Please note that this report was originally posted within the first month and a half after the game's release. As the mechanics of the game become better understood and the game itself is updated by patches, the strategies detailed in this report may change in their effectiveness. This writeup is intended as a "character class report" to introduce the class and give one possible way of completing Hell solo with the class. It is NOT to be confused with "class evaluations", "playing guides", or "hey I beat the game like this and now I'm on the ladder so you should do everything exactly the same way I did".

As of version 1.03, barbarians are the strongest class in Diablo 2, period. Anyone who thinks WW is "useless" now that it's "nerfed" (not that bad of a nerf IMO) is simply ignorant of the scope of the barbarian's skills. If you're looking to flame me, you can stop reading here, since you'll probably ignore the rest of this post anyways.

Now for the facts.

My sword/shield barbarian completed the solo/Hell run at a mere clvl 36, without using whirlwind or leap attack in Hell difficulty at all, and without dying left and right (looking at the exp bar in the screenshots I'll post shortly will confirm this). But here's the kicker: I found it easier (IMO, YMMV) than doing the same with either my sorceress (clvl 52) or paladin (clvl 49), and this is without the benefit of the barbarian's two best combat skills. And the sad part is, I'm not joking or exaggerating.

Yes, barbarians are really that strong.

Let's start with the two skills my barbarian omitted for his solo/Hell run. First, of course, is the ever-controversial whirlwind. When my barbarian first got it in Act 1/NM (v1.03), he tested it out by whirlwinding into a mob of monsters in a ~6 player game. Nothing died, my barbarian got stuck in the crowd and had to leap out. Hmm. At this point, I'm thinking they really nerfed it badly, so I'm not missing out much for Hell, right? Then in Act 2/NM while my barb was going solo, he found a mana recharge shrine in the sewers (he had no mana steal to power his WW at the time) and decided, oh what the heck, let's give WW another try. So he spins into a small crowd of burning deads and... two or three bodies fall. Repeat a few more times, and an entire mess of skeleton corpses (an oxymoron) lies strewn in a pile. Hmm. This sure beats trying to bash them individually. From that moment on, NM was done mostly with WW, including leveling in multiplayer games. Yes, my barb had occasional mana problems using WW with his poor 4% mana steal, so he had to switch off between WW to thin out crowds and bash for taking out isolated stragglers... but WW is still very, very effective when used properly. No, WW can't be used for recklessly plowing into a crowd anymore, as I've noticed--especially in multiplayer games--but it simply decimates small groups of monsters in smaller games and solo, as well as single targets (post-nerf WW was the easiest way of taking out Duriel and Diablo out of all the characters I've played, with the exception of using an off-screen static field on Diablo). And the barbarians are complaining that this is too weak? It's not the uberskill that it used to be, but barbarians who want one-click destruction might as well hack their characters for that kind of gratification. As a character-scalable, equipment-scalable skill, WW is the strongest area attack in the game outside of corpse explosion and multiplayer static field--and for high level (>60) barbarians, a high level WW can actually be stronger, since WW power isn't limited by monster hp. And this powerful of a skill on a character which already has the strongest single attack in the game?

The "strongest single attack" that I'm referring to is... leap attack. Multi-hit WW is probably a faster way of dealing raw damage, but nothing matches the single-hit power of a high-level leap attack. Wait, but don't paladins get charge, a similar skill? Leap attack puts charge to shame in so many ways, and this is coming from the fact that my last solo/Hell character was a charge-specialized paladin. First of all, leap attack does 5% more damage than charge per skill point after the first, which translates to almost a +100% higher bonus at max slvls. But even more than the damage, it's with the mobility factor with which leap attack puts charge (and just about all other combat skills) to shame. Consider these three mobility factors: 1) leap attack is completely unhindered by chill/slow effects; 2) even a single point into leap attack can be used to transport the barbarian even beyond the edge of the screen in certain situations (great "fix" on Blizzard's part to simply remove the radius... argh)--useful both offensively and defensively; and 3) leap attack can be used to hit targets no matter how many other monsters (or even most terrain features) are in the way. All this is outside of the fact that leap attack simply has the highest AR and damage modifiers of any combat skill, period. While my barbarian was using it in NM, leap attack is the perfect way to dispatch oblivion knights, unravellers, fetish shamans, and other high-priority targets. And it can be used in the exact same way charge-specialized paladins use charge, to bounce between targets--except for being much more effective on all counts, including damage. Leap attack is simply an awesome skill.

