Charis Spot Report #2

The next wave of characters have earned their Baron(ess) titles.
The earlier report covered my Elemental Javelinist, Toxic Necro, Glutton-for-Punishment Paladin (Thorns/Conversion), Bodybuilder Bar, and Tweaker Sorceress.

This report chronicles the following characters in brief:

|| Warcry Bar (ChariSonar) || Uberesist Lightning Sorceress (ChariSchaeffer) ||
|| Horadric Knight (KhaIim) || Frenetic Forking Fendazon (CharisValkyrie) ||

I particularly had a good time with 'Sonar. He was such a nice change of pace character for a Bar, and was exceedingly useful to his partners.

In Summary, each had a 'special' attack which became their trademark: - "Leap, Shriek and Whirl" - slvl 1 base WW and a dagger or wand do not make for ladder WW technique, especially with puny AR. Yet this was fun: Leap (NOT leap attack) into the center of a mob, dazing them just long enough to get off one shout- War Cry. Now stunned, cast high lvl Battle Cry, dropping their DR by 82% or more. Whirl through the dazed stunned zombies, and when War Cry is about to wear off, recast. (If your wpn does real damage, this may even provide enough leech back to fuel another round) - "Venus Flytrap" - the planet Venus has incredible electrical storms which are deadly. A creature would be weakened with SF, allowed to get a single hit on Frozen armor, then while blue would see a rapid cast Nova death. (NOT the most efficient or safe maneuver, but fun) - "Corral of Doom" - Double flash of conviction+holy freeze followed by alternating Zeal and/or Smite to lock them all up - "Bait and Switch" - Decoy cast in the middle of a mini-crowd which monsters would swarm, attack one on the fringe, Blink-freezing it, then a friend. When that side of the mob was frozen and the decoy dead, a step-up to the decoy position would freeze the rest, and they would die a blazing fending death. Inner Sight at the beginning was essential to minimize misses (Again, not efficient or safe, but fun)

Literally a War Cry barbarian - that would be his main focus. Now that is *so* mana intensive that careful planning would be needed. Stats and items would key on mana, energy, and regeneration. Also, +skill items became a major focus. Play would be very different from a normal Bar, or a whirling machine.

Gear: Frosties, SOJ, Berzerker's Hauberk, Tarnhelm, Slayer amu, Sigon's shield, Lenymo/Nightsmoke, and either Toes or rare running shoes. [Starting gear did not include any of these, but the character was started when I found a pair of Frosties, held for him until Sir title. For a slighly quick start he did get Khalim Will and Hotspur to get him going. The SOJ was a three way trade with other characters of mine. He found Iceblink, Val found a nice martel, and my Maul Bar gambled SOJ, so the three of them happily exchanged items] [Imbue: none yet, but he'll take a huge longshot trying for a wand with +2 bar skills, piercing, magus and +mana ;P]

Stats: A big question in my mind was whether all pts to energy was best. Sonar went through normal diff finishing at lvl 30 with *110* unallocated points, and over a dozen unallocated skills. At this point, to wear Frosties and a decent shield, str (and life) points had to come from items. This did not allow choosing items for the highest +skill or +mana. One energy point meant only one mana, so this was a very poor trade off (compare 4 hp per vitality point). Thus the self- imposed limit was: base str + base dex < base energy and only enough to wield items, and +vit assigned <= 4 * +energy assigned. By clvl 40 this led to: 75 str, 150 energy, 50 vitality, 30 dex. Mana/HP: base mod

