I've finished a little project consisting of two characters and I'm glad to introduce Guardian Atlas and Guardian Daishi. Some of you will notice that the names are taken from MechWarrior universe, where Daishi and Atlas are massive 100 ton Mechs carrying some really serious weaponry and thus able to kick arses and shins.
After finishing the previous project I was going to take a lil rest from D2, but with runes obtained I was able to create a really powerful weapon and this kinda ruined my retirement related plans.
I wanted to give this monster proper use. No silly charge-ups, jumping around or rushing forward like a Peterbilt truck with broken brakes. What I was seeking is high damage multiplier combined with good usability. So I decided to build a Fanatic Avenger and a Berserker (with a bit more strength than most characters usually need).
Oh and one more thing: /p8 all the way, from normal to hell (including Baal and the Ancients).
Guardian Atlas.
Atlas wasn't a very hard character to play. Perhaps, I was lucky with monster rolls. No NDE's. As a pay off, Atlas had terrible luck with drops. The only elite unique he found was a Wizardspike somewhere in Act5, Hell. Hellforge gave him Io.
Lack of shield and total absense of crowd control made me pick a defensive mercenary instead of offensive one, and with ice armour from Forti the defence rating went up to 10k, and that was pretty good and enough to help me stay alive.
There was and interesting boss encounter in some icy cave of Act 5 - I bumped into a conviction gloam! But Resist Lightning aura allowed me to ignore the damage this guy was dealing (light res was 95% under gloam's conviction aura)
I was really nervous when Atlas touched the Arreat altar. But the barbarian trio was surprisingly easy even on /p8. Everything went like it usually does: first Madawk and Korlik were killed, then Tallik followed them.
By the way, Tallik spawned with a knockback on his weapon, and this caused funny effect in combo with his Whirlwind (looked very much alike with using namelock Charge on a single monster). Anyone wants to plan a build revolving around this effect? :3
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Equipment:
Forti
Steelrend
Wartravs
Mavina's belt
Mara
Ravenfrost
BKWB
Death axe (Demonlimb)
Kira [Vermilion jewel of Carnage]
Charms: lots of AR charms, some skillers and +all res.
Mercenary:
Normal, Defensive
'Stone' eth bugged Boneweave
Reaper's Toll [Shael]
Andariel's Gas Mask [Ral]
Skills:
Vengeance 20+5
Fanaticism 20+3
Resist Fire 16+3
Resist Lightning 16+3
Resist Cold 16+3
Redemption 1+3
Guardian Daishi.
This char was much more interesting. Zero defence combined with decision to use BO as a one-pointer and to have low vita sounded very promising :3
But the outstanding crowd control provided by Howl and Taunt saved my arse hundreds of times!
When I saw a large crowd of monsters, I scared them away with Howl and picked out one by one with Taunt. And what i especially like about Howl is the possibility to reduce the threat from minions to zero and take boss monster one on one-with-merc. Despite what mommy says, you don't have to eat the brokkoli to have your icecream ^^
So, as soon as I got used to utilizing Howl and Taunt properly, the game was a breeze. As a pay off, Daishi's level is lower than that of Atlas, cause he didn't have to grind throught all the monsters he encountered.
There were some scary moments, though. A4 monsters have heavy paws on /p8: thought I didn't have to do an emergency S&E, they often reduced my health by half in one hit. A5 was nice, too: I was attacked by three champion lancers in some cave. Their jabs are really strong (tho not as strong as a 14k-46k berserk is
)!Sazabi's balrog skin was a nice surprise. Other than this, no other notable finds. Anyway, still better than Wizzy from Atlas -_-.
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Equipment:
Forti
IK Gloves
Gores
IK Belt
Highlord
Ravenfrost
BKWB
Death axe (HotO + Echoing Morning Star)
Arreat Face [Ruby jewel]
Charms: 3 combat skillers, a bit of allres, many small lifers.