Between whirlwind and leap attack, barbarians have two of the five strongest skills in the game, IMO. Nightmare was simply a clean-up job for Bunak, my barbarian. But wait, didn't he have to go through Hell without using those two skills, at 15-54 levels lower than the monsters--and this turned out to be easy, supposedly? Absolutely. How is this possible?

Click to Enlarge

First of all, a look at his numbers in the screenshot to the left.

(Note the higher stamina value than the max--a bug with increase stamina, I'm guessing.)

Some things to consider: even though Bunak has fewer clvls than any of my other solo/Hell characters, he has more hp and resistances than any of them. It's not the equipment--the hp comes from the fact that he has the best hp gains per level up (his lower mana gain is not important with mana steal and +mana items), and his far better resistance is from his natural resistance skill. Between his level gains and his passives (the single strongest tree for any character), barbarians have values for hp, damage, AR, DR, resistances, and even stamina that no other class can even come close to. I used to think high-level barbarians were just "talking shop" when they throw around numbers like 1.2k hp, 3k DR, and maxed resistances in Hell. Then after playing a barbarian, I've realized... even though their stats are far superior to those of other classes, barbarians are playing the same game against the same monsters! Has any high-level barbarian tried to get that much hp using a paladin, or tried to max resistances as a sorceress in Hell? The fact that my barbarian has better stats than my other solo/Hell characters--even though he's at a much lower clvl--shows the inherent strength of the barbarian class. While it can be argued that other classes can rival the barbarian in offensive power (although offensively, noone can match a barbarian with the best eq, IMO), nothing comes close to the barbarian in terms of defense, and that makes him the completely package--and by far the strongest class. It really will take some kind variant play to make barbarians interesting once players have figured out how to play them properly.

Looking at the screenshot, there's one major discrepancy with Bunak's stats compared to those of other barbarians though, and that's with the DR. (Never found a decent 300+ DR plate that I wanted to replace Bunak's Barbarian's Hauberk with! :) Especially after all 3 imbues were wasted on weapons, only to be made obsolete by his current weapon from a drop...) If you're thinking that a measly 378 DR compounded by the massive level difference is no match for monsters in Hell, you're absolutely right. It's not as bad as it seems--shout raised the DR to well over 700, which again is the highest DR of all of my solo/Hell characters. But surely, even 700 DR isn't enough for Hell? After all, just about every newbie has a level 50 barbarian with 2k DR who gets pummeled in Hell, so how's Bunak supposed to clean out Hell at clvl 36 with 700 DR (with shout)--and without whirlwind and leap attack to boot?

Answer: he uses the warcry tree. The one tree that probably ~90% of the D2 players believes to be the useless tree in the game. That's an awful lot of wrong people (especially since that honor goes to the paladin's defensive aura tree :) ). How do you use the warcries tree? By not blindly charging into a mob, getting slaughtered, and complaining that your DR is too low, but instead using the warcries to control the flow of combat. CD warriors will love using warcries, especially warriors with variant-playing experience.

Bunak's skills:

combat masteries: slvl 20(+2) sword mastery; slvl 6(+2) natural resistance; slvl 1(+2) iron skin, increased stamina, and increased speed
combat skills: slvl 4(+2) leap, slvl 1(+2) bash and stun
warcries: slvl 1(+2) all except battle command
wasted points not used in Hell: slvl 1(+2) leap attack, concentrate, and whirlwind

Normal difficulty was, as expected, a walk in the park. Bash, dead, bash, dead. No mana = one or two regular attacks, dead. Things requires a couple of bashes in Act 4, as were damage resist monsters. It didn't really matter, since just about anyone can get through Normal difficulty, but it's nice having the "walking tank" feeling while killing pixels. Leap attack really stomped things here, although the mana cost is a bit high for this early in the game, even with mana steal. Luckily for barbarians, leap attack only gets better with better weapons/masteries.

Whirlwind owned Nightmare, especially coupled with my finding life/mana steal eq in Act 1. Boss pack? Whirlwind. Act end boss? Whirlwind. Low on mana? Bash a few creatures, then whirlwind. The mana cost is steep, but becomes very reasonable with increased weapon damage and mana steal. Bunak never put enough points into WW (or had enough damage/mana steal, but his eq was far from great) for it to break even in terms of mana efficiency, but it's very reasonably attainable. Nightmare was another walk in the park, but I was bracing myself for Bunak's trip through Hell, especially with whirlwind and leap attack coming off the hotkeys.

