[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: 6 months 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: 6 months 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: 6 months 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: 6 months ago

Florian_G wrote: 6 months 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.

Rinku wrote: 6 months ago

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

simple answer, no, you're not going to make it with this barb

The secret ingredient:
And yeah, Smiter Paladin. FTW

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?

Other builds can make it, but it's true, nothing love taps Ubers as inexpensively as a crushing blow and open wounds Smiter Paladin.

mattmgs wrote: 6 months ago

Rinku wrote: 6 months ago

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

simple answer, no, you're not going to make it with this barb

With that first setup he very easily could, provided he can get cold and lightning resists overcapped to 240, hence 300 with Treachery Fade Proc.

@Rinku that's the only real issue I see at first glance, is that you'd want those resists overcapped as mentioned. Other than that doesnt look too bad.

Some things to note:

For a barb I wouldn't use a shield. Their attack speed breakpoints are slower with a shield than with 2 weapons and you'll lose alot of DPS too.

93% open wounds is way overkill. 10% from Gore Riders is really all you need. If that's incidental, that's fine and don't worry about it too much, but you don't need to go out of your way to hit 100%, or even 50%. 10% from Gore Rider is all I have on my Frenzy Barb (also HC btw) who does Ubers all the time and it gets the job done reliably.

86 FHR breakpoint is also kind of overkill for a barb. Barb, paladin, and assassin all have identical FHR breakpoints and the 48% FHR is generally more than enough for any of them doing Ubers. Again, if youre hitting that point incidentally, don't worry about it, but don't compromise resists or other stats to try and hit 86 FHR on a barb. In other words, if youre already at 48 FHR or higher and youre choosing between Shimmering small charm "of vita" vs "of balance", the former is ideal.

11k attack rating before any Demon Limb/ Enchant buffs is not bad. 8k not so much, you're gonna have a hell of a time with Uber Baal and his chilling Armour there. 10k minimum before any buffs is what I'd suggest, even more if u can.

I would not use String of Ears and Laying of Hands over Deaths guard + Deaths hand if you don't have any other CBF. Even then I'd probably still stick with Deaths combo, especially if youre gonna lose alot of res. Also, as mentioned above LoH can be dangerous vs Uber Baal (albeit not as much for barb as for Smiter).

I'm assuming you have a Life Tap Wand as well? That's pretty much mandatory vs Ubers.

Gooood morning everyone and thanks so much for the additional feedback!!

There' obviously some things that come down to preference and how comfortable you are with the content, like the question of "to Stormshield or not to Stormshield". I will simply have to decide what I feel more comfortable with in that regard. I get the feeling that a lot of the gearing debate is preferential as well, maybe. The consensus seems to be that while far from ideal (who wouldn't love access to best in slot stuff), it's within the realm of "doable". Hell, I've watched Kano do it in under 7 hours

Thank you guys also for pointing out these:

BigD wrote: 6 months ago

I recommend against using LoH against Uber Baal.

The 10% chance of Holy Bolt triggering his Chilling Armor? That's a consideration? sheesh
But.. does it even trigger from Whirlwind? It shouldn't, right?

ChristianKiss wrote: 6 months ago

Go with Kelpie Snare if you're relying on Life Tap, otherwise Decrepify will override it.

Soo, that means I need to remove my Merc's Lawbringer if I do want Lifetap?
Maybe then I can provide him with a Coldsteel Eye instead, for the slow...
Edit: Coldsteel Eye is a terrible choice, because "Hit Blinds Target" also overrides Life Tap :S
Is it better to have Decrepify and rely on potions or to Lifetap? Guess I'll have to find out
And then for Baal, since his high defense seems to be problematic, I was even thinking Battle Cry instead, to cut his defense and damage.
(Re-watching Kano's Speedrun kill, he also did this, though he trolled himself and forgot to maintain it for a bit)

So many things to think about, but I guess in the end prep will only get me so far.
I'll let you guys know how it goes

Yeah for LoH, as mentioned, on a barb or any other char who relies on AR it is not as dangerous as it would be on a Smiter. So you might be OK with your barb. If youre planning on doing it with smiter, 100% use something else (like Dracul's or Blood Gloves with 20 IAS and 10CB). Also the 350% ED to demons does not apply to Smite.

I just recently lost a lvl 85 HC FoH smiter to Uber Baal because of it. 10% CTC can still proc 2 or 3x in a row if youre unlucky, which is what happened in this case.

So yeah, may not be an issue with a char who relies on AR and therefore is not always landing a guaranteed 4 attacks per second on Uber Baal. But it IS a possibility that you should be aware of.

Soo, update:

I found some Charms to take me to the required Lightning Res and decided to try to go without the rest. I'm not a patient man once I have decided to do something.
I also decided I would rather have my Merc Decrepify him and go without Life Tap.

Went pretty well all things considered, I got Meph down to about 1/3 of his life rather quickly. Then my Merc died and I had to go through my Rejuv's quicker than I would ideally like to. I had only one row left, panicked and left, got my Merc back and he died again before I could properly buff him. By this point Meph will have fully recovered.

I was also sloppy on my prep, wanted my Merc to have Blackhorn's Face, which I can't get now because the portal is open, also forgot to switch back to Duress after Fade proc.

So to remind myself:
- Go chug 10 Minutes worth of Thawing Potions and Antidote Potions.
- Go and buff up (BO, Shout and BC are longer duration than Fade)
- Go trigger Fade and don't forget to switch back to Duress

I'm pretty sure it can be done if I stop panicking and chugging Rejuv's too early.
Truth be told the adds are also annoying, but I have no actual idea whether their damage is even relevant.

Having stepped through that portal and coming back out alive has strengthened my resolve, so I will farm some Full Rejuvenation Potions and go again.