[Hardcore Single Player] First time Pandemonium Event

Hello Community,

I am scared. Very scared. I play Hardcore exclusively and have never fought or even seen any of the Uber Bosses in the game.
I want to try, but I want to be prepared, so please bear with me and provide me with some tips if you can.

The character I am planning to take Ubers on with is a Sword

Whirlwind Barbarian, currently level 91.
UPDATE: Decided to take the plunge
- Uber Duriel was quite easy, it was more annoying to deal with the adds.
- As expected,

Lilith was super scary, my Merc never dies anywhere, he has like 18k Armor and on the off chance he does get hit, he just leeches back up, not so with this girl. That caught me off guard, but I was quick enough getting him back so she couldn't regenerate. The

Decrepify from Lawbringer saved my life here, I am certain. But we made it, I put out more damage on these guys that I expected.
- Uber Izual was quite easy as well.

I don't think I can go to

Uber Tristram yet, I seem to be missing about 100 Lightning Resistance and Lightning Absorb
My Gear is as follows:

Arreat's Face, socketed but socket is still empty.
Duress - in a

Dusk Shroud, 1237 Defense (I gather CB and Open Wounds are important here)

Death's Hand - Upgraded to

Demonhide Gloves (I figure these are nice vs.

Lilith?)

Death's Guard - Upgraded to

Demonhide Sash (Currently my only Source of Cannot be Frozen)

Gore Rider (More CB, Open Wounds)

Angelic Wings and

Angelic Halo, for the Attack Rating Bonus.
A rare Ring with 75 AR, 6% Mana Leech, 28% Light Res, some Fire Res and Poison dmg

Oath - in an

Eth

Balrog Blade - big damage, high speed, some extra vs. Demons
Kingslayer in a

Champion Sword - nice CB, Open Wounds, -Target Defense

Sensible alternatives I have include:
- Treachery Armour
- A very decent Bulwark with + to

Battle Orders and

Battle Command
- Hustle in a Mythic Sword for my Merc, though the level 1 Fana Aura is meh
-

String of Ears and

Laying of Hands instead of Death's items though I would lose "Cannot be frozen" and a ton of resists.
- There's also some Crafted

Blood Gloves: 20 IAS (enough to hit 4 FPA), 4 LL, 8 CB, 12 Life, 8 MF
- I also have a

Stormshield, is it worth losing the dps?

Including my Charms, here are some relevant stats:
- About 3100 Life when buffed
- All Resistances are overcapped slightly, Poison by 25+
- 4 Frame Attacks using

Whirlwind
- 87% FHR, just hitting the breakpoint
- Poison Length reduced by 75% for

Lilith
- 93% Chance to cause Open Wounds
- 63% Crushing Blow
- 15% Deadly Strike
- Roughly 11k Attack Rating with

Whirlwind
- Roughly 8k Attack Rating with

Double Swing

I deal about 650-3000 dmg with my Mainhand and 650-1400 with my Offhand.

My Mercenary is a

Frenzy Barb with

Duriel's Shell, Lawbringer,

Lightsabre and

Crown of Thieves for some life leech, which I could replace with a GFace.

Is this a good enough setup to try?
Are there specific things I should be looking for?

I am not that worried about Uber Izual or Uber Duriel actually, but

Lilith I am terrified of.
Chugging 10 minutes worth of Antidotes should get me to 85% Poison Res, being 65% over

Cap if that's even important.
The poison itself seems to be the lesser problem though, as I read she hits super hard physically, too.. can she one-tap me?

I also gather that before going to Uber Trist, if I make it past the Lesser Ubers, I should not face

Uber Mephisto without Lightning Absorb and a metric ton of Lightning Res, lest I get one-shot by lightning?
Also which of the Bosses do I need

Life Tap for, I read conflicting information about drain effectiveness.

Lastly, I have been thinking about leveling a Smiter Paladin to attempt Ubers with instead, as I read it's the "easiest".
What are your thoughts on that?