Mercenary:
Nightmare Offensive
'Stone' eth bugged Boneweave
'Obedience' eth Cryptic Axe (Kelpie vs bosses)
Andariel's Gas Mask [Ral]
Skills:
Berserk 20+10
Howl 20+5
Taunt 1+5
Battle Cry 1+5
Shout 20+11
Battle Orders 1+11
Battle Command 2+11
Axe Mastery 20+5
Natural Res 4+5
Thoughts and random stuff:
1). I should have made a standard avenger. This would increase damage output and solve the AR problem. The LCS damage would have been, probably, halved, but LCS is no more than a penis extender in this case.
2). Did you know, that Lord de Seis can be of different flavors? Like, Strawberry, Peach, Green Apple, Holy Shock, Grapes, Might, Fanaticism.
I didn't.
3). Some screenies. Of course, I forgot to take 'shots when they could have been quite sightful, so those listed below are quite boring. Skip this part, you'll miss nothing interesting.
- Nice maps for A2 and A4, Hell.
- Excellent /p8 quest drop from Hell Diablo.
- Hell WSK Welcome Party.
Everyone (except Corax), thanks for reading this wall of text (I know Cor won't read and will probably post TLDR comment or non at all), and thanks for ignoring all mistakes, typos and misspellings in the post.|||I LOVE welcoming parties at the WSK! Always a favorite! And, "incase you don't already have 15 isenharts are sigons, here's another to make sure!"
I definitely like that death axe! Too bad you never got to see the level 44 chain lightning!
:lol:
Believe you have about 20 or so more Mech's to complete! Get to it!|||Grats on the Guardians!
especially nice choice of theme... I have always been a big fan of MechWarrior, even used to play the hex-based tabletop game back in the day. Just have to wonder what sort of char DireWolf will be
|||congratulations. i especially like how you skimped on BO to get your full zerk synergies. i have a bnet barb that went the same route and i'm now a proponent of not maxing BO just because everyone says you should. you seem to be swinging that massive thing a little slow though, did you ever think of trying out a faith merc to get you to a better attack break point? i cant stand swinging slower than what's possible. also advocate a point in war cry for when you come up on a pack of something you cant howl away.ps. great use of cries, i never knew how great howl and taunt was until i started using them regularly, now i cant see ever making a barb that doesnt use something for crowd control.|||Sure unusual caracters
Thanks for posting them, I enjoyed the reading.Btw: is that just me, or the names should be switched? Dunno, I always thought of atlas being tankish, AC/chainsaw, more barbarian chassis (ugly as hell too), while I always equipped daishi as nova cat on steroids, more suitable for elemental char in this case.|||Quote:
Too bad you never got to see the level 44 chain lightning!
Amen.
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you seem to be swinging that massive thing a little slow though, did you ever think of trying out a faith merc to get you to a better attack break point?
Yep, the axe is a bit of slowish, but I don't have runes for Faith currently. And in cases with both characters (well, mostly Pal due to lack of crowd control) merc was a tank so replacing a desert paladin with a rogue archer would have done things a lot harder for the suntanned guy.
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Just have to wonder what sort of char DireWolf will be?
I'm not a long term MW player so I'm not very good at universe details, but it seems to me that Dire Wolf and Daishi are pretty much the same thing. Or could you be speaking about Timber Wolf (Mad Cat)? :3
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I always thought of atlas being tankish
Well, barb had warcries and he didn't have to tank most monsters; while pala had to be tankish. + I like barb sprite more than pala sprite, and, as mentioned above, Atlas IS ugly.|||Paladin without blocking as a Guardian, eh? You don't want things to be easy do you?
No 'Delirium', either. Nice setup with low amount of points in BO. The 2nd point in BC seems a bit of a "Fail" indeed
Grats on the characters!
--Greebo|||Quote:
The 2nd point in BC
This point was supposed to go into Berserk
|||Well done!De Seis aura can get reset to something else (away from the usual Fanaticism) when you go to town for a while, like other bosses can. Don't like the aura and have some time to kill? Try another one and see if you like it better. It's not speedy but it can be an option.
Howl and Taunt really are wonderful. I've had some barbs built without their own BO, but instead counting on another's, and that frees up skill points for some good options. But that is often for self-MPing, where I can eat my cake and have it also!
Knockback + WW does have some comedy value potential...|||Grats on the Guardians!
MechWarrior Mercenaries was my favourite, so nice to see others who enjoy that universe.
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