I didn't need to worry. One word characterizes Hell: leap. Act 1 went something like this: clear Den of Evil; leap over zombies and kill Blood Raven; leap past Treehead Woodfist and Griswold to rescue Cain; leap over boss packs in Tower and leap through minions to kill Countess; leap past the Smith to retrieve Horaldric Malus; leap through Catacombs, hit waypoint, and clear out Andariel's room to take her out. End of Act 1. Piece of cake, and all done under an hour. Act 2 went even easier: leap around in sewers and clear area near Radament; leap through Maggot Lair and Claw Viper Temple to retrieve staff pieces without killing anything; leap through palace cellar and Arcane Sanctuary, stop to kill Summoner real quick, open portal and hit waypoint; leap through false tomb, park all the monsters elsewhere, and set up TP camp to kill Duriel. Leap attack makes leap obsolete in so many ways, but leap has two key advantages: knockback radius upon landing, and low mana cost. With enough points invested, leap is the best method of transportation in the game, and it made Bunak's life easy in Hell. However, obviously there's still a lot of fighting involved (leaping only eliminates half of it), and here's where his warcries really shine. Proper use of warcries (detailed below) enhanced his mediocre fighting skills and stats to the point where nothing really posed a problem for him. And I mean just that--he had no problems outside of some silly "oops I got swarmed and stunlocked" deaths and lots of lag deaths while leaping (leap works horribly with lag--the "can't quaff potion while in midair" doesn't get toggled off by lag, so can't quaff anything until you unlag and leap again). For example, my necro had problems with flayers, my sorceress had problems with fast cold-resistant monsters, my bowazon had problems with Duriel, my paladin had problems in the Arcane Sanctuary, but nothing gave Bunak problems--even with his low stats and defense, even with his low clvls, and even with his less-than-stellar eq. I had anticipated a long, drawn out fight (read as: lots of deaths) with Duriel, but outside of his occasional knockback smite/instakill charge combo, he couldn't take down Bunak's 600+ hp (thanks to battle orders) fast enough as long as I quaffed potions. Same thing with Hephasto: as long as I returned to town to heal his amp dam immediately to avoid an instakill, the battlecry/stun combo (yes, you WW barbs are asking, "the what and what combo?") kept him mostly harmless. Andariel, Mephisto, and Diablo all went down without a single death, which leaves me wondering: how much easier is Hell for high level, much better equipped barbarians, if it's this doable for a clvl 36 barbarian with mediocre equipment? I'm really wondering if the current barbarian players are playing the right game if they keep whirlwinding into a brick wall, dying, and then complaining that their character is now worthless because WW has been nerfed. Newsflash: the game is as easy as it's going to get with a barbarian, and WW is a damn good skill. If you think it "sucks", it's because you're using it against too many monsters while trying to solo in a game with too many people. The days of abusing an ultrapowerful WW in an 8-player game is over. Just for good measure, after Bunak killed Diablo at clvl 36, I took him for a little WW tour through a few Hell areas--and it worked even better than it did in NM, since his one-point WW is now mana efficient with his stronger weapon (and mana efficiency increases with damage output from additional points into WW). WW or no WW, Hell has never been easier than with a barbarian--and this includes with my slvl 22 CE necro.

Between devastating brute-force offensive skills (which is enhanced by borderline overpowered exceptional weapons and maxed weapon masteries) and defensive stats which are completely untouched by the other classes, barbarians are an easy favorite for newbies and should pose little challenge for expert players. Once you've figured the warcries out, you pretty much have to start looking for new ways to play the barb. This is especially true for those who are familiar with the CD-style of playing warriors, which the barbarian plays exceptionally well--substitute for stone curse and teleport the crowd-control and melee-enhancing warcries, augment those even farther with strong passives and a couple of devastating combat skills, and you have a real winner here. The only reason why newbies have so many problems with barbarians is they have no idea how to control crowds, and that's a fault in their own ignorance of how to play the game. Maybe a no-passive barbarian would be interesting for more experienced D2 players, or some other variant eq- or skill-restricting variant. This isn't obvious right now since most people arestill pretty new to the game, but I'm sure that soon enough more people will realize this. As it stands right now, playing a straight barbarian is best suited only for newbies (those new to the game != stupid people, but everyone needs to learn) and powermongers. It's just much too easy.