Play/Skills: Self imposed no-masteries, and unsure if 0 or 1 pts to allow for combat skills. Warcries would be pumped. Thus normal diff was done with nothing but the prereq war cry skills, no combat, and so over a dozen pts unassigned. This sounds rough, but really, normal diff is *SO* easy for a Barbarian it didn't really phase him at all. Play on normal was straightforward: Taunt away, beat down whatever came. If too many, howl and make them go away :P After normal, with the skill distribution described above, it was also time to make decisions on the skill tree. First, Sonar was starting to whiff frequently, and with no dex or plans to pump AR or mastery, battle cry seemed the way to go. Lvl 20 BCry drops monster DR by a whopping 86% (!) and dmg by 43%. The only downside, and it's a significant one, is the very small radius :( I had originally planned to max Taunt, but I'm glad I did not- i) strongly dimishing returns, ii) the -DR_monster is not needed if Battlecry is used, and iii) it's a _single target_ skill, with no need/way to increase AOE. Other skills considered: one point in combat skills to whirl with a wand and lvl 1 WW, natural resist, battle command, battle orders, and Grim ward. The ward has its uses, but the last thing you want for BCry or WCry is to spread out all the foes. Pumping BCommand ONLY increases the duration. NatRes has diminishing returns. Battle orders is nice in several ways: increased duration with slvl, increase hp for someone with dangerously low hp, increased mana for someone using mana at an enormous rate and no leech, and also, increased mana regen rate. So BO is a big winner. Likewise, testing on an open character and to a lesser degree with Sonar showed that at times you would simply have to get your hands dirty :P Not pumping Leap means LA gives you much better range, Stun as a combat skill goes super with his current 'stun-the-bad-guys' appraoch, and WW with a wand chosen for its mana and fast cast is too funny to pass up. It *might* just provide a way to fuel the War Cry in later diff, if a good low-dex, low-str wpn were found. So one pt to combat skills was taken at clvl 30. Considering HOW many skills i would use, the need for help for the passives, and the good increase in War Cry dmg with slvl, it was clear that using as many +skill gear was a very good thing. This decision was fueled in part by finding Sigon's Shield, an easy-to-wield +2 Bar skills Broad sword, and gambling Tarnhelm. A coop partner passed on a rare +1 skill +mana amulet to upgrade Sonar's Slayer/Remedy, and a Berzerker's Hauberk was a lot easier to come by than Silks (besides, it has -2 MDR). This combined for +7 to skills - at clvl 30 this pumped War Cry, Natural Resist, Battle Command, and combat skills all to lvl 8. Finally something in common with other Bars - the early 30's are his _golden_ era! In solo play things were just melting under the war cry cast, and in coop he was a great companion, with an AOE save-your-butt skill. Did I mention the stun duration of War Cry does NOT decrease with NM or Hell?! (woo!) Here in coop he developed his "Leap, Shriek and Whirl" attack. If a friend was in danger, he leaped right next to him let out a War Cry, and pulled out the whirl to help extinguish the threat (about the only time he would use WW, much prefering cries to combat)

Comments: This is NOT a style for everyone, with pitiful hp, pitiful dmg, no/low mana leech, and slow multi-solo leveling. But for something different that is HIGHLY co-op friendly, allows for very solid solo play, give it a whirl. Hephasto was owned by Battlecry + Stun. Boss mobs were taken with keen precision, pulling off ONE minion at a time with Taunt, or if woken up too early, sent running to mama with Grim ward.

Coop: see above for how he was useful to coop partners. From his point of view, a SF mage was great, allowing War Cry to be cast twice per mob, once to stun, once to kill the whole posse. Strafezon friends were also useful, mobbing up all stunned monsters. As a trio with both, we got into quite a nice rhythym, Bar at point gives a shout and leaps ahead to find more, shouting them. The mage continuously SF's and the Amazon kills 'em before they even wake up. In chaos situations, a taunt could literally rip an attacker off an about-to-die friend and make it chase me. OK's? FINALLY a skill they are not immune too! (woo) I would laugh when Iron Maiden'ed - as if my 10-20 dmg would get me in trouble. Melee partners? High lvl Battlecry is like an AOE "of piercing" effect, and BO and WC are well liked.

