Recon Zerker Viable?

[Warg]

Hi!

After the 1.10 patch I`ve meant to play a zerker barb. But feeling he would be ripped appart by ranged attackers or overwhelmed by large crowds in tight spaces I`ve not made one. I made Baranors budget Zerker to the letter in 1.09, and he did very well except from lag in cows(crowdcontrol) ;D

In D1 there were items which gave you - to light radius and the gotterDammerung helm especially helped with this, but forced your res to 0 :(

Today I`ve gone through the unique items with - light and I`ve come up with the following:

Shield: Umbral Disk: -2 To Light Radius
Weapons: Shadowfang: -2, Woestave: -3, Blackleach Blade: -2
Helms: Nadir(runeword helm): -2, Duskdeep: -2, Veil of Steel: -4(!)
Belt: Nosferatu's Coil: -3
Boots: Goblin Toes: -1
Amulet: Crescent Moon: -2
Armor: Black Hades: -2, Gloom(Runeword Armor): -3

So..How much - light res will do for a relatively peacefull Zerking of monsters?
And when facing a boss pack can you howl the crowd away and stand 1 on 1 with the boss?

Another tactic for this build is to do recon in gloam areas. Viable?

Need your input here, and maybe there will be a new breed of barbs on the realms ;)

[Mr.Bogohossian]

- light radius means the area which you can see with light. i dont think it affects monsters, never heard of it...

[Warg]

- light radius means the area which you can see with light. i dont think it affects monsters, never heard of it...

It did in D1 so thats why i am wondering if it works in D2. If you had a lot of + light radius you would attract more monsters and vice versa.

[Mr.Bogohossian]

It did in D1 so thats why i am wondering if it works in D2. If you had a lot of + light radius you would attract more monsters and vice versa.
hmm i really never thought that would work. interesting.

[Warg]

hmm i really never thought that would work. interesting.

Tried it on single player, got items from warehouse. Used an old 1.09 wolf, he looked really cool and in the dark you got almost the same feeling as playing thief. But to my dismay it did`nt work :( Monsters got MH and can spot you from miles away :( The dim vision from Gloom was usefull vs. casters/ranged monsters but in hell diff. it lasted too short :( Boohooo Blizz

[CoonerTheRed]

yeah, i'm not sure, but i don't think that -light radius has too much effect.

however, with skillful use of other warcries, a zerker barb is VERY effective. Important skills:

war cry- keep those around you stunned so they can't hurt you
taunt- keep those too far from you close to you
howl- keep those too close to you far from you

with these three skills, you really can control most any monster. howl is the only one which is not all that effective (just cause the monster lvl +5 or whatever thang). I've been able to do just fine with the following battle plan:

enter battle with phys attacking enemies, war cry.

if ranged attackers, taunt about 3 times (clicking on monsters each time or you'll just taunt those near you) before warcrying again.

then just warcry every 3/4 zerk attacks to keep those close enough to hit you stunned. i've found that being somewhat surrounded is actually better than having multiple monsters not too far, but not next to you, due to the simple fact that the stun radius on warcry isn't huge, but while you've stunned those next to you, others can run up and smack you with your zero def. So my usual attack is just this:

stun the first 1 or 2 monsters that run to you, smack once or twice (killing at least one of them). war cry again to stun the next 3 or 4 who have now gotten close enough. taunt any ranged attackers. stun again. attack 3 or 4 times, stun again, rinse and repeat. with decent damage, this can be VERY effective....

[toutim]

Howl and taunt work quite well actually.
You can rely on your merc to tank crowds, give him high def equipment, and shout (handy synergy) will give him easily 15k def, so he will be able to tank a lot.
My merc only dies when poisoned, guess I should take a closer look at his life _after_ the fight :scratch:
You won't go through hell very fast, but it can be quite safe to play, just retreat when surrounded, let the merc tank, and taunt them one by one if you come across a nasty pack.

[CoonerTheRed]

heh heh, just read my post again this morning and realized i might have given the wrong impression... somewhat surrounded means at most half of the "circle" around you is filled in. Surrounded = dead, somewhat surrounded = no room for unstunned monsters to get in, but room for you to back out and run away.

[goneil]

I think there is a runeword helm that has cloak of shadows charges on it. Might be fun to see just how dark you can make it.

[baalos]

In D1 there were items which gave you - to light radius and the gotterDammerung helm especially helped with this, but forced your res to 0 :(

HA! I remember that helm. We use to call it the goddamitsdark helm :lol:

[Warg]

HA! I remember that helm. We use to call it the goddamitsdark helm :lol:

ROFL :) So true, but it worked very well on melee only lvls