Normally I'd make a few comments about the class and its skills, but barbarian combat skills and passives work in fairly obvious ways. Combat skills in particular were discussed extensively since we've had quite a few barbarian players here after the game's release (hi Mel/Wrath/all the rest of you :) ). Instead, I'm going to focus on how I used the warcries to get Bunak through Hell:

-Howl: Clears area around you by causing monsters to flee. Useful but inconsistent early on, and grows less effective with rising level differences between your character and the monsters. I was given a formula (thanks, Trucidation) which gave its effective level as clvl+slvl+4, which seemed to correspond with my experiences. It became completely useless for Bunak around Act 1/NM, and I wasn't willing to waste more points just to make it useful.

-Find potion: Makes corpse unrevivable for 2mana. This skill can be renamed "Desecrate Corpse" and Bunak would happily learn it just the same. The fact that potions occasionally pop out is gravy. The fact that full rejuvs occasionally pop out in Act 4 is extra gravy. However, nothing beats the feeling of metaphorically pissing on an opponent's corpse, especially after a tough fight. Absolutely priceless.

-Taunt: Every CD warrior will learn to love this skill. If you can't figure out why it's better for the monster to come to you instead of heading into a crowd of monsters... well you're probably too busy complaining about WW anyways. The best part is, taunt only costs mana if you cast it on a valid target, which means you can taunt the edges of the screen indiscriminately and watch your mana ball to see if anyone's actually coming. Toggling autorun is useful for precision taunting ("You silly English ka-niggits!"). Lasts forever (damage/defense modifiers), although the monster AI is only modified for a short time from what I've seen (they run away after a while). Great for nabbing fleeing storm casters and the like.

-Shout: +100% or more DR, short duration. Use it often, and your health ball will thank you. No brainer.

-Find item: A.k.a. "Expensive Desecrate Corpse" that has the helpful side effect of funding your gambling addiction. It replaced Find Potion whenever Bunak had the mana for it. Same metaphorical "piss on corpse" gratification in using it.

-Battlecry: Absolutely essential if your character is lower level than your target (i.e. Bunak), and generally helpful for melee combat. Works like conviction, but better for melee combat thanks to -damage modifier. Decent duration, but the short radius makes it a little risky. Be careful not to get hit while trying to "mark" monsters with battlecry. Decent duration.

-Battle Orders: Big temporary hp boost, and mana/stamina boost can be useful for parties too. Decent duration. Battle orders/red pot is standard practice for Bunak before a fight, with battle orders/rejuv or full rejuv being the routine for maintaining it during combat. For a supply of rejuv/full rejuvs, use Desecrate Corpse. Between high natural hp and battle orders, barbarians should have absolutely no problems with hp.

-Grim Ward: The ultimate crowd-control skill. For more on this, see Sirian's excellent post at the Lurker Lounge. Use it to thin crowds and pick individuals off. Excellent for packs of fetishes--simply run circles around the ward to scatter crowds. Use it when you're in a bind, and it will save your life. Use it with some planning, and pick apart mobs with ease.

-Warcry: Area stun. Short duration, big mana cost. Very useful to buy a split second to do something, like putting up a ward, renewing shout/battle orders, or just to stop those 3 nasty doom knights from beating you down. Judicious use of warcry makes melee combat much, much less hazardous. Due to small radius, nonexistent damage, and high mana cost, it's only useful in conjunction with melee combat, or as a defensive measure against melee attackers if you're a throwing barb.

-Battle command: Didn't use this one, but looks useful for multiplayer. Short duration doesn't make it too useful for solo barb.

Each of my solo/Hell summaries seem to get longer and longer--you get a brownie point if you've actually read this far. :) As for what I'm up to next: conventional wisdom has it that sorceress need the chill/freeze from the cold tree to survive, or the raw damage from the fire tree. Hence, in an effort to find useful ways to use lightning spells (other than static field) offensively, I'll be playing a pure lightning-only sorceress. Yes, this means no warmth, chill/freeze spells, or cold armors at all! Obviously this won't be the most efficient way to go through Hell (LEB's will be a pain :) ), but it should probably keep things interesting. And it'll be nice to go for a real challenge again, after playing the barbarian. :)

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