Baron run: As with most of my other characters, he would have two runs, one coop and one solo. The coop title run, at clvl 39, went extremely well. No deaths for him (in fact no deaths between hell/travincal and diablo), and he was like a blanket of protection for his party, *very* few deaths if Sonar was on screen (compared to what happened if he went to town or went afk). Dmg vs Diablo was low, but the Battlecry of Piercing helped out. This game was followed by a handful in 8 player games with friends, coop with strafezon and/or FO sorc. It was a match made in heaven, and we soaked up exp like sponges. With virtually no deaths, he hit lvl 49 and max'd War Cry before long. With +skill items the duration was a whopping 6.2 seconds in hell diff. Now was the time for this test of a primarily-support Bar - could he make the final run solo? Getting an early start, Sonar cleared the ROF to CS, only player in game. It was straightforward- cry up a storm, watch foes melt, find potion to restock blues and repeat. No AKs in ROF, so no threats. CS was the first scare, but with OK's subject to stuns and with LA maneuverability, he proceeded to churn through the Sanctuary. Iron Maiden, the bane of WW-Bars, was laughable - who cares if weinie broad sword damage got returned? Bnet thought this too funny and decided to dump game. By the time I could get back on, friends had shown up and I didn't relish repeating the slow advance, so we teamed up until seal time, where Sonar was left on his own. The only fear was DeSeis, but he took a deep breath, drew the first volley of missiles, stepped to the side, closed his eyes and leaped smack into the middle of the pack. WarCry was retrieved via hotkey mid-flight and he got it off on landing. The whole mob except DeSeis was stunned, and Sonar pinged them with dozens of warcries. Full purps repaired dmg from DeSeis himself and fueled the mana-intensive casting. Thus did the CS start to shake. By this time we now had four players in game, and Sonar grit his teeth and prepared to take down Diablo using WarCry alone. Lightning resist was maxed, fire res was decent, a few -MDR points, and he was good to go. The procedure was simple: go down portal, get a few steps away, refresh Battle Command and Battle Orders. Just as D would close, start the torrent of War Cries. LBOD hurt but did not kill, and reds could handle that. When blue globe was empty, Leap at the portal and run to Jamella. Rinse repeat. With 4 players in game, Diablo probably had 100K hp, and the War cry did just under 150 pts each. With regen a globe would last for about 25 casts. Diablo does have a chance to block physical, despite lack of a shield, so it took about 40-50 trips to bring him down. Overall 45 mins, and a few more trips than expected, but he did it! A friend's portal was used as a minor aide, but 3 town portal books would have covered it :P Getting him from 100% health to 40% saw no deaths for Sonar - ie Solo it would have been death-free, but then he got sloppy/tired and died to an LBOD, and again on body recovery. Five deaths total in that last tired phase (thankfully just after lvl up). A very happy victory, celebrated with a Hell/AS-Canyon-tomb romp that brought him to lvl 50, my first character to reach that mark. Sonar thanks two of his partners who leveled up in parallel from Norm/4 all the way to hell - Tahapenes (Lissa, Sorc) and Archerides (CB, Ama), and to his other good comrades: Sticks (Cy, Ama), Maxime (Galt, Ama), and Thenryb's Pal and KoP's Bar.

Added info on Sonar
At time of Sir:
clvl 27 - Stats (*with* adders:)
Str: 34 , Dex 30, Vit 25, Energy 30, Undistributed: *115*
Life: 182, Mana: 93 AR: 139 DR: 57
Skills: one point in each sub-30 warcry, and 23 undistributed
Items: run-of-the-mill except SOJ. Had gambled and was using Lenymo, Greyform, Bloodfist.

At this point I was unclear whether Warcry would work, and I had no skills that needed mana, so I was biding my time by not distributing stat points. For skills, was unsure if taunt or BCry or BOrders would be key secondary skill, so I waited there too.

Baron time:
clvl 49 when solo'ing it. Res: 33/69/maxLtning, 31
Str 75, Dex 22 (mod), Vit 60, Energy 185
Life: 569, Mana: 691 AR: 225 DR: 360
Skills: Max Warcry, Battlecry high enough that monster DR was reduced 90%, Battle Orders around 5+5, a few in Battle Command, one point in others
Stun Dmg: 23-89, Warcry dmg: 140-145
Items: Rare Wand or Flail (see below), SOJ, Frosties, Sigon, Hauberk, Tarn, +1 Bar rare amu -> focus was on +skill. Sonar swapped sometimes between Goblin Toes and rare +mana fast walk/LtRes boots.

