20 iron skin
20 shout
20 concentrate
20 battle orders
with the usual points into 1-pt wonders and prerequisite skills, this barb will probably be done at level 85ish or so. It goes without saying that the merc will be an act 2 defense with Defiance aura.
More importantly though, is finding the items which have the most defense in the game so that we can make this work. This is the item layout I have so far
helm: perfect eth up'd arreat's (zod)
amulet: perfect defense metalgrid
weapon: Swordguard maybe?
shield: Eth perfect Spirit Ward (zod)
armor: perfect eth bugged Sacred Armor "Prudence"
belt: perfect up'd Thundergod's Vigor
gloves: perfect defense Steelrend
rings: ravenfrost and ?
boots: perfect defense eth Sandstorm Trek
so I need suggestions for a secondary ring, and/or any other pieces of gear where you can suggest me a better alternative (the only better alternatives are ones with higher defense first, everything else later)
my only goal here is see how much can I get that "defense" number to be as high as I can get, not sure if anyone else has tried this (though most likely somebody did it before me)|||2 theorycraft questions, just to get your pot stewing.
1) If you used a perfect Sacred Armor Fortitude instead, with it's +200% EDef combined with lvl15 Chilling Armor going off and lasting a full 248 seconds... how do you think it would compare, since isn't the +110% defense bonus from Chilling applied towards your total def, while the +%ED from the Prudence runeword is only enhancing your armor's Def? Dunno how offbase I am here... maybe it all just adds up and it's about the same.
2) Instead of Spirit Ward (which is a crazy awesome shield that I use on my Pally, but you did mention valuing Def over all else), what if you carried 2x Swordguards, and maybe even Up'd both of them to make it more viable? I know 2x one-handers with no shield doesn't make much sense with Concentrate as your main skill, but if the goal is max Def, then I believe you will get higher Def from 2x Swordguards at the higher cLvls at least.|||hmmm those are interesting thoughts. my ideas on them:
1) I forgot about chilling armor completely. an even better solution would be using fortitude as a prebuff armor (pretty much like people running ubers prebuff using "treachery" for fade) as I assume that once it procs, chilling armor doesn't go away. if it works that way, you can go walk on a fire till chilling armor procs, then switch back to eth sacred armor "prudence". That probably will give the best results overall
2) Because I don't play barbs all that much, I keep forgetting they can dual wield. Two sword guards is definitely something to think about, it might give the greater defense at later levels, I just wonder how viable would the barb still be having insane defense but unable to block. I was debating on whether or not getting max block for this char, which I think it's worth it. of course nothing stops me from keeping a 2nd swordguard and trying out both setups to see how they compare.|||Quote:
If you used a perfect Sacred Armor Fortitude instead, with it's +200% EDef combined with lvl15 Chilling Armor going off and lasting a full 248 seconds... how do you think it would compare, since isn't the +110% defense bonus from Chilling applied towards your total def, while the +%ED from the Prudence runeword is only enhancing your armor's Def? Dunno how offbase I am here... maybe it all just adds up and it's about the same.
Chilling armor's %ED bonus is the same as all of the barb's %ED from skills. It won't make a considerable difference.
The defense boost if a sacred armor was ethereal AND bugged would be significant. And that counts into the armor's base defense so any %ED boost will be far greater as the armor could nearly have double the base defense.
Does fort in a weapon still add 200%EDefense? That would be more viable than swordguards, that won't help you much in hell. Use 2 of em and im sure the chilling armor will stack up(190%), plus you'll gain an extra 400%EDefense. Though I would use beast in the other hand since there is no IAS from the weapon.|||Quote:
Does fort in a weapon still add 200%EDefense? That would be more viable than swordguards, that won't help you much in hell. Use 2 of em and im sure the chilling armor will stack up(190%), plus you'll gain an extra 400%EDefense. Though I would use beast in the other hand since there is no IAS from the weapon.
Yes fort in a weapon gives another 200% edef on top of your shout, iron skin, and defiance.
The chilling armor procs from 2x fort will unfortunately not stack.|||I assume your going heavy dex.
You forgot to check rare items btw. Eth Rare Godly, Faithful(do those stack? If so a helm like this could top Arreat's especially if you can get sox. If rare gloves/boots still top uniques)gloves/boots of self repair should top what you listed. Check on Warcry vs def charms, too.|||Well heavy dex or not will probably depend on shield vs no shield.
I did not mention rare boots because I am not sure if godly/faithful can spawn on the same item (I can't say I've ever seen such an item, actually). if they can, then certainly it's possible to find rare eth boots and gloves that can trump my current items, however I would also like to keep the items somewhat "findable" instead of working with items harder to find than zod runes|||upped gerke's sanctuary would have more defense than spirit ward. I think the 800 def from that would be worth more than a 2nd fortitude weapon
the reason he says max dext is because dext increases your defense by a very small amount.
for the rings i don't think there's anything better to do than BK to up your iron skin level.|||So Fortitude Weapon, Up'd Gerke's Sanc, and Eth-bugged Sacred Armor Prudence??
Man that sounds nasty. Sounds like a fun project... one of you rich suckers start putting it together and get us some screenshots!! ;-)|||i'm working on it
will have some screenshots as soon as I finish leveling the guy to 90 and gathering all the damn perfect items :PMy problem is mostly the perfect "upped" items because they base defense gets rerolled so I'm having to try and find perfect t-gods/gerke's/arreat's to up and hope they come up good. I haven't started doing that yet, but I know it's going to be a nightmare.
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