go get some sleep for a change.

Happy to throw some pieces your way over the next couple days though, overlapping on-time permitting.

You're all way too generous; The only thing I could consider accepting at this point is the wolf

Howl itself. That's pretty much all I need or want right now.

I have a

Wolfhowl you can have. It's not a great roll but it'll get you started.

Fair enough. Don't have a

Wolfhowl atm but if you change your mind and would accept support for the rest, let us know.

Does the +3 to

Lycanthropy from Beast add to the oskill from

Wolfhowl? It's a good weapon anyway if you go for

Berserker Axe for your Grief, with Fanat and such, but getting extra life and

Werewolf duration on top of that could be cool.

In a similar vein, I wonder about using Breath of the Dying in an

Eth

Berserker Axe for the offhand instead of Beast. Or maybe even instead of Grief? I'm sure it's not as good, but this build isn't about being meta anyway, and BOTD has

Poison Nova on hit. While the

Nova damage is basically irrelevant, it could be a cool throwback to OP's dad using poison damage to turn the world green while mauling everything.

Winterkill wrote: 1 year ago

Does the +3 to

Lycanthropy from Beast add to the oskill from

Wolfhowl?

Yes, it does.

Side note: Couldn't resist and ended up playing around with this a bit..not a weak build by any means actually, even with a "first more or less thrown together gear set".
Easily uber capable and all that jazz.

Just a tad boring for my taste, seeing how you literally just have 1 button beyond buffs. But hey, totally subjective that one. It does fit the "hulk smash!" narrative quite well.