Weapons: Pain Mallet Grim Wand, Triumphant, Piercing, LtDmg 1-32, 7-11 dmg. This one was found fairly early and used through NM, when a good lightweight +2 Bar skills wpn was found. I can't look right now, but it was a flail or hammer, +2 bar skill, +1 cold dmg, and some lesser stats. It *really* helped with the warcries with the +lvl. Alas, while using this, his AR was so low that he HAD to cast Battlecry (reduce monster DR 92%) to hit

Why the wand? First, it was found early on and was quite a happy find with piercing and high elemental dmg. Second, str req is very very low, which was good since str was under 35 when he entered NM. Third, with Goblin Toes, it could actually do good dmg in multiplayer games. When he found the lightweight +2 Bar wpn, it gave not only +skill but cold for chilling, useful when he wanted things to shatter. Fourth, I just found it humorous for a Bar to whirl with a Grim wand :P

The question is more- why any weapon at all? The mana cost for warcry is *SO* high that if playing solo Sonar would frequently run out. So he would try to supplement WC dmg and nice long stun duration with physical whacking. WW (just one pt., but better with adders) was _hoped_ to be able to be a mana source, but that day has not come - he'll need to find a not-too-heavy +2 bar +high dmg, pierce or high AR wpn for that to even be possible. The 'tagging' aspect of cold was nice, but really, they were out cold from the WC blast for over 6 seconds, even on hell diff. No non-boss or champ had a chance against him. (Heck, even the nasty minion packs were stopped dead in their tracks and hopelessly immobilized)

Thoughts for other Warcry bars- there are obviously many other combo's that would work well - a hybrid WC, NOT be your run-of-the-mill WW bar. For those who actually will do combat, BCry at high-ish levels decimates monster DR. It's like AOE Piercing! Very nice if you hang with melee or archer coopers. Taunt just plain rocks, it has major SYA power to help mages in the party, as well as cluster mobs for WC. But be quick on hotkeys! As *soon* as one gets in WC radius blast him, swap back to Taunt and cast a few more, then WC agn. Basically, draw them to you but do NOT let them land blows - stun lock on YOU is about the only thing that is a major threat. Battle Orders is a huge party favorite, and will help fuel not only mana for WC but mana regen rate and hp. Grim Ward was one I did not have luck with, but the last thing I wanted them to do was run away from the WC radius. (WC recast resets the timer, and the duration does NOT decrease on higher diffs) Be sure to get at least a point in LA or a few in Leap. One cool move is to leap smack dab into a mob with the low-dur stun of Leap, then (having switched hotkey in midair) let loose a WC. WC-WW hybrids will appreciate having their opponents having no chance to counter attack, yet get the high dmg potential of WW. Also, if OK's are stunned, they're not casting IM (!) Anyway, have fun

Based after a D1 variant, the Thaumaturgist, the original used Schaefer's Hammer and Dreamflange in a 'Turtle Mage' setup. I was shocked to see him become my fastest playing and leveling Warrior. The idea was a mixed melee and lightning sorceress using Ironstone's hammer and Sparking Mail. She started off with a Khalim's will (Nice lightning dmg and good speed) and did very well with melee in normal diff, especially when Duriel or similar dropped Rattlecage. Alas, NM saw her rely increasingly on magic, and in Hell diff she did NOT have the speed, hp, to-hit, or dmg to do anything in melee. Besides, the original Charischaefer became 99% magic using anyway...

Along the way she happened to assemble Iratha's set, finding my first Collar. In addition to giving good resistance, it increases max resist by 10%. This became the new theme, and she began to gamble for Darkglow.

Gear: Iratha's Finery (Collar amu, Coil crown, belt, lt gauntlets), 3DT shield, Darkglow, rare boots with fastest run and massive fire resist, rare rings with fast cast, lightning res, and Khalim's Will for wpn most of her career. (She might switch to Shard, Culwen's, Wyrm's Magus or a Battle Hammer ;P) [Imbues: tried a mage plate before getting Darkglow, then only had boots and wpn slot open, so gave her imbues to other chars]

Stats: STR and Dex were (unfortunately) pumped, for her aspirations in melee. Energy got the rest, so mana was so-so and hp were far too low.