Any feedback is well appreciated

First of all, good luck!
You have to have about 300 lightning resistance for

Mephisto because of his

Conviction aura.
You can use the Treachery prebuff before entering the

Uber Tristram (don't forget to swap the armor after it procs).

For Ubers I used

Dracul's Grasp for

Life Tap with my Zealer paladin and it worked very well. When life went down, immediately went up again. You can use a

Wand with

Life Tap to apply it first rather than relying only on Dracs.

You can find good info on some old posts (one is mine, two years ago when I killed Ubers for the first time). It was on softcore, tho. Lots of adrenaline but not so critically dangerous as hardcore.
There is a map with a route to take to lure the bosses, not to aggro you all at once.

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Thanks, man I appreciate it

For sure if I had

Dracul's Grasp, I would run that with

String of Ears instead of the set I'm using now. I wonder if I should run

Andariel on my Sorc until I find a

Raven Frost as well, that way I still have Cannot be Frozen.

Proccing

Fade from Treachery and then switching it out again is an interesting choice, do I keep it in my cube?

I think including

Fade, my Lightning Res would be somewhere around 255ish. So I would be standing at +25 in his

Conviction Aura, that's not good enough, is it? Guess I also need some charms, better to have a few life points or attack rating less and higher resistance, yes?

You have a solid setup but, as a barb, Meph dies fast if you have enough res but

Baal is a pain.

Baal has an extremely high defense + block chance.
You'll need many AR. Angelic is good but

Enchant prebuff with

Demon Limb is

Key.

Baal's minions are physical immune so use

Howl to keep them away.
Anyway, you should use

Howl against every minions around you.

If you don't use dracul's graps, buy a

Wand with

Life Tap changes at

Malah so you can use it on your weapon switch.

Life Tap wont proc with WW, so you don't care much about them so keep

Laying of Hands .

Arreat's Face is better for ubers than Bulwark (res, AR, + skills), so keep it.
If you have a

Vex, Death is a bit slow but extremely strong weapon against ubers.

93% open wound is too much and you don't need so much.

Gore Rider is enough.

Yes, prebuff

Fade then store it in stash.

Regarding your merc, you want him to survive so don't use

Guillaume's Face but a more defensive

Helm.

Thank you as well!

The

Demon Limb suggestion is clutch man, but I don't currently have access.

So the way I take it, since I've taken care of

Lilith, my

Death's Hand goes in the stash and I get out

Laying of Hands, super nice since all of them are Demons.

Do I keep

Death's Guard for Cannot be Frozen? I see

Uber Mephisto,

Uber Baal and

Pandemonium Diablo all have chill effect on their attacks.

So my list of things to farm / buy before I go and face them:
-

Demon Limb (prebuff with

Enchant)
- Lightning Res Charms
-

Life Tap

Wand

The prep:

I keep the

Wand and Treachery in my cube, proc

Fade somewhere, switch back to Duress. Buff up with my Dual Spirits, then switch in the

Life Tap

Wand and go nuts.

Do I do this weird thing where I move the adds into one of the buildings? I saw that on a speedrun Alternatively for sure can just

Howl.

Super excited for this!! And not at all a lot to do before, hope I can find the necessary items quickly.

Rinku wrote: 2 hours ago

So the way I take it, since I've taken care of

Lilith, my

Death's Hand goes in the stash and I get out

Laying of Hands, super nice since all of them are Demons.

Do I keep

Death's Guard for Cannot be Frozen?

I prefer

Raven Frost +

String of Ears or

Thundergod's Vigor (for meph).

Death's Hand +

Death's Guard is ok, but you lose the huge +350% damage against demons from

Laying of Hands.

Edit : give Lawbringer to your merc. Will help a lot against all the undead minions.

Then a

Raven Frost is added to the list of items to get first
Maybe I can even find a

Thundergod's Vigor...

Tornado_OLO wrote: 2 hours ago

Edit : give Lawbringer to your merc. Will help a lot against all the undead minions.

He has one

I play alot of Barbarian, and ran a Hardcore Solo-Self Found character through the Ubers.

He was a

Whirlwind and

Concentrate hybrid,

Concentrate is the skill I used for the Ubers and would be my recommendation if you don't mind the respec.