Play: Sirian's spot report of a lightning sorc encouraged her, so no outside tree damage skills were taken. (Cold armor was used due to her melee interests, but no warmth at all.) Unlike others, I did an early mini-pump of Nova as the finisher after SF. Unlike other lightning skills, Nova has a min-dmg that goes up nicely with slvl, and it can be fast cast. Tstorm would be a good solid addition and finisher later, but nova continued to come in handy. Normal diff was easy, with SF+melee finish, and NM wasn't bad with mixed modes, but in Hell diff with multiple players and monsters that resisted lightning, it became increasingly difficult to actually kill them. Teleport, fast cast, and great resists allowed her to stick with the tougher monsters and take them out.

Comments: Schaeffer was a lot of fun because her strengths and weaknesses were opposite so many other characters. Magic attacks were a TOTAL non-problem, including the LBOD, and with some hp adders could survive even MS LEB attacks. Likewise high hp bosses were slaughtered by SF. OTOH, taunted packs, grotesque wyrms and fast attackers with lightning resistance were her bane and nemesis. Far too many creatures in Hell diff could one hit kill her, if allowed to melee.

Coop: Schaeffer spent a fair amount of time with a skeleton-only necro. He was delighted to have the SF and a fast-cast sorc that did NOT use Frozen Orb and destroy his corpses, while Schaeffer was happy to have so many tanks, given her low hp and strength in resists. It even gave her the freedom for a controlled one-on-one melee.

My only character not beginning with the name 'Charis', takes advantage of the upper case i looking like lower case l. He's a "Horadric Knight", a variant of LemmingOfGlory that uses only quest weapons. Khalim is also a elitist who tries to use only unique weapons. The need for speed and no unique gloves with SIAS meant Artic Mitts or a rare in that slot, and he's not twinking up with unique jewels so for now he uses rare jewels.

Gear: Iceblink, Khalim's Will, Steelclash, Tarnhelm, Goldwrap, rare SIAS gloves, Goblin Toes. and jewels with good resists and life. Hit to-hit and mana were very poor. (This list, and that of other characters below is their Baron list, *NOT* their starting list. They had to find their own gear, with at most Khalim's will and minor items given at the start. Fair trading was allowed, so they're not 'pure')

Stats: Dex was virtually untouched, since his main weapon would soon be Khalim's Will. Str likewise was not pumped, not needing more for wpn or armor. This left many points for Vitality, and a few for an energy buffer.

Play: In play it's a cross between a zealot, fanaticist and smiter. As an elitist he does shy away from skills or combos "used by the masses", so no Concentration or Blessed Hammer; Holy Shield was used at a low level. The swapping attack mode was Zeal+Fanaticism to steal mana and Smite to lock up dangerous foes. With that a low lvl Might or Holy Freeze was used. In Hell/3 and 4, being rather underlevel, his to-hit with the zeal got very bad. Thus he pushed Conviction to a moderate degree, greatly helping to-hit. For mob control he would 'flash' conviction then 'flash' Holy Freeze, kill one with rapid swings. If no boss he would hit foes alternately and rapidly, freezing the whole crew, continue alternating attacks until all were dead. If dangerous or unfreezable, he would kill one, then circle the pack to dual-flash them. Should Khalim be continued, he will put some more pts to HF, Might and Holy Shield. The Baron title came at clvl 36 coop with another Lord Paladin and with a fairly buff Necro. He had to dance alot to dodge AK attacks, but freezing OK's was a big help (to him and party). Against D, lame resists were a fear that did not need to be. His range was so short that the LBOD went right over his head and never harmed him. Dmg was slow but steady, with no fear of a one/two hit kill or insta LBOD death. The other Paladin was glad not to be a target, and contributed a nice hammer barrage - the others backed off in the fight vs D, as we wanted to earn our title.

Comments: The original plan was to max fanaticism, *but* detailed calculations showed that it would just a small effect: with Smite, slvl 1 was sufficient to get the 'top' smite speed (Cutlass of Quickness and Twitch and slvl 16 could have done better, but that wpn was not allowed). Likewise on Zeal there was no benefit to pumping, other than AR. It's an unfortunate consequence of D2's integer math that you can get no benefit at all from +speed items or skills except at plateaus.

Coop: Khalim started in a game with Gidbinn (a toxic Nec) and HoradricMalice (Lemming's HK) and they played through normal diff getting Sir titles together. NM and Hell saw a mixture of solo and coop play. With Iceblink he tore up NM as easily solo as any character I have, but on Hell diff the lack of dmg and tohit made things much slower. He was a very good partner with a variety of skills, good tanking ability and hp, and limited interest in drops. The Baron title came as a relief, Khalim was now free to go back down to an area more in his comfort zone (around NM/2 at 36).

Fun points: Taking down the Smith with the Horadric Malus and Hephasto with the Hellforge Hammer, and the Summoner with the Horadric Staff, was cool. Gambling Goldwrap around the same time he learned fanaticism, and crossing a speed plateau, was amazing to see in action.

Val was also based on a D1 variant character, a Valkyrie. (Yes, the variant came long before D2 or the skill name) The VK was characterized by light gear, a long search for the Gotterdamerung, and restrictions of stat point distribution. In D2, this is roughly translated to: no stat points distributed until Normal diff is beat, and a desire to emulate the Golden Valkyrie (spear user). At the time I started Val, I had also done some tests and calculations on 'Fend'. These confirmed that fend has a high base speed which *IS* modified for wpn speed, UNLIKE jab. It seemed like a GIAS (Quickness) Brandistock or War Fork could rock with Fend. Also at this time v1.04 came out with the SIAS on Twitchthroe fixed, so a Fendazon path was chosen for CharisValkyrie.

Gear: (at time of Baroness): Bronze Brandistock of Quickness (or GIAS rare Pike with decent dmg), Goldwrap, rare SIAS gloves, Goblin Toes, resist and hp jewels, and Twitchthroe - near the end she ended up with Iceblink via trade for a martel. [Imbues: three War Forks, none good]

Stats: Str and Dex for War Fork (the fastest exceptional spear), no pts to energy, and rest to vitality.

Play: Jab was taken only as a prerequisite, no javelin throwing skills, and a minor push in Fending - the rest went to Passives and/or were saved for Valkyrie pumping. Somewhat disappointing, fend did NOT work out as well in practice as originally hoped: i) the attacks can be interrupted with a hit, ii) unlike jab which is very regular, the blazing fend attack had a noticeable pause between attacks, much like Zeal, which allowed some foes to recover and attack, iii) once even a single monster got an attack in and stunned her, the rest would ALL get their attack in - deaths were frequent. Now, it IS still early and she's very very young for Hell diff. With much higher AR, higher lvl, more hp, a good War Fork, maxed Fend and Valkyrie, she might very well end up a strong character. Iceblink was only recently acquired, so it's merit, and comparison to Twitchthroe, are too early. (The variant doesn't use javelins, but for testing purposes I might try Harpoon and shield and see how that works)

In NM/2, at clvl 29, she came into a beauty of a wpn for her: a GIAS lance doing about 200 dmg. Now that's nothing too extreme, and the other stats were poor, but with her other gear this was a fend-friendly damage dealer. She dropped back to normal to snag about 4 lvls and she just tore through everything in her path. Returning to NM was painful - Undead scavengers and other quick attackers could kill her instantly, and they did so several times. Proposed soln: time to pump hp to avoid going into hit recovery, and seeking some fast recovery items to minimize her pain when she did get hit for a stun. Also, looks like more points needed in dodge than originally hoped for. Attack speed with Goldwrap, SIAS gloves and GIAS lance? Normal attack 10 fps with Twitchthroe, 11 without, a constant 7 fps for jab, and for fend: 4 fps with Twitch, 5 without. If a high dmg GIAS War Fork can be found, with wrap and gloves: 4 fps for normal swing, still 7 for jab, and a zippy 3 fps for fend. (If War Fork were one less than GIAS, wearing Twitch brings it up to these lvls, but with GIAS War Fork and the wrap and gloves, Twitch brings no further benefit.) Now with the GIAS Lance and Wrap/Gloves/Twitch, a slvl 5 Fanaticism Pal would make the fending lance sing at 3 fps. You might think, 3 vs 4, what's the difference? Well at that speed it's 2 extra swings *per second*.

Coop: Dreams of running into Fanaticism paladins, with Holy Freeze or Concentration a valuable friend too.