For taking on

Tristram, your gear looks pretty close, my recommendation:

Arreat's Face
Duress

Laying of Hands (or

Dracul's Grasp if you use

Concentrate)

Verdungo's Hearty Cord (or

Thundergod's Vigor specifically for Mehpisto)

Gore Rider

Raven Frost

Stormshield (completely worth the reduced DPS - lightening resistance, high blocking, huge damage reduction - this is Hardcore, survival comes before all else)

The other ring and amulet can be rares that give you life and resistances (or

Highlord's Wrath if you can find it)

Proc with Treachery and

Demon Limb (note, ethereal

Demon Limb cannot regain its charges, so use sparingly)
If you do not have +3WC items on weapon swap, you can buy them from

Malah in Act 5 NM

Some Gear Notes:
1. You need Open Wounds, as Ubers have high health regeneration and the Prevent Monster Heal from your Oath does not work on Ubers

2.

Dracul's Grasp will cast

Life Tap if using

Concentrate, but not

Whirlwind, so if running WW then you need the Lift Tap

Wand and just go with LoH for gloves

3.

String of Ears is nice for the damage reduction, but life leech has zero effect on

Mephisto, and almost no effect on Diablo and

Baal, so Verdungo's is better

I'll use a

Raven Frost also. It has Cannot be frozen but also dex and attack rating.

When I go for Ubers I leave the Cube in stash and use that space for additional charms.

Gheed's and tomes, too. It's true that you can store some items or potions in it but I prefer not to and go to town when I need to resupply.

Be sure to have a

Belt full of rejuvs and some more on stash. Be aware that you cannot use town portal in

Uber Tristram. You have to walk to the red portal to return to

Harrogath.

I use Enigma with

Teleport for quick escape and repositioning the merc.

For Treachery's

Fade you can go outside of town and stay on top of the fire until procs then run to the stash and change it with you main armor. You can leave status tab open to see when your resistances grow or you can see when you become semitransparent when

Fade procs.

It will last about four minutes, probably enough for Meph fight. After that it will be a little easy with

Baal and Diablo and not needed so much.

Florian_G wrote: 1 hour ago

Be sure to have a

Belt full of rejuvs and some more on stash. Be aware that you cannot use town portal in

Uber Tristram. You have to walk to the red portal to return to

Harrogath.

And, be super careful not to lead a pack of minions to the red portal when you run in on your way to town.
If you do, they will be right there waiting for you.

Phoenix_00 wrote: 1 hour ago

Florian_G wrote: 1 hour ago

Be sure to have a

Belt full of rejuvs and some more on stash. Be aware that you cannot use town portal in

Uber Tristram. You have to walk to the red portal to return to

Harrogath.

And, be super careful not to lead a pack of minions to the red portal when you run in on your way to town.
If you do, they will be right there waiting for you.

That's why I use Enigma, for quick jumps over the foes in case of danger. Many times I had Meph and his gang right over the portal. With instant

Teleport I managed to lure them away, otherwise, you're screwed.

I recommend against using LoH against

Uber Baal. Can be dangerous with his Chilling Armour reflect. Moreso for a Smiter paladin though.

Your first setup with Deaths guard + deaths hand looked pretty solid.

For a WW barb, dual

Fleshripper is also effective.

Copied and pasted from Aelanwyr's entry comment:

With the Patch 2.4 change to

Blade Mastery--which extended the effects of that skill to Daggers--the

Fleshripper is an effective budget option for a

Whirlwind Barbarian. There are a couple of reasons for this:

-The

Fanged Knife automatically reaches the 5 frames-per-attack breakpoint, with only 26% Increased Attack Speed needed to achieve the final 4 frames-per-attack breakpoint.

-The short reach of the

Fanged Knife (a rangeadder of 0) ensures

Whirlwind's randomly-distributed hits will be concentrated on those targets closest to the Barbarian. Concentrating the damage increases the odds that targets will be downed one-by-one and thereby reduces the overall amount of incoming damage the character receives.